Dead Five's Pass Read Online Free PDF Page A

trauma, but that don’t make any sense,” Marge said.
    “She said something similar to me,” Carise said as she took a seat in the reception. “I don’t think I can get much else out of her.”
    “Maybe this will be of help to you,” Frank said. “To find the boy.” He passed her his notebook. “It was her statement when I first picked her up on the side of the road. She was still freaked out but managed to get a few words out before going into her shell.”
    Carise took it and read the note. It said:
    Boyfriend discovered new cave, bad things in the pool. Shapes. Drowning, Jason ran, chased into the pass, shapes left. She escaped (didn’t want to give her name), fears he’s dead. Heard his screams and then nothing. It’s too late. She fears it’s too late. Won’t say what “it” is.
    A feeling of dread consumed Carise as she imagined a scenario of panic, but it didn’t make sense. What could the shapes be? Could it have just been a wolf or a bear? In a dark cave, they could seem entirely different, what with the acoustics and unnatural light. The cuts on the girl’s legs were certainly clawlike, but maybe too precise. They seemed too straight, narrow like that of a scalpel. Then she thought of some crazy person camping in the pass armed with knives. Anything at this stage was a possibility. But what concerned her the most was this missing boyfriend.
    “Frank,” Carise said, “did you travel to the stones to check for her boyfriend?”
    He shook his head. “Well no, it would have taken too long and I wanted to make sure she got into a warm place as soon as possible. I’m sure you would have done the—”
    Carise held up her hands. “It’s okay, I wasn’t judging, just asking.”
    He lowered his head and wiped at his face. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. It’s all just so weird, I’m way out of my comfort—”
    A loud crash from the interview room cut him off. They all snapped their attention to the door. Another bang came from inside and the door shook with the force. Frank rushed over. As he touched the handle, the door flew open with such force he was thrown back onto his backside, where he slid across the linoleum floor until his head smashed into the side of Marge’s desk with a sickening thud. Marge jumped up from her chair, her eyes wide with surprise.
    Carise rose from her chair and dashed over to Frank. A spot of blood smeared the desk but he was awake still, cursing and rubbing the back of his head. “Crazy bitch.”
    Following the Mountie’s gaze, Carise turned her head to take in the scene. Her earlier dread grew into something else. Some feeling so dark and so primal that she felt weak and impotent at the significance of what she was seeing.
    Bizarre patterns with no discernible meaning or recognizable form made with blood and feces covered the tiled walls. The markings were curved and jagged with odd angles and bizarre forms, almost as if it were some symbolic script.
    The girl sat in the middle of the floor among the broken furniture. A jagged piece of wood, presumably from the table leg, stuck out of her thigh. Around it pooled a thick flow of blood. It was that blood that covered her hands and her face.
    She rocked back and forth with her legs crossed, her mouth stretched wide in a pained grimace. That hideous, whispering laughter came from her again as she clawed at her wounds and transferred the blood onto the floor, creating yet more unidentifiable glyphs and markings.
    Carise slammed the door shut, and tried to un-see those terrible and disturbing images, but like the girl said earlier, it was too late. They were in her brain now…she was in her brain, sitting there like some guru writing missives in the dirt.
    “What…the…fuck,” was all she could say, as both Frank and Marge looked at her with the same expression of primal fear that she expected was on her own face.
    * * *
    Flashing blue and red lights sliced through the narrow windows of the station, turning the