Nightmare

by Erik Henry Vick

  She sneered at him and rocked her head back and forth like a kid yelling “neener-neener.”

  “Toby needs you to be an adult, here, Candy.”

  “Don’t you tell me how to raise my kid, Craigy. You had your chance.”

  Craig blushed to his roots again. “Who are you really worried about, Candy? Toby or yourself? You’ve spent the last eleven years putting yourself above Toby’s needs. You’ve spent the last eleven years letting monsters like Fergusson into your life, and Toby paid the price for that, too. Hell, Fergusson might be the one who did this to Toby. You ever think of that, Candy? He beat him, maybe he didn’t stop there.”

  “You bastard,” Candy seethed.

  “Maybe I am,” said Craig in a reasonable tone. “Maybe I hurt you back in high school, maybe I’m partially to blame for how your lives have turned out, but—”

  “Maybe?” sneered Candy.

  “—Toby needs this. Don’t you want him to recover? Don’t you want him to be able to name his attackers? Do you think that lessens your responsibility for what happened to him?”

  The room was still and silent. Candy was looking at the floor, and a single teardrop fell from her face to the ground. “Fuck you, Craig,” she whispered. She turned to look at her son. She cupped her hand under his chin and lifted his face until he was looking her in the eye. Crying silently, she stood there for a moment without speaking. Finally, she let go of his chin and hugged him. When she let him go, she straightened and wiped the tears from her face. Without looking at Craig, she walked to the door. “You’ll take care of it, Doctor?”

  Doc Hauser said, “Of course. I’ll have Dawn call you with his room number.”

  Candy nodded.

  “Can I drive you home, Candy?” Craig asked.

  “No. I’d rather walk,” she said with frost in her voice. “And about what I said in the car, consider the invitation revoked.”

  10

  Owen followed his companion through the woods, trying to walk as silently as she did. She was as beautiful from behind as she was from the front. Her hair hung to the small of her back and glistened in the sunshine like gold. She seemed to glide along, above the carpet of fallen leaves and twigs.

  “Hey,” Owen whispered. “What should I call you?”

  She tilted her head to the side as if considering the question. “You may call me Brigitta,” she said with a bright tinkle of laughter.

  “Brigitta? What the hell kind of name is that?”

  “A Danish one.”

  “Are you from Denmark?”

  Again, she laughed her bright laugh. “I don’t know how to answer that question.”

  Owen shook his head. “It seems like a simple question to me.”

  The wind-chime laugh sounded again, and it was his only answer.

  “At least tell me where we are going.”

  “I have a treat for you, Owen. Don’t ruin the surprise.”

  He sighed and shook his head as she laughed at him again.

  She led him to the edge of the woods. Beyond the border, a gray ribbon of macadam stretched into the distance, running parallel to the boundary of the forest.

  He was about to make a sarcastic comment about Brigitta’s navigation skills when he saw Candy Burton walking along the opposite edge of the road. A vicious smile stretched across his face.

  “Surprise,” whispered Brigitta with a mischievous gleam in her eye. Owen nodded and shouldered his rifle. She lay a cool hand on his arm. “Wait. I’ll get her to stop.”

  “How—” he started, but she was already running through the woods parallel to the road, footsteps making no sound.

  As she ran, her form shimmered and jittered, like the image of a decaying old home movie. She was shrinking and fading away. By the time she pushed through the underbrush and onto the shoulder of the road, Owen couldn’t see her at all.

  “Toby?” Candy yelled. “Toby, is that you?” She lurched out into the road, heading for the other shoulder. “Why aren’t you with Doc Hauser?” She paused as if she were listening to something, but Owen couldn’t hear what.

  Candy came to a halt with one foot on each side of the dashed yellow line in the center of the asphalt. She bent and held out her arms.

  Owen didn’t need to be prompted. He snapped the rifle up to his shoulder, sighted through the scope, and squeezed the trigger. Blood erupted from Candy’s right thigh, a few inches above her knee. The force of the bullet swept her leg out from under her, and she pitched forward into the road. She screamed and grabbed her leg.

  His hands jerked the bolt back without having to think about it. The used brass flew through the air, and he slammed the bolt forward. Candy was screaming and rocking side to side in the road when Owen stepped out of the sheltering woods. Her eyes were squeezed shut.

  “Candy, you bitch, look at me,” he said in a conversational tone. “I promise, baby, I’ll never hit you again.”

  One of her eyes cracked open, and she stopped rocking. When her gaze locked on his, she screamed in fear. Her hands scrabbled on the macadam, looking for purchase as she pulled her good leg under her. Owen let her try to stand, and when she made it up on one leg and tried to hop away, he shouldered the rifle and shot her in the left leg. Candy fell to the side, shrieking in pain. Owen walked toward her, working the bolt on the rifle and enjoying how the sound of it made her flinch away.

  “Where are you going, baby?” he crooned. “Don’t you want to get back together?”

  “No! Stay away!”

  Chuckling, he raised the rifle and shot at her without aiming. He was less than ten feet away, and the round took her in the shoulder.

  “Hurry, Owen,” said Brigitta. “Someone’s coming.”

  Owen turned and looked, but didn’t see anything—not Brigitta, not a car. “How do you know?”

  “Hurry!” Brigitta hissed.

  “I want to savor it, I want to—” Then he heard it. The sound of an engine coming from town. “Damn it! I didn’t want this to be rushed!” He turned back to Candy and smiled at the hope he saw on her face. “Don’t worry, baby, there’s still time.” He shouldered the rifle for the final time and aimed through the scope. The bullet hit her above her eye, the force of it smashing her head against the asphalt so hard her head bounced. “Bye-bye, you bitch,” he said.

  “They are coming! Hurry up,” said Brigitta.

  Owen slung the rifle over his shoulder, eyes twitching around, looking for his spent brass. The sound of the engine was getting louder.

  “Come away! Come away now!”

  He didn’t want to leave the brass, but his desire to get away without being seen won out. Like a wolf, Owen Gray bolted into the forest.

  11

  Matt Greshin rubbed his aching eyes. After talking to Jim Cartwright, he’d spent fruitless hours trying to track Randy Fergusson’s movements. The guy had no arrest record, which, given his proclivity to run his trap, seemed unlikely. What was worse was that there was no record of the guy of any kind. Not anywhere. No social security number, no driver’s license, no tax records, no military record—nothing. That could mean only one thing: Randy Fergusson was fictional—an assumed identity—and Matt had no idea who he was really dealing with.

  And that was bad. He’d thought he had a read on the guy, and maybe he did, but he’d never gotten even a hint that the guy was more than he was pretending to be. That was worse than bad.

  He’d rolled around to Candy Burton’s house as soon as the sun came up, but she was gone. Matt wrote himself a note to remember to track her down.

  He picked up his office phone and took a slug of cold, bitter coffee. With a grimace, he replaced the receiver and stomped into the break room. Dispatch on the weekends routed emergency calls to the officer on duty, so Matt had the place to himself. He set a fresh pot of coffee brewing and trudged back to his office.

  With a sigh, he picked up the phone and dialed Tom Walton’s home number. He hated calling people on Sunday morning, but Tom needed
to know about Bobby—if he didn’t already.

  “Walton.”

  “Hey, Tom, it’s Matt. I’ve got bad news.”

  “Okay.”

  Matt could hear the calm veneer of Cop-Mode in Tom’s voice. “It’s about Bobby Jefferson. Have you heard anything?”

  “No, I only just got back from a camping trip. What’s up?”

  “Someone murdered Bobby and Meredith yesterday. Shot with a rifle.”

  The line buzzed for a moment. “That’s…”

  “Horrible, yeah,” said Matt. “You remember the dipshit we got cleaned up over to your place the other night?”

  “Yeah, squirrelly fellow, right?”

  “I think he’s the doer.”

  “Well, fuck.” Tom sounded exhausted.

  “You can say that again.”

  “How’s Gary handling it?”

  “He ain’t, he asked me to handle it.” Matt sighed and rubbed his hand through his hair.

  “No one ever accused him of being stupid. You get any sleep?”

  “No, but listen, Tom. I want your help on this.”

  “Whatever you need me to do, Matt. You know that.”

  “Yeah, thanks. The guy gave us a fake name.”

  “Have anything on him?”

  “At the moment? Not a thing. I’m going to see his old lady later today, but…well, she’s a bit of a drunk. Plus, she’s not cooperative. She’s the mother of the missing kid.”

  “Perfect. The little shit good for the kid too?”

  “I don’t think so. But hell, if he could fool me this bad, maybe he could fool me about that too.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up.”

  “The guy shot at Jim Cartwright’s kid out in the woods.”

  “Well, fuck. This call’s loads of fun, Matt.”

  “You should be on this end of it.”

  “Yeah. What do you need? Manpower?”

  “No doubt. I’ve got to go walking in the woods later, looking for a bullet in a tree. And I’ve got to track down Mr. Not-Fergusson. I’m pretty sure he’s not in Oneka Falls.”

  “But not as sure he’s not in Genosgwa or Cottonwood Vale.”

  “That’s right,” said Matt.

  Craig Witherson walked in, missing his usual grin. “Toby’s back.”

  “What? Hey Tom, Craig’s here and says the kid is back. Can you get a few guys going around to your hotels and barns?”

  “Yeah, anything you need. I’ll call Morton, too. Get him on board and doing the same. Then I’m headed your way.”

  “Good enough. See you later.” Matt set the receiver down in its cradle and looked up at Craig. “He’s alive?”

  Craig nodded.

  “He say who did this to him?”

  Craig shook his head. “Old Doc Hauser says it’s hysterical catatonia. He’s shipping him to Strong in Rochester.”

  The skin between Matt’s eyebrows wrinkled. “We’ve got to try to get him to talk to us first, Craig. You know that.”

  Craig shook his head again. “Wasted effort, Matt. He didn’t even react to Candy.”

  “You know where she is?”

  “I did, but she wouldn’t let me drive her home.”

  Matt arched his eyebrows.

  “I had to…we had words about what’s best for Toby. She didn’t much like it.”

  “Let’s go track her down,” Matt said in a weary tone.

  They piled into Matt’s cruiser and drove to the Burton residence. Candy wasn’t there yet, so they drove toward Doc Hauser’s place, using the most likely route, but still didn’t find her.

  “Well, what now?” Matt asked.

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “You dated her for a while, right?”

  “That was a long time ago, Chief.”

  “Still.”

  Craig shook his head. “She was still drunk at Doc Hauser’s. Not a lot, but even so. There’s no telling what she’d do.”

  Matt sighed and let the car roll to a halt in front of the doctor’s office.

  “Maybe…”

  “What is it, Craig?”

  “She used to hike on the Oneka Trail when she was upset. The one that goes along the edge of the river. Said the sound of the river calmed her.”

  “Worth a shot,” said Matt, throwing the car into gear. The Oneka Trail met the road about three miles outside of town and Matt drove out there.

  “What’s that in the road?” asked Craig as they crested the large hill on the edge of town. “Someone lying in the road?”

  “Is it Candy?”

  “I…I think so.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” muttered Matt. “Not another one.” He skidded to a halt about twenty yards from the body. It was Candy Burton, no question. “Shot four times,” he said.

  Craig walked to the side of the road and squatted. When he stood, he had a spent rifle cartridge on the end of his pen. “He got sloppy this time.”

  “Let’s hope there’s a print. Better call this in, Craig. Get the ME rolling.” Matt turned his cruiser to block the road.

  12

  Jim brought the Oldsmobile to a skidding halt in front of the Emergency Room doors of Cuba Memorial Hospital. Billy had stopped convulsing, but Karen had been unable to rouse him since then. He got out of the car and slammed the driver’s seat forward. He bent down and tried to take Billy off Karen’s lap, but she gripped the boy hard. “Hand him to me, Karen. I’ll carry him into the ER.” She looked up with tear-filled eyes. She let go of Billy, and Jim lifted him out of the car. He sprinted inside, leaving Karen to get the other boys out of the car and bring them into the hospital.

  Karen climbed out of the car and told the boys to follow her. Both boys sat where they were, not moving, not even looking up at her. Exasperated, she slapped her hand on the roof of the car. “Boys, get your butts out of the car right now!” Neither boy so much as twitched at the sound of her hand on the roof, but, after a moment, they turned toward her. Benny pushed Johnny’s shoulder, and the boys slid out of the car. “Nice to know you can both still move. Now, we’re going into this hospital to see about Billy. It will take a long time, and it’s going to be boring. Both of you had better sit still, and I don’t want to hear a peep.” With that, she turned and walked toward the doors, leaving the boys to close the door and follow.

  Benny shoved Johnny ahead of him and watched as his brother lurched after their mother. Benny shot a glance toward the woods bordering the hospital campus, and a small smile played on his lips. He looked back in time to watch his mother go through the doors. Johnny stopped at the doors like he didn’t know what to do, but when he looked back, Benny made shooing motions, and Johnny went inside with a nod.

  Benny turned and sprinted toward the woods. No one noticed him running away from the hospital.

  No one, that is, except the king of the woods. As he crossed the border into the forest, the man smiled at him and tossled his hair, and then touched Benny on the cheek. Benny flopped to the ground unconscious. The man’s smile stretched wide.

  Chapter 6

  2007

  1

  The sun had almost set by the time Drew recovered enough courage to go back to Oneka Falls. Dressed for work as he called it—black cargo pants, black hoodie, skintight black leather gloves, black tactical boots—he parked his BMW a block north of the Town Hall and got out.

  He sprinted across the street and stood outside the bank, pretending to look for his debit card while watching the street in the reflection of the big glass panel window. Satisfied that no one on the street gave a shit about him, he turned and walked to the intersection of Union and Main.

  The creepy church hunched a block from the intersection on a ninety-degree bend in the road so that the front of the church faced Main Street. The sight of it made Drew a little hinky, a little nauseated.

  LaBouche had looked straight at him. No way he didn’t see me, he thought. No way he didn’t recognize me. He walked up Union toward the leering edifice of
the white clapboard church, tension mounting across his shoulders with each step, nerves jangling. Another run in with LaBouche was the last thing he needed, but he had to know what was going on in that old church.

  By the time he reached the ninety-degree bend, night had fallen over the town like a shroud. The night was dead quiet, no shouts of playing children, no traffic noise, no good-hearted banter from backyard barbeques or campfires.

  He stood across from Play Time for a moment, just looking at the place. It seemed to loom over that part of Union Street, casting its shadow over everything. Lights flickered inside, making the images in the stained-glass windows dance and leap. The old building creaked in the wind, seeming to breathe in the night air.

  With a shiver, Drew darted across the narrow lane, but he didn’t climb the steps to the double doors. He sidled around to the north side, trying to mask his nerves—to move like he had every reason to be there.

  The side of the old church had been neglected, siding boards warped and bowed, paint peeling, plants dead in the flower beds, garbage drifting across the small side yard in the weak wind. Drew took a deep breath through his nose and almost gagged at the stench the old building gave off. It smelled of old blood, rot, and decay.

  He turned the corner to the back of the building and spotted the thing he needed: the bulkhead doors to the cellar. A rusty chain and ancient-looking padlock secured the doors, but that presented no barrier for Drew. With a grin, he fished his lock picks out of his backpack and opened the old lock in a trice. He removed the chain and opened the doors, careful not to make any noise.

  The stench that assaulted him from the open cellar put the stench in the side yard to shame. Eyes watering from the reek, Drew descended the narrow steps into the clammy darkness. The odor lashed out at him like a physical attack. He coughed, and the smell coated his tongue, tasting of spoiled meat, mold, and darkness.

  The cellar was pitch black, and Drew pulled his night-vision setup out of his pack and slid it on, fighting his gag reflex. He put his hand over his nose and mouth, and that helped to cut the barbarity of the stench but didn’t eliminate it.