Nodding a greeting, Carp added, “Much obliged.”
“We’ll be out of your hair before you know it.”
One thing Richard took pride in, but also considered to be a curse, was his ability to decipher bullshit from legit shit. And, this man—Buddy—was handing him the dankest bullshit by the bucket full. He had no desire to let them live and why should he? After all, they’d seen their faces and he’d read enough crime novels to know that the witnesses were always the first to be dispatched.
No loose ends. My God, Sharon and I have become loose ends. What about Tonya? Was Paul telling some kind of truth about them having come in contact with Tonya?
He had to know. “What about my daughter?”
The one called Carp ignored him as he paced around the living room, observing their framed pictures, plaques, and diplomas.
Buddy peeked out the window, then back to Richard over his shoulder. “What about her?”
“What did you do to her?”
Buddy rolled his eyes up as if searching for the answer somewhere on the ceiling. It was apparent he had no idea what Richard was talking about. He only shrugged, and then looked back out the window.
“Wouldn’t happen to be this sweet thing, would it?” Carp had taken the picture of Tonya in her track uniform from where it hung on the wall. His fingers were rubbing her glimmering bare legs through the glass.
“Yes, that’s her,” said Richard. “Have you seen her?”
“Oh yeah I’ve seen her. Sure have. I’d recognize a nice pair of legs like these anywhere. Check this out, Buddy.” He tossed the frame across the room. Richard expected to see it crashing to the floor, but Buddy was quick with his reflexes and caught it.
His face stretched, nodding with approval as if finding something on a menu he liked to eat. “Yep, that’s her all right.”
“You know her?” demanded Richard.
“Where’s my baby?” hollered Sharon.
Buddy tapped a finger to his tightened lips, motioning her to shush. She immediately obeyed. “Now, I don’t how to break this to you, but we found her in the woods.”
“You what?”
“We found her in the woods, just a bit ago, same time we found fatty over there.”
On cue, Paul reentered the room with half of a cold hot dog in his hand; the rest was in his mouth as he chewed. No one had noticed he’d left. “She’s dead.” With his mouth full, it sounded more like: “Shesh deadsh.”
Sharon shook her head, her reaction slowly building. The pain in Richard’s groin went away completely, as if the ache in his heart sucked all feeling from everywhere else in his body.
“To put it bluntly,” said Buddy, “yeah.”
“No no no no no,” shrieked Sharon, pounding her fists down on her knees, her head violently shaking back and forth like a broken sprinkler. Her yellow hair whipped and lashed ferociously enough to cut someone.
Buddy listened to this for about two seconds before ordering, “Carp, shut her up!!”
A wicked grin on his face, “Gladly,” he walked over to her, playing with his belt.
Richard could see by the bulge in his crotch that whatever he planned to do to shut her up, he was looking forward to it.
“Stay away from her!” Richard shouted, jumping to his feet. Buddy stood by the fireplace, but had already turned his back to them so he could throw his attention out the window. The fireplace pokers stood in a tin square right next to the hearth like soldiers in flank. Richard had two guns upstairs, but they might as well have been in Nebraska, and the pokers were much closer.
He went for them.
Carp grabbed Sharon by the shoulders and shook her, hard, then knelt down to her. “Guess what I like to use to gag little screamers like you?” His question seemed to suck all the answers, all the sounds right out of her mouth. She held her breath, terror frozen on her face.
Without turning around from the window, Buddy said, “Carp, don’t tease the poor lady. Just get her out of here. But, if I catch you doing something I don’t approve of, you’ll have to answer to me.”
“You hear that little lady? You’re coming with me.”
She shook her head, her eyes becoming wide enough to rip.
Paul had caught Richard sneaking to the fireplace, hunched over like a cartoon character trying to sneak through a haunted house. He’d gasped to warn the others but accidentally sucked what he was chewing on down his throat where it had lodged. At first he couldn’t make a sound, but he managed to swallow some chunks which opened his airway enough to wheeze. Like a breathless old man bobbing to his oxygen tank, Paul skulked to Richard who was quietly removing one of the pokers from the liner. By this time, Buddy had heard Paul’s winded attempts at getting his attention and turned around just in time to see Paul assail.
The poker came down on the top of Paul’s head and didn’t stop carving a gully down his skull until it reached his brow with a splattering crunch. The look on his face was one without pain, save complete surprise. Paul’s legs buckled, pulling him down to the floor. As he fell, Richard yanked the poker from his head. Stringy filaments of gore flapped from the tip. He turned around as Buddy lunged, sidestepping him, and swinging the poker like a ball bat. The iron rod whacked Buddy across the chest.
Doubling over, he hugged his chest and dropped to a knee.
Richard raised the poker to finish him, but heard Sharon shout a warning. He was too late to counter. Carp punched his knife’s blade into Richard’s throat up to the handle, twisted it in three circles, and wrenched it back out with a stream of red behind it. He was turned and checking on Buddy before Richard hit the floor.
“I’m fine, I’m fine! Finish off that bitch! Enough of these games!”
“You got it,” said Carp. He glanced back at Richard grinning. This time it wasn’t just wicked, it was maniacal. “You really fucked up, you know that? Killing the fat kid ruined our plans.”
“Do it, Carp!” Buddy winced as if it hurt to shout, as if it hurt to breathe. His voice was muffled behind the plastic mask, but the point had been clear.
“Yes, sir.” Carp stood up, unhooked his belt, and stalked toward Sharon who was already scooting away on her rump and hands like a crab.
The last thing Richard saw before his life drained out on his expensive floor was Carp ripping her tank top down the middle, cupping handfuls of her springy breasts.
Sharon looked at Richard, and in their silent communication begged with her eyes to be rescued, pleaded for him to get up and get this man away from her.
As Carp shredded into her shorts, ripping her panties like paper, Richard was too weak to reply.
(II)
Geoffrey Jones knew that he wasn’t just fortunate, but he was perversely blessed with the luck of the devil, because they hadn’t discovered him yet, but they might, so he needed to get the hell out of here, and promptly. Quick and quiet. A kid, presumably Haley’s little-shit brother and someone else, was in the house. He was still hiding in Haley’s room, checking his watch, and counting the minutes. They’d only been here for twenty, but it felt like hours. Whoever was with the kid had gotten hurt, and listening to what was being said, he’d gathered they’d come home to bandage him up. He wondered who was with him. Haley? Flurries that felt like a horde of spiders scurried up his back. His bowels felt like lead. Maybe she left work early, surely she’s heard about the bookstore by now.
He checked the time again, saw it was nearly four. Wife’s probably been calling every damn body looking for me, probably called the police and filed a missing persons report. Before squirting his orgasm in the pad of Haley’s panties, he hadn’t been thinking about these things, nothing had mattered to the perpetual Mr. Jones, but now that he’d spent his load, he was seeing everything with his own eyes again. He couldn’t believe what had come over him, but he was glad that it had come out of him with his gluey explosion of white inside Haley’s panties. He had planned to dump them back into her hamper when he was done, or smearing the glo
p all over her pillow, but now that he was thinking clearly again, he realized that wasn’t a good idea. So, he wadded them up into a ball, making sure the wet spot was on the inside, and stuffed them down his pocket. He might toss them out the window on his way home, but then again, he might just keep them as a souvenir.
I’d rather have Haley.
Damn it, he was here, in her room. He could have her. Not yet…not yet. He slunk to the door. Thankfully, the floor was heavily carpeted, so his tread was silent, but there was still the fear his steps would make something in the house pop. Houses, no matter their age, were always settling and screeching and popping when someone walked. He prayed that wouldn’t happen now.
As he stepped up to the door, he heard the kid tell the other he’d be right back and then listened to his retreating footsteps becoming faint as they went down the stairs to the house’s main floor. Fuck! His plan had been to tiptoe downstairs and bolt through the door, but that had changed.
Haley’s door hung half-open, giving him a good two feet to peer through. Stiltedly, he lowered his head to the door and peeked around the side. To the right was the bathroom, its door opened. A mat of light shimmered across the hall from inside the bathroom. A dark shadow raked across. Someone was in there. He was stuck like a rat in a trap, and not one of those spring-levered traps either, the round ones with a welcoming entrance that lured them inside, then snapped shut and kept them there until they died.
“What now,” he muttered.
The person in the bathroom stilled, blocking the light and giving him a view of their outline. Gargantuan. An ogre-like shape stood solid in the bathroom. He’d heard Geoff speak. Even though he had barely articulated his concern above a whisper, he’d heard him. Shit, oh shit. But, instead of drawing back like he should, Geoffrey Jones only stood frozen at the door, unable to tear himself away so he could hide. Then he saw a thick arm, muscular and filthy reach out. A burlap sacked head poked out like a bear coming out of its cave after hibernation.
A scream snagged in his throat.
Backtracking, he stumbled over his feet and tripped over the bed, doing a reversed somersault onto the floor. The carpet may have been able to silence his footsteps, but it did nothing to mute his landing. In fact, it sounded like a mini-avalanche in the still morning hours of winter. Fuck me sideways and backwards, he thought as he leaped to his feet.
Clunking footsteps resonated from the hall.
“What was that?” shouted the kid from downstairs.
He looked around the room, hoping to find either a place to hide or a way out. He had two options: the window, or the closet. He might as well just call the cops himself if he hid in there, so the window was his only logical option, though it wasn’t a rational one. He was two stories up and would have to jump. He might survive the fall, but he wouldn’t escape it unscathed. A few broken bones, probably some busted ribs, might as well add even more casts to match the one on his hand that was already causing a deep itch he couldn’t reach if he tried.
He ran to the window, flipped the hinge-lock to the right, and raised it with his left hand. It was still cramping from the self-pleasuring act he’d performed earlier. There was a screen, but it could be opened also by two latches on each side that needed to be pushed concurrently. How in the hell was he going to deal with this?
When the door opened and the hulk from the bathroom stepped in, he no longer worried about how to maneuver the screen; in fact it became the farthest thing from his mind. “Oh my God!” he shouted, his legs folding under him.
The giant was fuming through the heavy burlap. He raised his hands up like the Frankenstein monster and charged for him.
Geoff didn’t stop to think about what he did next. Turning around, he stepped back and punted the screen, sending it soaring. He was already halfway through the window when he felt hands pawing and grabbing at him as he set his foot down on the landing outside. He launched his other foot through, knocking his balance off, and much like the screen; he teetered over the edge. He held his breath the entire way down. Cold instinct kept his arms wind-milling out to his sides in search of something to grab.
They finally found it when he struck ground.
****
Joel charged into Haley’s room, finding Pillowface looking through where the window had been, both hands resting on the sill. “What happened? Was someone here?”
He looked back at the boy and nodded. Then he stepped back and pointed. Joel rushed past him, leaning out and scanning the yard. The screen lay busted on the ground. He combed the yard from one side to the other, but found no one. The grass was compressed where someone had landed, but there wasn’t a body to match the impression.
What he didn’t know was the man who’d thrown himself through the window had managed to slide under the bushes by the house, injured and frightened.
“There’s no one there, now. What’d he look like?” Pillowface had no way of answering, and even though he could write it down, Joel didn’t consider it for a moment’s sake. All he worried about now was how they would fix the window before Haley came home.
(III)
The mask was different, but the body was the same size and shape it had always been. No one else had a build like that.
It was him, for sure.
Buddy had been watching through the binoculars, and now he scanned the bushes where the man was cowering. He lay on his stomach, and appeared to be crying. Buddy laughed at the idiot, but was also wondering just what the hell was going on in that house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
(I)
Joel handed the bandages, twine, and needle to Pillowface, then left him alone in the bathroom and went outside. He found the screen from Haley’s window, took it to the woods, and chucked it. He hoped with Haley’s window closed and the drapes lowered, she wouldn’t notice the missing screen. She never opened the stupid window anyway, but if for some reason she did, he’d play dumb.
Haley, I have no idea. Why would I do something to the screen?
He took a seat on the steps, and buried his face in his hands. A moment later he was crying, soon after that, he was sobbing hysterically.
It was bearing down on him: Pillowface and all of the quirks associated with him were getting the best… scratch that; they were getting the worst of him. He didn’t like the thoughts that had crossed his mind the past couple of days, or the things he’d been tempted to do.
But, he had found a friend, hadn’t he?
He guessed they were friends.
Why me?
Joel could wonder that a million times and never find the answer. He could ask Pillowface, and even if the man could talk, Joel doubted he even had an answer. He looked beyond the grove of trees at the edge of his yard and wondered about Ethan and Paul. He hoped they’d gone home and forgotten all of this had happened. He doubted it though, and figured more trouble was bound to come once they woke up, if they hadn’t already.
(II)
Jonesy still hadn’t reported to work when Haley and Carlee got back to the law firm, and that meant there wasn’t going to be much to do at the office. With that in mind, Haley packed up her things, and told Carlee she was going back to the bookstore to spend some time with Alan. She also invited her to dinner at her house tonight, figuring it would be something nice to remind Alan he still had friends that cared. She told the office manager to deduct the hours from her personal time since there were personal matters she needed to attend to. She’d spent the next couple of hours at the bookstore (what was left it), and now that the afternoon was in its later hours, and the firemen had all cleared out, she was finally on her way home.
Glancing at Alan in the passenger seat, she saw that he seemed to be genuinely smiling. He probably thought he’d never be able to again, but Haley had that effect on people, and could usually bring out a smile even in the worst of situations. Not always, of course, but it was something she was moderately good at.
Thinking back to what had put Alan in her car, a
nd why he was accompanying her to the house, she wanted to smile, but couldn’t rightfully do so, because he might take that as her being grateful the bookstore had burned down. She was by no means happy about that, but she couldn’t lie and say she wasn’t hopeful for what might come from it.
“…could always stay with me,” she’d said.
“I couldn’t do that,” Alan had said, patting her leg. “It’s a sweet gesture, but I just couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I would be imposing on you, and plus I can probably just stay with my sister.”
“You wouldn’t be imposing on me at all, I promise. I don’t want you to feel obligated because of last night or anything, but I’ll say it again, you’re more than welcome to stay at my house for as long as you like.”
He’d thought about it for another moment and said, “What about your brother?”
She hadn’t considered Joel’s feelings on the matter. In fact, she was so consumed with Alan that she’d almost forgotten he existed entirely. “I-I don’t think he’d mind.” It was a lie, sure, but if Alan had caught wind of it, he hadn’t let on.
“Well, maybe just tonight. I don’t really feel up to explaining everything to my sister yet anyway. Plus, I’d need somewhere to sit down, and contact the insurance companies and all that…” He groaned, then turned around on the bench, looking at what little remained of his home, and his store. The firemen had finished hauling everything off, but an investigator stayed behind to sort through the ruins with a long stick, looking for clues as to what had caused this disaster in the first place. Then Alan faced Haley again. “You sure your brother wouldn’t mind?”
“Positive.” Joel would probably more than mind, he’d freak. Maybe even cause a scene, but she hoped not. “It would mean a lot to me if you did stay the night.”
That was what had settled it.
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