The old woman's voice rose, her unintelligible words running together at a fever pitch. Mark's garbled cries for his mother speeded up, too, matching the old woman's cadence. The knife was barely an inch over his body now, squirrelling back and forth and around as if the woman was mixing the air over him.
The blade touched Mark's skin and he let loose another loud scream, more in terror than in pain. His cry was answered by a scream from Jackie whom Mark could just see sobbing in the corner of the cage. Behind the old woman and to the side, just within Mark's vision, Jackie's sister, Jennifer, stood smiling placidly.
The knife blade began to scratch his skin, tracing over the symbols the old woman had already painted there, raising beads of blood on his chest and stomach. His screams grew more frequent and he thrashed his bound body madly against the straps in an attempt to free himself.
"Shut up!" the old woman bellowed loudly between chants. She brought her balled-up left fist down hard on his nose and bleeding mouth like a judge hammering his gavel. Again and again she pummelled his face. A bright red explosion of pain burst in Mark's head, followed by swirls of white hot light spinning into a growing cloud of blackness.
The last thing Mark Thomas saw, as he was slipping into the black cloud forever, was the knife raised high over him, falling fast, plunging toward his naked chest. He mustered one final, pathetic scream, and died.
CHAPTER 3 8
What are little boys made of made of?
Deputy sheriff Ken Vitelli felt like a fool. He stood just outside the sheriff's office, his hand on the doorknob, his head hanging in embarrassment. He knew everyone in the station had heard the sheriff bawling him out yesterday because he hadn't put surveillance on Steve Nailer after the disappearance of Joe Conally. Since then, and with the abduction of Mark Thomas, who had last been seen in Nailer's company, Steve Nailer had become a prime suspect in the investigation of missing children in the area. And now he had disappeared.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the sheriff had just called him in again to rake him over the coals some more for not getting a forwarding address or phone number from Judy and Roger Eames before they left town. Everyone in the station house must have heard again!
Ken had been sure he had gotten the address, but when he'd pulled out the paper he'd recorded it on to show the sheriff, the paper was blank. The Eameses' proximity to Steve Nailer seemed now to be a primary lead in the disappearance of their daughter. The sheriff had called him an idiot and a clod and charged him with sloppy policework.
Vitelli didn't think the sheriff was being fair, but that wouldn't keep his fellow workers from staring or cracking jokes about him. As he walked across the station house to his office he could already hear sniggering laughter and was certain that it was at his expense. He went into his office and quickly closed the door behind him.
"I'll show him," Vitelli muttered to himself. He went to the coat tree in the corner, removed his hat, gun belt, and jacket, and put them on. He pulled the visor of the hat low to one side, pulled open the door, and swept the station house with his best steely gaze. When he was certain none of his co-workers were going to stare or laugh or make snide remarks, he walked to the dispatch desk and told the dispatcher that he would be over at the Nailers' house in Northwood.
It was the most horrible sound Jackie Nailer had ever heard. He'd heard it just for a second as Mark had screamed for the last time, but he would remember the sound for the rest of his life. It was the sound of steel plunging into flesh. It was a sound he immediately wished he would never hear again. But he knew wishes rarely come true.
The witch was methodically slicing open Mark's chest. Blood spurted onto her flabby chest and sprayed in her face. Blood ran into the metal table's gutters, running down to the bottom where Jackie watched it drip into the big glass jar at the base of the table. The witch licked blood from her lips as she worked at pulling the knife through Mark's body, sometimes sawing at a particularly tough obstruction.
After his initial scream of terror, Mark had quickly subsided into a low gurgled moaning. At one point, while the witch was sawing through a difficult spot, blood bubbled out of Mark's nose and mouth, running down his cheek in a thick red line like a clown's painted mouth gone berserk. After that he grew silent and his feeble thrashing ceased altogether.
Jackie blacked out for a moment then. He woke curled into a fetal position, retching against his knees. The witch was still at it, working the knife. Blood had stopped spurting from Mark's wounds now that his heart had stopped beating, but the witch was dripping with it. Blood painted her neck, chest, and face, dripping from her chin, running down her flat, elongated breasts and from her grossly large, excited nipples. She was grinning fiercely as she worked, her nostrils flaring as she breathed heavily. Her teeth were stained red with Mark's blood, which she kept pausing to lick from her fingers.
Jackie wanted to scream and keep on screaming, but couldn't bear to have the witch turn her blood-spattered visage his way. He clapped both hands over his mouth, fighting down the terrified, high-pitched whine and nauseating bile that were building in his throat, just waiting for a chance to erupt, and rocked himself back and forth.
The witch stopped cutting. She pulled the bloody knife from Mark's body and held it aloft once more. Streams of blood ran down her arms from her red, soaked hands and she again made invisible symbols in the air over Mark's corpse while chanting in a strange, foreign language. When she had finished her chanting, the witch handed the bloody knife to Jennifer, who stood serenely by.
To Jackie's horror, the witch thrust her hand into Mark's chest. There was a thick, squishing, awful sound that was almost as bad as the sound of the knife cutting Mark's skin. The witch tugged at something several times before finally pulling her hand free of his chest with a loud plop!
The bile in Jackie's throat surged into his mouth, hot and bitter, when he saw what the witch had removed from Mark's chest and now held aloft as if it were something cherished.
Mark's heart quivered wetly in her hands like a blob of thick gelatin. The witch spoke several weird words reverently, then brought Mark's raw, bloody heart to her mouth and began eating it.
This was the second time in twenty-four hours that the sheriff had bawled Vitelli out. Ken Vitelli mulled over that. Soon he began to fume. Yesterday it had been because he wasn't moving fast enough on the investigation, letting Steve Nailer get away; today it was for not getting a forwarding address from the Eameses.
Contrary to what the sheriff thought, Vitelli had begun to suspect Nailer might know more than he was saying about the Conally disappearance. As far as Vitelli was concerned, the sheriff was just using him as a scapegoat, dumping him with the blame for Nailer's getting away when Vitelli wasn't even officially investigating the Conally disappearance. Yesterday, when Vitelli had mentioned that to the sheriff, pointing out that it didn't come under the heading of his special bureau created to look into the disappearances of children in the area, the sheriff had made it official and dumped the Conally investigation on him, also.
The thing was, it wasn't even his fault that Nailer had slipped away. Vitelli had been asking all the teachers questions about the athletic director and had told two of his best men to talk to Nailer, keep an eye on him, and not let him leave the building before Vitelli had a chance to talk to him, yet they had let him slip through their hands.
Vitelli hadn't thought it was a very big deal at the time; he figured he could talk to Nailer later at his home. But when Mrs. Thomas notified the sheriff's department that her son, Mark, hadn't returned home from the academy yet, and a classmate came forward to relate that Nailer had kept the boy after class, Nailer had become the prime suspect in his investigation of all the recent disappearances.
When the men sent out to his home reported that his car was gone, and the house open as if someone had left in a hurry, Vitelli had become certain that Nailer was his man and was on the run. The only problem was that no one knew where Steve Nailer had run t
o, taking his family with him. An APB had been put out on their car, and surveillance of the major highways in the area had been doubled, but still nothing had turned up.
As far as he was concerned, Vitelli thought he had done a pretty good job with the investigation so far, especially considering the fact that he was putting in nineteen hours a day on it. It wasn't fair for the sheriff to get on his case just because of a couple of little mistakes.
He pulled the gray and blue sheriff's department cruiser onto Dorsey Lane and drove slowly past the Eameses' house. The driveway was empty and the house was dark. Though his main reason for driving out there at this time of night was to look around the Eameses' house to try and find some clue to where they went in Vermont, Vitelli decided to first look around the Nailers' house. His men had gone through the place yesterday afternoon when they'd come to pick him up, but after they'd let him slip through their hands at the academy, Vitelli had lost some confidence in them, to say the least. They might have overlooked some vital clue just as they had overlooked Nailer walking out of the building right under their noses.
He parked the cruiser in front of the Nailer house and got out. Like the Eameses' place, the house was as dark as the night sky. Taking a high-powered flashlight out of the glove compartment, Vitelli got out and went up the walk.
Jackie hung his head over the small puddle of bile that had surged from his mouth and tried not to listen to the terrifyingly gross sound of the witch munching on Mark's heart. Jackie wouldn't have thought it was possible, but this was a sound worse than steel cutting flesh. This was a sound that lifelong nightmares are made of. It was enough to make Jackie wish he was dead.
The sounds stopped. Jackie didn't want to look up but curiosity (killed the cat, his mother always said) got the better of him. The witch was holding what remained of the heart over her head with both hands and was walking around the perimeter of the circled star where his mother lay unconscious, strapped to the reclining chair. The witch continued her strange chanting, circling his mother six times before stopping at the head of the recliner and holding her bloody prize out over his mother's head. Slowly, the witch lowered her arms and began feeding the remains of the heart to Jackie's mother.
A severe contraction brought Diane Nailer to the brink of consciousness. Her head felt like it was filled with heavy, lead ballbearings, and her eyelids felt nailed down. She was cold all over. There was a strange restrictive tightness in her wrists and ankles that kept her from moving. Within minutes another contraction tightened her abdomen with pain. She started to cry out, but there was something in her mouth and she was chewing it. It tasted salty and had a metallic aftertaste. It was also tough to chew. She managed as best she could and swallowed, but before she could say anything another piece of the stuff was pushed between her lips.
Another contraction began, stronger than the last one. With a start, she realized she was in labor. Where was Steve? He was supposed to be there with her, coaching her through her breathing exercises. She knew she had seen him not that long ago, but couldn't quite remember when or where. The ballbearings in her head kept rolling around, making her thoughts a jumbled mess. She vaguely remembered having seen Steve in the kitchen, and there had been someone else there, too; someone she hadn't seen in a long time.
The contraction lessened and with it went some of the heaviness in her head and eyelids. She blinked, and opened her eyes. Blurry shadows and flickering lights wavered above her. Steadily, everything crystallized, becoming clear like an instant photograph that develops right before your eyes.
Her father stood by her side. In his hand he held a bowl of cut-up apples. He was feeding her pieces, one by one, smiling benevolently and filling her with a deep sense of peace.
"You're fine," her father said, his rich Italian accented voice like soothing music to her ears. It made her want to just float away and sleep. Just before she sailed completely away into happy oblivion, Diane Nailer wondered why her father's apples tasted like raw meat.
Deputy Vitelli tried the front door. It was locked. With his flashlight, he peered through the front windows into the darkened living room and dining room. He went around to the back of the house and swore when he saw the back door open. His men had told him the door had been open when they'd checked the house yesterday, but Vitelli thought they would have had the sense to close it. He swore again at their stupidity and started for the door when he heard a sound from inside the house.
Quietly, he upholstered his gun and crept to the open door. A scurrying sound came from within, then a loud thump. Vitelli gave a quick glance inside, sweeping the kitchen, and entered the house in a crouched position, ready to fire. Moving from the door to the stove he listened again to the scurrying sounds. They were coming from upstairs.
Vitelli went down the front hall, his back against the wall, his gun held up in front of him so that he was ready to drop and shoot if necessary. He gave a quick glance to the two front rooms, then cautiously started up the stairs. In the upstairs room with two student beds in it, Vitelli found the perpetrator of the noise -a couple of squirrels.
Vitelli laughed as the squirrels ran away from him, finding hiding places in the dark. It looked like his men had been right. From the way the house looked, it seemed Nailer and his family had left in a hurry. It didn't appear that they had taken their clothing or luggage, or any personal hygiene items since their closets and dressers were full of clothes, and deodorant, toothpaste, brushes, and other needed items were still in the bathroom medicine cabinet. The only thing that was missing was some clue as to where Nailer had gone.
Vitelli left the Nailers' house, closing the back door behind him, and went to his squad car. Since it was such a nice night, he decided to walk to the Eameses' house. Clicking his flashlight back on, he started up the street.
The witch dropped Mark's freshly amputated private parts into the red-hot bowl on the floor. She knelt, praying over them as they sizzled, caught fire, and filled the room with their awful smell. Jackie continued to watch numbly as she revved up the oven, put Mark's body on the collapsible table on wheels, and transferred him to the conveyor table in front of the oven.
She pulled the lever and spun the wheel to open the oven door, and pushed Mark's torn and bloody body inside. She closed the door again and turned up the flame. After a few minutes, which seemed like hours to Jackie, she turned the flame down and opened the oven door again.
Mark's body was gone. All that remained was a bulky pile of bones and ashes.
The witch reached under the conveyor belt, below the oven door, and pushed something metallic back and forth. As she did, most of the pile of Mark's ashes in the oven collapsed, then disappeared. A moment later the witch withdrew her hand from under the oven and table.
As she turned, Jackie saw that she held a small, square metal drawer. It was filled with Mark's ashes. She scooped the bones out of the oven, into the drawer, and carried them to the star/circle around Jackie's mother. With a new set of mumbled incantations, she began sprinkling Mark's remains along the perimeter of the circle.
When she finished, she replaced the drawer under the oven and turned toward the cage. "One two, buckle my shoe," she said, cackling merrily.
CHAPTER 39
1 2 3 4 5 6 7, all good children go to heaven.
Jackie couldn't get far enough away from the front of the cage. The witch unlocked the door and Jackie scrambled over the bodies of the unconscious boys, retreating to the corner where he huddled by Davy Torrez's side.
The witch, her face and entire front of her body stained with drying blood, looked at him and chuckled. "You didn't drink your milk, did you, boy?" she croaked. Jackie shook with every word. "You won't grow big and strong if you don't drink your milk," she added and laughed loudly at what she obviously thought was a good joke. Suddenly she grew very serious. "You should've drunk your milk, boy," she said in a threatening voice. She swung the cage door open and shuffled inside, pulling the collapsible gurney behind her.
/> The witch grabbed the newest boy, the one with the head wound, Mark's makeshift bandage still stuck to it, by the collar of his shirt. She dragged him onto the table and pulled it up to the carrying position. "I'll get to you yet, my little kittens," she whispered to the sleeping boys and Jackie. She pushed the gurney out of the cage, locking the door behind her.
Jennifer came over and helped the witch transfer the boy's body to the metal table with its bloody gutters. Mark's blood had barely filled the bottom of the large collection jar at the base. The witch slapped the boy's face, then grabbed his wrist and held it the way the nurse at the doctor's office did when she took Jackie's pulse. After a few moments, she dropped the wrist and reached for her large scissors. She began cutting away the boy's clothes.
Jackie lay against Davy Torrez and watched Eleanor go through the same procedures with the new boy as she had with Mark. This time, though, there was no screaming when the knife traced the painted symbols on him nor when it ripped through his chest. When the knife went into him, the boy merely gasped and let out his last breath like a sigh.
Jackie put his hands over his face and wept.
Ken Vitelli stood in front of the Eameses' house for several moments before going to the door and knocking. He tried the door and found it locked. Following the same procedure he'd used at the Nailer's house, Vitelli flashed his light in the windows and worked his way around to the back of the house.
He went to the back door, taking out his wallet and removing a plastic credit card. He grabbed the door knob as he was about to insert the card between the door and the jamb, but the door was unlocked. A sense of dread filled Vitelli. If the Eameses were in Vermont, why was their back door open? It was just like the Nailers' house. Vitelli removed his gun and proceeded into the house with caution.
Grimm Memorials Page 32