by Matt Drabble
He reached the bottom of the stairs and searched the walls for a light switch. Better than that, he found a collection of candles and matches on a table. He lit one and the eerie light of the dancing flame only added to his unease. The gloom lifted and he could just make out the walls covered with pinned news articles and photographs. The paper pages went back through the years to the original Crucifier case as Arthur Durage’s face grinned at Randall from the past. He held the candle close to him, cupping the flame with his hand as he scanned the walls. The picture frame of death and terror was overwhelming as history told its tale amidst Martin Kline’s display.
He was lost in his own thoughts of the horror, as well as the future and his success, so he didn’t hear the door open above him or the creeping footsteps until it was too late. A strong arm clamped around his throat from behind and his windpipe started to be crushed in a vice. His fingers pried at the arm and his nails dug into the flesh, but to no avail. His body was weak through poor maintenance and alcohol intake and he was fading fast. He kicked backwards, raking his heel down his attacker’s shin but his only reward was a soft grunt of mild pain. His eyes started to close as the life was choked from him and it was only then that he remembered what he was still holding. He issued a silent prayer for luck to guide his aim and he thrust the lit candle back over his shoulder. The flame struck home true and the man behind him screamed as the candle’s wick hissed on contact with an eyeball.
The grip on his neck gone, Randall staggered forward, coughing and spluttering as the air fought to expel from his lungs. His throat felt red raw and every heaving breath was agony. He turned and saw Kline holding a hand to his eye while he wailed in pain. The young man’s one good eye blazed in anger and Randall saw it dart towards a table and a pristine looking knife lying on it.
They both stared at the weapon and then at each other, both men sharing one thought but neither sure enough to make the first move. Since the candle’s flame had been extinguished upon contact with Kline’s wet eyeball, the only light in the basement was through the open door at the top of the stairs.
The moment seemed frozen in time as Randall made a decision that would either save his life or end it. He waited until Kline made his move for the knife and then sprung towards the occupied man. As Kline snatched the blade up from the table, Randall shot out a hand and grabbed a fistful of Kline’s hair. Kline swung the knife back blindly and Randall felt the tip sink deep into his stomach. At the same time, he lifted the man’s head up slightly before ramming it down hard onto the table. He had been aiming for the flat top of the table but the stabbing knife threw his balance and instead, Kline’s head caught the corner. He felt the man go limp almost instantly and as he staggered back, desperately clutching what seemed like a huge hole in his gut, Kline slumped to the floor with a grotesque looking dent in the soft side of his head.
Randall hit the floor and stared up at the staircase which now seemed like Mount Everest. His shirt felt soaked through with blood and he couldn’t bring himself to look at the damage. With one hand holding his insides in, he used the other to pull himself up the first step and towards salvation.
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The fire at St Joseph’s Catholic School tore through the place in minutes. The building had stood for over 200 years but history could not protect the walls from falling. The night sky was soon ablaze with fires raging, swiftly followed by the sound of sirens screaming. The explosions came next as the gas mains ruptured and blew, sending debris showering the ground as the main building was rocked to its very foundations.
There were more than enough daughters of influential families to assure that the alarm system was linked directly to the nearest fire station. Men and women struggled into uniforms as senior officers barked orders in panicked yells, secure in the knowledge that on this night they would be judged by grieving, yet powerful, eyes.
The first engines hit the scene inside 20 minutes but collective breaths were stolen away as they turned into view. The famous landmark building was now a roaring fire that scorched the horizon as thick plumes of smoke covered the night sky, drowning the twinkling summer stars. Orders were quickly barked into radios, summoning every available pair of hands from the emergency services. Heads were roused from pillows in the dead of the night, each heart beating fiercely at the sudden intrusion of the telephone’s shrill ring; it was only ever bad news that stirred the sleeping.
Station Officer Lloyd Harrison was the first senior man on the scene. He was a large man of spreading girth and popular amongst his men. He soon set what pumps he had to work in a timely fashion using the school plans that had been held at the station in case of such an emergency. Protocol dictated that a Station Officer handled an incident of up to 6 pumps and an Assistant Divisional Officer would take over if the incident required 9 pumps. Lloyd’s experience told him immediately that this would be a 6 pump job, but he wasn’t surprised when the Chief Fire Officer, Eddie Wright, and his deputy, Dylan Frost, both turned up within the hour. Neither man should have been on the scene as there were several ranks between Lloyd and them, but this was St Joseph’s and some very important people were going to be demanding answers come the first light of morning.
Lloyd waited as the chief dipped his head to his deputy, presumably checking Lloyd’s name as he approached. “Update, Harrison,” the chief demanded.
“It’s bad, Sir,” Lloyd responded honestly.
“Update, not an opinion!” Chief Wright snapped in reply.
“Gas explosion ripped through the main building, plus multiple fires, some of which seem to have started before the gas went. The fires are under control and we’ve got all the survivors clear that I think we’re going to.” Lloyd took out his notebook. “Present at the time, according to the log that’s kept in one of the outbuildings that wasn’t touched by the fire, was the headmaster, Alexander Duran, and 13 pupils. They all seem to have been together in one of the dorm rooms when the fire hit and the gas mains blew directly underneath them.”
“Any survivors?” Chief Wright asked.
“It’s a mess in there and it’s going to take some time to count the body parts before we can know for sure, but one thing that I can tell you is that whoever was in that room at the time of the fire is gone.”
“No other staff members?” Deputy Frost asked, puzzled.
“Well, this is where things get a little complicated and above my pay grade,” Lloyd answered.
“Get to it,” Chief Wright ordered.
“From what I can gather, there was some kind of police operation in play here tonight and the rest of the staff went home, but the thing is - I don’t think that whatever the cops were up to was strictly authorised.”
“How do you mean?” Chief Wright asked, staring straight at him hard.
“Well we pulled a…” Lloyd checked his notebook again. “A DI Meyers from the wreckage, along with a civilian woman - a Jane Parkes - and a dead FBI Agent - a Tom Bradshaw; poor bastard got his head crushed by a falling beam. It’s a miracle that the other two made it out alive. The woman was unconscious but Meyers managed to get her mostly through the rubble before my boys found them. We’ve also got two other cops dead and scorched badly - a Tim Selleck and an Eileen Landing. Both of them are dead but in completely different parts of the school.”
“Jesus!” Deputy Frost sighed heavily.
“How do you know that something was amiss and how did you ID the bodies?” Chief Wright asked.
“While we were working some doctor - a Wendell Reese - showed up and gave me the info. He’s a police surgeon but he got real sketchy when I asked what the police were doing here.”
“Why did he turn up?” Chief Wright asked suspiciously.
“He had a daughter here but he took her out this afternoon,” Lloyd replied to raised eyebrows. “One of my guys is sitting with him in one of the offices until the cops show up. I didn’t know what else to do with him.”
Chief Wright took a deep breath as he seemed to
consider the facts. Finally, he opened his mouth to give his orders but he was interrupted by an approaching car driving too fast with a small interior flashing blue light. “Oh, shit,” Wright whispered under his breath.
Lloyd looked around to see just who might make his boss that nervous as Commander Jeffrey Barrett climbed from his vehicle with an ashen face and blazing eyes. “WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE?” he demanded as soon as his feet touched the ground and Lloyd was never happier to defer to his two suited superiors and slink away from the scene.
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Jane was still waiting for her breathing to return to normal. Her lungs were scorched and her throat burned every time that she inhaled. The last thing that she remembered was holding a gun as both Danny and Bradshaw tried to win her favour; the next thing she knew, Danny was dragging her through the darkness towards the dim light and glorious fresh air.
She was sitting in the back of an ambulance with a warm blanket wrapped around her shoulders but she trembled constantly. There was more death here than she could stand and it took every ounce of strength not to run screaming into the night. Her hands were soaked in so much blood that she would never be able to scrub them clean again. This was her graveyard now, and she had no idea how she was going to tend it. The buildup of the dead had now reached breaking point within her senses. The air around her crackled with their confusion which she knew would quickly turn to unfocused rage. The night was lit by a silvery moon but their blurry forms were drowning what light there was and Jane knew that she faced a lifetime in darkness. The doorway between this world and the Shadow one was usually an unbreakable barrier, but now they were pushing at the very seams of reality and threatening to spill over. She knew that she had to summon some kind of strength but her batteries were flat and she had nothing left.
There was sudden movement ahead of her and the darkness was disturbed as Danny moved closer, passing through the wisps of smoky silhouettes. He shuddered involuntarily as he reached her, as though even he sensed something. “How are you feeling?” he asked gently.
Up close, she could see that his head was bandaged and his left eye was swollen shut. There were a multitude of cuts and abrasions etched across his face, which was littered with drying blood. “I’ll live,” she whispered through her sore throat. “What about Bradshaw?”
He shook his head slowly in reply.
“What happened?” she asked, all the while watching Danny’s face to see if he was being truthful.
“Didn’t see exactly. When the whole place went up, everything went black. I found you and managed to drag you out but when I went back for him…, well most of the ceiling had collapsed and a thick beam had landed…., well it just about squashed him; what was left was a real mess.”
Jane watched his face as it seemed to register genuine remorse and more than a little queasiness. “Do you think that he was…, you know, the guy?”
“I thought that I was on your list,” Danny said reproachfully.
“I don’t know what I thought,” she answered honestly. “Coming here tonight was my idea. It was my arrogance that brought us here,” she said quietly as her eyes started to mist with guilt.
“Don’t say that,” Danny said, taking her hand.
“But it was, Danny,” she sighed heavily. “I thought that I was in control, but the whole time he was just playing me. Every turn that I made was one that he wanted me to. He wanted us all here tonight and he planned to end it this way.”
“Was it Bradshaw?”
“Honest to God, Danny, I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore, but he certainly deserves looking into. Maybe it was him, maybe he wanted us all to burn with him or maybe he planned the fire wrong, I don’t know.” The swirling darkness seemed to engulf them both now and she opened her mouth to try and voice her thoughts further, but the black smoke evaporated as another voice boomed out loudly.
“What the hell is this?” Commander Barrett shouted loudly as he drew up.
Jane could see that the man’s face was drawn tightly across his skull, his features scrunched up in anger.
“Detective Inspector Meyers, you are to return to Faircliff Police Station where you will be detained until I get answers to this clusterfuck,” Barrett ordered.
“Sir, if I could have a moment,” Danny started.
“I would advise you to shut your bloody mouth,” Barrett snarled, “right now! It is my greatest hope that before this night is through, I’ll find enough incompetence and downright criminal behaviour to stick you in a cell and throw away the key. I’ve got more dead bodies than the two county morgues could hold and every path leads to your goddamn front door.”
“But, Sir, if you’ll just give me a moment to explain,” Danny tried, but Jane could see that Barrett’s ears were already firmly closed.
“YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH!” Barrett roared as spittle flew from his lips and Jane could see that he was a man not used to losing control. “YOU, YOU AND YOU!” Barrett barked at three constables standing nearby. “Arrest this man,” Barrett commanded as he pointed an accusatory finger at Danny.
“DI Meyers?” the first young uniformed man asked, his eyes darting around nervously.
“Look, you fucking suit!” Danny growled as his temper hit the red zone. “My team have been out here risking our lives because you wouldn’t know a case from a hole in the ground. People like you make me sick; you sit behind your desks, filling out forms without a goddamn clue about what it takes to do this job!”
“Is that right, Inspector?” Barrett replied, grinning, and Jane wanted to tell Danny to stop because he was walking into a trap and she could smell it.
“Yes, it bloody well is. Now I have a suspect: that FBI agent that you dumped in our laps.”
“The dead American?” Barrett asked, with raised eyebrows.
“You’re damn well right. Now, I want to know where he came from and what the hell he was really doing here,” Danny snarled in a low menacing tone. “And I don’t care what rocks I have to turn over to do so.”
“Well, Inspector, you really think that an FBI agent is our elusive serial killer? That’s the extent of your expert analysis?”
“Maybe,” Danny replied, a little less sure of himself.
Jane watched the exchange from the outside, knowing that if she spoke then her presence would be noticed and she would be removed without learning everything that the commander knew.
“Well, let me fill you in on a few details, Inspector. Earlier this evening a reporter by the name of Randall Zerneck managed to do what your whole department failed to do and caught the Crucifier. The serial killer that has been eluding your precious department is now dead at the hands of a bloody reporter.”
“Who was it?” Danny managed to ask as his mouth ran dry.
“Some local kid called Martin Kline,” Barrett responded triumphantly.
Jane was as stunned as Danny appeared to be.
“That’s not possible,” Danny said almost to himself.
“Unfortunately for you it is,” Barrett said, grinning widely. “There’s a forensic team over at the suspect’s place right now as we speak and I’m assured that they’re pulling enough evidence out of his basement to prove it beyond any shadow of a doubt.”
Danny could only stare at the man’s grinning face and he felt his temper slip another notch, and there weren’t many notches left to go.
“Your father would be ashamed of you, Detective Meyers,” Barrett continued as he sought to land maximum damage. “Running around with the bitch who got him killed, failing where he failed … ashamed.”
Danny’s fist was clenched and moving before he realised it, not that he would have stopped it anyway. It struck home with a satisfying squelch into Barrett’s mouth as blood was drawn. The commander crumpled to the ground with a look of shock mingled with pain. Jane looked on as the senior officer landed on his backside, his impeccable uniform creased and splattered with dirt.
“I must say that your little outburst
now allows me to add gross insubordination and striking a superior officer to an undoubted growing list of charges that I hope to file come the morning,” Barrett spluttered as he struggled to regain his feet and his dignity. “Officers, take him away,” he barely managed through an iron-clenched jaw.
Jane watched as the three young constables led Danny away to a waiting police car and helped him inside. The news of his team had shaken Danny to the core but Jane was starting to process the information. It was surely too much of a coincidence for it to be a different Martin Kline to the one that she’d worked with at the pet store. She’d always gotten a slightly odd vibe about Marty, one that had been steadily increasing in recent days. She knew that the police would soon discover that she had known Marty but she wasn’t about to do their jobs for them by offering the information freely. Despite the very foundations of her gift being rocked, she still couldn’t believe that she hadn’t picked up on Marty’s extracurricular activities. The whole thing made a lot more sense when you accepted that there was a puppet master at work here. “And what about me, Commander?” she asked. “I suppose that I’m under arrest as well?”
“Why no, Ms Parkes,” Barrett smiled, which filled her with dread. “I believe that you aren’t in need of police help, but help of a more medical nature.”
“Excuse me?”
“I think that you’re not well, Ms Parkes, and that you’re a danger to yourself and those around you. I believe that it is in your best interests if you are taken somewhere where you can get all the help you need.”
“You can’t be serious?” Jane spluttered. “You’re having me committed?”
“Sectioned is the correct term, Ma’am,” Barrett grinned, as he motioned for the paramedics to strap her down on the gurney. “Sectioned.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN
Danny tried to take in the avalanche of information that was being fired at him at dizzying speed. Superintendent Chalmers was dead, along with the headmaster of St Joseph’s and 13 young girls. Selleck and Landing had also been discovered dead at the scene and Kim Croft had been found near the police station, another victim of the Crucifier. The three dead members of his team, of his family, broke his heart. He had gotten them all killed because he’d followed Jane Parkes and her gift. Now she was being hidden away in an institution and he was going to be kicked out of the force and there would be no one left to ask any questions.