by Mark Lukens
“It’s on my car keys over there by the phone,” Woods said with dejection.
“He has another one,” Tara said. “There’s another one in his pants pocket. The back pocket.”
Panic flashed across Woods’ face. “What are you doing, Tara?”
A tear spilled out of Tara’s eye and her face crumbled in sadness. “I’m sorry, Woods. I have to try. He said he would let all of you go if I do what he wants.”
“This wasn’t part of the plan!”
“I know,” she said in a soft voice. “I’m sorry.”
“You know he’s not going to let us go,” Woods told Tara. “He’s going to strap you down to a table and torture you for hours. And in that time Lorie will have let go of the pole and she’ll be hanging there helplessly, waiting for him to come back. And I’ll be waiting. And your aunt.”
What choice do I have? Tara wanted to shout at him. But she didn’t. She just wiped away at her tears and plucked the second handcuff key out of Woods’ back pocket. She looked at Jeremy.
“Throw it over there by the phone and car keys,” he told Tara.
Tara tossed the key across the room. It made a slight clinking sound as it bounced across the concrete.
Woods stared across the vast sea of concrete like he was looking to see where the key had landed.
Jeremy walked out from behind Lorie and she held on even harder to the pole when he moved away from her. Lorie’s fingers dug into her upper arms in her effort as she hugged the post. She had both of her legs wrapped around the bottom of the pole. But she wasn’t giving up yet. She wasn’t going to let Mike fall.
Jeremy walked over to Woods. Tara thought for a terrifying second that he was going to shoot him in the head. But he didn’t. He checked the handcuffs to make sure they were locked. Then he stared at Woods.
“You killed my brother,” Woods said to him as they locked eyes.
“I had to,” Jeremy told him. “He was getting too close. I couldn’t let him catch me. I had to find Tara. I had to complete my transformation. This is my destiny … I don’t expect you to understand.”
Jeremy turned and walked towards Tara. “Come with me inside the house. Everything’s set up in the dining room.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
1.
Jeremy instructed Tara to climb the wooden steps that led up to the wraparound deck. She walked a few paces in front of him as he aimed the gun at her back. He told her to keep walking around the house until she got to the other side.
She came to a sliding glass door and it led into a kitchen that was spacious and decorated with fine wood cabinets, granite countertops, and the best stainless steel appliances.
“Keep walking,” Jeremy said from behind her.
Tara walked through the kitchen and into a large dining room. She could already see that the dining room table had been altered – a pentagram painted with dark red paint (except she knew that it wasn’t paint – it was blood) in the center of it; it looked like the same design on the table at the abandoned house with the squiggly and strange symbols around the circle. And like the table at the abandoned house, there were ropes tied to the legs of the table, waiting to be tied to her wrists and ankles.
If he tied her to the table, everything was over.
On the walls more symbols were painted in blood. They looked a little sloppy, like some of this setup had been rushed. Groups of different colored candles burned on small tables in the corners of the room. The candles were white, red, and black; they gave off a strange aroma that Tara couldn’t place.
There was a chair on each side of the table. And on the table was an assortment of bowls and an ancient book that looked like an old bible, but she knew this book wasn’t holy. The other item on the table was a sacrificial knife with a handle made of bone.
Tara walked towards the table, and then she stopped.
“I want to see my aunt,” Tara said.
“She’s alive. You know she is. You can feel it.”
Tara thought she could hear a low moan coming from another room off of the living room, or maybe from up the carpeted stairs that led to a third floor. Yet she wasn’t sure if she’d heard the moan or “felt” it.
“Sit down in that chair,” Jeremey told her.
Tara sat down and she watched as Jeremy walked around to the other side of the table. But he didn’t sit down. He stood there, watching her, smiling like a lifelong dream had finally come true, like all of his wishes were about to be granted in this moment.
“After you tie me down to the table you have to let everyone else go,” Tara said, surprised that her voice was still strong.
Jeremy ignored her.
“I want to see my aunt walk out of here,” Tara continued and realized how foolish the words sounded to her own ears. Once she was tied down to the table then she was as helpless as all of the others. Woods’ words echoed in her mind and she could imagine them out in the garage: Mike falling, his head and face punctured from the knives, after Lorie let go of the post; Lorie’s body dangling ten feet up in the air, her arms and legs flailing; and Woods handcuffed to the post, helpless as he watched the whole thing play out, glancing at the garage doors, waiting for the monster to come back. And when the monster came, he would take his time with them.
Tara looked down at the bowl of blood in front of her. The blood looked dark and syrupy.
Jeremy stood there another moment, watching Tara. He unbuttoned his flannel shirt and took it off, revealing a muscular upper body, but the muscles of his torso were hidden by a corset of skin that he wore around his waist; the belt of skin went up from under the waistband of his pants up to his nipples. The skin looked hard and brittle and discolored now.
He picked up a black robe that was laid over the back of the other chair at that side of the table and he shrugged into it. There were more strange symbols on the robe – they looked hand-painted.
On the seat of the chair beside Jeremy, Tara saw something else, something the black robe had been covering up; it was the ceremonial mask – the same mask she’d seen in her dream when she’d drawn the abandoned house in her aunt’s hotel room.
Jeremy didn’t put the mask on yet, but Tara couldn’t take her eyes off of the gruesome thing. It looked like some kind of paper-mache mask, but it had been covered in layers and patches of human skin of various colors, sewn together. Above the eyeholes in the mask was a combination of eyebrows. Around the mouth-hole in the mask were different sizes of teeth, stuck there in some kind of invisible glue, a circle of three rows of teeth, like the mouth of a shark. And protruding from the sides of the mask were two horns that looked like bull horns.
“The blood in front of you is virgin blood,” Jeremy said.
Tara didn’t answer. She knew whose blood it was.
“It’s mixed with the ashes of a beloved one. It’s my holy water,” he added and the word struck a chord of fear in Tara. The squeeze-bottle was stuffed down into the waistband of her pants behind her and underneath her shirt. Did he know it was there?
Of course he knows it’s there. He’s always been one step ahead.
2.
Detective Perry and Detective Jackson were back at the police station. They hovered behind Dale who was hunched over his computer with Tara’s drawings spread out in front of him on each side of his desk. He was entering the information that they were giving him as quickly as possible.
First he entered Trinity and came up with Trinity, Florida – a remote area in Pasco County where wealthy people lived on large plots of land. There were some small farms there and a few housing developments.
Then Dale started entering the words like he was entering a street address, and as soon as he entered the word, suggestions popped up.
There was a Woods Road – but it was showing up for a few different cities, not in Trinity. There was a subdivision called “The Woods” but it was in another part of the county.
He tried the word Pine.
And instantly the street
name Pine Woods Run popped up for Trinity.
“That’s it!” Perry said from behind Dale, making him jump. Having these two large and intimidating men right behind him wasn’t helping too much. He wanted to tell them that – but he didn’t.
“Try the numbers,” Perry told him.
Dale punched in the number nine. He got no addresses.
He punched in the number four. No addresses.
The number two. No addresses.
The number three. Bingo. There were addresses for the number three. Now all he had to do was get the rest in order, but at least he knew where to start.
Perry walked away and tried Lorie’s phone again. It was the fifteenth time he had called her. And this time the phone went right to voicemail like it had been shut off.
He knew Lorie was busy, and he knew she was spending time with her new boyfriend, Mike, but she wouldn’t ignore him like this. Especially since she’d just called him yesterday about what Tara had told her.
No, she was in trouble. He felt that with every fiber of his body, almost like he had a six sense, like he was picking up her terror through the air like an antenna.
Oh God, he thought. Please don’t let me be too late. Perry wasn’t a man who usually prayed, but today he did.
“Got it,” Perry heard Jackson say.
“Whose address is it?” Perry asked, and again he prayed. Please be an address that belongs to a man named Mike. If not, then all of this was for nothing.
“The house was just purchased by a man named Michael Copely.”
“Got a phone number?” Perry asked.
“Dale just tried it. It’s disconnected.”
Perry took a deep breath and stared at Jackson. “Call it in,” he told him.
Jackson stared at him. “You’re sure about this?”
“Yes.” More sure than I’ve ever been in my life, Perry wanted to say.
Jackson seemed like he was going to question Perry one more time, but he didn’t. He turned and went to call the Trinity police department and the Pasco County Sheriff’s office.
Perry wrote down Mike’s address on a scrap of paper and stuffed it down into his pocket. He knew he’d never get there before the local cops and paramedics got there, but he was going anyway. If they only sent one officer, things could go badly.
Perry felt like he needed to be there. He left without a word to Jackson and hurried to his car.
3.
Woods looked over at Lorie who struggled to hang on to the wood post. He could see that she was beginning to sweat now which was making it even harder for her to hold on. How long had she been holding on? he wondered. Probably only since they’d gotten there, he thought. Jeremy had wanted them to see this, a spectacle of his power; he had wanted them to see Lorie holding on to the post like a clock ticking down.
“Lorie, hold on,” he told her.
She had been squeezing her eyes shut as she struggled to grip the wooden post. She hugged it with her arms and legs, her fingers still digging into the flesh of her upper arms. After Jeremy and Tara left the garage, Lorie had managed to peel back the tape with the fingers of one hand while still holding on. She breathed in a rush of air and sniffled back her sobs.
“I can’t hold on much longer,” she wailed.
“I’ve got another key to my handcuffs,” Woods told her. “I hid it in my shoe.”
A sudden hope flashed in Lorie’s eyes and Woods could see some of the strength returning to her.
“Just give me a minute to get to it,” he told her. “You can hold on for another minute, I know you can.”
Lorie nodded, but she moaned. “Please hurry.” She glanced at Mike who twisted and turned on the rope, his eyes still shut, still passed out.
Woods kicked his one shoe off and moved it gently back behind the wooden post with his foot. But he didn’t want to kick it too far so that it would be out of reach from his hand. He had to be very careful.
He glanced back at the garage door, at the sliver of daylight beyond it, sure that Jeremy had Tara tied down to the table by now. He would come back to the garage and slaughter them. But he would take his time. He would have Tara to play with later, when the full moon was up in the night sky. He needed the full moon, it had something to do with his warped ritual, Woods was sure of that. And the hours in between now and the moonrise, Jeremy would have a good old time with knives and flesh.
Mike hanging upside down reminded Woods of the Reverend’s body. A witness. Jeremey might need witnesses for the ceremony he was going to perform inside the house. He would come back out here to the garage for his witnesses.
Woods had his shoe pushed behind the post and he hoped it was in the right place. He slid down the post until his butt was on the concrete floor and he felt gently with his hands for his shoe, his wrists straining hard against the metal of the handcuffs.
For a split second Woods couldn’t feel his shoe and he thought he had pushed it too far out of the way.
But then he found it. He pulled it closer to him with his fingers and then tipped it over. But the key wasn’t coming out. He lifted the shoe up and he could feel the key slide down to the heel of the shoe. He turned it over carefully and spilled the key onto the concrete. He had to go slow; he didn’t want the key tumbling out and sliding out of his reach.
His heart thudded with adrenaline as he forced himself to work slowly and carefully, yet the pressure that Jeremy would come back at any second was pressing on him.
And now Tara was inside with that monster. He couldn’t let anything happen to her.
He heard the key hit the concrete with a slight clink. He lowered the shoe and then pushed it away a little, hoping to God that he was not pushing the key along the floor with the shoe.
“Hold on, Lorie. I’ll be there in a minute.”
He found the key with his fingers and picked it up. He tried to position the key so that he could shove it into the lock on the handcuff. It was a slow process, and not as easy as Woods thought it might be. He had put the handcuffs on loose, but when Jeremy had checked them to make sure they were locked, he tightened one of them one more click and the other one three more clicks. The one on his right wrist was so tight that it was biting painfully into his flesh and it was hard to move that hand, the fingers on that hand were beginning to go numb.
He stood up, wanting to bolt right to Lorie as soon as he was free.
He had to hurry.
But as soon as he stood up he realized he’d made a mistake. And that’s when the key slipped out of the fingers of his left hand.
He heard the key hit the concrete and bounce away.
Oh God no.
CHAPTER THIRTY
1.
Jeremy stood at the other side of the table watching Tara. His robe was open, revealing the grotesque corset of human skin that he wore.
Greg’s skin, Tara thought. Greg’s skin on his body. And Jen’s blood and Miss Helen’s brother’s ashes in this bowl in front of me.
Jeremy still hadn’t put on his gory mask yet, he left it sitting there in the chair beside him. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry.
But Tara knew that Lorie couldn’t hold on to the post forever. How much longer? she wondered. And her Aunt Katie, what torturous position was she trussed up in? Was she holding on for dear life somewhere else on this property? Was she slowly running out of air? Out of blood?
Jeremy picked up Woods’ gun from his side of the table and aimed it at her.
“You don’t need to be afraid, Tara. Like I told you before, you’re not going to die. You’re going to live inside of me. You’re going to live through me. We’ll be one person, one entity. That’s the way it was supposed to be, the way it was always supposed to be. I could tie you down to the table, but I’ve decided that I want you to come willingly to me. I want you to give yourself to me.”
Tara couldn’t wait any longer. And even though Jeremy had Woods’ gun aimed at her, she reached behind her and pulled out the squeeze-bottle from underneath
her shirt. She tore off the plastic lid and aimed it at Jeremy, ready to squeeze the bottle and shoot the liquid at him.
Jeremy didn’t move. He stood very still with Woods’ gun pointed at her, a smile on his face, amusement in his dark eyes.
“Holy water?” he asked. “Really, Tara. You think holy water is going to work on someone as powerful as me?”
2.
Woods turned his body around the post and searched the concrete floor with his eyes for the handcuff key. How far had it bounced away? Would he be able to reach it?
Behind him he heard Lorie moan in despair like her last hope had evaporated before her eyes, like all of her strength and willpower had expelled from her body with that moan.
He saw the key. It wasn’t too far away. He kicked off his other shoe and reached his right foot out for the key. He could barely reach it with his big toe, but he didn’t want to push it away, out of reach any farther. He strained his body as much as he could, his arms straining – it felt like his shoulders were going to pop out of their sockets and his right wrist was going to snap in half. The fingers on his right hand were almost completely numb now.
“I got it, Lorie,” Woods said in between panting breaths. “I’ve got the key. I’m going to get us out of here. Just hold on a few more seconds.”
“I … can’t …”
“Yes you can!” Woods snapped at her. He didn’t want to take any extra seconds to look at her. He needed to focus all of his concentration into lifting his foot up very carefully and laying his big toe down onto the key, and then dragging the key back towards him.
He had to be careful. So careful.
He dragged the key back with his foot very slowly. He’d lost the key once, he couldn’t lose it again – Lorie didn’t have much time left. And Tara didn’t, either. He took a deep breath and reached his foot out again and pulled the key back closer to him, listening to the small sound of it scraping gently across the concrete. And the closer he got the key to him, the less he had to stretch his body out and he felt the tension ease in his shoulders, elbows, and wrists.
