Yes, I know that. I also know that Kelly wants me alive. I know better than anyone that it’s all a fucking game. She doesn’t want to kill me—not straight out anyway. Ironically, that gives me time.
(Time for what, exactly?)
I don’t know. But I am going to kill the little cunt somehow. I know that much.
Amy tucked the gun back into her waist and pocketed her phone. She went to the front door, opened it, and her phone rang again. She brought all of her efforts (and thus, all of her attention) on digging her phone back out of her pocket—
(It was 911 calling back; they’d traced her cell number)
(It was Domino calling; he was not dead, not dead, not dead)
—that she did not see the small blue arc of light that touched her neck and crumpled her into a daze. And she certainly did not see the follow-up blow to the back of her head that knocked her out completely.
***
Amy woke, chin on her chest, groggy, head throbbing. She slowly lifted her chin and opened her eyes. Before her stood Kelly Blaine and Jennifer. Amy immediately went to lunge for them but got nowhere. A quick inspection revealed she was duct-taped to a chair.
Jennifer laughed at her feeble attempt.
Amy spit in her direction.
“Amy…” a male voice said to her left.
Amy looked left. It was Allan. Heavily taped to a chair just as she was. Next to Allan were Jon and Karen Rogers. They too were in the same bind.
Kelly clapped both hands together once. “Okay! We’re finally all here. Let’s let the healing begin.”
Chapter 40
The microwave beeped, and Irene Flannigan retrieved the bag of instant popcorn. She pulled at the corners to open the bag, and steam instantly burned her fingertips. She yelped and dropped the bag on the counter, promptly swatting at it seconds after as though it were a living thing that had nipped her.
“Every bloody time,” she muttered, now running her fingers under the faucet.
Caleb appeared in the kitchen after hearing her yelp from the den.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Just your screwy neighbor doing the same thing she does every time she makes popcorn, love—burning her fingers.”
“You okay?”
Fingers still under the faucet, she smiled over at Caleb with genuine affection. Such a caring boy. She’d met few like him in her seventy years. “I think I’ll live, sweetheart.”
Caleb smiled and returned to the den with his sister.
The doorbell rang.
“Want me to get it?” Carrie called from the den.
Irene turned off the faucet and started wiping her fingers on a towel as she said: “No—you two stay put.”
Irene opened the front door. A second door, a screen door, stood between her and every visitor to her home. She never opened the screen door for strangers, and the man standing under the porch light of her front step now was a stranger.
He was a young man. Tall and skinny and pale with thinning blond hair. He did not, according to Irene, look well.
The man smiled at Irene, and the effort appeared both disingenuous and painful, as if aggravating sore muscles in his face.
“Hi,” the young man said.
“Hello yourself,” Irene said. Her expression was stern. Not buying whatever you’re selling, it said.
“I’m a friend of Amy Lambert’s. Her meeting is running late, and she wanted to talk to her kids and tell them herself, you know? Tell them she was gonna be late?”
Irene frowned. “So why didn’t she just call then?”
The young man started scratching the side of his neck. “Well, she’s been trying to, but she hasn’t been able to get through. We figured something was wrong with your phone, so I told her I’d come over, and we could use my phone, you know? She could talk to them with my phone.”
The furrows in Irene’s frown etched deeper. “Amy said she tried but couldn’t get through?”
“Yeah. Are the kids here?”
“What did you say your name was?” Irene asked.
The young man scratched his neck again. “I’m a friend of Amy Lambert’s.”
Carrie appeared at Irene’s side. Irene turned to her. “Carrie, go back in the den.”
“What’s the password?” Carrie asked the man.
“The what?”
“The password. My mother wouldn’t have sent you without giving you the password,” Carrie said.
The man stopped scratching his neck and now ran a firm hand through his thinning hair. “Oh, she must have forgot to tell me. She had a real sad meeting, you know? She was real sad, so she must have forgot. But it’s okay, it’s okay.”
Carrie spun towards Irene. “Call the police!”
The man punched through the screen.
Carrie screamed.
The man reached through the hole he’d made with his fist and went to unlock the screen door.
“Bastard!” Irene yelled and sunk her teeth into his hand.
The man cried out and punched through the screen with his other hand. He grabbed ahold of Irene’s hair and began slamming her head into the wooden doorframe. A final slam and Irene dropped to the ground.
The man reached through the screen door again, unlocked it, and ripped it open, the thin metal frame hitting the outside wall with a reverberating clang. He stepped inside, slammed the main door behind him, and caught sight of the two kids scurrying upstairs.
He immediately started after them, but Irene had come to at his feet. She latched onto his leg and sunk her teeth into his calf. The young man howled in pain and tried shaking her off. He resorted to stomping at her with his free leg. The third stomp knocked her out cold.
“Fucking biting bitch!” He kicked her unconscious body once in the stomach, pulled his knife, and took off upstairs after the kids.
Chapter 41
If Amy’s physical strength had equaled that of her rage, she could have torn through the layers of duct tape binding her to the chair. Literally ripping Kelly and Jennifer to pieces soon after was a given. And enjoying the hell out of it all the while fell into the category of the bleedin’ obvious.
“You look upset, Amy,” Kelly said to her. She lit a cigarette with her black Zippo and drew on it.
Amy fought with the only weapon at her disposal. She shook her head and offered up a sympathetic little smile. “You know, for a fleeting moment, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, Kelly,” she said.
Kelly tilted her head, curious. “What do you mean?”
“Well, at first I worried you would try to one up Monica—I know that’s what this is all about—but then I figured the better player wouldn’t even bother. The better player wouldn’t have to prove anything; she’d know she was better, and she’d be content with that. How wrong I was.”
Kelly dragged hard on her cigarette. “I do know I’m the better player.”
Amy snorted. “Clearly, you don’t. I mean, look at you. Christ, you could be Monica’s little sister with all your bullshit you need to prove. You even smoke like her.”
Kelly stepped forward and stubbed her cigarette out on Amy’s cheek.
Amy grimaced but refused to cry out.
Kelly stepped back with a satisfied look and flicked the dead butt at her. “Anything else you want to add?”
Steadying her breath against the searing pain, Amy calmly managed: “Monica wouldn’t have lost her cool so easily.”
“Stop antagonizing her!” Karen yelled.
“Shut the fuck up, Karen,” Amy said. “What, you think she’s going to let you go if you behave?”
Karen looked away.
Kelly slowly took her eyes off Amy and strolled toward Karen. “You know, as much as it pains me to admit it, Amy is correct. I simply can’t let you leave here alive. I’m sorry.”
Jon, pale and weak due to blood loss from his hacked ankle, croaked out: “Why are you doing this to us?”
Kelly spun toward Jennifer.
Jennifer grinned and clapped.
Kelly looked equally enthused. “And there it is,” she said. “It’s like I said: ‘What do you want?’ and ‘why are you doing this?’ are practically guaranteed.”
Jennifer nodded, still grinning.
Kelly sidled up to Jon and ran a hand through his sweaty hair. Even gingerly swept his bangs to one side with two fingers to improve his disheveled appearance. He was too weak to resist.
“How about this, Jon?” Kelly said, still fixing his hair. “How about asking ‘why not you?’ instead? I mean really—why not you?” Kelly chuckled and shook her head. “You know, sometimes I think the cruelest trick God ever pulled was giving people the free will to think they mattered.”
Now Amy chuckled.
Kelly looked over at her. “Something funny, Amy?”
“Kinda, yeah. Now I’m the one who’s pained to agree with you.”
Kelly gave an amused little bump of the eyebrows. “How so?”
“Earlier I was lecturing them about how foolish it was to think that life was fair. That there was no cosmic balance in the universe that made you exempt from further tragedy just because you’d already endured it.”
Kelly left Jon and stood before Amy. “Really? Maybe we’re not so different, you and I.”
Monica’s dying words to Amy surfaced instantly, stinging like a slap: Maybe we’re not so different after all…
Amy tasted bile. “Fuck you, you little cunt. Just get on with whatever bullshit you have planned.”
“Amy…” Allan said.
Amy turned her head toward him. “What? What, Allan? Are you gonna tell me you’re starting to think like Jon and Karen over there? That life is fair?”
“No, I’m not. I’m not at all. I just…I guess I just don’t see the need to expedite things, for Christ’s sake.”
“Oh, I see,” Amy said. “You prefer to drag it out, do you? You’re enjoying this that much?”
Jennifer laughed. “I kinda like her,” she said to Kelly, gesturing to Amy.
“Fuck yourself, junkie whore,” Amy said.
Jennifer appeared momentarily rattled.
“What, you’re shocked I figured it out?” Amy said. “Christ, you’re a poster child.”
Now it was Kelly who laughed. Jennifer frowned her way, and Kelly waved an apologetic hand.
“It’s funny you mention dragging things out, Amy,” Kelly said. “I’ve arranged a little something especially for you, but I’m going to need your full cooperation in order to make it work.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Well, then I’m going to have to call Tim—you’ll notice he’s not here—and tell him to kill Irene, Carrie, and Caleb, and then bring their bodies back here for you to identify.”
Chapter 42
Carrie and Caleb rushed into the first bedroom with an open door. Carrie shut and locked the door behind them and ran to the bedroom window.
“What are you doing?” Caleb asked in a loud whisper.
“We’ll go out the window,” Carrie whispered back.
Caleb joined his sister at her side. Looked out the window. “It’s like a million feet!”
“Where the hell are you, you little shits?” a voice echoed from the hallway. “If you come out now, I promise I won’t hurt you…”
“We need a phone,” Carrie whispered.
Brother and sister searched the room. It was a guest room with little else but a bed and accompanying furniture. No phone.
“Wait, look here,” Carrie said. She was squatting by the base of the bed, pointing to a lonely phone jack.
They immediately checked the closet in hopes of finding a phone they could plug into the jack. Oddly enough, the only thing the closet contained was a generous supply of Boston Red Sox memorabilia. Irene Flannigan had kept no secret about her love for the team, having first settled down in Boston for a number of years after leaving Ireland before relocating to Pennsylvania. There were Red Sox pennants, shirts, hats, balls, a couple of bats, and then—saints be praised! as Irene might say—an official Boston Red Sox telephone, cheap and plastic and seemingly decades old, but a phone all the same.
Caleb snatched the phone and handed it over to his sister. They ran it back to the wall jack.
“We’ve got your mom, you know!” the voice boomed from the hallway.
Carrie and Caleb instantly locked eyes.
“If you come out now, I’ll tell them not to hurt her...”
Carrie started to cry. She put a hand over her mouth to stem the noise. Tears ran down her cheeks.
“He’s lying,” Caleb whispered. “He’s just trying to find us. Hurry up and plug in the phone.”
“What if he’s not lying?”
“Plug in the phone, Carrie!”
Carrie unwrapped the cord that encircled the plastic phone and plugged it into the wall. Brought the receiver to her ear.
Caleb didn’t need to ask. The deflated look on his sister’s face told him. Her tears had started up again too, rolling down her cheeks and onto her shirt.
Caleb snatched the phone from his sister anyway, brought it to his ear and began tapping the small plastic switch hook over and over again like they did in the old movies he watched. It was indeed dead. Maybe had never worked.
“That Irish bitch downstairs is still alive, you little shits… If you don’t come out, I’ll kill her right here and now, I swear to God!”
Carrie and Caleb fixed on each other again. The panic in their eyes vibrated.
Carrie wiped away her tears. “What are we gonna do?”
Caleb looked at the closet again. Then the bed. Then the bedroom door. He started to take off his shoes.
“What are you doing?”
“Take off your shoes,” he said.
Chapter 43
Blown the plan. He’d blown the fucking plan.
It was supposed to be simple. Tell the old Irish lady that Amy was running late and she wanted to call and say goodnight. And here, use good old Tim’s phone, because we tried calling your phone, old Irish lady, and we couldn’t get through. The old Irish lady would then no doubt check her phone, Tim would hit the cell jammer in his pocket, and voila! No signal. Then, let’s check good old Tim’s phone, turn off the cell jammer in his pocket, and would you look at that! His phone works. Why don’t we just use that one, yeah? We’ll sort yours out in the morning, old Irish lady. Besides, Mommy wants to say goodnight before it gets too late.
Simple.
And if there was any funny business during any of this? Well, Tim was to take care of it. It was the only reason Kelly sent him in the first place. Otherwise, they could have easily called from Allan’s house and avoided all this legwork.
Problem was, if they did that, then they risked Amy suddenly blurting out during her goodnights that they should call the police or run and get help or who knows what. Such a thing would ruin the final stages of Kelly’s plan (though she hadn’t completely explained to him what those final stages were just yet), and there would be no one there to contain the mess.
Yup, that’s why she’d sent him. To make sure it ran smoothly and that there was no funny business—but, if there was, to contain the mess.
Simple.
Except there was funny business. Lots of it. Now he needed to contain the mess.
How, though? Call Kelly, tell her what happened, and ask what she thought was the best way to contain it? Probably. Except he feared his failure to carry out the plan would result in her holding out on him. And he was sick. Incessant cold sweats like some malevolent flu. He needed a fix so badly, perhaps as bad as he ever had. It would be so easy if Kelly had just ordered the old Irish lady and the kids dead in the first place. The old Irish lady was out cold downstairs, so she would be a piece of cake. And he was going to find the kids eventually. The cell jammer was on so even if the kids had a cell, it was useless. And as for the landline, he’d taken the phone off the hook in what he assumed was the old Irish lady’s bedroom. S
o no way were the little shits calling for help in any way whatsoever. He just needed to find them.
And then what?
Contain the mess.
How? He couldn’t think. His craving for dope consumed his every thought, made it impossible to improvise.
He needed to call her. Call her and hope she had a plan B and that she wouldn’t be too angry and that she would still give him all the dope she promised him because he was pretty sure he’d never felt this sick before and he needed it bad and he was so sorry and it would be so fucking easy if she would just let him kill the fucking kids and the old Irish lady so he could get back to Kelly quickly and get what was his and do up and feel better and—
A slight bang from the room down the hall froze his rambling mind and spun him on the spot. Knife leading the way, he hurried toward the room down the hall.
He tried the knob. It was locked. He brought his mouth to the door. “I know you’re in there, you little shits. This is your last chance to come out while I’m still in a good mood.”
No response.
“Have it your way, then…I’m gonna kill your fucking mother and make you watch.”
Tim took a step back and kicked the door with everything he had, the wood edging by the knob cracking and giving, the door flying open with a bang.
He grinned with success. Grinned wider when he saw two pairs of shoes sticking out from beneath the bed.
“Gee…” he sang. “I wonder where they could be hid—”
Eyes on the shoes under the bed, Tim did not see the Boston Red Sox bat fly out from behind the wall and blast him smack between the eyes. The surprise of the blow magnified the impact tenfold—the equivalent of one hell of a sucker punch. Tim dropped instantly, asleep.
“Carrie, come on out,” Caleb said, panting, Red Sox bat in both hands. “It’s okay, come on out.”
Carrie emerged from the closet and instantly looked down at the unconscious Tim in the doorway. “Is he dead?”
Bad Games: Malevolent Page 15