by Mark Lukens
She didn’t know what to do.
And then she heard Gary’s truck pull up in the driveway.
For a moment, she thought that Gary would come in and protect her from Ryan if he tried to do anything to her – like take a swipe at her with his old-fashioned straight razor.
But Ryan hadn’t opened the straight razor yet, he just held it in his hand.
“I had some more dreams,” he told her. “I think I understand everything now. I’ve seen the missing pieces of the puzzle. And I know what I need to do now.”
Amber glanced at the straight razor in his hand again.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Amber,” Ryan said and he slipped the razor into his front pants pocket. “I swear I won’t. I want to help you.”
Amber heard the front door explode open out in the living room. Gary slammed the door shut and yelled for her.
“Amber, you fucking whore! Where the fuck are you?”
She felt her skin tingle with fear at the sound of her brother’s voice. She’d never heard him so angry before.
He sounded drunk. And he sounded crazy.
Is Gary as crazy as Ryan is? her mind asked her. That’s what you’re gambling on here.
“You and that pussy you’re with had better come out right now!!” Gary screamed from the living room.
She’d made her decision. “I’ll go with you,” she told Ryan.
Ryan smiled. “Thank you.”
Amber went to her bedroom door and locked the twist lock on the door handle. That was one thing she had spent her money on, a lock for her bedroom door.
She grabbed Ryan’s shoes, wallet, car keys, and money and brought them to him. He slipped his shoes on and took his keys, money, and wallet from her. She watched him stuff the wallet into his back pocket, the wallet that was empty except for his driver’s license, a driver’s license that stated that Ryan’s eyes were brown, not blue.
She needed to ask him about that, but they didn’t have time right now.
As Ryan stuffed his money and keys into his front pants pockets, Amber hurried over to her bedroom window. She ripped the dainty curtains apart and opened the window (she always kept the window unlocked in case Gary changed the locks on the front door again).
She looked at Ryan. “Come on, we gotta go.”
Amber crawled out through the window with ease – she’d had plenty of practice over the years. Ryan followed her out the window.
They were at the back of the house, standing in the tall grass that needed a mow. There were some truck parts and other items stacked up against the back of the house in some places – all of it was Gary’s stuff. Their backyard wasn’t very big and it was only a few quick strides to a wooden fence that separated their backyard from their neighbor’s backyard. The neighbors had put up the fence to block the sight of Gary’s growing collection of junk that he refused to throw away.
She looked up at the sky above them. It was growing dark quickly. The clouds were churning above them, gray clouds bloated with rain, ready to pour down on them.
“This way,” she whispered and hurried to the corner of the house. She was going to hurry around this side of the house to the front yard and make a mad dash to Ryan’s car while Gary went to her bedroom door and beat on it. By the time he realized that she had gone out the window, they should be in Ryan’s car.
They hurried down the side of the house. Amber was in front of Ryan and she froze when she came to the corner of the house.
There were two people walking up the walkway to the front door. A man and a woman, both of them were dressed in dark clothing that hugged their athletic bodies, and they both wore sunglasses. They both looked very determined, Amber thought. She didn’t know who the man was, but she recognized the blond woman from the gas station. She was the same woman who had been looking for Ryan. They wanted something from Ryan.
“What’s wrong?” Ryan whispered from behind her. “If it’s Gary, I don’t care.”
“Ssshh,” she whispered as she turned to look at him, at his blue eyes even though his driver’s license clearly stated that his eyes were brown. “The lady from the gas station is out there,” she whispered into his ear. “And there’s a man with her.”
Ryan changed places with her and he peeked around the corner. He saw Jake and Lita walking up to the door. They were both slipping on pairs of thin, black gloves as they walked.
He couldn’t remember them, but he knew what they wanted, and he knew that they would do anything to get it.
“Wait a minute,” Ryan told her.
2.
Jake and Lita had their gloves on now. Jake rapped on the door with the edge of his fist. The door was thin and it seemed to be rotting in some places. He pounded on the door again and it sounded very loud in the growing darkness.
He was sure Ryan heard the knock.
Gary ripped the door open and filled the doorway. His scowl of anger morphed into a look of confusion. “Who the fuck are you guys?”
Jake pulled his gun out and pointed it at Gary. He used his other hand to shove Gary back inside his house. Gary moved easily from Jake’s shove even though he was a big man; his fear of the gun had turned him into a mass to gelatin.
Lita glanced around outside, making sure no one was watching them, and then she entered Gary’s house and closed the door. She stood by the door, waiting.
“What the fuck are you guys doing?” Gary shrieked as Jake pushed him back into the center of the cluttered living room.
“Shut the fuck up before I blow your fucking knee caps off,” Jake said in a calm and even tone.
Gary seemed about to blubber out more questions, but he glanced down at the gun pointed at him, and nodded his head yes to show them that he understood.
“I’m going to ask you some questions, and I want answers immediately,” Jake told him.
Again Gary nodded.
“Where is Ryan?”
“He … he’s in the back of the house. He’s in the bedroom with my … with my sister. Her name’s … she’s Amber.”
Jake looked at Lita and he gestured with a nod of his head for her to check the back of the house.
“Her door’s locked,” Gary informed Lita as she darted across the living room towards the hallway.
Jake turned back to Gary. “Did I tell you to say anything?”
“I … I’m sorry,” Gary said and tears spilled from his eyes.
Lita hurried down the dark hallway, past a bathroom with its door open, and then she came to a closed bedroom door. She pulled out her gun and attached a silencer to it. She reached down for the door handle with her gloved hand and gave it a gentle twist.
It was locked like Gary had said.
“Ryan,” she said through the door. “Amber?”
She didn’t get an answer.
3.
Ryan looked back at Amber and he nodded at her. “I think they’re both inside. Let me run to the car and I’ll give you a signal to follow me. Okay?”
Amber nodded.
Ryan didn’t waste any time. He knew it wouldn’t be more than a minute or two before they figured out that they were outside. He was surprised that one of them wasn’t waiting by his car. Maybe one of them was at the windows watching, waiting to pick him off like a sniper as he ran.
But there were no gunshots as he ran across the front lawn.
He got to the back of his car and the world was nearly dark now, which provided some cover. He moved around quickly to the driver’s side of his car so he couldn’t be seen from the living room windows, then he shot his arm out and waved Amber forward.
Amber bolted across the weedy lawn.
Ryan opened his driver’s door and jumped into his seat – he already had his car keys in his hand ready to stab the key into the ignition. The interior light came on when he opened the door and he felt terribly exposed for a moment.
Amber opened the passenger door and jumped inside. She brought the door almost all the way closed, but she didn’t w
ant to slam it shut yet because Ryan hadn’t started his car.
She watched Ryan as he started the car. The headlights came on – they seemed to be lit up like a spaceship out here on the street. They were vulnerable, her mind whispered. They were targets.
She couldn’t help looking at the living room windows of her house, and she saw a person pull the curtains to the side and peek out.
4.
Lita was about to kick the bedroom door open when she heard Jake yell at her from the living room.
“They’re outside! They’re fucking leaving!”
Lita bolted down the hallway, through the living room, then out the front door which Jake had already opened. She had a split second to see that Jake still had his gun pointed at Gary and that he had a look of anger on his face that she’d never seen before.
They had fucked up.
This guy had told them that Ryan was in the bedroom with his sister and they had trusted him. Jake was going to make this man pay for that piece of misinformation, Lita was sure of that.
She ran down the walkway to the street, her gun in her gloved hand. She didn’t care anymore if the neighbors were watching. The sky was dark, which provided a little bit of camouflage from prying eyes. And it was beginning to drizzle.
She stood in the street and watched the tail lights of Ryan’s car disappear.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
She ran back into Gary’s house and closed the door. Jake and Gary were still in the same exact places, Jake with his gun pointed at the large man who was quaking with fear, his hands up to show them that he wasn’t planning on doing anything stupid.
“They drove off,” Lita said. “You want to go after them?”
“No,” Jake said, “we don’t know where they’re going. By the time we start to follow them, they’ll already be long gone.”
Jake’s voice was too calm, Lita thought. He should be angrier than this. This was when Jake was most dangerous, when he seemed calm, but she knew, much like the storm outside, that lightning was going to strike from Jake soon, and thunder would follow.
Jake turned back to Gary. “Besides, I think our friend here has an idea of where they’re going.”
Gary shook his head no, almost violently. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. Please. I swear to God.”
“Sssshh,” Jake whispered and gave Gary a half smile. “What’s your name, big boy?”
“G – Gary.”
“Okay, Gary. We’re going to have a little talk, okay?”
Gary nodded with his hands still up like he was surrendering.
“It’s very simple,” Jake told Gary. “We’re going to ask you some questions and you’re going to answer them.”
“I don’t know the answers,” Gary said and he began to cry.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
1.
“I can show you something that will prove everything I’ve said to you,” Carol told Victor. “Please.”
Victor watched Carol.
“We’ve known each other for a long time,” Carol said. “I’m just asking you to trust me.”
Victor finally nodded.
Carol unlocked the door to the den and walked out into the hallway. Victor followed her out to the living room and watched as she hurried to the front door; she opened the front door and checked the driveway to make sure Ryan wasn’t there.
She closed the front door, locked it, and then walked to the stairs. Victor followed her up the stairs and down the hall, and then they stopped in front of Ryan’s room. Carol took the spare skeleton key out of her pants pocket – the other key was down in her pocket as well, the smaller key, the shiny gold one that unlocked the padlocks on the brown suitcase.
“Carol,” Victor hissed. “What are you doing? We can’t go in there.”
Carol already had the bedroom door unlocked. She opened the door and looked at Victor. She entered the room.
Victor glanced down the hall to make sure Tom wasn’t watching them. The house had grown dark suddenly from the storm outside and there weren’t many lights on.
He followed her inside the bedroom and closed the door. The curtains were drawn back from the window at the far side of the room. The wind outside blew the branches of the trees back and forth and they scraped at the glass – it was a screeching sound, almost like someone screaming at them from far away. But at least the window allowed them enough light to see by.
Carol didn’t waste any time. She crouched down by the bed and pulled out a brown suitcase and lifted it up onto the bed and laid it flat. She felt another twinge of pain in her back, but she had to force herself to ignore it.
Victor watched her with wide eyes. “Wait a minute, isn’t that Ryan’s suitcase?”
“Someone delivered it here to Ryan, left it on the front porch with his name on a card,” Carol answered as she dug the small gold key out of her pants pocket and unlocked the padlocks quickly and tossed them aside. She opened the latches and unbuckled the straps that held the suitcase shut.
“This is going too far,” Victor said, ready to bolt.
She opened the suitcase and backed away. She turned and looked at Victor with wild eyes in the semi-darkness. “Just look inside, Victor. Please. We need to hurry!”
Victor was ready to run out of this room, ready to run away from this madness, from this insane woman that he thought he’d known all these years. She had been keeping secrets, he now realized. She had a pentagram painted on her den floor underneath the area rug, and there were scorch marks there where she had burned God knows what.
Offerings to the Underworld, a voice whispered in his mind.
And now he was in a tenant’s room with her, snooping through this man’s stuff.
But he hadn’t run yet, because he had known all along that there was something wrong with Ryan, something about him that had never set well with him. He’d known this all along and Carol was about to show him proof of his theories.
Victor felt his legs moving forward, he heard his shoes thumping on the floor with each step, and throughout it all he heard the screeching on the bedroom window glass from the pointy twigs and branches scraping back and forth – they looked like the arms of some kind of spidery monster trying to scratch its way into the house, he thought.
He was at the side of the bed and he looked down at the open suitcase and its contents inside. The first thing he saw was a large sealed jar full of a yellowish liquid. Inside the jar was a man’s head. The man’s eyes were swollen shut, and his mouth hung open. The face was disfigured, a lot of the flesh around the mouth was gone and Victor could see the man’s teeth and gums. He saw the gashes on the sides of the face that ran up to the ears. And he saw the red hair that floated in the liquid above the mutilated face.
The next thing Victor saw in the suitcase was an odd collection of trinkets in trays and compartments that had been built into one side of the suitcase and covered with green felt. In one of the compartments was a small clear bottle that contained human teeth; various bones that looked like they could possibly be human finger and foot bones were in another compartment. A few knives and other instruments of torture were carefully tucked away in other compartments behind ribbons that held them in place. But the prominent weapon that was displayed was a straight razor; it was obviously the centerpiece of the collection. It was an old-fashioned straight razor with a word carved into the handle – a word that Victor recognized right away, a word that tugged at nightmare memories from ten years ago when this town was terrified of a killer. Cutter.
Victor could feel his stomach doing flip flops inside of him. He could feel his balls shriveling up from fear. He could feel a tingling sensation running along his skin, almost like an electrical charge, standing his arm hair up, like lightning was going to strike any moment.
He looked at the face in the jar again, and then he looked at Carol as the dread wormed its way through his body. He knew that face in the jar as well as he knew the word Cutter on the straight razor’s wooden handle.
>
And Carol knew that face, too.
“Oh God, Carol,” Victor said.
Carol only nodded, watching Victor like she wanted him to say it, like she wanted to hear it out loud to make her certain that she hadn’t been hallucinating, certain that what she’d seen was really there.
“That’s your … your …” But Victor couldn’t spit the words out.
“My husband’s face,” Carol finished the words for him. “Cutter’s last victim before he killed himself.”
“But how can that be?” he asked. “Your husband was buried … did Cutter hide his head somehow?”
“No,” Carol said and shook her head no almost violently. “His head was still on his body when they found him in that shack. I had to identify his remains. I know he was buried with his head.”
“Maybe Ryan went to the cemetery …” Victor said, but left the rest of his words unsaid.
Again Carol shook her head no. “I went to the cemetery yesterday. His grave hasn’t been disturbed. There’s no way someone could’ve gotten his head.”
“But that doesn’t explain …” Victor just glanced down at the open suitcase in the gathering darkness. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“I summoned him, Victor. I summoned my husband back from the dead. I wanted him back so badly. I missed him so much. I found someone who showed me how to summon him. But something went wrong, it didn’t work right. At first I thought he might be inside of Ryan, but with some memory loss.”
Victor felt like he was going to be sick – this couldn’t be true.
“But I was wrong,” Carol said and grabbed Victor’s arm with a fierce and surprising strength. Her eyes were wild and her mouth a thin slash on her face. “There’s been someone else inside of Ryan the whole time – Cutter. He came back instead; somehow he was summoned instead of my poor husband.”
