Johnny Gruesome (21 page)

Floating …

A sound outside drew his attention to the window, followed by another.

Footsteps?

He recalled the numerous occasions Johnny had climbed up the side of the house, crossed the roof, and knocked on his window, scaring him half to death.

No one could be out there now. Not in the winter, and not on a night like this.

He heard the sound again.

Pulling his arm away, he raised his head and stared at the window just as a silhouette glided away from it and disappeared.

He blinked twice. Had someone really just been standing on the roof outside his window? Throwing back the covers, he slid from bed and crept across the room. His hand inched toward one curtain, his fingers suspended in midair. He grasped the cloth in a tight fist and jerked it back, switching on the desk lamp in the same instant.

His eyes widened and his blood ran cold.

A face, pressed against the other side of the glass, stared back at him.

His entire body jerked as he jumped back, and his heart stopped beating even as he realized he faced his own reflection, the window solid black behind his spectral countenance. He switched off the lamp and the reflection vanished. In its place he saw five dripping tendrils extending from a palm print. He stood still, waiting for his heart to return to its normal speed, then wiped his right hand over the glass. The handprint remained etched in frost on the other side. He pressed his hand against the print, fingers spread apart, confirming it had been made by a hand with fingers longer than his own. He’d heard footsteps on the roof, glimpsed a shadow, and now this. Had someone tried to break into the house?

No, Red Hill’s crime rate was nonexistent.

Except for murder …

Was someone standing on the roof even now, with his back pressed against the side of the house? All he had to do was raise the window and stick his head outside to discover the answer. Instead, he checked the locks on the window and closed the curtains. He backed toward the bed, his eyes fixed on the window, and climbed into bed.

An hour passed before he fell asleep again, and when his alarm went off in the morning, he ran to the window and flung the curtains aside.

Creeping sunlight shone through the oily handprint.

A
s he made his way through the crowd of students funneling into the lobby, Coach John Wrangler felt it in his bones: this was the year. His boys were going to beat Silver Wood that night, and Red Hill High School would enjoy its first winning wrestling season. The needling from the school’s other coaches would finally cease.

Wrangler had a respectable, if unspectacular, team. For the first time in the eight years he’d been the coach, all twelve weight classes had been filled by experienced upperclassmen. Todd Kumler, Derek Delos, Cliff Wright, and Eric Carter had been on the team since their freshman year. If Johnny Grissom had remained on the team, almost half the varsity squad would have been comprised of seniors.

Grissom.

Poor bastard. No real surprise there. And no real loss, either. It didn’t take a psychic to see where that kid was headed as soon as he started high school. Todd had been worth a dozen Grissoms.

Wrangler spotted Eric Carter hunched over the water fountain outside the restrooms. Eric had improved a great deal since joining, but lately he’d become unreliable. Stopping at the fountain, Wrangler waited for the kid to stop drinking. When Eric stood, wiping his mouth on the back of one hand, his sleepy expression turned into a look of surprise.

“Ready for tonight, Eric?”

Eric nodded. “I’m ready, Coach.”

“We missed you at practice.”

“I know. I was a pallbearer at Johnny’s burial.”

Not even an apology.
“I know you’re upset about your friend, but try to stay focused. This match is critical.”

“I’ll try.”

“Good man. You’ve come a long way. This could be your year.”

Wrangler proceeded down the corridor. The crowd of students thinned as he passed the intersecting locker corridors. Approaching the gym doors, he saw two sophomore boys sitting on a bench between trophy cases, chatting with a well-developed freshman girl who stood before them, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. He tried to ignore the trophies: football, baseball, basketball, soccer, swimming, track. Everything but wrestling …

Reaching into his pants pocket, he took out his keys and unlocked one of the gym doors. As he pushed the door open, light from behind him slashed the darkness, his shadow bleeding across the floor. Sensing something in the space ahead of him, he searched for the emergency-exit lights across the gym. Had the circuit that provided power to the gym gone bad? Stepping inside, he threw on the light switches to the left of the doors. The overhead fluorescent tubes flickered to life and he froze where he stood, staring in disbelief at the horrible tableau before him.

At first, he thought he had stumbled onto a practical joke; then his brain tingled as blood rushed from his head in a torrent. Opening his mouth to scream, he felt his center of gravity form a lump his throat, then all at once the floor rushed up to meet him. He banged his head and felt cold wood against his cheek. His heart palpitated as he lost consciousness.

Turning left at the intersecting corridors, Eric saw Gary approaching him from the opposite direction. He wished their lockers were located in different areas of the building. Nodding to him, Gary stopped at his locker and spun its combination lock.

A distant flurry of motion caught Eric’s attention. Fifty yards ahead, in the central corridor, two boys leapt off a bench and raced to the gym. A single gym door stood propped open. As the boys crouched, he saw that a body lying on the floor held the door open. The boys pulled the unconscious figure’s arms, raising Coach Wrangler into a sitting position. A redheaded girl stepped behind them, looked into the gym, then unleashed a piercing scream that shattered the morning quiet. Recoiling at the same time, the boys released their grip on Coach Wrangler as they scrambled back in shock. The coach collapsed again, his head rolling from side to side.

Eric sprinted toward the gym. The girl continued to scream, and he heard other students pounding the tiled floor behind him. He skidded to a stop beside the underclassmen and gazed in horror at the source of Coach Wrangler’s distress.

Two gymnastic rings had been lowered from the gymnasium ceiling, between the nearest basketball backboard and its free throw line. A body clad in blue jeans and a Buffalo Sabers jersey hung upside down, one Nike-clad foot shoved through each ring. The rings pulled the boy’s legs wide apart, and his fingers dangled in a pool of blood spreading on the floor, crimson streaks crisscrossing his torso. Eric’s eyes widened and as he gaped at the grisly sight, more students jostled for position behind him.

“Oh, my God!” someone shouted, followed by another scream.

The body had no head.

Gary opened his locker door and stared into Todd’s lifeless eyes. The wrestler’s head had been impaled on a coat hook in the back of the locker, and blood dripped from the jagged flesh beneath his jaw, spattering disheveled papers stacked a foot deep at the bottom. Gary felt the McDonald’s sausages he’d had for breakfast inch up the back of his throat like slugs. He spun around, slamming the door shut with his back pressed against it.

Jesus fucking Christ!

His eyes darted from side to side, but no one else stood in the locker section to see him. Everyone had run off to see why that girl kept screaming.

What the hell?

Eric ran around the corner, wild eyed. “Someone’s body is hanging upside down in the gym!”

“It’s Todd,” Gary said in a low tone.

“How do you know?”

“Because his head is in my locker.”

“WHAT?” Eric stared at the locker behind Gary with mounting fear. “How did it get in
there?”

“Well, I sure as hell didn’t put it there!”

Eric shifted his gaze behind him, making certain they remained alone. “Who else knows your combination?”

Gary felt himself turning red. “What difference does that make? Anyone can break into these lockers. The only thing that matters right now is that we get rid of this—
thing
—before the cops get here.”

Eric stepped back as if he’d been slapped. His reaction seemed automatic. “‘We?’”

Gary detached himself from his locker. “That’s right. You’re up to your neck in this just as much as I am.”

“I had nothing to with this!”

Gary stepped closer to him. “Neither did I. But if the cops think I did, they just might look at Johnny’s ‘accident’ a little more closely than they have so far.”

Eric clenched his teeth. “I’m getting tired of helping you clean up your messes.”

Gary pointed at his locker. “Hey, I’m a victim here. As for the other thing, you’re not some innocent bystander—you’re an accessory.”

Accessory.
Eric’s brain absorbed the word. “What are we supposed to do—carry Todd’s head out the front door?”

Biting his lower lip, Gary scanned the corridor. “Give me your gym bag.”

Eric recoiled. “No!”

Gary leaned closer. “Give me that fucking bag or I’ll take it from you.”

“That’s what you think.”

They stared at each other for a moment, neither boy blinking. Then Gary averted his eyes, which settled on a classroom door at the far end of the corridor behind him, beyond the cafeteria. Turning his back to Eric, Gary reopened his locker.

Eric gazed in horror at Todd’s features. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw: the murdered boy’s eyes stared out of the confined space and his mouth hung open in a silent scream, his face spattered with blood and his hair a coagulated mess. His black eye had bloated up like the skin of a rotten apple, and his stitched lower lip was dry and cracked. In his mind, Eric reattached the head to the upside-down corpse in the gym, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Gary ruffled through a pile of books and papers on the shelf above Todd’s head, his movements growing frantic.

“What are you doing?” Eric said.

“Looking for my switchblade. I left it in here yesterday and now it’s gone!”

“Is that it?” Eric pointed at the handle protruding from the jagged base of Todd’s neck. Covered in blood, it resembled the dangling cords and muscles.

Gary gaped at the sight of his knife, blood draining from his face. “Oh, shit. My knife. They used my knife!” Using a handful of homework papers and tests like a towel, he grabbed the handle, pulled the knife free of Todd’s stump, and wrapped it up. Turning to Eric, he nodded at the door at the far end of the hall. “Go to the shop and snag a roll of duct tape, then meet me in the team room.”

Eric narrowed his eyes.

“Just do it!” Gary slammed the locker shut and ran in that direction, but turned right at the corner and continued along the hall on the far side of the gym to the locker room.

Eric hurried down the shop room stairs, relieved to see no one else there. Weaving between lathes, jigsaw cutters, and table saws, he made his way to the cabinet where Mr. Peterson stored the duct tape. The cabinet door was locked.