Page 51 of 1st Shock
I hear JJ's voice as he makes the appropriate calls to law enforcement, cursing at the shitty reception, but managing to get through. My fingers shake as I pull out my cell to call Meg.
I have no bars, no connection.
I go inside and find JJ using the landline in the kitchen, not his cell.
"Get off," I say, and when he doesn't do it fast enough, I yank the handset from him and start dialing.
Meg's goes to voicemail, and I swear softly, but I leave her a message, relaying the news.
Billy Ray has pictures of dead women plastered all over his cabin.
Worse, he also has some of two women who aren't dead yet.
Me and Meg.
21
Meg
The lack of sleep finally hit me.
I'm in my studio, Avery in front of me. I've placed the tissue depth markers on the cast and started layering various sized strips of clay by her haunting blue eyes, along her brow bone and jaw. Between the strips, the pale skull peeps out, intensifying the contrast of the darker clay.
As honorable as my profession is, I'm staring at something out of a freak show. No one, cast or not, should ever have to look like this. Half complete, bulging eyeballs and giant teeth that without flesh around them are menacing choppers ready to carve me apart. She won't always look this way, but at this moment I can't stand it.
Right now this girl is an art project.
Tragic.
A raging burn licks up my spine, searing my skin from inside out. I can't move. I want to, I know I have to, but my brain and fingers can't get their shit together and connect. I've suddenly forgotten how to sculpt, and it terrifies me.
I step back, draw a long breath of stale, closed-in office air.
"I'm being an idiot," I say.
Rational Meg knows it. Sleep-deprived Meg? Not so much. She loves poking the gremlins that wait, deep inside where that fire burns, ready to remind me of my fears, failures and disappointments.
Avery and her dead eyes being one of them.
My chest collapses, just a brutal crush of bone against my lungs.
I turn from her—I have to—and stumble from my office.
No air. I need air.
"Charlie!"
My sister. She'll offer refuge. Talk me from the ledge I want to throw myself off because this will never stop. Ever. There will always be cold cases and dead people. Young women, old men,children. A fucking marching band of skulls in and out of my studio, silently begging for help.
I reach the hallway and prop my hand against the wall.Air.The pressure in my chest is too much. Too constricting. My ears fill with some kind of quasi roar-whoosh that knocks me off balance and sends me wobbling. Irrational Meg begs for darkness, for the bliss of denial that’ll come when I pass out.
Please.
I don't fight it.
I need the break. Just a few seconds. Anticipating the plunge, I put my back flush against the wall and slide to the floor.
"Charlie!"
