He’s pretty spooked; I’ll give him that.
“I told you the history of things on the phone,” he began, “Selene, the Selene that came back, it’s not the same person.” Another look around, then he reached for the iphone, touched it to illuminate the screen. “She hasn’t been back long, and there’s just something…Better I show you.” He turned the iphone around and pushed it a little way towards her.
Cassey leant forward, curious, but had a little trouble working out what she was seeing.
“That’s Selene’s left shoulder blade,” he explained. “Look closer. You see the scars?”
She looked closer, and yes, the pale skin bore an array of small white dots.
“I took these while she slept,” Cruise continued, “They’re on both shoulder blades, the calves too…” A tap on the screen showed the back of a left leg, what looked like a yellow bed sheet beneath it. There were more dots on the calf. He drew the phone back across the table.
“There are others, in, err, more intimate places, but I didn’t have a chance to photograph those.”
“That’s…that’s alright,” Cassey said, a little embarrassed at these candid shots of his naked wife. She took a swig of coffee, swallowed and cleared her throat.
“Have you asked her about them?”
Cruise shook his head. “She says she doesn’t remember, and pushing her doesn’t help. Also, there’s…” he lowered his voice and leant forward. “I’ve woken up to find her undergoing these strange spasms at night. And as for the memory loss, her memory is even cloudy about events from before she disappeared.”
That is interesting, unless she’s faking it, just like the loss of two years.
“Where exactly did she disappear from, Mr. Cruise?”
“Call me Ted. It was after we’d been camping in the Vermont Woods. The night after we returned, she disappeared from her bed. The police were involved of course, but nothing came of it until she reappeared on our doorstep.”
“Ahuh.” Apart from the mystery of the scars, and the fits, this was looking more and more like her original hypothesis was correct.
“Alright then, Ted.” Cassey drained the rest of her coffee. “I have all the information I need for now, so in my capacity as a private investigator, what would you like me to do?”
Cruise stared at the table for a moment then looked up. “I’m away from the house most days, working at my brother’s garage. She does go out though, a neighbour told me.”
“So you want me to see where she goes, huh?”
Cruise nodded, “That would be a good start, yeah.”
* * * *
Half an hour later, Cassey was back in her office and about to start typing some notes into her laptop. As her fingers touched the keys, her cellphone began to ring. The noise came from her scuffed, tan leather jacket, hung behind her on her chair.
She reached around to the inside pocket, gripped the cellphone, and lifting it out examined the screen. The word ‘ABE’ stood out on the screen. Pressing the answer icon, she tapped the speakerphone function before placing the phone in front of her laptop.
“Hey Abe, any luck?” she asked, and began typing up the details of Ted Cruise’s case.
“Hi Cassey,” the voice replied in a strong Brooklyn accent. “I found his place of work, what I thought was his place of work, but it turns out he was fired over a year ago.”
“Huh. He told me he worked at his brother’s garage.”
“I spent a good hour talking with one of his ex-colleagues, up here in Guttenburg. He worked at an advertising agency, place called Science & Information Inc.”
“That’s a long way from his new job. You said you were talking with the guy for an hour though? Spill the beans,” she said with a smile.
“Well it wasn’t all about Cruise,” Abe explained, “His ex-colleague is a Rangers fan, and you know how I like talking hockey. Anyway, according to this guy, after the wife disappeared, Cruise became obsessed with alien abductions, lost his job for taking too much time off etcetera.”
“Oh,” Cassey replied, and stopped typing.
“You alright Cassey?” Abe said after a few moments of silence.
“Yes and no,” she explained. “Cruise seemed odd when I met him, nervous, jittery, but he never said anything about aliens. Damn. He could well be a nut.”
“Pistachio or Wall?”
Cassey laughed. “No, the batshit crazy type. Anything else Abe?”
“That’s about it really. The guy said he felt sorry for Cruise, but was glad when I said she’d returned.”
More than I can say for Cruise himself, Cassey thought, then said. “Okay Abe, and thanks. Email me your expenses and I’ll transfer the money over to you.”
“That’s great Cassey. Always a pleasure. Do you need anything else doing on this case?”
She thought about that for a moment, then said, “That’s it for now.”
“Okay Cassey, have a good one.”
The connection was severed, and Cassey remained still for a short while, absorbing the silence around her while she put her thoughts in order. She returned to her notes, revising them as she read what she had already typed.
Background to the case: Ted Cruise, aged 38, contacted me on the 25th of August with the information that his wife, who disappeared 2 years previously, had returned to him three weeks ago. Selene Cruise, aged 32, who disappeared after a camping trip to Vermont, apparently has no memory of where she was during that time.
I met with him today (the 26th). He suspects his wife has changed in some way, and disclosed photographic images of dot-like scars on her shoulder blades and calves. She also has trouble remembering events from before her disappearance. He informed me he works in a garage through the day, and that his wife goes somewhere unknown while he is out.
From new information I have obtained, from a former work colleague at the company Science & Information Inc, it appears Cruise is interested in alien abductions.
Cassey paused, rested her fingers on the keys. I guess he thinks aliens took her, she thought, then started a new paragraph.
Possible leads: Find information on who dealt with the case originally (Vermont State Police?), and get their opinion on what happened to Selene. I will arrange a second meeting with Cruise and enquire about her social life and friends from before she disappeared.
Hypothesis: I suspect that when Selene ‘disappeared,’ she started a new life, and has now returned to Cruise using faked amnesia as an excuse.
She stopped typing, scanned what she had written, and satisfied with it, directed the laptop’s curser to the ‘Save’ icon before closing the document.
I might solve this quickly by following her, she thought, and it won’t be connected to aliens either.
The rest of her day was taken up with other cases. The biggest involved putting the invoice together for a surveillance job she had been on for over a week—spying on an employee his boss suspected was stealing from him. That wasn’t the case, but she still expected to be paid, all the same.
Tying up the loose ends on two cases she wouldn’t be paid for took up the remainder of her time. One was a surveillance job, spying on a wayward daughter. The client, the woman’s mother, had died during that case. Cassey had found the woman’s corpse, and didn’t have the heart to pass charges on to the next of kin. The final case was a favour for a dead man.
Professor Arthur Peabody, a man she consulted with on numerous occasions before his death, had left a letter asking her to destroy some artefacts he had in storage. That ‘favour’ had nearly led to the loss of her and Abe’s lives, plus a week in the shop for her car.
Before leaving for the day, she phoned Cruise and asked if he would be at home tomorrow. The answer being no, Cassey resolved to get started on the case the next morning.
* * * *
The Cruises had a house in Maplewood, New Jersey, a thirty-six minute drive from her office that including travelling over bridges spanning Upper and Newark Bay
and an interstate drive to Maplewood. The Maplewood area appeared quite picturesque, with large gardens fronting its two-storied detached houses.
Her silver Toyota Venza was parked directly across the street from number six, the Cruise house partially obscured by trees lining the sidewalk.
Past the sidewalk, and a raised path flanked by a garden of lush greens, the first floor, clad in cream stucco, held a white door between two white-framed windows. The second floor had three windows beneath a grey slate roof.
Cassey had been waiting for twenty minutes now, with no movement evident from inside. She had a flask of coffee with her, her digital camera, and the resolution to get the case at least partly solved today.
Ted Cruise owned the only car in the household, so wherever Selene was going, she either walked or got picked up.
Twenty minutes later Cassey was still waiting. Fifteen minutes after that, she checked the time on the dashboard against her cellphone. Both were synchronised correctly to twenty-five past ten. Cruise had left for work at nine-thirty, just before she arrived. According to him, Selene usually left the house soon after he departed, or at least, so the unanswered house phone indicated.
Selene could have left in the short time between Ted’s departure and her arrival. She hoped not, for that would mean a long day of waiting. Or, today could even be an exception to Selene leaving at all.
“Well, in for a penny,” Cassey said, and reached for the flask on the front passenger seat.
At eleven oh two, she saw a woman walking down the sidewalk across from her, heading in the direction of the Cruise house.
She had long, reddish-blonde hair, grey joggers and a matching hooded top. A black plastic bag dangled from her right hand. The description Cruise had given fit, and when the woman paused before the garden, Cassey told herself it was Selene.
I guess she did slip out after all.
She retrieved her camera from beside the flask, put it to her eye, and began snapping off photos.
Selene walked into the garden, stepping over the plants to disappear momentarily behind a tree. After reappearing, she continued her progress then paused before the left-hand downstairs window. She looked up at the second floor window, then knelt and reached inside her black bag. She removed something from it, tucked whatever it was into the greenery, then began digging in the earth. A few minutes later she appeared done. She stuffed the black bag into her pants pocket and headed towards the door, rubbing muck from her hands as she walked.
A moment later she opened the door, which was unlocked, and disappeared inside.
“Curious,” Cassey said, and lowered the camera to her lap. What is she so intent on hiding? Drugs? Only one way to find that out…
She opened the car door and stepped stealthily across the street. Moving low, she reached the sidewalk, and slowing down stopped behind a tree. Seeing no movement at the house windows, she continued on, entering the lush green of the garden. She watched the house, the door in particular, as she crept. A few seconds later and she was at the spot where Selene had paused. Going to her knees she felt around, her gaze still set firmly on the front door.
Her hands felt soil, the thin stalks of plants, and then she touched something solid, planted into the earth. She gripped it, and pulled. The object, whatever it was, felt solid in her grip. Any moment now, she was expecting Selene to come rushing out. It didn’t happen, and after a few more seconds of stillness, Cassey turned and made her slow way across the garden and the sidewalk. Using a tree to conceal herself, she looked down to examine her prize.
“What the fuck?”
What lay her palm resembled some kind of shell, a bulbous, roughly circular pink object about six inches in diameter. It was covered in light brown nipples, which in turn were surrounded by short, stubby pink spines. Vertical regions of undulating lavender lines divided the nipple areas into four, the lines terminating at a top bearing a smaller, squashed sphere. This bore small stubby spines and lavender zigzags, leading to a brown nipple at its apex.
Cassey stuffed it into her jacket pocket and stepped across the street to her car. After a few vigorous hand rubs to remove the soil, she reached for the handle and climbed inside. She closed the door and removed the object from her pocket, placing it on the dashboard.
What the hell is this thing? It looks like a seashell but… Cassey lifted it up, examined it from different angles to see if there was some way to open it. There was nothing visible, and the bulbous top proved immovable when she tried twisting it off.
“Huh,” she said, and placed it back on the dashboard. It was looking more likely that Mrs Cruise had a screw loose. Deciding to wait and see if Selene did anything else untoward, she reached for her flask.
* * * *
Her day of surveillance had been a bust. Selene hadn’t made another appearance, and when it got close to four p.m., and the time Ted Cruise was due home, Cassey headed back to her office, leaving the shell in the glove compartment in her car. After calling Cruise and arranging an appointment the following day, she left for her apartment and was home just before six o’clock.
An evening of relaxation was cut short when just after nine, her cellphone rang. She was laid on her couch, dressed in pyjamas, her laptop on her chest as she indulged in some online shopping.
Thinking it might be Abe, she reached over and retrieved her phone from the coffee table beside the couch.
The number on the screen wasn’t Abe’s but it was familiar. It was Ted Cruise.
“Hello?”
“Please you gotta come here,” he said in a loud, hurried tone. “I didn’t know who else to call.”
What the? “Mr. Cruise? Ted? Calm down and tell me—”
The call cut off. Cassey sat up quickly, moving the laptop from her lap as she did.
An attempt to contact Cruise returned a busy dial tone. She paced the room and tried again, with the same result.
Seeing no other option but to check on him in person, she headed to her bedroom to dress.
* * * *
Thirty minutes later, after teasing the speed limit at every opportunity, Cassey was back in Maplewood.
She hadn’t brought her gun—that was still in her office drawer. As she pulled up outside the Cruise residence, she regretted not making the time to retrieve it.
All the windows of the house were illuminated. Cassey stared at it for a few moments, then unclasping her seatbelt, exited the car, leaving it unlocked behind her. Her cellphone, gripped tightly in her right hand, brought a little comfort as she crossed the street towards the garden path.
The foliage on the left side of the path was heavily damaged. There was even earth and plant matter scattered across the path. Selene, Cassey guessed, and looking to the front door, saw that it stood slightly open.
She stepped nearer, paused, and nudged it open with her left hand, allowing it to creak inwards on quietly complaining hinges. Before her lay a blue doormat, dirty with muck, and a cream carpet bearing brown marks that led left. With slow, careful steps, Cassey walked past the threshold into the house. The walls and ceiling were bright white in colour, with varnished oak doors upon the west, east and north walls. Each stood wide open, spilling light and silence. An ascending staircase stood beyond the east wall, white with cream carpet covering the steps.
The house appeared so quiet. I need to call the police. That’s what I’ll do. A sound from upstairs, a strangled cry, stopped her from raising her phone. Instead, she rushed to the staircase, ascended the steps three at a time.
The upstairs décor was similar to the downstairs. To her left, beyond a white wooden handrail, stood a wall centred by an oak door. Framed countryside prints flanked the door. To her right, lined up with the facing wall, a narrow corridor led to darkness.
Another sound, a low moan, returned her attention to the door. She turned left and crept towards it. It stood slightly ajar, with light showing within the gap.
A few moments later Cassey was pushing the door open. Inside she
encountered a terrible scene.
Selene was laid out upon a thick, light brown carpet, her arms and legs splayed. Dressed only in her underwear, she had on pink panties, a black bra. Dirt coated her bare feet. Her head was bent sideways, pointing right, her eyes open and glassy.
A double bed with a black iron frame stood to Cassey’s right, the yellow sheets and pillows in disarray. To her left, beyond the corpse and between two pale wooden closets, was the window facing the garden.
So where was Cruise?
“Please.”
The voice issued from the corner to the bed’s right. Cassey turned and saw Cruise crouched there, his back to the room. Dressed in a red polo shirt and black pants, he was barefooted like his dead, murdered wife.
He shook where he crouched, his hands covering his face.
“Ted, what have you done?” Cassey asked, and took a few tentative steps towards him.
He raised his head to reveal bloodshot eyes, a tearstained face.
“Keep away from me,” he said, his words tinged with fear.
“Seriously Ted. Tell me what happened.”
He looked away, sobbed, then turned his red-eyed gaze back to her.
“She started freaking out about an hour ago, after she’d been in the garden.” Cruise shook his head, sniffed loudly. “She attacked me. It was self defence, I swear.”
“Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkrrrrr.”
The sounds, a strange combination of hums and clicks, came from behind her. Cassey turned quickly, and saw they issued from the woman she had presumed dead.
“What the?”
“Kkk-kk-rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr,” the sounds continued, stuttering in a strange mechanical way.
Movements behind Cassey told her Cruise was rising from the corner.
“She’s alright!” he said, and went to squeeze past her.
“Stay back Ted.” She held out her hand, halting his progress. The fine hairs on her arms were standing on end.
“Why? She—” Cruise stopped talking. His wife’s head turned to face the ceiling.
The Third Cthulhu Mythos Megapack Page 17
