Page 12 of Trick or Treat
Shawn’s spinning gun still tortures me out of the corner of my eye, and Carli still jumps up and down, a bad feeling suddenly tightening all the muscles in my throat and making me feel like I can’t breathe. And then I hear it. The gunshot. It rings loud and echoes in my ears, feeling like they’re bleeding as I sit here, frozen, noting that Carli is no longer jumping up and down.
“What the fuck did you just do, Shawn?” River screams and runs over to Carli, trying to see if he has a chance at saving her from the bullet that came from Shawn’s gun.
When I see River’s face paling instantly as he stands up and backs away from her body, I know right away that my best friend is dead.
“Why aren’t you trying to save her?” Melanie yells, running up to Carli’s lifeless body, but River and Shawn hold her back.
“She’s dead, Mel. I’m sorry.”
“How do you know she’s dead?”
“She’s got a fucking bullet in her damn head!” Shawn screams, his hands running frantically through his hair as he begins pacing.
River watches him, not knowing how to console our friend who just killed our other friend.
“We have to call the police and tell them what happened,” Melanie begs, and all three of us look at her, fear crippling all of us to our core.
“We’re not calling the fucking police. All of our careers will be fucking over, and you know it. They’re not going to believe that it was an accident, Mel!”
“Then what are we supposed to do, Shawn?”
“We bury her out here and never tell anyone about this. If the cops ask us anything, we tell the same story—that we haven't seen her since she left to go home for the holiday. Everyone find something to dig with; we need to dig up one of these graves,” he says it like it’s nothing to him, while the feeling of being watched still seeps into my pores and chills my bones.
As we get to work on digging up a grave to bury our friend, nausea pools in the pit of my stomach, and it takes everything in me to hold it down. I can't look at any of them, or at Carli, lying on the wet grass in a pool of her own blood, a bullet hole perfectly between her eyes. Shawn's right, though; the cops around here won't believe the three of us or the fact that it truly was an accident, and that we were tripping and playing around with the gun. Not when the wound to her head is a perfect fucking shot.
Fuck, talk about a bad trip.
five
Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are
A couple weeks later...
Blade
My eyes are fixed on my prey as he scampers around the woods, attempting to hide as I slowly creep around, dragging the hatchet blade across the thick trunk of the tree. He has no idea that he’s fleeing and hiding not only from me but also from three other unhinged, savage beasts, and that we’re all still craving the taste of blood as much as we were the previous night. I hear him running through the leaves, his crunching sounds revealing his location, so if I didn’t know where he was before, I do now.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are…” As I crouch behind a headstone, I tease, watching and waiting to see what he does.
Unaware that there is currently no service in the middle of the cemetery, he takes out his phone. He leaps up and tries to flee, believing that we can’t see him. With perfect aim and precision, I pull back my arm and thrust it forward, sending my hatchet flying in his direction. The sharpened blade lands right beside his spine in the middle of his back, knocking him to the ground.
I approach him as he fumbles to stand up, calm but tense with anxiety. Blood pours from the gash in his back, paralyzing him, which was my intention all along. The pursuit of these motherfuckers becomes tiresome after a while. I need to be in the mood for a chase, and tonight, I’m not at all in the fucking mood for one.
"HELP!" he yells as I approach him, grinning behind my mask while fully conscious that he can’t see the evil grin I’m wearing.
Even though they're no longer required, the rest of the guys slowly approach with their masks on and weapons in hand.
“No one is going to come and save you, Shawn, so scream all you want,” Saint spews as he crouches down next to him, smearing the blood on his back in circles with his gloved fingers.
"What…what do you want? I'll give you anything! Please don't do this…please," he begs, even though it's too late for all that shit.
“I want nothing other than what’s in front of us at the moment.” I grin, feeling the sweat from my brow drip down the sides of my face.
He screams a bloodcurdling scream from deep within his lungs as I rip my hatchet out of his back, and the sound reverberates throughout the deserted cemetery. Nixon and Riley grab his arms and begin dragging him toward the Mausoleum as more blood spills out. Saint and I follow behind, admiring the crimson river that is flowing down his back.
"This is the one that killed the girl?" I ask my brother, my eyes fixated on our next victim, my mouth watering as I think about the things I'm about to do to his body.
"Yeah, it's him, alright."