Supernatural: Carved in Flesh (7 page)

She looked at Bekah’s photo one last time, brushing the tip of her index finger across her daughter’s hair, feeling only cold glass. She replaced the picture on the mantel and walked out of the room, flipping off the light switch as she went. She passed through the kitchen, ignoring the coffee, opened the basement door, and headed down the stairs.

In the first days after the accident, Catherine had wished she’d ridden along with Marshall and Bekah that night. Wished she’d died with them. But that was before the morning Conrad Dippel visited her office, not as a patient, but as what he called a “potential colleague.” He said he’d read about her “lamentable loss” in the
Broadsider,
and had what he believed might be a solution to her “profound emotional distress.” She’d almost tossed him out on his ass right there and then, but there was something in the tone of his voice, an unwavering confidence that made her want to listen to what he had to say, regardless of how crazy it might sound. Conrad had more than words with which to convince her, too. He’d brought a briefcase filled with the results of hundreds of experiments. The data had been intriguing, but nowhere near as intriguing as the demonstration he gave her in the temporary lab he’d established in the abandoned bicycle factory.

She’d watched him kill a rat by cutting its throat, stitch it up, and then—after administrating a combination of chemicals to the small corpse, in conjunction with some chanted words and hand gestures that she was certain were just for show—bring the animal back to life.

At that point, Conrad Dippel moved from “potential colleague” to a fully-fledged one.

Catherine had left the fluorescent lights on when she’d exited the basement, and had no trouble making her way across the lab. Much of the equipment was Conrad’s, transferred from the bicycle factory, but she’d added to it over the previous few months. A stainless steel operating table stood in the center of the basement, an array of surgical equipment laid out atop a table close by. Another table contained vials, jars, and beakers filled with various chemicals, along with other necessary equipment: pipettes, scales, microscopes, slides, and more. Stored on the floor beneath the table were several plastic containers labeled NuFlesh Biotech. Catherine ignored everything and crossed to the large horizontal freezer on the far side of the room. The machine’s powerful hum filled the basement, and she could feel its vibrations through the soles of her feet as she approached. She reached toward its metal surface, the cold kissing her skin before her fingers came in contact with the metal.

“I won’t rest until we’re together again,” she said in a soft, loving voice. “I promise.”

She lingered there a moment longer before turning away and once more resuming her work.

* * *

“Hey, Joe. What’s the word?”

Joe Riley sat on the curb outside the Fill ’Er Up convenience store. He’d just finished eating an energy bar, and now was nursing a cup of brown water that the store manager had the gall to call coffee. But it was warm, and that was all he cared about. He looked up as Billy Sutphin approached and gave him a weak smile.

“Sucks is the word. How ’bout you?”

“Same.”

Billy settled onto the curb next to Joe with a grunt, knee joints popping.

“Gettin’ old,” Billy said.

“Aren’t we all?”

Joe didn’t think Billy was all that old. In his mid-fifties, maybe. It was hard to tell people’s ages when they lived on the street. Such a life took its toll, and it was possible Billy could be in his thirties and only looked twenty years older. It didn’t help that his thick brown beard was shot through with gray. Joe had only been homeless for four months, and even in that short time, he’d changed to the point where he didn’t like looking in a mirror. His face was leaner, complexion sallower, eyes bloodshot, the flesh beneath puffy and bruised-looking. He did his best to keep his teeth clean, but they’d yellowed, and one of the bottom left molars ached all the time. He figured he probably had a cavity. Too bad he didn’t have enough money for a dentist.

Joe wasn’t well acquainted with Billy, but Brennan wasn’t a large town, and its homeless population tended to know one another at least well enough to say hi and shoot the shit now and again. They also tended to keep an eye on one another, make sure folks were doing okay, staying healthy, both physically and mentally. They called this “checking in,” and Joe recognized that was what Billy was doing now. There was also a certain kind of networking that went on among Brennan’s homeless. Tips were passed along—which church was giving away secondhand clothes, which buildings were vacant and good for a few nights of sheltered sleep before the cops rousted everyone out. Vital information if you wanted to survive on the street.

“Tried my luck at the highway exit today,” Billy said. “Stood there all afternoon holding a ‘will work for food’ sign.” He shivered.

Homeless folk knew to dress in layers when it was cold, and Billy wore a shirt and hoodie beneath an unzipped parka. But even with his limited experience, Joe knew that no matter how warmly you dressed, you could never keep the cold entirely at bay. Hell, he was dressed in layers too, only he had on his Dad’s old army jacket instead of a parka, and he felt the night’s chill. It was why he’d gotten the coffee in the first place. He offered Billy a sip to warm him up, but Billy declined with a shake of his head. It was too easy to pass germs that way, and homeless folk avoided getting sick at all costs. Joe felt stupid for forgetting that.

“How did it go?” he asked.

Billy shrugged. “’Bout as well as you’d expect. I need to shave off this damned beard. Makes me look too scary, you know? People don’t want to stop and open their windows to talk to a guy that looks like some kind of backwoods killer out of a horror movie. You’re smart to keep yourself cleanshaven. Men look less intimidating that way.”

Maybe so, but Joe’s first winter being homeless was approaching, and he figured he’d better start working on a beard if he wanted to keep warm. He finished the rest of his coffee, sat the empty cup on the ground, then lit a cigarette. He offered one to Billy, and this time the man accepted. They sat in silence for a few moments, smoking and watching cars pass by on the street, some of the drivers pulling into Fill ’Er Up to get gas or pick up some items inside. Joe noticed that Billy’s hands shook as he smoked, and there was something about the way they trembled that didn’t look like it was due to the cold, or at least, not only the cold. As far as Joe knew, the guy wasn’t into alcohol or drugs, so he wasn’t going through withdrawal. Joe hoped he wasn’t coming down with something.

“How was your day?” Billy asked after a bit.

“Not very productive.”

“Where did you try? You know what they say, it’s all about location, location, location.”

Joe thought about lying, but he didn’t see any point to it. Pride—foolish pride, anyway—was useless on the street. “I didn’t try. I just walked around town most of the day, moving from one place to another. Thinking.”

Billy took a last drag on his cigarette, dropped it to the ground, and crushed it out beneath the sole of his running shoe. He then turned to Joe. “I know it’s hard, man. I’ve been homeless for almost four years now, and it still ain’t easy for me to ask folks for money. But sometimes we have to do things we don’t like to survive, you know? You can’t let your pride get in the way. It’s like a Buddhist thing. You have to die to the self in order to reach enlightenment.”

Joe had no idea what the man was talking about, but he understood the basic sentiment.

“Sometimes it feels like pride’s the only thing I got left.” Joe finished his cigarette and crushed it out.

He’d had a good job working for the county, driving a snow plow in the winter and doing road work in the summer. He liked being outdoors—he wasn’t the sit-behind-a-desk type—and he liked feeling that the work he did helped make people’s lives a little easier. Then the lousy economy forced the county to make some budget cuts, and Joe was laid off. A week later his wife filed for divorce, took their little girl, and moved to her mother’s in Ash Creek. He hadn’t been able to afford a lawyer, so Sheila ended up with sole custody of their daughter, and he’d ended up paying both child and spousal support. He’d looked for other work—every damned day he looked—but no one was hiring. Eventually his unemployment ran out, the bank foreclosed on his home, he lost his car, and the next thing he knew, he became a resident of the street. He told himself it was temporary, just until he could get back on his proverbial feet. That had been four months ago, and he was still here, a victim not of booze, drugs, or mental illness—just plain old lousy luck. He’d adjusted as best he could, but the one thing he hadn’t been able to accept was asking strangers for money. It was one thing to be homeless, but it was another thing to be a beggar. Not that he’d ever use that word in front of Billy. He’d been on the street too long to make judgments about what others did to survive. He had no idea what the man’s story was and how he’d ended up living like this. That kind of personal information was kept to one’s self on the street, shared only with the closest of confidants. But whatever Billy’s story was, Joe knew the man had one. Everyone did.

“Tell you what,” Billy said, “I managed to score a few dollars today. How about we head on over to the Foxhole for a couple slices of pie? My treat.”

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I don’t need cheering up. Besides, if I have a hard time taking charity from strangers, what makes you think I’ll have an easier time taking it from you?”

Billy grinned. “You got to start somewhere, right? C’mon.” He took hold of Joe’s upper arm and stood. Joe allowed the man to lift him to his feet.

“Well... it
has
been a while since I’ve had a good piece of pie.”

Billy clapped him on the back. “There you go!”

The two men started walking in the direction of the diner, taking alleys for short cuts. Not only did alleys save time, but you could find some good stuff in them. Discarded or lost objects you might be able to sell for a couple bucks, even cast-off clothing sometimes. Sure, alleys could be dark and intimidating, and they didn’t smell all that good, but they were useful, and when you were homeless, that was all that mattered.

They were only a block away from the Foxhole, walking through an alley between a coin-operated laundry and pizza joint when Joe had the feeling they were being followed. Before he’d become homeless, he might’ve ignored the sensation, figuring it was just his imagination. Who didn’t walk through an alley with their guard up? But during his relatively short time on the street, Joe’s survival instincts had been sharpened, and he knew better than to dismiss any feeling, no matter how trivial it seemed. He gripped Billy’s upper arm to stop him, and then glanced back over his shoulder. He honestly didn’t expect to see anything, so it was a shock when he saw the figure standing behind them. It was even more of a shock to see the large, cruel-looking knife clutched in the man’s hand.
Was the blade black?
It sure looked that way to Joe.

“Good evening, gentleman,” the man said. “My apologies, but you both have something I need, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to take it from you. I assure you, this is nothing personal, and if it’s any consolation, know that your sacrifice will not only help further the cause of science, it will also help bring about a most glorious change unlike any the world has ever seen.”

Joe turned to Billy. “Do you have any idea what the hell he’s—”

That was as far as he got before the man with the knife sprang at them.

* * *

Dispatching the men was accomplished easily enough. A pair of quick, deep slices to the throat, and all Conrad had to do was step back as the men fell to the ground and wait for them to bleed out. He had no aversion to cutting into still-living bodies, but he preferred not to get any more blood on him than necessary. It didn’t take long for their blood flow to diminish, and then Conrad went to work. He selected the clean-shaven man first, judging him to be younger than his bearded companion and likely in better condition. He raised his obsidian blade over his head, and the runes engraved upon it glowed with silver-blue light.

“In your name, my lady.”

Then he crouched next to the body and went to work.

Blood was everywhere—on the walls, the floor, the furniture, even the ceiling. It looked as if someone had carried in large buckets of the red stuff and splashed it all over the living room, taking pains to make sure that no surface was left untouched. There was so much blood that at first Sam couldn’t see anything but crimson. Then a second later, his eyes registered the two forms on the floor in front of the couch, one lying prone, the other straddling it. Both were covered with so much gore that he didn’t recognize them right away. The one on the floor was larger, taller, and beefier than the other. Sam thought it might be a man, but given the state of the figure’s face—or rather what little was left of it—he couldn’t tell for sure. The flannel shirt and jeans didn’t help much, but the large boots were a giveaway. They were Earl’s, which made sense, considering the cabin was his as well. His left hand was clenched around a small black object which Sam immediately recognized as a statuette of Anubis, the Egyptian god of the dead.