I made the most of my lead on the cops, and ventured quickly to the state road, then, as the GPS said, “Turn left here,” I turned left into the unknown. Like I’d told Shannon, I’d been to Hell’s Canyon many a time, only I never drove there myself, and had never taken this route before. The landscape was all foreign to me, and in the dark it looked like an alien world. Thank God for that GPS.
“Right turn coming in one hundred meters. Right turn coming in fifty meters. Turn right here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I cranked the wheel obediently and the van felt like it went up on two wheels.
“Just what the fuck do you plan on doing, Eddy!” Shannon saw the big sign that warned of the end of the road ahead. She must have realized my idea and then thought the worst. “You’re not gonna do what I think you’re gonna do?”
I clenched my teeth and kept my eyes on the narrow road, which widened a little near a trailhead, forming a small vehicle lot for visitors. I had no intention on parking, and Shannon had no intention on letting me ram the big barrier set up at the south end of the lot.
“Stop, goddammit! Stop!”
“You have arrived at your destination,” the annoying GPS lady announced. “You have arrived at your destination.”
“No shit,” I mumbled, then my heart fluttered at the knocking noise behind us. In the back, Mom tossed over and moaned loud, signaling her impending arousal. “Shit! Hold on!”
I rammed the blockade where the road ended and the trail began. Shannon screamed and threw her hands in front of her face, but the windshield held, though it was riddled with bullet holes. The wooden warning sign splintered into pieces as the van sailed straight through. I guess they never thought someone would be stupid enough to actually drive up the trail. I had no choice. To my mind, it was the only way.
When I’d gotten far enough, I slammed on the brakes and jumped out. Time for phase two. That’s when I heard the sirens, a dissonant chorus of electronic wails and beeps. Dancing lights filled the slopes around us as the cop cars rounded the bend and closed in on the park. I had precious little time, and all I could think was get Mom out. I scurried to the back of the van and flung open the door to find Mom writhing, her eyes half open, her throat gurgling with incomprehensible agony. I also found the freezer in a state of extreme animation. Rattling and shaking and making this terrible noise with such a resonating, massive sound it filled the sparse forest and bounced off the rocky terrain.
“What’re you doing?” Shannon ran to my side as I tugged Mom from the back.
“Just help me!” I had to shout loud to be heard over the cop sirens. We both got Mom clear of the van, dragging her in the dirt, and placed her next to a rock cropping.
“Stay here!” I commanded. All Shannon could do was watch me with wide eyes as I flipped open the large green crate Mom had taken from the Suicide Kings. A veritable arsenal. Ammo of all kinds—shotguns shells and metal cartridges and oversized clips filled with multiple rounds. Even some hand grenades and small sticks of what looked like dynamite. I don’t know what those bikers had planned, but I can tell you they never would’ve thought their cache of weapons would be used for something like this.
“Yeah!” Shannon reached in and snatched up a round, green grenade. “Let’s blow this fucker sky high!”
I took the explosive away from her. “Hold on,” the sirens were getting closer. I knew I had to get going, to put a safe distance between Shannon, Mom, and that box of explosives when it went off. It was the only thing to do. The right thing to do, that, plus I wanted to make damn sure that freezer was destroyed, and what better way than to drop it off a two hundred foot cliff?
Shannon tried to stop me as I got back into the driver’s seat. In the rear view mirror, I could see the flashing lights. The cops were too close.
“Eddy!” she screamed. “Get the fuck outta there so we can blow it up!”
“No!” my mind was made up. This was better. Shannon hung halfway inside the van to stop me. She would have, too, but a sudden tug on Shannon’s purple hair put her in the dirt. Mom stood over her, huffing and puffing and seeing red. My first instinct was to jump out and protect Shannon, but I remembered the plan, so I stepped on it, peeling off and leaving a trail of dust so thick that Mom and Shannon were silhouettes, barely recognizable against the police emergency strobes. I saw Shannon running, and Mom chasing. At least Shannon was okay. Hold on Shannon. Just hold on another second and this will all be over.
The van’s broken headlights had just enough juice to show me a few inches in front of the bumper, but I could make out an edge in the near horizon, a dark, horizontal line against a darker ridge in the distance. It was near, the cliff’s edge, and my nerves fluttered at the thought of what I had to do next. The grenade, and I had to time it just right. Not like I’d ever detonated a hand grenade before, but, hell, first time for everything. Just like I’d seen it in the movies, I tried to pull the pin with my teeth. Bad move. That hurt like hell and I cut my lip. Then I stabilized the steering wheel with my knees, yanked the pin, and pulled the striker lever. The grenade was live. And so was my adrenalin. Pumping at light speed, keeping pace with the minivan. The faster I drove, the faster my heart beat, and the more sweat dripped from my forehead. I’d never had a hot grenade in my hand, and I’d certainly never driven a vehicle off a cliff.
The freezer began knocking and shaking, the lid swinging open and shut and letting out a horrible howl. Behind that, and even louder, I heard the police sirens blasting and wailing. The twisting and spinning lights stung my eyes when I checked the mirrors, so I made it the last time I would look back. No time for it, anyway. I could sense the clock ticking on that grenade, could see the edge of nowhere coming closer and closer in front of me, a dead drop into the depths of darkness.
This was it, I thought, readying for my final and decisive act. I flung open the door and wedged my foot in the opening. Then I reached back to throw the grenade at the freezer when something caught my arm. At first I didn’t panic. Probably just my shirt hung up on the seatbelt or something. But, when I looked, my pounding pulse felt like it stopped.
“Did you ask permission to drive my car!” Mom’s eyes were glowing red in the darkness. Somehow she’d caught up to the speeding van, and was clinging to the frame, latched on like a leach. She swung her sharp claws at my arm and all of the sudden I wasn’t holding the grenade anymore. To make matters worse, I didn’t have control of the van, either, and I felt us veering hard right.
That’s when we were ejected. Flying in the air, I felt my mom’s viselike grip around my neck. We both landed with a thud that stole away what little air was left in my lungs. For a second I thought unconsciousness was in my immediate future. Mom was on top of me, and wouldn’t let go of my throat for anything. She squeezed hard. I felt something pop when she pounded my head against the ground again and again. All I could think was that I’d failed. The van didn’t go down. The grenade was a dud. The freezer was still intact. The curse was still in place. My mother was all over me, slashing and punching and even biting like a savage beast.
Then, in a second, she stopped. The ground rumbled and a flash of the brightest white disoriented me for a brief second and an earsplitting sound shook the canyon with such force that I felt it in my chest. Mom sat up at the blast, taking it full-on like a bronco rider absorbing the buck. And, in one of the most incredible transformations human eyes will ever see, I watched my mom go from frothing, cursing, spitting and fighting to calm, serene and docile. Her eyes were where I noticed it the most. They went from narrow, reddish-yellow slits to big and round and blue. My loving, caring, kind mother once again. She blinked three times really fast, then, her chin askew, looked down at me with a stupefied expression.
“Eddy, honey?” her voice trembled. It was her. My mom. Not that nasty devil woman. “Where are we, and…what am I doing this for?” her eyes wandered to her hands, which were still clutched to my throat. Her sights then shifted to the trail behind us, where an a
rmy of police cars were coming at us, forming a line of white and red and blue blinding lights. She raised an eyebrow at me. “Eddy? What did you do this time?”
11.
It’s hard to believe that was eight years ago. Sitting down now, it seems like yesterday. I went through a lot of therapy to make it a part of my past, let me tell you. And I’d been doing a great job of it, too. Shannon and I, well, we stayed together after that and, could you believe we ended up having a kid? We haven’t gotten married, not yet at least. I keep asking her, and she keeps saying no. She thinks we have a great thing going and says why spoil it with all that legal and religious shit? It bothers me, but not enough to eat away at my brain all the time. We do have a great thing. Brenton, that’s our kid, (he was named after Brent) is an awesome boy. And Shannon and I get along so well (the sex is still amazing after all this time). I can say without a doubt we’ve both put that terrible episode of our lives behind us, and everything was going so well…until that day.
It was the day I’d been dreading ever since that night at Hell’s Canyon. You see, you and I know the real reason why Mom (and Gramma, for that matter) did what she did. We know it was that freezer, that cursed mouth from Hell that literally took over her body and thoughts and made her into a bloodthirsty monster with nothing but savage and brutal murder on her mind. But, no matter how much Shannon and I pleaded, and no matter how sweet and innocent my mother actually was, the State of Idaho, for some reason, didn’t believe a word of it. They scoffed at the idea of a supernatural freezer, and even claimed that no such appliance even existed. Said the van wreckage had no signs of anything inside that met its description. I thought that was bullshit, but what could I do?
And, after all these years of appeals and more appeals, last minute death row injunctions and pleadings from just about every civil rights group from here to Timbuktu, they finally did it. The first woman to ever be executed in Idaho.
It hurts to think about it really, but we just came back from Mom’s funeral only a few minutes ago. The sting is still there. I couldn’t go to the execution. Could you? It was hard enough attending the funeral ceremony. Just think about what it’s like to have a mother accused of all those murders. The shifty looks. The snide comments. It gets to be a little much, and I get down sometimes. That’s why it’s so nice to have Shannon.
“You okay?” she rubbed my shoulders as I sat at the kitchen table. She knew I wasn’t, and didn’t let me answer. “Hey, listen…I thought we’d go out for dinner tonight, anything you want. We’ll even go to that seafood place if you want.”
I mustered my best smile, and Brenton, the little scamp, must have sensed my depression, because he hopped onto my lap and shoved a rose in my face.
“Look, Daddy! I got a fwower!”
“That’s…that’s nice, Bren,” I wasn’t myself, and it showed. Shannon picked up Brenton and carried him away.
“Come on, bud. Let’s get that suit off before we go out to eat,” and they left me alone with my thoughts. Facing the death of my mother was tough. She’d kept such a strong, positive attitude about it the whole time, right to the very end, even though she swore she had nothing to do with those murders. She didn’t remember a thing. At least that’s what she claimed. It was just so hard. The finality. She was gone. Forever. At least the curse was lifted. That freezer was destroyed and it would never enslave another poor, unfortunate soul into demonic servitude.
I thought I’d cried it all out, but I was wrong, and was fighting against the tears when the doorbell rang.
“Honey? Can you get that?” Shannon called from upstairs. Then the bell rang again. This time it sounded like someone had gotten their finger stuck on the button.
“Okay! Okay! I’m coming!” my feet took me to the front door as my mind still hovered on Mom. The sight I got when I opened the door shocked me into the moment so fast my head spun. Standing before me, darkening my step, was a hunched troll of a man wearing a dirty plaid flannel shirt, torn jeans, and dusty boots. He had almost no hair on his head, just five wiry strands of silver slapped across his cranium—the worst comb-over ever. He was standing next to a giant crate, so big I wondered how he’d managed to move it up to the porch all by himself. Then, when his scraggy, squinting eyes got a good gander at me, they brightened, and he pointed a grease-stained finger at my chest.
“It’s y-y-you…you’re Eddy, aren’t you? Eddy M-M-Mitchell?”
All of the sudden I had no powers of speech. A dumb, shivering nod of my head was all I had to offer.
“Good, I f-f-found ya,” he tapped on the crate, a big wood box about my height, nailed good and tight. Real tight. I couldn’t count the little circles of silver that peppered the sides. Hundreds of nails, making sure it would be a chore to get in, or maybe making sure whatever was inside couldn’t get out. When he touched it, he jerked away at a noise. I kidded myself for a second, denying the mere thought of such a sound. No way. I didn’t just hear what I thought I’d heard. Then it happened again. A low hum, gravelly and strong, building to a monstrous, deep and sustained growl.
I stepped backward and tripped on the stairs, falling to my butt on the top step, just staring at the crate, then at the old man, whose features were unsettling to say the least.
“Y-y-you don’t remember me, d-d-do you?” his tinny voice joined the menacing growl coming from the crate in a skin-crawling duet, a horrific harmony that put my pulse in high gear. It was almost too much to bear, but somehow I forced myself to study this man more closely. That face. That hunched figure. That stutter. My mind flashed with a memory, and it came to me clear as a bell.
“Ratchet!” my vocal chords, which had felt rusted solid a moment earlier, burst forth with the man’s name, and he nodded with a mischievous and crooked smile.
“I kn-kn-knew what you’d done wasn’t your f-f-fault. I kn-kn-knew it. It was the f-f-freezer. I had dreams about that f-f-freezer. Still d-d-do,” he lowered his head and backed off just as the terrible noise inside the crate got even worse. Deep and hollow and with so much volume it sounded like it came from the throat of some great prehistoric beast. Along with the roaring, the crate began to shift. First to the left an inch, then the other way two. Ratting and rocking and roaring, it seemed to be walking toward me as Ratchet slinked away.
“Wait! Don’t leave this!” my plea only made Ratchet go faster, and made the crate even louder.
“I’m s-s-sorry…it belongs to y-y-you,” he held up his gritty hands. The hands of a workman, of one who tinkers with and rebuilds things. My mind flashed to the night I crashed the van. An image of him crawling into the wreckage and retrieving the remnants, charred and destroyed. I saw him restoring what had been rendered useless, bringing back to life what had been burned beyond recognition. That all came to me in an instant, and then I was back on my front stoop, a wooden crate inching its way toward me in violent lurches, Ratchet lending me one last word. “I had to d-d-do it!” and then he disappeared from view behind the gigantic box, which sounded like it would burst at the seams at any moment. A crash against the sidewall had me holding my breath, and another, louder, even more violent crash sent a chill of terror through me. The nails, which had been driven so deep, now started to spit out, one by one, then several in bunches, until, as I’d predicted, the crate did come open, splitting down the front and barely missing me when a large board fell away. As it did, a plume of noxious smoke erupted from within and all went quiet and still. I waved at the toxic plume, coughing, and when the smoke cleared my heart plain stopped. I’d known what it was the second I laid eyes on the crate, but some irrational and all too human lust for hope kept me going, kept me thinking it had to be something else. But it wasn’t.
Surrounded by packing peanuts, gleaming brand new like the day it was made, was the old Frigidaire freezer, and the second I looked at it, a surge went through me. A surge of something I could never describe even if I made it my life’s mission to try. All I can say is that it felt like power, unrestrained and
uninhibited by the morals and laws of civilized society. And a hunger. So profound. So deep. A hunger for human flesh. I felt it in my very cells, and surged with the power to do something about it. I needed to eat. The freezer needed to eat. The only question now was, who would be my first victim?
Then, a voice carried from inside the house.
“Eddy, honey? You all right out there?”
My name is Eddy Mitchell, and I’m an ax murderer…
Part III
MY FREEZER
1.
My name is Eddy Mitchell, and I’m an ax murderer.
I never wanted to be, though all along I knew it was going to happen. Looking back now, I can see how it was inevitable. I guess you can say it runs in the family. You may be wondering what the hell I’m talking about. Or maybe you know. Lots of people know by now. Still, I should backtrack and tell you what happened, what started my life as a serial killer. I’ll begin on that day, that fateful day when I found a surprise delivery on my front porch—my gramma’s cursed freezer.
Freezer: The Complete Horror Series Page 9