Hostage of the Three-Eyed Bastard

By M.C. Griffin

And he who spoke in twisted words said it

None who move their arms and legs freely

Shall ever know freely like the truly free do

Those that force open their face, and taste blood from their kind

Shall see the world with closed eyes anew

“Stop being such a pussy.”

“I’m not being a pussy, Curtis. I’m just not sure about all this.”

“Not sure about what, Chase? What exactly do I need to explain to you before we can move on?”

“Christ! C’mon Curtis. Guys like us don’t do shit like this!”

“Why not, Chase?”

“Guys like… that big fucker we got. Guys like him. He knows what he’s doing enough to-“

“Yes, but he’s not smart enough to pull the big jobs. Neither are the brothers.”

“No man, I can’t…”

“You’re supposed to be the front man for this, Chase. I know you wouldn’t show those guys this side of you. Why am I the exception?”

“’Cause you’re my friend, Curtis.”

“Yeah, well, right now I wish I wasn’t. Maybe you’d feel like showing me some fucking composure. We’re both running this man, but you’re the real brains, and I ain’t letting this go, so if you don’t shape up, I’m gonna have to go fuck this thing up without you.”

“We have lives man! You have a wife… a family.”

“Speaking of which, Angela says you curse too much.”

“She says you smoke too much”

“Then I say she talks too much.”

“Yeah, I know, kinda weird you guys tied the knot… I still just think of her as one of the guys… fuck… I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“Don’t worry man. We’re just starting. We’ll be masters at this in no time.”

“Yeah, cause if not, what the hell did we go to school for?”

“Exactly.”

Now that we’ve had some experience, we’ve decided it would be in our best interest to never remove our masks or go by our real names while on a job.

Clever kid, this one.

Those flowerpots are nice. I wonder where one could acquire such ornate oriental pots… I’d like some pots like that.

It smells like air conditioner in here. It’s nice. My folks never could afford this kind of furniture. These kinds of things weren’t typical of my time growing up. I had to break my ass for scholarship money in high school, and even then, most of my college was paid for with part time jobs. I guess if it weren’t for my messed up life, I wouldn’t be sittin’ so cushy right now.

Goddamn, what is this material. If I ever get out of here, I’m gonna get some furniture.

My compatriots lie comfortably on the floor. I’m afraid to inform them of how comfy the couch is, because they look so content and comfortable on the rug on the floor that I’d be afraid of disappointing them. Nobody wants to know that you are exclusively in a better place than they are.

So serene, yet nobody wears a smile. This is us making the best of things, and despite how nice this feels, I’m sure we all have escape in our minds. The dog here, clearly not a dog too accustomed to “keeping watch” lays on the rug, much in the same way the boys did.

The dog rests before the folded legs of its master, a young child, smiling confidently and happily, looking one at a time to each of us, reclining here in his parents’ living room. I’m absolutely positive that his parents wouldn’t approve of us. My friends and I aren’t the most qualified of company for a young, impressionable boy as he is.

I keep looking down at the little squirt, his nice vest and tie. He was almost dressed as well as we were. None of us had had much time before to hypothesize as to why this child would be dressed so snazzy in the absence of his parents, but now, we had all the time in the world. Not that we really cared. Most of us were just wondering why one of our own no longer had a head.

The other three, obviously still glum from the earlier bloody spectacle, seem to be swimming in their own melancholy, especially the headless man’s brother, who rocks back in forth in anticipation. Me, I’m just trying to keep the rules in mind. There aren’t many, so it shouldn’t be hard.

The plan was very simple.

We’d come in quietly, slowly, and cautiously. We knew the people living there would be out, so we came in through the back entrance after myself and Black Tie removed the lock on the door. There was a safe in the bedroom that we knew was there. Brown Tie worked recon as a house cleaner for this home, so he knew the place up and down. His brother, Red Tie, researched the couple that owned the building, finding that they would be on a business trip for an undisclosed amount of time, considering they financed one of the biggest corporate design firms in the country.

Brown Tie went in first, followed by me, White Tie, big ol’ Power Tie then came in with his gun under his coat, followed lastly by Black Tie, who kept an eye out for police or suspicious neighbors.

It was supposed to be a simple grab and go. It was our first uptown job, so we thought it appropriate to dress nicely, hence the ties, but we all got nervous and went with the ski masks as a precautionary measure, and probably also, because it became tradition.

On the couch, I am convinced that it was worth it, if only for the inherent novelty of the image it creates. If anyone were to see me at this moment, it’d look to him or her like photos of a band in Rolling Stone, or some kind of modern art photo.

Brown Tie had heard something. The sound of a scratching tap on kitchen tile could be heard from down the hall, which caused our collective hair to stand on end. We seemed so close to the bedroom, and thus, the safe, but none of it would matter if an unseen captor was in the kitchen.

Power Tie walked first with his gun. His large frame blocked most of our views, so Red Tie and Brown Tie bravely ventured a little bit ahead of him, looking left and right for the unseen person in the kitchen.

Suddenly, very close to us, we heard that same tapping sound, as suddenly, a spotted white streak came speeding toward us. The dog slid on the tile, looked up at Power Tie, Red Tie and Brown Tie and stuck its tongue out with a happy pant. A smile came over Brown Tie, as the dog rolled over on it’s back, hoping to get its tummy rubbed.

“Hey guys, it’s just a dog.”

Suddenly, Brown Tie’s neck exploded, jettisoning his head into the air. After it clattered against the ceiling, his head landed with a thud, and naturally, we stared. Stared at our friend’s head on the ground, his face in an eternally puzzled expression. His head had removed itself so fast, that none of us had the chance to move, or even panic.

The weight of the situation suddenly sunk in, and Black Tie and myself spun around to look for an attacker or a sniper or anything that could make this even possible. Anything that could remove a man’s head without a sound. Power Tie fell on his ass, and then, clutching his gun, he spun his torso around, pointing the firearm wildly. Red Tie simply lunged at his brother’s headless body, frantically panting and sobbing, pawing fruitlessly at his brother’s coat, looking for some indication that this was all a dream, or some twisted illusion.

Our collective attention was broken away from the separated head and body of our once-friend, Brown Tie, to a small, smiling boy.

We could feel this small boy’s presence. Though small he was, none of us could deny that he was most likely responsible for the spontaneous propulsion of our comrade’s head. Could you blame us for coming to such a conclusion? “The Sixth Sense”, “The Shining”, “Fire Starter”, “Children of the Corn”, “Carrie”, ore even Raul Dahl’s “Matilda”, you can’t trust children to not have supernatural psychic powers these days.

Red Tie stood to meet the small boy with attention; he simply stared up at him with a smile on his face. Though Red Tie recognized the boy’s inherent power, he couldn’t stop sobbing. I crossed eyes with Black Tie. We knew none of this could be worth the safe that still sat in the bedroom, but we also knew that was irrelevant at this point. Worth it or not, we were clearly stuck.

He laid down the rules. Very easy to follow rules.

1. No shooting guns.

2. Three strikes and you are out.

3. Never upset my dog.

4. No saying The Fuck Word.

Power Tie begins to look a little restless. The child just simply rubs his dog’s belly as we all try to avoid eye contact. I can only imagine what’s going on in all of their heads. Only days before, Black Tie had gone through a bad divorce, losing almost everything he had to his name he was proud of.

That was the problem with this kind of work. You can’t lay claim to anything you buy with the money earned. He had been cheated out of all of his hard work. Unmistakably, all of these things were acquired dishonestly, but it’s still hard work.

I can see a distance in his eyes.

I look down at Red Tie, and it’s the first time any of us have had eye contact since we’ve heard the rules, and his eyebrows met at a point in the middle of his forehead. It looked like he was somewhere between crying and jumping up and running right out of the room. I could understand, his brother just died in a rather paranormal manner, but I figured that we’d be out of this soon enough. Either the kid would have his fun and let us go, or the parents will arrive, and we’ll be arrested when they call the cops. Hey, anything is better than head explosions. I really don’t want to witness that again.

The kid abruptly rises to his feet, and everyone jumps. All eyes are on this child as he walks to the kitchen, past our headless friend, and goes to the refrigerator, taking out the peanut butter and jelly. He begins to spread himself a sandwich. I watch in fascination of the simple innocence of even that small act. A hand falls on my knee, and once again, I jump.

Red Tie looks up to me with the most pitiful expression on his face. He scoots himself against the couch, places his hands down below himself, and the words stumble out of his mouth like a stalling motor.

“Um… do you think we should make a run for it?”

“No,” I replied, “I don’t.”

Power Tie and Black Tie got up, and brushed themselves off. Power Tie mostly looked bored, but Black Tie had a grim expression on his face like that of a corpse. He flinched, a slight twitch in his upper lip. He removed his pack of cigarettes, and shook it upside down onto the palm of his hand. As he removed one, Red Tie scampered up to his side, placed his hand in a grip on his shoulder and whispered angrily into his ear, “Do you really think that’d be the best idea?”

Black Tie defiantly lit his cigarette with a match and said through half-clothed mouth, “Nowhere in the rules does it say we can’t smoke.” Power Tie laughed to himself, and accordingly, pulled himself a cigarette. He lit his, taking a long drag off of it. Red Tie looked from Black Tie to Power Tie in utter morbid astonishment. Power Tie chuckled at his fear, and then blew smoke into his face.

Red Tie moved to the other side of the room, behind where I sat, and placed his hand on the wall.

The dog got up, going for his water bowl. The soundtrack for the next few moments was the sound of a tongue splashing up water.

Meanwhile, I sat on the couch. I was just waiting. I’d just keep waiting.

Hours had passed. The kid eventually fed us all. Meals were inconsistent, though eventually, we all got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Other meals included, or would come to include, left over meatloaf, microwavable TV dinners, “Lunchables”, and “Pokemon” yogurt packs and fruit snacks. Point is, he kept us well fed.

Comforting to know we wouldn’t starve, however discomforting to think that he wanted to keep us around for too long. Hopefully, he was just being polite. Regardless, we were getting a better treatment than ol’ Brown Tie, who still decayed on the kitchen floor.

The day lasted a long time. Hours seemed to pass like days. The child frequently went to his room to play Gamecube. We weren’t the kind of suckers to play with him. The rules all seemed pretty loose, and we didn’t want to do anything to test them, so to be more specific, we didn’t want to do anything.

Mostly we stayed quiet. I could tell Power Tie was thinking up angles and maneuvers to get himself out of this precarious situation, but just like the rest of us, he couldn’t come up with anything worthy in this situation. Red Tie avoided the others. To him, this was like prison. In all honesty, nobody really hated Red Tie, he just really didn’t fit in. He kept pretty close to his brother, who was much more our ilk, much more likable. Power Tie was charismatic, could push angles, and find people out. He was a doer. His brother however wasn’t so mentally equipped. Not for this work anyway, not for these people. He was most comfortable by a computer, or in a van with surveillance equipment. His skin wasn’t thick enough for these hard asses. He mostly paced around the living room, and took frequent bathroom breaks.

Black Tie was known to chain smoke, but in the day’s waiting, he hadn’t made an attempt to accomplish anything else. You could see his sunk in, shadowed eyes through his ski mask. He stared off into the distance, his eyes fixed on nothing, lifting his cigarette to his mouth and back down repeatedly, breaking only to draw another one.

It became night eventually, and of course, nobody had arrived to arrest us.

I began to realize that there was no escape from this. If we were going to leave, it would be on this child’s terms, or dead, if those weren’t his terms. This was fine by me. If I HAD to die here, I’d at least like to find out how.

At seven, we were each given sleeping bags and shown to his room.

His room was not unlike you’d expect it. Dirty clothes littered the floor. Cartoon posters and child-friendly novelty posters covered the walls. He had bunk beds, which none of us were aloud to sleep on. That wasn’t a rule, but it was obvious it was a special place for him. He kept it neat and tidy, and covered the ladder in a blanket. It was almost like a shrine to his apparent missing innocence.

But, make no mistake. The kid never stopped smiling.

This was all too bizarre for any of us to rightly comprehend. There were a lot of things we could have tried to do at this point. We could have tried to leave, or to gang up on the child when he slept. We could have at least made conference to make some sort of plan on our escape, but we didn’t. We just waited.

The thought of escape was enticing, but the threat of head explosion was ever constricting. And I can’t speak for the other guys, but I was far from wanting to test him.

“He’s such a bastard.”

“I know Angela.”

“He just… Such a bastard.”

“It isn’t so bad is it?”

“Yes! This might mean the end of our marriage.”

“Such as it is.”

“That’s not funny Chase! He’s your best friend!”

“So what? You’re his wife! C’mon, I knew you way longer than him.”

“I’m trying to tell you how much this is killing me, and you want to show me angst?”

“Oh, ‘cause this is my fault?”

“Damnit. No.”

“That’s not what you’re telling me.”

“Chase. I love him. What do you want from me?”

“I want you to figure out what you want.”

“I want to keep my husband… You must understand-“

“Then are you sure this is my fault?”

“Chase…”

Why can I hear your voice?

I wake half asleep. I heard was sure I heard the voice of a bitter angel. My eyes opened slowly, revealing Power Tie on his feet. What was he doing up there? He put a finger to his mouth, to tell me to be quiet. To be quiet and go back to sleep.

I woke up to a bang to find smoke and a falling body. Something big and black, making a thud right in front of my face, making me jump. Too much to look at all at once as I jump to my knees. The black thud appears to be Power Tie’s head, and the falling body was the side effect to losing it. I jumped to my feet, my head spinning. I wanted to say something, my mouth about to reach for the nurturing impulse of profanity. Instead, I remember the fifth rule, and sit down on the kid’s bed.

“I think you should get up.”

Red Tie was hugging the wall, distancing himself from Power Tie’s body as much as he could. “He might not like you sitting on his bed.”

“My God… what happened?” That was the only thing I could think to say.

“He might not like you sitting on his bed.” I shot a stare at Red Tie, trying to convey sternness, but mostly just accomplishing fear and desperation. He caught my drift, answering, “I think Power Tie tried to shoot him.” Sure enough, Power Tie’s gun was in his hand.

I looked over Power Tie. “Wow, what was he thinking?”

“You think that’s crazy?” Black Tie peered over the edge of the top bunk. “What are you doing up there?” I asked.

“Look at that over there,” he replied.

The kid was standing in the doorway with a hole in the middle of his forehead. Blood dripped down his face, and he quickly wiped it off with a handful of napkins in his hand. Anger ripped through my body. Power Tie was dead, Red Tie was without a brother, and this little bastard was smiling, mopping his head like a runny goddamn nose!

The kid walked back out of the room. Red Tie looked up at Black Tie sitting at the edge of the bed. “What are you doing up there?” He asked.

“I wanted to sleep in a bed. I’m not gonna break my back outta fear like you suckers.”

“You really shouldn’t have talked about him when he’s right in front of us.” Red Tie said, his voice starting with its familiar shake. “Saying something like ‘do you want to see something really weird’ right when he’s in front of us seems kinda stupid given the circumstances.” He was acting irrationally, but I’ll give, he had a point.

Black Tie descended from the top bunk. “Nowhere in the rules does it say where we can and can’t sleep, and it doesn’t say anything about talking to or about the kid.”

“Except we can’t…”

Black Tie interrupted him, “I remember what word we can’t say. Relax.”

I took Power Tie’s gun. I figured one of us might need it. I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking; Black Tie was probably the best guy for the job. Maybe it was the burning stare I felt into my back as I picked it up, deciding then to keep it to myself. Despite how many good reasons he had to be suspicious, this was the first time I ever received an accusing look from him. I looked back at him, shrugging a humorous shrug, trying to say with my shoulders ‘he won’t be needing this.’

My actions left a bad taste in my own mouth. Still, I was assured with the feeling of the barrel against my thigh as the gun rocked in my pocket. I followed the other two out of the room, feeling only then, the endless weight of our predicament, getting deeper once again. We were five; now in less than ten hours we were five. Poor Power Tie. Poor dumb, dumb Power Tie.

I heard the pitter patter of paws behind me. I looked behind and the little white dog was smiling at me. Funny, I didn’t even know he was there.

The kid, a hole still in his head, walked into the kitchen to make himself some cereal. Brown Tie stared at us from his kitchen floor home, his white, flaccid face missing everything below his neck. The child didn’t seem to mind the presence of the body, or the cold blood pooled all around it. He just poured his bowl of Kix with the expected abandon.

I heard Red Tie behind me like an annoying itch in back of my ear. “Do you think we should make a run for it?”

“No.” I responded.

He vomited.

Black Tie laughed at him. I couldn’t bring myself to look. I just stared at my feet standing there in the living room. The only thing between the kid and myself was the threshold of the kitchen, marked even more by Brown Tie’s corpse.

“Now you’re getting it, Red.” Black Tie chuckled. “Vomited all over this kid’s floor. That’s not a very cautious thing to do.”

I could hear him walking toward the little table in the corner. I turned to see Black Tie, eyes shadowed from no sleep and too many cigarettes, a smile of insanity twisted across his face, take hold of the leg of a table sitting in the corner. “Let’s go with this, Red. Let’s walk the line, eh?” No was all Red Tie could do to try and stop this disaster. Black Tie whipped the table into the air and down onto the carpet, breaking the leg off.

Red Tie vomited again.

“Aw, what the-“ I caught myself. My hand to my head, I sat down perpendicular to my insane friend’s rampage.

“What do you think you’re doing, you lunatic?” Red Tie wiped his mouth of puke and followed after Black Tie, who carried the table top over to the two couches that sat next to each other making an L shape. He through the table on top of the two couches, letting it balance between the gap where the two couches come close to meeting. The table served now as a bridge between the two couches. Black Tie jumped up on the table, and began to do a violent dance.

“Cock sucker! Cock sucker! Cock sucker!” This was testing the rules. Who knew what kind of profanity the fifth rule aloud for, and no one could be sure what exactly would cheese off the kid’s dog.

Black Tie violently kicked off the table’s upward standing legs. Then he swung around, destroying the aforementioned ornate vases that were behind the couches. He then jumped up and down on the table, smashing it in two, falling in between the couches. He was hurting, but he was laughing.

My mouth lay open. Black Tie got to his feet just as the kid walked into the living room with his cereal. He walked up to the kid, getting real close to his happy little face. “Your mother sucks cock in Hell.” He said. The kid looked to where the table used to be, and simply moved around Black Tie, sat down on the floor and started to eat his cereal. Black Tie snickered for a second.

“See? There are fewer rules here than there are out there. We could live like insane Gods in this place! I can do whatever I want here…” He turned to Red Tie. “Isn’t that right, you little pink pussy person?” He kicked Red Tie in the face, and I didn’t know what to do.

Apparently, we had Red Tie figured all wrong. He whipped out at Black Tie with a quick blur of a fist propelled by instinct. Black Tie’s lip was knocked into his front teeth, spraying blood into his nose and landing his body onto the floor. He curled fetus style, grabbing at his mouth.

“What the-“ You could see Red Tie was having a hard time catching his mouth.

“Don’t play like that, Red!” Black Tie sprayed blood with every scream. “It was your job to make sure we knew every little thing about this place and the people who lived here! You and your dead brother!” I get up.

The kid just keeps eating his cereal.

Red Tie rose his foot to kick Black Tie’s teeth out. “Don’t talk about my brother like that you dirty little rodent!” His eyes widened when the cold of the barrel touched the back of his head, sending shivers through his ski mask all the way down to his foot, which he slowly lowered.

“Let him up, Red.” He complies, helping Black Tie up. Black Tie shook Red Tie’s arm from his sleeve, looking down, trying to assess the damage done on his mouth. “Now, both of you psychos calm down. We can’t be killing each other in here. Black Tie, I love you brother, but calm yourself. Red, Black’s got a point about-“

“You think maybe if we ain’t killing each other, White Tie, you could put that gun down.” Black Tie hisses blood from his lips. His eyes look up to me from his brow, his stare burning into me with vicious heat. “I don’t trust your law school ass with that gun.”

“Fair enough.” I put the gun back into my pocket. “We cool?”

I’d never seen Black Tie like this before. Intent on staring into me, he looked like he was trying to look into my brain, into my soul. I stared him back. Could he see my guilt? No. He didn’t know a thing. Right?

He smiled, looking like a black face figurine with his ski mask on and his mouth all red with blood. He whipped his mouth, revealing his distinctly grey skin and grinned with those nicotine yellow teeth. “Yeah man. Of course we’re cool…” He lumbered back into the bedroom and closed the door.

The kid got up and left, going into his room as well.

I walked toward the hall. I looked back at Red Tie. He stared at the floor, still shaken by Black Tie’s cutting accusations. I snapped my fingers, and he looked up immediately. I pointed down the hall in a hitchhiker’s motion with my thumb. He walked with me, going down the hall to where the safe was, the kid’s parents’ rooms. I sat down on the bed. I looked up at Red Tie for a moment. “Well?” I asked him.

He looked back at me like he was sick, then, clearly guilty. “Okay,” he said, “this is nothing substantial, but it might explain something.” I nodded my head to let him continue. “Okay, something that half way bothered me was their lack of a security system. But, hey, that wouldn’t stop us from coming here, right? Well, it wasn’t just that. They had no insurance policy.”

I tilted my head to signal a bit of confusion.

“Yeah, I know. So, here we have this incredibly wealthy advertising couple, and they don’t have any insurance. The only insurance information I could find was on the offices and studios they used to produce their commercials and print ads, but no personal insurance. No dental, no medical, no automotive, nothing.” He looked up at me, half crying. “And I didn’t get it, so I ignored it.”

“You didn’t think they’d have some sort of sure fire security system.”

“They don’t have a security system. Greg-er-Brown Tie figured that out easily. I didn’t think they’d have decapo powers.” He began to choke, cry.

People so powerful that they needed no insurance, no security system. We were long screwed. It wasn’t Red Tie’s fault, but we were stuck in a sure thing. Who knows how many times something like this has happened with this family.

The kid brought us some sandwiches.

It’s late, and me and Red Tie walk toward our cell, the kid’s room. Red Tie opened the door, and didn’t walk in. I looked over his shoulder, and I was just as surprised. Black Tie was sitting down next to the kid, his legs crossed Indian style, playing a game with the kid on the Gamecube. I stepped in, uneasy. Even seeing the kid obviously gets Red Tie nervous, so I let him leave. He probably went to lie down on the parents’ bed.

The kid still had the hole in his head, except it wasn’t bleeding any longer, and now was starting to develop some sort of tissue formation around the wound.

I sat down to watch them play. The dog skipped up to me and sat down in my lap. They were playing some racing game with Mario in it or something. I guess he was losing, cause Black Tie whispered that he raped the child’s mother into his ear. Black Tie was really good with his profanity. He wasn’t having any trouble not using the forbidden word and still being vulgar as ever.

I laid my head back, and let my guilt and memory wash over me and blocked out the sound of the game-making machine. My eyelids got heavy, whispering to myself, cover the fear, cover the fear, and suddenly, for the next few hours, I haven’t a care in the world.”

“Hey White Tie.”

“Hey Brown Tie.”

“How are you?”

“I’m fine. How are you, all things considered?”

“All things considered, I’m just a head. But, yeah, me and Power Tie are okay here, in our new meat homes, being dead meat and fossil ain’t so bad.”

“Seems like a ball.”

“Yeah, well, y’know.”

“So, why didn’t you tell us anything was strange about the family?”

“Well, being just a head, White Tie, I’ve had time to think it over, and I’ll tell ya, I’m stumped. They never seemed odd, and that kid seemed like a pistol of a boy.”

“Seemed like nice folks huh?”

“Oh yes.”

“Well, they sure showed us. Their kid is poppin’ our heads off like we were poorly made toys.”

“Ah… You hear that?”

“Yeah. Angela’s voice. I heard it last night too.”

“So, shall I let you off, to drift into your little misogyny wet dream? Should you go to your Angela?”

“Not my Angela, Brown Tie. Sorry I didn’t know you better.”

“It’s alright White Tie, I’m sorry I’m dead.”

Angela’s sent fills my nostrils, but my eyelids become light in weight again, and I’m brought out from the dream as soon as I was delivered there.

I lifted my head from the floor just as Black Tie began ascending the stairs to the top bunk. I hear him whisper the words “honey I’m home” but I have no idea why. The kid is already in bed. No trace of Red Tie, he must have slept in the other bedroom.

I sat up, not wanting to make too much noise. I didn’t want to deal with Black Tie’s insinuating stares. He was up in his preferred guest suite, so I didn’t need to worry about feeling those accusing attacking my own.

I stared at the blank screen, which, due to the nature of sleep, seemed like it was on a moment ago. Suddenly, I realized something was off. Something was wrong. A sound. There was an alien sound up on that top bunk with Black Tie. I couldn’t place it, a scratching, breathing.

I slowly, quietly rose to my feet, putting my hand on the steps up to the top bunk, and did my best to listen upward. I heard him speak, first soft, then louder. Something like, you tell me it isn’t true. Then, I almost fall back down when the voice that responds is a woman’s.

“Yes, it’s all true, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

It’s Angela’s.

“I can’t believe that. Not now. Not like this! He’d never do that to me!”

“He would, Curtis. He did.”

How was this happening? He can’t know. He just can’t.

“He wanted me to run away with him, Curtis. He wanted me to leave you with him.”

“No…”

“But I didn’t, baby. I wanted to stay, but you knew. You didn’t know whom but you knew it was someone. I don’t blame you for leaving.”

“No!”

“He’s not your friend, Curtis. Chase isn’t your friend.”

I’d heard enough. These truths, spilling out of some voice into the ears of my best friend weren’t his to hear. They were wasted fragments of the past, unsubstantial, trivial old news. Yet still, the guilt was heavy on my gut as I grabbed hold of the little latter up into the top of the bunk bed. I peered over the top. My eyes hurt with shock.

Black Tie, Curtis was on his hands and knees, talking to the dog.

“There he is, my love,” the dog barked, “there’s the man who pulled me away from you.” Curtis looked right at me, finally pulling his ski-mask off, revealing his grew face and even greyer hair, falling over his eyes, baggy and blood shot.

I felt his foot against my face, sending me back down over the bed, landing with a hard crack on one of the Gamecube controllers. Curtis jumped down on top of me. He pressed down on my gut with his knee, and I could feel every bit of pressure he put down on my stomach. He grinned a hateful grin into my face and followed it with a fist of knuckles to my nose. Over and over again, the same knuckle sandwich each cut from a different loaf of pain. My vision became foggy, and all I could hear is the slapping of flesh against face, and Curtis’ grunts.

He collapsed onto my chest with exhaustion. I can’t hear myself say ‘I’m sorry.’

“This is my best friend,” I hear him say, “and even if it was all true, it wouldn’t matter, cause even if he did have your love in return, he probably woulda stuck by me. The point is that you boinked a man who loved you, and you didn’t return it. Any moron knows that ain’t right, doesn’t matter who your married to.”

He got up. Standing over me. “Finish the job, baby,” the dog says.

“And any moron knows that cheating is cheating, and lying is lying, and if I had to kill him, I’d have to kill you too.” He leaned against the bed.

“And any moron knows that dogs don’t talk.”

“Curtis, darling?” The Angela dog says.

“Yes dear?”

“You’re making me very angry.”

“So what?”

Curtis looked down to where the boy was sleeping as he lit a cigarette.

The boy looked back with a smile.

“Oh.” And Curtis’ head spun off his shoulders like a poorly propelled firework on New Years Eve. My best friend was dead. I would have embraced his body, which fell right next to Power Tie’s, but it was still spewing blood from the neck, and God help me, but I was still mad about the beating I had just received. I got to my feet, allowing my eyes to lie on the child’s as blood leaked from all parts of my face.

“You son of a bitch.” Is what I think I said, though my beaten mouth wasn’t the best for talking. Curtis’ poor head was lodged in the corner of the room. I wanted to put him back together again. I wanted to make him not dead. I wanted to take back this whole rat bastard job, even if I had to trade the lives of the others to do it. I wanted to take back all of the stuff between me and Angela, so that maybe the kid couldn’t have used it to trick Curtis, or maybe just so that I wouldn’t have betrayed him.

Light shown in through the widow. It was morning. I took one last look at the kid before I spat blood onto his face and left the room. It was hard keeping my head in the right place with all the anger flooding my brain. It was hard to keep the rules in mind while I was this blinded by anger.

I walked into the living room. Red Tie was already awake, sitting down, his hands on his knees, his head down. He stayed fixed on his empty stare for a while. I stood there, not knowing what to say about Black Tie’s death, so I just waited for him to say something or at least notice me.

“What happened to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you see what I did?”

“What?” I replied.

“Look to your right.”

I looked to my right. It was the front door, the opposite door we came in on. It was wide open. I was suddenly much more awake. My head whipped with anticipation back to Red Tie. “You opened the door?”

“Yep, it wasn’t locked. No security. No insurance. And, of course, they don’t lock their doors.”

“The kid didn’t say anything about doors in the rules. We could have left any time we wanted.”

“Okay, cool, let’s go.”

I started down the hall to the parents’ room. The safe was still there, and following the pattern thus far, there would be no combination on the safe.

“White Tie, come back, don’t you think we should make a run for it?”

“No.” I yelled back. “We came here for the money, damnit we’re leaving with it.” And only a few moments after I said that, I realized what I had done.

First while the kid was making a sandwich.

Second while he was making the bowl of cereal.

Red Tie just wanted to leave. We weren’t his friends. He lost his brother and we weren’t anyone to him. All he wanted to do was get out of here.

Third strike.

I am an imbecile.

I step out of the room with the money under my arm. Sure enough, poor Red Tie’s head was sliding around on the hallway floor, propelled by the explosion that lifted it off of his shoulders. The hallway walls were painted with his insides, spilling off over into the kitchen and living room.

The door was still open though. I could still make it. I removed my ski-mask, letting the blood and drool drip down from my broken face as I run my heart out down the hall, past all my poor, rotten, dead friends, and finally, out the door.

Suddenly, a black mini van, the family’s black mini van pulls into the driveway, blocking my path. Inside were the parents, smiling and insane, just like their son. I was blocked off, cornered and with nowhere to go but out the back. No matter what, this was the end.

I turned around, only to see my path blocked again, this time by the kid. The whole in his head had developed into a third eye. It grins big at me. I hesitate for but a moment. I turn back the other way, the parents, the father in his business suit, the mother in a very professional red dress walk toward me, their hands at their foreheads, ripping off the skin blocking their third eye, revealing it’s gazing, horrible stare.

Nowhere to go, nothing to do, I went to my knees.

“Fuck.” I said.

THEND