Blood Stone

by Michael Lister

  We walked back over to the car.

  “Come on,” Frank said. “Where is he?”

  “Feel so helpless just standing here,” Erin said.

  “Should Erin and I drive around to the west side and run up?” I asked.

  “Even if it takes the operator another ten minutes to get here,” Frank said, “this’ll still be faster.”

  Bud said, “Walt and Joe are already over there. Walking up now.”

  Eventually, the operator sped up in his car, left it parked out in front on the curb, and ran over to us.

  He was a tall, soft, pale young man in his twenties with too-long blond hair sticking up on his head.

  He immediately began working on preparing the cable car to take us the over eight hundred feet to the top, which seemed to take a lot longer than it actually did.

  “Get us up there as fast as you can, partner,” Bud said.

  “Yes, sir. Will do.”

  The ride started slowly at first, seeming to hesitate as it was just beginning, but then settled into a smooth, brisk ascent up the natural wonder before us.

  We began at about the halfway mark of the tall pines, but were soon cresting their tops, and in a few moments more were looking down at them from high above.

  As soon as we cleared them, we could see Daphne again.

  She was in the same position, though moving more now, as if trying futilely to scoot back up the mountain.

  The cables of the sky ride ran to the left of the Confederate carving, which continued to grow and dominate the right side of our view as we zoomed in closer to the mountain.

  We were floating and bouncing as we ascended, the cables providing enough relative slack and tension to cause us to swing slightly as we did.

  The large monolith before us was streaked dark gray and etched with grooves that appeared to be the way rain water had snaked its way down from the summit for millions of years.

  If he lets her go, I thought, that’s the way her body will descend—along one of the empty riverbed-like troughs already cut into the stone.

  The sheer scope and size of the mountain were staggering, but its appearance—that of a giant rock hurled into the middle of this relatively flat terrain—was surreal.

  “Can anyone get a visual on him?” Frank asked. “Is he behind that lowest rock? I can’t see him.”

  Bud said, “We’ll be approaching from the west side. He can’t go off the north side, so we just need men approaching from the south and east.”

  He then began to radio the cops on the south and east sides to get to the top as quickly as they could and not to shoot each other or us as we all approached the same vicinity.

  “Wish that damn chopper would get over here,” Frank said. “Can this thing go any faster?”

  “Sorry,” the operator said, shaking his head.

  “See how close the others are to the top?” Frank said to Bud.

  He did.

  “Got runners in each group that should reach the spot about the time we do.”

  “John, you and Erin take off as soon as we reach the top,” Frank said. “Y’all can get over there a lot faster than me and Bud, but . . . be careful. Proceed with caution. Go in with your weapons drawn and ready. We want to save the woman, but . . . don’t forget to protect yourselves.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “God, I’d love to be the one to take this fuck down,” Erin said.

  “You just may get to,” Bud said, “but just make sure he doesn’t take y’all down with him.”

  “We’ve got to make sure that we—” Frank began.

  The killer then released Daphne and she slid down the mountain, her free-falling body bouncing and banging off the rock face, scraping off her skin, bashing in her skull, breaking her bones, careening cruelly from one contusion to another. Busting, breaking, splitting, shattering flesh and bone at an astonishing clip, the huge rope trailing behind her like the too-long tail of a doomed, diving kite.

  “Oh my God,” Frank said.

  Erin screamed.

  Bud and I gasped.

  It took less time than most things I’d see in my lifetime, yet nothing would ever have a greater impact or be more memorable.

  “Jesus, did you see that?” someone said into the radio.

  “Okay, listen up everybody,” Frank said. “There’s nothing we can do for her now except catch this sadistic prick, so just concentrate on that. No way he gets off this mountain ’cept in custody.”

  “Or a body bag,” Erin said.

  “That one’s got my vote,” Bud said.

  37

  As soon as the cable car rocked to a stop and the doors slid open, Erin and I were running—across the platform, through the summit building gift shop and snack bar, out the doors, and around the side.

  The top of the mountain was like the surface of the moon, but wet and windy and slippery.

  The wind shear was far more powerful than I was prepared for. It slashed at us from every possible angle, buffeting our progress, throwing our every move off balance.

  Many of the cracks and crevices and indentations were full of water, and we slipped and tripped and slid and stumbled and splashed as we made our way around to the east side of the mountain.

  At first we ran with our weapons drawn, but quickly realized we were going to need our hands free for balance, support, and to catch ourselves when we fell.

  We climbed a fence then ran through a small wooded area.

  I soon realized there were more wooded areas up here than I had thought.

  We ran beneath a radio antenna, the rising sun assaulting our eyes as we moved directly toward it.

  The terrain was far more treacherous than I thought it would be, and not just because it was so slick from the dampness, but because of how very many cracks, crevices, rises and indentations were in the granite to trip and fall over or twist an ankle or break a leg.

  It was also far more steep than I would have guessed from the ground, the angle and pitch of the elevation more severe as the dome sloped to the edges of the sheer face fall offs.

  I stumbled over a slight rise in the rock and fell down.

  “You okay?” Erin asked.

  “Yeah. Good. Thanks.”

  I pushed myself up as fast as I could and we continued.

  “Wonder which way he’ll try to go,” she said.

  “I’m thinking the east side is too steep,” I said. “Not sure the officers from that side are going to be able to make it up from there. Means he probably can’t make it down that way either. So my guess is he’ll be heading our way or down the south side.”

  “We need to be ready if he comes this way,” she said, “but it’s nearly impossible to run with your gun.”

  “We should probably slow down a bit and pull out our weapons again,” I said. “Take a little longer to get there but be safer. Way it is now we could run up on him, and him shoot or stab us before we knew what was happening.”

  “Probably right but I’d have a hard time convincing my feet to slow down,” she said. “I want to get down there and kill that fuck with my bare hands.”

  We didn’t slow down, but I pulled out my weapon anyway. If I fell again, I’d have to hope I could tuck and roll to mitigate the brunt of the blow, or just be prepared to face plant into the hardest, coldest, dampest stone I had ever encountered.

  The force of the wind continued to whip at us, its freezing wet tentacles slapping us at every turn.

  Erin’s radio crackled and she turned it up.

  “Where is everyone?” Frank was asking.

  “South side team getting close.”

  “East side team only about halfway up,” a voice said. “We’ll probably get up there a while after the rest of y’all, but he’s not getting by us. We’re spread out, so we’ll see him if he tries to come down this way, but . . . I doubt he will. It’s steep as hell over here.”

  “Everyone proceed with extreme caution,” Frank said. “And be careful wher
e you shoot. There’re far more of us up here than him. Careful where you aim. Don’t shoot each other.”

  No longer able to run, we were now crawling and crab walking toward the pile of rocks and stand of trees where the rope holding Daphne had disappeared into.

  The sun before us was blinding, but the rock surface beneath our hands remained wet and cold.

  I still had my gun out, but it was paying a price—the butt and barrel being scratched and scraped across the hard granite.

  “What the hell—” Erin began.

  Suddenly, Walt was beside us.

  “Where’d you come from?” she said.

  “Ran up the west side walking trail,” he said. “Y’all ready to get this motherfucker? I say he don’t get off this rock alive.”

  “Let’s spread out,” I said. “Fifteen to twenty feet apart. Erin, radio the south side team and see how close they are.”

  She did.

  “We’re here,” the agent said.

  “Okay,” she said. “Let’s fan out, surround the area and slowly close in on it.”

  “Roger that.”

  And that’s what we all did, eventually reaching the small wooded area.

  On the upper side of the topmost boulders the remnants of a small fire still burned beside a one-foot-squared pool of water and drops and smears of blood.

  “This is the Stone Mountain Police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigations,” Erin yelled. “We have you surrounded. Put down your weapon and walk out with your hands up.”

  We waited.

  My heart was pounding so hard I could hear the ocean in my ears.

  Nothing happened.

  She then fired a round into the air.

  “You can die up here or we can take you into custody and you can tell everyone your side of what happened so they can understand,” she said. “It’s up to you.”

  Still nothing.

  “Last chance.”

  When there was still no response, she radioed the others and signaled me and Walt with her hand and we all began slowly walking into the woods, guns out, hammers back, tension high.

  The wooded area was like a small pine forest stuck on the side of the mountain, a thin layer of earth on the rock giving life to mostly dormant underbrush and thick fallen pine needles.

  The trees weren’t nearly as tall as most pines, but high enough to create a canopy that blocked out much of the sun in the area.

  I scanned the trees, each one looking like a man standing ready to attack, trying to keep from shooting my fellow task force members or a tree but not wanting to hesitate when I saw the killer.

  But there was no sign of the killer.

  “He’s not here,” Erin said into her radio. “East team, any sign of him?”

  “We’re almost to you and he hasn’t come this way.”

  “Wait,” she said. “What is that?”

  I followed her gaze to a small clearing in the middle of pines.

  There on a tripod was Daphne Littleton’s WSB-TV camera, the microphone cord dangling down from it.

  We slowly approached it.

  Beneath the mic on the ground was a typed note.

  Without touching it, she got down on the ground and began to read it as the rest of us gathered around.

  Dear Poor Pathetic Cops,

  This is the Stone Cold Killer Speaking.

  You thought you had me, didn’t you?

  Sorry not to be here waiting on you when you arrived, but you took so long to get up here that I really just couldn’t wait anymore.

  Anyway, please don’t add insult to injury and be hypocritical about the downfall of Atlanta’s most ambitious TV whore. You know you’re secretly happy she fell from grace.

  So no hard feelings. No harm. No foul. Better luck next time. Try not to be too discouraged. You gave it a good show. You truly did.

  You’ll have another chance real soon.

  Until then.

  Yours in blood and stone,

  S.C.K.

  38

  “Where the hell did he go?” Frank said. “How’d he get away?”

  His short, going-gray hair was sticking up in the back, his coat looked too small, and the expression on his face was genuine astonishment.

  I shook my head and shrugged.

  “He’s got to still be up here,” Bud said, pushing his big black glasses up on his nose. “Hiding somewhere on the mountain.”

  We were standing inside the summit building, warming up, regathering.

  Cops were crawling the mountain, searching for the killer who they believed couldn’t have just disappeared into cold, thin air.

  The park was still closed, visitors at the inn and campers at the campground sequestered in those areas. The only people on the mountain or out in the park should be cops and the killer.

  Two different helicopters were buzzing around, officers with huge binoculars hanging out of them on either side scanning the unforgiving stone for any sign of Daphne’s killer.

  Frank looked over at me. “What’re you thinking?”

  “Just trying to figure out how he did it,” I said. “And why.”

  “Why?” he said. “What do you mean why?”

  “Why he broke his pattern,” I said. “Daphne wasn’t like the other victims. She was fifteen years older, different body type, different personality type. She was taken under different circumstances. She wasn’t out running. Wasn’t snatched like the others. It’s rare for a killer like this to deviate from his series, from his pattern, and when he does there’s a reason. I was just trying to figure out the reason.”

  “We catch him,” Bud said, “we can ask him. Doesn’t matter why as long as we know the who and have his ass in custody.”

  I nodded. “I was thinking the why might lead us to the who.”

  Frank nodded. “Let’s get Ernestine Campbell back in to go over everything again—including what happened this morning.”

  “That’s all well and good,” Bud said, “but we need every available man to be searching for the killer. No way he’s off the mountain, let alone out of the park. This is our chance. We’re not gonna be able to keep people at the inn and campgrounds for very much longer.”

  “We approached his position from every angle he could’ve exited from—”

  “Beside a nosedive off the north face,” Bud said, “which is what I wish he’d’ve done.”

  “How did we miss him?” Frank said. “How did he get by us? Seems impossible.”

  “Maybe it is,” I said.

  Frank nodded.

  Bud said, “What’s that mean?”

  “Maybe that’s not how he did it,” I said. “Maybe he didn’t slip through us at all, but got down a different way. We figure that out, we might figure out where he is. We need to look at the tape.”

  “It could just be her reporting from earlier,” Bud said. “No guarantee he recorded anything for us.”

  “No way he lugged it all the way up there and didn’t use it,” I said.

  “TV station’s sending a machine that will play the tape over to the station,” Frank said. “Soon as it’s processed, we’ll take it over and watch it. For now let’s go take a look at the body and see what the crime scene techs and the pathologist have to say.”

  “How long we gonna keep the park closed,” Bud asked. “How long we gonna keep people at the inn and the campground?”

  Frank frowned and thought about it.

  He looked exhausted, but something else too—something deeper, something beyond exhaustion.

  “We’ll keep the people at the inn and the campground until noon, then only let them exit the park after we check their IDs and vehicles. Park stays closed all day at least. And we search until we find him or run out of daylight. You mind overseeing that?”

  “What?” he asked.

  “The search and the controlled exit.”

  “No. Not a problem.”

  “Let’s get our core team together to go to the crime scene,” Frank sa
id. “Be best for everyone to hear what is said for themselves. Soon as we finish there, you can use them how you want in the search and the mass exodus.”

  39

  “Body’s in bad shape,” Gerald Manning was saying. “Mountain really chewed her up.”

  We were walking in the pine forest near the base of the mountain beneath the east side of the north face.

  He had met us and was leading us in.

  Unlike the small stand of pines on the mountain we had been in earlier, this was a forest of old growth, tall pines with oak and other hardwoods mixed in.

  The sun-dappled ground beneath our feet was damp, the underbrush brown and brittle.

  It was colder in the shade of the pines, but they blocked most of the wind.

  It was our core team of Frank, Bud, Erin, Walt, Joe, me, two additional GBI agents and Bobby Meredith from the park police, and our breath could still be seen in the frigid early morning air.

  “Not much of a crime scene,” Gerald was saying. “This is just where she landed. And hell, she hasn’t even hit the ground yet, but we’re examining the body and the rope.”

  Frank said, “Whatta you mean she hasn’t hit the ground yet?”

  “You’ll see,” he said, then stopped walking and looked back at everyone. “Not used to having this many people walk into my crime scene at one time. I know you’re gonna want to get up close and take a good look, but I’m gonna need you to stay back. Nice thing is you don’t have to be too careful where you step.”

  He started walking again and our small group began following again—though more slowly and carefully now.

  Soon we reached the crime scene tape and other techs and their equipment.

  Ducking beneath it, we continued to the horror beyond.

  Daphne Littleton, or what was left of her, hadn’t hit the ground yet because she had gotten tangled in the trees.

  Suspended some ten feet off the ground, the long rope around her wrists wrapped around other trees and branches, its end dangling some twenty feet from her, her body was twisted sideways but her head was facing down, one open eye staring straight at us.

  Her skin was scraped and cut and split, the broken and swollen bones beneath causing her body to be a misshapen mess of odd lumps, deep dents, and unnatural angles.