Victor backed away and very delicately closed the storm door. He backed down the steps and stood there for a second, trying to determine what he needed to do. Part of his brain was telling him to run, to go to the car and to get as far away as possible.
Yet there were things in that house he needed. There were his knives, the pistol he stole from Stanley’s house, the cash, and his clothes. Besides those things, he’d already decided if he had to make a getaway, his computer and gaming systems were going with him.
While Victor was weighing his options, the Death Merchant nudged him toward the cast-iron hatch leading to the old coal bin in the basement. It was the way he'd gotten out of the basement when Stanley locked him in there. Victor raised the door to the coal bin, his entire body clenched with anxiety, anticipating a metal-on-metal squeal that would alert whoever was inside to his presence. There was nothing. Apparently, opening it the other day had broken it loose and it did not protest being opened again.
When the door was fully raised, Victor used the rusty chain and hook dangling from the house to hold it in place. He lay on his stomach, stuck his head through the door, and listened. He heard nothing. He looked below him and saw the items he'd climbed on to get out of there before. He hoped he could gently slide himself through and land on his feet without knocking things over. If he made that much noise and someone was inside, then the jig was up.
Victor turned himself around and lay flat on his belly. He shimmied backwards, the iron door frame scraping his outstretched legs as he slid through the opening. It was considerably more difficult than climbing out of the chute door. It wasn't until he was through to his waist that his body folded and he began trying to lower himself to the floor.
His shirt snagged on the door frame, pulling up beneath his armpits. His belly and his insides were compressed and scraped against the metal. In a process somewhat akin to extruding playdough through a mold, Victor squeezed himself back into the basement.
While he managed to do so without making any noise, he was huffing and puffing from the exertion when he finally lowered himself to the concrete floor. He clamped a hand over his mouth, trying to muffle his gasping. Only then was he drenched in a wave of fear.
What had he done?
What did he think he was going to do if there were strangers in his house?
He reminded himself was this was Victor talking. The Death Merchant had faced many such situations in gaming before. He was not concerned about odds or disadvantages. He was a true killing machine.
Hence the name.
In the dark and cluttered basement room Victor tried to get himself pumped up for the task ahead. He was failing miserably at his attempts when he was overcome with a strange sensation. It was something he'd never experienced before, like the warm comfort of pain medication spreading through his body. At first he was uncertain what was happening, then it came to him. He smiled.
This was the Death Merchant sliding behind the wheel. Victor had never experienced that transition before. He would just snap out of it with the realization he was missing chunks of time. Chunks of his life. This time, his last thought before he totally went blank was that the experience of giving up control was not entirely unpleasant at all.
With the simpering coward pushed to the side, the Death Merchant took a deep breath and slowly let it out. He stretched and popped his knuckles. He reached down and gathered handfuls of the tremendous belly this body carried. He silently told himself the belly was going to have to go when the body was his once and for all. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be much longer now.
The Death Merchant found he could retrieve information from Victor's brain in the way a computer could retrieve data from the hard drive. That gave him all the information about the situation Victor had. He understood Victor knew someone had been in the house but was uncertain if they were still there. He had no idea who the intruders might be. It could also be that somebody had been there but was gone now.
Unlike Victor, the Death Merchant understood only the writers of the game could determine the scenario ahead of him. The Death Merchant understood that the more time he spent there ruminating, the less time he would have for accomplishing the tasks at hand. At some point the clock would run out and the match would be over. It was time to engage the enemy.
The Death Merchant crept to the door leading from the storage side of the basement. He turned the doorknob as slowly as possible, millimeters at a time, until the plunger was retracted all the way. Then he opened the door with the same caution, millimeters at a time, slowly releasing the knob as he did so. The Death Merchant had to open the door fully before he could get himself through without brushing against the door or frame.
Once the door was open, the Death Merchant moved into the square hallway at the bottom of the basement steps. The light on the stairs was not on but there was light coming down through the open door at the top of the steps, as well as from Victor's room. The Death Merchant took another step and listened.
The only sounds he heard in the house came from Victor's bedroom. He heard a body adjust its weight in the creaky desk chair, a flurry of clacking keys on the mechanical gaming keyboard, the rattle of ice as someone sipped from a drink, and then the slight thud of the glass being replaced on the computer desk.
Someone was comfortable here. The Death Merchant had to assume at this point it was not the police. The police would probably not come in and help themselves to a cold drink.
The Death Merchant placed a hand on the wall to steady himself and slipped off his shoes. He would be able to move more stealthily in his socks. He closed the distance from his position to the bedroom door and peered around the frame. What the Death Merchant saw made no sense to him at all.
There was a man who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent sitting at Victor’s desk. The Death Merchant was not a good judge of ages but he would assume the man was in his mid-to-late 20s. He was dressed casually in khaki pants, sneakers, and a T-shirt. He had a scruffy beard and long hair pulled back into a ponytail. The Death Merchant detected Victor did not know this man. He could feel that confirmation coming from the dark corner of his mind he’d pushed Victor back into.
The Death Merchant played games online a lot and heard of gamers sometimes taking it too far and confronting their opponents in the real world. Could this man be someone he’d confronted in battle? He could think of no one he’d angered or embarrassed so badly they would want to come after him in real life.
The Death Merchant would love to interrogate this man and find out who sent him, but to not kill him immediately would create the risk that the man might overpower him. Perhaps he had a weapon hidden in his clothing or somebody close at hand he may call out to. The only way the Death Merchant was guaranteed to prevail was to strike and strike fast. To move with fury and without mercy. It would have to be a killing blow.
With speed, but with the same robotic movements that often characterized the Death Merchant's movements, he strode into the room, snagging a combat tomahawk from the display of edged weapons as he passed. Victor could never have pulled off such efficient movement. There was no hesitation, no awkwardness. In full stride, the Death Merchant’s hand simply shot out, wrapped around the handle of the tomahawk, and snatched it up.
The man in the chair sensed the movement, perhaps seeing a reflection in his monitor screen, perhaps sensing his impending death, and cast a glance over his shoulder. He did not even have time to scream. The Death Merchant brought down the raised tomahawk with all his force. He did not have the cutting-edge turned toward the intruder. Instead, he used the back side of the blade. It was a long, razor-sharp hook, like a talon, and it sank into the man's head with a wet crunch.
The Death Merchant watched coldly, dispassionately, as the man's features froze and his mouth dropped. He was not dead but his wiring was severed. The Death Merchant yanked the tomahawk free and immediately swung again with a sideways below. This time he did lead with the cutting-edge and it sank into the sid
e of the man's neck, severing windpipe and jugular. Blood sprayed and gushed.
The Death Merchant reached out and grabbed the man’s shirt, yanking him away from the computer and the desktop. He intended to take those things with him and he did not want to have to clean blood out of Victor’s one hundred and fifty dollar keyboard. He shoved the man to the floor.
The stranger had several windows open on the computer but the Death Merchant did not have the time to investigate at the moment. He needed to make certain there was no one else in the house. Then he could return to find out what the stranger was up to.
The Death Merchant stalked boldly across Victor's room and into the square hallway. He swung around the corner and slowed to move quietly up the steps. He found the kitchen empty though things were not exactly as Victor had left them. Someone had been eating his frozen pizzas and drinking his sodas.
The Death Merchant continued on his search, knowing where to step to avoid creaking floorboards. He efficiently moved from room-to-room, searching for accomplices or backup. There was nobody and he could find no indication as to how many people might have been there. It may have been just the one man or it may have been more. The one person who could have told him wasn’t up for interrogation.
After verifying the house was empty, the Death Merchant headed to the kitchen and grabbed a slice of pizza off the stove. Victor had been expert-level at assessing the age and health hazards of old pizza slices. He could tell how old a slice was just by studying the curl at the edges. For the Death Merchant, pizza was merely fuel, and fuel was what he required at the moment. He shoved the piece of pizza in his mouth and grabbed up a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew from the table.
Returning to the basement, he found the dead man in a much larger puddle of blood now. He stripped the sheets and blankets from the bed, laying them down in the floor to absorb some of the mess. He didn’t want to be tracking through it as he went about his business. Remembering he was still in his socks, he returned to the hallway, sat on the stairs, and put his shoes back on.
Back at the computer desk, the Death Merchant took the command chair. He spotted a mobile phone sitting on the computer desk. He tried to access it but was unable to unlock the screen. There were several notifications on the screen but they were in a language he was unable to read.
On his own computer, he saw several social media sites open. There were various profiles with different names and he could not recall having ever seen any of them before. There were other windows open full of foreign language script he could not read. Other text windows appeared to contain computer code, as if the dead man had been writing or editing a script or executable file.
The Death Merchant wished he had more time to study what was on the screen but he didn’t. He’d killed a third person. The man might have friends who would be returning soon. The world at large was closing in on him with each passing second. All of his deeds, all of the people he’d killed, increased the speed at which the world was shrinking. For now, it was still large enough that he could move around inside it, but he sensed at some point it would close back around him like a sleeping bag.
Like his mother’s vile and inhospitable womb.
He closed out every window on his machine in preparation for shutting it down. Despite everything, he still planned on taking it and his gaming systems with him. When he got to the last browser window, he found Amanda Castle’s profile staring back at him.
The Death Merchant stared into her eyes. She stared back boldly, almost challenging him. Were she here, she would not be so brave. The Death Merchant was not so easily swayed by a pretty face as Victor was. The Death Merchant saw a woman who, like Victor's mother, was likely manipulative and spiteful, evil to the core.
The Death Merchant looked from the profile on his screen to the dead man in his floor. Pieces fell into place. There could only be one conclusion. Amanda Castle had sent this man for him. He clearly had some connection with her, or why would that profile have been up on the screen? Only one person could answer that and the Death Merchant was going to pay her a visit. It was time to return to Boone, North Carolina.
It was time to do what Victor had been unable to do on his visit there.
It was time for Amanda Castle to die.
44
Cole agreed to let Amanda ride her bike to work on the condition that Ben bring her home. After the situation with the strange guy showing up at the shop, he wasn’t ready to let his daughter make her own way home through miles of dark, isolated woods. She was agreeable, at least as a starting point. She could earn more freedom later. He still insisted she wear the little ESEE Izula knife in a sheath around her neck.
From Cole’s house, she rode on gravel for a while, then on the shoulder of a paved country road a short distance before getting on the trail. From there, it was a little over an hour of wooded trail to the bike shop. Returning home would take a little longer because there would be more uphill riding. She was determined she’d be doing that by the end of summer. It was good to have goals and that was hers, both as a measure of improving fitness and of gaining more freedom.
She was grinning broadly as she entered the bike shop and stashed her bike in the stockroom. She went into the employee restroom, changed into her t-shirt, and did something to fix her helmet hair.
“Good ride?” Ben asked when she emerged.
“Do you even have to ask?”
He shook his head and laughed. “Nope.”
“Lot of shuttle reservations this afternoon?”
“About normal. Should be steady but not brutal.”
“Steady is good,” she said.
“Think you’re up to a ride this weekend?” Ben asked.
“What is this? Some kind of bicycle date?”
“Not exactly,” Ben replied. “Some friends are planning a ride this weekend. It’s about an hour away.”
“Am I not working?” she asked.
Ben gave her a sneaky look. “I made arrangements for us to both be off at the same time so you could go if you want. Of course, you can always request to be put back on the schedule if you’re not interested in going.”
“I’m interested,” Amanda said quickly. “If you think I can handle it.”
“It’s not too brutal,” Ben said. “You can do it at your own pace.”
“Then I’m definitely in.”
The shift went fast. There was a steady stream of rental returns for most of the afternoon, tapering off as it rolled into evening. In between check-ins, they serviced the rental bikes, sprayed helmets with Lysol, and performed all the other closing activities. About thirty minutes before they closed, Amanda’s phone started blowing up.
“Are you going to check that?” Ben asked. “Somebody is lighting you up.”
“You don’t mind? I don’t want you to think I’m a slacker.”
“I already know you’re not a slacker. You can check your phone.”
Amanda’s backpack was under the counter. She pulled her phone out and found she had several texts from her friend Raven.
“It’s just Raven,” she said. She’d mentioned her best friend to Ben before.
“What’s she want?”
“She always texts like that when she has something on her mind. She’s determined.”
“Oh,” Ben said, checking the tires on an older Trek with a pressure gauge.
Amanda unlocked her phone and started through the texts.
Raven: I have pictures you need to see. From MySpace.
Amanda still hadn’t found the time to explore the site yet. A picture popped up within the messaging app. Amanda squinted at it. It was at some type of social event. People were dressed in business suits and formal dresses. Her mother was with a group of people, and they all had mixed drinks or wine glasses in their hand.
Amanda: It’s Mom.
Raven: Duh. I know, but who is beside her?
The guy in the picture had a beard and it took Amanda a second to recognize him.
&n
bsp; Amanda: Fox!
Raven: Zoom in. Look down at your mom’s side.
Amanda did as Raven asked, noticing exactly what Raven was referring to. Fox’s hand was visible on her mother’s side. His arm was wrapped around her.
Amanda: It’s probably innocent. I just didn’t realize they knew each other that long ago.
Raven: There’s more.
Several more photos appeared in the stream of texts. All were of Amanda’s mom and Fox looking very friendly with each other. They weren’t always the subject of interest in the pictures, just visible in the background dancing together or talking intimately.
Amanda: Maybe they dated a long time ago.
Raven: These pictures were taken after you were born.
Amanda nearly dropped the phone.
Amanda: No fucking way. How do you know?
Raven: It was at some kind of banking conference. There are pictures where the year is visible in a banner on the wall.
Looking back through the pictures, Amanda saw the same thing.
Amanda: It doesn’t make any sense. Why would she have posted these? Wouldn’t she have been afraid of my dad seeing them if they were already married? If I was already born?
Raven: They’re not on her MySpace page.
Amanda: Then whose?
Then it hit her. Before she could ask, the message popped up on her screen.
Raven: They’re on Fox’s page.
Amanda was stunned, her mind racing in all kinds of directions. Raven was thinking the same things and began texting her theories.
Raven: They met at a conference. They were having an affair. While your dad was at home taking care of you, your mom was hooking up with Fox. They never told you they knew each other?
Amanda: No. I’m pretty sure they told me they only met after she moved to Virginia. I don’t remember Fox being part of the picture when we moved up there.
Random Acts Page 26
