The Vault

Dark Annie

by Joseph Christiano

Coming in October!0

Free Sneaky-Peek!

Chapter One

Should Have Knocked It Down

Anderson found himself, quite against his will, pulling into the parking lot of Deacon’s Landing Magnet School.  He had had no intention of even driving down this particular street.  It was, after all, a few blocks outside his assigned patrol area, and God knew Captain Lange had a hard-on for him as it was.  He should have simply driven past the Seven-Eleven instead of making that right at Piedmont Street, but something inside him had wanted a look.  Just a look, nothing more, the something inside him had said in a soothing, seductive voice that sounded suspiciously like Jen’s.  He had been powerless against that voice when it came from a living woman; it appeared he was equally powerless against it even after its owner had taken up permanent residence in Lichgate Cemetery.  

His patrol car continued its slow progress up the driveway.  The brand new blacktop was smooth beneath the tires and appeared darker than the night sky in his high beams.  No dips or potholes in the driveway, not even the feel of gravel crunching beneath the radials.  As smooth as silk, Jen’s voice whispered in his ear.  And she was right.  Like the rest of the school, this, too, had received a complete makeover.  The new first selectman was thorough if nothing else and he kept his promises.  Too bad.  This was one time Anderson would have been happy to hear of a politician breaking a campaign promise.

He reached the turn in the driveway.  The poplars vacated his line of sight and for the first time in twenty-six years he got his first look at DLMS.  He had seen the place many times before, of course, had in fact spent almost two months as a student in that very building.  But that was a long time ago when it was known as Deacon’s Landing Elementary School and he had limited his involvement with the building to whenever some reporter with nothing better to do decided to write a piece about it and splash its picture in the Sentinel.  He had had his share of calls within the neighborhood, as well, but he had always managed to keep a fair distance between himself and the school.  He was thankful the line of duty had never forced him to venture onto the property, because he was honestly uncertain he would have been able to do it.  So why now? he asked himself.  This time Jen had no answer for him.  He frowned and goosed the patrol car forward. 

He intended to bypass the horseshoe that led by the front doors, the area where school busses would begin dropping off kids in a few weeks.  He found himself making the turn anyway and he cursed himself as he did so.  He saw the newly-planted trees and shrubs that followed the curve of the driveway, the lawn neatly mowed and the wild flowers someone had planted along the side of the building.  They stood in contrast to the clean red bricks that made up the façade.  It should have looked beautiful, especially in contrast to how the building had appeared for the previous three decades.  As far as Anderson was concerned, the only way to make the building prettier was to knock it down to its foundation and then bury that.  But no one had sought his opinion, and it would have made no difference, in any case.

His high beams reflected off the chrome bumper of the car parked in the center of the horseshoe.  He recognized the blue Chevelle with the white SS stripes immediately.  He did not wonder what had brought the muscle car’s owner out at this time of night or to this particular location.  He knew the answer.  And he was relieved to have the company.

The car’s owner leaned against the passenger side door, arms folded across his chest and facing the school’s front entrance.  His long hair whipped across his face when he looked over his shoulder at the approaching patrol car.  It was probably not often Brian Murphy had such a nonchalant reaction to the approach of a police car, but this was one of those times.  He seemed to know it was Anderson even before they locked eyes through the windshield.  He resumed his stance and went back to staring at the front entrance of Deacon’s Landing Magnet School. 

Anderson pulled up alongside the old Chevelle, put his unit in park and stepped out.  Murphy did not turn, but he said, “I knew I wouldn’t have the place to myself, but I have to admit, I’m glad it’s you and not that asshole Bradley.”

Anderson walked around the front of Murphy’s car and took a spot next to him.  He leaned against the Chevelle’s fender and planted his hands on his hips.  “Bradley’s not so bad.”  It was a lie; Anderson’s opinion of his fellow officer was the same as Murphy’s.  “He just has a habit of pulling you over when you’re holding.  How many times are you gonna get caught with simple possession, anyway?  Isn’t it getting old by now?”

Murphy shrugged his shoulders and laughed.  “The day it’s legalized I’m gonna blow a big cloud of that shit right in his face.”  He turned his head slightly but did not look at Anderson.  “Just FYI.”

Anderson nodded.  “Duly noted.”  He regarded the front entrance of DLMS and could not believe he had allowed himself to get this close.  The set of glass doors with their gleaming silver handles seemed to beckon to him and warn him away at the same time.  It should have been an improvement.  The old front entrance had consisted of double doors which had always made Anderson think of oblong eyes that seemed to watch him as he approached.  It was ridiculous, of course, and he had realized it even then.  But there seemed to be some credence to the adage, What scares you as a child scares you as an adult.  He nodded in the direction of the entrance.  “Looks different, doesn’t it?”

“Not nearly different enough.”

“Can’t argue with that.” 

Murphy pointed to the right of the new doors, a corner of the building obscured by shrubs sitting in a bed of red mulch.  “Right over there is where Kenny Atkins ripped Holly’s sweater and I clocked him in the mouth.  Remember that?”

Anderson grinned in spite of himself and nodded.  “Like it was yesterday.  The little shit had it coming for any number of reasons, believe me.  You know, I saw him a few days ago.  In town to see his father would be my guess.  I don’t think he recognized me.”

“Some people change,” Murphy offered. 

“He didn’t,” Anderson said.  “Long, greasy hair, fingernails blacker than black.  Looked like he hadn’t had a bath or done laundry in months.”

“Typical Atkins.”

They stood in silence for a few more moments.  Anderson’s eyes moved slowly around the front of the building.  He did not know what he was looking for, if anything; nor did he know if he would be able to spot something out of the ordinary if he did see it.  It had been years, decades since he had allowed himself this close to the school, let alone seen it.  It all looked new, but he knew from one of the newspaper articles that much of the existing structure had been left in place.  Some cleaning crew earned their pay, he thought.  Although they should have asked for double time just for having to go inside that fucking building.

“I’d offer you a beer,” Murphy said, “but you’re on duty.”

“And you’re driving,” Anderson replied.  “You’ve already defied expectations and not run this beast into the reservoir.”  He patted the Chevelle’s hood.  “Don’t blow it now.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Murphy said.  He sighed loudly and put one hand on the door handle.  “They never should have renovated this place.  Should have knocked it down when they had the chance.  You know I’m right.”

“You hear me arguing?”

“I’m just glad I don’t have any kids.  Saves me the trouble of having to worry about them coming here every day.”  He turned to Anderson.  “Seriously, you think parents are happy about sending their kids here?”

Anderson had been considering that very question since the announcement the school would be rebuilt and reopened.  “Maybe the ones who weren’t here back then and don’t know much about it beyond the basics are okay with it.”  He swallowed.  “I wouldn’t be.” 

They stood in silence for several more moments.  The night air was warm but Anderson could feel the gooseflesh on his arms.  He had spent too much time here and he wanted to leave.  Besides, he reasoned, no need to get caught out here and give Lange an excuse. 

He patted the Chevelle’s hood again and turned toward his patrol unit.  “Have a good night, Murph.  Don’t do anything stupid here.  You know what I’m talking about.”

Murphy nodded in his direction and mumbled his agreement.  He continued to lean against his car and look at the school. 

Anderson walked around to his driver’s door and opened it.  He had one foot inside the car when he paused and looked at the school again.  The breeze picked up momentarily and ruffled the leaves in the trees that bordered the horseshoe.  It made the hair on his arms stand at attention and all at once he felt cold. 

It was simply his imagination and he knew it.  August in Connecticut was not cold by any stretch of the imagination, even in the dead of night.  Still, he wished he had brought his jacket along. 

He climbed into the car, started the engine and closed the door.  He put it in drive, waved to Murphy (who did not see the gesture) and exited the horseshoe.  He turned on the car’s heater before he made it off the property. 

****

            Murphy heard the police car recede into the distance.  Just you and me again, he thought, looking at the school.  But not for long.  Two weeks before the school year began and Deacon’s Landing’s newest, and oldest, school reopened for business.  What that business would be, exactly, was something of a mystery.  Murphy suspected (and he was not alone in this) that more than the basic curriculum would be taught here when once again the sounds of children echoed in the hallways and the playground. 

He looked again at the spot where, a thousand years before, Kenny Atkins had decided to get a little payback from the girl who had turned the tables on him in gym class and left him squirming on the hardwood and clutching his balls while his friends gasped and laughed.  Kenny had figured Holly would be an easy target if taken by surprise, and in this, at least, he had been correct.  Had Murphy not happened to walk by at that precise moment, Atkins may well have taken his revenge on the little blonde girl with the braces and her hair in pigtails. 

But he did happen to walk by, and Kenny Atkins had paid the price, and not just in front of his friends this time.  He had picked the right moment but the wrong location.  Most of the school saw what happened and it was the main topic of conversation for days afterward. 

Until Dark Annie made her presence known. 

In point of fact, until he pulled up to the front doors of Deacon’s Landing Magnet School and his eyes fell upon the fateful corner, he had forgotten completely about Kenny Atkins and how much blood had spurted from his nose after Murphy landed the first of many haymakers on the little shit. 

Holly, on the other hand, had never left his mind.  It was not simply because she had been his first crush, although that was probably part of it.  He saw her from time to time if some of the guys at the shop wanted to hit Lucky’s after work.  Holly did not dance too often these days, apparently preferring to pour drinks and play hostess to hitting the stage herself.  It was not that she lost her looks; far from it, in fact.  Murphy believed she was more gorgeous now than she had been in her twenties.  But the lowlifes who populated Lucky’s on a Friday or Saturday night wanted more than a forty-one year-old dancing to “Pour Some Sugar On Me.”  That was just fine with Murphy.  One of these days she’d say yes to him where she had said no so often.  On that day she would say good-bye to Lucky’s for the last time.  Or so he hoped.  

He walked around the front of his car and opened the door.  Much like Anderson had some moments before, Murphy paused and looked again at the school.  The wind had died down but the night air still felt cold to him.  He grimaced and spat on the new asphalt.  Murphy held his position a moment longer and looked at the building as if it were about to retaliate for his transgression.  It did not.  He slid behind the wheel of the Chevelle and turned the key.  The 396 fired right up and the Flowmaster duals produced the familiar, pleasant growl.  Murphy shifted the transmission into first and was easing off the clutch when he hesitated for one last glance at the school. 

He tried, quite honestly, to picture Deacon’s Landing Magnet School’s newest students running from the bus to the front doors on the first day of school.  The teachers on bus duty trying to get them to slow down, birds squawking as they took flight from their nests in the poplars, the sun shining on smiling faces. 

What he got instead was an image of Deacon’s Landing Elementary School’s final day of classes in 1985.  There were no teachers yelling for the kids to slow down as they exploded out of the front doors. Not that day.  In the distance was the sound of Engine Forty-Two from Canal Street exceeding the speed limit in its dash to the school.  Smoke billowed into the blue sky and kids cried and teachers took head counts.

He also remembered the look in Mr. Ruiz’s eyes, and, despite the noise and the chaos, he heard what the man said to one of the other teachers:  “Dark Annie.”  He did not know the meaning of the name then, but he would learn more and more details over the years.  Not that such knowledge would have mattered then.

He released the clutch and the Chevelle eased out of the horseshoe.  Murphy tried his level best not to look into the rearview as he left the property. 

He failed miserably.

****

            Anderson was well within his assigned patrol area when the call came in, a ten-thirty-one and only three blocks away.  He activated the red-and-blues right away and gunned the engine.  He waited until he was a block from the location before he hit the siren as well.  There was no traffic at this hour, a fact for which Anderson would be grateful.  The last thing he needed was a bunch of rubberneckers getting in his way, or for some well-intentioned passer-by to try to lend a hand and instead make matters worse.  He knew Ellis was on patrol on the opposite side of town, which would make Anderson the first on scene.  He preferred it that way.

            He took the turn onto Leffingwell Avenue and saw the accident scene.  A single vehicle lay on its side.  It was an SUV of some kind, and dark in color, but Anderson could not tell more than that at first.  A Camaro sat parked perhaps twenty feet beyond the SUV.  A pimply kid stood half-outside the Camaro jabbering on his cell.  He waved frantically at Anderson and pointed to the left of the SUV.  A girl who looked no more than sixteen years-old sat in the Camaro’s passenger seat; she likewise had her cell to her ear. Beyond them, the street was deserted, no fire or medical and no Ellis.  Anderson grabbed the microphone from its cradle and hit the button.  “Dispatch, three-three-seven.”

It took a moment before Peschel’s voice came back.  “Three-three-seven.”

“I’m at the scene.  Send fire and rescue.”

“Three-three-seven, fire and rescue.”

He replaced the mic in its slot and stopped the patrol car twenty feet from the wounded SUV.  He stepped out and activated his flashlight.  His first sweep revealed the body lying fifteen feet from the vehicle, to which the kid in the Camaro still pointed.  It also illuminated the smoke drifting lazily from the underside of the SUV.  He made his way to the vehicle quickly and shined the light along the undercarriage.  He was relieved to see and smell the motor oil which smoked up from the muffler.  He double-checked to be certain there was no fire danger anywhere else around the SUV (it turned out to be a Jeep Cherokee) before he bolted for the prone body on the blacktop.

“We saw him coming down the road,” the kid in the Camaro told him.  “He was swerving all over the place.”  The kid remained half-inside the Camaro and Anderson was grateful for that.  The girl remained in the front seat and talked excitedly on her cell phone. 

Anderson said, “Stay back, both of you,” as he approached the body.

The man lay on his stomach.  One arm was beneath the body, the other stretched out in front of him as if he were trying to fly.  His t-shirt, most likely green when he slipped it on, was nearly black with blood.  A deep abrasion on his head bled profusely and matted his thinning hair to his scalp.  He groaned when Anderson knelt beside him. 

“Easy, sir, don’t try to move.  Emergency services are on the way.”  The man groaned and his arm twitched, the only signs he was still among the living.  Anderson placed his flashlight on the ground and reached for the man’s outstretched hand.  He picked it up as gingerly as he could and placed two fingers on the inside of his wrist.  There was a pulse, but it felt weak.  He looked again at the Jeep and was relieved to see the smoke had lessened in intensity.  Not much, but it made him feel better.  The Jeep’s driver, on the other hand, looked worse by the moment.

Anderson picked up his head when he heard the sirens in the distance.  The hospital was in the opposite direction so Anderson assumed, correctly, the call had come through when the ambulance jockeys were stopped for a bite.  He hoped it would not be Lyons and Ferguson; they complained enough as it was.  Damned good paramedics, professional as anyone, but complainers.  Especially when they were hungry.

“Ambulance is close, sir.  Just lie still.  They’re almost here.” 

The man groaned again and this time the sound gurgled in his throat.  Anderson knelt down until his cheek nearly rested on the asphalt and he looked at the man’s face.  Bubbles of blood puffed from his lips with each ragged breath.  One of his teeth lay on the ground an inch or two from its former home.  A second seemed imbedded in the corner of his mouth.  His nose bled and the skin on his forehead was scraped away, revealing the skull beneath. 

Anderson looked down the street in the direction of the sirens.  He could see the headlights and roof lights of the ambulance perhaps a half mile distant.  Behind the ambulance he could just make out the outline of the fire truck.   “C’mon, c’mon,” he said and looked at the prone man again.

He had stopped breathing.  Anderson quickly grabbed at the man’s wrist and checked for a pulse.  He found none.  He put his head down again on the road and watched the man’s lips.  A thin layer of blood coated his lips but it no longer bubbled.  He could hear no sounds of breathing and the man’s back did not rise and fall with respiration. 

“No, no, no.  Shit!” 

“Is he dead?  He’s dead, isn’t he?” the kid from the Camaro asked. 

Anderson stood and waved his flashlight in front of him, the universal signal for hurry the fuck up.  The ambulance jockeys saw him and did indeed step on the gas.  Anderson could hear the ambulance’s motor rev as it drew nearer. 

He started to run toward them, as if that would somehow get them to the crash victim sooner.  He was stopped when he felt the hand wrap itself quite powerfully around his ankle.  He yelped and spun. 

The man holding his ankle, the man who showed no sign of life a moment earlier, looked up at Anderson.  His face was a wreck.  The right half of it, obscured by the pavement earlier, revealed itself to be torn and pitted.  It was much more than road rash; Anderson could see the man’s teeth through the ragged holes in his cheek.  The man opened his mouth to speak and several teeth fell out and pattered on the asphalt.  He drooled blood and saliva onto the roadway.  His eyes, however, were clear and focused.  It made Anderson want to rip his ankle out of the man’s grasp and to put as much distance between them as was possible. 

Instead, when the man reached up with his free hand Anderson bent down and took it.  He knelt beside the man again and held his hand.  “Just hang on.  They’re here now.  They’ll take care of you.”

“She’s still in there,” the dying man said.  Blood bubbled again from his lips.  “She’s still in there.  You have to find her.”

Anderson’s head snapped to the side and he looked again at the Jeep.  “There was someone inside the vehicle with you?”  Christ, he had been so fucking stupid.  He had not even checked for additional passengers.  He started to stand but the man squeezed his hand with enough force to make Anderson draw a sharp intake of breath. 

“Find her.  Find her before it happens again.”  He said something after that, a single word that sounded like Danny.  

He looked again at the SUV and was about to pull himself free of the man when it proved to be unnecessary.  The man’s grasp on Anderson’s hand and ankle weakened and a moment later his arm fell on the roadway.  He looked from the dead man to the two approaching paramedics (who did indeed turn out to be Lyons and Ferguson). 

“Wassup, Matt?” Lyons asked.

Anderson ignored him.  He walked away from the dead man and approached the Jeep again.  He shined his light through the windshield, but it was cracked and he could see nothing inside.  He walked around to the undercarriage and pulled himself to the top of the vehicle.  The passenger’s window was shattered and afforded him a perfect view of the vehicle’s interior. 

There was quite a bit of broken glass; the little beads of it caught the flashlight beam and the red-and-blues of the emergency vehicles and threw them in every direction.  The affect reminded Anderson of his days at the local roller rink and its mirrored ball.  To complete the image, Katrina and the Waves were still walking on sunshine, even if the Jeep’s radio’s lights were dark.  The driver’s airbag had deployed and lay draped like a shroud across the steering wheel.  Litter that included crushed soda cans, McDonald’s bags and empty cigarette packs were all over the place.  There was a child’s car seat strapped to the back seat and Anderson had a terrible moment when he was certain he would find a dead child somewhere amid the garbage.  But there was no one.  The Jeep’s interior was devoid of anything alive or recently-dead.             

He heard another siren and poked his head up.  Ellis’ unit stopped a few feet behind the fire engine and he stepped out and made his way to the wrecked Jeep. 

Anderson waved him off.  “There might have been a second person inside the vehicle, possibly a child.  Start looking.”

Ellis said, “You got it,” and pulled out his flashlight and went to work. 

Anderson scanned the area around the Jeep but came up empty.  They would need more eyes out here.  He got on the radio and called dispatch.