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          Chapter 1

   

The lone phantom bus tunneled through the darkness, its high beams two piercing remedies for the blackness of the night. It carried twelve remaining passengers. Ramey Stover was one of them. Her destination: Crawford, Florida.

For the past five hours, the bus had been a haven for her from the world outside. A beast within whose belly she was safe. But the beast was nearing its next-to-last stop. Soon, it would cough her up, spit her out, and go its rootless way, leaving her alone in an unfamiliar place. In one more offbeat town. Where the residents were unaware of the horror going on within the realm of their quiet community. If only they knew what she did. They would not be sitting out on their porches in their rocking chairs, talking about how slow the corn was growing, or how much peanuts were bringing in by the pound this year. Instead, they would be in their houses with the doors locked and praying they weren’t the next to be taken.

Why wouldn’t they listen?

She sighed heavily in frustration. To her left and just across the aisle, an older gentleman peered at her over the top of a dog-eared magazine. His gaze was one of abstract curiosity. His bright gray eyes searching her face inquisitively.

She looked away, returning her gaze to the night speeding by outside the window.

Her bitterness was growing, and bringing with it an undeniable desperation clawing at her very soul like some hideous, taloned monster. One that tore at her over and over again each new time she went to the authorities with what she knew, only to have some tobacco-chewing redneck either look at her sideways, or flat out laugh in her face. Not too long ago, one in particular did even worse. Good old Chief Henry Tollerson of the Brady Police Department in Brady, South Carolina locked her up for two weeks, during which time she was mind-pillaged by the local psychiatrist because he believed her to be “missing a few eggs in the quail’s nest”. Attitudes were the same everywhere she went. Only the faces of the residents were different.

Something had to give. She did not want to spend another year of her life chasing after him. Trying to keep up. Forever searching for a way to stop him while he in turn kept scurrying from one town, one state, to the next, leaving body after body lying cold and blue in his wake.

A shiver touched her, reaching with one icy cold finger to trace a fine, deliberate line down the nape of her neck with unnerving endearment. She knew the touch. It was Death, taunting her again.

A steady throbbing pain settled itself in the center of her forehead. She squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed the aching spot with her fingertips. A streak of bright blue light suddenly seared her vision.

A horrifying memory clawed its way from her past to the present, and everything around her began to fade into a grayish-white blur. It tugged at her with long skeletal fingers. From the depths of her childhood hell, it pulled her in, dragging her down, kicking and screaming, through the darkened corridors of a past she could not escape.

Time rolled back with the speed of light. She was six years old again. And she was there. Lying in bed, and dreaming of the beautiful pink unicorns dancing along the frilly edges of her bed’s overhead canopy. Then the dream was shattered. By a scream of sheer terror. One so horrific, it was absolute.

The scream brought her wide-awake. She sat up and looked anxiously around the room. She noticed her bedroom door was shut. (It was open when her mother put her to bed. It was always open. Except now, it wasn’t. And this made everything all wrong.)

She sat perfectly still. She listened with her entire body. It was like being electric. Like drawing in the air and everything floating on it a person couldn’t see, and feeling it all over, so you heard it on the inside. Every crackle. Every shivering hiss.

Every scream.

And there were other noises filtering through the left wall of her bedroom. The adjoining room belonged to her parents. She listened carefully, trying to determine just what might be going on in there. Something was, and it was happening to her mother. Of this, she was certain. There was no mistaking her mother’s voice.

Apprehension crept over her in a smooth, slithering wave. It raised and dimpled the flesh of her arms and legs. For a long time, she couldn’t move. Only listen. Until the sounds grew even more frightening.

She slid to the edge of the bed. When her feet dangled over the side, there was a split second when she wondered if the ever-lurking Leg-Troll-Goblin was going to reach out with his clawed, scaly hands and grab her by the ankles. Normally this thought scared her into staying in bed, (except when she had to go to the bathroom so badly had he grabbed her then, she would have drowned him for sure by peeing on his lumpy head!), and she would not have gotten up this time, but the instinctive urge to go to her mother outweighed all else. She needed to see her. To know that she was okay. Perhaps to be told (as she’d been told on a few other occasions) that the sounds were all just “part of the grown-up game she and daddy were playing”. Anything. Anything at all would be far better than the frightful images her imagination was conjuring up.

Thus, braving the danger of becoming the Leg-Troll-Goblin’s midnight snack, she lowered herself to the floor, then dashed away from the bed as quickly as she could. She glanced back once just to be sure, her eyes wide and probing the darkness. Luckily the coast was clear. Maybe the Leg-Troll-Goblin had already devoured his snack this night.

Or maybe he’s in there with your mother!

This thought almost paralyzed her with fear. A painful lump lodged itself in her throat. She swallowed hard against it, thinking it was going to choke her and she would die, gagging to death right here on the shaggy carpet, with only the unicorns as witness to her demise. But she didn’t choke, and the lump went down, and this left her with having to go on.

She held her breath and took hold of the doorknob. Squeezing her eyes shut, she turned it, fearing what might find just on the other side. Maybe not the Leg-Troll-Goblin, but a slobbering, double-fanged monster, instead, with an appetite for little girls who loved unicorns and hated slimy toads. Or maybe there was a clown. An awful clown whose painted mask was all he had for a face, and who would try to steal her eyes because he knew hers would fit perfectly in the socket holes of his makeshift skull. Or maybe there was a giant, red-eyed pig; it would eat her alive if it caught her, then carry her soul away in its mouth to a giant mud pit, where a soul-worm would greedily suck it down into its squishy, muck-filled belly. Anything could be out there just waiting for her to open the door and step out into the hall. It was good reason to hesitate, and now she was even more frightened.

She was rooted to the floor, her hands locked tightly around the doorknob. The sounds coming from her parents’ bedroom were growing more horrible by the second. Now someone was thrashing about on the bed. She could hear the headboard banging into the wall!

No monsters! No pigs! No clowns!

No monsters! No pigs! No clowns!

The words were a silent chant in her head. Finally, she summoned enough courage to ease the door open a fraction. The hinges groaned and squealed, and she thought surely something or someone was hearing. The something being the red-eyed pig. The someone being the sightless clown. And it would be the clown who grabbed her, she was sure of it, because he could hear twice as well as the monster or the pig. It was because he could not see; his ears were extra keen, especially where door squeaks and floor creaks were concerned.

Holding her breath, scared out of her wits, she poked her head through the gap and peeked out into the hall. There was no drooling monster. No giant, red-eyed pig. No masked, eye-less clown. Only darkness met her wide-eyed, frightened gaze. Quietly, she stepped cautiously out into the hall.

She inched forward, staying close to the left wall, hands clenching and unclenching in nervousness, her bare toes digging into the carpet between each new step. She went to the closed door of her parents’ bedroom and pressed her ear against it, listening. What she heard made her suspicion seem an awful, sure reality. Her mother . . . Pleading . . . Begging . . . Then her voice muffled as something was put over her mouth. She was clearly being held against her will, and subjected to something horrible. Something evil.

Ramey wanted to turn and run. To return to the safety of her own room, the warmth of her bed, and the dream of the dancing unicorns. Instead, she found herself turning the knob that would open the door to her parents’ bedroom and the world of horror being carried out there.

The room was not entirely dark, but dimly lit by a single bedside lamp. The light of which was softly muted by a rose-colored scarf draped lazily over its shade. It was supposed to create warmth and coziness. Two things her mother loved. But this situation was entirely different, and the scene before her was anything but inviting. Confusion clouded her mind as she tried to discern what was happening, exactly.

Her mother was lying spread-eagle on the bed, her wrists and ankles tied to the bedposts with knotted lengths of white nylon rope. A bright red scarf served as a gag for her mouth. In the half-light, Ramey could see fresh tears glistening on her cheeks like tiny, silvery offerings. Trouble was, no one wanted them. Least of all the man standing over her.

What was her father doing? Why did he have her mother tied to the bed?

In that instant, she became unaware of her own movements, as though her brain suddenly decided to go on holiday and leave her body parts to operate on their own accord. She half bungled, half staggered into the room. She wanted to scream, had her mouth open for this very purpose in fact, but the sound hid itself away.

Her trembling legs carried her frightfully closer, until she was so near her father, she could have reached out and tugged on the tail of his lab jacket. It occurred to her, in a sort of absent-minded thought deluge, to do that very thing. To get his attention. So he would turn to look at her. Surely he would want to explain to her what was happening here, once he saw how frightened she was. But some stronger force deep within her said otherwise, and her arms remained two heavy-hanging limbs by her sides.

She neared the foot of the bed. Her mother, who had until now been struggling against her bindings, looked up at this moment and saw her standing there. Her eyes widened even further, and the terror already evident in her gaze soared to a level beyond comprehending.

(There exists a place, and a point in it, where sheer terror becomes insanity. When Death comes knocking, it’s where he takes you first. It’s a place where a person’s worst fears are realized. It’s where Horror resides, and every now and then Evil drops by for a game of poker. In the end, Death will be the victor. In the meantime, there is Horror and Evil to contend with. In a place where there is no room to hide.)

Her mother’s eyes were screaming at her. Get out! You shouldn’t be in here! I don’t want you seeing this! But Ramey was rooted to the spot. Her father, busy at concentrating on what he was doing, did not notice her right away, though she was perfectly within his field of vision, just to his left as a matter of fact, and ---

Was that a real syringe?

He was standing over her mother with the long, glinting needle. From the tip, a drop of amber-golden liquid was seeping. She thought it looked like the sap that oozed from the pine trees at the edge of the drive.

“Now, Julene. Just lie still,” he was telling her. “It won’t hurt so much if you lie still.”

He was lying. Ramey knew it. She could tell by the sound of his voice. Her mother knew it, too. And as he drew closer and closer with the needle, her struggles intensified. Her eyes were wide and wild, and she was screaming against the gag in her mouth.

“All right now,” her father coaxed. “Here we go.”

He used his free hand to raise her nightgown, exposing her round, protruding belly. She panicked, crying furiously and pulling against the ropes. But she was helpless to get away. Feeling her turmoil from the inside, her unborn baby, seven months into development, vulnerable inside her womb.

“Don’t make me hurt you, Julene,” her father said. “You should consider the baby as well. One wrong move and it could be seriously injured. I won’t be responsible.”

Ramey swallowed and almost choked. Was that where the needle was going? In her mother’s belly? Where the baby was?

Suddenly her mother grew very still on the bed. She continued to cry, but in the way of a person who has lost all hope. She quietly turned her face away toward the window and the darkness beyond.

“That’s it,” her father said, and he brought the needle to her mother’s stomach.

Ramey watched as it was inserted. She was struck motionless by the sight, not wanting to believe what she was seeing. She had never seen a needle so long. For a moment, she wondered if it might go clean through her mother’s middle and out the other side. It might have been better if it had. Maybe then it wouldn’t have hurt so much. And it did hurt. She saw that. When the syringe was depressed and the liquid was sent in, the horror of all true horrors began. Her mother, now in excruciating pain, managed to work the gag out from between her teeth. Then she started screaming. Her voice . . . Her pain . . . They became all that mattered in the world. Her screams transcended time, and were with Ramey always.

Still, this wasn’t the worst. No, this was only the beginning. And her life was changed forever.

 When Ramey Stover wakes from a tormented sleep feeling as though she's been there, it's because she has. And through the darkness, someone is reaching out to her . . .

  Ramey is haunted by Corrine's tortured cries. The drugs are changing her. There is little time left to save her. Finding Corrine will force Ramey  to face a terrifying truth, and the madman who is her family's darkest secret.        

Copyright © since 2002 by A Shockey All rights reserved. Materials may not be reproduced without express permission from the author.