We Are Always Watching

by Hunter Shea

  His mother looked at him with complete shock and pride.

  “Have you been stealing cars when I’m not around?”

  “No, but it’s good to know I have a career to fall back on.”

  She slipped behind the wheel while he moved to the passenger seat. She didn’t turn on the headlights until they were behind the house.

  “It’s just over that way,” West said, pointing to the opposite direction where Faith had dragged him.

  The truck dipped and bounced, finding mini-sinkholes that had been hidden by the choking weeds. A couple of times, the suspension sounded as it if were going to break in half.

  “West, honey, what are we looking for when we get to the barn? Are there old tools like axes and stuff?”

  “No. The whole thing is collapsed. But I know what we can do with the remains.”

  She reached over to caress his face. The truck took a severe dip to the right, and her nails scratched his skin.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s all right. We’re almost there.”

  They were blinded by an explosion of harsh, white light.

  His mother slammed on the brakes. The truck skidded, the rear fishtailing across trampled grass.

  He heard the roar of an engine.

  “Mom, look out!”

  The light raced toward them, aiming for a head-on collision.

  His mother hit the gas, turning the wheel as fast as she could, trying to angle out of the way.

  They spun in mad circles as the bed of the truck took the full brunt of the impact. The sound of crumpling metal and exploding glass pierced his one working ear.

  West slid across the seat. He smashed into his mother, both their knees coming up and crashing into the dashboard. The breath was knocked out of him.

  The engine sputtered and died.

  It hurt like hell to turn around to face the lights, which were now right behind them.

  He knew who was in the other truck.

  Sarah Simmons revved the engine, gearing up to deliver a fatal blow to their stalled beater that had taken its very last beating.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Abraham didn’t know how Simmons had managed to hide that bear of a kid for so long.

  Kid. He was the size of two men, but appeared as simple as a gerbil.

  He should have known.

  The Simmons men strayed. Whether out of a lack of morality or a need to create monsters, he didn’t know. And Ridley women had bore them monsters for generations. But they weren’t the only ones.

  There were stories of the Simmons clan being birthed from the soil itself, put here by a demonic force to hold sway over the land and torture all those who had the misfortune of trying to make a living off it. Abraham knew that was superstitious bullshit, but he also knew that there had been a Simmons in Buttermilk Creek for as long as anyone could remember. They were a blight that even an exorcist couldn’t eradicate.

  Everyone knew of their penchant to lure other women, but they were powerless to stop it. There was always the hope that the current generation would be the one where it stopped. It was all wishful thinking.

  Like vampiric marauders, they took what they wanted.

  Gregory’s sick father had wanted Violet. And now Gregory, from the sound of things, wanted Debi.

  “Women don’t tend to stray,” his father had told him on his wedding night. “But when it comes to the Simmons men, they’ll go against their nature. Keep an eye out for that. And if it does happen, don’t blame her. There’s something bigger than we’ll ever understand going on out here. I don’t pretend to be smart enough to figure it out. Maybe you’ll be the one.”

  In that conversation was his father’s confession that his own mother had had her an affair with one of the Simmons men.

  And if it does happen, don’t blame her.

  Abraham was never able to look at his mother the same, even though his father doted on her until he passed on. How could he?

  He knew it would never happen with Violet. She was so chaste, they couldn’t even make love with the lights on. With Violet, whatever was going on between the two families would end.

  He was so wrong. And Violet, she’d been destroyed by the indiscretion. Abraham had not been able to take his father’s advice. He blamed her. And he blamed whatever curse was on this land. That’s why he left it to rot.

  So he watched and harassed them, just as they had done to his family. He suspected his father had as well, though he’d never come out and said it. There was something very wrong with the Simmons family that went beyond incest and their proclivity for creating beasts with other women. What did it say about the Ridleys and the handful of other families who had called Buttermilk Creek home for centuries, who stubbornly refused to vacate the town, living with the unspeakable consequences? Was it more than just family ties to a parcel of land that had been passed down for generations? Did Abraham, and his father, and all the Ridley men before them, derive some sort of twisted pleasure from the bizarre game?

  Questions like this, and the memories of what he had done, and what had been done to him, were what made him drink. If he could just soak it all too deep to reach, there was a chance he could die not a happy man, but not a tortured one either.

  It’s why he’d been glad to see Matt leave for college, never giving him a reason to return. When Abraham died, the Ridley line would finally be free from this cursed place. It made people do terrible things, left them with constant reminders of their fall from grace.

  One of those reminders was blocking their escape as surely as the door on a bank vault. Abraham didn’t know where this particular monster came from, but it was just further proof that his family wasn’t the only one damned to their watchful eye and hateful machinations.

  Gregory and his tainted progeny had the upper hand in every way.

  But there was one thing they didn’t have – Rayna.

  And they were smart enough to be worried about what he’d done to make sure she couldn’t be easily rescued. He’d counted on that to keep them clear of his family until they got back on their feet and moved out.

  This attack was a total surprise.

  If West had only kept his mouth shut.

  Don’t go blaming him. He’s not from here. He isn’t tainted. He’s a good kid. And he’s been scared. He had no way of knowing that the Simmons family was behind everything. He probably just wanted someone to help them. Calling the police was what normal people did.

  But there was nothing normal about the town of Buttermilk Creek.

  Gregory Simmons and his diseased kin were like rats, happy to be in the shadows. Most of the time.

  No matter.

  Abraham still had Rayna, and even the big dumb one was too scared to rush headlong into that room to get her.

  Matt looked like he was about to pass out. His eyes twitched and rolled. It was as if they were trying to fall right out of their sockets.

  “Did I ruin your family dynamic, Abraham?” Gregory Simmons asked with unmasked glee.

  “There wasn’t a dynamic to ruin.”

  He looked toward the door where his daughter lay locked up.

  “I’d say different. Now, why don’t you get my girl out of there or I start taking my anger out on Matt. Shit, looks like anything I do to him would actually be a mercy.”

  Abraham curled his lip. “Be my guest. That won’t get you any closer to your daughter – alive, of course.”

  Gregory motioned to his behemoth son who strode over and picked Matthew up with one hand grasped around his throat. Matt started choking, his limbs feebly twisting, hands bouncing off the kid’s chest like acorns off a dirt floor.

  “Kill him, and I kill Rayna right now.”

  Matt took two sharp jabs to his face. He was dropped to the ground like a used tissue. The mongoloid kid gave him a kick to his kidney for good measure.

  Abraham wanted to rush over to him, but he couldn’t give Gregory the satisfaction.

  “I
t’s only going to get worse if you don’t cooperate,” Gregory said, grabbing a gun that had been tucked at his back. He pointed the gun at the seeping wound on Matt’s leg. “A bullet tearing through a knife wound will hurt like hell.”

  Abraham shrugged.

  “What I have in store for your daughter will be much, much worse.”

  Gregory cocked the hammer back, but paused.

  He waved the gun toward Abraham. “You know, a part of me keeps screaming that you’re bluffing.”

  “That part must be as small as your dick, because I haven’t seen you try to get her out since I took her. Not even now when you have the key.”

  They stared at one another, neither wanting to break the other’s hard gaze.

  Abraham didn’t see James clamber to his feet, but he sure as hell watched him square his shoulders and lay into Gregory’s beastly son, driving him into the concrete wall as if he were a tackling dummy. The two wrestled each other to the floor.

  Gregory shouted, “Get him boy! Get him!”

  Abraham lunged at Gregory, hoping the distraction was all he needed to knock the gun out of his hand.

  The younger man turned when he was just a step away. He didn’t have time to bring the pistol all the way up to Abraham’s chest or face. Abraham would debate whether that was a blessing or a curse.

  Instead, he settled for shooting him in the thigh.

  The bullet was a hot poker, burrowing into the meat and ricocheting off bone, exploding out of his leg in the opposite angle it went in. Abraham dropped to a knee, yowling in pain.

  “Music to my ears, old man.” Gregory kept the gun trained on him. “Music to my ears.”

  There was a lot of blood. Abraham wondered if the bullet had nicked an artery.

  Gregory must have been wondering the same thing, because the smug look quickly melted from his cheering face.

  To make matters worse, James was thrown on top of his legs. The burst of agony was beyond words, beyond screaming. The edges of Abraham’s vision went blurry, then darkening like the skies of an approaching hurricane.

  “Get him off!” Gregory Simmons shouted.

  There was a dull, distant relief of pressure. Hands on his leg. The tearing of fabric. Matt’s voice. Then Gregory’s.

  What are they saying?

  Can’t die. Not yet. Please, not yet. Not until…

  ***

  “Mom?”

  West shook his mother’s shoulder. She was out cold. A bright, red gash bisected her forehead, the point of a triangular flap of skin covering part of her eyebrow.

  Smoke billowed out from under the truck’s hood. West looked at his bare chest, saw the beads of broken glass embedded in his skin, little droplets of blood making it look like he had a new strain of seeping chicken pox.

  The headlights of the other truck swung toward them, blinding him for a moment. When the truck changed position, he saw Sarah Simmons, her hands at ten and two on the wheel.

  “Mom, get up. We have to get out of here.”

  West had never been so scared in his life. Any second now, Mrs. Simmons was going to ram into them. He couldn’t leave his mother. But he was terrified to stay in the truck. He didn’t want to die. Not here, and certainly not now.

  He unclipped their seatbelts and tried to open his door. It felt as if it had been welded shut.

  The other truck roared. West felt panic trying to take hold, telling him to just run, run as far and fast as he could.

  “W… West?”

  His mother’s eyes fluttered open. They jittered the way his father’s did when the vertigo got real bad.

  Could he carry her?

  He couldn’t even get out of the truck. It may be a moot point.

  West leaned over his mother and tried her door. It clicked and popped open.

  “Oh, it hurts,” she moaned as he scrabbled between her battered body and the steering wheel. Being squished like that, only for a moment, drove the pebbled glass deeper into his flesh.

  “I know, I know. I’m going to pull you out. It’s going to hurt even more.”

  Her gaze fixed on the truck opposite them. “No. Go. Leave me here.”

  “I’m not doing that.” Tears choked him as he tugged on her arm. She started to slip free.

  She fell to the ground just as he heard the tires start to spin.

  “You have to get up!”

  The truck raced toward them. West hoped Mrs. Simmons couldn’t see them behind the open door. It was going to be like a matador hiding behind his cape. He’d have to time it just right to move out of the truck’s deadly path.

  He tugged on his mother’s arm. She rose, but it was as if gravity was tripling its pressure on her, urging her to stay down. West shoved his forearms under her armpits, taking on as much of her dead weight as he could.

  The headlights sped closer, closer, closer.

  A second before impact, he threw them as hard as he could to his left. The trucks collided with a chest-rattling crunch of steel and glass. The back end of their truck swung toward West and his mother. He was helpless to do anything but watch in wide-eyed horror. The rear cab swung above them, the back tires just missing crushing their lower legs. He felt a great whoosh of air as it blew over them.

  In a flash, the entire truck pin wheeled away, and flipped over.

  The front end of Mrs. Simmons’s truck was crumpled, but the engine was still running. The horn blared in a steady hum.

  West approached the passenger side door.

  “Honey, don’t.” His mother was on her knees, reaching out to him. “We need to go.”

  He didn’t answer her. She was right. But if Mrs. Simmons was okay, she’d just run them down in the field. He had to check.

  And what would he do if she was conscious, putting the truck in gear for another run? He had no clue. Anything seemed possible tonight. He had no weapons, but he had his hands. How much good that would do against a crazy person was anyone’s guess.

  He peered inside the broken window and reeled back, his body rigid with repulsion.

  Mrs. Simmons was out cold, her face mashed into the steering wheel, the deflated airbag acting as a kind of pillowcase. Blood dripped onto the floor from her shattered nose.

  But that wasn’t what made him have to choke back a ball of sizzling vomit.

  Faith was in the passenger seat.

  The impact drove the knife even deeper into her gut. Only half the handle was visible now. A pink sack that was some internal organ flopped out of the widened slash.

  He didn’t have to check for a pulse to know that she was dead.

  Mrs. Simmons might be, too. He stared at her body, but it was too dark to see if she was breathing.

  He jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” his mother said. One of her eyes was filled with blood. “I’m woozy, but feeling better.” When she saw Faith and her mother, she stiffened. “Look, that could easily have been us. It would have been if you hadn’t saved me. I know you liked her and – “

  “Can you help me get them out of the truck?”

  He didn’t want to talk about it. Not now. Maybe not ever. He’d never get the sight of Faith’s lifeless body out of his head.

  Right now, he needed to keep busy. They came out here for a reason. He may have saved them from getting crushed, but they still had to go back for his father, grandfather, and James.

  “West, I’m not even sure the truck can be driven.”

  “We have to try.”

  He had to use both hands to pry the passenger door open. Faith slumped sideways so fast, he had to dive to catch her from falling headfirst. His mother helped him lay her on the ground. Feeling her lifeless body in his hands, her blood mixing with his own, he thought he was going to pass out.

  He took a deep breath, kneeling close to her, whispering, “Goodbye, Faith.”

  Mrs. Simmons groaned when they touched her, but she didn’t stir. They got her out and dragged her near her daughter. His mot
her insisted. “They may be bad people, but they’re still family. I would want to be next to you.”

  When they got in the truck, West asked, “Are you okay to drive?”

  She nodded, the flap of skin over her eye bouncing. “I’ll be fine.”

  She put the car in drive. It shuddered briefly, then lurched ahead.

  West pointed the way. “The old barn is just over there.”

  “I still don’t know why you want us to go to a collapsed barn.”

  He told her why and she sighed. “I hope this works.”

  West stared straight ahead into the dark field, but as irrational as it seemed, his eyes only saw Faith, bloodied and gone forever.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Matt was having a hard time making sense of the chaos around him. James was still grappling with Gregory Simmons’s hulking son and surprisingly holding his own. His father was on the ground, bleeding out from a savage wound in his leg. And Gregory was shouting at Matthew to snap the hell out of it and help him.

  Through a fog of vertigo and pain, Matt fought the opposing current. He stared hard at Gregory’s bearded mouth, white spittle flying from taut lips.

  “Help me tie this around his leg,” he shouted.

  Matt looked down. Gregory had wrapped an old extension cord around his father’s upper thigh, right above the steady fountain of blood. “Just put your fingers there, unless you want to see your father croak.”

  “Wh-what?”

  Gregory jabbed a thick finger at the knot in the cord. “There, there you cripple!” He turned to Abraham, his face just inches away. “You’re not going to die yet. Not until you set Rayna free.”

  Abraham’s face twitched. “Fuck… you.”

  Matt saw multiple blood soaked legs. He chose the one on the right and touched the rubber and plastic cord. Gregory finished applying the makeshift tourniquet.

  “Fuck me?”

  Matt watched several Gregorys slide from his distorted view. James was atop the man, pummeling his head with a flurry of blows. He felt his body rise as James lifted him up.