Strange Magic (12 page)

“You bastard!” Wilson screamed, stooping to pick up another piece of his daughter. “Leave her alone! Please!”

Farther down, he found another of Amanda’s digits, and then another. And then another. Every ten to fifteen stairs his eyes would spot a small circle of blood and his heart would break again as he stopped to collect more bits of his pretty little girl’s hands. Why he stopped to collect them he didn’t know. There was no way to put them back on, even if he did manage to rescue her. Deep down he knew it was a futile effort but he just couldn’t leave them behind. He couldn’t leave his angel alone on the steps, even if it was slowing him down and jeopardizing her life further.

Maybe the doctors can stitch…
he thought, but stopped, not even able to convince himself. Best to just keep moving and not to think about the growing weight in his pocket anymore. Thinking would cripple him and ensure his daughter’s grisly death. Right now, all he could do was put his head down and pursue this madman. Get his hands on him and make him pay for what he’d done. The chase didn’t last long. A few more curving steps and suddenly the staircase opened up into a small dirt-floor corridor. The hallway was completely bare, straight ahead, a sturdy wooden door its only exit. He couldn’t help but notice the sign secured to the oak panel. Its large scrawled red letters were an open invitation he’d rather not accept.

It simply said:
WELCOME TO HELL.

With no other options open to him, Wilson pushed his way through the heavy oak door and found himself standing in a large circular chamber with a high domed
roof, the meager light reflecting from the torch barely revealing its apex. This immense room had been formed out of solid rock and its entire area painted in red, perhaps by the hand of Satan himself.

In front of Wilson, just off to his immediate left, a skinless man was shackled to the wall with heavy silver chains. He was nothing more than greasy muscles, raw flesh, exposed bones, and a grinning bloody skull with oversize bulging eyeballs that followed Wilson’s every move. This grotesque man stood ramrod straight, clearly standing at attention like some bloodied soldier or sentinel and playing his weird part in this, licked his exposed teeth, clicked his heels together, and raised a bony hand to his forehead to salute a silent greeting. With a theatrical sweep of his skinless hand, the man stepped out of Wilson’s way and bid him enter farther into the cavern.

The sentinel was hideous and frightening to look at, but what waited for Wilson beyond the skinless man scared him much worse. On the far side of the room, partially hidden in shadow, a monstrous man stood facing him. In one hand he held Amanda, and in the other a rather menacing stainless-steel meat cleaver, its razor edge stained red with his daughter’s blood.

At least she’s still alive
, Wilson thought.

When Amanda saw her father she struggled to pull free of her captor, but to no avail. She cried for help, reaching out to Wilson with bloody stumps, which were all that remained of her once-delicate hands. Wilson tried not to look at her injuries because he knew it would be the end of him. Instead, he concentrated on the man-beast holding on to her.

This grotesque figure had to be at least seven feet tall
and easily 300 pounds. He was dressed in an old-fashioned magician’s costume: polished black dress shoes, shiny black tuxedo with a silk bow tie, an extra tall black top hat, and a red silk floor-length cape. His misshapen face was hidden in the shadow created by the large brim of his top hat, but Wilson could clearly see a mouthful of frightfully long, jagged teeth.

“Who are you?” Wilson managed to ask. “Why are you doing this?”

“It’s not what I want, little man,” the deformed giant answered, his voice thundering across the room. “It’s what the Heatseeker demands.”

Against the wall, the skinless man began to rattle his chains and laugh. It was a high-pitched hysterical giggle that sent a chill down Wilson’s back. He stopped abruptly though, when Wilson turned to look at him and sulked back against the stone wall wetly licking his teeth again, but thankfully remaining quiet.

“The Heatseeker?” Wilson asked, turning his attention back to the monster magician who’d spoken. He knew full well whom the cloaked figure was referred to but felt compelled to ask anyway. “What does he want?”

“Want? I thought you already knew. He wants your life…your eternal pain…your soul!”

The huge assailant had said all he intended to and surprisingly released his hold on Amanda, allowing her to take a tentative step toward her father. A brief spark of hope surged through Wilson before he realized the awful truth. He started to run toward his daughter, although he knew it was too late, and watched helplessly as the monstrous figure raised the deadly meat cleaver and, without hesitation, viciously sliced Amanda’s head from her shoulders.

“
NOOOOOO
!” Wilson screamed himself awake. A cry so raw and anguished, it physically hurt his throat.

“
NOOOOOO
!” he screamed once more, ignoring the pain, still not realizing he was back in his stuffy bedroom and not in the bowels of the earth trying to pluck his daughter from the jaws of hell.

When the reality of him being awake finally dawned, he couldn’t stop shaking. He lay curled into a ball, crying uncontrollably, still picturing himself trying to carry his daughter’s bloody fingers. Never had he experienced a dream such as that—NEVER. Hopefully, he never would again. It had been so horrible; so damn real.

It took another minute and a few slugs of vodka to calm his shattered nerves. He eventually lay back down to try and relax, but was terrified he might fall back asleep. There was no way he wanted to sleep and risk returning to his recent nightmare again, so he climbed unsteadily to his feet and paced around his bedroom floor trying to make some sense of things. He wasn’t quite sure what to do next when the front doorbell rang. It took him by surprise, the loud buzzing nearly stopping his heart. He glanced at the bedside clock and saw it was 3:30 A.M. Who could be coming to see him at this time of the bloody morning? Maybe if he just ignored it, they’d simply go away. It rang a second time though, and a third; the incessant ringing forced him to abandon his bedroom and go answer the door.

His legs wobbled like jelly as he headed down the hallway, his hands also shaking badly. Was this fear a lingering consequence of his terrible nightmare or did it have something to do with this early morning visitor?
Maybe it was a lack of proper sleep or perhaps vodka withdrawal. Most likely, it was a combination of all those things.

The doorbell rang again. Wilson uttered a halfhearted, “I’m coming, damn it…hold your horses,” but doubted the caller had heard. A fiberglass hockey stick that had never been used was the closest thing to a weapon Wilson could find on short notice, so before answering the door, Wilson paused to grab it. He had no reason to believe he would have to defend himself, it could be his wife at the door for all he knew, but it felt good to have something in his trembling hands, just in case.

The front door was at the end of the hallway and could be reached in seconds, but every step he took seemed to take longer than the one before. Fear has a way of doing that, numbing the senses and slowing one’s ability to function.

“What if it’s
him
?” Wilson asked himself.

“It’s not,” he countered. “It can’t be. Impossible!”

“What about the skeletons in the park, and the message stuffed in the skeleton’s mouth?”

Good question. Wilson didn’t have a snappy answer to negate that one. What if the Heatseeker really has found him? What if he’s standing at the door?

Wilson slowly shuffled his way closer, his tightening fingers picking up slivers from the fiberglass stick. Ten feet away now, the doorbell continued its monotonous ring. His life had come down to this pivotal moment. For the last twenty years, he’d been living a lie, hiding from the horrors of his youth. If the Heatseeker really was here, there was nothing left to do but open the
door. He’d been a coward for too long, and now he had nowhere left to run. The time had come to stand and fight. Offering one last silent prayer, he threw caution to the wind and yanked open the door.

To his utter amazement, no one was there. No one stood on the front porch, the driveway, or out on the street. Everything was quiet and desolate. Could he have possibly imagined it? Maybe the nightmare had affected him more than he’d realized?

Maybe I’m just going bonkers?

It was then he noticed the long-bladed dagger stuck deep into the wood close to the now-silent doorbell. Fear squeezed the air from his lungs and chilled the blood pumping through his heart. He definitely hadn’t imagined the doorbell ringing; ample proof was right here in front of him. Someone had stood with this deadly weapon, prepared to carry out some foul deed had he answered the door.

With a bit of levering, he managed to remove the dagger and noticed a small card had been pinned to the doorjamb. The light had long burned out on the porch, so Wilson brought the offensive weapon and the attached item inside to examine them. When he did, he wished he hadn’t. The long blade was frightening for sure, but it was the little card that grabbed his attention and caused his heart to start thumping crazily inside his chest.

It was an adult admission ticket to a magic show. A magic show that had taken place many years ago. A magic show that had changed Wilson Kemp’s life forever. Holding the small, faded ticket in his badly quivering hand, he read and then reread the familiar words:

NAGS HEAD NORTH - BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

FIRE AND ICE

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

GENERAL ADMISSION: $10.00

MARCH 10, 1988

March 10, 1988. That date had transformed his whole life. In one night, he’d gone from stratospheric success with the world at his feet to a life of alcoholism, fear, and lies. The weight of secret memories and unpaid burdens brought him to his knees.

Only one person knew who he was. Only one person could have such a ticket stub in their possession. Only one person could make Wilson feel the unimaginable terror he was feeling right now. He could deny it all he wanted but, in truth, his worst fears were coming true. The Heatseeker had found him.

Although he realized the futility of it all, Wilson locked every window and door in the house. If the Heatseeker were in fact here in Billington, a few cheap pieces of wood and glass sure weren’t going to stop him.

Nothing would.

Head spinning, Wilson returned to his bedroom and climbed back into bed with a bottle of vodka. He had no idea how any of this could be happening or how he’d been tracked down. More terrifying yet, was what might lie ahead for him and his family.

Susan
! he thought, but his wife’s image was quickly replaced by a vision from his recent nightmare, of his daughter reaching out to him with bloody, fingerless hands, asking for help and how he’d been unable to save her.
Amanda! Oh my God! What am I going to do?

Wilson didn’t have an answer and the pressure to do
something—anything—was too much for him. He wasn’t strong enough to deal with this. Wasn’t strong enough to deal with normal life, never mind this insanity.

Time was of the essence; there would be no need for a glass tonight. Wilson quickly downed the entire bottle before lapsing into a pitiful yet welcome drunken stupor.

“I could have taken him out right then and there,” the Stranger said, his voice quiet but filled with venomous rage. “Just wait for the door to open and
WHAM…
drive my knife right through his fucking heart!”

He took out his frustration on the pickup’s steering wheel, lashing out and pounding it so hard the truck’s horn stuck on, blaring continually as he sped across town, heading home. Being on the razor-thin edge of madness at the moment, he barely heard it, but the irritating noise eventually broke through the dark, angry clouds swirling in his head and he pulled over to unplug the horn beneath the hood. The last thing he wanted to do was to draw unwanted attention to himself. Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm down and regain his composure. When he felt capable of driving again, he fired up the old Ford and resumed his journey home. He was still furious, of course, but back in control for now.

“It’s a bad idea letting him know we’re here. Why do I play with him? Why? All I want to do is rip his throat out and be done with it!”

You already know the answer to that one, my friend
, the trunk of secrets spoke. It talked in a calm, quiet, logical
voice that abated the tall Stranger’s anger, soothing his madness and bringing his potentially volcanic rage back down to a manageable simmer once again.
Killing Kemp will be sweet, but ultimately unsatisfying. If you simply let blind rage get the upper hand, we’ll miss out on all the sweet suffering to come.

We have a plan, you and I. A plan we are committed to, which is already reaping rewards. Kemp is already terrifi ed and we’ve only just begun. Before we’re finished with him, he’ll be begging you to kill him to end his misery. Only then, once we’ve pushed him beyond his wildest nightmares, will he have suffered enough to be granted death. Trust me, when the time comes…and it will come soon, Kemp’s screams of agony will more than make up for these delays.

The words were music to the tall magician’s ears and they calmed him down sufficiently that he had no further problems on his drive home. A small, satisfied smile crept across his face as the trunk began showing him image after sickening image of Wilson Kemp’s eventual slaughter. It was brutal and bloody, just the way the Stranger liked it. Chances were things wouldn’t play out exactly like his visions, but he could always hope. He was just pulling into the driveway of his hideout when a troubling thought occurred to him.

“What if Kemp saw me, or saw the truck pulling away? If he knows our vehicle, he might try to find us. I know he’s a drunk and a coward, but if he knows what kind of danger he’s in—”

Relax, my friend…he knows nothing. He’s already crawled back inside his bottle, I’m sure, so there’s nothing to worry about. Everything is under control.

“Perfect,” the Stranger said, easing the truck to a stop beside the side entrance to the two-story house. He had
to learn to trust the trunk more; it had never been wrong before.

He carefully unloaded the trunk, one corner at a time, and moved it as gently as he could inside the house again. Placing it reverently in the center of the living room, he hoped he didn’t have to move it anymore. Experience had taught him he needed to be in close proximity of the trunk of secrets for it to be able to communicate with him, but it was just too damn hard carting it around with him. Potentially dangerous too, now that Kemp was aware of their presence. The tall man shuddered at the thought of Kemp getting his hands on the power within the trunk. No, he could never allow that to happen. Safer to just leave it here in the borrowed house and do what was required on his own from here on out.

“Well…what’s next in our grand master plan?” he asked, trying hard not to sound as impatient as he felt.

Have a look for yourself
, was the trunk’s reply.

Like an excited schoolboy, the Stranger was on his knees undoing the thick leather straps as quickly as he could, lifting the trunk’s heavy lid. Inside, the trunk was empty again, save for a small 5" × 8" picture of a little girl in pigtails with beautiful jade-colored eyes. The sight of her took the dark man’s breath away, his heart already pounding inside his chest with excitement and anticipation.

“Kemp’s daughter?” he whispered. “Yes…oh hell yes!”

He was starting to like this plan more and more.