Something_Violent Read online

  “So,” Ron said. “Moving forward, I’d recommend taking things one day at a time. Don’t spend your energy worrying about tomorrow, or the next week, or the next month. Focus on the day, from sunup to sundown.”

  Seth laughed. “Wasn’t that in the Bible?”

  Smiling, Ron nodded. “Yes, that was a quote, more or less. But it’s damn good advice.”

  The basement door banged open, startling all of them.

  Seth’s and Jody’s heads whipped sideways. Both of them gasped as they gazed up. Ron twisted his neck so he could follow the path of their shocked eyes.

  A man stood at the top of the stairs.

  He was wearing a hockey mask.

  29

  Ron

  Staring at the white mask that seemed to glow in the dark, Ron screamed. The light from upstairs made the man wearing it a dark shape with stooped shoulders. It looked as if he were about to start coming down.

  Ron screamed again, a shrill cry that hurt his dry throat. He tried to get up. The ropes prevented him from moving. Somehow they now felt tighter, as if slowly constricting around his ribs to crush his lungs.

  Then the masked man dropped forward, tumbling down the stairs.

  Jody joined Ron in screaming as she ran toward the toppling body.

  “Wait,” Seth said, grabbing at her arm.

  “It’s Pappy!” Jody screamed.

  Seth’s arm dropped. “What?”

  Ron’s screams petered out. Why did Jody think this was Pappy? He watched the wrecked figure tumble down the stairs. No way could anybody survive a fall like that.

  Jody reached the foot of the stairs just as Pappy stopped flipping. Sliding downward, his back bounced over each step. He came to a halt on the bottom step on his back, his hips twisted in the wrong direction. The fall had broken him in many places.

  And Ron was correct. Such a fall would’ve killed him too, if the slashed throat hadn’t gotten him first. Whoever had done it hadn’t tried to be crafty. The wound was a nasty, deep carved gulley between tatty fringes of flesh.

  Ron remembered Jody’s sentiments, the kind words she’d said about Pappy and felt his throat go tight. He saw the hurt on Seth’s face, the tears streaming down his cheeks. Pappy was a loved man, and the last member of Seth’s immediate family.

  Carefully, Jody slid off the mask. The face underneath matched Jody’s description: Storm-cloud-colored hair, thick mustache. Though Pappy’s eyes were bulging with pain, Ron could tell a kind soul had occupied the space behind them.

  His mouth had frozen open in a silent scream.

  “God…no…” Seth whispered.

  “What happened to him?” Ron asked. “Who…? The mask…?”

  Seth gave Ron a glance. He looked confused and scared with narrowed eyes and furrowed brow, his face polished in sweat.

  “Pa…” Seth sunk to a crouch at the bottom of the stairs. Reaching up, he lightly stroked the old man’s cheek. “Pappy?”

  Ron watched Seth’s eyes lower to the cavernous wound in his throat. Saw those eyes narrow as hate coursed through him. The veins in his neck turned into thick cords. His jaw flexed as he ground his teeth. He used his fingers to close Pappy’s eyes. Then he looked up. His hate-filled leer pointed to the open doorway at the top of the stairs. Dim light filled the open space, like the entrance to a spookhouse.

  It is a spookhouse. Up there is a true house of horrors.

  Ron felt something like spider legs scatter up his spine.

  Without speaking, the Covingtons stood up.

  “What are you about to do?” Ron asked. His stomach felt tight and sick, as if it were trying to turn inside out. “You’re not going up there, right? Is there another way out of here? We have to get moving…”

  Jody stepped back so Seth could pull Pappy down from the stairs. While Seth splayed him on the floor, Jody ran out of sight. Things crashed and banged, but Ron couldn’t see what caused them. When Jody returned, she held a tarp in front of her like the team’s flag on game day. Seth took the crackling blue sheet from her and draped it over Pappy’s body.

  Standing, Seth put a hand on each of Jody’s shoulders. “Whoever’s up there’s waiting for us.”

  “I know.”

  “Who do you think it is?”

  Jody looked down at the hockey mask on the floor. Ron had an idea who, but it was confirmed when Jody said, “Trish, I’d imagine. The mask gives it away.”

  Seth stomped the mask, crushing it under his boot. “Let’s get the bitch.”

  Jody smiled. She looked on the verge of panting like a slavering, wild dog.

  It only took them a few seconds to load up. The weapons surprised Ron. He should’ve known they’d had some down here, but seeing them made his bowels turn hot and mushy. He didn’t know much about guns, but what the Covingtons carried with them up the stairs was a minute arsenal. Jody had armed herself with a knife, and a shiny six-cylinder handgun with a fat barrel. It couldn’t have been the same gun Seth had used to shoot the girls, since Jody said she’d tossed it into the woods at the Wilsons’. Seth held a pump-action shotgun before him, jacking a round into the pipe.

  Then Ron realized they were leaving him down here, still tied to the chair. “Hey,” he said. “Wait!” They kept climbing, their backs to him. “You can’t leave me down here like this. Please!” He jerked and twisted, trying to move. The ropes held him still. “At least untie me!”

  Ignoring Ron, they paused at the doorway. Seth slowly poked his head through. It turned one way, the other. Ron wanted to beg some more, but knew it was pointless. They weren’t coming back down to untie him. He was stuck here.

  Shit, oh shit. What if they get killed?

  Ron would be an easy target. If somebody came down here…

  Why didn’t they just untie me? I could’ve helped them!

  Then Ron understood. This was their battle to face, on their own. This is exactly what they needed to help them. Maybe not so much Pappy’s death, but the subsequent retribution because of it.

  Still, they could’ve let me go!

  He watched Jody and Seth disappear through the doorway. The door slowly closed. He heard the faint groans of footsteps through the ceiling, making their way across whatever room was above. Then he heard nothing but his own ragged breaths, the heavy pounding of his heart.

  God, what’s happening up there?

  Nothing. Or maybe it already had. Ron pictured killers emerging from dark corners to silently assassinate the Covingtons one by one.

  No. They wouldn’t go out without a fight.

  So where was the fight?

  Ron stared up at the door for a long time. Minutes that felt endless silently ticked by. Maybe whoever had killed Pappy was gone. Surely they’d have been located by now.

  The first boom of a gunshot made Ron scream. Before he’d finished, a tumult of gunfire was unleashed above him. The floor muffled some of it, but each boom still seemed to shake the foundation. Dust fell from the ceiling in clumps. The single bulb hanging from a cord swayed and shook, making light dance all around like a helicopter’s spotlight.

  Shouts carried with the gun blasts, screams of agony. If Trish were up there as Seth and Jody had thought, then she hadn’t come alone. Too many voices, both male and female, cried out through the ceiling. Things crashed and pounded from above. Glass shattered. He heard Jody scream Seth! More gunfire made Ron jerk and cry out from the chair. He wanted out of here. For a brief moment, he considered tipping the chair over in hopes of breaking it. As soon as the thought had registered, it vanished, the mêlée upstairs distracting his thoughts from everything else.

  Before long, the explosions began to dissipate. Only a few different calibers fired back and forth. Then there was a final bang that ended it all.

  Silence drifted from above, grave silence. Ron realized he hadn’t stopped staring at the door, realized he’d been holding his breath when his chest felt as if it had been set aflame. Even now, with the ruckus over, he couldn’t tear hi
s eyes away from the closed door.

  He knew that any moment it would open.

  After several minutes, it finally did with a squeaky groan. What would happen next, Ron had no idea, but it didn’t deter him from keeping his eyes focused up there.

  Jody appeared in the doorway. With the light behind her, she was a scruffy silhouette. She started walking down, each foot slapping the step, making the wood pop.

  The basement’s lone bulb splashed her legs with dim light. Ron saw their tanned sleekness was slick with bloodstains. The patterns were like red liquid veins, reaching up and vanishing under her dress. The white fabric was drenched, and formed around her skin.

  The light unveiled her up to her chest. More blood was smeared across the tops of her breasts, making a skinny puddle in the tight valley between them. The hair that hung around her shoulders was matted and tangled.

  Her face appeared next. Crimson made crooked lines across her lovely features.

  “Juh-Jody?” Ron said.

  Jody reached the bottom of the stairs. She stepped down, turning toward him. She no longer had the gun, but carried something small and dark. It looked like a remote control.

  “What happened up there?” he asked.

  “Everything’s settled,” she said, coming closer. Arm rising, the small object in her hand pointed at Ron. The tip had two silver points with a small gap of darkness between.

  “Wuh-where’s Seth?”

  “Headed out to the family plot…to dig a hole.”

  Ron glanced at Pappy’s covered body. He’d forgotten it was down here. He was glad that he had. If he’d remembered he had been left down here with a dead body, he might’ve died from fright.

  Jody stepped in front of Ron. Keeping one leg steady, she threw the other one over his legs, standing over him with her legs wide.

  Ron stared at her skin, the blood sluicing down in rivulets.

  “I can’t thank you enough for coming here,” she said.

  Not that Ron had had any choice in the matter; he still told her she was welcome.

  “I guess this is it,” she said. “Time for you to go. I wish I could say it’s been fun.”

  “Where am I going?” he asked.

  Jody gave him a cruel grin that made him shiver. He started to beg for his life as Jody lowered her hand, the object clutched firmly. Ron realized what it was right before the tip crackled with a blue spark. He felt the pinch on his neck.

  Then he was gone.

  30

  Ron

  Hearing his wife’s footsteps in the hall, Ron minimized the word-processor document, quickly replacing it with another. It was okay if Judith read some of the words on this one. The other one…well, she’d have a hard time understanding. Thankfully their large house was old and he’d heard her coming up the hallway, soft groans of the wood floor under her footsteps.

  He started pecking on the keys, writing pointless babble he’d later delete. Judith lightly knocked on his door, pushed it open. “You’re still working?” she asked.

  Ron stopped typing, then spun his chair around to face his wife. She looked great in her short white robe, even so late at night. It hung partly open around her breasts, showing the sides of their large mounds. Her hair, mostly dark, was starting to show some gray. Though she wanted to dye it a solid color, Ron had talked her out of it many times. He liked how it made her look wiser, more mature than any other woman in the world. Nothing could ever make Judith ugly.

  “Yeah,” he said, “sorry. What time is it?”

  “After two in the morning.”

  Ron figured his face showed his surprise. Last time he’d checked the time, it was nearing midnight. “Wow,” he said. “Got a little carried away.”

  “I guess the new book’s finally coming along?”

  Nodding, Ron said, “I believe so. I finally figured out what I was trying to say.”

  Judith smiled. It made her look twenty years younger. Seeing the glow spreading across her made him feel guilty, as it had many times lately. It still bothered him how quickly he’d hidden his wedding ring in Jody’s presence that night at the liquor store.

  “That’s great you’re getting through it now,” Judith said. “But do you have to work on it so late at night? It’s hard getting you up for breakfast in the morning.”

  “I’m sorry. When the words are coming in that creative boom, I can’t stop.”

  Though she looked sad, Judith said, “I understand. Will you be coming to bed soon? I don’t want to fall asleep alone tonight.”

  Now Ron really felt lousy. “Tell you what, if I’m not up there in fifteen minutes, come back and get me.”

  “You’ll tell me to give you another five minutes, and another…”

  “No I won’t. And since we’re coming up on the weekend, I’ll take a break from the book. We can head up to the cabin.”

  Judith smiled. “Now you’re onto something.” She pointed at Ron. “Fifteen minutes. I’ll be back.”

  “Okay.”

  Backing out of the office, she pulled the door shut. He waited until he could no longer hear her walking before he turned around and faced his computer. Minimizing his bogus manuscript, he opened the real one.

  Sixty thousand words already.

  If he kept going like this, the book would be the size of the Bible. He needed to be sure he only put in what was needed for this one. He had plenty of information to stretch it into a series of books, so there was no need to throw everything into volume one.

  His messenger window appeared on the toolbar with a soft beep. The username was JSCov. Smiling, he opened it up. In the dialogue box was a picture: a pair of tanned bare feet, the toenails painted a gaudy yellow. They were angled outward on top of sand, with a nice view of the ocean between them.

  Enjoying our view. Great place. Thanks for telling us about it. How’s the book coming along? J

  Ron began typing in the small box. It’s going great. About to go to bed.

  Send.

  He watched the small box, saw the blinking text that read Typing from the other end. Then these words appeared: Have a good night. Spend time with that lovely wife of yours. Someday we’d like to meet her.

  Ron quickly typed back. I’d like that. Enjoy your trip.

  J Popped up on the screen, followed by JSCov has left the conversation.

  Ron closed out the messenger box, still unable to comprehend how much had changed in the last eight months. Whenever he thought back to his time spent in Pappy’s basement, he remembered how convinced he was that he’d never leave the underground confines alive. Flash forward to now, and not only was he alive, he still kept in contact with his captors.

  What would Judith have to say about that?

  She wouldn’t understand at first, but because she had such an open mind, it wouldn’t take long for her to grow to accept it. Especially when he sat her down and explained about the books he was writing. If it weren’t for the Covingtons, he wouldn’t have gotten the idea.

  Five months ago, they’d shown up at his home. Judith had taken her sister out to dinner for her birthday. Ron stayed home to work on the book that wasn’t going anywhere. After writing it for ten months, he’d maybe had twenty thousand words. And none of them were worth reading.

  When the doorbell rang that night, he’d been more than happy to abandon the project to see who was there. To his surprise, and horror, it had been the Covingtons. It was the first time he’d seen them since Jody zapped him in Pappy’s basement. He must’ve been really exhausted because when he finally came to, he was in the backseat of his car at the liquor store, blinding sunlight pouring in through the windows.

  And there they were now, on his doorstep.

  But this time, there had been no tasers or guns or knives, only smiling faces and a great conversation over sandwiches.

  “We told the message boards on Something Violent about you,” Seth said. He guzzled from his can of cherry Dr Pepper.

  Ron stared at the handsome gu
y who looked even buffer than he had a couple months ago. “You what?”

  Nodding, Seth set down the can. “You heard me.”

  Jody smiled. “We told them about how you helped us, and you wouldn’t believe the huge response it received. So many others are like we were—desperate. Going through the same shit we went through, but totally different. They want to talk to you.”

  “Oh, God,” Ron said. “Every time I go anywhere now I’m going to have to look over my shoulder…”

  Jody held up her hands. “No. You don’t have to worry about that. We told them that’s off limits.”

  “And I’m sure they’ll honor their word,” said Ron, not hiding his sarcasm.

  “They will,” Seth said.

  “Well, all right,” Ron said. He stared at his sandwich, no longer wanting to eat it. He dropped it on his plate. “I don’t feel any better, hearing that.”

  “Tell him your idea,” Seth said.

  “Here’s what I was thinking. Remember how you said our story would make a great book?”

  “Of course I remember.”

  “Use our story as a way to help others like us.”

  “I don’t follow what you mean.”

  “I’ve put a lot of thought into this,” Jody said. “Take our story, change the names, places, and the crucial details that could get us busted.”

  “Easy enough,” Ron said. He already had a large file filled with notes that already incorporated all the requested changes. “Then what? Recount the story?”

  “Yes and no,” she said. “Use our story to help others. You did the same thing with the Sheas when you wrote that bestseller. Do another one, but with us as the reference. Market it as a fiction book, so that way you can hit both markets. I bet you’d hit the New York Times list just based on the numbers from the Something Violent website.”

  Ron couldn’t speak for a long time. Jody’s idea percolating in his head, he assembled the book in a matter of minutes. He saw how it would begin, what it would lead to, and how to wrap it up. He ran to his office, grabbed a pad and pen, then returned to the kitchen.