Daniel had watched them sleep so peacefully, lost in dreams of God, Jesus, paradise, or whatever the fuck these people fantasized about, worlds away from the nightmares of their charges. Nightmares that came fast and furious with every night spent under their roof. Nightmares of humiliations and degradations. Endless loneliness. And pain. Always pain. Constant and unrelenting.
The anger had coursed through his veins. His temples had throbbed, and he had feared it would trigger a massive headache or worse. Part of him had wanted to slit their throats right then and be done. But he knew that would be impetuous.
He would return the next night, as planned.
TWENTY
The moment was now at hand.
Daniel stood on the edge of the property, Miriam Manor in his crosshairs. In one hand, he held his trusty medical bag; in the other, a Beretta with a suppressor that he had purchased illegally at a sketchy pawnshop in Dallas.
Afraid that the light from the full moon might give away his approach on the off chance that somebody in the compound was awake and looking out the window, he hunched over, making himself as small as possible, lupine, and scurried across the grass until he reached the doors of the storm cellar.
His black leather gloves were secured tightly to his wrists with duct tape. The rest of his neoprene suit was designed to retain any organic material that might fall, seep, or ooze from his body.
He opened the bag and took out the mask. There was no reason he couldn’t revisit Groucho. Only that cop, Czarcik, had seen his disguise. Still, he hated being predictable.
This mask was even creepier—Raggedy Andy.
He slipped the mask over his head, already covered by a latex bathing cap, and pulled the handle of the storm doors. He had brought a crowbar, just in case, but the doors were unlocked, as he expected.
Once inside, Daniel allowed his eyes to adjust to the dark. Although nothing in the cellar had changed since the previous night, something about it felt different, as if it could sense the impending slaughter and was emitting an aura of its own.
Daniel’s senses were primed. He was more focused; everything was sharper.
He was surrounded by boxes of donated food, stacked in columns around him, stamped with the logo of the donating entity, usually churches or religious charities. Most of the donations were staples—canned fruit, ramen noodles, powdered milk—but there were also perishables years past their expiration date, leaching out of the cardboard boxes and staining the stone floor.
Even though the basement was muggy, Daniel shivered.
He stood at the bottom of the wooden stairs that led up to the first floor. As he had done the previous night, he placed one foot on the first step, feeling the tension, anticipating how much it would creak. Just to be safe, he ascended the stairs with his back hugging the basement’s stone wall. He didn’t know how much this really helped, but he had seen the technique used in countless movies, and either way, he made it to the top without making much noise.
Daniel stepped into the hallway of the main floor. It wasn’t as dark as he remembered. At first he thought it was a result of his heightened senses, until he located the source of the illumination. There was a single bathroom across from the girls’ room. A thin sliver of soft light glowed from underneath the door. Just then, the door opened, and out stepped a small girl with tired eyes and hair mussed from sleep.
For this he wasn’t prepared, since nighttime visits to the toilet were expressly forbidden and would result in a beating the following morning.
Daniel anticipated the inevitable scream of surprise. She had to be just as shocked, even more so, to see him. But instead, the girl tilted her head and examined him quizzically.
He almost laughed out loud, realizing how he must look to her. In this child’s world of actual demons and tangible evil, a large Raggedy Andy prowler might not be sheer madness, but the result of divine providence. That was one of the few benefits of true faith—anything could be explained away as the power of God.
The prudent thing for Daniel to do, of course, was to leave the compound immediately. But he had already granted a stay of execution to Edgar Barnes; a second one was unthinkable. Plus, even with the bathroom light, it was still fairly dark in the hallway. Compounded by the fact that recollections, especially from children, were notoriously unhelpful to authorities, Daniel didn’t foresee having too much to worry about.
He kneeled down in front of her and flipped up his mask so it rested on top of his head.
“Hi, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to scare you.” She stared at him stoically. “I know I look a little silly in this costume, but I’m dressed up this way as a surprise for Reverend Bradley.” She remained expressionless. “Can I ask you a favor?” She nodded. “I need you to go quietly back to your room and try to fall back asleep, but make sure not to wake up any of your friends.”
He casually took her hand in a small gesture of gratitude and noticed the faded bruises on her forearms, as if she had recently been restrained. He fought back a tear and looked directly into her eyes, making sure she could understand him. “But sweetheart, this is a promise. Those bad people who say they’re taking care of you . . . they’re never going to hurt you ever again.”
What happened next was so unexpected that Daniel momentarily forgot the purpose of his visit. She threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest. But she didn’t cry.
When her grip wavered, he gently pushed her back and held her face in his hands. “Go ahead,” he said, smiling. “You think of the sweetest dream you’ve ever had. You’ll be asleep in no time. And then in a minute or two, I’m going to go in and talk to the staff ladies.”
He touched her arm, releasing her, and she turned and walked quietly back to her room.
As Daniel watched her disappear into the inky blackness, he was struck by a powerful childhood memory. His mother had read to him from a classic children’s book. He never cared for the book, and one particular section terrified him. A woman awakens, sure something horrible has happened to the children in her home, and sprints down the hallway to the room that houses the girls. Drawn abstractly, with slanted black lines and forced perspective, she appears more specter from hell than human—at least she did to Daniel. And as he found himself staring into the black portal of the doorway, he thought of that scene. She ran faster and faster, he said to himself, remembering the urgency with which she arrived to comfort the children.
A few minutes later, when Daniel entered the room, the young girl was back in bed as promised. He half-expected to find her peering over the covers, clutching them tightly, with only her head visible. But she was on her stomach instead, head turned to the side, sleeping deeply with a smile on her lips.
With so many of them packed into so small a space, the girls had grown accustomed to ambient noise during the night. None of them stirred as Daniel made his way through to the staff ladies’ room.
He went inside.
On the cot closest to the doorway slept the oldest and most obese of the three women. She wore a dirty nightgown that looked as if it hadn’t been washed in weeks. A meaty slab of arm was folded over her head, revealing a sloppily shaved armpit. Her breathing displayed the telltale signs of sleep apnea.
It was beyond ironic that a facility so obsessed with withholding food to near starvation levels would allow its staff ladies to be such gluttons. Or maybe it wasn’t ironic at all. Maybe it was just another way to show the girls that those in power were allowed to flout one of the seven deadly sins while the girls wasted away.
Daniel reached out and covered the sleeping woman’s mouth with one hand while brandishing the gun directly in front of her face. Normally he would have pressed it up against her temple, but she would be groggy and confused upon waking, and he needed her to quickly grasp the situation at hand.
“Shh . . .” he cautioned as her eyes shot open. “Be very, very quiet.” Her eyes stayed wide with terror. “I don’t mean to scare you, but I need to make sure you
understand me. Now, I’m going to remove my hand from your mouth. If you make a sound, I’m going to have to shoot you in the face. If you understand exactly what I’ve told you, please nod your head.”
She complied, nodding vigorously. “Good.” He removed his hand from her mouth. “You OK?” She nodded again. “It’s OK, you can speak, but just whisper.”
Daniel jerked his head toward the two other staff ladies who were still sleeping. “Can you wake them up quietly? And if either of them scream, it’s lights out for all of you.”
“I’ll wake them.” She spoke so quietly, so meekly, that Daniel had trouble reconciling that this was the very same woman who, if all the reports were accurate, took perverse pleasure in torturing her charges.
He motioned to the other ladies with the gun. “Do it. Do it now.”
The beastly woman carried out her job with aplomb. In less than a minute, Daniel had all three staff ladies sitting on a cot in front of him. They were disheveled and sad, beyond pathetic, and it was impossible to look at them without acknowledging the insidious cycle of victimization.
“Do all of you believe in God?” Three heads bobbed up and down simultaneously and without hesitation. “Fine, that’s fine. So when I swear to God on what I’m going to tell you next, I want you to believe me unconditionally.” He paused, allowing his words to sink in. “If you do exactly as I say, all of you will live. If you don’t, I will kill all of you. But first, I’ll defile you.”
Daniel wasn’t sure what that even meant, but he was certain that whatever indignities the women could conjure up were a powerful-enough deterrent.
“When I tell you to, the three of you are going to go into the girls’ room and guard the door. Under no circumstances will you let a single one of them out. It will be scary. You’re going to hear gunshots, screaming, and other loud noises. But I promise, none of you will be hurt. I imagine the girls will be terrified. It’s your duty to calm them down. I don’t care how loud—or how quiet—it gets. You’re not going to open the door or leave the room. I know the window in the room faces east. The moment you see the first light of dawn, one, and only one of you, will leave. Don’t look around, don’t delay, just run out of the house and head to the nearest neighbor. From there, call the police and tell them that there have been shots fired at Miriam Manor. Tell them people are hurt. Probably dead. Do I make myself clear?”
Again the three heads nodded in unison.
“Oh, one more thing, ladies. I contemplated killing you. I’ve heard what you’ve done to these girls. The scars you left on them will last a lifetime. But you’ve been given a second chance. Change your ways. Devote yourself not to Jesus, but to your fellow man. Because if I hear differently, I’m going to return and drag your souls to hell.”
As ridiculous as he looked, standing there in his Raggedy Andy disguise, Daniel could tell they believed him implicitly.
“Go!” With one word he released them. They scurried into the girls’ room. For a few seconds, Daniel listened to the muffled sounds within. They seemed to be following his instructions.
Daniel took off the Raggedy Andy mask. It was no longer necessary.
A single wooden door separated the Bradley family from the undesirables under their care.
From his reconnaissance the night before, he knew it had a simple lock, and could be jimmied open easily with a common lock-picking tool. There was no need for the epoxy he had used to gain access to Czarcik’s apartment.
The first room he entered was that of the youngest Bradley, twenty-six-year-old Clarice. She slept on her mattress, her pillow thrown off to the side. In one motion, Daniel picked up the pillow, pushed it into her face, stuck the suppressor deep into the fabric, and pulled the trigger. The sound was further muffled by the goose down. He tossed the pillow off to the side and examined his handiwork. Clarice Bradley was almost unrecognizable. He thought he could even see her spine through the gaping wound.
There was no question she was dead from the single shot.
Next was twenty-eight-year-old Sarah. The shooting of her sister hadn’t roused her, and she slept facedown in her pillow. The path of least resistance would be to place the gun against the back of her skull and simply pull the trigger.
But why not test the efficacy of the knife that he had bought in the same pawnshop where he had picked up the Beretta? It reminded him of Stallone’s knife from Cobra, with a devilishly curved blade attached to a pair of brass knuckles. In addition to its frightening appearance, Daniel liked the knife’s functionality; it allowed him a firm grip for maximum leverage and mitigated the danger of slicing off his own fingers.
He walked over to Sarah and gazed upon her body, watching it rise and fall to the rhythm of her breathing. A single slice nearly severed her head. The second one did the trick.
Daniel had the presence of mind to grab Sarah’s nightgown, easing her body onto the floor before it slid off and crashed onto the wood.
Roger Bradley’s room was next to that of his parents, so Daniel had to use an abundance of caution. He turned the doorknob slowly, expecting to find the thirty-year-old in a position similar to his sisters. Instead, he found Roger very much awake. And very much occupied with himself. Daniel was so surprised he allowed a quiet laugh to escape. Caught off guard and completely humiliated, Roger screeched like a girl, threw the pictures he had been holding with his free hand up in the air, and dived under the covers like a frightened child.
Daniel moved quickly. He walked over and was about to rip the covers off Roger when he glanced at the photos, now strewn all across the bed. He could immediately tell what the images were.
Until now, Daniel had been fairly restrained. But witnessing the blatant and graphic violation of children, something snapped. He tore the blanket from the blubbering man, who instinctively threw up his arms in front of his face for protection. “Please, please don’t hurt me,” he wailed.
“Open your fucking eyes, you pervert.”
Roger closed them tighter, as if trying in vain to escape a supernatural horror.
“I said open them.” Daniel’s voice was strangely calm even as his pulse was racing. Easy, Old Hoss, he thought to himself. The last thing he needed was to throw a clot at this critical juncture.
Reassured by the steadiness of Daniel’s voice, Roger opened his eyes. The moment he did so, Daniel thrust the muzzle with all his might right into Roger’s left eye socket and squeezed the trigger repeatedly.
Daniel quickly fled the scene. He sprinted across the hall and kicked open the door to the reverend and his wife’s room without even bothering to check whether it was unlocked. The door was made of cheap wood and flew off its hinges.
They were already awake, fighting back sleep and trying to get their bearings. Daniel stood in the doorway.
Reverend Bradley instinctively reached for the landline phone on his nightstand. He grabbed the handset and furiously punched 9-1-1. He tried a few more times—Daniel watching, smiling—before realizing that the line had been cut.
Daniel knew that the reverend kept his guns locked in his den. To reach them, to escape, Bradley or his wife would have to go through Daniel. And that wasn’t happening.
With all the Bradley children dead and the staff ladies taking care of the children, Daniel could finally take his time.
To Reverend Bradley, he said, “I’ll give you a moment to get your wits about you. But try anything funny . . .” He held up the gun, making sure they saw it.
Dorothy Bradley looked at her husband, completely terrified. “Seamus, what’s happening?” Daniel almost felt bad for her. Thinking this frail old man could protect her.
Reverend Bradley studied Daniel, then turned to his wife. “It will be all right, Dorothy. Just do as the gentleman says.” Daniel could tell the reverend was racking his brain, trying to think of a way out of this predicament. Trying to place him. Figure out who he was. What he wanted.
Daniel allowed his face to go slack, to become an expressionless mask, no mor
e revealing than the one he had worn when he entered Miriam Manor. “No, no, it most certainly will not, Reverend.”
He could tell that Dorothy believed him. Her husband, however, was still confident in his powers of negotiation. “Just tell me who you are, my son. How you’re hurting. Together, we can work through this.”
Daniel had to admit, he was a powerful and persuasive speaker, and he could easily see how an unsophisticated congregation could be enraptured by his oratory.
“You haven’t guessed?” mocked Daniel. “I go by many names. Belial. Beelzebub. Ba’al.”
“Impossible.”
Daniel tried to suppress a small smile. “Come now, Reverend. Of course it’s possible. After all, isn’t that what you’ve built your whole sick little empire on? The existence of evil. You hold these girls hostage, offering them protection. Salvation. You must believe in the Devil and all his minions. Or what would you be? A worthless pederast? Just a regular old hypocrite?”
“You filthy heathen!” the reverend spat with white-hot anger. Daniel didn’t think this was an act. A hypocrite he may have been, but Reverend Bradley was also really pissed off.
“Let me ask you something,” Daniel said, turning his attention to Dorothy. “Did it ever give you pause? All the injustices you visited upon these poor innocent young women. Did you ever step back and wonder what perverted version of religion could endorse such evil?”
“It was . . . the word of God,” she stammered, hardly convincing.
“And your love of God is absolute?”
“Of course,” she answered quickly, seemingly aware of her previous hesitation.
Daniel began to pace around the room, considering his options while always keeping one eye on the couple. “Then renounce him.”
“Excuse me?”
“Renounce Jesus Christ.”
“Don’t you dare, Dorothy,” the reverend chimed in.
Daniel trained his gun on him and ran his thumb over the rear sight. “I’ll get to you, Reverend. But right now, I’m having a conversation with your wife. Interrupt us again, and I’ll shove a crucifix right up your ass. And that’s not a euphemism.”
Rain Will Come Page 17
