Psycho Save Us (30 page)

“Don’t touch
her!” Kaley shouted and lunged.  But Oni, or rather Dmitry, was there to snatch
her by her hair, just as he’d done before, and yanked her back.  She fell to
her knees and he twisted her head back so that he could scream straight down
into her face.  Kaley didn’t understand a word he said, but she took the
meaning.  Dmitry finished by spitting in her face, then tossing her down onto
the white, cracked linoleum.

Olga sighed and whispered
something to Mikhael, the driver of the SUV, who nodded and turned to give the
jaundiced man an order.  Dmitry and the jaundiced man then led the girls
downstairs.  It was dark.  Oily shadows caressed and drew her forward.

They moved
slowly with Kaley in front, the men blocking their only exit.  They all had
their guns out.  It was strange, seeing such men afraid of what little girls
might do. 
Shannon showed them that we might fight
. 
They’re prepared
now
. 
And they’ve trapped us all by threatening not to kill the escapee,
but the one who remains behind
.

Even before the
lights were switched on, Kaley’s charm had already informed her.  She saw the
brightly-colored walls, the purple and pink unicorn cutouts that were taped up,
the pink bearskin rug and the colorful teddy bears.  She saw it all a full two
seconds before the lights came on and showed her exactly all that.

The
low-ceilinged basement had many rooms.  There were doors all around them, but
all of them were closed.  There was a sandbox, and an area where a small
playground had been erected—a playground designed for children no older than
three or four.  There was glitter on the ceiling, along with stars and moons
and galaxies.  But, dominating most of the ceiling was a wide, holographic
rainbow.  Kaley stared up at it.  It was something she would find incredibly
pretty if she weren’t in this predicament.  From this point forward, rainbows
would be objects of dreadful portent.

The lighting in
the room was quite spectacular, and came from every direction.  Special
spotlights covered every little “scene,” including a section that was as big as
Kaley’s room and Shannon’s room put together, and it was filled with
dollhouses.

If Kaley didn’t
know instinctively that this was a place where children were raped and
murdered, she would’ve thought it a lovely place to spend her afternoon playing
with Little Sister.  Knowing it caused every slide, every doll, and every
rainbow to assume grotesque depths and dimensions.

Everything
smelled fresh.  Nothing like upstairs, which had the smell of old men.  No,
down here everything was sanitized and made perfect.  Lysol disinfectant cans
sat on a table close by, as did a vacuum cleaner and a broom.  There was a
mop…slightly tinted red.  Beside the table was an array of video cameras,
including a Canon Rebel T3i on a tripod (which she recognized because her
friend Shala’s dad had had one briefly), and a bunch of microphones situated on
long, metal poles.  There was a rack of children’s clothes nearby, everything
from schoolgirl uniforms to bunny rabbit costumes, from a pink tutu to a Team
Jacob shirt.

“You…fucking
freaks,” she breathed, turning to look at her captors, who had just finished
cutting off Shannon’s and Bonetta Harper’s gags.  “What are you going to do to
us?  How will you fucking live with yourselves?”

Dmitry didn’t
acknowledge a word she’d said.  He pointed to a door at the far end of the
basement and said, “Over there.”

“If you wanna
kill us, then do it right here.  Right now.  This…this is fucking…”

“I told you, we
don’t want to kill you,” Dmitry laughed, glancing over at his brother Mikhael. 
“We want to fuck you.”  They laughed together.

Kaley felt
nauseous.  But instead of throwing up, Shannon did.  Little Sister collapsed to
the floor and started retching all at once.  Kaley’s nausea had passed from her
to Shan via the charm, the Anchor, she was sure of it. 
Why can’t I do
something useful with it, like pass it on to Dmitry and the rest of these
monsters?
  Then, while kneeling and hugging her sister, she thought,
Why
can’t
I?

Dmitry had
stopped laughing long enough to shout up to Olga in Russian, presumably to tell
her to come clean up this mess.  Kaley tried to send a wave of her own nausea
and fear outward.  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to focus
it.  For a second, for just one single second, she had it in her hands.  It was
like trying to hold onto a large balloon filled with water without dropping it
and letting it explode.  Kaley directed it at Dmitry quickly, and fumblingly flung
this…this…
thing
at him.

There was a
moment where she felt it strike him.  She
felt
it.  Dmitry, halfway
through screaming at Olga, stopped, lurched, and belched.  Mikhael laughed and
slapped his brother on the back.  Then, perhaps he caught some of it, too,
because he staggered back uncertainly, though still laughing.

The two monsters
regained themselves.  “
Boleesh?
” Mikhael chuckled.

“
Net, net
,”
Dmitry said, waving his brother away.  But Dmitry’s lips looked incredibly
pale, his face drained.  He waved at the three girls.  “Go.  Over there.  In
that room.”  It had worked.  For the briefest of moments, her charm had worked
for
her.  She had been able to manage it in such a way as to make it a weapon.  But
could she do it again?  She tried, but it was no good.  She couldn’t even get a
grasp on what she was trying to do.  The power, if it could be called such, was
gone for the moment.

Kaley looked at
her sister and held her hand.  “Are you okay?”

Then, her sister
asked her the most innocent question.  “K-K-Kaley, what do they m-m-mean,
fuck
? 
Wh-what does it mean?  I mean,
really
m-mean.”

“We’re not gonna
die,” she whispered fervently.  “We’re not.  You have to hold on to that. 
’Kay?”

With the Anchor
reforged for the moment, Shannon showed a surprising bit of resilience to the
moment.  “M’kay,” she whimpered and wiped her eyes.  Then she said, “I threw
up.”

“I know.”

“You made me.”

“I know,” Kaley
said.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to.”  And just like that, they were
discussing the charm, as though it had been a secret kept between them all
their lives, something that was thoroughly known.

Nearby, the
Harper girl sat with her back against the wall, her hands clutching her cross.

“I said,
get
up
!” Oni shouted, reaching down and yanking them to their feet by their
elbows.  “In that room!  Now!”  Shannon’s throw-up spell had left him in a
terrible mood, and almost throwing up himself left him…embarrassed?  Yes, she
sensed that.  He and his brother had a lifelong game of I’m Better Than You
going, and in Dmitry’s mind Mikhael was always in the lead.  Vomiting in front
of his older brother—older? yes, it seemed that way—had set him back even more
in their competition.

They stepped
around the various scenes, but had to walk through the sandbox to get to the
room.  Here, at the door, Kaley paused.  There was a smudge on the floor, a
dark-red stain that she was not stupid enough to discount as spilled fruit
punch, though Shan might have.

Kaley now felt
other things.  Coldness.  Fear.  Fear from all around.  The walls of this
low-ceilinged basement were saturated with it.  Fear and pain and degradation. 
Nan had told her that her charm would allow her to feel the imprint others left
on certain things, certain objects, certain rooms.  Kaley had never really
experienced anything like it until now.

She
heard…screaming.  She empathized with old fear and humiliation.  It saturated
her
.

As Mikhael opened
the door, Kaley dropped to her knees.  Dmitry put his shoe to her back and
shoved her inside.  Mikhael turned on the lights.  It was a room with two beds,
a mirror on one wall, a sink and a shower with no curtain.  There was a wooden
table with four foldout metal chairs, on top of which was stacked four board games:
Monopoly, Candyland, Battleship and Hungry Hungry Hippos.  There was a certain
inviting quality to the room, one that made her sick again and she tried to
redirect it at her nemesis.

“We bring you
food later,” Oni said, unfazed this time.

The door was
shut behind them.  There was a sharp clicking sound from the other side.  She
could hear Dmitry and Mikhael talking to one another as they ascended the
steps.  Kaley stood slowly, her legs turning to water for a moment before
stabilizing.  She tested the doorknob, and of course it was locked.

Then, there came
a wailing like Kaley had never heard before.  Shannon leapt into her sister’s
arms.  But it wasn’t Shan who was wailing.  It was the Harper girl.  She was
backing up against a wall, clawing at her face for a second before falling on
her ass and crying into her palms.  “This isn’t happening…this isn’t
happening…this isn’t happening…this isn’t happening…”

Fear, old and
new, washed over Kaley.  She was the bearer of her sister’s burden, the bearer
of Bonetta Harper’s, and the bearer of every single child who had occupied this
room before.

“I’m scared,
Kaley,” Shannon said, shivering in her arms like a freezing puppy fresh out of
its bath.

“It’s all right,
Shan,” she said soothingly.  “It’s all right.  We’re going to be fine.  The
police will find us soon.”

“You promise?”
Shan whimpered.

Kaley nodded. 
“I promise.”  She thought,
They’ll rape us until we die
.

The dead body of
Spencer Adam Pelletier wasn’t a satisfying sight for Leon, despite what Agent
Porter had told him about the man.  He needed the SOB alive to tell him what he
knew about Kaley and Shannon Dupré, but it appeared he might just take that
secret to his grave—

“It’s not him,”
Agent Porter pronounced before he’d even reached the body.  “That’s not our
Musashi.”

Or maybe not. 
“You sure?”

“This guy’s
nearly bald, and not nearly pale enough.  He’s white, though, and wearing a
black hoodie.  In a black neighborhood like this I can see why your people
thought they’d bagged him.  Close enough, in other words, but no cigar.”  He
pronounced it
cee-gar
.

The body lying
on the sidewalk in front of Leon was that of a heroin addict, that much was
certain.  The sleeves of his hoodie were pulled up and both his arms had tracks
going up and down them.  He had a quizzical look on his face, like somebody had
just stumped him with the Double Jeopardy question of the day.  Blood leaked
from his nose and mouth, as well as from the center of his chest, where Officer
Grissom had tapped him twice.  The .44 he’d drawn had been kicked away from
reach of his hand, lest today be the first day of the zombie apocalypse.

Other officers
were now on the scene, as was yet another ambulance. 
We’re running them
ragged tonight
.  He walked over to Officer Grissom who was halfway through
retelling his story to the other officers for the fifth time.  “—and the neighbors
reported seeing him snoopin’ around, too.  I, uh, I knew they’d been reporting
a Caucasian snoop for weeks now.  They filed a complaint, so we added this
little alley here to our new patrol for the last couple of weeks.  I happened
by here, saw this guy, saw that he matched the description of the guy on the
APB.  I got out, asked him for his papers, that’s when he threw down.”

“Did you see
anybody else with him?” Leon asked, butting in.  He shot his hand out.  “Hi. 
Grissom, right?”

“Yeah, Detective
Hulsey, right?”

“You got it.”

“No, I didn’t
see anybody else with him.  But he’s your guy, right?”

“Nope,” Leon
said.  “Not according to Agent Porter over there, anyway.”  He pointed to the
bearded agent, now hunched over the deceased heroin addict’s body. 

When Leon looked
back at Officer Grissom, the man looked crestfallen.  “Well, shit,” he said. 
“I thought for sure that he…hey, look, he threw down on me anyway!  Must’ve had
somethin’ to hide.”

“Yeah, must
have.”  But Leon wasn’t certain the dead man had thrown down first, and he
wasn’t going to go there, at least not tonight.  He had bigger fish to fry.

He walked over
to Agent Porter, who was just standing up and finishing sending off a text. 
“There’s no ID on this guy,” he said.  “Just an unfortunate white boy moving
through a neighborhood on a night when a few dozen pissed off cops were looking
for a white boy who nearly killed two of their own.  Shitty-ass luck, you ask
me.”

“Pelletier and
our girls are still out here somewhere.  White boy can’t be too far, he doesn’t
have a car.”

Porter inclined
his head.  “You sure about that?  He hotwired yours fast enough.”

Leon had to
admit that it had only been wishful thinking.  He nodded.  “Yeah.”

“I didn’t get a
chance to force this issue back at Hillside Apartments, but I really feel I
must do so now,” Porter said.  Leon looked at him.  The next words came as no
surprise, he’d known this was coming.  “I’m gonna need to know the name and
whereabouts of this contact of yours that spotted Pelletier and gave you Basil
O’Connor’s information.”