"Why?" Something bad has happened, he thought bleakly. And this time around it’s happened to me.
"You've been in an accident," Melissa said. "But you are going to be just fine. Before you realize it, you won't even remember it happening--other than it seeming like a dream."
"An accident?" Stephen groaned again, as an added throb of pain bolted through his head. "When?" Thoughts of Stephen King's The Dead Zone entered his mind, but he whisked them away quickly.
"A couple of hours ago."
Stephen tried to sit up. His eyes just wouldn't focus enough. "How bad?" he asked, but Melissa leaned over him and eased him back down.
"Just relax," she said. "You're pretty well banged up."
A nurse entered the room, and when she saw that Stephen had awakened, she stepped back out into the hallway, holding the door open with her foot. "Dr. Werner!" she called down the corridor. "He's awake."
She then walked up to Stephen's bed. "You're going to have leave now," she said to Melissa. She took the hand that Melissa had just let go of and took Stephen's pulse.
Melissa bent down to his ear. "I'll be just outside the door," she whispered. She patted him gently on his good shoulder and started out of the room.
"Melissa," Stephen croaked after her. She stopped and turned around. Too out of focus, Stephen thought. "Tell the rest they have to get out of the mansion. There's trouble."
"I know," she replied. She smiled reassuringly, but Stephen couldn't see it. "But don't you go worrying about it. Just get well."
Dr. Werner squeezed past Melissa as she exited. She ran as fast as she could for the nearest phone.
"Well, Stephen," Dr. Werner said in his most pleasant voice. "I bet you're feeling a bit roughed up."
Stephen tried to sit up again, but this time the nurse held him down. He reached up to feel his forehead, and when he felt the bandages there instead of his skin, he groaned. "My head," he said. "What's wrong?"
"You're a lucky man," Dr. Werner replied, reading the chart at the foot of the bed. "By all rights you should be lying dead in a morgue right now and not asking any questions. You just keep that in mind next time you want to get up." He let the chart drop and walked up to Stephen's side. "You've suffered from a severe blow to the left side of your body. You have a severe concussion that could still kill you, if you are not careful. Your left arm has a hairline fracture right above your wrist. You did have a separated shoulder, but we already took care of that. All in all, you are fairly well banged up. Be a few weeks or so before you feel better. Still, you are lucky."
He pushed down lightly on the left side of Stephen's chest. "Does this hurt?" he asked.
"Everything hurts, Doc."
CHAPTER TWELVE:
Suspects
The following morning Detective Pierce pulled himself out of bed earlier than his usual seven o'clock. After a quick shower, not bothering shaving, he went to talk with Sheriff Ryan. He hadn't been able to get much sleep during the night. And when he actually did sleep, he kept dreaming of running down a blind alley. Someone was chasing him in the dark, though he had no idea who--only that he was scared shitless. He awoke at little after six, with a headache he knew wouldn't go away for most of the day, and decided not to attempt sleep any further.
Now, as he paced in front of Ryan's desk, scratching the stubble on his chin, he decided he had enough of the good guy routine. Nobody had better get in his face today.
Sheriff Ryan folded the newspaper he was reading, the weekly edition of the Dodsville Star News, and slammed it into the wastebasket next to his desk. "Damn," he murmured. Then louder: "Damn!"
"Did you locate the maid?" Pierce asked, stopping his pacing for a moment.
Ryan leaned back in his chair and emphatically plopped his feet onto his desk, one at a time. "Yea, I found her," he replied, putting his hands behind his head. "She doesn’t know a goddamn thing. Says she saw Rhonda Klaus the day before she was killed and wasn't supposed to see her again until today. She had no idea about the murders. She was going to go right in to work today and clean."
Pierce started pacing again. His headache was getting worse. "What about the story the kids gave us?" he asked.
"According to her, Mrs. Klaus didn't say anything about any guests staying at the mansion."
Pierce suddenly stopped pacing and placed his hands on Ryan's desk. "O'Neal's behind this whole thing," he said firmly. "I just know he is."
A slight smile came to Sheriff Ryan's face. "What about the simple fact that he was lying unconscious in a ditch eight miles out of town at the time of the Milhaus murder?"
"Somebody is working with him," Pierce replied, almost wistfully.
"Who?" Ryan asked, sitting up straight. "The rest of his gang was with you." He chuckled. "Talk about your air tight alibi."
"Julie Price wasn't."
"Oh, come on now. I've known Julie since she first became a nurse at Memorial. She's no more capable of cold-blooded murder than an infant is."
"The least innocent sometimes looks the most innocent.” Pierce's head began to throb and he rubbed his forehead absentmindedly. "What other suspects do we have?"
"How about Meyer Klaus?" Ryan replied casually. "He could have been in town in time to kill Milhaus. And he wouldn't be the first man to murder the wife that divorced him."
"Then why Milhaus? And why Del Smith?"
"I don't know."
"No," Pierce said, reflectively. "It's O'Neal. It has to be. I want a plainclothes officer watching his room until he's out of the hospital. If someone is working with him, they'll want to make contact soon."
"Well, I still say you're way off base on this one," Ryan said. "I mean, what the hell is his motive?"
Pierce rubbed his forehead with his entire palm. "He's all we got."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
The Mortician
Bob Feldman also got up earlier than usual that morning. In fact, the sun had yet to peak above the horizon, and Feldman couldn't remember a day when he got out of bed before the sun. But he had been nervous the entire night. He kept hearing little noises coming from the room downstairs--the very room that housed the body of Agnus Milhaus. The noises only occurred as he was at the point of drifting off to sleep. When he bolted upright in bed and strained to hear anything, however, he heard absolutely nothing but the ticking of his alarm clock next to him. The wind outside had even died down to nothing. Nevertheless, as soon as sleep was about to overtake him, the noise would return--as if whatever was down there could sense what was happening in Feldman's bedroom two stories up. And in that gray area between sleep and awake, sounds of someone tinkering drifted up the stairs and into Feldman's bedroom. And with what had happened a couple of days ago, Feldman was plenty worried.
His father had been a mortician. And his father before him. He felt an obligation to follow in their footsteps. Still, he was going to get out of the business. From the very beginning it got on his nerves too much. The end of the year. He would stick it out until the end of the year, but that was as far as he would go. Maybe his brother would move here from Madison and take over. But he was definitely getting out.
Someone was stealing dead bodies. And, worse, someone was making dead bodies to steal. First someone takes Reed Price's body from the room downstairs for a couple of hours and sneaks him back. Now who the HELL would do something like that? He thought about calling the police right away; then he worried about calling them. It would have made the papers. Headlines even. Who would come to him if he were reputed for losing dead bodies? Then, when the thief returned the body sometime that very morning, who needed to know anything? Whoever had taken the body had a sudden case of the guilts and snuck it back in. Feldman had gone downstairs to look for any clues on his own before relenting and calling in the cops. And Reed Price's body was back on the table where he was supposed to be--as if nothing had happened at all. Well, almost nothing. Reed's feet were stained with dirt and grass, as if he had been walking around outside. But that was ri
diculous. His body had been dragged across the ground; that was all.
But then he heard about the Klaus bodies being stolen, and Agnus Milhaus's dead body found where the Klauses’ dead bodies were supposed to be. Add to this the tinkering noises he thought he heard coming from downstairs, and Feldman's nerves had taken as much as they could take. Maybe he would even drop the business by the end of the summer.
Now he walked down the stairs to the workroom where he stored and prepared the bodies for the funeral. He puffed furiously on a cigarette, hoping it would calm him a bit, but knowing in the back of his mind that smoking actually stimulated the nerves. Tough shit, he thought. It made him feel better. The stairs would creak under his feet on almost every step. They always did that, he thought. Why should it bother me now?
He stopped when he reached the bottom of the stairs and stood facing the door leading to Agnus Milhaus’s body. He listened intently for a minute, hoping he would hear something tangible, so he could march right back up those steps and call the police. But no such luck was forthcoming. The room gave away no intruder sounds.
Feldman opened the door just enough to fit his arm, and then reached inside to turn on the light. This was the same ritual he always performed before actually walking in. There were no windows in there, and, until the lights were illuminated, it was pitch black. And Bob Feldman was afraid of entering any room that was dark, and he wasn't ashamed of this fact. He felt that the one time he didn't switch on the lights first would be the time someone was in there, waiting. Of course, it was still possible that the waiting person would just grab his arm when he reached into the room and pull him inside to do with him whatever hideous things those kinds of people did. He always planned on buying a motion detector, so that as soon as he opened the door, the lights would simply turn on by themselves. But he always put it off. Tomorrow, he thought as he opened the door the rest of the way. Tomorrow, I'll buy one of those goddamn things. And I'll never have to worry about this shit again.
He entered and closed the door behind him. A few times that he had left it open, the smell drifted upstairs. It was weeks before it went away.
He walked around the corner of the walk-in closet that obstructed his view of the draining table, and stopped in mid-step. "God damn," he muttered, and felt like crying. The table where he left the body of Agnus Klaus the night before was now empty. Even the sheet that had covered the body was gone.
Feldman felt like he was in trouble. Big goddamn trouble. Turn around, he thought, and call the goddamn police. This had gone on too long now. Let them handle it. He was going to get out of this goddamn business right away, anyway.
But the closet door on the other side of the room creaked open an inch; his legs refused to take him anywhere. He willed his right hand to reach into the drawer next to him and pull out a scalpel. He felt somewhat more secure when he held it firmly in his grip.
"All right," he said. "Come on out of there." His voice sounded a hell of a lot braver than he felt.
The lights went out.
And suddenly, Feldman knew he was in his worst possible nightmare. He stayed silent, afraid to even breathe. If only, he thought, I had purchased a goddamn motion detector.
Something moved past him, as if to mock his last thought, brushing against him as it did. Feldman swung the scalpel madly after it. But hit nothing but air. He held still, listening intently for any sound that would give away the intruder's position, but the only sound he heard was the beating of his own heart. And that, he thought, was loud enough to give away his own goddamn position.
"For Christ's sake," he said, finally. His voice cracked ridiculously. "Just leave. I have no idea who you are, so you have nothing to feel threatened by."
The silence seemed to mock him.
He took a hit from his cigarette and almost coughed when he noticed the red tip. He quickly dropped it to the floor and stepped on it. He moved quietly to his left. If it was too dark for him to see the intruder, then it was too dark for the intruder to see him. After about ten feet, he stopped and again was intent on just listening.
Five minutes passed. Ten. Feldman's mind began to work on him, telling him that the electricity had simply gone out, just like it did yesterday. And when he felt something brush against him, that was just his overtaxed imagination.
But what about the missing body?
The rationalization center of his brain had no reply.
Well, there were two ways he could find out for sure one way or the other. He could walk over to the light switch and try to turn it on. But he didn't think his legs were up to that challenge. Or he could light one of the matches he had in his pocket. He opted on the latter. Before he had too much time to think it through and talk himself out of it, he shoved the scalpel into his back pocket, and lit a match.
And his worst nightmare instantly became reality.
Standing only two feet in front of him, grinning like someone madly insane, was none other than Agnus Milhaus--in the flesh. Feldman gasped and took one step backward, which put him against the wall. He immediately began to slide to his right, in the direction of the exit. He kept the match out in front of him, more to keep a flame, as small as it was, between him and Milhaus, than to light his way.
"You're dead," Feldman muttered, almost inaudibly.
Milhaus's grin seemed to grow larger, and he took three quick steps toward Feldman, freezing Feldman in his tracks.
"Go away," Feldman whispered, trembling.
Milhaus responded by taking another step toward him. Feldman tried to ward him off with the match, but Milhaus simply knocked it out of his hand. Feldman jammed his hand in his pants in search of the matchbook, found it, whipped it out, but only dropped it when trying to strike a match to life.
Utter darkness ruled again.
He heard Milhaus slide closer and now his breath reached Feldman's nostrils, closing them from the putrid stench. His legs finally caught up to his brain, and he leapt forward to make his attempt to escape. If only I could reach the door, he thought wildly, then I . . .
A hand gripped his throat and flung him back against the wall. All thoughts of escaping fled from Feldman's mind. The grip tightened for a second, as if Milhaus wanted to prove his strength, and then lessened.
"Wh-what's going on?" Feldman gasped, and thoughts of the door, only ten feet away, oozed their way back into his mind.
"You'll know soon enough," Milhaus replied in a deep resonating voice. And then he laughed.
Feldman flinched from the stench of Milhaus's breath.
"Just let me go," he croaked. "Please."
"Say goodbye, Bob," Milhaus replied, almost sadly.
Feldman felt something cold, slick, and hard enter his stomach. He let out the sound of a slow-leaking tire and fell silently to the marble floor.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
Grand Central
Stephen O'Neal awoke from a deep dreamless sleep, but refused to open his eyes. To do that would mean to face another day of cold reality, and he didn't feel quite ready for it. If he kept his eyes shut, he could close out his sterile hospital surroundings. The dull pink world created from the light passing through his eyelids suited him just fine for the time being. He tried to think about how many days it had been since the accident, but he couldn't be sure. Either six or seven, though, he thought. No more and no less.
And he desperately wanted out. Something convincingly wrong was happening around him in Dodsville. He could almost feel it, crushing his chest at night, like a cat trying to suck the breath from an infant. News was carried into his room from several different sources, and sometimes he had to lie where he was and listen to the same story being told two or three times. Everyone he knew came and went from his room at will, reinforcing the fact that he was forced to stay in his immaculate white bed with its stiff white sheets. An invalid.
He had been transferred out of intensive care and into a semi-private affair on his second day of recovery. And the good detective swooped down on him
like a hawk after a lame chicken. Pierce was under a great deal of pressure, Stephen realized--and admitted--but he was wasting his time coming after him. Time that should have been spent searching for the real criminal. Detective Pierce was amiable for the first five minutes of conversation, but soon enough one or the other would say just the right thing to set off the other, and a nurse would have to come to the rescue and toss Pierce out. He was no longer permitted in Stephen's room without supervision.
Sheriff Ryan had visited Stephen only once, after it was discovered that the mortician and the body of the coroner were missing. Pierce was allowed in Stephen's room then, and even though the sheriff was polite the entire time of the conversation, Pierce set off another argument.
"Just tell us who is in this with you," Pierce had said, quite calmly, "and I'll see to it you’re treated well from here on."
Stephen responded by throwing his glass of water into the detective's lap.
Two days ago, Stephen had been allowed to walk. Now he was walking down the hall to the coke machine--and to the bathroom. Having to go in a bedpan humbled Stephen quite more than he thought he deserved to be humbled.
His grandmother hadn't arrived from Milwaukee yet, but was reported to be on her way. That didn't mean Stephen was suffering from a dearth of companionship, as one or more of the gang was always by his side during visiting hours. Julie was on staff and working at times after visiting hours and would check in on him whenever she could. Yesterday, he even got a roommate, a victim of a chainsaw accident. He practically had cut his left leg completely off. His doctor finished the job for him. His roommate wasn't much of a conversationalist, but he was a hell of a listener.
Stephen's quiet pink world was interrupted by a shadow. His day nurse hung over him as he opened his eyes. She was old and had told Stephen she would be retiring at the end of the year. She was nice, but Stephen liked his evening nurse much more. Aleina was her name, and she made Stephen laugh. The rest of his somber guests sat next to him, acting like they were on a vigil, or something close to it.
The Revenant: A Horror in Dodsville Page 21
