Slash, p.16
Slash, page 16
“What’s wrong?” Vince said.
“The gun fell out of my pocket. You all keep heading for that bungalow.”
He dropped to his hands and knees, searching for the gun in the dark. He didn’t want to turn on the flashlight and give their position away. Heather paused but Sharon tugged on her arm and kept her running toward the bungalow. Vince and Bill got on the ground and helped Todd.
“You guys just go,” Todd ordered them with the voice he would use on the guys at work when they were goofing off too much.
“We need that gun,” Bill said.
“You need to be with Heather and Sharon,” he shot back. “What if he’s waiting for them inside the bungalow?”
It wouldn’t have been a possibility to even consider, at least until Todd had seen the killer run. He could have easily outflanked them and be sitting, waiting.
“Ah, shit,” Bill said, getting up and sprinting the final thirty yards.
“You too, Vince.”
His best friend kept scouring the ground. “I will. After we find the gun. You always sucked at finding things.”
Todd snickered. “That was Ash’s specialty. I would have been late for work at least a hundred times because I couldn’t find my car keys.”
“Exactly. No bloodhound in your DNA.”
The grass was tall here, adding a level of difficulty they didn’t need or want. Todd parted the high grass, his ice-cold fingers groping for even colder steel. From time to time, Vince and Todd lifted their heads from their tasks, nervously looking around for the killer. Todd’s spine prickled, expecting the worst at any second. He came to the pile of cinder blocks.
“Dammit. It fell out of my pocket right here. How far could it have gone?”
Vince crawled about beside him. “It’s heavy, so it has to be close.”
Todd felt like he should personally apologize to Vince too – to all of them – but he had to concentrate.
“Come on, come on,” he muttered, the fog of his breath temporarily clouding his vision every time he exhaled.
“You think they’re all right?” Vince asked.
“No one’s screaming. That seems to be the best way to assume things are okay in this place.”
An image of Kaitlin’s and Taylor’s bodies flashed in his mind and a deep chill ran through his entire body. It was so powerful, he had to stop looking for the gun until it passed. This was worse than a nightmare because it was real.
Chips of cinder block stabbed into his hands, but they were too numb to register any pain. “Jesus, it’s freezing.”
“And we can’t even light a fire,” Vince said, breathing heavily.
“Even if we could, this place is so dry, it would spread like a wildfire in no time. Then again, this guy is a monster. Aren’t monsters afraid of fire?”
“With our luck, we’d get the one that not only isn’t afraid, but likes to chuck people into the flames.”
Where the hell was the gun? The rustling of the grass was too loud for him. He felt as if it could be heard for miles in the still resort.
That was replaced by another, far more alarming sound.
Footsteps.
Very heavy footsteps.
Vince and Todd stopped searching. They saw the dark figure coming and were paralyzed.
Chapter Twenty-One
Todd reached for his backpack, hoping to snatch the knife.
Instead, he grabbed hold of Vince’s jacket sleeve and pulled him hard.
“Run!”
Todd’s legs had a hard time getting started. He felt like a character in a Scooby-Doo cartoon where their legs spin and spin before actually propelling them forward.
We’re not some meddling kids and that’s not angry old man in a mask, he thought.
The toe of his boot hit into something. He looked down, astounded to see Sharon’s .38. He scooped it up and kept going.
He made sure Vince got ahead of him. He knew he was responsible for all of them being here and he would do everything he could to put himself between them and the killer, no matter how terrified he felt.
With a quick backward glance, he saw that the killer was getting close. He nudged Vince in the back with his forearm. They ran straight into the bungalow, kicking rotted boards aside.
“We need to cover the door!” Vince shouted. Heather, Sharon and Bill, who had been standing by the window watching their approach, scattered around the bungalow in search of anything to plug up the empty space that seemed as tall and wide as a massive cave entrance.
“Here!” Heather said. She and Sharon had ripped a closet door off its remaining rusted hinge. Bill helped them carry it to the front. Todd and Vince grabbed one end and they all slammed it sideways against the doorframe. Vince and Todd put their backs to it.
“We need more,” Todd urged them.
Bill pushed a moldy chair across the floor, sealing up the gap between the door and the floor. The back of the chair rested against the door. Bill got on the floor and positioned his feet against the chair, acting as a human doorstop.
Something heavy thumped against the door. Todd’s heart leaped. He leaned harder into the door.
“Come on,” he urged the ladies.
That was when he noticed the windows on either side of the door.
The empty, wide-open windows.
No sooner had he realized clogging up the door was useless than he saw a pair of legs slip through the window.
“The window!”
He and Vince let go of the door. It flipped over the back of the chair and landed on Bill. The sound of the air being punched from his lungs as the door smashed into his ribs filled the cottage.
Out of the dark, Sharon came charging wielding a thick block of wood. She slammed it against the intruder’s legs.
“Aaaaaaagggghhhhh!”
Todd had grabbed what might have once been a table leg and was about to leap out of the window and smash it against the killer’s head when he heard, “You broke my fucking leg!”
“Jesus. It’s Jerry,” Todd said.
He and Vince ran out of the bungalow. Jerry writhed in agony on the ground, his hands clasped over his shin.
“What the hell did you do that for?” He looked royally pissed.
“Why didn’t you freaking say something to let us know it was you?” Vince said.
Sharon came out and Jerry said, “Stay away from me. You’ve done enough damage.”
“But I—”
Heather tugged her back inside. Bill said, “You guys need help?”
“We’ve got it,” Vince said. “Look for more stuff to plug up the windows and door.”
Bill gave him a thumbs-up.
“Can you stand?” Todd asked, his hand extended.
“Guess we’ll see.” Jerry took his hand and hissed loudly when he put pressure on his leg. “We better get inside fast.”
“Why?” Vince asked.
Jerry jerked a thumb behind him. “I was running too hard to say anything because I thought I spotted him coming up behind me.”
To Todd’s horror, a large man draped in shadow was walking a straight line to them. The only saving grace was that he was walking, not running. In fact, he didn’t seem to be in any rush to find them, which was even more unnerving than when he’d run like a cheetah moments earlier.
“You should fire a warning shot and get him to change his mind,” Vince said.
They hobbled with Jerry between them into the bungalow.
“You see how much good that did before,” Jerry said. His face was twisted with pain. His jeans had ripped where Sharon had clubbed him. Todd turned on his flashlight, careful to keep the beam focused on Jerry’s leg and not light up the interior of their hideaway. “Please don’t tell me you see bone.”
Todd said, “No. Just a lot of blood. Heather, can you get my first aid kit out of my bag? We need some antiseptic wipes, gauze and tape.” He looked at Jerry. “I have to lift your pants leg up. It’s gonna hurt.”
“Of course it is.” When Todd pulled the cuff over the wound, Jerry pounded the ground with his fists. “Your mother’s sister!”
“Is he still coming?” Todd asked Vince, who had taken sentry duty by the window.
“He stopped for a moment, but he’s walking again. But real slow.”
“He’s out there?” Heather said worriedly as she handed Todd the first aid supplies.
“Yes, but I don’t think he knows which bungalow we’re in,” Vince replied. The bungalows were tightly packed, but even so, the man outside would have an easy time settling on which they’d ducked into.
“Take this,” Todd said, offering the gun to Vince. What they needed was to get Jerry back on his feet so he could shoot if necessary.
“Keep it down,” Vince said to Bill and Sharon who had been going through the rooms and dragging broken hunks of furniture to barricade the door and windows.
“Well how are we supposed to get stuff and not make any noise?” Bill complained.
“I don’t fucking know. Figure it out,” Vince said in a harsh whisper.
Todd gave Heather his flashlight. “Keep it close.”
She chewed on her bottom lip while he opened the antiseptic packs. They looked like wet wipes.
“You’re a big boy, so you know this is gonna sting like hell,” Todd said.
“Not the first time I’ve been cut. Not even the first time I’ve been cut by a stripper.”
“Screw you,” Sharon said.
She was instantly shushed by four people.
Todd tensed as he touched the alcohol-soaked wipes on Jerry’s open wound. Jerry’s mouth pulled into a grim line, but he didn’t make a sound. As Todd dabbed at the blood, he kept expecting to see the yellow-white of exposed bone.
“No fracture,” he said.
“It’s a Hayden miracle,” Jerry said.
“But you do need stitches. Heath, are there any butterfly bandages in there?”
“Let me see.”
“He’s still coming,” Vince said.
“How far away?” Jerry asked. He shifted his body to try and peek over the windowsill, but a shock of pain set him right back down.
“I don’t know. Hundred yards, maybe less.”
“Whatever you do, don’t pull that trigger.”
“I won’t.”
Todd saw the way Vince was nervously hefting the gun and wasn’t so sure. He knew he had to finish up with Jerry fast and get the gun back. They already had one person who had killed an innocent person. He’d be damned if he let that happen to his best friend. As long as the person approaching the bungalow was too far away to see, they had to hold their fire and assume it was another lost final girl follower.
Heather undid the wrapping on the butterfly bandages and Todd dried Jerry’s skin and applied them. Blood still seeped between the bandages, but it was the best he could do. What he needed was a doctor.
“Good as old,” Todd said.
Jerry was scanned the interior of the bungalow. “We can’t stay here. Too many access points.”
“There’s a bedroom with a boarded-up window,” Bill said.
Jerry thought it over for a moment. “I don’t like the idea of being trapped with only one way in or out.”
Vince shuffled quickly back from the window and nearly fell. “Shit, he’s running and he’s coming straight for us.”
Todd shoved his hands under Jerry’s armpits and lifted him from the floor. “Looks like we don’t have a choice.”
“Everyone grab something as a weapon,” Jerry said. Todd helped get him into the bedroom where Bill and Sharon were waiting with a door and a dresser missing its drawers.
Vince took a cautious step back to the window. “I can almost see him.” He lifted the gun.
“Vince, get in here,” Todd snapped.
His friend peeled away from the window, his face masked in terror.
They clogged the doorway with everything they could find. Heather turned on the lantern she’d brought so they could see. There was no sense trying to pretend the killer hadn’t spotted them. Jerry slumped into a corner and checked his gun.
Todd found a board with several bent and rusty nails poking out of it and passed it to Vince. “Trade you for the gun.”
Even though Vince was scared, he seemed happy to give the gun back.
Looking around the room, Todd saw that everyone had hold of some makeshift weapon. Heather had found a shard of glass shaped like a saber. She’d torn a chair cushion and wrapped it around one end as a kind of hilt. Sharon, her flinty eyes locked on the barricade, held a pipe in each hand. Bill gripped a two-by-four, holding it over his shoulder like a batter waiting for a fastball.
“Stand over there,” Todd whispered to Bill, nodding his chin to a spot beside the doorway.
“Gotcha.”
The block of wood trembled in Bill’s hands, but he didn’t hesitate to position himself so he could give the killer – if it was the killer – a good whack if he pushed his way through.
Todd stood before the barricade with his feet spread apart and the gun raised. He made sure to keep everyone else behind him.
“What if he doesn’t come?” Sharon asked.
“Then we wait in here until daylight,” Todd said. It almost seemed as if Sharon wanted the killer to come for them.
And then it hit Todd.
So did he, if this was, in fact, the same man who had killed Ash’s friends and destroyed her.
They heard boots scraping along the grit on the floor of the bungalow’s main living space.
“He’s here,” Bill muttered. He lifted the two-by-four even higher.
Everyone froze, not daring to make a sound. They listened to the man walk around the bungalow, his footsteps so hard and heavy, Todd wondered if he’d end up falling through the rotted floorboards. They could only be so lucky.
Todd pulled the hammer back on Jerry’s gun, the click sounding like fireworks going off.
Something was thrown against a wall.
Heather let out a startled gasp before clamping her hand over her mouth.
The person in the bungalow stopped moving.
Jerry put his finger to his lips and urged everyone to stay still.
The bungalow was as silent and still as death.
Todd’s heart beat like a wild horse barreling down an open field. He had a hard time swallowing.
Come on, come on. You know we’re in here. Make your move.
He wanted to pull the barricade apart and see the killer’s face. Anything was better than this waiting. And what if the killer decided he wanted no part of them and walked away? Could Todd just let him walk free? This might be his one chance to avenge Ash.
Sweat dotted Bill’s upper lip, despite the cold. Todd looked over at Jerry, who hadn’t taken his eyes off the doorway. He could feel Heather’s, Vince’s and Sharon’s tension at his back. It was palpable, displacing the air, as if something humongous were oozing into the room.
Any second now, there would be hands pounding on the door that had been slapped against the opening.
Todd’s whole body was as rigid as a steel girder.
Was the killer just inches from the barricade, listening for them?
The question was, which side would crack first?
Jerry went to adjust the weight on his good leg and his foot scuffed against the floor just the slightest bit. The noise it made was calamitous.
There was a collective intake of breath, which seemed equally booming. Jerry shook his head, upset with himself. Todd spotted drops of blood on the dirty floor and Jerry’s boots.
The waiting was driving Todd mad. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take. Inaction had never been his strong suit. His thumb grazed the cocked hammer.
That was no final girl fanatic out there.
His nose itched where a bead of sweat had trickled down his face.
In the space of time it took his finger to reach his face to scratch it, wood exploded, people screamed, and darkness pulled them into its malicious embrace.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Todd stood staring at the barricaded door, his confusion paralyzing his legs and arms. The back of his neck hurt like hell. It felt as if he’d been stung by a hive of bees.
It took him a moment – a moment he couldn’t spare – to realize the board that had been screwed into the window had blown apart as if it had been charged with dynamite. He spun around, his arm straight as an arrow, hand gripping the gun for dear life.
Jerry, being the closest to the window, was on the ground. So were Vince and Sharon. Heather shouted, holding onto the remaining shard of glass that had been broken by the wood shrapnel. She’d been cut, blood cascading down her wrist and dripping on the floor.
An instant before the lantern was extinguished by a well-thrown hunk of brick, Todd saw the killer, framed in the window, his hulking body heaving with each breath.
His face had been mangled so badly, it no longer resembled a human face. His nose was split in two and mashed, covering both cheekbones like a fleshy tarp. The few teeth in the ragged red hole of a mouth were a cancerous yellow and serrated. Where there should have been eyes, there were two onyx marbles, or were they just vast, empty sockets bleeding the depthless pitch of space?
Then it went dark.
Todd wanted to shoot, but he feared hitting one of his friends in the inky blackness. The moon must have been swallowed up by storm clouds as there was just barely enough light to illuminate the outline of the window.
Todd stuffed the gun in his pocket and desperately fumbled for anything that could be used to batter the deformed man before he stepped inside.
Sharon yowled and he heard her rushing toward the window.
The sound of metal crunching bone was unmistakable.
