Page 57 of Confessions of the Dead

Matt kept the gun at his side as he came around Ellie’s car onthe driver’s side and bent to get a better look at the interior. Ellie’s bundle of keys with the white rabbit’s foot dangled from the ignition and the car was in neutral. Her radio was smashed and there was blood on the passenger seat. He didn’t think it was Ellie’s; most likely it came from the librarian, Edgar Newton, but the sight of any blood in an abandoned car was unnerving. Knowing it was Ellie’s car only made things worse.

Blood from Newton was one thing. A smashed radio was another thing entirely.

This was no accident. Someone had done this.

Matt tried to piece it together.

Someone deployed a spike strip, disabled the car, and what? Forced Ellie and Newton out? Took them away? Then put the car in neutral and pushed it off the side of the road and smashed the radio? Nothing else made sense. But who? Why?

Matt stood up and looked back out at the other abandoned cars.

Nearly twenty of them.

At least twenty people, maybe more, all missing.

All of them were at Matt’s back. Ellie had made it the farthest. There were no cars beyond Ellie’s.

Matt could only see about a hundred feet in that direction. Route 112 crested at a hill, and he had no line of sight beyond the break.

Still holding his gun, he started walking in that direction. He’d only gone about ten yards when the asphalt at his feet burst in a puff of black dust followed a millisecond later by the crack of a rifle.

42

Hannah

THERE WERE FRESH FOOTPRINTSin the thick dust covering the hallway floor.

Not shoe prints, but bare feet.

Small, about the same size as Hannah’s.

Probably female.

Malcolm trained the flashlight beam on them, traced them with the light. They seemed to start somewhere deep in the house, cross the very spot where she and Malcolm were in the hallway, then continue through the living room and out the front door. A single set of tracks left by someone leaving, no indication of them entering the house unless they’d come through a window or something in the back.

Malcolm worked the light in the opposite direction, traced the prints back from the front door, and lost them in the gloom at the far end of the hall. The same direction the sound had come from. In his other hand, he rolled the screwdriver in his grip, anxiously twisted it, faster and faster. Behind his eyes, the gears were turning.

Whatever this was, he hadn’t expected it.

“Somebody help me!” Hannah shrieked. “Somebody!” She yelled so loud the words seemed to tear her vocal cords, like a speaker blowing out.

Malcolm punched her.

Not a slap like before, but he tightened his grip around the screwdriver and drove his fist hard into the side of her chin. Her jaw cracked shut and caught the corner of her tongue between her teeth, and when she opened her mouth to cry out from the pain, he shoved the rag in, nearly choked her, and quickly replaced the tape.

Warm blood filled her mouth, and she had no choice but to swallow it as he glared at her, his face bright red, his skin writhing even worse than before, as if she’d angered the flies right along with him. “You dumb bitch. It’s like you want to get hurt. Why’d you make me do that?”

His voice was low, barely a whisper, and he only looked at her for a second before turning his attention back down the hall. “There’s nobody here. We don’t even know these tracks are from today.”

When he said that last part, Hannah wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or trying to convince himself. She barely had time to process that when he added, “She didn’t go down there, did she?”

Those words slipped from him so quietly, Hannah wasn’t sure he’d actually meant to say them aloud. Like they were simply a thought that escaped.

You’re number seven, Hannah. You’re the seventh girl I’ve brought out here.

She saw the marks on the table leg then, hadn’t noticed them before. Dried adhesive, probably from more duct tape. Scratches in the wood finish, maybe from zip ties.

At one point, he’d secured all his victims to the same spot where he had her now.

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