Shattered (15 page)

“Use it wisely, Ulysses, for it can reach places best left unreached.”

Science and the military called it “remote viewing.” First studied by the Russians in the 1960s, and later recruited in this country in classified CIA programs, the remote viewer is a highly specialized psychic who can see “remotely” through the eyes of enemy combatants. The viewer can see inside enemy installations or aircraft or fortresses, gleaning invaluable data, describing in great detail the secret workings of the enemy. But what Grove was doing inside that caul was seeing through the eyes of something else altogether, some dark, sentient being coming out of the earth.

Was it Factor X?

Something deep down inside Grove's very being told him to put the caul back on.

He did.

A moment later he saw again through the eyes of something crawling out of hell.

 

“Hello?”

Henry's feeble voice echoed dully as the elevator reached the bottom of the shaft, and the door jiggered open onto the passageway.

The stone walls vibrated with monstrous snarling noises, which were now so loud they drowned the thumping of Henry's heart. A single bare lightbulb hung from the stalactites thirty feet away, casting a sickly yellow skein of light down the tunnel. The Hillbilly's door was open. Henry could see the dull bluish glow of a bug zapper flickering out of the opening. He passed the Hillbilly's locker.

The silhouette of a lanky, weathered hit man lurked in the corner, leaning against the wall, having a cigarette, the growling noise practically drowning his sleepy drawl. “Watch yourself, pardner.”

“What is it?” Henry asked, pausing, staring in at the tall man.

The orange tip of the cigarette bobbed. “New guy. Very nasty piece of work.”

Henry noticed something odd at the end of the tunnel, about twenty feet beyond the Hillbilly's lair. Up until tonight, the subterranean corridor had always ended at that very spot, terminating in a graffiti-slashed wall of stone. But now, as the inhuman growling noise rose to bone-rattling levels, Henry saw that a
new
storage area had magically appeared.

It lay in the shadows to the left of the dead end, a
fresh tunnel
, fringed in roots, and uneven, as though hastily excavated by moles from the
inside
out.

Something was emerging from it, something huge and dark and subhuman.

 

Grove didn't notice the air around him seizing inward like a bellows, making the tiny sacred flames wag in unison on the invisible currents. He didn't see the gelatinous substance oozing out of the walls like black sweat while his brain crackled and fizzled, a shortwave receiving some strange signal from the darkness and making the venetian blinds buzz like angry hornets. Even if he had seen all this, he wouldn't have cared by that point.

He was in some kind of hypnotic zone, his emotions syncing up with the invisible battle in his brain.

“Come out!” he called to the empty basement, rising to his full height, still blinded by the caul on his head. He staggered, struggling for balance, then turned slowly around like a boxer poised to fend off an onslaught, fists clenched tightly.

“Whatever the hell you are! Come on! Come out!”

The darkness around him shimmered and resonated like a tuning fork. The windows rattled and hummed. Grove's brain crackled with memories of Factor X, the pale, hideous face of murder-lust.

The face of the enemy.

“Come out, you son of a bitch!”

 

Henry moved toward the gaping hole in his hallucinatory world, at once repulsed by it as well as drawn to it. The opening exuded a sort of breath smell, a sharp musky stench like rotting meat or the inside of a garbage can. And that deep baritone growl, now reaching otherworldly proportions, issued out of the dark aperture like a hellish, amplified aria.

Part of Henry wanted to turn tail and run away, climb out of there as quickly as possible, but he could not resist taking those last few paces toward the newcomer's lair. The growling engulfed him like a poisonous liquid, seeping into his ears and his brain and marrow as he approached the opening.

The impossibly deep noise began to change, transforming into a hum that sounded as if it came from the ocean floor.

“Who—who's there?” Henry could hardly breathe as he stepped in front of the opening.

 

Grove flinched.

He ripped the caul from his head, dropped it to the floor like a dead leaf.

An echo of a scream had filled his brain, a
non-sound
, like a snippet of a tape recording running off the track, but very familiar. His brain swam with confusion for a moment, unfocused rage and fear making his eyes water, blinding him. Without warning the flickering yellow light from the circle of candles flared brightly, spontaneously bloating as though a power surge had jolted through the foundation. One of the candles fell over, sending a pool of wax across the papers. Grove gazed around the basement, too stunned to register what was happening. He felt a puff of heat on his face, his flesh prickling with the pressure spike.

What was happening? Warning alarms were going off inside him.

He smelled the smoke before he saw the flames. The caul lay on the floor, a few feet away from Grove, on top of a fan-fold of DNA results…smoldering. He stared incredulously at it for a moment, as though staring at a dream. The edges sputtered and curled and burned as though stoked by invisible wind. Grove stood there, paralyzed with awe as crackling sounds rose behind him, emanating from the rafters and the joists.

Grove's house was burning.

 

Henry looked inside the cave, and for one brief instant, he saw the figure—or the creature or the ghost or
whatever
—standing in the center of that empty crater like a blackened pit in the core of a rotten piece of fruit.

“Oh.”

Henry froze. Stopped breathing. Eyes bugging. Flesh turning to ice. Staring, staring, staring for that horrible instant of absolute terror before something popped like a fuse overloading, and then something dark and glittery and weightless jumped out at Henry with cobralike suddenness.

Henry slammed backward as though struck by an invisible tank.

The dull light went out completely.

Darkness flooded Henry Splet, changing him forever.

By dawn, the indigo sky above West Knoll, Virginia, flared and flickered with brilliant tendrils of light. The fire was visible as far north as downtown Alexandria, and as far south as the hills above Quantico. Great heaving clouds of black smoke rose off the gabled roof peaks, choking the sunrise, staving off daylight, while a virtual armada of emergency vehicles surrounded the two-story, their chaser lights spinning luminous red and blue ribbons through the misty morning air.

It had taken less than an hour for the fire at 2215 Cottage Creek Drive to rage out of control.

In the basement, Grove had valiantly tried to snuff it out, first with towels from the wet bar, then with a small fire extinguisher that he found under the sink. But it had been futile. It was as though the caul had exuded accelerant across the scattered documents. Within minutes, the flames were climbing the walls of the basement, licking up the vent conduits and staircase.

At that point Grove wrapped himself in damp towels and escaped through one of the window wells.

When he got outside he realized there were others in harm's way. The Tactical officers watching over the backyard had come into the house through the back door, looking for Grove, their shouts drowned by the roaring flames. Meanwhile, in front, the patrolmen who had been absently watching the house had immediately called in the fire to 911, and then gained entrance through the front door. Unfortunately, by the time the beat cops met up with the two Tac guys in the kitchen, the fire, which had originated in the basement, had already reached critical mass. The floor under the stove began to cave. The joists were cracking, the smoke billowing up from the furnace registers.

Outside, coming around the side of the house, coughing up scorched air, Grove heard the first cries coming from the kitchen. The floor was collapsing. Grove immediately leapt up the porch steps and plunged into the tide of thick smoke roiling out of the living room.

The majority of all fire-related fatalities result from smoke inhalation. The poisonous cocktail of hydrocarbons, sulfur, carbon monoxide, and corrosive gases can disable a person within seconds, taking their life within minutes. These super-heated toxins are often invisible, which is why fire-fighters commonly utilize breathing apparatus upon entry. Grove, unfortunately, had no such protection as he lumbered blindly across the smoke-flooded living room, a handkerchief pressed to his mouth, eyes stinging.

Timbers popped and cracked like pistol shots as the heat radiated down on him. He tasted bitter, charred almond on his throat as he searched the archway into the kitchen. Voices pierced the din. He saw the dull, bleary ghosts of men staggering toward him.

“Out! Get out now!”

One of the men hollered a hoarse warning as Grove reached the injured patrolman. The cop had fallen, had maybe broken his leg trying to save Grove. Grove put his arm around the limping patrolman and ushered him toward the exit. The others followed, coughing and hacking. These were seasoned law enforcement men, hardened cops who had seen all manner of emergencies, but not one of them had ever witnessed a house fill up with smoke and burn out of control this swiftly.

Grove and the others stumbled out in to the dawn, gasping for air, wheezing and coughing uncontrollably, as the building went up behind them.

 

The pale light of dawn shone down through skylights and reflected off the immaculate tiles of the new Eastern Missouri Amtrak Station, just south of St. Louis. At this hour, commuters were flooding the turnstyles, an orderly stampede of Brooks Brothers suits, briefcases, and folded newspapers, jockeying for position in front of the Texas Eagle 7:09. Voices echoed and bodies milled through the arched track gates, as plumes of vapor swirled along the platform. Nobody seemed to pay much attention to the apparently crazy, homeless man shuffling along the rear cars of the train.

Dressed in a stolen raincoat and scarf, the torn hem of a bloody skirt barely visible underneath, broken-down sneakers on his feet, the man seemed to be arguing with the voices in his head. He approached the steps leading up to the rear coach, and one of the porters, a big, stout-bellied black man in a smart blue uniform, put out a hand.

“Hold it there, cousin…afraid this here's as far as ya go this mornin'.”

The mysterious man held out a hand. The porter was taken aback.

In the man's dirty palm was a ticket.

 

Grove watched the last pillars of his house go up in smoke from the back hatch of an ambulance. Ears ringing, nose and eyes stinging from the smoke, he had an oxygen mask over his mouth and a blanket draped over his shoulders. He was glad the mask was there, not necessarily because he needed the oxygen, but because he didn't want the good old boys to see him crying. The tears that tracked down his face under the mask were not from the smoke. He was sobbing, watching a part of his life vanish before his eyes—not to mention a quarter-million dollars' worth of FBI communication gear. Up in the flames went Aaron's crib; the wedding pictures; Maura's portfolios; old mementos from his late first wife, Hannah—things like anniversary cards and lockets and ties she had given Grove. Grove watched the maelstrom engulf the second floor and he sobbed. He sobbed for his past, he sobbed for his uncertain future.

At length, the grief passed through him like a receding storm, leaving behind feelings scoured clean like bleached bones left on a beach at low tide. What remained in his guts was something like anger, but not exactly. His family was gone. His home was gone. An animal in the wild, when roused out of its nest, will bristle with fight instinct. Claws protrude. Eyes dilate. Grove knew in his marrow that he had awakened something in that basement, he had triggered something beyond his ability to understand or put into words.

Now he hungered to face it.

“Agent Grove?”

The voice came from behind the ambulance, and Grove whirled around in time to see Walter Maksym, a heavyset field agent from Quantico, approaching from the street. The morning sun, diffused by the smoke, put a halo behind the big, graying man as he approached in his ill-fitting sport coat.

“Got the section chief on the horn,” he announced as he came around in front of Grove.

Grove peeled off his mask and took the cell phone. “Grove here.”

“Jesus H. Christ in a handcart!” the voice boomed on the other end.

“Good morning to you, too.”

“I can't leave for one day?”

“Like the man says, ‘Feces occurs.'”

“What happened?”

“I don't know what happened.”

There was a strange pause then. Grove could almost hear Tom Geisel's wheels turning. At last the voice said, “None of this is coincidental, is it?”

There was a muffled crash inside the house. Agent Maksym, who was watching Grove from a distance, flinched nervously. A fireman yelled. Grove let out a sigh. “As a matter of fact, Tom, no…it's not.”

“Lemme guess: You can't tell me what's going on because you're not sure yourself.”

“Something like that.”

“You're sure you're okay.”

“I'm still working the case, Tom.” Grove wiped ash from his T-shirt. “Believe it or not.”

“That's good…because there's been a break.”

“Excuse me?”

“There's been a break in the Ripper case. St. Louis Tactical is processing the scene as we speak.”

Grove shook his head, icy cold stabbing his gut. “Jesus. How many this time?”

“Three. But there's more to it.”

“Excuse me?”

After a long pause, the voice said, “They found his souvenirs.”

Grove gripped the cell phone tighter. “What are you telling me?”

“They found his lair, Uly. The sick shit. They got enough physical evidence now to bury him.”

“Wait a minute, what are you saying?” Grove's chest tightened. “Are you saying we got a positive ID?”

“That's exactly what I'm saying. Now look. I want you to go down to—”

“I'm on my way.” Grove dropped the cell phone, threw off the blanket, and started across the lawn. “Agent Maksym!”

“Sir?” The big man scooped up his phone, then hurried to catch up. “What's the deal?”

“Gonna need a chopper scrambled out of Langley on the double, got that?”

“Got it.” Maksym was already punching in the numbers. “St. Louis, right?”

“That's right.”

Grove was half way across the cul-de-sac when the roof of his house collapsed in a gusher of flaming debris behind him.

He barely noticed.