Jason pointed to his eye. “Do you call this harmless?” But the man just shrugged, and at last, it began to sink in. “He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?”
Elkins shifted. “Well, yeah, we went to school together, so …”
Jason held his hand up. He knew exactly what was going on here; this was small-town politics at work, and the only way anything would be done was if he took matters into his own hands. He stood. “Thank you for stopping by, officer. You’ll have to excuse me. I have some things to do.”
He ushered the useless cop out of his house, then called Dottie. She picked up on the first ring.
“I’m going to need a little more time, Dottie.”
“Take however much you need, dear.”
Jason ended the call, grabbed his keys, and stormed out of the house.
The Delgados lived in a run-down white clapboard at the end of Sixth Street.
Jason pulled up behind Travis’ black Jeep, and with no clear idea - and no real concern - about how this was going to go, he kicked open the chain link fence that surrounded the yard and stalked up to the porch. Making a fist, he pounded on the door. He’d decided against grabbing the tire iron from the trunk - that would make it too easy to go too far - and that was as much thought as he’d put into it.
Marlee answered, her sooty eyes going wide with alarm when she saw his face. She made to shut the door, but he stuck his foot out, stopping her.
“You go get that son of a bitch, Marlee, and you go get him now.” He spoke through clenched teeth.
Marlee’s bright red lips quivered. “Jason. Please. Just calm down and-”
“Go get him or I’ll break down the goddamn door.”
“Please,” she spoke in a raspy hush. “This isn’t a good idea. Just-”
“Who’s there?” Travis’ voice sounded from somewhere behind her.
“It’s Crandall,” Jason called. “Get out here, you piece of shit!”
Marlee closed her eyes, defeated. Travis’ hand appeared on her shoulder and she was promptly pushed away as her husband’s massive form filled the doorway.
But Jason was too furious to be intimidated by his size. He stepped forward and put a finger in the man’s face. “You ever come near my daughter again, and I’ll fucking kill you, do you understand me?”
“Please,” he heard Marlee saying in the background. “Don’t-”
“Shut the fuck up,” Travis told her. He smirked, stepped out onto the porch, and pulled the door shut behind him. “I take it you heard about my little play date with Amber.”
He’d fully expected the man to deny it and for an instant, Jason was taken aback - but the sound of his daughter’s name in the bastard’s ugly mouth reignited his fury. Travis towered over Jason in a sleeveless muscle shirt that showed off gigantic suntanned biceps. He wore blocky black work boots and greasy tangles of dark hair fell over his brow. Jason kept his eyes locked on Delgado’s, and said, “I have a real problem with that, my friend.”
Travis shrugged heavy, broad shoulders. “So? What’re you going to do about it?” He turned his head, casually spat, then squinted at Jason as if he were trying to make out something very tiny and very disgusting. “Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?” He chewed the words, spitting them out like poison.
In a window, Marlee’s face appeared as she pulled back the ratty sun-faded drapes, her eyes wide, mouth open.
Jason stepped closer to Travis. “I’m the guy who’s going to fucking kill you if you ever come near me or my family again.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
“Get the fuck off my porch, pervert.” Travis jabbed a finger into Jason’s chest.
And that - the first punch, so to speak - was the invitation Jason had been waiting for. He cocked his fist back and drove in square into the center of the man’s blocky face, turning his nose into a dripping tomato.
Travis staggered back, covering his face, blood gushing between his fingers. Jason lunged, knocked Delgado to the ground, and continued swinging his fists, socking him in the cheek, the lip, the side of the head, relishing the sickening sounds as his fists connected. “You motherfucker!” he screamed.
Marlee burst out the door and was on Jason’s back, shrieking as her small fists pounded and pummeled, but Jason was a man on fire and nothing short of more blood would put him out. Travis’ arms, for all their muscle, flailed uselessly, flopping like a pair of enormous landed fish as Jason wailed on his face, screaming. Blood splattered and flew. Marlee’s fists hammered at the side of Jason’s head and he bucked her off, sending her splattering onto the porch where she resigned herself to screaming and crying, pleading with him to stop.
But Jason didn’t stop - not until Travis Delgado’s face was an unrecognizable mess of blood and raw meat, not until his eyes rolled in their sockets, out of focus, not until his big arms stopped flopping and his legs quit kicking and he was gasping for breath as blood bubbled from his lips. Not until Jason saw teeth rolling around freely in his ruined mouth.
Only then did he stop swinging. Jason brought his face close to Travis’ and very clearly and very calmly, said, “You so much as look at either of my kids again and I’ll be back, and next time, I’ll shove my tire iron so far up your ass you’ll choke on it.”
“Uh-bub, uh-bub.” Travis tried to form words as he coughed and gurgled and swallowed convulsively.
In the new silence, Marlee was a wailing, weeping, shuddering mess, but it was just background noise; Jason barely heard her.
“Do you understand me?” he asked the broken man beneath him.
“Uh-Ggg. ye- Yes.” A tiny bubble of blood popped in the corner of Travis’ mouth.
His arms aching, hands throbbing, Jason stood, out of breath, and started down the steps toward his car on watery legs that didn’t feel real beneath him.
“You bastard!” Marlee shouted after him. “You-”
Jason whirled, pointing a finger. “Shut up, Marlee.”
Her wails cut off as if they’d been severed with a blade. She stared at him through bleary eyes, her face streaked with black makeup as if tiny racecars had peeled out, leaving tire tracks down her cheeks. She looked haggard and half-deranged. “But why? I don’t understand why!”
Jason ran a knuckle across his nose and sniffed. “Ask that gutless piece of shit on your porch, Marlee.”
She scrambled toward her husband, bending over him. Her mouth dropped open and she emitted what sounded uncannily like ripping leather.
Jason turned, leaving the Delgados on the porch like a pair of mangled patio chairs, got in the car, squealed out of the drive, and headed home, where he planned to wait for a visit from the police. If they didn’t come within half an hour, he’d go to Dottie’s and pick up his kids.
The cops never came and Jason had to give Travis credit for being smart - or proud - enough not to call them. Next time, I’ll kill the son of a bitch.
He hadn’t told anyone where he’d been or what he’d done. After tending the wounds on his aching hands, he’d retrieved Brent and Amber from Dottie’s, refusing to answer questions, and gone about business as usual. An hour or two later, when Brent asked if he could go back to the carnival with Liam, Jason’s first thought was, Absolutely not! but he knew he couldn’t do that. Reluctantly, he gave Brent the keys, asking only that he keep his phone close and that he wake him when he got home - not that Jason planned on sleeping. He was exhausted and his entire body ached as if he’d spent hours at the gym getting a full-body workout, but the adrenaline still pumped and his nerves were too raw, too tight, to relax.
Oddly, or perhaps stupidly, he wasn’t worried about Travis. He’d seen something in the man’s eyes in those last moments - something that told him an understanding had been reached. It looked like surrender. More, it looked like respect. But Jason didn’t care about surrender or respect from Travis Delgado. Neither of those things could put his mind at ease. Jason had changed. He’d learned something ab
out himself: that he’d meant what he’d said - he’d kill Travis, all six-foot-two, two-hundred and some-odd pounds of him, if he had to. He could - and would - protect his children at any cost, and he would not allow either of them to live in fear of Travis or anyone else.
Things were still a little weird with Brent since what Jason now thought of as The Unfortunate Bathroom Incident. There were a lot of furtive glances and some serious lack of eye contact, but Jason knew that, in time, the awkwardness between them would dissolve enough that Jason could properly - and wholeheartedly - apologize to his son. Or they could just pretend the whole thing had never happened - that was fine, too. He’d play it by ear.
He did apologize to Amber for scaring her earlier and explained to her very clearly that she must never, ever go with anyone she didn’t know. He and Julia had taught their kids this at early ages, but Amber was a trusting and carefree child - she’d need frequent reminders.
After their talk, Jason made her favorite meal - spaghetti - then spent nearly two hours as the voice of Reginald Breedlove, who was meeting his sister, Ruby, for the first time. A pretend tea party ensued - in Paris, with a stack of paperbacks serving as the Eiffel tower in the distance.
When Amber began nodding off in the middle of their make-believe adventures, Jason suggested they call it a night - and even then, he was reluctant to part with her. Today had been a wakeup call. Those few moments of hell when Amber had been missing had rearranged deep things within him, imparting a sense of separation anxiety he’d never experienced before. He knew he’d wake a dozen times tonight to check on her, just to watch her and be sure she was sleeping soundly. He also knew he’d worry about Brent until he got home and though he regretted letting him leave, Jason knew it wouldn’t be fair to keep his son on the same leash. He wondered how people with kidnapped children coped. He thought of John Walsh, of Elizabeth Smart’s and the Lindbergh baby’s parents; Jason had only touched his tongue to the acidic terror of a missing child, but they had swallowed mouthful after bitter mouthful of it, and it didn’t seem possible that they could have survived it.
When he put Amber to bed, she fell asleep instantly. Jason kissed her on the forehead and slumped into the corner of her room to watch her sleep, unable to force himself to leave. He hung his head and closed his eyes, listening to his daughter’s steady breath, resisting the urge to send Brent a poorly-disguised text to make sure he was okay. Brent was becoming annoyed with his badgering and Jason was running out of believable reasons to contact him without pissing him off. After an indeterminable amount of time, Jason stood, fluffed Amber’s pillow, then walked to her window to look out into the night. From here, he could see Tabitha Cooper’s house.
The old woman was visible through her window, sitting in her rocker, staring at unseen things. Now, with his new perspective, she seemed nothing more than Jim Cooper’s harmless old fortune-telling grandmother. From this angle, there was no looming Christ behind her, and she looked so benign, so peaceful, that he questioned whether she’d ever really been as macabre as he recalled.
Then she looked up at him. He gasped and stepped back, but quickly talked sense into himself. She can’t see me. Her fogged eyes still seemed to watch him, though. It was unnerving, but instead of drawing the blinds and hurrying away, he gave her a friendly - and futile - wave. “Goodnight, Tabitha Cooper.” He knew it was his imagination, but he thought he saw a tiny smile on the corners of her withered mouth.
In his dreams, Jason was walking through the woods. The frosty moon rode the sky, casting bars of silver light through breaks in the trees. Fog curled around his feet, drifting and swirling and reaching like ghosts. He smelled the dark, fresh earth, and distantly, something else - a powerful cloying sweetness that lay thick on his tongue.
A twig snapped behind him, then a rush of sound - like something dragging across the forest floor. He spun, and now he was in his own front yard, staring up at the old Victorian. His skin was so cold. An owl called out nearby, and in his periphery, he saw a white flash of wing. It vanished almost instantly.
The cat’s claw vine rustled and Jason turned to the house as dark forms began unfolding themselves, reaching out, reaching for him. His voice caught, thick and jagged in his throat. He stepped back as the vines shivered, uncoiling themselves from the banister on the veranda. They slithered toward him like slow determined snakes with a whispery hissing approach. He looked to the roses that choked the fence and they, too, writhed and crawled. Then, as one, the bright red blooms turned black, then ashen gray, as they withered, died, and crumbled into dust.
The vines found him. They wrapped around his ankle, biting into his skin as they crawled higher and squeezed tighter, tighter, like boa constrictors choking their prey. He tried to raise his leg but the stranglehold was too tight, and when he bent to rip them away, they snagged his hands, wrapping fast around them, crawling up his wrists like living things, over his arms, toward his throat. He was trapped, immobile.
Pain shot through his head and something warm and wet dripped into his eye. For a moment, all he could see was red. Blood! he thought wildly. I’m bleeding! And the questing vines at last found his throat. He smelled their decaying blooms and then, as they tightened, he couldn’t breathe at all. He felt a shriek building within him, but he had no voice with which to scream.
An owl called. It was coming closer, crying out in a screeching voice that shrilled and pulsed in his ears.
His lungs strained for oxygen. Panic took him as images flashed across his dimming vision: A shovel striking ground; hands fisted in blond hair; a glimmering gold cross; a mouth clotted with dirt; staring blind eyes; and trees, so many trees.
The owl was here.
Someone screamed.
The owl …
The world was red, the pain in his head unbearable.
Owl ...
Jason shot up from sleep as if emerging from icy water, tangled in sweat-dampened sheets. The wind had picked up; it made an eerie screeching sound outside the window. It was the owl … no, not the owl. Sirens. Blood-colored lights flashed and blinked, flickering red on his walls. He threw back the sheets and ran toward the window. It took him a moment to make sense of what he saw below.
An ambulance idled on the street in front of Tabitha Cooper’s.
He recognized Coop on the sidewalk, talking to a paramedic, his hands in his pockets, head down. Jason threw on pants and a shirt and shot from his room, hurrying down the stairs and out the front door.
He stopped short on the veranda as a couple of men roll a stretcher to the ambulance. “Coop,” he called.
Coop looked up. There was something eerie about him - about the way he melted into the shadows, the way the red emergency lights brought him out of darkness and flickered over his face, making him look as if he were covered in blood.
On trembling legs, Jason trotted down the steps and over to Tabitha Cooper’s yard. “What’s going on?”
Coop wore a wrinkled red shirt. He looked exhausted and haggard with messy ginger hair shooting out from beneath his red cap, an extra-sweaty face, and dark circles under bloodshot eyes. “My grandmother,” he said. “She’s gone.”
Speechless, Jason watched as the men pushed the covered stretcher into the back of the ambulance. The form under the white sheet looked surprisingly small. Jason waited for an arm to flop out from beneath the sheet in true horror movie fashion, but it never happened. “I’m sorry to hear that, Coop.”
Coop shrugged. “She called me - she sounded like she was having a hard time breathing. I hurried over but it was too late. They think she had a heart attack.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It was expected. To be honest, I didn’t think she’d make it this long.”
“But still …
One of the paramedics motioned Coop over to the ambulance.
“I better-”
“Yeah. Call me tomorrow?”
“I will.”
Coop headed over, shoulders hunched.
Jason watched a moment, then returned to the house. A figure at the top of the stairs made him gasp. It was Amber. She stood, rubbing her eyes, Reginald Breedlove in her arms. “What’s happening, Daddy? I heard noises.”
He wasn’t sure what to say. “Nothing, sweetie. Just go back to bed, okay?”
She blinked a few times, then said, “All right.” She turned and trudged back to her room, obviously half asleep.
Then Jason realized he hadn’t seen the car in the driveway - Brent wasn’t home yet. He grabbed his phone and looked at the time. It was almost midnight. He punched in Brent’s number.
It took several rings before he picked up. “Yeah?”
In the background, Jason heard the sounds of the carnival. “Brent?”
“Who else would it be?” His sarcasm somehow gave Jason comfort. “It’s not midnight yet.”
“I, uh … I’m just calling to make sure everything’s okay.”
In the background, a carnie welcomed folks to step right up, step right up. “Yeah, Dad. It’s fine.” He sighed. “I thought you said I could stay out late. You said as long as I woke you up when I got home-”
“I know, Brent. I just wanted to …”
“Check on me?” His son’s irritation was palpable. “Well? I’m still alive. Satisfied?”
“Yes, Brent.”
Brent’s tone softened. “I won’t be much longer, okay? I’m heading home now. I won’t even be late.”
“Okay.”
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I know you’re pretty shaken up about what happened with Amber today, so I get why you keep calling and texting. I don’t mean to be a jerk about it.”
“It’s okay, son. I’ll see you when you get here.”
By the time he ended the call, the nightmare he’d had was all but forgotten, but he was no less jittery.
Because something is coming.
The thought came unbidden and he had no idea what it meant, yet he knew it was the truth. Something was coming. He could feel it, almost taste it - bitter and sulfurous, it hung in the air. It was as if the gates of Hell had been flung open and the devil himself had stepped through, planting cloven-hooved feet solidly on new ground.
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