by Jason Davis
He walked to the back door and eased through the slight gap, stepping into the bright morning light. The sun was already growing warm. He didn't think it would be a hot day, but it would be warm enough to break a sweat. Especially if he could start his fun time. He smiled to himself.
Now that he was out of the house, he was already moving faster, quickly making his way across the dead grass and around to the front. He wanted to get to her before she had the chance to leave or disappear on him again. No. She wasn’t going to be doing any more of that shit.
He stopped when he reached the street. Looking one way, he saw the little girl just sitting there on her bike. His heart started racing. She was looking back toward him, but he couldn’t tell if she saw him. She looked like she was just staring back toward the house, but if she turned slightly, he would be right in her view.
He decided to just stand there, being as still as he could. He tried to control his breathing, but it was hard as his heart was pounding in his chest. He had to fight to keep himself from breathing too rapidly. It wasn’t as though she could hear him, but he wanted to keep himself from getting too excited. If he did, he might do something stupid. So he just stood there, watching her.
He shifted his eyes to look back at her house. The large picture window was nearly directly across the street from him. He loved watching it from the safety of the shadows across the street, but now that he was exposed, standing in the bright morning sun, he could easily be seen. All it would take would be for the little bitch to enter that front room and see him, then all his plans would be for shit.
She’d call the police, then he would be screwed before he got to have any of his fun, before he got the chance to get her back for the shit she did to him. What the hell was he going to do if the girl noticed him or if she decided to come back?
He was too afraid to turn his head, but he tried to take notice of what he could of his surroundings out of the corner of his eye. He stood in front of the rundown house. Thankfully, instead of having too many other houses around, there was a small patch of woods that isolated them from the rest of the town. That was one thing he had liked about his plan from the beginning. He didn’t have to worry about too many witnesses. However, he now noticed another great aspect. He wasn’t too far from the trees.
In fact, that might be why the girl didn’t really notice him. She may have just mistaken him for a part of the tree line. He was close enough to it. If she started to ride back to the house, he may even be able to duck into them in time to avoid being seen.
He chanced a small step back toward the trees, just inching very slightly, when he saw the girl move. He stopped in his tracks, his whole body growing rigid. His breath caught as he watched her. She turned and pedaled away from him.
His smile returned as he felt the pounding in his chest slowing, the tightness that had started to suffocate him loosening, his muscles unclenching. He hadn’t realized just how tense he had gotten. The girl disappeared down a small bike path, and he watched for a few moments before turning back to the house. The bitch was now all alone. Finally.
Chapter 10
When Billy first started sorting the shelves, he had a problem. What was he going to do with his surprise? He couldn’t keep it tucked away in the small of his back forever, and with him bending over, it was going to be seen. Sure, he was going to be in the back of the building by himself for most of the day, but people still came back there. He was next to the bailer, the large, menacing green machine that compressed and broke down the cardboard. People would be coming back there to use it.
So, where should he put it? He pondered the question until he just decided to do something obvious. He was going to leave it in plain sight…sort of. He would place it on top of a shelf. Of course, it was the top shelf over twenty feet off the floor, and he was going to be using the only ladder to get up there and back.
It was going to be risky, but there weren’t too many other places. He had momentarily thought of putting it in the bailer. It was nearly full, so he could have put it under a couple boxes, or in one of the smaller ones. However, he could think of several different problems with that plan. Besides it possibly falling to the bottom, there was also the chance of it getting crushed and firing. There was just too much that could go wrong.
He had thought about putting it in one of the empty file cabinets. Underneath the shelving storage area, there was a long row of file cabinets in boxes ready to be sold. When one was sold, a salesperson would go back there and grab the actual product. He could easily stash his surprise in any of those boxes.
That would be one of the best solutions. No one would ever open any of them, even if they were sold. That was just it, though. If a customer bought one, someone would be coming back there to get it. What would he do if they took the box with the surprise in it? It wasn’t like he could stop them and try to get it out.
He would have to start his party early, and he wasn’t about to do so until Tim was there. You couldn’t have a party without the guest of honor. So, the surprise was twenty feet in the air where only he could get to it, but it still bothered the hell out of him. It gnawed at him, twisting him from the inside. He wanted it close to him. He wanted it tucked in his waistband so he could feel it. The cold steel had been so comforting touching his skin all morning, he didn’t like not having it now.
It could somehow fall, or even be seen. He didn’t know how, but he was sure it could happen. What if the vents kicked on and there was an extremely strong gust of air out of the air conditioning? The unit was only a hundred feet away. What if it somehow knocked it off? He just wasn’t comfortable not having it. Not after he had gone through the effort of bringing it there with him.
Billy grabbed two of the shelves. They were the shorter “L”-shaped ones the store put books on when they needed to stand upright. He carried them over to the pile he had started in the back corner. With a loud clank, he dropped them onto more metal. He turned to look back at the additional shelves that were stacked haphazardly around the area.
Lazy bastards.
He knew that he was one of the lazy bastards, but he didn’t feel that he was as bad as most. Sure, when he was done with a shelf after any of the various resets throughout the store, he would just set it down back there wherever it could sit without falling over. Still, it wasn’t like everyone else in the store didn’t do the same damn thing. That was the problem. So why should he do more work than everyone else?
Well, for starters, because now he had to organize it. Shelves leaned up against other shelves. People couldn’t even lift one up to put it with the others on the shelf. Come on. It wasn’t that damn hard.
Billy picked up another stack. These were the shorter, straight shelves. They were labeled thirteen inches, so he turned and looked at the ones he had already labeled. When he found them, he tossed the shelves onto the others of the same type. The metal crashed together with that heavy sound, echoing in the large receiving area.
“You okay over there?”
Billy quickly looked up to where his surprise sat. He couldn’t see it from where he stood, but that didn’t mean that whoever was on the other side of the aisle couldn’t. Looking through some of the holes in the aisle, he tried to see who it was, trying to place a face to the deep, gruff voice.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Billy called back. He really didn’t want whoever it was to come over there. He wanted to be alone, away from everyone until his time was right.
Aaron walked around the corner. Billy looked at him, then turned away, sparing a brief glance up at the shelf. Keeping his back to Aaron, he hoped he would just go away. There were a couple shelves near his feet and he grabbed them.
“Tim’s got you doing this, huh?” Aaron asked.
Damn. “Yeah,” Billy said.
He tried to talk as deadpan as he could. He hoped Aaron would get the hint and walk away. Billy had always been told that when he wanted to, he could come off as being very menacing.
He had been told that by a bodybuilder back in high school when he had once admitted that the only person who had ever scared the hell out of him had been Billy.
He had said, “There’s just something about you, something in your eyes that's plain crazy. You’re one of those insane-types that one day is just going to explode, and I don’t want to be the fuck around when that happens.”
Billy had always enjoyed those kind words. He liked the idea that there had been at least one person he had intimidated, and Billy knew why, too. Chris, the bodybuilder, had once seen Billy getting picked on by some bullies. It wasn’t an odd occurrence, as Billy had been picked on quite regularly.
What had set this one apart was that Billy had done something Chris hadn’t believed.
He had seen a large stick on the ground and grabbed it. Chris thought Billy was going to attack the three kids that had been pushing him around. Instead, Billy hit himself over the head with it, eyes open wide, egging the kids on. “Come on! Attack me!”
The kids hadn’t known how to handle it and ran off.
When Chris had walked over and asked Billy if he was all right, he had seen the look in his eyes. It was like there was madness there. No control, just insanity. It had freaked Chris out. After school months later, Chris had been working out and Billy had to stay for another detention. Billy had been trying to thank him, but Chris told Billy to stay away from him. He actually looked scared.
Billy let a smile creep into the edges of his lips as he placed the shelves down. He loved the idea that he could instill that much fear in someone, especially someone much larger than him. He liked that someone who could easily beat him down and crush him had been afraid of him.
Now if he could only get Aaron to feel the same way. However, Billy worried that Aaron wasn’t smart enough to be afraid. He was one of those people whose elevator never did go all the way up. Aaron wasn’t small, though. He was a tall, strong young man, a little younger than Billy. Billy wondered why Tim hadn’t wanted Aaron back there to sort the shelving, but then figured Aaron would have probably just thrown them all into one pile and would have been done with it.
“What do you need?” Billy asked him as coldly as he could.
“Hey, I need your help. There’s a customer out here; she’s looking at file cabinets and asking questions and I don’t know anything about them.”
“So?”
“Well, maybe you could help her.”
Billy knew his way of helping was typically to grab the tag from the file cabinet and read the answers to the customer’s questions directly from it, making a point of showing the customer where the information had been. It would often aggravate the hell out of most people, and Billy loved it. There was nothing like making an idiot feel even more stupid than they already were.
He looked back at the shelves. He didn’t really want to leave back there, but he knew that if he didn’t, he would have to answer later as to why he didn't help. Would he, though? He knew he wouldn’t. He had a surprise, and that surprise was going to keep him from answering ever again. He was done with fucking questions.
He looked at Aaron’s expectant eyes. He always walked around with such a clueless expression.
Damn it!
He looked up at the spot where his surprise waited. Damn, he hoped no one found it early. He had a fear that someone would see it, or that it would somehow fall. He knew that was impossible, but it still bothered him. Like it was a creature that could get lonely, he worried that it would try to find a new friend. Someone who would find it and use it for its purpose. Someone who would take it and leave him to be with his hatred. “
“Yeah, fine,” Billy said.
“Okay.”
Aaron turned to walk back toward the entrance. Behind him, there was a little spider that seemed like it was chasing after him. Billy watched for a second, smiling at the little thing. It was odd. He had never seen anything quite like it. Not the spider itself, as it was just another stupid spider, but how it seemed to be chasing after Aaron. He knew that couldn’t be it, though. Spiders didn’t chase after people. They were more afraid of us than we were of them. Billy watched it for another second before he walked over and slammed his foot onto it.
It was time to make another customer feel dumb. He guessed he could do it one last time. Maybe Tim would come in early, then he would get his surprise. Then he would be able to take out the damn cunt of a customer and Tim at the same time.
Billy started to follow Aaron, not noticing the trail of spiders following him.
Chapter 11
“Three hundred and sixty-two.” Jason felt a smile crease his lips and a little tingle run throughout his body as he finally figured it out. It had been right there, so simple, but morning math had never been his strong suit. He had won and fixed what he had been doing wrong. Now he could place the last of the dollar bills in one of the five piles laid out before him and be glad that the morning bookkeeping was finally over.
He had finally gotten a chance to get back into the kitchen and recount the money. Just as he had hoped, now that he was a little more awake, everything added up just fine. Which was good, since it meant he didn’t feel guilty as he slid one of the twenty-dollar bills from the deposit pile into his pocket.
Working for his mother had its privileges. He smiled to himself as he subtracted the twenty from the deposit. Then he started putting each of the bills into their own envelopes, preparing whatever deposit slips needed to be made out, and completing both sets of the books. He put one accounting book in the hidden shelf under the popcorn maker, while the show book, the one meant for auditors, got put with the rest of the paperwork.
The hard part was done for the day. Now he just had to take care of the damn people that came through the door. What was that line? “This job would be great if it wasn’t for the fucking customers.”
Damn straight, he thought to himself as he turned the dial on the safe, securing the lock, and prepared to leave the kitchen.
He had finally gotten a break from good ol’ Mr. Jones when Tony, another regular, came in. Luckily for Jason, Tony was one of the few people Mr. Jones got along with, and vice versa. The old man was a hard pill to take, so there were many customers who would walk right back out the door at the sight of him sitting at the bar.
Freedom! Jason had thought, nearly saying it out loud when he saw the other gentleman walk in. As soon as the two had struck up a conversation, something about how the unions were killing them all, Jason quickly excused himself. Not only did he have money to recount, but he had also learned never to get into talking politics while tending bar. Especially when he didn't agree with what many of the people who came into the bar had to say.
No. He was a college boy and, well… His opinions never seemed to be shared by many of the older gentlemen. His mom had told him many times that he had accidentally run off a customer or two when he got into arguing with them about some political issue or another. What he thought was just a lively debate, the old-timers always seemed to take personally.
Not that he cared much. He was hardly ever home anymore, and once he graduated from school, he didn’t really plan on ever coming back. Not that he didn’t love it here, but he just felt too isolated, too cut off from the rest of the world. He already felt like a fish out of water every time he visited. It made it hard for him when he had to explain things to his mom, his dad, or even the rest of the family.
Jason looked through the little porthole that allowed him to see into the bar. There were still only the two men talking. Jason really didn’t have a reason to be back in the kitchen anymore, and he should check to see if they needed their coffee warmed up. He just didn’t want to go back out there.
Quickly turning his frown into a smile, he walked into the bar. He figured they wouldn’t be there much longer, and at least he didn’t have to be part of the conversation. Besides, he had already thought about giving his friend, Sully, a call. He knew he would have to wake the
lazy bastard up, but he could work on him and beg him to come down to the bar and hang out with him. After all, they’d barely seen each other since Jason had gotten back into town.
Sullivan, also known as Sully, had been Jason’s best friend since childhood when Jason and his family moved just down the street from him. Even though Sully was a year older, he acted half his age.
Sully still lived in town, but now resided in a small camper on some abandoned lot he was lucky he never got kicked off of. He stole someone's electricity and internet, and only did the most minimal of work. The only real positive Jason could say about him, even though he still considered him his best friend, was that he did a podcast a couple times a week.
It was just a fun horror show he and Jason did together. In fact, it was Jason who had created the stage name for him—Sullivan, the legendary zombie hunter. It was funny because, even though Sullivan did know a lot about guns and a little about living off the land, Jason could never see Sullivan as a survivalist. Then again, what did a person call a man living in a camper off of what he could scrounge?
Jason topped off their coffee and got a mumbled “thank you” from both gentlemen. Then he headed to the phone, taking a quick glance at the clock. It was nearly ten. There was no way Sullivan would be up yet.
Too bad, he thought as he picked up the receiver. He was bored as hell, and he wasn’t going to just sit there. It was time Sullivan got up before noon for once in his life. He figured he would probably have to call Sully five or six times in quick repetition before he’d get out of bed. Still, what else was he going to do?
****
He stood behind a large bush, one that allowed him plenty of shadows to disappear into. He had crossed from the other side of the street, not caring about stealth. He had just strolled across the street and started walking up the gravel driveway. When it crunched under his shoes, he had been remotely concerned about the noise, but then he heard loud music coming from inside the house. He knew she would not hear him coming.