by Sara Clancy
Black Bayou
Written by Sara Clancy
Edited by Emma Salam and Lance Piao
Copyright © 2016 by ScareStreet.com
All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
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Chapter 1
The colors ran. They bled and swirled until the familiar hallway was as intangible as smoke. She tried to reach out but her hand wouldn’t move. Her limbs were heavy. Hollow. The world swam within her skull like a thick swamp.
“It’s okay,” her father’s voice whispered from a distant place. “You won’t feel a thing.”
His constant soothing pulled her from her haze. Vaguely, she became aware of the ache in her neck, the way her head swayed with each of his steps. Light struck her eyes, blinding and brilliant, and whited out her vision. Piece by piece, the world returned. Pink tiles. The fluffy towels her dad had ruined with bleach. The window stickers her sister put everywhere.
Gentle hands curled behind her head and lifted her forehead to a soft kiss. Her mother’s voice sounded weird. Broken and weak. It hovered around her as she was slowly lowered down. Steaming water claimed her feet and swallowed her legs. She caught a glimpse of fogged shower glass. The water devoured her to her chest, leaving her hand cold as it hung limply over the rim of the bathtub.
Another kiss to her forehead. A hand rested on her crown. It pushed. Water sloshed down her throat, burning as it hit her lungs. She convulsed and gasped but all that came was more water. It rendered the world into a rippling imitation and scorched her eyes. Her lungs ached, her body thrashed, her fingers clenched against the tub.
With a sharp snap, her muscles were under her control once more. She burst through the surface in a lurch and clawed at the side of the tub. Scrambling, falling, she managed to heave her weighted body over the rim. Each cough spewed water onto the tiles. It ran in steaming pools across the cool floor, making her hands slip as she wrenched herself free. Her waterlogged pyjamas felt like lead. Each inch pulled free from the bath came with a torrent of water that made the next inch harder. Her palms slipped and she cracked her head against the tiles. With her torso free, the rest of her body slithered out easily. Pressing her head to the floor, she struggled to breathe. Her body expelled the water in thick heaves until her stomach acid burned her throat. The night air cooled her soaked pyjamas and made her shiver. Her eyes began to focus.
Her lips could barely form the name, “Jas?”
A halo of honey-blonde hair, ragged and drenched, spread out over the floor. She could almost reach it with her fingertips. The layers of Jasmine’s ever-present Snow White dress sat limply above her small form. Water beaded over her skin and blazed like fire in the overhead light. Jasmine didn’t move. With trembling hands, she dragged herself closer.
“Jas?”
Blood dripped from her torn nails as she reached out and shook her little sister. Jasmine’s head lulled and flopped to the side. Her lips were blue. Her skin drawn. She wasn’t breathing. Hidden under her fractured sobs, she could hear hissed words.
“You said she’d sleep through it. We took too long with Jasmine. Get her back in the tub. They’re coming. Hurry!”
Tears blurred her vision as she squeezed Jasmine’s hand. Warmth still lingered in her tiny fingers, but she didn’t squeeze back. Strong hands latched onto her and dragged her away from Jasmine’s body.
“Dad?” she barely whispered it, but he reacted like she had struck him. He choked back tears as he tried to pull her up.
“No. Jas. Help Jas.”
“Stop struggling,” his voice broke. “You weren’t supposed to wake up, baby girl. Why did you wake up?”
Unable to get a strong hold on her, he dragged her across the floor towards the tub. Fear sliced through her and she shoved at him. He couldn’t brace himself on the slick tiles. She clawed at his face and screamed as loud as her paralyzed throat would allow. Their feet slipped. They landed in a painful heap, her father’s weight bearing down on her.
Over his shoulder, she saw her mother rush in, face twisted in pure horror. In the second between her mother’s arrival and action, hope blossomed in her chest. Then her mother moved. She dropped down next to her father, gripped her wrists, and forced them onto the tiles.
“Shhh, baby. It’s okay. It’s okay. Mommy’s here.”
A thousand memories sprung forth upon hearing those words. They were the same words spoken when she had scraped her knees, fallen out of a tree, and even when she had her heart broken for the first time. Now, they were uttered as her father wrapped his hands around her neck.
She thrashed against her parents but it did little good. Strong fingers crushed her throat, constricting her breath until her face swelled with blood and her lungs screamed for air. Her feet kicked uselessly over the floor. She didn’t have the strength to lift her arms. The world shook and bled, reduced to splotches of darkness with no meaning. Her mother’s fingers loosened on her arms but she still felt weighted down. Tender fingers stroked her hair. The ones around her neck trembled with force.
There was a sudden crash. A powerful, deafening crack. A dozen voices screaming at once. Her mother hissed words she couldn’t understand. Her father yelled back. She couldn’t breathe. Colors started to dull as her father’s face loomed into her vision. His hands left her neck but she could barely breathe. There was more shouting. Her mother slammed the door shut.
“I’m so sorry,” the small blade of a pair of nail scissors pressed against her throat. Dug in until blood oozed out to meet it. His tears scorched her skin as he pressed a trembling kiss to her forehead. “We can’t leave you behind. Don’t be afraid. It’s better this way.”
The door burst open. She saw guns, heard that ear-splitting sound, and her mother’s scream. Over her father’s shoulder, she watched her mother slide down the wall, leaving a trail of smeared blood.
“Daddy loves you.”
Agony streaked across her neck as he drew the blade, pushing down as hard as he could. It sliced through skin and flesh and released a wave of blood that gushed on the floor. It cut deep, and suddenly her desperate need was met with a rush of air. It filled her lungs so fiercely that her back arched. Two more shots and her father fell by her side, his blood seeping out of a hole in his chest, mingling with her own. Police swarmed the room; phantoms dressed in black. Each inhale whistled through her severed throat. Only a little passed through but it was enough to last her to the next intake. Police pressed the bleach-stained towel to her throat.
She watched as her father saw her take another breath. Watched the terror swarm in his eyes until death dulled them. It felt like sh
e was floating. The pain was easing. She blinked and saw it; a shadow that clung to her father’s back. It inched up over his shoulder, watching her. The police pulled at her as they struggled to stem the tide that flowed from her neck. The shadow grew. It clawed over her father like a solid, bottomless mass. She couldn’t move. Fingers like talons, as thin as bones, reached for her. They felt like ice as they covered her face and swallowed the world.
***
Light poured from the screen of her mobile, illuminating the room far more than the little flecks of sunlight that made it through the heavy yellow curtains. The layers of blankets were too thin to be comforting, but she curled up under them anyway. Each stitch across her neck burned as the preacher’s sober words echoed around the room and drowned out the hum of the machines. Distantly, she could hear the constant bustle of life that existed just beyond her hospital room.
Over the last few days, breathing had become easier but crying felt like the flesh was tearing again. Right now though, each intake was sheer agony. Jasmine’s coffin looked far too large on the tiny screen. Too real. Slowly it lowered into the sodden earth. Flowers were piled high atop the polished wood, their petals glistening in the misting rain.
It was gut-wrenching that the rain had set in today and refused to leave. Jasmine had hated the rain. It should have been sunny for her. She should have at least gotten that. The focus of the camera shifted. There was a glimpse of rows of empty seats before it focused again so she could watch her parents’ coffins sink.
Her screen held still until the polished wood vanished and the words ended. When the phone moved again, she could see the hundreds of people that had been pushed back to the other side of the cemetery gates. Even the rain and unseasonable cold hadn’t been enough to deter the protesters and camera crews. It was a relief when the familiar face of detective Rhodes filled the screen. She tasted salt on her lips as she mouthed, ‘thank you’.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t be here, Marigold,” he said. “But the locals are already restless.”
Rhodes had been with the case since the first night and never expected her to speak or nod. Fresh tears shook free from her lashes as she blinked slowly, a silent signal that she understood. People who hadn’t even known her family had petitioned for Jasmine to be buried separately from her parents. Others had protested her parents being buried in the church’s graveyard. Apparently, they didn’t want serial killers rotting next to their loved ones. Rhodes had helped to make sure her family stayed together but it had been at a cost. People saw this act of defiance as proof she had known, approved, or even participated in her parents’ murders. He had routed the resulting hate-mail and death threats to the precinct instead of her room. A sob shook her, releasing a spike of pain that left her breathless.
“Hey, easy, just breathe,” Rhodes said softly.
She closed her eyes again.
“Look, I’ve got a few things to take care of.” He couldn’t meet her eyes. “My condolences.”
He ended the call and the room darkened. Somewhere down the maze of halls, she could hear an infant screaming, inconsolable and shrill. She coiled into a tighter ball and clutched a meagre hospital pillow to her chest. It didn’t help stifle the sobs that ripped her throat raw and tore at the stitches.
The baby’s shriek grew louder and drilled into her head like an iron spike. Rain pelted against the window, the shifting water projecting shadows onto the curtains. Counting each breath, she watched them. Stared at them until all other thoughts drifted away. The shadows danced. Merged and separated. Twisting down like expanding fingers.
Her brow furrowed as they drew together. Slowly they combined, darkened, creating the looming silhouette of a man. She blinked and it was as if someone was standing on the other side of the curtain. Its head turned towards her. The material rose and moulded as if it were now a shroud. She shifted onto her elbow and glanced down, expecting to see feet, but nothing was there. It glided forward and separated from the material, passed through it, reaching for her.
She threw herself back against the bed’s railing, hand groping for the call button as the shadow drew closer. Light blinded her as the overheads flicked on. The shadow vanished in its wake. Her head snapped to the door, fast enough to pull stitches. Pain seared through her skin and she whimpered as she clutched her throat.
“Were you sleeping?” Doctor Monroe asked from just inside the doorway. “You have a guest, I thought you might want to see him.”
Richard slipped in behind the doctor. It was the first time she had seen him since this nightmare had begun, and the sight of him eased an ache in the centre of her chest. He winced, one hand absently rubbing at his throat.
“Oh shit, Maggie,” he muttered before he turned to Monroe. “Can she talk?”
“She can, but it’s best if she doesn’t.”
“How is she even alive?”
Monroe turned her attention to Richard, barely sparing Marigold a glance for permission.
“The police were able to bring her in quickly. And the residue drugs in her system slowed her heartbeat. Ironically, she would have died if he hadn’t cut her throat. He had crushed her trachea. She would have asphyxiated.”
When Richard shifted his eyes to Marigold, she reached out a hand, coaxing him to come closer. She needed to touch him. Feel skin. Her entire body screamed for any kind of human contact. Longed for someone, anyone, to hug her. No one would even answer her texts.
He begrudgingly moved closer and perched on the very corner of her bed. Monroe lingered. An air of hostility radiated from the doctor each time she was forced into Marigold’s presence. Until they completed the investigation, there was no way to know how many patients her parents had killed, or under whose watch, but Monroe was worried. Marigold could practically feel the doctor’s anguish, her sense of absolute betrayal. Sometimes, when their eyes met, Marigold wondered if the doctor would lash out in her pain. Perhaps do to her what her parents had done to others. It played in the corners of her mind that the doctor might be contemplating treating her in the same way her parents had treated their patients. Perhaps it would be poetic justice. It wouldn’t take much, just a little prick into the I.V., but for now, Monroe favored avoidance to vengeance. She left without a word.
Alone together, it was harder to ignore the uneasy silence that descended upon them. Richard kept glancing at the uniformed officer that wandered around the nurse’s station just beyond the door.
“This is so crazy, Maggie.” Richard raked his hands through his golden hair before he turned to her. “How are you holding up?”
They had given her a whiteboard but it was so much quicker to text. His phone pinged and he pulled it from his coat pocket.
‘Throat hurts. Drugs give me nightmares.’
“I think there’s a lot to give you nightmares.”
He glanced back at his phone as it chimed again.
‘You weren’t at the funeral.’
“I couldn’t go. Maggie, why did you have them buried together? It’s sick. They killed Jasmine. They killed a lot of people.”
‘Still can’t think about that.’
“What? Are you high? You can’t think about that? Everyone else is stuck thinking about that. Reporters found out we were dating and now they won’t leave me alone. Everyone keeps thinking I know things. You have no idea what this has been like for me.”
‘For you?’
“Oh, don’t do that,” he snarled. “What you’re going through is different. I never asked to be a part of this.”
Her fingers fluttered but it didn’t give her the release screaming would have. ‘And I did?’
Richard looked around to make sure no one was in earshot. Still, he lowered his voice to a harsh whisper.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
She had thought that her glare would be enough for him to understand but all he did was stare back.
‘I didn’t know.’
He snorted when he read it, “How is that possi
ble? I was talking to some of the nurses. The count is up to twenty-three. And they’re still looking. How did you not notice them killing twenty-three people?!”
‘Did you ask the nurses that?’ Anger simmered under her skin as he read the text and shook his head.
“That’s not fair.”
She balled her hands into fists. Not fair? she thought angrily.
Everyone keeps telling her that she must have known. How could she have known? The people they worked with every day hadn’t. The people who had been in the same building when they had given them overdoses hadn’t.
‘They were on shift.’
“Yeah, but you were their daughter. You lived with them. You must have known something was off.”
A thousand times she had been told that and each time a lifetime of memories rushed to her head. There had been days when they had been sad, scared, or disinterested. But there was no warning sign that screamed they were angels of death. They had had their conflicts, like any family, but they had been happy.
Fresh tears welled in her eyes as she typed, ‘I didn’t know.’
“Sure.”
‘You believe me, right?’
Richard only stared straight ahead. She sat up and slapped his shoulder and pointed at his phone. He rolled the device in his hand but wouldn’t look at her.
“Right?”
The word was like acid as it clawed out of her throat. She was screaming but all that came out was a broken, husky, croak. A fractured whisper.
“Yeah,” he nodded numbly.
She gripped his arm and tugged. But he wouldn’t turn, wouldn’t look at her.
“Look, Maggie. This is a lot to deal with. I’m being hunted by the press. My friends look at me weird. People avoid me in the street.”
He couldn’t make eye contact, and instead focused his gaze on her forehead.
“And we were never that serious.”
She scrambled for her phone, her fingers shifting wildly.
‘We’re getting married after college. Kids.’