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  Jennifer, carefully watching the back of his head as he pulled, had managed to get herself back up on her elbows. The entire time he had been talking she had been focusing on moving her toes in an attempt to force some feeling back into her lower body.

  “It’s no use tubby, trust me.” He spoke without turning around, steadily pulling them through the dark. “My mother kept me under with digitalis for years. It took me five entire days to be able to move again, one day for every year. Bless her heart. Such a clever girl, that one. No, I’m afraid you and your mother are done for.” He paused when they reached another of his floodlight beacons. Kingston leaned against the cart to catch his breath. In the orange light, Jennifer could see sweat gleaming on his cavernous cheekbones. He casually took a handkerchief from the back pocket of his slim black pants and dabbed at his forehead. He nodded in the direction of the last floodlight. Jennifer could make out where the black and white tile became visible again, leading to a small door.

  “You see that room? That’s the terminus station, I’m afraid. End of the line.”

  Jennifer’s stomach wretched, her body buckling in on itself without her permission. She tried to speak, her throat suddenly filled with chocolate tinged acid. She managed to turn her head to the side, allowing the vomit to splatter noisily onto the rotted floor.

  “Oh, that’s a nasty little habit you have there, dumpling.” Kingston shook his head, watching the girl’s body expel the remains of her binge. “Trust me. I know all about it. Your problem is that you’re sloppy. Physically as well as mentally.” He started to pull again, regardless of the vomit that Jennifer was leaving in their wake like a thick trail. “Just leaving your mess around like that? Puking in a bowl? Really? If you’d wanted to keep that mother of yours off your back, you should’ve at least gone to a greater effort to hide your evidence.”

  They were halfway to the last light now and back in darkness. Her throat burning and her body weaker than ever, Jennifer was almost relieved to feel a brush of rain on her cheek from another ceiling hole above. She looked up, her head aching against the bars. She could see the stars. Her eyes welled with tears. As her captor droned on and on, pulling her and her mother to their deaths, she helplessly watched the outside world slip away mutely above her.

  “Really, you don’t exactly look like an eating disorder sufferer. I love that. ‘Sufferer’. Binging and purging takes discipline. It’s an art. I mastered it by the time I was seven. Only those with real self-control can pull it off. The binging is the easy part. It’s the purging, the laxatives, the starvation…that’s how you keep the weight off.” He smiled back at her again.

  Had his teeth suddenly become pointed? Her mind, although clearer, must have still been addled by whatever he gave her. The darkness danced around him, her mind concocting silver limbs like tentacles reaching toward her from whatever lay still in the black they traveled through.

  “Hungry to bed, hungry to rise, makes a girl a smaller size,” he sang to her softly.

  Jennifer began to cry. Finally able to command her tongue properly, the hot taste of her own tears in her mouth, she started pleading. Her torrent of begging echoed around them.

  “Please, please, please. Please stop. Please don’t.”

  They had reached the last light. It cast a perfect circle of warmth on the wall and floor around it, illuminating a door painted the same shade of dove grey as the rest of the wall. No bigger than a changing room door, it had a simple gold plaque that read ‘Storage Only’.

  Jennifer, emboldened by the sound of her own voice continued her pleas. Her hair was in her mouth, sticky with sweat and saliva.

  “I don’t even know who you are. Please. Please. Whatever I did, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I won’t tell anyone if you just let me go.”

  For the first time since she had been conscious, she saw something besides enthusiasm in Kingston’s eyes. Even when her poisoned mind had outfitted him with teeth sharper than the big bad wolf’s, there had always been nothing more than a kind of excitement in his features.

  Somehow Jennifer’s begging made it disappear. She had brought something to the surface and it was much worse than what her mind had concocted.

  His pupils seemed to darken and widen until the whites were gone. They were suddenly like glossy black marbles, swirling and brilliant in his skull. His constant smile was gone. Without his glowing rictus, he suddenly looked more human than skeleton and Jennifer found herself more terrified that she had imagined possible. This was the madness that people didn’t live to tell about. This was the look in the Tiger’s eyes before it takes its first bite.

  His movements suddenly rigid, he pulled a bag out from under her mother’s still unconscious body. It was a large leather satchel and with it gone, the weight of her mother’s body trapped her further against the cart.

  Was she still begging? She tried to stop but found she couldn’t. Perhaps if she just said the right thing he’d stop. Maybe she could reach him on whatever human level he had left. Her mind whirled like a feverish tornado as she garbled out whatever she imagined he might need to hear.

  “I’m disgusting. Please. I’m horrible. I know, I’ll stop. I’ll stop. Please…”

  Kingston hung the satchel off the cart handle. He pulled out a roll of duct tape, shining bright silver under the floodlight. He moved toward her, her panicked admission of how fat she was, how revolting, how pathetic, rising up like a desperate prayer to a god who didn’t care.

  Now closer to her, she could see the perfect smoothness of his skin. His hollow cheeks were flawlessly shaved, his hair styled with such care it could’ve been a wig. The fingers that pulled a length of tape from the roll were manicured and coated with a glossy clear polish. As he leaned toward her, she could smell expensive soap around his thin body like an aura of wealth.

  He would’ve been handsome. He might have been handsome.

  But his eyes, the blackness of them. How could any human eyes be that black and that bright at the same time? The dark seemed to ooze, rolling in on itself and outward with every one of his careful, metered breaths.

  She continued to plead, now mewling more than making coherent sentences.

  He ripped off the length of tape he had pulled out with his teeth. One of his groomed hands grabbed her face, sinking his fingers through her flesh and onto her bones. He pulled her head toward him, sneering at her spit caked lips and cheeks.

  With the other hand, he slammed the tape so hard onto her mouth that she felt her lips burst against her teeth. In a gesture terrifying with its speed he smoothed the tape to either side of her head, completely silencing her.

  “God, you’re boring. Please save me, please don’t hurt me, I’m sorry.” Kingston’s voice rose to a shockingly accurate female tone. He was mocking her, his face curled up on itself and grotesque. “You’re a fucking weakling. I’m so disgusting. You’re right. I’m so gross.”

  An explosion of pain sent Jennifer’s head snapping to the side. Nausea seemed to fill her entire body as the entire right side of her skull erupted in heat. He’d kicked her. He’d kicked her so hard, she could still hear the thud of his shoe against her bones.

  For a moment, Jennifer was swirled into darkness. For a few wondrous seconds, she felt nothing. Then he was back. He kneeled down beside her, grabbing her aching face in his hand again. Was it a claw? It felt like one. Her mouth filled with the taste of blood from her burst lips, she struggled to get enough air through her nose.

  “Look at that piggy snout of yours working for a breath. In and out. In and out. In and out.” Was he stroking her now? The claw seemed to transform. She felt tender, loving caresses against the cheekbone that still seared with pain. Jennifer forced herself to look at him, feeling his breath against her face.

  He was inches from her, the writhing black in his eyes scanning her carefully. She felt her mind begin to retreat, push back into itself to escape the predator man/creature that breathed sweet mint against her face.

  “Fa
t girls always have such lovely skin though,” he whispered softly, as if their heads were sharing a pillow. “I guess that’s one thing we’ll be able to use you for.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  * * *

  The Downtown Core - Dixon City.

  In the half-decade since she had been gone, it seemed Dixon City had successfully passed through all the stages of grief. When Piper had left, the entire metropolis was in the firm grip of what could only be described as the anger phase. It had taken them a while, but when the realization came that the so-called dip in the city’s economy was going to be more permanent than temporary, the people of Dixon had raged the only way they knew how. Riots, looting, surges of organized crime more powerful than the dwindling police force could handle, the city burned.

  Driving through downtown, her wipers pushing the beginning of a rainstorm impatiently off her windshield, it was clear to Piper that the anger had died. Dixon was firmly established in the acceptance phase.

  The windows and storefronts she passed that weren’t broken were covered with sale signs and notices about food stamps and bottle returns. As she drove through what should have been a bustling downtown core, the only things Piper saw that appeared to be open were the pubs and taverns. Had there been so many of them before? They were like neon lit oasis’s in a desert of crumbling concrete and dilapidated buildings. The only sign she saw more than ‘condemned’ was for happy hour.

  Still, the rage was gone. Piper could feel it as soon as she drove into the city limits. This was a ghost town that even the ghosts were deserting.

  The rain began to pick up, pelting down on the dead eyed office buildings that flanked her car. Downtown was a maze. After driving straight for hours with no rest, Piper found herself becoming disorientated. She looked for landmarks, but those that were still standing were in such bad repair that most of the time she didn’t realize she’d overlooked them until half a mile had passed.

  Piper peered out into the rainy night at street signs that were familiar directing her to empty streets that were not. Driving through the center of Dixon, she searched the signs for the turn-off to Oakford Crescent. If her memory was correct and god knows it wasn’t, Harrison’s upper scale suburban neighborhood should be just a few overpasses out of the city center.

  All the big city players had lived in the Oakford area before the collapse. Back in the day, Harrison had enjoyed the perfect upper-class bubble, rubbing shoulders daily with the mayor, the chief magistrate and even the Entler family themselves. He had even joked that they held Sunday barbecues and everyone washed their Land Rovers at the same time. Piper could remember a picture of Harrison and Royal Entler at the golf course together that had been a source of much mockery among his fellow officers. They even took to calling him Lord Harrison for a short time.

  Piper was amazed at how quickly those jokes had stopped.

  It hadn’t been when Royal Entler died, although that was traumatic enough. The real silence, the real death of the era began as soon as the first Entler factory shut its doors. Things really stopped being funny when the products Dixon had been famous for providing started appearing on shelves stamped discreetly with ‘manufactured overseas.’

  Piper had been so deep in thought, that she hadn't noticed she had left the city center and was almost at Harrison’s home. She must have been hypnotized by the rhythmic thumping of the wipers. After all, she was following a route that was so familiar to her she could’ve driven it blindfolded.

  Surprised to be already at her destination, Piper slowed her car as she approached. The streets were just as wide as she remembered, flanked on either side by the kind of ancient oaks that stood like silent guards rather than trees. She pulled the car to a halt in front of Harrison’s home, the wheels whizzing to an almost noiseless halt on the wet road.

  Set back from the road on property designed to look more like a city park than a lawn, his home wasn’t as elaborate as the others. It was modest by comparison with only a paltry three stories, one servants wing and no coach house to speak of.

  He was lost in it. He always had been. Piper had always believed that if he hadn’t married into that home and that lifestyle, he would’ve been surrounded by takeout containers and dirty socks in an apartment somewhere until his final breath.

  She stepped out into the rain, her legs aching from the drive. Her back protested and she leaned back slightly, looking up at the single light shining from the second floor of the house. She wasn’t sure if the rest of the windows in the homes around her were dark because the occupants were sleeping or if the homes were deserted; abandoned and gone feral like the rest of the city.

  She walked through the gate, her head bent against the rain. The lawn that used to roll up to the front door like a plush green carpet had been neglected. In fact, it looked as if it hadn’t been mowed in a year. The grass was so high that it bent under its own weight. Harrison’s wife would have never allowed that. Laura would’ve been appalled.

  There were clumps of wet newspapers on the stairs leading up to the front door. Without thinking, Piper found herself bending to collect them. She placed them to the side, her hands sticky from the damp. As she put them down, she couldn’t help but notice the front-page headline. Boy’s Kidnapping Stuns City. Police preparing for the return of the Dixon Demon.

  Piper was shocked to feel her vision waver. She placed her hand on the stone door frame to steady herself and waited for the lightheadedness to pass. For a second, she looked back at her car waiting patiently by the curb. I could just jump in and drive home. Adam had been calling her cell phone all day, he was obviously worried about her. He would want her to stay out of this, wouldn’t he? Surely, she owed him that much.

  She fiddled with the keys in her jacket pocket with one hand, the folded smoothness of the three pictures in her other. What about them? She thought, feeling the weight of the drawings in her hand, don’t you owe them as well?

  Piper made a decision without her own consent. She pushed the car keys back into her coat and knocked.

  Louder than she intended, the knock seemed to vibrate through the house. She stepped back, her eyes fixed on the stain glassed window built into the door.

  A light clicked on inside and she could hear the sound of footsteps approaching.

  When Harrison finally finished with the locks and stood in front of her, he looked just as shocked and pale as she did.

  “Good Lord, Piper. What time is it? Did you drive all the way up?” He took in her appearance and her car parked at the curb with characteristic rapidity, his bright eyes even scanning the entryway and property as he did so.

  “I’m sorry, I know it’s late.” Like her sudden knock on the door, Piper seemed to speak without her own permission now. She heard a slight shake in her voice and took a deep breath.

  “No, not at all. I mean, yeah, it’s unexpected. It’s late, but what are you doing? I mean, come in.”

  Harrison pushed his hair out of his eyes, swishing it back from his fine boned face in a strangely nervous gesture. It was one she’d never seen before. Of course, she’d never seen him in his pajama bottoms either. He wrapped his robe around him tighter and moved aside for Piper to enter.

  It smelled different inside. It was the first thing she noticed when she walked into the entranceway. Although it had never smelled welcoming in the kind of cooking or cleaning product way a family home did, it had never smelled stale. There had always been a sense of staging to it, a carefully curated scent collection from room to room that matched the decor his wife had been so proud of. Her fingerprints had been everywhere.

  There was no trace of her left.

  Harrison bent to shuffle a collection of shoes out of the way, pushing the dirty pile beneath a table that ran down the length of the hall. There were more papers on top of the table, in fact, there were papers everywhere. From where Piper stood she could see into the living room which, although dark, appeared to be filled with boxes spewing documents onto the furnit
ure.

  “I’m sorry, Piper, you’ve caught me completely by surprise.” He tried to laugh. “I thought when I left, well, I didn’t hear from you and judging by your reactions I honestly didn’t think I’d ever hear from you again, let alone get a house call.”

  “I’m sorry about that.” Piper had been rehearsing a speech for practically the entire drive up to Dixon, but now that she stood in his hallway, it seemed to have disappeared from her mind completely. She stumbled forward with it, anyway. “I know it’s unexpected. I could’ve handled myself better. I mean it’s been years since I’ve seen you. I know, I mean… I heard about your wife and I didn’t even bother to… I’ve been a little unbalanced lately.”

  She dropped her eyes, embarrassed by her faltering speech. She looked down at the pictures in her palm that she was currently sweating through.

  She was surprised when she felt Harrison step forward and take her in his arms. It was a brief hug, but she could feel the warmth nonetheless. He’d barely touched her as long as she knew him. For a split second, she was reminded of his embrace after her mother had disappeared. It had only been one hug, but it had been all she needed. She tried not to stiffen as unexpected emotions made her lightheaded again.