Paradox Lake Read online

  “Come on, come on,” I beg.

  I turn the key again. I get the same click-click-click.

  “Please,” I say, louder this time, more desperate. “Please start.”

  Again, I turn the key. Click-click-click.

  “Oh, please, God, make it start.”

  I don’t even realize that I’m crying again, the tears running down my face and dripping off my chin.

  One more try. Click-click-click.

  “Fuck!” I slam my fist against the dash.

  Getting out, I go around the front of the Cooper, pop the hood. What I see makes me weep all the harder. All the hoses and wires have been cut. The only explanation is that Tim knew I’d try to drive back into town or maybe even to Schroon to contact the sheriff or the state troopers. In my head I see him opening his pocket knife and systematically cutting each hose and every wire.

  I close the hood. Jagged lightning strikes in the near distance. It takes a minute for the thunder to rumble and echo off the mountainsides. The rain is steadily soaking me, drowning me, combining with my tears. There’s a dead man in my house. He’s lying in Anna’s bed … what used to be Sarah Anne Moore’s bed. His head has been decapitated and now it rests on my sculpting platform. My daughter is missing and my phone is almost out of a charge.

  Choices. I could walk into the town, but that would take more than an hour. In that time my phone would be dead. I can’t allow that. Sure, I could maybe hope to flag down a passing car or truck, but on a night like tonight, almost no one will be on the road. No choice but to go back inside the house, try and flip the breakers down in the basement.

  “God help me,” I whisper, while wiping my eyes with the backs of my hands. “God grant me strength.”

  I head back into the house and into the kitchen. First, I chug the rest of the beer set out on the counter. Then, taking hold of the flashlight and the knife, I open the basement door, and take my first step down into the damp, spider-web-covered depths.

  CHAPTER 39

  THE WOLF STARES at his prey. He licks his chops and sniffs her sweet, delicate scent. He stands behind the chair to which she is presently duct-taped, and he runs his long, claw-like fingers over her smooth, naked thighs.

  Saaaaaarrrrrrrrrrr! he shrieks. Saaaaaarrrrrrrrrrr!

  The sound of the cry pierces Anna’s eardrums. All this time, she believed the noise was coming from a lonely loon when in fact it was coming from this creep. What’s his name? Ed. Maybe some girls would be scared out of their wits right now, pleading for their lives. But not Anna. She’s just angry as hell.

  “It was you,” she says. “You’ve been screaming that noise outside our house. Why?”

  “Saaarrrrrrr,” he repeats, not nearly as loud this time.

  “What does that mean, creep?”

  “Saaarrrrrrrr,” he repeats, a smile painting his ruddy bulbous face. “Saaaaarrrrrrraaaaahhhhhh. Understand now, sweet honey? Sarah. You are her. You, my Little Red Riding Hood, have returned to me. You are the same girl. You have returned to us. You have no idea how happy this makes us feel.”

  Anna swallows something cold and bitter. She tries desperately to break free from the thick tape that binds her, but it’s impossible.

  “Who is us?” she nervously asks.

  “My boss and savior,” he says.

  Anna is confused for a moment. Until she realizes just who Ed’s boss is. It’s Tim. But Tim is a great guy. He could never have anything to do with Ed. Not like this anyway. If he gives Ed a job, it’s because he feels sorry for him.

  “Tim is a nice man,” Anna says. “He would never do anything like this. When my mother finds out about it, she’s gonna have you arrested, and they’ll put you away forever, creep.”

  The Big Bad Wolf drops down onto all fours. He begins to snarl, spit, and chomp down on his lower jaws, like he’s making a transition from human being to wolf.

  “I want you to say something, Little Red Riding Hood.”

  “It’s Anna, if it’s all the same to you, creep.”

  “I want you to say, ‘What big teeth you have.’”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Say it, Little Red Riding Hood. Say it now, or I will eat you up.”

  Anna stares into his eyes. She sees the muscles bulging out of his arms, shoulders, and neck. Somehow the freak looks more natural on all fours than he does standing up on two feet. His body is covered in thick black hair, and his teeth are unnaturally long and sharp. Even his ears are too long and pointy, like he carved them with a sharp knife. For the first time since she was snatched up from the basement, blindfolded with her wrists tied together behind her back with a rope, then dragged through the woods to an old house, she isn’t feeling anger or rage, but fear. Not that she wasn’t afraid before, but now the fear is becoming more palpable, as if it’s growing like a tumor inside her belly.

  Her mouth goes dry and her bowels turn to hot liquid.

  “What big teeth you have,” she swallows.

  “The better to eat you up!”

  His jaws wide open, the Big Bad Wolf attacks.

  CHAPTER 40

  IF ONLY I could just run away from this house and somehow seek out help. If only I could make my way into town, I could have Tim arrested and the sheriff would send out a search party for Anna. But that’s just wishful thinking. The best bet is to get my phone charged up and pray for an outside connection. In the event that doesn’t work either, I’ll have no choice but to take a chance on driving the boat across the lake in this storm. We almost drowned this afternoon doing that very same thing, but it will be my only choice.

  I make my way slowly down the basement steps, the flashlight gripped in my right hand, while my left holds the knife. Spider webs stick to my face. A spider scurries across my left hand. Instinctively I scream, drop the knife, and shake the spider off.

  The knife has disappeared beneath the staircase. I’m entirely unarmed. Inhaling a breath of the damp, fungus-filled air, I continue down the stairs anyway, until I come to the bottom. Shining the light on the empty underground space, I go to the breaker board. Opening the panel, I see that the breakers have indeed been tripped. I don’t hesitate to flip all four of them back into the on position.

  Dull light coming from the ceiling-mounted fixture inside the kitchen spills down into the basement. I turn, grab the string that will turn on the basement’s light bulb. I pull the string. The light comes on. I see Tim Ferguson standing only a few feet away from me, a long kitchen knife gripped in his left hand.

  He’s smiling. It’s almost like he’s happy to see me. I half expect him to say something sweet and corny like, “This has all been a big miscommunication, Rose. Let’s start all over again.”

  But I know he’s not about to say that. I start to slowly back-step towards the staircase.

  “Now, Rose,” he says, calmly. “Just where do you think you’re going? There’s nowhere to hide in Paradox.”

  I come to the stairs, nearly tripping over them and landing on my back. The flashlight still gripped in my hand, I look him in the eye.

  “You stay away from me,” I say. “You murdered that priest. You stole my daughter. Where is she? Is she alive, you twisted son of a bitch?”

  His smile only grows wider as he begins to approach me.

  “Rose, Rose, Rose,” he says, “now why would you suggest such a thing? You know what a sweet, gentle man I am. We’ve made love. I’ve shown you how gentle and caring I can be with you.”

  “You raped me,” I say. “You beat me with a pistol.”

  “Oh that,” he says, with a carefree wave of his hand. “I was just testing the waters to see how kinky you might be. You know how many lady friends enjoy a little pain with their sex? I was just playing. It’s perfectly normal.”

  He’s coming closer, that long knife in hand. My heart pounds so hard, I’m finding it difficult to breathe. I turn quick and start running up the stairs, taking the treads two at a time. But Tim drops the knife and comes aft
er me. He dives and grabs hold of my right ankle, pulling me backwards. I go down hard on my chest on the wood staircase and drop the flashlight. He yanks me back. I’m trying as hard as I can to fight him off, but he’s too big, too strong.

  “Easy, Rose,” he spits. “Easy. Don’t resist me. You can’t resist.”

  I spin around and go after his face with my fingernails and manage to scratch his cheek. He begins to bleed and I can feel his skin under my fingernails.

  “You bitch!” he barks, punching me hard in the side of the head. So hard, my world goes entirely dizzy. I begin to see double.

  He takes hold of my hair then, drags me across the dirt floor to one of the vertical wood pilasters. He forces me to sit down with my back against the beam. Apparently, he’s prepared himself for this moment, because he wraps a metal collar around my neck, and then runs a chain from it to the heavy wood pilaster. He secures the chain to the pilaster with a padlock, then stores the key in his jeans pocket.

  Standing, he goes to the staircase, grabs the flashlight, which he shoves into his back pocket. Picking up an empty taping compound bucket, he carries it over to me, sets it beside me. I can’t help but notice that a roll of toilet paper is stored inside the bucket.

  Touching the bloody scratches on his face, he eyes me.

  “Maybe I’ll give you a few hours alone down here in the dark, with the spiders and snakes, to think about how badly you’re acting, Rose. And to think we prayed together at church tonight. To think you participated in the Body of Christ. Just shameful.”

  “Where’s my daughter?!” I scream. “Where’s Anna?! What have you done with her?!”

  “We’ll talk later,” he says, pulling on the string that kills the overhead bulb. “Enjoy the darkness.”

  He heads upstairs and slams the basement door shut.

  CHAPTER 41

  BIG TEARS FALL. I try and move around but I can’t get five feet away from the pilaster without that chain choking me. I’m no different than Ed’s dog. I’m a slave to my psycho master. I press my back against the pilaster and weep for me, for Anna.

  “Please, God,” I whisper, “let her be all right.”

  I sense something slithering near me. I reach out with my hand. I feel the scaly, cold-blooded snake as it slithers by. I slap it away and it makes a kind of splat against the stone wall. Not a minute goes by before I sense something crawling in my hair. I reach up quick and slap away a spider. It’s not just any spider, but one of the big hairy ones that are so prevalent in the mountains.

  “Oh Christ, get me out of here.”

  I yank on the chain, try my hardest to release it from the pilaster, but it’s no use.

  Charlie, what the hell do I do now?

  Don’t panic, Rose. Whatever you do, just don’t panic. Remember what my football coach used to always say. Cool head win game.

  Dad’s right, Rosie. Cool head win game. Even I know that.

  You’re a fighter, Rose. We love you and so does Anna. She’s depending on you to stay alive.

  She’s depending on you to save her, Rosie. Now get to work.

  Easier said than done. First, I have to figure out where Tim could be hiding her. If she’s not in the house, where the hell could she be? I sit in the dark and try to imagine what could have happened at the house tonight. For certain, Tim drugged me, then had his way with me after punching my lights out, coward that he’s turned out to be. He then drove me back here, opened the door, and laid me out on the couch.

  After that, he must have climbed the stairs and grabbed Anna right from her bed. But something must have happened while all this was going on. The priest—Father O’Connor—he must have showed up at the house unexpectedly. Maybe the priest even entered into the house without knocking. Or maybe the door had been left open. The house would have been dark because the power was out. I suppose it’s possible the priest caught Tim in the act of abducting Anna.

  Whatever happened, the end result was that Tim used Father O’Connor to his advantage. First, he made the priest head upstairs to Anna’s bedroom, then he made him lie in the bed, and then Tim stabbed him to death. I’m no policewoman or FBI agent, but it’s the only explanation. Otherwise, pools of blood would have gathered downstairs. Tim then cut off the priest’s head, skinned the body, and pulled the covers over his torso. Downstairs, he replaced the bust of Sarah with Father O’Connor’s head. He did it to scare the living daylights out of me. To show me he was in total control of the situation. That he was willing to go to any length, no matter how horrible, to prove he’s in control.

  But then, as horrible as he’s turned out to be, is Tim capable of decapitating a man? Skinning a man? In my head I see the rack of skins outside Ed’s house in the forest. It hits me then that Tim wasn’t alone when he dropped me onto the living room couch. Ed must have already been inside the house. Ed would have been the one to kill the priest. Ed would have mutilated the body.

  “Ed and Tim are working together as a team,” I whisper aloud. “But where the hell have they taken my Anna?”

  Little Red Riding Hood, Rosie.

  What about it, Allison?

  The book that was left open on Anna’s pillow. Are you sure

  Anna left it there? Or maybe Tim or Ed left it there as a clue.

  Why would they do that?

  They want to make this a game for you. They’re challenging you. If either Tim or Ed wanted you dead, they would have killed you already.

  It never occurred to me that they want to play some kind of psychotic game.

  Didn’t Tim say you should have eaten your full dinner, Rosie?

  Didn’t he tell you you’re going to need your strength tonight?

  He did, Allison.

  With my eyes wide open in the dank basement darkness, I try my best to think clearly, without my red-hot emotions getting in the way. In my head I see the book, Little Red Riding Hood. I see the illustration of the Big Bad Wolf on the page, and the words beneath it.

  The wolf said, “You know, my dear, it isn’t safe for a little girl to walk through these woods alone.”

  Suddenly, I see the Paradox Lake Trail in my mind. I see the trail opening and I see the dark path that leads through the woods to the small, secluded beach where Sarah Anne was murdered back in 1986. I see my dreams of the past few nights. Vivid dreams of following a girl onto the Paradox Lake Trail. A girl who is both Sarah and Anna. Two girls who look so much alike it’s frightening. Two girls who are the same age. I see myself standing on the hideaway beach, see the old, faded yellow crime scene ribbon we dug out of there, see the silver cross that once hung from Sarah’s neck, until a monster who lived in these woods raped her and killed her.

  I see Ed/Theodore. I see his horrid house in the woods. A house with the animal skins hanging off of a timber rack behind the house. I see the dog chained up to a post just like I’m chained up to this pilaster inside this pitch-dark dank basement. In my mind, I’m seeing the old 1986 newspaper photo of the man being led from the cop car to the jailhouse. A short, powerful-looking stocky man with thick scraggly long hair, his face partially hidden by a hoodie.

  Theodore …

  “Ed,” I whisper.

  Realization punches me in the gut.

  For certain, Ed is the same Theodore who murdered Sarah Anne. He’s not in prison after all. He works with Tim. He stole Anna because she looks like Sarah. They both stole her, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. My chest is so tight, I feel it might split down the center. My head is filled with enough adrenaline to make my brain explode. Mouth dry and stomach cramped. Reality washes over me like a cascading waterfall.

  “She’s in the woods,” I whisper to myself.

  I’ve got to get to her before they do something horrible to her. I’ve got to somehow break free of these chains.

  Yell for Tim, Rose. Tell him you need him. That you want him.

  That you’re sorry for doubting him. Tell him you love him. You can’t live without him.


  It makes me sick to even pretend, Charlie.

  You have to do it, Rosie. For Anna. It’s your only hope.

  Listen to Allison, Rose. And when he’s close to you, do everything in your power to see that you kill the son of a bitch, or at least injure him enough that you immobilize him.

  It’s your and Anna’s only hope.

  My stomach grows even tighter, if such a thing is possible. My brain is spinning and the dirt floor under me feels like it’s about to open up and swallow me whole.

  “Get your shit together, girl,” I whisper. “You can do this. You must do this.”

  Inhaling and exhaling a profound breath.

  “Tim!” I yell. “Tim, are you there?!”

  CHAPTER 42

  I WAIT FOR a response. I get nothing. But I do hear something. Footsteps coming from directly above me in the kitchen. It’s an encouraging sound. It tells me he’s at least still inside the house. He hasn’t left me alone. That’s a good sign.

  “I’m so sorry, Tim,” I go on. “Will you believe me? I’m sorry I accused you of all those bad things. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Again, I wait for a response and again I get nothing. Maybe I need to be more creative. I never finished my dinner. Maybe for some strange reason, hunger will somehow appeal to him. Wasn’t he the one who suggested I eat all my dinner? That I would need my strength?

  “Listen, Tim,” I say, “if you’re going to still be mad at me, can you at least bring me the rest of my dinner? I’m so, so starving, Tim. I know you want me to have energy for tonight. It’s still early and the night is long. Can you at least bring me something to eat, Tim, honey?”

  Outside the house, more rumblings of thunder. I can’t be sure, but it sounds like the heavy rains have picked up again. I can’t help but imagine my Anna being held outside in the elements. Maybe that creep Ed has chained her up like a dog, just like I’m chained up.