The Border Part Two (6 page)

“You think this is a joke?” Jack asked.

“You should see your face,” Ben replied, stepping closer and patting him on the shoulder. “You’re so fucking gullible, my brother, I swear, it’s
too easy
to wind you up.”

“I knew you were lying.”

“No you didn’t,” Ben replied with a faint, amused sigh. “No, you thought for a moment that I’d finally confessed to all these awful things you think I did. You were lapping up every goddamn word.”

Jack shook his head.

“Did you know that the word ‘gullible’ isn’t even in the dictionary anymore,” Ben asked, chuckling as he headed to the door. “Look it up some time. True story, I swear to God.”

“Do you seriously think you’re being funny?” Jack asked.

“Um…” Turning, Ben grinned. “Yeah, actually, yeah I do, I think that was really fucking funny. Your face, brother, I will not forget that look in your eyes, not in a hurry. I can’t believe you seriously thought I was opening up to you and telling you some big, awful secret. You’re too funny, Jack. Too fucking funny by half.” Another swig of beer. “And far too fucking easy to wind up.” Yet another swig, and this time he looked over at Jack and saw that his brother was simply staring at him with pure hatred in his eyes. “Boo,” he added.

“Go fuck yourself,” Jack said, pushing past him and heading through to the front room.

Sighing, Ben made his way over to the window and looked out at the garden, where the children were playing.

“That’s always been your problem, Jack,” he muttered finally, still chucking. “You can never take a joke. And you can never tell which parts of a joke are real and which parts aren’t.”

VI

“Have fun,” Simon muttered as he swung the door shut, leaving Katie standing along in the stairwell. Music could be heard from down below, and there was the occasional faint call of a voice, but this time Katie wasn’t scared. She’d already spent two nights at The Border, so she knew exactly what to expect.

Naked again, she made her way down as the stairwell wound to the right, spiraling deeper down until reaching the red-lit entrance hallway.

“Hey,” Hayley said, looking up from the book she was reading. Sitting on a bench over by main desk, Hayley was also naked, although she carried her nakedness much more casually than Katie could manage. “Ready for another ride on the old buck?”

Katie nodded cautiously, although her eyes were fixed on the archway at the far end of the room. Off in the distance, voices could be heard shouting to one another, and it sounded as if the evening’s festivities were particularly raucous. People were laughing.

“Well,” Hayley muttered, setting her book down and getting to her feet, “my break’s pretty much over, so we might as well go in together. Crutchlow’s here again, surprisingly enough, and his appetite’s come back. Yay for chemo.”

Katie nodded again.

“You’ll be okay,” Hayley added, offering a faint smile as she reached out and took Katie’s hand. “I told you the other night, it’s just a matter of shutting down the part of your brain that would normally be bothered by what happens here. I know it seems hard, but one day you’ll be able to do it without even thinking about it. And then one day you’ll be out of here for good.”

“Sure,” Katie whispered. “I guess.”

With that, she allowed Hayley to lead her through the archway into the main part of The Border, where Crutchlow was already holding forth and regaling his fellow guests with stories of his better days.

***

She knew that people were supposed to feel relaxed when they headed out of town, and freer, and somehow ‘in tune’ with nature, whatever the hell that meant. Jane, on the other hand, usually just felt out of place, as if she was more exposed than normal. She was a city girl, or at least a town girl, through and through. Even now, as she climbed out of the car and headed across the dark field, toward the twisted oak tree, she couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder, just to make sure that there was no-one else around.

She just wasn’t used to the natural world.

Hearing her phone start ringing, she pulled it from her pocket and sighed as she saw that Jack was trying to get in touch again. Figuring that she’d better answer this time, she tapped the screen.

“Hey, honey, I’m just -”

“On your way to Beth’s house?”

“To Beth’s? No, why would I be on my -”

“Because that’s where
I
am,” he replied. “I’m sitting here right now with Beth and Bob, and the kids. And my mother, my dear, slightly drunk mother. And a few other family hangers-on. Oh, and Ben. Ben’s here. Please, I need you to come and help keep me sane.”

“I’m…” As she reached the oak tree, she turned and looked back toward the town, which lay a few miles away in a muggy gray depression in the valley’s basin. “I’m not really very close right now…”

“Can’t you tell Alex you need to finish early? Anyway, what time
do
you finish today?”

“I’m just working a little late.”

“Please, I’m begging you. Ben’s already irritating the hell out of me. You won’t believe the shit he pulled earlier.”

“I’ll be home in an hour or two,” she told him. “Quicker, maybe, if you’ll let me get off the phone.”

“Where are you?”

“Out.”

“Where? Honey, it’s getting dark!”

“Just out. Looking into something. Can I please get on with my job?”

“He’s driving me insane,” Jack replied. “I know I shouldn’t say this, I know you’ll give me shit for it, but… I think I hate him!”

“You don’t hate your brother.”

“Don’t be so sure about that. Please, just promise you’ll be here as soon as you can.”

“Sure. And
you
promise you won’t say anything mind-blowingly stupid to Ben. Or
about
him, when he might overhear.” She paused, waiting for a reply. “You know he likes to wind you up, Jack. He knows all your buttons and he pushes them expertly, and you let him! Just calm down and let it all flow over you.”

“This is great,” he muttered. “It’s gonna be a great Christmas with -” He paused. “He’s back from the kitchen. God, he’s got that fucking grin again. Gotta go. Get here soon!”

“Fancy a beer -” Ben’s voice could be heard saying on the other end of the line, before the call was cut.

“Sounds like a true monster,” Jane said, slipping her phone away before putting her hands on the oak tree and giving it a gentle tug, to see if it was still as firm as ever. “You’ll be fine, honey, just treat him like a man instead of a depraved killer.”

She paused for a moment, enjoying the silence. She wanted to ‘connect with nature’, which was something that everyone else seemed to do so easily, but she’d never been able to find that part of herself. She felt as if she was just standing in a field, slightly cold, waiting to go back to her car and return to the comforts of suburbia. Then again, she knew she couldn’t go back, not yet. She’d headed out to the tree for a reason.

“Is your husband being an idiot again?” a female voice asked finally.

A faint shiver passed up Jane’s spine.

“Well?” the voice continued. “
Is
he?”

She nodded.

“Causing endless, needless drama?”

She nodded again.

“And is he going to listen to your advice, or will he just carry on making everything difficult?”

Jane paused for a moment, before turning to see Caitlin Somers sitting on another part of the tree, with all her injuries fresh and visible in the cold evening air.

“I can understand why you’d rather be out here,” Caitlin continued with a faint smile. “I’m not sure your husband would, though. Choosing a dead girl’s company over a mini family reunion? Jack’s just insecure enough to find that a problem, isn’t he?”

“Another girl died,” Jane replied.

“I know,” Caitlin said, as her smile grew.

“Mel Armitage,” Jane continued. “Barmaid, twenties, not too many connections in town. Kind of an unassuming woman who kept herself to herself, not an obvious target. Doesn’t seem to have been promiscuous.”

“
I
wasn’t promiscuous,” Caitlin pointed out.

“No, but you were young.”

“Is that a crime now?”

“Not yet.”

“But it can be a provocation to some people?”

Jane nodded.

“I take it that there are certain similarities?” Caitlin continued, reaching up and running her fingers around the edges of her chest wound. A gaping hole revealed the cavity where her heart should have been. “You didn’t come out here for shits and giggles, did you?”

Jane shook her head.

“So do you think it’s
him
again?”

“Who’s
he
?”

“The man who killed me.”

“What’s his name?”

Caitlin smiled. “Nice try.”

“There are differences,” Jane told her. “For one thing, he broke your neck. Mel’s neck wasn’t broken.”

“Meaning?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Well, why do you think he broke
my
neck?” Caitlin asked. As if to make her point, she tilted her head slightly, causing a faint crunching sound as a jagged piece of bone pushed against the inside of her lower jaw. “Did it happen in the struggle, or had he planned things out a little more?”

Making her way around the tree, Jane stopped as she got closer to the dead girl.

“Are you real?”

“Am I
real
?” Caitlin replied with a smile.

“
Are
you?”

“A real ghost, you mean?”

“Tell me the truth.”

“What else could I be?”

“A figment of my imagination. A way for me to talk things through. For all I know, you could be a symptom of a brain tumor.”

“Huh.” Caitlin paused. “Yeah, I guess that’s possible.”

“Well?”

Another pause. “I’m real. Really here, anyway. A real ghost.”

“Prove it.”

“How?”

“Tell me how you died. Tell me about the man who did this to you. Tell me something I don’t already know!”

Caitlin shook her head.

“Why not?”

Caitlin shrugged.

“Because you’re just part of me?” Jane asked, with a hint of desperation. “It’s true, isn’t it? You’re just my subconscious mind acting up. You’re like a way for me to talk to myself, so I can work through things.”

“Would that make you feel better?”

Jane paused, feeling as if she was on the verge of losing her mind.

“Isn’t there another question you want to ask?” Caitlin asked.

“Such as?”

“How’s Jack?”

“Wound up and tense as ever.”

“Why?”

At this, Jane paused. “Okay, I see where you’re going with this. The man who did this to you. Was it my brother-in-law? Was it Ben Freeman?” She waited for an answer. “Well? Was it?”

Caitlin smiled. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“But are you sure because you’re really here, or are you sure because you’re a reflection of what I think?”

At that, Caitlin simply shrugged.

“The killer broke your neck on purpose,” Jane continued. “I don’t know why, not yet, but I’m sure of it. He did the same to the other girls, too. I think it was the first thing he did to each of you.”

“Maybe.”

“Because he wanted to immobilize you.”

“Interesting idea.”

“But he didn’t do it to Mel Armitage. He didn’t do it this time.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“And what about her heart? He took it out, but didn’t you notice the blood on the other bin?”

Jane paused. “What blood on the other bin?”

“There was a patch of blood on the other bin,” Caitlin continued. “You saw it, you just haven’t processed it in your thoughts yet.”

Thinking back to the crime scene, Jane realized she was right. There
had
been a faint patch of blood on the second bin’s lid. “The heart,” she whispered finally. “He set the heart on the other bin, while he was maneuvering Mel’s body into the first.”

“Sounds good,” Caitlin replied.

“But that’s not respectful,” Jane continued. “He respected their bodies. He respected
your
body. Once you were dead, at least. He treated your heart like it was something important, not something to pop on top of a bin for a few minutes while he got on with other things.”

“So what’s different this time?” Caitlin asked.

“I don’t know. Tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“Because you’re not really here,” Jane replied. “I’m just imagining you. All these conversations over the years, they’ve all just been a way for me to process my thoughts. I need to stop.” Turning, she began to make her way back to the car.

“You’re running out of time,” Caitlin said suddenly.

Stopping, Jane looked back at her.

“He’s going to kill again,” Caitlin continued, lowering her head for a moment. “It wasn’t enough the other night. He’s already feeling the urge again.”

“That doesn’t fit the pattern,” Laura said cautiously.

Slowly, Caitlin looked at her again, but this time most of her skin had rotted away, leaving just her tattered bones sitting in the nook of the tree. She tilted her head slightly, as her dead, hollow eyes watched Jane for a moment.

“He’s out there,” Caitlin explained. “He’s in Bowley right now, trying to pick his next victim. I don’t know how long he’ll wait. Maybe a day, maybe two at most. But if you don’t find him soon, there’ll be another body, and if you want me to tell you something you don’t already know, then fine, I will. The killer’s closer than you think, and his next victim is going to be a little different to all the rest.”

***

“Uncle Ben!” Lucy shouted, running in from the garden and grabbing Ben’s hand, almost spilling his beer in the process. “Come and look what we’ve made in the sandpit!”

“Looks like I’m needed outside,” Ben said with a faint smile, setting his beer down before following Lucy out into the cold evening air.