Don't Read After Dark: Keep the lights on while reading these! (A McCray Horror Collection) (61 page)

Paxton just nodded, but Cecilia was still confused.

“I don’t get it.”

Her uncle turned to her. “The killer is selecting people based on the names of the saints.”

Oh, God! Helen. What had Sister Sarah said during catechism class? Saint Helen had died upon the crucifix. And Saint Paula had her fingernails pulled and her hair shorn.

“And killing them in the same manner,” Cecilia concluded.

* * *

Paxton nodded sadly. “I am afraid so.”

Cecilia had been through so much already. She shouldn’t have to carry the burden for this as well, but how could he avoid telling her? She was right. Like or not, she was deep in all of this.

He indicated the phone. “Ruth downloaded the Vatican’s
Guide to the Saints
.”

Diana Dahmer snatched the phone from Michael. “Let me see that.” Paxton tried to grab it back, but the sweaty singer slipped through his grasp. The band members converged around Dahmer.

Fine. Let them have it. Paxton had other problems. Like how to avoid being fried to death—and a maniac with a fascination for martyrs.

“Ha! I’m not in here!” Dahmer exclaimed.

Another band member shoved his way forward. “What about me?”

“Okay, Pancreas …” Dahmer said as he scrolled through the names.

“Pancreas?” Paxton could not help but ask. “Your name is Pancreas?”

“What?” the guy wearing purple lace Spandex said. “It’s the most important digestive organ in the body.”

Okay, that did not really answer Paxton’s question, but Dahmer’s face blanched.

“Oh, man … Panc, you get torn limb from limb.”

Another band member elbowed his way closer to Dahmer. “What about me?”

“Sixtus,” Dahmer murmured as he looked.

“No way! I’m next in the alphabet!” another band member argued.

“Fine,” Dahmer said. “Rage it is.”

Paxton rolled his eyes. These weren’t names—they were marketing ploys.

Dahmer shook his head. “There’s no Rage.” The shorter band member looked relieved until Dahmer followed up. “Wait, there’s a Ragener.”

Everyone looked at Ruth, who was watching the door. She glanced back. “Anglo derivations do seem to be fair game.”

“Oh, man! What’s my way?” Rage asked.

“It doesn’t say, except for an ‘extremely violent and painful death.’ ”

Rage leaned forward, grabbing his head in his hands. He rocked back and forth, moaning. Paxton was pretty damn sure the Stones would have taken this news way better.

“Come on, get to S,” the last band member insisted.

“Hold on, hold on.” Dahmer urged as he scrolled down. “Here it is. Six, or Sixtus.”

“Yes!” Sixtus stated, his eyes nervously trying to read over Dahmer’s shoulder. “What’s it say?”

Dahmer looked uncharacteristically somber. “Dude. You get run through by a dozen swords.”

“No f—ing way!” Six shouted as he backed away and ran into the wall, although he didn’t seem to notice.

Paxton snorted. That’s what they got for picking such idiotic names.

Ruth said from the door, “Diana, you had better check under your real name. He might be going off of that.”

The singer looked insulted, however. “Diana Dahmer is who I am.”

Paxton smacked the guy on the back of the head. “Your
legal
name, you moron!”

“I … I don’t ….”

“Julian,” Michael stated. “Julian is his given name.”

His secret outed, Dahmer—Paxton meant Julian—found his name. His lips opened, then shut. The phone slipped through his fingers. Only with quick reflexes did Michael catch it before it hit the ground.

The boy read from the screen. “Julian. Beheaded with a dull sword.”

The lead singer sank to the floor.

Okay, maybe Mick would have had the same response.

* * *

Cecilia hit the screen icon for the M category.

“No, I wanted to look you up,” Michael argued, but Cecilia was determined. She had to know.

She scrolled up, and then down. “There’s no Michael!”

Ruth shook her head. “No, Michael is an archangel. If the killer’s MO doesn’t change, you should be okay.”

Cecilia hugged Michael. “You’re safe!”

While he returned her hug, his frown remained. “We just better hope Maggie didn’t come to the concert…”

Cecilia read the entry next to Saint Margaret. “Eaten by a dragon and burned at the stake.

“A dragon?” Paxton questioned. He turned to Ruth as she shut the door. “How in the hell was he going to simulate a dragon?”

Ruth frowned. “How in the hell has he done what he has already?”

“Granted, our suspect is an altar boy, but it is one thing to kill one person at a time. It would give him time to prepare. But this? This is a whole other level of execution, so to speak.”

“And isn’t he a jock?” Ruth asked Cecilia.

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “He’s captain of the football team.”

She watched her uncle pace the floor. Her heart sank as the adults frowned. Cecilia had pinned her hopes on the adults, and especially two cops, knowing what to do next. That somehow they could make sense of all the pain.

But looking into her uncle’s face, Cecilia knew that no could ever make sense of what happened here.

* * *

What the hell was going on?
Paxton worried. Nothing had really added up since they had been assigned to the priest’s murder. Now, running around a burning mansion, hauling Diana Dahmer around, finding his niece, things were even more out of whack.

“We can’t hide here. We’ve got to find a way out of the building,” Ruth said.

No kidding.

“We’ll figure out the delusion later,” Paxton agreed.

“Let me see, Michael,” he heard Cecilia demand.

Paxton turned to find Michael holding the phone away from his niece.

“What did it say about Cecilia?” Ruth asked.

“Nothing much,” the younger man said, with an obviously forced smile. “She shares a name with a martyr. So we know she’s at risk. That’s enough.”

Paxton grabbed the phone away from Michael. What was the kid playing at? “I appreciate your attempting to shield my niece, but the mechanism may be important.”

Quickly, Paxton scanned the screen, reading the entry for Cecilia the Martyr. A lump formed in his throat.

“Michael’s right,” Paxton stated. “It has no bearing on the case.”

“What?” Cecilia said. “Let me see.”

Paxton slipped the phone into his pocket. He hadn’t done the best job protecting Cecilia from life. The least he could do was protect her from this.

“Come on,” Cecilia said. “I’m just going to imagine way worse than it is.”

Paxton glanced over at Michael, who frowned.

No. No, she couldn’t possibly imagine worse.

A loud
bang
came from the door. Ruth tried to open it, but could not.

“It’s locked from the outside,” she said, rattling the knob.

Then the steady sound of hammering filled the room.

Diana Dahmer said exactly what everyone was thinking. “Dear God! What now?”

* * *

With Paxton distracted by the hammering, Cecilia slipped her hand into his pocket and lifted the phone out.

“So is his MO changing? Locking us in here to burn to death?” Paxton asked Ruth.

Cecilia wasn’t sure if his partner answered him or not as she read the passage. Her fingers felt numb as Michael took the phone from her.

“It doesn’t mean that it’s going to go down like that,” Michael tried to reassure her.

But the words were burned in her mind. “Three days of torment. Being blinded and boiled?”

Michael pulled her into a fierce hug, but she barely felt it. The hammering had stopped, but the crackle of the fire in the hallway was plain to hear. She could see Paxton and Ruth slamming their shoulders into the door, but she didn’t make an effort to help. She knew that smoke was coming under the door, but she didn’t care.

Cecilia had seen the agony on Helen’s face. She had felt the torment in her voice. And the killer had her friend for what? An hour? Maybe it would be better to burn alive here. Better than what was promised to her for three full days of torture.

She heard Paxton cough and pull his shirt over his nose. “We had better come up with a plan B pretty damn quickly.”

Dahmer was sobbing in the corner as his bandmates kept throwing themselves fruitlessly against the door.

Then a noise came from behind them.

Cecilia did not even bother to turn around. It could be nothing good.

* * *

Ruth pulled her gun as she turned. The wall behind them buckled as someone pushed through from the other side. Paxton stepped beside her, his gun drawn as well.

They were ready for whatever came through that wall.

With one last heave, the wall gave way and a figure tumbled out.

“Hands up!” Paxton barked.

The figure rolled forward, whimpering.

She knew that whine. She loved that whine.

“Evan?”

The figure turned to her. “Mom?”

Evan scrambled up as she holstered her weapon.

“Mom! I’m sooooo sorry! I know that I’m in huge trouble—”

Ruth scooped him up into a hug. “Shh. I’m just glad you are here! Are you okay?”

“I twisted my ankle, but I’m good.”

Despite her son’s assurances, Ruth checked Evan’s vitals. Paxton came alongside.

“Where’s Jeremy?”

She held her shivering son as he answered, “I … I don’t know. We got split up and I was looking for him when the explosions happened.” He looked up at her. “Then I thought I heard Mom …” Evan sniffled. “So I followed her voice here.”

Ruth held him close. She closed her eyes. Even though smoke burned as she breathed in, Ruth couldn’t stop smelling her son’s hair. She never wanted to forget the smell. Screw overtime. Screw her job, if it came to that. She never wanted Evan to eat dinner alone again.

“I am all about reunions, but now that we have an exit…” Paxton indicated the hole in the wall.

She smoothed Evan’s hair and kissed him on the head as she answered her partner. “You’re right.” Ruth urged her son up as she turned toward Paxton. “Can you take point?”

“You know it.”

Hugging her son close to her, they got out of the death trap.

* * *

Paxton hauled ass—well, as fast as you
could
haul ass crawling through a tight air duct. He came to a junction. They could go right or left. He looked back at the rest of this ragtag group. They were streaked with soot and blood. Well, Cecilia and Michael had actual blood. The band was streaked with red-dyed corn syrup. How he wished the evening’s deaths were so fake.

They were up to three bodies and counting. Who knew how many dead bodies were going to be cremated in the fire? As the metal under his hands warmed, Paxton knew that they had better find a way out—or be added to that gruesome number.

“Which way?” he called back to Ruth.

She looked at her son. Evan pointed to the left, his voice tinny in the enclosed space. “That way takes us back to the stage.”

Which, of course, was on fire right now, so not a great option.

“What about to the right?” Paxton asked.

The boy frowned. “I’m not sure, but I think that leads to a loading dock.”

“Which means there is probably a door of some sort.” Maybe they caught a bit of luck.

“Then why aren’t you moving?” Dahmer whined from behind him.

Damn it, but the singer was right. Paxton made the right-hand corner. Not far down, he thought he saw a light. He turned his flashlight off.

“Hey!” Dahmer complained, but Paxton kept it off.

Sure enough, he did see a light not a few yards ahead. A nice, steady emergency light—not the flickering light of flames consuming the room they were headed toward. Could they really outrace the fire?

Turning the flashlight back on, Paxton hurried forward. As he approached the grating, he felt his pant leg tear. No biggie in the grand scheme of things. It wasn’t all that great a suit anyway, and he would sacrifice both trouser legs if it got them out of here.

Paxton reached the grating and surveyed the room beyond. It was really more of a wide hallway. Most importantly, a beautiful Exit sign glowed brightly at the far end of it. He pushed against the metal grate. Unfortunately, it was firmly attached. Using the butt end of the flashlight, Paxton hammered at a corner.

“Warn me next time!” Dahmer complained as he covered his ears.

What? Warn you that I am trying to save your stupid life?

Paxton didn’t bother to waste any breath, though. He just kept pounding at the grating. One corner finally gave in. He bent the metal as much as he could, but there was no way anyone was getting through that small a hole. He started on the other corner.

“Not to complain,” Ruth shouted from the back of the group, “But we’re heating up back here.”

Paxton glanced over his shoulder. Ruth was not exaggerating. The air was ruddy, and smoke crept forward in dark, dangerous tendrils. In an enclosed space like this, asphyxiation was much more likely than burning to death. And he really didn’t want to experience either. With renewed vigor, Paxton slammed the butt of the flashlight against the metal.

Plastic shards from the casing flew off. Paxton kept pounding until a loud
pop
sounded as the grating gave way. It clanged against the wall as Paxton hauled himself out of the opening. With not exactly as much skill as Evan, he rolled onto the floor, and then got to his feet.

Dahmer was already rushing like a crab out of the hole.

Rapidly, the others tumbled after him. He helped Cecilia to her feet, and found that her hand was bloody.

“What happened?” Paxton asked, as Michael crawled out behind her.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “There was something sharp back there.”

Yeah. Paxton’s leg had felt it, too. A little mystery they were not going to have time to solve.

He reached his hand out to help the next person, but no one waited at the opening. Paxton knelt and looked down the duct. Three people were clustered just a few feet down.

“What’s wrong?”

“It looks like Sixtus is stuck on something,” Ruth answered, and then turned to Evan. “Go on. I will catch up.”