Cold Image

by Leslie A. Kelly

  “What this place is really like is the setting for a Wes Craven flick.” That sounded better. Freddy Krueger with the knived hands seemed more like fictional Derek Monahan’s style.

  “Oooh, Swamp Thing.”

  His brow cocking, he glanced at her and saw her tiny smile. The super-smart, cool and collected doctor knew her pop culture. “I’m impressed.”

  “I was a teenager once. Considering my parents were always gone and I was always alone once Isaac went to bed, I developed quite a thing for movies.”

  “I’d think you’d avoid those movies. It sounds like your life was already a horror show.”

  She took no offense. How could she, given her descriptions of her childhood? “Maybe I had fantasies of my parents meeting a guy in a hockey mask.”

  “Twisted, Doc.”

  “Believe me, I have psychoanalyzed myself for that one.”

  Crazy to be having a movie conversation at this moment. But he knew they’d both needed it to relieve some of the tension. The weight of the place was suffocating.

  He started walking, and she took up step beside him. They hadn’t gone more than a few paces when she stumbled over a gnarled root protruding from the base of a tree. Derek reached out and grabbed her, one hand low on her abdomen, his other arm catching her around the waist.

  They froze, and he felt the way her breaths heaved as she steadied herself. If only Derek could. Damn it all, he had no business being attracted to a client, but it was hard to remember the redhead was that when they were standing here in the dark, as close as a whisper. How could he resist her when she’d made him laugh? When she sometimes brought out a tender side he never showed to anyone? Sure, he was protective of those in trouble or in danger. But he wasn’t usually emotional about it. Something about her was different. He wasn’t sure he liked it.

  “You okay?” he ground out.

  “Fine. Sorry—new boots. They’re a little clunky. I’m not used to walking in them yet.”

  “Be careful.”

  She nodded, and he dropped his arms, stepping back. Their stares locked for a moment, her eyes reflecting soft light from the sky. Derek cursed himself again for noticing.

  “Let’s go.”

  Nodding, she looked down as they began creeping along again. They remained silent, the atmosphere determining the mood. Any lightness was forgotten in the murk and slime.

  “So where is this torture chamber known as Building 13?”

  “I’m not sure, but it’s a fair distance from the main building. Everything’s falling down and overgrown. Isaac said there’s a narrow path that’s hard to find. It goes through part of the swamp, with snakes and alligators, and they make the boys walk through it.”

  Fucking bastards.

  “One of Isaac’s friends was bitten by a cottonmouth.”

  He was glad she hadn’t seen the snakes they’d passed, or what he thought were the eyes of an alligator not more than twenty feet from where they’d just walked.

  “I wish Isaac had reached out and contacted me the night he was locked in there. He didn’t tell me about it until a few days later, and he pretended it wasn’t so bad.”

  “Why didn’t he make a brain-to-brain call?”

  “I suspect because he knew I was halfway across the world and couldn’t help him. He probably didn’t want to worry me.”

  The more he heard about him, the more he knew Isaac had been a pretty good kid. He definitely hadn’t deserved to land here. Bad enough for kids to know they were being educated—jailed—in a facility that had once been a tuberculosis hospital, and then turned into a mental institution in the 1950’s. This punishment building sounded like a four-walled nightmare. Frankly, if it had been him, he’d have preferred paddling. Then again, if it had been him—already strong and perpetually furious by fifteen—he’d have broken the damn paddle over the head of anybody who’d tried to use it.

  “You ready to go on?” she asked, apparently realizing he’d regained control of himself. The muscles in his arms and shoulders were still bunched, and his hands remained fisted, but the black rage in front of his eyes was gone, and he could at least see—and think—again.

  “Yeah.”

  They moved through the darkness as the peaty woods gave way to true swamp. His shoes sank deeper with every footstep. He wished he could concentrate on that, and not on her terrified brother locked in a torture chamber overnight. Courtesy of his own mother and father.

  At least his memories of his murdered parents were all good ones…well, except the last time he’d seen them, re-enacting their deaths in his childhood home. The killers had been caught, tried and convicted, so Derek didn’t regret going through the agonizing experience. It had cleared his Dad’s name. But he was glad Abe, the executor of the estate, had acted on Derek’s behalf and had the place torn down, and the land sold.

  Of course, as he’d learned over the years, his ability didn’t always require a building. He could see images of murders in places where rooms had once stood. That’s why he would never return to Phoenix. Abe said the new owners had built another house on the spot, but he wasn’t taking any chances that their new home didn’t conceal what happened on a regular basis in his father’s old study. A recording of their deaths. Replaying over and over for eternity.

  Hearing a quiet, distressed cry, he looked back to see Kate struggling to get out of an algae-covered bog. Her feet were sinking into the mess and she was trapped, mud up to her ankles. He quickly turned back to take her arm and help her get unstuck.

  “Clunky or not, I’m glad I bought these boots.” She freed one foot and placed it on a drier spot.

  “You okay?”

  “I had visions of quicksand. But yes, I’m fine.”

  He didn’t let go as they began again, keeping his hand on her arm as they moved ever deeper into the mire. Christ, it was no wonder they didn’t need fences here; any kid would be terrified of coming through this shit alone at night. He was a grown-ass man, with a .9mm in his pocket, and it was freaking him out a little.

  The pines and live oaks had given way to twisted, gnarled bald cypress trees. Mangroves crackled and reeds made a soft whikking sound in the night breeze. The Spanish moss made a forest on its own; there was no avoiding it now. The water was stagnant, coated with slimy algae, and it stunk of rot and decay.

  “So maybe this is worse than I anticipated.”

  He saw her glance around, side to side, her eyes on the ground. Looking for reptiles. The fact that she didn’t react meant her eyes must not be as good as his. Right now, a big-ass snake was looped in a tree not six feet away.

  “Okay,” he said, stepping between her and the animal. “I think we must be far enough. Let’s move back toward the outer edge, where it’s not so wet.”

  “We won’t be too close to the buildings?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Maybe they would. But he wasn’t about to risk cottonmouth bites.

  He felt her tension ease as they turned and headed inward, away from the muck, onto dryer land and finally that soft pine carpet. The noxious smells faded, the moss thinned, and their feet were on solid ground.

  “Please don’t tell me we have to go back that way.”

  “No promises.” Her car was parked all the way at the northernmost edge of the grounds. If the school was totally quiet and deserted, maybe they could risk heading back without going deep into the swamp. Honestly, though, he wasn’t counting on it. The now-short hairs on the back of his neck told him he would never be able to let his guard down in this corner of hell.

  Reaching the last of the dense woods, they emerged into a grassy copse of trees that were more spread out, hugging the shadows to remain as hidden as possible. They were nearly even with the southernmost end of the main building, its jagged edges and lines not at all softened by moonlight. Its exterior was a gothic monstrosity that could easily be pegged as a place where evil had been done. How can any parents leave a kid here?

  “Oh, thank
God,” she muttered, swiping her hands down her arms to wipe away bits of cobweb, dried leaves, and algae. She noticed him staring at the building, about 50 yards away. “Ugly, isn’t it? The inside is new and modern, but there’s nothing you can do about the late eighteen-hundreds chamber of horrors motif on the outside.”

  “It’s definitely not my new favorite place in the world,” he said, noticing a long piece of moss twisted in her auburn hair. Not even thinking about it, he reached up and untangled it, his fingers brushing her high cheekbones.

  Soft skin. Beautiful face. Shit. He shouldn’t have touched her. Now he wanted to stroke those strong, high cheekbones, and caress the full, pink lips.

  She froze, watching him in surprise. Feeling stupid, he took the gray strand of yuck and dangled it in front of her before tossing it away.

  “Thanks,” she said. He could see way her throat trembled as she swallowed.

  “No problem. FYI, this stuff is full of mites and bugs. You might want to wash your hair really well tonight.”

  She grimaced. “Thanks for the warning. Oh, and thanks for trying to block my view of all the snakes and the two alligators.”

  It was his turn to be startled. She chuckled at his expression. “I don’t think you even noticed the bats flying overhead, in and out of the trees.”

  Bats. Ick. Flying fucking rodents. What could be worse?

  “Thanks for not pointing those….”

  His voice trailed off when he saw the woman. Running. Screaming.

  Of course, he couldn’t hear her. No-one could. Her scream was silent, echoing through the night for years…decades. She begged for help in silence, trapped in the loop of her long-ago death, with no one to answer that cry. He couldn’t help her. But he could respect her enough to watch what had happened to her.

  Wearing a dirty hospital gown that flapped around her thin, wasted legs, she headed directly toward the swamp. Her stringy blond hair flew behind her as she ran for safety she would never reach. Drops of black blood dripped from her bare feet. Mottled bruises, some black, some faded, dotted her skin. She kept turning her head without breaking stride, her face a mask of terror as she watched for pursuers.

  He took a deep breath, two, and counted to ten. He didn’t close his eyes, or turn away. Since that first awful experience when he was twelve, he’d always felt like he owed it to them to witness victims’ deaths, no matter how gruesome.

  So he followed her as she ran into the swampy woods from which they’d emerged. Kate came, too, silent and watchful.

  Although she was running, the woman couldn’t move fast on her bloody feet, so he kept up with her with several long strides. Before she’d gotten too far in, she was mown down by someone who’d been chasing her. He watched her fly forward as her pursuer shoved her from behind. She faceplanted, not even able to block her fall with her hands. Though she must have been hurt, she immediately struggled to rise, blood dripping from her nose and her mouth. She hadn’t even gotten to her knees before she was lifted bodily off the dirt and flung onto her back.

  She screamed and twisted. Sobbed. Finally, she turned her face to the right, as if needing to look away from what was happening to her.

  She looked right into Derek’s eyes.

  He knew that wasn’t so, of course. She wasn’t here, wasn’t actually seeing him. She’d simply looked into the distance—probably thinking about the freedom she’d been trying to reach before she’d been assaulted and, given the fact that he was witnessing this, murdered.

  His were the only eyes that would ever see her last moments. She deserved his full attention. Hating his ability, he used it the only way he knew how.

  Knowing this wasn’t a real ghost, just as his parents hadn’t been when he’d seen them die, made it easier. He’d learned the truth of what he saw from his aunt, who had a smidge of his ability. Aunt Beth had explained that it was as if somebody had made an old-fashioned stamp, like the kind bankers might have once used to smash Approved or Rejected on a loan application. But these stamps imprinted violent incidents on the world, leaving a smeary image of a few moments in time that were invisible to all but those completely attuned to them.

  They damned the spot forever.

  A hand fell on his forearm. “What are you seeing? Is it a boy? My brother?”

  He didn’t ask how she knew. He imagined he looked like a…well, like a person seeing a ghost. Sometimes, he wished that was all he could see. A happy, friendly, flirtatious—if Julia and Olivia were to be believed about their spirit friends—ghost. Instead, he got just the images of the brutal ends of tragic lives.

  He didn’t doubt that poor woman’s had been terrifying, and wondered who she was, who she’d been, other than a probably forgotten victim.

  “Not a boy. Not recent. It’s a woman. She looks like a patient; probably from when this was an asylum, not a hospital. She was running away from someone. He’s got her now.”

  “Oh, God.”

  He drew in another deep, cleansing breath and blew it out of his mouth as the scene neared its violent conclusion. His promise to be there until the end meant he couldn’t look over at the doctor, but he felt her move her hand up to his shoulder, a gentle offer of support, and a reminder he wasn’t alone.

  Despite having spent hours together over the weekend, researching and preparing for tonight’s trek, and giving him a pretty decent haircut, she was still really a stranger. But she knew exactly what he needed, like Abe had that day when Derek had peered into his father’s study and stumbled into a lifetime of violence and death.

  Life. He needed proof of life, somebody warm, with blood running through their veins, touching him to remind him the real world was still there. He was still in it.

  “It’s almost over,” he muttered.

  Now. Now she was dying. Her attacker had done his filthy deed and would kill her to hide the evidence of it.

  “What’s almost over?”

  “The murder,” he managed to mumble as the victim’s protruding eyes and gaping mouth—tongue dangling out the side—told him she’d been strangled.

  A bad way to go. One he’d seen plenty of times before.

  Finally, it ended. She disappeared. He remained where he was, not going back toward the southernmost side of the building, knowing in a few seconds she would come running away from it. He didn’t need to see that again. He had imprinted her face on his memory. Tomorrow, he would start looking for her, to find out who she was, and if she’d gotten any justice. If not, well, there might not be much he could do from such a distance in time, but he’d damn sure try.

  “Eternal rest grant unto her, oh Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon her,” he whispered, as he always did the first time he bore witness to a victim’s final, horrible moments on this earth. It was the same prayer Abe had whispered the day his parents had died.

  Once he’d released a last slow breath, he turned away from the scene. He’d done what he considered his duty. He didn’t need to see it again.

  “I don’t understand,” the doctor said, looking confused. “What was it you saw?”

  He thought she knew, which was why she’d agreed with Julia that he was the one who should work this case. A minute ago, she had asked about a teenage boy, so she must be aware of something. But not everything.

  “You know I see violent deaths, right?”

  “I know you see ghosts.”

  He shook his head. “Not ghosts. I’ve never seen a ghost.”

  She looked up at him, her brow furrowed. “Now I really don’t get it.”

  He’d explained this so many times, to so many people and knew the easiest way to make them understand. “Imagine somebody taking an old black-and-white video camera and recording the last few minutes of someone’s violent death. It’s then set to replay on a loop, over and over, at the spot where it happened.” Well, usually at the spot. There had been a few occasions when it had been an object holding the imprint. That had happened last fall, when they were investigating some m
urders at a carnival in north Florida.

  It took a second, then came the gasp. “Wait, you see victims reenacting their murders?”

  “Not always murder. Sometimes it’s deadly accidents. Suicides. And they’re not reliving it—like I said, I don’t see ghosts.”

  “Then what are they?”

  “I call them death imprints. Like something stamped on a spot and repeating for eternity, long after the soul or spirit of the person is gone.”

  “Eternity….” She sounded horrified.

  Frankly, so was he. He wondered if the images ever faded away. He’d never seen evidence of that, but hoped someday his parents would stop being brutally murdered.

  “How awful. Constant death. Every death.”

  “Not every death, only the violent ones. They leave a mark, and I see it.”

  “All of it,” she pressed.

  He nodded once, knowing how carefully she watched him, though her face was shadowed by the trees.

  “I can’t believe you don’t live on a deserted island. Savannah—God, a city that old?”

  “I avoid certain areas.” Particularly the dangerous ones with long, ugly pasts. As she’d pointed out, in a city so old, there were lots of those. Lots of opportunities to be startled out of a regular day by walking into the path of a mob hit from Prohibition days, or shootouts with bank robbers, or innocent victims dragged into back alleys.

  “I imagine you have a mental map of where it’s safe to visit.”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, glad she got it and he didn’t have to explain much.

  “That’s a wise thing to do. Your mind probably can’t handle the constant barrage.”

  “You shrinking me, Doc?”

  “No. I’m trying to put myself in your place.”

  He didn’t know anybody who could do that. His Aunt Beth’s ability was minor, just a glimmer here and there. Fortunately, his Dad had known what his sister could do, and had, one night while drunk, told his buddy Abe. That was why his pseudo-uncle had trusted him, believing Derek about what he saw in Dad’s office. Abe had pressured the cops until they did a proper investigation and acknowledged the scene was a double murder, not a murder-suicide.