by Mark Lukens
The killer set his plate of food down on the counter and reached inside his hoodie for the gun in his shoulder holster.
He froze again.
Someone spoke from the living room, the voice a guttural croak. The person was calling his name, a name he hadn’t used in a long time—his middle name. Only his mother ever called him by that name.
“Arthur.”
The killer felt frightened for the first time in his life, frightened that he had made a terrible mistake sometime tonight, frightened that someone had been watching him and followed him here. And yes, frightened that he was going to get caught, only because he wouldn’t be able to finish his work. He still had so much to do.
“Arthur, come out here this instant.”
It wasn’t his mother’s voice, but a growling parody of it.
With his gun in his hand, the killer rushed out into the dining room, racing towards the living room.
And then he froze.
Marcie stood in the middle of the living room, free from the ropes that had bound her to the dining room chair. Her battered and bloody body swayed just a bit. Her head was tilted a little to one side, the gash in her throat wider on that side, the frayed lips of the wound in her throat pulling apart like a fish’s mouth.
“Arthur,” Marcie said, and then she smiled. Her split lips pulled up at the corners like invisible strings had suddenly yanked them up. But her eyes were still dull and lifeless, no expression there.
“How . . . how do you know my name?” The killer still had his gun aimed at Marcie who swayed back and forth slightly eight feet in front of him. But he couldn’t kill someone who was already dead, and now the gun felt useless and silly in his hand.
“I know who you are, Arthur.”
“Who are you?”
“You know who I am. I’m the one who killed the people at the dig site.”
“You . . . you did those things to their bodies?” the killer asked. “How?”
“I will show you, Arthur. I will work through you.” Marcie walked towards the killer, dragging one leg behind her that had been stripped of much of its flesh, leaving a trail of blood behind on the carpet. “You will see and do things that no one will believe, that no one will be able to explain.”
“Yes,” the killer whispered, his arm dropping down to his side now; it felt like the gun weighed fifty pounds. He let the weapon slip from his fingers and it dropped to the floor, landing with a thud.
“But you must do something for me,” Marcie said. She stood right in front of the killer now, her smile gone, her face blank and expressionless under the mask of blood and gore.
The killer dropped down to his knees. “Anything.”
“There’s a boy in New Mexico. I want you to kill him.”
Marcie touched the killer’s shoulder and his body jolted with electricity, like he had been shocked by his own Taser. He saw a teenage boy in his mind, a tall and lanky boy with dark hair down to his shoulders. The boy wore jeans and a black hoodie with some kind of rock band on it. The boy was walking away from a house. The killer was ten feet behind the boy, following him across a front yard of nearly-dead grass, brown and weedy. A line of mountains dominated the horizon, their jagged peaks dark against the deep blue sky. The land was arid but beautiful, full of tenacious life.
The boy stopped walking and turned around, staring like he knew someone was right behind him, like he knew someone was watching him.
He can’t see me.
The boy stared at his home, still looking around for who was watching him, still feeling like he was being stalked.
No, this is not his home. Not his real home. The Ancient Enemy took his home away from this boy years ago.
The boy was still jumpy, but he turned back around and continued walking towards the driveway where he grabbed a bicycle that was leaning against a pole holding up a metal awning.
David. The boy’s name is David.
The killer turned away from David in the vision and looked at the house, staring at the house number.
And then he was back in Harold and Marcie’s house again, kneeling on the bloodstained carpet with Marcie standing right in front of him. She still had her hand on his shoulder, her grip getting harder and harder, but the killer didn’t pull away from her.
A long black tentacle slithered out of the wide gash in Marcie’s throat, slipping down to her chest like a long, mucus-covered worm. And then there were more of the thin tendrils slipping out of Marcie’s throat, her mouth, the wounds on her face and body that the killer had created only hours ago. The killer could feel the tendrils snaking over his body, finding their way into the cuffs of his hoodie, tunneling into his skin. It was a little painful, but also blissful in a way.
The last of the tendrils escaped Marcie with a wet, sucking sound. They joined the others, wiggling into the killer’s flesh. When it was over, the killer stood up. A new strength and energy coursed through him. The Ancient Enemy was inside of him, but only a small part of the being. Some of the Ancient Enemy was still inside Marcie, other parts of the Ancient Enemy were outside in the howling wind, and still other parts were in other places. There were thousands of them. It was one creature yet it was also many, like a hive of insects that could work individually or come together as one being, all with the same mind. It would have been difficult to understand, but the killer understood everything now.
He was ready to begin the real work with Harold and Marcie, ready to complete the arrangements now. He was going to paint the walls with their blood, but he was going to save one wall where he was going to leave a one-word message that the Ancient Enemy, his new master, wanted him to deliver.
CHAPTER 7
Palmer
Denver, Colorado
Palmer wasn’t sure if the ringing telephone had woken him up or if it had been the nightmare. It was the same nightmare he’d had seven years ago, right before Cardenelli had called him to go down to New Mexico to investigate the bodies found in the cave at the dig site.
In the dream he was in the warehouse again. The warehouse was full of furniture, appliances, and other odds and ends. The place was massive and seemed to go on forever. There was a hallway to his right where doorways and windows opened up to rooms that looked like they might be showrooms of some sort. He was at the two large metal sinks again, washing a piece of flesh off in the water, the blood running red down his hands and then turning pink when it mixed with the water, swirling down the drain. The man in the office off to his left was there again, leaning back in his office chair, the springs creaking, staring at him in horror, asking what the hell he was doing.
But Palmer didn’t know why he was washing the piece of flesh in the sink; he didn’t even know what part of the body the piece of flesh was from. He knew what was coming next though—a man was coming down the hallway. No, not a man. A monster that looked like a man.
And that’s when he had awakened.
The cordless phone rang again and Palmer rolled over and pawed at the end table for it, knocking it off the base and finally grabbing it on the fifth ring before it went to the answering machine. He didn’t even bother trying to look at the number on the little screen on the phone because he knew he wouldn’t be able to see it, not just because he was half-asleep, his eyelids thick and gummy, but also because his vision had gotten worse over the last few years. He needed glasses to see things close up, and pretty soon he would need glasses all the time.
“Hello?” he croaked into the phone. He had almost said: Special Agent Palmer. But he stopped himself in time. It was a twenty year habit that he was still having trouble trying to break even after seven years of retirement.
“Palmer?”
He sat up in bed. He knew that voice, a voice from the past, his former SAC Cardenelli. The last seven years seemed to melt away and suddenly he was in the Bureau again, back in the Behavioral Sciences department, tracking the worst of the worst serial killers.
“Cardenelli. What’s going on?”
Palmer was on his feet, pacing around the bedroom, dressed only in his underwear and a white V-neck T-shirt. “Why do you need to talk to me?” His half-awake mind was struggling to make the connection.
“The Dig Site Murders,” Cardenelli said, getting right to the point, as usual.
Palmer was rocketed back seven years into the past again, back to the horrors he had seen at the dig site in New Mexico, and the trail of bodies from Cody’s Pass down to the ghost town.
He walked out of his bedroom and into his living room. He still lived in the same condo, the same one he had leased when he and Teresa had separated. The condo was supposed to be temporary until they worked things out, but they had never worked things out, and now the condo was still in a half-unpacked state, some of the boxes still stacked up in the spare bedroom closet. The furniture and décor were minimal and the walls were almost all bare. He had been waiting to get back with his wife, but it had never happened. She had divorced him. She’d had enough of his drinking; she’d had enough of being an FBI agent’s wife, of playing second fiddle to his real passion—hunting down killers. She’d left. She’d found a new man. She had moved on.
Palmer hadn’t moved on, and his condo was proof of that. He had retired after twenty years with the FBI right after the Dig Site Murders. He had quit drinking. But it hadn’t been enough for his ex-wife, or it had been too late by then. They had remained civil with each other, and their daughter Eliza was still a part of his life. He’d been there when Eliza had gotten accepted to the University of Colorado. He’d been there when she’d gotten married to Ted. He’d been there when Eliza’s son and daughter were born.
Eliza was closer to her mom than Palmer, and nothing would ever change that, but Palmer considered himself lucky that he was a part of both of their lives. Eliza had done her best to try to get Palmer to move on, suggesting online dating sites. Palmer had tried a few dates, but he felt like it was a waste of time. He felt old, like a used-up husk of a man. He felt depressed a lot of the time. He knew he was no fun. He wouldn’t want to go on cruises or hikes in the mountains or to plays or operas. He wasn’t fun and he wasn’t going to ruin some other woman’s life.
He told Teresa and Eliza that he was happy being retired. He promised Eliza that he was taking care of himself. He hadn’t had a drop to drink since almost dying from the snakebites and the collapsed roof in that Arizona ghost town. He had begun walking in the park three times a week. He drank vegetable juice once a day. Eliza had bought him the Nutri-bullet blender and showed him how to make the drinks. He was pretty healthy for a man his age; at least that’s what his doctor had told him.
Yes, he told Teresa and Eliza that he was happy being retired, even if it wasn’t true. He missed the work. He missed the chase. And now, here was Cardenelli calling him up about a double murder south of Denver, something that had to do with the Dig Site Murders, according to him.
The Dig Site Murders had never been solved and they had taken on a myth of their own now. Hundreds of conspiracy theorists and amateur detectives on the internet speculated about who had killed all those people, or what had killed them. They questioned why the archaeologists were killed, why they had been displayed the way they had in the cave. They wondered where Stella Weaver was, if she was dead, if her body would ever be found. Some believed the strange murders and burnt bodies in the cabin in Cody’s Pass, Colorado were connected to the Dig Site Murders. Information had been leaked out into cyberspace. The killings had all happened in small communities, and in those small communities people liked to talk, they liked to leak information and photos.
The Dig Site Murders had developed a cult following over the years. Several books had been written about the murders and two documentary films had been made, one passable, the other one not very good at all. There was speculation about a feature film being made that would be based on these true events. The murders were so strange, the mystery so deep, it was a myth that would never go away. It was right up there with UFO sightings and Bigfoot or other strange occurrences around the world: The Dyatlov Pass Incident, the colony at Roanoke, the four University of Wisconsin students who had gone missing from a cabin in Minnesota, the strange disappearance (and most likely death) of billionaire movie producer Nick Gorman on a small Caribbean island.
And Palmer had been following the stories on the internet about the Dig Site Murders, reading comments. He had read some of the books, watched the films and the YouTube videos, the interviews.
Something had happened for Cardenelli to be calling, something big. Why else would he be calling him at—he looked at the clock in the kitchen—eight o’clock in the morning?
“The Dig Site Murders?” Palmer asked Cardenelli.
“Yes,” Cardenelli said and then hesitated for a few seconds like he was deciding how to say the rest. “There’s been another one.”
Palmer’s mind raced. “What do you mean another one?”
“I’m sure you heard about the two couples that were murdered north of Denver.”
Palmer had heard. Someone in the Denver area was trying to re-create the Dig Site Murders. So far the killer had killed two couples, and then he had hacked up their bodies, rearranging them like the pieces in the cave at the dig site. There were plenty of photos and illustrations online for the killer to go by. Of course the killer never came close to what the Ancient Enemy had actually done in that cave. How could he? He wasn’t the Ancient Enemy, he wasn’t the true killer, he was only a copycat. “Yes,” Palmer finally answered. “I heard about them. So this is another copycat murder?”
“Yes, but this one’s different.”
Palmer stopped pacing. He stood in the middle of his living room. “What do you mean different?”
“It’s just . . . different. I need you to come here.”
“You want me there? At the crime scene? If you’re asking me to be a consultant, I’m going to have to—”
“Your last name is written on the wall,” Cardenelli said.
Palmer was still frozen in place in the middle of his living room, unable to speak for a moment.
“The killer wrote the word Palmer on the wall in the victims’ blood.”
CHAPTER 8
Palmer
Denver, Colorado
Palmer wanted a drink. It was his first reaction after he’d gotten off the phone with Cardenelli. He didn’t have any alcohol in his condo, but it was easy enough to go get some from the liquor store, or even some beer or wine from the grocery store or gas station.
The nightmares had come back in the last week. He’d told himself that these copycat murders were just triggering the memories of being in that cave with Captain Begay and his deputies, of seeing—and smelling—the pieces of bodies stuck together, arranged like they had been.
He got dressed, slipped his shoulder holster on and slid his Glock 17 into it. He put on a windbreaker jacket that was nearly the same shade of dark blue as the FBI windbreaker he used to wear; it was bulky enough to conceal his weapon.
He studied his hands for a moment. They were trembling slightly. After all these years his sobriety was at risk. All the years of psychiatric help and therapy, the years of walking for exercise and drinking a vegetable juice every day, it all seemed to have been in vain, all pointless now, all for nothing. It only took one phone call from Cardenelli to bring the horrors rushing back into his life again.
But that wasn’t entirely the truth, and he knew it. The nightmares had returned before Cardenelli had called, and Palmer couldn’t help feeling like those dreams were an omen of the Ancient Enemy’s return.
“It’s not back,” Palmer told himself as he walked to the door that led out to the hallway of his building. “It’s not back. I saw David send the Ancient Enemy back. I saw David kill it.”
Palmer fought the urge for alcohol as he drove south from Denver. Cardenelli had texted the directions of the crime scene
to his cell phone. The house was on a few acres of land at the foot of the mountains, a house at the edge of the woods where no one would have heard the victims’ screams.
When Palmer arrived, he parked behind a line of unmarked FBI sedans and SUVs. There was also a sheriff’s car and a coroner’s van. The front yard was a large field with a long driveway meandering through it and there was plenty of room to park.
Cardenelli met Palmer outside the house. A lot of the other cops and agents were milling around outside, none of them seemed to want to be inside.
“Thanks for coming, Palmer.”
How could I have said no? But he didn’t say that, he just nodded.
He followed Cardenelli to the house. Cardenelli was talking as he walked, going over the details of what they had found, catching Palmer up to speed. “Harold and Marcie Watson are the victims, both fifty-three years old. Harold was on disability and Marcie worked part-time at an accounting office. Someone entered their house sometime last night, early in the evening we suspect because the clothing from the victims suggest that they hadn’t gone to bed yet. And . . .” He let his words fade away.
“And what?”
“And it seems like the killer would have needed a long time to do the things that he did.”
“Only one suspect?” Palmer asked. He could already smell the coppery, slightly rotten smell coming from the open front door of the home, a smell that brought him back to that cave at the dig site; he had to push back that panicky, claustrophobic feeling that the smell brought with it.
“Only one set of bloody footprints found so far in the house,” Cardenelli answered. “Same shoeprint and shoe size we found at the other murder scenes. Probably some kind of hiking boot. Forensics is on its way. They’ll be here for a while.”
Before Cardenelli entered the home, he handed Palmer a pair of latex gloves and paper booties to go over his shoes. Palmer shoved his hands into the gloves and then slipped the booties on. He followed Cardenelli inside the home.