The letters spelled out, Ashe’s Butchers and Meat Cutters.
“Ashes, ashes, we all fall down . . .” I silently sing to myself. “Ashes, ashes, we all die.”
The drug is beginning to wear off. I feel the bars pressed against me while life returns to my hands and legs. No matter how much I struggle against the metal, it’s impossible to move even an inch one way or another. My hair is draping my face. It’s caked with blood and filth. My eyes wide, I peer through the strands of hair, and I see The Skinner dancing circles around me.
His face is different. He’s wearing a mask. It’s the face of a man I know. An older man with gray hair. It’s Dr. Cuther. I laugh once more because it all becomes revealed to me, like a card shark showing me his hand. The Skinner killed the real Dr. Cuther. He knew I was taking Mike to see the doctor yesterday morning, and he got there ahead of me and killed the child psychiatrist. He cut him, flayed him, removed his face. He wore his face and tried to comfort my son and me.
Now he wears the face again.
“Cuther,” I whisper to myself. “Cuther . . . Cut her . . . Cut. Her.”
He’s got a flaying knife gripped in his hand. He’s humming a tune through that cut up mouth.
Ring around the Rosie, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down . . .
He sings it again and again and again.
“Kill me,” I say now that I can work up enough strength to speak. “Kill . . . me . . . now.” They are the same words that Sam said in his message to me before I put him out of his pain and misery.
The Skinner stops in front of my face, sets his free hand on my head, runs his fingers through my hair, flipping the entire filthy mop over my left ear.
“And the Lord reached out and took the knife to slaughter,” he mumbles through Dr. Cuther’s mouth. “Genesis twenty-three ten.”
He reaches out, positions the razor-sharp tip of the flaying knife against the center-point of my scalp. Presses it down.
The old detective makes his way through the corn in the dark with only the circle of Maglite illuminating his path. The dog is hurrying and scurrying in between the thick dry stalks, following a scent. Heart pounding inside his temples, Miller senses he’s about to come face to face with an evil presence.
Call it intuition. Call it gut instinct. Or call it a built-in shit detector, but if there’s one thing he’s developed in more than thirty years he’s spent on the job, it’s an ability to sniff out dangerous situations before they slap him across the face or kick him in the balls. It’s a talent that has spared his life on more than one occasion, and it will be a talent he will rely on from this moment forward.
The dog lets loose with a couple of loud barks and then follows up with a howl. Since the dog is moving too fast for him now, Miller is forced to move in the direction of the dog’s voice. When he bursts through a section of stalks and comes upon a circular clearing, he not only reestablishes a visual on the dog, but he also makes out something very strange. The dog is trotting in circles around a hump-like area covered entirely in broken corn stalks.
The 9mm gripped his shooting hand, safety off, he proceeds to use the hand that holds the Maglite to peel away the layers of stalks until he comes not to a piece of raw earth but, instead, something man made.
It’s a manhole cover.
The kind of metal disk that covers a sewer access point on the city street. And, of course, it makes total sense to the detective, knowing what he knows now about the many sewer and water lines that were installed under this field five decades ago.
“This is it, Pooch,” he says. “This is the place where all this ends.”
Placing the Maglite in his mouth as if it were a lit cigar, he allows the bright white light to shine down on the manhole. Then, shoving both his index and middle finger into a pick hole, he pulls with all his strength. The cover lifts up and away from its metal frame, exposing a dark, vertical access tunnel. Shoving the metal cover aside, he pulls the Maglite out of his mouth, shines the light down inside the tube-like shaft. The shaft is constructed of concrete with a metal access ladder bolted to it.
“I’m going in, Pooch,” he says. “You stay here and guard the place.”
The dog looks at him with a bewildered expression.
Stepping down onto the ladder, Detective Miller begins his descent into The Skinner’s own private hell hole.
The noise startles The Skinner. A piece of heavy metal being dropped onto a hard surface. The Skinner pulls the flaying blade away from my scalp, takes a tentative step back. And then another.
“It seems we have a visitor, kitten,” he mumbles through his mouth injury. “You sit tight and wait right here for me.”
Is the asshole trying to be funny?
You sit tight and wait right here for me . . .
Like I’m not locked in this contraption. Like I have a choice. I’m an animal awaiting the slaughter that is sure to come. But that doesn’t mean I’ve given up hope. My son needs me. Both kids need me.
When The Skinner disappears beyond the opposite end of the tunnel, I once more put up a struggle to free myself from the portable slaughter cage. Out the corner of my eye, I can see the latch that will release me from the bondage. If only I can reach it. Rather, if only I can somehow get at it. In order to wrap my fingers around it, I’d have to shove my right hand through the space between two metal bars. As far as I can tell, the widest space between any two bars is no more than a half inch.
Impossible.
Maybe it’s time to just accept the fact that I’ve run out of possibilities. That there are no stunts up my sleeve that hold at least some promise of saving the day. Maybe I’m already dead and the sooner I get used to the idea, the sooner I can find peace in my final moments. But somehow, I’m just not ready for that yet. Maybe there’s one last crazy stunt I can pull out of my pocket that will free me from this cage.
Then, footsteps.
Rapid footsteps approaching me.
From down on my hands and knees, neck stuck tightly between the bars, I can barely make out someone coming at me. Someone other than the Skinner.
Miller.
“I’m gonna get you out of this,” he says. “Hold on.”
He reaches for the latch, pulls it. The bars separate. I pull my neck and head free. As I manage to get back up on my feet, I see that he’s holding his semi-automatic.
“Shoot the motherfucker,” I say.
“Shoot who?” he says.
“Skinner,” I say.
That’s when all the light in the basement is extinguished, and Miller collapses onto the slaughter cage.
Commotion.
A hand reaching out for me, grabbing hold of my hair. The Skinner’s hand. He’s screaming something indiscernible from his cut-up mouth. I’m beating the flesh-masked man back with one hand and, with the other, grabbing at his face. The face rips away from his head leaving me holding Cuther’s face and scalp in my hand. I scream and toss it away. Then, bending at the knees, I reach for something that’s dropped to the floor near my foot.
The semi-automatic.
When I find it, I wrap both hands around the grip, aim in Skinner’s direction, slip my index finger inside the guard, pull the trigger. Through the split-second flash of brilliant, explosive light, I see his wide-eyed face taken entirely by surprise, telling me the bullet found its home.
But then he immediately runs off. Scatters like an insect into the dark depths of the basement. I fire at will. Four more rounds. The explosive flashes lighting up the square space for a split second at a time. But in the end, I have no idea where he’s run off too, or if I’ve fatally wounded him or not.
I listen for the sound of movement but hear only a mumbling coming from Miller.
“My pocket,” he says groggily from down on his chest on the floor by the slaughter cage. “My . . . Maglite.”
I reach down with my fingers extended and touch the back of his scalp. I feel the warm wetness of fresh blood.
“Further down,” he says, his voice hoarse and painful sounding. “My—right—side.”
Bending at the waist, I feel my way along the right side of his torso until I come to the pocket. Reaching inside, I find the Maglite. Thumbing the device on, I shine the bright circle of light against the back of his head. There’s blood coming from the very back of the cranial cap. Not a lot, but enough to tell me that whatever The Skinner hit him with, it was enough to do some serious damage.
“Go get the bastard,” Miller says, managing to roll himself onto his back. “Kill him. Shoot him in the fucking face.”
“Good idea,” I say.
Standing, I shine the flashlight on the interior of the basement, and I go hunting for the Skinner.
I step slowly, knowing he can jump me at any moment.
I make my way past Robyn, her deceased and mutilated body causing my eyes to well up and my stomach muscles to cramp tightly. No choice but to move on. It comes to me then that I’ve already shot the bastard. I aim the light at the floor, and I see the drops of fresh blood. A trail leads all the way to the opposite side of the cellar and the door opening that leads out into the tunnel that’s attached to the concrete sewer pipe. The generator is stored inside the tunnel. Even though the lights have been turned off, I can tell it’s still running because the engine noise fills the basement.
I follow the trail of blood all the way out the open door where it ends due to the six inches of water that fills the tunnel floor and the curved floor of the sewer pipe beyond it. I sweep the general area with the barrel of the weapon. The distance between the basement and the sewer pipe is only about ten feet, but it might as well be one hundred feet. It feels as though it’s taking me forever to make my way to the other side. When I finally get there, the gun is slapped out of my right hand, and the Maglite ripped away from my left hand.
I’m standing alone in the darkness of the sewer pipe, the water cold on my feet and shins, my heart pounding in my chest, my eyes filled with tears.
“Ring around the Rosie, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” The son of a bitch is still singing. Still taunting.
The tunnel lights are ignited then and, along with it, a loud laugh that comes from deep inside Skinner’s soul and echoes off the curved concrete walls.
“I’m coming for you, little Kitten. I’m going to skin you alive and wear your face as a mask.”
I hear the footsteps slapping and splashing through the water . . . on their way to me.
He’s behind me. Which means, I have no choice but to move forward. I run. Run like hell toward the lights that flicker on and off outside the very end of this long length of pipe. Breathing labored, my head grows dizzy. Maybe I can make out the lights all the way at the end of this tunnel, but it’s got to be at least a mile long. I hear The Skinner coming up on me from behind. No way I’m going to make it to the end. But I have to at least try.
But then my foot gets caught on something hidden under the filthy water. I go down hard onto my face and chest. I swallow some of the rancid water and feel it come back up on me. Pushing myself up onto my hands and knees, I’m choking and coughing when The Skinner pounces on me.
He sends me back down into the water. Holds my face under. I try to push my head back against his hands. Try to free my mouth from the putrid liquid. But it’s impossible to move even an inch. I’m holding my breath. My lungs are stinging. It’s impossible for me to hold the air in for much longer. I need to fucking breathe, but if I do, I’ll drown.
Grabbing hold of my hair with his fist, he pulls my head up and out of the water. He brings his bloody face around so that his mouth is only inches from my own. He presses his mouth against mine, slips his swelled, snake-like tongue between my lips. His foul taste pastes my mouth. Bringing my hand around, I gouge his eyes, press my thumb all the way into his eyeball. So hard I feel it pop as if I were jamming my finger in a cup of Jell-O.
He screams and releases me.
That’s when I pick myself up, start sprinting in the opposite direction, back toward the cellar.
“Ring around the Rosie!” he screams. “Ashes, Ashes, Ashes, Ashes . . .”
I run.
In my head, I see that old truck in our driveway. Ashe’s Butchers and Meat Cutting. I see The Skinner’s old father peeling away the skin of a pig, the animal squealing and screaming inside the slaughter cage. I see the blade cutting into the animal’s flesh. I hear the music playing loud from the dashboard of the truck, Ashe singing along to it as if the butcher were an artist.
I feel The Skinner behind me. When I turn and glance over my shoulder at him, I can see that he has his flaying knife gripped in his right hand. This time, if he catches me, he won’t bother to kiss me. He’ll cut me. Flay me. He’ll tear my face off.
“I’m coming, my little kitten,” he barks. “I’m coming for you.”
I make it to the tunnel that connects with the concrete sewer pipe. I stop and take a step inside, the water deeper than it is back out in the pipe. Inside the open door, I see Robyn seated in the chair. I see how white the flesh on her skinless face has become in death. I see Detective Miller making his way toward me, down on hands and knees.
“Rebecca,” he says. “There’s a manhole that accesses the sewer. It’s only a dozen feet from here. You can make it. Run. Run away.”
I turn, face the demon.
He’s making his way toward me at a slow gate. Even from here, I can plainly see his gouged-out eye and the fresh bullet wound in his shoulder. But that’s not enough to stop him. Not enough to temper the evil that resides in his black heart.
To my right, the old generator. Plugged into the generator are several power strips, one of which contains the outlets to multiple strands of lights. It comes to me then. What I have to do.
I turn towards Miller as he manages to get himself back up on his feet.
“Stay there, Detective,” I say, placing my hand on the string of lights hanging by a wood peg that’s been pounded into the raw dirt wall. “Don’t move.”
“Rebecca,” he says, knowing full well what I’m about to do. “Think about what you’re doing.”
I smile at him.
“It’s okay,” I say. “It’s something I’ve got to do. For me, for my boy, for his father. For everyone who has ever been touched by The Skinner.”
“But your feet. They’re underwater. You’ll be—”
“Don’t worry,” I say, pulling the lights from off the wall, yanking on the string so that the entire fifty feet length that extends out of the tunnel and into the concrete pipe comes free.
“I’m coming, little kitten,” cries The Skinner as he turns the corner into the dirt access tunnel, his feet entirely submerged.
“I’m not your fucking little kitten,” I growl.
That’s when I drop my end of the line into the water.
What happens next feels like a dream.
I’m blown back into the cellar by the sudden electrical discharge. But The Skinner is planted firmly inside the tunnel, his entire body lighting up and catching fire. Fire quickly consumes him, and his screams pierce the dank air. The screams come from a source deep down inside his tortured soul. He trembles and quakes as he burns, his face consumed in the flame until all that’s left is a white skull and bone.
He falls forward, face-first into the water, and the generator ceases up. That’s when the lights go out once more. Or, perhaps, it’s when I pass out. But it doesn’t really matter. Because, in the end, my world goes black.
When I come to, I’m lying on a gurney in the middle of the cornfield. Several sets of bright headlights are shining on me. I’m groggy, but no longer in pain. I’m quite sure I’ve been sedated. I can see that much of the cornfield has been plowed down by the EMT vans and the state trooper 4X4s.
Soon, a light comes from out of the sky accompanied by the sound of a rotor blade chopping the air. When the helicopter lands, it sends a swift cornstalk laden wind against me. The EMT
s do their best to block me from the gusts while they quickly and efficiently stuff me into the belly of the chopper.
As the doors close, I look into the face of a woman who is strapping me in for the ride.
“The children,” I say. “Mike and little Molly.”
“They’re okay,” she says, her voice coming to me as if through a tube. “SWAT picked them up roadside about a mile and a half away from here. They’re safe and sound.”
She places a translucent plastic mask over my face.
“Breathe in,” she says. “The air is sweet.”
I do it. And once more, I go to sleep.
Three days later, I am released from the hospital in time to attend two funerals. Robyn’s and Sam’s. I was able to walk into both under my own power. The affairs were solemn and sad, and the general theme of each revolved around two beautiful lives snuffed out far before their time.
Snuffed out by a madman who was both the abused and the abuser.
Strangely, I did not cry a single tear at either of them. Robyn and Sam were perhaps the two people, besides my own child, whom I loved most in the physical world. I enjoyed the privilege of loving my friend Robyn for a long, long time, while Sam I only recently started falling in love with. Now, they were gone from me, and I didn’t have enough tears left in me to shed for them.
There never was a question about who would take care of little Molly. I already considered her as much my own as Mike, Jr. The two were like brother and sister. But we would no longer live on Garfield Road. We would no longer consider the old farmhouse that Super Duper Trooper Dan renovated for my twin sister and myself all those many years ago as our safe haven. There no longer existed any safe haven anywhere in the world. At least, that’s the way I felt deep down. I’d lived through two abduction ordeals. I knew if a third were to come my way, the law of averages would dictate that living through it would be a statistical impossibility.
The Ashes (The Rebecca Underhill Trilogy Book 2) Page 20
