That left someone running a bath or taking a shower, the oddest and least explainable of the three. And Amy supposed she could stand there at the foot of the stairs, weighing and discarding flimsy possibilities as to why someone might be running a bath or taking a shower while the TV ran unwatched, while a cup of tea was left unmade, and while someone had not only rung their doorbell and banged on their front door half a zillion times but was now inside their home, desperately calling for them with just as much emergency.
She could stand there and theorize, but why even bother when the true explanation was a simple flight of stairs away? Because you could disturb someone running a bath? Taking a shower? Big fucking deal. Besides, Amy’s faithful belief in Occam’s razor was in full effect here, and it answered all those questions with one swooping certainty.
Question: Who would run a bath or take a shower during such things?
Answer: No one, that’s who. The answer was, no one would run a bath or take a shower during such things. Simple.
And yet the water above still ran. Why?
Well, if still on the clock, and not stubbornly told by Amy that it was quitting time so that she could head upstairs in her unbreakable quest to find a working cell phone, good old William of Occam might have told Amy that the reason why the water above still ran was—what else?—simple.
Not good. The answer was not good.
She headed upstairs anyway.
Chapter 38
Allan woke before attempting to open his eyes. For a brief moment he thought he was hungover. Exceptionally hungover. There was a pounding in his head like no other. Except the pounding was more localized than a bad hangover headache that always seemed to spread right down to his toes. This one was exclusive to his forehead. Not even the back of his head had the unwanted privilege. Odd. He had no recollection of drinking the night before. His daughters had had a sleepover, hadn’t they? Memories swirled just out of reach as his consciousness slowly returned. He remembered wanting a drink. Sharing one with Amy, the girl from support group. But then the doorbell had rung, interrupting them, and two new members had entered his home…
Everything came back at once.
He was alive. Allan had thought his (unfair) life was surely over the second Tim had stood over him and raised the axe. What had happened instead? Well, the localized throb around his forehead gave him a fairly good idea. Tim had obviously not brought the blade of the axe down, but the blunt end instead, knocking him cold.
Allan opened his eyes. His vision swam and made him nauseated, and he instantly shut them tight again. He went to bring a hand to his head but felt instant resistance on his right arm. He tried his left and felt the same. He opened his eyes again, determined to fight the nausea until his vision settled. When it did, he quickly discovered a few things:
He was in his den, seated in one of his kitchen chairs. The reason he could not move either arm was because his arms and torso were bound to the chair with what appeared to be miles of duct tape. Legs too.
To his left were Jon and Karen Rogers. Both were in the same exact predicament—each bound to one of his kitchen chairs with miles of duct tape.
There was no trace of the psychos.
Jon was a ghostly white and drenched in sweat. His face was a constant grimace of pain. It was then that Allan remembered how the girl had brought the machete down on the back of Jon’s ankle, severing his Achilles tendon.
The girl…
Who was the girl? Kelly something. Someone Amy knew. Someone bad.
Wait. Amy. Where the hell was Amy?
This memory, like the others, trickled into place. She’d gone next door to ask the Rolstons for help. She’d gone alone because she had the gun. Did she make it? Did she get help? He guessed no. If she had, why the hell were they tied up in his fucking den?
Allan eventually came to a realization. Tim could have killed Allan, but did not. The girl with the machete (or maybe that other psycho girl…Jennifer, was it?) could have killed Jon and Karen while he was unconscious, but did not.
Realization: They were being kept alive for something.
But of course the realization was anything but final and only served to produce the obvious follow-up question: kept alive for what?
Amy was nowhere in sight. If she’d gotten help, there was a strong chance it would have been here by now. So that meant Amy was either dead or on the loose. If she were dead, then why the hell was he still alive? Why were the Rogerses still alive? This was about Amy, after all, wasn’t it? And what had Amy said before when Jon had asked why they were involved if all of this had to do with Amy’s past?
Bad luck was all Amy had said, and none too compassionately.
Which then made the follow-up question to Allan’s discovery that much more enigmatic. If Allan and the Rogerses were only involved in this mess from Amy’s past because of bad luck, why keep them alive? Surely they were nothing but an insignificant liability, yes? A potential risk?
And then just like that, Allan had an answer to the increasingly enigmatic follow-up question, yet he took no pleasure in it:
Because we are significant, he thought. We’re pawns. And what was it Allan’s father had told him years ago about pawns when first teaching him the game of chess?
“The thing about pawns, Allan, is that their low piece value allows you to sacrifice them relatively easily in order to gain a stronger position overall,” Martin Brown had told his son.
We’re pawns, Allan thought again. Here to be sacrificed so that Kelly may gain a stronger position over Amy.
Chapter 39
Amy ascended the Rolstons’ stairs slowly and deliberately, gun at her side. The sound of the running water was more distinct now. It was not the sounds of someone running a bath, but the sounds of a shower.
Oh, hell—someone in the shower? No wonder they didn’t hear her banging on the door and ringing the bell.
But there were two of them, weren’t there? Pam and Mike Rolston, Allan had said. One of them would’ve had to have heard her racket while the other showered.
Unless only one was home? Maybe.
How about if they were showering together? Another maybe, she supposed. Personally, Amy had hated showering with Patrick. He was just too damned big and hogged all the hot water whenever he stood before the shower head. Not to mention they’d nearly broken their damn necks trying to make sex work, no matter what position they tried. Talk about Bambi’s first go on ice.
Again, she could stand and theorize, or she could just finish climbing the damn stairs and find out.
Amy crept further. A step creaked below her weight, and she winced at the sound. She felt like an intruder. And she was. Except she felt like the bad kind.
The Fannelli brothers kind.
The fleeting parallel made her momentarily ill, like a hot flash or a wave of nausea. She gripped the railing with one hand and steadied herself. Breathed deeply and slowly. This was not the first time her traumatic past had her questioning a change in her psyche. She had enjoyed killing Monica. Enjoyed it immensely. What was it Monica had said as she lay dying at Amy’s feet, looking up at her, smiling with a mouthful of blood from the gunshot wounds Amy had inflicted on her?
Maybe we’re not so different after all, she’d said.
Amy pinched the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes, and grimaced. “Fuck you,” she whispered to both Monica and herself, then continued climbing.
She reached the landing without incident and now stood in the center of a long and spacious hallway. Bedrooms on opposite ends, one bathroom in between.
The bedroom doors were open. The bathroom door was closed. The running water behind it could be heard clearly.
Amy pressed her ear gently to the bathroom door. Listened for any change in the water’s cadence, the verification of someone actually showering. She heard nothing but the unbroken flow of the water.
She slowly lowered herself to all fours and strained to peek beneath the door. Waited several breaths
and saw nothing pass.
She stood and tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. Amy turned it slowly, as if turning it too fast might trigger an alarm. Opened the door a crack and peered inside. The humidity of the shower greeted her instantly, misting her face and blurring her vision. She inched it open another crack, allowing more steam to exit into the hallway. Her vision was better now. It allowed her full view of the bathroom’s interior without committing to full entry.
The interior was modest. White tile. White walls. There was a sink and mirror; there was a toilet; there was a shower and tub. The shower’s curtain was pulled tight, the color midnight blue. It did not offer any silhouetted glimpse of anything behind it.
Gun on the shower curtain, Amy slowly entered the bathroom. She dropped into a low crouch and paused by the sink, waiting. If she couldn’t see them through the curtain, they couldn’t see her, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t have felt the bathroom’s shift in temperature when she entered, the subtle breeze of an open door in a room full of mist that was now dissipating. If someone behind that curtain was waiting to yank it back and pounce, they would be expecting her to be upright, not in a crouch. They would momentarily pause, giving her the precious time to blow them away from below.
And so she waited in a crouch by the sink. And just as she heard no change in the water’s cadence when she’d pressed her ear to the door, so too did she hear no such change in the water’s tempo by the sink.
(There’s no one in there. There can’t be.)
Then why leave the water running?
(A trap?)
Possible. Lure me upstairs towards an empty shower so they can—
(So they can what?)
I don’t know. She rose slowly from her crouch. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I came here to find a phone—
Amy’s cell phone beeped. She jumped as though jolted from behind, dug the phone from her pocket and stepped into the hallway. A text message from Domino:
Where are u?
Amy instantly dialed his number. It rang unanswered before going to voicemail. She cursed under her breath and tried texting him back:
did you get hold of c and c?
An excruciating minute passed before Amy’s phone beeped again:
what the hell are you talking about?
Amy cursed aloud, her thumbs working frantically on her phone, mashing buttons without care for misspellings:
somthing bad going on! kelly b behind it. go get c and c and get them soenwhere safe!!!
Another excruciating minute before:
still not following. What are u talking about?
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” she yelled. She went to text again but got no further; her cell started ringing in her hand. The caller ID read “Domino.” He’d gotten through.
“Domino?” Amy answered. “Can you hear me?”
“Amy?” His voice still sounded odd. Sexless and synthetic.
“Yes! Yes, it’s me. Can you hear me?”
“Barely. There’s a lot of static or something. What’s that noise?”
“I don’t hear any—” But then she stopped. Of course she heard something. The rhythmic and unbroken fall of the shower a mere few feet behind her.
She stepped back into the bathroom and immediately pulled back the curtain to get at the faucet and found herself staring at who she assumed were Mike and Pam Rolston. Both on their knees, facing away from her, slumped onto their sides, lifeless white faces mushed against the tiles. They’d clearly been dispatched execution style—told to get on their knees and face the other way while shot from behind. And Amy might have accepted this truth—shot from behind—had a giant pitchfork not stood upright in the corner of the tub, leaning against the tiled wall. Had, upon further inspection, husband and wife not been littered about the head, neck, and back with multiple holes the precise size of the pitchfork’s prongs.
“Jesus Christ…” she whispered.
They marched them upstairs with a pitchfork? No one’s being forced to go anywhere with a pitchfork.
(They must have had a gun. They marched them upstairs and into the shower with a gun.)
Then why not use the gun?
The answer came too fast, tapping deep and dark without conscious effort, and Amy felt the fleeting parallel again, the hot flash of nausea…
They didn’t use a gun because it would be a quick death. No fun.
Amy slowly raised the phone to her mouth, unable to take her eyes off the Rolstons as she spoke. “They’re dead.”
“Amy?”
“They’re both dead.”
“Who’s dead? I can still barely hear you. Did you turn off the shower?”
Amy shook her head into the phone. “No,” she said absently, “hold on.” She bent for the faucet and froze. Slowly stood upright and brought the phone back to her ear. “I never told you anything about a shower.”
“What? Yes you did.”
“No—I didn’t.”
“Well, I must have just assumed, Amy.” The voice on the phone was normal now. It was the voice of a woman.
A breathless pause. Amy felt her pulse in her head. “Kelly Blaine,” she said.
“That’s the name my dead folks gave me.”
Amy bent for the faucet again, shut off the shower, and then slowly stepped out into the hallway, looking left and right as she spoke, gun ready. “How did you get Domino’s phone?”
“Watched him die, then took it. Easy peasy.”
“Bullshit. You may have stolen it somehow, but no fucking way did someone like you kill someone like Domino.”
“‘Someone like me?’”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, Amy—you really should hush.”
Amy started back downstairs, gun leading the way. “Pushing a button or two, am I?”
“Just proving your stupidity,” Kelly said.
Amy’s phone beeped in her ear. An incoming text while she was talking. She pulled the phone away and checked the ID of the text. Restricted number.
Please let this be Domino. Please let this be Domino warning me that Kelly had somehow gotten ahold of his primary cell. That he has Carrie and Caleb safe and sound and that help is on the way. Please.
Amy opened the text. It was Domino. A bloodied image of him with his throat cut. Next to his dying face was Kelly Blaine, grinning, her arm outstretched and off camera as she took the selfie.
Amy stared at the image in disbelief.
A fake. It has to be. Some kind of Photoshop bullshit.
“Did ya get it yet?” Kelly asked.
“It’s a fake,” Amy managed in barely a whisper.
“You mean like the two you just found in the tub?”
Amy closed her eyes and shook her head, refusing to believe. “No. No, it’s fake. There’s no way—”
“No way what? No way that someone like me could have managed such a thing?”
Amy felt sick. It was not like the brief waves of nausea that flashed whenever she found herself subconsciously sharing thoughts with the likes of Monica or the Fannelli brothers, but a deep, cancerous sickness, as if her body was slowly eroding, being hollowed out and robbing her of any conceivable strength.
Still, she managed to voice her denial with some measure of will in her tone. “I don’t believe you. I don’t care what you say or what you show me—I don’t believe you.”
“Suit yourself. You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Go fuck yourself.” Amy hung up and immediately dialed 911.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
Yes! Fucking YES!
“Yes, hello, I’d like to report a double murder at…”
Shit! What’s their damn address?
Amy ran into the Rolston’s kitchen and frantically scanned countertops for signs of mail. She found nothing.
“I don’t know the address, I’m gonna find it, okay?”
No answer.
“Hello? You still there?”
No answer.
Amy pulled the cell phone away from her ear and found herself staring incredulously at the no-service message displayed.
Amy kicked the refrigerator as hard as she could, threw her head back, and screamed.
A moment passed. She stood panting in the kitchen of two dead strangers, rage and frustration pulsating throughout her body. She closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing.
Get ahold of yourself…breathe…
She took a long, final inhale and then let it out slowly. It did not entirely defuse her rage and frustration, but it did leash it. How strong a leash would remain to be seen.
So what now?
(Nothing’s changed. We need to get to a phone that works.)
Everything’s changed. People are dead. Domino may be dead. And Kelly Blaine is officially involved. Everything has definitely fucking changed.
(Doesn’t mean getting to a phone still isn’t the number one priority. Now that Kelly Blaine is involved, who knows how far she’ll go? You thought it before: She’ll try to one-up Monica to prove she’s better, and that means not only you, but your kids are now a potential target. You need to get ahold of them now more than ever.)
How? Fucking HOW?
(Keep moving until you get to the next neighbor. These assholes couldn’t have gotten to all of them.)
And how far away are these next neighbors? And in which direction? I could be wandering for hours. And what about Allan and the Rogerses? I told them I’d return.
Amy started pacing in circles, began gnawing a fingernail on her gun hand, completely unaware that the barrel was pointed at her head as she did so.
Well, that’s it then. Two birds, one stone. I head back to Allan’s and tell them there’s been a change of plans. I explain about the Rolstons and that Kelly Blaine is involved and then tell them all of us are venturing out on foot. Allan will know the way to go. Two birds.
(You do realize there’s a very good chance that they’ve already got them, don’t you? Allan and the Rogerses? That by going over there you could be doing exactly what Kelly wants you to do?)
Bad Games: Malevolent Page 14
