Slaughter Series

by A. I. Nasser

  Ivan recognized the name and immediately knew why Fiona Bright would want to go there. He remembered that the Coles had a family house there.

  “I’m a few miles out,” Ivan said. “Just keep an eye on them and wait for me.”

  “Sure thing,” came the reply. “Oh, and another thing, there’s this woman with them. Never leaves the car, always in the back seat. Couldn’t recognize her, though.”

  Ivan smiled. He had a pretty good idea who the third passenger was.

  ***

  Alan Carter woke up with a raging headache.

  Although his sleep had been dreamless, he still felt incredibly tired, as if he hadn’t slept at all. He didn’t know whether it had to do with the excitement or the fact that the motel mattress felt like a log. Either way, his entire body hurt and his muscles were cramping up.

  Alan trudged into the motel bathroom, switching on the fluorescents as he adjusted the flow from the shower and waited for the water to heat up. He stripped down slowly, wincing with every move he made, and stepped under the water, immediately relieved as the hot streams battered at him.

  As soon as he felt he could function properly again, he stepped out, quickly toweled himself down and stepped into the room. He immediately went for his phone, checking to see if Deborah had left him any messages, but his voice mail was empty. He sent her a quick message with an update on where he was, and then proceeded to get dressed.

  Alan Carter knew he was shooting in the dark. He had hoped for more visions, any connection between him and the woman in red that would give him a clue as to where she was. So far, there had been nothing, and he was getting impatient. All he could do was drive back towards Melington, but he was skeptical as to how much that would help without knowing the woman’s plans.

  Alan reached for his laptop and flipped it open, waiting to see if the run-down motel had Wi-Fi. When he couldn’t get a signal, he sighed and started packing his things. There was no use staying here anyway; he would have to keep moving and hope for something that would guide him in the right direction.

  Dumping his bag by the door, he quickly rummaged through the drawers by the bed for anything left behind. He grabbed his keys and suddenly remembered he had forgotten his coat in the closet. He shook his head in frustration, already sick of being in the room any longer, and opened the closet door.

  Alan Carter suddenly felt the world bend and spin out of proportion, a strong gush of air blasting out from the open closet door as the room seemed to darken around him. His eyes widened as he stood frozen in place, staring into the closet.

  He was looking at a hallway; a long, dimly lit hallway, with walls painted light blue and floors of white linoleum, stretching out until it widened into a vestibule with what looked like a nurse’s station. It was a hospital, he knew that, but he couldn’t wrap his head around why he was seeing all of it.

  Alan stepped through the closet door, the firmness of the floors confirming that he was not imagining this, and for a split second, he wondered if he were still asleep; if all this were merely a dream. He looked over his shoulder back into the motel room behind him and felt his head pulsing faster and harder.

  “Now this is interesting.”

  Alan Carter’s head snapped back and his mouth dropped.

  Daniel Cole was leaning against a wall a few feet away, his arms crossed and a wide smile on his face.

  “We have to stop meeting like this,” the old man said, and the door behind Alan Carter slammed shut.

  FBI Report

  Jeff Duncan

  Jeff Duncan, 24 Hailey Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts

  I am an FBI agent.

  Yes, she was my first partner. I became a field agent three years ago, and I was immediately partnered with Sally.

  She’s an experienced agent and she gets the work done. That’s all I knew and all I cared about.

  I saved her life, she saved mine; it’s a mutual thing really. It’s what partners are for, right?

  We were assigned the case a few days before the riots, when we received word of a kidnapping that was directly linked to Melington.

  As long as Sally was satisfied, so was I. I had no idea of her link to any of the victims.

  Sure, she would obviously be emotionally involved. Her brother and nephew had gone missing, after all. It would make sense.

  I think his name was Blake. I’m not sure.

  Well, the first time was when we were investigating Victor Fanning’s suicide. Sally had gotten a bit emotional about it all, and I thought something was off about it. Plus, she never told anyone we were with the FBI, so that raised a few flags, too.

  She’s my partner. I always have her back, no matter what. Besides, if you know Sally Brians, you’d know she only shared the information she wanted to. You can’t force anything out of her.

  The riots definitely made things interesting. Suddenly there was a lot more going on in Melington than just missing children.

  His name was Pullman. I found that out later.

  Apparently he had been hired by William Brewster and Elizabeth Gardiner to rid any traces of the Council’s involvement with the missing children cases.

  No, that was Sally. She had gone to Darville after getting a call from one of her contacts. I stayed behind to work with Sheriff Alexandra Bail on solving the murder of Daniel Cole.

  Yes, I am aware that it was outside our jurisdiction. However, Daniel Cole was a person of interest, and his murder was a direct link to our case. Solving it benefited us as well.

  I heard about what happened to Fiona Bright after everything was over.

  Yes, we did. But after Sally met with Alan Carter, he didn’t seem to mind. Actually, from what I could see, he was happy we knew what we did. It made working with him that much easier.

  No, Sally was completely responsible for that. By the time the two of them had returned to Melington, it was apparent that they had reached some sort of understanding.

  I don’t know what happened out there. I was busy dealing with Ivan Pullman and the Council. You should talk to Alexandra Bail about that. She’ll back me up.

  No, I couldn’t really tell you what happened to William Brewster. One minute he was in Town Hall, and the next he was gone.

  I’m not sure. Some things don’t add up, and I guess it would be easy to believe lore and blame everything on some monster out for vengeance.

  Elizabeth Gardiner has been an enigma the minute I met her. Didn’t the doctors have something to say about her status? Maybe the strain of what she had done got to her. I could only imagine what that could do to a person.

  No, I never met Deborah Adams. I feel bad for her, though, losing her mother like that.

  Trust me, if I knew where Alan Carter was, you’d be the first to know.

  Chapter 8

  “Over here!”

  Ivan pulled off his shades and gestured back at Denny Torres as the man waved wildly at him from the bar. The establishment was empty this early in the day, but Ivan was not surprised to see his friend already cradling a beer in his hand and smiling like a little child. From the look of the bartender behind him, Denny seemed to have already caused enough of a ruckus to warrant a disapproving scowl from the pretty woman.

  The last time the two of them had been to Darville, Denny had brought him to this same bar, apparently a favorite of his whenever work brought him this side of the state. Ivan thought it funny that certain low-key places would be so popular in their line of work, and he could already tell that they were slowly overstaying their welcome.

  Luckily, they wouldn’t be in Darville for long.

  Ivan walked up to the bar and pushed himself onto the stool beside Denny, letting the bigger man pull him into his trademarked bear hug. Ivan could never understand how Denny had gotten this far in the job, his huge figure and long hair obvious impediments to the need for inconspicuousness. It was a miracle he hadn’t been arrested yet.

  Then again, Denny never did any of the dirty work. Ivan had alway
s used the man’s incredible talents for finding people that didn’t want to be found, and he was yet to test how well the man handled himself when the going got rough. Knowing that they would be facing off Fiona Bright was the perfect opportunity for that.

  “I missed the hell out of you, buddy!”

  Ivan winced at Denny’s bellowing voice and the excruciating clap on the back, offering his friend a weak smile. Sometimes, Denny was oblivious to how strong he actually was.

  “Joanne,” Ivan greeted the bartender as she placed a beer in front of him.

  The bartender didn’t reply, giving Denny a quick look and moved on.

  “You have a way with the ladies,” Denny laughed.

  Ivan watched Joanne walk into the back room before turning his attention to Denny. “Are you out of your mind?”

  Denny frowned, obviously upset by Ivan’s tone. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s like you’re begging to be caught.”

  “I’ve been coming here for years,” Denny smiled. “Joanne’s cool. She keeps her trap shut.”

  “I wonder how cool she’ll be once the police come knocking on her door asking questions.”

  “Relax, would you?” Denny said, clapping Ivan on the shoulder, sending bolts of pain up and down his arm. “We’ll be in and out before you could say cock-a-doodle-doo.”

  Ivan tried his best not to compare the man to a character on Sesame Street, hoping that at least for today, he could take him seriously enough to get their work done.

  “So what do you know?”

  Denny took a long drag from his beer and wiped his lips on his sleeve. “They’re right across the street.”

  Ivan frowned. “Excuse me?”

  “The Blue Whale,” Denny smiled. “You remember that place. Of course you do. Come on, we spent weeks in that shithole.”

  “And you’re telling me this now?”

  “Well, why the hell did you think I asked to meet here?” Denny chuckled. “We can keep an eye on them while drinking our beers. All the more fun.”

  “I am finding it very hard to take you seriously right now, Torres,” Ivan hissed, quickly lowering his voice as Joanne returned and made her way to the tables beyond the bar. “We can’t just waltz over there now that everyone in this bar knows we were here.”

  “Hey, you said she was here to meet someone,” Denny said. “We can wait until she leaves and follow her to wherever that someone lives.”

  “That someone isn’t even in town anymore,” Ivan said. “What are we going to do when Fiona Bright realizes that? We just wasted a perfect opportunity!”

  Denny clapped him on the back again, and it took everything within Ivan not to punch the big man in the face. “Calm down, buddy,” Denny said. “There’s always a solution!”

  ***

  “How is this possible?”

  Daniel Cole pushed away from the wall he was leaning on and gestured to one of the chairs in the small waiting area in front of the nurse’s station. “Sit down, Carter,” he said.

  Alan carefully did as he was told, his eyes taking in the familiar surroundings of what was Daniel Cole’s room. There was something different, though, a few changes since he had last been here. The pictures, for starters, had been altered, and the color of the walls seemed to slowly appear and disappear, depending on the angle.

  “You left a real mess behind since the last time you were here,” Daniel Cole said, leaning against the nurse’s station.

  “I’m dreaming,” Alan muttered.

  “You’re not dreaming.”

  “I have to be.”

  “I said you’re not dreaming,” Daniel said firmly. “This is all a little over your head, kid, but you really are here, alive and well.”

  Alan shook his head. “That’s impossible,” he said.

  Daniel shrugged and drummed his fingers on the station counter. “You know, I would have thought that, too, if I hadn’t lived the entire experience.”

  “What experience?”

  “The absence of a steward,” Daniel smiled. “The woman in red, the bitch that patrols the corridors. She’s gone. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

  Alan remembered his vision, the man dying in front of him, the reflection in the television set. He knew the woman in red was loose, but the confirmation made it feel a lot graver. Only then did he realize that he had been hoping his visions were wrong.

  “They’re quite real,” Daniel said. “The steward of the corridor is out, and that’s all because of you. I have no idea how you did it, but hey, congratulations. You just set the apocalypse into motion.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Daniel laughed and slapped the counter top, clearly enjoying Alan’s ignorance. “You really have no idea, do you?” Alan shook his head. “Well, that’s fresh. You know, you Carters are all the same; doing whatever you want, whenever you want, with no real sense of the consequences.”

  “I didn’t mean to free her,” Alan said. “I only wanted Kathrine.”

  “I only wanted Kathrine,” Daniel mimicked. “You’re an idiot. Good luck keeping your sister away from them. You condemned every founding family child to an eternity in this hell hole.”

  “I can stop her,” Alan said. “I have to stop her.”

  Daniel Cole laughed again, and before Alan could say anything else, the old man burst forward and grabbed him by the head. Alan felt a bolt of electricity race through him, starting at Daniel’s hands and making its way towards every inch of his being. It weaved through his veins, burst into his muscles, and for a second, he could only see a bright white light. He opened his mouth to scream, but it was like his vocal chords were paralyzed, a silent burst of agony no one would ever hear.

  And then it was over.

  Alan wasn’t in the room anymore, the cold around him excruciating as he felt snow freeze his hands and knees. A strong gush of wind blew against him, chilling and unwelcoming. For an instant, he couldn’t tell whether he was actually experiencing this or his mind was playing tricks on him.

  He was at the top of a small hill looking out into a field, on all fours in the snow, his teeth clattering against the cold. The night sky was starless, and the moon hung ominously above his head. He was about to get up, when a hand grabbed his shoulder and pushed him flat down into the snow.

  “Look,” Daniel Cole whispered from beside him, gesturing to the field below.

  Alan saw the lights and heard the yells of fury, moments before the crowd appeared from the tree lines below. They were a small bunch, maybe ten to twelve people, but their cries made them seem larger in number. They were dragging a man behind them, half naked, hair flailing in the wind.

  “What is this?”

  Daniel Cole shushed him. They watched silently as the crowd strung the man up to a large maple by his neck, the large figure kicking and screaming as he tried to break free of his bounds. Alan’s eyes grew wide in horror as the scene below unfolded. He tried pushing himself to his feet, eager to race down and help the man, but Cole’s hold was firm.

  “It’s pointless,” Daniel said. “This has already happened. All you’re going to do is upset the balance.”

  Alan felt his body shiver as recognition set in. “That’s Copper,” he whispered. “This is when they burned him.”

  As if on cue, Alan saw the townspeople touch their torches to Copper’s legs and winced in horror as the strung-up man began to scream, a mix of rage and pain that pierced through the cold night like a knife and cut deep into Alan’s mind.

  “Your children will never be safe!”

  Alan grabbed Daniel by the collar of his shirt. “What are you trying to do?” he yelled.

  He had barely said the words when the familiar bolt of electricity shot through him again, this time stronger, and his mind suddenly went into overdrive.

  “It began with a Carter, and it must end with a Carter.”

  The words echoed in his head, and suddenly he could feel the universe in its entirety bend
and reshape itself, molding and enveloping him as invisible fingers reached for the deepest parts of his mind. Everything darkened, and in an instant, he was plunged forward so fast, he could feel his skin stretch on his face with the speed of his propulsion.

  Alan Carter saw it all.

  He saw the corridor, all of it, with its twists and turns, how different portions of it would shift and break, then reattach itself at random. It was not endless as he had thought, but a maze of complexity that was impossible to fathom. The pulsing red light intensified as he soared through it, a life force that seemed to hold the whole thing together.

  He saw the doors, each and every one of them, with their different shapes and sizes. He could feel them against his skin, as if he were touching each one, taking in the texture, becoming one with each. He felt the corridor’s very essence wrap itself around him as it invited him within its powers, his hands glowing bright as one door after the other lined up before him and he was flung through each.

  He saw the children, the young and old, the scared and oblivious. He felt their every emotion, could read their every thought, their eyes locking with his as he soared through each and every room. Some would reach for him, confused, scared, hopeful, resentful, a barrage of emotions that slammed into him from every angle and every nook of the corridor.

  He saw them all. Blake Collins, Nancy Gardiner, Tracy Turk, faces he recognized from his research and others he didn’t, but he knew them all. He couldn’t understand it, but he knew them all. Room after room, he would venture through day and night, outdoors and indoors, homes and fields, and his mind stretched with the intensity of what he was seeing. Voices called for him, some screaming, some pleading, others in such inexplicable emotional turmoil Alan could feel his heart rip into pieces from the sheer volume of emotion and suffering.