Family Matters
Chapter 26
“Shit, don’t touch it!”
“Think I’m crazy? I just want a better look. Never seen a naked chick up close before. At least, not a dead one.”
“You’re sick. Look at her. Look at all the blood!”
Wincing from the putrid stench of rotting flesh, eleven-year-old Ty Schwamberger pulled his shirt collar over his nose. “Should we call the cops?”
Ty kept his eyes on the decomposing body tied to the pine tree as he pulled out his cell phone from a pocket.
“How long you think she’s been here?” Asked Thomas Erb, who was the first to spot the fly-infested corpse as he and Ty explored the woods.
“Beats me.” He dialed 911.
When the dispatcher picked up on the other end, Ty lowered his shirt collar. “Yeah, um, me and my friend found a dead body. Thought, uh, someone might wanna know.”
Chapter 27
Hank leaned back in his chair at the kitchen table and processed what Joe had told him over the phone.
The victim’s name was Amber Frey, and she was only a few days shy of her eighteenth birthday when her parents reported her missing from their home in Mobile.
When found this morning in Wilmer, her long blond hair was streaked with blood, her brown eyes bulged lifelessly from the sockets of her skull, and her throat was slit from ear to ear.
“Christ,” Hank muttered. He took a sip from his morning cup of coffee. “Find the murder weapon?”
“Have guys scouring the area now. What’re you thinking?
“You know what I’m thinkin’.”
Joe sighed. “That it’s your guy?”
“I know it is.”
“She could’ve known her killer. Maybe a jealous ex-boyfriend?”
“It ain’t no ex-boyfriend, trust me.”
“If you say so.”
After hanging up the phone, Hank pushed away from the table with his coffee and walked down the hall to check on Amy.
He paused at her door. The last time he stepped in without knocking she was changing, and he saw parts of her that weren’t meant for his eyes. His face had turned red in embarrassment.
But looking back on it now, in light of the forbidden longing he felt after kissing his daughter last night, he realized something he hadn’t before. His gaze had lingered Amy’s half-nude body that time he walk in on her, and a part of him liked what he saw.
The sickness. You have it too.
Hank tried to deny it, but deep down he knew it was true-his father’s lecherous curse tainted his blood.
Shaking off the thought, he pressed his ears to Amy’s door. He could hear her snoring softly signaling it was safe to take a peek. He opened the door.
Hank leaned against the doorjamb and appraised his little, sleeping peanut. He was sure Ellen would be proud of the bright young woman Amy had become despite what she has been through.
He just had to make sure he continued protecting her, that he kept those shields he erected around her fragile world from tumbling down and crushing everything she knew about life. About family. About the true nature of man. About his curse, a curse that could also be hers.
Amy groaned in her sleep. Her breathing accelerated at an alarming pace. Her face scrunched painfully. She groaned louder.
Hank was afraid she was about to have another one of her screaming fits. He stepped into the room, intent on waking her, but her features smoothed, her breathing softened.
Bemused, Hank towered over her and contemplated why she was having these night terrors again. It’s been years since the last batch. What was the problem now?
She’d never tell him, at least not truthfully.
But then again, Hank was never truthful with her. He was never truthful with anyone which in hindsight was the cause for all the ghosts that plagued his life.
Staring at his sleeping daughter, Hank sipped his coffee and thought about long buried secrets that continued to haunt him. About those unquiet bones refusing to rest.
He thought about an uncollected debt, a failed sacrifice, and a curse borne by a chosen few.
“You’ll never escape us,” said the snickering voice of his father. “We are you
. Y
ou are us.
”
And that was Hank’s greatest fear.
Chapter 28
Layne woke with a headache threatening to split his skull open with its merciless pounding. His mouth was bone dry; his naked body splattered in blood.
“Holy shit!” He stared down at himself in horror. His mind screamed: what happened?
The answer, however, was obvious— he released it: the thing that should not be.
Zero.
That was the name he had given to his darker half, the half of him void of anything civilized, the half that relished depraved acts of ultra-violence.
Zero.
After court-appointed therapy and medication, he thought he had conquered the problem. He thought he was cured.
He was wrong. The blood on his hands proved it.
“No.” From a bed of pine needles and rotten leaves, Layne scrambled to his feet.
“NO!”
He spun around scanning the woods for a sign of what he had done, but saw no clues. Panicking, he closed his eyes and searched his memory of last night for the answer. He drew a blank. “FUCK!”
Head pounding, heart racing, Layne ran.
Chapter 29
Alone, as he had been ever since the cancer took the life of his beautiful Jane, Richard Barrett did what he always did after Sunday morning mass at Saint Michael’s Catholic church. He visited his daughter in the adjoining cemetery.
The sky was full of fluffy white clouds floating past the sun like chariots from heaven as a gentle breeze whispered its secrets to the massive oaks providing shade to the buried dead.
With hands tucked in the pockets of his black trench coat, Richard cast his elongated shadow upon the ornate tombstone of Ellen Barrett Snow, beloved wife, mother and daughter.
His frown tightened. His heart ached from continued grief for all he had lost.
First Ellen.
Then Jane.
Now Amy.
Damn you, Hank Snow.
Richard’s grief grew cold and bitter.
You’ve torn my family apart one precious piece at a time. And now you’re keeping my granddaughter from me.
You’re the son of Satan himself!
Which was true.
From what he recently learned, Richard was certain Hank was part of a legion of redneck devils infesting the entire county.
Your whole family tree is poisoned, right down to the bastard root, and my poor daughter ate of its fatal fruit.
Hank turned her into every hillbilly, white trash cliché in the South, and snuffed her out when she dared to leave him.
If I could kill you, Hank, I would. For what you did to Ellen, I wouldn’t hesitate.
After reading a classified police document anonymously left at his doorstep the other day, he was now aware of Hank’s hidden past, a horror story.
He knew he had to save Amy from that monster before he did to her what he did to Ellen. But how?
Richard and Jane had tried everything to obtain custody of her after the investigation into Ellen’s murder went cold. They exhausted all legal recourse, but no one would let them have her. The evil, drunken lout was surprisingly well connected. This had led them to an uncharacteristic act of desperation— they tried to kidnap Amy. The kidnapping backfired, and as a result Hank had put out a restraining order on them. They weren’t allowed within a hundred feet of their only granddaughter. That was the beginning of the end for Jane. It was not the cancer that killed his wife.
It was Hank. He’s the cancer.
He’s death.
Another breeze wafted against Richard’s face as fallen oak leaves danced across Ellen’s grave.
Thinking about what he read in that police document, he feared that if he didn’t save Amy soon he would be visiting her grave too. Amy needed to know the truth about her father. She needed to know what he had done, and how his deeply hidden secrets had led to her mother’s death, and soon might lead to hers. Maybe then she would come home to him on her own.
Maybe after the light of revelation shined down on her, she would fill the void that was left by the loss of his sweet Ellen and Jane. And maybe then Richard would finally be satisfied that justice had been served.
Hank stole away his Ellen, abused her and destroyed her. He caused the cancer that took his Jane. But Richard would turn the tables.
An eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth.
Like in the Bible.
He would bring Hank down to a crumbling ruin. Just he wait and see.
Bent on revenge, Richard turned from his daughter’s grave and made the lonely walk back to his Cadillac.
He had a long drive to make.
Chapter 30
After nearly half an hour wandering the unfamiliar woods, Layne happened upon a flowing brook. Eager to wash the blood from his naked body he took a dip in the dirty water and scrubbed every square inch of himself until not a speck of scarlet was left.
Cleansed from head to toe, he continued searching for a way out of the seemingly endless pine forest.
He knew it would be useless to try retracing his steps. He never remembered the horrible things Zero did after waking the next morning.
The memory was not Layne’s after all.
The bottoms of his bare feet hurt. He winced with each step. His headache was gone, however; forgotten in his panic.
I can’t believe you let it happen again! He remembered two years ago, Marianne Weber.
He woke up in a jail cell, charged with rape. But this is so much worse. All that fucking blood! He remembered the trial, the slap on the wrist sentence. It wouldn’t happen again, not after murder.
The spaces between the trees widened and the woods thinned. Layne sped up when he saw a weed-choked yard littered with junk, a rundown trailer, a pickup truck, and the blackened remains of a bonfire. He stopped at the edge of the woods and cringed.
The putrid stench of burned flesh assailed his nostrils, and amid the rubble he saw a burned-out skull, a rib cage, and the rest of a charred, human skeleton.
Reeling at the gruesome sight, the rancid smell, and the horrid realization of what it all meant—
Murder!
—
Layne grew very sick.
Chapter 31
Amy stared at the corner where the ghost manifested last night.
Why couldn’t I hear what she had to say? Because I was afraid. What was she trying to tell me? Was she trying to warn me of something?
She wasn’t afraid anymore. She wanted the truth.
“I’m headin’ out,” her father called from the kitchen. “Remember what I told you. If you don’t come with me, you’re stayin’ home today. Don’t open the door to no one.”
Amy heard the backdoor shut. She heard the lock click. She heard nothing else.
She was alone in the house and not allowed to leave. She felt a chill and wondered if she should go with her father to the store after all.
No, don’t back down. You can do this.
After changing into jeans and a long-sleeve tee, she gathered her courage and wandered into her grandmother’s bedroom.
She stood in the middle of the room waiting for it, but nothing supernatural materialized. No ghostly voices. No blue apparitions.
Taking a deep breath, she knelt before the chest at the foot of the bed to explore more of its contents, to see what other clues it revealed about her father’s secret past. But it wouldn’t open. The wooden lid was latched tight.
“Dang it.” She looked at the lock and wondered if, like last time, it would mysteriously unlock itself.
After a minute passed, however, she realized that little miracle wasn’t going to happen again. She had to find the key.
She stood and turned toward the antique bureau. She glanced at the cracked mirror, felt a superstitious chill slide down her spine and reached for the dusty, blue-vinyl jewelry box the bureau.
Her hand froze when she heard an insistent knocking at the front door.
A sharp spike of icy fear plunged into Amy’s heart.
“He’s coming for you.”
The Nightmare Man, in the flesh, come to collect.
Amy could see his cruel, tobacco-laced grin clearly in her mind.
Her stomach knotted up. She stiffened in terror. Her heart rate quickened. Should she call the cops?