J.A. Konrath / Jack Kilborn Trilogy - Three Scary Thriller Novels (Origin, The List, Haunted House) (94 page)

No reply.

Left or right, Mal? Which way to go?

Is she even down here?

He went right. The bare bulbs hanging from the overhead braces were dim and far apart, and Mal’s light stick was getting weaker.

“Deb! Where are you?”

Mal heard his voice echo down the tunnel. But Deb’s voice didn’t echo back.

His neck hurt like crazy, but the bite on his leg was really starting to throb—bad enough that he’d begun to limp. He lifted his pants leg and took a quick look at it.

The bite was an oval, and some of the flesh was missing. Like he’d had a hunk gnawed out of him by a baby vampire.

He pulled his sock up over the wound, which was really all he could do with only one hand, and then the darkness was split by a sharp
CRACK!
and Mal felt his back scream at him.

Mal fell forward and turned over, because it hurt like he’d been set on fire. That’s when he saw the figure with the eyepatch and the whip standing just a meter away.

Blackjack Reedy.

When Frank Belgium was in grade school, he got picked on a lot for being nerdy. Frank wasn’t good at sports, was very good at science and math, and had a speech dysfluency where he’d often repeat a word three times. In sixth grade, he was challenged by a bully, and became a school legend for the fastest any kid had ever lost a fight. Eyewitness testimony was split on whether it took two or three seconds for Frank to go down, the result of a bloody nose.

It had been the most painful thing Frank had ever experienced, up until now.

His arm hurt a lot worse.

About ten to the eighth power worse.

They ran for their lives through the underground tunnels, away from Jebediah Butler, each step agonizing. Frank wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or not, but he thought he could feel his broken bones grind together every time his foot hit the ground.

As in sixth grade, he felt no shame in crying. He was, however, able to refrain from the embarrassment of calling for his mother. But that was only because his mother was dead.

The alcohol Sara had given him lasted no more than fifty meters, before he stooped and puked it all over his shoes. Vomiting offered only a brief respite from the pain of jogging, because Sara was tugging him along before he was even able to finish.

They came to a fork in the tunnel, went left, and then went right at the next T junction, and left again, and then Frank lost track of where he was and just concentrated on praying for death.

Finally Sara pulled him into an actual room, unlike the mineshafts they’d been navigating. This had a concrete floor, and concrete walls, which were covered with crosses.

“We’ve found the Butler House crypt,” Pang said.

That explained the concrete floor, walls, and crosses. Frank counted at least ten burial vaults, and then he had to stop to throw up again. When he finished, he sat on the floor and resumed crying.

Sara stayed with him, patting his back. He must have been the most pathetic, unsexy man on the planet right then, but she didn’t leave his side.

“Did you see see see the movie
Titanic
?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Remember, after the ship sinks…”

“Bro, I haven’t seen it yet,” Pang interrupted. “You gotta spoiler alert that shit.”

“After it sinks,” Frank continued, “and Jack tells Rose that getting on the ship was the best thing that ever happened to him, because he got to meet her?”

Sara nodded.

“Well, Sara, meeting you may have been the best best best thing that has ever happened to me. But coming to Butler House was a really bad move.”

“What’s with the bells?” Deb asked.

Her voice was still raspy, but it had gotten a lot stronger. Frank had no idea what she meant until he saw her pointing at one of the vaults. Each had a tiny brass bell mounted in the corner.

“Safety coffins,” Pang said. “In the 1800s, people had a huge fear of being buried alive. So they began interring people with a string that attached to a bell on the outside of the casket. If they were still alive, they could ring the bell and be rescued.”

Frank filed that information tidbit under
didn’t need to know
and then tried to will himself unconscious.

“At dinner,” Sara said, “Dr. Forenzi said you actually met Satan. Did you really?”

“It’s complicated. And I’m delirious with pain. But short answer, yes.”

“And?”

Frank closed his eyes. “He wasn’t very nice.”

“When I…” Sara’s voice trailed off.

“When you what?” Frank asked.

“When I was on… the island. It was bad. There was this guy. Lester Paks. He’d… filed down his teeth to points. I still have nightmares. Do you?”

“Yes.”

“In order to survive, I had to kill. I don’t regret it. I did what I had to, to save me and Jack. But sometimes I think about the afterlife. What happens to us after we die. We’re being chased by spirits—”

“Alleged spirits, Sara. Nothing has been proven.”

Pang laughed at that. “Nothing proven? Are you crazy, bro?”

“Frank, after meeting the devil, don’t you believe in the afterlife?”

Frank thought about the question. He’d seen things that defied scientific explanation. But not having the answers didn’t mean the answers had to be supernatural.

“I believe in the indomitable strength of the human will,” he said. “I believe good can conquer evil. And, even though it has been a long time for me, I believe in love.”

Sara didn’t answer. But he knew what he said resonated with her, sure as he heard the soft, gentle tinkling of the wind chimes.

No, not wind chimes.

Bells.

Bells?

Frank’s eyes opened in alarm, and he saw Sara with her jaw hanging open, eyes wide as saucers.

She was looking at the wall full of vaults. Frank followed her line of vision.

All of the bells were ringing by themselves.

“They were slaves, buried alive,” Pang said, sitting up with his face buried in his hands. “Sealed in by Jebediah Butler for minor infractions. Through the holes for the bell strings, he fed them food and water. Some lasted for weeks before they died. He let their family members visit them. An object lesson, to keep them meek and afraid.”

Deb had backed away from the ringing bells, her expression as horrified as Sara’s.

“But when they died,” Pang went on, “their spirits were released. They led the revolt that killed the Butlers. And now they roam Butler House, looking for people to possess.”

Pang lifted up his head and smiled.

His eyes had turned completely black.

Deb screamed.

Sara screamed.

But both of their voices were drowned out by Frank, who screamed louder and shriller than both of them combined. Sara somehow found the courage to help Frank to his feet, and Deb added her hands to the effort as well. Then the trio was running out of the crypt, back into the tunnels.

“Which way?” Sara screeched.

Without Pang leading the way with the light in his camcorder, they couldn’t tell which was the way they’d come.

Deb took the lead, Sara and Frank following her. But when they turned the corner, Deb was gone.

And then someone leapt out of the darkness, tackling Frank and Sara, pinning them to the ground.

A wooden crossbeam, old and weathered.

A dim lightbulb, hanging from brown wires.

Rusty iron shackles, bolted to the wall.

What Moni saw when she opened her eyes.

She blinked, yawned, tried to roll over.

Couldn’t.

The memory came back, jolting.

She’d been following Tom through the hallway, trying to stick close, but he was moving so fast and it was so dark.

And then something grabbed her. Something big and strong.

Moni remembered the needle going in. Tried to fight for a bit. Tried to scream with a hand over her mouth.

And now…

Her hands and feet were tied to some sort of bed.

No, not a bed. Beds don’t have thick metal cranks on them. Cranks meant to pull the ropes tighter until the human body stretched and broke in half.

Moni was on a rack. in a torture chamber, filled with all sorts of other horrible devices meant to inflict suffering.

Then she noticed the figure standing in the corner of the room. Staring quietly at her. Pale. Thin. Long, black hair.

It can’t be. But it looks like…

“Luther Kite,” Moni said, her voice cracking into a whimper.

“Hello, Moni.”
He was whispering to her. Soft. Gentle.
“It’s so good to see you.”

Luther came to her, ran a finger across her cheek. He looked different then the last time she had seen him. Thinner. Frailer. Sharper cheekbones.

And his eyes were now completely black.

“Remember this?”

He held up a metal cylinder. On the bottom were six metal spikes, each half a centimeter long. On the top was a knob.

An artificial leech. When pressed into the skin and twisted, it shredded flesh.

“It’s bleeding time, Moni.”

Luther smiled, revealing black teeth.

Moni began to scream for help.

No help came.

Tom opened his eyes to the smell of burnt pork.

He was hanging from the rafters by his wrists, the rope tight and cutting off circulation to his hands. He was tall enough that he could touch the floor on his tiptoes, taking some of the weight off.

Tom spat, hacked, and spat again until he was sure he got all of the roach parts out of his mouth. Then he took in his surroundings.

The tiny room appeared to be carved out of dirt, with railroad ties bracing up the walls and ceiling. A root cellar, maybe. There was some low light, partly from a low wattage bulb on the overhead rafter, partly from a cast iron woodburning stove in the corner of the room, its chimney rising up into the ceiling.

Whatever drug he’d been given had left him foggy, but still very much afraid. His leg hurt from where he’d stepped in the spike hole, and his arms were cramped. Tom visually followed the length of the rope that bound him, and saw it was attached to a pulley and tied to one of the beams, near the doorway.

And standing in the doorway…

“Tom…”

Sturgis Butler, face and clothing burned, eyes black as oil, voice sounding like an echo chamber, walked slowly into the room. He stopped at the stove, opening the hinged door. Next to the stove, on a wall rack, were assorted pokers, pincers, and branding irons. Sturgis selected an iron, showed it to Tom, and stuck the end inside the fire.

The worst burn Tom ever had was when he was a child, stepping barefoot on a lit sparkler on the fourth of July. It had instantly seared into his skin and stuck there, requiring him to pull it out and also burn his fingers.

It had been bad.

A branding iron seemed a lot worse.

Sturgis left the iron in the fire and turned to Tom. He smiled, his teeth black as his eyes.

“I… see… your… fear…”

And then the realization of what was happening hit Tom like a slap. Not a full understanding, but enough for Tom to show some much-needed courage.

“Enough with all this bullshit,” Tom said, punctuating his voice with forced bravado. “Let me talk to your boss.”

On her back, stars dancing in her vision, Sara reached up to scratch out the eyes of whoever tackled her and Frank.

“Where’s Deb?

Illuminated by a faint blue glow stick, Mal’s face was frantic, eyes wild. His neck was bleeding, and he had bloody rips in his shirt.

Next to her on the ground, similarly sprawled out, Frank had begun crying again.

“Is Deb with you?” Mal demanded, raising his voice.

“Pang—Pang is possessed,” Sara told him. “We all ran away. I don’t know where your wife is. We were following her, then she was gone.”

Mal helped Sara up, and then they both pried a sobbing Frank off the floor.

“Blackjack Reedy is behind me somewhere,” Mal said. “He’s got a whip.”

Sara got a closer look at Mal’s shirt, counting at least eight bloody gashes in it.

“Jebediah found us,” she said. “We had to run. We can help you look for Deb. It’s a maze down here.”

“We’ll find find find her,” Frank moaned. Then he dropped over in a dead faint.

Mal looked at Frank, and then off into the distance. “How long ago did she go missing?”

“A few minutes.”

Mal pulled the handbag off his shoulder. “The heroin. Take care of him. I have to find her.”

Sara didn’t want him to go, but she completely understood. “Thank you. Good luck.”

“You, too.”

He ran off. Sara opened the purse, found a plastic case with a big syringe in it. Somewhere, in the dark distance, she heard a whip crack.

Sara knelt down and gently slapped Frank’s face. “Frank, you have to get up.”

Frank moaned, but his eyes remained closed. Sara had no idea how much of the heroin to give him, or even how to properly administer a shot. She gave his shoulders a shake.

“Frank, it’s Sara. I have some drugs for you. You have to get up.”

“Just… leave me… here.”

“I can help with the pain. How much am I supposed to give you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re a doctor.”

“Of molecular biology.”

Sara wasn’t sure how heroin worked. She’d seen enough movies to know it involved tying off an arm with something in order to find a vein. But did she inject him directly into his broken arm? Or could she shoot him up anywhere? She took the needle out of the case and did that thing where she held it point-up and flicked it with her finger to remove all the bubbles.

“That’s too much,” Frank said. “That would kill an elephant.”

“So how much do I give you?”

“See those little lines on the barrel? Each one is ten milligrams. Start with that.”

“Where do I inject you?”

“Straight into my eyeball,” Frank said.

Sara stared at him.

“Kidding kidding kidding. Just jab it in my wrist. Intramuscular probably won’t be be be as effective as a vein, but I’ll take anything as long as it’s quick.”