PillowFace (23 page)

Ray was pissing
his
pants.  

Paul and Ethan watched in disarray, mouths agape. 

Pillowface
seemed to appear out of nowhere, the chainsaw wielded high above his head, his body thrusting side to side as he revved the motor.  Lines of exhaust hurled out from the saw’s yellow frame, spreading them in a layer of gas-fumed fog.  Joel had never been happier to see anyone in all his life, yet at the same time he was terrified of what would happen next. 

Ray stood up on wobbly legs. He waved the knife at the burlap wearing man.  “It’s you…You’re the one, aren’t you?! 
You
killed Tonya!” Blind fear that Ray had probably confused for confidence grew inside of him like an inflating balloon.  He flicked his wrist at Pillowface, brandishing the blade, but the massive hulk of a man didn’t even flinch.  He stood his ground, which seemed to amuse Ray rather than frighten him.  Laughing like a woodchuck on helium, he leapt over Joel’s fallen shape, landing in front of his adversary.  “You think you scare me with that thing?  You’re wrong! 
Dead
wrong!”

Scared enough that you pissed yourself
, Joel thought.  

He lunged.  Again, Pillowface didn’t move, which allowed Ray to plant the blade to the hilt below his sternum.  As if this had no effect on him, he swung the saw, but Ray dodged it and landed a punch on the cheek of the mask.  Pillowface swayed, but his feet remained firmly rooted to the ground.  Tucked over, arms bent and fists clenched, Ray danced like a man in the ring.  He leaned into Pillowface, pounding him with a rapid series of rights and lefts to his midsection.  Joel swore he heard his friend call out in pain over the roar of the saw. 

He dropped the massive machine two inches from Joel’s rounded eyes. 

Shit, he has a high tolerance for pain, but he’s not inhuman.  And, Ray’s hitting him where he was already wounded! 

Pillowface doubled over, both arms hugging his abdomen.  A wet spot was quickly spreading across the dark shirt. 
He’s bleeding! 
Laughing again, Ray threw his leg up, kneeing him in the chin.  Joel’s fear for Ray’s life was swapping for Pillowface’s.  He’d thought this would have ended by now, with Ray’s bloodied body left to dispose of.  He pushed himself up on his hands as if about to perform push-ups, flinging his soaked bangs out of his eyes. 

Ray was spinning circles with his arms held high, laughing, twirling, looking merry and maniacally satisfied.  Pillowface needed help.  Joel figured he might just be able to take Ray by surprise.  He rose to a squat, his knees popping, and grabbed the saw.  He tried to stand up, but it was nearly impossible with the chainsaw’s added weight.  Joel could have been trying to lift a car.  He gritted his teeth, and strained with his back to heft it up. 

Finally, he did. 

Wobbling, he staggered toward the two men.

As Ray pulled an arm back, setting Pillowface up for another blow, he looked at Joel.  “Say bye-bye to…” was all he got out before noticing what was about to happen. 

Joel revved, charged. 

Ray sidestepped the spinning chain, narrowly avoiding a split torso.  His body evaded the attack completely, but sadly, his long hair did not.  The blade seized up his lengthy mane in one quick swoop, jerking his head back.  His locks tangled in the chain, choking the engine, and killing it.  Joel dropped the saw and Ray went down with it.   When the put-put-put of the saw was gone, all Joel could hear was a droning buzz in his ears. 

Now on the ground, Ray
was still trying to escape. He’d managed to get into a crawling position before the dead-load of the chainsaw had tugged his scalp. Ray was in tears, and screaming with each effort he made to untangle himself from the saw.  Seeing him like that, Joel felt a stir of pity, but not enough for it to matter.  He sort of enjoyed seeing the guy who’d tormented him for the past two years at
his
feet for once, crying. 

“Huh-help me!” 

Ethan was on his feet, Paul only his knees. Both of them watched Ray, only flicking their eyes back to Joel every so often.  Pillowface, bowed over, yanked Ray’s knife from his midsection.  A trail of blood followed the blade.

Then he threw an arm around Joel. 

“You all right?” Joel asked, getting a nod for an answer.  He took the knife from him and retracted the blade.  

Another bout of silence fell on them as Ray continued to sob.  Ethan was the first one to break it by saying, “We can’t just leave him here.”

Paul made a face.  “Says who?”  His nose had stopped bleeding, but now he had two drying tracks of red cascading to his top lip.  

“That’s fucked up and you know it.”

“He had a knife.  He was going to kill us.” 

“No, he was…”  Ethan shut up then. 

Joel shot him a look.  “What were you going to say?  That he was just going to kill
me
?  You did a whole helluva lot to prevent that didn’t you?” 

“He told me to stay out of it, so I did.  Fuck you man, I was scared!”  He took a deep, shaky breath. “Was he right about Tonya?  Did you do something to her?” 

“What does it matter now, anyway?” asked Joel.

“Just cut my hair,” said Ray from below.  “I don’t care; just cut it so I can go.” 

Ethan threw his hands about madly, his eyes misting over.  “Come on man, I just want to go home! Let him go, then
I
can go, okay?” 

Joel shook his head. 

“Please?”  It was Ethan who now sobbed.  “I don’t want any part of this.  I just want to go home, please Joel.  I just want to go home.”

Joel looked down at Ray.  He lay on his stomach, his right arm reaching over his shoulder and pawing madly at his hair.  The saw sat on the ground diagonally from his ear, stretching his scalp out so much that it looked like a small, pitched tent on top of his head. 

Wincing, Joel felt a stinging pain in his gut just looking at it. 

“Who
is
that guy?” asked Paul, speaking to Joel as if they were the only two there. 

Joel answered him just the same, “I don’t know his real name, but he goes by Pillowface.” 

Paul nodded, as if knowing.  Now, he spoke to Pillowface.  “Thank you.” 

If Pillowface heard him, he gave no indication of it. 

“What do we do now?” asked Paul, groaning as he stood up.  “Our trip to Blue Waves just went to shit.” 

Their plans had gone so far to shit they were swimming in it. 

“I won’t say anything,” cried Ray.  “I swear!” 

“Me neither,” said Ethan. “Please Joel, I just want to go home and watch TV, maybe play some checkers on the computer. You know I won’t rat you out.”

“For what?  For standing up for myself?!!” 

“You’re right,” he said. “You had to, that’s what we’ll say.  You had to!”  Ethan slapped Paul on the shoulder, trying to get him to chime in.  Instead, he shook his head, and walked away from Ethan, leaving him alone on the other side of Ray. 

“Does anyone know you’re out here?” Paul asked Joel. 

Joel thought about it. “No. Haley doesn’t know, that’s for sure.” 

“My Mom wasn’t at home for me to tell her I was coming out here today.”  He looked back at Ethan, “Did you tell your parents we were going to the pool?” 

Eyes fixed on Ray, he said, “No, I told them I was going to your house.” 

“Perfect.  We could just leave, and not worry about a thing.”  He slapped his hands together.  “Right?” 

It bothered Joel how quickly Paul had come up with this solution.  Also, it worried him how mu
ch fun he seemed to be having. He’d often wondered if Paul had been slowly losing his mind since his dad left.  Now, he was damn near convinced he had lost it completely. “I don’t know.  It
could
work.” 

“I won’t tell…” Ray repeated.

Over eager to please them, Ethan said, “Yeah, it would work for sure.  We can walk back through the woods, taking the longer way back to Joel’s.” 

“What for?” asked Paul. 

“So, we won’t run into anyone. There won’t be any trace of us out here.” 

“Wrong,” said Joel. “Our footprints are all over the place, and so’s my blood and puke, and Paul’s blood.  On C.S.I. they always figure shit out with evidence like that.” 

Ethan shook his head, “Nuh-uh, you’re talking to the guy who wants to be a cop, remember?” 

“What are you getting at?” asked Paul, a red bubble popping in his left nostril. 

“Walk back through the woods like I said, but we take a long branch with a lot of leaves on the end and anywhere in the dirt we see our tracks, we just stretch the limb onto the path, and use the leaves to wipe them away.” 

Joel was catching on, “Erasing our footprints?” 
             

“Exactly.” 

Paul pointed at his blood drops on the trail. “But, what about that?” 

“It probably doesn’t go down that far;
we’ll just scoop up the dried chunks and get rid of them.” 

“How?”

“I don’t know; throw them in the creek or something.”

“Carry them?” 

Ethan nodded sternly, but the look on his face wasn’t convinced.  “It’s all I can think of on short notice.” 

“Do you have a plastic bag in your backpack?” asked Joel.

Thinking about it, Ethan nodded, “Yeah. Actually, I do.” 

“Good, we’ll dump the dried dirt in the bag, carry it to the creek and dump it.”

“Perfect,” said Paul, his face glowing with excitement.  “Put our minds together and there’s no telling what we can accomplish.” 

Ignoring him, Joel turned to Pillowface.  “You okay?” 

He nodded as he stood upright on his own.  He patted Joel on the shoulder, again.  The comfort felt good.  For a short moment, it felt as if they were the only two out there, being friends, hanging out, and going on their own adventure. 

But, Paul’s voice killed that illusion.  “Let’s get this going, guys.” 

Joel sighed.  “Okay.” 

Ethan pulled off his backpack, and squatted.  He laid the bag across his thighs.  He sifted inside for a moment, then pulled his hand out.  Sagging between his fingers was a white plastic bag.  “Here it is.” 

Joel took it from him.  While Ethan found a lengthy stick that was bushy on one end, Joel and Paul gathered up their messes and dropped them in the bag.  Joel nearly vomited again while cleaning up the drying puddle of puke. The thick summer heat had made the smell unbearable, like old milk that had spoiled to putty. When they were finished, Joel tied the bag in a knot and stood up. 

They looked at each other quietly, catching their breath.  Finally, Ethan said, “What do we do about
him
?” He pointed at Ray. 

“We…” Started Joel, but stopped. He looked up at Pillowface. “We have to get your saw out of his hair.” 

Nonchalantly, Pillowface strode over to Ray’s prone body.  With one immense tug, he wrenched his saw free with a wet rip that sounded like scored cabbage.  Dangling from the chain was Ray’s ponytail; his bloodied scalp had come with it.

The question had been answered. Ray was quiet after that…He didn’t even seem to be breathing.

(I)

It was nearly lunch time and Jonesey still hadn’t made an appearance.  Could Haley be so lucky? Was he so embarrassed over his behavior last night that he couldn’t come in and face her?  She seriously doubted it. 
Probably just out somewhere being Jonesey
.  But, it was still strange that he was
this
late. 
Maybe something happened to him.
  She couldn’t ask Jonesey’s father and partner at the firm, Ronald Jones, if he’d heard from him, because he was never at the office, and Jeff Lamberson, their office manager, hadn’t heard anything, either.

Sitting behind her desk, she skimmed over the final pages of
Demon Seed
but barely read a single word. Finally, she closed the book, promising to go back to it later.  She glanced at the phone on the desk and contemplated calling Alan, but quickly talked herself out of it. 

Why hasn’t he called me? 

She snatched a pencil off the desk, tapping the eraser’s end nervously against the keyboard on her desk. She’d dumped guys for less than this
. That’s fine.  He doesn’t want to talk, so I’ll just stay away.  Show him what it’s like not having Haley Olsen around. 

Carlee poked her head in.  “Hey, just got a second, but I wanted to see where you wanted to go for lunch today.” 

“Doesn’t matter.” 

“Okay, I’ll be right back after I fax that letter for you. Anything you in the mood for?”