Fiery Pen

Previously on… Father Death (15)

11

Billy clung to the pillow as he thrust into Sidney. She was disappearing beneath him as the sensations flared over his mind. Her moans seemed distant as he buried his mouth in her neck. The pressure mounted behind his looming orgasm, and his focus narrowed.

He pushed back up on his arms to see Sidney’s face, to remind himself she was there, to see that he had won. Sidney’s brow furrowed as she bit at her lip. That wrinkle in her palette tugged on something, harkened back to a flicker of Maureen. Billy could not unsee how much she looked like her mother panting below him. His brain exploded with flashes of the fear contorting Maureen’s face one year ago, Sidney’s terror as Stu chased her the other night, Casey’s tears before she died. His eyes fluttered at the slideshow before he came hard.

Sidney breathed beneath Billy, her inhalations lifting him before he rolled onto the pillow beside her. He pushed the sweaty strands of hair from his forehead and smoothed them back into place. Sidney pulled the sheet up to cover her naked body, the movement reminding Billy she was there. He rolled to his side and plastered a loving grin on his face, leaning in to kiss her.

Sidney offered her wide smile in return, letting her hand play at the side of Billy’s face. She pecked at his lips a couple times before drawing herself to a sitting position, keeping the sheet pressed against her chest.

“How do you feel?” Billy asked a question he should ask.

“Okay.” Sidney nodded as she turned toward her clothes.

Billy followed Sidney’s lead and slid from the bed to fetch his clothes strewn over the floor. He glanced to watch Sidney dress herself, slow and silent. Dropping to the ground, he did the same as he scrutinized her. She kept her back to him, but he did not need to see her face to know her brow still wavered. She pulled her jacket on and flipped her hair over the collar.

Everything back in place as if they had never fucked.

“You okay?” Billy asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Once she had her clothes back on, she reached for the brush on Stu’s mom’s bedside table to run it through her hair. Sidney replaced the brush and glanced at the phone on the table. “Who’d you call?”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t know. When you’re arrested, you are allowed one phone call. I was just curious, who’d you call?”

Stu. To call you, you dumb bitch. “I called my dad.” Billy cast his eyes away in the lie.

“No, Sheriff Burke called your dad. I saw him.”

Fuck. Billy’s mind scrambled for traction. “Yeah, but when I called, I didn’t get an answer.”

“Huh.” Sidney kept her back to Billy, mechanically slipping on her shoes.

The burning sensation rose in Billy’s chest as he stared at her. “You don’t still think it was me, do you?”

“No. No.” Sidney forced a laugh. She turned on the mattress to face him, drawing her leg up. “I was just thinking, if it was you, it would be a clever way to throw me off track. You know to use your one phone call to call me so I wouldn’t think it was you. That’s all.”

No, clever would be to call Stu to throw you off track without a trace. “Really?” Billy could feel the rage on his face, but it was the appropriate look. He crawled forward and placed his hands on the mattress. “What do I have to do to prove to you I am not a killer? Huh?”

Billy heard the door squeak softly behind him and Stu’s weight depress the floor, but he ignored it. He burrowed his eyes into Sidney and watched her face contort. Her eyes widened as they caught sight of Stu behind him. She trembled in her fear, and Billy fought his lips from turning up.

“Oh my god,” she breathed. “Oh my god!”

“Sidney?” Billy played the oblivious boyfriend.

“Billy, watch out!” Sidney reached out to him.

Billy whirled around on cue. Stu looked foreign with his ghost face, but Billy could not resist giving him a sinister grin. Stu stomped forward and planted his feet in a killer stance. Then he thrust the bloody water balloon into Billy’s hands. Billy hunched around the balloon and positioned it over his stomach. Wielding his knife, Stu feigned a violent stab and punctured the balloon. Billy smashed it into his chest and smeared it over his shirt and hands as Stu planted a hand on his shoulder and continued to pretend to stab him.

Stu stepped back to give Billy the room to spin back to Sidney. Billy turned dramatically and cast a hand outward to fling splatter on Sidney’s face. He twisted his face into a pitiful and agonized mask and reached a trembling, bloody hand to her.

“Sid,” he panted before collapsing on the sheets.

“No!” Sidney cried. “Shit!”

Stu looked down at Billy’s crumpled body on his parents’ bed. At least someone was getting use out of this room. He grinned wide beneath the mask. From the horror on Sidney’s face, they had played their scene perfectly. The blood spread all over Billy was quite convincing.

Stu faced Sidney square, lifted the knife, and wiped the blood off with his glove. He gripped the blade tight, so it squeaked against the fabric. Sidney covered her mouth in horror, her bangs quivering behind her fingertips.

Stu ran around the foot of the bed and lunged after Sidney. She scrambled quick over the mattress beside Billy and through the door. Pulling the pocket door closed behind her, she locked it. Stu pounded on it a couple times for effect, chuckling to himself as she sprinted. Then he ambled in the opposite direction. He heard her footsteps race around the rooms, but he knew this house better. He haunted every inch of this empty house every day.

He jogged casual around the other way and interrupted her flight. As she descended the brief flight of stairs in the hall, he emerged to meet her. The shock on her face was bliss.

He would love to stab her, love to get rid of her. She was always whining, always in the way. Without her, he and Billy could finally move on, somewhere else. Together.

Sidney skidded to a halt and tore back the way she came. She scrambled up the stairs with Stu on her heels. He could nearly take hold of her hair or jacket. As soon as he felt he was closing in, she snatched the open door and smashed it closed on him. The impact took him off his feet. He met the unforgiving floor disoriented.

As Stu struggled to his feet, his head buzzing, Sidney dove into the storage room and slammed the door behind her. When Stu caught up to the door, the knob refused to move. He struggled with it until he freed it. Then the door stopped short against his surfboard.

Here we go again. “Fucking bitch,” he hissed inside the plastic mask.

He pushed and wrestled with the door until he wriggled it open a crack. He wedged his face and arms through to glimpse Sidney’s terrified face. She spun around and dashed toward the windows.

He listened to Sidney fumble through his room as he crouched down. He wormed his hand through the opening in the door and slipped it under the surfboard. Then he shuffled the surfboard upright by frustrating, slow degrees. Once he got it upr, he shifted it out of the way of the door and toppled it over into the room.

He burst into his bedroom and stomped over the surfboard. He scanned the room in desperation. She had been in here alone too long. He didn’t want to find her hiding in the closet like Laurie Strode.

“Help me! Help!” Sidney’s voice screamed from outside his window.

He glimpsed her hands clinging to the windowsill. He sprinted through the hazards of neglected things and seized her wrist. Sidney shrieked. She twisted her wrist in his hand and leaned back hard in his grip. Laughing to himself, he released her to gravity.

He watched Sidney arch through the night air, legs and arms flailing against the darkness. Her body met his father’s boat with an unpleasant thud, but she rolled off alive quickly. Before she could cast eyes to glimpse him, Stu ducked out of the window and ran back through his room.

Sidney wasn’t supposed to die yet anyway.

Stu wanted to check in with Billy. He wanted to relive how well they executed his false murder. He wanted to do this together. But you could not have two people embodying one killer that way, not with this many victims still alive. Stu had too many things to do before they regrouped. And one of them was lazily drinking and babbling on his couch.

Billy would have wanted to kill Randy himself for always coveting Sidney and generally just being a pain in the ass. He could thank Stu for doing it for him. It could be something Stu did right for him.

Stu hustled down the stairs, avoiding every squeak in the floor, and moved toward the living room. He could hear Randy slurring from the couch as he approached.

“No, Jamie, watch out. Watch out, Jamie. You know he’s around. You know. Look, look, there he is. I told you. I told you. He’s right around the corner.”

How perfect, Stu laughed to himself. Guess you don’t get to survive a horror movie either, prick.

Stu tempered the skip in his step as he loomed behind Randy, preparing the strike.

“Jamie, look behind you. Jamie, look behind you,” Randy begged, leaning toward the screen. “Look behind you. Turn around. Behind you. Behind you, Jamie. Turn around”

“Somebody, help me! Help me!” Sidney’s screams from outside snatched Stu’s attention.

Begrudgingly, Stu left Randy yelling at Jamie on the couch and slipped out the front door, leaving it ominously ajar behind him. He perched on the edge of the porch and squinted across his dark yard, scanning the shadows for movement.

“Help me! Help me! Let me in!” Sidney’s screams snatched his attention again, and he caught sight of her at the news van. “The killer’s after me. He’s in the house.”

The cameraman pulled her through the door and yanked it shut behind her. Stu sprinted across the grass toward the van, pressing himself against the tail end of the van and listening to the voices within.

“Behind you, kid,” the cameraman said.

“Randy!” Sidney yelled. “Behind you.”

Stu frowned and tilted his head in an odd blip of déjà vu. They continues to yell and babble within the van. Then the door howled along into tracks as the cameraman dumped himself out onto his feet. The large man quivered as he whipped his bulging eyes from side to side.

“Aw, 30-second delay,” the man said, leaning into the van before turning out again.

Stu shrugged at the simplicity and surged forward, bringing his blade across the man’s thick neck.

The cameraman’s eyes swelled larger in their sockets as he registered the trauma. His hands floated up to the injury as he sputtered. Blood poured from the slash in his throat like a fountain. He turned slow toward Sidney, gripping the edge of the door, before wilting to the dirt.

Sidney gaped at the fallen man, quivering in her shock and fear. Then she locked her eyes on Stu and seized the door. She heaved it closed, but before she could latch it, Stu thrust his knife through the waning opening. He felt the blade hesitate against flesh. Sidney cried out from inside the van, and the door slammed shut.

Sidney released the door and tumbled backward, clutching her bleeding shoulder. Stu jostled the locked handle before reaching through the open window. He lifted the lock then ripped open the door and threw himself after her. Sidney clawed her way across the van floor. Stu reached for her ankles, yet they kicked out of reach as she fell through a small opening in the corner. Stu scurried after her until his shoulders wedged him in place. The opening was too narrow. He pounded his knife-wielding fist on the bumper in frustration.

Sidney disappeared into the shadows, hobbling and running into the distance. Irritation radiated through Stu, and his plastic mask felt suffocating. Shoving back and dragging his knife against the floor of the van, he retreated until he was tripping over the cameraman’s corpse.

Stu regarded the immobile body at his feet and tipped his head. It was a lot of man, but this movie really did need a body reveal. The victim pool was not scared enough, with just Sidney limping around bleeding and screaming. Dewey and Gale Weathers were out here somewhere and needed a good scare before the knife. Stu looked to the roof of the news van then back to the body. Then he slipped the knife into its holster and took a deep breath.

Continued on… Father Death (17)

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