“Are they all vampires?” she whispered to Mike when he came to stand beside her.
“No, but most of them are.”
Goose bumps broke out on her arms as her thoughts turned to Aida. Was she being prepared to become one of thesethings? No, Mollie wouldneverallow that to happen. Even if Aida were dead, Mollie would make sure she didn’t end up here.
Then her frazzled brain took in the gold plaques mounted beneath each of the heads. The newest plaque was dated 2017, and as she started to follow them back, she noted each was from a different year. Kneeling, she discovered the first one in the bottom right corner. Beneath the grimacing man with shaggy brown hair and faded brown eyes was the year 1945.
“There are seventy-two heads here. One for every year since 1945.” Mollie gazed at the twisted collection again as realization settled over her. “I’d bet that’s also the year the family in the lighthouse died. Their heads might not be here, but those people were some of the first victims of these sick bastards. These Savages wanted this island, and they took it from that family and whoever else might have lived here at the time,” she said as she recalled the burnt-out farmhouse behind the barn.
“I think you’re right,” Mike said.
“And there are two trophies for every year over here,” Doug said.
Mollie turned to find him standing in front of a glass trophy case on the other side of the room. The trophy case was so massive it took up the entire wall, but not even half of the easily fifty-foot-long display was full of trophies.
There’s room for plenty more. With care, Mollie made her way around the half a dozen, mahogany tables situated in the middle of the room. The room was so big that the four-foot-long and three-foot-wide tables placed against each other didn’t take up an eighth of the space.
She tried not to look at the contents of the jars on the tables, but her gaze kept returning to the floating hands and feet. Writing etched the front of the jars, but she didn’t get close enough to read what it said.
Seeing the jars, Mike recalled what the familiar, yet evasive odor was: formaldehyde. He hadn’t smelled it since his ninth-grade biology class when he and Liam partnered up to dissect a frog. They’d poked at the splayed-out frog and made jokes about it until Mike finally picked up a scalpel and started cutting.
Jack and Doug were also in the class and partnered together. Doug had gotten an A for his work while Jack failed when he decided to remove the frog from its board and dance around the room with it. The boys all laughed; most of the girls giggled and screamed while they hid from Waltzing Walter, as Jack named the frog.
Their teacher had looked like he was about to have a stroke when he stalked toward Jack, snatched the frog away, and escorted Jack out of the class to the principal’s office. When they were out of the room, Doug shrugged, picked the frog up from where the teacher slammed it onto a lab table, pinned it back down, and started dissecting it. He’d ignored everyone else who’d forgotten their frogs in favor of gossiping about the fate Jack would meet, which was a two-day suspension, or a vacation, as Jack declared.
Mike had forgotten about that incident until now; he’d also forgotten Jack was voted their class clown throughout all of high school. At one time, Jack had been far less serious about life. When Beth turned him into a vampire, she’d done more than change Jack from mortal to immortal; she’d also sucked away much of his carefree demeanor. Now, Jack was probably the most serious and the grumpiest of his friends.
Grumpy or not, Mike missed him. He wished he knew where Jack was, but at least his head wasn’t on the wall, yet. Mike didn’t know why those unlucky bastards had been chosen to be mounted like animals, but he would do everything he could to make sure none of them met the same fate.
Stopping next to Doug, Mollie examined the trophies in the case. The glow of the recessed bulbs in the case illuminated the polished collection within. Those bulbs were the only source of light in the room, and she suspected they were never turned off.
Mike stood close by her side, but she didn’t look at him as she studied the foot-high trophies displayed behind the glass. The base of the first trophy was white marble; rising from it was a piece of gold, six-inches high and at least three inches thick. A silver man, with one fist raised in the air and his other hand at his side, stood on top of the gold. From its lowered hand, a silver head dangled by its hair. The inscription etched onto the plaque on the marble read:
Final Kill.
Alicio Petit.
2017.
Mollie frowned as she reread the words, but she had no idea what they meant. She turned her attention to the trophy beside it. This trophy was much the same, except the base was red marble and the silver figure on top was a woman. She had one hand raised and three heads dangling from her lowered hand. The plaque read:
Lacey Gordon.
Most Kills; 3.
2017.
When Mollie moved on to the next set of trophies, she realized they’d each been awarded for the same things, but the number on the most kills trophy differed. The heads clutched in the hands of the figures on the most kills trophies also varied to match the number of their kills.
From her cursory search, she discovered the name “Raul Mrack” on half a dozen of the most kills trophies, and he also held the record at ten. For the ten trophy, five heads dangled from his raised hand and five from his lowered one. Raul’s name also appeared on three of the final kill trophies. Some other names also popped up a few times, but most were one and done.
Mollie glanced between the heads on the wall and the trophies. “I bet the heads belong to the victims of the final kill. They were the vampires and humans who proved to be the most elusive every year but were eventually killed.”
“Most likely,” Mike said as he examined the room.
There were no windows in the room. Brown leather chairs were set into the corners of the room and clustered around small tables. Each table held an ashtray, and more than a few ashtrays had the remains of cigars in them. There were five tables in the room with four chairs around each one.
To the right of the heads, the entire wall was made up of a bar with at least twenty stools set up before it. The mirror behind the bar reflected not only the expensive liquor lined up against the glass, but also all the trophies in the room and the heads.
