Escape From Slaughter Beach

by Jack Quaid

It had been that way since he was twenty-five years old, which meant Telly’s Tuesday-night tradition had lasted for damn near close to forty-five years. That meant for close to forty-five years, he had lied to Doris about where he was, where he was going, and more importantly… why he was going there.

  On that particular night, he’d told her he was going to play cards over at Terry Wood’s place with Chris Lumley and Jay Sakes. It wasn’t a complete and total lie. Terry, Chris, and Jay really did play cards every Tuesday night, and they had invited Telly to join their game a number of times, but he had always declined. He preferred to be behind the wheel of his blue Packard, with the windows down and the warm breeze gently flowing through the car.

  It would be reasonable to wonder why Telly Edmondson drove up US 13 every Tuesday night instead of spending time with his wife or indeed playing cards with his buddies. It’s not only a strange hobby to have but to also be so dedicated to for all those years. The answer was simple. The road Telly cruised every Tuesday night was the main way out of the Slaughter Beach area. DE-1 connected to US 13, which connected to roads that connected to the rest of the country.

  On those Tuesday-night drives, Telly wondered what would happen if he just kept on driving. It wasn’t that he hated Slaughter Beach or couldn’t stand his wife. He loved where he lived and adored his wife and their three grown children. He was one hundred percent comfortable with every decision he had made in his life, and he harbored no regrets. That said, he did wonder about all the other paths he could have taken. He wondered that a hell of a lot.

  What Telly had never confessed to anyone, not even Doris, was that on the very day that she’d told him she was pregnant with their first son, Howie, Telly was planning to leave Slaughter Beach. His suitcase was in the trunk of his blue Packard, and he had plans to travel the country and see the world. He’d always dreamed about being a photographer and wanted to capture everything he saw on his 35mm Leica. He imagined that somewhere, years from that moment, he would hold an exhibition about the America he’d discovered out on that road and the images of it he’d captured. But that all changed when he walked up the driveway to Doris’s daddy’s house to tell her he was leaving.

  Before he could tell her his plans, she got in first and told him she was pregnant. He’d given her a hug and proposed right there on the spot. Telly never told her about his dreams to travel the country and shoot photos on his little 35mm Leica. Instead, he used that Leica to take photographs of their children’s first steps, birthdays, and family vacations. He may not have had exhibition walls filled with his discovery of the world, but he had photo albums filled with his discovery of life.

  He had no regrets. Not a single one. But that didn’t stop him from climbing into that old faded blue Packard every Tuesday night, driving up Route 1 to US 13, and wondering to himself, What if…

  On that particular Tuesday night, Telly was on his way back from his drive when he pulled into the First & Last Roadhouse to fill up the Packard with gas. He never wanted Doris to discover how far he had driven, so on his way back, he always pulled in to Lloyd’s and filled up. The First & Last was on the way home, and over the decades, he’d started to look forward to seeing Lloyd on his way back into town.

  He eased off the gas as he rolled up to the gas station and stopped right at the pump. He didn’t think anything of it at first, but Lloyd usually came to greet him when he pulled up, and on that night, Lloyd was nowhere to be seen.

  Telly’s back hurt when he climbed out, and he put a hand on his hip to give it a little stretch. He made a mental note to maybe start using a pillow on the seat of the old car before the next time he hit the road.

  “Lloyd?” Telly called. “You there, Lloyd?”

  Lloyd didn’t call back. Not a single peep. At that moment, Telly started to think something was up. Then he saw the Closed sign on the door and knew something was up. Lloyd Fairweather was as strong as any man Telly had ever met, and Telly couldn’t remember a time when the First & Last was closed or Lloyd was sick.

  He made his way over to the building and slowly, carefully pushed the door open, afraid of what was on the other side. Telly saw the flies, and the smell hit him so hard in the face that it forced him out of the station as if he had been physically cast back out into the night.

  Apart from a funeral or something like that, Telly had never seen a dead body before. He didn’t even like looking at roadkill as he drove past it on the road. He put his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath and avoid a full-blown panic attack, which he knew he was one hundred percent on the verge of. Once he got control of that and the color returned to his face, he made his way over to the pay phone in the corner and punched three numbers into the keypad. They were 911.

  Twenty-Six

  One of two things had happened. Either Parker had forgotten to tell Joe that she had plans to go over to Lisa McMahon’s to help her plan for her wedding, or she had told Joe and he’d forgotten. Both were likely, and Joe didn’t think twice about it. But with Parker out of the house, it was up to him to drop Sam off for her slumber party over at the Andersons’.

  Joe and Sam were already halfway out of the house when the phone rang. He pulled it off the wall in the kitchen and wedged it between his neck and shoulder as he slipped his arm into his jacket. “Sheriff,” he answered.

  He knew it was Morgan, but she was talking so fast that he couldn’t put together any of the words she was saying.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Joe said. “Slow down, Morgan, and say it again.”

  “Lloyd Fairweather is dead. Telly Edmondson just found his body down at the Roadhouse.”

  “Dead? Is Telly sure?”

  “His head was…”

  “His head was what?” Joe whispered so low that Sam couldn’t hear.

  “His head is not on his body.”

  “Goddamn, “Joe whispered. “Call Telly back and tell him to wait at the Roadhouse, and I’ll meet him there. It’ll take me about thirty minutes.”

  He hung up and was ready to jump into his Jeep and speed on over to the First & Last Roadhouse when he saw Sam standing out on the porch waiting for him. “Ah, shit,” he mumbled to himself.

  The service station and Marcy Anderson’s house couldn’t have been farther from each other, and he couldn’t exactly take her to a crime scene. He picked up the phone and dialed Parker’s number. Little did he know that she had her own problems to deal with.

  Twenty-Seven

  Back in the Aronsons’ barn, Corey pointed to a wall of tools. There were hammers, sledges, shovels, and an entire collection of screwdrivers, chisels, and saws. In among all that was an empty spot where a certain tool should have been—a chain saw.

  “Looks like Hurricane Williams found his weapon of choice,” Corey said.

  Parker looked over at him. “That’s certainly going to make things harder.” Her cell rang, and she pulled the Nokia out of her pocket and answered it.

  “Hey, baby,” Joe said on the other line. “I need to go to work.”

  “Everything all right?”

  “I don’t know yet. Do you mind coming back and dropping Sam off at Marcy’s?” he said. “I’m heading the other way, and it’s looking like it’s a sooner-rather-than-later kinda situation.”

  Parker mimed a couple profanities then adopted the best nonsuspicious tone she could muster. “Sure, I’ll head off now,” she said then hung up.

  “What was that about?” Corey asked.

  “We need to make a detour.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Fifteen minutes later, Corey pulled the Eldorado over to the side of the road outside of Parker’s house. The streets were filled with teenagers in costumes, carrying buckets of candy. Now that the fog had rolled in, the ghosts had come out in force. Parker had counted at least seven or eight of them and that was without hardly even trying. The most popular Halloween costume in Slaughter Beach was the basic garden-variety ghost. The reason for that was simple: the fog. Anybody dressed as a gh
ost in the fog was at least ten times scarier than a Jason, Michael, or Freddy because they could “emerge” from the fog and scare the living daylights out of everybody.

  Kids and teenagers alike were having a hell of a time out on the street—that was every kid except Parker’s. When Corey shut the engine of the Eldorado down, and he and Parker looked across her front yard. Sam was sitting on the stoop with her chin in the palm of her hand and the most sour look a nine-year-old girl could muster on her face, which was pretty sour.

  “Now,” Parker said. “Not a word about any of this.”

  “About what?”

  “Any of it.”

  Corey scoffed. “As if.”

  Parker leaned over and hit the horn on the wheel, and when Sam looked up, Parker called out, “Hey, let’s go.”

  Sam climbed to her feet, slung her overnight bag over her shoulder, and approached the Eldorado with equal parts confusion and curiosity. She pointed at the beat-up Eldorado. “What the hell is this?”

  “Hey! Watch your mouth,” Parker said.

  Corey laughed. “She sounds like your daughter.”

  Sam lazily pointed to him. “Who are you?”

  “Do you want the truth?” Corey asked.

  “Sure?”

  “Do you really want to know the truth?”

  Sam rolled her eyes. She was bored with him already. “Sure.”

  “You know those slashers you see in horror movies?”

  “What about them?”

  “Your mom and me were a badass team that used to travel the country, sending all those slimeballs back to hell. That was until she got a bun in the oven, which was you. She quit, and I continued being a badass. There’s a slasher in town, and we’re working together again to send that sucker back to hell.”

  Parker shook her head. But it didn’t matter. Sam just waved it off as bullshit and climbed into the back of the car.

  “Whatever,” she said as she slumped down into the seat. “Can we go now?”

  “Thanks for your help, Corey,” Parker said.

  Corey turned the engine over and pulled out into the street. “Happy to help.”

  Half a block later, Corey slowed for a group of trick-or-treating Ghostbusters crossing the street before taking a corner as Parker leaned over the back seat of the Eldorado.

  “Let’s go over the rules for Halloween,” she said.

  Corey shot a quick glance at Parker. “What rules?”

  “It’s lame,” Sam said. “She makes me do it every year.”

  “Tell me what they are, young lady, or we’re turning this car around and you can stay at home tonight.”

  “Mom, I’m not a kid.”

  “What are the rules?”

  “All right, all right, all right.” Sam counted on her fingers as she ran down the list. “Number one: no trick-or-treating whatsoever. Number two: don’t, under any circumstances, read from a demonic book. Number three: never say the name of a slasher five times into a mirror, no matter how many of my friends tell me it will be fun. Number four: if I hear a noise, don’t separate from the group to investigate. And number five: if anyone says, ‘I’ll be right back,’ they probably won’t—oh, and if anyone suggests you split up, they’re probably going to die.”

  “And the last one?” Parker asked.

  “Never assume the slasher is dead. Ever.”

  “That’s some pretty good advice,” Corey said, looking in the rearview mirror back at the young girl.

  Twenty-Nine

  Telly’s nerves were playing havoc on him ever since he hung up from the 911 call. His stomach was all in knots, his fingernails were chewed down to next to nothing, and he’d spent the better part of the last thirty minutes pacing around outside Lloyd’s filling station, waiting for Sheriff Joe to turn up. So when he saw the Slaughter Beach’s Sheriff’s Department roll up to the service station, a wave of relief washed over him.

  “Sheriff, Sheriff?” he said as Joe climbed out of the Jeep. “I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood here and waited. I hope that was all right? Was that all right?”

  Joe placed a reassuring hand on Telly’s shoulder. “It’s just fine, Telly. You did just fine. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “Not for Lloyd, it’s not, I’m afraid.” Telly pointed to the station. “He’s in there.”

  “You just wait here,” Joe told him. “I’ll go take a look.”

  Telly watched as Joe switched on his flashlight and made his way over to the gas station. Joe pushed open the door and disappeared into the darkness. Flashes of light shot out between the old Castrol advertisements that covered most of the glass and made it almost impossible to see anything going on inside.

  Joe was in there for a hell of a long time, and worry was beginning to creep across Telly’s face. Then Joe stumbled out of that building, coughing and covering his mouth and nose with a handkerchief to stop that awful stench from invading his insides.

  “What happened?” Telly asked. He wanted to be of some help but didn’t exactly know how he could be.

  Joe leaned up against the pump, tried to catch his breath, and dry retched instead. That went on for a couple of moments before he got a hold of himself.

  “Are you okay, Joe?” Telly asked.

  He nodded. “I’m okay. Thanks, Telly. One thing’s for sure: I don’t think poor Lloyd is.”

  That was all too much for Telly. The only time he’d even heard of a murder, or whatever it was he’d played witness to, was on television, and they always happened in the cities, not in little beachside towns like Slaughter Beach. “What’s going on, Joe?” he asked with a hint of confusion in his voice.

  “I don’t know, buddy, but it’s not good,” Joe said, dragging in a lungful of fresh air. The color had returned to his face, and he started to look reasonably normal again.

  The radio in his Jeep squawked to life. It was Morgan. “Boss, come in, boss.”

  Telly followed as Joe made his way over to the Jeep, leaned inside, pulled the radio off the hook, and pressed it to his lips. “Go ahead, Morgan.”

  “I just got a distress call from Mary Brown over at the El Wray Motel,” she said. “They’ve got some trouble over there.”

  “Jesus Christ, what kind of trouble?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “What do you mean she didn’t say?”

  “We got cut off before she could say anymore.”

  Joe pulled the radio from his lips. “Goddamn it.”

  “You there, boss?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. Look, give Sheriff Burke a call over in Little Creek and see if he can send a couple of deputies over to the EL Wray. They’re closer than I am. that’s for sure.”

  “What about me, boss?”

  “I need to you over here at the First & Last. Lloyd Fairweather’s dead.”

  “Dead? Are you sure?”

  Joe threw a glance over his shoulder at the building that held the two separate remains of Lloyd Fairweather inside. “If he’s not dead, he’s having one hell of a bad day.”

  Morgan told him she was on her way and signed off.

  “Hey, Joe.” Telly pointed to a minivan parked almost out of sight by the side of the service station. “Is that your wife’s van?”

  Joe took a look. “Yeah, Telly. It is.”

  Thirty

  There weren’t many people in Slaughter Beach Parker didn’t like. Some she liked more than others, but when it came to Jacinta Anderson, it was safe to say she was one of the people Parker liked the least. She wasn’t evil compared to some of the evil Parker had known, but she rubbed her the wrong away and sometimes rubbing someone the wrong way was just simply enough.

  Parker pointed out the Andersons’ house, and Corey pulled the Eldorado to a stop outside the most perfect home on the street. It was the ideal American home, where the grass was cut and the garden was always carefully manicured. If there were a magazine called Perfect American Home, Jacinta Anderson’s home would be on the cover every si
ngle month.

  Parker walked Sam up the path to the front door and rang the doorbell. A moment later, Jacinta pulled open the door with her perfect hair, her perfect clothes, and her perfect makeup. Parker wasn’t even wearing makeup anymore.

  Sam didn’t even give her a goodbye. There was no “See you later. I love you, Mom” or “Thanks for the ride.” Sam just made her way into the house, and a moment later, Parker could hear her laughing with her friends in the other room.

  Parker didn’t have the time, and she was certainly not in the mood for small talk, so she just simply thanked Jacinta for taking Sam for the night and turned to walk away. She almost made it, too, but Jacinta’s words pulled her back.

  “I heard Sam got into a little bit of trouble at school.”

  Parker raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you heard?”

  “She’s not going to find a husband like that, you know.”

  “Is that what she should do, Jacinta? Find a husband?”

  “Of course,” she said. “You want her to be happy, don’t you?”

  Corey hit the horn—long, hard, and obnoxious. “Parker, we gotta go!”

  “Who’s Parker?”

  Parker sighed. It was shaping up to be one hell of a shitty night. “Goodnight, Jacinta. Thanks for taking her.”

  A couple of seconds later, Parker was back in the Cadillac.

  “Listen to this,” Corey said as he cranked up the volume on the police scanner.

  “Sheriff Burke,” Morgan said. “We’re going to need your assistance over here in Slaughter Beach if you can spare the bodies.”

  The voice was young and unsure. “Go ahead?”

  “Joe’s tied up with an incident down at the First & Last, and we’ve just received a strange message from the El Wray Motel. Something’s going on over there. Can you spare a couple of bodies to go and check it out?”

  “Not a problem,” Burke said. “I’m running a bit short on manpower at the moment, but I can take a run down there myself. Give me about thirty minutes. That okay?”