She pulled into the island closest to the store, jumped out, and started the pump immediately. It was one of those older kinds, without a new, fancy computer, so she just flipped up the handle, stuck the nozzle into her open gas tank, and started gassing up.
“Hey!” it didn’t take long until the attendant, a short guy with a black goatee, came running. “You can’t just pump your own gas like that, lady! This is Oregon…it’s illegal!” he got to the van in record time. He and Mom stood in the blind spot, so neither Shannon nor I could see what happened next. We didn’t need to see it. We heard it. One second the guy was bitching Mom out, the next he was silent. Dead silent. I didn’t know what Mom used to kill him. Still don’t. I think, though, that she wrung his neck with her bare hands.
That did it for Shannon.
“Fuck! Fuck! Do you gotta kill everyone you meet!” she punched the backseat. Mom opened the back and heaved in the little guy’s flopping corpse. The freezer shimmied and shook and seemed to drool some sort of milky liquid in sweet anticipation.
“Yes, I do have to kill everyone,” her stone cold glare settled on Shannon. “And I’ll kill you if you don’t shut the fuck up and help me!”
“Then do it!” Shannon dared. “Do it, because you’re gonna do it anyway. After I help you with all of this-this terrible shit, you’re gonna slice my throat and feed me to the freezer anyway…so do it! Get it over with! I’m not gonna be a part of this anymore!”
Mom’s eyes got huge. Her breath shot out of her nose like exhaust from a rocket. “Okay,” she stepped to the side and flung open the big door. “I will!”
I acted out of instinct, purely and without a single rational thought. Had to, because had I thought about it, my logical mind would have opted for self-preservation. Instead, I threw myself between them.
“Mom, stop! She doesn’t mean it! She doesn’t mean a word of it! She’s just…she’s just tired…and hungry!”
“I’m starving!” Shannon yelled through gritted teeth.
“Fine!” Mom stepped aside to give us a path, pointing meanly at the minimart. “There’s food in there. Go eat!”
Carefully, slowly, we crawled out, past my mom, and huddled together as we hobbled to the glass building. Neon and florescent lights signaled everything a kid could want. Corndogs and burritos and day-old chicken breasts. My mouth was watering.
“Don’t load up on junk food,” Mom wagged an accusing finger. I couldn’t tell if she was serious or not. “And don’t you even think about doing something stupid…Mama’s watching, you know.”
I didn’t care what she said. Right to the snack aisle I went. Well, the whole store was pretty much a snack aisle, so even if Mom was serious, I had little chance to find a nutritious meal. It didn’t matter to me. I was so goddam hungry! Doritos and Oreos and Red Vines were my choice du jour. Add some Bull’s Horn to wash it all down. Then, with a mouthful of comfort food, I went to the warmer and started bagging up jo-jos for the road, knowing full well this might’ve been our only food stop for quite some time. As I eyed the spring rolls, Shannon caught my attention with a loud, raspy cough, obviously meant as a surreptitious signal for me to come over to her in the drink aisle at the rear of the store. I tried to make it not so obvious, fully aware of Mom’s spying eyes as she dismembered minimart man outside. Shaking my Bull’s Horn can like it was empty, I sauntered to the drinks with Shannon, and she put her hand over her mouth as she spoke.
“I can’t take this shit anymore, Eddy,” she faked like she was searching for something, a root beer or a Dr. Pepper, she couldn’t decide. I acted the part too, not looking at Shannon or reacting to her words. “Eddy, I’m gonna run.”
Then I reacted, getting face to face with her. “No!” I realized my mistake and again went to perusing the drinks. “Don’t do it…you saw what she did to Brent. How could you even think about it after what she did?”
“And how can you even entertain the idea of sticking with her for another second. This is horrible, Eddy. I don’t care. Maybe if she just kills me, it would be better than this…than being some kind of slave.”
“Don’t say that,” I wanted to look at her so bad. “Don’t say you want her to kill you. She won’t…I know she won’t kill you.”
“Yes she will! She’s gonna kill both of us, can’t you see that?” she inched a little toward a small hallway that lead to further into the back of the building. “I’m doing it…I’m getting the fuck out of here.”
“No, don’t go…I can stop her…I can make this whole thing end…just give me time.”
“There’s nothing we can do, Eddy.”
“Yes there is…there is…I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I know a way to end this whole thing, to lift the curse of that goddam freezer and get my Mom back.”
She forgot about the playacting for Mom’s sake and stared me in the eyes. I could tell she wanted to believe me so bad. But a shake of her head communicated otherwise, and my blood raced with fire when she glanced over at Mom, bent like she was grabbing something on a bottom shelf, then ran, hunched over, to the rear exit.
I dropped everything and got low, scurrying around the corner to a little area with the restrooms and a little employee break table. There was also one more thing—a door, which obviously led outside. I screamed a bunch of unintelligible garble, with the basic and frantic message that she should, if she ever had a brain in her head, stop running before something really, really terrible happened.
She didn’t stop. And something terrible happened.
My heart skipped a beat, then felt like it went into complete arrest when, as Shannon flung open the narrow metal door, I saw Mom standing there, the bloody knife lifted to shoulder-level.
“Going somewhere?” she snarled, eyes as red as the blade, and Shannon slammed the door just as Mom began to hammer on it. “I told you little fuckers to behave!” she pounded and pounded as Shannon and I fell to our asses, leaning against the door. Shannon sniffled back a tear, but then lost her battle to remain composed and wept openly. It was still a shock, really, to see her so out of control, and it made me only want to do one thing, so I did it. Hugging her close, I rocked her gently like a little child, and told her everything was going to be all right while Mom kept cursing and kicking and punching that door.
“Please don’t cry,” I begged her. “We’re gonna get out of this, I swear,” I lowered my voice. “I wasn’t lying when I told you I had a plan. I just need the right situation, and I…I’m gonna save us…I’m gonna save us all.”
And then she kissed me. A warm tingle like I’d never felt before saturated my cells. I mean, I wasn’t a virgin. Okay. I was a virgin, and this was the most amazing kiss I’d ever had in my life. Shannon and I were transported to another place, another time where it was just the two of us, sharing a sweet moment that I wanted to last a lifetime. Then a hard and swift blow to the door shocked us, or at least me, back from fantasyland.
“Get out here and get back in the van, now! I’ve got a lot more work for you two,” Mom commanded. “I’ve just about had it with those damn kids,” her angry grumbles trailed off.
9.
After that, Shannon insisted I sit in the backseat with her, and held me tight for miles and miles. I didn’t mind, for more reasons than one. Having her next to me was great, but the big bench seat was a lot more comfortable than the bucket in front. Perfect to rest our tired bones, run ragged from all the energy we’d exerted. Hacking up bodies is hard work, and we were beat.
At one point, things became a hazy blur. I know for sure Mom snagged and bagged some more unfortunate people on the road. A hitchhiker. A guy with engine problems. But I’m not exactly sure how many. All I remember is her waking me and Shannon over and over, forcing our weary selves out of the backseat and compelling us to assist while she kept shoving body parts into that old freezer. There came a point to where, tormented by exhaustion and numbed by psychological trauma, I just shut down and started going through the motions. I
could tell Shannon was experiencing the same inner turmoil. Neither of us kept our eyes open for long, and, more than once, I found myself leaning against the van and then jerking awake after dozing for a few seconds. Mom noticed it, too. After a while it got to her.
“Eddy!” her voice cracked like a whip, and I was stunned into consciousness. Shannon shook her head, obviously in a similar state of semi-sleep. Mom breathed heavily at us both as she feed a blood-soaked hand to the freezer. “You two better shape up starting right now!”
“But, Mom, we’re so tired,” I had barely enough energy to complain. “Can’t we just quit for the night.”
“Quit? What do you mean quit? The killing can never stop, because Hell’s always hungry.”
“But don’t you need to sleep?” Shannon helped me, then backed off quickly when Mom assailed her with an wicked look.
“Death never sleeps,” she proclaimed. “Neither do I.”
“Mom, please,” my logical brain shut down, and for some reason I thought I was dealing with a rational being. Over her shoulder was a highway billboard, a twenty-foot tall advertisement for a nearby KOA. “Look,” I whined. “There’s a place right there. Can’t we just sleep for a little while at that campground?”
“We’re not going to a fucking campground, goddammit! Not when we have so much more work to do!”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Shannon saw my distress and tried to ease it, pointing at the sign. “See? It says no vacancy.”
“Listen to your friend, Eddy,” Mom said. “There’s no vacancy, so we—” she did a double take at the billboard, then her lips contorted into the most malicious smile I’d ever seen. “No vacancy, huh? The park’s full. You know what that means?”
“It means we won’t be able to get a spot,” I said stupidly, and Mom smiled even nastier.
“It means food for the freezer. Lots of food.”
I could have kicked myself in the ass. Why didn’t I realize Mom would jump at the chance to murder an entire campground? Out of my own ignorance, I’d led her to the biggest haul yet. The KOA was full, so that meant probably hundreds of people. It made me want to upchuck Doritos all over the place.
One lucky thing was the KOA sat pretty far off the highway, and that extra time allowed me, in my now alert state, to think over my plan. I knew Mom was still in there, somewhere, and I wasn’t about to just run like Shannon wanted, and like Brent had done. I just needed the chance to work it all out, get it straight in my head, and I thought I could come up with something before there was any more bloodletting. Saving lives was the first priority for sure, and my mom’s life was high on that list. My eyes drifted to the back, next to that whirring, knocking appliance, layered thick with gory residue. On the floor next to it was a box—the ammo crate Mom had taken from the Suicide Kings, and I remembered what was inside. My mind started spinning. I had it! I knew what to do!
“We’re here!” Mom shook me from my meditation and my triumphant mood shattered into horror at the site of the KOA main entrance. A small office and food shack. A paved road through the camp, which, as the billboard had indicated, was jam-packed with Winnebago’s and Fleetwoods and Coachmen. Pickups with campers. Motor homes. Travel trailers. Down in a slight ravine, several tents lined what looked like a small, twisting creek. It was the high plain, and trees were scarce in that country, yet this place was lush with ponderosa pines and mountain alder. It was late, and dark, and so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.
“Shhh,” Mom put a finger to her lips and pulled in the first camp spot she came to, a larger plot occupied by a pretty huge motor coach. There were things laid out on the picnic table—cooking utensils and folding chairs and stuff—but the place looked quiet. The campers were asleep.
Mom shut off the engine and coasted into the fairly long little gravel driveway, then brandished her favorite weapon, a serrated butcher knife. “Wait here,” she whispered. “And be ready for some fresh meat.”
She opened her door and slipped out. I tell you, there comes a moment when a person has to say enough is enough. Draw a line in the sand. All the killing. All the coldblooded dismemberment and death and trauma to my psyche. I couldn’t take the loss of another innocent life. My mind was made up. Now was the time, so I leapt into desperate yet determined action. Out the door I followed Mom, springing to the wooden table and seizing a flat iron skillet.
Mom didn’t even notice. She must have been locked onto her next kill like a predator, because she had no clue when I snuck behind and clocked her good with the pan.
“Good job!” the sickening, hollow thud had Shannon cheering for me. “It’s about time you came to your senses and did something! Now, let’s get the hell outta here!”
“No! Wait!” I hooked my elbows under Mom’s armpits and dragged her to the back of the van. There, I had trouble hoisting her inside. “Help me,” I grunted.
“What!” Shannon was clearly beside herself. “Are you fucking nuts? Leave her and let’s go!”
“No!” I repeated, this time louder, and Shannon looked quite surprised at my sudden authoritativeness. “She might wake up and start killing people again.”
“She might wake up and start killing us, Eddy…come on!” she turned to leave, but my commanding tone changed to begging. “Shannon, please…I have a plan!”
“You’ve been saying that for hours, but I’ve yet to see a goddam thing about this plan…what plan?”
As I spoke, the freezer began to pop and rumble. Slowly and lightly at first, but, the more I talked about its impending demise, the more animated it became. I told Shannon what I wanted to do, and, though she expressed more than considerable doubt, for some reason she decided to go along with it. Maybe she was crazy, knocked into psychosis by the terrible events which had unfolded over the last few hours. Maybe she really did like me, and that kiss back at the minimart wasn’t a fluke. Either way, she was on board, and we both hoisted Mom inside the van. Then I punched in the map view in the onboard GPS, fiddling with the touchscreen and inspecting the topography closely.
“What are you looking for?” she watched me studying the map.
“There’s a place around here, somewhere I used to go with my mom before she, well, you know.”
“What kind of place?”
“It’s in Hell’s Canyon, a cliff that just drops off hundreds of feet.
“A cliff?” she turned white. I just kept rambling.
“It’s perfect because the road leads right to the trail, then the trail leads straight to the edge…if I could just find…here it is!” I pressed the destination tab, entering the spot in the memory. It beeped, telling me it had processed my request.
“Destination entered,” the soft, mechanical voice said over the speaker. “Go straight one quarter mile, then turn left.”
10.
I was only fourteen, not even old enough for a learner’s permit. But that didn’t mean I didn’t have driving experience. An old buddy of mine had a grandfather who owned a pretty large dairy farm in Warren, along with a pretty old GMC pickup we used to race along the pastures. His grandpa hated it, and we nearly killed ourselves a few times, but the practice sure came in handy, because I handled that minivan like a Formula One driver. Unfortunately, the race ended before it began, when bright, colorful lights flashed in my eyes, coercing me into slamming on the brakes.
“Shit!” Shannon shouted, and instinctually I thought about giving up right then and there. I mean, we were surrounded, with at least a dozen cop cars and at least two dozen cops bearing down on us. They’d parked in a semi-circle, blocking the exit from the KOA. Guns drawn and pointed, one of them carried a bullhorn.
“Give it up!” he ordered. “And come out with your hands on top of your heads, all of you!”
Shannon gave me a look that said maybe I ought to do what the cop said. I thought about it. Mom was still out, but her moans and groans indicated she’d be conscious soon, and I wasn’t sure if I had time to make it to Hell’s Canyon, even if
I had a clear path. With twelve police interceptors barricading me in, my chances seemed slim. Then Mom made a noise, half awake and half asleep, and I knew I had to get out of there. She’d wake up, and that would’ve meant a certain bloodbath when she tried to take on the cops. I knew that’s what she would have done, and the very thought of her being ripped to shreds by a hailstorm of lead made my skin crawl. All of the sudden my plan was the only way out of this mess, and I was going to try it, come hell or high water.
So I punched the gas, aimed for a weak link in the barricade of cars, and screamed at Shannon to duck. I got down with her, feeling and hearing bullets fly through the windshield and dashboard. With a mighty metal crash, we hurled through, scraping hard against fenders and bumpers. The minivan’s front end was toasted when I got up to look, a steady stream of steam rising and shrouding the view. But we were moving, and it looked like we’d gotten a nice little head start.
Freezer: The Complete Horror Series Page 8