Monica backed up and rammed into the door.
“OW! FUCK!”
Solid.
She stood up straight and breathed deep. Her friend’s screams were getting louder. The flashlight she dropped on the floor flickered and died.
Her shoulder hit the door again. It shook, but stood. Monica slid to the floor, crying. She was hurt.
“FUCK! I’m going to get help,” she said and tried to stand. “Ow.” Her skin scraped a nail that snagged her back and caught her shirt, tearing it.
Her friend had stopped crying. Monica ran for the stairs and down, taking them two at a time. She came to a screeching halt at the bottom, where her brother lay twisted.
She knelt beside him. He was naked and covered in blood.
“Steve?”
Nothing.
“Stevie, answer me.” Tears were pouring down her face.
He lay still. His leg was underneath him, crooked. She didn’t know how to check for a pulse. Whenever she had tried it on herself after watching a cop drama on TV, she could never find it. She put her ear to his mouth. His breath was raspy, but it was there.
I can’t leave him here, she thought. But I need to find help.
“CINDY! I’m downstairs! If you can hear me, Steve is hurt! I am coming back up! Please come out if you can and let’s go find the cops! PLEASE!”
She looked at her brother again. She took off what was left of her shirt and put it under his head. Her hand came back covered in blood. She moaned.
“God, please let us live. I swear I’ll never do anything like this again.”
She stood up and remembered her brother’s flashlight lying next to him. She grabbed it up, taking another look at him, and went slowly up the stairs.
She jerked her light back and forth. She stopped at the top, breathing deeply, her breasts heaving and glistening. She walked toward the now-open door.
“Cindy?”
The sound of her voice made her jump. She swallowed hard.
“Cindy? Are you in there?”
Monica was almost there. Shaking, she stood in front of the door and pushed it open slowly. It was a once-white bathroom covered in dust. Her best friend lay on the floor, blood circling her. All thoughts of wanting to be like Cindy vanished.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, too afraid to go inside. Cindy’s head was close to the door. Monica could see the fresh bruises forming around her eyes and cheeks. One eye was swollen nearly shut, and blood was leaking from the corner.
Her breath hitched as Monica tried to hold back tears. Cindy was almost naked, her skirt hiked up, her underwear missing. Bloody wounds marred her chest and legs. Her throat was slit.
Monica kneeled inside the room and put her ear to her friend’s mouth, praying for breath, but there was nothing. Her hand slid in the blood and Monica’s face slammed into Cindy’s. Her hands and face coated in blood, she ran out of the room.
They came from behind her.
“Catch her!”
Monica looked back and saw them coming. They were too close. She would never make it down the stairs.
“Shit. Catch her.”
The smaller one ran ahead, but slipped in the bloody tracks Monica left behind. “FUCK.”
The other one ran down the steps, only a few feet behind Monica, taking them two at a time. Monica got to the final step, jumped over her brother’s body and ran for the door. She forgot about the porch steps and went crashing down headfirst. He was right behind her.
“You don’t need to be runnin’. We ain’t gonna hurt you. We just wanted some of your friend’s fine pussy, but she wouldn’t shut her mouth and Harry got a little carried away. If it makes you feel better, she was good even when she was screaming. That’s what Harry said at least. I didn’t get me none,” he said, stepping down the stairs and standing over Monica, opening his pants. “I don’t fuck no dead bitches, see?”
Monica looked up at him, her face streaked with tears. She had fallen into the mud and it was sticking to her sweaty back. Her breasts were covered in blood. She thought for a second about giving in. They might spare her and her brother if she shut her mouth and took it.
She leaned on her elbows and looked at him. His friend was on the stoop, letting the other guy have his turn. Monica eyed the two of them and then took the shot, directly to his groin. He backed up and doubled over and she was on her feet and running.
She looked back and saw the little guy bend over to check on his friend and then take off after her. The street was dark and she couldn’t see another house anywhere. She took a right and ran toward the park. At least there were streetlights.
She couldn’t tell how close he was but she wouldn’t dare look back and waste seconds. She jumped a bench and her shoulder screamed. She ran through a sandbox. When she hit the trees, Monica made a quick left and ducked behind one. She held her breath and bit her lip so he wouldn’t hear her.
He came crashing into the trees a second later.
“Come out now and I won’t have to kill you, bitch.”
He was only a couple of feet away. She listened for his footsteps and prepared herself for the worst. She had resigned herself already to not give him any trouble if she was caught. Then she heard the steps. He was walking away from her.
She breathed again, but only for a second. She listened as he walked farther out to the right and then she ran for it.
The other end of the park was close, but he’d already noticed her and was catching up quick.
She hurled herself over the last bench and was on the street again.
Where do I go? she thought, looking to both sides. A car came to a screeching halt in front of her. The door opened and she made her decision. Anything was better than dying at this murderous fuck’s hands.
She jumped in the car as the kid landed over the bench.
“BITCH!” he screamed into the night, as the car pulled away.
Monica couldn’t catch her breath. She clutched her naked ribs, looking behind her as the car drove away from the park.
She looked over at the middle-aged man in the driver’s seat. He was balding, and his chubby little fingers gripped the steering wheel so hard, his knuckles were white.
“Please help me,” she said, no longer confident in her decision to get into the car. “These guys, they killed my friend and my brother. Well, they didn’t kill my brother, but they still might. Please, mister. Do you have a cell phone? Is there a police station around here? Please, mister. They killed her and my brother has a broken leg...”
“Shhh...it’s okay. Lets get you to my house and out of those clothes. Look at you. You’re filthy. You can tell me the whole story later,” he finished.
“But...”
“I said shhh.” He put a hand on her bloody thigh and squeezed. She cried out. He moved his hand further up, finding the leg hole of her shorts and slipping his hand inside.
“Please don’t kill me,” she said through tears.
“I would never dream of wasting a fine piece of ass like yourself.”
She sank into the seat crying as he pulled into a driveway.
Michael T. Huyck, Jr.
ICK LEFT A LOT of impressions on me. The man held passionately to his beliefs. You had to be careful stepping off into a debate with him, because when he had an opinion it was intelligent and informed. If you saw the way he and Ann and Kelly worked together and played together, it was obvious that he was a loving and doting family man. I could go on at length at all the different reasons to look up to Dick, but I don’t have room to do so. So I’ll stick with the Dick Laymon trait that impressed me the most: he was a firm believer in equality.
For reasons I’m not sure of, Dick had a hyper-developed sense of what is fair and what is right. This sense, paired with obvious contention building up within the Horror Writers Association’s membership hierarchy, is what drove Dick to run for, and win, the presidency of the organization. From his first day he involved members from every corner: new blood and old dogs, perennial midlisters and best sellers, actives, associates, and affiliates. We all got to play. Dick proved to me that every member was equal as a writer and a human being in his eyes. I read a sign once that said “Every person is worth exactly one point.” That’s exactly what Dick believed, and it showed.