by Deborah Noel
I impatiently waited as he opened the door to let me in. I ran straight to the office, ransacked the filing cabinet and yanked all the folders out. I couldn’t even wait to take everything to the desk. I just began arranging pictures on the floor from all six murder scenes.
Declan casually strolled into the office holding two glasses of water. He stood over me, offered me a glass and began surveying the photographs. In his amazement, he slowly sunk to the floor beside me.
Laid out on the floor around us were hundreds of pictures depicting the end of life for 20 different people in brutal ways. And, although each of these images was burned into my memory, I had never once seen what I now saw before me.
The common denominator.
The slices inflicted on the most mutilated victims.
Looking over the images now, it seemed to make sense that those who fought against their attackers looked to be the ones most savagely mutilated.
The slice wounds were there before our eyes to prove it.
The MacNamanus murders. Four members of the family, plus one dog. The dog was shredded barbarically.
The East Coast Customer Service Center murders. Six victims total, two had their lives spared while four others lost theirs. Louie Henderson, aka Butch, was the one who had been ferociously sliced open.
The Melnick murder. Phil, the lone, cranky, old, sourpuss, who lost his battle with the assailants along with his cats. He was not only beaten but also suffered at least a dozen gashes.
The Rounoff/Casalle/Tinner murders. Three male friends, in their early thirties, murdered behind a bar called Someplace Else, their home away from home. Christopher Tinner had been slashed open across his face and neck. There were a few more similar wounds on his back. Steven Rounoff had a few less markings on his battered body. Timothy Casalle had one set of four swipes down his back.
The Mehoff murders. A well respected couple, in their late 50s. They had returned home from a night out and “surprised” strangers in their house. Eileen tried to run away while Jack was ambushed by the attackers just inside the front door. Eileen managed to get as far as the front sidewalk before she was attacked and killed from behind.
The Chambers/Fitzgerald murders. The final murder scene I investigated, and the toughest. Declan’s twin brother, Mallachy, had gone to his girlfriend’s, Collette Chambers, family house for a party. The party had started to wind down, and of the seven stragglers, only Declan’s niece, Tessa, had survived. She had been sleeping in the house when everyone else was murdered outside in the backyard. I didn’t remember as many details of this murder scene as I did the others. When I had come across Mallachy’s severed head, I saw Declan’s face and fainted, thinking it was my husband’s face in my camera’s frame. Sam rushed me from the scene and I still hadn’t been able to bring myself to go through the notes.
Now the photos from that scene were on the floor among the others. Mallachy had been the most viciously mutilated.
“Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” Declan said as he knelt beside me looking over my shoulder at the gruesome photos I had taken years prior.
“You see it too then?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Those who fought the hardest against their attackers were the ones who have the most slash wounds. Granted, they were all mutilated or dismembered in the most disgusting of ways, but not all of them were sliced.”
I pointed to the wounds I was referring to on several of the victims, “Look, the wounds are all similar in their size and width. Some aren’t as long, but all in all…”
Declan took my injured hand in his, turning it up to expose my stitched-close laceration. “But those weren’t inflicted by a knife.”
“Okay. Fair enough, but if a knife didn’t do that damage, what did?”
We both fell silent as we contemplated the million-dollar question.
Time escaped us.
When we realized the time, we moved all the pictures to the top of the desk, made sure everything was turned off. Declan carefully closed the door and we trudged down the hallway. Declan stopped short, causing me to nearly walk into him. He whispered in my head to be still and quiet. I felt the same vibe he did and instantly instinctively put up my walls. Frustrated, Declan turned to question my actions with his eyes.
I whispered, “It’s the same I felt when Bolton was near. I don’t want anyone to be able to hear my thoughts.”
As lightly on our feet as we could, we snuck back into our home away from home. In the distance we could hear muffled voices. I wasn’t able to make out any words. Declan held his finger to his lips to shush me. I could see him trying to read what he could from whosever mind was out there.
In frustration, he shook his head back and forth. “Damn.”
The voices were getting louder, but still muffled. We realized that the voices were coming from above, on the hilltop forest. Their conversation was filtering down through the skylights. The sentences were still muffled, but the giggle I heard, I recognized instantly. I tapped Declan on his shoulder and scribbled on a scrap piece of paper: That giggle belongs to one of the girls I met today. Bolton’s sons’ girlfriend.
He nodded.
Knowing they were up top, we quietly walked out and closed the door. We jogged down the hall and slipped invisibly out and behind the waterfall. Declan was able to get a read on them and figured out they were back-a-ways walking toward the waterfall. We quickly ran down the path to the canoe. We jumped in and paddled our way to the center of the lake. By the time we looked up to the beginning of the falls, Bolton and his clan reached the edge.
Bolton hollered down, “Is that you, Cianna?”
I looked to Declan; he nodded slightly telling me to answer.
“Oh, hi, Bolton. It is Cianna.”
With that, Bolton leaped over the edge of the waterfall and plunged into the water near us. The girls gasped in horror at Bolton’s dive and the boys were hooting and hollering for an encore.
He swam the short distance to the canoe. I introduced my husband to Bolton. Declan said hello, but remained expressionless, so I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. I, of course, still had my mind sealed up, so Declan and I couldn’t share thoughts. Bolton swam besides us as we rowed towards the shore. We stood on the beach and turned in time to see Lucas and Blake dive in like their father. The girls followed suit and howled all the way to the water.
The kids swam ashore and introductions went around.
“So what brings you guys out on this fine night?” Declan asked Bolton.
“We were here earlier, as you know, and the girls loved it so much they asked to stay for the sunset. We decided to stay for a swim under the stars,” he answered in earnest. “What about you two?”
“I wanted to bring my wife out for a relaxing night of star gazing and relieve some stress,” Declan replied.
Small talk kept things light. Bolton saw my bandaged hand and asked what happened. I explained the dishwashing accident and left it at that. Bolton explained that they had just come back to the States from an extended stay in Germany where their families were from. He and Declan chatted about the type of work each did and so on. When the boys jumped into the conversation with their father and Declan, the girls turned their attention to me. They asked what it was like being married and if we had any children. It wasn’t long before the chitchat went idle.
I told Declan it was time for my medicine and excused us from our new friends. Bolton pulled a wallet sealed up in a plastic baggie from his pocket and he and Declan exchanged business cards. Too short to peer over his shoulder, I looked around Declan to peek at Bolton’s business card. Bolton’s last name was Dethstare and he was a mortician by trade. That struck me odd for some reason. The card was really quite unique. On one side it was in English, and revealed that he and his wife, Morticina, were both morticians and they had a funeral parlor Stateside. The other side of the business card was in German, and I assumed it had information about their funeral parlor in Black Forrest,
Germany.
Goodbyes were exchanged and somehow we had a date with Bolton for dinner in a couple weeks, once his wife came to town.
Things settle into a calm routine for the next week or so. Shane and Declan became fast friends and my uneasiness about him seemed to dissipate. (I never did figure out what that was all about.)
Mattie just adored Shane. She would spend her afternoons teaching him Gaelic like her daddy was teaching her. Twice a week he would take Mattie and Marcy out after school for ice cream. Shane would tell fairytales from Wales when Mattie wasn’t force-feeding him Gaelic.
When Shane wasn’t over, I magically became Mattie’s other Gaelic student. It was fun and I enjoyed spending the time with her. It seemed she was growing up so fast.
Since learning Gaelic had turned out to be such fun (it helped I already knew a lot from years of Declan whispering it in my ear), I decided that I would brush up on my German. I thought it might come in handy with the Dethstares. Declan agreed, and of course it didn’t take Declan long to master the language. He was so good at learning and retaining information. In the meantime, Declan did some investigating of Bolton’s undertaker’s business, both in the States and in Germany, but he found nothing suspicious.
It had been a good two weeks since Declan or I had been to the Castle. Life had snuck up on us. Mattie’s school year was coming to an end in the next few weeks. She had excelled in school. She was way ahead of all of her classmates in every area. Her teacher had sent home a letter recommending that she have her IQ tested so that she could possibly be moved from preschool to kindergarten.
Declan called Mattie his favorite young sponge. Marcy overheard that one day and laughed. She began calling Mattie, Sponge Mattie Squarepants.
It didn’t go over well.
One late morning I found myself alone in the house.
Declan had taken Shane to work with him after they dropped the girls off at school and Bullet laid beside me on the sofa as German pumped through my headphones into my brain while my eyes followed matching images on my laptop. I was learning colors. Farbe, I should say. Rot, Orange, Gelb, Grun, Blau, and Purpur. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. Der Regenbogen. Rainbow.
My mind drifted to the Castle. It had been a long time since I had been there.
Without even thinking, I stopped my German lesson and shut down the computer. I was off to the Castle. Of course, Bullet was happy to accompany me.
About halfway there, I saw that green Jeep from a couple of weeks ago behind me again. With all the excitement of meeting Bolton, I had forgotten about my stalker and was now searching my mind to remember what I had done with the license plate number that I had jotted down back then.
This time it didn’t stay behind me. It passed me.
The driver pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store and without thinking I followed him in and parked next to him on the left side. He had neither doors nor a top on his Jeep, like me. His vehicle was about six inches taller than mine.
I watched as he unstrapped himself from his five-point harness. He was the epitome of a “surfer-dude.” An incredible specimen of a man; almost measured up to my husband. His sun-bleached blonde hair fell just a half an inch past his broad shoulders, highlighting the rosiness of his tan. His round shoulders and biceps muscles bulged under his smooth skin and his back arched and curved like a cobra ready to strike. He wore knee-length swimming trunks, black with fluorescent-colored flowers. His muscular calves ended in untied work boots as he hopped out of the driver’s seat.
He turned to inspect the Jeep beside him. He caught my eye as his head came through the muscle shirt he was pulling on.
“Rubicon, nice. You need to lift it up some.”
I was so entranced by his eyes, I barely heard him. They were the color of ice. The outer edges of his irises were indigo, locking in the white blue interior. His lashes were the longest and thickest I had ever seen. He sported a mustache, tight and groomed, and a shadow of a goatee. His lips were thin, but his smile was huge and curvy.
He stood there looking back at me.
“Earth to girl in Rubicon, you okay?” He leaned into my doorless passenger side, “Sweetheart?”
I smiled. “Oh, I’m sorry. I got caught up in a thought.” I could feel myself blushing.
He threw his head back slightly and chuckled, “Yeah, I get that sometimes.”
Bullet hopped up on the console and weighed in his distrust of the stranger with a growl and protective stance in front of me.
“Hi, fella,” the stranger greeted Bullet, offering the back of his hand for an introductory sniff. Bullet stretched his neck forward for a whiff and retreated closer to me with a slightly angrier growl.
“Shame dogs aren’t as friendly as their owners,” he said. “I’d offer to shake your hand and introduce myself proper, but doesn’t seem like your dog would be too happy about that, and I don’t wanna get bit. My name is Crevan Duskvick. Friends call me Foxx.”
I leaned forward into Bullet’s ear and told him it was okay. He didn’t budge and I trusted his judgment.
“Maybe, or maybe they are smarter. My name is Cianna and my little protector is Bullet.”
“Nice to meet ya. Gotta run. I’m late.” He turned to go inside, and hollered over his shoulder. “Four inches. Your jeep needs to come up four inches.” And then he disappeared into the store.
I sat for a few seconds, not quite knowing why, then came out of my stupor and figured it best to leave before he returned to see me just sitting there.
Next thing I knew, I was at the end of the dirt road. I must have driven to the spot while on auto pilot. I couldn’t begin to remember what I had been thinking of. I had no memory. I disabled the Jeep by its kill-switch and stuffed the keys into my pocket. Bullet and I headed down the trail.
It was an overcast kind of day, still warm but getting muggy. Apparently, it had rained over here, though we had gotten none at home. The waterfall was raging over its banks. The normally still lake was churning with the extra water. Three shades of gray covered the normal brilliant blue. The beach was narrowed by the water and empty of people.
Bullet and I jumped in the canoe after I retrieved it from its cover. It was harder for me to paddle against the opposing flow of the water. We finally got across and up onto the path. The cascading water was deafening. Mist came off the water like a gentle drizzle of steady rain. We disappeared behind the falls.
I counted my steps to make sure I could find the doorway again. I used the trick that Declan showed me to get behind the door without having to struggle to move it.
It was darker than usual inside due to the overcast skies. I was glad I grabbed the flashlight from the Jeep. I made my way around and lit all the candles to illuminate each room.
The pictures were still all laid out on the desk where we had left them, and the urgency to find the answer wasn’t near as strong as it had been a few weeks ago. It was still a personal mission though for me.
I plugged the computer into the generator and loaded the CD of Declan’s latest piano tunes for my listening pleasure. A gentle melody began to fill the silence around me.
I took in a deep breath and closed my eyes for a minute.
The peace and calmness I was enjoying was shattered by a hissing howl like I had never heard before. Bullet jumped off the bed and tore off toward the door barking wildly. Every hair on his body stood erect. I chased after him and scooped him up and tried to quiet him. Whatever that was, I didn’t want Bullet to draw attention to us. I moved the door quickly back into its sealed position. Another howl rose with the bellows of the thunder, long and droning, haunting every nerve of my body.
Still carrying Bullet, I swiftly got back to the computer to shut off Declan’s music. Somehow the dim light shining down through the skylights grew even darker. The howl grew even more in its intensity. Thunder clapped in unison. A blinding whiteness in the room from the lightning outside traveling down the sky-tunnels stopped me dead.
Another howl beckoned; someone answered in a blood-curling scream.
Instinctively I immediately put my walls up. I grabbed my cell phone and latched the loop of Bullet’s collar to the leash. I instructed my dog to hush. I quietly made my way down the corridor and out behind the falling wall of water. The day had quickly turned four shades darker than night although it was early in the afternoon.
Another hideous howl was echoed by a bellow of thunder. A much fainter scream followed. It sounded more desperate in its wail than like straight-out life-or-death fear.
I remained in shadows, behind the protection of the water’s wall. I dialed Declan’s number on my phone. He answered before the first ring finished.
His voice in a panic, “What is wrong?”
I quietly explained where I was and what was going on.
“I can barely hear you, Cianna, the water is too loud.”
As if on cue, thunder rolled, making me retreat against the rocks, a victoriously vicious howl followed. One final screech of fear echoed on the air. It was one that reached the Heavens looking for a savior to keep her from losing her life.
My husband yelling my name into my phone brought me back to reality.
I hollered to Declan that I was fine and before I could think, I was running down the path and scaling the wall to help the one in need somewhere in the woods above. Bullet stood on his hind legs in an attempt to climb up behind me, but it was so slippery for him. He could only watch me from the ledge.
I wasn’t prepared for what I came upon.
Before my eyes was a creature that stopped me in my tracks.
The darkened figure stood at least six feet tall, with blond hair wildly hanging just past its shoulders. Yellowish-orange eyes pierced through mine, a haunting gaze of glazed evil prickling my skin. Its skin was pale against the increasing dark clouds filtering down through the trees. Huge pearly white canine fangs dripped the blood of the limp, bloody, beaten body of a young girl it hovered over.
