CHHT. CHHT.
She could visualize the tiny shavings of wood with precise accuracy as they flew from the knife blade and collected in a tiny pile at the base of her father’s feet. But the picture she had drawn in her head did not fit the sound of whittling, not quite. Her mind struggled again to find the proper image for the familiar sound. And then she had it. It was the sound of a hairbrush making its way through shoulder length hair. The constant stroking produced such a soothing sound as the bristles separated each hair from one another freeing them from their entanglement. The image of her father was replaced with that of her mother, slowly working the comb through Abby’s knots and tangles. It was a comforting memory, filled with love and compassion. Oh how Abby longed for her mother. She cursed the day she left the safety of her home to explore the open road with a rodeo cowboy, wanting once again to be with the mother who had nurtured her so tenderly. But the image of her mother began to fade as she slipped quietly away from her slumber and slowly awoke to the reality around her. The sound was filling the room.
CHHT. CHHT.
Abby opened her eyes to see Brenda sitting at the foot of her bed facing away from her, running a brush over the base of her scalp and through hair that was no longer there. It was a grisly sight; she was horribly disfigured. There wasn’t an inch of skin left untouched by the searing heat of the flames. Any flesh that she had left rose and fell in striations of sinew and scarring that ran along the contours of her body without rhyme or reason. At its thickest her skin was nearly three inches deep, other places white bone could be seen poking through the charred flesh, making it difficult to look upon her but near impossible to look away. She was clad in what Abby could only assume was once a nightgown; the fabric had been burned into her flesh, melting into her body at the seams, producing an awful spider web pattern. Despite her lack of hair, the brush still emulated the sound of the grooming ritual, sending shivers up Abby’s spine.
Tears welled up inside of Abby as she stared at this child, an innocent creature of God trapped in limbo between two worlds. She was six years old when she died, stranded on the second floor along with her little brother, separated from their parents by a towering wall of white flame that incinerated everything in its path. At least when Abby died the pain of her mangled body would be nothing but a painful memory. This poor child could spend the rest of eternity in her current state. Suddenly Abby felt shame for all the times she cursed her miserable life, not knowing that there were others that suffered more.
“Duss Id hurd?”
Brenda paused and rotated her head slowly around 180 degrees, not turning her shoulders in the slightest. It had an unnerving effect on Abby, God she hated when she did that. Brenda smiled, the charred remnants of her lips crackled as the skin separated exposing her small white teeth.
“Hi Abby. Don’t worry it doesn’t hurt, it tickles.” A small laugh escaped her. “Why? Does it hurt when you brush your hair?”
“Ihaben braush my air ina long ime.”
Brenda paused. “How come?”
“Ma harms et oo ired.”
“You don’t have to speak out loud Abby. I told you, I can hear your thoughts.”
Brenda had mentioned this last time they spoke and to Abby’s amazement she found it to be true, although the process of communicating without using her voice was difficult to get used to. Still, she enjoyed the freedom of being able to speak the way she did before the accident. Abby focused her mind and concentrated on her thoughts.
How’s this?
Brenda giggled again. “That’s better. I can understand you now. How do you brush your hair then?”
Jack does it for me.
“Does it hurt when he does it?”
Sometimes, when he gets rough.
“He’s a bad man.” Brenda’s smile faded, turning her lips down into an angry sneer. The look was terrifying. Abby tried not to focus on it.
He’s not all bad. There’s good in him somewhere, he just has trouble finding it these days.
“Son of a bitch!” Darrow’s voice was distant, floating up the stairs from the living room down below. They heard the bottle shatter. Abby sighed
His drinking is getting bad again.
“He’s scared. Jimmy’s been playing tricks on him again.”
Who’s Jimmy?
“My brother. I told him to leave him alone. He’s a bad man. It’s not good to make him angry, but Jimmy won’t listen to me.” She looked down at her spine, giving Abby the creeps again. “He never does.”
Brenda, do you mind turning around?
“Okay, I’m sorry.” She twisted her head back around and rotated on her butt, placing her feet beneath her and sitting Indian style on the bed. Her skin crackled in the process until she was facing Abby, stationary once again. “Is this better?”
Much. Thank you.
Brenda’s face grew serious. “He’s been speaking to it again.”
Jack?
Brenda nodded.
To the thing in the basement?
Another nod. “It tells him to do bad things.”
What kind of bad things?
“To hurt people.” Brenda looked down at her knees drumming the stumps of her fingers against her thighs. When she looked up Abby thought she could see tears in her eyes. “It wants him to hurt you.”
Brenda spoke the truth, Abby wasn’t sure how she knew this but she did. It was the same feeling she had felt the first time she had set eyes on Talcott Manor. She was going to die here, it was her fate, and she accepted that. Just like she accepted the fact that Chase would never be faithful. Just like she accepted the fact that Darrin’s love for drugs was greater than his love for her. Just like she had come to terms with the fact that Jack would never quit drinking. And the fact that she would never walk again, that she would never speak normally, that she would never bare children, never feel the sand beneath her feet, or swim in the ocean, all of this she accepted and more. But the thought that her life had no meaning other than self-preservation, that she could not accept. She couldn’t help but think that maybe there was a purpose behind her impending death, that some good might yet come from her misfortune, that maybe the woman trapped inside this broken shell of a body was capable of one final selfless act, if for nothing more than to know at the hour of her death that it was all worth it, that her life had meaning, that it had meant something more than just another wasted life, and that in the grand scheme of things her life had mattered. That she had mattered.
“Didn’t you hear me Abby? It wants Jack to hurt you.”
Abby was somber. I know.
“He’ll do it.”
I know.
Brenda grew more desperate, frustrated that she couldn’t seem to get her message through to Abby. “I don’t want him to hurt you. You have to get out of here Abby. Please, get out of here. This is a bad place.”
I can’t Brenda. I’m stuck here, just like you.
Brenda folded her arms, looking down at the bed and pouting at the same time.
Brenda. The little girl looked up. What is the thing in the basement?
“I don’t know.”
Do you know why it wants to hurt people? Do you know why it wants to hurt me?
“Because it wants to get stronger.”
Hurting people makes it stronger? Brenda nodded again, more forcefully this time.
“When Jack came it got stronger.”
Why?
Brenda shrugged her shoulders producing a sickly cracking sound. “I don’t know. The thing in the basement said it was because it could sense that Jack had hurt someone real bad in the past, that when Jack hurt someone it gave it energy. Jimmy and I used to play in the basement. The thing always used to stay in the room with the metal table, it wanted to get out but it couldn’t. It was like something was holding it back. We never went in that room, but then after Jack came it started to move around in the whole basement and I got scared. It doesn’t like me or Jimmy at all. We don’t play in the baseme
nt anymore. Then Jack hurt the girl and it got stronger.” There was fear in her eyes now. “A lot stronger.”
Abby tried her best to hide her dismay but it permeated from her pores and filled the air about her with the stench of horror. Jack hurt someone!?
“Uh huh. Real bad too.”
How bad?
“Like he hurt her until she was dead.” A startled cry escaped Abby’s lips. “I heard Jack thinking about it, the other night when he came to your room. There were lots of pictures in his head, I couldn’t see them all, but I saw a girl and she was hurt real bad. It told Jack to hurt her and he did. The pictures in his head scared me. I’m glad I couldn’t see them all. Then after that the thing in the basement got stronger.”
How do you know that?
“Because it was up on the first floor.”
Abby was horrified. What! When!
“Earlier tonight. Jimmy and I were playing downstairs and I saw it standing in the hallway looking at us. I could tell that it wanted to hurt us. It followed us down the hallway, but we went up the stairs and it couldn’t follow us. It just stood still at the bottom of the stairs and stared up at us with its red eyes. I don’t like the way it looks at us. It hates us.”
Do you know why it hates you?
Brenda peered down at the bedspread, tracing her finger stumps along a seam. “I dunno. I think it’s because I can tell what Jack is thinking and it’s scared that I’ll try to warn people, that I’ll try to warn you.”
Terror was welling up inside of Abby now with relentless ferocity. The anxiety was making her head spin and Abby felt like she was about to pass out. She took a deep breath, calming herself.
Brenda I want you to try and do something for me and I need you to try real hard okay? Brenda nodded. I want you to try and see what Jack is thinking right now.
“Okay.”
The little girl closed her eyes and focused her energy, searching the downstairs for Darrow’s thoughts. Abby waited, the minutes drug by with agonizing slowness.
Can you see what Jack is thinking now?
Brenda nodded enthusiastically, she spoke with her eyes still closed. “He’s real scared because Jimmy frightened him, and he’s worried that some men are going to take him away and put him in jail for hurting the girl.”
Can you always see what he’s thinking?
“No if he’s outside the house I can’t see anything, and lots of the time his mind is closed. I try to see in but I can’t, it’s like he won’t let me. But tonight he smells funny and it’s always easier to see what he’s thinking when he smells like that.”
Smells like what?
“Like the way daddy used to when he kissed me goodnight after he had been playing cards with his friends.”
When he smells like alcohol? Like he does when he drinks the brown liquid from the bottle?
There was more enthusiastic head nodding, Brenda was getting excited. “Yeah, when he drinks the smelly liquid it’s easier for me to see what he’s thinking.”
Well I’ll be damned Abby thought. She had finally found a good use for Jack’s drinking problem after all.
FIFTEEN
Peterson had spent the entire day down by the docks interviewing prostitutes, hoping that any of them would be able to shed some light on his investigation. It was tedious work, trying to get hookers to talk to the police was like striking matchsticks under water, tiring and fruitless. Even when their lives were in jeopardy they refused to cooperate with law enforcement. Those who did talk were usually real dim bulbs, matchsticks without any phosphorous. He lit a cigarette, the only spark he’d seen all day. Peterson exhaled a plume of smoke. There was a clue here somewhere and he was determined to find it, even if he had to comb the entire waterfront an inch at a time.
It was relatively deserted today. A few rollerbladers and supermodel-thin mothers pushing high tech jogging strollers dotted the waterfront here and there, taking advantage of the nice weather and utilizing the newly paved boardwalk that spanned two and a half miles of shoreline. During the day the boardwalk served its intended purpose, giving the locals a place to jog and courting couples a chance to hold hands and stroll along the waterfront. At night it underwent a radical transformation, morphing into a breeding ground for illegal narcotics and cheap sex. Nothing was too taboo or out of reach as long as you had the money to back it up. Here drugs and ass were traded like commodities on the New York Stock Exchange. If Peterson wanted to get to the seedy underbelly of the waterfront he would have to come back at night. Hookers and dealers were nocturnal, but looking for clues at midnight was a difficult proposition.
Peterson looked out across the water, shielding his eyes from the blinding glare of the setting sun reflecting off the placid surface. He turned and peered down the waterfront again, momentarily blind from the image of the sun burned into his retinas. For a moment he thought he could make out the silhouette of a woman walking towards him. He squinted and let his eyes adjust to the changing light conditions.
“Detective Jeremy!” The voice was familiar to him. “Detective Jeremy, is that you?”
Shiela Bradley was a young prostitute who often worked the docks looking to turn a quick trick or two to support a burgeoning drug habit. Peterson had run her in numerous times for soliciting, hoping that he might scare her out of the lifestyle before it was too late. Normally he didn’t bother dragging the whores down to the station, he had more important things to do and they were always back out in a couple of hours peddling their bodies in the same spots in which they were arrested. But he had taken a different interest in Shiela Bradley. She was nineteen years old, intelligent, and attractive. It was a crying shame that someone with so much potential was wasting her life down here. She smiled a big hearty genuine smile as she jogged her way up to Peterson and threw her arms around his neck and giving him an affectionate hug.
“Ha, I knew it was you. What are you doing back down here?”
“For the last time Shiela, it’s Detective Peterson not Detective Jeremy, and for Christ’s sake I told you before not to hug me.” He pushed her away trying his best to give her an annoyed look and not doing a very good job of it.
“Oh my God it is so good to see you, I mean it’s been like forever. Where have you been hiding?” She pushed a lock of bleached blonde hair out of her eyes.
“Who said anything about hiding?” His look turned serious meeting her eyes head on. “You been staying clean?”
Sheila pushed the sleeves of her blouse up past her elbows turning her wrists upward and exposing her forearms. “See look no tracks.” She beamed with pride. “Clean and sober.” Peterson’s glare became more penetrating, searching her eyes for dishonesty. “Well okay, maybe a little pot now and then but that’s it.”
“How many times have I run you in?”
“Four.” She batted her eyes at him flirtatiously.
“Yeah well let’s not make it five. Stay off the weed.”
“God I swear Jeremy, you’re worse than my father.” His frown intensified. “Sorry, Detective Peterson.” She emphasized his title, giggling as she did so.
“I wish I were your father. I would have kicked your butt in line a long time ago.”
“Yeah, yeah I know. So how’s Mrs. Detective Peterson?”
“Still breathing.”
“Oh I’m sorry to hear that.” Shiela said jokingly. “You ever consider taking a young mistress on the side?” She ran her finger down his chest snapping her gum as she did so. Peterson pushed her arm away.
“Sorry kid, I’m well past my midlife crisis, and even if I weren’t, I’m more of a sports car kind of guy anyway. I need to ask you a question.”
“My God Jeremy, it’s always business with you.” She sighed and batted her eyes. “So what can I do for you officer?”
Peterson handed her a three by five mug shot from his breast pocket. “Do you know this girl?”
A look of familiarity crossed Shiela’s face. “Yeah, that’s Bunny.”
�
��We know her as Virginia Shore.”
“Yeah, that’s her name but everyone on the street knows her as Bunny. She in trouble or something?”
“She’s dead.”
“Oh my God, when?”
“Two days ago.”
“How?”
“Some whack job picked her up and offed her, left her in several pieces in a dumpster. We think he’ll do it again too, so be careful and keep your eyes peeled for anyone suspicious. Spread the word to the other girls.”
“I will.”
Now she looked frightened, her flirtatious mood disappeared, replaced by worry. Peterson hoped that maybe a psycho killer on the loose might go a lot farther to scare her away from prostituting herself than running her in a couple of times did, but he doubted it.
“Did you know her well?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think I ever even talked to her, but a lot of the other girls knew her real well.”
“Any idea where she liked to turn her tricks?”
“Try down behind the ferry terminal. There’s a secluded patch of grass surrounded by blackberry bushes. Lots of the girls turn tricks down there.”
“Thanks kid.” He turned and headed back to his car.
She called out behind him. “Detective Peterson.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Good luck.” He nodded and continued to his car, noting that this time when she used his title she was not giggling.
He opened the car door and started the engine, pulling out onto the boulevard and heading north to the ferry terminal. It was a quick trip, about three quarters of a mile. He spotted the blackberry bushes immediately and pulled the cruiser up next to them. Peterson walked down to the clearing carefully scanning the ground for any type of clue. It was a long shot, but he was desperate for a lead. He peered off to his left and there he saw what he was looking for, a set of tire tracks in the grass heading in from the opposite direction. With careful footing he sidled over to the tracks and knelt down beside them. The grass was thick and the ground underneath was hard-packed due to a lack of rain the past few weeks. He was not sure if he would be able to get a good plaster cast made of the tread, but he was going to try. It was not as clear-cut as he would have hoped.
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