Footprints of the Dead (Tom Gabriel #1)

by Tim Ellis

  Rae had fallen asleep on her arm and was dribbling on the spider diagram.

  He lifted her up. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

  “I’m so tired.”

  When she was in the utility room with the door shut, he made sure everywhere was secure. He left all the evidence on the table and sat down with a final cup of coffee. Was it evidence? He doubted Mona could use any of it in a court of law. Most of it had been obtained illegally. If he told anybody he had it, they’d lock him up instead.

  Then, of course, there was Sally Stackhouse. Where was she now? Although he’d been able to see and converse with the dead all his life, he knew very little about the rules of the afterlife. What he did know was that most of the time it made very little sense. Were there such places as Heaven and Hell? Was Henry Appling going to the same place as Sally Stackhouse? He’d reconciled with himself that he was never going to get any answers until it was his time to cross over.

  But he hadn’t counted on the brave Sally Stackhouse. The dead clearly knew what was going on. They could see and talk to each other, and they could converse with the living if they wanted to. Who was in charge of the afterlife? Who made the rules? And more importantly for Sally Stackhouse, what happened when you broke the rules?

  He desperately wanted to go there. Not just to see Carrie, but also to talk to someone about little Sally. It wasn’t right that she should be punished for talking to him. Hadn’t she already been punished in this life? Maybe Carrie would be able to argue in her defense. In fact, if he knew anything about Carrie, which he obviously did, she’d make sure Sally was treated right if she could.

  He finished his coffee, washed up, and went to bed. Mabel was at the window in the moonlight. She glanced at him, but said nothing. That night, he cried into his pillow for Carrie, for little Sally, and for all the other missing children.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Friday, September 21

  He recalled fighting like hell before the needle was stabbed into his neck. He recalled a wide-eyed Mabel standing by the moonlit window wringing her hands. He was surprised at the strength with which he had struggled to stay alive when he thought he was dying. It had been a very long time since he’d wanted anything more than to join Carrie – a week ago he would have welcomed death.

  Now, his arms ached as if he’d been stretched on a rack for months on end. His mouth was as dry as tumbleweed, and he didn’t have the strength to open his eyes.

  What the hell had happened? He had a vague recollection of three shadows in the dark, and then nothing.

  He forced his eyes open, and tried to lick his lips.

  A sliver of moonlight knifed through a crack high up in the wall. From the putrid smells, and the grunting and snorting noises, he guessed he was in a barn.

  He tried to look up, but his head was being forced down by his arms, which were stretching upward. He felt the sharp edges of the all-too-familiar nickel ratchet handcuffs digging into the skin of his wrists and crushing his bones. The pain in his shoulder joints was excruciating. He could barely touch the floor with his feet, and he wondered how long he’d been dangling like this.

  All he had on was his boxer shorts. They’d taken him straight from his bed.

  Where was Rae?

  Jerking his hips to the right, he was able to turn a full circle.

  Rae was hanging about three feet to his right. Handcuffed in the same way, with a chain looped through the handcuffs and disappearing into the rafters. She had on cotton shorts as well, but her top had been cut off and thrown on the floor. He could see the outline of her breasts, and had a bad feeling in his gut.

  “Rae?” he whispered.

  She groaned but didn’t wake up. Still catching up with her beauty sleep, he thought.

  He should have seen this coming a week ago when Rae had shot and killed Lemontov. There had been plenty of warning signs, but he’d ignored them. Now he was going to pay the price for his stupidity. He didn’t mind too much for himself, but Rae didn’t deserve this – whatever this was. Something Wicked This Way Comes jumped into his mind. Where had he heard that before?

  He scrunched his eyes up as someone switched a spotlight on and directed the light at him.

  “Awake, I see,” a man said.

  Tom opened his eyes to slits and saw a good-looking man in his early thirties with short, dark-cropped hair and good teeth. From his thick neck and arms, it was obvious that he worked out.

  He didn’t respond. The last thing he wanted was a cosy conversation with someone who was probably going to torture and kill him.

  “Not talking? That’s okay. My name’s Ben, but everyone calls me Doc.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, as soon as I get the go ahead, you’ll find out why.”

  Tom remained silent.

  Doc let out a laugh. “I’m quite sure that soon I won’t be able to shut you up. I think I’ll start on the girl first . . .”

  “You touch her and I’ll –”

  “You’ll what? Yes, I can imagine that you feel a fatherly protection toward her, or is it something a bit more basic than that?”

  Tom glared at him.

  “She’s certainly a very pretty young woman.” He stood in front of Rae and ran a hand over her breasts and across her flat stomach. Rae moaned again. “Unfortunately, I like them a little younger . . . well, a lot younger actually. But I’m sure a few of the security guys might want to indulge themselves.”

  He would have gnawed through the man’s neck until his head fell off and rolled on the floor if he’d been given the opportunity, but he knew there was no point in getting angry or responding to the taunts. He had to remain rational, clear-headed, and try to think of a way out of this mess.

  At the moment though, as he looked around, he estimated his chances of escaping were probably zero.

  “Anyway, I just thought I’d come and welcome you to hell on earth. Your friend – Mercy Hebb – was here . . .”

  Tom’s head jerked up.

  “Oh yes. Mercy and I had a wonderful relationship – short, but meaningful. Sadly, she’s not with us anymore, but she asked me to say hello. Don’t worry, though; you’ll soon get the chance to speak to her yourself. You’ll be able to compare notes.” He laughed.

  So, this is where Mercy Hebb ended up? All three of them would be footnotes in history soon. Nobody would ever know what had happened to them.

  Who’s barn was this? Where were they?

  Rae groaned and opened her eyes. “Oh God!”

  “I’m afraid he won’t help you, Butterfly. I’ve been doing this work for a number of years now, and I’ve seen no evidence of any omnipotent beings – God or Lucifer. Now, if you were talking about hell . . . well, I can tell you that it’s here on earth, and I’m going to give you the guided tour.”

  He laughed again, switched the spotlight off, and sauntered toward the barn doors. “We’ll speak again soon.”

  Once he’d gone, Rae said, “What happened?”

  “I think that’s fairly obvious. We were drugged and snatched from our beds.”

  “Where are we?”

  “In a barn, but other than that, I have no idea. You’re not going to ask me what he’s going to do to us, are you?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m sure I could work that out for myself if I put my mind to it.”

  ***

  He’d been dozing. Sunlight stabbed through the gap in the wall. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so thirsty and hungry.

  “Have you got a plan?” Rae said.

  He tried to lick his lips. “I was thinking of biting through the handcuffs, setting you free, and then tunnelling out.”

  “You have no plan then?”

  “I remember my daughters being crazy over a man who could escape from impossible situations using everyday items, duct tape, and a Swiss army knife.”

  “Have you got any of those things?”

  “No, and even if I had, I wouldn’t know what to do with them.”

&
nbsp; “What do you think he’s going to do to us?”

  “I thought you weren’t going to ask me that.”

  “I know, but I couldn’t help myself. I’m scared.”

  “If it’s any consolation, we’re both scared.”

  “I could do with a drink.”

  “Would madam like the ice-cold water or the lemonade with chunks of ice clinking on the glass?”

  “I think the ice-cold water would be very nice please, waiter.”

  “And would madam also care for a stack of pancakes dripping in maple syrup, the steak and fries or the cheeseburger, the blueberry ice cream with . . .?”

  “Yes please, waiter – all of it. Just bring it in. If I can’t eat it, I’m sure my friend here will.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, madam.”

  “Do you think they’re going to kill us?”

  “Eventually.”

  “That’s what I’m scared of. It wouldn’t be so bad if they just killed me straight off, but I know they’re going to do things to me.”

  “Try not to think about it.”

  “It’s hard not to when there’s nothing else to do.”

  “I spy with my little eye something beginning with H.”

  “When I said there was nothing else to do, I didn’t mean that we should start playing games.”

  “You don’t know, do you?”

  “I do so. I just can’t be bothered.”

  ***

  It was dark again. There was no moonlight, and he guessed there must be a cloudy sky.

  He wondered how Mona was getting on. Had the FBI managed to gain access to Appling’s house? Had they found the hole beneath the basement? He hoped they had, so that little Sally’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain.

  His hands kept going numb. He tried to stretch his neck to see if they had turned black yet.

  During his tours of Vietnam he’d seen gangrene get a foothold in a soldier’s body, the necrosis, the smell, the black skin. He tried to lift himself up, but his days of doing pull-ups were long gone.

  He felt his left hand shift slightly in the handcuff as he pulled upwards, and it made him think about Rae, about Carrie, about Sally Stackhouse, and how he’d made promises that he needed to keep. Now, he had a plan. It was going to hurt like hell, but he was going to do it anyway because that’s who he was. He began twisting his left hand first one way, and then the other.

  “Why is my top on the ground?”

  “Maybe it slipped off when they were hanging you up.”

  “Or maybe . . .”

  “You don’t want to go there.”

  “Why hasn’t someone come?”

  “Believe me, it’s better that they don’t.”

  “They might just leave us here to die of thirst and hunger.”

  “Yes, they might.”

  “But they won’t, will they?”

  “I have it on good authority that we’ll be spending the whole day at Typhoon Lagoon tomorrow.”

  “Really? You’re the best. I just love those water rides, and snorkeling in the scary shark reef –”

  The spotlight went on.

  Doc appeared.

  “My apologies,” he said, and held the neck of an open bottle of water to Rae’s lips. “We wouldn’t want you to die of thirst when there’s so much fun to be had before then.”

  Rae gulped the water down, and then began coughing and spluttering.

  “Careful,” Doc said. “We don’t want you choking to death either.”

  He gave Tom a drink from the bottle as well.

  “Any chance of a burger and fries?” Tom asked, after he’d sated his thirst.

  Doc smiled. “You’ll need a sense of humor.” He screwed the top on the water bottle and dropped it on the floor. Then he walked to the left and came back with a collapsible wood and metal table, which he opened up and positioned in front of them.

  From a shelf opposite, he pulled down a medic’s emergency canvas roll, and spread it out on the table.

  As he put on latex gloves and a plastic apron he said, “I really am a doctor, you know. The trouble is, I like to make people suffer, which isn’t what being a doctor is all about, is it? So, I decided to do what I like to do, rather than what I was trained to do.”

  “Oh God!” Rae said softly.

  Tom could see the shadow of a man standing just outside of the ring of light. He was wearing a black pair of shoes and a dark suit.

  “You’ve not started yet, have you?” the man said.

  He heard Rae take a deep breath.

  “No, Sir. Just say the word.”

  The man stepped forward, and the top half of him became visible. He had silver hair, a nondescript face, and wore a yellow patterned tie with a white shirt. “Wait outside, I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

  “Certainly, Sir.”

  Doc sauntered out through the barn doors.

  “You?” Rae said.

  “Hello, Butterfly. You know, I never did like that name. Your stupid mother chose it.”

  “You killed mom, didn’t you?”

  He looked around to check that Doc had left. “I don’t suppose it matters if you know the truth now. She found out that I liked boys and threatened to go to the papers. She was a really stupid woman to think that I would allow her to do that.” He shook his head. “I had my career mapped out, and she thought she could destroy me.”

  “I knew you’d killed her. I heard you make that phone call, and then she was dead – you bastard.”

  “I can’t believe you’re going to let that man kill your only daughter, Senator.

  He turned to Tom. “Mr. Gabriel. You’re a lot older than I expected. As for Butterfly being my only daughter – I’m afraid she’s been dead to me for many years.”

  “You’re definitely not what I expected.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’d have worked it out sooner or later. You were getting closer each day. Anyway, I decided that enough was enough. We’re winding down our operation for a little while, just until things blow over.”

  “Don’t you possess a conscience? They’re children, for God’s sake.”

  He let out a laugh. “You’re too sentimental, Mr. Gabriel. Children are a resource, that’s all. Like cows, pigs, or chickens. There will always be an over-abundance of children. The poor folks breed like stray animals. Have you seen the population estimates for the next ten, twenty, one hundred years? They don’t make pretty reading considering the economic mess we’re in.”

  “You don’t actually believe that?” he said. He was buying time. It was a preposterous conversation. His left hand was nearly free. The more difficult task was keeping the agonizing pain from his face. He was sure his thumb joint was dislocated, and some of the bones in his hand were broken.

  “There are many of us who believe in population control.”

  “Then what would happen to your little operation?”

  “I can assure you, it’s hardly a little operation.”

  His left hand came free, and as he dropped he smashed his right handcuffed hand into the side of Senator Raeburn’s face. The senator staggered. Tom hit him again, and he slumped on the floor..

  “Oh God!” Rae said.

  “Shush,” Tom warned her.

  Now what? Rae was still handcuffed and dangling from a chain. How the hell was he going to get her down? The man outside would have the key to the handcuffs.

  The senator groaned and tried to get up.

  Tom turned, saw the instruments in the medic roll on the table, and selected a scalpel.

  He had one chance only. He bent down, grabbed the senator round the throat and pulled him up.

  “You see this?” he whispered in the senator’s ear as he held the scalpel up in front of his face. “I’m going to slit your throat from ear to ear if you don’t do as I say. Nod if you understand.”

  The senator nodded.

  Tom frog-marched the senator up to the barn doors.

  “Call him in.”

 
“Doc,” the senator called.

  The barn door opened.

  “Come in, Doc,” Tom said when the man appeared in the doorway. “Put your hands behind your head and keep them there.”

  “I should have anticipated your resourcefulness, Mr. Gabriel,” Doc said. “You won’t get very far, you know. There’s a dozen secret service agents outside. They’ll shoot you on site.”

  “Let me worry about that. All you have to do is carefully take your clothes off and lie face down on the ground.”

  Doc began taking his clothes off.

  Tom saw Doc’s eyes glancing left and right, looking for a way out.

  “Let’s not underestimate each other, Doc,” he said. “I’ve been here before – many times. You’re trying to work out how you can turn the tables on me. Well, there’s only one way you can do that, but unfortunately the senator will die as a result. You’re probably thinking that I won’t kill an unarmed man, or that I won’t pull a scalpel across his throat like a cold-blooded killer. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Doc. Before I was a detective, I was a marine in Vietnam. You could say that I’ve been here before. Tell him, Senator.”

  “Do as he says, Doc.”

  Doc finished taking off his clothes, but left his shorts on.

  “Those as well,” Tom said.

  Once he was completely naked, he lay face down on the floor with his arms and legs spread out.

  “You next, Senator.”

  The senator did as he was told.

  Tom had a problem. He only had one functioning hand, but he needed to search Doc’s clothes for the key to the handcuffs, and he also needed to hold the scalpel. He wished he was that guy who had duct tape and a Swiss army knife, but he wasn’t. He had no idea what he was going to do next.

  He shuffled the senator back to the table with the medic roll on it. There were syringes, needles, and drugs.

  “Keep an eye on Doc, Rae. If he blinks, call out.”