I opened my eyes again and blinked, then tried to concentrate as my brain wandered through the murky fog that was overwhelming it. I started catching bits and pieces of mental impressions as they flashed to the forefront of my mind. Before long, they became fleeting images and feelings- darkness, fingernails biting into my hand, Constance trying to say something to me that I could not hear, a burn appearing on my wife’s pristine cheek…
“Felicity!” I immediately yelped, looking frantically about.
Lucidity struck like a mallet to the back of my head, and I tried to leap up from where I was sitting. My brain was starting to work, but my motor reflexes were still a few steps behind, so I stumbled as I tried to stand.
“Whoa, Kemosabe!” Ben steadied me before I could fall onto the asphalt shoulder.
I twisted away from him, turning toward the van. Seeing my wife still belted in her seat, I climbed in through the door. Hunching down on my knees, I scrambled across the floorboards, almost knocking Constance over in the process.
“She’s not coming to,” Mandalay said to me as I pushed my way in next to her.
I reached out to Felicity and brushed a tangle of auburn curls from the side of her face. My still somewhat jangled brain was hoping that everything it was remembering had been unreal. Nothing more than a frightening product of an unchecked imagination left alone to play with the contents of a tortured subconscious, namely mine.
Unfortunately, it knew full well that the sadistic nightmare had been all too real. When my eyes fell on my wife’s uncovered face, I saw that the circular burns were still there, horrific blemishes standing out against her pale skin. I noticed my own cheek tingling and began to remember even more. I looked down to see a charred divot in the back of my hand and suddenly felt very ill. If these stigmata were appearing on Felicity and me, I didn’t even want to imagine what was actually happening to Kimberly Forest.
My wife rolled her head to the side, whimpering quietly as if struggling with yet another nightmare inside. She murmured something unintelligible and then turned her face away from me.
“Felicity?” I cooed softly, taking her hand in mine as I felt my eyes beginning to water and burn.
There was a tiny spark of a connection, something tenuous but definitely there. I held her hand and focused on it, letting it reach for me as I reached for it.
After a few moments, she turned back to me, still whimpering, and then slowly opened her eyes.
“Felicity? Honey. Are you okay?”
She stared back at me with pain and confusion wrinkling her features. Her eyes searched my face, and I got the definite feeling that she didn’t recognize me. As she looked at me, tears began welling and overflowing onto her cheeks. She locked her gaze with mine, and in a frightened, pleading voice said, “Come back… Please. Help me… Come back…”
CHAPTER 38:
“North or south?” Ben queried.
“If you were going to torture someone, you’d want some seclusion, right?” Constance asked in return.
She was hunched forward, using the dim light from the glove box to illuminate an Illinois highway map. Fortunately, this one was in somewhat better condition than its Missouri counterpart, though not by much.
“Depends on who and why,” Ben returned flatly.
“Seriously.”
“I was.”
My friend had already turned the van around at the first emergency vehicle median crossing he had come upon. We were now headed back the way we came and rapidly approaching the Route 3 exit. Since Felicity, or Kimberly through her, had begged us to ‘come back’, it stood to reason that we had missed the mark. As there was nothing between there and crossing back into Missouri, the state route seemed to all of us the most logical place to go.
“Well, Route Three south takes you straight into Granite City,” Mandalay continued, ignoring his snide reply. “North takes you up to Wood River and Alton. However, there’s a several mile stretch of farmland before you hit the first town, which is Hartford.”
“Yeah,” Ben replied. “That would definitely give the asshole some breathin’ room.”
“Do you really think a farmer would be doing this?” I asked.
“Who says it’s a farmer?” he answered with his own question. “Could be an asshole who wanted to get away from the city. Besides, don’t you remember Ray and Faye Copeland?”
“Sounds vaguely familiar,” I replied. I wasn’t in a mood to search my grey matter for obscure memories, and to be honest, I really didn’t care. But, he was intent on explaining anyway.
“They were an old couple in Chillicothe, Missouri,” he replied. “Livestock farmers. Back in the early nineties they were convicted of murderin’ five transients and buryin’ ‘em on their property.”
“They were a bizarre serial case,” Constance added, spouting off details that she had tucked away. “They kept a log of the transient workers they hired, and next to each of the murdered men’s names was an X. Also, Faye made a quilt out of the victims clothing. While they were only convicted of the five homicides, there’s a pervasive belief that they were responsible for more.”
I simply replied, “Oh,” and left it at that.
“How’d you remember all that?” Ben asked. “You had to be in like what, junior high?”
“I was in my first year of college, Storm,” she answered with an annoyed tone. “Besides, I studied the case when I did a psych paper on Serials.”
“Jeez, what don’t you remember?”
“Usually, my car keys.”
“Oh, so you are human.”
“Uh-huh, but don’t tell my SAIC or you’ll kill my rep.”
“So, white man, how’s Firehair doin’?” Ben switched subjects.
“Okay, for the moment,” I answered. “Not exactly good, but she seems to be holding her own.”
Felicity had continued drifting in and out of lucidity, occasionally whimpering my name, then in the same instant looking at me as though I were a complete stranger. All of this was punctuated by fits of quiet sobbing and choking pleas for help. At the moment, her head was tilted back and her eyes were closed. She would moan quietly every now and then. From all outward appearances, she looked to be working through a fevered dream.
The one fortunate circumstance was that the excruciating attacks seemed to have stopped. When they would return was anybody’s guess, but I was mutely begging for never.
“What about you?” he queried.
“I’m fine,” I told him, but my voice was clearly betraying my distraught mood every time I opened my mouth.
“Yeah,” he returned, unconvinced. “It’s gonna be okay, Row.”
“Uh-huh,” I grunted.
He didn’t press the point. We simply traveled in silence for a moment or two before Mandalay spoke up.
“Okay, Storm, do you have a plan?” she asked, shifting the subject yet again.
“You mean other than shooting this bastard?”
“Exactly.”
“Not yet,” he admitted. “You?”
“Well, we’re probably going to need backup at some point, assuming we find what we’re looking for,” she offered.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I know. I’m gonna hafta call Albright too.”
“We have to find her,” I insisted, throwing myself back into the conversation. “He’s going to kill her and Felicity in the process!”
“I know, Rowan,” Mandalay told me. “And we will find her. Right now we’re just speculating about procedures.”
“Okay, here we go,” Ben announced.
I turned to look out the windshield and saw that we were veering off Highway 270 onto the exit ramp for Route 3 north. I immediately turned back to check on Felicity but found no change.
“What if, and this is a big ‘what if’,” Constance began, “we aren’t able to locate Kimberly Forest? Is there anything at all you can do to protect Felicity?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, twisting back around to look at her. “I’ve never seen this happen before.”
“What about you?” Ben asked. “You go freakin’ Twilight Zone all the time.”