Fiery Pen

Previously on… Father Death (21)

1998

Stu walked along the beach. The dry sand depressed between his toes, and the neck of a beer bottle dangled in his fingers. His wavy hair bounced on the sea breeze. The sun prickled on his smooth and warbled skin, the lines and scars that drew his features thankfully into a new face.

The tropical air radiated warm, but it was autumn. Stu could feel the falling edge that only existed in his mind. His body clocked the approaching anniversary. It tracked it every second of every day. Just as he saw Billy’s disappointed face every morning when he opened his eyes.

Stu took a swig from the bottle and continued to walk along the shoreline. The waves rolled softly in a steady and persistent roar.

Maureen had been dead for three years. Billy and the others had been dead for two years. Stu Macher had been dead for two years too.

“Steve! Steven!”

Stu turned to his new name. The figure moved down from the modest beach house, approaching him across the sand, blonde hair whipping around her face.

“Steve, what are you doing out here?’ she asked as she reached him.

“Just walking, babe.” Stu took another swig and reached out to encircle her shoulders.

“Javier is here. He’s waiting for you inside.” She pressed her lips to his neck.

Stu glanced over her head, out at the water. His thoughts wandered across the waves and up to Woodsboro. He saw Maureen splayed out on her bed, Steven gutted and taped to a pool chair, Casey swaying from her tree, Kenny reaching for his gaping neck wound, Dewey collapsing into a pile on the porch, Gale slumped in the news van. He saw Billy bloody and collapsed in failure on the hall floor.

And he saw Sidney.

Heat radiating up through his scalp brought him back to the beach.

“Thanks, Court.” Stu laced his hand in Courtney’s and followed her up the sand to the small beach house.

Courtney. Just as beautiful of a cover as Tatum was. She even kind of looked like Tatum, if Stu had drank enough.

Blue, sun-bleached paint curled and peeled back from the siding of the small structure. The boards were rough as Stu grabbed the railing to ascend the stairs half-sunken into the sand drifts. A wind chime sang softly against the sea breeze.

Stu pushed the door open. Javier sat at the small, wooden kitchen table, twirling a small glass of clear liquid between his fingertips. Two large men in black stood beside him with their arms crossed, guns holstered on their belts.

“Javier, my man!” Stu burst into the room and jumped as he raised his hand for Javier.

Javier looked from Stu to his outstretched hand before extending his own. They shook. Then Stu dropped into the opposite chair.

“What brings you to my casa?” Stu asked.

“You haven’t shown up to work for me.” Javier stroked the rim of the glass with his fingers and watched the liquid quiver.

“Yeah, man, I thought my debt was paid.”

“I got you out of California, knowing who you are. I set you up here on this beachside paradise, gave you an easy gig. And you’ve done a good job for me for almost two years.”

“Gracias, amigo.” Stu smiled.

“Your debt is settled, but you are not out. You are not out until I say you are out.” Javier lifted glittering dark eyes to Stu.

Stu’s smile fell from his lips.

“You work the resorts for me. All the white girls and white boys trust a gringo like you, even with that face,” Javier continued.

Stu reached up and brushed his fingertips along the faint scarring of his cheek. “They’re getting better.”

“Let’s hope they don’t get too much better. Otherwise, Jimmy will have to rearrange your face again. Don’t want any of those Americans recognizing you.”

Stu shrugged.

“These tourists see that golden hair and hear your California talk and instantly trust you.” Javier poured the shot into his mouth and replaced the glass. “They party with you and buy from you. And no one looks twice because you look like you belong, because you’re goofy and make everyone laugh. You’re like a cartoon. I can’t give up that arrangement.”

“But Javier—”

“Look, Stu.”

Stu’s eyes widened, and he whirled around to locate Courtney, to make sure she had not heard his long-dead name in the room of the beach cabin.

“She is outside,” Javier assured him. “You are safe as long as you are with me. You are Steven as long as you are with me. Keep working the resorts, and I will leave you here living in peace.”

Stu squinted out the window into the blazing sunlight. He glimpsed Courtney’s blonde locks dancing in the breeze. Looking down to the woodgrain of the table, he plastered a wide grin on his face and offered it to Javier.

“Of course, Javi.” Stu stretched the smile until his scars threatened to pop. “I love working for you. I just thought we were square, man. When do you need me out?”

“Tonight. Jimmy brought the product for you.”

Stu leaned against the beachside bar and let the beer trickle down his throat. The club music throbbed around him, pulsating with flashing and strobing colored lights. Sweating, scantily clad bodies massed about the bar, clumped on the dance floor, spilled out onto the dark beach. Stu allowed his eyes to wander over the crowd and noted the glossy eyes where Javier’s product was already doing its work. His cargo pockets were already lighter as he hocked his wares through the eager and hungry party.

Money would make Javier happy, and Stu liked Javier happy. He appreciated the wordless nod of approval and lack of an ominous meeting with armed associates. He needed to not hear any names from a life left behind.

Billy had said everything would change. Billy said their lives as they knew them would be over. He was not wrong. Stu drained the bottle and planted it on the bar top.

A tan and muscled man in flowered board shorts with tall hair sidled up beside Stu. A rich, vacationing frat boy, no doubt. Stu assessed him with a calm sweep as the frat boy’s eyes darted to Stu then away.

“Hey, man,” the frat boy finally said, leaning in to be heard over the music.

“Hey.” Stu saluted with his empty bottle.

“I hear you’re the Candyman?”

Stu scoffed. Since you branded him the Candyman? No, his heart is broken.

“What? You got a sweet tooth?” Stu asked.

“Huh?” The frat boy offered dumb eyes.

“Buy me a beer, man.”

“What?”

Stu palmed a baggy and tipped his hand to the frat boy. “Buy me a beer,” he said, slower.

The frat boy dissolved into the crowd with his purchase, and Stu perched on a stool to enjoy his next beer. Planting his elbows on the bar top, he turned his eyes up to the flashing screens hanging above the glowing rows of bottles.

Gale Weathers looked down at him.

Stu gagged on his beer and nearly spewed it across the bar. He coughed and sputtered around the choke, gasping to regain his breath.

I can’t escape this bitch.

He reached out and seized the bartender by the shoulder. “My man, my man,” Stu demanded. “Turn this up.” He pointed hard at the screen.

The bartender gave Stu a skeptical squint, keeping his narrowed eyes on him as he extracted a remote and pressed the volume key. Stu waved his hands up and up until Gale’s shrill voice penetrated the edge of the pulsating music. Then he slid a bill into the bartender’s hand to soften his gaze.

“We are approaching the anniversary of the Woodsboro Murders, which I detailed in my best-selling book, The Woodsboro Murders.” An image of the book cover appeared beside Gale’s face.

Stu rolled his eyes hard. His beer went sour in his mouth and his stomach.

“Two years ago, in Woodsboro, California, Billy Loomis and Stu Macher went on a killing spree, murdering five people. They had also killed Maureen Prescott the preceding year. Cotton Weary has since been exonerated for that crime, in part due to efforts made here on Top Story.”

Stu gaped at the screen, at Gale’s narcissist audacity. I bet in her book it says she single-handedly took down Billy and me. She saved the day! Stu’s stomach clenched tighter.

“Tequila!” he croaked. “Tequila, por favor.”

The bartender slid a shot glass in front of him and dumped the golden liquid into it. It overflowed onto Stu’s fingertips, but he did not notice as he slammed it down his throat.

“Mas! Mas!”

The bartender refilled the glass. Stu slapped bills on the counter, Javier’s bills. The bartender snatched them and drifted away before Stu could ask for more.

“In addition to the Woodsboro Murders in 1996, I, Gale Weathers, brought you a harrowing eyewitness account of the massacre at Windsor College just a few months ago.”

Stu lifted the shot glass to his lips and froze. He gaped at Gale, the shot shaking in his grip.

“Copycat killers Debbie Loomis and Mickey Altieri terrorized the campus as they patterned murders after the original murders. Debbie Loomis is the mother of Woodsboro murderer Billy Loomis.”

Oh, fuck, Billy’s mother. Stu stopped breathing. He pressed his empty hand to his lips. Billy would have killed to see his mother, did kill for his mother. Stu tried to grapple with how Billy would feel to know his mother had murdered just like him, in his name. Proud? Touched? Offended? Would he hug her or stab her? Stu honestly did not know with Billy.

Maybe they would find out now that they were both six feet under together.

“Woodsboro survivor Randy Meeks lost his life in the Windsor College Massacre,” Gale continued.

“Ah fuck, Randy,” Stu breathed. Finally got him. Bet he saw it coming too.

Stu pictured Randy pinned to his front door, slapping the woodgrain and calling for Sidney. He conjured Randy’s wide eyes with fear wavering at the edges when Stu finally let him see, let him know how right he had always been. Stu imagined Randy had that same look plastered on his dead face when the rigor set in.

Stu toasted the picture of Randy on-screen and tossed the shot down. The tequila sizzled down his throat and pooled in a burning puddle on top of his stomach.

“Just like the Woodsboro Murders, the central target for the Windsor College Massacre was Sidney Prescott. Sidney Prescott is the daughter of Maureen Prescott, Billy Loomis and Stu Macher’s original victim,” Gale continued.

Sidney’s face consumed the screen, her wide and bright smile mocking Stu. Her hair had changed. She had lost those annoying, quivering bangs and cropped it close to her ears. She looked more like a survivor now, and he hated her for it.

“Sidney Prescott could not be reached for comment.”

The picture of Sidney continued to burn on the screen. Stu glared into it, narrowing his eyes until she blurred, the way everything looked when he opened his eyes after she electrocuted him.

Survivor. She wasn’t supposed to be the survivor. She was supposed to be the one person in all of this who was dead. Her and her mother. Yet she was still alive. Even Billy’s mother couldn’t come back and get rid of her properly.

This was not how you executed a proper sequel. Randy must have been appalled before he died. Debbie Loomis and Mickey Altieri had gotten it all wrong. They had all underestimated her. But Stu would not do that again.

In his sequel, he would get it right. For Billy.

THE END

Christina Bergling

https://linktr.ee/chrstnabergling

Like my writing? Check out my books!

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