Wish You Were Dead (24 page)

“You don’t have to do this,” I said, trying to sound calm.

“Do what?”

“Put us in these cages. Keep us here. You can go. I promise I’ll make the others swear not to tell.”

The rope was cut. I felt her tug at some of the strands around my wrists to loosen them. Then the gate clanged shut. I swiveled my head around and watched as she went back into the house.

I sat up and worked my wrists free, then undid the ropes from my ankles. I searched my pockets for my cell phone, but of course, Ms. Skelling had taken it. It was dusk. The sun had gone down, but there was still enough light to see. The cold crept through my clothes and my teeth chattered. The gate to the pen was locked. I turned to the other pens and whispered, “Courtney? Adam?”

No answer.

“Courtney, Adam, it’s Madison. Are you in there?”

I heard some scratching sounds. From the doghouse in a pen near mine. Courtney’s head came out slowly, her hair a nest of dirt and pieces of brown leaves. Her face looked boney and streaked with grime; her dry lips were cracked, her eyes sunken. Her lips moved and a hoarse whisper came out: “I’m so thirsty.”

I looked around. Except for a green hose lying on the ground near the house, there was no source of water. An empty bowl covered with a gross layer of crust lay on the ground in each pen.

Lucy died of dehydration
.

“I’m so cold,” Courtney whispered. Her teeth were chattering.

I looked around for a way out of these pens but I doubted I’d find one. They looked like they’d been there for a long time.

“Get me out of here, Madison,” Courtney whispered.

“I’ll try,” I whispered back, with no real idea of what to do. “How’s Adam?”

Courtney shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“When did you last see him?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “It’s hard to remember.”

It was getting darker, and colder. The vapor of our breaths seemed to thicken. The wire fencing went over the tops of the pens. The doors were latched from the outside and wide rectangular metal plates prevented anyone from reaching the latch from inside.

I sat on the hard wet concrete and pulled my knees up against my chest, feeling the vein in my neck beating hard with fear, the dampness soaking in against my butt. Why had I insisted on coming here with Ethan? What had I been thinking? How stupid had I been? By now my mother must have come home. She’d see the broken glass and that my car was gone. She’d call the police first and then Dad in London. Then, while Dad raced in a panic to find a flight home, and the police investigated, she would lock herself alone in her bedroom where no one could see, and silently go hysterical.

How could I be such an idiot?

The cold continued to creep through my clothes, and I shivered uncontrollably.

“Courtney?” I whispered, but she didn’t answer. Hoping it might be a little warmer in the doghouse, I crawled inside. The smell made me want to gag and I was glad that in the dark I couldn’t see what I was lying on. I just lay there curled in a ball, trembling, unable to sleep, miserable, alone, alternately furious with myself and terrified of what was going to happen next.

chapter
21

Friday 4:46
A.M
.

IT WAS EARLY in the morning, maybe an hour before dawn. I’d never been so cold in my life, lying on my side, curled up tight, shivering, my teeth chattering so hard I had to concentrate to keep from biting my tongue. Suddenly there was loud thrashing in the woods nearby, followed by muffled grunts. They sounded human, but I couldn’t be sure. Then came more grunts and muttering and the sound of something heavy being dragged through the sticks and leaves.

I got to my hands and knees and peeked out of the doghouse. In the predawn moonlight Ms. Skelling was dragging someone. Her arms went around his chest and she walked backward with his heels scraping the ground. It was too dark to see who it was.

“They’re really starting to come out of the woodwork,” I heard her say.

“Very funny.”

“Seriously, it’s time to go.”

“I know. There are just a few things left to take care of.”

She opened a metal gate, dragged the body into the empty
pen across from mine, and let it fall with a thump. Then the gate clanged shut.

“What happened?” The whisper in the dark caught me by surprise. It was Courtney.

“She caught someone else,” I whispered back.

The hour before dawn isn’t just the darkest. It is also the coldest and loneliest. I sat up in the doghouse, knees pulled under my chin, teeth chattering, icy tears dripping down my cheeks. The sky was just beginning to grow light when I heard a long, low groan. I looked out. Tyler lay in the pen across from mine. He pushed himself up on one elbow and pressed his hand against his head.

“Tyler?” I whispered.

He looked up sharply, surprise turning into wonder. “Madison? What is this?”

I pressed my finger to my lips, then whispered. “A dog kennel.”

Tyler looked over at Ethan, who still lay unconscious. His eyes widened, then narrowed. Somehow I knew that behind his closed lips he was gritting his teeth. “Well, well,” he muttered.

“He didn’t kill your sister,” I said.

Tyler shot me a questioning look. I gave him a brief account of how Ethan had come to my house and told me what had happened and why he’d been on the run.

“You believed him?” Tyler asked dubiously.

“Sometimes you know when someone is telling you the truth. Besides, we know it was Skelling.”

Tyler hung his head. I guessed he was realizing that he’d made a mistake. He’d followed Ethan to Soundview, thinking he was the
killer. Meanwhile Ethan had followed the real killer here.

Tyler looked up. “What about the others?”

I pointed at a nearby doghouse. “Courtney’s in there, dying of thirst. Adam’s in even worse shape. I’m so scared, Tyler. I think Skelling’s planning to go soon. I don’t know if she plans to kill us first or just leave us here to die.”

He didn’t answer, just looked around as if sizing up the situation.

“How did you find this place?” I asked.

“Maura. So Skelling just leaves you out here until you die of thirst and exposure?”

I wondered if he was thinking about how his sister must have died. The sky slowly continued to brighten. He stared at the latch holding my pen closed. I could tell from his face that he was formulating an idea.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“These pens were built to keep dogs in,” he whispered back. “Not people.”

“So?”

“Dogs don’t know how to help other dogs get free.” He crawled into his doghouse. I heard a loud
crack!
and the doghouse shook. Then another
crack!
and another. He was kicking at the wall from inside.

The knob on the door from the house started to turn. “Tyler!” I gasped.

The door flew open and Ms. Skelling stomped out, eyes darting left and right, looking for the source of the sound. In one hand she carried a small black device about the size of a TV remote. In the other was the pipe she’d hit Ethan with. I cowered
in my doghouse as she walked between the two rows of pens, her head swinging back and forth. She stared in at me, then turned and poked the pipe at Tyler’s doghouse. “Come out!”

Tyler stuck his head out of the doghouse, pretending to blink and yawn as if he’d been asleep.

“Did you make that noise?” Ms. Skelling asked.

He shook his head and pointed at me.

“No!” I gasped. Ms. Skelling pressed a button on the device in her hand. The jolt felt as if someone had kicked me in the neck, knocking me back and making me cry out. Through eyes quickly filling with tears, I stared up at her blurred image.

“Whatever you were doing, don’t do it again,” Ms. Skelling threatened. “Next time will be five times worse.”

Tears spilled out of my eyes. I felt totally betrayed. Why had Tyler pointed at me? He had to know what Ms. Skelling would do. Meanwhile, the madwoman moved to the pen where Ethan lay on the ground. She stuck the pipe through the fence and poked him. Ethan moaned slightly but hardly moved. Next she stepped to Courtney’s pen and banged the pipe against the doghouse. Courtney peered out, shivering and trembling. “I need water,” she rasped.

“Of course you do,” Ms. Skelling replied with fake sympathy. “I’ll get you something to drink very soon.”

She turned to the pen where Adam lay and poked at him. “Wake up.”

I heard the dull thud of the pipe against flesh but no response of any kind. Not even a groan.

“Wake up!” Ms. Skelling prodded him harder.

Through my tears I saw her reach for the control and heard the spitting sound of the electric collar. But Adam didn’t flinch.

“Well, well,” Ms. Skelling muttered, opening the pen. “Just in time.”

I started sobbing harder.
Not Adam! Oh, please! Not Adam!

The next thing I knew, Ms. Skelling was dragging Adam’s body past my pen. I tried not to look. I heard the door to the house open, and she dragged his body inside. I was still sobbing, for Adam, and out of shock and fear and confusion by what Tyler had done.

I heard the sound of wood creaking and looked out. Tyler was squatting outside his doghouse, trying to work a slat from the bottom. He must have been trying to loosen it by kicking from the inside. He noticed me.

“Sorry about that,” he whispered, wedging his fingers behind the loose slat. “I had to divert her attention before she noticed.”

It still seemed like a terrible thing to do, but at least I understood. Tyler pulled harder at the slat and it made a creaking sound.

“She’ll hear you,” I whispered, using my sleeve to dab away the tears.

“So? Better this than just wait here to die. There’s no way she’s just going to leave us behind.”

“How do you know?”

“Because they’re called serial killers, not serial leave-victims-behind-to-help-testify-against-them. Keep an eye on the door.”

Even though my neck still throbbed from the shock, and I was still angry at him, I knew he was right. Tyler managed to work the slat away from the doghouse. It was just narrow enough to fit
through the fence around his pen, and long enough to reach to the front of my pen. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I could hear squeaks and clinks as he tried to undo the latch.

The doorknob started to turn.

“She’s coming!” I whispered.

Tyler had just enough time to pull the slat back through the fence and press it against the doghouse. Before he could crawl back inside, Ms. Skelling was there, eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You’re up to something.” She reached for her belt.

“Ahhhh!” Tyler twisted into an uncontrollable spasm that left him sprawled on the floor of the pen. I could tell from the sound of the shock that it had been much stronger than the one she had given me.

“That should do it.”

“Indeed it should.”

“We’ll have no more trouble from that one.” She went back into the house. Tyler lay on the ground, his chest heaving.

“Are you okay?” I whispered.

“Holy crap …” He groaned hoarsely and tried to sit up. The side of his face was covered with filth from the pen. Suddenly he went pale, leaned to the side, and threw up. “Fricken sadist.” He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, his hand on his neck where she’d shocked him. But a moment later he picked up the slat again and stuck it through the fencing toward the latch on my pen.

I kept my eyes on the door, but now and then glanced at Tyler. His skin was ashen. Despite risking an even more devastating shock next time, he was totally focused on what he was doing.

Clink!
The sound that came from the latch on my pen was
loud and metallic. Even as Tyler pulled the slat back through the fencing, the door to the house was swinging open. Tyler barely had time to press the slat against the bottom of the doghouse before Ms. Skelling was there, her hand already reaching for her belt.

Zap!
Tyler let out a shriek and convulsed on the ground. Meanwhile, Ms. Skelling studied his pen intently, as if searching for a clue as to what he’d been doing. Finding nothing, she finally turned and went back inside.

Tyler lay on the floor of the pen, his chest rising and falling in rapid, short breaths. A burnt scent reached my nose and I recoiled at the realization that it was the smell of scorched flesh. She’d shocked him so hard the skin had burned.

I also realized how Ms. Skelling had come out so quickly. She’d been waiting and listening on the other side of the kitchen door. That chatter about having no more trouble from that one had been a ploy, a setup to try and catch Tyler red-handed.

I waited, not sure what to do. Because of the loud clinking sound, and the way Tyler had started to pull back the slat even before Skelling raced out of the house, I had a feeling the latch on the door of my pen was open. But now what? Did I dare try it and risk making a sound that might bring Ms. Skelling out again? What else could I do? Just sit there and wait for her to kill us all? Still I waited, praying Tyler would come to.

It seemed like Tyler lay on the cold, wet ground for a long time, but maybe it only felt long because of how frightened I was. I kept looking back at the door to the house. Was Ms. Skelling on the other side, still listening? Even if she wasn’t, how long would it be before she came back? In his pen, Tyler’s hands
slowly closed into fists. He struggled to push himself up on his elbows, then seemed to lose strength, and collapsed again.

Please get up, Tyler
, I prayed.
Please!

As if he heard me, he once again struggled to his elbows. The effort seemed to exhaust him, and he stayed like that for a while. Then he slowly sat up and looked at me. His eyes were glassy and dull. His dirty cheeks were streaked with tears, and blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.

“You’re bleeding,” I whispered.

His forehead bunched. He pressed the back of his hand against his mouth and it came away red. “Bit my tongue pretty bad.” His words were garbled, as if he’d just come from having a tooth filled at the dentist.