Saltar's Point (38 page)

The detective turned to leave causing Darrow to scurry from the corner and back to the door. He caught sight of Connelly’s backside as he disappeared back into the light of the embalming room. With a disgruntled sigh he followed after. The ride back up the elevator was wrought with silence, Darrow fuming inside, and the detective on pins and needles. It clanged to a stop and Darrow slid open the brass gate. The pair walked to the front door where they exchanged handshakes and counterfeit pleasantries.

“So did you get what you wanted?” Darrow quipped.

“Excuse me?”

“Signatures and all,” he nodded to Connelly’s brief case. “You get everything you needed?”

“Oh, yeah. Got it all. I’ll be in touch.” Connelly beamed a wide smile, which Darrow returned in kind.

I bet you will, you son of a bitch.

FORTY-FIVE

It was rumored that in the final days before his death that John C. McGinty had gone stark raving mad. I can assure you that nothing is further from the truth. In fact, John McGinty may well have been the only man closely associated with the tomb of the Bedouin that had any grasp at all on reality, a shred of sanity so to speak. And it was this awareness that led ultimately to his demise.

Talcott had sent word that they were ready to proceed with the excavation, or to put it in laymen’s terms, he was ready to open the sarcophagus. McGinty washed his face, combed his hair, and put on his best and only suit. He did not bother to leave a note or wake his daughter to tell her goodbye, there was nothing he could say to her that would make it any easier. Instead he pulled the covers up around her neck, placed a kiss gently on her forehead, and locked the door to their modest two-bedroom home for the last time.

It was the seventh of April and the Spring weather had yet to warm the crisp air. The warm breath from his lungs vaporized in front of him with each exhalation forming miniscule ice crystals on the ends of his eyelashes. McGinty walked the mile and a half distance to Talcott Manor slowly and deliberately, taking the time to enjoy the fresh air, peer up at the starry sky, and listen to the wondrous sounds of nature all around him. Good God, in all his years here on earth he could never remember having taken the time to enjoy small pleasures, and now ironically, as he walked his proverbial last mile, he had finally been able to see the beauty in life. It wasn’t buried under the desert sand, or hidden in mountain caves, or evident in the ruins of long dead cultures. Life, like time, could only be enjoyed in the present, for the past eviscerated into memory and memory faded into the forgotten.

As he began down the dirt road that led to Talcott manor he was filled with great sadness for what had once been a vibrant woodland teeming with birds and squirrels was now quiet and dormant. Even the stars in the sky sat occluded behind a wall of cloud and only the stark moonlight penetrated the wispy canopy with strands of rogue light.

McGinty climbed the steps leading up to the portico and rapped briskly on the double doors. Anders, Talcott’s loyal servant greeted him with a nod.

“Talcott is in the basement sir. He’s sent the elevator back up and it is waiting for you.”

McGinty returned the nod without uttering a word and proceeded to the elevator where he pulled the lever and descended into darkness. He made his way swiftly through the darkened corridors to the boiler room and manipulated the secret lever. He silently watched as the stonewalls parted like the biblical Red Sea, emitting a ghastly sound as stone ground against the concrete foundation.

He found Talcott exactly where he knew he would be. His long-time friend and business partner stood at the foot of the sarcophagus, his eyes glazed over in the eerie translucent light filtering from the chandelier high above. McGinty fell in beside him saying nothing. Talcott did not turn to acknowledge him, instead keeping his gaze focused on the marble top of the ancient coffin. When he spoke his voice wavered with excitement.

“John, so good of you to come at this late hour.”

“Your messenger awakened me, what other choice did I have?”

Talcott’s bellowing laughter reverberated around the chamber in a raucous echo.  “Ah, my good man life is full of choices, but you have always chosen the ones not for the feint of heart. Tonight my friend we make history, the first westerners to ever gaze upon the creature fabled in the lore of the Bedouin.”

“And after all these years of searching could it not wait until morning?”

“John you amuse me. You know the lore of the Bedouin better than anyone, only at three AM, the soul’s midnight, can the tomb of the Bedouin be opened. Of course you know I don’t believe it that nonsense, but it does add to the effect, don’t you think?”

McGinty nodded. “You’ve always had a flair for the dramatic.”

Talcott harrumphed in his usual manner. “That I suppose is true, but only in an attempt to heighten suspense, for what is life without the excitement of the unknown?”

For just a moment McGinty thought of telling his friend of the simple pleasures in life that he had until now overlooked. He wanted to tell him that it was not necessary to leave your mark on history, business, or science to have led a full and productive life, but he knew his remarks would fall on deaf ears or illicit a condescending remark, so he remained quiet and let Talcott’s rhetorical question go unanswered. But most of all he didn’t tell his friend that he already knew what awaited them beneath the marble slab. That unfortunately, Talcott would have to discover for himself.

Talcott glanced at his watch, the hour had just struck three, he handed a crowbar to McGinty and readied his own.

“Very well, shall we? I’m anxious to see what lies beneath.”

McGinty’s anxiousness did not stem from the unknown. He already knew what awaited them. The two men jabbed the flat ends of the steel underneath the marble top and leaned down on their crowbars, leveraging their weight against the stone slab. The seal that had held fast for so many years gave way with a puff of dust. Talcott placed his thigh against the nearest corner and slid the slab into a diagonal position. With one final heave the slab slid off and crashed to the floor.

Talcott peered into the casket with awestruck eyes. McGinty’s fears were confirmed, for the creature that lay within appeared just as it always had in his dreams, except for the face, which was a far more horrific image than his own subconscious could have conjured.

“Good God in heaven,” Talcott whispered, his breath alive in the suddenly chill air, “have you ever seen anything so beautiful in all your life?”

McGinty had a far more ominous place in mind, and from where this creature was spawned there was no beauty.

“Do you realize what we have uncovered John? I mean, my, my goodness, we’ll be famous, rich beyond our wildest dreams. All of our expectations, our hard work, it’s all bearing fruit John. Can you see it? Do you see what I see?”

The devil himself.

“Indeed I do.” His voice was flat, monotonous.

“We’ll be spoken about in legend and lore along with our story told in the great tomes of history. Our fame will be beyond boundaries!”

“And our infamy our blight in hell.”

McGinty’s words rocked Talcott to the core and for a moment he almost felt a twinge of fear burrowing its way through the excitement, and then it was gone.

“John, why do you speak of such things?”

McGinty didn’t answer, he chose instead to turn and walk from the chamber. His footprints embedded themselves into the residual dust of the newly constructed room. Talcott watched him go, not understanding what McGinty knew all too well, that they alone brought forth the most unspeakable evil to ever set foot upon the earth.

On his way out McGinty took one of the winding forest trails that surrounded the mansion, stopping at an old weathered pine tree. The tree was enormous, rising into the night sky, its top melded into the darkness above. He estimated that the tree to be centuries old. Oh the history it had bore silent witness to, and tonight it would see more. Yes, the tree would do nicely. Rain had begun to fall as lightening flashed and thunder bellowed throughout the valley. To some it would seem that a cold autumn storm had blown in from nowhere, another great mystery of nature, but McGinty knew that the eye of the storm hailed from the basement of Talcott Manor. He climbed up nearly thirty feet above the ground to the first sturdy branch, and retrieving the rope from his pocket fastened one end to the branch and the other around his neck.

John McGinty fell you might say, rather than jumped to his death. His body twitched only once before the rope fractured his neck and left his corpse to dangle and sway amid the storm. The storm he had created.

FORTY-SIX

“Wha- ki- -- cat d-- you -ay yo--ad?”

“U- Si-ese.”

Connelly’s radio transmitter was crackling with static. Detective Wooding struggled to pick up the conversation, keeping one side of his headset pressed firmly to his ear and the other free so that he could converse with Peterson. The elder detective sat in the control center of the van staring intently at his counterpart. The lines of concern on his face were growing longer with each passing moment.

“What the fuck’s going on in there?”

Wooding held his hand up denoting silence as he tried to listen even more intently, if that were possible. The sides of his headset were cutting into the skin around his ears.

“Fuck if I know, I can’t hear shit down in that basement, it’s as if the walls are made of eight foot thick concrete.”

There was a loud noise coming through, barely audible in the crackling static. Wooding couldn’t recognize it. It sounded to him like a voice, no several voices, male and female droning together.

Fi—ish –im. –il him.

“Damn it Wooding. If I got a man in trouble down there I want to know about it!” Lines of concern were evident in his voice.

Now the static was the only thing audible, it came through in buzzing waves with a monotonous undertone that was humming persistently in Wooding’s ear.

“I don’t know. I can’t hear anything. I think the radio went out.”

“You think it did, or it did, which one?”

The blank stare on Wooding’s face told Peterson that he didn’t have a clue in hell. “You want me to break silence.”

“No not yet. Give me the headset.”

Peterson placed both earphones on his head and listened carefully. The only thing audible other than the static was the beating of his heart.

Fucking damn pigs.

Darrow was sure the cop was wired. He wasn’t sure if the transmitter would work down in the basement, probably not he figured. That’s why he brought the pig downstairs in the first place. The demon was screaming in his ear, he wondered why the detective couldn’t hear it.

Finish him. Kill him!

He knew that killing the cop would be the end of the line, game over. It was not a smart move, yet the demon made a compelling argument, tapping into his rage, his hatred. Even if they weren’t listening that would only buy him a little time. Sooner or later when their precious UC didn’t show the pigs would be swarming all over this place like flies on fresh shit.

“Alright, get him out of there. Quickly.”

Wooding wasted no time, not needing to be told twice. “Connelly, abort the mission, do you read me? Abort, I say again, abort. Get the hell out of there.”

Silence.

“I’m not getting anything, should we go in?”

Peterson felt like he was running on a treadmill, watching the minutes tick by a second at a time, slow and painful. He could feel Wooding’s eyes burrowing into the side of his skull.

“Jeremy, it’s been almost thirty minutes. He wouldn’t stay down there that long, not without radio contact.” Wooding never addressed him by his first name, he was trying to connect on a personal level, throw him out of the shell shock he was experiencing. “I need your decision.”

Wooding tried again. “Connelly, come in. Can you hear me? Connelly, are you alright? Copy me.”

More silence.

He looked at Peterson and shook his head.

“Alright, we’re going in.”

Just then Connelly’s voice broke the static, sounding like an angel’s trumpet to the two detectives.

“Why the hell did you pull me out? I was on the verge of something big.”

Connelly had no idea how right he was.

FORTY-SEVEN

In the kitchen Jack Darrow was on his hands and knees with every cupboard door around the island counter thrown wide open. Pots and pans clanged as he grabbed them and flung them out of the cupboard two at a time.

Where is it? Where the fuck is it?

The damn cop had been gone nearly three hours and his hands still wouldn’t stop shaking. He had put his fucking wife to bed, god damn little snitch of a bitch. She pretended like she was still drugged as he hoisted her from her chair and into bed, but he knew better. He had found the vase shattered into a million pieces, the flowers wilting away in a puddle of water. He needed to think, needed to clear his head. He needed a drink and he needed it bad.

Sweat poured from his brow and his knees were swelling with viscous fluid from the battering they were taking against the hardwood floor. Like a squirrel searching for acorns he had buried months ago he dug frantically, cursing himself for his memory failure. He was just about to loose hope when he found what he was looking for, the bottle of Tennessee sour mash he had hidden soon after he decided to quit drinking. He had hidden it way in the back, just in case the urge ever got too strong. And urges just didn’t get any stronger than this.

Darrow’s hands shook as her tried to peel the plastic safety seal off the top of the bottle. At last it ripped free in one satisfying yank. He wasted no time unscrewing the plastic cap and then he took a second to enjoy a deep inhalation. The aroma was terrific, every nerve ending in his body tingled with excitement and anticipation, it had been too long, far too long.

Bless you Lynchburg Tennessee.

He tilted his head back and took a long swallow. The whiskey burned his throat and watered his eyes but tasted like nectar to a thirsty hummingbird. The fucking cops were all over him, and he had to take the edge off somehow. He needed to think, weigh his options. He sure as hell wasn’t going to spend the rest of his days locked up in some penitentiary being passed around like a football and giving blowjobs for cigarettes. No way, uh uh, not Jack Darrow, he had his pride and he’d be damned before he let it come to that.

He took another long pull off the bottle and set it down beside him, then pulled the revolver from his belt, the same one he had almost used the other night to blow his brains out. Now it would be put to better use. If they came for him, he’d make sure to take a few cops with him. There was another decision to make, Abby. What was he to do with Abby? He grabbed the bottle again and drained the rest of its contents in one long drawn out swallowing motion, then he tossed it aside and watched it bounce then slide across the floor. As the alcohol began to take effect, his spirits began to brighten, and his thoughts, irrational as they may have been, seemed so perfect to him.

She had nearly cost him today, knocking over that damn vase. How the hell did she fight through that tranquilizer so fast? He hadn’t used enough that’s how. Stupid. If the detective had ventured upstairs she would have ratted him out, screamed that she was being held against her will. Maybe she even knew about the killings, he didn’t know how but he wouldn’t put it past her. It seemed that his loving wife was full of surprises these days. He starred out the window watching the sunlight fade into dusk. She was more than a nuisance now, she was a liability. One he could ill afford. His mind was made up.

He decided to kill her.

Yes, kill her. It would be so simple, kill her and bury her in the woods, somewhere deep where they wouldn’t find her, not in a million years. He could choke the life right out of her wretched body, no blood, and no mess. No, that wouldn’t do. It was just too damn personal; he didn’t think he could stand to hear her wheeze or stare up at him with those eyes of hers. He thought about shooting her and then quickly dismissed the idea. That would send blood everywhere.              

With his mind made up he rose and headed for the living room. He grabbed the poker from the fireplace mantle and sat down on the couch. The cold steel felt good in his hands.

The only thing left to do, was wait for her to fall asleep.

The little girl’s words bullied their way into her head like a jackhammer.

“Abby, wake up Abby!”

But that was the last thing she wanted to do. The bed linens were wrapped around her, warm, comforting. Even the fact that Jack hadn’t laundered them in six weeks didn’t matter. The bed was soft and she was tired, very tired.

“Abby!”

This time the screech was unbearable, a sandpaper-lined arrow ripping its way through her skull.

What! What is it?

“It’s Jack. He’s drinking again.”

That got her attention. The grog and sleep evaporated from her head like smoke in a vacuum.

Are you sure?

“Yes. It’s so terrible, oh Abby it’s so terrible.”

What’s terrible?

The tone in Brenda’s voice alarmed her, in it there was something she had never heard before, terror mixed with waves of panic. It came to Abby in psychic visions that are difficult to describe, like a flurry of images cast out in random order. Usually the little girl was clear and concise but something had definitely rattled her.

Brenda, calm down and tell me what it is.

“Jack, his thoughts, they’re so horrible. You have to leave. Please.”

Abby could sense that she was crying now.
Brenda, calm down and tell me, what is he thinking?

“He’s thinking he’s going to kill you.”
Inside Abby’s head the voice went silent, letting it all sink in. “
He’s going to kill you, and he’s going to do it tonight!”

Are you sure?

“Yes.”

Abby was surprisingly calm, she knew this was going to happen, sooner or later. But she wasn’t just going to lie here and make it easy on him. She had things to do, and damn it if Jack was going to kill her before then. She tried to roll over but her body didn’t want to cooperate. Jesus, what the hell did he give me? The drug was still running rampant in her system, paralyzing her muscles and making her head thick with fog.

She tried to move her arms again, it was like she was on Jupiter and the gravitational pull was a thousand times stronger than here on earth. Slowly she propped herself up on one elbow, it must have taken nearly two minutes, not fast enough. She rolled her head to the side and let gravity help her to the edge of the bed, and then throwing her arm over until most of her weight was off the bed she let go of the sheets and crumpled to the ground.

That’s how you fall when you’re paralyzed, like a pair of pants discarded to the floor at the end of the day, crumpling in on yourself.

It took her a few seconds to catch her breath. She let her lungs expand again, filling them with air and letting the oxygen work its way into her muscles.

“Abby, he’s coming! Hurry Abby, he’s coming.”

She didn’t need any further convincing, she had grown quite accustomed to the sound of Jack’s boots thumping up the stairs. The entire foyer always echoed like a snare drum capturing the rhythm of his gait with stark ominous thumps. And those drums had begun to beat. Thump, thump, thump.

Abby glanced up at her pillow that concealed beneath it Porter’s hunting knife. It was no more than three feet away but in her current state it felt like a mile. She began to edge herself forward a little at a time, trying to gauge how close Jack was and how much time she had left before… She let the thought go unfinished and reached upward, her hands were beginning to tingle again with the sensation of life and she could almost feel the fabric of her pillow. Abby watched as her hand slid beneath it as she fumbled around until she thought she felt the hilt of the knife within her palm. She closed her hand around it and pulled the weapon free, feeling her elbow hit the ground. The impact jarred the blade free as her arm rebounded off the floor. The knife bounced a few feet away, clattering in the darkness before falling silent. It was so damn dark that she could not see where the knife had fallen.

Jack’s footsteps were closer now. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Panic began to overtake her. She began to claw her way across the floor in the direction of the sound the knife had made. Her hand slipped out beneath her causing her chin to smack into the hardwood with an ear-popping crack. She thought her hand had slipped in a puddle, Jack hadn’t cleaned up the vase was her first thought, but when she slipped again she realized that her palm was bleeding profusely. She had grabbed the blade instead of the handle and with the drug still heavy inside her she hadn’t felt the steel slice her palm all the way to the bones. Undaunted she wiggled her way forward until at last she closed her hand around the knife. But knife or no knife, she was as good as a sitting duck lying there on her stomach. Abby looked around for an avenue of escape and took the only one she found, her bed. In a frantic slithering that looked not unlike a snake with a broken spine she managed to slide her body underneath the bed frame just before Jack entered the room. 

His figure cut an eerie shadow across the room emanating from the hallway light behind him, and making him appear three times his size. She could make out the form of his boots as they began to draw closer to her. He was wobbling badly, clearing just as much distance side to side as he was forwards. Drunk as hell she thought, that was good, it might be to her advantage. He stopped just at the edge of the bed looming high above the sheets. Abby could hear his wheezing breaths and smell the overpowering aroma of whiskey that trailed after him. The room was dark and he appeared not to notice that she wasn’t under the covers. He rocked back on his heels slightly as he brought the poker high above his head and for just a second Abby thought that he was going to loose his balance and topple over. Then the poker cut through the air with a tremendous WHOOSH, the blunt side striking the pillow. She gripped the knife tightly, hoping that her numb fingers would be strong enough to hold on. A plumb of down feathers erupted into the air, swirling around gently like moths circling a light bulb.  Jack seemed dumbfounded for a second, standing still and rigid.

“What the…?”

And then Abby struck, cutting out in a round arc culminating at the back of Jack’s heel. She felt the soft leather of his boot give way to the razor sharp blade and listened to the satisfying pop that followed as she severed his Achilles tendon in two. Jack let out a blood-curdling scream and then tumbled backwards to the floor, striking his head against the nightstand, knocking him into a state of confusion.

Abby didn’t waste any time, scurrying as fast as she could out from under the bed. The feeling returned to her arms with a swarm of stinging needles. She thought Jack was unconscious but then she heard him moan and begin to stir, he was trying to get to his feet. Abby glanced at her wheelchair six feet away and knew then that she would not make it. Jack was on his feet now, heavily favoring his good leg as he lurched forward towards her.

“I’ll kill you, you ungrateful bitch! YOU FUCKING UNGRATEFUL BITCH!”

He was shrieking now, doubling his speed as he drug his wounded foot behind him leaving a trail of blood black as night in the darkness. At last he closed the distance and loomed over her, wielding the poker high and balancing on his good leg.

“You never loved me. You’re just like my mother. A cold uncaring vile woman.” To her surprise Abby could tell that Jack was crying now, the ravages of a lost soul about to complete an unspeakable act. “And now I have to kill you. I’m sorry Abby, I’m so sorry.”

Abby closed her eyes and mouthed a silent prayer, not for herself but for Jack. She prayed that God would have mercy on his soul, a final unselfish act upon which to end her life. And then as he brought the poker down his boot gave out from under him, slipping in the pool of their combined blood like a giant red-liquid banana peel. He crashed again to the ground. As he flipped over and tried to rise to his feet once again, Abby plunged the knife into his back, burying it to the hilt just right of his spine. Jack crumpled to the ground and lay motionless. A gasping wheeze escaped his lips as his punctured lung collapsed, spraying a fine red mist of expectorant blood. Abby lay on the ground wheezing as well. A few minutes passed before she pulled herself over to her wheel chair and climbed up to a seated position.

She looked down at the still form of her husband, lying crumpled on the floor. A tinge of sadness washed over her, such a wasted life.

Abby pushed the wheels forward and began to roll herself out of her room, there was no time to mourn, and she had work to do. Work the demon was not going to like.