While the Savage Sleeps

by Kaufman, Andrew E.

  “So the likelihood that Ben caught the flu here, it’s not very good.”

  “Well, not very likely, but not entirely impossible, either. There is one other feasible scenario to consider—an outsider passing through town could have had it.”

  “Not many world travelers passing through Faith, though.”

  Doctor Grayson smiled. “Or travelers of any kind, for that matter.”

  “And Ben needed to have at least some kind of close contact with them, anyway—wouldn’t he?”

  “Yes, that’s how the virus is most commonly spread, through direct contact, whether it be with the infected person himself, or something he touched previously. But again, the window of opportunity has to be factored in as well.”

  “Is it possible he had something else?”

  “Well, anything’s possible, I suppose, but if he had symptoms indicative of influenza, and I’m assuming he did …”

  “Sore throat, fever, chills?”

  “Textbook indications of the flu. If that’s what was going on, then I’d imagine that’s what he had,” the doctor said. “When people come down with the influenza virus, especially children, it’s pretty obvious. Not many other ailments appear the same, other than a cold, which, of course, is much less severe. Do we know for sure if he was running a fever?”

  Cameron looked down at his notes. “Teacher said by the looks of him, he was. But he never saw the nurse. Went home early. After that, well … we don’t know what happened.”

  “Assuming he ran a fever, I’d say it was a case of the flu. Which brings us, I suppose, back to how he contracted it.”

  “Just wondering here …” Cameron said, scratching the back of his head and looking down at his notepad, “any other reported cases in town recently?”

  The doctor shook his head. “No, can’t say I’ve heard of anything like that.”

  Cameron made a quick note, then looked up. “One more question,” he said. “Can the flu affect brain functioning?”

  The doctor tilted his head slightly. “As in, causing someone to commit murder?”

  “Something like that.”

  Grayson smiled grimly. “Highly unlikely. Influenza is a disease of the upper respiratory tract. It doesn’t really go anywhere else, unless it develops into meningitis. That’s when the virus spreads into the spinal cord or lining of the brain. Even so, I’ve never heard of it driving someone to murder. That would be so far out in left field … I just don’t see it. Besides, the symptoms of meningitis are frequent vomiting and severe neck pain. If anything, the victim becomes weaker, more incapacitated—not stronger and more violent. Besides, it sounds like Ben was in the very beginning stages of contracting the flu. Not much chance he already had meningitis at that point.”

  “Yeah,” Cameron replied, “the teacher said it seemed to come on pretty fast.”

  “Had they tested for flu or a meningitis infection during the autopsy?”

  Cameron shook his head. “Not a standard procedure, and I’m afraid by the time we found out about it, our window of opportunity had already closed.”

  “I see … then I’m afraid I don’t know if I can offer anything else. For what it’s worth, the symptoms you describe are indicative of a standard case of influenza virus.” He thought for a moment. “I can check the medical journals on the slight chance there’s something about other conditions that might mimic influenza symptoms …”

  Cameron shrugged as he stood up. “Anything would help.”

  The receptionist seemed delighted to see him again, waving as though they were old friends. Cameron waved back with a thin smile. If there were a law against perky, he thought, Becky would be a first-class felon.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  45687 Monument Path Way

  Albuquerque, New Mexico

  Kyle opened her eyes to a veil of darkness. It surrounded her, smothered her.

  Her muscles pulled tightly against the back of her neck, and she could feel her pulse throbbing in her wrists. A short, vivid image had flashed through her mind, coming and going as quickly as the jump of a flame.

  A voice, a name, and now a face. Kyle recognized her immediately.

  It was the eyes. Green, but not the kind one might expect; the kind that you see when food spoils, a grimy, putrid shade, one that looks like it would stink. Behind them, an amber glow raged like two flaming jewels scorching through a quarry of darkness. Although the image hadn’t lasted long, barely a few seconds, there was enough for Kyle to absorb and commit to memory.

  Bethany was a tiny waif of a child, with soiled, unkempt hair and a face not much cleaner. In fact, a layer of viscous, wet filth seemed to cover her entire body.

  And there was something else—it was her expression: calm, except for a lingering impression of fear running just beneath the surface, barely detectable. Kyle knew the look, had seen it on many other occasions before on the faces of different children, ones who had not only died, but who also had done so under cruel and tragic circumstances.

  Something horrible had happened to Bethany.

  “Follow me,” she’d said, gesturing for Kyle to come toward her.

  Follow her where?

  Kyle wondered; but just like all the other times, Bethany disappeared before revealing the answer.

  Why does the child vanish so quickly, if she wants me to follow?

  The whole event happened just as Kyle had wandered into that intermediate stage, the one where the line between waking and dreaming often blurs—the one when they often liked to pay their visits.

  Still, all she had was a jumble of disturbing, bloody images, along with a dirty little girl who appeared very timid, very scared, and very much not of this world.

  It was a start, but hardly enough to go on.

  Frustrated, Kyle rolled onto her side, her desire for answers wrestling against her need for a good night’s sleep. As it turned out, she would get neither.

  Just outside her bedroom door, she heard a creaking noise, like footsteps. Kyle knew every sound in that house, every clank, thud, and squeak, and she could tell the exact spot from which that one had come.

  Somebody was inside her house.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  45687 Monument Path Way

  Albuquerque, New Mexico

  Kyle pulled the nightstand drawer open, reached in, and wrapped her hand around the rubbery grip of her revolver. She’d bought the weapon years ago to protect herself against a patient-turned-stalker. Now, she was thankful to have left it there.

  She heard a sharp thud outside her door and froze, afraid to move an inch, fearing even the squeak of a mattress might draw attention. Tightening her grip around the trigger, she held steady, waiting and watching.

  But after several minutes of silence, Kyle saw and heard nothing.

  Slowly, she eased her way out of bed, gun at her side, padding softly toward the door. Using her other hand, she turned the knob just enough to disengage it from the jamb, then pulled it open a crack so she could peer through.

  The hallway was empty.

  She moved on to the foyer, treading lightly, concentrating on every step, her senses heightened, her mind on high alert.

  Suddenly, Kyle heard commotion coming from the living room downstairs and froze. She walked to the edge of the staircase, looked down, and drew a steadying breath.

  When she reached the bottom of the steps, she immediately felt the air turn frigid. She’d wandered into a patch of ice-cold air so chilly that it turned her breath to steam as it left her mouth. A wave of goose bumps wriggled up her arms; still, she moved on.

  But not quickly or easily. Along with the chill, a commanding resistance penetrated the air—something thick, soupy—and the harder she pushed against it, the stronger it seemed to become, like trying to defy a powerful water current. Laboring with each step, she struggled her way through it.

  Kyle had experienced this phenomenon before but never to such an extreme. Cold spots, she remembered, an indication of en
ergy from a lingering, paranormal presence.

  Slowly, she lowered the gun down by her side, knowing it would do her no good—you can’t shoot the dead.

  She put the weapon away in a drawer and headed toward the living room.

  Turning the corner, Kyle had the uneasy feeling that someone was standing directly behind her. She spun around, but saw nothing. Still, she couldn’t shake the intense impression of another’s presence.

  A loud crash interrupted the thought, but it wasn’t coming from anywhere near her; it was coming from up near her bedroom.

  Kyle looked toward the top of the staircase, then back down and across the living room. Noises were coming from all over the house. First upstairs, then downstairs, now upstairs again. She was chasing ghosts, chasing her fears, and getting nowhere.

  Anger replaced fear as Kyle turned to climb the steps again, but upon reaching the top, her emotions quickly changed. She stared with disbelief at her bedroom door.

  Closed. She knew she’d left it open.

  But that wasn’t all—the doorknob was cold to the touch, icier than a tombstone in the dead of winter. Even worse, when she tried to pull her hand away, she found she couldn’t—her fingers stuck to it, fused like glue.

  They were also quickly turning numb, which set off a wave of panic. Then her skin started to burn. Closing her eyes, Kyle leaned in slowly, and with force, pulled back quickly, breaking free, and landing on her backside.

  Kyle sat motionless on the floor for a few seconds, catching her breath, while at the same time, trying to figure out what to do next.

  Slowly, she got back to her feet, eyes trained on the door. Putting her hand inside her sleeve this time, she wrapped it around the knob, turned it, then pushed the door open. To her surprise, when she let go, it swung out violently, slamming against the wall. Startled but determined, she stepped forward, peered into her bedroom.

  And saw nothing.

  But she felt something: a hard slap across her face. She screamed, then heard more noise off in the distance, the sound of bells, hundreds of them. The sounds quickly graduated until finally reaching ear-shattering intensity.

  Kyle finally gave in to her panic. Things were moving too fast. She didn’t know where to look or what to do next.

  All of a sudden, the bells cut out at the same time, and there was complete silence.

  Before she could gather her thoughts, she heard a child screaming, followed by a cold, tingling sensation that felt like icy water on her spine. Something, or someone, had just passed through her body. She had an idea who it was.

  Kyle swung her head toward the window; it was wide open, although she knew she’d closed it earlier, and even though the wind was blowing in, the curtains were blowing out.

  Just then, a powerful gale picked up speed and barreled toward her, lifting furniture inches from the floor, then slamming it down forcefully and violently. Things were falling off shelves; others did worse, flying across the room, one book missing her by inches as she dropped to the floor.

  A brutal storm was raging inside her bedroom, inside her house. Determined to get to the window, Kyle picked herself up and pushed forward, struggling against the wind, the noise. When she finally got there, she caught the curtains with her hands and pulled them inside; as soon as she did, all the commotion instantly came to an abrupt halt.

  The air was as calm as could be.

  Kyle stood silent, gazing out at the bottomless night, wondering what she’d just experienced, and why. She closed the window and the drapes.

  Then she crawled back into bed, burrowing beneath the covers and closing her eyes. But only for a few seconds. She jumped when she felt her toe pressing against slimy, cold flesh.

  Someone was in her bed with her.

  She screamed, swung her head to the right, and found a pair of flat, listless eyes staring back, only inches from hers.

  Bethany lay right beside her, on her back, head turned toward Kyle, stringy, filthy hair clinging to her skin like wet, muddy grass. Kyle was peering into the eyes of a corpse.

  She jumped from the bed and screamed, “What do you want?”

  Bethany gave her the answer, coldly, impassively, and with only two words: “Help me.”

  “Help you what?” Kyle pleaded.

  The child lay silent for a moment, a death rattle coming from her throat, dull, expressionless eyes still fixed intently on hers. “Five days,” she said, then paused. “You only have five days.”

  And then the little girl was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Highway 10

  Faith, New Mexico

  It didn’t take long for the other shoe to drop, and when it did, there was a loud, resounding thud, one that could be heard for miles.

  Another victim.

  This one turned up along the highway, about ten miles past the Fill ’n Grill Service Station and Diner. With the next sign of civilization more than twenty-five miles away, it was the perfect place to dump a body. The victim, a young female, lay inside a drainage ditch, barely visible from the road. A broken-down motorist had the misfortune of finding it first.

  Deputies had already taken photos, bagged the hands for evidence, and cordoned off the scene by the time Cameron arrived to investigate. He slid down the steep embankment to take a better look, making sure only to step where there were no existing footprints or tracks.

  She was lying stomach-down, with her head twisted awkwardly off to one side. Animals appeared to have gone on a feeding frenzy, chewing off part of her nose and an ear. In addition to that, the skin on her cheek had been gnawed all the way down to the bone. There were flies too, lots of them, crawling over her face, across her lips, and in and out of the open, rotting wounds.

  Slowly, Cameron moved his gaze along the rest of the body. Brand names from head to toe: Tommy Hilfiger blouse, Lucky Brand Jeans, and shoes courtesy of Kate Spade; she was no vagrant.

  Nor was she a local. Although occasionally seen, designer brands were as uncommon as they were impractical in an agricultural community like Faith.

  Cameron pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and snapped them onto his wrists, then reached down and gently pulled back her hair. As the silky strands parted, he saw a dark bruise on the throat, then lighter ones moving upward toward the back of the neck. Strangled, in all probability, although not necessarily—choking someone to death is harder than it looks on TV, and many attackers often move to a quicker, easier method. It would be the medical investigator’s job to determine the exact cause of death.

  When Cameron rolled the body over, a foul odor hit him, so strong he had to turn away just to catch his breath. The stench of death; he’d smelled it when he first arrived. Turning the body face-up seemed to unearth its full potency, a volatile combination of urine, feces, and decaying flesh. The pounding heat hadn’t helped matters much, either.

  He knelt over the body, covering his mouth and nose with his hand, and took a closer look. Just below the ribcage was a gaping hole. He pressed his fingers against it and could see into the body cavity. The intestines were chewed through, and beyond that, so were several other internal organs. Animals hadn’t wasted any time working on her insides.

  Cameron shook his head. He’d left Amarillo to get away from violent crime.

  He looked back down at the girl. Deputies hadn’t found any personal effects—no purse, wallet, or ID of any kind, and with the face in this condition, making positive identification would be a chore. He hoped at least the hands were still intact and the fingerprints readable.

  Before leaving the immediate scene, Cameron stepped back a few feet, taking one last look at the victim. Who is she? he wondered. How did she end up here?

  Then he remembered what he’d learned while working homicide back in Texas: Never put yourself in the victim’s shoes; put yourself in the suspect’s.

  He stood up and scanned the ground—no signs of a struggle there. It seemed unlikely she’d been murdered at the bottom of the ditch.
Somebody had probably killed her elsewhere and dumped her here. Somewhere out there, maybe just a few feet away or perhaps even farther, was the primary crime scene where it all went down, where the victim came face-to-face with both her killer and her own mortality.

  Cameron felt sadness tugging at his gut as the image of his son floated before his eyes. He pushed it away. Still, it was a reminder: he’d just been looking at somebody’s daughter. Painful, the thought, but also, it kept him grounded, allowing him to view victims as actual people, not just cold, nameless corpses. Whether or not their hearts still pounded or lungs drew air was irrelevant; they were all still human beings. All had a history—every one of them did—and most had loved ones who cared about them. Their lives mattered.

  Cameron moved up the incline, careful to travel the same path he’d used coming down.

  When he reached the top, something caught his attention: drag marks in the dirt. Perhaps even more telling, upon closer inspection, he discovered what appeared to be tiny drops of blood mixed in with them. The trail went from the side of the road to the edge of the trench. Cameron remembered a few cuts on the victim’s arms. Most likely, the source. Just as he’d suspected, she was probably killed elsewhere, then dragged from a vehicle and dumped there.

  Then it hit him.

  Ben was already dead by the time this girl was murdered. As for Ryan Churchill, he was too young to have a driver’s license; besides, the victim’s condition here was tame compared to that of the others, and the method of killing couldn’t have been more different.

  Cameron knelt down and picked up a fistful of sand. Opening his fingers, he watched as the tiny granules slipped through them, falling quickly to the ground. He looked up for a moment, squinting in the bright sunlight.

  Ben Foley was dead. Ryan Churchill was still missing. And in their wake, a shocking revelation: someone else was out there.