The Crippling Terrors (Tracking Ever Nearer Book 1)

by Jeff Vrolyks

Dorothy: “What magazine?”

  Red: “… Counting Chromosomes. It’s new.”

  Chapter 55

  I knelt beside Holly inside the large dome tent. I put together a make-shift tool tray complete with long and short forceps, scissors, scalpel, and a large bowl with rubbing-alcohol for sterilization. Gauze and towels were in a neat stack beside the tray. Next to the towels was a cellular phone. Beside that was my pride and joy: a 12 gauge Remington shotgun. On my person (a little C.H.I.P.S. lingo) was my .38 Police Special. In my pocket was a four inch stiletto knife.

  A pair of lanterns made daylight inside the tent. Holly lay on her sleeping bag with knees bent and pillows under her head. A pair of blankets loosely covered her lower half. Her water broke three hours prior and contractions began just before that. They were ten minutes apart when I last timed them. Things were progressing fast. By 8:30 P.M. she was dilated to four centimeters. In the excitement of it all, I took a brief moment to appreciate the task I was performing, and how much enjoyment I took from it, and wondered if it was possible that this was my calling, to be a doctor, to deliver babies.

  Having just examined her, now 9:35 P.M., she was between seven and eight centimeters dilated. Without timing them, her contractions were now three to five minutes apart. She was sweating profusely. Any time now. I had a rock-hard knot in my gut. I doubted myself, prepared as I was. I worried about complications to the point that I was sure we’d encounter them. I would have to use the forceps to turn the baby around, possibly to untangle the umbilical cord from Will’s neck. The scalpel on the tool tray evoked dark thoughts. A little voice reminded me of its function in a worst case scenario, and the visual was razor sharp.

  A bottle of water and a pair of morphine capsules in a Dixie cup sat next to Holly. When her pain reached insanity, she pulled the capsules apart in her mouth, chewed and swallowed them dryly as if they were a life-saving antidote. She demanded more seconds after ingesting them, claimed they weren’t working. I said to have patience, and I expected them to help her pain in ten or fifteen minutes from now, but no sooner than that. I promised to give her more an hour from now if she was still suffering unbearable pain.

  “Should I call Alison yet?” I asked. “She said call when you’re having the baby. You’re pretty much there.”

  She nodded.

  We couldn’t charge the phone in the forest so we limited ourselves to checking messages once a day to preserve the battery. I powered on the cell phone and checked for voicemail before placing the call.

  One voicemail. Alison. The only person who knew the phone number.

  You have: one message; received at: six-fifteen P.M.; on: Tuesday, February sixth; message is: twenty minutes and zero seconds long.

  Twenty minutes? What could have taken twenty minutes to say? I wondered if twenty minutes was the limit. That it was twenty even, with no seconds, suggested that was the case.

  “Hey guys, hope all is well,” Ali said cheerfully. “I haven’t heard from you so I assume it hasn’t happened yet. Tomorrow is forty weeks! Will is supposed to turn zero years old! How exciting! I know, I know, like five percent of babies are actually born on the due date, but I don’t care, I’m excited! I know I said that you should only call when you give birth or in case of an emergency, but I’m desperate for updates and news! So don’t call until you’re in labor, or she’s in labor—depending on who’s listening to this—but if you do call, I’ll totally understand... completely understand. Get my drift?”

  “She left a voicemail,” I said to Holly. “She’s antsy, wants updates.”

  Holly grunted and said, “I’m not in the mood. Please hurry.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll make the call quick.”

  Alison continued idle voicemail chat. I almost stopped the remaining nineteen minutes and called her, but her doorbell got my attention.

  “—miss you both already. I can’t wait until we can—” she paused, “someone’s at the door, one second. Mike, can you see who’s at the door, honey? You know the rules, don’t open it for strangers!”

  We returned to our one-sided conversation. “Sorry about that. What was I saying? Uh.... I can’t remember. Oh yeah, I can’t wait until we can hang out again, all four of us. Five of us! I was thinking that maybe—”

  Alison stopped mid-sentence. I heard the phone clink against a hard surface such as a counter or table. I thought the message had ended until I heard Alison speak. She was away from the phone’s speaker, but I could still hear her.

  “Who are you, and why are you doing this?” Ali said evenly.

  “Where are they?” said a deep, gravelly voice. “And don’t fuck with me.”

  My heart was beating so hard it hurt. I turned my back to Holly. Do I tell her? No, the stress would endanger the baby.

  “I don’t know who you are—”

  “I said, don’t… fuck… with me!”

  “Please, you don’t need to do this,” Mike pleaded. “I beg you, don’t. Please don’t use that.”

  “I’m gonna get to work on you if you don’t tell me what I want to hear,” he said calmly.

  “Please put that down,” Alison cried. “I’ll do anything. Anything you want. Just please don’t do that.” She began weeping. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, just please don’t hurt him.”

  I can’t describe the horror that engulfed me. I couldn’t let Holly see me like this. I kept my back to her.

  “They are in Los Angeles,” Mike said urgently, “I swear. They’re staying at the Beverly Hilton. Please stop pu—”

  A sharp tortured scream.

  Alison Shrieked, cut off by a gurgle and cough.

  “Shut the fuck up! Do you want your neighbors to call the police? I really, really don’t think you want the consequence that comes with that.”

  “You, you are,” Alison panted, “the police.”

  Until she said that, I was praying someone had heard them and called the police. That prayer wouldn’t be answered. He was the police. He only had to call dispatch and let them know he was on top of it. I almost called the police myself, but this happened yesterday. They were already dead presumably, a thought that ushered in greater tears.

  A silent moment was followed by Ali belting out a shrill screech, wavering between two stratospheric octaves.

  —thump

  —thud

  “I told you to shut up, you stupid bitch! Operor vos volo morior!”

  Mike groveled, “Please, please have mercy. You’re going to ki… ill me… Please, stop. I’ll tell you whatever you—”

  Mike screamed a blood curdling scream that cut short.

  Every fine hair on my body bristled. My gorge rose, I choked it back.

  Hang up, I thought. Hang up now! You’re listening to Mike and Alison die. Hang the fuck up!

  I needed to know. What if they didn’t die? What if I learned something that could save Holly and my son’s lives?

  You won’t, hang up!

  Alison’s voice was frail and disoriented as she begged for their lives.

  “Where are they? Last chance.”

  (Incoherent mumbling and sobbing)

  From Alison came the most harrowing, most savage scream within imagination’s reach, prompting me to shut the phone off mid-scream with seventeen minutes remaining in the message. It wasn’t a scream born from physical pain. Worse. It was the kind of squall that comes from having the love of your life being executed before your eyes.

  I unwillingly replayed the message in my head. Their haunting screams and pleas were forever etched in my memory; each one, a prison-cell bar erecting around me. Part of me died during that message, the part that Holly holds the key to.

  I ascertained Mike dying, but not Alison. But if Mike couldn’t defend himself, there was no way Ali could. Had I listened longer, I surely would have heard the life being ripped from her in the same fashion. More gray-mattered prison-cell bars erecting around me, creating my own prison. Bars reinforced with every recollection o
f the murder’s ghastly detail.

  “They died,” I muttered.

  “What did you say? Kevin? What’s wrong? What did you just say! What the hell did you just say!”

  * * *

  Yosemite Park Ranger Sally O’Mally rolled down the window of her government-issued Ford F-150 as she pulled up beside Park Ranger Sandy Bell—whom she affectionately called Sandy-Andy for no real reason, other than she liked how it felt rolling off her tongue.

  “Sandy-Andy! Hey hun, good to see you!”

  “Hey-howdy! Even gooder to see you. You got here quick.”

  “I just drove past here a few minutes before dispatch called.”

  “So how was it?” Sandy said affably. “Let’s see it.”

  Ranger Sally displayed her ring under the beam of his flashlight. She stared at her adorned finger and drifted away with the fantasy of her wedding and upcoming honeymoon.

  Sandy Bell hadn’t yet met her new fiancé, but he was anxious to see what kind of stud he must be to cause Sally O’Mally to fall so deeply in love. They’d been Yosemite Park Rangers for nearly ten years and on the same shift for half that. And in that time she never so much as mentioned a date. He began wondering if she was a lesbian and too shy or ashamed to come out of the closet. Then came the news of her engagement. He was happy for her, but also jealous of the guy who scored big in securing Sally for life.

  “What a rock! Guy must be loaded.”

  “He owns a restaurant chain in Fresno. We’re getting married the first Saturday of April. Are you and Jennine going to be able to make it?”

  “You bet. I’ll put in the time-off request at shift change.”

  She smiled as she got out of her truck. “Thanks, hun. It just wouldn’t be the same without you. How’s Jennine doing?”

  “She’s good, though she’s been working non-stop since her promotion last fall.” They ambled away from their matching government vehicles and approached the Wawona Hotel. “So no more Sally O’Mally? You know how much I love saying your name? How could you do that to me?”

  Sally laughed. “It’s the only reason I’m getting married. To spite you. And yes, I have a pretty good idea, being that I enjoy saying Sandy-Andy so much.”

  “What’s it gonna change to?”

  “Gallagher. I got to admit, I’m not warming up to the name Sally Gallagher, but it is what it is. Maybe I’ll keep my last name,” Sally said with a wink.

  They ascended the steps to the enormous wood-planked veranda, a deck that sprawled out around the white three-story façade of the hotel. Several tiny tables with equally tiny chairs were actually being used by guests this evening—unusual on a winter weekday. They entered the hotel, impressed to find the lobby equally thronged. Strange.

  “Busy for a Wednesday, sheesh,” Sally said.

  “Especially in the off-season. They got something going on tonight that I don’t know about?”

  “Not that I know of. This is my first night back since Cabo San Lucas, though.”

  They threaded through the crowd, predominately consisting of people in their early-to-late twenties. At the reception desk they greeted Boaz and asked for more information regarding the complaint.

  “Good to see you, too, Sally,” said the old clerk. “And congratulations on the engagement!”

  “Thanks, Boaz. Do you still live at the same address? You and Margaret are getting an invitation, of course.”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ll live there until someone buries us,” Boaz said amicably, “which is at least a few more years.”

  Sally O’Mally shook her head with a thin grin and repeated, “The complaint?”

  “Complaint? Oh, the complaint!” Boaz searched the counter for the yellow piece of paper he had used to log the complaint. “They say the mind is the second thing to go…”

  Rangers Sandy and Sally waited for the punch line, but Boaz had no more to say on the matter—he had forgotten. He found the notepad, read what he had written. “Room two-twenty is the gentleman who called in the complaint. He said it was the room next to him, so either two-twenty-one.”

  Sandy waited before saying, “Or two-nineteen?”

  “How’s that?” said Boaz.

  “Never mind. It was a noise complaint, correct?”

  “The complaint? Yes, ma’am. Kids, most likely. Maybe some underaged drinking, nothing to get a hitch in your giddyup about. Is that why you’re here?”

  Ranger Sally considered reminding Boaz that he was the one who called dispatch, not them, but let it go. “Yes, that’s why we’re here. Thanks Boaz, it’s always nice to see your smiling face. If I don’t see you again before the wedding, I hope you and Margaret can make it. It wouldn’t be the same without you guys.”

  Sandy didn’t care for her choice of words to Boaz. She just got done telling him the same thing. If she told the partying noise-violating kids upstairs that they should come to her wedding or it just wouldn’t be the same, he was going to have to find a new Park Ranger to secretly fall in love with.

  It was 9:40 P.M. when they knocked on the trouble-maker’s door. There was music coming from down the hall, too. Nobody answered the door, so they walked down the second floor corridor. To their surprise, there were several rooms with loud music inside. In their defense, it wasn’t that loud. It was more rude than it was a legal violation, and they decided there wouldn’t be any citations written over the matter. They continued down the hall.

  “There must be some sort of function going on,” she said. “Do you hear that music? Do you know what it is?”

  “Metallica?” he guessed.

  “You think every band that doesn’t play the blues is Metallica, silly.”

  “It’s not my fault. It’s their fault for not playing the blues.”

  “It’s VonFurenz,” Sally informed. “If I’m not mistaken, it was VonFurenz down the hall, as well. You do know who VonFurenz is, right?”

  “I know who Kloss VonFuren is, as does anyone with a TV. I take it he’s in the band?”

  A door was open, with loud music screaming from inside. The nineteen-or-so-year-old zit-faced kid stamped out a joint in a bottle-cap.

  “Can I have a word with you, son?” Sandy Bell said in contest with the music.

  “Am I in trouble?” He turned down the music and sat at the edge of his bed, facing the doorway and rangers.

  “Why? Should you be?” said Sandy. “What are you doing—”

  Sally touched Sandy’s shoulder and said, “Sandy, it’s okay. Let’s stick to business.” He nodded at her. “What’s your name?”

  “Alberto.”

  “Are you here by yourself, Alberto?” Sally said kindly. “Your folks here with you?”

  “No,” he said, with a sour taste in his mouth at the thought. “I’m almost twenty-one-years old. I don’t hang out with my retarded parents anymore.”

  “Lovely,” Sandy-Andy muttered. “Makes you want some of your own, huh?”

  “Maybe not,” Sally said to Alberto, “but I bet your retarded parents footed the bill for this hundred-bucks a night room.”

  “Nope. If my parents would do something that cool, it was cease making them retarded. It was free. Free, glorious free.”

  “Free?” repeated the rangers.

  Sally recognized the song as one of VonFurenz’ latest hit singles. It gave her an idea. She posed a question to Alberto: “I was hoping you could tell me why people here are playing VonFurenz music tonight. Is one of the band members staying here or did you all come from a concert or what?”

  “I don’t know anyone here, and I don’t know if a band member is staying here or not.”

  Sandy and Sally waited for him to say more. He said nothing else.

  “Do you know why several people are playing the same music?” she pursued.

  Sandy touched Sally’s wrist and gave her a stern look before he faced Alberto and turned up the heat a few degrees. “How would you like to spend the night in jail? You think I can’t smell the weed? I’ll loo
k past you smoking a joint but you better answer the lady’s question. Try and sidestep around the answer again and it’s these,” he removed the handcuffs from his utility belt and brandished them, “for you.”

  His eyes widened. Good.

  “Probably because their biggest fans are here for the show,” he said.

  “What show?” Sally wondered.

  “Jesus Christ, he wasn’t joking,” Alberto muttered. “It really is a secret show.”

  “VonFurenz is playing here?” Sally blustered. “Tonight?”

  “You didn’t here it from me,” he said.

  “Impossible,” she countered. “We’d know about it. A band that huge wouldn’t play here without the police and Park Rangers being involved in the security.”

  Alberto shrugged and turned his music back up. Sandy spoke louder to compete with VonFurenz. “How is the room free?”

  “I don’t know. I guess VonFurenz is picking up the tab for their fan club members. Not sure.”

  As they walked down the hallway, Sally unclipped her hand-radio and called dispatch. When they confirmed what she already knew, that there were no rock concerts taking place in the park, she had them check with the sheriff’s office. Something wasn’t right. This many guests couldn’t be mistaken. If they were mistaken, the free room wasn’t. It was paid for.

  They reentered the lobby and headed back to Boaz. “Let’s see who picked up the tab for his room,” she said. Before she reached the reception desk, Boaz smiling at her in anticipation, a sensation struck her. Déjà vu. She had seen this happen, had done this before. She stopped and swooned; a sensation so powerful that she became dizzy from the intensity of it.

  “You okay, Sally?”

  Faces popped in her mind from memory. She surveyed around the lobby. It was even more crowded than before. Enthusiastic youngsters were gathering and conversing amongst themselves. As she flashed from one face to the next, she wasn’t recognizing them, even as she somehow expected to.

  Then she saw one she did recognize. Sally had never before seen him, yet she had, in her mind’s eye. And then another recognition.

  “No, I’m not okay. Something’s wrong.”