Psycho Within Us (The Psycho Series Book 2) (27 page)

Or was there?  Gurgling.  Someone screaming.  A survivor amid the dead.  Spencer started to go and search.

Halfway around the house, he started laughing.  It started somewhere deep in his gut, and, like a sneeze, it was more painful to keep it in than to just let it out and be done with it.  When he found Kaley, he was nearly bent over laughing and she was crying.  She had stepped away from the porch.  Spencer saw the way she moved so strangely across the snow, like it was ice.  She slipped and slid away from the bodies, all but one of which were dead.  Her feet sometimes dipped below the snow, sometimes stayed above it, never leaving a footprint or even the slightest impression.

Spencer shook his head,
snickering.  He then swaggered over to where one of the Russians lay, gargling and moaning, face down in the snow.  The man’s Uzi was on the ground, just out of arm’s reach.  Spencer kicked the weapon away and then stepped on the man’s neck.  “Erik, isn’t it?”  The man turned his head from the snow.  His jaw was exposed, a gaping hole in his cheek revealed missing teeth and a lolling tongue sticking through the wound.  Blood was gushing across the snow and melting it.  “Now, what was it you were sayin’ about ripping out my throat through my asshole?  How d’ya say that in Russian?  Hey!” he called out to Kaley.  “Where’re you goin’?”

In a daze, the little girl had gone back to the porch, stepping up onto the wooden planks but pushing through the railing.  Not looking very surefooted, she eased her way to the back door.  “I…I…I…
I…”

“
Four I’s in as many seconds,” he chuckled, unzipping his fly.  “An’ they call
me
narcissistic.”

“I…I have to check on…”

“The boy, right!  You go do that.”

She paused in the doorway.  “You knew?”  She was dazed, still trying to figure it all out.  “You knew I’d fade away?  Teleport, or whatever?”

“No,” he said.  “But I had a theory.  It’s reactive.  Like Avery Street.  Like in the basement with the boy.  Like you said, tossing a baseball at you, you just react.”  He nodded towards the house.  “Now go fetch the kid, gather what you need.  We’re outta this shithole ASAP.  We need to be gone before more of Douchebag McGee here’s friends show up.  Go on, get to it.”

When she was gone, Spencer
pulled out his pecker, and starting pissing into the hole in the side of Erik’s face.  “Me an’ Erik, we got some catchin’ up to do.  Ain’t that right, Erik?”  The man gargled, screamed.  The piss had leaked into his throat and he was choking on it as well as his own blood.  When Spencer zipped up again, he felt something lick past his leg.  Thinking it was Stocky Man or one of the others not quite finished off, he spun and aimed his new Uzi at the ground…

Nothing there.  For a moment, for just a second, he thought he saw something swimming there on the ground, but it was so faint, like an after-image when you glanced at the sun and looked away quickly.  There was a faint trail of it…and then it was gone.  He looked out at the lake, then did a few turns, looking at the corpses all around him, then back at the lake.  “Fuck you,” he said to the wind.  “You ain’t gettin’ your hooks into me.  Understand?  Homey don’t play that.”

“…
very useful
…”

“Yeah?  Fuck you.  Who says I can’t use
you
?”

“…
the other girl
…
the sister
…”

On the ground, one of the dead men’s cell phones was vibrating.  Spencer could just barely hear it, yet
he ignored it for the moment.  Behind him, Erik gurgled.  “Shut the
fuck
up, Erik!  Adults are talkin’ here.  Ya see what happened to your mouth the last time you opened it.”

Walking like a woman on a boat in choppy waters, Kaley completed two difficult tasks: she ascended the stairs of the cabin, and she exited the girls’ bathroom.  The door of the bathroom slowly shut behind her.  Kaley didn’t quite get out of its way, and when it closed it bumped her butt and pushed her out into the hall.  She blinked once, twice, then started back to class.  There was nothing else for it.  Mrs. Cartwright…was gone.  And if Kaley hadn’t been able to bring David Emerson back, she almost certainly couldn’t retrieve Mrs. Cartwright, especially not after…not after…
God, why did it do that to her?  What is it?  What have I done?

The smell of the school, the floor cleaners, the slightly rusted hinges of the lockers on either side of the hall, the posters on the wall that said
YOU CAN DO IT CANES!
, and the spot underneath it where someone had scribbled in tiny magic marker
NO WE CAN’T!
, all of it did nothing to break down the walls of her stunned heart and mind. 
School
, she thought, searching for something to connect the word with. 
I’m at school
.  Yes, she was.  And what of it?  Mrs. Cartwright was dead.  She was dead and little else mattered.

Somewhere
along that spider web, Shannon was trembling, just a tad, but enough that her handwriting was all off.  Kaley felt her sister’s fears, and she tried to remotely allay them.  Reflexive. 
Like catching the boy
…
dodging the bullets
…
natural
.

One foot in front of the other, Kaley was returning to room 208.  What would happen if the other students asked her if she’d seen Mrs. Cartwright?
  What was she supposed to say?

Kaley looked down at the fl
oor, watched the water froth around her.  Whatever she had been dreaming over the last few months, all those dreams about the water and things swimming beneath it, it had all been something she’d seen coming, at least on an unconscious level, the same way she had known when first meeting Spencer Pelletier outside of Dodson’s Store that her time with him was not finished.

The water was calmer now.  Quite a few ripples were spreading across it, though nothing seemed to be swimming in it at the moment and there was no appreciable wind, none except what was blowing in through the open window on the top floor of the cabin.  Kaley stepped into the room where the boy had hidden beneath the bed, she could sense him and knew that he was all right, but at the moment it hardly mattered.  Even Mrs. Cartwright’s death didn’t seem to matter.

Some of Kaley’s ambivalence towards all of this was undoubtedly due to shock.  She was growing numb.  That could be bad.

And then…there was
a ringing in her ears.  Strident and soul-piercing.  Kaley jerked and looked all around.  Up and down the hall, doors were opening and kids were stepping out.  She blinked.  Someone yelled, “Alexander Hewett!  Don’t you run out of my classroom!”  More kids came zipping out from doors.  Kaley blinked again, then looked along the walls for a clock. 
Little hand on the nine, big hand on the four, so
…

It was 9:20
AM
in Cartersville, Georgia.  The end of first period.  Of course, first period was the shortest class of the day by ten minutes.  All other classes were an hour and a half long. 
Time’s up already
.  But Kaley’s day was just starting.  Part of her knew to go to the boy and give him the care and love he needed, but another part of her was on autopilot.  The bell…it held a magical power over her, and she had to obey.  She had to go back to class, gather up her things, and head to second period.

Mr. Boulier’s class
, she thought, a bit absently. 
Social studies
.  The other kids had started breezing past her.  One kid wearing his band uniform slammed his trumpet case into her side, knocking her sideways into a tall, fat black girl that said, “Better watch where you goin’, girl.”  When Kaley just stared at her, the girl added, “I ain’t playin’,” then disappeared down the hall.

Some dorky white kid
s came up to her and shook their hips in front of her, saying, “Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle,” a reference to that song by that band LMFAO, or whatever.  The boys moved on, laughing with one another.  She hardly noticed, or cared.

Need to get my things
. 
Can’t be late for Mr. Boulier, he writes people up without a second thought
.

Kaley went to class to retrieve her things. 
Below the bed, the boy was whimpering.  Kaley went to him.

Shannon Dupré sniffled.  A tear dropped on her paper, smudging what she’d written.  It was a vocabulary quiz, one where there were two columns: the left column had a series of words, and the right column had a series of definitions.  She had to connect the words with their correct definitions:
necessary
,
implied
,
seldom
,
independent
,
guardian
…

Usually, vocabulary was one of her strong points, but right now the words wouldn’t orient themselves, or, more to the point, she couldn’t quite orient herself with her work. 
I told her not to go near the laughing man
. 
I told her this would happen!  I told her!

In her hand, her pencil was trembling.  Slowly, she lowered
the pencil and cupped her hands together, then wrung them, and tried to breathe.  Kaley had taught her to breathe in slowly for five seconds, hold it for five seconds, then to exhale for five seconds.  Some book she’d read on stress relief said this would help.

She reached up to wipe her eye.  “Shannon?” said a voice just over her shoulder.  It was Ms. Moore, kneeling beside her desk.  “You okay?”  She touched a hand on Shan’s wrist, gave it a light, loving squeeze.  “Are you crying?”  She was trying to keep her voice down where the other kids wouldn’t hear.  Ms. Moore was nice like that.  She’d let Shan have her desk at the very back of the class, so others couldn’t whisper to her or make fun.  And so that if she neede
d to scratch her private parts (which happened from time to time because of the infection) or if she had to leave to apply the special cream the doctor had given her, she could do it without anyone seeing.

“You know I’ve always told you you’re free to go to the bathroom anytime you need,” Ms. Moore said.  “You don’t even have to wait to ask.”

Shan nodded, and wiped her eyes again.  “I know.  I’m just…I’m fine.”

“Sure?”  Ms. Moore raised a suspicious but playful eyebrow.  Shan could feel Ms. Moore’s heart aching for her.  Her teacher didn’t know the full details, but the principal had given her the gist of what happened in Atlanta.  A lo
vely woman, with a kind face.  She was a single mother with two children, and had great powers of empathy.  Sometimes, just being near Ms. Moore made Shan feel a little better.  Not as much as being near Kaley, but better.

“I’m fine,” Shannon said, and lifted her pencil.  Her hand had gone steady again.

Ms. Moore smiled.  “Okay, well, you just let me know if you need anything.”  She stood and stepped away.  When she did, it was like Shannon was stepping away from a warm fireplace, and now the cold could set in again.  The dark, mischievous, and even morbid feelings of the others around her. 
Ward your heart
. 
That’s what Kaley always says
.

Shannon had learned to do some of that, but she wasn’t as strong as Kaley.  Her big sister had a power Shan admired, and just knowing that Kaley had mastered the ability to “ward” her heart gave Shan hope that she could do the same
someday.

“
This one
…
this is the one that gives her strength
.”  There it was again, that voice.  For the last half hour, Shannon had thought she heard whispers from the kids up front, some of them directed at her.  But those whispers had all been vague and distant.  Now, she could clearly make out most of the words.  “
It’s her, it’s her
…
destroy this one, and you break the other
…”

Kaley felt something nudge her left heel.  She reached down to swat at it, but there was nothing there.  She looked all around her desk, then focused on her work again.  Slowly but surely, the words began to make sense again, and
Shan became reacquainted with her vocabulary.

The deed was done.  Shcherbakov gathered up his bag of tools, zipped it, flung it over his shoulder and headed for the door.  He’d worn gloves while walking in, so no need to wipe anything down for prints.  He gave the apartment another once-over, just to be absolutely certain he hadn’t missed anything or anyone—perhaps a visiting niece hiding in a closet somewhere, a tiny nephew hiding in the washing machine.  He’d made the mistake of not double-checking once at the start of his career, and that had almost been the end of it.

The Grey Wolf paused at the door, his hand on the doorknob, just going through another mental checklist.  He looked at Ms. Rubashkin, the large pool of blood still jetting out of her south end.  The muffle
d snarls of the rats inside her fighting against each other for a way out was the only noise to fill the apartment.  Ultimately, and predictably, she’d died struggling to get free, choking herself to death while her lower body hemorrhaged blood.  By the time forensics arrived, this scene would be a lot worse.  The rats would have gnawed their way out well before then, made meals out of other parts of her, and perhaps taken up residence in the chest cavity. 
Message sent
, he thought.