Chapter 24 #2
Tean did a quick search of the dressers and the closet. He found more of the same: musty clothing, all of it simple, much of it homemade. Jem was moving around the room, and to a casual glance, he probably looked like he was inspecting it. But his gaze never came back to the anatomy model.
“Let’s get out of here,” Tean said.
Jem nodded.
But halfway down the stairs, he said, “We’ve got to check the basement.”
“Oh fuck,” Tean blurted.
A laugh tore out of Jem—ragged, but sounding surprisingly real.
“I didn’t mean that,” Tean said.
“Swear jar.”
“Oh my gosh, I just—” Tean groaned. “Of course there’s a basement.”
“You know that’s where we’re going to find the freaky shit.”
“We already found the freaky shit. I’m freaked. I do not need to find anything else.”
In the kitchen, Jem stopped Tean so that he could rummage around in the drawers.
He came up with a carving knife that looked as old as the house: a pitted piece of metal with a wooden handle.
At the door to the basement, Jem rolled his shoulders once.
Then he started down, knife in one hand, Tean’s phone held like a flashlight in the other.
Tean let him get a few feet ahead before following, so that Jem would have room to work.
These stairs were in even worse condition than the ones that led upstairs—in spite of Jem’s best efforts, they creaked and squealed every time he moved, and Tean thought he detected a faint swaying movement that sent his anxiety spiking up into his stomach.
The only light came from the phone, which Jem held steady on the steps in front of him, and so the basement came into view by degrees: dirt floor, cinderblock wall, shadowy shapes that resolved into a china hutch, a horsehair sofa, warped sheets of plywood that looked like they’d crumble if Tean so much as brushed against them.
Light bent along the curved length of a rusty fender.
Against one wall, the frame of an armchair—bolted-together pieces of iron and wood—looked like some sort of medieval torture device.
But it was a small space, probably originally designed as a fruit cellar, with the furnace and water heater at one end and the rest given over to the accumulated junk. Dust covered everything.
“Okay,” Jem said. “Not so bad.”
“Not as bad as the teeth.”
The corner of Jem’s mouth twitched, and Tean regretted the words.
But Jem only asked, “Upstairs?”
Tean nodded.
The milky light in the kitchen—what managed to make its way through the dirty windows—felt open and airy after the cramped basement. Jem considered the drawer where he’d found the knife, but instead of returning the blade, he tilted his head toward the patio-shed where they’d entered. “Barn?”
“Do you think he’s out there?”
Jem shook his head. “He ran. He took his shot, fucked it up, and realized he had to get out of here.”
Something about that didn’t sit right with Tean, but after a moment, he said, “I guess we have to look in the barn, don’t we?
” For a moment, hunger and thirst pressed in on him—it had been a long time, and while there was a certain point at which the body stopped clamoring so incessantly, his throat was scratchy, and his head ached dully.
One glance at the spattered zinc of the sink, imagining what would come burbling out of the pipes, made him say, “Let’s hurry. ”
The clouds moved steadily overhead, a river of sodden gray. Tean and Jem cast thin shadows that vanished and reappeared as the light changed. The only sound was the crunch of dry grass, the whisper of Jem’s jeans, and then a creak as the rusty weathervane gave a lazy quarter turn.
Up close, the barn didn’t look any better.
Dry rot marred the silvery wood, and the hinges looked rusted in place.
A chain was looped through the main doors, and it rattled and gave a heavy thunk when Jem tugged on it.
He made a face at the rust stains it left on his fingers and wiped them on the ground.
Around the side, they had better luck. The door to what had probably been the tack room was ajar, and when Jem nudged it, it opened easily.
They stepped inside, and Tean’s foot hit something.
It skittered across the floor. The sound made Jem spin, the knife coming up.
A tarnished buckle lay against the base of the wall where Tean had kicked it.
Jem let out a breath that wasn’t a laugh, but might have felt like one.
He played the light of Tean’s phone around, but the room had little to offer.
The hooks and shelves that might have once held tack and tools were empty now.
Another door offered access to the main area of the barn, and Jem toed it open.
The quality of the sound was different; that was the first thing Tean noticed.
The scuff of Jem’s sneakers on the packed dirt seemed magnified inside the shell of the barn.
Light from outside penetrated through cracks and gaps, between ill-fitting or long-missing boards and shingles.
A John Deere with a gouge along one side stood nearby, its tires rotted out, the vinyl seat flaking.
A rust-eaten till leaned against the wall.
And stalls for the horses lined each side of the barn.
But what made Jem say, “Fuck me,” were the kennels.
There were at least two dozen of them, wire cages lined up in rows.
The air smelled like cold dirt and rust and that faded animal musk Tean had noticed inside the house, albeit more pungent here.
Something else, too. Something that made the hair on the back of Tean’s neck stand up.
“What the actual fuck?” Jem said.
“I’m not sure.” Tean felt like he couldn’t get a breath, but he made himself sound as normal as possible when he said, “He might have bred dogs. Or boarded them.”
“Might have?”
“None of this has been used in a long time.”
Jem studied the kennels, and his voice held a note of outrage when he finally said, “You can’t keep dogs like this.”
“Well, people do. Especially people in the country. They’re not pets or companions. They’re working animals. Or they’re livestock. Or both.”
“But it’s so fucked up!”
“Let’s get this over with.”
Jem made a gesture with the knife, as though brushing away something he wanted to say.
But he started forward, moving down the center of the barn, passing the kennels on either side.
He made it another ten feet before he stopped so suddenly it looked like his whole body had locked up, and he held out the hand with the phone behind him toward Tean.
“Hey,” Jem shouted. “You!”
Tean managed to bite back the words Who is it? But only barely.
“Hey, I’m talking to you!”
“What do you see?” Tean whispered.
“There’s somebody in the kennel at the end.”
Tean strained against the gloom, but all he could make out was a pale shape.
“Stay here,” Jem said. He started forward again, muttering, “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” under his breath as he went.
He stopped again a few feet from the final kennel. Something in his stance softened. And after a moment, he said, “He’s dead.”
Tean joined him.
The body was male, probably in his twenties—too well-developed for an adolescent, and with too little body fat for anyone much older. He was White. On one arm, he had a tattoo of a whale. Most of his clothing was gone, but his T-shirt had been pulled over his head to hide his face.
“That’s not Daniel,” Jem said.
Tean shook his head.
“Then who the fuck is it?” Jem said. “This is what you were talking about, isn’t it? The pressure. That pressure kept building. He didn’t get what he wanted with Brennon. He didn’t get it with Daniel.”
Tean didn’t answer. He knelt to inspect the body.
Bite marks covered the man’s chest and arms; without appropriate testing, Tean couldn’t be positive, but he thought the injuries looked post-mortem.
The T-shirt hid most of the man’s neck, but when Tean looked at the back, he could see bruises that suggested manual strangulation.
He wasn’t sure he could speak, but someone with his voice said, “We need to call the police now.”
Jem nodded. “I’m going to finish taking a look around.”
As Tean placed the call to 911, Jem made his way to the back of the barn. He tried one of the big doors, and with a loud squeak, it swung open. Jem stumbled, caught by surprise, but recovered and kept his footing. He gave the door another shove, and more of the watery daylight flooded in.
“Nine-one-one,” an older man said into Tean’s ear. “What is your emergency?”
But for a moment, all Tean could do was stare at the white Ford that had been hidden behind the barn. The big chip in the paint on the hood. The wonky antenna. The license plate, of course. And the tag indicating this truck was property of the Division of Wildlife Resources.