The demon stayed as nothing more than a whisper in Jack's ear for the rest of the year, but in his dreams, the fiend was much more: his ally and confident in all things, supporting all the dark desires that Jack had hid all of his life.
"This is the playground," it had whispered to Jack in his slumber. "You can do whatever you want here and get away with it, you just need to be cautious. Cover your tracks and no one will ever notice anything." The monster's words sank into Jack's subconscious like hungry maggots, chewing away his already stunted morals, slow and sure.
It was soon after that day in the tunnel that Jack started acting on his dark thoughts instead of just daydreaming. It was quite surprising how easy it was to kill the hookers instead of just roughing them up. He was a US soldier, who was going to stop him? His fellow soldiers actually backed him up when it became an issue with the pimp. Of course they never actually saw what Jack did to them. Perhaps the state of their dead and torn bodies might have waived their loyalty to him, but they never went that far. They just wanted to back up their brother in arms.
With practice, he branched out to victims he got on his own, with no witnesses. Women, whether they were hookers or just women that trusted him cause he was a US soldier. They would follow him regardless of where he took them, no dark hole was wrong as far as they were concerned, because he was the good guy, the GI hero. The dark horror in their eyes when they finally realized what his true intent was, was almost better than when their lives faded away as he slowly killed them.
It's not like they were real people, they were the Cong, nothing more than animals waiting to be killed for whatever purpose presented itself; like deer during hunting season. It's just what they were there for. The demon cultivated this mentality, prepping Jack to bring this ideal home. The demon was successful.
Chapter 8 Pond Party
They cruised the back roads and dirt paths, waiting for the sun to fall. Drew took it slow on the beer, and passed on the weed, since he was behind the wheel, while the other two indulged with abandon. This was as close as they ever got to a designated driver.
"Such a trooper to take it slow while we cruise," Johnny said from the back seat, pinching Drew's cheek.
Drew pulled away from Johnny's hand. "To some responsibility comes easily." He looked at Johnny in the rearview mirror. "To others, not so much."
"Yet another reason you never score pussy," Johnny replied as he fired up the one hitter.
Jake couldn't help but to chuckle from the last remark.
"Fuck both you guys," Drew replied, lighting up a cigarette.
"It's getting dark," Jake commented. "Let's go out to the pond."
"Sounds good," Drew replied, taking a turn towards the pond.
The pond pretty much was just that, a small body of water left from the excavation of a nearby overpass that's sole purpose was to go over the interstate, keeping small town traffic out of the way of the fast and furious vehicles of industry and leisure.
The resulting bridge of discrimination left a nice little valley near invisible from the interstate, and easily accessible from the country road that didn't see much traffic on Friday nights after eight. The closest house was an easy two miles away, and the hill was between it and the party spot, so the travel of sound was hindered from the get go. All this along with the small body of water made this a pretty good place to party for a bunch of bored teenagers.
"Shit," Drew pulled onto the dirt road leading up to the water. "We're the first ones here."
"What's the prob, chubs?" Johnny asked. "We get the best spot next to the pond, now."
Drew parked. "How stupid are you? It's never good to be the first one at the party."
"Is this the kind of stuff you sit around and think about while you jerk off and eat cheese puffs?" Johnny asked as he opened the door. "It don't mean shit if you're the first person or the last person to show. What matters is what you do while you're there, you geek." He got out, slamming the door.
Drew looked back at Jake. "That's three things he's said today that might actually be worth listening to."
"Yeah, he's on the roll of his life," Jake replied, opening his own door. "Probably means he's going to die tonight."
Drew chuckled darkly. "God, I hope so."
Jake spit the beer out of his mouth as he started to laugh.
Johnny climbed onto the hood of the huge ford, leaning against the front window. "I need a cig."
Drew handed him one.
"Wow, is this a late birthday present?" Johnny asked. "You never let me bum smokes."
"That's for the words of wisdom that have somehow spouted out of that foul mouth of yours in the last couple of hours," Drew said, lighting Johnny's smoke and then his own. "Besides, that might be the last one of your pathetic life for all we know."
Johnny looked at his two friends as they chuckled. "Whatever, dick-heads."
Sarah and Jenny cruised down the old dirt road in Jenny's old Toyota Celica.
"Do you think they'll really have any alcohol?" Sarah asked, in desperate need of a drink at the thought of Jake being at the pond.
"Drew's word is good," Jenny replied. "If he says they'll have booze, then it will be there."
They pulled onto the dirt road of the party pond as the sun hit the half mark on the horizon.
"That's them," Drew's voice was a near whisper.
"Don't jizz in your pants quite yet, lover-boy," Johnny replied, sliding off the hood of the old Ford like a hungry panther. "We haven't seen the goods quite yet."
"Shit," Jenny said as their headlights hit the other car. "Johnny's here."
"Forget about it," Sarah replied. "Drew will take care of him if need be." Sarah's eyes kept creeping towards Jake, but she forced herself to look away, hoping he didn't notice.
Jacky lit up a smoke. "The fat kid is the smartest of the bunch and has a bigger set of cojenes than I had thought he would. The one that's Shane's kid, whatever his name is..."
"Johnny?"
"Yeah, Johnny." Jack took another swig of his whiskey. "He's an asshole that can't keep his mouth shut to save his life. The other two didn't seem to really like him, so why the hell they hang out with him is beyond me."
"Every Judas has their own special skill set, my friend."
"What do ya mean?" Jacky looked over at the demon, but he was gone. The bottle of whiskey he had brought sat on the bucket instead.
Jack picked it up, looking at the label. "Charlie's Sippin' Bourbon? Never would have guessed you preferred the cheap shit." He raised his own bottle to his eyes. "You should step it up to some Dead Ace--" His voice suddenly stopped as the label in his face mirrored the one in his other hand. "Charlie's cheap shit? Damn it, did I grab the wrong bottle at the liquor store?"
He looked down at the ground and slowly shook his head in silence. After a moment he sat one bottle down and started drinking from the other. "So long as it gets the job done, who cares?"
Sarah didn't want to be the first one to approach the boys, but Jenny was definitely going slow since Johnny was here.
"Hey," she called out. "What's up?"
"Hey yourself good-lookin'" Johnny replied. "Ready for a drink?"
"Sure," she said with a smile, glancing at Jake, which both Johnny, Jake and Drew noticed.
Johnny grabbed a spiked lemon-aid out of the cardboard box with a quiet but annoyed sigh that only Drew heard. Fortunately for Johnny, Drew's mind was awash in the image of a girl named Jenny, so he completely missed the potential pot shot at his nemesis.
"Hey Jake," Jenny said with her best smile, quickly walking past Johnny. "Got a smoke?"
Jake reached for his pack, but Drew stepped forward, whipping one out quicker than a gunslinger. "Here ya go," he said, pulling out his lighter like a magician on the Vegas Strip.
"Thanks," Jenny said, flinching from the magically appearing flame suddenly in front of her face.
This put Jake between a rock and a hard place. He wanted to step away and give Drew a chan
ce to talk to Jenny, but he felt weird about walking up and talking to Sarah while Johnny did his best to spin his web around her. That night out in the cornfield still drifted through his head. It seemed important but also wrong, which made no damn sense.
Drew's eyes pleaded for a moment alone with Jenny. Sarah seemed to be waiting for him to come over, which just creeped him out. He used the only excuse he could come up with to escape both situations.
"I gotta take a piss," he said, moving away from all of them.
He drained his can of beer as he walked off into the darkness, crunching it with one hand and letting it fall to the ground, a broken aluminum model of his life left alone in the blackness as he walked on.
Johnny popped open a bottle of the hard lemonade, handing it over to Sarah.
"Thanks," she replied with a distant smile.
"No problem," he said with a wink, which she quickly looked away from.
Jake zipped up as Johnny walked up beside him.
"Here," Johnny said, handing over a beer as he started pissing.
Jake took the can, cracking it open. "Thanks," he said, turning back.
"You oughta fuckin' thank me," Johnny replied with a loud belch.
A sigh escaped Jake. "Why is that, shit-head?"
"Cause I'm gonna be a hell of a friend and give you first dibs on Sarah."
Jake chuckled softly. "She already shot you down?"
Johnny looked over at his friend and shrugged. "Pretty much."
"Loser," Jake said, lightly pushing Johnny.
"Careful, asshole!" Johnny hissed. "You almost made me piss on my hand!"
"You've had worse on those dirty fingers," Jake held out a cig.
"True," Johnny replied, taking the cancer stick.
Jenny blew smoke out of her pouty lips as she looked over at the boys taking a piss break. "What's Jake's story?"
Drew looked at the tip of his burning cigarette, that slowly smoldered, just like him since Jenny was asking about another guy. "Whatta ya mean?"
"I don't know," she said with a shrug. "What's he into?"
Drew looked over at Sarah as she walked towards them. The devious gears of his brain started to move. "Her," he said with the tilt of his head her way.
"No shit?" Jenny's voice dripped with bitterness, a taste that went right to Drew's heart.
Sarah could sense that she was the topic of their conversation. "What?"
"You've got an admirer," Jenny replied.
"Johnny admirers any girl that walks past him," Sarah replied, taking a drink of her spiked lemonade. "Not interested."
"Not Johnny, sweetheart," Jenny said with a smile, seeming to recuperate from the bad news. "Jake's the one that is sweet on you."
The silence was as thick as the humidity on that June night as Sarah looked from her friend to Drew. "Is that true?" Her heart raced, and she hated herself for that.
Drew tried not to smile, and almost succeeded, but it was lost in the darkness regardless. "I thought it was obvious."
"What has he said?"
Of all the voices that could have whispered in his mind, it was Johnny's: "Be cool, less is more, bro."
"It's not what he's said," he hesitated for a moment for effect. "It's more what he hasn't said, ya know what I mean?"
Jenny put her hand on her chest. "Be still my heart! Does it get any sexier than that?"
"Sure it does," Drew whispered, which neither girl seemed to hear.
"What are you going to do?" Jenny asked.
Sarah finally found her voice. "I don't think he's my type," she stammered.
"What?" Jenny asked. "Tall, muscular, and hot isn't your type?"
"Shush!" Sarah hissed. "They're coming back."
Johnny strutted back into the conversation. "Who's ready for some drinkin' games?"
"Hell ya," Drew replied.
"Now that's what I call a good attitude," Johnny said, pointing Drew's way, totally missing his tone of voice, along with everyone else. "Early bird picks the game."
It was a moment of clarity like Drew had never had before. The alcohol played a part in the feeling, most likely. The devil's milk was known to turn mice into paper tigers and idiots into short term comedians, maybe this moment in time was no different, or maybe it was.
Perhaps this was the point in Drew's life that today had been leading up to: his growth in the ability to get shit done all on his own. Hadn't that been proven with his interaction with Whacky Jacky? He was on a roll and the shit wasn't going to stop anytime soon. This was his night, at least that was what the drunken thoughts that buzzed around in his mind said.
"Truth or Dare," Drew said with a dark grin.
"Fuckin' A bro," Johnny made his way over to Drew, draping an arm over his shoulder. "Sometimes you surprise the shit out of me on how cool you can be."
It was one of those rare moments when Johnny's words intentionally made Drew smile. He patted Johnny on the back. "Start it up, my man."
"You got it," Johnny said with a wink. It was the last affable words they would have with one another that night.
The demon watched from the nearby cornfield as the kids started partying, quite pleased with himself.
"After all this time," the monster thought to itself. "Things are finally starting to come back around," it looked hard at Sarah. "You're on your way back to me, aren't you, my little bird? But this time, there will be no one to help you. No one to stand by you, I've seen to that. All those around you are either ignorant to what you face, or too weak to defend you. Of course let's not forget about the ones that stand around you now; children that are nothing more than traitors in training. They will leave you in your darkest hour to fend for yourself, for such is the way of today's youth."
For the first time in ages, the fiend finally felt like he was completely back in control of the game.
Johnny locked eyes with Sarah. "Truth or dare?" he asked with a sneer.
"This is so lame," Sarah said with a sigh.
"You chicken shit?" Johnny asked.
"No, but I'm sure as hell not taking a dare from you."
"Truth then?"
She nodded her head.
"I'll take it easy on you this time," Johnny said, taking a long drink of this beer. "If you had to make out with one guy here, who would it be?"
"Drew," she lied without hesitation.
"What the hell?" Johnny asked everyone present as Drew's jaw dropped and Jake slightly gritted his teeth.
Jenny giggled. "You're going to have to get in line, girl." She grabbed Drew and gave him a quick hug. "I got first dibs on this fine young man." She turned to him. "Right, stud?"
"Uh...ya-uh" stumbled out of Drew's mouth as he quickly nodded his head, making everyone laugh.
"My turn," Sarah said, looking at Jenny. "Truth or dare?"
Jenny smiled like a whore of Babylon. "Dare."
Sarah smiled back. "Give Johnny a long, hot, deep kiss."
"You bitch," Jenny's smile melted.
Johnny's reply consisted of a monster belch that he released to the moon like the howl of a wolf, making everyone laugh but Drew and Jenny.
"You rinse that shit out," Jenny said as she pointed at Johnny. "I'm not kissing exhaust fumes."
"Oh come on baby," Johnny smiled. "You've let me put worse things in your mouth."
"You're such an asshole," Jenny replied, walking up to him. "I'm serious, wash that shit down."
"Yes, ma'am," he said, downing the rest of his beer and then throwing the can up in the air, grabbing her. She squealed like a caught rabbit for a moment and then the kiss began, which lived up to everything that Sarah had said it had to.
The euphoric feeling Drew had been gliding on just moments before came crashing to the rocks as he watched the kiss. He crunched the empty beer can in his hand until the jagged sides cut into his flesh, making him bleed. "This is supposed to be my fucking moment!" he growled inside his head.
It made a strange viewing triangle as Sarah watched Jake, wonder
ing what he was thinking and Jake watched Drew watching the kiss, knowing exactly what Drew was thinking.
"There is going to be a shit-storm after all," Jake thought to himself, knowing something's just can't be helped. He took a long drink of his beer, knowing full well that was the last thing he should be doing, but being unable to suppress the urge for the wilding.
The kiss ended with both of them smiling as they looked into each other's eyes.
He motioned off towards the darkness. "Let's go."
"I'm not that easy," she whispered back.
"Really?" he asked. "When did that lifestyle change happen?"
She pushed him away. "Fuck off."
"Chill, baby, chill," Johnny said with raised hands.
"You're up," Drew said to Jenny, trying to ignore everything. Trying to keep his focus on his vision of how this was his night.
Jenny looked at Johnny, the last thing Drew wanted, and asked:"Truth or dare?"
"What do you think?" he asked with a smirk.
She nodded at him with cold eyes, the heat between them quickly faded as they fell back into their old roles of animosity. "I dare you to tell us one time when you did something for somebody else, knowing full well you weren't going to get anything in return."
"That's not a dare!" Johnny threw his hands into the air. "I didn't say truth!"
"You didn't say shit, dumbass," Drew said. "That makes it her call, now answer the question."
Memories flowed through Johnny's mind as he glared at Drew. The saddest thing about the truth was that Johnny had an answer that would have stopped them all in their tracks. It was when he was eleven and he told his whore of a mother to get out of their house and out of their lives, that his dad was too good for her.
His father had been there when he had said it, saying nothing as she spit on his son, calling him a little prick and walking out of their lives forever. As the screen door slammed shut with her exit, father and son had looked at one another, with the older giving the younger a slight nod of approval.
The Damned Summer (The Ruin Trilogy) Page 7
