The Hysteria: Book 4, The Eddie McCloskey Paranormal Mystery Series (The Unearthed) (22 page)

But there’s something else in our blood that’s just as powerful and even more destructive. Self versus self.

“No judgment, Eddie,” Megan said.

She watched as I didn’t drink and put the bottle away and closed the cabinet. “Where’s Eamon during all of this?”

“Next to me. I’ll need a gopher.”

I pulled up my shirt so she could see the nasty scar in the middle of my stomach, just between the ribs.

“He did this to me. Don’t forget that.”

“He was a different person then.” Megan gave me a sly look. “So were you.”

“People don’t change.”

“You did.”

“Most people don’t change.”

Megan shook her head. “What’s taking them so long?”

“They’re getting ready.”

“Yeah, but how?”             

Neither of us knew.

I said, “How’d you get your people to come here?”

She didn’t answer.

I said, “The rink isn’t in town. But they don’t leave the town…unless I’m wrong about that.”

“You’re not.” She smiled. She was waiting to see if I could figure it out.

“So they think this is still the…” Then it hit me. One of the many random bits of information I’d picked up since I’d been out here.

“This used to be part of the town.” I remembered what Dorothy Young had told me. “The county redrew the lines.”

She nodded.

I said, “You thought of this place.”

“It was my one good idea of the year.”

“Something’s bothering me,” I said.

“Just one thing?”

“This morning, you could have taken me when you and Mia came to my room.” Was that really this morning? “I was already affected.”

“You were affected but you didn’t know it yet. Sometimes it takes a few hours, sometimes a few days. I couldn’t be sure how you’d react to this.”

Somebody knocked on the door. It was Eamon.

“Speak of the devil.”

Eamon ignored me. “I need a knife.”

Megan had her gun out almost as fast as I did.

“I need to hurt myself.” He was still talking to Megan like she was the only one in the room.

He could barely stand still, rocked his weight from one side to the other. All nervous energy. But he didn’t look nervous. He looked ready to rock and roll.

“What good will it do?” Megan still had her gun on him.

“You never know.”

“I need more of a reason than that.”

Eamon grimaced. “Distraction, misdirection. I can help. You two won’t give me a weapon. You have to let me help in some way.”

“The fuck are you two talking about?” I said.

Megan lowered her piece. “It’s not what you think, Eddie.”

“How about a lighter, or a book of matches.” Eamon darted his eyes over to me.

“What do you need a lighter for?”

Megan stood and pulled a cheap butane lighter out of her pocket. “You don’t have to do this.”

Eamon’s face grew tight and determined. “I have to do something.”

“Define something,” I said.

Eamon didn’t speak and Megan just watched him. He held out an arm and put the lighter underneath it.

I said, “What the hell are you doing?”

He kept on ignoring me and flicked the lighter on. A tiny jet of flame licked his skin.

Eamon squirmed against it.

Much as I wanted to see him dead, I had no stomach for watching his self-torture. I took a step toward him but Megan came around the desk and stopped me.

“Let him.”

“Let him what?”

Eamon was on the verge of tears, the flame still burning his forearm. His arm shook. His face twisted into a grimace.

“Enough!” I said.

Eamon killed the flame and examined his arm. A red welt had formed.

“Somebody talk,” I said.

Eamon’s voice was ragged and he shivered with pain. “This is how I do it. How I tie myself to a place.”

“What are you…”

Then it clicked.

“Pain,” he said.

When Eamon was a boy he’d endured both physical abuse from a bastard older brother, emotional abuse from a distant mother who didn’t love him, and psychological abuse from an almost inhuman father.

Pain
.

It was the only thing his family had ever given him in abundance.

On that night, many years ago, when Eamon’s family murdered each other, he’d suffered another indelible blow. He’d watched it happen.

Leading up to that moment, they had tortured him. He had probably wished them dead. But at ten years old, he wasn’t prepared to watch them die.

So much pain in that house. So much of it his own. The emotion had endured.

My brother Tim used to explain residual hauntings in terms of thermodynamics. Emotion is energy. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed.

Eamon’s energy had transformed into something else. It had forever psychically linked him to that house.

Pain
.

He was tapping into that ability right now. By hurting himself, he was tying himself to this skating rink, the same way he and that house had co-existed all these years.

“You did this at all of the sites you visited?” I asked.

“We used small voltage electrical stimulus.” Eamon looked at Megan. “But yes. Emotion does the trick too but…physical pain is easier to deal with.”

“That’s how you could see into that warehouse earlier.” I pictured Eamon roaming the area with Pater, going to places where Megan might or would be, slowly electrocuting himself.

“It was my choice, nobody else’s,” Eamon said. “Pater didn’t want to allow it at first. But I found some tech that wouldn’t leave any permanent damage and that was that.”

Was I wrong about Eamon? Maybe.

He’d chosen to hurt himself to help others.

The cynical part of me said that was just a symptom of his broken wiring, another reason not to trust him. How can you put your faith in a masochist?

“Thank you, Eamon,” Megan said. “For all you’ve done. And for all you’re going to do.”

She actually hugged the kid.

***

Manetti was tied to a chair in the store room. She wasn’t happy about it.

“Get me out of here. I’m fine.”

“Manetti. Agnes. You’re a hell of a woman and a hell of an agent. And if I’m assembling a team I want you on it. But not tonight.”

Manetti squirmed against the ropes. “Megan’s wrong. Give me a gun.”

“The gun test doesn’t work.”

“If they get in here, I’m a dead woman tied up.”

“I can’t let you go. I’m sorry.”

“You fucking asshole.”

“I know.”

Manetti was working herself up into a rage. “Eddie, you are killing me if you leave me in here.”

“You’re one less person we have to fight if I keep you in here.”

“Let me go.”

“I let you go, I’m killing you. That parking lot is about to become fucking Gallipoli. If you turn into one of them, you’re going to get brained.”

She slumped back in the seat. Not in a defeated way, more to conserve energy.

“I don’t want to die, Eddie. I’m twenty-eight.”

“I don’t want to die either and I’m thirty-five.”

“You’re not funny.”             

“You’re right. I’m not funny. I’m scared shitless at what’s about to go down.”

“In over your head, as always.”

“Pretty much.” I got closer. “I have one last request.”

She tensed. “What’s that?”

I stepped closer. “There’s a good chance I die tonight. It’d be nice to kiss a pretty woman one last time.”

“I just threw up in my mouth.”

I bent so our faces were inches apart.

“Try Megan.” Manetti squirmed. “I think she has a crush on you.”

“I don’t want to be that creepy older guy.”

“I’m only two years older than her.”

I laughed. “Besides, it would be me taking advantage.”

“This isn’t?”

I looked deep into her eyes. I had no romantic feelings for her, but goddamn I wanted to kiss her.

I said, “I’m asking you. I’m not going to mouth rape you.”

Manetti threw her head forward and we locked lips. I nearly lost a tooth. There was no spark between us but there was a lot of animal passion in the kiss. Two people close to death, trying to squeeze one last drop of pleasure out of this life.

I reached into her pocket and she didn’t notice. I held the kiss a little longer while I took my hand out. I’d gotten what I wanted.

Then I came up for air. “Not bad.”

“You’re a lousy kisser.”

“Said no one, ever.”             

Manetti rolled her eyes. But she was smiling.

“Ball-buster to the last you are,” I said.

“Let me out of here.”

I winked at her. “No can do, Agent Manetti.”

“Don’t kill Riehl,” she said. “He’s done so much for this country, you have no idea.”

He would be the first one I’d kill. “I won’t.”

“Eddie?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s so much else I want to do with my life. So many things…”

“I’m going to save the fucking day.” I didn’t believe it for a second.

“Don’t let them…torture me.”

“I won’t.”

“You’re making me a lot of promises.”

“It’s what I do.”

Megan appeared in the doorway. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of us.

“Eddie, it’s go time.”

I followed Megan to the rink. Her people were glued to the walls of the first floor, weapons ready. They were positioned by the windows along the front. Mia was helping a small team finish the barricade at the front door. They’d strewn tables and chairs and any other garbage they could find in front of it.

Megan gave her a little wave and that was all.

Eamon met us outside the boiler room. I saw more burn marks on his arm.

“Making sure I was linked to the entire space,” he said.

“Make sure you stay linked to Megan here. Or I’ll think you’re trying to escape and will have to shoot you.”

Megan led the way up the ladder to the roof. She pushed open the hatch and the rain pounded us the last few rungs. We kept the hatch open and Megan shouted down.

“Generators!”

The jennies kicked on with a sputter and went to work. The spotlights along the roof wall came to life. I stepped beside the shooter I’d talked to earlier. He stayed in his stance, hands on his weapon and eyes down the rifle’s sight line.

The rain was intense. The wind gusts made it worse. The wind sheer would probably affect our bullets.

The spotlights were just enough to cut through the torrent of water and extend to the end of the parking lot. There was a line of them, the knifers, from one end of the pavement to the other. They stood shoulder to shoulder in the rain.

Their blades glinted in the light.

Six hundred feet divided by minimum two square feet per person meant the line was about three hundred long. Simple math.

There were more in the tree line and beyond but they were moving all around. I couldn’t get a good count.

“They’re back here too!” somebody shouted.

“Everybody hold your position!” Megan said.

We ran to the other side of the roof. Behind the skating rink was a long, wide field that had known neither mower nor plough in years. It was overgrown with weeds and grass.

“Surrounded,” Megan said.

“Doesn’t matter if they can only get in one way,” I said.

“I’m going to direct traffic,” she said. “Can you shoot?”

“It doesn’t matter if I can shoot or not. You need me to.”

“Give me the amateur.”

This from the shooter positioned in the middle of the front wall. Megan grabbed the last rifle off one of the box units on the roof and handed it to me. I set up against the roof wall to the shooter’s right so he could keep a better eye on me. I settled in under the tarp.

The rain wasn’t letting up. The parking lot was sloped and the downpour was running toward the skating rink. The drains along the curb fronting the building couldn’t handle the volume. The pool of water was collecting.

“Use the wall as a tripod,” the shooter said.

I put the rifle on it and snugged the butt of the gun against my shoulder.

“Widen your stance.”

I did. “What’s your name?”

“Dyer.” He flipped me a little salute. “Keep your breathing steady. In and out, in and out. Shoot while you breathe out.”

The line of knifers was swaying back and forth and making a lot of noise like a bunch of Zulus. There were so many more in the tree line.

“Can you feel your heartbeat?” Dyer said.

I listened to my body.
Thump-thump
. “Yeah.”

“This is advanced but if you can do it, do it. Try to shoot between beats.”

“Maybe I should try with my eyes closed too.”

He laughed. “You hit anybody I’ll consider it gravy.”

“You military?”

“Ex. Marine.”

Just like Strongbow, who I hoped was still at the hospital. “Maybe you can change my opinion of leathernecks.”

“Semper fuck you.”

Talking about the military also reminded me of Riehl. He had to be out there. He was a hunter, he was a killer, he was a goddamned six foot five inch X-rated nightmare. I had no intention of honoring my promise to Manetti. I’d put one in his brain and not lose much sleep over it. With the sickness gripping him, Riehl was a hurricane. You can’t reason with a hurricane.

“What are they waiting for?” Megan said. She was standing behind us and glassing the line of knifers.

“Don’t know. Do you see your sister?” I said.

Dyer shifted next to me.

Megan scanned the line of knifers again through her binoculars. “No.”

“She’s out there,” I said. “Be ready for her.”

“I’ve been ready for her for awhile now.”

Lightning forked the sky and there was hardly a pause before the thunder boomed.

“That was practically across the street,” Dyer said.

“What are they waiting for?” Megan said.

“Give the kill order. I’m getting antsy.” In truth, I didn’t want to kill anybody else. But I knew that was useless thinking. It was them or me. And every organism chooses me.

“Not yet.” Dyer kept his voice low. “Our shooters aren’t the best. Wasted ammo.”

“Then when?” I said.

“Soon as they reach that last line of parking spaces. Then we unleash hell,” Dyer said.

“What are they waiting for?” Megan said again.

We were about to find out.