For a place that perched on the outcrop of a mountain, Castle House Asylum sure had a hell of a lot of grass to cut. And the killer was, since so much of the lawn crawled down steep slopes, it wasn’t a very smart idea to sit on a riding mower while doing it. You could pretty easily find yourself unbalanced and flipping over hundreds of pounds of steel with a big, deadly spinning blade.
So that’s why David was huffing up a storm as he pushed the hand mower up a hill back toward the gabled windows of the asylum. Oh, the mower was self-propelled, naturally. That just didn’t count for much when the incline was about 160 degrees!
He consoled himself that at ten dollars an hour this was great money for a part-time job while at the same time serving as great training. But that didn’t make the sweat streaming down his cheeks any sweeter.
The job was simple. He had an acre or two of
grass to cut each week (which might take him two days, from the feel of today’s attack), and a bunch of wild rosebushes to trim. And a handful of topiary gardens to bring into civilized check. At the moment, the bases of all the bushes on the property were completely overrun in crabgrass and thistles.
David figured he could put in three afternoons a week and still have plenty of time to work on the projects around Aunt Elsie’s place. But he’d be pocketing probably $150 a week, instead of simply spending the money he’d arrived here with.
Apparently, he’d been the only one to apply for the job, because Dr. Rockford had hired him on the spot, with the promise that he not get into any more accidents on the grounds. Now he was feeling a little sorry he’d taken the job.
The rules were pretty simple. Show up after lunch, check in with Rockford or the nurse to see if they had any special jobs to do, and then hit the yard for four or five hours. He had a key to the gardener’s shed out back, and access to a small bathroom near the asylum’s back entrance.
Today there had been no special jobs…just get the yard cut. It was hard to believe that there was any grass left on the hills around the old hotel to cut, after decades of neglect, but while there was plenty of clover and weeds interspersed, there was still some remnant of what had probably once been a five-star-resort lawn of rich emerald grass. Each time he pushed the mower back up the steep hill toward the old hotel he stared at the old building, trying to imagine what it must once have been like. He knew people had come here from all corners of the world to enjoy the pampered life. But he also knew that something had cut that heyday short. He remembered some tiny fragment of a rumor about a bloodbath that had killed guests and ended the
hotel’s attraction. No amount of promotion had ever managed to overcome that, and so the hotel had slipped through poorer and poorer hands until it had been left to rot into the hillside, vacant and empty.
Now the ivy crawled up and around nearly all of the front brick, cascading over the upper-story windows in mystery and stirring shadows. The glass of most of those rooms remained dark even in the daylight; ciphers that showed and promised nothing. Except in one window…David stared as he pushed hard to crest the top of the hill. There was someone in that window just to the left of the main entrance, on the second floor. He thought it was a woman.
Though his cutting pattern called for him to turn left and go back down and around the hill, he kept pushing the mower forward, steadily approaching the asylum. He could make out the face of a girl now, probably a patient, he realized. She had dark hair that hung in a strand across her face, and her mouth seemed to be hanging partially open, as if she was calling out. If she was, he’d never hear it over the mower. It looked like she’d bleached a bit of her hair; there was a lighter strand that slipped out from her temple. As he reached the edge of the grass and the start of the entry drive, he realized that that lighter strand of hair wasn’t just light…It looked…pink. Like Brenda’s hair…Just then, the girl suddenly disappeared from the glass, and a hand reached up and pulled down a shade ensuring that David wouldn’t see in anymore.
What the hell?
he thought, turning the mower and heading down the hill again, but not without a couple glances over his shoulder at the now-shaded window. Had he really seen what he thought he had?
No way,
he told himself. Brenda may have been wild, but she sure as hell wasn’t crazy.
Nevertheless, the image troubled him as he finished his last half hour of cutting, before finally tucking the mower back into the shed. He didn’t bother to wash up inside, just got on his bike and began the arduous journey back to Aunt Elsie’s. He’d almost forgotten about Brenda over the past few days, and now she was right back in the center of his head again.
The thought about what might have happened to her only spurred him on to pedal harder, and for once, he didn’t even notice the steep slope on the way back into town. His frustration gave him all the energy he needed to climb the mountain.
“I bet I can get one to come back to the car with us before you can,” TG pronounced, as he tilted back a stiff shot of Jack Daniel’s. He nodded at the crowded bar, and then slammed down the shot on the counter, instantly gaining the attention of the bartendress, a well-tattooed brunette in a loose tank top. TG had already made it a game of making sure he set their glasses just far enough away from the back of the bar that she had to bend over. They’d been at the Last Look in Oak Falls for an hour now, and after a couple beers, an ice water and three shots, he was feeling ready to go to work.
But tonight, TG had decided the game was going to be a little different. Knocking a bitch over the head and stuffing her in the trunk was easy. Where was the sport in that? Naw, tonight he wanted to win the pussy fair and square, and that meant
breaking out the old bad-boy charm. He grinned an expanse of yellowed ivories as he considered his array of pickup lines.
“You in?” TG prodded, nudging Billy, who was staring across the room at a blonde. She was hunched over the bar, deep in thought. Or deep in drunkenness, he couldn’t be sure. She seemed to be alone.
“In for what?”
“You get a filly back to the car without a lead pipe or a dose of ether before me, and you win.”
“And you’re going to try to win over a chick yourself?” Billy asked. He sounded doubtful.
“Yeah, you think I can’t do it?”
“What are the stakes?”
TG scratched his chin a minute. Then his eyes lit.
Well,
lit
might be overstating it. Let’s just say you could see the red capillaries crisscrossing the whites of his eyes a bit clearer. Midnight is pretty late when you start drinkin’ at three in the afternoon.
“Let’s say whoever gets a girl to follow him to the car first gets to keep her.”
“And the loser?”
“Whoever comes outta the bar last has to turn his gal over to the doc.”
“Not much in the way of stakes,” Billy mused.
But TG was already off the stool. “I’ll be waiting for you in the Mustang,” he promised, and set off across the bar to hit on a dark-haired girl who was already in the midst of a conversation with two other guys. Billy saw the one, a needle-thin preppy dude, fade back as soon as TG approached, but the other just kept talking, his brow twitching a bit in annoyance as the flannel-clad hick approached.
“Why do I do this shit?” Billy mumbled, and slipped off the stool himself. Picking up his beer, he headed across the room to where the blonde sat. If there was one thing he knew about bars, it was that
the lonely girl there in the corner was just waiting for someone to show. And if Billy put on a good face, that someone could be he.
Tonight, that lonely girl was Mary Jane.
Mary Jane hadn’t had a very good week. Her dad was currently hooked up to a respirator thanks to a forty-year chain-smoking habit, and her boss had announced today that if sales didn’t increase in the next month, she and a handful of others would be on the street. No foul on their part, and really nothing they could do to change their fate…but business was business. And business sucked. She hoped they carted all the Republicans out of Congress on sharp sticks in the next election, that’s all she could say.
Billy listened, and bought more drinks, encouraging the bartendress to pour the vodka heavy in her vanilla vodka and sodas. A couple extra bucks in the tip always helped with that gambit.
Mary Jane had a head start, so he didn’t need to prime the pump too much, and she was more than willing to talk about her woes, so he didn’t have to make up too much about himself. (He figured that mentioning that his only current employment involved kidnapping young women for some kind of medical experiments and that she could be next if she didn’t give it up fast probably wasn’t the right way to approach a pickup.)
He liked it that there was a white line across the fourth finger of her left hand instead of a ring. Easy story to coax there, he figured, if her tongue slowed down. And he liked the way she grabbed his wrist for emphasis when she talked about her asshole boss, and got misty-eyed over the likely impending death of her dad.
When she excused herself to go to the bathroom, she wobbled a bit getting off the stool. And when
she came back, she didn’t seem to be moving in anything resembling a straight line.
“I need to get home,” she slurred. And he made the natural move.
“Let me drive you home,” he said. “You’re in no condition right now.”
She only hesitated a minute, and then leaned on his proffered arm. “Okay.”
Billy led her through the jam-packed bar, getting jostled and elbowed with every step. He didn’t see TG, but figured he was still in the back somewhere.
But when they got to the parking lot, he saw the Mustang’s windows were steamed up, and Billy had a sinking feeling that was quickly answered. Before he even reached for the handle, the driver’s-side door popped open, and TG’s stubbled mug peered out. His hairy chest was bare, and a naked foot slid up and over the black hair on his shoulder. Red-painted toenails waved at Billy, as TG grinned.
“Hey buddy. We’re kinda busy back here right now, so I’d say you’ve got the wheel. Looks like you’ll be contributing to the doc’s stash tonight, eh?”
Billy felt like crying, but instead, he helped Mary Jane into the front passenger’s seat and heaved a sigh of relief when her head lolled back between the headrest and the window as soon as he shut the door.
When Billy started the engine, there was a giddy squeak from the backseat, and Mary Jane blinked her way to semiconsciousness for just a moment, and put a hand on his wrist. “Thanks,” she said.
“Don’t mention it,” he said, and pointed the car back toward Castle Point. In another few hours, he guessed she wouldn’t be thanking him at all.
As the moaning escalated from the backseat in almost exact proportion to the increased action of his
foot on the gas pedal, Billy couldn’t help but wonder what in hell TG was going to do with his prize, now that he’d won it. TG hadn’t had a girlfriend since he’d known him; so that wasn’t what this was about.
Somehow, he knew that whatever it was about, was
not
going to be good. Not for the girl, anyway.
Billy took the turn up the hill to the shack slowly. He didn’t want to wake Mary Jane, who had closed her eyes as soon as he’d pulled away from the bar in Oak Falls. If he had to deliver her to the doc, he’d like to do it with a minimum of fuss. Kinda pissed him off though to lose the bet. He’d been starting to actually look forward to waking up next to this little piece. She wasn’t bad…and she hadn’t told him to take a hike like most of the bitches he hit on.
In the rearview mirror, he could just see the hairy back of TG.
Asshole,
he thought. As if to counterpoint it, TG moved just then, displaying the crack of said ass in the mirror, and Billy looked away. There were some things that could haunt your dreams, and he didn’t relish the idea of waking up to the afterimage of
that.
Finally, the Mustang pulled up to the dark house and Billy killed the engine. “We’re here,” he announced softly.
TG’s head popped up over the seat. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll dump her inside and then we can make our run to the doc’s. But I wanna get back fast to the shack. The
love
shack!”
“How are you planning to keep her here?” Billy said, nodding at the backseat. “Do you want me to stay here and watch her?”
“Oh she’ll wait for us nice and quietlike.” TG grinned, holding up a strip of black cloth that once had comprised part of a woman’s T-shirt.
Billy looked over the seat, and saw the girl’s eyes bugging out of their sockets. She was whimpering behind the improvised black cloth gag, and Billy guessed that was because in addition to being gagged, her hands and ankles were hog-tied behind her back with more strips of the black cloth.
“Doesn’t look too comfortable,” Billy observed.
“Naw, I’d guess not,” TG agreed. “So let’s dump your bitch at the asylum, get our money and get the hell back here to let her loose. Who knows, I might even get generous and let you have a piece of her tonight, seeing’s you’re losing yours.”
“Take a swim in your sloppy seconds?” Billy said, wrinkling up his nose. “Thanks, but I’ll pass. I know where you’ve been.”
“Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it, friend,” TG said, and opened the back door. He pulled his shirt on and then yanked the naked girl out of the backseat by her armpits. She struggled a little, but just before he reached the house he stopped and slugged her with the back of his fist upside the head, and then she visibly relaxed. Her feet bounced up the stairs to the shack’s kitchen door, and Billy wondered if TG had knocked her out. Would make the wait a little more bearable for her, he supposed. Though she’d wake up with a hell of a headache.
Billy glanced at Mary Jane, relieved to see that she was solidly out as well. Then he lit a cigarette and, for the first time all night, relaxed. He hadn’t realized how tense the whole scenario had made him…first
just the pressure of abducting someone, but then the added insanity of trying to sweet-talk the victim into the backseat beforehand…He took a deep drag on the smoke and stared at the sprinkling of stars just above the tree line in the black richness of the night sky. In some ways, this was the time he was happiest—at night, alone, with a warm buzz of nicotine sliding in and out of his lungs.
“I need a new life,” Billy said to himself, sliding deeper into the seat and closing his eyes. He knew the perfect feeling of this solitary moment wouldn’t last long.
And it didn’t. Before the cigarette was out, TG slid back into the Mustang and slapped Billy in the back of the head. “Let’s go, bubba,” he laughed, and pulled his door shut. The drunk girl barely stirred.
“Did you call the doc and let him know we were coming?” Billy asked, guiding the Mustang back down the rutted road to the highway.
“Yeah, called him from the house. He’ll be waiting with the cash.”
The asylum was just a mile down the road, and this time, Billy didn’t slow down at the front entrance, but pulled immediately around to the back. TG didn’t hide how eager he was to get back to his trophy at the shack. Before he’d even thrown the car in park, Billy’s partner hopped out to the gravel drive. Then he opened the passenger-side door and grabbed Mary Jane’s limp head and pulled it upright by a hank of hair.
“Wake up, bitch,” he said sweetly. “Doc wants ta give you a little examination. I think you’ll like how he’s gonna take your temperature.”
Billy was already out of the car himself, and he stepped around TG and grabbed the girl by the elbow as she blinked herself awake. She tried without success to stop TG from pulling her hair, struggling
to evade Billy’s grasp while slapping at TG. “Let go,” she complained.
“Leave her,” Billy hissed. “I’ll handle it.”
“Where are we?” she asked, staggering as she stepped out of the car.
“A friend’s place,” Billy said. “We’re staying here for tonight.”
“You were supposed to be taking me home.” Her voice trembled, and she looked around wildly, trying to figure out where she was, and whether she should try to run.
“For now, this is the best I can do,” he said, and turned the knob on the asylum’s back door. TG stepped behind her and gave a push. Mary Jane fell through the door, landing on her hands and knees in the dark foyer.
“Welcome home,” TG growled.
Dr. Rockford walked into the room before the woman had gotten off the floor. He didn’t hesitate, but knelt down next to Mary Jane.
“Hi there, hon. I’m gonna give you something to make you sleep tonight.”
Before she could protest, he stabbed a needle into her upper arm and pushed the plunger down. “Sweet dreams,” he said.
“What the hell is this?” Mary Jane moaned, and scrambled up from the floor. The doctor didn’t try to stop her. The three men watched as she staggered down the hallway, clutching at the wall, and then stumbled. She pulled herself up against the wall again and got in a couple more shaky steps before slipping to her knees.
“Why?” she asked, as the floor came up to meet her face.
TG walked over to her, and answered.
“Money.” Then he pulled her limp body up, hefting her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“Where do you want her, Doc?”
“Upstairs,” he said, and led them down the hall and around a corner to the wide, grand staircase to the second floor. Billy trailed behind, a lump inexplicably thickening in his throat. He couldn’t explain why; he hadn’t minded turning the other girls over to the doc this much. But he just thought of all the shit that Mary Jane had gone through over the last few days—the conversation they’d had at the bar playing over and over in his head. And he felt, well, kinda like a big plop of horseshit to be adding to the list.
“Right over here,” Rockford pointed. “Room thirteen.” “Lucky number,” TG laughed.
Rockford smiled as TG laid the limp body down on the old hotel bed. “Yes it is,” he said. “A very lucky number.”
The doc led them back downstairs to the front office, where Nurse Amelia was waiting. “Thanks to the boys, we have our Number Thirteen,” Rockford said, a pronounced smile on his face.
The nurse grinned as well. “That’s great news,” she said. “And great timing, since the clock is now ticking.”
TG showed his impatience without embarrassment. “Doc, you owe us for two now,” he said. “I’d like to get our money and split. You know where to find us if you need another job.”
Dr. Rockford nodded at Nurse Amelia, who reached into a drawer in the desk. “Here you are, Doctor,” she said, and Rockford leaned over to take something from her. She stood then and came around to Billy from the other side of the desk.
“Actually,” Dr. Rockford said, “this is the last job I think we’re going to need you for. We needed thirteen women, and that is all we needed. I appreciate
all that you’ve done for us, and I trust you’ll keep your mouths shut about the nature of your work for Castle House Asylum?”
TG was disappointed to hear that the money tree was drying up, but he hastened to agree with the doc. “Our lips are sealed,” he agreed.
The doctor put a hand on TG’s shoulder, as he swung the other arm up quietly to connect with TG’s arm. The needle entered cleanly, and he had pressed the plunger before the lowlife even registered the sting of the penetration. Then TG was swinging his body around intending to punch the doctor, but Rockford dodged easily, noting from the corner of his eye that Amelia had executed her half of the needle ballet with equal success. Billy was flailing in place, trying to grab hold of the nurse as she dodged away, spent needle in hand.
Amelia dove away from the men to hide behind the desk, while Rockford backed out of the doorway to wait in the hall as the two men slapped at the injection points on their arms and cried out in irritation.
“What the fuck?” TG complained. “What did you
do?
”
Billy didn’t ask. He only closed his eyes as the wave of cold swiftly spread from his arm to his chest. “Fuckin’ bitch,” he mumbled, just before his knees lost their ability to hold him upright.
“So,” Amelia said moments later, when Billy and TG had both stopped fighting the drug and lay motionless on the floor. “That’s done. But now what do we do with them?”
“I think the coup de grace can always use a couple more bodies,” Rockford said. “We’ll keep them in the cellar for now. In a couple weeks, one way or the other, it won’t matter.”
He grabbed TG by the wrists and began to drag the heavy man out of the room.
“Give me a hand,” he huffed. “We’ll come back for the other one.”
Amelia grabbed TG’s ankles and helped the doctor wrestle the body out of the room and down the hall to the elevator.
“Then we need to dump their car back at their place. I don’t think we need to worry about them being missed anytime soon.”
Amelia laughed. “No,” she agreed. “I can’t imagine who would ever miss these two.”
Amy Lynn rolled back and forth on the dirty kitchen floor of Billy and TG’s shack. Every now and then she felt the tiny legs of an insect kiss the back of her neck, or run across her cheek. She screamed each time it happened, not that much sound escaped the gag. But it was enough to send the roaches back to their holes for a minute or two. She pulled at the bonds that kept her limbs in pins and needles, and cried as she flipped from lying on one side of her body to the other. She’d been repeating these futile efforts now for what seemed like hours.
Her tears only smeared the mud and roach droppings that coated the floor onto her face. Cleanliness wasn’t one of TG’s virtues.
Outside, she heard the loud rev of an engine. It had the throaty growl of a sports car, and she prayed as it cycled off that Billy was back in the black Mustang. She was afraid of his return too…but she didn’t know how long she could stay tied up like this without losing it completely. She had screamed herself hoarse in the hours since they’d left, and not managed to make a sound that anyone could actually hear. She waited for the sound of feet on the
steps, and the creak of the door, but minutes passed, and there was nothing, though she did hear the sound of another engine pull away from the house outside.
Amy Lynn shifted and thumped her legs and arms on the floor, like beating on a drum. Someone had to be outside. She tried to scream again, and thwacked the floor. Then she stopped, and listened.
Still, only silence.
There was one person in the world who missed Billy and TG.
Amy Lynn tried to control her wracking sobs, head thudding softly on the floor. She missed them very much indeed. And the night wasn’t nearly over.