Unlike the door to the loft, this dingy white door with the tarnished brass handle opened easily enough, swinging quietly on its hinges. But that wasn’t surprising considering this one wasn’t nearly as large or as heavy. This door was narrow with a low overhead. Both Dallas and I would be ducking to get through. I wasn’t sure about Claire. She was about a head shorter than I am.
The open doorway was a gaping black hole, darker than the rest of the alcove. Only a hole dug a mile into the Earth could be as black. To make matters worse, the light switch on the wall didn’t work this time, no matter how many times I flipped it up and down. I remembered how creepy and menacing the basement was with the light on, and I was sincerely discouraged by the fact I wouldn’t have it this time. The flashlight and cell phone had done a decent enough job so far, but the basement was a whole other world altogether. The more light I could get while exploring it, the better.
The smell hit me before I even placed a foot on the steps, and I pulled the collar of my t-shirt up over my nose. The stench wafting up from the darkness hinted at familiarity, yet at the same time, was like nothing I’d ever experienced. A year ago, I discovered Corwin Barnes’ cache of dismembered human body parts stewing in a pool of their own viscera, and the smell now was just as bad as it was then. Something about that fact dropped a brick into the pit of my stomach. Surely during the investigation someone must have cleaned up and disposed of the remains. There shouldn’t be any of it still down there.
Unless these were new ...
I stopped myself short of finishing the thought, choosing to ignore what my subconscious was trying to tell me. Still, the little desire I had left to go down into the basement was suddenly cut in half.
“My God.”
The funk had apparently reached Claire. She gagged briefly, and for a moment, I thought she might get sick.
“God had nothing to do with that,” Dallas said, as if he knew the Almighty personally. If the rising stench bothered him in the least, he didn’t show it. “That’s one hundred percent death, right there. Cruel and shameful and stripped of any and all dignity. The God I like to believe in wouldn’t be that messy about things.”
I could hear Claire breathing again. Only now, it was through her mouth.
Holding the flashlight in front of me, I lit up the stairs all the way down to the bottom. The wooden steps had once been painted a light grey, similar to the color of primer. This made the near black splatter patterns stand out in the bright LED light. My stomach lurched. I knew what the spattering of blood was from. More so, I knew who the spattering was from, and it took everything I learned in therapy to keep from flipping out.
I closed my eyes and tried concentrating on my breathing. The short intakes were coming a mile a minute, and I tried with all I had to steady them. Four seconds in, seven seconds out. Calm down, I told myself. You can do this. I had to do this. Four seconds in, seven seconds out. Gradually, my breathing slowed, though my heart rate did not.
But there was no turning back now.
The first step was the toughest. The second proved a little easier, but the third put me right where I was standing when I’d lost Becca. When Barnes took the only good thing I did that night and ripped it right from my hands. I took a deep breath and moved past the third step quickly, continuing on to the fourth, fifth and sixth.
Halfway. I stopped there and shined my flashlight up to make sure Claire and Dallas were following. Just like I’d remembered, these steps weren’t creaking when I put weight on them. They were sturdier, and probably newer than the stairs leading up to the loft, almost as if they had been built or rebuilt specifically to handle a heavy load.
Dallas was right behind me. In fact, he could have been my shadow he was keeping so close. Claire, on the other hand, remained bent over in the doorway at the top of the stairs.
“Sorry,” she said, her arms folded across her stomach. “I don’t think I can.”
“It’s okay, babe. Stay right there. We won’t be long.” When I looked at Dallas, I saw that he was looking back at me, his head nodding discretely just outside the glow of the flashlight. I was glad he agreed with me. Whatever was down here making that God-awful smell, Claire didn’t need to see it. She was choosing the lesser of two evils, and would be okay right where she was. At least that’s what I kept telling myself as I fought to keep my mind free of images of when I last saw Becca.
The first thing I noticed when I stepped off the last wooden tread and onto the concrete floor was that the smell wasn’t any worse down here. It wasn’t any better, but not any worse, either. Or maybe I had just gotten used to it, if that was even possible. Either way, I found I could start breathing through my nose without triggering my gag reflex and that, at least, was a move in the right direction.
The long, sturdy-as-hell workbench was right where I’d last seen it. Shoved up against the grey concrete wall directly in front of us, it was the first thing I subconsciously trained my flashlight on. Like it had a choice in the matter. The bench was as formidable as I remembered. It truly was a marvel of craftsmanship. But then, it had to be in order to withstand the task it had once been entrusted – and maybe even built – to do.
Thankfully, upon further investigation, I found no evidence of that task being performed. For the most part, the worn and scarred top of the wooden workbench was empty. There were no human remains nor flesh-eating beetles that Barnes had once been used to speed up the decomposition process.
A dark red, almost black, stain was the only thing that existed on its surface now, spread out over a third of the massive workbench. Training the flashlight onto the floor in front of the bench, it illuminated a similar stain on the concrete. Only this one wasn’t as much a stain as a slick of thick, dried blood, its consistency resembling old bearing grease. Most likely, we had discovered the source of the foul stench. At least I hoped so. If this was as bad as things got down there, I would be fine with it.
Before I could stop him, Dallas took the toe of his boot and drew a line through the viscid mass. The substance came off the floor like a serial killer’s favorite scoop of ice cream, curling up onto the front of the boot’s sole. It took all I had to keep my breakfast in my stomach where it belonged.
“That was fuckin’ gross,” I said, shaking my head.
But Dallas just shrugged and turned, like he’d already lost interest in the workbench and its collection of dried blood. As he flipped on the cell phone and walked away, I noticed that his gun was once again tucked in the waistband of his jeans. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one feeling like the church no longer posed a danger. Corwin Barnes wasn’t back in operation here and probably hadn’t been back here at all. The old abandoned church seemed to be just that, and nothing else. A far cry from the way I’d found it the first time.
I was just enjoying the feeling of letting down my guard when a thin, mousy sneeze suddenly came from somewhere in the darkness. Bouncing off the surrounding concrete block, it was difficult to pinpoint the origin. Once again I froze, and the possibilities started coming to mind. Very gradually, I cast my light in the direction Dallas had gone and found him near the far wall. He was standing just as still as could be underneath the window, looking back at me with the same expression I undoubtedly had on my face. Was that you? Before I could even shake my head, the answer came to us from above.
“Sorry. Again.” Claire’s soft voice drifted down from the top of the stairs. “It’s awfully dusty in here.”
As the tension left my shoulders, I let out the breath I’d been holding. Seconds later, Dallas joined me at the bottom of the stairs.
“Nothin’ over there,” he said, no longer bothering to whisper. “Just an empty room, save for a few dead spiders.”
“How do you know they were dead?”
“I could tell by the way they sounded when I stepped on ’em,” he said.
With the shake of my head, the two of us headed toward the other side of the basement where I fully expected to find the sa
me thing. And I was right. The larger of the two sides proved just as empty as the one Dallas had already explored. Everything was gone, packed up and presumably disposed of along with the rest of Barnes’ operation. Even the large, menacing hook that had hung from the ceiling had been removed, probably taken as evidence and sitting in a box tucked deep in the bowels of a police station somewhere.
“Nothing left but bad memories,” I said.
“Maybe someday those’ll be gone, too.” Dallas put his hand on my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before that smell permeates our clothes, and we have to burn one of my favorite shirts.”
I nodded, glancing down at his rainbow swirl tie dye. “I don’t know. Burning that ugly ass shirt might be the best thing for it.”
We found Claire sitting on the top step, knees drawn up against her chest, chin down. She looked more bored than frightened at that point, and that’s how I could tell our work there was officially done.
“Ready to go?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” she said, getting to her feet and brushing off the back of her jeans. “I need some fresh air.”
Chapter 19
Standing out front, we let the sun warm our skin as we took one last look at the building that held no more answers. It was just an old, abandoned building now, and I figured that after all the church had been put through, it was probably okay with that. I found it both a relief and a disappointment that we hadn’t found anything. At least nothing that had anything to do with Barnes. Once and for all, my business here was truly done.
“Hey, Dallas,” I said, my hand turning the lighter over in my pocket, “I noticed a gas can strapped in the back of your Jeep. Anything in it?”
A knowing smile spread across his face.
“Enough,” he said, a youthful exuberance in his voice.
The entire ride back to the city was a quiet one. We’d watched from the safety of the parking lot as the church and all its morbid history went up in flames. The blazing inferno licked the sky, rising higher than I would have ever guessed. I was thankful for the rain we’d had the day before; nothing surrounding the church was likely to catch on fire. Most of all, I was thankful the church was gone.
We stayed around as long as we dared until the completely engulfed structure collapsed in on itself, filling the basement with its fiery ruin. It had gone up quickly, like the once-cherished house of worship was just as eager to be out of its misery as I was to send it on its way. When it became inevitable that the swirling grey smoke rising into the sky had most likely been noticed and the fire department called, we made our way back to the Jeep.
No one said a word from the time we hightailed it out of there to when Dallas pulled into the alley behind the garage and parked beside my truck. The three of us even sat in silence for another minute before Dallas broke it with the obvious question.
“Now what?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, handing him back his lighter. I had been asking myself that very question the whole ride back and still didn’t have an answer. The satisfaction I originally felt from burning down the church had already faded halfway through the ride home, once I realized that nothing had really changed. The original threat still loomed. “I can’t just hide out forever. Unless the cops find Barnes, or determine someone else is simply screwing with me, I guess I’m pretty much on my own.”
“Hell, no, you’re not,” Dallas said, extending his hand. “Not anymore, you ain’t.”
I shook his hand and felt a little of the weight being lifted from my shoulders. It had been increasing for the past hour; ever since we pulled away from the burning church empty handed.
“I’ll be checkin’ in on ya at the hotel, cruisin’ through the parking lot every so often, making sure there ain’t any crazed killers sitting in their cars stalkin’ ya.”
“Dallas, you don’t have to do that. Really.”
“What the hell else I got to do?” he said, and gave me one of his grandiose smiles.
I smiled back and shook my head. I didn’t think it was necessary for him to patrol the hotel parking lot, but deep down, I had to admit I loved the idea. That, and the fact that this gruff, military guy had apparently developed a soft spot for me. Who could hate that?
“Alright,” I said, opening the passenger side door. “Guess I’ll see you Tuesday?”
Dallas nodded, and Claire and I climbed out of the Jeep. After tossing back a wave, I took Claire’s hand and we walked over to where my truck was parked.
Instantly, I knew something was wrong. Before I had even come up beside the truck, the warm, fuzzy feeling in my stomach vanished and was replaced with a cold, hard lump. At some point, I let go of Claire’s hand.
Underneath the driver’s side wiper blade was a piece of paper that hadn’t been there when we left. With my adrenaline returning, I grabbed it, opening the white sheet with trembling hands. That familiar big, black lettering sent a cold chill dancing down my spine. The tiny hairs along the back of my neck stood up, pulling my skin with them. I immediately started looking around, frantically checking my surroundings.
Where was he?
Somewhere outside of my conscience, I could make out Claire’s anxious voice asking me what was wrong. It came at me over and over, but I could only ignore her. My eyes searched the area, my heart trying to break through my chest.
As I dropped the letter onto the still-damp gravel at my feet, it fell face up. Even from the ground, the words taunted me…
SORRY YOU DIDN’T FIND WHAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR
PART II
Chapter 20
It was a Monday. Memorial Day, in fact. The day set aside every year to remember those who died serving in the United States military. A day that people like Dallas, who fought and lost friends, hold particularly sacred and unfortunately, a day that everyone else holds sacred for entirely different reasons: hot dogs, potato salad and slurping down enough cans of Budweiser to drown the elephant in the room.
Dallas wouldn’t let me work on the sacred day, and I really didn’t want to attend a barbecue at the house of my father’s pompous boss, so I was honoring the fallen by drinking overpriced coffee at a Starbucks. With the smell of gasoline and burning wood still in my nose, I was clicking away at the keyboard of my father’s laptop, trying to find out anything I could on one Corwin Barnes. They call the Internet the “information superhighway,” but apparently there are no exits on the stretch of pavement for Barnes-ville. I couldn’t find shit on the guy.
I Googled his name both forward and backward, even though I knew it didn’t matter what order the words were entered. None of the search results brought up the man I’d met a year ago. There were two different Facebook pages for guys named Corwin Barnes, but one of the guys was far too young, and according to the second guy’s profile photo, he was restricted to a wheelchair. I wasn’t really surprised; it wasn’t like your typical serial killers were big on social media. If anything, it was just the opposite. I even scoured local newspaper archives and police records, but still came up empty.
I was just starting to search police records for anything on the murders at the abandoned church when the coffee kicked in. And not in the way you want it to.
Thankfully, I was well aware of the effects of coffee on my system. I’d specifically chosen a small table near the restrooms for that very reason. I wanted to feel relatively safe leaving the laptop unattended for a few minutes. At least that’s the reason I was giving myself. The real truth was that I was still unnerved by our trip to the church. Especially having returned to find that we were apparently followed. That’s the only explanation I could think of for the wording of the note. It had been difficult to sleep last night, to say the least. Two questions kept me up: was Barnes following me everywhere I went? And if so, what was he waiting for?
There were only a couple of people in the coffee shop, both near the front of the store. I figured my things would be safe for the length of time it would take me to pee. The fifty-someth
ing year old man’s eyes were glued to his laptop screen, and the younger woman’s to a hardcover copy of Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places. Nobody would even notice I was gone.
*
Less than three minutes.
That’s how long I was away from my stuff, and that included taking longer than usual to wash my hands. It still bothered me how stained they’d become. I scrubbed and scrubbed and they still never looked clean. Not completely. Luckily, I already had a girlfriend; one who could care less what my hands looked like.
But three minutes was apparently too long, because the table wasn’t how I’d left it. More specifically, there was something there that wasn’t there when I’d left.
I wouldn’t call it alarm, but something resembling a milder form of it tugged at the corners of my mind. My heart rate started creeping upward. A man sang about a brown-eyed girl from the speakers mounted in the ceiling.
The short paper cup wasn't like the familiar white and green Starbucks cup my coffee had come in, and didn’t even look like it was from this coffee shop. The only similarity between the two was the white plastic lid. Yet there it sat, across the table from my father’s laptop. Mostly red with a playful white swirl design, the mysterious cup definitely stood out.
I stopped a couple of steps shy of the table and looked around, trying to figure out who may have set it there. Tucked back in the secluded corner by the restroom, there wasn’t anyone at either of the other two nearby tables. Nor was there any place for someone to hide. The only people in the place were the same man and woman near the front, still doing what they had been doing when I got up and went to the restroom.
It wasn’t until I cautiously approached the table that I noticed the white square the cup was sitting on. At first I thought it was just a napkin, but upon further examination, it was a folded up piece of paper. It looked very much like the note left on my windshield. Apprehension soured my stomach like week-old sushi as I reached down and picked up the cup, but not before giving one more glance around the room to see if anyone was at least paying attention. They weren’t.
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