Mary closed the back door and took two more steps, then stopped. She was suddenly aware of how quiet everything was inside the lounge. Too quiet. With the electricity off, the noticeable hum of the coolers had been hushed. Still, there should have been some noise. Ross said Charlie McGee was drinking at the bar, his truck was still outside, and she knew that Charlie was the talkative sort. He should have been chatting up a storm, even while sitting in total darkness.
But Charlie wasn’t talking. Neither was Ross. As a matter of fact, from the sounds of things, she was completely alone in the lounge. Were they out front somewhere? Maybe that’s why she had heard a pistol shot. Maybe her husband had been shooting at an animal. A stray dog maybe. Not that he had ever been much for shooting at animals, any animal. He didn’t even like to hunt. Fishing was his pastime, not hunting.
One thing for sure, she was definitely the only one in the lounge. That made her mad, because her husband was supposed to be checking the fuses. He was not supposed to be goofing off with Charlie, target shooting in the middle of the night.
Shooting a gun wasn’t a very smart thing to do, not with everything that had transpired during the past few days. The police were still looking for Krissy Patterson, which meant there were probably patrols in the area. The sound of a gunshot would have been heard, and it might be only minutes before the cops showed up in force to investigate. They would not be happy to learn that two old fools like Ross and Charlie had been shooting off a gun just for the hell of it.
“I swear I’m going to put a lump on Ross’s head before the night is through.”
She made her way from the back rooms to the swinging doors that separated the front of the lounge from the back. She paused before stepping through the doors, feeling for the shelves that stood just to the right of the doors. On the bottom shelf was a metal coffee can containing pencils, pens, magic markers, and nails. The can also contained several books of matches that she kept handy for emergencies.
Finding the can in the dark, she fumbled around with the contents until she found one of the books of matches. Tearing a match from the book, she lit it and pushed through the double saloon doors.
The soft glow of the match didn’t cast much light, but it did light things up enough so she could move around without tripping over something. The area directly behind the bar was free of beer boxes and other obstacles. Also absent were her husband and Charlie McGee.
“Ross, where are you?”
She turned to the right, making her way toward the cash register. She punched the “no sale” button, which caused the cash drawer to slide open. The drawer still contained the evening’s profits, so there had not been a robbery as she first feared when hearing the gunshot.
Mary breathed a sigh of relief. They hadn’t been robbed, which had always been a fear of hers. The fish camp was quiet and peaceful, but it was also rather remote, making it an ideal target for robbers. A person could rob the place and be long gone before the sheriff’s department showed up. So far nothing like that had ever happened, but she was always concerned about such things. Times were changing, with robberies becoming more commonplace.
The match was burning dangerously close to her fingertips, so she dropped it into one of the metal ashtrays sitting on top of the bar and lit another one. Closing the cash drawer, she looked beneath the register for her husband’s gun. He usually kept it on the shelf, hidden from view beneath one of his old shirts. The shirt was still there, but the pistol was not.
“That old fool. What’s he up to now?”
Mary turned away from the register and walked out from behind the bar. She had only taken a few steps when she noticed that one of the wooden tables had been knocked over. Curious, she took a step toward the table, stopping when she spotted a pair of legs. Someone was lying on the floor, just beyond the table, but she couldn’t see who it was from where she stood.
“Ouch!” Mary had not been paying attention to the match she held, and the tiny flame burned the fingertips of her right hand. She dropped the match to the floor and hurried to light a new one, fearful now to be in total darkness for even a moment.
Lighting a new match, she stepped slowly forward to see who was lying on the floor. She prayed that it wasn’t her husband, worried that the gunshot she had heard earlier meant that something bad had happened to him. But it wasn’t Ross on the floor. It was Charlie McGee. The old man lay on his stomach, his face turned toward her, eyes open and staring.
On first impression, she thought Charlie McGee might have had a heart attack and died, for he was definitely very much dead. Then she saw all the blood, and knew that old Charlie had met a fate far more violent than a heart attack. He had been murdered, stabbed to death by the look of things.
Stabbed. Murdered.
Alarm bells sounded in her head. One of their best customers lay dead on the floor, and there was no sign of her husband. The gunshot she had heard earlier was no accident. The pistol had not been knocked off the shelf; nor had her husband been fooling around, or shooting at an animal.
Ross had been shooting at someone.
It suddenly made sense to her. Ross had come home to grab a flashlight. While he was at the cabin, someone had murdered poor old Charlie. Perhaps they were attempting to rob the place, and Charlie had tried to stop them. They must have already killed him, or were still in the process of killing him, when Ross returned to the lounge. Seeing what was going on, he had grabbed his pistol and fired. Perhaps he had hit the killer. Perhaps not. He must have chased someone out the front door. That would explain his absence.
Unless...
A dark thought crossed her mind. She had heard only one gunshot. Just one. And now her husband was nowhere to be seen. Nor did he answer her. Maybe he hadn’t shot the killer. Maybe the killer had...
“No. No. No. Don’t think such thoughts.”
Mary lit another match, suddenly afraid that something bad had happened to her husband. She turned away from the body of Charlie McGee, determined to find Ross at all costs. Thinking he might have chased a bad guy out the lounge, she headed for the front door. She had only gone a few feet, however, when she noticed a second body lying on the floor.
“Oh, dear God. No.”
Even from several feet away, she knew that it was her husband. He lay on his back, a few feet from the booth closest to the door, his legs crossed in an eternal figure four. He had been stabbed several times in the chest and stomach, and his throat had been cut from ear to ear. The deep cut in his throat made it look like his neck was smiling. Ross’s eyes had also been cut out and removed, leaving behind deep dark holes where his baby blues had once been.
“No. No. No. No. No.”
Mary hurried to light another match, but her hands shook so hard it took several fumbled tries to get another one lit. The match’s flame was tiny and did little to push back the darkness, but it was enough to see the ghastly sight that lay before her. Her husband was quite dead, murdered and mutilated by some sick bastard.
She had just lit the new match when she spotted a flashlight lying on the floor by her feet. It was the same one Ross had gotten from the cabin. She picked it up and worked its switch, but the light did not come on. It must have been damaged when Ross dropped it.
“Come on, you stupid thing. Come on.” Mary worked the switch again, slapping the flashlight against the palm of her hand. She was delighted when the light suddenly came on.
With the flashlight, she no longer needed the matches. Dropping the lit match to the floor, she stuffed the book into her pants pocket and swept the beam of the flashlight around her.
The dull gleam of metal instantly caught her attention. Turning, she saw Ross’s pistol lying on the floor not far from his body. He had obviously taken at least one shot at his murderer, might even have hit him. She started to take a step toward the gun to retrieve it when there came the sounds of movement from behind her.
Mary spun around, her heart starting to jackhammer. She had been so shocked by the
bloody sight of Ross and Charlie that she hadn’t even thought about her own safety. She had never even considered the possibility, not even for a moment, that the killer, or killers, might still be inside the lounge.
She aimed the flashlight toward the far wall, and was startled to see that someone was standing there. Someone small. A child. Mary looked at the child for a moment or two before realizing that it was Krissy Patterson.
“Oh, my God.”
The little girl was covered with mud and grim, her long hair plastered to her head. She stood with her back to the wall, watching Mary with a pair of eyes that glowed a strange bluish-green.
Mary felt her blood turn to ice. She had seen many things in her life, but she had never seen a child with such eyes. The little girl’s eyes burned with a strange glow that was evil beyond description.
“Krissy, is that you?”
The girl made no reply. She only stood there, watching with eyes that were as cold as a wintry tomb. Both of her hands were behind her back, but, as Mary watched, the child removed her left hand from behind her back to reveal what she was holding.
Krissy Patterson held a small plastic bag in her left hand. It was the same kind of Ziploc bag that Ross kept in the lounge, perfect for storing nuts, bolts, washers, and other odds and ends. But the bag that Krissy held did not contain nuts and bolts. Instead, it contained a pair of human eyeballs: blue human eyeballs. The same color of blue as Ross’s eyes.
Mary felt bile burning a path from her stomach to her throat. She opened her mouth to gag, but nothing came out. Krissy must not have felt the same revulsion for the eyes she held, because she smiled. Then she showed Mary the bloody butcher knife that was in her other hand.
“Oh, God. No!” A million messages shot through Mary’s brain all at once, confusing her. But she finally got the signal she needed to get her feet moving. Turning, she raced toward the pistol lying on the floor.
She now knew what her husband had been shooting at. It hadn’t been a robber, or a band of desperate outlaws. On the contrary, he had been shooting at a ten-year-old girl. A little girl with the face of an angel, and the eyes of the devil.
Mary had just reached the pistol when she heard a sound behind her. It was a strange rumbling, like the deep-throated growl of a dog. The sound was accompanied by the noise of tiny footfalls on a wood floor, and the rushing of air as something came at her at a dead run.
She tried to turn, but something hit her from behind, taking her feet out from under her. Mary went down hard, a scream tearing from her throat. Then the pain began. Pain beyond description and words. Pain that left the walls splattered with blood and brought the blissful darkness of death upon her.
Janet Patterson had been sound asleep when a gunshot split the night. Even then she did not come fully awake because she was in the throes of a deep sleep aided by a prescription medicine. She became partially aware of the sounds around her, but she still dozed, unable to open her eyes and wake up. A few minutes later she was brought to full awareness by the sharp, terrified screams of a woman.
She sat up in bed and listened carefully, startled by the sound she had just heard, but not altogether sure that it wasn’t just part of a dream. Janet tried to remember if she had been dreaming, but no nocturnal images floated around in her mind. If she had been, then the dream had completely disappeared on the moment of her waking.
Sitting tense in her bed, she reached out to the other twin bed to wake her husband, only to find that the other bed was empty. The bed’s emptiness disturbed her, but for only a moment. Robert was sometimes a night owl, especially when his mind was troubled. He had probably stayed up to drink a few beers, falling asleep in one of the chairs in the sitting room.
Getting out of bed, Janet crossed the room and switched on the light. Her husband was definitely not in his bed. Nor, from the looks of things, had he ever gone to bed. His bed was still made, the covers neatly tucked in. Frowning, she slipped a robe on over her nightgown and left the room.
She left the bedroom and entered the cabin’s tiny sitting room. The room was dark, the only light being the moonlight that filtered in through the front window. Even in the darkness, she could tell that Robert was not in the sitting room either. She turned and looked toward the bathroom, thinking he might be making a late night nature call, but the bathroom door stood open and there was no one sitting on the throne.
A thought entered her mind, and she crossed the sitting room to the bedroom Krissy had occupied. Opening the door, she entered the room but found that it too was empty.
Janet stood in the doorway, looking at the bed her daughter had slept in. For just a brief moment, as she entered the room, she thought she saw a tiny lump beneath the covers, but it was only the shadows playing tricks on her. The bed was empty; her little girl had not come home.
Robert wasn’t in the room either. She thought he might be sitting there, his mind troubled with thoughts of Krissy. She thought she might find him in the room, because that’s where she had spent several hours earlier in the day.
She had come into the bedroom to be alone with her thoughts, also wanting to be near the place where her daughter was last seen. At first she had just stood in the doorway, looking around, hoping to see something the detectives might have overlooked, some clue that might help them get her little girl back. But the room had already been gone over several times, and there was nothing that could unlock the mystery of Krissy’s disappearance.
Still, Janet was not going to give up. There had to be something overlooked that might help the police with their investigation. She had gone to the dresser and opened the drawers, searching through her daughter’s clothing.
As she’d inspected the clothing she’d lifted each item to her nose and inhaled--shirts, pants, socks, even panties--smelling the sunshine sweetness of her baby girl, her mind filling with a thousand images that brought bitter, burning tears. Here was the shirt Krissy had worn to Six Flags St. Louis. Here were the socks she had used to mop up spilled Kool-Aid. Here was her favorite pair of blue jeans, still sporting the yellow, “happy face” patch Janet had used to cover a tear.
Finished with the clothing, she had gone over to the bed and lain down. She had wanted to lie where her daughter had slept, wanted to feel what presence the child had left behind. The pillow had still smelled of Krissy’s Herbal Essence shampoo, but already the scent was fading.
Janet had lain on the bed for several hours in an attempt to feel closer to her daughter, wondering what had happened the night Krissy disappeared. Had someone entered the room through the window, tiptoeing across the floor to stand over the child’s bed? Had they awakened her by placing a hand tightly over her mouth? Had they pressed a knife to her throat, or a gun to her head?
And what had Krissy thought when these terrible things were happening to her? Had she waited in vain for her mother and father to rush through the door to rescue her? Had she felt betrayed by her parents as the kidnapper dragged her from the bed, carrying her off into the night? And what if the worse had already happened? What thoughts had gone through Krissy’s mind as her precious life was brutally taken from her?
Janet had stayed on the bed that afternoon and cried like she had never cried before, great wracking sobs that left her weak and heartsick. She and her husband had failed their child, and there was nothing they could do to change that. Krissy might be badly hurt, might even been dead, and it was all their fault.
She had lain on the bed and cried until she was unable to cry any more. Then she had gone back into her bedroom and retrieved several prescription sleeping pills from the bottle she kept hidden in the bottom of her purse. The pills had come from Janet’s mother, a gift to help her get through sleepless nights. She only took them when she absolutely needed one, making sure to keep the bottle hidden from Robert. Her husband didn’t like her taking drugs, so she kept the pills a secret. It was wrong for her to take sleeping pills, but it was quite all right for him to drink himself to oblivion when he felt str
essed.
Janet remained standing in the doorway, looking at the empty bed. She felt no desire to lie down or go through her daughter’s clothing. She was all cried out, and felt only numbness. As she stood there, the last of her nocturnal fogginess slowly lifted, and she remembered what it was that had awakened her.
She had heard a scream, at least it sounded like a scream. Maybe Robert had heard it too and had already gone to investigate. Maybe something had happened. Perhaps the scream had something to do with Krissy.
With this thought in mind, she left Krissy’s room and hurried back into her own bedroom. Discarding the robe on the floor, she slipped out of her nightgown and into a pair of khaki pants, and a pullover shirt. A pair of running shoes came next. Once dressed, she headed for the front door.
It was quiet as she stepped outside the cabin, the silence marred only by the distant hooting of an owl. She didn’t know the time, but the moon was already low in the western sky so it must be early morning. The silvery moonlight made the dew-laden ground luminous, causing shadows to look darker than they normally would.
Janet stepped out on the tiny porch and closed the door behind her. The campgrounds were quiet, and it didn’t look like anyone else was up, which meant that only she had heard the scream. If there had been a scream. She still wasn’t convinced that she had actually heard something; it had probably been just part of a medicine-induced dream.
No sooner had she stepped outside the cabin than a flashing blue light got her attention. On the narrow road beyond the fish camp was parked an unmarked patrol car, its emergency lights flashing. Something was going on. Maybe they had found Krissy. Perhaps Robert was already there, talking with the officers.
Stepping off the porch, Janet hurried through the camp to the road. She expected to find people clustered around the patrol car, but no one was there. In fact, she didn’t even see a deputy. The patrol car sat in the middle of the road, with lights flashing, but it was empty. The driver’s door stood open, and the little light in the ceiling lit up the empty interior of the car.
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