While the Savage Sleeps (10 page)

“
What about his parents? Had you met them?”

“
Oh, yes. Several times. Open house, PTA. You know. Things like that.”

“
Impressions?”

She shrugged. “Very,
very
nice people. I spoke with them once or twice about Ben’s shyness, how I was trying to help him overcome that. They seemed appreciative … grateful that I wanted to help him.”

“
Concerned,” Cameron confirmed.

“
Very much so.”

He paused, nodding, thinking. “I know Ben was a quiet kid, but had he shown any sort of fascination with violence lately?”

“
No. Not anything I could see.”

“
Not even with things on TV … movies … music, even?” Cameron asked. “Kids are exposed to a lot these days.”

“
Yeah, I know what you’re saying …” She bit her lower lip. “But see, I’m trying to think of how to best explain this. You have to understand something: I’ve been dealing with kids almost every day for the past six years. You start to recognize the troubled ones. It becomes second nature for teachers. If Ben had any problems, I think I would have noticed. He just didn’t. He was a very considerate, sweet child.”

A considerate, sweet child who gunned down his entire family and then himself,
Cameron thought, and then realized he’d had similar notions about Ryan Churchill.

Susan was still talking. “I know that sounds crazy in light of what he did, but that’s how he always seemed around here.”

“
Okay,” Cameron said, moving on. “What about schoolwork? Any problems there?”

“
Ben had a little trouble grasping things at times. I attribute that … or I
attributed
it, rather … to his shyness. I got the impression he was afraid to speak up, ask questions, and get involved in class discussions. As I said, I was trying to help him with that. His grades weren’t exemplary, but they were acceptable. I always felt he had the ability to do better, though. He just needed to step a bit further out of his shell.”

He’d done that, Cameron thought, only had gone
much
too far.
It wasn’t adding up
;
there had to be more. He flipped his notebook cover, then stood up. “You’ve been a lot of help, Miss Swift. Thank you taking the time. I know it isn’t easy.”

“
I’m happy to help,” she said.

“
If anything else comes to mind—”

“
I’ll be sure and come by or call.”

“
I’d sure appreciated it.”

As they walked together toward the door, Susan appeared to be struggling with something, then stopped. “Look, it’s probably not my place to say this.”

“
Go right ahead,” he urged.

She paused, sighed. “I don’t know what came over Ben that day to make him do what he did—I honestly don’t—but I can’t help but feel someone or
something
must have influenced him. Quiet, well-mannered children don’t just wake up one day, murder their families, then kill themselves. Look … you and I both know Ben was
not
a violent kid, and I think we’re both
qualified to say that. There just
has
to be more to this.”

More to this
… Susan Swift’s words were still echoing inside Cameron’s head as he turned the key to his ignition. Then he thought about what she’d said next:
Someone or something must have influenced him.

Someone else? He’d thought about Ryan but had never considered it further. And other than Ben and his family, there was no evidence of anyone else in the house. Still, he wondered about outside influences—could someone,
somehow,
have manipulated him into murdering his family? Did he go into that closet to kill himself because of the guilt he’d suffered afterward? Possible, but again, not a shred of evidence to prove it.

All he knew was that up until the murders, Ben showed no signs of anger or hostility and had no inclination whatsoever toward violence.

Good kid on the outside, but inside—
that
seemed to be a completely different story.

Just like Ryan.

Chapter
Eighteen

Albuquerque, New Mexico

A thick stench charged the air, a vile combination of urine and perspiration that lingered, growing stronger with each passing minute.

Kyle stood before an elongated hallway; it went on for what seemed like forever. At certain moments, the walls looked so white they were nearly blinding.

Stainless-steel gurneys sat parked along the narrow corridors, one for every door, each containing a wafer-thin mattress. She gazed down the hall at all of them lined-up so neatly in a row, like a traffic jam made up of shining mirrors, each one reflecting onto the next.

The whole place had a hollow, abandoned quality, one she could feel lurking behind every corner—an anxiety-producing aura thick as gutter mud and just as dirty.

Then there were the sounds, an endless array of throaty, guttural moans that seemed to come from nowhere and echoed down the cavernous corridors, almost as if bleeding through the walls; they filled the air, playing out like some eerie, torturous symphony. Even the lighting flooded the air oddly, covering everything like a thick, soupy vapor—a yellowy haze, drifting apart, then multiplying like resinous smoke.

Kyle was lost in some sort of otherworld.

Just then, she felt a presence over her shoulder, as if someone had walked past her. A rush of cold air danced down the back of her neck, making the tiny hairs along it quiver. A voice, high-pitched and raspy, spoke softly into her ear. It was thin, barely above a whisper. A child’s voice:

“
Empty hearts, empty souls.”

Startled, Kyle spun around, but nobody was there.

A chill shot up her spine. She turned back again, only to find a pair of sallow, green eyes bathed in a milky film, staring directly into hers.

The dream was so disturbing, so vivid, it shook Kyle right out of her sleep. Lines of sweat raced down her cheeks and her nightshirt was soaked. Her body was raging like a furnace, even though her skin felt ice-cold to the touch.

It was happening again.

Just as she reached to turn on the lamp, the bulb popped, exploding into a big bright flash of light, then went dark. She fumbled her way to the wall switch, turned on the lights, and peered at the alarm clock: three a.m.

Kyle was accustomed to the dreams. She’d been having them since she was a little girl, but these seemed different, more powerful.

“
It’s a gift,” her mother told her when she was young. “A gift from God.” She too, had the gift.

“
Like a present, Mommy? A birthday present?” Little Kyle’s brown eyes widened.

“
Something like that, except it doesn’t come with pretty wrapping and a bow. Presents from God don’t come that way.”

Kyle glanced down at her tiny folded hands, then up to her mother, shrugging the way little girls sometimes do. “A present without wrapping paper?”

She pushed Kyle’s little nose and smiled. “You’ll understand it better as you become older, but for now, just know it’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s a good thing.”

“
Why did God give it to me?” she persisted.

Her mother placed a gentle hand on Kyle’s shoulder. Her voice sounded confident, reassuring. “So you can help people.”

“
Help them how?”

She paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to explain such a complex idea to such a young girl. “Let me see.” She gazed up toward the sky. “Let’s say a good friend of yours from school …”

“
Like William?” Kyle asked eagerly.

Her mother raised her eyebrows and nodded. “Yeah, okay, like William. Say he was going to make a bad decision.”

“
What kind of decision?” Kyle challenged, tilting her small head sideways. Silky braids bounced onto narrow shoulders.

“
Well … let’s say he decided not to wear a jacket to school because it was sunny that morning. But you had a dream the night before about a big storm that was coming.” Her mother stretched her hands wide apart in an effort to illustrate enormity. “A storm that nobody’d predicted. You might call William that morning to warn him.”

“
So he wouldn’t get all wet?” She covered her mouth with her hands and giggled.

“
Exactly,” her mother said, laughing along, grabbing Kyle, and wrapping her arms around her, kissing the top of her head.

But her mother had never warned her about anything like this.

Kyle pulled open her nightstand drawer, grabbed her journal, and began writing down every detail she could remember, something she’d learned to do when the more confusing dreams came.

This one certainly qualified.
That creepy hospital,
she thought,
as the hairs on her arm began to tingle,
both empty and noisy at the same time.
She could still hear those raw, tormented moans echoing down the hollow halls—so much pain and agony.

“
Empty hearts, empty souls.” She said the words aloud, looked up from her journal to think for a moment, and then committed them to paper, still wondering what they meant.

Just then, an image jumped into her head: those haunting eyes, staring directly into hers. She trembled.

So dull and lifeless, a sickly color. And murky, like a cloud of mud stirring restlessly in a lake. She knew those eyes. She’d seen eyes like that many, many times before, both in dreams and in the walking world.

Those eyes belonged to the dead.

On her back and in the dark, she stared up at the ceiling, wide awake. This dream was a message. From whom, she had no idea, but she did know one thing: it was important. These kinds usually were, the ones that pulled at her consciousness, stretching it far beyond limits she never knew existed.

Even more important about the dream, she knew
someone
had lived it. Was it the little girl? Was she recounting some horrible, traumatic experience, one that ultimately led to her death?

And was she reaching out to Kyle for help?

Chapter
Nineteen

Felice’s Diner

Faith, New Mexico

Felice’s was a cornerstone in Faith.

Clattering, bustling, and unpretentious, the affable little diner was a part of the town’s history. For many, this was more than just a place to eat; this was place to gather, to catch up on the latest gossip, and on each other.

The restaurant’s specialty was enchiladas, a crowd-pleasing favorite among the locals and a must-have for first-time visitors. The menu also accommodated those preferring the more conventional, stick-to-your-stomach comfort foods, like meatloaf, chicken-fried steak, and mashed potatoes smothered in gravy.

When time permitted, Cameron and Frank started their mornings there, discussing the day’s affairs while filling their stomachs.

Now they sat in their usual corner booth, each with hot coffee and white frosted cinnamon rolls laid out before them, warm, sticky, with the steam still rising.

Cameron had been picking at his roll for the past ten minutes without taking a single bite or saying a single word. Absently holding a fork in one hand, he stared out the diner’s window with vacant eyes, seeing nothing.

Frank glanced at him briefly, shrugged, then tore into his roll, chewing around his food as he spoke. “Eat your breakfast, son. You’ll grow up to be a big strong boy.”

Startled, Cameron glanced down at his plate, suddenly realizing where he was and what he was doing. He poked at the food a few more times, a conciliatory gesture, but made no attempt to actually eat it. Finally, he spoke. “I don’t need food. I need sleep.”

“
You and everyone else.” Frank took another bite, chewed without tasting, then tossed the rest of the roll back onto his plate.

“
The Churchill kid,” Cameron said, gazing out the window again.

“
What about him?”

“
How’s a thirteen-year-old boy manage to slip out of town without being noticed?”

Frank nodded silently.

“
And he doesn’t have any resources,” Cameron continued. “No means of transportation, no money to speak of.”

“
Unless he stole some,” Frank replied. “But with everybody on the lookout for him, I don’t see how he could take a piss
without
someone
hearing about it.”

“
So where’d he go?”

“
Good question, Detective Friday. Care to wager on some answers?”

Cameron looked at Frank for a few seconds, thinking before he spoke. “Two kids, five murders.”