JACK KILBORN ~ AFRAID (3 page)

“Must have been the helicopter blades, right?”

Josh didn’t answer. Erwin stepped away from the wreck, but his eyes didn’t leave it. Their fire truck—a three-thousand-gallon tanker parked a few yards away on the sand road—had its emergency lights on, teasing the crash site with alternating flashes of red and blue. Erwin and Josh each held flashlights, but even with those and a full moon they couldn’t see everything at once—the trees were too thick.

When they arrived, the fire had mostly gone out by itself. A few of the nearby pines had been scorched, but the rain from two days ago prevented anything major from starting. Debris littered an area of about twenty yards in every direction, though it was hard to see because their flashlights weren’t powerful enough. The smoking shards of metal were out of place in the woods, making it look like an eerie alien planet. Erwin didn’t like it.

He backed up until he could no longer see the corpses in detail. A twig snapped, to his right. Erwin startled, focusing his light into the woods next to him, wondering what deer or coon was curious enough to come and see the wreckage. As his beam played across the trees he saw a brief glint of two eyes, which quickly vanished.

Erwin looked over at Josh. His partner had approached the cockpit and was peering in reverently. Erwin glanced back to the woods. The eyes couldn’t have belonged to a deer, because these were side by side. A bear? Maybe, if the bear was standing up. But Erwin knew bears, and the whole forest shuffled when a bear moved past. Erwin craned his neck forward, listening.

The woods were silent. Erwin had the uncomfortable feeling that the eyes were still there, watching him.

“Hello? Someone there?”

He felt foolish saying it, and even more foolish when no one answered. Erwin moved the flashlight to and fro, trying to penetrate the trees, but saw nothing. Could someone have survived the wreck? Someone hurt and unable to answer? He glanced again at Josh, saw that he was busy examining the inside of the chopper, and decided to investigate on his own.

The woods became very dark, very fast. The canopy screened out the full moon, and the thin beam of his flashlight worked like a theater spot, illuminating only a small circle and nothing else. Erwin moved slowly, respectful of his environment. In his teenage years he’d disturbed a badger on a late-night hike through the forest, and the bite he’d taken on the knee still ached when it rained. It had been the scariest moment in Erwin’s life, and he’d been unable to fight back, his muscles locked with fear.

Since then, Erwin avoided confrontation of any sort. He stopped playing sports. He walked away from fights. Thinking of himself as a coward was much easier to deal with than the horror of being attacked.

Movement, to the left. Erwin got the flashlight there in time to see something black dart behind a large oak. Too tall for a bear. A person?

He opened his mouth to say something but didn’t make a sound. If it was a person hiding behind the tree, why were they hiding?

Erwin took a step closer, feeling his arms go goosepimply and adrenaline tingle in his bowels.

Then a deer came crashing out of the woods.

Erwin reached out his hands to ward off the impact, dropping his flashlight, bracing his legs. The blow came weaker than he’d anticipated. Weaker, and warmer. The deer’s head connected with Erwin’s chest but didn’t push back. It just sort of stopped—as if he’d been tossed a football—and then came a spray of heat that stung Erwin’s eyes.

He took two steps backward, the deer collapsing at his feet, kicking out its legs like it was still running. Then it jerked twice and became still.

Erwin rubbed his eyes, realizing the heat was liquid, and the liquid was blood. He found his flashlight in a bush a few feet away and it was also soaked in blood, the smears on the lens making it cast red light. Hand shaking, he pointed it at the deer and saw a three-foot gash in the animal’s side, so deep it cut through the ribs.

“Josh!” he yelled, though it came out as more of a croak.

Then he heard something else moving in the woods.

S
al Morton hadn’t cried in more than thirty years, but he was crying now. The shapeless, bleeding thing that his wife had become continued to twitch and gasp on the bed beside him, and rather than allow him to end her agony, the intruder forced Sal to answer a series of inane questions.

“I don’t know.”

“When was it?” The man’s foreign accent was heavy, his voice breathy and almost feminine.

“A long time ago. Years.”

“Where?”

Sal eyed his wife, watched her undulate. How could she even still be conscious?

“Please. Just kill her. Kill us both.”

“Where were you?”

“In town. At the hardware store. Jesus, please, can’t you let her die?”

The man did something with his knife, and the thing that was Maggie mewled like a sick kitten.

Sal reached for her, touched her, and this prompted more screams. He pulled back his hands and clenched his fists, shaking so badly he almost fell off the edge of the bed.

The man appeared amused.

“Will killing her help you focus?”

“Yes. Dear God, yes.”

“Then go ahead.”

The man offered Sal a pillow. Sal stared at it and wondered for the hundredth time if this was really happening, if this was real. Only a few minutes ago he was fishing, pondering the activities for the upcoming holiday weekend. Perhaps they would eat out, then see a scary movie to celebrate Halloween. But life changed when he walked into that bedroom. The whole world changed. He wasn’t ever going to a movie with Maggie again. Instead, he was going to murder her. Could he do it? Did he have the strength?

Sal closed his eyes, tried to picture Maggie the first time he saw her. A blind date. Sal could no longer remember who had set it up, but he remembered every second of their evening together. Maggie had worn a pink dress, her hair all styled up, and she giggled when she met him, obviously as pleased with his appearance as he’d been with hers. They’d gone bowling and had a wonderful time, even though neither of them possessed any skill or even particularly liked the game. Every year since then, on their anniversary, they’d go bowling. November fifteenth. Just a few weeks away.

“I can’t.” Sal dropped the pillow.

“You love her.”

“Yes.”

“She’s suffering. See?”

The man did something unspeakable to Maggie, and he kept doing it. Sal tried to shove him away, but the intruder had muscles like brick. Maggie made a sound that didn’t sound human, a gurgling moan of pure agony.

“Stop it! Please stop it!”

The man didn’t stop. He smiled.

“Only you can stop it, Sal.”

Crying out, Sal took the pillow and pressed it hard against what was left of Maggie’s mouth, putting his weight on it, trying to drown out her screams, her pain, her life.

She twitched under him, an oddly intimate sensation that reminded Sal of lovemaking. He sobbed and sobbed, and the twitching went on and on, and Sal couldn’t tell if it was her or him anymore, but he wasn’t going to stop, wasn’t going to check to see, had to make sure that she was safe, make absolutely sure that she didn’t hurt anymore.

“You killed her,” the man said. “You can get off her corpse now.”

Sal didn’t move. He felt a piercing grip on his shoulder and was tugged backward, the bloody pillow still held tight in his old hands.

Maggie’s ruined face was still, her remaining eye staring dully at Sal.

Then her chest shuddered and she gasped, sucking in air.

“Well,” the intruder said. “She’s a tough one.”

Sal squeezed his eyes closed, clamped his hands tight over his ears. He couldn’t take anymore. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. This isn’t how their lives together were supposed to end. He’d always pictured a quiet, peaceful death for them. Going to sleep and never waking up. Slipping in the shower and a quick bump on the head. Dying in a hospital bed, the morphine drowning out whatever killer lurked in their elderly bodies. Not like this. Not awful like this.

“Here.” The man handed Sal his knife. “Put it in her heart.”

Sal held the knife like he’d never seen one before. Maggie’s chest rose and fell, accompanied by a wet, rattling sound. He reached out tentatively, gently laying his fingers on her breastbone.

“Right there. Press down hard, so you get through the ribcage.”

Sal focused on the spot, trying to block out the reality of the act. This wasn’t his wife. He wasn’t killing her. This was a normal, routine task, like filleting a fish. A job that needed to get done. Unpleasant, but necessary.

Sal pushed down on the knife, forcing it in to the hilt, making himself stone for her sake. He held it until Maggie’s heart ceased to beat, until the vibrations in the knife’s handle stopped.

“That did the trick.” The intruder clapped him on the shoulder. “Congratulations, killer.”

The moment descended on Sal, pierced him. He cried out, an ineffectual curse at the universe for letting this happen, and then tried to pull the knife from his wife’s chest so he could plunge it into the monster who caused this. Sal tugged, but the knife stayed put.

“This knife is meant for more delicate work and has no blood groove,” the intruder said. “You have to twist it to break the suction.”

He demonstrated. There was a sound like an infant suckling. The man freed the blade and then wiped it clean on the bedsheets.

“Now let’s try to concentrate on answering my questions.”

Sal’s body shook, but he thrust out his chin at his tormentor.

“No. I won’t do it.”

Darkness seemed to spill out of the intruder’s eyes.

“Yes, you will. You think you know pain, old man? You know nothing of pain. You’ll answer every question I have and beg me to ask more of them.”

“No,” Sal said, folding his frail arms, silently swearing on Maggie’s head to not give this bastard the satisfaction. “You won’t get anything out of me.”

It took less than three minutes for the intruder to prove Sal wrong.

• • •

F
ran Stauffer dumped the used coffee grounds into the garbage can beneath the cash register and wondered—not for the first time that night—why she had traded shifts with Jessie Lee.

Merv, whose name graced the marquee of the diner, had hired Jessie Lee back at the beginning of summer.

“She’s a kid, needs to work to help pay for her wedding,” Merv had said, winking in a way he thought was charming but Fran considered condescending. “Besides, it’ll give you some time off. You’ve been running this place solo for seven years.”

Fran could have objected, and Merv probably would have listened. But badly as Fran needed the money—and everyone in Safe Haven seemed to need money these days—fewer hours at Merv’s meant more time with
Duncan
. So Merv hired Jessie Lee, but more often than not Fran wound up working her shifts anyway.

Al, one of their regulars, had grown roots on the last counter stool. He held out an empty cup of coffee as if begging for change. Al was sixtyish, fat, and sported a walrus mustache that was waxed to little curls on either side. Nice guy, so-so tipper, a little too talky and a little too flirty.

The diner phone rang. Fran made no move to get it. Dollars to donuts it was a local, wanted to know if he could get a meal in before they closed for the night. Fran opened the top of the coffee machine, put in a cleaning tablet, and pressed the brew button. She took the practically empty carafe of leaded and gave Al another hit of caffeine. After five rings, the phone stopped.

“That was probably a customer,” Al said.

Fran smiled a waitress smile. “I’m not in it for the money. I’m in it because I love filling salt shakers.”

Al chuckled. “Well, you make a damn good cup of coffee.” He twisted the end of his mustache. “And you’re easy on the eyes, too.”

Fran knew she was tired because—for the briefest instant—she imagined herself romantically involved with Al. She squinted at him, marveling at how desperate she’d become.

While Fran didn’t consider herself beautiful, she had a full head of long, curly blond hair, and pale blue eyes, and a body that still fit nicely into a size six. Her late husband had told her, often, that she looked like Melanie Griffith. Fran could see the resemblance, when her makeup was on and she wore something flattering. She certainly didn’t lack for male attention. At one point or another, Fran had been propositioned by every eligible bachelor in town, and by countless others during the busy tourist season. But she hadn’t been on a date in months.

If she were in her twenties like Jessie Lee, she would have gone out more often. These days, romance came in the form of Lifetime on cable, books on tape borrowed from the library, and late-night baths with plenty of bubbles and a detachable oscillating shower head.

She’d given up hope on men. And though she didn’t mention it in therapy, Fran knew she’d also pretty much given up hope for happiness, as well.

A car horn snapped her out of her reverie. Fran glanced out the storefront window, saw a pickup truck motor past. Then a car. Then another car. Something was going on. Perhaps some kind of sports thing. A local team had apparently won, judging by the yells accompanying the horns. Fran didn’t follow sports, and she was in no mood for the diner to fill up with fans. She eyed the cat clock on the wall, its yellow eyes synchronized to its pendulum tail. Almost
midnight
. Merv had left an hour ago, trusting her to cook if any business walked in. None had. And none would. It was time to get home. She walked to the front door and flipped the hanging sign over to CLOSED.

Picking up a tray, Fran did a quick tour of the floor, pulling ketchup from the tables. She took the bottles back to the counter and unscrewed the caps, soaking them in some seltzer water from the soda fountain. Then she pulled a box of ketchup from under the counter and used the spigot to top off each bottle.

“This is kind of embarrassing.” Al held the check in his hand and a pained smile stretched across his hairy face. “I only have eight dollars on me.”