FIFTY-SIX
Hours later we emerged from the playhouse in Cory’s backyard, hot, sticky and a bit anxious at what lay ahead that night. We had sat around while Steve came up with ways that we might lure the Sesame Street Killer up to the abandoned house. The best way he could think of was to use me as bait. The idea of it didn’t settle well with me at first but he assured me that he would be with me the whole time, him and his trusty BB gun. Not that it was much of a weapon, but it was better than nothing at all.
Too, there would be other things that we would try and use to slow the killer down a bit. And there was the fact that we were kids in our prime and we should be faster; that and Frisbee would be with us as well.
In the newspaper articles about the girls who had been murdered, it always stated that they were killed with an object that directly related to the Sesame Street TV show. With Amy Garret it had been a shoestring with Muppet characters on it; a piece of ceramic cookie jar that had once looked like the Cookie Monster had been used to cut Kelly Carter’s throat. Only Melissa Brown had been killed by something else. That article didn’t say what it was but it didn’t seem likely that she was killed with the Oscar the Grouch mask.
So we had a good assumption that the killer didn’t use guns or knives and as long as we could keep a safe distance we thought we’d be fine. And Steve and I planned to stay safely apart in the event that one of us was grabbed, that way the other could go around yelling and pounding on neighbors doors to alert someone.
But our entire plan revolved around leading the killer up to the house and rigging the front door to lock from the outside, so there would be no escape for an adult. I would have to go through and come out the way I went in on Sunday; through the open vent on the side of the garage.
We only hoped that we could pull it off.
But now, outside, in Cory’s front yard, Steve said, “Jason, Cory, after we grab some tools from my house I want you guys to head up to Fullerton and start getting that lock ready.”
They nodded that they understood what their assignment was.
“While you guys are up there, I’m going to get a few things ready here at home,” he continued and then looked at me. “Ricky, you know how important your job is going to be, right? For now, all I want you to do is go home, ask your mom and dad if you and Jason can spend the night at Cory’s. Don’t tell them anything about us staying out in his tent though. And then I want you to just try and take a nap for a while. You have a lot of work to do tonight. Do you understand?”
I told him that I did.
He paused a moment, staring at me and said, “Are you scared?”
I told him that I was but that I knew that what we were doing was going to help Jackie and any other girls that the Sesame Street Killer would prey on in the future. Not to mention; I really liked Jackie. I would do this no matter how scared I was. We all would. We all had sisters to think about as well.
I headed for home and the others headed for Steve’s to start getting things ready. Tonight would be a test of our friendship and our loyalty to one another.
Once I was inside I went straight to my mom and hugged her.
“What’s that for?” she asked.
“Just because you’re the best mom in the world,” I told her.
She hugged me even harder and said, “That’s nice. Where’s your brother?”
“He wanted to hang out with Steve and Cory a while longer. They’re making something in Steve’s garage.”
It wasn’t a lie. They actually did have a project to do; pounding nineteen nails through a piece of plywood.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
I nodded that I was. “Just a little snack and then I want to take a nap. I’m kind of tired.”
“Sure,” she said, feeling my forehead. “You okay? Your heads a little warm.”
I was still hot from the time spent in the playhouse. “I’m fine, just tired.”
“Okay. How about a peanut butter sandwich?”
“Sure,” I told her and sat at the table.
After eating and finishing off a whole glass of milk I asked her if it would be alright for Jason and me to stay over at Cory’s house that night. She thought about it a moment, asked if it was okay with his parents and when I said that it was she gave me the go ahead. It was almost too easy. I half hoped and half expected for her to say no and foil all of our plans with that one word.
Then just after three o’clock I went to my room and lay down. It wasn’t until around four that I fell asleep. I dreamt of nothing.
I was shook awake by Jason at just before six in the evening. “Come on, Ricky. It’s time to get up for dinner,” he said and then spoke so we wouldn’t be overheard by our parents. “We got everything ready. It’s all set up. Mom already told me that you asked about staying at Cory’s tonight, but we have to eat dinner before we can go over there.”
Half asleep and still groggy, I wondered what he meant by having everything set up. Then as my head cleared and I thought of all that Steve had planned out for us, my stomach sank. Now that it was closer to sundown and the killer’s return, dread began to take hold of me. I shook it off as best I could, knowing that we would all be together and all going through with it as a team.
After getting to the bathroom and washing my hands, I sat at the kitchen table. Susan sat next to me, staring, thumb wedged between bottom and top lips. Mom put a plate in front of each of us and it wasn’t until then that I saw what she had made for dinner.
Pork chops.
Steve’s story came back to me full force and I visualized the details of his seventh birthday.
Mom cooked me a special pork chop dinner.
It felt like an omen and I ended up eating only about half of what was served me, the other half I pushed around my plate with my fork. Neither my mom nor my dad said anything about my behavior at dinner but Jason kept giving me eye signals as if to tell me to quite messing around and hurry up. When we were done we took our dishes to the sink and went to pack a change of clothes in a bag. Our dad got a couple of sleeping bags down for us. We didn’t tell them that we would be sleeping outside in Cory’s backyard but we always took sleeping bags whenever we spent the night at a friend’s house.
At seven, just before we went to Cory’s, I went back into my bedroom and grabbed the shoestring that had been kept in my desk drawer for the last week. I had been meaning to get rid of it for days and knew now was the time. We hugged our mom and told her that we would see her in the morning and made our way across the street. Cory and his family had eaten dinner as well and his dad was out back pitching the tent on the lawn for us. We set our sleeping bags down in the living room and then followed Cory to his bedroom to talk in privacy.
“What about Steve?” I asked after he shut the door. “When is he coming over?”
Jason sat on Cory’s bed and Cory went to his record player and put on an album to mask our voices. It was Van Halen’s Fair Warning. The first song to come on was Mean Street.
“He’s going to meet us in the backyard later. His mom won’t be home from work until after nine tonight. He said he didn’t think his mom would say no to sleeping over, but if she did he’d have to sneak out after she went to bed,” Jason explained.
Cory said, “Yeah, Jason and I went up to that house a little earlier and got everything ready. Did he tell you?”
I nodded. I remembered him saying something about it as I was waking up.
“Well,” Cory went on, “we were able to take the padlock off and we got the doorknob turned around. You think you can go through with this, Ricky?”
Now that time was running out, I had started to feel a little more apprehensive about the whole situation. It felt as though some large insect had laid eggs in my belly and they were now beginning to hatch. I also knew that we had to do this. For Jackie and Amber and for all the other girls that had been senselessly murdered by the evil figure that would be visiting Steve’s house later. The ‘point of no return’ had passed lon
g ago.
Finally, I nodded. “We’re all going to be together though, right?”
Jason leaned over and put his hand on my shoulder. “Ricky, we would never let anything happen to you. But you just got to remember to stick to the plan. And plus, you know Frisbee will be there too.”
After a moment, I hugged him and as awkward as it was, I hugged Cory too.
Guy knocked on the bedroom door and after a couple seconds opened it. “Alright, troops, the tent’s all set up. Feel free to get your sleeping bags ready anytime.” Cory’s dad slurred his words a bit as he said this and struggled to not drop the half full rum and Coke in his hand.
We looked at one another and left the room just as Dirty Movies started. Cory turned back and killed the power to the record player making David Lee Roth’s voice go deeper and slower before it faded all together. Back in the living room we grabbed our sleeping bags and Cory gave his mom a quick kiss on the cheek. She herself was halfway through a tall glass of orange juice that by the looks of it had a generous pouring of vodka in it. Good, his parents would be nice and snockered by midnight and wouldn’t be any the wiser to our activities.
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