Down the street Chip saw a light blue Civic parked in the shadows. Then the car lights flashed on and the Civic was rolling down the street toward them.
"C'mon, let's go into the house," Chip said, taking her by the arm and leading her inside.
Alicia sat at the kitchen table as Chip finished cleaning up the mess Al had made. "I guess I should apologize," Alicia said with an awkward smile, shifting uncomfortably on the kitchen chair and scratching at a spot on the Formica tabletop.
"You had me worried," Chip admitted. "Why'd you run out like that?"
"I guess it was something your brother said. About you being the son of you-know-who."
Chip laughed. "You can't be serious. You believed that?"
Alicia shrugged and gave Chip an embarrassed smile. "If you'd been through what I've been through…" Her voice trailed off and Chip tried to picture Alicia strapped into the chair.
"Scott Martin told me a little about what happened down there. But I don't believe all the things he said about you." At the mention of Scott's name Alicia visibly stiffened.
"About me?" Alicia asked. She seemed on the verge of tears.
"I didn't take any of it seriously," Chip reassured her.
Alicia chewed on her lower lip for a moment. Her eyes were filled with sadness. "I loved him… once. Maybe I still do. I still wear his letter jacket. I was wearing it the night of our accident. Now it's all I have left of him."
She looked nervously at Chip. "Did he… tell you what happened in the basement?"
Chip nodded. "I heard his side of the story. What's your side?"
Alicia was hesitant. "My side's still a bad dream."
Suddenly Alicia turned pale. Chip hurried to her side. He put his hand on her neck. Her skin was hot to the touch.
She unzipped her sweatshirt. She was perspiring heavily. "Everytime I think of what happened that night I start to feel really sick."
Chip got Alicia a glass of cold water. She thanked him and took a big gulp.
"After what happened," she began, "we thought things were going to be all right again. Scott saw several plastic surgeons and they all believed his scars would heal in time. Then the strangest thing began to happen. His scars got worse. His whole face did. And his hand wouldn't heal. It turned into a claw. It was like there was a cancer inside of him, a cancer of fear, and it was twisting his face, his hand, his mind, making him even more deformed than ever.
"After a while, he wouldn't see me anymore," Alicia continued. "He wouldn't see anyone anymore because his face was so ugly. He wouldn't answer the phone when I called, and he wouldn't come to the door when I went to his house. I wrote him letter after letter but he never answered them. And yet… I had this feeling that he still cared about me. That he was watching me." Alicia's cheek began to tremble. "I can't get over that feeling that I'm being watched. By him, by everyone. That's why I don't go out very much anymore, and why I didn't go back to school — this feeling I have of always being watched."
"Well, I don't want to freak you out or anything," Chip said, "but he is following you."
"What?" Alicia asked, stunned.
Chip nodded. "And he's been keeping an eye on me and this house, too."
Alicia was mortified. "Why would he want to come back to this place, of all places?"
Chip shrugged. "I don't know why. But he was here, in the basement, burning your letters in the furnace."
Alicia's mouth fell open. "I don't believe this."
Chip told her about Scott breaking into the basement.
Alicia listened in amazement. "Scott's gone, he's totally gone," she said in dismay.
"He thinks there's an evil spirit floating around. Maybe in this house." Chip's eyes fixed on Alicia in a steady gaze. "And maybe in you."
"Me?" Alicia gasped, stunned. Her face turned completely white. "I know there's an evil spirit here." Her features grew tight with fear. "I've met the evil spirit here. In my dreams — my nightmares. But it's not me." She gave Chip an imploring look. "Is it?"
Chapter 30
Scott knew it was now or never.
He was parked just close enough to keep an eye on the house.
The evil house.
Al had left already, roaring down the street in his white van with an angry scowl on his face.
Not much later, the woman had left. Probably their mother.
And now Chip and Alicia were left. Chip with his Alicia. His lost Alicia.
His evil Alicia.
The same evil that had ravaged his face and destroyed his life.
Look at yourself, a voice commanded Scott. A voice that came from deep within. Scott turned the rearview mirror with a trembling hand and gazed at his reflection. He always trembled when he looked at himself. The gash so deep across his face. And growing deeper. His bad eye twittering more than ever. It was becoming like a cartoon eye, popped out of the socket, attached to a spring. His lip was drooping more and more every day, making his lisp even worse, and his teeth appeared to be growing sharper and more jagged with each passing moment.
Even if the plastic surgeons could put his face back together someday — what about his mind?
Who would put the shattered pieces of his mind back together?
When would it end?
It would end when the evil was gone. When it was incinerated. Ashes to ashes.
Now was the time to act. It was too bad that Chip had to die, too, but what else could he do? He had to kill the evil. The evil house and the evil girl. Before the evil spread.
Scott got out of the car and went around back to the trunk. He removed a ten-gallon gas container. Then he headed for Chip's yard, staying to the shadows, staying out of sight as much as he could. If they caught him later, he didn't care.
As long as he had burned the house down first.
Fight fire with fire.
Scott dashed past the driveway. The kitchen light was on. They were probably in there. He went around to the other side of the house. The basement window he had broken the other night hadn't been repaired yet.
He'd pour some gas into the basement. He'd start there, where the evil was the strongest. Then he'd spread the rest of the gas around. He'd have to figure out a way to keep them in the house as it burned.
At least keep Alicia in there.
If it meant he had to go inside the flames to keep her there, he was prepared to do it.
As Scott unscrewed the gas container, he heard footsteps crunching his way, crunching through dead leaves. Coming fast. Scott looked up, startled.
A hooded figure stood before him, a gleaming knife in his hand.
A knife with a red dragon handle.
"You!" Scott gasped, dropping the gas container. "How did you…"
The hooded figure thrust the knife blade into Scott's chest. When he pulled it out, crimson spurted everywhere. Scott, his eyes wide with horror, fell to his knees, clasping his hands over his heart. Then he fell face down into a tangle of dead weeds.
Moments later, Scott was as dead as the weeds.
The hooded figure picked up the gas container and poured gasoline over Scott's corpse. He cackled once, a sadistic chuckle, then set it on fire.
It blazed up like a Viking funeral pyre.
The murderer watched the fire lick and dance as he did his own little jig to the dead. Malicious laughter filled the frosty night air. Tongues of flames grew higher and higher into the sky as Scott's body turned a hideous black.
Then the hooded figure disappeared back into the night.
Chapter 31
Chip had spent the last ten minutes reassuring Alicia that she was not possessed by an evil spirit. He decided to change the subject. "Al and I found a passageway in our basement the other night," he said. "You wanna see it?"
"In the basement?"
"Yeah."
"No thanks."
"I think it leads outside somewhere. You've lived here for a while. What do you think it could be?" Chip asked.
Alicia gave it s
ome thought. "A lot of the houses around here were part of the underground railroad. You know, where they used to hide runaway slaves. I guess it could be something like that."
Chip nodded. "So you think someone could get in and out of my house that way?"
"I guess so," Alicia said. "But why would anyone want to? It's horrible down there."
Chip shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe some neighborhood kids on a dare or something. I thought I'd follow it, to find out where it goes," Chip said, hoping Alicia would take the hint and accompany him. It was scary, and probably filled with rats, but that might work as an excuse for her to stay close to him, to hold his hand, jump into his arms…
"It probably comes out somewhere behind your backyard," she said. "In the woods. Someplace hidden."
"What's past the woods?"
"The Elm Street Cemetery," Alicia said.
In the distance they heard sirens. The blaring noise was coming closer.
Bang! Bang! Someone was knocking loudly on the front door.
Chip knocked his chair over backward as he scrambled to the door to see what was going on. He heard Alicia's chair scrape back as she followed him.
"What is it?" Chip yelled as he swung the door open. Nick Murphy was standing in front of him, his eyes bugging out, his chest heaving frantically. "You better come out here, son!" he shouted. Then he noticed Alicia and said in a lower voice, "Don't let her see this."
"Alicia — wait here!" Chip shouted over his shoulder as he hurried after Mr. Murphy.
"I saw the fire from my bedroom window," Mr. Murphy said. "I already called 911."
Elm Street came alive with noise and flashing colors as first one fire engine then another rounded the corner and came up the street. A white EMS truck followed the fire trucks and two Springwood police cruisers brought up the rear. They all converged on Chip's house.
Chip rounded the corner of his house. At first it looked like someone had built a bonfire in the backyard. Then the smell of smoke, gasoline, and burning flesh filled his nostrils. The vile smoke stung Chip's eyes as he saw the horror. Scott Martin was shriveling up as the fire ate him away bit by bit. Most of the boy had already been consumed by the flames. Roasted like a cannibal's barbecue. But even though the body was charred beyond recognition, his face remained. What was left of Scott Martin made him easy to identify; he had a face you didn't easily forget.
Chip spun around and thought he might throw up.
He saw Alicia, frozen in horror, staring at the burning mess that used to be the boy she loved. Her eyes were wide open, taking in every bit of the grisly scene. Tears streamed down her face and her lips extended out in a silent sob.
Chip took a deep breath and fought back the knot tightening his stomach. He went to Alicia and turned her away from the gruesome sight. He pulled her into his arms and gently pushed her head against his shoulder. Her wild hair reflected the dancing, glowing flames. "Don't look," Chip said softly into Alicia's ear. "Don't look." The comforting gesture broke Alicia's stony silence. She convulsed into sobs.
The firemen rushed into the yard, unraveling hose. Water was turned on and aimed at Scott's black and smoking body.
Chip looked away from the nauseating sight and his eyes passed over what appeared to be a bright red gas container a few feet from Scott's outstretched fingers. The fingers that poked out of the cast that oddly hadn't burned. The white plaster gleamed brightly, eerily, in the moonlit yard.
Had Scott killed himself? Chip wondered. Burned himself to death?
A blue-uniformed policeman approached. "You live here?" he asked Chip, pulling a notepad from his back pocket.
"Yes, sir," Chip told the cop, still holding Alicia, staring at Scott again. Staring out of morbid curiosity.
"Did you know this guy?" the cop asked, gesturing to the smoking remains.
Chip tried to answer, but the lump in his throat choked off his words. A sharp, bitter smell assailed his nostrils. The bitter smell of death.
No wonder Alicia seemed so weirded out. He was beginning to feel the same way.
It seemed to come with the territory, on Elm Street.
Chip watched the firemen rewind the hose.
"You don't look so good," the cop said to Chip.
"I'm okay," Chip croaked, trying to swallow the lump in his throat so he could speak normally again.
"Did you know that guy?" the cop asked again, pencil tip poised on the notepad paper. "Sorry I have to bother you with questions, but I have to make out my report."
"No, it's okay," Chip said, finally regaining his voice. "It was… Scott Martin."
"Scott Martin?" the cop said, pushing his policeman's cap back on his head, looking more closely at the charred corpse. "The Spring wood quarterback?"
Chip nodded his assent.
"I'll be damned," the cop said, scribbling something down.
"Can you tell what happened?" Chip asked.
The firemen were restoring their gear into the fire engines. Some of the neighbors had come out on their porches to watch. Some just watched from behind drawn shades, as if they were afraid to go out, afraid of what they might see.
"It's hard to say for sure right now," the cop said, ruefully shaking his head, looking at Scott's corpse again. "But it looks like Martin was trying to burn down your house."
Chip's eyes wandered back to the grisly carcass.
"But he burnt himself up instead," Chip heard the cop say in a voice that seemed a thousand miles away.
Chapter 32
The next day after school, Chip was hurrying to football practice. It was the second and final day of tryouts, and Chip knew he hadn't played very impressively the day before. If he didn't shine today, he could kiss the quarterback position good-bye.
Coach Cuttler glanced up from his clipboard when he saw Chip trotting toward him. He blew his whistle shrilly and gathered the team around him as Chip jogged up. To Chip's surprise he saw Barney Peters standing at Cuttler's side. His face was heavily bandaged.
"All right, guys, listen up," Coach Cuttler bellowed so loudly Chip winced. "I've been hearing some nasty rumors circulating around the school and I want to clear this thing up right now!" He nodded to Barney. "Go ahead, Peters."
Barney spoke painfully in a soft voice. Everyone had to lean close to hear what he was saying. "I had an accident yesterday and I said some stupid things. Real stupid things. Mostly to Parker." Barney gestured to Chip. "The new guy over here. I accused him of pushing me down the stairs. But it never happened. He was just the first guy I saw after I fell, and I guess I wasn't thinking straight, and so I blamed him." Barney looked down at his feet, as if studying his toes.
"You never think straight, Peters," someone cracked from the back.
"Way to go, Peters," someone else chortled.
"He probably tripped himself with those giant feet of his," another guy cracked, and the whole team laughed, including Chip and Barney and Coach Cuttler.
Only Al didn't laugh, Chip noticed. Al was looking over everyone's head, in a world of his own, his football helmet tucked beneath his arm.
Coach Cuttler nudged Barney. Barney stepped forward and offered Chip his hand. Chip took it and shook it firmly.
"All right, everyone, let's get back to work." Coach Cuttler blew the whistle again, signaling that the players should get out onto the field so practice could begin. "You offensive linemen better start protecting your quarterback better or you'll all be doing extra laps after practice," Coach Cuttler shouted after them before turning his attention to Al.
Al stood alone, his pale blue eyes reflecting the sunlight. He was staring at Chip.
"Parker. Al Parker. Take the free safety position," Cuttler hollered.
"What about quarterback?" Al asked sullenly. "I want my shot at quarterback."
"Maybe if there's time after practice. I want Dawson to run a few plays and then I want to take a look at Chip again."
Al reluctantly slipped his helmet on, glaring at Chip the entire time.
/> "Let's hustle it up, Al Parker," Coach Cuttler said. "And try not to kill your brother this time."
Try not to kill your brother this time.
So it was Al who had leveled him yesterday. What had gotten into him lately? His brother was going totally bonkers. Since they had been living on Elm Street, Al had become increasingly reclusive. And Chip noticed he was spending more and more time in the basement.
Last night, after the police and fire engines had left, Chip had been in his room when he heard Al drive up in the van. Al went straight to the basement and Chip could hear him through the air vent again, talking to himself. The smell of McDonald's burgers had wafted up through the vent as well. Chip had caught a few phrases — something about Scott Martin — but most of the words were unintelligible. Chip had been so tired and disgusted by the evening's events that he wasn't even tempted to eavesdrop on his brother's ramblings.
Chip heard Coach Cuttler call his name, and his thoughts returned to practice. He couldn't afford to daydream now — not if he wanted to be quarterback. Chip jogged over to the coach.
"I'm going to let Dawson run a few plays so you can get an idea of the way our offense works. Which is what I should have done yesterday," Cuttler admitted. "So why don't you stick with Peters for now. He'll answer any questions you might have about the offense." Cuttler glanced at Barney, who was standing on the sidelines painfully picking at one of his bandages. "If he can," Coach added.
Chip nodded and jogged over to Barney. "You okay, big guy?"
"Yeah," Barney grumbled. "I'm going to need some serious dental work but I guess I never was much to look at anyway."
Chip laughed. "Thanks for straightening things out for me with the team. I'm sorry it happened. I thought maybe I saw you ahead of me on the steps, and I had this weird feeling that you were going to be pushed. Not by me, of course, but by someone. I don't know how to explain it."
"I was pushed," Barney said in a soft voice.
Fatal Games Page 10