Lost in Wonderland

by Nicky Peacock

  “Kayla, honey,” says Bob, “you remember your brother, Shilo.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Shilo

  Shilo looks at his little sister. She’s older now but he still knows her. She’s wearing black jeans and a black tank top. Her long, poker-straight hair is pulled into a tight ponytail.

  “Kayla?” He reaches out to touch her, to make sure she’s real, but she backs away from him.

  Worried, Shilo looks to Mr. Custard, who, so far, has been very quiet, as if soaking in the surroundings, how the four adults whisper to one another, how comfortable they are together, and how Kayla looks at all of them with more affection than she is showing her lost sibling.

  “She kills people now, Shilo. She’s now part murderer, part your sister,” Mr. Custard whispers in Shilo’s ear.

  “Look, I think we should give them some privacy,” Jon says and although hesitant, all four leave.

  Suddenly the room feels much larger than before. Shilo can’t seem to focus. He begins to look everywhere but his little sister. But she always seems to be there in his peripheral vision, standing with her hands on her hips and her nostrils flaring.

  “Say hello to her,” Mr. Custard urges.

  “What’s up?” Shilo says.

  Kayla rolls her eyes and takes a deep breath. “You tell me, brother.”

  “I came here to help you. Have you seen it again yet?”

  “Seen what?”

  “The Kushtaka.”

  “You’re not better. You’ll never be better, will you?” Kayla moves to leave the room.

  “Stop her, Shilo!” yells Mr. Custard.

  “You’ve killed people,” Shilo blurts out, then covers his mouth.

  “How dare you judge me. You don’t even know me anymore!” Kayla yells. It is easy to see the rage building in her eyes. He knows that look well. It was a mask worn a lot by those in the hospital.

  “Please, you need to listen to me. It’s coming back for you. It’s already killed your friend.”

  Kayla leaps forward and pokes him in the chest. “What the hell did you say?”

  Her jabbing finger makes a dull ache spread across his chest. “You’re hurting me,” he whispers.

  “What do you know about Rabbit?”

  “Rabbit?”

  “She means the Albino girl,” whispers Mr. Custard.

  “Oh, Rabbit, he took her. He probably smelled you on her. He took her to bait you.”

  “So her disappearance is my fault? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes, I mean no. It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I was the one who dragged you into the forest that day. He tasted your blood because of me.” He hangs his head and feels a small tremble rumble through his torso and limbs.

  Kayla moves into his space. When he looks up, she cocks her face to one side and says, “You were the one who let go of my hand. You lost me in those woods. You were supposed to protect me.”

  Shilo lets out a small sob.

  “So, go to hell!” his little sister yells at him.

  Bob and Jon bound into the room, looking like they should be carrying fire extinguishers.

  “Hey, let’s all calm down, okay?” Jon puts an arm around Kayla’s shoulders, but she shrugs it off.

  “She spends all her time being bait for a full spectrum of sickos, and they encouraged it. I’m not sure I’m happy with that, Kayla being used by people who take advantage of her psychological problems,” says Mr. Custard, his hand slowly stroking his chin.

  “Yeah,” Shilo agrees. Unfortunately it was only he who had heard Mr. Custard’s carefully constructed statement.

  “Yeah what? Christ why the hell did they let you go?” Kayla moves to keep a distance between everyone else in the room.

  “Well, he wasn’t exactly let go…” Bob gently lays a hand on Shilo’s shoulder.

  “What? Oh crap, did he escape?” Kayla stares at Bob, who fails to meet her eyes.

  “I did what I had to,” Shilo whispers.

  “Really? He’s as dangerous as the unsubs we hunt, him and his elusive Mr. Custard.”

  “I don’t know what she means. We haven’t killed anyone.” Mr. Custard looks injured.

  “Yeah, we haven’t killed anyone,” Shilo repeats.

  “No one can say the same for you,” Jon adds, staring at Kayla.

  “Are you kidding me? Standing in this room right now are all the men who got me to this point in my life. Do you think I’d have chosen Wonderland if I had been given another option?”

  “We tried to give you other options, Mouse,” Bob soothes.

  “And if I hadn’t been left to die in the forest, or convinced I’d been attacked by a monster, or seen the corpse of my father dangling off a tree branch, maybe I’d have gladly taken your offering. I’m not responsible for any of this.” Kayla throws her arms around and spins a little. Then she stops, and her gaze rests on the flowers bordering Alice’s picture. She sighs.

  “But you are responsible now. You could change?” Shilo offers.

  “Change? That’s bloody unbelievable. Talk about pot and kettle. Tell me, Shilo, why don’t you change to be a normal big brother, one that doesn’t see imaginary friends or believe in bogey men living in the forest. Yeah, you change first and tell me how easy it is.”

  “Hey, I think we need to take a breath and catch up properly. What do you think?” Jon sits down and pats the seat next to him. Kayla moves into it. Bob does the same on the opposite couch, but Shilo decides he’d rather sit cross-legged on the floor, so he folds his long frame down where he stands.

  “Okay, how about you start, Shilo?” Jon smiles over at him.

  “Kayla, are you still killing people?”

  “Are you still insane?” she replies.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Mouse

  Shilo left with Bob and Jon. He was mumbling to his imaginary friend as they helped him into the car. He tried another three times to tell me that the Kushtaka was going to kill me, and that it had killed Rabbit along with, of course, our mother. Insanity up close is a horrible, ugly thing.

  I couldn’t sleep that night. In my head I heard gangs of birds squawking and crocodiles gnashing their teeth. Rabbit could still be alive, suffering and lost somewhere in the dark. She wouldn’t leave me to that fate. She wouldn’t give up on me, not without seeing my lifeless body first.

  I get up, get dressed, and pack a bag, then slip down the stairs and pick the lock on the documents cabinet. I take out a set of fake IDs and turn to … find my parents behind me.

  “You’re not going to Alaska.” My mom narrows her eyes at me.

  “You can’t stop me.”

  “We need to investigate the Alaskan Abductor further before we deploy another operative. We need to check our resources are right. There’s more to this whole thing than any of us know right now.” Dad is pacing back and forth, his focus shifting from me to Alice’s photo on the mantel.

  “Rabbit might still be alive. I’m not leaving her at the mercy of some pervert.”

  “There was too much blood, Mouse. She’s not alive.” Mom looks away from me and I can’t tell if she’s crying or just losing interest in the conversation.

  “You can’t stop me.”

  “You can’t make us lose another daughter,” Dad says.

  “But we’re not your daughters. We’re your operatives. I’ve been in plenty of dangerous situations in the past, and all of them ordered by you.”

  Mom and Dad stare at me.

  “Her chip, I can track her on that,” I say.

  “Let the Suits deal with it. We have another operation which needs your particular talents…”

  “No,” I interrupt Dad’s orders. I cross my arms over my chest to punctuate the point.

  “Please, Mouse.”

  “I won’t go alone. I’ll take Cheshire,” I offer.

  “Cheshire has already gone. He left ten minutes ago to catch a flight to Las Vegas. He’s dealing with a hitchhiker ca
se,” Dad says.

  “Bob and Jon will go with me.”

  “They’re not trained to deal with these situations. You’ll be putting them in danger.” Mom is trying to reason with me. I get it. I just don’t think she needs to. I want them to say they’ll go with me; I want them to say that we’ll deal with this as a family, but of course we’re not really a family. We’re just all lost in Wonderland together, playing silly and dangerous games with insane animals, just like Alice did when she first tumbled down the rabbit hole.

  “Then I’ll take Shilo. God knows he needs to keep on the move if he’s to avoid being thrown back into the giggle factory.”

  “Great, you’re going to bait yourself with a mental hospital escapee to a killer, or killers, unknown.” Dad waves his arms around and almost knocks over Alice’s photo. He grasps at the frame and catches it before it falls down.

  “Give me the details on Rabbit’s chip. I need her last location.”

  “No. This one is too dangerous to bait,” Dad says, letting out a breath.

  “Who says I’m baiting him. There are no rules in Wonderland. I’m hunting this time.” I smile at them. I must look completely mad as they slightly back away from me. They have the same look that Doctor Frankenstein must have had when he realized what he’d created.

  “Let us look into Rabbit’s disappearance first, please.” My mom grasps at my hands, but I pull away.

  “Let us learn what we can about what happened before you go charging in. We won’t lose another daughter,” Dad repeats.

  “Tough shit,” I say, then leave. Outside, I make two calls, one to Bob and Jon to tell them I’m coming over. The second is to Hatter.

  Chapter Forty

  Shilo

  “She hates me.” Shilo takes a sip of hot chocolate, then sniffles.

  “She doesn’t hate you,” Jon says, shifting in their soft, overstuffed floral couch to stop it from swallowing him whole. He then throws a look to Mouse.

  “No, I do hate him. It’s the only time he’s ever been right. Don’t take that away from him, Jon.” Kayla gets up, leans over to Bob, and kisses his cheek.

  “Play nice with Hatter, will you?” Bob whispers.

  She moves over to give Jon a kiss, but he catches her in a hug instead. “Please be careful. FBI offices are not a place a Wonderlander wants to get caught in. You’re probably somewhere on their most wanted list.”

  Shilo doesn’t know if he’s meant to stay or go, but he’d worked out that Kayla and some guy called Hatter planned on breaking out files on the Kushtaka cases from the FBI. He idly daydreams that there’s an X Files style Mulder and Scully there and that they’ll realize he’s right about everything and help them all defeat the monster once and for all.

  “Hey,” Kayla claps her hands in front of his face, bringing him back to reality, “space cadet, I’m coming back for you, so you better be saner when I do, okay?” She doesn’t bother waiting for a reply, just stomps out of the room, leaving the three men alone and sat in a line like some weird kitsch furniture commercial.

  “She did say I was right,” whispers Shilo while chasing a melted marshmallow around his mug with his tongue.

  “She was being sarcastic,” Mr. Custard says from behind them. “You remember when we talked about sarcasm?”

  “Yes,” Shilo says.

  Bob raises an eyebrow, then takes out his cell.

  “Hey, do you get the Internet on that?” Shilo asks.

  “Yes, I rarely use it, though. Can you show me how?” Bob hands it to Shilo.

  Taking the phone, Shilo begins to access pages he knows by heart, pages that he visited every time he was on a computer lesson at the hospital. “Look,” he says, handing the phone back. Bob takes it and they all crane their heads around it. The page is called “Legend of the Kushtaka” and the small screen shows part of a pencil drawing of a furious monster. Bob turns the phone to its side to get a better view and suddenly the entire image is there, haunting his screen.

  “This is what you think you saw that day?”

  “Yes, this is what took my mom. It also took those other women too. It won’t stop and it has the taste of Kayla’s blood. It’ll come after her. I have to protect her.”

  Bob smiles. “I know, kid. She needs more protection than she knows.”

  “Thank God, you’ve got them on side, Shilo. Now tell them that we all have to go to Alaska and kill this thing.” Mr. Custard materializes in front of them.

  “Mr. Custard says that we all have to go to Alaska and kill it before it can get Kayla.”

  “Mr. Custard?” Jon raises an eyebrow.

  Mr. Custard sighs. “Perfect, I really wish you’d stop telling people about me, Shilo. I mean, you sound nuts.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Custard.”

  “Um, Shilo, who are you talking to?” Bob asks.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Mouse

  I watch the FBI agent as he stares at their cliché wipe board, his eyes transfixed on a particular photo of a beautiful red-haired woman called Amber. I’m waiting for Hatter to do his tech thing. Pretending I belong here, I try to blend in while still keeping a beady eye out. I know I shouldn’t be in a room where an active investigation is going on, but catching killers is what I’m trained to do. I can’t help but be drawn to what’s going on here, like it’s some kind of gruesome magnet for human depravity.

  I move closer to take in the complete set of gory pictures. There are photos of five victims. All the women are posed on their kitchen counters as if they were part of some porn Martha Stewart style cookery calendar. They’re wearing aprons spotted with blood and are naked and bruised beneath. Each is meticulous, except one that just doesn’t feel right. They have a map on the board, with five marks on it. They are in the middle of trying to profile this killer, linkage analysis. He has a very obvious MO, but there’s something they are missing…

  “Who are you?” He doesn’t look at me, just demands an answer.

  “I’m with the IT department.” As soon as my lie hits the air, I regret it. Everyone has something on their computer they want fixed, speeding up or taking off, and this guy is bound to ask for a computer related favor.

  “Then why the hell are you here?”

  The fact that I’ve gotten away with my lie momentarily blinds me to his rudeness.

  I step a little closer to the photos and it hits me. “One of these is a fake,” I say.

  “What?” He turns his stare on me and it’s like the temperature in the room has been hiked up to Hawaii Five-O.

  “That one,” I say, pointing to the third photo in the row.

  “How do you figure that, little miss IT girl?”

  “Your unsub is a perfectionist. He’s an organized killer. Although, on the face of it,” I bend and read the name beneath the photo, “Amber Crane’s death seems to fit the pattern. But it was hurried and there are inconsistencies in the MO. She was murdered by someone else who then masked the evidence to look like this other guy. Amber’s killer just covered his tracks.”

  The FBI agent stands, then looks at the photos. “Son of a bitch.”

  A righteous feeling floods my body. I wasn’t trained to find serial killers, just to bait them and take care of them. I’d never truly hunted before.

  I look at the four real photos, then the map, minus the mark for Amber’s house. “I’ll name that unsub in three,” I say.

  He straightens up and narrows his eyes at me. “Okay, what have I got to lose?”

  I pick up his tablet. “Sign me in. I need access.”

  “Can’t you hack it, IT girl?”

  “That would be a felony, FBI man.”

  He taps in his password. Within two minutes I have a name on the screen. “Harry White,” I say, giving the tablet back to him.

  “What? Explain?”

  I take a breath. “Okay, this guy is organized, but he’s not a commuter. He’s coming off as a marauder, which makes no sense. Marauders kill where they can. They’re di
sorganized, finding it hard controlling their urge. Commuters are travelers. They take their victims somewhere they can control.”

  “Continue,” he prompts.

  “But the scenes are so exact. He spends a lot of time with each victim, pre and post mortem. But he does so in the victim’s home, which is dangerous and mostly out of his control. Why?” I’m enjoying the look on his face.

  “He can’t drive. And he can’t go on the bus with a body, now can he? You’d have seen this quicker if you hadn’t been including Amber in your murders. Look, all the real murders happen in a small area, and if you include in a buffer for the killer’s comfort zone, you get a radius of this.” I draw my finger around a small area of the map. “Now, as this guy obviously wants to get hold of his victims for longer, and with more privacy, he’ll be trying for his driving license, but has yet to pass. I just looked for a thirty-something man, who’d tried for his license unsuccessfully several times, who lives in this area and … bang.” I tap the tablet. “You’ve got Harry White.”

  “Why middle-aged?”

  “Because he shows foresight and restraint. Young killers show neither and an older one would have not been so sloppy to hunt around his own neighborhood.”

  “You work in IT?” He reaches for the clip on my badge, shit.

  I back away. “Yeah, but I read a lot about this stuff. I could probably catch Amber’s killer too, if you let me have access to police records.”

  “Why police records?”

  “Because her death is too much like the real ones. It has hallmarks in it that only the police would know, not the media. I’m guessing Amber was dating, or had dated, a cop or someone working in the department, or FBI…” I’ve said far too much and I don’t like the look on his face now; it is a look I’ve seen many times before.

  “What’s your name?” He moves into my personal space and snatches off my fake ID. “You don’t look old enough to be working here.”