by Bryan Smith
Pete’s eyes opened wide in alarm. “Have his way with me? What the hell does that mean?”
Mary laughed. “What do you think it means?”
Terror of what Mary’s words seemed to imply made Pete stand up again and start pacing around the room. “Fuck you. I’m not going out there. No fucking way.”
“You don’t have a choice. I’m going to hang up now. You have one minute to get outside. If you’re not out there with Shane by then, he’ll let me know, at which point I start posting these photos to the police department’s Facebook page. Goodbye, Pete. Say hello to Shane for me.”
She laughed again.
The line went dead.
Pete stared at his phone in silent consternation for a moment.
Then he slapped himself in the forehead. “Fuck!”
He went into the kitchen and stared at the closed back door. That maniac was still out there. Maybe even right outside the door again. The memory of his blood-covered face pressed against the screen door’s window made Pete shiver in revulsion. His breathing quickened as he recalled Mary’s threat about posting the photos. He didn’t really believe she would do that. Not yet, anyway. The photos going public would be bad for him, but would put her in a difficult position as well. Believing this was one thing. Being able to count on it was quite another. Mary was obviously as unhinged as Shane in her own way. She couldn’t be counted on to act in the most rational, self-preserving way. And there was that comment about turning on Shane to consider. She likely had countermeasures already in mind for anything that might appear to implicate her.
Meanwhile, the seconds were ticking away.
“Fuck.”
This time the word was enunciated as a hushed whisper rather than an aggravated shout.
He took out his keys and grabbed the longest and sharpest of the knives from the wood block. The phone went back into his pocket. His hand shook as he inserted the key in the bottom lock and turned it. The shaking intensified as he then tried to insert the key in the deadbolt lock. It took three attempts to get it in. He had tears in his eyes as he turned it, knowing he was possibly just seconds away from being sexually assaulted by the man who’d made his work life a living hell for six months. It would be the worst of all the humiliations he’d endured at the hands of Shane Watson, which of course was the point. With every fiber of his being, he did not want it to happen. He would threaten Shane with the knife and try to keep it from happening if he could, but he was not optimistic. Shane would probably just snatch the knife from him and either toss it away or cut him with it as punishment for daring to resist.
The door was now unlocked.
He hesitated another moment longer before opening it, sniffling and wiping snot from his nose with the back of a hand. A full minute had to have passed by now. Mary might already be starting the process of posting the first of those pictures while he stood here and whimpered like a helpless baby.
Pete sucked in a big breath and cleared his throat.
Then he opened the door and went outside.
TWELVE
Pete flipped the light switch in the last instant before he stepped out onto the back stoop. The back awning’s fluorescent light flickered a moment before coming fully to life. He winced as he caught a glimpse of Shane standing six feet in front of him in the yard. The blood-smeared face twisted in a snarl.
“Turn that fucking light off, bitch.”
“But—”
“Do it!”
Hearing the much larger man growl and snap at him like that made Pete even more fearful. His knees were shaking so bad as he turned around and reached back into the house to flip off the light switch, he feared his legs were close to giving out under him. Somehow, though, he managed to stay upright as he closed the screen door and turned around to face Shane again. The moon was bright tonight, so he could still see the man pretty clearly at this distance. His sneering expression shifted and became an insane grin again.
“Come down off the porch, bitch.” He laughed. “And put that knife away before I take it from you and jam it up your stupid fucking ass.”
Pete swallowed hard upon hearing these words, unnerved by the notion of anything getting jammed up his ass out here tonight. He was so rattled by the thought he wound up blurting out his next words before he could think them through carefully. “Mary said she’s going to kill you and frame you for all of this.”
Shane laughed.
Pete frowned. “You think that’s funny? Think I’m making it up?” An admonishing voice somewhere in his mind was telling him to back away from all this, that it was a miscalculation to enter such dangerous territory. He ignored the voice, figuring he’d already come too far to stop now. “I swear what I’m saying is one-hundred percent true. You’re her stooge. Her scapegoat.”
Shane snorted. “Oh, I believe you, fuckface. I’m not as stupid as she thinks. What you’re not understanding is it doesn’t matter. I decided a while ago I’d keep playing her fucked-up game until it looked like I was about to get backed into a corner I couldn’t get out of. I’ll see it coming, and when it does, I’ll kill her and walk away from all of it. Shit, I’m not the one who’s been calling and texting you all day. I’ve got a shit-ton more plausible deniability than that bitch.”
Pete’s frown deepened. “Hold on just a goddamn minute.” He waved the knife in Shane’s direction. “She’s forcing you to play the game, too?”
Shane’s expression turned sour. “Not that it matters, bitch-boy, but, yeah, I’m a pawn just like you. She’s a master of manipulation. Bitch got me fired, too.”
“How did she do that?”
“She put some questionable shit on my work computer, making it look like I’d downloaded it. And I couldn’t fight it because she had some other dirt on me. Stuff way worse than the work thing. Which is why I have to keep doing what she wants.” Shane smirked. “For now.”
“So she’s blackmailing you then?”
Shane sighed. “Yeah. Again, though, it doesn’t matter. If you’ve got any ideas in your head about talking me into teaming up with you and turning the tables on the bitch, forget it, it’s not happening.”
That Shane had anticipated what he’d been leading up to came as a big surprise to Pete. His impression of the man had always been that of a dumb lummox, a good-looking former jock who got by on personality and sex appeal, but wasn’t all that sharp or savvy. Apparently, however, he was smarter and better at intuiting things than Pete had imagined. Perhaps, despite what he’d said, he could still be talked into seeing reason.
Pete shook his head. “You should at least consider it. You turning on her now would take her by surprise. The next time you see her, you could—”
“Let me stop you right there,” Shane said, glaring at him. “I can’t do anything to her, not until I’m convinced I’ve got no other fucking choice. Shit, you think you know what she really is? You don’t, okay? She’s not some run-of-the-mill crazy chick having fun playing with our heads. You have no idea how truly fucking Machiavellian she is. She’s not doing any of this impulsively. Did you know she got me hired at that place? Well, she did. But that’s not all. Think of the timing. I came on board there right after she broke things off with you. It wasn’t a coincidence. You know how I was constantly fucking with you? Well, she told me to do all that. She’s been manipulating you in lots of subtle little ways most of the last year. Even when she was dating you, it was part of her game. Just last night she called that part of it ‘reconnaissance’.” He snorted. “That’s the kind of broad you’re dealing with. A cold and calculating evil genius cunt straight from the deepest, darkest depths of hell. She’s been maneuvering us around on her gameboard, waiting for just the right time to bring things to a head. And that time has finally come.”
Pete’s jaw had dropped open in abject disbelief as he listened to this speech. He willed himself to close it and swallowed before saying, “But … that’s crazy.”
Shane smirked. “No shit.”
“But why would she go to all this trouble just to fuck with us?”
Shane shrugged. “Because it amuses her. Now come down off that porch, bitch-boy. She’s got me on a short leash, too, and I’ve already pushed my luck by taking the time to tell you how things really are. It’s time to do this thing. We’ve got maybe five minutes left before she calls me again. At the most. This needs to be done by then. I’m warning you, though. Drop that knife before you get anywhere close to me.”
Pete started trembling again. He opened his hand and the knife fell to the concrete stoop with a clatter. Fresh tears came to his eyes and he wiped them away as he stepped down to the sidewalk and then out onto the grass. He sniffled and dropped to his knees in front of Shane. Submitting to this latest and most egregious phase of his ongoing humiliation still made him queasy, but there was no way out of it he could see.
“Uh, Pete?”
Pete glanced up, feeling slightly perplexed when he glimpsed Shane’s confused expression. “Yeah?”
“You mind telling me exactly what the fuck you’re doing down there?”
Pete sniffled again and wiped away more tears. “M-Mary said I was s-supposed … supposed to let you … have your way with me.”
His voice rose dramatically in pitch with those last few words and the tears began to spill hotter and faster.
From Shane, there was only silence for a moment.
Then he exploded in laughter.
The display of wild, uncontrolled hilarity went on long enough that Pete began to feel vaguely embarrassed. Shane staggered several feet away from him and put a hand to his heaving belly as he continued to bellow laughter. After at least a full minute of watching this, Pete got wearily to his feet.
The last of his tears had dried up by then. He wiped the remaining moisture from his face and said, “Mind letting me in on the joke?”
Shane laughed. “Jesus Christ, man, what did you think I was gonna do? Shove my cock down your throat?”
Pete’s face flushed red, his embarrassment deepening. “Um …”
Shane laughed one last time, the sound more subdued now. “Let me guess. She insinuated something without really spelling it out, allowing your imagination to do the rest of the work for her. It was just another mind game, dude. And you fell for it, because you’re the real stooge here.”
His expression hardened and he abruptly came at Pete, moving too quickly for him to get out of the way or otherwise react. The man’s big fist slammed into his stomach with devastating force. Pete was knocked off his feet for a fraction of a second as the air was blasted out of his lungs. When he fell back to the ground, his throat produced a reedy sound as his bruised lungs struggled to draw in air. The pain radiating outward from the center of his body was the worst he’d ever experienced. In a lifetime of being pushed around by bullies and occasionally getting punched by them, he’d never been hit anywhere near that hard. He felt crippled. Flattened. Utterly incapable of ever getting up or moving around again.
Shane was standing over him now. From this vantage point, the white ball of the moon appeared to be hanging just above his blood-smeared visage. The juxtaposition made him look even more monstrous, like some kind of vengeful and bloodthirsty creature of the night.
“That’s the real reason she sent you out here, bitch-boy. So you could experience a moment of real pain, the idea being that only then could you begin to appreciate how bad things can get for you if you don’t do what she wants.” He craned his head around a moment, popping tendons in his neck before sighing in a way that hinted at a deep weariness. “Also, I’m supposed to deliver a message. Your instructions for the next step in the game.”
Pete’s only response to this was a slightly louder wheeze. Any other time, this level of pain would have occupied the whole of his consciousness. There would have been no room for contemplation of anything else. But some primal part of him fought hard to remain alert in order to focus on what Shane was telling him. His survival beyond these next few minutes might depend on it.
Shane squinted at him, appearing to assess his level of cognizance. “Still with me? I hope so. Because I’m almost out of time. You know that first dead bitch we left for you this morning? The hot black-haired one? Mary wants you to take her to the house across the street. The house has a crawlspace. You can access it through a door in the back of a hallway closet. You’re to shove the dead bitch into the crawlspace and return home. At that point, you’ll need to call Mary and tell her it’s done. She’ll let you know what to do next.”
Pete drew in another breath and this time the reedy sound issuing from his throat was less severe. He was able to swallow and find enough of his voice to croak out a few words. “Is … anyone … alive over there?”
Shane looked away from him, glancing into the deeper darkness at the back of Pete’s large back yard. “No.”
He didn’t wait around to supply more details. Instead, he took off running into that darkness. Pete propped himself up on an elbow in time to watch the man clamber over the tall privacy fence at the back of the yard and drop into the alley beyond.
THIRTEEN
A significant level of time elapsed before the pain receded to a level where Pete could get up off the ground and stagger back into his house. He moved in a halting, hunched-over fashion, his every step triggering another flash of brain-bending agony. His face was red and covered in sweat by the time he pulled open the screen door and limped into the kitchen. The screen door swung shut behind him, but he didn’t bother closing the inner door. For one thing, a closed door wouldn’t provide any meaningful extra level of security at this point. The people working to make a complete ruin of his life could come and go at will, so the hell with it. Also, his every movement was an exercise in painful endurance. For the time being, the physical effort required to turn around and push the door shut fell into the category of things that weren’t strictly necessary.
He remained hunched over as he made his way out of the kitchen and into the hallway. The door to his bathroom was helpfully standing open. He whimpered as he moved through the doorway and then again as he forced himself to stand straight enough to open the medicine cabinet above the toilet. A big white bottle of Tylenol sat in the middle of a crowded shelf. He pushed aside some other items, grasped the bottle with a shaking hand, and held it clutched against his chest as he staggered back out to the kitchen.
Still keeping the bottle of pills clutched against his chest, he leaned against the stove and allowed himself a few moments to catch his breath. He was still experiencing sharp little stabbing sensations with seemingly each intake of air, but they became slightly less severe as his breathing became more regular. The possibility that Shane had cracked one or more of his ribs caused him significant concern in those early minutes after taking the punch. In thinking about it, however, he felt relatively confident the blow had landed too low for that. The overwhelming pain he was experiencing was instead all about the extreme level of force used to deliver the blow.
He got the pill bottle open and set it on the stovetop. He then wincingly sidestepped over to the refrigerator, pulled the door open, and bent slightly at the waist as he reached in and snagged a can of Bud from the open carton. Next he waddled back over to the stove, popped open the cold can of beer, put it to his lips, and drank deeply from it. He heaved a breath and again leaned against the stove as his teeth began to chatter. When the shiver rippling through him subsided, he shook several pills from the Tylenol bottle and washed them down with another big swig of beer. He then leaned against the stove another few minutes as he drank the remaining beer in the can and waited for the pain to hopefully start receding. Something stronger than Tylenol would have been preferable, but he had no opioids in the house. The amount of Tylenol he’d taken was three times the recommended dose. He’d have to hope it did the job.
After maybe ten more minutes of standing around, he limped back over to the fridge and took out another beer. This time pulling the door open and bending o
ver didn’t hurt quite as much. It still hurt like hell, but some marginal progress was better than nothing. Before closing the door, he decided to take the whole carton of Bud out to the living room with him. His original purpose in buying the beer had been to ease his anxiety, but now he just hoped consuming enough of it could help dull the pain. He set the carton on the stove and belatedly closed the back door.
In carrying the carton out to the living room, he discovered his breathing had almost normalized again. The little stabbing sensations only came intermittently now. He was happy about that until he saw what had been left on the recliner’s seat cushion during his time outside with Shane. Another bloody lump of flesh. Mary had come into the house—apparently through the front door—while he was in the back yard. The door had been closed and locked again, a thing Pete noted dimly as he carefully sidestepped the sprawled form of dead woman number two and approached the recliner.
Standing over the recliner now, he took a closer look at the bloody lump and determined that it was a severed tongue. Face twisting in disgust, he swept it to the floor with a quick flick of his fingers and sat down with the beer carton in his lap. Despite his pain, he couldn’t hold back a bit of soft, morbid laughter. Prior to everything he’d gone through today, the notion of immediately sitting his ass down in a place where a bit of someone’s mutilated flesh had been resting a moment before would have been ridiculous. He couldn’t possibly have done it. His revulsion would have been too intense. But things had changed. He wasn’t quite the old Pete Adler anymore. Yes, in a lot of ways, he was still the same sniveling worm Mary held in such contempt, but he was now a sniveling worm who’d dragged the corpse of a murder victim into his house and had held a man’s severed head in his hands. A severed penis was sitting in a Tupperware container on his stove. A tongue left on his recliner was still a disgusting thing, but he was possibly becoming a wee bit jaded.