“You two better get going,” she said. “You know where the grocery store is?”
“I’ve been there before,” Trent said, as he and Zana waved good-bye and stepped out into the cold air again. It seemed that each time they went outside, the weather was a few degrees colder than it had been the time before.
“I can’t wait to see this grocery store,” Zana said, as Trent guided her toward The Towers.
He grinned and squeezed her hand.
“Not the largest selection you’ve ever seen, but not bad for a grocery store located in an apartment building. We can buy the rest of what we need at the diner. But first, I want to check out Christina’s apartment.”
Zana looked over at him as they walked.
“She gave you a key?”
Trent laughed.
“No. But I don’t need a key to get into an apartment.”
Chapter 17
TRENT STOOD IN PLACE at the bottom of the steps that led up to the entrance of The Towers.
This was the building where he was trapped and forced to escape along with Christina. He remembered its dark hallways—it’s crazed residents, chasing and trying to kill him. It had been the most surreal and exhausting night of his life, and he had barely survived.
He recognized the heavy double doors that had been locked with a chain from the outside. The wire mesh windowpanes had been repaired where he had tried to break through them to get out.
“This is where it happened?” Zana asked.
He nodded.
“You can wait here, and I can go in and get what we need,” she said. “Or we can go back to the diner and see how much we can get from there.”
“It’s okay,” Trent said as he took her hand and started up the steps.
Before they made it to the top, two couples walked out of the door, chatting happily amongst themselves. As soon as they saw Trent, they lowered their voices. They made eye contact and quickly looked away as they hurried past.
“Friends of yours?” Zana said.
Trent thought he recognized them from that night of terror, but it had been dark and too hard to make out the details of many of the faces. But if they lived in The Towers, he was sure he had seen them at some point.
“The spirit attached to you—it’s moving—almost pulsing—like it’s upset about something.”
Trent pulled open the doors and walked into the lobby. “Let’s get this over with.”
Inside, there was a small room with some old vinyl armchairs, a couch, and a small coffee table. Three of the residents stood around them, catching up on the latest gossip.
Trent headed for the elevator with Zana, ignoring the residents as they stopped to look at him.
Once in the elevator car, Trent hit the button for the twelfth floor. When they stepped into the hallway, his mind was saturated with vivid flashbacks. Having sex with Christina in the apartment. Being trapped inside her apartment. Almost dying in her apartment.
He made his way quietly down the hall—Zana by his side.
“Are you picking anything up?” he whispered, without turning toward her.
There was a moment of quiet before she answered.
“Nothing specific. But this whole building is filled with echoes of spiritual activity. Something happened here, that’s for sure. And it wasn’t good.”
Trent nodded as they reached Christina’s door. Together, they stood in silence, listening. There was the sound of a television from an apartment or two down the hall, but no sounds came from Christina’s place.
He took a deep breath and exhaled. Then he knocked on the door.
No response.
He knew the apartment wasn’t very large and that anyone inside would have been able to hear his knock under normal conditions.
He knocked again—louder this time, and waited.
Still nothing.
A young man stuck his head out of an apartment farther down the hall and peered at Trent and Zana.
“Looking for someone?” he said.
Trent slowly walked toward him, his arms relaxed by his side, his hands open and unthreatening.
“Old friend of Christina’s just dropping by to say, Hi. Any idea where she is?”
The young man’s body stiffened. He wasn’t buying Trent’s story.
“No one just drops by Whittier,” he said. “Christina’s a nice person, and she don’t need any trouble.”
Trent smiled, trying to put the man at ease.
“I told you, I’m a friend of hers. And I know this place is pretty remote, but I thought my girlfriend here would enjoy a glacial cruise. If Christina’s not around, that’s fine. I was just a little worried, because her boss over at the diner said he hadn’t seen her for a few days.”
Trent’s face turned somber as he looked the young man dead in his eyes.
“I wanted to make sure a bear hadn’t got ahold of her. Or something even worse.”
The young man grunted.
“Good luck,” he said, over his shoulder, before heading back into his apartment and locking the door behind him.
Trent reached into his jacket pocket as he and Zana walked back to Christina’s door.
“Keep a lookout, would you? She’s got a deadbolt, so I’m going to need about a minute to get us inside.”
Chapter 18
ZANA STEPPED aside as Trent pulled out two thin metal rods.
Within seconds, there was a click, and the doorknob turned freely.
Trent moved on to the deadbolt.
He inserted the first pick to act as a lever, as if it were a key, then raked the tumblers with the straighter pick. He applied constant pressure to the lever pick and pulled back on the long one, as each tumbler fell into place, and the deadbolt slid back smoothly.
He half expected Christina to come rushing toward him as soon as the door was open, but instead he was greeted by the smell of a room that had not been lived in recently.
Trent motioned Zana into the apartment and closed the door behind them.
“Christina?” he said out loud, even though he knew she wasn’t there.
“It’s not the nicest place I’ve ever seen,” Zana said, walking around the living room.
Trent looked at her, surprised.
“Says the woman who lived in the storm tunnels until recently…”
“Just because I lived in a tunnel doesn’t make this any less of a crappy apartment.”
Trent shrugged.
“Fair enough.”
“What are we looking for, Sherlock?”
She brought up a good point. Other than making sure Christina wasn’t holed up in her apartment, he wasn’t sure what he hoped to find.
He walked around the tiny residence and tried to take it all in—not just the details, but the whole picture.
Her bed was made. Dishes were done, and the sink was clean. The shower and the bar of soap were bone dry. There were only a few pieces of clothing in the laundry bin. Her bathroom looked clean. Her toothbrush was still there, which was odd if she had purposefully travelled somewhere.
“Maybe we can learn more by what isn’t here,” he said.
He checked Christina’s hall closet. No snow boots. No heavy jackets.
Back in her bedroom, her nightstand drawer was devoid of the rope and flashlight she used to keep there.
“There are some things missing that she might have taken with her if she was planning on being gone for a while,” he said. “The most I can be pretty sure of is that it doesn’t look like she left in a hurry or like anyone broke into her apartment and kidnapped her.”
Zana stepped up next to Trent, as he continued to scan the room for any clues to her whereabouts.
“Back to our previous plan of waiting?”
“Unless you’ve got a better idea,” he said with his hands on his hips, arms akimbo.
“We’d better get the supplies and make our way out to the cabin. If it’s as messy as her condo was, we might have a lot of cleaning to do just to
find the bed.”
Zana smirked.
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
Trent looked out the peephole and didn’t see anyone in the hallway.
They left the apartment, locked the doorknob from the inside, closed the door, and after another minute, Trent had re-locked the deadbolt.
When they stepped into the elevator, he hit the button for the first floor, but his finger hovered over the button for the basement.
“Not ready to leave?” Zana asked as she watched his trembling finger.
“I need to see one more thing before we get the supplies.”
A few seconds later, they stepped out into the poorly lit basement hallway. Trent took Zana’s hand and walked in silence down the hallway, on their way to the large open room that Trent knew existed under The Towers.
When he walked into the gigantic room, his shoulders relaxed and his breathing returned to normal.
“This is where the residents used to lock themselves in their cages every full moon,” he said.
Those same cages were now lined up against the wall and filled with household items. Children’s bikes. Sports equipment. Spare furniture.
As he gazed across the cleared room, he remembered the first time he’d been there. The room had been filled with residents locked away in cages, naked like animals. Some tried to bite through their metal bars, while others threw their bodies against the cages until they bled. Their teeth snapped and spittle flew from their mouths as they desperately struggled to reach Trent.
He knew they would have killed him without a second thought if he’d given them the chance, but their real enemy was the Elder—the old man who had convinced them they were cursed and that locking themselves away during a full moon was for their own safety.
Clearing his mind, Trent turned to see Zana on her knees, rocking back and forth, and hyperventilating.
“Can’t breathe,” she said, in a raspy voice. “There’s too much pain in this place. Get me out of here.”
Trent helped Zana up and rushed her back to the elevator. The elevator door opened as soon as he hit the up button.
By the time they stepped made it back to the main lobby, she was breathing better and able to stand on her own. He sat her down in one of the vinyl chairs the residents had been milling around earlier.
“I’ll be okay now,” she said.
“I’ll be right back with the supplies,” he said, as he ran down the hall and into one of the apartments that had been refurbished as a mini grocery store with homemade shelves lining its walls.
He picked up some sandwich bread, canned tuna, dried noodles, and various other easy-to-cook meals. After paying for the supplies, he hurried back to Zana whose color had returned to her face.
“Let’s drop these off at the car and then head back to the diner for anything else we need. You can wait at the car if you want,” Trent said in a concerned voice.
“I’m fine now. The basement hit me like a hammer. It overwhelmed me—the amount of anger.”
“At the time, I thought they were all just crazy, but now that I know—there were a couple hundred angry spirits all shoved into that one room—all feeding off each other’s hatred. The scene was like a human zoo—like nothing I ever want to see again.”
Zana nodded and squeezed his hand as they dropped off their groceries at the car, then made their way back to the diner.
While they were there, they decided to have a hearty lunch, and tried not to pay attention to the locals who were staring at Trent and talking in hushed whispers.
After their fulfilling but awkward lunch, they hopped in their rent-a-car and followed the makeshift map Mrs. Carney had made for them.
As they were about to leave the town proper, they drove past the abandoned, burned out barracks known as the Buckner Building, with its broken windows and Keep Out signs. Given what Trent and Christina had gone through in that hellish place, he was relieved to see that someone had erected a fence around the property recently.
“Pretty creepy,” Zana said as they passed. “I’m sure there’s plenty of spirits roaming around that place.”
Trent didn’t even pause as they drove past the old building.
“You have no idea, and trust me—you don’t want to know.”
After driving past the construction work that Mrs. Carney told them about, they turned right at the next road, on their way up to the cabin.
Luckily, the small car was a front-wheel drive and was able to make its way up the semi-smooth road without much problem, even with the thin covering of white powder on the ground from a previous snow. To Trent’s surprise, they made it farther up the road than he thought they would before the tires started to loose traction, and the car threatened to slide back down the road.
As Mrs. Carney had suggested, Trent turned the car around so that it was facing downhill. He pulled hard on the emergency brake, then placed the largest rocks he could lift in front of the rear tires. Satisfied that the car was stable, he and Zana picked up their packs and looked around for any signs of the cabin.
The road snaked up the mountain for another eighth of a mile before ending at the edge of a forest.
“I say we keep going straight and hope we run into it.” Trent said, as they started their hike.
After a few minutes, they were in the woods, following a rarely used path wide enough to fit two abreast. Soon, the cabin came into view. It was simple with only one visible window and a chimney.
He knew this was no vacation, and he was still wary about what to expect inside the actual cabin, but there was something serene and beautiful about the forest that allowed him to forget for a few moments the reason he was really here.
Just briefly, he was able to enjoy the fact that he was a man with a beautiful woman, walking through awe-inspiring surroundings, on the way to what would normally be a romantic getaway.
He knew he was here to talk to Christina—to find out as much as he could about what she had done to him and to figure out a way to get rid of the dark spirit that dwelled inside of him. At the same time, he was looking forward to enjoying some peace, quiet, and perhaps even a little romance, far away from the craziness of the past month and a half, for at least one night, before their search for Christina began in earnest.
Chapter 19
AS EXPECTED, THE HUNTER was pulled aside for a random check by one of the DHS security guards. He knew that he wasn’t carrying anything illegal or any items that offended the ever-changing policies of the Homeland Security drones. His only crime was his appearance.
“Please step over here, sir,” the overweight DHS officer said as she passed her wand up and down his body.
The Hunter checked his watch. Still plenty of time before his flight.
“Please, keep your hands by your side.”
The Hunter complied with a grin.
“What’s the nature of your trip today, sir?”
Get her name so we can kill her when we get back in town.
“Vacation. Maybe a little hunting,” he said.
His voice came out garbled and low, sounding like it hurt for him to speak.
“Are you carrying anything that could be used as a weapon on your person?”
Anything can be used as a weapon, stupid whore.
“My rifle’s in my checked luggage with the proper paperwork.”
The woman’s shoulders relaxed slightly, but she eyed him suspiciously.
“What happened to your face, if you don’t mind me asking?”
He kept his expression as deadpan as possible.
“I tripped and fell in the dark.”
The woman’s face turned sour, but he knew she couldn’t find any real reason to detain him further, so she motioned for him to move along.
The Hunter glanced at her name tag.
“Have a good day, Sheila.”
The woman eyed him before he walked away—looking for any hint of sarcasm, but the Hunter’s voice was filled with sincerity and calm.
The Hunter broke their gaze and moved over to the conveyor belt to collect his carry-on bag, his Stetson, and his shoes. He sat in one of the plastic chairs off to the side to put his shoes back on, then pulled his Stetson down low over his face.
As he made his way through the airport, down the escalators and waited for the shuttle to Terminal C, his fellow travelers didn’t pay much attention to him at all. Most were too preoccupied with their own schedules and their cell phones to even look up.
When he made it to his gate and sat, waiting for the plane to start boarding, he kept his head bowed and his eyes on his cell phone—but his mind was going over what he would do once he arrived in Whittier.
In about ten minutes, the flight started to board, and because he was flying first class, he was one of the first to be called. As he made his way to his row, he slid into the spacious seat near the window.
He glanced at the empty seat next to him, pleased with his decision to purchase two adjacent seats to ensure his privacy during the flight.
After they were in the air, his thoughts turned again to Trent Walker, again. But this time, he simply imagined the myriad ways he could kill him.
His favorite fantasy involved tearing Walker’s arms and legs from their sockets, one by one with his bear hands, and leaving him to be slowly eaten by insects. In his fantasy, Walker didn’t bleed out, but stayed conscious and alive until the ants and spiders and beetles had almost stripped his bones bare.
A woman’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
“Would you like something to drink, sir?”
The Hunter instinctively looked up at the attractive airline attendant standing in the aisle with the beverage cart, before he remembered the horrid appearance of his face.
As their eyes met, he saw a wave of revulsion pass over her face. Because she was a professional, she quickly recovered and shot him a shiny, but obviously fake smile.
“A whisky. Neat,” he said, in his garbled tone.
The woman handed him a plastic cup and a miniature bottle of whisky, while avoiding looking at his twisted face. Once again, he wondered why his father had chosen to heal everything but his face.
The Whittier Trilogy Page 39
