“Her bones is breaking! Crunching!”
Whose? She felt so sorry for the woman, who was probably known by the boy. For him to react this strongly, he must have touched the person who was, somewhere, being abused.
“It’s all right. Granny’s here,” she said as she sat beside his small form. She lifted a hand that had tenderly touched nine babies of her own, and countless grandchildren, now gnarled and arthritic. Brushing his dark, sweaty hair from his brow, she could feel the hot slickness of his skin. He had been drained by it, this psychic awakening to someone else’s pain.
“Granny,” he whimpered, fully awake, “he was hurting the lady.”
“What lady, sweet’ums? Were you having a nightmare?”
He shook his head vehemently. “No, no, it wasn’t a bad dream! I waked up and I could still hear her screaming. You gotta believe me.”
“I do believe you.” Although his parents wouldn’t thank her for it, the child was old enough for the truth. He would go crazy if he didn’t get some relief from these invasions into his brain. She was the only one who could teach him how to handle them. “I know what’s happening to you, because you’re just like me. I can do what you do. I see things, hear things, even smell them sometimes though I’m far away. Not when I’m asleep, but when I’m awake.”
His eyes widened in shock. “You mean it?”
“I do. It’s called the sight, and I have it too.”
He appeared wondering, and then managed a tiny smile. “That means I’m not bad.”
Her jaw fell; she was lucky her dentures didn’t tumble out. “Why would you say that?”
“Because I know you’re not bad. So if I’m like you, I can’t be neither.”
She bent down and drew him into her arms. “No, darling, you are not in any way, shape or form bad.” She made a mental note to give his father a piece of her mind, having absolutely no doubt he’d been the one who’d said something like that to his son.
Men like him . . . what they couldn’t understand, they tried to destroy.
“So can you help the lady, Granny? The man was so mean. He hitted her a lot with a metal stick from his car.”
Good lord, a tire iron? She recalled the way the boy had cried, “Crunch,” and realized they weren’t just talking about a woman being abused here. She was being murdered.
This was no longer just about helping her great-grandson deal with the psychic abilities he’d inherited from her. There was a life at stake.
Letting him go, she sat up, terrified. “Do you know who she is? Who the lady is?”
“I couldn’t see her. I don’t usually see, just sometimes. But even with my hands over my ears I heard her and him. He sounded all growly and mad and she . . . she . . .”
“Never mind dear,” she said, putting a palm to his cheek. “You just forget all about it.”
But she couldn’t. Not when someone might be being beaten to death right now.
Because Gretchen would never put the boy through the anguish of mentally connecting to someone so desperate again, she tried herself. Closing her eyes, she began searching, listening for screams, hoping to be drawn to the violence that had to be somewhere close by for this little child to have shared in it. She tried hard, so hard, feeling her seeking mind creep like a thief in the night through people’s homes, on the streets of the small Arkansas town.
Nothing. She couldn’t see, hear, smell or feel a thing. Either she’d simply never had any interaction with the woman, and therefore had no way to know where to begin to look for her . . . or her great-grandson’s abilities were far greater than her own.
She slowly—regretfully—opened her eyes, anticipating the moment when she would read about this tragedy in the paper or hear it on the TV.
“Granny?” he whispered. “Can you help the lady?”
A tear ran down her cheek. “No honey. I can’t find her.”
He began to cry, too. Sniffling, he covered his face with his hands, trying to be a big boy, probably told by his father that he shouldn’t cry. That asshole.
The sun was rising now, the shadows in his room disappearing. By rights, her great-grandson’s life should be filled with brightness. It was too hard for such a small one to have to see and hear the things he saw and heard. She should know—her childhood had been much like his. Only, at least she’d had parents who still accepted some unexplainable things, and didn’t turn up their noses at the old ways and superstitions. This boy would not have that luxury.
Yes, he will. Because I’ll be there. If I have to give up my ice cream and stop driving to make sure I live long enough to see him into adulthood, I’ll do it!
Her great-grandson was going to need her. Desperately.
“Will you stay with me?”
“Of course, darlin’. Granny’s not going anywhere,” she said, making it a vow.
If she knew more, she would have left to make an anonymous call to the police. But as it was, what could she tell them? That somewhere, some random woman was being, or had been, murdered with a crowbar? They’d call the men in the white coats.
“Promise you’ll stay?” he asked, his voice shaky.
“I’ll stay right here until you fall back to sleep.”
He shook his head slowly. “Not going back to sleep. Hold my hand, ’kay?”
His fingers gripped hers. It took her a moment, and then she realized what he was saying. What he was doing. She sat bolt upright on the bed. “No, honey, don’t!”
But it was too late. She could see the moment he threw his consciousness out of himself, searching for the woman in trouble. He acted as though he’d done this time and again—perhaps he had, not even being aware of what he was doing.
He held on tight to her hand as his face went slack. His mouth fell open and his eyes rolled back. It was as if all the things that made him the special little person he was had gone out of him. Every ounce of focus and concentration he had was on helping someone in need.
God bless his soul. She didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone stronger.
Especially not someone who was only five years old.
He began to whimper. She squeezed his hand.
He stiffened, rolled in the bed. She lay back down next to him and took him in her arms.
He cried out. She kissed his temple.
Finally, he gasped, opened his eyes. “It’s Miss Marcy! Miss Marcy’s hurt in her house. A bad man hurted her! Go call the 911!” he begged.
“Honey, who’s Miss Marcy?”
“From church. She teaches my church class!”
His Sunday School teacher. No wonder he’d been able to connect with her when Gretchen had not. He knew her; had, in fact, gone to church yesterday with his parents, shortly after Gretchen had arrived. She hadn’t gone with them. She hadn’t set foot in a church since a preacher had tried to beat the demons out of her as a child.
Her Daddy had been the one who’d done the beating that day. And it hadn’t been of her.
“Go, Granny, go!”
She got up, hurrying toward the door. She had no idea where Miss Marcy lived, but she had no doubt her granddaughter and grandson-in-law would know how to get the information. If she had to find the strength to tip them out of their bed onto their stubborn heads, she would find out Miss Marcy’s address and call emergency services.
“I don’t think she’s dead yet, Granny. But she will be soon,” he whispered from his bed.
Gretchen looked over her shoulder at him, that brave little boy, so mature for his years, having shouldered the kind of burden that would break most adults.
“We’ll save her, Aidan. I promise you, we’ll save her.”
Gretchen Babbitt would see to that, even if she had to march to Miss Marcy’s house herself. It was the least she could do for her great-grandson.
After all, her long journey bearing this heavy load was almost over.
His was only just beginning.
Chapter One
Thursday, 5:45 a.m.
Until last night, nobody had ever read Vonnie Jackson a bedtime story.
Though she’d lived for seventeen years, she couldn’t remember a single fairy tale, or one kiss on the cheek before being tucked in. Her mother had always been well into her first joint, her second bottle, or her third John of the evening long before Vonnie fell asleep. Bedtime meant hiding under the bed or burrowing beneath a pile of dirty clothes in the closet, praying Mama didn’t pass out, leaving one of her customers to go prowling around in their tiny apartment.
They definitely hadn’t wanted to read to her. Nobody had.
So to finally hear innocent childhood tales from a psychotic monster who intended to kill her was almost as unfair as her ending up in this nightmare to begin with.
“Are you listening to me little Yvonne?” That voice was laced with so much evil it seemed to be an almost living, breathing thing, as real as the stained, scratchy mattress on which she lay or the metal chains holding her down. Her captor’s voice grew almost mischievous as he added, “Did you fall asleep?”
The man who’d kidnapped her always spoke in a thick, falsetto whisper, his tone happily wicked. Occasionally though, he got angry and dropped the act. Once or twice, when he’d spoken in his normal, deep voice, she’d feel a hint of familiarity flit across her mind, as if she’d heard him before, recently. She could never focus in on it, though, never place the memory.
Maybe she was crazy. Maybe she just recognized the twisted, full-of-rage quality that made men like him tick. She’d seen that kind all her life.
“Sweet little girl, so weary, aren’t you? I suppose you fell asleep, hmm?”
She shook her head. Even that slight movement sent knives of pain stabbing through her skull and into her brain. He’d beaten her badly.
“You must want to go to sleep, though.”
“No,” she whispered. “Go on. Don’t stop. I like it.”
Oh, no, she didn’t want to fall asleep. It was while she slept that he came in and did things to her. She’d awakened once to find him touching her thighs. Though his face had been masked—one of those creepy, maniacally smiling “King” masks from the fast-food commercials—he’d scurried out as soon as he realized she was fully conscious.
Maybe he’s afraid you’ll escape and be able to identify him.
Yeah. And maybe a pack of wolves would rip him to pieces in his own backyard tomorrow. But she doubted it.
“I don’t know, we’ve read quite a lot. I’m worried you might have nightmares—did you, last night, after hearing about the little piggies who got turned into bacon and sausage patties?”
She suspected the story didn’t end like that. If it did, parents who called it a bedtime story had a lot to answer for.
Vonnie swallowed, her thick, dry tongue almost choking her. “I’ll be fine.”
The words echoed in the damp, musty basement room in which she’d been imprisoned for . . . how long had it been since the night he’d grabbed her? And when had that been? Think!
Monday. He’d attacked her while she walked the long way home from a nighttime event at her new high school, to which she’d just transferred since they offered more AP classes than her old one. Mistake number one. Her old school had been a block from her crappy home.
“Well, if you’re sure, I suppose we can read a little more about those naughty children.”
Knowing he expected it, she managed to murmur, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, dear. I’m glad you like this story. It’s no wonder their parents didn’t want Hansel and Gretel—awful, spoiled brats, weren’t they? Most parents hate their children anyway, but these two were especially bad.”
If it wouldn’t have caused her so much pain, she might have laughed. He hadn’t said anything she didn’t know. Her mama had made that clear every day of her life.
Most parents would be proud of their kid for doing well in school, but not hers. She’d said Vonnie had been stupid to transfer. Stupid and uppity, thinking getting into the National Honor Society mattered a damn when she lived on the corner of Whoreville and Main.
Normally she’d have been at work serving chicken wings by that time of night on a Monday. But no, she’d had to go to the meeting, had to act like she was no different from the smart, rich, white kids. She’d been cocky, insisting it was no big deal to walk home alone after dark through an area of the Boro where no smart girl ever walked alone. Not these days, not with the Ghoul on the loose and more girls missing from her neighborhood every month.
The Ghoul—the paper had at first said he was real, then that he wasn’t. Vonnie knew the truth. He was real, all right. She just wasn’t going to live long enough to tell anybody.
“Hansel and Gretel didn’t know that the starving birdies of the forest were eating up their bread-crumb trail, waiting for the children to die so they could poke out their eyes,” he read, not noticing her inattention. “It was dark and their time to find their way home was running out.”
Time. It had ceased to have any meaning at all. Minutes and hours had switched places: minutes lengthened by pain, hours shortened by terror of what would happen every time he came back from wherever it was he went when he left her alone in the damp, cold dark.
“Did you hear me?” he snapped sharply.
She swallowed. “Yeah.”
“Good. Don’t you fall asleep. I’m reading this for you, not for myself, you know.”
She suspected he wasn’t reading at all, merely Wes Craven-ing up a real bedtime story.
“Now, wasn’t it lucky that they were able to find shelter?” he added. “Mm, a house made of gingerbread and gumdrops and licorice. Imagine that. Do you like sweets, pretty girl? Want me to bring you some candy? Sticky, gooey candy?”
She swallowed, the very thought of it making her sick. Not that she wasn’t hungry. But the foul-smelling air surrounding her, filling her lungs and her nose, made the thought of food nauseating. She didn’t like to think about the other smells down here—the rank of rotten meat, the stench of human waste. And something metallic and earthy.
Blood. Had to be, judging by the rust-colored stains on the cement floor.
The stains had been the first things she’d noticed when she regained consciousness after she’d been kidnapped. This guy had killed before, and he would kill her. Vonnie didn’t try to comfort herself with thoughts of escape. It did no good to think about the last time she’d gotten herself out a horrid situation—which she’d been put in by her own mama’s greed.
Don’t go there, girl. Almost as much darkness down that path.
“Well, maybe the candy shouldn’t be too sticky,” he said, tutting a little. “I know your jaw must hurt from when you made me hit you. Maybe I could chew it up, make it nice and soft for you, then spit it into your mouth just like a mama bird with her little chick.”
Though she hadn’t thought there was anything left in her stomach, she heaved a mouthful of vomit. She forced herself to gulp it down. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing his mere words had made her sick. Giving the monster ideas to try on her when she finally did pass out was a stupid thing to do, and Vonnie Jackson might be beaten and chained, she might be poor and the daughter of a drug-addicted prostitute, but nobody had ever called her stupid.
“Why was she doing it, do you suppose? Why did she want them to eat all those sweets?” When she didn’t reply, his singsong voice rose to a screech. “Answer me!”
“Fattening them up,” she said, the words riding a puff of air across her swollen lips.
“Yes! You’re so clever; that’s what they say about you. Such a smart, clever girl who was going to escape her pathetic childhood.” He tsked, sounding almost sad. “And you nearly made it, didn’t you, Yvonne? Oh, you came so close! High school graduation next May, then off you’d go to college on one of your scholarships, never to see your slut mother or the hovel you call home again. All that work, all that effort. Wasted.”
She didn’t answer, didn’t flinch, not w
anting him to see that his words hurt her. Getting out was all Vonnie had worked for, all she had dreamed of, for as long as she could remember.
“Ah, well, back to our story. Yes, indeed, the witch was fattening them up,” her captor said. “But do you know why?”
“Why?” she asked, though she didn’t want to know the answer, given the way he was turning these nightly stories into tales from his twisted crypt of a mind.
“You’ll just have to wait and see. Patience, sweet . . .”
His sibilant words were interrupted by the sound of banging coming from somewhere. Before Vonnie could even process it, she heard a clang of metal. The small sliding panel in the door, through which he watched her, talked to her, and tormented her, was slammed shut.
Another bang from above. She tried to focus on it. That noise, the way he’d reacted to it, was important, though it took a second for her to process why.
Then she got it. He had been startled. The creature had been surprised out of his lair by something unexpected. Or someone?
Oh God, please.
Hope bloomed. What if someone else was out there? He hadn’t taken her to the bowels of hell but to somewhere real, a place that other people could come upon. A mailman, a neighbor?
An internal voice tried to dampen her hopes. That might not have been someone banging on the door at all, merely a loose shutter or a tree branch. Besides, it was dark out, maybe even the middle of the night—no mailman worked these hours.
The police. Maybe they’re looking for me.
It was a long shot. But long shots were all she had right now. She didn’t think about what he’d do when he came back. Didn’t let herself worry if he’d find some new way to punish her.
No. Vonnie Jackson simply began to scream as if her life depended on it.
Thursday, 6:05 a.m.
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