C14 China Doll killer

Billy Wild spent the morning digging a long narrow hole for

China Doll inside the Dugout. Cardboard boxes filled with loose dirt were stacked against a wall of the shack.

Billy found the boxes at a neighboring garbage dump, an immense hole, another abandoned construction site that had been converted for other purposes. Bodies, newspapers, dead animals, garbage, trash, toxic wastes, old tires, and rats now occupied the two-square block hole in the landscape.

Billy took the American flag that was covering the shopping cart and covered the bottom of the oblong resting place he had dug for China Doll. He wanted to keep her warm. He was afraid she might catch a cold. He did not want her to die.

He lifted her small body in the black leather suit from the shopping cart. He carried her in the crooks of his arms and knelt at the side of her resting place. He set her down in her new home.

When he pulled his hands from beneath her, his fingers felt a bulge in her back pocket. She had something in her pocket.

It would surely make her uncomfortable if she had to lie on it.

He slipped his hand underneath her again and slipped his fingers in her back pocket. He felt something made of metal and glass. He pulled something hard out. When he opened his hand, he was looking at a diamond ring. He wondered if she was engaged. From the way she was dressed, she certainly seemed rich.

He decided she was his fiancée. He slipped the ring on her finger. China Doll was looking upward now. Her eyes were closed. She was sleeping. He kissed her on the cheek. Then he set her hand on her chest so the ring was facing upward. Her other arm was resting along her side.

Billy stood up and took another American flag from the small stack on his mat. His sleeping mat and sacred objects were now resting in the shopping cart, which was against the door. His sleeping mat and American flags were resting on top of everything.

He covered her with one of the American flags and then tucked the sides of it underneath her. When he was finished, and he stood back, she looked like an American mummy. Except that she was Chinese. She was China Doll, Billy’s fiancée.

He knelt beside her resting place and said some prayers of his own making. He promised that no harm would come to her. He promised never to leave her. He promised to care for her forever if she always remained true. Then he went to the bowl on the kitchen table.

He had dug her resting place with the bowl, tossing each bowl of dirt into one of the cardboard boxes. Now the boxes were stacked one upon another and set against the wall. He would have to dispose of the boxes under cover of night. He had exposed himself enough for one day. Even if there was no one there to see him, he did not want to expose himself to any more danger.

Billy took the top box of loose dirt and began to sprinkle it in handfuls, across the length of China Doll’s resting place. He did not want to disturb her. He knew she needed her sleep. But he wanted to cover her with another layer of insulation.

When he felt the dirt was distributed evenly, he tamped it lightly with the toe of his shoe. Then he sprinkled another box of dirt across the length of her body. He did not want to bury her too deeply. He wanted her to be close to him.

When he felt he had tamped the layer of dirt enough, he stacked the empty box near the door. Then he took another box of loose dirt and repeated the ritual. He continued stacking one empty box on top of another empty box in a stack near the door.

When Billy was finished, he took his sleeping mat from the shopping cart and laid it on top of her resting place, the same place it always had been. He took what remained of the stack of American flags on top of his shopping cart and set them on top of his mat.

Billy felt certain that once he added the heat from his own body, she would be warm enough. It was Christmas. It was cold. It seemed to Billy like something fated had happened. Something he had never expected for Christmas had come to rescue him. Then he took one box after another of the remaining dirt and spread its contents across the remaining part of the floor.

He walked lightly all over that part of the shack, again and again, in an ever-closing, and ever-opening, set of steps that only he understood as some kind of sacred ritual. He was rededicating the Dugout to his life with China Doll.

He felt brighter. He felt more optimistic. How could he kill himself now?

Billy took his kitchen table that had been set near the door and set it next to China Doll’s resting place so that he could be closer to her. He took the photo of his family from the one wall and tacked it to the wall on the other side of China Doll’s resting place.

He took the small mirror that had been hanging to the side of the family photo and twisted the hook into the wall next to the photo of Isabel and the children. Billy never looked in the mirror. He just knew it needed to be there by the photo of his family, just in case.

As he gazed down at the table, Billy saw that he hadn’t eaten his chocolate cake, although the chocolate cake was a picture of chocolate mousse. Once he was finished moving everything, Billy took one box after another of dirt and sprinkled it across the remaining part of the floor until all the dirt was gone. He repeated his ritual of walking around on top of the dirt in ever-opening, and ever-closing, circles that only he understood.

When he was satisfied that all the dirt had been spread evenly, Billy sat down at the kitchen table. His Christmas dinner plate was still on the table. The pictures of quail and rice sat beneath the photo of the chocolate mousse. His knife and fork still sat on either side of the plate.

Billy took a candle-stub from the rusty coffee can sitting beside the table. He lit it from what was left of the candle-stub that had been burning. He held it in place on top of the melted wax until it could stand upright on its own.

Billy pulled the Beretta from his belt. He set the Beretta on the table above his plate. He picked up is knife and fork. He dug into the chocolate mousse. He wolfed it down.

Not only had Billy used up a lot of energy, he hadn’t eaten in three days. When he finished the chocolate mousse, he pushed his plate aside.

He pulled the Beretta in front of him. He contemplated the weapon. It was his now. He felt the power. He felt the law.

Whoever had used it on China Doll must be avenged with his own weapon. He must die by his own hand. Billy no longer wanted to die. Billy’s life had a purpose. He must find China Doll’s killer. He must destroy him.