All Hallow's Dead, page 18
Karen’s sobbing grew louder.
Elliot glanced at Chuck and winked. “I’ll start with your wife. Let’s see how much inner strength she has. I wonder if she possesses the fortitude you so clearly lack.”
He moved into position behind Karen and undid the straps of her ball-gag. After removing it from her face, he dropped the gag on the cart next to the tray and approached Chuck, who watched Karen warily through the slanted eye-holes of the jack-o’-lantern. With the constricting gag removed, she was inhaling and exhaling deeply several times, all while continuing to glare murderously at him.
But she said nothing.
Elliot lifted the pumpkin off Chuck’s head and set it on the cart. The ball-gag came off next. As soon as the thick wedge of rubber was gone from his mouth, Chuck decided he would risk violating Elliot’s rules. If he had to pay for it in agony, so be it.
There was something he had to know, consequences be damned.
“Karen, are the kids all right? Did he—“
Elliot’s fist slammed into his jaw, silencing him.
“Now what did I tell you about breaking my rules?” Elliot waggled an admonishing finger at him and shook his head. Despite the outburst of violence, his big grin was still in place. “But here’s a little something I probably should have clarified. I’m sure you thought you’d be on the receiving end of any punishment incurred for violating the rules.”
Elliot moved away from Chuck and again took up a position behind Karen. He leaned over her and cupped her breasts in his hands, leering at Chuck as he did it. Karen trembled and tears spilled from her eyes as her bottom lip quivered, but she still said nothing.
“But I’m not going to torture you, Chuck. At least not yet.” Another wink. “Instead I’m going to torture your wife.”
“You fucking sick bastard!” Chuck hadn’t been able to help it. The words had exploded out of him. But he regretted them the instant they were uttered. His eyes misted as he met Karen’s gaze. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry for everything.”
Elliot’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “Wow, you must really hate this woman. She’s really gonna get it now. I wonder how I should start, hmm? Maybe I should surgically remove a breast. You saw what I did to Lillian, so you know I can do that kind of thing. I do have the equipment necessary. Of course, this would be much messier, with so many severed blood vessels and so much exposed tissue.” Karen whimpered as he squeezed her breasts. She whimpered again when he pinched her nipples. “So maybe I should start by cutting off her nipples instead. But I really think I should just save the fun parts of her body for later. Wouldn’t you agree that that’s a good idea, Chuck?”
Shaking with rage and terror, Chuck said nothing.
Elliot’s hands came away from Karen’s breasts. When he stepped out from behind the chair, an erection was tenting the front of the apron. A shudder of disgust rippled through Chuck at the sight of it. Given the chance, he felt like he could tear the man apart with his bare hands. Never in his life had he felt as impotent as he did in that moment.
Elliot returned to the cart and picked up a large serving spoon, smiling as he dipped it into the steaming bowl. “You know what, Chuck? On second thought, I’m in a forgiving mood.” He chuckled. “Relatively speaking, I mean. So I’ll tell you what. If you can choke down the entire contents of this bowl, I’ll refrain from marring your beautiful wife’s body. This time, anyway.”
He moved the cart closer to Chuck.
Then he lifted the serving spoon out of the bowl and held it close to Chuck’s face, showing him the lump of pink tissue floating in a creamy white broth. “Time to man up, Chuck. Can you do that for your wife? Are you willing to make that sacrifice?”
Chuck’s gorge rose.
He swallowed with difficulty, heaved a breath, and nodded.
Elliot looked delighted, his grin bigger than ever and his eyes showing a maniacal gleam. “Open wide.”
Chuck did as instructed.
Elliot pushed the serving spoon into his mouth.
Chuck spluttered as the first slimy bit of Lillian Rosewater’s brain slid down his gullet. He retched and spat it back up, causing it to fall into the mess of viscera on his chest. Elliot’s smile disappeared. He swatted Chuck across the face with the serving spoon several times, opening gashes in his skin.
Then he dipped the serving spoon back in the bowl. “Let’s try that again. But I’m warning you, Chuck. Throw up again and I may have to perform an intimate surgery on you, if you know what I mean. I’ll cut off your dick, is what I’m saying. Now fucking open wide, asshole.”
Chuck whimpered.
He opened his mouth and somehow managed to keep his gorge down as Elliot rapidly shoveled the rest of Lillian’s brain down his throat.
26.
Three days until Halloween
Willow Springs, TN
The late night emergency meeting at the mayor’s city hall office concluded at right around one in the morning. Bob Lee, now officially set to become the ex-sheriff of Willow Springs upon tendering his written resignation later that morning, managed to keep his composure until the very end. At that point, he cursed the mayor for his craven willingness to throw a good, dedicated official under the bus for no reason other than appeasing a panicked populace. The move would not move the investigation forward. To the contrary, it might even hamper the process, given that there was bound to be a significant amount of organizational disarray with the transition.
Nothing he said swayed the mayor in any way. The man was resolute in his belief that he had to be seen as taking decisive action in the midst of a crisis. Early on in the meeting, Lee reminded him he technically had no authority to remove an elected official from office, not without due process. But the mayor had that angle covered, too. Lee was dumbfounded as the man summoned assistants who brought in box after box of old files, all of them relating to arrests he’d made and cases he’d investigated going back to the very beginning of his career as a deputy. According to the mayor, the files were rife with evidence of gross misconduct. Some even contained photos of suspects who’d been roughed up, presumably after being taken into custody.
Lee was given the opportunity to examine a select few of the files. They were the worst of the worst, mostly from decades ago, and had obviously all been cherry-picked by the mayor’s staff. Of course, the age of the files made them no less damning. They contained clear evidence of crimes committed by a hotheaded young man new at his job and still learning how to properly wield authority. Some of the pictures made him sick to his stomach and brought back memories of things he’d rather forget. For many years, he’d been under the impression that this had all been safely swept under the rug. He assumed the files had all been destroyed and could never possibly see the light of day.
How naïve he’d been.
The mayor’s play was simple. Lee would voluntarily step down, formally resigning in the morning. Once he did that, the files would again disappear, sparing him the career and life-shattering repercussions that would come if they’d been made public.
So it was done.
Lee was out of a job and the killer was still out there, apparently no closer to being caught than he’d been after the discovery of Lloyd McAfee’s body.
Pete Acker was waiting for him in the parking lot out back when Lee stormed out of the building. He was leaning against his cruiser, which was parked near the rear entrance. When he saw Lee, he pushed away from the vehicle and hitched up his utility belt. “How’d it go in there?”
Lee snorted. “It went like shit. I ain’t the sheriff of this town anymore.”
Acker grimaced, nodding. “Was afraid of that. The mayor strong-arm you somehow?”
“He sure as shit did. Goddamn son of a bitch.” Lee hocked up some phlegm and spat it on the asphalt. “Vic’s gonna be acting sheriff after I tender my resignation. I wanted you for the job, but the mayor had other ideas.”
Acker shrugged. “Vic will do a fine job.”
“He’ll be a yes man. Don’t get me wrong. I like Vic, but one of his best attributes is he follows orders no matter what. That’s why the mayor wanted him. You’re more of what they call a ‘free thinker’. Pretty much the opposite of what city hall wants right now.”
Another shrug from Acker. “Hell, Bob, I didn’t actually want the job. I’ve seen the toll the stress has taken on you. I’m not that far from retirement myself. No point taking on that extra burden this late in the game.”
Lee nodded and turned his gaze skyward a moment. It was a clear, still night, with only a slight chill in the air. Taking in the vista of stars glittering amidst that expanse of deep darkness helped soothe his nerves, making the severe blow to his pride hurt just a little less. The moment of calmness felt strange in the wake of all that had happened over the course of that long day.
A madman was on the prowl in Willow Springs, killing and abducting people with seeming impunity. It was bad enough that one deputy had gone missing under disturbing circumstances, but now another one was dead, slain in the line of duty in the most brazen manner imaginable. Another man, Karen Everly’s brother, had also been killed. So far the maniac was succeeding through a combination of sheer luck and an eerie level of utter fearlessness. A review of footage from the dashboard cam of the deceased deputy’s cruiser did not show the killer’s arrival on the scene. He’d apparently had some notion of the camera’s range and had remained beyond it the entire time, just waiting for the right opportunity to swoop in, eliminate the deputy, and take Karen Everly—an opportunity that came in the form of Ricky Bennet’s mysterious visit to the missing woman’s house.
Ricky Bennet was also missing.
The only thing that had worked out in their favor today was that the Everly children had come to no harm. They’d never even come down from their upstairs bedrooms, remaining safely oblivious while either sleeping or listening to music on headphones. Good thing, for more reasons than one. If the lunatic had killed those kids, the townsfolk would have been marching on city hall tonight with axes and pitchforks in hand, demanding someone’s head on a pike. Thankfully, however, the kids and the family pets were now safe with their grandparents in another city.
Acker cleared his throat. “So…do we think Bennet might be our perp?”
The question made Lee scowl. “Bennet’s a loudmouthed asshole, but that don’t make him a killer. I don’t think he has the balls to pull off the kind of shit our man’s been doing. Once we start matching up the killer’s activities against Ricky’s known whereabouts, it’ll become clear he’s not our guy. I’d bet serious cash on that.”
He laughed.
Acker frowned. “Something funny?”
Lee shook his head. “Just the way I keep saying ‘we’ and ‘our’, as if I still had a dog in this hunt.” He sighed. “It’s Vic’s show now, for better or worse, along with those TBI bastards. He’ll have his hands full dealing with them, I’ll tell you that.”
The furrow in Acker’s brow deepened as he stared at the asphalt with a strange intensity. “Hmm.”
Lee raised an eyebrow. “Got something else on your mind?”
Acker looked at him. “Well, you know Vic and me did a lot of asking around after Jason’s cruiser turned up all burnt to shit. We split up after a while to cover more ground. I found out some stuff. Stuff I haven’t mentioned to Vic. Maybe important. Maybe not. Maybe ties in with Bennet showing up to the Everly place.”
Despite himself, Lee found his curiosity aroused. He wanted nothing more than to go home, knock back some Tylenol PM with a shot of whiskey, and get a good night’s rest before going back into the office for his last few hours on the job. Or so he’d been telling himself since his dismissal from the mayor’s office, but now he felt a fresh stirring of unanticipated excitement. Acker hadn’t said much yet, but Lee sensed he might be on to something real. He could hear it in the man’s voice.
“Spill it, Pete.”
There was a new fire in the deputy’s eyes as he told the rest of it. “Bennet was friends with Chuck Everly when they were kids. Real good friends, from what I was told. We already knew they were linked through Lloyd McAfee. Those boys were all part of a real tight little group. I heard versions of this story from three different individuals. They all told me this group suddenly unraveled one year in middle school. Nobody knows why exactly, except that something bad happened, something that drove them apart for good. One day they were thick as thieves, the next it was all over. Truth is probably more complicated than that, but that’s the basics of the situation. Here’s the kicker. There was a fourth member of that group. A guy named Jimmy Martin. I got a line on where he was living and went out there to see what I could find out from him.”
A silent beat elapsed.
Lee’s heart was racing. Acker was eyeing him in an expectant way, as if daring him to guess the next part. Lee had a vague inkling what it might be, but he wanted to hear Acker say it in his own words. “Go on, man. Was he there or not?”
Acker shook his head.
“Man lived in a trailer way out on that same state road where McAfee had his pumpkin stand, about seven miles down the way from there. And less than a mile from where we found Jason’s cruiser. A truck was parked outside the trailer. I ran the plates. It belonged to Martin. The door to his place was open. Looked like it’d been kicked in.”
Lee nodded. “Let me guess. No sign of the man.”
“You guessed it, boss.” A hint of a tired smile touched the corners of the deputy’s mouth. “Now let me ask you this. Is it just a coincidence every member of this old group of buddies is suddenly either missing or dead?”
“Not a chance in hell.” Until just these last few moments, Lee had felt weary and on the brink of total emotional and physical collapse. Now his mind was going a million miles per hour and he felt wide awake. Connections were clicking into place in his head. “Here’s what I think. What’s happening now is linked to that ‘something bad’ that drove those guys apart when they were kids.”
Acker scratched his chin. “Makes sense, but there’s a larger picture here, a part of the puzzle we don’t have yet. Somehow all this mess has something to do with the time of year. With Halloween.”
Lee nodded. That much had already been surmised by all parties involved in the investigation. It was why the mayor would be issuing a decree prohibiting all Halloween-related activities in Willow Springs until the killer was apprehended. He would also be declaring a city-wide curfew through at least the first of November. In general, the mayor would be making as big a show as possible about how he was doing all he could to protect his constituents.
It’d be a wonderful thing indeed to show the bastard up.
“These people you talked to today, you’ll need to interview them again come daylight, see if you can find out anything else about the bad thing that happened. Figuring out what that was is the key to solving these murders, I’m sure of it. I’ll do some asking around of my own once I’ve turned in my resignation. Between the two of us, we should be able to shake loose something.”
Acker’s expression turned shrewd. “Should I keep anyone else in the loop on this, or should it just be between us for now?”
Lee smiled. “That’s up to you, my friend. Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job. I’m just another unemployed citizen now.”
“Mum’s the word then. For now.”
Lee nodded, still smiling. “For now.”
27.
Three days until Halloween
Slayton, TN
The cabin in the woods was on the outskirts of Slayton, a sleepy little border town about ten miles south of the Kentucky state line. It sat on a hill above the shore of a picturesque lake. Though the main drag of Slayton was a short distance away, the terrain surrounding the cabin was dominated by a thick expanse of tall trees, which created a false sense of remote isolation. Enhancing this impression was a lack of neighbors in the immediate vicinity. From the rear of the property, one other cabin was visible and it was on the opposite shore of the lake.
The cabin belonged to Ramona Kimmell’s grandfather. Her family had been using it as a convenient weekend getaway spot for as long as she could remember. A mere thirty miles north of Nashville, getting there took hardly any time at all, at least compared to heading down to somewhere like Tybee Island or Hilton Head. Ramona had many wonderful childhood memories of the times she’d spent there, things like splashing around in the lake or fishing off the boat dock during the daytime and playing board games with the family at night. But now, having recently turned nineteen, she was older and the time had come for a naughtier kind of fun.
Ensconced behind the wheel of her Jeep Cherokee, the wind whipped her golden-blonde hair about as she sped down the interstate. It was another unusually beautiful day for late October. The sun was out and the temperature was in the mid-70s. She was glad she’d put the jeep’s top down for the ride out to the lake. Bobbing her head to the EDM music currently making the vehicle’s speakers thump, she glanced at her front seat passenger, Candice Steel. Candice was Ramona’s best friend. They’d known each other since grammar school. Like Ramona, she was dressed only in very short blue jean cutoffs and a bikini top. The only difference was her top was a bright red, while Ramona’s was a very dark shade of blue.
Often mistaken for sisters, both girls had lean, leggy builds and striking looks. They had been considered the prettiest girls at their high school, a place they had ruled for four glorious years. But now graduation was several months behind them and, like many of their friends, they were at loose ends, unsure yet how to proceed into adulthood. They were enrolled at the same college, but neither girl was faring particularly well in the world of higher education.
