“Creepy as shit here, isn’t it?” Todd says.
He’s not wrong, but I can’t decide whether to consider it a curse or a grace that the creepiness isn’t related to Stanley or Andre Romero. No rack of devilish-looking tools peer angrily out from the wall, no aged gurney bearing the grooves of victims past and future, no shackles, ropes, ties, or any other kind of binding tools. There’s no pool of blood marking the final breathing place of prior unfortunate souls. Of course, the kills were done on-site, but it’s still relieving to find an absence of pools of blood.
As far as I can tell, in fact, there’s nothing here to indicate that anyone else has been in here recently at all. For all the evidence here, no feet have unsettled the dust on the floor in at least six months, and even then, it was probably just some local kids on a dare or having gotten bored with the otherwise lazy, warm evenings.
“I don’t think there’s anything here to find,” I say. “Maybe we could try the house.”
“Right-o, Captain!” There’s a slight edge on his voice now. Be as he may the master of level-headedness, the intensity of the situation has finally permeated the membrane of his mind.
The rain slows and we head back down the stairs, more audible now without so much of a cover of the deluge outside. My ears perk to sounds as innocent as my own heartbeat, and some kind of fluttering at the nearest window nearly sends me into full-on panic. My body and mind are wearing to splinters and bound by threads that are fraying and broken.
“Breathe, Remy,” says Todd.
As if at the mercy of his suggestion alone, my nerves loosen just the slightest amount and my vision is relieved of a fog I didn’t know had been there. A wash of clarity splashes over me, but even under the influence of Todd’s spell, there’s only so much function one can retain under so much prolonged stress without rest.
My nerves once more under control, we continue out through the front door. The rain has not stopped entirely, but no longer has the volume to inhibit the senses much. There is the inevitable dripping-dry of buildings, but even that does not obscure sound to the point of causing me unease.
We waste no time in our walk toward the farmhouse, an old Victorian-style ranch house with an equally old well adorning the front. It has a spacious front porch, which at some point probably featured charming patio furniture. I have a quick vision of three friends sitting in their respective chairs, sipping their drinks of choice after a long day of work on the farm.
That image lasts only a split second, however, and is whipped away by a more threatening, less pleasant image: reality. And that image rushes in on the thundering chariot of lightning, stabbing the ground left and right, like Zeus tossed back a few cold ones and caught Juno in a compromising position with Hermes. Hercules was nowhere to be found, and thus the earth became the reluctant target of his wrath. How long this rage may persist is unclear, but I suspect that it will correlate directly to the potency of the brew, which is dependent on Zeus’s current standing with Dionysus.
My Greek narrative is caught at an abrupt halt when Todd calls out. It’s more of a hushed whisper, but in my heightened state, it comes across as startling as a honking fire engine.
“Car!” he says. He’s walking two paces ahead of me, and in a second, I see it, too: a long van, windowless save for the windshield, and passenger and driver side windows. The remaining length of the vehicle is paned by metal, an expanse of chipped and wearing paint revealing a time-worn gray primer, which is also chipped in places, uncovering nothing more than a rusty, bare surface underneath.
We approach the vehicle from behind. Todd takes the driver side and motions for me to take the passenger side, which also has the door offering access to the back rows of seats. When we approach and look into our respective windows, our flashlights’ probing beams sweep through the van, but aside from the driver’s seat, there is nothing. No hostage, no discarded Arby’s bags, no sunglasses, no scented pine tree dangling from the rearview mirror. Indeed, no ropes or any sinister-looking instruments of any sort. Todd and I lock eyes through the windows and I cross the front of the van to meet him, then head toward the house.
There’s a covered section of porch at the back corner of the house.
“What now? Go in together or split up?” Todd says.
“Let’s go together. It’s a big house, but I don’t trust that it’s safe for either of us to be alone.”
“Good call. Shall we?”
“After you, m’dear.”
“Cute.” I hear his eyes roll.
The interior of the house is like a bigger version of the Pacheco house that has been thrust through a time machine and landed decades in the future, with all of the effects of disuse for the duration. The amount of wood in the house makes me feel like the entire building is a fire hazard: bare, rustic, wooden shutters, a splintering wooden table, a creaky floor, picture frames, chairs, sofa frames, as well as the walls, doors, and probably the toilet paper.
Everything is covered in a thick layer of dust, but it’s less detectable on the rough, worn wood. Even so, one can see that the dust has not rested undisturbed in recent days. Footprints shuffle this way and that, complemented by sweeping drag marks whose origins I can’t quite discern. The countertop is bare, and the appliances are long gone, the dust in their places thick like the rest of the house.
Outside, lightning strikes once more, a little farther away this time, but bright nonetheless. In its flash, I see the room in lighting that lends it a sepia quality. The back door, where we entered, blows shut by the force of the wind, sending a rattling, echoing gust through the open-concept kitchen and dining area. Dust kicks up in small swirls, and for a moment, I’m a desert hawk looking out over a vast landscape of dust storms and little else.
The wind outside gains momentum, like the storm was only napping for a moment before its encore. No more rain yet, though.
The refreshed wind pushes into the nooks and hollows of the house, playing it like a woodwind, eliciting howls and moans one might expect from a B-list horror film. That, along with the abundant dust underfoot, render our movements all but silent. The slamming door may have given us away, though.
We have a direct line of sight from where we stand to the front door, where a pretty stain-glass window hangs inside, a work of art left behind. It surprises me a little that no bored vandals have ever made a night of coming and hurling rocks through the windows, but as I think it, I remember that the youth here in Wometzia aren’t the mindless, disrespectful breed that we have in Riverdell. Indeed, this was a town of compassion, empathy, and rich imaginations. I suppose that might lead to the local adolescents having more meaningful ideas of how to spend their free time.
If one were to walk in the front door, he or she would face a staircase head-on. To their right would be the dining area of the open concept, to their left, maybe a coat closet—I can’t see from this angle. On our right, the kitchen has an open doorway, with light spilling in from what has managed to persist into the night outside. And directly in front of us is a doorway. Given its positioning, it could be either a closet or a staircase leading to a basement, and I hope for the former.
“Hold up,” I say.
Being the handy, seasoned killer that I am, I always make it a point to have a pair of gloves handy. I haven’t done any killing since my father, but old habits die hard, I guess. I pull a pair out of my back pocket and offer the limp latex to Todd. As he puts them on, I pull out a pair for myself and do the same.
Having gloves on has always meant one thing to me: business. Whether planting evidence or preventing myself from leaving any, or both, gloves are the unspoken uniform of those who wish to minimize the consequences of what they’re doing. In my case, they help to preserve my anonymity. Of course, the more conventional use is when I’m trying not to disturb a crime scene, but I create them with a high degree of frequency, as well.
We continue. The area off of the kitchen turns out to be a pantry. It has a single, high window a
nd walls lined with dusty old shelves. The dust in this room is entirely undisturbed, so we move on. The door in front of the back entrance is indeed the way through to the basement. It is unfinished, with dirt walls and a bare wooden staircase. The open doorway swallows light without offering anything in return.
I amuse myself for a moment by considering how much more of a mess I would be without Todd here. And even in his presence, I’m edgy. The barn, the abandoned farmhouse—it screams Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Without the open concept and whistling wind, our breathing is much more audible, and I develop an awareness of my heartbeat and its increasing rate.
“Up or down first?” says Todd.
“Down.”
Todd sighs.
In greater contrast with our flashlight beams than the main area, the angles seem sharper, meaner, deadlier. Our footsteps sound hollow on the planks of wood, and a part of me worries that the steps will give, leaving me to crash and fall into a dark pit of rusty old tools or other equipment. I lead now, with Todd close behind. My flashlight beam is aimed straight ahead, while his probes the room into which we’re descending, which opens to the left, and which becomes more visible to us with each step.
My nerves tighten further. The dirt floor is empty, but the walls are not; various symbols adorn the dirt walls. The color is difficult to discern in the beams of our flashlights, but it could very well be blood. Every surface we uncover is littered with symbols that neither of us recognizes. The only relieving factor is that, as far as we can see, there are no pentagrams.
“Jesus,” I say.
“Yeah. Or a supreme lack thereof,” says Todd.
The word rings louder than ever in my head: Sacrifice. This time, the word has a voice beyond that which normally narrates my mind. This voice is fierce, aggressive, almost a growl.
“Upstairs,” I say. It’s the last place in the house.
Todd nods and we turn around, intent on leaving the symbols there in the darkness. Before we leave, Todd sniffs one. “Spray paint,” he says. Relieving to a degree, but as nerves go, I’m too far gone for that to have much effect for me. As we ascend the stairs, a chill runs up my spine, a parting gift from the creepy cellar.
Formerly deadened, the main floor seems to have taken on life, shadows flitting about like a restless cloud of bats, only going still when I try to train my gaze upon them.
In the distance, sirens sound.
“What do you think that is?” Todd asks.
I pull out my phone to call Husk, but at some point, my battery died.
“Fuck,” I say.
“Let’s finish looking through the house, then we’ll head back to the station,” says Todd. It might be difficult to explain why Todd has been accompanying me on this trip, but I see no better course of action.
At this point, my nerves usually as cool, strong, and malleable as steel, are rigid and fragile. I feel like every step I take is charged with the suspense of that in a minefield, each footfall threatening to send my life up in flames.
Todd must sense this, because he puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes hard. The touch from behind startles me at first, but the shock wears off fast and calming energy seems to gush into my body, as though he is pumping morphine directly into my bloodstream from his hand.
Something about this whole situation unnerves me, even disregarding that which we saw in the cellar. I think it has to do with that I’m so unnerved. I pride myself in my cool, methodical manner, but this case has wrapped me in layers of borderline panic I didn’t know I still had in me.
My last misadventure, too, was knit strictly from a yarn of tension, fear, and anxiety. On that account, I attributed it to many factors: the kill having been my abusive father, the lives of me and my friends being at stake, knowing that my anonymity was compromised, and a profound lack of sleep.
Certainly at least one of those factors is in play now, but I’ve had more intense situations have less of an effect on me. Maybe I’m just broken. There’s no denying that some serious transformation took place throughout the events of last November as well as since. But at what point did this change occur? Did these new fears and anxieties hitch a ride into my psyche when I began to feel things like love and trust?
I suppose that’s the price one pays for feeling emotions. I used to block them all out, but no longer. I certainly can’t be choosy about the ones I let in anymore. Emotions are a Trojan horse.
I also wonder whether my stoicism from before could be attributed to my indifference to my own survival. To one who truly doesn’t care whether he lives or dies, a target on his back is no more disconcerting than a pesky fly. I had always taken extensive precautionary measures, but that wasn’t so much to preserve my life as it was to preserve my life outside of prison.
It’s now that the realization hits me. Of all times and places, it’s now that the great epiphany strikes: I want to continue living.
Before we go upstairs, I turn around and kiss Todd. He smiles, surprised, but says nothing.
The stairs are carpeted in an ugly floral carpet that makes me think of a grandmother’s sofa, despite the fact that I’ve never actually been to visit a grandmother, mine or otherwise. They lead up to a dark hallway with no doors immediately available to us yet.
The sirens grow louder, closer. There’s more than one.
My heart rate picks up again, but on the surface, the calm Todd gave me persists and wins over. My footsteps are inaudible, determined, deliberate, and rhythmic—just the way I like them. My hands are steady, my flashlight like a swift, probing spotlight of a search helicopter. My grip around my weapon is firm but not tense, my trigger finger still resting against the guard.
At the top of the stairs, the flight meets the hallway perpendicularly, splitting itself into two smaller (but still sizeable) hallways, one with one door, the other with two. We step left, into the hallway with two doors. I open the one to the left and find a small but functional bathroom. I leave it.
The sirens grow still louder, more urgent. I open the door at the end of the hall. Behind it is a bedroom. It’s spacious and contains two queen-sized bed frames. I feel like a shitty detective for not looking around more closely, but time is of the essence.
Todd and I back out of the bedroom and go toward the other door, the only place in the house left untouched by our search.
I open the door.
Eleven
The door swings inward with a stuttering creak, but that is drowned out by a sudden whimpering from the center of the room. A messy lump of human lies there, bleeding severely from the stomach. My flashlight beam finds the terrified face of young Stanley Romero.
I’m relieved to have found him alive, but for how long? Can he be saved?
There’s a length of duct tape around his mouth. Written on the duct tape, in Sharpie, is the message, “Your turn.”
Now the sirens are fully upon us. The flashing red lights cast a sinister strobe into the already sinister room. I’m about to tell Todd to have them call for an ambulance, but I don’t get the chance before the doorway fills with a couple of armed cops.
“Freeze!” the alpha says. His weapon is trained on me.
“Call for an ambulance,” I say, putting my hands up. He does so. “I’m going to turn away from you, put my weapon down, and back toward you. Is that okay?”
“Do it slowly,” he says. I don’t recognize him.
I know I’m innocent (well, at least, in regards to this case), but full compliance with law enforcement can only help at this point. Meanwhile, Todd is mirroring me. I can feel him looking my way for some kind of communication, but I hope he gets my non-message: Not now.
After I put my gun on the floor, I back toward the officer. “I’m going to get on my knees now,” I say. I make sure to scoot far enough from the child to avoid fucking up any evidence. I then lie down and put my hands behind my back.
But then, Todd says, “It’s me. It’s me you’re after.”
The cops, both the alph
a and the sidekick, lunge toward him. I hear the click of a handcuffs and beta cop recites his Miranda rights. My mind is overtaken by several emotions at once—fear, panic, love, gratitude, and a confusion of a depth I’ve never known.
After a minute, I hear the ambulance sirens joining those of the state police.
“Mr. Thorn, we’ll probably need you to come along, as well.”
“Am I being detained?” I plan to go without resistance either way, but I’m curious.
“No,” says the officer, “but you may be a key witness.”
“In what crime, exactly?”
“What the fuck do you think?”
I haven’t the foggiest.
The police station is usually my ally. I’ve even gone as far as to think of it as my second home, a haven of structure, protocol, and procedure. Its walls have always offered a modicum of peace, both here and at the Riverdell station.
Now, however, the walls are oppressive, their neat, geometric edges now daunting rather than relieving. The shadows cast by the desks, chairs, and cubicles clash upon each other like two negative magnets being pressed together, clumsy and unnatural.
The Albuquerque station is, naturally, much bigger than the Wometzia station, with an actual necessity for cubicles and partitions. While we have a couple in Wometzia, I have never seen more than five people in the station at a time, including civilians.
In this lobby, there is one other person, sitting on the bench across from me. He looks uncertain, like he’s about to get on a plane for his first ever sky-diving trip and his remaining seconds to back out are ticking away. He sits without twitching or fidgeting, but his eyes could have rolled a marathon in the time I’ve been sitting here, flitting from exit to pay phone to the squat, unfriendly receptionist, and eventually back to his own interlaced fingers, where they rest for only a moment before beginning the cycle anew.
The clock reads eleven o’clock. The jitters of my coffee have worn off and been replaced by a comfortable alertness, which is being wasted on a waiting room.
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