Stacy Durbin scowled. “Bentley! Off the table!”
The brown and orange cat purred softly, ignoring her until Stacy scooped him up and dropped him on the floor. ”Stay down! Stay down!”
Bentley lifted his face with a look of betrayal in his eyes and gave one plaintive meow. Stacy laughed.
Then she sighed and went back to drying the dishes. Mom and dad would be back tomorrow. It was just an overnight trip to visit Aunt Helga in the hospital in Springfield, but she wanted the place to be clean when they returned, and she hadn’t washed the dishes since yesterday. And the stupid dishwasher was broken.
Too bad Anyssa couldn’t come over for the night. She was working late at the store. They’d been dating for two months, but even though her parents claimed to be fine with the relationship, they still seemed uncomfortable when any of her girlfriends spent the night. To be fair, they hadn’t been wild about her sister Diane having boyfriends over either when she lived here before.
Stacy stacked the dishes on the table and wiped off the last of the knives, setting them with the rest of the silverware on a towel to dry next to the plates. Bentley was looking up at her, as if trying to decide whether to risk jumping up on the table again. She laughed and picked him up, heading for the living room.
Bentley jumped from her lap as she plopped down on the sofa, ducking under the coffee table to lick his paws. Stacy picked up the remote and started scanning Netflix, looking for a movie to watch. Schitt’s Creek? No, not in the mood to binge a sitcom. Titanic? Too depressing. Twilight? Silver Linings Playbook? Letters to Juliet? The Conjuring? No, no horror movies—
Stacy looked up. Sirens were blaring down the street. She tossed the remote on the sofa, went to the door, and flipped the lock. Bentley followed her.
Looking out, she saw flashing blue lights turn on the next street over. The sirens faded. Bentley meowed, then turned and ran up the stairs behind her to the second floor.
The air was cool on her face. Stacy liked long rains. Walking on the grass barefoot, letting the drops stream down her face, her arms, her shoulders, leaning back to taste the rain as it fell from the sky—
Something crunched in the yard, like a twig snapping. Someone there? She stepped back, one foot inside the house, bumping the coat rack next to the door, and peered through the darkness.
No. Nothing. No one. The street was empty.
Bentley wandered back downstairs as Stacy locked the door again. He followed her back to the sofa and jumped into her lap as she picked up the remote again, then bounced up and scampered toward the kitchen as Stacy went back to scrolling through movies.
Okay, Schitt’s Creek it was. Just a few episodes. She sat back as the show started. Then she felt hungry. Popcorn. And a Coke or something.
In the kitchen she found Bentley on the table again. This time she dropped him roughly on the floor. “Off. The. Table!”
Bentley glared at her and meowed, offended, then walked haughtily away.
She closed the microwave door, but stopped before pressing the popcorn button. Something flickered in the window over the sink. The garage door?
Stacy leaned forward. All she saw was shadows. She could go to the side door to turn on the lights, check the garage—
The doorbell rang.
Stacy jumped. Bentley darted through the kitchen, meowing, then huddled next to her feet, nudging her ankle with his head.
“Who the hell?” Stacy pushed Bentley away and went to the front door. Looked through the peephole. “Brett?”
Brett Martin smiled and waved. “Hi, Stacy. Long time no see.”
She unlocked the door and stepped back. “W-what are you doing here?”
One foot inside the door, Brett leaned forward, his voice low. “Didn’t you hear? Meyer’s back. Meyer Williams.”
“Who?” She blinked. “Oh, you mean—but he’s locked up, isn’t he?”
Brett shook his head.
Stacy felt nervous. What was he doing? They’d never been close friends, just roommates a long time ago. Up until the night—that night—when Meyer went crazy.
“W-what are you doing here?” she asked.
“Just wanted to warn you. You know?” He smiled.
“Okay. Thanks.” She pushed on the door.
He lifted one hand, pressed it against the door to keep it open. His other hand was behind his back.
“You know,” he said, “I always liked you.”
What the hell? “Well, that was a long time ago, Brett. I’ve got—it’s none of your business. Good night.” She pushed again, harder.
Brett shook his head. “There’s no time like right now, is there? Come on, Staey—”
“Go away, Brett.” She heard Bentley meowing behind her.
Brett sighed. “It’s too late, Stacy. It’s over. You’re the last one.”
“W-what?” She kept her hand on the door. “What are you talking—”
His other hand dangled next to his leg for a moment.
Brett was carrying a hatchet.
“It’s over, bitch,” he said as he swung at Stacy’s head.
The house was only a few blocks from Mindy Jara. A police car roared past me in the opposite direction, blue lights flashing, as I turned a corner. Down there. I parked and threw my door open.
I ran across the lawn under the cold pouring rain, my arm still stinging from the gash from Meyer’s knife. The front door of the house was wide open.
Oh hell. I forced my legs to move faster. My lungs ached as I tried not to slip and fall on my face in the wet grass.
Screams. One short, then a long one that chilled my skin more than the rain. I forgot about my shoulder and raced up to the porch to the open door.
A coat rack lay across the floor in the entryway, jackets and hats scattered wildly. A staircase faced the door, living room to the left.
I paused, listening. Just my own fevered breathing.
I took a cautious step forward, the pepper spray in my hand.
The question jumped into my mind again—would it stop him? But it was all I had.
I looked up the staircase. Blood stained one step, and the one above in. Still wet. Fresh.
Before I could force myself to take another step a cat came bounding down the stairs, yowling angrily. It leaped at me as if I was the enemy, and I batted it away. With a loud meow it fled, leaving me alone in the entryway, trying to work up my courage to go upstairs.
Still no sound. Just my ragged breathing. Then something crashed in another room. I followed the sound into the kitchen. The cat stood on the table, looking down at the shards of a broken plate scattered across the floor. He saw me, jumped down, and ran through my legs, disappearing behind me.
On a towel next to the drying rack, mixed in with the forks and spoons, I found a knife. Long and sharp. Steak knife? Whatever. I grabbed it and turned to find the stairs again.
The silence filling the house felt more menacing than screams. I took each step as quietly as I could. Near the top I peeked over the final step, holding my breath.
Nothing moved. The only light came from below me, downstairs—all I could see up here were darkness and shadows, motionless and looming over the hardwood floor.
Feet scuffled nearby. I held my breath and edged upward.
Towels and sheets were strewn over the floor from a linen closet at the top of the stairs. I bit my lip, telling myself I was crazy to be here, and crept to the top of the stairs.
The door on my left opened.
I jumped back, almost toppling back down the stairs, but it was the cat again. He’d gotten past me somehow, into a bedroom, and now he was prowling the second floor, his paws silent on the hardwood as he made his way across the hall.
He walked to a door, two inches ajar. He sniffed, then bounded back, dodging around my legs and hurtling down the stairs. What the hell—
A woman screamed. “No! No!”
Oh hell.
I took a deep breath and forced myself toward the door. Another scream. No time for nerves. My heart pounding, I shoved the door open. “Meyer!”
Inside the dark bedroom a young woman lay sprawled on the floor, kicking her feet against a tall figure with a hatchet in his hand, raised high. I could see blood on her face and a deep gash in her arm.
“Help me!” she screamed, and kicked again at Meyer’s shin.
Meyer swung the hatchet, but she rolled over with a shriek and it slammed into the floor, splintering the wood. He yanked it up, raising it for another strike at the girl, but then he paused and turned to me.
Brett Martin. Damn it. He’d killed him, after I left. Or maybe before. Did I even talk to the real Brett? It didn’t matter now. I fumbled with my left hand for the pepper spray in my pocket, clutching the steak knife with my right.
“Meyer, you don’t have to do this!” I stepped forward, my legs shaking. “Your father is worried about you! You need help! You can stop hurting people! You don’t have to—”
He lunged at me, swinging his hatchet hard and fast at my chest. I managed to blast his eyes with the pepper spray, hoping it would work better than it did at Mindy’s place.
The hatchet blade hit my wrist, slashing through the skin and digging into bone. I howled in pain and dropped the pepper spray, jumping backward.
I tripped and hit the floor hard, gasping and dazed. Get out get out get out, I told myself, but my hands and feet refused to move. I looked up at Meyer.
Brett’s face was gone. Replaced—not with a human face, but a pale, featureless mask with no lips, a flat nose, and gleaming eyes deep in his skull. Red eyes, burning with inhuman fury.
Meyer swung the hatchet at me.
I stabbed the steak knife into his leg.
Meyer roared. The hatchet missed my skull by half an inch. Maybe less. I stabbed him again, driving the knife into his hip and twisting it as blood spurted through his jeans.
He slammed the flat end of the hatchet at my head, knocking me against the wall, but I managed to keep my fingers curled around the handle of my knife as he kicked me in the crotch. Pain surged up through my body like an electric shock, but I managed to stab him again, this time in his foot, pushing the sharp point of the knife as deep as I could through his sneakers. Maybe I could pin him to the floor.
Meyer lifted the hatchet again.
Then the woman—Stacy, that was her name, Stacy Durbin—hit him with something. A heavy flashlight, big and black, holding it in both hands like a baseball bat.
It bounced off the back of his head and she dropped it, but it made him whirl around, furious, and he lashed out with his weapon wildly.
Stacy tried to get past him to the door, but he managed to hit the back of her head with the flat side of the hatchet in his uncontrolled rage. She dropped to the floor, holding her head, shrieking in pain and terror. “No! No! Help!”
I yanked the knife from his foot and jabbed it at his leg again. He kicked back at my face, but I stabbed it at his ankle. I missed, but he was off balance, staggering between Stacy and me.
Then the cat, from the top of the door, leaped down at him, clawing his face.
With another roar Meyer dropped the hatchet and grabbed at him, using both hands to pull him away and hurl him out into the hall.
I struggled forward, grabbing at his ankles, trying to pull him down. I stabbed the knife into his calf as blood dripped down his legs. He lurched to one side, wobbling, and bent down to grab my neck.
His fingers dug into my throat. I jabbed the knife at his chest, but in his rage he didn’t even feel it. His pale face grew darker, gray and stony, and his eyes blazed like fire.
His eyes were all I could see. Everything else was a blur. I heard my heart thudding in my head, a dull roar pounding against my ears as I struggled for breath. I kept stabbing at him but my hands were shaking as I tried to hang onto the knife. I couldn’t go deep enough. I focused all my strength on aiming at his chest, his heart, if he even had a heart to stab.
I’d never be able to thrust it hard enough and deep enough to kill him. I couldn’t even see him anymore. Darkness clouded my eyes until I couldn’t see anything but his lipless mouth curled in a jagged, evil smile as my lungs struggled for air.
I clenched my teeth, my heart pounding in a deafening, desperate demand for air. Come on, come on. My eyes fading and my body failing, I tried for one final furious thrust—
Then Meyer’s hands dropped. I could breathe. I could see. I backed away on the floor, clutching the knife, my fingers numb but ready to strike again if I got the chance. If he gave me a chance.
I saw Meyer straighten up with a lurch. His jaw drooped, and black bile dribbled down his chin. He shuddered and dropped to his knees.
Behind him Stacy Durbin raised the hatchet again and drove it into his spine.
My hand scrambled for the knife. Meyer reared back, his white face twisted with pain and fury, as Stacy pulled the hatchet and and slammed it down again.
It didn’t stop him.
Meyer turned around, grabbing Stacy’s arm. She stumbled backward, fighting to hang onto the hatchet as he pulled at it. Then she dropped the hatchet and leaned forward, her hand lashing out.
She stabbed a finger into his eye.
More howls erupted from Meyer’s twisted mouth. He wrapped a hand around Stacy’s throat, keeping his grip on her arm, and shoved her down to the floor.
Climbing on top of her, he started slamming her head savagely against the hard floor, his knee in her chest flattening her lungs. Stacy gasped for breath. She didn’t have enough air to scream as her skull pounded the floor over and over again.
Then I found the knife.
My legs shook as I pushed myself to my feet. I took a stumbling step forward. Stacy’s face was deep red, her tongue hanging from her mouth. Her eyes rolled back in her head—
I stabbed Meyer in the back as hard as I could.
He jerked, twisting his neck to look at me. More black bile dripped from his lipless mouth.
I stabbed him again. And again.
I lost control. All I could do was keep stabbing him, anything to stop him from killing me. Or Stacy. Or anyone else. But in that blind moment of pure terror, mostly me.
Meyer snarled, starting to turn. I drove the knife into him one more time. Wouldn’t anything stop him? How many times was I going to have to—
Then the hatched slammed down on his neck.
Stacy held it with both hands, on her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks. She hit Meyer again, and again, just like me, desperate to stop him.
The knife slipped from my hand.
Meyer slumped to the floor.
Stacy brought the hammer down on his skull. I looked away, my stomach churning, and heard her curse as she kept chopping at him, over and over. “Die, you bastard! Die, die, die . . . “
When I looked again, she’d dropped the hatchet onto what was left of Meyer’s head. She turned away, her body heaving, and threw up on the floor.
I made my way around Meyer’s body cautiously. I’d seen too many horror movies to trust that the monster was really dead, even with his brains splattered across the floor.
But he didn’t move. No breath in his body.
I crouched next to Stacy. She flinched as I put a hand on her shoulder.
The cat padded across the floor, meowing softly. He walked around Stacy once, then sat down next to her knees, licking himself and purring gently.
Stacy looked up at me, wiping an arm across her mouth. “Who—who are you?”
“Toim Jurgen. His father—” I glanced over at Meyer’s body. “Hired me. To find him. He didn’t tell me about—about . . .”
“Meyer?” She looked at the body, then turned away, gagging again. “Meyer Williams? Is that—really him? I thought—oh god.”
She sank to the floor, sobbing. “Oh god, oh god, oh god . . .”
The cops took us to the local hospital. More of a clinic, really. I don’t know where they took Meyer’s body. I didn’t care, as long as it wasn’t in the same room with me.
I answered all their questions while doctors checked me over, cleaned me up as best as they could, and treated my wounds. Stacy was in another room, so I didn’t hear what she said.
I told the cops everything. The doctors too. And the one nurse who took my temperature and blood pressure. I don’t know if any of them believed me, but my policy is always to tell cops and lawyers and everyone else the truth about what I see, and let them decide if I’m crazy or not. So far it’s worked.
Finally I called Rachel. “Hey. I’m alive.”
“What the hell, Tom Jurgen!” She sounded like a tornado wreaking havoc on a trailer park. “I’m sitting here and I can’t even watch Real Housewives wondering what the hell you’re doing! Where the hell are you?”
“Strode Prairie Clinic. Coming home soon. I’m fine. I’ll tell you then.”
“What the hell happened? Are you hurt? Do I need to drive out and get you? Did you eat dinner? What am I going to—”
I hung up mid-rant, too tired to listen and answer coherently. But I knew I’d pay for it when I got home.
Against the medics’ advice to stay overnight, I drove back to Chicago. I stopped for coffee and played the radio louds to keep me awake, but I drove in a cloudy daze. My eyes kept jumping from the road ahead to the rearview mirror, expecting Meyer to rise up from the back seat with a meat cleaver. Or a chainsaw.
At home, finally, I unlocked the door, bracing myself for Rachel’s anger. She turned from the couch as I locked up again, then tested the locks to make sure they were secure. I was going to be double-checking locks for a long time.
Rachel turned the TV off and stood up. She was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen. “Hi.”
She could see something had happened. Something serious. I don’t think she had to use her psychic powers for that. “Tom?”
“I killed someone.” I tossed my jacket at the hanger on the wall. Missed. I left it on the floor. The hell with picking up. “I need a drink. Lots of them.”
We had a bottle of whiskey I hadn’t touched in months. Rachel sat next to me on the sofa as I told her everything. For once she didn’t call me a jerk, or punch me, or tell me I was an idiot, or kick me. She just listened, holding my hand. She might have cried a little. I know I did.
“Oh my god,” she whispered when I was finished. “You’re—I’m not going to ask if you’re okay.”
“Yeah. I’m not okay.” I sipped some whiskey and poured some more.
She rubbed my arm, fingering the bandage, and reached up to pat my shoulder, where I had more bandages. The medics had given me a T-shirt to wear home, one that wasn’t covered in blood. “Can you take a shower with these?”
“Not for a few days. I still need to clean up.” The doctors had done their best, but I could still feel the blood on my skin. Out, out, damned spot!
I stood up on unsteady legs, with the whiskey in my hand. Rachel held my arm as he started walking to the bedroom.
My phone buzzed. Charles Williams.
Crap.
I fished it from my pocket. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”
“Jurgen.” His voice was quiet. Controlled. “I just got a call from Strode Prairie—my son is dead.”
“Yeah.” I swigged some liquor. I hadn’t called him from the clinic. I wasn’t sure what to say or how to say it in my state of shock. Let someone else deliver the bad news.
“They said you—it was you? You killed him?”
I nodded. “Me and a woman he was trying to kill. After he killed—tried to kill—everyone on your list. Almost everyone.” At least Mindy Jara was still alive.
He sighed. Or maybe it was a sob. After a moment I forced myself to say, “I’m . . . sorry.”
He hung up.
I didn’t really mean it. I wasn’t sorry Meyter was dead. Right now, at least. Maybe tomorrow I’d feel regret. Or a week from now, or maybe a year.
Maybe never.
But I had to say something to him, didn’t I?
Rachel wrapped her arms around me, careful not to squeeze my wounds or spill any whiskey. “I love you.”
“I love you.” Another sip, and I kissed her. “Aren’t you going to be mad at me?”
“Later.” She patted my shoulder. The one I hadn’t been stabbed in. “Right now, shower. Then sleep.”
I nodded. But I knew I wouldn’t sleep.
I’d be seeing Meyer’s blank face when I closed my eyes. For a long time.
# # #
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