by Alice Ayden
“You were the one that set fire to your house.”
“It wasn’t my house. It was some dingy shack at the back of Stone Hill’s property. It’s too bad the rest of the Stonston Morgans weren’t inside.”
“It killed your parents.”
Natalie shrugged.
Cora frowned. “You killed them before the fire was set, didn’t you?”
Natalie smiled. “Let’s just say, I made sure they suffered.”
Cora didn’t know what she was after. Would talking make Natalie reveal more. She doubted, but she continued. “How did you know Johnston was like you?”
“One summer, I used this abandoned barn. I must have been absorbed with my studies on this runaway. I had his head in a vice. He cried and begged. So undignified. After I heard his bones snap, I turned around, and Johnston stood there.” Natalie smiled as if remembering a cherished thought. “He didn’t look scared. Like he’d been there for awhile watching what I did. The moment I saw him, I knew what he was. He helped me dispose of what remained which I thought rather decent. In exchange, I told him your unique memory and all the things we could do to you without anyone knowing. He was already obsessed with you so it didn’t take much.”
“You’re pathetic.” Cora lingered on a precariously brittle ledge. She focused through the nagging voice in her head screaming at her to stop. She focused through the fear that should have incapacitated her.
Natalie breathed slower to stay in control. “I can hear a heartbeat from across the room, notice the pupils jump as the blood rushes through the body, and take people to the edge of sanity until nothing human remains. Did you know most of the species can be reduced to guttural echoes?”
“You found something you’re good at. Good for you. Maybe you can write a self-help book. How to be a better narcissistic parasit—”
Natalie grabbed Cora’s throat with the speed of a Great Blue Heron snatching a fish from a murky pond. “Clever little thing, aren’t you?” Her voice more normal and her breathing steady, Natalie regained control. “You insult so I attack. Then you’ll forget? You cannot insult me.”
“I just did.”
Cora’s vision darkened as Natalie’s grip tightened. She let go as Cora grabbed her throat and coughed. “You’ll have to work harder for your emancipation. Remember Cora, I take advantage of circumstances. Imagine what I’m thinking now. I can scan a crowd and know which ones are like Johnston. Imagine how many I’ve come across and what they would do to someone like you.”
Cora didn’t react. She didn’t want to give Natalie the satisfaction.
Natalie grinned. “You should thank me for lifting you from banality, but will you still be as glib standing over the grave of those you could have and should have saved?”
Cora couldn’t look at her anymore. She rushed out of her room, down the side stairs, and out to the side yard. She waited to make sure Natalie didn’t follow her. She didn’t.
Maines smiled at Cora as he talked with a woman Cora didn’t recognize.
“Mija, Marie. She’s been missing since...” The woman searched in her purse for a tissue as a few black hairs broke free from their bright blue barrettes.
Cora had never realized the blessing of the missing memories. She didn’t want to know how many times someone could be stabbed before they lost consciousness...what Johnston did to revive them so he could consume their fear...when the vocal cords would refuse to scream anymore...
“The police found… But that couldn’t be Marie.” The woman struggled with a picture. She handed it to Maines. “Do you know my Marie?”
Cora stepped closer to see the picture of the beautiful Marie in a soccer uniform with her waist length hair braided with a tiny yellow ribbon. Maines handed the picture back to the woman.
“Please remember us.”
Cora heard Marie speak those words Christmas Eve in the cellar.
Maines spoke to the woman in Spanish. Cora didn’t understand what they were saying. She wondered how many families would pilgrimage to Ausmor for answers. It wasn’t Ausmor’s sin. Natalie placed Ausmor and everyone at risk. If Natalie continued, more would die.
Cora could have run back inside and grabbed the journal, but the journal wasn’t Cora’s only leverage. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as her thoughts cleared. Her next move would seal Natalie’s fate. “Forgive me.”
Chapter 41: Sacrifice
Cora dug at the tarps and crime scene tape. She noticed the cellar door’s new padlock, but it was unlocked. She hesitated. She didn’t want to entertain the thought that slowly crept like greedy moss: she didn’t tell anyone where she’d be. And, more importantly, who unlocked the door?
She stared at the stone walls she had seen so often in her jagged memories and felt the walls. “Where’s the?” Her fingers finally found the loose brick that opened a small entrance that led further into the original cellar.
Cora peered into the darkness. Something told her not to enter the tiny space. She should get a flash light. She should tell someone. She should do many things. A slight noise as if someone shifted emerged from the darkness.
Cora crawled through the opening into a large tunnel about six feet tall and three feet wide. In the past, the tunnel fled out towards hope not in towards death. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness; although, the tunnel wasn’t pitch black. Light emanated from the end of it. Legend had it her Great-Great-Great-Aunt May Austen oversaw the tunnel as a way to spirit souls away before the Civil War. Cora remembered seeing the tunnel only once as a child when she and Evan investigated it. The walls and ceiling were made of old bricks, and mortar fell regularly in clumps that sounded of shifting sand. The dangerous conditions forced the cellar’s closure, and the hedge and tarps should have kept it hidden.
Cora used her hands to guide her, but the cold bricks chilled. The hope of finding one of the missing drove her. Fear of finding something else prevented her from rushing. After walking about fifty feet, the tunnel opened to the original cellar. Cora’s eyes darted around the stone walls. Nothing. Cora knew it wouldn’t be that easy. The police had already searched.
The lone bulb only lit a small portion of the cellar, but it was already on. The rest remained in shadow. “It’s just a cellar.” Cora lied to calm herself. Glad she couldn’t distinguish blood from dirt, Cora thanked the bulb for being low wattage. In the dark corner, she visualized someone reaching out to her.
Once inside, various scents assaulted her: old dirt merged with Johnston. The cold air stabbed through Cora’s sweatshirt, and the stove Natalie had chained herself to waited helplessly as a shy accomplice. Cora stood in silence for a long time as she imagined the dead surrounding her. She wondered their thoughts. Blame? Anger? Pity? The oppressive air smothered her. Would evil leave behind some stain of itself? Cora shook off the feeling of being watched.
Cora looked up. “Right under the New Wing.” The cellar should have been destroyed, but the tunnel’s historic attributes prevented it.
The sense of being watched and hunted drowned out Cora’s thoughts. “There’s no one else here. But what noise did I hear?” She studied the walls closer. “Why does it look like they’re...” Cora couldn’t think of a description. “Undulating?” The walls rolled in waves like an ocean. “Blood. The walls are painted with blood.” She hadn’t known that part. Cora closed her eyes and concentrated on her purpose.
The stale air hid secrets of generations. Tears and screams evaporated into the walls. “I’m so sorry. Marie. Amber. Jessica. Sally. Anne. The ones whose names I don’t know. Those in the past and those recent.” Cora forced herself to continue. “Please forgive me for what I couldn’t do. It should have been me. If I had only been stronger. I know what I have to do. Forgive me.”
A hinge creaked. Cora squinted through the shadows towards the entrance to the tunnel. She refused to believe the stories that murderous Dragoo Morgan haunted the place. There were enough living things to fear; she wouldn’t fear the dead. Another hinge crea
ked as part of the ceiling gave way. Natalie jumped down. Cora saw a glimpse of ceiling before Natalie slammed what looked like a vent. Cora jumped back. Speechless, she stared at Natalie.
“Didn’t know about the access to the New Wing, did you?” Natalie smiled.
Cora couldn’t imagine missing an opening in the floor that would drop to the cellar.
“It’s hidden in the shadows. Johnston and I made it years ago under the floor boards in Bitty’s storage room.”
Cora closed her eyes. The room no one dared enter. Then she realized what it meant. “You could get into the house from here? You could come and go as you liked?” The thoughts crawled over Cora.
“Uh huh,” Natalie stated matter of factly. “We could hide in your room. Behind the drapes. In the armoire. Maybe under your bed as you slept. Imagine Johnston’s fumbling fingers touching everything. I am Ausmor, Cora. That’s what I tried to tell you. I am part of it.” Natalie patted the walls then wiped the dried blood off her hands. “I am the foundation. I live in the floors and ceilings and cellars. I am the blood and soul of the house.”
Cora shook her head. “You’re evil. Ausmor isn’t.”
Natalie smirked. “Want me to tell you how many have been killed here? These walls were the last they saw. Can’t you hear their screams?” She closed her eyes and listened to the symphony. “Beautiful. The fear that permeates. So many lives extinguished. So many souls lost. As long as Ausmor stands, I live.”
Cora didn’t want to show panic, but she couldn’t help herself. She rested her hands on her knees to stop her head from swirling. Ausmor shouldn’t be cursed with so much evil.
“Efram Morgan used this room with his slaves, and his son, Dragoo, used it for his experiments. I consider Dragoo my mentor. I read his letters.”
“Everyone’s read his letters.”
Natalie shook her head. “Not the ones I found. The others were Disney’s version. They outlined so many cherished memories of violence and degradations.” Natalie pointed to the corner. “There used to be a table he made himself. Chains to keep his victims steady. Implements on the wall for Dragoo’s more voracious appetites. The things he did to his sister. The things he did to Grand Maeve.”
Cora grimaced and clenched her jaw to prevent herself from getting sick.
“A creative sadist. A liberated psychopath. He named every muscle sliced, every bone obliterated. He even had names for the different screams and pleadings. He understood how much blood could be spilled and how much pain inflicted before his victims broke. That moment.” Natalie stared into space as she visualized. “That precipice between sanity and desecration. You should be proud to be related to him.”
“I’m so sorry for whatever happened to you that made you this way. But I hope it was painful.”
Natalie’s eyes narrowed. “I would be very careful if I were you. You’re just a pile of blood and bones, and I get rid of most things that irritate.”
“But here I am.” Cora stood her ground. “You can’t kill me. Your ego would shatter.” Cora looked deep into Natalie’s eyes. A blankness stared back as if Cora stared into a pool of oil. Cora wasn’t used to confrontation. It made her stomach knot up like a half hearted attempt at crochet. Perhaps choosing Natalie to start asserting herself wasn’t the smartest thing to do. She ignored the self-preservation that told her to stop. “Without me, you’re nothing. Just another useless, nameless psychotic who should be put down.”
Natalie’s breathing quickened, but her eyes didn’t stray from Cora. Like a focused cheetah tracking a limping gazelle, she inched closer. “You’re chipped and stained and about to be permanently broken.”
Cora heard voices in the tunnel.
Natalie grinned as she fell to her knees. “You’ll know I’m coming. You just won’t know what’s coming.” She started crying.
Detectives Maines and Weever fled down the tunnel and into the cellar with their weapons drawn. Lillia quickly followed and ran to Cora.
Maines looked at Cora. “Are you alright?”
Cora nodded.
“I found her journal. Sick little freak.” Lillia held onto the journal Cora had read. Her hands shook. “I figured you’d come here.”
“There’s an opening from Bitty’s storage room.” Cora pointed up.
Maines used his flashlight to find a steel vent with old hinges three sizes too big hidden in the ceiling.
Lillia’s eyes widened. “You mean Johnston could?” She shivered as she inspected Natalie. She handed the journal to Detective Maines.
Maines flipped it open and read a few pages. He swallowed hard, glanced at Cora, regained his composure, and turned to Natalie.
Natalie slowly stood up. “He made me do it. I wrote those things in the journal, but Johnston made me. He made me call him Oliver. I don’t know why.” Tears streamed down her face as she spoke.
“What a mound of horse flattened shit you spew.” Lillia stomped her foot. “I knew there was something off about you. You’re not as good as you think you.”
Natalie didn’t flinch, but her grin told Lillia she enjoyed the outburst. Her victim act paused just slightly as she focused her attention. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me for what I couldn’t do. It should have been me. If I had only been stronger.”
Cora shuddered at the sound of her own words spoken just a few moments ago.
“I couldn’t tell anyone. I thought he had a partner. He would’ve killed me if I’d told.” Natalie’s grin tore through the cellar.
Maines jaw throbbed as he tried to keep his composure.
“I’ll never be convicted. There’s too much evidence against Johnston. Nothing implicates me. All evidence places me here in the cellar as his victim.”
“But I mean, hello!” Lillia stopped as she thought about what to say. “Yeah, Johnston was an evil twit, and I hope there’s a hell for him to rot in. I just wish he was still alive so I could slice his intestines, tear the flesh off his eyelids, slash his balls, leave him in the forest for the fire ants, rip out his—”
“Lillia.” Cora stopped the violent rant.
Lillia took a deep breath as the detectives glanced at each other. “Just prove where Johnston slithered when those girls were kidnapped. That shouldn’t be difficult. If he has an alibi, then little miss death row will be bye bye.”
Natalie smiled at Lillia. “I knew Johnston’s whereabouts every second of every day. I made sure his leash was short. He has no alibi for the times those girls were taken.” Natalie paused giving enough time for her words to sink in. “I’m very good at what I do.”
Lillia smiled back. “You’re not that good.”
Natalie grinned. “You should have visited the cellar. Johnston would have carved your cousin’s name into your bones.”
Cora and Lillia glanced at Maines.
“Didn’t know all the victims were tagged with your name, did you?” Natalie asked. “Some carved in flesh. Some carved in bone. Some while still alive. They were all a substitute Cora.”
“That’s it.” Maines took out his handcuffs. “Natalie Wells, you are under arrest.”
“Johnston’s DNA matches the sexual assaults,” Natalie calmly said. “His mommy gave him the knife. Even she’ll corroborate that. His car transported the warm bodies to and the rotting carcasses from. Plenty of his living victims will come forward. His obsession with Cora?” Natalie waited. “No one saw me outside the cellar. I have the scars to prove my story. No prosecutor will touch the case. The jury pool’s tainted, and your main suspect’s in the morgue.”
Cora caught the glimpse the detectives gave each other.
Lillia waited for the detectives to counter. “Tell us you have something on this thing.”
Weever looked at Maines and spoke first. “We can’t really comment on an active investigation.” She read Natalie her rights.
Natalie didn’t listen to Weever. “Because of the trauma, I’ll be sent to a nice mental health facility. The doctors will believe anything I might
have done resulted from my ordeal experienced at the hands of that horrible Johnston.” Natalie smirked. “And it’s not narcissism, Cora, if I admire the facts. By the way, look down.”
Cora hadn’t noticed part of the dirt wasn’t as smooth as the rest.
Weever looked down as well. “This wasn’t here before. It’s fresh.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered what you did, Cora. You couldn’t have saved them, but it was amusing watching you squirm.”
“What?” Lillia looked back and forth between Natalie and Cora. “What is she talking about? What am I missing? I hate missing something!”
Natalie greedily absorbed each second and couldn’t stop smiling. “Don’t you remember what I asked you, Cora? How do you feel standing on a grave?”
Cora stared at Natalie.
“It’s Marie. The one you were so quick to champion. You met her mother.”
The words sliced into Cora.
Natalie smiled. “Be sure to tell her mother she was still alive when she came here, and it’s your fault she’s dead.”
Chapter 42: Malum
Detectives Maines and Weever watched through the two way mirror as Natalie talked to the psychiatrist in an interrogation room.
“She’s good,” Maines said.
“Scary good.” Weever studied the psychiatrist a bit. “Does Doctor...what’s his name?”
Maines opened a file. “Vinders.”
“Does Vinders have to look like Freud?”
Maines shrugged.
Natalie never faltered. She teary eyed in the appropriate places, had difficulty making eye contact, wrung the tissue she held until shredded, and slowly sipped her water. She looked down a lot, which implied remorse or shame. She never had the sly smile she used in the cellar. She never hinted about her true nature.
Maines had no doubt her discipline inspired Johnston’s submission. Of course Maines believed a dead roach’s antenna could have intimidated Johnston. The detectives needed a clue, a trace to follow. They wanted to believe Lillia’s assertion that Natalie wasn’t that good, but they’d been watching her interaction with the psychiatrist; after two and a half hours they still didn’t have a foothold. Natalie didn’t flash a weird smile or smirk. The doctor never glanced at them as if to tell them, ‘There’s the weakness you can exploit.’