Regina screamed as she tried to pull away from the monster that was pulling at her, grabbing and yanking her body. Regina reeled with terror as she heard screams besides her own; it was impossible. In the midst of the struggle, Regina opened her eyes and was face-to-face with live, wild eyes. Regina’s face was inches away from the blood-soaked, almost unidentifiable face of Nikki Valentine.
“Nikki?” Regina screamed as she finally jerked free from the bloody grasp of her friend. Regina stumbled back to see that Eden’s headless body had fallen to the side and Nikki Valentine had been buried under the massacred body. Nikki was still screaming as she raised from the bed with hands outstretched toward her friend, covered in the blood of Eden DeFrank. Regina had to fight to shake off the shocking paralysis. Nikki’s words were garbles of nothingness and Regina reached out and pulled her friend from the dolls’ deathbed and laid her limp body on the floor.
“Nikki,” Regina spoke, but received only incoherent gurgling in response.
“Nikki? What is wrong with you?” Regina asked and she used the sleeve of her sweatshirt to wipe blood from her face. Her eyes were glassy as they stared vacantly up into the darkness of the ceiling.
“Nikki? Nikki, can you hear me?” Regina asked. She held up two fingers and waved them in front of Nikki. “How many fingers am I holding up?” she asked, but the eyes of the barely conscious girl just rolled lazily up into her head. Regina slapped the girl with a light hand. She moved Nikki’s body away from her so that she could ensure that none of the blood that covered Nikki was her own. The dazed girl was not wounded. Regina moved her face close to Nikki’s again and her eyes focused momentarily, but soon began rolling again. Regina slapped the girl as hard as she could, causing Nikki to begin blinking rapidly and soon her eyes were trained on Regina. She pulled down the soft skin under Nikki’s eyes to see that her pupils were dilated.
“Nikki, can you hear me?” Regina asked almost in a scream, trying to revive the drugged Nikki.
“Re…Reg …” Nikki struggled to put the syllables together to make her friend’s name, but was unsuccessful.
“OK. We’re going to get out of here, but you gotta help me, Nikki, you gotta help me.” Regina assured her as she searched the floor for the butcher knife, launching dolls left and right until she found it and returned it to her bag. Regina got to her feet and gathered Nikki’s limp body and lifted.
“C’mon, Nikki, I need your help. You have to stand up, I can’t carry you; you have to stand up.” She continued to tell her friend. The clumsy pair limped unsteadily out into the hall. Out of any corner or dark bedroom, Regina was sure that the same culprit who had fired the fatal shot blowing Eden’s head away would emerge and shoot both of them. Regina could feel the beads of sweat forming on her forehead. She was forced to stop several times before Nikki was finally able to coordinate her feet enough to keep from tumbling to the ground. Regina held one arm around Nikki’s waist and used the other to keep Nikki’s arm securely around her own neck. On the journey down the stairs, the pathetic pair collapsed twice. At the bottom of the staircase Regina rested, her arm ached, and Nikki was of absolutely no help carrying her body weight. Regina shook out her arms and prepared to lift Nikki again. Before boosting Nikki, she tried again to speak to her. Regina grasped Nikki’s chin in her fingers, she could tell that Nikki recognized her more now, but was still having trouble forming words.
“Nikki, who brought you here?” Nikki’s eyes flickered with horror before glazing with a thick film of tears. She tried hard to speak but could not get anything coherent to come from her mouth and her communication consisted of a series of spits and groans. There was no more time to waste and Regina hoisted her friend from the stairs again. The grand double doors were only a few precious feet in front of them when Regina noticed that the tall fireplace was roaring with robust flames that had not been there when she entered the house. Regina pushed her body harder in her attempt to get herself and Nikki to the front door knowing that the person who knew their secret would show him or herself soon, but a glimmer of fantastic green light distracted her. Above the fireplace hung an object that reflected light off the walls in every direction. Immediately, she knew the piece and whoever placed it there had known that she would not resist it and as she stood there between the exit, only feet in front of her, and the sparkling crystal that hung deep in the belly of the room she knew that she should flee, but she knew that if she left the house without it, she would never see it again and that would be unbearable. With Nikki attached to her side she limped away from the front door and into the wide open living room where she let Nikki’s flimsy body collapse unto the tattered couch that had been left in the abandoned room. Regina got close to the fireplace and reached up, stretching her fingers as far as they would go but still not able to fully grasp the sparkling thing. Closer, she pressed to the fireplace so that she could reach farther up the wall. Tireless groans escaped her as she stretched her body to its limit. The fire burned fiercely close to her stomach and perspiration dripped from her, but abandoning the feat was not an option. Regina made a mental note of the exact position of the object that teased the tips of her fingers, she bent down and jumped grasping the air in the exact spot that she had plotted in her memory and she reveled in joy when she realized that she was back on the ground and not empty-handed. She opened her eyes to see the green crystal that hung innocently at the end of the thin silver chain and she grasped the amulet close to her.
“Regina,” a voice that she recognized, called to her and she turned to face the person that she suspected was guilty all along.
26
Natalie sauntered into the room and their eyes locked.
“Regina,” Natalie spoke softly.
“Natalie, why?” she asked as the tears began streaming down her face.
“Why what?” Natalie responded as her eyes fell to the figure slumped over on the couch. “Oh my God, Nikki,” she gasped, hastily making her way to the incoherent girl. Regina wrenched the clean blade from her bag and held the weapon out in front of her as she stepped in front of Nikki who was still trying to mentally claw her way out of a distant existence. Natalie withdrew at the sight of the blade.
“Regina, what the hell are you doing?” She began shouting.
Both girls were startled by unexpected movement when Barron entered the room and took another corner.
“Barron?” Regina was awed at the sight of him here.
“What are you doing here?” Natalie asked him.
Barron held up a sheet of paper familiar in color. “I found this letter from you, Regina, after you left asking me to meet you here.” Barron spoke as his eyes darted from one girl to the next. “What is going on?” He asked.
Regina opened her mouth to speak and her lips quivered as she spoke. “I didn’t write you a letter,” Regina told him, timidly switching the direction of her weapon to face Barron directly. “Yes, you did,” he countered.
“You wrote me one too, Regina.” Natalie finally spoke.
“What?” Regina raged, her weapon-wielding hand shaking thunderously. “I didn’t. I got a letter saying that someone had Nikki here.”
“From who?” Natalie asked. Regina jumped to speak, but was unsuccessful. Every time she positioned her lips to voice the thought that she had formed she could not speak because the thoughts changed continuously.
“I…I don’t know.” Regina suddenly felt very confused; her mind was quickly becoming as weak as her trembling body. The look of pathetic sympathy from Barron served for more frustration. Her mind reeled and she tried to think back. Had she left a letter for both of them and somehow not known what she was doing, which led to the even more frightening question that she was forced to ask herself.
Am I crazy? The room was spinning.
Regina was gripping the handle of the blade so tightly that her fingernails began to break the skin of her palm. Natalie could see her friend falling apart.
“Regina, just give me the knife,” N
atalie demanded in an airy whisper.
Barron’s eyes flashed at Natalie’s request. “No, Regina. Give the knife to me.” Barron eyed Natalie closely to make sure that she made no sudden moves, he trusted none of them. Natalie sneered at him nastily.
“Regina, I don’t know what’s going on here. I really don’t, but I just want us all to leave here safe tonight, OK? Please give me the knife. I promise I won’t hurt you.” Natalie focused her attention on Regina while still casting watchful glances at Barron.
Regina eyed them both.
“Regina, Nikki needs help, damn it! We have to get her help; we can’t let this happen again, Regina. I won’t let it happen again!” Natalie spoke. Regina had forgotten that Nikki lay barely conscious on the couch; begging for clarity in guttural moans.
“Don’t give her the knife, Regina. She has done this before. She killed Lola. Just give me the knife and we can call Sheriff Handow like I said from the beginning and this will all be over.” He guided.
Regina lowered the weapon slightly as she contemplated his words.
Surprise sparked Natalie’s features. “I…I …” Natalie wanted to deny it; to deny everything, but she could not deny the truth, she had hurt Lola and probably killed her and she could no longer hold her tears either.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Regina. Please just give me the knife.” Natalie begged.
“Don’t do it, Regina. Don’t let her fool you, not again. I love you.” Barron told her. Natalie looked at Barron with, first, a strange disgust on her face, then revelation. Regina could feel her knees buckling and she wanted nothing more than to hand over the knife and be done with this entire event.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Natalie accused the man.
Regina strengthened and her eyes darted back and forth between the two equally viable suspects. Regina mentally tried to review several days of happenings in seconds, searching for something, any detail or conversation that could help her determine the guilty one. Growing more nervous by the moment, Regina had to make a decision because out of the three someone would make a move soon and it needed to be her if she was going to survive.
“Barron” Nikki’s tiny whisper crawled out of her wracked body. Nikki’s weak finger pointed at the man accusingly before she dipped back into her partially anesthetized state. Before the look of sheer disappointment had fully shown itself upon Regina’s face, Barron roared and was upon her with the rage of a rabid dog. He punched her hard across the face, but before she could fall to the floor he grabbed her under her arms, grappled the knife from her hand and held the point at her neck.
“Let her go, Barron.” Natalie spoke to him calmly.
“No, I don’t think so.” He fumed, spitting and hissing; his transformation from man to monster seamless. “Not this time.”
Regina’s face ached and she rotated her jaw, praying that it was still in place.
“What do you want?” Regina barely managed to whisper.
“Nothing has changed, Regina. I want the same thing I always wanted, you. When you poured your heart out to me about how Lola really died, I thought we were building something again. Of course I already knew most everything you told me, but it was the fact that you opened up to me.” Barron explained.
“How did you know?” Natalie asked.
The blazing fire crackled and spit, rising and falling at Barron’s back as he held tightly to an unsteady Regina.
“I was there when it happened.” He chirped casually.
“What?” Natalie asked breathlessly.
“I guess stalking runs in the family.” He laughed to himself. “When you left the party early that night, I followed you, like I liked to do sometimes. I didn’t know what was happening inside at Nikki’s house, but I waited. Then the three of you came out carrying the blanket and, call me stupid, but I never thought in a million years that your precious Lola was wrapped in that thing, but when I went into the park to see what you all had thrown away I was relieved quite honestly,” Barron explained lightheartedly.
“Relieved?” Regina cried, her face still locked stiffly in Barron’s grip.
“She was always around, your best friend. We hardly ever had any time away from her for just us,” Barron explained tenderly. “You went to the movies together; she stayed over at your house EVERY weekend and, quite frankly, I was tired of always being second. You gave her my necklace!” He spat.
“But why did you do it? Why did you have to go back.” Natalie asked.
“I knew you girls; well, I thought I knew you. You were soft. I figured one of you would be leading the police to the body before sunlight. So I got rid of her once and for all; that way, you couldn’t find her even if you wanted to. The police and everyone else would just think you guys were nuts. I mean, with no body and all how much could really be proven? Besides, that hiding place was amateur at best, someone would have found her before the week was up and, sooner or later, Sheriff Handow and his band of idiots would have put it together and Regina, they would have taken you away from me. I wouldn’t let her keep coming between us even in death. I buried her on the DeFrank estate because I knew that no one would search for her there and even if they did find her there, well even better, everyone already knew that DeFrank was weird so he would take the fall. But I must admit it was sheer luck considering I had no idea that he had been banging you girls only a couple of years before. When Regina, here, told me that…it all made sense. For years, I wondered how you girls were able to keep such an awful secret for so long, but now I realize that it was because you all have been keeping dark secrets together for a long time, haven’t you?” Barron asked accusingly.
“The secret keepers,” he whispered seductively in Regina’s ear. Regina struggled to get away from him, but he jerked her body hard and she fell back into submission.
“Why did you have to cut her up?” Natalie asked.
“Logistics” Barron responded casually. “I had to move her and I had to keep her in my car until I decided what to do with her and I couldn’t just haul a dead body wrapped in a blanket, which is where the garbage bags came in. It was just easier that way.”
Fighting the tears was impossible now and her cries began exploding in short powerful sobs. This was a man that she thought that she could love, but he had been betraying her from the very beginning.
Surges of adrenaline began pulsing through Regina’s body and her tolerance for listening to Barron’s psychotic babbling was thinning. In a wave of adrenaline-fueled power, she used all of her weight to heave her body backward into Barron. He lost his balance and almost stumbled into the mouth of the fireplace whose gaping jaws were only too ready to consume him. He yelled in surprise feeling the heat singe his back. The knife clattered to the floor and sailed across the room when Barron decided to use the knife-wielding hand to grip the fireplace and keep him from toppling into the hungry flames. His other hand was forced to release Regina’s neck, but not before violently driving her head into the hard stones on the side of the fireplace. Regina crumbled to the floor clutching her forehead in a useless effort to control the pain that splintered her head. Her senses blurred, blood ran into her eye, and hearing and seeing became a chore.
Natalie hopped upon Barron, clawing, scratching, and screaming in a reflexive attack, causing them both to go sailing to the damaged marble floor. Regina rolled around doing her best to string together bits of consciousness in a way that made sense. Barron gripped Natalie by her hair tightly and attempted to position his other hand around her throat, but the struggle was too fierce for him to gain any type of advantage. Again he tried to get his hand around her neck, which placed the web of his hand directly in front of Natalie’s mouth and she bit into him like a venomous reptile. Barron wailed in agony. He released the hand that he had entangled in her hair and began punching her in the side of her head until she could no longer withstand the blows. Natalie released his hand from her blood soaked mouth and pulled away from the crazed lunatic.
Reg
ina began to pull herself from the floor, but before either of the girls could make another move he slid across the floor, reached under the couch and yanked out a long black shotgun and before anyone could react a ferocious blast convulsed the room. Regina fell helplessly back to the floor, her body was beginning to numb.
Once the room felt still again Regina took her hands from her ears and patted her entire body searching for the wound, the blood, the soft hanging flesh that would have been exposed by the gunshot. Regina soon found the wound, the blood, the soft hanging flesh, but it was not on her body, it was Natalie who had been wounded. Natalie sat up against the wall, taking sharp and ragged breaths. Regina scrambled across the floor and took Natalie’s hand.
“Natalie,” she cried as she wiped Natalie’s blood splattered bangs from her lifeless face with the gentility of a mother. Natalie wheezed and her eyes stared blankly into open space. Regina looked down, but promptly looked away when she realized that she could see the wall through the enormous hole in Natalie’s torso. There was no hope of saving her. Regina knew that it was impossible, but she would not leave Natalie until she was sure that her friend was gone, she would not let her die alone.
“Natalie, everything will be OK, I promise.” Regina was not sure if Natalie could hear her in these last few seconds that she still managed to take in air somehow. Regina looked into her eyes and she knew what Natalie was thinking as she sat there, her body dying, her soul preparing for the next place. Both girls thought of Lola. The guilt that Natalie felt over Lola riddled her and she was relieved that it was over and that she would get, with the ceasing of her own life, to face the girl whose life she had taken years ago. Regina was terrified. Regina doubted herself and wondered if Natalie was not thinking any of those things, if she had no brain capacity anymore to think of anything and Regina was just speaking of what she saw of herself in the reflection of Natalie’s blank eyes.
Regina hadn’t noticed that Barron was standing over them once again as Natalie took in her last labored breath. The shotgun rang out again and Natalie’s face came apart before Regina’s eyes and her vision was all but taken away with a wash of Natalie’s blood as it sprayed her face. Incessant ringing penetrated Regina’s ears as she grabbed them again and threw herself to the floor and as far away from the blast as possible.
Black Water Tales: The Secret Keepers Page 31