Dark Screams, Volume 9

by Dark Screams- Volume 9 (retail) (epub)

  None of the crowd seemed happy about this. I pushed through them, shot Duke an angry look, and continued toward my office.

  “You heard the man,” Duke called. “Take it outside. We have some official business to take care of.”

  In my office, I dropped down into my chair. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about, now the press wanted a statement. I didn’t know what to tell them. While I sat there, trying to put together an intelligent sentence, something one of the reporters said crowded into my head.

  Do you believe you’ve captured the man responsible for the murder of Arthur Milton?

  A strange thing to ask. We hadn’t caught anyone, as far as I knew. If the state boys had a suspect, they hadn’t thought to let me know. It was a confusing question; one that was cleared up a few minutes later when Duke told me about the man in our holding cell.

  “Why the hell didn’t you call me?”

  Duke’s long face went crimson. I could see the wheels turning beneath his buzz cut, trying to come up with an acceptable excuse. “You were exhausted. We had it under control.”

  I leapt out of my chair and walked for the door. “If you have a suspect in custody, you call me. Okay? Jesus Christ, where did you pick him up?”

  “Bucky was out patrolling the park this morning. He apprehended the guy trying to break into a car.”

  We passed through the main office, and I paused at the door to the holding cells, feeling around my belt for the keys.

  “How long has he been here?”

  “About an hour.”

  “Jesus Christ, Duke. You had me walking into an ambush back there. Why the hell did the press know about this before I did?”

  “I don’t know,” Duke said. “But we got the asshole. I mean, one of them, anyway. The guy matches Emily Salem’s description to a T.”

  “So do a lot of people,” I reminded him, finally finding the right key and slotting it into the lock.

  “Yeah, I know,” Duke said. “But most of them aren’t trying to break into cars bare-ass naked.”

  Duke’s last comment made me pause. Naked? Where the hell had the man been all night that no one had spotted him?

  Dismayed by yet another oddity to add to the list, I told Duke to go handle the press. “Tell them we have a suspect in the Salem case. That’s all we know right now. Did you question him?”

  “Tried. He wouldn’t say a thing. Just stares at the floor.”

  “You got a name on this guy?” I asked.

  “Well, the car he was trying to break into was a rental. It was taken out yesterday by a guy named Sykes. Douglas Sykes. We popped the lock and found the rental papers and his wallet in the glove box. The name’s good.”

  —

  With Duke on my heels, I opened the door and stepped into the dimly lit hallway. Douglas Sykes sat on the cot in the first of four holding cells. The window above, barred and frosted, allowed only a meager bath of natural light. The fixture in the ceiling held a low-watt bulb. Even taking these things into account, I thought the holding area looked particularly dark. The suspect was wrapped in one of the gray blankets we used to make up the cots. He sat with his back propped on the cinderblock wall. His hair was thin and white, long wisps jutting from his head like tangled spider silk. A high forehead banked down to bushy black eyebrows. He had brown, rather bland eyes, a sharp nose, and narrow lips, at the moment drawing a straight line across his face, revealing no discernible emotion. With no concession to modesty, the blanket ran off to the sides, revealing a narrow, sunken chest, a wild nest of white pubic hair that all but hid his penis, and two stick-thin legs, bent at the knee with the soles of his feet planted firmly on the cot.

  In most regards, he looked like an old man who couldn’t be bothered to take care of himself. Though he certainly fit the description Emily Salem had given of Maggie Mayflower’s abductor, he was not the man I’d seen carrying Arthur Milton through the forest like a sack of feathers. His face was cruel-looking, but sometimes that was simply a side effect of age and gravity. The only thing remarkable about his appearance was his skin. It was powder white and hung off his bones, loose and draping as if he’d recently lost about a hundred pounds.

  “Why isn’t this man dressed?” I asked.

  “Bill, I told you, this is how we found him.”

  “Get him some clothes, Officer Gill. And then go make that statement to the press.”

  I noticed through this exchange that Sykes did not look up, nor did he seem particularly interested in our being there. He stared forward at the space between his feet.

  “Mr. Sykes,” I said, once Duke was moving toward the door. “Mr. Sykes, I’m Sheriff Cranston.”

  Behind me, Duke walked through the door and closed it. I heard the crack of the lock being secured. Good. The idiot was finally doing his job.

  “Mr. Sykes…”

  But I didn’t have a chance to finish. The man on the cot lifted his head, and his thin lips shot up into a crazy grin. His eyes, the ones I’d thought so bland, ignited with excitement. He did not leave his place on the cot, but suddenly the whole scene seemed different.

  “Bill,” he said, like he was welcoming an old friend. “We don’t have much time, you know. No. No. Not much time to show or blow; for soon, so soon, I must go.”

  “Mr. Sykes, do you understand why you’re being held?”

  “Not much time you and I; time is an insect, time is a fly.”

  Nutcase. His singsong rhymes, delivered in a deep, throaty tone too rich for his fragile appearance, made the diagnosis easy enough. This naked as a jaybird poet was off his fucking rocker.

  “Mr. Sykes, we’re going to hold you until the state troopers can transfer you to the facility in Marrenville. Until then, if you have anything you’d like to talk about, perhaps regarding a little girl, I’m all ears.”

  “Sweet, sweet Maggie,” said Sykes.

  I was glad to see that he could respond without a couplet, and I was also pleased to have what I considered a partial confession.

  “Maybe you’d like to tell me what happened last night?”

  “By the park; before dark?”

  “Would you mind confirming for me that your name is Douglas Sykes?”

  “That is me; and I am he.”

  “And you admit to having abducted Maggie Mayflower at approximately six p.m.?”

  “She took my hand,” Sykes said in his gruff yet melodic voice. “We walked the land.”

  “And what was your intent, Mr. Sykes?”

  Behind me, the lock cracked, announcing Duke’s return. The officer entered the holding area, carrying a stack of clothes.

  “I found what I could in the lockers. It ain’t fashion, but it’ll work.”

  I took the clothes from Duke and turned to the prisoner.

  Douglas Sykes stared at the space between his feet, his expression blank. Apparently, I was the only one he felt like performing for. I tossed garments through the bars, did a good job of making them land on the cot, though a balled pair of socks clipped Sykes’s shin and rolled onto the concrete floor.

  I told Duke to take care of those reporters and to send Bucky in with the digital camera. Though it wouldn’t be considered official, I wanted both Maggie and Emily Salem to give this guy a look so we had a positive identification, though I in no way wanted them in this holding area with him. The state boys would do the ID official and proper, but this was for my own peace of mind and that of the community. Folks like Les needed to know we had at least one of the right freaks behind bars.

  Again, once the lock was engaged, Sykes came to life.

  “You have till sunset, Bill.”

  “Really? And what happens at sunset?”

  “Such wonders and blunders sunset brings.”

  “Well, Mr. Sykes, by sunset you’ll be up to Marrenville in a county lockup with about twenty other men, none of whom take kindly to pedophiles.”

  “I don’t think I will…Bill.”

  “We’ll have to agre
e to disagree on that one. You feel like telling me what you’re doing in my town?”

  “Away from those who know me; eyes that pry but don’t see.” Sykes’s smile faded and he fixed a nasty gaze on me, full of accusation and anger. “You know what I mean, don’t you, Bill? Someplace far from home, where our precious filthy secrets can be indulged, but not revealed?”

  I grew uncomfortable at Sykes’s remarks. I didn’t know this man, and he certainly didn’t know me, yet for some reason, he felt compelled to draw a comparison between us. I’d heard that some psychos could get into your head, draw out information to use against you. It was like those TV psychics who dropped vague hints until they hit on something relevant to one of the suckers in the audience, and then they worked that scrap of knowledge into the shape of revelation.

  It was a cute game. But I wasn’t going to play.

  “Why don’t you put some clothes on now,” I said. “I’ll be back in to chat with you before the state boys show up.”

  With that, Sykes rolled off the cot and let the blanket fall to the concrete, where it pooled at his feet. His body was disgusting. The skin looked as if it was separated from the muscle beneath, wanting nothing to do with him. Tufts of thin white hair grew at his shoulders. Pink lines, like scars, ran over his arms, his chest, his belly. They looked like the stretch marks Lisa had worn after giving birth to Gwen. But something else on his shoulder drew my attention.

  Just below where the collarbone peaked, Sykes wore a brown scab the size of a nickel. My eyes immediately traced down the grotesque body, past a nest of moles on his lower abdomen, over his pubic region and to his thigh where I found a second scab, identical to the first.

  The wounds unnerved me. I’d felt certain that I’d shot a far larger man, a man in a mask, in those exact places the night before.

  I backed away, suddenly feeling a need to be out of this space and away from Douglas Sykes. His voice crawled over my shoulder when I reached the door, but I didn’t turn back.

  “You have till sunset.”

  —

  I drove toward the Mayflower home. The digital camera sat on the seat next to me. During the drive, I was struck time and again by my inability to accept what I had seen on Sykes’s body. Those scabs were in nearly the exact locations of the bullet wounds I’d inflicted on another man the night before. But that man was huge and powerful with skin the color of old beef and teeth sharp enough to rip the muscle from Arthur Milton’s bones.

  Werewolf, Bob Dawson said.

  And whenever that memory, that word, came to me, I felt foolish and childish, refuting such nonsense outright. Bucky’s supposition about an Egyptian myth was even more ridiculous. Those wounds on Sykes could have been anything. They were already well into healing. He could have jabbed himself on a branch, could have had a couple of his moles removed, could have been running with scissors, for all I knew. As for the appearance of his skin, sagging and lifeless as if recently stolen from a large corpse, Sykes was old, and some old people just looked like crap. It wasn’t their fault; that was their prize for living so long.

  By the time I reached the Mayflower driveway, my thoughts were tied up as tight as wet twine.

  I decided to speak with Les’s neighbor first. After all, Emily, too, had been a witness. I didn’t want to put Les and his family through any more than I had to. If Emily gave me a positive ID then I’d confirm it with Maggie, if not I’d let it drop until the state boys got around to Sykes. I walked across the street and knocked on the Salems’ door.

  When Emily Salem saw the digital picture of Douglas Sykes, her face went pale, and she clutched at her father’s leg. Dick Salem asked to see the man and made a gruff snort when I showed him the image on the screen.

  “Any chance you’d give me ten minutes alone in that cell with the bastard?” he asked.

  “Afraid not.”

  I knelt down and looked in Emily’s eyes, saw the fear there. “Now, honey, are you certain this is the man you saw with Maggie?”

  The little girl nodded her head furiously and then snuggled deeper into her father’s pants leg.

  Dick walked me out to the porch. He told me that Emily was feeling better, had actually spoken a bit over breakfast. He imagined she’d be just fine in a week or two once the initial fear was good and worn. He thanked me for my efforts, shook my hand, and walked back into his house.

  At the Mayflowers’ home, Les answered the door, looking uneasy. I couldn’t blame him. I’d called ahead to let him know why I was coming by. No parent wanted to put their child through this kind of misery; I certainly wouldn’t have wanted Gwen or Dru to endure it. Les was so upset, he barely looked at me. Didn’t shake my hand. He just opened the door and stepped back.

  “Mag and Viv are upstairs,” he said. “First door on the left.”

  I reached out to give his shoulder a supportive squeeze, but Les backed away. His burly body all but leapt away from my touch. His thick fingers combed through the salt-and-pepper hair on his crown, and he looked at the floor.

  I thought I understood, but Les said something that made me think I was wrong.

  “We’re being punished, aren’t we?” he asked. “I mean, by God.”

  “What?”

  Les wasn’t a religious guy, no more so than myself, at any rate. He went to church, had a Bible on his bookcase that he never read. He took his family to the church socials, the potluck picnics. That’s why his words struck me so wrong; they sounded like the claims of a burgeoning fanatic.

  “That guy could have taken Emily Salem, but he didn’t. He took my little girl. He took Maggie. It’s got to mean something.”

  “It means a sick bastard came to town. Jesus, Les. This isn’t some divine retribution. God has nothing to do with this guy. That much I know.”

  But Les didn’t look up. He stared at the floor, shamefaced and near tears.

  “Bill…” Les said, shaking his head.

  “You can’t take the blame for this. You’ll drive yourself crazy with it. Now, I’ll only be upstairs for a couple minutes. You wait here.”

  I left Les at the bottom of the stairs. Viv gave me a tight hug when I walked into Maggie’s room. She was a good-looking woman, if a bit thick around the middle. In fact, she and Les shared a similar build, though where her husband had muscle Viv carried less firm weight. Her face was lovely, though. Tears had reddened and swollen her eyes, but that only made her look more attractive, something about the vulnerability.

  Across, the room, Maggie sat on the edge of her bed, watching us. She was wearing white pajamas with a teddy-bear print on them, and her hair was pulled back into a bushy ponytail.

  “Hey, Maggie,” I said, separating myself from Viv’s tight embrace. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine, Officer Cranston,” she replied in a sweet, albeit dry, voice. The child climbed off of her bed and walked cautiously toward me. She seemed okay except for the bandages around her wrists. I’m sure she wasn’t okay, though. How could she be?

  “I want you to look at something,” I said.

  “We told her why you were coming over,” Viv whispered.

  I called up the picture on the digital camera, and when I had it on the screen, I leaned down and held it at Maggie’s eye level. “Now, is this the man that took you into the woods?”

  Maggie looked at the picture of Douglas Sykes. A series of emotions ran over her face, her features changing from one second to the next as if stricken by tics. Finally she backed away from the screen, nodding.

  “Is that the man, Maggie? Is this what he looked like?”

  “Yes,” the little girl said, walking back to her bed. “At first.”

  “What do you mean, ‘At first’?”

  “He changed,” Maggie said.

  The little girl’s voice chilled me then. My skin pimpled under my shirt, drew tight over my back and shoulders.

  “How did he change, Maggie?”

  “He got bigger,” she said. “Then, he ran away an
d hid, right up to the time Mr. Milton found me. When he came back, he was a monster.”

  “She’s very confused,” Viv whispered over my shoulder. “The doctor said that she might have trouble remembering things. Blocking it all out, getting things mixed up.”

  But Maggie wasn’t confused. A strange acceptance settled on me then. Despite ridiculing all that I thought true in life, I found myself believing the little girl. Maggie knew what she had seen and wasn’t burdened with all of the mature filters she needed to deny it. She remembered seeing Sykes turn into a monster, because that’s exactly what he had done.

  4

  “What did you mean when you said I had until sunset?”

  “Wouldn’t it be swell; if I were to tell?”

  He sat on the cot in the same position I’d found him in that morning. He was dressed in the clothes Duke had scrounged from the lockers: a pair of blue jeans that pooled around his waist but rode up high on his shins; a baggy white T-shirt and socks. The excited expression was on his face again.

  Unease ran over my skin. I looked away, down the alley of the holding area past the two empty cells. Nothing around me but concrete and metal, and the prisoner behind the wall of bars, but it felt like the room teemed with less corporeal beings, jostling and shoving, groping at me as they floated through the narrow hall. I attributed much of my disquiet to the conversation I’d had with Maggie Mayflower. She’d seen this man change, and I’d seen what he had become—Arthur Milton’s brutal assailant—but I had no idea what such a creature was capable of.

  “What are you, Sykes?”

  “Just a man, like Stan or Dan.” His eyes twinkled with mischief, exposing the lie.

  “But you’re not,” I said. “You’re something else.”

  “Am I?” he asked in mock surprise. Then his face fell into an expression of boredom or contempt. “Do a blood test, Bill. Take a tissue sample. See what modern science makes of me. It won’t be very interesting, I’m afraid. If you were to put a bullet through my head right now, they’d find absolutely nothing unique in the autopsy.”