“Yeah,” Gregg said, his mind racing. “I can’t explain it, but yeah, I know she’s the cause of all this.”
“Remember when I told you about tracking Bruce back to Colorado?”
Gregg nodded.
“I tracked him all over,” Don said. “It took awhile, but I did it. I tracked him back till around 1872 or so. I just kept following the dots, using public records I found at libraries and archives, newspapers, police blotters, the Internet, everything I could get my hands on. Before Bruce Miller was Bruce Miller, he was Heather Wilson from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Prior to that, he was Tonya Williams, from St. Paul, Minnesota. Before that he was Stephen Billings, from Seattle, Washington. I documented forty-one different identities it used, was able to get photographs from some of them. What I’ve discovered is fucking amazing, Gregg. Amazing and scary as shit on shinola.”
“What was she before she was Diana?” Gregg asked, feeling his voice break. He was scared, but he was also feeling angry. “How did you...how did you trace Bruce Miller to Diana Marshfield?”
“After Bruce Miller disappeared he re-emerged as Tracy Bogart in Lakeland, Florida,” Don continued. Gregg drained his glass and poured himself another as Don laid out his case. “Tracy moved in with a young phone executive named Albert Fowler. Albert hung himself eighteen months later, leaving a suicide note saying he couldn’t live without Tracy. She cleared out of town that week. She moved to St. Louis, Missouri and became a young middle-manager named Marc Anderson. As Marc Anderson he wooed a young woman he worked with named Grace Finlay. She moved in with him, they got married, and a year later she was found dead in her bed. She had gone from a healthy woman to a skin and bones seventy pound skeleton. It was like she’d been sucked dry of everything inside her. Know what she was found holding in her hands?”
Gregg shook his head.
“She was holding a dildo and a photo of Marc,” Don whispered. “She’d been...using it up to the point she died.”
The image burned itself in Gregg’s mind. Ronnie’s sudden downfall came to mind, how he had gone from an overweight five foot nine to a rapidly dwindling man who looked like he was back on the cocaine wagon. He thought about how quickly he’d moved in with Diana, how every time he and Elizabeth had been at her parent’s house and they’d been there, Ronnie had been all over Diana like a lust-infatuated teenager.
“She changes to suit her needs,” Don continued. “She thrives on all kinds of things, but one of the things that she lives on is sexual appetite. She feeds off it. And in doing so, it makes her stronger so that she’s able to...I don’t know how else to describe it...but it’s like she plants something inside her victims that makes them obsessed or addicted to it. The more the victim becomes sexually obsessed, the more they feel the need to be with it. When my wife was in the throes of its power, there was nothing I could do to stop her. When I saw her right before I...before I saved her...” Don’s voice lowered to a shaky whisper. “She had a look of desperation in her eyes. She looked like a junkie who couldn’t help herself but who somehow knew what she was doing was killing her....but she couldn’t help herself...she had to have him, had to keep going back to him.” Don took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
Gregg waited, his mind tracking back the past five months, remembering Ronnie’s gradual decline; his withdrawal from his family, his need to give everything to Diana above everything else, his slow physical deterioration.
Don opened his eyes, seeming to compose himself. “When it’s finished it moves on. Many times it just takes everything it can and the person it leaves behind is so far gone they die a few days later, many times from starvation.”
“Starvation?”
“Yeah. They no longer think about food. All they think about, all they crave, is sex with it. They stop bathing, stop taking care of themselves...that’s when they’re totally on the downhill slide. By then it’s already planning its escape, and many times it’s already tapped in to its host’s family and friends. It feeds off them, too.”
“How?” Gregg was finding this fascinating.
“The misery and emotional anguish that are created in the wake of what is happening to their loved one,” Don answered. He took another sip of soda. “Think about it. One or two months after Diana showed up to live with Ronnie, what happened? How did Elizabeth’s parents feel about her?”
“They didn’t care much for her.”
“And Elizabeth?”
“She hated her.”
Don nodded. “And that caused friction between Ronnie and his parents. The more they disapproved, the more he got into her, so to speak.”
Don was right. Gregg nodded, taking a drink of bourbon and sighing. “Yeah, that’s exactly how it happened.”
“It feeds on that,” Don continued. “The more havoc it can create in its host’s family or its immediate living area, the more negative energy it has to feed on.”
“There was an incident a month or so after Diana moved in,” Gregg said, remembering the incident with Allen Steele being attacked by his wife. “Guy down the street from them was cheating on his wife. She found out...according to what we heard, their five-year-old daughter claimed Lily told her, and she told her mother. It turned out to be true. A few weeks later she attacked her husband. Bashed him over the head, then cut his penis off.”
Don nodded. “It used Lily as a lure, a way to gain quick nourishment to gain its strength back.”
“You think it had anything to do with what happened to the Steeles?”
“Very much so. It created a situation that, in turn, created an emotional wellspring.”
“So it feeds on the negative energy it creates outside the environment it settles in as well?”
Don nodded, taking a sip of soda and putting the glass down. “Very much so. Take Ronnie’s ex-wife for instance.”
“You know about Cindy?”
“Oh yeah. Remember, I told you I did my research before I came out here. I know all about what happened to Cindy.”
“She killed Cindy, didn’t she?” Gregg’s heart was racing, everything clicking together.
“She created great strain between Ronnie and Cindy,” Don explained. “She took on the role of the new girlfriend very easily, and she used it to make Cindy extremely jealous.”
“Cindy claimed Diana made threatening phone calls to her,” Gregg said, remembering the incident vividly. “She said Diana threatened to hurt Mary.”
“And Cindy called the police but there was no proof, right?”
Gregg nodded. “And it kept happening. And Mary...she hated living there. Said Diana was...not only a cold person, but...that her kids were...”
“Her kids,” Don said, leaning back slightly, rubbing his bearded face. “Damn, how to explain that.”
“What are they? Are they really her kids?”
“I’ll answer that question, but let me get back to Cindy,” Don said, shifting on his stool for a more comfortable position. “The reports I read indicate she died of a heart attack in Ronnie’s home, correct?”
Gregg nodded. “Yeah, she had broken in. She was armed, too.”
“Cops think it might have been drug induced, that she was tripping or something.”
“Sure. With Cindy that would have been very believable.”
“Diana used Cindy’s addiction problem against her,” Don said. “That’s what it does; it finds people’s weaknesses and manipulates them, using it against them. In Cindy’s case it was her drug addiction and her love for her daughter. By threatening Mary, it pushed Cindy’s buttons. It knew Cindy’s story wouldn’t be taken seriously. And when it wasn’t, it continued pushing those buttons until Cindy reacted the only way she knew how, by striking back.”
“So Cindy did break into the house to kill Diana?”
“Oh yes,” Don said, nodding. “And Diana knew it. And while I don’t know what went on in that house that night, I can hazard a guess as to how Cindy came to die of a heart attack and why the police would think it
was drug induced. For one, Diana knew that by having Cindy break into the house she would create the illusion Cindy was doing it under the influence of drugs—she already had that manipulative trick up her sleeve. But we have to ask ourselves, what really triggered that heart attack, if that’s indeed what it was? Last I heard, the jury was still out on that.”
“I guess,” Gregg said, sipping his whiskey. “Tell you the truth, I haven’t really paid much attention to Cindy’s case lately. Last I heard they thought it might be a heart attack.”
“My guess is when Cindy got into the house she saw Diana’s true self,” Don said. “And seeing it drove her mad; it was such a great shock to her that it triggered whatever it was that killed her.”
“Do you think Diana did all this—taunted Cindy—to make her come over so she could kill her?”
Don nodded. “Yeah, I think she did. It’s...unusual in that before it never did this. Before, it just used to live off of the man or woman it had taken up with. But I’ve noticed that the last few cases that it’s reached out beyond its victim. It’s always created havoc and misery among the victim’s family, but the last few cases...well, its manipulated things and situations that have led to other people’s deaths.”
Gregg’s mind was racing. “I remember Laura saying something about Cindy telling her ex-boyfriend Gary about the threatening phone calls Diana was making. And that she had a roommate, some guy that was apparently around when some of the calls were made.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Now that we’re talking about this I’d kinda like to talk to them.”
“I can understand why you would, but I’d advise against it.”
“Why?”
“You think they’d believe all this?”
“I don’t know.” Gregg said. He drank the rest of the whiskey. “But they were close to Cindy...they had to have known something...suspected something.”
“Maybe,” Don acknowledged. “But for now let’s get away from that. You asked about Diana’s kids...”
Gregg looked up at Don. “Yeah, her kids. Tell me.”
Don rummaged in a knapsack he had brought with him from his rental car. He brought out a sheaf of papers and glanced at Gregg. He looked like he was hesitating. Gregg read the nervousness on his face and nodded for him to continue. “First I have some pictures to show you.” He passed the folder to Gregg, who took it and opened it.
The first photo on the top of the stack was of a dark haired man with a slim, muscular build. It looked like he was at a family picnic. He was standing on the side of a picnic bench, holding a cigarette. His face was framed perfectly centered as the photographer caught him engaged in conversation with somebody off camera. “Who’s that?”
“That’s a man named Ron Doyle,” Don said. “This photo was taken in 1972. Two years later he met a young woman named Nancy Padilla in a single’s club and took her home. Eighteen months later he was dead, and Nancy cleared out.” He motioned to the photo. “The first time I laid eyes on Bruce Miller that’s who I saw. This same exact face, same build. When I found this photo during my research—which had led to Nancy Padilla—I was shocked.”
Gregg looked at him with confusion.
“Ron Doyle was one of its victims,” he said. He looked hesitant again. “Flip down to the next photo.”
Gregg went to the next photo. A younger Don Grant was with a pretty dark haired woman wearing a blue sundress at an amusement park. They were posing with somebody dressed in a giant purple bunny costume. Don’s face beamed with happiness; his hair was short, and the woman he was with radiated life and joy. “That’s me and Lisa,” he said. “Two years before she was taken from me, in happier times.”
Gregg wasn’t listening. He was looking at the photo of Don and his late wife with numbing horror.
The woman standing next to him was the splitting image of Diana Marshfield.
“You see?” Don asked.
Gregg nodded, his heart thumping hard. “That’s Diana.”
“No,” Don said, his voice lowered, more gravelly with a slight tinge of anger. “That’s my wife, Lisa. That thing...that fucking thing...even though I tried to save her it still...it was still able to absorb enough of her to...to use her essence. To masquerade in her face, her body.”
Gregg understood completely. He stared at the photo in numb silence. “What about the kids?”
“It’s only had children twice in all the times I’ve been able to document its path, but I have no doubt it’s had them many times. The first time was back in the 1940’s. It moved in with a woman named Alice Peterson who lost her husband in World War II. Alice had a twelve-year-old son named Bobby.” He paused, looking at Gregg. “That’s the first time it had a child.” He flipped through the photos to an old black-and-white snapshot and turned it face up to Gregg. The photo depicted a twelve-year-old boy with close-cropped dark hair and freckles, smiling into the camera. It was the splitting image of Diana Marshfield’s son, Rick; that sullen boy who barely spoke a word.
Gregg understood the implications perfectly with dawning horror. “It...whatever it did with Alice...it did the same to her son?”
Don nodded. “Taking Alice’s son gave it enough energy, so much in fact that the next documented evidence I found of it was in the 1970’s...’71 maybe. It worked its way through maybe half a dozen identities and switched back and forth between sexes. Around 1980 or so it married a single father of a six-year-old girl.”
“The girl looked like...was...Lily,” Gregg said, feeling his mouth go dry of spit.
Don nodded. He arranged the photos in the folder and put them on the bar top. “That kept it going until 1997 when it emerged in Iowa. It went from there to Colorado, then to Pasadena, California where I had my encounter. It was still feeding off the energy from the little girl and “
“So what are they?” Gregg asked. “Lily and Rick, I mean? Are they...”
“They’re part of it now,” Don said. “The souls of children act as a powerful battery to it. When that power is drained it can use their essence, sort of use them as an extension of itself.”
“So Lily and Rick are really a part of Diana?”
“Yes.”
“What about the dog? Does it feed on animals?”
“It can emulate animals to a certain extent. Enough to fool us. But children?” Don’s bearded face looked grave. “If it can find an adult host with a child, the better.”
“And that’s why it wants Mary?”
Don nodded. “Like I said, it’s had other children,” he continued. “Sometimes it uses Lily and Rick to help insinuate itself into its host’s life. Sometimes it uses the essence of other children it’s drained. It works especially well with recently divorced people with children or people who’ve lost their spouses. They’re lonely, they’re vulnerable...a lot of people like that let their guard down, don’t even think about who they’re letting into their lives. And especially now with the Internet, and people meeting in chatrooms and stuff...it’s like the sexual revolution of the 60’s and 70’s...the field is ripe with hosts. It can gorge itself.”
“So it controls Lily and Rick?”
“They’re a part of her,” Don explained, his fingers tracing patterns on his soda glass. “She can detach them from herself and they’re wholly independent of her, but she controls them.”
Gregg tried to remember how Rick and Lily carried themselves. He shuddered at the memory. They had been such sullen, uncommunicative children. He had initially chalked their dull, almost glazed, expressions as that of bored, unimaginative children. Perhaps dumb ones. In light of what Don was telling him now, he was beginning to see them for what they really were. “So what do we do?” he asked. “How do we stop it?”
Don sighed. Once again there was that look of defeat, of sorrow, in his face. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m here...to see if we can brainstorm something together. I’ve been thinking about this by myself now for three years and...I don’t have all the answers.�
� He looked at Gregg. “I need somebody to help me with this. I want to destroy it.”
Gregg met his gaze, his resolve strengthening. “I’m in.”
They clasped hands. And to Gregg it felt like he was enlisting in battle.
MARY WAS DREAMING that her daddy was calling her name, and she fought sleep. She tried to look for him, tried to follow his voice as it echoed through the vast blackness of her mind. “Mary...Mary...Mary...”
She fought the blackness of sleep and the more she climbed out of it, the more audible her daddy’s voice was. It reverberated in her ears, his voice musically clear. “Mary...wake up honey...come on...wake up...”
Mary opened her eyes and saw her daddy.
He was crouched down on the side of her bed, leaning over her. For a minute she was so surprised she almost let out a scream. Her daddy placed a finger to his lips to quiet her, then touched her gently, his fingers trailing to her lips. “Shhh...it’s okay...”
“Daddy?” Mary said. She had intended to whisper but was so surprised that her voice was louder than expected.
“Shhh...don’t wake your cousin up.” Her daddy gestured to Amy Wandrei, who was sleeping soundly next to her.
Mary blinked, fighting the weariness of sleep. Was she dreaming? She had to be. Her daddy was dead; they were having his funeral in two days. True, she hadn’t actually seen his dead body, but everybody had been crying, and her aunts and cousins were telling her something bad had happened and he had died, so it must be true. She knew something bad happened; nobody would tell her outright what had happened, and the police had asked her a lot of questions so it must have been really horrible. Mary had cried, knowing in her heart her daddy was not coming home, so this must be a dream, it must be—
Her daddy leaned closer to her and touched her face gently with his hands.
Her skin tingled at his touch, obliterating her fatigue.
“Daddy?” She sat up in bed, feeling her chest constrict, the happiness and joy building in her.
Daddy put a finger to his lips. Shhh, he whispered.
The Beloved Page 33