Johnny Gruesome (40 page)

“Eric saw Johnny at the bus party last night, right before Derek and Cliff were killed.”

“That’s impossible and you know it.”

“I saw him, too.”

Matt stared at her with an incredulous expression. “You mean you saw someone who looked like Johnny, don’t you? I sat in on his autopsy, and I assure you he’s dead.”

“No one said he isn’t.”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

Carol gestured at Eric. “Eric also found Johnny’s funeral suit in the Grissom house.”

Facing Eric again, Matt said, “You broke into Grissom’s house, too?”

Eric blinked, a dull glaze over his eyes.

Carol stepped closer to her husband. “Matt—”

“Dead people don’t get up and walk out of their graves!”

“Then how do you explain what we found? Rhonda’s corpse is in that coffin right now and Johnny’s isn’t.”

“I can’t explain anything yet. But that doesn’t excuse what you two—”

“What we did is beside the point! Someone
murdered
Rhonda and hid her body in that coffin. That poor, beautiful girl is dead.”

“She isn’t alone. If someone killed her, that same person stole Johnny’s body. It must be the same psycho who killed those boys and Michael Milton and probably the Lawsons.”

Carol flinched and Eric snapped out of his stupor. She said, “Michael—?”

Relaxing the edge in his voice, Matt clasped her forearms. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spring it on you like that. We found him in his office an hour and a half ago.”

“Oh, God!”

“This maniac has graduated from killing members of the student body to the faculty. Which is why you aren’t leaving my sight until he’s caught.”

Carol shook her head in disbelief. “No …”

Matt held her. “The FBI’s sending a team of specialists here first thing in the morning. This will all be over soon.”

“He’s haunting us.”

Matt and Carol looked at Eric in unison, and Matt said, “What?”

Eric looked up, first at Matt and then at Carol. “Johnny’s haunting us.”

“Why is that?” Matt said in a patronizing tone.

“Because we killed him.”

Feeling Carol’s body stiffen, Matt released his grip on her. “Who did?”

“Gary strangled him, and Karen and I helped him drive Johnny’s car into the creek to make it look like an accident.”

Carol stepped back, a shocked expression on her face.

Matt snorted. “So it was Belter.”
Jesus Christ, it was a teenager the whole time.
Racing around his desk, he pressed a button on the intercom. “Ben, get in here right now.” He shot Carol a look that said,
I told you
so.

“There’s more,” Eric said. “Whoever killed Todd put his head in Gary’s locker. I helped him get rid of it. We stuffed it in a basketball and threw it into a drainage ditch behind the school, near the baseball field.”

Carol could not believe what she was hearing.

Matt said, “Did it ever occur to you that Gary might have killed Todd, too, and put his head in his own locker to involve you?”

Eric bit his lower lip. “I was suspicious, yeah. But what happened with Johnny was in the heat of the moment. We were all drinking, and Gary was flying high on coke. I don’t think he could have done that to Todd.”

Ben opened the door. “Trouble, Chief?”

“Put out an APB on Gary Belter. For now, just charge him with Johnny Grissom’s murder.” Ben raised his eyebrows. “Put out another APB on Karen Slatter. Charge her as an accessory. Send two men to the cemetery to check out Grissom’s grave. Tell them to expect the worst.”

“Right.” Ben started to close the door.

“And send another car out to the high school to search for a basketball in a drainage ditch by the baseball field. Tell them to handle the ball with gloves because Kumler’s head may be in it.”

Ben’s eyebrows remained raised. “We’re running out of men.”

“What we’re running out of is time. But maybe we can put an end to all of this before the Feds arrive. I don’t want any sirens or speeding or anything else that might tip those reporters off that we’ve had a break.”

“Gotcha.” Ben closed the door, started to jog to the counter, thought better of it, and walked the rest of the way.

Matt turned back to Eric. “Sit down.”

Eric eased himself into a chair with cold metal arms. He glanced at Carol, who had not yet recovered from his confession, her face tight and pale.

“Carol, you’ll have to wait outside.”

She opened her mouth to protest, then left the office and remained in the lobby.

“Eric, I’m placing you under arrest.”

Eric gave Matt a sharp look, then nodded in resignation.

Matt read him his rights. “Listen to me very carefully. I’m not going to lie to you. You’re in a lot of trouble. If what you’ve told me so far is true, you’re an accessory to Johnny’s murder. Maybe there were extenuating circumstances. A court will have to sort that out. But your only chance to come out of this with any kind of a future is to come clean about everything. Do you understand?”

Eric nodded.

“Good. Now follow me.”

Eric rose and followed Matt out of the office. He made eye contact with Carol, who stood at the watercooler. They went around the counter and through a metal door, and Eric saw the dark bars of two jail cells.

He’s locking me up. My parents are going to love seeing me here..

“This way.” Standing in the doorway of another office, Matt flicked a light switch.

Green fluorescent light flickered in the room, and Eric saw a digital camera on a tripod overlooking two metal chairs and a table. He entered the confined space, fearing he might never see his bedroom again.

“Sit down,” Matt said, closing the door. Eric obeyed while Matt stepped behind the tripod and pressed a button. The camera beeped and a red LED light came on below the lens. Matt sat opposite Eric and announced the date to the camera, then their names.

“Okay, Eric. Start at the beginning.”

G
ary collapsed on the bed, next to Karen, his chest heaving and speckled with sweat. Reaching between his legs, he peeled off his condom and tossed it onto the nightstand. “Oh, man.” He looked over at Karen. “That was really great.”

She didn’t face him. Licking coke residue from her gums she said in a monotone, “Yeah.”

Sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, Gary pulled a tissue out of its decorative box and wiped his softening penis. He used the same tissue to pick up the condom and tossed them into the wastebasket near Karen’s bureau. He padded across the floor to where he’d thrown his jeans and pulled them on. Then he bent over the bureau and snorted two more lines. Staring at his reflection, he sniffed the dissolving powder deeper into his brain.

King of the fucking world, he thought.

Karen sprang into a sitting position, pulling a sheet around her shoulders. “What was that?”

Gary looked at the closed door. “I didn’t hear anything.”

Karen’s fingers tightened on the sheet. “Someone else is in the house.”

Gary’s heart tightened, and he stared at the door. He heard nothing. “You’re just being paranoid. It’s the shit.”

Her widened eyes zeroed in on him. “I want more.”

“Come and get it.” So I can have more of what I want.

Throwing the sheet back, Karen slid out of bed and sauntered barefoot to the bureau, nude. She picked up the straw and snorted two lines. She felt Gary’s eyes, and then his hands, on her ass. The coke hit her system, and when she stood straight she sniffed it hard. Gary cupped her breasts and squeezed her nipples. She rolled her head in a circle, moaning as she pressed herself against his hands. She didn’t object when he sucked on her neck.

She could enjoy him as long as she was high. She stared at her reflection as he worked on her body, sliding one hand down to the patch of blond hair between her legs. The coke made her wet, and she gyrated against his fingers. She looked dirty and used and she liked that. Closing her eyes, she reached back and ran her fingers through Gary’s fine hair.

Johnny …

She moaned louder and Gary stuck his fingers inside her. “Fuck me again,” she said, opening her eyes halfway. In the mirror, she saw that her bedroom door had swung open. Furrowing her brow, she stared at it. A shadow spread across the far wall and her body turned rigid. “Gary—?”

With his lips still fastened on her neck, Gary raised his eyes to the mirror. How had the door come open? As he turned around, the shadow on the wall solidified and entered the room.

“Hi, guys,” the shadow said. “Miss me?”

Karen’s eyes widened in terror, and Gary jumped against the bureau.

“Je-sus!
” Gary said, his entire body flinching.

Karen screamed, long and hard.

Purple and black welts streaked Johnny’s soggy blue flesh. His left eyelid narrowed at them; he had no right eyelid left. His nose had rotted away, and his hair hung like stringy sewage.

“Looks like I caught you with your hand in the cookie jar, Gar.” His voice sounded as if he had gargled with dirt and his lips creased as he spoke, like an old pumpkin that had begun to shrivel. His vocal cords and larynx bobbed beneath the vicious bruises on his throat.

Karen screamed again.

Johnny held a crowbar in his left hand. He tossed it into the air and snatched it, his putrid flesh slapping the cold iron. “I snagged this from the back of your truck, man. I hope you don’t mind.”

Gary pressed his back against Karen, who cringed behind him. He sniffed runny coke up his septum. “Wh-w-w-what the hell do you want?”

Taking a single step forward, Johnny raised his right arm and extended his pointer finger. “You killed me, you totaled my wheels, and you stole my bitch. What the fuck do you
think
I want?”

Gary looked over his shoulder at Karen with an alarmed expression. “Forget it. You can have her back!” Karen slapped his back hard, and he felt stinging heat there.

“You bastard!”

When Gary arched his back, she slipped out from behind him. Johnny watched her crawl across the bed to the far corner of the room, where she wrapped the sheet around herself and cowered, tears filling her eyes.

“Bastard …”

Johnny grunted. “Been there, had that. But I’ll let you have this.” Reaching into the side pocket of his motorcycle jacket, he withdrew his switchblade and thumbed its switch. The blade sprang out, crusty with dried blood and orange rust.

Narrowing his bulging eyes, Gary reached into his back pocket and whipped out his own switchblade, which he triggered as he dropped into a fighting crouch. Johnny crouched low too, and they circled each other. Gary lunged first, swinging his knife, but Johnny stepped aside, taunting him with wicked laughter.

Karen twisted the ends of the sheet around her, knuckles whitening. How was this possible? She didn’t even know who to hope would win.

Gary lunged again, swinging his arm back and forth. His knife sliced Johnny’s chest through one of the ribs printed on his T-shirt. A gash opened, and maggots poured out, like greasy, half-cooked rice, and writhed on the floor. Tasting hot bile in the back of his throat, Gary thrust his knife straight at Johnny’s face.

Johnny snared Gary’s forearm in the crook of the crowbar and gave it a savage twist. Gary’s forearm snapped and he screamed as the knife slipped from his outstretched fingers and clattered on the floor. The bloody end of a broken bone stuck out of his arm, two inches below his wrist.

Johnny swung his blade in a broad, sideways arc, driving it into Gary’s left temple. Gary’s body shook, his eyes rolling up in their sockets, and he collapsed like a house of cards, slipping to the floor with Johnny’s switchblade protruding from his head.

Looking down at Gary in disgust, Johnny spat black phlegm on him.
“Poseur.”
He turned to Karen. “Now it’s your turn.”

“No!” Karen shook her head.

Johnny crossed the room, his boots clomping on the floor. “Go ahead, scream until you’re blue in the face. Then we’ll match.”

Karen released the sheet, her hands shaking in spasms as Johnny stepped onto the bed, towering over her.

“I might have left you alone,” he said, tapping the crowbar in one hand, “if you hadn’t screwed that asshole.”

Tears streamed down her face. “Oh, God …”

“It’s a little late to get religious on me, sweetheart.”

She looked up at him. “I never loved him … I only loved you.”

“That’s good.” He raised the crowbar over his head. “We’ll be together soon.”

Karen dove forward, arms outstretched, the sheet falling away. Her momentum propelled her through the window, the curtains and blind protecting her from the shattering glass. Johnny watched her spiral into the night, a look of surprise on his grisly features.

Freezing cold air stabbed Karen as she sailed into the darkness. As the curtains and the blind whipped away from her face, she saw the backyard below. For a split second she hung suspended in the air like an angel, her arms spread wide like wings. She glimpsed the swing set she had played on as a child, rusted now, and a tractor tire leaning against the wooden deck. Snow fell around her, and she felt at peace.