All Hallow's Dead, page 3
In general, he was seeing too many people who weren’t here in an official capacity. The crowd included not just McAfee family members, but several of their friends and acquaintances. In scanning their faces, he spotted one in particular that made his stomach knot. Ricky Bennet, a frequent town hall agitator and former juvenile delinquent, stood away from the family, hovering around the edge of the taped-off area. Ricky and Lloyd used to cause a lot of trouble together in their younger days. Lee had been a deputy back then and had busted them and their pals for petty bullshit multiple times. But Harlan had been buddies with the old sheriff, which meant his boy and his shiftless friends had gotten off with a slap on the wrist nearly every time.
After finally finding a space for his cruiser, Lee heaved his considerable bulk out of the vehicle and carefully threaded his way through the crowd of onlookers, pausing only briefly to offer Lloyd’s folks his condolences. He moved on after assuring them he’d be talking with them at length shortly. As he neared the pumpkin stand, he ducked beneath the yellow crime scene tape and stood up with a grunt, grimacing at his misfortune as he happened to make direct eye contact with Bennet, who was sneering at him.
“About time you got here, sheriff.”
Lee’s grimace became a glare. “Don’t give me any grief, son. I ain’t in a mood for it.”
He moved away from the son of a bitch before he could say anything else.
Two of his best deputies, Pete Acker and Vic Bailey, were standing over the body as Lee came around the pumpkin stand. Both men had been with the department for over a decade. He was surprised these two had done such a subpar job of managing the scene. They were better than that.
The men glanced up at his arrival.
Acker had a pained look on his face as he said, “Sorry about the clusterfuck, sheriff. Lucas got the call on this one. We only just got here.”
Lee nodded.
That explained it. Jason Lucas was the department’s youngest deputy. He’d been on the job only a few months and wasn’t very good at it. This wasn’t the first time he’d handled a scene in a less than ideal way.
“Please tell me the techs were able to do their thing before the gawkers got here.”
Bailey shrugged. “That jackass Bennet found the body. I guess he and McAfee knew each other.”
Lee nodded. “That I can confirm. Partners in crime, more like. Used to be, anyway.”
Bailey arched an eyebrow at this before continuing. “First thing he did was ring up Lloyd’s folks. They came out here straight away. By the time they called it in, there’d been a fair amount of contamination. I’d have to call the scene degraded, at best.”
Lee muttered a curse and shook his head. “All right, then. What’s done is done.” He looked at the corpse and was silent a moment before shifting his gaze back to his deputies. “I guess the pertinent question is obvious—what happened to the man’s head?”
Acker and Bailey glanced at each other, eyebrows raised.
The pained look on Acker’s face became more pronounced. “It’s gone.”
Lee snorted. “I can see that. No sign of it in the vicinity?”
Acker shook his head. “Not so far.”
Lee took off his Stetson and ran plump fingers through his sweaty, close-cropped hair. “Well, ain’t this shit just what we needed the week before Halloween? A goddamn psycho killer on the loose. I don’t reckon you boys have identified a suspect yet.”
Acker and Bailey shook their heads and uttered the same words in near unison: “No, sir.”
Lee put the Stetson back on his head and straightened it. “Well, of course not. Why should this shit be easy?” He glanced in the direction of Lloyd’s grieving parents, who were standing some twenty yards away. A sobbing, red-faced Carol McAfee was clinging to her husband, who was watching the lawmen gathered behind the pumpkin stand with a stony expression. Lee lowered his voice before addressing his men again. “If I were a betting man, I’d have to say this wasn’t a random thing. Somebody out there had it in for Lloyd, which ain’t too surprising. He didn’t exactly have a winning personality. We should--”
His next words were drowned out as a commotion arose from somewhere nearby. There was a lot of loud, excited babble punctuated by a single piercing, feminine scream. Lee turned away from his men and craned his thick neck around, searching for the source of the disturbance. This didn’t take long. Jason Lucas, the young deputy who’d mismanaged the initial handling of the scene so badly, emerged from a cluster of civilians gathered along the tree line on the opposite of the road and came running toward the pumpkin stand. Even at a distance, Lee read a mixture of horror and adrenaline-fueled excitement in his wide-eyed expression.
Clutched in his hands was a pumpkin with a carved jack-o’-lantern face.
Lee frowned, his stomach knotting in anticipation of a nasty surprise.
Lucas arrived at the pumpkin stand sweating and out of breath. He tried talking but his obviously jittery nerves rendered his words indecipherable. While he struggled to talk, a static-filled squawk emanated from Acker’s shoulder mic. The deputy stuck a finger in his ear and moved away from the pumpkin stand to better hear the dispatcher.
An exasperated Lee reached over the stand and ripped the jack-o’-lantern from Lucas’s trembling hands. He backed away from the stand and peered down through the pumpkin’s open top. Deputy Bailey moved in for a look and gasped at what was inside.
“So that’s where his head went.”
Lee nodded slowly, unlocking his tightly set jaw with a conscious effort. His nails dug deep into the skin of the pumpkin. “We’ve got a sick bastard on our hands. Call the tech boys over here.”
Bailey yelled for the techs.
Acker came back over to the pumpkin stand. Lee glanced his way and saw a promise of more headaches on the horizon in the man’s gaunt expression. “What now?”
“Kind of a weird call, sheriff. May be related to this mess.”
Lee suppressed a groan and said, “Spill it.”
“Some lady out in Brighton Estates reported a break-in. Family went out to eat and found a bunch of carved pumpkins on their dinner table when they got home. Husband’s still in the house looking for an intruder, apparently.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Lee handed the pumpkin containing Lloyd McAfee’s head off to a gloved tech in a white hazmat suit. “Bailey, you’re in charge here. Acker, with me.”
Acker nodded and they headed off to their cruisers.
5.
Twenty-five years ago
Willow Springs, TN
Being forcefully marched through the woods was bad. The looming prospect of the humiliation awaiting him was even worse. Elliot didn’t know precisely what the other boys had in mind for him, but he was sure it wouldn’t be pleasant. They’d done mean things to him many times in the past. Once in elementary school he’d been held down at the edge of the playground and forced to eat dirt. Another time they cornered him in the restroom at school, pressed his face into a urinal, and told him to lick the pink cake at the bottom of the porcelain receptacle. That time he got lucky. His tormentors heard a murmur of adult voices from somewhere out in the hallway and bolted.
And then there were the beatings. He’d been knocked around too many times to count. But there was almost always a hit and run aspect to those incidents. The boys would catch him unaware outside of school or on the way home, move in fast to deliver a flurry of punches and kicks, and then head off before an authority figure could intervene. As much as he hated those encounters, at least they were over fast.
Elliot doubted that would be the case here. They had him in an isolated location, out of sight of anyone who might be able to help him. He feared Lloyd and his cronies would make the most of the rare opportunity and take their time meting out their sadistic impulses.
Lloyd and Chuck were walking ahead of him. Chuck was still lugging that freshly carved jack-o’-lantern. For the moment, they seemed to have forgotten all about him, their conversation focused on how nice Susan Rochon’s tits were. Susan was the most popular “bad” girl in school. She had choppy black hair like Joan Jett and did indeed have nice tits. Elliot had lusted for her from afar since sixth grade, but he knew he’d never have the courage to talk to her. These idiots lusted after her, too, but they were too concerned with seeming cool to admit they liked her. Instead they hurled rude insults at her, “slut” being the go-to choice, and spread nasty rumors, like that she’d fucked the whole football team at their middle school.
On one level, it infuriated Elliot to hear these guys talk so crudely about his dream girl. But there was another part of him that wished he could join in the conversation. This was something they all had in common. It was a conundrum. He hated these boys. But he also longed to feel like an ordinary kid sometimes. Just one of the guys. But it was a stupid thing to want, even a little bit, because it was so obviously not in the cards for him.
Jimmy Martin’s grip on his arms was tighter than necessary. Elliot could tell the boy was bearing down as hard as he could to maximize his misery. Making matters even worse was Jimmy’s rancid breath, which reeked of horseradish. The odor was so strong it made Elliot’s eyes water. He felt queasy. But at least the olfactory offence distracted him somewhat from the ordeal to come.
That lasted until they passed through a particularly dense grouping of trees and tramped through underbrush until they arrived in a small clearing. Another boy was waiting for them. Ricky Bennet sat cross-legged in the center of the clearing. He was wearing a Guns N’ Roses t-shirt and dirty jeans with holes in the knees. Elliot’s heart sank. In many ways, Ricky was the worst of the lot. Lloyd was the unquestioned leader of the asshole quartet, but Ricky was the evil mastermind behind their foulest deeds. Among other things, the aborted urinal cake incident had been his idea. Elliot knew this because Ricky had told him multiple times, always with a promise of worse things to come.
And now, apparently, the time for those things had arrived.
Ricky had a metal lockbox open on the ground in front of him. “So the stupid little shit finally showed up again. Awesome.”
Lloyd chuckled and took the jack-o’-lantern from Chuck Everly. “You and Jimmy get fuckface tied up while I take a load off and have a smoke.”
The leader of the gang plopped down on the ground next to Ricky Bennet, who passed him a crumpled pack of Camel cigarettes. Lloyd tapped one out, lit up, and smoked with the jack-o’-lantern in his lap as he watched Chuck and Jimmy steer Elliot over to a tree of moderate girth at the edge of the clearing. Elliot saw right away that preparations had already been made. There were multiple lengths of frayed-looking old rope on the ground next to the tree.
His wrists were jerked roughly backward and his hands tied behind the tree. Jimmy worked on the wrists some more after the initial binding was in place, drawing the rope so tight Elliot feared it would cut off his circulation. It hurt a lot and he finally started crying. The boys snickered at his tears and called him all the usual names. Chuck wound another length of rope multiple times around his ankles and then pulled the ends back behind the tree to tie off. Yet another piece of rope went around his waist and then behind the tree, anchoring his body more firmly to it.
Once the job was finished, Lloyd flicked his half-smoked cigarette away and got to his feet. He approached Elliot with a leering, eager expression. In that moment, Elliot hated him more than ever. He saw clearly that for Lloyd this went beyond the usual kicks guys like him derived from picking on the weak. He was reveling in it in a way that bordered on sexual, which made it even more disturbing.
He turned the pumpkin in his hands, showing Elliot its open bottom. “This is your Halloween mask, faggot.”
The other boys laughed.
Lloyd came closer, lifting the pumpkin.
Elliot shook his head rapidly back and forth, the tears streaming down his pale face faster than ever now. “No,” he said. “No, no, no. Please…please…”
His begging provoked yet another round of laughter. This time it seemed invested with a level of darkness and evil that bordered on the inhuman. The faces of the boys crowding around him now took on a monstrous aspect. They became twisted in Elliot’s tear-bleared vision and looked to him like creatures from his worst nightmares.
A strong hand, probably Jimmy’s, slid behind his neck and pushed his head forward.
Lloyd slid the pumpkin down over Elliot’s head.
6.
Six days until Halloween
Hooperville, TN
Sally Ann Wilson and Brad Oliver returned from their matinee movie late that afternoon. Brad parked his Chevelle in the row of spaces outside his apartment building. He reached for the door handle on his side, but Sally Ann gripped him by an arm and pulled him close. Smiling at the look of surprise on his face, she moved in fast to kiss him. Surprise gave way to eagerness as she pushed her tongue between his slightly parted lips. His hand came away from the door handle as he returned the kiss with fervency. As he twisted in his seat, his elbow bumped the horn pad on the steering wheel, yielding a loud squawk that made them laugh.
The clinch resumed after that momentary break, their passion intensifying as they pawed at each other. Sally Ann moaned as Brad slipped a hand between the buttons of her blouse and squeezed the swollen nipple of her right breast through the bra cup. She reacted by getting a firm grip on the bulge straining the crotch of his jeans, giving it a hard squeeze that made him squeal and shudder. This made her laugh and she did it again, eliciting a louder version of the same reaction.
Brad was panting heavily as his mouth came away from hers. “You’re driving me crazy. Let’s get upstairs so I can fuck the shit out of you.”
Sally Ann’s smile took on a wicked aspect. “Move your seat back. I want to go down on you right here.”
Brad’s brow furrowed as he stopped groping her breast. “You’re kidding, right?”
Sally Ann shook her head and gripped his bulge again. “Not kidding. I feel naughty. Come on, let’s do it.”
She tugged at his zipper tab, pulling it down about an inch.
Brad grabbed her hand, stopping her. “We can’t do that. Some of my neighbors have kids. They might get pissed and call the cops. We could get busted for indecent exposure or something.”
“So?”
Brad’s frown deepened. “Come on, Sally Ann. I’m the one who lives here. I don’t want to upset anybody. Car sex is always awkward and un-fun anyway. We’ll enjoy ourselves a lot more up in--”
Sally Ann took her hand away from his crotch and turned away from him, folding her arms beneath her ample breasts and setting her mouth in a pout. “Fine.”
Brad sighed, shaking his head. “Oh, great. ‘Fine’, she says. The one word no guy ever wants to hear his girl say, because it actually means the exact opposite of the word’s dictionary definition.”
Sally Ann’s head slowly swiveled back toward him. “Sarcasm at my expense. Awesome. Guess what, Brad? Things are even more ‘fine’ now.”
Brad turned away from her and leaned his head back against the headrest.
They sat there and said nothing for a few long, uncomfortable minutes. At last, Sally Ann shifted in her seat and looked at the hot guy she’d been dating for a month. This wasn’t the first time they’d shifted abruptly from hot and bothered to sullen and awkward. It didn’t bode well for the future of the relationship. Sally Ann made a decision as she stared at Brad’s handsome profile. She would make nice and have sex with him one more time. And then tomorrow she’d break it off with him.
She mustered a smile and leaned in a little closer again. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It was a silly idea. Let’s not let it ruin the day.”
Brad stared stonily forward a moment longer.
Sally Ann grabbed his crotch again. His erection had not yet fully wilted. Good. Still being turned on despite his frustration with her meant he wanted her pretty badly. Brad responded with the expected moan. Sally Ann derived a simple satisfaction at hearing it. Sure, she liked fucking Brad. He was a big, good-looking guy with the solid build typical of a devoted weightlifter. He was also quite well-endowed. But she knew he was way more into her than she was into him. She liked that, too. There was a power in it. The power to wound deeply on an emotional level. She didn’t always choose to crush the ones she left behind, but knowing she was capable of it always gave her a naughty little thrill.
They kissed again.
Brad apologized for his part in the spat.
Sally Ann said it was okay, even though it wasn’t. Despite her callousness toward the simple guys she often dated, she did possess a romantic spirit. She still hoped to one day meet that one special man, a rich risk-taker like herself who would sweep her off her feet and take her away on many adventures before planting a baby in her and buying her a big house in suburbia. Until that day came, though, she would just have to make do with ordinary dudes like Brad, who was basically just a life support system for a big dick.
They got out of the car and climbed a flight of steps leading up to Brad’s second floor apartment. She pressed herself against him and groped him as he laughed nervously and fumbled with his keys. He glanced around as this happened, obviously embarrassed at the possibility of his neighbors witnessing her wanton display.
Silly boy, she thought. You should be proud to be seen with someone like me all over you.
Brad finally got hold of the right key and opened the door. Before he could step inside, she reached around him and slid a hand down his pants, making him gasp as she gripped his thick cock in her soft, slender hand.
Sally Ann laughed and pushed him inside. She kicked the door shut behind her and gave her future ex a harder shove, causing him to stagger into the center of the little living room. As he turned around, Brad looked like he was about to admonish her for this, but the words went unsaid as she came at him fast and dropped to her knees in front of him. She smiled up at him as she tugged down his zipper and pulled out his cock. It had wilted slightly, but it stiffened instantly again as she took him into her mouth and began to work on him. The look of annoyance on his face went away as he began to moan. He pushed a hand into her hair, his fingers sliding around to the back of her neck.
