Painted Skins

by Matt Hilton

  Po took some weight off the gas pedal.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Pinky declared, and wiped at a film of sweat on his forehead. ‘I’ve been thrown around like dirty laundry in a washer, me. You didn’t think to add air-ride suspension to this ol’ hunk of scrap metal when you customized it?’

  ‘Didn’t ever expect to have an ol’ hunk like you riding shotgun,’ Po told him with a grin. ‘Those shock absorbers weren’t made to handle someone like you, Pinky.’

  ‘I think “shock absorbers” is a real stretch of the definition,’ Pinky replied archly. ‘The only shock absorber is my head on the damn roof!’ Their banter was an indicator of anxiety. Despite their jokes, they were as tense as Tess was, perhaps for different reasons. She was nervous in case she’d called it all wrong, whereas Po and Pinky were girding themselves for trouble. On that note, she reached in her purse, and felt for the butt of her grandfather’s Service Six.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Elsa’s imagination had conjured a roaring furnace from noises she’d heard in the distance, and throughout her incarceration had expected that immolation was the end game for all of the girls in the whispering devil’s harem. She’d called it wrong. The noise she’d listened to, filtered and distorted by the many walls and echoing rooms, was the opening and closing of the massive roller shutter whenever the brute came or went with his truck. The site appeared derelict, decommissioned, but her abuser had rigged some kind of power supply to feed the lights and the motor on the shutter. She knew that now because as he dragged her past the nearest trough she spotted the roof of a car submerged in the filth below. He’d been bringing not only the abductees to this place, but their vehicles too and burying them from sight in the sludgy depths. She wondered fleetingly into which trough her own car had been pushed.

  After gloating how he’d foiled her attempt to ring the police, he remained silent. His commands were given in wrenches of her hair, of knuckles in her spine, of fingers at her throat. He forced her past Jasmine’s cell, from which the young woman reached futilely to grab hold of her, to foil what he had in mind. He’d fetched with him the flashlight Elsa had used to knock him cold, and used it similarly as he whacked Jasmine’s arms and she withdrew them with a cry of agony.

  ‘I’ll come back,’ Elsa screeched at the imprisoned woman. ‘I promise you, I’ll come back.’

  Her captor grunted at the absurdity of her pledge, and almost lifted her off her feet with his fingers clenched either side of her jaw. Roughly he spun her, and kicked at the backs of her legs to get going. He snatched up the chain trailing behind her, whipping it as if mushing a dogsled team. Elsa tripped and stumbled, with no idea where he was taking her. Would he make her retrace her steps back to her cell, or take her elsewhere? Wherever it was, it wasn’t going to be good.

  She’d seen his face, could identify him. There was no way a person with such a horrible deformation to his features could hide in normal society. But even without seeing his face she was positive she could identify him in a line-up, and not because of his stature and overblown muscles. He wore jeans and a work shirt with the sleeves torn off. Every inch of visible skin from his chin down was covered with a hotchpotch array of tattoos. They were as grotesque as his face, random shapes and letters that were blue and blotchy, the ink feathering into the surrounding skin. In an attempt at drawing an observer’s eye from her crinkly burn marks, Elsa had gone under the tattooist’s gun. She wondered if he’d made a similar attempt to pull attention from his face by making his body as equally ugly. There was no artistry in his tattoos, and she suspected they were the product of a drunken friend or cellmate with a needle and ink, or even by his own poorly guided hand. Ordinarily she would pity someone so horrifically deformed, but not in his case. His outward appearance was every bit as warped as he was inside.

  When Jasmine had thrust out her arms to hold on to her, they had been tattooed. Were their tattoos the reason the monster had snatched them? Did he somehow believe that their body art intimately connected them? It was a possibility, but for one thing – he could not have known of Elsa’s tattoos before ramming her car off the road.

  There was a flight of steps at the edge of the platform she’d fallen from. She took them to the top, and paused, unsure where she should go next. He jabbed her in the left shoulder, and instinctively she moved right and faced a wall of shadows. She hadn’t noticed the passage before. The entrance was hidden behind a curtain of plastic strips, filthy with decades of grime, and it was almost invisible against the surrounding darkness. She pushed through. He halted her with a tug of the chain while he edged inside. There was no light in the tunnel, so he flicked on the flashlight. Her shadow was cast before her in a pool of light that didn’t reach far along the cramped passage.

  He snapped the chain against her backside to get her moving, and Elsa fought to hold in her cry, denying him the satisfaction of hearing her in pain. She regretted wasting time on trying to phone the police now, when she should have grabbed some clothes. Naked, she was vulnerable and tempting. She could sense his greasy fascination as he fixated on the sway of her bare hips and thighs as he tried to bring a flush into them with the snapping chain. She halted.

  ‘Keep moving,’ he warned in his usual rasping whisper.

  She took a few steps then halted again. She began to turn.

  ‘Do not look at me.’

  ‘I’ve already seen your face.’

  ‘Do not talk,’ he growled. ‘You’re beginning to try my patience, bitch. Don’t you remember the rules?’

  ‘Fuck you!’

  ‘I won’t warn you again, whore …’

  ‘You’re going to kill me anyway. So fuck you and your fucking rules, you ugly piece of shit!’

  He yanked her towards him, the chain wrenching her wrists so that she bent at the waist. Defiantly she rose up, pushing out her chest as she eyed him.

  ‘So have I to look at you or not?’ she demanded.

  He shone the flashlight directly in her face, and the sudden glare caused her eyelids to screw tight. She fought the urge to avert her face, and slowly peeled open her eyes to stare at him.

  ‘I should kill you right now,’ he said as he passed the flashlight into the hand clutching her tether.

  ‘Do it. Death’s preferable to spending another second in your stinking presence.’

  His slap landed without warning, his knuckles battering her head sideways. She sagged, blackness edging her mind, but he shook her chain, bringing her back to her feet. Slowly she straightened up, and again stared him down.

  ‘Is that it? Is that all you can do? Slap me like the bitch you are?’ she goaded. ‘You’re so pathetic, you ugly …’

  He struck her again, this time with the flashlight slashing across her left thigh. ‘Keep going,’ he warned. ‘I can keep this up all day.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Elsa. ‘Pity the same can’t be said for your pecker. Those times you forced yourself on me, all I could think about was how I soooo wished you were a real man!’

  He snarled, and his hand went for her throat.

  Elsa ducked, then bobbed up inside his reach, her right knee battering at his groin.

  He squeezed his thighs together, so that her knee merely glanced off him. He cupped the back of her skull, pulled her in tighter to him so she couldn’t move. Blood from the cuts on his neck smeared her cheeks as he ground her against him. ‘You think you’re so smart,’ he whispered harshly in her ear. ‘You aren’t. You’re trying to force me into killing you cleanly; if you were so fucking smart you’d know you’re doing the opposite. You’re guaranteeing a slow and painful end, you stupid whore. Before I’m done you’ll beg me to kill you.’

  His fingers entwined her hair, and he yanked back her head.

  ‘Look at me now!’

  She looked, her pupils shuddering as they took in the enormity of his savage deformity.

  ‘You’ll wish your face was as pretty as mine before I’m finished with you.’

  ‘I’ll … I
’ll never beg …’

  ‘Perhaps not out loud,’ he acquiesced, ‘because first thing I’m going to do is rip that disobedient tongue out of your stupid fucking head.’

  Elsa suddenly wrenched against him, and when he grappled her again, she clamped her teeth on his lower jaw. She bit with every ounce of outrage left in her, the muscles in her own jaws cramping with the effort. He had no option but release his hold on her, both on the chain and her hair, and he got his hands under her chin to prise her away. He screamed deep in his chest at the effort, but equally at the thought of being further disfigured. The flashlight fell, bounced off the wall and spun away. Elsa’s teeth snapped open, and she took flight, tasting his blood in her mouth.

  She made it ten feet before his boot stamped down on her trailing chain. The sudden yank spun her and she fell on her back.

  He grasped the chain, and came up, and in the lambent glow of the flashlight she would swear his one good eye was as red as the fresh wound on his face. He touched the torn flesh on his jaw, held his fingers up to inspect them, and a change shuddered through him. Before his cruelty was epic, now it would be unquenchable. He roared, rushing at her with his bloody fingers like claws, as if he was about to literally tear out her tongue.

  She’d tried so hard to fight him, to escape, to help save Jasmine, but now she had nothing left. She clamped her teeth, drew in her knees, and prayed her heart would give out before he laid his hands on her.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  ‘I think we should split up, otherwise it will take for ever to search this place,’ Tess suggested as she stood between Po and Pinky in front of the Mustang. They were on a turning circle in the forest, above a set of wide wooden steps leading down to a forested valley that met the edge of Quabbin Reservoir. The valley was filled with partly collapsed buildings and sheds, and a huge stack of rusting girders housing huge water wheels and turbines.

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ Po said. ‘If you’re right about Jasmine being in there, you can bet your ass that Randall is too. No way am I letting you get within a mile of him alone.’

  ‘Your concern for me is as touching as ever, Po,’ she countered, ‘and as inappropriate. I can look after myself, don’t forget.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘And I’m the only one with a gun,’ she added, and showed him the Ruger .38 revolver. ‘So I should be more concerned about you guys. But I see no other way.’

  ‘The cops are coming,’ Pinky reminded her. ‘You called them and they’re sending someone, right?’

  Detective Ratcliffe couldn’t afford to ignore Tess’s call. She was confident that the detective had dispatched a patrol to the location, but one or two cops weren’t enough. To search an area as massive as the derelict factory would take dozens. She had to give the detective more proof that she wasn’t crying wolf.

  ‘We only need something solid to show the missing girls are here, or have even been here, and we’ll get all the manpower we need.’

  ‘I trust your instincts, Tess,’ Po reassured her. ‘But what if you’re wrong? What if this has nothing to do with Jesse Randall?’

  ‘If it’s him or not, does it matter? Jasmine’s phone was switched on at this location. If she hasn’t been abducted, then there’s still no good reason for her to be here. I have to find out.’

  ‘I’ll go ahead. I can cover more ground on my own,’ Po finally said. ‘But you and Pinky stay together. Look after each other.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Tess, ‘but let’s do this, shall we? The longer we wait here, then God knows what’s happening inside.’

  ‘You OK with this, Pinky?’ Po asked.

  ‘I make my living selling illegal guns, and here I am armed with nothing but my disarming smile.’ He grinned. ‘You go, Nicolas. I won’t let any brute get his sticky hands on Tess, me.’

  Po clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘I trust you.’

  ‘So what am I, chopped liver?’ Tess asked.

  ‘I trust you to keep Pinky safe, too,’ Po reassured her.

  ‘If you spot anything, and I mean anything, you call me. Right, Po?’

  ‘F’sure.’ He patted his pocket where he kept his cellphone, then dipped for his boot. He came up gripping the hilt of a knife. ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  Before she could add anything more, Po took off, flitting down the steps with a fluid agility that belied his gangly frame. Tess watched him for a few seconds, then shifted to look at Pinky. ‘Is it just me or is that man simply infuriating?’

  ‘Nicolas lives for this kind of stuff, him.’ Pinky nudged her. ‘But I must admit, I’m enjoying the excitement, too. Like I said, there’s never a dull moment around you guys.’

  ‘I’d have never made you as an adrenalin junkie,’ Tess said. ‘You really ready for this?’

  Pinky looked down the steep, rickety steps. ‘They don’t have a stair lift?’

  His agility also belied his build. Although he carried excessive weight, he could move with the grace of a champion sumo wrestler when necessary, and he was as strong as one too. Po had disappeared within the nearest structure, so after descending the stairs Tess aimed down an overgrown trail towards the lakeside. ‘We should start there and work back to meet him.’

  ‘Ladies before gentlemen,’ Pinky said with a flourish of his hand. ‘But keep that gun handy, you. First time you spot pumpkinhead, put a bullet between his teeth. We can worry about ruining the rest of his day later.’

  Tess led the way again.

  ‘What is this goddamn place, anyway?’ Pinky asked as they pushed through branches wielding wicked thorns. ‘I’m sure I saw something like it on Scooby Doo.’

  During her research Tess had glanced at a description of Quabbin Reservoir, the largest body of water in Massachusetts. When it was formed, swathes of land were submerged, some small towns were even evacuated to give way to the man-made lake. The reservoir was built to supply water to as far away as Boston on the coast and all points between, and was an incredible undertaking back in the 1930s. How many people had been dispossessed? She suspected there might have been many homes and businesses abandoned along the emerging shoreline, too, this old factory being one of the casualties of progress. She’d spotted the stack and the water wheels and thought that this was a precursor to the newer hydro-electricity plants fed by the lake, but Pinky’s description suited it better. It was like a creepy haunted building in her mind too. Sadly, she hoped the ghosts of Jasmine and the other abducted girls weren’t its resident spooks.

  The path sloped downward, and over the decades the walls of the buildings nearest them had borne the brunt of the minor slippage of the landscape and the constant assault of the elements. Some had cracked, others collapsed, and tin-sheet roofing had spilled down to fill lots piled with crumbling masonry and rotting timber. They were still a good hundred and fifty yards from the shoreline when the heavens opened and rain lashed the foliage.

  ‘Let’s try to find a way inside here,’ Tess suggested, indicating a gap in the shrubbery. The undergrowth appeared beaten down by the local wildlife, and offered passage to an entrance into a larger structure that looked less weather-beaten than the rest.

  Pinky didn’t look keen, but he followed, cursing under his breath at the branches that snagged round his feet, and at the rain now invading his clothing. Tess reached the door. It was wooden, and crumbling with rot. It had become skewed in the frame, only held in place by a chain so ancient it had rusted to a single solid lump. ‘Crap!’ said Tess.

  ‘Stand aside,’ said Pinky. He grasped the chain in his hands.

  ‘You won’t break that,’ Tess told him.

  ‘Don’t have to,’ he replied as he yanked the chain and the handle it was fixed to from the rotted door.

  ‘I stand corrected.’ Tess smiled at him, as he pulled the rest of the broken door out of its frame and let it fall on the nearest bushes.

  ‘Ladies first,’ he said again, and wiped rust and splinters from his palms.

  Tess peek
ed inside the open portal. Then followed it by quickly stepping inside and sweeping the area with her gun. ‘Clear,’ she said.

  ‘You call this clear?’ Pinky eyed the mounds of junk that had fallen from an upper floor when the floorboards gave out. ‘How’d you suggest we get over that death trap?’

  ‘If we stick close to the walls there should be a way through. C’mon. What’s the worst that can happen?’

  Pinky blinked up at the yawning hole in the ceiling above. ‘I don’t even want to think about it, me.’

  Tess picked a way around the mound of rubble and shattered furniture. Pinky followed, one eye on the ceiling as if he expected it to collapse at any second. He wasn’t happy until they were through the next door and he had a solid ceiling overhead again. He bumped into Tess, who’d halted. She lifted her left hand for silence.

  ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘All I hear is my heart in my mouth,’ Pinky admitted.

  ‘There!’

  This time the faint sound couldn’t be denied.

  ‘That was a woman’s scream,’ Pinky announced.

  ‘They’re here.’ Tess looked at Pinky wide-eyed. ‘They’re really here, Pinky.’