Stone Groove

by Erik Carter

  Marshall had that same sneering, cocky smile, but now Dale didn’t feel the seething rage for it that he did before. He could see through it. He could see a mind that was being controlled. Now all he had to do was confirm that he was right. With as many times as brainwashed-Marshall had cornered him with a mind game, it would be satisfying to turn the tables on him.

  “You’ve done well so far, Agent. You’ve rescued almost every soul.” The voice that had been so sinister now seemed affected, forced.

  Dale crossed his arms on the table. “May I ask you to clarify something?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You’ve got your man on the outside—this Man in Black—running your footwork. But you’re the Father. You’re the one behind everything, the one who kidnapped the missing people.”

  Marshall’s nostrils flared. “I already confessed.”

  “And you’re the one who carved out all the riddles in the stones?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “I see.” Dale paused. He sucked air through his front teeth. “We know it’s not you who’s left those messages, Dr. Marshall.”

  Marshall raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?

  “The ringing of that terrible bell.”

  Marshall stared at him blankly. “Yes, the bell. Of course.”

  “Tell me about the bell.”

  Marshall cocked his head to the side. “Trying to fool me, eh? It’s your riddle to figure out, not mine.”

  “I already have figured it out. It’s the bell from the Collective Agricultural Experiment. The clue wants me to go to the CAE tonight. What I want from you is a description of the bell.”

  Marshall’s mouth opened a couple times, trying to formulate something. “It’s the bell. The bell that rings terribly. You know this.”

  “Tell me, how big was the bell?”

  “I … It was …”

  “Where did the bell hang in the camp?”

  “The bell …”

  “When was it rung?”

  “I … I don’t …” He looked straight into Dale. His eyes moved back and forth, like he was following a tennis match. “The bell rings terribly. That is your clue. It’s your clue—”

  “It’s my clue to figure out. Yes, I heard you the first time.” Dale got up and walked toward the door.

  Marshall called out behind him. “Remember the ringing of that terrible bell? Go there at nine p.m. The bell that rings terribly. That’s your clue, Agent.”

  Dale shook his head. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

  Dale pushed through the doors into the main office of the jail, and Brown and Wilson approached him.

  “So we’ve been barking up the wrong tree the whole time?” Wilson said.

  Dale nodded. “There’s only one man behind all this—Darnell Fowler.”

  The door on the opposite side of the room burst open, and Miller ran up to them. “Sheriff, we got trouble with the girl at the hospital.”

  “What is it?” Brown said.

  “Harrisonburg police just got a call from a doctor. There’s a gunman with hostages on the pediatrics floor. He’s got the little girl.”

  Chapter 42

  Arancia belched out growls, and Dale had to restrain her from running right into the sheriff’s rear bumper. He was following the sheriff as close as he could, and though the sheriff’s Ford was hauling some serious ass down the road, the Pantera was still ready to overtake it at any second.

  Dale had the windows down. The roaring wind and the blaring siren from Brown’s car poured in, a loud concoction of mayhem.

  Darnell Fowler. The creature from the camp. The man who took pleasure in whipping people. He was in Caitlin’s room right now.

  Dale’s grip tightened around the shift knob.

  The sheriff and Miller were leading in the Ford, Arancia was in the middle, and Wilson was struggling to keep up in the Custom Cruiser. A caravan of justice cutting through the Shenandoah Valley. Any other time, this would have been intoxicating to Dale. A fringe benefit of his job. But now all he could think about was the little girl who had already been through so much. And Darnell Fowler.

  Dale pushed harder on the gas pedal.

  The hospital came into view, and they slowed momentarily to pass a squad car with its lights on serving as a roadblock. The sheriff’s car skidded to a stop outside the front doors, and Arancia slid in right beside it. Wilson pulled up behind them, and the four men got out.

  There was a group of other police cars surrounding the hospital. The new, two-story Emergency Room sat on the corner of Mason and Cantrell with the main tower behind it, a square-ish, brick monolith. A crowd of gawkers had gathered on the sidewalks, and police officers held them at a distance.

  The rest of the cops were positioned behind their squad cars. One of them had a megaphone, and everyone was looking up at the third floor of the tower. There were two silhouettes against the closed drapes of one of the rooms—a larger silhouette of adult size and a smaller silhouette of a child. A gun was evident in the hand of the adult.

  A Harrisonburg officer strode over from one of the cars. “We have men posted at the front and rear. There are five officers and a security guard outside the room. He’s saying he’ll blow the girl’s head off if we enter.”

  Dale nodded. “Come on, Sheriff,” he said to Brown and headed for the front entrance.

  “Somehow I knew your crazy ass would want to get right in there.”

  Inside, Brown led Miller, Dale, and Wilson toward the elevators, but Dale pulled him in the direction of the stairwell. “No time.”

  They stormed up the stairs. The agents and Miller took three steps at a time. The sheriff was panting heavily when they reached the third-floor landing.

  Dale burst through the doorway. Halfway down the hall, a handful of cops, a few nurses, and a security guard were standing outside the door to Caitlin’s room. The cops were shouting into the room.

  Dale flashed his badge as he approached the group.

  “He has himself barricaded in there,” the guard said. He jiggled the doorknob. “Sprayed something in the lock. Can’t get the key in.”

  Coming out of the keyhole was thick, translucent glue. It looked like honey. Dale touched it. It was sticky to the touch but had already set up considerably.

  Sheriff Brown came from behind, panting. He put his hands on his knees.

  “How long have they been in there?” Wilson said to the guard.

  “A good fifteen minutes now. He hasn’t said anything for five.”

  “Let me try,” Dale said to the cop standing closest to the door. “He’s looking for me.” Dale faced the door and spoke loudly. “This is Special Agent Dale Conley. You can have me. Just let the girl go.”

  There was a thud from inside the room, like someone falling to the ground. Dale and Wilson looked at each other.

  “Dear God,” the guard said.

  Dale grabbed the door handle and twisted. It didn’t budge.

  The sheriff’s radio sounded. “The child just collapsed, Sheriff!” an officer said. “I repeat, the child collapsed.”

  Dale pounded on the door. “What the hell’s going on in there?”

  No reply. Complete silence.

  Dale leaned back and lined up his boot for a massive kick. The door was sturdy metal, and the impact hurt his foot. The door didn’t budge.

  He looked up and down the hall for resources. In situations like this, his mind went into instant search mode. No problem was insurmountable. You just had to find the right option. And the right option had just presented itself. In the corner at the end of the hall by the elevators was a bronze bust on a pedestal.

  Everything works out if you give it time.

  He approached the bust, a stern-faced man with a mustache and a bald head. The inscription read:

  ALBERT CLANTON, MD

  1893 - 1968

  RMH’S FIRST HEAD OF PEDIATRICS

  CAREGIVER, RESEARCHER, INNOVATOR

  “Sorry, Doc,” Dale sai
d. He lifted the bust from its pedestal. It was even heavier than it looked, and his arms dropped a little with the weight. Perfect.

  Brown stared at Dale wide-eyed as he shuffled back to the door. “You’re not thinkin’ of doing what I’m thinkin’ you’re going to do …”

  “Depends on what you’re thinkin’, Sheriff.” Dale stood in front of the door, and the other men quickly cleared out. He turned the bust so that its base was facing the door. It was wide and flat—an ideal surface. Plus, it would help to minimize the damage. Dale sure didn’t want to desecrate a man’s memorial.

  Dale pulled Dr. Clanton back and gave a solid swing. There was a terrific clang of metal-on-metal impact and a ringing noise that made the other men yell and cover their ears. The vibration in the sculpture quivered all the way up Dale’s arms to his shoulders.

  The door swung open and smacked into the wall. Clanton flew out of Dale’s hands and bounced across the floor, clanging loudly.

  The scene was staggering. Caitlin was duct-taped to her bed. Her mouth too was duct-taped. She was screaming, crying, struggling. The nurses and uniformed officers ran up to her and tore at the tape.

  On the windowsill was a cassette player. A CPR dummy lay on the ground by the window. It was a torso only, cut off at the waist, and about the size of a child. Next to it was a plastic skeleton, standing vertically on a metal stand, holding a toy gun in its hand and draped with a black jacket.

  The Man in Black’s jacket. Darnell’s.

  This was the jacket that Dale had seen at each of his three encounters with Darnell. He approached it and took one of the sleeves in his hand. It was lightweight, a bit heavier than a sweatshirt, and made of rough canvas material. There was a musty odor.

  He turned the jacket’s hood inside out. There would be hair samples in here. Leaving it behind was careless on Darnell’s part. Too careless. Why had he taken it off in the first place?

  Miller was helping the others with Caitlin’s tape, and Dale pulled him aside. “You said that a doctor called this in?” Dale said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Was it the girl’s doctor? Dr. Susan Anderson?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The hair on Dale’s arms stood straight up. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

  “She said she hadn’t been away from the girl for more than a minute or two when she came back and found her all taped down,” Miller said.

  Dale looked at the people trying to free Caitlin. The tangle of duct tape holding her down was massive. It would have taken more than a minute or two to lay it all down on a scrappy girl who was surely fighting back.

  He turned to Brown. “And the hospital’s been on lockdown?”

  “Yup. Security contained it for us immediately. No one in or out. Except emergencies.”

  “Emergencies going in and out?”

  “Of course. I can’t shut the whole place down. It’s a hospital.”

  Dale weighed the jacket in his hands. Darnell had somehow gotten in, tied up the girl, and disappeared. How had he escaped unnoticed?

  The cops and nurses freed Caitlin from the bed and removed the tape from her mouth. She sobbed on the shoulder of one of the nurses, who put her arms around the girl.

  Dale noticed the nurse’s lab coat. White, long-sleeved. Her name was stitched on the front of it.

  He looked back at Darnell’s jacket in his hand. “Oh god …”

  Chapter 43

  Dale sprinted up to the hospital’s front desk where a young receptionist with wispy hair sat reading a magazine and chomping on gum. When she looked up and saw Dale bounding toward her, she slowly wheeled her chair backwards.

  “Have there been any patient transfers since the lockdown?” Dale said the instant he crashed into the desk.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t give out that inf—”

  Dale pulled out his badge. “Police business. Who’s left the building?”

  The receptionist’s mouth opened in stunned disbelief. “Just one ambulance. A doctor and a patient.”

  “A female patient?”

  The receptionist nodded. “And a male doctor.”

  Dale ran a hand across his face. “If you would have looked at the name stitched on his lab coat, you’d have seen that the male doctor’s name was Susan. Did the patient look okay?”

  The receptionist gave him a confused look. “I’m not sure. She was on a stretcher. Unconscious.”

  Dale sucked in a breath. “Where were they going?”

  “Some hospital in Staunton. I hadn’t heard of it …” She looked at a clipboard. “Western State Hospital.”

  Dale flew down I-81. Arancia’s siren blared. The emergency light hanging from the mirror flashed. He kept one hand gripped tightly on the steering wheel and the other on the horn, blasting it in long bursts. Cars parted to either side before him.

  Susan was somewhere out there with Darnell Fowler. He thought of the things that Darnell had done. Brainwashing, hypnotism. What he could do to Susan was literally limitless. His fingers felt like they were about to tear the leather-wrap from the wheel.

  Western State Hospital. The old lunatic asylum. Where there had been electroshock, lobotomies, sterilization. It was more of Darnell’s demented mind games.

  A couple more cars cleared the way for him, and then he saw it ahead of him on the crest of a hill—an ambulance with its lights on. Dale could picture Darnell behind the wheel, his small, ugly face laughing.

  Dale dropped the stick into fourth gear, and the engine bellowed. His head whipped back into the headrest. The rear tires tried to slide out from under him, but the limited slip differential did its job, keeping them where they should be.

  The ambulance was giving everything it had, but it couldn’t match the Pantera, a 159-mph vehicle. Dale came right up behind it.

  The ambulance didn’t brake. Its movements were jerky and erratic, swerving like it had a drunk behind the wheel. Its tall form teetered on soft suspension, ready to topple over at any moment.

  Cars pulled over left and right. The ambulance came within inches of them as it continued to swerve. It clipped a pickup truck that was trying to move to the side, spinning the truck around halfway. If Dale couldn’t bring the ambulance to a stop, Darnell was going to run someone over.

  The main exit into town was drawing near—Jefferson Highway, the road that led to the mental hospital. But as they came upon it, there were no brake lights from the ambulance. Was he leading him into the countryside?

  The ambulance jerked to the right so fast that Dale barely dodged it, coming within a few inches of smashing into the back. He whipped his head around to see the ambulance topple over. It hit the sheer rock face along the right side of the off-ramp, where the exit for Jefferson Highway had been dynamited from the hill. But instead of falling to the ground, it barreled down the off-ramp like this with its top angled against the rock, two wheels on the ground and two in the air. The metal screeched along the rock and sent out a shower of sparks. The ambulance slammed back onto four wheels, swerved, then continued on toward the highway.

  Dale laid on the brakes and fought the fishtailing of Arancia’s rear end. The tires squealed, and the whole car shuddered. He flew right past the exit.

  He flicked his eyes to the rearview mirror. No cars immediately behind him. He had the room. So he pulled back the handbrake and yanked the steering wheel to the right, using the car’s forward momentum and out-of-control energy to his advantage.

  Arancia spun around, centrifugal force smashing Dale into the door. He held on tight and guided the car’s slide to the outside shoulder of the road. The interstate was divided—a copse of trees separating the north- and southbound sets of lanes. So he had one option to get back to the exit.

  He downshifted, smashed the gas pedal, and laid on the horn as he drove down the shoulder against the traffic. There was enough room for the Pantera, just enough. The cars in the right-hand lane, the one closest to him, panicked at the sight of an orang
e car flying right at them. They moved into the other lane. Horns blared. Cars came to a halt, narrowly avoiding each other.

  Dale surged past the pileup. Avoiding the cluster of cars, a Chevelle shot into the shoulder, coming right at him, and Dale yanked Arancia’s steering wheel to the left. Her tires dipped into the gravel at the side of the road.

  He pulled past the Chevelle and onto the off-ramp, again using Arancia’s momentum to pull him ninety degrees around, oversteering then realigning her back down the off-ramp. The ramp was an open shot for him—no vehicles. He rev-matched into third and thundered toward the highway.

  At the light, the cars heeded his siren and cleared a path for him. He turned to the right, toward the mental hospital. Ahead were the lights of the ambulance. It was about half a mile down the road, pushing through the traffic that was pulling over for it. This was to Dale’s advantage. Given that both his vehicle and the one he was pursuing had sirens and lights, cutting through traffic was the least of his worries.

  Arancia rocketed toward the ambulance. The open path in front of him allowed him to pull in like he was on a high-power winch. He was back behind the ambulance again, three feet from its bumper.

  They flew right past Western State Hospital. Dale had figured that wasn’t the real destination. Darnell was trying to get Susan to wherever he was keeping the Marshallites.

  The ambulance continued past the Stonewall Jackson Inn. They were headed into downtown. Right into the little businesses and restaurants.

  Where all the foot traffic would be.

  Dale took out his Smith & Wesson. He had to shoot out the tires. Susan was in the back, yes, but there was an immediate danger to everyone else on the road. He stuck the gun out the window, steadied his arm on the mirror. He aimed down the gun’s small, fixed sights. The ambulance’s tires weaved. Dale tapped the brake, gave himself a little more space.

  The ambulance dropped in front of him, going down one of Staunton’s steep hills. Arancia followed, and Dale was pushed back into his seat, his stomach sinking like the first hill of a rollercoaster. The ambulance went up the other side of the hill and sailed over the crest. Blue sky appeared beneath it, and the wheels sank, dropping below the frame. The whole vehicle tilted to the right in its flight, and it came back to the ground hard, spitting out a burst of sparks.