“You tell people that, they’ll think you’re crazy.”
“Better get a new line, jack-off. That one doesn’t work anymore.”
“Oh ho, ho boy, and I thought baby brother was still a scaredy-cat, but he’s grown some balls.” Robin cackled to himself. “Or maybe he’s just really, really crazy. Is that it, icky Ricky? Are you crazy?”
The old taunts still worked. Rick’s confidence slipped a notch. Don’t listen to him. This is how he gets you. He’s pushing your buttons to get what he wants.
“Baby brother, are you still there?”
“Go to hell.”
Robin only laughed. “You must be crazy if your own little girl thinks you tried to fuck her. Have you ever seen your daughter naked, icky Ricky? She’s got nice tits and a tight little cunt that—”
“I’m going to kill you, you bastard!” Ricky’s cry ricocheted up the stairwell as he stepped onto the bottom riser.
Robin laughed. “You should give your girl a whirl, baby brother. She’s hot, she’s hot, and she’ll beg you for more!”
He’s trying to lure you upstairs. In spite of his overwhelming fury, Rick forced himself to remain where he was. “I’m going to kill you tonight,” he said, his voice shaking with unleashed anger. “You can count on it.”
“Oh boy, icky Ricky really does have balls.” Peals of maniacal laughter floated down. “Your daughter’s snatch smells good, did you know that, icky Ricky?”
I will not react, I will not react, I will not react. But his other foot moved onto the steps of its own accord.
“I watched you fuck your girlfriend. Remember when we watched good old Mom and Dad fuck, dicky Ricky? Remember that?”
Rick didn’t reply. Slowly he continued up the stairs, keeping to the shadowy edges, his hand gripping the hilt of the knife.
“Hey, I read your stories, icky Ricky. I guess you think you’re a big hotshot, don’tcha, pricky Ricky? Did you like the surprise I left for you under the desk?” He paused. “Jade helped me move it. She’s all the snatch I got these days, baby brother. I think you’d better start sharing your daughter and your girlfriend.” He cackled evilly. “It’s the brotherly thing to do. You with all that nooky, and all I have is that dried-up old douche-bag. I did it to her in your water bed tonight, icky Ricky. It was fun.” He cleared his throat. “Your cock’s almost as big as mine, little brother, but you need some lessons. I can show you how to really fuck your girlfriend. How about I show you how to fuck your daughter, too?”
“No!” He couldn’t stand it any longer, and suddenly he was tearing blindly up the staircase, the knife out, intent on murder.
Something sharp and cold sliced across his shinbone as he reached the landing. It withdrew, then came again, and this time he could feel the chill of it inside the meat of his calf. The coldness pulled free, and Rick whirled in the dark, stabbing the knife in front of him.
Metal hit metal, the knife deflecting Robin’s next thrust, and Rick backed up, feeling for the light switch on the wall. His brother laughed again, then something whizzed through the air, grazing his midriff and clattering to the floor somewhere beyond.
“I’m gonna go play outside, icky Ricky. Why don’t you come and play with me?”
slap-slap slap-slap slap-slap
The sound of hand-slaps descending the stairs chilled him. His fingers finally found the light switch, flipped it on.
He stepped forward, nearly tripping over his left leg, grabbing the railing for balance. Looking down, he saw that his brother was gone. The front door hung open. “Jesus,” he whispered as the pain hit him. Clutching his leg, he dropped to the floor.
“Sweet Jesus,” he breathed. The side of his leg was sheathed in blood. He couldn’t see the wounds, but blood was pumping out of him rapidly, and he had to stop it now. Using the railing for leverage, he pulled himself up and started for his bedroom. Then, a moment later, his foot hit something. He looked down.
The sword Audrey had given him lay on the floor, the blade coated with his own blood.
Grimly he grabbed it by the hilt and took it with him. His brother had managed to climb all the way to the shelf in the dressing room, seven feet off the ground, to get to it. So what else is new?
Safely inside the bedroom, Rick turned on the light and locked the door behind him, then limped through the dressing room, pausing only to slide the sword through the cabinet doors to ensure that his brother couldn’t get in. Entering the bathroom, he flipped the toilet lid down and sat heavily, dizzy from shock and, perhaps, blood loss.
He pulled open the vanity, found the scissors, cut his pant leg off at the knee, then began to pull the material, but it was stuck in his flesh. Gritting his teeth, he pulled it free.
Both wounds were in his lower leg. The saber had run clean through the fleshy part of his calf, and it hurt like hell. The other was near his knee. The blade had glanced off his shinbone, and his stomach turned as he saw the white bone under the meat. Dakota will be pleased. I’ll consent to stitches this time.
Resolutely he pulled a clean towel from the cabinet and began wrapping the leg. As he worked, he purposefully set about building his anger, thinking about the things Robin had said about his daughter, so that by the time he grabbed a roll of adhesive tape and began wrapping it tightly around the towel, his outrage outweighed his pain. “You little fucker,” he whispered, limping into the dressing room. He pulled the sword free. “You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead.”
Using the sword as a cane, he entered the bedroom and eyed the phone on the side of the bed. Maybe he should call Dakota or Audrey and let them call the police.
He reached for the phone and stopped as he realized his expensive bedspread was soaking wet. What the hell? He grabbed the edge of the comforter and pulled it back, revealing sodden bunched blankets. He pulled those away, too.
“Dear God,” he whispered.
Jade was in the mattress. Not on it, in it, floating in the water and air baffles, her sightless eyes staring at him through a thin covering of water.
I did it to her in your water bed.
He saw the X-shaped slit in the mattress and knew that Robin must have lured her up here onto the bed, then killed her and sliced the mattress open with the sword. The plastic liner and high sides had kept any water from escaping.
He picked up the phone, heard no dial tone, then saw that the cord had been cut. “Shit.”
The lights went out.
Ordering himself to remain calm, he felt for the nightstand, opened the drawer, and grabbed the flashlight. He switched it on, and found that there were only minutes of dim glow left before the batteries failed altogether. Leaning on the sword, holding the light, he hobbled toward the staircase.
“Daddy! Are you okay? Bob said you were hurt.”
The sound of Cody’s voice turned Rick’s gut to ice. Don’t panic. He halted and shined the light down the long hallway. His son stood partially visible in the open doorway of his room. “Cody!”
“Daddy! Bob said I had to come!”
“Come here, Cody! Run! Now!”
“Daddy!” the child cried, then Robin’s laugh boomed down the corridor as a huge arm thrust Cody farther out into the hallway. Robin’s head appeared in the doorway, his silhouette only slightly shorter than Cody’s.
“Come and get him, icky Ricky!” Cackling, he yanked the boy back into the room. “Catch him if you can!”
Robin’s going for the oak tree! Swearing, he tried to run. He had to get there before Robin opened the window. “Christ.” His leg twisted painfully and he fell. Biting back a scream, he pulled himself up and continued on, dragging his leg behind him. It seemed to take forever.
Cody screamed. Robin laughed.
“I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch,” Rick yelled as he stumbled toward the room. Angrily he shook tears of pain from his eyes.
He made the doorway, only to see that, across the room, the window was already open. “Cody?”
“We’re out
here, icky Ricky. We’re having a little monkey climb.”
Robin rested his short body in the thick crotch of the tree, Cody trapped in his bulging arms.
“Cody!” Rick staggered forward.
“Daddy!”
“Come and get him, icky Ricky!” Robin taunted. “Come out and play!”
Rick made it to the window and pulled himself onto the ledge, memories of that other night so long ago flooding his mind. That night Robin had given up his life to save Rick’s.
Tonight Rick had to save his son. “Hold on, Cody. I’m coming.”
“Balls, balls, icky Ricky has balls.” Robin turned to Cody. “Your daddy was a coward, did you know that? Oh yes, we all thought he was crazy. Crazy, crazy, crazy! He had no balls, no balls at all. But now he does. He thinks he does! Look at him coming out here with his sword, just to save little old you.”
Rick edged into the tree, leaving the flashlight behind. The full moon cast plenty of light, and for the first time, he saw his twin’s face.
It was like looking in a distorted mirror at a carnival. It was him, but not him, a twisted ugly vision of himself, paper white from living in the tunnels, and warped with anger and hatred. He remembered his grandfather saying that when greenjacks can’t communicate with their own kind, their frustration and loneliness overwhelm them and turn them from mischievous, selfish creatures to twisted, evil things. He’s insane, not me. A tiny thread of pity twisted through him, and was gone.
“You going to stick me with that sword, icky Ricky?” Robin sang as Rick edged closer. “If you do, I’ll drop your little baby boy right on the ground, head first, and his head will break open and all his brains will goosh out.”
Cody began to cry.
“Let him go,” Rick said softly. “He can’t see them.”
“I know that, you asshole.”
“You want my body.”
“Of course I do, and if I let your baby boy go, you’re just going to hand it over, right?”
“No. Let him go and I’ll fight you for it.”
Robin regarded him, then looked down as a windy whistling sound began below. Foliage crunched.
“He’s here, icky Ricky, he’s here.”
A skeletal hand appeared on the branch where Robin sat. A second appeared.
Rick stood paralyzed, his pain forgotten.
Big Jack’s face appeared, just as he remembered it, brown and green, with huge, leering, fathomless black pits for eyes, and vines growing out from between the bark-chip teeth.
It opened its mouth, and he heard the whistling sound again, like wind hissing. In its neck the jugular vine pulsed with life; in the torso, obscenely green growth glistened and throbbed among the white net of tiny roots.
One long leg bent, and it placed its twig-and-stick foot on the limb next to Robin. An instant later, it pulled itself up.
To Rick’s horror, Robin handed Cody to Big Jack.
“Save him, save him, icky Ricky!” Robin screeched before descending the tree, swinging down like a monkey.
Rick stepped forward, raising the sword. Big Jack hissed, sibilant, snakelike, and Cody cried, squirming in its grasp.
“Cody,” Rick called softly. “Cody, you can hurt it. It’s just leaves, son. Pull the leaves, hard.”
The boy did nothing for a moment, then suddenly yanked on one vine, then another. With a cry, he plunged both hands into the heart of the thing and began yanking with all his might.
Rick sliced the sword through the air but hit nothing, but Big Jack was fending off Cody’s attack and didn’t appear to notice. Rick sent the blade whickering through the air again, and this time it struck the heavy branch that made the monster’s thighbone.
It cracked. Big Jack wavered.
“Cody, grab the tree!” Rick ordered as he struck again.
“Piper!” Dimly he heard Dakota calling him from somewhere below. “Piper! Where the hell are you?”
The thigh snapped and Big Jack fell, taking Cody with him. The boy’s thin scream cut through Rick like a knife.
They seemed to fall forever. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dakota, still in drag, and Audrey, running across the lawn.
Big Jack caught a limb halfway down and held on. Cody clung to its torso. “Climb down,” Rick called. “Climb down its leg and you can jump from there. Go to Dakota.”
“Piper! Cody!” Dakota called.
“Here!” Rick screamed as loud as he could. “The oak tree!”
Cody had slithered almost the entire length of Big Jack’s body when Dakota appeared below. He reached up and snatched the child into his arms, then Audrey took Cody from him and retreated, moving toward the house.
Dakota remained where he was, staring upward. “Shit, Piper,” he cried. “That’s the damned Big Jack, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Rick called. “And it’s pissed.” He paused. “Dakota, be careful.”
Dakota yanked on the remaining leg, once, twice, then the creature fell. Almost instantly it was upright, balancing on one foot. “Piper, its other leg’s growing back!” Dakota backed away. “What the hell do I do now?”
“Run! Lock yourselves in the cottage! Now!”
“Piper!”
“Get my son and your sister in that cottage! Now!”
Before Dakota could move, Big Jack lurched forward, its arms out. It grabbed at O’Keefe, snagging the hem of his chiffon skirt.
“You fucker!” Dakota cried. He brought his high-heeled foot up and kicked it, but Big Jack caught his ankle, and then Dakota was down on his ass, the Green Man all over him.
“Duane!” Audrey cried from the walk near the house. She stepped forward, Cody in her arms.
“No!” Rick yelled. “Get Cody inside!”
She looked up, her face stricken.
“Go! He’ll be okay.”
Audrey didn’t move, forward or backward, and directly below, he could see flashes of Dakota’s white dress as he grappled with Big Jack. The thing was probably trying to strangle him. I have to do something now!
Painfully he climbed back into the house, then hobbled down the hall to the back stairs. There had to be a way to stop the thing. The sword would do it, if he could get there in time.
By the time he made the bottom of the stairs, his leg felt numb. He limped out the kitchen door and moved toward the workshop, expecting every moment to run into Robin, every second to hear Cody scream.
Then he saw the garage. “Don’t be locked,” he whispered as he went around to the big door to check. It wasn’t even latched, thank God, and he quickly pulled the door up. Even before it thunked against its springs, he was inside the dark building, frantically trying to see where he was going.
In a glint of moonlight, he found it. Hector’s riding lawn mower.
Its engine started on the second try, and he rode it out, past his car, toward the front lawn, the smell of fresh-cut grass clear in his nostrils.
As he rounded the bend, he saw Audrey and Cody still standing in the glow of the front porch light. Dakota was on his feet, but still struggling with Big Jack.
“O’Keefe,” Rick yelled, “get your ass out of there!” Revving the engine, he punched the gas, and the mower trundled forward. Audrey saw him and set Cody down by the steps, then ran to Dakota and grabbed at the white material floating around him. Suddenly Rick saw the cloth give, then Dakota was loose. Audrey yanked him toward the front steps, scooped up Cody, then pointed. Dakota looked, and Rick could see his grin even from here.
“Gotcha now, Jack,” he said as he aimed the machine at the creature. It turned and looked at him, then, with the combined roar of a dozen greenjacks, moved toward him.
“You’re a stupid Big Jack, aren’t you!”
The mower hit the monster in a shower of twigs and leaves, and the sound of a thousand snakes hissing rent the air as Rick watched the little jacks leaping from the mangled body. He backed up and ran over it again.
O’Keefe ran up as Rick took the engine down to an idling p
urr. “What the hell do you think you’re doing out here by yourself?”
“Don’t talk, O’Keefe. Get them in the cottage. Make sure it’s empty, then lock yourselves in, and don’t come out until I tell you.”
“What? And leave you out here?”
Audrey, carrying Cody, approached. “What’s going on?” “All of you, get in that cottage now!”
“You’re hurt,” she said.
“I’m fine. Get inside.”
“And just leave you out here?” she cried.
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Where’s Robin?” Dakota asked.
“We’re having a meeting just as soon as you three get out of here.”
“Piper, there’s no way in hell that I’m going to leave you out here by yourself,” O’Keefe declared.
Rick stared at him. “Yes, you are. This doesn’t concern you.”
Audrey kept her eyes on Rick as she handed Cody to her brother. “Duane, he has to do this by himself.”
“What? Audrey, don’t tell me you’re buying that macho shit.”
“Macho shit has nothing to do with it,” Rick said grimly.
“No—”
“Duane, do you think I want him out here by himself any more than you do?” Audrey demanded. “Do you?”
Dakota shrugged.
“I don’t. But he has to!”
“Okay.” He punched Rick’s arm. “Win one for the gipper,” he said, “whatever that is.”
“Thanks.” Quickly he kissed Cody, then Audrey, and watched as they disappeared around the corner of the house. A moment later, the pool lights came on, illuminating the blue water, highlighting Don Quixote as he sat on his horse, holding his lance.
Another figure sat just behind the knight.
“Robin,” Rick whispered, turning the machine and riding toward the pool.
Robin waved at him as he parked the mower across the pool from the statue.
“Icky Ricky, didja come out to play?” Robin called.
As Rick turned off the motor and dismounted, Robin climbed down the statue, calling, “Icky Ricky’s an artist, too, whoop-de-do.”
He showed off, turning upside down and walking toward Rick in a handstand, his hands slap-slapping against the white pavement. Rick stood there, leaning on the sword, waiting. The church bells struck midnight.
Bad Things Page 39