by Ron Ripley
Only the love and respect she felt for her father, and received from him, stilled her hand.
It had taken her days to locate Stefan, and when she found him in Fox Cat Hollow, she was furious that he was hiding in such a populated location. She knew she could get into the building where Stefan was holed up, even with him there. But the urge to bury a knife deep in his belly kept her far from the back door of the house.
She had climbed a tall pine tree the day before when the sun had been setting behind her. The glare hid her, and by the time the sun disappeared below the horizon, she was tied securely into the tree. From her perch, Ariana could see directly into the second-floor bathroom, and into the hallway beyond.
It was there she saw Stefan, neurotically cleaning a pair of small revolvers.
She adjusted her binoculars, a specialty model designed to function in low to no light environments.
.22s, she thought. The classic weapon of a professional assassin. She shook her head, her anger building back up. Tucking the binoculars away she took a drink of water, got as comfortable as possible in the crook formed between a large branch and the tree, and considered how to get her brother out of the house.
While time was not a factor for her deceased father, it certainly was for her. And when Ivan came out of the mirror he would see how much time had passed, his silent displeasure would be nearly unbearable for her.
At all times she sought his approval.
Ariana closed her eyes and leaned her head against the tree trunk. Her brother would stay put, probably until daylight. When he finally worked up the courage to slip out of the house, she would sneak in and open another doorway for their father.
The idea of planting the mirror in some innocuous place caused a smile to play across her lips, and the thought of her brother’s terror lulled her to sleep.
Chapter 28: Loose Ends and Broken Bodies
Lana Vizzi had the crime scene photos tacked up on the board in her office. She sat in her chair and stared at the images. There were dual sets of them, one shot in color, the other in black and white. Her eyes had lost focus earlier when she wasn’t sure. At some point, Donny or Finn would drift in, check on her, make sure she hadn’t had some sort of epileptic episode, and then go on their way. Once she passed the two-hour mark, they would rouse her, make her walk around, drink coffee. Do something.
All of this information rolled through the back of her mind as she looked past the images. She had seen them, absorbed them in all of their horror, and now her brain was seeking a pattern. Any pattern that might work. The splatter of blood rose up, examined and discarded. So too the leaves and the way the teens’ bodies had been placed.
The heads were the most interesting and disturbing aspect of the murder. Why had they been torn off? And there was no doubt about that. The medical examiner had stated that someone with tremendous strength had ripped the heads off the necks. It had been done quickly as if they hadn’t been a pair of teens but rather a set of chickens, the hands of some old farmer ending life with skilled and well-practiced hands.
And why were they switched? Why the female on the male, the male on the female? What was the killer saying?
Lana leaned forward, resting her chin in her hands.
There had been no witnesses to the crime. The trooper who patrolled that area had been through it twenty minutes before the murders, and there hadn’t been any suspicious vehicles. Even the trooper’s dash-cam on the cruiser hadn’t recorded anything other than the girl’s pickup. The boy had used his phone perhaps ten minutes before the bodies had been discovered. A text telling his mother he would be home in time for dinner.
The crime scene had been scoured, and all that had been secured was the typical debris to be found behind a roadside rest stop. No trace evidence of someone lurking in the woods for victims.
Nothing.
It was as though the murderer had arrived, stepped into the woods, killed the young lovers, stepped back out, and vanished.
“Hey Boss,” Donny said from the door.
Lana blinked, straightened up, and looked at him. “Yeah?”
“Two hours are up,” he said with a tight smile. He glanced at the pictures and shook his head. “You see anything yet?”
“No,” she answered, getting to her feet and stretching, trying to work out the kinks. “It’s strange. I can’t see any sort of pattern. Nothing. Absolutely zero. It’s as if whoever did this, well, it’s like they’re not even human.”
“What do you think then?” Donny asked, holding the door open for her as she walked out.
She shrugged. “I think I need some food, then I’ll go back in and squirrel myself away for a little while longer. How’d you do checking the stores along the route?”
“Alright,” Donny answered. “I found a gas station that still had its tapes from the time block we’re looking at for the murders. The manager’s pulling them for us. Finn said he did a rundown of the trash haulers moving along the route and he managed to get in touch with at least two who have their cameras recording at all times. It’s just a matter of getting the stuff downloaded from their servers.”
“Good,” Lana said. “Maybe that’ll give us the break we need.”
Donny cleared his throat. “Speaking of breaks, Finn says Mort broke the coffeemaker.”
“Again?” Lana asked with a groan.
Donny nodded.
Shaking her head, she said, “Tell them I’m going down to Flo’s for a cup of coffee.”
“You got it, Boss,” Donny said, and he walked off towards the bullpen where the rest of the detectives and officers had their desks.
Stuffing her hands into her pants’ pockets, Lana made her way out of the building, hoping that someone had seen something.
Anything.
***
The grating sound of Jeremy’s cellphone brought a grimace to Victor’s face. He despised the noise the phone made, and one day he was certain he would convince Jeremy to change it, or else he would take a hammer to it.
Jeremy never received pleasant calls.
Without waiting to hear what the newest crisis might be, Victor got up and went to his room. On the battered bed table was a small white frame, and in it was a photograph of Erin. He had lost all of their pictures and other physical memories in the fire that had destroyed their home. The image on the table was one he had printed from a picture on his phone.
The only photo he had left of her. She was wrapped in a blanket, sitting in her favorite chair, a cup of hot chocolate in one hand and a Harry Potter novel in the other. Her reading glasses were perched on the end of her nose, her hair piled in a messy bun on the back of her head. Sunlight drifted in through the sliding glass door that led to the porch, a soft glow around her.
She was, as always, an image of perfection.
Victor sat down on his narrow bed, picked up the cold, wooden frame and stared at her. He didn’t put it back until he heard Jeremy’s slow, measured steps on the stairs. A moment later, the man knocked on Victor’s door.
“Come in,” Victor said, wiping a few tears from the corners of his eyes.
The door swung open, and Jeremy asked with real concern, “Do you need me to come back in a little while?”
Victor gave him a small smile and shook his head. “No time is a good time, Jeremy, but thank you. What crisis has reached you now?”
“News of another death,” Jeremy replied. “May I?”
Victor nodded, and Jeremy limped in to take a seat on the worn rush of a ladder-back chair.
“The call was from a friend of mine in our business,” Jeremy stated. “His name is Eugene, and he doesn’t actively seek out haunted items, but when they come to him, he sends them on to me, or to others like me. A collector named Martin asked to review Eugene’s set of catalogs from a company called Moran and Moran. They specialize in haunted items. Eugene didn’t ask why, but evidently, he trusted the man enough to allow him to browse through them.”
“What happene
d?” Victor asked, curious.
“Eugene told me Martin killed himself,” Jeremy answered. “He apparently wrote a lengthy essay on all of the wrongs he had done in life, and then he mixed ammonia and bleach in a plastic bag, thrust his head into it and taped it off.”
“My God,” Victor whispered, horrified.
Jeremy nodded. “Eugene became concerned, not only because of the research that Martin had conducted, but because there had been a suicide in that same man’s office a few days prior. And the first suicide had left a note as well. One confessing to crimes no one had known he was guilty of.”
“Does your friend, Eugene, have any idea as to what might have caused it?” Victor asked.
“Yes,” Jeremy said, “it would appear that Martin stopped his search through the Moran and Moran catalogs with the July 1983 issue. Evidently, Eugene had been quite piqued since Martin hadn’t put the catalogs back in exact order. After Martin’s suicide, Eugene went into the catalog and found what he believes killed Martin. A haunted pen, purchased by the Korzhs.”
Victor’s face went hot as rage flooded through him. “God, Jeremy, he’s still killing people!”
Jeremy’s response was a silent nod and a pained expression.
“We need to stop him,” Victor said, his voice rising a notch. “We have to! I want him dead, I want to do it. And it needs to be done!”
“Yes,” Jeremy agreed. “But the man must be found first, Victor. I am hoping to speak with Jean Luc today, to see if perhaps he can offer us any sort of assistance in this matter.”
Victor clenched his teeth, shook his head and asked angrily, “Where is he?”
“Out for his morning constitutional,” Jeremy answered with a sigh. “He likes to walk. He’ll be back soon enough.”
“No,” Victor disagreed. “Not soon enough. I want Stefan Korzh dead now.”
Chapter 29: Chopping Fire Wood
Shawn Thomas hated chores.
Especially when they interfered with football.
But if he didn’t get the wood cut, then Melanie wouldn’t let him near the television, which meant no football. Some weekends that was alright, like when the Steelers weren’t playing anybody important. This Sunday, they were facing off against the New York Jets, and Shawn hated the Jets. All he wanted was to see the Steelers destroy them.
Shawn smiled at the thought, rested the head of the ax on the ground and took off his long-sleeved shirt. He draped it over a saw-horse, picked the tool back up and adjusted his grip on the smooth shaft when a dash of color caught his attention.
Shawn looked into the tree line along the backyard and saw a small boy slip into the dim, fading light. For a moment, Shawn stood there, confused. No kids lived on Halbert Street, and there weren’t even any game trails that ran into the yard.
“Hey!” Shawn called, taking a step towards the receding form of the child. “Hey! Where are you going? You lost, kid?”
With the last word, the child darted into the shadows.
What the hell is going on? Shawn wondered, setting the ax back down. Why’s he running? Did he steal something?
He did, I bet he did! Shawn thought.
“Kid, stop!” he yelled, hurrying into the woods, crashing through the underbrush and snapping small branches attempting to impede him.
Flashes of color in the darkening day led him farther from his home, but Shawn didn’t care. He knew the only reason a person ran, especially a kid, was because they had done something wrong. Shawn had done more than his share of running as a youth, and always with reason.
He didn’t doubt the boy he was following was guilty. Who knew of what, but he was guilty nonetheless.
The ground plunged sharply, and Shawn stumbled, reaching out and cutting his hand on a broken branch and scraping his side against the rough bark of a tree. He swore, dropped to a knee and got back to his feet. Squinting, he tried to see how badly he was hurt and suddenly realized how far the evening had progressed.
Glancing around, Shawn saw he was lost. He had never traveled far in the woods behind his property, and in the looming darkness, he doubted he would find home easily.
His heartbeat increased, and he breathed quickly through his nose. The forest was silent around him. A strange, unnatural silence that was painful. Fear caused the hair on his arms to stand on end, and he turned around, the fleeing child and the boy’s possible crime forgotten.
But when Shawn eyed the top of the incline from which he had plummeted downwards, his mouth went dry.
The child stood beside a tree, and Shawn understood that he wasn’t looking at anything human.
The strange creature was horrific, the word, Monster, springing to his mind.
With his injured hand forgotten as panic swept over him, Shawn turned and sprinted deeper into the forest, knowing that the creature was coming after him.
***
Melanie went into the kitchen to check on the red sauce for the spaghetti. She held a glass of merlot in one hand as she lifted the lid to the pot with the other. The sauce simmered, a gentle wave of pleasantly scented steam roiling up from the top of the liquid. She smiled, sipped her wine, and replaced the lid. Soon she would start the chicken, get the bread out of the oven, and Shawn would eat a healthy meal whether he wanted to or not.
How her boyfriend managed to live on a steady diet of canned food and gas station sandwiches never ceased to amaze her.
Thinking of the curious culinary habits of her man, Melanie drifted over to the back door to peer out into the yard. She hadn’t heard the ax for a few minutes, which meant Shawn had either decided to drink a beer or two on the back step, or he had found a pressing need to do something other than chop wood for the winter.
Looking out into the twilight, Melanie shook her head. Shawn wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
Would it kill him to finish just a little bit? she wondered. Then she let out a scream and dropped her wine glass as something heavy and wet slammed into the glass. The merlot sprayed out and the glass shattered as anger flooded through her.
A small, wet, red splotch was on the window of the door, and Melanie let out a torrent of curses that would have made her father both proud and embarrassed in the same breath.
Shawn enjoyed his jokes, and more than once, he had thrown dead birds at the house to give her a ‘thrill’ as he liked to call it.
Furious, Melanie ripped the door open and glared around the yard, looking for him, waiting to hear his pleased laughter.
Enraged at the man’s childish behavior, Melanie looked down at the bird on the step and realized it wasn’t a bird at all.
It was one of Shawn’s hands.
Chapter 30: Round the Clock
He awoke with a start, heart pounding and hands flashing out to grasp the grips of the pistols.
Beyond the window of the bathroom, the sun was setting.
Horrified, Stefan realized that at some point he had fallen asleep and slept through the day. His stomach twisted itself into a knot of pain, and he gasped, bending over trying to quell the hunger pangs burning within him.
No matter how much effort he put into it, Stefan couldn’t make his stomach subside. Slowly the realization that he would have to descend the stairs to get food crept over him.
He would be open to attack.
A terrible fear that his father had somehow managed to get into the new house washed over him and caused Stefan to sit up. For a moment, he was able to control his hunger, but within seconds it reasserted itself, and Stefan let out an angry snarl.
He glanced at the window; a certain someone was watching him from the trees beyond, but he pushed the paranoid fear aside.
He needed to eat. There was no point in starving. It would only make him weaker for when the inevitable attack came. And Stefan knew it was only a matter of time before his father found him. Before Ivan Denisovich came in and attempted to assert his mastery over Stefan again.
With that idea at the forefront of his thoughts, Stefan scrambled past the o
pen door of the bathroom. When he reached the safety of the other, he paused, forced his heart to slow down, and got into a standing position. He took several breaths, tightened his grip on the pistols, and crept over to the stairs, listening.
The house was strange, the noises of its settling unfamiliar, and it took him several long, nerve-wracking minutes to trust that no one had broken in. When he was certain of the safety of the house, he moved silently down the stairs, slipped to the front door, and checked the lock. He then moved from window to window, the curtains all drawn and no sign of forced entry. In fits and starts, Stefan calmed down so that by the time he walked into the kitchen, he felt certain he was alone.
He brought the weapons with him to the refrigerator, placed one on the counter, and opened the refrigerator door a few inches. Reaching in, he found the milk, drew out the narrow container, and quickly closed the door. He chided himself for not having removed the light bulb, but he could do it in the morning.
Stefan popped the top off the milk and took a long drink from the mouth of the bottle. The liquid was cold and thick, a refreshing bit of sustenance. He paused for breath, then promptly finished the milk. Leaving the empty container on the countertop, Stefan rummaged around the cabinets until he found a box of crackers. He carried them to the kitchen table and sat down in such a way that he could see the room’s single window, rear exit, and the door from the hall.
Stefan placed one pistol on the scarred tabletop, opened the crackers, and began to eat.
The sound of his chewing was loud in the stillness of the house, and he kept his eyes on the entryways, wondering who was helping his father and if they would try to enter while Stefan was in the house.
He hoped they would.
***
She stood to the left of the door, hidden in a shadow. From her position, Ariana could see Stefan. He ate noisily, and he was grotesque in the pale green imagery of the night vision goggles she wore. She bit her lip to keep from laughing, but it was difficult. He clung to one of the .22 caliber pistols, and she wondered what it was that people found frightening about him.