Shadow Man (55 page)

“Keith had always kept his key to the basement door hidden under a lamp in his bedroom. He thought I didn’t know, but I did. So that day I went and got it, and I went to the basement door and unlocked it.

“I stood for a long time at the top of the stairs, looking down into the darkness. Wrestling with myself. Then I turned on the light and I went down those stairs.”

She stops speaking for so long that I am afraid she has lost sense of the here and now, that she is trapped in that past moment. I almost reach out to touch her arm when she begins speaking again.

“I waited for him to come home from school. When he came in the door, I told him that I’d gone into the basement. What I’d found. I told him that he’d saved my life and set me free, and that he was my son. So I wouldn’t tell. But I told him I could no longer let him live under my roof.

“I wasn’t sure if he would believe me, at first. About not telling what I’d found, I mean.” Her smile is bemused. “I suppose there was something, some part of him, that loved me. I don’t know if it was because I was his mother, or if it was because he felt that he needed something he could hold on to, something that would remind him he was still a human being. Whichever it was, he barely said a word. He packed up his things, grabbed a few items from the basement, kissed me on the cheek, and told me he loved me and understood—and walked out the door. I haven’t seen him since. It’s been almost thirty years.”

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Tears are running down her cheeks again. She looks up at Don Rawlings. “When I read about that poor girl and saw that Peter was a suspect, I knew he had to have done it. It fit, you see. With what I found in the basement.” She wrings her hands. “I know I should have said something. Should have come forward. But I . . . he’d saved my life. He was my son. I know none of those things makes it right. It seemed right at the time, somehow. Now . . .” She sighs a sigh that seems to contain decades of exhaustion. “Now I’m old. And I’m tired. Tired of all the pain and secrets and nightmares.”

“What did you see in the basement, Patricia?” I ask her. She looks into my eyes, fiddling with the gold necklace.

“Go and see for yourself. I haven’t opened that door for nearly thirty years. It’s time to open it now.”

She pulls the necklace I have been watching her twist up over her head. Attached to it is a large key. She hands it to me.

“Go ahead. Open that door. It’s time to let the sunlight in.”

54

I
BELIEVE WHAT
Patricia has said. That no one has entered through this door for a long, long time. The lock resists the turn of the key. It probably hasn’t been opened for almost thirty years. Alan works on it, alternating between being a picture of concentration and cursing like a mine worker.

“Ah . . .” he says, followed by the click of the lock. “Got it.”

He stands up and swings the door wide. I see a set of wooden stairs, leading down into darkness. For the first time, the question occurs to me.

“Patricia, this is California. This house didn’t come with this basement. Did Keith put it in?”

“His grandfather did.” She points to the left side of the door. “Do you see the discoloration on the wall there? Keith said a fake shelf on hinges used to hide the door. I don’t know why he ever took it off.” She is standing back, away from the opening to the basement. Afraid.

“You’ll find that the stairway leads down to a walkway. The basement is not actually right underneath the house. Keith said his grandfather built it that way on purpose. Due to the earthquakes.”

“Have you been down there since the ’91 quake?” Jenny asks.

“I haven’t been down there since that day. Light is on the wall to the right. Be careful.” She heads back to the living room at a fast pace. Not a run, but close.

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Jenny looks over at me, eyebrows raised. “That’s not good, Smoky. There’s a reason we don’t have basements in California. Reasons called

‘seismic events.’ It might not be safe down there.”

I think about what she’s saying. But only for a minute. “I can’t wait, Jenny. I need to see what’s in that basement.”

She looks at me for a second, and nods. “Me too.” A faint smile. “But you go first.”

I head down the stairs, followed by everyone else. The clopping sound of shoes on wood is muffled the farther down we go. I assume it is the dirt around and above us, natural soundproofing. It is cool down here. Cool, quiet, and alone.

It’s as Patricia said. At the bottom of the stairs, we find ourselves in a narrow hallway of concrete. Approximately twenty feet away, I can see a shadow in the shape of a door. It takes just a few moments to reach, and I see a light switch outside it. I turn on the light and all of us enter.

“Wow,” James says. “Will you look at all that?”

It is a large room, about five hundred square feet. Nothing about it is decorated or distinct. It’s a thing of gray concrete, stark lighting, and utilitarian furniture.

What had drawn James’s remark was what he saw against the far left wall.

I walk toward it, amazed. The wall is covered, ceiling to floor, with life-size professional diagrams of the human body. All precisely labeled, starting first with the exterior, a fully fleshed body. Then skin removed, showing the muscular system, followed by more diagrams showing the internal organs in detail.

I move closer to this wall, and in doing so notice a far wall, which had been obscured by the bad lighting. What I see on that other wall sends a jolt through my system.

“Everyone,” I say, “look at this.”

This wall had been painted white, so as to emphasize the black of the lettering on it:

The Commandments of the Ripper:

1. Most of humanity are cattle. You are of the ancient predators, the orig-
inal hunters. Never let the morality of the cattle deter you from the mission.
S H A D O W M A N

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2. It is never a sin to kill a whore. They are the spawn of the devil,
and a boil upon the skin of society.

3. When you kill a whore, and you have moved from the shadows,
kill her in the most ghastly way possible, as a lesson to her fellow whores.
4. Feel no guilt if you exult in the murder of a whore. You are from
the ancient line, and you are a meat-eater. Your bloodlust is natural.
5. All women have it in them to become whores. Take a woman only
to pass on the line. Never allow them to confuse your mind or heart.
They are breeders, nothing more.

6. If the teachings are passed on, they may be passed on only to a son,
NEVER a daughter.

7. Each Ripper must find his own Abberline. You must be hunted if
you are to keep your senses honed, your skills sharp.
8. Until you find your Abberline, you must keep your work hidden
from view.

9. Die rather than be caged.

10. The descendants of the Shadow Man are fearless. They satiate
their needs without hesitation or compunction. Always strive to exem-
plify this. To seek out the calculated risk, the gamble that makes your
blood sing.

11. Never forget that you descend from him—the Shadow Man.

“God damn,” Don whispers.

I’m inclined to agree.

“Look over here,” Alan says.

There are three rows of shelving in the room.

“More anatomy. All kinds of texts on Jack the Ripper.” He peers closer, pulls something off one of the shelves, opens it up. “I thought so.” He looks at me. “Journals.” He flips through the pages, stopping at one. He holds it out for me to see.

Taped inside are a series of black-and-white photographs, stretched out over a number of pages. They show a young woman bound to a table and gagged. The walls in the photo look like this room. I stop for a moment, walk around the shelves.

“Alan,” I say. He moves to me and I point to the table in front of us, then to the photo.

“Damn,” he says, his face tightening. “That’s right here.”

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The series of pictures show the rape, torture, and evisceration of the young woman. They all have a ghastly “how to” look to them. As though the masked man in the photographs is delivering a seminar on suffering and depravity.

“Jesus,” I say. “How many of these are there?”

“Close to a hundred, I’d guess.”

I flip past the pictures to one of the written entries.
Peter is showing himself to be of the line, even at eight. He watched as
I murdered the whore, taking photos and asking intelligent questions
throughout. He was especially interested in the mechanics of the eviscera-
tion. I am happy to note that his vomiting problem, which has been gone
for a year now, shows no signs of resurfacing.
I move along to another entry.

I brought Peter along on the hunt this time. It wasn’t a school night,
and I feel it’s important that he begin to be more personally involved. He
is ten, after all. I was pleased. He is gifted.
Side note—he was embarrassed when I stripped the whore down and
he noticed that his penis had gotten hard. I explained the mechanics of
this to him and forced the whore to pleasure him with her hand. He was
fascinated and seemed to enjoy this. He thanked me afterward.
And more:

Peter asked me today how old I was when I killed my first whore. I
hesitated to tell him the full truth of it. He is so filled with the strength of
our line, I was afraid of revealing my father’s weakness to him. I feared
he might begin to doubt the nobility of our blood. In the end, I told him
all: How my father had hidden the secret of our lineage from me. How I
had only discovered the truth through my own research of our genealogy.
About my father’s weak denials when I confronted him with what I had
found. How he and my mother had attempted to make me think I was
crazy. I needn’t have worried about Peter. The look of adoration he gave
me when I told him my tale of perseverance, of my search for truth and of
the vengeance I exacted on my father, is something I will cherish forever.
S H A D O W M A N

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“Christ,” Alan mutters. “It’s just like Patricia said. He started warping the kid early.”

“Never had a chance,” James remarks. “Not that it matters now. It’s been too long. He’s unsalvageable.”

I don’t respond. My ears are filled with a roaring noise, and I am dizzy. Electric shocks dance through my body. I have flipped to the last page in the book, and the signature I see there has my mind spinning in terror, rage, disbelief, shame, and betrayal.