“Do you know?” Hedda asked Kacey.
“Sorry?”
“Do you know? How many other survivors there are?”
Kacey stared at the couple and thought about what Fisher had told her—well, more like what he hadn’t. That it appeared as if the only survivors were sitting before her, right this moment, sipping coffee in her living room.
“Well, the detective I talked with said they were still arresting suspects and really didn’t know anything, yet. That he couldn’t tell survivors from suspects at this point.”
Good God, his words had just sunk in—really sunk in.
The couple nodded. Again, the thought crossed her mind. What did she, or the police, for that matter, really know about this couple? All they had was their story, and, let’s face it, couldn’t they have also been in on the murders themselves, then cleverly saved ass by saying, “Hey, we’re the good guys!”? Their home could have been a clever ruse, an “in” into the community. Kacey began to wonder if inviting them in had been such a good idea...
But they didn’t seem the killer type.
They just didn’t feel like the kind of people who’d murder innocent people in their sleep one moment, then calmly discuss it the next. They both seemed genuinely unnerved by the whole incident, though weirder things have been known to happen...
“So,” Kacey continued, keeping her uneasiness to herself, while also noting she did have a clear shot to the door, a pen in hand, and pepper spray in her purse on the end table by the door, “you woke up to find intruders in your bedroom, took care of them, then went outside to help others—and called the police? Do you remember anything else?”
“That’s about it,” Hedda said.
“Well... there was one other... kinda weird... thing,” Jack said.
“Go on.”
“When I was outside, it was really odd... I mean, they fought back when I attacked, but otherwise... otherwise it was like they didn’t care. Didn’t seem to care I was there, that I saw them, walked among them, fought them.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, with those I fought, sure, they tried to fend me off, half-heartedly and all, but I had many others pass me by—literally—several times, when I was engaged with others. They simply ignored me. It was like I didn’t matter, and they just walked right on past to their next target. If I intercepted them, they fought back, but, otherwise, they just let me fight who I was fighting and continued on to their next kill.”
Kacey stared back in silence.
“And one other thing,” he added, turning to his wife. “I just remembered something else—but in the midst of all this,” he said, turning back to Kacey, “I thought I was gonna get trampled over by horses or something.”
“Horses?”
“I coulda swore I heard and felt the thunder of...” Jack broke off laughing, “this might sound really stupid, but I swore I heard and felt the thunder of thousands of horses bearing down on us—on me. Thousands of them. I swore the ground trembled with their charge.”
At that point Jack, though he never mentioned it and forever kept it to himself, had the fleeting image of him fighting in a kind of low-grade armor, wielding a sword and crude mace. He never spoke of it to Hedda or Kacey.
Kacey jotted down all of what the Hockers had said.
“Huh. Well, I thank you for your time, Mr. and Mrs. Hocker, and I’m so sorry—I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am for what’s happened—and I just hope the police find out who did this and why. If you ever need anything, please, please, don’t hesitate to call. You’re free to stay the day, if you’d—”
“If it’s all the same to you, ma’am,” Jack said, getting to his feet, “I think we’ll head back. Sooner or later we’ll have to face things. Hopefully, they’re done with our place by now.”
Kacey nodded.
And, maybe, Kacey thought, she could sneak into a house or two...
3
Sarasota County’s newest inmate, number 5943667, otherwise known as Susan Sibley, housewife and volunteer worker, always considered herself a strong woman, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually, as well. In her late forties, she’d already raised her three kids, Polly, Ben, and Wendy into well-adjusted members of society and the college scene. All were intelligent and none of them did drugs. They’d all written home, called home, and sent those special occasion cards and flowers on time. For what more could a mother ask? Susan had the perfect husband in Andrew Sibley, who was, admittedly, a bit on the workaholic side, but who paid her as much attention as possible, and frequently called from work, or left humorous, loving, text messages on her cell. They had a beautiful home, though it was now an empty nest, and Susan had gone back to school herself, studying art. She’d always been particularly interested in Dali, and had always wanted to study art ever since she’d discovered, with her first child, that she could, suddenly and unaccountably, paint. She was, however, drawn to barren landscapes... prairies, plains, and deserts... all things remote and desolate... which she couldn’t explain—but no less ignore. It was just what emerged from within. She’d sought the help of other artists, entered therapy, and even consulted psychics to try to understand why it was her sketches and art work were all so sullen and barren. She never felt that way at home, or with Andrew—just in her art. All the Rorschach tests, all the psychoanalysis, and all the Dr. Phil and Dr. Drew shows had told her that she was, unequivocally, happy, and should, by all rights, be painting and sketching sunrises and sunsets, glorious seascapes, and fields of plenty and happiness...
So why all the artistic desolation?
She had no answer. She just chose to ignore it and went about life as she had for the past twenty years, painting what came to her, and living life to its fullest. She took up biking, weight training, even taught cardio classes—all in an effort to maybe, she and the professionals thought, release any possibly unconscious, pent-up, angst. Abandonment or lack-of-attention issues. She didn’t have any, she insisted, but they (those darned professionals) insisted try it, it couldn’t hurt, could it? Look at it this way, if there were any unconscious issues this might release their orneriness, and if not, look at what great shape she’d be in! She’d be so buff she and her hubby won’t be able to keep their hands off each other (not that they did already). Well, who could resist that argument? Buff and more sex? Woo-hoo, America...
So, Susan made the gym and running her daily routine, and, indeed, created quite the conditioned physique. And, yes, the results were just as the professionals had envisioned... but still, there had been no “rage catharsis,” no internal psychiatric purification, because there just hadn’t been any pent-up anything.
No harm, no foul. Life goes on.
Then, what had come to be called “The Event,” happened. A Beechcraft Bonanza, a sightseeing plane out of Teterboro, its pilot and three passengers, had all slammed directly into the thirty-seventh floor of the Pall Meadows building, on New York City’s Park Avenue. The obvious comparisons were made, but it was nothing more than a fifty-four-year-old pilot having had a heart attack while taking the Beech in a lot closer than he should have in the first place. The plane would have crashed somewhere, no matter its altitude and heading, but it just so happened that on this day, given this set of circumstances, it had crashed into Pall Meadows, the very floor upon which Susan Sibley’s only brother, Wallace Theodore Bryce, worked. They’d always been close, Wally and Susan, but on that fateful day he’d told her he’d seen it, seconds before it’d actually happened, in the reflection of a nearby building as he’d been daydreaming out his window. It had been a beautiful, clear day... he’d been sipping a double-mocha extra latte with a cinnamon twist... when he saw the unthinkable. “Saw” that plane plow straight into Pall Meadows like a replay of 9/11, and “felt” the shocking impact reverberate through the offices of Meyers Financial, past the legs of that hot new investment broker, Sonia McGrath, four cubes down, then “telegraphed” through his leather-back throne, as he had i
t swiveled toward the plate glass of his corner office windows. Yes, brother Wally had “seen” it, seen it all, all the fire, the smoke, the surreality, and, lucky for him, brother Wally had been quick to respond. Something deep within him had actually propelled him to his feet after that vision (double-mocha extra latte with a cinnamon twist splattered all over the carpet and portions of his leather highback, not to mention his slacks and shoes), and it was then that he actually saw the Beechcraft coming straight at them. The words came flying out his mouth before he knew what he was saying: Oh my God! That plane! It’s gonna hit! We have to get outta here! Now!
Brother Wally had felt his legs grow wobbly, something he’d read about in books, but had never really and truly believed until this very moment, then quickly rediscovered locomotion, as he rushed out of his office into the reception area of Meyers Financial proper. Others were also up, milling about, pointing and commenting at the casual flybys of the sightseeing aircraft. They all looked at him, crazy like. Crash? It was just flying around them... but in no short order, things quickly changed from curiosity to dire concern, and when it happened, it happened fast.
But, to Wally, every moment was exquisitely drawn out.
They also all spilled their chais and lattes, and began screaming and yelling, just like him. Even beautiful Sonia was wailing strings of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and not to mention some rather choice expletives. So, brother Wally hurried everyone out and cleared the office, but, as he was the last one out, found himself staring—simply staring—at the suddenly empty office, the horror of what was about to happen still a smoking hole in his mind’s eye, and a weird feeling in the pit of his gut. Not to mention he could now see the wobbling, unsteady Beech coming straight for them, as he looked all the way through the now-deserted office space and out an office window on the opposite side. Not only wasn’t this right, on this bright, beautiful Wednesday morning, at ten-forty-one, a.m., but he’d had his first distinct and wholly psychic event in his entire dull and droll life. In his mind’s eye—as clear as the day was gorgeous—he’d pre-witnessed the stark and harsh contrast burning before him... office papers flickering down from the sky like so much confetti, shimmering in the early morning sun, and desks, filing cabinets and people blown out the exploded windows at the impact location.
Brother Wally was the last one to hear all the phones that were, even now, ringing; he was the last one to smell the coffee that was still brewing at various locations around the office, and the last one to see those rays of sunshine hitting the desks and potted plants just so. He was the last man on earth, at this moment, but he wouldn’t last if he didn’t get his ass out of there now.
So, out Wally rushed, and, adrenaline flushing his system, glanced at the Last-Man-On-Earth Time as he left the offices, which clocked in at ten-forty-two. He’d tried to take the elevator, but so was everyone else (which was a mistake), so he hoofed it down the stairwell with those not using the elevators. Thank God for his five-mile morning runs...
Well, not that Susan knew all of the exact, intimate details of the last moments of her brother’s life, but she had talked with him ever so briefly on his cell phone after he’d evacuated. She still recalled hearing all the noise and screaming from the others around him, his labored breathing. In those few short seconds, Wally had told her what had happened, and what they were doing, and that was the last she—or anyone else—had ever heard from him. Over the past couple years since, Susan had had ample time and imagination to fill in all the holes she didn’t know about her brother’s escape, and what might have really happened up there. No one had ever found him after the crash, which had slammed precisely into the floors of the offices of Meyers Financial, at ten-forty-two that morning, and no one had been able to find his body—wholly or in parts—following the extensive relief efforts and hospital searches. Susan had done all she could, but despite her best efforts, had not turned up anything on her only brother. He was simply and succinctly listed as “missing.” She had just chosen to fill in all the spaces by thinking and rethinking the scenario over and over in her mind. She doubted he’d perished in that building, preferring optimism to the alternative. To her, two facts remained: he had told her of his one and only premonition, and she—to this day—felt him still alive.
And that had been the single most defining moment of Susan Sibley’s life—except for today. Here, during the early morning hours where she suddenly, inexplicably, found herself in a Gulf Coast Florida detention center cell for committing a series of murders of which she had plenty of blood and other DNA all over her, as well as a load of partial memories and screams and pleas still echoing in her head that could only be attributed to the actions of which she’d been accused. If ever there had been a time in which she might have had any kind of unconscious, pent-up rage, this would be it, but it appeared as if all her therapy and cures had come years early, years before the symptoms, and had all, long ago, fallen flat. Any problems she’d thought she’d had in the past of her short-but-sweet life had all been a joke. One huge, cosmic prank played upon a poor, meek soul that had actually proven to be more prophetic than anything else.
Close but no cigar.
Horrifyingly precognitive, at best.
Boy, was the joke ever on them, wasn’t it boys! Susan’s life up til now had been a walk in a rose garden, and no one could even appreciate it... except for her. Susan had had no problems... you wanna talk problems? Talk Sunset Harbor, Florida, one-twelve in the a.m., when she found herself fourteen-hundred miles from home, with a much-used pair of stained grass shears in her hands, bloody and dripping.
In her hands.
In someone else’s bedroom. As she stood over two mutilated and quite dead bodies, still snuggled against each other in bed. Streetlight streaming in, the occasional thunder and lightning punctuating each act, of which she had little memory—even as she stood over the tell-tale corpses, her weapon of choice still hot with their unknown lives running off it and onto her slacks and shoes and soul. She’d then, mechanically, rolled the bodies up into two throw rugs, rolled them all up into rugs—why, she’d hadn’t a fucking clue—then tied them up with electrical cords yanked from bedroom lamps, macramé, whatever, and stacked them atop tables, bookcases, and a refrigerator. Stared blankly at her handiwork, then left, actually left the homes, again in a haze, only to find herself suddenly standing before another bed, again with her True Value grass shears dripping with warm, unknown, blood on her Esprit pants, Mephisto shoes, and Lutheran soul. This time, her hands shaking, and defensive wounds covering her arms and face. Again, she left, in her now-trademark haze, but, yet again, found herself in yet another bedroom... until she found her face smashed down against the warm, familiar metal of a black-and-white Sunset Harbor police cruiser hood, flashing lights painting everything around her a blur of red, white, and blue, no longer that blinding white from the lightning, or those pleading screams tormenting her. Now, cuffs slapped on wrists already sore and cut up from pleas of mercy she’d ignored, hands covered in drying blood from people she didn’t know...
Yes, these were the last memories Susan Sibley, wife of Andrew Sibley, and sister of unaccounted for Wallace T. Bryce had, as she screamed and screamed and screamed in her holding cell at three in the morning. Pain and hot winds blasted through her soul as she began to remove her blouse (they hadn’t enough detention center jumpsuits to go around, she’d heard) in this tiny enclosure, after the officer had come in and again yelled at her to please shut the hell up. Vague images again blasted through her mind like hot sand as she deliberately began to tie her blouse sleeves in a knot, staring off into space. She may not have had pent-up rage in her life for the past twenty-odd years, but she certainly had pent-up something now, and she sure as heck wasn’t going to go through all those years of whatever was going to surely happen to her next. Certainly “insanity” would somehow be tagged to it this time, given her history. Or at least something involving “life sentence,” if spared the almost-certain capital puni
shment that awaited them all. So, Susan, having removed her blouse and holding it out before her, continued to stare ahead at her impersonal cell walls, and think how they so resembled much of her work on oil and canvas, and lifted the garment above her head, hanging it around her neck like a preppy college
(Wendy! Polly! Ben!)
co-ed’s sweater. She grabbed the ends of her sleeves in each hand, and looked to them. Good thing for working out, she thought wryly, tightly gripping and digging in her knuckles for a firmer hold. She stood up, and felt anything but preppy now. She really did love her family and three kids and hoped they’d only remember the good parts, the 99.999% of her life they’d experienced firsthand. There was no way she was going to drag them through a bloody trial—there was no need for any more blood, and there was certainly no need for a trial. She’d done whatever they’d arrested her for, and that was that. Open and shut. She was tired of being labeled repressed, depressed, pent-up, or quietly suffering, and, most of goddamned all, she was so sorry for what she’d done.
Summoning all of her strength in one single explosive effort, Susan exhaled and did the only thing that needed be done to put everyone out of her misery and bring all those years of mis-diagnosed therapy to closure. She grasped a firm hold of her sleeve ends and yanked with the might and resolution of the insane, wrenching her blood-stained blouse quickly and brutally around her neck as she exhaled and crushed her own windpipe.
Her coup d’grace to all who’d helped her over the years.
Her final thoughts, as she spastically gasped for air and choked the life out of herself, were of Wendy, Polly, Ben, and Andrew.
I love you, my darlings...
Chapter Three
The Uninvited Page 3