The Astral

by V. J. Banis

  She suddenly realized where this was leading. Her heart seemed to stop. In her worst nightmare she could not have imagined this. “You set her up, didn’t you?” she demanded, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper, the words coming only with great difficulty. “You let them take her that day?”

  His sobs became a bleat of pain. “They promised me they wouldn’t hurt her. They swore it. They were just going to take pictures, was all. They even let me be there, so I could be sure, so I could see for myself they didn’t hurt her. I would never have agreed otherwise, I swear it. I said I would have to be there. I insisted.”

  The light. It was there in the room, growing rapidly brighter, beginning to swirl around her. She found it increasingly difficult to keep him in focus. She knew what it meant, knew she was being called somewhere, but she couldn’t go, not now. She had to know the rest, all of it, no matter what it cost her. She pushed the light away from her with her mind.

  “Wouldn’t hurt her? Are you mad? How could you think this?” she waved the photos at him, “this wouldn’t hurt her? And they killed her, didn’t they? Were you there when they did that, too? Did you not think that hurt her? Me? You?”

  “No.” He shouted it at her. “I swear, I wasn’t there when...I left. I couldn’t stand to watch, it was.... I wanted it to stop, but they wouldn’t, they laughed at me, told me if I wasn’t man enough, to get out. And I did.”

  “And you left her there?”

  “Only, she had seen me, Catherine. She knew I was there. She called me ‘Daddy’.”

  It broke in her then. A moan came out of her like the sound of death. She flung the pictures in his face and ran at him, slapping him with all her strength, pounding his chest with her fists, her own tears pouring down now.

  “God damn you, God damn you straight to hell, Walter.”

  “Yes, yes,” he sobbed, and sank to his knees before the fury of her attack. “Hit me, kick me, kill me, in the name of Heaven, I want to die.”

  As quickly as it had come over her, her rage retreated, replaced by a fury too cold for rage, a sense of hatred and odium such as she had never experienced before. She stepped back from him, panting for breath, like she had just finished a ten-K run. “You shall, Walter, you shall, I promise you that.”

  He sat on his knees, head bent, sobbing helplessly. She turned from him, couldn’t bear the sight of him, the sound of his sobs. She left the room, went to where she had tossed her jacket and fished her cell phone out of the pocket.

  “Where are you?” Chang answered the call at once.

  “I’m at Walter’s, at the house. I need to see you, I....”

  This time the light would not be denied. It consumed her, blinding her, and inside her head a voice shouted, “He’s here!”

  The warning was too late. A voice behind her, a real voice, said, “Put down the phone.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Paterson.” She spoke the name aloud. He was there, and Colley just behind him. She hadn’t heard them come in. A wave of terror swept over her, settled like ice in her veins. As horrible as the astral confrontations had been, she had known then, at least, that there were on different planes. Confronting him once again in the flesh was infinitely worse. Her legs felt suddenly weak, and she grabbed the back of a chair to support herself.

  “Catherine?” Chang’s anxious voice sounded faintly from the cell phone. “Paterson? He’s there?”

  “Yes,” Catherine said.

  Paterson gestured with the gun in his hand. “Hang it up. Put it down.”

  Catherine hesitated, not so much wanting to defy him as simply too frozen to move.

  “You bitch.” He strode to her and snatched the phone from her hand, flinging it to the floor, and struck her hard across the face with the back of his hand. She reeled and crashed into the wall. “I’m going to make you pay for everything you’ve done to me.”

  “Leave her alone,” Walter said from the doorway of his office. He had the gun from the cubbyhole in his hand. “Do whatever you want with me, but leave her alone.”

  “You dumb fuck,” Paterson said. “Colley! Get that gun off him.”

  Colley took a step in Walter’s direction and Walter fired. With a yelp of pain, Colley staggered and fell onto the sofa, knocking over the lamp beside it. But before Walter could turn back to Paterson, Paterson had shot him. Walter gave a moan and dropped his gun, clutching at the red stain that quickly spread across his chest.

  “Catherine,” he gasped. He tottered a step in her direction before his legs gave out and he fell face down, his hands splayed toward her.

  Catherine screamed. “You’ve killed him,” she shouted, and threw herself at Paterson, hitting his face and chest with all her strength. Her attack surprised him. The gun fell from his hand and Catherine dropped to her knees and snatched it up, but Paterson was too quick for her. He kicked it out of her hand and yanked her violently to her feet, pinning her against his chest despite her struggles.

  “A wildcat, ain’t you? Over him? He ain’t worth it. Anyway, he had it coming.” Paterson sneered down at Walter. “Stupid bastard. Quit struggling or I’ll bust you again. Get up, Colley, you’re not dead. And hand me that gun.”

  “He got my leg, Trash Can,” Colley whined, but he got up as he was ordered, trying to stanch the flow of blood from a wound on his thigh, and retrieved Paterson’s gun.

  Catherine had stopped struggling but she was still breathing heavily. Oddly, she felt less frightened now. Anger had taken over for the fear. Paterson’s gaze switched back to her and he gave her a grin dripping with malice.

  “Go ahead, kill me,” she said.

  “Oh, no, bitch, that’d be too easy. I’ve got better plans for you. I’ve always wanted to film a snuff movie, and I just found me my leading lady. By the time I’m through with you, you’ll be begging to die.”

  Her cell phone rang. He put a booted foot on it and ground it to pieces. “Colley, get them pictures, the movies, all of it. And be quick.”

  Holding a hand to his wounded leg, Colley limped into the other room, blood dripping through his fingers onto the carpet. Paterson snatched up Catherine’s jacket from the chair and flung it at her. “Put that on, I don’t want you catching a cold. You’re an asset now,” making an obscenity out of the word.

  She struggled into her jacket. Her eyes dropped to Walter’s gun where it had fallen on the floor. If she could reach that...but before she could try Paterson had produced a set of handcuffs from his belt and cuffed her hands together in front of her. Colley came back, stuffing photos and DVD’s into a plastic grocery bag. “Coke, too,” he said triumphantly, “A half ounce, maybe.”

  “Fine. Let’s go.” Paterson dragged her to the front door.

  Outside, stumbling down the steps, she wondered if she could get away from him and make a run for it, but he held her arm in a fierce grip. She looked desperately toward the street, but the stone wall and the citrus trees that had always provided such welcome privacy in the past screened her as well from any likelihood of neighbors seeing them.

  It had begun to rain again while she was inside, a steady drizzle that already was collecting in puddles. Walter’s Buick sat beside the Jaguar in the garage, and behind that sat a battered gray van.

  He threw open the rear door of the van and shoved her violently inside and slammed the door shut. “Get in back with her,” he ordered Colley.

  “My leg’s hurting, Trash,” Colley whined, climbing in alongside Catherine and using his hands to pull his wounded leg inside. Paterson swung himself into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine. They reversed into the street, and Catherine braced herself to jump from the van, but Paterson, looking over his shoulder to back up, shook his head warningly.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he said, “I’d run you down before you got ten feet.”

  He handed the gun back to Colley. “If she tries to jump, shoot her in the knee. That’ll slow her down. And keep her awake. She’s too dangerous
when she’s asleep.”

  Catherine shrank as far away from Colley as she could get and leaned her head against the window. Colley glowered at her, alert for any attempt to open the door, but by now they were going too fast for her to jump. He leaned across her and pushed the lock down anyway, just in case.

  She closed her eyes, tried to shut out the pain in her jaw where Paterson had struck her. Despair engulfed her. She thought of Walter, poor foolish Walter. He had been no match for Paterson’s evil. It had consumed him. He was dead now, and she could even pity him, though she could not forgive. To the end, he had blamed everyone and everything else for his failing. He had died believing that none of it was his fault. God would judge him now.

  She had no hope that her fate would be any better. She knew at least what a snuff movie was: a film of someone being murdered, the death recorded for whatever sort of ghoul found that exciting. No doubt it would be a slow, horrible death.

  The death itself didn’t frighten her, even the ghastly prelude that she was sure she would suffer first. She had died before, and not just when Paterson had shot her. She had died a kind of death when she faced what had happened to Becky. She came back from both of those experiences. She would not come back from this one, but surely it could be no worse than what she suffered then.

  The real tragedy was not her fate. Far worse was that these two would live, free to continue their horror, to continue to prey on the innocent, the helpless.

  No, she thought suddenly, fiercely. No, that mustn’t happen. She had died before, and she had been sent back, been given a special gift, all for a purpose: to stop them.

  But how?

  * * * *

  The first thing they saw was Walter’s body on the floor, the gun nearby, the blood staining the carpet.

  “Oh, God,” Jack cried, and then, “Catherine! Catherine!” He ran through the house, from room to room, calling her name and looking for her. “She’s not here. They’ve taken her.”

  Conners had paused to take in the filth and disorder in the kitchen. “Wow, I wonder if Martha Stewart has an emergency number?” he said. He followed the trail of blood droplets into what appeared to be a home office, half expecting to find another body, but there was no one there. He spotted a photograph half under the desk and stooped to pick it up, grimacing in disgust.

  “Check it out,” he said, handing the photo to Chang as she entered the room.

  “The husband? Into kiddies?”

  “It explains a lot,” he said. “Like the difference in their m.o. when his daughter was snatched.”

  “He set it up,” she said in a burst of understanding. “Damn. I’m sorry the bastard is dead.”

  “Where...?” Jack said from the doorway, but she gave him a “wait-a-sec” gesture.

  “Get the black and whites on their way,” she told Conners, “But tell them it’s F.B.I. business, touch nothing. I’ll get one of our agents here pronto but I need you to secure the scene till he gets here.”

  “Where will you be?” Conners asked.

  “We’re headed for Big Bear,” she told him, already on the run, signaling for Jack to follow her.

  A siren wailed in the distance as they clambered into the Bronco. She threw the car into gear and made a turn in the wet grass, leaving deep ruts behind, their headlights tearing at the trees. They were gone a full two minutes before the black and white careened into the driveway, lights flashing, siren blaring.

  * * * *

  The van rocked as Paterson swung onto a freeway at high speed, skidding slightly on the rain slick ramp, and gunned his way into the stream of traffic. The Santa Monica Freeway, heading east. To Big Bear, Catherine wondered? She had thought Paterson was in Mexico, had seen dirt roads and shacks—but, she realized belatedly, that could describe Big Bear, too.

  By now, Chang had surely reached the house. How could she alert her? She closed her eyes and suddenly she was in the back seat of the Bronco, Chang at the wheel and Jack in the passenger’s seat. She leaned forward and tried to tap Jack on the shoulder, but of course her hand went through him. Nor could she make any sound. How in the name of Heaven was she to communicate?

  She looked long and hard at the back of his neck. This had worked in the quietness of his office and her apartment, but then it had been little more than a game. Could she make him aware of her presence here, now?

  “What if they’ve already skipped out of Big Bear?” Jack asked.

  Chang swerved out of the way of another approaching black and white. “They don’t know we’ve busted O’Dell so they still think his place is safe. I’ll give you odds that’s where they’re taking Catherine,” Chang said with more confidence than she felt. She had gambled on Paterson’s ignorance once before, with disastrous results.

  “And if it’s not?”

  “You got any better suggestions?”

  “No. But, if we’re wrong....”

  He turned toward her and his glance fell on the back seat—and he saw, to his astonishment, Catherine sitting there. She nodded her head frantically.

  “Big Bear?” he asked, and she nodded her head up and down again. In the next instant, she was gone.

  “Yes, Big Bear,” Chang said, puzzled. “Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about?”

  “Yes. Yes, Big Bear,” he said in an excited voice.

  “Are you okay?” Seeing him stare, she glanced over her shoulder into the empty back seat. “What changed your mind all of a sudden?”

  “Big Bear,” he said again with a grin. “I’ll explain in a minute. You were right, that’s where they’re headed. And don’t spare the horses.”

  * * * *

  Colley was shaking her.

  “Damn it, I told you not to let her go to sleep, Colley,” Paterson said from the front seat, slapping the steering wheel with one hand. “For Christ’s sake, do whatever you got to do to keep her awake.”

  “Anything?” Colley asked with a lewd smirk.

  “Keep that in your pants, we’ll need it later. Just keep her awake.”

  Still smirking, Colley reached under Catherine’s jacket and pawed her breasts. She sucked in her breath as he tore her blouse open, pawed her bra out of the way, and pinched one nipple viciously.

  “That’ll keep you awake, I bet.” He glanced down meaningfully at his lap, where a growing bulge was becoming evident. “Him, too,” he added with a chuckle.

  She tried to shrink away from him and realized that her resistance was only fueling his excitement. Instead, she sank back against the seat, letting her entire body grow limp.

  “Keep your eyes open,” Colley ordered.

  She obeyed, looking straight ahead, watching the freeway signs rushing toward them in the rain-streaked windshield and sailing past. Yes, she had been right, they were on the I-10 now, heading east, toward San Bernardino, and beyond that, the mountains and Big Bear.

  Had Jack seen her? Did he understand? She’d had no more than a few seconds before Paterson had realized what she was doing. Somehow, he was attuned to her astral projections. That was going to make things even more difficult.

  Paterson maneuvered the van into the fast lane. It would be forty-five minutes or more before they left the freeway, maybe an hour in this driving rain, in the dark. For the first time since Paterson had flung her into the van, however, she felt hope stirring within her. She thought wryly that Paterson had made a mistake in bringing her along alive. He might have been wiser, indeed, to have killed her back there with Walter, as she had defied him to do.

  She smiled inwardly and closed her mind to the coarse hand mauling her breast. After a moment, Colley grew tired of her indifference, and the hand was gone.

  “Icy, ain’t you?” he snarled at her, and tugged at his lap to make himself more comfortable. “I need to pee,” he announced to Paterson.

  “Piss in your pants.” Paterson rammed the heel of his hand down on the horn to warn an errant pickup truck out of his way and veered around it, tires momentarily losing their
grip on the wet pavement. He swore under his breath and brought the van under control.

  The rain came down harder, wipers struggling to keep the windshield clear. He turned them up to the fastest setting, and cursed again. Ahead of them, brake lights flashed as the traffic began to slow in the downpour.

  Fifty-five minutes later, they veered off the freeway at Redlands and in a few minutes more they were on Route 38, the two-lane road that twisted and climbed its way into the mountains. As they drove higher, the rain on the windshield turned to sleet and soon after that to snow.

  The road would take them directly into Big Bear, but Catherine was sure that the town itself was not their destination. These men would not want neighbors close by. They needed a place off to itself.

  Which meant that somewhere between here and Big Bear they would leave this highway. The Big Bear area was streaked with roads and lanes, some of them little more than trails, that led into the forests to isolated cabins where one could live unnoticed for weeks, months even.

  Did Chang already know where they were headed? She must have, mustn’t she, to have started out on her own for Big Bear? She glanced surreptitiously at her watch. How far behind her could they be? Twenty minutes, maybe, surely no more than half an hour.

  The higher they climbed, the harder the snow fell, a dancing curtain of white in the twin tunnels created by their headlights. Paterson was forced to slow down, cursing non-stop as he did so. The road had been recently cleared, but already the new snow had begun to stick. The rear end of the van skidded sideways.

  He jerked the wheel and pulled abruptly into a turn off at the side of the road and the van slid to a stop. “We’re gonna need the chains,” he said. “Give me the gun. I’ll watch her. You put them on.”

  “My leg, Trash Can. You forgetting I was shot?”

  “It didn’t slow down your pecker any back there a ways. If you can get a boner you can handle tire chains. Go on, they’re there in the back. And make it quick, we don’t want any company pulling in behind us here.”