Eden's Eyes

by Sean Costello

  In the room next door Karen cried out again, shrilly this time; and Mel sprang to her feet, darted out through the open door.

  But in the fan of light from the hall she could see that Karen was fine. . . only dreaming. . .

  Christ, Mel thought as she dragged herself back to her room, unspent adrenaline stewing sickly inside of her. I wonder what that's like, seeing things happen without using your eyes? The process, whatever it was (and despite how convinced Jim Hall seemed of Karen's legitimacy, Mel herself wasn't so sure), intrigued her. Hard as hell to buy into, but fascinating nonetheless.

  And yet, she thought as she resumed her post, if having that ability meant witnessing the bloody havoc this madman had wreaked, then thanks—but no thanks.

  She gazed out into the rainswept night, trying to ignore the tortured moans reaching her ears from the bedroom next door.

  No, please, not again. . .

  The man kept drifting closer. He seemed to sense the danger. . . but instead of running he just crouched there, moving in mincing steps, his mouth working madly into a medallion-shaped object around his neck.

  Karen had given up trying to warn him. There was nothing for her now but to watch.

  And wait.

  For her turn.

  Almost within reach. . .

  Suddenly, her dream-arm blurred out. Blood sheeted up and then the other arm blurred, reaching for the upheld gun. From its muzzle spewed a white bolt of fire—

  And in her bed Karen's body jerked at the distant report.

  Then the gun was gone, flung through the trees like a spear, and now both arms blurred and the head was wrenched around, turned beyond life to face her. . .

  For an instant Karen save plainly the hands that held it. . . Then the body was falling, tumbling down the verge to the creek.

  And Eden was moving again.

  Oh Jesus please let me wake up. . .

  Mel thumped down the stairs to the hall, burst outside to the porch, and leaped down the steps to the yard. Albert was already out by the main barn. With a wave he indicated the direction from which the report had come—a section of woodlot to the east of the house. Following his lead, Mel stalked through the grass like a cat, gun at the ready in front of her.

  A moment later Cass stumbled out onto the porch.

  From his vantage behind the house, Danny watched this activity with an amused kind of glee. His knife hand was gloved with blood. The kill had thrilled him to the core.

  He knew that if he was going to do it, it had to be now.

  The shot just fired had been close.

  He rose from his crouch, brushed a wet, leafy branch from his face—

  And such a cold feeling of dread clutched his heart that he sank to his knees and gagged.

  What the fuck?

  Behind him something moved, and Danny spun on his knees to face it. He saw nothing, only trees. The movement ceased briefly, as whatever it was paused, as if. . . deciding. Then it resumed, fading as it circled away.

  Jesus, what, in hell was that?

  Danny climbed to his feet as the dread drained away. He gave himself a moment. Breathed deeply. Steadied his nerve. Then he proceeded to Karen's back door.

  Chapter 45

  Jim Hall leaned back in his chair and sighed, one of those heavy, ratcheting sighs born of strain and tenacious fatigue. This case was giving him a serious bout of the willies. Two inhumanly brutal slayings, an empty grave, a disappearing crazy woman, and, just for good measure, an ex-blind girl who could see more than anyone should. . .

  "Sergeant Hall?"

  Jim turned in his chair. An officer in uniform stool smartly behind him. "Yes?"

  "Call for you, sir. Line three. It's urgent."

  Jim snared the receiver of the nearest phone and punched the correct extension.

  "Jim Hall."

  "Sergeant, it's Mel." She sounded breathless. “It's started. There was a shot fired outside just a few minutes ago, in the bush behind the house. I went for a look, but there's no sign of anyone yet."

  "Anything on your transceiver?"

  "The damn thing hasn't been working, but I'll run upstairs and try it again."

  "Okay. And stay close to Karen. I'm on my way."

  Jim hung up and hurried out of the station. He radioed his partner from the car, instructing him to arrange for some back-up, then sped up Catherine Street to the Queensway West on-ramp. It was a forty-minute drive, but he meant to make it in half that.

  Chapter 46

  "What's going on, what's happening?"

  Mel cradled the phone, took Cass by the shoulders, and steadied her. What she didn't need right now was an hysterical female dragging from her ankle.

  "Listen," Mel said firmly. "I want you to go upstairs and sit with Karen. Tell her everything's fine. Okay?"

  Cass steeled herself and nodded, the panic in her eyes drawing back a little.

  "Good," Mel said, managing a smile. She'd underestimated this gal; she'd get through this okay. "Come on then. I have to go up there myself."

  The two women, Cass in the lead, exited the living room at a trot.

  But in the hallway leading to the foot of the stairs, Cass abruptly halted. Mel collided with her, almost knocking her down.

  "wha. . . ?"

  Then she saw it, too.

  Muddy footprints, big ones, tracked all the way down the hall from the kitchen. . . then up the stairs. Albert was still outside—Mel had left him there only minutes ago. And he had not been inside all evening.

  "Karen!" Cass cried huskily, then bolted. Mel had to fight to reach the staircase ahead of her.

  They were halfway up when they heard Karen's scream.

  She'd witnessed it all until the dead man had reached the back of the house. Then the dream-screen had suddenly gone blank. . . and she was sound asleep in her bed. Profoundly, dreamlessly asleep.

  She was sleeping still when a hand stroked her forehead with a lover's touch. She moaned pleasurably, imagining that it was Dr. Hanussen, back from Germany to take over her care. He would put an end to all of this craziness. His was the touch of God. . .

  Then the hand stopped stroking and pressed, pressed so hard that Karen's head was pinned to the mattress. She rose rapidly from the bowers of sleep, blinked open her eyes—

  In time to see the cold steel scalpel blade coming down at her face. She screamed, and the hand pressed harder.

  Please doctor don't take back my eyes give me one more chance I'll get better I promise I will—

  Karen slammed her eyes shut.

  The scalpel blade touched her left lid.

  Drew blood. . .

  "You're mine now, Karen," came a familiar voice.

  Danny?

  "All mine."

  Karen opened her mouth to scream—and the whole world suddenly exploded. Ears clanging viciously, she opened her eyes and in the grainy half-light saw a figure weaving drunkenly above her, a huge silhouette clutching a spurting hole in its chest. She saw the curved knife dropping, heard it stick with a twanging thud in the hardwood floorboards beside her bed.

  Making no sound, Danny reeled mortally. He looked down at Karen, sadly, pathetically. . . then fell across her sheet-covered legs, pinning them firmly beneath him.

  Dead weight.

  Karen thought she heard him gurgle something. . .

  I love you. . .

  Then she screamed again. And struggled to free her legs.

  Chapter 47

  Karen looked up from Danny's unmoving body, all that had happened dawning on her fully only now. She saw Cass, pushing past Mel to get to the bedside, and Mel, crouched in a shooter's stance in the doorway, upheld pistol still smoking.

  "Get him off me," Karen begged.

  As if some spell had been broken by Karen's words, Mel got moving, became all business. She strode to the bedside and dragged Danny's limp body to the floor. With trained proficiency she examined him for signs of life, expecting to find none.

  "Jesus," she Whis
pered. "He's still breathing!" She looked up at Cass. "Help me," she said, and began lugging him with a weight-lifter's ease. "We've got to get him to a hospital."

  As if on cue, Albert thumped into the stairwell, taking the risers two at a go. His big farmer's body filled the doorway.

  "Karen?"

  She wiped away a trickle of blood from her eyelid, where Danny's knife had nicked her. "I'm all right," she managed.

  But her mind was reeling.

  Danny? Why Danny? Why. . . ?

  Albert crossed the room to comfort his daughter, but Mel's raised voice stopped him short.

  "Do that later," she commanded. "Right now I need you. This man's still alive."

  Something dark crossed Albert's face then, something bleak and hard as granite. Mel saw it; so did Cass. Karen saw it, too.

  Let him die, that look said. Fuck him and send him to hell.

  "It's Danny," Karen said.

  Whether or not that was what got the old man moving, nobody knew. But in two quick strides Albert had reached Mel, accepted the bulk of Danny's weight, and begun backing toward the door.

  "You stay here with Karen," he barked at Cass. "I'll go with Mel to the hospital in Arnprior. I'll call you from there."

  Clutching Karen, Cass nodded.

  "Call the number on the pad by the phone downstairs," Mel added. "Have the officer who answers reach Sergeant Hall in his car. Tell him what's happened. Have him meet me at the hospital. And tell him to have the back-up team search the woods out back of here with an ambulance standing by. Will and Baker are still out there."

  "Got it," Cass said. Pulling away froth Karen, she slipped past the others into the stairwell.

  "You'll be okay, hon?" Albert said from the doorway.

  Karen nodded jerkily.

  Then she was alone again.

  With the smell of Danny. Of his blood.

  And the phantom weight of his body across her legs.

  Chapter 48

  Twenty minutes after Albert's pickup roared out of the yard the clean-up team arrived, complete with ambulance, floodlights, and high-powered rifles. The ambulance was left idling, its rear door yawning wide. Karen and Cass watched the frenzied activity from the bedroom window. When the team had first arrived, Karen had hoisted the window and told them to begin their search at the creek. She did not tell them about the carnage they would find there.

  In the interim Cass had poured brandies for them both. Cass guzzled hers, then poured out another. Karen only sipped. Her eyes in the reflected light of the floods were glazed and brutally tired.

  "Cass," Karen said without looking around. "I. . .”

  "It's all right," Cass said, knowing where Karen was headed. "The strain must have been tremendous. If it'd been me, I'd have lost it completely."

  "No, please. I have to say this." She met eyes with her friend, clasped her hand gently: "I. . . really believed it was him. . . Eden. I knew it was crazy, impossible. But Cass, those dreams. God, it. . . it was so sick, so insane. I was right there, it was me. I was doing the killing." Her gentle grip tightened around Cass's hand. "After a while I could almost feel his rotting flesh around me, around my, mind. And yesterday. . . or whenever it was, whenever that detective told me the victims had both been recipients from the same donor, I. . ."

  Karen released Cass's hand and gazed outside for a long moment—such a long moment that Cass figured she had given it up. Then, abruptly, she resumed talking, talking up her last thought as if the pause had never occurred.

  "I knew. I just knew. But I couldn't. . . let myself know. Do you understand? I couldn't know it and survive.

  "Then the next day. . . was it today? When I overheard them talking about his grave being empty, it. . . came through. The knowledge came through. Then I was certain it was him."

  She regarded Cass with fresh fear in her eyes.

  "I was wrong, though. . . wasn't I? I mean—"

  "Of course you were wrong," Cass said sternly. "It was Danny. It was that fucking creep Danny, and with any luck the bastard'll croak." Cass's voice softened with compassion. "It's over now, hon. Really. And whenever these boys clean up their mess and haul ass home, we're going back to business as usual. You and I. You're going to write your new book and become richer and famouser—is that a word?—and I'm going to find a hairdressing job in Ottawa. . ." She grinned at Karen, trying desperately to divert the girl's train of thought: "Or maybe I'll just hang around here for the rest of my days, sponge off my rich, famous friend. I—"

  The telephone rang. Cass gave a squawk, and her snifter fell to the floor. Karen picked up the call on her bedside phone.

  "Hello?"

  "Karen? It's me. We're at the hospital now. They took him into surgery right away, but they say it looks pretty grim. They don't think he'll make it."

  "When are you coming home?"

  "Soon." It was pushing six in the morning. Outside, the rain had finally ceased. "Detective Hall is here now, too, waiting with Mel. I guess they're hoping to get a confession out of Danny. Bring him to trial, maybe."

  It wasn't him—

  But Karen killed that thought briskly.

  "I'm so tired."

  "I know, baby. But you can sleep now. Sleep and not worry. Why, you can sleep for a week if the fancy takes you."

  A half smile tugged at Karen's lips. "’Bye, Dad," she said, exhaustion diminishing her voice to a whisper.

  "’Bye, kiddo. I'll be keepin' ya's posted."

  Karen hung up and went back to the window. She watched with Cass until the floods grew dim in the dawn light, thanking God or Satan or the deep blue sea that she'd survived this brush with insanity.

  Dead men did not get up.

  At six thirty-five, the first of the body bags was hoisted onto a stretcher. The ambulance was no longer idling.

  Ten minutes following the departure of the clean-up team, Albert called to inform them that Danny had died. The bullet had torn a nick in his aorta, and he'd been beyond salvage by the time they'd discovered it. A half hour after that, Albert returned with Jim and Mel. All looked tired and worn. There were still a lot of unanswered questions, and although Jim had intended leaving it alone for a while, Karen seemed only too anxious to assist, perhaps hoping to finish it off in one fell swoop, then get on with her life.

  They sat together on the porch while Cass showered and Mel and Albert fixed coffee. Karen talked and Jim listened. She described what she now saw plainly as Danny's unrequited love, a simple thing turned foul at a glance. She told him of the years Danny had been hanging around. . . and felt ashamed at her self-centered lack of awareness. In many ways she had used Danny Dolan, had perhaps even precipitated some part of this hideous disaster herself.

  In the car on the road back to Ottawa, Jim tried again to construct a motive, one which might seem logical to the killer's mind. Mel had said Danny had been about to stab Karen's eyes, apparently intent on rendering her blind again. In his deranged mind, that would restore things to the way they had been, the way he wanted them to be once again. That much Jim could accept.

  But killing the others? Ripping their organs out?

  Then it occurred to him. What Danny was killing was not the child or the wino, but the organs themselves. His beef was with a dead man. . . or a mostly dead man. What Danny craved most was to hurt Eden, for what he had given to Karen, for the havoc that gift had created in his own lifelong fantasy. But how did you kill a dead man?

  You didn't.

  But if you could get your hands on chunks of him, living chunks. . . why, then you could hack and stomp and. . .

  Jim turned on the car stereo. He turned it on loud.

  To everyone's pleased surprise, Mel asked if she could hang around for a day or so. She had some down-time coming, and admitted that the prospect of spending it in her airless, apartment in Ottawa, particularly in light of recent events, was a gloomy one. Besides, arthritic or not, Eve Crowell was still unaccounted for and thus still potentially dangerous, a fact which
Mel had discussed with Jim during the drive back from the hospital. It wouldn't hurt to have someone around until the woman was collared. Stated mildly, her taste in wallpaper was unsettling.

  By eight a.m., everyone had agreed that sleep was foremost in order. Karen, who had by-this time beaten down the last stray thought of marauding dead men, believed that she actually might sleep for a week. Just lie there like a big old grizzly and snooze until the seasons changed. . . until this season of madness grew as tranquil as blindness had been.

  This thought surprised her, shocked her even. She, had never imagined missing a single aspect of blindness, and prayed that one day she could savor that same tranquillity with sight.

  After much fussing and kissing and hugging, Albert climbed into his truck and rattled his way home. Cass lay down on the couch and instantly passed out; she had drizzled down more brandy than Karen had thought compatible with life. Karen sat with Mel on the porch for a while, watching the day come up, then she, too made her way upstairs, leaving Mel alone with her thoughts.

  Only now did she notice the stale odor of her room. The sweaty reek of her dreams, of her days-old fear. And of Danny. Beside her bed, she noticed the gash in the floor where his knife had lodged, and gooseflesh flared like a nettle rash. Thankfully, the police had picked the place clean, removing the knife and the tiny whetstone in its worn leather pouch that had slipped from Danny's pocket when he pitched in a heap across her legs.

  Karen closed her bedroom door, then crossed to the window and heaved it up wide. After flooding her lungs with crisp morning air, she moved to the bed and stripped off the sheets. Too whipped to remake it, she lay on her back on the bare mattress and stared at the scrolled-tin ceiling.

  Danny. . .

  Doubt insinuated itself harshly.

  Come on, you don't really believe—

  "Damn right I do," Karen said aloud.

  Why he'd killed the others, she didn't know. Why she had been linked with him so intimately was a similar mystery, one she would be unlikely ever to understand.