The apartment echoed dully with the sound of breaking, splintering wood. When she heard a man’s low voice start muttering curses, and then she saw him step out into the hallway, spin on his heel, and pound his fist against the wall, she knew it was already too late to get out of there unseen.
“Uhh… excuse me…?” she said after clearing her throat.
The man jerked his head up and looked at her, his eyes wide with surprise. After pinning her with a piercing stare, looking at her quizzically as if he should recognize her, he shouted, “Yeah, and what the fuck do you want?”
Completely flustered, her hands weaving in front of her, Alice tried to think of something to say, but nothing would come out of her mouth except a series of stammers and gasps.
The man tensed his arms, bouncing both fists at his sides as he moved slowly forward. When Alice got a better look at him, her stomach contracted into an icy ball. His face was flushed with exertion, and his pale eyes glowed with a wild, crazed gleam. A single, pulsing blue vein stood out on the center of his forehead. The tendons in his neck looked like thick pencils underneath his taut skin. His close-cropped blond hair gave him a strict, almost military look. Knowing what she knew about Cindy’s situation, Alice wondered if this might not be a policeman or FBI agent who had been keeping Cindy under surveillance and now was pissed at discovering that she had taken off.
“I asked you,” he said, dragging his voice with menace and all the while moving steadily forward. “What the fuck do you want?”
For the first time, Alice noticed his accent, which had a slight western twang to it. Actually, it sounded quite a bit like Cindy’s accent.
“I—I was just… see, I live next door and I … and I heard some noise,” Alice said, ending in a tight giggle.
She wished she didn’t sound so flaky, but the man’s presence had thrown her completely off balance. She was trying desperately to think of a way to get out of this gracefully. “I was—you know, trying to sleep. I called in sick at work, and the noise woke me up.”
She paused and stared back at him, her mind a white blank of mounting fear. Then an idea suddenly struck her.
“Hey,” she said, snapping her fingers and pointing at him, but still horribly aware of the nervous tremor in her voice. “I’ll bet you’re the guy who’s moving into this apartment, right?”
He seemed to recognize the fear he had generated in her and silently regarded her with a long, cold stare. Then, very slowly, a smile spread across his face, exposing his upper teeth.
“Where the fuck is she?” he said in low, measured tones that sounded like an angry parent who was trying his best to keep his anger under control.
“Huh?… Where’s who—?” Alice said with a silly shrug. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
He said nothing as he glared at her, apparently enjoying how scared she was.
“I… I thought—you know, this apartment’s been vacant for a couple of weeks, now, maybe even a month. When I first heard you in here, I thought maybe you might be Mr. Lindeman, you know, the landlord—”
“No, I ain’t no fucking landlord,” the man said with a dark, deepening frown as he moved even closer to her. He stopped only a few feet away from Alice, so close that she could feel the heat of his breath wash across her face when he spoke. She knew he could easily grab her if she tried to get away now, but she couldn’t stop thinking longingly about her own apartment just across the hall, and how safety was so close… so close…
Why the hell didn’t I just keep my nose out of this? she asked herself as her mind clicked through several possibilities of what she might do next. It was obvious that playing dumb wasn’t going to work. This guy—whoever the hell he was—knew damned right well that Cindy had been here as recently as yesterday.
“Uh, look, mister, I don’t want any trouble, okay?” Alice said shakily. Involuntarily, she took a quick step away from him, but he followed it up with his own step forward. “When I first heard you knocking around in here, I called the police to report a break-in, so you might want to—”
“Bullshit!” the man snarled, followed by a burst of snorting laugh. “I know damned right well you didn’t. You see, the trouble with you—with all of you fuckin’ bitches is, you just don’t know how to lie convincingly. Now, men—” He straightened up and smacked his fist into the palm of his hand. “Men, on the other hand, can lie through their fuckin’ teeth and never get caught at it. But you fuckin’ women! Christ on a cross, you get so nerved up and fidgety whenever you even try to pull one over on us men.”
He looked down at the floor a moment and, stroking his chin, shook his head as though deeply saddened.
“No, I know damned right well you haven’t called the cops,” he said softly, “because you told me just a second ago that you thought I might be the landlord when you first heard the racket in here.” He took a deep breath and exhaled noisily, like he was trying his best to control his impatience. “No, I suspect the real truth is, you might have thought it was Cindy still knocking around in here. Didn’t you?… Didn’t you?”
Alice opened her mouth and tried to say something, but her throat closed off with a sharp gasp. All she could do was shake her head in earnest denial.
“I know that’s what you thought, so don’t try to bullshit me, telling me this place has been empty, or that you’ve already called the police. Don’t give me any of that shit, okay?”
Before Alice could respond, he suddenly lunged forward and grabbed the front of her bathrobe. Balling it up into his fist, he pulled her helplessly forward, dragging her until her face was inches from his. The wild gleam in his eyes sent a bolt of terror through her. Beneath her fear, a calm, rational voice deep inside her brain was telling her that this guy wasn’t anything close to a cop or FBI agent. No, he was a full-tilt-boogie loony tunes nut-case.
Jesus Christ, Cindy was right! Alice thought as numbing icy waves of terror rippled through her. There really was someone after her, and he is seriously dangerous!
“Now, I’m gonna ask you one simple question,” the man said in a low, raspy voice. He held his forefinger so close to her face she couldn’t focus on it.
“Just once, and then I’m going to give you about three seconds to give me an answer.” He skinned his lips back, exposing his teeth, and Alice was suddenly fearful that he was about to bite her. She almost gagged on his stale breath.
“And if you don’t… well, then…”
He let his voice trail away menacingly and punctuated it with another low rumble of laughter.
Limp with terror and fearful for her own safety, Alice shook her head weakly from side to side. The strength and any spirit of resistance was draining from her body, and she couldn’t stop the simpering, whiny noises she was making.
“Now, you tell me,” the man said evenly, “exactly where the fuck she went!”
Alice was close to fainting. Her vision blurred, making dozens of splintered images of the man’s face rotate in watery circles in front of her eyes, like a crazy kaleidoscope. Her ears thundered with the steady pounding of her heart that kept going faster and faster as a deep, burning pressure built up inside her head. “You’d better tell me, you lousy bitch. Right now, or else you’re gonna be one very sorry lady. I’m startin’ to count. One…”
He waited a beat.
“… Two…”
Alice couldn’t have spoken if she had wanted to. The man’s twisting grip was tightening the collar of her bathrobe around her throat, cutting off her air supply. A thin slip of air hissed between her teeth.
“…Three…”
Bright, trailing pinpoints of white light tracked like comets across her vision, and from every side, a thick, vibrating blackness started seeping inward like a slow-spreading ink stain.
“… Four…”
Her lungs, starved for air, felt like they were on fire. She was barely aware of the burning itch of pins-’n-needles that was spreading through her body. Something in the back of h
er head was making a wild crackling sound, like a raging brushfire.
“… Five!”
The man’s voice sounded muffled.
“Now, tell me where the fuck she went, or I swear to Christ, I’ll fucking kill you!”
Alice suspected that the man was yelling at her, but his voice was strangely faint and hollow, as though he were calling to her from the distant end of a cave. The darkness in front of her-eyes was frothing like powerful surges of night surf, engulfing her awareness. She was only dimly conscious of herself shaking her head back and forth in denial.
I’ll… never.., tell… you… you… bastard!… I’ll… never… tell!…
The words echoed like rolling claps of thunder in her mind, but she had no idea whether or not she said them out loud. The swirling darkness filled her vision, shifting gradually with vibrant, angry red flashes. The rapid pounding of her pulse in her ears sounded like distant cannon shot, but then, with a loud, clean snap, it all suddenly stopped. She felt herself floating… gliding
… gliding lazily downward?…
… upward?…
… sideways?…
… It suddenly didn’t seem to matter as she felt herself being enfolded into a soft cushion of impenetrable darkness.
The last thing she realized was, The pain… the excruciating pain is over…
3
Jesus Chris, this could have gone better!
That was Alex’s first thought when he felt the woman slump forward into his arms. Slight tremors shook the muscles in his legs and arms as he lowered her limp body gently to the floor, letting it slide until her head bumped the carpet with a dull thud. Kneeling beside her, he loosened the bathrobe collar from around her neck and stared, long and hard at the angry red ring of wrinkled skin that circled her throat like a twisting necklace. Her face looked slightly swollen and was infused a bright red, almost purple, but the color was starting to fade now that the constriction around her neck had been relieved. Shivering, Alex felt for a pulse in her neck, but there was none. He peeled back her eyelids and stared at the bulging, glistening eyeballs. They had rolled far up into her head as if she were trying to study her eyebrows.
“I warned you, and you should’ve listened to me,” he said in a low, trembling voice. “You should’ve fuckin’ told me where she went.”
He stared at the woman’s slack expression a moment longer, then, realizing he couldn’t hang around here regretting what had happened, he stood up and shook himself. He had to clear his mind and think about what he wanted to do next. He certainly hadn’t planned on killing this woman, but he told himself that he had realized, as soon as she started talking, that she would have made trouble for him if he had ever let her get away. Hell, she had gotten a good, close look at his face, and if she had gotten a chance to report him to the police they might have caught up with him before he caught up with Cindy.
There was no way he could allow that to happen!
No, this was bad, but it wasn’t a total disaster. He’d think of something!
Clasping his hands together and taking a deep breath, Alex stood up and looked around at the deserted apartment. Bars of warm, yellow morning sunlight filtered through the grimy windows, casting hot, hard shadows across the worn carpet. Dust swirled in the stale, close air. He looked again at the motionless woman on the floor and, this time, he smiled. At least there wasn’t any blood to clean up.
His first thought was to stuff the dead woman into one of the closets and leave her there. Let her rot away and start stinking until the police or the landlord or someone came snooping around. Once they found her, they couldn’t help but connect Cindy with her.
What if they suspected her of killing this woman before taking off? Yeah, and wouldn’t that be a laugh riot? Alex thought. At the very least, it’ll sure as shit put a dent in Cindy’s credibility if she ever tries to get legal custody of my kids!
Alex stood there in the middle of the living room, his chin resting in the cup of his hand as he considered what to do next. There was no doubt that he wanted to see Cindy suffer, but he wasn’t quite sure he wanted it to be that way.
No, he wanted to get to her first and make her pay his way.
The only thing that really pissed him off about this new wrinkle in the situation was that Cindy had gotten away clean, and now he had no idea where to start looking for her. It had been hard enough finding her the first time! Now, with her on the run, there was no telling how far she might go. It’s too bad this bitch, whoever she was, had to die before she could tell him what he needed to know!
“Fuckin’-A! Wait just a goddamned second,” Alex whispered, suddenly snapping his fingers and letting his smile widen. He remembered seeing Cindy’s car parked in the driveway as he was coming up to the apartment. That meant, if she had taken off, she had used this woman’s car and left her own car for her to use. If that was the case, then sure as hell she must not be going very far…
No, just far enough to lose him.
He had no doubt that Cindy now realized he—or someone—was after her; she’d obviously panicked and bolted. He chastised himself for going a little too far when he broke into the apartment and messed things up, putting her on alert.
But so what? he thought, sneering. So fucking what?
His mind continued to click through the many options he could choose. When he remembered seeing those two boys out in front of the apartment building this morning, calling for Billy, another thought occurred to him.
“Yeah, by Jesus, that might be it,” he said, snapping his fingers again and laughing out loud. “I’ll just have to find one of them and ask him.”
He glanced down at the dead woman and snorted in the back of his throat.
“This time, I’ll just have to make sure I get the information I need before I do anything else, that’s all.”
After checking to make sure the corridor was clear, Alex grabbed the dead woman’s feet and dragged her across the hail, back to her own apartment. After depositing her on the floor, he took a few moments to look around, being careful not to touch anything that might leave fingerprints. Satisfied that she apparently lived alone, he dragged her down the hallway to her bedroom and, using his shirt sleeve so he wouldn’t leave any fingerprints on the doorknob, opened the closet door and slid her into it. He had a bit of trouble keeping one of her arms from flopping out and blocking the door, but he finally got it inside and shut the door by bumping it with his butt. He left the room, wiping his hands together and smiling, feeling confident that it might be a couple of days, maybe even a week or two before someone found her. He left the apartment, being careful again to cover his hand with his shirttail before closing the door, and started down the stairs, whistling a happy tune.
He was still a little bit pissed off that Cindy had gotten away from him, but he told himself not to worry. Shit, he’d found her once before, and by Jesus, he’d find her again!
4
In her dream, she is running again…
Then the scene shifts crazily, the way dreams do.
At first it is night, and she is running through her strangely enlarged house back in Omaha, running through cavernous rooms she vaguely realizes aren’t there in real life. Then, as the night sky gradually blends into a pale hint of dawn, she is racing along streets in an oddly deserted downtown Portland. Her footsteps echo hollowly on asphalt and old cobblestones. And then she is running in a bright blast of sunshine, across a vast, grassy park area which she at first doesn’t recognize as a dream-distorted version of Fort Williams. She is heading toward a shrub-covered spur of land that juts out into a wild, churning ocean. Gray, froth-streaked waves shoot high into the sky. Each wave seems to tower above her, rippling against the sky before it subtly transforms into the shape of a huge hand that reaches out as though to swat her before it melts away with a bubbling hiss. She looks up and, high overhead, can see dozens—no, hundreds of black birds with wide wings, circling in lazy circles against the blue sky like vultures waiting
for death. Above the thundering roar of the waves she can almost hear the faint sound of their grating, cawing shrieks.
She is running again…
Although she can’t see the person she is running from, she can hear his heavy breathing, rasping like faulty bellows close to her ears. The heavy thump-thump of his footsteps punches the air like distant gunfire. The panic winding up inside her feels like a glowing red coil in the pit of her stomach.
He’s getting closer… closer…
She runs harder, her lungs flaming with exertion.
Like the hand-shaped waves crashing all around her, she can sense that her pursuer is reaching out for her, trying to snag her by the shoulder or foot so he can trip her up… trip her up just enough so she will fall..
And then, she will be his!
But she is running…
Now she is on a narrow, brush-lined path that winds like a tangled brown ribbon along the cliff high above the water’s edge. Cold, prickling spray shoots up all around her, washing over her face and arms like sweat. She feels an almost overpowering urge to look behind her, to see who is pursuing her, but she doesn’t dare look away from the inches-wide dirt path she is following. One false step and she will tumble into the sea that churns far below her like an angry, boiling kettle. She sees tangled seaweed and brown kelp twisting on the water like mermaid’s hair. The jagged rocks below are pointed, like rows of gigantic teeth. In spite of the dizzying vast expanse around her, a choking sensation of claustrophobia embraces her, compressing her chest and burning her lungs.
But she is running…
Running until she comes to the edge of the cliff overhanging the storm-tossed ocean, and then there is nowhere left to run. Trembling inside and feeling an overpowering urge to start screaming and keep on screaming until her throat becomes bloody and raw, she turns around in terrified slow motion to face her pursuer.
For a shimmering instant, the path before her is clear, but she can still sense him, an unseen presence that—she knows—is going to explode into view at any moment. The wind screams in her ears like a woman in pain, but then the dream world around her becomes oddly hushed, muffled with electric expectation. And then, in the flicker of an eye, the space between two throbbing pulse beats, a shape appears along the horizon—a dark, vibrant silhouette that looks like a black hole has been cut out of the sky. It ripples as it shifts swiftly forward, enlarging with frightening speed, but still it is nothing more than a perfectly black human shape with two burning red eyes glowing as they stare unblinking at her and burn into the core of her being.
Ghost Light Page 32
