by Jack Quaid
Well, she didn’t give it that much thought.
“It’s all pretty farfetched,” Brandon said, then for a couple of blocks, they rode on in silence. “Do you remember when we were little and your mom and my mom used to volunteer at Goodwill together?”
Courtney hadn’t thought about that in years. “And we’d try to catch moths.” She laughed at that long-lost forgotten memory. “We could never get them in the jar.”
“They would always fly back out again before we could put the lid on.”
“That didn’t stop us trying,” Courtney said. “We’d spend all night out there, trying to catch those things.”
“No, it didn’t stop us.” he said with a hint of melancholy. “Then the Goodwill shut down, and our moms stopped volunteering. That was probably the last time we were friends.”
“We’re still friends, Brandon,” Courtney said, but she knew that was a lie.
“Are we? Really?” He brought the Nova to a stop outside her house. “You’ve barely spoken a word to me since we were five or six years old.” He shut off the engine. “I’d really like us to be friends again.”
Courtney gave him a smile chock-full of pity. “We will, I promise. We’ll be better friends. Thanks for the ride, Brandon.”
Courtney wrapped her hand around the door handle, but when she pulled it, the door didn’t open. The damn thing was locked. At first, Courtney didn’t think anything of that other than it was odd and maybe stuck. Then she tried a couple of more times, but the door still wouldn’t budge.
Courtney tilted her head Brandon’s way. “Brandon?”
“I really want us to be friends.”
She suddenly realized exactly why the door wouldn’t open. “And I really want you to unlock this door.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, bouncing his knee up and down at one hundred miles an hour, and in the blink of an eye, he went from being a normal everyday guy to something a hell of a lot more unhinged.
“Brandon, the door?”
“You see, I just don’t know if I can do that.”
“What do you mean you can’t do that?” Her voice shifted into something sterner. “Open the door, Brandon.”
Brandon looked to the floor. “Can I have a kiss?”
“What the fuck are you talking about!”
“Just a kiss goodnight.”
“No!” she snapped. “You can’t have a kiss goodnight.” Courtney rattled the door handle again, but there’s no way that door was going to open without Brandon unlocking it from his side. “Brandon!”
“There’s a lot of strange things going on right now.”
“There’s a lot of strange things going on in this car right now!”
“I could just take a kiss,” he said, voice completely monotone.
Courtney stopped struggling with the door, got really quiet, and focused all her attention on the boy she had known since she was six years old. “Brandon, ah, what?”
“A lot of strange things are happening,” he continued. “Lot of people going missing. Who’s to say that maybe if you went missing, they wouldn’t think it was Hatchet Bob.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “Nobody would expect me.” And then he grinned.
“Brandon,” Courtney said, keeping her tone calm and measured, certainly giving the impression that she wasn’t fucking around. “Open this door right-fucking-now!”
But he didn’t. Brandon lunged at her. She screamed and pushed, but he was heavier than her, and all his weight pushed her down into the seat. No matter how much kicking and screaming she did, it wasn’t looking good for Courtney. Brandon tore at her clothes, trying to get her coat off.
“No! No! No!” Courtney yelled.
But Brandon wasn’t having any of it. He raised his hand to punch her square in the face, but at that very moment, the window on Brandon’s side of the car shattered. A massive hand wrapped around his ankle and yanked Brandon out of the window almost as fast as some poor bastard being sucked out of a smashed-open window on an airplane.
All of a sudden, the inside of the car was as quiet as a church at midnight. Courtney didn’t know what the hell had happened. She slowly sat up and peered through the smashed window of the Nova.
If Courtney had climbed into that car with any skepticism about the existence of Hatchet Bob, then that skepticism had just been kicked the hell out. Standing there in the middle of the road, holding Brandon J. Coates up by the ankle as if he were some sort of fishing trophy, was Hatchet Bob in the flesh.
Terror—true terror—was on Brandon’s upside-down face, not unlike the terror that had been on Courtney’s face only moments before.
He uttered one word and one word only. “Help.”
Courtney gave it some thought, but she didn’t give it a hell of a lot of thought, that was for damn sure. Sliding across the bench seat, she said, “You should have opened the door, Brandon.”
She wrapped her cold fingers around the keys, cranked up that Chevy Nova, put pedal to the metal and got the hell out of there. Halfway down the block, she glanced in the rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of Hatchet Bob slamming Brandon on the road like he was a cheap rag doll. A smile crawled to the corner of her mouth… then the worst thing ever happened.
There was a thump and a clunk from under the hood of Brandon’s car, and the whole piece of shit died. Right there in the middle of the road, it just died. Courtney beat on the wheel. She yelled, swore, and smacked the wheel again.
“I fucking hate my life,” she said, letting her head rest on the steering wheel. Then, as if she’d just remembered everything that had happened in the past couple of minutes, it all came rushing back to her. Courtney’s eyes darted up to the rearview mirror to find that her failed escape attempt hadn’t gone unnoticed by Hatchet Bob. He stared right back at her, and there was something in is posture, eyes, or attitude that sent Courtney the message that she was next.
He tossed Brandon’s broken body aside and made a beeline for the Nova.
“This blows,” Courtney said as she turned the key, pumped the gas, and turned the key again. “Come on, come on, come on.”
Chug… chug… chug… The engine just wouldn’t kick over. Her eyes went to the mirror again.
Hatchet Bob wasn’t running. To be fair, he didn’t look like the running type. He walked at his own pace, but Courtney knew it wouldn’t take him long to reach the Nova.
Giving it one last crack, she pumped the gas, turned the key, and pumped the gas again, but it was still no good. The son of a bitch was as dead as disco, and it was time to get the hell out of there.
Courtney stumbled out of the door and climbed to her feet just as Hatchet Bob reached the rear of the car. He was within striking distance, and he took his chance with a violent swing of the hatchet. It was so close that the blade took off half a dozen strands of hair.
Courtney wasn’t sticking around to lose anything else more important, so she hit the road and ran. All that time at aerobics wasn’t wasted. She ran with the speed of an athlete, and within seconds, she had gained a massive lead on Hatchet Bob. There was no way—absolutely no way—Hatchet Bob was going to catch up to her… unless Hatchet Bob knew something Courtney didn’t. It wasn’t his first slashing, after all.
He watched Courtney run down the street then let his eyes dip to the hatchet in his hand. And then he threw it.
The hatchet swooped through the air, and the handle hit Courtney in the back of the legs. It knocked her down and sent her sliding along the road, cutting up her knees and palms. By the time Courtney had gathered up her thoughts and caught up to what was happening, she rolled over onto her back to see Hatchet Bob standing right over her.
He scraped the hatchet up off the ground and held that bad boy up over his head. In about a split second, there would be no more cheerleading practice, or any kind of practice, for young Courtney. All Hatchet Bob needed to do was thrust that hatchet down, and by the look in his red eyes, the slasher had no problem in doing just that.
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br /> Then out of nowhere, a big old Pontiac slammed into Hatchet Bob and sent him flying off into the front yard of a house across the street. Courtney snapped her gaze from the yard to the Pontiac.
Behind the wheel was Lee with Parker sitting right alongside him. “Need a ride?”
Courtney nodded.
“Then, sweetheart,” Lee said, “get in.”
The cheerleader was up and on her feet in two shakes of a lamb’s tail and jumped into the back seat.
She was ready to go, to speed off and get as far away from Hatchet Bob and what was left of Brandon J. Coates as possible. Still, even though she was in the car and the door was closed, it hadn’t budged an inch.
“What are you waiting for?” Courtney asked. “Let’s go, let’s go!”
That Pontiac didn’t move, and the two in the front seat didn’t look like they were in much of a hell of a hurry. They were both looking off in the same direction—the direction of the front yard where Hatchet Bob had landed.
“What are you waiting for?” Courtney asked again.
Parker threw a look to Lee then shifted her attention to Courtney. “I’ll be right back.”
Courtney looked to Lee. “She’ll ‘be right back’? Right back from where?”
“I’m a little curious about that myself,” Lee said.
Eighteen
Parker didn’t climb out of the Pontiac alone. She climbed out with her machete gripped firmly in her hand, and the pair of them crossed the road together.
A little bit of fear was a good thing, and Parker knew that for someone in the business of dealing with slashers, possessed dolls, and haunted houses, if she weren’t a little bit afraid, then it was probably time to give up the monster-hunting business for good because there was a good chance that maybe, just maybe, she was no longer the monster hunter, but the monster. But as Parker crossed that street, she wasn’t just a little bit afraid—she was downright terrified. Her stomach was in knots, her hand was shanking, and every nerve ending in her body was telling her to get the hell out of dodge, to just run and never look back.
She pushed those thoughts out of her mind, and with the machete still in her shaky hand, she crossed the road, stepped up onto the sidewalk, and went up to the hedge that Hatchet Bob was last seen on the other side of.
Fear and adrenaline rushed through her as Parker gripped the machete with both hands, ready to start hacking undead limbs right off Hatchet Bob.
She stepped around the hedge and was about to strike when… there was nothing there. Hatchet Bob was gone. And she would never admit it, but a part of her was relieved when she saw that empty patch of grass.
Nineteen
Heather sat on the counter, nervously chewing on her hot-pink fingernails. For the past sixty minutes, she had been destroying them, and no matter how hard she chewed, it still didn’t take her mind off Jimmy. He had been gone long enough to make the drive up the mountain to Otis and drive on back. Heather had made the trip hundreds of times. Once every two days for the last couple of years was how often to be exact. She would take food up for Otis, sometimes staying for a chat, sometimes not, but she knew for a fact that it was a forty-five-minute round trip from door to door. It had been sixty minutes, and she was running out of fingernails to chew on.
Then both Heather and Darren heard a car pull up outside the diner. Darren slid out of a booth and up to one of the cracks in the boarded-up windows.
“Is it him?” Heather asked.
“I don’t think so,” Darren whispered back.
The muffled sounds of car doors opening and closing filtered into the diner, and a moment later, there was a very subtle and very quiet knock on the door.
Darren looked over at Heather with a “what do we do” kind of look on his face.
“Is it Hatchet Bob?” she whispered.
“I don’t think so.”
“Then open the door,” Heather said.
Darren made his way over to the door, slid the key into the lock, turned it, and opened the door.
Parker, Lee, and Courtney shuffled in, and as soon as the cheerleader was through the door, Darren quickly closed and locked it back up.
“How bad is it out there?” Heather asked.
“It’s not good,” Parker replied, looking around the diner. “Is this place secure?
“Secure-ish,” Darren replied.
“It’s the ‘ish’ part that may cause us some trouble down the road, son,” Lee said.
“I’m not your son, old man.”
Lee motioned to Darren’s Bret Michaels hair. “No, you look more like my daughter.”
Darren was about to mouth off again, but Parker cut him off. “Cool it, both of you.” She shifted her attention back to Heather. “How many of you are there?”
Heather lit another cigarette she didn’t want. “Just me, Darren there, and my Jimmy.”
“Where’s Jimmy?” Parker asked.
“Went to pick up his father.”
Whittier was a small town. Everybody knew everybody, but that said, when Heather looked at Parker, she was one hundred percent certain she had never laid eyes on the woman in her life. “And who are you?”
“Parker Ames,” Parker said.
Heather knew the name from somewhere, but she couldn’t quiet remember where she had heard it. Then it occurred to her. “You’re the monster hunter.”
Everybody looked at Parker.
“Monster hunter?” Courtney said.
“Yeah,” Heather continued. “Anna and Blaine, the Murray kids, heard about a woman who survived one of these… slashers… and now she roams the country, killing them.”
“Are you going to kill this one?” Courtney asked.
Parker wanted to say yes, but she knew deep down that there was a very high chance that the answer to that question was no. Thankfully, before she even had a chance to reply, the telephone on the wall rang. The sound was so loud and obnoxious that it made everybody jump. Heather pounced on it quickly to shut it the hell up and put the receiver to her ear. She listened… and listened… and listened.
Then she hung up and looked up at the others. “It’s Terry and Dale down at the garage. They’re in trouble.”
“How much trouble?” Parker asked.
“It sounded like the kind you don’t walk away from,” Heather replied.
“So,” Parker said, “where is this garage?”
Twenty
Terry hung up the grease-stained telephone on the wall of the garage and looked at Dale. “Parker Ames is coming for us.”
“Who the hell is Parker Ames?”
“I have no damn idea.”
Terry’s Garage & Tow was the name on the sign outside, but it really should have said Terry & Dale’s Garage & Tow, but it didn’t. Not because Terry didn’t want it that way or because Dale didn’t want it that way. The sign outside didn’t say Terry & Dale’s Garage and Tow simply because neither Terry nor Dale had the money to change the sign. Originally, Terry had started Terry’s Garage & Tow back in ’76, then sometime in early ’81, Dale had started working there. By the end of ’81, not only had Terry and Dale became buddies, but Dale had bought into the business with money from his father’s life insurance not long after he died of massive heart attack while watching Mork & Mindy on the television.
“How long?” Dale asked in a tone so low that it sounded like he hadn’t said anything at all. “He’s out there, that big bastard. You saw him.”
Terry had seen him, all right—just outside the window of their cluttered office, hatchet and all. He must have been one of the biggest men Terry had ever laid his eyes on, and Terry had seen Lou Ferrigno once in Las Vegas when he was on vacation with his first wife. Hatchet Bob had passed by that window, and for the past fifteen minutes, they’d heard him walking around the garage. Terry had figured it was just a matter of time before the slasher came inside the garage and sent them both to hell, heaven, or wherever the hell people ended up when it was all over.
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��Did you hear that?” Dale asked.
They both got really quiet really quickly and listened.
“I don’t hear a…”
“Shh!”
And they listened some more.
“Did you hear it?” Dale whispered again.
“I don’t know,” Terry said. “But I’m not taking any chances. Find a weapon.”
“A weapon?”
“Yeah, man,” Terry said. “Anything you can use. Something. You can’t just sit around here with your dick in your hand.”
“I gotta take a shit,” Dale said. “My guts are all churned up. I gotta take a shit.”
“Get a weapon,” Terry told him. “And then you take your shit.”
On its best day, Terry’s Garage & Tow could fit eight vehicles inside and another half a dozen more on the outside. On that particular day, they had five cars inside, each in various states of disrepair and a couple up on lifts. Dale scanned the garage, looking for something weapon-like. It was a garage, not an armory, so choices were slim. He picked up the first thing he saw—a tire iron.
Terry, on the other hand, stepped into their messy office, knowing exactly what he was looking for. Leaning up against the wall was Terry’s old baseball bat from when he was a kid. It looked as if it had been through hell, with notches taken out of it from being tossed into the back of his pickup over the past twenty years, but around the handle, it was nice and shiny from years of use. Terry loved that bat. His old man had given it to him when he was fourteen years old, and although Terry wasn’t much of a baseball player, he still loved playing with the boys in the summer.
He grabbed the bat and a moment later was back out in the garage. Shafts of moonlight streamed in through the windows, bathing the garage in beams of midnight blue.
“Dale?” Terry whispered. “Dale!”
His partner was nowhere to be seen.
“Damn you, Dale. Where are you?”
On the other side of the garage, Terry saw a shadow—a big shadow. Not a Dale-sized shadow but a Hatchet Bob–sized shadow.