Bad Games

by Jeff Menapace

  * * *

  3:00 a.m. A battered Ford pickup pulled into an unpaved driveway five miles from the watering hole at which it was recently parked. Loose pebbles crunched beneath the heavy tires before the truck eventually grinded to a stop.

  A large man wearing a big silver ring nearly fell out of the driver’s side. He righted himself, belched loud, then slammed the car door shut before stumbling around the rear of his truck towards the passenger side. The passenger door flung open and a hefty woman reeking of booze and cigarettes fell into his arms, letting out an obnoxious giggle that culminated with a snort. The two instantly locked lips and exchanged a sloppy kiss that missed more than it connected.

  The large man wrapped his arm around the staggering girl and guided her along the short, broken path to the front door of his one-story home—a dwelling that would be aptly described by any passerby as a weather-stained box with a few windows.

  Before entering, the drunken couple paused for a second attempt at a kiss, nearly falling over one another in the effort. The alcohol-induced detriment to their equilibrium succeeded in bringing out another sloppy giggle from the female. The big man leered at his drunken catch then turned back towards the front door. He closed one eye (there were now two doorknobs for some reason) and fumbled and scraped his key along the lock’s plate until it eventually clicked home. A quick turn of the key, a forceful nudge with his shoulder, and the front door swung open allowing the big man to guide his catch inside. That was the last thing the big man remembered for almost thirty minutes.

  * * *

  The big man felt the headache before his eyes fluttered open. When his vision settled, he made out two men standing in front of him. It took him a few seconds, but he soon remembered who these two men were. One of the men was sporting an impressive wound on his cheek—a wound that he himself had given him.

  The large man sprang to attention, but instant resistance seized his entire body, the confines of the ropes that bound him to the chair biting into his skin. He struggled briefly against the binds, but soon quit when he could not detect even the slightest bit of slack in their coiled grip.

  “Careless fool,” the man with the wound on his cheek said. “You left your wallet open for damn near five minutes when you bought a round for that pig you brought home with you.”

  The big man blinked several times; nothing this man was saying made any sense. His head ached at its base from where he had been struck upon entering his home, and the more he thought, the more it ached. He went to speak against the wadded cloth that was taped inside his mouth, but only panicked, muffled words escaped.

  “Your license, genius,” the man with the welt said. “It was sticking out of your wallet like a hard-on. Meatheads like you are so fucking predictable. I knew you’d eventually start trouble with us tonight. I guess you can say I like to plan ahead.”

  The large man’s eyes stopped blinking. He understood now. He struggled again for a brief moment—more a show of bravado than any attempt at escape—and then stopped. He tried another muffled shout, but its futility was heightened more by the pain the effort was causing his head. He resigned entirely and his shoulders slumped, a long strained sigh flapped out of his nose like a snore.

  “Now,” the man with the welt said. “How ’bout we get a look at that ring of yours? I mean it’s such a cool ring after all. A skull. It’s just so rebellious and dangerous. Scary even. You must be a real outlaw to wear a ring like that, yeah?”

  The man with the welt’s accomplice, a stocky man with black eyes and a shaved head, stepped forward, past the man with the welt. He squatted down into a catcher’s stance so he could study the ring on the big man’s hand that was strapped to the arm of the chair. “This is cool,” the man with the shaved head said as he fingered the ring. He looked over his shoulder at the man with the welt. “Very scary.”

  “Well I can’t see it too well from back here,” the man with the welt said. “Can you bring it over to me?”

  “I can try.” The man with the shaved head put on a melodramatic display as he grunted and groaned, trying (but not trying) to remove the ring from the man’s thick fingers. “Won’t budge, bro,” he said. “It’s stuck fast.”

  The man with the welt continued in the vein of his friend’s theatrics with an exaggerated frown and sigh. Taking a few steps forward, he squatted down next to the man with the shaved head. “Let me have a try,” he said.

  The man with the welt took hold of the large man’s ring finger and violently jerked it to its left. There was an exceptional crack like a branch being snapped in two. The large man cried out through his gag, the cloth muffling the sound but not the intensity.

  “Did that get it?” the man with the shaved head asked.

  “Nope. Still on there,” the man with the welt replied.

  “Better try again.”

  The man with the welt took hold of the broken finger and now jerked it to its right. No crack this time, just a grinding noise like popcorn kernels being munched. The large man’s cries were long drawn-out moans now, the pain shockingly worse than before.

  “Anything?” the man with the shaved head asked.

  “Still nothing,” the man with the welt complained.

  The man with the shaved head huffed, stood up, and exited the room. He returned moments later carrying a large kitchen knife, a good portion of it coated in dark, wet red. The big man’s eyes widened when he saw the bloodied knife.

  “Ah, don’t worry about her, big fella,” the man with the shaved head said. He looked at the knife as he spoke, rotating it back and forth in his hand, studying it. “We made it fairly quick. Still, a pig like that’s gonna take a lot of sticking before she eventually stops squealing, yeah?” He laughed and shook his head without a trace of sympathy. “Poor fat slut was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  The man with the shaved head handed the kitchen knife down to the man with the welt who was still squatting in front of the big man, his calm, almost lazy eyes never leaving the big man’s panicked, unblinking pair. His confident smirk never waning. The same confident smirk he’d flashed at the large man before exiting the bar after the fight. Admittedly, that smirk had caused the large man a brief hint of concern as they left the scene. Now it terrified him.

  “Okay,” the man with the welt announced. He took firm hold of the twisted ring finger in one hand, and tapped the flat of the blade against the big man’s forehead with the other, clucking his tongue with each tap like a metronome. “Let’s see if we can’t get that scary ring off once and for all.”

  12

  Patrick and Amy were awake but still in bed. The sun had just come up.

  “How’d you sleep?” Patrick asked.

  Amy was resting her head on his chest while he stroked her hair. She waited a few seconds before responding. “About as well as I could given the circumstances. How about you?”

  “Okay I guess,” he said.

  What followed was a brief silence Patrick utilized to prepare for what he felt was the inevitable question to come.

  “You don’t believe me do you?” she asked. Her head was still on his chest, her query was soft.

  Patrick hadn’t dared voice any of his skepticism last night; his wife’s rage would have made arguing his case nigh on impossible. But now, after some sleep, and a chance to reflect without a condescending local sheriff to answer to, Patrick felt that maybe his wife would be a bit more receptive to what he had to say.

  “I’ll never doubt you, baby,” he said. “You tell me the earth is flat and the moon is made of cheese, and I’ll stand up in court and swear under oath that my wife is telling the absolute truth.” He heard her laugh softly through her nose, her head still resting on his chest. “And I still don’t doubt that you saw something in that window.” He took a breath, ready to take the leap. “But I do know a few things. I know that what happened at Giant with that perverted asshole was a big deal, and that it upset you big time. I know that we had a bunch of
drinks over at Norm and Lorraine’s. I know that sometimes the dark can play tricks on our eyes. And I know that since we’ve been up here we’ve experienced an odd incident or two to say the fucking least.”

  Another small laugh through her nose. She wasn’t angry yet. That was good. Proceed.

  “Am I saying you’re lying? Of course not. I believe you saw what you say you saw. However, I think it’s possible that maybe, maybe, your eyes were just having a little fun with you last night.”

  Patrick braced himself, expecting his wife to launch herself off of his chest and begin her attack. To his surprise (and relief) she did not. She didn’t even flinch. She just sighed deeply and said, “I could have sworn…”

  Patrick stroked her hair some more, his hand then moving down to her neck where he began kneading it.

  “Again, baby, I don’t doubt you saw something. I truly don’t. When I was about eleven I saw Friday the 13th Part 2.”

  She lifted her head off his chest. “What?”

  “Let me finish,” he said.

  She dropped her head back down.

  “This was the one before Jason—the killer—”

  “Yeah, I know who Jason is.”

  He tweaked her ear lobe. “Anyway…this is the one before Jason started wearing the hockey mask. Instead he wore a burlap sack over his head with only one eye hole—something I found a hell of a lot creepier than a hockey mask. It reminded me of the hood The Elephant Man wore over his head—another film that gave me the willies when I was a kid because I couldn’t appreciate what a great movie it was at the time. As a kid all I saw was some horribly deformed man wearing a scary hood. And the fact that it was a true story certainly didn’t help matters as far as I was concerned.

  “But Friday the 13th? Scared the absolute shit out of me. Jason wasn’t some misunderstood deformed guy like John Merrick, who was as gentle as a kitten. Jason was a ruthless killer who was fucking people up with pitchforks and machetes and whatever the hell else he could lay his hands on. It was as if some evil prick who had access to my young mind had said: ‘Hmmm…little Patrick is scared of The Elephant Man. Problem is, the Elephant Man is a nice guy. How ’bout we make a movie with a guy that looks just like The Elephant Man, but, let’s have him be some homicidal lunatic instead. And oh yeah, let’s also make it so the crazy bastard can’t be killed.’”

  Amy gave a short, genuine laugh. Patrick smiled and waited a beat before continuing.

  “So to put it mildly, Friday the 13th Part 2 freaked me the hell out. And you know what, baby? I would have sworn on my mother’s life that every now and then I would wake up in the middle of the night and see that burlap sack with the one eye-hole staring back at me through my bedroom window, sometimes even at the foot of my bed. Even when I closed my eyes tight and opened them, he was still there. And as absolutely terrified as I was, something deep down told me he wasn’t there. Something told me that my eyes were just using that incredibly annoying ability they have to make us see something we just flat-out don’t want to see.”

  Patrick finished his spiel by moving his hand from Amy’s neck to her shoulders. Her position on Patrick’s chest never changed and her breathing never quickened. He continued massaging her shoulders. After a good minute Amy sighed and said, “I love you.”

  Patrick brought his hand back to her neck, gave it a gentle squeeze. “And I love ya back.”

  “I’d turn around kiss you if it wasn’t for your morning breath,” she said.

  “Oh, and your morning breath is an ocean breeze?”

  Amy smiled and began drawing circles with her index finger on Patrick’s bare stomach. “Should we go over and get the kids?”

  “Nah. Norm said he and Lorraine would bring them over. Let’s enjoy a little more solitude while we can.”

  “We could put a movie on if you want,” she said, taking her hand off his chest and pointing to the VCR and television in the far corner of the room. “Do you want me to see if my family has a copy of Friday the 13th Part 2? You know, the one where Jason wears the burlap sack with the one eye hole just like The Elephant Man did? Do you know that one, baby? Not the one with the hockey mask, the one with the burlap—”

  Patrick clawed her ribs and she screamed.

  13

  “Who’s ready to go fishing?” Patrick asked his brood.

  Caleb looked delighted, Carrie looked mildly amused, and Amy looked repulsed.

  “I’m not putting any worms on a hook. And we’re not keeping anything we catch,” Amy said.

  “But what if we catch a beauty? It could be our dinner,” Patrick said.

  Amy closed her eyes and shook her head. “First of all, I prefer my fish to be served to me on a plate, in a restaurant, thank you very much. I am not about to bring one of those smelly things into our cabin and gut it myself.”

  “I’ll gut it. It’ll be—”

  “Second, I doubt there is anything living in that man-made lake that can even remotely pass as being edible.”

  Caleb looked up at his father. Patrick looked back down and rubbed the top of his head. “Don’t listen to her, champ. We’re gonna catch a million of ’em.”

  “A million of what is the question,” Amy said.

  “Can Oscar come?” Carrie piped in.

  “Sure, why not?” Patrick said. “I’m fairly certain he’ll eat anything we catch. He’s like a fuzzy garbage disposal.”

  Carrie burst out laughing. Patrick leaned over and kissed the top of her head. He then asked, “Who’s coming to the bait shop with me?”

  “Me!” Caleb yelled.

  Carrie shook her head. “I want to play with Oscar some more.”

  Patrick looked at Amy. “Do you mind staying here with her, honey?”

  “Not at all. You go buy your slimy worms. Besides I want to make some final arrangements with Lorraine and Norm.” She looked at Carrie and Caleb. “Are you guys excited to go to the movies with the Mitchells tonight?”

  Both kids nodded.

  “Are they taking us to dinner too?” Carrie asked.

  “Yup. Dinner and a movie. Sounds better than the plans your father and I have. We’re just doing dinner.”

  Carrie laughed. Caleb offered his mother and father to come along to the movie. Patrick and Amy exchanged an our-son-is-so-freaking-adorable look, and took turns telling him how thoughtful he was to consider them, but, regrettably, they would have to decline.

  “Alright, brother-man,” Patrick said to his son. “You ready to go buy some worms?”

  14

  For a brief moment Patrick wished his four-year-old son could read for all the wrong reasons: along the road’s edge, leading into the white-graveled lot of the bait shop, a signpost stood tall, announcing one large and crudely painted word to all who drove by.

  BAIT.

  He couldn’t resist saying it anyway. “Think this is the place?”

  Father and son locked eyes in the rearview mirror. Caleb shrugged at his father, wide-eyed and innocent.

  Patrick smiled back. “Nevermind, buddy. This is the place.”

  Caleb leaned forward in his child seat in order to get a solid look at the bait shop. Patrick pulled left into the gravel lot, glanced back and caught his son’s curious expression. He appeared to be taking his father’s sarcastic joke quite literally; Patrick felt sure Caleb’s wary brow was declaring that this didn’t look like any store he had ever seen, Dad.

  The place was a weathered one-story home that doubled as a bait shop. A white wooden porch led to a screen-door entrance. On either side of that screen door were two cloudy windows, each displaying an array of lures that dangled and glimmered from fishing line above the window’s pane like tiny puppets with jewelry.

  To the right of the entrance a rusted porch swing designed for two—likely capable of holding none—swayed lightly from side to side, each sway giving out a metallic groan, as if warning all it would not be held responsible for those crazy enough to deem it fit for sittin’ and, God forbid,
swingin’.

  Patrick had expected nothing less from such a place. In fact he’d counted on it. He loved these rustic mom-and-pop spots, and it was the precise reason they were visiting Crescent Lake as opposed to being stretched out on a sandy beach somewhere, sipping margaritas.

  The screen door screeched metal against metal as father and son entered. The interior of the shop had a sharp smell of burnt wood and heavy dust that immediately made Patrick feel like picking his nose. He looked down and spotted Caleb already going at it. “Digging for gold?” he asked his son. Caleb yanked his hand away from his face and shook his head. Patrick smiled and bopped him on the top of the head.

  The layout of the shop was basic. To the right were three rows of shelves that held all things fishing, and to the left was a wooden counter top. Behind it stood an old man who Patrick guessed to be at least eighty. He was short, thin, stoop-shouldered, and wrinkled from head to toe. His head was covered with an old baseball cap decorated with fishing lures. Resting on the bridge of his nose was a pair of thick glasses that doubled the size of his green eyes.

  Yup, Patrick would have been disappointed with anything less—or actually, more.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” the shopkeeper announced. His voice was loud and clear despite his fragile appearance. The magnified green eyes were warm and pleasant.

  “Good afternoon to you too,” Patrick replied.

  The shopkeeper leaned over the counter and looked at Caleb. “Hello down there, young man.”

  Caleb immediately clamped onto Patrick’s leg. The old man laughed.

  “Name’s Edgar,” the elder said, extending his hand. “I’m hoping you folks are aiming to do a little fishing today, ’cause I’m afraid I’m all outta surf boards.”