He entered the bedroom and opened the dresser drawer, rummaging through the contents frantically, displacing bongs, pipes, and other drug paraphernalia until he found what he was looking for, a crinkled faded business card that read: Detective Jeremy Peterson. He found the cordless under the crumpled bedspread and pressed the talk button. The dial tone droned monotonously in his ear. He listened for a few seconds more and then clicked it off. Uh uh, no way was he going to call that fucking pig, so he could tell her to go and leave him again. Not this time, he could mind his own damn business. He waffled a few minutes more and then pressed the button again and dialed the number, surprised at himself for doing the right thing for once in his life. He nearly hung up once again on the fourth ring, but somehow he managed to gather enough intestinal fortitude to stick it out this time. A gruff voice on the other end came through. God how he hated this prick.
“Peterson.”
Jimmy struggled to find where to begin. “Detective Peterson?”
“That’s the rumor.”
Prick! “This is Jimmy Tucci.” The silence on the other end let Jimmy know that Peterson had no idea who he was. “Sheila Bradley’s boyfriend.”
“Oh yeah, what the hell do you want Tucci? You’re not messing up that girl any worse than she already is are you?”
“Well sir I’m not sure if that’s possible.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“She’s been missing for two days now.”
Jimmy could hear Peterson’s anger growing despite his silence. “I swear to God Tucci, if you hurt…”
“Damn man. I told you she’s missing. I didn’t hurt her.”
“Well maybe she just got up the nerve to leave your worthless ass once and for all?”
“As much as you’d like to believe that sir, I don’t think she’d do that.”
“Yeah well, if I had a nickel for every time you don’t think, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now. I’d be sipping a stiff drink with an umbrella in it on some tropical island.”
“Look man.”
“Don’t interrupt me, I’m not finished.” I’m listening prick. “You’re a punk Tucci. You’ve never been worth a shit in your entire miserable life, and you’re never going to be worth any more in the future. The only reason I haven’t run you in for narcotics possession is because I’m afraid that would put Sheila out on the street, and I suppose living with a punk, even one as reprehensible as yourself, is better than living on the street. You got that?”
“Yeah, I got it. Are you finished?”
“For the moment.”
“So are you going to help me or not?”
Another tense silence followed, broken only by Peterson’s deep breathing on the other end. Jimmy thought he sounded like one of those walruses at Sea World when they emerge from the water and blow snot out of their noses.
“Come on down to the station and fill out a report. I’m only here till six O’clock tonight, so move your ass!”
The line went dead. Jimmy slammed the cordless down onto the charger. Unsatisfied with that he hoisted it back up and slammed it down once more, a little harder this time. God that Peterson is such an asshole. I shouldn’t have called him. I knew it! His anger continued to build for a few minutes more before finally subsiding a bit. He didn’t want to go down to the station at all. For all he knew Peterson might just throw his ass in jail on some trumped up charge, but what other choice did he have? None, and he knew it.
Reluctantly he picked his jacket up off the floor and threw it on, making sure to check the pockets for any weed, just in case. When he had made sure he was clean, he unlocked the front door and stepped outside. Dang he thought, who would have ever believed that I would go down to the station willingly?
Outside the sun beat down on Jimmy causing him to lower his head and squint his eyes. He hadn’t seen the sun in weeks, preferring instead the comforting darkness of nighttime. It was ten in the morning and the sun was growing brighter. Like a vampire he shielded himself underneath his oversized flannel shirt, pulling up the collar to cover his face. The police station was twelve miles away. He would have to flag a cab. He had a few meager bucks to his name. He hoped it would be enough.
He flagged the first cab he saw and the driver pulled up alongside him. Twenty minutes later they were pulling into the station. Jimmy was relieved to find that he had just enough money to cover the fare, though the cab driver sneered at him from the lack of tip. Times are tough buddy, you deal with it. He didn’t even have enough cash to get home and he would have to walk or hitchhike. Worse still, his stash of weed was growing low. He had enough to get high for one more day, maybe two, and that was it. If he didn’t find a way to get some money soon he would be left high and dry, or just dry unfortunately.
The station was relatively new. The county had found another ingenious way to bilk taxpayers for a few extra dollars to build the new facility. Constructed in red brick it had a throwback appearance to the police stations of old with all the modern day conveniences of a newly erected building. The courtyard just prior to the main steps had a statuette of a large American eagle, spreading its wings as if preparing itself to take flight. In its talons it clutched thirteen arrows representative of the original thirteen colonies and it sat perched upon a large globe with intricate detail of the seven continents. It was finished in solid brass, giving it an awe-inspiring appearance.
Jimmy walked up the twelve cement steps one at a time, dreading what he was about to endure. The automated door swung open and he entered the station with heavy reservations. He crossed the tile floor over to the reception area. A young female officer sat just behind bulletproof glass, the kind you would find at the drive up window of an automated bank teller. Her voice squeaked through the circular mesh of holes in the window in a barely audible volume.
“Can I help you?”
“Jimmy Tucci, I’m here to see detective Peterson.”
“One moment please. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
She depressed the button on her microphone and whispered into the foam covering and then waited for a response. Jimmy couldn’t hear what was said.
“He’ll be with you in just a moment.”
I can hardly wait. The sarcasm in Jimmy’s mind abounded within his head. It was near twenty minutes before the locked door to the back offices opened and detective Peterson poked his head out. He was cordial, but the look on his face told Jimmy that there was no love lost between them.
“Jimmy, come on back.”
He rose from the waiting chair and followed the detective to the back rooms. They made their way over to Peterson’s desk, located in a small office on the southwest corner of the station. Peterson closed the door and motioned to one of the two seats in front of a small particleboard desk. At least there were no two-way mirrors in here Jimmy thought. He sat down and waited for Peterson to seat himself on the other side of the desk.
“Alright, talk to me.”
“I already told you what I know. Sheila left two days ago to get some food.”
“Where?”
“Jack in the Box.”
“That all? Or was she looking for johns?”
“Yeah, she might have been looking to turn a trick or two.”
Peterson’s gaze hardened. “At your suggestion I bet.”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
Peterson decided not to press him. “Go on.”
“And that’s pretty much it. She was supposed to be back that night, but she never came home.”
“Was she on foot?”
“Yeah man, you know we ain’t got no car.”
“The Jack in the Box, that the one on Front Street by the waterfront?”
“Yeah that’s the one she always goes to. Why?”
“Because that could be important.”
“How do you know that?”
“Just a hunch.” Peterson said. “Just a hunch.”
Inside Talco
tt Manor Sheila was trapped in a living nightmare. She had awoken in a haze. Reality set in slowly from all sides, appearing first as a white haze on the outskirts of her peripheral vision and focusing slowly inward. The white cement walls formed about her. Overhead a fluorescent ceiling light shown directly into her eyes, making her blink. Metal tables and sharp shiny implements lay strewn about the room with no particular organization. The terror of reality began to sit deep into the pit of her stomach. She was sure that she had had a vivid nightmare, and nothing more. But this was no nightmare, it was all too real. She tried to move her arms and legs, certain that she would not be able to. She was right, the chains that bound her were still affixed to her limbs. She lay naked and spread eagle, vulnerable and cold as she shook upon the table. She was well past the point of screaming, instead she relented to her pressing fears with a river of tears that welled in her eyes before streaming down her cheeks and plinking on the metal table beneath her.
A large dark shape stood just behind her. She careened her head backwards trying desperately to see what it was, but the table would not let her head tilt back far enough to receive a solid image. She could only make out slow methodical movement as the black presence move back and forth behind her.
My God, please help me wake up, this can’t be happening. She pulled her hands against the shackles that held her fast. The steel cuffs cut into her wrists, biting at her tender flesh. The more she struggled the worse the pain became. The metal cut into her skin and soon the blood began to seep from her self-inflicted wounds, working its way down to her fingertips making them slippery to the touch. Sheila lifted her head and scanned the room again, this time noting the floor and the base of the walls. The outside of her vision was still blurry and she had difficulty focusing. The images in her retinas warbled and undulated almost as if she was trying to see under water. In the west corner of the room an image caught her eye, though it was not clear. She whipped her head back to the sight and focused her eyes. A person sat motionless upon a plastic chair. One of those plastic chairs with the steel legs they use in Sunday school, but this was no Sunday school. At last the image began to solidify and she recognized the man seated motionless in the corner. Now she screamed, the horror in her voiced streamed through the room and down the adjoining halls. The john, the horrible sick man who had picked her up and offered her a thousand dollars for one night. He sat unmoving and silent as if oblivious to her screams. His hair was thin and plastered against his scalp in a greasy matte giving him a disgusting appearance. He was dressed in jeans, boots, and a ragged flannel shirt with small holes worn through at the shoulders. He grinned at her with yellow nicotine stained teeth, one of which, in the center of his smile was missing. He stood and began to make his way forward. When he spoke Sheila thought she could smell his wretched breath from across the room.
“Mornin’ darlin’ you’ve been asleep for quite awhile.”
Through her terror Sheila was able to form a few words. “What the hell do you want from me?” They came out stuttered and trembling.
He moved closer. “Oh it’s not what I want darling that you have to be afraid of. It’s what he wants.”
Darrow motioned behind her. The black shape that she had seen earlier moved around the table until it stood directly in front of her. It was beyond the stuff of nightmares, worse than anything she could have dreamed up herself. Sheila shut her eyes praying that when she opened them again that hideous thing would be gone, although she knew deep in her soul that it would not be. The demon spoke, a deep guttural sound that was hard to discern yet she made out the words with striking clarity. Sheila wished that she were able to close her ears. Listening to her fate was worse than enduring it.
You have been patient my son.
“Yes.” Darrow said.
I will deny you no longer.
“Thank you master! Thank you!”
Sheila opened her eyes to witness Darrow withdraw a six-inch curved blade from his belt. She had seen that kind of knife once before when she was young. Her father had used one to slit the belly of a buck open from groin to gullet. The sight had terrified her, remaining in her subconscious. It had sliced through the flesh like a pair of scissors through Christmas wrapping paper. Her father had only to make a small incision and then slide the blade in a smooth motion upward. Sheila had watched the skin and fur part like the Red Sea, spreading open easily under its own weight and spilling dark smelly red blood that ran down from the wound exposing the organs and bone beneath. Now she lay like a deer before the hunter that had felled it, unable to move and certain of her own demise.
The only words that she could think of spilled from her lips like that of the blood from the gutted deer. “Why? Why me?”
“Because darlin’, just because.”
The vagueness of his reply made her situation even worse. If her death had a purpose then at least she could go to her grave with that, but he offered her nothing, just a wicked sneer and a wicked heart. The first incision started at her ankle and moved upward along her shin and over her thigh. The searing hot pain of the blade raced up her body and screamed within her mind. Blood poured from the wound, collecting in pools before running down the slightly angled table to the small drainage plug located between her ankles. She saw the demon kneel down and begin to drink, her blood, her life, running between her thighs to nourish the ravaged beast. It was then, thankfully that she passed out, no longer bearing witness to her own death.
Upstairs Abby heard the screams, piercing through the darkness like the screams she had heard in this mansion so often before. One glaring contrast struck her and amplified her terror. The screams she had heard before were ghostly, demonic even, certainly not of this world. She shut her eyes tight and tried not to cry, but the reality of what was happening chilled her soul. These cries were not demonic, nor ghostly, they were human.
Downstairs Darrow worked feverously, separating the skin and flesh from the bone. Before he had made one glaring mistake, he had left the body for the snooping detectives to find. This time however would be different. He separated the soft tissue from the skeleton: skin, muscle tissue, organs, and hair, all was collected and placed within five-gallon drums. He would burn all of this in the fire pit behind the mansion, incinerating the evidence and completing the perfect crime. The bones would be collected and then taken to nearby Lake Sequoia. There he would heave a gunnysack full of bones, weighted down by stones far into the center of the water and let them sink to the mud below. There would be no evidence, not this time, and the detectives could wilt away in the seclusion of their police stations. He had become a God now; there was no one who could touch him.
The demon waited patiently for him to finish his work, full of blood and content to feel the power that Darrow’s latest kill had supplied his body. He could feel the energy moving throughout him, coursing through his living tissue and giving him strength on this earthly plain. With each victim he could feel his strength increase, soon he would be able to move about freely, not confined to the lower levels of the mansion. In fact, he wondered if he was now powerful enough to ascend to the second floor. There a certain inhabitant drew his fancy, and he would very much like to meet her.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Over the next several weeks Ellie became accustomed to her new surroundings. It wasn’t exactly home, but it wasn’t the living hell it had been when she first arrived. The staff at the Alderwood Addiction Recovery Center was professional and treated her like a person, taking the time to learn her name and say hi when they met her in the hallway or cafeteria. She had opened up at her meetings (this time with words instead of vomit) and almost enjoyed the counseling sessions. She wasn’t sure how much good it did for her psychologically or medically, but at the very worst it was comforting to share stories and experiences with other people who had been in her shoes.
Some of their stories made her realize that her situation wasn’t as bad as she had thought. There were some people in her group who had gone through thin
gs that were almost too terrible to speak of. John Duggin, a sixty-something recovering alcoholic crashed his pickup truck into the back of a minivan one night while he was plastered, smashing up the back and sending a fireball through the van when the gas tank erupted. The van contained an entire family on their way to visit their grandparents for Labor Day weekend. They had gotten a flat tire on I-5 and pulled off the shoulder so that the father could change it. He witnessed Duggin’s truck barreling down on the van at eighty miles an hour and was able to get out of the way before the impending impact sprayed broken glass and metal shrapnel all over the freeway. Duggin passed out behind the wheel but suffered only a broken leg and collapsed lung. The father however was not so lucky, he suffered third degree burns on his hands and face trying to pull his three children and wife from the vehicle, only to witness them burn to death in the searing hot flames.
Duggin had served ten years of a fifteen-year sentence before finally being paroled in 1994. He was sober for two years after his release until never-ending guilt and remorse drove him, so to speak, back to the bottle.
Tamara Davis, a single mother about Ellie’s age had her three children taken away from her by the state after numerous failed attempts to stop smoking crack cocaine. The lowlight came one day when she left the children unattended in the house while she went out to get more crack. Her oldest child, a six-year-old girl had pulled a pot of boiling water down on top of her after Tamara had left it carelessly on the stove. The little girl suffered second degree burns on her chest and abdomen. Child Protection Services quickly intervened and she had not seen her children since. She received mandatory drug counseling and two years probation for that, but the real price would be paid everyday in the loss of her children.
Antonio Zuniga did eight years for armed robbery trying to feed his addiction. Walter Mutzl did four for home invasion. Bethany Riddick contracted hepatitis C from her heroine habit, and had to spend the rest of her life on methadone. The list went on and on. They were like problem gamblers, getting whipped by the house night after night and always coming back for more. And people with problems attract people with problems, falling into the same ruts and habits like lemmings following one another off a cliff. Ellie felt a sense of relief that she didn’t have problems to this extent, but she couldn’t help but feel a little guilty also, after all she was a drug addict, just like the rest of them, only she had Randall Jackson in her life, a man who was supportive but authoritative enough to force her to seek help before something terrible happened.
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