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Chapter 3: Fright Night
Aleks took hold of the lamp, "This thing served me well enough while waiting...and hell it might come in handy."
She looked over at Zach, shaking her head. "At least your alright."
Her feet hurt, but she was going to be alright as soon as they got the hell out of here.
"Lets just get going, I hate this place."
-Aleks
"What? My Smoke persona?" Lance shrugged, "It's not just to get laid. You know what my normal voice sounds like. Who's going to listen to a Rapper who sounds like a CPA?"
Dave smiled. "True. If you never learn from, though..." He shook his head, realizing he had been talking about himself this whole time. "What about you? Something seems to be on your mind."
***
Getting back onto this feet with help from Deanna, Kieran balked at the mention of Emma. "Oh, great. Another ex who wants to kill me." He glanced at Dee, figuring he had no say in the matter. Either die here a slow and painful death or pay a visit to his fan club, get persecuted, and then die a slow and painful death.
-Dave and Kiersn
Tina glared at him, "Then nobody'll listen to ya. Fuck 'em. Do your bullshit anyway. You think I ever gave a shit when people told me I was too loud, too crass, had a shitmouth and drank too much? Fuck that."
Of course, the inability to hold down a steady job for any length of time had gotten annoying, but Tina was resolved to stick to her guns in this.
Deanna held her brother up, "Than they'll have to get through me first." she commented as she started walking with her brother. "And if you even try to give up Kieran, I'll handle your funeral myself."
She glanced at Eli, "Just get out of my way."
"You really are a two-faced little scab, aren't you?: asked Eli, "I've been looking out for your ass the last six months, through all the hard drugs, and the weed, and the gay boyfriend..."
He paused, realizing it was 10 to 1 Deanna didn't know this.
"Oh, yeah, he was gay. Great job on that. And then the wannabe thug boyfriend, and all the while it's..." he put on a gruff voice, "If I ever see that fucker Kieran again, I'll put one between his eyes...Bang!" he attempted a shot with a finger gun, "But the second he comes back, it's..." high falsetto voice, "Oh, I love you savior big brother, I owe you my life, how dare people not be cool with all the serial killing you've done?' Give me a fucking break."
Kieran recalled his conversation with Deanna earlier, when he was carrying her, when she went from thanking him to blaming him to wanting to run away with him.
Maybe it was a teenage thing. "You have been inconsistent. Still..." He looked to Eli with a vindictive anger, as hard as it was to express it with how hurt he was. "Fine job looking out for her, doing hard drugs, the weed, the gay boyfriend, and, oh right, HER GETTING KIDNAPPED AND BEATEN!" He lurched over, regretting how much he exerted himself.
Deanna kept Kieran held up the best she could, "Enough of it both of you! My choices are my damn own, I ain't anyone's responsibility! I'm my own person...I can take care of my damn self." she said as she walked with her brother towards the camp.
"And so you both know, a girl can have a change of mind. Considering that right now I have zero faith in anyone here to get us the fuck out of this mess." She told her cousin and her brother, pulling him along the way.
She had a point. As they walked, he said, "You know, I did try Country Music first."
"No good, I take it, or else you'd be running around in a ten gallon hat saying 'Boy Howdy'?"
***
"Fine, then!" spat Eli, maybe a little petulantly, "Don't ask for my help again. Go off, get high, fuck around, get yourself killed, I'm over it!"
He tittered, "And don't go playing that 'empowered woman' shit on me, okay? My Mom makes her own decisions too and look where she's ended up."
He turned to Kieran, "Still time to drag yourself out of here. I'll gladly tell everybody I found Dee passed out in a puddle."
-Tina and Eli
"I tried it for two months, and it just wasn't working," Lance shrugged, "Then a good friend of mine introduced me to Dr. Dre and Enimen and well..rest is history."
"Appreciate the offer but," Kieran tried to stand up straight. "My back kinda hurts, among other things, and I think I need to sit down for just a minute before you ship me back to jail." He pressed on. "Even if you'll all kill me first."
"Kieran I'm not leaving without you..." Deanna said, looking over at Eli and narrowing her eyes. "And shove off Eli, when did it ever matter...your mom only ever cares about you. I'm not important to her, so it doesn't matter whether or not I'm around. And as for my brother, I'm not leaving his ass behind." She walked with Kieran still, supporting him despite the bad injuries to her own body right now.
Leslie took herself out of her sorrows to notice the foreboding the figure standing over them.
She wanted answers.
"Hey!" Leslie stumbled to her feet and tugged at his shirt. "Who the hell are you?! Did you see anything?!" She yelled on the verge of screaming, desperate for answers.
"No, señorita, Pedro did not," Pedro said immediately, crossing himself.
He had considered taking the knife with him, but had decided against it. In the sitiuation they were in, they'd probably blame him for this young man's death. They still might.
And in any other circumstance, they might have been right. Except this was not his style.
He pointed from where he came, "Encontrarás el arma homicida a unos 10 pies en el suelo de esa manera."
Leslie, for the first time in her life, regretted taking that civic politics elective and not continuing Spanish.
Clearly panicked and frantic for answers now, all Leslie could get out was, "What?!"
But she had to remain calm. Her grandparents were native speakers. She could figure this out.
"Homicida, easy enough. Unos, ones. Arma...arma, arma, arma--weapon! Murder weapon!" Any hope Leslie had disentegrated from her face. She couldn't make out any more. The one witness besides was...
She turned to Tracy. "What happened here?!"
Tracy looked up, "I heard gunshots...and than screams....and I came running through and found Micah like this..."
She shook her head, trying to figure out what was going on besides the fact that Micah was dead.
Pedro sighed. Why, why couldn't everyone speak Spanish?
'Joder.'
"The murder weapon is about 10 feet that way. It almost hit me, and Pedro did not touch it."
"Gunshots? Which ones?!" Leslie combed through her hair with her hands, frustrated to hell and back. There were gunshots going off all throughout the night. Leslie heard some ages ago but the screams were so recent...
Taking deep breaths, she tried, futilely, to keep her cool. "He was here." She said to herself in disbelief. "He was right here." Furious, Leslie pointed to the cabins just a ways from here and exploded to no one in particular, "The cabins were right there and nobody did a damn thing!"
I didn't.
Seething with anger, she turned to Pedro, who spoke up in English. "The murder weapon is ten paces from here? Ten paces?! LIKE A GODDAMN TREASURE MAP?!" Leslie pulled back, realizing this guy could actually find the bastard who did this. She was desperate to do something, but...she wanted to stay here. For however long she could.
She looked up at the looming figure of this Pedro. "Can you get it back for us? I...I can get someone to go along with you."
"Fitz!" Leslie called over. "Fitz, can you go along with..." She tried to recall his name. "Pedro, was it?" Expecting more cowardice from Fitz, she implored. "Please."
"Pedro can take you," the Hitman replied.
Fitz wasn't entirely sure what was going on.
He'd followed the girl...Leslie...as he'd been prompted, mostly because he dreaded the thought of being alone. He had not known what they could expect to find, but had been certain it would be nothing pleasant. And in this he was right.
Micah... He'd not known the boy, only that he had nearly died in Terrance's place that night.
A sorry honor, and even that's been undone.
He was dimly aware of the others... Phyllis Hendricks, weeping over her son, tears now quieted to muffled sobs. He hadn't shed such tears for his son. But, then...he'd not been there that night. Even identifying him afterward... He had stayed only as long as he needed, and had looked away almost at once.
Simone had called him a coward. Precisely, she had called him a 'dickless excuse of a man'. And he had stood there in the drawing room, glass of sherry in hand and declared that that may be so, but he was the only man left.
She'd packed her bags the next day.
And there was the scraggle haired redneck boy, crying as well and making a general mess of himself. Fitz himself did not relish looking anymore than he needed to...yet again. He turned away, pressing his hand over his mouth.
"Oh me," he muttered, "oh my."
Tracy was here too, of course. His Kitten...she seemed a miserable creature now, pale and tragic, beaten down. Surely there was some ugly story to this... But Fitz did not care to know it, no more than he cared to think over all the wrongs Tracy had done him.
It mattered little and less now.
He was dimly aware of Leslie yelling at some strange man. Was that Spanish?
"What?" he turned to Leslie, jarred from his ruminations, "Mr. Smith," he corrected automatically, immediately feeling a prig for it. He looked the man over, "A Mexican, eh?"
He'd learned a bit of Spanish on Quinn's campaigns. Not that they ever won much of the Hispanic vote, or whatever they were calling it now.
"Where the devil did he come from?" he looked the man up and down, attempting in laborious Spanish, "¿Dónde está mi auto?"
***
Phyllis forced herself to look up, feeling tears caked on her face. She felt exhausted, as if she'd run a thousand miles.'
With a shock, she looked up and found Carl across from her. Of course, he...he'd arrived earlier, everything...
Everything seemed to have faded away. None of it mattered.
Wordlessly, she reached out over her son's body and took his hand.
-Fitz and Phyllis
"Mexican American, Idiota" Pedro corrected, "Por el culo de tu padre"
***
Carl was blinded by the tears, but felt the hand. He squeezed it hard.
Tracy looked up at Mr. Smith, shaking her head as she tried to figure out what everyone was yelling about. The murder weapon, the knife, she knew where it went, didn't she? She shook her head, standing up and looking at herself.
"No....not again...I don't want to be part of this stupid murder spree again!" She yelled out, tears hot down her face as she backed up against the cabin.
She was acting afraid, acting the part, but maybe some of her really was afraid, because she wanted this all to be done with already.
"Padre?" Fitz cocked an eyebrow, "Oh, oh no, no...he's not mine," he nodded to Micah's body, "He belongs to that woman there. See, the crying one..." he pointed Phyllis out, helpfully, "Well, go on then, lead the way."
If this ended in a stabbing, at least nobody could say he hadn't died in the midst of good works.
"You're a groundskeeper, I take it?"
"No," Pedro replied, shaking his head. The man would probably freak out if he told him the truth...though if he'd learned anything from the countless horror movies he'd watched, secrets always came out, "I just live here."
"You're some type of vagrant?"
That didn't bode well. Fitz attempted to disguise the high vibrato his voice had taken on, "Well, surely you regret stumbling in among the likes of us."
Fitz couldn't blame him. By now, he felt the same.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Pedro said. God, this man was annoying, "And Sí. I do."
Leslie looked from the newcomer to Micah, surrounded by his mother and noticed, perhaps for the first time since she arrived, now somewhat less blinded by rage and sorrow...Carl. Racist, gay Carl. The one who tried to corrupt Micah, who tried to take advantage of him. The Wiz-Kid.
Crying over her friend's body.
Her guts wrenched. She felt sick. Not because Carl was there but...because she was wrong. Carl was acting...genuine, holding Dr. Hendricks's hand. Leslie had seen Micah, among other actors, crying. But this was no act. It seemed a part of him died. Something was taken from him. Carl was as much a victim as Leslie was, suffering such violent loss.
Leslie hated to admit but...she felt sympathy for the enemy. She didn't like him but for once, she felt like she shared common ground with the opposition.
And that was the loss of a friend.
Then Tracy spoke. And Leslie's blood began to boil. "Oh," she turned around, her voice wavering, hands trembling with rage as much as she tried to keep her cool. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize this was an inconvenience to you, to be part of this 'murder spree.' I-I didn't even consider how you could be affected by th-this, standing over my friend's dead body. No, no. I feel so bad for you, you poor, poor, BITCH!" Leslie didn't relent. She lunged at Tracy, tackling her to the ground, all her anger coming out on that final word.
Hands on Tracy's throat, Leslie squeezed.
"I'm afraid you're right about that," muttered Fitz. He could hear what sounded like a dying cat back the way he'd come. More things he'd rather not think about.
"Well? Where's the bloody blade?"
Pedro shined his flashlight on the ground where he'd left the blade, "Right there."