Crone’s Moon argi-5

by M. R. Sellars

  This time, he was much more prepared and threw a large arm up to block my attack. He managed to regain his balance just as I struck and pressed his huge forearm out against my chest. Upon impact, the air was forced from my lungs in a violent huff. With an almost animal-like growl, he thrust his arm to the side, flinging me down the stairs to the slab floor.

  I hit hard, rolling across the rough concrete and landing in a heap. I was fighting to catch my breath, and a few more new pains were added to the smorgasbord of aches my body was experiencing. I rolled to the side and looked up, seeing that the man had fully regained his balance and was coming back down the stairs. I’m not sure if it was the angle at which I was seeing him, the damage he had just inflicted, the situation, or all of the above, but he looked huge. He was certainly taller than Ben, and I was sure half again as broad. Suddenly, my original thought about running the opposite direction was looking far better than the option I had chosen.

  I pushed myself up to my hands and knees as he lumbered down the last stair. As my head came up, I looked across the dim cellar and saw a nude woman bound in a chair. Her feet were positioned in buckets, and she was covered in bleeding wounds. There was a set of what appeared to be jumper cables clamped to her, one lead attached to her left hand, the other biting into the flesh of her right, upper arm. Her head was lolled to the side, but I couldn’t tell if she was dead or merely unconscious.

  The giant wasn’t interested in letting me find out. Before I could pull myself to my feet, a massive hand clamped around the back of my neck. I swear I could feel his thumb and fingers almost meeting one another as they wrapped around to press into my throat. I felt myself lifting upward, and before I knew it, I was completely suspended several inches above the floor.

  I couldn’t see him, but I was kicking as I hung there, swinging my legs in an attempt to inflict any kind of damage I could, which considering the situation was probably none. With a hard thrust, he tossed me forward, and I smashed against a metal storage unit.

  Rusted coffee cans, jars, and countless other unidentifiable items scattered across the floor with a horrendous crash as the unit toppled. I came down hard on top of it, taking a sharp blow to the ribs as well as hammering my forehead against the edge of one of the shelves.

  I was disoriented from the blow to my head, and I was tangled into the now twisted braces of the shelving unit. I struggled to pull free, but I felt like I was going to pass out at any moment. I suddenly had a very bad feeling that I was going to die. There were no two ways about it. I didn’t stand a chance against his hulking size.

  I heard a grunt and the sound of shuffling feet behind me. Panic issued its own demand for adrenalin, and I started frantically trying to extricate myself from the tangle of bent metal. My left arm was free, and I sent my hand searching for a weapon, anything at all that I could use to defend myself. It brushed against something that felt like a handle, and I automatically wrapped my fingers tight around it.

  A moment later, I felt the large hand against the back of my neck once again. Before he could clamp on, I twisted, flailing my left arm out and swinging along with it whatever it was I had managed to grasp. I had no way to aim, so I simply stretched out as far as I could when I swung. As I rolled, I saw the jagged end of a broken soda bottle raking across his face.

  He let out a pained roar and stumbled back a half step. I let out my own yelp as I yanked my right arm free, feeling flesh scrape against broken glass and jagged metal. I continued to twist and tried to pull myself back to my feet. I only managed to make it to a squatting position before he came at me again.

  I swung the bottle, but he made a lumbering sidestep, and I barely grazed his arm. He grabbed my left wrist and squeezed as he pulled me up by my arm. My hand opened, and the bottle fell from it, clattering to the floor. His other hand slammed hard into my chest, and I felt myself once again lifted off the floor, literally swinging from my arm as he used it to pivot me around. At the last moment, he let go, and I flew several feet.

  Somehow, my feet touched first, and I tried to backpedal but to no avail. I stumbled and continued with the momentum, slamming my back into the door of an upright freezer. I hit hard, rocking it back and falling to the floor in front of it. The door swung open, and a good portion of the contents spilled out on top of me. Abject horror welled up from the pit of my stomach, as amid packages wrapped in butcher paper, was a woman’s severed head, her clouded, dead eyes staring coldly back at me.

  I broke my gaze away, looking up as the shadow of the giant fell over me. His face was bleeding, and that just made him look even more frightening.

  I had nothing left. I couldn’t even bring myself to move. I knew I was about to die, and it crossed my mind that the Dark Mother hadn’t even bothered to show her face. If I hadn’t been so paralyzed with fear, I might have laughed at the irony. I’d been cheating Cerridwen for so long now that I’d grown to expect her presence at every turn.

  And now, at the moment I was about to finally lose the war, she wasn’t even going to be here to usher me across the bridge.

  I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable. My heart was pounding in my ears, and I felt the hot breath of the giant as he bent over me. After a moment, I heard him shuffle away, and then I thought I heard whimpering.

  I slowly opened one eye and saw him sitting on the floor in front of me, a scant few feet away, a severed head cradled in the crook of his arm. He was staring at it lovingly, cooing and whimpering softly as he used his free hand to stroke the hair.

  I heard shuffling and slowly pushed myself up and looked back to the stairs, my eyes drooping as I struggled to remain conscious. Standing a few feet away was Ben, his pistol stiffly aimed at the large man. My friend’s face was a mask of sickened disbelief as he watched on.

  I heard him slowly mutter, “Jeezus fuckin’ Christ…”

  The sounds of footsteps thudded above us, creaking on the floorboards in a strict, determined search pattern as backup arrived and entered the house.

  Monday, October 7th

  2:43 P.M.

  St. Louis, Missouri

  CHAPTER 43:

  “I still can’t believe it,” Ben said, looking over at me. “She seemed like she was okay.”

  We were sitting on my deck, looking over the back yard. Leaves were layered in a spotty carpet across the lawn, piles built up here and there. A wheelbarrow and a pair of broom rakes were still lying exactly where Felicity and I had left them in a rush just a few days before. The cover on the compost pile was thrown back, corner flapping in the gentle breeze. Again, just as we had left it.

  The sky was grey with a heavy stratum of clouds. It had rained the night before, but it hadn’t been a major storm front, just a quiet, gentle sprinkle.

  A cold, endless, and depressing October sprinkle.

  The loamy smell of the damp leaves filled the air, providing an earthy backdrop to the pungent aroma of our cigars. I continued staring out across the lawn, absently thinking about work I needed to be doing and finding a million excuses to avoid it.

  “Hey, white man,” my friend prodded quietly. “You hear me?”

  “Yeah,” I replied quietly, my voice a thin whisper. “Me either.”

  I brought my cigar up and tucked it in the corner of my mouth. I puffed, but nothing happened. I pulled it out and regarded the business end without emotion. I stuck it back between my teeth and reached into my jacket pocket for a match.

  My right hand was still wrapped in gauze. Several stitches had been required to close the wounds across my knuckles. There was a hand-shaped bruise square in the center of my chest that had already cycled into several bright shades of purple. My entire body was sore. I didn’t even have to move to feel the aches, and the damp air wasn’t helping. But, it didn’t matter.

  I was finding it hard to really care about anything right now.

  I fumbled with a wooden match, trying to strike it using my bandaged hand and succeeded only in breaking it in two. Ben reached ove
r and took the box from me, ignited a match, then cupped it in his hand and held it forth so I could re-light my cigar.

  I puffed carefully, using my left hand to twist the stogie as I drew on it, then pulled it away and inspected the end, blowing a gentle stream of smoke at the glowing coal.

  “Thanks,” I muttered.

  “Not a problem,” he returned as he shook out the flame and flicked the charred wooden stub over the railing.

  “I need a drink,” I announced.

  “No you don’t,” he replied.

  “Yes I do.”

  “Trust me, white man,” he returned. “You don’t. ‘Specially not right now. Give it some time.”

  We continued sitting in silence for several minutes. Several feet beyond the deck railing a small flock of birds were pecking at the ground around one of the feeders. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Emily, our calico cat, stalking them.

  “Just doesn’t seem right,” he said.

  “Can we talk about something else?” I asked, swallowing hard after the words.

  “Yeah,” he said, paused, then offered, “Albright’s pissed.”

  I couldn’t say much for his choice of new topics, but I went along with it anyway. I didn’t have the energy to do anything else.

  “Like I care?” I replied.

  He nodded. “Yeah, I know. Guess it was to be expected, huh.”

  “She making life hard on you?”

  “A bit, but I’ll survive. I always do.”

  “Yeah. You do.”

  “By the way, talked to Mandalay this mornin’,” he offered. “She asked about ya’.”

  “She okay?”

  “Yeah. Needin’ ta’ talk. The shooting at the gas station was the first time she’d ever had to kill anyone.”

  “And it was a kid.”

  “Yeah.”

  “She in trouble?”

  “A little. She’s on administrative leave. They aren’t too hot on the fact that she left the scene, but considerin’ the circumstances she’ll come out okay.”

  “Good.”

  “They were brother and sister, you know,” my friend said, switching subjects again.

  “Yeah, you told me.”

  “Yeah,” he said with a nod. “Guess I did.”

  I shifted in my chair, trying to get comfortable. I wasn’t succeeding.

  “They tested the brother,” he offered. “Got an IQ of fifty-two.”

  “Too bad,” I murmured.

  “Why do ya’ say that?”

  I looked over at him, unable to muster an expression and simply said, “Because with an IQ that low, our judicial system will let the bastard live.”

  “Yeah, prob’ly,” he answered, and then sighed before continuing. “The sister is the real sick one.”

  “They’re both sick, Ben.”

  “Yeah, but the sister is the one behind the whole mess.”

  “Is she mentally challenged too?”

  “No.”

  “Good,” I replied. “Then they can execute her.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure the prosecutor will push for it.” He paused and took a puff from his cigar, rolling the smoke around on his tongue before letting it out in a slow stream. He tapped the ash then looked back over to me. “Regular fuckin’ torture chamber they had down in that basement. Crime scene guys said they actually had some kinda current-slash-voltage regulator or somethin’ hooked up to the generator. Kinda like a homemade electric chair.”

  “Yeah, they were real experts weren’t they,” I grumbled.

  “I guess,” he replied, then added, “Apparently electrocution is pretty painful. The sister liked ta’ see how much the victims could take. That’s her kink. Inflictin’ pain.”

  “You’ve got an odd view on changing subjects. Do we really have to talk about this right now, Ben?” I asked.

  He frowned and looked away then muttered, “Yeah. I know. Sorry.”

  After a short, uncomfortable silence, he spoke again. “So whaddaya wanna talk about?”

  “Nothing.”

  The heavy silence fell between us again as I puffed quietly on my cigar. I watched on as Emily continued creeping slowly toward the blissfully unaware flock of birds.

  “So, what about the brother?” I asked, reopening the wound of my own accord.

  “I thought you didn’t wanna talk about it?”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “Okay, so what about ‘im?”

  “He was torturing the women too.”

  “He was just doing what his sister told him to do,” my friend said with a mild harrumph. “Still doesn’t get that he was doin’ anything wrong.”

  “What about the heads?”

  “There were fifteen total,” he replied. “From four different states so far. They’ve identified all of ‘em except three. Missing women dating back six years. We’re still tryin’ ta’ get ‘em ta’ tell us where the rest of the bodies are buried.”

  “I meant why did they keep them.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Well, it seems big brother thought they were pretty, so he wanted ta’ keep ‘em.”

  “Gods…” I murmured.

  “Yeah.”

  “Any idea why the scattered grave sites?”

  “Not yet.”

  I turned my head slightly and watched Emily as her tail twitched and her hindquarters danced in preparation to attack. She suddenly uncoiled and sprang forward, missing her mark but sending the flock noisily into the air.

  Ben huffed out a breath then asked, “So, what time are you going to the funeral home?”

  “About three-thirty,” I replied.

  “That’s comin’ up pretty quick.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “You know, it ain’t your fault she’s gone, Row. You did everything you could.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “So… You gonna be okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’ll make it.”

  I thought I heard a noise and turned to see an auburn-haired vision standing in the open back door. Her hair was pulled up in a loose Gibson girl, neatly pinned in place. She was clad in a solemn black dress and pumps.

  “Aye, Rowan,” she said softly. “Come in and change. We have to leave soon.”

  “I’ll be right there,” I told her with a nod.

  She looked back at me sadly. Her soft face looked like it had been brushed with a tasteful amount of makeup, but it still couldn’t hide the black rim around her eye nor the bruise on her cheek where she’d taken the punch. Fortunately, the burns on her opposite cheek had completely disappeared, as had mine. Would that all injuries healed as quickly and completely as the ethereal ones seemed to do. In that same vein, it was too bad that the emotional scars of the supernatural would never really fade.

  I continued to watch as she turned and disappeared back into the house. When she was out of sight, I turned back to the yard and puffed on my cigar.

  “Yeah,” Ben muttered again. “The Forest woman really seemed like she was gonna make it when they took ‘er outta that basement. I guess she’d just been through too much.”

  “Yeah,” I replied quietly.

  “Jeezus, Row, I know it sounds bad, but I’m glad it was her and not… Ya’know… And… And I hate ta’ say it, but I’m just glad she lasted until after the Twilight Zone thing fizzled out… Ya’know? And Firehair didn’t… Well… Ya’know…”

  “Yeah, Ben. Me too,” I muttered. “Goddess help me. Me too.”

  EPILOGUE:

  He closed the door of the attic office then sat down at his desk and pulled out the lower drawer as far as he could. The twisted corner of a plastic shopping bag was peeking out from underneath a stack of paper. It had been tucked in the back of the file drawer for over a week now. Out of sight but never out of his mind. Now that the dark moon had come back around, he was ready for it.

  He pulled the bag from its hiding place and shut the drawer, then he pushed his keyboar
d and mouse aside, clearing an area on the surface of his desk. He emptied the contents out onto the space and set about opening an oblong box. After a few moments of struggling with twist ties and string, he managed to extricate the toy from the package.

  He sat the 12-inch fashion doll on his desk and propped her against the face of the computer monitor. Her plastic skin was pale ivory and her nylon hair a cascade of long, spiraling, red curls. He looked past the doll at a framed picture of a woman and was amazed yet again by the resemblance, just as he had been when he saw the doll in the store.

  He shook his head and began to fiddle with the other items that had poured from the shopping bag. A packet of salt, a black candle, some clear cellophane wrap, and a spool of purple ribbon. He didn’t have long to do this. She would be coming home soon.

  After quickly preparing his space, he lit the candle and began to meditate, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. He wanted his mind clear and focused, because for this to work, there was no room for even the slightest doubt. He dropped into a relaxed rhythm and eventually opened his eyes.

  Reaching out, he lifted the doll and began carefully wrapping it in the clear cellophane. Once he was satisfied, he began to weave the purple ribbon around the plastic-encased poppet, criss-crossing it as he went. With each lace, he murmured to himself, “Never again. With this shield, I bind you from harm, Felicity Caitlin O’Brien.”

  When he finished trussing the doll, he gathered the trash and stuffed it into the shopping bag. Then, he picked up the doll and set out for a place to bury it.

  With luck, he would put it in a place where she would never find it.

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