by Ronald Kelly
He walked shakily to the cherrywood wardrobe and, after a couple of tugs, firmly pulled the warped door free. There, hanging on the wooden rod, was a black frock coat with wide lapels and a long, narrow tail. And, perched on the shelf above, was a tall, stovepipe hat of jet black silk.
Taking the ancient, but durable articles of clothing from the wardrobe, he put them on. Soon, he stood before the cracked and cloudy mirror of the dressing table. The coat fit perfectly, as if it had been tailored for the body it now covered. He decided to keep the Grateful Dead t-shirt. He rather liked the chorus line of dancing skeletons that adored the front. It seemed to fit his dark mood appropriately.
Picking up a rickety stool, he sat before the shattered mirror and ran an exploring hand along his gaunt and whiskered face. The eyes were a shade lighter and the complexion a bit darker from exposure to the sun, but, other than that, the resemblance was quite amazing.
“Yes,” whispered Augustus Leech, adjusting the brim of the stovepipe hat rakishly, his eyes gleaming with renewed malice. He flexed the muscles of his new body, feeling the power as it began to return. “This will do. This will do rather nicely indeed.”
Outside the ivy-covered wagon, the creatures of the forest sat perfectly still and listened. Their tiny eyes twinkled with fright and they cowered further into the black shadows as a sound rang throughout the length and breadth of Hell Hollow. It was a sound their kind had heard only once before, and that had been over eighty years ago.
Laughter.
The sinister laughter of one who was truly and undeniably evil at heart.
PART TWO
DREAMS & NIGHTMARES
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“There you go, Ms. Walsh,” said Doctor Matthews as he signed the release form. “As of this moment, you are a free woman.”
Allison wasn’t so certain, however. “Physically maybe,” she half-joked. “But mentally? That’s another matter entirely.”
The doctor smiled at her sympathetically. “Of course, it’s natural for you to continue to harbor feelings of fear and anxiety, considering the ordeal you suffered. That’s one of the biggest shortcomings of my profession. We can mend broken bones and suture wounds, but we’re totally powerless to heal the human soul.”
“You did more than you let on,” said Allison, taking his hand. “And I really appreciate it. I guess there’s still some things I’m going to have to work out on my own.”
“Preferably with the help of a good therapist,” suggested Matthews. “I hope your sessions with Ms. Prentess were of some value.”
He was referring to Elizabeth Prentess, one of the hospital’s psychologists. A nice lady, but a little too smug and self-absorbed for Allison’s taste. “Yes, she helped me a lot,” she lied.
“Good,” said the doctor. “But, remember, to get back on track for keeps, you really should see someone on a regular basis.”
“I’ll certainly keep that in mind,” replied Allison, although she had already abandoned such an option. She had never had much faith in shrinks or their methods. She felt that whatever healing was to take place deep down within her would be of her own making. But, before that could happen, she had several difficult issues to work through. Issues that dealt with both the present and the distant past.
“Good luck, Ms. Walsh,” said Matthews. “And, please, try to put this behind you, all right?”
“Thank you, Doctor,” she replied, mustering her most hopeful smile. “I certainly intend to.”
A moment later, a nurse was wheeling her off the elevator and through the spacious front lobby of Rome’s University Medical Center. She felt sort of silly and self-conscious being escorted to the front entrance in a wheelchair, especially when she was well enough to walk on her own. But it was merely a policy of the hospital, as it was with most medical facilities.
“Do you have a way home, Ms. Walsh?” asked the red-haired nurse, whose name was Nadine.
“Yes, I’m supposed to have a rental car delivered here by ten o’clock,” she said. “The police haven’t located my car yet. The bastard has probably abandoned it in another state by now. Either that or dumped it in a lake somewhere.”
“Well, I certainly hope they find it soon,” said Nadine.
Allison looked down at the clothes she wore that morning. The modest peach blouse and white slacks, along with the canvas sneakers, was her one and only outfit. She had been brought to the hospital completely naked. The clothing she had worn at the time of her abduction had been too torn up and bloodstained to be of much use. The blouse, slacks, and shoes had been generously purchased for her at the local Wal-Mart by some of the nurses on her floor.
“I really do appreciate the clothes, Nadine,” she said, a little embarrassed. “It was very nice of you all.”
“Don’t mention it, hon,” said the nurse, her sunny smile vanishing. She placed a supportive hand on Allison’s shoulder. “It’s the least we could do… given the circumstances.”
“Yes,” said Allison. And what horrible circumstances they had been.
Once again, she fought against that ugly image that threatened to fill her thoughts – Slash Jackson coming toward her in the dim glow of a candle, his naked body painted crimson with her blood, armed with a knife, a hard-on, and an expression of pure, undiluted evil. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, counting backward from twenty to one. Eventually, the image of her attacker faded. But she knew that it would be back to haunt her sooner or later, both during her waking hours and in her nightmares.
Allison and Nadine said their goodbyes in the hospital lobby, where the brunette waited for the arrival of her rental car. The rental agent had promised to meet her in the front lobby, but, so far, he was nowhere to be found.
She waited fifteen minutes and then decided to find a vending machine. The pain medication she was on tended to make her mouth dry and she could sure use a soda at that moment. She left the lobby and started down a central corridor that led past the bank of elevators. Soon, she found an area that had several vending machines.
Allison took a purse from her shoulder – also purchased by the nurses – and dug some loose change from the bottom. Fortunately, Slash Jackson had neglected to use any of her credit cards so far. She had withdrawn five-hundred dollars of emergency cash from her American Express account; more than enough to get her back to St. Louis with no hassle.
After purchasing a soda and popping the tab, she left the vending area and started back for the main lobby. But, several minutes later, she found herself in an entirely different part of the hospital. It wasn’t long before she pushed through a set of swinging doors and found another entranceway. But it was not the one she had been looking for.
She could tell by the pneumatic doors, reception desk, and narrow waiting area, that she had stumbled onto the emergency ward. To her left was a large, windowed room with partitioned areas for treating everything from cut fingers to severe trauma.
“Excuse me,” she asked the nurse at the desk. “Could you tell me how to get back to the main lobby?”
The woman regarded her indifferently. “You go back through those doors, take a left, go down to the next corridor and make another left. That should take you right there.”
Allison was about to follow her directions, when the pneumatic doors opened with a whoosh and a paramedic team rushed in, wheeling an adjustable gurney. One of them performed CPR on the bloody man on the gurney, while another held an IV bag and propelled the cart forward. Close on their heels was a police officer, his eyes frightened and his face as pale as flour.
“Hey, we need some help here!” yelled the patrolman, his voice cracking with emotion.
A lean doctor in green scrubs and a white lab coat appeared from the emergency room. “What have we got here?”
“A police officer,” replied one of the paramedics. “Shot twice with a twelve-gauge shotgun; once in the stomach, once in the right side of the chest. His vital signs are unstable and he’s presently in cardiac ar
rest.”
“Let’s get to work people,” he called to a team of nurses and residents. “Pronto!”
Allison stood there, dazed, as the doctors wheeled the injured officer into the examination room and began to attend to him. She watched as they removed his navy uniform shirt – which was no more than bloody, shredded cloth – as well as his Sam Browne gun belt. A nurse hurriedly deposited the two items on a small table next to the open doorway and returned to assist with the battle to stabilize the wounded man.
Allison stared past the others, at the face of the gunshot cop. His skin was clammy and gray, his eyes unresponsive. He’s not going to make it, she told herself. Then she shifted her eyes to his chest and abdomen. They were little more than bloody, open holes.
Instantly, Slash intruded on her thoughts once again. She felt herself slipping back to a single horrible moment when she thought that she would die for sure. Allison had been naked and bound on the dusty floor of the abandoned house, blood flowing from the deep cuts in her chest. She had stared pleadingly up at a grinning face as bright and wicked as a clown from Hell. Allison had searched for a shred of decency and compassion, and realized that he possessed neither.
Aw, what’s the matter, Allison baby? asked Slash, his tone full of mockery. Are you bleeding too much? Can I do anything for you? Call 911 maybe? Or how about a Band-Aid? He had laughed long and loud. Hell, we’d have to buy a couple dozen boxes to fix you up, wouldn’t we?
Allison drove the ugly memory from her mind and again focused on the dying police officer. Someone like him did this to you, she thought. Someone exactly like Slash.
Abruptly, she knew what she had to do. To heal herself, to make herself feel fully whole again, she must rid herself of the demon who had taken her so brutally and without mercy.
Allison calmly surveyed her surroundings. The doctors and paramedics were focused on the man on the gurney. The other police officer – apparently the victim’s partner – stood a few feet away, overcome with shock. The nurse at the reception desk had left her post to assist the trauma team.
She turned her attention to the table by the doorway, or more precisely, on the bundle of bloody items that rested there, forgotten.
It was perfect. An once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that would be gone at a moment’s passing.
She acted while no one was watching and then left the emergency ward. Allison pushed through the swinging doors and into the corridor she had left scarcely forty-five seconds ago, her purse two pounds heavier than before.
It wasn’t until she reached the hospital’s main lobby that she allowed herself to breathe easy. Allison walked to the big glass windows that looked out onto the single lane of the building’s covered entranceway, as well as the parking lot beyond. Her heart began to pound. Where is he? her mind screamed, near panic. He said he would be here at ten!
She stood there, aware of what she had just done, as well as the jeopardy she had put herself in. She felt no guilt for her actions, only the fear of being caught.
“Oh… ma’am?” called a male voice from behind her.
Allison froze. She could imagine the other police officer standing directly behind her, his buddy forgotten for the moment, his face stern and uncompromising. Had he noticed her? Had he witnessed her little slight-of-hand act?
She took a deep breath and turned around. Fortunately, her fears were unfounded. Instead of the policeman, a curly-haired man in a white shirt and tie stood there.
“Are you Allison Walsh?” he asked, referring to a clipboard he held in his hand.
“Uh, that’s right,” she said.
“I’m Wayne Billings from Avis,” he said. “Sorry I’m late, but traffic was kind of heavy.”
Relief flowed through Allison. “That’s okay. I was just released a few minutes ago.”
“Got a real nice car for you,” he said. “A Nissan Altima with the works. It’s parked in the lot outside. Just sign here and we’ll have you on your way.”
Allison signed the paperwork and took the keys he offered. A moment later, she was sitting in the burgundy sedan with the engine running and the air conditioner cranked up to full blast. She made sure that no one was looking, then opened her purse and removed the object she had stolen from the table in the ER.
The revolver was a .38 Smith & Wesson with a six-inch barrel and black neoprene grips. It felt heavy in her hand, but not uncomfortably so. She pushed the cylinder release and checked the loads. There were five hollow-point cartridges, with an empty chamber behind the hammer. Whatever had happened to the policeman that day, the poor guy hadn’t even gotten the chance to draw and fire his weapon before being gunned down.
Allison snapped the cylinder back into place, then stashed the gun back in her purse. She no longer felt totally helpless. Instead, she felt a peculiar sense of empowerment. Empowerment to shift the odds in her favor and pay her tormentor back for those long hours of constant agony and terror.
As she put the car into drive and left the hospital parking lot, Allison Walsh considered the fate she had planned for Slash Jackson. When she caught up with him – and she assured herself that she would locate him eventually – she intended to make him pay dearly for the pain and humiliation he had caused. And, in the process, instantly heal a hurt that would otherwise take years of therapy to cure.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“There ya go, pal,” said Big Jake Abernathy. He rammed a barbecue fork through a charred steak and, lifting it from the flames of the grill, flung it in the dust a few feet away. “Just the way you like it. Burnt blacker than the inside of a coal miner’s asshole.”
Loco was up from his prone position in a flash. The black dog with the pink patch around his eye pounced on the piece of meat as if it were the first morsel of food he had been offered all week. That wasn’t the case, however. The junkyard dog had downed two heaping bowls of dog food earlier that morning, as well as several pans of cold water from a spigot that protruded from the cinderblock foundation of the barn-like building that served as Jake’s office, residence, and workshop. Of course, that mattered very little. Loco was like his master in several respects. He possessed an almost insatiable appetite, as well as a cast-iron stomach that could digest nearly anything it was subjected to.
Jake smiled in satisfaction as he watched the big dog grip the slab of black beef between his massive paws and began to tear into it with his sharp, yellow teeth. “Does my heart good to see a dog eat,” he said to no one in particular. Then he turned back to the charcoal grill and threw his own sirloin on the flames. His taste for steak was the complete opposite of Loco’s. He barely left the meat on the grill long enough to sizzle before he tossed it on a plate with sautéed onions and peppers, as well as a mound of greasy potatoes he had deep-fried only a short time ago. The steak was nearly as raw as it had been when he bought it at the grocery store in town, seeping a puddle of blood that mingled with the grease of the seasoned fries. If it had been any rawer, it would have been chewing its cud and mooing.
The junk dealer took his plate in hand, sat down in a lawn chair with frayed nylon webbing, and picked up a quart bottle of Miller High Life from where it stood on the grown. A cheap stereo system blared Led Zeppelin from a couple of speakers sitting in the building’s open doorway and an electric fan in the nearest window circulated the warm air around him, making the heat of the summer night seem less sticky and humid than it should have. Jake sighed in contentment and settled back in his chair, then sliced himself off a hunk of bloody steak that would have choked a humpback whale. Unlike some folks, it didn’t take very much to make Jake Abernathy a thoroughly happy man.
“This is the life, ain’t it, Loco?” he said, wiping his greasy whiskers with the back of a tattooed forearm and taking a swig of cold beer.
The Rottweiller answered with a muffled grunt, his slobbering jaws chocked full of scorched meat.
Jake had finished off half of his Miller and most of his meal, when Loco suddenly lifted his head from where it r
ested on his paws. The dog’s stubby ears pricked and a low growl rumbled deep down in his gullet.
“What’s wrong, boy?” asked the junkman. He followed Loco’s gaze into the shadows, but could see nothing. The sky was cloudy that night, sealing away any light from moon or stars. The junkyard was blanketed in pitch darkness.
Loco’s agitation increased. His dark lips trembled until they parted at the corners, revealing clenched teeth. Slowly, he dog stood. His legs locked, his muscles quivering beneath his glossy black coat.
Jake slowly set his plate and bottle aside. He knew Loco as well as he knew himself. The dog had heard something, that was for sure. He leaned forward in the lawn chair and strained to hear it himself. The hard rock strands of “Communication Breakdown” drowned out any sound he might have caught. He left his chair, stepped inside and cut off the stereo, then went back outside.
He listened, but heard nothing. Literally nothing. Other than Loco’s deep-throated growling and the soft buzz of the electric fan, the night was completely silent. There were no crickets singing in the tall weeds or anything else for that matter. Only thick, oppressive silence.
Loco’s black eyes narrowed and he took a few steps forward. He would have taken off, but the logging chain he was tethered to prevented him from advancing any further.
