Lucky Number 23 Page 8

  I put my hair in a low ponytail over my ears and threw my hood up. I was halfway across the parking lot when I heard screeching tires and looked over to see three police cars speeding into the semi lot. I ducked behind a pickup truck at the pump on the edge of the parking lot and peered back. They were state police, and all three were pulled up right behind Sandy’s rig, surrounding it.

  They had caught up with me finally.

  I was still a few steps ahead though.

  “Get up against the truck now!”

  “Put your hands above your head!”

  “Where is she?”

  Male voices all shouted at Sandy. I couldn’t hear her response and the voices faded as I dashed across the street towards Debby’s Diner. They were closed, but I wasn’t trying to get inside. There was a creek down the hill behind the little restaurant. Mama Ester used to take Carter, and me on walks when my behavior was especially good. She would point out all the wildflowers and birds we saw along the way. The creek led back to McCourt Manor, and the little diner was always the landmark that signaled it was time to go back.

  I raced down the hill which was thankfully not as steep as I remembered it being when we tried to climb it fourteen years ago. The once grassy knoll was covered in cold mud and snow however and the dead tree branches, I tried to grab to avoid falling was cutting up my hands. I almost lost my purse half a dozen times, and my feet were soaked through. I knew I needed to get home quickly before I got blisters or hypothermia.

  My first concern was getting the police off my trail. If they looked behind the restaurant, they would see my footprints. I didn’t have time to hide them. I stood on the creek bank and looked back up the hill. No one was coming yet, but I needed to get out of eyesight fast.

  The creek was less than a foot deep, and I remembered it stayed the same all the way upstream. These man-made creeks were created for runoff from town. The bottom of the stream was smooth concrete, although algae, fallen rocks and branches, and garbage littered the creek bed, too. Mama Ester used to complain about the city never sending anyone down into the forest to clean up the creek they created. It seemed as though nothing had gotten better in the last decade and a half.

  I knew what I had to do to get home fast and get the cops off my trail.

  I shucked off my boots and tied them around my neck. The water-logged socks were wrung out and stuck inside my purse. I bent over to roll up my jeans as far as I could—just below my knee. I dipped my toe into the creek and hissed. The water was colder than I expected. Like the liquid nitrogen, we played within eighth-grade chemistry before I got sent even further away from Minnesota.

  I heard movement and dog barking up the hill and rather than look over my shoulder to confirm what I already knew was coming, I splashed into the creek and began running upstream towards the bend in the creek where the sandbar was. The water stung my feet and tears streamed down my face as the biting cold turned into a tingling numbness.

  Pick up your feet. One after the other let’s Go! I kept repeating to myself as I ran up the creek, gasping and crying. I finally came to where the stream turned and knew the large sandbar would block their view of me as soon as I went around the other side. I slowed down and looked over my shoulder. No one was there. I had outrun them, stayed enough steps ahead of them, and in just a few more minutes I would be home, and Carter would be there waiting for me, arms out, ready to embrace.

  My feet failed me and fell to my knees as I rounded the sandbar. I scrambled further out of sight in case the yelp I had let out when my knees smacked a bumpy branch alerted the police up the hill, who had seen my footprints by now. Every inch of my body ached. I wasn’t sure if I could stand up again, let alone keep running down the creek another quarter of a mile to the manor. I had come so far and gotten so close; there was no way I would let them drag me back to jail.

  The bank of the creek was level a few yards up, and I crawled over to it and climbed out of the water and up the small hill to the forest floor still on my hands and knees. My lungs were heaving and burning in the brisk winter air. I was on the verge of collapse.

  I sat with my back against a large oak tree and tried to steady my breathing. I was dizzy and wanted to curl up and close my eyes. I was far enough ahead of them that I could just lay down in the muddy leaves and snow and they would never notice. My feet were swollen and blue. I couldn’t feel them anymore which meant I wouldn’t be able to walk. I wasn’t going to make it to the manor.

  I growled and pulled the soggy cigarette pack from my hoodie pocket out of desperate hope one would still light. None of them were dry, and the lighter had fallen from my pocket somewhere along the creek. I tossed the cigarette pack down on the sandy bank below. I didn’t care if I was leaving behind evidence. I was a sitting duck now anyway. I was far enough away from the highway lights and restaurant that I couldn’t see very far ahead of me anymore, and since I couldn’t walk, I was stuck here. Maybe a bear or a hungry coyote would come and drag my body up to the manor. At least I could still make it home that way.

  I pulled my muddy, wet purse onto my lap and reached inside to the corner where I had stuffed Dr. Neumann’s fancy watch and Diana’s ring. I put the watch on my right wrist and slipped the elegant emerald ring over my left ring finger. After I discarded the purse, I held my hand up and smiled. I imagined what it would have been like for Carter to put his mother’s ring on my finger and make me his wife. I was so sure of our destiny, and now all I saw in our future was darkness. The same darkness that was enveloping my mind and lulling me to sleep. I sunk lower against the oak trees and crossed my arms tight against my chest in one last attempt to ward off the cold.

  I heard heavy boots crunching through the snow and tried to open my eyes.

  “Don’t take me. Let me die here,” I whispered to whoever it was approaching.

  He didn’t heed my plea, however, and I was pulled off the ground and tossed into something metal. My eyes fluttered open long enough for me to see someone standing over me, a man may be. A dark hood was pulled down over his face, and I couldn’t make out any of his features, but something was distinctly male about the body.

  I felt him lift me from the ground and a groan escaped my parched throat as his shoulder bore into my stomach. He was moving me, saving me.

  “Take me to the manor, please,” I begged in a whisper, not sure if the man could hear me or if I was even speaking out loud, as my eyes rolled back into my head.

  ***

  “Carter?!” I shouted in fear.

  My wrists were bound with leather cuffs that were attached to chains that hung from the ceiling. I stood on my tip toes, but when I couldn’t do that anymore, I let my body hang limply from the chains. My shoulders were sore, and my nightgown was yellowed which meant I had broken rule 3—Always keep yourself clean and presentable. I was shaking and scared. I felt as though I had been in the basement for days, but it could’ve been just hours, I wasn’t sure.

  I glanced down at the floor and saw my toes dangling on top of a dark brown stain and what I was sure was my urine. I tried to get to my tip toes again so I could look over my shoulder, but they hurt. I looked down again and let out a cry. My toenails were gone.

  “Lucky?” I heard Carter’s voice from somewhere over by the stairs, and I sighed in relief.

  “What did you do?” He asked quietly.

  His face finally came close enough that I could see him in the dark. There was just the smallest bit of light coming through a spot in the basement window where the cardboard that was usually taped up had slipped, but it was enough light to show me his face and bring me hope.

  “Get me down; it hurts,” I begged him.

  He shook his head.

  “I can’t,” He whispered as he stepped back.

  His lips trembled, and he knocked over a basket of towels as he took another step back.

  “Don’t, Carter. Stop. Don’t leave me here!” I begged him.

  “He’s never hurt you, not once in the
three years you’ve been here. What did you do?” He demanded to know as he got closer to the stairs.

  “I didn’t do anything. I swear. Please, please…” I cried as he sat on the bottom step with his head in his hands. His shoulder length, wavy brown hair was pulled in front of his face, and he was crying.

  “Goddamnit Lucky. I thought he was getting the result he wanted. Weren’t you giving him what he wanted?”

  Carter was scared, for the first time, he was just as frightened as I was, and he didn’t look like the man he was becoming. Instead of the strong fifteen-year-old he was, he looked small and meek like a child.

  “Dr. John wants us to be strong,” I whispered. “Don’t cry.”

  Carter sniffled and laughed.

  “Do you know what he’s going to do to you?”

  I shook my head and let it hang. I was tired, and everything hurt.

  “Your birthday is tomorrow,” he stated, no longer crying or sniffling.

  I tried to raise my head but couldn’t.

  “Dad liked you best because of your birthday—born on the 23rd, the 23rd foster child, delivered on the 23rd. Lucky Number 23. You wouldn’t be down here the day before your birthday like this if your treatment weren’t terminating,” He explained. “He always terminates treatment on their birthdays.”

  I was confused. I wasn’t sure what he meant. Dr. John said I was getting better, that I was responding well to the treatments and that he was getting exactly what he needed from our experiments. I was his star patient. He said so.

  “What do you mean he terminates treatment? What happens to the girls?” I managed to gasp out the question.

  Carter didn’t answer for a few minutes. Everything was so quiet, and the pain was subsiding into numbness, I almost thought I was asleep when Carter finally spoke.

  “He sets them free,” He said with sadness in his tone as he stood and went up the stairs, leaving me in the dark, alone.

  Part II

  Carter McCourt

  Chapter Nine

  The girl was dead weight and her whisper as I flung her over my shoulder, "Take me to the Manor," had me unnerved. I had never seen her before, yet she seemed to know something about my house and wanted to go there. I'd dealt with plenty of gawkers wanting to see the infamous Dr. John McCourt House, but this circumstance was unusual.

  I trudged through the snow and away from the police officers that were searching for the girl further down the creek. She was unconscious and not fighting back, unlike most other girls I took back to the manor. The long scratch across my cheek stung, reminding me I already had a girl in the cage. I'd never dealt with two at once. My father liked to keep multiple patients, but I wasn't a doctor, I was an artist--I only needed one muse at a time, and I had learned from my father's mistakes.

  The white snow cut through the dark of the forest, but I didn't need the advantage. I knew these woods better than anyone, even the police who had searched the forest numerous times over the years. The girl on my shoulder didn't make a sound as I climbed up the small hillside to my family's property. I paused and pressed two fingers to the side of her neck, just under her jaw. She had a pulse, and the icy breaths she let out showed me she was still breathing. I repositioned her body and continued through the tree line and across the large yard behind my house.

  I paused and looked for the motion lights outside of the manor that I had installed when I moved back home after aging out of the system two years after they took my father. The gawkers were coming less and less these days, but every couple of months there were serial killer aficionados that would try to sneak onto the property and have a look around. Some of them wanted to see the house while others wanted a glimpse at me--son of the infamous Dr. John McCourt, or Dr. Sicko, as the news called him. None of them had a clue what happened here.

  There were no lights on, so I shifted the girl's dead weight on my shoulder again and continued across the yard until I reached the cellar. I deposited her in a lump on the ground against the side of the house then took off the padlock and chains that kept the cellar doors from being opened from either side.

  "Carter?" the lump on the ground moved and groaned my name.

  I froze in place. Most of the people that snuck onto the property knew my name. Most of them were older, and none of them was as good looking as the frozen girl on the ground, but there was something else unusual about the girl--something about the way she said my name.

  I didn't reply to her; instead, I threw open the doors to the cellar and grabbed her by the back of the hoodie. I dragged her on the ground through the snow to the top stairs and dug the toe of my boot underneath her abdomen. I lifted her lifeless body with my foot and sent her tumbling down the short wooden steps into the basement.

  Whimpering from the corner reminded me of the problem I had at hand--two of them now. I checked the lump at the bottom of the stairs for a pulse. She was still alive, but her breathing was shallow, and she was unconscious.

  "Please, please, let me out. I promise I won't tell anyone. You don't have to do this."

  I leaned against the giant kiln in the middle of the room, closed my eyes and listened to her sobs. I had spent nearly twenty years listening to the crying and sniffling of girls, and the thrill of it was almost gone. It made sense I supposed. Amber, the girl in the cage, was number twenty-two and now, number twenty-three had fallen into my lap, as if the universe knew it was time for me to move on and wanted me to get to go. Like father, like son I guessed. He was bored after Lucky number twenty-three. Maybe the girl I found tonight would bring me the same relief; though, I wouldn't get caught as he did. He was careless. He should have killed them all as I do. I reminded myself that I don't make my father's mistakes and exhaled, pushing the urge to bash the begging, crying, girl's face into the metal bars of her cage.

  I didn't want to hurt them, not really. I wanted to help them. These girls were worse than the ones my mother brought home or invited into the manor. The girls I found couldn't be fixed, but I could help them in a way I could never help my father's patients--my foster sisters. I made these girls beautiful. I was the only one capable of turning their ugly darkness into something of light, value, and beauty; something that could last forever.

  "It's so cold in here," the voice in the corner whimpered.

  I felt for the power switch on the kiln and flipped it. The oven began to warm quickly; she'd be warm soon. At that moment, my primary concern was the girl I found at the stream. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do with her. I wasn't ready to start another project yet and had barely finished gathering the supplies for number twenty-two, but I didn't want this girl to die for some reason. She was number twenty-three, the last one; I just needed to hurry up.

  I looked back down to where she laid on the floor in a heap. Her breaths were so shallow she didn't move at all. I stared at her back waiting to see a rise and fall, shudder, or some other indication of movement and life, but she was still completely limp. Her feet and hands were blue and swollen. The rest of her pale skin was turning blue slowly. I worried she had hypothermia and would get frostbite if I didn't get her warmed. The kiln in the basement wouldn't be enough for number 23.

  "Fuck," I muttered.

  "Please, please just let me out. I've soiled myself and this c-c-cage, and I want to go h-h-home." Number 22 was becoming hysterical.

  I ignored her and picked up the girl on the floor instead. I held her lifeless body in front of me this time rather than throw her over my shoulder; the ceilings were too low in the basement. I left the crying and sniffling of the caged girl behind and carried number 23 upstairs, through the kitchen and up the narrow staircase that leads to the old patient wing on the second floor of the manor. I liked to keep my muses in the cage in the basement, but the father's patients were always given their rooms. If it weren't for my mama, however; I liked to think my father would have kept them caged too. The girls were just lab rats to him after all.

  I carried number 23 through the
foyer that connected to the washroom at the top of the stairs but stopped at the entrance to the long corridor. Rows of black doors lined the drab hallway. I hadn't been to this part of the house in years and didn't appreciate the memories the place stirred up. Lucky had stayed in the room at the end of the hall. The last patient, just like the body making my shoulder numb would be my former muse--in Minnesota at least. The room seemed fitting for the girl I carried and her significance to me.

  The door was heavy and stuck in the doorframe when I tried to open it. The last people inside the room had been the social services people that took Lucky away from us and the police who investigated my parents. Number 22 had ruined everything for my family, and part of me knew it was why I had kept the girl in the cage alive for so long before turning her into glass art like the others. She had been down in the basement for over a month now, which was a month longer than I usually kept them.

  I kicked the large, cobweb covered door hard and it flew open, sending a puff of dust into the room and all over me. I stepped into the room and took a deep breath. I could almost smell her still. Lucky number 23, my father's favorite patient, my only friend in this entire town and probably the most fucked up out of all of us. The strawberry shampoos my mother let her wash her hair with always lingered for hours in her room. None of the other patients were allowed to use scented products. Lucky was special.

  The large four poster bed was still in the room. I remembered the day they ripped her out of the sheets and ran with her out of the house while I stood and watched the raid all happened right in front of me. Lucky had been terrified and screamed my name, and Mama Ester's the whole time they wrangled her out of the house and into the waiting black van outside.