John Manning - The Killing Room

Had Carolyn been wrong? Was Beatrice not going to protect her?

David’s smile grew wider. Then he lunged at her, gripping her throat with his cold, clammy hands.

What brought Douglas back to consciousness were Carolyn’s screams.

Blood was in his throat, so thick he could taste it. He was almost choking on it. At the same time, his shoulder pained him. It felt dislocated. His ears were ringing, and his head throbbed.

But still he knew Carolyn was in danger.

He forced himself to his feet, trying to keep his balance, trying to force his eyes to focus on the scene in front of him.

Carolyn was just outside the door. David Cooke was strangling her to death. Her screams had been replaced by an intense gagging.

Douglas leapt.

He had no idea if he had the strength. He had no idea if he’d even make contact with the brute. But all he needed to do was to dislodge him a bit, make him loosen the grip he had around Carolyn’s neck.

Douglas bounced off Cooke and fell back against the wall of the corridor. But it seemed his effort had done the trick. He could hear Carolyn now gulping in air. But still the zombie had her in his grip. Douglas tried to stand again, but this time the pain in his shoulder flared up so fiercely that it knocked him back to his feet.

In that moment came a huge bang. Douglas had no idea what it was until he saw David Cooke drop Carolyn onto the floor. Then came another bang.

Someone was shooting at Cooke.

Douglas managed to look over his shoulder. It was Uncle Howie, with the second rifle.

David Cooke roared in fury. There were now so many holes in his left shoulder that he could not seem to lift that arm. That’s when Douglas realized that if they couldn’t kill the creature, they could immobilize it.

Cooke was lumbering across the room toward Uncle Howie. The old man shot again, shrewdly aiming once again for the weakened shoulder. The left arm now hung limply at the creature’s side.

But with his right arm he still managed to haul off and backhand Uncle Howie across the face, sending the old man flying backward. The rifle clattered across the marble floor. Douglas knew he had a microsecond to act, or else Cooke would reach the gun first and then snap it in two like a matchstick, just as he had done with the other one.

Disregarding every muscle that screamed out in pain, Douglas threw himself across the floor, landing on the rifle. He could hear the pounding of Cooke’s footsteps behind him. Even without looking around, he knew the zombie was standing over him, reaching down to grab him, to twist in his body in half.

“I don’t think so,” Douglas cried, flipping over and in nearly a simultaneous move, pointing the rifle up at Cooke and firing directly at the beast’s wounded shoulder. The left arm blew completely off the body.

Cooke let out a long wail. With his right arm he made a grab for Douglas, but he was off balance now, and toppled to the ground. Douglas stood over him and fired twice more into the hole in his neck. The second shot severed the spine. No matter how much his body ached, Douglas managed one swift kick of the zombie’s head, snapping it free of the body and sending it rolling across the floor. All the while the creature’s mouth still moved in anger.

The body, too, wasn’t ready to quit. It tried to get back onto its feet by using its right arm. But Douglas kept shooting into the creature’s back, smashing the spinal cord to bits. Finally the zombie could do nothing but writhe on the floor. They had nothing more to fear from David Cooke.

But then Malcolm began to scream.

“Mr. Young!” Carolyn called, her voice raspy, her throat painful. “Talk to him! Talk to your son!”

The baby’s shrieks threatened to make them all deaf. The sound was like nothing they’d ever heard before. Sharp, shrill, piercing. It seemed to come from every brick, every beam of the house. Now deprived even of his toy-a zombie named David Cooke-Malcolm’s tantrum had gone over the edge.

“What am I supposed to say?” the old man asked as Carolyn helped him up off the ground.

“Tell him you will bring him to his mother,” Carolyn said.

The pitiful man just looked at her with his watery, bloodshot eyes. “How am I going to do that?”

“Ask her for forgiveness, and Beatrice will meet you halfway,” Carolyn told him.

How she knew that, she had no idea. All she could do right now was trust her gut. All the good psychic investigators she had worked with-Kip, Diana, many others-had told her that there were times when all you had left was your gut. And when that happened, your gut instinct would never steer you wrong.

“How can I dare ask for forgiveness for what I did?” Howard Young lamented. “I was a cowardly, ruthless young man motivated by greed. I coldly took three lives that night and in the process ruined dozens more lives over the course of the next eight decades. How could I possibly stand here and ask for forgiveness? I do not deserve forgiveness. I deserve damnation.”

Malcolm’s cries had dissolved into stuttering hiccups of fear and frustration.

“Your son is crying for you,” Carolyn told Howard.

The old man looked around the room.

“My son,” he whispered.

“Yes,” Carolyn said. “Your son.”

Mr. Young walked unsteadily into the center of the room, looking up at the high vaulted ceiling.

“Malcolm,” he said.

The crying flared up louder at the mention of the name.

“Malcolm,” Howard Young implored. “The time has come to end all the killing. The time has come when you can finally rest. I am here, my son. I am here to take you to your mother.”

The crying just went on, echoing throughout the house.

“Listen to me, Malcolm. I know you are alone. You are alone and frightened. I am your father. Don’t think that all these years you have been forgotten. I have lived with the horror of my deeds all my life. Over your grave I had a small stone inscribed with the letter M. I had a cherub carved to mark your place of rest, because that is how I came to think of you. As a cherub. But I know now that you were never at rest. And it is all my fault. All mine.”

His voice broke.

“But now I come for you,” Howard went on. “I will bring you to the mother you seek. Please, my son. Let me finally help you!”

The crying suddenly changed. Instead of being dispersed through the house, it was now localized. It came from one corner of the room. Carolyn looked in that direction. And there, on the floor, wrapped in nothing more than soft white blanket, was a little baby.

“Malcolm,” Howard Young gasped.

The baby lay on his back, his little pink hands clutching fistfuls of air. His face was red from crying.

“Go to him,” Carolyn told the old man.

Slowly Howard Young crossed the room. He gazed down at the baby on the floor. Then he stooped, and with difficulty, picked him up in his arms.

Carolyn braced herself for what might happen.

But all that occurred was that Malcolm stopped crying.

Douglas had come up beside her. “Where is Beatrice?” he whispered. “Will she not come to take her baby?”

“I don’t know,” Carolyn admitted.

“I know where she is,” Howard Young said, his eyes transfixed by the child he held in his arms. It was the first time he’d ever held his son, the first time he’d ever looked him in the face.

“In the room in the basement?” Carolyn asked. “Is that where you should take Malcolm?”

“No,” Howard said. “Not to the place where he died. I will take him to the place where he first came into this world.”

Slowly, and with great effort, he began climbing the stairs. Carolyn and Douglas followed a few steps behind. The baby cooed and gurgled in his father’s arms. Carolyn worried that after all he’d been through, Howard might fall or lose his footing on the stairs. But the old man didn’t waver. He kept ascending the marble staircase, and at the landing turned and continued up the next flight.