Slash Read online

  Hunter Shea

  Slash

  FLAME TREE PRESS

  London & New York

  “You’re going to Camp Blood, ain’t ya? You’ll never come back again. It’s got a death curse!”

  Crazy Ralph, Friday the 13th

  “Was that the boogeyman?”

  “As a matter of fact, it was.”

  Halloween

  “Oh, I wish they hadn’t let the place fall apart.”

  “Now it looks like the birthplace of Bela Lugosi.”

  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

  For the man who loves slasher movies

  as much as me, Jason Kwap.

  Chapter One

  Ashley King powered down her laptop and wept.

  The house was bright, the notes of birdsong drifting through the open windows. The twins next door, Ryder and Ronin, giggled as they ran between the houses, the slap of their tiny sneakered feet echoing in the narrow alley. Ash took a deep breath, savoring the aroma of the riot of flowers Todd had planted for her outside the living room and kitchen windows. The cross breeze worked better than any expensive air freshener she could buy.

  Elvira leaped onto the dining room table. She swished her long black tail across Ashley’s face.

  “No walking on the table,” she lightly scolded the cat, sniffing back her tears. She gently lifted Elvira off the table and walked her to the couch where she sat, petting her until the rescue cat purred loud enough to be heard on the other side of the house. It didn’t take long for the old cat to fall asleep on her lap. There was so much to be done, but Ashley didn’t want to disturb Elvira.

  She looked over at the stack of crossword books on the end table and plucked the one she’d been working on from the top of the pile. Using her mouth to pull the cap off her pen, she dove back into the puzzle she’d almost finished last night. It wasn’t easy, going to sleep when she knew there was an incomplete puzzle, but the sleeping pill had grabbed ahold of her and it didn’t care how she felt about leaving things undone. Ashley had slipped into the darkness, dreaming of puzzles, the white and black squares leaping off the page, her body spinning through their intricacies, each answer spoken and then magically appearing within the empty boxes.

  Elvira awoke just as she was writing down the last answer.

  To leave a social engagement, missing out on the last bit.

  She scribbled P-A-R-T in forty-six down and scratched Elvira between her pointy ears. The cat twisted her pointy ears, stared at Ashley with wide orange eyes and yawned, showing her sharp canines and long pink tongue. Elvira had tiny bald patches behind her ears. The shelter had no idea exactly how old she was, but best guess she was hovering around fifteen. By the looks of her, it had been a rough fifteen years. Elvira had sat in the shelter for two years before Ashley brought her home. The cat was no looker, but she was a fighter.

  “Todd is right. You really do look like a bat.”

  Elvira made a sound like a cooing pigeon that made Ashley start to cry all over again. Not wanting any part of the emotional turmoil, the cat plopped onto the floor and made her way to the kitchen, presumably to munch on the dry food in her bowl.

  Ashley put the puzzle book back, got up and brushed the fur from her pants as best she could.

  A heavy thump made her jump and cry out before she clamped her hand over her mouth. Her heart tripped over itself. Her throat went dry. She waited for a full minute, holding her breath, ears seeking out the source of the sound.

  It came again and she instantly exhaled. Through the open blinds, she saw Mrs. Connover closing the doors to her car, her hands laden with shopping bags.

  Rubbing her upper arms to quell the goose bumps, Ashley padded into the bedroom. The hallway light was on despite it being the middle of the day. She didn’t like dark spaces, even if they were only seven feet long with nowhere for someone or something to hide. Which was why she had to take the sleeping pills at night. She couldn’t leave all of the lights on when Todd was trying to sleep. Besides, their energy bill would be more than they could bear if she had her way when the dark of night crept in like an intruder.

  She made the bed, Todd’s side rumpled from his tossing and turning, the sheet by hers barely creased from the drug-induced coma that held her in place like a corpse in a coffin. The hamper was empty, the last load in the dryer. Ash emptied the pink-and-purple wastebasket into the kitchen garbage, came back to the bedroom and stripped. She lay on the comforter, the chill wind hardening her nipples. Fall would be here soon. October would bring the changing colors, crunch of leaves underfoot, pumpkins on doorsteps and longer nights.

  Shivering, Ash refused to grab a blanket. It was best to let the cold wash over her – the cold and the light and the soft ticking of the grandfather clock that had been in her family for four generations. Her mother had insisted she take it when she moved in with Todd in the home he’d bought for them. “You’re never alone when that clock is in your house,” she’d said, tears shimmering in her eyes as she saw Ash off to her new life.

  Ash had never been exactly sure what her mother had meant, and always forgot to ask her when they spoke. Did she mean the spirits of her grandparents were attached to the clock, making the move with her from Nyack to Yorktown? The family story went that Ashley’s great-grandparents had taken the clock with them when they emigrated from Kenya. It was the only possession besides their clothes that made the long, oceanic journey. It might have been the only thing they truly owned, their clothes ragged hand-me-downs. The grandfather clock (or in Ashley’s case, great-grandfather clock) had a place of prominence in their home until they died. Ashley’s Grandpa Charles had once told her that he saw the reflection of his parents in the clock face glass many years after they had passed. Instead of being afraid, a young Ashley, who grew up on a steady diet of ghost shows and videos, had been entranced. She couldn’t count the number of hours she’d sat at the foot of that old clock, hoping to catch a glimpse of her great grandparents, and then of Grandpa Charles and Grams Iris when they’d passed away within weeks of each other.

  No one had ever stared back at her and she grew up and grew tired of seeking the ghosts of her family tree.

  Or did her mother mean that the steady, assuring ticking of the clock would be her companion through the long nights and empty days? What she had never grasped was how Ashley preferred the silence, for within the soundless void, she would be able to hear…things, if they came near.

  Things like the closing of a car door that nearly give you a heart attack, she thought. She put her hand between her breasts and felt the more assured beat of her heart, practically falling in rhythm with the ticking of the clock. Ash lifted her head and looked at her tawny skin. There were plenty of scars, but she did her best to never linger on them. Todd always marveled at what he called her perfect skin, especially when he was atop her, or she atop him, pausing to tell her how beautiful she was and how lucky he was for having her, all of her, in that moment. Her skin was far from perfect, though he loved her, warts – or scars – and all.

  But he’d never really had all of her and deep down, she knew he knew it too, and that would make her sad. She’d bury her sadness down deep, lest she spoil the moment. There were very few moments, and Todd deserved to enjoy them as much as was possible, all things considered.

  More tears came. Ash let them roll down her face, the comforter absorbing the wet droplets of her DNA. She wondered, as her mind found it hard not to wonder, even in times of great sorrow, if the day would come soon when science could clone a new Ashley from the dried-up tears in her comforter. Would Ashley 2.0 have the same emotions and memories? God, she hoped not. A clone should be a better, brighter you.

 
“Sheri!”

  Her best friend, the friend she hadn’t been able to find for the past terrifying hour, stopped before entering the darkened bungalow. Ash’s chest ached and her thighs and calves burned. She’d heard Jamal’s screams and come out of her hiding place amidst the rubble of the burned-out theater.

  Sheri’s jacket was torn down the front, white stuffing puffing out. The moment she saw Ash, she started crying.

  “Oh my God, Ashley!”

  Ash started running. The bungalow seemed like a much better place to hide and she would be with Sheri.

  Sheri waved her on, swiveling her head back and forth, wary, afraid.

  Moonlight glinted off the polished surface of the glass as it sliced out of the gloom. Ash didn’t have time to warn her friend. The glass, appearing to hover in the air by itself, slashed at the back of Sheri’s lower leg. There was a cry of sheer agony. Sheri collapsed, hands flailing for her leg. The glass struck again, and this time Ash was close enough to hear the rending of fabric, the awful piercing of flesh and muscle. Blood spattered the ground and doorway.

  “Help me! Ash, please help me!”

  Almost there. Ash’s legs pumped as hard and fast as they would go. Sheri scrabbled at the dirt, trying to pull herself away.

  The glass came again, slicing deeper into the same awful gash.

  Sheri wailed, rolling onto her back.

  He stepped out of the shadows.

  Ash hesitated. Her overriding fear refused to pump more blood and adrenaline to her legs.

  Sheri raised her hands defensively and screamed.

  A heavy foot crashed down on her chest.

  The breaking of her bones echoed throughout the ruins.

  Sheri’s screaming devolved into desperate gasps, then choking.

  The glass came down again.

  Ash closed her eyes. She couldn’t make herself watch.

  “Sheeeeerrrrriiiiiii!”

  Ash woke up gasping. She was covered in sweat. For a moment, she couldn’t move her body. Animation returned in a flash and she jumped from the bed, trying to catch her breath.

  In an instant, the nightmare was gone. But the feelings of dread and guilt and loss remained.

  “Jesus.”

  She looked down at her legs, touched her chest and face. Sleep often came like that – suddenly, unexpected. Just as it often ended with her dazed, bewildered and empty.

  Ash ripped the comforter from the bed. Still naked, she strode past the open windows into the laundry room, stuffing it, along with two capfuls of detergent, into the washer. Elvira watched her from her perch on the windowsill.

  Her phone rang. She dashed to the living room where she’d left it. It was an unknown number. She swiped the call away.

  The grandfather clock chimed three o’clock.

  A floorboard creaked. She whirled around, hands raised in a mix of self-defense and awkward offense. Elvira stopped to look up at her jumpy master, licking her lips.

  “I can’t take this.” Ash put her hand on her stomach, practically feeling the knot of dread that was always there, a new, unwanted organ, more useless than an appendix. It took her a few moments to settle down, her mouth watering as she fought the urge to puke.

  Once she felt her legs were steady enough, she went to her closet and found the clear plastic laundry bag she’d stuffed at the very end of her clothes rack. She laid it on the bed and pulled the zipper. Her fingers brushed against the torn shirt, the stains on her jeans having faded with time into varying shades of brown blotches and splashes. The ragged tears in her jeans looked like attempts to be hip and fashionable, though they were anything but that. Scissors had not been carefully applied to make those rents in the fabric.

  At the bottom of the closet were the boots that had also been relegated to its darkest corner. Mud and blood still clung to them, had become one with them.

  Reaching into the bottom of the bag, she found the framed picture of her and her best friend, Sheri Viola. They were wearing their cheerleader uniforms, smiling, arm in arm outside the football field, their dark skin in beautiful contrast to the white and gold uniforms. The picture had been snapped in their senior year just before the last game of the season. Everyone said Sheri looked like a young Halle Berry and they were right. Her short hair, sharp cheekbones and penetrating eyes made guys weak in the knees. Ash let her fingers linger on Sheri’s face. She would give anything to touch her now, to hear her voice one more time, to listen to her laughter.

  After slipping into fresh panties, she put on her comfy bra, and searched for a pair of thick socks and well-worn jeans. They were very loose at the waist, so she had to rummage around her dresser drawer for a belt. The shirt came on last. She thought she could smell the place and everything that went on that night, all of it caught in the amber of the cotton shirt.

  She looked in the mirror hung on the inside of the closet door.

  “Hello, Lara,” she said to her reflection.

  There was a time her body had filled her ‘Tomb Raider’ outfit quite nicely. Now she looked like a little kid wearing her big sister’s ratty old clothes. Her collarbone peeked out from the open V of her shirt, a prominent ridge that alarmed everyone who knew her. She buttoned up the shirt so she couldn’t see it.

  The boots were stiff as wood, one of the laces breaking off in her hand when she tried to tie them. Wriggling her foot, she figured the boot was on tight enough. At least her feet hadn’t shrunk.

  Fighting back the urge to cry yet again, she walked out of the bedroom, making a tour of each room in the house from top to bottom, stopping to make adjustments here and there. When Elvira went to follow her into the basement, she picked her up and put her on a chair. “No basement for you, E.” She kissed the cat on the nose and closed the door behind her.

  Todd had plans to build a man cave down here after they were married. Until then, the quasi-finished basement was a place to store all of their boxes and plastic bins. They’d been in the house for almost a year now, but still had a ton to go through. Her mother had bequeathed them enough Christmas ornaments to decorate two trees. Those bins were stacked in a corner, going all the way to the ceiling. Her mother loved Christmas so much, Ash often joked that she’d been born in the North Pole and raised by elves. Ash was tempted to open one of the boxes, but knew if she did, she’d fall through the rabbit hole of Christmas memories.

  Picking up what she needed from Todd’s workbench, she leaned against a table sagging under the weight of tiles that were one day destined to go in the bathroom down there. She took out her phone and went to the page she’d bookmarked, starting the video and turning up the sound.

  How many times had she watched it? Twenty? Fifty? She knew it by heart. Every word. Every movement. But for some reason, at this moment, her memory was failing her.

  Ash watched it once from start to finish, and then hit replay.

  It was time to get to work.

  Chapter Two

  “You guys still on for this weekend?”

  Todd Matthews slipped into the left lane, eager to get out from behind the big car carrier. The Honda in the back bounced dangerously every time there was the slightest dip in the road. He could just see it breaking loose and heading right for his windshield.

  “So far so good,” he said through the Bluetooth system in his car. “But you know how it is.”

  “Yeah, I know,” his friend Vince Embry replied. Todd could hear a TV on in the background.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” he asked.

  Vince chuckled. “I am at work. Today’s office just happens to be a sports bar. I get more done here in an hour than a full day at corporate. No one around to bug me and beer keeps me motivated.”

  “I wish I could pull that off.”

  “You can if you let me give your resume to my boss. He really liked you when you met him at th
at office picnic.”

  Spotting his exit coming up, Todd put on his signal and drifted into the right lane. He’d stopped to pick up a bottle of wine and was running late. He was about to call Ash to let her know when Vince rang. His buddy was a world-class talker and would probably still be yapping when Todd pulled into the driveway.

  “I can’t see myself spending all day staring at spreadsheets and sitting in meetings,” Todd said. “I’d lose my mind within a week.”

  “You get used to it.”

  “No thanks.”

  “The money’s decent and the benefits are great.”

  “And I’d have to wear khakis and polo shirts with loafers. No thanks, bro. I’m too young to look like my father and his friends.”

  “So, looking professional makes me an old dork?” Vince said. He took a loud sip from his beer, the sound filling the car’s interior. Todd winced.

  “Actually, yes. Yes it does.”

  There was a slight pause, then Vince said, “You’re right. But I have a great 401K and dental.”

  “I’d never live long enough to cash out that 401K if I had to be stuck in an office,” Todd said. His house was just two blocks away. He had to wait for a group of pre-teens to cross the street. They took their sweet-ass time. Todd wanted to rev the engine and shake them up, but he remembered being just like them when he was a kid. There was nothing quite like the narcissistic worldview of a twelve-year-old. People Todd’s age barely existed and were to be ignored.

  “You know, most construction guys end up with all kinds of physical issues by the time they’re fifty. You want to be a bent, broken old man before your time?”

  The kids finally passed and Todd hit the gas.

  “Yep,” he said.

  “You should be here right now. The new shift just came in and there’s a girl here who’s so hot, she might set the bar on fire.”

  “Look but don’t touch,” Todd said.

  “Not even just a little?”

  Todd gripped the wheel. “Window-shopping only. Heather would cut off your dick and feed it to the dogs.”