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I get tired of waiting for him to fully wake up and slap him across the face. After another few seconds, his vision finally clears and he stares at me, his eyes narrowing.
“I knew it! I fuckingknewyou were bluffing!”
“Yeah,” I agree. “It was Old Man Whittaker the whole time, Scooby. If youknew, you wouldn’t be in these chains right now.”
His gaze drops to a side table and his eyes widen when he notices the hockey mask and chainsaw. What? It’s Halloween. I’m going to paint the room with this piece of shit’s intestines, and I’m far enough away from the delicate ears of witnesses that I get to use a chainsaw to do it. I am giddy with delight.
“Brian…” he says, his tone warning. As though he’s in any position to warn me about anything.
“You shouldn’t have tried to steal my contract out from under me. And youreallyshouldn’t have touched what’s mine. The first thing I might have been able to let go but not the second. In deference to you being a work colleague, I’ll make it quick.”
I put on a pair of black gloves then pick up the hockey mask and secure it in place, a thrilling rush of adrenaline surging through me. Nothing else exists right now except for me… and my prey. The only thing that matters in this moment is the kill and finding out just how much blood I can squeeze out of this motherfucker. It’s sort of a macabre version of: Guess how many jelly beans are in the jar.
“Brian! Wait! If you care about her so much, you must know why I did it. You killed Vanessa!”
“She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“I loved her! You know how hard it is for men like you and I to feel anything at all. And you took her from me.”
“Awww, such a sad story. I don’t care,” I say flatly. And I don’t. If he’d loved her so much he never would have let her fall into my path. It was simple enough to keep his kitty indoors. I ignore the judge in my head that convicts me for this same crime. I could have left Mina at home, out of harms way, and we wouldn’t even be here right now.
I shake my head, clearing it of all these encroaching thoughts seeking to pull me from my moment of bliss, and start up the chainsaw. Gregor tries to say more. He tries to plead more for his life, to reason with me.
“What’s that?” I shout over the noise. “Can’t hear you.”
Chapter12
Mina
Something isn’t right about Brian. And I’m not too proud to admit that I’m a little scared right now. Maybe it’s spillover from his very convincing performance, but I feel like there’s more to it than that. After that moment where he held me and expressed probably as much emotion as Brian is capable of, he shut down again, and the wall was back firmly in place. He was all business, barking out orders.
I helped him with all the parts I could do and tried not to let it disturb me. After all, the plan once again has gone south, and we’re left having to form a new plan mid-game.
By the time he wakes Gregor, I don’t think he even realizes I’m here. I melt into the shadows, quietly watching the exchange. I feel a jolt of terror as he puts the hockey mask on and picks up the chainsaw. His eyes meet mine through the mask for the briefest moment, and I go back in time to my childhood and all the scary movies that looked very much like this.
It’s easy to forget sometimes what Brian is. It’s a combination of the way he treats me and how we’re always a team—on the same side. But he’s the horror movie monster calmly and relentlessly stalking his prey. There’s no doubt about that right now.
Ever since that switch flipped in me, and I became so much more like Brian than I want to admit, none of this has bothered me. The blood. The gore. The sadism. Unless it’s one of the girls at the house, it doesn’t affect me, and more often than not, I want to join in on the fun.
But tonight, everything feels different. It’s as though this night where the veil is thin has allowed a piece of the old me to rise from the dead, dragging and pulling itself out of the grave to walk for this one final night. Parts of that scared girl are working to fight their way to the surface, and now is a really bad time for that. I feel like I’m hovering just above myself watching this scene play out because it’s too hard to stand in this room with such a dark swirling energy of death and destruction as Brian.
I flinch when the chainsaw starts up.
The screams don’t last long. It’s hard to stretch that out with Brian’s weapon of choice. He’s only lopped off the first arm when Gregor goes into shock, and then he’s quickly gone as Brian hacks the body into more pieces than it probably needs to be in.
Windsor’s body is too close to where Brian is working and is now covered with Gregor’s blood.
“That’s enough!” I shout. I don’t know what possesses me to interrupt him, but he’s out of control. This isn’t Brian. This isn’t how he normally is. Gregor is in far more pieces than he needs to be in, and I’m sure if I don’t break through to him and stop him, he’ll just keep going until the chainsaw doesn’t have a piece of flesh and bone big enough to cut through. I am keenly aware of how much mess this is to clean up, and how much evidence is filling up this small space with each passing second.
He turns slowly back toward me, the mask still in place, the chainsaw still running. He’s covered in so much blood, and then he starts to walk toward me with purpose. And I panic.
I turn, and run. I hear the chainsaw revving behind me as he chases me. Is he even still in there at all? Is he going to hack me up, too? Ordinarily such a thought would never enter my mind, but he’s gone somewhere inside himself. Is he even in control at all? Who or what is in the driver’s seat right now? Is he in some kind of trance he can’t break free from? What does that mean for me?
This is the first night in longer than I can remember that I have actually been scared of Brian. Not just scared—bone chillingly terrified of him. Am I really about to be hacked up in the middle of a pumpkin patch on Halloween?
What a tragic end to our story.
The pumpkin patch goes on forever, and I’m weaving in and out of the largest pumpkins I’ve ever seen. The sound of the saw gets closer and closer until it goes silent. I hear the now quiet weapon land on the ground a moment before Brian is on me. We fall together in the fat leaves between the pumpkins.
