Phobia KDP (11 page)

The man and two dogs moved through the trees quickly. Buck ignored the scratch of a branch across his check. It was nothing he hadn’t before experienced. He wiped his forehead with his blue bandana, feeling the heat every time the sun’s rays filtered through the trees. The stifling air was an oppressive blanket, but the dogs continued to press forward.

A woodsman with a natural instinct for his surroundings, Buck knew where the dogs were leading him. The clearing had been a favorite spot of his. More than once he had found a large doe and her fawns standing in the ferns.

This time, however, there were no deer. Instead, a pine box sat in the clearing. For the first time in Buck’s life, he felt a sense of unease in the woods. He let the dogs move close to the box so they could inhale its scent. He allowed them to issue one more bay that echoed through the trees. Then he hurried back to the camp.

Charles Emmert probably expected to be buried in a different type of casket
, Herne thought,
if a man like that ever thought about his own impending demise
.

Yellow police tape wrapped around the trees, and most of the searchers had been sent back to the camp. Fiona, the photographer, snapped a picture, her mouth pressed into a thin line. Her small body seemed dwarfed amid the trees. Herne was surprised to see tears in her eyes.

He thought about reaching out to pat her shoulder. But instead he said, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not used to this. Not used to death,” she said.

“We can get another photographer if this makes you uncomfortable,” Tucker said, walking up to them.

She shook her head, wispy strands of blond hair wrapping around her glasses. “No. I’ll do it. Someone has to. And maybe it’ll help.”

Herne turned his attention away from the photographer and back to the centerpiece of the scene. There, amid a bed of ferns, rested the rectangular pine box. The same one photographed in The Healer’s last missive. The same one, Herne was certain, that acted as Charles Emmert’s coffin.

He closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of pine and trees and grass. He felt sweat bead on his forehead, and he imagined Emmert in the box, screaming and gasping and crying as the sweltering heat turned the pine wood into a primitive oven. Then Herne felt a hand on his chest, and his eyes snapped open.

“Jesus, Art,” Tucker hissed. “You were starting to fucking walk to that box. We have to wait until she’s done with her pictures.”

Lee arrived a few moments later, cursing as he stepped into the clearing. Pools of sweat stained the armpits of his yellow shirt. “Never been a woodsman type,” the doctor said. “My wife, she loves hiking and rock climbing and kayaking. I prefer to sit and read a book.” He patted his ample belly. “Guess that’s why I carry around this spare tire.”

The doctor glanced at the coffin, his dark eyes widening. “Jesus. I hope that’s not what I think it is. No one’s opened it yet?”

Herne shook his head. “We wanted some photos of the scene.”

“What if the person inside is alive? What if they need medical help? You should have opened it,” Lee admonished.

“There’s no one alive in that coffin,” Herne said.

“How do you know that?” Lee asked.

“There’s a small hole about the size of a penny drilled into the side of the coffin. An air hole, we think. We put a stethoscope up to it and listened for signs of life. There wasn’t a single fucking sound,” Tucker said.

Herne hadn’t needed the silent stethoscope to tell him that the body inside the coffin was dead. He had felt the certainty of death the moment he walked into the clearing.

Miller carried a crowbar to Tucker, his heavy feet treading on the packed dirt. “Thought you might need this, Chief.”

“Good thinking,” Tucker said. He looked at Herne. “Shall we?”

Tucker slipped the tip of the crowbar under the lid and pushed. Herne stood and watched, imagining how each 4-penny nail driven into the wood helped to seal Emmert’s fate. Like music in the woods, the satisfying thud of pounding nails mingled with his victim’s muffled screams would have filled The Healer’s ears.

It took just a few minutes to pry off the pine lid.

Inside the box lay Charles Emmert, his eyes closed and his hands by his side. His body, bloated from death, seemed to match the quiet of the surrounding trees. Even the birds had fallen silent.

“My first guess is dehydration,” Lee said. “He’s got the classic appearance. Cracked lips, wrinkled skin, sunken eyes.”

“How long did it take for him to die?” Tucker asked.

“Hard to say exactly, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he’d been in that box since Saturday. Most of the time, with no water at all, people will be dead in four days or so. And it’s been uncommonly hot this summer. He would have been on his way to dehydration by Sunday. Wouldn’t have been a pleasant way to go, but it probably wasn’t violent, either. In the end it might have even been peaceful.”

Herne leaned in to examine the coffin. Deep scratches scarred the inside of the pine lid, thin grooves almost the width of a pencil. A broken house key lay next to Emmert’s body. Herne grabbed the dead man’s hand. The tips of his fingers looked like meaty hunks of blood, and most of his fingernails had been torn away.

Tucker whistled. “Jesus Christ,” he said.

“He tried to scratch his way out with his key. When that didn’t work, he used his fingernails,” Herne said.

Herne glanced at the body again. He imagined the man inside the makeshift coffin, his breath coming out in panicked gasps of terror. The pine box almost—but not quite—suffocating him with its tightness. Every so often a surge of energy, fueled by fear, would give him the strength to claw at the lid of the coffin until his fingers were nothing more than raw, bloody bones. And the agony of his mutilated flesh would have been muted by his terror. Eventually he would pray for the end. The end of his life. And it would take so long, a small eternity, to finally arrive.

No
, Herne thought.
There was nothing peaceful about this man’s death
.

CHAPTER TEN

Morales pulled his SUV into his garage. His house, warm from the summer sun, smelled faintly of rotting garbage. He’d forgotten to take out the trash.

He’d spent all day watching that woman. He followed her to work. To the gym. To Shady Hill Diner for a cup of coffee. He’d seen nothing useful. Nothing to help him finish his job.

Surveillance was tiring work. The constant alertness created a state of almost hyper awareness. He had to be diligent about watching the woman without allowing her to spy him or even sense his presence. As a result, Morales felt as if all of his muscles had been contracted for hours.

Once in the safe anonymity of his home, where he no longer needed to hide and camouflage himself, he finally relaxed. He checked his messages, annoyed to discover that his ex-wife, Roz, had called again.

“Claudia wants to come visit you,” Roz’s voice said. “But it’s not going to happen. I’m not letting you near her, you deadbeat shit.”

Morales slammed his fist on the answering machine, silencing the voice of his ex-wife.

“Someday,” he muttered. “Someday that bitch is going to get it.”

He wasn’t ready to claim his daughter yet. He had more things to accomplish. But soon, after a few more preparations, she’d be living with him instead of his crazy ex-wife.

He glanced out the window and noticed the sun just touching the mountains. Morales had time for one more chore before evening, so he gathered the trash and carried it out to the curb.

Kick. Punch. Kick again.
The drills seemed endless. Sweat poured down Bethany’s face and stung her brown eyes.

“He’s coming for you,” her karate instructor, Sensei Robert, shouted. His sinewy muscles flexed beneath his shirt. “He’s coming for you now.”

Kick. Punch. Kick again.

Her Sensei held up his hand, his brown eyes serious. “You’ll soon be a black belt, Bethany. I need to see the intensity. The drive. The power behind your moves.” He tossed away the pad he’d been holding and rolled a mannequin toward her. Known as “Torso Bob,” it was the soft plastic figure of a man atop a weighted stand, designed to take punches and kicks from martial artists. The expression on Bob’s face was an angry scowl. Bob looked as if he wanted to rip Bethany’s heart out.

“Bob’s coming for you,” Robert shouted. “He’s ready to attack.”

Kick. Punch. Kick again.
Bethany felt a pain in her hip as she kicked at Bob’s face.

“Aim for the kneecap. The eyes. The nose. Go for his vulnerable spots. The ones that will bend to your will. The spots that will break with your pressure. Use your power. Your core and your legs. Remember, as a woman you have a lot more strength in your legs than your arms. If you have to fight, use it all. Everything you’ve got.”

Kick. Punch.
She could feel the strength flowing through her body.

“Faster. Harder. You may have only one split second in which to act. You need to be quick. Strong.”

Kick. Punch.
She felt herself weakening.

“Take him down! Take him down!” Robert screamed.

In a flurry of kicks and punches, Bethany ran for the mannequin, attacking with all the strength in her body. Bob tumbled to the ground.

She looked at her Sensei, her face flushed with triumph.

In that moment, Bethany—so plain that she was overlooked by almost everyone—was beautiful.

He knew they found the body. He heard it on the news. But there was no time to gloat. He’d awoken to the night.

He sat in the corner of his room, illuminated beneath the circle of lamps. His hands shook as he stared at the window. Outside darkness enveloped everything, like a black blanket threatening to suffocate his world. He buried his head in his hands, whimpering and hearing his father’s voice.

“Sissy,” his father said. “Little baby. Scared of the dark. You aren’t a son of mine.”

Panic coursed through his veins as he tried to shake away the noise of the past. But it came through the light and hit his heart. He felt his father’s contempt.

Each night, when the dark spilled through his windows, The Healer saw the jagged edges of his father’s face. He remembered the pale moonlight, and the white shimmer it cast across his father’s bristled brown whiskers. The Healer felt the spray of his father’s spit every time the old man snarled, his face almost close enough to kiss.

“Sissy. Baby. Pussy.”

The Healer, barely seven years old, would curl in his bed. He wrapped his arms around his body protectively, squeezing his eyes shut. Like a lab monkey, he feared eye contact would only worsen the situation. He tried to hold back the sobs that threatened to spill from his lips.

His father would reach for him, wrapping his thick fingers around his son’s slender wrist.

“You’re coming with me, boy. We’re going to get this fear out of you.”

And The Healer would struggle against his father’s strong grip, a grip that left dark bruises on his arm. He’d dig his small heels into the thin, worn carpet of his bedroom as his father pulled him out into the hallway. Sometimes The Healer would reach out and grab something—like the cool, smooth doorknob—and hold tight, trying to prevent the inevitable. But his father would shake him like a dog shakes a rag, rattling his head until he’d bite his tongue from fear.