Amnesia (27 page)

Across the parking lot, unnoticed by the pair, sat an expensive car, it’s only a passenger a man referring to himself under the assumed name of a German philosopher. Marcuse felt no peace or happiness. He felt nothing but hate.

Fire raged through the apartment, blistering heat melting the paint on the walls, flames licking at the structure, devouring everything in its path. Alarms screeched above the crackling inferno as smoke reached the sensors, screaming at the residents to flee before the danger, warning them to run for their lives.

In the background a breaking window was heard as the heat became too much for it to bear. Immediately oxygen fed in through the window providing an accelerant to the flame, raising the level of heat within the building. In response the flames grew taller, eating the wooden walls voraciously, leaving nothing behind but soot and ash.

Only one soul stood unwavering, basking in the glory of his blaze, drool leaking unnoticed from the corner of his mouth. The heat was burning his unshielded skin, yet it too was unnoticed. His mind was consumed with the desire to expunge the banshees that haunted his thoughts and he hoped the fire would sear them, forever banishing them.

Yet they persisted in their interminable shouting, their rage deafening all else, leaving pain and confusion in their stead. The man reeled in imagined agony as the voices in his mind tumbled and crashed together, a cacophony of sound robbing him of all reason. He cried out in desperation to silence the noise, yet they only increased in volume and pitch. Tears streamed down his face as he was mentally pummeled by the assault. Their
effect
on his frenzied mind was all too real for him, though no one else could hear the sounds that battered him.

The madness robbed him also of clarity in his other senses. His vision was blurred, skewing the objects surrounding him and adding a red tint to everything. Sounds were also slurred and twisted, his hearing translating everything into moans and screeches. The sense of touch was also affected, nerve endings shorting out and misfiring sporadically in some unrecognizable cadence, sending spontaneous bursts of pain to his brain, like hundreds of bee stings.

With all these aberrations combined, his world had become filled with bloody monsters towering above him, snarling and roaring, their sharp teeth snapping mere inches from his exposed flesh, their claws raking at his skin. If only he could rid himself of those monsters, perhaps the banshee wailing in his head would finally go away. Then he would at last be free.

He also had names for those monsters, names that haunted him and tormented him, taunting him to come and get them. Names like Beverley Windham, a monster that must be destroyed at all cost, the wicked specter that had turned against him and reviled him. She was an evil vixen sent to scoff and afflict his soul with her sultry and seductive temptations. She must be annihilated.

Another vile demon that he must exorcise was Clarissa Brandon, the spying wretch who hunted and preyed upon him. She was always there, invading his territory, ridiculing his efforts, chiding his actions. She was the fiend that shadowed and harried him in everything he did, driving him mercilessly to and fro, relentlessly pursuing him at every turn. She too would be destroyed, banished from this existence.

And he must not forget the simpering fool Peter Frindle, the despised familiar of Beverley Windham, sent to harass and molest him. He was forever springing up in his path, hindering his movement and prohibiting him from succeeding. The world would be so much better without that imp, and it was up to him to rid mankind of the creature. He would be eliminated as well.

But beyond them all was the Devil himself—the pernicious father of them all, Marcuse. Throughout this entire ordeal Marcuse had positioned himself as the puppet-master, directing the strings of them all. It was he that was the master tormentor, cruelly ravaging his thoughts, impeding his efforts. It was Marcuse that was inflicting the pains, directing the monsters, manipulating the torture. In the end it was he that must be destroyed.

He knew it would cost him his life, but he didn’t care. Death would be a welcome relief from the agony he was forced to endure. He knew also what awaited him on the other side—his mother had told him often of what awaited souls like his. He was terrified of it, would fight against it with all his might and strength, but in the end he knew it would claim him. Yet he vowed he would not travel there alone, he would take the demon’s surrounding him with him, to their own eternal torment. He would die, but he would make sure they did too.

He looked at his seared watch, and noted that it was stopped at 2:15 AM, Friday morning. He recognized that no one had fled the fiery pyre that he had lit. Hordes had escaped other apartments, but they were of no concern to him. It was this place that was his mission, and the bodies that lay smoldering within. They must all be dead.

Rudolph “Rudy” Scardoni, lifted the Glock in his hand, the bullets intended for any would be survivors unspent and resting peacefully in the magazine. He knew that the monsters could not have survived, yet he still heard their screaming in his head. No one had left the blazing Brandon apartment; his task was complete.

For a moment he pushed the barrel of the gun into his chin, aiming for the top of his head, willing himself to squeeze the trigger, to release him from the agony he endured, but he couldn’t finish the action. He dropped his arm and sobbed, anguish ripping through his breast. How he longed to be free of it all, just as he was finally free of the monsters in the apartment. Yet he could not do it, and he knew it. He sank to his knees wailing at his plight.

Moments later another wail joined his cries, the siren of the approaching fire trucks. He knew he must leave. Slowly he stood, staggering away. At least Brandon and her friends were now dead. At least he had that solace. He still had to find and finish Marcuse and the others. He had no way of knowing that the apartment was empty, that no one had fled because no one was trapped inside.

However, there was someone watching that did know the place was vacant, and also knew that Scardoni had started the fire. He watched Scardoni get into a white Cutlass Supreme with a black top and slowly pull out into the lane. It was time for him to come forward like he always knew he would, and secure a place in the hearts of those he loved. He pulled the cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. There were people who had to know what he knew.

*
             
             
*
             
             
*

Jack McConnell groaned at the ringing phone, and rolled over, trying to ignore the annoying sound, intent on getting back to his dreams. Yet the sound would have no such thing, and persisted in its irritating blare. Finally he conceded the fight, and snaked a hand out from under the warm covers to retrieve the belligerent handset.

“McConnell,” he growled sleepily into the receiver.

He paused a moment listening to the other end of the conversation, then sat up instantly alert in the bed.

“You’re sure?” There was another pause as he threw off the covers and began to get dressed, still listening to the report.

“When did this happen?” He quietly opened, passed through, and closed the bedroom door, so as not to disturb Nancy. She would need to get up in a couple of hours anyway, and he wanted her to get her sleep.

“Sometimes I wouldn’t mind being wrong. I’ll be right there.” He hung up the phone, retrieved his badge and spare gun, and left the house as quietly as he could. He crossed quickly over to the awaiting Pontiac Grand Am, and sped out of the driveway, barely waiting for the engine to catch before throwing it in reverse and punching the gas.

It had been a very long day for him, but his effort had paid off, at least to a degree. At least everyone was safe, and for the moment that was all that mattered. He went back through the day, mentally ticking off the several tasks that he had designed to put his frightening, though essential plan in place. He was still upset with having to do some of them, but it was obvious now that he had been right. He just hoped everything continued to play itself out.

The next step was the most dangerous, mostly because of the unknowns. Hunting out Ernest Dall and asking him to keep an eye on the apartment had paid off, as he knew it would. He had counted on Scardoni coming back to Brandon’s apartment to finish her and her friends off, especially after the incidents that had happened the previous evening. His heart still ached with all that had happened then, and he closed the thoughts off, utilizing police training to put the emotions aside and allow his intellectual side to direct his thinking and actions.

Next he had to find a way to get hold of Scardoni and find out what was going on and who was calling the shots. He only prayed that Scardoni would actually lead him where he needed to go. With what he was hearing about him, Jack wasn’t sure Scardoni was sane, let alone able to be manipulated. But he was jumping ahead of himself; he had to find him first.

His tipster had said it was a white Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme with a black top sporting Oregon plates. Jack knew it was probably stolen, so hadn’t even tried to find the owner as yet, he would worry about that later. That matched with what other witnesses had said about a car leaving the parking lot just before the gun battle at Brandon’s apartment. His job was to find that car.

He headed down toward Parkcenter Blvd., taking the Interstate 184 connector, and following Front Street down toward the old Morrison Knudsen complex. He wasn’t sure where the villain would head at this time of the day, but he knew he would want to get as far away from the fire as possible. The quickest way to do that was to hit the connector and grab the freeway. Past that it would be luck and divine help that would bring them together.

He pulled up at the red light at Broadway, and on impulse turned left once, then again to pull onto Main Street. He knew Scardoni had quite a lead on him, so he punched the accelerator in an effort to reach the connector. He raced down the road, practically empty at nearly three in the morning, and started up the ramp to join the freeway. He then caught a glimpse of a white car taking the exit onto Chinden Blvd, headed into Garden City.

His chided himself for racing to catch up with the car, daunted by the odds of it being Scardoni, but his police instinct said to follow the vehicle, and he had learned early on to trust that instinct. He flew down the road, only once glancing at his speedometer, which had topped out at ninety, then slammed the brakes hard just before turning onto the exit leading down into the sleepy area.

He immediately located the automobile in question, just turning left headed up Orchard. He hurried to catch it at a much more reasonable speed. As he approached the car he noted that it indeed matched the car he was searching for, so slowed to match the lethargic speed of the driver ahead.

It didn’t make sense to him that the driver was going so slowly now. He was barely hitting 25 mph when adrenaline should have been pushing him into much greater speeds. He also noted that the driver was swerving quite a bit, and then taking a long time to correct his steering, sometimes going completely into the other lane before straightening out. He started to believe the man was intoxicated, which may mean this was the wrong car. Yet it matched the description perfectly. He decided to stay with him, again following that police instinct.

He pulled up parallel with the car to take a look at the driver, in an attempt to ensure it really was Scardoni. At first he couldn’t see anything remarkable about the driver due to the low light of the early morning hours. Thankfully the streets were nearly empty, the only activity being the occasional driver headed to some unknown destination, usually oblivious to all but their own goals. Off the streets the only signs of life were at the few twenty-four hour convenience stores, shining with an unhealthy artificial glow of neon and fluorescent lights.

Finally the two cars stopped at a red traffic light, and the overhead streetlights lent enough illumination for Jack to see the face of the driver opposite him. What he saw frightened him, even with his years of experience and training.

The evil scar leading down from just under the left ear down to the middle chin proved it was indeed the dreadful Scardoni, but that was the least of the repulsive attributes the malevolent man affected. The skin on his face was obviously burned from the arson so recently committed, blisters beginning to appear in diverse places. The facial hair was burned as well, parts simply singed, while other sections were completely seared off. Simply viewing the ruin caused Jack pain.

Yet it was the madness lurking in the eyes that caught Jack unawares. There was nothing remotely human behind those glazed orbs that stared back into his own and it froze his blood. This man had lost his soul, which made him extremely dangerous, and incredibly terrifying.

As if reading Jack’s mind, Scardoni let out a howl of mirthless laughter and gunned the engine of his car, sprinting into the intersection, barely missing a doughnut delivery truck. Jack suppressed a profane curse, and hit his own accelerator, after ensuring the path was clear. It was time for some backup.

He grabbed his cell phone with his right hand and hit the speed dial button, and waited impatiently for the sleepy voice to answer.

“This is McConnell. I’m tailing Scardoni and I need help. Yes. I’m on Orchard just south of Emerald. Make it fast, he’s running!”

He hit the “end” button and threw the phone into the passenger seat, grabbing the steering wheel with both hands, just in time to swerve out of the way of a confused cat trying to stay out of the way. This could get really ugly.