Flypaper Cast: Dark Psychological Thriller - Book 3 Page 9

  “It’s not easy for me, you know, but I want to respect your wishes. I’ve told you before that I’d do anything to make up for my…” A moment of pain and regret crossed her face and then passed. She composed herself. “…My past mistakes. And if the best way to make up for them is by not being in your life…” Her face tightened. Normally this would be the part where the waterworks began—she cried nearly every time he saw her for one reason or another—but damned if she wasn’t fighting it back. “…Then it’s best if I don’t stay here any longer.”

  “Um…” This would have been easier if she had broken down. Was that her intention? He could drive himself batty trying to figure her out. “Do you know where you’re going? I guess that must be nice, yeah? You can go anywhere, do anything… geez, go on a cruise. Get the hell out of here before the whole friggin’ state freezes solid tomorrow.”

  “Sure, baby. That might be nice.” Meredith cracked a smile, but it broke off and drifted away on a cold wind. “Anyway. I should get going. The sun will be going down soon and the roads get worse after dark. I love you. May I…?” She opened her arms for a hug. He obliged.

  It was the first time he’d hugged—really hugged, not a hollow hug followed by a pat on the back—his mother in over two decades.

  She gave him a tiny hand wave and turned to walk back to her car. As she climbed inside, he saw her belongings in a couple of boxes stacked in her back seat. Nick banged his head against the doorframe.

  He muttered to himself. “Dammit, Mom.” Intentional or not, she made it hard to stay mad at her. She was so small and unsure, it was difficult to picture her as a real threat to anyone who wasn’t nine years old. He couldn’t help but think about what Reed had said the day before. Maybe she was reformed; on the straight and narrow. But how would he ever know for sure? “Why do you put me in this position?”

  A car passed by on the main road. Nick could hear the ice grinding beneath its tires. Shit.

  Meredith turned the car over and backed down the driveway. The front gates opened themselves as she neared them.

  This was for the best. Remove the guilt from the equation and there’s just too much baggage there for him to have a functional relationship with his mother. They’d both be happier a few hundred miles apart again.

  His mother pulled onto 2273 and the car’s tires spun in place like demonic hamster wheels. They stopped for several seconds and then spun again. The car lurched forward a few feet and then slid backwards into the ditch just outside the gate.

  Oh hell.

  The tires spun in place once more and mud, ice and slush flew into the air.

  Corpse walked up behind Nick. “What the hell is she doing?”

  He sighed. There was nothing manipulative or intentional about the display they witnessed. It was a naïve determination to do the right thing met with the irresistible forces of nature. He’d written a book about this once, Rat King, and recognized it when he saw it.

  “God, I hope I don’t regret this immediately.” Nick bobbed his head in the direction of his mother’s immobile vehicle. “Do me a favor, go get her.”

  Corpse pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” He pointed a crutch across the yard. “I mean look at this. I have to let her stay here for the storm, right?”

  Corpse took a drag and exhaled. “Hm. I don’t trust her.”

  “You don’t trust anyone.”

  She nodded. “Touche. Alright. Imma go get her. Where do you want us to put her stuff?”

  Nick limped away from the door. “She can stay and sleep in the front den, here. You can even keep an eye on her there if it’ll make you feel better.”

  “Aight. Be right back.” Corpse grabbed a coat and shut the front door behind her.

  Nick’s old friend—quiet—returned, but only for a short visit. For at least a couple of days he’d have two other people in the house with him. One of whom never slept, and the other of whom… the kitchen would be off-limits to his mother. But still, he couldn’t keep an eye on her twenty-four seven. They’d have to make certain food preparations and precautions.

  He moved into the kitchen and began pulling certain non-refrigerated foods into a pile on the counter. Anything he might eat that didn’t need to be kept cold would go in his room. Bread. Cereal. Chips. Juice boxes. It was hardly a balanced diet, but nutrition was a secondary concern when his mother was around.

  Corpse and Meredith came back into the house.

  “Holy mother, could it be any colder out?” Corpse rubbed her shoulders and hopped up and down in the foyer.

  Nick met them. “Give it a few hours.”

  Meredith did an admirable job of containing her excitement and gratitude. “Nickie… thank you. I thought I’d be sleeping in my car for a few days.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Mom.” He pointed at the front den. “You can put your stuff in there. We don’t use it, so you’ll have some semblance of privacy.”

  She picked up her bags and carried them into the den.

  Nick whispered at Corpse. “Hey, I pulled out some food I’d like in my room. You mind giving me a hand with it?”

  Corpse went into the kitchen and scooped up an armful of groceries. She hauled them to Nick’s room as he followed. Meredith walked into the foyer, saw them and looked away, pretending not to notice what they were doing. Fine by him.

  He leaned into Corpse’s ear. “Under my bed, thanks.”

  Nick crutched back down the hall and found his mother on the couch in the dark, her bags at her feet. The wind beat against the window behind her.

  “This doesn’t have to be a horrible couple of days, right?” He looked down at the cast on his left leg. “I mean, I figure, out of everyone who’s come out of the woodwork and dicked with my life, you’ve been the least destructive. I’m trying to see it that way, for what it’s worth.”

  His mother looked up at him; hopeful. Like him, it was rare for her to lack for words. She always had something to say, something on her mind. Now she either didn’t, or was afraid saying anything might ruin the moment.

  Nick raised his scarred left hand. “Danielle glued herself to me; set me on fire. Clark killed a couple of people. Then he chased me into a speeding car and stuffed me in a barrel full of rats.” He shuddered. He could still feel their greasy fur on his neck and arms. “Now these new guys—the ones the podcasters sent after me—they cut down my balcony, which you may not have even heard about, and attacked Bonnie and Chuck.” He rested against the wall next to the doorway. “Compared to all that, you showing up out of nowhere and saying some stuff that gets under my skin and talking to strangers about me… it doesn’t seem so bad. I just have a hard time letting shit go, you know? Always have.”

  She sat and waited for him to finish.

  “You’ve been here for however many months now and it’s obvious you’re trying and I haven’t been as receptive to it and maybe I could’ve been. Don’t get me wrong, what you did when I was a kid is never going to be okay, but I probably haven’t given you enough credit for trying to make it right. That make sense?”

  Meredith nodded quickly, tears running down her cheeks. She sniffled.

  Nick bounced his butt off the wall. He overflowed with nervous energy. “So you wanna say something or just let me keep talking like a jackass?”

  She stood up and stepped toward him. “Can I give you another hug?”

  He let out a heavy sigh. “Yeah, but—” She wrapped her arms around him. “—Watch the leg.” She squeezed him tighter than anyone else had in a very long time. “Okay, enough of that. Come on. We usually watch a movie about this time. I don’t know how much of my library you’ll like—I doubt you’re the ABC’s of Death type—but we’ll find something.”

  Meredith left the den and walked toward the living room. Nick looked out the bar covered window. White flakes fell from the sky, a precursor to the raging storm set to barrel down on the area.

  For better or for worse, the t
hree of them would weather it out together.

  Chapter 13

  The hour was late and Wormwood had yet to sleep. He’d been on his computer since shortly after the SWAT team had packed it in and let them go.

  Hellen stood in the doorway of the recording room and watched him peck at the keys in front of him, the sole light in the room that of his monitor. He rubbed his eyes and went back to typing.

  “Need something?” He didn’t look up from his screen.

  “Wondered if you’re coming to bed anytime soon.” She approached him. “What are you doing?”

  He made eye contact with her for a heartbeat and then broke it again. “Finishing this.”

  Hellen walked up behind him and looked over his shoulder. He was in a private chat. Text scrolled across the screen as he and the other participants carried on their conversation.

  Squamata: 2 hrs or so

  Longpig9514: Probably six for me. Seven or eight depending on traffic, bathroom stops, etc.

  She recognized the names. She’d answered their e-mails and read their Myiasis threads, of which there were many. Longpig and Squamata were two of the most prolific and ardent Maggots on the forums. “Two hours for what? What’s happening?”

  Wormwood spun around in his chair. “Oh, you wanna help now? Earlier you didn’t want any part of this. I don’t have the time or the patience for your usual wishy washy fuckery right now. You can either be out or you can be in, but you can’t have both, so pick one.”

  “How can I answer that when I don’t even know what you’re up to? Help me out here.” She asked the question, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. Still, it was a train that had left the station with her on board whether she liked it now or not. She should at least know the destination.

  Wormwood turned back to his monitor. “I told you before. I’ll kill him. Or these guys will, but it’ll have to do.”

  A chill cut through Hellen’s veins. “Squamata and Longpig? You’re sending them to kill Nick Dawkins?”

  “And the girl, too. I thought you’d approve.” He typed a message into the chat and pressed ‘enter.’

  Good deal. We’ll pick a place for you to all meet up once he gets here.

  “No, I don’t approve. Jesus Christ.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Sweetie, what—”

  Wormwood jerked away from her. “Don’t touch me. You’d have them keep on pissing in our faces. That’s your problem, you know that? You have no self-respect.”

  Hellen resisted the urge to punch him in the back of the head. “Clearly not.”

  More text appeared in the chat: Defcon has joined the conversation.

  It was a real party now. A trifecta of mental illness at Wormwood’s fingertips. His very own homicidal hit squad.

  Wormwood grinned. “See, what makes this so perfect is everyone is going to get what they want. Longpig, he wants to eat Dawkins. So, boom, he gets his Nickburger. Squamata, he’s the guy with the lizard dreams, right? He wants to wear Nick’s skin. So he and Longpig have already worked all that out, who gets what parts. And then you have Defcon here.”

  As if on cue, Defcon greeted the chatroom: Reporting for duty.

  Wormwood typed away as he spoke to Hellen. “Near as I figure, he’s some kind of paranoid schizophrenic. He thinks Dawkins is out to kill Myiasis members, and who am I to argue? He wants Dawkins dead and he doesn’t give a shit what the others want to do with the corpse. Oh, corpse, ha. Speaking of her, she’s—you know—collateral damage.” He raised a finger. “Even better. She’s my gift to you.”

  Hellen had heard enough. “Wormwood. Joey. Joey, sweetie, look at me.”

  His body turned in the chair first. His head followed two seconds later. Even as he looked her in the eyes, it was like he wasn’t there. He was still focused on the chatroom. “What?”

  “Stop this.” She knelt down and took his hands. “Tell them it was a gag. You were screwing around.”

  Wormwood sighed and stared into space. But he didn’t say no. It was a start.

  She pressed him. “You remember how excited we were when we started the podcast? It was something we loved to do. It was our thing. And it was because we both loved Dawkins. What was it you used to call him?”

  He let a tiny half-smile slip through his steely-faced demeanor. “Stephen King if King gave zero fucks.”

  Hellen smiled back. “That was it. We had those shitty customer service jobs we hated, and we’d come home and sit and read and watch TV. We were in such a rut that we joked about how we’d rather kill ourselves than be those people. So we said, what can we do that will be cheap and different and something we can do together.”

  Wormwood nodded. “A podcast. It was your idea to do one on Dawkins. You figured we already had an audience built into Myiasis.”

  “And hey, was I right, or was I right?” She reveled in the satisfaction of being on top of her game. He wasn’t beyond reach. Her sweet little Worm was still in there somewhere, just behind this bitter and spiteful creature she’d lived with for the last few days.

  He squeezed her hands between his. “You were right. It was smart.”

  She rubbed her engagement ring against his ring finger. “And I’m right now. This is not what we set out to do. This is awful. I want to go back to doing something we love together, not this eye for an eye vendetta bullshit. Before it’s too late. If you’re over Dawkins now, if you can’t go back on that, let’s do a podcast about something else. Classic horror movies, shitty television, anything you want. I don’t want us to be involved in anything we can’t live with.”

  “Hellen.” Wormwood looked her in the eyes. Not through her, as he had been, but at her. She was sure he truly saw her for the first time all day. Maybe longer. “I love you.”

  A tremendous weight lifted off her shoulders. She might have cried if she were one of those people; a complete sap. “I love you too.”

  “You’re right about everything. The podcast, the progress we’ve made… the life we’ve built together. There is nothing on Earth more important to me than that.” Wormwood patted her on the hand. It was a purely placative gesture, devoid of genuine affection. “But you’re not hearing me. I say the words and they go in one ear and out the other. So I’ll try to explain one more time.” His words were steady and deliberate, as though he spoke to a child. “What I couldn’t live with is letting them shit all over those things and get away with it. I couldn’t look myself in the mirror. I’d feel like less of a man; a failure as a husband. It would haunt me for the rest of our lives together.” He pulled his hands away from her and turned his chair around. “After tomorrow night, this will all be over and we can go back to doing whatever you want to do.”

  Hellen fell backwards to the floor. If the hardwood hadn’t stopped her, she’d have kept falling forever. Her fiancé, the man she’d planned to spend the rest of her life with, was three feet away from her, but it felt more like three miles. He couldn’t have been farther away. The space between them was infinite.

  Wormwood snickered to himself, satisfied with the hell and havoc he plotted with the worst of the worst that Myiasis had to offer. He was oblivious to the other sounds in the room; the ones that filled Hellen’s ears.

  The sound of her patience running out. The sound of their relationship dying on the vine. To Hellen it was a deafening roar.

  To anyone else, it would have sounded like keystrokes.

  Chapter 14

  Defcon looked at the clock on the dash of his car. “I’m giving him five more minutes. I’ll be damned if I’m spending all night in the parking lot of a Beasley Waffle House.”

  Longpig, a shockingly average-looking man for a cannibal-in-training, tapped on the window and stared up at the falling snow. “Fine with me. I guess it’s not like we need him anyway, right?”

  “Hey.” Defcon nudged his new partner. The guy needed to pay attention, lest his average Joe naiveté get them killed by the maniacal Nick Dawkins. “Look at me. Do not underestima
te the target. He’s highly intelligent and deadly as cancer. He’s killed two of us already. That we know of.”

  “Yeah, I was going to ask about that.” Longpig scratched his chin. “You think Nick Dawkins wants to kill his fans, right? Or at least us Maggots.”

  “That is correct.” Defcon looked around outside of the car. For all he knew Dawkins was in the process of sneaking up on them as they spoke. Beasley was dangerously close to his territory. Who knows how many agents the guy had in the area?

  Longpig also looked around. Monkey see, monkey do. “Right, so why would he do that?”

  Defcon didn’t expect him to understand. “Who knows why these sickos do what they do? The human mind is a fragile tapestry. Anyone can snap at any time. One day you’re married, you have a job… the next you’re eating people or wearing their skin. No offense.”

  “None taken.” Longpig lied. Defcon could tell a liar by their eyes. Their eyes always shifted right when they told a lie. Sometimes they shifted left to try to throw him off track. Sometimes they didn’t shift at all. Those were the ones you really had to look out for—the especially cunning ones.

  “I don’t know why Dawkins turned on us. I doubt even he knows. Maybe it was the girl. ‘Flypaper.’ She was the first one he killed. Again, that we know of. Maybe she got in his head, messed with the wiring. Maybe he’s a paranoid psychotic. That happens. More often than you’d think. Approximately one out of every four people is a delusional paranoid. That’s why I insisted on Wormwood keeping this group down to three. You can’t trust those bastards.”

  Defcon looked over his shoulder and into the back seat of the car. No one was there. He breathed a sigh of relief. A person couldn’t be too careful.

  “Anyway.” He looked in the rearview mirror at his shaved head. “First it was the girl. Then the Maestro. My theory is. Dawkins took the recreations of his work personally. He might have seen them as a slight. Took it like, ‘anything you can do I do better.’ Felt threatened, took him out.”