Children of the Dark

by Jonathan Janz

  As I lay there, I noticed a bunch of old tools on the bottom shelf of our workbench. Pliers, a hammer, a mallet made of crumbling rubber.

  And on the floor under that, an axe.

  I swallowed. If I could get to that…

  Padgett seized me by the hair and hauled me to my feet. It felt like he was removing my scalp.

  When I looked at Mom again, I realized what he’d been doing to her.

  Her wrists were bound behind her back by wire.

  “It ain’t much sport cuffing a pup like you,” he said. “You’re young, sure, but you don’t have to be so clumsy. Fight like you’ve got a brain, Son.”

  “Quit calling me that.”

  He thrust a forearm under my throat, placed something cold and hard against my temple. My mom screamed.

  “Or what?” he growled. “What’re you gonna do to old Carl?”

  The headlock was choking off my airway, but even if I could’ve spoken, I wouldn’t have known what to say.

  To my mom, he said, “Get in.”

  She looked at him, uncomprehending.

  “The cistern,” he snapped, “the cistern! Get your skinny butt in there.”

  She shook her head, her face pale. “I don’t want to.”

  The muzzle of the gun burrowed into my temple. “You want our son to live?”

  Her gaze was heartbroken, helpless. I tried to shake my head to tell her No, don’t do it, but after a moment her shoulders slumped and she shuffled over to the circular hole in the floor.

  I stared down at it in dread. The black water lapped lazily against the muck-slimed rim. Mom watched that black circle of water with a look of such doom that I redoubled my efforts to break free of Padgett’s grip. But the viselike forearm under my chin tightened, and for many moments I couldn’t draw breath.

  “Stop it!” my mom shouted. “Just stop it, Carl. I’ll get in.”

  The forearm loosened on my neck, and though I was able to breathe again, the sight of my mom lowering to her side, then letting her legs dangle into the murky water made my throat tighten all over again.

  “Don’t make her get in there,” I pleaded. “Don’t make her—”

  Mom’s body splashed into the hole.

  Her lower body disappeared, then her torso. Her chin dipped under the water, and just when I thought her eyes would too, her body jarred, and she came up spluttering and gasping.

  When the water stopped sloshing in the cistern, I could see it rose to the level of her chin. There were about six inches between the top of her head and the rim of the cistern.

  Padgett sounded disappointed. “Hell, I reckoned it was deeper than that.”

  “It is,” Mom said, her voice echoing a little. “I found a foothold.”

  “Good luck stayin’ above water,” he said. “‘Specially when it rises and this whole basement floods.”

  My mom’s face was shadowed by the sable water, but I could see well enough the terror on her face as the reality of her situation took hold.

  I gnashed my teeth in mute frustration. I had to help her.

  “Come on, kid,” Padgett said. He began dragging me toward the door.

  “No!” I said, but he clamped down on me again, and this time it was the exquisite pain that affected me more than the lack of air. It felt like my larynx was being set ablaze. But still, I struggled against him.

  “Listen,” Padgett growled into my ear. “You do what I tell you, and your mama will live. We gotta get rid of that police cruiser, and I need a new ride. We do all that quickly enough, and your mama will be just fine.”

  He kicked open the door and shoved me toward the stairs.

  I threw out my arms, caught myself, and whirled. I was about to leap onto Padgett when he raised the gun, pointed it straight at my forehead.

  “Think about it, kid. You die, who’s gonna save your mama? If you get away from me, you really think I’m gonna leave her down here alive?”

  He let those words sink in.

  Nodding, he said, “The only way to do this is my way. You come along while I conduct my business. You behave, and your mama lives. But we gotta be quick. You hear the storm out there? The water’s rising fast in that cistern.”

  “Why should I trust you?” I asked.

  He grinned. “A father would never lie to his boy.”

  ¨

  We’d ridden in silence for a few minutes when Padgett turned to me. “Why’d you let those sissies beat up on you?”

  “Like I had any choice,” I said.

  “You’ve always got a choice, boy.”

  “When there are three of them and one of you?” I asked. “Not to mention they’re all older—one of them ten years older?”

  Padgett sighed. “I hate to break this to you, kiddo, but I can tell you’ve been raised by your mama. A dad worth anything would never let you get away with the kind of shit your peddlin’. Three guys? So what? You go after the toughest one, make him pay for tryin’ to punk you, the other two’ll piss their pants and run away.”

  I shook my head, glared out the side window. “You don’t know Eric Blades.”

  Padgett eyed me, interested. “Blades the one with the Mustang?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Padgett turned the windshield wipers on full blast. The rain was picking up, the sky darkening. “I know the type. Lean. A little reckless. Bet he’s into the drug scene, isn’t he?”

  I tried not to show my surprise at the accuracy of his guesses.

  Padgett nodded meditatively. “I can see how a kid like that might seem harder than most, but deep down he’s still just a kid. He’d scare just like anybody else.”

  “I think you’re the coward.”

  I waited for a backhand to the mouth—I even steeled myself for it—but Padgett merely settled into his seat, a wistful grin on his whiskered face. “Let me tell you a story. One that’ll illustrate my point.”

  I glared out the windshield. As he talked, the reek of Padgett’s musky body odor and foul, sour-milk breath began to envelope me.

  “The moment that bastard judge sentenced me, I knew how it was gonna be. My lawyer warned me what happened to guys like me in stir. My lawyer says, ‘The inmates will kill you within a week, Carl. Our only hope is to impress upon the warden how much danger you’re in. Then, maybe, they’ll keep you away from all the mad dogs.’”

  Padgett chuckled. “You believe that, Will? My lawyer, he calls the other inmates mad dogs. Like I’m the one who ought to be afraid.” He chuckled, drew a hand over his mouth. “Mad dogs.”

  Padgett flipped on his signal and hooked a right toward the country. Was he planning on taking me to some deserted spot and executing me there?

  I glanced down, wondered if I could hit the door lock, thrust open the door, and tumble out without dying or getting run over.

  “But I knew there was no chance of that,” Padgett went on. “No judge—and certainly no warden—was going to mitigate my sentence in any way. See, kid, they want certain convicts killed. The sex offenders, the child killers…they say you’re sentenced to ten years or whatever, but what they’re really saying is, you’re gonna die in stir. They stick you in a cell with one of their most violent mad dogs, and they look the other way while their guy guts you. Most pedophiles, they don’t last a month in prison. Hell, they often pay a prisoner to do the job. You believe that? They pay a guy to kill another guy? And they say I’m the monster? Hell.”

  My fingers edged toward the door button. I’d have to be quick, wait until Padgett was making a left turn. Then I’d run no risk of being crushed. The only peril I’d have to contend with was landing and rolling without rupturing bones. If I could do that, I believed I could outrun Carl Padgett.

  “So they put me with their number one badass, a guy by the name of Henry Carlisle.” Padgett looked at me. “Ain’t that a cool name? Henry Carlisle? Sounds like a president or something. Or maybe some dead British philosopher. But the hilarious part is, Carlisle was nothing but a petty thie
f who, upon being released from prison the first time, killed the partner who informed on him.”

  My index finger settled on the door button, but we were going way too fast to attempt my escape. Forty-five at least. At that speed I’d probably have my skin torn off by all the gravel on the shoulder of the road, and then Padgett would simply double back to finish the job as I lay there bleeding and begging for my life.

  No, I had to wait.

  Padgett nodded. “Yeah, Carlisle was a real hoss. About twice my size, with arms on him like Samson. And tattoos? Jesus, you never seen so many tattoos. Guy looked like a walking work of art. I mean, it was bad art, of course. All his tats were faded and butt ugly to begin with. But still…” He shook his head, screwed up his eyes to peer through the rain. “Really pissin’ out here, isn’t it?”

  I kept quiet, deliberating. If he took a left at the T-road ahead, I might be able to leap out. He’d have to slow to almost a stop to make the turn in this severe downpour. But if Padgett took a right, the back wheel might crunch over my leg, and then I’d be worse off than I was now.

  “Anyway,” Padgett said, “long story short, they pair me up with big ole Henry Carlisle, and the first night he comes after me just like I knew he would. Carlisle wasn’t gonna wait for the perfect chance, kinda like you’re doing now, waitin’ for the perfect moment to jump out of this here car.”

  I froze.

  “Kind of moron you think I am, boy? Of course, you’re gonna try to escape. You figure, hey, this Padgett fella’s gonna kill me anyway and leave my mom down in that hole. Why not make a break for it?” He turned to me. “Am I right?”

  I felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to my knees. I let my hands rest in my lap.

  “So Carlisle comes after me. He’s got a knife—an honest-to-goodness knife. Looked like something you’d gut a catfish with.” He smiled bitterly. “In prison movies it’s always somebody shankin’ this guy or shankin’ that guy. But why sharpen a scrap of metal when the guards simply hand you a giant fucking fillet knife?

  “So about ten minutes after lights-out, Carlisle comes for me. He’s got his big gleaming knife, and I’ve got my bare hands and nothin’ else.”

  Padgett fell silent. Waiting, I could tell, for me to ask him to go on with his story. I didn’t want to give Padgett any kind of encouragement—I hated the son of a bitch. But I had to admit I was curious. So grudgingly, I said, “What happened?”

  Padgett nodded, clearly relishing his narrative. We crunched to a stop at the T-road, and Padgett resumed his story. “One thing they don’t talk about is how strong I am. I mean, you caught a glimpse of it when I knocked you on your ass in that basement, but you’ve never actually seen me in action. You know I was in construction, but I was never just a designer, Will, I was a builder. I loved to get my hands dirty, to lift things over my head and watch the other guys shit themselves in shock at how strong I was.”

  Padgett turned right.

  “So Carlisle, he’s used to guys quailing before him, beggin’ him for mercy. I suspect he’d killed a good many guys, and he sees me as nothin’ more than another toe tag. He comes at me, the knife glinting, and I barely have time to roll away. The blade punctures my mattress, buries itself there, and that’s all the time I need. Carlisle, bless his tattooed brain, he leaves the knife stickin’ in the mattress and goes for me with his bare hands. I give him a crack on the bridge of the nose, quicklike, and he stumbles back, dazed. I grab that knife of his and yank it out. Then, I go after him. I work him around the cell, jabbing at him, and corner him by the bunk beds. I fake with the knife at his face, and of course he throws his hands up—no one, no matter how crazy, wants to be disfigured, right?—and when those tattooed arms go up, that blade goes in. Right here.” Padgett raised his right arm and tapped the place under his armpit. “But I don’t kill him right away, because that wouldn’t have the right effect.” He turned to me. “You know what I mean?”

  When he saw the look on my face, some of his mirth died away. “Naw, I don’t suppose you would. Little sissy like you. So I’ll spell it out for you, kiddo. What I did to Carlisle, it had nothin’ to do with him.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “You took his life. How can you say it had nothing to do with—”

  “The other inmates,” Padgett blurted. “It was all about the other inmates. I knew it might be awhile before I could escape.” Something terrible flitted across his features. “More than a decade, as it turned out. And if I was gonna be in stir for any length of time, I knew I had to make a statement. Henry Carlisle might have been their prized killer, but I knew there’d be others. I didn’t want a bunch of other Henry Carlisles coming after me every time I turned my back. This road look familiar, Will?”

  I realized with a sick jolt we were about to turn right again. This would take us along the western edge of Peaceful Valley, but far worse than that, it would take us in the direction of a neighborhood I knew.

  Where the Wallaces lived.

  Where Peach was staying.

  But Padgett didn’t know that. Did he?

  We drove on, the cruiser picking up speed as it headed into the tree-lined part of the road, the beginnings of the Peaceful Valley Forest. “People who’ve never killed before, everything they’ve learned about the human body has come from TV and movies. Oh, and high school biology class. But here’s somethin’ I bet you didn’t know. Bones are really hard. Sure, they’re spongy inside, but a bone’s not an easy thing to break. So as I shoved my hand inside that cut I’d made under Henry Carlisle’s armpit, I had to pull down hard to break his ribs. Oh, I didn’t need to break all of them—just two. Still, it took some effort.”

  Ahead, on the left, I saw the first couple houses. Most of the homes out here were two stories, all of them built on two or three acres. A quiet neighborhood and—at least I’d always thought—a safe place for Peach to visit.

  Out of the corner of my eye I tried to study Padgett’s face. Did he know? Or was it merely a coincidence he chose this place to stash the cruiser? I knew there were plenty of ponds and marshes out here—Peaceful Valley was full of them. In fact, I remembered there being a large, swampy area at the end of this road. The perfect place to sink a car. So it was entirely possible Padgett had chosen this route strategically.

  Still, I held my breath when the Wallaces’ tidy brick home came into view, about six lots away now. I dug my fingers into the seat to keep them from tapping.

  Padgett’s voice was conversational, as if he were commenting on the rain. “I reached into Henry’s wound, and I made sure he was looking at me. Those big doe eyes of his.” Padgett chuckled. “Once I’d snapped those ribs it was fairly easy working my hand into Henry’s guts. I dug into his lung, knowing once I did he’d be beyond making any noise. It didn’t take long for me to find what I was hunting for.”

  The Wallaces’ house was only three properties away. It was raining hard now. I prayed that would keep Peach and her friend Juliet inside.

  Two properties away and no sign of the girls.

  “You starin’ at something in particular?” Padgett asked.

  With a rush of terror, I snapped my eyes forward, did my best to remove the guilty look from my face.

  Please keep driving, I urged. Please don’t stop.

  We rolled past the Wallaces.

  I kept my eyes straight ahead, cursing myself for being so careless. How ironic would it be if Padgett didn’t know where Peach was until I gave her whereabouts away?

  Some protector I was.

  Padgett was talking again. “…and when I finally had it, I walked over and left it outside the cell. Then I went to work on ol’ Henry.” He glanced at me. “You know about my calling card?”

  “Of course I do,” I muttered, my stomach roiling. “You write a message in your victim’s blood, usually to taunt the police. You got the idea from Jack the Ripper.”

  “Not bad, kiddo. But Jack the Ripper could only manage five kills. I’m still going.”

&nb
sp; God, I thought. Padgett was actually gloating about his crimes. It shouldn’t have surprised me at that point, not after all I’d seen. But it still made me queasy.

  We were a couple houses beyond the Wallaces’, and Padgett showed no sign of slowing.

  A question occurred to me. “Why did you kill Kylie Ann?”

  “Why do you think?” he asked, grinning.

  My mouth went dry.

  He rolled down the windows, and we were immediately assaulted by stinging rain.

  The last house in the subdivision came and went. Woods swallowed the road, and after about twenty yards, pavement gave way to gravel. Soon I glimpsed the scum-covered swamp peeking through the trees ahead. Padgett maneuvered the cruiser off the dead end road, through a narrow gap in the trees, and halted about fifteen yards from the edge of the black tarn.

  “Come on, kid,” he said, climbing out. “Unless you wanna sink with this here car.”

  I got out and surveyed the woods around us.

  “And if you try to run,” Padgett said, “I’ll drown your mom without blinking. You doubt me?”

  I sighed. “No.”

  He crept around the woods, frowning at the ground. I had a brief recollection of the beast. Of Officer Hubbard’s decapitation. Were the creatures out here too? And would they go for me first or Padgett?

  Padgett surveyed the ground a few moments longer, then he seized on something, ambled over to it, and bent over. I saw as he straightened that it was a large rock. Not quite as big as a volleyball, but not far off. Padgett hoisted it to waist level, staggered over to the open door, and dropped it on the floor with a deep thud. A moment later, the engine gunned, the accelerator pressed flat, but the cruiser still in park.

  “Stand back, Son. Unless you wanna end up a hood ornament.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he thrust the car into gear. The cruiser peeled out for a moment, its back end sluing toward me. Then it hurtled toward the swamp. The cruiser’s front end dipped down, plunging under the water’s surface, but the car kept going. The sludgy water rapidly devoured the car. Lapping over its white hood. Swallowing its roof. Soon even the tailgate disappeared into the black swamp’s gullet.