Laughing, Paul hoisted himself up onto the remaining flooring and into the kitchen, returning a heartbeat later with their chef’s knife.
“See this? It has a lot to do tonight, and so do you.”
“No, please,” Sean said, turning his face away as Paul laid the blade against his cheek. He thought of Mare, alone and maybe dying, of Steffie already dead, and closed his eyes.
Oh, babe, oh Stef, I am so sorry I failed you.
He opened them and almost made out a dark blur near the newest sporing hole, but filmy blood over his eyes made it difficult to see.
Paul crouched and muttered into Sean’s ear. “Oh, not you, not yet. See, you’re going to watch. First, we’re gonna cut off her feet so she can’t get away, so she’ll see them lying there, pieces that used to be part of her. And then I’m going to fuck her. Ass. Face. Cunt. In that order. If I feel like it, I might share her with my friends next door and watch them do it again. You know my old buddy Earl, right? We’ve been hunting together since high school.”
That’s why the deaths continued!
Sean reasoned.
Earl consults all over the country. Travels constantly with his fucking dog.
“When we’re done, I’ll cut her open, from here,” Paul touched the knife to the base of Sean’s sternum, “to here,” he said, dragging it past Sean’s belt buckle.
“I’ll rip her guts out, and hopefully she’ll last long enough to feel it this time. And then before I toss her out, I’ll fuck her open and empty carcass while it’s still warm. How’s that sound, Seanny?”
“You sick bastard! She’s just a kid. A helpless innocent kid!” Sean tried to push himself up enough to crawl away, but his arms quavered and he crumpled down again.
Have to save her. Somehow.
“No, this one, she’s a spore. They heal, remember? No telling how long she’ll last. Probably a lot longer than you did. And we fucked you off and on for two days before I cut your guts out. I bet she’ll last twice as long. And so will the rest I’ve planted here.” He grabbed the back of Sean’s head by the hair and yanked Sean’s face toward him. The tattoo on Paul’s arm flexed and seemed to grin in dark glee. “So, so much play time. What do you think?”
Sean spat his mouthful of blood at Paul. “I think you’re a sick fuck.”
“Yeah, a sick fuck who keeps kicking your worthless cream-puff ass.” Paul laughed and stood, letting Sean slump again to the ground. He kicked Sean in the face before unzipping his pants, unzipping his skin, until the Minotaur stood there, towering and vile. “You’re going to have a front row seat as I get to know my little spore princess, so enjoy the show. After I’m done with her first round, I’ll do the same to you. Only this time, I’ll burn your body. No more second chances, Sean. Not this time.”
Sean blinked, Paul, Minotaur, Minotaur, Paul, each hazy and red, walked to the ladder. The Minotaur crouched, tail swishing, and held out a clawed paw. “Come, child, come to Papa Paul. Let’s play.”
She whined. The Minotaur snarled, “I said get your goddamn spore ass back here so we can fucking play!”
Sean tried again to push himself up, but failed. Defeated and lightheaded, he turned his head away, unwilling to bear witness—
Is that my shovel?
His own garden shovel lay beside the hole, just a good stretch away.
Get it, get it, get it!!
“Get your fucking ass back here, you little bitch!” the Minotaur bellowed while Sean crawled, reaching, stretching.
He wrapped his hand around the shaft and allowed himself one breath of rest, then rolled back toward the Minotaur who was dragging the screaming child out from behind the ladder panel.
Get up, get up, GET UP!!
Her skin was still wet and slick from spore foam, and she slipped from the Minotaur’s grip and scuttled away.
Sean sat, panting, the shovel across his lap and his head a reeling vat of dizziness and pain as he struggled to remain conscious.
Don’t you hurt her, you filthy shit.
He slumped back to the dirt once, then he shoved himself to his knees again.
Don’t you dare. Don’t you fucking dare.
Another breath and his vision cleared. He tottered to his feet, free hand holding his forehead in place, and staggered toward the vile beast. He heard a soft siren or maybe desperate ringing in his ears as he stumbled forward.
I won’t let you! I was a kid then. Helpless. Not anymore.
The Minotaur’s hairy back arched as it bent, straining to reach the kid, lumps of knotty backbone in a row down its spine. Laughing, it dragged the child to it and reached for the knife.
Head swimming in rhythm with the squeal ringing in his ears, Sean drew the shovel over his shoulder, like he was prepping Mare’s softball bat for a good pitch. He wobbled, but found his balance and swung.
Sean hit the Minotaur square in the topknot. It fell forward, gasping, its clawed hands clenching into the dirt.
“I said, get your filthy fucking hands off her!” Sean stumbled under his momentum but caught himself and swung again, against the back of the thing’s massive head.
It turned, snarling, breath stinking of death and decay, and Sean smacked it square in the face again and again and again. It became Paul, nose mashed and bleeding, forehead split open, but Sean swung again. The Minotaur, one eye bludgeoned shut. Another swing. Paul. The Minotaur.
The cheap shovel’s shaft snapped, but he continued the beating. “No one’s hurting any more kids in my goddamn house!” he screamed, still swinging. “No one’s hurting any more kids, you fucking freak!”
He screeched his fury as hands grabbed him and dragged him off Paul, and he fought to get back to killing the filthy thing that had taken his hope, his life away. He screamed, kicked, and flailed, but three deputies forcibly removed him from the basement and through the house while others rushed past, heading back toward Paul and the spore girl. Sean was still screaming, still fighting, when they carried him outside to a gentle summer rain.
“You really ought to go to the hospital,” the EMT said as she stretched a butterfly bandage over Sean’s split cheek.
“Nah, I’m good,” he said, voice muffled behind the swollen lip and his head swimming despite the icepack he held to his brow.
They’ve taken my statement, said I could go, but I’m not going anywhere until I know that fucking lunatic is locked up and gone.
“Suit yourself,” she said, moving on to the next gash or contusion. “But your cheek’s busted. Someone needs to look at it.”
“So noted,” he sighed, stretching to see another pair of EMTs drag Paul out of the house on a stretcher.
Least I was able to walk afterward,
he thought.
The little girl sat in the backseat of a deputy’s cruiser, clutching a blanket close as she watched Paul get hauled away. She blinked at Sean and smiled, shy, hopefully still innocent. At least until her memories returned.
“Give me a minute,” he said to the EMT as he stood. Ignoring her protests, he staggered to the cruiser.
“Hey,” he said, afraid to kneel before her because he might not be able to get back up.
She looked up at him, her blue eyes huge as she tightened the blanket around her. “You beat up that monster.”
“Yeah. I guess I did. You all right?”
She nodded. “He just scared me. That’s all.”
Good.
“Scared me, too. What’s your name?”
“Luchie Fawkes.”
“Sean Casey.” He held out his hand and she shook it, gracing him with another shy smile. “I’m glad you’re all right.”
“Just wish my mom would get here,” she said, staring at the officers and flashing lights. “They said they’d called her.”
“She’ll come. Want me to stay with you ‘til she does?”
She nodded in relief, tears brimming in her eyes. “You won’t let anyone hurt me. Not even scary monsters.”
He leaned against the car for balance and she grasped his hand. “No, sweetie, I won’t,” he promised as he blinked back tears. “Let’s just wait for your mom.”
They didn’t wait long, a couple of minutes, then a minivan skidded to a stop beyond the ambulances. A haggard but hopeful couple scrambled out, followed by a teenage boy and another girl a few years older than Luchie.
“It’s them! It’s them!” Luchie squealed as she slid out of the cruiser, still holding Sean’s hand.
The dad grabbed the nearest deputy. “Where is she? Where’s our daughter?” He muttered something Sean couldn’t hear, then the whole family ran to them, smiling and crying and hugging Luchie.
Sean smiled and said goodbye as he turned to walk around the thankful family.
“Oh, my baby,” the mother cried, holding Luchie close and rocking her. “We thought we’d lost you!”
The teenage boy looked up, gaping and pointing at Sean. “It’s him. It’s the guy from TV.”
The dad lurched to his feet, one hand on the back of his daughter’s head, and grabbed Sean’s arm, turning him to face him. “You… You did this? For my family?”
“That’s Sean. He saved me from the monster, Daddy,” Luchie said, voice muffled against her mother’s bosom.
The dad choked back a sob. “I know who he is, baby.” He took a breath and looked Sean in the eye. “We can’t ever repay you, I know that. But if you ever need
anything
you call me, okay?”
“Thank you, but I’m good,” Sean said, grasping the father’s shoulder. “Really. She saved me, too. We’re even. Right, Luchie?”
He couldn’t hear her response, but it didn’t matter. She was safe with her family again. Head throbbing, he was stumbling back to the glowering EMT when he heard his mother scream his name.
He sat in the ambulance’s open doorway, teeth clenching as Paul’s taunts banged around in his head. He wasn’t ready to see her. Not yet, maybe not ever.
Helene scurried to him. “Sean! Oh my God! What happened?”
He looked away, fury and disgust rising at the sight of her.
All these years she knew. She knew what happened, why I had the crippling dreams, why I’m messed up, but never told me. Even when I asked her for the truth.
“Not now, Mom. Go home.”
“My son looks like he’s been through a garbage disposal. I am
not
going home. Tell me what happened!”
Fine.
“I put Paul on a stretcher,” he muttered, gesturing to the ambulance surrounded by armed deputies. Glowering, he turned to stare at his mother. “He’d buried kids under my bedroom. That little girl over there was one of them. He was going to kill her
again
. A second damned time! Know anything about that,
Mother
?”
She took a step back, then smoothed her blouse and said, “Sean, sweetheart, I have no idea what you’re insinuating.”
“Right, Mom. Paul told me your lab made clones. Look what’s been happening lately. Makes all kinds of sense now, doesn’t it?”
Helene turned pale and, shaking her head, reached for Sean. “No, no, they didn’t make clones. That’s absurd!”
“Don’t lie to me, Mom,” he snapped. “All my life, all the nightmares, you knew my uncle killed me. You knew you had your stupid job clone me back. Don’t you think—“
“That’s not what happened! Your father, he suspected what Paul did. Was all over the news, the missing kids, and your father… He hated Paul. But he never told me why!”
She sobbed, her breath shaky. “Your father was on a hunting trip when my mom took a bad turn and I had to go to Des Moines. I needed a babysitter for a couple of days. I couldn’t leave you alone, not with a pervert running loose, so I called your uncle.
I
called him,
I
asked him to babysit. Me.
I
even dropped you off at this filthy house!”
Sean stood and pushed the EMT aside. “You
what
?”
“By the time I got back, it had been three days. You weren’t here, no one was. But the house… It reeked. Smelled like death and blood. I was afraid and went looking for you, but all I found in the basement were your feet. There were so many feet! Boys. Girls. All chewed up. And it smelled so bad, so awful down there. I’d seen the news and realized it was him, all along,
him
, and he’d killed my baby.”
She didn’t notice the deputy who walked up behind her and stopped to listen. She clutched Sean’s arm. “I didn’t know what to do, I was so frantic. Screaming. I went looking for him. Paul was up on the highway, walking his rotten dog. I couldn’t help myself. It just happened.”
Sean’s head throbbed and he thought he might crumple but he gritted his teeth and remained standing. “What just happened, Mom?”
“I drove over him. With your father’s truck. Then I backed up and did it again.”
Sean staggered back to slump in the ambulance doorway. “You? You killed him?”
“I had to,” she snarled. “He killed you! Killed all those other children. Once it was done, I went back to his house. There was nothing in the car, no blood, nothing, so I searched everywhere. I finally found fresh dirt dug up in the basement, under that room he’d just built. It stank so badly down there, Sean. I dug and dug. I found rotting children. They were so nasty. And I found you.”
The deputy spoke into his radio, asking for assistance, as Sean regained his feet.
“So it really happened? He really buried me there?”
“You and some others, three, four, I don’t remember, but I put you all in the truck and dropped the others off in the woods. You, I took to the lab. You… You weren’t stinking yet.”
She fell to her knees and looked up at Sean, pleading. “I didn’t know what else to do. I had to get you back, get my life back, make everything right. The lab had been closed for years but I knew where they’d buried the barrels. I dug one up, got it open, and put some in a milk jug. I still have the jug, in the basement, just in case I needed to save you again.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? You had twenty goddamn years to tell me! All the nightmares, the madness. Why didn’t you tell me?!”
“Because it worked!” she wailed, her grip on him slipping as he lurched away. “I took you to the lab, washed you in the big sink, my baby, my sweet Sean, and spread the growth medium on you, like lotion. It was just like lotion! Don’t you see? I took care of you, soothed you! Made it all better. But it needed to stay wet, so I filled the sink. The next morning, a slimy thing had spouted on your poor ruined chest. It was working! A miracle!”