Michael Prescott: Riptide

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

She looked up and he was there, at the entrance to the hallway, with a gun in one hand and the metal box in the other. Standing erect, no braces on his legs.

The expression on his face was like nothing she’d ever seen before, a mask of glee and hatred.

“You,” she said, feeling stupid and confused.

“Me,” he agreed, much too cheerfully.

“But it can’t be…”

“Why not? Because I’m a cripple? You’d be surprised what a crip can do. Anyway, MS comes and goes. It’s in remission now. For the past few weeks I haven’t even needed the leg braces. I wore them for effect. To avoid any possible suspicion. Now I want you to reach into your pocket and take out your cell phone.”

“My phone?” She still couldn’t quite grasp it, couldn’t understand.

“Come on, Doctor. Take it out.”

The gun was trained on her. She couldn’t refuse. Fumbling in her pocket, she found the phone.

“Now toss it away. You won’t be needing it. There’ll be no more text messages from Abberline.”

“You’re Abberline,” she said, her mind working with molasses slowness as she tried to put it together.

“Of course I’m Abberline. I’ve been fascinated by the Ripper case my whole life. I participate in many online forums, and when I saw the new thread about Edward Hare, I knew you had posted it. Now throw the goddamned phone away .”

He was still smiling, always smiling, his face a frozen mask.

She pitched the phone into a corner, heard its distant clatter.

“Where’s Casey?” she asked.

“Unconscious. I brained him with that UV lamp of yours.”

Absurdly she thought she’d just replaced the lighting element and now it was probably broken again.

“I hid in the study,” he went on, “after I gained entrance to your house via the window. You really ought to fix that latch.”

“Yes. Yes, I should.” She was staring at the gun in his hand. Casey’s gun, she realized.

“Okay, now we’re going down into the cellar.”

“Why?”

“Because I like it down there. I think of it as a shrine to Henry Parkinson, formerly known as Edward Hare.”

She thought about running, but she could never get out of the room in time. He might not be a great shot, but at this range he wouldn’t miss.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked as she approached the pantry and the trapdoor.

“I told you, I like the cellar. It’s a sacred place to me.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean, why Maura? And the others? Just…why?”

“Open the trapdoor.”

“You won’t tell me?”

“Some things are too precious to be shared.”

She knelt and lifted the door, exposing the flight of stairs that descended into the dark.

“The light bulb’s dead,” she said, then wished she had used some other word.

“I have a flashlight. Go down. I’ll be right behind you.”

Yes, she would go down. But he wouldn’t be behind her. If she let him follow her into the dark, she would never come up again. She would be left with the skeletons, just another cadaver under the stairs.

She lowered herself onto the staircase and took a step. Parkinson moved closer, still standing in the pantry. She descended two more steps and heard him shift his stance to follow.

Before his foot could find the top step, she pivoted and shoved out at him with both arms.

She caught him by surprise and knocked him backwards. His disease might be in remission, but his legs weren’t strong. They folded under him and he hit the floor with a yell. The gun came up, and she ducked, flinging the trapdoor shut.

She heard him throw himself across the floor, his fingers scrabbling at the trapdoor’s handle, but before he could open it, she slammed the dead bolt into place.

She hugged herself, enveloped in the cellar’s absolute black. On the other side, Parkinson shook the handle.

“This won’t stop me,” he said conversationally.

“They’ll know it was you,” she shouted up at him. “They’ll know you did it.”

“Not at all. They’ll assume it was your demented brother. I hardly think I’ve been wasting my time on this meticulous frame-up. I’ve got everybody thinking it’s him. Even you.”

Something large and heavy smacked against the trapdoor. It shuddered. The door itself was solid oak like the rest of the flooring, but the lock and hinges were old.

“There’s a phone down here,” she bluffed. “I’m calling nine-one-one.”

“No, you’re not. There’s no fucking phone.” He struck the door again. “I’ve been in the cellar, remember?”

Another impact rocked the door. A gritty rain of dirt and splinters showered her. The dead bolt jingled ominously, the screws coming loose.

She retreated down the stairs, working her way by feel. In the darkness she had no sense of distance. It was a small shock when her shoes touched the concrete floor.

One last crash, and he yanked the trapdoor open. He thumped onto the stairs, his figure in silhouette against the light from the pantry.

“Now the fun begins. The kind of fun I had with Maura. She died so well. I butchered her like a steer.”

“You sick motherfucker!” she screamed.

“She was good…but you’ll be better.”

He started down the stairs, his flashlight snapping on. She backed away. There was no place to hide in the windowless room. No way out except the staircase that he blocked. Nothing to use as a weapon. Only blank walls and a concrete floor and the cache of skeletons.

She stumbled toward the crypt, dropping on hands and knees, climbing inside in the impossible hope that somehow he wouldn’t see her. The old bones fractured under her, raising wisps of chalky dust.

The flashlight reached the bottom of the stairs. It swung slowly, panning the room, and came to rest on her pitiful hiding place.

“There you are, with the other dead girls,” Parkinson said.

He moved forward.

She groped in the bone pile for something she could use in self-defense. Her hands came up only with loose dirt and scattered bones and teeth.

When she looked up, he was closer. He held the flashlight in his left hand. The right hand was empty. He wasn’t holding the gun. Must have snagged it in his waistband behind his back.

He didn't want to shoot her. That wasn't the Ripper’s way.

She dug deeper in the dirt.

He came nearer, smiling, always smiling.

“You’re only making things harder on yourself, Doctor.”

The cyclops eye of the flashlight expanded, wiping out her world, total blackness replaced by an undifferentiated field of white.

Out of the light came Parkinson’s hand. He seized her by the blouse and pulled her halfway to her feet, his face materializing in the glare.

He grinned. “Shall we dance?”

“Let’s,” she said, and her fist flew out from behind her back. In her hand was a broken piece of long bone-a leg or an arm, jagged at one end where it had been cut apart.

She plunged the severed end into his face.

He released her and staggered back with a wail of pain. The bone in her hand came away bloodied.

“You bitch , you almost took my eye out!”

She jabbed at him again, aiming for the flashlight this time, shattering the lens.

Darkness.

The last thing she saw before the light went out was Parkinson pulling out the gun.

She threw herself into a corner of the crypt, curling up in a protective ball, and the gun fired-again-again-again-the shots wild, blowing puffs of dirt out of the walls, scattering pebbles and bone. The noise was impossibly loud, the muzzle flashes tinting the darkness purple.

She thought he might go on firing until the gun was empty or until she went insane.