by Saul, Jonas
From past experience, Kramer knew when someone from the Other Side like Kelly contacted her for something, they rarely left her alone until that something was dealt with.
She reached Bruce with her first call into the station after she got home. He promised to tell her everything he had on the case if she would agree to have dinner with him.
After ten minutes she finally agreed to meet him at The Keg for nine that night. What would it hurt? She could use a good meal.
He had looked up Kelly’s disappearance on the police computer and explained to Kramer that the case had gone cold eight months ago. Not a single lead had turned up as to the whereabouts of Kelly Walsh, eighteen. The parents had been interviewed extensively, even threatened with being charged in the hopes they’d break down and confess. They had been prime suspects in the case. But nothing came of it. The police had no one in custody and no idea where to look next.
Bruce asked Kramer why she was interested. Did she know something new? According to the file, Kramer’s call had been the first about Kelly in over eight months. All Kramer said was that she would get back to him and hung up the phone after confirming the time for dinner again.
This venture to help Kelly seemed fruitless. Maybe she could talk to the parents? After that, if nothing led her to what I lay where the deer play meant, she would drop it. At least until Kelly came back with more for her to go on.
When Kramer looked into the archives of the local newspaper via its website, she found excerpts about the missing girl, and interviews with the parents. Wendy Walsh and Mark Walsh still lived on Somerset Boulevard.
Two hours later, at 3:00 p.m., she parked down the street and walked up to knock on the Walsh’s door. The sun was hidden behind dark clouds that threatened rain. It reflected Kramer’s mood, and caused her to question why she was wasting time at the Walsh house. After losing their daughter and going through however many sleepless nights, and grueling interviews with the police and media, the last thing they needed was Kramer asking the same questions, re-opening old wounds. She had turned to step off their porch, when the door opened a crack. A single eye peeked through the gap.
“Yes?”
“Hello, Mrs. Walsh?”
“Who wants to know?”
“My name is Kramer.” Now what was she supposed to say? She didn’t want to make up a lie or scare Mrs. Walsh by saying the wrong thing, yet she had to get her talking about Kelly. She decided to try the truth. “I came here because I saw your daughter, Kelly, today.”
There was a moment of silence. The awkwardness made Kramer fidgety. She adjusted her coat and stepped back on the porch. The door opened far enough for the woman’s face to be exposed.
“That’s impossible. No one has seen Kelly for over a year.”
“I know, but I’m different. Let me explain. People who have unfinished business come to me after they pass away. Earlier today I was shopping in the mall and met Kelly where she used to work.”
Mrs. Walsh audibly gasped, raising a hand to her chest. “Are you playing games with me? Is this about money? What kind of person are you?”
Kramer was surprised by Mrs. Walsh’s response. Usually when she told people that she was a psychic, they either asked questions of a psychic nature or stated that they didn’t believe in the Other Side. It was rare that she would be accused of trying to cheat someone out of money.
Kramer described Kelly to Mrs. Walsh. “I read her name tag at the figurine store. I called the police, and found out the case had been cold for eight months. After meeting Kelly, I thought maybe we could talk. Maybe something will click for me.”
“You talked to the police?” Mrs. Walsh opened her front door all the way. “They give out information on a case so easily?”
“Ma’am, I’ve worked with the police for years on missing persons cases. My reputation is sound. I respect confidentiality. They wouldn’t work with me if I didn’t.”
Kramer wondered if it would start to rain before Kelly’s mother decided to either let her into the house, or send her on her way.
“Did the police send you?”
“No,” Kramer said.
“How about the media? Were you sent here to dig for more clues or did you come on your own?”
“I came on my own.”
Mrs. Walsh made an exaggerated attempt to step out on the porch and look up and down the street.
“Am I able to trust you? You’re saying no one sent you? You’re here to talk about Kelly and no one knows you’re here?”
Why are we still going over that point?
“It appears you’ve been hounded to the point of paranoia,” Kramer said. She raised her hands in an I surrender gesture and said, “I just want to talk. That’s it. No one and nothing is behind my motives.”
Mrs. Walsh stepped back into her foyer and nodded at Kramer, but she didn’t step aside to allow Kramer entry.
“Maybe we could continue this conversation inside,” Kramer said. “If it’s possible, I would like to see Kelly’s bedroom.”
“Okay,” Mrs. Walsh said, and moved to the side.
Kramer stepped in to a modest home. It was clean and tidy, but she started to feel that something was wrong again.
“Please understand. I’m usually pretty cautious when answering the door. We used to get reporters wanting interviews, and all sorts of weirdos, knocking at all hours.”
Oh, so now you only allow crazy psychics into your home.
“Kelly’s bedroom is up there,” Mrs. Walsh said as she gestured at the stairs and started for them, slamming the front door hard. Kramer followed close behind.
When they entered Kelly’s bedroom, she saw that they’d turned it into a library. She also saw Kelly, sitting in a rocking chair in the corner.
“Are you okay?” Mrs. Walsh asked.
It must’ve shown on her face. “Yes, yes I’ll be fine. What happened to Kelly’s things? Aren’t you expecting her to come home?”
“Sadly, no. She wasn’t the type to run away. My husband and I decided to move on. If and when she does come home, then we would turn her old room back to the way it was.”
That’s odd. Mrs. Walsh knows more about Kelly’s disappearance than she’s letting on. Something is very wrong here. And how come she didn’t respond when I told her I saw Kelly’s ghost—which is confirmation her daughter is dead and not just missing?
Kramer heard a soft whisper. She looked over as Kelly was mouthing the words where the deer play.
“Was there a certain area where Kelly set up her glass deer?”
“Oh, my, you really are psychic.” Mrs. Walsh walked over to the closet and stood beside it, pointing into the corner of the room. “Before this bookcase was here, we had set up a circular rug in the corner. When she was little, Kelly would play for hours on that rug so none of her glass figures would break on the hard floor. She always played with her deer right here.”
Kramer walked over, being careful now to keep a little distance from Mrs. Walsh. Everything in her soul screamed at her to RUN. She had to leave, to come back with Bruce or never come back again.
To look like she was onto something, Kramer used her hands to inspect the bookcase. She ran her hand down the side of the wall and felt a slight depression in the drywall.
Someone else was coming as footsteps resounded along the outside corridor. She turned to see who it was. Mrs. Walsh’s facial expression had changed. She now looked angry.
The footsteps stopped outside Kelly’s bedroom door.
“Everything okay, Mrs. Walsh?” Kramer asked. “Have I offended you in some way?”
She hadn’t seen the rubber mallet in Mrs. Walsh’s hand before.
“You big city bitch.” Her voice had taken on a high-pitched squeal, as if this was her real voice and she had deliberately deepened it earlier to converse at the door. “You come here and want to start shit. Who do you think you are?”
Kramer had felt it. She should have run. She regretted getting this involved in the
first place.
She turned to looked at the chair where Kelly sat. Kelly was crying, her face red, tears streaming down her cheeks. She was shaking her head back and forth, and mouthing the word, No.
Kramer’s stomach dropped even further. She stepped back and bumped into the bookcase.
A man entered the room behind Mrs. Walsh. His physical features led Kramer to believe that she was now standing in the presence of Kelly’s parents.
“I’ll leave,” Kramer said. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
“Oh no. You won’t be leaving. Ever,” Mrs. Walsh spat the last word and lunged.
Kramer ducked out of reflex. The mallet hit the bookcase above her head, stopping its descent. Kramer looked for an escape. She felt trapped, locked in the corner of the bedroom, both Kelly’s parents blocking her in.
Before Mrs. Walsh could raise the mallet again, Kramer dove past her legs and tried to crawl through the door.
A large hand grabbed her from behind. As much as she writhed and protested, Mr. Walsh held firm and lifted her as if she were weightless.
“We got us a pretty one here,” he said, his breath smelling of onions and garlic.
“No one knows she’s here,” Mrs. Walsh added. “Take her to the basement and do what you do best. Treat her to a little Kelly treatment.”
Kramer grabbed hold of the doorframe and tried to arch herself in a quick twist to dislodge his grip, but he was too strong. The man had to be at least six and a half feet tall.
Mrs. Walsh dropped the mallet again, this time connecting with Kramer’s wrist where she held the doorframe, audibly breaking it.
Kramer screamed. The pain was more intense than anything she had ever felt.
“That’ll teach you to go nosing around in other people’s business,” Mrs. Walsh shouted in Kramer’s face. “Who do you think you are? Now you’re gonna pay, you little bitch.”
Mr. Walsh dragged Kramer out of Kelly’s bedroom, but not before Kramer caught a glimpse of Kelly, still sitting on the chair in the corner, her head in her hands, crying, her body wracked with sobs.
Kramer’s pain became too much. Blackness covered her peripheral vision and then moved inward until Kramer slumped, completely out.
Kramer woke in a basement. It was dark and smelled of oil. A tiny light shone out of a single bulb that dangled from the ceiling.
She looked over at the source of her pain. A rope tied her swollen wrist to a long nail protruding out of the wall. The injury looked horrid. It was already a dark purple, her hand sitting at a bad angle. She looked at her other arm and then down her body. Nothing else damaged yet.
She examined the basement as best she could in the little light she had. It was a mess. Tools scattered around different makeshift tables told her the guy wasn’t organized. Something hung from the ceiling to her right. It had chains, and a small black strip that looked like a seat.
Then it occurred to her what she was looking at. The tools on the tables weren’t just any tools. They were items used in some kind of fetish. The thing hanging from the ceiling was a sex swing of some kind. Behind a beam, barely visible in the light from the bulb, she saw a medieval stockade with the hole for a head and two smaller holes for the hands. Black ropes dangled around the side of it.
What the hell is this place?
Footsteps started down the stairs. Mr. Walsh came into view. He was wearing shorts and a white wife-beater shirt.
They couldn’t hold her for long. Bruce would miss her at dinner and wonder what happened. He knew she wouldn’t stand him up. They’d had a deal. But would he come to the Walsh house and expect to find her tied up in the basement?
“I see you’re finally awake.”
He stepped up close and sniffed her. It was repulsive, like a dog sniffing its food.
“Good,” he said. “I smell fear.”
He lifted the edge of his shirt and wiped his nose, snorting as he did it.
In all her experiences with the dead and working with the police, she had never been in such a bad place.
“What are you going to do?” she asked. “Whatever it is, there will be no going back. You won’t be able to undo it.” Kramer hated that her voice sounded so weak.
He stared at her for a long moment before responding. “I never want to undo nothing.”
“What about Kelly? Wouldn’t you want to change that?” She had nothing to go on. She had to try to keep him talking.
“Never. Kelly was good. One of the best. I left her locked in that stockade over there for almost a week once and she still begged for me to do it to her. The more they beg, the faster I release them. You’ll learn this rule because you’re a bitch, too. You’ll learn. All women are fucking whores and should be treated as such. When you get in touch with your own understanding of this, you’ll be allowed certain freedoms. But until then, I treat you as my personal slave, my personal whore. Over time you’ll learn to love me. Or you’ll fight with the truth, a truth polite society has implanted in your head, and die for that truth.”
Kramer’s insides twisted. She almost lost the contents of her bowels as her urine, warm and sudden, rushed down her leg.
Mr. Walsh looked over at her feet.
“Good,” he smiled. “That’s a start. I love when a whore is self-lubed”
He moved closer and placed his hand, open-palmed in the small puddle that formed at her feet. She leaned into the wall as hard as she could to get away from him, but it was no use.
He lifted his hand and sniffed it. Then he opened his mouth and licked her urine off his fingers.
His smile was evil. His eyes, Lucifer’s.
“You taste good.”
For a large man, he stood up with ease and speed. One second he was on his knees and the next he was standing, his chin coming to her forehead.
“You’ll do fine. One or two months of being my pet and then I’ll bury you in the wall like all the others. Unless of course you’re a good pet. One who enjoys pleasing me.”
Kramer couldn’t help herself. She spat in his face, the phlegm landing beside his mouth in a glob.
He licked around his lips, caught a piece of her saliva, and dragged it into his mouth.
“Damn, do you ever taste good.”
Then with the quickness and deft speed of an athlete, he lunged forward, grabbed her jeans on both sides, and yanked with his vise-grip hands. They snapped and dropped, leaving her exposed to him, her panties the only thing separating her privacy from his insanity. Kramer screamed as long and as loud as she could.
“Oh, you are going to be fun. Maybe later, my wife could join us. I usually leave her out in the beginning. I love all the bodily fluids except blood.” He turned and tossed her jeans away and then looked back at her. “My wife only likes blood. When she joins us, you end up minus a finger or a toe. After a few weeks, you’ll never walk again and then, eventually she takes too many pieces and I’m left with a dead trunk, and that’s no fun. Well, maybe for a few days, but that doesn’t concern you, because you’re already gone by then.”
He laughed. Then he slapped his knee. The laugh grated on her already raw nerves. Kramer cried. Was this it? Could it be that easy?
A loud bang from upstairs made her jump. Pain rushed through her broken wrist.
Mr. Walsh looked up at the ceiling.
“Wait here,” he said.
Where am I going to go, asshole?
As Mr. Walsh reached the bottom of the stairs, Kramer heard a gunshot somewhere above. He heard it too, and stopped. In the dim light, she thought she could actually see doubt on his face.
He ran from the bottom of the stairs to a table that was littered with gadgets, lifted one and walked over to stand beside her.
The door opened above. Light shone down the stairs. It looked like someone was holding a flashlight.
“Kramer? You down there?”
“Help!” she yelled, but only half the word escaped her lips before Mr. Walsh clamped a hand over her mouth. Breathing bec
ame a chore she couldn’t accomplish.
The tool in his hand was a metal OBGYN-type speculum with the ends shaved down to points like knife-tips. Mr. Walsh turned the sharpened ends toward Kramer’s chest and pushed it forward with all his strength.
Between his grip and the ropes on her wrists, she had little wiggle room, but it was enough to arch her back and spin her chest away. One of the pointed ends of the speculum entered between two rib bones and punctured her right lung, which caused immediate stress in her breathing ability.
A gun went off somewhere in the basement.