Cold Memory

by Leslie A. Kelly

  She considered herself a coward.

  Penny knew she couldn’t have saved Jersey. But maybe she could help someone else.

  Her feet again acted without her mind being fully engaged. She was still weighing it over, wondering if her need to help could actually outweigh her self-preservation instincts, when she started running toward the carnival. It was dark, so damned dark, and there were no lights in the field. Only a few emergency lights in front of her. A couple of house lights behind.

  The phone dumbass.

  Pulling it out, Penny opened a flashlight app she’d downloaded after the first couple of times she’d crossed this field at night. Before she activated it, though, she jammed her fingers on the keypad and called 911, continuing to stagger through the tall, damp grass. She just hoped she didn’t step into an armadillo hole and twist her ankle. She’d be no good to anybody then, especially herself.

  The phone rang, and rang, and rang, and rang, and rang. “Isn’t it a law that you guys have to answer quickly?” she snarled. She’d never called 911 before, and had always assumed they answered, without fail, by the third or so ring.

  She counted ten rings before she finally heard a voice. A recorded one.

  “Thank you for calling the Ocean Whispers Emergency Line. We are experiencing high call volume. Please hold and someone will be with you shortly.”

  “Are you kidding me?!” she ranted, not believing this small town horseshit.

  She stumbled, going down on a knee. The phone flew out of her hand and hit the ground several feet away. The fact that it went dark immediately made her fear the back had come off and the battery had flown out. “Please, God, please, no,” she whispered, crawling to where she thought she’d seen it land. The high grass, the dark night, and her own terror made her vision blur, and she had to pat her way to try to find it.

  In the meantime, there was another scream.

  “Come on, come on!”

  Her fingers dug into mud, tore at ground, finally brushing against something hard and plastic. She clamped her hand around it, snatched it up brought it close to her face, and saw the back—and the battery—were indeed gone. She would never find them in this field, in this darkness, in this state.

  Penny sat back on her heels. Terrified, with tears and snot running down her face, she was also disappointed in herself for even hesitating to help someone in such obvious need.

  So she didn’t have a cell phone and she couldn’t call for help. She had no weapon, so she couldn’t attack a murderer to try to save his victim.

  She still had eyes; she could see what was happening and testify about it.

  She had a voice; she could scream and draw someone away.

  And she had her ability. She could go forward and find out whether she was going to be able to help or not.

  “Not when I’m more than ninety seconds away, though.”

  No. Not when she still had to run at least another minute to even reach the outer edge of the carnival ground.

  Digging into an inner well of strength and determination that she’d had to use when dealing with her greedy, judgmental father, and with doctors who argued over her mother’s care, Penny rose unsteadily to her feet. She brushed mud off her jeans, drew a deep breath, and began to run again. Her destination was an emergency light on one of the power poles outside the Sideshow—near the big tent. From there, she’d listen again for any sounds and decide if she was close enough to…travel.

  When she got there, she was out of breath. Her tears had flown off her face as she flew through the grass, finding power in legs that, every day, leapt and danced away from sharp knives.

  If she could face down a dozen knives thrown at her, she could face her own fears.

  Pausing at the sign for the sideshow, she listened, hearing her own inhalations and the wind whistling through the walking areas between the attractions. The ropes on the big tent creaked, a piece of loose metal clanged against the side of some ride, and the chains on the giant swings jingled. God, the carnival was noisy at night, even when it was utterly silent.

  “No!” a voice cried, still too far to determine from where, but closer than before.

  She dashed from the shadow of the tent toward the arcade. Another dart brought her to the haunted house ride. Still another and she was standing outside the fun house, with its zig-zag floors, spinning tunnel, psychedelic bridge of death, and hall of mirrors.

  She hated the fucking funhouse. Totally hated it.

  But when she heard a cry coming from inside it, she knew she was going to have to go in.

  Or part of her would, anyway.

  “Okay, I’m going to do it,” she whispered, her lips barely parting, the words not moving an inch from her mouth. “I’m going inside the funhouse, as quietly as I can, and I’m going to see who’s screaming. If I can do something to help, I will. If I can’t, I’ll come back out and run back to my car and go for the police.”

  Perfect plan. It might work. It might not get her killed.

  She closed her eyes. She pushed.

  Penny quickly walked across the sawdust-covered path toward the entrance to the building with the massive clown on the front. When open, the attraction invited little kids to enter via a giant clown’s mouth that opened and closed. Terrifying.

  Having avoided the fun house, she still remembered from the one time she’d gone in that the outside steps squeaked, and the top one had a spot that bleated out a raspberry sound. She clung to the side railing, her toes barely touching the outside edges of the steps. Even she couldn’t hear herself as she scurried to the top.

  The giant clown mouth was always in the open position, closing slowly only when the fun house was in operation. Little ones would be told to rush in quickly before the mouth closed. She couldn’t understand why they didn’t run like hell in the other direction.

  Darting toward that opening, she didn’t glance up or down at the mouth, lined with painted, sharp teeth. It was supposed to be smiling but instead appeared about to swallow her up.

  The first room, as she recalled, contained the spinning tunnel. To get into it, she had to push through a fringed curtain of heavy black rubber that swung and swatted her in the face.

  “You’ve got this one,” she told herself.

  With the tunnel not in operation, she could make it through the obstacle just fine. The last time she’d come through here, the spinning tube had made her feel seasick. Crooked, painted lines covered the interior, all black and white and lit by strobes, everything rolling beneath her feet, just as her stomach had rolled. But now, all was silent, all was still.

  She stepped inside. To her shock, lights flashed on—strobes blinding her—and the tunnel slowly began to move.

  What the hell?

  Realizing the funhouse probably had an automatic sensor that determined someone had come in, she raced through the obstacle before it really got going. A few long strides took her to the end. She only stumbled when trying to get out as the spinning picked up speed.

  One obstacle down. But what if he heard the ride start up? What if he saw the strobe lights?

  “No, please!” a voice cried.

  She was close. So very close. The person inside was not dead, not beyond saving. She couldn’t turn back now.

  Telling herself the bastard was too occupied tormenting his victim to have noticed the machinery grinding, she kept going. Facing another wall of rubber curtain, and remembering the next room featured clowns and marionettes that popped up and down—she fucking hated clowns—she stepped carefully around the center tile, hoping to avoid any more sensors.

  No luck. Even though she stretched far to the right of the entrance, as soon as she stepped down, a Harlequin-type fiend launched up about two feet from her. Penny bit back a squeal, glad the sound effects hadn’t come on. If she stayed quiet, walking through here shouldn’t give her presence away too easily.

  “Okay, do your worst,” she muttered, knowing fast and direct was the best route. It was, agai
n, a small room, and a half-dozen strides took her through it. She avoided a couple of the trigger points, apparently, because nothing dropped from above and landed on her head. She didn’t think she’d have been able to prevent a surprised squeak at that. She was, though, able to just glare at the clowns—red haired, bald, gleeful, sad, malevolent—as they popped up beside the path. They couldn’t stop her. Right now, nothing could.

  She reached the next room. The hall of mirrors.

  Emergency lights offered the only illumination in here—she saw a required Exit sign, but it was reflected over and over. She had no idea where the door truly was. But at least nothing came to life in this weird room. It was her versus all that glass.

  She took one step. Bumping nose first into a hard surface, she whispered a curse and turned, only to see herself standing in a dozen places. Knowing the images would psych her out, she used a trick the ride operator had taught her: She closed her eyes. Now, it was just as dark as it had been before, but her own reflected image wasn’t confusing her.

  She reached out quickly, feeling for the glass. Moving each of her hands in an opposite direction, she slid her fingers over each surface until she came to a side, gauging whether it was open, or solid. If solid, she turned and tried again. If open, she passed through.

  Raise the hands. Palms flat. Separate directions. Fingers slide. Find the opening.

  Her right hand hit open air. And then it hit a body.

  Penny’s eyes flew open. Standing directly in front of her, and behind her, and beside her, and everywhere, was a tall figure dressed in black from head to toe. He wore a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed the face, a heavy raincoat, and black gloves.

  He held a knife.

  She screamed, inside her head, and then through her mouth, her shriek so high and so shrill she thought all the glass would break.

  A voice whispered, “How did you know about the button when you never went in?”

  “What?”

  “The house. The bedroom. You didn’t go in. I was waiting for you and you never went in. I saw you—but you didn’t see me. I’m invisible, you know. That’s what I’ve been told. But you…what are you?”

  He didn’t wait for her to reply. Instead, he surprised her, swinging his arm down, in a hard, heavy arc, aiming the knife directly toward her chest.

  She reacted instinctively, leaping and dodging as if she were on the stage with Val. This would be the performance of her life.

  Frantic to escape, Penny spun around to run back the way she’d come, only to slam into a hard mirror. Crying, sobbing, she spun again. Right toward the man in black.

  This time, when the knife arced down, it didn’t miss.

  He plunged it right into her heart.

  There was no scream, she couldn’t find one. She could only stand there in shock and agony as fire erupted in her chest and pulsed throughout her body. It surged in waves—pain, not blood. The blood was spurting out to create puddles at her feet. The pain was driving her mad.

  “No,” she whispered. “Val…Mom….”

  He was watching her, his head up, revealing his face. She saw him. Recognized him somehow. But her brain was misfiring, and she couldn’t quite find his name or identity in the dying recesses of her mind.

  His head tilted sideways as he stared, almost curious, watching her die. Penny staggered away, finding the opening behind her, getting through it. The clowns greeted her in the next room as she dripped blood on their biers. She wasn’t frightened; certainly her pulse didn’t race in excitement as they rose from the floor to surprise her.

  Her heart put up a valiant effort. It gurgled. It strained. Very soon, it slowed to a faint glug-glug. The sound became all she could hear as she fell to her knees, landing in a pool of blood. Had all that come from her body? Could she still be moving after losing that much?

  She tried, anyway. Crawled. Reached the spinning tunnel and put a hand on it. There she fell. And there she lay dying.

  Opening her eyes and seeing the exterior of the fun house, the giant clown, and that toothy, gaping mouth, Penny muffled a scream. “I died. Oh my God, I died!”

  Or, she would die, if she went into that crazily-maniacal place.

  She would die ninety seconds after taking the first step toward it. How was that even possible?

  Penny fell to her knees on the ground. Her body was weak, entirely drained. Her heart’s thud was sluggish, and she told herself to concentrate on it, reminding it to beat. Also forcing her mouth to breathe, she silently told her lungs to take oxygen and her brain to not shut down.

  I died.

  Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. In a few of her visions, she’d seen herself come close to danger. Once she’d envisioned walking under a platform that collapsed a moment later; another time she’d been crossing a street right before a car skidded out of control. But never had she actually been hurt in one of her visions, much less killed.

  How could she survive seeing—experiencing—her own death?

  She was having a hard time coming back from it. As always, the memories of what was real and what was only could-be were trying to mesh together. The could-be was so horrific that the most primal part of her brain kept trying to examine it, catalog it, re-experience it.

  Unable to remain upright on her knees, she sagged forward, curling into a ball, her chest on her thighs. She shuddered and shook, and tears continued to pour from her eyes. But slowly, after a couple of moments, her breaths began to even, and her heart found a more regular rhythm.

  That’s when the shock turned and segued into something else.

  Terror.

  She was no longer afraid of what would happen if she went into that fun house. No. Now she feared what would happen if she stayed where she was.

  Penny didn’t think she had made much noise. She hadn’t screamed, or done anything to tip the man off to her presence outside. That wasn’t much comfort, though, not now that she’d seen him. A psychotic monster who would kill her without a second’s remorse was only a few yards away, hidden inside that hell house. Who is he? God, I know I’ve seen that face before.

  There was no time to wonder. Penny had to get away and run for help. There might be someone in need of help inside, but there might not. The screams could have been a trick to lure a bystander into a trap, as she would have been lured if not for her dark gift.

  Knowing where he’d found her, in that wicked hall of mirrors, she could go in anyway, and try to change her route, alter her steps, change the future. But she wouldn’t, because fate didn’t like that. Time didn’t want to be thwarted.

  No. Penny could not go back in there to face the monster in the maze.

  Run. Just run.

  She stood. She spun around. She ran.

  Right into the knife.

  The real knife.

  Held by the man in black.

  “Oh,” she whispered, that was all.

  Penny was still stunned and surprised as the now-familiar pain attacked her, just as it had in her vision. This time, though, it was real, and was a thousand times worse than her brain had told her it would be.

  More shocking. More agonizing. More brutal.

  As she fell, in the second before she died on the cold, damp ground, she remembered the conversation she’d had earlier today with Mick Tanner.

  In evading the blade to the heart, she’d forgotten to look out for the bucket of knives right behind her.

  Chapter 12

  Waking up to a warm and sexy woman wrapped around him, Mick had to stop for a minute to think how good life could be, at even the most awful times.

  Last night had been remarkable.

  Last night was something he wanted to repeat many times.

  Last night would not have happened if Gypsy hadn’t come back into his life a mere week ago because she was investigating a murder.

  So before last night could be repeated, they were going to have to get through today. And with what they’d found out and discussed las
t night, today was going to be the final day. They would break this case and catch the person who’d killed Barry, Jersey and Shep. He felt it in his bones, going on just old-fashioned intuition, with nothing extrasensory about it.

  One thing was sure: He wasn’t going to let Gypsy do it alone. Now that they both believed the killer was deep within her inner circle—one of her own cops—there was no way he was going to leave her unprotected. She needed someone she could trust completely, who was also capable of bringing down a killer. For now, until she ruled out other suspects, that was him, and him alone.

  The sun was probably just coming up—he could see a hint of light creeping in around the edges of the window blinds. Reaching for his phone on the bedside table, he saw it was almost six-fifteen a.m. Visiting hours started at seven, and he knew she would want to be there.

  “Hey sleeping beauty.” He kissed her earlobe, hearing her soft sigh of contentment. Brushing her hair away from her beautiful, strong face, he added, “Visiting hours start soon.”

  Her eyes flew open, and she jerked upright, the covers falling to her lap to reveal that luscious body he’d spent hours adoring during the night. She’d gone from completely out to ready to charge into the world in half a second.

  “Oh, God, I have to shower, and dress.” She jumped out of the bed and raced toward the adjoining bathroom. He heard the shower start up immediately, then she popped her head back out. “Go put coffee on, would you?” Then she disappeared again.

  He grinned. His Gypsy. “Good morning to you, too.”

  “Oh, good morning!” she yelled, around what he could tell was a mouth full of toothpaste.

  They were parked outside the hospital at seven a.m. on the dot. The carnival crowd had left at some point during the night, and the visitor’s lot was deserted. Gypsy barely waited for the car to come to a stop before she got out and hurried to the door. He caught up with her in a few long strides, and together they went up to the cardiac intensive care unit.

  “My grandfather, Franklin Bell, is he conscious? Can he have visitors?”

  The nurse behind the desk blinked twice. They’d burst out of the elevator and appeared before her so fast she hadn’t had time to absorb their presence.