It was a metallic click; the sound of the door being opened.
Robert’s eyes bulged, and he quickly shoved upward with both hands, his triceps and calves screaming with the effort. No longer worried about the noise, he grunted and gasped as he strained.
“Found the door! Aiden, I found the door!”
Light spilled into the shaft from below, and just as he heard the much larger man finagling his way inside, he shoved upward again.
There was a tearing sound, like a rug being separated by its very fibers, and Robert suddenly found himself squinting from light that spilled in through the crack. The contrast between the chimney illuminated by only his cell phone and the bright mid-afternoon South Carolina sun was so dramatic that for a second, he felt paralyzed
A shot rang out, and something whizzed by his ear, sending pain flaring on that side of his head. Bright light or not, Robert pushed again, and a square foot of plywood suddenly came loose. He shoved it aside, and it careened out of sight. As Robert hoisted himself out of the tunnel and onto the roof, he heard Mark shout from below.
“He’s on the roof! Aiden, he’s on the roof!”
In his haste, Robert nearly propelled himself too far, and he had to reach back and desperately grab the lip of what he now saw was the top of a chimney in order to prevent from sliding down the sloped roof.
“Fuck!” he groaned, every muscle in his body crying out in protest.
As he hung there, trying to coax his muscles into responding and trying to decide what to do next, he finally got a good look at himself.
His hands and arms were completely black, covered in a thick layer of soot. His shirt was likewise a dark mess. Clearly, when Father Callahan had closed off the fireplace and turned it into a secret room, he hadn’t bothered cleaning it all the way to the top.
What would be the point?
Robert spat a glob of black phlegm over his shoulder, then quickly looked around, trying to ignore the sound of Mark still shouting from below. It dawned on him that sometime during his pushing, the cell phone must have dropped from between his teeth.
But it wasn’t as if he could call for help anyway.
The church was steeply peaked, and he was holding on to the chimney that was three-quarters of the way to the top.
There has to be a way down! There has to be!
And then he saw it; the plywood covering that he had shoved off had skidded down the roof and was now lying on the roof of an adjacent building.
Father Callahan’s quarters!
It was maybe twenty feet down to that roof, and he knew that as soon as he let go of the roof, he was going to slide—there was no chance of crawling down.
I have to.
There was no other way down.
A pain in his calf suddenly struck him, the one that was missing part of the muscle and was streaked with the burn marks from Leland.
The book! his mind screamed. You’re forgetting the book!
Robert took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and pulled himself back up to the chimney. Mark was already halfway up.
Robert pulled out of the opening just as another shot rang out. He heard a dull thunk as the bullet embedded itself in the brick, but he never saw where it struck.
“Aiden! Where the fuck are you, Aiden?! He’s on the roof!”
Blood coursing in his ears, Robert took another deep breath, his lungs burning from exertion and the soot, and then yanked himself up once more. In one fluid motion, he reached down into the condemned chimney and grabbed the book with one hand. Desperate to get out of there before Mark fired off another round, Robert pushed himself backward and out of the shaft.
In his zeal, he pushed too hard, and when he tried to grab the lip of the chimney again, his fingers only grazed the rough edge where the cap had once been attached.
Robert cried out, and tried desperately to grab on to anything, but it was no use.
Before he knew it, Robert was sliding on his stomach, careening down the roof of the church, book in hand.
Chapter 21
Robert screamed as he tried to grab on to the worn shingles with his one free hand. His body skipped over top a raised nail, and it scraped deep into his abdomen. At the last second, he managed to turn onto his side before it caught beneath his sternum. Blood seeped from the wound and started to soak either side of his now torn t-shirt.
Robert continued with his roll until he found himself on his back, but he immediately regretted his decision.
Now he could see where he was falling. And, more importantly, how far he had to go.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” he repeated over and over again. He put his hands out to either side in attempt to slow his descent, but only served to scrape the leather book cover and render his right palm raw.
His only saving grace was that the roof, like the rest of the church, was in a terrible state of disrepair, the wound on his stomach notwithstanding; had it been newly refinished, there would’ve been no telling what sort of speed he might have hit.
“Oh shhhhhhhhhhitttttttt,” he shouted as he neared the end of the roof. His heels jammed on a makeshift eaves-trough and, unable to stop himself, he was catapulted forward. His arms pinwheeled as he flew through the air, and the wind tore the book from his hand. It was almost comical the way his arms flailed as he tried desperately to grab the book, while at the same time trying to brace himself for the landing.
It was only about a four-foot drop to the top of the Father Callahan’s adjacent quarters, and when Robert landed on the heel of his right hand and his left knee, his momentum was such that his neck whipped forward. His chin smacked against the flat roof, and stars flashed across his vision.
Fighting the darkness that threatened to encompass him, Robert spat a glob of blood and tried to force himself to his feet. His right wrist immediately gave way, and only at the last second was he able to prevent himself from smashing his face again.
Somehow, Robert managed to make his way to his feet, only to end up on all fours again when his left leg gave out. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he started to half crawl, half scamper forward. Then he saw the book lying open, face down, by the edge of the second roof, and he got what was either a third or fourth wind. He found that if he leaned heavily on his right leg, and dragged his left, he could limp forward at a decent clip. During his horrible descent, he hadn’t forgotten that there were two men, two armed men, two soldiers, out to kill him.
Without pausing, Robert scooped up the book with his good hand, and then continued to the edge of roof.
It was another seven or eight feet down, but there was some fairly lush looking shrubbery beneath that he hoped would break his fall. He debated looking for another way down, a ladder, maybe, but the sound of another gunshot somewhere behind him rendered a more calculated way down a non-option.
He jumped.
Or, more aptly, he flung his body awkwardly over the edge of the roof. Although this fall was considerably shorter than his previous one, it ended the same way—in pain.
The shrubbery did little to break his fall, but he had somehow managed to land mostly on his good ankle. This time, Robert tried to roll forward like some sort of injured, amateur free runner, and he actually did a decent job of lessening the brunt of the impact.
Still, the book went flying and he felt more pain shoot up his legs. Only adrenaline drove him forward. Through blurred, teary vision, after somehow making it back to his feet, he caught sight of his car just across the street.
It can’t be, he thought as he slowly shambled toward the Chevy. It can’t be.
After all of the horrible luck that had plagued him over the past year or so, Robert didn’t think it possible that he could actually escape from two trained assassins. Bending only to scoop up the book, Robert continued trudging forward.
…forty yards…thirty…twenty…
He heard the crack of a gunshot, but he didn’t slow.
…ten…five…
And then, mir
aculously, Robert was at the car, and he yanked the driver’s side door open. He didn’t so much enter his rented vehicle as collapse into it.
Breathing rapidly, he tossed the book on the passenger seat before reaching for the keys in his pocket. He was tempted to pause for a moment, to succumb to the false comfort of the vehicle, to perhaps assess the extent of his many injuries.
But nothing had changed. Aiden and Mark were still out there. Still, he was helpless to prevent his wandering eyes to at least glance at the mess on his stomach. His shirt had been torn nearly to the collar, and a thick, deep cut ran from his belly button to just below his chest. Blood was smeared across his pale skin.
He threw his head back against the headrest, and his ear immediately flared with pain from where the bullet had grazed him.
Sobbing now, Robert snaked the keys out of his pocket and jammed them in the ignition. He fired the car into drive, but before he could press the gas pedal, something cold and hard pressed into the groove where his neck met the back of his skull.
“I want you to drive real slow, Robert,” Aiden said calmly from the backseat. “Real slow.”
Chapter 22
“Why are you doing this? What do you want?”
Dozens of other questions rifled through Robert’s brain, but he figured it best to start with the most obvious. When there was no answer, he glanced up to the rearview mirror, and realized that Aiden wasn’t even looking at him anymore—he was staring blankly out the window. Thankfully, he had lowered the gun—it was presumably now aimed at his spine through the seat—but Robert wasn’t foolhardy enough to think that he was out of danger.
But he had been a fool when he had thought that he could actually outsmart, outrun, and generally outperform Aiden and Mark. In fact, he wouldn’t have been surprised if Mark shouting into the secret room hadn’t been a ploy all along to get him to bring the book to Aiden waiting in his car.
Did they see my car when they arrived? Is that why they never left? When they spoke about finding the book, were they really speaking about finding me?
Aiden wasn’t providing him any answers, despite his pestering questions. The only thing that the man with the stubble in the backseat did was tell him turn every few minutes. Other than that, he was either lost in thought or, more likely, simply ignoring him.
Now, as Robert’s eyes again darted up into the rearview, he saw the man take a circular tin out of his pocket. He packed a wad of chewing tobacco into his bottom lip, then he reached forward and grabbed Robert’s empty coffee cup from the holder between the front seats.
He removed the lid and spat into it.
“Turn left here,” he instructed, his eyes going to the window again. Robert’s eyes returned to the road.
He was in a random subdivision in a small town near Elloree, South Carolina, one of many that he had driven through over the last hour that all looked the same. In fact, he had driven through so many of these dinky streets that he might have convinced himself that the street that Aiden told him to turn on this time—Harmond Avenue—sounded familiar.
“Where are we going?” he asked again.
No response.
As their meandering drive eked past the hour mark, Robert’s adrenaline had all but fled him. And in its place came pain.
His ankle was throbbing, and his stomach and chest burned from where the nail had cut him. The coppery taste of blood from where he had bit his tongue lingered like halitosis, and his chin ached. Ironically, the least painful was the bullet that had grazed his ear.
His back hurt too, and there was something sharp digging into the spot just above his hip.
They drove for several more minutes before Robert started to panic. Either that, or he had worked up his nerve; given his present state, it could have been either.
“Why are you doing this, Aiden? I mean, I helped you guys at Seaforth…what have I done wrong? What does Sean want with me?”
At the mention of Seaforth, Aiden’s eyes flicked up and he spat into the cup. For a moment, Robert thought that the man was finally going to answer, but then he pressed his lips together obstinately.
“Left here,” he ordered. It was unnerving that the man wasn’t even looking when he gave directions. It was as if he was just choosing at random.
Robert had had it. Instead of turning, he jammed the car into park and whipped his head around. Aiden didn’t react the way he had hoped, but at least he had the man’s attention now.
“Look, I don’t know what you want with me”—he reached over and grabbed the book from the passenger seat and tossed it into the back—“but if you want the book? Take it. You want to kill me? Do it. At least then I’ll be with Amy.” His voice hitched. “Let me ask you something: what would you do? Do you have a family? Kids?” Predictably, there was no response. Robert, did, however, perceive a slight change in the man’s expression. It softened ever so slightly. “Well, I have a daughter. And she’s trapped on the other side—I thought that this book could help me understand better why she’s there, why she couldn’t fucking just die like a normal person. And more importantly, I thought it could tell me how I can get her back. That’s it—that’s all I want. I don’t want any of Sean’s money, I don’t want to partake in any more of his suicide missions. I just want Amy back. I don’t care about my brother, my father, my fucking friends. Nothing. Just Amy.”
Robert gritted his teeth and stared. He couldn’t believe that he had risked his life for this stupid book, and now he had basically handed it to Sean. But what else could he do?
Even his candidness surprised him. But he was sick of these games, of skirting the truth. He was too tired, sore, and weak to lie, either to himself or to others.
Aiden spat again.
“You done?” He pulled the gun back into view. “Drive.”
Robert shook his head.
“No, no fucking way. You can shoot me for all I care, but I’m not going to drive anymore. I’m fucking done driving.”
Aiden squinted as he sized him up, and Robert held his ground. Eventually, the man sighed, and used the muzzle of the gun to scratch at the stubble on his cheek.
“If we wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be around anymore, you know that, right?”
Now it was Robert’s turn to remain silent.
“Look, you’re right. Sean wants the book, and now I have it. But we don’t want you dead…if you were dead, there would be bigger problems, bigger fish that wouldn’t be happy. I don’t really know why they are going to all this trouble for one little book, or what it means, or anything about your daughter. I just know that I was told to find the book, and I figured the best way to do that was to find you.” He looked over at the book that was lying on the seat beside him. “And it worked.”
“Why do you want the book?”
Aiden shook his head.
“I don’t. Sean and the others do.”
“Who are these others?”
“Robert, you want some advice?”
Robert threw up his arms.
“No, I don’t want advice. What I want is answers, and evidently you either don’t know, or are unwilling to give them to me.”
Aiden spit again, then moved the wad of chew to the other side with his tongue.
“A year ago, I was a regular guy—a family guy, a fucking accountant. Then my life gets flipped upside down, and everything I loved was lost. And that’s just the beginning. Next, I find out that everything I believed in was wrong, a fucking lie—even my past was a lie. A fucking absolute lie.”
“I know how it feels, Robert,” the man said, for once showing a scintilla of emotion.
“How? How is that possible?” Robert nearly shouted.
The man closed up again.
“My advice, take it or leave it, is just to put all this behind you and move on. Go find a new life for yourself, Robert. It’s not too late. Believe me. Start a new life.”
Robert just glared at Aiden. Even though he was clearly trying to be helpful, compassio
nate, his words rang hollow.
He couldn’t possibly have any insight into what Robert was going through.
“Now are you going to drive?”
Robert shook his head, and Aiden raised the gun.
“Then you are going to get out and walk.” His eyes hardened. “And if you don’t, I’ll drag you out of the goddamn car.”
Chapter 23
Robert watched in sheer wonderment as the car that he had driven to South Carolina pealed off without him, with Aiden in the driver seat.
What the fuck just happened?
For a long while, he just watched the dust swirl about, mesmerized by the random patterns and shapes that appeared, then just as quickly faded away. His eyes burned; his wrist, chest, and leg hurt.
His head throbbed, and fatigue threatened to take him then.
A woman walking a dog suddenly turned the corner, but when she caught a glimpse of him, she abruptly changed course and crossed to the other side of the street. She had to basically drag the snarling poodle with her. When she pulled a cell phone from her purse and continued to stare at him over her shoulder as she sped away, Robert snapped out of his stupor.
Covered in soot, ear bleeding, shirt torn, he must have looked like someone who had just escaped from Chernobyl.
I have to get out of here.
Robert limped away from the woman, electing to head the way that she had come. Sometime during his adventures in the chimney and on the church roof, he had lost his cell phone. And without it, he was at a loss for which direction he should head. To orient himself, he opted to head back in the direction of Callahan’s church, but that too proved impossible. Aiden had instructed him to make so many left and right turns, sometimes two or three of the same in a row, that he had no idea how to get back.
And perhaps that had been by design.
If I wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be here. Besides, others would be upset.
Robert shook his head and tried to focus.
Going to the police wasn’t an option, either, as no explanation he could come up with would keep him out of the loony bin. Remembering the way the woman had quickly grabbed her phone, he was of the mind that if he stayed out in the open any longer, he was going to be speaking to the police whether he wanted to or not.
Scarsdale Crematorium (The Haunted Book 4) Page 10
