Blackened Read online

  But coming after me was different altogether. There was no financial gain, nor anything else for him to garner other than the personal satisfaction of ridding the world of my presence. Revenge in its purest form—cold, personal and calculating.

  It had been almost twelve hours since I’d opened the first box, the one delivered to Tipsword’s. That made for a long day of thinking and worry and, personally, I was already sick of it. I needed a distraction. I shut off the iPod, grabbed the remote off the nightstand and clicked on the television my father had mounted on my wall last year. He had hoped it would lessen the blow of having to move away, and I told him it did, but I wasn’t sure. Maybe a movie or some bad reality TV would take my mind off things until my parents got home. It shouldn’t be too long now. They rarely even went out, and when they did, they were usually home in time for the eleven o’clock news.

  With tonight apparently being the exception, I wasn’t yet worried, but was starting to wonder if I should be.

  It only took a few moments to discover that nothing was on. Friday nights were the worst for cable programming. Anyone with a life was out doing things, having fun, being a functioning member of the bustling world. If I didn’t have to work the next morning, I probably would have been out doing things, too. Then, I thought about the boxes and whom they were from, and I remembered the real reason I was staying in tonight.

  I finally settled on The David Letterman Show and dropped the remote on the bed beside me. Dressed in a grey pinstripe suit with a red and white tie, Letterman was debating Mark Wahlburg on who looked better in a pair of boxers. Backed by a cheering crowd, Dave was encouraging the actor to stand up and remove his shirt. I don’t know whether he finally did or not, because that was about the time the stress of the day caught up with me, and I fell asleep.

  Chapter 7

  Cavernous. That was how I would describe the sheer emptiness that engulfed the bottom of the stairway. Pitch black and hollow. I wasn’t sure where the steps led; they simply disappeared into a swirling dark fog that started about seven or eight steps down. The murk churned angrily, as if a storm were brewing at the bottom, and I had the pestering feeling that I had been here before. My hand groped the wall beside me where I instinctively believed a light switch to be. My fingers found the rectangular plastic plate first, then the switch itself.

  I pulled back as soon as I touched it. Something was wrong. The switch wasn’t hard and plastic like it should be. What I felt in its place was soft and fleshy. It had the feeling of a fingertip, only smaller, and my skin crawled at the possibilities. After taking a deep breath, I cautiously reached back up. Fortunately, I didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary this time. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel anything at all. The entire light switch was gone, and all I could find now was the cold plaster wall.

  I started running my hand over the wall again, knowing that the switch, any switch, had to be there somewhere. When my fingertips finally brushed against the corner of the switch’s plastic plate, my arm was outstretched in front of me as far as I could reach. I had to take a step downward to get to the switch itself as if it had moved to lure me down the steps. But at least this time, the switch itself was normal, hard and plastic.

  The feeling of déjà vu went full-blown as I flipped the switch upward. The black fog disappeared in the pale yellow light coming from a lone, naked bulb hanging precariously at the foot of the stairs. The concrete floor it revealed was grimy, cracked and uneven. A stench seemed to rise from the fractures like steam, and unfortunately, it was a familiar one. It was the smell of long forgotten rot. As the vague sense of familiarity turned into outright recognition, I realized I was no longer in my bedroom, but in a bad place. A very bad place.

  I was back in the church.

  Barnes’ church.

  Saying that a wave of apprehension washed over me right then would be like saying that having a limb lopped off would only hurt a little. Not only was it an obvious statement, but I was embarrassed to even be pointing it out. My hands started to tremble; my forehead broke out in a slick sheen. My heart felt like a drummer keeping time at 120 beats per minute. Still, I ignored the nagging urge to turn away from the stairs, to run out of the place before it could get its claws in me a second time. I had to ignore it. I was here for a reason this time. I just didn’t know what that reason was.

  Right on cue, a soft murmur came from somewhere deep in the bowels of the basement. If it was possible for a murmur to sound familiar, this one did. The inflection in the tone was one I recognized, and it urged me on.

  With a confidence born more of righteousness than bravery, I took the first step. Then the second. Before I knew it, I was halfway to the bottom. Or halfway to the top, depending which side of me you asked. By nature, I was equal parts optimist and pessimist, swaying back and forth between the two like a windblown tree. With each step, the grimy floor grew closer, the pained murmurs louder until eventually, I’d gone too far to turn back.

  As soon as my feet were firmly planted on the concrete floor, the murmurs stopped; almost as if I had triggered something, or breached some invisible barrier. I waited a moment, but no other sound stepped up to replace the low, guttural moaning. There was only silence.

  And shadows.

  The entire lower level was awash with foreboding gloom, black as tar, beckoning from just outside the glare of the naked bulb. It was just like the first time I was in the bowels of the church, and I couldn’t shake the growing dread over what I might find this time around.

  I wasn’t going to find anything, I told myself, without some kind of light to penetrate the dark corners. And if there was anything to find down here, it only stood to reason that’s where it would be. Reaching into my pocket for the cell phone that had served me so well the first time I was here, I came away with nothing but a few small wads of lint. Searching the rest of my pockets, I came up just as empty. Unless I stumbled upon another source of light down here, which seemed unlikely, this was as good as it was going to get.

  The sound of shuffling caught my attention from somewhere off to my left. When it registered that the sound was coming from the same area where I had found Becca hanging by a hook a year ago, a tingling sensation tip-toed across the base of my neck. The soft shamble seemed to have come and gone, and as I stood listening to the heavy silence that followed, I questioned whether I had heard anything at all.

  After a moment, the sound came again, and I took comfort in the fact I wasn’t just hearing things. Realizing I was no longer alone, however, pissed that comfort away real quick.

  “Hello?” Miraculously, I was able to get the word out with only a hint of tremor in my voice. In fact, I would say it even sounded somewhat confident. Though it was a confidence I didn’t necessarily feel, and I hoped like hell it wasn’t about to be tested. “Is someone down here?”

  “Luke.”

  The voice was soft, familiar. I knew the lips that had spoken my name all too well, but hearing it come from the hidden depths made my heart stop beating.

  “Luke...help me...please.”

  I’m not sure how it happened, but a candle flickered to life deep in the shadows. It sat on the floor, and as the flame grew from its initial spark, it illuminated the space above it. Claire hung in that space. Not by her wrists like Becca, but hanging by her neck. A thick sinewy rope looped tightly around my girlfriend’s throat, so tight that I wasn’t sure how she had even managed to speak. Purplish rolls of neck skin bulged through the gaps of the rope that, at initial glance, looked like long, corded fingers. But, that’s the only way she could have been hanging there. Her arms were both gone, crudely severed at the shoulder. Her legs, also gone. There was nothing but a torso. Nothing but remains.

  Although they were open, her eyes held no life. They only stared off into a space that didn’t include me. There was no rise and fall in her chest, no movement whatsoever. She didn’t appear to be alive at all, despite the fact that I was sure it had been her voice calling out to me.
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  Something in my heart fractured and gave way. I wanted to run to her, but fear kept my feet planted.

  Before I could determine what to do next, a form emerged from behind where my girlfriend hung like a side of beef. A man stepped into the candlelight and smiled. But not just any man. Corwin Barnes. The man who I had once thought I’d rid myself of, leaving him for dead beside a lake a year ago. After all this time of wondering if he would come, he had finally tracked me down. Not only had he found me, but he now stood just ten feet away.

  The smile etched across Barnes’ face was carved by pure evil and caused a sour taste to form in my mouth. His crooked teeth, grey and foul, projected this way and that, as if they couldn’t all get on the same page. Scars decorated his bald head in no uniform fashion. They were just there. The rough scar that cut along his temple appeared to be more recent, and something deep inside me recognized it as a job well done – but not well enough.

  Despite the lack of a breeze, the candlelight flickered.

  His smile faded.

  “I believe you two have met,” Barnes said, though his snarled lips barely moved. He turned to Claire, and after bringing back the jagged smile, nudged her torso. Like a pendulum, what remained of my girlfriend started swinging back and forth. The rope squeaked with each arc as it rubbed against the overhead wooden rafter to which it was tied. Back and forth. To and fro. Each tiny shriek of the rope caused a cringe-worthy shutter to go through me.

  Looking directly into my eyes, Barnes gave Claire a second shove, this time harder. It was on her outward swing, when she was furthest away from Barnes, that I caught a glimpse of what he held in his right hand, what he had been hiding in Claire’s shadow all along.

  The bolo knife.

  That familiar, awkwardly angled blade glinted in the flickering flame of the candle. I saw it, and Barnes must have recognized this in my expression. His smile faded and his wild eyes took on a rage that hadn’t been there seconds earlier.

  A scream erupted from Claire’s dead, constricted throat. High and shrill, it curled the hairs on the back of my neck and sent shivers dancing down my spine. I clamped my hands over my aching ears, but it did little to muffle the scream. Looking in her direction, I saw that Claire’s once lifeless eyes were now very much alert.

  “Run, Luke!” she screamed, her voice echoing into the far reaches.

  Barnes took his first step toward me, and I did just as I’d been instructed. I turned, and I ran. I took the stairs two at a time, hoping to accomplish two things: put distance between Barnes and me, and put myself closer to the open doorway at the top of the steps.

  Only it was no longer open. As I narrowed the gap between the towering wooden door and me, I noticed it was now closed, even though I’d made sure to leave it open. It was like the church itself had teamed up with Barnes and wasn’t about to let me get away a second time.

  I crashed into the door with as much momentum as I could build, hoping to either bust it open or break it down altogether. Personally, I had no preference, and would have been good with either scenario. But, the door didn’t budge. If anything, it felt like it had literally pushed back. I wasn’t sure that was even possible, but the throbbing pain now shooting through my shoulder offered its own testament.

  The footsteps behind me had now reached the stairs and slowed. I could hear the wood creak deliberately under foot as I cowered against the door, too frightened to turn and look. My heart raced faster with every creak of the steps, throttling my chest from inside. I pictured Barnes creeping up the stairs, knife in hand, taking time to savor the moment, knowing I had nowhere to go. This was it. This is where I was going to die. Corwin Barnes was finally getting his man.

  I awaited death with eyes seized shut.

  Just as I felt his hot breath on my neck, the door suddenly opened. Flew open, in fact, and I tumbled into a room full of bright light and voices. I didn’t recognize any of them, but people were talking. Bantering. There was a woman’s voice, and what sounded like two men, but neither of them was Barnes.

  Looking around with eyes still unable to focus, I found that Corwin Barnes was gone. So was the dark stairway. The basement had transformed itself back into my bedroom, and I found myself sitting up in my bed, wrapped in damp sheets.

  Safe. Alive.

  The television was blasting from high on the wall above my dresser. On its screen, the Channel 7 traffic person was standing in front of a quad of darkened screens, pointing to the activity on each. Tiny red and white lights formed intermittent rows as the early morning rush was just getting underway.

  And as my heart rate slowly returned to normal, I knew what needed to be done. Unfortunately, I also knew who was going to have to do it.

  Chapter 8

  “I don’t think it’s there anymore, Luke.”

  With a detective and me looking on from the side, my mother paced the middle of the living room like an expectant father. On her face was that look that said, “Oh, no, it’s happening.” The roots of her auburn hair were starting to show her age, and with trembling hands, she kept tucking strands of it behind her ears. In her defense, it was early morning, and she probably hadn’t had her coffee yet. Even if she had, getting hit first thing in the morning with what I was hitting her with would have unnerved any parent. I’d started her day by dropping the “B-word.”

  Barnes.

  In the kitchen, my father was on the phone, trying to track down one of the original investigators of the case from a year ago. His voice would rise from time to time, and we could hear his frustration all the way in the living room on the other side of the house. The robust smell of brewed coffee was also making its way in, so I suspected my father was already one step ahead of my mother. If he hadn’t been on the phone, he would have been pacing right along beside her. His face had gone about as white as a person’s could when I first broke house protocol and spoke Barnes’ name.

  “I’m pretty sure they bulldozed it once the investigation was done, and all the remains were recovered.” My mother paused just a beat before saying the word “remains.” A year later, and the whole matter was still difficult for her to talk about. I sometimes wondered if I was the only member of the family who should have been talking with therapists after it all went down. It probably would have done my parents some good, too.

  I had a sense that my mother was wrong about the old church being bulldozed. Call it denial, call it a mother’s attempt to protect her son, but I think she would have given me that line regardless of what she knew to be the truth. Maybe it was the dream, maybe it was my Spidey sense masquerading as a gut feeling, but the derelict house of anything-but-God needed to be checked out. Someone needed to make sure that Corwin Barnes wasn’t back in the dismemberment business and wasn’t using his old workshop in the bowels of that abandoned church to do it. I knew it was just a dream, and not some psychic premonition, but still. It was worth someone going out to have a looksee.

  “We’ll look into it,” said Detective Morgenstern, a tall African-American man with a sculpted jaw and a spiral notepad. Unfortunately, his pen hadn’t been working nearly as hard as his mouth since he arrived. He had barely written down anything I’d said in the last ten minutes, so I wasn’t exactly confident that he was going to follow through on his assurances. He and his dark grey sport coat seemed to be just going through the motions. The smile on his face was probably supposed to be comforting, but didn’t come close. Instead, it came across more like “I’m really just trying to get out of here so I can get to McDonald’s for my free cup of coffee and that hot little blonde who smiles when she asks me how much sugar I’d like.”

  “Do you even know where I’m talking about?” I asked, not trying very hard to keep the frustration out of my voice. There was a little fear mixed in, too. The dream was still with me.

  “Abandoned church,” the detective said. “Preble County. Burns murders. Got it.”

  “Barnes!”

  “Barnes. Right.” He made a small not
ation on his pad. Whether it was a correction or not, I couldn’t tell.

  I still wasn’t convinced, but I’d already decided I wasn’t going to waste any more time trying to persuade this guy. Either he would look into it or he wouldn’t. There were other cops. There were other options.

  “Detective, what are your thoughts on the packages?” my mother asked, shooting a sidelong glance at the two boxes resting ominously on the coffee table. Both still held their contents, and both were sealed tight in their own separate plastic bags. Tests were being ordered on all of it, he had assured us. Fingerprinting and the like.

  “If those aren’t a direct threat,” she continued, “I don’t know what is. Especially the second one. At the very least, it means that psycho is somewhere close. At most, it means he’s coming after my son. If not all of us.”

  “Now, hold on,” the detective said, and I made up my mind once and for all that I didn’t like the guy. “We don’t even know who dropped off the boxes. Could just be a prank.”

  “But, it’s his ring –” I started, before the detective held up a long, crooked finger.

  “Now, this Corwin Barnes,” he continued, “if he’s responsible for what you said he was, then he’s in the system. There will be a standing warrant out for him. I’ll look into it.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “In the meantime, ma’am, you folks might check yourselves into a hotel, if it would make you more comfortable. There’s not enough here to justify a security detail. Just make sure we have a contact number so we can get in touch if something turns up.”

  “Including Corwin Barnes?” I asked.

  “Especially Barnes.”

  The emphasis on the word “especially,” the slight nod and narrowing of his eyes, it was all for show, designed to instill confidence that he would do just what he said about checking Barnes in the system. At least after his stop off at McDonald’s. Maybe it was just frustration on my part, but I now had even less confidence that Detective Morgenstern would be checking out the church since that earlier discussion hadn’t brought the same assurances. And a moment later, when he closed his notepad and stuck it in the pocket of his sport coat without writing down anything about the church, there was no confidence left to be had on my part. I only hoped my father was having better luck in the kitchen.