Chapter 15
By Susan
"How was
that?" Nick pulled the headphones off resting them around his neck.
"You
sounded like a dying cat." A.J. said from the other side of the glass.
"No way.
I sounded like fucking Josh Groban. I nailed that take."
"You
sounded like Josh Groban's dying cat." A.J. said as Nick flipped him the
bird. Flipping the bird back with a grin A.J. slapped the shoulder of the
producer who was wildly turning knobs and flipping switches. "Hey bro,
we're going to call it a night." The producer threw a wave over his
shoulder as A.J. met Nick at the studio door.
"You know
we're screwed right?" He said offering Nick a cigarette.
"No way,
everything is going to be fine. The CD is going to kick ass, you just have to
have faith." The guys were in Los Angeles recording what was to be their
"Big Comeback". It was supposed to be the best work they had ever done.
The CD was almost complete save for some last minute tweaking, and everybody
but A.J. felt confident that it would be a best seller. A.J. didn't know why
but he had been feeling strange lately. He'd been having dark nightmares and
pounding migraines that wouldn't let up. His Mom always said that she thought
he was psychic, but the very idea only made him laugh. If he was psychic then
why wouldn't he have foreseen a drinking problem and headed it off at the pass
instead of winding up in rehab the butt of jokes on Late Night T.V.
p>
"I'm going home what about you, you wanna come by?" Nick climbed
behind the wheel of the rented dark blue Mercedes, flicking his cigarette to
the ground.
"Nah, I'm
going to go home too. We have an early interview tomorrow to plug this damn
thing so I want to get some beauty sleep."
"Okay man
I'll catch you later."
"Yeah,
later Nick."
************************************************************************************************************
Gary walked
into the gas station around 1:00 a.m. his mind racing. He strolled around the
store jingling the charms in his pocket. He had picked them up at some store in
a strip mall in town weeks before, not telling his sister. They were perfect,
matching the charms he had created in his mind.
Smiling to
himself he grabbed a package of Twinkies and then walked back to the cooler for
a drink, the reflection in the glass of the pretty cashier behind the counter
catching his eye.
************************************************************************************************************
Nick was
sitting on the couch watching some old eighties movie when the phone rang.
Picking it up he was trying to figure out when Demi Moore and John Cusak had
ever been in a movie together?
"Yup."
He always answered with the same greeting.
"Hello
Nick." It was a female voice, one he didn't recognize right off the bat.
"Hey."
Flipping the station he stopped on a Steven Segal movie just as the old guy was
kicking some major ass.
"Did you
get Gary's letter Nick."
Dropping the
remote Nick scooped up a fistful of popcorn and shoved it in his mouth.
"What letter, who is this?" He had to stop giving out his home phone
number to every pretty girl he saw. It was definitely a weakness but he craved
company even if it was just on the phone.
"Did you
get Gary's letter." She repeated the question in a soft trembling voice.
"Nope,"
Nick smiled as Segal slammed two guys' heads together before dropping them to
the ground. "I don't read my mail I have some security company that does
it for me to weed out the psycho shit."
"You
should have read my letter Nick." A man's voice came on the line. "It
would have prepared you more for what is to come next."
"Who is
this?" Nick reached for another handful of popcorn. "Brian is that
you? I told you to quick prank calling me when you're bored." Suddenly
there was a blood curdling scream from the other end of the phone followed by
the woman Nick had first spoken with pleading for her life.
"Please,
please don't hurt me. Just take the money if that's what you want."
"Shut up,
shut up."
"Oh my
God, why are you doing this to me. Why, why??.."
"You know
why I'm doing this, it's all part of the plan. With this charm I beseech
thee�!!"
Sitting
forward, wide eyed, Nick pressed the phone to his ear. "Who is this?
Hello." He could hear more screaming followed by gurgling sounds and then
a thud.
The man came
back on the line.
He was
breathing hard but his voice was laced with the faintest hint of amusement as
he said."You better watch out…..I'm coming for you Nick."
Why did the
name Gary sound so familiar to Nick?
************************************************************************************************************
The story was
on the evening news and it was bizarre. Some people in an apartment building in
Los Angeles heard screaming and fighting coming from the apartment below them.
They called the police to investigate.
When the
police arrived at the apartment they found the older sister Desi Wainwright
dead in her brother's bedroom from an apparent strangulation, a small silver
charm had been placed in the center of her forehead. And her brother was
nowhere to be found.
The news
reports stated that the police had found large boxes in the brother, Gary
Wainwright's bedroom closet containing thousands and thousands of photographs,
posters and magazine pictures of the band The Backstreet Boys. In his
bookshelves there was an impressive assortment of books on the supernatural,
witchcraft and the occult as well as a thick manuscript for a story Gary had
apparently written with the title PHANTASM scrawled in red on the title page.
While there
was no word yet on what was contained in the manuscript, the police had
confirmed that it was a strange rambling dialog that had many mentions of The
Backstreet Boys. They felt that what was contained in the manuscript showed
that it was the work of a deeply disturbed young man who had gone off the deep
end.
As the evening
progressed there was a late breaking news story involving the murder of a young
woman working at a gas station in Los Angeles. She was strangled to death while
working the swing shift, her body dumped behind the counter a silver charm
placed in the center of her forehead.
***
