by C. T. Phipps
“I’ve killed two slashers before,” Nancy said. “Not counting the ones that I killed with my family.”
“Oh,” Carrie said, frowning. “Wow, you are just a miserable pile of secrets, aren’t you?”
“What?” Nancy asked, surprised.
“Where do the lies end!?” Carrie said, faking (I hoped) shock.
“Bark!” Cujo added.
“I think you’re being overly hard on her,” Gerald spoke from underneath us. “Technically, she saved your life.”
“You’re up now?” Carrie asked.
“You guys are very loud and I have vampire senses that reach beyond the cold embrace of death,” Gerald said. “Also, I’ve been dead for the past few months. That means I’m not inclined to be dead even during the day for a while yet.”
“Oh, sorry,” I said. “That must be very uncomfortable for you.”
“Not really,” Gerald said. “Vampires don’t suffer claustrophobia or a fear of the dark. Our brain isn’t really wired that way. On the other hand, it does get rather boring.”
“Bark?” Cujo asked.
“Yes, I agree,” Gerald said.
“You really can talk to animals?” I asked, not entirely having believed my sister’s earlier statement about it.
“Some,” Gerald said. “The powers of every vampire vary drastically. We also get stronger as we age but the cost is we become more inhuman. Oddly, I think being milked like a cow for months may have strengthened me considerably. What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger after all. Which is medically a bunch of nonsense but really sounds pithy.”
“Do we have enough time to try to rescue my friends?” Nancy asked, ignoring Gerald. “Because I am going in there no matter what. I don’t care if I die in the process.”
“I believe our objection is that you’d die in the process and not rescue anyone, which would be bad,” I said.
Nancy glared at me, her look telling that me despite our decision to “date” (court? slay together?), that I’d crossed a line.
“Sorry,” I said. “Of course we’ll do everything in our power to make sure they survive.”
“Or avenge them should they die,” Carrie replied. “Even if we have to use that stupid gun with its stupid grenade launcher.”
“That might be useful, sis, yes,” I said, “however far from the typical slasher weapon it may be.”
“I mean, we’re called slashers, not shooters or blow-em-uppers,” Carrie muttered. “It’ll also be useless if there are really any of the big-name slashers.”
“Big-name slashers?” Nancy asked.
“Fred, Mike, the Camp Killer, Billy, Bloody Mary, the Woman in White, the Prom Queen, and Lucky,” I replied, recalling how Dad occasionally dealt with suppliers as well as groupies that abetted his crimes. They were usually more interested in what Billy could tell them about the others than my father’s own deeds. It rarely worked out for them. “Dad always made them sound like rock stars and almost everyone in the world knows them. That apparently means they’re more powerful.”
Nancy blinked. “Just so we’re clear, you are saying that not only are slasher movies real but the specific killers in them are real?”
“Pretty much,” I said. “I mean, they’re not the same as the ones on screen but there’s a pretty big influence.”
“Those are also just the ones we know of,” I said. “Dad mentioned them, but it’s not like he enjoyed talking about them. Still, from the way he described it, the Fraternity of Orion might be headed by them instead of the Cassidy brothers, who are just the money.”
“That’s usually who heads these things,” Carrie said. “Money makes the world go round. Also, war.”
“I think I would have noticed a guy in a hockey mask or a burn victim with psychic powers,” Nancy said. “The people who hunted me just looked like guys in suits with animal masks. Their crew was also just dressed up as mercs.”
That was both relieving as well as a little disappointing. Relieving because normal humans would be much easier to deal with and disappointing because I understood the psychology of slashers much better than I did a bunch of rich hunters. “They’re not actually the people on screen any more than any other Hollywood movie biopic. Their names, powers, history, and appearance are different. However, the stories told about them are probably close enough that they can feed off that—I’m not exactly an expert here.”
I am, though, the Spirit of the Hunt said. They fed the Red Gods well but were never allowed to reap the entirety of the harvest, lest they become gods themselves instead of the demigods they were. Now the heyday of their kind has passed as mortals laugh at the monsters rather than quiver in fear.
“So, what do they do now that their movies suck and don’t scare people anymore?” Carrie asked a question she’d obviously heard.
They take their sustenance more directly, the Spirit of the Hunt said. They can also feed through proxies. Zombies may be the next big thing. Mindless undead have no need for worship and the Red Gods can feed off their movies. That’s in addition to all the evils they promote through other means.
I shuddered to imagine what that meant.
“You know, you should add counting to your theme,” Carrie said, rapidly switching subjects. “Like, whenever you kill a victim, you should go, ‘One dead murderer, ah-ah-ah. Two dead murderers, ah-ah-ah.’”
“Are we seriously discussing Sesame Street now?” Nancy asked.
“That show was ahead of its time. Not only did it have a closeted gay couple and a homeless man showing the inequalities of American society, but poor Big Bird had his spirit animal only he could see,” Carrie said, pulling the car to the side of the road. “We’re here.”
“Here?” Nancy asked.
“At our looking spot,” Carrie said, stopping the vehicle.
We were at the base of a cellphone tower on a long empty road. In the not too far off distance, there was a large concrete fortress that looked like the exterior of a maximum-security prison. This, of course, was the Fraternity’s compound. It was hidden in plain sight and, at a passing glance, no one would see it as anything other than the kind of place you wouldn’t want to visit.
“We need to get a look at the place and this as good a spot to do so as any,” Carrie said, pulling out her pair of binoculars. We’d bought two and the collected cost was close to a thousand dollars, but we needed to see as far and as clearly as we could. Personally, I thought we were robbed but my credit cards were fakes anyway so it all evened out. Yes, I know that logic makes no sense.
“Are you sure they won’t be able to see you?” Nancy asked.
“Not in the slightest,” I said. “However, I figure if they do see us then you’ll be able to hold them off until we can get down from the top of the tower.”
“Unless they shoot us with sniper rifles,” Carrie said. “Then we’ll be dead. On the plus side, there’s a non-zero chance that we’ll come back from the dead. Fun-fun.”
“You guys are weird,” Gerald said, a bit muffled this time. “I think after this, I’m going back to the Court of Detroit. They may be a bunch of shameless hedonists and crime lords, but they don’t glamorize murder.”
“Did I tell you that you could speak, slave?” Carrie asked, turning backward and glaring at the blanket covered body bag.
“Is she staring at me?” Gerald asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Sorry! No ma’am!” Gerald said.
“Good boy,” Carrie said.
“Bark?” Cujo asked.
“I’ll keep an eye on our ride,” Nancy said, reaching down to the passenger’s seats behind us where Wilbur’s M16 was located along with our other rifles. I slid open the passenger side door of the church van and stepped out, only stopping to pick up a pair of bright yellow hardhats I’d also picked up.
“What are these for?” Carrie asked, as I handed her one.
“Camouflage,” I said. “We didn’t have time to get actual costumes but maybe no one wi
ll question two people with hardhats climbing a cellphone tower.”
“Ah, the Patrick family motto: there’s no job too important not to half-ass,” Carrie said.
“Do you not want the helmet?” I asked.
“No, I want the helmet,” Carrie said, grabbing it. “Mostly because if I do fall off the cellphone tower, I won’t break my head. The best resurrection aid is not dying.”
I couldn’t argue with that logic. In the end, both of us went to the base of the cellphone tower, which was surrounded by a plain chain-link fence that had a simple padlock on it. I just ripped the latter off and headed on with my sister as the two of us ascended the ladder on the side. The tower was a hundred and fifty feet in height, but we only went up about a hundred in order to get our view of the Fraternity compound. It looked like someone had stuffed a country club in the center of a prison’s walls and added to the weird sense it was a modern-day castle.
“It’s a good thing neither of us is afraid of heights,” Carrie said, pulling out her binoculars and looking through them with one hand while using her other to hang onto the ladder.
It was a reminder that quite a few people would find the prospect of going up a hundred feet into the air with one arm rather unsettling. Personally, I’d known a few maniacs who would find three or four times the height not the least bit unsettling. Fear was only in the mind and some people could face unimaginable danger every day as a fireman or EMT but be terrified of a doll sitting alone in a room.
“Yes,” I said, looking through to our target.
It was, surprisingly enough, almost exactly as Nancy had described it. There were a few more buildings here and there but my Lego-based plan wasn’t going to be a complete wash. The bigger issue would be locating the prisoners in the massive location and getting them to safety. Unless we found out where they were, precisely, any attack or escape would just be running around in the dark. Even if we attacked during the daytime.
“I see some guard towers and patrols,” Carrie said. “Also, a lot of staff. I wonder how you advertise for that, ‘Help Wanted: Domestic servants who don’t mind their bosses hunting nubile young women, possibly with the aid of immortal serial killers in the service of evil gods.’ I mean, if there’s a publication that advertises that, we need to subscribe.”
“One hundred and twelve,” I replied.
“What?” Carrie asked.
“Forty-armed security guards and seventy-two servants visible. No sign of the prisoners but the central mansion’s third floor has would be a good place to keep them,” I said. “That’s either them or the guests. Another plausible location would be the basement as there’s a storm cellar-like entrance. There’s a central power juncture, too, that I think we could knock out if we attacked at night, but that may be putting our charges at risk.”
“No way you counted that precisely in ten seconds,” Carrie said.
“I am what I am,” I said. “Like Popeye.”
“The murderous gardener back at the asylum?” Carrie asked. She gave the compound another look. “Well, forty people is a lot easier to kill than a hundred. That’s assuming we don’t have to kill all the help too. Any sign of the slashers?”
“No,” I said, honestly. “I also think they’d stick out.”
“Maybe they’ll arrive when it’s time to kill,” Carrie replied. “Or maybe Dad was lying like every time he said he loved us.”
“He never said that to me,” I said.
“You’re lucky,” Carrie replied, starting to climb down. “So, what’s the situation between you and Nancy?”
“We’re going to try to be boyfriend and girlfriend,” I said.
“Hot diggity dog!” Carrie replied. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Carrie,” I replied, descending. “We’ve only kissed, assuming you want to define a relationship by physical expression.”
“I love the way you sound vaguely disgusted by that,” Carrie said. “It’s so you. Still, the family that slays together stays together. She could be my sister someday! We could kidnap a priest to officiate. Not sure of what god, but I’m sure there’s some that would approve of the match.”
I was about to say more when a hot pink Ferrari 360 Modena—I recognized the car’s make and model from a commercial I’d seen—pulled in behind our church van. That was when a beautiful redheaded woman stepped out wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a shirt with its bottom half tied up around her waist. She was wearing sunglasses, but they did little to disguise the fact I’d seen her once before: when Billy had taken her appearance to screw with Nancy.
“Okay, who is that?” Carrie asked as we reached the bottom of the cell phone tower.
“I do believe that is Cassie Cassidy,” I replied. “Nancy’s friend.”
“And the traitor,” Carrie said, frowning. “Well, this complicates things. At least until we kill her. Do you think Nancy will mind?”
I had no idea.
Chapter Eighteen
I stared at Cassie Cassidy.
She was a fair faced girl who looked like the kind of person you would cast as the girl next door while being too beautiful to be her. I didn’t feel any attraction to her but was observing from a strictly aesthetic point. She put a lot of effort into appearing warm and approachable, which was not typical of heiresses if television had taught me anything accurate about them. She was talking with Nancy and I wondered how much time, if any, we had left. If she’d managed to track us down, it was very likely we only had a short time before the Fraternity of Orion’s forces descended upon us.
I searched for some sign of the inherent evil to her soul with my power. It was the first time I’d ever used my ability consciously and wasn’t even sure it was possible. I expected to find the blood stains of someone who had led their friends to their doom: especially since this “Tina” person had died according to Nancy. The very fact Nancy had also died would also mean her blood was on Cassidy’s hands, even if she’d gotten better.
Instead, there was nothing. It was surprising. Well, no, nothing wasn’t quite right. There was a miasma around her, but it was unstained by blood. It was a dark, penetrating, and loathsome collection of anger swirling underneath her skin. It was the mind of a killer and someone with the hate necessary to carry out the deed but no actual blood on her hands. There were also tiny strings tied to her hands, feet, and face, though. The strings attached to her face forced a grizzly smile upon her that made her look like she’d prefer to scream. It was a horrifying image that unsettled more than any amount of blood and gore. I was glad when the image faded away.
“She’s not guilty,” I said, dryly. “Her sins are not counted to her total.”
“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Carrie said, looking at me.
“What?” I asked.
“The creepy shit like that,” Carrie said, lowering her voice to James Earl Jones proportions. “Her sins are not counted to her total. If you say more stuff like that then you’ll sound less like my geeky big brother and more like an authentic slasher.”
“The word geek comes from the word freak or fool. In carnivals, the purpose of the geek was to shock the audience with outrageous behavior such as eating living fish or swallowing mice. They often would have ridiculous backstories like being abandoned in the woods, only to become wildmen, or being imprisoned in their parent’s attic until adulthood.”
“I don’t get it,” Carrie asked, genuinely confused.
“I’m saying that if you don’t want me to be a geek, maybe you shouldn’t try to get me to freak people out,” I replied.
“Whatever,” Carrie said. “So, we can trust her?”
“Not being a murderer and being our friend are far from the same,” I replied. “Especially since we are a pair of murderers.”
“Yes, but only of bad people! America was built on that,” Carrie said. “Hell, if we’d ever been in front of a jury then I bet we would have been given a medal. You know, it strikes me as
odd that we were dumped in an asylum with no trial for a decade. Does that strike you as odd?”
“Not really,” I said. “Someone probably noticed we weren’t white on our medical records and immediately had us committed.”
“Ouch! Look at you, socially conscious,” Carrie said. “I do wonder if that was part of why our dad hated us, though.”
“The possibilities are endless,” I said, taking position out of earshot with my sister. “In any case, Cassie and Nancy seem to be talking. That’s a good sign.”
“Is it?” Carrie said. “Maybe they’re actually ex-lovers and she’s being slowly lured into a false sense of security before striking us down. Sexuality is a spectrum, you know. There was a lot of situational stuff at the asylum. I mean, not for me, I’m all into both. My first girlfriend, Angel, was misgendered and—”
“Please stop,” I replied. “Her past relationships, whatever they may be, are none of my concern.”
“They should be unless you want to end up stabbed in the back,” Carrie said. “She could totally kill you and claim you were a crazy stalker. Like three of the psychos at the asylum’s women ward recommended that as a way of escaping justice. It’s terrible and ruins it for other women.”
Nancy turned her head back and looked at us. “You know we can hear you, right?”
“Clearly not!” Carrie replied then turned to me. “So, you can count how many guards are in the fortress of doom at a glance but not tell how far a person needs to be away to avoid being overheard? Jeez. Also, that’s just awful. How can you talk about your girlfriend behind your back? Even to your sister.”
I felt my face. “Carrie—”
“That’s my name, yes,” Carrie said.
“There are no words,” I said.
Cujo came running from the van and jumped into her arms, glaring at Nancy and Cassie. He’d softened to the former but his glare at Cassie was unmistakable hatred. It was an odd sight in a dog’s eyes.
“He doesn’t like her,” Carrie whispered. “We should trust the dog.”