The numerous neon signs in the front windows buzzed like a swarm of lazy flies, casting a rainbow of corporate influence into the darkness outside.
The three of us were crammed into the corner booth that reeked of spilled beer, old blood, and not enough bleach. Nobody in that bumfuck town knew us, so a healthy amount of staring and less-than-subtle glares from the increasingly drunk group of patrons.
Three missing teenagers, three bodies found chilling in extra large coolers with beer cans crammed into their mouths. People around those parts had good reason to be wary of strangers.
“Hell of a town.” Prick grunted sarcastically, eyeing the paranoid bartender before downing his drink.
“Thrill a minute.” Slit agreed, “In the time we’ve been here, I think I counted exactly three forms of entertainment.”
“Paint drying, Grass growing… what’s the third?” I added.
“Cousin fucking.” Slit gave a wicked grin, her gunmetal gray eyes locking on mine like I’d walked straight into a punchline.
Prick slapped the table and laughed a bit too hard, probably due in no small part to the alcohol. It wasn’t that funny.
“Not to be the buzzkill, but we should probably at least pretend we’re talking shop. Something at least tangentially related to work.” I noted. These two didn’t know me well enough to realize I was, in fact, always the buzzkill.
“Oh, fuck off, Nutsack.” Prick groaned, his face twisting into a dismissive look of incredulity. “There’s no way you have any bright ideas at this point.”
I wasn’t a fan of the nickname, but our corporate masters were very clear. No real names, no recurring code names. Nothing that could be overheard by anyone trying to connect the dots across missions. Every job, every town, every target, you had a new handle to remember.
I’d only be Nutsack for about three more days, tops – and that was if we were really bad at our jobs.
I could tell from the word “go” that Prick was ex-military. Built like a cheesy golden age super-hero, with a cruelly mischievous streak that screamed “Dishonorable Discharge”. Not that it wasn’t obvious, he wouldn’t be working with us if he had options. He was the type of guy you didn’t feel comfortable sleeping around.
Slit was was cop… at some point, anyway. It was all in the way she spoke to people, always saying the right shit to get the right information. Making people believe they had no choice but to do what she said, her scary sense of calm and directness standing out like a sore thumb during intense situations. If I heard her say “why don’t you take a seat for me” to one more person, I would’ve oinked at her.
For a competent cop, there are two ways to get terminated. One is for being dirty, the other is for being clean. I couldn’t help but wonder which one applied to her.
Then there was me. If I knew who they were, they damn sure had me pegged from the start, as well. I couldn’t tell you what they saw, but I’m sure I reeked of “ex-convict” in a thousand little ways.
The bar we were in that night reminded me of the last one I’d been in before prison.
It was all over the “honor” of a girl who didn’t even wait for opening statements before hooking up with someone else. To protect her supposedly good name, I had knocked out three frat bros that night. Two of them woke up.
“Shop talk.” Slit repeated. “Yeah, alright. What’s the subject?”
I leaned in a bit, rotating my drink on the table and watching it slide on the pooling condensation. Thinking for a brief moment, I looked up at Prick, then Slit, and chuckled.
“The stupid ones.”
Slit’s eyes widened further, which I wouldn’t have thought possible, as she slowly smirked and nodded her head.
“Ohhh, we’re bonding. Okay., sure”
“I don’t mean mentally inept, not ‘stupid’ like in terms of IQ, they’re all idiots,” I explained, “What’re your outright dumbest ones… just silly themes or ridiculous outfits or what have you?”
The both of them sat back and thought, a task that was easier several drinks ago.
“Alright,” Prick snorted and then broke into a crooked smile, one of his front teeth missing from the affair, “Small, sleepy town, middle of nowhere, sightings of a costumed figure…”
“Dead teenagers.” Slit finished for him.
“Right. Teens burned to death in their rooms, most of ’em in bed when it happened. Local police are idiots, chalk the murders up to kids falling asleep with lit joints and shit. These cops know something else is going on, but they’re too lazy to bother.”
Prick turned to Slit.
“No offense.”
Slit did a double-take.
“Am I that transparent?”
“Yeah.” I nodded.
“Anyway,” Prick continued, “Turns out this slasher is roaming around town at exactly twenty hundred… I mean, at exactly 8:00 PM each night. He finds a teen awake, he sets them on fire.”
“Usually don’t see fire.” I interjected.
“Too much prep, no good in a struggle, no guarantee it’ll catch, much less stay lit. Almost always a knife.” Slit offered.
“Pretty dumb, yeah.” Prick noted, “But that’s not why this dude was a stupid one. Description? Wearing pajamas, a pillow case with eye-holes on his head. He’s got a sleeping cap sewn TO the pillow case so it doesn’t fall off. Guy really wants to send a message with his outfit, wants you to wonder what it means and shit.”
Prick took another swig of another drink and loosed an unholy belch. Someone in the bar went “ew”, but we were too invested in the story to care.
“We catch the icon in the act, bait him by leaving the lights on and the music blasting one night. Bingo, bango, I turn the pillow case around so he can’t see and I just beat the ever-loving shit out of him.”
Prick re-enacted a few slow, phantom punches.
“Team wraps him, we load him up, take him back to the office so the bosses can do whatever it is they do. Routine as fuck.”
Prick stopped and regarded both of us with a glance as he pursed his lips, ready to give us the payoff.
“What do you think this guy called himself?”
With the story on pause, Slit looked to me and shrugged. I shrugged back.
“The Naptaker.” I answered.
“Bed Head.” Slit guessed. Hers was so much better, and I hated that.
Prick licked his lips, smiled wide, and shook his head.
“Wee Willy Winkie. Like the nursery rhyme.”
I dropped my head into my hands. Slit flopped back in her seat and groaned loudly.
“Noooo…” she laughed.
“Swear to God. Man’s name was literally tiny penis. People died at the hands of someone called shrimp dick.” Prick explained, completely missing the coincidence.
“I got one.” Slit wasted no time moving on.
Like kids around a campfire, our attention shifted to the new storyteller as she absently held a glass under her chin in place of a flashlight.
“Town. Slasher. Teens. Murder.” She cut to the chase quickly, “Kind of a weird gimmick, strangles people with a rope. Otherwise a textbook case. Wears all black bodysuit. Smart choice for stalking his victims in the dark.”
She took a sip and arched an eyebrow as if she were giving us our first clue to a grand reveal.
“Wears a tragedy mask. Like, the tragedy and comedy faces. You know, from stage plays and shit.”
“I have not, once, ever in my life, been to a play.” Prick insisted, “And my kids have been in so many of ’em.”
I shot Prick a disapproving look, but he wasn’t paying any mind at that point. I didn’t need to know he had children, and I didn’t want to know. That wasn’t how this worked. I could be thirty minutes away from standing over his dead body, depending on how things shook out. I’d need to be thinking about the costumed freak running away, not about putting pressure on a wound so he could keep missing events in his kids’ lives.
“Suffice to say, there are two masks, comedy and tragedy, a smile and a frown. The icon’s wearing the frowny one.” Slit sounded like she was talking to a child taken in by social services. “They called him the Theater Kid.”
“Ouch.” I all but shouted, “Now that is a rough name.”
“That’s not even the stupidest part.” Slit all but shushed me, “Senior students are getting laid out like it’s prom night. I interview a few of the kids as best I can, pretend I’m just some nosy mid-western housewife who’s into crime podcasts and that I want all those lurid details. I make a connection no one knows outside of one high school class.”
Slit feigned an over-the-top modest attitude, giving us a sideways look and covering her mouth like she was about to spill some scandalous gossip.
“One of the drama students, this young man who was so clearly destined for Broadway… well, one night he gives a performance deserving of the teacher’s kneeling ovation.”
“No way.” Prick giggled, “She blew him? My man!!”
“He blew him.” Slit corrected.
“Oh…” Prick’s sheer disappointment was in itself disappointing.
“Cutting to the point, the class finds out about it and they start extorting the teacher with this information. The Theater Kid, Mr. Broadway himself, starts killing off his little friends one by one out of some sense of loyalty to a thirty-two year old that took advantage of an underage student.”
“That’s not so much stupid as it is sad, just all around.” I mused.
Slit could’t give less of a fuck about a jailbird’s feels.
“We catch him and wrap him. No one knows who the icon was, no story gets out, no copycats, no revenge killings, no sequels. Franchise killed. The key detail here is the kid’s name. Not his slasher identity, but his real name.”
“Well? What was it?” I asked flatly.
“Travis Geddy.”
Silence.
Prick and I looked to each other, but neither of us got it.
“Travis Geddy.” Slit repeated, “Tra-Geddy. Tragedy.”
“Son of a BITCH.” Prick punched the table full force, causing every empty glass around him to jump in place.
“That fucking suuucks. That’s stupid as fuck.” I grimaced.
“Nutsack! You came up with this game… or whatever it is.” Prick pointed one thick, dirty finger at me, “You better have a good one. You better blow those two out of the water.”
“Damn right.” I nodded. “If that’s the stupidest you two have, you’ve got nothing on mine.”
Slit gestured for more drinks, but the bartender shook his head “no”. A few patrons laughed derisively at this, followed by a voice chiming in with, “About time”.
“Bumpkin dip shits.” Slit mumbled under her breath. Under different circumstances, she probably would’ve pushed the issue until someone talked themselves into the back of her squad car. Just anyone dumb enough to utter a threat.
Prick cracked his knuckles and flexed a bit, no doubt a routine to show everyone he was still the most dangerous motherfucker in the room, but beyond that he did nothing.
“Knock Knock.” I started my story, breaking the tension at the table.
Slit and Prick exchanged an amused glance before Prick asked, “Who’s there?”
“That’s who,” I elaborated, “Knock Knock. That was the icon’s name. Like the joke. Knock knock – who’s there – axe – axe who – axe me in, why don’t you?”
“Hell, I can describe this guy for you, and I’ve never even seen him.” Prick boasted, “Knocks on doors late at night, says that ‘Knock Knock’ shit, when someone comes to the door, he busts it down with a sledge hammer or, like you said, an axe. Brute force killings, messy, difficult, stupid – but not the stupidest.”
“You’re right, for the most part.” I continued, ” Everything you said, up to a point. Says his catch phrase, beaks down the door, kills whoever’s home at the time. Typical lunatic home invader shit. No real logic or reason to it, so he’s real hard to track. Description says he’s an idiot, though. Wears a wooden mask with a peephole over one eye, so already he’s half-blinded himself, and you can’t tell me that lens is doing anything for the vision he still has.”
“They make it easy sometimes.” Slit agreed.
“Doesn’t end there. He wears body armor, right? But – it’s wood. All wood. He’s dressed up as a fucking door. It’s like every good slasher gimmick was trademarked and he’s left scraping the bottom of the wooden barrel. However, gotta give the guy credit where credit is due… he’s really, really good at killing people. He clearly enjoys it. Do what you love and you never work a day in your life. What’s worse, as I told you before, there’s no pattern. Nothing to follow, no way to guess where he’ll be next time around.”
“A killer door is pretty stupid.” Prick conceded.
“So, the team is at a loss. Nothing to go on. Then, one night while we’re all camped out in the van, we intercept an emergency call. Cut off the cops before it goes through, talk to the victim, get her location. Turns out Knock Knock has targeted a nineteen year old taking care of her parents’ place while they’re out of town. She’s scared shitless, telling us the killer everyone’s been whispering about is at her front door, and he’s calling out… Knock knock… knock knock…”
I had the two of them hanging on my every word, waiting silently, motionless, for where this was all going to lead… though they were pretty drunk so I can’t take full credit for it.
“We’re not close enough to the scene. Driver jumps behind the wheel and floors it while we’re still on the phone with the girl. Then it hits me. An idea so fucking ridiculous that it has to work.”
A pause. Not a word out of either of them.
“Don’t ask who’s there.”
Slit and Prick went slack in their seats. Both rolled their eyes at how asinine this had just become.
“That’s right. Dude says ‘knock knock’, waits at the door, and if the victim doesn’t respond, he just keeps repeating it. I don’t know if it’s ancient curse or OCD, but when my team rolls up eight to ten minutes later, this piece of shit is standing at the door, dressed like a door, saying ‘knock knock’ over and over again, nervously twisting a crowbar in his hands.”
“Yeah, okay.” Prick shook his head in disbelief, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Congrats.” Slit added.
“Not that I need to continue,”I continued, “but of course we jump him, disarm him, wrap him, off to the company he goes. Franchise very… very easily averted.”
With our drinks cut off, Prick started to slide out of the booth, followed by Slit.
“Good topic,” he grunted, “Ya should’ve put money on it, though.”
“That’d be rigging the game.” I replied, scooting from the booth and stumbling after them.
The bartender watched us pass, a wary look of concern on his face.
“Y’all aren’t driving, are you?” he asked in a disapproving, yet timid tone.
“I drive better when I’m buzzed.” Prick cheered, before turning to the rest of the bar, slapping his chest a few times, and letting out a deep howl.
“We’ll be fine, sir.” Slit assured the bartender as she paid the bill with her company card.
“Sure hope so…” the bartender muttered as the three of us lurched out into the black of night, “Enough funerals around here these days.”
“Ahh, shit.” Prick’s spit-shined boots crunched around on the parking lot gravel alongside the distinct sound of keys dropping to the ground. He turned in a circle a few times, squinting at the stones.
“Off to a great start,” Slit laughed, leaning against a nearby trash can, looking woozy now that she was on her own two feet.
I looked over to our ride, a work van with the logo for “Fade Out Carpet Cleaners” on the side. Out of all the front businesses I knew of, that was my favorite. A town experiencing an up-tick in fatalities doesn’t question the presence of a carpet cleaning vehicle. Easy to get in and out of locations without ever really being noticed.
“Everyone just… everyone just stand still for a second.” Prick held his hands out to his sides as if he was calming a crowd instead of two random alcoholics, “Okay… who had the keys, again?”
Crunch.
The unmistakable sound of feet on gravel broke the quiet night, again.
Crunch.
“Heeere we go…” Slit straightened up, completely dropping the put-on appearance of a sorority girl who couldn’t hold her liqueur.
Crunch.
Prick kicked the keys up from the ground and caught them in mid-air.
Crunch.
I pulled the extending baton from my jacket and flipped it out to full length.
Crunch.
Prick pressed a button on the key chain and a row of spotlights built into the van illuminated our surroundings just as bright as if day had suddenly broken.
There, standing to one side of the building, was the icon. Dressed in a neon yellow morph suit. Wearing an orange high-visibility vest, work gloves, and work boots. A traffic cone on his head.
He raised a scratched, worn stop sign into the air, its edges stained with crusty, rotten blood, then lowered it, wielding the road sign with two hands as if it were a medieval weapon.
“Drunk driving kills!”
“Oookay.” I grumbled, “Obvious motive, but still not what I expected.”
As the speed bump slasher ran at us, and as we took offensive stances, Prick said what we were all thinking.
“New stupidest one.”
