All Hallow's Dead, page 11
He heard the slap of Fawn’s feet on the pavement as she came running after him.
“Leave me alone, Fawn.”
She caught up to him as he reached the Odyssey, grabbing at his arm as he fumbled with the driver’s side door. Anger rose up inside him again as he turned to face her. Although the idea of hitting a woman had always repulsed him on a primal level, he felt an urge to strike her. He wasn’t functioning at full capacity and just wanted her to get away from him. At the very least he wanted to scream at her and call her a cunt for wrecking his life.
Before he could lash out at her in either manner, he saw the tall masked man emerge from behind the rear of the Odyssey and step up behind Fawn. In his debilitated state, he was initially unable to comprehend what was happening when Fawn’s eyes popped wide open and her body began to convulse. Understanding dawned belatedly when she dropped to the ground and the masked man stepped over her to approach Chuck.
That was when he saw the stun gun in the masked man’s gloved right hand.
Then he felt the prongs of the device against his neck.
A button was pushed and then it was Chuck’s turn to convulse.
16.
Five days until Halloween
Willow Springs, TN
A lingering odor of chloroform was the first thing Chuck was aware of upon his return to groggy semi-consciousness. There was also a trace taste of the chemical in his mouth. Full cognizance of all that had happened did not immediately return, but he was dimly aware that this was the second time within a short period that someone had used artificial means to render him unconscious. Fragments of actual memory came back in the ensuing moments. Fawn had drugged him. She’d told Karen about the affair. An echo of the panic he’d felt at this revelation briefly gripped him, but it faded as another, far more troubling memory surfaced.
The man in the mask.
The stun gun.
Chuck’s eyes snapped open. His heart pounded and his breathing came in ragged gasps. The terror surging within him was compounded by two additional revelations. Someone had tied him to a chair. The bindings were tight. There was no give at all. A tingling in his extremities suggested the thick lengths of rope were cutting off his circulation. This scared him, but in those early moments of being wide awake again he was more concerned about the total darkness engulfing him. His eyes perceived an absolute blackness and nothing else. At first he feared his attacker had somehow blinded him, but then he felt the itchy sensation of burlap against his face.
The masked man had put a bag over his head. Chuck started breathing heavily in and out, his deepening panic bringing him to the verge of hyperventilating. He felt scratchy burlap on his tongue with each sharp intake of air. The small measure of relief he felt at realizing his eyes hadn’t been gouged out was overwhelmed by the certainty that he was about to die.
He had been taken by force and brought to an unknown location. Chuck had no prior personal experience with this kind of situation, but he’d seen enough true crime shows on TV to know they rarely ended in a happy way for the abductee. The prospect of his likely imminent demise brought tears to his eyes. It wasn’t fair. He deserved a chance to make things right with Karen and the kids before he died.
Didn’t he?
His breath caught in his throat when he heard a metallic clank from somewhere nearby. Not being able to see, he could only guess at the nature of the sound, but for some reason he pictured a heavy implement of some type being dropped on a table. Whatever it was had produced a slight echo, which gave him the sense of being in a large, wide-open space. As soon as this impression materialized, he thought of his visit to Elliot Parker’s odd place of residence.
He grimaced behind the burlap bag.
Of course that’s where he was. Where else? It was the only thing that made any sense. As with all the other disturbing insights that had come to him since waking up, it did nothing to make him feel any better. To the contrary, any slim hopes he might have harbored of bargaining his way out of this predicament now withered and died.
Elliot Parker had killed Lloyd McAfee. There could be no doubting it now. Clearly he was a man bent on taking belated revenge for the wrongs done to him so long ago. Not for the first time, Chuck felt like an absolute fool. He should have spilled his suspicions about Elliot to the sheriff when he had the chance. Instead he’d been a coward, concerned only with what other people might think of him when the story came out. Yes, he’d planned to fill the sheriff in later, but that didn’t matter.
The delay had doomed him.
He heard another sound from somewhere nearby, again with that slight echoing quality. Footsteps. Someone—almost certainly Elliot—was moving around in the big, open space.
Chuck heaved a breath. “Elliot? Is that you?”
The footsteps came closer, unhurried. Soon he sensed a presence in front of him, someone looming over him. Whoever it was just stood there and stared at him for a long moment, saying nothing. Chuck sat there feeling powerless and vulnerable, like an insect caught in the sticky strands of a spider’s web.
Then the bag was snatched away from his head and tossed aside.
A tall, lean figure stared down at him. The man was wearing a black trench coat. The ski mask was still in place, obscuring most of his face, but Chuck perceived a hint of distant familiarity in the eyes. It was Elliot. He was sure of it. The flaps of the trench coat hung open over a black shirt and jeans. The flaps sagged slightly, suggesting the presence of heavy things shoved deep inside the inner pockets.
Chuck expelled another heavy breath and tried to keep his voice steady as he said, “You don’t have to do this, Elliot. Whatever it is you’re planning, it’s not too late to stop.”
The man who was probably Elliot Parker maintained his silence. He stared at Chuck a moment longer before moving away again, disappearing from sight this time. A sound of receding footsteps from somewhere to his rear was followed by the sound of a heavy door opening and then closing again.
The surge of relief he felt at temporarily being out of Elliot’s creepy presence came to an abrupt end when he spotted the wire dog cages set against the wall directly opposite where he was sitting, some twenty or more feet away inside the large room. Curled up on the floor inside one of the cages was a slender, nude woman. Her hands were tied behind her back. She had a bag over her head.
Chuck’s heart sank.
He didn’t need to see her face to know who this was. He’d recognize that beautiful body anywhere. The removal of her clothes was disturbing. It suggested some perverse sexual angle to whatever Elliot had in mind for her, a notion backed up by the fact that he hadn’t removed a stitch of Chuck’s clothing. The sick bastard had wanted to see her naked body. He’d probably had his hands all over her, groping and exploring her vulnerable flesh while she was unconscious. Chuck didn’t know what Elliot looked like these days, but he hadn’t exactly been popular with the girls back during their school days. Opportunities to fondle a nude woman probably didn’t come along very often for him.
The son of a bitch had probably raped her.
Thinking about it, Chuck felt a weak stirring of impotent anger. He wished he could make Elliot pay for whatever transgressions he might have committed against Fawn, for what he was still doing to both of them. But there was nothing he could do.
He sniffled and craned his head around, taking in more of his surroundings. The lighting was dim, probably intentionally so, and most of what he could see was restricted to the center of the room. Off to his right, he discerned the shapes of large objects that were probably vehicles. He thought of the big metal rollup door he’d noted during his survey of the building’s exterior earlier. The place might have been an auto body repair shop or something similar in a previous existence, though how Elliot had come into possession of such a property was a mystery. The longer he stared at the vehicles, the more he was able to make out about them. His eyes were still adjusting to the dim lighting, but he soon recognized the shape of the Odyssey. The vehicle next to it was undoubtedly Fawn’s Lexus. At first Chuck was puzzled by the presence of the vehicles. Elliot was just one guy. Bringing the cars from the motel to this place must have been an insanely complicated process.
But then he noticed the other dark shapes sprawled on the floor near the vehicles. He sucked in a breath when he realized they were two bodies lying in pools of blood. There was a ripeness emanating from the corpses unrelated to death. They smelled…unclean. Fragrant. Chuck had a sudden insight. These were homeless men Elliot had talked into driving the cars here for him, perhaps with the promise of money or booze once the job was complete. Of course, there was a chance his theory was way off, but Chuck had a hunch it wasn’t too far from the truth.
A soft feminine whimper came from the direction of the cages.
Fawn was stirring.
Chuck looked at her. “Fawn? Are you awake? Can you hear me?”
Her only reply was another of those pitiful-sounding whimpers. She lifted her head a little and made a sound of confusion, not yet cognizant of the bag over her head. Observing this gave Chuck a chill-inducing sense of déjà vu.
“Fawn, please…listen to me. Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
She lifted her head a little higher off the floor. “Chuck?”
She sounded weak, on the verge of lapsing back into unconsciousness.
Before Chuck could reply, the heavy door opened again behind him, its hinges squealing as Elliot came back into the building. He pushed it shut with a grunt of exertion, apparently having to force the metal door back into the frame. Then echoing footsteps came Chuck’s way and in a moment Elliot, still wearing his mask, again appeared in front of him. Clutched in his hands was a carved jack-o’-lantern. If Chuck had possessed any lingering doubts as to who’d broken into his house, they were now dispelled.
Elliot set the jack-o’-lantern in Chuck’s lap and disappeared behind him again. This time he was only gone for a moment. Before he reappeared, Chuck heard a clanking sound he identified as heavy chain links being wound around a fist. This was followed by a whirring sound that made him tilt his head back. Squinting against the light directly overhead, he saw several metal tracks attached to the ceiling. He saw the chain before he saw Elliot. It was attached to something inside one of the tracks, which allowed him to slide the length of chain from one end of the room to the other.
Chuck lowered his gaze as Elliot reentered his field of vision and approached Fawn’s cage. As he’d suspected, the bottom end of the chain was wound around one of his fists. Upon reaching the cage, he unwound it and let it dangle. He then produced a key from somewhere inside the trench coat and slid it into the padlock on the cage door. It clicked open with a twist of the key. After removing the padlock from the clasp, he tossed it aside, then reached inside to grab Fawn and haul her out of the cage. She cried out and seemed closer to full consciousness as he dragged her away from the cage and forced her to her knees.
“What are you doing, Elliot?”
The masked man didn’t respond. He’d turned Fawn so she was facing Chuck, and now he tore the burlap sack away from her head and tossed it aside.
Chuck gasped. “Jesus fucking Christ. Why did you do that? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Again, Elliot didn’t respond. He grabbed the dangling length of chain and attached it to a studded black dog collar on Fawn’s neck. After giving it a yelp-inducing snap to ensure it was properly secured, he moved away from her, slipping into the shadows beyond the small pool of light. A few moments passed. Then there was a click, followed by the ratcheting sound of some kind of motor. The length of heavy chain jerked tight and began to move along the track toward Chuck, dragging a gasping Fawn along with it. She grabbed at the chain and struggled to remain at least semi-upright rather than being dragged, but she was only intermittently successful.
There was another click and then the sound of the motor ceased. Fawn was now about five feet in front of Chuck, on her knees again, but sagging, her eyes blinking slowly as she gazed blearily at him. He grimaced and felt tears sting his eyes as he stared at her. Elliot had shaved off all her hair. He’d even shaved her eyebrows, which enhanced the wrongness of what he was seeing in a way her shorn scalp alone could not. Her face didn’t look right without them, almost freakish. He hated himself for the thought, but he couldn’t help it.
She wobbled a little closer to him on her knees. “Chuck…what’s happening? Where are we?”
A tear tracked down Chuck’s cheek. He said nothing. What could he tell her? There was nothing reassuring he could say. For him, there was no mystery. He knew exactly where they were and what was happening. Moreover, he knew why it was happening. And there was simply nothing comforting that could be derived from that knowledge. Besides, there was that shame that had made him hold his tongue during his talk with the sheriff. He couldn’t bear the idea of Fawn knowing he was the reason for all of this.
Chuck heard footsteps.
Elliot reemerged from the shadows and approached them. He took the pumpkin from Chuck’s lap, moved into position behind Fawn, and lowered it over her head. She squealed and began thrashing her head in an attempt to dislodge it. Elliot grabbed her by the neck and forced her to remain still while he curled his other hand into a fist and drilled it into her lower back several times. Chuck screamed at him to stop, but he was ignored. By the time Elliot finally did stop, Fawn had gotten the message. She remained very still on her knees, sobbing behind the pumpkin with her head drooping forward.
Chuck seethed as he strained uselessly against his bonds. “You sick piece of shit. You’re not even really human anymore, are you? You know what? Ricky Bennet had the right idea all along. We should have killed you that night in the woods. You were a loser then and you’re a loser now. We would have been doing the world a fucking favor.”
Though emboldened by his rage at Elliot’s brutal treatment of Fawn, Chuck was still terrified. He trembled as their abductor moved away from her and approached him. A whimper emerged from his constricted throat an instant before the back of a gloved hand snapped hard across his face.
Chuck screeched in pain.
Then more shameful whimpers as he started begging. “Please don’t hurt me. Please.”
Elliot backhanded him again.
After that, he moved out of sight behind him again. A whirring sound told Chuck he was dragging another of those heavy chains along one of those other ceiling tracks. The guess was confirmed a moment later when Elliot reappeared. A heavy tool of some type was connected to the second chain. After staring at it perplexedly for a moment, Chuck’s eyes widened as he recognized it as an industrial grade pneumatic bolt gun.
Chuck shook his head, his heart pounding again. “No. Don’t. Please don’t.”
Fawn raised her head slightly and looked at Chuck through the slanted eyes of the jack-o’-lantern. “Chuck…what’s wrong? What’s he doing?”
Yet again, Chuck found himself incapable of telling her the dismal truth.
The masked man let go of the chain connected to the bolt gun once he’d dragged it out of sight behind Fawn. He then prodded her forward with the toe of a booted foot until she was just a few feet directly in front of Chuck.
Chuck shook his head again. “Don’t. Jesus Christ, don’t. I’ll give you money. I could come up with a hundred grand in cash, easy. You can have it. You can have whatever you want. I’ll do anything.”
Yet again, no response from Elliot. Once he was satisfied with how he’d positioned Fawn, he backtracked and grabbed hold of the dangling bolt gun. There was enough slack to this longer length of chain that he was able to get himself into position behind Fawn without straining.
He aimed the bolt gun at the back of her head and looked at Chuck.
“Kill me,” Chuck said, at last tapping into a previously hidden vein of selflessness somewhere deep inside him. “Seriously, just kill me. She’s doesn’t know who you are. She knows jack shit about why this is happening. Your grudge is with me. Kill me and drug her again, then drop her off somewhere.” A strangled sob emerged. More tears spilled down his cheeks. “I was wrong before. It’s our fault you turned out this way. Me and my friends. We did this to you. Kill us, not her. She’s innocent. There must still be some trace of goodness left inside you. You don’t want to do this. Not really.”
The masked man held Chuck’s gaze a moment longer.
A muffled sniffle emerged from inside the pumpkin as Fawn raised her head a little higher. “You called him Elliot. I heard you.”
There was a loud clack and a whumph of compressed air as the masked man squeezed the bolt gun’s trigger. The bolt that emerged punched through the back of the pumpkin and went all the way through Fawn’s head, the tip emerging coated in dripping blood between the slanted eyes of the jack-o’-lantern.
Chuck screamed.
Fawn’s body fell forward, hanging lifelessly from the end of the chain as more blood pattered on the dirty concrete floor. Elliot let go of the bolt gun and stared at Chuck for several moments as he wailed and sobbed. Chuck was so lost in the depths of his despair and grief over the loss of his lover that he didn’t notice when Elliot finally moved away again, not until he felt a gloved hand slap down over his forehead and pull his head backward. He spluttered when a hard rubber object was pushed into his mouth. When Elliot began fastening the straps, Chuck realized he’d been fitted with a ball-gag. The discomfort this caused was considerable, but it intensified when another object, this one with a clammy interior, was slid down over his head. After an instant of blindness while the object was wedged into place, he was able to see again through slanted, triangular holes.
Awareness dawned.
Like the corpse at his feet, he had a pumpkin on his head.
Once it was firmly in place, Elliot turned out the overhead light and left the building for a while, leaving Chuck alone in the dark with the dead.
