Thunder Road

by Thorne, Tamara

  “I’m sure he’d like that.” Justin tried to see into the darkened church. “What happened?”

  “Vandals,” Baskerville said in a dismissive voice. “Aren’t you going to be late for school?”

  What do you care, you old shithead? “Yes, thanks, Chief Baskerville. I’d better run!”

  With that he trotted toward the winding dirt path leading to the mine ride.

  It was set into the side of a hill and was easily the largest, most impressive amusement at the park. Everything was quiet, the fake mining cars the passengers rode in parked neatly on the entry track. The Marquays were big Disney fans, and instead of sticking with authenticity, they’d constructed a goofy facade depicting caverns filled with colorful stalactites and stalagmites, and phosphorescent eyes peering out from the darkness behind them. The entry doors had a couple tacky dwarfs with pickaxes painted on them. Justin, seeing that nothing was disturbed, let himself in the little ticket office and posted the sign saying they’d open at two. He checked his watch again as he locked up, then ran for his car, relieved that he’d be back early to check on things inside.

  20

  Moss Baskerville

  MOSS BASKERVILLE WATCHED THE MARTIN BOY AS HE TORE OFF toward the parking lot. “It’s good to see some kids have a sense of responsibility.”

  Michael Corey nodded. “Henry says he’s a fine young man, that he’s been a godsend since Madge has been gone.”

  They walked back into the church and Baskerville saw the little priest flinch, then look away from the sight of the bloodied crucifix, and felt sorry for the young man. “I’ll dust for prints, but it won’t do much good unless your vandals were fool enough not to wear gloves. Keep everybody out until Doc Hartman gets here to test the blood. Once we know what kind it is, we’ll have something to go on.”

  “Do you think it’s human?” The priest’s voice quavered slightly.

  “Frankly, no. Probably animal. I’m guessing sheep. Or goat.”

  Corey studied him. “I heard a rumor yesterday about one of Cassie’s goats?”

  Baskerville shook his head. Cassie had tried to hide how upset she was about it, but he knew she was very angry and very sad. “It’s a damn shame people do what they do. Tom found it, stoned to death, up by the fort. Between the time he called me and I got out there, which was less than an hour, somebody hightailed off with it.”

  “The same person who did this?” Corey gestured toward the altar.

  “Pure conjecture, you understand, but it might be. All you’d have to do is drain the animal, add a little detergent to keep it from clotting, then bring it on in here.” Baskerville walked up front and opened his fingerprinting kit. First the goat, then the wreck up on Thunder Road, now this. And worse, as soon as Doc Hartman made a positive identification on the body, the chief was sure he’d be paying the kind of call he hated most on some teenager’s parents. The windstorm last night hadn’t left any evidence of another car at the scene, but the one that crashed had to have been barreling along to smash the way it did. Plus there was a broken liquor bottle and beer cans in the car.

  “Moss.”

  Baskerville glanced up.

  “Do you think this is related to the disappearances?”

  “I wish I knew, Mike.” Personally, he doubted it, but he wasn’t going to close any avenue at this point. “I wish I knew.”

  The phone in the church office rang, and the priest excused himself to answer it. A moment later, he was back. “It’s for you.”

  In the tiny office, Baskerville picked up the old-fashioned black receiver. “Baskerville. That you, Shirl?”

  “It’s me, Chief.” Shirley Raymond, his dispatcher and secretary, did everything but make coffee, which seemed reasonable since she didn’t drink the stuff, and if she ever left, Moss Baskerville was pretty sure the police department would fall apart.

  “What’s up?”

  “I just got a call from Joyce Spelman, over on Cholla Street. Seems her son Rick didn’t come home last night.”

  Baskerville’s stomach did a quick twist. Rick Spelman, Madelyn High’s star quarterback, was an honor student who wanted to be a cop. He’d gone on a ride-along once during the summer, and Baskerville thought he was a good kid. “Vehicle make?”

  “Eight-six Chevy GTO,” Shirley said flatly.

  “Damn.” He was virtually certain the victim was Spelman. “Tell the doc to check the mouth against Rick Spelman’s dental records and get back to me, pronto.”

  “You got it, Chief.” Shirley paused. “And, boss?”

  “Yes?”

  “Turn on your radio.”

  He was fine with the car radio, but he’d never gotten in the habit of using the clip-on. Shirley called him a technophobe, quite rightly, he supposed. “Sorry, Shirl. I’ll clip it on right now.”

  As he reentered the chapel, he was embarrassed to see Mike Corey on his. knees, praying. Baskerville cleared his throat softly and Corey quickly made the sign of the cross, then rose and turned to Baskerville, his eyes questioning.

  Baskerville briefly told him about the wreck on Thunder Road without mentioning his suspicions as to the victim’s identity. Then he suggested that Corey do whatever priests do on weekdays, so that he could be alone with his camera, fingerprinting kit, and his thoughts.

  21

  Madge Marquay

  “DEAR LORD, HELP ME,” MADGE MARQUAY WHISPERED through parched lips. She had examined the walls of her lightless prison over and over, stumbling over at least one of the corpses, forcing herself to continue to search for a ladder or a rope or even a handhold, but she had found nothing.

  Her perception of time had to be impaired. She had expected the mine ride to open long ago, but she still hadn’t heard a thing. It was frightening to think that what felt like days might only be hours.

  Now she sat on the floor, legs bent close to her chest, arms encircling them. The rough wall poked and bruised her back, but that was all right because it helped her stay awake. Clutched in her right hand was the only weapon she could find—a foot-long rotting stick of wood. Her wounded arm, hot and tight, throbbed in rhythm with her heart, and the pain, once only below the elbow, had traveled into her shoulder now.

  Henry, where are you? Why won’t you come? A tear rolled down her cheek and she licked it away, grateful for the moisture.

  When the trains were running, she remained alert, aware of time passing, seconds, minutes, hours, but for some time she had been fading. Sometimes it was nice. She had relived her first date with Henry, remembered how shy and sweet he had been when he’d asked her to the senior prom in Barstow. She had even relived her first merry-go-round ride—she must have been six or seven years old. It was at the old Pike in Long Beach, a seaside amusement park torn down in the seventies. Her father lifted her onto the magnificent white horse and buckled her in, then stood beside her during the ride, his hand on the small of her back, making her feel safe. After, he bought cherry sno-cones and they sat on a bench, sucking the sweet red syrup and crunching the perfectly ground ice as the huge mechanical fat lady sat on top of the fun house and laughed and laughed and laughed.

  Above, she heard the hiss of air as pneumatic machinery came to life. Henry was here at last, testing the doors, the cars, before opening for the day.

  “Henry!” she cried as loud as she could, but the word left her dry throat as a bare croak. “Henry!” she cried again, with better results. “Henry, help me! I’m down here!”

  There was a moment of silence, then she heard the pneumatic lift traveling down to the levels below the mine ride. He was coming! She was about to be saved! “Henry!”

  The lift hissed off, then she had to wait through another agonizing moment of silence. “Henry?”

  She couldn’t see the face behind the glowing lantern above her. She stared up into it, waiting to see Henry’s face, waiting to be rescued: “Thank God you’re here, Henry.”

  “I’m not Henry,” came a voice she almost recognized.

>   She slowly got to her feet, holding her paltry weapon. “Where’s Henry?”

  “He’s home sick today. Mrs. Marquay, are you all right? What are you doing in here?”

  Suddenly she recognized the voice—one of her students, Justin Martin, who worked for Henry part-time. Relief swept over her. “Thank God you’re here, Justin! Thank God! Please get me out of here.”

  “Hang on, Mrs. Marquay,” he called. A moment later she heard the slap of ropes against the wall as he threw down a corded ladder. “I’m coming down for you, Mrs. Marquay. Stay right where you are.” The light clicked off.

  “Be careful, Justin. There are dead things down here. It’s horrible!” She knew she was babbling, but couldn’t stop. “Someone hit me over the head and when I woke up I was down here. He did things to me, Justin, he hurt my arm. I think it’s infected.”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Marquay.” She heard his feet hit the ground, and now his voice was practically in her ear. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “Get me out of here, please, Justin.”

  “Just a second; let me turn my lantern back on.”

  “Please, you don’t want to see what’s down here. I don’t want to see.” But as she finished speaking, she heard a click and the lantern came to life.

  She tried to look only at Justin’s handsome young face, but she couldn’t do it. She had to look. The room was a mining pit, as she expected, maybe ten feet around. Holding her breath, she let her gaze drop to the floor.

  “Dear God,” she whispered. “Oh dear God.”

  First she saw a large white animal, its legs sticking stiffly out at broken angles. Then she forced herself to look at the two human corpses. They were nude, a man and a woman. She recognized the woman instantly—Kyla Powers, her green eyes clouded, her mouth slackly open. Her bloated body lay on its back, and some of the skin was gone—a big circle of it starting just below the breasts and ending just above the pubic area. White flesh remained in a ragged patch around the navel. All around, the red muscles looked dry and shiny. One thigh had been partially stripped as well. Madge glanced at her own arm and knew she had suffered little compared to Kyla.

  The man was so decomposed that she wasn’t even positive it was Joe Huxley. The skin had been stripped from his face, giving him a mummylike appearance. There was an open wound on his distended stomach that looked like a footprint, and intestines oozed out, coiling snakelike on the ground beside him. She looked away, sickened in the knowledge that she had stepped on—in—him. She looked up at Justin quickly, knowing that if she didn’t, what she saw on her shoes might make her faint. “Please, let’s go.”

  He raised his hands and beckoned her to him. Vaguely she wondered why he was wearing latex gloves, but it didn’t matter: All that mattered was that she was being rescued at long last.

  22

  Justin Martin

  WHAT TO DO, WHAT TO DO, WHAT TO DO! JUSTIN PUT HIS ARMS around Madge Marquay, turned her towards him, and pulled her close in a comforting hug. He stared down at her matted, dirty hair. You old battle-ax, how dare you fuck with me!

  He’d taken his time getting here, stopping to flirt with Christie, who was annoyed because her boyfriend, Rick Spelman, hadn’t come to school and they were supposed to go on a picnic or some stupid-ass thing like that after class. Justin had been really tempted to ask her out then and there—she would have gone for it—but something told him not to, and Christ, was he glad he’d listened to his instincts.

  Instead, he’d arrived at the mine ride at half past twelve, and as soon as he’d let himself in, he’d heard Old Lady Marquay yelling her head off.

  Now here he was, patting the old cunt on the back like a knight in fucking armor. None of his victims knew his identity—well, Joe Huxley did, because he had a hard skull and came to while Justin was finishing tying him up, so he’d killed him quickly by taping his nose and mouth shut. It was one of his favorite ways to kill: quick and quiet. He’d first used the method on Old Lady Quigley’s yappy cocker spaniel when he was in first grade, and he’d taken out a number of other annoying pets the same way. Dogs were so stupid and trusting, and they flopped around really fine while they were being suffocated. So had Joe Huxley, for that matter.

  He’d played with Huxley’s fat, flabby body a little, mostly with the face, trying his hand at skin removal. But he didn’t do much, because touching a dead body was revolting. Before long, even in the chilly mine shaft, Huxley started stinking, and the last time Justin tried removing a little flesh from the corpse, he’d vomited. The skin had sort of separated from the rest of the body and it slid around against the fat and muscle easily. It also tore easily, and the pus and slime was what made him sick. The instant it touched him—not on his hands because he always wore surgical gloves, but on his face when it squirted out in a big surprise—he’d lost his dinner, lunch, and breakfast.

  Months went by and Justin occasionally shined a light down on the body to check out its decomposition, but he did nothing else while he waited to see if the smell would reach the mine ride. To his joy, it never did. Only when you approached the pit levels beneath the ride did it become noticeable in the cold, still air.

  About ten days ago, he took his second victim, Kyla Powers. She’d been easy to take and fun to play with. God, those big green eyes when she came to and found herself tied up. She didn’t know who he was—he wore a ski mask whenever he came into the pit—and she was so scared, she shit herself when he cut her clothes off her body. It was a kick. She didn’t look bad for an older chick, and he’d briefly considered fucking her, but found he was far more excited by the thought of cutting her, so he stuck with that. He’d taken too much too quickly, and she was comatose in three days and dead in four. What a bitch.

  He hadn’t planned on taking Marquay. She was his history teacher, which was a little close to the old nest, but he didn’t like her and the opportunity presented itself.

  He got her into the pit, tied her up, and couldn’t make himself remove her clothing—she was just really, well, old. The thought was disgusting. So he had contented himself with taking an envelope-sized piece of skin from her forearm. He’d been planning on taking another today. He was trying to teach himself how to slide the knife beneath the flesh to separate it from the connective tissue without marring the skin being removed. He just didn’t seem to have the talent for skinning.

  The Peeler will teach me. He smiled, still rocking Old Lady Marquay in his arms. But he had to be good enough for the Peeler to even want to teach him. What to do, what to do, what to do!

  Playing the hero might be hazardous to his health. What if someone remembered seeing him with any of the victims before their disappearances? He could conk Marquay on the head, tie her up again, and practice on her other arm. But she knows who you are, Justin. Don’t be stupid, and don’t be greedy. Most of all, don’t be impatient. There are lots more fish in the sea.

  In one swift movement, Justin turned Madge Marquay around, yanked her head back under his arm, then grabbed her jaw and twisted with all his might. After an instant, there was a cracking sound and she went limp, her eyes bugging in surprise. Just like in the movies! Grinning, Justin let her fall to the floor.

  Picking up his lantern, he surveyed the inhabitants of the pit. What to do, what to do, what to do! He’d planned on skinning the goat and leaving it on the Peeler’s doorstep tonight, but it seemed sort of anticlimactic now. And he’d forgotten to bring his old clothes along so he wouldn’t get goat stink, death stink, or body goop on his good jeans and shirt.

  He squatted, examining Madge Marquay’s body. If he wasn’t going to bother with the goat, he had plenty of time to practice on her other arm. Disgust knotted briefly in his belly, then dissipated—she was still warm, possibly still alive. As good old Mom always said, waste not, want not.

  23

  Alexandra Manderley

  IT WAS LUNCHTIME WHEN ALEX FINALLY LEFT CAMP. THIS MORNING she and Eric had shared an outdoor breakfast of over
done eggs and burnt toast, then packed up and gone in search of a better campsite. It hadn’t taken long to locate a spot on a jeep trail not too far from the main road that afforded them a northwestern view of the Madelyn Mountains and a southeastern one of the park and town and even the interstate. All around lay the high desert, starkly beautiful with patches of brilliant spring wildflowers daubing color against the tans and browns and reds of the desert floor. South of Madelyn, the San Bernardino Mountains rose in a distant blue haze.

  After several fumbled attempts to help Eric set up their tents, he had told her that he was a former Eagle Scout and then insisted she go exploring while he set up camp. Setting up would take him most of the day. The easy part was the camp itself. After that, they had mountains of equipment to mount, set, and calibrate. It was just the sort of exacting work Eric loved and Alex despised, so she gladly left the camp in her assistant’s capable hands.

  She headed out of the canyon, onto Thunder Road, her mission being to check out the town and pick up some supplies. At the huge stand of rocks just before the turnoff for Old Madelyn Highway, a tow truck was hitching up a burned-out wreck of a car—the crash they heard last night. She shivered despite the warm sunshine. No one could have survived it.

  She turned south at the intersection and headed toward town. Old Madelyn looked inviting in the daylight, and on a whim she decided to find some lunch in the park rather than in town. She pulled into the parking lot just below the park and started walking toward the entrance.

  “Howdy, ma’am.”

  Recognizing Tom Abernathy’s voice, she turned just in time to see him dismount his silver horse. He patted Belle’s muzzle, then led the animal up to her. The mare snuffled Alex’s hair, and she stroked the velvety muzzle. “She’s beautiful.”

  He smiled. “She knows it, too. Spoiled rotten, aren’tcha, Belle?”

  The horse nudged his shoulder, then lowered her head and pushed at his denim jacket. Tom pulled half a carrot out of a pocket and fed it to her. “See what I mean? So did you find a better campsite this morning?”