Stalk Me

by Richard Parker

  She moved to the frosted glass door at the side. There were a couple of garbage cans beside it with elasticated rope threaded through the top and side handles. She remembered the photo of the raccoon that had been posted on Facebook.

  Were they still up? She resisted trying the handle. Beth knocked on the frame of the screen and stood back; trying to decide what sort of expression she should have on her face for whoever opened it. She opted for neutral.

  “Mom!” It was a boy’s voice.

  Beth swallowed and cleared her throat. She could hear footsteps on stairs and then a distorted face peered at her through the glass. The door opened.

  It was Mrs O’Doole. Beth recognised her from the photo. Her eyes looked puffy. “Can I help you?” There was no suspicion in the question but plenty on her face.

  “I’ve come a long way to find you. This may sound ridiculous, but I’ve reason to believe you and your boys are in danger.”

  Now suspicion morphed into something else. Mrs O’Doole’s gaze hardened, and she seemed to be using all her effort to keep her head steady.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” But she definitely didn’t look it. Her face began to tremble, and the vibration travelled down her body. “Come inside.” She turned her back on Beth and walked into the kitchen.

  Beth followed. The kitchen was retro-look, traditional fixtures but modern appliances; wheelback chairs around the table and old-fashioned cabinets housing equipment with digital displays. It smelt of damp and stale coffee grounds.

  “Go through to the living room.” Mrs O’Doole’s voice was close behind her, and there was hardly a gap between it and the heavy and sharp object that slammed into the back of Beth’s skull.

  Chapter 64

  When Beth awoke, she was suffocating. Something was pressing against her eyes and nose, and when she tried to move her head clear of it, she felt the same pressure on the back of her skull forcing her face harder against a tensed skin of plastic. Its intense aroma filled her nostrils and she tried to lift her hands to push it away. But her arms were tight against her sides, and Beth couldn’t feel any sensation below her wrists. With a supreme effort, she managed to crack her eyelids only for her vision to be flooded white.

  She focused on texture within the glare, tiny wrinkles in the plastic. There were white airbags closing in on her from all sides, creaking and inflating to the bursting point while her body was squeezed tighter between them. Beth couldn’t breathe, but still the weight on her ribs and lungs increased. She gulped air into her constricted chest and heard the crack of bone.

  Suddenly, the airbags parted to reveal Luc upside down in the car. He turned to her as the blood started pouring from his nose and up into the ceiling. “Sorry.”

  Turning to look through the windscreen, she saw the vehicle looming around the bend. The brown camper was only feet away.

  Beth heard her teeth squeak as she gritted them in anticipation of the crash. Her chin was against her chest and her eyes were squeezed closed, but no sound came except for a low grumble. The plastic smell had gone and was replaced by a new one – timber and damp.

  *

  She lifted her eyelids and raised her head, immediately striking something solid behind her. The impact, a hundred times more agonizing than it should have been, unstuck her dry lips. Her cry ricocheted deafeningly around her cranium and her whole scalp throbbed, the swelling behind her skull pounding out of sync with her circulation.

  Beth quickly gleaned she was sitting on a low, red-leather stool about six feet away from the foot of some bare narrow wooden stairs. Looking up and squinting against the low-energy bulb in the red tassel shade above her, she could make out a closed door through the darkness at the top of them.

  Glancing right to the gas boiler churning away, she caught her reflection in a dress mirror that was leaning on its side against the peeling brickwork. Beth could see the bottom half of her body. She had been positioned against the black stained support pillar, and some yellow elasticated ropes bound her hands behind it. Her ankles were secured by white, plastic-coated curtain wire

  The walls of the room in the large cellar area to the left of the stairs were rough concrete painted white. An air hockey table was set up on the threadbare blue carpet. Beyond that, a crippled tennis table, missing one leg and bowing precariously, looked just as neglected. At the far end, two orange canoes were mounted on the wall. The air was cool and stale. Her leather jacket had been removed to allow her to be restrained. Beth shivered.

  She tried to lean forward but could instantly feel how tightly she’d been tied up. As she waggled her wrists, the exertion pressed her head harder against the support and a yellow kaleidoscope of pain momentarily blinded her. She felt like she was about to pass out again.

  There was no leeway in her bonds, and the curtain wire cut into her ankles when she tried to move them. She tried to locate any tool nearby she could possibly use. On top of the gas boiler she could see a meat-tenderising hammer. Its spiked head was dark red, and she could see small traces of her skin on the points. Realising what she’d been struck with suddenly made her perspective of the cellar fluctuate. She couldn’t pass out again. There was no way she would be able to reach the hammer. Perhaps it had been left there as a threat.

  Mrs O’Doole had invited her in without even hearing her story. Why hadn’t that rung any alarm bells? And how long had she been out? She opened her mouth to shout up the stairs. What would she say? “Mrs O’Doole!” The words reanimated the pain at the back of her head, but when there was no response, she shouted the name louder. “You don’t have to release me, but please... just listen to what I have to say!” Beth waited.

  Footsteps on the floorboards above her. The handle at the top of the stairs rattled and daylight briefly bisected the wooden steps from above. The door slammed closed again. The person descended and entered the circle of light from the shade. It was the gunman.

  Chapter 65

  His claret shirt was rolled to his elbows, and he finished wiping at his mouth with a brown napkin before pocketing it. The gunman covered the carpet between the stairs and Beth, and clamped her Adam’s apple between his thumb and forefinger.

  “They might expect you to yell at me, but if you do I’ll crush this. Mh?” His tone was amicable, the threat lurking behind it all the more convincing.

  Beth felt his grip tighten on it and nodded as much as she could.

  He looked at his watch. “Told you I’d pick you up around seven, even if it is the morning. Now, for the purposes of this conversation, I’m Special Agent MacDonald. I don’t have much of an imagination – I rely on the creativity of others – but I’d stopped off to grab an Egg White Delight McMuffin when I made the call to Mrs O’Doole. I’ve also chosen the name Harry, my father’s. Ronald would have been too much of a giveaway.”

  Beth fought to swallow and felt the solidity of his fingers as her Adam’s apple struggled to bounce in her throat.

  “I called Mrs O’Doole and told her about her sister’s murder. Jess had been looking after her place while she was on vacation. The likeness was unnerving. Very unfortunate but there’s always an element of natural wastage. I told her it was a federal matter and that I needed her to examine a photo of the suspect. It’s a good one of you from your Facebook page. Tyler immediately recognised you as the woman from the crash site who attacked him. They all figure you still have a score to settle. It would be very expedient for me to make you responsible for the deaths of the people upstairs, but that might lead any subsequent investigation too close to what I’ve been doing. I’ll have to keep things partitioned. There’s a lot of wilderness hereabouts, though. I can make you disappear, bury you somewhere deep in the National Park.”

  The gunman’s face blurred as Beth’s eyes began to water.

  “I told her to stay put in West Glacier, keep her boys out of danger. Said she was in the safest place. Then she calls me up and tells me you’d come looking for her and she had y
ou tied up. The three of them are up there shakily making pancakes for me now. Quite an experience for the O’Dooles. I’m going to kill you, and then I’m going to eat another hot breakfast with the family. I’ll need my strength to handle the three of them.”

  She shook her head, tried to scream but his fingers completely restrained her. Just beyond her view of his paunch protruding through his shirt, she knew the meat tenderiser lay way out of her reach.

  “There was a grizzly attack in West Glacier seven years ago. A family’s remains were discovered in a picnic spot. The park wardens used beaver meat to snare a rogue bear and shot it dead. But the coroner’s office proved a human had been responsible for the attack. The bodies had been mutilated to make it look like a grizzly. The bear died for nothing and they never caught anyone. It’s all online, although it wasn’t very high-profile. I suppose that’s understandable; bit of a tourism killer. It was an ideal cover story for me, though. Decomposition would complicate matters for the cops, and Mrs O’Doole said they’re going to be here two weeks. Their bodies wouldn’t have been discovered for some time. Trouble is, I’ve already used someone else’s MO to dispose of Jess. Would seem a coincidence if the entire family fell afoul of two different human predators. Highly unlikely.”

  His fingers pinched harder, and Beth’s shoulders jerked as she used up her last reserves of oxygen.

  “So I’m going to have to improvise. I’ll tie them up and drive them downriver, hold their heads under and leave one of their boats adrift. A plausible accident, but still too much of a coincidence. It’s not ideal, but it’s where we are. Scarcely leaves me any time to pick up on the conversation we were about to have at the Oyster Shack.”

  Beth couldn’t see him now; his face was just a pink blob. She felt him shift his body though, redistribute his weight on both feet as his grasp tightened and squeezed, and she bucked against the support pillar. The blood churned in her eardrums.

  Chapter 66

  The gunman’s whole mass was suddenly against her, and Beth could smell his stale odour. His bulk ground the wound at the back of her head against the support. White pain momentarily bleached out everything, but his grip on her throat loosened, and she quickly scraped in some air.

  His body slid over and past her and she blinked water out of her eyes to see him sprawled on the cellar carpet. Mrs O’Doole was standing in front of her holding a wok and assessing his prostrate form. She shot Beth a glance and then returned her attention to the gunman, gripping the handle as if she would strike him again.

  “I heard enough,” she said flatly.

  “Please...” The word felt like it had sharp edges. “Untie me.”

  Mrs O’Doole scurried to the other side of the cellar. She heaved a red metallic toolbox off the shelf and allowed its weight to slam it to the floor.

  The gunman rolled onto his side and looked up at Beth with confusion.

  “He’s waking up!”

  Keeping hold of her weapon, Mrs O’Doole opened the toolbox and produced a small pair of bolt cutters. She scrambled back over to Beth and quickly snipped the curtain wire coiled around her legs.

  Beth felt the blood pump back into them as they parted. But she didn’t take her attention off the gunman. His eyes were open but emptied out. It looked as if he didn’t know who or where he was, but Beth knew he’d regain his senses soon. Mrs O’Doole was behind her now, working the blades against the elasticated rope.

  “He’s conscious. Hit him again!”

  But her hands were freed and she was on her feet. Beth’s legs trembled and her knees immediately gave. Mrs O’Doole caught her under the elbow and helped her stumble around the gunman towards the stairs. The flight was narrow and would only allow one person to ascend at a time. Beth grabbed the meat tenderiser off the top of the gas boiler on her way past and glanced back.

  The gunman was on his front, arching his spine to push himself up. Beth shoved Mrs O’Doole up the stairs first and gripped the metal handle in her hand tight as she turned to repel any attack. He was on his feet and she could see from his expression that he’d caught up with the situation.

  She pivoted and ran up the stairs, watching the back of Mrs O’Doole’s yellow-socked feet pumping the steps above her. The door was ajar and blue daylight was only seconds away.

  Beth felt the impact of the gunman’s weight on the stairs behind her and heard their creaking as he pounded up in pursuit. Mrs O’Doole was through the door and turning around to face her, features pleading to her to make it. She clasped the handle in readiness to seal it. Beth felt a hand on the back of her calf, fingers gripping tighter and restraining her from taking the last two steps.

  She kicked back but the hand only released its grip to secure a firmer one behind her knee. His palm was hot. Beth turned with the meat tenderiser and smashed it onto the crown of his baldness. She felt the impact resonate through the bone of her arm as if she’d brought it down against a block of solid wood. But it sounded softer. She let go of the handle.

  The spikes held the tenderiser in place, and his body wavered as if he were surfing. Beth turned and took the last few paces through the door.

  Mrs O’Doole quickly slammed and locked it. “I’ll call the cops.” She leaned against it, as if her slight frame would act as an extra barrier.

  “Where are the boys?”

  “I told them to run.” She sucked in the last word as the gunman’s bulk battered against the door, the impact flicking up her silver fringe.

  “Get away from there. He’s armed!” Beth dragged Mrs O’Doole from the panel by her shoulders. “Where’s your phone?”

  “In here.”

  Beth followed Mrs O’Doole into the living room.

  “My cell.” She ran over to the dining table, ditched her wok and rifled through her handbag. “Where the hell...”

  “Has he been in here? Could he have taken it?”

  “We were in the kitchen...” Grim realisation. “I gave Tyler and Kevin their iPhones to take with them, though.”

  Beth’s fingers fumbled with the lock of the double-glazed door. “Let’s catch up with them.” She recognised the sound of the gunman’s bullet shooting out the lock. “Go!” She slid the glazed door open and gestured Mrs O’Doole through.

  They both sprinted out and Beth quickly closed the door behind them. As they crossed the deck and headed around the side of the house, the gunman emerged through the kitchen screen.

  “Stop!”

  Beth gritted her teeth, waited for the bullet in her back, but they’d just turned the corner and were pelting down the side of the lodge. Their frantic breath echoed back at them as they headed towards the steps. But the gunman only had a few feet to cover before he had them in his sights again.

  She looked back briefly as they reached the bottom of the steps. The Gunman still hadn’t appeared at the corner. Beth followed Mrs O’Doole, hauling her weak legs up using the rough wooden handrail to drag herself higher. There were about fifteen to climb and she expected to hear a gunshot on each one. They neared the top and Mrs O’Doole exclaimed: “I told you to get out of here!”

  When Beth reached her, Mrs O’Doole’s sons were standing there, faces tightened by fear. Beth recognised the eldest with the blue camouflage bandana and the green trainers.

  He looked to be on the brink of tears. “We couldn’t leave you.”

  “Fucking run!” Beth broke up the reunion, and they all headed towards the path, ducking and getting struck by the low branches of the trees.

  “Tyler, call the police!” his mother instructed him.

  “Spread out!” Beth yelled. Tyler was ahead of her. She saw him pull his iPhone out of his back pocket and then heard the shout behind her. It was the other boy.

  Beth turned to find Mrs O’Doole had halted. Just beyond her, the gunman was standing. He had Kevin, his arm locked firmly around the boy’s neck and the barrel of his revolver rammed against his cheek.

  Chapter 67

  The iPhone clip the bo
ys had gloated over flashed momentarily through Marcia O’Doole’s head. The leopard attacking the weakest, youngest member of the springbok herd. “Kevin!”

  The man who had claimed to be an FBI officer whispered something in his ear, like a father or an uncle might. Kevin immediately stopped screaming.

  “Let him go!” Tyler dryly shrieked from behind her.

  “Kevin, do exactly as he says!” She held up her palms to both of them.

  “Let him go, motherfucker!”

  “Shut up, Tyler!” Marcia didn’t take her eyes off them.

  “I’ve got the police on the line, Mom!”

  “Hang it up, Tyler. Now!”

  “But, Mom -”

  “Now!”

  For a moment the sound of birds filled out the silence. Kevin trembled against the barrel, his cheek indented by its pressure.

  “OK. Everyone walk back with me to the house. Mh?”

  He didn’t need to catch them all. Only one.

  Mimic watched Mrs O’Doole and Beth Jordan pass him. Neither of them met his eye. Tyler O’Doole did. Poor kid. He probably thought his withering look could change the course of events. The ladies understood they couldn’t. “Show me your phone, son.”

  Tyler halted and held it up, still holding his gaze.

  Mimic examined the screen to make sure he’d hung it up. “Drop it at your brother’s feet.” He blinked the warm blood from the tenderiser wound out of his eyes.

  Tyler released it and looked at it lying on the dead grass. Now he wouldn’t meet Mimic’s eye.

  “Go and join your mom, and let’s have no more of this ‘motherfucker’ monkey business.”