Ghost Mortem (Bordertown Chronicle Book 1)

by Gavin Masters

  “Is that even possible?” I asked. “Like…I mean…do you guys even have that kind of technology?”

  “Not really, no. But look around. It's obviously possible. Anyway, that's it I think. We've searched every house. They're all empty.”

  I shook my head.

  “There's something out here. I can feel it with my investigatory intuition.”

  “Gavin, you don't have investigatory intuition,” said my dad. “Sometimes I wonder if you even have normal intuition.”

  “Well then I can feel it in my balls. I don't know. Fuck off.”

  This got a cackle of laughter from Vikki.

  “You think we should check the mine itself?” I asked.

  “Might as well,” dad said.

  We stalked back toward the mine, and cautiously entered the mouth of it. A metal track ran further into the mine, but it was barricaded off by two large wooden doors. The doors appeared to be barred, and there was a lock on them.

  “Hello!” my voice echoed again, deeper and deeper into the mine, and then dissipated into nothing. How deep did this mine go, I wondered?

  I peered at the lock holding the chains around the doors. The chains looked like… well…old metal chains. They were rusted and weathered, and didn't really look out of place. The lock on the other hand, did.

  “This lock looks new,” I said.

  I looked at Vikki and my dad. Both of their faces were brimming with realization.

  “You think we should break it?” said Vikki. “I mean, technically we don't have a warrant for that. You know, notwithstanding the fact we're way out of our jurisdiction.”

  “Fuck jurisdiction,” I said. “I say we smash the fucker open.”

  My dad nodded, and went back to the cruiser, producing a pair of bolt cutters.

  “Wait!” I said. “I got a better idea. Can we use one of those metal exploder melting thingies?”

  “Ugh, Gavin, grow up,” said my dad.

  “No, seriously! I mean, when else are we going to get a chance to destroy fucking metal? These opportunities don't come along that often do they? Vikki, what's the blast radius on these things?”

  “A diameter of about five feet. Although we should stay back at least ten to be on the safe side.”

  “Can it hurt us?”

  “No, but if you have any tin fillings, or plates in your head or hip, or…any piercings anywhere, you probably don't want to be anywhere near it.”

  “Good to know.”

  “And you could cover your genitals, just to be safe,” she added with a wink.

  “Seriously,” said my dad, “these bolt cutters are really easy to use.”

  “Come on dad. Live a little.”

  My father made a face of impatience, then resignation. He sighed and rested the bolt cutters on his shoulder.

  Vikki looked to my dad.

  Dad simply shrugged and nodded.

  “Okay,” said Vikki. “But let me, okay?”

  “Cool!” I said.

  Vikki took a P.K. implodey thing off her belt, and cranked the dial all the way up—the way the doc had warned us not to.

  “All right, everyone. Stay back,” she said.

  Vikki primed the grenade and rolled it up to the door. It rolled to a stop at it, and first seemed to do nothing.

  “Should we—” I said, taking a step forward.

  Vikki threw her arm out to hold me back. It was the first time she'd reached to touch me since we'd…well, you know. And even now, her touch seemed to send a spark of electricity through me. She must have felt it too, because she pulled her hand away like she'd realized she'd been touching something hot.

  She and I gazed into one another's eyes for a brief moment. Her heterochromatic eyes sparkled back at me in the darkness.

  So beautiful…

  Our gaze was interrupted by a whooshing sound from the mine.

  Suddenly, there was a swirling mist whirling around the door to the mine. The chain, and the lock, and even the nails in the door, all began to shrink. The metal objects didn't so much melt with heat, as I'd expected, but instead disintegrated and fell away like a powder, as if someone had frozen all the metal to zero degrees Kelvin and then smashed it with a mighty wallop from a sledgehammer. The powder fell to the ground in spirals, in an almost fractal-like design, thanks to the force of the vortex swirling around it.

  “Whoa,” I said.

  That was all I, or anyone else said. Apparently that was enough for the three of us.

  I realized even Vikki probably hadn't ever seen these grenades do that before. Presumably because the Doc told her not to, and, well, there was probably a good reason for that. I got a sudden pang of guilt. Was I a bad influence on the good Deputy Vikki Valliant?

  The mist dissipated back into the grenade, and Vikki gave the nod indicating it was safe to advance.

  The doors had somehow still held their shape, even though the nails through them holding them together had all melted away. Presumably crusted together though all the years and the prolonged effects of the weather, but what the hell do I know? I just knew we had to get into the mine.

  I walked a little ahead of the others, up to the weakened wooden doors.

  “Mind if I do the honors?” I said.

  “Knock yourself out,” my dad said.

  I turned back to the doors, and then kicked them in. Like some kind of badass on Cops!

  Then we were in.

  We wandered deeper into the mine, and found a small clearing, filled with junk—backpacks, purses, piles of clothes, and a lot of other garbage.

  “What is all this stuff?” I asked.

  “I don't know,” said Vikki. “You think someone was living here?”

  “It looks like more of a stash than a place someone lived,” said dad.

  “Some of this stuff is new,” I said. “Like…at least a lot newer than the mine.”

  There was a lot of discarded clothing here. Mostly women's garments it seemed. It gave me a very sick feeling.

  “I just found a cell phone,” said Vikki, sounding aghast.

  “Turn it on,” said my dad.

  “Battery's dead,” she said.

  My eyes stopped on a small, purple mass, and I couldn't look away.

  It was a purple backpack, with a skull keychain. I recognized it, having last seen it only weeks ago. It was Danny Dorian's. There was no mistaking that.

  Suddenly, I couldn't breathe and I began to choke. My eyes grew watery. Yes, I began to cry, all right? I admit it this time. Not hard or anything…just…you know…I just couldn't stop thinking about Danny. I think, deep down, a part of me had expected to find evidence of her out here. I don't know why. I'd hoped against all reason she'd just maybe lost her skateboard. Maybe she'd hitched a ride with a trucker or a biker, and hadn’t noticed it slip off until she got home, safe and sound with her mom.

  But that was all a pipe dream. I knew that now. And now the frozen pipes had finally burst.

  “Gavin?” said Vikki softly. “Gavin, what is it?”

  I couldn't speak. I just looked at her, then made a sour face and looked away.

  Vikki looked at the bag, bent down, opened it, and began rifling through it. She shifted aside some clothes, including the Misfits T-shirt I'd last seen on Danny.

  “There's a phone in here too,” Vikki said.

  “Any juice in it?” asked my dad.

  “No…Oh, but there's a driver's license in here. It's…”

  She read it with her flashlight, and then stopped. Then she turned to me.

  “Gavin, it's Danny Dorian's.”

  I didn’t respond. I couldn't. I felt so many emotions raging inside me. I felt guilty I hadn't done more to keep her safe. I felt anger at the monster who'd done this to her. I felt regret that her mom wouldn't ever see her little girl again. Danny was such a nice girl. I mean…okay, yeah…as I've described before, no, not really. I mean, I thought she was cool, even if I did tell her off.

  I thought about the
last thing I ever said to her, and to my horror, its etched into my mind like one of the ten commandments on the mount.

  “I hope something does happen to you on the road. You…little shit!”

  I felt so ashamed of myself. So ashamed that my last words to this girl…this sweet girl who…well okay, this somewhat bitchy little brat who nevertheless had her whole life ahead of her. A whole lifetime to mature into the nice person I know she could have been.

  “Oh my…g…uhn…” said Vikki.

  I looked up to see Vikki falling into emotional pieces a few feet to the left of me.

  I meant to ask what she saw, but she was already darting towards another bag she'd just spotted. A pink one with a Hello Kitty bobble hanging off it.

  Vikki fell to her knees in front of the backpack and immediately started digging through it.

  “Oh m-my g-god,” she cried, tears streaming down her face.

  Vikki pulled out a striped jacket I'd never seen before. No, wait…I had seen that jacket before…in the photographs in Vikki's home. That friend of hers. Stephanie. She'd been wearing that same jacket in a shot of the two of them building a snowman.

  Vikki pulled the jacket into her arms and began sobbing into it uncontrollably.

  “Oh my…g…oh my god, S…Stephanie…what did he…what did he do to you!”

  I had absolutely hated seeing Vikki so close to breaking in her own home. But that was so much easier to watch than what was happening now. I knew now what she meant when she said she didn't want to lose that last ray of hope. In a way, it's kind of all that's been keeping her going.

  I now felt doubly ashamed of myself. I'd been getting myself worked up over a girl I barely knew. A girl I'd met exactly once. In contrast, here was Vikki, a woman I adored, who'd just lost her best friend. No, not just lost. Finally lost, after four years of wondering, hoping every day her friend was still alive out there somewhere. It's like some extra cruel torture Perry had cooked up, just to break Vikki's heart.

  That thought horrified me. I remembered what my dad had said back at the house. Porter had handpicked my dad to come be a deputy in Bordertown. Then Porter had put the girl my dad rescued on display in the middle of the town square—perhaps the boldest taunt I've ever seen a killer make. Porter was collecting people my dad and Vikki loved and taunting them with their deaths.

  And he had tried to get Raven into the car with him…

  Oh god! I thought, suddenly freaking out a little. What if he tries going after Raven again? Doc wouldn't let that happen, right?

  I just wanted to scream. I wanted to punch my own fists bloody against the walls of this proverbial hell-hole.

  “Aaaahh!!!” I shouted.

  I ran deeper into the mine, just letting my voice echo deeper and deeper into the abyss of darkness.

  “Gavin, have you gone crazy?” my dad said. “Calm down.”

  I remained silent for a moment, not sure whether to seethe or just sob, while dad stared after me, and Vikki sat on the ground, broken, holding that backpack close.

  Dad looked like he wanted to say something—anything—to make the two of us feel better. But nothing could make this better. What was worse…some of their bodies were probably in here somewhere.

  That's when I heard it. A faint, but distinct screech coming from deeper within the cavern. At first, I thought it might be a bat, but it was a little low pitched for that.

  “Do you hear that?” I said, turning to the others.

  Vikki didn't respond. She still looked like she couldn't.

  “Hear what?” asked my dad.

  I heard it again. It was a faint, but distinct. It was a distressed, decidedly human, female scream. It was faint from where I was, but it sounded like she was saying:

  “Help me. Somebody please help me! He’s coming back.”

  Vikki heard it that time too. I could tell. She and I exchanged a frantic glance.

  “Jack, come quick,” she said.

  I immediately broke into a run. I dashed deeper into the mine, activating my own sonic oscillating resonator, to help light up the walls of the mine, and hung it back on my belt. It was amazing how much detail I could get from this thing. It was better even than a lantern, since, in the twists and turns of the cavern, I was able to actually 'see' around corners, since what I was 'seeing' was actually sound, or at least, sonic in nature. At least, that's how Doc had explained it. I guess I still don't understand it.

  I kept rushing onward, deeper into the mine. If there was another victim in here, still alive, I needed to find her now. I needed to tell her that help was finally here. That she’d be okay.

  “Gavin, wait a second! Gavin! It might be trapped.”

  I stopped in my tracks. I looked back at Vikki at the mine entrance.

  “Like what kind of trap?” I said.

  “How the hell should I know? Just…be careful. That’s all. I just…he's hurt so many people already. I just don't want you to…”

  I paused for a moment, shrugged and proceeded into the mine. I’d move at a cautious speed. But I wasn’t about to take my sweet ass time if there was a girl dying in here. I'd never forgive myself if we lost this one.

  “Gavin, dammit,” I heard my father bellow. “What are you doing? You don’t even have a gun. What ever happened to staying in the car? Or at least staying behind us?”

  I kept following the twists and turns of the mine. It wasn’t long before I’d realized that the footprints on the ground—the only real set, though they seemed to repeat over and over again in both directions—would be safe enough to simply follow. Those massive footprints had to be Sheriff Porter's. I was also pretty sure the foul stink I was smelling was the stench of excessive amounts of bat guano. No bats, thankfully, though I reckoned any bats living in this cave might be out and about in the night right now, hunting for prey of their own.

  Eventually, I reached a point at which I could see that, not far ahead of me, just around another corner, there was a large clearing. And inside that clearing, something was swinging and moving. It was either a girl hanging upside down, or it was a very large vampire bat. Fingers crossed, I was banking on it being the girl we could hear from the entrance.

  “Hold on!” I bellowed.

  “Help me,” the girl cried. “Please hurry. He’s coming back. Get me out before he comes back!”

  I turned the corner and stood before her. She’d been left here in pitch blackness, so I imagined now she might be able to see me just a little. If…she still had her eyes, that is.

  I didn't even want to look down, but I realized sooner or later, I would have to. I looked the girl in the face.

  Sure enough, a pair of glistening, watery eyes seemed to squint back at me.

  Oh, thank god, I thought.

  And I knew that face. It'd know it anywhere. She'd been haunting my dreams.

  “Danny!” I said.

  “Help me,” she sobbed. “Please hurry. He's coming back.”

  “It's okay, Danny. I'm here. I've brought help too. Nobody's going to hurt you. Anymore.”

  “How do you…how do you know my name?” she sobbed.

  “I met you on the road a few weeks back, remember? I offered you a ride to Bordertown and you called me a creep.”

  Recognition dawned on her face.

  “Gavin?” she said.

  “You do remember,” I laughed.

  “What…how…what are you doing here?”

  “Saving you, stupid.”

  She laughed and then sobbed frantically.

  “Please hurry. He’s coming back. I know he’s coming back. Listen to me. He’s…he's a cop. He looks like a cop. If he comes back, just hide, okay? He's big. God, he's so big. And he has a gun. And even without it, he…he can kill you. He can kill you without touching you. So if he comes back, hide, but…just…don’t leave me alone with him.”

  “Shh…hey, it’s okay, Danny. You’re safe now. I promise. He's really, really far away right now. Here, let me get you down.”
/>
  I squinted around the cavernous kill room in the dim light. I made out the outline of a nearby winch connected to a chain which hung her from the ceiling.

  “Okay, here goes,” I said.

  Slowly, I wrenched the winch over to lower her down.

  “Don’t forget to tilt your head in,” I said.

  “Someone’s coming,” Danny cried. “You have to hide!”

  “Just relax. Just a little more, Danny. You’re safe.”

  “Oh god,” she screamed. “It’s him. He’s here. Get me out. We have to get out now!”

  I looked over, panicked, just for a moment. I think her fear must have been infectious, because I knew Vikki and my father were not far behind me, and I hadn't passed anyone else on the way in here. The scanner wasn't illuminating any other life signs either.

  Sure enough, coming around the corner wasn’t Perry Porter. It was my father, the other big, bald, scary-looking cop, with his pistol drawn. And he was followed shortly after by Vikki. I rushed over to Danny. I knelt with her and took her head and shoulders into my arms.

  “No, no…hey, shh…Danny, that’s my dad. He's a good-guy. His name is Jack. And the lady cop—that's Vikki. We’re all here to help you. Okay? It’s all right, Danny. You’re safe now.”

  “Okay,” she sobbed, making an effort to stay calm. “Please get me down.”

  I had half a mind to get dad to toss a code-red imploder again, and then try to catch her, just to get her out faster. But then I remembered what Vikki had said about body piercings, and noted that Danny actually had one in her belly button and another in her nose, along with five or six on her ears, so I thought better of the idea. Plus, I might screw up catching her. And dropping her in her current state seemed like a bad idea. Not to mention bad form.

  “Dad?” I said. “The winch over there?”

  “I’m on it,” he said.

  Dad holstered his pistol, and turned the winch slowly, but firmly, lowering Danny into my arms.

  Once Danny was lowered completely, my dad loosened the chains and we were able to get her feet out. Vikki produced a pocket knife to cut the zip ties which bound Danny's feet together and her hands behind her back.

  We took to inspecting Danny while I held her in my arms. She was clad in nothing but her heavily soiled panties and a bra. They seemed to be caked with a lot of her own blood. Like the other victims Porter had put on display, Porter had begun carving out portions of Danny's skin to make them look like eyes. I counted seven of them on the poor girl’s body. On the first Jane Doe, and on Jessica, there had been lots, lots more. And of course, I thanked the gods Danny still had both of her pretty eyes intact.