by Jack Quaid
“What is it?” she asked.
“It’s Dad.” Jimmy pulled his coat from the hook by the kitchen door, slipped his arms through, and zipped it up. “He think’s Hatchet Bob’s up there. I’m going to go get him.
Fear and anxiety washed over her face. “Oh, God,” Heather whispered.
“I can’t not go, baby.”
“I know,” Heather said, not liking the words coming out of her mouth one bit. “Be quick.”
Darren slid off the stool and onto his feet. “I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not.”
Darren was already buttoning up his jean jacket when Jimmy put a gentle hand on his brother’s arm.
“I need you here, buddy. I need you to look after Heather and this place.”
“I can look after myself,” Heather said.
Jimmy rephrased. “We’ve barricaded all the doors and all the windows, but this is a big place, and maybe there’s some part of it that isn’t as barricaded as well as we thought. You’re gonna need all the help you can get, and me and Dad are going to need a safe place to come back to. Stay and help Heather.”
Darren nodded and stopped buttoning his jacket.
“Jimmy,” Heather said, and just when any other woman would beg him to stay, she pulled something steel and shiny from the front pocket of her uniform and slammed a .38 snub nose pistol on the counter. “Kill anything that tries to stop you.”
Fifteen
With Heather’s .38 in his hand, Jimmy stepped out into the cold Bastard Town night and scanned the parking lot. There was nothing moving, not even the wind. Trying his hardest to be quiet, Jimmy took careful and considered steps through the parking lot and up to his 1977 Trans Am. Groove by groove, he slid the key into the lock and closed the door slowly and firmly so that it made as little noise as possible. Second only to Heather, the Trans Am was what he’d thought about most while he was inside. Every night, he’d dreamed of climbing behind the wheel of the V8 and letting it rip on the open road, doing one hundred ten with Springsteen’s “Born to Run” blasting out of the 8-track.
That was all he wanted—his girl, his car, a couple of beers, and the Boss. Now he had to deal with whatever the hell he was about to have to go and deal with.
He turned the engine over. That was the one thing he couldn’t keep quiet. Then he slipped it into gear and pulled off.
Ten minutes later, the headlights of the Trans Am lit up the canopy of leafless trees as it cruised down the narrow dirt path to his father’s trailer. Otis had always been cantankerous and antisocial, but over the years, he had somehow grown even more so. He’d sold his fishing boat, along with the family house, and brought himself an old Airstream trailer, which he’d driven halfway up the mountain and parked for good. Except for going down to Sullivan’s Tavern on Pine to drink by himself every Friday night, Otis didn’t much leave that trailer for anything.
Jimmy eased off the gas and dropped the speed of the Trans Am down to almost a crawl as the path narrowed and tree branches slapped the sides of the car. When he reached the old Airstream, Jimmy shut the engine down but left the headlights shining on the trailer. The tires were flat, and weeds had grown up around the sides. It hadn’t moved in years, and there was probably a fair chance that it wouldn’t move from that spot again anytime soon.
Jimmy wiped the condensation from the windshield and peered through.
No Otis.
No Hatchet Bob.
Not a soul in sight.
Jimmy climbed out of the car and instantly felt the cold rise up from the ground and through his boots then settle on his toes and feet. Damn, he thought. How did the old man survive out here?
While Jimmy was in in jail, Otis had come to visit him a couple of times, and “a couple of times” meant just that. Over all those years, they’d seen each other twice. Jimmy didn’t hold it against him. That was just the way the old man was.
Slowly, with Heather’s .38 in his hand, Jimmy made his way over to the trailer. He blew his breath out the corner of his mouth so the fog wouldn’t obscure his view. As he approached Otis’s trailer, he saw the door was open—not wide open, only a couple of inches. In the middle of a Whittier winter, though, nobody was leaving a door open, not even an inch, unless they absolutely, positively had to.
Jimmy slowly pushed the door with the nose of the .38. He expected the worst: blood, bone, and death. As that door swung open, Jimmy saw Otis sitting in a chair, eyes bloodshot and a shotgun in his hands. He was only in his fifties, but he looked as if he were closer to being in his seventies. His skin was pale, and his hair was almost gone but there was still grit in his gut, so when Jimmy saw his old man wrap his finger around the trigger of that boomstick, he knew Otis had every intention of squeezing on it until it went boom.
“Dad,” Jimmy said. “It’s me?”
Otis squeezed. The twelve-gauge blasted out of the end of the shotgun in a burst of flames and fury. Jimmy ducked, but that didn’t matter, because Otis wasn’t aiming at him.
He was aiming right behind Jimmy. The shell blasted straight over Jimmy’s head and slammed into Hatchet Bob, who was standing right behind him. The big bastard stood there in a yellow fisherman’s slicker and matching fisherman’s hat, with a noose around his neck. Oh, and in his hand was a hatchet—he wouldn’t be Hatchet Bob without one, after all. Bob hit the ground with a dull thud.
Jimmy looked from the slasher to his old man. “Dad!”
“What the hell are you doing standing there?” Otis snapped. “Get yourself killed doing that!”
There was a moan and a groan from Hatchet Bob, then he started to climb back up onto his feet.
Otis racked another shell into his shotgun. “You gonna come in here or stay out there all night?”
Jimmy didn’t have to be told twice. He stumbled up the couple of steps and into the trailer then slammed the door behind him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Otis barked at him.
“I came to get you.”
“Do I look like a damsel in distress? I told you not to come up here. I told you to stay down there!”
“Well,” Jimmy said. “I’m here now.”
“And now we’re both stuck in here with that thing out there.”
Darren peeked through the blinds and looked at the space on the ground where Hatchet Bob had been lying on the ground. “What is that thing?”
“A thorn in my side is what he is. You think that’s the first time I’ve put two shells in it? Because I can tell you that no, it is not.”
“This is not good, Dad,” Jimmy said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Did you bring the Trans Am?”
“With a full tank of gas and fresh tires.”
Otis gave that some thought. “Then let’s get the hell out of here.”
And that was the plan—until they both heard the deep metallic clank of metal on metal.
“What was that?” Jimmy whispered. He pulled back the blind and peeked out. His Trans Am was exactly where he had left it parked, its headlights shining right on the trailer. The only difference was the massive hatchet buried in the phoenix painted on the hood. Jimmy looked back at his old man. “Change of plans, Dad. We have to battle it out here.”
Otis’s face scrunched up with more lines and wrinkles than an old newspaper. “If that’s the way it is, then that’s the way it is.” He tossed the shotgun to Jimmy, who caught it one-handed, then leaned over and pulled an M16 from behind a couch cushion.
“Jesus, Dad,” Jimmy said. “Why do you have that?”
“For a rainy day, and if you ask me, it’s raining pretty hard.”
We might just make it through this mess, Jimmy thought. Maybe.
What Jimmy didn’t know was at the very same time he and Otis were inside the trailer with their M16 and shotguns, Hatchet Bob was outside by a pile of wood and tools. You see, Otis always dreamed of building his own shack out in the woods, and over the years, he’d been stockpiling mate
rials, tools, and whatever else he figured would be helpful in realizing his dream. One of those materials was a three-foot crowbar he used to leverage the massive boulders and slabs of stone that populated the entire side of the mountain.
Hatchet Bob wrapped his hand around that crowbar and pulled it out from a pile of wood. For the next few minutes, Hatchet Bob could easily have been call Crowbar Bob.
Sixteen
“We should be fine as long as we stay in here,” Otis said.
And just then, as those words passed through his lips, the crowbar punched through the side of the trailer just inches away from his ear.
Jimmy called for the old man to look out, but Otis didn’t really need the encouragement. He pushed off the wall, slammed his back against the other side of the trailer, shouldered the M16 and blasted away in a succession of rat-a-tat-tats that punched holes the size of fists into Otis’s mobile home. Shards of light streamed through the holes and beamed light all over the inside of the trailer.
Otis blew an entire thirty-round magazine, and when he was finished, he let the empty mag hit the floor and rammed another one into the M16. Then everything sat quiet for a moment.
Darren peered through the gun smoke that filled the inside the trailer and zeroed in on his old man. “Did you get him?”
A big grin grew across his face. “You know what?” Otis said. “I think that maybe I did.”
But he hadn’t. A crowbar slammed through the wall of the trailer, through Otis’s back, and out the other side of his chest.
“Dad!” Jimmy yelled.
Hatchet Bob yanked the crowbar out of Otis first then the trailer, and Otis slid down, leaving a trail of blood on the wall. Jimmy caught him just as he was about to hit the deck.
All of a sudden, all those arguments and yelling sessions they’d had over God knew what when he was a kid all rushed through Jimmy’s mind at once, and he regretted each and every one of them. When he looked at Otis, sitting there on the floor of his trailer, covered in blood, he knew that the next few moments were going to be the last few moments that he would have with his old man.
“I’ve got you, Dad,” Jimmy said. “You’re going to be okay.”
Otis looked at him, and they both smiled. “You’re so full of shit.”
They both laughed.
“I probably shouldn’t lie to you, Dad. You look awful.”
Otis gripped his son’s hand tightly. “Get the hell out of here. Find Heather and drive as if the devil was on your tail and never look back. Promise me?”
“I promise, Dad.”
And as soon as Jimmy said those words, Otis died, gripping his eldest son in his bloody hand.
In that moment, Jimmy wanted nothing more than to be out of that old trailer with some murderous beast circling him and back in Heather’s arms. He wished he were somewhere warm and safe where there was love, laughter, and hope. When he was in the can, late at night, he would stare up at the mattress of the bunk above him and let his mind run in a thousand different directions of what his life with Heather would be like. He didn’t want the world. He never imagined traveling the globe and seeing Paris, London, or wherever else people dreamed of escaping to. He didn’t want any of that. His escape was growing old with Heather, watching Cheers on the couch, and having a beer on a Sunday afternoon after he finished mowing the lawn. That was his dream.
Jimmy climbed to his feet, wiped the tears from his eyes, and swapped the shotgun for the M16. Lying in that cell, staring up at that mattress above him, he’d never dreamed of dying horribly halfway up a mountain. The way Jimmy saw it, that just wasn’t going to happen.
He held the M16 in his hand and stood by the door. It was going to be one hell of a mad dash down the mountain all the way back to the diner, but he was shit out of options and dying up there wasn’t one of them. No, sir.
Jimmy took a long deep breath, wrapped his fingers around the handle, and opened the door.
Bad idea.
Hatchet Bob was standing right there, and he rammed the crowbar straight through Jimmy’s shoulder, pinning him against the wall of the trailer.
Jimmy screamed. He didn’t have time for pain, but he did still have the M16 in his hand. He hammered down on the trigger and unloaded an entire clip in Hatchet Bob’s direction until he heard the M16 click.
When the smoke cleared, Jimmy saw Hatchet Bob lying flat on his back just outside the trailer. There’s no way that anybody, Hatchet Bob or Superman, could survive having an entire magazine from an M16 blasted into them, Jimmy thought.
Jimmy let the weapon slip from his fingers and clunk on the floor of the trailer. For a moment there, that future with Heather, watching Cheers on the couch, and drinking beer after mowing the lawns was going to be the reality of their future.
Then Hatchet Bob climbed to his feet, and Jimmy knew that all those dreams were simply that… dreams.
Seventeen
Courtney Jones hated cheerleading. She thought it was stupid and boring. She would rather sit through all four Rocky movies than toss around pom-poms with a great big fake smile on her face. She only did it because her mother had been a Whittier cheerleader, and for some reason, she wanted Courtney to be one too.
Courtney had thought she would do it for a year just to make her mother happy, then her mom would lose interest, and she could slowly stop going to practice and eventually stop going altogether. That had been three years ago, and Courtney still couldn’t bring herself to quit. Every single time she wanted to bail, she would see her mom out in the crowd and see how happy it made her to see Courtney on the basketball court or the football field with her pom-poms.
She’d never really understood it until after having one too many brandies, Courtney’s grandmother let slip that Courtney’s mother had never actually been a cheerleader. She’d tried out for the squad every year, and every single year, she’d been turned down. Now she lived that dream through her daughter. Courtney never told her mother what she knew. She just continued going to practice, cheering at the games, and watching her mother up there in the bleachers with that big smile on her face.
Courtney stood in front of Whittier Community School, freezing her ass off. She had on a coat, but underneath that, she had little more than her cheer uniform, which wasn’t exactly designed for winter weather. She bounced from one foot to the other, trying to stay warm, then she checked her Swatch watch for like the gazillionth time and repeated the process again.
“Come on, Mom. Come on, come on,” she muttered under her breath.
Courtney cursed herself for not getting her license last summer like everybody else. If she had, she wouldn’t be freezing her ass off outside the school while some killer or whatever was on the loose.
Then all the way down at the end of the street, a couple of headlights appeared out of the fog.
Relief washed over her. “About time.”
But as the headlights grew brighter and the car approached, that relief was replaced with curiosity.
“That’s not Mom’s car…”
She knew what the headlights of her mom’s car looked like. The family vehicle at the Jones household was a Chevy van. She was an only child, but her mother insisted they needed a family van—so a family van was what they had. That family van, Courtney knew from many nights standing outside of the school after practice, had square headlights, and the vehicle that was approaching had round.
“Who the hell is that?” Courtney said under her breath.
A Chevy Nova pulled over to the side of the road and stopped right in front of Courtney. She still didn’t know who was behind the wheel and was undecided if she should stay where she was or run for her life, so she stood ready to do both.
Courtney bent at the waist and peered through the passenger window to get a look at the driver, and as she did that, whoever was behind the wheel leaned over and wound the window down. It was Brandon J. Coates. They were in the same class. In fact, they had been in the same class since they were six years old.
They weren’t friends, but they were friendly—about as friendly as two people with no shared interests, shared friends, or real need to talk to each other could be. She didn’t dislike Brandon J. Coates. It wasn’t that at all. It was just that he wasn’t very interesting. If he were one of the thirty-one flavors at Baskin-Robbins, he would have been peach, and like peach, he’s was okay but just not that memorable.
“What are you doing out here?” Brandon asked. “There’s a curfew. It’s dangerous.”
“I know,” she said. “My mom was supposed to pick me up, but I don’t know… she’s, like, late or something.”
“You want a lift?”
Courtney shot a glance back down the empty road. Her mom’s van—or any other car, for that matter—was nowhere to be seen. It was as cold as hell, and she’d already been waiting ages. “Sure.”
She climbed into Brandon’s Nova, and as he pulled away from the curb, Courtney pushed her hands up against the heat vents, trying to suck any and all heat out of the Nova that it had to offer.
“Fuck me gently with a chain saw, it’s cold,” Courtney said.
Brandon fiddled with a couple of switches on the dashboard, and more mediocre, lukewarm air pumped out of the vents. “How long have you been waiting out there?”
“I don’t know… forever,” Courtney said. “With everything going on, Coach Bell still wanted to ‘maintain normalcy’ and have practice. Yeah, well, seems I was the only fucking idiot that turned up.”
“Things are pretty crazy around here,” Brandon said. “Do you think they’ll catch him?”
“Hatchet Bob?”
“Yeah,” Brandon said. “Hatchet Bob.”
“I’m not even sure I believe Hatchet Bob is real,” she said. “Like, come on, some guy who was murdered way back when comes back from the dead to try to kill the entire town? Please. Hatchet Bob? Not even the name is scary. They should have called him…” She gave it some thought. “Jon Bon Hatchet Jovi or something?”