Transmission: A Supernatural Thriller (21 page)

Kenji opened the door and stepped into the cold night, barely avoiding Dylan's grasp. “I'm going to see whether she's really dead or not.”

Dylan couldn't even argue, but instead remained in the doorway, knees knocking against one another. “K-Kenji,” he pleaded, “come back here. We've g-gotta wait for Reggie.”

But Kenji was already starting across the field. His heart quaked in his chest, skipping into palpitations as he approached the lip of the aperture. The clouds parted in the sky above, allowing the moonlight to wash over the grass and rendering it a sea of swaying, frost-bitten green.

It was just as he'd expected.

Kenji stood beside the grave, staring down at it for a long while. His eyes swelled with tears. He ignored Dylan's repeated cries to return to the shack and instead stared into the coffin that sat a few feet away in the icy ground.

 
The
empty
coffin.

There were footprints in the freshly-dug soil where someone had walked off in the direction of the main road only minutes ago. In some places, the blades of grass that'd been tread upon still shifted for the weight that'd been placed on them. He narrowed his teary gaze and scanned the dark fields, looking out towards the road and beyond.

There was no sign of anyone.

“D-do you know what we've done?” Kenji muttered too softly to be heard.

Dylan finally mustered up the courage to pursue him, and when he arrived at Kenji's side a single glance into the empty grave was enough to send him into a panicked sprint towards the Honda. “W-what?” He stumbled, fell onto his knees and then clawed his way across the cold field till he took hold of the Honda's front bumper and pawed his way up its length. “W-where... where did...?”

Kenji staggered away from the grave, joined Dylan at the car. “Do you know what we've done?” he repeated, this time baring his teeth and quaking with equal parts anger and terror. “We set her free, Dylan. We played her game. All this time, we were just following her lead. But not because she was a victim. This was what she wanted all along.”

Dylan fumbled with the door to the Honda, eventually flopping into the driver's seat. “Kenji, come on. We... we gotta catch up to Reggie. We have to let him know what just happened before he drags the cops into this. A bunch of police are about to storm this place where we just dug up a body, but there's no fucking body anymore. Do you think Agnes is... is still here? Think she's going to come after us?” He shook his head. “You know, screw this. It doesn't matter. We're getting the fuck away from this place.”

Kenji thrust himself into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. Agnes' whereabouts were less important to him at that moment than they should have been. They needed to warn Reggie that their “corpse” had walked off, needed to regroup and decide what this meant before the authorities got involved. “Drive,” he said, holding onto the dash as the rickety beater screamed in reverse down the gravel drive. “I hope we can catch him.”

THIRTY-ONE

“This place,” said Mara, face turned towards the dark scenery outside the window, “is so remote, isn't it?” She took a deep breath, fogging up the glass slightly. A little grin worked its way across her lips. “It is easy to lose one's self in a place like this. Everything blends together, does it not? Even particular destinations in places like this are hard to pinpoint, when some years have passed.”

Reggie was approaching eighty miles per hour. He tried not to glance over at his passenger, tried not to listen to what she had to say. Nevertheless, he couldn't get past the feeling that she was dropping veiled hints to him, that she was teasing him with details that she shouldn't have known.

“Where did you find her?” she asked, though the tone she used was anything but calmly inquisitive. It was very clearly a demand for information.

Reggie pursed his lips, letting the question hang in the air for a while before finally giving an awkward laugh. “You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”

Apparently displeased by this response, Mara's face was dressed in a deep-set scowl. She peered through the window once again in her periphery. “Once, about ten years ago, I visited this area with Agnes. It was a very nice spot. Just the two of us came. It was not long after the other immigrants had kicked the two of us out of that house, in fact.”

 
Reggie's shoulders stiffened.
Both
of them had been kicked out of the house the immigrants had shared? Mara hadn't mentioned that before. Previously, her narrative had only mentioned Agnes' being shunned. He listened closely as the woman went on, the tiny hairs on his ears pricking up all the while.

“I'd long lost track of the place where we stopped that day, a decade ago. I suppose that's where you found her, isn't it?” She turned to him, her face veiled in shadow but her eyes reflecting the greenish light coming off of the clock on the dash. “Will you take me to see Agnes?”

The request sent a shudder through him so that he could barely keep the car straight. His arms were tired from all of the digging, from white-knuckling the wheel. “N-no,” he said with all the gentleness he could summon. “I'm driving to the police station.”

With each passing mile marker Reggie was feeling increasingly suspicious of the strange woman who now filled his passenger seat. Mara said nothing for several minutes, simply sighing and leaning back. Then, just as Reggie's nerves were beginning to recover, she began to speak once more. “It's funny how many buildings have gone up in this area over the past ten years. It changed the landscape. Made me lose my way whenever I came out to look for my dear friend. Somehow, though, you found her. You knew where to look. Even though she was hidden, even though the landscape has changed, you managed to discover where she was. How is that?”

Reggie's heart thundered in his chest. Mara knew more than she was letting on. There was no longer any doubt in his mind. His eyes darted over to her hunched form once, twice, before he finally found the nerve to ask her the question on his mind outright. “Did... did you know Agnes Pasztor was buried outside that shack? Did you know it all this time, Mara?”

 
The corners of Mara's lips curled into a wicked smile. “Let me ask you this,” she began. “Do you think that Agnes buried herself?” She cackled for a time, relishing the look of surprise on his face. “Back then, there was no
shack
. That was probably what threw me off of the trail. I'd even marked the spot in stones... built a monument of sorts, but that was probably cleared away when the shack was built.” She sighed. “A shame, isn't it? I could have taken care of this sooner had things just stayed the same. We picked this area because of its remoteness. We never expected anyone to come out here and build on that land.” She shrugged dramatically. “The best-laid plans sometimes fall through, don't they? Alas.”

Reggie had broken into a cold sweat. “What y-you did to her... was murder,” he spat. The car was weaving in its lane. His vision was going double and he could scarcely focus on the way ahead for all of the sweat pooling in his eyes. He could hardly believe what he was hearing, and would have thrown the woman out of the car at once if only he'd been able to stop. But it was only a few more miles before they made it to the highway, and a short distance beyond that before they arrived at the police station. What was Mara's reason for admitting all of this? Was she confessing out of guilt?

No, the wicked smile on her lips spoke of anything but guilt.

“Why are you telling me all of this?” he asked, breathless.

“You did good work,” replied Mara, the smile fading suddenly. Her eyes narrowed in ferocious intensity and from beneath her shawl she drew what appeared to be a long blade. Glancing over at him, she allowed the polished knife to catch a flicker of moonlight. “You've driven far enough. I thank you for your help in the matter.”

THIRTY-TWO

The Honda groaned. Its engine could scarcely handle the stress of bolting down the road at more than ninety miles an hour. The suspension creaked and popped with every bump, and the tires squealed at every course adjustment. Dylan was leaning over the wheel, foot glued to the accelerator and gaze fixed on the distance ahead. They hadn't passed a single car in the ten minutes since they'd sped off from the shack. There was no sign of Reggie's LeSabre to be found.

Kenji stared ahead. Reggie had driven off quickly and had a considerable head start. There was no way they could hope to catch up with him. Still, he thought it strange that they hadn't crossed his path yet. By now, he wagered, Reggie should have been returning to the shack with a fleet of cop cars in tow. There were no blues and reds on the dark horizon, however. The further they went, the more his gut tensed up over the thought that Reggie hadn't made it to the station as intended.

 
Did Agnes get to him first? Did she catch up with him on his way to the station? Or... was it the Dark One?

Something captured their attention in the distance. Red taillights.

“Is that the LeSabre?” asked Kenji, pointing to the red glow.

Dylan tensed. “I hope not. Look.”

In the next instant, Kenji understood what he meant.

The car ahead of them was upside down in the middle of the street. Smoke rose from the thing and there was no sign of movement from within. Dylan swerved onto the shoulder and parked, but before he even got out to have a closer look, there could be no doubt that it was the LeSabre. “Holy shit,” he muttered, pacing from the Honda towards the wreck. “R-reggie?” he called out.

There was no reply, except for the shuffling of Kenji's feet as he followed behind. The car had seemingly rolled, at great speed, coming to rest between the lanes. The green finish on its exterior was worn away where it had made contact with the road and the smells of smoke and oil were prominent in the chill air. From somewhere within the fuming heap Kenji could hear a steady dripping. It might've been gas or anything else; standing so close to the thing he feared it might burst into flame at any moment.

Dylan pushed forward, rounding the corner of the ruined vehicle and kneeling down to have a look at the driver's seat. In an instant he'd recoiled and scrambled away from the car on hands and knees, cutting himself on shards of the busted windshield. He seemed to want to say something as Kenji came up from behind. His eyes were wide, but his mouth had lost the ability to produce words.

Kenji looked inside.

The interior of the car was painted in blood. The source of that blood was outstretched across the front seats and slumped partially against the dash. Two lifeless eyes stared back at them from the cracked driver's side window.

Reggie.

The life was gone from those eyes, and it was evident from the very first that it wasn't the crash that'd done him in. His jacket and the clothes underneath were soaked in clotted crimson, owing to the enormous gash that spanned across his throat. Someone had cut him from ear to ear. The rest wasn't hard to fathom. Driving at high speed, he'd probably been attacked and then lost control of the LeSabre, rolling the thing. One of Reggie's hands still clutched the wheel with steely firmness, while the other hand was tangled in what looked to be a blood-soaked blanket or shawl.

There was no sign of any passenger. Stumbling around the car, Kenji looked for traces of the assassin, but found none. “Who did this?” he squeaked, pulling Dylan up off of the ground. “Who?”

Dylan rifled through his pockets in search of his phone. “You know who it was, goddammit. You know exactly who it fucking was.” His phone was still back at the shack, however. He'd left it in the grass after casting it down in frustration. “Dude,” he continued, grabbing hold of Kenji's collar with his bloody fist. “Do you have your phone? We need to call this in. Get someone out here... some police.”

Kenji pulled his phone out and started looking for a reception. All around them the fields were bathed in shadow. What lurked there, in the tall grass, was impossible to say, but the two of them had more than a few terrified guesses. With only the light emanating from the headlights to go by, the pair huddled beside one another, tapping repeatedly at the phone's screen and trying to find a signal.

The darkness seemed to move, to close in around them. The moon was gone, had been swallowed up by a tangle of black clouds. While pacing around the road, his nostrils stinging for the smell of gasoline, Kenji felt an incredible hopelessness weighing him down. Fear and fatigue disappeared, replaced by a burden of despair that he couldn't crawl out from. It would crush him, would eclipse all else and hang over him till the end of his days.

They'd done something terrible, something unspeakable in helping Agnes. And it had all happened because he hadn't been able to let go of his curiosity. Now a good man was dead. This, of course, was only the start. There was no telling what would happen next, what the long-term consequences of their actions might be.

It was a seeming miracle when, suddenly, Kenji's phone picked up a weak reception. Without a moment's hesitation, he pounded in 9-1-1 and sat down on the cold asphalt. When he'd spoken to the dispatcher and given her their current location at mile marker 14, he hung up the phone and began to dry heave.

THIRTY-THREE

The light of the desk lamp hurt his eyes. Kenji rolled onto his back and covered his face with a pillow, taking in deep, steady breaths. He could smell the fabric softener his parents had bought him in bulk before the semester's start. It smelled like lavender. From the other bed in the dorm room, Dylan could be heard to groan in his sleep. His body was wrapped tightly in several layers. Even though the heater belched warm air into the room, Dylan hadn't been able to rid himself of a constant cold since their return from Akeley.

The aftermath had been hell.

Kenji didn't want to remember it again. He'd tried, and failed, countless times over the past two weeks to blot out the memories in his head. No matter what he did he couldn't stop reliving that final night, however.

Staring into the pillowcase, Kenji breathed in the lavender scent and thought, for an instant, that he could make out faint hints of gasoline in it.