Frantic

by Mike Dellosso

  Gary blinked slowly and stared at William, who came around the car.

  “We need him, Gary,” William said again. “I need him.”

  Gary pulled his shoulders back. He seemed to be thinking about that, weighing the pros and cons. The gun moved at his side, and for a moment Marny thought he’d lift it and fire before William could protest again.

  When William came the whole way around the car, Gary’s eyes went to the front of the boy’s shirt. “William, are you okay? The blood.”

  William lifted his shirt and showed Gary the scar. The blood was still there, the deep red a stark contrast to the boy’s pale skin. “I’m fine, Gary. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Did Harold do that?”

  William nodded. “Yes.”

  Over at the house, the truck’s wheels were still going around. Having torn up the grass, they now dug deep ruts in the soil. The rear of the truck fishtailed slowly back and forth in the ruts.

  Gary pointed the gun at the pickup. “Who is that woman?”

  “I don’t know,” Marny said. “Said her name was Cheyenne. I think she was working with Harold.”

  “Where did she pick you up?”

  Marny turned his head north. The mountains on the horizon looked small and insignificant from this distance. So removed from the violence that had taken place there just hours ago. “Back there. Harold took us to the mountains and”—he glanced at William—“shot us. He took Esther.”

  Marny expected Gary to question the shooting part, but he acted as though being shot and healed was all part of a normal day. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

  “She didn’t say where she was from or how she found you?” Gary’s voice was rising in tempo and volume.

  Marny shook his head. “No. We assumed she was just passing through and felt like being nice.”

  Gary stared at the truck for a long time, then at the mountains north of them. “There was nothing nice about her.”

  “Yeah, no fake,” Marny said. “She was about to shoot us. Who is she?”

  The way Gary’s mouth dipped at the corners said he didn’t know. “One way to find out.”

  He turned and headed for the truck. Marny and William followed.

  At the pickup, Gary opened the door. Cheyenne fell out and landed on the ground. A deep gash above her eyebrow leaked bright red blood, and a gunshot had ripped the base of her neck. Gary reached over the steering wheel and deflated air bag and shut off the engine. The wheels slowed and eventually stopped. He knelt beside the woman and felt for a pulse, then slapped her cheek. There was no response. Gary slapped her again, harder. Cheyenne moaned a little and her eyes fluttered. Gary grabbed a handful of her hair and lifted her head off the ground.

  “Who sent you?”

  Cheyenne spasmed, gasped for air, fluttered her eyes again. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish on dry land looking for water.

  Gary leaned in close. “Who are you? Who sent you?”

  But she was too far gone, had lost too much blood. Her life was rapidly pouring out of those head and neck wounds.

  Gary released Cheyenne’s head and let it fall to the ground. He placed his hand on the woman’s cheek and whispered something Marny couldn’t understand. He appeared to be a priest bowing over a dying parishioner, administering her last rites. Then, loudly enough for Marny to hear, Gary said, “Those who oppose the Lord’s anointed shall be judged with hellfire forever and ever. The choices you have made in this life will follow you into the next, and your judgment will be harsh.” His voice softened. “May God have mercy on your soul.”

  In one quick motion, before Marny could register what was happening, Gary lifted the handgun, placed it against the woman’s right eye, and pulled the trigger. The concussion of the gun nearly knocked Marny off his feet. William grabbed his hand and squeezed.

  Gary placed his hand on Cheyenne’s chest, whispered something again, then stood. “We need to get out of here.” There were tears in his eyes.

  Marny tried to speak, tried to ask where they were going, why he had shot the woman, what the prayers were for, but his throat wasn’t working.

  As if he read Marny’s mind, William asked, “Where are we going, Gary?”

  “Back to Comfort.” He looked at his watch. “We should be able to make it by late afternoon.”

  “Why?”

  “Your chest, William,” Gary said. “He tried to kill you. Sooner or later he’ll find out he didn’t succeed, and he’ll keep trying until he does. You’re a witness now, and he needs you out of the way.”

  William acted as if Gary’s statement was old news, nothing surprising, as if being targeted by a psycho ex-cop was just part of a normal day. “I’ll need a new shirt,” William said. “And some water.”

  Gary nodded toward the house. “Five minutes. Go wash up. We’ll stop somewhere on the way and get you a shirt.”

  Marny glanced at the gun in Gary’s hand, then squared his shoulders. “Why does Harold want William dead?”

  “Five minutes,” Gary said.

  William took Marny’s hand. “Let’s go wash up, Marnin.”

  In the house, Marny faced William. “What’s this all about, William? Why does Harold want Esther, and why did he try to kill us?”

  “Maybe just because he doesn’t like me. I don’t know.” William’s eyes said he was telling the truth. He might be a wonder boy, but he wasn’t omniscient.

  “Does Gary know?”

  William’s eyes shifted back and forth, studying Marny’s, as if in them the boy had found a secret long held and never revealed, a secret that would explain the curse, the deaths, the storm clouds that had followed him since birth. “I don’t think so.”

  William headed for the kitchen and stripped off his shirt. Marny ran the water and put his head under the faucet. After drying off, he went to Harold’s room, dug through the dresser drawers, found a clean T-shirt for himself and one for William. He returned to the kitchen and tossed the shirt to the boy.

  “Here. This will do until we can get you something that fits.”

  William slipped the shirt over his head. It was an extra large and hung nearly to his knees.

  “We could call the police now, you know. Get out of this whole mess.”

  William shook his head. “Gary won’t let that happen, Marnin. We have to go with him.”

  “What will we find in Comfort?”

  Without hesitation William said, “More death.”

  Chapter 43

  MEMORIES CAN BE terrible things to deal with.

  Esther walked through the house room by room letting the recollections come one by one. At first she’d resisted, not wanting to relive the good or the bad. Both were painful, in different ways of course, but equally so. Eventually, though, she grew tired of fighting and let the images and sounds return like ships that had sailed so long ago and were just now returning, some bringing loved ones missed but not forgotten, some loaded down with boxes containing the remains of those who did not survive the journey.

  In the living room she stopped. Most of the furniture was still exactly as they had left it all those years ago. A film of dust covered everything, but once she looked past that, she was swept back to more than a decade ago, before William came on the scene. There was giggling and joy, nights spent playing games and watching movies. The smell of popcorn was in the air. Harold was her daddy then, a kind man who loved to laugh and doted on Esther’s mother.

  Pushing back tears, Esther left the living room and walked upstairs to the bedrooms. Funny, she still remembered which steps creaked and which ones didn’t, as if she’d never left the place, as if the past decade were a mere handful of minutes and she was a child again. At the top of the steps, off the hallway, were four doors, three bedrooms and a bathroom. The door to her room was closed. Her mind told her not to open it, but her heart begged to relive better days.

  She opened the door, and the flood of tears that followed took her by surprise. She walked t
o the center of the floor and sat on the braided rug. It was here that she used to bring William when he was just a baby and lay him on his back on a blanket and play with him, speak baby talk to him. She loved to make him smile. The thought of William was too much for her, and, rolling to her side, she broke down in sobs.

  The sound of a ringing phone reached her from the first floor. She sat up and wiped her eyes. It rang again. Why would Harold have phone service here? Did he still use this house for something? Esther ran her sleeve across her face, mopped up the tears on her cheeks. After another ring Harold answered. He was in a distant part of the house, probably the kitchen, and she had difficulty hearing what was said. She didn’t want to move for fear she would make a sound and alert him of her eavesdropping.

  “She’s here,” Harold said. “I have her.”

  There was a pause, then she heard “at the house” and “we’ll be ready.”

  A chill slid down her back like a sliver of ice. There was something about Harold that scared her. Yes, he was a jerk for abandoning her when she loved him so much. Yes, he was a murderer. But there was something even more than that, a darkness that she now knew had driven him to do those things, to commit those crimes. She could see the devil in his eyes, prompting him, controlling him, and it scared her. With that kind of blackness in his heart there was no telling what he was capable of.

  She had no idea what that phone call was about, but it didn’t sound like Harold was inviting old friends over for a welcome home party. She needed to take action. She knew that fleeing the house and trying to outrun a man bigger, stronger, and fitter than she was a lousy option, but it was the only one she had. She’d rather run and take her chances in the thick Maine forest, among the trees and rolling terrain, than stay and face whatever it was Harold had in store for her. At least there she had the possibility of escape. And if he caught her, she’d kick and scream and fight to the death.

  Esther scrambled to her feet, fled the room and down the stairs, trying to make as little noise as she could. Her only advantage would be the element of surprise. Apparently he didn’t expect her to run, or he would have been keeping a closer watch.

  Skipping the last two steps, Esther bolted for the storm door, pushed it open, and found herself on the porch. The door slipped from her hand, and the pneumatic closer pulled it shut faster than it should have. The door slammed. Esther didn’t wait to see if Harold was on her trail; she jumped from the porch and made a dash for the back of the house. The forest was there, a forest she knew well from her childhood, and if her memory of the land was as good as her memory of the house, she might just have a chance at losing him.

  It wasn’t until she was fully behind the house that she heard the front storm door slam shut again.

  “Esther.” His voice seemed to surround her, coming from every direction at once. “Come back, Esther. It’s no use to run. You know I’ll catch you.”

  Esther fled his voice but could not flee the memory that it stirred. They used to play hide-and-seek in the backyard. Esther was always the hider, Harold the seeker. She found some wicked good places to hide too, and more than once thought she’d finally outsmarted her old dad before his voice would catch up to her.

  Come out, come out, Squirt. It’s no use to hide. You know I’ll find you.

  She did know, and despite the fact that he was her daddy, her playmate, a fear would grow in her, a fear of being found, a fear of her father.

  That fear was back again, a thousand times stronger, and it pushed her beyond the line where yard met forest and into the safety of the evergreens that greeted her with open arms.

  Chapter 44

  WHILE WILLIAM CHANGED and Gary went to work disposing of Cheyenne’s body in the barn, Marny took a quick tour of Harold’s place.

  To any stranger visiting it would appear to be a rather normal home, not the dwelling of a cold-blooded murderer. The furniture was new and polished, the rugs vacuumed. In the bathroom there were no mildew stains or odd smells. There were three bedrooms on the first floor. One was Harold’s—nothing special, just a bed, dresser, nightstand, and plasma TV on the wall; one was an office; and the other was an exercise room furnished with a universal gym, a treadmill, and a stair-stepper. No wonder Harold showed no signs of fatigue after climbing the trail to the top of the mountain.

  There was something odd about the house, though, something missing. There was no warmth to it, nothing that made it a home, that connected Harold to anyone or any place. It was as though he’d moved into a show home and done nothing to make it his own.

  In the office Marny walked over to the desk and found a stack of unpaid bills. Most were addressed to Harold J. Rose, but two on the bottom of the pile were addressed to Julia C. Powers. Cheyenne? If so, she was with Harold, his live-in. That explained how she came across them by the side of the road. Maybe Harold had called and asked her to hike up the mountain and dispose of the bodies.

  Next to the bills was a pile of old newspaper clippings. He picked one up, read it, and was not prepared for the prickles that crept over his skin. He picked up another, then another. With each one the prickling deepened and spread. They were all about the Maniac.

  Marny remembered the murders well. He was a teenager at the time. The papers divulged some of the details, that the victims were all young, teens and twenties, and that the bodies were drained of blood and dumped by the side of the road. All the victims had one thing in common: their blood was type O. At the time the police thought they were related to some local cult. Maine, with its deep wilderness and remote areas, was no stranger to such doings. The serenity and seclusion of the endless forests attracted people from all walks of life. And if Marny remembered correctly, the police also thought at one time that the Maniac could not have operated alone. Unless he was a phantom, it would have been logistically impossible. Nevertheless, it was a killing spree such as Maine had never seen before.

  And ground zero for the Maniac’s activity was the tiny town of Comfort, Maine. Eleven of the murders took place within the town limits. Quite a jolt for a town of only a couple thousand.

  Coming out of the office with the clippings in hand, Marny found William standing in the living room, looking out the window.

  “Do you know about this?” Marny asked, showing William the news articles.

  William’s eyes ran over the headlines, showing no sense of recognition or emotion. “I was a baby, Marnin.”

  “But do you know anything about it? Is this why we’re going back to Comfort?”

  William went back to watching the outside world. “Harold took Esther to Comfort.”

  “William, look at me.”

  William turned his head and met Marny’s eyes.

  “What do you know about these articles, about the Maniac? You said in Comfort there would be more death.”

  “Esther told me about Harold, that he was a policeman on the case.”

  “And what about the ‘more death’ part? Was Gary involved in these killings? Is he the Maniac?”

  William looked outside again. “I think Gary wants to kill Harold.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Harold wants to kill me, Marnin.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe just because he hates me. He thinks I ruined his life. And he’s afraid of me.”

  “But he thinks he did kill you. Let’s just get out of here and never go back to Maine again.” It sounded like a good plan on the surface, but hearing himself say it aloud put a rock in the pit of Marny’s stomach. Esther was in Maine, at least both William and Gary believed so. He couldn’t leave her with Harold. She might be Harold’s daughter, but Marny now knew what he was capable of, and this new Harold didn’t seem like the type to let family bonds stop him from more violence.

  William shook his head. “He knows we’re alive.”

  “How?”

  “Cheyenne told him, Marnin. Didn’t you notice she was on the phone when she pulled the truck over to pick us up? I
think she was talking to Harold.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I think so. Do you remember what she said when she pointed the gun at us?”

  Marny thought back, tried to replay the scenario in his mind. So much had happened in such a short period of time. The shooting, the resurrection or whatever it was, the hike down the mountain, Cheyenne picking them up, then everything with Gary. His mind garbled the images and words and nothing made sense to him anymore. William’s ability to recall and his attention to detail impressed Marny. “No. Help me out.”

  “She said there was no use running, that we wouldn’t get far now.”

  Marny remembered. William was right, of course. Cheyenne must have called Harold and told him the murderous plot hadn’t succeeded.

  Outside, Gary emerged from the barn and headed for the house.

  “We better go,” William said.

  Moments later Gary’s heavy footsteps crossed the kitchen floor, and he appeared in the archway between the kitchen and living room.

  William faced him. “We’re going to Comfort, aren’t we, Gary?”

  Gary’s eyes flitted between William and Marny. “Yes.”

  “You’re going to kill Harold, aren’t you, Gary?”

  Again the nervous eyes. “Yes.”

  “And then you’ll kill Esther and Marnin?”

  Gary’s eyes met Marny’s, and in them Marny found something wild and foreign, a distant quality that spoke of hunger and hurt. He knew the answer before Gary had time to voice it.

  “Time to go.” Gary turned and exited the house.

  Chapter 45

  ESTHER WAS WELL into the forest, concealed by low-hanging boughs of pine, by the time she heard Harold hit the tree line.