Cold Summer Nights (13 page)
Read Cold Summer Nights Online
Authors: Sean Thomas Fisher,Esmeralda Morin
“What the hell?” Rusty whispered.
Nick looked back to the Head and Shoulders bottle with incredulous eyes.
“Hey, what are you guys doing in there?” Dallas yelled from the living room. “You shaking it for Nick or something, Rusty?” he cackled.
Rusty and Nick traded another mystified look.
They tried filling Dallas in on the events he had apparently just missed but he wasn’t buying any of it.
He pushed his glasses back up onto the bridge of his greasy nose and laughed. “And I said what again?”
Rusty sat up straighter and talked very slowly. “You said she won’t stop and we’ll be next, but since you gave the warning, you’ll probably be next.”
Dallas turned to Nick with a vacant expression. “Okay, I want whatever you guys are smoking.”
Nick dropped his head and shook it.
“Seriously, bust that shit out,” Dallas said.
They didn’t respond.
“Oh my God,” Dallas said, his face suddenly slumping. “You two want to tie me up and have sex with me don’t you? Is it because I’m not wearing underwear today? Your gay-
dar
is pinging off the chart right now, isn’t it?”
“Umm, have you seen a mirror lately?” Rusty scoffed.
“What?” Dallas snapped. “It’s winter weight!”
“Listen to me, you can’t go home,” Rusty said in a lower voice.
Dallas’ gaze sharpened.
“Why not?”
Nick leaned forward in the armchair. “Dallas, if you go home alone, you will die.”
Dallas stared at him for a moment and then busted up laughing again. “Wow, I have
gotta
try some of this shit out. You guys are
trippin
balls!”
“His grandma gave a similar warning and she died,” Rusty said.
Dallas laughed so hard his curly hair and belly shook. “His grandma was fucking old, dude! That’s why she died.”
“What about the gangbanger?” Nick asked.
“Oh, you mean the gangbanger you never even met and have no idea what you’re talking about?”
“What about the kid who died in the pickup?” Rusty posed, getting up and pacing again.
Dallas wrinkled his shiny face. “How the hell should I know about some teenager driving too fast and texting in daddy’s pickup? What about the dead cop? Did he give a warning too? Did Amy?”
Rusty and Nick looked at each other.
“See?” Dallas snorted. “You guys don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“We’ll go to my house and spend the night there. You can call in sick to work tomorrow morning.”
Dallas looked at Nick like he was speaking Japanese. “I can’t call in sick to work tomorrow.”
“Why?” Rusty asked. “So some carpet doesn’t get cleaned, big deal.”
Dallas wrinkled his forehead. “I’ve already called in sick four times in the last two months. I’ll get fired.”
Nick studied Dallas with thin eyes. “Would you rather take a chance and end up getting brutally murdered just because you had to go to some crappy job you don’t even want to go to in the first place? My grandma’s funeral was today, and my girlfriend and I just broke up. Do I look like I’m in the mood to be playing jokes?”
Dallas swallowed hard.
“Trust
me,
I’m in no mood for games. We have serious reason to believe that you could be the next to die at the hands of…”
“Something,” Rusty finished for him.
Dallas turned back to Nick with wide eyes and examined his stoic face. “Do you have beer at your place?”
Chapter Thirteen
Several beers later, Nick brought some blankets and pillows out into the living room and dropped them on the floor. “One of you can have the spare room and the other can have the couch.”
“This is so gay,” Dallas sniggered, putting back a cold bottle of Sam Adams.
“You’re making me nervous with that gun,” Nick said, staring at the gun sitting on his coffee table.
“I’d be more nervous without it,” Rusty replied gravely.
“Is that why you keep farting, Nick?” Dallas asked.
Nick plopped back into the armchair and sighed. “I’m not farting.”
“It’s okay,” Dallas said. “I start farting whenever I clean some hot soccer-mom’s carpet.”
Rusty threw his head back and laughed. “That’s because you wouldn’t know what to do if your wildest dreams came true and she sashayed into the room wearing a black lace teddy.”
Dallas let out a boisterous laugh. “Oh trust
me,
I’d clean all of her carpet!”
Rusty grunted. “First you’d have to clean your pants.”
“You’d have to clean your pants!” Dallas sputtered.
“Good one,” Rusty said, taking a swig and setting the bottle down on the coffee table.
“Hey, those coasters aren’t there for decoration,” Nick chided.
Rusty’s forehead wrinkled. “Nick, would you listen to yourself? You’re slowly turning into the guy who makes people take their shoes off before coming into his house.”
Dallas snorted. “I don’t think you want me taking my shoes off.”
“I don’t,” Nick quickly countered. “You’re sleeping with those on.”
“What about my pants?”
Rusty shifted in his seat. “The point is we’ve got way bigger things to worry about here than coasters.”
Dallas turned to Nick. “So she was involved with a guy in the Chicago mafia, huh?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Bullshit!” Dallas coughed into his hand.
“I don’t know,
Dal
-boy, Chicago has some pretty serious mobsters,” Rusty responded, hitting the bottle and setting it down on a coaster.
Dallas frowned. “And you know this how?
Because you went to a Cubs game there nine years ago?”
“It was eight years ago,
rocket surgeon
.”
Nick’s laughter trailed off when the sobs of a little girl began floating up through the vents. The three grew silent, listening to the soft crying. If it weren’t for the looks of sheer terror plaguing his friends’ faces, Nick would have thought his mind was playing tricks on him.
“What the hell is that?” Dallas whispered, his facial features frozen into a solid frown.
Rusty snatched the gun while Nick walked over and knelt down near a vent, the girl’s faint weeping reminding him of Madison in the funeral home earlier that morning.
He turned back to them with wide eyes. “It’s coming from the basement.”
Dallas held his gaze, his mouth agape, and then started laughing. “Wow, you guys are good tonight! I applaud the effort, boys. You got like actors and shit for this whole thing, huh? It’s like
Scare Tactics
!”
The girl’s weeping continued, sounding like she had just come home from school to find her pet hamster lying dead in its cage.
Nick turned to Rusty and nodded to the basement door in the kitchen. “Go check it out.”
Rusty jerked his head back like he
had just been slapped
. “I’m not going down there,” he hissed.
“You’re the one with the gun.”
Rusty blew air through his lips like Nick was asking him to jump off a building. “Have at it, dude,” he said, holding the gun out.
The hallway bathroom door suddenly slammed shut, causing the walls to shake. The three friends screamed at the same time. The little girl stopped crying and the house grew still.
Dallas’ eyes darted around the room, his breathing becoming heavy. “Okay, what the hell is going on here?” he whispered, setting his beer down with a trembling hand. “You guys
rufie
my drink or something? I’m seeing shit.”
Rusty smoothly clicked off the gun’s safety and glanced over to Nick, who gave him a hesitant nod. Slowly, they moved towards the bathroom, giving Nick déjà vu.
“Don’t go in there,” Dallas pleaded, nervously looking from the bathroom to the basement door in the kitchen.
The lights flickered and Rusty and Nick froze in their tracks.
“Holy shit, this is not good, man,” Dallas murmured, his right leg bouncing a million miles an hour. “Let’s just get the fuck
outta
here!”
Rusty could tell by the fear in Dallas’ voice that he believed them now. Nick could tell it just by looking at Dallas’ face, which disappeared when the lights went out.
“Oh shit! Guys?” he whined in the thick blackness that followed.
Rusty
shooshed
him
and the bathroom door clicked open. Nobody made a sound.
“Oh my God,” Dallas whispered, as the smell of rotten eggs filled the air.
“What the hell was that?” Rusty cried as something brushed past him. He whipped the gun around the room, but his eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness yet. “Nick?”
“I’m right here.”
“Did you feel that?”
Nick was about to answer when Dallas screamed like someone who had just confronted their worst nightmare from the depths of hell. Rusty and Nick remained rigid silhouettes, afraid to move another inch. There was a loud crack and Dallas stopped screaming. A thick, dreadful silence quickly took the place of his agonizing protest.
Something whisked past Rusty again, sending goose bumps rippling across his flesh. “Did you feel that?”
“Dallas?” Nick whispered.
The bathroom door slammed shut again.
“
Sonofabitch
!”
Rusty screamed.
Things went quiet again as the smell of rotten eggs began to fade.
“Nick? Hello?”
“I’m right here,” Nick whispered, his night vision finally coming into focus.
The lights clicked back on and Rusty and Nick squinted at each other with their hearts pounding. Reluctantly, they turned to the couch and stumbled backwards into Nick’s flat screen. The TV wobbled and tipped over, crashing to the floor around their feet. Both were too busy staring at Dallas to even notice. His eyes were wide open, his glasses and neck broken.
“No,” Nick moaned. “No! No! No!”
“Dallas?” Rusty whimpered, tears beginning to stream down his cheeks. “This can’t be happening. This isn’t real!” He began twirling wildly with the gun extended, his eyes searching the house. “It’s still in here,” he said softly.
Nick’s eyes followed the gun, trying to stay out of its way. “What is it?”