by Chris Carter
She tensed and cupped her hands around her hot chocolate mug. ‘Unfortunately, I can’t control anything about these visions. The images are hazy and not always clear. Most of the time I see them as if I was watching a movie on a screen.’
‘Like a spectator?’ Hunter suggested.
‘Yes.’ A quick nod. ‘But that day inside Union Station was different.’
‘Different how?’
She breathed deeply and her gaze lowered. ‘I was part of it. I was the one attacking him.’ Her voice weakened.
‘You saw it in the first person?’ Garcia asked.
A subtle nod. ‘I was the killer.’
Garcia looked uneasy for a second.
‘Wait,’ Hunter interrupted. ‘Attacking him – who?’
Another deep breath. ‘A priest.’
Hunter kept a steady face, knowing that sudden emotional reactions, even facial expressions, could make this even harder for her.
‘We were inside some dark church, I don’t know where. The priest was just kneeling in front of me, crying.’ She had a sip of her hot drink and Hunter noticed her shaky hands. ‘I showed him something . . . a piece of paper, I think.’
‘A piece of paper?’ Garcia queried.
She nodded.
‘Could it have been a picture or maybe a drawing?’ Hunter asked.
‘It could have. I can’t be sure.’
Traffic was heating up. A car stalled on East First Street and a barrage of horns came alive. She waited for them to die down.
‘I never got to see it. I just showed it to the priest.’
Hunter noted something down in his black notebook. ‘What did you see next?’
She hesitated for a second, as if what she was about to say made no sense. ‘A dog’s head. I showed the priest a dog’s head, and it terrified him.’
‘Where did the head come from?’ Garcia this time.
‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head. ‘I just had it with me.’ Another quick hesitation. ‘Together with the sword I used to . . .’ Her voice trailed off.
Hunter allowed a few silent moments to go by before asking her if she remembered which hand held the sword.
‘The right one,’ she said with conviction.
‘Can you remember anything specific about the hand? Skin color? Were there any rings on the fingers? A watch?’
She thought about it for a second. ‘Black gloves.’
The wind had picked up as more dark clouds gathered in the sky. It was getting colder, but the girl didn’t seem to notice it.
‘Anything else you remember from your vision?’
She nodded as she stared straight into Hunter’s eyes. ‘The number three. I drew it onto the priest’s chest after I killed him.’
This time it wasn’t the cold wind that made Garcia shiver.
Hunter held her gaze. Up to now, all the information Mollie had given them could’ve been obtained from the papers. The story that the killer had showed his victim a piece of paper could’ve been made up. They had no way of confirming it. But not the numbering. There was no way she could’ve known about the numbering.
‘When you came to see us.’ Hunter broke the uncomfortable silence. ‘Just before I left the room, you said something to me, do you remember?’
He got no response.
‘You said, “He knew about the fire. He knew what scared her.” Do you remember saying that?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you mean by that?’ Hunter pushed his empty coffee cup to one side and leaned forward.
‘At first I didn’t know. It was like I had no control. Those words simply shot out of my lips. But just a minute after you left I saw it. And this time it was even stronger than the previous one.’ Her voice wavered for a second.
‘What did you see?’
‘A woman tied to an armchair. She was as scared as the priest was, but she couldn’t scream.’
Garcia ran his hand over his mouth and chin as if stroking a goatee. ‘Was she gagged?’
‘No. Her lips had been—’ the girl shook her head, hardly believing her own words ‘—glued shut.’
‘Glued?’ Hunter asked surprised. ‘Like with crazy glue?’
She nodded. ‘Her face was also covered in something sticky, like some weird type of gel.’
She couldn’t have known that either. Hunter pulled the collar of his leather jacket tighter against his neck.
‘Did you see this as a first person again?’ Garcia pressed.
‘Yes.’ She looked away as if it were her fault.
Hunter wanted to explore the picture story further. ‘Did you show the woman a picture, like you did with the priest?’
‘Yes, but again I didn’t see what it was.’
‘You said this vision was stronger than the previous one, stronger how?’ Garcia asked.
Mollie took a moment and Hunter understood her hesitation. She hadn’t had a vision in almost four years. Now they’d come back. And in the form of the most hideous murders Hunter had ever seen.
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. ‘The visions I have are usually silent – images only, but not this one.’ She paused. ‘I said something to the woman.’
Hunter kept silent, allowing her to continue in her own time.
‘I said, Welcome to your fear, Mandy . . .’
Hunter’s heart raced.
‘. . . I know what scares you to death.’
Sixty-Seven
The statement was so surprising that it took several seconds for it to register with both detectives.
‘Was it your voice?’ Hunter queried, still a little stunned by how much she knew. ‘When you said those words to the woman. Was it your voice or somebody else’s?’
‘My own,’ she whispered.
Garcia rubbed his face vigorously, lost for words.
‘Somehow I knew the woman in the chair was scared of fires,’ the girl continued. ‘That’s why I said those words to you.’
Hunter leaned back in his chair and thought about it for a moment.
‘These visions last only about thirty seconds, maybe a minute. I don’t know why I see them. I don’t know why they feel so real. I don’t know why I wasn’t a spectator like all the previous ones. I wish I did, but I don’t have all the answers.’ She paused and looked away from Hunter. ‘What I’m trying to tell you is: whoever this killer is, he knows about their fears.’
Click, click, click. The person holding the camera on the other side of East First Street quickly snapped three consecutive pictures without anyone noticing.
‘Is there anything else you remember about these visions, Mollie?’ Garcia asked and saw the girl’s eyes widen in shock. She looked uncertain for a split second before reaching for her bag.
Hunter reached for her hand. ‘Wait.’
Mollie looked at him, then jerked his hand away angrily and stood up.
‘Please listen to me.’ Hunter and Garcia shot to their feet at the same time.
‘This has all been a mistake.’
‘No, it hasn’t.’ Hunter’s tone was firm but unthreatening. ‘Just give me one minute to explain. Then, if you still wanna go, no one will stop you.’
She paused just long enough for Hunter not to allow her uncertainty to settle. ‘I didn’t know if you’d ever call again. You left before an officer had a chance to write down your details. You left us nothing, so I had to go with the only thing we had – your Pennsylvanian accent. We did a quick search. Your name came up as a missing person.’
She went rigid.
‘We didn’t tell your father.’
Earlier on, when she told them about her obsessively religious parents, she kept the story centered around her mother, rarely mentioning her father. When she did, her body tensed, her posture shifted and her movements were nervy. Hunter saw how scared she was of him.
‘And we won’t tell him,’ Hunter said positively.
Her eyes held Hunter’s gaze for a while longer before shifting towards Garcia. He
nodded and gave her a confident wink as if saying ‘we won’t tell if you don’t’.
Her body relaxed slightly.
‘I promise you, Mollie, we weren’t intruding.’ Hunter paused. ‘And we could really use your help.’
There was something calming, something trustworthy about the man standing in front of her. The tense moment evaporated and she sat back down. ‘The reason why I called you today . . .’
‘You had another vision?’ Garcia guessed.
‘No. Not a vision, a flash.’
Click, click, click. Three more pictures.
‘What do you mean a flash?’
‘Sometimes I have quick flashes of one of my previous visions. Something that wasn’t there before. They last only a couple of seconds.’
‘They’re called residual flashes,’ Hunter said without going into a detailed explanation.
Mollie looked at him curiously.
‘He reads a lot,’ Garcia explained. ‘So what was this flash about?’
‘Something I said.’
‘Something you said to who?’ Hunter this time.
‘To the priest. Just before I killed him.’
Click, click, click.
‘But you said there was no sound in the priest’s vision,’ Garcia said.
‘There wasn’t. Not in the vision.’
‘But there was in the flash,’ Hunter acknowledged.
Mollie nodded and sighed.
‘So what did you say?’
A deep breath.
‘They will all die.’
Sixty-Eight
Fifteen days before the first murder
Staring at his reflection in the mirror, he ran his tongue over his dry and cracked lips. It’s been almost four years, but he looked to have aged at least ten. His face now showed several deep lines, and his eyes seemed to have sunken further into his skull. But anyone who knew John Woods knew that the lines weren’t an indication of age, but of heavy anguish.
After his wife’s death, he’d relocated from Huntingdon County to York, in South Central Pennsylvania. He couldn’t stay in Huntingdon anymore. Everything about the place reminded him of his daughter. Her demonic dreams had cursed his life.
He splashed a handful of cold water on his face and combed what was left of his thin black hair back over his ears. Tonight, the York Catholic High School and Church was hosting a Christmas charity event. Over three hundred students and parents were expected.
John worked as a janitor at the school, and he always helped Father Laurence with anything needed, from plumbing to gardening and party decorations. There was still an hour before the party was due to start, but various parents were already arriving, bringing with them a variety of baked goods ready to be sold at the massive bake-sale that’d take place inside the school gymnasium. John’s task was to keep the bathroom floors and toilets clean during the party.
With his eyes still fixed on his reflection, he crossed himself and said a quick prayer before leaving the small apartment he rented just a block away from York Catholic High School.
Father Laurence had asked John to concern himself only with the bathroom inside the gymnasium. That’s where everyone would be. The main classroom building had been deemed out of limits, but John knew students liked to break rules.
It was past eight o’clock when John walked into the dark hallway of the main building. After checking the two bathrooms on the ground floor, he moved upstairs to have a look at the one right at the end of the hall. He’d walked those corridors so many times he didn’t need a flashlight.
As he approached the door to the bathroom, John could hear giggling coming from inside. He slowed his step and listened for a moment. There seemed to be at least three voices – one of them female. The lights were off, allowing John to sneak in quietly without being noticed. Slowly, he tiptoed his way towards the last cubicle, where the sounds were coming from.
The door was wide open, and in the faint light that came from a cell phone he could see someone standing behind a girl who was bent over the toilet. They were both naked and the boy standing behind her slapped her bare butt with his right hand while thrusting himself into her. They were both moaning with pleasure.
John was wearing dark trousers and shirt, which helped hide him in the shadows. With his back tight against the wall opposite the cubicles, he took a step closer. Sitting on the toilet, in front of the girl, another naked boy held a cell phone with his left hand, while pushing her head down onto him with his right. She took him into her mouth eagerly. The boy was filming everything.
John felt himself getting hard.
‘Nick, I want you inside me now,’ the girl said, lifting her mouth from the boy in front of her. ‘And Shawn—’ she faced the boy behind her ‘—I want all that in my mouth.’ She pointed to his erect penis.
John moved two steps back as quietly as he could. He didn’t want to disturb them.
The two boys swapped positions and everything started again. Nick, the boy now standing behind the demanding girl, still had his cell phone firmly in his left hand. Her moans quickly got more urgent, and John knew she was about to climax. And so was he.
John eased himself into one of the cubicles. Two from where the boys were. He didn’t need to see them; her moans were enough to drive him crazy. He closed his eyes and allowed his imagination and his hand to do all the work, but his mind didn’t bring back the images he’d seen just a few seconds ago. All he could think of was Mollie and the nights he’d walked into her room and delivered her from the temptations of this world.
With his thoughts of those nights, it took John only a few seconds to climax.
He sat there for a few minutes trying to control his body. It wrenched every couple of seconds from his ecstasy. When he was steady enough to stand, he cleaned himself up and left the bathroom as quietly as he’d come in. The students were still going at it.
‘John.’ He heard someone call as he walked back into the gymnasium.
Keeping his head low and his eyes on the floor, he carried on walking, pretending he didn’t hear it.
‘John Woods.’ A hand touched him on his right shoulder. ‘Didn’t you hear me call?’
John turned around nervously and his eyes widened in surprise. The old man standing in front of him had thin white eyebrows that matched the little hair he’d combed over from left to right. His round nose and rosy cheeks, together with his kind-looking eyes, gave him the friendliest of looks.
‘Father Lewis?’ John said, looking shocked before kissing the old priest’s right hand.
‘God bless you, my son.’
‘I didn’t know you were coming.’
‘It was a last-minute decision, John.’
Father Lewis had been the priest at the Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Huntingdon for as long as anyone could remember. John Woods had worshiped there his whole life.
‘How’s the church, father?’
‘Fine, John. We had a new coat of paint about a year ago. You should come back to visit us sometime.’
John’s eyes saddened.
‘I know, I know,’ Father Lewis said before John was able to form a reply. ‘The memories are still too vivid, right?’
A shy nod.
‘I’ve known you since you were a little kid, John. You’ve always been a very devout Catholic, and I have you in my heart as family. It pains me to know that you needed to leave us to be able to cope with your loss.’
John couldn’t bring himself to lock eyes with the priest.
Father Lewis smiled a comforting smile. ‘But the reason I’m here is to bring you good news.’
John finally looked up.
‘Can we step outside for a moment? It’s a bit too noisy in here.’
They found a quiet corner outside the school gym.
‘Do you remember Sarah Matthews?’ Father Lewis asked.
John squinted.
‘Short lady, curly blond hair, nice eyes, laughs real loud every time I tell one of my not
very funny jokes,’ the priest reminded him.
He shook his head.
‘She always brought apple pies to all our bake-sales. Has a very pretty daughter named Emily.’
John smiled. He remembered Emily Matthews very well. A slender and tall girl, who at fourteen had all the boys drooling over her already voluptuous figure. John remembered the way she used to look at him during Sunday Mass. Like she knew she was a bad girl and she wanted him to deliver her from carnal temptation, just the way he did with Mollie.
‘Oh, I remember her now,’ John said, hiding his excitement. ‘The woman with the apple pies and the very loud laugh.’
‘That’s her.’ The priest nodded. ‘Well, Emily, her daughter, moved to Los Angeles about two years ago. She wants to go to drama school and become an actress.’ Father Lewis shook his head disapprovingly. ‘Kids these days, they all want fame and stardom, no matter what we try to teach them.’
John didn’t comment.
‘She came back this past weekend. She’ll be spending Christmas with her family in Huntingdon. I was talking to her after Sunday’s Mass, and she told me something that I just needed to come and tell you. It might bring some comfort back into your heavy heart.’
John frowned, not really knowing where the priest was going.
‘To pay her rent,’ Father Lewis continued, ‘Emily has taken a job as a waitress in a diner in a busy area of Los Angeles.’ He paused, as if what he was about to say filled him with joy. ‘And she swears she saw Mollie just a week ago.’
John’s heart skipped a beat. He stared blankly at Father Lewis.
‘I know.’ The priest nodded enthusiastically. ‘It’s hard to believe, but Emily said she was very sure. There’s a bus stop just in front of the diner where she used to work, and that’s where she saw Mollie. Apparently, Mollie hasn’t changed much, apart from her hair and a small scar on her lip.’
John remembered the night Mollie ran away. He’d given her that scar.
‘Emily didn’t manage to speak to her. She was serving customers, and by the time she was done with their order Mollie had already boarded a bus. They used to be friends in school, remember?’
John felt his body starting to shiver as words evaded him.