The Many (24 page)

22

Karl pushed the needle up to seventy-five, thinking Dr. Reynolds might’ve spotted the Civic and was now trying to shake him. But the road wasn’t made for speed and on the first tight bend he lost control of the car, feeling the back tires throw him away from the turn. He took his foot off the pedal and kept hold of the steering wheel, carefully guiding the skidding car around the road.

But just as his front wheels regained traction, a dark shape flashed in front of his headlights. There was no time to swerve and before he’d even slammed on the brakes, the dark thing smacked into the front of the Civic and went thumping over the roof.

“Shit!” he yelled, screeching to a halt about thirty yards from the collision. He twisted around in his seat, frantically peering through the rear windshield. The taillights only lit up a small patch of road behind him. He couldn’t see into the dark bend, where he thought the thing had slid off of his roof.

What the fuck had he hit?

Karl got out of the car, taking the keys, but leaving the headlights on. “Hello?” he called out. “Is anyone there?”

The only sound was his nervous, shallow breath. Whatever he’d hit couldn’t even raise a groan. He walked deeper into the mist.

Approaching the bend, he saw a crumpled body in the grass at the side of the road. The hair was matted and black, the face turned away from him. Dressed in jeans and a navy blue jacket.

Not Dawn, at least. It looked like a man.

Karl approached slowly. “Hello?” he called again, quieter this time. Circling the body, a smooth, featureless face came into view. He bent down for a closer look.

It wasn’t a man, either. It was some kind of crash-test dummy, dressed up in regular clothes. He reached down and pulled the matted hair clean off its head.

Why would someone put a dummy in a woman’s wig? And how had it ended up across his windshield?

Suddenly, the night air tightened around him. The realization that he’d walked into a trap was accompanied by the sound of an engine growling into life.

Light poured onto the road as a truck’s high beams emerged from the darkness, just before the bend. Whoever it was, they’d been waiting for him.

Karl spun around and sprinted towards the Civic, the truck revving wildly behind him. He heard the tires squeal as it slipped into gear and began tearing up the distance between them. It was almost on top of him when he scrambled into the driver’s seat and slammed the door – too late to avoid a collision.

He had his eyes shut tight when the truck roared past, giving the Civic a shudder.

They were only toying with him.

He breathed a sigh of relief, watching the truck screech to a halt a hundred yards up the road, idling menacingly. He shook his head, wondering what the fuck they were trying to prove.

It had to be Leach in the truck, or Maxine. But if they’d wanted to kill him, why waste time with games? Why give him the chance to defend himself? It was a schoolboy error, especially when he had a loaded gun in his glove box.

His open glove box.

Karl noticed the flapping lid, the empty space inside. His gaze shifted to the rear-view mirror.

A pair of blue eyes stared back at him.

Karl gasped, his body seizing in fright. He felt a sharp prick at the side of his neck, too late to do anything…

“There’s a good boy,” Maxine said, her voice full of contempt. She pulled out the needle and creaked back in her seat; the damage done.

Karl stared straight ahead, watching the truck’s chugging exhaust. His vision slowly dimmed, a strange calm washing over him.

It was over.

23

Dawn felt the Jaguar make a hard right turn, the tires squealing on the road. When the car straightened again, the ground was uneven and the darkness behind her eyes had turned black.

This had to be it – the dirt road in the middle of the woods. Leach’s cabin wouldn’t be far away.

Worried that her legs had fallen asleep, Dawn began to silently flex her thighs and calves. At least she had only one option in front of her; there was no room for indecision or last minute jitters. After they’d stopped and Dr. Reynolds was climbing out of the car, she would fling open the door and run for her life. That was it – open the door and run. It seemed so simple a few hours ago. Now, she was afraid her knees would buckle underneath her.

She heard leaves slapping the windows as they juddered over rocks and thick roots. They were climbing higher, her back pulling against the seat. God, she hoped Karl was still behind them. And she hoped her puny Civic was handling the rough terrain. Even the Jaguar had slowed to a crawl to negotiate the bumps and potholes.

After an uncomfortable ten-minute ride, the road suddenly evened out. It sounded like gravel crunching underneath the tires. Dawn noticed a faint glow behind her eyes as they made a long, sweeping turn and slowed to a halt.

Dr. Reynolds killed the engine, pulling the hand brake.

Then nothing. The car was silent apart from Dawn’s thudding heartbeat. She was waiting to spring into action, but Dr. Reynolds made no effort to get out. He must’ve been looking right at her because his warm, red wine breath was wafting over her face.

The cruel bastard was taunting her.

He knew she was faking and he was dragging out her fear. But Dawn was determined not to open her eyes. The longer she resisted, the more time Karl would have to reach them. It wouldn’t take him long to realize something was wrong. Any minute now and he’d be sneaking up on the Jaguar, ready to put a bullet through the doctor’s head. She just had to keep it together a little while longer...

“He’s not coming, you know,” Dr. Reynolds said with a chuckle.

Dawn’s heart almost burst through her chest.

He was just bluffing, she told herself. Karl was coming; he
had
to be coming. It was going to be okay.

She heard the doctor shifting around, reaching for something in the back seat. She opened her eye a slit, seeing his torso twist in his suit jacket. A glimpse of a lamp light over his shoulder, wooden steps up to a door. She closed her eye again when the doctor settled back in his seat.

Then she heard a buckle unfastening. “Welcome back,” the doctor said, suddenly parting her coat to expose her legs.

Dawn’s eyes sprung open in terror, staring at the doctor’s gleeful face as he drove a large syringe deep into her thigh.

24

Karl sensed it right away. Even though his mind was floating in a black fog, he knew something had gone horribly wrong. The dread followed him up to the edge of consciousness. He remembered driving through the woods at night, following red taillights in the mist, a collision…

He jolted awake, his heart jumping into his throat. He blinked furiously, struggling to see through the gluey haze.

What had they done to him? He was sitting down, but he couldn’t move, his muscles straining against an invisible force.

“
Hmmh
,” he cried, attempting to call for help. But there was tape over his mouth, sealing his lips together. “
Hmmgggh
,” he cried again, giving everything he had.

The muffled pleas were deafening inside his head. Some of the noise must’ve bled through the tape, but when he stopped screaming, there was only silence.

He groaned, rolling his head. His eyes picked out basic shapes and colors, his vision slowly returning. Looking down, his body was wrapped in thick white canvas, fixing his arms in a self-embrace.

Fuck
. It wasn’t an invisible force restraining him. It was a straitjacket.

He thrashed about hopelessly, trying to stand up or roll off his seat. But his straitjacket was strapped to the chair and the chair was bolted to a metal floor plate. The floor plate disturbed him more than anything. This was somewhere fully prepared for hostages.

Seeing clearly now, Karl took greater stock of his surroundings. He’d woken up in a small, dimly lit room, about the size of a single bedroom. Judging by the timber-lined walls and exposed wood ceiling, he was in Leach’s secret cabin. It wasn’t the basement, though. There were shades pulled over a window to his right. To his left – a bare window of opaque black glass.

He imagined Leach and his assistants watching him from the other side, taking notes. Had he been injected with a mind-bending substance already? He didn’t feel any different – just a bit groggy from whatever had knocked him out. They would drug him at some stage, though, he was sure of that. Otherwise he would’ve been dead already.

In front of him was a TV. A large flat screen sitting on a mobile cart. Apart from the chair he was strapped to, it was the only object in the room.

With a shiver, he realized they’d wheeled it in special. They wanted to show him something.

Just then, the screen blinked. Karl held his breath, but there was no picture, no sound. Just the slightest background hum. He was about to turn away when a title appeared in the middle of the black screen.

STACEY: 11.18.15.

Karl felt the blood leave his body. November the 18th. The night of Stacey’s date with Dr. Reynolds.

His eyes widened as a crystal clear image of a white room filled the screen. There was a bed in the corner with a young woman perched on the end. She was wearing lacy black lingerie, running a hand through her auburn hair. The room looked cold, but she had a strange, contented look on her face. Like she was sitting by a warm fire.

Stacey.
He wanted to reach out and touch the screen. She looked beautiful, like he’d always remembered her. For a moment, Karl forgot what he was watching.

But then, at the bottom of the screen, a door swung open. Two men wearing dark suits walked into the room. Their backs were to the camera. They looked almost identical tall and broad-shouldered except one man had dark hair and the other was fair. The suits looked expensively tailored.

Stacey got off the bed and stood in front of them, arms dangling at her sides. The men half-turned towards each other. Either they were whispering or communicating with their eyes. Then the dark-haired man gave a nod.

What Karl saw next turned his insides out.

The fair-haired man moved forward, running his hands over Stacey’s body and testing the weight of her breasts. He slipped a hand down between her legs, and she responded with a small groan, rubbing her knees together. The fair-haired man turned back to his friend, his face suddenly showing to the camera. Karl craned his head closer to the screen, scarcely believing his eyes.

The man had no face. Smooth flesh covered the bumps and holes where his features should’ve been. He was just skin….

Masks
, Karl deduced, trying to calm his thoughts as his heart pounded against his chest. They weren’t monsters they were just men wearing flesh-colored masks.
Surely.
But how could they breathe? How could they see?

The dark-haired man moved towards Stacey. As he walked around her, Karl saw that his erect penis was jutting out of his trousers. He stood behind her, looking up at the camera. He had the same blank face as the fair-haired man – smooth, featureless.

Stacey stepped out her underwear. She was still smiling dreamily, despite the freak show around her. Karl wanted to turn away at the sight of his naked sister, but he couldn’t, even though he knew what was about to happen.

Stacey gave a small gasp, and then she threw back her head as the dark-haired man started fucking her from behind. The fair-headed man unzipped his fly and pulled out his cock, rubbing himself. Getting ready…

Karl lurched forward, throwing up in his mouth. It wasn’t the masked rapists making him sick. It was the look on his sister’s face.

Like she was enjoying it.

Karl squeezed his eyes shut. He’d been watching in a transfixed daze – shocked and repulsed by the utter degradation of his sister, yet unable to look away. At first he’d expected to see Stacey fight back, thinking she’d come to her senses and show a sliver of resistance. Even fear. But now he’d seen enough. More than enough.

He swallowed back the sick and screamed, “
Turn it off!
” at the tinted window
. “Turn it off, goddamn you.”
But his words came out as a demented howl. It wouldn’t have made a difference, anyway. Leach wanted him to sit through the horror. He was probably laughing behind the black glass.

He glanced back at the TV screen, seeing the fair-haired man position Stacey on all fours. The dark-haired man retreated to the corner, his cock shiny and dripping.

Karl closed his eyes again, shaking with revulsion. The masked men were just getting started.

25

McElroy gunned down the highway, his foot to the floor. The fast lane was empty, so he didn’t need to fix his siren to the roof. Besides, he was reluctant to advertise that he was on police business. That’s why he hadn’t called for back up – he knew the ten-code would be relayed back to Vance. Nobody at the station could be trusted. He had to do this on his own.

McElroy didn’t know what was waiting for him at the cabin, but he knew there’d be more than just a mad professor conducting human experiments. There were plenty more people involved. And whoever they were, they were organized and powerful enough to cover their tracks.

First Stacey and Isobel. Then Virgil. And now Lila Hewitson’s phone was going straight through to voice-mail. McElroy winced every time he thought about her.

He checked his position on the GPS. According to the route planner, he was only twenty minutes from the turn-off. Provided he didn’t run into any pile-ups or stubborn station wagons in the fast lane, he’d make it in ten.

“Hold on, kids,” he said, sounding less authoritative than he would’ve liked. “Just hold on.”

The fear came in waves. There were moments when Dawn would try talking herself down, telling herself it might not be as bad as she imagined. But then reality would sink in.

She was tied to a chair and gagged in a dimly lit room. There were no positive outcomes – she was going to end up crazy, violent and suicidal, just like her mother, and Karl’s sister. But that wasn’t even the worst of it. The worst was the stuff she didn’t know. The stuff in between.

No one had entered the room, but occasionally she heard voices outside the door and footsteps creaking through the ceiling. Every sound gave her chills. The waiting was tortuous, but she was still dreading the moment Leach walked in the door. She remembered the photo from his book jacket – the angular features, the pale, malevolent stare. There was no warmth in his eyes; no mercy. Nothing she could do or say would prevent Leach from doing exactly what he wanted to her.

She wondered what they’d done with Karl. Killed him, most likely. Leach was only interested in experimenting on women – especially young women, it seemed. She didn’t want to think about the reasons why. Just like she didn’t want to think about why she’d been stripped down to her underwear. Or why she could make out the outline of a bed in the corner of her eye.

Dawn straightened in her chair, hearing voices through the wall again. They were closer this time, right outside the door. One of them was Dr. Reynolds – she recognized the calm, controlled tempo of his speech. When the second man spoke, she felt her insides clench. He sounded impatient, his voice growing steadily louder and more insistent. Leach, she presumed. Yet why did his voice sound so familiar? They’d never spoken; never met.

She looked around the room again, her eyes adjusting to the dim light. There were other details she recognized. The red light on the camera above the door. The dark stains on the concrete floor. Things she couldn’t possibly know. Unless…

What had Dr. Reynolds said to her in the car?

Welcome back.

Dawn’s eyes bulged in terror. Memories flashed in her mind like scenes from a horror movie.
The night of Isobel’s date.
Strangers bursting through her front door, chasing her up the stairs. Rough hands pinning her down, jabbing a needle in her shoulder. Then being carried out of the house and thrown into the back seat of a car. Her mother sitting in the passenger seat, motionless. Staring out of the windscreen with a strange smile on her face.

There were black holes in the nightmare, but Dawn remembered waking up to the piney smell of antiseptic. The same pine scent that filled her nostrils now.

She shuddered, a tear rolling down her cheek. She was starting to understand why she was here; what she was destined to do.

Things were about to get a whole lot worse.

The North Hill Road exit was just ahead. McElroy checked his speed coming off the highway, his headlights sweeping through the mist. Visibility was shit, but he drove as fast as the slippery conditions would allow. At least he could use both sides of the deserted road. It seemed there was nobody out this way except the people he was chasing.

McElroy hoped he wasn’t too late. The signs weren’t good – Karl hadn’t answered his phone for the past ten minutes. The stupid kid had probably ignored his advice and followed Dr. Reynolds up to Leach’s cabin, like a lamb to the slaughter. They’d kill him without blinking and hand Dawn over to the mad professor. McElroy couldn’t begin to imagine what Leach was doing to those poor women. Whatever it was, he sensed he’d regret finding out.

About three miles in, McElroy eased up on the gas, scanning the trees on either side. According to the GPS, North Hill Road snaked up towards the base of Mount Hood and then hit a dead end. There were no other roads marked, so he had to keep a lookout for tire tracks running off into the woods. He dropped his speed again, his eyes struggling to see anything through the mist. The grassy verge appeared gray in the gloomy light, the side of the road blurring seamlessly into the trees.

If he found the dirt road, it would be a goddamn miracle.