by Chaz McGee
I stopped and listened, heard nothing, then tried to will my intuition into being. The cave ahead felt empty.
I stepped forward into the darkness.
Chapter 36
It was a place of absolute and unequivocal evil. I was filled with such fear it was as if my very bones were hollow and filled with ice.
My eyes needed no adjusting to the darkness. The cave had curving gray rock walls marked by round, battery-operated lights that were affixed to the sides at six-foot intervals. If illuminated, the room would be as bright and barren as a laboratory, albeit a prehistoric one—and one focused solely on death. A waist-high ridge in one of the walls formed a natural counter along one side. Metal instruments were laid out along the ledge, neatly lined up across a folded towel. They were surgical tools of some sort, some with jagged edges, others with blades, still more seemed to combine the functionality of saws and pliers in a bewildering array of handles and clamps. A propane torch and a two-burner gas stove stood beside the instruments, with extra cans of fuel nearby.
Two large boulders protruded halfway up through the center of the dirt floor, their flattened tops creating natural altars. Chains ending in adjustable cuffs were bolted to both ends of each stone altar. Dark stains marred the cave floor surrounding the boulder farthest from the entrance. I did not need to wonder why. In this dank environment, spilled blood would pool and bond with the soil that barely covered the rock bed beneath it.
Plastic buckets were stored next to the natural ridge along one wall, and there were two five-gallon containers of water next to them. Household bleach, other cleaners, and a bucket with plastic tubes coiled carefully inside completed the neat row of supplies. Alan Hayes was, as always, a fastidious man.
There were no signs of mementos, no photographs of his victims, no initials etched in rock. There was no indication at all that the girls he’d killed had been anything more to him than experiments between flesh and stone, not even his own daughter. He had punished her for preferring the company of another man by reducing her to meat on his altar, with no emotion other than desire to dominate driving his cruelty.
I searched the walls, looking for an exit, and discovered a small recess at the back of the cave where one rock wall slipped behind another. The gap led nowhere and was little more than a vertical, coffin-sized indentation. Other than that, the walls were relentlessly smooth and there was no way out except the way I had come in. With the entranceway blocked, it was the perfect trap for his victims. They had nowhere to run.
Outside the cave, I heard the little dog barking furiously, but I did not know how to silence him. If I approached, he would only yap louder, attracting the attention of his owner—and he might also attract a killer. If Alan Hayes was nearby and found the man and his dog here, there would be nothing I could do to stop another murder. I thought of the old man’s memories I had sensed when I’d first seen him, knelt in prayer beside a dead girl’s body. For such a kind man, loved by so many, to die at the hands of Alan Hayes was unthinkable. But what could I do?
The little dog’s barking ceased abruptly. I peered out the entranceway. The old man had followed his dog’s yapping up the hill and somehow clawed his way through the bushes in hopes of retrieving his beloved pet. I stood just inside the cave, listening, as he scolded the terrier.
“Enough, Rufus,” he said as he tried to drag his dog toward him. Then the old man fell silent and I knew that he, too, had noticed the cave opening. “Hush,” he said more gently to his dog. “Stay.”
The old man pulled the blind of interwoven branches aside and shuffled toward me in the darkness, making his way into the cavern. His eyes were not as welcoming of the dark as mine and he fumbled about in his pockets until he found his keys. He had a tiny penlight affixed to his key chain and swept the beam across the cavern. Seeing the mounted lights on the walls, he moved slowly toward them, steadying his hands against the rock so he would not stumble in the dark. He flicked a light on, flooding the cave with light, and I heard his sharp intake of breath as he froze at what he saw. He walked reluctantly to the dark stains pooled at the base of the far altar and dipped his fingers in the dirt. He smelled them, then flung the dirt from his hand and fled from the cave, unwilling to linger long enough to turn the light off.
I joined him in the clearing outside the cave. He was trembling and his little dog began to bark. Had the dog seen me?
“Hush,” the old man warned the terrier, but the little dog was not interested in me or in his owner’s commands. He was staring off into the forest, hearing sounds we could not hear, tracking odors we could not smell.
The moon slid out from behind a bank of clouds, illuminating the old man and his dog in a natural spotlight. Bathed in moon glow, they looked otherworldly. We were, all too briefly, three of a kind.
The old man was fumbling in his coat pockets, his whole body shaking at the realization of what he had seen. The little dog, sensing his fear, stopped barking briefly and stretched out, laying his head on his master’s boots and whimpering in sympathy.
The old man located his cell phone, but continued to search his pockets, unable to find what he needed. He grew more and more agitated. His face was as pale as the faces of the undead I had met in my wanderings. He was having trouble breathing and I again feared he might have a heart attack. At last, he pulled out a business card, peering at it in the pale moonlight.
As he dialed, I remembered Maggie interviewing him the night he had found the body of Vicky Meeks—and I knew he was calling her. I would not have to find a way to alert Maggie to the cave. The old man would do it for me.
His voice was trembling when he reached her and told her what he had found. “It’s a hidden cave in the rocks. There’s blood soaked into the dirt floor. I think this was where the young girl was killed.” He listened intently and looked around. “I haven’t seen anyone else, but . . .” His voice trailed off. “My dog was chasing something. Maybe just an animal. He’s the one who found the cave. I just followed him.” He listened again. His hand started to shake violently. He gripped the phone harder and his voice rose an octave. “If I leave, we may never find it again,” he said. “It’s completely hidden by bushes. If you can’t find me, we may never stop this monster from doing what he does. There are things in the cave, instruments that he uses on them . . .”
His voice failed him, but I could sense the bravery rising in the old man, a remnant of youth and long-ago wars—but also a courage strengthened by his age and fed by his growing wisdom. He was a man who did not believe in standing by and simply watching. He was a man who chose to participate.
“I can’t do that, Detective Gunn. I’m waiting here,” he told Maggie more firmly. “I’ll listen for your voice. When you reach the end of the path, take a right and start calling for me. Head downhill just a little, maybe fifteen degrees or so. I’ll call out when I hear you and you can follow my voice.”
His courage wavered at Maggie’s reply and his voice was somber as he rung off. “Yes, I understand. I’ll hide if I hear someone coming.”
But he didn’t hear someone coming, nor did his little dog. Alan Hayes was behind the old man the instant he hung up his cell phone. Judgment was swift: raising a rock above his head, Hayes brought it down on the old man’s skull with a crack, sending him crumpling to the ground.
The little dog looked up at Alan Hayes, whimpered once—and fled at what he saw looking back down at him.
Chapter 37
Hayes dragged the old man’s body into the cave as casually as if he was dragging a sack of garbage to the curb. I followed.
Watching Hayes over the past week, I had grown to respect the existence of evil. Unsure of both its source and its power, I stood in the recess between the two walls of the cave, watching as Hayes left the body where it would be partially concealed by the stone altars. The old man meant absolutely nothing to him. He was little more than a prop that Hayes could amuse himself with.
Hayes went about the business of swe
eping the dirt floor smooth again with a broom he kept stored in a corner. He whistled lightly as he worked: an insipid disco song from decades before that bemoaned the singer’s chance at having one night only for love.
Why had Hayes chosen that song? His mind was a mystery to me, with no connection to humanity that I could feel, at least not one based on any definition of humanity I was willing to face.
The old man lay sprawled less than three feet from me. I strained to discern whether there was any life left in him. He was dying at my feet. I could feel his life force vibrating as faintly as the high chords of a harp, then growing thinner with each passing second.
I could not let him die.
I knelt by the old man’s body, as he had knelt by the body of Vicky Meeks. I prayed, though I did not know who to pray for, and had last talked to god when I was no more then ten years old. My hope then had been a reprieve from Catholic school punishment for taking his name in vain. I thought that god suddenly seemed like a very long shot. But who else could I pray to? Who was there to listen? Was there a patron saint of good over evil? Who would embrace such a terrible, lost cause as that?
Oh, yes, I thought, as a long-lost memory of a catechism lesson came to me at last: St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost causes. My long-dead father’s namesake. Whether he had been but a man, or whether my mother had been right—and all the saints and angels in Heaven were real—I could not say. But my existence was proof, at the very least, that the universe consisted of more than I had expected, so I decided to give St. Anthony a shot. If that didn’t work, perhaps someone else, perhaps god himself, was eavesdropping and would hear my unworthy prayers.
The irony was not lost on me: I had finally gotten religion. All it had taken was my death to lead me to it.
I concentrated on the images I had seen in the old man’s memory—the loving wife, their children, their children’s children, the good friends he’d been a good friend to in return. “It’s not fair,” I said to whoever might be listening. “I was not a good man, and you were right to take me. My life was wasted on me. But this is a good man. And he loves his life. And others love him. Don’t let him go this way. Don’t let his life be taken by someone like this.”
I glanced up at Alan Hayes—he was rearranging his instruments, still humming happily, checking the strength of the chains designed to bind his victims to the altars, monitoring the levels of fuel in the camp stove’s canisters, as fussy as if he expected guests.
Maggie. He had overheard the old man talking to her and knew she was on her way. He was preparing for Maggie.
I was close to panic at the realization, acutely aware of my ineffectual, nonphysical state, praying for two miracles now instead of one.
I don’t remember what I said. I don’t remember what I promised in the grand tradition of self-sacrificing and, ultimately, meaningless bargains with god. But I do know that as I prayed, I felt the life force in the old man reignite, as if somehow, deep within, despite his unconscious state, he had decided to fight back. It was the thinnest of flames at first, flickering wildly, threatening to go out, but then it strengthened and his energy steadied. He was weak, perhaps too weak to live for long, but he had stabilized.
I had to do more.
I withdrew into my hiding place, trying to think of a way to stop Hayes from hurting Maggie. I tried to access his mind, looking for a way to influence him, but Hayes carried no memories. His mind was blank. It did not store the past. Not until he called it up for his pleasure. It did not have room for other people, either. It was almost as if he no longer needed to rely on thought. He simply did, and he simply succeeded, and thanks to his cunning, he simply survived.
Hayes gave the old man a look, then straightened his legs out so they would be more noticeable to anyone entering the cave. The old man was bait. Then Hayes rearranged his tools and removed his jacket, folding it neatly on the ledge. He rolled his shoulders, as if loosening them up, and stretched his arms out to each side, preparing for battle. He was ready for her.
I heard sounds outside. The little dog was returning. His barks, heard faintly at first, grew stronger as he reap proached the cave, leading someone to it.
It had to be Maggie. And I had to find a way to warn her.
I left the cave, followed the sound of the barking, and discovered them less than a hundred yards away. I tried to distract the terrier, to get him to chase me, but the dog was no longer interested in me. He knew his owner was in danger and he knew that Maggie represented help.
Maggie was calling out the old man’s name as she pushed through the brush. Brambles tore at her face and branches grabbed at her hair, but she continued onward, barely noticing. Occasionally, she would look up at the rocky crest of the hill that loomed over her, gauging how far she’d wandered from its base. She grew closer and closer to the cave, drawn onward by the dog, her voice more worried as she continued to call out without ever getting an answer.
She stopped abruptly, just a few yards from the clearing, to answer her cell phone. “I can’t stop now,” she told the caller without hesitation. “I’m not getting an answer and he may need help. Look, I left a trail of broken branches a blind man could follow. Just get here as soon as you can. I’ve got to keep looking. He’s a civilian. I can’t leave him up here alone.”
She hung up and continued to call out the old man’s name, the little dog’s barks acting as punctuation at the end of each of her cries. When she broke into the clearing, her hand went instantly to her gun. Alan Hayes had not replaced the branches hiding the entranceway—he wanted her to come through that cave door. She would know it was too dangerous to enter the cave alone—but she would do it anyway. She felt responsible for the old man’s safety. She’d risk being trapped to protect him.
Maggie quieted the dog and continued to call out the old man’s name. Cautiously, holding her flashlight above her head with one hand and her gun in the other hand, she inched into the entranceway. I rushed past her, into the cave, hoping to find a way to stop her from entering or, somehow, to stop Alan Hayes from overpowering her.
He was nowhere to be seen. I remembered the recess in the walls. He was waiting in the darkness of it, his breathing as deep and even as if he were meditating. His pulse was almost sluggish. His mind was blank. His body temperature had dropped to below normal.
Predatory stasis, I thought to myself. Hayes was a perfectly calibrated killing machine, waiting for the on switch to engage.
Somehow I would stop him.
I melded into Hayes, insisting on occupying the same place in time and space. I paid a terrible price for it. Pain swallowed me instantly, filling every fiber of my being. My torso and legs felt as if they were on fire, yet my blood remained cold, much colder than when I’d been alive. I could feel it moving through me like ice, freezing everything it touched, leaving me paralyzed as if I, too, had turned to ice. Screams filled my head, obliterating my ability to think. They were high-pitched cries of agony, and below the terrible sounds of that suffering, I heard the sobs of hundreds more wailing in grief.
This was what Hayes fed on. This was what Maggie was walking into.
Hayes had left several of the lights on intentionally, hoping to lure Maggie inside. They illuminated the front half of the cave as she entered, creeping forward slowly, advancing only when she saw that the way was clear. She stepped forward and saw no one. She glanced toward the dark half of the cavern, examining it for signs of danger. The beam of her flashlight danced across the rock walls and the two stone altars. She caught a glimpse of the old man’s body crumpled behind one of them and, forgetting all else, rushed to him. Turning her back to us, she knelt beside the old man and placed her flashlight on the ground next to his head before she checked his pulse.
Hayes struck.
Maggie was in perfect physical shape, and she was armed, but Hayes had the advantage of surprise. It took him a single step to reach her. He knocked the gun out of her hand and it hit the flashlight, spinning it in a ci
rcle until it came to rest with its beam pointing mockingly toward the only way out. Before she knew he was even there, Hayes had his arm wrapped tightly around her throat and was pressing in relentlessly, choking off her air supply. Maggie bucked and kicked furiously, stomped backward with her heels, bit at his hands, twisted and turned, trying to inflict damage. She was strong, but not as strong as Hayes. Her struggles only infuriated him and made him more determined to bring her under his control. She could not break free. The lack of oxygen started to take its toll and her struggling grew weaker. Soon she would be his.
I was mad with rage. There was nothing I could do. I lacked corporeal substance. “Maggie,” I screamed, though I knew she could not hear me. “Fight him, Maggie. Fight him.”
I cried out for no one but myself. I felt the consciousness slipping from her as her life force dimmed and her strength began to ebb away. Alan Hayes now had his other arm wrapped over her chest, holding her half aloft, as he used his right arm to play with the pressure on her larynx. He did not want her dead. He wanted her alive—and under his control. I could feel the excitement rising in him, alive and unstoppable.
I would lose her.
I was mad with grief, I was cursing the heavens that kept me here to see it, when the cave exploded with sound, a reverberating blast that lingered even as a dark spot in the very center of Alan Hayes’s forehead bloomed and began to ooze blood.
His life was over in a heartbeat.
He wavered, released Maggie, and let her fall at his feet, then slumped against the rock wall and slid to the floor. He was dead by the time he hit the dirt, his life erased as completely as if someone had flicked a light switch off. He did not fight, he did not linger, he was not claimed by anyone or anything. I felt nothing leave him, nothing fighting to stay.
He was simply there one moment and gone the next.