by Dale Mayer
She dropped her head to her knees. There had to be a way out of this. Think, damn it. Think, before there’d be no thinking left. She could just imagine this asshole taking out Stevie and Royce. No one would ever find them. Find her friends. Find her.
She’d not believed in God in a very long time. Now she couldn’t help but hope she’d been wrong. Only she suspected he helped those who helped themselves rather than stepping into a scenario like this at the last moment.
A scrape rasped across the ice on her left. Shit. She had no weapon. Nothing.
And for all she knew, she was the last one capable of saving anyone.
Then she heard something that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
Heavy raspy breathing…from the right…
She tried to shrink smaller. A flashlight turned on, blinding her.
“There you are.”
She stared. In shock.
Stevie. She scrambled to her feet in relief. “Oh, thank God. I got so turned around, I didn’t know who was here and who wasn’t. Who was the good guy and who wasn’t.” She threw herself into his arms and hung on.
“Stacy?”
She paused, turned. “Royce! Oh, I’m so glad to see you.” She slipped away from Stevie and gave him a huge smile. “I was so scared.”
“Uh, Stacy,” Royce said, “Come here please.”
She took a step toward him, a little puzzled at the odd tone to his voice.
“Ac—,” she choked back a scream as an arm came around her throat and locked across her windpipe. She was dragged backwards, her chest screaming for air, red swimming before her eyes. She couldn’t focus. Everything was focused on the pain in her throat – the air her lungs were struggling to lock onto.
Her feet slid out from under her as she was dragged backwards.
And she finally heard the words being exchanged.
“Don’t hurt her, Stevie.” Royce’s voice broke. “Please don’t hurt her.”
“I’m not going to hurt her,” Stevie said, his voice a chilling singsong tone. “She’s finally going to be with her friends. They’re best friends, you know. Stacy has been lost without them. She’s going to love being with them again.”
Stacy tried to say no, tried to tell him she didn’t want to be with them. But he wasn’t listening. As she heard the weird tenor in his voice, she realized that he’d likely not hear her anyway. He was in his own world.
She tried to cry out for help. Try to let Royce know she was choking to death.
“Stevie,” she choked out. “I can’t breathe.”
Instantly, the chokehold around her neck eased up, but he still held her tight so she couldn’t get free. She gasped, gulping madly for air.
“There? See, she’s fine, Royce.” Stevie turned Stacy to face Janice. “See, Stacy, they are waiting for you. All this time. They are going to be so happy to have you with them. I’m just going to put you up into the right position so you can look at each other for eternity. You’ll look perfect again.”
“Is that what you’re trying to do, Stevie?” Stacy asked, feeling hot tears in her eyes. She coughed, still trying to get air back into her lungs. “Give the three of us a chance to be together again?”
“Of course. They’ve been waiting for you. I tried to make them look right as they were…” He looked at Janice, frustration and worry on his pale features. “But they never looked right. Something was missing. Incomplete. And I finally knew why.”
A beatific smile shone from his face. “They were missing you, Stacy.”
He pinned her in place with his arms. “And Stacy was missing the girls. You’ve been missing them so much, haven’t you, Stacy?”
“I do miss…” Her voice came out like a frog. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I do miss them, Stevie, but I don’t want to join them.”
With a wary glance at where she’d last seen Royce, she tried to shuffle slightly away from Stevie, but backed up as she was to where Janice hung in the macabre horror show, she had nowhere to go.
“Yes, you do,” he crooned in a soft voice. “I’ll let you visit with them until the cold puts you to sleep permanently.” He looked at the hooks and wires he had waiting. “You’ll like that. But I have to get you into position before you freeze.” Frustration entered his voice. “It’s really difficult to fix the position after you’re frozen.”
Oh God. “Stevie, don’t you want to visit with me over the next many years? We’ve had such fun together.”
“Oh, I will be here a lot. Now that I have you to visit, too,” he exclaimed lovingly.
His voice sent shivers through her. She hurt for him. She understood that as much as she’d retreated from life for a while to deal with her losses, he hadn’t been able to. He’d become obsessed with finding the girls and once he had, he hadn’t been able to let them go.
She understood.
But she didn’t want to join them in this sad gallery. She didn’t know how all this worked with the other crap that had been going on, but she needed to find out if she could. If she was lucky, someone was listening in. Even if they couldn’t protect her, maybe the truth would come out.
“Stevie, did you drug everyone?”
“Me? No.” He looked so outraged at her, she was taken aback. “Why would you think I’d do that? I’d never hurt you.”
She blinked but managed to not look at her hanging friends. He hadn’t killed them. He just couldn’t let them go.
“I didn’t think so,” she said in a soft voice. “I know that’s not you.” When he appeared to relax, slightly mollified, she added, “Do you know who would have done it?”
He shook his head. “Damn asshole. My head was killing me for days.”
She nodded as if she understood. And really, she did. She’d suffered from that as well. But if he hadn’t drugged everyone, then who had?
“Have you had anyone else here to admire your work?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light and interested.
“Just one.”
This was it. Oh no. She so needed to know who that was.
“But he told me you wouldn’t appreciate it. That I shouldn’t show you.” He looked at her brokenly. “But you understand, don’t you? You miss them as much as I do.”
Oh God. “I do.” She hesitated, struggling to keep her voice calm. “Did someone help you do this?” She couldn’t stop the hysteria rising in her tone.
“Do this?” His voice rose. “What do you mean by this?”
She fought for control. “Did someone help you create this display?” She didn’t know what else to call it.
“Ah, yes, but just a little bit. He said I inspired him to try something similar.”
There was almost disgust in his voice. She wondered what the hell she’d missed. “You don’t like his work?”
“It’s all right. But mine has heart. I’m doing something that needs to happen. Something that completes these lost souls.”
“And what is his?” She was trying to keep him talking. To pretend interest in his work. He loved his work because he loved his subjects – literally. But who else was here? And how dangerous was he?
If he was here with Stevie and knew about her friends, then he was no friend to her. She had to expect him to be dangerous. More so than Stevie. He wanted her to hang to complete the matched set as they’d always been called, but this other guy…what was he up to?
Royce had to be here somewhere. But maybe so was someone else.
*
Royce froze as he heard Stevie’s words. There was someone else who knew about this nightmare? And he hadn’t turned Stevie in? Shit.
He looked around the darkness, grateful his eyes had adjusted. Not enough to see clearly, but with Stevie swinging the flashlight around, he was getting an idea of the room. There appeared to be another room off the far side.
Was that where the other person kept his work? And if it was, did Royce really want to see it? Or was it going to be just as gruesome as this nightmare?
/>
He heard a sound coming around the corner toward Stevie. He shrank back out of sight.
There might be a way to come around behind these two. Now if only he had a weapon. He didn’t want to think of going hand-to-hand against the man who’d already taken him down once. They’d used tools to do this work, so what were the chances they’d left something behind?
Trying to keep an eye on the newcomer and Stacy, Royce crawled along the outside edge of the floor.
And heard a voice that made his blood curdle.
*
Ah, look at this. His little boy Stevie was moving up in life. He had Stacy and she was still alive. For Stevie, that was big.
It was also likely to make him cross that fine line into insanity. Stevie didn’t do this work because he was compelled to find pure expression of his art form. He did it because he was lost. Lost in his love of the friends he’d cared so deeply for.
See, that was just the wrong reasons.
He, on the other hand, loved this work. He operated on a completely different motivation level because of it. As Stevie became weaker and more mentally unbalanced, he himself got stronger. Too bad for Stevie. Good job for him.
Now wait until Stacy got a good look at him. She’d never believe it.
He couldn’t wait.
And he stepped into the limelight, where every great achiever deserved to be.
And heard her gasp.
Only it wasn’t as big a one as he’d hoped. It wasn’t as shocked as he’d hoped. In fact, there was an element more that he’d been proving her theory correct.
And that just pissed him off. If she’d guessed it had been him, then she was damn wrong.
No one knew him that well. He made sure they didn’t. In fact, he made dead sure.
Chapter 46
Stacy looked into Mark’s eyes, and what she saw was scarier than Stevie’s blind and misguided devotion. His actions were understandable if you saw the fractured mind behind it all.
Mark’s eyes, on the other hand, were the opposite. This was fun for him. This was something he planned, looked forward to, and didn’t give a damn about the outcome – because he was sure he’d be the winner. This wasn’t a game. Couldn’t be one – there couldn’t be anyone out there that was a strong enough, good enough to beat him.
Because he was better than everyone. He’d always had that superior arrogance. It had gotten him in trouble several times, but he’d always skimmed past the trouble just shy of any of it sticking to him.
Now as she stared at the two best friends, the two men she’d worked with for close to eight years, she wondered if she’d ever really known them. She hadn’t seen Stevie’s decline, and she should have. She hadn’t seen the psychopath in Mark, and she should have.
She collapsed to the cold floor at Stevie’s feet, her butt numb but her head on fire as she realized the number of times the two men had alibied each other.
“Why the drugs, Mark?”
He laughed. “Why not? It was fun watching you bump around in the dark trying to figure it out. And getting nowhere. I had to throw things into confusion. Make Yvonne play into the mess. God, I hated her. As much as I wanted her to suffer, I didn’t want her here forever with the others.” He shrugged. “I drugged her and kept her here just long enough for her to wake up and try to escape. Should have given her more drugs apparently. Still, I got what I wanted.”
She frowned. “What you wanted or who?”
“Oh, very good.” He grinned and walked closer, pulling her to her feet. “Come and see for yourself.”
She really didn’t want to, but he dragged her forward regardless, Stevie trailing behind, crying out, “Don’t hurt her.”
“I’m not going to hurt her, Stevie, but as you got to show her your work, I get to show her mine.” And he thrust her forward, turning the commercial flashlight in his hands on full beam.
The sight slammed into her brain and she squeezed her eyes closed in horror, her breath catching in her chest. She shuddered and opened her eyes to stare at the macabre scene. Poor Christine hung in an awkward angle, her neck obviously broken. Instead of trying to make his victims look alive and in action like Stevie had managed, Mark’s victims looked terrified and bore the marks of multiple injuries with bruising, indicating they’d been inflicted while they were still alive.
Her hope that they’d find Christine alive, as they had Kathleen, died. Christine had most likely been killed soon after she hadn’t checked in the first time. Likely when Kathleen had been attacked. Damn it. They hadn’t even known. No one had gone to look for her. Had Mark been in this room the whole time – with Christine? While they were trying to save Kathleen?
Had she been alive long? Hoping someone would come and save her as they had Kathleen?
Grief choked Stacy. And anger. And hatred.
He shone the light around to show her several other women in unfortunate positions as he arranged them to suit him. Some were dressed, one was not. She didn’t recognize the woman, but she’d been arranged in a sexually explicit manner.
“How many?” she asked in a hoarse voice, her eyes burning with unshed tears. So many women. They couldn’t have all come from here. There was no way. He had to have been picking them up from other locations and driving them here. Those poor women.
“I’m up to eleven now,” he said casually. “I planned several more for this piece. Of course, a couple weren’t quite right.” He shrugged. “I’d have kept Kathleen though. I had to do something when she saw me with the wine bottles. She wasn’t sure what she’d seen but once she mentioned it to George, I knew she had to go.”
Stacy closed her eyes, not wanting to know what he’d done with those discards.
Then she remembered the man they’d found. The one with the cowboy boot.
“Don’t tell me, the cowboy boots didn’t fit?”
Mark gave a bark of laughter. “Actually, I was considering another sculpture with men, but it didn’t feel right. I let him escape weeks ago. Figured he wouldn’t get far. His girlfriend now though…” he shone his light on a stunning redhead on the left, a very broken, doll-like redhead.
She choked back the questions bubbling up. So many victims. She didn’t want to know what this scene in front of her was supposed to represent – but knew it would have special meaning to Mark. It always did. She couldn’t see any theme or reason why the women were in these positions. And she didn’t want to know. All she wanted was to get the hell out of here and never come back. Ever.
“Even then,” Mark continued. “I haven’t kept all the women. I let Yvonne go, too. I hadn’t expected her to survive though.” He smirked. “Too bad she’s still alive. Although from what I hear, she’s not likely to make it anyway.”
Her stomach heaved. There shouldn’t have been anything left inside to eject, but it was proving her wrong. She bent over, collapsing to her knees as she vomited again.
“Oh gross. Not again.” Stevie danced backwards. “I’m going to have to get the shovel again and clean up.”
He disappeared, and she was grateful. She didn’t think she had much chance of getting out of here alive, but if she messed up their display, she’d at least have accomplished something.
Gasping for breath, she asked in a low voice, “Is there water?”
A bottle was thrust into her hand and she took a drink, then rinsed her mouth.
“I gather you don’t appreciate our work,” Mark said, a rough edge to his voice.
“It’s a bit much to take in all at once.”
“Isn’t it though?” He kicked some snow over her acidic spewing. “Stevie? Where the hell are you with that damn shovel?”
“I guess it made it more fun to have a partner for all this.”
“Ha, it certainly made it easier,” Mark said in a conversational tone. “I saw what he’d done and couldn’t believe what our Stevie boy had accomplished all on his own. It was like a challenge to try my hand.”
She nodded as if she understood. Li
ke hell. Who could?
Her gaze landed on several tools tossed on the ground ahead of her. As if they’d been working and just dropped them when they heard sounds. She didn’t know what he expected from her, but she wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
“Get up. I have to find Stevie.”
She shifted forward, getting hold of a hammer and sliding it along her grip.
He glared in the direction Stevie had gone. She didn’t want to wait. She swung, aiming for his temple. Hard. And danced back. Then flew forward and smashed him in the same spot again. And again.
He yelled, his one hand going for her throat, his other hand going to the side of his head that gushed blood. She danced back out of his way, shifted to his other side, and with both hands, she used the hammer like a baseball bat and took out his knee.
He went down screaming. One of his hands was splayed out flat on the ice, trying to support himself. She danced in and smashed his fingers as hard as she could. With his martial arts skills, she’d be lucky to get away from him even if he had only hand and one knee. She dared not let him get his hands on her.
Hammer ready, she danced just out of reach, her breathing panicked. She wanted to go in and hit him over and over again until he was nothing but hamburger, but she didn’t kill people. She wasn’t him. She refused to become him.
“Stacy?”
Royce. “Oh my God.” She threw the hammer down and ran into his arms. “Are you okay? I was so afraid they’d gotten to you.”
“Mark here did. But I managed to recover long enough to hear what was going on. Stevie is out cold and…” He motioned toward where Mark was lying crumpled on the ground. “Apparently you handled this guy all by yourself.”
“Nothing like knowing you were the next specimen to be put on display to give you strength and courage,” she said with a grimace. She pointed to the wall of women. “He’s killed eleven.”
Royce stared in grim horror at the room of poor women. “I’d like to hit him eleven times just for these poor souls.”
Noises behind them had them both spinning around, expecting the worst, only to have the room fill with cops and rescue personnel. As one, they came to a sudden stop inside the big cavern and stared.
