Shackled

by Ray Garton

  Shockley responded immediately, shouting into the mike. "My reason is that I have spoken with a witness who says there are several perpetrators on the scene, all of them heavily armed!"

  There was silence over the radio.

  Goose bumps rose over Shockley's back and his lips gradually curled into a smile.

  If anyone's career was going to be damaged, it was going to be Captain Berger's. In all the years Shockley had worked with him, the captain had been a shouting, tantrum-throwing asshole ... but he had always been professional, sometimes even fair. But this ... this was the pinnacle of unprofessional sloppiness, the kind of thing an alcoholic or drug-addicted cop might do, the kind of thing a cop having a nervous breakdown might do.

  Berger was digging his grave so fast that the shovel's scoop was smoking.

  Shockley's smile became a grin. Because he had a pretty good idea why Berger was doing it.

  He was trying to protect whatever sick things were going on in and around Rex Calisto's mansion. He was one of the "friends" Tex had told him about.

  Shockley picked up the car phone and hit the redial button. Roberts answered immediately.

  "Look, there was just a call over the radio," Shockley said, "attempted 187 here at the mansion. They called two units specifically, and all available in the area."

  "Well, what the hell're you doing in your car? Get your ass up there!"

  Shockley's words were rapid-fire. "One thing I wanted you to know before I go in. It'll be on the record because it was over the radio, but I wanted you to know in case somebody tries to cover it up, which seems likely. I told 'em I was on the scene and requested more units, 'cause I know there's more going on up there. My captain, Gregory Berger, got on the radio and started screamin' at me. He interrupted communications and called me every name in the book, told everybody to ignore my request. Now, the reason I mention this is that my friend Tex here, who is close personal friends with the people in question, tells me that they have lotsa close personal friends in law enforcement whose job it is to protect them, keep them hidden. I think that's what Berger was doing. And I just wanted you to know. So, uh ... hey, thanks for everything, y'know? I'm outta here."

  He hung up the phone and started the car, rolled down his window, removed his badge from inside his suitcoat as he made a U-turn and drove to the gate, which was already open to let some of the people out who had walked down the hill. Shockley stopped anyway as the unformed security guard stepped forward out of the dark like a ghost.

  Shockley showed his badge. "LAPD. We gotta call."

  The guard nodded and motioned him forward.

  As he drove up the hill, Shockley reached over to the glove compartment, from which he removed a snub-nosed .38; he stiffened in his seat and stuffed it beneath his belt. It poked his belly, which had thickened a bit over the past three years. Then he reached awkwardly around his seat to the floorboard beneath the backseat and grabbed his twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun, placing it between himself and Tex. He had his Smith & Wesson .40-caliber automatic in his shoulder holster as well.

  If everything he had been told was true, he was not going in there without a lot of help.

  If everything he had been told was some sort of mass delusion, he would no longer be a cop.

  Maybe he could open a bait shop up in Eureka and spend his spare time doing some fishing with his own merchandise.

  He stopped the car directly in front of the front steps, killed the engine, and removed the keys from the ignition. Then he turned to Tex and got serious very fast.

  "You listen good, Tex. You're gonna sit here in this car and wait. You're not gonna shout, you're not gonna try to get outta the car, you're not gonna move ... you're not gonna fuckin' breathe while I'm gone, you hear me? You're gonna hold your foul breath the whole time! And do you know why?"

  " 'Cause I-I'd rather b-be wuh-with you than with thuh-them."

  Shockley smiled. "You're smart in spite of your odor, my man."

  He slid the thin, black vinyl wallet that held his badge into the left breast pocket of his suitcoat so the badge was visible. Once again, he grabbed the radio mike. Voices had been chattering for a while, but he'd been too busy to pay attention. When it was clear, he said, "Once again, this is unit 193 requesting more units on the scene of the attempted 187 in the Holcombe Hills area. I am going in now, repeat, I'm going into the house now." He racked the mike, grabbed the shotgun, and got out of the car, slamming the door behind him.

  All around him, people hurried away from the house and down the hill. They were upset, women were crying; the frantic voices mixed together in an anxious din that faded as they passed by Shockley, walking around his car like a river's current rushing around a jutting boulder.

  Shockley licked his dry lips, faced the mansion, and started up the steps ...

  13

  All hell was breaking loose around them — men in suits and holding guns running in all directions — so they remained perfectly still, just watching through the thick patch of ferns in which they were hiding.

  Voices called out through the night and echoed slightly, some giving orders, some responding to them.

  Lacey was hunkered down between Ethan and Ed. She breathed, "See that glass tunnel over there? The one stretching from the back of the house and across that patch of lawn to that wall?"

  Ethan and Ed nodded while Doc continued to watch for anyone who might get too close.

  "That tunnel leads to a gate. On the other side of the gate there's a path that leads across another patch of lawn to a shack. There's an elevator in that shack that goes down to the complex."

  "How do we get into that tunnel?" Ed whispered.

  "Doesn't make any difference. The gate has a big lock on it. On the other side."

  "Don't worry, we're prepared for that sorta thing. How do we get into the damned tunnel?"

  Lacey looked at him hard, frowning. "Well, if you're so confident, I'll tell you. What've I got to lose? I'm a goner, anyway."

  "Not if we can help it, dear," Ethan whispered, his voice trembling and frightened, but with a touch of warmth.

  She looked at him in the dark for a moment and almost smiled. Then she jerked her head toward the house. "In there. That door by the corner of the house. It leads into the garage. You go through the garage and into the laundry room, all the way through the laundry room and out the door at the other end into a corridor. Turn left and go through the door at the end. It opens right into the tunnel. And the tunnel goes to the gate. Which is locked. From the other side."

  "That's fine, honey," Ed whispered. "That's all we need to know."

  Still squatting, Ed bobbed forward to look out through the thick, soft ferns, to watch the movements of the security men. He turned his head, looked over his shoulder toward the others, and said, "I'm gonna keep watchin' these guys. The second we've gotta clear shot to that door, I'll let you know. Be ready to run with me. Don't stop for a fuckin' thing, not until we get inside that garage."

  He continued-watching.

  The others waited.

  No one moved a muscle. Even Doc seemed to be anxious about the situation.

  Then, quite suddenly, Ed hissed over his shoulder, "Now!" Ed shot out of the bushes. The others followed quickly, staying low at first, then running upright as they neared the door.

  Ed opened the door, nearly fell forward through it, then turned around and held it open as the others followed. He closed the door quietly behind them.

  The garage was completely dark. None of them could see a thing. For a moment, all four of them huddled close together, each bumping against the other.

  Then Ed and Doc disappeared, moving through the darkness without making a sound.

  Ethan put an arm around Lacey, holding the trembling young girl close to him as he tried to hide his own trembling.

  There was a long silence, punctuated only by the rapid, shallow breathing of Ethan and Lacey as they stood silent in the darkness and wondered where the two men had
gone.

  Suddenly a light came on a few feet before them. Its beam cut through the darkness like a long-bladed sword and made Ethan and Lacey squint as it fell on their faces.

  There was the solid, metallic sound of a gun being cocked and a man barked, "Freeze! Both of you!"

  The muffled slap of a gunshot sounded, and the voice was silenced. The flashlight dropped to the concrete floor, followed by the heavy clump of a body. The flashlight rolled back and forth, back and forth. It was very bright, but small, hand-sized, and made of black metal.

  The wobbly beam flashed over Ed. He was standing at Ethan's and Lacey's right, holding a Walther PPK .22-caliber pistol with a long cylindrical silencer at the end in his left hand. Ed picked up the flashlight and went to the man's side, shining the beam on him.

  The bullet had entered the man's left temple. Glistening blackness splattered his face.

  "Well," Ed growled, slipping the .22 back into its holster beneath his right arm, "that's one down." He put the flashlight in his left hand, reached into his coat with his right, and removed the SIG 226 9mm that was holstered under his other arm. He passed the light around the garage slowly, making sure there was no one else lying in wait for them, then he and Doc both joined the other two. Ed turned to Lacey. "Whatta you figure the chances are of us running into more clowns like him at this end of the house?" he whispered.

  With the light shining on her, she squinted and shrugged. "I dunno. They're everywhere. Especially now. They're looking for me."

  Ed nodded vaguely, thinking, then gestured the flashlight toward Doc silently.

  Doc drew his SIG 226 9mm and held it at his side, ready to use it if necessary.

  Ed muttered, "Then, I guess we'll just have to take our chances. You." He gestured toward Lacey. "I want you at my side so you can show us where to go. Padre, I want you behind me, and, Doc, you cover our ass. And remember, you've gotta be ready to pick a lock by the time we get to the end of that tunnel, got me?"

  Doc nodded with a slight grunt.

  Then Ed asked Lacey, "Is there enough light in that tunnel thing for us to get through without this?" He held up the flashlight. She nodded.

  "Good." He switched the light off and dropped it into his suit-coat pocket.

  "Hey," Lacey whispered to Ed, "you got an extra gun for me?" He cocked his head and gave her half a smile. "Sorry, honey. I haven't known you long enough ...”

  14

  "And what about this one?" Dr. Corbus asked quietly. "A Kristine Woodside? Case file number 43922?"

  He held an open file folder before him as he sat across a round table from Deanna in his office. The light was low, but sufficient for reading. A bottle of wine stood in the middle of the table, half of its contents gone, and a wineglass stood before each of them. Smoke hovered over them as Deanna puffed on a cigarette. From speakers hidden all around them, Beethoven's Sixth Symphony played so softly that it was almost subliminal.

  "Kristine Woodside is definitely ready," Deanna said. "Given her background — which is detailed on the page before you — and her rigid Christian upbringing, she's taken to her conditioning very well."

  "I see. You think she is ready right now? Or in a matter of weeks? How long?"

  "Oh, another week. Just to be certain."

  "Wonderful." He slapped the folder shut and dropped it on a stack of others to his right. Then he removed another folder from a stack on his left and opened it. "Let's see ... Tommy Bestler. Number 43923. What do you have to say about this boy?"

  "He's a bit resistant and needs a little time. Maybe three weeks. By then, we should have him in shape. After all, he hasn't been here that long. I don't think he'll be any trouble at all."

  He dropped the file as if he were tired of them. He sipped wine from his glass, rolled it around in his mouth, and sighed after he swallowed, closing his eyes and smiling as he leaned back in his chair for a moment.

  "I noticed coming in that R.C. is throwing a big party tonight," Deanna said.

  "Yes, yes. It's for our girl. A coming-out party, of sorts."

  "Do you think that's wise?"

  "I have never thought that to be wise. But R.C. is R.C. He has made this girl his centerfold and seems to think that she has that special 'something.' He thinks she is a star. He has done this before and I have always warned him against it. He always ignores me, however. I am happy to say that nothing bad has come of his activity, though. After all, we must indulge him now and then."

  "I would think you would be more cautious."

  "My dear, R.C. is a wonderful help to us. He owns this property — legally, I mean, but in no other way, of course, and he knows it — and his high-profile business is a wonderful camouflage for our /ow-profile business, because there is no better place to hide than in a crowd. We use a great deal of his money and he uses a great deal of our money. Although, technically, all the money is the same. Meaning, it's ours. Because when it comes right down to it, even though the words have never actually been spoken between R.C. and us ... we own him" He chuckled. "Yes, I realize that in light of everything I've just said, the fact that I indulge him the way I do seems contradictory ... but I'm quite sure one of our genius accountants could explain it to you in beautifully clear terms that even — " another chuckle " — even a child could understand. So don't worry. Everything is well in hand. Including R.C."

  Dr. Corbus leaned forward and opened Tommy Bestler's folder again. "This boy is wonderful. I like his stats. He fits an order that came in just yesterday. Fits it perfectly." He lifted his eyes from the folder to smile across the table at her. "In fact, the order came from a regular client who doesn't haggle. As long as we meet his specifications, he's more than happy to pay top dollar for the merchandise. Yes, I like this boy." He closed the folder, tossed it aside, and picked up another. "Number 43924, Lynda Williamson. Tell me about her."

  Deanna closed her eyes and sighed, rubbing her temple with two fingers. She finished the wine in her glass, then poured more and took a puff of her cigarette.

  Dr. Corbus's eyes scanned the pages in the folder, frowning as he read.

  Deanna said, "Lynda Williamson is, without a doubt, the most resistant, willful, and vicious child I've encountered since I came here. She's eleven years old, has no religious background, comes from a remarkably abusive home — from both mother and father — and yet, she refuses to go along with any request or any order, no matter what we do or how hard or long we do it."

  "Any recommendations, Dr. Brooks?"

  "Well ... frankly, I don't know what to do with her. There's always the chance she'll break, but ... I just don't know."

  Dr. Corbus closed the folder and tossed it to the center of the table, next to the bottle. "Mark her for execution. We'll use her in the next sacrifice to keep the others in line."

  "You mean ... to keep the adults in line. The adults who work with you. For you. Around you."

  "Of course. You know that."

  This was the moment Deanna had been waiting for, the right time to make her suggestion, a suggestion she thought would streamline their operation, make things move faster and more smoothly.

  "Well, for what it's worth," she said, "I think we should use the same technique with the children. I think it would work, At least, that's my opinion. A sacrifice — I mean a real one — just might be the thing to bring Lynda Williamson around. And others like her. She's a smart girl. Too smart, it seems. But she's smart enough to be afraid when she looks death in the face ... afraid enough to do as she's told."

  He smiled. "Your opinion is one of the things about you I value most, Deanna. I am glad you've shared it with me. I understand and appreciate your suggestion. But I hope you will carefully consider my side of the issue. For one thing, I have been doing this for a long time. I have seen many children like Lynda Williamson, and they are trouble. They are a waste of time. The moment they make that fact obvious, we must use them in other ways. Namely, for sacrifices. As you know, the men and women who work for me have been
recruited under the guise of Satanism. They are former Christians with great bitterness toward the churches to which they once gave so much. They are people who have been hurt by then-former religions, people who are now hungry for power ... for revenge ... for satisfaction in the here and now. They are social misfits who fit in nowhere else."

  Still smiling, Dr. Corbus leaned forward to sip his wine, then leaned back, ran the tip of his tongue over his lips slowly, and continued. "This structure we have, this way of dealing with people that we have chosen ... it is there for two reasons. For the adults, it is, on the one hand, a kind of bait. You have no idea how many people there are out there who want to plug themselves into power, who want to rebel against their religions, who feel lonely and rejected and simply want to be accepted into a particular group, no matter which one, to simply belong. Satanism is attractive to all those people, an effective way of keeping them in line. First we accept them, then we make them fear us. In fearing us, they do as we say. And every once in a while, we take them out to the desert and make them watch as we kill — excuse me ... sacrifice — someone who has become useless to us. Usually one of the children. Sometimes we use adults. For example, Mr. Noble will be put on the altar. We would have done the same thing with your boyfriend, but, of course — "

  "I told you, he is ... he was not my boyfriend," Deanna said, more firmly than she had intended.

  "Forgive me. My mistake. Now, as for the children ... well, the Satanism works on them as a form of mind control. Between that, the sleep deprivation, and the sexual abuse, we are able, ninety percent of the time, to mold them into the creatures we want them to be. Didn't I explain all this to you once before?"

  "Yes," she said, nodding, "and you certainly don't need to explain it again, Dr. Corbus. I was simply making a suggestion regarding the — "

  "I realize that, and I want you to feel free to do so whenever you wish. But please, let me finish. We have Satanism to spare, Deanna. We can control those children. We can frighten them and deprive them and torture them, all under the guise of ritualistic Satanism. The talk shows and TV news magazines are thick with stories about it, they wallow in it. But no one ever believes them. Those stories — some true, some not — are all received the same way, because they are too outrageous for the public to accept.