Call of the void, p.28
Call of the Void, page 28
Breathing shallowly against the stench, I searched the room for any sign of an exit. In another corner was a blood-encrusted mattress. Handcuffs hung from a chain attached to a metal bracket in the ceiling.
Turning back into the hall, the first thing I saw was a glowing green dot.
The second was the head of a shovel arcing toward my skull.
Ducking too late, an orange starburst exploded and I fell, dropping my phone. Black. Covering my head with my arms, I rolled to the other side of the hall. My back hit a wall and the shovel smashed my shoulder, my hip, my leg. Reaching out, I grabbed ahold of the tool. With a sharp yank, I wrested it away and rose to my feet.
She was on me, moist breath rancid in my face. She bit my neck, just above the collarbone. I yelled and head-butted her in the mouth and nose.
She fell back, muttering, “Fuckingbitchfuckingbitch
fuckinbitch.”
Grabbing the handle of the shovel with both hands, I used it to press her against the wall.
“Listen to me! I’m a friend. I’m going to get you out of here.”
Dim lights from the monitors in the closet glinted off her dark eyes, reflecting back a demonic intensity. Her arm fought loose, and she clawed at my face. Using the shovel’s handle, I slammed her hard against the wall several times, then released the tool and grabbed her wrist. She cried out when I twisted her arm behind her back.
Wrestling her into the surveillance closet, there was enough light to see that the woman before me wasn’t Kaylee. Older by at least twenty years, her matted black hair had been haphazardly cut, hacked down to the skin in spots, and she wore a ratty wifebeater and men’s blue athletic shorts. A snug-fitting metal collar circled her neck, with a flashing green sensor. Scars crisscrossed her wrists. She looked up at me with eyes that were vicious and vacant in equal measure. My breath caught in my throat.
“My God,” I whispered. “Amber.”
She gazed at me, the muscles around her bloodshot eyes twitching.
“Your mother’s alive, Amber. She hired me to find you.”
She shook her head, furiously blinking her eyes. “I’mnotI’mnotI’mnot ...”
“What is your name?” I asked.
“Angie.”
I paused, studying her again. There was no possible way. This was Amber Sebastian. “OK, Angie,” I said, “we need to get you out of here. Do you know the way?”
“Baby,” she said.
“We have to get out now. We’ll come back for the baby.”
“No!” she screamed, struggling to free herself from my grip.
I pointed toward the monitor where Wayne had been. He and the dog and Lola were now gone, along with the van. “Listen,” I said. “My friend is hurt. We need your help or we’re going to die. Angie, please.”
She ceased fighting and I released my grip. The baby began crying again. Like a zombie she walked from the room and down the hall to a closed door. She pounded on it once and gave a strange trilling whistle.
The door opened a crack and Kaylee’s terrified face peered out. She wore the same collar as Amber. The baby in her arms started crying with renewed vigor.
Kaylee stared at me.
“Kaylee, I’m here to help you and your baby escape,” I said.
“It’s not mine,” she said, in a soft, faraway voice.
“What’s the baby’s name?”
“Eli Paul,” she said. “He’s Emma’s.”
The baby cried louder. His eyes were crusted and goopy. Amber reached and took the screaming infant from her. It was then I noticed the swelling of Kaylee’s belly.
“Who’s Emma?” I asked. “Do you mean Emily?”
She nodded. “She died.”
“He killed her,” I said. “Paul or Loretta or both.” I turned to Amber. “Your mother—”
“You’re a liar,” Amber hissed. “My mother is dead.”
“She lives an hour from here,” I said. “In the house you grew up in. Your brother and sister are grown up. They all miss you. Your people miss you. And Kaylee, your parents are looking for you too. Right now.”
Kaylee stared, stunned. Amber’s head shook violently from side to side. Tears spilled from her eyes as her face contorted in a rictus of inner agony. She was missing several front teeth and many others were black with rot. “You’re a liar,” she said again, this time with less conviction.
“The liar is outside,” I said. “He’s a killer, and if we don’t get out of here, he’s going to kill you, too. How do we get out of here?”
“We don’t,” Kaylee said. “We’re locked in.”
“Eli is sick,” I said, locking eyes with Amber. “He has an infection and needs a doctor.”
Hugging the boy tightly to her chest, she marched past me down the hall. She pulled a ceiling cord in the far corner. The lights flickered back to life.
Holding Eli in one arm, Amber bent to retrieve the shovel with the other, before heading for the door at the end, the room with the bed and chains and the stench of hell.
She stepped over the lip of the door and was swallowed by the shadows. I followed and turned to see Kaylee halt at the doorway.
“I can’t go back in there. I can’t! I can’t!”
I made a grab for her, but she pulled back and turned and ran back to the bedroom. I called to her, but the steel door slammed with an echoing clang. From outside in the distance came the sounds of a barking dog and shouting voices. Entering the cesspit, I spotted the white of Amber’s shirt as she stood near the toilet area and used the shovel to pry a board loose near the ceiling. Eli wailed in the dirt nearby. I picked him up and he squirmed hotly in my arms.
Wood splintered and broke as Amber rammed the shovel against the top of the wall. A board fell. Looking at the extent of the damage, this attack on the wall had not been the first. I wondered if Emily had tried to escape this way—and been killed for it.
Amber pried another board, dropped the shovel from her hands to pull the wood free. She pointed toward the hole she’d made: a small portal to deeper darkness.
“You go first,” I said. “I’ll hand Eli through.”
She shook her head and took Eli from me. “You.”
Squeezing through the gap, I wriggled into another room. Water dripped on my scalp as I pulled my legs through and stood, right beside the rattling and vibrating metal generator. From chinks in the wood walls, thin shafts of light illuminated enough of the space to let me know I was in the small, attached shed, about six by six and windowless.
All was silent except for the barking of the dog, seeming much closer now.
A gap beside the door revealed a padlock and hasp on the other side. Amber grunted something and handed Eli up to me. The boy took great tremulous sucks of air as tears and snot streamed down his face.
Amber Sebastian set the spade on the floor of the shed ahead of her as she wormed through the hole. She stood, picked up the tool, and immediately began chopping away at the boards to the left of the door. The wood cracked and broke under the shovel’s edge, allowing in more light. I reached into my satchel for the picks. She looked at them and shook her head and returned to chopping at the wood.
I shouldered her out of the way. “We don’t have time.”
Sticking my hand through the gap in the door, a quick feel of the padlock revealed it to be basic and cheap. I could have done it drunk and one-handed using a paper clip. The problem was working from a bad angle. After several fails and nearly breaking the pick in the keyhole, I felt the click.
I popped the lock off and kicked open the door. Amber rushed past with Eli under her arm. I was right behind her. From the right came a flash of movement. She gasped and dropped the child, stumbling backward into me. Over her shoulder I saw a small hatchet imbedded in the right side of her abdomen.
CHAPTER 63
Behind his glasses, Paul Danko’s eyes went wide as he loomed over Amber. A moment later, she fell sideways to the ground. “Angie, no, no, no,” he said.
As I pulled the Enforcer, he grabbed me and flung me against the side of the cabin. Another bright burst of pain in my head as I fell to my hands and knees in the muck. For a second, everything went black. I could smell blood.
When my vision returned, it was like seeing through a filmy lens.
Danko wiggled the hatchet free from Amber’s stomach.
Blood drained from her face as she grasped for Eli, his face filthy as he screamed in the mud.
Distracted, Danko turned to the boy. My eyes searched for the Enforcer. I couldn’t see it anywhere, so I grabbed a fist-sized rock. When Danko leaned over Eli, I lunged, smashing the rock above his ear. His head snapped to the side as he reached out and snared my shirt with his free hand. I kneed his groin. The rock tumbled from my grip and I raked my fingers down his face, lodging my fingers into his eye sockets. He roared and dropped the hatchet. As my fingers dug deeper, he wrapped his hands around my throat and lifted me off my feet, squeezing so hard it felt like my eyes were going to explode. The fight was being choked out of me, and I let go of his face. My blurred vision blackened around the edges, like a photograph melting.
He stopped and looked down, blood running freely from one eye. The pressure on my throat released. I followed his gaze to see Amber, plaster-faced, pulling on his leg and mouthing the words please, please. He dropped me and I landed in a heap near Eli. The hatchet sat five feet away. Danko bent over Amber. “It was an accident, sweetheart,” he said. “You’re not supposed to be out here. You knew it wasn’t safe.”
Blood burbled from her mouth. Danko cradled her head.
“You’ve got to get her to a hospital,” I gasped.
“She’s gone,” he said, voice hollow.
“No, she’s still alive. We can stop the bleeding, get her up the road—”
With sudden speed he reached out, grabbed me by the hair and pulled me close, forcing me to look at her. “This is on you,” he said, eyes flashing darkly. “She had a good life here before you came messing around. I saved her from hell down on that reserve.”
“You steal girls and kill them,” I said.
“No innocents ever died.”
“Tell that to Emily Pike. And her father.”
Danko shook his head. “You’re the real cause. You were warned. I took your boyfriend’s little girl, and you kept coming. You invade people’s lives like a parasite—”
“We can save her, Paul,” I said. “You didn’t love and care for her all these years just to see her go like this.”
His eyes went from me to Amber. Reaching over with one arm, he checked her neck for a pulse. In doing so, he released me enough that I could draw back and slam my elbow into his jaw, once, twice, three times. He grunted and let go. I rolled away, kicking at his legs and reaching for the hatchet. Danko’s boot pinned my forearm just above the wrist. With my free fist, I cursed and pounded against his shin. I might as well have been hitting a tree trunk.
“Trap a coyote by one of its limbs,” he said, “and most likely the beast will gnaw it off. People, too, will go to similar lengths if they have enough will to live. You don’t have that luxury anymore.”
I strained and closed my eyes, saw the Winnebago, heard myself scream. When I opened my eyes, beyond Danko’s boot, I saw my sister holding both her dead children, watching with the same impassive stare as my captor. I blinked again and saw that it was Kaylee Green, barefoot in the mud, holding Eli in her arms.
“Katie,” he said with measured calmness, “I need you to take Eli inside and clean him up. I’ve got to deal with some things in order to protect this family.”
“She said my parents are looking for me,” she said.
“She’s lying, Katie, because she’s crazy. I’ve shown you the documentation. Your parents are dead.”
I made eye contact with her. “He’s lying, Kaylee.”
Pressing down with his boot, Danko ground my arm deeper into the muck. I cried out in pain. He told her again to take Eli inside, adding that she shouldn’t be upset in her condition. She hesitated, looked at me for moment, before turning and disappearing back into the shed with the child.
A sudden blow jarred my entire body and sparks exploded behind my eyes. My head hit the earth and the last thing I remember was looking into Amber’s glassy, lifeless eyes. I heard the familiar rattle and behind her, and just before I lost consciousness, I saw the yellow VW van pull up.
CHAPTER 64
My eyes opened to dark clouds and a blur of shapes all around. Trees. Mounds of dirt. Crosses. A body.
Semi-focus returned, revealing Wayne on the ground nearby, bite marks on his arms and legs, face covered in blood. The jeans covering his right leg were shredded, and on the inside of his knee, bright red blood oozed from several puncture wounds.
We were in a clearing in the forest, next to a large hole dug into the earth. Staked into the ground nearby were two wooden crosses spaced about five feet apart. The cross on the left was considerably older, the wood weathered and warped. The other was topped with fresh dirt. Beyond the graves were more of the sensor sticks we had seen earlier. Remembering the collars worn by Amber and Kaylee, I now knew what they were for: the women would get electro-shocked if they crossed the barrier. Like animals.
Ten feet to the left, blocking a trail just wide enough to accommodate the vehicle, was the yellow VW van, its side door panel partway open.
Wayne’s eyes fluttered open. “Run,” he croaked.
I crawled to him. Pulling off his belt, I cinched it high up and around his right leg.
“They’re coming back to finish the job,” he said. “Run. Get the fuck out of here!”
I grabbed Wayne, tried to pull him up. He pushed me away. A dog barked from the woods. Close.
“Get your ass up, Wayne,” I said.
From behind came the distinct chk-chk of a shotgun shell being racked. I turned to see Lola aiming the weapon at us. Wound around her forearm was a leash connecting her to a brindle pit bull, its muzzle fresh with blood. With her buzzed head, faint moustache, and camouflage bandana around her neck, Lola looked more like a Marine awaiting deployment than the woman I remembered tending horses at the farm. She secured the mastiff’s collar to the bumper of the VW van.
“Where’s Danko?” I asked.
“He’s coming,” she said, her voice husky and strained.
“So are the police,” I said. “They know about this place.”
“Ain’t true.”
“It is. I told the cops in charge of the Emily Pike case. Our partner knows, too. You’re a runner, right? Like me?”
She remained silent, finger on the trigger. Wayne remained very still as he watched through half-closed eyes.
“Well, when I head out into the woods,” I said, “I always let someone know where I am.”
“He found the GPS on your belt. It’s gone now.”
“But it’ll still show that we were at the cabin. They’re going to find this place, and they’re going to be here soon. You should go while you still can.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. You’re a survivor. You’ve been running since you were fifteen. That’s when Paul found you, right?”
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“Back then you looked like the others. He didn’t realize you were trans.”
Lola stepped in and raised the shotgun a foot in front of my face. He was shaking.
“You don’t have to do this anymore, Loretta—”
“My name is Larry!”
“Larry,” I said. “He manipulated you and brainwashed you like the others. He’s sick. But you’re not. You’re not a killer. You don’t have to do this anymore.”
His eyes went panicky-wide as a tear raced down his cheek.
“What happened to Emily?”
“I didn’t want to do—” Distracted by something over my shoulder, Lola looked up. I turned to see Paul Danko trudging around the van. His eye was roughly patched up with tissue and duct tape. His right hand held the hatchet, his left held my Enforcer.
“Cops are coming, she said,” Lola said.
He shook his head as he examined the Enforcer. “No one’s coming.”
“You’re delusional,” I said, “if you think your connections to Travis Benoit will save you from murder charges.”
“Anything remotely connected to him gets brushed aside. He’s their number one boy.”
“Not something like this,” I said. “It’s too big.”
“You overestimate your own importance in the overall scheme of things. Maybe because you’re batshit crazy, but it’s unfortunate you had to drag others into the pit with you.” He tapped Wayne’s chest with the Enforcer and pressed the trigger. Wayne’s back arched as he stiffened and twitched. When the current was released, he fell back gasping.
“Boy was playing possum,” Danko said. “You get the keys off them, L? They didn’t walk all the way up here. There’s bound to be a vehicle around someplace.”
Lola held her hand in my direction. “Hand ‘em over.”
I shook my head. “He drove.”
Danko patted Wayne’s pockets and my partner moaned in weak protest.
“The day of the dogfights at the ranch,” I said. “That’s where you saw Emily Pike.”
He paused, blinking his one good eye at me, then looked over at the more recent grave. “Her dumbfuck boyfriend brought her there. She was so beautiful, wasn’t she, L?”
Lola’s eyes filled with tears as his jaw began to tremble.
“I don’t know if you believe in destiny,” Danko said, “but I do. Everything happens for a reason. Emma was meant to be there that day.”
