The Suffering Read online

  I don’t have Okiku’s second sight. I need to be within visual range of the person to make the connection, but that first recognition never fails to curdle my gut.

  What I hate about most of these perps is how normal they look. Like they have the right to sit at any Five Guys in any town in any country in the world and be served a bacon cheeseburger and a side order of fries like everyone else. I hate that no one else around them can see them for the putrid waste of flesh they really are.

  Mr. “Normal” here has red hair and brown eyes. He’s wearing a faded Rolling Stones shirt and jeans. He’s eating his burger like the only thing he’s ever murdered in his life was a cow.

  The rotting corpses of the three girls crawling over his back beg to differ.

  It always hurts to look at them. You can tell how long they’ve been shackled to their killers by their condition, and these poor girls have been prisoners for a long, long time. Their eyes have sunk almost below their sockets, and their hair’s matted and stringy, revealing bits of crumbling skull. Their bones show through parts of their skin, which sags at the elbows and shoulders. I’ve seen other, more decomposed dead children, but I avert my eyes anyway. I can’t look at them without seeing my own damage. Not too long ago, that could have very easily been me.

  What hurts even worse is the living, breathing girl across the table from him. She’s blond and rosy-cheeked, nibbling at her fry. A possible victim? It churns my stomach, and I wish I hadn’t eaten dinner before we headed out.

  Okiku is quiet, but her eyes are intent on the murderer. I can feel the shadows she keeps inside her snaking out. They reach hungrily for the man but are kept in check by the noise of people and the threat of discovery.

  I’ve felt those shadows myself. I’ve woken up in the middle of the night enough times, pale and sweating—and bawling my eyes out, I’m not ashamed to admit—because the strange malice festering inside Okiku occasionally finds its way into me, the

  festering, festering,

  make them break

  them take them

  shadows’ voices curling into my mind. When there’s a delay in Okiku’s special brand of justice, it’s harder to contain the darkness inside her, and she knows it. Her desire to catch these cutthroats quickly is as much a way to stop my own terrors as it is to quell hers.

  I could stay home while she’s out on these nightly haunts, but that’s not an option. We’ve tried. Okiku hadn’t been gone five minutes when I was confronted by a wayward ghost. I’d trapped it in a doll by the skin of my teeth, never more grateful to Kagura for her lessons. Okiku had returned not long after, sensing something was amiss.

  Whenever Okiku strays too far, other things start moving in to claim me as their territory. They want a body to take over. To many spirits, Kagura says, I am prime real estate, easier to inhabit because of my previous possession. But as long as Okiku is around to defend her territory, they leave me alone. When she’s more than half a mile away, the rules no longer apply.

  I’m relieved when the man gets up half an hour later. The girl skips forward to hold his hand, much to my own horror. I follow them out into the parking lot, arriving at my car just as they climb into a white Buick. Okiku and I tail them as they pull out into the street.

  By the time they stop, I am a riot of nerves, wanting this over and done with. All throughout the ride, I worry about the girl, who has no idea what’s about to happen. To minimize any evidence I might leave behind, Okiku often forges into these places alone while I wait nervously in the car a block away, hands primed on the wheel like any self-respecting getaway driver.

  Once he’s dead, the deed done, I can go home and climb into bed and console myself that one less bastard is preying on the world tonight. Sometimes I even feel good about it.

  I note the room both the man and the little girl disappear into—Room 5. Then I drive to find a place to park.

  “Go get him, Ki.”

  Okiku’s been gathering herself up to spring, stiff and taut as a silver-slicked bow. She is gone before I finish speaking.

  I take a deep breath, hunker down in my car, and squeeze my eyes shut. I fiddle with my leather gloves, hoping it won’t take long.

  It doesn’t.

  Within minutes, I hear him in my head—a high-pitched cry that echoes into the night air. I pan the area, half expecting someone to come and investigate the source of the sound, although I know no one else hears.

  And then the visions start, and I cease caring about much else.

  sweet dark the dark calls kill him dying on a bed kill him

  watching always watching

  fear he runs screaming feast on him take the

  eyes

  sunken beautiful staring eyes

  crying

  girl

  rip him rip him bleeding

  bleed

  I grit my teeth, trying to drown out the sounds in my head, the final images I see: Okiku standing over the bloodied corpse, its face already starting to bloat. I’ve seen most of Okiku’s victims, but you never get used to it.

  I wait tersely for several more moments, until I sense Okiku emerging from the motel, passing through the door to Room 5 as if it was never there. I feel her moving to where I sit, and that’s my cue to get out of the car.

  She carries three glowing orbs of light against her chest, and her expression is one of contentment, despite her sadness.

  My relief is immediate. Three orbs means the three sad ghosts I’d seen are no longer forced to spend a lifetime on their killer’s back. It means that somewhere inside that motel room, the little girl is safe.

  Okiku stands in the middle of the small parking lot, stalling before she has to release the lights into the sky, as she has done countless times before. When she finally opens her arms to welcome the night, I can see the wistfulness on her face. These children will escape into the heavens, though she will not. I know I’m part of the reason Okiku stays, to stave off spirits who wouldn’t be as kind to me as she has been—but I suspect there’s something more to it than what she tells me.

  To watch these glowing children, taking on the semblance of bright fireflies and winging their way up, is one of the most profound things that I will ever know. Whatever they might find on the other side, I hope and believe it’ll be better than the brief lives they led here. In those moments shortly after they take their place among the stars, I feel a sense of peace, a peace I know Okiku shares.

  That feeling dissipates as reality sets back in.

  I don my face mask and pull up my hoodie. Okiku looks curious when I turn back in the direction of the motel.

  “I need to make sure the girl’s okay, Ki.”

  Okiku understands the concept of crime prevention now. I was her first successful experiment. But the last thing a little girl wants after potentially debilitating trauma is to be confronted by a terrifying specter telling her everything’s going to be all right.

  I probably shouldn’t have tried to make sure she was all right. If the door to the room had still been locked, I would have considered being selfish, but unfortunately, it opens at a touch.

  The little girl is on her knees, crying before the desiccated corpse.

  I swallow the bile that threatens to inch past my throat and move toward the child. She looks up at me, her beautiful blue eyes tear-stained and red from weeping.

  “Daddy’s not moving,” she cries.

  I don’t know what to say to her.

  But I do what I can. I carry her away from her dead father, and she clings to my neck like I was not responsible. I keep my mask on but stay longer than I should—long enough to see her tucked into the bed of that small room and to watch her cry herself to sleep. Long enough to lie to her, to tell her he’s in a better place.

  I call 911 from a nearby phone booth, keeping my voice a whisper as I relay details to the operator. I tell her I heard screams coming from one of the motel rooms but was too scared to check it out. I never remove my gloves, never put my ho
odie down, and wipe the phone clean just to be certain. I make sure to leave no traces of myself behind.

  I don’t wait for the police or the ambulance to arrive.

  Instead, I drive until I find another parking lot—at a Costco—and stop the car so I can hold my head in my hands, with only the occasional sounds of vehicles passing by to break through the guilt I feel.

  Sometimes I forget that assholes have children too.

  “Tarquin?” I hear Okiku ask, the worry echoing in her rattling whisper. She understands that this can take a lot out of me, some days worse than others, but it’s not like either of us has any choice in the matter. She says my name again, and her voice changes.

  “Tarquin.” I feel her hand on my hair. Then both her hands reach down to gently cup my face, and I look up to find her studying me. She’s adopted human guise again, and while her hands are cold to the touch, her eyes are warm. When she hugs me, it’s awkward because Okiku never really learned how.

  It’s not like we both have any other options.

  “I’m fine now,” I say after a minute, squeezing her hand. “Let’s get home.”

  But she shakes her head. “No.”

  “No?”

  She turns to me, and I realize with dismay that the

  take their eyes their limbs their heads

  gouge out the pretties gouge

  slither slither tiny festers hate

  malice isn’t completely gone from either of us. Ki’s gotten hold of another scent, and the voices aren’t letting go until that’s over and done with too.

  I check the time—9:30 p.m. Early enough for one more hunt. I don’t want to spend another night with crazy in my head if I can help it.

  “Where to?”

  Chapter Four

  The Party

  “I can’t believe you actually made it!” Trish Seyfried squeals as I walk in.

  I can’t believe it either. Pulling up beside the McNeil residence felt even more incredulous than stopping by Five Guys, but Okiku doesn’t waver in that regard.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me, Ki.”

  It’s a rhetorical question, but she shakes her head.

  “McNeil’s? There’s a killer at McNeil’s? If you wanted to go to the party, you didn’t need to go through this roundabout way to—”

  filthy necks kill strangle him take him

  take the eyes

  Ah, hell.

  “Fine, fine,” I grumble, still half convinced this is all a mistake. If there was a killer studying at Pembrooke High, I know I would have spotted him long before this. “At least let me check it out before we do anything.”

  The implication that someone I know from school might be a murderer isn’t lost on me. For once, I’m letting morbid curiosity take the reins. Something tells me I’m not going to like it, but I want to confront whoever it is before I sic Okiku on him.

  There’s a reason I don’t go to these parties, and I’m already regretting setting foot in the place. Though the host is one of the few popular kids who’s never gone out of his way to bully me, Keren McNeil’s a wide receiver beloved for his ability to catch sixty-yard passes as if there aren’t a dozen defenders on his tail. He’s nice enough for a jock, except he hangs around with big-headed athletes like Matheson who talk smack about smack and treat the rest of us common mortals like dirty jockstraps. A lot of girls find these guys attractive, which is why I don’t understand a lot of girls.

  I flash Trish a weak smile and catch sight of Kendele sitting on a couch with her back toward me, Hank Armstrong’s burly arm around her shoulders. The smile twists into a grimace. “Yeah, well, thanks for inviting me.”

  Trish may be the only person pleased to see me. A few of the jocks eye me with derisive smirks. Some cheerleaders do the same, watching me like I’m a frog on its way to a dissection. Trish, as always, is oblivious. She grabs my hand and leads me into the kitchen, babbling a mile a minute as she does.

  “Come on, let’s get you something cold to drink. I know you’re not used to these kinds of parties, so I thought I’d show you around. You’ve never been to, um, McNeil’s place before, right? His parents are away for weeks at a time, so this is where we usually hang. They’ve got a wide-screen TV and an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The only downer here is that the neighbors are sorta dicks. Every time we turn the stereo up, they start complaining. McNeil’s dad knows the police commissioner, so it’s okay if they threaten to call the cops, but the interruption’s kinda annoying, you know?”

  I didn’t know, but I don’t care. As Trish talks, my eyes wander over the rest of the crowd. The usual suspects are there, talking and laughing. Maybe it’s the image of the little girl kneeling beside her father’s corpse that’s still swirling in my head, but I just want to lash out at someone.

  “Are you good friends with McNeil?” I ask.

  Trish pauses, a sudden edge in her voice. “I—no. Not really. It’s not like I know McNeil well or anything. I’m just here ’cause the other cheerleaders are.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  Sondheim isn’t happy to see me. He’s scowling because Trish is still clinging to my hand.

  “I invited him.” Trish sounds defensive. “He helped us out last night. Don’t you think we owe him?”

  Neither of them notices Okiku stepping out from me and heading off to explore the rest of the house. The McNeils are filthy rich, and this looks more like a mansion, with expensive-looking leather sofas and a home entertainment system that puts Dad’s to shame. Not many breakables in the room, I note—guess McNeil knows his friends better than to leave them lying around. The smell of beer is strong, and I can already see a few couples making out.

  “Fine, whatever. Look, it’s Keren’s house, and he gets to invite the people he wants to invite—no offense, pal. He won’t like outsiders barging in, and just ’cause you think we owe—”

  quiet little lingering sweet blood

  drink up drink up drown

  find him—

  I interrupt Sondheim; it’s getting harder to smile without looking demented. “You don’t mind if I just hang around? I’m sure McNeil won’t mind one more person. Trish is right, you know. It’s an honor to get invited to these things.”

  Sondheim hesitates. “Yeah. Um, I guess. Hey, babe, how about grabbing us a couple of beers?”

  Trish blows her boyfriend a kiss and saunters off. A few of the jocks and their girlfriends are watching a college basketball game on a forty-inch wide-screen in the next room, hollering insults. The rest are sprawled on chairs and couches, laughing. McNeil looks up and raises an eyebrow when we approach, his tone curious.

  “Who invited him?”

  “Trish,” Sondheim says. “He did her a favor for some class, and she wanted to thank him.”

  “I know a better way she could thank him,” a guy named Krajnik calls out, and the group howls. Sondheim flushes. I suspect that even among the football superstars, he still ranks on the lower totem pole of jocks.

  I look around, half expecting to see someone wander by with incorporeal kids climbing up his back, but no such luck. I can see Matheson’s with the group, still glaring at me, obviously not having forgiven me for lunch. I rack my brain, trying to come up with things to say.

  “So. Hanging around and drinking beer while watching the game. Is that all you guys do at these parties?”

  The grin freezes on McNeil’s face. “Yeah. Why not?”

  “Always thought you got wild at parties. I was pretty sure you guys had more balls than the one you pass around on the field.”

  The laughter is louder now. McNeil chuckles. “Brought a smart-ass with you this time, Andy.” But no one complains when we both find empty chairs to sit.

  “Wish you’d brought some more girls instead, Sondheim.”

  “McNeil, you’re the one with the pool of groupies to choose from,” someone else counters.

  There’s not much talk after that; whatever conversation there is gets swallowed
by the cheers and hoots directed at the television screen, where a rival college team is getting its ass whooped by their opponents. I take the opportunity to scan the room, hoping to catch a glimpse of a corpse hanging off someone’s back, because the sooner I spot the killer, the sooner Okiku can do what she needs to do and the sooner I can get out of here. My eyes wander back to Kendele, and more than once, I have to force the scowl off my face at seeing she’s still talking to Armstrong.

  “Hey, McNeil,” one of the guys says in between half-innings. “You still going out with that girl? That redhead with the pigtails?”

  “Not anymore. You have any idea what I need to do to—” McNeil stops, sneaks a look at me, and then grins. “Go ahead, Garcia, but I’m not holding my breath that she’ll say yes to an ugly mug like you.”

  More guffaws all around. Trish reappears to hand Sondheim his beer, then hesitates when she sees the others.

  “Where’s mine?” McNeil reaches for the beer she was about to hand to me. She startles and drops it. I’m not much on booze anyway, so I retrieve it and toss the can to him, a little confused as I watch the now-pale cheerleader hurry away, and as Sondheim gets up from his chair to follow, I cast another quick glance around but don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Are there more people upstairs? Tendrils of voices still

  sweet death claw and tear

  rip him up

  stroke through the edges of my mind, which means Okiku hasn’t found him either.

  “What’s up with your eyes by the way?” one of the girls asks me. “I’ve always meant to ask.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why are they blue? Aren’t you, like, Chinese?”

  “Japanese.”

  “Isn’t that almost the same thing?”

  “He’s only half Asian, Danielle,” a voice behind me responds. Kendele is standing with her hands on her hips, looking none too pleased to see me. Hank Armstrong is nowhere in sight. “I wanna borrow Halloway for a minute.”

  “Ten minutes in and you’re already a stud, Halloway,” McNeil drawls. “See what good company does for you?” The guys crack up, and I shrug—good-humoredly, I hope—before standing to follow Kendele to an unoccupied sofa in the least populated part of the room.