by Ron Ripley
She felt certain the home was occupied. All the items necessary to make bread were laid out on the long, thick wooden top of the kitchen table. And while there weren’t any electronics she could see, Maggie suspected they were merely tucked away.
The homeowners wouldn’t be the first ones who didn’t like to see all their electronics, she mused. Her own brother had been like that, prior to his death. The man had made certain that no one could tell where he had put his television or DVD player when he wasn’t using them.
A sad smile crossed her face as she thought of him, then she sighed and tried to remember what she was doing.
Residents. Got to find them, she thought.
“Hello?” she called out. When no one answered after a moment, she said in a louder voice, “Hello? My name’s Maggie, and I was wondering if I could get some help?”
On the floor above her something rattled and thumped, and while her heart thudded against her chest, a wave of relief washed over her.
Someone’s here. Maybe they’ll have a phone, or a car, she thought. Smiling, she walked out of the kitchen and called out to the owner again.
Chapter 28: Sweating the Small Stuff
With a grunt, Marcus set the drawer from the corner hutch down in the grass outside of the chapel and used his sleeve to wipe away a bead of sweat running down the side of his face.
“Maggie,” he said, peeking into the chapel.
But he didn’t continue his sentence.
The woman was gone.
Frowning, Marcus took the shackles off his shoulder and set them down on the ground beside the drawer. He touched the iron chain of the manacles to reassure himself that they were still there, then walked around the side of the building, looking for some trace of where she might have gone.
As he reached the back of the chapel, he caught a glimpse of something white and shining near the wrought iron fence. He glanced to the left and saw that the guard in the tower was paying more attention to something going on in the center of the little town than he was to the fence.
Repressing a sense of worry, Marcus took a leisurely stroll through the grass out to the item that had caught his eye and came to a stunned stop.
It was a package of pipe tobacco. Fresh and unopened.
Is this for me?
Marcus decided it was and quickly stuffed it into his back pocket, then turned to leave. Behind him, in the tower, he heard the creak of a floorboard, and he knew that the guard had finally noticed him.
Nonchalantly, Marcus continued on his way, stuffing his hands into his front pockets and ignoring the danger the armed man represented.
Who threw it over the fence? Marcus wondered. He felt a small thrill of excitement, not only because the tobacco would taste wonderful in his pipe, but because someone on the outside knew he liked to smoke.
And that speaks volumes, doesn’t it? Marcus thought. Did they see the brand I smoked when they took me? Regardless, the fact remains that they do and that they are attempting to give me some small measure of comfort.
That is the important piece of information here.
Marcus rounded the corner of the chapel and saw with some surprise that the Reverend’s wife was there. When she noticed him, her eyes widened, and she pointed at the houses.
Marcus looked at the line of homes, stopped, then moved his gaze to the last house on the left.
The back door was open.
The door is open, and Maggie is gone, Marcus thought with growing horror.
“Thank you,” he managed to say to the dead woman, and hurried after Maggie, hoping it wouldn’t be too late.
***
Maggie found a beautiful central staircase that led to the second floor, and she thought she caught a whisper of a song. Almost as if someone were playing a harp.
And when’s the last time I heard a harp? she asked with a rueful smile. The answer to that would be a long, long time ago.
She chuckled and climbed the stairs, her hand trailing along the smooth, polished wood of the banister.
If I were coming down these stairs instead of going up, she thought, I could do my best Scarlett impersonation.
The sound of the harp grew louder with every step, and by the time she reached the second-floor landing, Maggie was grinning.
No wonder they didn’t hear me, she thought, trying to decide which of the three closed doors she saw hid the harpist. They’re really playing that thing.
Composing herself, Maggie straightened her back, brushed a few stray strands of hair out of her eyes, and chose the first door on the right as the location of the musician.
She strode confidently toward it, came to a halt in front of the door and rapped sharply on the hardwood of its raised, center panel.
The music stopped, and Maggie said, “I’m sorry to interrupt you.”
When no one responded to her statement, she knocked again.
There was still no response from the harpist.
Stifling a spark of resentment, Maggie said, “Hi, I just need some help. Please?”
When that still didn’t evoke a reply, she grasped the cut-crystal doorknob, twisted it, and shoved the door open.
“Listen,” she started and then stopped.
She was looking into an empty room.
There was nothing to see. Nothing other than the walls and floor and ceiling. There weren’t even any shades on the windows.
The room was unnaturally cold, and it made her shudder as she reached in, took hold of the doorknob and closed the door quickly.
She felt a slight pang of discomfort as she backed away from the door, glancing at the next room a few feet away.
I didn’t imagine the harp, she thought. I know I heard it. They’re hiding.
The idea that someone would be keeping quiet when she needed help made Maggie furious. She pressed her lips together to silence any angry demands she felt compelled to make and stalked over to the next door.
She knocked once, hard, and when there was no response, she threw the door open.
But all she saw was a room as barren as the first.
Biting back her rage, she didn’t bother with closing the second door.
Instead, she turned and stomped to the third and final room.
Maggie didn’t knock. She merely grasped the doorknob and pushed the door open.
A trio of young women stared at her. Each was seated at a harp, and it took Maggie a moment to understand that the young women were identical triplets.
Maggie opened her mouth to speak, and the women screamed.
Chapter 29: Music Tames the Beast
Marcus heard a scream, high and fierce, a sound that ripped through the stillness of the small, haunted village, and he ran.
His lungs complained bitterly, as did his knees and thighs, but he ran nonetheless.
He focused on the back door of the last house and realized, in a strange, offhand way, that he was beginning to despise the backs of the houses.
Marcus almost smiled at the thought, but the continued scream drove all humor from him. The sound that originated from the house was a bestial noise that held the taint of madness in it, and he feared for Maggie’s safety.
He reached the back of the house and lunged for the door which slammed closed in front of him. Marcus threw up an arm at the last moment, struck the hardwood and stumbled backward. Glaring at the door, Marcus grasped the doorknob then jerked his hand back with a sharp inhalation.
The dull metal was cold. Bitterly so.
Probably locked, Marcus thought, and before he knew what he was doing, he kicked the door.
It wasn’t the skilled blow of a martial artist or the refined, precise strike of a trained police officer or combat trooper.
But Marcus had seen enough in his life to know where to put his foot.
The bottom of his shoe struck the door exactly to the right of the doorknob, and the force of his blow, combined with his weight, tore through the wooden door jamb. As the door hurtled inward, Marcus heard a
new sound mingled with the scream.
“No!”
Maggie, Marcus thought, and barreled through the mudroom, then the kitchen, and into a magnificent hall. He spotted the stairs and raced towards them, his lungs demanding oxygen, his heart threatening mutiny.
I’ll have a heart attack, he thought. Better to die from that than to get to the top of the stairs and find she died while you were strolling along.
Marcus thundered up the stairs, used the polished top of the newel post to turn sharply on the landing, and realized the screaming was coming from one of the rooms.
“Please!” Maggie sobbed.
Marcus ran to the door and hurtled over the threshold.
His mind processed everything in an instant.
Maggie hung from the ceiling, thin wires around her wrists and her arms extended upright to a chandelier. The cut crystals suspended from the bronze arms of the fixture swung lazily back and forth, matching the rhythm of Maggie’s desperate movements. Blood ran down her forearms from the wires around her wrists, and three young women stood around her, all watching her bleed. Their mouths, Marcus saw, were open, the horrific screams coming from them.
Marcus took the chain from where he had draped it around his shoulders and struck the dead woman closest to him.
Like the Reverend, the ghost vanished, and the screaming stopped.
The two remaining ghosts fixed their attention upon Marcus and moved toward him, gliding eerily across the polished wood floor.
Their sister reappeared and joined them.
Marcus lifted the chain again, and then the Reverend’s wife was there.
Shocked, he watched as the mute dead woman threw herself at the sisters. All four shapes lost their form, the dead battling in a silence so complete that it sent a chill of terror racing through Marcus.
Easing around them, he snatched up a stool beside the nearest harp and brought it to Maggie’s side. He stood up, tottered, then found his balance.
“Wrap your legs around my waist,” he ordered.
Sobbing, she did so, squeezing him tightly. Without him saying anything further, she pushed herself up, slackening the tension on her wrists.
While the woman was slight, Marcus still felt the weight. Gritting his teeth together, he managed to find the knots that held the wires in place, and relief washed over him as he saw they were slipknots. First, the right wrist was freed, then the left, and she sank down against him, his hands wet with her blood.
“Can you walk?” he asked her.
She nodded, let go of him and stood unsteadily on the floor.
The Reverend’s wife had beaten the young women away from the room’s center, the dead triplets sulking near their instruments.
Marcus knew what the dead woman had suffered through in life, and he doubted the sisters could match the ferocity that years of abuse had built within her.
“You’re going first,” Marcus said, keeping an eye on the triplets as he spoke to Maggie. “We’re going down the stairs, back through the kitchen, and out the mudroom. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “Who’s the woman?”
“I’ll explain that when we get to the chapel,” Marcus said, and he had to stop himself from chiding the young woman for going off on her own.
Nearly dying will probably be enough of a reprimand, he thought sourly.
Then he felt Maggie’s hand in his, and he allowed her to pull him along as she left the room, the Reverend’s wife trailing along behind them.
The door closed hard when they reached the stairs, and before their feet clattered on the first-floor hallway, the sound of the harps filled the air again.
***
“If you continue with this,” his nurse said, “you will undoubtedly need a sedative to sleep this evening.”
The sound of the Velcro being torn free from the blood-pressure cuff was loud in Abel’s control room.
“Undoubtedly,” he said dryly. “I thank you, as always, for your attentions and ministrations, my dear nurse, but this is of great significance.”
With the last word, Abel gestured towards the monitors.
She didn’t argue with him, merely put away the tools of her trade.
“I’ll bring your herbal tea in an hour, sir,” she said. “Until then, do not work yourself into a frenzy.”
He chuckled as she left the room and returned his attention to the monitors.
Subject B was a dream come true.
Abel had watched the man free the wife of the Reverend. Then, as Subject B had plunged into battle with the Hawkins sisters, the wife had assisted.
She helped! Abel thought, attempting to reel in his exuberance. And his fear was evident upon his face. Writ large, as it were!
He smiled, tapped his fingers on the desktop and thought, I must increase the pressure. I must.
Picking up the radio, he said into it, “David.”
“Sir?”
“Get me acquisitions, both team leads, please,” Abel said.
“Right away, sir,” David replied.
Abel set the radio down, took a sip of his water and thought, A good man, David is. He’ll be the one to pull the trigger when it is time. And none will be the wiser.
Humming a bit of Schubert to himself, Abel waited for acquisitions to arrive.
Chapter 30: Wells, Maine
The plane landed in Wells, Maine, at a small, private airstrip where the proprietor was paid a large amount of money to forget that he ever saw or heard anything. A second air traffic controller, farther up in Bangor, was paid to falsely log in the arrival of the same plane, and he would falsely log in its departure when told to do so.
Professor Abel Worthe, and those whom he hired, left little to chance.
When the plane had taxied into a small hangar, the full complement of both acquisition teams exited the aircraft. They were dressed in street clothes, but they were fully equipped. In adapted shoulder holsters they carried .22 revolvers with suppressors. Knives were kept in sheathes at the small of their backs, and they all had new, disposable cell phones. Their clothes had been purchased at Goodwill and second-hand stores, and there was nothing out of the ordinary about anything they wore.
They were exceptionally forgettable, which was exactly what they wanted to be.
In silence, the teams broke into four separate groups, each climbing into late model sedans of plain colors. Like the clothes they wore, the vehicles were nondescript. No one who saw them would remember if they were Fords or Chevrolets, Mercuries or Oldsmobiles. The plates on the cars were stolen from identical makes and models from around the state.
Acquiring Subject D had taken the longest to plan, and it would be the most difficult to pull off successfully.
But the professor wanted Subject D, and so he would get Subject D.
Timmy adjusted his seatbelt and looked stonily out the window.
“What’s your problem?” Suzie Hatch asked, starting the car and shifting it into gear.
“I don’t like this,” he answered.
“You don’t have to like it,” she retorted. “You don’t have to dislike it. You just have to do what you’re told.”
Timmy grunted noncommittally and watched the darkening sky in silence.
***
“Alex!”
Alex looked up from his book with a frown. “What?”
“It’s dinner time,” his mother said.
“What are we eating?” he asked, holding his place with his finger.
“Fish!” his stepfather’s voice boomed up the stairs, and Alex winced.
He had forgotten the man would be home.
Todd, Alex’s younger half-brother, snickered from where he sat in the corner, looking at the newest copy of Sports Illustrated, reading about the San Francisco football team, the 49’ers.
“Bet you there’s spinach, too,” Todd hissed.
“Come on,” their mother called up to them. “You need to eat before your father and I go out.�
��
He’s not my father, Alex thought angrily, but he kept silent. Todd was not averse to telling on him. And Todd’s father, Alex’s stepfather, had no issue with taking off his belt and beating Alex’s backside with it.
Without another word, Alex put his book in his pocket and got off his bed. Todd tossed his magazine to the floor and raced out of the room. Alex scowled as he watched his half-brother. If there was spinach to have with the fish, Todd wouldn’t be made to eat it. The younger boy would also be allowed to use salt, which was off limits to Alex.
His mother never explained why. It simply was, and Alex knew better than to argue about it. Arguing resulted in punishment, and punishments ranged from groundings to beatings.
And neither was pleasant.
Making certain he hid his feelings about the dinner, Alex walked quickly down the stairs, washed up in the bathroom, and then took his seat at the table.
He looked at the meal set out before them and kept his face impassive. He saw haddock with the skin still on it and a few bones protruding from the partially charred flesh. There were slices of wheat bread and a container of margarine. A salad made from vegetables grown in his stepfather’s withered garden, and a homemade dressing that consisted primarily of vinegar. Brown rice was piled high in a dull tan serving dish, and dark green spinach, wet and sticking together, was clumped in a bowl of the same color.
The pepper, in an old and cracked shaker, stood near the margarine, and the salt by his stepfather so the man could dole it out appropriately. By his own plate, Alex had a tall glass of what he knew was two percent skim milk.
He was never allowed to drink whole.
Alex waited quietly while his parents chatted about his stepfather’s teaching job, and his mother complained about her own mother. His stepfather, in between biting comments regarding the discipline of children, served Alex a disgustingly large portion of spinach along with a gruesome serving of the fish. Rice and bread followed with a reminder to use the margarine sparingly.
