Flypaper Opus: Dark Psychological Thriller - Book 2 Page 11

  Nick raised his hands, shielding blow after blow. He fell backwards, hitting the kitchen wall.

  The pot hit Nick’s fingers, it hit his wrist, and it hit his elbow. Nick sacrificed everything below his shoulders to protect his face and head as he struggled to push himself away from the kitchen wall. Away from the psycho who threatened to beat him to death.

  Clark stopped swinging and kneed Nick in the groin.

  Nick went down and balled up, gasping for air. He used his arms as a helmet the best he could from a near fetal position.

  Clark seemed to grow, seemed to widen as he stood directly over Nick.

  “You.”

  He swung the coffee pot down onto Nick’s skull, smashing his hand. He covered it with his other hand.

  “Are.”

  Another blow, another smashed hand.

  “Such.”

  Another. Nick moved his hands and tried to turn away.

  “A.”

  The pot bounced off Nick’s head.

  “Fucking.”

  Another to the head. Nick tried to clutch at his scalp. His fingers didn’t work.

  “Disappointment.”

  The pot landed next to Nick’s face. He blinked, but everything seemed far away. And getting farther.

  Clark. His kitchen table. The laptop. Miles away now, floating further into the abyss.

  He heard Clark’s voice from the ether. It echoed over the tile floor that stretched into forever.

  “An original piece, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Darkness fell.

  “I call it: Prelude.”

  Chapter 14

  The security alarm cut through Deputy Kern’s skull like a knife. He’d had a headache for the better part of the day and the ringing didn’t help. He looked into Nick Dawkins’ house through the broken front window. He halfway expected to see Dawkins laying there, his toes cut off, or his scalp stolen, or bleeding out in some other ridiculous ritualistic fashion. Anything would have been plausible after the past few days. But there was nothing. No sign of movement. No sign of life.

  Kern stepped through the broken window, firearm in hand. Sheriff Reed was at his back. Nobody on Earth he’d rather have there, even if they didn’t anticipate finding their suspect on the premises. There was no white van out front. Not that they could see, at any rate.

  Broken glass cracked beneath Kern’s feet.

  A voice called out from within the house. “Hello? Is someone there?”

  Kern shouted. “Forest Down Police Department, identify yourself.”

  The voice in the house called back. “Whoever you are, we can’t understand you. We’re in the kitchen.”

  Reed pointed at the ground. Blood had been smeared along the hardwood floor of the foyer all the way from the kitchen to the front door.

  Kern traded a look with Reed. She nodded. He called out. “Hands up, where we can see them.”

  The deputy whipped around the corner, his gun pointed in front of him.

  No one was there.

  “Down here.”

  Kern looked down at the laptop on the kitchen table. Five faces looked back up at him, each one in his or her own little box; the Brady Bunch for the age of social media. A conference call. One of the faces spoke, an attractive woman with a wide mouth. “Hello. Yes, you there, the police person.”

  Reed followed Kern into the kitchen and examined the laptop. “Unconventional witnesses, but I’ll take it. What happened?”

  Another face inserted himself. A toadish man with thick lips. “Dawkins didn’t own a gun, that’s what happened. You bet someone comes into my house looking to start shit, I’ll finish it.”

  Kern looked out of the kitchen and into the living room. “Anyone else here?”

  “They’re gone.” Kern heard the wide-mouthed woman talking as he looked around the living room. It was undisturbed. “We were talking to Nick on conference and someone broke in.”

  Reed’s voice traveled through the house to where Kern looked into Nick’s bedroom. “What’d he look like?”

  “He was on the thin side,” the woman on the computer said. “Long dark hair. Thick glasses.”

  Kern walked back into the kitchen. Reed looked at him. He shook his head.

  The woman continued. “He said he was MaggotMaestro. Said his name was Clark.”

  Reed poked her walkie and stepped away while shouting orders at York, back at the station.

  “We couldn’t see everything that happened, but they had a knock-down drag-out from the sound of it. Poor Nick, my god, all we could do was listen.” The woman—it said Blaire beneath her window—had make-up streaked down her face. Her voice cracked. Kern got the impression she and Nick were close.

  The deputy knelt down and had a closer look at the floor. Blood, mostly small drops scattered about. Someone had been cut but kept moving. “Looks like Dawkins put up a fight. Good on him.”

  He didn’t particularly like Dawkins, thought he was trouble from the moment he stepped into town. But he had nothing but respect for a guy who fought when his back was against the wall. He wouldn’t have guessed the writer had that kind of scrote on him.

  “It sounded like he beat him near to death with something over there,” Blaire said. Kern didn’t have to look at the screen. He’d already spied the cracked coffee pot and the small pool of blood near the wall.

  “He said he needed him alive.” It was the other woman, the one with the exceptionally large hair.

  Reed stopped throwing orders into her radio and addressed the laptop screen. “What did he say exactly?”

  “He said he needed Nick alive, though not necessarily in one piece. He called this a ‘prelude’.”

  Reed nodded, although the word wound its way around her spinal cord like a ghost. “Anything else?”

  The large haired woman shook her head and said nothing.

  “Thanks. Can you all stay on the line for a few more minutes?” There was a tiny chorus of affirmative answers.

  Reed moved for the front door. “Kern, we’re moving.”

  He followed her outside, shouting over the security alarm. “Do we even know where we’re going?”

  Another car pulled into the driveway and parked next to Kern’s. Roberts climbed out. “You want me on the road or on scene?”

  Reed shouted. “Get statements from the computer.” She ignored Robert’s WTF look. “Kitchen table. Now.”

  The sheriff and the deputy climbed into his car, with Kern behind the wheel.

  She buckled herself in. “We didn’t pass them on the road, so let’s assume they went the other direction, see what happens.”

  Kern shifted the car into reverse. “We’re assuming he’s still in the van then?”

  “That we are, Deputy.”

  Kern floored the pedal. His blood pumped. How often did he get to open up on these back roads? Answer: Not often enough. He careened backwards down Dawkins’ excessively long driveway until he hit the road. “We’re also assuming Dawkins is still alive.”

  Reed hit the lights. Red and Blue flashed on either side of them. “You heard the one woman. This Clark person said he needed Dawkins alive. Mentioned a ‘prelude’. He’s got something planned.”

  “You think we got his real name this time?”

  Reed stared straight ahead, her eyes fixed on the road. “Yeah, I do. If he’d give it to anyone, it’d be Dawkins. He worships the guy.”

  Kern wagged a finger in the air. “Here’s what I don’t get about that. If he worships Dawkins so much, why’d he beat the living shit out of him back there?”

  The sheriff pulled her phone out and pulled up her GPS. “That, I’m not sure of. Dawkins must have done something to piss the guy off.”

  Kern sniffled. “Yeah, well tell the psycho-surgeon to get in line.”

  “Whatever it is you have against Dawkins, Deputy, now would be an excellent time to put it away.” Reed’s voice was sharp, slicing the air between them.

  Kern pumped the brakes as he
pulled a corner. “What I’ve got against him? You know in sixteen years on the job, I’ve never had to help someone keep their blood on the inside until today? And the only time I’d ever discharged my weapon was at that bear back in 2000-whenever. Again, until today.”

  Reed held onto the oh shit bar hanging above her head. “It sounds like you should have something against the perp, not Dawkins.”

  Kern boiled. “Oh, believe me, I do. He’s going to see exactly what I’ve got against him. But Dawkins is the source. He’s bad news, has been from the start. You can’t trust someone with that much heinous shit running around in their heads. And the people who are into that stuff? You’ve seen what they’re like. The best thing you and I could do for this community is run him out on a rail before it gets any worse.”

  Reed smirked. “Oh yeah? Is that what your daddy would have done?”

  “Due respect, Sheriff, fuck off.”

  “Still your superior, Deputy.”

  “Due respect, Sheriff, sit on it. My dad never had a rotating weirdo convention in town.”

  Reed’s eyes bulged, disbelief evident on her face. “He was there for the original Rothschild murder-suicide.”

  “That was one instance, out of decades on the job. Also caused by out-of-towners, I might add.” Thunder rumbled through the air above the car. “And you want to bring it up today? I’m never going to get that guy’s toes out of my head.”

  Droplets of water hit the windshield, exploding against the glass. Reed raised her voice above the added noise. “First, I took the call when the Johnson girl turned her car into an E-Z Bake oven over on the southbound railway, so don’t talk to me about seeing shit. We’ve all seen shit lately. That kid looked like a fucking S’more, pardon my Swahili.” More rain pelted the car. It came down hard and fast. “Second, seeing shit is the job. Your daddy knew that, his daddy knew that, and I know you know that. It’s always been the job, we’ve had it pretty easy until now.” Reed looked up through the windshield. “You wanted to be the thin blue line, we’re it. We weather whatever comes our way.” Her voice lowered. “And it’s going to be an ugly, ugly winter.”

  “You know what I don’t get? You used to think the same thing about Dawkins. What was it you used to say to him? Another few miles up the road and he’d be someone else’s problem. What happened?”

  Reed didn’t say anything. Of course she didn’t. She couldn’t. She knew he was right.

  Kern glanced sideways at her. She was stone faced. “You know what I think? Maybe you’re getting a little sweet on him.” He looked back at the road, where a deer stood fifty yards in front of him. He swerved hard. Reed dug her nails into the dash, but was slammed hard against the passenger door.

  “Holy shit.” Kern laughed. “Bambi has a death wish.”

  Reed turned to look directly at him. “If you don’t pipe down and focus on the road, you’re the one with the death wish.”

  The rain came faster. Downpour. The road transformed into a wall of rain and darkness. Kern hit the wipers and slowed down to a fraction of his previous speed. “Oh, are you shitting me?”

  “An ugly winter, I tell you.” Reed thumped the dash. “Damn it, Dawkins.”

  Visibility was nil. Kern stared into the visual noise outside. “I don’t know about that, but this week has been the shits. I can’t see a thing and they could have gone down any of these roads up here. Or none of them. They could be on their way out of town.”

  “No, no, he’s got someplace around here.” Reed poked at her phone. “He took Delbert what, five, six miles up the road from here? He’s got a place. Somewhere to play Operation with people or dogs or whatever. Pull over.”

  Kern pulled to the side of the road. “Delbert wasn’t much use there. A wooden, leaky room, he said. That’s half the real estate in the county.”

  Reed moved the map on her phone around with her thumb. “It’s gotta be a place on one of these roads.”

  The deputy looked at the map. “That’s a lot of miles. Where do you want to start?”

  The sheriff unhooked her radio. “All of them.”

  Chapter 15

  Nick woke to water pelting him in the face and a phenomenal amount of pain. He opened his eyes. Rainwater. It poured in through an open window above him. The room shook.

  Not a room. The back of a van. And the window wasn’t open, it was busted. There were tiny pieces of glass all over the hard metal floor he laid on.

  He moved to wipe the rain from his face, but his hands were fastened behind his back by something thin and plastic. It felt like a zip tie.

  His arms and hands ached with the slightest movements. They felt like they were covered in knots the size of golf balls. He didn’t think anything was broken, but he wasn’t one-hundred percent certain about every last finger. A couple of them felt jammed. He may have lost a fingernail.

  He blinked repeatedly in an effort to clear the rain from his vision. At least it had helped wash the blood from his eyes. He looked up at the front of the van, already knowing who he’d see there.

  Clark, in the driver’s seat.

  He glanced back at Nick. “You’re awake.”

  Nick wrenched himself from the floor of the van and sat upright. He felt sick, and for once it wasn’t because of long standing mother issues involving food preparation. It was more likely a concussion from multiple blows to the head.

  Clark alternated between watching Nick and watching the road, like a frenzied cab driver. “You have to understand, this isn’t how I thought things would turn out. The ugliness back there. It’s not how artisans should conduct themselves. Besides, I was one of your biggest fans. I was one of the founders, you know.”

  Nick leaned against the side wall of the van. He couldn’t sit up on his own yet. Vertigo reigned.

  “I’m talking about Myiasis, of course. It was me, Flypap3r, a handful of others. Guess I hit a sore spot back there with her, huh? I mean I knew it was a sore spot, I heard your radio interview. But damn, sir. I thought you were going to kill me.”

  Still might. All he needed was an opportunity.

  “You know Fly came up with the name? Myiasis? I didn’t like it at first, but I came around when she explained it. It seemed fitting.”

  As Nick’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he scanned the back of the van for something sharp enough to cut through a zip tie. Nothing jumped out at him aside from a couple of dead crabs and it was unlikely they’d do the job. There were a hundred tiny pieces of glass to choose from, but it would be like trying to cut the tie with an exceptionally sharp grain of sand.

  Clark was unabated by Nick’s silence. “Man, that girl was devoted. That must have been something. Having a girl like that look at you like you were the only guy on Earth? I’m dying to know what happened there.”

  Cutting through a zip tie with a miniscule piece of glass couldn’t have been the best or easiest solution, but his options were severely limited and he didn’t want to wait around for whatever Clark had planned for him at their destination. Nick examined the van’s floor in search of a piece big enough to hold onto. While he searched, he would need to distract Clark. Keep him talking.

  Nick could do that. “She kidnapped me and got herself killed. You should be careful, Clark.”

  Clark did a double-take and let out a laugh. “What, are you still threatening me?”

  Nick spotted a piece of glass a little bigger and sharper than the others. He turned around as if he were facing Clark to better engage him. “Beating the shit out of people and kidnapping them is bad for your juju. And I’m what? The fourth person you’ve kidnapped in three days? What goes around, y’know? And toe-guy? You know he died, right?”

  “Daryl died?” Clark clicked his tongue. “Fucking ignorant backwoods paramedics, I swear. Jesus Christ. There’s no way he should have died from those wounds. His family should sue them.”

  Nick twitched. “You think that guy dying was the fault of the paramedics, then, and not say, the guy who chopped him
into pieces?”

  “Wasn’t me. What’s her name did it. Besides, everything I did, I did as a tribute to you, Dawkins.” Clark adjusted the rearview mirror to get a better view of Nick. “What I’ve done is a truer, purer adaptation of your work than anything Trumble would squeeze out of that fat melon if he had his entire life.”

  Nick fumbled for the ‘good’ tiny piece of glass. It was like finding a slightly sharper grain of sand on a beach with his eyes closed and his hands literally tied behind his back. Magicians who did this kind of shit for a living ranked up a notch in his mind. “While we’re on the subject, I’ve gotta ask, what was going through your mind with those?”

  Clark ignited with joy. “You’re asking about my art? About my process? I have to admit, that’s flattering. I’ve imagined us having this conversation in my head a thousand times. I never knew where to start.”

  Nick found what he hoped was the piece of glass he was looking for. It was sharp enough to give it a try at least. He held it tightly between his forefinger and his thumb and scratched at the zip tie around his wrist. He also scratched at his actual wrist, but this wasn’t an omelet he would make without breaking an egg or two. “Try starting at the beginning.”

  Clark bounced in his seat. “Okay, I’ll tell the story the way you might, how’s that?”

  The piece of glass between Nick’s fingers kept slipping. It was too small. This would take longer than he had unless Clark’s playhouse was in Neverland. “Whatever fucks your duck, Clark.”

  “Once upon a time…”

  Nick rolled his eyes. Points off already. He’d never use that overdone line.

  “…there was a highly intelligent and precocious young lad named Clark. Clark grew up in the shadow of his domineering father, a dentist.” Clark said ‘dentist’ with a weapons-grade disdain. If the word had been a physical object it would have been toxic waste. “As we know, all dentists are sadists and pedophiles.”

  Nick lost his grip on the piece of glass, but recovered it before it fell. Dentists are what? His eyes were drawn to Clark’s mouth, still stained with the blood stuck to several layers of plaque. It had a life of its own, composed of gnashing yellow teeth. A bit of spittle hit the rearview mirror.