P. Parrish - South Of Hell

Come closer, girl. A little closer.

He heard the snap of a twig as she walked along the edge of the cornfield. So close now he could almost smell her.

He held his breath.

Silence.

Had she stopped? Why wasn’t she coming inside? She was just standing there, frozen. Her weird eyes were colored with the same look she used to get when she was little, like when the tornados were coming.

She knew he was in here.

And she was going to run.

Damn the cops and anyone else out there.

Brandt pushed open the door. At the sound, the girl’s head snapped up, her eyes — those weird fucking eyes — pinned on him.

Suddenly, she bolted toward the cornfield.

He was slowed by the thorn bushes but he caught up with her at the edge of the field and threw an arm around her neck, knocking her to the dirt.

“No!” she cried.

He started to drag her back to the root cellar. She was light, no heavier than a bundle of sticks, but she was kicking hard, her hands clawing at his arms.

A pain seered through his hand.

Fuck!

She had bitten him. He dropped his hand and clenched his teeth to keep himself from yelping. Blood. The bitch had drawn blood.

“God damn you,” he hissed.

He smacked her. She cried and covered her head, crumpling to the weeds in a whimpering heap. He dropped a knee into the girl’s chest and pulled his knife from his waistband.

He wanted to slice her up right here but he couldn’t do that — not yet. He leaned close, holding the knife inches from her face.

“Where is she?” he asked.

She didn’t open her eyes, just held her cheek, crying.

“Where is she?” Brandt said. “Where’s your momma?”

She opened her eyes. “Momma?” she whispered.

Brandt grabbed a fistful of her hair, pushing the broken blade into her cheek. “Tell me now, or you die,” he said.

Tears streaked the girl’s face, and she was gulping in air like she was drowning. She sounded like she was having one of those damn breathing attacks.

“Stop it!” he hissed.

Her eyes came up, staring right into his. It was the same kind of look he’d seen in Jean’s eyes just before he plunged the knife into her chest. And the same one he’d seen in Margi’s before he pushed her from the car.

And the screaming. The same screams that Jean had made and-

But no one was screaming, he realized. It was a siren he was hearing now.

A thud. Voices.

Brandt’s eyes shot to the road. Blue lights cut through the fog.

He looked down at the girl. She had heard it, too. He thrust a hand over her mouth, his knee digging harder into her stomach to keep her still. Ten feet away, a rusting tractor sat surrounded by a heavy curtain of brush. He dragged the girl behind it.

Brandt crouched behind the tractor’s wheel, watching the cops. One of them was heading toward the farmhouse. The other was going toward the barn.

Brandt knew the second cop couldn’t see him behind the tractor. But they’d start searching out here soon enough. And there was no way he could risk trying to drag the girl back to the root cellar now.

Think! Think!

The Gremlin. If he could make it to the creek, he could get back to the old barn where he had hidden the car and get away.

Brandt yanked the girl to her knees and held her by the neck. “Crawl,” he said. “You make one sound, I’ll slice you open and throw your body in the fucking hole where no one will ever find it.”

Louis saw the blue pulse of the lights ahead. The fog had almost burned off, leaving the sun a pale smudge in the eastern sky, and as they rounded the bend on Lethe Creek Road, the farmhouse came into view.

Two Livingston County sheriff cruisers were parked at the gate. Joe had called them from the hotel in Ann Arbor, knowing they could get to the farm faster. A report of a runaway girl wasn’t high priority, but when Joe told them that Amy could be a target of Owen Brandt, the response was swift.

There were three deputies standing in the yard. But they were alone.

“Where is she?” Joe said, leaning forward in the passenger seat.

“Take it easy, Joe. Let me get the car stopped,” Louis said.

But Joe was out of the Bronco before he got it into park.

Louis followed as fast as he could, his chest aching and his brain still fogged with painkillers. He had insisted on driving, because for the first time since he’d known her, Joe was incapable of a single rational thought. By the time they had turned onto Lethe Creek Road, she had managed to calm down some, making the transition back into cop mode, as he called it, but she still was not herself.

He came up behind Joe, recognizing the shortest man in the group as Sheriff Travis Horne.

“Look, we’ve been here almost an hour already,” Horne was saying to Joe. “We’ve searched the house and the barn and every other damn building out here.”

“Did you search the attic?” Joe asked.

The sheriff sighed. “Yes, ma’am, we did.”

Joe spun and looked out at the fields. “Then we do a grid search,” she said.

“With three men?” Horne asked. “Are you nuts?”

“There’s five of us here,” Joe said.

“And sixty-some acres out there, plus two or three miles of nothing beyond that,” he said, gesturing toward the barn. “It’ll take days.”

“For God’s sake,” Joe said. “She’s only a child.”

The sheriff tipped back his hat. “A child who made her way out here twice now all by herself. She sounds a mite more capable of taking care of herself than you’re giving her credit for.”

Joe glared at him, then spun away from the group and walked away. Arms crossed, she stared out at the cornfields. Her shoulders jerked with a smothered sob.

Louis looked at Horne. “Sheriff,” he said, “we’re sure Amy will come back here, and we’re going to stay. I would appreciate it if you’d leave us one of your deputies to help.”

Horne cut his eyes to Joe, chewing at his lip as he considered the request. “I still have men on overtime patrolling the back roads for Owen Brandt,” he said. “Who you also told us would come back here, and he hasn’t showed, either. I’m sorry, I can’t use what little manpower I have to keep looking for your ghosts.”

“Would you at least call Detective Bloom and let him know Amy’s missing and ask him if he can spare a few men?” Louis asked.

Horne nodded. “That I can do,” he said.

Louis stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked to Joe. She was walking toward the barn, already anxious to start searching. He knew it would be hours before Bloom could dispatch anyone to help them. If he sent anyone at all.

“Kincaid?”

Louis looked back at the sheriff.

“I’ll send Sam here back with some coffee and doughnuts in about an hour for you.”

Horne started toward his cruiser. His deputies followed him, and in less than a minute, the two cruisers headed away, down Lethe Creek Road.

Joe had disappeared. Then Louis saw her coming around the north side of the barn. She was stopping to look under every piece of rusted machine, inside every metal drum, and through every bramble and bush.

Louis squinted into the pale sun, then did a slow turn in a circle, surveying the land.

He had never believed in ESP or telepathy, but he did believe in instincts. Especially his own. And he had the feeling Amy was here somewhere.

Maybe she had seen the cops and, thinking they would take her back before she found her mother, found a place to hide. Maybe she had simply curled up somewhere and fallen asleep.

He knew one thing for sure. Amy wouldn’t hide from Joe.