It took them weeks to wrap up the entire case, to share all the information and to figure out a good way to explain how they came to the conclusion that it was Bart Wild who was the murderer.
Then came the awkwardness of what was next.
They were in Kalli’s house still, lounging in the bed one Saturday evening. Kalli was cuddled up to Mike, her head against his chest, and he was stroking her back.
He smiled and said, “What about if you move here and be my partner?”
“I’m a profiler, Mike, not a cop.”
“Same difference,” he scoffed. “We can swing it.”
“Maybe, or maybe I’ll solve cases across the region and just use this as base camp.” Mike pulled a face and she giggled. “We’ll see. I have spent my entire life with a plan and right now I just want to wing it.”
Mike kissed her head. “Okay, love,” he said, settling back.
Kalli woke up with a start.
Sometimes that still happened. PTSD could do that to a person. You see things, or imagine things, from a traumatic event that happened in your life.
She put a hand to her chest; she was sweating and her body was soaked. She climbed out of bed quietly, not wanting to wake Mike, and went to the bathroom to wash her hands and face. When she turned to leave again, she noticed marks on the tiles by her feet. She frowned and reached for the door. After shutting it, she turned the light on.
It was bloody footprints, it was her bloody footprints.
She panicked and checked her feet quickly. They were covered in blood, but it wasn’t her own. It then dawned on her that her hands, her legs, were covered as well. There was blood everywhere. She closed her eyes and counted slowly to ten. She opened them and looked in the mirror.
There was still blood there.
She needed Mike; he would make her feel better.
“Babe!” she screamed as she flung open the door.
Mike’s body hung from their light fixture, the fan above their bed. His head nestled on the pillow where he had been sleeping, his mouth open in a silent scream, his tongue missing.
The blood from his body had absorbed into the bed and coated her.
She screamed.
Not sure what was going on, she ran for her phone. It wasn’t where she left it. She sprinted out of the room and downstairs to use the landline. When she picked it up there was no dial tone, but she could hear breathing.
She was frozen in fear.
“Death comes to those who do not see, Kalli,” Bart’s voice breathed from the handset.
It was a nightmare, she conceded, and pinched herself. She felt the pang of pain and tried again, and again and again.
Then she heard his footsteps.
He stomped down the stairs; the sound of a blade being dragged from stair to stair could also be heard. When she looked up though, she didn’t see anything.
She ran for the back door and opened it, only to have it slam shut on her. She turned around, looking for a place to hide. She opened the pantry cupboard and crawled inside, closing the door behind her. His footsteps had turned towards the kitchen and were coming.
Why this was happening? She couldn’t understand how it was happening, because she knew the sick psycho was dead … but Robyn had been dead too.
“Death comes to those who do not see,” he whispered in her ear.
Her eyes widened with fear and a hand clamped over her mouth. She was pulled from the pantry and saw the ghostly apparition of Bart in front of her. He was smiling brightly. There was a hole in his neck where Robyn had pushed his katana through to kill him.
He smiled madly. “You’re next,” he said.
Kalli tried to scramble back, but he approached her.
“It itches, Kallista. It itches and I need it scratched.”
Epilogue
Sylvana could not believe that she had to come back to this horrible town to mourn the death of another of her siblings.
Her mother’s heart could not take Kalli’s death; two days after finding out that Kalli, along with her new boyfriend, Mike, had been murdered by a copycat killer, Luell died in her sleep. The doctors said it was natural causes, but Sylva knew it was a broken heart.
First she had put her mother to rest and then she returned to her old neighbourhood to bury her sister. She could have stayed at their old house, but didn’t want to, not after losing two sisters there the same way.
The authorities had needed Sylva to identify her sister’s body. She noticed where they had reattached her head to spare her the full brutality of what happened, but Sylva had seen Tatum strung up in her closet, her head at her feet, so she knew what Kalli must have looked like.
It gave Sylvana goosebumps to think that their family was being haunted, cursed, by serial killers, and she could not wait to get out of town.
The day of the funeral dawned like any other. Sylva hadn’t been in town as long as her siblings and the only things she remembered about this town were Girl Scout meetings and burying her father, her sister’s friends, her teacher, her eldest sister and now Kallista. This town held so many bad memories for her; she wanted nothing more than to leave to return to art school.
Her boyfriend, Paul, stood next to her as they watched Kallista’s coffin being lowered into the ground.
They had picked out the plot next to Tatum’s. Sylva thought they would have liked that. Because he had hardly anyone in his life, she had used some of her inheritance to bury Mike next to Kallista.
She held Paul’s hand until both coffins were buried. He let go then to give her time alone, telling her he would wait in the car.
Sylva stared at her sisters’ graves, and Mike’s. She then took a short walk up the cemetery to look at Roger’s. He had been Tatum’s first and only love. She saw Darren’s grave next to Jacqui’s and remembered how they all thought Darren had been the killer, but it turned out to be Mr Barker’s brother. She hadn’t even realised he had a brother.
The wind picked up and she turned back, walking towards the car. As she did she glanced back and saw a man standing there. She shivered when she saw him. It was like she could see him, but at the same time her brain was having a hard time focusing on his features. He seemed familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him. From what she could make out, he stood near the Wild plot, where Ricker, Barker and the murderous Bart were all buried.
It gave her the creeps.
She picked up speed and made a beeline for Paul
He hugged her. “Everything okay, beautiful?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. Glancing back, she could not see the man anymore. “Let’s get out of here. We have a trip to Paris to plan for.” She smiled and kissed him.
He opened the door for her and she climbed in, putting her safety belt on. Paul went around the car to get in.
While she waited for him, she stared out the windscreen. When she looked at her sisters graves, she got a fright. The window suddenly misted over and words appeared - ‘Death comes to those who do not see.’
Freaked out, she gave a small scream.
Paul ducked his head into the car and said, “What’s wrong?”
Sylva looked at him and then her window, but it was clear.
She shook and burst into tears. “I’m sorry. I’m just so tired. I thought I saw …”
Paul quickly climbed in and put his arms around her. “It’s okay, shh, it’s okay. We’re going to be okay.”
Sylva nodded and wiped her eyes. Paul sat back, put on his safety belt and started the car. As they drove off, Sylva looked out over the cemetery. Standing over her sisters’ graves was a girl. Her face was painted like a skeleton. Her blonde hair was gelled back. She wore a black dance leotard with black ripped stockings. Sylva craned her neck and saw she had black boots on.
She shook her head, not sure what to make of the strange girl. She shrugged it off and settled back, putting her hand on Paul’s leg.
She didn’t notice the shadow sitting in the back seat of the car with a
shadowy katana across its lap.
Sylvana
By
Sian B. Claven
Acknowledgements
As always I like to start off by thanking everyone who made this book possible. For those who have stuck by me while I curse, doubt, question, hate, research and love this book.
Sylvana was a hard write because it was the finality of a series I quite enjoyed writing. The Butcher Books is close to my heart. What started off as a wild idea of seven books based on a cover I saw on a website became a three-part series about three sisters and a ghost out for revenge.
I would firstly like to thank my sister Jackie without whom I don’t think I could write. Thank you for always standing by me, encouraging me and cheering me on as I take on this author adventure.
I’d like to thank Toni, my #AuthorBestie, and best-friend-soul-mate who puts up with me humming while I write, listening to deafening music, upping and downing because I can’t concentrate and generally just distracting her from her own writing.
Thank you to Darren, who won’t let go of what I did in the second book, but who always pushes me to be my absolute best, and to give my absolute best.
Thank you to my family. To Darren, Kayla, Caitlin, Kelsey and Mom who always support me.
Thank you to my friends who put up with not seeing me, or me cancelling plans on them, as I try to navigate life as an author.
An especially big thank you to my Beta readers. Karen, Lorrie, Ona, Tabitha, Shan and Toni who always help me stick to the right path in the book and still have the patience to put up with my quiet spells.
Thank you to Elaina, my editor, who polishes my work off, so it’s presentable.
And a second thank you to Jackie, who proofreads everything to make sure it’s perfect before I release it.
Thank you to my readers who continue to support me. I hope I did this series a just end.
Without further ado … the story …
Prologue
Lincoln
For as long as he could remember, Lincoln could not recall a time that the house next door had ever had occupants longer than a few days. They would move in and a couple of days later move out again, claiming the house was just too creepy to live in.
Creepy.
He would give them creepy; they stayed in the house where those girls and that cop were murdered. As for Lincoln, he stayed in the murderer’s house itself.
It didn’t bother him, though; if anything, it fascinated him that he got to live in the same space where a psychotic killer grew up.
He wasn’t surprised at all to wake up one Saturday morning to find a moving van outside, and a family was climbing out of a car. He counted them out as they exited. There were mom and dad, looking up at the house and calling orders. Then two little boys climbed out, twins by the look of it. One appeared angry while the other simply seemed sad.
Clearly, they had not wanted to move at all.
Then came the little girl. She was cute with her hair in two buns on either side of her head and her fringe framing her face. Like something out of a comic book. She could not have been older than five from what Lincoln could see.
She seemed a lot more excited than the rest of her family, as though she was being taken on an adventure.
Lincoln didn’t see much more than that, as his mother called from downstairs that his breakfast was ready and that they had to hurry if he wanted to go watch the baseball game today.
He glanced out of his window one last time before he turned his back and left his room.
_____
Chapter One
Diana
They were here at last, and not a moment too soon. Diana was sure her eldest son, Clinton, was about to tear into his brother, James, at any moment and for no reason other than he hated being stuck in the car on the way to a new house he didn’t want to move into, he kept misbehaving. Her husband Robbie was also on his last nerve since the movers had broken some of their furniture carrying it out, and was just about to go off at both boys when Diana announced that they were two minutes away.
Two minutes couldn’t pass quick enough, but once they were outside the house, they tumbled out of the car and stood to stare up at their new home.
In the city they had stayed in a ‘three bedroom apartment’ and, okay, Diana would be the first to admit it wasn’t three bedrooms. The boys slept in what was meant to be the living room, while their daughter Charlie had her own room next door to her parents. It had been cramped and uncomfortable, but they had made it work. Then Robbie was offered a position, a promotion, in the suburbs, and they hunted down a temporary place to stay until they could afford to buy their own home.
That was how they came across the Metz house available to rent, and it was dirt cheap. Of course, Robbie and Diana had discovered why very quickly, but as Robbie had said, the person responsible for the killings was dead, so they had nothing to fear from the house.
Diana hadn’t really minded; she had inspected the house herself, and it was so thoroughly cleaned that there was no evidence whatsoever of anything horrible happening here.
Besides, it was only a temporary situation.
Charlie was the most excited one. She couldn’t wait for her big brothers to have their own rooms at last, and they would have a proper house with a backyard and everything. She had nattered about it nonstop to Robbie and Diana after they told her that they were moving to a real house.
The boys had reacted very differently.
Clinton instantly protested and hated the idea. He threw a tantrum, begged, cried, and eventually screamed that he didn’t want to move away from his school and his friends.
James withdrew into himself. He hadn’t really complained about having to move, but then James was not one to complain. Unlike his twin, James wasn’t very vocal and preferred his own company. Diana hoped that would change with the move, but she also knew it was just the way he was.
That was how they had landed up in front of their new house. Clinton immediately started to complain about everything that could possibly be wrong with it, while James hung back, letting his brother have his say.
“Well, there’s nothing for it, my boy,” Robbie said, less tense now they had arrived. “Why don’t you and your brother go pick your rooms while we get ready to move the furniture? The main bedroom is for us, and the one opposite is Charlie’s so you can battle it out for the other two.”
Clinton rolled his eyes, but both he and James walked to the house without further argument.
Charlie stared up, fascinated. “It’s so big,” she said, awe-struck by how tall it was. “We’re going to have to buy more furniture because we don’t got enough,” she added, smiling cutely at Diana.
Diana stroked the hair out of her daughter’s face and said, “I know, right? And you have a big girl’s room now where we can fit all your stuff. It doesn’t have to live in storage boxes anymore.”
Charlie squealed and clapped her hands, already excited. “What about the clown lady?” she asked, pointing up to a window.
“What clown lady, honey?” Diana asked, distracted by the men offloading their furniture from the moving truck.
“The lady with the painted face by the window, mama,” Charlie said, tugging on her hand. “Does she live here too?”
“Sure, honey,” Diana said. “Be careful,” she said to one of the movers. “Don’t break anything more than you already have.” She turned back to Charlie and added, “Why don’t you go find your brothers and ask them to find your room.”
Charlie looked up at the window and then nodded. “Okay, mama,” she said, heading inside.
Robbie came to stand next to Diana and began barking commands, so she felt like she could start offloading the car.
It was going to be a long day.
_____
Robyn
Not another one. Robyn thought after she scared the last family away, that would be it. Perhaps Sylvana was not understanding the message that she, Robyn, wasn’t
going to let anyone live here, not while he still lingered. She wouldn’t allow him any more victims.
She sighed and stared down at the little girl. She was not surprised at all to discover she could see her. Young children often saw her because their minds were more open to the supernatural than adults were.
The parents were distracted and weren’t paying attention, and Robyn didn’t want the girl to be too interested in her, so she moved away from the window.
A cold breeze blew through the house even though there was no wind outside. Robyn knew what it was.
It was a warning.
A warning that the house was waking up to the presence of the family moving in.
Robyn would have to get rid of them, just as she had done with the last family, or they would be hurt … or worse.
The twins ran through the house and up the stairs, and Robyn followed them. The one they called Clinton pushed his brother out of a room, claiming it for himself and slamming the door. The other twin, James she thought his name was, sighed and went to Tatum’s room. It would always be Tatum’s room to Robyn.
Robyn followed him as he looked around, opening the closet and stepping inside. Robyn was thankful he was too old to be seeing what she saw as a spirit.
Tatum’s lifeless body hung in the cupboard, her head at her feet and her tongue missing. The eyes opened and stared at Robyn, giving a silent shriek of pain.
None of his victims’ spirits rested, especially here. She saw them all the time, but it seemed she had only bothered to learn to control her movements, when she appeared and, of course, to move physical things if required. Tatum’s spirit just hung there, a ghost of the murdered girl.
James didn’t see her and Robyn was glad, but it was strange watching him pass through Tatum continually as he inspected the closet.
The Butcher Box Set Page 25