Asylum Lake (13 page)
“Your wife…it wasn’t suicide.” Franks words were more statement than question.
Collins nodded. “I wasn’t sure what to believe. By then Lionel was acting so strangely, and Melody had become so angry; as if it were all my fault.” He turned to Frank, tears welling from his eyes. “Never underestimate the power of denial.”
Brady’s mind was doing back flips as he tried to follow the conversation. He had read about Lionel’s conviction in his father’s notes and had learned from Frank many of the more grizzly details. How it played any part in his grandfather’s death or even what was currently happening he still had not figured out, but somehow it all seemed to come back to that damn bracelet. His racing thoughts finally settled on a very disturbing image; the thin band of plastic wrapped about Abby’s wrist, and her sleepy comment about an imaginary man in the house. The bracelet…Abby has the bracelet!
Their trip to church had proven quite sobering, and Brady drove without a word of argument from Frank. The good Reverend, full of mystery and not lacking in the odor department, sat in the backseat of Brady’s car. Without his trademark cardboard sign, he sat clutching an oversized Bible; the family heirloom held together by duct tape. Things just seemed to be getting increasingly bizarre for Brady.
His leg vibrated with three quick bursts, signaling a new voicemail on his phone. He fished it from the pocket of his cargo shorts, and pressed it to his ear. As April’s voice drifted from the phone, the color drained from his face listening to the frantic message. Frank noted the change.
“What is it, son? What’s wrong?”
Brady’s responded with silence, pressing his foot down on the accelerator and gripping the wheel.
‘Awe, shit!” Frank swore, buckling the seat belt over his chest as he recalled the last time he had rode shotgun with a speeding member of the Tanner family. “Here we go again.”
If not for the seriousness of the situation, not to mention the supernatural elements, April may have laughed. As Gruff’s barking intensified, so did her father’s snoring. The mixture of sounds, despite its oddity, did little to distract her from Abby’s glowing gaze.
“Mommy, my head hurts,” she repeated, extending her arms for a hug.
April stepped forward, only to be met by more barking from Gruff. Her motherly instincts were in full blown panic mode now. “Honey, come here.” April motioned, fearful of what Gruff may do if she were to advance any further.
Abby smiled, sliding off the edge of the couch, and advancing toward her mother. Gruff’s growl intensified. Meanwhile, Henry Mayer continued to snore.
Abby paused, glancing down at the dog with a menacing expression drifting across her small face. Gruff recoiled beneath her gaze, whimpering to the ground.
A threatening smile, unlike any April has seen her daughter wear, spread across the child’s lips. Abby looked from the cowering dog to her mother, eyes suddenly seething with rage. The next words spoken, although falling from the child’s lips, carried the tone of a frightfully different voice.
“Come to me…mother,” the voice that wasn’t Abby’s hissed, dripping with sarcasm as she brought forth the oversized kitchen knife she held behind her back. “Surely, your kiss will ease this ache.”
Fucking speed bumps.
Brady fumed, racing recklessly down the winding streets of the trailer park, heedless of the fact that every twenty yards or so the mechanical crunch of the undercarriage slamming against the concrete mounds guaranteed increasing damage to his Jetta.
“Oooh,” Frank winced, “I’m afraid that one left a mark.”
Brady shot the former Sheriff a brief look of irritation as he skidded to a halt in front of April’s trailer. Frank was out of the passenger door before Brady had turned off the ignition. The good Reverend sat calmly in the back seat leafing through his tattered bible as if preparing a Sunday sermon.
The retired lawman raced the one time reporter up the rickety steps and to the trailer door. Frank’s bulky frame filled the doorway as he barged through, Brady shadowing his every move. The noise of Gruff’s hysteric barking warned of dark tidings on the other side.
“It’s Abby,” Brady’s breathless words were barely audible, “She’s got the bracelet.”
The door opened into the living room and Brady rushed in past the former sheriff, his adrenaline outpacing his nerves. April lay on the floor, her back pressed against the carpet, clutching at its fibers in panicked retreat. Between her kicking legs stood Gruff, wobbly atop three legs, and snarling in protection. Crimson gashes lined the dog’s face and shoulders; fresh drips and drabs of blood pooling beneath him.
“Holy shit!” Frank exclaimed.
Abby, at little more than three feet tall, towered menacingly over Gruff. Dressed in a pink princess tank-top and tiny white shorts spattered with blood, she teasingly waved the enormous knife in front of her, encouraging deeper snarls from the dog and ever more frightening shrieks from her mother. At Brady’s entrance, she shifted her red gaze from the dog to Brady’s hazel eyes.
The ghostly voice emanating from Abby’s delicate form chilled Brady’s blood. “Ahh, yes…it would seem our guests have arrived.”
Brady stopped short, blocking Frank’s approach. April clawed her way to Brady’s legs, wrapping her trembling arms around him and burying her tear streaked face into the comfort of his cargo shorts.
Brady broke the crimson gaze and quickly scanned the room. Gruff blocked Abby’s path with a snarl that could wake the dead; although apparently not the sleeping. Henry snored loudly, oblivious to the sinister events transpiring around him.
The sound of Frank’s voice over his shoulder startled him. “The power of Christ compels you. The Power of Christ compels you.” Frank moved around Brady, index fingers in the sign of the cross and shouted the incantation with a surprisingly strong and confident tone.
Brady pulled April up from the floor and drew her into his arms checking her for injuries. Physically, she appeared fine, emotionally she was a wreck. Her vacant eyes darted about the small trailer as her chest heaved with labored sobbing.
Brady ushered her out the door. “Go!” he screamed, shoving her from the trailer and nodding in the direction of his car. “And tell that old man to get his ass in here!”
Frank’s familiar incantation continued, though Brady’s reeling thoughts couldn’t place it. Its impact on Abby, or at least whatever currently inhabited her, was instantaneous.
It laughed; a vile sound reminiscent of the scratching of fingernails down a chalkboard. The noise echoed through the small trailer, causing Gruff’s protective snarl to trail off into a defeated whimper.
Frank raised his arms in mock surrender and took a cautious step back. “OK, son, ‘yer up.”
“What do you mean, I’m up?” Brady countered, “And what the hell was that all about anyway?”
“Exorcist,” Frank answered anxiously, shrugging his wide shoulders. “Now, that I think about it, didn’t work too well in the movie either.”
Brady fought the urge to flee from the trailer. Gruff’s nose was pressed firmly to the floor and his whimpering had ceased. If not for the dog’s labored breathing Brady would have thought for sure his four legged friend was dead.
“P-p-pl-lease,” Brady stammered, staring between Abby’s glowing eyes, fearful of what actually locking its gaze could do to him. “You don’t have to do this.”
The laughter intensified. “Yes, yes, you are definitely right.” Trailing off into a prolonged silence, the memory of its dark laughter still hanging in the air, the disembodied voice continued, “Much like your grandfather, I could choose to do nothing.”
This reference to the past meant nothing to Brady. His ignorance was proving very frustrating. He had gleaned just enough from his father’s notes and drunken talks with Frank, to be more dangerous than helpful. Brady’s best guess was that whatever malevolent power was at play had been set free from behind the locked doors of the abandoned asylum years before, and like most wounds left untreated, had festered and was now quickly spreading.
“She’s just a child,” Brady pleaded, wracking his brain for any detail that may prove helpful. His gaze fell to the bracelet on Abby’s wrist. “Ellis…Ellis Arkema, right.” Brady’s said; more statement of fact than question. “Let me help you, Ellis. Please, tell me what it is that you want…what you need.”
Abby’s small lips curled back revealing the innocence of baby teeth, causing Brady to recoil in fear. She raised her delicate arm in the air, placing the sharp blade at her own throat. “What I want? You want to know what I need?” The voice’s rage boiled over into silence. “I want that which you cannot give, only that which can be taken; vengeance for the lives that were destroyed.” The ethereal voice hardened once more. “The price for blood is blood, Tanner. Your grandfather understood this. Even your father, near the end, understood.” The flaming orbs gleamed beneath Abby’s blonde bangs, as the laughter resumed.
What happened next unfolded in a matter of seconds yet seemed to occur in slow motion. From the corner of his eye, Brady noticed movement and watched in dismay as Henry Mayer lurched from his recliner and with two uneasy strides reached Abby. The confused old man clamped his age-spotted hand firmly onto his granddaughter’s wrist, twisting the knife from her grasp. Instantly, the malevolent presence which had hung so thick in the air vanished, shaking the trailer on its flimsy foundation.
Abby’s once glowing eyes rolled back white. She momentarily swayed on her tiny feet before collapsing to the floor unconscious, a faint scratch of blood marring the curve of her small neck. Gruff sprang forward, his wet nose surveying his fallen friend.
Mayer stood motionless in the center of the room staring down into his hand at a twisted piece of plastic wrapped around the heavy handle of the knife; the bracelet had apparently torn free from Abby’s delicate wrist during the brief struggle for the blade.
“Little girls don’t play with knives,” Henry stated in a matter of fact kind of way then let his gaze travel from the knife and down to his granddaughter on the floor. “Somebody’s apt to get hurt.” He paused, hiking his blue pants higher onto his hips. When he looked up he found Brady and Frank cowering in the doorway.
“Who the hell are you,” The old man barked at Brady for the third time since meeting him the night before. “And where the hell is my newspaper?”
It was a disparate collection of souls seated around Frank’s kitchen table; the retired lawman and his wife of nearly forty years, a deeply disturbed preacher lacking faith, three generations of the Mayer family, and finally a young man and his dog.
“Let me see if I have this right,” Brady began, trying to rub some understanding into his throbbing temples. “Somehow you,” He started by tracing his finger in the air from where Frank sat at the head of the large oak table to the far end where Reverend James Collins stood; staring out the window into the afternoon sun. “Think what happened to me,” he said and glanced in April’s direction, “in the lake has something to do with what your son did thirty years ago? Not to mention why my grandfather supposedly killed himself? And that it all leads back to that damned hospital?” Brady shook his head as he turned to April’s father. “What do you think about all this, Henry?”
Brady expected a nonsensical response from the forgetful old man, perhaps even another ‘who the hell are you?!’ At this point, he was hoping for something – anything – to lighten the mood. When Henry finally spoke, however, Brady was amazed by the clarity of the man’s usually muddled thoughts.
“A lot of people dying up there,” he stated, more as a thought out loud than in response to Brady’s question. “A lot of holes…” His voice trailed off.
“Nine hundred and thirty-three to be exact,” added Collins, turning his attention from the window and back to the conversation at hand. “And that’s just counting the ones marked with crosses. There are others, too; mounds of dirt, some ringed with stones and some not.”
Henry nodded, adding quietly. “Not to mention ones the lake swallowed up.”
Six heads swiveled in Henry’s direction at his mention of the lake; seven if you count Gruff. He lay under the table, patched up courtesy of Maddie Griggs and her first aid kit. His leg would need to be checked by a vet, but it was surely broken; just how badly was anybody’s guess. For now, he was comfortably laying at Brady’s feet, resting his aching bones with one eye open, just in case his help was required.
Frank nearly choked on his beer. “Swallowed? Did you say swallowed by the lake?”
April interjected before her father could respond. “Mr. Griggs, you should know that my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s three years ago. His memory isn’t exactly what I would call...reliable.” She reached over and gently patted her father’s hand.
Henry waved his hand in irritation, withdrawing it from April’s touch and raising his own can of beer. Unlike the others, the old man had done little more than take disinterested sips at the Pabst Blue Ribbon. Frank and Brady, however, had already knocked back a twelve-pack between them; the others gathered at the table drank glasses of water from the tap.
“I know what I saw,” Henry said stubbornly, the hollow sound of the empty beer cans echo through the kitchen as he slammed in onto the table. “Greasy little bastard.” The man paused to collect his thoughts. “My pa always said ‘never trust a man with a ponytail’. You can tell everything about a man by the cut of his hair.” He stole a glance in Brady’s direction and offered a teasing wink.
“He and that big fella would walk 'em right to the drop-off and then just,” Henry illustrated by walking his fingers off the edge of the table, “send ‘em right down. Hell, they didn’t know what was what. Big fella would always carry the block of cement.”
A hush of disbelief fell over the room as confused looks passed amongst the makeshift congregation. Henry reached for another beer and popped it open.
Collins broke the silence, “That’s where we fished, Lionel and me, the drop-off; always thick with perch.” He looked down at the large bible clutched in his hands. They had placed the plastic bracelet inside for safe keeping; Frank’s idea. Brady had wanted to burn it.
Brady noted the Reverend’s diverted attention and surmised his thoughts. That fucking bracelet! It all comes back to that thin piece of plastic -- or did it?
“Okay,” Brady began, trying to analyze the situation logically, “So, this Ellis guy takes a dive into the lake. Years later, your son,” pointing at Collins, “hooks Ellis’s hospital bracelet while fishing in the aforementioned lake. Makes for an interesting story, but still doesn’t explain why the boy butchered that family.” Brady knew his tone was harsh, but somebody needed to grab this situation by the balls before it got out of hand. Before Collins could protest, he continued, “But I honestly don’t see how any of this has to do with me, my family, and whatever the hell is happening right now.” Brady’s frustration boiled over, “It’s a fucking piece of plastic!”
“
Someone told me long ago,
There’s a calm before the storm