Nursery Rhymes 4 Dead Children (20 page)

She tried to speak and he shushed her. She realized that he needn’t have done it anyway because a gag filled her mouth and it tasted like bacon fat. Cat tried to get her wits about her, but she trembled and couldn’t stop.

“Do you know why you’re here? Probably not, huh?” He shifted his weight again and she smelled that cologne she’d first noticed when awaking in this basement. Hugo Boss, she thought. And then her mind turned to where she didn’t want it to go, but couldn’t help it.

She said around her muzzle, “Where’s my son?”

A sound of metal striking metal by her ears and she felt his presence looming over her suddenly. He clipped the shears again and she tried to move away but there was nowhere to go.

“Listen to me, okay? I don’t want to hurt you. Your son is fine. He’s sleeping.”

She cried, wanting to believe him.

“They say war can drive men insane.”

What do you want from me?

“I always doubted that, even when I was waist-deep in blood and intestines. But it does change your perspective when you’re swimming through your friends and the night sky is lit up like Jesus’ second coming. It’s hell on earth. It’s chaos’ face. And then you watch everyone around you changing, doing horrible things, and you think that you’re the only sane one, but then you think: Maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m just as fucked up.”

She hoped for a passing car, a wash of light to reveal his features. Her mind sped over every person she’d talked to in Division since coming here a year ago, after she’d left behind what she’d truly loved. But the voice didn’t fit. No bells sounded, no recognition. He clicked the shears shut again, sitting on the chair, a dark outline leaning forward.

“You had those dead girls’ clothes in your hand when you were leaving your house. Guess you were taking them to the police, huh? I saw John take them. I knew I shouldn’t have left them behind, so close to where I’d arranged the message, but what can you do? It’s easy to overlook stuff, forget things. John, he looked a bit out of sorts, like he was running for his life from that damned old mill. Looked like he had hell on his heels. That look brought a lot back for me. Kinda like a trigger, I guess. It’s not his fault. I can’t even sleep anymore. You have your son, you must know what I’m talking about.”

The man stood and paced back and forth, then started circling her. She watched him pass in front of her, black leather shoes reflecting bits of light, and then he’d disappear behind her and she’d wait for him to stop, drive the shears into her side, cut away whatever part he found unacceptable.

She muttered around her gag, “What did I do?”

“Oh. You’re not to blame either.”

She did her best to enunciate, “I want to see my son.”

“Not happening.”

“Why?”
Because you killed him?
Her anger rose and she pulled at the bonds on her wrists, kicked with her bound feet, trying to spin toward him.

He stepped back. “Enough of that.”

She kept struggling to reach him, bubbles of light exploding in her vision, part of her trying to calm itself down, while the other part raged.

The man walked away and his footsteps echoed from the stairwell. A lock clicked after he closed the basement door. Cat tried to scream and chew through her gag, like the rat men in her dream, gnawing, committed.

Chapter 29

I pulled the key from around my neck and held it out. “This is all I have of Mark’s. Do I get it back?”

Angela’s eyes went wild with delight. “I don’t know, it depends on if the box destroys it. But by doing this you are actually giving me two keys, and it’s very sweet.” She snatched it from my hand before I could close it. Pressing it to her lips, she closed her eyes and the scents of lilac and moist soil filled the room. Eyes wide again, she spun in a circle like a young girl waking on Christmas morning to find exactly what she dreamed for, beneath the tree. “Thank you, Johnathan. You may yet come out scarred, but it will be worth it.”

I nodded and squeezed Brandy’s hand as someone shook the door handle and yelled, “Unlock this. Open it!”

Angela tilted her head and as old as I thought she was, she looked younger, a glow to her skin like moonlight on a still lake. She grinned, “I’ll leave you to this, but I’ll see you soon.” She held out the key. “I’m taking this to someone who can help us.”

“You don’t want to try and seduce me first?”

Angela shook her head. “Maybe later. I can’t help myself…” She smirked.

I touched my pocket, the note there, rolled and tied with red ribbon, from Natalie’s journal. I thought it had started like that, her confession, and I looked back to Angela to ask her why she had to be so cruel sometimes and so sweet others, but she was gone.

I traced a vein on Brandy’s hand, the place where the IV entered, almost like a merging of human and machine. The door rattled in its casing. I stood and opened it. Jim White rushed in, brushed past me, face oily with sweat, his tie loose.

Who wears a tie at eleven at night?

Jim turned on me, after studying Brandy for a moment. “What are you doing in here?”

“Talking to Brandy.”

“She’s awake?”

“She was for a little bit. She’s sleeping. We should probably leave her to it.”

“What did she tell you?”

I took a step back as Jim pressed forward, nearly pinning me to the wall. “Back up, Mr. White. You’re crowding me.”

Jim nodded, to himself maybe, his gaze on me, but like he was looking through—beyond—my body. Mr. White jammed his hands in his pockets and walked to the foot of the bed. “Did she say who attacked her?”

“What if she said it was you?”

“She wouldn’t,” Jim said. “But I bet I know who she said did it.”

“You do?”

“Don’t play stupid, John. Did she tell you or not?”

“Maybe.”

Jim looked like he wanted to shake her, wake the kid up and squeeze the answer from her. His head turned and he rolled his sleeves up. “Pat did it, didn’t he?”

“What makes you think that?”

“He’s… a bad man.”

Not anymore
.

Jim stuffed his hands back in his pockets. “We’ve had our disagreements.”

“You and Brandy?”

“No. Me and my cousin.” Jim looked me up and down and stepped back. “You’re filthy.”

“I know. Long story. What did you and Pat disagree on?”

“Look.” Jim hitched his pants up and rubbed a dress shoe against his ankle. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is her testimony. I want to hear it, and I want to see whoever did it pay for their crime.”

I wondered what his angle was. “Why do you care?”

“I… she’s… look at her.” He pointed. I didn’t have to look to know how fragile she was, how weak, and small.

I nodded. “Have you talked to Mr. Miller and told him this?”

“You don’t think he knows? He’s friends with Pat. I can’t stand him either.” Jim’s teeth flashed in the light. I didn’t remember ever seeing the old man so animated. It was a bit unsettling, seeing a side of someone you never saw before. Jim cleared his throat. “Herb’s down the hall though, in ER, I saw him coming in. Look, I want to make sure Brandy stays safe.”

“Why? She’s not your problem.”

“I never had a daughter. I mean, there’s Clara, and I love her, but she’s adopted. I always wanted my own, I was just…too afraid to tell my wife, and then...” Jim hung his head and wiped his brow with a fat fist.

And then your wife died.

I didn’t know what to say, but I thought about how short life really was, and how tender Angela had been with Morgan, with Brandy, and I thought maybe the crazy bitch had the same yearning that Jim White did. I made a mental note to ask her if that was why she was so protective of young ladies.

Jim said, “I’ll stay with her now. You can go on home, or wherever you’re going.” He offered his hand like we were making some kind of unspoken deal. I ignored him, something bugging me. Jim wiggled his hand, as if he thought perhaps I hadn’t noticed it.

“You know Pat’s dead?”

“What?”

“Dead.”

“God, no. How?”

“That’s a legal matter. The state police are on it.”

“You don’t say.”

“I do. I imagine they’re over to Rusty’s by now. I’m probably going to head out that way.”

Jim shook his head. “I saw them there earlier. Just one car though. I was out back, gardening and well, Russ never has company. So I walked over to see who it was.”

If you were gardening you might have a few specks of dirt on you.

“You did? What were you doing out that way?”

“I live next door to Russ,” Jim said. And I realized how stupid a man can be sometimes, how ignorant and unaware of people he’s spent his whole life around, not knowing exactly where they live. Jim nodded and poked his finger in the air between us. “Herb was there before them. He left in a hurry.”

I leaned back against the wall and looked down at my mud-caked clothes, trying to figure out how long I’d been in the woods, how long it was since Mike and Trooper Duncan had started looking for the graves. “What time did you see them out there?”

“Just a half hour ago, before I came up here.”

“Did you come up just to see Brandy?”

Jim shook his head. “I like to walk. It keeps my heart young. There isn’t a mall around, you know? I heard voices in here when I was walking by. It’s the first time her door has been shut. When it was locked, I don’t know, I worried.”

“You want to tell me about Pat sometime?”

“Whenever you want.”

I fought the temptation to take him up on it now. Instead, I said, “Do you have a cell phone? I need to make a quick call.”

“Sure.” Jim pulled it from his jacket pocket and handed it over. “It’s local, right?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” I carried it into the hall and scrolled down through the last numbers Jim had called. None of them rang any bells. I dialed home, hoping that Cat would answer, but she didn’t, and I could picture the house dark and empty, like our relationship. After I hung up, I tried to remember Mike’s number, and failed. Then my hand, seemingly of its own violation, slid into my pocket and creeped me out when it put Duncan’s card in front of my face. I almost dropped it, heart rate speeding up, head turning left and right, expecting to see Mark, or Duncan’s dead daughter, next to me.

Nothing. After a deep breath, I dialed the number. The phone rang twice and I heard a roar, a man yell, “Oh my God!” and the sound of a gunshot that made me drop Jim’s phone on Our Lady’s polished floor.

I stooped and grabbed it and caught sight of my reflection, so much like a ghost myself, clothes dirty and torn and face pale as death, as if I’d just recently crawled from a grave. A scream came across the void and sent gooseflesh like invisible spiders climbing my back. I pressed the phone to my ear, “Officer Duncan, can you hear me?”

Another gunshot.

Jim White stood next to me, eyes wide, mouth open. I ended the call and handed him the phone. “Call the state police and tell them to get over to Rusty’s.”

“How do you know they’re still there?”

Shit. I don’t.

My head felt too heavy, I felt like I might faint.

No, Mike said they were going to talk to Mr. Miller and Rusty. Jim said he saw the mayor here. They have to be at Rusty’s. Or the mayor’s.

“Tell them something is happening at Herb’s place too, they’ll know where that is, right?”

Jim stuttered, “I don’t…”

I turned and started jogging down the hall, a stitch in my side by the time I hit the exit.

* * *

The beast lifted an arm. Mike’s shoulder burned like someone had stuck a hot poker into him. The spot where the monster’s beak had entered left a hole, black and endless in his flesh, a ring of gray smoke circling the wound. He thought that if he kept staring into it, it’d drive him crazy. One of Three of Seven roared and slammed its hand at his head. Mike rolled to his left and wood exploded from the landing and splinters hit his eyes, lips, ear. Mike kicked back, toward the steps, trying to catch sight of his K-Bar on the floor.

The beast stilled. Its tail shot out and wrapped around his waist. He dropped an elbow on it, as hard as he could. It ignored him and pulled him toward the end of the hall in jerky movements. A window looked out over a section of roof and the neighbor’s lawn, moonlight spilling in, half the hall bright, half thick shadows. His head hit the wall as the monster twisted on its snake-like stalk, stared at him, some cunning knowledge in those black eyes.

Hands shaking, Mike dug his fingers into the trunk surrounding him. It was like trying to drive your fingers through steel. One of Three of Seven hummed, a thick, mossy sound that made Mike’s flesh tingle, then its mouth snapped open and he covered his head with his arms, realizing too late that it had feigned a straight attack, and its chair-size hands crashed into the sides of his head. Stars lit the hall, swirled around him. He heard, from far away, a man yelling something. His body went limp and glass broke and he heard a gunshot, and wondered,
Where did it get a gun?

His head lolled back, eyes fluttering, and through a mess of tears he saw a dark man moving, a knight with a face of stone, his hand spouting flames.

Mike thought,
Stay back, knight. This dragon isn’t hurt by fire. He breathes it.

Then he passed out. Fell into a void where ravens swirled around him, screeching and belching smoke. Something squeezed his ribs until he couldn’t breathe, until it felt like the bones would snap. It reminded him of Natalie, and mother, and that Thanksgiving another life ago.

* * *

Sweat stung Duncan’s eyes
. That’s it
, he thought.
I can’t be seeing what I think I’m seeing.

The gloom on the upstairs landing shimmered and his vision seemed to narrow until a
thing
filled it. It writhed above Mike Johnston like a hungry lover, a fucking vampire, and the poor kid wasn’t moving. Duncan pulled his pistol and put the first round in the chamber, and screamed, what felt to him, like a stupid thing to yell, “Hey! Let him go!”

The abomination’s black, bird-like head snapped forward, a triage of ivory horns glowing softly in the dim light. Duncan shot it center-mass, watched the bullet pass through it and splatter the wall with drops of black as the creature slapped its massive hands over Mike’s ears and tightened that thick tentacle around his waist and pulled him down the hall. Duncan fired again, and the window at the end of the hall shattered, glass tinkling. The pounding of his heart filled his ears.

He stepped forward.
God, you can’t let that thing take him.

A step, aim, fire. A step, aim, fire.

Duncan choked back panic, frightened by the look of the thing, the lack of damage his bullets seemed to do, the feeling that it was trying to draw him after it. His ears rang. His foot hit something. He bent, groping along the dark floor, until he felt it and wrapped his fingers around the handle of a Marine knife.

When he looked up, the monster pulled Mike out the window and onto the roof.