by Rick R. Reed
The whole scene in the kitchen was so bizarre, David had to keep telling himself over and over that it was real.
He’d had this numbing sensation of unreality only once before—when his mother had died. Then, it seemed as if she would come back, that someone would speak up and let him know that her death wasn’t real. Of course not. Just a sick joke played by someone with a very warped sense of humor, most likely his father.
But his mother hadn’t come back. It had taken a long time, but David had finally accepted that. No matter how unfair it seemed to him, she was gone forever. And the only essence he would ever have of her was in the realm of his memory.
Now, in the Tuttle kitchen, David had yet to accept the situation. On a conscious level, he knew he was in grave danger and that his life was truly at stake. He was being held prisoner by a psychotic. But somewhere, on a more childish level, remained the hope that this was some sort of terrible mistake. That Paul Tuttle, like those people who had had to tell David his mother was dead, was making all this up for some sort of amusement at David’s expense. Soon, the man would guffaw at David’s gullibility and tell him to lighten up.
Perhaps the man would even tell David that he wasn’t Paul Tuttle, but a buddy of his dad’s who had been put up to this bizarre situation by David’s father to teach his son a lesson about trespassing.
But the rope cutting into David’s ankles and wrists, holding him captive on the dirty and bug-infested floor, argued with David, argued painfully, to believe what was happening to him. No one, not even his dad, would play such a sick joke.
Paul Tuttle turned away from the window. “They’ll be here soon. I’m sure of it.”
David swallowed the ball that had formed in his throat and whispered, “Who?” Not that he didn’t already know. But he could hope, couldn’t he?
Paul laughed, the high-pitched titter caroming off the walls and echoing through the empty house.
His laugh made David feel like something cold and with a lot of legs was crawling over him.
“You know who,” Paul said in a sing-song voice. Then he deepened his voice with menace. “Your friends. The other little trespassers.”
David swallowed again, even though his mouth was dry and it took real effort to muster enough spit up to do so. He prayed his friends wouldn’t be stupid enough to try some rescue attempt. This guy was dangerous and not in some fairy tale way. He was the genuine article—a killer, mindless and without mercy.
And he would hurt, or maybe even kill, all of them.
But David didn’t have time to think about that now. Of all the sounds he and his friends had heard in this house, the sound he just heard was the most terrifying. He stiffened on the floor, every muscle in his body taut, rigid.
Marlene, her voice loud and almost foreign, called his name once more from outside the house.
And a single cry, almost as if it had been ripped out of his throat, issued from David. “NO!” he screamed. “Run! Run.! Just get out of here!”
* * *
On the old and creaking porch of the Tuttle house, Marlene stopped breathing when she and Peter heard David’s shrill cry. In the few words he screamed, all the bravado and toughness he tried so hard to project disappeared, borne away by terror that was obvious.
Marlene moved closer to Peter and grabbed his hand. The friends’ eyes met in the darkness of the porch, and Marlene noticed that Peter’s chubby face wore a sheen of sweat that was visible even in the pale moonlight.
They paused, not saying anything, as if neither knew what to say. Marlene realized they were both afraid if they spoke, even to each other, whatever was in the house with David would get them, too.
Their options were few. Neither had a cell phone, so they couldn’t call for help. So, should they hurry to their friend’s aid? Or turn tail and run as fast as they could in the other direction, back to town, to someone who could help them?
But if they ran away, what would happen to David? It would take time to get to the bottom of the hill, to get to where there was help. Even dashing to the next house down the road meant there was plenty of time for someone to do something horrible to David…something so horrible they couldn’t even think about it.
“What are we gonna do?” Peter turned to Marlene, letting go of her hand and grabbing her shoulder, searching her face. She understood he was looking to her for an answer, anything that would relieve him of having to make a decision. She knew what Peter was feeling, guessed that his heart thudded and stomach flip-flopped right along with hers.
He looked like he was on the verge of tears. “Where did it all go, Marlene? Where did all my plans for the Halloween Horror Club go? I didn’t want this mess. I just wanted to have a little fun, you know?” Peter hung his head, not meeting Marlene’s stare. “I wish I was home, remote control in one hand, a bottle of Mountain Dew in the other.”
Marlene swallowed, feeling like something big, round and furry was making its way down her throat. Why were the decisions always up to her? Why was she always the caretaker, the one people turned to for answers? Even her mother had placed the burden of big responsibilities on her before she’d been old enough to understand what the responsibilities were. Sometimes, she got so tired of it. Sometimes, she just wanted someone else to step up. Now was one of those times. And now was definitely a time when she would not get her wish.
David was inside the house. He was not playing a joke.
Marlene realized they had no choice. They would have to go inside and face whatever it was that made David scream out to them. It was the only action that made sense, as terrifying as it was.
She shrugged at Peter and tried to smile. “We’ve got to get into the house and try to help him. Now.”
“Do you think it’s Paul Tuttle in there?” Peter whispered, his voice high and shaky with approaching hysteria.
Marlene laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound, only bitterness. “How should I know? It could be anyone.”
Peter nodded. “Got a plan?”
Always up to me. “Yeah,” she said, turning away from him. “I got a plan: let’s save David any way we can without getting killed.”
“Great.” Peter followed Marlene as she crept to the front window and looked inside.
* * *
More than anything else in the world, David didn’t want them to come in. They were his friends, and he didn’t want to see them hurt. After all, Paul had murdered his whole family. Nothing would stop him from killing the entire group of David’s friends, especially since he felt they’d spoiled his life and exposed him.
Paul knelt on the floor next to his head. After David had cried out, Paul had placed his dirty and calloused hand over David’s mouth. The hand was big, rough, and smelled of sour sweat. It almost made David gag.
How he wished he could do something more to warn his friends! He didn’t want them walking into this trap, this web they might never escape. The fear crept into his bones, chilling him…crept into his innards, making him nauseous. He prayed, wishing he could send a telepathic message to his friends. Please, just go away. Try and get help. But whatever you do, do not come in here.
Just then, both Paul and David tensed as they heard the creak of the floorboards in the living room. Oh, damn it, they did it. They’re inside. I can’t help them now. David squinched his eyes together, listening.
Peter whispered something, although David couldn’t tell what it was, and Marlene said, “Shhh.”
David began struggling against the hand, burning his throat raw with muffled screams in an effort to warn his friends. And then, suddenly, David was free to scream all he wanted. Paul Tuttle stood without warning, removing his hand from David’s mouth.
At first, David was too stunned to do anything but lie there as fresh air rushed into his mouth once more.
Paul had moved quickly across the room, practically a shadow gliding across the dirty kitchen floor. David turned and watched the shape of him at the kitchen doorway as he peered into th
e living room, watching David’s friends.
“Get out!” David finally screamed. “Get out now! He’ll kill you! Go get help!” David thrashed around on the floor, not thinking, wanting only to save his friends.
He didn’t realize Paul Tuttle had returned to him until he flattened on his back and saw the man standing above him. And what he saw stilled David, taking away his voice.
Paul Tuttle had the baseball bat raised above him, both hands gripping its base. His face contorted with rage, monstrous.
“Don’t,” David whispered, wincing as he saw the bat whistling toward him.
CHAPTER 13
Getting to the Bottom
Erin groaned. “Ouch! It really hurts.” Roy removed his hands from her armpits and lowered her gently into the carpet of dead leaves beneath them.
Erin wondered how swollen her ankle was. An almost unbearable pain radiated from it, pulsing up her leg, causing her more discomfort than she had ever experienced. And every pulse from her ankle sent her stomach churning, the jolt of nausea running throughout her body, which made her intermittently chilled and feverish.
“I think it’s broken,” she gasped. She tried to see her lower leg, but the night was too dark and the trees above her formed a canopy as the moon played peek-a-boo behind banks of clouds.
She looked up at Roy in despair. He was nothing more than a dark shape standing helplessly above her. “Do you think we’re being punished for deserting Peter and Marlene?” And most of all, David.
“Of course not,” Roy said, his voice weak, almost carried away by the wind. He looked away, and Erin was not at all sure he was convinced they shouldn’t have been punished. “It was an accident, that’s all.”
Erin remembered the “accident.” How could she have been so clumsy?
Both she and Roy knew that Marlene and Peter would not go along with their plan to get the police, so they had decided they would do what they thought was best. And the first thing they thought was best was getting away from their two friends without any argument.
With gestures and looks, Roy and Erin had agreed to slip away when Peter and Marlene weren’t looking. So when Marlene began leading the way across the road to the Tuttle house, Roy and Erin moved quietly in the other direction, into the woods that sloped down the hillside to Summitville. During a normal day, the trip through the thick stand of trees would take five minutes or less, a much quicker descent than taking the road back to the main part of town.
But this wasn’t a normal day. In fact, it wasn’t a day at all. And the darkness and their anxiety made Roy and Erin careless. They hurried too fast down the hillside, not looking where they were going, anticipating what they would say when they got to the first house along the way, how they would explain why they needed to use the phone.
If she hadn’t been leading the way, Erin was certain it would have been Roy who sprained—or maybe even broke—his ankle. As it was, she never saw the big root from the maple tree sticking out of the ground. Her foot caught under the space between the root and the ground, and her ankle twisted under her, trapped by the root. She heard a sickening “snap” when she fell.
The pain, scorching and white hot, had been immediate. She had screamed loud enough to rouse several birds from their nests. The flapping of their wings in the darkness had made Erin think of bats.
“What are we going to do?” Roy asked.
“I don’t know!” Erin snapped at him. “Why don’t you take charge for once in your life?”
Roy said nothing, his head hung low. The wind whispered through the tops of the trees.
Erin didn’t need to see Roy’s face to know she had hurt him. It was just the awful pain in her ankle that made her short-tempered. “Look, Roy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“It’s okay,” he said much too fast. The distress in his voice was obvious.
Erin knew they could fight this out later, if they needed to. But right now, time was wasting.
What had Peter and Marlene walked into? Had they found David in the house? Was all of this a false alarm? She couldn’t even begin to rely on the last possibility, regardless of the hope and relief it held out.
She looked around. The trees seemed alive with skulking shadows that filled the night. Unexplainable sounds surrounded her, though they were probably just rustling leaves and a small animal running through the underbrush. Was she really brave enough to do what she was contemplating?
Time, Erin, time. Sometimes bravery is nothing more than just doing what you have to.
She took a deep breath and said the words she knew she had to. “You go on without me, Roy. Find someone who’ll let you use their phone and get help for David, Peter, and Marlene. Then we can see to me.”
Roy squatted beside her. He reached out and ran his fingers through her hair. “I can’t just leave you here like this.”
Erin rolled her eyes. She gently removed Roy’s hand from her hair and pushed it back toward his own chest. This was definitely not the time to be getting romantic. “You can, and you will, Roy. I think my ankle’s probably broken. It would take us a long time to get me down the hillside. And what if I trip and fall again? Just go,” Erin said, wanting him to stay more than anything…to stay and feel sorry for her. “I’ll be fine here. What could happen?”
Maybe Paul Tuttle will come looking for me after he’s finished with the others. I’ll be a sitting duck, unable even to run.
Erin closed her eyes. “Go on, Roy. We may be too late already.”
“Are you sure?” Roy looked her in the eye.
Erin realized if she wasn’t short with him, he might never go. And she was getting peeved. Doesn’t he care about anyone but me? She had hurt herself, that was for certain, but their friends could be in a lot more trouble than she was.
She mustered the angriest voice she could find, hoping it would spur him on. “Would you just get out of here, Roy? Go on, get!”
Erin bit her lip in an effort to relieve the pain as she watched Roy sprint down the hill, through the trees’ shadows. She prayed he wouldn’t hook his own foot in a tree root and break his ankle. And she prayed even harder that he would get help while there was still time. At least, she hoped there would be. Time was a commodity she hadn’t fully appreciated until tonight, when life and death hung in the balance.
Erin leaned back into the leaves, trying to well out the pain in her ankle, trying to erase the terror and panic rising up within her as she lay alone in the dark.
She listened as Roy made his way down the hill, feeling more alone and vulnerable than she ever had in her entire life.
CHAPTER 14
Marlene and Peter Find Out
How could I have been so stupid?
Marlene tried to turn her head once more, attempting to peer through the darkness at her friends lying with her on the filthy kitchen floor.
How could I—the one the rest of them have always depended on to be so grown-up and sensible—have gotten us into this mess? I should have never let this whole hateful experience even get started. And even when we had all kinds of warnings, I still let it go on. What’s wrong with me?
Peter lay next to her. She could feel the rhythm of his breathing…actually more panting than breathing. But it wasn’t Peter she worried about most. At least, not now. It was David who filled her thoughts.
Marlene flashed back to what she had seen when Paul Tuttle had led them into the kitchen, brandishing the aluminum baseball bat, a demented grin lighting up his features. Then she tried to extinguish the image. But she wasn’t quick enough. She could still see the peculiar way David lay on the floor, with his legs splayed in different directions. But the worst part was his face, which wasn’t even visible beneath the dark stain obliterating his features.
Marlene knew the dark stain was blood.
What really made her heart pound and made it almost impossible to catch her breath was the fear that David was dead. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t making a sound. For once, she would have
given anything for one of his mean, smart-aleck remarks.
And if David was dead, did that mean she and Peter would be next to go?
She thought back to the time, fewer than twenty minutes before, when the legend of Paul Tuttle had become the reality.
She should have known that going into the house was a mistake. She should have known. And relying on Peter had been pure folly. He was so petrified, his entire worth was rolled up in the fact that he was another warm body, a cipher in the old safety in numbers routine.
The place had been too quiet. Marlene couldn’t really put her finger on why, but the stillness, the utter darkness of the rooms, had seemed menacing…a menace that should have served as a warning or a kind of omen. But Marlene had chosen to ignore the signs, even though her intuition had shrieked to her: don’t go in! don’t go in!
Marlene, ever the rational one, ignored this inner voice, thinking that since there was no basis in fact for it, it held no validity.
“C’mon, let’s go see what we can find out,” Marlene had turned and whispered to Peter when they were at the front door. “Just remember”—she engaged him with her eyes—”once we get in there, don’t say a word. Nothing.”
Peter nodded, already silent in the moonlight.
Marlene led the way, wincing when she stepped on a creaking floorboard. Had there always been so many creaks and groans? Now that she was worried about such noises, they seemed amplified and multiplied.
They had gone farther and farther into the house, and had just entered the dining room when they heard the laugh. It was nothing more than a high-pitched twitter, really. It would have seemed silly under any other circumstances, girlish and giggly. But here, with the shadows and pitch blackness surrounding them, and the disappearance of their friend weighing down on them, the laugh sounded insane.
If only they had turned and run for all they were worth out the front door, they might have gotten away.
But they hadn’t.
Marlene’s mind had gone blank, into a sort of shock-filled void. And Peter was no help. When she turned to look at him, she saw nothing but an odd vacancy in his stare. His mouth hung open and his breath moved quickly in and out. His face was covered with a sheen of sweat. She realized he was probably going into shock.
