by Sara Reinke
She began to cry again, but Jay shook his head. “Beneath,” he whispered. She had to lean close to listen to him now; his struggle for breath had stripped him of almost any voice. “Beneath,” he whispered again, fervently against her ear. “We…we’re beneath something…a building. You have…to take the phone. Untie M.K. and the two of you go…go up…find a signal.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Bethany wailed, shaking her head.
“You have to,” Jay told her, pinning her with his eyes. Bethany had always hated it when adults talked to her and M.K. like they were stupid or babies, too young to face the truth, no matter how harsh. When Jay said this to her, when he stared at her, his own frantic, stark terror apparent in his face, she knew he was telling her the truth. “You have to,” he gasped again. “Beth…please…!”
He was dying. She knew it. They had all been brought down there to die. The man in the ski mask was just killing Jay more quickly. The longer she stood there sniveling like a child, the closer they all came to death. This realization shocked Bethany into action like a dousing of cold water, snapping her out of her hysteria, jolting her mind into a primal, primed, eerily calm state―her most basic of survival instincts kicked in and took over. She met Jay’s gaze, nodded, then turned and ran back toward her sister. She fell to her knees, setting the phone aside and jerking at M.K.’s bonds. “What are you doing?” M.K. asked.
“There’s no signal down here,” Bethany said, glancing up at her. “Jay’s phone won’t work. He says we’re beneath a building somewhere. He said we have to take it up, get it up high enough to get a signal so we can call Daddy for help.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” M.K. cried. “Get out of here, Bethany! Hurry! That man…he…he could be coming!”
“I know,” Bethany replied, yanking against the ropes. “That’s why I’m not leaving.” She looked up at her sister. “He’ll kill Jay. I can’t get him loose. That wire around his neck is strangling him.”
She yelped as the ropes came loose and M.K. tugged her hands free. The two sisters fell together, clutching at each other, both choking on tears. “This is my fault!” M.K. gasped against Bethany’s ear. “All my fault, Bethie, and I’m so goddamn sorry! I―”
“It doesn’t matter,” Bethany said, pressing Jay’s phone against her hands. “You go and call Daddy. I’m going to try to get Jay free somehow.”
“But I…!” M.K. began.
“M.K., take a lantern and go,” Bethany said, grabbing her roughly by the arm. “Go and get Daddy―please. We can’t leave Jay here. We can’t!”
M.K. blinked at her, stricken, and then nodded. She glanced toward Jay, and her face twisted with dismay. “I’ll bring back help,” she whispered, and then she darted for the door, snatching one of the lanterns in hand and disappearing out into the corridor.
* * *
“I need to get inside Liberty Sanitarium,” Paul told Cameron Taylor as they rode along the highway in Paul’s truck. He’d picked the kid up at his house fifteen minutes earlier. To his aggravation, Cameron had rallied the troops, or at least, in this case, Patchouli Girl, she of the hot pink hair and distinctive, spicy odor. He’d been deliberately vague on the phone with Cameron, in the hopes of avoiding just such a spectacle. He’d instructed the boy to bring no cameras, tape recorders, equipment or friends with him, and that Paul would explain more along the way. Apparently, he’d needed to specify pink-haired hippie-chicks, too.
“Awesome!” Cameron exclaimed, pivoting in the front passenger seat to grin broadly at Patchouli Girl. A glance in the rearview mirror showed Paul she was beaming to split her face wide open, too.
“Can you get me there?” Paul asked with a stern narrowing of his brows and a sideways glare that deadened the two teens’ enthusiasm. “You’ve been inside before. You’ve got pictures on your website. Can you show me around?”
“Sure,” Cameron replied. “It’s the getting inside that’s the trouble.” When Paul looked at him, puzzled, he said, “I told you―Milton Enterprises has that place locked up like Fort Knox. They have for more than a year now. Security gates, razor-wire fences, the whole nine yards. They say they want to keep people from getting up there and snooping around, getting hurt, with the construction underway.”
“Then how’d you get in before?” Paul asked.
“It wasn’t locked up before,” Patchouli Girl said. “You used to just be able to go up there, right into the building, evenm, if you wanted. It was fantastic. The energy in there is just killer.”
“Energy?” Paul raised his brow, glancing at Cameron. What kind of shit has she been smoking?
“Nikki is a psychic,” Cameron supplied helpfully. “You told me I couldn’t bring any equipment with me, wherever we were going. I figured it was going to be someplace hot, so I invited Nikki. I need to have someway of documenting any kind of phenomena we might―”
“I told you on the phone, this isn’t any of your Scooby Doo shit,” Paul told him, frowning. “This is police business.”
“Then why not get a warrant?” Nikki asked from the backseat, her brows raised in cool challenge. “If it’s police business, why do you need us to get inside?”
Paul shot her a glower and Cameron fidgeted uneasily. “Nikki, cool it,” he said. “Don’t blow this, alright. When the hell else are we ever going to get this kind of chance again? They’re going to tear it down, for Christ’s sake.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Nikki replied, folding her arms across her bosom. “The spirit energy will still be there. Tear it down, build stuff over it, it’s still going to remain.”
They rode along in silence for a long moment. Paul took the exit nearest the Liberty Heights development, and began following a narrow, winding network of sideroads twining up along a sloping ridgeside, approaching the base of the hill upon which the sanitarium had been constructed.
“So you’re a psychic,” Paul said, glancing at Nikki in his mirror again. “Tell me how to get in this place. Ask your ghost friend or spirit guide or whatever the hell it is you use.”
“That’s a medium,” Nikki said, sounding somewhat insulted. “I’m not a medium. I’m a psychometric. I can touch things and read psychic impressions from them.”
“Psychic impressions,” Paul repeated. Terrific.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m also a hypnotherapist, numerologist and crystal healer.”
“Terrific,” Paul muttered aloud. What the fuck have I signed up for here?
“There are all different kinds of psychics,” Cameron said. “There are psychometrics, like Nikki, and channelers, or mediums, like you were talking about―the ones who can communicate with spirits. Then you have readers―like palmreading, runestones and tarot cards, sort of like your old soothsayers of Greek mythology. They use diviners, external objects to predict future events.”
“Then you have the ones with the clair senses,” said Nikki. “The empaths, clairsentients, clairvoyants…”
Paul hadn’t been paying much attention to them, having convinced himself they were both fucking nuts, and he was fucking nuts to have brought them along. He’d tuned them out, leaning forward, watching through the window as the ruined remains of Liberty Sanitarium appeared in his view, looming against the hilltop like the remnants of a long-dead monster, the exposed crest of an enormous, hulking skull left to wither, crumble and rot in the sun. All of a sudden, he slammed on the brakes, his eyes flying wide as he gripped the steering wheel tightly enough to blanch his knuckles. Cameron pitched forward, snapping back against the seat as his seatbelt drew taut. Nikki yelped in the back, rocking forward against the restraining strap of her own belt. “Ow! Goddamn it!” she cried. “A little warning, why don’t you!”
“What did you say?” Paul asked, turning to look at her.
“I said give a little warning next time!” she exclaimed, rubbing her sternum and scowling.
“No, before that. Before I hit the brakes. You said a name. Claire Somebody.”
She sh
owed me a picture in my mind of you following Scooby Doo, Emma had told him, She said he’d help you find what you were looking for. Scooby and Claire Boyett.
Paul had found Scooby Doo, but he’d still had no earthly idea who this Claire Boyett was. He’d wracked his brain, struggling to recount each and every woman he’d ever met in his lifetime, even if only in casual acquaintance, but still the name―Claire Boyett―meant nothing to him.
“Claire Boyett,” Paul said to Nikki. “Do you know someone by that name?”
“I…I didn’t say Claire Boyett,” Nikki said, the indignant aggravation in her face yielding to hesitant bewilderment. “I said clairvoyant. I was talking about different kinds of psychics.” Her brows pinched slightly again. “You weren’t even listening to me, were you?”
He ignored the eery resemblance to his ex-wife’s favorite comment. Is that what Emma meant? Clairvoyant? She wants me to use a goddamn psychic to find Jay and the girls?
“A clairvoyant is someone who sees things in their mind,” Cameron said. “Extrasensory perception. Usually, they get impressions―visions―about things as they’re happening, rather than about future or past events. If they can feel it as well as see it, then they’re called empaths, too. Clairempaths.”
Paul blinked, startled. “What…what about dreams?” he asked quietly. When Cameron looked puzzled, he said, “Dreams. Do these clair-what’s-it people see things in their dreams?”
“Clairvoyants,” said Nikki. “Sure. Most of them are more perceptive during sleep, in fact, or similar relaxed states, like meditation or hypnosis.” She blinked at him, her expression softening, her mouth unfolding in a smile. “You’re sensitive,” she said. “You’ve dreamed about this place, haven’t you? That’s why you’re taking us here. You can feel the energy here, too.”
“No,” Paul replied and he frowned, rubbing at a sudden tickle in his nose. “I don’t believe in that bullshit.”
He moved his hand and found blood spotted against his fingertips. He blinked in surprise, and then blood slid in a thick stream from his nostril, spattering against the console between the front seats. He yelped, clapping his hand over his nose, and blinked in new surprise as Nikki offered him a tissue from her purse.
“My nose used to bleed here, too,” she said. “I have to bring this with me now…” She held up a little rabbit’s foot keychain charm, the fur dyed hot pink to match her hair. “It belongs to my friend, Charlie. It gives me something to focus on―him―so I don’t get overloaded here.”
* * *
They reached the main security gate and parked the truck. Beyond the chainlink perimeter, the access road wound steadily onward and upward toward the ruins of the sanitarium. Paul could see that side roads for the proposed subdivision were already well under construction, with asphalt laid and cul-de-sacs already clearly designated.
The gate was unmanned. A keypad entry was mounted on a metal post beside the gate, so those with access could go further beyond. And those without have to stand here with their thumbs up their asses, Paul thought in desperate dismay, hooking his fingers through the links in the gate and giving it a frustrated shake. Goddamn it!
“What did you see in your dreams? Nikki asked, standing behind him. His nose had stopped bleeding, but she hadn’t quit her persistent niggling at him. He did his best to ignore her, but at any moment now, he knew he was liable to handcuff the little pink-haired, rabbit-foot-toting wretch and toss her in the back of his truck. If only to shut her the hell up.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, without looking over his shoulder at her. “If we can’t get inside, it doesn’t make a goddamn bit of difference.” He glanced at Cameron, his brows lifting in implore. “Any ideas, kid? You’re the experienced trespasser here.”
“We could climb it,” Cameron suggested, but when he looked up toward the tight coils of razor wire crowning the fenceline, he didn’t look wholly confident. “Throw our shirts over the top to keep from cutting ourselves. That’s how they do it in the movies, anyway.”
Paul looked dubious. He had visions in his mind of reaching the top, swinging his leg over and losing his balance, misstepping somehow. If that happened, it would be his crotch landing against the razor wire, and shirt or no shirt between his balls and the blades, he knew he’d be in for one very impromptu―not to mention painful―vasectomy.
What fucking choice do I have? he asked himself. My girls are in there! Jay’s in there! I’ve got to get inside―there’s no other way!
“Paul, if you’ve been here in your dreams, it’s because you’re sensing someone who’s been here,” Nikki said. “If you’re dreaming about being inside the building, it’s because they’ve been there. And if they have, they must know the combination to this gate. Which means you do, too.”
He turned to her. “What?” he asked, shaking his head. “Don’t you think if I knew the goddamn combination to this thing, I’d use it?” He walked toward her, angry now―not at her, but at his circumstances in general. He was angry and frustrated and desperately, dangerously terrified. “Do you want to know what I’ve dreamed about? I dreamed about two girls tied up inside that building…” He shoved an emphatic forefinger toward the sanitarium. “Tortured and mutilated and finally murdered. I’ve dreamed that I did it. And now my daughters are in there…” His voice broke as tears welled in his eyes. His brows furrowed and he shoved his hand against his brow, uttering a hoarse little cry. “Goddamn it, my kids are in there, and so is my brother, alone with the sick fucking son of a bitch I’ve been dreaming about! So again, I’ll ask―don’t you think if I knew the goddamn combination, I would use it and get us in there?”
Nikki blinked at him, wide eyed and startled, and he turned, stomping back to the gate. He seized it in his hands and shook it mightily. “Goddamn it!” he screamed, his voice echoing, rolling along the hillside.
When she touched his sleeve to draw his gaze, he whirled, still blinking against tears, ready to yell at her to just get away from him. She smiled at him oddly, holding up a necklace she’d removed from about her neck, a length of black cord with a long, slender crystal dangling at the end. The crystal facets winked in the sunlight, fluttering glimpsed of red, green and violet.
“You ever been hypnotized before?” she asked.
* * *
In his mind, Paul watched himself roll down his truck window, leaning toward the keypad beside the gate. It was dark outside, late, and he had his radio on, the volume turned down, some kind of noisy, rattling rock station he ordinarily couldn’t stand. He reached for the keypad, his forefinger extended, and he typed in by instinct, the numbers long-since memorized and known to him.
Five, eight, one, nine, zero, three.
“Star,” he murmured aloud, as in his mind, he watched himself push the asterick key last. He blinked, startled, snapping out of his reverie, and found himself sitting in the passenger seat of his Explorer, bathed in midmorning sunshine, with Nikki, the pink-haired psychic standing beside him in the doorway, smiling.
“What?” he asked, and he frowned, scratching his head. He felt like he’d taken a cat nap, which was assinine, because who the hell could relax when M.K., Bethany and Jay were somewhere on the other side of that gate, and needed―
The gate!
“I remember,” he whispered, his eyes flying wide. He leaped down from the truck, shoving Nikki aside as he ran for the keypad. “I remember!”
“Five, eight, one, nine, zero, three, star,” he whispered, typing the keys in sequence. He heard the chain and gears of the gate rattle as they lurched to sudden life, and then the gate began to open, sliding backward on its track.
“Told you it would work,” Nikki said, beaming happily.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” he growled, hopping into the driver’s seat. “Get in or hitch home.”
When they reached the top, they all sat silently, leaning forward and peering through the windshield at the enormous, hulking ruins of Liberty Sanitarium. Christ, the air here
feels cold, Paul thought, as a shiver slid through him. Heavy and musty and cold…something. It feels dead.
“You stay here,” he told Nikki, glancing in his rearview mirror at her. He fished his cellphone out of his pocket and tossed it over his shoulder to her. “If Fox Mulder here and I aren’t back in thirty minutes, you dial 9-1-1 and call for backup. Give them my badge number…” He shifted his weight, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his wallet. He handed it to her, opened, so that his brass lieutenant’s badge was showing. “And tell them I’ve been shot.” When she blinked at him, her eyes widening in alarm, he winked. “That hopefully won’t be true, but it should get them out here right away.”
He glanced at Cameron, who looked decidedly ashen and anxious, and clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, kid. It’s show time.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Do you know who it is?” Cameron asked, as he and Paul walked slowly, carefully along the shadow-draped corridors of the abandoned sanitarium. Paul had brought along his flashlight, and moved just as he had through the empty houses with Brenda, with his hands crossed, both the beam of light and the barrel of his pistol pointing ahead of him. Cameron walked quickly behind him, shied as near to him as he could get without tripping either one of them. He spoke in a voice scarcely above a whisper, and his eyes darted about him in constant, watchful apprehension. “The killer, I mean. The guy you said you’ve been dreaming about.”
“No,” Paul whispered in reply. He paused as they reached a fairly wide intersection of corridors, and Cameron nodded once to indicate they bear left. Paul had described the staircase from his dreams to Cameron, and the young man had surmised that it could be one of the main stairwells to the building’s cellar, the network of catacombs and tunnels that had once been used to store and transport the dead from the facility.
“Do you think it has something to do with the Watcher?” Cameron asked. “On account of you caught him and all? Do you think that’s what this is?”
