Michael motioned for her to stay back, but Cecilia was right on his heel.
“Francesca?”
This time, the giggle could not be mistaken for anything but a giggle.
“Frannie, this isn’t funny!”
But the only response was another giggle. They approached a large wing-back chair. The sound was coming from behind there. Cecelia tensed. What would they find? What horror lay on the other side?
Michael looked at Cecilia. Was she ready? The truthful answer was no, but she nodded anyway. They were going to have to look at some point.
He swung around the corner, shining the light behind the chair.
“Boo!” a figure said, jumping out at them.
Michael went to take a swing with the lamp, but Cecilia grabbed his wrist. “No!”
The figure stumbled forward, still giggling.
“It’s Frannie.”
“Ha, ha, ha! I scared you!” Frannie slurred.
She let go of Michael’s wrist and grabbed Frannie by the shoulders. “Frannie, this isn’t funny. Are you hurt?”
“No, but I want some more brownies.” Her eyes widened as her head lolled back. “They were really, really, really good.”
Frannie started to slump, so Michael steadied her. “Who gave you the brownies?”
But Frannie went nearly limp as she slid to the floor. “That funny man with the hawk face.”
Cecilia looked at Michael. That was the usher who took Helen.
Michael shook Frannie. “Where’s Connor? And Quentin?”
“I don’t know. The hawk man told me I wasn’t one of the chosen… But Connor was…” Frannie fished around in her pocket. “Here’s the card. Connor said to keep it—that it’d be worth a lot someday.
Her friend looked up at her and licked her lips. “Are you sure you don’t have something to eat? I’m really hungry.”
Michael turned to Cecilia. “He must have laced those brownies with weed.”
“But why didn’t he take her?” Cecilia asked.
“Worse, why did he take Connor?” Michael knelt over her friend. “Frannie, this is really important. Which way did the usher take Connor?”
“Down a rabbit hole!” she answered, giggling again.
“Damn it,” Michael said, as gritting his teeth. “This isn’t funny! Where did they go?”
Frannie’s just laughed, though. “Why is everyone so uptight?”
Cecilia knelt next to her friend. “Frannie, you need to listen carefully. Helen is dead and Quentin and Connor are missing.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Frannie said, giggling.
“I’m not joking, Frannie. That usher killed Helen. Now, where did he take Connor?”
“You really need to practice telling jokes, Cec, you are so bad at it.”
Michael scooped his arm around Frannie’s waist. “That’s it. We’ve just got to take her with us.”
“Wait! Hold on!” Frannie yelled, as she beat against Michael’s arm. “Why are you being such a jerk?”
Michael looked the girl in the eye. “Because Helen really is dead and my two best friends are missing. Now, which way did they go?”
Frannie blinked as her giggles faded away. “They went down the hallway to the left… I think.” More gently, she pushed away from Michael. “And I can stand on my own.”
As Michael headed for the door, Cecilia put Frannie’s arm over her shoulder, helping her walk. Tears glazed over Frannie’s bloodshot eyes.
“You were kidding, right?… About Helen?”
Cecilia shook her head. How she wished that she was! “No.”
A sob broke out of Frannie’s throat. Her friend cried on her shoulder as Cecilia led them out of the room. Michael was already checking the room to the left.
If Connor were one of the “chosen,” like Helen ...
Cecilia refused to believe it. They would find Connor just as stoned as Frannie.
Yeah, right.
* * *
Paxton hurried to catch up with Ruth as they approached the huge mansion doors. Guess Ruth running 3K every day did come in handy. He was gasping for air, and she wasn’t even breathing heavily. Of course, they were both soaked to the skin from the storm, but that did not slow Ruth down one bit.
His partner tried to open the doors, only to find them locked. Ruth pounded her fist against the wood.
“Police!” she yelled into the wind.
Paxton added his fist to the pounding. “Open up!”
Finally, the doors creaked open and the mime’s face popped out.
“Great, just freaking great,” Paxton grumbled.
Ruth flashed her badge. “Police. Let us in.”
The mime was making some stupid hand gestures, so Paxton hauled back and kicked the door open. The mime scrambled back.
“Normally, I would say that amount of force was unnecessary,” Ruth said as they entered. “But under the circumstances …”
The mime tried to scurry away, but Paxton caught him by the back of his black turtleneck. “Not so fast.”
“We need to talk to your head of security. Do you know where he is?” Ruth asked. “And so help me, if you make another stupid box…”
“He’s this way,” the mime croaked.
Paxton kept ahold of the guy’s collar as they entered the mansion’s main ballroom. Strobe lights flashed, and Paxton could only guess that it was Diana Dahmer, in some kind of man-corset, who strutted along the stage. The place was crammed with jumping, yelling, and near-rioting fans. The decibel level made his ears ring. He guessed he shouldn’t have listened to Pink Floyd quite so loudly when he was a teen.
But he took the undulating mass of audience to mean that nothing too bad could have happened. It couldn’t have, if the concert was still in full swing, right? But Paxton’s gut was telling him something different. Either that, or it was complaining about another missed dinner.
The mime guided them past the food buffet, which looked more like the remains of a massacre. That sight was enough to squelch his appetite again. Finally, the mime pointed toward a sign that announced, “Dahmer’s Pre-Morgue.”
When the head of security was camped out at the first aid station, this was not a good sign. Hopefully, the chief was there for nothing more than a sprained ankle.
As they entered the “Pre-Morgue,” Paxton released the scrawny mime.
“If you want to keep your job,” a tall woman stated to the head of security, “then you will—”
Ruth flashed her badge. “Officers Matte and Prover.” She turned to the security chief. “We need to talk.”
The guy nearly blanched. “Damn! You guys must be psychic. We just tried to call the station, but all the lines are down.”
“Tell us about it,” Paxton added.
“Why were you calling 9-1-1?” Ruth asked, her face etched with concern. Paxton knew that this wasn’t just any case. Not with Jeremy and Evan on the island.
“Follow me,” the security chief directed.
“Now, before we go jumping off the deep end, as head of the PR department from KMNY, I am technically in charge.” the tall woman jabbered on. “We need to remember how much this concert has cost the station and—”
But not even she could keep up talking as the security chief pulled the sheet back from a dead girl’s body. Paxton staggered back a step. It couldn’t be.
“The kids who found her said that she had been crucified.”
Ruth stepped forward to inspect the body more closely. “Do we have a name yet?”
“No.”
“Helen,” Paxton croaked, but he had to clear his throat before he finished. “Helen. Her last name is Desmond, I believe.” Ruth turned his way. He could barely get out the next few words. “She is Cecilia’s best friend. Or was, at least.”
Thank God that Ruth was on point as she turned to the security guard. “Where are the kids who found her?”
Sorry, they left before we could get their info.”
Paxton steppe
d forward, asking intently, “Was one of them blonde? On the quiet side?”
“I guess. I mean they were pretty freaked out,” the security chief stammered.
Ruth looked like she was ready to smack him. “With a dead body, why in the hell haven’t you shut this place down?”
“That’s exactly what I was about—”
The tall woman tried to intercede. “As sad as this tragic accident is—”
Ruth got nose to nose with the woman. “This was no accident. We’ve got a serial killer on the loose, and the first thing we are going to do—”
Paxton had no idea what Ruth said next, as the crowd outside the first aid station went berserk. The group rushed out to the ballroom. A large metal cage, like a human-sized parrot enclosure, lowered over the stage. A half naked girl in a lace bra and thong thrashed inside, her hands tied above her.
The security chief turned to the PR chick. “I thought I told you—no more stunts!”
The woman paled. “That’s not us.”
“No,” Ruth stated. “That’s the killer.” She turned to the security chief. “Get her down. Now!”
Before he could act, though, electricity coursed through the metal frame, sparking and crackling high above the audience. The girl arched back in agony as the voltage hit her full-on.
“Get the electricity cut off!” Ruth yelled to the security chief.
He hit his radio. “Any available guard to the electrical room! We need that breaker thrown!”
But before he was even done with his sentence, the electricity stopped.
“That girl’s name is Barbara, and if you don’t get that breaker turned off, she is going to die.”
The security chief nodded vigorously, yelling into his radio.
Paxton came up next to Ruth. “Do you know her?”
“No,” Ruth said, “but this scenario is from—”
Suddenly, another arc of electricity lit up the cage and tore through the girl. She wasn’t even sobbing anymore. Paxton forced himself to keep his eyes upon her, waiting to see if she even breathed. The smell of burnt flesh filled his nostrils, reminding him why he never became a firefighter.
“I said, turn it off!” Ruth yelled at the security chief.
“They are trying, but they aren’t sure which breaker controls that wiring.”
The electrical bolt abruptly stopped, but apparently not from anything security was doing.
Ruth grabbed the radio from the chief. “Turn them all off! Throw every freaking switch in the place!”
Paxton put a hand on her arm. “Ruth. They are trying.” He wasn’t used to being the reasonable, levelheaded one. Ruth was the one always preaching about how you caught more flies with honey than with vinegar. And right now, she was about as sour as you could get.
“You don’t understand. Saint Barbara survived two lightning strikes, but succumbed to the third. Those first two jolts weren’t meant to kill her, but the third one will.”
“Damn it!” Paxton growled as he pulled his gun. “Everyone down!”
Of course, no one but those in his small party could hear him over the calamity on the dance floor. Paxton took aim at the chains holding the cage up and fired. A shot sparked against the metal, breaking one strand, but there were three more. And the damn thing was swinging over the crowd. Talk about a freaking moving target.
Paxton aimed again and as he squeezed the trigger, another surge of electricity poured through the metal and into the girl. His second shot missed. He didn’t have time for finesse. Paxton shot and shot at the chain. He broke though all but one chain, as the girl seemed to levitate, her body suspended in the air by the current.
Lights all around the room flickered off until the only illumination in the room was the girl’s electrocuted form. Then, sparks flew from the metal cage and all the lights blew. The room was momentarily dark as the crowd quieted.
Did the rabble finally get the picture that a girl had just been killed before their very eyes?
Then the red emergency lighting came up, and the crowd let out an ear-splitting scream of excitement. To these idiots, this was nothing more than part of the show.
Morons.
Paxton changed out his clip. With two dead girls, he knew he was going to need all the firepower he had.
Ruth turned to the security chief.” I want this entire ballroom locked down. I want each and every kid accounted for.” She pointed to the stage. “And I want those freaks off the stage. Understood?”
“Copy that,” the security chief said as he turned to several guards.
The woman, though, still did not get the message. “Now, wait a minute!”
Ruth went to rebuke her, but Paxton stepped between them, his gun still in his hand. “I am so in the mood to arrest someone, anyone, for obstruction of justice.”
The PR chick’s eyes dilated. Good. It meant she was finally taking them seriously.
“Now, why don’t you go sit in the corner like a good girl and figure out how we are going to get everyone across the lake when we are ready?”
The PR woman stumbled back a few steps, and then sat down hard on a plastic chair.
He turned to find the security staff staring at him. Paxton pointed to Diana Dahmer strutting around onstage. “Detective Matte said now!”
* * *
Cecilia held Frannie’s hand as they crept down yet another hallway. This mansion was like a maze, with some pretty awful surprises buried within it. Michael cracked open another door. They had checked so many that Cecilia feared they might be doubling back.
Michael flashed his light inside to find a single boy on the floor, bound and gagged. “Connor!”
Cecilia let go of Frannie as she rushed to join Michael. She tried to remove Connor’s gag, but the thing was tied tightly.
From the doorway, Frannie pointed to the ceiling. “Guys, something is going on up there.”
“I’ve almost got his feet untied,” Michael said.
Connor screamed wordlessly as his eyes looked upward. Cecilia followed his stare.
Something dripped onto her face. She wiped the drops away. Blood.
“Michael …” she warned, as the ceiling shook ten times harder.
Before Cecilia could do anything, the ceiling cracked, raining body parts down upon them.
“What the—!” Michael screamed.
“Just carry him!” Cecilia yelled as she tried to shield her head from the hands and feet and worse that tumbled from the ceiling.
She grabbed one arm and helped Michael get Connor onto his feet. Frannie held the door open as they rushed out of the horrid, horrid room. They were halfway down the hall before Connor ripped himself from their grasp and threw himself on the floor.
His gag slipped enough so that he could shout, “Stop! F—ing stop!”
Panting, covered in blood, they halted.
“Connor, man, we’ve got to get out of here!” Michael urged.
“I can’t!” Connor sobbed. “My feet.”
Cecilia swallowed hard as she realized that Connor had spikes driven through the bottoms of his feet. And they had just made him run on them.
“Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!” Frannie kept repeating between retches.
Michael ran a hand through his bloody hair. Even Michael, who had been brave through it all, seemed too horrified to act. But finally, he dropped to his knees next to his friend.
“Okay, Connor. I’ve got to pull them out. This is going to hurt.”
“No, f—ing kidding! I want some kind of pain meds, man! Just get me a nurse or something.”
“We don’t have time,” Michael said, and then turned to Cecilia. “You are going to have to hold him down.”
“She’s not holding me down!” Connor yelled. “No one is holding me down. I want a doctor!” Connor said as he tried to drag himself down the hallway.
Cecilia gulped. She didn’t want to hold Connor down any more than he wanted to be held down.
“Connor!” Michael shouted an
d grabbed his friend by the shirt. “We’ve got to be able to run.”
“Screw that!” I’m staying right here until—”
“Helen’s dead, Connor. And those were the body parts of God knows how many people. Probably our classmates’ body parts!”
“Falling on your head!” Frannie interjected.
“You got off lucky, Connor, but we don’t know when the killer will be back for you or any of us.”
Connor looked between Cecilia and Michael. Then he, too, gulped.
“Yeah. Okay. Do it. Pull them, man. Pull them out now!”
As Michael moved down to Connor’s feet, Cecilia helped prop Connor up against the wall. “Frannie, grab his hand. Comfort him.”
While her friend took Connor’s hand, Cecilia wasn’t quite sure how comforting it was as Frannie kept murmuring, “Oh, my God.” Over and over again.
“Frannie, something a little more constructive, please.”
“Oh, dear God! All that blood. All that blood.” Her eyes darted down the hallway. “He could be here. He could be behind any door. He could be coming right now.”
Not exactly what I had in mind, Frannie, Cecilia thought.
“Do you have him, Cecilia?” Michael asked.
She nodded sharply. The hall seemed darker, more foreboding. Every time the walls shook from the music, Cecilia imagined body parts falling down upon her. Or that hawk mask swooping in and claiming them all. The sooner they got the nails out of Connor, the sooner they could get out of here.
Michael gritted his teeth and gripped the steel spike. “One. Two.” He jerked the spike from Connor’s foot.
“Ow!!! You didn’t say three!”
“There’s just one more,” Michael said. “Take a breath.”
Connor leaned his head back against the wall. Cecilia let up on his shoulder to give him a momentary break when Michael grabbed the other spike and pulled it from Connor’s foot.
“You didn’t even say one!” Connor bellowed.
“Come on, get him up,” Michael urged Cecilia.
She didn’t have to be told twice. “Frannie, help me.”
But her friend backed away. “That could have been me. Why wasn’t it me?”
Don't Read After Dark: Keep the lights on while reading these! (A McCray Horror Collection) Page 44
