Glamorous - A Grace Bishop Novel - Chapter 26
© Denise Bossarte
Grace drew her pistol and pushed the boards aside with care. She
placed the pistol on the ground right inside the opening. Then she lay down to
snake her body through the compact hole and enter the warehouse. She was careful not to snag her clothing on
the rough edges of the planks as she wiggled through the wall. She moved as
fast as she could without making too much noise.
Grace grabbed her pistol and
rose to a crouch. She waited for Danny and Sabra to join her during the few
moments it took for her eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. There were no
electrical lights on in this part of the warehouse. But the holes in the roof
and walls let in scattered rays of late day sunlight spotlighting areas of the
dusty warehouse floor. The light threw the piles of rubble and loose building
material in stark relief in contrast to the surrounding shadows.
“Celeste over ‘ere,”
Sabra said, getting Grace’s attention.
“Can he see you or hear
you?” Grace asked moving with caution around the better lit areas, keeping
to the shadows.
She was aware of how quiet it was in the warehouse and worked
hard to keep the noise of her movements as minimal as possible.
“Dunno,” Sabra
answered. “The bast’ad blows us off when
we try fight ‘im or protect da other girl’s he brings ‘ere.”
“Blows ‘us’ off?”
Danny asked.
Sabra shot him a penetrating look.
“Of course, ‘us.’ All da
ones he brought ‘ere to cut up an’ kill.”
“Sounds like you were
right, Danny, about the ghosts of the girls still being here.”
“I wish I wasn’t. I’m not
sure what difference it makes to us since he can’t see them.”
Grace slowed as she noticed a bright light leaking around a wall
of stacked crates ahead of her. Light that wasn’t natural sunlight like what
she was avoiding up until now. She paused at the back corner of the stack,
crouching down to reduce her profile.
“Is this it?” she
asked Sabra.
“Yeah, dis where he do dat
shit.”
“Does what?” Grace
asked, focusing her attention back on Sabra.
“Fuckin’ cuts ‘em an’
takes pieces.”
“Pieces?” Danny asked.
“Yeah, he fuckin’ took ma
hands,” Sabra said, raising her arms before her.
The figure of the ghost shimmered before coalescing again. But
now instead of hands showing there were only ragged bloody stumps at the ends
of her arms.
“He takes everyone’s
hands?” Grace asked staring in fascinated revulsion at Sabra’s mutilated
arms.
“No, he take diff’n parts
from each girl,” Sabra said in growing frustration. “He makin’ som’thun, some fuckin’ horrible monster. He puttin’ it
t’getha from all da parts!”
“But why?” Grace
asked.
“To create it…’er.”
“’Her’ what?” Grace
repeated, dreading the answer Sabra would give.
Sabra shook her head again, exasperated. “Come ‘ere, ya see.”
“Fine. Danny, you go with
Sabra to the top of these crates and give me a rundown of what you see. Don’t
worry about keeping out of sight. The Glamour can’t see ghosts.”
“Ok,” Danny agreed
somewhat leery of the idea. He followed Sabra as she scaled the crates, both
leaning over the edge once they reached the top.
“Ok, I see a huge open
space. There are some large portable lights on stands near the center, all
pointing at a table of some sort. There’s a girl on the table!” he said.
“Is she moving?” Grace
asked.
“No. It doesn’t look like
she is conscious. She’s on her back tied down to the table and she’s not
moving.” Danny responded. “Her hands
and feet are roped down and there is a rag tied across her mouth.”
“Where’s the Glamour?”
Grace asked.
“He’s right by the girl.
I’d recognize his aura anywhere! He’s messing around with the ropes tying her
down. There are some knives on a small table next to him,” Danny gulped. “They all have red stains on them, blood
stains.”
“He ain’t finish with ‘er,”
Sabra interjected. “He waitin’ for ‘er
wake up.”
“Jesus!” Grace swore
to herself, her stomach clenching. “What
else do you see, Danny?”
“There are these weird
mounds all over the place. Looks like piles of concrete or something. Best
guess is there are at least a couple of dozen all together.”
“He do dat to da girls,”
Sabra supplied. “Pours concrete and shit
on ‘em; says he saving ‘em. See, dat me o’der,” Sabra said pointing to a
mound of raised concrete.
“Gracie,” Danny said,
peering at the mound Sabra indicated. “It
looks like they aren’t only buried under the concrete.”
Sounding sick, he continued. “He’s got the girls posed under the concrete.”
“Posed?”
“Yeah, like mannequins.
Sabra’s mound has concrete covered arms sticking out of the slab; arms with no
hands. Each of the slabs has a different body part sticking out of them; legs,
arms, faces. I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Easy, Danny,” Grace
responded, trying to sound reassuring. “I
think you’re safe there. I don’t think ghosts can vomit,” she consoled him,
trying to distract him with humor.
“Yeah, well tell that to
my stomach,” Danny moaned back.
“Where is this ‘it,’ this
‘her,’ he’s making?” Grace asked trying to get them back on track.
“Der,” Sabra said,
pointing to show Danny a towering figure off to the side in its own
spotlight.
It was standing in the center
of a now familiar shape, a pentagram, drawn in dark marks on the warehouse
floor in an area swept clean of dust and debris. Various objects lay at each
point of the star and at the intersection of the lines making up the star’s shape. They were too tiny at this distance to tell what they
were.
The figure in the center of the pentagram was naked and appeared
human-like. The body of the creature looked like a normal human female. But the
face was grotesque in its incompleteness; missing eyes, and lips, and ears, and
having only a nose on its well-defined skull.
“It’s like he’s building a
female Frankenstein,” Danny said amazed despite his revulsion.
“Yeah,” Sabra agreed.
“As he cuttin’ us, he tellin’ us we
fuckin special, dat we goin’ to be part of his ‘grand creation’. Yah, like I
fuckin’ special. He one sick motha fucka; he makin’ a monster.”
Grace had heard enough.
“Billy,” she said in a whisper through her mic. “I need you guys
to get in here, now! We’ve found Celeste and the Glamour and he’s getting ready
to torture her!”
She crept to the edge of the crate. Then leaned to peer around
the wood, giving her eyes time to adjust to the bright lights in the center of
the room.
“We’re here, Grace. Moving into position now,” Billy’s whisper
came back in her ear.
All at once Anthony’s shout echoed through the warehouse. “Vietato!
E’ vietato!!”
“What the hell?!”
Grace asked as Billy’s shout for Anthony to stop followed.
“Must be our diversion,”
Danny said as he slid down the crates to join her on the floor.
Grace rushed past the crates, her pistol held in both hands. She
saw Anthony running toward the monstrous woman-thing shouting. She watched as
the Glamour stood up from where he was bent fixing the ropes on the table
holding Celeste. With an inarticulate cry he grabbed a wicked looking curved
blade from the nearby table. He reached out to knife a cut across Celeste’s
thigh and darted to intercept Anthony.
“Billy,” she shouted into her mike. “I’ll get the girl. You get
the Glamour!”
“On it,” Billy shouted back heading toward the growing action
near the woman-thing.
Grace ran toward Celeste, her attention on scanning the table
and the surrounding area. She trusted Billy would handle the situation while
she got Celeste to a safe place. As she neared the table, she hesitated before
she caught the shallow breathing as Celeste’s chest rose and fell.
Still breathing, she thought with relief, stepping in to help the girl.
Grace checked the cut the Glamour made in Celeste’s thigh,
seeing it was deep and bleeding badly. She bent over and pulled on the ropes
tying Celeste to the table with one hand, holding her pistol ready in the
other. They were resistant to her tugging, and she frowned in frustration. She
gave up on forcing the ropes.
Instead, she chose to reach
down and pull a hunting knife from her boot, avoiding the bloodied knives left
behind by the Glamour. She dashed from one corner of the table to the next
cutting ropes loose while keeping one eye on the surroundings. Grabbing one
freed rope she wrapped it around Celeste’s cut
thigh, tightening it into a tourniquet and tying it off with a strong knot.
She was distracted from her
efforts by a change in the shouting and Danny’s
frightened voice crying out “Holy shit!
It’s moving!”
She glanced up to see the woman-thing now animated and grappling
with Anthony, who became caught by the throat in both the thing’s hands. In
response, Billy shot it in a vain attempt to get it to release Anthony as the
Glamour simply stood by and laughed.
Grace jerked her attention back to Celeste. She needed to get
the girl to safety and then she would be able to help Billy. She rolled the
unconscious body to the edge of the table and pulled the girl over her
shoulders into a fireman’s carry. Grunting at the extra weight, she moved at a
rapid shuffle to the wall of crates she hid behind earlier.
Once behind the crates, she set Celeste down as carefully as she
could, setting her akimbo limbs straight.
“Danny, keep an eye on
her,” she ordered. “Let me know if
she moves and follow her if she tries to run away.”
He nodded in understanding, moving to kneel next to Celeste’s
prone body.
“Sabra!” Grace shouted
which caused the ghost to appear next to Danny. “How do we stop the thing?”
“Fuck if I know,”
Sabra said, fear clear on her face.
“How did they stop
Frankenstein?” Danny prompted from where he knelt beside Celeste.
“They didn’t,” Grace
said. “The monster got away with a
promise to burn himself to ensure his destruction. We’ll try that. We’ll see
how this thing deals with fire.”
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