“By killing innocent women?” Alison snapped. “You’re nothing but a sick freak.”
“Sick? Is that all you can say to me? My plan was brilliant. Like masterfully designed computer code. At first, all I wanted was to live inside Michael’s house and be a part of his life without him having a fucking clue. Then I realized I could have so much more. I could drive the two of you apart. I could kick him out of your bed. I could own his wife’s mind. Look at what I’ve done to you. I made you believe that the man you loved was a monster. I made you betray him. You did just what I programmed you to do, Alison.”
“I’m not one of your computers,” she told him. “I’m a person. So were the women you murdered.”
“Do you think I care about them? Do you think I care about you? I’m already dying.”
He took another menacing step closer. His left hand hoisted the saw high in the air. She knew what would happen next.
“Stay away from me!” Alison screamed.
She switched off the flashlight. The attic turned black as he charged her. She heard the thunder of his footsteps, and she ducked into a ball, causing him to spill over her body and fall hard behind her. She scrambled to her feet and sprinted toward the exit ladder, but as she did, she slipped on loose sawdust, and her legs shot out from under her. She tumbled forward face-first, gasping as the impact emptied her lungs. The flashlight rolled out of her grasp. Before she could get up, Carl landed on her back, and one of his skinny arms snaked around her throat.
The twisted point of the corkscrew punctured the skin on her neck. She gasped and felt a stab of pain and a warm trickle of blood. His mouth was at her ear; she heard the gagged noise of his labored breathing. He coughed from deep inside his lungs, spraying a mist over her face. She wriggled under him, struggling to throw him off her back, but he hung on fiercely, dragging the corkscrew into a deep gash across her skin.
Alison felt something else. Something worse. The teeth of the old saw landed on the bulge of her carotid artery. She felt it like a vampire’s bite. With one jagged pull, he could send her blood pumping like a fountain from her heart directly onto the dirty floor of the attic.
“Now I can take what’s left of his life,” he whispered. “His wife. And his son.”
“No,” she gasped.
Carl began to saw at her flesh, but then he froze. The light of the flashlight bathed the two of them, flooding their faces. Alison’s eyes squeezed shut as she was blinded. She heard a young voice only inches away, and her heart seized.
Evan.
“YOU DON’T SCARE ME!” the boy bellowed.
The beam of light streaked like a comet in the night sky toward Carl Flaten’s head as Evan swung the flashlight with all the strength he could muster in his two little hands. It landed with a sharp crack of bone on the side of the man’s skull, enough to deaden his grip and give Alison a chance to dislodge him from her back with a mighty upward thrust of her torso. The light disappeared.
“Evan, hide!” she screamed.
Alison heard Carl Flaten staggering toward her again, and as they collided, the two of them wrestled in the darkness. Her hands clawed for his eyes with her long nails. Her cocked knee pummeled his groin. In pain, he swung the saw blindly, and its dull blade slashed her shoulder, drawing blood. She dropped to the ground, and the saw whistled above her head a second time, barely missing her. She grabbed his ankle, trying to topple him, but his whole body arched upward as he prepared to chop the saw downward into the meat of her skull like a cleaver. She dove free just as the metal whipped through the cold air toward the attic floor.
The blade stuck there, buried in the soft wood. She heard its vibrations. Carl struggled to dislodge the saw, and she followed the noise of his ragged breath. She leaped forward with both arms outstretched, catching him with her fists in the center of his chest, driving him backward. Her momentum carried her with him, and they both seemed to fly, cascading downward until Carl’s body landed at the speed of gravity against the low, angled roof of the attic.
An abortive scream died in his throat. Then there was silence.
Alison scrambled free, waiting for the man to rise to his feet, but she heard no movement, only a nauseating gurgle from his chest. In a corner of the attic, Evan flipped a light switch, and she saw Carl Flaten wriggling against the roof beams, his body contorted at an odd angle. She instinctively jumped backward, but he was pinned there, like a butterfly in a collection. Trickles of blood oozed over his bottom lip. His eyes blinked frantically. His legs twitched, scraping along the dusty floor. When he freed himself, he couldn’t stand. He sank to all fours and pitched forward, squirming on his face and choking. Blood matted his head and shoulders.
On the wall, Alison saw the long, bloody row of nails that had penetrated his neck and skull.
She didn’t move.
“Evan, go downstairs and call the police,” she said quietly.
Her son was frozen, staring in fascination at the spastic motions of the man on the floor.
“Please, honey, go do it now,” she told him.
Evan nodded and climbed down from the attic, leaving Alison alone. She crossed her arms to quiet her shivers. She waited with the man in the attic, feeling the wind rustle her red hair. She waited, standing over him, until the jerking in his limbs stopped and he wasn’t moving anymore. She was still there minutes later, crying, paralyzed, when Michael finally appeared at her side, wrapped his arms around her, and guided her away.
Stride waited in the cold outside the Malville home as the medical team removed the white-shrouded body of Carl Flaten. On the street, he saw Michael and Alison Malville loading suitcases into the trunk of a Duluth police car. Their house was a crime scene, but even if they could have stayed there, Alison Malville had made it clear that she had no intention of sleeping under that roof again. Some ghosts couldn’t be exorcised. Instead, Stride had offered to escort them to a downtown hotel.
“A lot of people are going to do a look-see in their attics and basements tomorrow,” Maggie said.
“Yeah.”
“No one wants to find out they’re living with a stranger,” she added.
Stride didn’t reply.
As the squad car passed them, he exchanged glances with husband and wife. Michael was in the front seat next to the officer driving them. Alison was in the back with her son. There was no anger on their faces. There was no emotion at all, only shock. The breakdowns would come later. Stride had been through his own near-death experiences in his past, and he knew that you couldn’t shake them off like a coat. They clung to you. They lingered.
“Do you think those two will be able to put the pieces back together?” Maggie asked.
Stride followed the taillights of the squad car until they winked out behind the trees. “Could you get past the idea that your spouse believed you were a murderer?”
“If they split up, then Dead Red won. He stole their perfect life.”
“Nothing’s perfect,” Stride said.
He watched the shadows of police officers and evidence technicians moving behind the windows of the house. The scene was secure, but the work would go on through the rest of the night. He had time to escape for a few hours.
“I’m going to try to get some sleep,” Stride told her.
“Good idea.”
“You coming with me?”
He didn’t know why he asked. The two of them had slept together in his bed for weeks. Even so, he knew her answer before she said it.
“Actually, I think I’ll crash at my place,” Maggie told him. “I need to get some stuff done there in the morning.”