Cold Image

by Leslie A. Kelly

  The path widened as they drew closer. It looked like it was kept cut back…probably to make it easier to force tormented boys inside. While the old carriage house had not retained a piece of wood, there was still a door here. A thick, heavy one that looked as wide as a headboard and as thick as a wall. It was open a few inches.

  Derek waved the flashlight. Its beam caught and reflected off an unlocked, heavy-duty deadbolt fastened to the exterior wall. “Try not to touch anything.”

  She nodded, her stomach churning at the sight of that shiny, new lock. It looked strong enough to resist the desperate pounding of any terrified teenager.

  Derek looked over his shoulder. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Why don’t you wait out here?”

  “Please, let’s just get it over with.”

  The oppressive weight of the hot night pressed down on her like a shroud. The humidity was brutal, the air so thick it was like trying to suck breaths through cheesecloth. Sweat beaded on her forehead and dripped down her face. She’d lost her hat, and her hair had come loose of its braid. It hung in lank, sticky strips down her back.

  Nothing was worse, however, than the knowledge that they’d finally found the place she had heard about from Isaac all those months ago. The place where he’d been dumped and abandoned overnight.

  “You sure you won’t change your mind?” Derek asked.

  She shook her head, breathing through her mouth, not wanting to inhale the air wafting from inside that place. Its own history made it reek of fear and darkness.

  Derek reached into a deep pocket and drew out his small, holstered handgun. “Let me look first,” he whispered as he freed it and held it down to his side.

  Stepping in cautiously, he jerked the flashlight around to shine its beam all over the interior.

  That he did not immediately jump back and pull her to safety told her there was no one lurking within.

  That he did not immediately tell her they could go to the car and wait for the police told her there was no body, either.

  One thing his posture did tell her. When he flinched, going ramrod straight, she knew he was seeing something that had taken place before they got here.

  He shoved the flashlight away, stepped back and to the side of the path into the bramble, and pulled her with him.

  She suddenly understood what he was seeing. “Andrews?”

  He answered with a sharp nod, looking straight ahead, his jaw rigid and his whole body as hard as the stone that had been used to build this place.

  “He was killed in there?”

  “No, but that’s where the attack started. He just came out and staggered past us. Whoever killed him caught up with him not far from here.”

  Good lord. The ghost—imprint, reminder, rerun, VHS recording, whatever you wanted to call it—of a murdered man had just gone by them, invisible to her, but shown in ghastly detail to him. If he hadn’t moved so quickly, might it have gone right through him? She couldn’t stand the thought.

  “It’s clear now,” he said, re-holstering his weapon. “Sixty seconds. No more.”

  Derek reached for her hand. She suspected he wanted to look inside and get back out before Andrews’ murder started its replay.

  He stepped through the doorway, and she went in after him. As soon as she was out from under the misty, humid sky, she wanted to be back outside. She’d seen nothing more than a rusty old hospital bed topped by a filthy, moldy mattress, when vomit rose up into her throat.

  The interior was one large room, broken tiles embedded in dirt beneath their feet. It crunched with every step. The vines that had enfolded the exterior had not made it in here, or had been cut out when the owners of this so-called school had decorated their perfect time-out corner.

  Isaac had told her there were pictures…and yes, there were. She recognized some of them; they were famous images of old, barbaric mental treatments, straight out of textbooks and off the Internet. Someone had actually printed them out and taped them up in here, like kids setting up a haunted house to scare their friends.

  This was a staged dungeon, conceived and laid out for one reason: to terrify boys who got out of line. There was a set, and props, only the poor students never realized they were the actors.

  Some of the props, she saw, were very authentic. Such as the tools used long ago to restrain, discipline, or lobotomize patients. A filthy straight jacket hung from a peg on the wall, and metal restraint cuffs were chained to the foot of the bed. Jesus.

  “You okay?” Derek whispered, turning to look at her.

  “No. Are you?”

  “Not really.” He moved the beam around the room again, shining it into crevices and banishing shadows. “What’s that?”

  She didn’t see anything, but followed as he went to a corner and crouched, running his fingertips down the wall. He mumbled something under his breath, and she realized he was reading graffiti that had been scratched into the stone.

  “J. B. Richards. Frank Carter. Burn in hell. I hate you all. Somebody kill Fenton please. Johnny. Connor G. I want to go home. Isaac….” He looked up at her, falling silent.

  Kate knelt beside him on the filthy floor. Lifting her hand until her fingers were right beside Derek’s, she rubbed them over the line where he’d stopped.

  Isaac Lincoln.

  She stared at her brother’s name, imagining the time he’d spent in this awful, tainted place. Grief she’d successfully kept buried for months rose up her body, sticking in her throat. All the unvoiced whispers that she’d kept deep inside her—that he wasn’t really gone, that a miracle would occur, that she would get him back—evaporated in the gloom.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered, her voice breaking.

  Her certainty over all these months had concealed the truth. Kate had convinced the world she knew what she was talking about when she claimed Isaac was dead. But she’d never entirely managed to convince herself. Not until right now.

  His name was carved in that wall. He had been left here in fear overnight for some imagined infraction. This school truly was as evil as she thought.

  Her brother really had died.

  A sob finally freed itself from her mouth…from her soul. Tears she had thought had ended months ago poured from her eyes. And Derek, sweet, gruff, tender Derek, picked her up in his arms again and carried her outside. He strode past the brutal, bloody crime scene, the bench, and the hedge, to the narrow path. She wept with every step.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, realizing she was probably soaking his shirt.

  “Shh, it’s all right. Cry honey. Let yourself feel it. It’s the only way you will ever be able to let him go.”

  “I thought I had,” she mumbled against his neck.

  “I know. You’re so strong. So damned capable. But there are just some losses that you can’t will away. Some pains that are always there.”

  If anyone knew, it was this man. She thought back to the story he’d told her about the first time he’d seen one of his visions. No matter how she grieved for Isaac, no matter how much she wanted to know how, when, and where he’d died, she would never—ever—want to see it, as Derek had witnessed the murders of his parents. That would take strength she had never even realized a human being was capable of.

  He continued to hold her in the darkness, not far from scenes of unimaginable horror, protecting her and letting her know she was all right. Her tears slowly dried, although the ache in her chest remained. Finally, she sniffed and raised her head to look at him.

  “You’re always carrying me,” she mumbled.

  “And I always will if you need me to.” He leaned in and kissed her, bringing her focus to him, not to the all-around-them.

  Once he saw her tears were gone, he lowered her to the ground. Kate felt…not better, exactly, but at least cried-out for now.

  “You’re going to leave me at the car and search, aren’t you?” she asked, knowing it was true.

  “Yes.”

&n
bsp; “Please don’t. Don’t go alone.”

  “Kate, we talked about this. I have to…”

  His words died and he froze. His cocked head and intense stare said he was straining to discover something. To hear something.

  She heard it too.

  Singing. Strange, eerie singing.

  Oh where have you been, Billy boy, Billy boy? Oh where have you been, charming Billy?

  Kate grabbed Derek’s arm, feeling his stone-hard tension. She didn’t doubt he recognized the voice, too. It was the same strange, off-tune lilt they had followed for so long in these woods their first night here.

  It grew louder, the echoes hitting the mist and the canopy, surrounding them. She had no idea where the singer was. She only knew one thing.

  He was headed right for them.

  CHAPTER 12

  Derek tried to come up with an innocent reason for a random person to walk through a bug-and-reptile-infested swamp at night, singing a weird-ass song as he went.

  He couldn’t think of a single damn one.

  Whoever the singer was, he had to be involved with Andrews’ murder. And judging by the strange tone of the voice that was pitched high like a child’s, he might very well be crazy. Crazy, violent, and armed with a knife he’d used to stab a man in the back.

  Part of him wanted to plant himself in the center of this path and confront the monster emerging from the black lagoon. But he didn’t want Kate in the line of fire, and he didn’t want to leave her alone.

  “We need to hide,” she whispered, grabbing his arm.

  He sneered at the suggestion that he hide from this evil-on-two-legs.

  “Derek, come on. It’s not because I’m scared. We have to watch and see who it is! If he catches sight of us, he’ll run and we’ll be back to a swamp chase.”

  Of course. This singing psycho had stayed ahead of them for hours the last time. They couldn’t risk scaring him off.

  As usual, she was absolutely right. Smart Kate. Sensible Kate. Brave, heartbroken Kate. The most remarkable woman he’d ever met.

  The one he suddenly realized he had fallen in love with.

  Fuck of a time to figure that out.

  “Let’s go,” he snapped, taking her hand and dragging her with him into a dense, muddy stand of cypress and black gum trees. He’d put the flashlight in his pocket when he carried her outside, which was probably a good thing considering its beam might have travelled far and warned off the approaching man. But the darkness made running a bitch, and they both stumbled as brush and vines leapt up from the ground like thorny barbed wire and tried to drag them down.

  Finally reaching the biggest tree in view, the one with the widest trunk, he led her around it, right into a pond. His boots squelched as he sank to his shins in stagnant water. A frog leapt out of the way, an angry bat swooped overhead, and something long and slim slithered into the lily-pad covered pool behind them.

  Praying their fast dash hadn’t warned off the man with the almost childish voice, he peered around the tree, eyeing the path.

  He’s done gone to seek a wife, then he’ll kill her with a knife, that’s where he’s gone, darlin’ Billy.

  The ugly song was growing louder. Thankfully, their quick dash hadn’t alerted him to their presence. Turning to face Kate, he laid a finger across his lips. She nodded, understanding.

  He drew his gun. They waited, barely breathing. Seconds ticked by in his brain, at least sixty of them. At ninety, Derek became aware of a change in the quality of the light. The tree canopy had not blown open and suddenly flooded the area with moonlight. This was man-made.

  Moving slowly, an inch at a time, he peered around again. The person they sought had come close enough to reveal a swinging lantern hanging from what looked like a cart, or a big wheelbarrow. The dark figure pushing it was hunched forward, straining under the weight of whatever it contained. His head was down, his face in shadow.

  Look up, God damn you. You know you want to look over at that hellhole building, at the spot where you killed him.

  As if Derek’s mental orders had shot straight into the man’s brain, he suddenly did raise his head. But he didn’t look toward the building where he’d murdered Andrews. Instead, he swung the other way and peered directly toward the trees where they stood. Like an animal, he had sensed danger and gone on alert. The twisted song died and the night was filled with nothing but the creaks of trees and the croaks of animals.

  Derek froze, cursing the darkness. The position of the lantern made the person behind it difficult to make out. He could determine the man was tall. He wore a floppy hat and a long coat that flapped around his shins. It gleamed, reflecting the lantern’s light, and he suspected it was made of plastic or some waterproof material. That would make cleanup easier and more discreet.

  This motherfucker might sound crazy, but he was sane enough to take precautions.

  The man from the swamp lowered his cart and stepped to the side of it. He had his back to Derek, which increased the frustration. A hand went up and unfastened the lantern, taking it off the cart and lifting it high.

  Finally, he turned around, revealing his face.

  Revealing the truth.

  Derek flinched. Even as his mind tried to comprehend what he was seeing, he forced himself to freeze. If he’d jerked harder, he might have bumped into Kate, or splashed the water, giving away their position to the man he now recognized.

  He’d expected to see someone connected with the school.

  He just hadn’t expected it would be him.

  As the killer turned away and shone the lantern in another direction, Derek peered at Kate, seeing her wide, frightened eyes. She lifted her shoulders, asking a silent question. Derek leaned toward her, and she turned her head so his lips touched her ear.

  He breathed the truth to her. “It’s Chester Slate. The school custodian.”

  Her mouth fell open. She obviously remembered the man. Considering Slate was at least seventy, her surprise probably matched his own.

  Was it really possible Slate could be a serial killer, murdering strong, teenage boys? Or had Derek overlooked some reasonable excuse for someone to be out here this late? The man was a custodian and did all the odd jobs around here. By some insane chance, did he come into the swamp to dump garbage or tree trimmings?

  They had to know, to be absolutely certain. He couldn’t confront the older man with his suspicions yet. If tonight proved to be a bust, they found nothing concrete, and he had to go back to his instructor job tomorrow, Derek needed to maintain his cover. And if Slate were a killer, he couldn’t just pull a gun on him and order him to freeze. The man knew every inch of this swamp, judging by the chase he’d led them on before. He could melt away in the darkness and the trees before Derek even had time to line up a shot.

  He tucked the .9mm into the back of his pants and waited.

  After turning in a slow circle, examining everything around him, Slate finally decided he was safe. He reattached the lantern, moved behind the cart, and began struggling to push it up the narrow path again. The weight of the thing made it sink down into the mud below, but the old man got it moving. It rolled closer, and closer, until it was even with their hiding place. The lantern swaying above it shone a light on what was inside.

  A fire kindled in Derek’s brain, threatening to ignite as he saw what he’d been looking for.

  Kate saw it, too. Her gasp was soft, but not soft enough.

  The man who’d killed Sam Andrews—whose limp, bloody remains lay haphazardly in the rusty, filthy cart—heard the noise, dropped the handles, and spun toward them.

  Derek didn’t hesitate, launching from behind the tree and tearing through the muck. He was about twenty feet—less than ten seconds—away, and was determined to stop the man from fleeing. As he neared Slate and left his feet to dive on him, he realized ten seconds had been enough for Slate to draw a knife.

  Hearing Kate’s warning scream from behind him, Derek managed to jerk himself to the side. Jus
t enough to avoid a direct thrust, and only take a slice of his forearm. He still slammed hard into the man, sending them both flying.

  “You evil son of a bitch,” he snarled. They went down hard, rolling through thorns. Derek’s right fist rammed into the bramble, and the jumbled vine wrapped tight, delaying the punch he intended to use to break this sick fucker’s jaw.

  Slate took advantage of Derek’s forced immobility. Old he might be, but he was strong, with ropy muscles built by hauling dead bodies around. He fought back, jerking his knee up, trying to kick Derek in the groin. It was a near miss. Rolling back and forth, bucking, squealing like a wild animal, the killer fought hard to free himself. A surprisingly powerful punch landed on Derek’s stomach. Squealing with rage, Slate began to spit and scratch. He went for Derek’s face, clawing at him with long, yellowed nails that had smears of red underneath their tips. Only a quick jerk of his neck saved Derek’s eyes.

  “Leave off me! Leave me go.” Slate twisted and struggled, wriggling like a snake. Derek grabbed the man by the neck with one hand, gripping hard. But Slate didn’t give up, continuing to struggle. He was hot, sweaty, and wearing that slick plastic coat. Somehow, he managed to strain hard enough to free his neck, and scrambled to escape from under Derek’s bigger, heavier body.

  That’s when Kate literally stepped in. Her booted foot appeared from above them, and she stomped down brutally on Slate’s clawing hand. There was a cracking sound as something in that hand broke.

  “Awwrgh! You broke my hand!”

  “Shut up or I’ll break the other one,” she snapped, sounding as filled with fury as Derek.

  “And then I’ll shatter every other bone in your body,” Derek snapped as he tried to grip him again. “Now stop struggling.”

  The man was now hysterical, tears running down his dirty, bloody face, snot dripping from his nose. He began to scream. “I done it all, I done what I’se s’posed to do. I put them boys in the stewpot. You can’t hurt me no more. Don’t do it, don’t!”