Dark Inspiration Read online

  “See you around, asshole,” Doug said.

  He plunged Vern underwater and knelt on his chest. Vern’s eyes shot open, two white, terrified orbs staring from the black water. He screamed and bubbles broke the surface with his garbled cry. He reached up and clawed at Doug’s waist. His stunted fingers found no grip.

  “Those stubby fingers aren’t much good,” Doug said. He felt a surge of adrenaline run though his body. “Life’s a bitch, and then…” He pounded his knees into Vern’s chest.

  A massive air bubble burst from the pond, like someone had popped a balloon underwater. Vern went limp and his arms slid back beneath the water. Doug searched Vern’s neck for a pulse. It was over.

  Doug felt a nearly orgasmic sense of satisfaction. The power he felt killing the rabbit and the fox was nothing compared to this. He ended a human life, entered that elite club so few have the courage to join. He closed his eyes and sighed.

  Doug stood up. Vern’s corpse stayed submerged. Doug could leave him here, but he knew eventually the body would rise to the surface. Burial would be an exhausting, time-consuming event. Again he remembered the fox. An idea sprang to mind, fully formed to the finest detail, as if he’d already done each step before. He grabbed the corpse by the front of the shirt and pulled it out of the water. The head lolled to one side, mouth open, eyes pointing nowhere.

  “Vern, my man,” Doug said. “You are going to be a work of art.”

  Doug heaved the corpse over his shoulder and took it into the barn. He slung the body down on the grating over the old bathtub like a fisherman delivering the tuna catch of the day. He completely understood the arrangement in the barn he had once thought so bizarre. The waterless tub, the sink, the pickling barrel. The attic hadn’t been Mabron’s taxidermy studio. The barn had. At least after he graduated to larger animals.

  It was after three a.m.. Skinning Vern wasn’t going to be a quick event if he was going to do the effort justice. Laura would be up in a few hours and her introduction to Doug’s latest hobby didn’t need to be over a corpse in the barn. He needed to be back in bed now.

  Thanks to watching too many police procedurals on TV, he remembered he had four hours before rigor mortis set in. Working on a stiff stiff would complicate things. He did the math and if Laura left on time for school, he could be back in time to avoid that complication.

  A shipping box from the water treatment system was still in the barn. Doug slit it in half and covered the body with it. The cardboard tent covered the length of the tub. Doug gave it a pat.

  “See you in the morning, buddy,” he said. ‘Don’t go anywhere.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Laura silenced her screaming alarm clock with a slap.

  She sat up in the darkness and thought the bed felt wrong. She reached back and Doug’s side was empty. She flicked on the bedside lamp. Worse than empty, his side was still made.

  He might have been getting to bed late each night, she thought. But he was always getting to bed. Now what the hell? She tossed on a robe. She opened the bedroom door to the sight of Doug puttering in the kitchen.

  “You didn’t go to bed?”

  Doug looked up with obviously feigned surprise. “No, you know I was in the groove and all of a sudden it’s morning.” He wasn’t nearly rumpled and haggard enough to have pulled an all-nighter.

  Laura nodded and went into the bathroom. It was a little too clean. The sink was cleared away and she was sure there were two blue towels on the rack yesterday, not the one blue, one yellow there today. A peek in the hamper found a blue towel stained with mud.

  She rolled on the shower and slipped off her robe. Hot water surged out in seconds instead of minutes since it had just been running. She pinned up her hair and stepped in.

  She let the warm water cascade across her face. Doug was even stranger than usual this morning. Whatever the hell he did last night didn’t have anything to do with writing. And she was amazed to find that she didn’t care.

  She worked up soapy lather on a washcloth. She had too much going on to mess with his crap. TCAP was coming on like a freight train and she was panicked that she didn’t have enough tutoring time to make an impact on her low achievers. And then last night she had that amazing experience with the girls. She’d invest time there before she wasted it arguing with her husband about whatever stupid task he’d undertaken.

  Twenty minutes later she was dressed sharply in a calf-length black skirt, turquoise blouse, black jacket and heels. She strode by the kitchen, school book bag slung over her shoulder. She smelled eggs cooking.

  “Breakfast in seconds,” Doug said.

  After weeks of sleeping in, she thought, now it’s room service time? Another guilt-driven act. She didn’t even break stride.

  “Not today,” she said with a disingenuous smile. “I’ve got a lot to do before classes start.”

  A month ago, that would have brought out a protest from Doug, or a probe about what work she had to do, or concern about her skipping a protein fix first thing in the morning. But now…

  “See you tonight, babe.”

  Laura slammed the door behind her. When the TCAPs were done, she was going to fix this situation.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Doug breathed a sigh of relief as soon as the door shut. He watched out the window until her car made the turn on US 41. Then he pulled the roll of taxidermy tools from where he’d hidden it under the sink and went straight for the barn.

  The first thing he checked when he pulled Vern’s cardboard tent off his body was rigidity. He raised one of the corpse’s arms and it fell back with a slap like a side of beef. He wasn’t too late. He unrolled the tools next to the bathtub. For the first time, he snapped on a pair of rubber gloves, a bright yellow pair previously relegated to bathroom scrubbing duty. Then he put a white apron over his head and tied it in back. Laura had given it to him as a joke when they were first married, during the every-night-chili era. On the front it said Kiss the Cook in black letters.

  He grabbed a pair of scissors and cut away at Vern’s wet clothes. He yanked away the shredded ribbons like a kid unwrapping a birthday present until Vern lay naked over the old stained tub.

  He rolled Vern over onto his chest. He had been planning the cuts since he first flopped him on the grate. This was going to be a masterpiece, an opportunity to prove his skills with a large and complicated canvas. All the seams would be on the back of the body or under the scalp. Every finger, every toe was going to get its own underside seam. The book recommended skinning the leg from the top down, and rolling off the skin like a lady’s stocking. But that meant a big seam at the hip. Doug was going to do it the hard way. When he finished, the skin would be one solid piece, like a suit someone else could slip on. From the front, Vern was going to look as lifelike as anything in the attic.

  Then he’d throw in a little Egyptian black magic. If binding the fox worked wonders, binding a human soul would be amazing. He’d put Madame Tussaud’s to shame.

  Doug bowed his head and took a deep breath. He held it as he put the tip of a scalpel at the base of Vern’s neck. Doug applied slight pressure and the skin stretched under the sharp blade. He worried that thicker human skin might need tools he didn’t have. There was a tiny pop, and the blade sank into flesh. Doug exhaled and ran a perfectly straight incision down the length of Vern’s spine. The skin separated along the cut and Doug thought it looked like a blooming flower. He smiled a crooked smile that was now more his than someone else’s. He started the second incision.

  Doug worked straight through the day, no breaks, no lunch, no thought of anything else that might be happening in the world outside the barn. He cut and trimmed and scraped, all the while he handled the skin with a reverence that matched the repulsion he felt when it covered a beating heart. He realized he was elevating Vern to a status he would never reach as a breathing creature. He would shed his imperfections and become a virtuoso tribute to the human form. Even those malformed fingers could be improve
d; straightened and shaped more naturally than Vern’s stunted muscles could have done in real life.

  The organs were dispatched to their separate jars in the same manner as the fox and sat on a shelf by the water treatment unit. The bones sat on the grate in separate piles, de-fleshed but not fully cleaned. The muscle and other now-useless material were buried by the wood line in a shallow pit. The idea of interring the remains in the graveyard that held his family did not even occur to Doug. Vern as Vern was nothing. It was only Vern as creative canvas that would be of value.

  Doug went to the barrel where the skin was pickling. He reached in and grabbed the hide. It felt cold and rubbery and he had a hard time getting a good grip on it. He seized the shoulders and pulled. The skin lifted from the solution like a breaching whale. Doug dragged it along the dirt floor and over to the wall and a pseudo-clothes line he had improvised from some electrical wire. He flipped the skin over the line and pulled the edges tight. He clipped the edges to the wire with antique clothes pins he’d found in the attic. The he raised the head skin up and tied it to two nails in the wall by its hair. He brushed some dirt from the hide and stepped back.

  Doug beamed with pride. It was Vern 2.0 up on the wall, spread-eagled and flat, a lot wider than he used to be. By tomorrow he’d be dry and ready to mount. Oh the agony of having to wait that long.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  The three tutoring students she had that afternoon all went home earlier than usual since their baseball team had a game that evening, so Laura finally got out of school with enough time to get downtown before five p.m.. She had been dying to tell Theresa about her encounter with the girls’ spirits for two days. But no one answered Theresa’s home phone and her cell went straight to voice mail. Dustin had been out of school as well and that had made Laura worried. She hoped she could drop by Treasured Things and find out what was going on.

  She walked in with fifteen minutes to closing and Theresa was alone in the back. She smiled as Laura came in.

  “Laura!”

  “Theresa!” They hugged like they were sisters.

  “Looks like you have some new inventory,” Laura said.

  “I had an involuntary reduction,” Theresa answered. She gave Laura a quick review of her ex-husband’s visit to the store.

  “And what did the police do?” Laura asked.

  “Bobby’s got a bogus alibi,” Theresa said. “Until the sheriff punches a hole in it, he’s still free. Dustin and I are staying with my parents until they can arrest him. I’ve kept him out of school in case Bobby tries to exercise his legal parental right to contact him.”

  “Well, I’ve got some news from the spirit world that might brighten your day,” Laura offered.

  “Oh, did the static generator work?”

  “Like a charm,” Laura said. “I saw the girls. Completely, head to toe. It was like Disney World’s Haunted Mansion.” She left out her more personal encounter at the end. “You’ve got to meet them. Why don’t you come over tonight?”

  “No, I really…” Theresa paused and thought. “Yes, I think I will. Dustin couldn’t be happier being spoiled by Grandma and Grandpa, and I need an excuse to stop feeling like I’m being hunted.”

  “Perfect,” Laura said. “Dusk is at seven. See you then?”

  “You bet.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  The jail door rolled shut with a clank. The sheriff had to admit Bobby looked damn good through a set of iron bars.

  “I don’t know how you can say that was my blood at her store,” Bobby said.

  “Because we have your DNA on file from one of your previous arrests,” Sheriff Mears said. “Your blood was on the mirror at the crime scene, and you had cuts on your arm the next morning. Means, motive, opportunity. You got the big three covered, Bobby.”

  “Maybe someone got my DNA and put it in there,” Bobby said. “She could be trying to frame me.”

  “That’s the best you can do? Well, you tell that one to a jury and see if they buy it.” Sheriff Mears left a deputy in charge of the jail and went outside to his cruiser.

  He didn’t have the DNA test results back from Nashville, but he did have his people at the local hospital type the blood. AB negative was a match for Bobby, but a match for only one percent of the population. That was good enough for the DA until the DNA check confirmed it without a doubt.

  A great little benefit was that he had Vern dead to rights as well. Finally a good reason to haul his creepy ass into jail. Once he saw the inside of a cell, he’d sing for a plea bargain, testify against Bobby and still end up convicted of something. Some days it really paid to be in law enforcement.

  Sheriff Mears fired up his cruiser and headed for Vern’s. Fifteen minutes later, as the last red rays of the sun hit the horizon, be pulled into Vern’s driveway. He was glad to see Vern’s dented Chevy Celebrity in front of the house. That meant his quarry was home.

  Even though it was dusk, there wasn’t a light on in the trailer, which struck Sheriff Mears as odd, unless Vern was taking a nap. He donned his wide-brimmed hat as he left the car and approached the trailer slowly. He walked up the creaky steps and waited outside the front door. Silence. If Vern wasn’t home, maybe he was walking the woods. At dusk? No way.

  Sheriff Mears pounded on the door. “Vern, it’s Sheriff Mears. Open up.”

  Still nothing. Mears repeated the process to no avail. He tried the door knob. Unlocked.

  A second warning sounded in his head. No one left doors unlocked, especially Vern with his lifetime of unfriendly contacts. Sheriff Mears nudged the door open.

  Warning sign three. The place stank. Not the usual unkempt reek from minimal housekeeping. Something in here was rotting. He pulled his gun and flicked off the safety.

  “Vern, I’m coming in!” He flipped on the light. A mouse skittered across the floor and into a hole in the wall.

  Sheriff Mears moved room to room and cleared the trailer. No one there, living or dead. He put a few worst-case scenarios to bed. He holstered his weapon and took his time walking back through.

  The place was a mess, but not much worse than last time he was here. In the kitchen, he found the source of the stench. A bowl with the remnants of milk-sodden breakfast cereal sat in the sink. On the counter stood a half-finished bottle of beer. Sheriff Mears touched it. It was room temperature and flat.

  Yesterday’s breakfast in the sink and a flat beer on the counter from later in the day, or even the night. He guessed Vern hadn’t been home for nearly twenty-four hours. But his car was here. Now where the hell would he head off to on foot?

  “Shit, no.” He looked out the front door and down the hill. Not Galaxy Farm. No, the Lockes would have called right away if he went over there. If Vern heard Bobby was arrested, he might have just lit out to the woods, knowing he was going to be picked up next. It would take the whole department to flush him out of there.

  “Damn it.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  An hour later, Theresa pulled up at the main house of Galaxy Farm. She had tried to make Laura think she was coming over to see the girls as a diversion. But her motivation was completely different. She hadn’t forgotten the premonitions, the bad karma around Galaxy Farm, the mortal danger Laura was somehow in. Laura’s enchantment by the spirits had only deepened her concern. Nothing had triggered a vision the last time she was here, and she hadn’t had one in a while, but she knew not to let that lull her. No premonition that strong had ever gone unanswered. She was afraid she would get some of those answers tonight.

  The lights on the bottom floor were on. On the second floor, only the two windows of the turret room were lit. Laura had the front door open before Theresa was out of her car. She wore a broad, excited smile.

  “Oh, this waiting has been killing me,” she said. “C’mon in and let’s get started.”

  Theresa felt her first foreboding feeling as she crossed the threshold. Not a vision, just a hint, like catching the scent of smoke before you see th
e fire. She looked around the living room and across the kitchen for any source of the sensation, but nothing stood out. But it was touch that always brought out the talisman in an object.

  “Is your husband here tonight?” Theresa asked.

  Laura pointed up the stairs with her thumb like a hitchhiker. “Up there. Writing, he says. We won’t disturb him. An earthquake wouldn’t disturb him.”

  Apparently Laura hadn’t settled much with Doug today.

  Laura shut off the lights in the living room and guided Theresa into the nursery. The static generator sat on the floor by Laura’s desk. Laura had put a dining room chair on the other side of the generator, assuming Theresa didn’t want to spend her second encounter with the spirits on the floor again. How nice.

  When she entered the room, Theresa felt the air in the nursery thicken. Whatever evil she felt in the living room, it doubled in here. But Laura didn’t seem to sense it. She was still beaming.

  “Now just have a seat,’ Laura said. “They appeared here last time. I’m sure they’ll be back. I can’t wait for you to meet them.”

  Meet not see. The girls were more than ghosts to Laura, Theresa thought. What else had happened the last night she saw them to create that kind of a bond?

  “Laura, you never felt any danger, any threats from these ghosts?” Surely Laura had to have a whiff of all the bad mojo wafting through this place, even just an inkling.

  “Please! Never.” Laura patted the dining room chair. “Now sit down and stop worrying. This is going to be fun.”

  Theresa took her seat. Laura sat and snapped on the static generator. A low hum filled the room. Sparks danced up the metal rods in the tube, electric soldiers marching to the half dome at the top. The hemisphere acquired an off-white glow. Laura turned off the main light but left on a small light on her desk. Its weak rays barely reached the far end of the room and gave everything a sepia tone.