Johnny Gruesome (19 page)

Hard to walk.

Concentrate!

Baby steps.

Like a puppeteer, operating my own body.

Better.

Can’t open my mouth.

Places to go, people to see.

H
eavy footsteps, pounding. Labored breathing. A left turn, then a right.

Todd staggered through the locker room, his layers of sweaty clothing soaking wet. A JV wrestler snapped a towel at another’s exposed buttocks, and both boys stepped out of Todd’s way when they saw him. He peeled off his top sweatshirt and passed the empty showers, steam lingering in the air. He turned left into the team room, a smaller locker room reserved for varsity athletes. A black scale stood at the end of two narrow wooden benches, like an altar. Derek and Cliff had already showered and changed into their street clothes. Cliff stood before the mirror in the open bathroom on the left, combing his hair.

“Look who thinks he’s going home,” Derek said, closing his locker door and snapping shut its combination lock.

“I am going home,” Todd said, discarding the sweatshirt and pulling at his practice top.

“We’ll see,” Cliff said, turning from the mirror.

Todd crumpled onto a bench, pulled off his sneakers, and stripped down to his jockstrap. Using his sweatpants like a rag, he wiped sweat from his chest.

Derek stepped behind the scale and adjusted its counterweight. Todd limped over, exhaled, and stepped onto the scale. The counterweight struck the bottom of the scale.

“Shit,” Todd said.

“You’re five pounds over,” Derek said. “You can still run that off.”

Stepping off the scale and shaking his head, Todd spoke between tortured breaths. “No way. No more running today. I’m exhausted. I’ll just shoot some hoops and skip dinner.”

“And breakfast,” Derek said.

“And lunch,” Cliff said.

“Shit,” Todd said.

“That might help, too,” Derek said and Cliff laughed.

Standing at the free throw line in the gymnasium, Todd dribbled a basketball. The sound of the ball bouncing echoed through the gym. He raised the ball as high as his head, then slammed it down. Catching it in both hands, he repeated this until his palms stung. He focused on the basket, took aim, and launched the ball through the air. It struck the Plexiglas backboard and bounced away.

“Shit,” he said, chasing the ball. He caught up to it and dribbled it back to the free throw line.

A door swung open, and Darryl Bower leaned inside, dressed in his navy blue custodial uniform. “You gonna be much longer? I gotta mop in here.”

Fucking loser,
Todd thought. Darryl had dropped out of high school his junior year, and now he worked the night shift there. “You know who I am?”

Darryl nodded.

“You know who my father is?”

Another nod.

“Then go mop somewhere else. I’ll leave when I’m good and ready.”

Turning red, but holding his tongue, Darryl withdrew from the gym and closed the door.

Todd slammed the ball on the floor, alternating hands in a Vpattern, faster and faster. He aimed at the basket and shot again. This time, the ball struck the rim and rebounded.

“Damn it!” He ran after the ball, catching it only after it ricocheted off the far wall. He dribbled back to the free throw line. Wiping sweat from his forehead, he stared straight at the basket, concentrating. He brought the ball to his face, readying another shot.

One third of the ceiling lights turned black as he heard the sound of circuit breakers clicking off. As he raised his eyes to the ceiling and lowered the ball in his hands, another third of the lights went dark. What the hell did Darryl think he was doing?

He’s not going to—

The remaining lights went off, leaving him in darkness.

“Darryl! Turn the lights back on, you asshole!”

He received no response.

“You want to keep your job?”

Standing still, he allowed his eyes to adjust to the dense darkness. The only sound he heard was his own breathing. The exit lights over the doors glowed red, and he pinpointed two slivers of pale light at floor level. Dropping the ball, he stepped toward them, his footsteps echoing. His hands groped darkness until his fingertips brushed a wooden surface.

I’ll kill him,
he thought as he grasped the metal panic bar with both hands and shoved it. The bar slammed into the doors, the sound of metal banging against wood echoing around him.

Locked, goddamn it!

“Darryl, you son of a bitch, stop screwing around!”

A thunderous rumbling filled the gym, and he turned, crouching in a defensive posture as the floor shook, his heart going into overdrive. He saw an immense shape pass between him and the far side of the gym, blocking out the exit signs above the doors there. The motorized partition slammed shut, halving the space.

“Jesus!”

The scoreboard near the ceiling lit up, its luminous digits casting just enough golden light for Todd to discern the general outline of the gym.

“This isn’t funny!”

The door within the partition swung open with a high-pitched squeak that caused him to shudder. A figure stood there, silhouetted by the red light on the other side of the gym. The figure stepped through and slammed the door. Footsteps echoed in the darkness: hard soles, not sneakers.

Todd leaned forward, squinting. The figure moved in and out of splotches of dingy light, its footsteps growing louder. He scooted to the free throw line and snatched up a ball.

“Darryl, I swear to God, my father will have your lousy job for this.”

The approaching figure didn’t break its measured stride. Todd discerned a white shirt collar divided by a tie. The remainder of the figure’s outfit blended into blackness. A suit? Was a teacher playing games with him? His mind raced. He couldn’t think of any teachers who wore suits. As the figure drew closer, Todd saw the red exit light highlighting long hair.

A headbanger. Should have known
. That explained it: this headbanger had just come from Grissom’s funeral. But which one of those long-haired freaks had enough class to wear a suit? Carter had short hair.

The figure stopped ten feet away and stood as motionless as a statue. Todd felt his stomach clench. Something wasn’t right about this. “Who’s there?”

The figure didn’t answer.

Squinting, Todd saw splotches of mud caked on the suit. Studying the kid’s darkened features, he stepped closer for a better view.

Cold, hard eyes stared at him, and thin lips stretched into a tight grin that cracked waxy flesh.

Todd’s heart slammed against his chest, his eyes widening in disbelief. “Grissom …”

The grin on the thing resembling Johnny Grissom pulled back even wider, into a jagged gash.

Todd went weak in the knees. “YOU’RE DEAD, YOU SON OF A BITCH!” He hurled the ball at Johnny with all his strength.

Johnny caught the ball without flinching. The sound of rubber impacting dead flesh reverberated against the gym walls. Johnny looked at the ball, then at the basket. He took the shot. Todd watched the ball sail over his head, but he didn’t turn around to witness the completion of its journey. The ball swished through the net and bounced away.

“Oh, God,” Todd said in a high-pitched voice that sounded more like a pig’s squeal. “What do you want?”

Johnny, motionless, stared at Todd for what seemed like an eternity. Then Todd watched the corpse of his classmate reach into the side pocket of his suit jacket with his right hand. Agonizing seconds passed before Johnny withdrew a narrow object, six inches long, and aimed it at the floor. Todd’s bladder threatened to burst as Johnny thumbed a switch on the black handle. A blade sprang out, gleaming in the crimson light, and Todd knew he would never leave the gym alive.

J
ohnny came marching home at 7:00 p.m. The wind whipped his hair and pressed his suit against his frame, and he looked down at the snow-covered sidewalk whenever headlights from oncoming cars pinned him in their glare. He doubted anyone driving at night would recognize him or identify the dark spots on his white shirt as bloodstains. He lurched from side to side, like Frankenstein’s monster, still learning to control his body.

Less than a mile separated his house from the school. He didn’t feel the cold, or any temperature for that matter, and walking through six inches of snow did not tire him. Death had its advantages.

When he reached the orchard and vineyard beside his house, he veered off the sidewalk and walked on the other side of the barren trees. He saw no point in taking chances, and he intended to be cautious. The lights in his house guided him through the trees to the bushes along the driveway, where he waited.

Through a side window, he saw his father moving through the living room. Charlie had traded his suit for the comfort of street clothes. Johnny felt emotion rising within him. He regretted he had not been a better son, that he hadn’t been closer to his father.

Too late to worry about that now
. If their relationship had been difficult before, it would be hell now. He buried his feelings, as he himself had almost been buried.
Show no mercy. Remember why you came back
.

He watched Charlie exit the house, hands stuffed in his coat pockets, and pass a sign that had joined the Buffalo Bills cutout on the front lawn. When his father had disappeared, Johnny emerged from the brush and crossed the driveway. He stared at the FOR SALE sign.

What?
Johnny felt anger in his shell. His father had wasted no time trying to unload the old house.

He hadn’t been buried with a house key, so he climbed the lattice on the side of the porch to the first roof. He tipped from side to side, off-kilter, like Mecha-Kong on that Japanese tower in
King Kong Escapes.
Confident the trees in the front yard hid him from the light traffic, he shuffled through the snow on the roof to his bedroom window, which he always left unlocked in case of just such an emergency.

The window slid open and the wind blew the curtains, and he climbed into darkness. Pulling the window down and drawing the shade closed, he pulled the string hanging from the middle of the ceiling and the light clicked on. His room had not been touched since his demise: his belongings remained out of place. A cardboard box had been placed in the middle of the bed and he recognized his M.C. jacket inside it. The cops had returned his stuff.

Loosening his tie, he jerked the noose over his head and discarded it on the unmade bed. He unbuttoned his top shirt button, then shed his suit jacket with a disgusted expression and kicked off his muddy shoes. Finally, he emptied his pockets, tossing a set of keys and a cell phone onto the bed. It had been simple enough to swipe the keys from Darryl Bower’s custodial cart and lock the gym doors. The cell phone had belonged to Todd. Too bad there was no charger for it. Still, he’d get some use out of it.

He opened his closet door, stood before the mirror nailed to it, and stared at his reflection. The world appeared black and white through his dead eyes, except for the vibrant crimson that covered his shirt. If his heart had still pumped blood, he would have blushed. For a moment, he didn’t even recognize himself: the wind had blown his hair, which remained neat looking. And short.