Only nothing could have been further from the truth. There was no happy ending to be had here. And again, that’s all the audience really cared about, wasn’t it? The happy ending. They were not there for The After. Did not want The After. The After was when the audience wanted the credits to roll and to gather their empty tubs of popcorn and soda cups and head for the exits with big smiles on their faces, not wanting to know what happened to their heroes after. Because if they did, if the credits failed to roll, if the movie kept on going and showed the horrific aftermath, the psychological damage—far, far, greater than anything physical—they’d endured, the movie would be a box office flop.
How she would have loved to have walked out with the rest of the audience when the credits rolled, but no, they’d been strapped into their seats, forced to endure the bonus features that were The After immediately following the feature presentation. Deleted scenes the director, the relentless bastard, had cut from the final print to please the masses. And there was no turning those bonus features off, of course. No slack from the binds that held them to their seats. They were strapped in for the duration, forced to watch on a continuous loop, each viewing somehow worse than the last, as though the relentless director was adding new material to those goddamn bonus features with each passing day.
Allan was the one who seemed the least fazed by it all. This could presumably be accounted for by the simple fact that he’d endured the least, a perfectly reasonable assumption, and certainly one not worth resenting, but at times Amy did resent it. Especially when Allan urged her to push on. Because sometimes, as far as Amy was concerned, it was too fucking hard to push on. Sometimes it was perfectly all right to just lie down and cry and not address other matters…like her relationship with Allan. Which, for reasons Amy simply could not comprehend, Allan felt the need to address now. Address by kissing her longer than she felt appropriate, his hand caressing her shoulder and back and working its way down her body.
“What are you doing?” she said, pulling away from him.
“What?”
“You want to have sex?”
“Is that so awful?”
She pulled back further. “I can’t believe you.”
“What’s so difficult to believe?”
“How can you possibly think sex is appropriate at a time like this?”
Now he was the one who pulled back. “Well, when is it appropriate, Amy?”
She frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Do I really need to say it?”
Amy sat up on an elbow, ready for confrontation. “Yes please.”
“When was the last time we had sex, Amy?” he asked. “Serious question, not rhetorical. Can you honestly tell me the last time we had sex?”
“Oh, gee, let me check my Fuck Journal for the last entry.”
Allan popped up on his elbow now, equally ready for combat. “Don’t bother. I can tell you. It was after the Carters’ party. You were drunk. Big surprise.”
She sat up in bed completely now. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You going to keep saying that every time you’re trying to skirt the answer?”
“I was drunk, so what? I can’t get drunk now and then?”
Allan sat up completely now too. “Funny how sex is only ever initiated by you when you’re drunk.”
Amy hopped off the bed. “I don’t need this shit right now.” She snatched the quilt off of him and started for the door.
“That’s it, storm away. Amy’s classic go-to move to avoid talking about all things dysfunctional in our relationship.”
“You’re an asshole.” She left the room and went downstairs.
• • •
On the sofa, curled up in the quilt in an angry ball, Amy considered Allan’s words. The pain of it was that sex was easier for her when she was drinking. Not because she didn’t find Allan attractive—she did—but because even after all this time, she’d never once been able to make love to him sober without thinking about Patrick.
Amy pulled the quilt over her head and cried. For reasons only the asshole director knew, production for the sequel to the box office flop was well under way.
And when Caleb stumbled home after Amy had finally dozed off, went to the basement and masturbated over the memory of what had transpired earlier, there could be no question that this production of The After was going to bomb even harder than its predecessor.
13
Caleb had learned the value of alcohol—or, to be more precise, of getting drunk—in his teens. Alcohol quieted the bad thoughts that haunted him. Of course it also allowed him to become uninhibited. A double-edged sword if there ever was one. Want to stop thinking about killing people? Here, have a drink. And another. And then one more. Job done. Oh, and while drunk, you might say and do shit that you horribly regret. Did I forget to mention that?
Up until now, Caleb had managed only a few drunken burblings (of the very dark and odd nature) in high school and the Corps that were thankfully written off as drunken burblings. The worst feedback he’d ever received from friends and fellow Marines was that he got “weird” when he drank. He could live with that.
Now. Now? His pile driver of a hangover was a delight next to the recollection that followed. His skin instantly flushed stovetop hot, sweat seemingly coming from every pore. Worse still, he was naked from the waist down. His boxer shorts next to him in a disgusting, crumpled ball with which he’d wiped his seed after passing out. Good Christ, he was pathetic.
His first immediate thought when all of it came back to him was suicide. He instantly recalled An American Werewolf in London, one of his favorite films. How the main character, after being bitten by a werewolf and becoming one himself, was constantly haunted by his dead friend who urged him to take his own life so as to spare others. Such a prospect made damn good sense to Caleb right about now.
Only…
(Only what?)
Only the werewolf in the film had killed without prejudice. Killed good people. The bartender, the pimp, he was a bad man, wasn’t he? Who would mourn the loss of scum like that? He had done the world a favor.
(Is that what you’re going to tell yourself? Maybe—MAYBE—I’ll give that to you, but after? The lust you felt? Using that lust on a woman and then again on yourself when you got home? You want to explain that?)
I didn’t hurt the girl. She was a sort of…
(A sort of what?)
…surrogate.
(Surrogate???)
Why not?
(Are you really justifying all of this? Justifying cold-blooded murder to get your rocks off?)
No.
(Sure sounds like it. So, is this going to be your thing now? You going to be some kind of vigilante swooping from rooftop to rooftop, taking out bad guys and then releasing your urges on the damsel in distress? Batman with a hard-on?)
No.
(You say that now. Only, you got a taste for it last night. How long until the urges build beyond your control again?)
I was drunk. I just won’t drink anymore.
(That easy, huh? Suppose you DO do it again—suppose you do become Batman with a hard-on and only punish the bad guys. How long until that’s not enough? You think a guy restricted to porn doesn’t pine for the real thing? You know about serial killers and escalation. How long until YOU escalate? How long until the surrogate isn’t enough? That taste for it you got last night, you know damn well that’s the start of the downfall for serial killers. No going back from there.)
It won’t happen again. It was a one-time thing. I went in with good intentions, dammit. I went in with the intent of conditioning myself. If the girl hadn’t stopped sucking my cock and asked me to fuck her, it would have gone as plan—
(Oh, so that’s it, is it? Blaming HER?)
No. No—of course not. But my intentions were good. They were good! I did not plan any of it! Even when I stomped the son of a bitch, I had no endgame. What happened after…
It just…happened. I did NOT plan it. It just all happened so damn fast.
(And jerking off to it when you came home? Weren’t too grief-stricken about it to do that, were you?)
I was drunk.
(Such a damn cliché. “I didn’t mean it; I was drunk.” Weak. Very weak.)
Caleb swung his legs over the side of the bed and dropped his head into his hands.
Oh God…Oh God, what did I do?
(The question now is, what DO you do?)
You mean come clean? Turn myself in?
(Think you can stop on your own?)
I’m not the werewolf. The full moon was his booze. It was given to him without his say. I can avoid the full moon. I simply won’t touch another drop. Never.
(Once again, you think it’s that easy?)
It has to be.
(Or else what? You’ll eat a silver bullet?)
If it comes to that.
(What would Domino say to that? What would Dad say?)
They’re dead.
(Playing the martyr now, are we?)
No.
(Do me one favor, will you? Think about last night. Really think about it. The feeling you got when you stomped that man to death. Think about the girl after. Visualize it for me, right down to the fucking smell.)
…
(Aroused?)
No.
(Liar.)
I’m not.
(Prove it then.)
How?
(Go back to the scene of the crime.)
What the hell for?
(See whether it triggers any arousal for you. Serial killers often go back to the scenes of their crimes to relive the moment.)
I’m not a serial killer.
(Fine. Still doesn’t change anything. Go back and see whether you feel anything…stimulating.)
That’s just plain fucking stupid.
(Fine, don’t do it then.)
I’m not.
(It’ll haunt you, though.)
It’s already haunting me.
(The lot is behind a bar. Go in for a drink. Wander out back to take a piss. If someone questions you, well, you’re a guy at a bar who wandered outside to take a piss.)
Instead of using the toilet inside?
(Take your phone with you. Say you went out to make a call and decided to take a piss while you were out there.)
This is insane. People saw me there last night. People saw me talking to the bartender. For all I know, someone saw me KILL the son of a bitch. We sure as hell know the girl saw me kill him. What if she’s there?
(She’d be a fool to show her face anywhere near there.)
So her showing her face is foolish, but me showing mine isn’t???
(Fine, don’t do it then.)
I’m not. I WILL not.
• • •
Caleb quickly dressed and was grateful he didn’t run into his mother on his way out. He had the cab pick him up two blocks over.
14
To Andy Franklin and Charlie Hall, school was like prison. Each and every day, they were the fresh meat in the yard, ripe for the pickings.
Today was different. Not for lack of trying by the inmates, though. They ridiculed Charlie’s newly shaved head, Andy’s bandaged finger (“Did ya get that jerking off too much, freak?”), dished out the usual abuse to both. But much like the armor they’d acquired when first obtaining the box of tapes, they now boasted even more armor after last night’s events.
They were killers now. This simple truth tickled them endlessly throughout the day. To look at fellow students—better yet, bullies—and know that they were mere high school peons, not ruthless killers like they. To look at each other in the classroom. Exchange secretive glances and smirks and grins, both silently reveling in their shared secret. Their shared power. Killers walk among you, those secret glances said. We walk among you.
It was all so intoxicating. And they had no intentions of letting that intoxication wane. They were just getting started. For the first time since either of them could recall, their lives had meaning.
15
Caleb had the cabbie drop him off at a 7-Eleven a few blocks away from the bar, feeling it best to creep up on the place, street by street, casually glancing here and there like an everyday fella out for a little stroll. He’d even purchased a Coke from the 7-Eleven, sipping coolly from it every ten feet or so to complete his unassuming approach.
Irony was, such an unassuming act was apt to raise more eyebrows than lower them for anyone paying attention. Such a town like this had no sightseers. Those who did walk the streets got to where they were going in a hurry. Those who loitered were two types: those with nowhere to go, and those who people went to.
Caleb realized this sooner than later, and since he did not feel like being asked for a handout by those with nowhere to go, and since he definitely did not want those who waited for people to come to them to think him a narc of some kind and get all shooty-stabby, he decided to abort the everyday-fella-out-for-a-stroll act, dump the Coke, and get to where he was going in a hurry.
• • •
The urge to get right to the meat of it all was too much for Caleb. He decided to abort the idea of going into the bar for a drink and instead took a side street through an alley adjacent to the bar’s lot in back. He pulled his phone and pretended to be in conversation, minding his business. He even planned to go ahead with the idea of stopping for a piss to complete the whole indifferent act. Good thing too—his anxiety was such that his bladder wanted nothing more than to be emptied.
He came upon the lot. It was empty. No cars. No white van.
Where was the van?
The answer came quickly.
She had taken the van. Of course she had. It was the only explanation that made any sense. Perhaps she’d reconsidered Caleb’s words last night about being paroled. Taken the van and driven off somewhere for a new start.
Does any of it matter? he wondered. You aren’t here to solve a mystery. No—scratch that. You ARE here to solve a mystery. The mystery of whether you’re feeling any sort of arousal by being in the vicinity.
He wandered deeper into the lot, eventually heading down the alley where he had stomped the bartender to death and fucked the girl by the dumpster. He closed his eyes and attempted to recall it all in as vivid detail as possible. Alcohol fuzzed the memory, but it was still there. Repeatedly crushing the man’s skull with his heel, turning towards the girl and pulling her towards him immediately after, her not resisting, him taking her from behind with savage intensity.
He felt the starts of an erection.
“You okay, man?”
Caleb snapped from his daze, his shock equal parts fear and shame—a boy being caught masturbating. He found himself looking at two teenage boys. One with dark hair, the other no hair. A shaved head. They stared at Caleb with amused interest, as though they had caught him masturbating.
“Yeah, fine,” Caleb said quickly. He straightened himself up, recall of last night instantly gone in the face of the two amused onlookers. “Can I help you guys?” he asked. His tone was not pleasant.
“Shouldn’t be here, man,” the one with hair said. “Someone was killed last night.”
Caleb’s pulse quickened. His stomach swirled with adrenaline. These boys, their amused look. They’d seen him kill the bartender. Had to be. Only…
(Only?)
…only they didn’t look right. They didn’t look like the typical kids you’d see wandering around such a neighborhood. They looked like suburban kids. Kids like him.
And the similarities didn’t stop there. There was something else. Something Caleb simply couldn’t put his finger on for the moment. Something in their gaze and manner. For reasons that continued to make no sense to him, Caleb felt the boys could have been there for the exact reason he was there—that this precise spot in a deserted lot in a shit town behind a shit bar held some sort of significance to them. The notion was absurd, of course, and lo
gic played no part in the notion, but then it was more of a hunch than anything rooted in deduction. A feeling.
“That right?” Caleb asked, feigning mild surprise. If these boys had spotted him killing the bartender last night, they weren’t coming right out with it. They seemed content—almost delighted—to make some sort of game out of it. If there was one thing a Lambert didn’t like, it was fucking games.
“Well, not here,” the one with hair said. “A few blocks away.”
Not here? What the hell did that mean?
But like the mystery of the absent van, this answer too came quickly. They’d seen him and the girl dump the bartender’s body, not kill him. But this raised another immediate question that tied into his earlier assessment of the two boys. That meant these boys were loitering about late last night in a town that would have swallowed their suburban white meat up in a single gulp. They would have needed great incentive to be in such a spot at such a time. And this realization only added more ammunition to his feeling that the boys were here because the spot held significance. More ammunition, but no more clarity. His gut feeling was still just that—a gut feeling with nothing tangible to support its being.
“Yikes,” Caleb said, playing their game right back. Much as it irked him, it felt like the thing to do. “Scary stuff. Who was the guy?”
The two boys exchanged a look, still seemingly amused. As if you don’t know, Caleb felt their shared look said to one another.
Bad Games- The Complete Series Page 100
