Dear Tragedy: A Dark Supernatural Thriller (House of Sand Book 2)

by Michael J Sanford

  Dottie stopped squirming and craned her neck to look back at Jake. She was weeping, but smiling as well. “In the darkness I met it. The thing that now calls me its own. I am branded. Dead and buried. Claimed in wretchedness for violence and sorrow.”

  “Dottie!” the manager shouted again.

  Jake let go of Dottie’s wrist and clambered to his feet. Jaina wrapped herself around him and pulled him back from Dottie. “Are you okay?”

  “Aza,” Jake said, nodding at the waitress. The loud manager stood over her, keeping Dottie trapped, but it didn’t look as if she had any intention of moving any longer. “Aza did this.”

  “She’s here?!” Jaina shouted, spinning around, searching.

  “Hey!” Jake shouted to another waitress, this one standing behind the counter, hands over her mouth. “Was there a creepy girl in here today? Maybe still here?”

  “What? I—creepy girl?” the woman asked, eyes locked on the seemingly comatose Dottie.

  Jake pounded the counter, causing the woman to jump and look at him. “Focus,” he said. “Twelve-year-old girl, thin, dark hair, stupid-blue eyes. And creepy as all fuck. Calls herself—”

  “Tragedy,” the waitress said. She slowly reached under the counter and drew out a serrated knife.

  “Jesus!” Jaina shouted.

  Jake held up his hands and stepped away from the counter, Jaina tight at his side. “Hey, let’s not be doing anything we’ll regret later, okay, uh…” Jake looked from the knife to the woman’s name tag and back again. “…Julie.”

  Julie cocked her head to the side and locked eyes with Jake. Her eyes were muted brown, but Jake could feel Aza staring back at him. Just as she’d done in her hospital room. He traced the cuts along his chest with a finger.

  “My name…is Tragedy.” In a flash of movement, Julie slit her own throat and stood in place, retching blood across the counter.

  Jake and Jaina danced back.

  Dottie stirred on the floor and the manager cursed.

  “For if all mankind ceased to sin, I would still remain, to suck their marrow dry,” Dottie said.

  Customers and employees alike were already scrambling for the exit, some shouting, some crying, all running for their lives.

  Dottie spun over to her stomach and jumped into a crouch. Blood ran from her mouth and her head was cocked to rest on one of her shoulders. Her eyes wouldn’t leave Jake, even as he and Jaina backed away.

  “How is this happening?” Jaina asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jake said.

  Dottie crept forward, still crouched. “I am not death, but just as absolute. To know me is to surrender. To surrender is to have purpose.”

  “Jake…” Jaina said.

  Jake reached into his waistband and pulled out Chief Crun’s revolver. He pointed it at Dottie. “Whatever Aza did to you, you can fight it.”

  Dottie hopped forward a step and smiled through blood-stained teeth.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Jake said.

  From outside, the sound of sirens infiltrated the mayhem.

  “We have to go,” Jaina said, pulling on his arm.

  Dottie laughed. “Love may be patient and kind, but I am neither.”

  Dottie sprung from the floor and Jake pulled the trigger. The back of Dottie’s head vaporized and she crumpled to the floor.

  “Jake!” Jaina shouted, leading him away and toward the back of the diner.

  “I didn’t want to,” Jake said as he followed Jaina through the kitchen and out a back door. “She would have killed us.”

  In the alley behind the diner, Jaina spun and slapped Jake hard across the face. “You had no choice. Obviously Aza is way more…fucking powerful than we thought. Maybe it’s not even Aza, but the Devil himself come to burn the world down. I don’t have a fucking clue, but what I do know is that we still need to find her and Dani.”

  Jake could hear a swarm of police officers enter the front of the building. It brought a new surge of adrenaline.

  Jake shoved the revolver back into his waistband, grabbed Jaina’s hand tightly in his, and ran.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sunday 1:33 p.m.

  Aza woke with a jolt and a cry. She was bathed in a cold sweat, stuck to the ragged sheets she’d curled up in.

  “Tragedy?” Dani asked from the pile of old clothes next to Aza.

  There was little light in the concrete room, but enough to see her new companion. “I’m fine,” Aza said, sniffing and wiping at her nose. Her heart was still racing, but the remains of the nightmare were scarce and intangible.

  “Hand me a water,” Aza said.

  Dani grabbed a bottle from the stack nearby and handed it to Aza. Aza downed the entire thing in one breath.

  “Are you hungry?” Dani asked. “There are snack cakes here. And chocolate chip muffins!”

  Aza narrowed her eyes at Dani. Even in the gloom, the girl radiated warmth and positivity. If Aza weren’t certain that Dani was the key to her power, Aza would have already killed her. Not that she didn’t like Dani, because she did. Quite a lot, in fact. But her bottomless jubilance was just so…irritating.

  Aza held out her hand and Dani slapped a muffin into it. Then she took one for herself and scooted closer to Aza.

  “Mmm,” Dani said after the first bite.

  Aza twitched and swatted at her ear. “Don’t do that,” she said.

  “Oh, sorry. Are we trying to be quiet or something?”

  “No. I just hate that sound.” Aza bit into her muffin, but tasted little of it.

  “So, is this like your hideout or something? And where’d you get all the food?” Dani asked after finishing her muffin.

  Aza took two bites and couldn’t will herself to take more. She handed Dani her leftovers and leaned back on her elbows. The small room they’d holed up in was mostly concrete, with a dirt floor. Dank and dark, with the rich scent of burned wood baked into every surface. Aza could smell pine, too. One of her favorite scents, right after chocolate chip pancakes and death.

  Dani and Aza had fled the hospital together, though the details of it were fuzzy. Being near Dani changed something in Aza, making it difficult to fully concentrate. Making it feel as if she were someone else. It hadn’t been difficult. No one had thought to question a pair of twelve-year-old girls walking together. Aza still wore a short hospital gown, but even so, their journey had been uneventful. As far as she knew.

  Dani had talked a lot, incessantly so, asking question after question. Aza couldn’t remember answering any of them, and when they’d finally reached their destination, Aza had fallen asleep immediately.

  “So what do we do now?” Dani asked. “Do you have games or anything here?”

  Aza shook her head. “No.”

  “TV? A computer?”

  “No. No.”

  “But you have food and water?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you…live here?”

  Aza looked at Dani and forced a smile. Killing was so much easier than this. “No. Like you said, it’s my hideout. I come here when I don’t feel like being around people for a while.”

  Dani sighed dramatically. “Tell me about it. People are just the worst. I mean, besides you, Tragedy. But like my mom, my dad, all the stupid spoiled bitches at school. Even—”

  Aza coughed to break off Dani’s tirade. Dani patted her on the back.

  “I need your help with something,” Aza said.

  Dani dug into the pile of food and came up with a cereal bar. “Okay,” she said, tearing into it.

  “I need you to remember what we did at the sleepover. To April.”

  Dani laughed, choked on her food, and started coughing. After a moment she caught her breath and said, “Yeah, that was funny. She deserved it. Thanks, by the way.”

  “Dani, look at your knuckles.”

  Dani did, holding them close to her face.

  “You attacked her. Beat the living shit out of her. Whispered my words into her ear for your f
ather to hear.”

  “What are you talking about? You attacked her. For me,” Dani said, frowning at Aza.

  “Dani,” Aza said firmly. “Take my hands. Like before.”

  Dani reached out both hands and Aza took them, squeezing tightly, trying to recreate that night at the Barkers’. Aza focused on the feel of Dani’s hands in hers. She tried to sense the momentary pass of power that she knew would come. But she felt nothing.

  “Dammit!” Aza shouted, pulling her hands back. “How did you do it?”

  Dani looked at her hands. “Do what? You’re being weird.”

  “Do you remember pushing your brother and throwing me a lighter?”

  “Huh? Push my brother? Maybe you are sick. I could help you get back to the hospital if you’re feeling confused.”

  Aza jumped up and almost struck Dani. Instead she started spinning, eying every corner. “And where is the…shadow thing? Where are you? Are you Dani’s puppet master or mine? Show yourself!”

  Dani grabbed Aza by the shoulders, halting her flurry. “I think maybe I’ll just go, okay, Tragedy? I can call someone to help you if you want.”

  Aza pushed Dani backward, knocking her flat against the pile of foodstuffs. Cans rolled in every direction. “You’re not going anywhere until you help me.”

  Dani groaned and sat up, rubbing her arm. “Why’d you push me? I said I would help you.”

  Aza knelt in front of Dani and peered into her eyes. There was little there that spoke of any power. Was Aza wrong? “Why did you attack April?” Aza asked.

  “I didn’t. You—”

  “I was not created in the darkness, for I have always existed. It is I that created the darkness. To conceal that which is known and lie to all who think themselves safe.” Aza couldn’t see it. The dark thing. But she could feel its presence once more. Finally. Perhaps Dani wasn’t exceptional. Aza had, after all, been killing for far longer than she’d known Dani existed. But the girl was still a riddle. And still a vital part of her ultimate plan.

  “I…I…Tragedy, you’re scaring me,” Dani said.

  “I will make you remember,” Aza said. “If only just to see you experience the horror of what you’ve done. I want to see your face when you realize that it was you that almost killed that bitch girl and I want to hear your cries when you realize it was you that helped me set fire to your foolish brother.”

  “What? You hurt my brother? I want to leave. Now.”

  Aza stood up and stepped aside. “There is no escape for the damned of this world. And we are all damned in one way or another.”

  “You need serious help,” Dani said, rushing for the solitary door on the far side of the room.

  Dani reached the door and tugged on the chain and padlock there.

  “To live in darkness is to be unseen and to be unseen is to be as the dead. There but forgotten.”

  Dani spun. “What’s the code?”

  Aza stooped, picked up a bottle of water and drank.

  “Tragedy! You can’t keep me here. What’s the code?”

  Aza sat against the wall and crossed her legs at the ankle. The wall was cold, biting through the tatters of her hospital gown. It enlivened her. She’d been wrong about Dani. She had no power, no ability of her own. In fact, it seemed to Aza that Dani must be weaker than most others she’d encountered. Aza hadn’t even consciously asked Dani to assist in the near-murder of her brother. It had just happened.

  Dani stomped over to Aza. She had fire in her eyes. “Tell me the code or I’ll beat it out of you. I’m way bigger than you, crazy bitch.”

  “That would be a sorry waste of your time. I’m not afraid of pain or death. I am Tragedy, after all.”

  Dani flinched. “Well, my dad is a cop. He’s going to find me. You better let me out right now or a whole ton of cops are going to be breaking down that door any minute.”

  As Dani spoke, a piece of forgotten dream came and went through Aza’s mind. It hadn’t made sense when she’d originally dreamed it, but the magnitude of the event was beginning to crystallize. “Your father killed a woman today,” Aza said. “Shot her right in the head. Dottie was her name, though I always thought of her as Grace. Just suited her better.”

  “You’re crazy,” Dani said. She returned to the door and set to pounding on it once more.

  Aza sighed and rested her head against the wall, shutting her eyes, relaxed by the sound of Dani’s agony. Aza had hoped, if for just a moment, that they could have remained actual friends, but it wasn’t to be. She’d figure it out eventually; how they’d swapped places at the Barkers’ and how she’d gotten Dani to help in the burning of her brother and the killing of that god-awful nurse. Aza would use Dani as practice until she figured it out. It would come. Eventually.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sunday 3:13 p.m.

  “What’s our game plan?” Jaina asked from the passenger seat of the stolen pickup.

  Jake had broken into the vehicle and hot-wired it amid their torrid escape from the diner. It was an older-model—no GPS tracking system—but he still figured they were working on borrowed time. Jake knew all too well how difficult it was to evade the police when the stakes were high. Putting a bullet in the head of a waitress using a gun you stole from the chief of police wouldn’t help things.

  “Simple. We see what they know about Aza. General stuff that could help us find her. Specific things that we can use against her. Anything, really,” Jake said.

  They were parked down the street from the split-level at 26 Morrow Lane, home to Aza’s maternal grandparents. Jake didn’t like the idea of shaking down the older couple. The crimes of their son-in-law had weighed heavily on the pair. Really, Jake should have kept tabs on them instead of Aza, but that ship had sailed. And sunk.

  “Aza is closest with her grandfather, Paul,” Jaina said. “Used to call him when she had the privilege to. Wrote him letters, too. Don’t think she cared much for her grandmother.”

  “Aza lived with them for a few months before coming to see you,” Jake said. Both of them knew everything they were saying, but it felt good to verbalize it. Cement the fact that they were on the same page. “Before she killed that shrink, anyway.”

  “You think they know about her?” Jaina asked. “About what she did? Can do?”

  Jake shrugged and opened the truck door. “One way to find out.”

  Jaina followed closely after Jake as he headed for the front door. “One of us should, like, snoop around while the other questions her grandparents.”

  Jake gave Jaina a playful elbow. “A regular gumshoe, aren’t ya? Good idea, though. I’ll take the grandparents. You do the snooping. I doubt Aza would be dumb enough to come back here with Dani, but there’s always that chance.”

  “Maybe she left us another letter.”

  Jake shuddered and felt lightheaded for a moment.

  Jaina elbowed him. “It was just a joke,” she said.

  Jake knocked on the front door.

  Aza’s grandfather, Paul, opened the door and stood looming in the gap. He scowled beneath bushy gray eyebrows and his voluminous mustache only partially concealed a sneer. “What do you want?”

  It’d been four years since Jake had seen the man, and time had not been kind to him. Paul had clearly lost considerable weight, and it left him looking haggard and not very…jolly.

  “Good evening,” Jake said. “I don’t know if you remember me, but my name is—”

  “Detective Jake Anderson,” Paul said. “I remember you. And I know you as well, Ms. Winters. What are you doing here?”

  “It’s nice to see you again, Paul,” Jaina said before Jake could try another avenue. “I know this is strange and perhaps we’re not your favorite people in the world, but we’d like to come in and talk to you about your granddaughter. For just a moment. We wouldn’t want to overstep.”

  “Is this a joke?” Paul asked, eying both Jake and Jaina in turn. “From where I’m standing, you both had a hand in taking my grandda
ughter away from me. Not to mention the fiasco that was your police work four years ago.” Paul pointed a finger at Jake, nearly poking him in the chest. “If you had done your goddamn job, I’d still have a daughter.”

  Jaina shot a quick look at Jake. Jake tried to ignore the accusing look. “I know you still blame me, but this is important, Paul. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t. Please, if we could just have a minute.”

  Paul looked straight into Jake’s eyes and Jake stared right back. Jake didn’t know where the situation was going, but he wasn’t going to back down. He had more options to get the information he needed from Paul if the “easy way” didn’t work.

  Paul shook his head like he’d tasted something sour. He threw the door open the rest of the way and walked back into the house. “Make it quick,” he said.

  Jake made to follow, but Jaina grabbed his arm. “What was that?” she asked.

  Jake shrugged. “I can play nice when I need to.”

  “That’s not what I meant. It was like you hypnotized him for a second. You were just staring at each other, then he twitched and agreed to what you said.”

  “Let’s not get crazy, Jae. We have enough to worry about. Come on, I doubt Paul is going to cut us a lot of slack. We don’t have time to waste. Remember; keep an eye out for any sign that Aza is or was here.”

  Jake turned on Jaina and walked into the house, not wanting to continue the conversation. Had he truly done something to make Paul change his mind so readily? Jake couldn’t shake the feeling that Aza was still rattling around in his head in a way he didn’t understand. Had she given Jake some of her power? Or was it still Aza, extending her influence through Jake? He couldn’t bear to think about the possibilities. He had to remain focused on getting Dani back firstly and stopping Aza secondly. Hopefully, one would lead to the other, freeing his own mind in the process.

  “Either of you want anything to drink?” Paul asked as Jake and Jaina walked into the living room.