Then I pull the trigger for the second time.
There’s no explosion.
No round discharged. No bullet entering Sam’s face and exiting out the back of The Skinner’s head. I pull back the slide and try to fire again, but there are no more cartridges in the magazine, and The Skinner knows it. Because not only is he . . . it . . . laughing, he never once attempted to move an inch as I prepared to blast his ugly brains out. He just stands there in complete control of the situation.
My shooting hand goes from trembling to outright seizure. The gun suddenly weighs one hundred pounds, and I have no choice but to drop it to the dirt floor. My stomach is twisting into knots that tie and untie themselves at will. My face feels hot. Burning hot where the spider bit it.
The Skinner takes a step forward. I want to run, but I’m paralyzed, my feet planted not on the packed earth of the basement floor, but in solid concrete. The Skinner raises his hand, cups it around the back of my head, pulls my face to his bloody false face. He kisses me with Sam’s mouth. Kisses me long and hard and dare I say it, lovingly.
I taste the salty blood and mucous on my lips. I taste Sam, and I taste the vileness of The Skinner. My eyes now attracted to something he’s holding in his hand; I see that it’s a needle and syringe. The needle is long and horrible looking. When he stabs me with the needle, it doesn’t surprise me one bit. Nor am I afraid of it. As if at that point, the realization has kicked in: I will not live to see this day end. My child and Robyn’s child will not see this day end. A wave of heat courses through my veins, and just like that, I drop to the floor.
In the dream, I’m floating through a tunnel that’s straight and narrow and round. It’s dark, with only the occasional electric light bulb illuminating the shaft. The sensation of being carried is just that. A sensation. Because when I manage to focus in on my feet, I can see that they’re actually dragging along a floor that’s not really a floor. Rather, the packed gravel bottom of a tunnel that’s been dug out by hand.
Of course, it comes to me, finally, that I’m not really dreaming. That I am actually moving through this tunnel, although not of my own power. Without having to see him, I know that The Skinner has got a hold of me. He’s discarded Sam’s face onto the basement floor, and now he has his arms wrapped under mine at the shoulders. He is the one doing the moving, my deadweight no match for his brute, tensile strength.
Soon, we come to the end of the tunnel and enter into a large concrete pipe which holds maybe six inches of dirty water. From there, we enter into another section of tunnel that’s been excavated with a shovel. The tunnel isn’t long, but it’s big enough to accommodate a big generator. The tunnel accesses a door-sized opening that’s been chopped out of a concrete block foundation wall. Peering up at a dark, wood beam-supported ceiling, I spot a lit light bulb.
When he sets me on the floor, I feel the unmistakable hardness of cool concrete. My eyes take in windowless walls made of concrete block. I must be inside a basement. I must be trapped inside The Skinner’s home under the cornfield. I try to move my head to get a better view of all that surrounds me, but I am paralyzed entirely, only the eyes in my sockets able to move. But I do spot something hanging from the wall directly before me.
A rack upon which three masks hang.
The first mask I recognize as the old man who came to my door yesterday, asked me directions to the closest gas station. He wasn’t an old man at all. It was The Skinner. The second mask is of a bald-headed, goateed man. Perhaps it’s the face of the guard The Skinner killed during his transport upstate from Mid-Hudson Psychiatric. The third mask makes me want to scream my lungs out. If only I had the strength. It’s a beautiful face with lovely lush blonde hair draping both sides of it. Robyn’s face.
I close my eyes and hear something.
When I hear the word Mama spoken from the mouth of a little boy, I know that little Mike is inside the underground room. I pass out, knowing Mike lives.
Driving.
Fast. Up Route 7, the main east/west road that accesses the farm country of Rensselaer County. The road is stop-and-go traffic through the city of Troy. For Detective Nick Miller, time is tight. Tighter than tight. Who knows the danger that Rebecca, Robyn, and the two kids could be in at this very moment.
No choice but to hit the flashers and the siren.
The cars before him begrudgingly pull over. Turning the wheel to the left, he pulls out into the center of the road, the parallel yellow line stripes running over the vehicle that now speeds uphill towards the country. At the same time, he’s hoping not to pass any Troy cops. He wants to avoid having to make contact with them. Wants to avoid having to explain himself or his intent. After all, why should an Albany cop be barreling through a city that doesn’t belong to him?
But Miller wants to check out the situation at the Underhill’s Garfield Road residence on his own. He doesn’t want to alarm Hanover/Skinner if the killer is, in fact, holding them hostage, or worse. He wants to sneak inside under cover of the early evening darkness and make a surprise attack on the evil son of a bitch. At the very least, Miller hopes that he is all wrong about the tunnels and the basement. That The Skinner is nowhere to be found and that Rebecca is indeed just being paranoid. That he, too, is making a big deal out of nothing. How wonderful that would be.
When he’s passed the bottleneck of traffic, he kills the siren and the flashers and regresses back into the camouflage of his unmarked cruiser. Civilian mode. His gut speaks to him. Tells him to make a check on the property as planned, but if anything seems amiss — even slightly out of the ordinary — then he will have no choice but to call in reinforcements. Not just the troopers, but SWAT.
As he hooks a right turn onto Route 2, the rural road that will take him directly to Garfield Road, his thoughts turn specifically to the tunnels. Maybe he should have someone looking into where the tunnels come out on the river side. Maybe he should be ordering a SWAT team to begin their infiltration of the tunnels right this very minute. But then, what if he’s wrong and he leads the team on a wild goose chase? Or worse, what if they come upon the Skinner and The Skinner is ready for them. He’ll be leading his people directly into an ambush.
“Give it a few more minutes,” he whispers to himself. Just hearing his voice inside the confines of the car makes him feel better about his decision. Not more comfortable necessarily. But somehow better. “Give it just a few more minutes to gather some precious intel.”
He drives, his temples beating paradiddles in his brain. When he comes to Garfield Road, he turns right once more, the cruiser climbing the gentle incline, the night stars shining brilliantly through the windshield in the overhead. Something you just don’t get in the city. Objective, unobstructed, smog-free vision.
The four-mile drive to the Underhill house is gruelingly long. It seems to strip him of his strength. Not a good sign. He turns into the long driveway, pulls up to the turnaround only feet away from the porch steps. Killing the engine, he pockets the keys, draws his sidearm, thumbs the safety off.
He climbs the porch stairs, dreading what he might find.
I come to. I have no idea how much time has passed since I lost consciousness. One minute, ten minutes, one hour. I have no way of knowing.
The drug is wearing off.
I know it’s wearing off because I feel a tingling sensation in my fingertips and toes. It’s also possible for me to make a fist. Not a tight fist but a fist, nonetheless. If I try very hard, I can twist my neck just enough to get a look over my left shoulder.
I’m able to make out two sets of feet and legs that belong to two little bodies sitting on the concrete floor, their backs pressed up against the wall, their skin and bones shaking. I see their faces, their mouths now covered with strips of duct tape telling me The Skinner gagged them after Mike said Mama. Their wide, glassy eyes say it all. They are scared. More scared than they have ever been in their young lives. This might be a nightmare for me, but it is something far worse for them. Somethi
ng way beyond their understanding and comprehension. A surreal meeting with the devil. With Satan and all his evil.
If only I could call out to them, tell them everything will be all right. If only I had the power and the strength to reassure them. But I am useless.
There is something else situated on the floor between my head and the children. But it’s impossible for me to make it out at my angle. All I can manage is to catch a glimpse of what is most definitely a wooden chair leg. But other than that, I can’t make out a thing. But my intuition tells me the chair is occupied, and if I had to make a guess, it would be occupied with Robyn’s body. If that’s the case, The Skinner is forcing the children to look at her. If her present state is anything like Sam’s before he died, then they are being traumatized beyond repair.
Slowly, I crane my neck so that I’m looking over the right shoulder.
I see a pair of thin legs dressed in tight, gray, blood-stained sweatpants standing before a long stainless steel counter. It’s impossible to make out what the counter contains, but the glass paneled cabinets above it are stacked with pharmaceuticals, at least, judging by the appearance of the boxes. Maybe that’s how he’s keeping the children so sedate. He must be anesthetizing them, shooting them up. Just like he shot me up. Fucker is using needles on them.
Shifting my eyes further into the room, I can also see food stores. Cans of tomato sauce, dry pasta, crackers, spices. A big freezer unit is stuffed into the corner beside several black vats which are positioned below the rack of flesh masks. Set on top of the freezer are what appear to be several discarded skins, like deer skins, and even a rack of antlers. A microwave oven is installed on the underside of the cabinets which tells me The Skinner, as animalistic as he is, is not averse to his mod cons. Then, suddenly, something drops to the floor. A piece of raw meat.
“Bad Fredrick!” barks The Skinner. “Perfectly good piece of meat. Five-second rule applies. Isn’t that right, my little kittens? Isn’t that right, father? You listening to me, Ashe?”
He bends down, picks the meat up with his claw-like hands, then slaps it not onto the counter but a frying pan. I know this because I can hear the sizzle and make out the aroma of cooking meat. It quickly fills the windowless room.
I try moving my hands again. Now I am able to lift them up off the floor, but only slightly. It’s the same with my feet and legs. I can only barely lift them. But it’s a start.
The meat still sizzles, until the sizzling stops. The Skinner is doing something else with the meat now. Cutting it up. Setting it onto plates maybe. I hear the sound of his feet shuffling across the floor. Feet covered not with shoes or sneakers or boots, but something that resembles gloves, with each toe able to move independently one from the other.
I slowly turn my head so that once more I am peering over my right shoulder. I see him bend down, slowly remove the duct tape gags from the children. Molly immediately begins to cry. Michael is doing his best not to cry, even if his chest is heaving, his nose sniffling.
“It’s time for the little kittens to eat,” the Skinner says, handing each of the children a paper plate a piece. “Eat it all up, yum, and then we’ll play again. How does that sound?”
Now both children are crying, holding to their individual plates like they contain not food, but live insects.
“What would you like to play? Ring around the Rosie, perhaps? That was my favorite game when I was a child. It was Mr. Whalen’s favorite, too. We had that in common along with our love for our little kittens.”
More crying.
Molly drops the plate, the meat sliding off.
“Now why would you do such a thing, kitten?” The Skinner says. “Waste not, want not. That’s what my daddy always said. Daddy was a butcher you know. He was a master butcher. The words on the side of his pickup truck said, ‘Ashes Meat Cutting and Butcher.’ We were so proud of Dad.”
He picks the piece of meat up off the filthy floor but doesn’t bother setting it back onto the plate. Instead, he tells Molly to open her mouth.
“Open it, kitten,” he says. “Open wide.”
But Molly’s mouth won’t budge.
“Open it!” The Skinner erupts.
His explosive voice rattles my bones, causes Mike to cry out and Molly to scream. He grabs hold of her jaw, forces her mouth open, shoves the meat inside. She bites off a piece and swallows, but her gag reflex is too much, and she immediately vomits all over her sweater.
Frustrated, The Skinner shifts his attention back to Mike.
“Your turn, kitten,” he says. “Suppertime.”
My son hesitatingly brings his fingertips to the meat, all the time, his eyes peering into The Skinner’s. Like his father, Mike is as tough as nails. The way he stares at Skinner . . . it’s not out of fear, but more an act of defiance. He takes the meat in his mouth, bites off a small piece, and spits it into the madman’s face.
You go, Mike Jr. You show that creep what you’re made of . . .
“You naughty little kitten,” Skinner sneers. “You naughty bad fucking little kitten.”
I turn to look over my right shoulder. Sticking out over the side of the counter is a knife. From my vantage point down on the floor, it appears to be half the length of an eight-inch blade. If only I can regain all my movement, I can make a play for it while Skinner occupies the opposite side of the room.
I try to move my body. I can now lift my legs and my arms. I feel my shoulder’s wiggling, and, once again, I feel the knots in my stomach. I can’t be entirely sure, but I think I can move my entire body. The drug is wearing off that rapidly now.
Then, I catch Skinner cocking back his arm as if it were a tight, heavy duty spring, and walloping Mike’s face.
Mike screams.
Skinner strikes him again.
A mother’s instinct kicks in. I swing myself around onto my knees. That’s when I see her. Robyn. Her entire head has been skinned. Meat from her face has been cut away. It must be the meat that the Skinner cooked in the skillet. The meat he attempted to feed the children but failed. The scene is so surreal and beyond sick to register clearly with my brain. All I want to do is grab the children and get them the hell out of here.
The Skinner turns, eyes me. I swear I see a smile on his face. A face still streaked with the blood from having worn Sam’s face like a mask. I see the knife set out on the counter. I jump up, go for it, grabbing hold of the wood grip with my left hand.
The Skinner lunges for me, but I bury the blade into his face. It sinks deep inside his facial cheek, burying itself in his tongue. He screams a high-pitched animal scream. A scream somewhat muffled by his now damaged tongue.
I don’t hesitate to go for the two kids, yanking them up and off the floor by their arms.
“Let’s go!” I bark.
They don’t speak or cry or scream. They merely move. One child on each side of me. We run out of that hell hole, through the open doorway and out into a tunnel dug out of the dirt.
To my right-hand side is the generator set out on a wheeled pallet. A big one. An old kerosene-powered unit that’s loud enough to drown out words spoken under my breath, but not loud enough to be heard from above ground. Something my father would have stored in the barn and wired up to our house in case of emergency and a power outage. That’s how The Skinner has been powering his nest beneath the corn. It’s also how he manages to light the tunnel.
But the lighting is not complete.
It is comprised of the occasional light bulb plugged into a yellow string of caged sockets that must have been lifted from a local construction site. Problem is, most of the light bulbs are dead so a good portion of the long concrete sewer tunnel that’s connected to this basement access tunnel is consumed in darkness.
We move on into the sewer.
Like the access tunnel directly behind us, the long pipe is partially filled with cold water that covers our feet entirely. Not the greatest combination. A heavy-duty generator and a floor drowning in filthy ground wat
er. That electrified string of lights happens to come down off the walls, The Skinner will be the last thing we have to worry about.
“Where are we going?” Michael Jr. says.
“Is the Boogeyman going to follow us?” little Molly says.
“Not if I can help it. Run.”
We move along the vast length of pipe, our feet splashing in the water, our breathing heavy and labored, but putting distance between us and that horrible basement. The children are weak, and I’m forced to pull them . . . drag them.
Molly is crying now. “Can we stop, Aunt Rebecca? I’m so tired and cold.”
“No, Molly,” I say. “The Boogeyman is coming after us. We have to keep going.”
“I’m tired too,” Mike says. “Can we stop and rest?”
“We can’t, Boo. Think of your dad. What would he do?”
“He’d keep going,” he says, the words exiting his mouth in exaggerated breaths.
Up ahead at what I take to be the end of the line, I make out flashing lights. Like spotlights flicking on and off. At first, I think it must be men holding flashlights. Rescuers come to save us. But then I realize that the flickering lights must be coming from whatever is located on the opposite open end of this long tube. If we can just make it to that opposite opening, we can separate ourselves from The Skinner and flag someone down for help. Maybe even a cop.
Hope fills my veins, replaces the sedative that The Skinner injected into me earlier. I feel energized. We’re going to live. We’re going to survive this thing. Just like the first time around when Whalen came after me. Me and my children . . . we’re going to live, damnit.
“We’re going to make it, Mol,” I say inside my head.
That’s when the figure of a man-like beast appears from out of nowhere. He stands four-square only a dozen feet away from us, blocking our path forward.
“It’s the Boogeyman,” Molly cries.
“How’d Mr. Skinner get out in front of us, Mom?” Mike says.
The Ashes (The Rebecca Underhill Trilogy Book 2) Page 18
