Fiery Pen

Previously on… Father Death (14)

10

Billy stripped the beer-soaked costume from his body and abandoned it in the darkened laundry room. He pulled a fresh shirt from the basket on the dryer and tugged it over his head, donning one of Stu’s button-up shirts. The costume had thankfully absorbed the majority of Tatum’s assault, and Billy smelled no worse than any other party-going teenager. He placed his knife in the folds of the fabric for later, smoothed down his hair, and slipped back out the same unattended door.

“Happy Curfew!” Stu called from the front porch as attendees filtered out and to their cars.

Billy glimpsed Dewey’s Jeep parked among the other cars. He guessed you could not extend an underage party with a deputy staked right outside, hovering over Sidney. None of them knew he would be dead soon enough. They would all be dead soon enough.

Billy jogged up the cement path and snuck to the side of the door. When he heard Sidney calling Tatum from just inside the threshold, he popped into the doorway with a yell. He caught eyes with Stu and raised his eyebrows.

“Billy, hey,” Sidney smiled.

Billy could tell she was trying to conceal her shock, trying to appear welcoming. Her effort was apparent in the way her fingers flirted with her forehead and the way she plastered her signature smile across her lips.

Stu planted a finger on his chin. “Hmmm, Billy, what are you doing here?”

“I was hoping to talk to Sidney alone,” Billy said.

“You know, if Tatum sees you, she’ll draw blood,” Sidney said.

Not anymore, Billy thought. He wanted to laugh, thinking of Tatum smashed by a garage door opener, but he contained it to a smirk.

“You know, why don’t you guys go up to my parents’ bedroom? You guys can talk.” Stu caught his fist in his other hand. “Whatever.” He tilted his head suggestively.

“Subtlety, Stu, you should look it up,” Billy scolded.

“No, it’s okay. We do need to talk.” Sidney extended her hand to Billy.

Billy took Sidney’s hand and gave Stu a swift shot in the testicles as he passed. He figured Stu deserved that after his girlfriend had just launched beers into Billy’s groin and face. They could discuss that later. If Stu survived.

“Oh, ow!” Stu laughed, watching Sidney lead Billy up the stairs.

Randy appeared from within the party. “What’s Leatherface doing here?” he asked, looking longingly up after them.

“Cute,” Stu said. “He came to make up.”

“There goes my chance with Sid. Damn it.”

“As if. That’s all I’m going to say. As if.” Stu pushed the door closed.

“Oh really, Alicia? As if.”

Stu threw a peace sign into Randy’s face and wandered into the house to the stragglers left on the couch. The reference to Alicia and Clueless conjured up memories of Casey and now Tatum for Stu. All his blondes. He smiled at the private connection.

Stu moved into his living room, the tails of his father’s absurd satin robe billowing behind him. His father was never home to wear it, so Stu donned it while he was alone in his house. And tonight, he wore it in case this was the last night he spent in this house. The last normal night, at least. Tomorrow, he would be Stu Macher, the survivor, or the killer, or just dead. In any case, he would no longer be this Stu Macher, whose own parents couldn’t give a shit what he was doing as a killer was on the rampage.

Stu looked up at the television to see the opening scenes of Halloween flashing. For an instant, he saw Casey on his couch, huddled against him, watching it. He felt her body against his mouth. Then he heard her shaking voice answering Michael Myers into the phone. He could feel her guts pooling at his feet again. All the memories surged through him in a rush.

He vaulted over the couch and rejoined the party.

Sidney reached the top of the stairs and stopped, looking confused between the doors. Billy joined her on the landing and gently pointed to Stu’s parents’ bedroom. The room was always vacant. He had slept in their bed many times when he stayed over while they were off jet-setting wherever. He had fantasized about fucking Sidney while laying on that mattress.

Sidney flashed a sheepish smile and squeezed Billy’s fingers a little tighter. He registered a slight tremble in that grip. A muddled excitement throbbed in Billy’s veins. With the echoes of Tatum’s swinging corpse still in his ears, he had been fixated on finally killing Sidney, finally completing the circle he started with her mother. He had abandoned the goal of bedding her first.

Yet, here she was, guiding him to a bed with that damned coy smile on her lips. It seemed impossible that he would get to accomplish both tonight. The duality in his motivation throbbed with his pulse as he wrangled his good boyfriend mask back onto his face one last time.

Sidney eased down to perch on the end of Stu’s parents’ bed. Billy paced in front of her a couple times, looking around as if he were a foreigner in the space. Then he settled beside her. He attempted not to vibrate in anticipation. He held himself calm and relaxed, putting a supportive expression on his face. He gripped his knees as if he was searching for the words until Sidney offered him an encouraging smile.

“So, um,” Billy started. “So, I’m sorry. I’ve been selfish, and I want to apologize.”

“No, Billy,” Sidney interrupted. “I am the one who’s been selfish and self-absorbed with all this post-traumatic stress.”

“You lost your mom.” The words were misshapen in Billy’s mouth. He did not know if he wanted to laugh or yell, but he did neither. He kept playing his part.

“Yeah, I know, but you’re right. Enough is enough. I can’t wallow in the grief process forever, and—” Sidney paused. Then her voice became small. “I can’t keep lying to myself about who my mother was.” She sniffed and rubbed her forehead. “I think I’m really scared that I’m going to turn out just like her, you know? Like the bad seed or something. And I know it doesn’t make any sense.”

She has been listening. “Yeah, it does. It’s like Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs when she keeps having flashbacks of her dead father.”

“This is life. This isn’t a movie.”

“Sure, it is, Sid. It’s all—it’s all a movie. It’s just one great, big movie.” Billy reached out and laced his hand into Sidney’s hair, caressing her cheek until his thumb found her lips. “Only you can’t pick your genre.”

He knew which genre he was picking for her.

Sidney pressed her lips into Billy’s thumb. Then she stroked his face before leaning in to kiss him. She burrowed into his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her and brought his mouth to her neck. Her proximity, her smell, the feel of her brought his nerves to attention. The pointed edge of his thoughts hazed and blunted. He felt his skin and his blood.

“Why can’t I be a Meg Ryan movie?” Sidney said over his back as he was lost in the sensation of her. “Or even a good porno.”

The last word broke over Billy’s brain and left him momentarily in shock. She’s fucking with me. She’s teasing again. “What?”

“You heard me.” Sidney drew away from him so he could see her eyes.

“Are you sure?” He didn’t care if she was sure, but he knew it was what he was supposed to ask.

“Yeah, I think so.” Blush painted her cheeks.

Billy could not contain the smile. He only tempered the edges to keep it from looking predatory. He reached up along her neck, past her pulse and into her hair, and pulled her into him. He kissed her deeply and pushed her back on the mattress. All thoughts of murder moved to after.

Ravenous energy raced along Billy’s skin. He wanted to grab at her and rip the clothes from her body. But that was not what Sidney was finally agreeing to; that was not what he had finally convinced her to do. He had to cage himself and take this her way. He bit back the surging monster within him and kissed her, gentle but hungry.

Sidney kissed back tentative at first, almost laughing in the way she exhaled in stutters. Then she melted into him and surrendered to the undulations of his tongue in her mouth. He pinned her body down with his and worked his mouth along her neck as his hand roamed. He had waited so long for her concession that the momentum swept him up. Sidney wriggled under him until she could find his mouth.

She pushed him back with her kiss until he eased off of her. Then she grasped the hem of her own shirt and stripped it off over her head. Her hair fluttered back into place after it. Billy glimpsed her small, white bra. As he tugged off his own shirt, Sidney reached behind her back to unlatch the bra.

She actually meant it this time. This was no tease. She was finally serious.

“You are so amazing,” Billy said.

Sidney exposed her breasts, and Billy enveloped her. Her bare skin pressed into his. He felt her flesh, so warm and alive, and was excited by the impermanence of that. This moment, here against him, was one of her very last.

He guided Sidney to her back, ruminating on her bare skin and her final moments. His heartbeat climbed in his chest as he moved over her, parting her legs with his knee. He settled on top of her and aligned his body with hers. She lifted her head to meet his and pecked him with gentle kisses. He swallowed her in a deep kiss before moving his mouth down her body.

Sidney’s stomach fluttered as Billy’s lips trailed along it. Her moans were punctuated with shaking giggles. He reached the top of her pants and brought his hands up to unbutton them. Once he slid her pants down, he freed himself from his own, kicking them off frantically.

He slid back up over Sidney and looked down into her eyes. A different kind of fear greeted him; a soft and seductive sort of fear wound into the edges of her smile, hinted in the corners of her eyes. Yet it gave him the same thrill.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

Sidney sank her teeth into her bottom lip and nodded. Billy took one deliberate breath then pushed himself inside Sidney. She gasped in his ear, and her back arched underneath him.

He had won. He was going to take everything from her. This moment. Her mother. And soon, her life.

He could tell she had waited for him, even though he had not waited for her.

His mind crackled with sensations. Mounting waves of pleasure and victory rolled up his nerves. Sidney moaned and breathed in his ear as he moved harder and faster by degrees. He wanted to clamp his hands around her neck right now and combine that look of fear with his brewing orgasm. He was tempted to combine this success with the ultimate goal. But then he would be killing Sidney out of sequence. He would be robbing himself of the reunion with her father and his entire master plan. Even seeing her death mask in this moment was not worth missing her face when he revealed all.

He would not tug on this thread to unravel his entire plot.

He clutched the pillow above Sidney’s head and focused on one thing at a time.

“I’ll be right back!” Stu yelled dramatically before zombie walking back into the dark hallway to a roar of approval.

He left Randy in the living room, toasting his demise with a beer. Turning away from the party, he continued to laugh and shake his head. Rules to survive a horror movie? What a jackass, he thought. Those rules need not apply if you are the killer.

Stu knew it was time. Sidney giving in and putting out was an added bonus. That would put Billy in a better mood and might make the stabbing session later go a bit better. Or Stu could hope. He did not like to think about Billy with Sidney. It brewed a twitching jealousy in his chest that he had to keep pushing down, shoving aside. He rounded into the laundry room to don his costume and get to work.

As he slipped his knife into its holster and placed the mask over his face, he heard the party dissolve into chaos.

“Let’s go before they pry him down!” one voice called.

Stu adjusted his gloves and straightened the hood around his neck. Planting his feet, he stretched one side of his body and the other. In the distant room, footsteps slammed the floorboards as they fled the house. The yells, cheers, and singing continued as their vehicle engines started.

“The football field! Come on!” another yelled.

The cars rumbled off into the distance, and the house around Stu settled back into quiet. The television continued to mumble the steady bars of suspenseful music down the hallway. Stu took a deep breath and popped his neck before pumping his arms in front of his chest a couple times. He reached over the washer and opened the cabinet.

The water balloons of fake blood quivered at the movement of the cabinet. Stu grasped the first trembling bulb. He gave it a gentle squeeze to ensure it would not burst then slipped it within his robe.

It’s time, he told himself. Here we go. It’s time.

He repeated the mantra in his mind as he slunk along the hallway. His pulse increased until he could feel its throb in his veins, and his skin prickled against his robe. Each step reverberated up his entire body as he moved back through the light and to the staircase. Randy draped alone across the couch as Jamie Lee Curtis flickered across the screen in front of him. Stu glanced in his direction before creeping up the stairs.

Continued on… Father Death (16)

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

• Followers – You never know who is on the other side of the screen. Followers is a mystery and thriller that blends women’s fiction with horror.
• The Rest Will Come – Online dating would drive anyone to murder, especially Emma.
• Savages – Two survivors search the ruins for the last strain of humanity. Until the discovery of a baby changes everything.
• The Waning – Locked in a cage, Beatrix must survive to escape or be broken completely.
• Screechers – Mutant monsters and humans collide in the apocalyptic fallout of a burned world. Co-authored with Kevin J. Kennedy.
• Horror Anthologies