Charlie raised the steak knife. Andy spotted it. Again, Charlie expected his friend to shoo him away, to stop whatever it was he might be thinking.
But again, Andy did not. Instead, his eyes projected something more akin to hope than helplessness. And he nodded. Nodded once to his friend who now stood at the foot of the bed with a knife, Andy’s mother oblivious to his presence, her drunkenness exempting her from the “we all have that unexplainable feeling of being watched” rule.
Charlie lunged, plunging the knife deep into Mrs. Franklin’s back. She cried out and arched backwards, throwing up both arms, one of the arms reaching back for the source of the pain.
Charlie plunged again. He got her in the shoulder this time, Andy’s mother turning and catching Charlie’s eye, screeching, swiping for him. Charlie dodged her blow and plunged again, the knife sinking into her naked chest this time.
Andy bucked his mother off, rolled out from under her and fell off the bed, scrambled to his feet and launched his own attack, pummeling his mother with his fists, Charlie continuing to plunge the knife everywhere, blood spattering the white sheets, spattering the white walls, spattering everywhere.
Andy’s mother continued to screech wildly, inarticulate cries like a wild bird, as she tried to fight back. Andy’s fist found the hinge of her jaw and knocked her into a slumped daze on the bed, Andy then taking the knife from his friend to continue what Charlie had started, stabbing his mother repeatedly. He stabbed her neck, her face, her chest, her stomach, her face and neck again.
When it was done, a modest estimate would be that Andy had stabbed his mother at least fifty times—thirty until she was dead, and then another twenty after.
• • •
The two of them, flecked head to toe with blood—Andy still gripping the knife, almost as though he was afraid to let it go, that she might rise from the dead at any moment as demons do—stood at the foot of the bed, panting heavily, taking in the scene.
They had yet to speak to one another. Yet to even look at one another. Now they did. And there was no fear in their shared gaze; it was, instead, a shared gaze of righteousness.
Charlie was the first to speak. “No more,” he said to Andy. And he did not mean they should cease any more plunges of the knife. What Charlie meant was, and he damn well said it: “They don’t own us anymore.”
Andy nodded back, then turned his attention back to his dead mother on the bed. He kept his gaze on his mother when he said: “What about you?”
“Will you help?” Charlie asked.
Andy looked at him. “Absolutely.”
20
…Cut to a scene of both brothers standing at the foot of the bed, the handheld camera Arty was carrying now replacing Jim’s body cam, likely positioned on a nearby dresser. The only light in the room is now coming from the camera on the dresser. It is faint but sufficient to capture any and all action.
Both brothers pull their masks from their waistbands and pull them on. The faint sound of their breathing behind their masks can be heard. The sleeping man and woman do not stir.
The lunatic faces nod at one another and move into position, each taking a spot at the couple’s bedside, Jim the man’s, Arty’s the woman’s.
They do precisely as they announced they would and merely loom over their respective targets, doing nothing else but waiting and watching with the pale rubber faces of lunatics.
Finding masks was not a problem. Halloween was close, and a twenty-four-hour supermarket nearby had a decent amount. Like Arty and Jim, Andy and Charlie had bought identical masks, theirs not the extreme and exaggerated faces of lunatics, but plain white masquerade masks, the kind the Phantom of the Opera might wear if he was trying to cover his entire face as opposed to only half. Andy and Charlie had even boldly suggested that such masks held potential to be even more frightening than Arty and Jim’s. Those blank, emotionless white faces? They likened them to messengers of death. Indifferent to pity. Such harrowing attributes projected from a simple mask, it tickled them to the point of giggles in the aisle of that twenty-four-hour supermarket.
Entering the Halls’ home? Well, no gas man act was necessary for that. Charlie had a key to the front door. The only similarity of their preparation to Arty and Jim’s was their wait until the wee hours of the morning—when Charlie’s parents were fast asleep.
And wait they did. And carefully ascend the stairs as Arty and Jim had in the darkness they did. And even listen to the snores of Mr. Hall floating out of the master bedroom for assurance Mr. and Mrs. Hall were indeed fast asleep they did.
What they did not do, like Arty and Jim had, was pick a side of the bed to loom over. Charlie had expressed concern to Andy that his father might overpower him. A big man, a big brutish man, Mr. Hall held the potential of overcoming his initial shock at their presence, no matter how frightening, and of setting about defending himself. Charlie would have offered little threat on his own, just as he’d done his whole life.
Therefore, Charlie had suggested that he and Andy stand by Mr. Hall’s side of the bed. And knives, he’d also suggested to Andy, might be no guarantee. A strong man like his father was capable of fighting through slashes and stabs. They’d found out the hard way with Mrs. Franklin that people did not die quickly from the knife. They’d found out from the whore and the tire iron, however, that blunt-force trauma ended messy matters quickly.
So hammers were chosen. One for each, these too acquired at the supermarket earlier.
In position now. Both of them waiting on Mr. Hall’s side of the bed, hammers gripped tight in their fists.
(“We ALL have that unexplainable feeling of being watched…”)
Mr. Hall opened his eyes.
The woman opens her eyes first and releases a blood-curdling scream. Arty throws his head back, and although his face is hidden beneath the mask, it is audibly clear that he has burst out laughing.
The man wakes a split second after, eyes wide and frightened before even settling on Jim. When he does, he screams too, his pitch only slightly lower than his wife’s, and Jim too throws his head back, clearly laughing beneath the mask.
“WHAT THE FUCK?!!!” Mr. Hall yelled, jerking bolt upright in bed. His face initially registered fear, yet was quickly replaced with rage.
Charlie did not hesitate. He brought the hammer down onto his father’s head, hitting him square between the eyes, stunning him and sending him back onto his pillow.
Andy’s turn. He nudged his friend aside and swung his own hammer, catching Mr. Hall on the face, crushing bone. He brought the hammer down three more times after that, drawing blood, cracking more bone, cracking teeth.
Now Charlie nudged Andy aside, his one initial blow not nearly enough. He brought the hammer down too many times to count, Mr. Hall now unconscious, possibly dead, lying there and taking it, blood spraying Charlie’s white mask.
Mr. Hall’s body did ultimately move, legs kicking, arms up, seemingly flailing, but it was all involuntary, the seizures of a man who’d sustained a horrific brain injury.
Mrs. Hall screamed and rolled out of bed, made a break for the door. Andy ran after her. Charlie continued to bludgeon his father.
The man does not lunge after Jim, but instead rolls over towards his wife and drapes himself on top of her, keen to protect her from whatever may come.
Jim begins capering about the room, a maniacal dance befitting the mask he is wearing. He emits howls and shrieks. Arty can be heard laughing. Jim leaps on the bed to continue his dance, bouncing up and down, rocking the couple in each other’s arms, emitting the animal cries of a crazed monkey now.
Midbounce, Jim’s feet in the air, the husband grows nerve and lunges for Jim’s legs with one giant swipe of his arm, sweeping Jim’s legs out from under him, Jim hitting the bed at an odd angle before dropping hard to the floor.
The husband then leaps from the bed and lunges for Arty.
Mrs. Hall pounded her way down the stairs, losing her footing on the last few steps and pitching for
ward hard onto unforgiving foyer tile.
Andy, close behind, leapt from those same last few steps and landed on top of her, feet first, his full weight driving the wind from her body. She rolled into a fetal ball, eyes bulging, mouth opening and closing without sound, desperate to find air.
Andy laughed and declared, with great surprise and delight: “You fell! You actually tripped and fell! It’s like a movie!”
Mrs. Hall looked up at Andy, her face suddenly quizzical, projecting an odd expression of familiarity amongst its sea of terror. I know that voice, her face said.
And Andy pulled off his mask and grinned down at her. “That’s right, bitch,” he said, and promptly brought the hammer down. But not onto her head, no—her head was Charlie’s. He brought it down everywhere but the head—her hands, her bare feet, her legs, her torso—making sure she remained conscious but immobile for his friend.
The husband dives at Arty’s waist, driving him backwards, the two of them hitting the wall. The husband throws a succession of wild, ineffective blows, Arty covering up and absorbing them.
Jim rises up from behind the bed. Pulls back the sheets and snatches the wife by the ankle, dragging her kicking, screaming body towards him. Her jerks her off the bed where her upper body hits the floor with a heavy thud. He then grips her scalp and rips her to her feet, wrapping an arm around her throat from behind.
The husband and Arty continue to fight in the corner, the husband cursing, spitting, crying as he continues to flail ineffectually at Arty’s guard, Arty laughing all the while at his efforts.
Jim whistles once, loudly, like a blast from a gym whistle, piercing the chaos of the husband and Arty’s fight. The husband turns and sees Jim with his forearm around his wife’s neck. Jim quickly changes his hold and grips the wife’s forehead and chin, wrenching her neck violently to one side, snapping it, killing her instantly. She crumbles in Jim’s arms, and he lets her drop to the floor like laundry.
The husband cries out and rushes towards Jim. Jim braces for his charge, then sidesteps at the last second, the man stumbling forward against the opposite wall. Arty and Jim pounce.
The husband’s neck is a trickier break, but together they eventually manage it.
Charlie, rushing from his parents’ bedroom, came to a sudden halt midway down the stairs when he took in the scene below: his mother, moaning at Andy’s feet, battered but still alive.
Yet what had halted his descent with the greatest force had nothing to do with his mother, but with Andy.
He’d taken off his mask.
Taking each step slowly and methodically now, one hand on the railing, the other still gripping the hammer in a dripping red fist that was soaked up to the elbow, Charlie eased his way down the remainder of the stairs.
He now stood over his mother, looking down on her with a growing surge of power that rivaled anything he’d felt thus far. And now he too removed his mask. And his mother, perhaps already suspecting his identity, did not gape back wide-eyed and incredulously as she’d done with Andy, but instead did something that truly surprised Charlie: She actually had the audacity to sob out “Why?”
And for a moment, Charlie froze. The question, seemingly sincere, could do nothing else but flabbergast Charlie. Why? Why? Was this woman lying before him who had been his mother in title only really asking the nest why it had erupted after years of poking it? No—scratch that; after years of watching his father poke it? Watching and doing absolutely nothing about it? Did she not know that it was only a matter of time before the swarm descended upon them?
The swarm. He liked that. He and Andy were the swarm that had been poked by too many for too long, chief of them their own flesh and blood. And now it was time for the swarm to have their say.
“If you really have to ask why—” Charlie began, searching for something clever and righteous to conclude, but instead could only manage “—then fuck you!” and brought the hammer down onto her skull again and again until he was full-on sobbing and she was no longer recognizable and Andy was forced to pull him off.
• • •
Charlie and Andy dragged Mrs. Hall’s corpse up the stairs and back into the master bedroom, laying her on the bed next to her husband. The room was a mess of red. The sheets, the walls, the rugs. And then there was the foyer where Charlie had killed his mother. The stairs they’d dragged her up. The hallway they’d dragged her down.
And then, of course, there was Andy’s house. They’d yet to clean up after Mrs. Franklin.
Their like minds, blood drunk only moments ago, were now sobering up. And like the metaphorical night of debauchery came the hungover realization of the mess they’d made.
But no regrets. No regrets at all. Only realization of the mess. It would have to be cleaned up. Cleaned up and accounted for. Disposing of their parents’ bodies, cleaning up the blood, that was mere labor.
Accounting for their absence? That was where Andy and Charlie’s night of debauchery had tripped them up, their blood-drunk minds failing to employ foresight. People would soon come looking. Employers would call. Friends might check in after messages went unanswered. Charlie’s sister might drop by for a free meal or to bum a few bucks.
Or would they?
Let the employers call to no avail. Fire their asses.
Let friends drop by when messages went unanswered. It’s not like the fuckers had any close friends.
Let Charlie’s druggie sister drop by for a handout. Mom and Dad stepped out. Don’t know where they went or when they’ll be back. Oh, and go ahead and try to OD during the interim if you can, bitch.
Jim and Arty back in the master bedroom, masks now removed, each taking a side of the bed as they had when first entering with their masks. The husband and wife have been placed back on the bed next to one another. Both bodies are already exceptionally pale. Their dead eyes are open, staring up at the ceiling.
Arty turns his head towards the camera that is back on the dresser again, affording the audience the panoramic view of the bed, the bodies, Arty and Jim.
“So, before we sign off for the night,” Arty begins, “we need to discuss disposal. In one of our previous tapes, we mentioned that we would cover ‘waste management’ when it came to home invasions in Any Town USA. Unlike hookers and runaways and such—where disposal can sometimes be as easy as tossing them on the side of the road—disposal for folks in Any Town USA is a bit trickier.”
“Good point,” Jim says. “You can leave them as is,” he gestures to the dead couple on the bed, “and hope they get discovered later rather than sooner, hope that you were damn careful in not leaving anything incriminating behind, but needless to say, this is pretty risky.”
“Very true,” Arty says. “We’ve done it, of course, but we’re as advanced as they come. Not a crumb of evidence left behind. That, coupled with our ploy of constantly changing our M.O. and selection process—as we’ve previously discussed—and I’m sure Jim and I have built quite the impressive pile of cold cases.”
Jim nods and smiles proudly at this.
“So,” Arty goes on, “what does that leave us? More appropriately—leave you? Well, you need to leave zero trace behind, especially if you got messy. And you’ll need one hell of a dumping site. With all traces of the crime removed and with proper disposal, police will treat the whole thing as a missing-persons-type deal. Far better for them to pursue a missing-persons case than good old murder. Missing-persons cases can take forever. Murder will of course be on the table, but with no evidence of such to go on, they can suspect all kinds of other shit.”
“Clean your mess from top to bottom,” Jim says. “And right now you’re probably thinking regular old bleach will do the job, right? Wrong. Most bleach is chlorine-based. It still leaves DNA behind.”
Arty nods. “You want something oxygen-based. Oxygen-based bleach is your best friend when removing all traces of DNA in blood. So, grab yourselves some of that goodness and get to scrubbing.”
“As for the dumping
site,” Jim says, “like we mentioned, you need a damn good one. Depending on where you live, we suggest some seriously remote deserts or forests. Think like a mobster. Remember Goodfellas? Casino? Woods and deserts.”
“Lakes and rivers are another option, and they’ll do in a pinch, but they’re not as sure a thing,” Arty says. “No matter how well you might weigh the bodies down, there’s always a chance they can surface.”
“So, there you go,” Jim says with splayed hands. “Oxygen-based bleach for the mess, and woods and desert for disposal.”
“And don’t forget to clean your transportation thoroughly afterwards,” Arty adds. “It’s amazing how often this is overlooked. Clean that trunk like you’re trying to sell the car to the freaking pope. And need we even mention to drive carefully to your preferred dumping site? Make sure no brake lights are out, and make sure all stickers and such are up to date. It’s the little things that often trip you up.”
“Yep.”
Arty looks at Jim. “We cover everything?”
“I think so.”
“Okay then—” Arty gestures down at the husband and wife. “I’d like to thank these two for making this delightful evening possible.”
Jim leans over and pats their heads one at a time. His touch is affectionate.
Arty continues. “And as usual, Jim and I hope you found this evening’s episode enlightening. I know we enjoyed it.”
Jim nods emphatically.
“So until next time…”
Andy looked at Charlie. “I guess we need to get some oxygen-based bleach.”
“And a good dump spot,” Charlie said.
Andy nodded. “Got a long night ahead of us.”
• • •
Six a.m. It was done.
They sat at the table in Andy’s kitchen, both exhausted and grimy from the intensive cleaning and labor. They’d found a perfect stretch of woods roughly a half hour away. Digging a large enough hole was difficult, yet the compensation fueled their efforts. Curiously enough, it was cleaning both houses top to bottom that had proven the most tedious, yet this too was completed without complaint, with the delightful knowledge that it was another step forward in their growth. They could claim a thousand lives, perhaps even surpass Arty and Jim’s prolific status; however, they would have always had the unshakeable demons on their backs that were their parents.
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