Voices (Whisper Trilogy Book 3) (13 page)

“A lot of people now don’t seem as interested. You know what it’s like, new things happen, people forget. Shit, there’s always some new horror in the news to grab people’s attention. For us though, we don’t get to forget. We have to live with this every damn day.”

“Are you from there? Oakwell, I mean…”

“No, not me. My brother lived there for a while though. His business went under and he moved away a few months before the massacre.”

“I remember reading about it. Awful stuff.”

Bear smiled, his eyes glimmering with something Barlow couldn’t quite place. “You think reading about it is creepy, wait until you have to go face it every day.”

“That doesn’t help with the first day nerves,” Barlow said, forcing a smile. Bear, however, didn’t return it. His face had become tight, brow furrowed. He was all business now. It was as if he had left his easy going demeanor with the sour-faced hag at the security station.

“Hell, I’m not trying to freak you out or put you off, my man. All I want to do is make sure you’re aware. We take precautions, and the staff here are damn good at their jobs, but you still need to stay sharp. Keep on your toes.”

“I will.”

“Alright, this is it,” Bear said, coming to a halt at a windowless steel door. In the center, at head height, was a second door with a lockable hatch.

Barlow felt a surge of adrenaline mingling with his fear, making it all the more potent. He couldn’t help but offer up a nervous smile, which again went unreciprocated by Bear. “He’s really in here? Henry Marshall?” Barlow asked.

“He is. You sure you wanna see him?”

Barlow nodded, his mouth too dry to speak. Bear opened the hatch and stood aside, allowing Barlow to see inside.

The cell was small. Cold concrete. Iron bedstead. Stainless steel toilet and sink. The person inside was sitting on the bottom of the bed, facing away from them, staring at the corner of the wall. Barlow couldn’t make out his face, just a sliver of flesh revealed through the greasy, graying shoulder-length hair.

“He always sits there like that,” Bear said as Barlow looked on. “Just staring at that wall. He’s docile enough, it’s just creepy how quiet he is all the time.”

“Maybe he’s a little…” Barlow tapped the side of his temple with his forefinger.

“No, I don’t think he is,” Bear countered. “Sometimes, you’ll catch his eye, and you can see all the lights are still switched on in there. It’s like he’s waiting for something. I don’t know, my man, but whatever it is, it freaks me out.”

Bear closed the hatch, locking it into place.

“Alright,” he said, forcing a smile. “Let’s go see about those key codes, and then we can grab a coffee. I don’t like to be down here any longer than I have to.”

Barlow didn’t argue. The further away from Marshall’s cell he got, the better.

CHAPTER 16

Truman followed Emma through the house, still unsure if he’d made the right decision in contacting her. She had brought him to the converted ranch house, both of them awkward and silent as they successfully avoided the elephant in the room about how they’d come to meet. The house was old, and Truman thought it almost certainly belonged to an older family. Dark wood floors with an overabundance of furniture and ornaments was the prevailing theme. Every surface Truman could see was covered with mementos or photographs. He suspected that at some point in the past, this would have been a vibrant family home, yet all that remained now were echoes of that time left to haunt the place like ghosts. Sunlight, gold and warm, filtered through the study windows, catching lazy swirls of dust in its beams. Truman only noticed this for a second before his attention was drawn to the wall. It was reminiscent of those police dramas, where the plucky detective would pin all of their leads to the noticeboard. Photographs, articles, notes, all linked together with color-coded string.

“This is the entire history of Hope House as I’ve been able to put it together,” Emma said, standing aside to let him see.

Truman looked. Faces he didn’t recognize. Photographs of places that he did from his dreams. It was almost too much to take in, and all he could do was try to assimilate it all, letting his brain filter the cluster of information in front of him. Something caught his eye and he stepped forward to a section of the wall, crouching to stare at the drawing. It was a reproduction of course. Any original would be in a private collection or perhaps even a museum. Even so, its impact was still the same. Truman looked at the image, and beside it, the slavery manifest.

“Holy shit, that’s him,” Truman said, pointing at the portrait of the man. “Isn’t it?”

Emma nodded. “That was the only reference to him anywhere I could find. The drawing was from before he was brought over here to work. The slavery manifest is the only official mention of your ancestor.”

Truman held out his hand, taking the picture by the bottom edge. “Do you mind if I take a closer look?”

“Go ahead.”

He unpinned the photograph and sat in one of the high-backed leather chairs by the fireplace. He studied the photograph, committing it to memory.

“The nose is wrong.”

“What?” Emma said, wondering if she had missed something.

“The nose on this drawin’. It’s wrong. The real one isn’t as wide at the bottom. And the forehead is too long. I can tell it’s the same man, though, but he looks different in my dream.” He looked at her, and she saw in him the same confusion that used to plague her until she started to understand. “What the hell’s goin’ on here?”

“It’s easier to show you,” she said, going to the window. She grabbed a jar from the ledge and handed it to Truman.

“What the hell is this?”

“Just take it. It’ll all make sense in a minute,” she said, taking a seat opposite him. “First, let me tell you what we need to do to stop this.”

CHAPTER 17

Barlow had been working at Creasefield hospital for three weeks, and had just about found his feet. He had got to know the staff, made a few friends, and had a few close calls with some of the more volatile inmates.

“Hey, man, how’s it goin’?” Bear said as he sauntered into the staffroom and made himself a coffee.

“I’m good. You?”

“All good in the hood, brotha’. You busy today?”

“I’m babysitting the rec room this afternoon.”

“Screw that, my man, ask Todd to do it.”

“And what will I do when Todd is doing my job?”

Bear grinned and leaned close, even though the staff room was empty. “You know when you first started here, and you had a little look at Henry Marshall?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m down to turn his room this afternoon. Nothin’ too taxing. Just changing the sheets, making sure he hasn’t got anything stashed in there. I need someone to help me out if you feel like it.”

“You sure you want to tempt fate? It’s Friday the thirteenth you know,” Barlow said, smiling.

“Come on, man, surely you don’t believe in that shit. How about it, want to help me?”

“Absolutely, count me in,” Barlow replied, just about managing to hide his nervousness.

“Alright, that’s a deal. Meet me downstairs at eleven and you can give me a hand.”

“Eleven tonight?” Barlow asked.

“Hell no, not eleven tonight. This ain’t some horror movie. After morning break, dumbass.”

Barlow grinned, the tension lifted. “I was just checking. I don’t think I’d wanna be in there with that guy at night.”

“I hear that. See you at eleven.”

Barlow waited until Bear left the room before he let the false smile melt from his lips. As much as he had liked the idea of getting up close and personal with someone as notorious as Henry Marshall, now that it was a reality, he wasn’t quite so sure. No matter which way you looked at it, the man was a killer, and as insane as they came. He knew how it would be. Even in mid-morning light, the shadows would still seem a little deeper, the atmosphere just a little more intense. There was no denying that, light or dark, they would still be in the presence of a mass murderer. Taking a last look around the empty staffroom, Barlow finished his drink and went back to his duties.

II

Fire.

Blood.

Pain.

A vague awareness that this experience was more than just a dream. These were memories. Experiences from strangers somehow shared across some kind of mental wavelength.

Signs proclaiming no access to a place forbidden for a reason.

Friends bickering.

Friends laughing.

Friends dying.

Always friends dying.

A beautiful rosebush in a circle of death. Pink petals, green stems with sharp thorns.

A rain of blood. Flooding the earth.

Pink flowers blooming.

Life fed by death.

Friends screaming.

Friends dying.

Secret voices all around.

In the trees.

In the ground.

In the brain.

That sound, that scraping sound that makes the teeth hurt. The sound of dead things dragging themselves through the earth.

Only, this sound isn’t part of the dream.

This is somewhere else.

That screech, that scrape.

The confusion replaced by recognition.

Suddenly, it fades.

The bloody rain, the screaming, the dying friends.

All gone.

Reality, a blanket with a stuffy, mildew taste.

No more roses.

No more circle of death.

No more screaming.

No more dying friends.

Only that sound.

That scraping sound.

Reality.

My world.

My prison.

Not for long.

Not for long.

Not for long.

Henry Marshall’s eyes flickered as the door to his cell scraped open on unoiled hinges. He was in his usual position, sitting at the foot of his bed and staring at the wall, his visitors at his back. He rarely moved from that position. He liked to stare at the walls where the corners met. To focus on the line where the bricks converged, where the walls of his prison were at their strongest. The years since his incarceration hadn’t been kind to Henry. The bloated belly grown from too many public luncheons as he schmoozed with his fellow councilors was long gone. He had lost at least eighty pounds, his face now gaunt and heavily lined, his once perfectly styled hair now dirty and touching his shoulders. Gone were the clean-shaven cheeks and winning smile. This version of Henry Marshall wore a beard as dirty as his hair, and those perfectly maintained veneers had yellowed. Usually, such intrusion into his space would have been ignored. Not today though. Today was different. Today the voices were answering his call.

“Hey there, Mr. Marshall, it’s me, Bear. I’m just here to check over your room, okay?”

Henry didn’t move. Bear looked at him, the familiar sight of the back of his head, the only real sight he had seen since Henry was first institutionalized. He turned to Barlow, who was standing by the door, eyes wide.

“It’s okay, you can come in.”

Barlow did as he was told, still staring at the man hunched over the bottom of the bed. Starstruck wasn’t quite the right word. Awestruck maybe, and although he didn’t want to acknowledge it, fear crawled around inside him with malicious intent.

“What do you want me to do?” he said, his words feeling like they were falling out of his mouth instead of projecting into the room.

“We need to change his sheets. Help me to get him to stand up.”

“Is that safe?”

Bear strode across the room and leaned close to Barlow, the scent of his spearmint chewing gum potent as he spoke.

“Look, my man. You can’t show fear here. You need to be strong. This guy is a pussycat. He’s harmless. I’ve turned this room hundreds of times. Trust me, you don’t need to worry, okay?”