Blood Moon 3 Page 7
Tedd didn’t mind one bit. If anything this was a blessing. Unlike the Holstead family, He never married, he had bared no children, and worked a job he hated. Jimmy was a blessing. A window into a life he would never have.
Yep. Uncle Teddy. The fun uncle. He took his role very serious and made a real effort to bond with his nephew. He would look upon the smiling face of little Jimmy and see a small pond splash reflection of himself. Jimmy even had the same fiery red hair and constellation patch of freckles he has.
Week’s turned into Month’s and Uncle Teddy was falling into his role just fine. Adjusting. Adjusting to being depended on and loved. It wasn’t until his trip to James Madison Park one Friday that he discovered something lurking just below the freckled face boy’s unusually happy demeanor. Something Awful. Something utterly frightening.
As they walked through the park, talking about whatever random topic that came up a four legged furry friend seemed to find them appealing. A big slobbery loving Labradoodle. His name was Buddy. Well, that was what his fancy sparkling collar named him anyways.
Buddy must have escaped the chain-linked fence or something because his owner was nowhere to be seen. Jimmy and Buddy seemed to have an immediate bond build between them. The large golden haired pooch jumped straight upon Jimmy’s chest, knocking him to the soft lush grass. A flash of pink tongue and a gallon of slobber appeared all over the boys left cheek.
The more the boy giggled the more Uncle Teddy giggled. It couldn’t be helped, even a sour single man like Tedd had to admit, he was utterly adorable. Not wanting to interrupt the two playing so nicely together, Uncle Teddy decided he would step away and track down that hotdog vendor in the Sunflower yellow apron they passed about three baby strollers and a handful of Frisbee golfers ago.
“Stay here and keep Buddy out of trouble okay? I shall track us down some grub.”
Uncle Teddy winked at the boy
“Sir Yes Sir!” He saluted sarcastically before returning to his slobbery friend.
The man walked a slow proud walk. The park was filled with an abundance of wonderful scents and sights. His heart was filled with cotton candy and amusement rides. Life seemed perfect. A large smile crept from one cheek to another as he saw his nephew in the distance.
“The innocence of children” he thought to himself as he watched Jimmy hug Buddy tight.
Whimpering. Loud whimpering turning into harsh yelps of pain. Uncle Teddy dropped the hotdogs, littering the ground with a tie dye of condiments.
He ran to Jimmy. Ran as fast as his legs could take him. When he got there, what he saw sent shivers as sharp as razor blades radiating up his spine. Jimmy wasn’t hugging Buddy. Jimmy was choking Buddy. He had the poor dog in a head lock, squeezing as hard as he could.
When buddy would struggle to get free, Jimmy swung hard. His knotted tiny fist landing punch after sadistic punch upon the dogs wet nose.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING? LET GO OF THAT DOG RIGHT NOW!”
Tedd tried to peel Jimmy’s arm away from the dog’s throat but caught an abrupt elbow to the groin. The pain was immediate and immense.
“FUCK YOU!” Jimmy shouted
It took a good five minutes and a few hard knocks to Tedd’s nose and groin before he was able to pry the boy away from the dog. Pinning Jimmy to the ground, he tried his best to calm him. A tantrum. Awful thrashing and cussing came from the little boy as he tried to remove himself from underneath his uncle’s strong grasp.
After what seemed like an eternity, Jimmy wore himself out. He lay upon the cool grass gasping for air and small tears streamed from his eyes. To the left was a carcass.
He wasn’t fast enough. Poor Buddy gave his life because of a chance encounter with a sadistic boy on a warm summer Friday.
*~*~*
So the truth was exposed. Uncle Teddy spent many days trying to figure out the awful and unusual events from the prior week and came to the conclusion that Jimmy was disturbed.
He was just a boy, he had issues and they were not his fault. This was the thoughts of a loving uncle. For whatever reason, his nephew needed his help.
Hell, for all Tedd knew, this WAS a cry for help. He didn’t seem to get enough attention from his parents. Maybe he was being bullied in school? There are a million reasons why a child would do something like this, but Uncle Teddy was not about to give up. After all, isn’t the majority of these reason’s never the child’s own fault?
For that very reason, Uncle Teddy decided to keep that Friday a secret. Things seemed to get better for a while. He spent more and more time with his nephew. He was now watching Jimmy five days a week while his sister worked due to a sudden and unexpected illness with Jimmy’s father.
From Monday to Friday, Uncle Teddy was an active part of Jimmy’s life. Jane would work and then spend a few hours at the hospital with her husband. Tedd would cook and clean and make sure Jimmy would complete his homework. He would even spend an hour a day outside playing football with the kid. Life was going well again and that ONE incident seemed like a distant memory. He was not Uncle Teddy anymore. He felt like he was the child’s father.
One thing can be said about a father’s love…It is unconditional. They would do whatever it took in the interest of their child’s well-being.
*~*~*
It was Saturday, June 23rd, 2013. This date would NEVER leave Tedd’s mind. This was that moment we spoke of earlier. It seems the infamous luck of the Holstead family had ran its course and Jim Holstead was fading fast.
Uncle Teddy spent the weekend with Jimmy so his sister could be at the hospital for what seemed could be Big Jim’s final days. He did what he always does, he cooked a great meal, helped his nephew with his homework, and then cleaned the house after Jimmy fell asleep.
Everything except the trash. The trash was Jimmy’s job. He would pay Jimmy five dollars a week to complete certain chores. This allowance was meant to teach his nephew responsibility. Uncle Teddy remembered fondly doing chores as a child and the wonderful feeling he would get when he saved his money and bought all the expensive toys he wanted. Yes it took a while, yes it was hard. Finally, yes, it was worth it. This experience is what gave him the patience to save as an adult. Save until he was able to buy his home outright.
Jimmy deserved this experience. His parents always just gave him money, but not Uncle Teddy, He wanted him to EARN it.
Now Tedd has never claimed to be the smartest person in the world, but basic math never eluded him. It is easy to put two and two together. So the next morning when his nephew took out the trash and the bag ripped, that cold shiver up his spine returned once more.
A dead Jack Russel Terrier. An empty bottle of Rat poison. Research on the effects of rat poison and the human body. Uncle Teddy knew what was going on. Uncle Teddy also knew his sister’s husband did not get suddenly and unexpectedly ill.
Anger crept up his blood stream. Fear followed shortly after. A prolonged silence and intense electric eye contact between himself and his nephew replaced the need for words. After an eternity the boy spoke a simple calm sentence.
“You can’t prove anything.”
Finally the word’s crawled out of his throat in a stumbled gargle.
“Y-You need help Jimmy. Let me help you! I need to know the truth and I need to talk to your mother. Did you attempt to kill your father?”
“IF YOU TELL I WILL KILL YOU MOTHER FUCKER!”
All the man could do was calmly repeat the question, his brain seemed to automatically shut down by the steady flow of multiply emotions.
“Did you try to kill your father?” he repeated again
“Yes. I did. If you try to tell I will call you a liar. I will swear you touched me. Who do you think they will believe? I am her son after all, it wouldn’t be hard.”
Tedd listened in horror a
s his voice went soft and sweet.
“He tried to touch me mommy, I told him no, but he wanted to touch me in my private parts.”
A sadistic smile overtook the boy’s face.
“Now what Uncle Teddy? You still think you can tell on me?
He watched the boy slowly curl his hand around the wooden handle of the butcher knife that rested on the counter. He knew what was about to happen. He knew age, gender, and relationship no longer mattered. It was kill or be killed.
Uncle Teddy talked calmly to the boy as he slid his hand deep into his denim pants, resting his own fingers on the pocket knife hidden deep in the recesses of the folds.
“I won’t tell on you Jimmy. I just want to help you. Now please…let go of the knife, let us talk about this!”
“FUCK YOU!” came the sharp reply
As if it played out in slow motion, Uncle Teddy drove the tip of his knife deep into the soft flesh of the boy, his blood giving a warm spray upon his face. Hot sharp pain crawled from his own skin when he realized Jimmy managed to get the blade into his own flesh a moment before. Lucky for him, the kid missed. A trickle of blood rolled down his forearm and dripped upon the floor. A deep wound, but a superficial one.
*~*~*
The good doctor blinked twice.
“Is this a confession James?”
The man behind the bars stared blankly back at him.
“My name isn’t James! I told you this a million times. My name is Teddy.”
“I told you a million times. Your name is James “Jimmy” Holstead. You are here because you killed your mother and father. From the sounds of it, you also know where your missing uncle is as well.”
The good doctor shut the door behind him as he excited the cell.
“I will see you in court Jimmy”
TABLE OF CONTENTS
*~*~*
Musical Chairs
To some, a single insignificant occurrence can be devastating and life altering. This was the case with Anthony. To everyone else involved, it was nothing more than a silly game from childhood. A game in which no one really remembers who won or who lost. Just a game. Musical Chairs.
Anthony tried his best. He didn’t really care about the chocolate velvet cake that was decorated with a sugary pink rose only the victor would savor. What he really cared about was winning. Correction. He didn’t truly care about that neither.
It was his father that cared. Anthony Roger Smith Senior. You see, Anthony was a reflection of him and as his father always said “I didn’t raise no loser!” He put actual sweat and tears into this silly little contest. The music would play and the children would laugh and slowly revolve around the chairs completely unconcerned. Oh how he wished he could have been them.
Not Anthony though, his face was stern. His eyes never leaving sight of the reflective metal chair legs for even a moment. His father called it “Keeping your eyes on the prize.”
So this was it, down to the final two contestants. He KNEW he would win. His competitor was none other than Kevin O’Neal. A little meaty around the waistline and slow, Anthony remembers him running laps in Gym class and stopping to spew the contents of his lunch all over the slick surface of the basketball court. He was slow, he had no endurance. This was it he was going to make his old man proud!
A sucker punch of horror came when the music stopped and they fought for the very last chair. Their butts collided in an epic battle for the right to sit in the throne, to become the all-time McDonald County Musical Chair Champion.
Anthony felt his body jar and his legs crumble as Kevin’s more than robust waist pushed against him. The extra weight slammed into him like a ton of bricks and his body simply could not retaliate. As his body hit the floor and he was declared the loser, large sobs escaped his lips followed closely by large salty stinging tears. “Loser tears” his father had called them.
He was ridiculed all the way home by his father. Once in the privacy of their living room, Anthony Roger Smith Junior endured the worst beating of his childhood. Fifteen hard lashes with his father’s belt dotted his skin. A few of the welt’s started to ooze a small trickle of blood and as his father had claimed. “You are too lazy to bleed to win then you deserve to bleed when you lose. Those are loser marks. They will remind you to try harder next time!”
That was the very last time he had lost at anything. That silly little game had taught him a very valuable lesson and he coasted through his childhood only playing games he knew he could win. That was fifteen years ago. Since then, his growth from childhood to adulthood was as thin sheet of glass. Now he sits in his beat up Mobile Home. Alone. He never dated nor attempted to make friends. Why would he? What if they were better at something than he was? What then?
*~*~*
Kevin felt as if his head was filled with thick green Jell-O. His vision was dim. Partly from the foggy response his sight gave to the drugs that coursed through his blood stream, but mostly because of the single dying light bulb that now swayed back and forth above his head in the empty room.
He struggled to move but something heavy restrained his arms behind his back. His butt was numb from the uncomfortable rubber chair he was forced to sit on. In the dimly illuminated room he could see four other people struggling with their own personal hell in the seats next to him. Panic and anger verbalized from the captive strangers and echoed in the small isolated chamber. Kevin sat frozen in fear. No words. No questions. He just sat very still like a starry eyed doe caught in the headlights of a tractor trailer.
To his right, He watched one of the larger men attempt stand and break the rubberized seat just fall back in place and pant from exhaustion. The horrible sounds of terror become a mumbled enraged hornet’s nest of noise in his eardrums.
The light goes out and darkness fills the room. A booming voice comes over the intercom that makes every captive jump in surprise.
“SILENCE!” started the voice
To Kevin’s relief, the hornet’s nest of noise simmered to a dull boil then blinked out of existence. Everyone sat perfectly still, not daring to disobey the mysterious voice.
“You are all here because you stole something from me. Something so precious that I can never get it back. You stole my victory! Today, we will have a rematch.”
The tiny wires from the glass bulb started to conduct electricity once more, allowing enough light to leak into the room to see the confused expression’s on everyone’s faces. The large metallic door slowly creaked open and a large masked man stumbled in.
Kevin could see the shadow cast upon the wall, the shadow of a rather large and scary looking gun that the man had slung over his shoulder. All he could do was quiver and clench his eyes shut and wait to be executed. To his surprise, he felt the bonds released from his arms.
“Stand up!”
He swallowed hard and did as he was told. Sure, the thought of a hard thump to the man’s noggin did cross his mind, but he knew better. He was hyper aware of the damage a single bullet could do to him.
He watched as the strange man lifted his chair and left the room. The distinct sound of a latch finding its equal behind the door reminded everyone that they were in fact prisoners. Rats. Rats stuck on the wrong side of the sewer grate.
The bulb flickered and light danced before everyone’s eyes momentarily just to be replaced with darkness once more. A bizarre yet familiar sound. The slow hissing of a water hose. The roar of fear and confusion filled the room once more. Kevin felt the rushing liquid soak every inch of his foot and reach the top of his ankles.
He struggled to move. The electrical impulses in his brain seemed to misfire completely.
“Move. Come on. Lift your leg and step forward. If you don’t do something everyone will drown!”
That single thought seemed to motivate his muscles. He stumbled around blindly until he felt a warm body. He started tugging at the restrains with all of his might, desperate to save this stranger from a watery grave.
To his surprise
, the hiss disappeared and the water level stopped rising. He could hear the sounds of restraints being released from somewhere in the dark void. The ability to see was granted once more as the bulb whizzed back to life.
He looked upon the terrified faces of the four and watched as the stood and rubbed their wrists, hoping the discomfort would magically vanish.
“There are five people and four rubber chairs. When the music stops, an electrical current will be sent through the water on the floor. Anyone not seated on a chair will be killed. Good luck!”
Just as quickly as it came, the mysterious voice left. Colonel Bogey’s March came flooding over the intercom. It took a brief moment for everyone to understand the meaning behind the magical noise coming from above.
Kevin’s eyes widened in frightful understanding. He darted for a chair and clung to it for dear life. Like sheep following the shepherd, the rest quickly followed. He watched as the only man standing starting to panic and shout at the mousey woman in front of him.
“MOVE! GET UP! I NEED A CHAIR”
The mousey woman just shook her head and held on tight. The music droned on for a moment longer and started to wind down. A big meaty fist came flying and made contact with the woman’s left cheek. A sickening thud filled the room. Kevin swallowed hard and watched as the woman’s body went limp. The man don’t hesitate. He grabs the woman and flings her hard into the water and jumps for the chair.
His feet barely broke the surface of the water and found the safety of the rubber when the music died. Everyone watched as the limp body of the mousey woman started to convulse as wave after wave of electrical currents smashed into her body. A grotesque smell filled the atmosphere.
Just as quick as it started, the torture subsided. The water became nothing more than a harmless wet substance.
The door opened and the strange armed man entered. He remained silent and ominous as he splashed across the room and grabbed a chair. Everyone heard the door latch behind him and stared at each other. Examined each other. Kevin felt the hair on his arms stand on end as an epiphany reared its unwanted head. His eyes darted to the body that lay motionless on the opposite side of the room.
“They are sizing me up. They are deciding who must die next in order for them to live.” He bit his bottom lip and stared back at the strangers.