Night Crawlers

by Ron L. Carter

Even though Justin and Joshua had caused yet another tweaker’s death, the torment in Justin’s soul was driving him crazy. As he lay awake at night, the voices in his head took over once again. They were sounding more like a command than a suggestion. It was something that consumed Justin and his every thought. He felt it was something he just couldn’t fight, no matter how hard he tried. He knew the only thing he could do was go along with his uncontrollable desires or he would end up all alone behind the lonely walls. Having Jed get upset with him for leaving the property seemed like it was the lesser of two evils. After wrestling with his demons, he made up his mind. On the nights that Jed was with Chelsea, he wasn’t going to just sit home anymore and feel trapped. He was going to go out and do what he liked to do more than anything else in the world. He thought, no one is going to tell me what to do no more and no one’s gonna stop me from doing what I wanna to do. It’s my life and I’ll do whatever I want.

  Justin waited until the next night when Jed left to go see Chelsea when he slipped out of the gate all alone, once again. As soon as he closed the gate behind him, he took in a deep breath of the cold mountain air. He looked up at the millions of stars and said, “I’m free again.” He almost felt like shouting out loud as he started making his way around the same familiar Red Mountain area. His mind was no longer thinking about right or wrong, he was just looking to fulfill his overwhelming and yearning desire to see a woman getting undressed. What he loved most about what he was going to do had become very clear to him. Sure he loved looking at the women undress but the fact that he could see them undress and they couldn’t see him, excited him beyond what any words could describe.

  He once again began creeping his way around to some of the houses where the lights were still on. He would move slowly over to their bedroom windows and peer in. If he didn’t see what he came for, he would leave and make his way down the street to another house. He always made sure that no one could see him as he creeped slowly from house to house.

  Justin finally found a house where a woman was in her bedroom, with the light on. She was sitting at a dresser in just her panties and bra. She was combing her hair out before she went to bed. That was exactly what he was searching for. He took a crouched position and watched her through the corner of the window. He got so excited that he pulled down his pants and started playing with himself as he watched. When she turned out the lights and went to bed he pulled up his pants and looked around to make sure no one had seen him. He then proudly made his way back to the house.

  He enjoyed spying on the women so much that he continued to do it, night after night, while Jed was with Chelsea. One night, he impulsively decided he would go back to the same house where the young high school girl lived where he had broken in and stood by her bed. It had been close to a year and feeling safe again, she had finally taken the shades down from her windows. There he was, in that same familiar spot he had been to so many times in the past watching from outside her bedroom window. He very excitedly watched as she got ready for bed but even though he was excited, it wasn’t the same as when he had been inside her house and up close to her. His driving desire was urging him to get inside her house, but he would need to catch her alone again.

  He was patient as he waited night after night to see when the time would finally come. When it happened, he crept over to her bedroom window and waited until she finally decided to go to bed. She didn’t waste any time as she quickly took off her clothes and jumped in bed. He went around to break the same window he had broken once before. When it shattered an alarm immediately sounded, blaring loudly. Justin quickly turned and started to run, jumping the fence. Lights came on from the next door neighbor’s house and out ran the home owner wielding a rifle. He aimed and took a shot at Justin as he headed down the street. Justin heard the bullet as it zinged past his head. He wasn’t thinking about getting shot as he kept running deeper into the darkness. His heart was still pumping hard when he finally made it home and sat down on the bed. Once there, he thought to himself, now, I’m having fun again.

  Some of the men in Red Mountain formed a neighborhood watch group shortly after the reports of the peeping tom being back in town. They were determined they weren’t going to let someone go around breaking into their houses and terrorizing their women again. The neighborhood watch group was made up of the young man whose wife had taken four shots at Justin, the father of the high school girl, and four other Red Mountain men. They each were assigned streets that were their responsibility. They were supposed to walk the streets and report any suspicious activity to the sheriff’s department. During one of their meetings some of the locals over heard one of the men say, “We’ll spread the word around town that we formed the group and our motto will be, “We catch – we kill.” Even if the rest of the town wasn’t totally okay with that motto, everyone in their group supported that stance. A few days after the meeting, they started walking the streets at night, with guns loaded, waiting for the peeping tom or any Night Crawlers to come creeping around.

  Justin didn’t have any kind of contact with the people in town so he didn’t hear about them forming the neighborhood watch group. He didn’t know they were walking around at night with guns, watching for the peeping tom and the Night Crawlers. A few nights later, oblivious to the vigilantes, Justin headed out once again looking for the house he hoped would fulfill his intense needs and desires. He spent time going from house to house until he came to one with a light on in the bedroom. He’d been there for some time peeking through the window and watching the woman. He was so preoccupied with her and his needs that he hadn’t noticed he’d been spotted by one of the neighborhood watch guys. The guy was about fifty yards from Justin when he ducked behind a bush and waited. He watched for a several minutes to make sure Justin was the peeping tom and not an innocent neighbor checking on someone. When he was convinced it was the peeping tom, he took careful aim with his rifle and fired off a shot. Justin heard the sound of the gun just about the same time he felt the burning sensation of the bullet go deep into his chest. He was temporarily knocked off his feet and crawled around until he regained his balance. Once he was on his feet he ran from the house. That’s when the guy took another shot at him and hit him in the upper part of his back. Justin went down again. Even though he was severely wounded, his instincts took over and he managed to get himself up and head toward home. The gunman knew that he had hit his target at least once as he tried to follow after Justin. He didn’t get far before he lost sight of Justin, who was deep into the darkness and hiding behind the plants.

  Justin was staggering and struggling to stay on his feet as he made it to the familiar spot behind a clump of Yucca plants. As he tried to keep from passing out, he continued to look back over his shoulder to make sure that the gunman wasn’t following him. He finally made his way back to the house and fumbled around to get the gate open. Once inside, he slammed it closed behind him, barely making it through the back door. He collapsed just inside and from there all he could do was crawl. He was breathing sporadic as air was escaping through a collapsed lung he had suffered from one of the bullets, he had taken in the back. He knew he wasn’t going to last long and was losing consciousness. He’d already lost too much blood from both wounds. He tried to call out for Joshua but could only let out nothing more than a whisper. He managed to crawl toward Joshua’s room when he passed out in the hallway floor.

  Joshua heard the thump of Justin’s body hit the floor when he collapsed. Joshua went running into the hallway to see what had made the noise. That’s when he saw Justin lying face down in a pool of blood. He tried to get Justin to say something as he rolled him over. All he could hear was the wheezing sound coming from Justin’s damaged lung. He searched Justin’s body to see what had happened to him and found the two bullet wounds. Justin looked up, and with his dying words said, “Tell Jed I’m sorry.” When Justin took his last breath, Joshua panicked and started
crying. He went into the living room and started running in circles. He had his arms next to his body and he was flipping his hands wildly up and down as he was screaming and crying out loud. It took him a very long time to finally calm down before he went back over to Justin and tried to shake him a few times to get any kind of reaction out of him. With no response, Joshua knew Justin was dead. He didn’t know what else to do so he curled up next to Justin and just lay there. He knew Jed would come home later in the night and find them on the floor. He figured Jed would know what to do.

  Jed didn’t get home until close to two in the morning, but when he walked into the house he saw the blood on the floor and knew something was wrong. He frantically followed the blood trail into the hallway. That’s when he saw Justin and Joshua lying on the floor next to each other. Both were covered in blood and Jed wasn’t sure which one was hurt. He ran over to Joshua and grabbed him by the arm to ask him if he was alright. Joshua started crying uncontrollably once he saw Jed and looked up and said, “Justin’s dead. He got shot. Twice.” Jed quickly opened Justin’s shirt and saw the two bullet holes with blood still oozing out of them. He instantly knew there was nothing he could do as he felt for Justin’s non-existent pulse. He leaned up against the wall, with his body facing Justin, and slid down with his feet out in front of him and began to cry. He pulled Joshua close and embraced the small teenager in his arms, each comforting each other. As he sat there holding Joshua, Jed believed he knew exactly what happened. Even though he had a pretty good idea he asked Joshua, “Did he go out again?” Joshua was sobbing deeply as he said, “Yes, he did.” Jed yelled, “Dammit, Justin I told you not to do that.” Joshua said, “He told me to tell you before he died, that he was sorry.” Those words cut Jed like a knife, but he was the one who was sorry. He felt like he had let Justin down. “I told him! I warned him the people in town would kill him if he started peeping around again! He just wouldn’t listen.” Even though he was angry with Justin for not listening, he also blamed himself for not being there for Justin when he needed him the most. He knew that he would now have to live with that guilt for the rest of his life. He also knew there was nothing he probably could’ve done that would have stopped him.

  He knew that Joshua was too hysterical to think about doing anything with Justin at that moment so he lay down next to Justin said, “We won’t do anything until morning and then we’ll have to build another box for him and bury him next to mom and dad.”

  Jed didn’t sleep all night. He just sat there next to Justin’s body and holding Joshua. All the things he and Justin had been through together ran through his head. When morning came Jed woke Joshua and said, “Its time.” Joshua screamed and said, “Do we have too?” Jed told him, “We don’t have any choice, we can’t keep him here like this.” That’s when Joshua cried out to Jed, “Let’s find out who did this to Justin and kill him! Jed felt the same way but he knew they couldn’t do that and told Joshua, “We can’t do that Joshua.” Joshua replied angrily, “Why not?” Jed hesitated for a second as he took a couple of deep breaths. He was trying give Joshua the best answer he could think of, “If we do anything, the law will come after us and lock us up. They may even kill us. Regardless, you’d never see Mister or me again.” Joshua didn’t seem to like that answer, but didn’t say anything, just continued to cry.

  Jed soon got up. He went outside and starting building on the box. It took a while, but Joshua finally joined him and started helping out. After they finished it, they went back in the house and wrapped Justin’s body in a blanket. Jed picked him up and carried him out to the box and carefully placed his body in it. They managed to get the box to the bottom of the hole they had dug and bury him. They put the little cross above his grave when they were finished. Jed tried to say some good words about Justin, but got all choked up and couldn’t finish. Jed felt that losing Justin was even worse than losing his mom and dad. The two of them were so close. He knew deep inside it was going to take a lot of time to get over Justin’s death. The two of them were not only brothers, but partners in crime, best friends and they loved each other deeply.

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  Chapter 21 – Joshua’s Revenge