The Angel of Death (23 page)

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Authors: Alane Ferguson

BOOK: The Angel of Death
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“Yes.” Dr. Moore’s tone was deep. “This is extremely serious.”
“What? Are they human?”
“No. The truth is, Miss Mahoney, somebody had a barbeque and didn’t invite you. These bones belong to a pig.”
“A
pig
? ”
“Yes. As in ribs for eating. As in the-secret’s-in-the-sauce kind of barbecue ribs. You can tell because human ribs are thinner and have more of a curve, the articular facets are different, and they’re not as tasty with a salt rub. As in you’ve just wasted my time and I’m late.”
“Just one more thing,” she begged humbly. “There’s a plant here, a potted rose, I think, and its leaves have turned to dust.”
“So now you think I’m a horticulturist?”
“I’m taking one more picture and sending it right now. I’m wondering if you’ve ever seen anything like it. There were a bunch of flowers next to Mr. Oakes’s nightstand that withered just this same way.”
“
Mmm
, here it is. I’m looking at flower dust. I’m not an expert, but I have to say a great big ‘so what?’ Flowers wilt and crumble. Where are you, anyway?”
Relief flooded through her like a warm wave. These were pig bones, not human. Dr. Moore thought nothing of the flowers. She had been stupid and suspicious for no reason. Kyle would be here soon, her mother would come, and the pieces of her life would fall together smoothly. She’d almost blown it all because she’d let her imagination run wild.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said happily. “I was just having a ‘senior moment’. As in senior-in-high-school moment.” She felt light, giddy. “Everything’s all right now. Go to your dinner. I really appreciate your help, and—”
“Wait.”
It was the way he said that one word that made her breath stop again.
Dr. Moore barked, “Don’t go just yet. I’m looking at the screen and—are you still near that flowerpot?”
"What? ”
“Pay attention! Go back to the place where you took the picture of the flower petals.”
“But you said flowers wilt and—”
“I’m not
talking
about the petals, Miss Mahoney. There’s something in the background I want to get a better look at. That glass-and-metal tube. Do you see it? It’s off camera a bit, behind the ribs and to the left. Take a full picture of it and send it to me.”
“But why? I thought you said—”
“Just do it. There’s a word on the bottom of the tube, a label—I can only get a partial read. Right now I see an ‘i’ and an ‘a’ and an ‘n’. Turn it so I can get the whole word.”
Cameryn looked down on the bench and saw blue letters, silk-screened on the black metal part of the tube. “Yes,” she said. “I have it.”
“Photograph it, then send it to me. I want the entire name to be in the picture.”
She turned the base of the glass tube and snapped another photo, this one including the word “Virian.” After she forwarded it to Dr. Moore she asked, “What are you looking for?”
“Let me be . . . sure. It may be nothing. Did I ever tell you I was in the army? Vietnam . . . Working in military research and . . . Ah, here it is, it just arrived. Now give me a moment. . . .”
The tube, as Cameryn looked at it, didn’t seem like much. Just a thin glass dome with wires inside, the end screwed into a metal base with leads coming out the side. Then she saw something else: next to the tube were three black squares connected with cables. They were some sort of power supply. As she fingered the cables, she heard Dr. Moore’s voice bark in her ear.
“Cameryn! ”
The way he said her name made her jump. “What?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in a chicken coop—”
Dr. Moore’s voice had ratcheted up. “I want you to get out of there.
Right now!
Drop whatever it is you’re doing and go. What you’ve got there is a klystron tube—”
It took a moment for Cameryn to register this. “A what?”
“A klystron tube!”
he shouted. “Don’t question me, just do what I say! ”
“I don’t understand—”
“I saw klystrons when I was in the army. Those things emit enough radiation to microwave a human being in less than three minutes! It would cook a man in his own bed! ”
Cameryn’s hand recoiled from the thin, clear glass. “This thing is a
microwave
? ” She thought of the seared flesh, the cooked muscles, the eyes that would explode when the long waves hit the liquid in their orbs. “Oh my God!” she cried. “This is what killed Mr. Oakes!”
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of it at the autopsy. That tube is a ten-thousand-watt microwave! A microwave that can go straight through a wall and cook someone in their bed. It fits the nature of his death precisely and I—where are you?” He was shouting now. “Listen to me—
wherever you are, get out of there immediately and—
”
“I’ll take that,” a voice said. Quick as lightning, a hand, Kyle’s hand, reached in front of her and snatched the phone from her, snapping it shut with a small click.
Whirling around, she saw irises scattered in a blanket of purple, their green stalks strewn like Pick-Up Sticks across the floor. Kyle was staring at her, his handsome face distorted with an expression she’d never seen before.
“Kyle! What are you—what are you doing here?” she stammered. Her mind, which had been frenetically spinning, froze.
“I was just about to ask you the same thing.” He looked at her, his face realigning itself so that he looked like himself again. But his voice was distant, cold. “I can’t believe you disobeyed me, Cameryn. I said you could go anywhere in my house except for one place. I asked you to stay out of my chicken coop. What part of that didn’t you understand?”
“
Your
chicken coop
?
Then . . . it’s not your father’s?”
“I told you that, didn’t I? No, this place is mine.”
She had been so desperate to believe that Donny was the killer. Not Kyle. Never Kyle! But hope began to die as she looked into his eyes. The golden flecks had turned to ice.
Waving his hand expansively, he said, “This is my own special place. It’s off-limits—even my dad doesn’t come in. The coop is where I do my . . . experiments. And here I find you inside, snooping.” A beat, and then, “Who were you talking to?”
Trying to keep her voice even, she said, “Come on, Kyle, give me my phone. This isn’t funny.”
“I’m not trying to be. I have to say I’m disappointed in you, Cameryn. When I realized you worked with the dead, well, I thought you were different. More like me.” He sighed. “But I guess you’re just like everyone else.” Stuffing the cell phone into his back pocket, he stepped closer. “People always let me down. My mom. My dad. Mr. Oakes.” Suddenly, he became quiet. He stared at her, blinking. “And now you.”
There were too many thoughts to make sense of any of them. Kyle had burst into her life and she’d let herself go, but none of it had been real. Or was it? Who was the person standing before her? There was the mouth that had kissed her, the hands that had held her, but that person had been nothing more than shadow. How could she have been so wrong? She wanted to give in to her fear, but she knew she couldn’t. Right now, she had to survive.
“Okay,” she said, forcing a smile. “You got me. I shouldn’t have come in here, but I thought I heard something and I came to check, and—I need to go, Kyle. I have to go home now.”
“But I don’t want you to leave,” he told her. His voice shifted ever so slightly. It became darker, his tone deepening as though he possessed some otherworldly authority. “You
have
to stay. Besides, I don’t know why you think you’re going anywhere.”
“Kyle—”
“Don’t blame me. You did this to yourself.”
He took a step closer, his finger lightly caressing her cheek, but Cameryn recoiled from his touch. It was as if she could see inside him, and as she did she realized what Kyle was—not a man, not an animal, but something in between. The mask had slipped and she could see inside. He had used the klystron tube to kill their teacher. Worse, he knew she knew. Her heart began to beat wildly as fear enfolded her. She was alone on a mountain with a murderer. Not the father but the son.
“Are you afraid, Cammie?” He took a step toward her.
“I know you’re afraid. I have a sixth sense. It’s strange—I can almost smell it when people are full of fear.”
She raised her arm to hit him, but he caught her arms, clasping both her wrists in one hand as he took something from his belt. The blade caught the light, glittering. Cameryn’s heart froze as she tried to comprehend that Kyle O’Neil had a knife and there was nothing she could do, nowhere she could go, no way to save herself.
“Don’t fight me. You’ll only make it worse.” Everything in his face was dead except his eyes. They were fixed on Cameryn’s with an intensity she’d never seen before, like a magnifying glass burning into her soul. Apart from his eyes, his face was so still it was as though it were embalmed.
“If you hadn’t come in here, I would never have hurt you. Now ever y thing’s . . . complicated.”
There was nothing she could say to this. She pulled against him, but his grip was like steel. With his left hand he foraged along the table, grasping a roll of duct tape, then slipping it onto his wrist like a bracelet. Next he reached for a dusty chair and banged it onto the floor.
“Sit!” he commanded.
The knife curved at the end, as though it was grinning. “Put your hands behind your back. Do it! ” The tip of the blade grazed against her throat. All she could do was follow his orders. He pulled her shaking hands behind the back of the chair and wrapped duct tape around her wrists, looping it again and again. Cameryn knew about duct tape. Criminals used it all the time because there was no way to break the bond. Binding her ankles, he then looped the tape around a chair leg and up through the handles of a large cabinet behind her. All the while he kept up his diatribe against her.
“What happens to you now is not my fault,” he kept saying over and over, ignoring her pleas of “Why?”
She knew then that he was going to kill her. She was a witness, and she’d seen his instrument of death. Using a klystron tube, Kyle had murdered his teacher, the one who he said inspired his writing. He had kissed Cameryn and lied to her face, and now she was in the wilderness, far away from anyone who could help her.
The outbuilding had a single window facing away from the house. Looking out, she could see a patch of stars. But then she saw something else—a reflected light approaching, beams from a car’s headlights, she guessed. She heard the crunch of tires on the dirt and rocks, and an engine turning off and a door slamming, and footsteps, faltering as they approached Kyle’s house.
Leaning in close, Kyle whispered into her ear, and she felt his hot breath inside her, as though he himself could enter her mind. “Don’t say a word,” he said softly.
Tears welled in her eyes as she nodded silently. She strained to hear. For a moment there was nothing but silence, and then a pounding on the door. More silence, and then a light, wavering voice called out. “Cameryn, are you there?” Another pause, and then, “It’s me, Hannah. ”
The tip of the knife pressed against her windpipe. “Shhhhh,” he murmured.
“I’ve come a long way to see you,” the voice cried. “I know it’s hard but—if you’re in there, please, come to the door.”
Her mother, whom she couldn’t remember, was only forty feet away. Cameryn was going to die, and her mother would never know how much Cameryn had wanted to see her, to hear her in person and touch her face.
“Please, open the door.” The pounding was harder, five strikes with her fist, and then Cameryn heard a choked sob.
“Please!”
“Please,”
Cameryn echoed in the barest whisper. But Kyle merely pressed the blade more deeply in reply. She could feel her skin give way to the tip, felt the bite of it, and the warm trickle of blood, no wider than a pencil, snaking down her neck.
“See what you made me do?” Kyle hissed.
And outside, Hannah’s anguished voice. “What’s happened? Why won’t you come out to me? ” The next words she said were muffled, something Cameryn could not make out. And then, “I’ll leave, if that’s what you want.”
“It’s what you want,” Kyle whispered into Cameryn’s ear.
And then what Cameryn wanted most and dreaded most happened at the same moment. Her mother got back into the car. The door slammed, the engine coughed, and the car and the lights disappeared down the mountain in a burst of gravel. Cameryn felt the invisible cord between them, the one she had put her hopes on, stretch and then break. But at least Hannah was safe.
“It’s just the two of us now,” Kyle said, straightening.
“That must have been hard. You waited all your life for that moment, only to miss it. Too bad.”
“What is
wrong
with you?” Cameryn cried.
Different expressions flitted across his face until he finally settled on one—amusement. “It depends on who you ask. Now, Brad Oakes—he read my writing, and you know what he thought? He said I had—wait, how did he put it?—an attachment disorder. When I fried my dad’s dog I didn’t feel anything. So I guess Brad Oakes was right. I’m not like everyone else. In my world, that’s a good thing.”

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