by Jeremy Bates
Mandy turned to flee, but her legs had become elephantine. She managed to lift one, to take an impossibly slow step. Her foot sank into the ground all the way to her knee. She glanced over her shoulder, through her stringy bangs and the falling rain, and saw the ghost floating toward her. The black hole that was its face was expanding, cannibalizing its neck, then chest, then arms and legs, consuming its entirety. Then it slipped over her, silently, painlessly, consuming her too, undoing her—
Mandy heaved awake, her breath trapped in her throat. She lay on the floor of the bus where she had fallen asleep. Rain drummed on the roof. The wind howled.
A dream, she told herself, exhaling all at once. Just a dream, a horrible, horrible dream—
Her relief wilted.
The car accident wasn’t a dream. Jeff paralyzed from the waist down wasn’t a dream. Nor was Floyd playing baseball with Austin’s head, or whatever happened to Cherry to make her scream the way she had.
Despair swelled inside Mandy, despair as cold as the bony finger of death. She fought the tears that once again threatened to burst from her eyes, because if she started crying, she wouldn’t stop, not for a long time. Instead she tried to think about something nice, but this proved impossible, like trying to look at the positive side of a funeral. She had no nice thoughts inside her right then.
In her bleakness Mandy sought refuge in her childhood memories. They were neither good nor bad. They occurred too long ago to pass judgment on. They were merely a distraction, a picture of a simpler world when all that mattered were toys and candy and the love of her parents. This was all she’d needed to be happy, day after day, year after year—until when? When had the innocence ended and the real world kicked in? Probably around the time she became interested in boys. That’s when “important” things began to matter, like the clothes she wore, or how she did her hair, or who in her grade was developing breasts first, or who was cool and who was uncool.
Nevertheless, the real world didn’t kick in until her mother’s death. Tragedy matures you, ages you, makes you wiser, and thus more cynical. At least it does when it strikes at such an early age.
All of Mandy’s priorities went out the window. Her wardrobe became a triviality, boys a nuisance, popularity—she couldn’t care less. In fact, she stopped caring about everything. She became petty, self-centered, and bitter. She was miserable, and she wanted everyone else to be miserable too.
But I changed, she told herself defiantly. I got over all that. I’m a different person now.
But was she? Was she really?
Because if she had changed, why was she still not speaking to her father? Why was she still angry at him for kicking her out of the house, out of his life—when she had known for some time now that while he had indeed kicked her out of the house, she had deserved it, and he had certainly not kicked her out of his life. It was the other way around. She had kicked him out of her life. After all, he was the one making the effort to get back in touch. He sent her a letter every month, asking her how she was doing, telling her what he was up to. She kept them all in a folder beneath her bras in her dresser drawer. But she never replied to any…because she was still that selfish little girl who after all these years still wanted someone to blame for her mother’s death, something to which no blame could be attributed.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she mumbled softly to herself, and now the tears came. They flooded her eyes and streaked her cheeks. Yet they were good tears. She had wanted to say those words for a long time, but she always told herself there would be time enough in the future, naively believing there would always be a future.
As Mandy wiped the wetness from her cheeks, the despair inside her withered into a profound loneliness, and she wanted nothing more than to see her father again, to tell him the words she had just spoken, to ask forgiveness for being a terrible daughter, for rebelling against him when she should have been mourning with him.
Mandy closed her eyes, steepled her hands together, and for the first time in memory, she began to pray.
CHAPTER 24
“You gotta be fucking kidding.”
The Thing (1982)
Beetle thought he heard knocking and opened his eyes. He was right. Someone was at the door to his motel room. Wrap, wrap, wrap. Pause. Wrap, wrap, wrap.
Shylock and his sons? he wondered groggily. Would they be stupid enough to return? Or had they called the police? Shit, the cops were the last thing he needed. They’d run his name, he’d come up AWOL. He’d be shipped back to Hunter Army Airfield where he’d face a court-marshal and likely get tossed in the brig.
Beetle sat up on the bed and swooned with lightheadedness. A dull pulse thumped inside his left temple. The Beretta, he was surprised to find, was gripped in his sweaty hand. The last thing he remembered was thumbing off the safety, pressing the barrel beneath his chin, and counting to ten. Apparently, however, he never reached ten. Or if he did, he wasn’t willing to squeeze the trigger. And despite feeling sick and shitty, like he’d just woken up the morning after the bender to end all benders, he was relieved this was the case, otherwise he wouldn’t have woken up at all.
But that’s what you want, my friend. That’s the point. Goodbye, goodnight sweet world. You’re a coward, that’s all. You don’t have the balls to do what you know needs to be done—
“Hey!” a woman’s voice called. Wrap wrap, wrapwrapwrap. “It’s me! Beetle? Are you sleeping?”
Beetle frowned. Me? Who was “me?”
The girl from next door. The tall German with the lidded eyes and the long face who was backpacking through the country to LA.
What the hell did she want?
Beetle stuffed the pistol beneath a pillow and stood, grimacing as the dull pulse in his head became a wicked pounding. For a moment his stomach turned and he thought he might be sick. The queasy sensation passed.
Breathing deeply, he unlocked and opened the door and squinted into the bright light of the hallway. The German—Gertrude? Greta?—stood two feet away from him. Her face appeared flushed, her eyes as wide and round as they’d been, now exaggerated, either in fear or excitement, and for a split second Beetle wondered if maybe the motel was on fire.
“You were sleeping,” Greta said, more statement than question. “I woke you.”
“No, yeah—sort of.” His voice sounded thick and slow in his ears. He cleared his throat.
“I thought so,” she said. “You were pretty drunk on the balcony. I would have let you sleep, but I know you would want to see this.”
Beetle waited expectantly. He was trying to remember what they’d spoken of out on the balcony and was drawing a blank.
“There are people at the church!” Greta told him in an unnecessary whisper, given they were likely the only two guests in the entire motel.
“Huh?” Beetle said.
“The church! With the upside down crosses.”
“Ah…”
“Three cars just arrived. Right now.”
Beetle frowned, struggling to make sense of the meaning and significance of this. Who would attend church at this hour, and why the hell did it matter?
Greta read the confusion on his face and said, “The legends! Remember?”
The legends. Right. What had she told him? Something about mutants…and a graveyard? Or a school bus? He shook his head.
“Satanists!” she blurted. “They’re there right now!”
Beetle almost smiled—almost.
“You don’t believe me,” Greta said. “I can see that in your eyes.”
“What time is it?”
“Two in the morning. Who visits a church at two in the morning?”
“You really think there’re a bunch of Satanists over there?” His eyes shifted to the door.
“What?” she said.
“Huh?”
“You want me to go?”
“I’m a bit tired, and I have a headache…”
“You want to go to bed?” She seemed incredulous.
&n
bsp; “I’m sure you’ll be safe,” he assured her. “Just lock your door—”
“I don’t want to hide. I want to see them—and you have to come with me.”
“To the church?” Beetle was already shaking his head “I’m not going to the church.”
“You’d let me go by myself?” She became indignant. “What if they kidnap me? What if they sacrifice me?”
“No, I don’t think you should go either. It’s late. Go to bed. In the morning you can check it out, see if they left anything behind.”
“And miss a real Satanic mass? No way! This is why I came to Helltown. Now come with me, Beetle. Please? We’re wasting time standing here. They might finish soon and leave.”
“I’m sorry, Greta. Not tonight. Maybe in the morning.”
“I have a car. We can drive there. It won’t take long.”
Her persistence was trying Beetle’s patience. He’d made up his mind; he wasn’t changing it. “I’m not going,” he told her firmly. “That’s that. Okay?”
Anger flared in Greta’s eyes, and for a moment she wasn’t uniquely attractive; she was beautiful. Then she clenched her jaw and returned to her room, slamming the door behind her.
Beetle eased his own door closed, relieved to be alone again.
He stepped into the bathroom and urinated into the toilet bowl without bothering to lift the seat, fearing the simple act of bending over might ratchet up his headache. Afterward he filled the paper cup on the counter with tap water and drank from it greedily, spilling water down his shirt. He refilled the cup and drank again, albeit more slowly. His parched throat thanked him.
Back in the room proper he sat on the end of the bed, facing the TV. A news anchor was reporting on a tsunami that had struck Japan’s eastern shoreline. Beetle’s eyes shifted to the bottle of vodka next to the TV. Roughly a third remained. He was about to fetch it when he realized the idea of drinking more booze right then made him feel more nauseous than he already was.
Then, quite abruptly, a weight settled over Beetle. Not the suicidal depression—that was still there, pressing down on his shoulders like an invisible lead cloak—but something else that made him stare stupidly at the television and fidget with his hands repeatedly.
Boredom. He was bored out of his fucking mind.
He wasn’t going to kill himself tonight. He’d already decided that. He wasn’t going to continue drinking either. Ideally he would have liked to go to sleep, but right then he felt not only wide awake but wired. If he attempted sleep he would lie there, thinking thoughts he didn’t want to think.
“Fuck it,” he grunted, getting up and snagging the motel room key.
Beetle knocked a second time on Greta’s door. When she didn’t answer he realized she wasn’t ignoring him; she had likely already left for the church. Beetle started along the hallway, noting the zigzagging line of blood that stained the carpet. He passed the clicking ice machine and took the stairs to the first floor. The reception was deserted. The old cheat was likely in bed sleeping, or at the hospital with his sons. Beetle stepped through the front doors, into the rain and wind.
While he was halfway down the steep staircase that led to the parking lot he heard the rev of a car engine. He took the steps two at a time, ignoring the knot of pain bouncing around inside his head.
At the bottom he stepped into blinding headlights. Brakes screeched. Shading his eyes, he went to the car.
Greta rolled down the driver’s window and stuck her head out, beaming. “You changed your mind!” she said.
“Yeah, but I think we should walk,” he told her. “Because if there really are Satanists at the church like you think, we’re going to need be discrete about this.”
CHAPTER 25
“Oh yes, there will be blood.”
Saw II (2005)
As Spencer drove through the gate in the split-rail fence and down the gravel driveway toward to the House in the Woods, he frowned as he passed Cleavon’s pickup truck, which was tipped over on its side like a toy that had been tossed to the broken pile. He parked the Volvo and hurried through the rain to the sagging front porch where everyone was waiting for him: Cleavon, Jesse, Earl, Floyd, and Weasel. There were also two women at Cleavon’s feet. They were hogtied and gagged and staring up at him with red, terrified eyes.
“So,” Spencer said heartily, “having some car trouble, are we, Cleave?”
“Don’t get me started,” Cleavon growled.
“I told you, it was an accident,” Earl said, holding a bloodied dish towel against his neck. “I didn’t mean to, I told you that, she was just too quick.”
“What happened to you neck, Earl?” Spencer asked.
“He almost let the tiny bitch get away, that’s what,” Cleavon said. “She sliced him with my razor, jumped in my truck, and almost got away.”
“But she didn’t,” Spencer said.
“No, she didn’t. But look at my fucking truck, Spence! I’m gonna need all new side panels, a new headlight, and a new window. And you think Earl got the money to pay for that? You think his rabbits gonna pay for that?”
“Aw, Cleave,” Earl complained. “I told ya, I told ya a hundred times, I didn’t mean it.”
Spencer held up his hand to command silence. “The truck’s not important right now. What I want to know is what exactly went on here tonight. Who would like to explain this to me from the beginning? Weasel? Cleavon tells me this is all your doing?”
Weasel Higgins had his scrawny arms folded across his chest, the beak of his cap pulled low over his forehead, as if he were trying to hide. “No it wasn’t, Mr. Pratt, I wasn’t even here when the truck crashed—”
Cleavon whacked him across the back of the head. “He’s talking about Stanford Road and all the shit that’s happened ’cause of your stupidity, stupid.”
Weasel swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down like a quickly moving elevator. “I don’t know it’s fair to say that, Mr. Pratt, to say it’s all my doing. Cleave, he’s the one who let that redhead get away.”
“She wouldn’t have gotten away,” Cleavon told him, scowling, “if you hadn’t gone messing with two cars in the first place.” He took an angry drag of the cigarette he was smoking and flicked what remained into the night.
“I’m not blaming anyone,” Spencer said calmly. “I merely want an explanation. The account you told me on the phone, Cleave, was brief, to say the least.”
“Yeah, well, okay then,” Weasel said, lifting his cap and clawing his hand through his oily hair. “Well, I was patrolling Standford Road, like we talked about last meeting. It being Halloween and all, there was gonna be some does, right? So eventually I come to these two cars parked next to Crybaby. Problem was, I drove by so fast I didn’t get a good look inside them, didn’t know there were so many people. That was the problem.” He studied the others warily, as if to see if anyone would challenge this claim.
Cleavon jumped on the opportunity. “That’s not what you told me on the phone, you lying shit. You told me—and Jess, mind you—you told us there were seven people inside ’em.”
“I did not.”
“Jess?” Cleavon said.
Jesse Gordon stood off on his own, chewing bubblegum. “Ayuh, Weasel,” he said, looking at his feet. “You said seven.”
“What the fuck?” Weasel said. “You two ganging up on me?”
“Now, now, Weasel, what’s done is done,” Spencer said, holding up his hand again. He felt like a school teacher mediating aggressive children. “There’s no point arguing about this. Now please continue.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Weasel said, shooting Cleavon a triumphant look. “What’s done is done.” He pulled at his goatee, a nervous habit of his. “Anyway, what happened? Well, what happened was, I turned the meat wagon round and high beamed the first car, the Bimmer. It high beamed me back. So it’s on, right? So I come straight at it. The driver in the Bimmer was ballsy, but I was ballsier. I kept my cool. Didn’t blink. At the last second the
Bimmer swerves and shoots off the road faster than a cat can lick its ass.”
“Were they screaming?” Earl asked earnestly. “Did you hear them screaming?”
“Naw, Earl, like I said, it happened too fast.” He swept his hands together while making a whistling noise. “Now you see ’em, now you don’t, just like that. Anyway, I knew they wasn’t going nowhere. So I burned rubber all the way home and got on the horn to call Cleave, but he was already talking to Jess, so I told ’em, I told ’em both, what happened. That’s when Cleave, that’s when he took over. So you see, Mr. Pratt, I didn’t have nothing to do with the girl getting away, that was Cleave—”
“There were four of them and only three of us,” Cleavon snapped. “Me and the boys took care of them the best we could—”
“Three,” Weasel corrected. “One was a cripple. And he was out cold. So there was only three, and two of ’em were girls—”
“I’ve had about enough of your smarting off, boy,” Cleavon said, and shoved Weasel, knocking him into Earl. He shoved him again, this time to his knees.
“Cleavon!” Spencer said. “Leave Weasel be.”
“Ehhh,” Cleavon spat next to where Weasel cowered. “The little drink of water ain’t worth it.” He took out his cigarettes and lit up a fresh one while Weasel regained his feet and moved a safe distance away from him.
“So what happened at Lonnie’s, Cleave?” Spencer asked, doing his best to appear empathetic. Lonnie Olsen had been one of Cleavon’s better friends. “How did he die?”
Cleavon shrugged, showing no emotion—if you didn’t know him better. Spencer could tell he was holding back a whole lot of hurt and anger inside. “Happened before me and Jess got there,” he said. “But looked like one of the bucks got hold of his rifle and shot him point blank in the chest.”