There was a switch back to CNN headquarters in Atlanta. Soledad O’Brien looked grim. “I’m just getting word that the National Guard has been called in by the Governor. We will, of course, stay on top of this story — “
The door to the room opened and Officer Clapton stood there as two officers stormed in. They turned the television off, unplugged it, and began wheeling it out of the room. Tim’s protests to keep it fell on deaf ears.
And now he had no idea what was happening.
They’d removed the TV fifteen minutes ago. He could tell things were getting worse by the voices outside his holding cell. Twice Tim pounded on the locked door, demanding to know what was happening. Officer Clapton stopped by and told him it was best that he stay put. “What about my parents!” Tim yelled back.
“When they come back they won’t be allowed to leave until the situations in Spring Valley and Lititz are under control,” Officer Clapton said.
“But what about — “
“Your folks called and told me they were making a pit stop at the house for something, then they’re coming to get you. Don’t worry, Tim, you’re safe here.”
If he could only believe that.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The guesthouse smelled like an oven that had been cooking a spoiled dead pig, but Tom told Harry and Victor to shut the hell up about it and get to work painting. Victor muttered that he wasn’t the one that had killed that couple and Tom almost exploded. He’d said, “You raped that girl and you withheld and helped bury evidence. That makes you just as guilty. You’re an accessory. If I get pinned for anything, you guys are going down with me. Got it?”
That had shut Victor up, and the three of them worked at painting over the blood-stained floor. Tom had to drag the garden hose in from the yard and wash away the bulk of the blood and meat that littered the guesthouse. They didn’t even have time to let the floor dry; they just started painting over it. If the shit hit the fan, extracting a DNA sample would still be possible, but if he could contaminate the scene as much as possible…
“We can apply another coat after this one has dried,” Tom said. Harry and Victor nodded, working silently.
Tom made sure Harry and Victor were working at covering the obvious crime scene. He assisted by applying a coat of paint in the living room near the door so he could keep a watch toward the front of the house. Scott and his friends were in the basement dismembering the bodies and feeding the pieces to the fireplace. Scott had given the boys brief instructions, had shown them his basement workroom with all its tools (including a power saw), and then left them to their task while he went to tackle his own. He’d left Scott with one final admonition: “Don’t worry, we’ll get through this.” Scott had nodded, and Tom had a feeling his son was handling this pretty well. He was a tough kid.
Tom was lost in his thoughts on what the next step should be when Harry broke the silence. “Like father, like son.”
Tom stopped and turned to Harry. “Excuse me?”
“Scott. He’s grown up to be just like you. He’s an arrogant, sadistic, bully.” Harry glared at Tom. He’d stopped his work and was standing in front of a freshly painted wall. “He’s a fucking asshole. I guess that saying is true — the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“I don’t have time to get into this with you,” Tom said, forcing the words out of his mouth. What he wanted to do was leap across the room and pound Harry’s face in. “So please, shut the fuck up and get to painting.”
“I don’t care if the cops bust us for keeping what you did a secret,” Harry said. “I’ve been living with what we did — what you did — for too long. Do you know how that’s affected me, Tom? Do you have any idea what kind of nightmares you’ve put me through?”
“Harry, we don’t have time for — “
“Shut up!” Harry yelled. The intensity behind that command startled Tom. He stopped, the adrenalin spiking through his system now. Victor stopped what he was doing and listened. “You just shut the hell up and listen to me, Tom, because I’m only going to say it once. You understand me?”
Tom met Harry’s gaze, not backing down. “I’m listening.”
“I’ve hated you ever since the night you killed Billy Thompson and Candace Drombowsky,” Harry snarled, his eyes blazing pits of hate. “The only reason I cooperated was because I was a scared, confused kid who didn’t want to get caught.”
“None of us wanted to get caught, Harry,” Tom said.
“Let me finish!” Harry barked. “If you hadn’t killed them, we wouldn’t have had to go through what we went through. Aren’t you getting that through your thick skull?”
Tom set down his paintbrush. He couldn’t let this go on. “Harry, let’s just take a quick break and — “
“I used to hope the police would catch you,” Harry said. “I realized you would have dropped a dime on us, but I didn’t care. I always figured I’d get some kind of lesser sentence. But at the same time, part of me was afraid of getting caught, just like you, so I said nothing. And…I’ve never been able to live with myself since that night.” Harry cocked a questioning gaze at Tom. “Do you understand what I’m talking about?”
Tom didn’t know what to say. He’d re-lived that night multiple times, and through the passing of time had only just recently felt the faint twinges of regret over his actions. At the same time he was so far removed from the person he’d been so long ago that he felt disconnected with him. The Tom Bradfield that murdered Billy Thompson and Candace Drombowsky was not the Tom Bradfield he was now.
“I’ve thought about Billy and Candace every day since that night,” Harry said. “I know you haven’t cared and have gone on with your life, but I’ve never gotten over it. I was so afraid of what might happen, that I never lived up to my full potential. I dropped out of college and worked in jobs I hated. I’ve had trouble with women, drugs and alcohol. I’ve been a shitty father to my own kids, and I’ve been a shitty person because of my alcohol problems, all of which are a direct result of what you did that night and how I helped cover everything up for you.”
“It wasn’t my fault you turned to booze and dope,” Tom said.
“Maybe it wasn’t,” Harry said, not backing down. “But I blame you for it anyway. I blame you for a lot of things that went wrong with my life. But you know what? I’m past all that now. Coming here today, seeing what’s been going on here and learning what’s happened…” Harry gestured around them at the splotchy paint-work in the guesthouse living room, the bloodstains on the floor and walls they were trying to cover up. “I see things have come full circle with Scott. And you know something? Scott’s much worse. Killing Billy and Candace may have been something that was carried too far that night, something that was just spur of the moment.”
“That’s right,” Tom said, his back to the front door of the guesthouse. “It was spur of the moment. I never thought it would go that far. You know that, and Victor knows it. We’ve talked about it so many times, Harry, that’s why we — “
“That’s why we covered it up, I know. But things are different with Scott. You can see that, can’t you?”
“All I see right now is we have to cover this up or the police will not only be all over this place, they’ll be traipsing through the woods and they might find where we buried — “
“As far as I’m concerned, Scott belongs in prison!” Harry cut in, overriding Tom, who started, shocked that Harry made such a bold statement. “The only reason I’m even here is for my own self interest. I don’t want those woods searched either. I don’t want those bodies found for the simple reason that I don’t want an investigation started. I’d like to think enough time has passed that any witnesses or evidence or whatever is so old it can’t be used. I mean, none of us were questioned back then, right?” Harry looked from Victor to Tom. They shrugged and shook their heads. “But still, you never know what can happen with DNA and stuff. So I’d rather have them where they are. Buried, where they can’t be found. I think that�
�s a shitty thing to say, but…for the first time in years I’m sober, I’m on a good track with my job, I’m married to a great woman, and I’m connecting with my kids. I’m even going to be a grandfather. I want to be there for my grandchild, I want to be there for him more than I was for my son when he was growing up. I want to make that up to him by being there for his kid.” For the first time Harry looked like he was imploring Tom and Victor to understand his position. And for the first time, Tom understood completely where Harry was coming from.
Tom said, “I understand, Harry.”
“Do you?”
Tom nodded. “Yeah, I do. Now can we finish this?”
“We’re going to finish this, all right. But remember what I just told you. I’m only here for my own self-interest. I don’t care about you or Scott. When this is finished, I don’t ever want to hear from you again. If the police question me, I’m going to deny I even know you. You got me?”
You self-righteous prick, Tom thought. Despite his sudden flare of anger, Tom fought it down. “Whatever you want, Harry. Let’s just cut the shit and get back to doing this.”
Harry bent down and picked up his paintbrush. He glanced back at Tom and the sudden change on his face was so swift that Tom had no time to react. Harry’s features went from sullen anger and defiance, to sudden stark shock and fear within a second. He opened his mouth and managed a quick “What the fuck is that?” and that’s when Tom felt the presence of somebody approaching from behind, at the front door.
When Tom turned around he caught a quick glimpse of a kid in dark jeans and a black and white T-shirt. He caught a glimpse of the words “Dr. Chud” on the T-shirt. The kid’s eyes were vacant, his throat ripped open, and Tom saw that his T-shirt wasn’t black, it was dark red from the great cascade of blood that had poured out of his torn throat. The kid, a young guy in his early twenties with brown hair, lurched forward and launched himself at Tom.
Tom stepped back, trying to scramble out of the way, and more people swarmed into view: another young guy who might have been Dr. Chud’s sidekick, his guts hanging out, and a short skinny kid with a horrible head wound that made his left eye protrude from its socket. Others swarmed in from the yard, about half a dozen, and as Dr. Chud slammed into him, propelling him onto the ground, the others entered the guesthouse and scrambled past, heading toward Harry and Victor, and the last thing Tom heard before Dr. Chud ripped his throat out with his teeth were the sounds of Harry and Victor screaming.
* * *
“Did you hear that?”
Scott stopped from the grisly task of separating Neal Ashford’s arm from its socket. They’d broken one of the blades of the power saw while trying to saw through Neal’s legs and had replaced it with a sturdier one. Dave had tried hacking away at the other corpse with an axe and wasn’t having much luck. Bones were harder to break than he thought, which was weird considering he’d broken facial bones with his bare fists in past wilding sessions. “Hear what?”
“That noise.” Steve was crouched by the fireplace in the den, pausing in his task of feeding dismembered remains into the roaring flames. The basement was stiflingly hot and sweat was pouring in rivulets down their bare backs and chests.
“What noise?” Scott called out. It was hard enough to hear in the workroom with the power saw going and Dave trying to cut Neal into little pieces with the axe. Had Steve heard police sirens?
“Sounds like somebody’s outside,” Steve said.
Scott turned off the saw and stepped away from the workbench. As the silence settled into his system he heard something from upstairs. Somebody entering the house through the kitchen.
“Hold on,” Scott said. He brushed past Dave, who set the axe down and followed Scott to the den where they joined Steve. The only remains left of the zombie to dispose of in the fireplace was an arm, a foot, a lower torso, and the head. Neal’s disarticulated pieces were still back in the workroom.
They stood in silence, listening. There was definitely somebody upstairs. Scott relaxed. It was Dad. Who else would it be?
“Did you hear sirens?” Scott asked. “Or the sound of a car pulling up?”
Steve shook his head.
They listened some more. In addition to the sound of footsteps in the kitchen there were other sounds; something was being dragged across the floor, more footsteps outside, and footsteps tramping their way in from the side door. Scott felt his stomach clench as the footsteps exited the kitchen and traveled through the living room.
Scott stepped forward. “I’ll go up and see what’s going on.”
As Scott headed upstairs he heard another sound, a tinkling of glass breaking. He was just opening the door to the basement, peeking out, and was having second thoughts about heading up the stairs when Dad stepped into his field of vision. Dad had his back turned to Scott and was looking toward the kitchen, presumably toward the sound of breaking glass. Scott opened the door and stepped out of the basement. “Everything okay?”
Dad turned around and Scott yelled.
Dad was dead. His throat was ripped out and by all rights his head should have been lolling forward on his chest. Scott could see a part of Dad’s spine through the meat and gristle of his neck. Dad stepped toward Scott, arms reaching toward him, and that’s when the rest of them poured into the living room from the kitchen.
Dad’s friends Victor and Harry were first, similarly torn up, bloody and very dead. They shambled in and immediately zeroed in on Scott as other figures tumbled into the room, several of them young guys, also dead and bloody, one of them wearing a tattered T-shirt with the words “Dr. Chud” emblazoned on the front. From the opposite direction, a woman Scott didn’t recognize strolled into the living room. She was naked from the waist down; her gutted abdomen trailed loopy ropes of intestine behind her.
Dad reached Scott first and the force of his momentum catapulted Scott backwards down the stairs. Dad clung to him, his fingers clawing into his flesh. Scott’s head cracked on the stairs and he saw stars. He was dimly aware of Steve and Dave in the basement yelling out in surprise, then fear as the rest of the zombies piled down the basement stairs and swarmed the room, then his Dad bit into his face with his strong jaws, working the flesh off with savage shakes of his head, the pain filling him with an intensity he’d never experienced before, and then everything exploded and he knew no more.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Naomi Gaines was doing one more quick check to make sure she had everything in her purse when the phone rang.
Jeff was in his basement office gathering some paperwork and she quickly picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
A male voice she didn’t recognize asked, “Hello, can I speak to Tim Gaines, please?”
“This is his mother. Can I ask who’s calling?”
“My name is William Sawyer. I’m responding to an email Tim sent through my website. I’m a writer.”
Recognition set in. William Sawyer was the author of half a dozen suspense novels she’d picked up at the Barnes and Noble Bookstore in Lancaster. “You wrote the novel Scream.”
“That’s me.”
“May I ask why you’re calling my son?”
“He read a novel of mine. Back From the Dead.”
“You’re the author of Back From the Dead?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I thought that was written by somebody else.”
“It’s me. I did that book under a pseudonym.”
“Oh. I see. Tim contacted you?”
“He did.” There was a short pause. “Um, how old is your son, Ms. Gaines?”
“Tim’s sixteen,” Naomi said. “He’ll be seventeen next month.” Jeff was coming up the stairs and she turned to the kitchen. She held her hand up to him as he emerged and mouthed hold on a minute. “Let me guess. Tim contacted you about the ritual that’s depicted in your novel.”
“He did. I was hoping I could — “
“Did Tim tell you what is happening?”
Another sh
ort pause. “I’m afraid he didn’t, Ms. Gaines. He simply asked where I got the background information on the spell that’s mentioned in my novel. It was…well, it was another question of his that prompted me to call, actually.”
“And what would that be?”
William Sawyer paused. Naomi had the feeling the author was uncomfortable. Jeff was standing beside her now, asking who she was talking to, and Naomi had to shush him so she could hear. “Ms. Gaines, do you live in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania by any chance?”
“We do,” Naomi said, all thoughts to personal privacy set aside.
“The reason I called was due to what’s on the national news.”
Naomi turned to Jeff and mouthed, turn on the news. Jeff nodded and scampered to the television in the living room. “Let me guess. Tim asked you if there was a counter-spell to the one depicted in your novel.”
William sounded surprised. “He did. And he didn’t tell me why he wanted to know, either. It wasn’t until I turned on the news a moment ago and saw what was happening…” William’s voice verged on borderline fear and panic. “What’s happening now is only touched on briefly in my book, Ms. Gaines. I can’t believe its happening, but the events…what I’ve been seeing on TV and the way Tim worded his email…I had to call to find out what’s going on…”
An irrational person would have told William Sawyer that he’d been reprehensible to include that kind of information in his book, even if it was fiction. Suppose somebody mentally unstable took it seriously? Of course, Naomi realized such arguments were bullshit. Detailed concepts of death and destruction were laid out in thousands of novels, plays, and movies every year and the only example Naomi could think of something disastrous happening due to somebody not getting it was a decade ago, when two boys mimicked a scene from a movie by lying down in a busy street during rush hour traffic. Instead of the vehicles driving over them and escaping unscathed as depicted in the movie, the boys weren’t as lucky. They were turned into roadkill.
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