“Drop the stick!” boomed Sheriff Barclay. “Hands over your head.”
Bobby obeyed.
“Please, Sheriff, we’re just out for a hike,” pleaded Coco.
“Shut up, you half-breed scumbag. I should have never let you get your slimy hands on my girl. I should have known you’d cover up for this shitbag.”
Bobby heard the quaver in the sheriff’s voice, the sorrow and fury behind it. But he sensed nothing that would indicate the man had murdered anyone.
“And you, Pendell, you filthy, lowlife freak. Just like your father, after all, aren’t you? But I’m on to you, fucker. I’m on to you!”
A sharp bang rang out over their heads. “An eye for an eye, right?” the sheriff slurred and laughed. Bobby realized he was piss drunk. “So, your eyes are going, Pendell? Don’t have long, do you? Guess you wanted to get your last kicks in and go for a final joyride before everything goes dark.”
“He didn’t do anything, Sheriff,” Coco pleaded. “Neither did I.”
“Shut up, mutt!” A shot rang out. Coco cried out and fell to the ground.
“Ankle,” he gasped. “He shot me in the ankle!”
“Eye for an eye. Think I’m a sharp enough shot to hit the bull’s-eye?”
Bobby started to shake. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. If he died here, now, like this, what would happen to Aaron? Crouching, he knew he had to act. He lunged for the sheriff’s legs, toppling the hefty man onto his back.
“Oof!”
The rifle flew out of his hands, and Bobby scrambled in the dirt for it, got to his feet, and pointed it at the sheriff.
“As if you can see well enough to shoot me.”
“If I could see enough to kill your daughter, why not you? Get the fuck out of here, you bastard. Get help for Coco before he bleeds to death.”
The heavy man scrambled to his feet. Bobby watched his plump figure stumble away until it melted into the blur of shadow and light. He put the gun down and whirled around to find Coco.
Instead, he found the edge of a knife blade pointed directly at his throat.
“Don’t say a word.” The man was cloaked from head to toe in black, his face obscured by a ski mask. A tangle of orange-red hair, like a clown’s, stuck out crazily from under the mask. “On your knees!”
By the wave of terror, layer upon layer of death, blood and torture, that ripped through his head, Bobby knew he and Coco had come face-to-face with the real killer.
And were about to become his next victims.
T
here was a quick flash of motion. Something hard smashed against Bobby’s jaw. Salty liquid filled his mouth. Again, the blunt object smashed against his forehead, opening the partially healed gash. Blood streamed into his eyes, further obscuring his already-faulty vision.
“Who the hell do you think you are, you little shit? This is private property. Can’t you read?”
“I, uh, didn’t see the signs. Sorry,” Bobby stuttered, playing for time. From the ground somewhere, Coco groaned.
The man kicked him. “Get up, skinny boy. Get up and go stand with Mr. Magoo. You’re going to have to lead him where we’re going.” The man’s voice was raspy and harsh, like a three-pack-a-day smoker. Bobby tried to calm his tremors. The man had killed many times before. Bobby sensed the animal hunger, fed by a poisonous well of hate. It poured from him like fumes. Death and terror—the man craved it. Lived for the hunt. Like his other victims, he wasn’t just going to kill them outright. He was going to prolong their deaths for his own sick enjoyment.
Bobby spit out the blood that had pooled in his mouth. There had to be a way to use this information, to use the senses he had to outwit this monster.
“Give me your phones, you little shits. Throw ’em down. Let’s go.”
Bobby reached into his pocket for his battered old phone. He heard Coco’s smartphone
thunk
in the dirt in front of them, then the sound of crunching glass.
“That’s better.” Bobby heard the
whoosh
of air and two soft
plunks
as the ruined phones were hurled into the woods.
“Let my friend go,” Bobby shouted. “It’s my fault he’s here. I’m the one that tracked you down.”
The man hesitated, then laughed wildly, a raw, barking sound. “Noble Bobby Pendell, son of a hero, wants to be a hero, too.”
A chill swept over Bobby. “You know my name.”
“Of course I do. You think I haven’t been watching you prowl around back here? You think I don’t know everything about you?”
“Who are you?”
“No one you know,” the man snarled.
Shaking, Bobby realized he was right. There was nothing familiar about the killer, except the vibration of evil radiating from him like the stench of a skunk.
“If it’s me you want, then let my friend go.”
The man chuckled. “I would. But, unfortunately, I need him to guide you to where we’re going. It’s a long hike, and I can’t have you slowing me down, Blind Boy.”
With the blood streaming into his eyes and his already-poor sight, he was, Bobby realized, just about there. He struggled to see Coco, writhing on the dirt of the path.
“Get up, Woods,” the man barked. “Up, or I’ll shoot you in the arm, too.”
With a start, Bobby realized he hadn’t heard any sign of Pete and hoped vainly that the dog had gotten away. Poor Pete would never stand a chance with this beast.
Coco struggled to his feet. The man tossed him a large stick for support, and together the three of them slowly marched through the woods. With the dank dampness of nearby water filling his nose, Bobby knew exactly where they were going.
The last light of evening cast the clearing in an orange haze. Coco moaned, quietly sobbing beside him. Bobby’s heart went out to his friend, but he didn’t dare speak for fear the man would shoot them both dead without hesitation.
They were led inside an echoing, damp structure, the wood floors creaking from the weight of their steps. The smell of death clung to every crevice. The walls held a record of murder, carried on with savage brutality for years.
The man was a ruthless killer, a soulless, crazed predator who fed off the murders he committed to make him feel alive.
There was nothing familiar about him whatsoever, yet he knew Bobby so well.
With Coco shuffling and sniffling beside him, they were led down a few long flights of steps into a well of deep and total darkness. A dim light flared on, but Bobby could see nothing beyond its bright halo. Around him, the stench of death burned into his lungs. His skin crawled with the sting of it. So many had died here, trapped like rats, painfully tortured to feed the killer’s insatiable appetite for suffering and death.
Bobby was shoved to the floor. He heard Coco land beside him with a pitiful groan.
“Sweet dreams, and sleep tight,” the man snarled in a raspy sing-song. “Don’t let the bed bugs or the hungry rats bite!”
“You’re just going to leave us here?” Coco wailed.
The man snorted. “I enjoy letting my guests marinate in their own fear. I’ll be back soon enough.”
Bobby scanned his flickering impressions to gather what information he could about their captor. Snippets of a privileged childhood, growing up here, right in this house.
To Bobby, this much was clear—the man was a member of the family who had built the tumbledown estate. One of the Galloways.
The laughter receded, the killer’s footfalls echoing on the steps. Then came the
slam
of a door, the
clink
of chains.
The killer’s mind was filled with patches of rage, hunger, fathomless anger, all superimposed over total blankness.
It made no sense.
“I
s he gone?” Coco whispered.
“For now. But he’ll be back. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“You don’t think he’ll really kill us, do you?”
“Coco, from what I can tell, he’s slaughtered dozens of people right on this spot. I can feel their agony. Their fear. It’s torture. I’d rather risk him shooting us dead than stay here another minute.”
“How does he know you, Bobby?”
“I have no idea. I don’t know the creep from a hill of beans. Maybe he started stalking me after the first time he caught me snooping around. I should have been more careful. I should have never dragged you into this.”
“You didn’t, asshole,” Coco gasped. Bobby could hear the strain in his voice. “I came on my own, for Dana, remember? If I get my paws on that scumbag I’m going to rip out his eyes.”
“Let’s just get out of here, if we can.” “How, exactly? You can’t see right and I can’t walk right. I’d say our gooses are cooked.”
Bobby skimmed through the layers and layers of impressions that cluttered his senses, flashing before him like an old film reel. “I think there’s this game he plays. He likes to toy with his prey, let them escape, then hunt them down like wounded deer. He gets off on it in a depraved sort of way. Only usually,” Bobby paused, combing through the horrifying images, “he likes to dress his victims in evening wear and cake their faces with gaudy makeup. It’s part of his sick fixation. I think,” Bobby delved deeper, though the vague nausea was starting to overtake him, “it has something to do with his childhood. Something traumatic he can’t get over, so he repeats the same crime, again and again.”
Coco let out a long breath. Bobby could hear him panting. They had to get out of here before the injury to his leg became infected. “How the hell do you know all this, Bobby?”
“I told you, it’s part of the weird ability I have. I can feel it all around us. I can feel his mind.”
“But you have no idea who he is? How’s that?”
“I don’t know. It’s like he knows how to block me, or something. Like he was ready for me. Look, whether it’s a set-up or not, we’ve got to play his game. He’s left us a way out of here, if we’re smart enough to figure it out.”
Coco’s voice was getting shaky and weak. “My leg is really bad, Bobby. I think the bullet got stuck in the bone or something. God, it’s bleeding like crazy.”
Without thinking, Bobby took off his T-shirt and tore it into long strips. “Here, can you tie this real tight over the wound? It’ll stop the bleeding. Too bad Petey isn’t here to lick it clean.”
They worked frantically on the wound, and when it was all tied up, Bobby heard Coco lie back, his breathing shallow.
“Stay with me, Coco. Okay, buddy?”
“I’m working on it, numbnuts,” he laughed weakly.
Anger coursed through Bobby’s veins. He’d been stupid. He should have waited. Should have bided his time until he became part of the elite FBI division, and then he could have led them straight here. But no, he’d had to save the world and clear his name, all by himself. He’d been a careless, blundering fool who deserved to be outwitted. But Coco didn’t. Coco didn’t deserve this at all.
“Do you see any light along by the ceiling? Any chance there’s a grate or something that leads to the outside? Each time, there’s a different way out. He sets it up that way.”
“There’s something. It’s very faint. I know you can’t see nothing, but in here, I’m not that much better off than you. The light bulb is about ready to peter out.”
“Okay, so if I walk over there, can you direct me to it?”
Bobby shuffled across the dark gulf, each step filling him with horror and vivid scenes of torture and blood. So many girls, caught and dragged here, their whereabouts never known. So many killed, dismembered and buried on the grounds of the estate.
The nausea bubbled up inside of him, burning his throat. One more step in the darkness froze him to a single spot. Someone familiar.
Someone he knew
.
Bobby cried out, pressing his palms to his ears. Her screams. He couldn’t listen to her screams.
Coco was shouting. “Bobby? What is it? Are you hurt? Shit.”
Bobby jumped away from the spot like he’d been standing on hot coals, and crashed into the basement wall. Slowly, he dragged himself upright, leaning heavily against the damp stone to catch his breath. “My mother. Mom. She—she didn’t run away. She died.” He gasped, the words whirring in his head along with her screams.
“He killed her.” He shuddered, cold to the bone. “She was kept here. Right in this basement.”
B
obby dug his fingernails into the wall, scratching so hard into the stone they broke off and started to bleed. He choked out the words, past his pain and rage.
“The bastard killed her. Dragged her from her car and brought her here. Left her to starve for weeks, raped her, and then…” He couldn’t continue, couldn’t put into words the terror of what he’d seen. Ragged, filthy, starved. The killer had let his mother escape, to run through the woods sobbing like a hunted animal. Then, with the single blow of an axe, cleaved her skull in two, killing her instantly.
It was the faded fabric from
her
dress that had led him here. Her body under the lake that had triggered his first psychic episode.
Bobby sagged to the floor, head cradled between his legs.
“Dude, pull yourself together, okay?” Coco said. “We gotta work as a team. I’m the eyes. You’re the legs. The psycho’s going to come back, and I don’t want to find out what perverted turns the game will take if we’re still here when he does.”
Bobby sucked in a long, shaky breath. Coco was right. They had to get out of there. Had to make sure this animal was trapped and cornered, then hunted down like the monster he was.
Coco directed him to the place where a thin stream of moonlight filtered in. Bobby stood on his toes, but couldn’t reach the opening.
“Is there anything around for me to stand on? Or could you give me a lift?”
Coco sighed. “There’s nothing but litter and dead rats, if you really want to know. I’ll be right over.”
Coco dragged himself across the floor toward him. By his panting, Bobby knew it was a terrible effort.
“Get on my back,” Coco said hoarsely. “I can see the grate that leads to the outside. If this sick fuck is operating like you think he is, it’ll be loose. How you’re going to get us both up there and out is beyond me.”
“You’re going to climb on
my
back, Coco,” Bobby said. “For starters, you can see what you’re doing. And how do you think I’d be able to pull you up? With a little assist from you, I can climb up.”