Tina did what he said and told him about the guy shouting something to them while Jimmy was holding her and how Jimmy had snapped. “He just went up to the guy and punched him right in the face,” she said. “I heard the sound of him hitting him and then the guy fell to the ground and Jimmy started smashing his head into he ground.”
Good God, Alan thought. Jimmy was going to get in so much trouble even if the other guy started it, especially with this happening on school grounds.
“What exactly did the other guy say?” Alan asked. “You said he mentioned Brett?”
“Yeah.” Tina looked up for a moment and then, “He said Brett had his bondage tapes at the Hood place. I think Brett is waiting for him.”
* * *
Jimmy stopped at home before heading to the Hood place, and hurried down into his room, his mother calling to him from the family room, asking what was wrong.
“Nothing,” Jimmy called back while heading out again. “I just forgot something.”
With that he got back in the car and hurried toward the Hood place, his mind focused on one thing: Brett.
* * *
“The fucker must’ve gotten lost,” Brett said while opening another can of beer. It was his eighth or ninth of the evening and he was feeling great. Ron hadn’t had as many but was probably feeling the same. The guy was a lightweight. One beer for him was like three for Brett.
“Probably passed out or something,” Ron said. “You know Matt doesn’t drink that often.”
“He just better do his job and get Jimmy over here,” Brett said. “After that he can go piss all over himself for all I care.”
Ron nodded.
Tires screeched to a halt.
“Shit, what was that?” Brett asked while struggling to stand, his hand guiding him up along the porch wall.
“No fucking clue,” Ron said. He had an easier time standing up.
The two stepped out into the yard just as Jimmy came around the corner of the Hood place. The dork was still wearing his tux.
“I see you got my message shit head,” Brett said with a smile while raising his fists. He was gonna beat the fucking shit out of him now.
Jimmy raised his right hand. “Yeah, I got the message you motherfucker. Where are my tapes?”
“Like I’m gonna - ” Brett stopped
“Fuck man, that’s a gun,” Ron said. He started to turn toward the trees.
“Don’t you fucking move,” Jimmy warned while pointing the gun at Ron. He looked back at Brett. “Where are my tapes?”
“I, they, I - ”
Jimmy fired.
Brett felt the impact before he even heard the gunshot and fell to the ground without a sound, his legs simply seeming to vanish beneath him. A scream followed.
“You shot him,” Ron said, eyes wide, mind suddenly sober.
“Yeah, and I’ll shoot you too if you don’t tell me where the tapes are.” He started to turn the gun toward Ron while saying this.
Ron bolted.
Jimmy aimed at the running figure and fired, but Ron kept running. He fired two more times as Ron disappeared into the woods, missing both times.
“Fuck,” he said as Ron disappeared into the trees. Word about this would spread quickly. He needed to hide Brett. If his luck held people would just assume Ron had had too much beer and hallucinated the entire thing.
Brett was writhing on the ground when Jimmy approached. The pain and sudden loss of bodily control was terrible. Nothing mattered. He just wanted it all to end.
Jimmy grabbed his leg and began dragging him. Brett screamed as his insides shifted. Piss ran down the other leg.
* * *
Alan heard the gunshot and nearly collided with Ron as he came running out of the woods to the sidewalk. Even though he didn’t know the guy personally, he recognized him as one of Brett’s buddies.
The guy did not stop to chat, and after avoiding the collision he kept running. What did that mean? Had Brett gone crazy with a gun?
Alan quickened his pace. Behind him Tina still struggled to keep up in clothes that weren’t meant for running, the two having easily walked away from the school during all the commotion.
If you shot him motherfucker I’m going to rip your heart out, Alan shouted to himself. Exactly how he would disarm Brett was a mystery, but he would find a way. He never even considered getting shot himself.
Alan pushed himself through the woods. In the darkness it was difficult to find his way. For a moment he worried that he had made a wrong turn, but then everything opened up.
He stepped into the yard of the Hood place. Overgrown bushes and long grass made it almost impossible to see what was going on.
He looked to the left toward the street but couldn’t see anything. Once he neared the driveway of the house, however, he could make out the back of their mother’s car on the street, half of it sticking into the road where another car could easily plow into it if the driver wasn’t paying attention.
Tina came up behind him. She was out of breath and could hardly stand on her sore feet. Between sucking in deep mouthfuls of air she asked, “Was that a gunshot?”
Alan nodded.
“Does Jimmy - ” deep breath “ - own a gun?”
“No.”
There had been several shots and then nothing but silence. What did that mean? Was it all it took, or had they been fired to get Jimmy’s attention? Perhaps Jimmy had been beating the crap out of Brett so he pulled a gun to stop him, but didn’t actually shoot him. Was Brett capable of killing someone?
“I want you to wait here,” Alan said to Tina. “Go by the car or something, but stay out of sight until I yell that it’s okay. Got it?”
“Okay.”
“Good.” Alan turned and looked at the bushes. God what am I doing? he asked himself and then pushed through them rather than just walking around them, a stick instantly swiping his cheek. The cut stung like hell, yet would be nothing compared to a bullet cutting through his insides.
His hope was that he could sneak up on Brett and Jimmy and that the two wouldn’t even know he was there, that way he could tackle Brett if he had a gun.
Alan emerged into the far side yard of the Hood place slowly and looked around.
All was quiet. There were no shouts, no cries, nothing. Only Alan knew something was going on. Jimmy and Brett had to be around somewhere.
The silence chilled him.
What had Ron been running from?
Was is so bad that he didn’t want to be a part of it, or had he fled for fear of his life?
Heart thumping, Alan rounded the corner of the house. The first thing he saw was the case of beer on the steps of the porch and cans scattered across the lawn. He then looked at the shed and saw something that didn’t make any sense - light was coming up from the ground in the center.
Alan walked closer and realized that there was a trap door leading down into some sort of cellar beneath the shed. When closed one would only see the dirt floor of the shed.
A small but steep stairway led down to another open door. Light came from within. Blood marked a path on the steps. More was pooled in a puddle on the ground, some of it smeared through the doorway as if something had been left there for a second and then dragged in.
Not something, someone.
A figure passed by the doorway causing the light to flicker.
What was Brett doing to Jimmy inside?
Alan began down the steps his mind wishing he had his own gun.
He was halfway down when there was a sudden movement in front of him and a cry of, “Oh shit.” The bullet punched through Alan’s shin before the sound of the shot even reached his ears.
“Ahhhh!” Alan cried while falling down the remaining steps, both hands going to his right leg. It felt like someone had taken a red hot sledge hammer to it.
He hit the concrete with his shoulder and rolled over onto his back. Screams shattered the night and for a moment nothing but the agony mattered.
Then
a dark figure was looming over him, gun in hand. He braced himself for a bullet to the head.
“Alan?” the figure asked.
The figure twisted which allowed the light to illuminate him. It was Jimmy. His older brother had shot him in the leg.
* * *
“Oh God!” Jimmy shouted. What have I done! “Alan, what are you doing here?”
He had been so focused on getting Brett into the fallout shelter and trying to set it up to look as if he had been the one who kidnapped the girls - all the details weren’t in place but he knew he could make it look good if given time - that he had forgotten to close the trapdoor.
“Jimmy,” Alan said. The word was swimming in pain. “You shot me!”
“I didn’t mean to,” Jimmy said.
Alan looked down at his leg.
Jimmy followed his gaze and could see bone within the hole.
Alan’s face went white.
“Here,” Jimmy said and quickly went to the shelf and got a blanket, his eyes glancing at the two girls and then at Brett who was silently convulsing on the floor, bright red blood bumbling up from his mouth and nose, all within Alan’s line of sight, but so far seeming to go unnoticed. He returned to Alan and handed him the blanket. “Press this against your leg.”
Alan did.
“Let me help you sit against the wall,” Jimmy said. He took his little brother by the shoulders and shifted him around so that he didn’t have to balance himself while holding his leg. “How’s that?”
“Better,” Alan said through clenched teeth.
“Alan!” a voice screamed.
Jimmy pointed the gun toward the door, but this time managed to hold his fire as Tina came down the steps, her tight floor length skirt making it difficult to maneuver down them, her blue heels held in her hand.
Jimmy lowered the gun before she could see it and said, “Tina, go back up.”
At the same moment her bare foot came down in the pool of blood.
“Jimmy?” she questioned while looking down at the ground, a gasp starting to build. “Oh Jesus Christ!” Her eyes saw Alan and then shifted toward Jimmy.
“Tina, it’s okay,” Jimmy said. He then watched as her eyes focused on something beyond his shoulders.
Outside police sirens began to echo.
* * *
“Jimmy?” Tina said quietly, fear running through her veins. “Is that Samantha King and Megan Reed?”
Jimmy followed her gaze and said, “Yeah.”
The two girls looked dead, their bodies just hanging there, toes able to touch the ground yet not even making an effort to support their weight.
Not far from their feet was Brett, head cocked toward them, mouth slightly open, eyes wide. He wasn’t moving. Blood stained his lower face and the floor beneath his mouth.
“Shit,” Alan said and then winced.
“Tina, can you help him hold his leg?” Jimmy asked.
Tina saw the blood soaking through the blanket that Alan was pressing against himself and said, “Did you shoot him?”
“It was an accident,” Jimmy said. He then looked at the gun. “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you.”
“Jimmy, why don’t you put down the gun,” Alan said.
Jimmy looked back at the girls again, and then down at Brett and then at the gun. Tina had no idea what was going through his head, or what was going on period, yet in that brief moment he seemed to decide something.
“I can’t,” Jimmy said to Alan and then to Tina, “Please help him hold his leg.”
Tina did as she was asked, her shoes dropping to the floor as she quickly bent down to press her palms against the bloody blanket.
Alan groaned.
“He needs a hospital,” Tina said.
“I know,” Jimmy said. He looked toward the doorway. The police sirens were louder. “They will be here soon.”
“Jimmy, what’s going on?” Tina asked.
Jimmy didn’t answer. Instead he looked at the gun and for a moment Tina thought he was going to shoot himself, but then someone appeared up by the door and shouted down, “This is Deputy Paul Widgeon with the Sheriff’s Department, is everything okay down there?”
A dark look came over Jimmy.
Alan must have seen it too and recognized what it meant because he suddenly shouted, “Jimmy, no!”
Tina followed his cry with, “Jimmy!”
Rather than listening to the two Jimmy pushed by them into the doorway, waited a second, and fired.
Tina screamed.
More shots erupted.
Jimmy dropped the gun and turned toward them. He took two steps into the shelter, a stunned pale look on his face.
A hand went to his chest where blood was starting to darken his exposed shirt. He then looked at Tina and Alan and said, “Sorry.”
Blood spurted from his lips with the word.
Silence somehow settled upon them despite the sirens above.
Jimmy took another step, but this time his foot didn’t hold his weight when it came down and he fell to his knees, eyes rolling back as his body settled into the corner between the doorway and stairs.
* * *
“Shot’s fired, officer down,” Deputy Lawrence Milberg said into the radio while kneeling next to Deputy Widgeon.
“I’m okay,” Deputy Widgeon said. His voice was incredibly weak, but that was to be expected given the impact he had sustained. “Just help me up.”
“No, stay down for a moment,” Lawrence said. Then, “Who’s down there?”
“I don’t know. They shot at me and I shot back. I don’t know if I hit them.”
Another deputy arrived on the scene and peeked down the trapdoor. “I got a body on the stairs!” he shouted.
“Help us!” a girl cried from within.
“Come out with your hands in the air,” the deputy replied, gun pointed down the stairs.
“Don’t shoot,” the girl said as she appeared in the doorway. Her eyes looked down at the body on the stairs “Please, we need help.”
“Is anyone else down there armed?”
“No!”
“Come on up.”
She looked down at the body again and then back at the deputy. “I-I . . . please, I can’t.”
“Larry, can you cover me?” the deputy asked. His name was Blake. Deputy Blake Bradley or BB as they sometimes called him.
Deputy Lawrence nodded and came over, gun drawn. “Go ahead.”
“I’m coming down,” Blake said. “Just stay right where you are.”
Paul watched as Blake disappeared down the stairs the words, “Sweet Jesus,” suddenly rising from within followed by, “We need several paramedics here now!”
Chapter Thirteen
The following newspaper clippings can be found in a scrapbook kept by Tina Thompson, most of which were cut from the Ashland Creek Weekly Chronicle:
Underground Torture Chamber
Last night, what started out as a simple but vicious fight in the parking lot outside of the Ashland Creek High School Prom quickly escalated into a police shootout at the abandoned Hood residence, one which left two local high school students, Jimmy Hawthorn and Brett Murphy, dead, and another high school student, Alan Hawthorn, wounded in the leg. Deputy Paul Widgeon, veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was shot as well, but sustained only minor injuries due to his police issue body armor that the town purchased two years earlier for all its deputies. Following the shootout, which took place around the shed on the Hood property, deputies discovered a secret underground chamber which held captive the two high school senior girls, Samantha King and Megan Reed, who had gone missing earlier in the week. One of the girls, Megan Reed, was pronounced dead at the scene, the cause of which has not yet been disclosed. Samantha King was taken to the local hospital and is listed in Critical Condition. Witnesses to the events report hearing Sheriff Reed screaming for them to ‘cut my daughter down!’ while being forcefully kept away from the scene, all while the near dead body of Samantha King w
as being loaded into the waiting ambulance. When asked about this an unnamed deputy said, “We left her body hanging there because we didn’t want to disturb the crime scene.” The investigation into who was responsible for the abduction and torture of the two girls is ongoing . . .
Jimmy Hawthorn Kidnapped Me!
Early this morning police reported that Samantha King identified the late Jimmy Hawthorn, shot and killed by Deputy Paul Widgeon, as being the one responsible for her kidnapping. Unspecified evidence found within the shelter is reported to support this claim, though no official charges have been brought. The Sheriff’s Department also will not comment on whether Jimmy Hawthorn may have acted alone or had an accomplice, or what his motive may have been . . .
Jimmy Acted Alone
The investigation by the local Sheriff’s Department, State Police, and FBI has concluded that Jimmy Hawthorn acted alone in the kidnapping, rape, torture and murder (Megan Reed) of the two girls who were discovered in a secret underground room on the abandoned property of the Hood family. Earlier claims that the late Brett Murphy was involved due to the tapes found in his bedroom, tapes his friends said were taken from Jimmy Hawthorn, have been dismissed . . .
Hawthorn Family Asked Not to Attend Funeral
The funeral of Megan Reed, which is expected to draw many mourners tomorrow afternoon, will not be attended by the Hawthorn family due to a request by the Reed family. It is also unclear at this time if Samantha King, recently released from the hospital, will be in attendance. When asked how their daughter was doing, the King family said she was ‘recovering slowly’. The events of Samantha King’s captivity have not yet been made public, and investigators refused to comment . . .
* * *
Alan had just given himself a pump from his pain medication device when there was a knock on the door followed by Tina stepping into the hospital room.
“Hi Alan,” she said.
“Hi,” Alan replied.
Tina took a seat next to his bed, her face and body looking completely worn out, which, of course, was to be expected after everything she had been through.
“How’s your leg?” she asked.
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