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Authors: C.L. Bevill

Tags: #1 paranormal, #2 louisiana, #4 psychic, #3 texas, #5 missing children

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BOOK: Disembodied Bones
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Whitechapel had intended this room to be his
prisoner’s cell. The door was thick oak. The lock was solidly
attached. Leonie briefly closed her eyes and tried to calm her
panicked emotions. She opened her eyes again and slowly surveyed
the room again. He had tied Douglas to the middle of the floor
because he didn’t want him to escape. So there had to be a way
out.

Leonie looked up. There was an attic door
above her. It was the type that would be pulled down with a hanging
cord, but of course, Whitechapel had removed most of the cord. She
could see the edges of the door and just a little bit of cord that
remained hanging from a hole. Kneeling next to Douglas, who was
still rubbing his limbs, she said, “Listen, Douglas, we can get out
of here, but you have to get on my shoulders.” She pointed upward.
“If you can reach up and grab the attic door, we can get up there
and escape down the stairs on the far side of the house. I’ve seen
them.”

Douglas nodded, a tear running out of his
right eye. He wiped it away furiously. “I’m going to kill that man.
He’s a bad, bad man. He said that he would give me toys, but I
would have to stay with him forever. I’d never see Mom and Dad
again. And he hurt you. I can see marks on your throat. You’ve got
blood on your mouth.”

“I know, Douglas,” Leonie said as she helped
him up. “But
cher
, we have to hurry.”


Cher
?”

“It’s a French word. Do they call you Douglas
or Doug?”

“Doug, mostly.” Douglas considered, a tremor
shaking his full lower lip. “Except my mother. It’s always Douglas.
Or she middle-names me. When she’s really, really pissed off.”

Leonie smiled faintly. “My
maman
does
that. When she’s very mad.” As she spoke she got Douglas to his
feet and briskly rubbed his limbs. “Have you ever done gymnastics,
Doug?”

“Sure. Somersaults. Some other stuff. Leonie,
are we going to really get out of here?” His voice held a little
quake of fear. She knew he was trying to be as courageous as he
could.

“Be brave. We can fight him.” Leonie bent her
knees slightly and braced her arms against her legs. “Climb up on
me and I’ll raise you up to the ceiling.” Her eyes went upward. “I
think between the two of us, you can just reach.”

Douglas put one foot on her knee and rested
his hand on her shoulder. She couldn’t help the wince and the
throbbing gasp that slipped out of her mouth. “What’s wrong?” he
said.

“Shoulder’s hurt,” Leonie replied quickly,
glossing over the deep-set pain that was working its way down into
the tips of her fingers. “But hurry, Doug. We don’t have much
time.”

He slowly climbed upward, balancing himself
on her body. Leonie didn’t realize it but they were close to the
same size, even though he was three years younger than she. She
thought she was a strong girl from working in her
maman’s
garden and helping her grandpapa plow his cotton. But as she
started to take on his additional weight, her knees started to
shake with effort and she felt as weak as a newborn puppy.

The doorknob started to rattle and both
children went still.

-

The more of it there is,

The less you will ever see.

What is it?

It is darkness.

 

Chapter
Seven

One where none should be,

Or maybe where two should be,

Seeking out purity,

In the king’s trees.

What am I?

Monroe Whitechapel started to open the door
of the locked room where the two children were located. The urgent
repetitions of the intercom buzzer alerted him that the men from
the power company were waiting at the back gate. Re-locking the
door, he cursed loudly and went back downstairs.


“Hurry,” whispered Leonie, fear of
Whitechapel quickly motivating her, and used her good arm to help
Doug up. He started to overbalance as one foot stepped onto her
shoulder but caught himself on her head. One hand tangled painfully
with a handful of her long hair and he started to say something but
cut it off just as quickly.

The doorknob’s movement stopped abruptly at
the piercing sound of another buzzer and they both clearly heard
Whitechapel mutter, “Goddamnit. Now what?” His heavy footsteps went
away. The echoes died away as the two children strained to achieve
their goal.

“Leonie, I can’t quite reach it,” moaned
Doug. He was stretched all the way up; his lean body was a length
of extended sinew and muscle, striving for the prize. His fingers
tickled the end of the cord and he couldn’t grasp it.

Leonie didn’t dare move for the fear that she
would tip him over and the noise would alert Whitechapel. Her
entire legs were trembling with effort and her shoulder felt like a
red-hot poker had been stabbed inside it. “I’m going to straighten
up, Doug,” she whispered hoarsely. “Look at the cord and don’t look
away. When I go up, grab on for all your worth,
ma p’tite
.
He’ll be back in a minute. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“On the count of three,” she said and the
effort was all she could put into it. The shaking that impacted her
legs was spreading to her arms and soon Douglas would be swaying
back and forth on her shoulders, unable to keep from pitching over.
“One. Two. Three.” And she shoved her shoulders upward, feeling his
feet leaving her body, the weight gone straightaway.

Leonie’s head whipped back and he was coming
back down. Douglas landed on her with a grunt of pain, causing her
shoulder to explode in agonizing sensation, and she couldn’t see if
he had gotten the cord or not.


Whitechapel looked out the backdoor at the
men waiting at the back gate and started to buzz them in. Then he
heard a loud thud from above and he knew that he’d have to take
care of the children first. Even if he had to kill both of them, he
couldn’t risk exposure. He turned around and hurried back to the
second floor.


Leonie carefully moved Douglas aside to look
above them. She held her breath and saw that he had pulled the
ladder door down halfway. She got to her feet and jumped up to grab
the edge. Her shoulder was shrieking with agony as she held on, but
the door didn’t want to move any more. She deliberately jerked up
and down on it but it seemed like it was stuck.

Then Douglas’s arms wrapped around her lower
body and pulled as hard as he could. The door’s old hinges squealed
with protest and pulled downward. Leonie let go with a grateful
groan. She used her good arm to pull the steps down, and then
motioned at Douglas. “Go. Hurry. If he comes in and sees us, you’ve
got to promise me you’ll run. Run until you find a policeman.
Promise me.”

Leonie grasped Douglas’s arm and propelled
him halfway up the stairs. He reached out with a small hand and
found her hand, trying to pull her up with him. “You’re coming with
me,” he said determinedly.

Taking a step back, Leonie couldn’t pull free
of his grasp. “I have to close the door behind you, so he doesn’t
know where you’ve gone. Otherwise he’ll catch both of us. He
doesn’t want to hurt me,” she added quickly, knowing it wasn’t
true.

Douglas’s face was shocked and as pale as
Artic snow. “You have to come. He’ll kill you. He’s told me. He’s
killed before. He will hurt you. Leonie. You have to come.”

The door rattled again. Leonie yanked her
hand out of his. “Run, Douglas. Run across the attic. There’s
stairs on the other side of the house. Go all the way downstairs
and find a telephone. Call the police and tell them you’re in
Monroe Whitechapel’s house.”

Douglas cast a disconcerted glance at Leonie
then stared horrified at the door as it shuddered. Leonie stepped
forward and heaved him upward. He scrambled up the stairs and
disappeared into the darkness. She pulled back and tried to close
the stairs but the mechanism was stiff from neglect and lack of
use.

Leonie felt a helpless wave of fear course
over her again. She shoved at the stairs once, glancing quickly at
the opening door. Whitechapel stood in the opening, his features
delineated by alternating shadows and yellow light. Then a low
growl of pure fury filled the room as he realized that Douglas
Trent was gone.

She knew she didn’t have anything to lose.
Leonie plunged up the rickety stairs, silently imploring her legs
to move faster than anything had ever moved before. Her head and
shoulders were in the attic, her breath was coming and going as
fast as a steam train headed up a sheer mountain, and a little bit
of hope made her think she had a chance to escape.

That was when Whitechapel’s hand wrapped
itself around one of her ankles, holding it as tightly as if it
were a handcuff secured around her wrist.


Jacques was standing outside the back gate of
the compound, looking inside. He’d rung the buzzer on the intercom
ten times already and the lock on the gate hadn’t disengaged yet.
He stared at the mechanism as if he could compel it to open with
the force of his thoughts. Right now he was angry enough to spit
nails into two-by-fours and leave only the heads showing. He was
aware that Leonie was awake again and her fear was making the three
men visibly anxious. Since they were in close proximity, his
daughter’s newfound abilities were making themselves patently clear
to them in the form of a piercing sensation that radiated to every
part of their brains. She was deathly afraid of something or
someone inside the compound and Jacques was stuck outside, unable
to assuage those fears.

The back gate of the estate was somewhat
closer to the house. Lush greenery still obscured their view but
Jacques could see parts of the colorful intricacies of the
playground with its whimsical trappings. He could make out the
hedge animals’ shapes as they stood guard over where children
should have been romping in joyful exuberance. A horde of vivid
beach balls drifted across the surface of the pool and were
surrounded by colorful twirling water slides that rose up like
spires of a fairy-tale castle. The utter complexity and expense of
the area made exclusively for the lure of children made Jacques
shake with outraged discomfort. He was beginning to understand that
this man who lived here had an unnatural attraction to children,
and not only was a helpless boy inside the trap, but so too was
Leonie.

Jacques’s eyes narrowed on the great
buildings dimly seen through thick trees and flourishing foliage.
Babette was trying to transmit her thoughts to him, but he was
becoming too angry to receive anything except that Leonie was
feeling a quaking fear that ate up through her little body like a
fierce virus intent on consuming every inch of her soul.

Someone was there. Jacques could see a van
was parked in a circular gravel lot near a back door but no one was
moving within sight.

Beau Sandemonte was pacing back and forth
behind him, one hand rubbing at his forehead; his bald head was
covered with a sheen of sweat that he wiped away every few minutes
as he stared unerringly at the house. Louis was sitting in the cab
of the truck with the door open and his feet dangling out the side,
his head held in his hands, trying to will away the fear that was
infecting all of them. “Maybe he called the power company,
non
?” he said weakly to Jacques. “To see if we really
them.”

“I don’t care if the bastard called our
heavenly Father Himself,” Jacques snarled at him. His hands rattled
the wrought iron bars fiercely. “I think maybe a truck will break
this gate open. I think maybe I break this man’s head open and feed
his brains to
M’su
Berrier’s hogs.”

Louis and Beau lifted their heads to study
the heavy gate. “Maybe. Ruin your truck, though, Jacques,” Louis
said and added, “That other thing most likely kill the hogs.”

Jacques cursed at the gate vehemently,
throwing his hands into the air. He was doggedly climbing back into
the truck when the big police officer from Shreveport drove up in
an unmarked police car.

“Oh,
merde
,” said Louis mildly. “The
cops.”


The bone-crushing grip of Whitechapel’s hand
on Leonie’s bare ankle made her shudder in revulsion. Fruitlessly,
she yanked on the wooden supports of the attic door, trying to pull
herself up, to heave herself out of his relentless hold.

Suddenly, other hands were grasping her
wrists and helping to pull. Leonie’s head went back and she found
that Douglas had returned to help her. He was wrenching feebly on
her wrists even while Whitechapel started to drag her backwards.
Her shoulder was no longer on fire; instead, it felt like an
explosion of pain had gone off there like a devastating terrorist’s
bomb inside her flesh. It ripped through her muscles of her arm and
was searing through her back now with the ferocity of a thousand
wrathful gods.

Leonie stared into Douglas’s brown eyes. His
face was a pale mass of determination tinged with fear. He wouldn’t
let her go. She could see the resolve of his expression. He
wouldn’t let her die at the hands of his kidnapper. And she knew
she didn’t have the breath to plead with him to leave her. Instead
she glanced wildly down and saw Whitechapel’s twisted snarl as he
pulled at her leg, grappling to get a grip on her other ankle. She
lashed out with her free foot and caught him across his nose. His
fingers loosened as he howled with sudden pain.

Leonie saw another opportunity and stomped on
the hand he put down on a step near her trapped ankle. Then with a
twisting movement she brought her knee around and abruptly her
ankle was free. She didn’t stop the movement but used the momentum
to thrust the knee directly into Whitechapel’s face, putting all of
the mass of her body behind the action. Douglas cried out as he was
pulled forward by the sudden increase of weight he was holding with
his hands. Pain erupted in her kneecap as she connected solidly
with his nose. She heard the unsettling noise of something breaking
and knew it was not her knee that had shattered.

BOOK: Disembodied Bones
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