Chapter 6
Angela didn’t understand how she knew this place was the place, the grand epitome of the event for Darrell Manderley, but she did.
Then again . . .
She felt her phone vibrate and she knew Jackson would be getting the summons as well. She glanced at him and they stepped back; they hadn’t been that close to the clearing—much of it hastily created, she thought—but they didn’t want to be heard.
Of course, it was Bruce. In all, one teenaged boy and three young women—the eighteen-year-old they already knew about and two more young women, juniors at the local college. So, they knew there were at least four young people among the characters in the tableau that Manderley had created.
Maybe more.
Jackson tried to explain the twists and turns in the trail they had taken to reach this area, their goal, they believed. But he asked the agents come this way as quietly and carefully as possible.
And Angela knew why.
Cornered, Manderley would see to it everyone around him didn’t just suffer and bleed—if they had a chance at life, he would take it from them. Somehow, they had to take Manderley before he could do more harm.
A real trick since every human-sized form in the clearing was decked in costumes and masks and Manderley would certainly have seen to it that he was decked out in something wonderfully bizarre.
A ghost, a goblin, a vampire, a werewolf . . . perhaps a horrendously fanged and taloned alien being.
“We need to get closer again. And—”
“He’ll play it somehow; he’ll want to separate the two of us; he knows we’ll be working together,” Angela said. She frowned, feeling the presence of Trent Fielding before she saw his spiritual form.
“Exactly!” Trent said. “I was going to head back to find you. I was there . . . but I couldn’t reach you, when one of his brainwashed lackeys grabbed the last girl.
But he intends to have this poor creature—and I mean it, seriously, big, strong dude but not all there and completely convinced he’s obeying Satan and if he doesn’t his family will burn for eternity—run off as if he is him so that one will follow and one will stay.
And, of course, the kid—I don’t think he’s much more than a kid—will run, trying to draw you after him.
And he did give the kid a gun and a wicked knife, so . . .”
“Trent, thank you! That’s so good to know!” Angela said. She looked at Jackson. “We move forward; we must. I know others are on the way. But timing is everything that matters when he’s sliced his captives and their life’s blood is draining away. When he planned all this—”
“He wanted you to suffer,” Jackson said. “And we can’t—”
“We can play him, thanks to Trent!” Angela said.
“We’ll move forward; we’ll let him hear us.
And he’ll send his poor giant kid out and you’ll shout you’ve got it and I’ll wander into his Halloween scene as if I’m there to seek survivors and he’ll come out.
But you’ll be at my back ready to take him.
Jackson, you need to give me time with him, though, time to find out if he has other victims off somewhere else, just how many creations he has made of living human beings! ”
Jackson looked at her and nodded. “But if he comes at you—”
“Shoot the bastard!” she told him.
“All right; we’re agreed. So, we move.” But then Jackson shook his head. “Trent, he’s in costume, certainly. Which of the things in the woods is Darrell Manderley?”
“I think he went with the movie vampire look, handsome suit, slicked back dark hair, fangs, of course—” Trent began.
“You think?”
“I was as close as I could get but the wind was blowing and the creatures were all swaying, and the light is bad, almost non-existent under the trees. But I’m almost positive it was the vampire talking,” Trent said.
“Thank you!” Angela told him.
“I’m with you; I’m right with you!” Trent whispered. “Sadly, though, I can’t shoot the bastard. I can just watch for what you might not see.”
“You gave us our plan, Trent. We wouldn’t have known all this without you!” Angela assured him.
“Wait! Quick. Trent, Krewe members will be out here. You know they will all see you. We need you to race after the guy I’m supposed to race after—make sure they know to take him down gently if possible!”
“Right. Poor thing, yeah, I’m on it!” Trent assured them.
Angela smiled, nodded, and turned and started on her way through the trees, allowing branches to snap back behind her; they needed to be heard.
And just as Trent had said, there was suddenly a roar of sound and someone shouted, “It’s time! Time to race back to our blood donors, time to seek more of that life-giving substance!” someone shouted.
Then there was a swell of rustling in the trees and brush to their side, and the sound of footsteps pounding almost impossibly hard on the forest floor.
“On it!” Jackson shouted, creating a rush of noise in the brush as well.
But, of course, it was the spirit of Trent Fielding who really rushed after him.
Jackson stood his ground.
He looked at Angela and she gave him a grave nod, stepping from the shield and cover of the trees into the clearing.
Morning was, indeed, coming.
But . . .
It almost made the scene even more macabre. The sun was just rising, barely on the horizon, and it seemed to be coloring the landscape in a mist that was the color of blood.
And as she stepped out, Angela surveyed the Halloween “creatures.”
Witches abounded, the typical kind in sweeping black gowns and black pointed hats, many carrying their brooms.
Spiderwebs were, naturally, threaded through the trees and the brush and even a few plastic spiders, a foot or so in height, seemed to crawl upon the bloody landscape.
Ghosts and goblins appeared to float through the trees with a few leaning against them here and there.
Living human beings, perhaps. Still living, she prayed!
Little green leprechauns seemed almost cute and innocuous as they danced among the jack-o-lanterns, except for the vicious expressions on their faces and the gleaming knives they carried.
Banshees appeared to fly about in the trees.
Naturally, there were a few zombies.
And yet . . .
Even positioned as they had been, something about it suggested that even as monsters, they were also corpses.
All as if they lived within the blood red mist as the night ended and the red glow of the coming sun seemed to add substance to the soft, eerie mist.
And of course . . .
He was there. Standing dead still, decked out in a handsome tux and top hat, a mask across his eyes. A vampiric Phantom of the Opera? Angela wondered dryly.
“Oh, no, no, no!” she cried, pretending she had no idea whatsoever which of the creatures he might be.
He remained dead still.
“Teen girls . . . young men? A few young women in their twenties. They’re here, they’re all here, how do I start . . . I need help. We need to get people out of here, lots and lots of EMTS . . . now!” She hurried toward one of the witches.
And indeed, it was a young woman.
She had a pulse.
But there was blood all around her throat, still, if he’d hit a major vessel . . .
The girl looked at Angela as she tried to remove her from the tree she’d been tied to so that she might appear to be standing.
“Help!” she whispered. “My . . . leg . . .”
Angela eased her down, ripping at the black fabric the young woman was wearing to create a tourniquet for the cut on her thigh.
And she knew, of course, that while she was doing so, Manderley would move and come upon her.
She felt the knife at her back but finished tying the tourniquet.
He didn’t press it then.
He laughed. “And you think you, and you alone, can provide what they all need? Oh, my favorite witch! Evil to the core! No, I don’t think so.
I think that first, I’ll take that Glock and then .
. . well, I’ve a special costume for you and you’ll wear it, tied to a stake especially acquired for you, and you’ll watch while I see every single one of my new .
. . um . . . followers gets a few new cuts and bleeds out before I .
. . well, I will see that what comes your way will be slow. Oh, so slow!”
She dared to turn; he’d already grabbed her Glock from the holster at her side, usually hidden by her jacket when they worked.
Of course, her jacket was long gone.
“Oh! You know, this is fantastic. I personally think you are the epitome of evil and you’re the one who should really burn in hell for eternity, but I give you this! What a creation. There’s not a theme park in the world that can outdo this—”
He laughed, dark eyes seeming to flash just beneath the white mask that covered his upper face.
“There’s not a theme park in the world with creations as authentic as mine! I mean, who the hell else has the ability to use real bodies, lovely, lovely, flesh and blood!” he taunted.
“And a lot of them. Six, I’m guessing?” she asked. “Well, besides those you left specifically for us to find so we’d split in a dozen directions to come after you in the forest.”
He wasn’t touching her; he was still handling the wickedly curved knife that was glinting in the blood red mist, but he wasn’t ready to kill her yet.
She stepped back, hurrying to another witch, also “floating” from a tree, drawing the woman down carefully, seeing it was her arm that had been slashed.
“And you really think that this can save them? I told you . . . you’re going to watch, watch while I do more damage. But knock yourself out, how pathetic, how sad, and how it delights me to see you think that you’ll be able to help.”
“There are six of these things that are people—” Angela began.
“Six? Eight!” he shouted after her, his voice proud.
“Sadly, I didn’t have time to convince them all that I was their only chance of anything that resembled a decent eternity!
And your idiot partner can chase that kid from here to eternity and he won’t find any of my, um, you know, devotees!
Nope, they’re all here, all here . . . bleeding away.
And there’s just little old you here, and I know exactly who the hell you are now! ”