by Alan Spencer
Bruce held Cheyenne close. “I’ll stay with you. It’s okay, Morty. Go. You guys won’t be long. This is something we have to do, right? We weren’t given a choice. I’m not feeling very good right now anyway. I’ve lost a lot of blood. I should stay down here, you’re right. You go, Morty. I’ll watch her.”
Janet wasn’t happy with the idea of Morty going upstairs with her.
The detective didn’t leave them any choice.
“One more thing before we go upstairs, people. I don’t want anybody going after anybody. It’s up to me to piece together the facts. You uncover something interesting, you tell me first before sharing with it with others, even you, Officer Wright.”
Everybody agreed.
Larson went upstairs hoping he was going about the situation the right way.
Like Bruce had said earlier, they had no choice.
Morty was fuming on the way upstairs. How come nobody cared about the whereabouts of Glenda? If this crime involving Ted Lindsey took place ten years ago, why was he considered a suspect in any capacity? He didn’t live in the area at the time. He was well out of range of this town and its people. So why was he implicated?
What kept him from shouting these facts from the top of his lungs was the one thing he could not account for. Janet’s battered breast. The bruises on her shoulder. He couldn’t say he did or didn’t do that to her.
The doorway.
This house.
It had done something to him.
Heading up the staircase, Morty called back to Janet. “You were just up here. Is something going to jump out at me? It’s dark up there. I can’t see anything.”
“Then turn on a light,” Janet said. “Figure it out for yourself, Morty.”
The detective didn’t like her tone. “Take this seriously. We’re all in danger. We’re all in the shit. Don’t make it worse by antagonizing each other.”
“Good idea and all, Detective, but the problem is I don’t trust Morty. Supposed he didn’t kill his wife. He still assaulted me. It was hard enough showing you people my body. But I proved my case.”
Morty stopped in the middle of the staircase. “When you came to my house, Janet, I was sick, wasn’t I?”
“Yeah. You were in bed. You didn’t even get up to answer the door.”
“That doorway had appeared several times before we all got forced through it tonight. It was messing with my mind.”
Janet sprung on his statement. “So you can’t account for all of your actions?”
“That’s what scares me. No, I can’t account for my actions. What I do know is that the doorway didn’t first appear until the night Glenda disappeared. I did not harm my wife. That is one thing I know for certain. Everything else after that doorway appeared, I can’t say one way or the other. I may have hurt you, Janet, and if I did, it wasn’t me. I promise you it wasn’t me. It was something in this house.”
Janet sneered. The expression cut deep trenches in her skin.
“Do you hear this guy? He’s full of all kinds of bullshit. You said it like you expect me to believe you, or something.”
Morty’s anger turned against him. He started to sob.
“Whether you believe one thing or the other, I just want Glenda back. If I did harm her, prove it. Please God, prove it so I know for certain. I must know for a fact what happened to her. If I did anything to her, you can shoot me on sight.”
“Nice speech,” Janet said. “Oh, and he’s crying. That must mean he’s innocent. Exhibit A for the defense. Morty’s tears. They’re so sparkly and exonerating.”
Morty had to keep his composure not only for Glenda but also for Cheyenne.
“Say what you want. Believe what you want. Let’s just solve this case. I want my wife back.”
Larson didn’t expect Morty to keep his anger in check.
The detective was impressed.
“Janet, I’m going to ask you to lay off Morty until we get some answers. I need to see the body of Deborah Lindsey before any more speculations are thrown out there. We have to treat this like a fresh crime scene. Both of you have to be my eyes and ears. No more bickering and accusing anybody of anything. If either of you had anything to do with Deborah’s death, or Glenda’s disappearance, I will find out. That’s a promise.”
Morty started walking up the stairs again. He entered the top floor hallway. The area was dark, but when both of his feet touched the carpet, the bulb in the ceiling turned a harsh red.
Morty covered his eyes. “What’s with that shit?”
“I don’t know,” Larson said, “but it keeps happening.”
Janet pointed at the second door on the right. “That’s Deborah’s room.”
“Morty, you first.”
Morty didn’t hesitate a moment to stalk down the hallway and put his hand on the doorknob.
“Wait, Morty.”
Detective Larson handed Janet back her 9mm. “I need cover. But if I give you this, you promise me you won’t shoot Morty.”
“Only if he doesn’t give me a reason.”
Morty scoffed. “I won’t.”
Both guns were pointed at the door. Morty counted backwards from three. On three, he threw open the door. The room’s light was also red. Morty was startled by the corpse lying on the floor. Worse, the back of her head was bashed in.
Janet snuck past Morty. “Where’s the other guy? There was another corpse in the room. He talked to me. Why isn’t he here?”
“I don’t know what corpse you’re talking about. Just keep your eyes peeled for more of them, or Ted. Ted murdered over a dozen officers. He won’t hesitate to slaughter us too.”
“Where are the bodies?” Morty asked. “I mean, twelve cops don’t just vanish.”
“I don’t know what happened to the cops.”
Morty studied the room. “It sounds like we don’t know shit.”
Janet stayed in the door’s threshold. Half her body was in the room, the other half ready to bolt. “That’s the first true statement I’ve heard you say, Morty.”
Larson was sick of Janet going on.
“Enough, Janet. Why don’t you go down the hallway and check the other rooms with Morty. I need to look at Deborah’s body for a while. You guys aren’t investigators. The red lights are hurting my eyes. It’s going to take all of my concentration just to do an average job here.”
The detective surveyed the room. He leaned in real close to Deborah’s body. Her long dark hair was sodden in blood. She was face down. Larson turned her over and studied every inch of skin and stitch of clothing for any clues. The room was as it was the night she was found dead. Nothing was missing or changed. A nine iron lay on the floor about a yard from her body. Dropped after it was used. The nine iron was taken from the golf bag in the corner. Ted played golf before he took up the hobby of murder and interrogation.
He realized Morty and Janet hadn’t left the room.
“Get out of here, you two. You got your gun, Janet. Yell at me if anything happens. Morty will help you, and I won’t hear another word about it.”
Morty decided if the reporter didn’t trust him, he’d stake it out on his own. He exited the room, choosing the first door nearest him and opened it. Braving anything for Glenda’s sake, he stepped into a bathroom.
“Don’t open that door!”
Janet raced to his side.
“What is it? Jesus, you make me nervous.”
“There’s a corpse in there.”
“If you saw it earlier, it’s not in there anymore.”
Janet blinked her eyes twice. “I shut it up in this room. So where did it go?”
The room was cased in the same red light.
“The detective said to look for anything suspicious. Other than the red light, I say this room’s clear.”
Morty started to regard t
his house as haunted. Thinking that way, he checked under the sink, rooted through every drawer, the supply closet, and then he opened the toilet. There was only water. Nothing evil. No floating body parts or blood. Relief wasn’t a strong enough word. Morty turned to leave the room and saw Janet standing there.
Her eyes were fixed on the drawn shower curtain.
“Why don’t you look behind the curtain?”
Morty immediately perceived the threat.
What if Glenda’s behind that curtain?
“If anything scary jumps out at me, you’re going to shoot it, right?”
“Right.”
“Try and not shoot me on accident.”
Janet was serious. “If I ever shoot you, it will be on purpose.”
Morty had a feeling he really did attack Janet. Even if it was in his fever state, it happened all the same. So he let her hold onto her animosity. There was no other way around it. Not in this situation.
“I’m going to draw back the curtain. I’ll do a three count.”
Janet nodded her head once.
“Okay, on three.”
He counted to three.
Jerking back the curtain, Morty couldn’t peel his eyes from what was inside the tub.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Do you believe my father’s innocent?”
Bruce’s heart went out to Cheyenne, especially after she asked him that question. This had been a long few days, and tonight wasn’t getting any better.
“You shouldn’t let that reporter get to you. Morty didn’t do shit. Janet probably did it to herself. She sees Morty’s vulnerability as a way to exploit him. Think about it? The reporter came to the house when you were gone. Morty didn’t answer the door. The reporter claims to have let herself in. Funny how she went into Morty’s bedroom, and Morty assaulted her. Morty was sick. He was out cold. No way did he hurt that stupid bitch. She’s working a story. The bitch is sneaky. They all are when they work in that field.”
Bruce tightened the bolt of cloth around his arm. The bleeding had slowed. The pain hadn’t weakened. He kept feeling the bullet going into his arm again and again. The bullet had scraped bone, and that was where the real pain resided.
Cheyenne sensed his pain and experienced a wave of fear.
“We’re going to make it out of this, aren’t we?”
“I don’t know. I wish I could say for sure.”
Officer Wright tried the front door.
“We are getting out of here. You’ll see.”
Bruce looked at the officer at work. “It’s not opening?”
“The door’s jammed, or something.”
The officer rammed his shoulder into the door and kicked it for two minutes before giving up, out of breath. “No use, guys. The door’s not budging.”
“What did you see down here when all those bullets were flying?”
The officer’s brow lifted. “Do you really want to know?”
“Of course we do,” Cheyenne insisted. “Why else would we ask? I can handle myself. Tell us what you saw. We have a right to know.”
Officer Wright got more than he bargained for by guarding his information. “Fine, fair enough. No need to get angry at me. I think Detective Larson is right. Ted Lindsey was down here when the bullets were flying. He killed just about everybody. Ted’s still here somewhere.”
Bruce removed any accusation from his question. “And how come you survived?”
“Because, I don’t know. Everything happened so fast. You heard the bullets. It was under a minute everything went down. The guy doing the killing was here, then he walked through a doorway with red flames coming out of it and was gone. It was fucked up. I can’t control what’s fucked up.”
The moment of silence stretched for too long. The officer couldn’t stand it. “Fuck it. I got scared, so I hid. Wouldn’t you?”
Bruce recalled Hannah coming back to life and attacking Cheyenne. She was being strangled with a noose made of flesh. Nobody was courageous when shit went down like that. Not even cops.
Officer Wright moved into the kitchen. “I’ll try the door in here while I’m at it.”
Bruce shook his head in disapproval. “You’re wasting your time. The doors won’t open. Whoever’s doing all of this wants us in here. They, whoever the fuck they are, hold the cards. So in the meantime, we’re boxed in.”
“If that’s the case,” Officer Wright swung the kitchen door wide open, “then try explaining this.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Detective Larson cased the bedroom again and again. The red bulb was giving him a terrible migraine. I can’t focus. Damn that light. He rubbed his eyes hard. When he opened them again, the door to the room slammed closed on its own. Filling up the room were thirteen officers. Those who still had hands trained their Mag flashlights on different sections of the room as if to indicate: Look here, look there, no look over there, check back behind that, or try up there.
Larson’s jaw dropped.
Crowded by the living dead, Larson was now kneeling over Deborah’s corpse. He couldn’t move. There wasn’t an inch of breathing room between him and the officers.
“You’re much too slow.”
“You’re not looking hard enough, Detective.”
“The case went cold because of you.”
“Your incompetence will cost these people their lives.”
“Nobody’s escaping until somebody solves the case.”
“Who killed her, Larson? Who murdered this innocent woman?”
“Ted will slaughter everybody. Even you.”
“I don’t see anything! There’s no evidence in this room, in this house, any-fucking-where! It’s not my fault. I’m doing my best, GODDAMN you! Can’t you see how hard I’m trying?”
“Not good enough.”
“Work harder.”
“No one leaves until her murder is solved.”
“You will die here.”
“Everyone will die.”
“It’s not my fault! Kill me, but don’t kill anybody else. They’re not investigators. They’re not detectives. I am! So kill me! KILL ME! I’m the one to blame.”
“Teddy’s getting restless. He has so many burning questions to ask everybody.”
“Who will he interrogate first?”
“Who has the best information?”
“If no one pays for the crime of murder, everyone shall pay!”
“One of you knows something.”
“Solve her murder.”
“Teddy is growing restless.”
“He’s on his way.”
“Which one of you will he pick?”
“Don’t let it be you, Detective.”
Larson was ready to shove his way through the group of corpses and rush for the door when the cops suddenly vanished.
The red light changed back to yellow.
When Detective Larson got his head together, he realized Deborah’s corpse was standing over him.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Morty expected a thousand possibilities lurking behind that shower curtain. A pair of hands reaching out to throttle him. Hannah’s angry corpse grappling him down into the tub. That Ted Lindsey murderer posing with a weapon. Anything vile and evil and horrible could be waiting. Morty wasn’t exactly let down when he drew back the shower curtain and there wasn’t a creeping dead person waiting to attack him. What turned out to be there was strange nonetheless. The bathtub was filled to the brim with dirt smoothed down over the top. He imagined a set of hands smoothing it out. A perfectionist did this work.
“Stay back,” Janet warned him. “I was attacked by something in this bathroom earlier.”
“What attacked you? Dirt?”
“No, not dirt, you asshole. There was a female corpse who lunged from beneath the surface.
Morty, get back! Hurry! I’m serious.”
Morty wasted precious seconds being perplexed by the bathtub of dirt. The tang crept into his nostrils that moment he made the connection. It stank of dead flesh. He remembered the detective talking about what that Ted Lindsey guy did with the people he killed, and—
Two gnarled hands sprouted from the dirt. They grabbed both of his arms, and Morty was forced down over the dirt. The dirt was loose, and with his weight against it, the dirt seemed to be sinking. The hand released Morty’s arms. He thought he had a chance of escape. He was wrong. A new hand had him by the back of the head, and the other grabbed a tuft of his hair. The hands were pulling him down. He tried to push off the bottom of the bathtub, but all Morty felt was the shifting of dirt. It was a bottomless pit, and he was dragged deeper and deeper.
Janet was screaming her head off. She had him by his left foot, tugging back with all of her might to reclaim him.
“Morty! Jesus!”
Morty was forced forward, pulled by numerous hands at once. He closed his eyes and mouth anticipating going completely under.
Janet lost her grip.
Morty sank helplessly into the unknown.
Janet could only scream.
Chapter Forty
Bruce and Cheyenne ran into the kitchen after watching the door flap right open.
Cheyenne hugged Bruce. “Thank God.”
Officer Wright shouted upstairs. “Hey everybody! We’re getting out of here. Come on everybody! Let’s blow the fuck out of here.”
The night air was cool against Cheyenne’s skin. What a relief! They could go to the police. Bruce would get medical attention. Cheyenne would talk to that lawyer and exonerate her father. She’d sue the panties off that bitch reporter. Defamation of character. Slander. Emotional distress. Tons of emotional distress. Bruce could sue too. They would be millionaires after all was said and done.
Bruce was right behind Cheyenne. “They’re coming, I’m sure. I’m not staying in that damn house another moment.”
Officer Wright propped a small charcoal grill to keep the door open. “Come on, people! I found a way out! Why aren’t they coming?”
