It was over.
She was going to die and so was Kevin, and if there had been any chance, no matter how unlikely, that Victoria would survive what was about to happen here, that was likely gone as well.
CHAPTER 47
Milo could not believe how the fucking little bitch had tried to manipulate him. Her efforts had been transparent and pointless, and, if anything, served only to increase the black rage coursing through his system. He had never heard a more bullshit story in his entire life. She was his sister? It was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.
Then again, she had known about the visions he had been cursed with his entire life, and she had known he was adopted. It seemed highly unlikely that could be a mere coincidence.
But still, suppose she was telling the truth and she really was his sister, and the old hag taped to the kitchen chair really was his mother. Say for just a second that it was all true. What did that change?
Nothing.
It changed nothing, except, as he had informed his “sister,” it now became all the more critical that he complete what he had set out to do here today.
Now, though, instead of skinning one victim, he would do two. His intention from the very beginning had been to kill everyone when he was done with the young bitch, despite what he had told his “mother” earlier about not hurting her. It only made sense. It would serve no good purpose to leave any eyewitnesses.
So in reality, his plans only required some minor tinkering. Rather than making it quick with the old broad, if there was any time left after finishing off the girl, he would take his time and have a little fun with Mommy Dearest as well. It seemed only appropriate, just on the off chance the younger one was telling the truth about the familial relationship. He had meant it when he said his biological mother was responsible for his horrific upbringing. If she hadn’t thrown him out like yesterday’s trash, he wouldn’t have been adopted by his psychopathic father and willfully unseeing mother and permanently damaged.
It made perfect sense.
The young girl had stopped trying to soften him up. It was obvious she had finally reached the conclusion that there was nothing she could say to change his mind about what was going to happen here. Her eyes were closed and she seemed terrified but resigned to her fate.
In some ways, that was a bit of a disappointment. Milo liked it when his victims struggled. It increased his arousal because it demonstrated his dominance over them, thereby making the experience even more enjoyable.
At least for him.
There was one advantage to this new development, though. Less struggling meant the process would take less time, and although he would normally have preferred to go slowly and do the torture right, the dead cop cooling in the doorway changed everything. He would soon have lots of company.
In fact, he was a little surprised more pigs weren’t here already. With all that had happened since his arrival here in Everett, Milo realized he had completely lost track of the time. It seemed as though it was moving simultaneously fast and slow.
He picked up his duct tape and unrolled a decent-sized strip, then wound it around his “sister’s” ankles. She barely struggled and didn’t utter a word, and for a moment Milo wondered why. It seemed this goddamned girl was keeping him constantly off-balance and he hated that. Then he realized she was still half expecting to be raped, and the act of tying her legs together rather than apart had come as such a relief that she wasn’t sure how to react.
Whatever.
She would find out soon enough that being raped would have been a walk in the park compared to what she was about to experience.
He ripped off another even longer strip of tape and secured her ankles to one end of the couch, winding it over her legs and around the armrest. He slapped the silver surface to ensure proper adhesion and allowed himself a moment to soak in the sight of his next, and arguably greatest, triumph.
She was a good-looking piece of meat, much more desirable than Rae Ann the Schoolgirl Hooker. More desirable than any of his previous playthings. For one thing, she appeared fresh and girlish, rather than used-up and cynical as all the prostitutes did, no matter how young or new to the game they were. And while his college girl victims weren’t hardened and cold like hookers, none of them had ever possessed the kind of worldly self-assurance and dignity this girl seemed to. It was a real turn-on.
As an added bonus, she was perfectly proportioned; he could see that now with her body stretched out in front of him, her attributes barely concealed by her bra and tiny black panties.
He ran his eyes up and down his “sister’s” form and licked his lips slowly, not because he felt any sexual arousal from the sight of her near-nakedness, but because he knew it would confuse and terrify her. It was all part of the game, designed to keep her off-balance, and even though she had been the one keeping him off-balance so far, things were about to change.
Winking at her with a sly smile, he rose from the couch and strolled to the window to check on the scene outside the house. He knew he should be rushing to get the job completed and get the hell out while he still could, but he was just having so much fucking fun that he couldn’t bring himself to hurry.
He pulled the heavy blue crushed-velvet curtain to the side—Milo always thought his adoptive mother had had horrendous taste in home furnishings but this broad’s house put her to shame—and sucked in a breath reflexively. Police cars were scattered all over the development, parked haphazardly, and cops were scurrying around like ants at a fucking picnic. A big, armored SWAT van was idling at the curb halfway up the street.
The moment he appeared at the window a couple of the blue-uniformed motherfuckers did a double take and raised their weapons. They seemed so surprised by his appearance they were temporarily frozen in indecision. He let go of the curtain and it slid closed with a thick swish of material.
This was not good.
CHAPTER 48
It happened again as the crazy bastard with the knife—Cait couldn’t bring herself to think of him as her brother no matter how hard she tried—stalked across the room to look out the front widow. That little push, the signal that a Flicker was about to start, tried to nudge its way inside Cait’s head once again.
She closed her eyes and concentrated, and as she had done previously, repelled the Flicker before it could begin. She had bigger issues to worry about right now than dealing with a mind-movie.
But something had been bothering her, unspoken but felt, hanging around the edges of her consciousness. She had been so busy trying to stay alive she hadn’t been able to pin down what it was, but now that Milo had stepped away for a moment, it crystallized in her mind: why the hell was she suddenly manifesting abilities concerning the Flickers that had never existed before? Did it have something to do with the proximity of her mother, who had similar abilities? Was it somehow related to the sudden appearance of her brother, the Human Psychotic Break himself?
Either way, Cait succeeded in blocking the Flicker, an important consideration since Milo’s mood seemed suddenly to have changed. He raced across the room toward her, his hurried steps in stark contrast to the almost languid way he had approached the window.
Something was happening, and it was happening outside.
The police! The police were here! What else could it be?
It made sense. The murdered officer had been out of contact for a while now, and the Everett police must have figured out that something was wrong. Cait’s heart skipped a beat and she began to allow herself to hope that maybe, just maybe, they could still escape this nightmare alive.
Then Milo passed by the couch, not even glancing at her. He strode hurriedly into the kitchen and grabbed the last of Victoria’s kitchen chairs, then turned and dragged it across the floor, placing it next to the couch. He held the knife tightly in his right hand as he eased into the chair, a look of grim determination on his face, immediately dashing Cait’s irrational hope of rescue. He was still in control, and it was clea
r he intended to stay in control until he finished whatever he came here to do.
She forced herself back against the cushions, levering her body into the V where the couch-back met the seat, pushing with her bound ankles against the armrest, trying to escape him.
It was stupid even to try, she knew that. There was no way she could simply disappear into the couch like the magician’s helper in some third-rate Vegas floor show, but rationality was beginning to slip away. The knife was big and long and razor-sharp, and the glittering deadly blade appeared mammoth as he displayed it mere inches from her face. Sickening smears of blackish maroon blood still stained it, left over from the butchering of the police officer. The killer had wiped the blade but had done so hurriedly and incompletely.
Cait strained against the back of the couch and Milo laughed, the sound simultaneously brutal and mocking. “Going somewhere?” he said.
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer. She couldn’t form the words. All she could think about was that big knife and the human being it had been used to kill, and the dreadful knowledge that she was moments away from suffering a similar fate.
Milo grabbed her right wrist, pulling it roughly toward him and plunking it onto his lap. Cait struggled and bucked and yanked her arm away and without warning her brother clubbed her in the side of the head with the knife handle. “Knock it off,” he rasped, veins sticking out on his forehead, his lips pressed in a bloodless line across his teeth. “If you struggle, I’ll make this much, much worse for you. And that’s something you don’t want, believe me.”
Cait believed him.
He returned her wrist to its previous location on his lap, staring into her eyes as he did so. Then he reached down and slashed it quickly across her skin and she screamed and he clamped his hand over her mouth and she looked down at her arm expecting to see blood gushing from the gash and there was nothing there and he laughed, long and loud.
“I used the dull end of the knife,” he said, still chuckling. “This time.”
And at that moment Cait realized she hated him. He was inhuman. Any sympathy she might have had for his horrible upbringing, any consideration she might have given him for being her brother, was gone. She saw him for what he was, a playground bully, a little boy burning ants in a field with a magnifying glass, a psychopathic monster without any shred of humanity.
Milo’s forehead wrinkled in concentration as he placed her arm in his lap one more time and Cait knew this time there would be no sick jokes, no fake cutting of skin. This time he was really going to slice her.
She whimpered, sounding pathetic, knowing it and hating herself for it but unable to stop. Almost as if on cue, across the room Kevin moaned, the first sound he had made since before the cop’s murder. As one, Cait and Milo glanced over at the interruption, Cait thankful not just for the few extra seconds it afforded her before the butchering began but also for the first real evidence in quite some time that Kevin was alive.
She watched as his head lolled, moving from his right shoulder to his left, his eyes still closed. Blood bubbled in a thick wad out of the knife wound in his chest, squeezing out around Cait’s makeshift bandage. His eyelids fluttered open and he seemed to take a look around the room. They passed over Cait unseeingly and then closed again and all movement stopped.
“That was interesting,” Milo said with a ghastly smile, and then he reached down and instead of slicing her arm as Cait had been expecting, he turned the knife blade sideways and peeled the skin of her arm back like he was peeling an apple. The shock was so great she gave no reaction at all. Not a scream, not a cry of pain, nothing.
And then Victoria’s telephone rang.
CHAPTER 49
Milo was annoyed but unsurprised when the phone jangled, the old broad’s ringtone set to sound just like the ancient black rotary phone his psycho parents had had in their kitchen in Amesbury.
It figured. This was just his luck. No sooner did he finally get down to business with the cute little bitch than the cops would pick the worst possible moment to stick their fucking pig noses into his business. He had no doubt it was the police calling. The old bitty who owned the house obviously didn’t have many friends, who else would it be?
The phone rang again and he ignored it. The little bitch’s eyes widened, then filled with water, and as her brain finally deciphered the distress signals being sent to it by the nerve endings in her injured arm, she let loose a jagged, panicked scream and Milo clapped his hand once more over her mouth.
He had not gagged her because he wanted to fully enjoy her reactions, but that had been a mistake on his part. The police were taking things slowly for now, but if they heard screaming coming from inside the house, they would undoubtedly be prompted to act more swiftly than he wanted them to.
The strip of skin he had peeled hung back from her arm, red and raw, flapping against her elbow as a surprisingly small amount of blood flowed. Milo had been doing this a long time and he was very skilled with a knife. In another life he thought he may have been a surgeon, not that he had any desire whatsoever to save lives. The knife-play every day would have been a real charge, though.
He sighed. In the kitchen the phone rang and rang and he knew that in order to buy himself the time he would need to finish up here he would have to answer it. An unanswered call would prompt too many questions in the heads of the pigs and they would be tempted to storm the house. They would launch concussion grenades through the windows and smash down the door and overpower him and everything would be over.
Goddamn it! Why couldn’t they just have left him alone?
Milo swore under his breath. He eased the strip of skin gently back onto the lucky little bitch’s arm and she instantly covered it up with her left hand, whimpering and panting like the sweet little victim he wanted. Unfortunately he had no time to enjoy it.
Yet.
He leaned over and grabbed his roll of duct tape off the floor. He peeled off a generous strip and slapped it over the bitch’s mouth, taking the time to ensure it was tightly sealed in place. He didn’t need her working it off and then screaming while he was on the phone with the pigs.
The telephone continued to ring.
Once he was satisfied with his handiwork, he ripped off more tape and used it to secure her arms to her bare belly, allowing her to keep her left hand covered over her damaged right arm. He wasn’t an unreasonable man, after all.
Then he stood and took one step toward the phone just as it stopped ringing. He turned back to the girl and said, “Doesn’t that just figure? The minute you make the dentist appointment, the damned tooth stops aching, you know what I mean?”
She stared back at him uncomprehendingly. The tears that had filled her eyes were now leaking out of them, rolling down her pretty cheeks in twin tracks. She continued whimpering and panting into her duct-tape gag and Milo knew she was going to be even more fun to torture than he had anticipated.
First things first, though. He would have to deal with the pigs. He needed to buy himself enough time to enjoy his adventure with the nearly naked girl on the couch. He still hoped to do Dear Old Mom, too, but only time would tell on that one. At the very least, he wanted to make sure the girl suffered long and hard before he snuffed the life out of her. He had come here to do his thing with the young woman and he was going to make damned sure he did it before he left. Whether he was in handcuffs or in a body bag when that happened didn’t really make much difference to Milo Cain. He had always possessed a single-minded sense of purpose, and it was coming in mighty handy right now.
In the kitchen the phone began to ring again, the bell shrill and harsh and penetrating. Milo smiled. He had known they would call again immediately and he was right, as always. He was filled with confidence. He knew he could pull this off. He was smarter than the police and more motivated, to boot.
He strolled into the kitchen and picked up the receiver. “Yellow.” The key was to sound as in-control and carefree as possible. The closer the cops fel
t he was to snapping, the more likely they would be to do something counterproductive, like storm the building before he had a chance to do what he needed to do.
“Hey there,” came the response. “You’re a tough guy to get ahold of.”
Milo was silent. He hadn’t heard a question, so volunteering information was pointless.
“My name is Lieutenant Sanders,” the voice continued. “I’d like it if you would call me Bob. To whom am I speaking?”
“My name is not important,” Milo answered.
“Okay, then, let me ask you this: are you the man in charge in there?”
Milo laughed and looked around the room. The dead cop lay in the doorway, the hero boyfriend lolled unconscious on his chair, the dried-up old hag sat next to him pleading with her eyes for her life, and the stupid little bitch who had started all of this lay in her underwear on the couch, clasping her wounded arm and moaning softly into her gag. “You could say that.”
“Okay, how about if you just give me a first name, nothing that could be used to identify you, just something I can call you so we can get to know each other a bit, how does that sound?”
Milo thought about it for a second. What the hell; it wasn’t like he was going to get out alive, anyway, his only goal was to delay the inevitable long enough to finish skinning the little bitch and maybe her mother, too. “Fair enough,” he said. “My name is Milo.”
“Excellent. Well, Milo, first things first. I need to know what the situation is in there. Is everyone alive? Does anybody need medical attention?”
Milo didn’t even hesitate. He knew if the negotiator realized his pig brother was cooling on the floor, it would only be a matter of minutes before he was either on his way out of the house in handcuffs or lying dead next to him. There was no way he would have the time to finish the little bitch on the couch unless the cops thought there was at least a chance everyone was going to exit the building alive. “Or course everyone’s alive,” he said.
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