by Ben Farthing
Cessy couldn’t stop staring at the pale pink skin laid over the walnut lumber. She worked Major Crimes, but bank robberies; not the psychopath shit like this. Her gut twisted in revulsion at the gore in front of her, but also at the man who’d done it.
And such a precise job. Smooth edges, no rips, as if Valerie had been sliced once, and then from there, peeled.
Gordon leaned over, getting a closer look at Valerie’s empty skin. “This is what Brenda said happened to John. I thought she was exaggerating.” Finally, the revulsion hit him. He lurched away. “Oh god, Brenda. First her husband, now her daughter.”
It was a show. Act surprised, like somebody else stuck the remnants of Valerie’s body in Gordon’s kiln.
It’d been stupid to even think of trusting him. He’d been willing to murder his own son to get back an idealized Hamlin that never existed. Cessy no longer believed Gordon was unaware that Jackson would be before the firing squad.
“Walk out here,” Cessy ordered. “Nice and slow.” She didn’t know her next play here. She had no authority to arrest him, and even if she did, what then? Drop him off in a jail cell at the sheriff’s office? Drive him back over the mountain until she found cell service, and call the state police? If Gordon and his group had found Valerie, then they’d probably blocked off the fire access road out of town.
Gordon blubbered through his lies. “They’re threatening me. That’s what this is. It’s because I talked to you. I tried to leave. If I’d have just stayed put like I was doing, they’d have left me alone.”
“Out here. Now,” Cessy barked.
The old man limped toward the door. “I’ll give you everything I own. Drive me out of this town, right now. I’ll sign it all away. I’ve already lost my boy. Now they took Brenda and John’s little girl.”
Cessy remembered the scared, abandoned woman she’d met atop Black Gold Peak yesterday morning. Her parents had thrown her out. And now Cessy had learned that Brenda and John Watkins had been part of the group who’d first accepted the help of Lockler and the Maple Table. “Somehow I doubt Brenda is grieving like you are.”
Gordon gave her something between a sneer and a confused gape. “You shouldn’t doubt our love for our children. Everything we did was for-” He hissed, jerked his foot, then yelped at the pain of sudden movement. “Something’s biting me.”
Tiny blurs of movement across the steel floor.
Gliding, like boatman beetles.
The line between sun and shadow was stark. In the sun, four specs slid around Gordon’s bare feet. One jumped up between his toes, over the top of his foot.
“Ow! What is that?” Gordon tried to bend over to see, but his back wouldn’t let him.
Cessy lowered the shotgun, picked up the flashlight and shined it at the back of the kiln.
Holes swarmed in the corner, a massive wasp’s nest of absence. Spreading out from the corner, halfway up the walls to the roof, hundreds of perforations swam through the steel’s surface. In the bottom corner itself, the holes swarmed so tightly that they formed a larger, shifting gap. Bits of flowing matter appeared like glimpses of a mud nest beneath swarming wasps.
Cessy swallowed. The wound on her stomach ached.
Gordon saw her expression. “What?” He turned around.
Perforations spread out from the corner. They ran along the walls, the floors, the ceilings. They slid up the lumber.
Gordon screamed. He jumped toward the door. He stumbled, grabbed for his back, fell.
Cessy stepped forward to help, but stopped herself.
In the back, the gaping hole, the sum of its perforations, grew more stable. Cessy couldn’t tell its depth, but it was at least deeper than the wall was thick.
Light shimmered on its surface. The shimmer bulged outward, while rushing along behind what Cessy could see. Something big tried to force its way through.
Gordon screamed again. Holes glided over his cheeks, around his neck. The skin on his face drooped. “Help me!” His drawn out scream warbled as holes slid through his tongue.
Cessy reared back.
The hole in the back of the kiln swelled.
Gordon rolled over on his back, faced the corner. He sobbed, begged, screamed in pain.
Perforations swarmed past Gordon, towards Cessy.
Cessy slammed the kiln door. Latched it tight.
Outside, birdsong.
The steel structure muffled the old man’s cries for mercy. They turned to unintelligible howls of betrayal.
Cessy gasped for breath. She didn’t stick around to see whether the kiln could contain the holes. She sprinted to her truck. Hesitated, ran to the garage to snag Gordon’s face mask, and then dashed back to the truck.
Tires kicked up gravel.
Only once she was past Gordon’s driveway, barreling down Ulton Ridge Road did she stop checking her mirrors for perforations.
37
At the bottom of the mountain, a mile north of Jackson’s collapsed home, Cessy pulled over.
She threw the truck back into gear, did a three-point turn to face the direction she’d come from, and parked again.
The road disappeared up the hill into the trees. The Appalachian canopy shielded the road from the sun.
Cessy dug out a bottle of water from her back seat and chugged it.
She could still hear Gordon’s screams. She checked her own wound to distract herself. Gooey scabs covered the jagged cut.
If she hadn’t removed the perforation from his skin, what would have happened? The same thing that had happened to Gordon. Which was what, exactly?
Maybe the same fate as Valerie.
Cessy drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. She checked her phone--still no service. She could drive back over Black Gold Peak until she found cell service, then call the state troopers.
But how long would that take?
And could she even make it over the mountain? If Gordon had found Valerie, they’d likely blocked off the road.
Cessy finally had a recent lead on Kate. Just three days ago, she’d broken in to find Gordon’s stolen cables, and most likely gone to follow the cable up the mountain.
She hadn’t come back down, or she would have gone back to Jackson.
If she was stuck somewhere on or in the mountain, three days was all you could survive without water. Cessy had a tight time limit.
To save Hamlin from Lockler and the Maple Table’s cultish slaughter, the smart move was to get out of town to make contact with the authorities.
But that would delay finding Kate.
Cessy valued Kate’s life over this dying town any day.
Cessy put the truck into gear, then hesitated. Mom and Dad were still in the valley. According to Gordon, they’d helped bring this disaster on Hamlin. But they’d raised her, and they loved her, and if she’d never come to investigate, they’d still talk on the phone and Mom would encourage Cessy to start dating again, and Dad would ask about work and she’d hear the pride in his voice that his troublemaker of a little girl had grown up to have such a respectable career.
But Cessy had come to investigate. Mom and Dad had started believing in something awful. At the most generous, they’d looked the other way in the murder of drug addicts. At the least generous, they’d been complicit in widespread slaughter.
Once Cessy made sure Kate was safe, she’d have the luxury of considering what level of hatred within her parents outweighed their love for her.
For now, she had to accept that Mom and Dad were dangerous. She couldn’t go talk them into getting out of Hamlin any more than she could approach a holed-up, armed bank robber and ask him to go home.
Wind blew through the trees. Leaves skittered across the pavement. Cessy leaned forward, squinting to make sure nothing else moved across the ground. Or within its surface.
It made her sick, but Cessy had to let Mom and Dad face their own sentencing. She couldn’t risk them stopping her from finding Kate.
Her next step was to drive bac
k up to the Black Gold Peak trailhead parking lot, find the buried cable she’d tripped over, and follow it as far as Kate had followed it.
Still, Cessy hesitated. She had a shotgun with a box of shells. A revolver with five rounds. If the cable led her into the mine, she had Gordon’s mask, and she had her flashlight and plenty of batteries. She didn’t have a shovel for the collapse, but she could find a sturdy branch. She had water bottles and energy bars for if she found Kate.
For when she found Kate.
A shotgun wouldn’t work against a swarm of holes in the ground. A .45 round couldn’t stop a rushing wall of darkness.
Cessy was in over her head. She knew jack shit about phantom radio shows, or supernatural threats.
But these cultists had real voices, broadcasted from a real location.
Cessy patted the shotgun in the passenger’s seat.
Real voices tended to be attached to flesh-and-blood people. A .12 gauge slug had a hell of an effect on flesh and blood.
If Cessy could outmaneuver the unnatural threats--if she could navigate waves of darkness and fogs of coal dust, and avoid parasitic perforations--then she could deal with the psycho cult leaders the same as she would with anyone who was a threat to society.
Fear welled in her gut. The mountain waited for her.
But inside, Kate might still be alive.
Cessy put the truck into gear, checked her mirrors, and saw someone walking up the road towards her. Jackson.
38
Cessy stepped out of the truck.
Jackson walked hunched over, a frail figure on the pavement between hilly pastures. His arms were folded across his chest. His sunken cheeks looked even more sickly in the daylight.
What little compassion she’d found for him in the rental house slipped away. Yes, he’d lost his wife. And yes, his own father had brought down hell on him. But Jackson had been selling meth to high school kids. He was the same shitstain who’d destroyed Kate’s self esteem all those years ago, and the one who’d roped her into this today.
Now he came to slow Cessy down.
He drew closer. “I woke up and saw you were gone. I remembered I told you that Kate went to see my dad. I guessed that’s where you went.” He scratched at his neck. “Want me to go with you?”
Cessy chewed her lip. Jackson’s willingness to help didn’t negate the danger he’d put Kate in. “I just came from there. Those hole things killed your dad.”
Jackson jerked like she’d punched him. “Why?”
“Because he pissed them off? You know more about this shit than me.”
He started shaking his head and didn’t stop. “He sold me out for them. Killed my Olivia. And he didn’t even get anything out of it?”
Cessy let Jackson rant.
“You stupid old shit,” he screamed at the mountain. “Work hard and make money, huh? What’d you make this time?”
Jackson’s chest heaved. He looked at Cessy like she’d interrupted a personal conversation. “Before he died, did he say anything about me?”
“He thought you were dead. You were hiding, so I didn’t tell him otherwise. He had a lot of regret about what he did to you and Olivia.”
Jackson spat through rotten teeth. “Good. I hope he died disgusted with himself.”
Jackson’s own disgust invited an awkward silence.
He kicked a rock across the asphalt.
Cessy turned to look up the mountain. “Valerie Watkins is dead, too. Was she helping you and Kate?”
“Damn, really? I hope my old man saw.”
“He did.”
Cessy thought Jackson was about to go into another tirade, but instead he squeezed his arms around his chest. “No, she wasn’t helping us. I knew she was upset with the old folks, but she disappeared before I could ask her anything. When I realized she was gone is when I called Kate.”
It was Cessy’s turn to ask: “Why? Why not the state police? Or anybody else in the world besides my baby sister?”
“I don’t know that many people outside Hamlin. The smart kids who went to college and never came back, they never talked to me.”
“Because you bullied them.”
He shrugged. “I tried calling the FBI. They listened until they made me give them my name. Then they’d see my arrest record. And what was I supposed to say? This radio station is brainwashing my dad? If I talk about it too much, a wall of shadow starts chasing me? I tried.”
“You thought Kate would believe you.”
“I knew she’d help. But it took her a month to actually believe me. Whatever your parents finally said to her on the phone, that got her to trust me enough that she knew something was wrong. As soon as she did, of course she came.”
“Because of your past relationship.”
He scoffed. “She’d have done it for anybody. I thought you two were close; you should know that.”
He was right. If someone was in need, Kate stepped up. And if there was some injustice that put that person in need, Kate lost her timidity and found a lion’s courage.
“She should have told me right away.”
“I asked her not to. The town hates you. You saw for yourself, it took less than a day for Sheriff Miller to try to hang you. Kate was at least able to help me for a few days before... well.”
“Before she marched up Black Gold Peak, and followed a buried cable, probably into the old town mine.”
“Not Hamlin’s mine. That entrance you’re talking about wasn’t there three months ago.” Jackson scratched at his ribs. Excitement punctuated his shaky voice. “You sure she went in there?”
“If that’s where the cable goes.”
“We thought maybe they were broadcasting from in there, but those old mines are dangerous. Wasn’t worth going inside unless we knew for sure.”
“Kate must have felt confident,” Cessy said.
Jackson nodded like he was answering a question. “Alright. I’ll join you.”
“Whoa. No. I don’t need your help.”
“I didn’t offer it. My daddy put the hit out on me, but it was Lockler and the Maple Table who pulled the trigger. I gotta answer that. They killed my Olivia.”
Cessy wasn’t here for revenge. Just to find Kate. “A strong breeze could blow you over. You’ll get in my way.”
“We’re going into a coal mine, right? I’ll be your canary. Whatever’s in there, it’s had its eye on me longer than on you. More likely it comes after me first. And I’ve had longer to recognize the thoughts that jump in my head before it shows up.”
Cessy considered.
“Chirp chirp,” Jackson said.
“You can have a flashlight, but I’m not giving you a gun.”
Jackson grinned, revealing yellow and missing teeth. “I told you, I’m gonna introduce Lockler to a few nine millimeter bullets. I brought my own.” In his baggy clothes and shrinking frame, he could be hiding a pistol anywhere.
“Then you’ll be walking in front of me. I don’t have any kind of mask for you.”
Jackson shrugged. “Sucks, but coal won’t be the worst thing I’ve put in my lungs.”
Cessy didn’t trust him to make rational decisions, or to be especially helpful, but she decided that he’d been telling the truth. An extra set of eyes couldn’t hurt.
She was ashamed of the thought, but the word “expendable” jumped to mind. If she didn’t find Kate, it meant that Cessy’s ignoring their skipped lunch dates for two weeks had contributed to her death. It meant that she hadn’t built a strong enough relationship with her little sister, so when trouble came calling, Kate didn’t trust Cessy enough to call for help. Anything that had happened to Kate was Cessy’s fault.
So yes, she’d bring along Jackson, knowing she could do almost nothing to protect him. She’d let him sacrifice himself in a heartbeat, if it meant giving Cessy an extra heartbeat to save Kate.
Besides, she told herself, he was the one who’d brought Kate here in the first place. He’d sold meth to high schoolers.
If she could convince herself to hate him again, then she wouldn’t feel guilt about what she was willing to do.
“Okay,” said Cessy. “Get in the car.”
39
Before Jackson could even get in the truck, another car appeared on the road, coming from town.
Cessy turned from the driver’s seat for a better look. She held the shotgun.
The car slipped behind a hill, then back up into view.
It was Mom’s Chevy.
“Who is it?” Jackson asked. “Sheriff Miller?”
“My mom,” Cessy said.
“We should go before she sees us.”
“Stay in the truck.” Cessy shut the door.
The sun was high in the sky now. It sapped the morning dew from the grassy hills surrounding the road.
A belt screeched in the Chevy’s engine as it pulled up behind the 4Runner and parked.
Mom opened the door. “Cessy. I saw your car in front of the rental house last night, but didn’t want to storm in. I had to follow Jackson to find you.” She stepped out, squinting in the sunlight. Wrinkled fingers tightened a bandanna around her gray curls. “Can you believe it? Jackson! Gordon’s going to be so happy when he hears.”
Cessy turned so the shotgun barrel aimed at the asphalt between them. “I thought Jackson was vermin. Now you’re happy he’s alive?”
“Some people deserve a second chance.” She walked towards Cessy.
Cessy raised the shotgun. “Stay over there.”
Mom shrank from the gun. “That’s not necessary.”
“You let Sheriff Miller try to kill me.”
“I told him you’re not vermin.” Mom looked genuinely shocked. “I’ll give him a piece of my mind. Where is he now?”
“I told you. He tried to kill me.”
Mom pursed her lips into a little “o” of pink lipstick. “Well when I see him again, I’ll clear everything up.”
Cessy shook her head. “Mom, how about you clear something up for me. Why did you lie about Kate?”
