The Massacre Mechanism
By Michael Richan
By the author:
The Downwinders series:
Blood Oath, Blood River
The Impossible Coin
The Graves of Plague Canyon
The Blackham Mansion Haunting
The Massacre Mechanism
The River series:
The Bank of the River
Residual
A Haunting in Oregon
Ghosts of Our Fathers
Eximere
The Suicide Forest
Devil’s Throat
The Diablo Horror
The Haunting at Grays Harbor
It Walks At Night
The Cycle of the Shen
A Christmas Haunting at Point No Point
The Dark River series:
A
The Blood Gardener
All three series are part of The River Universe, and there is crossover of some characters and plots. For a suggested reading order, see the Author’s Website.
Copyright 2016 by Michael Richan
All Rights Reserved.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.
Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
www.michaelrichan.com
ASIN: B01BZIPBWW
Published by Dantull (149716129)
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Post Script
Chapter One
Winn threw the covers from his body and sat up in bed, holding his head in his hands. He made a low growl, a moan of frustration and irritation at not being able to sleep.
In the moments just before sleep came, something else arrived instead: symbols. A series of ciphers passed through his mind, repeating over and over. They were accompanied by a nagging anxiety, the sense that the symbols were about to disappear at any second, and that he had to decipher them quickly before they dissolved.
“Arrrrrgh!” he belted as he rose from the bed, looking for something to write on. He felt the cool air from the conditioner hit his naked body, causing him to wake even more, heightening his anxiety. The symbols were still there in his mind, but they were fading quickly.
His hand landed on a pen and he grabbed the nearest piece of paper. Without turning on the light he scratched the symbols down, hoping to capture them before they disappeared from his head. When he had completed the last one, he opened his eyes. The room was dark; he couldn’t see anything except the glowing light from his clock. He reached for the lamp by his bed and turned it on.
Etched across a Chinese takeout menu were a dozen symbols he’d never encountered before. Seeing them in ink instead of the transient images in his mind caused him to calm a little, relaxing at their permanence. He took a couple of slow, deep breaths, feeling his heart rate slow down. He looked again at the symbols, rotating the page to see if it helped to make sense of them. It didn’t.
He closed his eyes once more and the symbols were gone. He knew they would be. They only came at that moment when his body was leaving the conscious world and preparing to sleep, that delicate stage where it was still easy to be woken back up, but just seconds from dreamland. And since it was the same series of symbols he’d tried to ignore the previous night, he was beginning to think he was the recipient of a message that could only be received when he was in that slightly altered state. He lowered his head back into his hands.
Have I seen these before somewhere? he wondered. A billboard? A TV show? Maybe it’s like when you wake up with a song running through your head, a song that was planted there several days ago when you heard it over the speakers in a grocery store. You’re hardly aware you even heard it, but it was enough to trip some synapse in your brain that allowed the whole song to come back as you wake and stumble from the bed to the bathroom.
No, he thought, trying to make sense of what he felt. It’s not that. It’s a message.
A message? Why? Who would be trying to communicate with me this way?
Then he sat upright, sleep leaving his system rapidly, replaced by the adrenaline of a new thought.
Deem!
It’s from Deem!
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“Have another croissant,” Carma said, gesturing to the gigantic platter of pastry in the center of the table. “Be sure to try the chocolate.”
Winn reached for one, picking it carefully and adding it to the three half-eaten croissants already on his plate.
“These are tasty, Carma,” David said, sitting across the table from Winn. He’d downed several already, and Carma beamed at him appreciatively.
“I spent the last three days working on them,” she replied, “and I think I’ve finally perfected the recipe. The trick is the butter, which is fiddly to handle on hot days.”
“Do you think it could be from her?” Winn asked Carma, breaking off a tip of the crispy roll and placing it in his mouth.
Carma examined the paper in her hands. “First things first,” she said, rising from the table and disappearing into her small office. She returned with a pad and pencil.
“What are you doing?” David asked.
“Transcribing these,” she replied, not looking up from the pad.
“You know what it says?” David asked.
“I guess I should have said copying,” she replied. “I’d like to examine them not surrounded by Kung Pao chicken and Moo Shu pork. It’s distracting.”
Winn watched as Carma carefully re-created the symbols he’d scribbled onto the menu, impressed with her skill. When she finished there were a dozen or so, reading cleanly on her pad. She turned it to Winn.
“Looks right?” she asked.
Winn studied the characters. “That’s it. That’s what I saw.”
“As you were about to fall asleep?” David asked.
“Exactly,” Winn answered. “Not just last night. The night before, too.”
Carma turned the pad back. She laid it on the table in front of her and studied the symbols intently. Winn saw the edge of her mouth curl into a smile and she leaned back in her chair, lighting a long, thin cigarette, using her lips to exhale the smoke directly into the air above her head. She looked at him.
“Any ideas?” Winn asked.
“None,” Carma replied, inhaling a second drag. “No idea at all.”
“Great,” Winn replied, taking another bite of croissant. “For a moment there I thought you might recognize it. I saw you smile.”
“That,” Carma said, taking a third drag, “was the moment I realized I was going to have a cigarette.”
“Can I see them?” David asked, and Carma handed him the pad. He scanned the drawings and set the pad down. Winn looked at him expectantly.
“They seem like a made-up language,” David said, “like something you might find in a video game, or on the internet. Did you look there?”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Winn replied. “They’re not text. I can’t type them into a search box.”
David whipped out his phone. “Maybe just visually compare them,” he said, searching. “I’ll see if anything is close.”
“I think it’s from Deem,” Winn said. “I think she’s trying to communicate with me.”
He heard Carma sigh and watched as she took another long drag on her cigarette.
“It’s possible, isn’t it?” Winn asked. “This place Lyman’s got her locked in — it’s possible she might be able to get a message out, somehow, right? It’s not airtight.”
“It’s pretty airtight,” Carma replied.
“If there’s a way in, there’s a way out,” Winn said.
“There’s a way out,” Carma answered, “but it’s impossible to find. That’s the whole point of a soul cage.”
“Well then, how?” Winn asked. “How are we going to get Deem out of there?”
“I’ve told you before,” Carma said. “They’ll all be released when Lyman releases them. That’s the only way.”
“What’s he waiting for?” Winn asked, growing frustrated. “I’m going down there and ask him.”
“You’ll get the same answer you got last time,” Carma replied, stamping out her cigarette in an ashtray. “He’s been assembling the spirits inside the cage for years, planning for an attack on local church authorities. He’s not going to waste all that work and let them go just to free Deem, as much as we’d like him to, and as much as I’m sure he’d like to. Deem is fine for now. When the time comes to release the others, she’ll be free as well.”
“It’s been a while,” David said. “People are going to become suspicious at her absence.”
“Who?” Carma asked. “You’re her closest friends. She didn’t have a job, there weren’t people who saw her every day.”
“Her mother,” David offered.
“Down in Arizona,” Carma replied. “Hasn’t called. I check her phone every night.”
“Warren,” Winn said.
“The fight they had seems to have developed into a complete split,” Carma answered. “And speaking of Warren, I need you both to track him again today when he gets off his shift. We suspect something is going down.”
“Going down?” David asked.
“There’s chatter,” Carma replied. “People on the move. We think Warren is relaying messages. I need you to try and intercept them today. Lyman’s worried that something big is about to happen.”
“Something to do with Dayton?” Winn asked. “Or the other church elders?”
“Most likely connected with him, yes,” Carma replied, reaching for a croissant. She deftly peeled back the top crust of the pastry, revealing a soft, flaky interior. “Ohhh!” she softly swooned, looking at the delicate layers.
“I don’t like all this pussyfooting around Warren,” David said. “I wish we could just confront him.”
“And let him know we’re on to him?” Carma replied. “What a silly idea. We’re getting good intel from him. We don’t want to jeopardize that.”
“You’d think he’d care what’s happened to Deem,” David replied.
“Don’t you go and spoil this now,” Carma said, waving a long, bony finger in the air at David. “Whatever you think of him, he’s useful right now. Don’t muck that up!”
“I was never buying the whole cowboy thing, anyway,” Winn said. “Seemed inauthentic.”
“Yeah,” David echoed. “A poser.”
“We picked up information that he’ll be at a feed store to drop something after his shift,” Carma said. “I’d guess around 1. I suggest you locate his truck while he’s working and tail him, since ‘feed store’ could mean a dozen different places around here.”
“Alright,” Winn replied. “But what about these symbols, Carma? Unless you can tell me for certain that Deem can’t get a message out of the soul cage, that’s what I think they are — a message from her. I need to find out what it means.”
“I wouldn’t claim a communication couldn’t get out,” Carma replied. “Anything’s possible in this world. It would be nice to hear from her.”
David was still flipping through his phone. “They don’t look like anything I’m seeing online,” he said. “There are a lot of fake languages people have invented, so there might be more to go through. But so far, your symbols are unique.”
Carma peeled another layer from her croissant and held it in front of her face, admiring it. “Awan,” she said.
“Awan?” Winn asked.
“Awan knows someone who’s into symbols and languages,” Carma said. “I remember him mentioning it to me once; a friend of his, I believe.”
“Can I have this?” Winn asked, reaching for Carma’s pad.
“Of course,” she replied, watching as he ripped the page from it and folded it away into his pocket.
Winn stood from the table and placed his napkin next to his plate. He reached for his cup of coffee and downed what remained in two quick gulps.
“After we deal with Warren,” he said, “I’m off to Indian Springs to see Awan.” He turned to David. “You coming?”
David stood. “I can do the Warren thing, but I can’t go to Indian Springs with you. I have a final tomorrow; gotta study the rest of the day. May we be excused from the table, Carma?”
Carma smiled pleasantly and nodded. They turned to leave, but Winn returned and quickly grabbed another pastry for the road. “Amazing croissants, Carma!” he said, giving her one of his disarmingly charming smiles.
She leaned back in her chair. “Such well-mannered and correctly opinioned young men!” she commented to herself as they left the house.
Chapter Two
“God, I hate following him on this road!” David whined. “There’s so few cars out here, it’s obvious we’re tailing him.”
“I’ll hang back as far as I dare,” Winn replied. “We don’t want to lose him.”
“We should take my car next time,” David said.
“What, you don’t like my Jeep?” Winn asked, glancing in the rear-view mirror to see if anyone was behind them.
“I love the Jeep,” David replied. “But this is the second time we’ve used it to follow him. It might be wise to alternate.”
“I guess you’re right,” Winn said. “If you think you could tolerate me in your car.”
“Tolerate?” David asked, looking surprised. “Why do you say that?”
“You keep it cleaner than a Safeway chicken,” Winn replied. “I might dirty it up.”
Winn saw David looking around the Jeep. “You’re giving me shit because I keep my car clean? Cleaner than yours?”
“You’re a little obsessed with it,” Winn replied. “I’ve not known many college football players, but I have to guess most of them have a wrapper or two in their cars. Maybe an empty can.”
“I like to keep it clean. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing wrong with it, I just don’t know many people who are so fastidious about it.”
“There’s plenty you don’t know about me,” David replied. Winn was about to answer him when a car appeared in the lane to their left, speeding around them.
“Shit!” Winn said, watching as the car moved back into their lane after passing, narrowly missing an oncoming car. “Where’d he come from?” Winn glanced nervously into the rear view mirror. It was empty.
“He must be going ninety,” David replied.
“I’m doing sixty-five,” Winn said. “He might be going a hundred. Maybe faster.”
As they crested a small hill outside Hurricane, Winn could see Warren’s truck pulling over to the side of the road, with the car that had sped around them right behind it.
“He’s stopping,” David observed. “That car got him to pull over.”
Winn lowered his speed as they approached the scene. “Shit, I can’t stop. It’ll look worse if I turn around. Get down so they don’t see you.”
David slid down in the seat until his head was below the level of the window. As Winn drove by the stopped cars, he saw the man from the car that had passed them hand something to Warren. Warren’s head began to turn to look at him, and Winn whipped his head to the left, h
oping Warren hadn’t seen his face.
“Shit,” Winn said again. “He looked at me.”
“Did he recognize you?” David said, slowly rising back up in the seat.
“Don’t know. I turned away. He might have missed me, but I don’t know.”
“What do we do now?”
“There’s a parking lot by the storage bays about ten blocks ahead. We’ll wait there for him to pass us.”
“What if he turns before that?”
“I can’t follow him if I’m ahead of him!” Winn said. “And I can’t wait out in the open. We’ll hide by the storage bays, and if he doesn’t come by within a couple of minutes, we’ll backtrack.”
Winn slowed his Jeep and pulled into the parking lot, backing it next to the front office of the storage facility, where it was perfectly concealed from vehicles approaching from the south. They waited.
“It’s been a minute,” David said, checking his watch. “How long do we wait?”
“We don’t know how long it took him to get going after he stopped for that guy,” Winn replied. “Let’s give it a couple more.”
“What was that, anyway? Why’d he stop him?”
“It looked like the guy handed him something. It was shiny; maybe made of glass. Perhaps he forgot it.”
“Must have been pretty important for him to race after Warren like that.”
“How long now?”
“Two minutes.”
“OK, now I’m getting nervous,” Winn replied, and he pulled his truck onto the street, heading in the direction they’d come. They had not gone more than a block when Warren’s truck appeared in the distance, coming their way.
“He’s gonna see us!” David said. “What do we do?”
“I gotta keep going,” Winn said. “It’ll look weird if we stop.”
They saw the left signal flash on Warren’s truck, and several blocks ahead of them it slowed and turned.
“Thank god!” David said. Winn could see the kid’s body was completely tensed up; one of his hands was wrapped around the edge of the bucket seat, the knuckles white.
The Massacre Mechanism (The Downwinders Book 5) Page 1