Randy and Walter: Killers

by Tristan Slaughter

  The driver never hit the brakes as he plowed into Stan.

  Walter was forced to watch helplessly as the truck knocked Stan off of his feet and sent him flying twenty feet into the air. Stan’s body looked like a rag doll that had suddenly been struck with a baseball bat. Stan’s back struck a tree lining the road with frightening force and his small frame wrapped around the tree like he was hugging it, his back snapping like a dry twig. For a few seconds that seemed like years to Walter, Stan seemed to hover over the ground, as if he was attached to the tree, but then he came crashing down headfirst onto the sidewalk.

  The truck slammed on its brakes immediately and the driver jumped out, his face filled with fear at what he’d done. Walter stood in shock as the driver, an older man wearing overalls and a brown trucker’s hat, ran to Stan’s side.

  Walter’s parents had been outside in the front yard, and after hearing the screech of brakes, had come running. His father had taken in the crumpled, bloody form of Stan, the truck in the middle of the road, and the blood on the front grille, and had figured out what had happened immediately. Sirens could already be heard, someone calling 9-1-1.

  Josephine ran to Stan but Walter’s dad ran to him instead.

  He grabbed Walter up and dragged him back to the house, while Walter fought him, wanting to see to his friend.

  His father sat Walter down on the couch and told him to stay put.

  Walter had just sat in silent obedience, in shock after seeing Stan’s death.

  When his father left the room, Walter snapped out of his stupor and went to the family room window to look outside.

  At the far end of the street, the police had closed the road to deal with the accident.

  Walter watched the cops and EMTs moving about as they struggled to help Stan, but it was no use. The child had broken his neck and back when he had first been hit and the tree had only finished the job. The boy had died on first impact.

  A few days later, Stan’s mother, unable to handle the loss of her son, as she was already in a fragile state of mind after the death of her husband, killed herself by overdosing on Xanaxs and OxyCotins.

  The entire Kinnegan family line was now dead to soon be forgotten.

  Forgotten by everyone except Walter; he would never forget them.

  The truck driver wasn’t arrested nor did he get into any trouble. Stan had dashed out in front of the truck and the investigators decided there was nothing the man could have done. Of course, the police never knew about the cell phone; no one did but the driver, and he wasn’t sharing.

  There was something else that nobody had known at the time of the accident and now no one would. Well, no one except for Walter.

  The night before Stan’s death, Walter and Stan had been upstairs in Walter’s bedroom. They were telling scary stories as usual with a flashlight in-between them and the light shined upwards towards the ceiling. After the stories were done, Walter had proposed the idea of truth or dare.

  They had decided to play together inside of Walter’s large walk in closet as it was nice and dark in there. It was an innocent game, just two young adolescent males curious about things.

  Sitting in the darkness of the closet, Stan was up first.

  “Truth,” Walter said.

  “I saw my mom naked once,” Stan said.

  The two boys started giggling together.

  “Dare,” said Stan

  Walter hesitated, unsure of whether or not to dare his friend. After a minute, he decided to give it a shot.

  “I dare you to kiss me. On the lips,” Walter said.

  Stan started laughing, but Walter wasn’t laughing.

  “Double dare you,” Walter said.

  Stan had stopped laughing and looked at Walter, giving his dare some serious thought.

  “Okay,” Stan finally said.

  The two leaned in together. Stan meant to just give Walter a quick peck, but Walter put his arms around Stan and gave him a real kiss. With real tongue. Just like the couples he’d seen on TV.

  Stan pushed Walter away with a disgusted look and left the closet without saying a word, slamming the door behind him. Walter was left sitting in the dark…alone.

  Later that night, Walter begged Stan to forgive him. He told his friend it was just a game and that he had meant nothing by it.

  At first Stan wouldn’t listen but eventually Stan did forgive him.

  So when Walter had watched his friend being hit by the truck he knew, when he learned that Stan was dead, he knew. He knew that it had meant something.

  And he knew that perhaps if given more time, they could have been more than just friends.

  But Walter blamed himself.

  He knew that if Stan hadn’t forgiven him then he would still be alive right now. He felt as if his best friend’s death was all his fault; and perhaps it was.

  His love for his friend would never go away and neither would that kiss. It had been his first kiss. He couldn’t imagine another kiss ever being better than that one inside his closet.

  If his father found out about this he knew he would be called a faggot. That was the term he heard his father use a lot to describe some men who seemed to be like Walter.

  The car stopped and Walter snapped back into his own time. He looked around to see they were home.

  Well, not exactly home.

  They had moved away after Stan’s funeral. Walter’s father had felt it was the best thing for Walter. He may have been right but Walter felt completely out of place in this new town. Though he hadn’t had a lot of friends, at least the area was familiar. Now he didn’t even have that.

  The small suburban town was called Burman. There were no parks in the town and only four little buildings that made up Main Street; plus a few rural homes and a church that looked like a castle. The few families living in town had no other young boys for Walter to play with, so he stayed alone.

  Their house was only a few blocks from the church. Walter would sometimes walk over to the church and play in the back of the massive structure. Mostly though, he stayed in his bedroom lying on his bed reading books or watching television. After eleven years of living in a suburb along with playgrounds and other children his age, it felt odd to be in such a lonely place, even though he had always felt alone.

  He went to school in the next town, called Birmington. He found Birmington to be just as lonely and boring. The only park where he might want to play in was located at the school he went to.

  Of course there were more than just the students of the school that went to the park. Many families, as well as his own, enjoyed the tranquil setting with trees, grass and a small pond, really no bigger than a swimming pool.

  Their new home was fashioned out of brick and stucco, with an ambiguous black roof and four windows to a side. The yard was nice and large which was unfortunate for Walter, because he was the one who had to mow the grass and clean the yard.

  It was a one-story home with two bedrooms and each bedroom had its own personal bathroom. The living room was small and comprised of one couch, a recliner, and a small entertainment center with a twenty inch TV. Your basic living room. A kitchen and dining room were off the living room, and it looked as if the kitchen had come right out of the pages of a home and garden magazine.

  The dining room was decorated relatively simple with only a round wooden table in the middle and a wine rack against the east wall. Out the back door was a small cement patio with a gas grill and wooden picnic table.

  Walter’s bedroom was the smallest in the house. It was only big enough to fit his bed, a desk with his computer he never used, and a twelve inch TV he watched now and then if he got bored with reading.

  All his books were stacked neatly on shelves and piled under his bed. Every afternoon he would go through his books, looking for something new to read. Although he’d read all of his books already more than once, he still wanted to re-read many of them again.

  He enjoyed doing this as he knew what was going to happen an
d was never disappointed.

  It was Saturday so he didn’t have to go to school till Monday. He was glad for this as the kids in Birmington were just as cruel if not crueler than the kids he’d left behind in Burman. He kept to himself mostly but that didn’t really help. It just made the other kids even meaner. They hounded him constantly and Walter found himself annoyed and alone. But Sunday was soon over and Monday morning was here.

  Monday morning was rushed as usual and this time Walter was being rushed out of the house by his father. His father was driving him to school, which was at least an hour away if not farther. His father was the manager of Burmans local grocery store and his mother was a dentist’s assistant and she worked at the office located right next to the grocery store.

  She had already left and his dad was aggravated by Walter’s slow progression. Walter hurried outside with his packed lunch and backpack in his hand and got into the passenger seat of the car.

  His father slid in beside him, behind the wheel, and started the car.

  “Next time I say be up and ready at a certain time, then you damn well better be up and ready at that time! You got me?” his dad yelled as he drove towards the school.

  Walter lowered his head. “Yes, sir.”

  As usual, his school day was filled with bullying. But like a good soldier he trudged through the day and eventually three p.m. came along and he was free for another day.

  His father picked him up and drove him home and for at least the rest of the night, he was free to pretend school didn’t exist, that it was just a bad dream.

  Sitting in his bedroom, he did his homework. The teachers had given him tons of homework to be done by the next morning. Walter sat at his desk with his nose in his math book. He was trying to understand the numbers that stared at him through the pages but he just couldn’t get it right.

  Eventually he gave up and closed the book. He scribbled a bunch of answers down on his worksheet and placed it back into his backpack. With the rest of his homework finished, Walter went back to the book he was currently reading. The book was Bram Stokers: Lair of the White Worm. He found it an interesting read.

  In fact it was so interesting he’d read it at least five times already. His mom had found the book at a yard sale and purchased it for Walter nearly a year ago.

  There was a knock on his bedroom door and Walter looked up to see his father’s head poking through the open door.

  “Walter, me and your mother are going out to eat. Would you like anything?”

  Without taking his eyes away from the page he was on, he shook his head no and his father closed the door. A few minutes later he heard the family car back out of the driveway and pull away. Walter, glad he was alone now, began to read his book again; lost in a world of monsters and demons.

  Walter had fallen asleep with the book clutched in his hand when he heard the sound of screeching tires outside. He sat up with a start and ran out his bedroom door, curious to see what was happening. He immediately remembered Stan and the sound of the truck’s screeching its tires but this wasn’t the same.

  Before he reached the front door, it burst open and Walter’s father came running inside. He had blood on his clothes.

  Walter stared at his father, afraid as his dad grabbed him by his left arm and pulled him outside. Walter was pushed into the car which was still running and parked sideways on the front lawn.

  As the car sped along the road, Walter looked at his father with frightened eyes.

  “What’s going on, Dad?”

  Without turning his head or moving his eyes, his father’s frantic voice cried out, “Your mother! Someone just shot her.”

  “What? Shot her?” Walter gasped, not understanding.

  “Yes! Shot her! We were leaving the diner when I heard a gunshot. The next thing I know she was on the ground beside me.”

  “Who shot her, why?”

  “I don’t know who! If I ever find out I’ll kill them! The ambulance took her to the hospital but I wanted to get you first. We’re going to see her now.”

  Walter gazed out the front windshield and watched the darkness and the few lights mixed within. He could see the full moon floating above the trees. Although he hated his mother for many reasons, he loved her at the same time, and he sure as hell didn’t want her dead. He glanced at the dashboard to the clock on the radio. It read 3:00 a.m.

  At the hospital, his mother had been taken into intensive care. Walter and his father knew that they were going to lose her. The doctors couldn’t do anything to stop the bleeding as the bleeding was internal and had clipped an artery.

  The bullet had found its way into one of her vital organs. Although they had extracted the bullet it didn’t matter, she still bled profusely. As father and son sat on the white chairs against the wall of the hospital waiting room, two cops walked over to Walter’s father and asked him to come with them.

  Hesitantly he got up and followed them out into the hallway and outside the hospital. Curious and worried, Walter followed closely behind them. He couldn’t hear them clearly but something was going on. His father looked angry, as if he was yelling at the two cops. He was throwing his arms around in protest and neither of the cops seemed too surprised.

  Whatever they were telling his father was making him angry and they had known it would. Walter heard footsteps behind him and turned to see the head doctor walking towards him. No, not towards him, the doctor didn’t even notice him.

  He just exited the building and walked over to Walter’s father. The three men stopped arguing or talking or whatever they were doing and they now paid attention to the doctor. His lips were moving quickly and a look of worry came over the two cops. They backed away and held their heads, as if in shame.

  Walter watched as his father, who had always been so strong, fell to his knees. He was crying. He beat his fists onto the ground. Walter no longer cared as whatever was going on was starting to annoy him. He turned away and walked into the lobby where a snack and soda machine stood. He placed three quarters in the machine and pressed the button titled B-7. Immediately a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips dropped into the bottom. Walter retrieved them and went back to his chair in the waiting room. Once there, he sat down, opened the bag, and hungrily began to stuff potato chips into his mouth. He heard the doors open at the end of the hallway, just outside the waiting room, and then the sound of footsteps rushing in. His father, the doctor, and one of the cops walked quickly past Walter. They went into the room where his mother was and the door closed tightly behind them. The other cop sat next to Walter.

  “Son, I’m sorry to tell you this...” the officer began but Walter interrupted him.

  “She’s dead right?” Walter asked.

  The cop looked taken aback by the way Walter just nonchalantly blurted the words out. “Yes, son, I’m afraid she is,” he answered finally.

  “And one of you accidentally shot her?”

  The cop looked even more surprised, “How…how did you know that?”

  “Just a guess,” he said as he continued to eat his chips.

  “It was an accident. We were trying to stop a vagrant who had become aggressive with us. The man pulled a gun and I drew mine...”

  “You shot her?”

  The cop lowered his head. “Yes,” he replied sadly. “I missed the man and the bullet accidentally struck your mother. It was an accident, son, a terrible one at that. I…I don’t know what to say.”

  Walter looked at the cop and without a smile said, “That’s why people like you don’t deserve to be cops.”

  The officer kept his head lowered, staring at the tiled floor. Walter crumpled the chip bag and threw it at a nearby trash can. It missed and fell to the floor, but Walter ignored it. Then he stood up and walked away, leaving the cop alone with his guilt.

  He walked to the door of his mother’s room. Inside, his father was holding her. He was broken, crying wildly.

  Walter turned from the sight and walked outside into the cool ni
ght air.

  He wanted to get away from the hospital and that smell they always had. He wanted to shrug off that sickly feeling you get whenever you go inside a hospital.

  He wanted no part of it; any of it.

  He felt himself becoming detached from everyone else in the world. He looked up at the moon and smiled. That night he made a promise to himself. He would never be like his father. He would never cry. He would never be emotionally involved with anyone and that way if they died he wouldn’t care, wouldn’t feel anything.

  Walter felt that the world was too full of pain and misery and he wanted no part of any of it.

  157

  RANDY AND WALTER: KILLERS

  Chapter 13

  The next two years passed by quickly for Walter.

  His father had been on a downhill spiral for the first year; ever since Josephine’s untimely death he hadn’t been the same. Within the first year of her death, he lost his job and became an alcoholic. Not a mean one, but one who was ultimately depressed and tired of life.

  Walter had started staying with a friend he’d made at school named Tommy Pelinotti.

  Tommy was a short Italian kid with long black hair and a muscular physique. Tommy was a real cool older kid who was in the seventh grade and his parents were even cooler. Walter loved being with them as they had tons of DVD movies and books and it seemed like they ate pasta for dinner every night, though it was really only two or three times. They would always have meat in the tomato gravy; sausages, steak and even chicken. Walter loved eating there.

  One night, as Walter sat at the table with them, his father arrived out of the blue. He stunk of alcohol and stale cigarette smoke. His face looked like that of a broken man, deeply saddened by the way life had treated him.

  He wanted to talk with Walter.

  The Pelinottis let him in but only for a minute, as both parents disliked Walter’s father, knowing what he was putting his son through on a daily basis.

  His father walked over to Walter and got on his knees in front of everyone at the dinner table.