Something_Violent Page 7

  “It’s Glenn and Stacey’s. Remember? She was carrying it.”

  “I remember.”

  She’d kept it in her hands the whole time, as if terrified more for its safety than her own. Even when I whacked her with the ax, she hadn’t let it go.

  “Put it in the car,” I said.

  Nodding, Jody stood up. She hurried to the car, reached in through her window, and set it down. As she was straightening her way back out of the car, I said, “Go ahead and shut it off. Kill the lights. Grab the keys.”

  “Okay.”

  She did as I said, then hurried back to me, the keys jangling as she ran. “Here,” she said, handing them over. I put the keys in my pocket. “I grabbed this too.”

  Shining the light on her hand, I saw she clutched my knife. “You hold on to it.”

  “Okay.” She looked ahead of us. “Think the police have been here?”

  “No.”

  “But the camera?”

  “The cops wouldn’t have left it in the middle of the road.”

  “Then why was it there?”

  “A message.”

  “For who?”

  “Us.”

  8

  Jody

  It felt as if icy tentacles curled around my spine.

  “You think…Glenn left it there?”

  “Who else would it have been?”

  “But he was dead.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Or what if he had another partner we didn’t know about?”

  That idea never once crossed my mind. It should have, though. After Glenn’s sister was exposed as his camera person, I never once considered he might have other crew members secreted throughout the woods. Didn’t seem likely, though.

  Probably, Glenn had survived the attack.

  We started walking.

  “But why would he have left the camera there?” I asked.

  “My guess? He figured we’d be back for your bag sooner or later. Wanted to make sure we didn’t miss it.”

  “Think anything’s on there they want us to see?”

  Seth considered this. “That’s a possibility.”

  “Should we check it out?”

  “In a bit. Let’s look around first.”

  Keeping close together, we made our way to the end of the road, where Glenn had parked his truck. The spot was empty. I could see the clefts his tires had left in the dirt.

  But no truck. And no Glenn. No Stacey. No one at all.

  “Should we check the woods?”

  “Would take us all night to look around.”

  “How about the spot?”

  “Yeah. We can do that.”

  We entered the woods through the same section Glenn had led me through. This time, I held back the limb for Seth.

  Seth slowly waved the light one way, then another. The flashlight’s beam was like the top of a small lighthouse as it swept across the trees. A few times I thought I saw a dark crouching shape, or a large person hiding behind a tree. But when the light hit it, I realized it was my eyes playing tricks.

  My eyes could be cruel sometimes. Or maybe it was my imagination. Either way, I prepared myself for anything. I held the knife by my leg, the blade pointed out. If anybody made a run for us, all I had to do was swing upward. If it didn’t kill him right away, it would slow him down.

  Besides, having the knife made me feel stronger. We’d bonded with Bernstein, and I was glad to have the team together again.

  And with Seth at my side, I felt…safe. Nobody could harm me.

  Walking slowly, we constantly scanned all directions. Even with our steps light, we made a lot of noise. Sticks cracked, leaves crunched. If Glenn was out here, he’d know we were coming.

  I recognized a cluster of trees in front of us. To the right was the brush pile Stacey had been hiding in.

  “There,” I said. “It’s on the other side.”

  “Yep,” Seth agreed. “Stay close.”

  If I got any closer to Seth, I’d be inside him. Still, I pressed against his side, keeping the knife pointed away from him. I matched his pace, step for step. His skin felt slippery, making soft smacking sounds against mine.

  We quickly examined the brush pile. Now that I knew it had been a hiding place for secretly videotaping me getting fucked, it was easy to recognize the assembled design. The limbs were laid out to form a small square, each piled onto the other in opposing directions. More branches were folded across the top, the needles draped together into a shelter. I noticed small gaps spread throughout that I figured were arranged so the camera could capture as many angles as possible.

  An elaborate setup.

  The clearing was a pale circle in the dark, the size of a trampoline. The blanket was gone, and there was no yellow police tape cordoning it off. The most likely explanation was that the police had not been here. Not that I still worried they had been, but seeing how the area looked mostly untouched, I was convinced.

  Inside the clearing, Seth and I stood with our backs touching. I felt like I was on the cover of an old spy novel—Seth aiming the flashlight, me holding out the knife. It was exciting, and a little unnerving. My stomach kept making gurgling sounds. Probably some of it was because of my worry, but mostly I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten since around noon.

  “Nobody’s here,” said Seth.

  “You’re sure?”

  “If they are, they’re hidden really well. It’s too damn dark to comb the woods for them. So if they’re out there, they can stay out there.”

  “Want to head back to the car?”

  “Yeah. And check out that camera.”

  Back at the car, I sat in the passenger seat and let Seth take the spot behind the wheel. We rolled up the windows, locked the doors, and Seth clicked on the interior light.

  I set the camera in my lap. Other than a few cracks in the body, it seemed to be in okay shape. I found the power button on the back, a switch that I had to flip up to ON. The camera made a high-pitched beep when it came on.

  A panel was on the side, and I flipped it out. The screen inside the display was blue and bright.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Is there a PLAY button?”

  “Um…”

  I checked the camera. Though there were plenty of buttons and switches and dials, none of them seemed to operate the playback feature. I’d never seen so many settings on a camera. Something like this must’ve cost Glenn a fortune.

  “What’s that on the screen?” Seth asked.

  “Where?”

  “In the middle. The triangle.”

  I saw it. It was a horizontal triangle between pairs of other triangles that pointed outward in opposite directions—the fast-forward and rewind buttons.

  “Ah,” I said. “Good eye.”

  “How do you push it?”

  “I wonder…” I pushed the triangle icon on the screen. It blinked. Then the screen went dark for a moment and a message appeared that said Loading…

  “Look at you,” said Seth. “I never would’ve found that.”

  “Everything’s touch-screen now.”

  A few seconds later, a video loaded. On the screen, I saw the clearing in the daylight. Glenn was standing in the middle of it as the camera zoomed in on his bare chest. His skin turned blurry for a moment, and then it was adjusted and I could see the fine curly hairs between his nipples.

  “What are you doing?” Glenn asked on the screen.

  “Setting the white balance,” a female voice said. Must’ve been Stacey. “Your chest’s so white, it makes it easier.”

  In the car, I laughed.

  Glenn, on the video, did not. “Shut up,” he said.

  The camera zoomed back. Now the shot showed Glenn in the center, the woods behind him, and plenty of room on either side.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Good.”

  The screen went blue again.

  “Damn,” I said. “Kind of a letdown. Where’s the video of me?
I’d like to make sure that gets deleted.”

  “I bet there’s a menu you have to pull up and select the files like on a computer.”

  “Yeah. But how do I do that?”

  A few minutes later, I’d figured it out. Another icon in the lower right-hand corner of the display screen opened up the video log. There were only four videos, in a list by date and time.

  I selected the one that followed what we’d just watched and saw the empty clearing. I could hear my voice faintly in the background, growing louder. Footsteps crunched offscreen. The camera whipped around and Stacey caught a quick glimpse of Seth entering the brush pile, mask on, and ax ready.

  The video bounced around a lot from Seth’s grabbing her, but in the shaky footage I spotted Glenn and me a few times through the gaps in the brush. In other shaky glimpses, I saw pieces of Seth—an arm, the mask, his shirt, the ax.

  Stacey gasped.

  The video ended after that.

  One more followed, and one more was at the beginning.

  My stomached buzzed as I selected the final file.

  9

  Seth

  Glenn gazed into the camera. His face filled the display screen in an extreme close-up. Thin trails of parched blood squiggled down his nose and cheeks. At first, he looked as if he was in a trance, his eyes blank. His mouth hung partly open, lips slack as if silently moaning.

  He grinned.

  Not a full grin like you’d see on somebody who was happy. No, this was a subtle curling of a corner of his mouth. A steely grin, the kind somebody gave you when they knew something corrupt you hadn’t quite figured out yet.

  The camera pulled away, shaking and bouncing as it lowered, making sounds like heavy wind in a telephone receiver. How the angle remained on Glenn as it showed us his bare, bloody chest, stomach, and pants on its way down, I figured he was the one operating it.

  It stopped at his feet, slightly titled. Now Stacey was in the frame from the shoulders up. She lay on her stomach on the ground, arms down at her sides, the frame ending at her elbow. The ax wound in her back was a gaping valley between the bony juts of her shoulder blades.

  Glenn walked along the far side of her body. Now he only showed from the knees down as he stepped out of frame. Stacey’s body moved slightly. I thought she might be alive too, but the movement must’ve been caused by Glenn grabbing her ankles.

  Moaning, Stacey was dragged backward until she’d vanished from the frame. Only the woods showed on the screen. It stayed like that for a long time as Jody and I stared at the small, letterboxed LCD screen in silence.

  When the video ended with a beep, we both jumped.

  “So…” Jody said. “They’re alive.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  I was getting sloppy. In the same day, I’d chosen to let somebody live, nearly been caught by Sheriff Bernstein, and had somehow failed to kill two people.

  Forget that, I told myself. That ax had gone all the way into Stacey’s back, and she was a small girl. It should’ve done the trick rather quickly.

  And Glenn? A trio of nine-inch nails had chopped into his brain. I’d done my job decorously there too, hadn’t I?

  Neither should’ve survived that.

  Jody returned to the menu screen, selecting the first video. Instead of asking her why she was doing so, I leaned back, cleared my throat, and watched.

  Glenn was on his knees in the clearing, naked. A girl who couldn’t have been older than eighteen was on all fours in front of him, also naked. She had long, fire-colored hair hanging across her shoulders in tangled curtains. Her pale skin shined in a sweaty sheen.

  “Oh, shit…” I muttered.

  “What?” Jody asked.

  “I’ve…seen this before.”

  “Glenn said he uploaded the videos online. Did you hear him offer me a hundred bucks to let them film me?”

  A hundred bucks Jody wouldn’t have ever seen, if this was the same video I thought it was.

  The on-screen girl’s head was turned toward her right shoulder, displaying her face in clear detail. Eyes closed, moaning, her lips were a quivering ring around her teeth. Freckles dotted her face so heavily it looked as if somebody had drawn them on with a magic marker.

  “Yeah,” the girl said. “Harder. Harder!”

  Obliging her demand, Glenn slammed into her, his midsection slapping against her ass. Squealing and laughing, the girl threw back her hips to meet his plunges. Though she seemed to be enjoying it, Glenn’s facial expression didn’t match his actions. Eyes narrowed to slits, lips a tight line, he peered at her back.

  This went on for a few minutes.

  “That would’ve been me,” Jody said. “His next big star.”

  “Glad you weren’t,” I said.

  “Same here.”

  “You don’t get it.”

  “Get what?” she asked, turning to me.

  Pointing at the screen, I said, “Cue plastic bag.”

  Jody turned in time to see Glenn suddenly throw a plastic bag over the girl’s head.

  Gasping, Jody nearly dropped the camera. “How’d you know that would happen?”

  “I told you, I’ve seen it.”

  In the video, the girl tried to scream. Glenn, rolling his wrist, wrapped the bag into a tight knot around his hand.

  As the action carried out on the camera, I narrated it for Jody. “The girl’s neck curves toward Glenn, back arching, forcing her throat to bulge…”

  Jody slowly shook her head, watching.

  Face mushed inside the plastic, the girl’s nose was a flattened nub as her tongue vigorously tapped the plastic mask in hopes of puncturing through. The plastic only swelled slightly from her attempts.

  Holding herself up by one arm, she swung back at Glenn with the other. Her hand bounced off Glenn’s arms, barely making a sound. If she tried both arms, he’d fall down on top of her, his weight on her back. If she tried to crawl, all he would have to do is stand up to apply more pressure.

  The redhead was trapped.

  But it didn’t stop her from putting up a fight. Bucking and thrashing, the girl fought with all she had.

  Glenn wasn’t fazed. On his knees, his cock still stuffed inside her, he held on.

  After a few minutes, the girl’s struggle weakened. She could hardly move her arms.

  Then she went still.

  Glenn held on a bit longer before he finally dropped her. She hit the ground in a limp thud. The bag hung loosely around her head like a transparent hood.

  His cock, hanging in a flaccid arc of semi-arousal, glistened in the sunlight. He hardly seemed winded at all.

  Jody watched the screen in silent shock. The camera made popping and whooshing sounds as it moved around. Then it was placed on the ground. Petite feet entered the frame.

  Stacey.

  Her scrawny body, clad in the same bikini she’d had on today, strutted toward the girl’s dead body. Narrow hips swung this way and that, emphasizing each step. In Stacey’s right hand was a machete, blade angled to the right. Sunlight made bright flares on the massive shiny surface.

  As Glenn crawled away from the dead girl, his younger sister straddled her bare rump, mashing the mounds down. She began to slowly wiggle her hips, rubbing her groin up and down. Hissing, she held the machete out in one hand, and used her free hand to rub her small breasts, her stomach. Her hand delved lower, slipping into her briefs.

  Then she really began to moan.

  “What kind of sick shit…?” said Jody, grimacing. But she didn’t shut off the camera. I guess, as I was when I saw it online, she was disgustedly enthralled by the show.

  While rubbing herself, Stacey raised the machete in a sacrificial pose. Mouth widening, she let out a loud, pleasured cry.

  And brought the machete down into the girl’s back.

  Glenn joined her.

  Together they began to tear the girl’s flesh away from her body in flimsy sheets, coated in tacky red.

  I reached across Jody and sl
apped the LCD screen shut.

  “Thank you,” said Jody. “I couldn’t…stop watching.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “No. I didn’t…I mean…there was no kind of thrill there…but I just couldn’t stop.”

  “I understand. It’s fine. I know the feeling…”

  “He was going to do that to…me. What is it about today? Is this everybody-kill-Jody day?”

  “It’s everybody-didn’t-kill-Jody day.”

  She was quiet, then nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. Wow.” She scratched her head. “How have you seen that video before?”

  “Online.”

  “So Glenn does have a website?”

  “Not exactly…” Staring at me, Jody rolled her neck, as if telling me to keep talking. I sighed. “Something Violent.”

  “Something…what?”

  “A website.”

  “What kind of site?”

  “I’ll tell you about it on the way.”

  “To where?”

  “Your place.”

  “What…why?’

  “We didn’t find your bag. That means Glenn and Stacey took it. So they have your money, credit and bank cards, and your ID.”

  Jody closed her eyes. “Then they know my address.”

  “Maybe we can catch them there.”

  I drove us away from the lake, only mildly disappointed we didn’t get to go into the water and enjoy the night. There’d be time for that later.

  Between Jody’s navigating, I told her about Something Violent.

  “It’s a place for people like me, like Glenn and Stacy…for us to go—a hub for psychopaths, sickos, and maniacs to connect, to share videos of our work, to talk. To gather.”

  “This is a real thing?” Jody asked.

  “Very real.”

  “And anybody can go to it?”

  “Well, no,” I said. “You have to request membership. You get an online form to fill out, then you have to wait for approval.”

  “How do you become approved?”

  “There’s a process they go through. I don’t know how it’s determined, but once they deem you as authentic, you’re allowed access.”

  “Is there a fee for this site?”

  “Yeah, cash only, though. Mailed to a P.O. Box.”