Nursery Rhymes 4 Dead Children (8 page)

Chapter 11

Herb Miller shook himself of the nightmare clinging to the back of his eyes. He sat up, trembling, striped pajamas drenched. Margaret snored next to him, buried under the blankets. A faint ringing, like a faraway church bell, slipped into his struggling consciousness. He pulled his earplugs out. Rain tapped against the windows over the dresser.

The door bell rang. Herb stood slowly, his mind thick, groggy. The central air chilled the sweat soaking his sleepwear. He grabbed the shotgun next to his bed. Margaret never flinched as the doorbell rang again. He walked into the hall, left hand trailing along textured paint.

Thunder rumbled as he neared the front door. He forced himself to grab the cold knob. The person outside beat against the wood. Herb jumped. He drew in a deep breath, wondering how late it was and what had happened now. Shadows shifted against the opaque glass in the center of the door.

“Who is it?”

A man’s voice came over muffled. Herb couldn’t understand him, not over the rain, thunder and the pounding of his own heart.

You can’t stand here all night. You know who it is and what this sonofabitch wants.

The shotgun felt like a barbell, loaded with cast iron weight. It reminded him how weak he’d become over the years, his physical bearing a mirror image of what he’d let his soul become.

Herb flipped on the porch light, the apathetic muscles in his arms burning. He drew a deep breath, let it out, opened the door. The man outside pushed past him, drops of rain brushed from one soul to another. Herb choked on saliva, his nerves jumping. The visitor shut the door and pulled his hoodie off.

“I thought you were Pat.” He nodded at Rusty and locked the door.

“You got a towel?”

“What are you doing here?” The glowing doorway faded into the hallway’s gloom. “What happened to your head? Were you out there?”

“No. But we need to talk. About Pat and…” Rusty looked at his arms and pulled his hoodie away from his scrawny chest.

That word, Repent, been bothering you?

Rusty shook like a dog.

“Don’t do that. I’ll get you a towel.”

His teeth flashed in the dark. “I thought that’d get you moving. Can we sit in the den?”

“I’d rather not.”

“Do you want to go to prison?”

“Prison? What are you talking about?”

Rusty grabbed his arm. For once he didn’t stink of whiskey, which came as a shock. “You’re not drinking.”

“I had an accident. My car’s totaled. You know who came to my rescue?”

“Pat?”

“No.”

“Who?”

“John.”

Herb tried to read into whatever it was Rusty suggested. “So?”

“Pat suggested we bury the girls, Herb. He forced me to agree. You know how, don’t you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“So, you just agreed to it too, for the hell of it? I doubt that. He’s got something on you, too, doesn’t he? He’s slick. Always watching people and using their secrets against them.”

It surprised him to hear someone else come right out and say what he’d wanted to all along.

“I can’t have him come out with what he knows about me. I’m sure your secret is the same.”

Rusty looked at his hands. “I used to save people with these when I was in the military. A medic. You know what they do now?”

“I don’t understand where you’re going with this.”

“They’re always touching the dead, Herb. They touch the dead more than the living. Pat had a hand in that, too. It’s a long story. Can we sit in your den?”

Herb nodded. “This way.” As Rusty followed him, he wondered what his one time friend had thought of his own life. Herb thought of how awful it’d be to lose it. Lose his family. Lose everything.

After he gave Rusty a towel from the half-bath next to the Den, they sat in the chairs next to the fireplace. Herb poured them both a drink.

Rusty nodded. “Thanks. The pain killers are wearing off.”

“I never thought John or his brother had anything to do with those girls’ death. I just didn’t know what I could do about it.”

“About stopping Pat from burying them?”

“Like you said. Pat has the upper hand. He might not be good at much else, but he is at that.”

Rusty sipped his drink and melted into the chair, eyes on the ceiling. “We need to take the ball away from him.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

Rusty met his gaze. “Or you don’t want to risk it?”

Herb tapped his wedding ring on the crystal. “Both? I don’t know. If we do anything to him, we’re fucked.”

“I think he killed those girls, Herb. I’m willing to let light on my secret if it puts him in prison. Can you?”

“Get involved even more? We’ll go to prison with him. We knew they were out there. We helped him bury them.”

“We should go and dig them up.”

Herb spit his drink over his pajama top. “What? Right now? You’re mad.”

“I don’t have the strength to do it tonight. But soon.” Rusty swirled the drink. “And I think we should let John know.”

“I think he should be left out of this loop.”

“His dad and I were best friends. I owe it to his son.”

“Only in your head. If, and that’s a strong if, we dig those girls up and bring some outside law enforcement into it, John doesn’t need to know.”

Rusty stood and sat his drink on the table. “This town has gone to shit. I’m not keeping secrets anymore. Did Pat tell you how he got Mark’s key?”

“No. He never tells me anything. He only makes orders.”

“Kinda like he’s the mayor. You should grow a pair, Herb. Quit taking his shit and be a man.”

“Get out of here, you drunk.”

“You know why I drink?”

“I don’t care, Rusty.” But it caught Herb off guard. He closed his hands over his glass and looked into the amber.

“It’s not because I lost my wife. Not completely. Pat knows why, holds it over my head. But not anymore. What skeletons of yours is he making do his dance? Is it worth losing your family? Your career? I’ve always been a coward. I’ve always bowed down. When John Sr. moved to Arizona, he stopped calling after a while. I never tried to get a hold of him. I was scared he didn’t want our friendship anymore. And I didn’t want to ask him, or push it.”

“You better leave. I don’t care about your problems. I’ve got enough of my own.”

“I was fucking Jim’s wife.” His eyes grew misty, his face taut. “I was fucking her all the time, and man it felt good. She loved to drink, too. Loved to drive high as a kite. We did it one time too many and ran
my
wife into a tree. Pamela and my Becky both went through the windshields. Pat came by that night. He told me that no one else had to know that I was even there.

“I was on the verge of leaving Rebecca. Pam was on the verge of leaving Jim. And both of us lost our wives because I was careless. Pat knew it all. He watched. He loves to see people destroy themselves and those around them.”

It’s easy for you now, you’ve already lost everything that matters. Sometimes, secrets are all we have to protect us from the world.

Herb sipped his drink. “I’m sorry.”

“You going to tell Pat we had this talk?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, other than go back to bed and get some well-deserved sleep.”

“You don’t deserve shit. Just like me. Maybe a long time ago. But things have changed. Repent. That message was meant for one of
us
, you think?”

“Pat doesn’t care about that. I don’t think he did it.”

“You don’t know him as well as you think then.” Rusty walked through the door and his footsteps echoed in the hall. Herb put his drink down and sighed into his hands.

Pat’s not going to like this.

* * *

Inside the old mill, branches clawing at its worn shell, I had to constantly tell myself:
It’s okay, there’s no one else out here.

But the weight of another presence pressed in.

A mouse, eyes lit by the beam of my flashlight, skittered off into the dark. Wind howled through the window I’d used to gain access. I turned in a slow circle, but the light didn’t penetrate as far as I thought it should. Sometimes the darkness ran too deep.

The building had been closed for over a decade and during hard times, a few years back, Wylie had sold the property to the State of Pennsylvania. Wylie didn’t get drunk often, but when he did, he always brought up how much it irritated him that they bought it and left it to rot. I didn’t understand it either.

Shining the beam along the walls, I found tons of graffiti, half of it witty, the other half pathetic. Wrappers and beer cans littered a corner. I pulled Mark’s onyx key from my shirt and rubbed it between my fingers hoping for luck. The walls creaked and the ceiling groaned. Plumes of dust fell from the open rafters in a straight line toward me, as if someone walked above. I cradled the shotgun, hoping it’d give me a little more courage, but my fear ran deeper than facing something human.

I followed the wall to the back of the building, where the bathroom door stood open, a murk of baby blue tile coating the cube, stench pouring out, batting at my face. I crossed the threshold, heart hammering, flashlight gliding back and forth underneath the doors of stalls as I bent over, searching.

Something black and wet caught my eye in the stall farthest in the room. I opened the door. Stuffed behind the moldy toilet, a black trash bag lay half full. I held my breath, knelt down and leaned forward. The bag moved in my hand. I let go and jumped back.

A snake slithered across the tile, into the next stall, its eyes sparkling in the light.

“Jesus. Get out of here.”

Its tongue flicked out. I stomped the floor and the snake sped away. I grabbed the bag again, jerked it free. Carrying it to the main floor I dumped the contents out and ran my hand over my face, almost dropping the shotgun.

The pile of girls’ clothes didn’t have any blood on them.

I touched the fabric as if that alone could bring me closer to them.

I’m going to find out who did this to you, who stripped away your decency and left you as a message.

Far off, I thought I heard the girls crawling through the forest, crying. Closer, a sound like water dripping. In my mind’s eye, I pictured Mark, pale and thin, clothes soaked with river water, the gash in his head open and bleeding, blurring eyes as dark as the amulet that should have been in his grave.

I put the clothes back in the bag.

Hair stood on the back of my neck. I forced myself to take a breath. I turned and out of the corner of my eye saw Mark’s face a foot from my head, my brother’s smile a splash of white teeth grinning in the gloom like the Cheshire Cat.

Chapter 12

I almost tripped over my feet as I ran through the bathroom door, the mill darker than when I’d went in and found the trash bag full of dead girls’ clothes.
The shotgun
. I’d left it.
Run. Get the hell out of here.
My throat hurt, sucking in the dust I kicked up. My neck popped as I looked back to see if Mark followed.

He stood in the doorway like the dead girls had outside Ethan’s room.

I sprinted across the mill’s empty expanse. The door. I threw the bag over my shoulder and hit the barrier, expecting to break it open. I bounced off, a chain rattling as I landed on my back. The fucking chain. I turned and pushed myself up, light spilling around the piece of plywood over the window on the west wall. Shimmying through it, I heard Mark say, “Listen. See.”

I fell on my face outside. My jaw went slack and I shook my head. I grabbed a branch and pulled myself to my feet, to the crackle of fire. Making my way along the dark tunnel of wall and woods, the flames around the front of the building threw dancing shadows across the ground. Ashes hung in the air. Stopping at the corner to catch my breath, I dropped the bag. A cross burned, twelve-feet high, against the night sky. A man writhed on it, consumed by flames.

“Mark?”

I wept. The man screamed in agony and twisted his neck so far back it looked like it’d break. Exhausted, I leaned against the side of the mill, fingers clutching for the bag that held the dead girls’ clothes. As I touched it, they appeared around the burning man, sitting, dirty summer dresses pulled up to their knees, eyes on their savior, all whispering, holding hands now, “Johnathan means: Gift of God. Gift of God means: Martyr.”

The burning man met my eyes. I stared at my own tortured face.

“Jesus Christ.”

I ran for the Jeep.

* * *

“Do you ever sleep?”

Mike looked up from the desk in the living room. The laptops’ monitor cast an electric glow over his face. Her silhouette, the hall light behind her, spilled her shadow across the wall beside him.

“No.”

Angela sat on the floor at the edge of the desk. “Are you worried about your mother?”

“What do you care?”

“Just asking.”

“Why are you here?” He leaned back in the chair.

“Do you need a drink?”

Mike sighed. “I need more than a drink.”

“Hold on a second.” She stood and moved off into the dark. Crystal tinkled and liquid poured. She returned, offered him the goblet. “It’ll take the edge off.”

“You know that from personal experience?”

“I doubt you’d think any less of me if I did.”

He nodded. “Sorry.”

Angela sat on the floor again. “What are you working on? Something giving you trouble?”

“The past few years, everything gives me trouble.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“Why aren’t you in bed? Angela… was it?”

“I don’t sleep.”

“Are you trying to form a bond here? I never sleep well either.”

She giggled. It reminded him of the other redhead, the one from the diner. “Why aren’t you married? Do you have no one to love?”

I see. That’s your angle here. You’re looking to marry into money.
He leaned into the high-backed chair.
You came to the wrong man, honey.

Angela stroked the desk’s leg, leaned her cheek against it. “Do you want me to go with you?”

“Where?”

“To see her.”

“My mother? I don’t want to see her.”

“Then why did you come back?”

Mike sipped the brandy. Heat spread through his stomach, and the taste lingered on his lips. “Because I had to.”

“To bury her?”

“You ask a lot of questions of strangers. How’d you get the job of caretaking? What have you done so far?”

She ignored him. It brought an odd mixture of disgust and attraction with it. “You were in the military. What was it like?”

Mike rubbed his temples. Angela purred from the floor.

“Why are you interested? None of this has anything to do with you.”

“Everything we do affects someone else. Maybe something you’ve done affects me.”

“I doubt it.” Mike bowed his head. “You’re giving me a migraine.”

“Let’s go see your mother. Do you want me to go with you?”

He stood and closed the MacBook, let shadows fold in around him. “Go to bed. I’ll go down there alone.”

She followed him to the front door, across the black and white tile. She said, “I hate these things.”

Mike stopped, turned, followed her gaze. “The tile? Why?”

“Because, they’re all black and white, no in-between, no grays. No bleeding together. Each is a proclamation of finality, each trapped by what they are.” She pulled his jacket from the coat rack and held it out. Angela said, “You should take it, there’s a chill out tonight and you never know what could happen.”

He snatched it out of her hand and hung it back on the rack. “Clean the house or something if you can’t sleep. Don’t make my mom pay you for doing nothing.”

“Yes, sir.” She leaned forward like she wanted a kiss, and Mike stepped back, struck by something odd. He couldn’t place it, but he felt threatened.

“What?” She stepped forward again and he took another step back. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

“Step back.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m your boss.”

She stepped forward. “Your mother’s my boss.”

He touched her shoulder. Angela’s skin felt cold, lifeless, at odds with the heat of her eyes, her breath. “Who are you? You’re not a caretaker?”

“Not of houses.”

“What?”

“I’m here to help you, Michael. I’m here to help your friend. Both of you need to let me.”

He reached behind him, felt the coolness of the door’s latch, pushed it down. A breeze ruffled the cuffs of his pants.

She smiled. “Take care of your mother. Then hurry back.”

* * *

I had expected Cat to be awake. Looking at the clock on the kitchen wall I saw it was just past two in the morning. I didn’t realize I’d been out for so long. Quietly I eased open the basement door, went downstairs, and set the trash bag under the work bench I sometimes used to make model planes. My arms jittered. I sat and stared at the guitar hanging on the wall, frustrated by how so much had changed since last night.

The steps creaked and Cat wiped the sleep out of her eyes as she put a foot on the floor. “Why didn’t you come to bed?”

“I was about to.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

Don’t lie to her. You’ll regret it.

I rested my elbows on my knees and buried my head in my hands, the image of the burning cross, my body stuck to it, twisting, clawed through my mind. “I think I’m having a breakdown.”

Cat crossed the floor, her hand light on my shoulder. “Talk to me? You look half dead and you’re filthy. What is happening, John? What aren’t you telling me?”

After wiping my eyes, I looked up. The blue in hers looked brighter in the middle of the night. “I feel disjointed.”

“What is that supposed to mean? I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”

“I killed Mark.”

“No. You didn’t.” She rubbed my shoulder, knelt next to me, her breath hot against a scrape on my forearm. My skin tingled beneath her touch. “You didn’t kill your brother.”

I sighed. “I hit him with a paddle in the back of the head. He fell out and drowned.”

“I don’t understand why you’re joking about this, but it’s not funny.” Her voice sounded like sludge in pipes, as though it had congealed in her throat. She stood and looked around. “What did you do tonight?”

“I killed him. He drowned. In the river our dad baptized us in. Redeemed and then murdered. It’s driving me crazy. I’m seeing things.”

“You didn’t kill Mark. They would have noticed something when they did an autopsy, right?”

“They wouldn’t because they’re covering things up for each other. This whole fucking town.”

“You want me to call someone?”

It made me feel worthless—her ready to jump up and fix my problem instead of the other way around. “No. I’ve let my family down. I’ve let
me
down.”

“You didn’t do it. You couldn’t have. Mark loved you and you loved him.”

“But there’s things you don’t know.” I wiped my nose and the muscles in my face ached. “Go back to bed. I want to be alone.”

“No. I want to help you.” She knelt in front of me. “John, look at me. Look.” Her fingers touched my chin, and raised my head. Eyes wide, lips quivering, voice soft, “I think you should talk to someone tomorrow. A professional. New Wave isn’t that far.”

“You think I should go visit the nuthouse.” I pushed her hand away. Her chin dropped and she stared at a space between us, that immeasurable distance. I shook my head. “Maybe it wouldn’t hurt. But I can’t. I have to find out who killed those girls. I need to know if it was Mark.” I smiled a little and Cat frowned. “I got one step closer tonight.” I pointed at the bag beneath the workbench.

“What is it?”

“The girls’ clothes are in there. I don’t know if fingerprints stick to fabric, but they might. Or he might have worn gloves. But it’s something.”

She stroked my cheek. “It is something.”

“But I don’t think it’ll matter.”

“Why not?”

“Because I think the message out there was for me. I think Mark left it. He left his key.” I pulled it from my shirt. “He’s telling me to repent and confess what I did to him or…”

“Or what? His ghost will kill more innocent girls?” She grabbed my knee and squeezed. “I’m sorry. It just sounds like crazy talk. Call the state police.”

“The dead girls follow me.”

“Shut up, John. I don’t want to hear anymore.”

“They do. And I’ve seen Mark and he even told me to repent. Tonight. I saw—”

Cat stood and backed away. “You’re freaking out and you’re scaring me. Call in to work in the morning, or I’ll do it for you. We need to take you to New Wave and—”

“I can’t go there. Do you want me to be trapped in a room with the girls and no way to help them?” Cat flinched. I raised my hand, wanting to reach for her, connect, but she backed towards the stairs. “If they tell me I’m insane?”

I was certain they would.

“Then you’ll have to stay there until you’re better.”

“I just want to find out who did it to them. And find their families.”

“And what about Mark?”

“What about him?”

“If the girls’ ghosts are…I don’t know, appeased or whatever, is that going to make things okay with him? Won’t you still see him? What would make him stop?”

I bowed my head. She was right. A crack ran across the basement floor. I’d never noticed it before. “I don’t know what he’ll do. Maybe he’s trying to frame me.” I tried to get it all straight in my head, but the pressure blackened the edges of my visions, my thoughts whirred and settled on nothing, like snow blown constantly by wind.

“I don’t believe you did anything like you’re saying, John. Why would you?”

“Don’t ask that.” She stared at me a moment and I watched something shift in her expression. From worry and hope to dread.