Hand Me Down Evil (Hand Me Down Trilogy) (20 page)

Pain exploded in my head. Peter’s wrench came down hard on the table, barely missing me.

Unsteadily, I struggled to rise to my feet and bolted for the stairs as Peter rushed after me. When I reached the top step, he grabbed my leg and pulled me down into the basement. I knocked my knee against the stairs. A blast of pain riveted every inch of my body.

At that moment, I grasped the utter helplessness of my situation. One does not talk sense to a lunatic, I thought. Madmen are not capable of intelligent discussion. Their minds don’t work that way. At this time, the only way to escape from Peter’s clutches was by sheer cunning or force. But what force? Certainly, I was no match for the volatile creature.

Amber and Tally, who could hear the commotion, started screaming my name and crying out loud again.

At the bottom of the stairs, Peter held me down on the floor, but I scrambled away and wriggled toward the closet with him trailing close behind. With every bit of energy that I could muster, I pushed the dresser that was securing the closet door. The hefty piece of furniture only slid a couple of feet.

Peter sprung at me, threw me against the wall, held my chin up with his hand, and banged my head against the wall. A bolt of throbbing pain rippled through my head, and I fought to keep from falling over.

Peter shoved me against the wall.

I kicked him vigorously at the ankles, and then in the stomach with my knee.

When he doubled over in pain, I shoved him away from me, and he slammed into the dresser, yanking it out of its spot, and it slid even farther away from the closet. There was enough room between the dresser and the closet door for my sisters to push their way out.

Peter was struggling to regain his balance, clasping on to the dresser with one hand, clutching the wrench in the other.

I pried open the closet door as far as I could under the circumstances in time to see Amber’s and Tally’s terrified faces.

Peter grabbed me by the back of the neck.

“Run, run free, run!” I yelled. “Run outside.”

Amber and Tally squeezed out of the tiny opening in the closet door and scampered up the stairs.

“Run far, run!” I ordered.

Peter tightened his grip on my neck and I slowly sank down to the floor. He pinned me under him, and I fought to free myself from his grip. His hand was wrapped tight around my neck. I had to break free, had to save my sisters. Must find Mom. Mark where are you?

But there was Peter’s terrible body weight crushing against my chest, squeezing the life out of my body, suffocating me. I tried to breathe air in, but the unbearable weight on my chest was smothering me, and for an instant, I thought that I would lose consciousness.

No, no, no
, I thought.
Not now. You’ve made it this far.
Made it to this madman’s house on your own. Discovered the terrible secrets that Peter had been hiding all these years. Uncovered the dark mystery embedded in a single gene, a simple strand of DNA, an evil trait, passed from generation to generation. Handed down from Travis Benton to Edgar Humphries to Peter Singleton. Silently replicating itself, reproducing, unfolding, writhing like a snake slithering undetected through darkness. Vast darkness.

The darkness was closing in on me. Life was being smothered out of my body. Peter tightened his grip on my neck.

I tried to scream, but no sound would come.

Mark, where are you?
I thought.
You were there the moment that Amber was abducted by Mitchell’s Market, and you drove me home, gave me hope that evening. And when someone was pursuing me in the woods by Catherine’s house, again you appeared and once more delivered me to safety. And now, in this forsaken, isolated house, with Peter intent on snuffing the life out of me, where are you, Mark?
I thought.

W
ith a look of pure hatred in his dark eyes, Peter held up the wrench over my face.

I closed my eyes.

Then what sounded like a loud gunshot rang through the air.

My eyes popped open.

Peter’s body fell next to me.

“The madness has got to stop,” a voice said from the top of the stairs.

My head throbbing, I struggled to sit up.

Edgar was peering down at me from the top of the stairs. He threw the gun down, moved toward me, and helped me up to my feet. I winced at the sight of the grotesque figure on the floor and then glanced at Edgar, who appeared to be absorbed in thought.

He was wearing a brown jacket that was ripped at the pockets and a pair of faded blue jeans.

“How did you know to come here?” I asked Edgar as he helped me up the stairs.

Police sirens wailed outside.

“A guy who said that his name was Mark found me at a bar near the hospital and started asking me a lot of questions,” Edgar explained. “He asked me if I knew that Peter was my son. That got me to thinking. I refused to tell him where Peter lived, but of course I know where everyone lives in Gaylord. When I told Mark that I would give him directions to Peter’s house only after he told me why he needed that information, he confessed that he had figured out that it was Peter who had kidnapped your sisters. He told me the whole story. Then, of course, I started running through things in my mind. So after I gave Mark directions, I decided to come here myself.”

Edgar helped me outside just as a team of police officers was rushing down the stairs. A paramedic near an ambulance was talking to Tally and Amber, checking their vital signs. I approached my sisters, lifted them up in my arms, and held them tight.

“I thought I’d never see you guys again,” I said.

“We were so scared,” Amber confessed, her voice small and soft.

The paramedic pulled open the door to the ambulance. “I will need to take them to the hospital for observation for a couple of hours, but everything so far looks fine,” he said.

I glanced back toward the house which was now completely surrounded by police vehicles. Edgar was walking toward the garage, and I followed him.

“Hey, Edgar, I wanted to let you know that I really appreciate what you did for me today,” I said.

Edgar appeared despondent. “I never hurt anyone in my life,” he said, shaking his head. Then, he turned his attention to an empty lawn chair in front of the garage. He tilted his head to one side as if listening to something.

“Hi, Harvey,” Edgar said to the empty chair. He moved a little closer to the garage. “How did you get here? The last time I saw you, you were at the hospital. Well, anyway, I want to tell you some news I heard on television today when I was at the bar.”

Silently, I inched closer to Edgar, straining to hear what he had to say.

Edgar closed his eyes, reopened them, and shook his head from side to side. “Harvey, you’re not going to believe this. But Catherine is dead. She passed today. They took her off of life support.” Edgar stood still for a brief moment and then he nodded. “Yes, yes, Harvey. That’s my Catherine, the love of my life.” Edgar’s crackling voice was a harsh whisper. He began to sob as he sat on the far side of a picnic table near the lawn chair. He looked like a broken man.

The storm had let up, and I went back toward the front yard. The ambulance with its siren wailing was making its way up the dirt road.

I scanned my surroundings because I could sense that there was someone looking at me, burning a hole through the back of my head. As I swung around and peered through the darkness, I saw a black pickup truck parked near the creek by the side of the road. I looked in the direction of the dirt road. There was Mark walking away from the pickup toward the lamppost on the other side of the path.

The first thought that ran through my mind was that Mark would be angry at me for going to Peter’s house alone and throwing myself in harm’s way.

Mark stood next to the lamppost silently with his hands in his jean pockets, his gaze fixed on me. He looked awfully handsome.

I recalled the time I had first seen him standing at a lamppost near Mitchell’s Market. But that was yesterday when my world was crumbling into pieces, when I was totally bewildered and distraught. At this moment, all of the fragments of my life were coming back together again. And I didn’t know if I would have held up against all of the pressure without Mark by my side.

There was no doubt in my mind that if Mark had not found Edgar and tipped him off about Peter’s evil acts that things would have ended differently for me tonight. And I knew that it was Mark who sensed where I was and called the police. I also felt that Mark would be by my side in the future to help me search for Mom.

Mark looked so confident and yet so humble standing there by the lamppost. A cold gust of wind whipped through the trees and stung my cheeks. I felt warm wearing Mark’s jacket, though. And I was sad at the same time knowing that the jacket with “Grayling High School” embroidered on the front pocket was on me, and not on him.

I wanted to rush toward him, apologize for doubting him for the brief moment that I had, for even assuming that he did not care about me. But I knew that was not necessary. There was no need for me to speak at all. He already knew how I felt about him deep down. He had known all along.

With one tear rolling down my cheek, I started moving toward Mark, and as I got closer to him, I began to run. And he gave me the most fabulous hug of my life.

The end.

Allison James is a college student who has earned writing awards and academic scholarships. Her favorite subject is chemistry, and her dream is to conduct germ line genetics experiments.

In her spare time, Allison writes short stories, jogs, and swims.

Special thanks to my contributing editor, John Matthews, and contributing author, Abbie James.

Copyright © 2013 by Allison James

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

Cover art by Rebecca Swift.