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Chapter 3: Fright Night
Fitz grimaced, "Well...that is a knife I see before me."
He turned to the stranger, "I don't suppose you have a Kleenex? Oh, never mind."
He retrieved a square of white silk from his pocket (monogrammed handkerchief, a family heirloom) and gingerly picked the knife up.
"If it were me, I'd have buried it. For good measure."
"Not my knife."
Fitz looked at him, "I didn't say it was. Guilty conscience hath no accuser."
Really, he liked the look of this fellow not one jot. And not because he was a Mexican. Certainly not. He was very unsettling for many reasons.
None of which were that he was a Mexican.
None.
Not at all.
Pedro nodded to where they had come from and started back without a word.
Tracy looked up at her, and when the hands grabbed on her throat her own hands scrambled for her firearm. She pulled her gun from her waistband, cocking it and aiming it right at Leslie's face. She wouldn't go down without the bitch dying too.
"Let...go..." She coughed out, holding the gun steady and getting ready to pull the trigger.
Noah
As they began their venture towards what could possibly be certain doom, Noah couldn't help but hold a little tighter onto Brooke's hand. Switch the lamp in his hand for a flashlight and the would look like a generic brand Scooby gang.
He stopped in his tracks as he heard footsteps in from of them, getting closer. Thinking it may be the killer, he let go of Brooke's hand, stepped forward and swung the lamp at the figure.
________
Sawyer
She could tell he was changing the subject, but she didn't mind, at least someone was taking an interest in her and not the other students for once.
She shrugged softly, "Just the fact that I'm the biggest loser here."
Pedro saw what happened, and his hand fell to the FN57 at his side...but he didn't draw it. No...he would not harm a child...
Leslie saw Tracy move for the gun. She didn't stop her. She simply leaned forward, tightening her grip and dared through gritted teeth, "Shoot me, then." Leslie didn't relent, squeezing harder, repeating it as if it were a mantra. "Shoot me. Shoot me! Shoot me!" Rhythmically she shook Tracy's neck, sending her head to the ground at the end of every exclamation.
Tears streamed freely as she invited Tracy to lodge that bullet in her gut, heart, skull, whatever. She had a one-track mind, but it wasn't set on killing Tracy.
All she thought was, It should've been me. It should've been me.
***
Dave furrowed his brow. "Nonsense!" He dismissed, swatting the idea away as if it were a pest. Then, with a smile, he learned forward, arm on his knee, and said, "You forget, you're talking to a pretty colossal loser right now. What has you thinking this way?"
***
"OH, SWEET HONEY!" Nicodemus fell to the ground, clutching his chest. He rolled on the ground for some time, his incense safe in the guitar case next to him. "Ooo, ooo…" After some of the pain had subsided, he looked up to find where those hostile energies hit 'em.
He smiled. "Ayy! More of the chillun'!" Nicodemus whimpered, a single tear streaming down his cheek. "Excellent."
-Leslie, Dave and Nicodemus
Brooke bit back a scream as Noah got a healthy swing in, revealing what was either a very bad drag queen or a very good Internet prankster.
"What..." she panted, "What kind of..."
"Aw, man!" Zach pushed past her, "Noah, dude, that...that's the scientist guy! He's friendly!"
"Scientist?"
"The shrink, Kieran's shrink, remember I told you..."
"He's wearing a kaftan!" Brooke exclaimed, cocking an eyebrow at the man flailing on the floor, "And he smells like tea leaves and patchouli."
Zach shrugged as if to say 'I dunno what to tell you'.
***
Fitz returned to the clearing, his eyebrow skyrocketing near off his skull, "PURPLE GIRL!" he exclaimed, momentarily forgetting her name all over again, "That's enough, that's enough of that!"
Lacking the physical power to remove Leslie from Tracy, he instead prodded her insistently with one finger, "Come. That's enough. Oh God. Please."
-Brooke, Zach and Fitz
Tracy brought the gun down against the side of Leslie's head as she tried to pry her hands from her throat.
She could feel the blood trickling from the back of her head, concussion most likely inevitable due to the circumstances. She clutched her gun and shoved Leslie off her form and scrambled to the side.
"Bitch!!!"
"Señorita, put the gun down," Pedro said firmly. He would not kill this child. But he would knock her out if needed.
Noah
When the man fell to the ground it was obvious it wasn't the killer, the man had not even made his joke suspect list.
"Oh god, I killed the hippie shrink!" He screamed, then let out a sigh of relief as he started talking again.
"Well I didn't know it was him Zach!"
________
Sawyer
"Well I don't have any friends, I beat up the most popular girl in school, and the boy I like thinks I'm creepy."
Leslie stumbled onto her feet and balled her fists. She wanted to swing them. Bad. She wanted to get all her anger out now on someone who deserved it. She wanted to do something, anything now that her only friend was dead.
But she realized it was already too late. Micah had died. Nothing Leslie could do would ever make up that void.
She looked Tracy, selfish, selfish Tracy over. Fists still tight, she shook her head. "You're not worth it."
Leslie stormed off, looking for somewhere she can release all her anger, a place she couldn't be seen as weak, as incapable, as a failure. But with every step she took, Leslie knew that would never escape her now.
She looked over her shoulder. Fitz stood there with the knife, still in shock. Pedro stood beside him, still an enigma. Carl and Dr. Hendricks knelt beside Micah's body, cradling the boy they loved. From the foot of the hill, she could almost see a glint of the moonlight in Micah's dull eyes.
Leslie walked away when she felt more tears come to her eyes.
***
Nicodemus beamed at the blonde beauty. "Thanks, little lady. I can recommend you some fine scents, if you like." Struggling to his feet, he picked up his guitar case and waved to the kids. "Hi there! Name's Nicodemus. Sure is nice to meet ya...even if ya got some violent tendencies."
***
"Ah," Dave nodded as he surmised her situation. "I heard about that incident. Now while I don't approve of violence, I'd say it's admirable you put your dukes up against such a high-ranking member of society! You're not too far off from an Anglo-Saxon warrior, dueling the head of the tribe to become the rightful leader!" He shook his fist in "ra-ra" fashion before moving on. "Now teen romance...much harder than any hostile takeover of a pre-medieval tribe. May I ask why this boy thinks you're, er, 'creepy,' as it were?"
-Leslie, Nicodemus and Dave
"Pleasure's all mine," said Brooke dryly, "Now, at the risk of sounding very unpleasant, can we please get a move on before the dogs descend?"
"Yeah," Zach nodded, "That. Whatever that means."
"Good aim, though," Brooke allowed, turning back to Noah, "You've got a heckin' arm."
-Brooke and Zach
Tracy looked around, keeping her gun drawn and held in front of her. "I ain't no stupid ass...my gun don't go away until we're home."
She knew what happened when you let your guard down with a Lakewood killer on the loose, and that's what this was fixing to be it seemed like.
A hand went up to rest on the back of her head, feeling the blood trickling down some.
"Stupid bitch..."
***
Aleks rested a hand on her chest, taking deep breaths.
God this was utterly insane, she wanted out of here.
"Can we just go already? God I hate this shit..."
She was about to have a panic attack right now.
-Tracy, Aleks
"Oh, none of that sailor talk, Kitten," said Fitz, not with much conviction given the circumstances, "It's unbecoming."
He reached out a hand to tilt her face up, studying the ugly red welts on her neck, "Nasty piece of work. That girl's a scrapper."
He cleared his throat. This probably was the wrong time to bring it up, with a corpse two feet away and a general air of doomsday descending over them, but he was tired and high-strung and more than a little hysterical and felt he was allowed some control over something.
"I know what you did, Kitten," he said at last, "And I am very, very displeased."
"What I did?" Tracy seethed, looking at him and tilting her head. "Because it was all from Terrance those orders came." She whispered out, looking at him and shaking her head a moment before rubbing at her neck.
"And who is this guy? Telling me to put my gun away....like hell I'm gonna do that!" She looked at Mr. Smith a moment, shaking her head.
Little did the man know just how far Tracy would go for Terrance, for the Smith family in general. No, he didn't know half of what she would do for that family. "And Mr. Smith, if you only knew half the things I've done for your family. For Terrance...." She trailed off, and for the first time, sincere emotion showed on the young girls face, actual real tears of sorrow falling down her cheeks as she thought of her own lost friend.
"Oh, well, that's no surprise," said Fitz brusquely, "But, Kitten or no, you're no man's catspaw, Tracy. I daresay you made the most of my son as he did of you. You kept the...photographs after all, even after he'd died. Threatened me with them, even! Or was the ghost of my beloved, benighted son whispering orders into your pretty porcelain ear?"
Fitz moved in a curt circle, looking the stranger over, "A Mystery Mexican. I half suspect he's the one that skewered the boy, but don't tell anyone I said that."
At her last pronouncement, Fitz openly guffawed, "My family? You drained my son's bank account and kept him out of my hair. I thank you for it, but that doesn't excuse your conniving! Now, weep all you like, Kitten, we've all seen fell things tonight and may expect to see worse. This boy wasn't the only corpse made here. But don't presume to tell me I shouldn't be angry for being used. That's a cup I've supped from much too often before."
"It was for Simone's sake that Terrance did what he did." Tracy snipped out, standing up and brushing her hair out of her face. "Now if you'd rather we discuss this in private Mr. Smith, I'll be more than happy to shut my trap for now and we'll speak when their aren't so many vipers about."
She knew the sake of the family name, and once she had said what she did, well she was sure as hell going to get a stern talking too before the night was through.
"And Mr. Smith, whose blood are you covered in?" She questioned finally, taking stock of the male.
It was all Fitz could do not to spew vitriol into the girl's face.
"Simone?"
That made a cruel sense. All day he'd been fuming at the thought of Tracy having those pictures, he'd neglected to think that Terrance may have seen them too. And, of course, it did seem more his sort of notion. And the boy had loved his mother...or at least cared for her in whatever odd way he could.
Yes...he must've thought he was doing right by her.
"One day, Tracy Lewis, I will tell you stories about my Simone that will curl those strawberry locks of yours. But if you and he wanted so badly to get justice for my lovely wife, I'm sure there were more expedient ways than plotting to suck me dry."
He paused.
"Poor choices of words."
He picked at the caking blood on his blazer, ruing it, "Some woman. She'd been bled dry and left to pickle in a casket. Ghastly sight. I'm afraid I didn't take note of her face."
Tracy looked at him, shaking her head as she listened to him.
"And trust me when I say...if you would just listen to my side of things, than you'd understand some more of why we did."
She commented, holding her gun at her side for a moment as she looked at Mr. Smith.
"Terrance loved her, and we both know you did too."
Part of her felt bad, and she knew she had to explain it all in some way. "I want to explain it to you...but you have your doubts I'm sure, but I have something of Terrance's that he wanted me to give to you."
"Kitten, if you saw those pictures, you know exactly how I feel about my lovely wife."
Fitz curled his nose up, "She is a proud, vain, selfish woman. Perhaps in another land, in another time, we'd have got on swimmingly. But such wasn't our lot. If there was anything redemptive in her, it was the grace to look at the son we made and not see a scheming, deceitful devilspawn."
He gave her a second look, "And what is that, pray tell?"
"You honestly think I'd give it to you in front of everyone? These vipers would snatch it up in a heartbeat. Its far too valuable to just carry around." Tracy said, shaking her head as she looked her outfit over in disgust.
Camping, it was the most disgusting thing in the world, and right now she had to figure her next move.
"And why aren't the stupid phones working? I so would have called us all a ride out of here ages ago...this place is a death trap."
Noah
"Well you know, plenty of practice, although I'm just glad that I didn't have knifestick." He told Brooke, a light blush on his face.
He turned to the man he had just struck, "I know who you are, I made sure to keep my tabs on Wilcox."
____
Sawyer
"Well it's pretty unrealistic of me being fourteen and him being older. Plus I kind of stare alot."
"Vipers?" Fitz repeated the word, "Are you referring to the grieving mother, the grieving boyfriend, or the Mexi..." he paused, "Well, he might try to steal. Not because he's a Mexican, of course, but because he's a stranger."
He added, not very convincingly, "One should be wary of strangers."
At her question, he harrumphed, "Why do you think the phones aren't working? Somebody would rather us be shut up."
Tracy rolled her eyes, "Mr. Smith, I dare say you went off with that stranger...did he try anything on you?"
She eyed the mexican, noting that he had a gun as well. "You're carrying something a bit heavy there stranger."
"Oh, really?" Nicodemus's face lit up. "I ain't never had anyone look me up. Well, except for the police that one time at that Earth Day rally when I knocked down a trash can. Got a $15 ticket. Crazy stuff." Recalling the topic at hand, he asked, "You a fan of psychological stylings?"
***
Dave stroked his beard, contemplating on her situation. "Hm. The odds do seem to be against your favor. They seem to be. Call it trite but age is just a number. Coming from an old coot like me, I guess I'm biased. As for the staring..." He paused, thinking of an example. "Dante stared after his love Beatrice. A bit creepy at first, yes. But..." Dave lifted his finger, indicating there was a point to all this. "He found a way to express that love. Poetry. One day he's staring from afar, the next he's one of the most lauded poets in history because of that expression of love." He dwelled on those words for a moment. "Well, that and his writings about the merciless tortures of hell but that is beside the point."
-Nicodemus and Dave
Noah
"Well yes, but more so I'm a fan of making sure he doesn't try to kill us again, being one step ahead of him." Noah told the man.
___
Sawyer
Sawyer rested her head on the man's shoulder with a sigh, "You really think it could work?" She asked, looking up at him.
"Oh, out with your tongue," Fitz said dismissively, "We went to find the murder weapon, and we did. See?" he foisted the bloody knife under Tracy's nose.
He turned to the stranger, "Nombre de esta cosa es coño?"
Tracy leeched away from the knife, feeling a wretch come up her throat, acting on point was perfect right now and she bent over and puked into the bushes nearest her. Yes she knew how to act the part, and by god if she wouldn't finish acting her part right now.
"Get that away! Oh my god!" She shrieked, holding her face.