Chapter 13 Ricky #2
“Yeah, Chad.” I crouch in front of him. “Better take some advice from your friend here.” I remove the knife from my back pocket and slide it out of the black leather sheath, then I glide the sharp tip of the blade against the seam of his jeans, listening as the steel grinds over the denim fabric.
“But… s-she’s… I d-don’t u-understand,” Chad snivels frantically.
“She’s dead, there’s no way this can be real. I need the hospital, man… I’m tripping out my ass right n-now,” Chad blabbers over and over again, his eyes finding Heather again. “Oh, fuck.” His snivelling is exactly what I expected. “Ricky, bro, we’re sorry. I fucking swear it was an accident.”
Jack is next to chime in with Chad. “Y-yeah! We… we didn’t mean it! It was a fucking a-accident. We’re so fucking sorry, bro.”
“Jesus Christ,” Toby snorts under his breath as though he’s embarrassed by their weakness.
I choose to ignore him, preferring to keep my attention on Chad and Jack for the meantime.
“Sorry?” I cock my head to the side and frown at the audacity of it all.
“Sorry for what? killing her? Or sorry you got caught?” I ask nobody in particular, because it’s a rhetorical question. “Which one is it?”
“Sorry for…” Jack’s eyes flick to Heather. “For hurting…” He swallows thickly. “Her—”
“You can say her fucking name when you talk about her,” I growl with sheer anger, twirling my knife in a circle between his legs. “After all…” I shrug. “All of you did decide to drive away when she was dying at the side of the FUCKING LAKE!”
“That was Patrick!” Chad informs me like I don’t already know. “I was in the back seat! I-I wasn’t—”
“And you think any of that makes a difference? That it makes it better!? That you’re innocent somehow? You knew what happened, motherfucker, and you still… did… nothing.”
Chad drops his head back and screams into the void, but no one will hear him, Gamma Nu is far away from the other frats on Greek row, so we could play his screams through a speaker and not even the college Dean would hear him.
“Chad, calm down for Christ’s sake… it’s not fucking real.” Toby rolls his eyes, chuckling. “Get a hold of yourself! This is all just some stupid game.”
“A game?” I chuckle. “Okay.”
The moment my knife pierces the underside of Chad’s jaw, I breathe a sigh of relief as he starts making garbled sounds while suffocating on his own blood. Every perforated edge of the sharp implement sliding further into his skull, effectively puncturing it like warm butter.
“HOLY FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK!?”
I snap my head in Jack’s direction, watching with a smile as he stares wide-eyed at Chad’s writhing, blood-soaked body before it all settles in for him that this is all real.
Jack’s high-pitched screams fill me with irritation, and I twist the knife further into the underside of Chad’s jaw once more before yanking it out forcefully.
“Do you think it’s still a game now, Toby?” I ask him, not taking my eyes off Jack as I do.
I stand to my full height and position myself in front of Jack this time as I point my bloody knife down at him. The smell of his alcohol-infused piss fills my nostrils, making me grimace in disgust as a large wet patch swells between Jack’s legs.
I bark out a laugh and tap the tip of my knife against the zipper. “Did you just piss yourself? Don’t you have any decorum at all?”
“Jack.” Heather steps forward and rests her hand on my shoulder, silently telling me she’s taking control of this now. Her voice is calm and collected even though I know she’s raging on the inside.
Without taking my eyes off Jack, I slowly walk backwards until I’m leaning against the kitchen counter once more.
“When Patrick hit me with his car, was I still alive?”
“Y-yes,” he sobs hysterically. “But—”
“Did you all get out of the car to see what it was Patrick had hit?”
Silence.
“ANSWER ME!” she snaps sharply.
“YES!” he finally replies, tears streaming from his eyes as he looks at me, silently begging for help.
I snort, trying to hold back my amusement. “Don’t look at me.” I point the tip of my knife to my chest. “I’m not going to help you.”
“When you saw me, Jack, did you feel… bad? Or did you only care about yourself in that moment?”
Jack closes his eyes, chanting the same sentence over and over again. “This is just as dream, this is just a dream, this is just a dream.”
I watch closely as the woman I love turns around and makes her way over to the kitchen cupboards and drawers, yanking each of them open one after the other until I assume she finds exactly what she’s looking for.
A glint of silver shines from the utensil in her hand, and I realise instantly what it is.
I turn my attention back to the two men in front of me, sneering at their snot-covered upper lips. The way they still fight against their restraints even though there’s no chance either of them will free themselves is actually quite comical to be honest.
But their anguish is nothing compared to what I felt running up to Heather’s lifeless body on Halloween night.
What they took from me, I can never get back.
I’ll never smell the soft aroma of her lemon bodywash again or her smooth, supple skin beneath my touch.
I’ll never hear her laugh, see her smile, or live another normal day again.
All because they refused to help her. Turning their accident… into a hit and run.
But, if this is all I have, if the echoing devastation of my broken heart is all I have left to remember her by, then I’ll pray to live every day the same way.
Convincing her of who I am and reminding her of our love, because that’s all I care about.
No matter how short our time is together, I’ll take it, because it means I get to have her.
I’ll go through every ounce of suffering if it will mean having her in my arms once more.
Heather saunters back to stand directly in front of Jack, and places a see-through glass bottle of vinegar on the floor beside his feet, followed by a small ceramic salt shaker.
“Jack,” Heather croons in a sing-song voice, but he doesn’t answer.
“Jack!” she barks his name once more, and the sound of her smacking him clean across the face permeates the kitchen, instantly gaining his attention.
His eyes are completely bloodshot and all the small burst capillaries are a vivid shade of red against the tear-ridden whites of his eyes while he shakes with trepidation.
“I’m glad you got to watch me die.” She smiles psychotically, the expression never meeting the corner of her eyes.
“Because it’s the last thing you’re ever going to see. ”
My eyes widen in surprise as she roughly takes hold of Jack’s jaw, shoving the curved side of the ice-cream scoop into the outer corner of his right eye socket, forcing it with all her might.
I watch with delight as she masterfully scoops a single green eye out of his head, the sound of his agony-filled cries bringing gooseflesh to my skin.
“That’s it, scream for me,” Heather says as she laughs manically.
Jack’s wails of suffering amalgamate with Toby’s petrified cries of shock as he watches my girl work swiftly to remove both of Jack’s eyes one after the other until they’re hanging from the empty sockets like Christmas decorations.
I watch as his body jerks and twitches, and the blood-soaked tears trailing from the empty black holes within his skull bring on a warmth to my stomach I’ve never felt before.
Not even with my own kills.
Before I have a chance to congratulate her on her dazzling act, Heather grabs the bottle of vinegar and pours it all over Jack’s face before finishing him off with a salt seasoning.
“Jesus,” I hiss, gritting my teeth at the act, because…yeah, that shit’s gotta hurt.
My eyes never leave the scene in front of me though, because watching him flail and shriek like a stuck pig is an addicting sight to say the least. I watch with eagerness as Heather then wraps her fingers around the tendons of each dangling eyeball and viciously yanks them towards her, snapping both ligaments of connective tissue in one fell swoop.
I was going to step in, help her, but then I realised this is all for her.
She deserves her revenge.
Her gaze instantly finds Toby, and I can’t understand what he says because I’m so taken aback by her calm rage that I’ve drowned his pleading out.
“Open your mouth,” she demands, holding both eyes in one hand.
“No, no, please, I’m… Fuuuuuck!!!” he yells, completely panic-stricken about what’s to come. “Please, Heather! No, no, no, I—”
“OPEN YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!!!” she screams in his face, but he rolls his lips between his teeth and bites down. Hard.
Not willing to let him fuck this up for her, I situate myself behind him and grip the underside of his jaw and simultaneously pinch his nose. “Open up… There’s a good boy.”
Toby fights against my hold, but it’s no use because he doesn’t last long before his mouth pops open for fresh air, and Heather quickly shoves the eyeballs deep within the back of his throat.
I force his jaw closed, wrapping one arm around his throat, and the other I press against his mouth, keeping it closed.
“Force-feeding him eyeballs. Innovative.”
Her head snaps up, and her eyes meet my gaze, as she pops the brightest smile. “Thanks, baby.”
This woman.
“Eat up, Toby. For we all know this is the last meal you’ll ever have.”
Toby’s suppressed chokes turn to gags and heaving, and I love the sound of it. Tears stream down his face, and his chest moves up and down frantically as he sucks ragged breaths in through his nose, obviously fighting the sickening feeling of having to swallow his best friend’s eyes.
Heather moves back from between Toby’s legs and strides towards my black backpack resting on the kitchen counter and pulls out the bottle of gasoline, and the small box of strip club matches from the front pocket.
“Are you ready?” she asks, walking towards me again.
I reach over and gently grip her chin, bringing those spectacular forest-coloured eyes to look at me.
“I’m proud of you,” I praise her, because I am, more than she’ll ever know, and as I slowly begin to smile, her expression softens, and I can’t help but to lean down to kiss her ever so gently.
“So perfect,” I murmur against her pillow-soft lips.
“Yes,” she replies, breaking our kiss. “You are.”
She steps past me after our brief display of affection and begins sloshing the gasoline on the dark wood floor.
A stream of amber-coloured liquid flows from the opening as she douses the three bodies with a nefarious grin written all over her face.
The pungent smell of the fluid—almost as quickly as it comes from the bottle—fills the kitchen with a strong, yet slightly sweet chemical odour.
We ignore Toby’s blood-curdling pleas as we back up towards the front door, Heather leaving a trail of gas behind us. And even though I’ve lived this same night so many times before, I don’t plan to let it play out the same way again.
Because this time, she’s not going to die in my arms.
Or worse, alone.