A Voice So Soft © 2019 by Patrick Lacey. All rights reserved.
Grindhouse Press
PO BOX 521
Dayton, Ohio 45401
Grindhouse Press logo and all related artwork copyright © 2019 by Brandon Duncan. All rights reserved.
Cover design by Scott Cole © 2019. All rights reserved.
Grindhouse Press #056
ISBN-10: 1-941918-53-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-941918-53-1
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including mechanical, electric, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher or author.
Other titles by Patrick Lacey
Where Stars Won’t Shine
Bone Saw
We Came Back
Dream Woods
A Debt to be Paid
Sleep Paralysis
Practitioners (with Matt Hayward)
Lords of the Deep (with Tim Meyer)
For Emily, who can make an imaginary microphone out of literally anything.
PROLOGUE
THE GIRL ON TV
OFFICER MIKE MALLORY SHINED HIS light into thick blackness. From the outside, the place was harmless enough: a two-story colonial with a newly finished front porch. It was the nicer part of town, homes much larger than necessary. Lawns trimmed to perfection. In-ground pools shimmering in the moonlight. But despite the well-to-do environment, the house in front of him made his skin crawl.
Every light was off save for one. The top left. The girl’s room. He could tell from the stickers: pink and purple flowers faded from the sun. He shined the light toward the front door and saw his reflection staring back at him. But was there something else? Something behind the glare?
He’d responded to a domestic dispute call ten minutes prior, asking the dispatcher to confirm the address three times before he took off in this direction. Mike had answered plenty such calls during his six years on the force but never on this side of town. Cedar Drive was about as upper class as you could get.
Next door, an old woman stared from her screen door, eyes wide with something like fear. Probably the one who’d made the call. He caught her attention, nodded, let her know it was okay now that the police were here.
He cracked his neck and made his way up the drive. At the front door, he knocked and nearly yelped as the door pushed forward, creaking into the night. He reached for a light switch, felt the plastic button, pushed it.
Nothing. The room remained dark. A blown fuse, probably. Nothing more to it.
He stepped inside, shined the beam left, right, straight. Shadows danced on their own accord. He thought he heard something upstairs, some muffled voice that held dark promises. The air was heavy with the threat of a thunderstorm. He’d checked the weather earlier, though. Nothing but clear skies. An astronomer’s wet dream, the shock jock had said on the radio.
Mike cleared his throat. “Hello? Is anyone home?”
Of course they’re home, moron. They were just yelling at each other ten minutes ago. Probably hiding in their rooms.
He’d never been married himself—came close to it once, though—but Mike knew the way couples fought. His parents, together twenty years before being crushed by an eighteen-wheeler on a cool January night, had never shown anything close to affection in front of little Mikey. If they weren’t arguing about bills or the way Dad looked at other women, they were playing the cold shoulder game, seeing who could outlast the other. Usually it was a tie. He recalled silences so dense he could hear his own pulse, make out with great detail how the faucet leaked once every twenty seconds or so.
That silence was a lot like this, only back then he hadn’t felt such . . . what was the word?
Dread.
He walked through a large entryway. Fur coats were draped over hooks. A large mirror hung on the far wall. The reflected light blinded him for a moment. He shut his eyes, walked forward.
And slipped on something.
He went down hard, head hitting the floor. The backs of his eyes seared with pain and for a moment he wondered if he didn’t have a concussion. He felt an egg already starting to form and he could’ve stayed down all night if it weren’t for the creak above.
The ceiling buckled and the voice from earlier grew louder. He thought he heard music.
He tried to get up, slipped again. When he shined the light onto the floor he saw what looked like a slick puddle of oil. But the metallic, slightly sweet scent made him think of something else.
Blood.
There was blood everywhere.
It had leaked from around the corner, from the kitchen. It was all over him, soaking through the sleeves of his shirt. There were bits of something within the red. Something like skin and hair.
He backed away until he felt carpet, stood up, drew his nine millimeter pistol.
He called for backup, informing dispatch this was more than a domestic dispute. There may have been arguments but they’d turned to something sinister.
Pistol pointed toward the kitchen, he moved slowly.
“Hello?” he said again, louder but just as weak. “This is Officer Mike Mallory. If you can hear me, put your hands above your head and stay where you are.”
No response. Unless you counted the noises above.
He took another step, hands shaking so badly the Mag became a strobe light. His equilibrium grew schizophrenic.
The blood trailed around the corner.
He lost the bowl of chili he’d eaten at Steve’s Diner two hours earlier. Hot bile and half-digested beef made its way out of his throat and onto the tiled floor. Though the room was larger than Mike’s entire apartment, he felt the walls closing in.
In the middle of the kitchen lay an island counter and on that counter lay two bodies. Faces up, staring at the ceiling with gouges that had once housed eyes. Someone had taken a chef’s knife to them and they’d been in a hurry. There was nothing methodical about the wounds. They formed random patterns that reminded Mike of tiny mouths, the exposed bone a bit like teeth.
Get out and wait for backup. This is a double homicide and the killer is—
Upstairs. Footsteps again.
He thought of the faded flower stickers, raised his pistol, took the steps two at a time. On the second level, a small rectangle of light leaked beneath the girl’s door. On the other side, music played. Something poppy, synths blaring over a catchy but lifeless tune.
“Hello? Is anyone in there?”
More footsteps.
And something like a giggle.
He tried the knob. Locked. He kneeled down, peered through the crack, and saw only one set of tiny feet. That didn’t mean the killer wasn’t in there, hiding inside the closet and instructing her to keep quiet.
“This is the police. I’m going to count to three before breaking down the door. Do you understand?”
A snort of laughter.
“One.”
The volume on the television increasing.
“Two.”
Words of some kind. The girl humming along with the tune.
“Three.”
Mike stepped back and charged. The door slammed open, though he instantly wished it had stayed shut.
There was no killer inside, at least not the kind he’d been expecting. His mind had conjured a large man, filthy beard and tattered trench coat. Instead there was a girl of perhaps eight or nine. Unlike her parents downstairs, she was still alive, but they did have something in common.
Her eyes were gone.
Two jagged
holes cried crimson tears down her cheeks and onto the carpet. The fabric was soaked through.
She danced around the room, head rocking back and forth like everything in the world was as it should be.
“Your eyes,” Mike said. “Who did this to you?”
She stopped, giggled. “I did. Duh. Do you see anyone else?”
“Your parents.”
She nodded. “They had it coming. That’s what Angie said.”
“Angie?”
The girl pointed to another girl. This one on the television screen. Some sort of reality game show, the kind where singers put their talent to the test in exchange for a record deal and a chunk of change. The girl on stage shook her hips with such primal force Mike felt his skin tingle despite the fear. She was beautiful, barely out of high school, and he could not deny the shiver along his spine.
“Isn’t she pretty?” The eyeless girl kneeled down, felt along the floor until she found what she was looking for.
A chef’s knife, the blade tinted red.
Mike shook his head, stepped back. “Drop it.”
“I can’t. She won’t let me.”
“She?”
“Haven’t you been listening? What Angie wants, Angie gets.”
Another step back. Out of the room now, his back touching the banister. “You mean the girl on the TV?”
“She has the best voice in the world and she says soon the world will be hers. Isn’t that cool?” She held the knife forward.
“Don’t move. I’m warning you.”
“Angie said you’d say that. And you know what else she said?”
A murmur in the back of his throat was all he could manage.
“She said you’re not above shooting a little girl in the chest.” She charged forth, wound back—
And Mike pulled the trigger twice, both shots piercing the girl’s ribs. She hit the banister and broke through the slats, tumbling downstairs and landing at an odd angle.
On the television, the beautiful girl sang her heart out.
“You can do this,” Miranda Irons said to the mirror.
In its reflection she saw a stranger, face covered in layers of make-up. Back home—home being LaPlace, Louisiana—she never even bothered to wear foundation. Her skin was flawless and she’d inherited her mother’s ample bosom. She was, by all accounts, a natural beauty. Not quite a knockout but easy on the eyes in a simple sort of way. But on television, things were different. Singers couldn’t be bumpkins. Country superstars had sex appeal. And tonight, staring at the stranger in the mirror, she couldn’t help but smile.
“Not bad. Not bad at all.”
Her parents had wished her luck moments before, telling her she’d do fine. She had this in the bag. For a while, she’d believed them.
Until Angie Everstein took the stage.
Miranda could sing her ass off but Angie’s voice was something else entirely. It demanded your attention. Miranda had watched as the girl—eighteen years old, strawberry blond hair, eyes exotic yet accessible—sang her final song of the competition. She had the crowd in the palm of her perfect little hands.
Miranda’s nerves set in shortly thereafter. She dry heaved into the toilet bowl. She hadn’t eaten anything beyond a granola bar and a kale smoothie in the last two days. Her figure was great but her self-esteem was not.
Because one did not simply follow Angie Everstein. It would take an act of God to outsing her but Miranda couldn’t give up now. She’d made it this far. The judges and viewers saw something in her.
She ought to march down to Angie’s dressing room and congratulate her on a song well sung. That was the honorable thing to do. It might even calm her some.
She nodded at the mirror and the stranger didn’t seem so strange anymore. She may have been covered in layers of make-up but her true self, the one her parents had raised her to be, was proud.
She spun around, marched toward the door, opened it—
And froze.
A figure stood before her. Tall and misshapen. Her eyes went out of focus, the details of the thing—for it was a thing and not a human—becoming obscure. She backed away, held her hands up in defense. The room turned from inferno to ice box. A cold draft blew from somewhere unseen and she cursed the wardrobe people for dressing her so skimpy. Every inch of her skin grew rigid. She shivered beyond control.
The temperature was the least of her worries.
She searched for a weapon but there was nothing more than a hair curler and a bottle of moisturizer.
“Stay away from me,” she said. “I’ll call for help.”
The figure stepped closer. Her eyes grew fuzzier. A headache soared through her temples. Despite the chilly breeze, there came the scent of something burning. She imagined charred chicken wings, forgotten on a grill, only this was much more . . . human-like.
She backed away until she felt the wall on her shoulder blades. Cornered.
She opened her mouth to scream, vocal lessons be damned, when the thing touched her cheek. Its flesh was cold and smoldering at the same time. She closed her eyes, prepared for death.
When she looked again the thing was gone, replaced with the girl who’d been on television moments before.
“Everything okay?” Angie Everstein said. This close her green eyes were flawless. The irises went on for days and there was something inside her pupils, something that made Miranda’s skin tingle.
Miranda rubbed her face, smearing professional make-up. “I thought you were a . . .”
“Monster?” Angie smiled.
Miranda laughed. “I must be going crazy.”
Angie’s smile widened. Miranda’s tingling grew stronger. It covered much of her body, descended until it stopped just above her waist, not entirely unpleasant. “No offense taken.” Angie brushed aside a strand of Miranda’s hair. “I just wanted to give you a good luck kiss.”
“A what?”
She leaned forward and placed her lips upon Miranda’s. Just a peck but strong enough to take her breath away.
Even when the kiss was over, Miranda struggled for air. Her lungs worked overtime, throat swelling. She thrashed, begged Angie with her eyes.
Angie offered another million-dollar smile, pupils swirling with something like smoke. “Knock ’em dead, kid.” She turned, flaunting a body that was the subject of countless thirteen-year-old boys’ fantasies.
Miranda fell to her knees.
Just before her brain stopped talking to the rest of her body, she swore the thing was back. The thing from earlier with the dark skin and the misshapen limbs. And were those cloven hooves at the bottom of its contorted legs? And were those jagged horns on the top of its furry head?
Blood began to pour from her mouth, her nose, her eyes, and Miranda Irons lost the competition by default.
Making Angie Everstein the undisputed champion.
CHAPTER ONE
SETTING THE STAGE
“WHO THE FUCK IS ANGIE Everstein?” Josh Meyers held the CD, examined the neon cover with the half-naked girl. She looked manufactured, like she’d been squeezed from a mold and formed into a pop star. There was something off about her too. He could almost imagine her eyes turning black, her skin turning a pale gray.
“You really don’t own a television, do you?” Trish said, reading through the list of new releases. “Or a radio for that matter.”
“Only time I listen to the radio is for the weather. She have a new single or something?”
“Biggest song in the world. Number one on just about every chart. She won that singing contest show. The one where they have has-been celebrities judge you. The Harmony Club or something like that.”
“Any good?”
“What do you think?” Trish rolled her eyes, hidden behind layers of black and green mascara that gave way to a nose ring, a lip ring, and, as Josh had speculated many a late night, probably nipple rings. She was beautiful in a non-traditional way, didn’t give a shit about appearances. That was the reason he’d hired h
er in the first place.
Not that he’d be able to afford her—or the store for that matter—much longer.
He looked around the shop and could not help but notice a layer of dust resting over everything. Nobody bought physical music anymore. Why would you when you could click a mouse and have it hand delivered to you? Black Star Records, Salem’s “premier” underground music store, specialized in everything that wasn’t mainstream. You had your metal—black, death, thrash, and everything else that lay between. You had your punk—crust, hardcore, crossover, and so forth. Then there was the ska and the reggae, the jazz and garage. Anything that wasn’t on the television or the radio. That’s what Black Star was all about.
Which is why Josh couldn’t make sense of the CDs.
He hadn’t ordered them. Far from anything they carried and none of his regulars would be interested.
Angie Everstein. She could have been eighteen or twenty-three. Wore a sparkly dress that ended just below an anatomically perfect ass, which matched her legs and just about everything else about her. Josh despised pop stars and everything they represented but there was something about this one. He hated to admit it, but she was quite easy to look at.
He set the CD back into the box and scratched his beard. Long, unkempt, it matched the rest of his body. He didn’t shower all that often these days. Not since the separation. Melissa had taken everything: his money, his house—even some of his beloved records.
Don’t forget about your dignity. She took that and ran with it.
Truth be told, he’d lost that years ago, when he’d learned of his wife’s extra-marital activities. Salem wasn’t the world’s smallest town but word still traveled quickly. At current count, Josh knew of five guys Melissa had fucked on the side. He’d met three, even traveled in some of the same circles. All losers. That seemed to be her type. Never mind her nice, if not smothering, husband. Little old Josh who’d saved every penny from his office job to follow his dreams and open a record store. No, she wanted the deadbeat, grungy pricks that so often frequented Black Star.
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