by L. T. Vargus
She senses a frustration. Some nebulous notion that he was trying to say something to her and couldn’t find the words. That maybe he tried to say it with his blade after that, etch it into the skin along her mouth, and he came away disappointed with that attempt as well.
He didn’t kill her, though he could have. A similar slash to her throat would have done it, within minutes more than likely.
And that was his mistake, she thinks.
Because she is still here, and whatever else might happen, she is more determined than ever to fight until the end.
She puts her weight on the balls of her feet, pumps her calves a couple of times. She thinks the feeling is coming back into her legs, thinks that the effects of whatever drug he slipped into their drinks must be waning some, at least for her.
Good. Good.
An empty sprawl lines the sides of the road now. They turned off the main road a while back. There are no gas stations or fast food places out here. No neon lights or street lamps. Just the hard red rock and thick shadows as far as she can see.
Her elbow keeps working at Tammy’s middle, though it’s mostly out of habit at this point. She does it without thought, the idea of Tammy waking no longer a real possibility in her mind.
“The cabin is just up here,” he says, his voice deeper now, almost sleepy sounding.
She can hear the smile in his words as he goes on.
“I know I don’t have to say it, but you be good now. Both of you. I don’t want any trouble making our way inside. I mean that.”
The car slows, takes a right turn.
A steep, overgrown driveway slashes tire tracks into the dust, and the car shimmies a little as they trample some dead weeds and bounce their way through potholes and eroded places in the dirt trail.
The engine seems to grunt a little as they crest a rocky incline, and she sees it.
The dark building just ahead. Small and ramshackle. Sun bleached wood siding. Yellowed newspaper over the windows the color of rotten teeth. A cluster of juniper trees lean against the structure, their silhouettes looking like stooped figures.
She should be terrified, she thinks. Crying. Groveling. Squirming.
But she feels no fear. Only an overwhelming desire to act. To fight. To fucking survive. No matter what.
He doesn’t know her as well as he thinks he does.
And for just a second as the car begins to slow, she has a strange moment of clarity. She sees all of those memories added up, sees the whole of her friendship with Tammy, the whole of both of their lives.
And she sees how incredibly small they are, how fragile. Vulnerable beings in a mindless, violent, raping world.
Just as the car rolls up next to the cabin in slow motion, she pounces.
She dives into the front seat, rolling as before, but this time she’s prepared for it.
She lands on her back and kicks. Feels her feet connect with that head she’s stared at for so long. Feels it throttled on that meaty neck. Hears the side of the skull thud against the driver’s side window.
And her fingers find the handle without hesitation this time. The door pops open, and she falls out onto her ass, scratchy tumbleweed clawing at the flesh of her arms, dry and dead.
She scrambles to her feet, a huge cloud of vapor congealing all around her as her breath hits the night’s chill. His dark shape writhes at the edge of her vision, exiting the car.
She flees into the hills, swallowed up by the pitch black nothing, and the dark figure follows.
Chapter 13
Present day
Loshak woke to the sound of a kid throwing some kind of tantrum just outside his motel room door. His hand fumbled around on the bedside table for a few seconds, searching for his watch. Finding it, he brought it close to his face to read the dial. Not quite half-past eight.
He replaced the watch and let his eyes roam around the room. It wasn’t exactly the Ritz: dingy carpet, faded wallpaper, a cigarette burn or two on the arms of the sofa.
He didn’t mind it so much, really. They didn’t make them like this anymore. The whole place had a blast-from-the-past vibe going on. Even the customer service seemed more of the 80s and 90s than now. When he’d been waiting for the clerk to get him his room key, the desk phone rang. Instead of answering with the name of the motel and asking, “How can I help you?” the man simply said, “Yeah?”
Loshak had gotten a chuckle out of that. Everything was so homogeneous now — so clean and corporate — that a little bit of indifference was almost endearing.
He rolled onto his back and blinked up at the ceiling. All in all, he’d slept better than he thought he would. Maybe that was one of the perks of getting old. Your body wore down on some higher level, gave way to slumber whether you were happy or mad or stressed.
Maybe that’s what death will be like, he thought. Your thoughts may still lurch and sway in your head, but your body slows until you slip away to the deepest slumber of all.
That thought made him think of Shelly. His eyes flicked over to the framed photograph he always brought with him when he traveled.
She was eighteen in the photo. Young and bright and just figuring out the person she would become.
The kind of girl Leonard Stump liked best, he thought. Like a raccoon ransacking a peach tree, he took one bite and left the rest to rot.
Steam coiled out of the black plastic lid of the Tim Hortons cup. He almost didn’t know why he’d gone there again. But his palate seemed to crave that particular brew once more, demanded it, even if it wasn’t what it used to be. At least he knew not to trifle with the donuts this time around.
Once more, his eyes flicked over to where his phone rested in the passenger seat. He could tell by the red blinking light that he had a voicemail message. From Darger, no doubt.
He hadn’t listened to it yet. Couldn’t. Not until he’d done what he came here to do. And then he would call his partner and tell her everything.
The brakes of Loshak’s rental car let out a low groan as the car came to rest in front of the small house. The yard was more dirt than grass, with a row of yucca around the foundation that kept it from looking completely barren. But for the most part, the whole place had a sad, grubby look to it.
He knocked, trying to keep it light and neighborly, knowing how the person on the other side of the door surely hated unannounced visitors.
There was a window to the right of where he stood, the blinds drawn against both the sun and prying eyes. Two of the slats parted ever-so-slightly, and Loshak knew he was being watched. Just as quickly they snapped shut again.
He counted, imagining the person inside with one hand on the door knob, trying to decide whether or not to open it. He understood the impulse of not wanting to. If their positions were reversed, Loshak thought he might go right back to his business and pretend he’d never noticed someone at the door at all.
It was a full seven seconds before he heard the rattle of a chain and the thunk of a deadbolt. The door opened wide, squealing a bit at the hinges. Through the screen that still stood between them, Loshak saw her. The girl who got away.
Even if not for the distinctive scar on her chin, he’d know her anywhere, no matter how many years had gone by. It was her eyes, he thought. Not just the warm brown color of her irises, but the look in them. In the brief moment when their eyes first met, Loshak caught a glimpse of the fear. A flash of utter dread, of suffering, of a lifetime of looking over her shoulder.
Because she remained Stump’s victim even still. She lived it on and on and on.
And then the fear retracted, the curtains drawn over the fear, and she smiled a little.
“It’s you.”
It was a practiced smile. A smile that wanted to convince you that things were OK, that she was OK. But Loshak knew better.
He knew that beyond the smile and under the fear, there was something that made it so the world would never be OK for Claire Garcia. A terrible knowing of the things men are capable of.
“Yeah. The years go by fast, but the days are long. Or that’s how it feels to me anyway,” she answered.
Loshak felt a little stab in his chest. He’d always liked this one. She didn’t talk much, especially not back when it first happened, but when she did, she had a way with words.
Neither one of them spoke for a few seconds. They just stood and studied one another through the haze of the screen door.
“Is it him?” she asked finally.
So she knew then. It didn’t surprise him. Not really. If anyone aside from him would have that sense, it would be her.
“I think it is.”
“And you think I can help?”
Straight to the heart of it, as always.
“No one else knows it like you,” Loshak said.
Something that was half-wince, half-smile tugged at the corner of her mouth for half a breath, pulling her scar so that a series of tiny puckers appeared along the edges. Just as quickly, it vanished.
“Do you remember what you promised me? When he first escaped?”
Loshak swallowed, feeling like the resulting sound was exaggerated to emphasize his discomfort.
He nodded. “I remember.”
He’d promised he would find Leonard Stump. That he wouldn’t rest until the man that had taken her and killed her best friend was locked behind a steel door and ten inches of reinforced concrete.
He’d been young then. Naive enough to assume the good guys always won. Arrogant enough to think it would be easy to track Stump down. Thoughtless enough to believe he could make a promise like that and keep it.
She bobbed her head once, perhaps glad that he hadn’t offered some kind of excuse for failing her.
“Well… I guess you better come in, then.”
She pushed the screen door open a few inches. Loshak caught the handle, pulled it wide enough to step through, and disappeared into the house.
Chapter 14
Claire found her way to the highway that night and managed to flag down a minivan, an awkward task with her hands bound at the wrist.
An already frazzled night got very, very blurry after that.
These days the only images she really remembers are the glare of the headlights and the face of the driver that stopped to help her — a man who looked remarkably like Santa Claus. White beard. Glasses perched at the very tip of his nose.
He drove to a gas station two exits down the road, and she was so out of sorts that he had to call the police for her from the pay phone.
Within two hours, Loshak and the other investigators had interviewed her, and it was the information she provided that led to Stump’s arrest some 14 hours later.
Police set up roadblocks forming a radius around the area where Claire had escaped, and an officer at one of the checkpoints spotted a pair of pink converse All-Stars in the backseat of a Mercury Sable. The owner of the vehicle was taken into custody.
Stump gave only a PO Box as his local address, but police turned up the cabin some hours later. His prints were everywhere along with what looked like several weeks worth of trash shoved in a small shed behind the main building. A few small items among the garbage could be tied to other local victims.
At last, the world had a face and a name to attach to these awful crimes.
Leonard Stump.
The national media swarmed anything and everything involving the case. They plastered his face everywhere.
Claire managed to avoid most of the spotlight by refusing all interview requests, despite the tenacity of the media. She had to change her phone number three times. Loshak kept in touch with her during the buildup to the trial.
But there never was any trial.
Six weeks after the arrest, Stump escaped while at the Carson City courthouse for a preliminary hearing. It was believed that he climbed out of a bathroom window, using a stolen winter coat to avoid notice on the street as he slipped away.
Sometimes the simplest escapes are best. It reminded Loshak of Ted Bundy jumping out of a second story window and stealing a car.
The eastern edge of the Humboltd-Toiyabe National Forest lies less than two miles from that courthouse. Along with most of the other investigators, Loshak figured Stump fled into the park and used the many cabins and camping areas to evade the numerous search parties that pursued him throughout the winter of ‘93. When Spring came with no fresh signs, they gave up. And while some of the investigators floated the idea that Stump might have perished somewhere in the forest, Loshak always knew better.
Tammy Podolak was never found — living or dead — though most assumed her to be Stump’s last victim.
Until now.
The Violet Darger series
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- The Violet Darger series -
Dead End Girl (Book 1)
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Image in a Cracked Mirror (A Violet Darger Novella)
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Killing Season (Book 2)
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The Last Victim (A Violet Darger Novella)
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The Scattered and the Dead series
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Casting Shadows Everywhere
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The Clowns
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- About the Authors -
Tim McBain writes because life is short, and he wants to make something awesome before he dies. Additionally, he likes to move it, move it.
You can connect with Tim on Twitter at @realtimmcbain or via email at [email protected].
L.T. Vargus grew up in Hell, Michigan, which is a lot smaller, quieter, and less fiery than one might imagine. When not click-clacking away at the keyboard, she can be found sewing, fantasizing about food, and rotting her brain in front of the TV.
If you want to wax poetic about pizza or cats, you can contact L.T. (the L is for Lex) at [email protected] or on Twitter @ltvargus.
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