The Soul Collectors (7 page)

Darby hopped out. She kicked him on to his stomach. When he tried to roll on to his back, she brought her heel down against his shoulder and kept it there, pinning him to the ground. Using her knife, she began cutting the net.

As she worked, the sharp blade slicing through the webbing, she found the source of his pain: he had fractured his wrist during the fall. It made her think of Charlie, how his bones had snapped when she’d grabbed his wrist and twisted. No doubt something like that could happen – and no doubt the force of being smashed against the side of the head with an elbow could dislodge a tooth or two. But she had knocked out
several
teeth. Charlie was painfully thin, covered in scars. She wondered if he had weak, malnourished bones from time spent in captivity.

Captivity
, an inner voice questioned.

Yes. After his abduction, Charlie Rizzo had been forced to live somewhere, enduring daily beatings, torture, and God only knew what else.

So you’re buying that he is, in fact, Charlie Rizzo.

A part of her did, she supposed. At the moment she didn’t know what else to think.

Darby tucked the knife in her trouser pocket then prised the netting off the man’s body, surprised at its sticky strength. She cuffed him, then helped him to his feet.

Knife in hand again, she cut the straps for the man’s tactical vest, the same model as the ones used by NH SWAT.

The people entering the house were dressed as SWAT officers; they must have grabbed the vests and gas masks from the back of the APC, after the men had been poisoned.

That meant a plan had been put in place before her arrival. They had been near by, watching.

But why grab Mark Rizzo? Why not just kill him like Judith Rizzo and the twins, whose remains were now shredded into unrecognizable bits and scattered across the woods? Why did these people need the father?

Darby ripped the gas mask off the man’s face. The fresh air would help clear the burning from his lungs, nose and throat. But not his eyes; she’d have to rinse them with water.

‘Where has Mark Rizzo been taken?’

The man didn’t answer, too busy hacking, but she felt him stiffen underneath her grip. His clothing was entirely black. Black trousers and boots; and the strange fabric of a heavy black long-sleeved shirt that resembled the one Charlie had worn. She wondered if his body had the same severe scarring as Charlie’s.

The man’s head certainly did. He was bald, and on the back of his head and neck she saw scars in all shapes and sizes. And a tattoo: words and letters written in the centre of his neck, the light blue ink so faint she couldn’t read it. She needed light.

She grabbed him by the collar and pressed the tip of the blade against the back of his neck.

‘We’re going for a walk. Try anything and I swear to Christ I’ll sever your spine and you’ll spend the rest of your life as a quadriplegic, pissing and shitting into diapers.’

She gave him a shove and started walking. The elderly homeowner had placed a big white plastic bucket on the front steps. All the inside house lights had been turned on, and she caught shadows whisking behind the curtains. When she reached the bucket, she turned the man around to get a better look at the tattoo in the light.

Two rows of tiny letters and numbers:

ET IN ARCADIA EGO

III-XI-XXIV

Roman numerals. Latin words.

Darby picked up the bucket, finding a scrub brush and a bottle of Palmolive inside. The bucket had a big metal handle for easy carrying. She draped it around her arm and pushed her prisoner to the side of the house, finding the hose neatly draped over a holder. The window above it threw a square of light on a lawn covered with autumn leaves.

She dropped the bucket. Withdrawing the knife from his neck, she tossed him over her leg and pushed him face first against the grass near the hose. He screamed, blowing leaves away from his mouth. She dug a knee into the small of his back, pinning him against the ground, and reached for the tap. Over the sound of running water, she heard footsteps moving towards the lighted windows above her.

After she filled the bucket with soap and water, Darby rolled the man over. His bloodshot, weeping eyes kept trying to blink away the burning. She flushed them with running water, and for the first time got a good, clear look at the man’s face, with its network of scars both deep and faint, his egg-white skin so pale it almost seemed translucent, as though it had never been exposed to the sun.

She took the brush with its hard bristles full of suds and water and began to scrub down his face, head and neck. He kept twisting underneath her, hacking and coughing up the soapy water running down his throat and nose. By the time she had finished, his skin was red and raw, and his hacking had subsided to deep, body-racking coughs.

She dropped the brush, picked up the knife and sliced the shirt right down the middle. When she pushed back the fabric, she discovered the same thick, latticed scars that had covered Charlie’s emaciated chest. As if scoops of flesh had been carved out. This man had a little bit more weight on him but not much. She could see his ribcage bulging against the ragged, scrawny flesh as she scrubbed him down with the brush.

Then the scar pattern hit her.

‘Who whipped you?’

He moaned an answer she couldn’t understand.

‘Say it again.’

He started coughing. She cut off the rest of the shirt and tossed the pieces to the side. Darby rolled him over so that she could see his back.

Dear God Jesus
.

13

Positioned in the centre of the man’s back, between his shoulder blades and sitting directly on top of his spine, was a black rectangular device the size of a matchbook. The device had grooved edges, and someone had sewn it into the man’s skin. No redness or infection.

A small green light blinked steadily.

‘What is this?’ Darby asked, tapping the device with her finger.

He turned his head to the side and moaned. Soapsuds bubbled from the corners of his mouth. Or was it the poison? If it had entered his system, he’d go into respiratory distress at any moment. She’d have only a few minutes to question him before he died.

She grabbed the tactical knife. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted shadows crowding the window.

She didn’t want witnesses, so she stood up, grasping the man under the armpits, feeling his wet, soapy body shivering in the cold as she pulled him to his feet. His legs wobbled, about to tip over. Grabbing his belt and the cuffs wrapped around his wrists, she pushed him past the side of the house and into the backyard. Then she marched him into the pitch-black woods where they’d have privacy.

Their heavy footsteps snapped the dry branches lining the ground. In between coughs she could hear him fighting to breathe.

A moment later she found a suitable tree well away from the home’s back windows. She cut through the cuffs and kicked his legs out from underneath him, pushing him into a sitting position. He didn’t try to run or fight, just sat there slumped back against the tree. She pulled his arms behind the tree trunk and bound his wrists with a fresh pair of Flexicuffs.

Darby wanted a record of this conversation. She didn’t have her digital recorder and didn’t want to rely on memory. Her iPhone had a recording application, but it could store only about a minute or so of conversation, and that –

Darby stood, tucking the knife in her belt, and grabbed her iPhone. The colour screen came to life, parting some of the darkness as she moved around the tree dialling her home number. In the distance she heard what sounded like a helicopter engine – probably a news copter wanting to capture all the chaos and carnage.

‘Question and answer time,’ she said after hearing the
beep
of her answering machine on the other end of the line. ‘Let’s start first with that device attached to your back. What is it? What does it do?’

The phone’s screen had gone dark. She held it close to the man’s mouth. He tried to speak over the moaning but she couldn’t make out the words.

She knelt next to him. ‘Is it some sort of GPS device?’

A cough and then he moaned a word that, oddly, sounded like ‘quiche’.

‘GPS,’ she said. ‘Global Positioning System?’

Again the moan, followed by the slurred
quiche
-sounding word.

‘Do you speak English?’

‘
Aaaa-ho … na … ah-nah-ho.
’

He spoke like a man who’d had his jaw broken.

Darby placed the phone on his lap, grabbed the flashlight from her belt and turned it on, shining the narrow beam in his face.

The man’s bright blue eyes were wild, feral-looking. The sides of his egg-white, veiny face were bloody and swollen from the blows, but his jaw appeared to be working fine. He coughed, spitting out blood mixed with the soapsuds or possibly poison, and when he tried to speak, letting out that deep, moaning sound, Darby discovered why she couldn’t understand him. His tongue had been cut out.

14

Darby recoiled not so much in fear as in shock. Her head snapped back, as though this …
thing
might eat her.

She started to tumble backwards until her gloved hand found the leafy ground. She didn’t fall but realized she had dropped her flashlight. She found it quickly, snatched it up and pointed the bright, narrow beam into the … what? Not a man’s face. This … creature sitting less than a foot from her had human eyes, a human mouth and lips (
but no tongue because someone had removed it along with his teeth, he doesn’t have any teeth either
) yet whatever had made him a man had died long ago. Now he was thrashing from side to side, howling, his eyes clamped shut and jerking his face away from the light. Then his scarred body started jerking. Convulsing.

He’s infected
.

The thing vomited, spraying her mask.

Darby fell this time, deliberately letting go of the flashlight. She wiped at her mask as she stumbled back to her feet and started running, the vomit, hot and wet, clinging to her scalp and skin. Not looking back, she sprinted out of the woods, feeling the vomit sliding across the edges of the mask protecting her eyes, nose and mouth. She pressed the mask firmly against her face to keep the seal tight.
He’s infected and now whatever’s killing him is lying on my skin.

She reached the side of the house and clutched the hose’s spray nozzle. She kept the mask pressed against her face as she lay on the ground and started spraying cold water over her face and hair. She could see the black sky, the dark outlines of the tall pines, and over the jet spray drumming against her mask she heard the man’s ungodly howls coming from the woods.

The helicopter’s engine was growing louder and louder. She jumped to her feet and started spraying down her vest, catching sight of a searchlight sweeping across the treetops in the distance. She also saw, crowding the lit window next to her, the frightened faces of the elderly man and a woman dressed in a pink bathrobe with white hair wrapped tightly in curlers.

The searchlight was now moving across the street, searching for the APC. Darby dropped the hose, her boots waterlogged and her soaked clothing clinging against her skin. She ran for the street, stopping near the APC and, shivering, looked up at the sky, waving her hands.

The searchlight switched direction. The bright beam whisked across the street, heading her way, and then stopped as the copter began its descent. The spinning blades kicked up leaves, small pebbles and assorted street grit and trash, blowing everything into the air.

The copter didn’t have enough room to land. It hovered in the air so close she could make out the pilot.

The hatch opened. Ropes were thrown into the air and she watched, with a growing relief, as four people rappelled to the ground.

They all wore dark green hazmat suits with thick rubber boots and gloves tied off at the elbows, their gas masks connected to oxygen tanks strapped across their backs. They approached cautiously as the copter rose back into the air.

Darby started moving towards them and the one in the lead put up both hands, signalling for her to stop.

‘Stay right where you are and keep the mask on your face.’ The deep male voice had a mechanical echo over the mask’s speakers. ‘Where’s Darby McCormick?’

‘I am.’ Darby heard the words in her mask but not over the voice amplification system.
The water must have shorted it
. She tapped a finger against her chest.

‘We need to decontaminate you,’ the same male voice said. ‘Just stand there and stay calm.’

A spray gun was pointed at her. Foam, thick and white, sprayed across her chest. It covered her mask and when she went to wipe it away she felt hands grip her wrists.

‘Stay calm,’ the same man said, closer now. She wondered if it was Glick, the man she’d spoken to on the BU hotline. ‘We’re going to help you sit on –’

‘The prisoner is in the woods behind the house,’ Darby shouted, praying to God one of them could hear her over the hiss coming from the spray nozzle and the copter’s dying but still loud engine. ‘He’s in the woods –’

Hands gripped her roughly. ‘Stand still, we’ve got to cover –’

‘
Listen to me.
The prisoner is in the woods behind the house, about twenty klicks north. He’s tied to a tree, and he’s infected.’

‘We’re going to help you to the ground.’

She let the hands guide her down, shouting, ‘He’s one of them – one of the intruders from the Rizzo house. He’s our only link, you’ve got to see if you can treat him.’

Sitting, she felt a pair of rubber hands cradling the back of her neck.

‘Lie back, Miss McCormick.’

‘
Did you hear what I said? You need to treat him.
’

She didn’t get a response. Rough hands pushed her back against the ground and then she couldn’t see, as a thick, shaving-foam-like substance covered her mask. She couldn’t move either, pinned down by all these arms and legs.

‘Miss McCormick, can you hear me?’

She nodded.

‘The hazmat van hasn’t arrived yet,’ the man said. ‘I don’t want to risk waiting, so we’re going to have to undress you here and decontaminate you. I’m not going to lie to you, it’s not going to be pleasant.’