by Ladew, Lisa
Dylan was coming back her way. Katerina tried to prepare herself. She watched his feet closely, waiting for the moment when he stepped in the puddle.
On the downward arc of his foot into the puddle Katerina tried to open herself, tried to initiate the pulling, but as the foot slapped into the water, already lifting and on its way out, she realized she couldn’t do it. Her fierce anger was blocking her.
His foot lifted out of the puddle and Katerina screamed. Her primal scream of rage filled the small room and the edges of her world went black.
Chapter 22
West pounded his leg in frustration. The address of the farm they were looking for was #4 Gresham Lane, but they couldn’t find Gresham Lane. No GPS system worked out here in the deep-country farmland, and half of the street signs either never existed or were knocked down or stolen. They’d driven as fast as they could down the old dirt roads, making the trip from Westwood Harbor into the heart of Tetam County in twenty-five minutes, but now he could feel precious time slipping through their fingertips as they drove around in circles.
Blaise called Tetam County dispatch and said he was looking for his cousin’s house because he hadn’t answered the phone in a few days. He didn’t dare say he was a police officer looking for Sheriff Payne, not knowing if anyone in dispatch would tip off Sheriff Payne. What they were doing was dangerous enough. The dispatcher had given them general directions to where Gresham lane was, but warned them that there was no mail delivery to the street and there was a good chance nobody put their addresses out on display.
“So how do you know how to get to a house if they call and ask for help?” Blaise had asked.
“Oh, we always get directions,” the dispatcher had said. “What’s the address you are looking for? Maybe I know where it is.”
Blaise had weighed his answer carefully. Should he tell her? Finally he decided to take the safe route. “#3 Gresham Lane,” he said.
“There’s only four or five houses on Gresham Lane. I don’t know which one would be #3, but I know it’s not the very last one. The very last house on the left has been vacant for years.”
Blaise’s eyes lit up. “Okay thanks, that helps.” He hung up the phone. “Jackpot!”
They followed the dispatcher’s directions and found a lonely, red dirt road that looked like all the rest.
Blaise drove as quickly as he could down the bumpy road. Farmland stretched for miles, and occasionally a house dotted the distant countryside, but he couldn’t see any houses on this lane from the road. A few turn offs that could have been driveways but looked more like trails pulled off to the left and right. Finally, the road ended, but a smaller, dirtier, dustier lane headed left.
“Cross your fingers,” he told West and swung left.
West sat on his hands, staring nervously out the front window. This had to be it - had to!
The driveway was a mess of potholes and Blaise had to go super slowly. When he finally reached the end, the ramshackle house and big red barn burst into view.
“This is it! It looks just like Katerina said it would: old-as-dirt house, huge red barn, dead grass.” West reached down and grasped the shotgun Blaise had given him, checking again that he knew where the safety was and could flick it off in an instant.
“Listen to me West, I go in first, and you do what I tell you, no matter what.”
“Okay,” West said, opening his door.
Blaise reached out and grabbed him. “No West, you don’t understand. There’s a good chance I’m going to lose my job for this, but if you do something stupid and get yourself hurt, I am guaranteed to lose my job and I may be prosecuted for my decisions.”
West looked him in the eyes. “Okay Blaise. You have my word.”
Blaise opened his door. “Good. Stay behind me.”
West and Blaise got out of the car and approached the house warily and quickly. The front door was standing open. Blaise held a finger to his lips and walked inside quietly, his gun held out in front of him. The house was more of a trailer with no basement that they could see and they cleared it quickly. The thick layer of dust on the floor told them that no one had been inside it for years.
Blaise lifted his chin towards the barn and they headed in that direction.
The barn door creaked loudly when Blaise pushed it open. They both winced but kept moving forward. What else could they do? They checked every stall and even looked inside a large white freezer that stood against one wall, looking very out of place.
They headed back to the other side of the barn and Blaise whispered, “I’m going to check the loft, you keep your gun ready and watch both doors.”
West nodded, and stationed himself at the bottom of the ladder leading up to the loft. Blaise tucked his gun in his holster and started climbing. The wood creaked under his weight. When he was above West’s head, a rung snapped under his foot and he plummeted down, catching himself with his hands on the rung above his head. That one snapped too and he fell to the ground with a grunt.
“Are you OK?” West whispered fiercely, his eyes still moving between the two barn doors.
Blaise’s hand immediately went to his ankle. His face was screwed up in pain and sudden sweat soaked his dark skin.
“Ankle. It hurts.”
“Ah fuck.”
They sat there for a moment, West feeling incredibly helpless and Blaise rolling back and forth holding his ankle, his teeth gritted to hold back a scream. Finally Blaise opened his eyes and took a deep breath.
West handed the shotgun to Blaise and pushed up the pant leg on the ankle he’d been holding. Gingerly, West took Blaise’s shoe off and examined the already puffy and bruised ankle. “It doesn’t seem broken, just sprained bad,” he said in a hushed tone, his helplessness compounding.
“Can you splint it?”
West looked around the empty barn. “I could use my shirt, but it won’t help a ton. I’ll have to piggy-back you to the car.”
“Not until we clear the barn. There’s something here that we’re missing. I can feel it. Splint me up. I’ll be OK.”
West nodded, his desires painfully conflicting. He stripped his shirt over his head, then a thought struck him.
“What size shoe do you wear?”
“11.”
West started untying his own boot. “Here, try this. It’s one size too small, but that should work for you, not against you. The high ankle will go above the sprain, and if we tie it tight enough, it will work perfectly as a splint.”
Carefully, West slipped the boot on Blaise’s foot and tied it as tightly as he could. Blaise grunted and got to his feet, then hobbled around slowly. “Yeah, I can walk.” He looked upwards. “I don’t think anyone is in the hayloft.” He looked around the barn once more. “Maybe we should look out back. There could be a shed or something.”
West put his shirt back on and picked up the shotgun. He suddenly had the feeling that they were already too late. “Check the ground. Frank said something about a bomb shelter.”
Blaise looked at him closely, obvious pain on his face. “A bomb shelter? That changes everything! Let’s go check the yard. It’s probably buried somewhere. We have to find the entrance.”
Blaise limped lightly out to the yard and West followed, bargaining loosely with God in his mind. Please let her be OK. I’ll do anything you ask of me. I’ll give away every cent I have if you want me to. I’ll start going to church. I’ll build a church! Anything. In his mind’s eye, he could too easily see her body broken and discarded in the same way the other women had been.
A thorough search of the immediate yard yielded nothing that could lead into an underground shelter of some sort. West clenched his fists in frustration. “We’re missing it. I know it. It’s right here somewhere and we’re missing it!”
He suddenly wished he were the psychic and he could lay his hands on the ground and have it tell him where Katerina was. Blaise said something behind him but West ignored him. A voice was speaking in his head. Agnes’ voic
e. You’re an empath too, West, but you’re a transmitter. OK then, he was going to transmit.
West closed his eyes and called up Katerina’s face in his mind. He imagined yelling through a megaphone and sent his mental voice out in all directions. KATERINA, WHERE ARE YOU? HELP US!
Immediately, West saw an image of Katerina in front of him. She looked as lovely as ever, and at complete peace, in a way he hadn’t seen her look, ever. She glowed, and he could see through her, like he imagined an angel would look in real life, if there were such a thing. She smiled at him, her lovely, teasing smile, and drifted backwards on the lawn, in front of the barn door. He followed, tears springing immediately to his eyes. Was she really an angel? Was she dead already? He knew he was too late, and now this was all he would ever have. Her one last image. He ran forward, the shotgun dragging on the ground. He stumbled over a rock and when he looked back up, she was gone. He cried out and ran forward, back into the barn, but she was nowhere to be seen. Had she even been there at all?
Chapter 23
Curling herself into a tiny ball in the back corner of her little cell, Jordan heard the sicko psycho step away from her door and she scrambled that way on her hands and knees. She couldn’t believe she was in this mess, about to die, about to be shot and tortured, all because she hadn’t been paying attention last night. She’d been so angry - fuming really - at Blaise’s insensitive remark that she had driven home almost blind, then stalked out of her car without so much as a look around. Her place had been quiet and dark at 1:30 in the morning, and she had been muttering to herself and looking at the ground. Out of nowhere, she’d been slammed in the side of the head and then she didn’t remember anything until she woke up here. And now Katerina was here. And it was all Jordan’s fault. She knew she’d been the bait.
Jordan lifted up the little slot in the door and peeked out, trying to see what was going on. Katerina was handcuffed to the chair, her face red and twisted in anger or concentration - Jordan couldn’t tell which - and Mr. Big Shot Asswad Killer was staying far away from her. Like he was scared of her. Ha! Not so big shot now, are you asshole? If one tiny woman tied to a chair scares you!
As Jordan watched, even as she taunted this jerkwater in her mind, Katerina’s head flew backwards and she screamed. Jordan heard power and strength in the scream, and suddenly she was a little bit more scared. If Katerina had the ability to blow the entire place up with her mind, Jordan believed she would do it.
As the scream echoed off the four walls, making Jordan wince and clap her hands to her ears, she saw a glowing yellow light erupt from Katerina’s head, then cover her entire body. It flowed down her, not like water, but more like an electrical current. Jordan’s eyes went wide and she pressed her face against the slot in her door. Was Katerina on fire? The glowing yellow light shot down her legs and onto her feet, then sizzled through a puddle of water there, making it smoke. It followed the puddle in an instant and then jumped or arced through the air like an animal, catching on to Mr. JerkFuck’s foot as he walked. Jordan saw him stumble, like the light had ahold of him. It raced up his leg and enveloped him as surely as it was enveloping Katerina. He looked down, dropping the needle and the key out of his hands, then rubbing, then gazing at them in wonder. He stopped and turned towards Katerina, holding up his hands towards her. Her screaming stopped, but she held rigid in the chair, her face a rictus of single-mindedness.
“Yes! Yes!” the sicko crowed, throwing his head back like Katerina. Jordan saw smoke coming off of him. He clenched his fists and screwed up his face in pain, then tried to jerk his body backwards.
“What are you doing? It hurts!” he shrieked. “No! Stop it! You’re doing it wrong!” Jordan slitted her eyes against the bright light, which seemed to grow in intensity. The sicko psycho’s voice seemed garbled now. He kept shrieking and screaming, but Jordan couldn’t understand a word. The water on the floor of the room began to hiss and steam and Jordan felt a blast of heat hit her in the face.
She couldn’t tear her eyes away, even as she felt the skin on her face begin to blister in the heat.
The man seemed to be melting. His skin was waxy, and running. She could distinctly see his jaw lengthen and drop. His black gloves had melted so tight on his hands that she could see the bones through them. Even his sunglasses seemed to have liquefied and run together with his eyes. Snapping and popping and hissing sounds filled the air. His clothes began to smolder and he fell to the ground in a boneless, liquid heap, his screaming suddenly stopped.
Jordan watched, as the connection between Katerina and the partially melted man was broken. Katerina slumped in her chair, eyes closed.
Jordan let the piece of metal fall closed - it had become too hot to touch - and then pushed herself back against the wall of her cell. She hadn’t really just seen a man …. her mind cast about for what had happened. Had he melted? At least a little bit?
Silence stretched as Jordan’s mind tried to explain away what had just happened. Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore. She tried to peek through the slot again but the metal burnt her skin. She whipped off a shoe and shoved it in the hole so she could see out. The man was still in a heap (puddle?) on the floor and Katerina’s eyes were still closed. Jordan squinted and tried to see if Katerina was breathing. Soft sounds came from the cells next to her. She heard a woman’s voice saying something in another language, then more rustling and crying.
“Katerina? Kat? Can you hear me?”
Katerina didn’t move.
Jordan started feeling her way around the door of the tiny, dark cell in earnest. She had to get out of here and help Kat.
Chapter 24
West whipped his head from side to side. Where had Katerina gone?! He didn’t see her anywhere and the certain knowledge that she was gone forever, because he was too slow to find her, weighed in on him like a truck full of concrete. He collapsed to one knee and dropped his head into his hands, the shotgun clattering to the ground beside him. He’d failed her. After everything - all his promises and everything they’d been through - he’d let the monster get her. First he’d failed his wife, and then he’d failed Katerina. A black hole opened in his soul and West felt himself spinning down into it.
Blaise came running up behind him. “West, the floor underneath you, it’s sagging, look!”
Who cares?
Blaise pushed at him. “It’s a trapdoor. Get out of the way!”
West scrambled to his feet. If Katerina was gone, it was time for revenge. That monster Dylan Phillips would never kill another woman. West would make sure of it. He picked up the shotgun and pointed it at the boards on the floor. “Open it.”
Blaise pulled the trapdoor open and peered into the darkness below.
“We need flashlights.”
“No time,” West said, checking the safety on his shotgun, then shoving the barrel into a belt loop. He couldn’t think of another way to carry it when he needed both hands to climb the ladder. He dropped to his knees and put his foot on a rung.
“West, you promised you’d listen to me.” Blaise urged.
West looked at him. “I did. But I can’t keep that promise Blaise, I’m sorry. You probably should just get out of here - say you were never here. I’m going to kill Phillips.”
West started resolutely down the ladder and Blaise sighed. He climbed into the hole after West, his nerves on high alert, his ears straining to hear anything from below them.
At the bottom, West felt the walls in a circle. They were in a small tube. His hands found a doorknob and he jiggled it lightly. Not locked. He pulled the shotgun from his belt, then yanked the door open, not heeding his friend who was quietly hissing his name.
“West, wait!”
West rushed into the room at a crouch, hearing Blaise drop to the floor behind him. The first thing that struck him was the smell. Burnt hair and pork chops. Katerina! She was in the center of the room, slumped in a chair, her face deathly pale and slack. He rushed to her, only a small part of his m
ind clambering that Dylan Phillips must be here somewhere and was a very great danger to all of them.
Katerina’s wrists and bare ankles were bound. He leaned in closely and pressed two fingers to her neck, his mind achingly silent.
A heartbeat pulsed under his fingers. West looked to the ceiling of the small dirt enclosure and said his prayers of profound thanks. Behind him, he heard Blaise mutter, “What in the hell is that?”
A voice came from the far side of the room. “What… is that you Blaise?”
West looked to the wall and saw the horribly-tiny doors in the wall. Four of the little slots in the doors were open and fingers were reaching towards him and Blaise. Oh my God there were women in there.
“West! Blaise! Get me out of here!” Jordan’s distraught voice carried across the room.
“I’m coming, Jordan, I’m coming,” West heard Blaise say, while he edged past a smoking pile of clothes and what looked like plastic pipe on the ground. Blaise pressed something hard into West’s hand and rushed to the cell. West looked at his hand. A handcuff key. He quickly unlocked Katerina’s cuffs and picked her up out of the chair. He hated the way her head draped over his arm. “Katerina,” he whispered, “Wake up, baby.”
Blaise dropped to his knees in front of the tiny door. West saw him and Jordan grasp hands. “Jordan, where’s Dylan Phillips?” Blaise asked urgently.
“Right there, right behind you, you passed him,” Jordan said, letting go of Blaise’s hand and pointing. “The key is somewhere by him. Go get it.”
Blaise looked behind him and West saw incredulity in his eyes. West felt his own soul mirror it. He turned slowly, Katerina in his arms, and looked closely at the pile of clothes and plastic. Light wisps of smoke drifted up from it, but West could see no flame. His eye traveled from one end of the pile to the other, and although his mind denied it, he could see slight proof of human form. He saw melted shoes leading to scorched pants, merging with something that could be a shirt. And at the top? A smooth PVC pipe with dirt or something on it.
