Chapter Four: Chaos
Chirp! Chirp-chirp, Chir-ir-ir-ir-irrr-irp!
It was early April, and the thrush and meadowlark sang. The raven laughed at the pechers, "To-morrow! To-morrow! Ha! Ha! Ho ho!"
The children danced and played in the sunlight. School was out for two glorious weeks. The sun was a Pastoral Symphony on their yellow skin as they laughed and giggled and splashed about like free and happy birds. The fathers worked, looking forward to the Easter Break, when they too would be happy and free from care and duty, while the mothers stood at the thresholds of their homes, watching hesitantly as their children ran and laughed in the broad, safe, sunny lanes. The killings had stopped. It had been over two months since the last killings. The nightmare was over. But something inside Marge Simpson, her instinct as the giver and protector of her children's lives, kept her from being at ease.
"Where had they gone? Who were they? Are they still at school? Where are their parents?" and other such questions raced about in her tired head. She had discussed this with the other women of the town, with Mrs. Hibert, Mrs. Powers, the twins' mother, Agnes Skinner, Edna Krabappel, Lindsay Neagle, Kookie Kwan, and all the rest. Many shared her doubts as to the permanence of this peace, but all were happy to cast off the yoke of doubt and anxiety, at least for the Season.
Bart, too, was not at ease. Things could never go back to normal, for a feature of his normal life was his companion Millhouse. He sat on the overpass with Nelson, Frankie, Martin, Max, and Ralph, spitting down at passing cars.
"My daddy puts your daddy in his car and takes him to jail. He has to stay there until he sobers up, or gives daddy money!"
"Yeah, uh-huh, Ralph."
"Boy," thought Bart, "This ain't the same without Millhouse."
"I'm gonna go home. Catch ya later!"
"Later."
"See ya!"
"I forgot I'm wearing chonies! I have to go change-change!"
Bart left on his bike. He rode through the streets, up and down the familiar avenues, watching the businesses fade into houses, and finally reaching his house. He took his bike into the backyard, and said 'hullo" to Santa's Little Helper. He threw his doggie toy, and he went to fetch it. Bart then went inside, and ascended the stairs to his room. As he walked past his sister's room, he heard horrible sobs in the lulls in her saxophone practice.
"Lis?"
"What?" she said, wiping her runny nose, and not waiting for an answer before resuming her practice.
"What's wrong? Something happen to Snowball V?"
"No it's…just…"
Bart sat on the bed next to her. She looked at him, and his heart ached at the sight of her red, teary eyes.
"Millhouse…!"
"Lisa…"
"He always was so nice to me…he always liked me! And now he's dead! I just wish that…I don't know! Maybe if I had pretended to like him, maybe if I had been a better friend…"
"Lisa, it's not your fault…"
"I mean I went out with Nelson! Nelson…of all people! Why couldn't I just have…loved Millhouse, if I had…"
"Lis, it's not your fault! It's the fault of whoever did it, and I don't care if the police have given up, we're gonna find them! With your brains and my connections to Springfield's underworld, we can do it!"
"Really?"
"Sure, we've solved crimes that have baffled the police before!"
"Okay, gather the troops, I'll get my supplies, and we'll meet at the tree house in eighteen hundred!"
"What?"
"Six o'clock," she explained dejectedly.
"Ohhh, got it."
At six that evening, Bart, Lisa, Larry, Frankie, Wendell, Martin, Allison, Max, Ralph, Jamie, Jimbo, Kearney, Dolph, and Nelson were assembled in the tree house.
"Alrighty then, Operation Clue is underway! Lisa, let us begin."
"Okay, first of, just to clarify, we are here to solve the mystery around the recent spate of killings. We know so far that the culprits were both kids our age, wearing New Balance sneakers, who most likely go to our school, most likely live in this neighborhood, and have ties to the Occult. The police say that they've exhausted every lead, and that they'll never find them. Just because they stopped caring doesn't mean that we have!"
"Our first clue is the gun. While it has no fingerprints and is unregistered, I am certain that a local private distributer gave it to the gunmen. If we can trace it, we can find our man. Bart, you go home with Ralph and get that gun. Tomorrow, go to all of our usual contacts: Fat Tony, Bloodbath and Beyond, Herman, Cletus, and Snake. See if they are the ones who sold it, or if they now who did."
"Yay," cried Ralph, "I'm not a poult!"
There was an awkward pause.
"Okayyy, Nelson, patrol the Kwik-E-Mart and surrounding areas. Look for suspicious kids, aside from us, hanging around. It is likely that the culprits will return, if they haven't already."
"Jimbo, Kearny, Dolph, you are our hall monitors. I need you three to be on the look-out for any suspicious kids. And I need you to make copies of all the teachers' attendance slips, so we can see if there is a pattern to any kid's absences."
"Jamie, your dad's a lawyer. Ralph and you will be our sources of information on any official developments in this case, and to help us run background checks. I also need you an' Allison to monitor the gossip mill, as you are both more popular than I and thus privy to more knowledge."
"Martin, I need you and the…"Superfriends" to monitor the occult sections of the school and city library. Keep track of which books are checked out, when and if they are returned, and who merely sits in the section and reads. Take note of every move they make, use a digital camera if you must, and be careful not to be seen."
"Bart, again, use your connections, and watch the movement of guns and money around the town. Such will be the key in finding our killers."
"I have assigned myself the special task of entering the dark underbelly of the school society. I shall pretend to go Goth, and see if I can learn about any occult goings-on amongst the Anne Rice-reading crowd."
They kids all swore to never rest until they found those responsible for the murders and brought them to justice. They had all left by seven thirty.
At ten o'clock that night, the gypsy woman sat in her tent at the edge of town. She was setting up for the night, when the men would sneak away from their homes and come to "lay their money down". She broke open a fresh pack of Tarot cards and shuffled the crisp deck. She mixed and flipped the cards.
She picked twelve from the deck.
"Spirits, what does this evening hold for me?"
She flipped the first card. Death. She frowned. She flipped another over. The Gemini. The Hanged Man. The Assassin. The Pentagram. Eternity. The Void. The Necromancer. The Bad Seed. The Burning Gypsy Tent. The Inept Police Force.
She frowned as she shuffled the cards back into the deck. It seemed to have something to do with the murders of the twins.
She set another twelve cards on the table. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death.
The horror of what she had just seen overtook her. Distraught, she shuffled the cards back in. Her hands were shaking violently. She dropped a few. One landed face up. Death. She picked the cards up and hastily mixed the cards together. She set twelve out, face down. She reached out. He hand hovered, shaking violently, like a frail bird, above the cards. She flipped one over. DEATH. She flipped the next one over. The Gypsie Who CAN NoT Take A FUCKING Hint! The tent flapped open. A small, portly girl, with long black hair, and a long black dress, was holding a crossbow.
Otto drove the dark and lonely streets.
"Duh-duh-dunuh-NUH-Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuhnuh…" he hummed, tapping his hands on the bus wheel and bobbing his head to the beat.
A child crouched in the bushes. He lifted, with some difficulty, the shotgun he had stolen from his father's workplace. He snapped into focus as he saw the headlights shine in the darkness. The hefted up the powerful gun, like a canon, it seemed to him. He rested the barrel on a stand he had made from a fork-shaped stick. He set the stock against his small shoulder. His hands were shaking.
The bus kept rolling.
He sucked in a deep breath and took aim.
"Duh-duh-dunuh-NUH-Nuh-nuh-nuhnuh…"
He took aim.
"Ooohhooo! Baby-Baby!"
Bang.
The bus flipped on it's side and slid. Otto slammed into the windshield, and his legs were broken, caught behind the steering wheel. The nerves and sinew in his neck were torn as the bus flipped on it's side, and he was blinded by the shower of sparks and glass. The boy dropped the gun and waddled out of the bushes. He carried with him a canister of gasoline. He splattered it over the bus. He opened the gas tank and splattered some gas in. He took a rag. He soaked it in gas. He stuck it in the gas tank. He toddled back to the bushes. He used the remainder of the gas to draw a pentagram on the ground. He lit his lighter, and set the pentagram on fire. He then took and oily rag, wrapped it around a stone, lit it, and threw it at the bus.
Blam.
He ran off into the night as sirens began to wail in the distance. He left his father's gun in the bushes.
Agnes Skinner stood in the incandescent light of her kitchen. She was gently plying chocolate frosting on a cake for her son, Seymour. It was his forty-first birthday. He was at Moe's with his friends, and they would soon return for cake and presents.
A small child, with an angel's face and ebony locks, slipped in the open window, and turned on the gas stove. Agnes, seventy five years old, near-deaf and unable to smell, neither heard the child nor smelt the gas.
The mayor looked out the motel window. His security officers were escorting the courtesan to her taxi. Mission Accomplished, he thought. He tied up his bathrobe and went to the shower. He ran the water, and waited for the water to run warm. Stupid motels, cheap curtains instead of classy glass doors, water's always too hot or cold. He slid out of his robe and stepped in the shower.
The vent in the other room opened. A small child, dressed like an urchin, peeked out. Because of his slight, starved figure, he could easily fit in the vent. He crawled out, and tried to suppress a cough. He pulled out a kitchen knife from his dusty woolen jacket. He tip-toed into the bathroom. Quimby turned. The curtain flipped open.
"AAAAHHHH!"
In and out the knife went. Slip. Stab. Slash. Slip-slip. Quimby grabbed the curtain as he fell. Blood swirled into the drain. A few minutes later, the vent closed.
Constable Wiggum drove along the lonely road. What a night! Wish I'd joined the army 'stead of this. The gypsy woman, Otto, Agnes. He then got an APB that the mayor, Quimby, had been found, slashed and stabbed, with a note stabbed into his back.
"Okay boys, everyone to the Earwig Motel. This is a 13-66."
As he drove along the dimly lit street, he saw a small, filthy bundle in the road. He slowed the patrol car. He then noticed that it was a child. He stopped and rushed out.
"Hey kid!" He waddled over. The child didn't move. He stood over the child. He heard a slight whimper. He leaned in closer. The bundle exploded, slashing out at Wiggum with a straight razor, cutting his carotid artery. Blood, saturated with sugar and saturated fat from thousands of midnight donuts, splattered the pavement. The child did a strange and atavistic dance, the bright blood sparkling as the lights from the patrol car flashed red and blue.
Judge Snyder needed coffee. Five of people were killed, in the last five and a half hours, about every sixty five minutes. He began brewing a pot of coffee. The phone rang. Grumbling to himself about how he should have moved to Florida when he had the chance, he walked over to the phone. He picked it up.
"Justice Snyder."
Nothing.
"Hello? Hell-o!?"
"Hello, Fat Albert. Beautiful night, isn't it?"
The voice chilled his veins. It was a voice he had never heard before. It was so strange, like it came from neither man nor woman, child or adult. He couldn't even tell how many people were speaking.
"You'll be with them shortly…"
Dial tone.
He set the phone down, horrified. He went over to the coffee pot. He poured himself a large glass of hot coffee and drank it black, in big, desperate, gulps. Gulp. Gulp, Gulp-gulp. Gulp…Tastes…funny. He felt a great and sudden pain in his gut. His head was swimming. The room was melting around him.
There was a vicious little cackle. The window closed.