Bestial (3 page)

In her tiny, cramped bedroom, she opened the blanket and looked at her flip-flops. The bottoms were dark with blood. She wrapped them in the blanket again, stuffed the blanket into a plastic trash bag and looked at the clock on the DVD player. It was just past eleven. Gretchen probably wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours. Penny left the trailer, walked toward the front of the park, and took a sharp turn to the right between two trailers. She took a shortcut—a narrow path through the woods that led to a nearby 7-Eleven. There was a large Dumpster behind the convenience store. Penny opened the Dumpster and stuffed her bag deep into the garbage. Her forearm was sticky and smelly when she pulled it out.

She went back to the trailer, took a long hot shower, then put on a T-shirt and sweatpants. She sat in front of the TV with a bag of Wavy Lays chips and a jar of ranch style dip. She watched TV and ate and tried to push everything that had happened that night far from her mind—including the image of Byron’s ripped and mangled body spread over the ground in their secret hiding place.

CHAPTER ONE

Driving Back to the Seventies

The silver Mercedes coupe put Carmel behind it on California’s Highway 1 and sped south. To the right, the meringue breakers of the grey-blue Pacific repeatedly surged against the rocky cliffs and flat expanses of wet, shiny sand, stirring a thin, silvery mist. It was a bright, sparklingly clear Friday in July and the morning neared its end.

In the passenger seat, Karen Moffett smoked a Winston and occasionally flicked ashes out of the three-inch opening in the window. She had been annoyed with car manufacturers ever since they’d stopped installing ash trays in cars. She took a drag and exhaled smoke as she waited for the driver to respond to the explanation she’d just given.

“So let me get this straight,” Gavin Keoph said as he drove. “Essentially, we’re, uh... traveling back in time to the seventies. Is that it?”

“I haven’t been to this place myself, but yeah, that’s pretty much the case.”

Gavin eyed the cigarette between the first two fingers of her right hand.

“From what I’ve learned,” she went on, “the Esalen Institute has perfectly preserved the philosophies and pop psychology of the seventies in a hermetically sealed environment. Sort of like stepping back in time to Marin County, circa 1973.”

Karen noticed that his eyes glanced at the road, but spent most of their time on her cigarette.

“Can I have a drag off that?” he said.

“Didn’t you bring your own?”

“I’m trying to quit.”

She laughed as she handed him the half-smoked cigarette. Gavin pulled on the cigarette and his eyes closed briefly with pleasure as he inhaled while Karen watched. As he exhaled the smoke slowly with a sigh, his eyes opened only halfway to watch the road, and his body slumped in the seat, suddenly relaxed, soothed.

“Careful,” Karen said. “You enjoy that any more and you’re going to need a cigarette
afterwards
, if you know what I mean.”

Gavin chuckled as he handed the cigarette back to her.

“How long has it been since your last smoke?” she said.

“Oh... “ He looked at his watch. “About nine hours.”

“They have pills for that now, you know.”

“I don’t believe in pills.”

“You may not believe in them, Keoph, but they
do
exist.” At Karen’s feet was an Aquafina bottle with some dead cigarette butts floating in a few inches of water. She took another drag, then picked up the bottle, removed the cap, and dropped the remainder of the cigarette into it. She replaced the cap and put the bottle back down by her feet.

“We’ve known each other for a couple years now, and you’re still calling me Keoph,” he said, smiling. “I hate that.”

“You do? Why haven’t you ever said so?”

“I have. At least twice.”

“You have? Oh. Well, what do I call you?”

“How about my first name? Gavin.”

“All right, Gavin it is. Sometimes I get distracted and don’t hear things. Sorry I didn’t hear you.”

“So, what is Martin Burgess doing at the Esalen Institute?”

Karen laughed. “You’ve known him awhile now, and you have to ask?”

“You know him better than I do. You’ve spent more time with him because he’s got a house down in Los Angeles. Which is why I suppose he always calls you with assignments and never me.”

“Yes, but you know his...
leanings
, so to speak. Esalen is right up his alley. He’s attending a week-long seminar on remote viewing.”

“Remote viewing?”

“It’s a form of ESP. Allegedly, those with an aptitude for it can develop it with time and practice, hone it. Like... I don’t know... crocheting, or playing the accordion. It’s the ability to gather information about a person or place or event that’s outside the physical perception of the viewer. For example, using remote viewing, you might track the movements of a person who’s on the other side of the country.”

Gavin frowned. “With my mind?”

She nodded. “The CIA has done all kinds of research into it in the past, and for all we know, they may have used it. They
still
may be using it.”

“What’s Burgess want with it?”

“He writes horror novels. It’s grist for his mill.”

“So, he’s at Esalen for the whole weekend?”

“At least. It’s a resort-style conference center where people gather to meditate, discuss alternative science, the soul, philosophy and odd religious stuff, nutrition, whatever.”

He grunted. “Sounds like a circle jerk for people with too much money and time on their hands.”

“We think alike, Mr. Keoph. At least it’ll be pretty. Big Sur is gorgeous.”

Gavin turned his head to the right and looked out at the richly colored coast. “Everything is gorgeous around here. If Burgess is busy with this weird seminar, what does he want with us?”

“The usual. He has something for us to do. You know him. It couldn’t wait.”

“What’s with the ring size?”

Burgess had asked for their ring sizes. Left hand, wedding finger.

“I don’t know,” Karen said. “All I know is that he has someone there he wants us to meet, and then he’s going to give us another assignment.”

They were silent for awhile as Gavin drove. Finally, he frowned and turned to Karen. “They discuss ‘alternative science’? What is ‘
alternative
science’, anyway? I mean, there’s... empiricism, right? What other kind of science—I mean,
real
science—is there?”

Karen shrugged. “I’m okay, you’re okay? If it feels good, do it? That sort of thing.”

Gavin’s eyebrows rose and he nodded. “Ah, okay. Get in touch with your inner child. Make love, not war.”

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

“Sit on it, Potsie.”

Karen laughed.

Gavin shook his head slowly and said, “We are working for a loon.”

“Ah, yes, but he’s a loon who pays
very
well.”

Martin Burgess, the loon to whom they referred, was a writer of gruesome horror novels that routinely made the bestseller lists and were made into typically bad movies that yielded bigger box office receipts than they deserved. His work, combined with his quirky, witty personality, made him a frequent guest on talk shows.

“Did you see him on Letterman last week?” Gavin asked.

“Burgess? Sure. He and Letterman are good together.”

Gavin chuckled. “Letterman always acts like he’s a little afraid of him. It’s funny.”

“Anyone who’s read his books has got to be a little nervous about him at first. I mean, he writes some pretty... well, strange stuff. That last book, the one about the alien women with fanged vaginas—what kind of person thinks that stuff up?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Any man who’s dated for any length of time?”

“Chauvinist pig.”

“Ah, more seventies jargon.”

She laughed. “Burgess is harmless. He’s just got a wild imagination.”

“Oh, yeah, he’s a nice guy. I actually like him. He’s just... I don’t know.”

“A loon.”

“Yeah.”

The two of them had met two years earlier when Martin Burgess, whom they’d heard of but hadn’t known at the time, summoned them to the Beverly Hills Hotel. Karen was co-owner of Moffett and Brand Private Investigators in Los Angeles, and Gavin owned Burning Lizard Security and Investigations in San Francisco. Burgess had conducted a lengthy search for private investigators whom he felt were well-suited to his needs, and they were the best he’d found. He’d made them an offer—they were to farm out their current clients to other investigators in their employ and place their firms temporarily in the care of others while they devoted their full time to an investigation for Burgess, for which he would pay them handsomely.
Very
handsomely. Once they learned the details of the investigation, though, they saw the large paycheck in a different light. The whole thing—the investigation, the money—struck them both, at first, as the whim of a rich, happy lunatic.

In the course of that investigation, a number of people had been killed—some for the
second
time—and Karen and Gavin had come close to joining them. Karen’s fate had been especially dark, and it had taken her awhile to get past it. She’d put up a good front at first, but inside, a part of her had died. She had been kidnapped, tortured, beaten and brutally raped. Mrs. Dupassie, a petite old chocolate-colored woman who swore like a sailor, had helped them in their investigation, and she’d given Karen a lot of support afterward. Mrs. Dupassie had put her in touch with a psychiatrist, whom she still saw—Dr. Roderick Kincaid. These days, she saw him once or twice a month, but at first, she’d been in his home office four or five times a week. He had been very understanding—far more understanding than any typical psychiatrist would have been. He was not typical at all... just as Mrs. Dupassie was not typical....

Along with endangering their lives, it had changed the way they looked at the world. It had changed them. Both were well educated and, before that investigation, they had been in solid mental health. As Karen sometimes put it, “I drop something now and then, but I have most of my shit together.” But after that first investigation for Burgess, their beliefs, their outlooks, and their sanity had been shaken. Especially Karen’s. Afterward, she had not slept as well—she still didn’t. Gavin had been surprised to discover that he had a new fear of the dark. After conquering their initial fears of encountering anything as deadly or horrific as the things they’d faced in that first job, they’d worked on two more cases for Burgess. Neither investigation had turned out to be much of anything, which had been a tremendous relief to both Karen and Gavin.

It had been a difficult decision to go back to work for Burgess. Karen could not get the memories of her torture and rape at the hands of those...
creatures...
out of her mind, and she knew she never would. The risk of going through something like that again seemed great at first. But she began to realize that the chances of that were small. On top of that, Burgess had sweetened the pot with a bigger fee, and she’d been unable to turn it down. “It was a fluke,” Gavin had told her, and she knew he was probably right.

But they still didn’t talk about that first case. They’d tried a couple of times, but she had been unable to discuss it without stammering, without trembling and being unable to meet Gavin’s eyes. The experience had a great impact on them both, but it had scarred Karen. Daylight wasn’t so bad. But the nights were still tough at times, even after the passage of time. She’d come from a stoic family of people who kept their emotions locked up tight, so she seldom showed to anyone the damage that had been done. But it was there.

More than anything, the things they had discovered and faced during that investigation for Burgess had damaged the firm hold they each had on reality. After looking into the predatory eyes of creatures that were not supposed to exist, Karen and Gavin had come to wonder what
else
might be out there in the world... what other boogeymen they’d previously dismissed as fantasy were lurking in the shadows of hard, cold reality.

“That first time Burgess called,” Gavin said, “I was genuinely baffled. He wouldn’t tell me anything on the phone, wouldn’t say why he specifically wanted to see me. I offered to send someone from my firm, but he refused.”

“Yeah, same here. After he called, I dug up all the information I could find on him just out of curiosity.”

Gavin chuckled. “So did I.”

“That first time we met in the hotel, I figured it had something to do with his wife Denise. With her being so much younger, I figured he didn’t trust her. I thought maybe he wanted us to follow her around, see if she was cheating, or something.” After a pause, Karen said, “She finally left him, you know.”

“Well, I’m not surprised after—”

The air between them became thick. They both stared straight ahead at the road, silent, a little stiff.

Before they’d met him, Burgess had left Sheila, his wife of nearly twenty years, to marry Denise Sykes, one of his twenty-something writing students. During their initial investigation for Burgess, Denise, like Karen, had been raped and badly beaten due to her husband’s bungling. Also like Karen, she hadn’t been the same after that. But Denise had been much less able to handle the experience and had spent a little time in a mental hospital in Connecticut that specialized in the discreet treatment of celebrities.