Once in a Blue Moon Page 10

His answer came from way above her, and it seemed some disembodied voice out of the blackness. Dizzy now with the lurid unreality of the past fifteen minutes, Addie shook her head to clear it. What did he mean? Buck sounded like a different person, a stranger.

  “What are you talking about?” She stretched her hand up toward him. “Here. Help me up, and go turn on the lights.”

  “Sure, I’ll help you up, but we don’t need lights. I want you to enjoy the same mystical experience your friends did. Besides, there are two small ground-level windows that reveal light to the street, and we don’t want anyone to know where we are.” He took her hand. “And we’re going down the stairs, Addie, dear, not up.”

  Impatient now with his strange behavior, Addie jerked her hand from his, grabbed the railing, and pulled herself clumsily erect. On the way up her knee slid like slippery soap across Donny Jim’s bloody forehead. She gagged, and her hand flew to her mouth. Too late, she realized her hand was smeared with blood, and she felt the wet imprint of her fingers across her mouth and cheek. She retched again.

  “Really, Addie. I had no idea you had such a delicate tummy.”

  Donny Jim groaned and she bent toward him, but Buck grabbed her shoulder and yanked her erect.

  “Leave him. He’s close to death. Don’t prolong his misery. Here, hold my list for me.” He handed her a pad of paper, and gave her a little push. “Go down into the cellar, Addie.”

  “What’s your list for, Buck?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light with inquiry.

  “Notations, Addie, of people, places, and things. Happenings. Things I don’t like and need to correct. Reminders of who needs watching and who upsets me. Like your Will, for instance.”

  She couldn’t see the color of the pad she held in her hand, but she knew it was blue.

  It dropped from her fingers, and made a light fluttering noise when it hit the concrete floor below.

  Buck gave her another shove. “Move, Addie. I can carry you down or you can move on your own.”

  Fear cut through her, sharp and cold. This wasn’t the Buck she knew. He wasn’t teasing her. This wasn’t a game. Like a stroke of lightning, the knowledge came, lucid and quick and sure.

  Buck meant to kill her.

  She had no time to wonder why, or to reason what had changed him, or to mourn their past. She only had time to think of the next minute. Only time to save herself.

  “Why are we going to the cellar, Buck?” she asked, trying to sound as normal as possible. “We really should -get some help.”

  “Move below, I want to show you something,” he ordered, his voice cold and unemotional.

  Yes, Buck seemed strangely unemotional as if he’d left himself behind somewhere, maybe up in the light by her desk, or maybe in his easy chair at home, or maybe in his office at the school.

  Stupid. Get it together, Addie. It’s not important now.

  “Okay, Buck. Sounds like fun.” She would humor him. I’ve only been down here twice. Once when I first came to work at the library, and once last winter when I couldn’t find Coffee. You know I hate the cellar, but we’re playing a game, I guess.”

  He gave her another shove and she stumbled down two more steps. The clamminess she dreaded began to close around her. The clammy odor, which warned of molding cement, rat feces, and spider webs, stung her sinuses, and clung to her skin like moist sealing tape.

  Her foot touched the basement floor and she shuddered.

  “No games, Addie. Don’t fool yourself any longer. We’re not down here for games. I told Lee Bert that I was here to pick you up, and that he could go on home. The bumpkin yawned, and took off. So don’t count on him rescuing you. He’s home asleep by now. After you’ve made your transition, I will run out of the library for help, horrified and distraught at finding you dead in the basement.” He gave a small laugh, more like a bitter bark. “Same way I pretended to find Joe that night of the storm. No one ever suspects me, so when I approached Joe that night he was happy to see me, just as you were tonight.”

  “You killed Joe?” Addie whispered, weak with horror.

  “Yes, and unfortunately I had to give Rags a good beating in the process. When I blasted Joe over the head with my car jack, Rags attacked me.”

  “But why, oh, my God, why?”

  “The same reason I killed your friends, Addie. They took you away from me. You never had time for me anymore.”

  “That’s not true, Buck.”

  “Yes, you were growing away from me. You didn’t realize it, but I did. In college we were together all the time. I thought that was the way it would always be. But when we came back to Blue Springs you began to live a life of your own, which didn’t include me.”

  “That’s not true, Buck. We do lots of things together.”

  “No, Addie. Not the way we used to. You spent more time with Laurel than you did me. I thought maybe you would need me more after she died. But you’re so independent, you just kept on attending your book group, sometimes even going out afterward for a drink and never even thinking of me. And you went to Marysville twice to go to the movies with Janelle.”

  Her mind raced with precautions, escape routes, and the wisest way to gain control of the situation, while her head ached, and her midsection felt like someone had tied it in a knot. She took a step back toward the bottom stair, but slipped on the moldering, moss-covered floor, and Buck grabbed her elbow with crushing fingers.

  “Whoops. I better be careful,” she said, attempting a lighthearted tone through the pain. Maybe talk some sense into him, bring him back into the real world where rational people didn’t kill because they were jealous or lonely. “Come on, Buck, this is silly. We’re getting married, remember? Let’s go upstairs and talk about this.”

  She couldn’t see the smirk on his face in the pitch-black dank air, but she could hear it in his voice. “Don’t try to charm me, little Addie. I know you too well. I carried your backpack for you in tenth grade. Remember? I was the new boy in school, and you befriended me.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “Joe didn’t like it one bit,” he said, grim satisfaction in his voice.

  “Why would you want to hurt an old friend?” Panic flirted around the edges of her sanity now, and scampering, fluttering, in her chest and stomach. Her heartbeat had ratcheted up until she jerked for breath, almost belching with the effort.

  Get it together, Addle.

  “Don’t worry, this won’t hurt too much, and you’re going to be much happier where you’re going. Come with me.”

  He shoved her by the elbow, which he continued to clench with a brutal invasive hold, his fingers separating bone, muscle, and tendon. Addie bit her lip against the pain, which skated across screaming nerve endings up into her shoulder and neck.

  They moved deeper into mysterious regions of the cellar where Addie had never ventured. She was lost here. This was not her venue, not her territory. Should she just humor him until she saw an opportunity to escape? How could she get away from him, trick him, seduce him, how could she do anything to save herself if she couldn’t orient herself?

  She began to resist him, pulling back, trying to slow their progress.

  “Come, come. Don’t think you’re going to save yourself by balking on me. There’s a box of coal here, Addie, dear. Step around it.”

  Coal? Then there should be a furnace somewhere.

  “You seem to know your way around the cellar very well.”

  “Yep. You know me. I research everything painstakingly. I wanted to keep an eye on you after I killed Laurel, so I broke into the cellar one Sunday when you weren’t here. Now I don’t need any light. I’ve been here so often that I know this place like the back of my hand.”

  She shuddered. He jerked her so close his breath warmed her nose. Then he bruised her mouth with a hard cruel kiss. “Don’t shiver like I’m repulsive, Addie. I’m not a monster. I’m simply a man who makes sure the world runs in rhythm. You have been out of rhythm. Things aren’t neat a
nymore. We were meant to be together and you ruined it all, you made everything messy.”

  “Buck, you just need time to think things out. We’ll be good together, you and me.”

  “No. I realized the night I peeked through the window and saw you roasting marshmallows with Joe that this might have to happen. I thought he was dead when I left him in the barn, and I - I thought that would be the end of your feelings for other men. By the way, Joe died a natural death in the hospital. If he hadn’t, I would have finished him off. Fortunately Mother Nature finished what I started. Stop hanging back.”

  He pushed her harder, using both hands now to propel her forward - to what, she worried.

  Upstairs the telephone rang four times, and the answering machine clicked on. She heard her voice say, “You have reached Blue Springs Library. I’m away from my desk for the moment. Leave a message.”

  The sound of her own voice floating eerily over her head sent a chill to her heart, and reinforced the killing knowledge that she was alone with an insane murderer.

  “I switched on the answering machine before I came to the cellar door. Earlier I heard you tell Will that you would be home in about a half an hour. If he calls he’ll think you’re on your way home with Lee Bert.”

  The panic was returning. Calm down. Calm down. Delay him.

  “Was that you in the barn at the hoedown, Buck?”

  “Yes, sorry about that, but I had to leave you because I was choking, too. It never entered my mind that retard would save you. I figured you would die in there. Everybody would feel sorry for me, and all my problems would be solved.”

  “Buck, you couldn’t hate me this much.”

  “I love you more than anything. But you did yourself in, Addie, when you started flirting with Will Court. Then when you told me with your own mouth that you had a crush on him, I knew I had to kill you.”

  “Killing me won’t help anything, Buck. Eventually they will figure it all out, and then you’ll go to prison, and probably be sentenced to death. Let’s think this thing over. Come on, we’ve always been good at figuring things out together.”

  He laughed, and the cold, mirthless sound ran a chill up her spine.

  “No more, Addie. This isn’t a jigsaw puzzle, or a logic question. That’s all over.”

  The air around them seemed to change, as it does when objects fill a vacuum and change the dynamics. She sensed a large black shape in front of them, and raised her free arm to grope in front of her.

  Buck wrenched her forward. “It’s the furnace, Addie. Sixty years ago, this big daddy would have been roaring with fire this time of year. Too bad the city council put in oil and wall heat. It would have been a handy way to get rid of Janelle.”

  A furnace. Coal. A poker, maybe there’s a poker somewhere, or a shovel? Did he say Janelle?

  “You brought Janelle down here?”

  “No more questions. I can’t be in the library too long. They’ll suspect me.”

  His hands dug cruelly into her shoulders, and he shoved her again, leaving the furnace behind.

  “Here we are. Step in to my parlor, Addie. You’ll find company here.”

  Her groping hands found a decaying wooden wall, and an opening. A small cubby of a room probably used for coal storage. Every instinct she possessed warned her not to enter the cold, black space, which smelled of sickening evils.

  She jabbed her foot backward to kick at him, and connected with his shin. He grunted and let go of one shoulder. She yanked lose from his other hand, and swung madly about to dash around him. He caught her on her second leap, to jerk her so swift and hard that she landed in a distorted heap on the floor. When she put her hand out to push away from him, she slipped flat on her stomach until her cheek smacked the floor and slid across the ancient slimy mold. A moan rolled from her, and weak tears finally came.

  “Don’t try that again, or I’ll make this worse than I’d planned,” he whispered, his voice hissing with venom. “I hadn’t planned to make you suffer like the others, but if you disobey me again you’ll be sorry, little Addie.”

  He yanked her up from the floor, and shoved her through the opening of the small room, which she knew would be her burial place.

  “Now you’ll see how nice I’ve been. You won’t be lonely on your way out of this world,” said Buck softly. “I’m going to tie your wrists and ankles so you won’t get any more escape notions. Then we’ll have a good time, you and me, here in the dark. We’ve never kissed in a coal cellar before. Sit down here next to Janelle.”

  As he pushed down on her shoulders, she stumbled over sticks and soft things, that felt like bones and clothes, and … oh, God, it’s Janelle, or what’s left of Janelle.

  Her scream exploded from her toes. It ripped and burned up through her body, and came out a shrieking, unearthly screech. It filled the small ghoulish room, and rang and rang throughout the cellar. It reverberated around and around and around her. All control and rational thought had fled. Buck shook her until her head bounced back and forth like a loose jack-in-the-box, but the scream wouldn’t stop coming. Loud enough to wake the dead, maybe it would wake Janelle.

  Yes, wake up, Janelle. Help me. Somebody help me.

  “I should have silenced you right away, but I wanted you to talk to me,” he whined. “You never talk to me anymore.”

  He slapped her so hard he busted her lip, and blood sprayed like a fountain and ran down her chin and onto her sweater. She grabbed his hand with her teeth and bit down until she hit bone.

  Buck yelled, jerked his hand away and socked her with his fist. The pain was excruciating as her teeth cracked together, and bits of enamel spewed onto her tongue. She barreled through the pain, and shoved and kicked at him, pummeling him with jabs to his stomach, and she never stopped screaming.

  Oh, God, please, someone hear me!

  Her throat ached with the screaming.

  Buck worked to catch hold of her whirling hands and jabbing feet, and finally caught one arm in a fast grip. He punched her in the stomach. The screaming stopped, and the cellar seemed eerily still as the wind whooshed out of her, and she collapsed like a rag doll over his arm. Never letting up on his death grip, Buck yanked a handkerchief from his pocket, stuffed it into her gasping mouth, and lowered her to the floor next to Janelle.

  A fold of cotton skirt fluttered onto her thigh as she was settled close beside the corpse - Janelle’s skirt, probably the full red circle that she loved to wear in the summertime. Addie gagged, and fought to draw air back into her lungs, and energy back into her legs. The cloth filling her mouth made it almost impossible to breathe. Oh, God, why doesn’t he just kill me? Why doesn’t he get it over with? Is he going to rape me first?

  Don’t give up. Fight him until the last.

  He grunted as he sat astride her hips, and leaned forward to place kisses around her face, and whisper softly in her ear.

  “You’ll like this, Addie.” His hands fastened around her throat, as he kept kissing her. “There’s nothing as exquisite as a climax at the moment of death. Trust me, I know.”

  A grim voice cut through the darkness, “Let her go, Buck. I’ve got a twelve gauge aimed straight at you, and Lee Bert is right behind me.”

  Addie’s heart flew with excitement. Will. It was Will. Buck’s hands tightened on her throat, and he moaned.

  “Hit the lights, Jingles,” yelled Lee Bert.

  Light flooded the cellar. Dim light, but to Addie it was light from heaven.

  As her eyes adjusted to the light, Buck’s beastly face hovered over her, his mouth twisted with hatred, his eyes mad with jealousy. He seemed to be in a world not of theirs, and ignorant of the presence of Will and Lee Bert. Limp now, and passing out, she felt his weight yanked off her.

  Will gently pulled the handkerchief from her mouth and lifted her in his arms. She had only enough strength left to place her hand on his chest near his throat. His muscles worked as he swallowed, as if he were struggling not to cry, and she felt her own tear
s roll helplessly down her cheeks.

  Lee Bert seemed to be tussling with Buck, and as she closed her eyes with relief she heard Jingles arriving.

  “You forgot, Buck, my boy, this wee town is mighty quiet after ten o’clock, and I’m baking bread at the diner,” crowed Jingles. “At first, I thought it was a cat wailing, but soon changed my mind.”

  “I don’t want to look at Janelle,” whispered Addie, her eyes still dosed. “I don’t want to see any of this. I don’t want to see Buck.”

  “You don’t have to, sweetheart. I’m taking you out of here right now.” Will held her close to his chest and walked away from the little chamber of horrors.

  As they gingerly skirted Donny Jim’s lifeless body on the stairs, she squeezed her eyes so tight they hurt.

  “How did you know? What made you come?” she managed to get out as they entered the fresh air and bright lights of the library.

  Holding her tight and secure, he carried her through the library and outside to sit on the bench by the square. Her nose tucked into the curve of his neck and shoulder, her breath warming her face, his mouth on her hair. Murmuring sweet nothings, Addie’s world began to right itself. When she finally felt safe enough to open her eyes, she saw the big cardboard Thanksgiving turkey Mertie always put in the flower store window, and she saw the blue and yellow neon lights flicking over the diner. DIXIE’S DINER, THE BEST FOOD IN TOWN.

  Will kept smoothing her hair, and kissing her forehead as he talked.

  “Lee Bert told me once that he was stubborn, and he sore proved it tonight. After Buck told him to go on home because he would take you to the farm, Lee Bert did a dutiful drive around the county to check out the rest of his domain, as he always does, he told me. As he passed the farm, he decided to visit and say goodnight, make sure everything was okay with us.” He laughed. “The FBI guy had laid an extra load of responsibility on him, and he was taking it super seriously.

  “Anyway, Lee Bert told me his story, and we figured you and Buck should have been home by then. About that time, Jingles called and said he thought he heard screaming coming from the library and he was going to go check it out. Lee Bert and I jumped into the car and made it here in five minutes. Jingles was waiting for us at the top of the cellar steps. It was dark, and he had no weapon. Lee Bert was familiar with the layout because he used to read meters down there. So we felt our way down, passing poor Donny Jim on the way. We tried to come quietly, but it didn’t seem to matter because you were fighting Buck so hard he wasn’t listening for anything.”