Sex, Marry, Kill

by Travis, Todd

  “This is crazy. I don’t believe it,” Darin said.

  “It’s bad, real bad,” Ed said.

  “No, Ed. It’s good. It’s real good. That fucking bitch tortured me for years. She teased you, too, Ed. Fuck her. Where’s Samuel?”

  They all heard the sirens at the same time.

  “Is it a fire?”

  “No, that’s an ambulance siren,” Darin said. “Oh shit.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  They’d gotten to the front just in time to see paramedics wheel Shakes out of the school on a gurney. He was bloody, unconscious and wearing a lot of makeup on his face. Darin saw old Pete, the custodian, watching it all and asked him what happened.

  “I don’t know, I found him like that, out cold, in the gym and called 911,” Pete said. “Looked like someone worked him over pretty good.”

  Darin noticed Goodwin and his jock buddies watching it, smirks on their face. When they saw Darin looking their way, they drifted away immediately. A teacher came out and ordered everyone back to their classrooms right away.

  “I think Goodwin and his buddies did this,” Darin said to his friends. “He must have figured out Shakes was the only one who could have hijacked Healy’s memorial and this was his payback for it. They beat the shit outta him.”

  “Those fucking assholes,” Faye said. “Assholes! How dare they do that to one of us? They are going to pay for this.”

  Faye’s eyes glittered with rage and malice. Darin was taken aback by it.

  “Is he going to be all right?” Ed asked.

  “I don’t know, Ed,” Darin said. “They’ll probably take him over to the emergency room at the hospital in Highland Falls.”

  “I got my dad’s car today,” Valerie said. “Let’s all ditch class and go.”

  “We’ll get in trouble,” Ed said.

  “No, we won’t,” Faye said. “They won’t even notice with all the shit that’s going on. Everyone’s freaking about Weitz as it is. Somebody has to go check on Samuel, both his parents are out of town again. He doesn’t have anyone else but us. We’ll only miss third period and lunch. Nobody will notice we’re gone. Let’s go.”

  No one felt that they could argue with her and they all slipped out.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “I FINALLY KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE FEARED AND RESPECTED,” – text message from Shakes.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Shakes was conscious when they got to the hospital, still on a gurney in the emergency room. Both his eyes were blackened and his lower lip swollen and bloody, but no broken bones. He kept saying he was fine and just wanted to go home. Shakes was also touched that the four had ditched school to come to his side.

  “Protect the circle, yo,” he kept saying. “The Furious Five will not be defeated.”

  The attending physician had insisted on keeping him long enough to determine whether or not Shakes had a concussion, but allowed his friends to sit and visit with him. A cop came by to take a statement, too, but Shakes claimed not to remember a thing, only waking up in an ambulance. After the officer left, Shakes winked at his friends.

  “It was that jackass Goodwin, wasn’t it?” Darin said. “Him and his buddies, right? Why didn’t you tell the cop, let him know who did this to you?”

  “Because we can take care of our own problems, my good man. Goodwin fucked with the circle, and is about to find out what it’s like to be fucked with in return.”

  “Dude, I don’t want to hear about this circle-shit any more, things are getting out of hand now. Ed’s scared, I’m losing my mind …”

  “Not me. I’m fine,” Faye said. “I’m more than fine. I guess we know who our next project is, don’t we, Samuel?”

  “That we do, Ms. Faye. That we do.”

  “What are you going to do?” Valerie asked.

  “Not me. Us. The five. We have our game to play, don’t we?”

  “No. No, not until we find out what’s happened to us,” Darin said.

  “What do you mean, what happened? We’ve been blessed and anointed with power. We are no longer the cockroaches of Radford High.”

  “I don’t like this,” Ed said.

  “Look, I think we need a break from this stuff,” Darin said. “No more playing for a while, okay? Things are too weird. I want to figure a couple things out.”

  “And what, I just let Goodwin off for what he did, just like that?”

  “No, you could tell the COPS that he did this to you,” Darin said.

  “Listen to this, the drug dealer here is telling me to call the freaking cops. Can you believe that?”

  “We can take care of this ourselves,” Faye said.

  “You dyed your hair, Shakes. It’s darker than it was, you dyed it black, right?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Why?”

  “I just wanted to do something different. I like this look.”

  “You’re also wearing lipstick.”

  “So? It doesn’t make me gay, it’s a statement of defiance.”

  “I’m not saying it’s gay, I’m saying something else is going on here. Look at Ed, look at me. I’m wearing makeup, too. We all are. Every time I turn around, I find it on my face, too, and I don’t remember putting it on. Something’s fucked up somewhere, we all got hypnotized or something by that site, by that bridge. I don’t know. But something’s fucked up and it’s because of that game.”

  “Life was fucked up a long time before we played the game.”

  “Darin’s right,” Valerie said. “We need to take a step back. Think about things.”

  “What is there to think about?” Faye asked.

  “I’m just saying let’s take a few days to figure shit out before we do anything else,” Darin said. “Don’t do anything about Goodwin, not yet. If I have to, I’ll take care of him myself.”

  “Please,” Valerie said. “Sam. He’s right. We need to know more.”

  “No,” Faye said. “We can’t stop now.”

  “There are five of us in the circle,” Darin said. “Put it to a vote. I vote we take a break from playing until we can do some research and find out more. Anyone else?”

  “I say no,” Faye said.

  “I say we take a break,” Valerie said.

  “I want to play,” Shakes said quietly. “I LIKE the game.”

  Everyone glanced at Ed, who looked like he was about to cry.

  “I don’t like this game,” Ed said. “I don’t want to play anymore.”

  “That’s three to two,” Darin said. “It’s decided. We take a break. Cool?”

  Shakes just pursed his lips thoughtfully and shrugged. “Protect the circle at all costs, right? Okay, a break it is. Can you guys give me a ride home?”

  “Yeah, but I have to get back to period four class. I have too many unexcused absences as it is,” Valerie said.

  “Not anymore,” Shakes said. “I hacked into the school server and fixed that for you. For all of us. Go to school, don’t go, doesn’t matter, you all got perfect attendance. And I gave your grades a bump, too. It’s something I should have done a long time ago. How about we stop and get some pizza on the way home?”

  “Okay, cool,” Darin said after a moment.

  “I like pizza,” Ed said.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  They did end up getting pizza on the way back, and they all laughed and joked and, for a small while, it felt all right. It felt like it did before they played the game, when they were just getting to know each other, at the restaurant. Even Ed lightened up, now that he knew they weren’t going to play any more. Shakes invited them all over that night, but Darin claimed he had a curfew and Valerie said she had to see her therapist.

  Once back home, Darin logged onto the Sex, Marry, Kill site himself and took a picture of the crying bridge with his phone. It freaked him out a little bit, doing it all alone. He stared at the site for a while and felt his mind drift.

  Next thing he knew his foster dad was knocking on hi
s door, asking him why he was sitting there staring at a blank computer screen. And what had he done to his hair?

  Darin snapped out of it with a jolt. He noticed that it was dark outside. Hours had somehow passed by and he hadn’t noticed. His foster dad again asked about his hair.

  “Listen, I need to ask you about something first,” Darin said. “Look at this website a friend sent me, tell me what you think.”

  “It’d better not be a porn site,” his foster dad said.

  “No, it’s this gamer site, kinda, and … shit.”

  Darin typed the address into the browser and nothing came up. Nothing. All he got was a message that read that the address was unavailable.

  “You shouldn’t be playing online games anyway, not with your report card. Now what’s the deal with your hair and the makeup, you going to tell me?”

  “I’m just messing around, that’s all.”

  “I’m fine with it, but you know that this is a small community, after all. You might get hassled, walking around like that. I’m not saying it’d be right, I’m just saying. And when you graduate and try to get a job, it’s gonna, you know, reflect badly on you. Again, I’m just saying.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m just messing, that’s all. It’s not permanent.”

  His foster dad nodded, walked away. Darin caught a look at himself in the mirror. He now had a streak of red in his hair and the rest of it was much darker. A faraway cry startled him. Now that he was alone again, the Sex, Marry, Kill site and its crying bridge was back up on his computer.

  “Fuck,” Darin said.

  Chapter Forty

  Darin woke up the next morning when his phone rang. It was Valerie.

  “Are you up?”

  “I am now. What time is it? What’s up?”

  “Little after seven. Did you see the text?”

  “No. What text?”

  “From Shakes. He sent it to all of us, better take a look.”

  Darin fiddled with his phone. He had gotten a text in the middle of the night from Shakes. It read: “SORRY GUYS, I COULDN’T HELP MYSELF – LOL!”

  “Shit, what’d he do?”

  “I’m outside in my car. Can you get away now?”

  Darin gathered his stuff together and bolted out of there.

  Valerie was parked out front in her father’s car. Darin slid inside the passenger seat and she pulled out.

  “What happened? He played the game without us?”

  “I guess he did.”

  “Fuck. How could he do that? Don’t we all have to be there?”

  “I don’t think so, remember? It said we just needed to be five to start the game, not to play. We can play without the others once it begins.”

  “Shit, what’d he do?”

  She pointed with her chin as she pulled over on a street. Ahead, ambulances and police cars, their lights flashing, parked outside a house. It was Jason Goodwin’s house.

  “I had a bad dream last night,” Valerie said. “I dreamed about that damned crying bridge. It’s like it’s following me everywhere. I got up and saw that text and I drove here, because I knew something must have happened. I asked one of the cops what happened and he told me. Goodwin committed suicide, he hung himself in the bathroom last night. One of the cops, his kid is a student and friend of Goodwin’s, and so it’s already all over Twitter and Facebook. Goodwin’s dead.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Not hardly. It was Shakes Hobart.”

  “He put Goodwin’s name in the site?”

  “What do you think? That’s why we got the text.”

  “I still don’t believe it. Maybe Goodwin just flipped out, or⁠—”

  “Come on. It was Shakes. It was the site. Three times is not a coincidence. Goodwin wasn’t a suicide-type. I know. The game works. He did it. Ask him.”

  Darin brought up his phone and group-replied to the text. “WHAT DID YOU DO, SHAKES? DID YOU PUT HIS NAME ON THE SITE?”

  “YUP! WE NEEDED TO TEST DRIVE THE ONE PART OF THE GAME THAT WE HADN’T TRIED YET, RIGHT? HEHEHEHEHEH!”

  “WTF, SHAKES?!!!” Darin wrote. “WE AGREED TO WAIT, DIDN’T WE? WTF!”

  “HEY MAN, I COULDN’T RESIST!” was the reply. “AND HE WAS LIKE, JUST ASKING TO BE HUNG OUT TO DRY, YOU KNOW? HAH! HUNG! LOL!”

  “HE’S FUCKING DEAD! THAT’S NO JOKE!” Darin wrote back.

  “HE WAS THE JOKE! HE WAS AN ASSHOLE, MAN, A HUGE FUCKING SOCIOPATHIC ASSHOLE. FUCK JASON GOODWIN! THE WORLD IS A BETTER PLACE WITHOUT HIM!”

  “I AGREE,” wrote Faye. “HE MESSED WITH A MEMBER OF THE SACRED CIRCLE. THIS COULD NOT BE BORNE!”

  “Sacred circle? Borne? Where is she getting this shit,” Valerie said. “Her outfit must be going to her head or something.”

  “THIS IS NOT COOL, MAN. WE SHOULD HAVE DISCUSSED IT TOGETHER FIRST,” Darin wrote. “NOT COOL!”

  “SORRY BUD, BUT I JUST COULDN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. WHAT GOOD IS HAVING SOMETHING COOL LIKE THIS GAME IF WE DON’T EVEN USE IT? AND NOW WE KNOW FOR SURE IT WORKS!”

  “WE KNOW WE HAVE THE POWER NOW,” Faye wrote.

  “God damn it,” Darin said. “This can’t be real. It can’t be. There’s got to be some sort of rational explanation for it.”

  Valerie stared at Darin. “So what do you want to do?”

  “I fucking don’t know.”

  “You really think it’s some kind of group hypnosis thing? It got us all acting weird, and when we put someone’s name in the site, the site tracks them down and hypnotizes them to do whatever we tell them?”

  “It’s the only thing I can think of.”

  Another text from Shakes dinged in both their phones. “AND THE GOOD NEWS IS, I HEARD THEY’RE CALLING OFF SCHOOL FOR A COUPLE DAYS. IT’S LIKE A SNOW DAY! WE CAN PARTY! EVERYONE SHOULD COME OVER TO MY PLACE!”

  “No school. Thank Christ.”

  “Not him. Shakes Hobart.”

  “I DONT FEEL GOOD,” wrote Ed. “I DONT LIKE THIS.”

  “COME ON, BIG ED! WE’LL HAVE A BLAST! WE’LL GET PIZZA AGAIN. AND CHEESY BREAD, I KNOW YOU LOVE THE CHEESY BREAD!”

  “Which means, if it IS a hypnosis thing, then the guy who dumped this game on us in the first place is somehow behind it.”

  “Mr. Herman.”

  “Mr. Herman, yeah,” Darin sat up. “How long do you have this car?”

  “As long as I need it.”

  “WHAT ABOUT YOU GUYS? VAL? DARIN? COMING OVER?”

  “Feel like a road trip?” Darin asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  They drove to Portland, just stopping once for lunch, and made it there before noon. They didn’t talk much on the way, just listened to music, Beatles music nonstop, playing on the stereo. Darin liked watching her as she took in the songs, they gave her some small pleasure, he could tell.

  Shakes kept texting them and Darin finally sent him back a text that said, in essence, he didn’t know about Valerie, but he needed some time to himself. He wrote to the group that he’d be in touch with them when he was ready.

  “PROTECT THE CIRCLE, YO!” Shakes wrote. “HIT ME UP WHEN YOU GOT YOUR HEAD ON RIGHT, BRO!”

  Valerie found the steakhouse they’d went to on their senior trip and parked in the lot, which was empty. The restaurant wasn’t open yet. They just sat there.

  “Do you feel bad? About Goodwin?” she asked.

  “That he’s dead? I don’t know how I feel. The last few days have gone by pretty fast. I didn’t feel bad about Healy, but that was different, that was an accident⁠—”

  “Was it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t you remember? Mr. Herman asking us about him, his birthday?”

  Darin thought about that. “Shit.”

  “If he caused it, then maybe he’s just as caught up in this mess as we are.”

  “Fuck, I never even thought about that.”

  “You think he’ll show up here?” she asked.

  “He act
ed like a regular. Either he’ll show or they’ll know how we can find him.”

  “Might be pretty late by the time we get back to Radford. If we hang around here until late, we won’t be home until morning.”

  “Yeah, that reminds me, we have to stop by a Marine recruiting station here sometime before we leave here. I’ll tell my foster folks that’s where I went, I’ll sign up for more information, get my name in there.”

  “Serious?”

  “Yeah, they really want me to enlist. I’ll tell them I took a day trip to do this, they’ll be doing cartwheels if they think I’m seriously considering it. But I need to prove to them I was actually there. I’ll have them e-mail a consent form, too, and tell them I have to stay the night to take a fitness test or something. They’ll be cool with it since there’s no school for a couple days.”

  “You. In the Marines.”

  “Yeah, I know, I don’t see that happening, either. But it’ll get them off my back. What about you, will you get in trouble if you go back too late?”

  “No. I’ll text him to tell him I’m staying the night with a friend and that will be it. He won’t question me. He never does. He’ll drink and fall asleep in front of the TV.”

  “I hit my stash spot before I left, got some cash to cover expenses and all that, I can get us a motel room if it does get too late to drive back.”

  Valerie glanced at him. “A motel room?”

  “With separate beds, of course. Or you can have your own room. I’m not making any kinda, you know … move or anything … I’m not suggesting anything …”

  “I know you’re not. It’s kinda fun to see you squirm, that’s all.”

  Darin didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing.

  “I took my laptop to my therapist,” Valerie said. “Because I needed to hear from someone else about this. She’s pretty smart. I told her some of it, not everything, but when I tried to bring the site up so I could show her what I was talking about, it wouldn’t come up. Not while she was there. But I can bring it up when I’m alone.”