I followed the tracks on foot, down, down, down the graded concrete and steel, along rows of empty, numbered spaces. Sunlight was a thing of the past. At the bottom levels, the only light was the glow of an occasional Exit sign above a gray metal door.
I was about to turn the last corner when I heard that boyish voice. Turgeon. I thought he’d spotted me, even though I couldn’t see him or his car, but he was talking to someone.
“Please don’t talk like that. I hate it when you say things that way. I’m not the one.”
Whoever answered had some kind of speech impediment. The response came in a harsh, garbled whisper, almost like a toy train clacking on a track in slow, slow motion, or a paper bag dragged across cement, soft and crackly.
Gshhh chahhhh chhhhh.
Turgeon seemed to understand it. “That’s not what I meant.”
I slowed, crouched, hugged the wall, but made the last turn and kept descending. At the bottom, I made out the Humvee, parked near an elevator. The dim light made the piss yellow closer to the color of blood. A Dumpster, full of construction debris, had been plopped catty-corner in the space opposite him. Whenever Turgeon talked, I made for it.
His rounded back was to me, but he bobbed nervously, like he might spin around any second. “But it’s not my fault. Can’t you . . .”
As he spoke, he faced a heavy lump sitting on the hood. It wasn’t a silver eagle or a winged angel, but I guess you could call it a head ornament. It was the one head I’d seen strapped in the passenger seat. It was making the sounds.
Shhhhkkk ggrrllll cahhhh.
Don’t know why I didn’t out-and-out lose it. Maybe it was the dim lighting that made everything look flat and unreal, or maybe I was more fascinated than sickened. How could it make sounds at all? I noticed it moved its cheeks before it spoke. Curious, I exhaled, pushing all the air out of my lungs, then puffed my cheeks and forced the air through my nose. Maybe it was using those muscles to draw air through its neck. Could work, I guess.
Whatever it meant by its last crackles, Turgeon didn’t like it at all. His tone dived from whiny to annoyed.
“Stop it! I’ll put you back with the others! I can and I will! You’re not so big now!”
The others? Right. The duffel bag sat on a big flat wooden cart with a metal handle near the car. It didn’t take much to figure he was threatening to stuff the head in there. He gave it a little kick to make his point.
Jssshhhh.
“Of course I wouldn’t.” He sounded pouty again, like the last harsh noise had put him back in his place.
I reached the back of the Dumpster and tried to focus on the sounds.
Shtpp rrr wnnnn hlp yorr.
The noises were soft, struggling, but intentional, like someone trying to play a trumpet by blowing through the mouthpiece with a straw. It was using words, best as it could. The first sentence I made out was something like:
Stop or I won’t help you.
Turgeon gave it a loud tsk and stamped his feet on the dusty concrete. “It’s not just for me! It’s for all of you.”
“Stop.”
“You know I can’t, Daddy.”
Daddy? So the family-killer theory wasn’t far off the mark.
“Not your father.”
“Stepfather! Stepfather! Fine!” In frustration, he kicked the dolly.
Close enough. Either way, it was clear he wanted stepdaddy’s approval. He was begging for it. If the pattern held true, Turgeon’s stepfather must have been executed for killing his wife. That would be Turgeon’s mother, wouldn’t it?
Plenty of time to play Name that Sick Motive later. I had to decide what to do now, while he was distracted. If I rushed up to try breathing in his face, I’d have to come at him from the front. Too risky. I only had one shot, and I didn’t want to blow it. Besides, he was still talking. For better or worse, that good-cop instinct kicked in, the one that still thought about bringing him in to justice. And he was still talking. I didn’t know how far the conversation would go, but just in case, I fumbled for the recorder, pressed the button, and aimed the mike at Turgeon the Great and his amazing talking head.
Of course, the second the little red light went on, they shut up.
Not the duffel bag, though. Ever since he’d kicked it, it was pulsing more and more. Now a whole choir of scraping sounds came from inside, a jumble of sources. It dawned on me that Wilson and Boyle would be in there. Nell Parker, too? Not that I recognized any of the voices. Best I could do was pick out a couple of words, none happy:
“Help . . . die . . . why . . . murder . . . cutter.” That didn’t do much to improve Turgeon’s mood. He
That didn’t do much to improve Turgeon’s mood. He grabbed his ears and wheeled back toward the head ornament. “Talk to them!” he howled. “Talk to them!”
“No,” the “daddy” answered.
“Ripping . . . blood . . . monster . . . killer . . .”
The heads didn’t seem to like him very much. I wasn’t surprised, but Turgeon was. He looked hurt, like he was ready to cry.
“You’re the only one who can.”
“No.”
“I told you, it’s just these three! Just them, all right? Just these three and I promise I’ll be done. I swear I’ll stop.”
“No.”
Seeing he wasn’t getting anywhere, Turgeon forced himself to simmer down. He approached the head apologetically, stroked what was left of its cheek. “I’m so sorry I’m shouting. I get so angry. I get so upset. Ever since I saw that boy’s skeleton it’s been so hard to calm down. It almost got me! And that detective got away. He’s dangerous. He must know by now. He must know I killed his wife. He just doesn’t understand that I did it for him. None of them do!”
Lenore. He’d said it. There it was. A confession.
I couldn’t let him see me, but there was a loud roar and for the longest time I thought it came from me. Took me to the count of ten to realize it didn’t; it was the duffel bag. The heads in it were twisting harder, getting louder, like they were screaming for me. Turgeon, the idiot, had reminded us all that he was the one who’d stolen our loves, our lives, beaten them until their bodies caved.
“Killed her . . . you did it . . . oh, God. . . . why, God . . . killed him . . . no, not her . . . wasn’t me . . .”
The bag wobbled precariously. It took all I had to keep from running out and throttling him. If I was sure I’d actually be able to kill him, I’d have done it in a second.
Turgeon shouted at the bag like it was a disobedient pet. “They were hurting you! Driving you away! I was doing you a favor!” He turned back to the head ornament. “Daddy, tell them they’re free now! You have to tell them they should be happy!”
It moaned two words: “Put me . . .”
Relief washed over Turgeon so strongly, he looked like he shrank an inch. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
He wiped his brow, then gently, almost lovingly lifted the head. I saw the tendrils again, drooping from the stump of the neck. What muscles there were pulsed in tune with its words, fanning air up into the throat, like gills on a fish.
“One last time,” it said.
He put Daddy on the dolly and opened the edge of the bag. Using the same neck muscles that let it make noises, it squirmed inside the rustling bag. The weird slurred speech echoed through the space. Deferential as he’d been, Turgeon yanked the duffel bag closed and gave it a rough shake that quieted them down. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. I’d hate to see what he’d do with a hamster.
Once they were silent, he stopped and looked around. I thought he’d seen or heard me, but no. I did get a good look at him, enough to see that his oval face was bare. The air was so thick with crap, I could taste it on my tongue, but Baby-head didn’t even wear a mask. Was this a suicide run?
No, he still didn’t have me. And me? I had a recorded confession, something even Booth might listen to. I had my cell phone. I was about to use it when he opened the back of the Humvee and
the air filled with Nell Parker’s louder, more enthusiastic cries.
My whole body shuddered with relief. Not just because there was still someone I could save if I didn’t screw up, but that it was her.
Turgeon picked up the head clippers, held their big, curved blades open, directly over her neck. I tensed, ready to jump out at him, but he didn’t use them.
“You’re only still in one piece because I promised Daddy I would wait,” he said. “But it wouldn’t be the first promise I broke.”
She got the idea and settled down.
With some grunting, he loaded Nell onto the dolly, followed by the clippers and the duffel bag. The last thing he loaded up was a wooden crate with some writing on it: 40—8 Oz CHGS PE4.
What was that about? Damned if I knew what. Forty eight-ounce somethings. I tried playing Jonesey’s memory game in reverse, thinking whatever came to mind—chgs . . . changes, charges? And the PE? Phys ed? Pro education?
Plastic explosives.
Forty eight-ounce charges of plastic explosive.
I could’ve saved myself the trouble if I’d noticed the timer slapped to the top and the wires running down into the crate. Nell figured it out faster than I did. She flopped around so violently, she threw herself off the dolly. The heads started squirming, too.
Turgeon looked like an overwrought babysitter. “Quiet! Quiet!”
When no one obeyed, he stamped his feet, the sharp blasts echoing through the lot. I tensed, ready to go for him. The explosives made me think I should do something sooner rather than later. But the clippers were under the duffel bag, so rather than grab them, he pulled out a gun. If I wasn’t mistaken, it was my Walther P99. He aimed it at Nell, too agitated to realize it wasn’t that much of a threat. Seeing it only made her struggle more. He grabbed some oily cloths from the car and stuffed as many as he could into her mouth.
I was starting to feel like fucking Hamlet: Should I stay or should I go? But rushing up while he had the gun was not a good idea. If nothing else a few slugs would slow me down; two in the knees would bring me to a halt.
Liveblood at a toxic site with a bag full of heads and a bomb? The cops might not believe me, but no reason they wouldn’t listen to Misty. I crouched back down and fished out my cell phone. Given how near Turgeon was, I wished I could text, but instead I had to hit the speed dial at 1.
After two rings, she answered. Unfortunately, she answered very loudly.
“Hess, are you okay?
Terrified that Psycho-baby would hear, I kept my voice low. “Shhh! I’m in the hospital parking lot, lowest level, with Turgeon. He has explosives. I think he’s planning to bring the whole place down. Get the cops; tell them you have proof he’s been killing livebloods. Get them over here fast.”
“What? What’d you say?”
There were airy sounds behind her, crowds. She was on the street. Crap! She’d gone to the rally! At least it meant she was close.
I tried to explain again, but still kept my voice too low. After her third shrill, “What?” Turgeon heard us.
He was faster than he looked. He barreled over before I could stand and slammed into me. Before I knew what was happening, I was down on my stomach. There was no way to spit in his face while his knees pressed into my dried-out kidneys.
I saw the cell phone skitter and spin along the dusty floor. Misty’s voice was still coming from the speaker, saying, “What? What?”
When he realized who I was, he started giggling.
Yeah, surprise! Happy fucking birthday. Look what I got you—me, your only missing victim! Am I a pal, or what?
He didn’t have cuffs, plastic or otherwise, but he had some rope and used it to hog-tie me pretty quick. Then he gagged me with the cloth that hadn’t fit in Nell’s mouth. I was on my stomach the whole time, head sideways, so I couldn’t get a straight shot with the VX if I tried. A minute later, I was piled on the dolly with Nell, a bag full of heads, the clippers, and a crate of explosives.
Beside himself, Turgeon wheeled us to the elevator, pressed the button, and said, “Going down?”
I think he thought it was funny.
29
If you have to be tied up, rope’s more comfortable than handcuffs or plastic bands. Rope gives, breathes a little. It also gives you hope. If I wriggled and twisted my hands, pulled, relaxed, repeated, eventually they’d loosen. Eventually they’d loosen enough for me to get free. At best it would take an hour or two, long after whatever Turgeon was planning would be all over. Still, it was something to do.
I was lying near the front of the flat cart, looking up at Turgeon’s back while he looked up at the elevator lights. They blinked lower and lower: basement, subbasement, sub-subbasement, then some initials I didn’t understand. It felt like I was in one of those old cartoons where the elevator goes so low that the doors open up in hell—flaming pits and a grinning devil with a pitchfork. Wrong floor. Besides, I was already in hell.
Behind me there was a frantic rustling. If it had been Nell, that would’ve been bearable, but the shape was wrong and the pieces kept coming apart and rolling off one another. Heads, I lose. They were shifting around like they still had bladders and had to pee real bad. I tried to stay calm, concentrate on the ropes. I was doing okay, relatively, until, through the bag, I felt a mouth close on my shin.
Electric-syrup time.
I dry-heaved. I pulled my legs in tight. I crammed my eyes shut. I stayed that way until the elevator stopped and the doors opened. When Turgeon wheeled us out, the drone of the dolly seemed to calm the heads, so the gnawing stopped.
I looked again. Turgeon was pushing from behind, so I couldn’t see him at all. We were in the lowest part of the complex. Plastic sheets were everywhere, ceiling to floor, a poor man’s picture windows, held by a series of monolithic concrete pillars. It looked like a buried temple to some industrial god who couldn’t care less whether you worshiped him or not. As good a place for a nightmare as any.
A thin, barely visible cloud of white powder hung in the air, but there was a steady breeze disturbing its peace. The hum of vacuums sucking air through long, cylindrical tubes was loud enough to make the plastic vibrate and drown out the dolly’s wheels. Part of the remediation. They were trying to take asbestos out of the air.
As he pushed us through the plastic maze, Turgeon stopped a few times and looked around. I don’t think he was admiring the view; he just didn’t know exactly where Odell Jenkins was. Grateful for the extra seconds, I kept at the ropes. If Egghead saw me squirming, he didn’t say anything. I got nowhere, but Turgeon had some success.
He’d found an area where even the emergency lights didn’t work, and a long yellow extension cord ran to a distant hanging lamp. There were new sounds—hammering, crunching, shredding—and the shadows shifted with them.
Turgeon’s pace picked up. He’d found Odell. Rather than head straight for the light, he wheeled the dolly toward the gloom behind the sheets. As we rolled through, the plastic crawled across my body, leaving a sheen of white dust. Funny, it reminded me of Ashby.
Ahead was a dark nothing. To the left, the hammering got louder. I twisted my neck and caught my first, plastic-blurred glimpse of Odell Jenkins. He worked alone. Maybe it didn’t make sense to give zombies a day off. He was standing near the hanging light, where the ends of the vacuum tubes had been set up. At first I thought his hair was white, but when he swung a sledgehammer into the wall, a cloud of plaster dust puffed from the top of his head.
He didn’t wear a protective mask or a hood. From the looks of the rest of him, he wouldn’t go down easily. The former brain surgeon was a bruiser with anaconda arms and door-wide shoulders. He swung that sledgehammer like it was a feather, tore off the drywall by hand, and then yanked the exposed two-by-fours free, nails and all. Maybe his boss figured he didn’t need any help. Given enough time, he’d take the whole hospital down himself.
Turgeon stopped us alongside one of the wide concrete supports. I still couldn’t see him, bu
t I imagined he was eyeing Jenkins the way a starving hyena might look at a distracted lion. He had all the cards; the only question was how he’d play them. He’d want to D-cap Jenkins, then me and Nell, set his explosives, and leave with his bag full. When the building came down, this place would make a nice mausoleum. If they ever dug us up, it’d be no surprise to find a few chak pieces. Better than the desert or the acid. The daddy head might not like it, but there wasn’t much it could do.
Chk. Chk.
Somewhere above my left ear, Turgeon was testing the clippers, slowly, quietly, so Jenkins wouldn’t hear. He stepped to the side of the dolly and held open the nearest plastic flap. It gave me a clear look at him, and a clearer view of Jenkins.
The odds weren’t as good as I thought. Jenkins’s bright orange jumpsuit made him a great target, but worse than that, he was wearing earbuds. The poor sap was listening to music, or an audiobook, trying to improve himself. Turgeon could play a trumpet and still sneak up on him. And the clippers were very sharp.
I grunted and kicked, hoping Jenkins might hear me even through whatever iThing he had on and turn around. The heads rustled a bit, but the one who really responded was Turgeon. He held the blades in front of my eyes and said, “Shhh.”
I could have kept kicking. If I forced it, made him D-cap me first, Jenkins might hear something and get away. Y’know, if it’d just been about my death, I might’ve gone for it, but I really did not want to wind up in that bag. So one look at those razors and I clammed up tighter than a crab’s ass at high tide.
With such concerns behind them, there was nothing to keep the heads quiet. They kept jostling, their twitching joined by those scraping paper-bag voices. But the vacuums were loud and their voices so soft that Turgeon only gave the duffel bag a halfhearted kick before stepping to the other side of the plastic.
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