by Dan Cummings
‘My God,’ she exclaimed, ‘are you driving around in silence?’ She turned her slender fore and pinkie fingers into devil’s horns. ‘Tinnitus acting up?’
Sam tried on a smile but was still too interested in the light traffic. ‘You know, I only just realised that. I’m feeling a little scattered today.’ He risked breaking the speed limit just enough to get the pair of them to their respective destinations in as quick a time as possible without attracting any unwanted police attention.
‘Well, you look a lot better,’ she complimented, ‘not being stoned, your eyes seem more, I don’t know, alive.’
He giggled nervously. ‘You know I did feel much better when I woke up this morning.’
Lindsey detected a sourness in the comment but couldn’t tell who it was aimed at and decided to disregard it. ‘Bad day?’ she enquired.
‘Little bit,’ he shot back without pause.
Lindsey started to feel a little awkward, kind of wishing she had declined the offer a bit more sternly. ‘Yeah, well Deb’s having another non-crisis so the movie is just cover really. I’m breaking girl code by telling you that so I’ll have to kill you if you blab.’
‘Get in line.’ Sam’s pessimism was mistaken for deadpan, charming a musical laugh from Lindsey.
‘She texted Matt last night, but he still hasn’t replied. Has he mentioned anything to you?’
Sam’s glazed eyes remained on the road. ‘Can’t say he has.’
Lindsey’s mouth made a few thoughtful clicks. ‘I can’t say I blame him, the girl’s kind of a hot mess, throwing all kinds of signals. She’s a bit prudish, bound by inexpression. But next time you see or talk to Matt, maybe put in a good word for her? Beneath all those spikes she is really awesome.’
Sam pondered on how soon it would be before he could relay the message to his dead friend. Minutes, hours, days? ‘I’ll be sure to do that.’ A soft creak came from the roof of the van and Sam quickly inspected the wing mirror. ‘You hear that?’ His voice was tight.
‘Doesn’t this squeaky old thing always make noise?’ Sam didn’t answer, he was too busy throwing more frantic glances at the mirrors. Lindsey knew there was definitely something wrong with Sam, feeling a gradual clutch of tension in her chest. ‘Sam, what’s wrong?’
Deb’s house was only a few minutes away, one of the luxurious homes facing the large Rosenberg Park and playing field. She was about to tell Sam to pull over so she could walk the rest of the way, when off to her and Sam’s left a single bright bulb flashed between the trees of the black park like some strange type of high-wattage forest sprite. The white eye was zooming across the field towards them at a terrible rate. Sam noticed the headlamp of Staubach’s bike a moment too late. Dropping his speed and pulling up alongside the van, Staubach aimed his Glock at the left front tyre and squeezed off a shot. Sam and Lindsey cried out as Sam lost control, fighting to regain dominance of the swerving vehicle. From the wing mirror Sam saw Staubach drop further back and take aim at the rear left tyre. In that split second before Staubach pulled the trigger again, Sam saw, unmistakably, Staubach give a double-take to the van’s roof. Something was definitely along for the ride and Sam had a pretty good idea who, or what, it was. Was Frogmore actually going to come through for him and Lindsey? Another thunderous clap and Sam had no choice but to veer the van to a rough stop, crashing through trashcans and smashing into a large planted oak outside one of the houses.
The angry serrated buzz of the Kawasaki settled to a prickly saw as Staubach hurried over to the driver’s door, throwing it open and smashing Sam in the face with the handle of his semi-automatic. Staubach’s eyes popped open in lecherous delight when he saw who Sam’s unexpected passenger was. ‘Ho-lee shit, if it isn’t Karp’s wet spot.’
Lindsey was holding her head, waiting for her jumbled senses to realign into some form of coherent reality. In a white-flashed daze, Sam clutched his hand over the bloody mess of his nose, feeling his warm blood leak through his fingers onto the lap of his jeans.
‘You brought me a bonus prize with her, lardass.’ Staubach had the gun trained on him but threw a swift glance at the car skidding to a halt beside the scramble of vehicles.
Two large men climbed out of the Escalade. Miles stepped in front of Staubach and punched Sam again to make sure he wasn’t getting any ideas and dragged him out, frogmarching him towards the open trunk of the car. Renshaw went around to the passenger side and hauled a shrieking Lindsey out with one arm around her waist, her feet kicking in mid-air. Renshaw spotted the residents of the house they had rudely made a scene in front of, gazing out at the drama, one of them, the dad from the looks of him, on the phone. Renshaw pulled his gun from his waistband and aimed it at the window and like magic, the family of gawkers vanished.
With the kids secure in the trunk, Miles and Renshaw were quickly getting back into their ride when they paused and watched Staubach, standing on the rear bumper of Sam’s van and oddly, inspecting the empty roof with the barrel of his gun. Shrugging, Miles reversed a few feet and sped off. Staubach ran to his bike, throwing his leg over it and cast one final last lingering look of confusion at Sam’s van. Then, revving the throttle in angry triumph, he raced off after the red rodent eyes of Miles and Renshaw’s brake lights. It was time to see Grainger.
*****
Frogmore watched the vicious criminals make off with the last of Neil’s social trappings. By floating within the membrane he was able to create a form of temporary camouflage, a shimmering cloak of watery shadow. Emerging on the van’s roof with an exerted gasp, he huddled low and quickly glanced around but any prying neighbourly eyes were either feigning ignorance of the gun-toting element or unaware of the brief skirmish which had just occurred outside their pleasant slice of Americana.
Frogmore’s throat ballooned out with a croak as he watched Neil’s enemies fade into the dark winding road, the aggressive challenge of their engines losing authority with every second. These rough villains had certainly wasted no time in exacting their retaliation. It saved Frogmore the effort of killing Sam, and as an additional benefit, that girl Lindsey. The sense of Neil’s constant beckoning was steadily growing stronger in Frogmore’s mind, the boy’s insistence and cries for communication slowly developing into a tasty morsel of dependence and reliance. Frogmore didn’t particularly enjoy keeping Neil in the dark, but he needed to be needed, for Neil to see how valuable a friend he was.
During those years of cold, dark confinement, Frogmore had ruminated for what had seemed like an eternity on why the boy’s anguish was so sustaining to his existence before coming to the conclusion that it was down to the origin of their bonding. A young child, victimised and helpless in the face of an insurmountable foe, whose fretful warbling thoughts had somehow fashioned his drug-polluted fear into a bridge for Frogmore to hop across. The world of demented and hungry companions, a tracing paper land on top of the human world, every world, where age, gender, race or belief of the little boys and girls was overlooked in favour of just one necessity, one very simple human quality; a secret desire to inflict harm on others. The other wandering toy box denizens usually found their own way to the disturbed minds of others, but on this occasion some human-made toxin eased the passage.
Frogmore shifted like a pendulum on the various outcomes of this play. He could leave Sam and Lindsey to the whims of that foul gang, letting their deaths potentially help steer Neil down an even darker wilderness trail of diseased vengeance. But the boy had a tenacity about him and Frogmore feared what he would do once Frogmore had honoured his end of their lifetime deal. Once the crooks had been dispatched, would Neil attempt to retreat to that abyss of tranquilisers, reducing Frogmore to a sworn enemy again? If need be he would make good on his word to murder any quack who attempted to blot him out medicinally. Another option was, regretfully, kill the boy and his all-you-can-eat buffet of despair, become a free agent again. Clearly, their relationship would never be what he needed it to be. Why carry the baggage for the rest o
f his host’s short human life? Alternatively, if he intervened and saved Sam and Lindsey then perhaps Neil would look more fondly at him, quietly prolonging their friendship and if that was a possibility, Frogmore knew he could orchestrate enough drama and villains throughout Neil’s span to keep his belly full.
The obtrusive link to Neil kept hammering in the door of Frogmore’s brain, the boy really needed to speak to him. Frogmore kept him on hold as he carried on weighing up his decisions. Rescue Neil’s friends…or let them die.
Chapter 36
Sam was still swallowing blood but the ruptured faucets of his broken nose were slowly tapering off. His face was a dried composite of rusty blood and salty tears.
‘So you’re a friend of this Karp piece of shit, huh?’ Grainger stood before Sam looking very much like he was a hair-trigger emotion away from placing a bullet in his head. Sam was tied to a rickety wooden chair in the drug den’s kitchen, Lindsey tied and gagged with masking tape beside him. They shared a sad, sideways glance at each other then returned their frightened eyes to Grainger, Staubach and a big blond guy with a crewcut.
Sam swallowed another gulp of warm copper, nodded in reply and then said, ‘She has nothing to do with any of this. Please, she can go.’
Staubach looked mildly impressed. ‘Fuck me, when did you grow a pair, fat boy?’ The admiration didn’t last long. Lindsey moaned against the gag, demanding an explanation.
Grainger hovered over Sam, the bare bulb dangling overhead making a shadow mask of the man’s already unfavourable features. ‘You heard about my nephew, Jason, I assume? I mean, providing you weren’t the one who butchered him last night?’ Lindsey breathed heavy against the tape, her eyes running all over Sam and asking a dozen silent questions. ‘Sending his car off the road. An absolute mess.’
‘I didn’t kill Noakes. And I didn’t kill Lloyd. And neither did Neil.’
Lindsey kept her attention discreetly on Staubach, viewing him through the overhanging tangles of her hair. He seemed to be troubled by something, at once twitching like he was incapable of restraining himself from the oncoming violence, but then hesitating over some internal matter, reviewing some unknown cause for doubt. Tully leaned against the fridge looking bored by the whole issue.
‘You’re both totally innocent? Well, tell me this, who is this guardian angel who murdered Jason and taunted me? Because he seems to be a pal of Karp’s, he even namedropped him in the message he cut into Jason’s chest. Because, you see—’ Grainger’s voice was becoming a sandpaper rasp, like a snake getting ready to strike at a plump mouse ‘—the problem I have with believing in yours and Karp’s innocence is that Coach Ennis found Karp’s wallet beside the pool with Lloyd’s body in it.’
Lindsey shook her head; none of this made sense.
Grainger asked Staubach, ‘Did you notice any signs of a collision on his van? Check for paint scrapings?’
Staubach was caught by surprise. ‘I—no, I didn’t think to check. He crashed the Dodge into a tree. I just wanted to get these two assholes back here.’
Grainger closed his eyes as if to meditate. ‘It’s my fault for assigning you that job.’ He opened his lids like he was waking up from a much needed rest. ‘It’s been an emotional day for me, not thinking clearly.’ He looked back at his captives and tipped his palms up in a soft shrug gesture. ‘Well I know Karp is connected somehow. As for you, maybe you are innocent, I don’t know. But I think you know more than you’re letting on, and the amount of suffering you’re about to endure is based purely on how tight those lips of yours are.’
Sam shook his head hopelessly, his voice a whisper. ‘You’ll never believe me,’ he sobbed.
‘I’m an imaginative guy, try me.’
Lindsey saw another flicker of hesitance in Staubach’s eyes but it was all too brief and shallow to barely register within the nasty punk who seemed to be breathing heavily in excitement.
Sam wanted to cry, knowing he was going to be wishing he was dead pretty soon and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to prevent it. He laughed pitifully. ‘It was Frogmore.’
Grainger nodded solemnly, not understanding the flaw in the defence just yet. ‘Okay, and who is Frogmore? Because he’s evidently got some stones.’
Sam could barely manage to meet those shadowy pits of Grainger’s eyes. ‘Not a who…a what.’ A crazed snicker sprayed a blood bubble from his nose. ‘It’s some fucking creature Neil met after some LSD trip.’ Sam sobbed deliriously, unable to process the story his life and Lindsey’s depended on.
Grainger’s hairy-knuckled fist lashed out so quickly it went unnoticed by Sam’s squinting eyes, the fingers choking him fiercely. ‘You think this is a fucking game?’ Spittle flew from Grainger’s clenched teeth. ‘No problem, I like games.’ Leaving red raw marks on Sam’s wheezing throat, Grainger pulled his cigar cutter from his pocket. Through choking breaths, Sam begged him to stop, to believe his utterly unbelievable story. Grainger stepped around to Sam’s right side and slipped his chubby left pinkie into the cigar cutter. He whispered into his ear, ‘Let’s play stumps.’
‘NO! I SWEAR, I SWEAR!’ Sam screamed out. ‘Neil introduced me to him this morning. It’s this fucked-up frog-man thing.’ Through his fear-clotted logic he realised it might be a damn sight safer to play down the mystical element of this freak show. ‘Maybe it’s just a costume, I don’t know. Just some little nutcase in a creepy suit.’ Sam was waiting for that white hot slice to tear a howl from his lungs any second now. ‘Whoever the fuck he is, he promised us that he would protect us from all of you. He said he was coming for Staubach first, tonight.’ Grainger and Tully threw comical glances at an oddly unsettled looking Staubach.
‘You hear that, kid. You better watch out, the boogieman is coming for you tonight,’ Tully snickered.
Sam felt the first razor pinch of pain in his finger, warm viscous blood pattering on the dirty linoleum. ‘Rawlins Pond, it was Rawlins Pond.’ Grainger stopped, a mean little smirk beneath his thick moustache. ‘Neil said when he was thirteen, he and some other kids,’ Sam gasped, ‘were exposed to some drug in the water. They all lost their minds, Neil too, but he got better. But he saw this fucking thing, this guy, whatever,’ Sam was on the verge of blacking out from shock and hyperventilation, ‘This freaky little shit called Frogmore. He blocked him out with meds. Thought he was cured, but he’s just started seeing him again. It started with Noakes and him.’ Sam thrust his head aggressively towards Staubach.
Staubach was tugging lightly on his ratty beard, Dodd’s words a soundtrack to the fleeting image of that thing hanging on to the top of the van.
‘My old prototype strain,’ an awed voice spoke from the back of the room. Lindsey and Sam heard the heavy flap of plastic falling back into place but couldn’t turn to see who the new attendant was.
Grainger stared hard at Hurst. ‘Okay, so Karp lost his mind and created some fucked-up little alter ego.’
Sam and Lindsey watched a lab-coated man walk into their peripheral view, stopping besides Grainger. His gaunt features gave the impression that his ponytail was too tight and was performing some type of low-cost facelift.
‘It’s not in his head, I told you, I saw him myself earlier.’ Blood dribbled off Sam’s lip, ‘Think about it for a second. Neil doesn’t have a car, so he couldn’t have run Noakes off the road. And as for Lloyd, the night he drowned, Neil was with Lindsey—’ he tilted his head towards her, ‘—until after midnight.’ Lindsey nodded eagerly, mumbling through the tape. ‘I’m telling you, I don’t know how, but this thing is real.’
Hurst was utterly rapt by the explanation, looking like he had just hit the jackpot. Grainger just looked insulted, checking with Tully and Staubach. ‘You really expect me to swallow this fairy tale? Maybe after I remove that finger you’ll grow up?’
Sam thrashed about, begging, pleading, ‘It’s coming for Staubach. It’s coming for all of you.’
‘I’m shaking in my boots, a homicidal frog with a bone to pick.
’ Grainger stared at Sam like a shark for several seconds, then snipped off his pinkie finger to a spray of hot blood and a soul-shattering scream of agony. Lindsey added a harmony of terror and desperation through her gag. Grainger stood up. ‘I’ve got a better idea. Let’s just get to the bottom of this shall we. Staubach, take a picture of our guests here. Use Sam’s phone, send it to Karp with this address. Tell him to bring his dashing hero along too. If they’re not here within the hour, I start taking more fingers.’ Staubach grabbed Sam’s phone off the kitchen table and snapped the pic. ‘Tully,’ Grainger addressed, ‘You and Miles take stumpy here to the attic. Cut him loose when you’re up there, Sticky will keep him entertained whilst we wait for the dynamic duo of Frog-Man and Karp.’
Tully pushed off from the fridge and opened the scratched-up kitchen door, calling Miles in from the strobing hallway. Miles, droopy eyed and high, left the burning joint to hang from his lip casually as he and Tully dragged and shoved the woozy, hand tied Sam out into the dingy corridor.
‘You’ll get on with Sticky like a house on fire. He’s fucking demented too.’ Grainger rolled Sam’s severed fingertip between his own like it was fine silk.
Staubach leered at Lindsey who was quickly becoming an emotional wreck. ‘What do we do with her?’
Grainger looked at the angry lust in Staubach’s eyes. Grainger was a lot of things, but he wasn’t what he now suspected Staubach of being. ‘We do nothing. What you can do is tell that weepy waste of jizz, Dodd, to be ready. Once Karp and his pal get here, you give him the signal. I need to send a message to anybody who thinks attacking my business is a wise venture.’ Grainger looked at Hurst; the chemist was visibly engrossed in some train of thought. ‘Don’t even tell me you believe that horseshit, you’re a man of science for Christ’s sake. You think there’s an angry oversized Kermit on his way to kill us?’