Saltar's Point (26 page)

Sheila opened her eyes to witness Darrow withdraw a six-inch curved blade from his belt. She had seen that kind of knife once before when she was young. Her father had used one to slit the belly of a buck open from groin to gullet. The sight had terrified her, remaining in her subconscious. It had sliced through the flesh like a pair of scissors through Christmas wrapping paper. Her father had only to make a small incision and then slide the blade in a smooth motion upward. Sheila had watched the skin and fur part like the Red Sea, spreading open easily under its own weight and spilling dark smelly red blood that ran down from the wound exposing the organs and bone beneath. Now she lay like a deer before the hunter that had felled it, unable to move and certain of her own demise.

The only words that she could think of spilled from her lips like that of the blood from the gutted deer. “Why? Why me?”

“Because darlin’, just because.”

The vagueness of his reply made her situation even worse. If her death had a purpose then at least she could go to her grave with that, but he offered her nothing, just a wicked sneer and a wicked heart. The first incision started at her ankle and moved upward along her shin and over her thigh. The searing hot pain of the blade raced up her body and screamed within her mind. Blood poured from the wound, collecting in pools before running down the slightly angled table to the small drainage plug located between her ankles. She saw the demon kneel down and begin to drink, her blood, her life, running between her thighs to nourish the ravaged beast. It was then, thankfully that she passed out, no longer bearing witness to her own death.

Upstairs Abby heard the screams, piercing through the darkness like the screams she had heard in this mansion so often before. One glaring contrast struck her and amplified her terror. The screams she had heard before were ghostly, demonic even, certainly not of this world. She shut her eyes tight and tried not to cry, but the reality of what was happening chilled her soul. These cries were not demonic, nor ghostly, they were human.

Downstairs Darrow worked feverously, separating the skin and flesh from the bone. Before he had made one glaring mistake, he had left the body for the snooping detectives to find. This time however would be different. He separated the soft tissue from the skeleton: skin, muscle tissue, organs, and hair, all was collected and placed within five-gallon drums. He would burn all of this in the fire pit behind the mansion, incinerating the evidence and completing the perfect crime. The bones would be collected and then taken to nearby Lake Sequoia. There he would heave a gunnysack full of bones, weighted down by stones far into the center of the water and let them sink to the mud below. There would be no evidence, not this time, and the detectives could wilt away in the seclusion of their police stations. He had become a God now; there was no one who could touch him.

The demon waited patiently for him to finish his work, full of blood and content to feel the power that Darrow’s latest kill had supplied his body. He could feel the energy moving throughout him, coursing through his living tissue and giving him strength on this earthly plain. With each victim he could feel his strength increase, soon he would be able to move about freely, not confined to the lower levels of the mansion. In fact, he wondered if he was now powerful enough to ascend to the second floor. There a certain inhabitant drew his fancy, and he would very much like to meet her.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Over the next several weeks Ellie became accustomed to her new surroundings. It wasn’t exactly home, but it wasn’t the living hell it had been when she first arrived. The staff at the Alderwood Addiction Recovery Center was professional and treated her like a person, taking the time to learn her name and say hi when they met her in the hallway or cafeteria. She had opened up at her meetings (this time with words instead of vomit) and almost enjoyed the counseling sessions. She wasn’t sure how much good it did for her psychologically or medically, but at the very worst it was comforting to share stories and experiences with other people who had been in her shoes.

Some of their stories made her realize that her situation wasn’t as bad as she had thought. There were some people in her group who had gone through things that were almost too terrible to speak of. John Duggin, a sixty-something recovering alcoholic crashed his pickup truck into the back of a minivan one night while he was plastered, smashing up the back and sending a fireball through the van when the gas tank erupted. The van contained an entire family on their way to visit their grandparents for Labor Day weekend. They had gotten a flat tire on I-5 and pulled off the shoulder so that the father could change it. He witnessed Duggin’s truck barreling down on the van at eighty miles an hour and was able to get out of the way before the impending impact sprayed broken glass and metal shrapnel all over the freeway. Duggin passed out behind the wheel but suffered only a broken leg and collapsed lung. The father however was not so lucky, he suffered third degree burns on his hands and face trying to pull his three children and wife from the vehicle, only to witness them burn to death in the searing hot flames.

Duggin had served ten years of a fifteen-year sentence before finally being paroled in 1994.  He was sober for two years after his release until never-ending guilt and remorse drove him, so to speak, back to the bottle.

Tamara Davis, a single mother about Ellie’s age had her three children taken away from her by the state after numerous failed attempts to stop smoking crack cocaine. The lowlight came one day when she left the children unattended in the house while she went out to get more crack. Her oldest child, a six-year-old girl had pulled a pot of boiling water down on top of her after Tamara had left it carelessly on the stove. The little girl suffered second degree burns on her chest and abdomen. Child Protection Services quickly intervened and she had not seen her children since. She received mandatory drug counseling and two years probation for that, but the real price would be paid everyday in the loss of her children.

Antonio Zuniga did eight years for armed robbery trying to feed his addiction. Walter Mutzl did four for home invasion. Bethany Riddick contracted hepatitis C from her heroine habit, and had to spend the rest of her life on methadone. The list went on and on. They were like problem gamblers, getting whipped by the house night after night and always coming back for more. And people with problems attract people with problems, falling into the same ruts and habits like lemmings following one another off a cliff. Ellie felt a sense of relief that she didn’t have problems to this extent, but she couldn’t help but feel a little guilty also, after all she was a drug addict, just like the rest of them, only she had Randall Jackson in her life, a man who was supportive but authoritative enough to force her to seek help before something terrible happened.

Still the most enjoyable part of Ellie’s day was in the evening when her family came to visit. Seeing Aiden so distraught always filled her heart with sadness, but she knew that Randall was taking good care of him and he always told her excitedly about their fishing trips or when grandpa let him help out around the store. So when Randall called her earlier today and told her that they weren’t coming tonight it was as if someone had driven a wooden stake through her heart.

Randall was exhausted, he had been pulling twelve-hour shifts to keep up with his sheriff duties and help the detectives with their homicide investigation. Cletus too needed rest. The emotional strain and late visiting hours night after night had left him groggy and slow. They were all going to stay home and get some rest. When Randall called to break the news, Ellie did her best to sound understanding, but it was a difficult task. She wanted to scream at him, to tell him that he was being selfish, going home to sleep in his nice warm cozy bed while he left her here to rot with the rest of the alkies and pill poppers, but she could not. He had been nothing but wonderful and supportive, and she couldn’t fault him for wanting to get a little rest.

Ellie collapsed on her bed, feeling truly alone for the first time. She flopped her feet up on the wall above her headboard, resting her soles flat and staring down the length of her thighs to her toes. A three inch pink scar ran from the top of her knee to the beginning of her thigh, inflicted on her when she was six years old. She had fallen out of a pine tree, breaking a branch on the way down and feeling the sharp pointed wood of the severed branch cut into her tender flesh. The scar was faded and faint now. You had to squint to see it, and then only if you knew it was there. Over the years it had melded back into her flesh as though the accident had never happened, until nothing but an almost forgotten memory remained. It was funny though, the girls in her kindergarten class had teased her about it incessantly, calling her names and saying she would be a monster for life. The taunting had stayed with her much longer than the mark upon her flesh. Emotional scars run deepest Ellie supposed. This night, she was sure that one of those emotional scars would be branded on her forever.

Ellie lay there and pondered the mysteries of life for about fifteen minutes before the heavy fog of sleep began to build behind her eyes. She swung her feet over the bed and rose, heading for the door and cinching her robe tight about her waist as she entered the hallway. She proceeded to the communal bathroom located midway between her room and the next ward. She flipped on the switch and listened to the fluorescent light above her pop and crackle to life. One of the long cylindrical light bulbs had burned out and the other remaining bulb struggled to cast shadows over the rest of the room. It gave Ellie the creeps. The plastic light covering was dingy and yellow, stained with time and nicotine, and harboring an immense graveyard of insects, their wispy bodies hollow and legs curled upward, they cast shadows on the wall fifty times their size. What other light did escape for its intended illumination purposes was yellow and dim, clinging to what it touched in small irritating patches like dryer lint on black socks. The floor was tile, consisting of a patchwork of different colored earth tones pieced together randomly in an arrogant display of artistic vomit. Formerly white paint flaked off the walls in curling strips that hung motionless before eventually falling to the tile and being swept away by a janitorial push broom. A rusted cast iron radiator sat in one corner, occasionally clanging grumpily and daring anyone to accidentally touch it and feel the searing heat cascading off its surface. On the south wall sat a small collection of footlockers, two feet by two feet with built-in combination locks. Each resident was assigned one to house his or her personal toiletry items. In the center of that wall a small corridor led back to six shower stalls, each one complete with two sets of beige mildew-stained shower curtains. The first curtain concealed a small changing station complete with a small wooded bench, and the second concealed the shower itself.

Ellie faced her locker and began the combination sequence, fourteen right, six left, twenty-four right. The tumblers clicked into place and the door fell open. Inside sat her hairbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, toothbrush, and disposable safety razor, with a small hotel-sized canister of shave gel issued by the clinic. Residents were allowed no more items than this and their lockers were examined everyday by staff members to ensure that no one was stashing drugs. It was a demeaning way to live. Ellie felt like a prisoner having her meager cell searched daily by over zealous guards looking for contraband. Hairspray! Cell six! One night in solitary and one week of scrubbing the mess hall pots and pans. We’ll go easy on you this time, but your second offense will cost you dearly, don’t press your luck. Ellie sighed and retrieved her toothbrush and paste. She ambled in that swaggering motion that all exhausted people seemed to have until she stood face to face with her own reflection in the mirror. She felt as though she had aged ten years and looked like it had been fifteen. New wrinkles had formed under her eyes and around the corners of her mouth, giving her the middle-aged appearance that all women dread. Life passed by like tumble weeds in a desert windstorm, don’t blink or you’ll miss it.

She turned the nozzle letting the water run and waited for it to turn cool. When it was frigid she splashed the stinging drops on her face, feeling her pores cinch shut against the cold. She shivered slightly, but not just from the water and cold tiles upon her feet, something else had chilled her to the bone. She looked up at her reflection again, shuddering in the cool night air. It was then that she saw the streak. Behind her, reflected in the mirror something moved. As quickly as it had appeared it was gone, leaving Ellie to rub her eyes and wonder what it was she had just seen. The goose pimples formed up and down her spine leaving her petrified with fright, unable to turn around. What in the hell was that? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but she had to find out. Slowly she forced herself to turn around with methodical movements. The bathroom was empty, save for herself and the shadows of her insect friends. 

Ellie swallowed the lump in her throat and forced her voice to come out. It was small and meek but thundered in her head due to the terror in her heart.

“Who’s there?”

There was no answer. She called out again, trying to control the shaking in her hands. The result was the same, deafening silence. And then in the shadows, against the wall next to the far shower stall she saw the movement again, slower this time. Something small jerked its way along the tile floor, moving towards the shower curtain. Ellie tried to focus her eyes but to no avail, she couldn’t make anything out except for the movement in the darkness. Christ Ellie, you’re hallucinating. It’s all part of the detox process, that’s all, just your body and your mind screaming out for fix, nothing more. She closed her eyes for a moment and felt dizzy upon her feet. When she opened them the shadows laid still, unmoving, lending credibility to her hallucination theory. And that theory would have made perfect sense if it weren’t for one thing. The shower curtain on the last stall swayed back and forth slightly as though someone had just walked through it.

Ellie stood motionless for a while, watching the curtain swing gently back and forth like a medieval pit and pendulum, the axe dropping lower ever so slightly with each passing, creating unspeakable dread for the victim below, and right now Ellie felt like that victim.

“Who’s there Goddamn it.”

Silence.

“I saw you, so you might as well come out. This isn’t funny.”

She tried to speak with authority but her voice crackled on the last syllable betraying her fear. With as much courage as she could muster Ellie began to move forward. Her feet sounded like a herd of elephants in her head and her palms beaded with sweat, but she pressed onward. The curtain made its last final gyration before coming to a stop and hanging stoically from the rod above. Somehow the lack of motion began to terrorize Ellie more than when the curtain was moving, the stillness exaggerating the anticipation. Still she pressed onward, watching the tiles disappear beneath her feet with each step. At last she stood before the curtain, drawing ragged breaths and trying in vain to slow her heart rate. She reached out tentatively for the edge of the curtain and hesitated. What the hell am I doing? Just go on back to your bed and forget this whole thing ever happened. It was the best advice her subconscious had offered yet, but for some reason she could not heed it. Her curiosity overcoming all else, she yanked the curtain back in a violent motion. The changing station was empty. Ellie’s heart slowed a beat, until she looked down. On the tile were tiny footprints -like those that a child would make she thought- printed on the tile until they disappeared beneath the next curtain. The thing that disturbed Elli most was that the footprints seemed to have been left in
ash?

(Oh no, no fucking way. This is way too creepy.)

Horror movies started out this way, with some stupid girl with large breasts and a flat stomach pressing onward despite the ominous warning signs. And it always ended the same, with her getting ripped to shreds by some knife-wielding maniac, or decapitated by some monster from beyond the grave. Ellie always found herself yelling at the screen. Don’t go in there, are you frickin’ crazy? You’re going to die. Just leave, turn and walk away, ride off into the sunset with that hunk on the motorcycle before you both become garden mulch. But they never listened, and for some reason, neither could she. She had to know what was behind that curtain. She wiped her sweaty palms against her nightgown and braced herself one more time. Come on Ellie, won’t take much now, just one more curtain.

She grabbed the edge and yanked. The next moment played out before her eyes in slow motion like a scene in one of those awful horror movies. The metal curtain rings screeched against the steel shower rod like nails on a chalkboard, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Ellie’s eyes bulged at the sight in front of her. She managed to stifle her scream by placing her hand over her mouth and holding her breath. There on the tile wall before her were words written in ash that had absorbed the moisture from the air creating a slushy paste. The thick mixture dripped down the wall with deliberate slowness, warping the message and leaving long streaks of black all the way to the floor. The words read simply: Help Abby.