The usually sure-footed killer’s heel struck a piece of half-burnt wood from the fire and she fell on her backside, sending a small puff of soot into the air.
Aiden’s lunge was so complete that he found himself airborne, the knife still lodged in his side thankfully keeping his lung from deflating.
He overshot his mark and as soon as Bella hit the ground, she rolled out of the way.
All Aiden got was a face full of dirt.
He grunted as a second blade slid into him just above his right hip. This time, it retracted before Aiden could twist it out of Bella’s hand.
The pain was intense, a blinding heat that sent his entire left side alight.
The next strike sheared his upper thigh, and the one after that—the two strikes happening in such rapid succession that Aiden thought Bella might have gotten her first blade back—sliced his upper arm.
Aiden cried out, then rolled to one side. As he did, he scooped up a handful of soot from the fire and flung it.
For once, luck was on his side.
The gray cloud hit Bella in the face and she immediately stopped stabbing him, and instead tried to wipe it from her eyes.
Aiden rose like a prehistoric beast, a wounded animal, and staggered after her.
“No!” Bella shrieked. “No!”
Blinded, Bella continued to rub at her eyes, all the while moving backward toward the water.
This is my chance, Aiden thought, all I have to do is touch her.
It was as if time itself dilated as he tried repeatedly, and failed, to grab the woman.
Aiden wouldn’t have noticed that he was ankle deep in water now if Bella hadn’t reached down and scooped some of the cool liquid with the hand not holding the knife and splashed her face.
Her gray mask became black streaks.
Aiden’s breathing had become labored, and he didn’t dare look down at his side to see if he had dislodged the knife when his clumsy lunge had missed.
Either way, his liver was sliced, his leg was mangled, and his right arm had been effectively rendered useless.
It was now, or it was forever.
Aiden made a final lunge, but he was in far worse shape than he had predicted and he missed by a wide margin. He collapsed to one knee, the water reaching to mid-thigh.
But then Bella made a mistake.
It might have been her only one, but one mistake was all a man with Aiden’s training needed.
He might be old, he might be slow, but he had experience.
When Bella swung what was to be the death blow, aiming for the side of his neck, Aiden didn’t pull away. That was what someone with Bella’s experience expected, which would have made her aim even more accurate.
Instead, Aiden shifted into the arc of the strike.
The blade didn’t puncture his throat as intended, but overshot the mark and instead slid into the back of his neck where it grated against his vertebrae.
Bella cried out and let go of the knife, but it was too late.
Aiden grabbed her arm, tucking it deep into his armpit.
It’s over now… I’m going to the Marrow and I’m taking you with me…
For a moment, nothing at all seemed to happen. Bella seemed frozen, and Aiden couldn’t have moved even if he wanted to.
Then the sky started to open and a beautiful warmth inundated both of them.
Still clenching his armpit, Aiden turned his face upward, reveling the feeling of warmth—such beautiful, calming, amazing warmth—as it passed through him, and then he closed his eyes.
Time passed—how much, however, Aiden had no idea.
But then Bella started to try to wrench her arm free. Aiden’s eyes snapped open, and he realized that the sky had closed up again.
A deep, shuddering sigh passed through him then, and he looked down at Bella’s face.
“Alright,” he said more to himself than to Bella, “we’ll do this the old-fashioned way.”
Aiden loosened his grip on Bella’s arm the second he felt her trying to pull again. Not expecting this, her thin body flung backward, and she landed on her back in the water.
Aiden pounced again, this time landing directly on top of her.
He reached into the water, knocking away her thrashing and flailing arms until his fingers found Bella’s throat.
And then he started to squeeze.
Through the shimmering surface, Bella looked up at him while her hands desperately tried to claw his fingers away. But without her knifes, without being able to use her speed, she was no match for Aiden.
He squeezed and squeezed, watching as her eyes grew wider while at the same time her thrashing started to lose its fervor.
“Die you fucking bitch!” he screamed as he strangled the woman.
We have a common acquaintance… you’ve been a baaaad boy, Aiden Kinkaid.
To his surprise, Aiden realized that there were tears streaming down his cheeks.
A bubble suddenly formed in Bella’s mouth, which quickly rose to the surface where it broke and disappeared.
She can’t know about that… no one knows about that.
There was a second bubble, and then a third.
Then the thrashing stopped altogether.
Aiden held Bella under water for a full minute after she stopped moving before he let her go. Once released, her body remained suspended a foot below the surface.
Then he staggered toward the shore. His vision had started to blur, and he became acutely aware that he was listing terribly to one side.
Still, he made it to the beach.
Barely.
Once there, he collapsed on his back and stared up at the sky.
“Will you open for me?” he whispered.
When there was no response, he reached into his vest pocket with his left hand—the right was no longer functional—and pulled out a tin of chewing tobacco. After several attempts, he managed to flick the top off with one hand. The inside was still relatively dry, and he pinched as much as he could between thumb and forefinger, letting the rest of the tin fall to the ground.
With a sigh, he tucked the fine strands into the space between his teeth and bottom lip.
Then he shut his eyes and reached across his body to pull out the blade buried in the back of his neck.
A pressure released in his head, and his vision started to swirl.
Aiden spat tobacco juice on the front of his shirt, then opened his eyes again, staring up at the sky, hoping, willing it to open again.
To beam the warmth down on him.
“Will you take me now?” he whispered as darkness washed over him. “Will you take me now?”
Chapter 30
Shelly was feverish, drifting in and out of consciousness in alternating hot and cold flashes.
She saw streaks of light, felt hurricane winds tearing her apart, experienced a crushing sensation in her chest, in her belly.
Twice she had smelled the brine of the Marrow, and both times she had thought that she was on her way.
Her mind was so muddled that she thought of nothing but acceptance.
My time to go.
But both times, someone had splashed cold water on her face, bringing her back from the depths. Shelly thought she remembered someone pouring liquid into her mouth, and maybe a pill or two, but couldn’t be certain.
After what she had seen, what she had been through, she had a hard time separating what was real, what was a memory, and what was pure unadulterated fantasy.
Her mind flashed from her time at the orphanage as a young child, then to when Sean had dropped her off at the church.
And then there was Robert—more specifically, her and Robert, and their child—living at his grandfather’s house, playing in the backyard while he sipped beer, huffed on a cigar and watched TV.
That couldn’t be real… could it?
A pain in her abdomen shocked her back to the present, what she had grown to accept as her new reality.
She groaned, and tried to
massage her stomach, to cradle her now huge belly—how is it possible that it has grown so quickly—but something hard bit into her wrists and she winced.
Shelly opened her eyes and blinked rapidly, trying to catch her bearings.
“Where am I?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.
There was no answer.
She was in some sort of white-washed room, with cracked subway tiles lining the walls.
“Where—” she started again, but when she tried to turn her head, she found that there were bindings on her throat as well.
Panic started to build in her and she made fists, and then ground her wrists against the bindings.
“Robert? Cal?” she shouted.
The only reply was her own echo.
Shelly tried her legs next, but they too were bound.
“Anyone? Help me!”
A sudden intense pain in her abdomen caused her to shriek in pain. Tears started streaming down her cheeks now, and she felt a pressure between her legs.
Shelly stared at her stomach, watching in horror as a shadow passed beneath her skin, which was suddenly mottled and covered in spider webs of blue veins that hadn’t been there moments before.
The pressure continued to build, now enveloping her lower abdomen and between her legs.
And then Shelly saw it just beneath the surface of her skin: a narrow, pointed outline of a shape she had seen before.
She recognized it as one of the talons that had been burnt into Robert’s calf.
The pain suddenly reached a crescendo, and Shelly screamed.
Mercifully, it only lasted a moment before there was a pop, and then wetness soaked her lower half.
She groaned and tried to tuck her chin in and look at herself, but her bindings prevented her from seeing anything below her massive belly.
“Oh god,” she moaned, “oh god, oh god, what’s happening to me?”
Something’s not right… it’s too… sticky… something’s not right… something’s not right…
She threw her head back and closed her eyes, breathing quickly through pursed lips.
It’s too soon, her mind screamed. It’s too soon! The baby can’t be coming now!
Her lower legs went numb, and she felt her groin contract so tightly that she thought if her hands and feet weren’t bound, she would have curled into a ball the size of a peanut.
It was too soon, but that didn’t change the fact that the baby was coming.
As if to reinforce her thoughts, a voice sounded somewhere to her left. A deep, rumbling voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
“The baby’s coming soon—we need to get ready.”
PART III – TASTE OF THE MARROW
Chapter 31
“Mr. Underhill, can you hear me? Mr. Underhill?”
Dr. Simon Transky, affectionately referred to as Si by his colleagues in equal parts due to this Jewish heritage as to his love of the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, psilocybin, snapped his fingers in front of the bearded man’s face.
“Mr. Underhill?”
The sound of a creaking chair made Si turn from the patient to face the other doctor in the room. Dr. Muller was older than Si by about a decade, maybe more, and with that came experience. And with experience came a level of smugness known only to physicians. The man crossed his arms atop his considerable belly and smirked.
“I told you he won’t answer,” Dr. Muller said without so much as looking at Si.
Si shrugged and snapped his fingers again.
This time, Mr. Landon Underhill blinked and he seemed, at least for a fleeting moment, to snap out of his stupor.
“Wendy? Is that you, Wendy?”
Si raised an eyebrow and leaned in close, putting his elbows on his knees.
“No, it’s not Wendy. My name is Dr. Transky, but you can call me Si. Listen, Mr. Underhill, do you—”
“Robert? Is that you, Robert?”
Si’s eyes narrowed.
“No,” he said slowly. He reached out and touched the man’s leg, and Landon turned his head to face him. His eyes were dark and cloudy now.
“Cal? Shelly? Aiden? Sean? Helen?”
Si leaned away again, taken aback by the flatness of the man’s voice as much as the strangeness of the words themselves.
He turned to face Dr. Muller.
“Is this…”
Muller nodded.
“Yep, always the same: Robert, Cal, Shelly, Helen, Aiden, Sean. Sometimes Wendy, although not as often these days.”
“And I assume you tried to track these people down? Find out if they’re real?”
“…Shelly, Robert, Helen…”
“Oh, we tried. Had some success, too. When he first came in here with severe PTSD and schizoid tendencies, we were able to piece together the last few months before his life went off the rails. Best we figure it, this guy was fucking—”
Si’s eyes bulged and he tilted his head quickly at Landon, reminding Muller that the patient was sitting right there in the room with them.
Dr. Muller waved a hand dismissively.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t respond to anything. Here, watch this,” Muller turned to Landon and snapped his fingers. “Your mother is a fucking whore.”
Si swallowed hard and waited for Landon’s reaction.
“Shelly? Cal? Robert? Is that you?”
Dr. Muller leaned back and shrugged.
“See what I mean? He’s locked in traction. Anyways, as I was saying, best we could work out from friends and colleagues was that Landon was fucking the wife of one of his employees, but she died in a car accident while leaving his house. Her kid died, too. Sad shit, really. The wife’s name was Wendy and the husband was Robert. As for the others? Your guess is as good as mine. Robert’s long gone, and he seemed to have taken Landon’s soul with it.”
Si frowned as he observed the patient. Landon was pale, thin, with a thick, dark beard that covered his face and neck. He tried not to feel pity for the man—don’t feel pity for him, he’s not your friend, he’s your patient—but he couldn’t quite help it.
Landon just looked so damn… sad.
“When he first came in,” Dr. Muller continued, “he was talking about voices in his head, about not even wanting to sleep with Wendy. Best guess? Guilt became this sort of weird fantasy in his mind. Over the past few weeks, things have gotten worse. Only says those names, over and over, occasionally sprinkling in a terribly annoying ‘is that you?’”
Si took this all in stride.
“… Robert… Shelly… Cal…”
“Anyways, that’s the story here, your lesson for the day. Extreme PTSD with schizoid tendencies and traction.”
Dr. Muller stood, and Si did the same.
“Thank you, Dr. Muller. Thank you for showing me this, the FBI is grateful for your support.”
Dr. Muller nodded and they shook hands.
Si turned and was heading toward the door when a thought occurred to him and he looked back.
“Dr. Muller?”
“Yeah?”
“What was the girl’s name?”
Dr. Muller’s mouth twisted and he scratched the top of his head.
“The girl who died? I think… uh… I think it was—”
Landon Underhill’s head suddenly snapped up and his eyes, clear now, as clear a set of pupils that Si had ever seen, trained on him.
“Her name’s Amy and she’s trapped on an island,” he whispered.
Dr. Muller gasped.
Chapter 32
Cal didn’t look back, not once.
He heard the shots, heard the screams, the shouts of pain and frustration. Sobbing, he lowered his head, tightened his grip on the handles of the travois, and ran.
He ran until the beach thinned, until the sand was slowly replaced by some sort of broadleaf vegetation, and until the water itself had receded out of sight.
Eventually Cal stopped running. Or, more accurately, his entire body
simply shut down. It wasn’t a slow process, like a person’s movements during exposure to extreme cold. Instead, it was like a car running out of gas.
Cal sputtered, staggered, then simply fell on his face. He barely had the strength to break his fall.
He had no idea how long he had been running, or if he had put enough distance between himself and the orphanage, Bella, Carson, and the Goat.
But he simply couldn’t move any longer—his body failed to respond to any of his mental commands.
As his lids started to flutter, he heard something on the wind, a buzzing that grew louder and louder like a bee slowly circling his ear before deciding that it was as good a place as any to nestle in and pollinate.
***
Thwup twhup thwup
Cal opened his eyes and saw sky all around him: it was above him, it was below, it was on either side. Air rushed by his face and ears, sending his hair swirling about his head.
Thwup thwup thwup
***
Thwup twhup thwup
The sky was still all around him, but it was darker now, as night had eclipsed the day.
Cal still heard the buzzing, whirring sound, but now he heard something else as well.
A voice, one that he didn’t recognize. The words struggled to complete with the roaring air, but Cal could make out enough to know that it wasn’t Carson or the devil himself speaking.
“T-minus one-hour-twenty until touchdown in Mooreshead,” the voice exclaimed.
What? Mooreshead? What are—
Cal tried to push himself to his feet, but groaned and collapsed back onto his face.
Thwup twhup thwup
***
Thwup twhup thwup
A face, a round face, young and pretty, blond hair spilling from behind ears that were slightly too large, rose to greet him.
Cal smiled and tried to reach for her, to caress her soft cheek, but his ravaged fingers fell short.
“Stacey? That you? I’ve missed you so much… so, so much…”
There was a pause, and Cal felt his neck sag.
“He’s going out again,” a voice said, and although it was an announcement rather than a command, Cal felt himself obeying none-the-less.
Shores of the Marrow (The Haunted Book 6) Page 11