by Wendy Wang
Several clear footprints led into the kitchen. Blood roared in her ears drowning out the sound of her breath. Her hand floated back toward the basket to grab her keys. She had hold of them when he stepped out of the kitchen and faced her. He wore a ski mask over his face. Within a second she had her hand on the doorknob and turned it, but it wouldn’t budge.
Pain seared across her scalp and she found herself yanked backwards and thrust forward against the steel door. Stars burst into her vision, and the coppery taste of blood coated her tongue. He grunted and wrapped one of his meaty hands around her neck. He lifted her up, and she kicked out, her shoe scraping against the dingy white paint, leaving one long black mark. Her vision grayed at the edges. She clawed at the hand restricting her breath. One nail ripped against the black leather gloves sending fresh pain into her senses.
Is that all that will be left of me? A black mark? No. No. No!
She stopped kicking and planted her feet, her thighs straining against the force of him dragging her backwards. She lifted one foot and brought it down as hard as she could on his foot then shoved her elbow into his ribs. An oofing grunt escaped his mouth and his grip on her loosened. A desperate cry escaped her, and she lunged for the tall basket by the door holding a golf umbrella and a baseball bat that Scott had given her when she moved out. She had thought it ridiculous at the time but took it without arguing. She wrapped her hands around the throat of the bat and struck out. A crack resounded through the short hallway as the heavy maple connected with his forearm and a guttural scream came from behind the mask covering his mouth.
Her doorbell rang wildly behind her, making her jump. A fist banged against the door. “Ms. Payne? Charlie? Charlie, I know you’re in there. Charlie?”
She locked gazes with her attacker for one long second before he turned and ran out through the kitchen. She stumbled to the door and unlocked it. Jason Tate was the last person she expected to find on her stoop but he was a welcome sight.
“Oh my God, what happened?” He stepped into the apartment, slipping the bat out of her hands, leaning it against the wall.
Her whole body shook as she rushed through the words. “There’s a man in my house.”
His usual arrogance was gone, replaced by something she could only think of as cool-headed-cop-mode. He unsnapped the leather band holding his gun in place and slid the gleaming black piece from its holster.
“Stay here,” he ordered.
“No,” she whimpered. She could hate herself for it later, right now she didn’t want to be left alone. “What if he comes back?”
“All right.” His lips twisted into a half frown and he nodded. “Stay close to me.”
She nodded and took the bat in her hands again, resting it against her shoulder. He stopped to glance down at the messy spray of salt on the floor. He flashed a questioning gaze at her.
“Salt.” Her hands tightened around the throat of the bat. “I’ll explain later.”
The half-wall dividing the foyer from the living room gave them a clear view of the sparsely furnished space. A couch, a television, an old rocking chair with an afghan hanging over the back. The only pictures on the wall were of her son.
They made their way into the kitchen where they found the back door swinging open in the breeze.
“Stay right here,” he said. “I promise you I'm just going to go around the building and check things out. Lock the door behind me and then go into your living room and lock that door. I'll ring the bell when I come back.”
“You promise to come back,” she said.
“Absolutely.” He touched her arm giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Don't open the door without using your peephole first. Understand?”
“Yes,” she said nodding.
She turned the deadbolt and watched him through the window as he disappeared into the darkness surrounding the long row of townhouses. She waited by the front door with her back against the wall, holding the bat firmly in her hand. A few minutes later the doorbell rang and she let Jason in.
“There’s no sign of him.” He looked her over. “He got you good, didn't he? Your lip’s bleeding and so is your forehead.”
She touched her lip with her tongue and fresh blood filled her mouth.
“You didn't happen to get a look at his face, did you?”
“No, he had on a ski mask. All I could see were his eyes. He was wearing gloves too.”
“Course he was.” Jason sighed. “You know that goose egg on the front of your head at least warrants being checked out. Maybe I should run you over to the emergency room.”
“No please don't do that,” she said. “My ex-husband’s best friend is an ER doc and I don't want to run into him. If Scott hears about this, he won't let my son come visit me this weekend. Please?”
“Fine,” Jason said, pressing his mouth into a flat line. “Do you at least have a first aid kit?”
“My ex is a doctor. I have the Ferrari of first aid kits.”
“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Charlie’s hands shook as she peeled the paper from the adhesive bandage. She had led Jason into the kitchen where she had splashed her face with cold water. She had pressed a gauze pad against her lip to stop the bleeding. The small gash in her forehead had been a more persistent bleeder and Jason held a folded gauze pad against the wound while she fumbled with the Band-Aid.
“Here, switch with me.” Jason took the Band-Aid from her. She pressed her finger against the thick wad of gauze, applying pressure. She could still feel the warm, sticky dampness seeping through.
“So you don’t have any idea who he could be?” he asked, pressing the bandage to her forehead and taking another from the box.
“No.” She winced at the pressure. “My television and computer were still here so obviously he wasn’t robbing me.”
“Well we should look around, make sure nothing else is missing. Jewelry. Firearms. Bags of salt.” A grin played at the corners of his mouth. She chuckled a little at his attempt to lighten things up.
“If only it had worked,” she quipped.
“What exactly does the salt do?”
“It keeps out unwanted spirits.” She said it matter-of-factly.
He muttered, “Right,” under his breath, but she caught the tone. Then he sat back and looked at his handiwork. “It’s not pretty but it’ll do the job.”
“Thank you.” It struck her, not for the first time, that she liked his face, especially without the arrogant smirk he usually wore. The sharp angles were softened by his stubble and he had kind eyes. “You know I don't know what would've happened if you hadn't shown up.”
“You were hanging in there from what I could tell.” His lips curled into a half-grin.
“What I don’t understand, is why you’re here. The last time I saw you, you had that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“The Charlie’s-crazy look.”
Jason looked anywhere but at her and he chuckled deep in his throat. “Yeah well. I’m sorry about that. Your—” he paused, seeming to consider his words. “Your message was a lot to take in.”
“My message? You mean your father’s message?”
He scrubbed his hand over his chin. “Yeah.”
“So you believe me now?”
Jason shifted in his seat, putting his hands on his knees. After a moment, he shook his head and met her gaze.
“I don’t know what to believe. I kept thinking about how you could know those things because nobody knew them but me. I thought maybe my mother had told you about the box I inherited from my father and that you had guessed about the key. I even called my mother, and she swears she never told you anything about it. But there is no way you could’ve known about the liquor I poured on my father’s grave.”
“He was pretty upset about it.”
“Yeah. I could see him being pissed off, which is partly why I did it. He was sort of alcoholic.”
“Sort of?”
“Yea
h. It’s what killed him in the end.”
“Is that why he was so—dirty and bloody?”
“He was — what?”
“When I saw him, he was wearing this sweat-stained shirt that had blood on the front.”
Jason’s mouth pressed into a straight line and the color drained from his cheeks. Charlie winced. She probably should’ve just kept her mouth shut about such things. It obviously was a shock to hear them.
“I’m sorry. I have a big mouth. You okay?”
“Yeah,” Jason said. “It’s just weird to hear. That’s all. He had gotten drunk and fallen down a brick staircase. I didn’t have to ID him luckily. But I always wondered about it. You know? What did he look like when his neighbor found him? Was he at least dressed?”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring you pain.”
“No.” He shook his head. “It’s good to finally know. Thank you.”
“So you never really answered my question.”
Jason’s lips stretched into a smile. “You want the truth?”
“Truth? Truth is good.”
“I found that convenience store. I watched the surveillance video and I need your help.”
“You. You want my help?” Charlie was incredulous.
“Yep. Can you hang here for a minute? I’m just gonna run to my car.”
“Sure.”
Jason was gone long enough for Charlie to call Jen’s house. Her uncle Jack answered since Jen had to be up at four-thirty in the morning to open her restaurant at six a.m. He insisted she come and stay with them as long as she needed. God love her Uncle Jack, he sounded ready to come pack her up and move her in tonight. She assured him it would only be until the lock could be changed. She couldn’t wait to close on her condo, then there would be no need to wait on a landlord to change her lock.
She had pulled out her suitcase and started packing when Jason returned carrying several folders. He opened the top one and pulled out the picture of a very pretty young girl, wearing too much makeup. Somewhere deep inside she was glad she had a son and not a daughter. Hopefully it would be easier to keep him a kid longer. It was the girl from her dream.
“Have you ever seen her before?”
“Yes.” Charlie’s fingers began to tingle and images began to flash through her head. The girl was worried. She was breaking the rules. Lying to her aunt. Maybe she would just get some candy and go home. “She's the girl from my dream. He took her.”
“Her aunt reported her missing.” Jason's gaze steadied on her.
“She was going to steal some candy, but she didn’t because she kept thinking about her aunt.” Charlie spoke softly. “What was on the video? Did you see him take her?”
Jason stared down at the photo of the girl. Deep lines cut into his forehead. “Not exactly. It was really strange actually.”
“Strange how?”
“Do you have a DVD player?”
“Sure, in the living room.”
Charlie led him to the living room and turned on the television, setting it for the DVD player. Jason pulled the disk in a paper sleeve from the folder and handed it to her. After loading it, they sat down on her couch, with Jason taking control with the remote. He fast-forwarded through a lot of useless footage until he found the right spot.
“Ok. Just watch this.”
The quality of the video surprised her. There in crisp high-definition was the man from her dream, pushing the broom around the store. He walked past the girl several times and the discomfort on her face was obvious. The girl picked up a candy bar, stared at it, glanced toward the counter and then brought her gaze back to her hand.
Charlie pointed to the screen. “This is where she’s debating with herself about stealing.”
“Watch him,” Jason said.
Charlie leaned forward with her arms on her knees, unable to look away. The man pushing the broom paused behind the girl, whispering something in her ear before moving forward.
“Do you know what he said?”
Charlie nodded. “He told her to take it.”
“But she doesn’t.”
“No.” The skin on Charlie’s arms pebbled as she watched the girl put the candy bar back and walk outside. Her heart sped up as the man disappeared from the screen a moment. She almost expected to see herself there, arguing with Aldus Talmadge. The angle of the video changed and Charlie looked to Jason.
“I had our guys edit it a bit. Just watch,” he whispered.
From the new angle, Charlie could see the girl on the sidewalk in front of the store, waiting. The man reappeared in the bottom corner, stopping just long enough to say something to his co-worker behind the counter. Charlie’s heart jumped to the back of her throat and held its position, threatening to choke her. Something opaque and white obscured the camera lens and Charlie nearly launched off the couch.
“What happened?” Charlie’s voice was too loud and sharp in her ears.
Jason held up a finger. “Just wait.” The video reappeared. The girl was gone. The broom pusher walked along the front window as if he was returning from the side parking lot. He pushed open the door, said something to his co-worker and disappeared from view. Jason held up the remote, freezing the frame. “He doesn’t make another appearance until four in the morning when he stocks some of the shelves.”
“So we don’t really know if he took her or not,” Charlie said.
“Oh, I think he took her. I just can’t prove it from this,” Jason said.
“There were four cameras inside the store—”
“Yep and every single one of them glitched at the same exact time.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Yeah, I think ‘statistically impossible’ was the term one of our techs used,” Jason added. He turned to her, scrutinizing her face. “How did you know there were four cameras?”
“I saw them in my dream,” she started, “And I confirmed it when I went there.”
“You went there?”
“Uh huh.” She nodded. “He was there. So was my good friend Aldus Talmadge.”
“Who?”
“The ghost. I just can’t figure out how these two are connected.”
“You saw a ghost with this guy?”
“Yep.”
“Okay,” Jason muttered. She could tell he was still struggling with her ability. “Did he say anything to you?”
“I pretended I couldn’t hear him, so he pretty much stopped trying. But he had plenty to say to our mop pusher there.”
“Did you hear what he said to him?”
“No.” She sighed. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if Aldus Talmadge was really behind this girl’s disappearance.”
Jason didn’t respond. Instead he retrieved the DVD, putting it back into its protective sleeve. “It’s almost eleven o’clock. Don’t want to make your uncle worry.”
She gave him a weary smile. “No, we don’t want to do that.”
Chapter 21
Ray Kurtz turned his headlights off and pulled the truck around the ghostly white building to the back parking lot. He glanced into the back of the king cab truck. The jump seats were stowed, and she had nestled in there nicely.
“You stay here,” he said.
Her large wet eyes glared at him and she struggled against the plastic ties binding her arms behind her back. The tape covering her mouth muffled the squeaks and cries she made. Didn’t she know how beautiful that sound was to him? “I just have to go check something out. I won’t be but a minute, promise.”
She kicked her bound feet against the jump seat and he frowned.
“Stop that.”
She kicked harder.
“If you do it again, I’m gonna smack you hard. I don’t want to smack you.”
She tried to scream but the heavy duct tape got in the way. She kicked her feet again. This time hitting the back of his seat. He reached back and grabbed a handful of her hair and slammed her head hard against the back wall of the cab. Two more times and she finally
stopped screaming and kicking. Her eyes were half closed. Good. She should sleep. He would wake her up when it came time to be with him one last time.
He brushed his hand over her hair. It was so soft, and it smelled so good when he grabbed her from behind. She was so tiny she barely fought with him at all. That’s how he liked it. No struggle. The voice was quiet now. But it would be back to check on him. To make sure he was following the rules.
He got out of the truck, grabbing a shovel and a battery-operated camping lantern from the truck’s bed. This far out there were no streetlights, and the darkness wrapped around him like a thick fog until his eyes adjusted to it. He needed to walk across the grave yard, slip over the low brick wall and wait until he couldn’t see the back of the church before he dared turn on the light. He was allowed to play with her one last time, but he had to do it in the dark. Ray really hated the dark, but those were the rules of disposal. If he didn’t follow the rules, then the dreams started, and the dreams were worse than the dark.
Once it was safe, he turned on the light and waited for the voice to tell him where to go. It was pretty specific.
After several minutes of listening to the sounds of the woods, it spoke — Head toward the water.
Ray did as he was told, stopping only when the voice told him to.
Now Dig.
He thrust the sharp edge of the shovel into the soft ground and began to throw the dirt into a mound to make it easier once it came time to cover her up.
“I am perfectly capable of driving myself,” Charlie protested.
“You had a blow to the head. You could still have a concussion Charlie. I'd don't feel comfortable letting you drive this late at night by yourself out on some country road surrounded by water.”