She relaxed the tension in her body, relieved that she wasn’t going to suffer another night wrapped in her father’s large, sweaty arms as he stroked her hair and breathed foul whiskey breath into her face.
A small part of her, however, resented him for it.
What if she had actually been in trouble? He wouldn’t have heard her scream. And like last time, he would have failed to save her.
Why’d he start drinking again?
That was a question she asked herself almost every night after finding him passed out on the living room couch with an empty bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand, but she knew better than to ever confront him about it.
No, it was safer just to hold her tongue like a good girl and keep her mouth shut. She learned the hard way that silence was the best way to stay out of trouble and keep Daddy happy, no matter how much it hurt her.
She loved her father, but found it difficult to like him. Their relationship was a double-edged sword.
He became a different person when he drank.
Dr. Rachel Massie, the psychiatrist Amy used to see, had other insights into the conflicted relationship with her father. She had weird ideas about the possible identity of the Nightmare Man who was the reason Amy was up at this late hour. What would Dr. Massie say if she knew he had returned to haunt her dreams?
Wiping a hand across her sweaty forehead, she propped herself on an elbow, reached for the lamp on the nightstand, and turned the switch. The light scattered the shadows throwing a soft yellow glow along the purple-painted walls.
With her eyes adjusting to the self-inflicted assault on her vision she slipped from beneath the sheets, swung her legs off the edge of the bed, and massaged her jaw. It ached from her clenching it during her troubled sleep.
“Ugh.” She glanced at the alarm clock. It was a quarter to four. Muttering a curse, she brushed a wayward lock of hair from her face, rose to her feet, and stepped toward the dresser. She opened the underwear drawer and rifled through its contents.
She returned to bed with her diary and sat against the headboard with her knees drawn to her chest. She recorded the account of her latest night terror.
Her grip tightened around the pen when she came to the part about her mother’s faceless killer, the Nightmare Man. Her hand trembled and her writing grew sloppy.
Again she had woken up before catching a glimpse of the man’s face. It frustrated her. She chewed on the tip of her pen and fumed at her inability to recollect anything until waking up in a hospital bed two days after her mother’s death.
What happened that night four years ago was a blank, a part of her life blackened from her mind as if by some magic marker. The doctors believed it was a case of short-term amnesia brought on by trauma. They said the memories might resurface but they never did, much to the ire of the investigators working on her mother’s case.
They never found any clues to the killer’s identity. No fingerprints, no DNA, no hairs or fibers.
It all resided within Amy’s head, locked in a place not even she could access, no matter how hard she tried.
Dr. Massie once told her that some people force themselves to forget the details of a particular trauma in order to escape the pain the memories of that trauma could create. Amy, however, wished she could force herself to un-forget those details.
Especially after suspicion turned to her father, no thanks to her maternal grandparents— Richard and Jane Barrett.
Amy despised them for getting that particular wrecking ball in motion. It didn’t matter that her father, a former narcotics detective, was raiding a crack house when the murder took place. No, such technicalities did not extinguish their suspicions. Even as the case grew colder and the odds of getting behind the truth of the tragedy diminished, they continued to persecute her father, making him into the Nightmare Man.
Her grandparents planted that thought in Amy’s mind. According to Dr. Massie, Amy projected the Nightmare Man onto her father, even though she refused to believe he had anything to do with her mother’s murder.
My father’s not a monster!
But sometimes she couldn’t help but wonder—
What if?
What if her father did have something to do with what happened to her mother? In her dream, the Nightmare Man said he was at the house to collect. Collect what? He said it wasn’t money.
Then what was it? Did her father know anything about it?
Those were just a few of the unanswered questions that haunted her mind ever since it happened. Gnawing angrily on her lower lip, Amy shut her diary, climbed out of bed, and slipped it back into the bureau.
She didn’t want to pick at those unhealed wounds anymore tonight. It did nothing to ease her mind. It just raised more ghosts, more terrors, and more bogeymen.
Snatching her iPod from the bedside table she turned out the lamp, laid her head down, plugged in her earphones, and located Romeo in the twisted tangle of sheets.
With melodic piano music playing in her ears, she closed her eyes and prayed that tomorrow would be free of the usual crap that troubled her mind since her mother’s death.
It was her only birthday wish, but she knew from experience that some wishes just don’t come true.
Chapter 2
After Adam tied Eve to the apple tree, he pressed the serrated edge of his buck knife against her throat and slit it open.
Eve’s eyes bulged from their sockets. Blood poured from the incision and flowed down her naked breasts in long scarlet ribbons.
Stepping back with a triumphant smile, Adam drank in the final agonizing moments of his temptress and chuckled as she struggled against her restraints in one last act of defiance.
It was silly and sad, yet delightfully entertaining to watch. Adam’s smile broadened.
He never tired of it— watching a woman die by his own powerful hands. The feeling he got from it was intoxicating.
When Eve convulsed for the last time and bowed her blond head in submission to death, Adam closed his eyes and spread his arms out wide as he basked in the euphoria of his accomplishment.
Tilting his face up to the early autumn sun shining through the interlaced pine boughs above, he took a deep breath, let it out slowly and shuddered in ecstasy.
However, he knew the feeling of absolute bliss was temporary. His mission to right an ancient wrong was not yet over. He still had plenty of work ahead.
The Father told him so. This particular Eve was not The Lost One. She was one of many decoys placed in his path by the Devil, who did not want to see this divine mission completed.
Laying down his arms, Adam opened his eyes, grabbed a dead leaf from the earthen floor, and wiped the blood from his knife. He then peeled off his leather gloves and stuffed them into his olive-green Salvation Army duffel bag.
With one last glance in Eve’s direction, he tipped the bill of his camouflage cap and swung his bag over his shoulder. Leaving his latest kill behind, he whistled a lively tune, and trampled through the wild green thickets in the direction of his car that was parked a mile ahead along a disused country road.
The saccharine scent of honeysuckle filled his nose and awakened a ravenous craving for buttermilk pancakes smothered in hot maple syrup. Perhaps he’d stop by a Cracker Barrel on his way out of town. The mere thought of such a succulent breakfast made his stomach growl like a beast. It would be a fitting reward for a job will done.
But he knew The Father will call him again soon, and when he did there will be no time to rest.
Unless, of course, the next Eve was The Lost One.
Then there’d be resurrection. There’d be paradise. There’d be eternal life.
Adam reached into the breast pocket of his black T-shirt and pulled out a cigarette from a crumpled pack of Marlboros. Lighting it, he considered the possibility of paradise and couldn’t wait for the call to hunt down the next Eve, whether she be The Lost One or just another decoy.
I’ll be waiting for your call, Father
, he prayed, taking a long drag from his cigarette.
I’ll be waiting patiently.
A tree branch snapped beneath his boot. A bird-of-prey screeched as if at the scent of freshly spilled blood. Adam released a ghostly plume of smoke and contemplated who his next temptress would be, and what he’d do once he had her in his grasp.
It will be all up to The Father, of course. But, for the sake of Paradise, Adam would be ready. Just like before.
He wondered for a moment if the little decoy he left behind in the woods would be missed and searched for, but quickly decided he didn’t care. Whether she was found or not, no one will find him.
He will never be caught. For the hand of God guided the way.
Chapter 3
A rapping of knuckles on the bedroom door woke Amy before the alarm clock sounded.
“You up,” said a husky voice.
“Yeah,” she answered groggily. “But don’t come in. I’m not dressed.”
“All right,” her father said. “But hustle. Breakfast’s almost ready.”
Amy removed the muted earphones and heard the floorboards complain beneath her father’s heavy feet as he made his way down the hall to the kitchen.
The alarm clock shrieked, but Amy silenced it with a slap of her hand.
The rosy hued dawn slunk through the window blinds. After putting her iPod on the nightstand, Amy burrowed beneath the covers and pulled her knees up to her chin. She was very tired and wished that the sunlight filtering into her room would go away.
But it wouldn’t. Like her father’s heavy drinking, and her mother’s unsolved murder, morning was just another unfortunate fact of life she had no control over.
So she slipped from the covers and climbed out of bed, ready to face the inevitable day.
She thought about her recent night terror and the fears and frustrations it brought but fought against the urge to dwell on them.
Push all the bad stuff from your mind.
She stretched and rubbed her eyes.
Don’t let it bother you. Not today. Not on your seventeenth birthday. In the eyes of Alabama state law you’re almost a woman. In May you’re going to finish high school an honor student and go off to a wonderful college, just like Mom always wanted you to do.
You’re almost free.
Holding on to that little motivator, she opened her bedroom door and stepped into the hallway.
The aroma of bacon and eggs wafting from the kitchen struck her, and she headed toward it. The smell of coffee grew stronger as she shuffled down the hall. Her mouth watered more with each step.
Stepping through the arched entryway, she caught sight of her father towering over a sizzling frying pan with a spatula.
He’s going to do it.
She hesitantly reached for her seat at the small kitchen table.
Just like he does every year.
Hank Snow— wearing nothing but faded blue jeans and white socks, with his long oily brown hair pulled back in a ponytail— turned at the sound of the chair scraping against the linoleum.
“There’s my girl,” he said, remnants of last night’s cigarettes peppering his brown, burly beard. “Right on time.”
“Morning, Dad.” Amy sat down in her chair. Her stomach clenched in vexed anticipation.
Hank set the spatula down and advanced on her. “Oh no. You ain’t gettin’ away that easy, peanut,” he said, grabbing her by the arm. “Up you go now.”
With no choice but to let the embarrassing birthday ritual happen, Amy allowed herself to be wrenched from her seat, swept off the floor and cradled like an infant against her father’s hairy chest.
Bundled in his beefy arms, she whined helplessly and closed her eyes as he rocked her from side to side.
“My baby girl’s got a whole year older on me,” Hank said. “What am I gonna do about that?”
Resigned to fate, Amy went limp and groaned as he bombarded her with prickly kisses.
What I’d do to deserve this?
She winced when he kissed her on the lips; his breath reeked as bad as his sweaty armpits.
“I love ya, babe.” Hank dropped her back to her feet and slid his coarse fingers through her unkempt hair. “You’re my good girl.”
Amy slumped in her seat and frowned. She wished her father would realize she had outgrown that awkward little tradition of his. Maybe one day she’d have the heart to tell him so.
“You’re afraid to confront him,”
Dr. Massie had told Amy during one of their sessions.
“Even about the little things.”
Dr. Massie was right.
When it came to difficult talks with her father Amy was petrified, and not just because of his anger. But because of where that anger might take him.
She remembered the abuse. She remembered how, when drunk, her father used to beat her and her mother for what he called ’stepping out of line,’ and for not obeying his every command and bowing down to his authority, his rules of the house.