“Screw you,” Lenore muttered.
With an ever widening grin, Bullet lowered the needle into position at the edge of her lower lip and laughed lightly at her comment with a raised brow. “So kinky, Mrs. Summers, your husband's watching. But...that could be arranged.”
Before the words could sink in, before Dalton could react, Bullet thrust the needle into her skin.
Lenore screamed. Her body shook violently despite Skull-face’s grip around her jaw and chest. Dalton quaked at both the sight and sound of his wife. The sight of the needle disappearing behind her lip, the ear piercing wail.
Dalton dared a look at Mara who was bawling at her mom’s side. She’s doing this for Mara. She’s doing this for Mara. He repeated the words over and over in his head, trying to rationalize the scene in front of him, yet there was no sense in any of it.
The glinting of stars against the black night sky disappeared under a headlight lit canopy of sparsely populated branches. An older rock anthem vibrated the car as Aiden guided it on the path home.
I finally did it. I finally talked to her, Aiden thought.
“I actually kissed her,” he said aloud. An involuntary smile spread from cheek to cheek and he bit his lip gingerly as he replayed the memory. Her soft strawberry lips. The moment they touched. That brief pause and rush down his spine.
He sighed, releasing a pent up breath.
Usually he would sing away as he drove down the road. He'd belt out the verses and chorus like no one could see him in his glass cathedral. Tonight was different, though. His mind would not allow him to concentrate on the lyrics playing through the speakers. Instead, his thoughts were consumed by the flavor and shape of Faith's lips and the feeling that had surged through his body.
He wondered if she had really wanted him to talk to her before tonight. Why had she not said something? It didn't matter. He had finally made the move and things were beginning to kick off. He imagined taking her out on a date at some restaurant. Sitting across from her, lost at sea in her emerald green eyes. Refusing the desire to let his leg wander over to hers under the table. Then his thoughts shifted to the movie theater, watching some movie, any movie. Her hand cupped within his. His arm eventually draped around her neck once he finally mustered the courage to make the movie move.
He simply could not erase the grin on his face.
As his thoughts flew, the music suddenly ceased on the speakers. An automated female voice replaced the music to announce an incoming text message from none other than the girl on his mind, Faith Moreno. He had thought he could not grin any larger. He was wrong.
Aiden accepted the message and the same voice transcribed the text in surprising clarity.
“Hey Aiden! I had a great night. See you soon,” came Faith's words in a cool synthetic voice. The message ended and the music resumed.
The canopy of trees lightened as Aiden turned onto Rankin Road and accelerated forward. He glanced back up at the night sky. It seemed like each one of the countless shining dots shone for him tonight, their beauty rivaled only by the one and only Faith Moreno.
Up ahead, the driveway came into view. The stone columns stood erect and resolute on either edge of the entrance and trees lined the hard top. As he made the turn and continued down the cement drive, excitement took over again. He could not wait to tell his mom and dad of tonight’s adventures, of Faith. Maybe not the kiss, though, not yet. He'd tell Dad soon. It killed him that he'd likely have to wait till morning, though, unless on the off chance one of them was still up at this late hour. He checked the digital clock on his radio. 11:37 PM.
Around the bend in the drive, the house came into view. Immediately Aiden noted that the lights in the living room were on. A gentle golden hue painted the front windows. The Halloween lantern was still lit by the front door. His spirits lifted, but he still crinkled his brow.
That’s odd, seems a little late for them to still be up.
Then he caught sight of two unfamiliar vehicles parked in the driveway. They almost blocked his usual spot next to Mara’s car. There was an older Camry and something he did not recognize. He squinted, but it did little to dissuade the grin on his lips. That was likely to be a permanent side effect, he thought.
Maybe they had friends over for a party of their own. Aiden laughed at the thought.
CHAPTER 15
“Hold still and it’ll hurt less,” Bullet argued with Lenore as she jerked and writhed beneath Skull-face’s firm grip. She had made such a ruckus that Skull-face had fully mounted her body. He pressed his weight down onto her while Bullet prepared to make the next loop around her lips.
“Stop! I’m begging you, please stop!” Dalton yelled. His insides churned as the unsanitary needle pierced into his wife’s lip again. The soft gentle skin around her mouth retracted in toward the thin piece of metal until finally the skin gave way and the needle pierced through reddened flesh. His cries for mercy dwindled to a stuttered whimper. “Please stop!”
Inches away from Lenore’s tortured frame sat Mara, her eyes clamped shut, hands clasped tightly between her firmly braced legs. Streams of water trailed from her eyes like the strong supports of a dam had snapped behind those youthful blues. The blade at her neck glistened with those same tears. Right now that blade was all that held Dalton back. He wanted to jump up, to wrap his hands around one of their necks and squeeze and squeeze until their body stopped kicking.
“I think I might sew your mouth shut next after all,” Bullet said angrily. “Would you just shut up? It’s only going to get worse for her the more you blubber over there.”
He pulled the needle from her upper lip and let the strong clear string fish through the tiny piercing in her lip. Dalton tried to look away but he couldn't. His body clenched and writhed as he watched the string glide through her lips and then come to a jarring halt when the ungainly knot at the end met her lower lip at the needle’s initial entry point. He quivered, his stomach becoming queasy.
Lenore screamed. She tugged at the new wound with each shriek. Her body jerked and quaked as the pain and realization set in.
“If you’ll just sit still,” Bullet said again before plunging the needle in her lip and then reeled up and out her upper lip, quicker this time. “See there, I’m getting the hang of it.”
“You sick basta—,” Dalton groaned angrily before being cut off.
“Shut up,” Skull-face yelled shrilly.
“Why?” Dalton began to rail. “Why should I shut up? It doesn’t matter what I do, you’re still going to do whatever the f—“
The familiar chime sounded through the living room. Everyone froze, and except for Lenore and Mara, their eyes darted upward to the ceiling. Lenore yelped as her head was wrenched to the side by the fish string sewn through her lip when Bullet's attention had shot toward the entrance. They kept staring into the ceiling as if it would produce some answer to the melody’s forewarning. They all knew what it meant, though.
“What other piece of worthless human flesh do I have to deal with tonight?” Bullet huffed angrily. He looked at Dalton and posed a question, “Why the hell do people show up to your house so late?”
Dalton gave no answer. He sat there praying that whoever it was would just leave, turn around and go away for their own sake. He was not sure he could bear to see another human’s blood spilled on his doorstep. And for what? He still had no answer to that burning question. Why had they chosen his family? The question nagged at him again.
A few moments passed with everyone in suspended animation, staring along the ceiling. Then the sound of the approaching car’s engine reached them. Its deep throaty rumble increased as it drew closer and then went silent outside. Dalton's eyes widened.
Bullet’s gaze shot to the front door and then back to Freddie. He nodded toward Mara and Freddie quickly cupped the palm of his hand firmly over her mouth. His attention cracked back to the entrance, waiting.
No! Dalton’s mind screamed. He looked to Lenore and saw the same horror i
n her tortured eyes. No, A—
The garage door creaked open. Bullet shuffled on his feet behind Lenore, her eyes were wide, pleading.
“Y’all having a party or—“ Aiden began before he turned the bend and his eyes locked onto the horror of the living room. He froze, a look of absolute terror overtaking his features.
“Run, Aiden! Run!” Dalton screamed with all the might he had left.
Aiden's eyes darted between Dalton, the masked strangers, his distraught sister, his mother. Aiden stood in place like a stone column, unable to move even though his mind begged him to place one foot in front of the other.
“Run, Aiden! Get out of here! Now!” Dalton continued to yell for what felt like minutes while his son stood dumbfounded.
Breaking the stalemate, Skull-face rebounded and jumped to his feet. It was the motivation Aiden needed. His mind and limbs finally synced and he tore back toward the garage. Skull-face turned back toward Bullet who was still locked in place, needle held high above Lenore, staring where Aiden had just stood.
“We’ve got to stop him!” Skull-face yelled frantically.
Bullet finally jolted out of his trance and shook his head. He nodded desperately. He let the needle drop onto Lenore’s chest and reached behind his back, retrieving the pistol.
“Scare him. Don’t harm him,” Bullet ordered sternly, though there was a certain reservation in his tone as he handed Skull-face the pistol.
“Whatever,” Skull-face chided as he grabbed the weapon and bolted out the door.
The doorframe, his parents' cars, the exit from the garage, all of it passed by like a blur, like some untouchable nightmare. He just ran, terrified of the scene inside. Had it been real? Aiden’s mind began to second guess what he had seen inside. Three masked intruders. His dad yelling at him to run. His sister broken down in tears on the couch with a knife to her throat. His mother’s eyes crying for him to run with...with her lips half sewn shut. It had all seared into his memory with such vivid clarity. The disgusting Freddie Krueger mask. The red skull and the eerie white mask with a singular hole in the forehead. Real or a nightmare? Real.
The door slammed behind him and the starry sky came into view. As he had feared, the sound of rushing footsteps followed him from inside the house. He kept running. Just get to the car.
Aiden veered around the rear of the Camry in the dark before the floodlight flickered on. For a second he was blind. Everything was a searing white, but he didn't stop. He kept moving. He knew where he was going. Finally, shades of black and grey came back into view and the outline of his Camaro appeared, a bit closer than he'd expected it. He altered course, skidded around the other side of the car and dashed for the driver’s door. As his hand made contact with the handle, a voice shouted behind him.
“Stop right there, Aiden!” the thin voice railed angrily. It pierced through the darkness, through the cold air and caused his body to shiver. “You get in that car and they all die.”
Aiden’s hand clasped the handle, keys held in the opposite hand. His mind begged him to just wrench the door open and make a run for it. His heart had other plans. He closed his eyes and huffed, making a small mist across the lamp light cast over him by the floodlight. Without letting go of the door handle, Aiden turned to face the voice. It was the intruder with the red skull on his mask.
“And believe me, we’ll do it. Can you imagine it, slicing open your dad’s belly, letting him bleed out while his intestines fall out,” Skull-face taunted him. “Or maybe Mommy. Just come back with me and they’ll be all right. That’s all you have to do.”
His body quivered. What type of monsters are they?
Aiden released his grip on the door handle as he contemplated his options. He stared down the intruder, the boy that had been sent to fetch him, to stop him from leaving. The red mask, some indistinguishable graphic on his black t-shirt and dark blue jeans all shrouded in shadow, out of reach of the blaring glare of the floodlight. He could make a run for it and let his family suffer or stay and maybe, just maybe, keep them from that fate. His mind wrestled with his options even though the answer was clear to him. He fidgeted with the door handle. He wanted so badly to open the car door.
A faint glow reached out to him from inside the Camaro through the tinted glass. He dared not turn his head to look, but he didn't need to. It was his phone. Some notification had apparently woke the screen briefly enough to merit his attention. He had left it in the car in all his excitement. His excitement. Now his horror. Without taking his eyes off the skull mask, he continued to mull his decision over and over again through his mind.
Finally, Aiden let his gloved hand let go of the handle and stepped from behind the car. He stepped out into the glare of the floodlight, out into open territory, his decision made. He started to walk toward Skull-face despite every instinct that told him he should bolt in the opposite direction. His hands shook not only from the cold, but from the fear that was building exponentially under his skin. The cold did not help matters any as it seeped under the thin fabric of his costume.
Skull-face cocked his head as Aiden approached. “Are you serious? You’re dressed up like Spiderman?” There was something familiar in that high taunting voice, but his tensed mind could not decipher the connection. “It is Halloween, though, I guess.”
Aiden took his steps slow and careful. He moved closer to masked man, trying to ignore the question. He had not changed before coming home because he figured his mom would complain if he didn’t let her get one last Halloween costume picture, that was if she had stayed up. That was sure to be the last thing on her mind right now.
A glint of light sparked around the masked boy's shadow as he came more into the floodlight. Aiden saw the gun form in Skull-face’s hand and stopped in his tracks. His breathing became more labored and his eyes glued to the black piece of metal.
“Come on now, Aiden, I don’t have all night,” Skull-face urged.
Who are these people? Aiden wondered. He forced his right foot to move and managed another short step forward. Suddenly he was not as sure about his decision. He had to, he knew he couldn’t run, but the thought of a bullet colliding with his chest gave a new reason to take a step backward. He willed his left foot to move and then the other, finally moving again, his eyes moving back to the red skull.
Then he made his move. Without a second thought, he veered to his left and sprinted behind the garage. He had committed. He ran.
“Stop!” Skull-face screamed after him, waving the gun frantically after his fleeing target.
Aiden tensed his body as he ran, waiting for his skin to split open where the bullet would smash into him. Waiting for it to exit out his chest in a spray of red and meaty chunks. The impact never came, but he couldn't loosen his body as he ran.
The patting of rushing footsteps chased after him. He hoped the darkness around this edge of the house would make it more difficult for Skull-face, throw him off and provide him with more time. As Aiden’s eyes adjusted, the blackness gave way to a border of trees. A combination of red maples, prickly hollies and sycamores. The trees gave way to the calm ripples of the lake and the family boat dock a good twenty yards away from the rear face of the house.
“Aiden!” the boy, yes, the boy, Aiden was sure, yelled after him.
Refusing to stop, Aiden made the bend around the northwestern corner of the house. He immediately stole away under the upper deck which served up a grand view of the lake on a nice summer evening. He reached out for the door leading into the small shed under the house. Aiden wrenched the door open and quietly rushed in. He yanked the door back into its frame without a sound.
Inside, he took up a spot in the corner next to a green-shafted weed eater. A push mower and a set of empty round paint drums sat to his right. A series of shelves lined the opposite wall occupied by a slew of varied items. A clear Tupperware box of Christmas lights, garland and what Aiden was nearly positive was the family Christmas tree. An old cardboard box with some knick-knacks
from his Paw Jensen, his mom’s dad who he saw maybe twice a year at best. A bright red toolbox, the same one he had rummaged through on numerous occasions.
The sound of footsteps increased in volume, Aiden’s eyes shot to the shed door. The lock. He rushed forward and twisted the small protrusion on the door, earning a faint click. It sounded like thunder to him. He shrunk back into the corner. The footsteps grew closer.
“Aiden.” The voice was muffled through the door. It was nearby, maybe a few feet from the door, hovering somewhere under the deck checking in the shadows. Aiden imagined the pistol waving in a horizontal arch searching him out. Involuntarily, he shook.
Suddenly, the door handle shook. Aiden froze and held his breath. The brushed silver knob jiggled, “Aiden? You in there?”
The knob shook again, but Skull-face did not call out again, instead he listened. Aiden held his breath, his eyes locked on the small lock in the center of knob. Finally, the sound of footsteps started up again, moving away from the door.
The boy yelled his name a few more times, each time the sound becoming quieter as Skull-face continued his search, moving further away. Aiden finally let go of the breath he was holding. He looked down at his shaking hands. He gripped them together, trying to stop them, trying to calm his nerves.
As the voice faded away, Aiden looked around the room for a weapon. He knew what he had to do now. First he needed a weapon, though. He needed something that could give him a chance on his way back up to his car. He surveyed the small tack board. His eyes settled on a long screwdriver. He reached up and pulled it from its peg. He looked at it carefully, imagined poking at the skull-faced boy with it. He grimaced. Then his eyes caught sight of on old pickaxe. He crinkled his brow in disgust, but found himself laying the screwdriver down onto the clean workbench.
The axe was an old tool, one of the ones handed down from his grandpa. Cautiously, like somehow it might jump up and grab him, he reached down and lifted it by the long wooden handle. He felt the small imperfections in the wood, the roughness in its texture. He gripped tighter and raised the metal end up to his eyes, measuring up his new tool, his weapon. He slid his keys between the costume bottoms and his bare skin and then he gulped and bit at his lip nervously. He took one last glance at the axe before letting its business end arch down and hang lightly at his side.
To Watch You Bleed Page 16
