WEBCAM (13 page)

No room behind the computer. The desk was against the wall.

Laundry hamper? Not big enough.

The bed?

When Kendal was small, she had a friend named Julia who was afraid of monsters under the bed. Kendal knew that was silly. Monsters didn’t hide under your bed. They called themselves “Daddy” and came in through your door.

But, still, the thought that there was someone directly beneath her was freaky enough to cause a shiver. Someone lying there. Waiting for her to sleep.

Tickling her, and singing soft and low.

Kendal peered over the edge of the bed, lifting up her sheet—

—and seeing the box spring was directly on the floor.

She blew out a stiff breath, feeling silly. For a moment there, she really was afraid that someone might be under her bed. Next she’d think—like in that ebook she was reading—that someone was hiding in the closet.

The closet.

Kendal stared at her bedroom closet.

The door was open a few inches.

She thought about what was in the closet. Clothes. Her suitcase. A plastic tub of shoes.

There was more than enough room in there for a person to hide.

Kendal pulled her eyes away from the closet long enough to glance at her bedroom door.

I could run for it.

Get the hell out of here.

Wake up the other girls.

They’ll think I’m crazy, but Linda is my only friend here anyway.

And what if someone actually is in my closet? It’s better to be wrong and look foolish than be brave and be dead.

But Kendal knew it wasn’t just about looking foolish. It was about looking crazy.

Kendal would rather die than go back to the institution. That had been hell. Almost as bad as what she’d gone through at home. One of those ignorant shrinks even had the audacity to say she’d made up all of those stories. That they were in her head. That there was no proof at all that her father had—

The closet door moved.

It had been just a tiny move. Less than an inch. But Kendal was sure it had opened just a little bit more.

She stared at it, refusing to blink, refusing to breathe, waiting for it to move again while hoping it didn’t.

After a full minute Kendal blew out the breath she’d been holding, her heart beating so fast and loud she could hear it.

The door hadn’t moved.

I’m going crazy.

Or going
crazier.

So what now?

Kendal wasn’t going to get help. She’d become an expert at keeping people out of her neuroses, and wasn’t going to start because she’d vaped some grass and had a bad dream.

But there was no way she could go back to sleep until she checked the closet.

Kendal stood up. She took a small step, wincing as the wood floorboards creaked under her weight. As if it would alert the person in the closet that she was coming.

“This is crazy,” Kendal said, the sound of her own voice reassuring her. “I wasn’t being tickled by a spider. And there is no one in my closet.”

Kendal forced herself to walk normally. She reached out her hand for the closet doorknob.

There’s no one in there.

I’m being crazy.

Kendal wasn’t sure which concept was scarier, and found she’d broken out in a light sweat. But she touched the knob—

—began to pull the door open—

—and then her phone vibrated in her hand, causing her to yelp.

Kendal stared down at her cell. Saw a text message on the screen.

You’re right.

The text was from
Unknown
. Kendal had no idea who it was from, or what it was referring to. But staring at the words made her knees shake. She moved her thumb over the text to delete it, and her phone buzzed again and another text appeared.

It wasn’t a spider. It was a feather.

Check the bed.

Kendal turned, slowly. The last bit of weed fog cleared out of her head, and hyper-awareness took over. She felt like she was in some terrible horror movie, the zoom lens focusing in on her face as she struggled through excruciating slow motion, focusing on her widening eyes as the realization of her situation kicked in.

There, at the foot of the bed, half covered by her blanket—

A long, gray feather.

It wasn’t just a dream.

Someone had been in my room.

Someone had been tickling me with a feather while I slept.

Her phone vibrated again, and it scared Kendal so badly she dropped it. The cell bounced on the wood floor, landing face up, and Kendal read the next text.

You’re also wrong.

Kendal stared down at the phone. Her mouth had gone dry. Her bladder felt like it had shrunk four sizes. Then her phone buzzed once more.

I AM in the closet.

In front of her, the closet door creaked.

Kendal jerked away from it, planting her foot on the phone, slipping backward as the scream escaped her lips—a scream so loud it could shatter glass—and then she was falling and her head slammed against the floor and the whole world exploded into a giant starburst and her vision went wiggly.

Kendal tried to blink away the dizziness as black encroached on the edges of her vision, and then a shadow was pressing on her chest and grabbing her hair, pounding her head against the wood again and again and again…

As Kendal’s world blurred out, she swore she heard the shadow whisper,

“See you soon.”

Then consciousness faded and returned, like she’d just awoken from a dream, and the shadow seemed to transform into Linda, who was kneeling next to Kendal and holding her hand.

“You okay? You fell.”

Kendal sat up, so fast it made her dizzy. Her head hurt. Her ears rang. She reached up and felt a tender spot at the base of her skull. Two other sorority sisters stood in her doorway, staring.

“Someone was in my room,” Kendal said. Her voice sounded small.

“What?”

Kendal jerked her head around, looking at the bed.

The feather was gone.

She searched the floor for her cell phone, scrambling to it and scooping it up.

The texts were gone.

Linda leaned in, a smile curling her lips. “Are you still high?”

High?

Or insane?

She thought about that awful therapist when she was in the institution. The one who accused her of making it all up.

Could she have been right?

Could I have imagined all the abuse?

Is it happening again?

Kendal started to say something, but it stuck in her throat and became a strangled cry. As she sobbed, Linda stroked her hair.

“It’s okay, babe. You’re just scared.”

That was the understatement of the decade. Kendal’s reality seemed to be fracturing. It made her feel like she was eight years old again. Terrified. Helpless. A victim.

And there was no worse feeling in the world than that.

“Get into bed, honey,” Linda said, helping her up.

“I’m too scared to sleep.”

“I’ll stay with you. It’ll be like a slumber party? Remember those when you were a kid?”

“I never had one.”

“Never? You had some kind of deprived childhood, then.”

“Something like that.”

Kendal got into bed, and Linda climbed in next to her.

“Now what?” Kendal asked.

“Well, when I had slumber parties we’d do all sorts of stuff. Talk about boys we had crushes on. Play games. I’m a rockstar at Chinese Checkers and Mall Madness. Sneak some of our parents’ whiskey. Read magazines. That was how I saw my first peter, a friend brought a Playgirl. I thought it looked stupid.” Linda laughed. “I still think it looks stupid. I mean, how do guys walk around with that hanging between their legs?”

“I don’t know,” Kendal said, honestly.

“Sometimes we’d do each other’s make-up. Or talk gossip about the lacrosse team. Or dance to some boy band. I was soooo in love with Nick Jonas.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“You don’t know the Jonas Brothers? They were on Hannah Montana, back before Mylie started doing the freaky thing with her tongue and taking her clothes off all the time. She’s cool, though. She owns it, y’know? Her body, her rules, everyone else can go to hell. I wish I had that much confidence.”

Me, too,
Kendal thought.

“What else did you do?”

“Well, whenever the first girl fell asleep, we’d put her hand in a bowl of warm water.”

“Why?”

“To try to make her pee herself.”

“Why?”

“It’s funny, I guess. No one ever peed. They always woke up because we were laughing too hard. And don’t worry—I won’t do that to you. I mean, we’re not ten years old. And I’m sleeping in the same bed. That would be self-defeating.”

“Linda?” Kendal was aware she’d used her real name, but it was okay because the cameras were off.

“Yeah, slut?”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. Sweet dreams, okay?”

But Kendal didn’t have sweet dreams. As soon as she fell asleep, she dreamt of monsters.

CHAPTER 24

Erinyes sits in the van outside the sorority house and watches.

Tonight was not the night. Kendal isn’t ready yet.

But she will be. Very soon.

The app Erinyes put on Kendal’s cell phone is hidden. It’s the same app Erinyes uploaded to the cop’s phone. The app is free in the Apple Store. A rudimentary tennis game, similar to Pong. But that’s just the shell. What the app really did was allow a remote user access to the phone’s root directory. So Erinyes can access the phone’s cameras, among other things.

This Kendal is weaker than the other Kendals that came before. Erinyes hasn’t seen this Kendal take off her clothes, yet, but it’s only a matter of time. She’s a slut, just like the others. A bad girl. Any woman who takes off her clothes for men on camera needs to be punished.

You shouldn’t tempt men. It’s a sin.

A wicked sin.

But Penance was coming.

Erinyes switches to Tom’s phone. The camera is dark, but there is snoring.

Penance is coming for him, too.

Erinyes starts the van, pulls onto the street, and begins to cruise the dark, Chicago streets.

He’s excited.

He’s been in several Kendals’ homes. But they hadn’t had roommates.

This Kendal has five roommates. All sluts.

It makes Erinyes think. And he gets so lost in thought that he almost doesn’t notice the woman on the curb.

Skinny. Old. The mini skirt on her hangs on her flat hips like a square lampshade. Her boot heels are so high she looks like a parody of a hooker. But she’s no parody. She’s the real deal.

He pulls over, rolls down his window.

“How much?”

She leans inside, looking at the interior of his van. The back is dark so she can’t see what’s in there.

“Twenty for a suck.”

He nods and unlocks her door. She climbs in.

Up close, Erinyes realizes she’s younger than he’d originally guessed. Maybe even a teenager.

“Where should I park?”

“Here is fine. It’s dead this time of night. No one will bother us.”

That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.

Erinyes rolls up the tinted windows and she takes a condom out of her purse.

“Money?” she says.

He fishes two tens out of his pocket, hands them over. She tucks them away and leans over, unzipping his fly.

When she starts to laugh he places the stun gun against the side of her neck and hits her with the juice. The whore does the two million volt boogie for ten full seconds, then collapses on his lap.

He duct tapes her wrists. Her mouth. Uses a four inch metal spring clamp to attach her pony tail to the passenger side headrest. Then he’s on the road again.

When she tries to kick, he zaps her.

“Hurts, doesn’t it? If you try to move again, I’ll put this on your eyes. It’ll fry your eyeballs and make them burst.”

Erinyes has no idea if that’s true or not. But she doesn’t try to move again.

“Do you know what the furies are?” he asks as he drives.

The whore doesn’t answer. She’s crying, and her runny eyeliner makes her look like Alice Cooper.

“The furies are monsters. They have great, batlike wings and talons on their hands and feet. Their eyes are red; red as blood. They wear crowns of spiders. There are three of them. Alecto, Tilphousia, and Megaera, and they were created by God to punish sinners. Sinners like you.”

The whore whimpers behind her tape gag.

“Lust is the worst sin of all. It leads women to cheat on their husbands. It leads men to rape. You sell your body like the mother of harlots. The whore of Babylon. You bring misery to the world. Your soul needs to be cleansed. But first I need to know something. And I want you to tell me the truth, or I’ll do that eye-melting thing.”

Erinyes turns and stares at the woman. “The truth, now. Is your name Kendal?”

She shakes her head.

Too bad. Kendals were the worst sinners of all. If she’d been a Kendal, she would have required special attention.

Erinyes drives to his house. He takes the alley to his unattached two-car garage, uses the electronic opener, and backs the vehicle inside. With the van off and the garage door closed, Erinyes holds the stun gun against the whore’s arm until she passes out, then exits.

The space is cool and smells like car exhaust and spoiled milk. A quarter of the garage is taken up by twelve fifty-five gallon metal drums. The barrels are black, carbon steel, epoxy-lined, with half inch valves at the bottom. He forgets which are full and which aren’t, and raps a few until he hears the telltale hollow sound.

The whore wakes up when he lifts her lower body into the barrel. She fights him, but her hands are bound and Erinyes is bigger and stronger. After another zap from the stun gun, she slumps over.

He spends a few minutes zapping her unconscious body.

Her eyes do not melt. Though they do puff up and turn a milky color.