The Four Before Me

by E H Night

  “Your name’s Will, right?” she asked. “My name is Jessica. Do you want me to drive you back to your house?”

  Will nodded and looked at her through his fingers.

  “Here, go hop in the car and I’ll put your wagon in the back seat.” She handed him the keys and bag of chips. “It’s the black car right over there.”

  He climbed inside, and sat patiently in the passenger’s seat while she shoved the wagon behind him. A sly and satisfied smile formed across his face as he imagined everything that was about to happen. He was going to have his mother back again. He could prove the entire town wrong. “She alive — she’d just been at Medley’s the whole time.”

  Jessica drove through the streets, anxious as to whether or not she’d seriously hurt him. He seemed fine though, and this eased her mind a little bit. She figured that Betty would be home, and she could just explain the situation to her. After all, how badly could that fall have even been? She’d hardly even felt herself bump into him.

  “Alright, here we are,” she said as they pulled into his driveway. She followed it all the way behind the house and then put the car into park. “Is your sister home? Do you want me to go talk to her?”

  “Yes, she’s home. Come in,” he said, nodding.

  She took the wagon out of the car and pushed it next to the back porch, and then followed Will to the door. A feeling of dread came over her, but it was eased when she noticed the pretty paintings and the orderly home. It was a stark contrast to what it would eventually become.

  Will pointed to the basement door. “She’s down there,” he said calmly.

  “In the basement?” Jessica asked, confused.

  “Yes. She’s canning food.”

  “That’s weird,” she thought. “You need the stove to can stuff. Maybe he meant that she’s just putting the cans down in the pantry or something.”

  “Oh, alright.” She walked down the stairs, calling Betty’s name out as she reached the bottom. There was no answer, so she called for her again, and walked into the small room to the side. There was nothing to see except for junk, a dresser, and a deteriorating rocking chair. “Betty? Are you down here? Will got hurt at Medley’s today, and I —”

  Thud

  Will pushed her to the ground from behind, and sat on her back to pin her down. She squirmed beneath him, and tried to turn herself over, or even to flip him off of her.

  She was stuck.

  “Get off of me!” she screamed, pushing up from the floor. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Sit still,” Will sat calmly.

  She fought even harder.

  “Let me cut your hair!” he yelled, growing frantic and impatient. “I need it!” He held a pair of sewing scissors in his hand, presumably from the stack of quilting supplies that they’d passed by in the living room on their way downstairs.

  “What?! Let me go!” she cried out, managing to push him over.

  She climbed to her hands and knees, and then to her feet. Will grabbed her by the ankle and sank the scissors into her heel.

  Jessica fell back to the ground, wincing in pain. “Please don’t hurt me! Why are you doing this?”

  Will climbed back on top of her, but he sat on her chest this time. He tried to move her hands underneath his legs too, but she was stronger than he had expected.

  She reached up and clawed at his neck and chest, and then smacked him frantically.

  “Sit still!” he yelled.

  “Let me go!” she yelled back at him, over and over again.

  “You need to be quiet! You’re going to wake my sister!”

  Jessica screamed as loud as she could. “Help me! Help! I’m down here! Help me!”

  Will panicked and held his hands over her mouth and nose. She bit the meat of his palm, and he let go. He took his shirt off, receiving several scratches all along his bare torso, and then stuffed the fabric deep into her mouth. He pushed down as hard as he could until she stopped moving.

  And then there was silence.

  “There,” he said. “You need to stay quiet like this.”

  He grabbed her hair and cut it all off, laying it onto the floor next to him carefully. When he was finished, he opened the dresser that had once been in his mother’s room, and rummaged around. He found her hairbrush in a shoe box, and placed the bundle of hair in with it.

  “I brought you something, Mama,” he said. “Now you can feel pretty again. You don’t have to cry anymore.”

  The room was very quiet, and Will sat down in the rocking chair. He rocked slowly, almost in a catatonic state for about an hour. Without warning, he stopped and looked at Jessica’s body on the floor.

  “Mama!” he yelped, and repeated a similar phrase to the one that Jessica had used at Medley’s. “Did you fall? Are you hurt?”

  He stood up and lifted Jessica’s body, placing it upright in the chair. “Why are you wearing shoes inside? I’ll take them off for you.” He removed her canvas slip-ons and tossed them into the dresser as well, next to the box. His eyes caught sight of a nightgown that his mother used to wear often, and he pulled it out. “Here. Let’s make you more comfortable.”

  He took off Jessica’s red jacket and threw it down as if it were nothing more than a piece of trash. He lifted her legs, and pulled the blue jeans off of her slumping body and tossed them to the floor as well. Carefully, he slid the nightgown over her body, pulling her arms through the lace-adorned sleeves. He positioned her to look more natural and comfortable, and then he stood behind the chair, rocking it, lovingly.

  “There you go, Mama. You can sleep now. I know you are always so tired these days,” he whispered.

  Jessica’s mouth fell open and revealed her swollen and bitten tongue. Will rocked her for a while, until he heard Betty walking around upstairs.

  She called out for him from above. “Will! Where did you run off to?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She walked down the basement stairs, and saw that the light was on in the side room. “Will, you can’t keep messing around with mom’s stuff. It’s not good to dwell on sad things all the time. Come upstairs and help me figure out what to make for din —” She stopped and stared at the scene in front of her.

  Will fell to the floor into the pile of Jessica’s clothes, and cried hysterically. Reality had set in the moment that his sister’s fearful eyes had appeared, and he was terrified.

  Betty cleaned up the mess and wheeled Jessica’s body into the woods that night, using Will’s red wagon to transport her. After failing to cut her up into smaller pieces to dispose of into the lake, she settled on a single shallow grave instead.

  “I have to protect Will,” she thought, while flinging scoops of dirt behind her with a shovel. “He doesn’t know any better. He isn’t right.”

  Betty sloppily dressed Jessica back into her coat and jeans, and rolled her into the hole.“There. Out of sight, out of mind.”

  The years passed by, leaving Ashley and Tammy to meet similar fates. Each time Will had attacked, he’d used sympathy to lure the girls somewhere secluded. He’d try to get more hair for his mother, and they would fight back, fearing the worst. If they hadn’t screamed so loudly, they probably would have survived their encounters.

  Will just couldn’t handle the noise. It made him panic. It caused him to act out of instinct, and to suffocate each girl until they stopped clawing and crying.

  Only after he sat in the rocking chair, would he find himself back in reality, realizing that each woman was an imposter — that his mother had been gone for a long time and that she wasn’t ever coming back again. These moments would cause him to shriek uncontrollably, leaving Betty to clean up after him.

  Unlike Jessica though, the others weren’t left in lakeside graves.

  ◆

  Things were different with Sarah. She had been there all along, within reach. Will loved her as if she were his other sister, instead of only loving her as if she were just his niece. He’d visit her on his trips
around the town sometimes, and she’d feed him ice-cream, or treat him to pizza from Kirt’s Pub. They were close, and they spent a lot of their free time together. He had even spent a few nights out bowling with her and Tiffany.

  One day, Will had been feeling a little off. The boys in the town had spent the entire afternoon teasing him about Elvis, and were begging him repeatedly to do impressions. When he finally caved in and gave them their show, they fell over, laughing hysterically. It took far too long for Will to realize that they were actually making fun of his performance, instead of just laughing along with enjoyment.

  ◆

  The following year:

  February 16th, 1988

  Will stood on the sidewalk, singing and dancing in front of a small crowd. The boys, all appearing younger than ten-years-old, laughed and mimicked his movements. They begged for more, buckling over as they watched Will thrust his body all around, singing loudly about hound dogs and tender loving. One of the boys even handed him a stick to use as a microphone. To Will, this was a great honor of encouragement. He belted his heart out onto the concrete, letting the boys stomp on it mercilessly. It didn’t bleed, though, until the oldest of the group grew courageous and cold.

  “No, don’t do it,” the youngest one mumbled.

  “You should totally do it!” another one added, more loudly. He clasped his hands together with enthusiasm.

  “Hey, Will,” the oldest boy said. “I heard something the other day that you might like to hear.”

  Will stopped dancing and smiled really big. “What is it?” he asked, no longer singing.

  “Elvis is dead.”

  “No, he’s not!” Will cried out. “He’s alive!”

  “Nope. He’s dead, just like your crazy mom!”

  Will shook with anger, and the boys took off running.

  “Mama is alive!” Will yelled. “I’ll prove it!” He yanked the handle of his wagon and wheeled it angrily through the streets.

  He passed by his niece, Sarah, at her house, and she waved to him from the porch.

  “Hey, Will, what’s wrong, buddy?” she asked, noticing his tear-filled expression.

  He froze.

  “Come inside. I’ll make you something warm to eat and we can watch some TV together.”

  Will turned and scooted his wagon into the grass. “Okay,” he said, suddenly a little more calm.

  He followed her inside. The smell of her coconut-scented perfume sparked a sudden curiosity about Sarah that he’d never felt before. He noticed the way her brown hair shined under the kitchen light, and it reminded him of his mother.

  “I have to use the bathroom,” he said, before walking down the hallway.

  “That’s fine. I’ll heat up some raviolis for us.”

  Will shut himself in the bathroom, making sure to leave it unlocked. He rummaged through the drawers under the mirror, and found a pair of scissors that Sarah had often used to trim her bangs with between haircuts. While waiting for her to become worried and to go looking for him, he sat on the toilet, and plotted.

  When more time had passed by than he had expected, he picked up a bottle of shampoo from the shower and threw it to the ground. It landed loudly, and he screamed out in fake pain.

  “Will! Are you okay? I’m coming in!” she called out, while turning the handle on the door knob.

  Will moved himself down to the floor, and sat in a ball, waiting for her to get closer. She knelt down to put her arms around him. Once in a hug, he grabbed a handful of her long hair, and started cutting it off.

  Sarah grabbed his wrist and tried to pull away. “What are you doing? Put those down!” she said sternly, not realizing what was about to come her way.

  “Sit still,” Will replied.

  He swung the scissors toward her head again, but she pushed him away and stood to her feet.

  Will lifted the scissors into the air and pushed them into her thigh. When she buckled over, he very methodically pulled her the rest of the way to the floor, and sat on her chest. He dropped the scissors, and she grabbed onto them.

  Will wrapped his hands over her mouth and nose, and she dug the scissors into his side. They caught onto his shirt, but this absolutely enraged him, and he wrestled the blades from her hands. She screamed, and he brought them down over and over into her throat and face, until the room was silent.

  He resumed the haircut, sat it all onto the counter top, and then turned the shower on. Realizing that he’d made a huge mess, he thought it would be responsible to clean it all up before leaving. Over the course of a few hours, Will mopped and sopped, until both Sarah and the bathroom were clean, at least at first glance. He walked into the kitchen, grabbed a few black trash bags, and wrapped up the blood-drained body. Will waited until the sun went down completely, and then dragged it out onto the porch, plopping it down into his wagon.

  The slight trail that her body left on the concrete and in the grass was washed away later by the night’s cold rain showers.

  Will wheeled Sarah through the streets, and all the way back to his house. He went inside to grab a flashlight and a shovel, before spending the entire night concealing the evidence of his crime. He used a small hand saw to remove enough of the floor in the shed, exposing the ground below. Fortunately for him, the dirt was soft and wet, which made it easier to clear out. Coldly, he tossed Sarah inside, trash bags and all, and covered her back up with shovels full of earth.

  Seemingly without a care in the world, he went up to his bedroom, and fell asleep in his muddy clothes, as if nothing had even happened.

  A day went by, and Betty became frightened. Usually, it was easy to reach Sarah. Her neighbor, Tiffany, hadn’t seen her, and she hadn’t shown up for her shift at the diner either. Betty walked upstairs to ask Will if he had talked to her recently, and she found him sitting up on the edge of his bed. He held onto Sarah’s long hair, petting it, giggling, while wearing a pair of shoes that she had bought for her the year before.

  “Oh God… What have you done?” Betty said, collapsing to her knees.

  Will stopped giggling and dropped Sarah’s hair in his lap. “She’s in the shed. We can move her to the crawlspace. It’s nice in there.”

  Chapter 19

  “How Will I Know?”

  Two days after Alice had first gone missing, Detective Darrow feared for the worst when she still hadn’t answered any of his phone calls. He drove past her house, but he didn’t see her car in the driveway. Hoping for the best, he figured that she might have just gone to the city to have a temporary change of scenery or something. When he arrived at the police station, he saw two other officers huddled, acting incredibly nervous and fidgety. He approached them, and stared at the desk that they had been leaning over. His eyes wandered to a stack of freshly printed flyers, and he reached for one. It took only a fraction of a second for him to realize that he was staring at a poorly photocopied photograph of Alice. He read the details listed below her picture, in complete disbelief of what was happening.

  Missing

  Alice Foster, aged 23 at the time of her disappearance, was last seen on November 15th, 1988, leaving Edna’s Salon on Main Street. She is believed to have been wearing a pink sweater, a black skirt, and a pair of pink high-heeled shoes. Brown hair. Brown eyes. No known tattoos.

  Detective Darrow’s heart stopped for a moment. He felt as if he had just taken a bullet to the chest. A mixture of guilt and confusion erupted from his mind, and he started kicking the legs of the desk angrily. The other officers tried to calm him down, but he couldn’t relax. He was determined to find out what had happened, and was unwilling to sit around, taking phone calls or hanging flyers up at Medley’s. There was no way that he was going to stay back and just wait for answers to come to him. He was going to find them, himself, even if it meant risking his own life in the process. Backup or not, he was going to bring Alice home again.

  “Who reported this?” he asked the others.

  “Edna Costa, her boss. I guess they calle
d each other pretty religiously most nights when they would get home from the salon. When Alice didn’t call her on Tuesday night, she figured that she was probably just busy. But, then Alice didn’t show up for her shift yesterday either, so she stopped by to let us know. She seemed pretty worried.”

  “Call the Sheriff.”

  Detective Darrow darted back toward the door. He hopped in his patrol car and drove to the last place Alice had been seen — Edna’s Salon. The entire building was constantly rich with gossip, so he figured that it would be a good place to start for multiple reasons. His wheels crunched against the gravel as he rolled in, driving faster than what was typical in the town. He had no time to waste. Every second was a second closer to something awful happening, if it hadn’t already. He hurried inside, knocking the bell off of the door. It collapsed to the ground, sounding like glass shattering.