The Messenger (2011 reformat) (13 page)

Carlton stood
naked, every square inch of his body gleaming scarlet from all the blood. He'd
done the work so quickly, as if it were second nature. He could feel the
Messenger's satisfaction in their shared heart. He felt uplifted.

Behold. The
Messenger.

He didn't feel
that he was standing in a simple dormitory shower room-he felt as though all
that blood on him was actually sunlight and he was standing on the highest
mountain peak on Earth.

He looked
around at all those bodies and smiled.

All those
girls.

The hammer
dripped. It felt weightless in his hand.

They're coming
now, the voice in his heart told him, but Carlton was not worried. You've done
well. You've sent my message with honor and pride. I thank you, and the Father
of the Earth thanks you, the first fallen Light of the Morning.

But you must
hurry now. There's still one left alive.

No. Alive was
no good, not in this case. Alive was insufficient and signified failure. He
knew that he mustn't fail the Messenger.

What was a
little more blood on him, anyway?

He heard some
scuffling somewhere. I know I got everyone in the shower room. There must be
one more hiding in here somewhere.

Where? Where?

Next, he heard
a whimper. Muffled. Then a single sob.

He stalked
around the locker room, his bare feet leaving red footprints. He could feel the
Messenger right behind him, guiding him. When the Messenger stepped forward
with his left foot, Carlton's left foot stepped forward. When the Messenger's
right hand tightened around the hammer's haft, Carlton's right hand tightened.

When the
Messenger's heartbeat, Carlton's heart beat at the exact same time.

Their
footfalls took him toward the dorm chaperon's office. A lithe, wiry woman. One
of her jobs was to monitor the girls when they took showers after gym class,
and he really had to wonder about that. Slate brown hair, short and choppy, her
body long, muscle-toned, nearly breastless. A little long in the tooth, pushing
fifty probably. She'd been one of the first Carlton had killed, actually. He
brought the hammer's beveled end right down into the top of her spine. She
hadn't even known he'd entered the office, so intent she was leaning over her
paperwork at the desk. She'd convulsed on the floor for a few moments,
shuddering, then died.

But there was
someone else in the office. The Messenger sensed it, and since the Messenger's
senses were now blended into his, Carlton sensed it. He could smell the sweat
pouring out of her skin. He could smell her blood racing through her veins. He
could smell her terror.

"There
you are."

He saw the tip
of her bare foot edging just a half inch out of the shadow under the
assistant's desk.

Sopping wet,
like a dog just in from the rain. Hair drenched from the shower. She was
wearing a white terry robe. Carlton reached under the table, grabbed her hair,
and then proceeded to drag her screaming into the showers.

I

"Jesus
Christ, Chief!" the voice erupted over the radio.

Steve keyed
the intercom unit in the car. "What! What's wrong?"

A pause.
"This is not looking good."

"What the
hell is wrong!" Steve blared. "Where are you? Are you in the building
yet?"

"I'm
..." A burst of static. "...I'm heading up the stairs to the second floor,
where the dorm rooms are. There was nobody downstairs in the reception area,
but I didn't check around. I thought I heard something coming from
upstairs."

"What did
you hear?"

"Not
sure. A shriek maybe."

"Have you
seen anyone in the building yet?

"No, sir,
nobody, but...but...my God, Chief, there's footprints running up and down the
hall floor."

"Footprints?"

Another burst
of static. "Blood. It's got to be blood."

"Get up
there! Find out what's going on!" Steve rekeyed the mike. "All units,
this is Unit One. Respond Code 3 to the Seaton School for Girls on Fourth and
Westmore! Suspect is a white male, approximately 180 pounds, brown hair, in a
postal uniform. Consider him dangerous."

Jane sat back
in her seat, aghast. "Bloody footprints? Is that what he said?"

"That's
what he said." And Steve floored it.

The school was
just around the next bend, sitting at the edge of the woods that front the bay.
Several police sirens were already screeching in the distance. Jane felt the
inertia shove her back when Steve fishtailed around the fountain at the center
of the court. The car shuddered, its brakes shrieked. Jane whipped forward and
back when the car finally stopped.

Steve popped
off his seat belt, drew his gun from the shoulder holster.

Jane was
staggered. Something very serious was happening here and she was sitting in the
middle of it. Could Carlton really have exhumed Marlene's body? And the
footprints? Could those really have been Carlton's bloody footprints that the
cop on the radio was talking about? Finally, she just said, "This is
impossible for me to believe."

Through the
open window they heard a long, loud, terror-driven scream.

"Believe
it," Steve said and jumped out to join his men.

Jane felt as
though his urgency was dragging her behind him on a towline. Other patrol cars
raced into the front court. Uniformed police officers were jolting out of their
cars and rushing toward the dormitory's entrance from all points; Jane couldn't
sort her thoughts for all the noise: sirens, radio squawk, shoes tramping
pavement.

Just inside,
though, there was dead silence.

"Careful,"
Steve ordered, holding his pistol upward, finger off the trigger. "Is that
blood there?"

A uniform confirmed
it. So did Jane's eyes. A line of what could only be blood led from the chair,
behind the desk. Now every set of eyes followed the smear like line; it tracked
back to an office.

Two cops stood
at each side of the door. One opened the knob, while a third officer
three-pointed into the room.

A second of
silence, then they heard: "Oh...my...God..."

Everyone
poured into the room, and when Jane saw what they were looking at, she almost
fainted.

A nun hung
from the farthest wall. Jane could only tell that she was a nun by the wimple
around her face, and the veil-the rest of the woman hung naked, white skin
badged with crimson smudges. Her head leaned to one side, her mouth agape. Her
arms spread out as if crucified, from nails driven into her palms. A puddle of
blood ten feet wide shined below her feet.

Jane put her
face in her hands.

"Who was
the first on the scene?" someone asked.

"Jackson."

"Well
then where the hell is he?" someone else answered.

"He's
upstairs," Steve said. "Said something about the showers."

The trampling
shifted now, out of the office and a stampede up the steps. Again, Jane felt as
if in tow. The first cop up the stairs stopped at the landing, holding up a
hand.

"Watch
it," Steve warned.

They all saw
it, a leather mail pouch sitting on the floor, its top flap hanging open.

"Don't
touch it," someone said. "It could be a bomb."

"It's no
bomb." The cop leaned over, picked up the pouch. Steve stepped over and
looked in. The pouch was full of knives, awls, nails, and other similar implements.
A dozen razor-sharp edges glinted upward.

They proceeded
down the hall. Jane didn't want to go, she didn't want to see what else might
have happened here-but she had to. They think it was Carlton, she kept
fretting. But she knew the worst fret of all.

Maybe it
really was.

There were no
maybes about it when they all piled onto the landing.

Oh, my God,
no, Jane thought.

Carlton had
hanged himself in the main dorm hall, from the head of one of the sprinkler
nozzles in the ceiling. He looked as though his entire naked body had been
immersed in blood. His face had turned nearly black from the noose around his
neck, his hands limp, and blood dripping from his fingertips.

"Holy
shit," someone whispered.

"That's
him, isn't it?" Steve asked.

"Yes,"
Jane choked.

She stared at
her friend's dead face. Pressure from the ligature bloated his face; his eyes
were puffed but open. Jane would never have thought that that could happen. He
seemed to be grinning.

"Somebody
cut him down," Steve solemnly ordered.

No one was
enthusiastic to do the job, but eventually two cops stepped forward, one
wincing as he wrapped his arms about Carlton's waist, the other cutting the
rope with a knife. They laid the body on the floor, but both cops, now, were
peering.

"What is
that?" one asked.

The cop who'd
done the cutting knelt down, seemed to be looking at the cut end of the rope.
"Hey, Chief. This isn't rope."

Steve bulled
forward, impatient. "What do you mean it's not rope? What is it, then?
Wire of some kind?"

The kneeling
cop was turning pale. He gulped. "I think... I think it's ...
intestines."

Jane could see
it, could see that the thin, stretched material couldn't possibly be rope.
Intestines? Is that what he said? If they really are intestines, then...whose
are they?

Steve shook his
head. "This is crazy," he said under his breath, then louder:
"Jackson! Where are you?"

"In
here," came the eventual reply.

The troupe
rushed into the nearest door. Now Jane remembered the previous radio
transmission. There were indeed footprints in blood leading straight to the spot
where Carlton had committed suicide. Jane followed the others into the room.

A shower room,
like the one Jane remembered from her own college dorm, years ago. A long room
walled by pretty pink-and-white tile work, ten shower nozzles. Lockers and
benches up front, a multi-stalled bathroom off to the left. Total silence
pervaded the entire area save for a single drip.

But that
wasn't the first thing Jane noticed, not by any means. It was impossible not to
notice the shower's most recent adornment.

Half a dozen
teenaged girls hung in a line on the rear shower wall, crucified as the nun had
been. Naked, arms outstretched, masonry nails driven through their palms and
wrists into the tiles. All of their heads were bloodied from multiple hammer
blows. A towel clogged the center drain, leaving an inch-deep pool of blood
stretched below them.

No one said a
word. Jane just stared, shocked numb.

More tires
could be heard screeching outside, more sirens wailed. Ambulances were arriving
one after another. A crowd was forming as cordons were drawn.

Jane and Steve
exchanged the most somber of glances. Everyone was staring wordlessly at the
room's final detail: a bell, drawn in wide smears of blood, on the adjoining
wall.

Jane knew it
had to be her imagination but when she looked a final time at the line of naked
bodies hanging on the wall, something shifted in her vision. If she'd actually
seen what she thought she'd seen, then everyone else in the room would've
noticed it too. But no one said a word.

I'm not seeing
this, I'm not seeing this, she kept pleading with herself. It's impossible.
It's not there.

For the merest
moment, the six dead girls on the wall all opened their eyes at the same time,
looked right at Jane, and smiled.

Jane collapsed.

II

What's all the
commotion? Annabelle wondered.

Sirens blared
outside, rising then fading as quickly as they'd come. What was going on?

Annabelle was
probably the most petite woman in town, just a shade under five feet tall and a
hundred pounds on a "fat" day. She looked like what she was: a classy
upscale housewife, elegant facial features, always meticulously manicured, just
the right makeup. The shimmering but simple sherbert-green sundress seemed
incandescent from its fine material, and had cost $300 at the International
Mall, plus another $100 for designer sandals with sparkles across their straps.
Her body was well-pronounced in its curves, her breasts erect, and when she
walked down the street in the sun, her straight cinnamon hair radiated. In all,
Annabelle was the ultimate Florida housewife, and in her wake many men turned
their heads, only to bite a lip in envy of her husband.

More sirens
quickly rose, then faded again.

She'd just
walked through the automatic doors of the new west branch post office,
relishing the cool air, when the sound of screaming vehicles startled her. She
turned in a rush, saw several police cars accelerating down Rosamilia Avenue.
Must be a big car wreck, or a fire, she guessed.