Bad Games

4



Arty pulled the Pontiac into the big driveway and stopped halfway. Exiting the car with Carrie’s doll in hand, he took a good long look at the house in front of him. It was perfect, so isolated and serene. Not a hint of worry for miles.

The last few weeks in such a place had been more than he could have ever hoped for, adding many delightful bonuses to the game. New material had been happily introduced without neighbor concern; any screams managing to echo their way outside would have far too much ground to cover before falling on curious ears.

It would be sad to leave such a house. But Arty was no dummy. He knew that the game had time limits, and that planned time limits were the key to successful transitions.

But all was not lost. Yes, they were leaving, however they would be moving on to something Arty believed held far more potential.

Embracing the tingle he’d bathed in earlier, Arty wasted little time unlocking the front door and hurrying up the carpeted stairs. At the top of the landing, to his immediate right, was a bedroom door. It was closed.

“You better not still be asleep.”

Arty turned the knob slowly, paused, then exploded into the room with a bang. His brother Jim jerked upright from a king-sized bed.

“Lazy bastard,” Arty smirked.

Upon recognizing his brother, Jim frowned and let out the breath he’d stifled from the sudden intrusion. “The f*ck, man?” He flopped back down onto his pillow and started wiping sleep from his eyes.

The second Jim’s torso was horizontal again, Arty got a good look at the entire bed. He was not pleased. “What the hell is this?”

Jim went to answer but his voice cracked from sleep. He coughed, snorted, then sat upright again, his bare back resting against the headboard. He ran his hand back and forth over his shaved-bald head and looked at his brother through puffy eyes.

“What?” he finally said.

Arty kept his eyes locked on his brother while he eased into the room, eventually standing firm at the foot of the bed.

On Arty’s left was Jim, his torso still upright against the headboard, his lower half covered in blankets.

Next to Jim was a woman, uncovered and stark naked. She was also bound and gagged. The woman was not struggling, whimpering, or even moving, but she was alive. She just lay in a fetal ball away from Jim, her glazed eyes hopeless and defeated like a mental patient doped to the gills, staring out a hospital window.

“What the hell did you bring her up here for?” Arty asked.

Jim looked irritated. “Because every woman in this hick town is a f*cking pig.” He motioned to the bound woman next to him. “I miss hot city bitches like this. Thank God these two yuppie f*cks decided to build a second home out here in Mayberry.” Jim reached to his right and grabbed his cigarettes from the nightstand. He lit one and inhaled deep.

“You took a big risk, Jim. What if the husband put up a fight?”

Jim laughed, choking on his recent drag. “Come on Arty, you know he wasn’t gonna try anything. We practically broke that p-ssy from day one.” He sighed, flicked a stray ash off his chest. “I miss Philly.”

Arty thought of their mother, their sole reason for being in the western part of the state. “Get over it,” he said.

Jim grunted.

“Yeah, well, whether your dick likes it or not, this is the way it is.”

“I guess,” Jim said. “But the way Mom’s been lately, we could have probably moved her ten f*cking feet from the old house and told her she was here…probably wouldn’t have known the difference.”

Arty banged the base of the bed with his knee, rocking it. “She’s not that bad yet, dickhead. Show some respect.”

Jim hung his head and took a short guilty drag from his smoke. “You’re right, my bad.”

Arty and Jim had moved their mother to western Pennsylvania when her condition was demonstrating more off days than on. Her wish was to live her remaining years near her place of birth, and despite the boys’ initial reluctance, they weren’t about to deprive their ailing mother of such a wish. No way.

“Anyway,” Arty began, “we’d been pushing our luck around Philly lately. We’re needles in a haystack out here. It’s perfect for now.”

Jim exhaled both pessimism and smoke. “Yeah, perfect if we can continue to find people like these two to play with.”

Arty’s lips nearly split from the grin that spread over his face. “Well I might just have some wonderful news for you then, little brother.”

Jim’s pessimism dipped, his black eyes flickering hope. “Yeah?”

“Oh yeah.” Arty tossed Josie onto the bed. Jim stuck the cigarette between his lips and picked Carrie’s doll up with both hands.

“My, oh, my, oh, my,” Jim said out of the corner of his mouth, cigarette bouncing with each word.

“I met the husband. He’s a sturdy guy; they won’t break easy.”

“Awesome. The wife?” Jim asked.

“Very nice. Hot.”

Jim grinned. He held the doll up and wiggled it at Arty. “How many kids?”

“Two—boy and a girl.”

“How old?”

“Four and six.”

“Lots of potential.”

“Indeed.”

The woman in bed sighed deep through her nose then resumed her trance. Both men looked at her.

“Jesus, man,” Arty said. “She hasn’t bathed in over three f*cking weeks.”

“I know that,” Jim said. “I threw her in the tub first. Scrubbed that ass until it squeaked.”

Arty hung his head and shook it, fighting off a smile. “You’re a sick man.”

Jim took a final drag of his cigarette then crushed it out on the nightstand. “So where are they?”

“In a cabin. Place called Crescent Lake. Don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of it?”

Jim shrugged. “If you’ve never heard of it, then how the hell would I?”

“Well I asked around. I’m thinking we can venture out there in an hour or so. Sneak around a little and get our bearings.”

“Are we gonna take the cabin for a bit when we’re done?”

“I don’t know, I doubt it,” Arty said. “The husband mentioned it was a community of cabins, or something like that. It might be too risky. Plus they’re only gonna be up for the weekend. Who knows who’ll pop in after.”

Jim nodded, yawned, and rubbed the remainder of sleep from his right eye. “Alright, so what’s the next move?”

“Well first things first. We need to get the hell out of here. If we want to do this next one right, we need to start moving.”

Jim rolled over towards the naked woman. He slapped her hard on her bare bottom, a section of the pale flesh instantly glowing red in the shape of Jim’s hand. She hardly flinched. “So should I assume we’re dealing with her and her hubby right now?”

Arty nodded. “Yeah. We’re not killing them though.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because we only kill if it’s necessary…or part of the game. It’s neither.”

“We’ve done it before.”

“And?”

“I think it’s necessary.”

“I don’t.”

Jim frowned. “They’ll ID us, Arty. Jesus, they saw our faces every time we fed the f*ckers. This bitch could ID my dick if she wanted to.”

“Yeah, well that last one is your problem. Still, we can fix it so they can’t ID us.”

“Yeah, I know we can—by killing them.”

“No.”

Jim snorted. “How then?”

“Stand up,” Arty said.

“What?”

“Stand up.”

“Why?”

“Just stand up.”

Jim kicked off the blankets and stood. He was just under six-feet with a powerful physique that he owed mostly to good genetics as opposed to hours in the gym. He was also very naked.

“Jesus,” Arty said, the second he got an eyeful.

Jim made no attempt to cover himself. He just splayed his arms. “What?”

Arty hung his head again, shaking it slowly, biting his tongue. He did not want to encourage his brother’s lewd, and often risky, behavior, but found it damn hard not to laugh at his audacity once in awhile.

Jim scratched his naked groin and asked, “So how do we fix it so they can’t ID us?”

Arty raised his head, took a step forward, and jabbed his fingers into his brother’s eyes.

There was a wet squelching sound, and Jim dropped to his knees, grabbing his face with both hands. “What the f*ck?!”

Arty instantly held up four fingers and said, “How many fingers am I holding up? Jim! How many fingers am I holding up?”

Jim made several attempts at looking up at his brother, trying to focus, each attempt heightening the pain, his head whipping away from Arty’s hand every time as though it flashed a beam of white light. He finally gave up and tucked his chin into his chest, rubbing furiously around his eyes with the palms of his hands.

“You see what I’m getting at?” Arty asked.

“Yeah…I get it,” Jim said. He rubbed his eyes some more then launched himself upward, driving his right fist deep into his brother’s gut. Arty doubled over instantly, and now it was his turn to drop to his knees.

Jim hopped up and danced over his brother, laughing hysterically, his genitalia flopping left and right. Through his pain Arty still managed to witness the unsightly phallic jig occurring overhead, and although his breath had left him, he could not resist an attempt at a laugh.

“Sick…f*ck…”

Jim continued his dance around the room, eventually leaping onto the woman, gyrating on top of her still-fetal body while hooting and hollering like a horny chimp.

Arty got to his feet, holding his stomach, wheezing out more chuckles as he watched his brother carry on, his gyrating atop the woman stopping, changing to the missionary position as he began miming wild intercourse, his hooting louder with each imaginary thrust. “Get over here, dickhead,” he said.

Jim hopped off the woman and sauntered over to his brother. He walked with an exaggerated strut, like a cowboy entering a saloon. His eyes were rimmed red from Arty’s recent attack, but it hardly seemed to bother him now. He was grinning like a kid.

“So you know what I’m getting at then?” Arty asked, still breathing hard, still holding his stomach.

“Yeah, I think so,” Jim said.

“We’re just taking their eyes, Jim. That’s all.”

Jim nodded, paused, thought for a moment, and then asked, “What about their tongues?”

“Huh?”

“Well wouldn’t it make sense to take their tongues too? See no evil, speak no evil—wait—what’s the other one? Hear no evil? Yeah…it’s hear no evil. So that means the ears too, right? We’ll take the tongues and ears too?”

Arty gave the suggestion a few seconds, smirked, then palmed his brother’s bald head, running his hand back and forth over it as though rough-housing with the family dog. “Why not? Such a clever brother I’ve got.”

Jim kept grinning. “Hey, maybe we could preserve everything when we’re done. You know, dry ’em out like beef jerky, and then make a necklace for them. Something to remember us by.”

Still smirking, Arty waved a playful finger at his brother and said, “James, now you’re just being mean.”