Bug Man Suspense 3-in-1 Bundle

by Tim Downs

  It lifted from one end, opening like the lid of a lunchbox; dirt and straw rained down everywhere, and she shut her eyes and turned her face away.

  “You’re awake,” a man’s voice said. “I was beginning to wonder if I hit you harder than I thought—not that it matters much.”

  She instantly recognized the voice—it was the man in Nick’s car. She squinted and looked up at him; she could see nothing but a towering silhouette standing and staring down at her.

  He squatted and dropped down into the room beside her.

  Alena scooted away until she collided with the wall; she felt as though a python had just been dropped into the pit.

  “It’s an old threshing floor, in case you’re wondering. Sorry about the rats. Have you bumped into any yet? Sorry—maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned them.”

  She used the wall to struggle back to her feet again.

  The man stepped closer and looked her up and down, then held up one finger and wiggled it. “Let’s see the head.”

  She turned away.

  He grabbed her by the jaw and jerked her closer. He twisted her head to one side and ran his fingers roughly over the crown of her skull—it hurt terribly.

  He rubbed his fingers together. “You’re okay—not even a drop of blood.” He turned her head forward again and brushed the hair back from her face. “The Witch of Endor,” he said. “So how come people think you’re a witch? You look pretty much like any other woman to me—better than most.”

  Alena wished she could drive a knee up into his groin, but her ankles were bound tight. All she could do was twist her face away from him and shove one shoulder into his chest, hoping he got the idea.

  He released her and let her fall back against the wall.

  “Your boyfriend was here looking for you, in case you’re interested. You know—the weird guy with the funny glasses. He stopped by a few minutes ago—that’s why I thought I’d better check on you—but you look okay to me.”

  She turned her back to him and nodded to her bound wrists.

  “Sorry,” he said. He walked to the wall and looked up; he squatted down a little and leaped, grabbing the ledge and pulling himself smoothly up out of the pit and onto the barn floor. “By the way, your boyfriend had one of your dogs with him. A three-legged dog and a blind man—what’s the deal with you and cripples anyway? If you ask me, a woman like you could do better—but hey, it’s none of my business.”

  He dusted himself off and looked down at her. “Look, if it means anything to you, this is nothing personal. You just stuck your nose where it didn’t belong, that’s all. You’ll stay here for another couple of hours. Things happened kind of fast tonight, and I need time to figure out what to do with you next. Might as well get some sleep—there sure isn’t much else to do.”

  He stepped to the side and lifted one end of the threshing floor, swinging it over and down until only a small opening remained—then he stopped and stuck his head inside. “One more thing,” he said. “That piece of tape over your mouth is supposed to keep you quiet. If I ever hear you trying to make noise like that again, I’ll have to kill you—understand?”

  She nodded.

  He dropped the floor into place with a resounding thud.

  Alena covered her face against the dust again. She heard the sound of dirt being scattered over the planks above her, and the pit grew darker as the penetrating shafts of light became thinner and fewer. She heard the sound of receding footsteps, then the groaning squeak of the door, and then silence.

  Her legs gave way and she sank to the floor.

  A three-legged dog! Nick is here and he brought Trygg with him! He’s searching for me—but how will he ever find me? What if he was already here? What if he came when I was still unconscious? What if he already gave up and left? And what if he hasn’t searched this barn yet—what if he still comes by? How will I know it’s him and not the other man—the one who said he’d kill me if I make another sound? I can’t even scream—I can’t take the chance.

  Alena felt a knot tightening in the back of her throat. She was beginning to understand the full extent of her dilemma: Nick was searching for her, but he brought the wrong dog. Trygg was a cadaver dog, not a search-and-rescue dog—she was trained only to detect the scent of death. “Not even a drop of blood,” the man said—that meant there was no scent for the dog to find. Nick and Trygg could have already searched this barn; Nick could have easily missed an old dirt-covered threshing floor, and Trygg could have walked right over it without ever finding the scent—at least not the scent of death, and she would alert on nothing else.

  Alena stopped. Trygg is here to find me, but she has nothing to find.There’s only one answer: I have to give her something to find.

  I have to bleed.

  She struggled to her feet again. If there was only some way she could scrape the skin from her knees or elbows, but it was impossible. She couldn’t swing her legs and she couldn’t bend her arms at all—she’d never be able to generate enough force to break the skin. She rubbed her shoulder against the wall again. She felt no cracks or splinters at all—the boards had been polished smooth through years of use. She could rub up against them all day and never take off the skin.

  She turned and faced the wall. There was only one other option— her nose. She had to drive her face into the wall hard enough to cause her nose to bleed.

  She slowly leaned forward until her forehead touched the wall, measuring the distance. She straightened again, cocking her head back a little to make sure her nose would take the full brunt of the force— then she stopped. The throbbing in her skull felt like a knife stabbing into her brain—how could she purposely ram her face into a wall? The pain would be unbearable.

  But she had no choice.

  She stood there for a full minute, summoning up all of her anger and determination—then she squeezed her eyes tight and slammed her head like a hammer against the wooden surface.

  She felt an agonizing blast of pain and saw a brilliant flash of light— then she felt herself falling backward in space. She hit the ground headlong but never felt the impact—she seemed to be moving in slow motion, as if she were lowering herself onto a feather bed. She found herself lying on her back in the dirt a few seconds later—or was it a few minutes, or even an hour? What if Nick had come looking for her while she was unconscious? The thought made her frantic. She tried to focus her thoughts, but every heartbeat sent a mind-numbing pulse of agony through her head—and now her face hurt too.

  She turned her head to the left and rubbed her face against her shoulder. She felt nothing—no steady trickle of fluid leaking from her nose. There was no blood—either the force had been insufficient or she had misjudged the angle. She thought about struggling to her feet and trying again—but when she did, she burst into tears and lay weeping on the floor.

  She wasn’t sure she could even get to her feet again without passing out—and even if she did, how could she ever bring herself to drive her face into the wall with even more force than before? The misery in her head would force her to pull back a little more each time she tried, and then she would only be slowly beating herself to death.

  Maybe that’s the answer, she thought. Kill myself and let Trygg find my body. That’s what the dog was trained to do, after all—that’s what she was good at. If Alena could just will herself to die, then Trygg could find her putrefying remains—or maybe she could drown herself and let Trygg find her submerged remains. That’s it—she could just drown in her own tears, and then—

  My tears.

  Alena turned her head and rubbed her face against her shoulder again. This time she felt thin fluid draining freely from her nose, but it still wasn’t blood. It was tears—the by-product of a distressed victim.

  Alena couldn’t make herself bleed—she couldn’t even get to her feet—but she could amplify her distress. She could let her mind run wild; she could call up every personal demon and revisit every dark corner of her tortured life until s
he radiated terror and pain. If Nick and Trygg had visited the barn while Alena was lying peacefully unconscious there would have been no scent of distress—but she was awake now, and she could change that.

  It was worth a chance. No—it was her only chance.

  The storm is all around me and I’m running through the woods. Somewhere ahead of me I hear a bellowing yelp and then silence. I come to a clearing and find the body of a beautiful dog lying on its side. I sink to my knees beside the dog; I lift up its beautiful head and hold it in my lap, stroking its soft fur and sobbing. Who would do this? Why would they take him away from me? Don’t they know that I’m all alone now—that I have no one else in all the world?

  She clenched her fists and her body began to stretch as tight as a wire; sweat began to run down her forehead and form shallow salt pools in her eyes.

  I hear a branch snap and look up. Someone is there, watching me. I take off running again, running for the trailer—but something is running behind me, matching me stride for stride, slowly gaining on me, reaching out its fingers—

  I stop. I turn. I face the thing and I look into its eyes—

  The people of Endor—the ignorance, the prejudice, the stories that make my blood run cold. The loneliness—the fear—the awful sounds that come from the woods at night. The dreams—the hopes that never come true. Daddy, why?Where did you go, and why don’t you ever come back? My beautiful Acheron dead on the ground. The skull of my father staring up at me from a flimsy folding table—

  Alena writhed in the dirt as heat from her anguished body caused molecules of scent to lift from her skin and slowly drift away.

  40

  Nick watched from the shadows of the shedrow barn and waited for Riddick to reappear. After several agonizing minutes he finally heard the squeak of the hay barn doors again and saw Riddick emerge from behind the barn and head back toward the house. Nick adjusted his glasses and looked carefully: Riddick had nothing in his hands. He had taken nothing with him when he went to the barn, and apparently there was nothing he went there to retrieve. So why would he visit an empty barn, especially at this hour of the night?

  There was only one way to find out.

  He waited until Riddick disappeared into the house and the security light switched off again, returning the entire area to darkness. He took Trygg by the collar and pulled her to her feet, then started for the barn. He had to take another look—Riddick’s visit to the barn was like a neon arrow pointing to the site. But what was the point? Nick had searched there already and the barn was empty—and to make matters worse, Trygg had already searched there too. Why would she pick up a scent this time that she hadn’t detected before?

  Nick stopped and looked at the dog.

  He reached into his pocket and fished out the other bandanna—the orange one with the wavy black lines. He looked at the blue plaid bandanna that hung around the dog’s neck—what was it telling the dog to do? What kind of body was it telling her to concentrate on, living or dead—and what if it was the wrong kind?

  He thought about the encounter in the senator’s office again; Trygg had alerted on Riddick’s feet without wearing any bandanna at all. Maybe that was the answer—maybe he should just take the blue bandanna off and let the dog do what she did before.

  But would she do what she did before? Could he be sure of that? This was different; this was a formal search situation and the bandannas were part of her training—would leaving them off just tell the dog that she didn’t really need to try? The dog was probably confused already— was it worth taking a chance on confusing her any more?

  Then he remembered—beside the lake, when the dog lay down by the water—she wasn’t wearing any bandanna at all. There was nothing to tell her to search for submerged remains, and yet she did—all on her own. Now he understood: The bandannas told the dog to specialize—to look for one specific scent and ignore all others. Without the bandannas the dog was a generalist, detecting human remains of every type. Nick shook his head. He had been telling Trygg what not to look for, and in the process she might have walked right past her own master’s body.

  He squatted down in front of the dog and took the blue bandanna from around her neck, then tossed both bandannas aside. “You’re a free agent now,” he whispered. “I want you to search for everything this time—everything, no matter how small. Have you got that?” He looked into the dog’s eyes. “C’mon—let’s go take a look at an empty barn.”

  Nick took one final look at the house before quietly rolling the barn door open. He slipped inside again, and this time he closed the door behind him. He looked around the cavernous barn. It looked exactly as it had before; nothing seemed to have changed; nothing seemed to have been moved. For an instant he considered calling out, “Is anybody in here?” but he remembered the proximity of the house and quickly decided against it. He looked down at the dog but had no idea what to tell her to do, so he just snapped his fingers and made a vague “take a look around” gesture with his left hand.

  Nick went from stall to stall, carefully searching every dark corner and concealing shadow this time—but there was nothing to find. There were no spaces big enough or dark enough to conceal a human body; if there were he would have spotted them before.

  At the end of the barn he found something: an old wooden ladder lying on its side against a wall. Why would the barn need a ladder unless—he looked up and saw a small hayloft on the barn’s left side. Nick felt an anxious surge of hope; he hurriedly hauled up the ladder and positioned it against the edge of the loft, then climbed up the ladder and looked—but the loft appeared to be completely empty. To make absolutely certain, he climbed up onto the loft and poked his foot into every corner. Nothing—the hayloft was nothing but a vacant platform.

  He walked back to the ladder and looked around; from this vantage point he could see every beam and rafter in the barn. He could see the contents of every single stall too, and there was no doubt this time— the barn was empty. He had no idea why Riddick would have chosen to come here in the middle of the night, but apparently it had nothing to do with Alena. He looked down and saw Trygg standing motionless in a shaft of faint moonlight near the center of the barn; apparently she wasn’t having any luck either.

  Then he noticed something: Trygg was standing in moonlight but she cast no shadow. Nick squinted hard and saw the reason: Trygg wasn’t standing at all—she was lying down.

  Nick hurried down the ladder. He grabbed the dog by her collar and yanked her to her feet, then dragged her to the opposite side of the barn and released her; she immediately trotted back to the same area, sniffed at the ground, and lay down. Nick went over to the spot and looked at it; the ground under his feet had a different feel here, and the weight of his body made some of the dirt seem to settle in long thin lines. He dropped to his knees, and when he did the lines became even more pronounced.

  The floor is hollow!

  He bent down and swept the dirt and straw away with his forearm, revealing a series of long wooden planks laid side by side. It was a platform of some kind—a false floor. He continued to clear the dirt away until the entire wooden platform was exposed, then lifted one end and dragged it aside, revealing a deep black pit below. He shoved his head into the opening and blinked, allowing his eyes to adjust to the deeper darkness—and when they did he saw a body lying on its back in the center of the pit.

  “Alena!” he whispered.

  There was no response.

  “Alena, it’s me—Nick!”

  The body didn’t move.

  He took the wooden ladder from the hayloft and lowered it into the pit, then scrambled down and knelt beside Alena. He felt her face; it was hot and she was drenched in sweat, but her body was rigid from head to toe as if she were locked in a grand mal seizure—or as if she had died and rigor had set in. Nick placed two fingers under her jaw and checked her carotid just to make sure—he found a pulse. He took her by the shoulders and gently shook her, but she still didn’t respond. He gen
tly peeled the tape from her mouth, then rolled her onto her side and freed her wrists and ankles. He laid her on her back again and took her hands, rubbing them and shaking them vigorously.

  “Come on, Alena. Come back to me.”

  She slowly opened her eyes and looked up at him without recognition.

  “Hi,” he said. “Remember me?”

  She reached up and touched his face. “Nick.”

  “You know, you’re a hard woman to locate. I think you take this privacy thing a bit too far.”

  “How did you ever find me?”

  “Trygg found you. Sorry it took so long. It was the bandannas—I couldn’t remember which one told her to do what.”

  “The blue one. It’s for ‘putrefied remains.’ The orange one—that’s ‘distressed victim.’”

  “That explains why we missed you on the first pass—I was telling her to look for the wrong thing. She went right to you this time; lucky thing you were ‘in distress.’”

  “Yeah. Lucky me.” She looked over Nick’s shoulder and saw Trygg staring down at her from the edge of the pit. “Nick—that man—he killed Acheron. He hit me—he brought me here—”

  “We’ll talk about it later,” Nick said. “Right now we need to get you out of here. Can you walk?” He helped her to a sitting position.

  “My head,” she groaned.

  Nick gently felt the top of her head. “You’ve got a real goose egg there, but I don’t feel any blood. Look, I’m sorry—I know you don’t feel up to this, but we’ve got to get you out of this barn before Riddick decides to come back again.” He helped her to stand and walked her to the ladder, then stayed close behind while she slowly climbed one rung at a time. When they reached the barn floor Alena crawled onto the dirt and sat with her arm around Trygg while Nick replaced the threshing floor and swept dirt over its surface again.

  “That should do it,” he said, dusting off his hands. “It’ll look like no one was here—at least until he opens it up again, and we’d better be long gone by then. Come on, let’s get out of here.”