Dead and Gone

by Tina Glasneck

  She clamped down on her fear and forced the clouds away.

  Forced the roaring freight train out of her ears as well.

  Did the only thing she could think of that might buy her a little more time, although what good could possibly come from it, she had no idea.

  She started talking as he moved toward her, the bloodstained knife held in front of him in both hands like some religious icon. “There’s something you should know,” she said, and he stopped dead in his tracks and stood unmoving. He stared at her, seemingly flummoxed by this unexpected development. It was clearly not the reaction he had been expecting.

  “What are you talking about?” he said.

  Cait knew his indecision would not last long, so she pressed on, willing her voice to remain steady, making up her strategy as she went. “I’m your sister.”

  Milo shook his head and Cait wondered whether he was disagreeing with her statement or simply trying to process it. Maybe he was doing both. “What the fuck are you talking about, bitch?” he finally managed. “I don’t have a sister. I’m an only child, and thank God for that.”

  Cait wondered what he meant by the last part of that statement but continued on quickly, while she still had his attention and before he came to the conclusion talking was pointless.

  “You were adopted as a baby, weren’t you?” She was grasping at straws, trying desperately to recall the incredible story her mother had related to her, putting things together as she went, wondering as she talked whether she hoped it was all true or all a lie.

  Milo eyed her suspiciously. “Yes, I was adopted, so what? And how did you know that?”

  “I knew it,” Cait answered, her voice growing stronger and more confident, “because I was adopted, too. And I just learned the story of my history yesterday. I learned it from my real mother. The same woman who is your real mother. The woman sitting right over there.” She risked lifting her arm and pointing across the room at Virginia, hoping he wouldn’t interpret the movement as a threat and slash at her with the knife.

  He didn’t. He followed her motion dumbly, making a slow half-turn toward the frail older woman duct-taped to her own kitchen chair, her mangled hand still dripping blood slowly onto the floor. Virginia closed her eyes and hung her head before nodding slowly, a mute affirmation of Cait’s story.

  “You see things, don’t you?” she continued. “In your mind, I mean. You see things in your mind from other people’s perspective. You know things you couldn’t possibly know and it’s always been that way, ever since you were a very young boy. Am I right?”

  The man’s jaw had gone slack and his eyes glazed over. He still clung to the knife but it seemed to have been forgotten, at least for the time being.

  “I’ve always seen things,” he whispered. “I never understood it but I’ve always been able to see pictures, like mental movies, of things happening in other people’s lives. Sometimes it’s overwhelming, sometimes the visions just keep coming, one after another, they won’t stop for hours sometimes, and it’s just so fucking…exhausting…”

  Cait nodded, hoping to keep him talking, hoping against all reasonable hope that by beginning to forge a connection with him, however fragile and tenuous, he might see her as a human being rather than simply as a potential victim, and that in so doing she—and, hopefully, Virginia and Kevin as well—might somehow have a chance to escape this nightmare with their lives.

  “I’ve always had the ability as well,” she said gently. “I call those visions ‘Flickers,’ because they are like those old-time black-and-white movies that flicker up on the screen when you watch them.

  “Our mother didn’t want to give us up,” she continued. “I just found that out yesterday. It was the hardest decision she ever had to make; it literally tore her family apart. But she had no choice in the matter—” Cait stopped talking, suddenly realizing she had gone too far, remembering what Virginia had said about the history of fratricide among twins going back centuries in her family’s history, remembering what Virginia had said about her becoming a target should she ever be reunited with her brother.

  Suddenly she understood that he didn’t comprehend his burning hatred for her any better than she did.

  But the problem with making things up as you went was that you didn’t have time to plan ahead, and Cait immediately regretted her words, knowing they could logically lead only to one question in her brother’s psychotic mind: Why? Why had his mother cast him away? And the answer to that question would likely lead to a knife in the heart, not just for her but for Virginia as well and probably Kevin, just to round things out.

  She hurriedly tried to steer the conversation in another direction, desperate to get onto safer ground. “But it doesn’t matter,” she said. “Adoptive parents can be wonderful; they can treat you with love and respect just like biological parents. In fact, you could argue that if they were unable to have children of their own, they may appreciate the opportunity to raise kids even more than biological parents would.”

  Milo’s face hardened, and as he tightened his grip on the knife, Cait realized immediately she had said something wrong, had blundered into a taboo area.

  “Or,” he answered, “they might treat you like an object, a slave, an animal to be beaten and abused and tortured.”

  Milo took a menacing step forward and Cait shrank back, wishing she could disappear into the couch cushions.

  “How nice that you were given parents who treated you with ‘love and respect’”—he spoke in a falsetto voice filled with sugary sweetness, the anger behind the words spilling out despite his tone, or maybe because of it.

  “My parents never gave me a chance. They were well-respected in the community, but at home my father was a monster, using his belt as a motivational tool, flaying my back until it bled for the smallest transgression, using a fork to gouge ridges into my skin if I took too long bringing the trash out to the curb.”

  Cait’s eyes widened in horror now as well as in fear. Milo’s anger seemed to be building on itself as he spoke, gaining momentum, taking on a life of its own. He was working himself into a rage, exactly what she was trying to avoid, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  “You want to see the ‘love and respect’ you seem to value so highly?”

  She stayed silent, afraid of saying the wrong thing again, and he continued. “Here’s an example of ‘love and respect.’”

  He pivoted suddenly, showing his back to Cait, and raised his shirttail. He was not wearing an undershirt, and Cait clamped a hand to her mouth in horror at the sight of his skin. Puckered scars crisscrossed his back, raised and angry, hundreds of them, tiny ridged welts, remnants of the torture he claimed to have received as a child.

  “My entire body is like this,” he said, “practically every square inch of skin that could be covered up to hide the evidence. My father was an animal, but he was also very careful.

  “So don’t sit there and try to tell me how wonderful it is that I was given up for adoption. I have no idea whether what you’re saying is true, whether that dried-up old bitch back there is my mother, but if she is, I consider her just as responsible for what happened to me as a child as my adoptive parents.

  “Now,” he said, dropping his shirt into place and turning slowly back toward the couch. “Any more bright ideas about how you’re going to soften me up so I won’t carve you like a Thanksgiving turkey?”

  Cait closed her eyes, breathing in short gasps, trying to control her burgeoning terror and mostly failing. There was nothing she could say to save them. Family meant nothing to this man. He had been broken beyond saving, maybe by his adoptive parents, maybe by genetics, but any connection she had hoped to forge with this lost but terrifyingly dangerous soul was turning out to be a pipe dream.

  It was over.

  She was going to die and so was Kevin, and if there had been any chance, no matter how unlikely, that Virginia would survive what was about to happen here, that was likely gone as well. />
  47

  Milo could not believe how the fucking little bitch had tried to manipulate him. Her efforts had been transparent and pointless, and, if anything, served only to increase the black rage coursing through his system. He had never heard a more bullshit story in his entire life. She was his sister? It was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.

  Then again, she had known about the visions he had been cursed with his entire life, and she had known he was adopted. It seemed highly unlikely that could be a mere coincidence.

  But still, suppose she was telling the truth and she really was his sister, and the old hag taped to the kitchen chair really was his mother. Say for just a second that it was all true. What did that change?

  Nothing.

  It changed nothing, except, as he had informed his “sister,” it now became all the more critical that he complete what he had set out to do here today.

  Now, though, instead of skinning one victim, he would do two. His intention from the very beginning had been to kill everyone when he was done with the young bitch, despite what he had told his “mother” earlier about not hurting her. It only made sense. It would serve no good purpose to leave any eyewitnesses.

  So in reality, his plans only required some minor tinkering. Rather than making it quick with the old broad, if there was any time left after finishing off the girl, he would take his time and have a little fun with Mommy Dearest as well. It seemed only appropriate, just on the off chance the younger one was telling the truth about the familial relationship. He had meant it when he said his biological mother was responsible for his horrific upbringing. If she hadn’t thrown him out like yesterday’s trash, he wouldn’t have been adopted by his psychopathic father and willfully unseeing mother and permanently damaged.

  It made perfect sense.

  The young girl had stopped trying to soften him up. It was obvious she had finally reached the conclusion that there was nothing she could say to change his mind about what was going to happen here. Her eyes were closed and she seemed terrified but resigned to her fate.

  In some ways, that was a bit of a disappointment. Milo liked it when his victims struggled. It increased his arousal because it demonstrated his dominance over them, thereby making the experience even more enjoyable.

  At least for him.

  There was one advantage to this new development, though. Less struggling meant the process would take less time, and although he would normally have preferred to go slowly and do the torture right, the dead cop cooling in the doorway changed everything. He would soon have lots of company.

  In fact, he was a little surprised more pigs weren’t here already. With all that had happened since his arrival here in Everett, Milo realized he had completely lost track of the time. It seemed as though it was moving simultaneously fast and slow.

  He picked up his duct tape and unrolled a decent-sized strip, then wound it around his “sister’s” ankles. She barely struggled and didn’t utter a word, and for a moment Milo wondered why. It seemed this goddamned girl was keeping him constantly off-balance and he hated that.

  Then he realized she was still half expecting to be raped, and the act of tying her legs together rather than apart had come as such a relief that she wasn’t sure how to react.

  Whatever.

  She would find out soon enough that being raped would have been a walk in the park compared to what she was about to experience.

  He ripped off another even longer strip of tape and secured her ankles to one end of the couch, winding it over her legs and around the armrest. He slapped the silver surface to ensure proper adhesion and allowed himself a moment to soak in the sight of his next, and arguably greatest, triumph.

  She was a good-looking piece of meat, much more desirable than Rae Ann the Schoolgirl Hooker. More desirable than any of his previous playthings. For one thing, she appeared fresh and girlish, rather than used-up and cynical as all the prostitutes did, no matter how young or new to the game they were. And while his college girl victims weren’t hardened and cold like hookers, none of them had ever possessed the kind of worldly self-assurance and dignity this girl seemed to. It was a real turn-on.

  As an added bonus, she was perfectly proportioned; he could see that now with her body stretched out in front of him, her attributes barely concealed by her bra and tiny black panties.

  He ran his eyes up and down his “sister’s” form and licked his lips slowly, not because he felt any sexual arousal from the sight of her near-nakedness, but because he knew it would confuse and terrify her. It was all part of the game, designed to keep her off-balance, and even though she had been the one keeping him off-balance so far, things were about to change.

  Winking at her with a sly smile, he rose from the couch and strolled to the window to check on the scene outside the house. He knew he should be rushing to get the job completed and get the hell out while he still could, but he was just having so much fucking fun that he couldn’t bring himself to hurry.

  He pulled the heavy blue crushed-velvet curtain to the side—Milo had always thought his adoptive mother had horrendous taste in home furnishings but this broad’s house put her to shame—and sucked in a breath reflexively. Police cars were scattered all over the development, parked haphazardly, and cops were scurrying around like ants at a fucking picnic. A big, armored SWAT van was idling at the curb halfway up the street.

  The moment he appeared at the window a couple of the blue-uniformed motherfuckers did a double take and raised their weapons. They seemed so surprised by his appearance they were temporarily frozen in indecision. He let go of the curtain and it slid closed with a thick swish of material.

  This was not good.

  48

  It happened again as the crazy bastard with the knife—Cait couldn’t bring herself to think of him as her brother no matter how hard she tried—stalked across the room to look out the front widow. That little push, the signal that a Flicker was about to start, tried to nudge its way inside Cait’s head once again.

  She closed her eyes and concentrated, and as she had done previously, repelled the Flicker before it could begin. She had bigger issues to worry about right now than dealing with a mind-movie.

  But something had been bothering her, unspoken but felt, hanging around the edges of her consciousness. She had been so busy trying to stay alive she hadn’t been able to pin down what it was, but now that Milo had stepped away for a moment, it crystallized in her mind: why the hell was she suddenly manifesting abilities concerning the Flickers that had never existed before? Did it have something to do with the proximity of her mother, who had similar abilities? Was it somehow related to the sudden appearance of her brother, the Human Psychotic Break himself?

  Either way, Cait succeeded in blocking the Flicker, an important consideration since Milo’s mood seemed suddenly to have changed. He raced across the room toward her, his hurried steps in stark contrast to the almost languid way he had approached the window.

  Something was happening, and it was happening outside.

  The police!

  The police were here!

  What else could it be?

  It made sense. The murdered officer had been out of contact for a while now, and the Everett police must have figured out that something was wrong. Cait’s heart skipped a beat and she began to allow herself to hope that maybe, just maybe, they could still escape this nightmare alive.

  Then Milo passed by the couch, not even glancing at her. He strode hurriedly into the kitchen and grabbed the last of Virginia’s kitchen chairs, then turned and dragged it across the floor, placing it next to the couch. He held the knife tightly in his right hand as he eased into the chair, a look of grim determination on his face, immediately dashing Cait’s irrational hope of rescue. He was still in control, and it was clear he intended to stay in control until he finished whatever he came here to do.

  She forced herself back against the cushions, levering her body into the V where the couch-back met
the seat, pushing with her bound ankles against the armrest, trying to escape him.

  It was stupid even to try, she knew that. There was no way she could simply disappear into the couch like the magician’s helper in some third-rate Vegas floor show, but rationality was beginning to slip away. The knife was big and long and razor-sharp, and the glittering deadly blade appeared mammoth as he displayed it mere inches from her face. Sickening smears of blackish maroon blood still stained it, left over from the butchering of the police officer. The killer had wiped the blade but had done so hurriedly and incompletely.

  Cait strained against the back of the couch and Milo laughed, the sound simultaneously brutal and mocking. “Going somewhere?” he said.

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer. She couldn’t form the words. All she could think about was that big knife and the human being it had been used to kill, and the dreadful knowledge that she was moments away from suffering a similar fate.

  Milo grabbed her right wrist, pulling it roughly toward him and plunking it onto his lap. Cait struggled and bucked and yanked her arm away and without warning her brother clubbed her in the side of the head with the knife handle.

  “Knock it off,” he rasped, veins sticking out on his forehead, his lips pressed in a bloodless line across his teeth. “If you struggle, I’ll make this much, much worse for you. And that’s something you don’t want, believe me.”

  Cait believed him.

  He returned her wrist to its previous location on his lap, staring into her eyes as he did so. Then he reached down and slashed it quickly across her skin and she screamed and he clamped his hand over her mouth and she looked down at her arm expecting to see blood gushing from the gash and there was nothing there and he laughed, long and loud.

  “I used the dull end of the knife,” he said, still chuckling. “This time.”