“Christ sake, Shilo! You could have used the ladder!” White Rabbit shouts after him.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Mouse
I hear movement. I am poised to jump from my hiding place and brain this serial killing scumbag. I strain to listen to the noise. Someone is getting closer. I hear their breathing. The rustle of their overstuffed jacket… And talking? It’s a quiet voice. Shit, are there two of them? I open the cabinet door just a crack and peek out of it. Shilo.
“Holy crap!” I leap out of the cabinet and he jumps.
“Kayla!” He flings his arms around me and I smell spicy chips on his breath.
I weasel out of his embrace and raise an eyebrow. “How did you find me?”
“I followed the White Rabbit.”
A shiver trickles down my spine. “Don’t you mean Mr. Custard?”
“No, White Rabbit is new. She’s helping us for now.”
This crap is getting crazier by the second, so I decide to concentrate on what I know. “Did you see the curator?”
“No, I think he’s probably in his house.”
“House?”
“Yeah, this is part of his basement, I think. I got in through a hatch in the woods. White Rabbit showed me.”
“Then let’s pay him a house call.”
We go back and up through the hatch. Shilo offers me his hand. I take it and together we run toward the house. Now I’m the hunter. The darkness is proving rather convenient; he won’t see me coming. When we get to the killer’s home, I tell Shilo to stay outside and call Jon. He’s to tell him where we are now and everything that has happened. I’m going to need a cleanup from the Suits very soon. I have a hankering to paint the roses red.
I peer through a window to see the curator brushing his costume. The local news is on and he’s humming along to the opening theme. I could wait. This thought simmers to the top of my mind. I could let the police handle him. With the basement jars and kidnapping me, they’d have him dead to rights. But he killed my mother. He tricked me into thinking that she had abandoned us. And he killed Rabbit. No, this is Wonderland justice, and heads roll quickly in Wonderland. To hell with it, right now I have the element of surprise. I smash the hammer through the window. The glass shatters and sprays across his living room floor. He drops his brush and tries to wiggle his way back into his costume. I run at him, tackling him to the floor. He’s bigger than me, but I’m a better trained killer. I flip myself back upright and stomp on his stomach. He curls into a ball as I rain down kicks all over his body. He reaches up and grabs at the Kushtaka fur again. His desperation to get back inside it leaves his head and arms vulnerable to harder strikes from my boot.
I see movement to my right. It’s Shilo; he snatches the costume from out of the curator’s grip. A slow moan escapes the killer’s lips.
Shilo looks at me, then cranes his head as if he’s listening to someone else. He drags the costume toward the kitchen and disappears from view.
“Give it back!” yells the curator.
“Up yours.” I put my boot on his neck and press down till he drops into unconsciousness. Then I walk into the kitchen.
Shilo has cut up the furs with a massive butcher knife and now has the oven lighter in his hand. I bend down and pull at one of the talons. It comes free and I nod at Shilo, who sets the fur alight.
“You need to kill him with his own talon,” says Shilo, looking at the long, sharp piece of something or another in my hand.
“You don’t need a special weapon to kill this Kushtaka,” I say to him.
“I know he’s not the real Kushtaka.”
“That’s good,” I reply. Finally, progress. Maybe my brother isn’t so lost after all.
“But we still need it for the real one outside,” he adds.
I take a deep breath. Black smoke and a rancid smell from the burning fur is starting to fill the kitchen. “Get outside, Shilo. You don’t want to see this.”
He does as asked, although I suspect on someone else’s advice, rather than mine.
I walk back into the living room. The curator is unconscious, so I pull him over and straddle him. I slap him hard and he wakes up. His eyes focus on me and terror strips away any other expression he might have: regret, recognition, gratitude, all I’ve seen on the faces of the killers that I’ve taken from this world, all I know like the back of my blood-soaked hand.
“Please, don’t,” he says.
“Did begging ever work with any of the women you killed?”
“I couldn’t stop—it was the Kushtaka.”
“Crap, really? You’re going to have your last words be that a mythical monster made me do it?”
“You don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t.” And with that I slice the talon across his throat. It’s sharper than it looks and soon his pumping blood envelops his face and begins to soak into his clothes. I don’t get up. I hold up the talon and plunge it into his heart.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Shilo
Shilo sees Kayla striding from the house. “Did you kill him?”
“Look at me, I’m covered in blood. Of course I killed him. He killed our mother. He killed Rabbit.”
“Look what I saved!” He lifts up the other talon. “It’s a real Kushtaka talon, and it’s the only thing that will kill it.”
“I already killed it. Drop that thing. It’s sharper than it looks.”
“No, we’re going to need it. And I want to show it to Mr. Custard.”
“You called Jon, right?”
Shilo nods.
White Rabbit smiles at Kayla. “She’s not lost anymore,” she whispers.
“What did you say?” asks Shilo.
“I said she’s not lost anymore. I have to go now, Shilo, but can you tell Mouse something for me?”
“Of course,” Shilo replies, then leans toward her and listens. He goes to pass on Rabbit’s message but is stopped when Kayla lurches forward and hugs him.
“White Rabbit says you have your muchness back,” he whispers into the arm of her shirt.
But Mouse doesn’t hear him.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Mouse
After we get cleaned up, Bob and Jon meet us at the Little Bell gas station. Shilo carefully puts the talon in the trunk of the car, after he’s shown it to Mr. Custard, of course, who he loudly updates about our adventures. We drive for five hours before we pull up at the hospital gates.
“You took me back,” Shilo whispers.
“You’re not well yet. You need more time,” Bob says.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” asks Jon, looking at me. “Hatter can alter the records again.”
“We can’t give him the help he needs,” I say. I open the door and help Shilo out. We leave Bob and Jon outside the gates and walk up to the front doors.
“I’m sorry, Shilo.”
“The Kushtaka is real. I’m not mad,” he whispers.
My heart is cracking beneath the strain. He’s my big brother but he can’t stay with me. He’s not ready for Wonderland yet, and I’m not ready to live anywhere else. Someday that will change, but for now he needs to be protected and cared for properly. I meet a doctor at the reception and sign the papers. I push off Shilo’s desperate hug and stalk out of the hospital doors. I get halfway over the perfectly plucked lawn before I drop to my knees and cry. Even faced with all the evidence that our childhood monster was a Scooby Doo style man in animal drag, he is still so insistent, so firm in his psychosis. I was never getting my brother back. He was lost to me, left in a tangle of fantastical fables and imaginary conversations with hallucinations. To have a glimpse of getting part of my real family back was even more excruciating than accepting it was gone forever. My hand jerks to my forearm to feel the new scab that has replaced my chip. I’d get another, of course; Mom and Dad won’t let any of us go out there without one. But for now I was free to get lost in the world.
“Hey!”
I look up to see
Cheshire strolling from the wooded area behind the hospital fence.
“What are you doing here? I thought they’d sent you to Las Vegas to track that hitchhiker killer?”
“Oh, well I thought I’d stop by here first, see my Kayla.”
I walk closer to him. He has never called me Kayla. I glance down at his dirty canvas sneakers. Where are his Italian reds?
“Come on, I want to show you something.” Cheshire grins at me, then beckons me forward toward the forest.
I get to the hole in the fence, which I could easily thread my slim body through. His hand is in front of me. His stare burrows itself into my eyes sockets. He looks hungry and satisfied at the same time. And half of his body is obscured by the dense tree line. Impatience flashes across his expression.
“Time is wasting,” he whispers.
I hesitate. My mind floods with all the random monster crap that Shilo told me. I see it spread out like an informative after-school special supernatural montage. The Kushtaka lures his victims into the forest. I look around us and mentally check that box. The Kushtaka tricks you by disguises itself as a loved one … another checked box.
“Come on, Kayla,” Cheshire says.
Hearing my true name again sends a hot jolt through my limbs.
“What do you want to show me?” I ask.
He tries to hide a sneer with a smile. “You’ll love it. Quick now, before it’s too late.”
My gut begins to tumble and turn. My instincts are churning up like they’re in a washing machine. I have to make sure I’m right.
“Is it Gryphon? Has he finally organized that picnic for us?” I ask.
“Yes, yes. Gryphon. Good ol’ Gryphon has finally come through with the picnic.” He beckons me again. “Come on now, let’s not keep him waiting.”
This isn’t Cheshire. This is the monster that Shilo warned me about. This is the Kushtaka. Oh my God, the curator wasn’t alone. Human monsters I can deal with, but real ones?
“Come on!” it yells at me with Cheshire’s mouth.
I can’t move. I know I’m not going to follow it, but I can’t seem to move away from it either. How many others are there, these creatures? Things that go bump in the night, things that need to be bumped back. What’s worse, my brother was right all along. All that time apart. I take several deep breaths. We’ll never get our past back, but I’ll be damned if I let my family’s future slip away now. And hunting is the same no matter what your prey is.
“No thanks,” I manage, “but I’ll be seeing you real soon.”
I turn my back on him.
“You’re making a mistake!” he yells at me.
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but this isn’t one of them.”
An inhuman scream dissects the air around me. “All the lost belong to the Kushtaka! You belong to me! I tasted your blood,” he screams.
“I’m not lost anymore. I know exactly where I am.” And I flip him the bird. I stop mid-stride and turn back to it. It’s not Cheshire anymore but a nightmarish mass of fur and teeth, its sides heaving with anger. “So, you got to taste my blood, eh? I hoped you savored it, because it’s the last you’ll get.”
Worry shadows its face. “You’re different than what I remember, Kayla. You killed my feeder without any hesitation.”
“Creepy Curator was feeding you?” Of course, no one found the bodies. That’s how he’d gotten away with it for so long. It’s hard to track killers with no evidence of a kill.
“But don’t worry, I’ll find someone else to stock my snowy larder. Maybe your brother…”
I step forward and watch as the monster quickly shuffles back. “I’m a Wonderlander and whether you’re a man or a beast, it makes no difference to me. I’m trained to kill you all. Don’t make any immediate plans. I’ll be seeing you real soon.”
I walk with a firm stride back through the hospital doors, ready to get back my brother. I’m not lost anymore. I have a mind map laid out in front of me and a talon to retrieve from a trunk. No more baiting. No more waiting. No more wondering what’s real. There are monsters in this world and whether they are human or not I’m planning on one thing … hunting, even if I have to smash through a few Looking Glasses to do it.
Epilogue
“Are you ready to go now?” asks the angel.
Mr. Custard shuffles his feet, then takes off his bowler hat and wipes his forehead. “They still need me.”
“You can’t do anything for them, and this is your last chance to find peace.” The angel is dressed in a bright pink Lycra jumpsuit, as if he were on his way to do a 1980’s aerobics video.
“Don’t you think I know that? I can’t physically help them but I won’t abandon them again. Never again.”
The angel nods. “I understand. The Kushtaka will not leave Mouse alone now. She killed its vessel.”
“I know. That’s why I have to stay, to help Shilo protect her.”
“She can look after herself,” says a small voice from beside him. Mr. Custard looks down to see a girl dressed in an Alice in Wonderland costume. She takes his hand. “Mom and Dad taught her well. She’ll hunt it down easily. She even has a weapon to kill it. Shilo will be cared for by Bob and Jon. Come with us now.” She squeezes his hand.
“I’m sorry, I can’t do that. I want to see the Kushtaka die. And if Kayla does it, then all the better. I’m going to help them where I can.”
“I understand the need for revenge on this creature, but it did not murder your wife. It was the man. Mouse has already taken your vengeance and stopped him, as she was trained to do. If you do not go with us today, you will not be given another chance to leave this place.”
“I don’t want to leave this place. I want to stay with my family.”
The pressure on Mr. Custard’s hand eases and he looks down to find Alice gone.
The angel tugs at his jumpsuit, then turns to leave. He looks back at Mr. Custard one last time and smiles. “We won’t meet again. Goodbye, Dwayne. Good luck.”
The End
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TTTHDwajfjjj Goodbye, Dwayne. Good luck.”
Lost in Wonderland Page 10
