{This story was actually part of another fanfiction before I decided to change accounts and move it here. This fic takes Ace Merill from Stand By Me and turns him into David. Hope you enjoy!}
Disclaimer: I do not own the Lost Boys or Stand By Me.
"Just leave me alone guys, I don't want any trouble!"
The shrill voice was enough to have his teeth gnashing together inside his mouth, cutting up his tongue and causing blood to well inside his lips. The kid was already bleeding himself: busted lip, black eye and a shot to the stomach had him doubling over in a fit of violent wrenches that turned to vomit in just a few minutes. Ace let little more than a sneer of disgust show.
"Funny, seeing as how you wanted all the trouble in the world the last time we met down by the river," he said, letting his voice become soft and almost plaintive. As though they were having a conversation more-so than an actual fight. Something he had learned as a kid from listening to the villains on various shows that played on the radio.
Eyeball let out a barking laugh. It could be said that the kid was second in command of the Cobras, but Ace couldn't see how it mattered--he would always be the leader of their gang.
"What's the matter, Gordie? Don't you wanna play outlaw like you did last time? Where's your gun?" Voice became light, mocking the kid as he stepped closer, reaching into his pocket for that knife.
Gordie trembled, exploratory fingers reaching up and touching the blood that was welling from his busted lip. Ace had to give the kid credit for idiot courage. Not many had tried to stand up to him and the others the way the brat had. And for a few moments of staring down the barrel of that gun, he had almost been convinced that the kid might shoot him down dead. Of course, such feelings were fleeting and ever since he had backed down, he hadn't heard the end of it.
Ace Merrill, brought to his knees by some punk kid with a bowl-style haircut that barely weighed more than eighty pounds. The news had gotten around the Highschool within a few days and even kids in Middleschool would run by him, giggling and sneering as some called him a pussy right to his face. Though took off screaming when he lunged at them. But even worse than that… his own gang had begun to question him and at home, his father had beat the living shit out of him.
There was only one way to resolve it.
Gordie had to die.
The plan seemed so simple when he had first thought of it. The kid wasn't of any relations to anyone in the gang, his brother had already died and the parents were so use to grief, they would probably just accept it and move on. And no one in this crappy town would ever believe that he did it and furthermore, they wouldn't have any proof. The plan was only to beat the kid to death then drive him down to the railroad bridge and dump the body into the river.
All so simple in his head. Yet now, staring down the kid as he tried to back away, Ace could feel the heat in his body turning to fear and adrenaline. A rush that could either send him spiraling over the edge or have him backing away, leaving the kid with only minor cuts and bruises.
It hardly seemed worth the effort, for how much they spent in gas, kidnapping the kid and bringing him here.
"Fuck you!" Gordie spat, blood dripping down his chin and eyes wild with fear and tears.
The rush came faster, feeling anger resurface and run deep in his veins. "You thought you were so smart, didn't you? Bringing a gun out on your little hiking trip?"
He kept his pace slow, stalking the boy as he cried harder; silent sobs that were broken by the grit of his teeth. He should have seen this coming. Should have known that he would make good on his word and kill him the first chance he got.
It had come right after school, in broad daylight no less as Gordie had been trudging up the hill to his tree house alone, whistling some familiar song. A kid without a care in the world, at least until Eyeball sprang from the bushes and tackled him to the ground, cupping his mouth in a greasy hand to hold back the screams as they came pouring from the kid's chest.
The most girlish scream he'd ever heard. Though it figured, goddamn little pussy.
Cool tongue licked over dry lips, feeling the fire ignite once more as he reached into his pocket and pulled loose the knife. A switch blade, one he had stolen from his drunk father and had practiced the various means of using it on others. The man was a low-life, but he'd been in and out of prison for most of Ace's life and always had a fresh story or lesson to beat into the boy. One of which, was how to cut a person's throat.
"You don't wanna… cut em too lightly now. Gotta gouge that blade in and cut the windpipe, otherwise you ain't doin' but wastin' blood," slurred drunkenly at Ace one night, pointing his beer bottle towards the young teenager.
If the man had only realized what impact he had made on Ace's life.
The silver blade gleamed in the dying sunlight, casting a shadow over Gordie's face as he drank in every ounce of the boy's fear. There was no gun to save him now. No Chris to stand beside him or try and tackle him from behind. No chance to run and try to escape… unless the kid wanted to tumble over the edge of the cliff, landing in the gully below.
The rush was growing stronger… but already, he could feel himself tensing up. Fear invading his thoughts like the first time he had ever boosted a car. The first time he got lucky in the back of it. Or the first time he drove it off a cliff and watched it scream down in a tumble of metal and liquid fire.
"What are you waiting for, Ace? Cut the little son of a bitch!" said Eyeball, standing behind him with arms crossed and lips parted in anticipation.
His father had claimed to killing five men before. Three on the "outside" and two on the inside. Never stated the reasons, never had to. But he bragged on and on about how they had never managed to link the crimes back to him. How it was in his blood that he was so damned lucky, yet every time the man got out, he somehow managed to fuck things up within the first year and got sent back for months at a time. Ace had only ever visited the man in jail once at age seven---his mother had forced him to go.
His heart was jack hammering, mind racing with every single thought he had ever held inside his head. Maybe… this was a bit too crazy.
"C'mon Ace!" shouted again from Eyeball, causing him to turn and snarl in reply.
"Shut the fuck up, will you? I'm trying to--"
Before he could finish, the kid had suddenly lunged forward in a feeble attempt to try and shove him back and make a break for the other side of the hill, the one without the cliff and the swift drop off that led back into town. Ace turned sharply, grappling with the kid for a single moment before…
… he froze.
The world seemed to stop moving as time slowed down to a single tick per minute. Shock coursed along Gordie's face, followed by confusion and finally, an ashen sense of disbelief. Looking down, he finally realized what had happened. The knife had plunged itself into the kid's stomach, likely right over his liver or kidneys--one of the major organs. Blood was pouring out like a small river against his fingers, coursing down his arm and collecting against the white shirt he wore. Gordie's face was still lost in the sensation, mesmerized by the fact that he had actually stabbed him, though no more than Ace himself.
Hand trembled as fingers continued to grip the blade. His body throbbed with the same rush that had driven him, Eyeball and the punk kid out to this place. All leading up to this moment as he tried to jerk back and pull the knife from the kid's body, causing a sudden, crushing wail of pain.
"Shit!" scowled underneath his breath as adrenaline began to shift it's way to panic. He had to pull the knife out--had to.
Another hard jerk and the kid let out a second wail, though this one had his knees buckling and lips bubbling up with rivulets of blood.
Third time is always a charm.
A final yank and the knife was suddenly free, though, before he could reach out and grab the kid's collar, Gordie began to stumble backwards with arms flailing wildly as though he were going to fly….
Right.
Over.
The Edge.
Time stopped again---one final time---as Ace watched the kid's expression change from pain to utter shock as he toppled over the cliff. The urge was too strong to resist, even for Eyeball who had been standing in the back, suddenly quiet as he watched the events taking place. Both boys rushed up to the edge, watching in mute horror as the body known as Gordie LaChance, fell through the air and landed with thud against the ground. Rolling for a good few feet before it landed in the river and sunk away out of sight.
For a moment, he could have sworn he'd gone deaf.
There was no sound, not even a whisper of breeze that passed through the rustling aspens that crowded around the riverbed. Not so much as a bird chirp or a bum fart as he stared down into the river, face as white as snow and knife dropping away from his hand.
It seemed to last a hundred years, but was shattered in an instant as Eyeball began to scream at the top of his lungs.
"NOOO! SHIT, NOOO! OH FUCK, OH FUCK!" shouting as hands gripped the side of his head, threatening to rip chunks of that dark, curly hair out from his head.
Ace remained quiet, still staring over the edge of that cliff as though at any moment, Gordie would somehow rise up from the river and start walking to the shore. At least, until Eyeball shoved him back.
"SHIT! WHY DID YOU DO THAT? WHY DID YOU FUCKING DO THAT?" wailing over and over again as Ace tried to catch his breath.
He couldn't think. His mind had become blank, as if watching the kid die had erased all the urgent thoughts that had been flowing through it only moments before. But it didn't last long.
"Hey… Hey!… HEY!" Shouted at Eyeball as the kid paced, pulling on his hair and continuing to wail mindlessly.
Picking up the fallen blade, he rushed over to the wailing kid, clamping a hand across his mouth and forcing those panicked eyes to meet his own. His mind was still blank, body tingling with the after-affects of utter shock and his tongue dry as he tried again and again to speak.
Deep breath. Don't think about the kid. Don't think about his blood on your hands… it will only make you crazy like him. Just don't think at all.
"Listen," rasped through grit teeth, his voice taking on a very soft, methodical tone. "What's done is done… now I want you to get in the car, I want you to drive us back into town and drop me off at home. Then I want you to go home yourself and forget everything you saw here."
The kid was shaking. Or maybe it was Ace himself. Trembling like a frightened schoolgirl during her first fuck.
Taking a deep breath, he tried again.
"Eyeball, look at me," forcing the other's gaze to meet his own. "We didn't kill Gordie. He jumped over that cliff himself. We only came here to rough him up and something terrible happened. Something we had no part in. So get in car and take me home."
The message seemed to sink through, enough to where the color began to return to Eyeball's face and head began to nod vigorously, as if all of this suddenly made complete sense. They had only come here to rough the kid up. Neither had expected him to jump over that edge and the blood that was on Ace's hands was only from the kid's lips. Busted up lips that would have taken at least a few days to scab over and heal.
"Right, right.. We were just.. We were only here to screw with him.. Only here to…" breathing hard, Eyeball could barely speak.
Ace stood back, watching him carefully as the kid shook his head once… twice… three times before he managed to find his way back to the drivers seat of the car. Shaking as though he intended to rid his mind of what had taken place.
Good.
Because it never happened.
The car wheezed as it pulled up to his house; the engine letting out a shudder as the clutch was popped in just a bit too soon before dying completely. Normally, Eyeball was a decent driver, though his arms kept trembling as they clutched the steering wheel and the shifter, eyes focusing just a bit too hard on the road ahead. Stepping out of the car, Ace shut the door as quietly as he could, staring at his friend for a long moment before speaking.
"Eyeball…" waiting until the other had turned to face him. "We weren't together the entire day. You were out with some tramp taking a drive and I was over at Reggies Bar, shooting pool and getting drunk, got it?"
It took a full minute for Eyeball to manage a nod and satisfied, Ace stepped away from the car and started up the walkway to his house; barely larger than a shack, the shingles had been ripping off for years and scattering throughout the yard while the once cheery, white paint had become a mixture of dirt and dust that no one ever bothered to wash off. The fence was broken in three places and the mail-box littered with bullet holes.
It wasn't class, but it was home.
Taking one final breath, he pushed the door open as quietly as he could, slipping inside the dimly-lit living room and coming face to face with the monstrous old hag known as his grandmother. The woman had more wrinkles than an elephant's backside, clotted with liver-spots and dirty, grease stains from fallen food that no one bothered to help her consume. Not that she would let them, if they cared enough to try.
The woman was hard, almost eighty and showing no signs of dying any time soon. As twisted as it seemed, his mother had promised him the old woman's room when she finally killed over and Ace had been waiting that room for over ten years. One would think it would happen relatively quickly, given the fact the old woman had high blood pressure and was subject to fits of hysterical anger at least once a week.
And those weren't even her worst qualities.
The old hag had a glass eye that sometimes fell open while she slept. Each time he saw the faded, glazed orb, he froze and instantly wanted to strangle the woman. Tonight however, both eyes were closed and the radio blared at an unthinkable volume.
Little House on the Prairie.
Slipping past her unnoticed, he worked his way through the empty kitchen, beer-stained kitchen and to the bathroom, just on the other side of the hall.
Quiet as hell on the drive home. Forcing away all thoughts, all images, all sounds that tried to invade his mind. He had started out with a foolproof plan and he had simply carried it out. He didn't really mean to kill that kid. The boy had jumped over the edge himself. And Christ, he deserved it! The little bastard tells everyone and their uncle what a pussy he is--he should have expected something like this to happen.
The door was locked as body lurched over the sink, eyes staring intently into the cracked mirror that hung overhead. Flecks of blood had somehow splattered along his face, matching the blood that was caked all over his right arm.
It was over, the kid was not coming back.
No one would suspect him. No one would even dare.
Sharp, blue eyes stared without blinking into the glass, trying again and again to recognize the image he saw inside it. All before a fist came up and shattered the mirror completely, waking everyone in the house and sending poor grandmother into yet another hysterical, conniption fit.