Killercon

by William Ollie

  Carrie took one last hit before passing the joint to Larry. “That’s pretty damned smart.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s my accountant’s idea. He’s pretty sharp,” Larry said, and then dropped the roach into Carrie’s bottle, where the smoking nub sizzled when it landed in what was left of her beer. “We’ll get started as soon as we get back from Horrorcon.”

  Carrie looked up at Bryan. “Horrorcon?” she said.

  “I was just about to bring it up when Larry rang the doorbell.”

  “You were, huh?”

  “Well, I am—”

  “I know, I know. You are a horror author.”

  Larry chimed in with, “A pretty damned popular one, from what I can see.”

  “Yes, he is, isn’t he?” Carrie looked up at Bryan, smirking as she added, “I certainly think he proved that today.”

  Larry laughed, and Carrie said, “When does it start?”

  “Friday.”

  “Friday? Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve been meaning to bring it up, but something kept getting in the way.”

  Like you bitching at me about finding a job.

  “My husband the horror writer,” Carrie said, a hint of pride lacing a voice which sounded suddenly fatigued. Her eyelids drooping, she yawned, absentmindedly staring toward the hallway window that looked out upon their side yard. The partially open window allowed a cool, refreshing breeze in through the screen. Light filtering through the parted curtains cast a pale shaft across the dark yard, until it was swallowed up by a wall of shadow six or so feet short of a row of hedges that separated her property from the next-door neighbor’s. A sprawling oak tree stood beyond the thick bushes. Long branches, heavy with gold and brown leaves, drooped over and across the hedges. The last track of Pearl Jam’s Ten faded away, as Larry said, “Hey, I wasn’t kidding, I’d really like to read one of your books.”

  Carrie stood up, stretched and grabbed her empty bottle from the table. She looked up at the television, at the parting credits of an old Seinfeld rerun. “Man,” she said. “I’m zonked. I’m going to dump this and go on to bed.”

  She walked across the room, through the archway and into the hall. At the window, she stopped and turned sideways. Arms by her sides, she arched her back, stretching and yawning again. Silhouetted in the window, her slim figure and full breasts framed by faint light filtering in from the dining room, Bryan thought she looked like an MTV video vixen. From the look on Larry’s face, he must have been thinking along those same lines.

  Larry muttered, “You lucky bastard.”

  “Cut the shit,” Bryan told him, then, leaning forward and grabbing his beer, “C’mon, I’ll fix you up with one of my books.”

  Beer in hand, Larry followed him down the hall to the computer room. Once inside, Bryan grabbed a paperback copy of Blood Bath off the bookshelf by his desk and handed it to Larry. An old couch covered with faded brown fabric sat against the back wall, across from a high-backed wooden chair that stood next to Bryan’s black imitation leather office chair.

  “Whoa,” Larry said, when he looked at the book. “Nice cover!”

  “Thanks.”

  Larry read the blurb aloud, “In Kenney’s world, blood doesn’t drip; it explodes, splatters and coagulates! Gritty, realistic images that shock the senses!” Eyes scanning the back cover, he added, “Sounds pretty damned good.”

  Smiling, Bryan said, “I like it.”

  Carrie’s head appeared in the doorway just long enough to say goodnight to Larry, and to tell Bryan she was going to bed. Then she exited the room, closing the door behind her as she shuffled off down the hallway.

  Bryan sat down in his chair. He touched the keyboard and the XP screensaver melted away from his virtual desktop, revealing the emails left unopened when he had gone with Carrie to take care of the pizza man.

  “Check this out,” Larry said over his shoulder. He sat down in the chair next to Bryan and screwed the top off a small, thimble-sized glass container. Tapping the glass opening on the wooden surface spilled a small mound of white powder from the nearly full bottle onto the desktop.

  “What the fuck?” Bryan said.

  “What is it, against your religion or something?”

  “Uh, nooo.” Bryan craned his neck toward the door, halfway expecting Carrie to be standing at the threshold, hands on her hips, scowling her disapproval, and saying, “Pot’s one thing, but I will not have that shit in my house.”

  “Relax, Dude,” Larry said. “You saw her. She’s out of it, probably asleep already.” He pulled a pocketknife and a plastic red-and-white inch-long section of straw from his pants pocket, dropped the homemade tooter beside the cocaine and pried the blade from the knife’s wooden handle. After chopping and dividing the stuff into two long thin lines, Larry picked up the straw, bent over and sucked a line into his right nostril. Then he handed the straw to Bryan, who once again glanced at the door.

  Larry, snickering, said, “Dude, you really are pussy-whipped.”

  “I’m just remembering what happened the last time I listened to you.”

  A snorting chuckle erupted from Larry while Bryan leaned over and snorted his line, tipped his head back and pinched his nostrils closed, releasing the pressure a split-second after he sniffed again. It had been quite some time since Bryan had last used cocaine, but he recognized the high quality potency as the chemical stroked his nervous system. “Damn,” he said. “What are you, a dope dealer or something? Where’d you get this shit?”

  “Good, huh?”

  “Is that a trick question?” Bryan said, and they both laughed.

  “I get it from a friend of mine. He’s been dealing this shit since high school. Never been caught, either.”

  Bryan gulped down a mouthful of beer and set his bottle on the desk. Smiling, he said, “Shit does wonders for Miller Lite.”

  Larry held his bottle up, as if examining the amber liquid inside. “Everything’s better with coke!”

  “Aw, man, look at this.” Bryan, whose attention had drifted back to his computer, shook his head in disgust at the unopened email from I AMME RED33.

  “What’s up?”

  “I’ve been having some words with this guy. Thought I’d finally put it to rest by firing off a nasty little email last night.” Bryan double clicked the message header. “But here he comes rolling back like a bad penny.”

  “Red33? Is that why you freaked at the tire place, you think that’s me or something?”

  “I didn’t freak.”

  “You damn sure did something when Charlie called me Red.”

  Bryan shrugged. “It just seemed… freaky.”

  “That’s freaky,” Larry said, his eyes scanning down the page.

  “No shit,” Bryan said as he read the message:

  Dear Bryan,

  I have no idea why you had to react so rudely to me. I was only trying to help you, and maybe get a helping hand in return. But of course, you don’t give back. You only know how to take.

  As for that silly little blurb on the back of your book, I can tell you this—for a fact. When stabbed, blood does not spatter, it seeps. When shot, it blossoms like a bright red flower. Blood does coagulate, but that takes a while, and what could you know about any of that?

  You are going to regret having sent that venomous message my way.

  Look over your shoulder, Bryan Kenney.

  Look all around.

  The next gritty image you see will be a plateful of your wife’s severed tits.

  See you soon,

  Red33

  “Holy shit.”

  “Fucking dipshit,” Bryan muttered, and then took another drink of beer.

  “That doesn’t worry you?”

  “I can tell you don’t hang around the message boards.”

  “Oh yeah?” Larry said, and then tipped his bottle and took a drink.

  “Yeah, pricks like him post stupid shit all over the place—usually a lot worse than that. Som
ebody insults somebody, somebody else chimes in, next thing you know it escalates into an all out Flame War and the shit’s flying fast and furious. Hell, it wouldn’t be any fun without a death threat or two. I couldn’t care less about what Red33 has to say. I’m done with his dumb ass.”

  Larry nodded that he understood. From the look on his face, he had no idea what Bryan was talking about.

  “Dude,” Bryan said. “The hell was that ‘I’m going to make a commercial’ stuff about?”

  Larry smiled as he drank the last of his beer. “Pretty good, huh? You like the way I segued from that, right into Horrorcon?”

  “You’re definitely a handy guy to have around. And I mean that. If you hadn’t whacked that prick with your cue stick, no telling what might’ve happened.”

  “Don’t sweat it, Dude. You’d have done the same for me.”

  “To be honest, I don’t know that I could have.”

  “You’d have done something. You might not have cracked him with your cue, but you wouldn’t have let him cut me.”

  “Yeah,” Bryan said. “I’d have done something.”

  Like run like hell for the stairs while that maniac made Swiss cheese out of you.

  “Anyway, I’m serious about making that commercial, serious about hiring you to write the dialogue and help me stage the damn thing. I figure five or six hundred dollars, maybe more if we can’t knock it out pretty quick.”

  “In the immortal words of Val Kilmer in Tombstone.” Bryan lifted his beer and tilted the bottle toward Larry, mocking Doc Holliday’s southern drawl, “I’m your Huckleberry.”

  “Ha!” Larry said, as Bryan drained his bottle and placed it on the desk. He picked up his stash and tapped another smaller pile onto the table. “I think I’m gonna call it a night, Dude.” He held the paperback up in front of his chest. “Go home and get started on this bad boy.”

  “What’s that for?” Bryan said, nodding at the pile of white powder.

  “That’s for you, Dude.”

  “You are a handy guy to have around.”

  Larry shrugged his shoulders, smiling as he said, “I do run a mean carwash.”

  Then he capped up his bottle and got out of his chair. When Bryan stood, Larry followed him into the hallway, through the living room and out to the front door.

  On the porch, he turned and said, “Why don’t we get together tomorrow, make our flight arrangements.”

  “We’ll do that.”

  “I’m pumped for a weekend in Orlando, Dude.”

  “Yeah, me too. Can’t wait.”

  “Later, Dude,” Larry said, and then took off down the steps and across the yard, fading out of view as he crossed the street and disappeared into the shadows hovering around his property.

  Bryan closed the door and returned to the living room. The lights in the dining room were out. The talking heads of WCNC were back in action. Lips moved but no words came out, because the sound had not been turned back up. An aerial shot appeared on the screen: fire trucks, ambulances and police cars; men in uniforms rushing to terrified victims who shrieked silently into the camera—some on the side of the road, some sprawled out in the middle of the highway. Bryan was glad he couldn’t hear them. He saw the burned out husk of the G.T.O., the dead trucker’s blackened corpse hanging over the scorched hood of his Semi. The Z-car looked like a blue tin can the Jolly Green Giant had stomped on. Bryan, shuddering, turned off the television and the stereo, killed the living room lights, and walked down the hallway to his computer room.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Following Flytngale home had been a piece of cake. And why not? It wasn’t like she knew what was going on. She probably didn’t know Clyde from the man in the moon. She sure as hell didn’t know who Danny was—but she would. Danny was going to make damn certain of that.

  She made a beeline for Rolling Meadows, straight to her house, and didn’t seem to notice the old Ford Ranger following a few cars behind. Clyde would have been proud, because he was right. It was easy as one two three, just like he’d said: find the truck and follow her straight to that prick’s house.

  And unfortunately for the writer, that was just what he did.

  Easy.

  Nothing to it.

  In the hospital room, Clyde had ranted and raved about what would happen if Danny didn’t come through for him. And as much as Danny wanted to believe Clyde could be reasoned with, he knew that he couldn’t. Clyde would no more accept Danny’s ready-made excuse about not being able to find the truck than he would accept an apology from the writer for having caused him to lose his hand. It didn’t matter one bit that Clyde’s girlfriend had initiated the chain of events. (If that Bree chick even was his girlfriend. Danny had never heard him mention her before.) As far as Clyde was concerned, the whole mess on I-77 was Bryan Kenney’s fault, no matter what Clyde had done to him. Hell, Danny was doing the guy a favor by doing him before his cousin could. Because that pain-filled event could end up very messy, would end up very messy.

  Danny had walked away from Clyde’s room with a sinking feeling of dread. It was as if his cousin had turned a giant hourglass upside down, and every grain of sand that found its way to the bottom was a second less that Danny had left to live. The further away from the hospital he traveled, the tighter that iron band of despair cinched around his head, until the pain finally forced him to pull over. But when Flytngale pulled up in front of Walgreens, all the stress and strain disappeared. Everything fell into place. The dark hovering clouds parted, allowing warm rays of sunshine to streak through a sky turned suddenly blue. The gods had sent a perfect angel straight to him. Watching her shake that golden mane made him feel ten years younger, energized, light on his feet and virile. Following Flytngale’s SUV through the twisting and turning roads, he couldn’t stop thinking about what he was going to do when he had her alone. He had left Rolling Meadows in his rear view mirror, smiling because everything lay before him, and all Danny had to do was step up to the plate and take it.

  He’d been biding his time all afternoon, waiting for night to fall so he could make his way back to Rolling Meadows. He shaved and showered and splashed on a little Old Spice, because he wanted to smell just right when he laid the pipe to that good looking bitch. When darkness settled around his house, he slid a sheathed hunting knife into his waistband, and threw an old child-sized Louisville Slugger he could easily swing like a club on the floorboard of his pickup. Dressed in dark clothing from head to toe, he lit a cigarette, slipped into a black jacket and headed out. It was seven o’clock, much too early to be sneaking around Flytngale’s neighborhood.

  Danny stopped and filled his truck with gas. Inside the station, he drew Coke from a fountain and paid the cashier. She was young, but fat, with a wide, gap-toothed smile. Her dingy buck teeth seemed too large for her mouth. She winked at Danny when she handed over his change, tried to flirt but he looked away. Then he stuffed the change into his pocket and exited the building.

  He left the gas station behind, chain-smoking as he whiled away his time on the back roads of Mecklenburg County. Finally, stopping at an ABC Liquors, he went inside to buy a pint of Wild Turkey. Outside, under an oak tree at the back edge of the parking lot, he chased a couple of belts down with his Coke, smiling as the hundred and one proof bourbon scorched a fiery trail to his gut, spreading warmth from his stomach to his groin, to his arms and legs. A couple of shots later, a police car drove through the parking lot. Danny capped the bottle and held it between his legs, watching as the policeman disappeared around the side of the building. The siren goosed and the patrol car headed off down the highway, and Danny smiled. Because he knew it was an omen, another sign that he was doing the right thing, the only thing he could do.

  Danny had two joints in his shirt pocket, one for the money and one for the show, one to get ready and one for when he shoved it up that sexy little Ho. He fished one out and ran it under his nose. The high grade marijuana smelled of pine, reminding Danny of Christmas trees on snowy
December hilltops. Danny fired it up and sucked in a lungful, his chest expanding until he had no choice but to release the smoke. His face flushed and he uncapped the bottle, tipped it up and swallowed a mouthful. He took another quick drink and chased it down with another swallow of Coke, took another hit off the joint and kept the cycle going, drinking and smoking until the pot was gone and the bottle was left half full. Finally, he capped the whiskey and laid the bottle in the seat, looked at his watch and smiled.

  It was eight-forty-five when he fired up the Ranger. He put the truck into gear, and felt the excitement building, the cool mountain air blowing through his open window invigorating him as the two-lane blacktop whispered his name, a soldier on the edge of battle now, a cat burglar tight-roping his way to an exquisite crest of jewels.

  Time to get jiggy widdit! Danny thought, laughing at the asinine MTV jargon, then thought that maybe those were the words he would say right before he gave it to Flytngale. And make no mistake about it: he was going to give it to her, give it to her good and hard.

  Flytngale.

  He could hardly wait to get his hands on her.

  Have to go through her old man first.

  “Big fucking deal,” he muttered on his way out of the parking lot.

  When Danny reached Rolling Meadows, he looked up. The sky was a three dimensional painting, mother nature’s brushstrokes depicting a huge, full moon riding along a black night, backlit by a field of bright shimmering stars. Porch lights glimmered in the dark. Streetlights dotted every other corner. Danny saw a black-and-white cat race across a dark yard. When it got to a concrete walkway near the porch, spotlights on opposite ends of the house snapped on. A shadowy form appeared behind the front window. A curtain parted and Danny almost lost his nerve, because most houses in the upscale subdivision seemed to be well lit fortified bastions of safety. But the image of Flytngale’s long blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders in the late afternoon sun spurred him on.