Eyes that do not Open Read online

  Eyes that do not Open

  Claudio Hernández

  Translated by Bárbara Neto

  “Eyes that do not Open”

  Written By Claudio Hernández

  Copyright © 2019 Claudio Hernández

  All rights reserved

  Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

  www.babelcube.com

  Translated by Bárbara Neto

  “Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Eyes that no dot Open | Claudio Hernández | Translated by Bárbara Neto

  Eyes that no dot open | Claudio Hernández

  Behind his eyes

  Author’s biography

  Your Review and Word-of-Mouth Recommendations Will Make a Difference

  Are You Looking For Other Great Reads?

  Your Review and Word-of-Mouth Recommendations Will Make a Difference

  Are You Looking For Other Great Reads?

  Eyes that no dot Open

  Claudio Hernández

  Translated by Bárbara Neto

  “Eyes that no dot open”

  Written By Claudio Hernández

  Copyright © 2019 Claudio Hernández

  All rights reserved

  Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

  www.babelcube.com

  Translated by Bárbara Neto

  “Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

  Eyes that no dot open

  Claudio Hernández

  First eBook edition: July 2018.

  Title: Eyes that no dot open.

  © 2018 Claudio Hernández

  © 2018 Cover design: Francesca MerryBooks

  © 2018 Cover design: Vero Monroy

  Safe Creative Code: 1805267191572

  License: All rights reserved.

  No extract of this publishing, including the cover design, can be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any way by any media, either electronic, chemical, mechanical, optical recording, on the Internet or by photocopy without prior permission of the editor or author.

  All rights reserved.

  I dedicate this book to my wife, Mary who deals with childish things like this and I hope she never stops doing so. This time I have embarked myself in another adventure that I started during my childhood and that, with perseverance and support, I have finished. Another dream comes true. She says that, sometimes, I shine, just sometimes... But I think this time I’ve come so far in my adventure that my most creative side has come to life... That glow... I also dedicate this book to my father-in-law/Father that I know he’s watching me from above, I mean, right next to me... Everyday.

  Behind his eyes

  1

  He had the photographs of those seven poor wretches who had been reported missing and presumed dead four years ago. Without knowing why, he had opened his drawer, coughing as he showed how large it was, in a dark-tongued shape. Inside laid a good deal of green folders; green because he liked them that way, a little obsession he had, just like many others. The folders seemed to fight to surface in the pile almost as if a spring was pushing them upwards. Two of those folders stood out from the rest, the ones on top, of course, which he picked up with his chubby hand. He felt that familiar roughness of hardened old paper; they had been traveling for four years from one side to the other, while at night, they rested on the bottom of the drawer until it filled completely and they ended up on top again, so he could handle them freely, like that son of a bitch surely groped them. Or maybe not.

  Ava, Madelyn, Hanna, Emily, Zoe, Kilye and Audrey.

  Like a lackadaisical collector, he had haphazardly taped all the pictures to the wall, chipping the paint with each new one. He had arranged them that way and would even sprawl out in his swivel chair to closely observe them, both with determination and bewilderment at the same time.

  All of them were missing, their killer was rotting in jail with terminal cancer and Andrew wished to hear the phone ring with news that everything was over but his ‘precognition’ gift was telling him to take another good look at the faces in those old discolored photos. He didn’t really know why but his gut was telling him that something odd was about to happen.

  Andrew didn’t only have that single mental quirk but another one as well; ‘remote vision’.

  He knew something was about to happen.

  He knew, alright.

  One of his obsessions was re-reading over and over the investigations of the cases that he handled; deaths, infidelities, disappearances, little girls who had been... No, he didn’t want to think about that damn word. His tiny hand, now in a fist, was pressing against his forehead until it felt like the weight of a hammer.

  The good man had the idea of taking out her file and his; as if he suddenly went back to the past. He hadn’t taken the damn pill. He hadn’t taken any of them, only the fresh sprinkling of several beers going through his throat made him forget, even though they would come back to his mind, those fucked up pictures. It wasn’t one of his habits, either, for him to drink so many beers. The pictures. The killer with a broken tooth and the face typical of a crazy man. The gathered samples, clothes that belonged to those poor women, were full of fingerprints, his saliva and God knows what else. He didn’t remember, but now, in the morning, while the sunlight rays were trapped between the gaps of the shutter and barely stretched its golden fingers towards the table with the tongue out, he knew what it was all about.

  Semen.

  The gooey, sticky liquid, white as pus, had millions of living, tiny human beings, which were, for sure, better than him: Parker Atkinson. He was slowly dying without saying where the hell the bodies were, or at least until the phone rang and bid the secret farewell. The mouth that could spit out the places where they had been buried, walled up or, who knows, maybe lying at the bottom of some lake, would shut forever taking his whistling with his final breath.

  He also knew that.

  His emerging bald head was suddenly illuminated by one of those spring sunlight rays typical of Castle Lake Hill; a small city with a dense forest and six deep lakes, located in the county of Maine, where apparently, the strangest things in the world could happen. But they only happened in three of those lakes. Even though he didn’t know that yet.

  Andrew Moore was about to retire, active, however, because his obsessions didn’t give him the chance to quit. The girls in the pictures looked at him with absent eyes while he stared at them with brown eyes.

  All while he was thinking about the monster: Parker Atkinson.

  He remembered he hadn’t either gone to the appointment he had scheduled with his best friend: his shrink. A tall blonde, and above all, a young guy whose name was Grayson Lee. He remembered how he would always shake his hand and would, at the same time, instinctively show a huge smile that seemed endless. A line that could probably go around his entire face up to his nape.

  And he realized.

  When his heart would climb up through his throat it meant that something was wrong; one day he saw in advance that the nail would go through his mom’s foot; back then, in the ’40s. He didn’t tell her, though, and she stepped on it to the extent that the sharp end came out through the other side of the foot, dripped in blood. He would never forgive himself but now he was seeing it. Behind his eyes, where the optic nerve ends up in a connection with some part of the brain, he saw her.

  It was Ava and she was sleeping. Right by her side, throughout her long blue hair, flowers and weed would tangle like a fine spider web that covers everything. In his case, however, he could perceive smells and hear sounds. There was a background noise of something splashing,
like a vague soundtrack. It was water and something else that grumbled louder than the water itself, a frog that would hoarse while its mouth remained open and its ridiculous tongue would be hanging to one side of its mouth. Another animal had bitten its tongue a while back and the poor frog had to settle for his life. Ava’s existence, deprived of that life, was dubious, with eyes that wouldn’t open.

  It proved to be rather trivial, just like every other time. He would see things that would later eventually happen, but now he had seen something that set an alarm in his entire body. His heart strongly beat his flabby chest and his hands started sweating. The rough and acid liquid traveled up to his tonsils and stopped there, itching.

  This time, it had been different. But it was still the result of his precognition. At the age of sixty-three, everything looked different.

  Suddenly, the phone rang. Something that the precognition hadn’t warned him about. The phone was lying on the mahogany table, on one of the corners. It was a cordless phone, but it rang like a bell from the ’60s, just like an old phone would. Turning his back on the phone, the ringing caught him by surprise. He abruptly moved within his swivel chair and, at the same time, something cold climbed his head.

  It was a scenario that he hadn’t seen behind his eyes. There had been no omen. After all, it was just a phone call, he thought while he was turning around with his chair. It was a black, upholstered chair. Its back would reach his nape.

  When he bought it, to comply with his whim, he had read that it had an adjustable, top lift-like swiveling backrest. What a beauty. Both the backrest and where he would sit his huge ass most of the time were double-layered. He had ensured of that, plus, the sign said: “You can use this chair more than eight hours every day”. His eyes were shining when he read this and what came after: “Good, stable base with strong wheels”. He was big and heavy, not fat, but heavy; at least 220 pounds. The armrests were worn-out due to his forearms’ constant rubbing. During summer, when he rolled up his sleeves, his skin would scratch against what looked like plastic but was in fact leather.

  Whiny, he made the four wheels slide, dragging himself towards the phone. He was only three feet away from those rings and decided it was not a good idea to get up since he had just sat after sticking all those fucked up pictures.

  At the fourth ring, he picked up the phone.

  “This is detective Andrew Moore. Who’s bothering at this hour?” His deep, and at the same time, broken voice had progressively increased. Andrew wasn’t one of those guys with a mellow and loving voice, but the opposite: strong and grumpy voice, but he knew how to do his job, instead.

  “It’s more than half-past nine Andrew.” A squeaky voice said on the other side.

  Andrew recognized that voice and he frowned.

  Andrew knew that he would tell him something bad, or not so bad.

  “Damn son of a bitch! Why have you called Colton?” His feet stepped on the linoleum floor to push himself towards the walls. Towards those pictures.

  Colton Allen was the Penitentiary Center’s warden in Warren, Maine. This center had a quota of 915 inmates, a real luxury for the prick Parker Atkinson because it had all the comforts the world could offer; even a television, mind you, in a separate room. One day, someone said that inmates are in jail to pay a debt with society, not to build their muscles and rob innocent people when they leave.

  Andrew always kept wondering about it.

  “Detective Andrew, I have some good news for you,” Colton replied jocularly.

  It was as if Andrew could see a contagious smile slipping through his face, while at the same time, his puny body would bend in two and his fingers, thin as pens, were closed, most likely, around the prison’s phone.

  “Wow! Some good news! What’s so funny?”

  On the other side of the line, in a remote area of Maine, Colton shut his lips in a serious rictus, as if he were a naughty little boy who had been scolded by his father.

  “Have you heard me laugh?”

  “Just as if I were seeing you,” Andrew replied with a nasty temper.

  “I’m sorry but since we’re almost friends, I got carried away by my momentum. I thought you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Cut the crap and get to the point,” Andrew interrupted while his eyes were fixed in the photograph he had stuck, keeping it at a considerable distance from the photos of the seven women. It was Parker. He had a crazy look in the picture.

  All of a sudden, there was a silence in the communication which was shortly after interrupted by the drowning meow of a cat that was rubbing its back against one of the walls.

  “Parker Atkinson’s dead. It was early this morning, around four past three. And no, he didn’t say anything before kicking the bucket. There’s one son of a bitch less in this country.”

  The detective stayed stunned and obviously disappointed. He believed there would be a chance for him to hear something from that bastard. That he would finally speak. He hoped Parker would spit out all the places where he had made those poor seven women disappear. None of them was more than thirty or married, let alone, had kids.

  Like a tower emerging from the floor, Andrew got up from his chair. He made such a huge effort that his muscles twisted and the bones in his legs cracked in unison: femur, kneecap, fibula, tibia, ankle and hip bones. A long and thin stream of sunlight that snuck through one of the corners in the shutter caressed his huge belly that looked like a bag full of jelly.

  “Well, that screwed me up,” Andrew said pressing his teeth and just like that, he hung up pressing his thumb against the bottom.

  On the other side of the line, Colton stared at the phone as if there had been something interesting to look at. A booger.

  Andrew looked at Parker’s picture, getting slowly closer to the wall. His eyes inspected each part of that face with a deep look. Parker Atkinson seemed to be sardonically laughing at him. However, he only had his lips apart while he showed his ugly teeth the camera. His hair, dry and greasy, had fallen on his forehead like a black sucker cup. His eyes were devilishly disturbing. He had a halo of craziness; as if he were both a pervert and a monster.

  The fingers on the detective’s right hand delicately caressed the picture while he was concentrated on using his Remote Vision. He saw something, indeed.

  He was stiff as a board.

  Still curved due to the height where the picture had been placed, right above the drawer where he had all the solved and failed cases, Andrew had begun to speculate.

  2

  Somewhere in Maine, outside the Castle Lake Hill county, a sicko was listening ‘Life in Mono’ out loud while three heaters were strongly warming up his entire body. He was caressing himself with his hands smeared in gel, traveling over his breasts, flat belly, ribs, forearms, and even his face; in tune with the soft melody of that sweet and romantic song. His eyes shone like crazy and the green wig rested on his shoulders gently touching his back. His moves were sensual, just like the music and fitted each movement perfectly.

  The speakers stepped out of their magnetic coil with every drum beat and would hide when the lady almost whispered the lyrics.

  That sicko was trapped in a room with boarded up windows and no ventilation whatsoever, with three red light bulbs that projected a bloody blanket on his body and would scratch the walls.

  His right hand went down to his sex and, softly, introduced him in the hole between his two thighs. The cotton-like hair was like the mount of Venus and the only mirror that was in front of him reflected what looked like a pussy.

  His lips hardened in a morbid grin and he showed his pink tongue to the mirror as he licked his lips and closed his eyes. He was still moving along with the whispering music. For that sicko, that song was a whisper to his ears even though they sounded at more than ninety decibels.

  This sicko had a goal: to cross detective Andrew on its way.

  In the meantime, he kept dancing and turning on with his masturbation to the rhythm of the song that played over and
over again.

  3

  Andrew Moore always wanted to be a detective and he got it by achieving all the Police Force ranks. His main interest was being a private detective, though. However, in the United States, this was not a good choice unless you were willing to study cheaters’ cases. Andrew wanted to arrest the sickest minds of the world, well, of the state or at least his county. By achieving all the ranks in the Police Force, he could now ask questions to the witnesses, look into the eyes of murderers and solve crimes. It was a long life full of continuous stress that made him consider quitting at the age of sixty-three because he thought he had done enough. Inside him, however, there was something willing to come out, like a painful pimple, telling him that his time wasn’t over yet. At least not for now.

  He stared at the faces of those young and smiling women that were now stamped on the wall like a card collection.

  For Maine’s Police Force, this case seemed to have been solved fast and efficiently. However, Andrew thought there was a blank to fill in. Sometimes, he felt the uncontrolled beating of those women’s hearts. He thought he was delusional, just like his shrink, Grayson Lee, made him think. Lee was a man with curly blonde-gray hair and prominent jaws.

  Andrew called him “the crow” because of the way he dressed. He used a black suit looking like a grieving father who’s in front of the coffin that would soon be gently put in the bottom of the grave that had been dug minutes before.

  Of course, Grayson didn’t know he had earned that nickname.

  Once again, the phone rang. This time it was the cell phone he had in his gray trench coat’s pocket. Even in summer and right next to a fireplace, that 20-year-old trench coat, would always be with him.

  He felt a small vibration that would ease his hips’ pain. His tight skin, even though not soft given his weight, became responsive to the cell’s vibration with a brief tingling. Besides, a buzzing sound like a huge greenfly, just like those that lick the stickiness of a corpse, seemed to be willing to erupt from the man’s pocket; rising like the smoke of a cigarette.