by Mark Lukens
Carol aimed the gun at Amber.
Amber shook her head no, crying even harder now.
“Please, Carol,” Ryan whispered. “Don’t shoot her.”
“I have to,” Carol said.
Amber closed her eyes as Carol tightened her finger around the trigger.
But before she could shoot, Victor launched himself at Carol. He tackled her and knocked her to the ground as she squeezed off another bullet that went astray. She screamed under his weight as he held her on the ground. Even though his wounds pained him, he managed to knock the gun out of her hand.
Carol writhed on the floor underneath Victor, but he wouldn’t let her go.
“I’ve got to send them back!” Carol yelled.
Victor held her down. “You can’t kill that girl,” he whispered into her ear, trying to calm her down. “She’s got nothing to do with this.”
Carol stopped struggling and cried even harder.
“You sent him back,” Victor whispered into her ear. “Cutter’s dying. He’s going back. You did it, Carol. You sent him back.”
Amber scrambled back over to Ryan, but she could see that he was dying; there was no hope for him now. She stared down at him through blurred vision from her tears.
Ryan lay in an ever-widening pool of his own blood, struggling to keep his eyes open.
“Hold on, Ryan,” Amber cried. “I know you’re Cutter. But I know you could be different if you had another chance.”
“Please, Amber,” Ryan croaked out and coughed up a little blood. “Let me go.” Ryan struggled to smile. “Let me go, and I think you’ll be seeing me again real soon.”
Amber wasn’t sure what he meant by that.
“Now go!” Ryan coughed out through a spray of blood, he held out the keys to his car. He closed his eyes and his breathing stopped.
Amber grabbed Ryan’s car keys and jumped to her feet. She grabbed the duffel bag by the couch. She looked over at Carol and Victor. Victor still held Carol down on the floor and he was still whispering into her ear, trying to calm her down, trying to soothe her.
But there would never be any peace for her, Amber thought.
She ran out through the front door to Ryan’s car.
Ryan opened his eyes one more time even though he wasn’t breathing anymore. He watched Amber run to the front door. He smiled and closed his eyes.
But he didn’t have any other thoughts after that.
He drifted off into darkness and …
2.
… pure white.
Heavy breathing.
The red-haired man stared down at the naked man on the table, the man’s head encased in the wood and leather straps, his hands held down in the wooden boxes, the straps cutting deep into his flesh and holding him down to the wood table. The red-haired man walked slowly around the table, he didn’t need to hurry. Cutter could run, but he couldn’t run forever. It was only a matter of time before he was caught and brought back here where he belonged – back in Hell.
And now he would have eternity for his pleasure, an eternity to torture Cutter, an eternity to pay him back for what he had done to him.
He leaned over Cutter’s face which was hidden underneath the blood-stained white cloth. He could hear his grunts and groans. He watched him try to struggle against his bonds, but there was no hope. He didn’t know how he had escaped Hell and jumped into the dying body of Ryan Freeman, but he was going to make sure that it never happened again.
“We’ll have all of eternity to find out how you did it, Cutter,” the red-haired man said. “How you jumped into Ryan’s body.”
The red-haired man reached out with his ruined fingertips and tore the white cloth away from the Cutter’s face.
But it wasn’t Cutter beneath the white cloth.
Ryan Freeman, the real Ryan Freeman, stared up at him with wide brown eyes. He didn’t know where he was. He was hyperventilating, trying to catch his breath.
“Where am I?” Ryan asked as best he could through clenched teeth. He tried to work his jaws open against the leather strap under his chin, but the strap was too tight. “How did I get here?”
The red-haired man looked up at the wood ceiling of exposed trusses in the shack that was now back in Hell where it belonged.
“Cutter!!” the red-haired man who used to be Carol’s husband, the man who used to be Cutter’s partner, screamed up at the ceiling.
But Cutter was gone again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
1.
Amber ran across the front yard through the rain. She carried the duffel bag. She got to Ryan’s car and got inside. She tossed the duffel bag on the passenger seat floor. She was still crying, but she needed to get control of herself. Ryan was dead now, and this was what he wanted for her. He wanted her to start over. He wanted her to be happy.
He loved her.
She jabbed the key into the ignition, shaking from the cold, shaking from shock, from sorrow. She started the car and the headlights came on automatically. She shifted into reverse and backed out of the driveway. She didn’t even look for other cars; she fishtailed out into the street, and then turned the wheel and shifted into drive. She stomped her foot on the gas pedal and the tires spun for a moment on the wet pavement, and then the car lurched forward. She drove down the wet street with tears in her eyes.
2.
Amber pulled up into the driveway of her house. She parked right behind Gary’s truck. He was probably waiting up for her, but she didn’t care. This would be the last time she would ever see him. She just wanted to get something from her bedroom, something she couldn’t leave without.
She turned off the car and got out. The duffel bag was on the passenger floorboard. If she had thrown it in the backseat, she might have seen the person hiding on the floorboards behind the seats.
But she didn’t.
Amber hurried through the rain to the front door. She got her keys out, but found the door unlocked. She entered, bracing herself for her brother’s shouting and cursing, but then she stopped and stared at her dead brother on the couch. He would never yell at her again. She closed the door, but didn’t lock it. She knew that the man and woman in the dark clothing had killed her brother.
But they wouldn’t be coming after her now – Ryan had taken care of that.
She looked at Gary for a moment, she stared at his bloody knees, his body slumped over on the couch, the neat bullet holes in one side of his head, and the other side of his head down on the couch, stuck to the couch cushions with thick, drying blood.
She wanted to feel sad, she wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. Maybe later, but not right now.
Amber hurried to her bedroom. She unlocked her bedroom door and rushed inside. She grabbed the things she wanted from the top of her dresser – the small, framed photos of her mom. It was all she wanted from this place. She didn’t take a change of clothes with her and she didn’t take any of her other possessions. She was going to start over. Everything new, nothing that reminded her of this place.
She knew she would have to talk to the police eventually. Explain to them that she had found Gary dead like this. No one would ever suspect her. The police would think it was a robbery or even that Gary was involved with the dead criminals in Carol’s house. Or it would be just one more unsolved murder – one more mystery in Edrington.
Amber left Gary’s house (she still could only think of it as Gary’s house – it had never been hers) and drove out of the town of Edrington and into the woods on Winter Road. She started crying again as she drove and she had to slow the car down. She knew she should probably pull over, it would be safer. But she needed to get away from this town for a little while. She had to think about things for a moment.
She saw the road that lead deeper into the woods, the road she and Ryan had taken to find the shack in the woods. She thought of going back to that shack, to see if it was still there. But she had a feeling that the shack wouldn’t be there now – it had been a vision from Hell, and
that’s where it had gone back to now.
As she drove slowly down the rain-soaked back roads through the woods, she saw something in her rearview mirror, a flash of movement that caught her eye, a dark shape sitting up in the backseat.
Her eyes widened with terror.
Jake sat up in the backseat of the car and looked at her. He held the blood-stained hunting knife in his hand.
The Impala slid off the road and came to a stop in the tall grass, barely missing a tree. The headlights were still on, stabbing through the darkness as the rain poured down. The engine was still running.
Amber shook with fear as she turned around and looked at Jake. She reached for the door handle – she was ready to bolt outside into the rain and run into the woods.
“Don’t run,” Jake said.
Amber froze – she knew that voice.
Jake stared at her and he threw the hunting knife down onto the floorboard of the back seat and showed her that his hands were empty. “Amber,” he said. “It’s me. It’s Cutter.”
Amber stared at Jake.
“I’m Cutter.”
Jake tore his black suit coat off and then tore his blood-stained white shirt open and showed her the knife wound that Ryan had inflicted on him. He wiped away old blood from his abdomen and showed her that the stab wound was completely healed now.
“How …” Amber said.
“The wound, it’s healed,” Jake said.
Jake stared at her with Cutter’s blue eyes. “It’s me, Amber. I jumped into Jake’s body at the last second as he was dying. And I remember everything now.”
Amber shook her head, not sure what to do.
“I can go with you now. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Amber whispered.
“I want to start over,” Jake told her. “I know I can be different if I can get another chance.”
3.
Hours later the rain had stopped, the storm was passing Edrington by as the night edged towards dawn. And like the townspeople had said, the colder air was following the storm.
Cop cars were parked in Carol’s driveway and on the street in front of her house. An ambulance was parked on the front lawn. Cops and paramedics moved around in the flashing lights of the police cars. A few cops worked the streets, trying to keep neighbors pushed back; they stood in the road wrapped in their robes and coats.
One man, Walter, had driven several blocks and parked his car down the street. He’d walked another few blocks in the rain just to watch this scene. He smiled as he watched the cops and paramedics move around like busy little ants.
One cop fixed yellow police tape across Carol’s front porch. And another two officers guarded Mr. Murdock’s car.
The bodies of Lita and Mr. Murdock were already being placed into the ambulance. Another ambulance was on the way from a nearby town for Ryan’s body.
Inside the house, Detective Harrison watched as the paramedics wheeled the bodies out of the living room. The hands of the victims had been bagged, photos had been taken, and evidence had been collected. It was time to get them to the morgue.
Carol and Victor had been questioned. Victor had been the one who called the cops. After the terror was over he realized that the cops weren’t coming because none of the neighbors had heard gunshots because of the silencer on the gun. And that gave Victor a chance to tie up a few loose ends before he called the police. Victor went into Carol’s den to clean up the mess on the floor. Even though his side screamed in pain and the side of his face was a dull throb, he knew he had to do this for Carol – she’d never be able to explain why this stuff was here if they searched this room. He had left Carol on the couch, she was in shock, nearly catatonic, but he had to leave her for a moment so he could clean up the evidence.
He entered the den and saw that the jar with her husband’s head in it was gone. So were the other items from the suitcase. Even the brown suitcase was gone. Where had it gone? Victor wondered. Had Amber circled back around and taken it? Why would she do that? But he knew that nobody had been in this den.
But the jar and the suitcase were gone.
He didn’t want to think about where they might have gone back to. He didn’t want to think about how much of Carol’s story might have been true.
Victor bent down to roll the rug back over the pentagram and an explosion of fresh pain shot through his side. He had to wait for a moment for the pain to pass a little before he could roll the rest of the rug back in place. But he got through it. As soon as his ribs were better, he was going to sand this floor down and get rid of that pentagram and the scorch marks around it.
He walked to the doorway and went out into the hall. He closed the door to the den and went to the living room to be with Carol.
After Victor called the cops, he waited with Carol for them to get there. Carol hadn’t said a word the whole time they waited. Victor rested his hand on her hand. She stared ahead blankly, but she didn’t pull her hand away from his.
They would get through this somehow, Victor thought.
4.
Detective Harrison, one of only two detectives on the small Edrington police department, walked over to the medical examiner who looked shell-shocked.
“What a blood bath,” the detective said.
The medical examiner nodded. “I haven’t seen anything like this in a long time. Not since the …”
“The Cutter case,” Detective Harrison finished for him.
“What did Carol say happened?” the medical examiner asked. The M.E. knew Carol, but he hadn’t been able to talk to her. She’d been questioned, and then taken to the police station. Victor had been by her side the whole time. He often wondered why she and Victor hadn’t gotten together after her husband’s death so long ago – they seemed so close now.
“She couldn’t say much, still in shock. Victor did most of the talking. He said these people broke in to kill this guy who was renting a room from Carol. Said the man’s name was Ryan Freeman. Ryan killed two of the attackers, but then he went after Carol. She picked up one of the other guys’ guns and shot him. She didn’t have a choice – it was self-defense. Seems like there might have been another wounded man that got away. But we’ll find him.”
“Why were these people after this guy?” the medical examiner asked as he looked down at Ryan’s body which was covered with a white sheet.
“Who knows?” Harrison said. “Drugs? Revenge?”
The medical examiner looked around to make sure that he and the detective were alone, that no one was within earshot. He had something to tell Harrison, and he didn’t want anyone else overhearing what he was going to say.
It was crazy, he knew that, but he needed to tell someone.
Harrison stared at the medical examiner as he glanced around at the living room. “You okay? You don’t look so good. I know you’ve seen this kind of stuff before …”
The medical examiner looked at Harrison and nodded. “It’s not that.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“It’s really strange. I … I don’t even know how to explain it.”
Harrison stared at the medical examiner, waiting for him to continue.
The M.E. glanced around again, making sure no one was near them, and then he looked at Harrison. “Listen,” he said. “This can’t get out to anybody. I’ll put it in the report, but then I’m going to bury it. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
“You know me,” Harrison said. “You know I’m not going to go around talking about this stuff. Hell, I don’t even tell my wife about most of what I see.”
The M.E. nodded and sighed. But he didn’t say anything for a moment.
Harrison grew impatient. “Come on, what is it? You look … you look scared.”
The M.E. locked eyes with Harrison. “That body over there, that Ryan Freeman guy, he doesn’t have any eyes.”
Harrison winced. “No eyes?”
The M.E. went over to Ryan’s body and pulled the white sheet back away
from his face so that the detective could see what he was talking about.
“See?” the M.E. said. “And I don’t mean his eyes were ripped out or cut out. I mean, it’s like … like they were never there at all.”
5.
The show was over.
The rain had stopped. The darkness was fading as the sky lightened in the east over the mountains. The cold air was coming down from the north.
The neighborhood people were going back to their homes now. The ambulances were gone. Some of the cops had left.
Walter walked back to his car and got in. He drove back to his tidy little house near the woods and went inside.
He went to a spare bedroom where he had his own pentagram painted in white on the wood floor. He lit candles and placed them at each point of the star. He stripped naked and entered the pentagram. He kneeled down in the center. He closed his eyes.
Soon he felt a presence inside the room with him.
He heard a dripping sound from behind him.
Drip. Drip.
He could feel cold breath on the back of his neck …
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mark Lukens lives with his wife and son in Florida, not far from Tampa. He’s a full-time writer of several books including “Descendants of Magic,” a Young Adult novel he wrote with his lifelong friend, Tony Circelli. He wrote “Ancient Enemy” a supernatural tale available on Amazon and Kindle. He’s also a screenwriter with several works in progress. He has more novels coming soon, including “Night Terrors.”
He welcomes any comments and questions. You can contact him at: [email protected]
