Black Jack: A nail biting, hair-raising thriller (Jack Ryder Book 4) (20 page)

M
ay
2016

Shannon could hear her phone vibrate on the counter where Kimberly had put it, but she couldn’t pick it up. Kimberly had asked - no demanded - that she sat in a chair by the kitchen table and had some of her coffee. When Shannon had refused and told her she wanted to leave, she had pulled a knife. She had stabbed Shannon’s arm with it so she almost dropped Tyler.

Now she was sitting in the chair, Tyler in her good arm, she wasn’t going to let go of him again, looking at her arm, where the blood was soaking her white shirt and her bracelets.

Meanwhile Kimberly was making coffee, humming along, taking out cookies from the cabinet, the knife placed on the counter next to her. The phone vibrated again and again, and Shannon had a feeling it had to be Jack. Hopefully they had let him go. Shannon had been terrified when they had taken him away. All they said was that he was needed for questioning about the death of some guy. They had seemed so serious and it had frightened Shannon. She hoped they just needed his help on some police work connected to the case, but she wasn’t so sure.

Kimberly looked at her like she wanted something from her.

“I’m sorry, what?” Shannon asked.

“I asked Do you take milk or sugar?”

Shannon felt confused. Her arm was hurting badly. “I told you. I don’t want coffee. I think I need to go to the emergency room with my arm. I need stitches.”

“Pah. Stitches,
smitches
. You’re fine. Don’t you know it’s impolite to say no when someone offers you coffee?”

“I don’t care, Kimberly. Just let me go, will you?”

Kimberly turned on her heel, then tilted her head to the side. “I am sorry. No. Can. Do. You’re staying here with me. You and your boy.”

Shannon sighed and looked down at Tyler. He was so peaceful on her arm. Sleeping through everything. She smiled when his mouth twitched in his sleep. It was tough to hold him on just one arm, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t letting go of him anymore. Never again.

“What do you want from me,” Shannon asked exhausted. She was constantly watching the knife on the counter, wondering if she would make it if she went for it, but then again looked at her bleeding, hurting arm thinking that Kimberly wouldn’t hesitate for even one minute to hurt her again. “Has it anything to do with mother? ‘Cause I feel like you should take it up with her instead, then.”

“Your mother I will deal with later,” Kimberly said and poured the finished coffee into two cups. She turned with a big smile, the cups in her hands. “I take it you want it black then.”

Kimberly placed the coffee on the table in front of Shannon, then went back for the knife and sat down across the table from her. She sipped her cup, her eyes flickering back and forth when suddenly noises started to emerge from upstairs. It sounded like vague screams.

Shannon felt a chill run down her spine. “What was that?”

Kimberly shook her head and drank her coffee. “That’s just the girls.” She looked at her watch. “They usually wake up at this time. I slip them something so they can sleep during the day. At night they can scream all they want to. Screaming during the day will attract attention whereas at night, well people will just chalk it up to that fact that the house is haunted.”

Shannon stared at her aunt while she was slurping her coffee. How could she just sit there all calm and cool when there were children screaming upstairs, sounding like they were screaming for their lives. She almost seemed like she enjoyed their screams, like it made her feel happy.

Shannon felt sick to her stomach. The screams were getting louder and louder and she couldn’t stand the sound. “Why are they screaming like this? What are you doing to these girls?”

Kimberly leaned in towards me. “Oh don’t let their innocent looks or screams fool you. They are pure evil. I am only doing this world a favor keeping them here.” She sat back in her chair cool and collected, smacking her lips like she was thirsty.

“So you’re telling me they are the ones who have this gene? What was it you called it? Murder-gene?”

“Yes. You’re getting it, Shannon. You always were the smart one among your sisters. Nevertheless you have it in you as well. And therefor I cannot let you leave this house, ever again.”

Shannon stared at her deranged aunt wondering how she had gotten herself into this mess and especially how she was going to get out of it again. The screams were intensifying now and it gave Shannon goose bumps. “So what, you’re telling me I am related to these girls that you kidnap?”

“Yes, exactly. They’re all children of distant cousins. Like the Hawthornes. Heather is your mother’s cousin.”

Shannon leaned back in her chair. She hadn’t touched her coffee and wasn’t planning on it. So Betsy Sue was family? Was she here? Shannon wondered if one of the screaming girls were her. It made her feel differently about the girl. She had to somehow get up there and help her.

D
ecember
1990

“Rosa?”

Kimberly yelled up the stairs while she ran, taking two steps at a time, the knife tightly squeezed in her hand.

“Rosa? Where are you, girl?”

Images of Joseph in the pool of his own blood wouldn’t leave her mind. Her heart was racing in her chest as she approached Rosa’s room. She opened the door cautiously, holding the knife in front of her.

“Rosa?”

Rosa wasn’t in her room. Kimberly walked inside and looked around. The bed was neatly made, but something was wrong with the dolls on the shelf. Kimberly walked towards them. Rosa had always loved these antique dolls that she had inherited from Kimberly who had them from her mother. Rosa especially loved the one with long blond curly hair and blue eyes that looked mostly like Rosa self. That was her favorite. But what had happened to her?

Who would do such a thing?

The doll’s head was lying in her lap. Ripped off. The one next to it had lost an arm. All the dolls had been completely destroyed. Some were even painted with red lipstick smeared out all over their faces, making them look like Kimberly with all the blood in her face. Kimberly gasped and took the favorite doll down.

“Betsy Sue,” she cried remembering the many wonderful times she had played with that doll as a child. It had been her favorite too. Kimberly sobbed and tried to remove the red lipstick from the doll’s face, by spitwashing it using her sleeve to wipe. But she only made it worse. She tried to put the head back, but it needed to be sewn. Luckily Kimberly knew exactly how to do it. She had been making a good sum of money fixing dolls for other people, mostly collectors. It was a craft her own father had taught her growing up.

Kimberly heard footsteps coming from the attic and the birds were still making an awful noise.

“Those damn birds,” she groaned. Was Rosa up there with them?

Kimberly climbed the stairs to the attic, knife between her teeth, and opened the hatch. A bird darted down towards her with a loud scream and pulled a lock of her hair out. Kimberly screamed, grabbed the knife in her hand and swung it in the air.

“Get away from me you bastards. You creepy bastards! I hate you!”

The bird flew away and Kimberly crawled into the attic. “Rosa?”

She spotted the girl in her reading corner, sitting her back turned at Kimberly, reading something.

She looks fine.

“Rosa?”

Kimberly approached her daughter and looked over her shoulder, when she realized exactly what she was reading.

“It does exist,” she gasped. “You lied to me!”

The girl finally looked up. Kimberly reached down and grabbed the book, remembering how she had been reading all about the general and was about to read about her aunt Agnes’ own story when Joseph had disturbed her.

“You told me there was no book,” she said angrily at her daughter. “Why did you say that?”

Rosa exhaled. “I thought the book made you sick. You were so out of it after reading it, I believed it was better you never saw it again. Dad agreed we’d better not let you read in it again.”

Kimberly shook her head while desperately flipping the pages to get to where she had stopped. “I don’t believe you,” she said holding the knife towards the daughter. She looked her in the eyes. Rosa seemed eerily calm. “What did you do to your father,” she asked, panting heavily as she spoke. “What did you do to him?”

Rosa shook her head.
Was that a smirk?

Kimberly pointed the knife at the girl. “What did you do to your father?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she finally said.

“You did it, didn’t you? You killed him, didn’t you?”

Now Rosa reacted. “I what? No! What…is dad…?”

“Don’t give me that. I know you did it, Rosa. Just like I have always wondered about Rick. You were in his room the night he died. Why were you in your brother’s room, Rosa? What were you doing there?”

Rosa took a step backwards while looking at the knife in front of her. Now she started to cry. “Mom. I… I didn’t do anything, you have to believe me. Please mom. I think…I think you’re loosing it.”

“I am not falling for that again, you little monster. I am not! You have tricked me for all these years with your innocent eyes. I am not falling for your tricks anymore. I know you killed him. I know you killed the both of them!”

“But…but… mom? Please? I didn’t do anything!”

Kimberly shook her head. Images of her baby in the crib, lying lifeless, not responding to her CPR, not breathing, no pulse, was coming back to her. For so many years she had blocked them out, trying to forget and move on, but now they were back.

The knife in Kimberly’s hand was shaking heavily when she made the decision. She would have wished that there was another way out, but there wasn’t.

It had to be done.

Kimberly grabbed Rosa’s hand and pulled it hard. So hard Rosa screamed.

“You’re coming with me,” Kimberly said ignoring her daughter’s bone piercing screams.

“Stop, mommy! Stop! You’re hurting me!”

Kimberly pulled her down the stairs, to the fourth floor, and then dragged her across the wooden floors in the hallway towards the door at the end of it.

“NO! Mommy!”

She opened the door by key, then pulled the girl into the room and placed her in the chair. She tied her down using a rope that was already in the room, still ignoring the girl’s helpless pleads.

When she was done and the girl could no longer move, she wiped her sweaty and bloody face with the edge of her shirt that was ruined anyway, and then looked down at Rosa who was crying hard. She kneeled and looked into the girl’s eyes. “This hurts me as much as it does you,” she said, wiping a lock of hair away from her face. She put it behind her ear, but it kept falling back into her face. “Believe me, sweetheart. But this is the only way. This is what must be done. Do you understand that? I have to do this. To protect you from yourself.”

“But…mommy, please…”

Kimberly looked into her beloved daughter’s eyes once again and knew it would be the last time. She walked to the door and hesitated for just one second to walk out. Rosa was squirming in the chair, her pleading eyes looking at her mother for help. Kimberly looked away, closed the door and locked it by key.

Before she left, she put a hand on the door and whispered:

“I’m sorry, baby.”

M
ay
2016

“Why do you keep them up there? Why do you put them in that chair?”

Shannon had to try and keep her temper down. The girl’s screams were getting louder and louder and more and more insisting. She had a hard time coping with it and with the fact that the mad woman in front of her was in fact her own family, her flesh and blood.

Kimberly finished her coffee, pretending like she couldn’t hear a thing, then looked at Shannon. She cleared her throat as if she wanted to make sure Shannon was listening. Shannon’s plan was to keep her talking, while she figured out how to get all of them out of there.

“I don’t get it,” she continued. “If you’re going to kill them anyway? Why not kill them right away?”

“Oh, but I am no monster,” Kimberly said. “I keep them with me, they grow up here with me until they reach a certain age and I see traits in them come to life. Until then we have a great time here. But at some point they start to change. It can be as early as six years of age as it was for Little Miss Muffit or maybe not until they are around ten, like Betsy Sue. I observe them closely especially when they play with the dolls, if the dolls tend to get hurt a lot, if limbs are being torn off, then I know it’s about time for them to go in the chair. It’s all for their own - and for the rest of the world’s protection.”

“So you keep them up there, tied to a chair to prevent them from what…killing someone? Is that what you think they’ll do?”

“Oh I know they will.”

“But they die up there!”

“Oh no. I feed them and give them water. But I have to keep them strapped down. I see the shift in their eyes. It doesn’t happen overnight, you know. It comes gradually. When it’s time, it’s time. There is nothing much I can do about it. As I said. It’s also for their own protection. But once they’re strapped down, I keep them fed and provided for. I am no monster.”

“But Bibby Libby died. They found her remains in that tunnel just the other day,” Shannon argued. She knew the woman in front of her was mad, and her answers wouldn’t make much sense, but she had to keep her talking.

“Bibby I had to kill. Just like Rosa. Once they mess up, once they overstep the line and kill, I have to get rid of them. I tell them that when they’re younger. I tell them they have the gene in them, that they are pre-disposed to be killers and if they do it, they will be killed themselves.”

“Who did Bibby kill?”

“Old Bryden. The man who lived across the street from us. She developed the traits so fast I was too late once I realized it. She had snuck out through the tunnels in the kitchen and had escaped. I came too late. He was already dead when I came down there. Hit his head on a rock in the backyard. She made it look like an accident, the clever girl, but it wasn’t. I was the only one who knew it wasn’t. Last night Betsy Sue killed his son. Kicked him in the back so he’d fall to his death. Again I came too late but I caught her as she tried to escape the place. I placed your husband’s, sorry
your fiancé’s
card in his hand, to keep the police looking in the other direction, if you catch my drift. Anyway. That’s when I grabbed her and brought her back. She’s too dangerous to have running loose. All these girls are. That’s why the ravens like them so much, you know. Because they smell like death. All these little girls do.”

“So now you have to kill her is that it?” Shannon asked wondering if Kimberly really couldn’t hear how crazy it all sounded?

“Yes. I got the idea from a book my aunt wrote. See it was while reading it, that I realized the general didn’t punish his daughter for playing with the wrong boy. No I researched it. Old newspaper articles at the library told me the boy died. Fell from a rooftop. So that’s when I realized the general punished her. He had to. He must have realized that she had pushed the boy down from their roof.” She paused for effect it seemed, then continued. “I went through the same myself. My daughter Rosa. I had to punish her, you must understand this, I had to do it. Once I realized she had killed her baby brother and her father. Now I couldn’t kill her myself. I didn’t have the heart to, just like the general couldn’t kill his own daughter, so I simply left her there. I didn’t go up there till a week later when she had been quiet for at least a day.”

Shannon could hardly breathe. The gruesomeness of her stories was too much to cope with. Shannon wanted to scream and run, but knew that her aunt was crazy enough to kill her if she did.

“So who do you have up there now?”

“Right now I have Miss Muffit up there with Betsy Sue. The worst part is the smell, you know from when they defecate themselves. It’s quite the mess. Now Betsy Sue hasn’t been fed or had a drink since I brought her back, she’s being punished for what she did to the younger Mr. Bryden, whereas Miss Muffit, I am still feeding. I only noticed her being very rough with the dolls, ripping off an arm the other day, but there is still hope for her. Alas probably not for long.” Kimberly smacked her lips and looked into Shannon’s eyes with a smile.

“More coffee?”