“He skinned her, Angela!” Charlie exploded. “He took her face! You brought this thing into my home!”
“You’d rather me let this bastard do whatever he wants?”
She should have just kept her mouth shut and taken his anger. He needed to get it out. But it was human nature to try to defend yourself, even when you knew beyond doubt you were guilty of the crime.
Charlie lowered his voice and tried to stay calm. Losing it would not help his daughter.
“What the hell am I supposed to tell Christie about her mother?” Charlie asked.
Lisa stood behind Angela in the hallway. She gently put her hand on Angela’s shoulder. The message was clear. Leave now. Get the hell out of this house. You are not wanted here.
Angela looked at Charlie. He stared at the kitchen table once again. She could hear him start to cry. She could see his chest start to rise and fall as the pain forced its way out of his body. She wanted to go to her brother, hug him, and tell him how sorry she was. But it would do no good and would probably even make things worse.
She turned and headed for the door, past the family photographs on the wall.
CHAPTER 23
Sins of the Father
Marcus and Dr. Greene stood before the faceless and naked body of Sara Darden. Marcus had practically begged Angela not to be there. She had insisted, but in the end he convinced her the living needed her more, and she had gone to see her brother. Marcus could only hope she was feeling somewhat better than he was right now. My God, how many times had he been in this room looking at this type of slaughter? It never got easier, and he was glad that it didn’t. What kind of monster would that make him if he got used to seeing this type of horror? To think one human could do this to another. It was unreal, like a living, breathing darkness that forced all of the light out of the room.
“Massive amounts of venom in her body. No doubt the cause of death,” Dr. Greene said.
“Tell me we caught a break. Tell me you found something else.”
“I wish I could. He cleaned her thoroughly. Like the others.”
Marcus looked at the dead snake in a metal container beside the body. It was coiled like it was sleeping. He hated being in the same room as the damn thing. He wanted to take it and hurl it against the wall.
“What about that?” he asked.
“Haven’t had a chance to check it yet.”
Dr. Greene walked around the table and joined Marcus beside the metal container. She turned the snake over to reveal its smooth belly. She ran her gloved finger across the snake and detected a thin incision. She tried to pry it apart with her fingers, but it had been sealed with a clear adhesive.
She picked up a scalpel from a nearby medical tray and carefully ran it along the line of the sealed incision. She pulled the snake’s belly apart and reached inside. After a few seconds she found it.
“There it is.”
She removed the tiny glass vile from the snake’s insides. Marcus could immediately see the small piece of paper rolled up inside the vile. Dr. Greene carefully removed the plastic cap and extracted the paper with a pair of tweezers. She unrolled the note and read the writing aloud.
“Sins of the father,” she read.
Dr. Greene looked up at Marcus.
“Any ideas what it means?” she asked.
Marcus didn’t answer. He had no idea what it meant. But what good would it do to voice his ignorance? This entire case had been a series of unknowns. He knew nothing, and he would go on knowing nothing until the killer made a mistake. But what were the chances of that? The killer had not made an error for weeks, since the very beginning of this game of life and death. What could possibly cause him to slip up now? Maybe the MAI killer would get bored and give them something obvious to go on to make the chase interesting for him. But he didn’t think that would happen. He didn’t know. “I don’t know” were now the words he hated most.
Marcus looked at the snake, its stomach sliced open. He then looked over to Sara Darden’s lifeless body. That snake had been the end of her existence. Sara no doubt had thoughts and dreams and plans for a long life. She would see her daughter grow into adulthood. She would watch her begin to fulfill her own dreams. Now all of those visions for the future were gone. Sara was dead, and all that remained was a broken, mutilated carcass on a steel table. Soon her body would be in the ground. And in a few generations no one would remember she even existed.
CHAPTER 24
Comfort
Marcus parked his car across the street from Angela’s townhouse. There were no lights on inside the front rooms, but he saw her car in the driveway. It was only eight o’clock in the evening. Still, she could be asleep already.
He climbed out of his car and walked towards her front door. He always thought of his wife when he came by this house. It reminded him so much of the townhouse they had bought after they were first married. She had loved the house, never wanted to move, and she imagined them growing old together inside those walls. But he knew at the time that if they ever had children the house would eventually become too small. He was content at the time because he knew she was happy, and that made him happy in return.
He had dreamed of his wife the other night. They were back in their townhouse, but there was no furniture. It was like the time they had walked through the house after the closing. They imagined where they would put their current belongings and what new items they would have to buy. They playfully argued about which of his things would need to be thrown away. Of course all of her belongings were fine. The truth is he didn’t really care, but he pretended he did so he could give her a hard time.
In the dream he was walking through the house alone. He had been looking for her and found her standing alone in the upstairs bedroom. There was also no furniture in that room, and she was looking towards the door to the hallway as if she was waiting for him to appear.
He asked her why she was upset because her usual smile was nowhere to be seen. She told him that she wasn’t sad or happy. She just existed without emotion, without dreams or sadness, without hopes or fears. He asked her why this was so, and she explained to him that all emotions vanish after life ends. That is the magic of life…to feel…to feel something, anything. She went on to say the angels hate human beings so much because they feel so powerfully, and it’s for that reason that they punish them with so much pain and misery. It was like a cosmic screw-job on the entire human race.
It had started to snow again after they found Sara’s body in the junkyard. The light snow had eventually turned to rain and the dropping temperatures turned that moisture into ice on the pavement. Marcus saw the black ice covering Angela’s sidewalk, and he walked on the grass beside it to avoid slipping.
He knocked on Angela’s door. There was no response, but he heard footsteps after knocking a second time. The door opened a crack, and he saw Angela looking at him.
“Hey, partner,” he said.
“Hey.”
Her response was barely above a whisper. She opened the door, and Marcus entered. The house was almost completely dark, but he could see a dim light in the back room.
“How are you holding up?” Marcus asked.
“I’ll be okay.”
Angela led him to the back room.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked.
“You don’t need to play the hostess for me.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Angela left the room and headed for the direction of the kitchen.
Marcus walked over to the sofa. There was a small photograph lying on the table in front of the sofa. It was a photo of Angela holding her niece Christie when she was just an infant. Angela’s brother Charlie was also in the shot. Sara was not in the shot, and Marcus assumed she must have been the one taking the photo.
Angela came back in the room carrying a bottle of water.
“I hope you don’t think this is your fault,” he said.
“I’m responsible, Marcus. H
owever you cut it. I brought evil to their door.”
“That’s garbage, Angela, and you know it. God knows you deserve a pity party. Maybe we all do. But I’m not going to let you blame yourself.”
Angela sat down on the sofa and picked up the photograph from the table. She looked at the baby again, probably the five hundredth time that night she had done so.
“When I think of my little niece and realize she’s going to grow up without a mother, how do you not put that on yourself?”
“Because you aren’t the sick freak who did it.”
Angela hesitated, absorbing Marcus’s words. She knew he was right, but it didn’t ease her guilt.
“Ramsey thinks I should take time off.”
“Maybe you should.”
“Is that what you think?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is what you think.”
Marcus sat down beside Angela. They both stared into the darkness of the room. Marcus turned to the window and looked outside. There was a faint glow from a nearby security light on a neighbor’s back wall. It did little more than highlight the branches in the trees of Angela’s backyard. There were naturally no leaves since it was winter, and the branches reminded him of hundreds of tiny, twisting snakes slithering away from the trunk in all directions. Those damn snakes. They seemed to follow him wherever he went.
“I keep thinking about that cardboard box in my house,” Marcus said.
Angela turned to him.
“I keep wondering why he didn’t kill me. What’s to be gained from letting me live? Is he just playing games? Does he enjoy the chase?”
Marcus looked to her for an answer but knew immediately she didn’t have one. How could she? How could either of them comprehend the mind of a psychopath?
He thought again of the dream. He heard his wife tell him to cherish each and every second he had left. Never wish time away, she had said. He subconsciously rubbed his bare ring finger. It had only been a couple of days since he had stopped wearing the ring. Why had he done that? He didn’t remember thinking about it. He just stopped putting it on in the morning. In fact, he hadn’t truly realized he had until Angela pointed it out to him at the bar. Her words had caught him off guard. He had snapped at her, but he was really angry with himself. He thought he had betrayed her memory. But how could he when she was dead?
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Sorry for what?” Angela asked.
The truth was Marcus didn’t know if he was apologizing to Angela for the other night or if he was apologizing to his wife for what he was feeling now. He had grown close to Angela, too close he thought.
“About the ring, about getting mad at you for commenting about the ring. I stopped wearing it because of you.” he said.
He looked into her eyes and instantly knew she understood what he was trying to say. She didn’t avert her gaze. They were both vulnerable, he thought. Both hurting beyond belief. In some ways it made perfect sense for them to take things farther. But it could also ruin everything they had.
Pain is the gift to this world, he thought. Pain lets you know you’re alive.
He softly touched the side of her face. She didn’t pull away. He leaned forward and kissed her. She kissed him back. At first their kisses were gentle and slow. Then they both became more aggressive. Marcus lifted his hand under her shirt and cupped her left breast. She pulled at his shirt and soon they were removing their cloths. Angela leaned back on the sofa and opened her legs to him. He entered her. He moved back and forth slowly, then more quickly, each time trying to go deeper and deeper into her. She clutched his back, then his hips and tried to pull him closer and closer to her. Their lovemaking was frantic, both of them desperate to not feel alone and empty and in agony tonight. Marcus’s body grew rigid as he came inside her. They both held each other tightly and tried to catch their breath.
CHAPTER 25
The Mannequins in the Woods
The young boy walked through the woods, exploring much deeper than he normally did. His father had told him not to go too far from the house. But he had lost track of time and distance, and he found himself completely turned around. He was beginning to panic. How would he find his way back?
Then he saw the white mannequins scattered along the trees. Their eyes seemed dead, but they also strangely seemed to all be looking directly at him. He had never seen anything like them before. Suddenly his fears vanished as his curiosity took over. He walked closer to the mannequins to examine them. He could tell some of them had been freshly painted. Last night’s storm had caused some of the white paint to run down the arms and legs of the mannequins and form lines like veins in the plastic.
As he turned around he could see there were far more mannequins than he originally thought. There were dozens of them, perhaps hundreds of them, and the mannequins seemed like a silent army ready to wage war. He walked deeper into the woods to see where the mannequins led him.
After about twenty minutes of walking, he came to a clearing where he saw a small cabin. It seemed only big enough to have one room inside. There was a white mannequin standing beside the door like it was guarding the entrance. The windows had been blacked out, so he couldn’t tell if anyone was inside. Every instinct in his body told him to run away, but he was far too curious to do that.
He walked up to the door and tried the knob. It creaked in his small hand but turned easily enough. The boy pushed the door open. The dull sunlight crept inside the cabin and pushed the darkness into the back corners of the room. The boy could hear the sound of a record skipping. But he heard no voices, so he reluctantly walked inside.
It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. He looked around the room and saw that strange, ancient-looking writing covered almost every square inch of the walls and ceiling. He walked over to the record player, which sat on a small table near the door. The song had finished playing and the needle rocked up and down on the end of the vinyl record. He lifted up the needle and placed it back on the beginning of the record. A sad classical song began to play.
The boy turned from the record player and began to explore the room. There were several glass tanks against one wall. He pressed his face against one of the tanks and saw a black snake coiled in the corner. The tongue of the snake flicked out. He seemed more fascinated by the snake than scared. The boy and the snake watched each other for several long seconds until the boy finally got bored and turned away from the tank.
The only other object in the room was a table that was pressed against the back wall. There was something large that covered the entire surface of the table, but it was hidden under a dirty bed sheet. He walked over to the table and gently poked the sheet with his finger. Nothing moved. He summoned up his courage and pulled one corner of the sheet back a few inches. He saw dark hair underneath.
He pulled the sheet back even more and was startled to see a woman’s body under the sheet. She had long brown hair that framed a horrifying and skinless face, but the eyelids remained intact so he could not see her eyes. She was naked, and her skin had turned a subtle shade of blue. He should have been repulsed and frightened by the sight, but again something inside him kept him from running away.
He stepped even closer to the body and began to examine the thin muscles that used to control the face that was no longer there. He slowly reached out to touch one of the muscles when the dead woman’s eyes suddenly flared open. The woman’s head turned to him.
Suddenly all of the terror that had been fighting to get out of his body burst forward, and he fell to the ground. He pushed away from the woman with his arms, but his body seemed to move in agonizingly slow motion like in a bad dream.
Her eyes would not look away from him.
“He won’t stop,” she said. “He’ll never stop.”
CHAPTER 26
Nightmares
“Marcus….Marcus.”
Morning sunlight sneaked through the cracks in the window blinds. Ang
ela shook Marcus awake.
“Marcus.”
He slowly stirred under her bed covers. He opened his eyes, trying to remember where he was. He had been deep in sleep.
“You were having a nightmare,” she said.
Marcus rolled over to face Angela.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay.”
Marcus sat up and grabbed a bottle of water off the nightstand. He took a sip and screwed the cap back on.
“How are you feeling?” he asked her.
“Overall, or about last night?”
“Would I be an insensitive jerk if I said last night?”
Angela smiled at him.
“I don’t regret what we did, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Me neither.”
Marcus’ cell phone vibrated on the nightstand, saving him from the awkward conversation they would undoubtedly need to have at some point. He just didn’t want it to be at that moment. Marcus looked at the display on his cell phone. He didn’t recognize the number but answered the phone anyway.
“Marcus Carter,” he said.
Marcus listened to the caller for a full minute. Angela couldn’t hear the other person, but she could tell something was wrong based on the reaction on Marcus’s face.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Marcus said.
He ended the call and placed the cell phone back on the nightstand.
“What’s wrong?” Angel asked.
Marcus swung his legs out of bed and reached for his pants which were on the floor.
“Marcus, what’s wrong?’she repeated.
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