Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense: The Rosary Girls, the Skin Gods, Merciless, Badlands

by Richard Montanari

  “Is this the house?” Byrne asked, showing her the picture.

  “That’s the one.”

  “Is your nephew here now?”

  “No. It’s New Year’s Eve, young man. He’s with his friends.”

  “Can you tell us how to get there?” Vincent asked. He was pacing, tapping his fingers on the counter, all but vibrating.

  The woman looked at them both a little skeptically. “Lots of interest in that old farmhouse of late. Is there something going on I should know about?”

  “Ma’am, it’s extremely important we get up to that house right now,” Byrne said.

  The woman took another few seconds, just for country effect. Then she pulled out a sketchpad and uncapped a pen.

  While she drew the map, Byrne glanced at the television in the corner. The movie had been interrupted by a news bulletin on WFMZ, Channel 69. When Byrne saw the subject of the report his heart sank. It was about a murdered woman. A murdered woman who’d just been found on the bank of the Schuylkill River.

  “Could you turn that up, please?” Byrne asked.

  Nadine turned up the volume.

  “—the young woman has been identified as Sa’mantha Fanning of Philadelphia. She had been the subject of an intensive search by local and federal authorities. Her body was found on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill River, near Leesport. More details as we have them.”

  Byrne knew they were not far from the crime scene, but there was nothing they could do from here. They were way out of their jurisdiction. He called Ike Buchanan at home. Ike would contact the district attorney of Berks County.

  Byrne took the map from Nadine Palmer. “We appreciate this. Thank you very much.”

  “Hope it helps,” Nadine said.

  Vincent was already out the door. As Byrne turned to leave, a rack of postcards caught his eye, postcards depicting displays of fairy-tale characters—life-size exhibits with what looked like real people in costumes.

  Thumbelina. The Little Mermaid. The Princess and the Pea.

  “What are these?” Byrne asked.

  “Those are vintage postcards,” Nadine said.

  “This was a real place?”

  “Oh, sure. It used to be a sort of theme park. Kinda big in the 1940s and 1950s. Pennsylvania had a lot of them in those days.”

  “Is it still open?”

  “No, sorry to say. In fact, they’re tearing it down in a few weeks. It hasn’t been open in years. I thought you knew about it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The farmhouse you’re looking for?”

  “What about it?”

  “StoryBook River is about a quarter mile away. It’s been in the Damgaard family for years.”

  The name slammed into his brain. Byrne ran out of the store, jumped into the car.

  As Vincent sped off, Byrne took out the computer printout Tony Park had compiled, the list of patients from the county mental-health clinic. In seconds, he found what he was looking for.

  One of Lisette Simon’s patients was a man named Marius Damgaard.

  Detective Kevin Byrne understood. It was all part of the same evil, an evil that had begun on a bright spring day in April 1995. A day when two little girls had wandered into the forest.

  And now Jessica Balzano and Nicci Malone were caught in the fable.

  87

  There’s a darkness that lived in southeastern Pennsylvania’s woods, a pitch-blackness that seemed to consume every trace of light around it.

  Jessica edged along the bank of the running stream, the only sound the flow of the black water. The going was excruciatingly slow. She used her Maglite sparingly. The thin beam illuminated the plump snowflakes falling around her.

  She had picked up a branch earlier, and was using it to probe ahead of herself in the darkness, not unlike a blind person on a city sidewalk.

  She continued onward, flicking the branch, toeing the frozen ground with each step. She came to a huge obstacle in her path.

  Directly ahead was an enormous deadfall of trees. If she were to continue along the stream, she would have to make it over the top. She was wearing leather-soled shoes. Not exactly designed for hiking or climbing.

  She found the shortest route, began to scale the tangle of roots and branches. It was covered with snow, with ice beneath that. More than once Jessica slipped, falling backward, scraping her knees and elbows. Her hands felt like they were frozen solid.

  After three more attempts, she managed to hold her footing. She made her way to the top, then tumbled down the other side, crashing onto a pile of broken branches and pine needles.

  She sat there for a few moments, exhausted, fighting tears. She clicked on the Maglite. It was almost dead. Her muscles ached, her head was throbbing. She frisked herself again, looking for something, anything—gum, mint, breath freshener. She found something in her inside pocket. She was sure it was a Tic Tac. Some dinner. When she maneuvered it out, she found it was far better than a Tic Tac. It was a Tylenol caplet. She sometimes took a few of the pain relievers with her on the job, and this one must have been a leftover from a previous headache, or hangover. Regardless, she popped it in her mouth, wiggled it down her throat. It probably wouldn’t do much for the freight train roaring through her head, but it was a small bead of sanity, a touchstone of a life that seemed a million miles away.

  She was in the middle of the forest, it was pitch black, she had no food or shelter. Jessica thought about Vincent and Sophie. Right about now Vincent was probably climbing the walls. They had made a pact a long time ago—based on the inherent danger of the their jobs—that they would not let dinnertime pass without a phone call. No matter what. Never. If either of them didn’t call, something was wrong.

  Something was most assuredly wrong here.

  Jessica stood up, wincing at the array of pains and aches and scrapes. She tried to get control of her emotions. Then she saw it. A light in the near distance. It was faint, flickering, but clearly manmade, a tiny pin dot of illumination in the huge black picture of night. It might be candles or oil lamps, perhaps a kerosene heater. Regardless, it represented life. It represented warmth. Jessica wanted to cry out, but decided against it. The light was too far away, and she had no idea if there were animals nearby. She did not need that kind of attention now.

  She could not tell if the light was coming from a house, or even from a structure of any sort. She could not hear the sounds of a nearby road, so it probably wasn’t a commercial enterprise, or a vehicle. Maybe it was a small campfire. People camped in Pennsylvania year round.

  Jessica gauged the distance between her and the light, probably no more than a half mile. But it was a half mile she could not see. There could be just about anything in that distance. Rocks, culverts, ditches.

  Bears.

  But at least she now had a direction.

  Jessica took a few shaky steps forward, and headed toward the light.

  88

  Roland was floating. His arms and legs were bound with strong rope. The moon was high, the snow had stopped, the clouds had lifted. In the light reflected from the luminous white earth he saw many things. He was floating down a narrow canal. On either side were large skeletal structures. He saw a display of a huge storybook, open at the center. He saw a display of stone toadstools. One exhibit looked like the decayed façade of a Norse castle.

  The boat was smaller than a dinghy. Roland soon realized he was not the only passenger. Someone was sitting directly behind him. Roland struggled to turn around, but he could not move.

  “What do you want from me?” Roland asked.

  The voice came in a soft whisper, inches from his ear. “I want you to stop the winter.”

  What is he talking about?

  “How … how can I do that? How can I stop the winter?”

  There was a long silence, just the sound of the wooden boat tapping the icy stone walls of the canal as it moved through the maze.

  “I know who you are,” came the voice. “
I know what you’ve been doing. I’ve known all along.”

  A black dread descended upon Roland. Moments later the boat stopped in front of a derelict display to Roland’s right. The exhibit contained large snowflakes made of moldering pine, a rusted iron stove with a long neck and tarnished brass knobs. Leaning against the stove were a broom handle and oven scraper. In the middle of the display was a throne made of sticks and twigs. Roland could see the green of the recently snapped branches. The throne was new.

  Roland struggled against the ropes, against the nylon belt around his neck. The Lord had abandoned him. He had sought the devil so long, only for it to end like this.

  The man stepped around him, to the front of the boat. Roland looked into his eyes. He saw the reflection of Charlotte’s face.

  Sometimes it’s the devil you know.

  Beneath the quicksilver moon, the devil leaned forward, gleaming knife in hand, and cut out Roland Hannah’s eyes.

  89

  It seemed to take forever. Jessica had fallen only once—slipping on an icy patch on what seemed like a paved path.

  The lights she had observed from the stream came from a one-story house. It was still a good distance away, but Jessica saw that she was now in a complex of dilapidated buildings, built around a maze of narrow canals.

  Some of the buildings looked like shops in a small Scandinavian village. Others were made to resemble seaport structures. As she wove her way along the banks of the canals, moving deeper into the complex, there were more buildings, more dioramas. All were decrepit, timeworn, broken.

  Jessica knew where she was. She had entered the theme park. She had entered StoryBook River.

  She found herself a hundred feet away from a building that might have been a re-creation of a Danish schoolhouse.

  Inside was candlelight. Bright candlelight. Shadows flickered and danced.

  She instinctively went for her weapon, but her holster was empty. She crept closer to the building. In front of her was the widest canal she had yet seen. It led to a boathouse. To her left, thirty or forty feet away, was a small footbridge spanning the canal. At one end of the bridge was a statue holding a lighted kerosene lamp. It cast an eerie copper glow on the night.

  As she got closer to the bridge, she realized the figure on it was not a statue at all. It was a man. A man standing on the overpass, staring at the sky.

  When Jessica stepped within a few feet of the bridge her heart skipped a beat.

  The man was Joshua Bontrager.

  And his hands were covered with blood.

  90

  Byrne and Vincent followed the winding road deep into the forest. At times it was merely one lane wide, iced over. Twice they had to cross shaky bridges. A mile or so into the woods they found a gated path leading further east. Nadine Palmer’s handdrawn map didn’t show a gate.

  “I’m going to try her one more time.” Vincent’s cell phone was on a dashboard mount. He reached out, hit a number. In a second, the speaker offered the ringing tone. Once. Twice.

  And then the phone was answered. It was Jessica’s voice mail, but it sounded different. A long hiss, then static. Then breathing.

  “Jess,” Vincent said.

  Silence. Just the low murmur of electronic noise. Byrne looked at the LCD screen. The connection was still open.

  “Jess.”

  Nothing. Then a rustling sound. Then, faintly, a voice. A man’s voice.

  “Here are maidens, young and fair.”

  “What?” Vincent asked.

  “Dancing in the summer air.”

  “Who the fuck is this?”

  “Like two spinning wheels at play.”

  “Answer me!”

  “Pretty maidens dance away.”

  As Byrne listened, the skin on his arms began to dimple. He looked at Vincent. The man’s expression was blank, impenetrable.

  Then the connection broke.

  Vincent hit the speed dial. The phone rang again. The same voice mail. He clicked off.

  “What the fuck is happening?”

  “I don’t know,” Byrne said. “But it’s your move, Vince.”

  Vincent buried his face in his hands for a second, then looked up. “Let’s go find her.”

  Byrne got out of the car at the gate. It was chained shut with a huge coil of rusted iron chain, padlocked with an old lock. It appeared not to have been disturbed in a long time. Both sides of the road leading deeper into the forest fell off to deep, frozen culverts. They’d never be able to drive around. The vehicle’s headlights cut the darkness to a distance of only fifty feet, then the light was choked by the blackness.

  Vincent got out of the car, went into the trunk, and retrieved a shotgun. He racked it, shut the trunk. He reached back into the car, cut the headlights and the engine, grabbed the keys. The darkness was now complete; the night, silent.

  They stood, two Philadelphia police officers, in the middle of rural Pennsylvania.

  Without a word, they started up the trail.

  91

  “It could only have been one place,” Bontrager said. “I read the stories, I put it together. It could have only been here. StoryBook River. I should have thought of it before. As soon as it hit me, I got on the road. I was going to call the boss, but I thought it might be a long shot, and it’s New Year’s Eve.”

  Josh Bontrager was standing at the center of the footbridge now. Jessica tried to process it all. At that moment, she didn’t know what to believe, or who to trust.

  “You knew about this place?” Jessica asked.

  “I grew up not too far from here. I mean, we weren’t allowed to come here, but we all knew about it. My grandmother used to sell some of our preserves to the owners.”

  “Josh.” Jessica gestured to his hands. “Whose blood is that?”

  “A man I found.”

  “A man?”

  “Down by the first canal,” Josh said. “It’s … it’s pretty bad.”

  “You found who?” Jessica asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “He’s in one of the exhibits.” Bontrager looked at the ground for a moment. Jessica didn’t know how to read it. He looked up. “I’ll show you.”

  They walked back across the footbridge. The canals snaked through trees, winding toward the forest, back again. They trod on the narrow stone edges. Bontrager kept his flashlight trained on the ground. After a few minutes they came to one of the displays. There was a stove, a pair of large wooden snowflakes, a stone replica of a sleeping dog. Bontrager shone his flashlight on a figure in the middle of the display, sitting on a throne of sticks. The figure had its head wrapped in red cloth.

  The sign above the display read THE SNOW MAN.

  “I know this story,” Bontrager said. “It’s about a snowman who longs to be by a stove.”

  Jessica stepped closer to the figure. She gently pulled off the wrappings. Dark blood, nearly black in the illumination from the flashlight, dripped into the snow.

  The man was bound and gagged. Blood poured from his eyes. Or, more accurately, from their empty sockets. In their place were black triangles.

  “My God,” Jessica said.

  “What?” Bontrager asked. “You know him?”

  Jessica steadied herself. The man was Roland Hannah.

  “Did you check his vitals?” she asked.

  Bontrager looked at the ground. “No, I …” Bontrager began. “No, ma’am.”

  “It’s all right, Josh.” She stepped forward, felt for a pulse. After a few seconds she found it. He was still alive.

  “Call the sheriff ’s office,” Jessica said.

  “Already did,” Bontrager said. “They’re on the way.”

  “You have your weapon?”

  Bontrager nodded, removed his Glock from his holster. He handed it to Jessica. “I don’t know what’s going on in that building over there.” Jessica pointed to the schoolhouse. “But whatever it is we have to stop it.”

  “Okay.” Bontrager’s voice sounded a lot
less confident than his answer.

  “You all right?” Jessica popped the weapon’s magazine. Full. She slammed it home, chambered a round.

  “Good to go,” Bontrager said.

  “Keep the light low.”

  Bontrager took the lead, stooping and keeping his Maglite close to the ground. They were no more than one hundred feet from the schoolhouse. As they wound their way back through the trees, Jessica tried to get a handle on the layout. The small structure had no porch or balconies. There was one door, and two windows in the front. Its sides were obscured by trees. Beneath one of the windows was a small pile of bricks.

  When Jessica saw the bricks, she knew. It had been nagging her for days, and now she finally understood.

  His hands.

  His hands were too soft.

  Jessica peered in the front window. Through the lace curtains she saw the one-room interior. A small stage was at the rear. There were a few wooden chairs scattered about the space, but no other furniture.

  There were candles everywhere, including an ornate chandelier suspended from the ceiling.

  On stage was a coffin in which Jessica saw the form of a woman. The woman was dressed in a strawberry pink gown. Jessica could not see if she was breathing or not.

  A man walked onto the stage, dressed in a dark formal tailcoat, and white wing tip shirt. His vest was red paisley, and his tie a black silk puff. A watch chain looped his vest pockets. A Victorian top hat sat on a nearby table.

  He stood over the woman in the elaborately carved coffin, studying her. There was a rope in his hands, a line that looped up to the ceiling. Jessica followed the rope with her gaze. It was difficult to see through the grimy window, but when she made it out, it gave her deep chills. Above the woman hung a large crossbow aimed at her heart. Loaded into the prod was a long steel arrow. The bow was drawn and was connected to the rope that looped through an eyelet in a beam and then back down.

  Jessica stayed low, moving to the clearer window on the left. When she peered through, the scene was unobscured. She almost wished it were not.