Chapter 4
A
jagged scream lodged deep in her throat, Kayleen surged straight up in bed,
sweating and shaking, mere minutes before the digital alarm was set to blare
out it’s warning into the pre-dawn morning.
It was 4:28 a.m. It was
pitch-black outside and Jody was still dead, but the feel of her own bed
beneath her and the absolute silence within the dark corners of her room
reassured Kayleen that, for the present moment at least; the monster was
already gone.
Kayleen
rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and then reached over and clicked the off-button
on the top of her alarm. The sun
wouldn’t be up for another two hours.
Sometime in the middle of the night, Kayleen had woken up from her
awkward position on the couch and fumbled her way upstairs.
Right
now, her body was stiff and sore and her head was thick with the cottony-wool
of a fiercely-ferocious hangover. Her
mouth was dry and sour and her stomach rumbled with the knowledge that it
probably wouldn’t get fed today, either.
Her right eye felt like it had an ice pick gouged through it, and she
was dizzy and nauseous as hell. But none
of that really mattered.
It
was time to clear the cobwebs out of her mind, to feel the freedom of the wind
on her face, and the early morning dew on her ankles. It was time to take back the only part of the
day that she still called her own. The
one time that she could push her body to the limit and push thoughts of him right out of her mind.
This
was Kayleen’s favorite part of the day because now, it was time to run.
*
6:15
a.m. and she was finally back at home.
Today it was yet another breakfast of only vodka and juice. She took her glass over to the kitchen table
and sat down, wiping off her forehead with the inside of her elbow. She wedged her small gun out of the waistband
of her wet shorts and set it on the table.
She never left the house without some kind of firepower, but anything
other than the .22 was too cumbersome to run with.
Salty
moisture poured down Kayleen’s face and torso, saturating her white tank top
and even her old, thin black Umbros, but at least this time it was from healthy
exertion and not from bitter dread. She
looked down as she plucked the damp fabric away from her skin, but froze when
her eyes landed on the puffy, raised welts along her chest and collarbone. Even in this early, weak daylight, Kayleen’s
scars were still hideously visible.
Kayleen
had at one time inventoried them all.
That had been an egregious mistake.
The initial head-shrinker they’d assigned to her while she was still being
held at the hospital had thought it would be a good idea. He’d actually said it would be “therapeutic”.
Yeah, right. A half-bald, twitchy
son of a bitch, who had probably gotten his Doctorate degree out of a box of
Cracker Jacks, had presumed to tell her what she needed to do to get over being assaulted by a sadistic serial
killer. It would have been laughable had
it not just been so damned sad.
But,
idiot that she was, she’d taken out her compact and then stood in front of the
big mirror in the antiseptic hospital bathroom all alone; bright fluorescents
blazing, door locked, completely naked.
She’d pulled down the bandages and studied herself from each and every
torturous angle. Then, she’d promptly
smashed the compact, gotten on her knees in front of the toilet, and thrown up
until she’d tasted blood.
Afterwards,
when she was done crying, she’d picked up the phone and called her boss. Then she’d asked the nurses to re-do her
bandages and tape the bathroom mirror over from top to bottom. The staff had been happy to oblige, and Dr.
Severance, feeling that she’d been pushed too hard, too quickly after her
attack, had made certain that idiot psychiatrist had never come back to see her
again. But none of it had mattered
because the damage was already done.
It
would’ve been much more tolerable, and much easier for her to handle, if she’d
seen the horrific mutilation and destruction that had been ravaged into her
skin, after it’d had more time to
heal. As it was, she’d still been
freshly bruised, burned, sliced, and butchered.
The wounds had been raw and leaking.
Her chest had been a veritable roadmap of destruction.
Her
body had looked to her just like those of Estes’ other victims; corpses she’d seen
either in crime scene photos, or first-hand in the Refuge or at the
morgue. Her emotional state had been so
fragile then, it had literally knocked her to her knees. That day, that exact moment when she’d seen
what had been done to her, had changed something deep inside of her. And it was something that she could never
undo.
In
those moments she’d spent before the mirror, she’d catalogued each and every degrading
horror for future ease of reference.
Even now, those memories remained within clear and unnerving reach. Kayleen could close her eyes at will and see
the serrated skin, the puffy, enflamed lines, the weeping marks, the sliced shapes;
everything that Estes had incised so meticulously into her flesh. He’d gotten her torso, her back, her
shoulders, thighs, and calves. Not one
part of her body had gone unscathed.
He’d even decorated the backs of her knees.
In
addition to all of that, there had also been the macerated puncture-gash in her
shoulder where the bullet had gone in, and another larger one on her back where
it had blown out. His placement had been
perfect - right where it had caused her debilitating pain, making her weak,
vulnerable, and easily controlled. But
it had also been far enough away from any vital organs to keep her from
bleeding to death or passing out before he’d decided that he was done with her.
The
worst part, of course was his signature; the triangle around the crescent moon,
directly over her heart, along with the flattened infinity sign right above
it. But with her, for the very first
time, he’d added his entire set of
initials: R A E, for Richard Allan
Estes. Unfathomably, however, she was
the only one he’d taken and marked who was actually still alive. And no one knew the answer as to why, least
of all, Kayleen.
With
her, when he was done, instead of slitting her throat from ear to ear, he’d
merely carved a deep cross right into the hollow of her neck there. A constant reminder of what he could’ve done;
had he only the simplest inclination. Unable
to hide that one disfigurement with most of her clothes, she typically chose to
just wear a plain silver locket to cover it.
The kind you kept treasured photos in, except hers remained empty;
devoid of memories, hope, or love.
Kayleen
finished her drink and slammed the glass down almost hard enough to shatter
it. Then she rested her head in her
hands for a long moment and sighed. When
would it get any easier, she wondered?
When would it go away? Not the
scars, necessarily - they wouldn’t ever fade.
But the way she felt about
them. It was as if each one was a
physical reminder of how utterly she had eventually failed; as a person, a
partner, an agent, a lover, a friend. As
long as they marred her body, their meaning would mar her soul.
She
could, of course, have plastic surgery.
It would help to mitigate the butchery some. Only she didn’t think she deserved any kind
of reprieve. Jody had lost his life that
night. She’d already gotten off too
damned easy. Angrily, she pushed her
thoughts away and stood up so abruptly that the kitchen chair rocked back and
forth behind her. It was time to tend to
her dog.
Harley
was lying on the cool kitchen tiles, still panting like she would never
stop. The poor pooch hadn’t yet gotten
used to their brutal, two and a half mile trek up the mountain and back down
again. She didn’t know if Harley ever
would.
Back
in the city, Kayleen was lucky if she was able to walk her more than ten or
fifteen minutes a day. Work just kept
her so busy there that Harley had seemed constantly chafing at the bit for more
exercise. Now, most of the time it was
she who dragged Harley along while the dog lagged behind, her long pink tongue
lolling sideways out of her mouth as she struggled to keep up.
Back
on the night when the Blackthorne Butcher had paid his special visit to
Kayleen, Harley had still been at the vet’s office, recuperating from a recent
surgery to correct a small tumor on her left paw. Kayleen knew that if she’d been there that
evening, at the very least, she’d have given an advance warning as they’d
returned to the apartment after dinner.
If she hadn’t come running to the door to greet her, Kayleen would have
known instantly that something was wrong.
Unfortunately,
the apartment complex would not let her install any type of security system,
forcing her to rely on the “intercom-buzzer” apparatus just beyond the outside
door. It had done little to save her or
Jody the night that Estes had come for them; some helpful resident had buzzed him
in without bothering to check who he was or what he wanted.
And
here, in this old house, the electric system was so bad a security alarm
wouldn’t even work. She’d called, of
course, had several technicians come out to take a look in the beginning. But they’d all said the same thing; her
wiring here was so old, so decrepit, that the sirens would go off each and
every time the wind blew too hard.
Fixing it would cost at least ten thousand dollars, the payments on which,
Kayleen could undoubtedly afford. Yet
that would mean having men – strange men – traipsing in and out of her house
for weeks on end, ripping out plaster and stripping up floorboards. Right now, she was not ready for that level
of outsider intrusion.
So,
in the meantime, Kayleen made damn certain that her dog was never too far from
her side. It was one of the few easy
things she could do to protect herself.
Well, that and making sure that her gun was never too far away from her,
either. Precautions that cost her nothing,
but that might one day save her life. Of
course they might not do too much to help her if Richard Estes showed back up
on one of the nights when Kayleen had passed out from being blind-stinking
drunk.
That
realization alone ought to be enough to make her change her habits, but she already
knew damn well that it would not.
Alcohol was the only thing
that pushed Estes even a tiny bit away from her; the only thing that gave her a small measure of numbing distance from
the confines of her own infected mind.
And regardless of the risks, she figured she’d keep right on using it as
long as she needed to, perhaps even until it killed her – or until he came back to finish the job.
Kayleen
walked into the kitchen now and grabbed a large can of meaty dog food from out
of the cupboard and pressed it into the automatic opener. When she hit the start button and Harley
heard the grinding noise indicating that her meal was soon to come, the dog clambered
heavily to her feet and then came padding over.
Kayleen
snagged a big bowl out of the dishwasher and filled it with a scoop of dry
chunks from a bag under the counter.
Then she spooned half the can of wet stuff on top, and jiggled the bowl
to mix it in. The rest of the can would
go into the fridge for tomorrow’s breakfast.
Harley ate twice a day but her early meal was the only one where she got
spoiled with canned food in addition to her regular stuff. Otherwise, Kayleen knew from experience that
with her already stocky physique, she would get rather obese in just a short
amount of time.
Kayleen
plopped the bowl of food onto the floor and Harley immediately stuck her face
inside and began wolfing it down. As she
ate, Kayleen refilled her other bowl with some fresh water, then she left the pure-bred
bloodhound to enjoy her breakfast alone.
She
had just headed upstairs to jump in the shower when she heard a knock at the
front door. She was expecting her Aunt
Sue that morning, but looking at her watch, she realized that her aunt was more
than half an hour early. Sue knew quite
a bit about the attack; more in fact, than Kayleen would have liked.
Back
when she’d been in the hospital, Sue had come to visit her over the course of a
few of those hazy days. Although most of
the time she’d been covered with a blanket, Sue did walk into the room once
when Kayleen had been changing, and she’d gotten an eyeful then. Also, an overzealous, loose-lipped doctor had
taken it upon himself to fill Sue in on most of Kayleen’s injuries. He’d thought it would be okay with her since
they were family, although in truth, Kayleen had been mortified.
But
some time had passed since then. She
still felt self-conscious as hell, but God knows, she was tired of always
having to cover up like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. If there was ever going to be a chance that
she’d one day be able to revert back to simply being herself, she’d have to
somehow get comfortable in her own skin.
Practicing first on her sweet, meek Aunt Sue would be a good place to
start.
Deciding
on the spur of the moment to forgo throwing on a robe, Kayleen just clomped
back down the stairs and reached for the door, swinging it open quickly, before
she could change her mind. She realized
her mistake a half-second too late. She
heard his gasp, his sharp intake of breath, felt his eyes rove up and down the
length of her.
“Jesus
Kayleen, what in the hell happened to you?” Caleb asked, shocked. His face instantly blanched, and he fell backwards
a step, as if he couldn’t even stand to be close to her. All the while, his eyes continued to make the
rounds.
Everywhere
they rested, Kayleen could feel his gaze like a searing-hot laser against her
skin. His eyes swept over her legs, her
arms, her sternum, her throat, and despite her light garments, she still felt
as if she’d somehow been laid naked and bare to the bone. His upper lip curled and he looked positively
disgusted; just as she’d somehow already known he would be.
She
reacted on impulse, slamming the door in his face and thumbing the bolt. She grabbed the chain to lock that too, but
her hand was shaking so violently she couldn’t get the rounded end into the
hole. As he started banging on the door,
she took several dazed steps backwards, not even realizing that she was moving
until the bottom step thumped into her calf and she stumbled against the riser
and collapsed onto the stairs.
When
her butt hit the wooden step below her, she grabbed the railing to steady
herself. She clenched the wooden rod in
her bloodless fist, frozen in place while Caleb knocked and pounded and called
her name. At some point, he left off
rapping on the front door and moved around to the rear. Kayleen heard him rattling at the door handle
there, and she was relieved beyond words that she always kept it locked
now. He wouldn’t be getting in. Not today.
Not ever again.
He
banged for at least fifteen minutes more but Kayleen didn’t wait him out. As soon as her trembling legs could support
her, she hauled herself up with the handrail and then ran all the way upstairs
as fast as she could; his relentless pounding resounding hollowly beneath her
as she fled.
*
Kayleen
had been sitting on the floor of the bathroom for nearly an hour. When she’d first run in there, the face that
had greeted her in the mirror was one that she recognized immediately; deathly
white, sharply drawn, stricken and sickly.
It was the same way she’d looked when she had still been in the
hospital.
Frightened
by the glaring similarity, she’d grabbed a towel and covered up as much of the silver
surface as she could. Then she’d knelt
down and flung the cabinet under the sink wide open. Pawing through row after row of soft, thick
towels, she’d finally found what she had come looking for. In the back, safe as always, was her reserve.
She
had grabbed the bottle of vodka, thankful that it was still three-fourths of
the way full, and then had snagged a stack of Dixie Cups that were stored in
one of her drawers. They were the kind that
most people used for rinsing their mouths out after having brushed their
teeth. Hers stood in for improvised shot
glasses, and she’d wasted no time in getting one wet. After the third shot, her cup got soggy. She crumpled it, threw it onto the bathroom
floor, and immediately filled another.
It seemed like a long, long time before the faint knocking finally
stopped. The sound echoed in her head
long after Caleb had gone.
When
she figured she’d had enough alcohol that the blessed numbness would soon take
hold, she set the bottle down, kicked off her shoes, and then climbed into the
shower stall still completely dressed.
She turned the water on, stripped out of her clothes under the frigid
deluge, and then sank back down onto the cold, porcelain tiles, her body
shuddering so hard it was like she was having some sort of seizure.
After
several long minutes, the water finally kicked in hot. But even sitting directly in the scalding,
needling spray, she still was bone-deep cold.
She wrapped her arms around her knees, hugging herself as tightly as she
could, her fingernails digging painfully into her chill, wet skin while she
cried and cried and cried.
*
“I
was really worried. I knocked for quite
a while.” Aunt Sue’s voice was tinny and
small over the extremely bad connection.
Whatever architectural visionary Astin Archer had been, his son Louis
had been much less successful at improvements to the house, which is why when the
electric and phone lines had been installed by him several decades after the
home had been built, they’d been done so haphazardly and with varying results.
When
the wind blew too hard, Kayleen still typically lost her ancient phone line
altogether. It had been that way through
her entire childhood there at that house.
She knew she needed to go ahead and get it all fixed one day. But
sometimes it was nice just not being able to be reached. When she wanted to escape from outside
pressures, all she had to do was take this old-fashioned phone off the
hook. Her cell, however, was still
plugged into the wall charger back at her apartment in D.C., probably ringing
incessantly even now.
Kayleen
was still trying politely to wrap up her conversation with Sue. She’d already spent several minutes apologizing
profusely for that morning, the mist of alcohol making it hard to focus on
sounding coherent. She had managed to
come up with a half-hearted excuse; that she’d been out for a nature walk in
the surrounding woods and had lost all track of time. Truth be told, she’d probably still been in
the shower by the time her Aunt had actually come by, so focused on her
encounter with Caleb, that dealing with yet another visitor would’ve been the
last thing on her mind. But now, she
honestly felt quite guilty over it all.
Sue
was actually Kayleen’s Great-Aunt on her mother’s side, and sadly enough, she
was really Kayleen’s only living relative.
She was pretty sure she had to have some very distant cousins out there
somewhere, but there was no one else besides Sue that she could truly call her
own anymore. She and her aunt had never
been all that close. Yet after Kayleen’s
mother had died and then Kayleen had been attacked so shortly thereafter, Sue
had been making a good-faith effort to connect.
Sue
was Kayleen’s grandmother’s youngest sister, and she’d just turned 65. Her health also wasn’t the greatest these
days, and Kayleen didn’t know how many more years she’d have left. That was one of the reasons she’d asked Sue
over that day. Since Kayleen had come back
to town two months ago, she’d actually hung out with Sue on several occasions. Mostly they’d just gone out to eat, or spent
a few hours together in Sue’s little cottage in town. Today was the first time however, that
Kayleen had invited Sue out to the old house, into her own private space. And
boy, that had sure gone over well.
Kayleen
made Sue a promise that she’d make it up to her next time, and then she finally
worked around to saying her goodbyes. Once
she hung up the phone, she sighed out in relief and then downed the rest of her
small glass of vodka. She’d run out of
juice four hours ago, so she’d simply started drinking it over ice. God, she realized, she’d been soused for over
twelve hours straight.
Kayleen’s
stomach growled loudly then, but the resulting thought of food made her want to
puke. She couldn’t even remember the
last time she’d actually eaten. She’d
probably lost nearly twenty pounds in the last eight weeks alone. She was getting rail-thin, her clothes
falling off of her more and more. Caleb
had to have noticed how skinny she was the other night when he’d first come
over.
Jesus. Caleb. Caleb had seen
her now, too. In fact, Caleb had seen
almost all of her. And boy would he have some questions. Not that she’d ever entertain answering them.
She
swallowed, hard, and decided that she needed a refill. She’d left the bottle in the kitchen earlier,
while grabbing the cordless phone off of the base where it had been
charging. She’d brought her glass with
her to the couch, but had accidentally left the remainder of the liquor behind
on the counter.
She
went to stand up now so she could go and retrieve it, but her legs simply would
not work. Instead, they sent her
sprawling. The room tilted and lurched
around her as she plunged down, plowing head-first into the heavy wooden and glass
coffee table beside her.
The
surface shattered into a wild spray of jagged cracks as her forehead punched
partially through. Pain tore into her
temple, and the breath was knocked clean out of her. Instinctively pushing herself up off of the
table, she tumbled sideways and crumpled haphazardly onto the floor.
She
lay there, dazed for a moment, struggling to find her breath. Finally, her air came back to her in a big
wheezing gasp. She drew in two stinging
lung-fulls, trying to comprehend what had just happened. She blinked against the warm rivulets of viscous
blood that were trickling thickly into both of her eyes. She’d dropped her glass, smashed her face,
and was now bleeding onto the floor. She
needed to get up and get a towel, before she ruined the carpet even worse than
what she’d done when she’d spilled the beer yesterday.
Kayleen
reached up and painstakingly gripped the side of the busted table with one
hand, her fingernails scrabbling at the seam of a couch cushion with the other. Pulling with all her might, she struggled to
sit up straight. But she couldn’t seem
to lift herself up off of the floor more than a few grudging inches.
Suddenly,
her eyes felt heavy. It was all she
could do just to keep them open anymore.
A comforting, sedating lull stole over her. She was just so damned tired. Wouldn’t it be easier for her to stay on the
floor? In fact, why bother to get up at
all when she could merely close her eyes and fall asleep right where she lay,
down there on the soft carpet where it was so very safe and warm?
The
last thing she heard before she lost consciousness was the insistent knocking
from that morning once again coming back somehow. “Why won’t he just go away?” she thought in
irritation.
Abruptly,
a long, dark chasm split open beneath her.
She fell, head-long into the bottomless pit of it. There was another last, half-formed thought
about Caleb; that, and nothing more.
