The Crippling Terrors (Tracking Ever Nearer Book 1)

by Jeff Vrolyks

  A smile stretched slowly across Robert’s face until it balled his cheeks like a chipmunk storing nuts. The coarse hair of his beard made those fat cheeks look like a nut sack, and between the two balls was a dick named Robert. What are you smiling about, dickhead? “Let me see the rest of the pictures before we talk price. And what guarantee do I have that you won’t rat me out after I pay?”

  “There are no guarantees in life, except for this one: if you don’t pay me, I’ll call the cops.” He handed Kloss the manila envelope. “To be honest, Kloss, I wasn’t expecting to walk out of here with more than twenty grand. However, I think I just got a raise. And I thank you kindly.”

  Kloss puzzled over these words.

  Inside the folder were eight photographs. The top few were of Jack and Peaches, with either Holly or Kloss in the background. Then came a picture that startled Kloss: a picture taken at night of a man whose throat was torn out, lying dead as shit in dirt. A gun was near his hand. “What is this?” He skimmed through the remaining few photographs. They were of different angles of the same dead man until the second-to-last photograph.

  “That, my wealthy friend, is why I came here,” he said coolly.

  “I’m not your friend, douchebag.” He looked at each photo again. “Who is this?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t about to get my finger prints on his wallet to find out. Last night when you went for a drive in that RV of yours, did you notice anyone following you? All those journalists and photographers, I’d think you’d be more careful. But who am I to judge? I followed you, and I wasn’t the only one. I pulled off the road a short distance past your RV. I noticed a green Nissan had done the same thing. He made his way toward you guys as I stayed a fair distance behind him. I had my camera and was hoping to get some pics of you all. What happened I never would have guessed in a million years. I could see your campfire up ahead. The dude wasn’t very far from you all when what I thought were dogs pounced on him from out of nowhere. He never saw them coming, nor did I. They killed him in seconds; I saw it happen. You know what was so disturbingly odd? He never cried for help! I can understand him not wanting to let you all know he was going to take pictures of you guys, but shit, when you’re getting mauled to death it’s time to break your cover, know what I mean?” He chuckled. “After they killed him, one of them picked up this big fat fish and carried it back to your camp and that’s when I realized they weren’t dogs; they were your pet wolves that I took pictures of two days ago. Your pets killed the dude! And you know what? You’re lucky they killed that dude. They may have saved your ass. Because when you and your wolves left, I checked him out and he wasn’t a photographer, man. He didn’t even have a freakin’ camera. But he had a gun. I don’t know, maybe he was a crazy fan wanting to kill you, who knows? I snapped a few pics and considered calling nine-one-one but then I thought better of it.”

  He took the photo from the bottom of the stack and held it up. It was the whole gang and the wolves getting into the RV. He said, “If I called the cops, you’d be up shit creek.” He leaned back in his chair and said, “So here I am, selling you a paddle.”

  “Where’s the body?”

  “I could ask you the same thing, Kloss, but I suspect I’d have to pluralize body. Eh?”

  He would have asked what he meant by that, but he didn’t need to. Kloss screwed up royally. At least he didn’t give the details of what happened. “Don’t forget that your ass ain’t so innocent in all this, either.”

  “Me? What did I do?”

  “Spying, dumbass. You can’t take pictures on private property. Didn’t they teach you that in douchebag school? And how about not reporting a man being killed? Then there’s extortion, to boot. If I go down, don’t think for a second your ass ain’t going down in flames with me.”

  “Hey, if the price is right, nobody will ever know,” Robert said smugly.

  “So where’s the dead guy? Did you leave him where you found him?”

  “I didn’t touch him. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before he’s found, but it might be a while—that place is pretty remote. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Let’s not lose sight of what’s important: money and silence.”

  “What if I wanted silence and to not pay you a dime?” Kloss mused, as he stroked his chin. “How might I go about getting that?”

  “Not possible. It’s one or the other.”

  Kloss smirked and stood up. “Well, Robert, I hate to make you look stupid in front of… well, in front of me, but,” he withdrew the gun from his waist and Robert’s eyes doubled, “but I am fairly sure I could have both. Hell, I already have a laundry list of felonies mounting up, what’s one more?” He gestured lunatically with his gun, “And the only difference between you and the other three dead-as-shit people is this: someone may lose sleep over them missing.” Kloss paced back and forth behind his desk, scratched his cheek with the barrel of his .22 and mumbled incomprehensibly. From the corner of his eye he saw Robert breathing heavy and looking frantically around for something, anything to help him in case things progressed.

  “Kloss,” he croaked, “you’re talking crazy. This doesn’t have to get out of hand. All I’m asking for is a mil… a hundred grand, and—”

  Kloss peered at him with a warped grin and wild blazing eyes—a twitch in the left blinked sporadically. He stepped around the desk to Robert and lowered his face even with his, gun at his side. The twitch progressed. Now the left half of his face jerked with each spasm.

  “K-Kloss, let’s work something out.”

  Robert didn’t see the gun brought to the side of his head but he felt it. Boy how he felt it. He felt his heart beating in his throat, and blood thundering in his ears. His bowels churned; he thought he’d shit his pants. He opened his mouth and a dry gasp wheezed out like a snake fart in the desert. The cocking back of the gun’s hammer released some of Robert’s bladder pressure.

  “Ten-thousand-bucks and you d-don’t have to commit first degree murder,” Robert pleaded. “W-what do you say?”

  “Diggs!” he shouted, without leaving Robert’s face.

  The door creaked open slightly and the voice of Barry White now impersonating Rambo grunted, “Yeah, boss?”

  “Any suggestions where we could stuff a body for a few hours?”

  Robert’s eyes had no lids. He began convulsing.

  “I got some stuff in the garage that we can pour on him in the bath tub,” Diggs suggested. “Melts bones into a green goo that will go down the drain. He’ll be floating in the sewer by sun-down. Want me to get it, boss?”

  Kloss lowered the gun from Robert’s head and scratched his own head with it, stared at him contemplatively.

  “Just let me leave, I d-don’t want a dime,” Robert stammered. “It’ll be our s-secret. Please.”

  “It’s quite interesting to watch,” Diggs said. “And enjoyable. They bubble like peroxide on a cut until their eyes pop. Pop like a squeezed grape. And their skin slides right off their blistering muscle-tissue. We use to use it in the Gulf War, when we didn’t have time to dig mass graves. I forgot how much fun it is to watch. Want me to go pop some popcorn, boss?”

  Kloss took a deep breath. A pensive man indeed. He finally took a step away from Robert and aimed the gun at his face. “If a word leaks out, Diggs is going to pop some popcorn and we’re going to put two chairs in the bathroom and go to work on you. If you think I can’t find you, consider the strength of the almighty dollar and the ability it has to get people’s fingers pointing. Because once I find you, see that mountain behind me?” Diggs wiggled his fingers playfully at him. “He is going to be the last thing you see before you die.”

  “That might not be entirely true,” Diggs corrected. “He may see his own eyeballs pop out their sockets. I don’t know the precise details because they always die before I get a clear answer.”

  “There you have it,” Kloss said. “Maybe you can tell us before you slip away.” Kloss gestured with the gun for Robert to leave the room
and he hauled fucking ass, never slowing down as he left the front door and then the estate. A trail of urine followed him.

  Chapter 41

  It wasn’t quite summer yet according to the calendar, but it felt like August. The sun was beating down ruthlessly. What little breeze there was felt like a blow dryer. The air was imbued with the scent of kettle-corn and ribs. A half dozen servers dressed formally in black tuxedos and white gloves passed out drinks and hors d’oeuvres. I’d be shocked if they made it through the day without suffering a heat stroke. Sound engineers had their tables set up and were tinkering with their hundreds of knobs as they bantered with the equipment crew. The few children present were swimming in their underwear, splashing at each other, standing under the many waterfalls before plunging into the pool. Of the one-hundred plastic chairs before the bandstand and under the canopies, all but a handful were taken; the seats occupied first had been the ones nearest the mist nozzles attached to the canopy stanchions.

  Kloss wore shorts and a tank-top, stood under the shade of the covered bandstand drop-tuning his acoustic guitar. Zach was all set on bass guitar and Eddie Booger on conga drums. Nobody could possibly know that Kloss had no desire to be there. He was a born entertainer, and, as it turns out, a splendid actor. He smiled at people, waved at friends.

  Beside the bandstand was a large collapsible table with eight chairs. I sat beside Holly, who sat next to Alison and Mike. Pea Willy and Sue Ellen joined us after piling catered food on paper-plates. Diggs stood near our table with a holstered gun in plain view and the another gun hidden. His orders were to disallow anyone close access to us. Diggs was such a professional that he hadn’t questioned Kloss about this or a handful of other peculiar orders. Pea Willy had his revolver in his cowboy boot. I felt as safe as a baby in a crib.

  At the table conversation lingered on the growing threat to Holly, having just learned about the dead man at the Sacramento River Delta. It wasn’t necessary to keep our voices down, last minute sound checks were overpowering any competing noise within a quarter mile of the tall speaker stacks. And the people nearest our table, besides Diggs, were the sound engineers at their own table ten yards away.

  Holly discoursed the theory that she and Kloss had put together regarding the repeated attempts at her life. She expected to be scoffed at or at least teased when she said demon-possession and mind-control. But nobody did. Quite the contrary. Pea Willy and Sue Ellen looked like the last people on earth who would believe in black magic, but they had reason to believe it was real. When I mentioned Greg’s Ouija Board experience, Sue Ellen had a story for us. Before she began, Kloss’s microphone was switched on, his voice boomed like a cannon. A man wearing headphones at the sound-board flashed him a thumbs-up.

  “Thanks for coming, everyone,” Kloss began. The crowd silenced. “You have been invited here today because you are all my friends or colleagues, and I hope you can find comfort in this wretched heat. There are plenty of cold beers and wine coolers in any number of barrel coolers in the area, so drink up and stay hydrated,” and stay away from the fucking garage or I’ll add you to the pile of dead. “If you didn’t already know, this recording is going to be a full-length album released this fall, and if you sign the guest list near the popcorn machine, you’ll get a signed copy of the CD mailed to you a couple weeks before it’s released, as a gesture of my appreciation to you all. Be sure to jot down your current address.”

  Applause came and went. A woman toward the back shouted something that might have been You’re hotter than the heat, you Dutch god. People laughed. Kloss blushed and coughed, continued. “The reason I’m doing this today is to thank and honor three new friends of mine. The term hero has become trite and somewhat of a platitude, which is a shame because occasionally people display selfless acts of courage and bravery in the face of danger and truly are heroes. These three did just that and I’m honored to call them my friends.

  “The fire Monday night in Cattlemen Ranch, where I use to live and my sister and her best friend were living, would have had a tragic ending if it weren’t for the combined efforts of these individuals.”

  Applause roared. I put my arm around Holly and kissed her.

  “So before I get this show on the road, I want to introduce to you my new friends sitting at my sister Holly’s table.” He faced us. “The big mean looking one is Pea Willy. When I met him he wore a belt-buckle that read Pure Hillbilly Hell, but he isn’t fooling anyone. Pea Willy is the sweetest man to walk the earth since Jesus (Moses to all you Jewish folk in the crowd). His beautiful wife, who sincerely has the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard, is sitting beside him. The lovely Sue Ellen. Give them a hand.”

  Applause broke out and the Texans smiled, Pea Willy tipped his cowboy hat.

  “The homely one at the end,” Kloss winked, “is going to be my brother-in-law someday. Kevin is the only guy my sister has dated whom I approve of. He ripped me a new asshole two minutes after we met because I questioned his intentions with my sister. Nobody has ever stood up to me like that, and I respect him for it. I even overlooked the fact that they came out of Holly’s bedroom zipping up their pants last night.” People laughed.

  Holly turned red and covered her face. I smiled awkwardly. My agoraphobia was in full force and I was on the verge of a panic attack.

  “I may have gone too far with that one,” Kloss admitted. Holly nodded behind her hands. “I won’t mention what your shirt says, to spare you further embarrassment. We all know Kevin is your patient.”

  Sue Ellen and Alison booed Kloss, who smiled and said, “Sorry guys. I just want to say, for what it’s worth, you have my blessing wholeheartedly for whatever path your relationship leads you. And I’m proud to have such a sweet and wonderful sister, whom I love dearly. Mom and Dad would be so proud of you, Holly. So damned proud.”

  Holly removed her hands from her face. She had misty eyes, either from embarrassment or from Kloss’s kind words. Kloss descended the bandstand steps and went to the table, kissed Holly’s cheek and hugged her in her chair, whispered an apology in her ear. Applause erupted and continued until Kloss was back on stage and speaking into the microphone. “Don’t worry guys, that won’t make the album.” He winked at Holly. He faced the crowd. “The first song of this hot fucking afternoon is the song dearest to me; the first song I ever wrote. I’ve never played it acoustically, so I hope it sounds all right. The song is called Anne’s Choice.”

  Kloss played continuously for the next half hour, only breaking to introduce the next song and a little history behind them. He didn’t give a history behind Anne’s Choice, and the lyrics for it were vague and cryptic, and unless you knew Holly and Kloss’ past, you’d never guess it had anything to do with their deceased sister.

  * * *

  When the band took an intermission, Sue Ellen was eager to tell us the story that she had earlier whetted our appetites for. “What I was going to say before the music started was about Automatic Writing, such as the Ouija Board. I have quite a history and knowledge of this phenomenon because of what happened when I was a sophomore in high school. And when your high school has less than two hundred kids, a couple of them dying is prime-time news and shocks the whole town. Automatic Writing has been around a lot longer than you’d think, dating back to eleven-hundred B.C. in China. It was called Fuji. The French called it a Planchette Board, or little plank. The instrument was popularized and commercialized about a hundred years ago. What most people don’t realize—kids sometimes stumble upon it by accident—is the impact blood has on the device. The term used for it was Bloodletting, which came from Bloodlettering. The term Bloodletting evolved into something unrelated. But this was general knowledge long before it became a Parker Brothers cash-cow. Enough with the history, here’s what happened:

  “My friend Pietra was big on the spirit-world and occult. In her parents’ basement we sometimes used a Talking Board. Two friends of ours—Albie and Amber—we called them Alber because they were practically joined
at the hip—would come over to join in on the fun. We were all sophomores except Pietra, a Junior. Pietra was dating a senior, a butcher at The Lazy Jay, the only market in the little town of Silverton, about forty miles outside Amarillo, where I grew up. Pietra thought it a brilliant idea to bring home some lamb’s blood that her boyfriend got from work. She put it around the house, on the indicator, the board, and even a little on herself. After that, the thing moved fast. We thought someone was cheating. We asked it:

  “What’s your name: Kalek.

  “Where are you from, Kalek: Nowhere.

  “How’d you die, Kalek: I am not dead.

  “What do you mean you aren’t dead: I am not dead I am not dead.

  “So then you’re alive: We are not the same.

  “Where are you right now: We are not alike.

  “Where are you right now: But we can be.

  “Kalek, tell us where… you… are: Bloodletter.

  “We couldn’t get anything else out of Kalek, so Pietra insisted Albie and Amber and me prick our fingers and drip our blood on the indicator and board, to see if that’s what it wanted. After that, it was insane. The indicator moved before our fingers were even in position. Pietra asked where he was, again: Beside you. We freaked out like it was Satan himself. We all suddenly remembered that we had chores to do at home and hauled butt out of there.

  “The next day at school I told this to Bucktooth Becky, another friend of ours. Becky didn’t believe me, said people just push it around discriminately. I wanted to prove her wrong so I invited her over after school. After school, we four girls, along with the ever-skeptical Bucktooth Becky, returned to Pietra’s basement. We didn’t have lamb’s blood to give as an offering, as Pietra put it. We engaged the Talking Board and it barely moved. Becky didn’t join in, she just stood behind us and watched, acting high-and-mighty because she was proving us wrong. We reckoned it was the absence of blood, so we cut ourselves. Pietra had done some research on the act of Bloodletting, so from then on Bloodletting was the only way to go. Bloodletter Board is what we began calling it.