The Summoning (14 page)

But she had been too afraid at the time.

Amber was still conflicted. She wanted to help Ryan, but she wondered what he knew about the shack in the woods? If he still remembered the shack, if he still thought it was there, then his memories must be from ten years ago. But he was around her age, early twenties, and that would have made him between ten and thirteen years old when the murders occurred. But that would mean that Ryan used to live in Edrington when he was a kid.

But she didn’t remember him. And no one else that she knew of so far seemed to recognize him.

But she still wanted to try and help him in any way she could.

Maybe there was a way to find out when Ryan lived here in town.

“Sweetie?”

The voice snapped her out of her daydream. It was Petey, a regular customer. He held up his empty shot glass.

Amber smiled and got him another shot of Wild Turkey.

She decided that she was going to tell Ryan everything she knew about the shack and the murders, which wasn’t much. But maybe she could find out some more information for him. She could start with the internet, then maybe ask some of the older folks what they remembered. There were still so many unanswered questions about the killer and those murders, so many mysteries that were never solved.

She smiled and she felt better.

Carol parked her car and turned off the ignition. She got out of the car and walked for a while along the grass. And then she stopped and stared down at the grass for a long moment.

She had her answer now.

Ryan stayed awake late into the night. He’d eaten lasagna with Carol earlier (Victor and Tom waited to eat until Ryan was out of the kitchen, of course), but Carol seemed very distracted and nervous. She didn’t talk much as they ate dinner together; she didn’t even ask him why he had quit working for Buddy.

He finished his plate off, downed his glass of orange juice, and thanked her for the delicious meal.

Then he went up to his room. He changed into his sweat pants and sprawled out on his bed, leaving the bathroom light on. He watched TV for a while, fighting sleep. His mind spun as he thought about things. He hadn’t gotten very far in his search for the answers in this town. There was something about Carol, some reason he needed to be here. There was something about the brown suitcase underneath his bed with the locks on it. He knew at some point he was going to have to open it, even if he needed to cut it open. Why was he putting off opening the suitcase if the answers might be in there right underneath him? What was he so afraid of?

And the dream-man. Why was he so afraid to see what he wanted to show him? Did it have something to do with the suitcase? Something to do with the straight razor with the word carved into it that he hadn’t read? Something to do with Carol?

Ryan rolled over and looked at the bedroom window. He could close the curtain, but it was flimsy and he would still be able to see the dark window through the sheer curtain. He had thought of hanging his blanket over the window, but as frightened as he was of the window, he thought he’d be more afraid if it was covered, more afraid if he couldn’t see the red-haired man coming.

Ryan lay awake for a few more hours as his thoughts began to scramble, becoming hard to understand, beginning to mix in with the first fingers of his dreams that reached out to envelop him.

And for once, he didn’t fight it.

He sank down into the darkness of sleep, down into the …

… pitch black of his nightmare. But there in the darkness was that familiar reddish glow in the distance, and in that glow he could see the wooden shack with its sagging roof and the tree branches that hung over it, the branches scratching at the shingles and the moldy wood siding.

Scratching.

And he heard the familiar dripping sound in the darkness. The red-haired man, his nightmare escort, was close by, standing somewhere in the gloom.

And suddenly Ryan was right beside the shack, standing in front of the same window as before with its cracked panes and the cobwebs in the corners.

“You need to go inside,” the Nightmare Man whispered from somewhere nearby.

Ryan didn’t turn to look at him.

He wanted to run. He wanted to bolt into the next dream where he was in the churning water trying to reach the surface.

But he needed to see what was inside the shack. He needed to see the answers no matter how frightened he was.

And then he was inside the shack.

The shack only had one room. The walls were wood paneling, the ceiling was vaulted and the rough trusses of the roof were exposed. There were no lights overhead, no wires, no electricity. The room he stood in was large and dark. It sounded like bugs, and maybe even rats, skittered in the shadows that clung to the corners of the room.

The middle of the room was lit up, yet Ryan couldn’t see where the light was coming from, it was just “there” like it is in dreams sometimes.

The light shined down on a large, homemade wooden table where a naked man was strapped down. The only thing covering the man was a white cloth draped over his face. Splotches of bright red blood stained the white cloth.

The man’s ankles, knees, chest, arms, and neck were strapped down to the table with leather straps (they reminded Ryan of the straps on the brown suitcase under his bed). The man on the table was completely immobile. Even his head was held motionless between two pieces of wood on each side of his head, with smaller leather straps underneath his chin and strapped over his head. His hands were held down to the table by some kind of wooden box on each of his wrists, the boxes were attached to the table and each one had wooden slots where the ends of the man’s fingers poked out – each finger totally immobile and exposed.

Ryan looked back at the man’s head trapped in the wooden box with the blood-stained white cloth over his face. The man wasn’t moving – he couldn’t move, but his chest was heaving and the white cloth was fluttering up and down from each quick breath the man took.

Ryan shook his head no. His own breathing was so heavy and quick, he was afraid he was going to pass out. He could feel his heart jack-hammering in his chest. It was like he was really here in this shack at this moment, like all of this was real.

“This is only a dream,” Ryan whispered as he stared at the poor man strapped down to the table.

“It’s no dream, Cutter,” the red-haired man whispered from behind him.

Ryan spun around and stared at the red-haired man. The man’s eyes were cold, his mutilated grin wide, his scars bunched up on his cheeks from his smile.

The Nightmare Man walked past Ryan and over to the table. He stood beside the table and now Ryan could see that there was a metal cart next to the table, a cart he hadn’t noticed before. On top of the cart was an assortment of tools: hammers, knives, pliers, clamps, razors, and other instruments of torture.

The man picked up a ball-peen hammer; he stared at the hammer with an insane glee in his ice-blue eyes.

Ryan looked back at the man on the table. The man tried his best to struggle against his bonds, but it was hopeless – the leather straps were so tight that they dug deep into the man’s flesh. He groaned underneath the white cloth.

The red-haired nightmare man watched Ryan. “I see you’ve noticed the boxes on his hands.”

Ryan didn’t answer.

“They are clever little devices,” the red-haired man continued. “They are constructed to leave the ends of the fingers exposed and helpless, unable to move.”

The Nightmare Man took a step closer to the table, the hammer still clutched in his ruined hand. “The object is to smash the fingertips over and over again.”

He brought the hammer down on one of the man’s fingertips and smashed it flat, a spray of blood shot out of the fingertip and stained the wood table.

The man screamed from underneath the white cloth. He tried to struggle, but he couldn’t move his body or his head at all. His scream was muffled like the leather chin-strap was clamping his jaw shut.

“You smash the fingers again and again,” the red-haired man continued, “until the fingernails are gone, until the bones are mush, until nerve endings are exposed.” He brought the hammer down on the same smashed finger and the man screamed again.

The red-haired monstrosity looked at Ryan and walked towards him with the bloody hammer gripped in his ruined hand. Ryan noticed that the red-haired man’s fingers looked much like the man on the table’s smashed finger.

“Then you wait a few days,” the red-haired man said as he took another step towards Ryan. “You wait until the wounds in the fingertips become infected, where just the slightest pinprick is excruciating. And then …”

The red-haired man turned and brought the hammer back down on the same smashed finger. “You start all over again!” he shouted into the small room. He was nearly laughing. “The fingers become useless after a while. Even if this poor soul could escape, his hands would be useless.”

The man screamed and sobbed underneath the white cloth.

The red-haired man moved quickly down to the end of the table and stared at the man’s naked feet.

“And the fingers are only the beginning. We haven’t even begun with the feet, yet.”

Ryan felt sick. He was sure he was going to puke – he couldn’t seem to hold any food down lately. “I can’t look,” Ryan whispered. “I want to leave.”

The red-haired nightmare man was suddenly right in front of Ryan’s face, he grabbed Ryan’s shirt with his scarred hands, his ruined face was only inches away from Ryan’s face.

“You can’t leave yet, Cutter,” the red-haired man said. “Don’t you want to see who’s under the cloth?”

Ryan shook his head no. “I can’t be here,” he muttered.

The red-haired man’s eyes widened in alarm. “No! You’re not leaving this time! You’re not -”

Suddenly, Ryan was swimming in the dark churning waters. He was so close to the surface now.

He broke through the surface and tried to stare up at the sky with the deep black holes where his eyes used to be. But he could feel the warmth.

Oh God, he could feel the warmth of the sun on his face!

As before, Ryan was both in his body and outside of his body. He could see his eyeless face looking up at the blue sky and the sun; he could see the insane smile on his face.

And he saw that he was in a stream, a wide stream, it was too small to be called a river. And in the distance was a pickup truck, its rear end sticking up out of the water like it had crashed into the stream. And floating in the water were the packs of money wrapped in plastic from his duffel bag.

Ryan jumped awake from his dream and fought for his breath for a moment. He looked at the bedroom window and saw that it was almost morning; the sky beyond the tree branches was a dark blue now instead of inky black.

He was alive.

He was free of the dream. Free from the stream. Free from the shack.

But only free for a moment.

He had gotten his horrible answers in the dream.

Ryan got out of bed and ran to the bathroom, he could feel his stomach churning just like it had in his dream – he had to puke. He made it to the toilet just in time. He retched for a moment, and then threw up into the bowl. He flushed the waste down with a trembling hand, and then he looked into the bathroom mirror. He couldn’t hold food down anymore. Was he sick?

But he knew what was happening now. He saw the answer right in the mirror. How had he missed it this whole time?

“Oh God,” he whispered. “This can’t be real.”

But it was real and he knew what he needed to do now.

The big orange cat bolted from the living room as Ryan hurried towards the front door. But Ryan stopped in his tracks when Carol spoke to him from the dark hallway.

“You okay, Ryan?”

Ryan turned and stared at her. She looked frightened as she stood in the hallway that led to her den and her bedroom.

He thought about asking her if she’d been in his room yesterday. He thought of asking her if she’d tried to open his suitcase. Had she seen what was inside?

But he shook his head no – if she’d seen what was inside the suitcase, then she would be running away and screaming.

He managed a fake smile for her. “I’m not feeling too great.”

Carol nodded quickly. “I was just concerned, that’s all.”

“Thank you,” he said, but he was impatient, ready to bolt out the front door.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I … I have something I need to do.”

“There’s a big storm coming tonight. Will you be back by tonight?”

“Sure,” he said, yet he didn’t know if that was true. He didn’t know what was going to happen after today.

He turned and left her house without another word to her.

Carol watched Ryan leave. She stared at the front door for a moment and she finally exhaled a long breath – it felt like she’d been holding her breath the whole time. And now her legs felt like jelly and she was afraid she might collapse. She held onto the wall for support until a wave of vertigo passed.

You’re not him, her mind whispered. She knew that for sure now after what she’d seen in that suitcase.

Ryan is not
him
.

Ryan got in his car and started it. He shifted into reverse and stomped the gas pedal with his foot. The back tires spun for a moment in the gravel, and then found traction. He backed up down the long driveway and out into the street. He slammed the shifter in drive and sped away.

He drove through town for an hour as the morning sun rose and lightened the world. Birds began to sing, commuters drove to work, mail carriers started their routes, school kids got ready to go to school. The world seemed like it was normal and safe, but it wasn’t, Ryan knew that.

He was in trouble and he needed help.

As he drove on a side road that was off of the main drag, he saw a large church only a block away.

Ryan parked his car in front of the church and killed the engine. He jumped out of his car and practically ran up the wide walkway that cut right through the landscaped lawn and shrubbery. He stood in front of the massive double doors that led inside the sanctuary.