Alone, as he had been ever since the cancer took the life of his beautiful Jane, Richard Barrett did what he always did after Sunday morning mass at Saint Michael’s Catholic church. He visited his daughter in the adjoining cemetery.
The sky was full of fluffy white clouds floating past the sun like chariots from heaven as a gentle breeze whispered its secrets to the massive oaks providing shade to the buried dead.
With hands tucked in the pockets of his black trench coat, Richard cast his elongated shadow upon the ornate tombstone of Ellen Barrett Snow, beloved wife, mother and daughter.
His frown tightened. His heart ached from continued grief for all he had lost.
First Ellen.
Then Jane.
Now Amy.
Damn you, Hank Snow.
Richard’s grief grew cold and bitter.
You’ve torn my family apart one precious piece at a time. And now you’re keeping my granddaughter from me.
You’re the son of Satan himself!
Which was true.
From what he recently learned, Richard was certain Hank was part of a legion of redneck devils infesting the entire county.
Your whole family tree is poisoned, right down to the bastard root, and my poor daughter ate of its fatal fruit.
Hank turned her into every hillbilly, white trash cliché in the South, and snuffed her out when she dared to leave him.
If I could kill you, Hank, I would. For what you did to Ellen, I wouldn’t hesitate.
After reading a classified police document anonymously left at his doorstep the other day, he was now aware of Hank’s hidden past, a horror story.
He knew he had to save Amy from that monster before he did to her what he did to Ellen. But how?
Richard and Jane had tried everything to obtain custody of her after the investigation into Ellen’s murder went cold. They exhausted all legal recourse, but no one would let them have her. The evil, drunken lout was surprisingly well connected. This had led them to an uncharacteristic act of desperation— they tried to kidnap Amy. The kidnapping backfired, and as a result Hank had put out a restraining order on them. They weren’t allowed within a hundred feet of their only granddaughter. That was the beginning of the end for Jane. It was not the cancer that killed his wife.
It was Hank. He’s the cancer.
He’s death.
Another breeze wafted against Richard’s face as fallen oak leaves danced across Ellen’s grave.
Thinking about what he read in that police document, he feared that if he didn’t save Amy soon he would be visiting her grave too. Amy needed to know the truth about her father. She needed to know what he had done, and how his deeply hidden secrets had led to her mother’s death, and soon might lead to hers. Maybe then she would come home to him on her own.
Maybe after the light of revelation shined down on her, she would fill the void that was left by the loss of his sweet Ellen and Jane. And maybe then Richard would finally be satisfied that justice had been served.
Hank stole away his Ellen, abused her and destroyed her. He caused the cancer that took his Jane. But Richard would turn the tables.
An eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth.
Like in the Bible.
He would bring Hank down to a crumbling ruin. Just he wait and see.
Bent on revenge, Richard turned from his daughter’s grave and made the lonely walk back to his Cadillac.
He had a long drive to make.
Chapter 30
After nearly half an hour wandering the unfamiliar woods, Layne happened upon a flowing brook. Eager to wash the blood from his naked body he took a dip in the dirty water and scrubbed every square inch of himself until not a speck of scarlet was left.
Cleansed from head to toe, he continued searching for a way out of the seemingly endless pine forest.
He knew it would be useless to try retracing his steps. He never remembered the horrible things Zero did after waking the next morning.
The memory was not Layne’s after all.
The bottoms of his bare feet hurt. He winced with each step. His headache was gone, however; forgotten in his panic.
I can’t believe you let it happen again! He remembered two years ago, Marianne Weber.
He woke up in a jail cell, charged with rape. But this is so much worse. All that fucking blood! He remembered the trial, the slap on the wrist sentence. It wouldn’t happen again, not after murder.
The spaces between the trees widened and the woods thinned. Layne sped up when he saw a weed-choked yard littered with junk, a rundown trailer, a pickup truck, and the blackened remains of a bonfire. He stopped at the edge of the woods and cringed.
The putrid stench of burned flesh assailed his nostrils, and amid the rubble he saw a burned-out skull, a rib cage, and the rest of a charred, human skeleton.
Reeling at the gruesome sight, the rancid smell, and the horrid realization of what it all meant—
Murder!
—Layne grew very sick.
Chapter 31
Amy stared at the corner where the ghost manifested last night.
Why couldn’t I hear what she had to say? Because I was afraid. What was she trying to tell me? Was she trying to warn me of something?
She wasn’t afraid anymore. She wanted the truth.
“I’m headin’ out,” her father called from the kitchen. “Remember what I told you. If you don’t come with me, you’re stayin’ home today. Don’t open the door to no one.”
Amy heard the backdoor shut. She heard the lock click. She heard nothing else.
She was alone in the house and not allowed to leave. She felt a chill and wondered if she should go with her father to the store after all.
No, don’t back down. You can do this.
After changing into jeans and a long-sleeve tee, she gathered her courage and wandered into her grandmother’s bedroom.
She stood in the middle of the room waiting for it, but nothing supernatural materialized. No ghostly voices. No blue apparitions.
Taking a deep breath, she knelt before the chest at the foot of the bed to explore more of its contents, to see what other clues it revealed about her father’s secret past. But it wouldn’t open. The wooden lid was latched tight.
“Dang it.” She looked at the lock and wondered if, like last time, it would mysteriously unlock itself.
After a minute passed, however, she realized that little miracle wasn’t going to happen again. She had to find the key.
She stood and turned toward the antique bureau. She glanced at the cracked mirror, felt a superstitious chill slide down her spine and reached for the dusty, blue-vinyl jewelry box the bureau.
Her hand froze when she heard an insistent knocking at the front door.
A sharp spike of icy fear plunged into Amy’s heart.
“He’s coming for you.”
The Nightmare Man, in the flesh, come to collect.
Amy could see his cruel, tobacco-laced grin clearly in her mind.
Her stomach knotted up. She stiffened in terror. Her heart rate quickened. Should she call the cops?
The knock came again, this time with more urgency.
With her muscles wound tight, she slunk slowly into her room, and separated two yellowed slats in the window blinds. Warily, she peered outside.
Standing on the front porch with a manila envelope clutched in five wrinkled fingers, was the frail, yet commanding, Richard Barrett. He raised his knobby fist and knocked at the door a third time.
The tension in Amy’s shoulders melted away. She felt no more terror, only a slight twinge of pain.
Before the white-haired man turned his blue-eyed, wrinkle-creased visage her way, she stepped back from the window with a tight frown, recalling all Richard Barrett did to her, and to her father— making him into the Nightmare Man, planting that fear into her mind.
The twinge of pain sharpened.
She wondered what was in the envelope he held. What could have brought him a
ll the way to Pine Run today?
I don’t care.
Sitting on the edge of her bed, Amy reached for the framed photograph on her nightstand. It was a picture her father took of her and her mother on the beach at a family outing to Gulf Shores. Unfortunately, it had been the last of such outings before her father committed a grave breach of trust and was kicked out of the house.
A few months later, her mother was murdered.
What happened to us? Amy fought back an onslaught of tears.
She touched the locket dangling close to her heart.
She heard the sound of an engine. She assumed Richard Barret had given up and was now backing his fancy black Cadillac out of the driveway. Amy was glad.
Why couldn’t her father just couldn’t shake the demons eating at his soul?
“You can’t change a man who doesn’t want to get better.”
Those were her mother’s words to her the day her father was escorted by police from their old house in Mobile.
Amy had watched from the foyer, with her arm in a sling, as he loaded his suitcases into his truck and drove off without apologizing for busting her lip after backhanding her when she tried to keep him from beating her mother. She had watched him leave, the tires kicking up dirt, without apologizing for throwing her into a wall. For dislocating her shoulder, and not explaining why he was the way he was, why he refused to get better, to change.
Amy clutched the photograph from a lifelong dead and buried to her chest and curled into a fetal position on the bed.
Will he ever truly change?
She knew the answer was no.
She also knew that, despite her resolve to get behind the truth of her mother’s death, she was still too afraid to confront him about it. She’d have to get to the truth alone.
The dark black hole widened in the pit of her stomach. Feeling hollow inside, Amy closed her eyes.
Chapter 32
Even though he turned his car back onto the interstate heading home, Richard Barret was not done, not by a long shot.
He’d get the truth to his granddaughter even if that meant driving all the way back here tomorrow and personally delivering the message to her at her school, which he planned to do.
He didn’t want to leave the case file at her doorstep because her father might intercept it before she had a chance to read it, thus thwarting his plans.
If that happened, Richard knew Amy would never learn of the horrific things her father had done, and he would lose any chance at hammering the final nail in Hank’s coffin.
Richard wished Ellen had known the truth about his past. Had she, Hank Snow would’ve never been a part of her life.
No matter how much of a rebel she had been, she never would’ve slummed that far into the gutter.
Richard had a pretty good idea who left Hank’s case file at his home. The man, after all, was just as suspicious of Hank as Richard had always been.
Detective Patrick Keene of the Azalea County Sheriff’s Office.
He was the only one of the investigating officers who did not turn a blind eye to Hank’s possible involvement in Ellen’s death. He pursued every lead uncovered to get to the truth, and he did everything he could do for Ellen. He even let Jane and Richard know whenever any leads in the case came in. For that Richard was grateful.
He felt he had an ally. One more person to help him see that Hank finally met the cold, swift hand of justice. And make sure he fell to his knees in a crumbling ruin, begging to be put out of his misery, which Richard would gladly do.
Chapter 33
“Where the hell have you been?”
Heading for the stairs, Layne brushed passed his father and muttered, “Out.”
Frank Hardy, district manager of loss prevention at Sears, reached out to grab his son by the arm but missed him by a hair. “I almost called your probation officer after you were out all night, but I didn’t want to get Terry involved in this yet. Why didn’t you answer your phone when I called? And what is that Godforsaken smell?”
Climbing to the second floor, Layne shouted, “Nothing!”
“Get back here, damn it! I’m not done talking to you!” Frank climbed the darkened staircase after him.
Layne slammed his bedroom door and locked it. Baring his teeth, he threw his fist against the wall, making yet another hole in the plaster.
“You’re going to explain yourself,” Frank shouted, pounding on the door. “I’m not going to take this shit anymore! Open this damn door, now!”
To drown him out, Layne slid a heavy metal CD in the stereo perched atop his dresser and turned the volume up. Flipping his father the bird, he plopped down on his water bed.
As the doomsday distortion of heavy metal filled the room like the black wings of death, he pulled out a cigarette and lit it. His nerves were a wreck.
He knew he’d fucked up bad, but there was nothing he could do about it now. What’s done is done.
Billy Brown was dead, and Zero killed him.
After throwing up last night’s whiskey, Layne discovered his Pathfinder parked in the woods near the grisly remains of the bonfire.
He also found his clothes scattered in the dirt nearby and a knife— the one he kept in his glove compartment— near Billy’s bones.
Its blade was smeared in blood, and chunks of flesh were stuck between its sharp, serrated teeth.
He’d found out it was Billy after rummaging around the old pickup truck for clues to the skeleton’s identity.
Luckily, the fat fuck lived so far out in wooded desolation that there wasn’t anyone around to witness the crime; no one to see him cover it up. At least, he hoped not.
After finding a shovel and burlap sack in the junkyard that was Billy’s home, Layne dug a hole out in the woods. He made sure to wipe his fingerprints from everything he touched, too.
No one could find out what he was.
A murderer.
No. Zero was a murderer. Jekyll can’t be held accountable for Hyde’s crimes, can he?
Unfortunately, Layne knew the answer.
Frank was no longer shouting at the door but Layne knew it wasn’t over. Eventually, he’d have to come out of his room, and face the yelling and accusations. He would deal with it the only way he knew how. By bottling it up inside and laying the burden on Zero, which was what his court-appointed therapist said led to his dissociative identity disorder in the first place.
A coping mechanism they called it.
As a way to handle the tragedy of his parent’s divorce, the pain of his mother abandoning him, and Kelley’s abuse, Layne, at a young age, had internalized his emotions, forcing them all on what would become a whole new persona.
Zero came to form in his teens. First revealing itself the day Ashley, Layne’s half-sister, nearly drowned in the backyard pool. If their father wasn’t around to administer CPR, she might not be alive today.
Layne closed his eyes.
He didn’t want to think about that day, but couldn’t avoid the memory. He loved Ashley and would never do a thing to hurt her.
After all, she was a defenseless child with autism. Only a heartless monster would throw her into the deep-end of a dark pool knowing she couldn’t swim. So when he woke up at the side of the pool with a headache and an empty bottle of Jack Daniels, and his father told him what had happened, Layne didn’t believe a word of it.
Kelley, however, didn’t believe him.
She hit him over the head with a wooden mallet later that night when his father wasn’t looking. She never did such things when Frank was around.
Frank never believed Layne when he told him the things that Kelley had done. Instead, his father accused him of acting out and telling malicious lies.
Well fuck them both.
Layne took a drag from his cigarette. How long would it be until the cops came knocking at his door?
In all honesty, he felt no remorse for what happened. It wasn’t like the pool incident with Ashley, or the rape with Marianne Weber was
his fault.
Billy Brown had it coming to him after what he did to Amy. Now his bones were as good as buried in an unmarked grave, forgotten forever, or at least he hoped.
Layne started to tremble. The nicotine wasn’t doing much for his nerves. He took another drag, and tried to quiet his conscience.
But it would not be silent.
Chapter 34
Amy popped a frozen lasagna dinner into the oven.
“Set the timer,” Hank called out from the living room. “Don’t wanna burn it like ya did that casserole Thursday.”
Biting down on her tongue, Amy set the timer.
“And get me another beer while you’re in there.”
He was almost halfway through the twenty-four pack of Coors Light he bought at Walmart, but Amy grudgingly did as told.
“Thanks, babe.” He accepted the beer and blew cigarette smoke from his nostrils like a bull as he watched Alabama play football. “They’re gonna win this thing for sure.”
“Great,” Amy said, without enthusiasm.
“Why you so glum? You’ve been like that since I got home.”
“I’m just tired,” she said. Of course, she didn’t tell him about her grandfather stopping by. She didn’t want to upset him.
And she’ll never tell him about the ghost. That would upset him even more. He would also think she’s crazy.
“How long ‘til dinner?” Hank asked.
“About an hour,” Amy said. “I’ve gotta get started on some homework.”
“All right.” Hank popped her on the fanny as she passed his chair. “Keep an ear out for that timer.”
Amy clenched her fists and stomped to her room. She hated it when he treated her that way. It was similar to how he used to mistreat her mother.
I’ve taken Mom’s place.
The idea sickened her.
In her room, she began reading the poems about which she was assigned to write essays for class. But before she could finish, she heard the oven timer go off.
Her father hollered her name.
“Coming!” Amy rolled her eyes.
Luckily, the lasagna wasn’t burned, so she wouldn’t hear any complaining from her father who chose to eat in his smelly recliner with his plate propped on his beer paunch.
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