Callis Rose by Mark Tufo
Tom stared in amazement as his hand went from open palm to a claw. His elbow began to bend and his forearm and wrist turned so that his hooked fingers were rapidly approaching his left eye.
“Did this happen to you, too?” He asked Callis.
He cut short when his index finger dug into the corner of his eye. He began to scream as blood leaked where his finger was now gouging into him.
He could not fathom the pain as his pinkie finger ripped skin off his nose exposing bone-white cartilage. His pointer finger was tearing through his eyebrow, but it was the index finger and fourth finger that were doing the best to remove his eyeball from its resting place that had him in intense pain.
“Oh, God, please stop!” he wailed.
He thought for a moment that his message must have been fast tracked to the big man. His hand fell away. Fat globs of blood fell from his face to the floor. He rocked back and forth trying to cope with the intense throb of pain.
“You going to open the door now?” Callis asked, still looking at him.
“Impossible...how?”
His hand formed into its treacherous claw.
“I would imagine your God will not be as fast in his response this time. If we have to do this again, they’ll be picking your eyeballs off of the floor.”
“Stop!” he begged. “I’ll open it!”
Tom moved quickly to the keypad and punched in the code and then just as quickly dashed out the door, leaving Callis to her own devices. She stumbled once and then was out. Her vision was blurred red as tiny ulcers burst along her iris. Luckily, her nose had stopped bleeding. She was happy about that – or it could just mean she’d run out of blood. Her ears felt sticky, but she didn’t have the energy to raise her hand and check. And even if they were still bleeding, there wasn’t a whole bunch she could do about it. She just wanted to be with Kevin, to be in his arms. That was all she wanted, that was all she’d ever wanted; to be loved by someone.
The two people that were already in the elevator quickly evacuated when Callis came in. She hardly noticed. She leaned up against the inner wall, thankful someone had the foresight to already push the third floor button.
She stumbled out of the elevator, blood drops marking her way. She was following her trail of clot when she stumbled into the back of a person she could barely make out.
“Sorry,” Callis mumbled. The person turned and Callis moved to the side.
Wendy stepped back as she saw the apparition behind her. Callis looked like she had just stepped off the set of a horror movie, maybe a B-type judging by the overuse of blood.
“What are you doing here, witch?” Callis asked as her blood-red pupils recognized the woman in front of her.
Wendy brought her hands up. She was about to perform a charm to protect herself when a sensation gripped her roughly. Wendy panicked as she felt a pressure around her heart.
Callis looked over Wendy’s shoulder when she heard Detective Tynes. “Wendy, what’s wrong?” He paused for a moment before pulling his gun out.
“Hello, Officer Tynes,” Callis said with difficulty.
“Callis, what are you doing?” Lawrence said as he advanced.
“I would appreciate you not moving any closer,” she told him. The blood began to pump out of her ears.
“You’re not well, Callis. Let me get you some help.”
“Your super cop skills tell you all that?” Callis asked bitingly.
“What’s going on?” Mindy stepped out from the room.
Callis immediately released Wendy and seized hold of Mindy. “Time to die, Mindy.”
“Stop, Callis. It doesn’t have to be this way.” Tynes motioned for Wendy to get out of his line of sight. She was more than willing to oblige.
Callis narrowed her eyes, which pushed more life fluid from her tear ducts. As she seized Tynes, his arms ever so slowly began to move towards Mindy. Mindy’s face contorted into a spasm of fear as she saw the large .45 caliber begin to take aim at her. Tynes fought with all of his being and Callis had to pour more of herself into making him move. Veins pulsed thickly on his arms as he strained to keep from doing Callis’ bidding. Veins like gutters began to form on Callis’ forehead and down her temples.
“Don’t make me do this!” he begged.
Wendy was mumbling an incantation off to Callis’ side. Callis couldn’t deal with that right now. She could barely hold the two she was working on; if she peeled another piece of herself off she wouldn’t be able to hold any of them.
“Callis, please!” Mindy begged for her life. “I’m so sorry for everything!” she said as she stared down the bore of the pistol.
Tynes watched as his finger came off the trigger guard and advanced ever so slowly towards the trigger. Sweat poured down his back and from under his arms. His face was lined in tears and sweat as he fought with every part of his being.
His knuckle began to whiten as he applied pressure on the trigger. He was at roughly three of the seven pounds necessary to send a large caliber round through Mindy Denton’s forehead.
“I was an asshole, Callis! I treated you like shit, I treat everyone like shit. But I don’t deserve to die for that!” Mindy was crying.
“What about Mrs. Lowrie?” Callis asked, visibly straining to hold control.
“I didn’t mean to kill her.” Mindy broke down.
Tynes looked to the Denton girl. There was one admission of guilt, but he didn’t want to be the judge, jury and executioner.
“I don’t deserve to die for that!” she wailed. “The world is better off without her!”
Tynes’ finger bent further.
The lights dimmed in the hallway as Wendy’s sorcery took effect. A heaviness descended on Callis, she groaned from the weight of it.
“I call on you, the gods of power and light. I call on you to stop this plight. I call on you the gods of force. I call on you to stop her course.”
Callis screamed as her control was ripped from her. Mindy fell to the floor in a sobbing heap. Detective Tynes, who had been fighting with all his might to hold his arms and finger in check, whipped back towards Callis. Her head snapped back as the round caught her center mass in her forehead.
Everyone was silent as Callis stood a moment longer. She fell to her knees and a trickle of blue light dispersed in the air above her, almost like an electrical charge.
“Oh, God, no,” Tynes said as he shouldered his weapon and ran down the hallway. Callis’ head slammed off the tile floor as she slumped down.
Tynes slid to his knees next to her. She was gone. He held her in his lap for a moment, tears cascading from his eyes. “What have I done?” He leaned back, wailing to the heavens.
“What you had to,” Wendy said putting a hand on his shoulder. “She wouldn’t have stopped.”
Mindy pulled herself up off the ground and walked down the hallway towards the growing crowd. “She’s dead, thank God.”
Detective Tynes stood and removed the cuffs from his belt. “Turn around,” he told Mindy. “You have the right to remain silent...” He read her Miranda rights as nurses and doctors scrambled to see if they could help. He kept Mindy pressed up against the wall until the orderlies were able to get Callis onto a gurney and down into the morgue.
Tynes walked into the hospital chapel a couple of hours later after the shooting. He had a mountain of paperwork to complete and then a decision on whether to stay with the police force, but right now he just wanted the peace and quiet the small church could afford. He walked through the stained glass door and almost walked back out when he realized he was not alone until he saw who it was.
“Funny seeing you here.” He sat next to Wendy.
“I’m wiccan not pagan.”
He didn’t know the difference. He decided silence was the better part of discretion.
“You know she was dying anyway, right?” Wendy asked him.
“Should that make me feel better?”
“You might have saved her a lot of agony. And you c
“She could do that? How? Was it witchcraft?” Tynes dragged his huge hand over his face.
“No, not magic…at least not anything I’ve ever seen before. It was a psychic link, but she paid a price to do it. I would imagine each and every time.”
“She had a bloody nose that day I met her, I think something with her eye as well. Is that what you’re talking about?”
“I’ve been sitting here for a couple of hours now trying to figure it out. Have you ever heard of astral projection, detective?”
“I’ve heard of it, that’s where people have dreams where they think they’ve left their physical being?”
“Not dreaming, there have actually been studies done that prove people can have out-of-body experiences.”
“Is that what we’re talking about here?”
“I think to a much larger magnitude, yes. Callis could send a piece of her out to make someone else do her bidding. But I think the problem became when she tried to retrieve that portion of herself. I’m a big baseball fan, grew up in Boston.”
“Oh, so you’re a Yankees fan?” he quipped. It eased the pain around his heart for the briefest of moments.
“Under the circumstances I’ll let that slide. Callis was like a pitcher. She could deliver the ball with pinpoint precision, but she couldn’t catch.”
“So once she sent a ball out, it was lost forever?” Tynes asked.
“I think so. I’m metaphorically using the baseballs to signify her essence or her soul depending on your beliefs.”
“I don’t know what I believe anymore,” he said with his hands clasped, his elbows on his knees, and his head hanging down. “So you think she was literally ripping her soul every time she controlled somebody?”
Wendy nodded. Tynes had to look up to see her action. “That might be why her actions were getting progressively worse, and so was her health.”
“I don’t know.” Tynes let his head back down.
“I’m not a hundred percent sure, detective. I’ll talk to my coven, but I’m not sure if we’ll ever know.”
“I didn’t mean to shoot her.”
“I know that.”
“My arms just came back, and before I could even respond, my finger pressed the trigger.”
“Can you be sure she didn’t do that?”
Tynes looked over to her.
“I think she wanted to die, detective. Part of her knew what she was doing was wrong and maybe that was the part that sent that final instruction. She’s at peace now.”
“I wish I was,” Tynes told her as he stood. “Want a ride home?”
“I don’t live far from here. I think I’m going to enjoy the peace of this place for a little longer and then walk home. Good luck, detective.”
“Thank you.” He touched her shoulder before leaving.
Epilogue
Mindy Denton got 20 years prison time for her murder of Helen Lowrie; although she would only live long enough to serve two of them. She died inciting a race riot at Canon City Women’s Correctional Facility in Illinois. Apparently Asian inmates don’t take kindly to being told to do somebody else’s laundry.
Detective Tynes was cleared in the shooting death of Callis Rose. It was considered a justifiable shooting. He wrestled for many months with whether he was in control of his own actions as he pulled the trigger. He finally concluded that it didn’t matter one way or the other. Callis Rose was dead.
Afterword
Kevin Denton struggled to get out of his bed when he heard Detective Tynes shouting at Callis. He had just been able to move into his chair when the shot rang out. He had no doubt in his mind who had been gunned down. He nearly fell out of his wheelchair from the force of the pain. His head nearly fell to his chest. The girl he loved was dying and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
I can make you walk.
Callis?
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Mark Tufo, Callis Rose