The Lion, the Lamb, the Hunted: A Psychological Thriller

I descended the steps, walked inside, and breathed in its distinctive scent, the one I loved: paper and binding glue, seasoned by time. The combination had a calming effect on me as a kid and was doing the same now. I felt my nerves untangle.

I loved it here, loved everything about it, the way it looked with the endless array of books stacked across all four walls, the feeling of running my fingers across the leather-bound spines. I’d often sit in the corner, sometimes for hours, lost in imaginary exploration. For me, reading was adventure, but most of all, reading was escape— escape from a life I never understood. Opening a book felt like taking a trip someplace else. Someplace better. Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, the Hardy Boys—these were my friends. It didn’t matter that they weren’t real; they were there, always, whenever I needed them. And the best part: she couldn’t go with me.

I walked across the mirror-slick wood floors, then reached up to a shelf for Oliver Twist. Running my fingers over the words, I smiled and remembered.

“Patrick?”

I swung around to find Tracy Gallagher grinning at me. The sight of her made my heart speed up, but I wasn’t sure if it was the hormones or the nerves—probably both. She was older now, but man, she still looked great.

I guess you could say Tracy was my first love; the only problem was she never knew it. She lived three houses down from me, and I would have moved heaven, earth, and everything in between to be with her. A classic case of unrequited love. We were good friends while we were young—that is, until adolescence set in. Then the social pecking order kicked into gear, and away she went, straight to the top with me falling somewhere near the bottom. I don’t think she ever meant it to be that way—just one of those things, I guess. We drifted apart, but I never forgot her.

“It’s been a long time,” she said, walking to me. Her smile was warm. “How’ve you been?”

“I’m well, Tracy. You?”

She moved past me, and for a split second, I caught her scent. Something linen mixed with something floral, and in that instant, it was high school all over again.

Gazing up at a shelf, she shrugged. “I’m okay, I guess. You know… husband, two kids, living out in the burbs. Never got out of this place. Smart move on your part that you did.”

Not like I had a choice, I thought as I put Oliver back on his shelf. “Doesn’t look like much’s changed around here.”

“Nope,” she said through a restless sigh, “it never does.”

“Hot and muggy with a chance of showers by afternoon?”

She grinned, still studying the rows of books. “You got it.” Then she turned to me. “So. A famous writer now. Pretty impressive.”

I shrugged. “Just a news magazine.”

“Modest…you always were.”

“Was I?”

“About as unassuming as they came.”

I returned my gaze to the shelf, nodded.

“I have to say, though, I was kind of surprised to see you came back.”

“You and everyone else,” I said through a forced laugh. “I’m not exactly the town’s Favorite Son.”

She dismissed the comment with a wave of her hand. “Screw ‘em,”

“Right,” I said, and grinned. “Screw ‘em.”

“But you look good, Pat. You really do. I’m glad things got better for you after the…”

“The overdose,” I said quickly, as if by doing so it might take away her discomfort.

“Yeah.” She fell silent for a moment and pushed her hair behind one ear. It was a nervous habit she’d had since childhood. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“No. It’s okay. I’m fine with it. Really.”

She offered a thin smile.

“Can I ask you something, though? Was I the only one who thought she was evil?”

An unsettled expression crossed Tracy’s face, and then she turned her head away, shaking it. “Everyone thought she was kind of crazy, I guess. The ones who wanted to see it.”

“Did you?”

“Want to see it?”

“Did you know?”

She turned back toward me, but this time her expression was easy to read. “I should have done something that day, Patrick. I should have stayed and listened.”

That day. My stomach twisted into a knot. I struggled against my thoughts, pushed the words out slowly, “But you had no way of knowing...”

“I knew,” she said, nodding, and then softer, “I knew. I was just…afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Of the other kids. Of her. Of…everything, I guess.” She looked down, hair behind the ear again. “I just left you there. Alone. It was all my fault.”

I lost Tracy’s voice and quite possibly my mind. The knot pulled tighter in my gut, and suddenly everything came rushing back to me. I was there again, living the nightmare. White light. White noise.

“Patrick?”

I snapped back to the present, stared at her with what I knew was a dazed expression. The lump in my throat made it damned near impossible to speak, my voice coming out gritty and tight. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah…look, I’d better go back upstairs.”

“Patrick…”

“Fine, really.” I attempted a smile, then pushed past her. Headed up the staircase, quickly, and straight for the bathroom.

I locked the door behind me. My back against the wall, eyes closed, I took in a long steadying breath. A thousand thoughts rushed through my head. A thousand memories.

Then I pulled the pad from my pocket, and with shaky hands, wrote the word vicious fifty times.

Chapter Two

In The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas wrote that houses have souls and faces like men, and their exteriors carry the imprint of their characters. To me, our house always looked dark and ominous, a shadowy projection of the horrors inside its silent, secretive walls. As a kid, I remember staring out through those dreary windows and wondering whether the world outside was as awful as the one within. Bad memories lived there. Horrible ones.

I decided to take Warren’s advice and go back anyway—not for sentiment, as he’d suggested, but to rid myself of those memories. I needed to go through the place, chase away my ghosts, and then walk out that front door one last time.

But going in was another story.

I stood in the doorway and felt my nerves jangle with slow-burning apprehension. Bad vibes seemed to rock this place from its foundation. I stepped in, stopped, then looked around.

She’d done most of her dying here before moving on to Hospice, but as I walked in, I could still feel a sense of approaching death hanging heavy in the air. Stillness, but not the kind that lent itself to peace or tranquility—no, this was something different, a life waiting to end and a peculiar numbness that seemed to resonate throughout.

The kind that gnaws at your insides.

Warren had obviously hired a cleaning crew to wipe away the postmortem effects, everything in its place, not a speck of dirt anywhere. An oxygen tank covered in plastic stood in one corner; in another, an empty trash