Psycho Within Us (The Psycho Series Book 2) (26 page)

Kaley was in Siberia, staring vacantly at a group of armed thugs, while also bracing herself against the forces of some other world at the second-storey CMS
girls’ bathroom, while also experiencing the horrors of some universe she had never dreamt of and didn’t wish on her worst enemy, while also holding hands with Shan and frolicking generically like on some postcard, or in some ad you might see on TV. 
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The tentacle around her ankle, the same one that had made a connection and summoned images of some twisted, sister universe to this one, suddenly went limp.  A few seconds later, it slipped away, and the
Other’s mental grip of her also relented.  Kaley opened her eyes, saw the creature retreating beneath the waters, even fading, its black, oily color turning to grey, then transparent, then solid again, now transparent before finally sinking beneath the waters.  The air no longer felt cracked, though the hideous odor was still lingering, and seemed to have clung to the walls.

The winds died down.  There was no more vacuum, no more suction. 
And no more Mrs. Cartwright
.  Kaley started crying.  It was the same as before, the grief she’d felt over bringing about the death of Officer Emerson, the man that had tried so hard to help. 
I killed them!  I killed them both!  What am I?  What have I let through?

“Kaley?”
whispered Shannon.

At Cartersville Middle School, Kaley was lying on the floor of the bathroom, sweating, convulsing, shuddering, her lips and eyes going through spasms, and tears rolling off her cheeks and merging with the murky waters.  Lying as she was, those waters came up around her ears, her ey
es, almost through her nostrils.

Being under the water,
that thin, filmy membrane between this world and some other, Kaley could hear the whispers.  They became clearer.
I always heard sound carries better in water
, she thought vaguely. 
But this is something else entirely
.  The whispers were overlapping one another, many voices fighting to be heard at once.  “
The other
…
the other makes her stronger
…
the first one draws her to us
…
the second one makes her strong enough to fight back
…
we must kill the second
…
yes!  Yes!  Destroy the second!
”

“Kaley?”  It was Shan, still sitting in her desk at
CES, still searching for Big Sister in her mind.  “Kaley, do you hear that?”

With quivering hand, she reached up to the toilet seat and pulled herself up.  “Y
-yes…yes, I hear it.”

“Kaley, who are they?  I couldn’t see them.” 
That’s because I blocked them out
. 
I didn’t want you to see
.  Shannon seemed to catch on to this, and said, “What do they mean?  The whisperers.  Who are they?  Who’s the second and the first?”  Back at CES, Shannon had to keep her voice down.  She wasn’t strong enough in her own power to communicate with Kaley by thought alone, she still had to speak and have her voice carried along that Connection, that vast network of spider webs.

“I don’t know,” she said.  But Kaley did know.  She knew who the “first one” was.  Not even on an instinctive level, but on a logical
one. 
Who else draws me to do this, to open these doors when I’m near him?
she thought. 
And who do I cling to to pull me back?
  Kaley’s mind was suddenly reeling again with the visions she’d seen from that other universe.  Such darkness…and so much reveling in sadism.  However, like a dream, it was fading with each passing moment.  It was like her brain had an emergency switch for such overloads, for which she was very thankful.

One thing lingered, though. 
Prisoner
.  As Kaley fought to get to her feet in the bathroom stall, the word lingered in her mind, and looked out at the snow-driven world of Siberia.  Just a few feet from her, Spencer was still kneeling, and still smiling.  The other men were still staring at her, stunned.  All of this had happened within the span of sixty seconds—all of it, from the gunshots to the Other to Mrs. Cartwright to…

Mrs. Cartwright
.  Kaley’s legs went weak at the memory of her teacher, helpless in that angry swarm of limbs, crushed and pulverized in an instant, then pulled below the water just as fast. 
She only wanted to help
. 
I could feel her empathy
. 
She was genuine, never phony
. 
She just wanted to help me
. 
She had such pity
…

In both worlds, Kaley collapsed to her
hands and knees, and started weeping.  For a moment, she didn’t even notice that there was snow in
both
worlds—not only in Siberia, but there in CMS’s girls’ bathroom.  Packed snow on the sink, on the walls, on the floor.  In Siberia, some of the snow immediately around her on the porch had evaporated. 
Transported here
, she thought, as her mind caught up and slowly made the connections.

It mattered little to her.  Somewhere, Shannon was going back to her schoolwork, distantly aware of Big Sister’s pain, convincing herself that at least some of it had been imagined.  Sometime later, Kaley would marvel at the power of children’s imaginations—that of the boy in the basement, and that of Shannon—to use their considerable
imaginations to not only fancy themselves as superheroes and space explorers, but also to forget and “patch up” the scars they didn’t want to recall.

The energy sucked out of her, Kaley sobbed and shook.  Her weeping put the Russian hit squad off even more. 
The leader said two words: “
Shto eta?
”

An instant later, Spencer made his move.  Kaley might’ve warned them, since she felt it coming, but for her there was no point. 
Monsters killing monsters
.

Though, when the killing started, she couldn’t help but take notice.  The
fear of dying, the fear of losing it all, and, of course, the coldness.  Such coldness.

“
Shto eta?
” said Stocky Man.

The others were transfixed
.  Spencer might have been, too, if he hadn’t seen it before.  Only one of the Russians was still glancing at him intermittently, the others couldn’t take their eyes off of the Impossible Girl. 
And I’m sure they feel it, too, but they really haven’t let themselves acknowledge it yet
.  The “it” Spencer was detecting was the same “it” he felt months ago, that night on Avery Street.

It was there, at the very edge of their periphery.  Spencer saw it.  Perhaps it was only because he’d been exposed to Kaley
Dupré before, and he was starting to “catch” some of what she had, or, at least, he was starting to catch on to her parlor tricks, how to spot them.  There were whispers on the wind again, and also something materializing all around them, faint images in the snowstorm, something long and slithering over here, something moving just beneath the snow over there.

Something’s trying to get through
. 
Wherever she is, there’s something trying to get at her
.

Someone whispered a long prayer, and Spencer heard the word
prizrak
, or
spirit
, muttered.  He saw the looks on their faces.  They believed it.  Somewhere in their brains they had stored their childhood memories of stories told in their grandmothers’ laps, and now, the Impossible Girl had drudged it all back up.  After decades of putting it all behind them, they saw that there might be a kernel of truth to those old tales.

Stocky Man took another step towards the little girl, as if mesmerized.  Spencer was now mostly forgotten
.  One of the hitters had turned and run off, and the last man to have his gun on Spencer was Erik, but even he had taken his focus away, and had his eyes affixed mistrustfully on the apparition girl.

Stocky Man took another step just in front of Spencer, and raised his gun, no doubt about to fire another round into Kaley and test his theory.  Stocky Man never got his chance.

It all happened very quickly.  Spencer leapt to his feet and swatted Stocky Man’s gun away, which fired at one of the other thugs, clipping him.  He grabbed Stocky Man around his neck by one arm and used him as a human shield as he fired at two of the thugs: first at Erik, then at the big fellow standing next to him.  The bullet tore through Erik’s face, sent him spinning to the ground but didn’t kill him outright.  The other bullet slammed into the chest of its intended target, and the big fellow fell back, spraying his Uzi by reflex, causing the others to dive for the ground.

One bullet left!

Spencer pressed the gun to Stocky Man’s head and pulled the trigger.  The bang was so close it stunned him, and the brains and shards of skull that shot across his face blinded him for a moment.  As the body in his arms dropped, Spencer groped for the dead man’s right hand, found the Makarov, wiped a bit of blood out of his left eye and fired on the remaining two Russians,

The Russians had
Uzis, and set out uncontrolled bursts at the snow, leading a trail up to Spencer, who had fallen to the ground and let Stocky Man cover him, absorbing the rest of the bullets.  They ran, firing wildly behind them as Spencer took careful aim.  Spencer hit the first man at the base of his spine, then in his right shoulder.  The second man took a bullet through the neck, but just cupped the gushing wound with a hand and kept on running like it had been nothing more than an insect bite.

Grunting, Spencer pushed the corpse
away and stood to give chase.  It wasn’t difficult.  The trail of blood looked like someone had spilled a couple buckets of paint, and by the time he’d rounded the cabin the final thug was on the ground in the front yard, gargling the last of his life’s blood and crawling past the body of the first thug Spencer had killed.  Then, he stopped crawling, started wallowing and making a fucked up snow angel.

Panting and wiping the
rest of the skull fragments from his face, Spencer stood over the bastard and said, “Look at me! 
Look!
  I did this to—” He never got to finish.  The Russian levled the Uzi at him, ready to fire.  Spencer squeezed his trigger first.  The spray of blood was a perfect starburst out the backside of the thug’s head.  Brain matter spread out like a giant paintbrush had dashed crimson across a white canvas.  The Russian fell back into the snow, lying in the imprint of his own snow angel.

Spencer stood there a mom
ent trying to catch his breath.  The wind was still howling.  Or wait…no, it wasn’t the wind.  Spencer took a moment to look around.  He scanned the cabin, the driveway, and the shed.  Then he looked towards the woods.  It was difficult to see through the storm, but he thought he made out small, gray and black figures moving towards him, almost the size of children.  More howls.  Growling and snarling. 
Wolves?
  He knew they were a serious problem out in these parts.  Perhaps they had smelled Zakhar’s blood on the wind, and answered the call of their instincts.

As soon as they materialized, they vanished, swallowed up by the snow. 
They’ll be back, though
. 
They’ll get their meal
.  He laughed at the thought. 
And boy, I have a buffet laid out for them
.

Spencer
staggered through the knee-high snow and sat on the bumper of the SUV.  He bent over to check the burns on his lower legs, and touched the back of his neck, where the fire had singed him.  He heard a low grumbling noise, some slithering, and a fell voice in the air.  “
This one’s appetite
…
he could be used if
…
yes
…
Yes!  His appetites
…”

The next few moments of Spencer’s life were largely on autopilot.  Looked around.  Saw no one.  Pushed himself off the bumper.  Tucked the gun in his waistband.  Went to the two dead bodies in the front yard.  Stared down at them.  Knelt.  Examined their guns.  Checked their pockets for ID, money, cell phones, and more ammo.  Took their Uzis. 
Found the red bear tattoos the
vory v zakone
were known to carry on their arms and legs.  Stood.  Walked away.

“
Yes
…
yes, this one’s very useful
…”

“Fuck you,” Spencer said, peeking into the shed to make sure the Subaru was still there.  “You don’t own me, bastard.”

“
Very useful
.”

It took a few minutes to check the shed and all around it, then around the larger cabin to make sure that there was nobody he missed. 
Besides the one that ran off
, he reminded himself.  The wind howled a lonely song.  Perhaps it was the wolves.  Besides Spencer and the creatures speaking to him from someplace else, there was no one else out here now.