The sun stared down at them like a sleepy eye. The air was muggy and still, the sky an endless ocean of aqua blue that stretched on forever above the arrowhead tips of the mountains. Due to the recent drought, the river had receded an inch or more from the bank, and the water bugs had arrived in droves to take advantage of the sluggish current. Like miniature race cars, they zigzagged across the placid surface at neck-breaking speeds. Every once in a while the water would swirl, and one of them would vanish, swallowed whole by an unseen fish, and another bug would appear to take its place.
Beneath the hazy-hot sun the small assembly of friends played cards for nearly another hour, allowing Max the opportunity to win three more games. When boredom finally set in (after a while, even Max grew tired of winning), they turned their focus toward a more invigorating activity.
They swam.
~Thirty-Five~
Sighing uneasily through his nostrils, Kevin saw his mother as he neared the end of the long, dim hallway. Arms folded across her chest, Ms. Chapman's face was a knot of puzzlement. Her eyes grew wider as she looked at her son. Then her eyes shifted back toward the stranger, who remained concealed just around the corner.
Kevin didn't like the way his mother had looked at him, or the way she was looking at the visitor, but his curiosity beckoned him onward. He stepped into the parlor. His mother smiled worriedly.
Then came the shot.
It was a muffled sound, like a child's cap gun, but the result was far from make-believe.
Before Ms. Chapman had time enough to scream, she was lifted off her feet, and thrown to the carpet with a thud, several feet away from where she had been standing only moments before.
“Mom!” Kevin screamed. He ran to her side, oblivious to the large man whose shadow he'd seen while coming down the hall, the man who now stood in the corner of the room, with a smoking pistol aimed at the back of Kevin's left leg.
A second muffled shot—pooofft—and Kevin felt an explosion of flesh and bone ripping through his calf. He crumpled forward, arms flailing, as though a wrecking ball had struck him from behind. He landed within reach of his mother, who was lying on her back, whimpering softly as she inspected her wounded stomach with her hands. She lifted her hands up to confirm her suspicions, and Kevin could see it, too. Her blood was everywhere.
“You Punks are all the same,” a baritone voice rumbled from behind. There was no emotion in that voice; it was cold, robotic. “Sloppy, mindless. You're garbage, all of you. And I'm the garbage man. God sent me here to clean up the mess. Oh, and what a mess you and your friends have made.”
Smoke eased from the silencer on his Glock as he watched, indifferent, as the two people on the floor squirmed in pain. He inhaled deeply the smell of gunpowder, thinking that he was now closer than ever to satisfying the dark pool in the Hockomock Forest. The pool that had, so long ago, promised him freedom. And The Truth.
“Mom...” Kevin moaned, reaching a trembling hand toward her.
“I want to know one thing,” the Garbage Man said. “It's quite simple, really. Where're your friends?”
Kevin's first thought was that the Garbage Man was one of his old drug contacts. Pepsak, he thought. Maybe this guy worked for him. But, no. He hadn't talked to Pepsak in over a month. And besides, Pepsak had no beef with Kevin or his friends. Then it dawned on him. This wasn't some street-trash looking to punish him for past actions. It sure as shit wasn't the goddamn garbage man, either. It was the man whom Mike had warned him about, the Hacker.
Kevin strained to look at him, but was unable to see the face of the man who'd shot him. But that shadow, that long, cold shadow, remained on the floor, looming over him. “I don't know...what you're...talking about ... “
The man who owned the shadow fired again, this time into the ceiling, and Kevin winced as crumbs of sheetrock rained down upon him. Sobbing like a child, he looked at his mother, his lower leg burning as it gushed onto the carpet. She was not moving. She was just lying there. Still.
“Don't fuck with me,” the Hacker said calmly. “I haven't come this far to let a little shit like you ruin it for me. The next shot will be in your mother's head. You can't see me, but that's where I'm aiming right now. You'll just have to take my word for it.”
Again Kevin attempted to lift himself to see the man who had shot his mother, who had shot him, but failed miserably. Even though his arms were strong enough to bring him to the push-up position, his mangled leg sent tremors through his body to the point where he nearly fainted. He breathed heavily, falling back onto his stomach, helpless, wondering if his mother was still alive, wondering if there was any hope for either of them. He prayed for his friends. “They're in New Hampshire…” Kevin spat through clenched teeth.
“That's not good enough,” the voice sang out. “And don't lie to me, because I'll know. I'm good at picking out liars. If you lie to me, you can kiss your momma goodbye.”
Kevin wanted to scream. He raised his eyes to his mother. Did he see her chest rise and fall? Or was it just nervous spasms? How could he let her die? She was his mother, for God's sake. How could he live with that? And what about his friends, who had trusted him? How could he sell them out? How could he sic this goddamn lunatic on them?
“Quite frankly,” the Hacker gloated, “I find your reluctance rather charming. Your mother is over there, bleeding to death, and all you can think about is your precious little friends? And here, I thought your generation knew nothing of the word 'loyalty'...”
“FUCK YOU!”
“Run-ning out of ti¾iiime…” the Hacker sang out. Then his voice turned cold. “Better listen to me, you pathetic piece of shit. They took something that belongs to me, and I want it back. So you better tell me where they are RIGHT FUCKING NOW!”
“Wuh-wuh-willow Cr-creek…Wuh-willow Creek.” Kevin sobbed, closing his eyes.
The man with the gun stepped closer, his feet sounding heavy on the carpeted floor. Kevin watched him through the corner of his eye, watched his merciless shark eyes, watched his crooked teeth separate his face into a lunatic's smile. Watched him, and recognized him. Still wearing that smile, the Hacker saluted Kevin with the pistol, as if to say farewell. Kevin saw that he was wearing gloves, the kind worn by surgeons, and by criminals who did not want to leave behind fingerprints. His casual manner showed he was a man who had done this sort of thing many times before, and took pleasure in doing it.
I've seen him before, Mike had told him over the phone. I recognized him from somewhere. I think he might be a townie. So be careful. And don't trust anyone.
Damn right he's a fucking townie, Kevin thought, looking up through watering eyes.
“You think you know who I am?” The Hacker smiled wickedly. “Don't you?”
Kevin nodded, barely able to lift his head from the floor.
“You don't know shit,” the Hacker said, standing directly above him. His enormous biceps flexed as he extended his arm, pointing the Glock at the boy's chest. Smiling, he squeezed the trigger.
The bullet rushed down the dark barrel of the Glock, through the silencer, and out into the light, where it briefly tasted the air before it nosed its way into Kevin Chapman's soft, pliant flesh.
But it didn't stop there.
It was a hollow-tipped 9mm bullet, and it was hungry.
After puncturing one of Kevin Chapman's lungs it ricocheted off his spine, exploding through a fist-sized hole in his back, and its coup de grace ended as it lodged itself into the hardwood floor beneath the living room carpet. There was no need to shoot the woman. Judging by the way that she was breathing, one of her lungs had been punctured, and she'd probably drown in her own blood…if the pain didn't kill her first. Either way, she was already as good as dead.
After a few minutes passed, he poked his head out the front door, scanning the neighborhood for any potential witnesses. He saw there were none. He stuffed the pistol into his pocket and went outside to his car, an '82 Buick freckled with rust. From the trunk he retrieved
a long-handled axe. By the time he returned to the living room, his prediction had come true. Ms. Chapman was dead.
Lucky for her, he thought.
Brandishing the heavy weapon, he dismembered both bodies, piece by bloody piece. When he was done he put the warm, twitching remains of Ms. Chapman and her son into two Hefty trashbags and hauled them out to his car, where he placed them in the trunk. But before he left he removed Lou Swart's missing wallet from a Ziplock bag and tossed it onto the bloodstained carpet, out in the open, where the police could not miss it. Lou Swart and his buddies would be blamed for the murders of the Chapman woman and her son, just as they were blamed for the murder of Anna Hartsoe and the disappearance of Kelly Brine. The police lacked no imagination when it came to recreating crimes. They would speculate that Kevin had threatened to turn in his outlaw friends (or something to that effect), and that the young psychopaths had kept him from doing so the only way they knew how; by killing him. And then, of course, they had killed Ms. Chapman because she was a witness.
The beauty of it all was that no one would ever know what had really happened, because he was going to kill every last one of them, kill them like animals, and hide their bodies where nobody would ever find them. The police would never have the opportunity to arrest them, interrogate them, or take them to trial. Therefore, having no further suspects, there would be no doubt that Lou Swart and his buddies were, in fact, the killers. Sure, the police would continue their investigation. Hell, they'd probably even get an episode on America's Most Wanted. But they'd never find Lou Swart and his pals, because no one—he was certain—could find the pool but him.
I tore through the walls of that other world, and they showed me the way to The Truth. The Truth is what I need…what I've always needed. The pool told me what to do. Nothing will stop me. Nothing. I've got a seasoned heart, that's what the voices whispered to me from that deep, dark place. They told me what I must do, and then they'll welcome me with liquid arms. They'll protect me. They'll love me.
The terms of his inception were quite simple, really: Get back that dirty little cunt who had escaped him, and kill those miserable little bastards who had helped her get away. She was his. His! They had no goddamn right to steal her from him. No goddamn right at all. They would pay for what they had done, taking what did not belong to them. He’d make them bleed. Make them beg for their lives. Make them suffer for interfering with his work. Make them beautiful. Throw them in the pool and make them beautiful. Ahhhh, the pool!
He could smell their fear: It was deep and red and black. And he could see it in his mind's eye, their faces: so young and beautiful and dead. And still. Yes, finally still.
Snapping out of his blissful trance, he realized he was now sitting behind the wheel of his car, still parked in the Chapman's driveway. He looked down. His belt was undone; his zipper, too. He couldn't remember getting into the car, no more than he could remember unfastening his belt or his zipper. He could not remember fondling himself, either, but his hand was still there, still wrapped loosely around the withered nub that was his penis.
He continued to fondle himself, thinking of all the fun he was going to have, purging the six wayward angels of their sins. It was the only way he could excite himself.
(make them bleed make them beg make them suffer)
Oh, yes, enjoy tonight. Enjoy it while you can. Soon you'll join the others in the pool. He could almost see their gawking, floating faces.
(beautiful and cold and dead and still, sinking, sinking)
Imagining this, he finished inside his pants.
~Thirty-Six~
The golden yolk of the sun was dipping down, sliding off the hot red griddle of the northern sky, melting into the dark gray cones of the White Mountains. It was almost 9 o'clock, and the night was slow in returning from the other side of the globe, struggling to reclaim its seat at Mother Nature's table. Scarcely a star was visible in the sky, as if somehow during the melee the duty of laying out the constellations had simply been overlooked.
By the river, the six runaways enjoyed the prolonged moments of sunlight, as the valley rippled with a soft and steady breeze. Warming themselves by the fire, they told ghost stories and jokes, their laughter mingling with the peepers and frogs. After a while, Max and Lou broke the circle and walked a few dozen feet away, to the water's edge, where they began taking turns with the fishing pole. Whatever it was—the reassuring magic of togetherness, perhaps, or merely the fact that they were surviving on their own—there was something extraordinary in the way they looked at one another, the way they laughed wholeheartedly at each other's jokes, the way they could sit in silence for long periods of time, not talking, not laughing, somehow content, enjoying the mere simplicity of just being alive.
Their suntanned faces glowed, childlike, in the eventide. Other things were gone from their minds. Things that could ravage these pleasing moments. Things that were buried with little effort beneath the surface of the present but would inevitably rise up, unwanted, at some later time. At this moment, however, there was only tranquility. Even the giants, who were usually tiresome, had taken a break to enjoy the sunset, their voices becoming little more than whispers on the wind.
Sitting with his back to the river, Rick dug his feet into the cool sand and looked through the flames of their fire. That's when he noticed Stacey looking back at him with those sexy, drowsy eyes, the ghost of a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. Rick looked down for a moment. When he raised his eyes again, he saw Karen whispering in Stacey's ear, and they were both looking at him, smiling with their secret.
“Damn!” Max shouted, a few feet away at the water's edge.
“Get one?” Mike called out from the other side of the fire.
“Almost!” Lou replied excitedly. “It got away.”
“Next time you gotta yank the line harder,” Max was telling him.
“No,” Rick said over his shoulder. “You gotta be gentle. The fish won't bite until it's good and ready. Give it a little slack before you set the hook. Then reel it in slowly. You don't want to scare it away.”
Stacey watched Rick steadily through the dancing flames. How true, she thought. How true.
~Thirty-Seven~
Standing in the small, cluttered conference room in the back of the Hevven Police Department building, leaning over the fax machine and listening to the steady hum of the fluorescent ceiling lights, Officer Bailey had time to consider all that had happened since his secret chase on Roller Coaster Road. Quite an adventure, these past few days.
In less than two weeks he had discovered more about the dark side of law enforcement than most veterans would ever learn in a lifetime. He had joined the Hevven Police Department because he had wanted to do something positive with his life. He'd wanted to help people, to serve and protect them, just as he'd sworn to do. But instead of feeling good about himself, he felt tired and dirty. There were so many things he wished he didn't know about the world.
During his investigation into the murder of Anna Hartsoe he had learned, perhaps too quickly, about the noxious smell of a decomposed corpse, and the names of the 20-odd missing girls whom no one seemed to care about, except maybe himself and Agent Ferren. After discovering the words KISS ASS FAGGOT scribbled on his locker in blue marker, he had learned the hard way about the jealousy of his coworkers who, in their small-town mentality, seemed to interpret his cooperation with the FBI as a kind of political betrayal to the department. He had learned about the proper way to collect evidence in order to maintain the integrity of a crime scene, and how the media could turn any police investigation into a three-ring circus. He had also learned a bit about friendship, for he had already developed a deep trust and respect for his temporary partner, who had willingly taken on the role of Bailey's mentor.
Ferren appeared in the doorway holding two Styrofoam cups. He was dressed in his usual, meticulous attire; a sharp black suit with a matching necktie and a white button-up shirt. “You looked like you could use a p
ick-me-up,” he said, handing one steamy cup to the young officer, whose uniform was wrinkled and unbuttoned at the collar, showing the V of the white T-shirt he wore underneath.
Bailey nodded wearily. “Thanks,” he said, without smiling. He gestured toward the fax machine. “Nothing yet.”
Ferren nodded and sipped his coffee. He was used to waiting.
A few minutes later the fax machine whirred to life and coughed up a single sheet of paper. Bailey took the page, glanced at it briefly, and handed it to Ferren.
Ferren put down his coffee. He looked at the fax sheet and frowned.
“What is it?” Bailey asked.
“Hmmm. That's odd,” Ferren said, staring down at the page in his hands. After a few seconds he looked up, still frowning. “The lab is still running a few more tests, but a preliminary diagnostic of that fingernail we discovered at the crime scene revealed minute traces of a medical grade silicon.”
“Silicon?” asked Bailey. “Isn't that what they once used for breast enhancements?”
Ferren raised his eyebrows at him, obviously impressed. “How'd you know that?”
Bailey smiled sheepishly. “Long story.”
“The report only mentions one possible match. You wouldn’t happen to know anyone around here who wears a prosthetic, would you?”
“You mean, like, fake arms and legs?”
“Among other things. Here, take a look.”
Bailey looked at the fax sheet, his eyes blank. The text of the report might as well have been written in hieroglyphics. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes.
“Do you know of any factories around here that produce similar materials? Maybe a medical supply company?”
Bailey shook his head as he handed back the report. “None that I can think of off the top of my head. But I know one person who would know the answer to that.”
Rebel Angels Page 21
