NANOWRIMO STORY FINALE, part iii
Nov. 18th, 2007 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
laylafic**~~NANOWRIMO STORY FINALE, part iii~~**
Entry word count: 6225
For Story Notes, click here.
Now on to Entry 21:
PART 2
78.
Justin suspected he might’ve been caught in a nightmare.
It’d happened to him before, soon after the bashing. He would find himself running through darkened alleys and side roads, ducking under fire-escape ladders, scrabbling between trash cans and heaps of junk and discarded cardboard boxes, all the time feeling a malevolent presence closing in on his back. He’d run and run and run, his breath hitching, his heart pounding in his chest, the sound of chasing feet loud in his ears, but he’d find no way out of the darkness. The sound of chasing feet would get louder and louder, closer and closer, and he’d see no way out. And then, right in the middle of it, it’d suddenly occur to him that he was actually dreaming. Was caught in a nightmare. But he still wouldn’t be able to come out of it. He’d thrash and moan and mumble and cry in his sleep, aware he was in the midst of a nightmare, but be unable to wake up—always desolate, always anguished.
Until his mother came and woke him up, her hands on his face, her worried voice trying to calm him down—all to no avail. And then he’d stay desolate, anguished. Angry and resentful at the world at large. At life in general. Hating himself.
Except for that time when Brian was around, after his mother agreed to let him stay at the loft. That was the only reprieve he got. The feel of Brian’s arms around his body, the feel of his soft hands on his temple rubbing away the pain, the sound of his soothing voice telling him everything was okay, that he was not alone. That was the only thing that could calm him down.
But there was no one to wake him up from his nightmare now.
The stables were on fire. And Gus was in it? What was going on? How did it happen? Where was Mel? And why the fuck weren’t the phones working?
To say that Brian’s words had shaken him to the core would be an understatement. He knew he’d fucked things up at times but he wasn’t expecting Brian to remind him of all that tonight. That Brian had remembered all those past hurts, that he hadn’t forgotten... it was something he couldn’t even fucking fault Brian for. Because it was all true. He had left Brian. Not once. Not twice. But over and over again. Willingly or unwillingly, it had always been his choice to walk out.
No matter how much he’d now deny ever wanting to hurt Brian, he obviously had. And Brian... hadn’t forgiven him, hadn’t forgotten the pain he’d caused him. It was too deeply ingrained in their lives now, into everything they did. It was inside their pores.
The hurt he’d caused was never going to go away.
This realization suffused him with the darkest despair. The thought of life without Brian... was unconceivable. Was incomprehensible.
And then the lights started going off and he heard Brian calling him from the other side of the door, his voice tinged with worry. He tried to get out of the House, tried to open the door and answer Brian. To reassure him that he was all right.
But the door didn’t budge. He was locked in.
And he realized that Brian couldn’t hear him.
The feeling of déjà vu hit him like a tidal wave, cold and eerily familiar—too much like the nightmare he’d faced only a few days ago. It was just like the tunnels where he’d heard Brian screaming for him from across the wall but hadn’t been able to get through to him. Brian hadn’t been able to hear him, when he’d been grabbed and dragged from that room by the psycho, kicking and screaming and struggling to get loose.
And with that, the dots connected, and he knew he was not alone in the House.
As if ghost fingers had run down his spine, he felt goose bumps form on his skin and he knew exactly whose malevolent presence it was that he’d felt. The locked doors, the darkened rooms, the phones not working, Brian not being able to hear him—it all made sense.
And just as in the tunnels, he was once again by himself, locked inside. Alone.
For one split second he wondered if he really wanted to struggle this time. What would be the point of fighting back if he didn’t even have Brian? Brian had been his reason to fight in the tunnels and if Brian wanted him gone... then maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to let it all end right now. Life without Brian was meaningless. Perhaps, it would be no big loss if the psycho actually came and got him and finished the job for good this time. At least it would ease Brian’s pain.
That was when he heard it.
He was in the kitchen, leaning against the back door after his failed attempts to open them, his mind awhirl with desolate thoughts, when the voice spoke from somewhere behind him, making him stop.
"So tell me, Kinney, how does it feel to be the poison in everyone’s lives?"
Justin felt the hairs on his arms rising as he turned around, trying to look into the darkened room, when the realization dawned that the voice was coming from... the wall.
"You couldn’t let them walk away, now, could you?" the voice said as Justin felt his way to the dining room doorway in the darkness. "You had to bring them here, to this cursed place even though they didn’t want to." He frowned as he listened to the words. Where was the sound coming from? How was...he talking to Brian? "Your leetle boees." Justin froze. "Both of them." No. "Which one of them are you going to save now, Kinney?" the psycho laughed and Justin felt his throat seizing. "The one burning to a crisp in the stables, or the one about to be hacked to itsy bitsy pieces inside your house?"
Justin felt rooted to the spot, as if he couldn’t move. Gus was in the stables. Burning... burning...
That was when he heard Brian screaming from outside. Calling his name, pounding on the door, the raw anguish in his voice too much like what he’d witnessed in the tunnels. Jesus Christ. This was not happening. Not again. Gus was in the stables. Gus was... Fuck. Someone had to go find him. And Melanie. Someone had to...
He heard a creak on the floor above and froze. His teeth dug into his lips, drawing blood as his brows drew together, and he stood right where he was, restraining himself from reacting to Brian’s voice. From launching himself to the door and pounding his own fists on the wood, screaming back at Brian. Instead, he stood motionless, his lips pressed tightly, his breath still, as he strained his ears to hear the sound again.
Go, Brian, he silently prayed. Get out of here!
And as if Brian could hear him, the pounding stopped. Justin looked into the darkened contours of the dining room, standing stock-still, listening to the wind whipping through the open skylight in the bar behind him. The House was quiet now but he knew what he’d heard before. The sound of footsteps right above him. He knew which room it was. It was their bedroom from where he’d seen the stables burning.
He was not going to let the psycho do what he’d done in the tunnels. Not again. Brian wouldn’t be able to take it. He almost didn’t take it the last time. This time, he’d surely die if he thought anything had happened to him. Well, Justin was not going to let that happen. Please, let Gus be okay, he prayed.
Keeping his steps light, he turned around and went back into the kitchen—silently riffling through the drawers, looking for a knife, a blade, anything he could use as a weapon. But there was nothing. The drawers had been fucking emptied. Christ. He opened the cabinets and looked through them, his teeth grinding in frustration. There must be something, anything he could use, a pot, a fucking pan, a godforsaken rolling pin. But there was nothing. All the drawers, the cabinets had been systematically cleaned up. He ran to the bar and looked into the barbeque unit—maybe there was a skewer lying around, or a boning knife or...
"Did you really think I was going to make it that easy for you?" Justin jumped as the voice came from the kitchen. He spun around and stared into the darkness, his heart pounding. "Why, leetle boee," the psycho laughed mockingly, his tone the same lilting, seething, syrupy rasp that grated on his last fucking nerve, "you seem to give me no credit at all."
The sound was coming from the kitchen ceiling. How many other places were the loudspeakers hidden in. Well considering how thoroughly he seemed to have gone through all their supplies, removing anything Justin could’ve used as a weapon, he figured the whole House was trapped.
But could he see Justin too? Were there cameras around here the way they’d been in the tunnels?
Well, there was only one way to find out. Justin took a deep breath and walked to the dining room door again. He stood in the doorway and took stock of the quietness in the House. That creaking had stopped and he could hear nothing moving now, no footsteps, no sound of anyone moving above.
His eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness now that he could make out the objects around him. To his right was the door to the lobby where the main stairs were. From there he could get to the Game Room where the access to the wine cellar and the indoor pool were located. He could try getting into the wine cellar but he knew there was no way out of there because the door would be locked there as well, except... No. The more immediate concern was the winding stairs to his left, which were located at the corner of the corridor that went along one side of the Great Room, before winding around Brian’s office in a full rectangle. He didn’t want to be caught off guard. There were too many exits and entry points in the corridor. He had to keep an eye on all these points and stay alert.
At right angles to the kitchen entrance was the large double French door that opened into the Great Room. There was a fireplace there and for a second, he wondered if there might be a blowpoke or a tong lying around. But then immediately dismissed that thought. There would be nothing there. It was too obvious a place—just like the kitchen.
So he moved back to the kitchen door and faced the corridor that led to Brian’s office. He looked at the spiral staircase that led to the balcony above and held his breath, staring at the winding stairs, ears perked for any sound or movement. There was nothing. He walked around the bend of the corridor to Brian’s office door and turned the knob to check if it was open. It was. He left it that way and turned around and walked back into the dining room, quietly moving around the large dining table to the door that led to the lobby. He stood still and listened quietly. Nothing. He looked at the door to the Game Room and was about to take a step towards it when he saw something move above him, in the periphery of his vision.
"Hello, leetle boee!" Justin’s head snapped up as he stared at the white face suspended above the stairs. It was the same despicable skull mask, the same manic grin, the same frightening madness in the voice. The psycho chuckled. "Long time no see?" He raised the axe in his hands. "It’s time to play!
And Justin turned and ran.
79.
The power outage and the ensuing darkness seemed to encompass as far as Melanie could see.
As they walked, she tried the cell phone—that Brian had handed over to keep trying until she got through to someone—again and sighed in vain. She still wasn’t getting a signal. Brian had mentioned the possibility of signal jammers and all it’d reminded her of was the tunnels and how their cell phones hadn’t worked down there either.
But how far out could a disruption like this be maintained? It must be very sophisticated technology to cover very long distances. But then they were dealing with a psychopathic murderer who excelled in electronic gadgetry. He was an expert at this stuff.
Brian had told her to keep away from the House, and not to bother with any of the cars—they were parked too close to the House to be safe enough to get into. Besides, both the ‘vette’s and her rental’s keys were somewhere in the House—hers specifically in the custody of one Henry Stanford Junior, and she wasn’t too keen on searching for the keys in Walter’s car in the dark.
He’d also told her not to stop and talk to anyone she didn’t know and trusted and had handed her the broken rake, telling her to use if anyone tried to get close. She said she was going to try and travel the first few hundred yards through the trees on the other side of the road so as not to catch the attention of the psycho. They had no idea what he was capable of. Well, actually they did know what he was capable of. They knew he was in the House with Justin, they’d seen him in the window there, but he had the keys to all the doors. For all they knew, he could see her with the kids out on the street and come out after them. Nothing was beyond him. Hence, she was to get to the closest neighbors—who were about a quarter of a mile away from Brian’s place—and try to get help.
So they walked as fast as they could in the pitch fucking dark, the winding road they’d finally ended up on lined on both sides by ashes and maples, making it harder to see anything beyond their thick leaves. She held JR in her arms, as Gus walked beside her and she gripped the rake in one hand and the little boy’s—Matty’s—hand with the other. She hadn’t been the one to get his name out of him—that was Gus’s accomplishment—but she hoped he was beginning to come out of his shock now. The tightlipped, white-faced, traumatic look was still somewhat there but the hitch in his tear-stained breath was getting less audible. Or maybe that had to do with her stringent warning to stay the hell quiet. She felt sorry for the poor kid. At least JR and Gus were with her when all that horror was set loose. She couldn’t imagine the fright the poor child must’ve gotten at being abducted and thrown in the stables—which then had been set on fucking fire. She couldn’t imagine what would happened if Brian hadn’t gotten them all out of there. If Brian hadn’t...
...Fuck. She swallowed. She had no idea what Brian was up to. He kept talking about knowing another way into the House and when she asked him what he meant, he mentioned something about the old... cannon base? What cannon base? Whatever the hell he was talking about, it made no sense, so either he’d lost his mind or she had. Either was a possibility.
And she’d seen the look on his face. He was terrified for Justin and she couldn’t blame him. She was terrified too, especially after the literal hell she’d been through with the kids. She’d seen the madness up close this time, closer than what she’d witnessed in the tunnels. And they’d almost perished. The flames, the smoke... she didn’t want to think about how fucking close they’d came to death. If Brian hadn’t come when he had, they’d all be dead right now.
She whipped open the phone to try it again, but it was still out. Shit. She looked at her watch. It was almost seven-thirty now and she knew Lindz must be getting worried. She had to get to a phone before Lindz or anyone else decided to come looking for them on their own. If only it wasn’t so fucking dark, or if Brian had chosen to buy a house closer to fucking civilization, she could find help fast. Dammit. Who knew what Brian was planning but since it involved getting inside the House, that thought alone left her with more than uneasiness. Facing the madman who’d almost been the cause of his death twelve days ago—she didn’t know how he was going to make it. And Justin was in there locked inside. Was he aware of what was going on? Could he defend himself? Were there even any fucking hiding places inside that huge fucking mansion?
She turned her head and looked back at the direction they’d come from but she could no longer see the House past the thick trees. She wondered if the stable had burnt to the ground already but she couldn’t even see the plume of smoke anymore. The road they’d taken had winded around a thick grove of trees, and the wind direction was the probable reason why she couldn’t even smell the smoke anymore.
"Mama, look!" Gus suddenly spoke up and she looked what he was pointing at. It was a light. Flickering in the darkness, between the trees. Now it was there, now it wasn’t. She strained her eyes to look closely and yes, there it was again.
"Is that Jazzy’s house, Mommy?" JR asked her. That was the Richardson’s place, Brian’s closest neighbors. The kids had gone trick-treating there the night before Halloween, and had made friends with the children.
"I hope so, baby," Melanie said, as she hurried her pace. "Come on, we’ve got to walk a little faster." She pushed them along, ever mindful of their step. No point in escaping the fire only to fall into a ditch and break their collective necks.
She felt Gus’ hand touch her arm. "Mama?"
She looked at him. "What, Gus?"
He turned his face to her, his big eyes earnest. "Is Dad going to be okay?"
She stared at her son’s face. What could she say? She took a deep breath and went for the only truth she was sure of. "Your dad... he loves Justin, Gus."
"I know." Gus said, and then his brow wrinkled. "But isn’t that why he was in the hospital?"
Melanie could see why he’d think this way. He was too protective of his father—a fact that had been the cause of much consternation for her for years on end, but which now--- made her wonder if things might’ve been different if she hadn’t been so closed to certain possibilities before. She pressed her lips together. "It doesn’t work that way, sweetie." She slid her hand through his hair. "Love doesn’t make us weak." She gave a faint smile as she thought of Lindsay and what she felt for her. "It’s supposed to be our strength. And your father’s a very strong man." So she didn’t believe this for a long time but she knew it now. Would never doubt it now. "Look how he got us all out of the stables. He came in there to save you, Gus. Because he loves you."
For what it was worth, this seemed to satisfy Gus and he relaxed again. She looked up and saw that the flickering light was closer now and she could also make out the shape of the large house as they approached the building. In fact, there were other light sources flickering in various rooms, both on the ground level, as well as the first floor. Candle lights and emergency lamps. It was the Richardson’s place.
Gripping the children’s hands and holding JR tightly, Melanie broke into a run, hurrying past the line of pines and onto the winding road that led to the country house.
"HELLO?" She yelled as they neared the main door. "ANYBODY THERE?"
A man, presumably a groundskeeper, came out from the side of the garage, holding a portable light in his hand. He flashed it in their faces. "Who is it?"
"Please," she said, hurrying up to him. "We need to use your phones!"
The man stopped in front of the main door rather stiffly, as if he suspected them of some wrongdoing and she realized she was wielding the rake in her hand like a weapon. "Sorry lady, but you’d have to stay back a little."
She paused and breathed deeply, putting the rake to the side. "Please," she said calmly. "We’ve walked all the way from West Averley. We need your help!"
"Who is it, Jones?" The door opened from inside and another man came out, carrying another light.
Melanie recognized him so before the groundskeeper could respond, she piped in. "Mr. Richardson?"
The man raised the light higher so he could look closely at her and the kids. "Yes?"
"This is Melanie Marcus, Brian Kinney’s friend," she said. "We met the night before Halloween. These are my children, Gus and Jenny Rebecca and... their friend Matty."
Recognition dawned on his face. "Yes, yes, of course." He smiled. "They’ve been to visit us a few times." Then he seemed to notice something off about them—she had no idea what he saw—because his brows drew together. "Is everything all right?"
"I’m afraid not," she replied, her eyes boring into his. "It’s an emergency. Our phones were out so we’ve come here to call the police."
Richardson stared at her in silence for a moment and then he said, "I’m afraid our phones aren’t working either. Something wrong with the cables."
Damn. "It’s not the cables," Melanie replied. "I presume your cell phones aren’t working either?"
Richardson frowned. "That’s true. But that’s probably only inside the house. We thought it was some kind of interference---"
"It’s an interference all right," Melanie said, "but not just inside your house. It’s an area-wide disruption. We’ve walked all the way from Brian’s place on West Averley and I’ve not been able to use my cell phone anywhere."
He seemed troubled at this revelation. "What’s really going on?"
Melanie swallowed. "Someone’s trying to kill us," she said, noting the shock spread on his face. "We need to get to the police right away."
Richardson looked at the other man, the groundskeeper—a worried look passing between them—and then turned to Melanie. "I’m afraid that won’t be easy. We had a dinner to go to this evening in Pittsburgh but when we got into the car, we realized there was no fuel in it. We thought it was only the Jag but then we found out the other cars were empty too. And so were the gas cans for the generators." He pressed his lips together. "Someone’s apparently stolen all the gasoline we had on the premises."
80.
The sweet scent of glory had never smelled so enchanting to him before.
Not even in the tunnels—where the Skull had joined him hand in hand to push Kinney and his pathetic faggoty friends down to their collective knees—had the plan worked as ingeniously as it did now. Because even there, he’d had the justification of having worked on all the details on his own playground. Losing there was inexcusable.
But here, on Kinney’s home turf, to make his plan execute as beautifully as he had—he couldn’t be more proud of himself if he’d tried.
The stables had only been a warmer. The real fireworks were yet to come.
The best way to defeat the enemy was to scatter them in fear and in cowardice. And he’d done that here. Because even though he’d left the opening for Kinney to come and save his widdle lover, the bastard hadn’t bothered. He’d run like the fucking cowardly little faggot he was, not looking back to see what became of his sweet little pussy boy.
"Where are you hiding, little boy?" he sniggered as he climbed down the stairs. "You know it’s not going to work. You can try all you want but you can’t run from me, you never could." He stood on the landing and looked around the room. Yes, everything was perfect—the night-vision adjustment he’d made to Skull’s mask was working like a charm. He walked to the dining room door where he’d seen the pussy boy run into and grabbed the doorknob. "Ready or not—here I come," he said.
Then he tightened his grip on the axe, turned the knob and pushed open the door.
81.
The cannon base wasn’t simply a figment of Brian’s imagination, as Mel had thought. It had existed in Murrysville for a very long time—a reminder from the Civil War era, a hundred and fifty years ago.
It wasn’t clear whether any cannons were ever stored in the depot but the local myth was that the base and its facilities had been used as a training ground for the Union forces during the war. Not much of the structure remained now—the barely there walls and broken roof apparently having been abandoned many generations ago, leaving the depot as nothing but a relic from 1861.
Brian, of course, wouldn’t even have been aware of its existence if he hadn’t decided to build the swimming pool in his basement.
And discovered the tunnel under the House.
It was something that had obviously not been part of the blueprints he’d acquired when buying the place. The House was originally built over a century ago but he’d been told that it had undergone complete renovations and remodeling since then and the structure as it stood now was not what had been there back then. Right from the walls to the floors to the adjoining garage and the connected tennis courts outside—everything in the House had been rebuilt around thirty five years ago, and he had no reason to believe otherwise.
And then the construction workers had discovered the entrance into a hundred and fifty year old tunnel and Brian had learnt never to trust uninformed, out-of-town realtors again.
The tunnel was apparently part of a whole network of underground passageways built during the war to train troops from the Pennsylvania Volunteer Army in Westmoreland. The main entrance was at the cannon base and from there, the tunnel divided into various off-shoots leading towards a total of seven or eight buildings in a radius of a mile that had been used as emergency exit-points, or shelters, for the troops to utilize in case of an attack. The House, as it had existed at that time, had supposedly been one of them.
Apparently out-of-town realtors weren’t the only uninformed species on the planet because when Brian got back to the UCC official who’d okayed construction of the pool with this revelation, he’d been equally as surprised. After inspecting the site, the official had asked Brian to seal the off-shoot that led to the House and Brian had agreed as long as the existence of the tunnel stayed out of the official blueprints. He didn’t want the tunnel to become public knowledge for safety issues and the official had agreed.
Hence, the only person other than Brian, the construction workers who’d discovered the tunnel, and the UCC official who’d sealed the case, who knew of it’s existence was Justin—whom Brian had told one night a couple of years ago—and even he didn’t know the exact exit point inside the House.
As Brian reached the old depot building, the thick cloud cover above casting gloomy shadows over everything living and dead, he hoped that lack of knowledge would not end up proving fatal to everything he’d strived for.
Because this was the last resort. The last chance. His only chance.
To save Justin.
82.
He didn’t know how long he stayed crouched in his position, hidden behind the leather sofa in front of the media center. Was it a few seconds or a few minutes? He couldn’t be sure. Time seemed to have lost any sequential quantification his rational mind could gauge it with. Unless he measured it between his heartbeats.
Because that was all Justin could focus on as he strained his ears to listen to the footsteps in the corridor next to the Great Room.
"You’re a conniving leetle bastard, aren’t you?" he heard the psycho say. "You really think you can hide from me?" A peal of laughter. "Don’t worry, leetle boee, I’m going to make it worth your while."
He crept forward on his hands and knees as he heard the door to Brian’s office creak open. If he could get out of this room and up the stairs while the psycho was in the other room, he might be able to find a better place to hide. Not that there was any place to hide upstairs. Who knew what kind of traps the psycho had laid upstairs. But he had to fucking move from here. He felt too exposed, too cornered—as if he was only biding his time before the psycho walked in on him. He was not going to make it that easy for him.
"Where are you?" the lilting tone suddenly sing-songed from somewhere behind him—the voice clearly coming from the dining room. Shit. How did he move so fast? "Come on out now."
He hurried forward, crawling towards the bend in the corner so that he could get behind the glass table before the psycho came inside the room. He heard the wooden floor creak from somewhere on his right. Or was it his left? He didn’t know.
When suddenly the Great Room’s front door opened with a bang.
Justin ducked his head just before the white mask turned in his direction, and held his breath. Fucking sonofabitch. He held still, lips gnashed together, the thudding of his heart beat loud in his chest, sure the psycho could see it—but then the head under the mask turned away and the psycho moved between the clear path between the media centre and the leather seating in front of the fireplace.
"I can smell you, leetle boee," the psycho crooned as Justin saw him turn his head around in the darkness, looking at every corner of the room. "I don’t know why you play these games with me. I’ve always been on your side after all." Justin waited until the psycho had turned around before he started to slink towards the side door on his hands and knees. "We’ve always been one of a kind, you and me." He heard the gleeful voice move towards the other corner of the room, as he crawled forward, his head low. "Both of us have been rejected,"—just a few more seconds, he thought—"beaten,"—five feet, the door was only five feet away—"humiliated,"—he just had to get out from behind the sofa—"broken,"—while the psycho looked the other way—"BETRAYED!!!" the voice changed as he was suddenly spotted just inches away from the exit. "YOU CAN’T RUN FROM ME!" the psycho shrieked leeringly, the axe raised in his hand, as Justin jumped to his feet and bolted out of the door.
He turned right and ran through the corridor towards Brian’s office, his throat seizing as he heard the Great Room door slam open behind him. He jumped around the corner towards the office as he felt the psycho dash out of the Great Room, his breath loud and puffy in the still night. The door that led from the corridor out of the House was right in front of him and for a split second, he wondered if he should try kicking it open and getting out of here but then he slammed open the door to Brian’s office and ran inside, knowing that the outside door would be closed just like all the others. There was no place to hide in the office and he could hear the psycho’s steps right behind him so he ran straight to the second door that opened into the other side of the corridor and flew out of the room.
There, again, he turned right and ran towards the corner that led around Brian’s office, hoping to get back into the corridor he’d come in from when suddenly the psycho appeared right in from of him, intercepting him from the other side of the corridor—apparently having shunned the shortcut through the office. With a sharp cry, Justin pivoted on his feet and ran back the way he’d come from, his heart galloping in his chest, the hairs on his skin rising at the triumphant note in the psycho’s roar.
This time he ran towards the spiral staircase and grabbed the railing with both hands, as he sprinted up two steps at a time—scrabbling, scratching, gripping the sides as he moved up, and up, and up. He climbed onto the glass-covered balcony, his breath heaving, and then turned around, almost tripping over the patio stools before he dashed inside the sliding door, his feet beating down the landing that went all the way around the second level. He could hear the psycho behind him—or was it right under him, he didn’t know—as he scrabbled his way through the pitch darkness. Where to hide, he asked himself, which door to go in?
When sudden something flashed into Justin’s eyes from one of the open doors. Was it a light? He blinked quickly as he tried to cover his eyes from the sudden glare. Was it some kind of a flash? He squinted into the darkness. Was it...
He stopped as his mind suddenly brought home the realization of what he was seeing just as his eyes focused. Images. Voices. His face streaked with blood. Contorted with pain. As he curled his hands into fists and banged them. Banged them. On the walls. On the doors.
"BRIAN," he heard his voice calling from somewhere behind him and dazed, turned around on the landing and watched the projected image of the footage from the tunnels play out downstairs, on the wall of the Great Room, above the fireplace. "BRIAN, CAN YOU HEAR ME?" he saw himself scream on the running film as his image self struggled with the masked psycho. It was a projector. Running the footage in the Great Room. And in the master Bedroom on his left. And on the wall facing the open lounge area across the railing right in front of him. "I’M RIGHT HERE, BRIAN," he cried in the footage as he kicked and screamed at the masked man, who dragged him into the womb of the tunnels.
"You’ve been abandoned again, leetle boee," the psycho’s voice boomed out from the darkness somewhere below. "Just like in the tunnels, when you’d been separated and then abandoned to rot and fucking break yourself down into hysteria, yet again, your friends disappoint you."
But that was not true. He hadn’t been abandoned there. Brian had been looking for him. Brian had almost died because of him.
"I gave him a passage inside, your pathetic lover," the psycho’s voice sniggered, "I gave him a chance to come inside the house, I fucking left a door open, but NO, he was TOO MUCH of a COWARD to come and get you." The voice laughed uproariously. "He left you here all alone."
No. The psycho was lying. He had to have been lying. Brian would never abandon him. Brian would never leave him alone. Brian would never let him go.
"Because that’s been in his plans for a looooong time now," the voice cackled as Justin watched his image self tackle the masked man down on the tunnel floors, shouting and scratching at his arms and his face and his torso—"he wants you out of his life, you pathetic little faggot,"—as they rolled on the floor, going round and round and round—"he was just waiting for the right time to wash his hands off you,"—as the masked man got on top of him and slapped him on the face, once, twice—"and that time has finally arrived."
He felt rooted to the spot, his throat closing, as his senses were assaulted from a hundred different directions.
It was all a lie. He knew it. None of it was true.
And yet he found himself sinking to the floor as he watched the images shift on the walls around him, watched the masked man in the footage grip his arms, his skeletal fingers digging into the skin of his arms.
He watched the bloody axe rise high in the grip of the gloved hands, as the masked man looked down at his face, the sneer on his face menacing, before bringing the sharp weapon down.
He watched.
*******
Continued next.
Entry word count: 6225
For Story Notes, click here.
Now on to Entry 21:
PART 2
78.
Justin suspected he might’ve been caught in a nightmare.
It’d happened to him before, soon after the bashing. He would find himself running through darkened alleys and side roads, ducking under fire-escape ladders, scrabbling between trash cans and heaps of junk and discarded cardboard boxes, all the time feeling a malevolent presence closing in on his back. He’d run and run and run, his breath hitching, his heart pounding in his chest, the sound of chasing feet loud in his ears, but he’d find no way out of the darkness. The sound of chasing feet would get louder and louder, closer and closer, and he’d see no way out. And then, right in the middle of it, it’d suddenly occur to him that he was actually dreaming. Was caught in a nightmare. But he still wouldn’t be able to come out of it. He’d thrash and moan and mumble and cry in his sleep, aware he was in the midst of a nightmare, but be unable to wake up—always desolate, always anguished.
Until his mother came and woke him up, her hands on his face, her worried voice trying to calm him down—all to no avail. And then he’d stay desolate, anguished. Angry and resentful at the world at large. At life in general. Hating himself.
Except for that time when Brian was around, after his mother agreed to let him stay at the loft. That was the only reprieve he got. The feel of Brian’s arms around his body, the feel of his soft hands on his temple rubbing away the pain, the sound of his soothing voice telling him everything was okay, that he was not alone. That was the only thing that could calm him down.
But there was no one to wake him up from his nightmare now.
The stables were on fire. And Gus was in it? What was going on? How did it happen? Where was Mel? And why the fuck weren’t the phones working?
To say that Brian’s words had shaken him to the core would be an understatement. He knew he’d fucked things up at times but he wasn’t expecting Brian to remind him of all that tonight. That Brian had remembered all those past hurts, that he hadn’t forgotten... it was something he couldn’t even fucking fault Brian for. Because it was all true. He had left Brian. Not once. Not twice. But over and over again. Willingly or unwillingly, it had always been his choice to walk out.
No matter how much he’d now deny ever wanting to hurt Brian, he obviously had. And Brian... hadn’t forgiven him, hadn’t forgotten the pain he’d caused him. It was too deeply ingrained in their lives now, into everything they did. It was inside their pores.
The hurt he’d caused was never going to go away.
This realization suffused him with the darkest despair. The thought of life without Brian... was unconceivable. Was incomprehensible.
And then the lights started going off and he heard Brian calling him from the other side of the door, his voice tinged with worry. He tried to get out of the House, tried to open the door and answer Brian. To reassure him that he was all right.
But the door didn’t budge. He was locked in.
And he realized that Brian couldn’t hear him.
The feeling of déjà vu hit him like a tidal wave, cold and eerily familiar—too much like the nightmare he’d faced only a few days ago. It was just like the tunnels where he’d heard Brian screaming for him from across the wall but hadn’t been able to get through to him. Brian hadn’t been able to hear him, when he’d been grabbed and dragged from that room by the psycho, kicking and screaming and struggling to get loose.
And with that, the dots connected, and he knew he was not alone in the House.
As if ghost fingers had run down his spine, he felt goose bumps form on his skin and he knew exactly whose malevolent presence it was that he’d felt. The locked doors, the darkened rooms, the phones not working, Brian not being able to hear him—it all made sense.
And just as in the tunnels, he was once again by himself, locked inside. Alone.
For one split second he wondered if he really wanted to struggle this time. What would be the point of fighting back if he didn’t even have Brian? Brian had been his reason to fight in the tunnels and if Brian wanted him gone... then maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to let it all end right now. Life without Brian was meaningless. Perhaps, it would be no big loss if the psycho actually came and got him and finished the job for good this time. At least it would ease Brian’s pain.
That was when he heard it.
He was in the kitchen, leaning against the back door after his failed attempts to open them, his mind awhirl with desolate thoughts, when the voice spoke from somewhere behind him, making him stop.
"So tell me, Kinney, how does it feel to be the poison in everyone’s lives?"
Justin felt the hairs on his arms rising as he turned around, trying to look into the darkened room, when the realization dawned that the voice was coming from... the wall.
"You couldn’t let them walk away, now, could you?" the voice said as Justin felt his way to the dining room doorway in the darkness. "You had to bring them here, to this cursed place even though they didn’t want to." He frowned as he listened to the words. Where was the sound coming from? How was...he talking to Brian? "Your leetle boees." Justin froze. "Both of them." No. "Which one of them are you going to save now, Kinney?" the psycho laughed and Justin felt his throat seizing. "The one burning to a crisp in the stables, or the one about to be hacked to itsy bitsy pieces inside your house?"
Justin felt rooted to the spot, as if he couldn’t move. Gus was in the stables. Burning... burning...
That was when he heard Brian screaming from outside. Calling his name, pounding on the door, the raw anguish in his voice too much like what he’d witnessed in the tunnels. Jesus Christ. This was not happening. Not again. Gus was in the stables. Gus was... Fuck. Someone had to go find him. And Melanie. Someone had to...
He heard a creak on the floor above and froze. His teeth dug into his lips, drawing blood as his brows drew together, and he stood right where he was, restraining himself from reacting to Brian’s voice. From launching himself to the door and pounding his own fists on the wood, screaming back at Brian. Instead, he stood motionless, his lips pressed tightly, his breath still, as he strained his ears to hear the sound again.
Go, Brian, he silently prayed. Get out of here!
And as if Brian could hear him, the pounding stopped. Justin looked into the darkened contours of the dining room, standing stock-still, listening to the wind whipping through the open skylight in the bar behind him. The House was quiet now but he knew what he’d heard before. The sound of footsteps right above him. He knew which room it was. It was their bedroom from where he’d seen the stables burning.
He was not going to let the psycho do what he’d done in the tunnels. Not again. Brian wouldn’t be able to take it. He almost didn’t take it the last time. This time, he’d surely die if he thought anything had happened to him. Well, Justin was not going to let that happen. Please, let Gus be okay, he prayed.
Keeping his steps light, he turned around and went back into the kitchen—silently riffling through the drawers, looking for a knife, a blade, anything he could use as a weapon. But there was nothing. The drawers had been fucking emptied. Christ. He opened the cabinets and looked through them, his teeth grinding in frustration. There must be something, anything he could use, a pot, a fucking pan, a godforsaken rolling pin. But there was nothing. All the drawers, the cabinets had been systematically cleaned up. He ran to the bar and looked into the barbeque unit—maybe there was a skewer lying around, or a boning knife or...
"Did you really think I was going to make it that easy for you?" Justin jumped as the voice came from the kitchen. He spun around and stared into the darkness, his heart pounding. "Why, leetle boee," the psycho laughed mockingly, his tone the same lilting, seething, syrupy rasp that grated on his last fucking nerve, "you seem to give me no credit at all."
The sound was coming from the kitchen ceiling. How many other places were the loudspeakers hidden in. Well considering how thoroughly he seemed to have gone through all their supplies, removing anything Justin could’ve used as a weapon, he figured the whole House was trapped.
But could he see Justin too? Were there cameras around here the way they’d been in the tunnels?
Well, there was only one way to find out. Justin took a deep breath and walked to the dining room door again. He stood in the doorway and took stock of the quietness in the House. That creaking had stopped and he could hear nothing moving now, no footsteps, no sound of anyone moving above.
His eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness now that he could make out the objects around him. To his right was the door to the lobby where the main stairs were. From there he could get to the Game Room where the access to the wine cellar and the indoor pool were located. He could try getting into the wine cellar but he knew there was no way out of there because the door would be locked there as well, except... No. The more immediate concern was the winding stairs to his left, which were located at the corner of the corridor that went along one side of the Great Room, before winding around Brian’s office in a full rectangle. He didn’t want to be caught off guard. There were too many exits and entry points in the corridor. He had to keep an eye on all these points and stay alert.
At right angles to the kitchen entrance was the large double French door that opened into the Great Room. There was a fireplace there and for a second, he wondered if there might be a blowpoke or a tong lying around. But then immediately dismissed that thought. There would be nothing there. It was too obvious a place—just like the kitchen.
So he moved back to the kitchen door and faced the corridor that led to Brian’s office. He looked at the spiral staircase that led to the balcony above and held his breath, staring at the winding stairs, ears perked for any sound or movement. There was nothing. He walked around the bend of the corridor to Brian’s office door and turned the knob to check if it was open. It was. He left it that way and turned around and walked back into the dining room, quietly moving around the large dining table to the door that led to the lobby. He stood still and listened quietly. Nothing. He looked at the door to the Game Room and was about to take a step towards it when he saw something move above him, in the periphery of his vision.
"Hello, leetle boee!" Justin’s head snapped up as he stared at the white face suspended above the stairs. It was the same despicable skull mask, the same manic grin, the same frightening madness in the voice. The psycho chuckled. "Long time no see?" He raised the axe in his hands. "It’s time to play!
And Justin turned and ran.
79.
The power outage and the ensuing darkness seemed to encompass as far as Melanie could see.
As they walked, she tried the cell phone—that Brian had handed over to keep trying until she got through to someone—again and sighed in vain. She still wasn’t getting a signal. Brian had mentioned the possibility of signal jammers and all it’d reminded her of was the tunnels and how their cell phones hadn’t worked down there either.
But how far out could a disruption like this be maintained? It must be very sophisticated technology to cover very long distances. But then they were dealing with a psychopathic murderer who excelled in electronic gadgetry. He was an expert at this stuff.
Brian had told her to keep away from the House, and not to bother with any of the cars—they were parked too close to the House to be safe enough to get into. Besides, both the ‘vette’s and her rental’s keys were somewhere in the House—hers specifically in the custody of one Henry Stanford Junior, and she wasn’t too keen on searching for the keys in Walter’s car in the dark.
He’d also told her not to stop and talk to anyone she didn’t know and trusted and had handed her the broken rake, telling her to use if anyone tried to get close. She said she was going to try and travel the first few hundred yards through the trees on the other side of the road so as not to catch the attention of the psycho. They had no idea what he was capable of. Well, actually they did know what he was capable of. They knew he was in the House with Justin, they’d seen him in the window there, but he had the keys to all the doors. For all they knew, he could see her with the kids out on the street and come out after them. Nothing was beyond him. Hence, she was to get to the closest neighbors—who were about a quarter of a mile away from Brian’s place—and try to get help.
So they walked as fast as they could in the pitch fucking dark, the winding road they’d finally ended up on lined on both sides by ashes and maples, making it harder to see anything beyond their thick leaves. She held JR in her arms, as Gus walked beside her and she gripped the rake in one hand and the little boy’s—Matty’s—hand with the other. She hadn’t been the one to get his name out of him—that was Gus’s accomplishment—but she hoped he was beginning to come out of his shock now. The tightlipped, white-faced, traumatic look was still somewhat there but the hitch in his tear-stained breath was getting less audible. Or maybe that had to do with her stringent warning to stay the hell quiet. She felt sorry for the poor kid. At least JR and Gus were with her when all that horror was set loose. She couldn’t imagine the fright the poor child must’ve gotten at being abducted and thrown in the stables—which then had been set on fucking fire. She couldn’t imagine what would happened if Brian hadn’t gotten them all out of there. If Brian hadn’t...
...Fuck. She swallowed. She had no idea what Brian was up to. He kept talking about knowing another way into the House and when she asked him what he meant, he mentioned something about the old... cannon base? What cannon base? Whatever the hell he was talking about, it made no sense, so either he’d lost his mind or she had. Either was a possibility.
And she’d seen the look on his face. He was terrified for Justin and she couldn’t blame him. She was terrified too, especially after the literal hell she’d been through with the kids. She’d seen the madness up close this time, closer than what she’d witnessed in the tunnels. And they’d almost perished. The flames, the smoke... she didn’t want to think about how fucking close they’d came to death. If Brian hadn’t come when he had, they’d all be dead right now.
She whipped open the phone to try it again, but it was still out. Shit. She looked at her watch. It was almost seven-thirty now and she knew Lindz must be getting worried. She had to get to a phone before Lindz or anyone else decided to come looking for them on their own. If only it wasn’t so fucking dark, or if Brian had chosen to buy a house closer to fucking civilization, she could find help fast. Dammit. Who knew what Brian was planning but since it involved getting inside the House, that thought alone left her with more than uneasiness. Facing the madman who’d almost been the cause of his death twelve days ago—she didn’t know how he was going to make it. And Justin was in there locked inside. Was he aware of what was going on? Could he defend himself? Were there even any fucking hiding places inside that huge fucking mansion?
She turned her head and looked back at the direction they’d come from but she could no longer see the House past the thick trees. She wondered if the stable had burnt to the ground already but she couldn’t even see the plume of smoke anymore. The road they’d taken had winded around a thick grove of trees, and the wind direction was the probable reason why she couldn’t even smell the smoke anymore.
"Mama, look!" Gus suddenly spoke up and she looked what he was pointing at. It was a light. Flickering in the darkness, between the trees. Now it was there, now it wasn’t. She strained her eyes to look closely and yes, there it was again.
"Is that Jazzy’s house, Mommy?" JR asked her. That was the Richardson’s place, Brian’s closest neighbors. The kids had gone trick-treating there the night before Halloween, and had made friends with the children.
"I hope so, baby," Melanie said, as she hurried her pace. "Come on, we’ve got to walk a little faster." She pushed them along, ever mindful of their step. No point in escaping the fire only to fall into a ditch and break their collective necks.
She felt Gus’ hand touch her arm. "Mama?"
She looked at him. "What, Gus?"
He turned his face to her, his big eyes earnest. "Is Dad going to be okay?"
She stared at her son’s face. What could she say? She took a deep breath and went for the only truth she was sure of. "Your dad... he loves Justin, Gus."
"I know." Gus said, and then his brow wrinkled. "But isn’t that why he was in the hospital?"
Melanie could see why he’d think this way. He was too protective of his father—a fact that had been the cause of much consternation for her for years on end, but which now--- made her wonder if things might’ve been different if she hadn’t been so closed to certain possibilities before. She pressed her lips together. "It doesn’t work that way, sweetie." She slid her hand through his hair. "Love doesn’t make us weak." She gave a faint smile as she thought of Lindsay and what she felt for her. "It’s supposed to be our strength. And your father’s a very strong man." So she didn’t believe this for a long time but she knew it now. Would never doubt it now. "Look how he got us all out of the stables. He came in there to save you, Gus. Because he loves you."
For what it was worth, this seemed to satisfy Gus and he relaxed again. She looked up and saw that the flickering light was closer now and she could also make out the shape of the large house as they approached the building. In fact, there were other light sources flickering in various rooms, both on the ground level, as well as the first floor. Candle lights and emergency lamps. It was the Richardson’s place.
Gripping the children’s hands and holding JR tightly, Melanie broke into a run, hurrying past the line of pines and onto the winding road that led to the country house.
"HELLO?" She yelled as they neared the main door. "ANYBODY THERE?"
A man, presumably a groundskeeper, came out from the side of the garage, holding a portable light in his hand. He flashed it in their faces. "Who is it?"
"Please," she said, hurrying up to him. "We need to use your phones!"
The man stopped in front of the main door rather stiffly, as if he suspected them of some wrongdoing and she realized she was wielding the rake in her hand like a weapon. "Sorry lady, but you’d have to stay back a little."
She paused and breathed deeply, putting the rake to the side. "Please," she said calmly. "We’ve walked all the way from West Averley. We need your help!"
"Who is it, Jones?" The door opened from inside and another man came out, carrying another light.
Melanie recognized him so before the groundskeeper could respond, she piped in. "Mr. Richardson?"
The man raised the light higher so he could look closely at her and the kids. "Yes?"
"This is Melanie Marcus, Brian Kinney’s friend," she said. "We met the night before Halloween. These are my children, Gus and Jenny Rebecca and... their friend Matty."
Recognition dawned on his face. "Yes, yes, of course." He smiled. "They’ve been to visit us a few times." Then he seemed to notice something off about them—she had no idea what he saw—because his brows drew together. "Is everything all right?"
"I’m afraid not," she replied, her eyes boring into his. "It’s an emergency. Our phones were out so we’ve come here to call the police."
Richardson stared at her in silence for a moment and then he said, "I’m afraid our phones aren’t working either. Something wrong with the cables."
Damn. "It’s not the cables," Melanie replied. "I presume your cell phones aren’t working either?"
Richardson frowned. "That’s true. But that’s probably only inside the house. We thought it was some kind of interference---"
"It’s an interference all right," Melanie said, "but not just inside your house. It’s an area-wide disruption. We’ve walked all the way from Brian’s place on West Averley and I’ve not been able to use my cell phone anywhere."
He seemed troubled at this revelation. "What’s really going on?"
Melanie swallowed. "Someone’s trying to kill us," she said, noting the shock spread on his face. "We need to get to the police right away."
Richardson looked at the other man, the groundskeeper—a worried look passing between them—and then turned to Melanie. "I’m afraid that won’t be easy. We had a dinner to go to this evening in Pittsburgh but when we got into the car, we realized there was no fuel in it. We thought it was only the Jag but then we found out the other cars were empty too. And so were the gas cans for the generators." He pressed his lips together. "Someone’s apparently stolen all the gasoline we had on the premises."
80.
The sweet scent of glory had never smelled so enchanting to him before.
Not even in the tunnels—where the Skull had joined him hand in hand to push Kinney and his pathetic faggoty friends down to their collective knees—had the plan worked as ingeniously as it did now. Because even there, he’d had the justification of having worked on all the details on his own playground. Losing there was inexcusable.
But here, on Kinney’s home turf, to make his plan execute as beautifully as he had—he couldn’t be more proud of himself if he’d tried.
The stables had only been a warmer. The real fireworks were yet to come.
The best way to defeat the enemy was to scatter them in fear and in cowardice. And he’d done that here. Because even though he’d left the opening for Kinney to come and save his widdle lover, the bastard hadn’t bothered. He’d run like the fucking cowardly little faggot he was, not looking back to see what became of his sweet little pussy boy.
"Where are you hiding, little boy?" he sniggered as he climbed down the stairs. "You know it’s not going to work. You can try all you want but you can’t run from me, you never could." He stood on the landing and looked around the room. Yes, everything was perfect—the night-vision adjustment he’d made to Skull’s mask was working like a charm. He walked to the dining room door where he’d seen the pussy boy run into and grabbed the doorknob. "Ready or not—here I come," he said.
Then he tightened his grip on the axe, turned the knob and pushed open the door.
81.
The cannon base wasn’t simply a figment of Brian’s imagination, as Mel had thought. It had existed in Murrysville for a very long time—a reminder from the Civil War era, a hundred and fifty years ago.
It wasn’t clear whether any cannons were ever stored in the depot but the local myth was that the base and its facilities had been used as a training ground for the Union forces during the war. Not much of the structure remained now—the barely there walls and broken roof apparently having been abandoned many generations ago, leaving the depot as nothing but a relic from 1861.
Brian, of course, wouldn’t even have been aware of its existence if he hadn’t decided to build the swimming pool in his basement.
And discovered the tunnel under the House.
It was something that had obviously not been part of the blueprints he’d acquired when buying the place. The House was originally built over a century ago but he’d been told that it had undergone complete renovations and remodeling since then and the structure as it stood now was not what had been there back then. Right from the walls to the floors to the adjoining garage and the connected tennis courts outside—everything in the House had been rebuilt around thirty five years ago, and he had no reason to believe otherwise.
And then the construction workers had discovered the entrance into a hundred and fifty year old tunnel and Brian had learnt never to trust uninformed, out-of-town realtors again.
The tunnel was apparently part of a whole network of underground passageways built during the war to train troops from the Pennsylvania Volunteer Army in Westmoreland. The main entrance was at the cannon base and from there, the tunnel divided into various off-shoots leading towards a total of seven or eight buildings in a radius of a mile that had been used as emergency exit-points, or shelters, for the troops to utilize in case of an attack. The House, as it had existed at that time, had supposedly been one of them.
Apparently out-of-town realtors weren’t the only uninformed species on the planet because when Brian got back to the UCC official who’d okayed construction of the pool with this revelation, he’d been equally as surprised. After inspecting the site, the official had asked Brian to seal the off-shoot that led to the House and Brian had agreed as long as the existence of the tunnel stayed out of the official blueprints. He didn’t want the tunnel to become public knowledge for safety issues and the official had agreed.
Hence, the only person other than Brian, the construction workers who’d discovered the tunnel, and the UCC official who’d sealed the case, who knew of it’s existence was Justin—whom Brian had told one night a couple of years ago—and even he didn’t know the exact exit point inside the House.
As Brian reached the old depot building, the thick cloud cover above casting gloomy shadows over everything living and dead, he hoped that lack of knowledge would not end up proving fatal to everything he’d strived for.
Because this was the last resort. The last chance. His only chance.
To save Justin.
82.
He didn’t know how long he stayed crouched in his position, hidden behind the leather sofa in front of the media center. Was it a few seconds or a few minutes? He couldn’t be sure. Time seemed to have lost any sequential quantification his rational mind could gauge it with. Unless he measured it between his heartbeats.
Because that was all Justin could focus on as he strained his ears to listen to the footsteps in the corridor next to the Great Room.
"You’re a conniving leetle bastard, aren’t you?" he heard the psycho say. "You really think you can hide from me?" A peal of laughter. "Don’t worry, leetle boee, I’m going to make it worth your while."
He crept forward on his hands and knees as he heard the door to Brian’s office creak open. If he could get out of this room and up the stairs while the psycho was in the other room, he might be able to find a better place to hide. Not that there was any place to hide upstairs. Who knew what kind of traps the psycho had laid upstairs. But he had to fucking move from here. He felt too exposed, too cornered—as if he was only biding his time before the psycho walked in on him. He was not going to make it that easy for him.
"Where are you?" the lilting tone suddenly sing-songed from somewhere behind him—the voice clearly coming from the dining room. Shit. How did he move so fast? "Come on out now."
He hurried forward, crawling towards the bend in the corner so that he could get behind the glass table before the psycho came inside the room. He heard the wooden floor creak from somewhere on his right. Or was it his left? He didn’t know.
When suddenly the Great Room’s front door opened with a bang.
Justin ducked his head just before the white mask turned in his direction, and held his breath. Fucking sonofabitch. He held still, lips gnashed together, the thudding of his heart beat loud in his chest, sure the psycho could see it—but then the head under the mask turned away and the psycho moved between the clear path between the media centre and the leather seating in front of the fireplace.
"I can smell you, leetle boee," the psycho crooned as Justin saw him turn his head around in the darkness, looking at every corner of the room. "I don’t know why you play these games with me. I’ve always been on your side after all." Justin waited until the psycho had turned around before he started to slink towards the side door on his hands and knees. "We’ve always been one of a kind, you and me." He heard the gleeful voice move towards the other corner of the room, as he crawled forward, his head low. "Both of us have been rejected,"—just a few more seconds, he thought—"beaten,"—five feet, the door was only five feet away—"humiliated,"—he just had to get out from behind the sofa—"broken,"—while the psycho looked the other way—"BETRAYED!!!" the voice changed as he was suddenly spotted just inches away from the exit. "YOU CAN’T RUN FROM ME!" the psycho shrieked leeringly, the axe raised in his hand, as Justin jumped to his feet and bolted out of the door.
He turned right and ran through the corridor towards Brian’s office, his throat seizing as he heard the Great Room door slam open behind him. He jumped around the corner towards the office as he felt the psycho dash out of the Great Room, his breath loud and puffy in the still night. The door that led from the corridor out of the House was right in front of him and for a split second, he wondered if he should try kicking it open and getting out of here but then he slammed open the door to Brian’s office and ran inside, knowing that the outside door would be closed just like all the others. There was no place to hide in the office and he could hear the psycho’s steps right behind him so he ran straight to the second door that opened into the other side of the corridor and flew out of the room.
There, again, he turned right and ran towards the corner that led around Brian’s office, hoping to get back into the corridor he’d come in from when suddenly the psycho appeared right in from of him, intercepting him from the other side of the corridor—apparently having shunned the shortcut through the office. With a sharp cry, Justin pivoted on his feet and ran back the way he’d come from, his heart galloping in his chest, the hairs on his skin rising at the triumphant note in the psycho’s roar.
This time he ran towards the spiral staircase and grabbed the railing with both hands, as he sprinted up two steps at a time—scrabbling, scratching, gripping the sides as he moved up, and up, and up. He climbed onto the glass-covered balcony, his breath heaving, and then turned around, almost tripping over the patio stools before he dashed inside the sliding door, his feet beating down the landing that went all the way around the second level. He could hear the psycho behind him—or was it right under him, he didn’t know—as he scrabbled his way through the pitch darkness. Where to hide, he asked himself, which door to go in?
When sudden something flashed into Justin’s eyes from one of the open doors. Was it a light? He blinked quickly as he tried to cover his eyes from the sudden glare. Was it some kind of a flash? He squinted into the darkness. Was it...
He stopped as his mind suddenly brought home the realization of what he was seeing just as his eyes focused. Images. Voices. His face streaked with blood. Contorted with pain. As he curled his hands into fists and banged them. Banged them. On the walls. On the doors.
"BRIAN," he heard his voice calling from somewhere behind him and dazed, turned around on the landing and watched the projected image of the footage from the tunnels play out downstairs, on the wall of the Great Room, above the fireplace. "BRIAN, CAN YOU HEAR ME?" he saw himself scream on the running film as his image self struggled with the masked psycho. It was a projector. Running the footage in the Great Room. And in the master Bedroom on his left. And on the wall facing the open lounge area across the railing right in front of him. "I’M RIGHT HERE, BRIAN," he cried in the footage as he kicked and screamed at the masked man, who dragged him into the womb of the tunnels.
"You’ve been abandoned again, leetle boee," the psycho’s voice boomed out from the darkness somewhere below. "Just like in the tunnels, when you’d been separated and then abandoned to rot and fucking break yourself down into hysteria, yet again, your friends disappoint you."
But that was not true. He hadn’t been abandoned there. Brian had been looking for him. Brian had almost died because of him.
"I gave him a passage inside, your pathetic lover," the psycho’s voice sniggered, "I gave him a chance to come inside the house, I fucking left a door open, but NO, he was TOO MUCH of a COWARD to come and get you." The voice laughed uproariously. "He left you here all alone."
No. The psycho was lying. He had to have been lying. Brian would never abandon him. Brian would never leave him alone. Brian would never let him go.
"Because that’s been in his plans for a looooong time now," the voice cackled as Justin watched his image self tackle the masked man down on the tunnel floors, shouting and scratching at his arms and his face and his torso—"he wants you out of his life, you pathetic little faggot,"—as they rolled on the floor, going round and round and round—"he was just waiting for the right time to wash his hands off you,"—as the masked man got on top of him and slapped him on the face, once, twice—"and that time has finally arrived."
He felt rooted to the spot, his throat closing, as his senses were assaulted from a hundred different directions.
It was all a lie. He knew it. None of it was true.
And yet he found himself sinking to the floor as he watched the images shift on the walls around him, watched the masked man in the footage grip his arms, his skeletal fingers digging into the skin of his arms.
He watched the bloody axe rise high in the grip of the gloved hands, as the masked man looked down at his face, the sneer on his face menacing, before bringing the sharp weapon down.
He watched.
*******
Continued next.
