The Dead Man: Eater of Souls (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by Joseph Nassise

  David was sitting at his desk, writing frantically in a small, leather-bound journal. His face was contorted in anger as he wrote and Matt didn’t find it hard to imagine that the teen was writing about his encounter the day before. After a few minutes he threw the pencil down and stalked over to the closet. Matt watched him open it up, push aside the clothes hanging there, and then rap sharply on one section of the rear wall. The corner of a false panel popped open and David quickly removed it, revealing a hidden crawlspace.

  As Matt looked on, David pulled a blue duffel bag from inside the cubbyhole and brought it over to his bed. He stood over it a minute, staring, and then abruptly unzipped it, revealing what lay inside.

  Guns.

  From his perch Matt could see at least two revolvers and a couple of semi-automatic pistols, plus spare magazines and boxes of different kinds of ammunition.

  David reached into the bag and pulled out one of the pistols. He released the magazine then cleared the slide, making sure the weapon was empty. Looked like the kid knew what he was doing, too, which wasn’t a good sign. He’d threatened to kill someone earlier that day and now it was clear that he had the means of doing so as well.

  For a moment Matt considered climbing down, walking over to the front door and ringing the bell, then explaining to Mr. and Mrs. Bateman that their teenage son was hiding handguns in his bedroom. He would imagine that they would be a bit upset, and rightfully so. But then would come the questions asking how Matt knew such a thing and that would be a little harder to answer. Sure, he could make something up about seeing the boy with them at school but that would only bring a closer look at the situation and that was the kind of scrutiny Matt himself wanted to avoid.

  No, best to handle it himself when the kid was on school property, he thought. That way there wouldn’t be any doubt as to his intentions.

  David suddenly raised the gun and pointed it out the window. Matt ducked, frantically trying to get out of the way of the shot and nearly falling out of the tree in the process, before his good sense reasserted itself. The kid wasn’t about to shoot him; the window was still shut. He was just screwing around, pretending to fire at imaginary targets. Besides, with the light on in the room there was no way for the kid to see him past the reflection in the glass.

  With his heart thumping wildly from the sudden rush of adrenaline, Matt decided he’d seen enough. He climbed carefully down from the tree and slipped away through the darkness back to where he’d parked the bike.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Early the next morning Matt drove the cart over to Jefferson Hall and parked out front in full view of the entrance. He hunted around in the buses out front until he found the control box for the sprinkler system, then opened it up and began to poke around inside of it. He did what he could to look busy despite the fact that he knew next to nothing about how the system was supposed to work. Nor did he care either; all he wanted was a reasonable excuse to be hanging around the front of the building to observe those going in and out and a sprinkler repair gave him just that.

  Matt knew that day students were all assigned a locker inside Jefferson so that they wouldn’t have to carry all of their textbooks to each and every class, so he decided that staking out the entrance was probably the best way to catch as many of them in the same place at one time. Turned out he was right. By 7:45 the area in front of the building was filled with teenagers hanging out before heading off to their first class of the day.

  Just as he’d hoped, no one gave him a second glance. He watched them come and go, keeping an eye out for David Bateman while doing what he could to look busy.

  What he’d seen last night had convinced him that David had reached the end of his rope and it wouldn’t be long before the youth lost what little was left of his rapidly fraying control. When he did snap, all of that anger and hatred was going to come pouring out at his fellow students. Just as it had in Littleton and Blackburg.

  Matt was determined to keep that from happening and the best way to do so was to keep his eye on Bateman, he’d decided.

  Except the boy was nowhere to be found. Matt scrutinized each new arrival as best he could and so far he hadn’t seen any sign of David.

  The warning bell rang, announcing that students had five minutes to get to class and the quad cleared out faster than a kegger after the cops show up. Matt watched them go with a deep feeling of unease. Had Bateman been here and he’d missed him somehow?

  He was starting to think about packing it in, maybe he’d find some excuse to ask the office secretary for the boy’s class schedule or something equally drastic, when he spotted David hustling up the walk toward Jefferson. The teenager had a couple textbooks balanced in his left hand and the blue duffel bag Matt had seen the night before clutched in his right. Late as he was, he barely registered Matt’s presence, rushing past him without even a glance.

  Matt gave David a moment and then followed him inside.

  There was no sign of him on the first floor, so Matt headed upstairs. He could hear someone cursing repeatedly somewhere down the second floor hallway, so he followed the sound and found Bateman rooting around in the bottom of his locker, clearly looking for something.

  The blue duffel had been stuffed onto the top shelf.

  The tardy bell rang then, prompting another bout of cursing from Bateman and forcing Matt to stifle a laugh at the kid’s inventiveness when it came to cuss words. David either found what he was looking for or gave up on it, for in the next moment he suddenly stood and slammed the locker shut, twisting the combination to lock it as he went. Books in hand, he headed for the stairwell.

  Matt listened to the boy’s boots clumping down the stairs and then walked over to the window at the end of the hall that looked out over the quad. He was just in time to see David dash down the front steps and head across the lawn toward one of the other classroom buildings, Madison or perhaps Washington by the looks of it.

  Alone now in the hallway, Matt went to work.

  He walked over to the locker and gave the handle a tug.

  Locked.

  He’d expected as much, but it never hurt to check. The lock wasn’t going to be a problem anyway. He dug his key ring out of his pocket and flipped through the stack, looking for the proper one. The school had installed the kind of lockers that had combination locks built right into the door, but for safety and liability reasons the combination could be bypassed through the use of a master key. After checking to be sure he was alone in the hallway, Matt used his to open David’s locker.

  The blue duffel sat there on the top shelf, doing its best to look innocuous.

  He pulled the bag partially out of the locker so that he could get at the zipper. He glanced down the hall, double-checking that it was still clear, and then unzipped the bag just enough to look inside.

  The blue-black gleam of gunmetal stared back at him.

  Shit.

  For an instant he thought about just taking the bag and dumping the guns somewhere. Without them, David wouldn’t be much of a threat to the rest of the students.

  The problem, however, was that he wasn’t certain that David didn’t have more guns at his house or secreted somewhere else. Taking the bag without reporting it would simply alert David that someone was on to him. He’d be more careful in the future and as a result Matt might not have the same chance to put an end to it as he had now.

  He couldn’t take that risk.

  He zipped the bag back up, shoved it back into place where David had left it, and closed the locker, making sure to give the dial a spin to reset the lock.

  A glance at his watch told him that first period had another twenty-five minutes to go. That should be time enough.

  Matt walked down the hall to the closest classroom and used the phone to call the office. When the secretary answered, he told her he needed to speak with Acting Principal Stevens and that it was urgent.

  * * *

  “Tell me again what happened.”

  Stevens ar
rived ten minutes after they’d hung up the phone. With her was Dennis Goldsmith, a neatly dressed man of about sixty who turned out to be the school’s attorney. He’d apparently been on campus dealing with some insurance issues related to the storm so Stevens invited him along. She didn’t come right out and say it, but Matt could tell she was worried about a lawsuit and seemed reassured by Goldsmith’s presence. The three of them stood before Bateman’s locker in the empty hallway.

  Matt gave them the story he’d prepared; it was close enough to the truth that he thought he could make it fly. “I was outside, installing new solenoids in the sprinkler system, when I saw a teenager dressed in dark clothing coming up the walk, a blue duffel bag in his hand. As he got closer, I saw that it was David Bateman.”

  Goldsmith interrupted. “I understand you’ve only been here a few days. How is it you knew who the boy was?”

  “I broke up a fight between him and some football players the other day. Took down all their names for my report. Ordinarily I might not have given any of them a second thought, but you gotta admit, Bateman’s kinda hard to miss, with that dye-job and all those piercings. I knew who he was the moment I saw him.”

  All of which was a bit of an exaggeration, especially the part about the names, but the explanation seemed good enough for the lawyer and he waved for Matt to go on with his story.

  “When Bateman stopped to talk with another student, he put the bag down at his feet. I caught a glimpse of the handgun through the partially opened zipper.”

  “Did you confront him about the weapon?” Stevens asked.

  Matt shook his head. “No. I just followed him into the building and watched from the other end of the hall as he put the duffel in his locker and then left it there.”

  Stevens glanced at Goldmsith, who nodded in her direction and said, “I agree with your initial call. Mr. Cahill was correct to report the issue and we have no choice but to investigate and confirm whether or not there is a threat to the study body at large.”

  Lawyer-speak for open the locker and see what’s inside, I’ll bet.

  He was right. Stevens turned to him and said, “Please open the locker, Mr. Cahill.”

  Not wanting it to appear obvious that he’d already done that very thing once today, Matt pulled out his key chain, made a show of looking for the proper key, and then unlocked the locker door before him.

  The duffel was right where Bateman had left it.

  Stevens reached in and took it out. She placed it on the floor between the three of them and unzipped it, revealing the handguns that Matt knew to be inside.

  For a moment, no one said anything.

  It was Goldsmith who broke the silence. He was in full lawyer-mode as he said, “The Gun Free School Zones Amendment Act of 1995 makes it a federal crime to possess a handgun within 1000 feet of any school – public, private, or parochial. Punishment may be up to five years in prison and up to a $5,000.00 fine. As acting principal you have no choice but to inform the police and have Mr. Bateman arrested immediately. I would suggest confining all students to their classrooms effective immediately to lessen any chance of collateral problems arising during the process.”

  Matt was barely listening. He was suddenly worried how Mr. Dark was going to respond when he learned that his latest plans had just been disrupted.

  Somehow, Matt didn’t think he was going to take it well.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Like everything else she’d done to date, Principal Stevens handled the arrest of David Bateman with expeditiousness and efficiency. After confiscating the duffel bag from the boy’s locker, the police were notified and their presence requested on campus to take the youth into custody. Stevens waited until the police were on hand before calling the boy’s parents, just in case they decided to give him a head’s up and suggest that he make himself scarce for the time being. Because she’d been treating him on a regular basis, Olivia was also called. Bateman had been known to lose his temper and lash out violently in response to provocation, so her presence was intended to act as a calming influence on the boy should he get unruly.

  Because Olivia was involved, Matt decided to tag along as well and so he was present outside Keating Hall when the police, led by Stevens, Goldsmith, and Drake, went in the building to arrest Bateman.

  It didn’t take them long.

  Five minutes after going in, the doors were pushed open and the two cops, both of them big, burly men, came out dragging a very vocal and very uncooperative David Bateman between them. They pushed him up against the patrol car and even from where Matt sat in his electric cart some twenty feet away, he could see the boy’s arms had been pulled sharply behind his back and his hands had been handcuffed tightly together. One of the cops held David bent over the rear of the vehicle while the other officer began to go through the boy’s pockets. When David tried to resist, the first officer simply lifted the boy’s handcuffed arms up into the air.

  Matt winced to see it; the position no doubt put considerable force on the boy’s shoulder joints and must have hurt like a bitch.

  By now several students had seen what was happening and a small crowd began to form in front of the building. Matt expected grumbles and shouts to come from Bateman’s fellow students and so he was surprised when the majority of them simply stood and watched in silence. Those few who tried to heckle the officers quickly stopped when they realized that the rest of their companions weren’t responding in kind.

  In fact, their entire behavior seemed pretty eerie…

  Olivia came out of the building at that point, arguing with Stevens over something, and Matt’s attention naturally moved to her. As he watched her walk in his direction, he felt a pang of sorrow. If he’d managed to disrupt Mr. Dark’s plans as badly as he thought he had, that meant he’d have to be moving on soon. And moving on meant leaving Olivia and her welcoming arms behind.

  “Idiots!” she said, as she came abreast of him. “The kid’s been manhandled enough as it is! All they had to do was ask him and he would have gone willingly, but no, they have to act like common thugs. I swear, what the hell is law enforcement coming to these days, when they have to hire…”

  Movement on the edge of the crowd caught Matt’s eye, distracting him from what Olivia was saying. He looked in that direction, trying to figure out what it was that had caught his attention. It hadn’t been the students, though they were acting creepy enough as it was. He thought…there!

  Matt could see someone standing at the edge of the crowd, partially hidden by a group of silently staring students, but he couldn’t make out who it was. He moved back and forth a little in the driver’s seat, trying to get a better look, but he wasn’t having any luck. It was almost as if whoever was over there knew he was looking and was intentionally avoiding his gaze.

  The cops were done searching Bateman now and were forcing him into the back of the patrol car, being none too gentle about it, either. That’s not right, Matt thought, they shouldn’t treat him like that.

  He rose partially up out of his seat, perhaps intending to say something, perhaps just wanting a better look, when the person who was standing at the back of the ground stepped into view.

  It was the eyes that clued him in first.

  They were filled with that jaunty, crazed expression of delight he’d first seen when the sick bastard had first appeared in his wife’s hospital room and the impish smile that broke out the moment he knew Matt had seen him only confirmed it.

  It didn’t matter what he looked like; Matt would know him anywhere.

  It was Mr. Dark.

  “Sonofabitch!” Matt exclaimed, startling Olivia out of her tirade.

  “What? What is it?” she wanted to know.

  But Matt didn’t have time to answer her. Dark was slipping away into the midst of the crowd and Matt had no intention of letting him go. Matt scrambled out of the cart and gave chase, pushing his way into the crowd. But where Dark seemed to move among the milling students with impunity, Matt continua
lly found the route blocked by groups of students, many of whom barely acknowledged his presence, their attention solely on the drama playing out ahead of them between Bateman and the cops.

  By the time Matt had forced his way to the other side of the crowd, Mr. Dark was gone.

  The next several hours were spent dealing with the administrative side of the situation. Officers took Matt’s statement, then asked him a number of questions about the incident to be certain his story was the same each time he told it. Thankfully, none of them seemed particularly interested in who he was or what his particular background might be; the minute they put him into the system they’d know he was that Matt Cahill but for now he still maintained some anonymity.

  Stevens gave him the rest of the day off in recognition of the “unusual stress” of the morning and so he and Olivia spent the afternoon together once she was finished with her counseling appointments for the day. They caught a movie at the town’s only theater and then an early dinner at an Italian place with which Olivia was familiar.

  It turned out to be a nice afternoon and early evening, for which Matt was grateful since he knew his attention had been wandering all night. His thoughts kept returning Mr. Dark’s appearance earlier that afternoon. Rather than being furious that Matt had spoiled his plans for a schoolyard massacre, Dark had seemed happy, almost jubilant at Bateman’s arrest. It was as if he had wanted the teenager to be arrested, which didn’t make any kind of sense at all.

  Matt was missing something; he knew that.

  He just didn’t know what yet.

  After dinner they returned to Olivia’s place as they had the night before. The sex this time was as good as the last and Matt forgot about Mr. Dark and his nefarious schemes, losing himself in the tangle of limbs, smooth flesh, and long soft hair, if only for a little while.