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  She heard nothing save the scream of the wind and her own panicked heartbeat. She saw nothing but white on white, millions of furious snowflakes falling from the sky, creating a shifting curtain where only shadows and her own imagination created images. Her heart was racing wildly.

  You devil, show yourself.

  Nothing.

  She licked her cracked lips, told herself that she was imagining things. Arlene usually didn’t take much stock to “evil” or “demons” walking the earth. But now, in this lonely frozen canyon…

  Was that movement? In the thicket about ten feet away from the car?

  Her heart was drumming and she squinted as ice crystals peppered her face.

  Nothing.

  No! Yes, something was definitely moving…she silently prayed. Another shadow.

  Arlene shut her eyes. She let her breath out slowly, started pulling on the belt again, and had convinced herself she was overreacting when she saw something move in the fragments of her rearview mirror.

  She looked again and it was gone.

  A hand reached out from the darkness and covered her mouth and nose.

  Her insides turned to liquid.

  She wanted to vomit.

  Again there was movement in the relative shards of what remained of the mirror—a blurry shifting.

  Arlene blinked hard, brought up her hands as she turned toward the window, but it was too late. Her fingers were already not responding to her brain’s commands, the images in her mind scrambled, a tingling spreading through them.

  The hand had held a rag with somehing strong smelling…she’d been drugged.

  Another movement in the shattered, crumpled mirror.

  And then she saw the vision of evil…a man…his features distorted by the broken mirror, a large figure in dirty clothes.

  She was beginning to fade, to slip beneath the surface of consciousness as he said, “Mrs. Balleza,” in a warm voice that indicated he knew her. He was only a few feet away…if she could just stay awake. “Looks like you’ve had an accident.”

  She rolled her eyes up at him and with one last great effort snarled, “Oh, Jesus, deliver me from this evil…”

  “Too late, my dear.”

  As she sank into unconsciousness she felt no fear; just a hard-edged determination that if she ever woke up again she was going to rededicate herself to her prayers and faith.

  She only prayed she had someday got the chance.

  Chapter 14

  Arlene Balleza felt as if she’d been hit over and over again with a sledgehammer. Every muscle in her body ached, and just to move caused pain to sizzle up her spine and pound in a tremendous headache.

  She let out a low whimper as she tried to look around.

  Lying on her back, feeling cold seep into her body, she opened an eye and tried to see in the shadows. Where was she? Though it was too dark to see clearly, the only light filtering through an ice-glazed window, she recognized nothing.

  Grunting, she attempted to roll over. Her head roared in pain, her ribs ached, and her muscles were stiff and cold, so darned cold she could barely think. And her shoulder… Dear Jesus, had someone tried to rip it from its socket?

  She blinked, her eyes focusing, and she saw that she was in a tiny room with an unlit wood stove in one corner. Above her was a single, high window, and the only piece of furniture was this cot with its thin sleeping bag.

  What the heck?

  There was a door, probably less than ten feet away, but in her current condition, it might as well have been a mile. She must have cracked her ribs in the accident.

  Her mind was foggy, memories shuttered behind a wall of throbbing pain. Her left arm pounded from shoulder to wrist and she hoped to heck she had only bruised a muscle, that nothing was broken.

  Instinctively Arlene reached for her Bible, but it was not there of course; it was back in the Mercedes. It was at this moment she realized she was naked, not a stitch of clothes on.

  And her right wrist was handcuffed to a metal pole.

  Squinting in the darkness, Arlene found nothing that might help her escape.

  There was a mattress of sorts, old, stained and above a stench of rot, decay, and death.

  With an effort, she reached down to touch it, and it was real. She also realized for the first time that her teeth were chattering. But nothing else, that she could see.

  Just then, she heard barely audible voices. She could not discern from where they came. It was too dark to see much else in the cold room.

  Someone had brought her here.

  Someone could be lurking in the darkness.

  She squeezed her eyes closed and concentrated, past the pain, to the memories that skulked in the dark corners of her mind. She’d been driving… Yes. She’d been on her way to give that no good loser of a husband, Steve, a ride… And then?

  She could not remember.

  Closing her eyes, she tried to recall something; anything… Was there the sound of a gunshot? Loud. Echoing. Reverberating through the icy canyon?

  Oh, dear God… Her car…her Mercedes…spinning out of control, metal groaning, the windshield shattering… She relived those terrifying moments when her Mercedes had plunged over the steep embankment of the ridge, turning crazily as it propelled its way into the dark canyon below.

  Shivering, she refused to call out. She concentrated on the memory. The twisted metal, glass all about, snow and ice blowing in the car, her face cut, her shoulder hurt, the seatbelt wouldn’t release… Her hands drawn as she had waited, crushed under the roof.

  And then…and then…and then what?

  She scrunched her eyes tighter, trying to recall how she’d ended up here, lying naked and broken on a mattress in a darkened room. The memory teased at her mind and then she heard it, a sound from the other side of the room.

  More muffled voices.

  It was not the voices that sent a chill up her spine, her busted nose was beginning to clear a little, and as it did the smell assaulted her. A smell she recognized all too well.

  Arlene began to cry. She wasn’t going to get out of this place; she had a feeling of pure dread. A feeling that she knew meant she was going to die soon.

  * * * *

  On the same night that he had captured Arlene Balleza, his real estate agent, Frank Marsden piled into his car and drove around, looking for a candidate.

  “I can’t fuck that old broad,” he said to himself. “It’d be like fucking my grandmother.” The thought made him shiver. “Disgusting.”

  It didn’t take him long before he saw a face and body he had to have.

  Standing on the corner, waiting for a customer, was a small, dark, twenty-three-year-old woman named Deborah Horning. Marsden knew her as “Debbie”. The two had done business before, then Debbie had left the area. Frank Marsden was delighted she had returned.

  He had picked her up some time the year before. At that time he had agreed to pay her forty bucks for oral sex and she had climbed into his car and driven with him to a secluded back lot behind a local store. When t m hey got there, Frank Marsden had been unable to “get it up.” Embarrassed and angered, he paid her ten dollars and let her out.

  Tonight, however, the situation was out of the ordinary.

  He negotiated a fifty-dollar price with her, and the two of them drove to the house on South Douty Street. When they got there, Marsden led Debbie into the basement via his outdoor entrance. At the base of the stairs when he turned on the light, Debbie, who had nearly gagged at the stench, was shocked to see an older woman lying naked on a mattress and two other women handcuffed with duct tape over their mouths in a corner. Before she could scream, Marsden choked her, cuffed her, took her to the floor and began to rape her repeatedly.

  Chapter 15

  “They haven’t heard from her either. Nothing. That isn’t like Arlene.”

  Rubbing a hand around the back of her neck, Deena Hopping shook her head. “See what you can find out from Steve. I’m not talking to him.�
� She spoke to Maggie Swader as she glanced out the windows to the snow-covered landscape. “As soon as the weather breaks, I’m heading out in search of her or her car,” she said.

  “Steve says she never showed and it was just like her to promise something and then not follow through with it,” Maggie said, disgusted as she slammed down the receiver.

  “Bastard!” Deena spat. “Someone needs to take a baseball bat to that son of a b…”

  “Now, now. There is no use getting too upset. We don’t even know if anything is wrong. Perhaps she needed some time to think. You know, some time to herself,” Maggie replied, not believing her own words.

  A muscle tightened in Deena’s jaw. “I hope to hell you’re right.”

  She glanced to the desk where Arlene was known to leave notes if she was going out of town or going to be unavailable for a period of time. “Then why wouldn’t she have left a note?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie,” Maggie said. “I do know that she would be pleased as punch with you worrying so much about her.”

  “Thank you,” offered Deena. “I think it’s safe enough to go out. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  “Do be careful. Call me if you find out anything,” Maggie called out to Deena.

  Settling in behind the wheel of her car, Deena was out of the driveway in seconds, her wipers cutting away any residual ice on the windshield, the heater blasting full force. She melded into the traffic winding its way down the steep streets that sloped down the face of Strafford. The upper tier of the town, including the sheriff’s department and jail, sat high on the hill overlooking the town. Shops, restaurants, offices and even the courthouse lined the main street that ran parallel to the river and offered views of canyons and mountains.

  * * * *

  She tried Arlene on her cell phone again, was directed to voicemail, and tried to tamp down the doubts that gnawed at her mind. There could be a dozen or more reasons Arlene wasn’t answering, any number of excuses why she hadn’t been home all night. She didn’t necessarily have to be the victim of some horrible accident or worse.

  Unless she was injured, could not reach the phone.

  These thoughts filled Deena’s mind and made her nauseous.

  Deena tucked in her shoulders, physically fending off the idea. Arlene had sounded confident in her plan to lure Frank Marsden from his basement. But that wasn’t a news flash. Arlene, away from that bastard Steve, was a confident woman. She suffered from a bad marriage and that could be solved. Deena knew she had survived a bad marriage, an abusive one just like Arlene’s, and was thriving after the divorce.

  She tried her cell phone again. The voicemail was full. She just kept driving along the plowed county road where the snow was covered in gravel and had packed hard over the pavement. To access the side roads, a vehicle had to burst through the icy berm that had been left in the wake of the plows.

  Elm and Pine trees, needles laden with ice and snow, stood guard as she located the road that Arlene would have had to take to get to Steve’s. Snow nearly obliterated the tire ruts; no car, truck, or SUV had come recently, or so it seemed.

  She navigated the winding road, laying fresh tracks on the pavement. Then just as she was about to give up the search as the road was becoming treacherous, she saw it.

  The accident scene…

  Just off the road, turned over on its roof, lay Arlene’s Mercedes, crumpled and destroyed. With tears in her eyes, Deena immediately dialed 9-1-1.

  After being reassured that rescue teams were on their way, Deena took a long breath and dialed Maggie’s number.

  She only prayed this day was going to end happily.

  * * * *

  Arlene sensed it was time for her to make her move. She worked on Frank Marsden, convincing him she needed to be released. After all, she had nothing to do with any of his plans. She did not care what he was doing in the basement with the other ladies. She was old and obviously he didn’t look at her the way he did the younger women. If he let her go, she said, she promised to find another woman for him and not tell a soul about what was happening down here.

  Marsden was close to agreeing. “Maybe. But you’ll try to run, I just know it,” he cautioned. “And if you do, I’ll have to kill the others. All of them!”

  But then the other women, Angela Quirino, Maria Pinella, and Deborah Horning, all too began to plead for him to let them go. All of this whining and pleading wore on Marsden and he snapped, slapping and choking them, yelling all the while to shut up.

  “I cannot believe this!” he shouted.

  Food. I require more subsistence; you have neglected me.

  The voice boomed in his head. “No, no! That’s not true. I have fed you four women.”

  The women huddled together, save Deborah who was chained to the mattress.

  Why did you deny me the male?

  “He was nothing, I had to kill him. He was going to call the police.” Frank Marsden appeared more insane than ever as he paced across the basement floor talking to himself.

  “I protected you.”

  I require food. You are preventing me from regaining strength.

  “I can’t just bring you a new body every hour,” Frank snapped. “Fuck! I’m doing the best I can.”

  That is not good enough. I permit you to soil my food with your vile indigestions, yet you question my gratitude with these small human females.

  “Small?” he asked. “You want fat chicks?”

  I want food. Feed me or suffer my wrath.

  “You!” Frank said angrily as he pointed at Arlene. She cringed. “C’mon, granny, your time has arrived.”

  The other women pushed her away from them. It was self preservation but Arlene did not care. She did not want to die.

  “What are you going to do to me?”

  Frank paused. “Bastard’s ungrateful. Well… Mrs. Balleza, I wasn’t going to touch you…but since it is going to be your last night alive or at least looking like you do now…”

  Frank threw Arlene to the floor and savagely sodomized her as he smothered her mouth to keep her quiet. As Arlene lay whimpering on the floor Frank stood, and using his foot, turned her over. He then proceeded to rape her until finally she was exhausted.

  Arlene vomited and bled from her vagina and anus. “Something to remember old Frank by, bitch,” Frank spat.

  Without putting his pants on and still sporting a bloody erection, Frank Marsden grabbed Arlene by her hair and pulled her over to the hole where he shoved her rudely in. Arlene had been so weak she did not put up a fight.

  Turning to the other women, Frank gave them all a sinful grin, then asked, “Which one of you three gals is going to clean me up?”

  * * * *

  Mike Leopold answered the door himself.

  All five foot nine inches of him, squarely blocking the entrance to his single-level home. In a long-sleeved T-shirt and sweatpants, his brown hair mussed, he looked as if he’d been logging in serious hours in front of the television or drawing his insane pictures of the monster he claimed lived under the house at 1420 South Douty Street. The television was flickering in the background, the local news on, the top story being the disappearances of a string of women in the area.

  “It’s about time you came to see me,” Leopold said, freeing up the doorway.

  Deena already determined that her visit would be brief. She had the impression that Mike Leopold was in fact insane. “Hello, Mr. Leopold. I’m Deena Hopping…”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know who you are,” he interrupted. “As I said it’s about time. What do you want to know?”

  “My friend is missing, Arlene Balleza.”

  “The real estate agent?”

  Behind him Deena caught a glimpse of a flocked Christmas tree, green and gold, standing guard over the flat screen as the warm smell of beer curled from the interior. “Yes, the real estate agent.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of her. She’s not here. What are you thinking?”

  “She’s mi
ssing and I think it may have something to do with the basement of my house.”

  “You’re going to think I’m crazy…” Wariness darkened his brown eyes.

  “Tell me about what is in the basement, Mike.”

  “Is this some kind of joke?”

  Deena waved off the question. To Mike Leopold she said, “Start at the beginning.”

  “I don’t know where it came from or how old it is, but the creature looks like a sausage-like worm well over twenty feet long, and thick as a man’s arm, resembling the intestine of cattle. Its tail is short, as if it were cut off, but not tapered. It is difficult to tell its head from its tail because it has no visible eyes, nostrils or mouth. Its color is dark red, like blood or salami. And it spits some sort of liquid over its victims that turns them to jelly over time.” Mike Leopold gave his account of what supposedly lived in the basement of the house Deena was renting.

  “Now who’s joking with whom?” Deena replied. “What the hell are you talking about? You really believe that there is a monster in the basement of the house?”

  “Yes. You asked, I answered.”

  “What about Frank Marsden? Is he the monster?”

  “No, don’t be ridiculous! He’s working for the monster.”

  Deena slowly found a seat on the couch and shrugged. “I don’t understand. If Frank isn’t the monster…what…he’s sharing the basement with the thing?”

  “Yes.”

  Frowning, she waited; then, obviously seeing that Mike Leopold was being serious, looked up and stared at him.

  “I know how crazy this sounds,” Leopold said.

  “I don’t know that you do,” Deena interrupted. “What proof do you have of this monster?”

  “First, there is this horrible smell, right?” Deena nodded in response to Leopold’s question. “The dog next door barks all the time, right?” Another nod. “Well, that dog was mine and it never barks unless there is something threatening it.”

  “That’s it? A bad smell and a barking dog…that’s your evidence?” Deena said incredulously.