by Ray Garton
Dad ignored her. His eyes never left Miles’s.
The voice continued, but Miles was too preoccupied to listen.
“You gonna be hit me again a good Miles little puppy?” Dad said.
Miles fought the dizziness, struggled to remain conscious. He wasn’t sure he’d heard what he thought he’d just heard, but it didn’t matter. As if poking Dad with a stick, Miles slammed the head of the heavy Mag-Lite into his left hand.
Again, Dad screamed and fell off him, but this time he dropped the knife. Miles suddenly found himself standing with the flashlight in his left hand, the knife in his right. He swayed with dizziness.
“Get out,” Dad said, his voice crushed by pain.
Miles stayed where he was. To get to the stairs, he would have to go around Dad, who was stretched out on the floor, and that would put him within reach of Dad’s hand again.
“I said get out,” Dad said as he slowly got to his feet.
“Let me get out.”
Dad hunched forward and let his right arm dangle. For a moment, Miles thought he moved like a mummy from an old horror movie.
“Don’t make me hurt you, Dad, please,” Miles said. He didn’t want to cry, but tears came anyway.
“You’re bein’ a baaaad puppy,” the fat man said. He came toward Miles. “Put that fuckin’ knife down now, or I’m gonna make you eat it.”
Miles found himself once again backed up against the cold, damp boxes. “Dad, please. I don’t want to hurt you.”
The fat man laughed. He suddenly stood up straight, swept his right foot out, and knocked Miles’s legs out from under him.
Miles was so surprised by the move, his hands let go of the knife and flashlight as he went down.
Claudia came back into the laundry room empty-handed, wet from the rain.
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t find it,” she said. “But I think the police are here. I heard someone drive up out front.”
Lily turned away from the door and said, “The police, or Chief Winningham?”
“I don’t know,” Claudia said.
“Excuse me,” Lily said as she stepped around Claudia and left the laundry room. She went through the kitchen and stopped halfway through the dining room. Orange firelight flickered in the living room. Through the doorway, she saw a dozen boys, maybe more. She could hear Mrs. Frangiapani talking quietly, gently. The boys were nothing more than gossamer outlines of small figures in the dark. Through them, Lily could see Mrs. Frangiapani sitting on the couch, leaning forward, hands folded neatly in her lap. The boys disappeared and reappeared like some kind of fiber-optic illusion—at times it looked like the living room was packed with them, and at others, like there were only a few.
As Lily crossed the dining room, she reached out enough to sense their anger. She was surprised by it— she’d expected pain and fear, but that was gone now. The only thing left was their molten rage. When Lily reached the doorway, the vague figures in the living room began to sink into the floor.
Mrs. Frangiapani stood and smiled at Lily. “I think I convinced them,” she said.
Miles was held tightly between Dad’s legs. The flashlight was a few feet away from them on the floor, aimed at their feet.
“I told you I was gonna make you eat this fuckin’ knife,” the fat man said, “and I meant it.”
Miles did not wait this time. He pounded Dad’s left hand with his fist, then again.
Dad screamed again but did not fall. He leaned back for a moment and became silent. He slowly came forward until he was looking down at Miles. Through clenched teeth, Dad said, “Get... out of... here.”
Miles struggled but could not move. “Get off of me!” Miles cried.
Dad’s shoulders hitched up and down as he sobbed. “I... can’t... you fuckin’ puppy.” He smiled, but it was a smile filled with pain—his voice was a groan. “You think you’re gonna ... Miles I... stop me from ... what I... love you ... what I—!’
Dad plunged the knife into his own abdomen, all the way to the hilt. His mouth yawned open and he made a grunting sound as blood bubbled up around the hilt and dribbled over the hand that gripped the knife. In the dim light, the blood looked as black as tar. He fell backward and hit the floor hard, knees up.
Miles quickly stood. “Dad? Dad!”
Dad’s fist still grasped the handle of the knife tightly, but he did not move or make a sound.
Miles picked up the flashlight from the floor and ran up the stairs.
Jenna heard the sound of running foosteps on the basement stairs, and she hurried over to the door. A bolt was thrown on the other side and the door burst open. Miles slammed into her, and she embraced him, squeezed him to her. She was so relieved, she could not speak. Miles sobbed against her and said something. He pushed away from her and said it again as he cried.
“I think Dad’s dead! He stabbed himself with the knife!”
Jenna could barely hear him through the sound of her own sobs.
The two sheriff’s deputies—a man and a woman, both tall and dark—came into the house with their flashlights held just above their shoulders. Lily led them through the entryway and into the living room.
“This way, quickly,” she said. “The basement—do you have something to break down a door with? This way.”
As they stepped around her and went ahead into the dining room, the lights came back on.
Lily pointed to the kitchen doorway and said, “In there, to the right.” But she did not follow them, because she smelled bananas, and the electric-blue flashes made her blink.
The deputies were gone—in the laundry room, where they belonged.
Lily tried to lie down on the dining room floor but didn’t quite make it before blacking out.
The fat man, Leonard Baines, screams—a high, shrill, agonizing sound.
Lily sees him only in brief flashes as the boys attack him. They tear his T-shirt, his vest, his skin. They gouge his eyes and claw at his mouth as his white cowboy hat tumbles away and disappears into the deep darkness, spattered with blood.
She feels their anger and hatred and knows they did not tear at Leonard Baines’s body, but at his soul, at the deepest part of him, and his tormented screams continue.
Darkness swallows her, and the screaming slowly fades to silence.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Sunday, 8:21 A.M.
Jenna was standing beside David’s hospital bed when he opened his eyes to narrow slits. She clasped his right hand in hers and smiled down at him. One corner of his mouth curled into a weak smile. She bent down and whispered, “You’re going to be okay.” She kissed his forehead. “You were in surgery most of the night, and it was ... well...” She smiled again to keep from crying. “It was a little touchy for a while. But the doctor says you’re going to be okay.”
David’s dry, cracked lips peeled apart and he tried to speak, but he made only a dry croak in his throat before wincing.
“No, honey,” Jenna said, “you can talk later. Just rest now, okay?”
He smiled again, that small, weak smile, then closed his eyes and drifted off.
Jenna stepped away from the bed and stretched her arms, her back. She felt stiff and deeply tired, but feared she would never be able to sleep again. She was hungry and decided she would be doing David no good by sitting at his bedside—he had not been out of the recovery room long, and would sleep for a while. She put on her coat, picked her purse up from the floor, and left the room. She stopped just outside the door when she saw Lily and Claudia coming her way.
Lily asked, “How is he, Jenna?”
“He’s going to be okay,” she said. “The doctor says he’s very lucky—he didn’t hit any major blood vessels, and he missed his pancreas by a hair. He’s still in bad shape, though. He’s got a slow recovery ahead of him, and he’s going to have to wear a colostomy bag for a while. But he’ll live.”
Lily said, “What he did was very heroic.”
Tears stung Jenna’s eyes as she said in a
high, unsteady voice, “I know. And Miles knows.”
“How is Miles?” Claudia asked.
Jenna wiped her eyes with a knuckle. “He’s good. He and Mom are at Kimberly’s house. She and Harry are putting us up for a while. Harry’s in real estate. He’s going to put the house on the market for us and help us find another place. There’s no way we can go back there.”
“I wish there was something I could do to help you,” Lily said.
“How can you say that? You saved us, Lily. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you the first time you called.”
“Hey, you did what you thought was right at the time. What you’ve gone through is— Would it be all right if we stepped into your husband’s room a moment? I’d feel more comfortable discussing it there. I promise to whisper.”
Jenna led them into the room and closed the door. The room’s other bed, next to the window, was empty. She pulled out the cream-colored curtain that separated the two beds, and they stood by the window and spoke in whispers.
“What you’ve been through is hardly normal,” Lily said. “You did what you thought was right. I’m glad I could help.”
“Lily, what did we go through?”
Lily described to Jenna the vision she’d had after blacking out in the dining room the night before. “Whatever was left in that house of Leonard Baines and his young victims was trapped in a cycle of events. He tortured and killed those boys over and over. Mrs. Frangiapani was able to convince the remnant of those poor boys that they were free to do as they pleased. They chose to attack their attacker.”
“You mean, if David had waited just a little longer—”
“Don’t think of it that way, Jenna. We don’t know exactly what happened down there. Poor Miles was so upset, he didn’t tell us everything. David had a knife. He was fighting for control of himself. For all we know, if he’d waited one more second—maybe half a second— you might have lost Miles.”
Jenna nodded. It made her feel ill to imagine how close they might have come to losing Miles last night. She thought of Josh—
Mommy—
—and how desperate she had been to see him again, even as a specter, a shadow. But she still had Miles. Thanks to Mrs. Frangiapani, and Lily, and especially David, she still had her son. Jenna felt a surge of affection for the large woman before her, and she stepped forward and embraced her. Lily returned the hug awkwardly and patted her on the back.
Lily pulled back and clutched Jenna’s shoulders firmly. “Jenna, I’m getting something I think might be significant to you.”
“What-”
Lily whispered, “Mommy—”
Jenna gasped.
“I feel real bad, Mommy, I’m scared. Something’s happening to me, something bad. Please hold me, don’t let me go.”
Jenna’s knees gave way, and she sat heavily on the edge of the empty bed. She sobbed, her arms limp at her sides.
Lily sat on the bed beside her. “Does that mean anything to you?”
Jenna lifted a hand to her mouth to suppress her sobs. She nodded. “Yes. Yes, it does. Thank you.”
Before coming to the hospital, Lily and Claudia had packed their bags, put them in the trunk of the Beetle, and settled their debt to Motel 6. Now, in the hospital parking lot, they were ready to go home.
“Before we go,” Lily said, “I’d like to give Chief Winningham one more call.”
Claudia took the cell phone from her purse, opened it, hit a couple buttons, and handed it to Lily.
“Chief Winningham, it’s Lily Rourke. We’re about to leave town.”
“I’m at the Kellars’s house,” he said. “Why don’t you come over before you leave. We’ve got donuts if you haven’t had breakfast yet.”
“All right, see you in a few minutes.” She handed the cell phone back to Claudia and said, “Let’s stop by the Kellar house on our way out.”
“But it’s not on our way out.”
“Stop by anyway.”
After the ambulance had taken David Kellar away the night before, Lily had insisted that Mrs. Frangiapani go to the emergency room and be examined—after all, she had been attacked. Claudia and Lily had driven her to the hospital and waited while an ER doctor checked her over. Her blood pressure had been alarmingly high, and the doctor had decided to keep her for a few hours of observation. Mrs. Frangiapani had insisted that Lily and Claudia leave and go to bed.
“I have a friend I can call,” she had said. “He’s up most of the night watching TV anyway. Do you know he asked me to marry him last week? Can you believe that? I’ve been a widow ten months and he wants me to marry him.”
“I think you’d be quite a catch, Mrs. Frangiapani,” Claudia said.
“That’s very kind of you, angel, but I’m through being a wife. He’s a good man and I enjoy his company, and he likes to eat my food, which is nice. At my age, that’s all he’s going to get out of me, so why marry for that?”
Before saying good-bye, Lily had given Mrs. Frangiapani her business card. “If you ever visit Mt. Shasta, come see us. You’ll get the psychic medium’s discount on anything in the store.”
Mrs. Frangiapani had taken the card, smiled, and said, “Maybe I’ll bring you some banana-nut bread.”
It was a gray, foggy morning, cold and damp. As Claudia drove the Beetle to the end of the driveway, Lily’s mouth dropped open. She said, “What the hell?”
Yellow crime-scene tape had been put up all the way around the Cyclone fence that surrounded the house. There were two sheriff’s cars parked along the fence, as well as a Eureka Police Department cruiser, most likely Winningham’s. The trunk of one of the sheriff’s cars was open. As Lily and Claudia got out of the Beetle, Winningham came out of the front door of the house and met them at the gate.
“Since when did this become a crime scene?” Lily said.
“Since Deputy Hooper discovered a very large collection of child pornography in the basement.” The chief was unsmiling and grave.
Lily said, “Surely you don’t think the Kellars have anything to do with it.”
“No, it’s obviously been there awhile, and they just moved in.”
“They couldn’t have known it was there,” Claudia said.
“Of course not,” Lily said.
Winningham led them up the walk to the door. “There are a lot of magazines, but most of it is homemade, and Lenny Baines is in a lot of the pictures. He even wore his Santa suit in some of them, the son of a bitch.”
Winningham and Claudia went inside, but Lily paused at the front door. She opened herself just enough to make sure the house was still clear. She sensed none of the things she had felt the night before. But a feeling of darkness still emanated from the house, left over, she was sure, by the awful things that had happened there over the years. It was a psychic stain that probably would never go away.
Lily went inside, and she and Claudia followed Winningham to the kitchen, which smelled of coffee. Two large pink boxes of donuts had been left open on the breakfast-nook table. There were sounds of activity throughout the house, but Lily saw no one besides the chief.
“The house is being searched,” Winningham said. “But I don’t think they’re going to find anything. Everything was down in the basement, including all of his photography and video equipment, his computer. Even his torture devices. You were right, Lily.”
“But we’re keeping that between us, right, Chief?” Lily said. She plucked a paper napkin from a stack on the table, used it to pick up a jelly donut, and took a big bite. She picked up another napkin and dabbed at her mouth.
Once she’d gotten back to the motel room the night before, Lily had gotten the first good night’s sleep she’d had in a while, uninterrupted by visions and mercifully free of nightmares. She’d awakened feeling famished and had eaten a big breakfast at Denny’s. But she still had room for the jelly donut. Her appetite had returned.
“Don’t worry,” Winningham had said. “I haven’t said a word to anyone.”
“Bullshit,” Lily said. “You’ve already started telling your story, haven’t you?”
Winningham smiled. “Only to cops, Lily, nobody else. You’ve got a lot of fans in uniform, you know.”
“Well, I suppose there’s nothing I can do about that.” She took another bite of her donut. She said nothing more until she’d finished it and wiped her mouth clean of jelly. She went to the coffeemaker on the counter, beside which stood a couple of short stacks of Styrofoam cups. Taking one, she poured some coffee. There were plastic spoons as well, a container of powdered nondairy creamer, and a box of sweetener. “I hope you’re not using the Kellars’s coffee,” she said.
“Of course not—the deputies brought their own,” Winningham said.
Claudia was already eating her second glazed donut.
Winningham walked over to one of the counters and leaned his hips against it, facing Lily with his arms folded across his barrel chest. “I just can’t believe it about Lenny,” he said, frowning. “I mean, he didn’t leave a clue anywhere. He was as clean as a whistle. At least, that’s what we thought.”
“That’s what he wanted you to think,” Lily said.
“And he did such a damned good job of it. Then he just kills himself. He must have known someone would find all that stuff eventually.”
“But he cleaned it up first,” Claudia said. “He put everything in the basement before checking out.”
“He didn’t destroy it,” Lily said, “but he made sure it was all put away.”
“I don’t know what happened to Lenny the last ten years,” Winningham said. “Maybe if I’d checked up on him once in a while ... maybe I would’ve seen something. Maybe I could’ve put a stop to it a lot sooner.”
“Maybes and ifs,” Lily said as she walked over to the breakfast nook again. “They don’t do anyone any good, Chief.” She looked out the window at the backyard, at the familiar swing set and the slide inside the tall fence, the ivy growing wild. “I suspect Leonard Baines was haunted by his victims for a long time before finally deciding to put a stop to it himself. The more he killed, the more there were to torment him. When he finally decided to end his life, that began the cycle that was going on in this house ever since.”