Revenant (17 page)

One thing he
did
know, though, was that after a lifetime of scrapes with law enforcement over issues mostly small but occasionally large, he was not about to simply cower down here in the basement of this house of horrors and wait for the pig upstairs to find him, take his heart away from him, and send him off to some research facility where geeks in white lab coats would poke and prod at him like he was some freaking specimen under a microscope.

Earl moved with a speed and economy of motion that must have surprised the two people in the basement still breathing. It certainly surprised him. He shambled three steps forward and grabbed the software nerd with his right hand, bunching the guy’s shirt up in his fist and lifting him onto his toes without even really trying. His strength had by now stopped surprising him.

The dude looked too shocked to scream, or even to say anything, but the chick, Raven, she had obviously heard the cop at the front door just as Earl had and she looked ready to launch into one massive yell for help. Earl’s left hand shot out just as she took a deep breath. He hooked her throat in the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, slamming her up against the wall as she began a scream which quickly died away to a wheezing, “Help me…”

The wooden box containing Earl’s heart tumbled to the floor with a clatter. Earl expected it to smash into a million pieces, dumping his heart onto the concrete, but it bounced once, twirled on one corner like a coin spinning on a table, and fell still.

Raven clawed at his hand ineffectually as her face began to redden and then turn purple. He realized he was suffocating her and he didn’t care. She deserved to die a horrific death for what she had done to him, and he would have enjoyed drawing it out, too. See how she liked the idea of dying.

But there wasn’t time to give Raven what she deserved. Not yet. A cop was at the front door, and in Earl’s experience, cops didn’t just turn around and go away once you had drawn their attention. The pig was probably even now nosing around the house, and if that was the case, it was only a matter of time—and probably not very much of it—before his nosy porker ass ended up in this basement.

Earl looked from one captive to the other, trying to decide what to do next. The software dude had begun babbling quietly, begging for his release, saying something about Earl keeping the fucking Codebreaker software, as if maybe a dead guy might give a shit about a goddamn computer program. Raven, of course, was saying nothing, occupying herself with her futile attempt to fight her way free, or at the very least to get a little air.

And just like that his next move became crystal clear. Earl took one step backward and smashed the software guy’s head into the beautiful bitch’s head, bringing them together like an enthusiastic cymbal player. Earl had never played a musical instrument, but he thought if being a musician was anything like this, he had truly missed out on something special.

There was a hollow-sounding thud and the two bodies dropped to the floor in a rough approximation of the swan dive Max Acton had performed a couple of minutes before. Parker, the software guy, hit the concrete and lay perfectly still, arms and legs splayed, while Raven’s extremities twitched and jittered and she gasped for breath and then let out a surprisingly loud moan. Earl thought he might have to hit her again, but then her arms and legs stopped thrashing and she fell silent.

Earl bent down and picked up the wooden box, thankful it had stayed in one piece. He didn’t know what would happen if the rock and the heart sharing space inside the box were to get separated, but he had a pretty good idea he wouldn’t like the result. He hugged his prize to his chest like a new mother cuddling her baby and tried to figure out his next move.

25

Whatever had happened in this basement was bad, Mike could tell that much before even reaching the bottom of the stairs. Bodies were sprawled atop the bloodstained concrete floor, two men and one woman, none of them moving. One of the men he recognized immediately as Brett Parker, still dressed in the khakis and dress shirt he had been wearing this morning during Mike’s visit. How Parker had gotten here and what the hell had gone down at his house was open to question, but obviously the report of a break-in at Parker’s home had been woefully inadequate.

The other two people Mike did not recognize, but he knew immediately they must be the couple he was looking for. Older man, strikingly beautiful young woman. The woman lay next to Parker a few feet away from the body of the man, who had taken the worst of whatever had gone down here. His head, bent back at an unnatural angle, lay in a pool of blood that had clearly come from his neck, most of which was currently missing.

Mike raised his weapon and stopped on the stairs, taking in the scene, looking for whoever—or whatever—might have caused all this damage. The basement was mostly empty aside from the three prone adults littering the floor, with just a top-loading floor freezer taking up space in the far corner, along with some tools and a couple of small tables littered with junk.

The perpetrator of whatever had happened seemed to have disappeared. Mike had a lot of things to do in the next few minutes; he needed to prioritize. Number One was to check on the condition of the three victims, although it seemed patently obvious at least one of them was dead. He also had to get backup out here and secure the scene, as well as call for medical assistance for anyone left alive. And he had to contact Sharon to find out just what the hell had happened at Brett Parker’s home.

But first things first. Mike holstered his weapon and stepped off the stairs to assess the condition of the three victims. The assailant was gone, but Mike could not shake his feeling that something was wrong, that he was missing something of importance. The smell of death and corruption was much stronger down here, enough to make it hard to concentrate. He knelt at Parker’s body and felt for a pulse. Strong and steady. He looked for any obvious wounds and could find none. Parker would live.

Next he moved a couple of feet to his left and performed the same quick examination on the young woman. Same result: strong, steady pulse and no obvious sign of serious injury. He looked her over and realized that whatever Bo Pellerin’s faults were, and there seemed to be plenty, he was right about one thing—the girl was a knockout. Literally, Mike thought.

He stood and crossed half the length of the basement to the third body. Given the amount of blood on the floor and the severity of the man’s wounds, there was no doubt in Mike’s mind he was dead, but he refused to take anything for granted. He had to be sure. Careful to avoid stepping in the blood, he knelt next to the man as he had done with the other two victims. He placed his finger lightly on the side of the man’s neck—what was left of it—searching for a pulse. He found none. His sense of unease, his feeling that something was not right, intensified.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a river of blood had dribbled off across the floor, the trail roughly paralleling that of the freezer’s electrical cord, which ran from the back of the freezer in a meandering trail to where the plug lay on the floor just shy of a wall socket. . .

The freezer was unplugged.

Holy shit, the freezer is unplugged.
Nobody moves into a new residence and goes to all the trouble of carrying a freezer into the basement and setting it up, only to leave it unplugged, with the cover closed.

And Mike knew.

He cursed and fumbled for his Glock as he felt rather than saw a lumbering presence moving up behind him. He pulled his weapon clear of the holster and threw himself to his left, twisting his body as he slid through the victim’s cooling blood, which was already beginning to coagulate, becoming sticky and viscous.

He ended up on his back and raised his weapon, pointing it at the spot he had just vacated.

And then he froze at what he saw.

It was Earl Manning, the missing man. Only it wasn’t Manning. Not exactly. It was a shambling mess wearing filthy, tattered, bloody clothing. It was a frightening-looking shell that more closely resembled a walking skeleton than a human being. The skeleton carried a small wooden box in one arm and in the middle of its chest was a ragged hole, a hole Mike thought might almost be big enough to see straight through and out the other side if the angle was right.

This couldn’t possibly be the Earl Manning Mike had had occasion to bust for drunk driving once or twice since his arrival in Paskagankee. That guy was no great physical specimen, but at the very least he resembled a living, breathing human being, more or less. This thing looked less than human, somehow
in
human.

But it had to be Manning, and Mike realized it didn’t really matter whether it was or not, because whatever it was, it was coming after him with murder in its cold dead eyes and a long, bloody steel screwdriver in its hand.

Mike sighted down the barrel and barked, “Stop right there.”

The thing smiled a ghastly smile and kept coming.

Mike said, “I mean it. FREEZE!”

The hideous face grinned wider and kept coming.

The Manning-thing was less than three feet away when Mike fired, blasting him to kingdom come. The disturbingly thin body flew backward, smashing to the floor and lying still.

Mike stood, shaking from the adrenaline coursing through his body and cursing himself for not seeing the obvious. A top-loading freezer in the basement, unplugged but with the lid closed. The thing, whatever it was, must have been hiding in the freezer, holding the lid slightly open so it wouldn’t latch, waiting for Mike to turn his back.

And he hadn’t noticed. What the hell kind of cop was he?

He cursed again and walked slowly over to Earl Manning, or whatever the hell it
really
was, goddamned box still cradled in the crook of his arm, even after being shot. He reached down and felt for a pulse and found none. Manning was dead; no question about it, but the lack of blood from the bullet wound was mystifying. So was the general condition of the body, which was horrendous. And he was stone cold. It was as if he had been dead for quite some time, rather than just a few seconds.

Mike gazed at Manning’s chest. The whole thing was sunken, like it had fallen in on itself, like his ribs had been broken and no longer provided a support structure for the skin, which appeared paper-thin and somehow rubbery. There
was
a hole in his chest, too, just as Mike had suspected, a hole besides the one he had put there with his 9 mm slug. It was big and dirty and slimy, with unidentifiable gore surrounding it, but no blood, not even a trace.

Something was seriously wrong here, but the time for worrying about what had happened to Manning would be later. Right now, he had a dead body on his hands—two, he supposed, now that he had killed Manning—and a pair of injured civilians to worry about. He wiped the fingertips which had touched Manning’s skin on his pant leg and grimaced, wondering briefly about communicable diseases. Then he looked inside the open freezer.  It had recently been cleaned, that was obvious, but it still smelled foul; no amount of scrubbing or hosing out would be able to remove the putrescent stench of decaying flesh. Of death.

A stealthy scraping sound came from behind him and Mike whirled, concerned that a second person had somehow been hiding in the basement, wondering how that could have been possible. He turned to see the scarecrow figure of Earl Manning launch himself across the floor, shoulder lowered like a battering ram.

He had just enough time to begin dropping into a defensive crouch when Manning plowed into him, the wasted body of the undernourished, alcoholic dead guy packing a punch Mike could not believe. His Glock flew out of his hand and they tumbled to the concrete, Mike underneath Manning. The back of his head bounced off the floor with an audible
Crack
and his vision blurred and a black curtain dropped over his eyes like someone had flipped a switch.

Mike shook his head, desperately trying to regain his senses. An intense, white-hot bolt of jagged lightning fired through his brain and Mike thought, s
o this is what it feels like to suffer a concussion.
Then the black curtain lifted and his brain started accepting images from his eyes again and he knew he was in big trouble. He sucked in a breath, gagging from the ungodly stench, wondering how he could have not noticed the smell the moment he had descended the stairs.

He unloaded a right cross to Manning’s jaw, smacking his elbow on the floor on the backswing, connecting solidly. Manning’s head snapped back absurdly, nearly bouncing off his shoulder before returning to a more or less upright position. Mike took another breath and gagged again.

Then the man who should have been dead but was not wrapped one bony hand around each side of Mike’s head and lifted it, smashing it down on the floor a second time. The box Manning had managed to hold on to during the entire fight was finally jarred loose and fell with a clatter, but Mike didn’t hear it. A loud buzzing noise filled his ears and the curtain dropped over his eyes again, and this time it stayed there.

Mike’s last thought was,
this is all impossible,
and then the buzzing noise disappeared, and so did everything else.

26

Sharon wrestled the cruiser around the idling ambulance and started down the access road. The moment the EMT’s had begun loading the injured Josh Parmalee into the back of their vehicle, she had sprinted to her patrol car, anxious to get out in front of the bulky truck. The access road was narrow, and if she didn’t depart first, there was a good chance she would be stuck behind it until reaching Route 24, and time was of the essence. One of the richest men in the country had gone missing in this tiny town, and every second would count in the search.

Once out of the driveway, she accelerated as much as she dared on the dirt trail which was barely wider than Parker’s driveway. She drove with her left hand, plucking the handset for the car’s radio off its stand with her right. “Unit Two to Base,” she said.