Perish, p.14
Perish, page 14
Shit. Shit. Shit.
For the first time, I realized how closely this man and I were linked. I had to work with Roth. It was Roth or no one.
Patrick disappeared from my mind. So did Alex. This required immediate action.
My phone vibrated against the desk.
I checked the screen—no name appeared at the top of the message. I had never seen the number before. The message held just two words. “Sit tight.”
I shook my head.
Fuck that.
CHAPTER 20:
RUSH
My first feverish thought as I closed Jasper’s message was that I needed to get out of town. Several men might be on their way to my apartment right now. I rose from my chair, walked to my closet, and pulled a black duffel bag free. After I opened several dresser drawers and started pulling clothes out, I paused.
Long term, what good would running do? I was only one individual. I couldn’t elude Alex’s group, or Roth’s group for that matter, over a long period of time. Either would eventually find me, and I wasn’t sure which one would be worse.
I cursed profusely and shut the dresser drawer again. I returned to my chair and sat, my back rigid, hands on my legs. I opened the desk drawer, retrieved my .38, and tucked it in my coat pocket. I forced myself to swallow, and my mouth felt full of cotton.
I knew what needed to be done.
Roth had to be freed from jail—not temporarily, either. Permanently. The answer became obvious.
You’ve got to be careful, I thought. You’ve never done anything like this before.
The potential repercussions from the solution that came to mind were too extensive to analyze in a short period of time. I had to act as soon as possible, move things back into the correct position, ensure all the players remained snug in their spots, so that the game could commence as it should.
My hands moved to the keyboard, and I opened a new tab. I typed “James McFadden” into the search bar and pulled up as many articles on him as possible. I read through each of them, learning about the crime scene and McFadden’s life. In the fourth article, I came across exactly what I searched for—the story of McFadden’s family and, more importantly, where he had been laid to rest.
Galloway Cemetery.
Patrick and I had journeyed to that cemetery recently to visit his mother’s grave. I remembered the directions. As long as the roads were clear, it should take me no more than thirty minutes.
I felt like I slid backward in time, that reality crumbled around me—that something, somewhere, pulled me away from my goal of stopping Alex. I wasn’t having it. My plan was insane, but I had to try.
I did a Galloway Cemetery grave search and located where his body was buried on the tiny map on the screen. I memorized the location.
You’ve got to go, a voice inside me said. Now.
I closed my web browsers and shut my laptop.
My thoughts raced feverishly, like arrows dipped in poison. From the small toolbox in my closet I retrieved a long flat-head screwdriver and dropped it into my pocket. I left my apartment, locked the door behind me, and rode the elevator down.
I scanned the lobby, half expecting to see men waiting for me, and breathed a small sigh of relief when I found none. When I stepped outside into the night, I ensured a clear path before I crossed the gray pavement.
I walked about fifteen minutes to a communal gardening center I had passed several times that belonged to a small apartment building. I walked through the gate to the shed in the middle of the rows of established vegetables and herbs. Inside, I found several gardening tools, among them a large shovel and a spade. I grabbed both.
I shut the shed door behind me and continued east. I needed a car, preferably a car built in the eighties. I began my search in a secluded area of the city. I checked several alleys before I found a car that would do. Between two buildings, beside a thin black fence, sat a 1988 Acura Integra.
I broke the driver side window with a rock, used the rock to clear the shards, and opened the door. I unlocked the backdoors, threw the shovels in, and then took my seat in front of the steering wheel. Pieces of glass crinkled beneath me, but my thick coat protected me from the shards and covered them so that no one just looking in would see.
Using lessons Cyrus and Roland had taught me, I retrieved the screwdriver from my pocket and jammed it into the ignition. I turned it, and the start cylinder moved. The car came to life. One obstacle down. I pressed my forehead against the wheel and thanked my luck.
After a moment to steady my nerves, I took a deep breath and drove the car from its parking space.
On the highway, the lines of the road slipped past, the engine thrummed in my ears, and the blank canvas of the road stretched before me. Complications of my plan began to enter my mind.
You really think you will be able to dig McFadden up in one night? You, Jack? Alone? What are you going to do? Scare the soil from on top of the coffin? How are you going to get into the fucking burial vault? You didn’t bring a crow bar.
I shook my head in defiance of these huge flaws. I had to try, even if that meant trying and failing. No, there was no failing. Even if it took me two days to get that coffin open, I’d get it open. I wiped sweat from my forehead and cursed. Why did Roth have to get arrested? And now? Was he not better than that? Above it?
Who do you expect him to be? An interior voice asked. Cyrus?
I brushed it away.
By the time I reached the cemetery, dark had fully descended. The gates were closed, but I remembered where the fence split. I parked a few blocks away and retrieved the shovel and spade from the backseat. I walked in the twilight, one tool in each hand, to a place where the trees met the fence. Finding the familiar gap in the fence, I tossed the tools through. I ducked and slipped inside the opening.
Stooping low, I collected the shovel and spade and quietly bolted across the cemetery, making my way to the opposite end. I had to hurry. It would take me all night to uncover the coffin, and this would be my only chance to get the job done.
When I approached the right area, I realized I had forgotten exactly which row of the northeast corner McFadden was buried in. In the dim light, I scanned the names of every fourth headstone of the rows. Spurred by adrenaline or luck, I found him. A sparkling gray granite headstone poked up through the grass and faded fake flowers. It shimmered in the night, the dark letters wishing peace upon the man below.
I tossed the shovel to the side and pushed the spade down into the earth, broke the solid soil. It had been six years since McFadden’s death, six years since the soil had been laid down. It was compacted, more than I expected. Toiling in it felt like digging up rocks and stone rather than dirt.
As I broke open the old earth, my mind hearkened back to when Alex had killed Shakespeare, our family dog, and Cyrus forced him to dig a proper grave. At just eight or so, Alex had mined quite a large hole for a boy of his size.
It seemed to me that that moment and this one were connected.
That was something, it seemed, the two of us were good at—digging down, working through the fear, using our thrumming hearts as extra pistons.
I licked my lips and tasted soil. I blinked my eyes as dirt puffed into their corners, scratching them. I breathed it in, imagined my lungs coated in the grime. My back muscles began to ache, and I thanked myself for every day I had worked out—running, pushing myself to my physical limits in preparation for when I might meet Alex.
Over the next half hour, only the large round moon kept me company. Occasionally, the sound of feathers arrived as claws released tree limbs and owls swooped from branch to branch or branch to ground.
The piles of dirt on either side of me loomed like mountains. I stood in the valley wishing for water. I had brought no food, no drink, no sustenance of any sort. I yearned to accomplish the inhuman, and only humans needed sustenance.
You’re not immortal yet, a voice within me mocked.
After another hour of work, sweat coated my entire body, despite the cool air. My muscles ached beyond cramping.
I straightened and took a deep breath, letting my arms rest. I gazed over the edge of the earth that surrounded the hole. It met my hip. I still had plenty to go.
McFadden might not even be down there, another voice warned.
That was true. He might not be. For all I knew, James McFadden didn’t even exist. He could have been conjured up by a group of intelligent people I knew nothing about to entrap Roth. It all could be one giant hoax. The grave might be empty.
I dropped to my knees and placed my hand on top of the soil. I willed the power in me to seek out the dead, asking if anyone rested beneath. The tingling in my core slipped to my hand and then down into the soil, and I waited, breathless, fearful.
After a while, I did feel a magnetic pull, like the beckoning of an instinctual act, and I immediately lifted my hand from the soil. Someone was down there. I would have to trust it was McFadden.
I stood, grabbed the shovel again, heaved it into the dirt, heard the metallic clink of the soil connecting with it, and dumped the next load over my shoulder. My mind reduced down to just the act itself, hands on a wooden handle, metal plunging into the dirt and casting it away, soil increasing the mountains on either side of me.
Another hour passed before I slipped, nearly too tired to continue. My whole body ached. Half of the night had burned away with still half the depth to go. Then would come the slow, arduous process of opening the concrete vault. After that, I would have to return McFadden to the living. And then…
I paused. A new question entered my mind.
Who was this man? Was he a killer? It was certainly possible. I would need to wound him as soon as I resurrected him. And then what? Haul a fully-grown man up and out of the grave, across the cemetery, and into the backseat of a stolen car?
Shit, I thought. That wouldn’t work. The plan was fucked.
My strength shrank. I could not ensure Roth’s release from jail within the next few days. I could not foresee who next would come for me.
Emotion welled in the center of my chest. I placed my hands on either side of my head and clasped my tangled, dirty hair. Though I grew weary, my chest felt like it housed a thunderstorm. I had traded my identity for nothing. I had given them everything for nothing.
I slipped down to the dirt and leaned against the wall that rose high over me. My hands gripped the soil beside me like talons, and I shut my eyes. Grit coated in my teeth, covered my tongue. I grimaced as the particles broke under my bite.
My breath caught in my throat, and my eyes shot open. A sound arrived, as soft as owl feathers brushing the grass. The noise emanated from right above me, and every question inside me suddenly collapsed, put on hold.
I looked up.
A man’s shoes perched on the edge of the grass, between two mountains of dirt. They shone in the moonlight. His hands were in the pockets of a nice pair of black slacks, supported by a black belt. He wore a dark button-down shirt and a jacket.
It was Jasper.
“I thought I might find you here,” he said.
I swallowed the grime down and leaned my head against the soil. I breathed in the smell of the dirt and caught just the barest whiff of Jasper’s perfumed scent.
The man with a face like a mutt turned slightly to his left, slightly to his right, to survey my work. His hands remained in his pockets, and I wondered if I could reach my pistol before he reached his. After digging for four hours, I doubted it.
With very little warning, Jasper lifted one foot forward and hopped with his other. He landed in the hole beside me. I leaned back when he looked down at me and smiled. “These are tumultuous hours. If I were you, this is exactly what I would have done.”
Behind him six other individuals surrounded us, all similarly dressed in equally dark clothes. Most of them were bald or nearly so. Several of them I recognized from the warehouse, but others were foreign to me.
“Come on,” Jasper said, and he grabbed me by my arm and pulled me upright. Without saying anything else, he stepped behind me and lifted me up, his arms beneath my shoulders, while another individual grabbed my hands and pulled me from the hole.
When I stood outside the grave, they released me. Those who wore jackets wordlessly took them off. Four individuals picked up shovels from the ground and jumped into the grave. One of them threw a shovel to Jasper. They all began digging.
I watched.
Slowly, I realized they were not there to kill me, nor were they going to kidnap me or take me back to their building. There had either been no coup against Roth or these men were not involved.
They were not going to try to take over and replace him. They were, rather, doing what I was.
They were going to get him out.
CHAPTER 21:
CLOSE
It was odd seeing them work so effortlessly and quickly when I was so drained. Their presence comforted me.
Several of them had brought flashlights. They pressed them into the sides of the hole so they pointed down, providing enough light to illuminate the area while they perfected my work.
The grave’s sides became crisper, the hole deeper. Sooner than I expected, metal clanked against concrete. They had reached the burial vault.
Near the headstone, their dirt-covered hands swirled the soil on top of the concrete and then pulled it away. For a little while, they dug just to the right of the casket, low enough that they would be able to access the vault lid and open it.
Steadily, they completed this work.
Several of them jimmied crowbars between the top of the burial vault and its core. With some effort and maneuvering, they leveraged the lid open. It swung like a hinge until it rested against the wall of dirt on the opposite side.
Within lay a dark wooden casket.
Several of the men climbed out. I made my way to the other side of the grave to see better.
The four remaining men undid the casket latches and prepared to open it. Jasper told them to stop. He turned his head and looked up at me. I knelt and then swung my legs over the edge. He held up his hand, suggesting I stayed where I was.
“Can you do what you need to do from up there?” he asked.
I looked down at the casket, a mere seven feet away.
“Yes.”
“Then stay up there. Don’t do anything until I tell you to.”
He and the others freed handkerchiefs from their pockets and pressed them to their noses. They opened the casket. A foul stench immediately filled the air. I looked away from the interior of the coffin, where black body fluids stained the fabric.
I saw bones.
Jasper and the others put gloves on. A man across from me tossed some black cloth and a set of handcuffs to Jasper. Jasper caught them effortlessly and laid them beside the vault.
He looked up at me and withdrew the handkerchief from his nose. He grimaced at the stench.
“I don’t want him to be able to see you when you return him.”
I looked down at my legs dangling over the edge of the grave and realized what he meant. I nodded. With a small effort, I pulled my legs up and positioned myself so that I lay on the ground perpendicular to the hole, between two piles of dirt. I stared up into the night sky at the multitude of stars. I relaxed, content with a bit of rest, and wondered how long it had been since I had last gazed upon stars.
The dirt crunched beneath me as I turned my head and peered into the eyes of a man I had never seen before. Is this his first experience, I wondered, of seeing what I can do? Does he already know what he will witness? How will he react?
The man returned my gaze. He seemed unmoved.
“All right.” Jasper’s voice rose to me from deep in the ground.
I closed my eyes and, as I breathed in, felt out the death.
Deep within my core, I sought the familiar warmth and released it. It flowed through my limbs, warming me like returning circulation. It drifted through the top of my head and down into the hole below me.
After just a second came the sound of a quick intake of breath. Jasper said, “We’ve got him.” My eyes shot open. The man who had been standing to my left leaned away. He recovered from his shock and shut his mouth.
Below, in the grave, there was the sound of handcuffs latching, and people exchanged muffled words. Jasper said, “We’re good.”
I stood and peered below.
Whereas there had been four men, now existed five. One coughed, gagged and blindfolded, covered in a rotten suit. He would have to shower and be given fresh clothes. Jasper had likely already thought of that.
Four men remained behind to deal with the coffin and the vault, promising to fill in the hole before dawn broke, which would be soon. I joined those above ground. Jasper held a finger to his lips, motioning for me to be quiet, and then he pressed his hand against my back to urge me forward with them.
Jasper and one of the bald men steered McFadden through the cemetery.
For about fifteen minutes, we walked through the tombstones to the southwest, towards the entrance. Though the accomplishment of resurrecting McFadden sent a release through me, part of me still surged with adrenaline. The stress felt positive, though, for we had accomplished what we needed to.
When we reached the entrance, a black car immediately pulled up. The trunk opened.
They maneuvered the handcuffed, gagged, and blindfolded McFadden to the trunk and pushed him in. He fell with a thud and struggled against the cuffs. Jasper retrieved a small case from the trunk and unzipped it. At first I couldn’t make out what he held, but when it glinted in the lamp light overhead, I recognized a syringe. Jasper carefully slid the tip into McFadden’s neck. The plunger descended, and McFadden stopped struggling. He lay in the trunk, inordinately still, as though dead again. Jasper replaced the syringe in the case.
