Speaking In Tongues

It was the way Peter had killed the slut who’d tried to seduce him. Maybe it was the way Peter himself had died. The body was so mutilated the prison doctor hadn’t been able to be certain of the cause of death.

Tears flooded the eyes of the inconvenient child.

“Oh, Megan, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just thought that you deserved so much more than you had.”

She was shivering with the sobs.

“A father who wanted to be rid of you. What a terrible thing… He wanted to get you out of his life and get back to those ridiculous young women he chased after. And your mother… a dear woman but a child herself, really. I thought about all sorts of things-how I could adopt you, get you into a foster home..

“You really thought that?” she asked, wiping her face. Her attention was wavering from the glass blade. Her hand was in the shadows at her side. The hallway was dim and he couldn’t tell whether the knife was pointed downward or at him.

“Yes, I sure did. I talked to a lawyer about adoption. He said I wouldn’t have a chance, not with your natural parents around, however neglectful they were.” His voice was soft, lulling.

Megan wiped her face again. “I just wanted to be loved.”

“And they didn’t love you, did they? They didn’t give you any love at all.”

“Oh, I would’ve done things so differently… and that’s why I took this chance. I’m risking life in prison just to see if something might work out between us. I just wanted you to have a home.” He too was crying now. “I just wanted a family! That’s all I’ve ever wanted boo.”

She was sobbing uncontrollably now, hand over her face. “Yes! That’s it. A home. I never had a home. I wanted a father so badly.”

Matthews stepped closer, reached out a tentative hand and touched her cheek, wiped away a tear. He could almost feel her under his hands, peeing and thrashing as she died. He’d leave her body out for the dogs. So that Collier would have to live with the terrible memory of what the crime scene photos revealed.

“I wish I could have done it differently,” he said. “I mean, this place is so disgusting, Megan. But I didn’t have any choice. For both our sakes.”

“I just-”

He reached out his other hand and put his arm around her shoulder. Rubbed her back.

“I just wanted a home… only a home.” She struggled to breathe.

“I know you did.” His right hand moved down her face to her neck. His left slipped down her arm until he gripped the glass knife she held.

He gently pulled it out of her hand.

Got you! he thought.

But then he glanced down, frowning. It wasn’t a knife at all. In his hand was a plastic Bic pen. But he’d seen the blade… He looked into her face.

Saw the leering smile.

“Nice try,” Megan whispered.

And with her left hand she jammed the glass blade deep into his side. Once, then again. And again.

A flash of terrible pain shot through him and Matthews howled. He twisted hard away from her and the blade snapped on a rib, leaving a long glass splinter inside him.

Now Megan screamed-an insane wail-and as the doctor groped for his wound she slammed her open palm into his face. A huge pop as his nose broke and blood spurted. He went down on his knees. She kicked him near the knife wound and his vision went black from the astonishing pain.

She came forward but he swam back to consciousness quickly and now it was his fist that co

He touched the wound. The pain was bad. But it was nothing compared with the feeling of shock that raged through him. She’s the one who fooled me! Suckered me in nice and close, got my defenses down. My God, the whole time I thought I was playing her but she led me right into the trap…

Her father’s daughter, Matthews thought in fury and disgust.

He dropped to his knees and began working the fragments of glass out of his wound, actually savoring the pain; he wanted to remember it. He wanted to feel what Megan was about to experience.

28

The basement…

She plunged into the dim corridors of the hospital, looking for the basement door she’d seen earlier.

Her jaw ached and the back of her head too-from where she’d slammed it into the wall after he hit her. For just a moment she’d thought about leaping on him again-seeing him lying there, blood filling his shirt, blood dripping from his nose. He’d looked half dead. But she wasn’t sure that he was hurt as badly as he seemed. He might have been faking. If he lied with words, he’d lie with actions.

So she ran-to find the basement door.

She heard Matthews’s unearthly scream-it seemed to shake the walls-and then footsteps.

Making slow circles through the corridors, she finally found the door, the one leading to the basement. She grabbed a cinder block and smashed it down on the hasp and lock, which snapped off easily.

Megan flung the door open, looked down into the musty place. For a moment she was paralyzed.

No choice, girl, Crazy Megan the tour guide shouts. Move, move, move.

But Josh, she protested silently, I can’t leave him.

Hey, if you die, he dies. Go!

She clomped down the stairs and found herself in a dimly lit warren of corridors. Trotting slowly from room to room, she took care to avoid the standing water so she wouldn’t leave footprints he could follow.

Please, a door, a window… Oh, please.

She heard the creak of footsteps from the ceiling above her as Matthews made his way to the door she’d just broken open. She found a door leading outside. It was locked. And the windows too were sealed. Another door. Nailed shut.

Goddamn him! C.M. blurts. Why’d he padlock the fucking door upstairs if we can’t get out this way?

Megan didn’t bother to answer. She couldn’t figure it out either. She returned to a room near the base of the stairs and glanced again at one of the windows. The bars on these were wider than the ones on the main floor but she doubted that she could get through.

Fucking hips.

Don’t start! Megan muttered silently and started to turn away. Then she paused, looked back. Thinking: Okay, maybe I can’t get through the bars. But I can make him think I did.

She smashed the glass and pushed an overturned plastic bucket beneath it so that it looked like she’d climbed out.

Then she ran back into the warren of dark storerooms to find someplace to hide.

Most of the cardboard boxes piled in the rooms were too small to conceal her. And she didn’t have the strength to pull herself up into the pipes that ran along the ceiling.

His steps were approaching the door upstairs. Then he started down.

Megan ran into a cluttered storeroom, the farthest one from the stairs. It was filled with cartons, small ones like the others. But over to the side of the room, in the shadows, was a long metal box. It was almost too obvious a choice to hide in but this room was nowhere near the window where she’d faked her escape. And it was pitch dark in here. Matthews might not even see the box if he bothered to look.

Could she get it open? And was it empty?

But Megan stopped asking questions. Matthews was now in the basement. A shuffle of footsteps, a moaning wheeze from the pain of the wounds, words muttered to himself.

Now! Crazy Megan prods her. Go, girl!

Megan unlatched the trunk. It took all her strength to lift the thick lid.

And it took all her willpower not to scream as she looked inside and saw the blue-white flesh, the limp hair, the closed eyes, a dark, shriveled penis, the long yellow fingernails… Cuts and gouges covered the young man’s entire torso, which was further mutilated by the large Y incision from the autopsy. An ear and an arm had been crudely stitched back onto his body.