Randy and Walter: Killers

by Tristan Slaughter

  “Please, son, come home. I know I’ve been a bad father. But I’m going to change, I swear. Things’ll go back to the way they were, I promise. I’m going to stop drinking.”

  “You missed my birthday,” Walter said softly.

  “I know I did, but I bought you this.”

  Walter’s dad pulled a small package out of his coat pocket and handed it to Walter who looked at the small square object wrapped in brown paper and covered in tape. Then he silently pulled the paper apart. Walter’s eyes widened when he saw what his father had bought him. Or rather found. It was a small black picture frame and inside the square glass was a picture of Stan. Walter looked up at his father who smiled back at him.

  “Come home, son. Things will be just fine now.”

  Walter turned the picture over and over in his hand. Then he handed the present back to his father.

  “Put it in my room and clean yourself up. You can come and pick me up here tomorrow.”

  His dad smiled and got back to his feet. He waved at the rest of Tommy’s family who sat in silence. Then he left.

  The night air was nice and warm. Summertime had come. The stars shown brightly throughout the sky and the moon was crescent.

  Walter and Tommy sat outside admiring the sky above them.

  “Sorry about my dad,” Walter said finally

  “Don’t worry ‘bout it,” Tommy replied. “You wanna play a game, Walt?” Tommy asked suddenly.

  “What game?”

  “It’s called lovers.”

  “Lovers?”

  “Yeah. Me and you act like we’re married.”

  “Married?” Walter asked, confused.

  “Well, yeah. Haven’t you ever played that game before? It’s like house.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Why would we be married? We’re boys,” Walter said.

  Only it did make sense to Walter. He’d been feeling things about Tommy but up until now he hadn’t known what those feelings meant. He remembered what happened when he told Stan about those same feelings and knew not to mess up like that again, so had remained silent.

  Tommy rolled his eyes and laughed. “It doesn’t have to make sense, stupid. It’s just a game.”

  “Well...okay, let’s play.”

  Tommy sat in front of Walter and explained the rules of the game. It turned out to be a simple game. The game started with the two flipping a coin to decide which one would play the girl and which one would play the boy. Heads; boy, tails; girl. Tommy flipped the coin first. Heads. Walter flipped next. Tails.

  Then the boy (or in this case Tommy) had to ask the girl (Walter) to marry him. Walter had to say yes so the game could continue. They stood outside and pretended to get married.

  They didn’t kiss.

  After that came the second part of the game; the honeymoon. This was also simple. The girl had to follow the boy into whatever destination he chose. Tommy chose the wooden tool shed in the backyard. He led the way inside. Once inside, Tommy told Walter to shut the door. He did so and the two boys were now submerged in total darkness.

  “Give me your hand,” Tommy said and Walter extended his arm towards Tommy’s voice. He felt Tommy grab hold of his wrist, then felt his hand pulled downward. Then he felt something warm in his hand. He wasn’t sure what it was at first.

  “Pull it,” Tommy whispered, his voice heavy.

  “What?” Walter said, knowing what he was holding. He felt a thrill run up his back and fill his stomach; one of excitement.

  “Pull on it!” Tommy said again. “Go on, it’ll be fun. Besides, we’re married now, it’s okay.”

  So Walter began to pull on the thing in his hand and while he did this he then felt Tommy’s hand touch his own crotch. Tommy’s hand unzipped his fly and slid his hand into the inside of Walter’s blue jeans and Walter gasped when Tommy’s hand grasped his penis.

  Then the lights in the shed came on and the door opened.

  Tommy pulled his hand away quickly to see J. Pelinotti, Tommy’s father, standing in the doorway with an angry look upon his face.

  “What in the hell is going on here?” he snapped.

  Walter hadn’t realized that he was still pulling on Tommy’s penis, which was now rock hard. He’d been too shocked to see Tommy’s dad open the door.

  Tommy pushed Walter roughly away and ran to his father. Anyone else could have seen that he was faking as he started to cry. But to a parent all cries appeared real, especially when they didn’t want to face the alternative.

  “It was his idea,” Tommy said while pointing an accusing finger at Walter. “He made me do it!”

  Then Tommy ran into the house, leaving his friend alone with his dad.

  “I’m taking you home right now, boy.” Tommy’s dad said between clenched teeth.

  Walter tried to protest, to tell the truth but the man wouldn’t hear any of it. So Walter gave up and gathered his things. As he was leaving through the front door, he turned to see Tommy standing on the stairs leading to the second floor.

  Tommy was smiling as he waved goodbye. Then he left his place on the stairs.

  Walter knew then that Tommy was going to tell everybody at school. He knew that his troubles in school were only just the beginning.

  J. Pelinotti drove Walter home immediately, without ever so much as looking at him. As soon as Walter got out of his car, the man drove off.

  He made no effort to help Walter with his bags who barely got them out of the car before the car was backing out of the driveway.

  Walter stared up at his house as he stood on the front walk.

  Every light in the house was turned on so he was pretty sure his father was home.

  With a sigh, Walter walked up the pathway to the front door, opened it, and stepped inside.

  Walter’s father had been sitting in his black recliner waiting for him to walk in. When Walter stepped through the doorway, he saw his father staring at him in anger.

  “What did you make that boy do?” his father asked after Walter had stood in the doorway for a full minute. “Tommy’s mother called me and told me everything.”

  Walter didn’t answer; he wasn’t sure just how to answer him.

  His father stood up and walked slowly to Walter who looked up at his father wondering just what he was about to do to him. Within a few seconds he grabbed his son by his shirt collar and picked him up, Walter’s feet dangling five inches off the floor.

  “I said, what did you make that boy do?” he yelled into his frightened son’s face. “N...n...nothing...” Walter stammered. His head was pounding and his stomach was twirled in knots. Fear grasped him by the throat and squeezed with its cold, clammy hands.

  “I will not have my son become a faggot! You hear me? I’ll kill you before I watch that happen!” With a growl he threw Walter to the floor. “I’ll kill you if I have to!” he continued to yell.

  Walter turned and crawled against the wall of the living room beneath a lamp which shone brightly throughout the room. He looked up at his father who was now removing his belt and repeating, “I’ll teach you. I’ll teach you,” over and over again.

  Afraid and out of options Walter yelled out, “It wasn’t me! It wasn’t my idea, I swear! He made me do it! Tommy made me do it! I didn’t want to but he made me! He threatened to beat me up!”

  His father stopped his hands from taking the belt off. He looked down at his helpless son cowering on the floor and he realized that Walter’s nose was bleeding and his neck was red where the shirt collar had cut into his skin.

  Walter’s dad dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around his son. He was crying. Wet tears fell upon Walter’s shoulders, dampening his shirt.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said between sobs. “I’m so, so sorry. I’m just so sorry. I’ll never hurt you again, son. I swear it.”

  Walter wasn’t crying. He just stared at the far wall and said, “I hate this town.”

  His father pulled away and looked into his son’s face. “I do too.
”

  “Can we leave?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes. Let’s leave. Perhaps it’ll be best for both of us.”

  “Where do we go?” Walter asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  “No, as long as it’s nowhere around here.”

  “Okay, then, lets get packing and we’ll leave right now,” his dad said.

  Walter got to his feet and his father followed. It took a few hours but they finished packing by midnight. They took only what they needed and with the car packed with their supplies, the two drove away from their home. They drove away from the town of Burman to an unknown destination.

  That was the way they wanted it to be.

  Three years later, Tommy Pelinotti would be found dead by his parents in his bedroom. He would commit suicide, shooting himself in the head with his father’s silver handgun. The reason would never be known to his parents. Nobody but Tommy would ever know his reason for such a selfish act.

  Six weeks later, Tommy’s father would be dead.

  Two days later Tommy’s mother would also be killed.

  The official report would say that the entire Pelinotti family had killed themselves one after the other.

  157

  RANDY AND WALTER: KILLERS

  Chapter 14

  “Happy Valentine’s day.”

  Walter looked up from his desk in the middle of the classroom to see who said the overused line. In front of him stood a boy who looked like he deserved to be on the cover of a motorcycle magazine. He had long black hair, a small goatee with not enough hair in it, and a no-nonsense face. He wore a leather jacket with torn blue jeans and rings on each of his fingers. A pair of cheap, black sunglasses shielded his eyes from a sun that wasn’t there.

  Walter recognized the boy as Paul Trulient. He’d seen him around the other high school classes.

  Paul was known throughout the school as a bad ass, someone who didn’t take shit from anyone. He was also known as gay. Very gay, in fact. At first that knowledge had posed a problem as the rednecks had picked on him and beat him up.

  Paul became a bad ass the day of his sophomore year. No one knew what changed over the course of that summer to make this so. Freshman year, Paul was known as a coward. Then he wore taped glasses and his freckles showed. Not to mention the Goosebumps clothes he was so fond of that made everyone make fun of him.

  But when sophomore year came around, Paul arrived wearing black leather with sunglasses and long hair pulled into a ponytail. The first thing Paul did was walk into the senior circle and withdrew a wooden baseball bat from under his coat.

  Walter remembered watching this; he remembered how silent the students had become as they had watched Paul.

  Then one of the rednecks had spoken up. “Look, the faggot thinks he’s gonna scare somebody!”

  A couple of students laughed, then silence descended as Paul slowly walked over to the boy who’d made the remark.

  “What you gonna do, cocksucker?” the redneck asked with attitude.

  Paul then showed him what he was gonna do. As if he was up at bat at home plate, Paul swung the bat as hard as he could. It struck the side of the kid’s head, dropping the redneck within the span of a heartbeat. Paul dropped the bat next to his fallen opponent and looked around at all the stunned faces.

  “Remember this the next time one of you wants to talk shit about me. From here on in I will not hesitate to fuck you up!”

  Several teachers and the on campus rental cop came running up to Paul and his fallen enemy. They arrested Paul and he was kicked out later that year after a full investigation was conducted.

  Paul had come back the following year, and was now somehow a junior. Even though he had been kicked out of school his sophomore year, he still passed that year and became a junior. No one understood why this was, including the teachers.

  Walter supposed that Paul had somehow frightened the principal into allowing him to pass to the next year.

  Walter’s own years had been plagued by boredom. Him and his father had left Burman years ago and traveled until they came across a little town called Ramseur, only an hour away from Rapshure, South Carolina.

  It was an ideal town to live in. The homes were nice, the city was peaceful, and the schools were close. All throughout middle school and most of high school, Walter had kept to himself. He didn’t have any friends, nor did he want any. He just did his schoolwork, his homework, aced his tests and was on the honor roll for a while. Walter never talked to anyone, unless it was a teacher.

  More or less, Walter was a kiss ass.

  Walter’s father got a good job at the Whiskey Factory. Contrary to popular belief, the Whiskey Factory wasn’t a place that made alcohol or served it. The Whiskey Factory instead was a slaughterhouse. It derived its name from the owner, Don Whiskey. Although his father came home late at night stinking to high heaven with the scent of a thousand dead animals, he was still happy. His dad worked six days a week making $22.50 an hour which was a great paycheck. Of course, for such a paycheck, he had to kill animals, which he said wasn’t so bad.

  “You get used to it,” he told Walter once. “And someone’s gotta do it.”

  For years, life went on unscathed and boring; always the same.

  That all changed Walter’s senior year on February 14th, Valentines Day. He had noticed Paul watching him more and more every day like clockwork.

  And now, here he was, standing over Walter with a card in his hand and a smile on his lips. At first, Walter was worried about this, even a bit frightened. Then Paul took off his sunglasses and Walter’s fears were washed away.

  Paul’s eyes were so blue, so kind, and so mysterious.

  Walter realized years ago that he was attracted to other guys; he just hadn’t been with another guy for it seemed every time he did, something bad happened.

  But now was his chance to try again, perhaps here was his chance at love. Walter smiled back at Paul and took the card from him. With the excitability of a small child on Christmas, Walter ripped open the card and his heart skipped a bit.

  The card wasn’t your typical Valentine’s Day card. This one was handmade which was somehow more important; more feeling had gone into this card.

  The card was white, folded construction paper and the front had a drawing of a heart with the picture of brilliant drawing of Walter in the middle of the heart. He opened it and saw that Paul had transcribed a love letter on the inside of the card. It was written with black ink in the most compelling cursive he had ever seen.

  Dear Walter,

  I’ve been watching you for so long. You are so quiet, so mysterious. Such a beautiful person. Your eyes are mesmerizing, your body intriguing. I think you’re so much like me, so misunderstood just like me. I think, and I hope I’m right, that you’re attracted to me, too. I’ve seen you look at me so many times. Not like the rest, you look at me with love, with attraction. I think we understand each other. If you would like to spend Valentine’s night with me I would be so happy. What do you say? This afternoon me and you can take a trip to the Point? It is a Friday, after all.

  Two against the world.

  With love,

  Paul Trulient

  Walter closed the card and looked up at Paul. Although they were in class in front of everybody and Walter knew just how much he would be ridiculed for such an act, he wanted nothing more. He stood and grabbed Paul around the waist and Paul did the same. They kissed then, and it was such a powerful kiss it was as if no one else was in the world. Even though they heard sounds of disgust coming from around them, neither cared.

  Walter pulled away and smiled, his knees shaking from the embrace. “Yes, I’ll go with you.”

  That afternoon, Walter found himself in the passenger seat of Paul’s black Thunderbird headed towards the Point. The Point was nothing more than a small cliff that stood fifty feet over Lake Hasalbass. Because of its history, it wasn’t a typical hang out spot for coup
les. But for Walter and Paul, it was.

  It was a place all alone, devoid of all others who would stare at them with hate or disgust. The Point was an ideal spot for the two to be completely alone together.

  Walter couldn’t help but wonder just why Paul found him attractive, and in a way, this worried him.

  The Thunderbird parked in front of the path leading to the cliff. Paul got out and Walter followed. Paul wasn’t talking; he didn’t even look at Walter.

  When they reached the Point itself, Paul was silent as he stood at the edge looking down, his coat flapping around him in the wind. Walter stood behind him with a small feeling of dread creeping up his spine.

  He began to realize his stupidity. He realized that nobody knew anything about Paul. He could very well be a complete psychopath intent on killing him. Walter’s lifeless body could easily fall fifty feet into the lake below and Paul could claim it was an accident and everybody would believe him.

  He began to back away, gearing up his legs to run as fast as they could to carry him home. Then Paul turned to Walter with a smile on his face. He extended his right hand as if to ask Walter if he trusted him. Walter found that smile relaxing and took the proffered hand. Paul pulled him toward his body gently and kissed Walter passionately, then gazed deeply into his eyes. They stood quietly for several minutes, neither speaking; then Paul’s smile faded.

  “We’re together now. You and me. Two against the world. And if you ever do anything to fuck it up I’ll kill you. Do you understand?” Paul asked coldly, his eyes full of passion.

  This took Walter by surprise. It was too hostile, too threatening. He found himself trying to pull away from Paul. In return, Paul’s grip tightened on Walter’s wrist.

  Paul moved closer towards Walter.

  “Do you understand?” Paul repeated with a sneer.

  Frightened, Walter answered the only way he could.

  “Yes. I will never fuck up. I swear!”

  The smile on Paul’s face returned, that devious yet sexy smile. Walter could tell that this boy, this man, was filled with some kind of power. A seductive power that only a truly powerful man possessed. He found himself at Paul’s mercy.