Terrorscape (10 page)

Now that was a box he did not want to open.
Especially not tonight.

The creak must have been the hinges
. He felt nearly
sick with relief.
The door blowing in the wind.
His relief lasted as long as his next breath, which
cut
off
abruptly
as
a night-chilled
blade
sliced
through his jugular vein. There was pain, giving way
to startled wonder as warm liquid spattered and
sprayed,
and his
legs
gave
out,
and
his
mind
succumbed to warm velvety darkness that reminded
him, strangely enough, of sex.

He had just enough time to think, “What—”
before falling into the void.

 

▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

 

Two weeks went by with no word from Jade.

Val continued to go through the motions of
college life, attending classes and social events when
Mary asked her—which was becoming less and less
often—but
apart
from
that,
Val
found
herself
spending an awful lot of time alone.

When the dulcet strains of “A House Is not a
Home” began to play from her cell phone's tiny
speakers, Val experienced a wave of apprehension
and longing. That was her parents' ring tone.

But why were they calling her? Was something
wrong?

 

No
, she consoled herself.
Nothing's wrong. They
probably just want to see how I'm settling in.

But the feeling of dread did not dissipate and the
curious letter she'd received from Lisa rose to mind.
Val took a steadying breath. “Hello? Mom?”

“Honey?” Her mother's voice was thin, strained.
Hearing it made Val want to weep. “How are you?
How's school?”

“I—” Something kept her from mentioning the
letter. Her mother's voice was so anxious already.
Now wasn't the time. “I'm okay. School's been…okay.
Mom, is something wrong?”

Say no
, she pleaded.
Say
no.

 

“Well…” Pause. “Your friend Lisa called here. I
thought that was strange.”

“Lisa?”
“She was asking for you. She said it was urgent.”

Again, Val thought of the letter. It was beginning
to look as if the two of them were connected. Val
swallowed the building dryness in her throat. “About
what? What did she want to talk about?”

“She wouldn't say. All she said was that it was
urgent.”

That word again. Urgent.
Oh no
.
“Do you want me to give you her number?” Mrs.

Kimble's voice sounded as if it were coming from the
end of a wind tunnel. “I took it down, just in case.”

Part of her wanted to say no, and to hell with
Lisa. Part of her wanted to burst into the piercing
screams of the mindless, until someone called the
cops or the paramedics or both, and they locked her
away—far away—in a padded ivory tower where she
wouldn't have to deal with this anymore.

“Yes,” she whispered, “read it to me. Please.”

Her mother reeled off the numbers, making her
repeat them back. Worry was present in her voice but
Val doubted that her mother would press her on these
concerns unless Val herself brought up what was
bothering her in the first place.

And I don't know; I'm afraid to know; I'm afraid it
might be worse than I imagined
.
“Are you getting enough sleep, Val? You sound
like you're coming down with a cold.”

Funny, how homesickness could make you long
for the silliest things. Things you took completely for
granted. Safety, security, and unconditional love.

“I'm fine. I…I love you.”

“I love you, too, Baby. Take care of yourself, okay?
Get plenty of sleep—and if you are getting sick, take
some extra vitamin D.”

Val hung up gently on her mother. She stared
down at the numbers inscribed on the memo pad in
red ink. They seemed permanent, as if they had
always been there and always would be.

Val had the sudden, violent urge to tear the paper
to shreds, just to prove to herself that she could.

She picked up the phone instead, holding it
carefully in her hands as if it were something fragile
that could be broken in a single squeeze like an egg.
The numbers were a new set she didn't recognize; like
her, it seemed that Lisa had also elected to change her
number.

The other line picked up on the first ring.
“Hello?” a female voice said, “Who is this? How did
you get this number?”

A thrill went through her. Lisa's voice sounded
exactly the same. But suspicious, wary.
She probably
has caller ID
. It occurred to her that she ought to have
dialed *67 and blocked her number, but that hardly
mattered now. “It's me…Val. My mom said you
called.”

There was a long pause. For a moment, Val
wondered if she had hung up, but then Lisa said
dully, “Oh. Val. I didn't really think you'd call me
back.”

“You said it was an emergency, urgent. Why
wouldn’t I?” Lisa didn't respond, as if the reasons
why Val wouldn't call back were so great in number
that she didn't have time to list them all. “What
happened?”

Another silence, longer still.
“Blake's dead.”
“He's
what
?”
“
Dead
, Val. D-E-A-D. Dead.”
“H-how—?”

“His
roommate
found
him
in
the
shower.
Murdered. His throat had been slit. Like he was a
fucking animal.” Lisa tried, unsuccessfully, to hold in
her sob.

Val's own throat ached in sympathy.
Poor Blake.
He didn't deserve that.
A bubble of hysteric, bitter
laughter escaped her. As if anybody did!

“You think that's funny?”
“No, I was just—I'm so sorry.”

“It was him, Val. Your whacked-out lover-boy. He
killed Blake. He
murdered
him.”

 

The vitriol in Lisa's voice stung as effectively as
acid. “Wait…he's not—”

 

“
Don't you dare defend him!
”

“I wasn't—”
“He wrote on the wall in Blake's fucking blood!”

Val flinched as Lisa's voice, which had started out
at normal volume, rose suddenly to a scream. All the
saliva in her mouth evaporated. 'What did he write?”

“'Are you frightened?'”
Val forgot how to breathe.

Over the sound of her choking gasps, Lisa said,
“Ring any bells? It should. It's the same thing he
made me write in that letter I sent to you.”

Oh God, it was him.
And Lisa—
“That's what you called to tell me?”

“That, and—I-I think I'm next. Before he died,
Blake got a letter. It had a pawn—with the head
hacked off. The entire envelope was spattered with
red paint. He called to…tell me about it. I was so
frightened. I told him to go straight to the police…”

Val heard a whimper.

 

“The next day, he was killed. And now…I got
one, too.”

 

“You did?”

 

“It was all slashed.” Lisa's voice broke. “The
pawn. With a knife. Completely mutilated. He's going
to cut me, Val. He's going to
fucking cut me
.”

He's lost it
. Panic was overtaking her at alarming
speed.
I knew he would come back—but not like this.
Never like this.
“C-calm down. It's going to be okay.”

“
Don't tell me it's going to be fucking okay!
”
“I'm just trying to—”

“No, you're not trying. You're not trying shit.
Fuck you, Val. Fuck you and your trying, too! I am not
okay with being that fucker's piñata!”

“Lisa, please—”

 

“I warned you. I warned you to stay away from
him. And now look.
Look where we are now.
”

“Just give me one second. Please. I can explain—”
“We're all
dead
.”

“It's not my fault! It's not my fault that he's
psychotic. That he killed those people. I didn't make
him do it. I didn't
want
him to do it.”

“You played his game. You let him make the
rules.”

“So did you! We all did.” But blaming each other
wasn't going to get them anywhere. Val pinched the
bridge of her nose. “What am I supposed to do, Lisa?
Stop him? I tried that—he almost killed me.”

“And now Blake is dead. And James. Did you
forget about James?”
Never
.

“This whole game was always about you. You're
the one he wants. The one he's after. We're just the
pawns. Meanwhile, you hide out wherever the hell it
is you are, sitting pretty on the sideines. You want to
know what I want you to do? I want you to stop
hiding out like a coward while all my friends
die
.”

“So you think I should let him kill me? Is that
what you're saying? That I should offer myself up to
him like some sort of sacrifice?” Lisa's silence said
more than words ever could. “Are you insane?” Val
spluttered. “Do you know what he'll do to me if he
catches me?”

“You're living on borrowed time, anyway. It's just
a matter of how many of us you're going to take
down with you before it gets to be too much.”

The wall blurred before her eyes. Val lowered the
phone, warm tears coursing down clammy cheeks.
Lisa's tinny voice, distant now, said, “How many
have to die before you assume responsibility?”

It's not my fault.

“And it's not just us. Look up the Redhead
Murders, Val. Then you'll see. If you have any
conscience left at all, you'll see.”

The phone went dead. So, too, did any lingering
hopes that she wouldn't have to relive this nightmare.

Chapter Seven
Moschatel

Val tossed and turned well into the night. At one
point she slipped out of the room to pace in the
courtyard under the orange glow of the lampposts.
The wind was cold, damp; it turned the beads of
sweat peppering her skin into drops of ice.

She barely noticed.
Look up the Redhead Murders. Then you'll see.

What was that even supposed to mean? Val shook
herself, and the movement turned into a full-body
shiver. Her skin felt clammy, like the meat of raw
oysters. She rubbed her hands on her nightshirt as if
she had touched something dirty.

Obviously Lisa was referring to a series of
murders. Murders was plural, which meant more
than one. And the redhead part—well, that was easy.
Someone with red hair was involved, either as the
murdered or the murderer.

With deduction skills like these, it was no wonder
she'd gotten a full scholarship.
Like that's helping.

But she couldn't find out any more unless she
looked them up, as Lisa had said, and Val was
unwilling to give her the satisfaction. Because she
knew Lisa, and Lisa wouldn't have brought it up
unless she thought Gavin, and to a lesser degree, Val,
were responsible for them.

Looking up those murders would practically be
an admission of guilt.
And I would be responsible.

She knew this as a fact deep down in her bones; it
had been her responsibility to kill him. It was as if he
were an animal that had gotten a taste for human
blood and needed to be put down, and she were the
one with the rifle. It was kill or be killed, and by
failing, she had unleashed something dreadful.

Something she alone could fix.
But only if I look.

How juvenile that mindset was, as if she were a
child hiding from the monsters under her bed and
saying, “If I can't see them, they can't see me.” She
was little better than an ostrich with its head buried in
the sand, too frightened to even fight back.

I tried fighting back. I lost.

Val's resolve lasted all of two days. Her computer
haunted her like a ghost, taunting her. Each time she
logged on to do schoolwork she felt a twitch of neural
connections from brain to finger that demanded—no,
compelled—
her to do the search.

It nibbled at her brain during every waking hour,
as consumptive as any disease. All she could think
about was whether she should look, and what she
feared she might see, and whether what she feared
she might see could be any worse than the actual
thing.

Not knowing was worse than knowing, surely.
Reality couldn't be as terrible as her own runaway
imagination. She was driving herself crazy this way,
slowly, like a pot of water left to boil on low.

Crazier, anyway.

That was what she told herself, anyway, as she
pulled the laptop in bed with her. That was her
rationale. It sounded a heck of a lot better than sheer
morbid curiosity, which was a pretty compelling
factor in and of itself.

What am I doing? I shouldn't be doing this.

Val entered “Redhead Murders” into the text bar
and hit 'search' before she could change her mind.
Because in the split second it took to make the search,
she wished she had. But it was too late.

Results flooded the screen. News articles, blog
posts, interviews, Tweets, and video links.
Oh God
, Val thought, when she saw the pictures of
the victims, staring back at her with eyes the same
shade of green as her own. She swallowed, and
toggled back to the articles, unable to look at the
images any longer.
There were at least nine documented cases.

All the girls found were dead, except for one
Sheila
Cavanaugh
in
Arizona,
who
had
been
subjected to sexual and physical assault, and then left
for dead in the desert. She had died of complications
unrelated to her injuries. Severe dehydration. She had
been unable to identify her attacker.

The youngest was fourteen-years-old. The oldest
was twenty-four. Most of them were raped before
they were killed. Some of them had been mutilated.
This, too, had been done before death.

Forensic investigators believed they were knifewounds. They didn't say how, or where, but she could
imagine. Oh God, she could
imagine
. The carved up
chess-pieces Lisa and Blake had received in the mail,
splashed in red paint. Val had seen him kill before.
Seen him draw in the anticipatory breath. Seen him
take pleasure in the agonizing pain of others.

She had been one of them, after all.

The murders had started in December—
only a few
months after his game
—with sixteen-year-old Angelica
Peters. None in January. Two in February, with the
first documented rape case occurring on February
14
^th
. Some reporter had postulated that this serial
killer had a twisted sense of humor, and Val thought,
sickly,
You have no idea
.