A Wicked Plan

by Rod Kackley

  Tim had to admit it turned him on much more than he had imagined.

  That’s why he had played the scene out for all it was worth in the basement. What, a great idea! Had it been his or hers? Tim couldn't recall.

  But since Bree hadn’t used a safe word — she did later, which means I won again — Tim knew she was enjoying it too.

  No matter, that was then. This was now. It felt so good to be holding another human being instead of holding himself while watching the girls on the internet. And so much better than holding Paul.

  He and his best friend had been doing it since high school. It had been going on too long. Tim had never felt great about it. But he pretended.

  We are close. Closer than most men, or at least many men, Tim had thought while he looked at his best buddy over the forest of dead soldiers on the table. We are more than friends.

  Tim didn’t tell him everything. Tim didn’t have to tell him anything. Paul just instinctively knew.

  Paul knew what Tim and Bree were going to do. And Tim knew, he knew. If Tim knew, Bree knew. Small minds do think alike.

  And she did. Bree knew. And Bree had a problem with that.

  “But, there is no way that Paul could know about Steven and Debbie,” Tim said.

  “Paul knows the rest. And, the rest is too much,” Bree said. “Knowledge can be a very dangerous thing.”

  “I didn’t tell him anything. Nobody knows about us.”

  “Baby, I know you love him. Paul’s a great guy. He just can’t be trusted. He knows what he knows now. What if he figures out the rest?” Bree said.“Paul is going to have to die.”

  Bree had figured out the truth about Tim and Paul the same way Paul had discovered she and Tim were going to run away together.

  She just knew. Paul just knew.

  “He’s a cop, Tim. I know you love him. I know how you love him,” Bree said. “But he is a cop.”

  She just knew.

  Bree didn’t have to be told.

  Bree just knew.

  “Baby, you are such an open book,” Bree said. “Don’t be embarrassed about Paul. Come out of the closet. It makes you that much more exciting to me. I want to hear it all.”

  “You tell me about Paul, and I’ll tell you about Beth,” she said.

  Tim’s closet door opened. Bree heard the stories of how Tim and Paul had met, how they had explored each other’s bodies, and more. He cried. She comforted him. Tim felt a release he had never dreamed was possible.

  Bree smiled. This was not too much information. This is just what Bree wanted to know. Knowledge can be a very powerful thing.

  “Did you see the looks on the faces of those kids?” Bree asked.

  “I didn’t have time to look, I was too busy bleeding all over you. What a fight!”

  “Yes, but it’s all over now,” said Bree. “Everyone thinks I have been kidnapped.”

  “Part one of the plan,” said Tim. “Now it is time for the second chapter.”

  “You’re going to get the gun?”

  “I will get the gun.”

  It was a simple plan. Bree and Tim had done their homework and decided that murder plots always go awry when the killers get too fancy.

  At least that’s the way it went on TV and in the movies. Instead of just pulling the trigger and walking away, the killer always had to make a speech to the victim.

  “Like he’s going to remember any of that with a bullet in his head,” Bree laughed.

  Their plan was beautiful in its simplicity. It was nothing fancy. Tim wouldn’t waste any time talking to his victims. He would just kill them.

  Well, it would be dragged out a little bit for Steven. He would watch Debbie getting killed and then he would be burned alive — that was Bree’s idea — but other than that, it should be quick.

  Tim would break into their home, shoot Steven in the kneecaps, tie him up, shoot Debbie in the head, and then light the house on fire.

  “What could be easier?” said Bree. “I get the insurance, whatever money those two idiots have left in the bank, and we spend the rest of our lives spending it.”

  Tim kissed Bree, loving the feeling of bare skin against bare skin, forgetting his skin had seen about forty years more of life. It was so easy to forget — to pretend — with her breasts against his chest. Tim was rising to the occasion as his fingers found their favorite spot between her legs.

  Bree closed her eyes and pretended. She learned years ago — actually only two, but that was a higher percentage of a life at sixteen than a life at fifty-seven — that the ability to fake it was one of the best skills a woman could learn.

  It made the guy happy. And it made everything go so much quicker for the girl. All she had to do was pretend. With eyes closed, and the mind in a happier place, it wasn’t so difficult.

  Bree closed her eyes and pretended.

  Tim closed his eyes and remembered Cheryl.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The concert was everything Tim had promised. Loud music, beautiful people dancing, even some of her friends from school.

  But Tim doesn’t seem to have any, friends I mean, which I don’t understand, Cheryl thought. And there was more booze and pot than Cheryl had seen since her cousin’s wedding reception.

  Mixed drinks were served downstairs. Simple drinks.

  No umbrellas.

  She got a screwdriver, Tim got a Bloody Mary.

  He always liked that name.

  Bloody Mary.

  Tim was standing beside Cheryl with his hand on her tight little fourteen-year old butt when they heard an explosion of glass.

  She squealed, screamed and ducked. Tim crouched behind Cheryl for a second, but thought better of it. Taking a quick look to the right, then a glance to the left to be confident there was no danger, he jumped in front of his girl to protect her from the danger that was not there.

  If it doesn’t cost you anything to be generous, what the hell, go all the way, Tim was thinking. And of course, there is safety in cowardice.

  The explosion?

  One big, beefy guy who must have missed the Grateful Dead bus, evidently had gotten tired of waiting in line outside the auditorium and decided to leap through the floor-to-ceiling glass window.

  Cops jumped the flying bag of meat when the 275-pound lard ass hit the linoleum. Even though he had probably never met a push-up he liked or an illegal drug he did not, the hippie was punching and kicking like a man possessed by marijuana laced with PCP, which was exactly what had his brain on fire.

  People, girls mostly, screamed. Some boys did too. Then, they ran. Dozens of them ran. While the cops were wrestling with the mad man, teenagers who were also tired of waiting in line, who wanted to spend the $10 in their pockets for an ounce of pot rather than a ticket, and who were inspired by their leader’s streak of genius, started running through the opening left by the bearded bear of fury.

  It was a panic of mass capitalism — if it doesn’t cost you anything to be generous, right?

  Hundreds of people got inside the concert hall without paying a dime.

  St. Isidore Fire Marshall Chester Tucker would have had a heart attack if he’d seen the crowd in the auditorium. Of course, his devotion to duty might have been derailed by the sight of his fourteen-year old daughter, Lucy, and what she was doing in a 1965 Chevy Biscayne.

  The sight of hot, teenage sex would stop any man.

  Several did.

  Nothing grants one courage like alcohol nor madness like PCP. The hippie on the floor was 100-proof courage and undistilled madness. At least he was until an older cop pushed the new-in-blue rookies out of the way, shoved his service revolver into the hippie’s mouth, busting by several teeth the hard way, and won the argument.

  Cheryl and Tim made their way into the concert hall, jamming in with the other teenagers, everyone elbow to elbow, cramming and jamming as tight as they could, as close to the stage as possible.

  General admission seating brought out the warrior in everyone.<
br />
  Tim was copping free squeezes off every girl close to him, and a couple of guys too, purely accidentally of course.

  “I LOVE THIS,” CHERYL screamed to Tim. She felt his hand on her butt and liked it. At least she thought it was his hand. But in that crowd God only knew and only God cared.

  A seven-foot high plywood wall separated the crowd from the stage. Of course, some people with the same brain wattage as the guy who crashed through the plate glass window tried to climb the fence.

  They jumped up, got their fingers hooked over the top of the plywood for a few seconds, screamed, and fell back to the ground holding their bloody digits.

  They had been victimized by a crowd control secret. Put a couple of guys with ball peen hammers on the stage side of the plywood and tell them to smash every finger they see coming over the top.

  Foolproof.

  This is so cool, Cheryl thought to herself. My friends are all at home watching TV with their parents. This is the best. This is even better than TV.

  His ear drums ringing and his middle leg throbbing, Tim was driving home with one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand between Cheryl’s wonderful thighs.

  Cheryl was Tim’s first, and as far as he was concerned, his last and his only. Tim just didn’t understand guys who played around on their girlfriends.

  Why would he want to take a chance on losing Cheryl?

  Tim had come close before. But somehow, something always went wrong. The girl would be so close to him, he would be so sure she was ready. Then something happened. Something went wrong. Somehow she broke.

  Tim wasn’t going to break this one.

  Cheryl was perfect if only because she thought Tim was perfect too, at least as perfect as she needed at the moment.

  She was squeezing his hand tight as he pushed his fingers down inside her panties, totally addicted to the lust and the satisfaction, that wonderful feeling she always got when Tim was inside her with her arms and legs wrapped around him.

  We just seem so together, Cheryl wrote in her diary. He was my first. I will never forget him, she added along with a couple of smiley hearts.

  By the time they parked at the bluff overlooking the blinking St. Izzy’s Diner sign and the rest of the metropolis that was St.Isidore, Tim’s adrenalin was running wide open at full throttle.

  Cheryl was sleeping. She’d passed out.

  This had happened before. Tim had been there. The others had gone to sleep too.

  Tim hadn’t let that stop him then and it wasn’t going to stop him now. He would be careful.

  Careful is, as careful does, but Tim wasn’t.

  What teenage boy is?

  Tim couldn’t hold up even if he wanted to.

  That was the last thing on his mind anyway.

  This was more than the drive that takes over a sixteen-year old boy high on speed, which was laced into the pot he smoked at the concert.

  This was what Tim dreamt about at night. It wasn’t the sex.

  Okay.

  That was important, but not most important.

  Tim was turned on by the power, the domination. That is what got his flag flying at full-staff. The feeling that he really was Superman and there was nothing that would or could stop him.

  He didn’t want to hurt Cheryl. That wasn’t part of it at all. He loved Cheryl in his sixteen-year old way.

  However, lust when it is raging, is much more powerful than any other emotion.

  Tim pushed her head down into his lap. It was ecstasy. It was perfect.

  Cheryl’s shirt was open, her bra pushed up, her nipples erect.

  She was breathing heavy, regularly, deeply.

  Tim was too.

  He was ready.

  She was sleeping.

  Cheryl did what anyone who is asleep would do when five-inches of hard meat is jammed into their mouth.

  She gagged.

  Tim did what any sixteen-year old boy would do.

  He pushed down on the back of her head.

  It was like the time Tim stepped on the accelerator when he really wanted to hit the brake and slammed into the side of a car in the grocery store parking lot.

  Tim meant to stop that time. He didn’t even consider stopping this time.

  There was no stopping.

  Cheryl gagged again.

  She bit down hard on Tim’s five inches of teenage lust.

  Tim got angry. He got pissed. He hurt. He might even be bleeding.

  He hit the side of Cheryl’s head.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  His fist smashed into Cheryl’s skull right behind her eye, in the temple. Tim’s knuckles connected with the softest part of her head.

  One time. Two times. Three times.

  Damage was done.

  Cheryl stopped moving.

  She whimpered with the first punch.

  She cried with the second.

  She started vomiting with the third.

  Cheryl stopped moving.

  Tim stopped breathing.

  Too.

  Tim couldn’t remember how many times he had hit her.

  It might have been more than three.

  It probably was.

  Tim really only remembered the first. He only stopped because his right hand was hurting and the left was starting to pull hair out of Cheryl’s head.

  He was breathing heavy, hard, sweating, trembling.

  The worst of it was he knew Cheryl was dead.

  The best of it was Tim felt alive.

  Maybe that was the worst of it, too.

  Tim felt this way when he used a magnifying glass to concentrate the sunlight on ants and watch them fry on the sidewalk.

  He felt this way when he used duct tape or glue to stick firecrackers on to the backs of frogs, light the fuse and watch them hop away to their incredibly mushy end with parts flying everywhere in a hot, flash of death.

  Tim felt this way when he was hunting with his father.

  It wasn’t like he enjoyed spending time with his dad. However, Tim could swallow his disgust at the white shirts and skinny black ties for a day in the woods with a gun in his hands.

  Tim never understood the concept of “buck fever,” the feeling that a person couldn’t kill anything as beautiful as a deer when he was looking at the animal through the scope on his rifle.

  Tim loved it.

  It made him feel so alive to have the power to make something so dead.

  He felt like he was sucking the soul right of the deer.

  It was never a problem to squeeze instead of jerk the trigger.

  Tim never wanted the feeling to end. The long, steady pull of the trigger back, bringing the soul of the deer into his, squeezing the trigger, the explosion when the hammer fell.

  He could almost see the bullet fly.

  When it hit, Tim understood the meaning of the word, ecstasy.

  Then came the worst moment. It was the yang to the yin of ready, aim, fire. Killing was good. Death was different.

  When he realized the ant was dead. When it dawned on him the frog could not be put back together. The instant Tim saw the bullet, strike in slow motion behind the deer’s shoulder.

  When the deer fell, when the ant smoked, and when the frog splattered.

  Tim felt terrible. Sick.

  Vomit. Snot. Tears. It all came out. Emotion.

  He never wanted any of them to die.

  He had broken them.

  He always wanted to put them back together.

  Tim never could.

  But still. It felt good.

  Tim knew he was never going to be able to put Cheryl back together. He saw her face. The bloody, mushy, pulp of flesh that looked more like a frog after it exploded than the soft, white virginal face that he had turned to his for their first kiss a few weeks ago.

  It had all gone wrong again.

  This is wrong, wrong, wrong, Tim heard his voice screaming inside his head. He screamed out loud in harmony with his conscience, wailing, louder and
louder.

  Pain. Pain. Pain.

  Yet, it was a good pain. There was something about this that made Tim feel so alive. He felt so good, so pure, and so powerful.

  If only he could put her back together.

  Tim called his best friend — his only friend — Paul, the night that Cheryl died, and said he needed help, real help. Help like he had never needed before.

  Tim didn’t ask. Tim demanded.

  The only thing Tim could do when he realized Cheryl was broken beyond repair was to figure out what to do with her. How to get rid of her. Tim had never had a real girlfriend before. He had never dumped a girl before. This would be a learning experience times two.

  But first he had to get her out of the park.

  Thinking quickly had never been Tim’s forte and it certainly was not this night. He and Cheryl sat together for at least an hour, her head in his lap, Tim stroking her hair, slowly, lovingly, until he started to smell her.

  He eased himself out from under Cheryl’s lifeless head, zipped his pants back up, hoped his shirttails would cover the stain, and slowly got out of the seat so her skull wouldn’t bounce.

  Outside the car, like a cat, crouching, looking to the left, the right and then closing the door on his hand.

  Damn.

  Tim’s fingers were crushed. He was off balance. When he fell against the car, Tim pushed the door into his fingers.

  Tears in his eyes, snot starting to drip out of his nose, he got the door opened, then fell against it again as he slowly slid down to the ground, leaning back against the car.

  Tim held his damaged fingers, eyes closed, tears burning behind his eyelids for so long he nearly fell asleep.

  If Tim had been able to go to sleep, it at least would have been an escape. The dreams that he lived for would have entered his mind. Tim could have drifted off into the fantasy land that he had created for himself.

  But, he was not going to be able to book passage for that journey tonight, at least, not yet.

  Maybe later.

  Maybe another time.

  Tonight there would be no escape.

  He had to get moving.

  Tim sniffed, wiped his eyes with the back of his uninjured hand, carefully pushed himself up.