Into the Dark

23

San Bernardino Mountains, California

Long after Robert Bowen had left the freeway for the smaller byways that led to Big Bear Lake, he turned onto a gravel access road that forked from the highway, curving along the north shore.

Stones popcorned against the undercarriage before he reached the jutting granite rock that marked the way to his property.

He stopped.

Dust clouds enveloped his SUV. The entrance was all but concealed by shrubs, which swallowed his vehicle as he rolled onto the earthen pathway. Like an enormous snake, the path coiled into a forest so dense with towering cedar, pine and sequoia trees, they blotted out the light.

He crept along the undulating trail, awakening branches that scraped and tugged at his SUV in protest, or warning. For he had entered another realm, a secret world cut off from the life he knew with Claire in L.A. This was his place of solitude and truth, where he would confront his other self. He’d gone a short distance under a canopy of shadows and light before arriving at his cabin.

It had been built with hand-hewn logs in the 1920s and, in the 1970s, it had been upgraded with basic electricity and plumbing. Keeping with ritual, Bowen first walked the perimeter, inspecting the building and the property for any signs of vandals, attempted burglaries or damage by animals.

He didn’t find any.

He owned a large piece of land. The other tracts on either side were empty. As Bowen took in the tranquil pine-scented air and sweeping views of the lake and mountains, enjoying the isolation, he rejected the idea of selling the place.

He went inside.

There were two spacious bedrooms, a kitchen-living area, bathroom and a utility room. He went into each one and opened the windows, letting in the crisp breezes. Then he went to the SUV and hauled in a box of groceries and his bags.

The cabin didn’t have a phone. The nearest landline was at the gas station a few miles away. More cell phone towers had recently been built and wireless service to the region was improving, but it was still far from perfect. Dropped calls and bad connections were the norm. He fired up his laptop. Then he unfolded the newspaper and again studied the article on The Dark Wind Killer.

A sudden shiver knifed through him, his head began thudding. The faces of the dead women haunted him, excited him with tortured longings.

The monster was present and flailing in his cage.

Was Bowen ready?

Yes. He was going to bury the thing. He wanted a life with Claire.

No, he didn’t. He had to accept the truth. Look at the five of them. It was a masterpiece. Remember the power?

Yes, he remembered.

Remember the ecstasy?

He ran his tongue over his lips, it had been off the charts.

He had to admit he wanted to do it again, needed to do it again.

No. He’d stopped. He had a life.

That was a lie. He’d already started a new project.

No, he stopped. It proved he was finished.

It proves nothing! You go back and finish what you’ve started! Look at her again! Look at how flawless it was! Go on! Do it now! You know you want to look!

Bowen licked his lips. His hand trembled a little when he plugged a USB flash drive into his laptop.

A video played, from the perspective of a head cam. It began with a house at night, a large ranch home, then jumped to its alarm system being disarmed, and then the lock of a side door expertly defeated with burglar’s tools.

The interior was tastefully decorated, the home was empty. The footage faded to black, then resumed with Amber Pratt preparing a bath, getting ready for bed. It then jumped to her fast asleep.

The camera pulled in on her pretty face. Then it cut to a naked man standing over her, reflected in the mirror. His face was a hideous mask of thick white makeup. His mouth, a blood-red, smeared frown. His black hollow eyes accentuated horror and agony.

Watching Amber now in the ambient light while she slept caused him to moan aloud in his cabin.

She was so beautiful. She was perfect.

Amber had triggered a vibration.

She had rekindled his dark urges and resurrected the monster. Ever since that day when he first saw her several months ago leaving Claire’s office, he ached to have her. Amber: The twenty-eight-year-old secretary, vulnerable and living alone in that big house in Alhambra.

Some nights he’d awake with his head splitting with so much pain he’d black out again. Once he woke with bloodstains on his clothes and no memory of how he’d got them. He’d tossed his bloodied pants and shirt in a Dumpster and took bleach to his car and cleaned it.

Now, sitting in the cabin, Bowen jolted from his trancelike state.

He had a life with Claire.

He had abandoned his project to take Amber.

No, he wanted her. It was true.

He wanted his torment to end.

Bowen slammed his laptop shut, went to the bathroom, yanked off his clothes and started to shower. He’d set the water so hot it nearly scalded him in his attempt to purge himself of the other being through a reverse baptism. He clawed at his skin, nearly scrubbing it raw.

Why was he cursed?

As steam clouds rose around him, his mind raced back to the slaughterhouse and the words of his foster father after he’d taught him the art of death.

“When you kill, you cross a line. There’s no feeling like it in this world. It’s mighty powerful, what they call primal, it gets into your system, gets hold of you and you can’t ever beat it, or stop it. I love it, truth be told.” He winks and spits on the ground. “And you will, too.”

Now, as needles of hot water stung him, Bowen recalled Louis Meadows’s wish for his daughter’s killer.

“I would ask God to make certain he burns for all time.”

Aghast at his depravity, Bowen continued washing to no avail as he slipped closer to the edge of an inferno.

What about the fact that he fought to let Amber live? What about the fact that he rescued that mother and her baby from the car wreck? Didn’t these good actions wash away the evil?

Nothing would ever undo his monstrous acts.

Bowen’s head was splitting. He gripped it in his hands, leaned back against the shower and slid to the floor as the truth tore at him.

He was condemned to a dual existence.

Nothing would free him. No one could save him. He had to accept what he was.

He could not accept it and live.

He left the shower without dressing and rushed to the utility room, rummaging in a supply box for a long piece of yellow nylon rope. He fashioned a noose, dragged a chair from the kitchen and flung it over a crossbeam where he tied it off.

What are you doing?

He climbed onto the chair and slid the rope over his head.

It all ends here, now.

You must not do that!

“Fuck you!”

He tightened the noose on his neck. His pulse raced and he gritted his teeth. As he braced to kick out the chair he glanced at his laptop and in that instant thought of how they would find him.

He thought of Claire. He caught his breath. Then he thought of nothing.

Numb with fear and confusion he removed the rope from around his neck, sat on the floor, naked and defeated.

He sat that way, motionless, numb, not thinking, for a long time.

Night had fallen by the time he stood and went to the utility room. He got on his hands and knees and worked his finger carefully around a loosened floorboard, pressing one end until its edge rose, allowing him to lift it out cleanly. Then he removed three more next to it revealing a storage space.

It contained a number of old CDs and textbooks on trades. One was subtitled All That Every Locksmith Needs to Know about Every Type of Lock and Security System. There were cell phones, cameras, keys for private storage units, cash and scores of official-looking IDs and a number of passports. As well, there were several small sealed plastic storage tubs, each about the size of a shoe box. Each tub had a name on it.

He set them on the kitchen table.

Each container held various articles, including women’s bras and panties, drawings, maps, photographs.

His trophies.

He selected items and placed them on the table: Esther’s bra, Fay’s panties, and photos of Monique at the mall when he was hunting her and Bonnie in the moment before she died.

Suddenly he closed his eyes, returning to the moments of his artistry; how at the precise moment, as life ebbed from each woman, he’d touched her finger to her blood and rolled it with tenderness in its position on the special page he’d carried with him to each project.

His work in progress.

He’d been so careful, wearing surgical gloves, giving time for the blood to dry on the page, exercising such gentle craftsmanship in creating the artwork that would represent the five perfect kills-the masterpiece-he was determined to bestow upon the world. The beauty, no, the glory of it, still gave him shivers, which he enjoyed until he drifted from his reverie back to the kitchen table.

Each tub also contained a doll corresponding with each woman. Lovingly, he ran his fingers over them, as he came to realize that he was losing his grip on himself. Slowly, the way a snake devours a rat, he was being swallowed whole by the evil that lived inside him.

He accepted that.

He reached into his bag for a small travel kit, returned to the bathroom and began applying his macabre makeup.

“I am the Dark Wind,” he said to the mirror when he finished.

He returned to the kitchen, sat in the darkness and worked at his laptop, his screen lighting his grotesque face.

One of his videos showed images of Claire. She looked beautiful as she stood at the edge of her office parking lot, the breezes caressing her hair. Another showed her asleep in her bed, a gloved hand hovering, nearly trembling almost touching her skin.

Watching the recording he licked his lips.

Blood hammered through his veins.