by Eddie Jones
I whirled.
Nothing behind me. Just the rattle of dead leaves snatched by an autumn wind. I searched the forest, straining to see into the blackness. Once more there came a chilling groan. It seemed to envelop me as though a phantom creature hovered by my side. The hairs on my neck stiffened; tightness gripped my throat.
There it is again!
Slowly I lifted my eyes.
Poke Salad Annie dangled by her feet. Despite the vine around her ankles, she’d managed to keep her knees together and her dress from fluttering over her head, and her long arms worked the gag over her mouth, trying to loosen it. It was tight!
She pointed, and I followed her wide-eyed gaze. She seemed to be studying something on the ground.
“Another trap?” I asked.
She moved her head in the affirmative.
I crouched. “Here?”
She blinked.
I swept the ax head across ferns in a slow helicopter motion. I’d made almost a full circle when suddenly a lasso coiled among the ferns snared the ax head. The handle leapt from my hand and went shooting skyward. The ax made a horrific crash as it smashed into a tree. Oscillating back and forth like a bungee jumper, the ax dangled overhead like some macabre executioner’s weapon.
In disbelief I stared upward. “Great, perfect.” I balled my fists on my hips and turned toward the old woman. “Anything else I should watch out for?”
“Mumm isfff caaah!”
“Say again, I didn’t understand.”
My sarcasm was a nervous reaction to the panic I felt bubbling inside me. Without the ax I had no way to defend myself. Worse, I now I had no idea where the zombie girl was. As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt bad. It wasn’t the old woman’s fault I lost the ax. I also felt bad I couldn’t help her down, but she was, like, fifteen feet up in the air.
“Mumm aaurgh!” She was waving her arms now, gesturing at a break in the forest.
The shadowy tunnel of limbs hinted at a path. I examined the ground, inspecting every leafy fern. Taking small, careful steps, I approached the opening, peeled back thorny branches, and peered in.
There comes a point in any expedition when you know you should turn back. Admit you messed up and back away before you do something really, really dumb — like bump into a living, breathing zombie. I had reached that point hours earlier. If I’d been smart, I would have booted up my phone. Sure, it might have downloaded a virus from the Crime Watchers website. Then again, maybe not. I stepped onto the path. With a violent shriek, glossy black wings shot past my head. I labored to slow my breathing but could not. I was in full flight mode, ready to run screaming back to the shack.
I pressed on, leaving the old woman behind me.
About ten paces in, the path stopped. Palm fronds lay scattered over the ground. Slivers of moonlight broke through the treetops, illuminating something like a campsite or worship area. Conch shells lay arranged in a circular pattern, marking the outer edges of the place. In the center stood a cross, two benches, and a single palmetto tree.
Kat sat slumped forward with her chin resting on her chest and her back against the tree trunk.
Her hands lay in her lap, bound at the wrists with rope. There remained just enough of the moon’s glow bleeding through the forest dome for me to make out the fist-size bruise on her right cheek. I couldn’t tell if she was alive or not, but I feared the worst. She still wore her Palmetto Islands Marina ball cap, only now the bill hid her large opal eyes. A wide strip of tape sealed her mouth.
I wanted to run to her. I wanted to cut loose her bindings, hold her close, and tell her it would be okay. Kat had been my first and only real friend on Palmetto Island. She’d sought me out the night Wendy went missing and been the one who encouraged me to visit Poke Salad Annie. She was my cheerleader, always upbeat, nudging me in the ribs in a playful sort of way.
And now she’d come back for me and paid a heavy price.
Jogging past the benches, I hurried toward her. But I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d looked around first and checked things out. Part of it was out of guilt. She’d come back for me. But part of it was something else. A longing to be of importance to someone my own age in a way I never had been before. Love was too large a word. Love was the word of my parents, and look what had become of them. But I couldn’t deny I was fond of her. I found her accent and folksy sayings funny.
I almost made it.
Another few steps and I would have.
But as I jogged past the wooden cross, I felt the palm fronds beneath my feet give way. For a split second I saw the earth yawn as if to swallow me. Then I slammed face first into cool, damp dirt. Air exploded from my lungs. My cheek cracked against something sharp and hard. I lay there for a few moments unable to move. I kept trying to make my lungs work. Breaths came in short gasps. When I could finally lift my head, I saw the grave was maybe four feet deep and covered with bones. I was about to attempt to crawl out, but heard someone approaching.
I jerked my head up. In the radiance of the harvest moon, Heidi May Laveau stood over me. A sickly smile spread across her face.
“Ring-a-round the rosie,
A pocket full of posies,
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down.”
My plan had worked. Laveau had taken the bait. Only problem was, now I was trapped.
Quickly I looked around for a foothold. If I move fast enough, maybe I can climb out and run back to the shack. Before I sprang, the dead girl pivoted, put her hands up, and … tumbled backward!
She fell into the grave as if in slow motion. Her head was turned, eyes looking down, as if trying to find a place to land. Her momentum carried her over and back and down. She hit her head. There was a loud snap. It was the sound of bone snapping or vertebrae shattering. Heidi May Laveau folded into a crumpled heap of decomposing flesh amongst a bed of bones.
For several long seconds I knelt there too stunned to move. Finally I summoned the courage to check and see if she was really, really dead. With trembling hands I brushed back the bangs of Heidi May Laveau. My thumb brushed across her forehead, found a seam along the hairline, and picked at its edge. Slowly I peeled her face back. I pulled rubbery skin over brow, nose, and chin until I found myself looking into the eyes of real estate sales assistant Matthew Carter. Carter expelled a chilling groan, then nothing more.
“Told you the undead come alive at dusk.”
The booming voice called from above. I twisted and stared up at the dark figure standing over me.
“Don’t get too comfy; I got a bed made special just for you.”
The moon’s shadow fell across the man’s face, making it impossible to get a clear look.
I scampered away from the grotesque body lying next to me and cowered in a corner of the pit. “Who are you?”
“Your worst nightmare, Caden, your worst nightmare. Sweet dreams.”
From out of nowhere a gun appeared in the man’s hand. I felt a sharp electric pain in my chest and a sudden sinking sensation. The impact spun me, slamming me against the damp, earthen wall. My hands went to my chest. Through blurry eyes I studied the missile-shaped dart protruding from my shirt. My legs buckled. I crumpled into a heap, toppling forward on my face. Blackness descended like a veil and the idea passed through my mind that this was the last I would see of this life.
Before I could consider the weight of that terrible thought, a heaviness pressed me into the moist dirt and I was no more.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ON MY DEATHBED
Night.
A time of shuttered windows and bolted doors.
Night.
A time when monsters hide beneath your bed.
Night.
A time of death and darkness.
From somewhere beyond the groggy haze, the stench of burning meat pulled me awake. In my nightmare I had been trying to run from an alligator. The creature had escaped from the small pond behind our rented condo and shot toward my bike with the speed o
f a cheetah. Lizard claws tore away large chunks of grass while I tried to pedal away. In the dream I could not make my feet work. When I looked down I saw that my pant leg was caught in the chain, but by then the gator was upon me, its jaws opened wide, hook-shaped teeth dripping blood. The beast emitted a loud hissing sound, like a truck’s air brakes, and chomped down, pulling on my leg until …
I blinked open my eyes. My face, arms, and neck were soaked from the heavy mist that pressed down upon me. The crescent moon sailed in and out of fog until lost behind a veil of grayness. Straining every muscle in my neck, I lifted my head and looked around.
I lay staked to a muddy creek bank with my ankles and wrists secured by ropes looped through four thick wooden stakes. Legs and arms stretched out spread-eagle style, feet slightly elevated on the short slope of shoreline. A campfire blazed brightly beyond the tips of my bare toes, its amber glow casting dancing shadows onto the misty marsh grass. Judging from the darkened stalks sprouting from the bog, the tide was low.
Dead low.
Back home in Kansas my father uses Daddy Ray’s barbeque sauce when cooking ribs. Or did, when we had a home and a deck and gas grill. Daddy Ray’s is a special blend that’s packed in mason jars and sold out of the back of Mr. Raymond’s pickup truck. No label on the jars. No FDA approval, either. A quart goes for ten dollars but it’s worth twice that. Except when Dad burns the ribs to a crisp. Then, not even Daddy Ray’s barbeque sauce can make the meat edible.
The carcass roasting over the spit appeared very, very well done — as did the rest of Heidi May Laveau.
The charred husk had been burned beyond recognition. No way to know if the thing on the skewer was animal or human, but I feared the worst. I feared the scorched dress smoldering on campfire embers was all that remained of Matthew Carter. Not that it mattered. I had a new monster to battle. One exceedingly more dangerous than a make-believe zombie.
“Had an uncle one time who bought a cadaver from a medical school.” I turned my eyes away from the sickening sight and toward the sound of the man’s voice. “He had it shipped to his farm outside of Denver. This was back in the sixties. Back then you could do that sort of thing without people asking lots of questions.”
The man sat at the edge of my peripheral vision. He sat on a driftwood log with his back to me. He sat watching the creek the way a fisherman does when he’s waiting for a fish to bite. I thought about what Kat said regarding Officer McDonald and her uncle. Sometimes he and Uncle Phil will wet a hook together … For several terrifying seconds I wondered if I’d guessed wrong about the identity of Wendy’s kidnapper.
“Cadaver showed up in a wooden crate. Deliveryman dropped it off on my uncle’s front porch. I would have loved to see the look on that driver’s face when he unloaded that package.”
The talking man had broad shoulders and a bull’s neck. An ax rested against his thigh. The old woman’s ax, maybe. The one snatched from my hand.
“Now my uncle had in mind to get him a skeleton. You know, like you used to see in old doctor’s offices. The ones where the bones are all hooked together with wire. So what he did was, he took that cadaver and put it into a metal barrel and tried to boil the meat off. You have any idea how long you have to cook a thing like that?”
The man’s cowboy twang set my heart to pounding. I knew that voice, recognized the silhouette of that muscled man. He haunted me in my dreams. And now I knew beyond a doubt I’d been right about the identity of Wendy’s kidnapper. Problem was, I figured it out a half step too late.
“Three days that body stewed. Fourth day, my uncle got the idea he’d bury the body out back in his yard and let worms and bugs take care of things. That’s how you get an elk rack, you know. Take the head and plant it deep. Come back in six months and you got yourself a clean rack. Add a little bleach and it’s good enough to mount.”
Cold water tickled my fingers. I jerked my head around and stared in horror at the surging tide. The tide had turned. Ripples sloshed up the muddy bank. The knuckles on my outstretched right hand appeared as small islands on a black sea.
“Uncle went to Wyoming on a hunting trip. Stayed gone two weeks. When he got home he found his prized cadaver missing. You know why they bury a body six feet under?”
All my attention remained directed at the expanding creek and my sunken hand. The rope cinched around my wrist became a gray dam holding back the flood. Then it, too, vanished.
“Hey!” The ax head jolted my ankle and sent a sharp pain up my leg. “I asked you a question.”
In a tired voice I replied, “Because if you bury a body six feet down, animals can’t smell the corpse rotting.”
I forced myself to turn away from the encroaching tide. Given the speed of the current and gradual incline of the bank, I figured I had five minutes tops before I was underwater. Instead of panic, a strange calmness settled over me. Or maybe it was the beginning stages of shock.
I fixed my stare at the hulking shape. “Where’s my sister?”
I needed answers. Not that answers would save me. I had no doubt that unless something changed, and fast, the muddy creek bank would become my deathbed.
The man stood and stretched. “She’s around.”
“You said you would swap me for her.”
The man strolled over. Squatting on his heels, he peered down at me. “Ever seen how a gator kills its victim? What they do is, they take a body under and shove it under a log. Sort of like a dog burying a bone.” He gave one of the ropes a tug, testing the firmness of the stake. “When they’re good and hungry they come back. I’m thinking you’ll make a bite-size snack, Caden.”
Trying to sound more confident than I felt, I replied, “You can’t murder people and get away with it.”
Patrick Gabrovski leaned close to my ear and whispered, “Have so far, Caden. Have so far.”
“No, you killed Bill Bell and got caught. I made sure of it.”
“That was Pat Garrett, Wild West gunslinger and renegade actor. Besides, haven’t you heard? I’m dead. Drove my truck into a bridge abutment this side of Loveland Pass. They had to identify my remains from dental records. Nasty business, burning a body. Stinks something awful.” Gabrovski cut his eyes toward the blackened carcass. “’Course, I’m pretty good at grilling. Hard part was inserting fake dentures into the gums of that hiker. Did you like the way I signed that fake letter of recommendation ‘K.G.B. Savior’?”
“Was that a clue?”
“Killed … Gabrovski … Burned. Figured I’d toss you a bone. Shame you didn’t figure it out.”
“How do you know I didn’t?”
“If you had, you wouldn’t be sprawled out on this mud bank like you are.”
I tried to swallow, but given the angle of my head, the saliva caught in my throat and I emitted a hacking, gagging sound.
“Better get used to it, Caden. In a few minutes that choking sound is the only noise you’ll make.”
I told myself to stay calm, not to worry. That as long as I kept him talking I had a chance. But deep down I knew I was a dead man.
Pushing down the panic I felt, I said, “Neat trick, getting Matthew Carter to dress up like a zombie. How’d you talk him into doing that?”
“Ego. Carter had his heart set on becoming an actor. I convinced him I was filming another Blair Witch Project and wanted to cast him as the star.”
“And he believed you?”
“I still have a few connections in LA. Not as many as I did, thanks to you and what happened in Deadwood Canyon. But I found an out-of-work studio producer to fake a casting call in Wilmington, North Carolina. Your boy Carter drove up. He had no idea he was the only person auditioning for the role. He came back here, I met with him at McDonald’s townhome and explained how the first scene would go. He thought your sister was great, by the way. Kept telling me she was a natural.”
He stood and returned to the campfire. “Bad thing about Carter was his attitude.” Using the ax head he poked the carcass. A chunk of
meat fell onto the embers and sizzled. “The boy had a hard time following orders.”
I tried to shake off the mental image of Carter hacked to pieces and shoved onto the skewer but I couldn’t. Fog trapped the stench of burned meat until that was all I could smell. “Why the zombie outfit? Seems like involving Carter was a huge risk.”
“I needed to make you look foolish. It worked, too. Your parents — what’s their opinion of you right now?”
“That I’m a liar and can’t be trusted.”
“There you go, same as what people think of me.”
“But you killed someone.” He whirled and with one hand swung the ax over his head. My heart stopped. The blade shimmered in the campfire’s light. Then, like a lumberjack, he gently rested the long stock of the handle on his shoulder.
“If I’m dead,” I said almost in a half whisper, “what difference does it make what people think of me?”
“Legacy, Caden, legacy. Character is the only thing we leave behind. How a man lived is what folks think of him. You stole my reputation from me when you pinned Bill Bell’s death on me.”
“No, Gabrovski, you did that when you pulled the trigger.”
“Thing is, I can repair my reputation. And I will, just as soon as I’m finished with you.”
“How?”
He stood over me, a wicked grin spreading across his face.
It hit me: our Crime Watchers website. “Oh, I get it. You think by gaining access to the FBI database you can alter the evidence against you. Or maybe create a new identity.”
“I’m going to miss having you around, Caden, I really am.”
Ripples lapped at my earlobes. I tested the stakes but there was no play at all, none.
“My parents are looking for me. I’m sure Kat told them where I am.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t put much stock in getting help from your mom and dad. They’re … tied up at the moment.”
Salt water kissed my lips. The tide surged past my elbow, washing up to my armpit and sending my pulse pounding in my ears. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure of my plan. Baiting Wendy’s kidnapper had been a huge mistake, I saw that now.