Another gust of warm wind brushed against Decklan’s face, like the cautious caress of a gentle lover. Decklan imagined it to be the hand of Calista telling him that what he was doing was right.
That it was time.
Warm-wet tears streamed down the author’s face as his hands lightened their grip on the railing. He could feel the weight of his body wanting to fall forward.
I’m so sorry, Calista. I loved you so much. I wasn’t a perfect man, but I was a man who loved you in every way I knew how. I’ve been little more than a shadow of a shadow since you were taken from me. My life has no life left. I can’t pretend to care about wanting to see another day, anymore. Please forgive me…for everything.
Decklan opened his eyes for the last time. He would enter the water, allow himself to sink well below the surface, open his mouth, and then take a deep breath and fill his lungs. Being unable to experience the last twenty-seven years of his life with Calista, Decklan Stone was determined to die just as his wife had.
It’s what I deserve.
He counted down from three and then found himself unable to let go of the railing, an act which left the author disgusted by his cowardice.
Damn you, God! Let me have just this one thing! Allow me this choice!
Again Decklan counted down, this time speaking the numbers out loud.
“Three . . . two . . . one.”
And again Decklan’s hands refused to let go. The author lifted his head upward as his mouth opened wide. He wanted to scream, but the only sound that came was a near-silent moan, the embodiment of twenty-seven years of repressed pain, rage, and regret.
Decklan heard the sound of a motor coming from the direction of Deer Harbor. He knew he must act soon before someone realized what he intended to do. His chin fell against his chest and his left hand relinquished the railing, causing the left side of his body to lurch forward.
With his eyes closed tight, Decklan’s mind tried to recall an image of Calista but instead it was Tilda Ashford’s snarling, accusatory glare that stared back at him.
Decklan sighed as the fingers of his right hand began to slip off the rail.
This is what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it you bitch? Fine, have your wish.
Decklan Stone dropped face-first from the side of the Chris Craft into the frigid water below. The alcohol lessened the initial shock of the cold and within seconds, Decklan felt himself sinking below the water’s surface. A current embraced him, pushing him away from the anchored boat. He looked up and saw at least ten feet between his intended watery tomb and the diminished light of the world above.
Open your mouth and take a deep breath. Finish the job, Decklan. For once in your life, follow through on your responsibilities.
Decklan’s lungs began to burn from lack of oxygen. He wanted to kick his legs and arms and flail his body back to the surface, but managed to force himself still.
In the seconds before his death, Decklan Stone had finally found peace.
I’m ready.
He welcomed the coming darkness.
Planet Earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do…
The writer opened his mouth, took as deep a breath as he possibly could, and ended his life.
18.
Adele returned to the home of Martin and Will Speaks. She moved herself quickly down the hallway and into Martin’s bedroom while holding her cell phone in her right hand.
There they are, the same marks as the picture showed. That freezer has been moved back and forth in the exact same spot over the wood floor hundreds, maybe thousands of times.
A section of the floor to the left of the freezer was badly marred where the bottom of the appliance had been slid across the hardwood over the course of many years.
Adele intended to move it yet again. She placed both hands against the freezer’s side and gave it a hard shove. It moved just a few inches. She shoved again, and then again, until finally the space that had been hidden behind the freezer was revealed.
It was a small, square door with a deadbolt lock on the outside. Even with the door shut, Adele could smell the fetid aroma of human waste.
As bad as the smell was, Adele had every intention of finding out what had been kept hidden on the other side. She pulled back the deadbolt and opened the door and was immediately assaulted by a gag-inducing stench that was many times more powerful than when the door was closed.
Once she was certain she wouldn’t vomit, Adele used her cell phone as a flashlight and stuck it into the space beyond the door. The light illuminated a set of narrow, wood steps leading down into further darkness.
The college student was unable to move beyond the top of the stairs, overcome by fear and revulsion of what she might find waiting for her at the bottom of the steps.
What was that?
Adele’s keen ears picked up a soft, shuffling noise from somewhere in the hellish darkness beyond the stairs. She extended her cell phone light further into the passageway with a badly shaking right hand.
Someone, or something, was watching her from below. Adele couldn’t see it yet, but knew it to be true.
A thump echoed off the bottom step. And then another, and yet another.
It’s coming up here!
Adele tried to move backwards, but her legs remained frozen in place. The sound of the approaching footsteps grew closer.
A bone-white human hand shot out from the darkness, encircled Adele’s right wrist, and gripped it tightly between dirt-encrusted fingers, causing her to drop the cell phone down into the void below. A thing of nightmare emerged from the inky abyss of the stairwell and glared out at Adele from yellow orbs as thin, scabbed lips drew back in a black-gummed grimace.
They were the eyes of madness housed within the face and body of a monster.
Adele screamed and finally found the strength to fling herself backwards. She fell against the bedroom wall opposite the hidden door with enough force she cracked the sheetrock behind her.
The thing’s eyes rolled inside of its tight-skinned skull as it looked around the room and then back to the horrified young woman who stood before it. It wore the remnants of a once-white dress that hung from a few remaining threads off of jagged-boned shoulders. The desiccated legs were covered in mottled and malformed, deep-red scabs, the result of rat bites that took place nightly when the creature managed to fall asleep in a dug-out hole that was its primary place of rest in the cellar below the home.
The thing’s jaws unhinged and the mouth opened as a hand extended toward Adele. Two tracks of tears slowly fell from its eyes and then intersected at the bottom of its chin.
“Please…help me.”
It was not the voice of a monster, but rather of a woman, frail, frightened, and with just a hint of hope that her many prayers had been answered.
Adele heard the undeniable humanity in that voice. Something of what the woman once was, yet remained. She pushed aside her fear and revulsion and gently took Calista Stone’s hand into her own.
Both women turned at the sound of a vehicle pulling up to the home.
Calista pulled away in a panic and began to scramble back to the stairwell.
“I will help you, Calista! Look at me!”
Calista paused; though, her eyes remained wide and fearful. Adele took a slow, deliberate step toward the woman the world had for so long thought was dead.
“We are walking out of here, RIGHT NOW.”
Calista shook her head and began to back into the cellar door. Adele knew she had to say something or risk both their lives should the Speaks men find them.
“Decklan is waiting for you, Calista. He has been waiting a very long time. I can take you to him, but you have to come with me now.”
Calista blinked several times, as if awakening from an especially deep and troubled sleep. She looked down into the darkness beyond the stairs, and then back to Adele. When she spoke, it was a hoarse, hushed whisper.
“I want to see my husband again.”
&nbs
p; Adele placed her right hand around Calista’s left forearm and guided her toward the back of the house. The sound of the pickup truck grew louder with each frantic step they took. She knew they only had seconds before father and son reached the front door and after that, both Calista and Adele would have to run as fast as possible down the long driveway and hope they had enough time to reach the road before being caught.
If they find us, they’ll kill us both.
Adele pushed open the plywood backdoor and pulled Calista through into the outside world. She couldn’t hear the sound of the truck engine anymore.
“Hurry, Calista, this way!”
Adele moved quickly along the back of the home, and then turned the corner to find Martin and Will Speaks staring at her. They both looked shocked, but that quickly transformed into seething anger. It was then Adele realized her error. She had assumed they used the front door.
“What are you doing with my mother?”
Will Speaks stood pointing at Adele with eyes blazing. His jeans and hoodie were soaked with saltwater from trying to stop the leak in his father’s boat. Adele drew a sharp breath. She recognized the hoodie from the night in the university library basement, confirming what she had already suspected.
It was him.
“My boy asked you a question, young lady.”
Martin Speaks pulled a revolver from an ankle holster and pointed it directly at Adele’s chest.
“I’m taking her with me, is what I’m doing. People already know I’m here, lots of people.”
The former sheriff’s eyes narrowed, and then he gave Adele a mocking grin.
“Is that right? Looks to me like a clear case of breaking and entering. I am well within my rights to shoot you dead and I assure you, that’s exactly how it’ll be written up. My boy tried to warn you. I’m not the kind of man you want to piss off. I knew your talking to the writer was going to be trouble for us. I told you to stay away, and now here you are, messing with things you should have just left alone.”
Calista was crouched behind Adele and began to make a soft whimpering noise. Adele forced her voice to remain calm. She knew if she allowed Martin Speaks to intimidate her, both she and Calista would never leave the property alive.
“I wouldn’t count on the local authorities covering for you on this one, Mr. Speaks. Too many people know, including the authorities in Bellingham. You’re done. Let me and Calista go. I don’t know why you took her, why you’ve been keeping her, but it’s over.”
The former sheriff’s eyes lit with rage, then regret and then back to rage. Adele sensed he wanted to shoot her, but then, inexplicably, he lowered his weapon.
“You won’t let her take Mom, right Dad? I can’t sleep without knowing Mom is still with us. She helps make m-m-me better. Let’s keep them both! They’ll fit ok! There’s enough room. We can get another chair. She can be young again, right? We can make Mom young again! We can have old Mom and young Mom!”
Martin Speaks’s lower lip began to tremble. He was coming to terms with twenty-seven years of a terrible secret in just a few seconds. He looked at Adele with eyes pleading, desperate to be understood. He had been a respected lawman once. But the pain of losing his wife and the burden of raising a troubled child proved too much, and led to the despicable act of kidnapping Calista and keeping her prisoner.
It had been Will who followed Decklan and Calista Stone from Roche Harbor. And it was Will who overpowered Calista and carried her off the Chris Craft to his father. Will was convinced he had saved Calista from her husband. He told his father that he overheard them arguing, and then how Decklan Stone left his wife alone on the boat. Martin found Calista to be so beautiful, and her remarkable effect upon his son so positive, that he was willing to do the unthinkable.
It was a secret that bound father and son, but the sheriff suspected it would eventually destroy them as well. When he suffered the stroke, he raged over having survived it. Twenty-seven years of accumulated guilt had him yearning for death. And each day Martin Speaks grew stronger, his corrupted spirit was further diminished.
The former sheriff knew there would be a reckoning one day.
He wouldn’t allow them to take his son, though. Years ago when Will was struggling terribly in school, Child Protective Services had recommended that he be sent to the asylum on the mainland in nearby Sedro Woolley. Martin Speaks didn’t allow such a thing to happen then, and he was even more determined to not allow it now. Will was his responsibility, and always would be. If the world had no use for something, you were then required to eliminate that something from the world.
Will placed his hand on his father’s shoulder and spoke in tones that clearly indicated confusion, as if the threat of losing Calista was already causing him to revert to his former, more simplistic self. He pointed at Adele.
“I want to keep her, too. I know you said to not even think about it, but now that she’s already here. . .”
Martin Speaks turned abruptly, raised the gun to his son’s forehead, and fired. Will Speaks’s body dropped on the ground with the finality of certain death. Martin lowered the gun to his side. He was a man utterly defeated, beyond any semblance of hope.
“It just sort of happened. Will adored Mrs. Stone from the first time he saw her. She was like some New York angel delivered to him. You have to understand. After finding out he was the cause of his mother’s death, he was never right. It was the guilt. He was always looking to replace her. He heard them arguing in Roche Harbor and he thought he was helping. He really did.”
Martin looked to the brilliant, blue sky and shook his head slowly from side to side.
“I thought he’d killed her when I first saw her. Will hit her on the head awful hard. There was blood all over her face, so much blood. He tied her up, put her on the skiff and took her to Deer Harbor. Then he dumped her in one of those marina carts with the two wheels and spent the rest of the night pushing her in that cart all the way back here. He was just so happy when I found him standing outside the house with her bound up in that cart. He was smiling ear to ear. And she was beautiful, and I did miss having a woman around here almost as much as Will missed knowing his mother. So, we kept her. It was all easy enough at first. She drowned, her body was never found, and that was that. Case closed. I knew what I did was wrong, but after a few weeks, I had no choice but to keep her here. Do you understand? No choice! And you should have seen what it did for Will! He gained confidence, his speech improved. For the first time in his life, he almost seemed normal. People stopped teasing him so much. I stopped worrying about having to give him up to an institution. For him, she was his mother. But when she kept trying to escape, I decided it best to keep her in the cellar. At first we brought her out regularly, but then Will didn’t seem to need to actually see her as much. He just needed to know she was still down there. So eventually, she hardly came out at all. She gave up and accepted her fate. We all did.”
Before Adele could stop her, Calista moved toward Will Speaks’s motionless body, leaned over and gently placed her hand on his upper back. Despite the horror done to her over the course of those many years, Calista Stone had enough humanity left to feel the loss of a life that had faced such hardship since its very beginning.
Martin Speaks looked down at the woman he had kept prisoner for nearly three decades and began to sob.
“I am so sorry for what we did. I am so sorry for keeping you down there like that all this time.”
Just as quickly as Martin’s emotional breakdown showed itself, it was pushed aside and replaced by the former sheriff’s far more familiar, hard-toned inflection. He straightened his shoulders, lifted his chin upward, and tipped his head to the right.
“You two should get going now.”
Calista stood up and stared into her longtime captor’s hard, flinty eyes, not quite believing he was telling her the truth. Adele needed no such convincing. She grabbed hold of Calista and pulled her forward toward the driveway that would take them back to the mai
n road.
Martin Speaks didn’t bother to watch them go. He no longer cared.
Instead, he dragged the body of his son toward the concrete pad behind the home and then with arms, back and legs straining, lifted his son into one of the three lawn chairs.
“There you go. It’s been a long day, hasn’t it? A very-very long day.”
Martin sat down next to his son, withdrew a cigarette, and lit it with practiced ease. He inhaled deeply, held the smoke in, and then let it out in a swirling, gray-white nicotine plume. He looked out upon the open expanse of property that had been his family’s beginning and end for generations, and wondered how things might have been different had Will’s mother not died giving birth to him.
Martin glanced over at his son, noted the already partially coagulated blood oozing from the exit wound in the back of Will’s head, and for the first time since before his wife’s passing, felt relief.
“I want you to know I tried my best, Will. I also would be the first to admit my best wasn’t much to speak of. I wasn’t made for raising a child, and you were the evidence of that sad fact. We can both rest now, though. You and me, right out here like we always done. For better or worse, you were my boy.”
With the metallic scraping sound of steel against teeth, the former sheriff placed the gun deep into his open mouth, making certain to point it upward toward his brain. If he could have smiled, he would have.
He gave himself a silent countdown.
Three, two, one…
Martin Speaks was finally free.
19.
In death, Decklan Stone finally learned the certainty of heaven. He gazed upon Calista’s smiling face and knew all would be well so long as Calista was with him.
He recalled the absolute darkness that quickly followed the water filling his lungs, the brief pain and panic, but remembered nothing after that. And yet, here he was now, looking at the familiar, albeit older, face of his long-dead wife.
The Writer Page 15