Vision

by Lisa Amowitz

  “Lighten up, Bobby,” Gabe said, then groaned dramatically. “Ohhhh, yeesh. Listen to me. I’m sorry. I—I—”

  He grabbed her hand. “You don’t need to watch every word you say. Just being with me is enough. But maybe coming here tonight was a mistake. Maybe I’m just not ready for this.”

  His heart hammered, his attention suddenly drawn away, zooming through the hazy interior of the Graxton Grill to the streets outside, his consciousness probing its familiar surroundings, infinitely sensitive to what did not belong.

  Footsteps. The footsteps of the killer, firefly vivid against the dark. Leading inside.

  Right inside the restaurant.

  Whoosh. In a stomach-churning flash, Bobby was back inside, the noise and heat of the crowded room pressing in on him.

  His breathing sped up. He couldn’t get enough air. “We have to get out of here.”

  The footsteps. Where did they lead? Could he find the killer in this senseless soup of dim forms? Ignoring the useless blur his eyes were broadcasting, he went deeper, sensing heartbeats, emotions, memories. A quilt of sensations.

  It was fascinating. And terrifying.

  The worse his eyes became, the sharper this other world came into focus.

  And he was certain. The killer had somehow walked into the restaurant and vanished into thin air.

  Was he insane? Was the sudden onset of blindness causing his mind to snap? To invent a new reality to replace the one he’d lost so abruptly?

  He didn’t know. But he couldn’t take a chance.

  He was about to stand, fight his way through the crowds to the back alley where he could investigate further, when Gabe touched his arm.

  “We’re on now, Bobby.”

  With the weight of the guitar in his lap, his fingers poised on the strings, Bobby finally began to relax. Mr. Cooper had offered to let him use the antique Stratocaster, but he’d insisted on his own well-worn guitar.

  Once they started to play, he understood. This was Mr. Cooper’s and Max Friend’s gift to him. The music swept him away, out of himself. He was a spider spinning a web of sound, creating infinite patterns and designs. Amplified by the microphone, his voice boiled up from his chest. He poured every aching moment into the song, brought every lost bit of beauty back to life in the notes of the melody.

  Mr. Cooper’s drumbeat was the backbone. The unseen bass player was the heartbeat. Gabe’s piano was the nervous system, alive with vibrant energy. And his guitar, his tenor with the raw edge, was the soul. Together, they were a living, breathing monster of music.

  Bobby let go of the anchor that moored him to earth and allowed himself to drift off on a wild flight of sound. As he played, the colors faded even more, but the heat of the music glowed inside his ribcage like a new heart. His fingers prickled with life.

  The crowd erupted in a deafening roar as a thunderous wave of applause engulfed them.

  “We’re a smash, Bobby!” Mr. Cooper shouted over the noise.

  Bobby played tirelessly for what felt like hours, lost in the music, connecting with Gabe, weaving his love for her into each note.

  Bathed in sweat, it took Max’s gentle urging for him to stop.

  Bobby let Gabe lead him back to their booth. People appeared like puffs of smoke out of the fog, murmuring their appreciation, then disappeared. Claps on the back, shaking hands. Finally, Jerry Woods’s massive form and deep, comforting voice was hard to mistake.

  “I predict great things for you, kid. Your dad and Coco would have loved this. I wish they could have been here to see you play tonight. You’re gonna be a star!”

  When the chaos died down, all Bobby wanted to do was gulp down glass after glass of ice water and let it cool his burning throat. And kiss Gabe. Again and again, until he couldn’t feel his lips.

  In the booth, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. The music was like an aphrodisiac, connecting them, increasing their hunger for each other. Gabe’s fingers raking his hair, they kissed, softly and slowly, but Bobby couldn’t stand it. He didn’t think he could restrain the fire straining to burst out of him much longer.

  “Are people watching us?” Bobby gasped, as she undid the top buttons of his shirt and pressed light kisses against his collarbone.

  “Um, a little.”

  From the racing of her pulse in her neck to the slight dampness along her hairline, Bobby knew she felt it, too.

  She nibbled at his ear. “I have an idea. Everyone’s kind of buzzed. If we’re just gone a few minutes, it’ll be okay.”

  He let her lead him to Max’s office in the back, the trail of killers and stalkers forgotten, burned away in the heat of the moment. Gabe’s touch was driving him wild. He was going to ignite and burn to ash if he couldn’t have her. Now.

  Leaning into her hair, he drank in the scent of her. The background hum of menace was still there, like static on the radio turned down low. But, at the moment, he couldn’t fix his mind on anything but Gabe.

  Bobby heard Gabe latch the door.

  “Don’t you think they’ll notice we’re gone?”

  “I told Zimm to tell Dad I took you out for some air.” Gabe giggled. “Dad’s a little looped, to tell you the truth.”

  In the quiet of Max Friend’s office, they fell onto the couch, skin touching skin. Her body rose and crested beneath him until, drowsy, they lay in each other’s arms and drifted off to sleep.

  What seemed like only a short time later, Bobby woke, disoriented, Gabe’s weight on him gone. For a moment, squinting into the indistinct shadow and dim light, he forgot where he was.

  “Gabe?” He felt beside him. No one was there.

  He blundered around for the cane, hurrying for the office door.

  And froze.

  From the other side of the door came shouts, screams, and a loud, crackling roar. Coughing and choking as the thick, acrid air clogged his throat, Bobby thrust the door open to hell.

  Even with his dimming sight, the orange brilliance was hard to miss.

  The Graxton Grill was on fire.

  Bobby stumbled through the back hall, arm flung over his nose and mouth, screaming for Gabe, screaming for Aaron, but a wall of searing heat blocked his way. He had to turn back.

  Somehow, with the smoke thick in his lungs, Bobby managed to find his way outside into the cool air of the alley. He dropped to his hands and knees, coughing his lungs up.

  He had to find Gabe and Aaron. Had to make sure that they and everyone else had made it out okay. Shuffling along the back alley, hands trailing the cool bricks, the sharp sense of menace leaped out at him in a shrill warning.

  Here. Carl Galloway was here.

  Right now.

  He didn’t have time to scream as the cold edge of a blade pressed into his neck and a low voice growled in his ear. “Move a muscle, Bobby Pendell, and I’ll slit open your windpipe.”

  CHAPTER

  25

  The shock of seething hatred jolted him, roaring through his veins like lava flow, carrying with it the memories…

  A child shivering, fully clothed in a freezing bath, the door locked. Yellowing bruises amid new ones, hours in the ballroom tied to the chair while she played the grand piano, on and on, never missing a note, never speaking up on his behalf.

  “No good! You’re no good, you skinny little blood-sucker! That’s what you are—a leech! A good-for-nothing leech!!” the witch shrieked from the other side of the vast room.

  While he suffered, Olivia lived on a golden cloud of pampered privilege, made ever the sweeter, he was sure, by his misery. So beautiful, dressed in evening gowns, her black hair swept off her graceful neck. Blindfolded, he was forced to play scales, shivering in his thin pajamas the whole night until he could be as perfect as her. But he was never good enough. Never. And the beatings would come. The freezing baths. And the nightmare would repeat.

  Then, one day, came the rage. The crippling, fracturing rage that stained everything red, until red was all he could see. Red,
the color of her blood. He longed for the day he could slice through the pale fabric of her gown and watch as her blood seeped through the expensive silk. He’d drown the world in blood for what it had done to him.

  Carl dragged him out of the alley, his feet scraping along the ground. The vile outpouring of images stabbed into Bobby’s skull, force-feeding him with horror. Gagging with their ugliness, Bobby was powerless to stop them.

  The anger and hunger for blood oozed from his captor like sweat. Bobby knew this madman wanted nothing more than to gut him like a sacrifice in the alley. But Carl Galloway was used to delaying his pleasure, used to savoring his victim’s terror for increased enjoyment.

  He had other plans for Bobby.

  Bobby didn’t dare mention his worry for Gabe, didn’t let his thoughts sift through the terrifying visions for a sign of her, for fear of what he’d find. Instead, he tried to focus on how he would grab the knife from Galloway’s grasp and use it to kill him.

  Which was, of course, hopeless, since he couldn’t even see the knife.

  Bobby Pendell is going to die.

  But he wasn’t going to make it easy on this bastard. He dug his heels into the dirt to make himself a dead weight.

  Galloway grunted. “Walk, asshole, or I’ll slit you open and string you up by your guts.”

  Bobby shivered. Carl Galloway would kill him happily and relish it like a gourmet feast.

  By the dim orange glow of the fire in the distance, Bobby could tell he was being taken in the opposite direction from town, away from the burning restaurant. No one would know what had become of him. They’d think he’d died in the fire, the truth of his death unknown. Just like Mom’s.

  And the killings would go on.

  In a last-ditch rush of adrenaline, Bobby yanked at the arm around his throat and kicked hard at his captor’s leg. Galloway’s response was a quick, deep gash on Bobby’s upper arm and a hand clamped tightly over his mouth.

  “Every time you fight me, punk, I’ll cut you. And I’ll cut you deep. Not deep enough to kill you, but I’ll make it painful enough to make you wish I had.”

  Bobby eventually lost track of how far or where Galloway had dragged him as his surroundings melted into featureless night. Eventually, the glow from the fire was swallowed by darkness. Out here, at night, he realized, he was completely sightless.

  Galloway rammed Bobby into the side of a truck, his head slamming against the metal.

  “Stay there, whelp. You wouldn’t get far, anyway, would you?”

  Bobby heard the passenger door open. He considered dropping to the ground and crawling away. But what would he gain? Galloway could see him. Galloway hefted him by the collar and threw him into the front seat.

  The seat was already occupied.

  “Go ahead. Cop a feel, blind boy. You know you want more nookie with your little slut. Go on, then.”

  Shaking, Bobby felt the body beneath him. Warm. Still warm. Alive.

  Hair, soft, silken, wavy. No. Please, God, no. Her perfume.

  No. Not Gabe.

  Bobby cried out. He was rewarded with a sharp kick to the kidneys. Reeling from the pain, he sank to the ground, but Galloway hauled him back to his feet.

  “Go ahead. Have another feel. Do it!” he roared.

  Falling on her, holding in a sob, Bobby ran his hands over her face.

  Tape. Tape over her eyes. Over her mouth. Her pulse pounding in her throat.

  She was awake. And terrified.

  “Gabe, I love you. We’ll get out of this,” he managed to gasp out before Galloway yanked him backward and shoved him viciously through the open door into the back seat.

  “Behave back there, Stevie Wonder,” Galloway barked. “If you try any more heroics, I’ll gouge her eyes out so you two lovebirds can be a matched set.”

  From the front seat, Gabe moaned, fueling Bobby’s outrage. He wasn’t exactly sure how, but he knew he was going to end this. If he had to die trying, he was going to save Gabe.

  And take down fucking Carl Galloway.

  The car revved up and drove off, passing the Graxton Grill. Once they’d driven past the bright flare of the burning restaurant, Bobby could see nothing, either inside the truck or out, but something struck him as familiar. The clean, lemon smell. The soft feel of the seats. Leather, not vinyl.

  He’d been in this truck.

  It was Mr. Cooper’s Jeep Cherokee.

  The cold horror sank deeper into his bones.

  What exactly had Galloway had done to Mr. Cooper?

  After a short distance the truck swerved off-road, bumping over grass before it rolled to a stop. The driver’s side door creaked open. In the back of the truck, metal scraped against metal. Bobby’s insides lurched as he listened carefully, trying to figure out what was going on. Galloway’s memories of past murders, his current twisted fantasies, melded into a cesspool of sick, distorted images that gunked up Bobby’s own thoughts like sticky tar.

  Stroking Gabe’s hair, he tried to soothe her, repeating the same words over and over, like a lullaby. “I’m not leaving you. I’m not going to let him hurt you.”

  He couldn’t help but wonder if his promises gave her any faith or scared her even more.

  Galloway yanked opened the front passenger door and spoke in a cheery voice that made Bobby’s skin crawl.

  “Well, kids, looks like we’re going to have some fun tonight! A treasure hunt. Or more like a cross between blind man’s bluff and Survivor. Here are the rules of the game. I hide your little slut, and you try to find her. The goal is for you to get there before I begin the process of killing her. Because if you do, I’ll kill you quickly and spare you the grief of having to know how slowly and painfully she died.”

  Galloway laughed wildly as he dragged Gabe from the car. From the muffled moans and rustle of fabric, Bobby could tell she was fighting like a hellcat. This was his chance. Without thinking, he sprang from the back seat and lunged wildly for Galloway.

  A savage slash tore through his shirt, opening a deep gash from his chest to his stomach. Bobby stumbled backward onto the damp grass, dizzy, the darkness whirling with color and pain.

  “Don’t worry. Your guts are still in there,” Galloway wheezed with laughter. “But you’d better hurry before you bleed out.”

  Bobby heard the revving of an engine. The all-terrain vehicle roared to life and sped away, taking Gabe with it.

  Then silence.

  Bobby was alone in the damp grass, stranded, with a deep gash in his chest, miles away from town.

  CHAPTER

  26

  Bobby got to his hands and knees, gritting his teeth against the fiery line that cut a swath from his chest to just above the waistband of his pants. It was a flesh wound, but it was bleeding like the devil. He took off the button-down shirt he’d worn for the performance and tied it around his stomach to stanch the flow.

  Anger and adrenaline coursed through his veins, burning away the weakness in his limbs. Crawling, he combed the ground, hands scrabbling for something, anything he could use. He broke a dry stick in half and, scraping the sharp point across a rock to sharpen it, fashioned a shiv. As a weapon, it would have to do.

  Standing, Bobby turned slowly in a circle until he picked up the trail, stretched out before him, bright and sharp, as if Galloway had scattered breadcrumbs to mark his way.

  He shivered. The killer understood Bobby well enough to know that he would never, as long as he breathed and walked, leave Gabe to die. It was all part of his game.

  Bobby found another stick, a long one. Despite the pain constricting his chest, he thrashed it in front of him and loped into the woods, hurtling over sticks, rocks and fallen branches. He kept running, awkwardly, on and on, resisting the pain, until he found himself gripping the cold, wrought-iron gates to the abandoned estate.

  He pulled, and the rusty gates creaked open. Slipping inside, he knew it was all too easy. All orchestrated. But the question that nagged at him, that ate away at his insides,
was whether Carl Galloway had kept his word.

  If Gabe was still alive.

  He told himself that he would know. That the vibrations of her death would have ripped through him like an electrical charge. The fact that he’d felt nothing was what urged him on.

  As he crept through the overgrown yard, the trail formed a bright path in his mind. The exhaustion and pain he’d tried to ignore gripped his chest in a searing arc. He slithered on his side, wormlike, until he located the grate he’d escaped through the last time.

  He listened carefully for signs of life, but from within the dank interior there was only silence. Sickened from the loss of blood, Bobby lay in the high grass, teeth chattering, his forehead slick with sweat. Fighting to keep alert, he realized the truth—Galloway had tricked him. There was nobody down there.

  Or I’m too late.

  He had to fight past the pain and the sluggishness that gummed his muscles. Removing the loose grate, he lowered himself slowly to the cellar floor and hit the ground with a grunt.

  The cellar echoed with his ragged breaths. Unless Gabe was there, under his feet, already dead, Bobby was positive the putrid hovel was empty.

  If Gabe were lying dead somewhere beneath his feet, he told himself, he’d know it. He’d feel it.

  Wouldn’t I?

  He hoped.

  He was growing weaker by the minute, his shirt soaked through. There wasn’t much time. He had to find her.

  Sensations assaulted him. Images barraged him in a riot of brilliant shards, like floating bits of shattered glass.

  Following the visions, Bobby stepped carefully through the dark void until he came to the staircase, visible to him in translucent fragments, like a mosaic missing half of its pieces. Then, as clearly as if it were engraved into the blackness in a diamond sharp line, he picked up the trail of her terror. The vibration of the killer’s filthy enjoyment of it.

  Gabe is in this huge house. Somewhere.

  Panting with the effort, Bobby propelled himself up the stairs, fury driving him beyond the pain.

  At the top, the dark shivered with shreds of detail, the estate’s luxurious past overlying the dimness like layers of peeling wallpaper. Glimpses of the mansion’s tortured history created a phantom map.