“That’s a shame. I was hoping we had him.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“It’s not your fault. Have you made any headway with Beth?”
“Some, but she’s still not remembering enough to say who did it.”
“How’d you know what she was wearing the night of her attack?”
“I didn’t.” I motioned to Feister through the one-way mirror. “I just wanted to prove that he didn’t either.”
“I see. Well, let’s get you back to the hospital. Anything you need from me?”
“All of the information you can get on the murder victims. If they’re somehow connected to Beth, I need to know.”
Before we left the police station, Linden told Sheriff Luttrell that Leonard Feister was no longer a suspect. She didn’t buy it. Truthfully, it didn’t make any difference to me if she thought the Easter Bunny did it. What was most important was that I got back to Beth. When we arrived at the hospital, I quietly entered her room. Allie sat by her bed reading a book to her. It reminded me of how I used to read to Katie when she was little. She noticed me and stopped.
“I’m sorry,” she said, getting up from her chair. “I’ll get out of your way.”
“No need to apologize,” I assured her. “I think it’s nice. I’m sure it makes Beth feel good hearing your voice. Where is Mr. Martin?”
She frowned. “He’s at home. To be honest with you, his mind isn’t what it used to be. He gets…confused.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Even though I’d already noticed, there was no reason to make her feel worse by mentioning it. I motioned to Beth. “If you’d like to stay, I can come back.”
“Oh, no. I’ll go. I’d rather you continue your work.” She went to the door. “Thank you again, Mr. Crawford.”
“I haven’t done enough to deserve it, but you’re welcome.”
She smiled. “You deserve it. The simple fact you care enough to try speaks volumes.”
After she left, I sat down by Beth. I focused on her and, without hesitation, projected into her subconscious. I materialized on the beach where I had left her during our last encounter. I saw the two chairs she had willed to appear, but she was nowhere to be found. I scanned up and down the shoreline but still saw no trace of her. And then I looked out at the water. About a hundred feet from the bank, she floated on her back as the sun’s radiance shone down on her.
She appeared as peaceful as she did lying in her sterile hospital bed, only much freer.
Chapter Twenty-One
I sat down in the chair and waited for her to swim to the shore. I didn’t want to interfere if the experience was giving her some sort of relief from reality. I watched as she eventually backstroked her way into shallow water and then stood up with the ocean level to her waistline.
She wore a one-piece swimsuit. She waded toward the bank and, when she finally noticed me, seemed to come out of a trance.
“Hey, there,” she said as she stepped into the sand. Her body and hair instantaneously dried. “How long have you been here?”
“Not long,” I answered. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”
She plopped down in the chair next to me. “You’re not disturbing me. I know it sounds strange, but, while you were gone, I missed you.” After a moment of awkward silence, she pointed to the water. “You should try it. It feels great.”
“Maybe some other time. But feel free to go back in if you want.”
She shook her head. “I’m okay. What did you find out while you were gone?”
“Bobby didn’t have anything to do with the attack.”
“I told you. He’s an asshole, not a killer.”
“There is one other thing that came to light. Do you know anything about the Highway Killer?”
As soon as I said the words, Beth fell out of her chair and onto the ground. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she began to convulse. I hurriedly went to her side and held up her head. Her skin turned bright red, and her face started to morph into that of the crimson creature she’d become on several occasions. Wanting to act quickly, I carefully turned her head toward the ocean.
“Beth, listen to me,” I spoke calmly. “You can fight this. You’re still safe. You’re still at the beach. Don’t let this thing take over. Look out at the water.”
She trembled even harder but forced her eyes back into place. Just as her whole body was transforming, she fixed her gaze on the horizon and, within a few seconds, her face shifted back to her own and her normal skin color returned. Before long, there was no trace of the creature left. She sat up and looked at me with a confused expression, as if she had no recollection of what happened.
“Did I fall or something?” she asked.
“Yes,” I lied. “But you’re alright now. Do you remember anything?”
“Just that you were asking me something. What was it?”
I smiled at her. “It can wait.” I helped her up, and we both sat down again. “As soon as you’re ready, we’ll leave the beach and get back to work.”
I hated that I’d added any stress, but the fact she had such a strong reaction when I mentioned the Highway Killer brought up a lot of questions. Had she encountered the individual responsible for the deaths of five other women? Or was it copycat, possibly someone like Leonard Feister except actually willing to kill for the attention? Or was her attack the act of a “thug” as Linden had initially suggested? He mentioned that her purse was missing from her car when the authorities found it. Perhaps someone intended to rob her and ended up trying to kill her out of fear of being identified. Ultimately, only she knew for sure, and I obviously had to be very careful how I solicited information from her.
“You were right,” she said after gazing at the ocean a little while longer. “I really needed this.”
She stood up and closed her eyes. The water, the sand, and the peaceful atmosphere changed back into the late-night road that we had escaped from during my last visit. The convertible reappeared as did the row of seemingly endless houses with the same upstairs light guiding the way. Beth got into the car and started the engine. I hopped in on the passenger’s side. We drove about a fourth of a mile to the first house and then exited the vehicle.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked.
“I don’t have much of a choice,” she said. “Do I?”
We made our way to the front porch, and I was happy to see that Bobby’s Bizzaro world alter-ego and his den of snakes did not make another appearance. We stepped inside the house, and Beth went ahead of me into the kitchen. I watched as she poked around, opening pantries and peeking under the table. When she seemed satisfied, she rejoined me in the entryway.
“Were you looking for the little girl?” I asked.
“Not necessarily,” she replied. “Like you said, we might have missed something the last time. I want to make sure we search every cranny.”
After investigating downstairs and finding nothing, we went to the second floor and started with the first unlit room. Just as before, it had a set of bunkbeds, white dresser, and dollhouse-sized model of the home we were in, complete with the miniature light in the upstairs room. Beth moved around the room, lifting the mattresses on the beds and pulling drawers out of the dresser. In both cases, she came up empty. She then examined the dollhouse.
It also provided no hints as to why the life-sized version kept popping up down the road.
Once she finished, she checked the other two identical rooms. I stood in the hallway as she repeated her routine from the first room. As I expected, they were all the same down to even the minutest of details. After she finished, she directed her attention to the empty but well-lit room at the end of the hallway. We went in together and once again found the photograph of the little girl on the floor underneath the glow of the single lightbulb. She picked it up and studied it, only to shake her head.
“I don’t understand,” she said, handing the picture to me. “What are we missing?”
“We need that to go away,” I said, motioning to the dense mist.
She shrugged. “How do we do that?” she said.
“Not we. You. You need to focus on it and make it lift like you did before. There’s something behind there, but only you can access it.”
She took the picture from me and concentrated on the fog. After a few seconds, nothing happened. She became frustrated and almost threw the photograph to the ground. But she stopped herself and tried again. She kept her eyes transfixed on the haze until it finally began to vanish. As it slowly disappeared, the building and the words on it came into view. It said, “Thomas Frederick Elementary School.” Once it was fully visible, I noticed Beth had a tear coming down her cheek.
“That’s the school I went to when I was a kid,” she said, wiping her face. “I still don’t recognize the girl.”
“Can you take us there?” I asked, pointing to the building.
She nodded and then put the photograph down on the ground in the same spot we’d originally discovered it. As we moved downstairs, I halfway expected to hear the little girl smashing dishes against the wall. But it was as dark and silent as when we first entered. We stepped outside onto the front porch and into the welcome sunlight. I immediately noticed that Thomas Frederick Elementary School had appeared directly across the street from the house.
“Wow,” I marveled. “You work fast. I figured we’d have to drive there.”
She shook her head. “Somehow this one came pretty easily,” she said. “I guess it’s because I remember it so well. I just don’t know what it has to do with the attack.”
We crossed the street and stopped in front of the school at the spot where the little girl’s picture was taken, that is, if it was taken and not a figment of Beth’s imagination. We waited a moment, but nothing happened. We moved to the set of double glass doors that served as the school’s entrance. Beth pushed one of them open with ease and led the way inside. To our right there was a main office with a receptionist’s desk and a suite of smaller offices behind it.
She pointed toward the back of the suite. “Principal Billings’ office was the last on the right,” she said.
“Spend a lot of time there. Did you?” I jested.
“Actually, I was a good girl. I only saw him when he gave out McDonald’s coupons to students that made honor roll.”
We continued down the first hall and then followed a maze deeper into the school. We came upon a set of classrooms, and Beth stopped to read the name on one of the doors. She burst into laughter. I glanced to see what name had caused such a reaction and, not surprisingly, discovered that it was none other than the infamous Miss Schneiderfelt, Beth’s third-grade teacher and one-time transformative subject.
She peeked inside the room and turned on the light. “I can’t believe it.” She motioned toward the perfectly lined rows of desks facing a chalkboard. “It’s exactly like it was when I was a kid.”
“Of course, it is. It’s how you remember it.”
“Not everything is how I remember it. I don’t seem to recall my house catching on fire or my ex-fiancé turning into a circus freak.”
“It is possible that recent events have skewed your perception of things. The idea is to figure out what things and why.”
Before she could respond, a shrill, Leprechaun-esque laugh echoed down the hall. Beth suddenly seemed possessed and went to a desk in the center of the classroom. She sat in it and stared vacantly at the chalkboard. A piece of white chalk levitated from the tray attached to the bottom. Like something out of a ghost story, it wrote a familiar sequence of numbers on the board. “2-6-7-21-31.” The laughter continued and grew louder as if it were coming toward us.
Beth snapped out of her trance. “What is that?!” she asked.
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “We can handle anything that—”
Cutting me off midsentence, an old man in a custodian’s uniform tackled me to the ground. He climbed on top of me and started to strangle me. He had grey hair, three-day stubble on his chin, and crooked yellow teeth with saliva dripping from his mouth. As he attempted to choke me, he continued to laugh the same high-pitched laugh. Beth came out of the room and pushed him off me. He ran straight at Beth, but she willed a plunger to appear in her hand and stuck the rubber end onto his mouth. He kept laughing, but at least it was muffled.
“Who is that?!” I asked as I got to my feet.
“It’s Mr. Arnez, the school janitor!” she said, backing him against the wall with the plunger. “I’ve never seen him like this before!”
Mr. Arnez shrunk down to a one-foot-tall version of himself, freeing himself from the plunger’s grasp, and ran off down the hall. Beth went after him and I followed close behind, wondering what the hell was happening. She chased the little janitor into a girls restroom in an adjacent hallway. He bolted into a stall and leapt on top of the toilet. He hit the flush button and, right as Beth tried to grab him, dove into the commode and went down with the flow.
She turned to me with a perplexed look on her face. “I’ve seen some weird shit,” she said. “But that was some weird shit!”
“Do you think he had anything to do with—”
“No. He died when I was in fifth grade. I always thought he was a little strange. He and my dad grew up together.”
“Interesting. Can I show you something?” I led her back to Miss Schneiderfelt’s classroom and pointed to the numbers on the chalkboard. “Does that mean anything to you?”
She became quiet and approached the board with trepidation. “It seems familiar, but I don’t know where I’ve seen it before.”
“That pattern has come up several times in one way or another. It must mean something. Are you sure you can’t remember?”
She ruminated for a moment and then shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got nothing.”
“It’s okay. Why don’t we look around some more? Maybe we can find a clue.”
We continued further into the school, passing other classrooms along the way but finding nothing of any significance. When we reached the last hallway, there was a glass door at the end that led outside to a playground. Beth opened the door and smiled when she saw the conglomeration of multicolored, plastic slides and flimsy bridges. There was also a swing set and a sandbox obscured by some of the equipment.
“I used to love coming out here for recess,” she reminisced. “It was one of the only times you could just be a kid and not have to worry about anything.”
“I didn’t particularly care for recess,” I said. “Too loud. I’d rather stay in class and read a book.”
She grinned. “You know, I can see that about you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” She walked toward the swing set but stopped when the sandbox came into full view. “It’s her,” she whispered.
I quickly went to her and saw the little girl from the house building a sandcastle with varying sizes of red plastic buckets. “Does she realize we’re here?” I asked.
“Of course, I do,” said the girl as she carefully shaped the second level of the sandcastle. “I’m not blind.”
Beth moved to the sandbox and crouched down beside her. “Are you still angry with me?”
“Nope,” replied the girl. “It’s not your fault.”
“What’s not my fault?”
The girl sighed. “What happened to us, silly.”
“Us?”
The girl turned toward the playset. “You can come out now.”
One by one, four other girls around the same ag
e emerged from underneath and behind the playset. The first two wore dresses with multicolored stripes and polka dots that looked straight out of the sixties. The third one wore a green pastel knit sweater and matching skirt that would’ve both been in style in the late seventies. The last one wore more modern attire like our friend in the sandbox, except for a few gaudy touches that screamed nineteen eighties.
They stood in a row as if they were modeling for a retro fashion show.
The girl in the apple-patterned dress got up from the sandbox and joined them. “So…” she said to Beth. “What are you going to do now?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The girls disappeared, and the clouds darkened. Beth immediately took shelter underneath the covered part of the play equipment that had an attached, oversized tic-tac-toe set with moveable, cylindrical pieces. Figuring she knew something I didn’t, I crawled under the plastic steps leading up to one of the slides and sat next to her on the ground. It began to rain and thunder. Lightning crashed in the distance. We watched in silence as water slowly filled the sandbox.
“Pretty soon, it’ll be mud and sludge,” Beth said listlessly. “No one will be able to play in it.”
“Do you have any idea who those girls were?” I asked, neglecting to mention the fact that there were five of them and the Highway Killer had murdered five women before Beth’s attack.
She shook her head. “Do you?”
“I have an idea, but I’m not a hundred percent certain. Beth, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to leave you again.”
She turned to me, slightly alarmed. “Why? You just got back.”
“I need to research something. I won’t be gone long.”
She stared at me intently. “You have kind eyes. Did you know that?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your eyes. There’s a kindness about them. You don’t see that much anymore. Most people’s eyes are hollow like there’s nothing behind them.”
“Honestly, I don’t pay attention to people’s eyes. It’s their brains that stick out for me.”
When Beth Wakes Up Page 14