Demonic Dreams

by Hadena James

  "What's in the rooms? Go down the list and tell me." I asked Gabriel.

  "Go down what list?" Gabriel asked.

  "Fine down the corridor. Starting at the end back there," I pointed behind me. Raphael was locked in one of the rooms at the furthest end from the kitchen where I had woken up.

  "Bedrooms." Gabriel said. "They are all bedrooms, except the one across from the kitchen, it's a bathroom." He told me.

  "Bathroom, across from the kitchen?" I asked.

  "The doors seal, Ace, germs aren't going to be a problem."

  "No, that doesn't make sense. You put rooms that require plumbing next to each other. The bathroom should be on either side of the kitchen not across the hall from it, especially in a place like this. It just makes it easier and you don't have to run as much line."

  "You have a look." Gabriel said.

  "The only reason for the kitchen and bathroom to be across from each other is if this is not the only level. Then you could run it in the floor and ceiling and group the rooms that require plumbing together on two levels. Think about all our houses. They might have different layouts, but essentially, all of them have bathrooms over the kitchen and next to the kitchen, not stuck out by the garage."

  "I see your point, I just didn't realize you knew so much about construction."

  "It's not my most knowledgeable subject, but I remember when I was a kid my parents did some remodeling and put in a second bathroom and it was pain in the ass because there was no plumbing in that section of the house. They essentially had to tear out every wall and put new lines in to the new bathroom. Both input and output lines. It was something they ended up starting themselves and calling contractors to come finish. However, Eric was a teen and getting the bathroom away from him was difficult at times."

  "You don't think of teen boys hogging bathrooms," Gabriel replied.

  "My brother is a psychopath, by definition that ensures he's a narcissist, and even male narcissists primp." I commented. "One day, try sharing a hotel room with Malachi. I don't know how he and Caleb manage."

  "Because Caleb is a little more like you than like Malachi." Gabriel suggested.

  "Maybe. So, if every room down here is either a kitchen, bathroom, or bunk house, I'm guessing the living area is upstairs or up the ladder." I sighed. "Along with some kind of control room."

  "Why is there a control room?"

  "Because the air is being refreshed through a filtration system, it smells stale and slightly strange, so I'm guessing it has a UV filtration system, which would explain why the doors all seal."

  "You can smell UV light?" Gabriel asked.

  "Don't be ridiculous, of course not. Light rarely has a smell. But air that has had all germs killed from it has a strange odor. It's not natural. We breathe in millions of bacterial and viral germs all the time and they all produce waste material, especially bacteria, which is why the air smells oddly. That bacteria have been killed off."

  "You might be the only person on the planet that knows bacteria has a smell."

  "I'm sure I'm not. And it's not the bacteria itself that smells, it's the... oh never mind. I'll have someone smarter than me explain it to you when we get out of here." We had reached the end near the kitchen with the ladder that went up into the ceiling and had one of those turn handles on it. It couldn't be locked unless Raphael had a partner upstairs waiting for his return, and I was hoping he didn't.

  "Sure," Gabriel said.

  "You are such an optimist." I snipped.

  "I was being sarcastic about getting to hear someone explain why air that viral or bacterial organisms in it smells does not have different than air that does."

  "Oh," I looked at the ladder. "How many tendons would you estimate were cut in my leg?"

  "Several." Gabriel responded.

  "Great, this is going to suck." I grabbed the first rung of the ladder and put my foot on it, my good one, then I grabbed a little higher up with my hands and pulled my gimpy leg up behind me.

  "You're more physically fit than I expected," Gabriel said as I reached the top and balanced myself using the crooks of my elbows. I flipped him the finger.

  "I'm going to need you up here to help me," I told him.

  "Oh, we're both going to hang on the ladder in the same spot?"

  "Unless you can think of a better way to imitate your brother's psychotic strength, then yes."

  "What if it's locked?"

  "It can't be, if it's locked I want to know how he intended to get out of here himself."

  "Point taken." Gabriel told me. I nodded.

  Thankfully, the sides of the ladder were open, allowing me to wrap my legs around the edges and hook my feet to hold me up while I attempted to help Gabriel turn the handle with both hands. Gabriel mimicked me after the first try. It still didn't budge. We didn't give up until my legs and ankles were screaming at me from their lack of blood flow by the tight grip I had on the ladder. Gabriel's face was beet red again, and we were both sweating. It was a lot harder for me to climb down. I made it about four rungs when I felt Gabriel's hands grab my waist. I gave him a look.

  "Let go of the damn ladder, it will be faster and less painful for both of us if we do it this way." I rolled my eyes but did as he said. I was not a damsel in need of rescuing, well I was, but it still hurt my pride.

  "Tell the phone to call your sister."

  Gabriel pushed the button and we both waited. It rang twice and then his sister answered.

  "How dare you call here after what you did!" She shouted into the phone and the line went dead.

  "What did I do?" Gabriel asked.

  "Well, someone attacked your other sister and made sure it looked like Raphael."

  "Is she dead?"

  "She wasn't when I got kidnapped, but her husband was. Call again and start talking the moment she answers the phone." Gabriel instructed the phone to call his sister again.

  "No, Raphael, I will not talk to you!" His sister shouted.

  "Mary, it's Gabriel, I need a favor," Gabriel shouted into the phone. I had questions about how Raphael made phone calls to his family if he didn't have vocal cords. Texts seemed easier.

  "Gabriel?" Her voice softened as she said it. "You're all over the news."

  "Why?" Gabriel asked.

  "Because you and that lady that works for you are both missing. Why do you have Raphael's phone number showing up on my screen?" I had met all of Gabriel's family, and part of me was unsure I liked being referred to as that lady. It didn't strike me as a compliment, especially with her tone and emphasis on that lady.

  "I have Raphael's phone, he kidnapped me," Gabriel told her. "I need you to call Malachi Blake and give him this phone number and tell him to call it. I don't know the code to unlock it, so we are having to bypass the security by having the phone dial for us, which means it has to be a number already in the phone." Gabriel gave her Malachi's phone number.

  "Are you and her okay?" Mary asked. Her. I didn't even have a name to this woman. I tried not to let it bug me, she'd had a rough couple of days or possibly longer, after all. I didn't know how long I'd been missing, but since we were still on the news, they hadn't given up hope of finding us yet, so it couldn't have been too long.

  "Yes, Aislinn and I are both okay, although, she's been injured, it isn't life threatening, just painful, and it'd be easier if Malachi could come rescue us than if we have to rescue ourselves."

  "Ok, call Malachi, tell him you’re okay and give him Raph's number." Mary repeated the instructions slowly and I thought about breaking the phone just, so I wouldn't have to hear the wheels in her brain turn. Except I couldn't do that, we needed the phone.

  "Yes, and have him call us, Mary. We need Malachi to call us." Gabriel told her.

  I wandered away from the conversation, or the rest of the conversation anyway, and went to the fridge. There was deli meat in it, not just packages of lunch meat, but actual deli meat. I took out a bag and sniffed it. It was turkey and it smelled like heav
en. There was also mayonnaise in the fridge and several kinds of cheese. I grabbed the turkey and mayo and some cheese and found my way into the pantry. It was well stocked with boxed and canned goods. We could spend a significant amount of time down here without starving to death at least. There were even more chips. Several boxes of assorted variety individual bags of chips were stacked up on top of each other. There were boxes of cereal, cans of condensed milk, milk powder which made me want to gag, along with powdered eggs, and things like spaghetti, mac and cheese, jars of spaghetti sauce. Someone had been stocking this pantry for a while. Raphael seemed to have filled the fridge with only the basic necessities. There was another loaf of bread in the freezer. There was tea already made. A gallon of store bought fresh milk. A bunch of frozen pizzas in the freezer with the bread and a giant bag of tater tots along with a giant bag of chicken nuggets. I had seen ketchup in the pantry along with bottles of mustard, Miracle Whip, more mayonnaise, pickles, relish, black olives, green olives, and even canned potatoes. Whoever had stocked it had not intended to have to fight for food. I handed a bag of deli shaved roast beef to Gabriel.

  "Is it really roast beef?" He asked.

  "Yes," I told him.

  "I had only been sure about the ham and cheese loaf, so I hadn't braved anything else."

  "I assure you it really is roast beef." I told him. "Whoever stocked the fridge and freezer, eats like a teenager. Mostly lunch meat, an assortment of cheeses, frozen pizzas, chicken nuggets, and tater tots, and almost all of it is junk food. The sandwich stuff is the healthiest thing in there." I handed Gabriel an individual cup of chocolate pudding.

  "Raphael stocked the fridge and freezer, the pantry was definitely not him since the mac and cheese doesn't go in the microwave and he wouldn't buy boxes of pasta salad."

  "What's wrong with pasta salad?" I asked.

  "Vegetables," Gabriel answered. "Raphael will only eat vegetables that he can fry, like tater tots."

  "Not much of a cook huh?" I asked eating my sandwich.

  "He's single, lives alone in the middle of nowhere. Closest house is like the hike from Olathe, Kansas to Blue Springs, Missouri. He doesn't have company. Everything runs on either a generator or has to be cooked on a wood stove." Gabriel shrugged, got up and put the pudding in the fridge. "These look like Raphael," Gabriel held the pudding snack up. "So, he cooks everything by gadget off a solar powered generator and about ten years ago he put solar panels on the cabin, so he has some electricity. There's a rain barrel with a pump that collects water for the cabin and it's heated with one of those tankless water heater units. He mostly lives off the grid. I don't even know how he gets cell reception."

  "A booster, like what's in this bunker, unless he also has a satellite phone." I told him. "I can't get a signal in my basement all the time, but he's got a signal in a bunker."

  Chapter Four

  I ATE MY SANDWICH IN silence. Gabriel's face kept changing expressions. It was a bad sign, but I didn't press him on it. Malachi was taking his dear, sweet time calling us back. I checked the phone to make sure it was turned on and had power, the battery indicated it had full life. I put it down and opened another bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos.

  "How long has it been since you've seen your nieces and nephews?" He finally asked. I took another bite of my chip and chewed as loudly as possible.

  "I don't know, however long Elle has been in hiding." I answered knowing that was not what he meant. He meant my other nieces and nephews.

  "Isabelle's children, Ace." Gabriel corrected me even though I was pretty sure we both knew I had known exactly who he was talking about.

  "A long time." I told him. "I don't even remember their names and if they walked up to me in a bar, I probably wouldn't recognize them.

  "Guestimate how long," Gabriel told me.

  "The day of her funeral." I answered. "Her husband made it very clear to me and Eric that we were not welcome around her children, he would not be raising a litter of psychopaths. Those were his exact words. Elle punched him for it, but he had a point. Unfortunately for him, if we're right and it's inherited, he may not have a choice. However, Isabelle married a normal guy without a history of violence in his family. So maybe he'll get lucky. My mom knows where they are, but I don't. They've all had their names changed and I don't know who disappeared them, but my mom had something to do with it."

  "Why did Elle stay when Isabelle's husband didn't?"

  "Elle comes from a family of violence, like Eric and me. She said she couldn't imagine having better family than us. Besides, I don't think she's close to any of her family back in Germany. There were some incidents that lead to her dad moving away from them. So, she adopted us even after Eric did what he did. Also, she says she married him for better or worse knowing he was a psychopath and it could get worse real fast, but he never expressed his anger in bad ways around the children or her, probably because psychopath or not, she would have kicked his ass."

  "Your mom helped disappear Isabelle's children?" Gabriel asked.

  "My mom is a haven for secrets and secret lives, and I don't know details for my own protection according to her." I told Gabriel.

  "She is a bit of a bad ass."

  "With psychopathic genes in her family. They seemed to skip my mom, but since Eric and I both got them, I think mom has to be a carrier, and I don't know the details of her childhood, she refuses to discuss it, says it's too painful. But her parents died in a house fire when she was little. Her oldest brother got her out, but it's my understanding that he was institutionalized for arson and murder after that. Not in a prison but an asylum where he can't leave. She doesn't talk about her youngest brother at all. I'm not sure he didn't die in the fire as well. It's my understanding that before they carted her oldest brother off, he also set their grandparents house on fire killing them. My mom was raised in foster care as a result. I don't know how that ties into her secret life before she met my dad, but it seems to. She has some skills and a temper, but not a raging temper, just a temper. She goes and sees Isabelle's children once every couple of years and talks to them every week through the internet. I think the same program she and Nyleena are using to talk to me. And wherever they are, she hires Daniels' Security to escort her there. Malachi actually met Nadine while looking for private security to escort my mom to see them."

  "What does he do?"

  "I don't know. He was a missionary for a long time, but after Isabelle died, I don't know if he changed professions. I've thought about trying to find them, but I don't want to bring my chaos into their lives if they are happy or ruin my mom's ability to see them."

  "Do you miss them?"

  "As much as any person can miss nieces and nephews they don't really know and as much as one who has very little emotional connection to the world can,” I told him and was saved by the ringing phone. Gabriel looked at the number.

  "Well, unless Malachi is with my dad, it's not him."

  "This call is going to be painful," I warned him. He nodded as he answered it. I chewed my food with determination, like a condemned prisoner and his last meal. I could hear Gabriel's father shouting through the phone, and occasionally, Gabriel would shout back. The conversation didn't seem to be going well. I didn't know who was madder when Gabriel hung up, him or his father. Gabriel's mother had died when he was a teen and he didn't talk about her. I wasn't going to make him start today.

  "So?" I asked once he'd hung up.

  "My father thinks Raphael was framed for the attack on my sister's family."

  "He was," I told Gabriel. "I had Alex check into it, sorta. She was supposed to be trying to figure out who my stalker was, which she did because she is that good. When your family was attacked, Raphael was on an airplane flying from Kansas City to Los Angeles to see Nathan Green. He has an airtight alibi. Alex talked to some of the passengers of the flight and they remember Raphael because of how tall he was, and his red hair and he didn't say anything through the entire flight. So, someone did in fact fra
me Raphael. I’m betting it’s the same person that sent him to kill Nathan and kill you and kill me."

  "We have a little time I bet, you want to fill me in on that?"

  "My father worked the Callow case for three months before I was kidnapped and taken. They were getting nowhere from what I remember. I also remember there were two serial killers. Callow who liked them young, like me, and one that liked to kill teen girls. Eric had a friend go missing and she was found in a pond, but cause of death wasn't drowning, it was suffocation. The guy crushed her windpipe and then threw her in the pond. I wasn't allowed to hear all the details, but I'd pick up bits and pieces from Eric or my father and his partner because they would come to my house to discuss the case from time to time. I also remember mom saying one was a distraction for the other. In a town of 100,000 people it was odd that two serial killers popped up at the exact same time. The child murders started first, then about two weeks later the teen murders started. I remember the night I escaped Callow, my brother and sister held me all night long. Isabelle and Eric both cradled me in their arms and Isabelle kept saying it was just a matter of time before they had both cases wrapped up since now all they had to do was find Callow's partner. We watched the movie Monster Squad. Looking back, I think I was in a little shock. I remember killing Callow and I remember Isabelle and Eric cradling me and holding me and us watching Monster Squad, which is why it is my go to comfort movie these days. However, I don't remember Isabelle making popcorn. We had a routine though. When Isabelle would babysit she would bring movies, like Monster Squad, and she would curl up with me on the couch after making popcorn and we'd spend the night watching cheesy horror films. I saw all the Godzillas, I saw King Kong, I saw Monster Squad, I saw Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein, all those types of horror movies. Never anything really scary, but horror movies none-the-less. Anyway, she' d make enough popcorn to fill the biggest bowl Mom had. Popped it on the stove. She'd sit right next to me, put the popcorn in my lap and tell me if I jumped, we'd have to go make more popcorn, because I'd spill it. Never spilled it. But that was our ritual. She knew even before Callow that I was a psychopath. She knew Eric was too. She didn't care. She treated us equally well and with love. If Eric came home while Isabelle was babysitting, she wouldn't leave, even though she had her own family by then. Instead, she and Eric would sit with me and watch those corny horror movies and eat popcorn. Thing is, I don't remember her making popcorn that night, but I do know someone made us popcorn. Because Eric dumped the bowl over my head and then put the bowl on my head like it was a hat and then Isabelle put on some music and all three of us danced with me wearing that bowl as a hat. It's been a long time since I've thought about this. I can remember the popcorn and the movies, but I can't remember what my sister looked like. I do remember thinking she was as beautiful as our mother, so she must have been pretty, but I don't remember what she actually looked like." I paused and wiped away a tear that had fallen while I talked.