Slaughter Series

by A. I. Nasser

  Tracy opened her mouth to call for her father, but quickly decided against it. She had a feeling that if she made any sounds, any sudden movement, whatever was under her bed would get spooked and race away. Then her father would really be angry that she had woken him up for absolutely no reason.

  No, she would have to wait for the scratching to end. She would have to close her eyes, clench them tight, and make sure that she was sitting dead center in the bed where she would be safe. She remembered the horror stories friends had told her about; monsters living under your bed, and although she knew that these were stories, it didn’t stop her imagination from flowing.

  She would wait. She didn’t have any other choice. She would have to ignore the heavy breathing that now accompanied the scratching. She would have to pretend that the rusty chuckling she was hearing was all in her head; that her imagination was starting to play tricks on her. She would have to keep her eyes closed so she wouldn’t see what was coming out from under her bed, slowly, one hand at a time, calling her name with a raspy, hollow voice that sent shivers down her spine.

  Tracy shut her eyes tighter and drew her knees up to her chest, hugging her legs as tears began to flow freely down her face. She was not alone in the room; she knew that for a fact now, because whatever was in there with her, it was standing right next to her bed now. She could smell it; she could hear its breathing and the clicking of its tongue. She kept her eyes closed, knowing that if she opened them, she would be giving her imagination the life it needed to scare her to death.

  She would not open her eyes, and as a cold hand wrapped around her ankle and pulled, Tracy Turk screamed.

  ***

  Fiona climbed into her cruiser, closed the door behind her and sighed heavily as she stared out at the Cole house through the windshield.

  She had spent almost three hours with Michael Cole, filling in the blanks, answering questions and doing what his father should have done years ago. Fiona had been impressed with how well he had taken it all, amused by how much like the elder Cole Michael had seemed, staring at her with a serious look and making sure she had left nothing out.

  Only after she was done, had he told her about the field and his run-in with Copper Tibet.

  Fiona scratched the back of her head, trying to figure out what this sudden change of events meant for the future of the Council; for the future of Melington. She knew Michael would never go up against Rachel Adams and fight for his father’s place on the Council. The boy didn’t have the will for it, let alone the balls. Rachel would eat him alive.

  Fiona shook her head in anger. If the blood bindings were to return, if there were any way to save this town from the inevitable disaster it would fall into, she would have to find a way to put Michael Cole at the helm of the Council.

  Of course, Michael’s retelling of the cryptic message he had been given, offered a great opportunity, one Fiona knew she could not let slip through her fingers.

  Bring me the children.

  Copper Tibet wanted the founding family children, and luckily for Fiona, she knew where each one was.

  The only question was whether or not Michael Cole would step up to the plate and do what was needed to be done.

  Six Months Ago

  “Daniel Cole and Alan were not the first adults to be attacked by that monster.

  Logan’s uncle had met that same fate years before, when the Council had, for the first time, failed to provide Copper with a child.

  Logan realized that if the bodies of the adults were still alive and functioning, then the children must be alive as well. All that was important was finding where Copper kept them. Find the children, and we could find Copper.

  Logan kept pushing Daniel to take him to where Copper had been executed. The field with that maple tree is now part of the Cole lands, and Logan knew that’s where the blood bindings were done. He believed there was a way to the children through that tree, somehow.

  Daniel wouldn’t allow it, though. Copper had such a hold on that man, it was as if he was not only doing the monster’s bidding, but protecting it as well. When Logan threatened to blow the whistle on everything, Daniel went crazy.

  It was the first time he had neither asked me nor Doctor Fanning for any blood samples.

  Kathrine Carter disappeared the next month, and we all knew why. We all knew what Daniel had done, and the truth of what had happened to that girl horrified us all. We couldn’t believe that Daniel could do such a thing. But, it was clear that we had no idea what that man was capable of.

  And unfortunately, it had the desired effect. Logan gave up on Melington, packed up his family and belongings, and left. We never heard from him again, and we truly believed we had seen the last of the Carters in Melington.

  Of course, that was until Alan came back.”

  Chapter 7

  Alan Carter sat silently across from Rachel Adams, eyes downcast, his mind racing.

  Deborah had told him everything, and he was having a very hard time finding a way to process it all. A part of him wanted to strangle the woman in front of him for what she had done and for everything she had allowed to happen. He couldn’t begin to describe the anger he felt towards the Council, the rage that coursed through him forcing him to clench his fists tight to stop his hands from shaking.

  Rachel sat quietly behind her desk, watching Alan as he struggled with his inner conflict. She knew she was stepping on thin thread here, and there was no telling what he would do if she failed to handle the meeting with care.

  Rachel looked at her daughter and winced when she saw the look on her face. She could tell it hadn’t been easy for Deborah to talk with Alan and tell him the truth. She highly doubted that Alan’s current calm was any indication to his initial reaction when learning that the Council had been behind his sister’s abduction. The look on Deborah’s face gave it all away, and it was clear that she blamed her mother for everything that was happening to Alan right now.

  “I can understand how difficult it was for you to meet with me,” Rachel started, breaking the awkward silence. “I can’t even come close to portraying how difficult this is for me, as well.”

  Alan looked up at her, his eyes shooting daggers. “Why?” he asked, his tone dangerously calm. “Was my sister offered up to a monster by a bunch of psychopaths?”

  Rachel cringed. She had expected hostility, but she had also secretly hoped they could skip past it and get right down to business. She had obviously been a little too optimistic.

  “Alan, you have to understand, this was not something I approved of,” Rachel tried, knowing that whatever she said in terms of the Council’s actions would sound completely absurd at the moment. Still, it had to be said.

  “That doesn’t change much, Mrs. Chairman,” Alan replied. “I’m not here to discuss what happened to my sister, although truth be told, I’d like nothing more than to string the whole lot of you up on that same tree and burn you alive. Something tells me that that might satisfy Copper Tibet enough to leave this town’s children alone.”

  Rachel could feel Alan’s eyes bore into her, burning a hole through her heart.

  “But,” Alan continued, “I promised Deborah I would speak to you about the dreams. So do me a favor and save your sympathy for someone who cares.”

  Rachel nodded solemnly, knowing that this was the best she could expect.

  “What do you want to know?” Alan asked.

  “Everything,” Rachel said.

  ***

  “The room is dark. It always is.

  The first time I was there, it scared the hell out of me. I don’t know whether it was the cold that found a way to dig deep inside me and wrap its cold fingers around my bones, or the stench that forced me to gag every time I drew in a breath. Maybe it was the darkness. Maybe it was a combination of all three.

  What I knew for sure was that I was alone in the dark, and it didn’t take me too long to realize that if I stayed there long enough, I’d end up losing my mind completely. I
tried to make sense of my surroundings, but obviously that was almost impossible. I felt my way around the room, my hands touching cold stone walls of my cage, and try as I might, I couldn’t seem to find a way out.

  I was trapped in there, and that was a horrible realization. It’s like that feeling you get when you know that, despite your best efforts, you were never going to get anywhere. It felt like a hollow nothingness threatening to suck you in forever.

  And right when I had thought that there was no escape, the room began to shake. It threw me off my feet, and for an instant I thought the floor itself would give way and I would fall. That scared me even more. I remember pressing against the walls during the entirety of it, because I knew that if I did fall, I would fall forever. I can’t explain it. I guess a part of me, in that instant, believed that the room might have been suspended in nothing but darkness. As if it were a barrier keeping me safe from the darkness surrounding it; a darkness that might well be worse than the one I was currently in.

  When the shaking stopped, a door opened. My heart skipped a beat when I first saw the red light pouring in, and for the first time I got a good look at my surroundings. It took me a while, but I finally brought myself to walk out and into a corridor beyond.

  That’s when I heard her. Kathrine. My sister. I heard her calling my name, and in that moment, it was the only thing my mind could make any sense of. She was scared, I can tell you that for sure. Her voice shook in fear every time she called out to me, and it reminded me of that same scream I had heard when she had first been taken.

  Only, I couldn’t see her. To my left and right, the corridor stretched on for as far as my eye could see, the walls lined by doors similar to my own. But, there was no sight of Kathrine.

  I ran. I remember running, trying to reach her, unsure if I was going in the right direction or not, but I didn’t care. All I could think of was finding my sister, and saving her. When I finally did find her, though, standing only yards away from me, I felt that familiar sense of helplessness again. I tried reaching for her, grabbing her hand, but something pulled her back. Something picked her up and drew her away in an instant. I suddenly felt the same sense of grief and loss I had felt back when we were kids, when that hand took her from me.

  I don’t know what happened to me at that moment, but I know that I lost it completely. I was furious and enraged, and I screamed bloody murder at not being able to save my sister again. I had been given a chance to make things right, to make up for my helplessness as a child, and I blew it. My sister was gone, again, and it tore me from inside.

  That was when the woman in red appeared. She talked to me, told me to get up, that she was waiting for me. I had never seen the woman before, but somehow she seemed familiar. I couldn’t tell you how or why, but she did. A part of me felt like I was supposed to know her, that at some point in my life, our paths had crossed before. But, I couldn’t quite figure it out.

  She led me down the corridor, and I followed willingly. For an instant, I had forgotten completely about Kathrine, engrossed by this shade in front of me as she glided down the corridor, her red dress pulsating with the light around her. I had no idea where she was taking me, and when she stopped at one of the hundreds of doors in the corridor, one that looked no different than any of the others, she opened it and I stepped through.

  The room I stepped into, though, was nothing like the room I had been in. Actually, it didn’t seem like a room at all. For a second, I believed that I had, in reality, stepped out of a room and into an open field surrounded by woodland and blue skies. It was the strangest thing I have ever experienced, and it sounds even crazier when I tell it out loud. But, there it was, green fields and chirping birds, a whole outdoor world behind a single door.

  I wasn’t alone, though. There was a girl there, swinging on a tire hung off a large maple’s branch. I couldn’t tell you what she looked like, because even though I had talked to her, even though she had told me her name and had walked me through the world that was her room, I can hardly remember her. I can remember everything except her, and to this day, I couldn’t tell you why.

  All I can remember was her name.

  Allison.”

  ***

  Alan stopped when he saw Rachel’s eyes widen and her mouth drop. “You know who I’m talking about,” he said, a statement rather than a question, as if he already knew her response.

  Rachel nodded slowly. “But that can’t be,” she mumbled.

  “Jeremiah’s daughter,” Alan confirmed. “I didn’t know it then. I only made the connection when Deborah told me your story.”

  Rachel buried her face in her hands, her eyes closed as she tried to stop the world from spinning. “Logan was right,” she said. “My God, Alan, your father was right.”

  ***

  Stanley Turk was infuriated.

  “What do you mean by has she done this before?” he yelled at the officer in front of him. “She’s eight! Eight-year-olds don’t walk out of their homes in the middle of the night!”

  Officer Alexandra Bail flinched with every word that came out of Stanley Turk’s mouth, his fury like poison dripping from his tongue.

  “Mr. Turk, I’m going to need you to calm down,” she said, a little overwhelmed by the man’s anger. “I understand your concern, but I’m trying to get all the information I can so we can find your daughter.”

  “Concern?” Stanley cried out in disbelief. “Concern! This isn’t concern, officer. This is downright distress!”

  Alexandra looked around to the other officers for help, but most of them were keeping their distance, only looking at her from the corner of their eyes as they pretended to be doing something else. Times like these, Alexandra really wished the Sheriff was around to take over.

  She felt sympathy for the man, though. She had been the first one on the scene when the 911 call had come in, and after going over the details with the man, Alexandra was finding it very difficult to make any sense of the situation.

  According to the father, he had been awakened by his daughter’s screams well after midnight. By the time he had barged into her room, the girl was gone. The windows were latched closed, there were no signs of a struggle, and everything in the room seemed to be perfectly in place. It was as if she had vanished.

  After hours of questioning the neighbors and trying to find any clues as to what had happened to Tracy Turk, Alexandra was nowhere closer to a logical explanation.

  “This is ridiculous!” Stanley Turk yelled, his voice booming in the station. “My daughter’s been kidnapped, and all you can do is ask me if she has done this before?”

  “Mr. Turk, there is no evidence that your daughter’s been taken against her will,” Alexandra started. “None of the neighbors have heard any screaming. All I have to work on is your story, and frankly, a lot of things don’t add up.”

  Stanley slammed his hand down on Alexandra’s desk. “My daughter’s been kidnapped!”

  Alexandra drew in a deep breath. “Your daughter’s missing,” she said firmly. “For now, all we can do is look for her. Other than that, I’m going to need you to go back home in case she returns.”

  Stanley Turk’s nostrils flared as he scowled at Alexandra, his eyes bloodshot. She gazed at him steadily, trying her best not to give away how anxious he was making her feel and contemplating whether or not he was going to do something stupid. She braced herself, ready to book him if the need arose, while silently praying he would calm down.

  Stanley Turk looked around the station at the other officers, realizing that he was now the center of attention. He noticed how some had decided that their involvement might be necessary after all and had already moved in closer to the action. If he wasn’t going to calm down, it was obvious they were going to force him to.

  “Mr. Turk?”

  Stanley looked at the officer, his hands still clenching the edge of her desk hard enough for his knuckles to turn white. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and sat back in his chair.
>
  “Mr. Turk, go home,” Alexandra said. “I assure you, we will do everything we can to find your daughter. Right now, I need to be sure that if Tracy does come home, there will be someone there waiting for her.”

  Stanley gazed at her for a few seconds, unsure as to how he was supposed to react, the only thought on his mind the fact that his little daughter was gone and he was helpless to do anything about it. He could feel his eyes water, and unwilling to give the officers the satisfaction of seeing him break down, he stood up quickly and walked away.

  Alexandra watched him leave, letting out the breath she had been holding in, one long sigh. She shook her head in dismay and turned to her notes. The Sheriff was not going to be happy about this.

  ***

  “There has to be a way in.”

  Alan watched Rachel Adams pace her office, the older woman lost in deep thought as she mumbled to herself. It was clear that, like Alan, she believed there was more to his dreams than a simple play of the subconscious, and that his encounter with Copper Tibet definitely had something to do with it.

  “That corridor you were talking about,” Rachel mumbled. “Those doors. That must be where he’s keeping them.”

  “Keeping who?” Deborah asked. She was looking back and forth between Alan and her mother, feeling like she was being left out of what was happening.

  Rachel stopped and frowned. “The children,” Rachel said, as if her daughter shouldn’t have needed an explanation. “Who else?”

  “Wait a minute,” Deborah’s eyes went wide. “You don’t actually believe this, do you?”

  “Of course I do,” Rachel said. “I should have believed it the minute Logan Carter had suggested it. It makes perfect sense.”

  “It’s a dream, mother!” Deborah cried out.

  “You heard him,” Rachel said. “How would he have known Allison’s name? How do you explain him seeing his sister?”