Kill #13:
Baby, You’re a Firework
By Sarah
Nick had been looking forward to the
holiday weekend at the start of July. It meant a break from touring and a
chance to just relax with his friends. This year, they’d performed in
Chicago on the third and had decided to stick around the city, spending time on
the beaches of Lake Michigan, and watching the fireworks over the water at
night.
He was really looking forward to the
fireworks.
As he watched Baylee build a
meticulous sand castle while Brian helped James pretend to be Godzilla
advancing on it—Howie just rolled his eyes and smiled as his son giggled
hysterically—Nick could only think about how incredibly amazing the fireworks
were going to be that night.
He thought, if it wasn’t for his pure
stroke of genius with Marguerite and her muffins, the fireworks would be the
highlight of this tour. He could almost picture the boom and flash as the
showers of brightly colored flames lit up the night sky and practically hear
the screams of delight from those watching.
He grinned slyly to himself. Oh,
yes. It was going to be a night to remember. Much like last night.
He found her easily enough in the crowd of people at the
afterparty. She looked a little worried as she frowned down at her phone.
Nick could see that she was texting someone and, when he got close enough,
could hear her muttering, “Come on, Rose. Respond. Why the heck haven’t you
texted me back in days?”
He paused for a second, brow furrowed. Rose? It couldn’t be
the same ringleader Rose he’d annihilated days earlier, could it? And, if it
was…A wicked smile spread across his face. Taking care of Rose’s friend would
be even more pleasurable than most of his other…projects.
Nick leaned in close to her and murmured in her ear, loud enough
for her to hear over the music, “It’s a party, babe. Why do you look so sad?”
She whirled, her dark hair nearly whipping him in the face.
It took an instant for her expression to go from startled to
thrilled. “Oh my god, Nick? Sorry, I…you scared me!” Her hand had flown
to her chest and was just covering the heart that Nick wanted to rip out of
her.
As he smiled into her pretty blue eyes, he couldn’t help but think
that she seemed so innocent. Then, he remembered the platypus, and the
ebola, and the fire in the studio…
His smile bumped up several degrees as his resolve sharpened
again, and he heard her breath hitch as he leaned even closer, his lips
brushing her ear. “Sorry for scaring you, but…I was thinking, if this
party isn’t rocking your world,” his fingers stroked down her arm, causing her
to shiver, “maybe you’ll come with me, and we can have our own party.
Just the two of us.”
Her eyes widened before she glanced around at the rest of the fans
singing and dancing along as Howie belted out his single on the stage behind
them. “Are you serious?”
Nick slid an arm around her waist, drawing her up against
him. “Let me rock your world…”
“Julie,” she told him breathlessly as she let him tug her through
the crowd and out the back door of the club. “My name is Julie.”
Nick chuckled to himself as he
remembered the fun times he’d had with Julie the night before. He’d known
she was twisted, but the ways in which she’d satisfied him the night before had
gone above and beyond most—not all, he reminded himself as he thought of the
muffins—of his sickest dreams.
The new set of knives he’d bought had
certainly come in handy as had the fully equipped Craftsman toolkit he’d gotten
recently from a Home Depot. He’d certainly needed it and the industrial
strength trash bags he’d remembered to pick up just the previous morning.
But now, his work was done, he thought
and reminisced fondly on the night of mayhem, dismemberment, and chopping he’d
indulged in just a few hours earlier.
Even though he’d only gotten an hour
or two of sleep and hadn’t had any coffee today, he knew that the night’s fun
had energized him. Now, he just had to wait a few more hours for things
to settle into place.
“Nick!” Baylee whined pitifully as
Brian and James cackled. Breaking out of his gory thoughts, Nick glanced over
to find Baylee’s sand castle crumbling. “Can you help me revenge my
castle? Dad and James wrecked it!”
“Jimbo!” Nick playfully scolded the
three year old and ignored Howie’s warning growl. “What did I say about
playing nice with others?”
James’ face carried an expression of
perfect innocence. “I dunno.”
“Don’t do it!” Nick shouted and
gleefully tackled Baylee into the sand. Baylee yelped in surprise and
then giggled helplessly as Nick flattened him, though he was careful to keep
his weight off the ten year old. Brian jumped on Nick, and Howie plopped
James on top of the pile like a cherry.
This, Nick thought as he spit sand out
of his mouth, was the life.
Later, as night fell, AJ, Rochelle,
Leigh and Leighanne joined them on the beach, just in time to watch the
fireworks. Leighanne bought Baylee an ice cream cone, and the kid happily
slurped on it as he bounced excitedly next to Nick.
“Careful,” Nick warned him. “It
might fall off. Then you’ll be eating an ice cream sandwich.” He waited a beat.
“Get it?”
Baylee groaned. “That was a bad
one.”
Brian stretched his legs out as he
settled next to them. “That’s the thing with Nick’s jokes, buddy.
They’re always bad.”
“Not true!” Nick opened his mouth to
spit out a great comeback when the first fireworks shot up into the sky.
“Sweet! Show’s starting!”
He leaned back on his elbows and
smiled gleefully. He could hear James clapping his hands excitedly behind
him and was glad that the little guy was enjoying the show.
It was about to get better.
Two minutes into the fireworks
display, something fell with a wet splat in the sand near Nick. He didn’t
glance at it, just continued to smile up at the sky.
The sound repeated itself again, then
again and again.
“Ew.” Brian wrinkled his nose.
“What is that?”
Nick smirked to himself.
He heard Leighanne’s horrified
gasp. “No! Baylee, don’t eat your ice cream.”
“But why? I want to eat it,”
Baylee whined. “Look, there’s even some melted fudge on it.”
Howie leaned over Nick’s shoulder to
look at Baylee’s ice cream before he made a gagging sound. “Oh, kiddo.
That’s not fudge!”
Nick could hear horrified screams
slowly spreading across the crowds of people gathered to watch the Fourth of
July fireworks. Something large splatted into the sand in front of their
group, and Nick heard AJ’s audible gulp as he pulled off his sunglasses to look
at the object.
“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.”
Even in the dark, it was easy to see AJ’s skin had turned green.
“Holy God,” Brian whispered. “Is
that…a hand?”
What looked suspiciously like a nose
bounced off of James’ head. Leigh started screaming.
The next morning, Howie spread the
Chicago Tribune across the table that all of them were seated at in a diner a
few hours outside of Chicago. No one looked as though they had slept.
“Police say that it will take days to
recover all of the various body parts. The victim, or victims—as
officials are unclear on how many sets of remains have been collected thus
far—will be identified based on DNA samples rather than dental records as it
appears that the victim’s jaws were separated into multiple pieces, making it
difficult to use the teeth for identification purposes.” Rochelle grimaced as
she stopped reading aloud and looked at the rest of them. “Who would do
something like this? What is wrong with people in the world?”
AJ rubbed her arm soothingly.
“There are some sick fu-” He caught Leighanne’s pointed glare and remembered
the kids were with them. “There are some sick people in the world,
man. Who would even think of attaching body parts to fireworks? That’s
just-”
“Demonic,” Brian cut in, and everyone
nodded in general consensus.
Well, almost everyone.
Nick lifted his mug of green tea to
hide the smug smirk on his face as he listened with glee while they talked
about his latest masterpiece.
Thirteen down, so many, many more to
go.
***