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Chapter 6: Child's Slay
YOU'RE LISTENING TO NAUGHTY AUGHTIES, BRINGING YOU THE HITS AND MISSES OF THE FIRST SELF-AWARE DECADE
Morning, Lakewood and Lakewood-adjacent. It's a gray, dreary, rainy-ass Sunday here in jackhole, Louisiana. Got any plans? Neither do I. In case you haven't noticed, life lost all meaning approximately ten years ago. I don't know what simulation this is, but I'm not rocking it.
Here's a song about hate. Live with it.
***
"I have to block out thoughts of you so I don't lose my head..."
They burst into the infirmary in such a chaotic mash that the tiny radio on the sideboard was switched on. Not that anybody much noticed.
"Quickly," Phyllis ordered, "The cot, clear it off!"
"They're crawling like a cockroach leaving babies in my bed/Dropping little reels of tape to remind me that I'm alone..."
The girl had bled out, they didn't need Maggie Duval to tell them that. Still...he had rushed the prone form into the common hall, crying for a doctor, for her... She'd felt obligated.
"Playing movies in my head that make a porno feel like home..."
"Dave!" leaving the matter of setting the body down to Nicodemus (who had gamely volunteered his services the moment the word 'doctor' had been uttered) she hurried over to the stricken English teacher, now as splattered with the poor girl's blood as Stavo Acosta was, "Dave, I know this is difficult, believe me, I do..."
"There's a burning in my pride/A nervous bleeding in my brain..."
"But you must tell me, as best you can...what happened?"
***
"An ounce of peace is all I want for you..."
"I don't know that I've ever been more terrified," Theodora stood in the rain, feeling the cold torrent wash through her hair, down her face.
She was soaked to the skin, exhausted, yet at the same time, she didn't quite feel it. She and Brooke had come afoul of Dave Evans and the...Acosta boy on the way out of the marsh. Things fell apart fairly quickly after, like a wild dream.
"Will you never call again?"
"He offered me the bait and I took it," she told her colleague, "If it wasn't Brooke, it would've been Leslie..." she paused, "Or so I thought. But..." she paused, "Evans's story."
She and Teague stood side-by-side in the pouring rain, aware of the chaos and commotion behind the door just over their shoulder, Theodora feeling that she had somehow gone to the end of the world.
"15-years-old," she said at last, "And for what?"
The rain pounded on around them.
***
"And you will never say that you love me/Just to put it in my face..."
They'd left Fitz in charge of the pigpen at the common hall, which had been his first clue that something vile had happened indeed. Some of the whelps were whispering about a dead girl. Evans's name kept coming up.
"And will you never try to reach me?"
His eye kept returning to the figure of his son. Damn him for scalding him so sorely, leading him on so perfectly. He was every bit the pernicious demon Terrance had been. And yet...
"Kitten!" he flagged over the passing strawberry blond figure, "Tracy, Tracy, dear...I wonder..." he faltered, "I worry, that is..."
"It is I that wanted space..."
"I fear something terrible's happened."
And I am alone, he thought, but did not say, I am alone, and frightened out of my dim wits.
***
"Hate me today/Hate me tomorrow..."
"Yanno, they're saying the little freshman girl got axed," Ryan approached the rain-streaked window, arms-folded, at Aleks's side, "But, hey, 'least we're on the brighter side of morning."
"Hate me for all the things I didn't do for you..."
"Zach's still gone," he pointed out unnecessarily.
"Hate me in ways/Yeah, ways hard to swallow..."
"Not that I'm the worrying type."
"Hate me so you can finally see what's good for you..."
***
"I'm sober now for three whole months..."
"Ma!" Eli picked himself up from where he'd stumbled, sluicing mud and rainwater from his face, "Ma, you know how long I've been looking..."
"That means I don't wanna be found, Eli!" Tina told him, not turning around, practically up to her knees in mud.
"It's one accomplishment that you helped me with/The one thing that always tore us apart..."
"You're acting like a baby!"
"Maybe that's all I am!" she cried back, shrilly, "A big stupid baby with a monster sex drive..."
"You think I like playing Mommy to you all the time?" he demanded, "Fuck, you don't think I wish you'd start Mommy'ing me?"
Tina stopped in her tracks, but did not turn to him.
"Is the one thing I won't touch again..."
"You think I get like this to be self-righteous?" he continued, aware of his voice tight and choking in his throat, "That I like ripping into my own mother for fucking some kid half her age?"
"You think I liked fucking him?" she asked in a tiny voice.
"Then why did you? Jesus Christ, Ma, why do you do anything?"
"In a sick way, I want to thank you/For holding my head up late at night..."
"I don't know!" she whirled on him, her own face streaked with tears that may have been angry, miserable or self-pitying, "I don't know a goddamn thing, Eli, and maybe that's just my problem! I'm just as off-the-rails as my ain't shit brother and his ain't shit kids."
"You don't believe that..."
"I don't believe anything!"
"While I was busy waging wars on myself/You were trying to stop the fight..."
Tina slumped forward, shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs, "I've got nothing, Eli. No job, no friends, nobody who'd bat a fuckin' lash if I dropped dead right now..."
"You're really saying that?" he asked quietly, "To me?"
"That's just it," she said hoarsely, "You're it. The only reason I ain't grabbed a pop-gun and made like little DeeDee's always talking."
"You never doubted my warped opinions/On things like suicidal hate..."
"Ma, we can talk about this. There's...there's time..."
"Time for what? Another family sit-down? All those high-horse assholes looking at me like I'm gonorrhea and typhus's bastard?"
"Time to figure out what you want," he paused, "Maybe I can figure some things out too."
"You made me compliment myself/When it was way too hard to take..."
Tina hesitated, "I...I don't know if I can."
"Then I'll help you," he put his hands on her shoulders, forehead to her's, realizing it wasn't just the rain soaking his face, "Just come back with me, Ma. Please?"
She lowered her head against him and let out a howl that was half sob and half laugh. Eli turned his head to heaven and sighed as he smiled and he sobbed.
***
"So I'll drive so fucking far away/That I never cross your mind..."
Zach and Noah must've been halfway back to the common hall when he spotted the flash of blond in the trees.
"Hey, that's not..."
It was.
"Brooke!" he called out, hurrying over to her, "Brooke, are you okay? What happened?"
She turned to them, covered in mud, her eyes red with tears, and her face contorted into sobs such that he had never seen there before.
"Out of the way, Zach," she told him, making as if to push him away...
"And do whatever it takes in your heart/To leave me behind..."
"Wait, you're...you're crying," he knew he didn't have to say that, but...the sight of her all teary and sad...It was enough to wound him.
"Brooke, what happened?"
"Please, I don't have time, I...there's no..."
"Brooke!" he held her steady, "Brooke, please, don't..."
"She's dead!" she cried out at last, angry and tearful and frightened all at once, struggling against his gentle, yet firm grip, "I left her and she's dead, and Stavo..."
"Stavo?" he asked, "What...what about Stavo?"
"He...he...they said..."
She collapsed against him, shoulders heaving with sobs and seeming, for the first time since he had known her, totally and completely at a loss.
"He didn't kill her..." she whispered, both a forceful statement and a quiet, querulous, desperate hope, "He couldn't have."
"Hate me today/Hate me tomorrow/Hate me for all the things I didn't do for you..."
-Phyllis, Theodora, Fitz, Ryan, Eli, Tina, Zach and Brooke
"It's too damn young," Teague said, tears in his eyes. This...this was hitting him hard. He placed a tentative hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her, "Theodora, there is no shame in being afraid. Anyone in this situation who says they ain't is a fool or a liar."
"It's not fear, Edward," she said heavily, "No, it's...it's something more insidious than that."
Theodora sighed heavily, "We take it on our shoulders to protect these kids, to see them educated and brought up well. We have our responsibility..."
She nodded, "I faced that murderer down and I told myself I would stand firm or die. And what happens, but a 17-year-old anarchist swoops in and saves my life instead?"
"I...Theodora, this isn't your fault. You froze up. It happens. I've frozen up before," Teague said, trying to calm her down, "And... I hate to say this, but sometimes you don't know how you'll react until you're in that position."
"Well," she said shortly, "I suppose I know what I'm made of."
Theodora turned to him, "There's something else, Edward. Brooke Maddox told me..." she paused, "Harold's dead."
"As in, Harold, the man I fired?" Teague's heart sank. He had hated him for this whole thing, but hadn't wanted him dead...
"His body was found in some dugout at the edge of the campground," Theodora continued, "And...Edward," she leaned in, "If the girl was speaking truly, that dugout is part of Sanchez's little hideout."
"Well...we knew it had to be close, right?"
"He all but told us he'd been squatting here," said Theodora, "Even so, Edward, a man is dead, and his mutilated corpse was lying there, practically right smack next door! Now, I don't venture to say how Harold died, or what the poor, damn dumb buffoon was doing up here, if he died here at all, but..."
She paused, "Edward, between you and I, I'm not sure what to think about the man. It's one thing to confess to this business with the drugs and all the rest, but...it seems confessing to some things serve just as well to keep people asking about other...worse ones."
"Then what do you suggest?"
Theodora tried her damndest not to look surprised. Not that she didn't want to be deferred to, but she'd thought this was more Teague's line of country.
"I sent Brooke back to the common hall," she continued, "Better there than..." she turned back to the infirmary, "Here in the mess of it. Now, the Martin girl was with her and Acosta when this all happened. I've had a devil of time getting more out of her..." she winced, "Perhaps understandably, but she did tell me there was a case in the hideout, concealing this little passage. And inside the case..."
She cut to the chase, "Edward, the man has an arsenal of automatic weapons just lying there, ripe for the taking."
"And you want me to do the same to them, like I did ours," Teague nodded.
"Also...we need to address the pistol he has on him."
"Well, that didn't turn out so well last time..." muttered Theodora, "Even so, these aren't just guns! Even one weapon like that..."
She sighed, "But there's more to it than that. Edward, it's morning. Nobody's bound to think anything's happened to us until we fail to show up back in town this time tomorrow. Now, I don't know about you, but...inclement weather aside, it seems to me we ought to make some sort of plan for getting away from this place!"
"You're suggesting we borrow one? Ok," Teague hid the grin he held.
"We'll need a map of the grounds. And... I say we get out of this rain."
"What?" Theodora demanded, "No! No, Edward, for God's sake, I don't want to borrow one of the fugitive cartel man's killing machines! Lord have mercy."
She shook her head, "I'm saying, we ought to see those weapons isolated, before the maniac in a mask gets his hands on them and decides to use them."
She wasn't about to say she feared her colleague might just relish the idea of tramping around here with a weapon like that too much, but it had been a long, sleepless night and she wasn't about to subject herself to more of this.
"A map..." she sighed, "There's loads. One at the common hall...might be one in there," she nodded to the infirmary, "I saw a sign posted out by the cabins. That would work neatly as well."
"Then let's take care of that first. And then we find a map, and regroup in the Common Hall."
He nodded to the direction. As he started, he said, "By the way...I need to apologize."
"Apologize?" Theodora nodded, "For what?"
"For dragging you to the range every weekend, after the Smith boy's death," Teague replied.
" I let my paranoia, and fear get the better of me. I'm sorry."
"Oh, well," Theodora waved her hand dismissively, "We were at the time operating under the assumption the murderer wasn't bullet-proof."
She sighed, "Even so."
"That's the thing though. A Kevlar vest, sure. I'll buy that. But a Kevlar mask? Molded to look like Brandon James'?" Teague continued, pondering.
"Believe me, those things aren't cheap. And there can't be many people who'd be able to do that kind of work."
"Another thing I don't understand..." Theodora hesitated, "The choice of victims. Maggie Duval seems a natural choice for any madman in that mask, certainly. Ari...I don't know, she was here once or twice before we set off, to help put things together, it might be she saw something she wasn't meant to. Poor Harold cooked this idea up in the first place, perhaps that explains him. And then that business with Micah Hendricks, and...and his mother's tapes, those interviews with the girls. Could the boy have been killed to hurt the mother? And Howard? Unless, of course, he was after you on that bus, for all the good it did him."
There was a silence, "But the one that makes no sense to me at all is Sawyer Martin."
"Let's talk enemies she had: Zip. Nadda. She's the only girl in her age range on this trip. And besides that scuffle with Brooke...why would she kill her?"
"Girls squabble all the time, Brooke Maddox has made a religion out of it. Anyway, the girl was with me. But, Edward...if what Evans says is true, about seeing Stavo Acosta come out of there bearing her dead..."
She wrapped her arms around herself, "It's a damned ugly thought."
"But it's one we have to consider," Teague said.
"Unless there is a second stranger squatting here...we have to start considering suspects...Something we can't prove, because I couldn't pull prints off that knife."
"So we have our priorities," Theodora nodded, "Some of us should at least begin looking into how to get away from this place. But at the same time, we must take careful consideration. I want to know where everybody was during every murder, I want to know just how many cassette tapes our good Dr. Hendricks has, I want to hear Stavo Acosta's story..."
She paused, "And I want Pedro Sanchez to explain himself. And I won't be asking politely this time, either."
"I think that's a task for both of us."
"I thought you'd say that," Theodora nodded, "Alright, then. Now, I don't know how long they'll be in there," she gestured toward the infirmary, "One of us at least should wait here just to see what turns up, if anything."
"I'll go in. You find a map." Teague saluted her, and walked into the building. He nodded to the occupants, "Dave, Phyllis."
Theodora nodded, "Aye, aye, sir," she said dryly, before turning out from under the awning and heading into the pouring wet.
She could only hope the killer had gotten bored of her by now, and she ran no great risk walking off on her own.
Carl Lennox waited anxiously for one of the adults to come in. Hopefully, it would be Principal Teague, or the Vice Principal...
He didn't know why he had told Pedro Sanchez what he had. No one else knew...
If his Uncle ever found out...he'd go to prison for what he'd do to his father.
He had been ashamed to tell Micah. And Micah was the boy he had fallen in love with...
The door opened, and Carl stood at attention.
"Vice Principal...can I talk with you for a second?"