Dee-Anne was standing two feet away from the place where Wayne fell. In the booth next to her, Eric Wilde had been giving her his order. Eric was the thirty-three years old man that wore a cheap suit that made him look like a used car salesman. He was still holding his menu when Dee-Anne dropped the glass of water that was in her hand. The glass exploded on the floor. Instead of running or screaming or begging for her life, Dee-Anne looked at the floor where the glass had fallen. And before she had time to look up, Stephenie plunked the axe blade into her chest, chopping her nametag in two and puncturing her heart.
At the same moment that Dee-Anne was struck, David Gayle jumped up from his booth; luck was not on his side. He slipped in a splotch of blood. It wasn’t surprising. At this point, there was blood all over the place. It was pouring out of Craig, Karen, Wayne, Dee-Anne and Denise. And the ceiling fan made sure that everyone enjoyed a little taste, if nothing more.
As David fell, and Dee-Anne was being chopped with the axe, and Denise was crawling towards the door on her hands and knees, and Karen was holding the place where her jaw had once been, and Jennifer was lifting her severed arm off the floor, and Craig was breathing his final breaths, slumped against the counter with his chest split wide open, Lee Courtney, who had been sitting there with his good pal David, screamed, “OH MY GOD DAVID! DON’T GO OUT THERE!”
Well, if Stephenie didn’t know who the next victim was going to be, she did now.
Dee-Anne, who was one minute away from being dead, finally had her knees buckle and she dropped.
Stephenie raised the axe again.
After falling, David landed on his chest. Then he shoved himself away from the floor like he was doing an army push-up.
Stephenie slammed the axe into David’s back, shattering his spine.
Lee, still in the booth, watched the blade sink into his buddy. He watched it get raised above Stephenie’s head; then he realized that he was next. But what was he going to do? He was still in the booth. He hadn’t even started to move his ass yet. He, like everyone else, was in shock. And people who are in shock aren’t the world’s fastest thinkers.
Moving out of the booth would mean that he had to go towards Stephenie. The other side of the booth had a wall, and he sure as shit didn’t have time to jump the wall. He only had time to move towards Stephenie and glance at the people in the booth beside him, the Mezzo family: Angela, Alan, and Mark. Then the blade came down. Not once, not twice, but three times. For reasons unknown, Stephenie decided to give this poor chump named Lee three chops while everyone else only received one.
Now there were bodies and blood all over the place. And this was, what––twelve seconds, maybe thirteen seconds after Stephenie walked though the front door? It was only now that people were thinking defensively. Now, with nine different people either dead or dying, the wheels started rolling.
Julie Brooks, the third and final waitress, was standing near the back on the restaurant talking with Gary Wright. Gary was the only cook that decided to show up for his shift. He had been explaining to Julie that he had to get going home; he had a scheduled appointment he told them about weeks before. He was saying they should have been prepared; it wasn’t his problem; don’t fuck with me. Julie was getting her bitch on. She was saying he couldn’t leave; they had nobody to cover for him; he’ll be fired if he left them like this. Then the shit hit the fan and the blood started spilling. Julie and Gary found themselves holding each other like lovers. They watched in horror and screamed with their arms wrapped around each other’s body. At some point Gary pushed Julie’s face against his chest and Julie allowed it to happen. Then he pushed her against the wall. That was his defense: stand against the wall. If Julie hadn’t been screaming so loudly she might have fired him for having such a worthless plan.
The Mezzo family was thinking a bit more clearly but they were in a worse position. They were sitting in the booth next to David and Lee, enjoying a real front row ticket to the horror show as it played out. And they were next in line. Of course they were. Stephenie was right there, chopping Lee into bits. The only way they wouldn’t be next in line, would be if Stephenie turned around again. And she might. There was still a chance it could happen. Eric was right behind her, curled inside his booth like a human cannonball.
David Mezzo, trying to save his family, jumped up from his booth, stood directly in front of Stephenie with his hands in the air and screamed, “Run, Mark! Run!”
Angela Mezzo, still holding the coffee mug with the happy face on it, watched her husband jump up from the booth in awe. She was about to shout something, maybe a DON’T GO OUT THERE, or a STAY WITH ME, but then David barked his order, Mark complied, and she thought she might faint.
Little Mark, looking like the kid in the Omen movie, was having quite a day. He went to a funeral for the first time in his whole entire life. An uncle he had never met, passed away. Everyone was sad, except him. He pretended he was sad but mostly he was excited. He had never been to a funeral before and he wanted to know what the fuss was about. The funeral was boring. On a scale from one to ten he gave it a zero. He couldn’t understand why his parents wanted to go in the first place. After the funeral was over he went to something called a wake, where old people told him how special he was with tears in their eyes. Being called special was all right, and there were a couple of other kids to play with. So the wake, in his opinion, wasn’t too bad. But he was in no hurry to go to the next one. Once the wake was finished Mark found a twenty-dollar bill lying on the sidewalk next to something that might have been a dead bird. His mommy and daddy told he could keep the twenty. A few minutes later they went for ice cream and he ordered chocolate mixed with something called tiger’s tail. He paid using his newly found money, feeling like a grown up. The ice cream was delicious. After the ice cream was gone they drove for two hours. He had a little snooze. Now he was at King’s Diner with a pocket full of cash, watching something he couldn’t wrap his head around. And when he heard his daddy shout, “Run Mark! Run!” he did just that. He jumped up from the booth a made a B-line for the bathroom.
Stephenie raised the axe and slammed it into David Mezzo’s face. David, who had his hands up like he was expecting someone to pass him a football, didn’t even move. He just took it. Hard.
Angela Mezzo released her first scream, her only scream.
Then Stephenie was standing next to her, chopping her apart.
Bones broke and blood spilled.
Stephenie spun around, red gore flowing from the blade. There were three people in the restaurant’s main section that Stephenie hadn’t gotten to yet. There was Eric, who was still curled up like a cannonball in his booth, and there was Julie and Gary, standing near the bathrooms, holding each other like lovers.
Stephenie made a quick assessment and decided Eric wasn’t going anywhere, so she marched past him and headed towards the lovers with the axe held high.
3
Gary Wright was an above average cook and a below average crisis manager. When he saw Stephenie coming at him with a blood-drenched axe he tried to do something. But if his actions could be analyzed a million times in slow motion, what that something actually was, would be a hard thing to determine. Gary seemed to push Julie away from Stephenie, while trying to pull her closer to him, while turning himself around, while attempting to run, and scream, and hold his position, while he ducked away from the blade.
Julie, with her head planted in Gary’s chest, didn’t know what was happening. All she managed to do was get dragged around a bit and tilt her head to one side.
Then Stephenie brought the axe blade down.
The blade was intended for Gary, but that’s not where it landed. It landed just above Julie’s left eye, causing some of the bones in her neck to break while splitting her skull wide open. Julie, without a doubt, would have fallen to the floor if Gary hadn’t been holding her. What happened next was in many ways, just a simple continuation of Gary’s hopelessly inept line of defense. He pushed on Julie a
nd pulled on Julie and his legs boogied beneath him like he wasn’t sure which way to run. And as he danced around in a circle, his partner’s blood poured from her skull, onto his chest, arms and legs. Blood poured down her face and fell to the floor. And when Stephenie swung the axe a second time she actually missed her target completely for the first and last time of the day.
Gary ducked low and pushed Julie in a way that started her feet running. And although she was about to die, running is exactly what she did. Julie ran towards the front door, which at that particular moment was open. Why was it open? Because Karen Peel––still holding the place her jaw should have been––was making her way outside.
Karen had plans. She was going to jump into her car and go. And that’s what she did, sort of. She made her way outside and headed for the car. But on the way there her vision started to fade. The blood loss was catching up with her. She tumbled towards the big yellow school bus not knowing where she was. She fell against the bus face first, smearing her blood where it fell. With the last of her strength she forced herself into a sitting position. Then she died, propped against big yeller with her hands at her sides.
Julie didn’t have plans. She had instincts, which directed her in a similar way. Her instincts said, ‘Get away from the restaurant any way you can.’ So with blood pouring from her skull and some of the bones in her neck broken, she ran to Stephenie’s car, threw the driver’s door open and plunked herself inside. Five seconds later she died with her face resting against the steering wheel.
But before all that had happened, back in the moment when Julie had started running, Stephenie was missing her mark for the first time. Why? Because Gary the cook had dropped to the floor like a coward; it was his first good move.
And his last––
Stephenie booted Gary in the ass.
Gary screamed and tumbled into a slightly different position. Then Stephenie brought the axe down on left leg. Skin tore. Meat was severed. A bone snapped. Gary screamed and the blade went up. When it came down again it caught Gary on the right leg.
Stephenie looked over her shoulder.
Eric Wilde was still in the booth, curled up like a cannonball. His eyes were peeking above his knees but there was nothing in those eyes that suggested that he was preparing to make a move.
Stephenie hacked on Gary’s legs six more times. When she was finished both of his legs had been amputated.
Stephenie walked towards Eric, panting and sweating, dragging the axe along the floor. She could hear crying and moaning but no one was screaming. Not now. The screaming had ended.
Standing at Eric’s booth, with Dee-Anne bleeding between her feet, she said, “You’re the last one here. You ready?”
Eric shivered and said, “No.”
“Good enough.”
Stephenie slammed the axe into him a few times and that was the end of his story.
There was a slight pause; then Stephenie looked at the bathroom doors. Knowing from previous experience that the woman’s bathroom was empty, she walked towards the men’s bathroom and kicked open the door.
Mark was hiding beneath the sink, in a place that impossible for Stephenie not to notice.
“Here we go, kid,” she said, and she chopped him four times quickly.
She pushed open a stall door. Empty.
She tried to push open the next one and found that it was locked. With a swift kick the door blasted open and there was Dan Meltzer.
Dan was sitting on the toilet with his pants around his ankles.
He said, “What are you doing? This doesn’t have anything to do with me! I don’t even know you!”
Stephenie decided to mix it up. She flipped the axe around in her hands and pounded him with the blunt end. The mallet side of the tool was not a whole lot kinder. It mashed his face and crumpled his skull in a way that seemed like it would hurt more. When she was finished, Dan was still sitting, slumped forward with his back exposed. She chopped it once for pleasure.
Upon stepping out of the bathroom she noticed that David Gayle had somehow managed to crawl several feet with his shattered spine and lean against the wall. Not surprising, there was a framed painting above him. It was the image of a man and his two boys. All three subjects were standing by a tree on what appeared to be a beautiful summer day. The boys looked happy; the man looked proud.
Movement caught Stephenie’s eyes. She looked down, and discovered that Dee-Anne was trying to crawl into the lady’s bathroom. She gave Dee-Anne one final chop and she marched across the restaurant towards the gas station.
Once she was there she looked the gas attendant in the eyes. The man was holding a greasy rotary phone in his hand.
He said, “It is over now? Is it stopped? I’m calling the police!”
Stephenie lifted the axe, and said, “Remember me, fucker?”
The attendant whispered, “No.”
Then Stephenie hammered the blade into his face.
When she yanked it free the attendant fell. An enormous amount of blood poured out of his skull and onto the cheap linoleum tiles. His left eyeball sat on his cheek, smashed apart and looking like apple flavored Jell-O.
It was finished. That was the last of them.
Stephenie walked into the restaurant; the place was a slaughterhouse.
The customers and staff were splattered everywhere. They were slumped over in the booths and in pieces on the floor. Body parts were on the tables and chairs. The walls were soaked with blood. The carnage was nearly immeasurable.
Just like before.
And Stephenie was responsible.
She smiled; then she noticed Carrie.
Carrie had stepped out of the woman’s washroom, over Dee-Anne’s corpse, and was standing in the heart of the restaurant. Her face looked tremendously frightened.
Stephenie wondered if it was the real Carrie, but she didn’t wonder long.
Carrie said, “Mommy, what are you doing?”
And all at once Stephenie realized something awful: she didn’t know what she was doing. She didn’t have a clue.
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Return to the Station
1
Officer Lynch didn’t speak. Officer Quill didn’t speak either. The two men just sat there, quietly thinking about all the things she had said.
After a few minutes Stephenie said, “And that’s it. The attendant had already called 911. Ten minutes later the cops showed up. End of story.” More time passed. Then Stephenie said, “Oh God. I’m so glad I’m back. I didn’t want to stay there forever.”
Quill cleared his throat. Nervously, he said, “And what did Carrie do?”
“When?”
“Between the time that you, uh… killed… all those people.”
Stephenie didn’t say anything for a moment. She was considering his words. It seemed that even in her version of the story she was guilty of murder. She hadn’t realized that until just now. When she was ready, she said, “To be honest, I turned around and walked out the front door. I sat on the patio swing with the axe at my side. I stayed there until the cuffs were around my wrists. Carrie didn’t come near me. Maybe she was afraid.”
Officer Lynch was sitting at the table with Stephenie and Quill. He had been quiet for a long time. The anger and fury that had been swirling around inside his mind when the interview began was gone. He seemed thoughtful now; in some ways he seemed like a different person. With a voice that sounded almost kind, he said, “I’m sorry.”
Officer Quill looked at him curiously.
Stephenie said, “Pardon.”
“I said, ‘I’m sorry.’ Lady, don’t go off the handle when I say this but… you need help. Something’s not right inside your head.”
Stephenie looked Lynch in the eye. “Is that what it is? Am I just crazy? Is it that simple?”
“In my opinion, yes. I think it’s just that simple. Before I thought you were, oh, you know… pretending, I guess.”
“But you don’t think that now?”
“No.”
“Do you think it’s possible that these things really happened to me?”
“No.”
An expression filtered across Stephenie’s face. She almost looked insulted. She said, “Why not? I’m not lying to you, you know.”
“That’s just it,” Lynch said. “I don’t think you’re lying. I think you believe every word you’ve said. That’s why you need help, Miss Paige. You need someone to help you see clearly.”
“You believe me because I’m telling you the truth.”
Lynch took a moment. He didn’t want a yelling match, not at all. Everything was controlled now, everything respectful. He wanted to keep it that way if it was at all possible. He said, “Miss Paige, it’s my belief that you think… the key word is think…that these things happened to you. But these things couldn’t have happened.”
“Why not?”
Lynch sat back in his chair. He thought, Where do I begin?
Quill said, “Miss Paige, while you were telling us your story we’ve been given a bit of information. Did you notice an officer handing me a folder?” He lifted a few scattered sheets of his desk.
“No,” Stephenie said. “I was lost in the story.”
Quill nodded. “That’s fine. In fact, that’s what I thought. Nevertheless, I was given some information. Would you like to hear it?”
“Okay.”
Quill pulled his chair a little closer to the table. He said, “The house across the street. That house has been boarded up for a long time. You said that you went in there, but walking through the front door is impossible. There are planks of wood across all of the doors and windows.”
“There can’t be.”
“But there is Stephenie. There is. And if you weren’t arrested right now, I’d love to show them to you. Next up, the farmhouse.”
“Is it boarded too?”
Into Hell Page 26