by A. I. Nasser
What had she done with David Green’s body?
John looked around aimlessly, not knowing what else he could do, trying once again to break free from his bounds. Nothing. He closed his eyes and tried pushing the pain away, tried forcing his mind to think.
Doesn’t look good, Johnny-boy.
“Shut up,” he muttered.
You’re alone down here, tied to a pipe, with no way out. I’m your only company.
“Leave me alone,” John pleaded.
“Are you sure you want me to do that?”
John’s eyes flew open. He was not alone.
The voice wasn’t in his head. His eyes scanned the darkness, squinting as he tried to discern anything in the shadows, but came up short. The single bulb flickered, its light weakening, throwing the room into deeper darkness as the scent around him suddenly became unbearable. The windows above his head opened and slammed shut again, as if something had pushed its way into the basement through them. John felt a sudden chill in the air, and he began to pull against his ropes with even more force.
“That’s useless, buddy.”
John stopped, his head snapping left and right, panicking as he tried to pinpoint where the voice was coming from. He felt a shudder race through his body, and his heart beat changed from a quick skip to a racing thud.
“You know, this could have been completely different.”
John’s eyes grew wide as a figure stepped out from the shadows, familiar with her hair falling down to her shoulders, her dress dark. Eva walked into the dimming light, the shadows on her face hiding her eyes, but not her smile.
“Hi, Johnny-boy.”
John kicked back, pushing himself further against the wall, wishing he could crawl completely into it and hide. He felt the world around him shatter, knowing that he was losing his mind as he stared at the figure in front of him.
“You’re not crazy, Johnny-boy,” Eva said, her voice raspy, like sand grains being rubbed against each other. “At least, not yet.”
“You’re dead,” John stammered. “You died in the fire. How are you here?”
“I’m not exactly here,” Eva chuckled, “and you’re wrong about the fire. I was dead before the fire.”
John shook his head quickly, blinking as he tried to clear his mind, tried to fight the illusions he was experiencing before he went completely insane.
“You see, your wife did quite a number on me,” Eva went on. “She’s pretty lethal with a knife, did you know that?”
“You’re not real.”
“Of course I am,” Eva smiled.
“No,” John said quickly. “You’re only a figment of my imagination. I was hit on the head. I’m suffering from a concussion.”
Eva walked towards John, forcing him further against the wall, and crouched down a few feet away from him. “You’re only half right, buddy,” she said, and in an instant her voice changed completely. “Eva is dead, and in a way, you’re to blame for that, aren’t you?”
John closed his eyes. He didn’t want to hear any more. He wanted it to stop. He wanted his mind to stop playing tricks on him. He wanted out, and he wanted out right now.
A cold hand grabbed his jaw and pressed down hard, forcing his eyes open as he groaned in pain, the pressure threatening to break bones.
Eva was gone. In her place was a man he only recognized from his dreams, his beard heavy, his eyes bloodshot above a chilling smile. John stared into his eyes, and for a second he could feel his mind snap.
Images flashed before him, a montage of places and faces frozen in time and space as they reeled before his eyes. He could barely make out anything he was seeing, each image never lingering for more than a second, so many so fast that it gave him a headache. It was like he was trapped watching a movie on fast-forward, and he couldn’t make it stop.
“Do you see,” the man whispered, the sound of his voice coming from far away. “Do you see why I couldn’t let you leave, Johnny-boy?”
John felt a heavy weight on his shoulders, tightness in his chest, and as the hand grasping his jaw pressed down harder, he felt the images slow down as they projected through his mind. It was as if he were being given someone else’s memories, sharing someone else’s experience, and the sheer volume of it was overwhelming. Generations upon generations of anger, love, laughter, hate and loss raced through him, and he suddenly knew that if this didn’t stop, he would go completely mad.
“I will not be alone again,” the man said. “Not now, not ever. You wouldn’t listen, Johnny-boy, but Karen did. Karen wants to stay, and she will. She won’t leave me the way you wanted to. She won’t pack up her bags and go. She’ll make sure I’m never alone, and she’ll need you with her for that to happen.”
“Stop,” John pleaded, the pain in his head excruciating as he tried to wrestle free of the hand holding onto him.
“There’s no end, buddy,” the voice chuckled. “There’s only you and me down here, and we’re going to be spending a lot of time together.”
John kicked out in vain, and suddenly a second hand grabbed him by the neck, pushing him roughly against the wall and pinning him there as more images raced through his mind. He couldn’t breathe, the hand on his neck suffocating him, choking as he continued trying to wrestle free. He was going to die like this, and the realization of that made him fight harder.
Then it was gone.
John felt the pressure on his neck loosen and the reel of images slow and stop, then disappear completely. He inhaled sharply, filling his suffocating lungs with rancid air as he coughed and spit. He felt the pressure inside his head subside, and when he slowly opened his eyes, the tears that had been trapped behind the lids rolling freely down his face, he let his head fall against his chest.
He could hear someone laughing in the darkness, a shrill sound that boomed about the basement as he tried to catch his breath and slow down the pounding in his chest. After a few seconds he looked up, searching the room with tired eyes.
He was alone again.
Chapter 23
Sheriff Walter Garland pulled up in front of the Victorian and squinted at the large house looming over him.
The sun had begun to set, the skies already purple as the world edged into the night. The temperature had dropped significantly, forcing Walter to slip on his coat and pull the zipper all the way up. He wasn’t young anymore, and the cold always found its way to his bones, promising a morning of excruciating pain and agony.
Which was why he would have rather been somewhere else. Home, for instance. That seemed like a more appealing destination than the Dean house.
Walter had taken Hank’s call seriously, knowing well what the effects of a traumatic experience could do to a man. He remembered the rampage Samuel Dean had gone on after the death of his son, and it wasn’t farfetched to believe that David Green could be capable of the same viciousness. He had lost his daughter, after all, and that kind of pain made a man do things. Terrible things.
Walter had spent the entire afternoon looking for David, first stopping at the small loft he had been living in since the fire. When Walter didn’t find David, he stopped at all the regular places, avoiding the imminent drive out to the Kriks. He was hoping that David wouldn’t be stupid, but in retrospect, Walter knew that this should have been his first stop.
He just didn’t want to come out here again.
Walter had wrestled with the thought of sending one of his deputies out to the house, but had quickly come to the conclusion that this was something he needed to do on his own. The burden of the past needed to be dealt with those who had carried it for this long.
Walter climbed out of his cruiser and slammed the door shut, hoping that the sound of his arrival would bring out one of the Kriks. Preferably the husband. Walter didn’t think he could handle dealing with the wife again.
He waited for a few seconds, and when no one came out, he reluctantly made his way toward the house. His eyes quickly glanced at the attic window, and he sighed in relie
f when he saw nothing there. He couldn’t imagine what he would have done if his stare had been met by someone else’s.
Walter made his way up the porch stairs, and as he neared the front door, his eye caught movement behind the small side window. He couldn’t recognize which of the couple it had been, frowning in confusion as to why no one had come out to meet him if they knew he was there. He knocked on the door, and instantly stepped back when it swung open, slowly, and stopped an inch or two inside.
It had been open.
Walter quickly pulled out his gun, suddenly fearing the worst, silently praying that David Green hadn’t done anything stupid. The stench from inside the house escaped through the small opening, and he felt a sense of déjà vu as he pushed the door all the way open, keeping his gun level in front of him as he slowly stepped inside.
***
The skies began to really pour when Hank locked up the store and raced to his truck, pulling the lapels of his coat up around his neck as the wind took a few blows at him. He climbed into the truck, gunning the engine and turning on the wipers, and looked down the street at June’s store. He recognized Karen Krik’s car parked outside and smiled to himself, happy that the woman had finally found the strength to leave the house.
She couldn’t have chosen a worse night, though.
Hank contemplated calling June to see whether or not Karen would be driving her home tonight when he caught sight of the brunette leaving the store. He frowned as he watched her walk into the rain, calm and steady, as if it were only a drizzle. She was also dressed far too lightly for this weather, and when he saw that she was barefoot, red flags popped up everywhere in his mind. He watched her climb into her car and start it, quickly pulling out into Gale Street and driving away. He shifted gears, a voice in the back of his head urging him to hurry, every inch of him certain that something was terribly wrong.
He jumped out into the rain, the truck’s engine still running, and raced into the store.
“June!” he called out.
When no one answered, he began to panic, quickly searching the aisles. When he couldn’t find her, he sped towards the back room, praying that he would find her hunched over her shipments, completely oblivious of his arrival. She usually went into a sort of trance when she worked, and he hoped that was the reason she wasn’t answering.
He did find her, but not in the storage room.
June Summers lay motionless in the small hallway leading to the back room, her head at an obscene angle to the rest of her body, her clothes bloody and her eyes wide. He rushed to her, quickly falling to his knees and lifting her into his arms.
“Oh my God, June!”
The woman stared past him, her eyes dead and fixed on a point above his head. He could feel the warm blood on his hands as he held her, and tears suddenly erupted from his eyes as comprehension sunk in. He could see the multiple rips in her clothes where she had been stabbed, and he touched each one of them tentatively as if trying to heal them. There were so many.
Hank quickly pulled his cell phone from his pocket, smearing the screen with June’s blood as he dialed the sheriff’s office, hoping to reach Walter.
“It’s Hank Pollard,” he stammered when one of the deputies answered. “June’s been murdered. She’s been stabbed to death. My God, she’s…she’s dead! She killed her. June’s dead!”
Hank dropped his phone, his body shuddering uncontrollably as he pressed June’s body against his, holding her tight as he buried his face in her shoulder.
***
Walter edged down the dark hallway slowly, his gun level, his eyes darting back and forth between the shadows. The sun had set completely, and as he moved into the living room, he reached out for the switch.
Nothing happened, and Walter almost laughed at his luck.
He tried the hallway lights, and when the bulbs flickered on and off, immediately giving him a headache, he switched them off again. He made his way down the hall, briefly looking in the bathroom before continuing to the kitchen.
Something crashed behind him, and he turned around quickly, gun raised, ready to fire. He couldn’t see anything in the darkness, and the stench that was lingering in the air began throwing him off. He needed all his senses, and right now he was working without two of them.
A second crash came from the living room, and Walter decided the kitchen could wait. He made his way back, stepping into the spacious room, edging between the furniture as he caught sight of the swinging windows, glass littering the floor underneath them. The rain from outside was starting to find its way in, and he had half a mind to go over to the large panes and close them before the water ruined the hardwood floor.
As he edged back, he heard a door slam on the second floor, his head snapping immediately to the stairs. He glanced around a final time before making his way to the stairwell. Pressing his back against the wall, he started the climb upwards. Another door slammed shut, and Walter quickened his ascent, his mind already drawing scenarios of what he would find. He was one hundred percent certain he would find David Green up there, hiding, having killed the Kriks and trying to escape.
When Walter reached the second-floor landing, the doors to the rooms were all open, welcoming, and his eyes quickly found the source of the slamming. He slowly stepped towards the attic door, briefly looking into each room as he made his way to his target, the trap door rising open and then slamming shut again. Walter frowned, unable to find a logical explanation to what was happening. Above his head, someone started to run, and the attic door flew open completely.
Someone was in the attic.
Walter rushed towards the small ladder, pointing his gun into the darkness beyond, unable to make out anything and cursing himself for forgetting to bring his flashlight along. More running and the sound of a window opening above pushed Walter forward. He forgot all about the flashlight and grabbed onto the rungs, pulling himself upwards quickly in hopes of stopping whoever was up there before they escaped.
As soon as he was through the latch, Walter jumped to his feet and raised his gun, squinting in the darkness.
“David, if that’s you, stop!” he called out.
Only it wasn’t David, and when the figure materialized in front of him, seemingly out of the blue, Walter’ eyes widened in sudden horror. He watched as the face of the woman in front of him shifted in the little amount of light coming in from the attic window. She was smiling at him, a spine-chilling smile he knew well, and when she raced towards him, arms outstretched, her scream piercing in his ears, he froze in terror. She slammed against him, her nails clawing at his eyes as he stepped back from the force and fell through the attic latch.
Walter Garland fell to the second-floor landing with a crash.
Chapter 24
Hank Pollard pulled up to the Victorian and parked right behind Karen Krik’s car, turning off the engine and grabbing his shotgun from the passenger seat.
He had left June’s store well before the police had arrived, his mind already made up as to what he wanted to do. He had returned to his store, grabbed his shotgun and had rushed towards the Kriks’ house with only one thing on his mind; kill the woman who murdered June.
He hadn’t bothered trying to call John, hadn’t even tried calling Sheriff Walter Garland on his private phone. All he wanted to do was find Karen Krik and make her pay for what she did.
Stepping out into the rain, he stormed towards the house, hands on his gun as he marched up the porch stairs. He was about to kick the door in when something crossed his mind.
What if she was waiting?
He remembered the way Karen had looked as she had left June’s store, barefoot and drenched in the rain, a woman in a complete daze. She had been completely oblivious to everything around her, but how sure was he that she hadn’t seen him? What if she knew he’d be following her, was even counting on it? Whatever had made her kill June, whatever sick thoughts were running through her head, there was a chance she might have had it out for him as well.
Maybe this was her plan. Maybe she was luring him to the house where she had the advantage.
Hank stepped back from the front door, his mind suddenly clearer as he scanned his surroundings. There wasn’t a single light on anywhere. Karen would be waiting in the darkness, he was sure, and just barging in on her would put him at a disadvantage.
He needed to find another way in. Somewhere she wouldn’t expect.
Hank lowered his gun and hurried down the porch stairs, immediately racing around the house towards the back. He knew there was a door there leading into the kitchen. If he was lucky, she would be waiting for him somewhere closer to the front door, counting on his rage to muddle his thoughts and send him barging in where she could jump him.
That was when he saw the lights coming out of the basement windows.
***
Walter Garland opened his eyes and found himself staring at Karen Krik.
The woman was sitting a few feet away from him, legs folded under her as she stared at him from on top of the bed. He tried to get up, but quickly realized that he was cuffed to the radiator, unable to move. He reached for his gun with his free hand, and when he couldn’t find it, looked at the brunette as she held it up for him to see.
She smiled, and Walter could feel his body go completely numb.
***
John Krik’s eyes snapped open as soon as the hands fell on his shoulders.
He kicked out immediately, half-expecting to see Eva in her dark dress, sneering at him as her hands wrapped around his throat, ready to overload his mind and body with more images and emotions.
“John, damn it, stop!” he heard a deep voice hiss in the darkness. He recognized that voice.
“Hank?”
Hank grabbed onto his legs, pinning them down as he scowled at him. “What are ya’ thinkin’, man?”
John felt a sudden relief fall over him, and despite his situation, he smiled. “Hank, you have no idea how glad I am to see you!”
