HangingSoul: I take each movie as it comes and don't particularly care whether or not the new Halloween movie is the "true" sequel. I like Halloween II and Halloween 4 and that's really all I can say on the matter.
Guest: Maria moved away.
I forgot to mention (several times now) that the idea to have Leni and Lincoln have five kids and for the first letters of their name to spell out L-I-N-C-Y was totes AberrantScript's idea. I just stole it and put it on paper before he could. Take that, Abby.
Meow.
Lola Loud tapped the eraser of her pencil against the notebook before her and rolled her eyes to the ceiling in thought. How many people did sign the Declaration of Independence? The number fifty-eight stood out, but she wasn't sure of it. She counted the names she knew and arrived at twenty-five. That number was way too low, however. She remembered that John Hancock's signature was the biggest and situated in the middle because he was President of the Continental Congress, she remembered that five signers were captured by the British (George Walton, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Arthur Middleton, Edward Rutledge, and Richard Stockton), she even remembered that Robert E. Lee's grandfather Henry Lee signed it (or did he?), but she couldn't recall something as simple as a single number.
That irritated her.
Meow.
Something furry and warm brushed her bare leg and she sighed. "Buster, will you go away?"
The cat looked up at her with geen, curious eyes and meowed again, its tail swishing playfully back and forth. Pushing two and a half, Buster was a stray Lana found in a vacant lot on her way home from school last winter. He was frail, underweight, sick, full of fleas, and one of his paws was wounded - sometimes after too much play, he still limped.
Being a modern day Francis of Assisi (the Catholic patron saint of animals), Lana brought him home and nursed him back to health. Cliff had just died and Buster wound up pressed into service as the family pet, even though he slept with Lana every night and spent all of his free time hanging out on Lana's bed like a bum. If you couldn't find him, check there first.
Despite his devout attachment to Lana, he was friendly with everyone - he'd come right up to you and weave through your legs like you were his best friend even if he had no idea who you were. Lola couldn't lie, she loved the little creep, but he was so annoying sometimes. She'd be trying to do her homework, like now, and he'd either hop into her lap or jump on the vanity and strut across her work station like a cocksure rooster in a hen house. Pet me instead of making good grades, I'm more funnerer.
Presently, he settled onto his haunches and looked expectantly up at her. He was extraordinarily cute, but she was extraordinarily preoccupied. "Go bother Lucy. Lana will be home soon." She turned back to the page and frowned. Alright, she thought with a deep breath, how many signers were there? She didn't think it was fifty-eight, but it was close. More than fifty, but less than sixty.
Damn it. This was starting to get on her nerves. She hated history...English, too. Both are taught and learned by rote memorization. Science and mathematics actively engage the mind and require it to work, history and English don't. She'd rather be working out complicated equations right now, but no, here she was stuck on how many men signed a piece of paper two hundred years ago. It was an important document, to be sure, but -
Meow.
Lola shot a dirty look over her shoulder; Buster sat in front of the closet door, which stood slightly ajar, and sniffed at the crack. He probably had a mouse cornered; he was always hunting them down but never attacking. Other cats catch and kill, Buster caught and released. Which actually came in handy when a bunch of Lisa's lab mice escaped last month. Otherwise, as Pop-Pop used to say: Shit or get off the pot.
That made her smile despite herself. She didn't like English or linguistics very much, but she was fond of old-fashioned euphemisms and colloquial irregularities - slang, expressions, etc. When she was a little girl she would hear something like turn a blind eye or cat got your tongue and wonder where they came from. Pop-Pop's were the most colorful, her favorite being: Shit fire. The whole thing was shit fire and save matches, but he only ever said the first part.
She turned back to the page and stared down at what she wrote earlier, the names of every signer she could think of off the top of her head and a line or two about who they were or what became of them afterwards. It wasn't imperative that she get the number right - her grades were good and she could take an A- with no negative effects on her hopes of getting into a good college - but it was important to her. From the time she was a baby, everyone always crowed over how beautiful she was. They never said anything about her personality or her intelligence, they fawned incessantly over her appearance and treated everything else as though it didn't matter...as if she didn't matter, the Lola within. When she was eight, she had enough and decided that she wanted to be more than a pretty face, and since then she worked tirelessly to break free of her beauty pageant past. Part of the reason she didn't date, unbeknownst to Lana who could be too superficial sometimes, was because none of the boys she met were interesting or intelligent...and none wanted her to be interesting or intelligent. They just wanted her to look pretty while they did her.
Uh, no, sorry. I had that before and I do not want it again.
A loud thunk sounded behind her, and she jumped. The closet door was closed now, and Buster clawed at it from the inside. She rolled her eyes and heaved a long suffering sigh. "You're stuck now, aren't you?" she asked.
Scratch-scratch-scratch.
Yep. He was stuck.
She had half a mind to leave him in there until she was finished, but though she may have been a little...ahem...sadistic when she was younger, she was not the type of girl to do that today. Even if she was totally justified in doing so. She laid her pencil down, uncrossed her legs, and got to her feet. Buster's scratching grew more frantic then cut out when he presumably realized clawing the door wasn't going to help. "Yeah," she said as she crossed to the door, "you should have thought about that before you decided to trap yourself in the closet."
Laying her hand on the knob, she started to turn it, but froze when something hit the window. Her grip tightened on the handle and she twisted around, her heart slamming into overdrive.
A terrible creature peered into the room and her blood turned to ice water. A scream bubbled up in her throat, but died when she recognized it. A bat.
Relief washed through her and she laughed at her foolishness. Just a bat. Real scary, Lola. Ooooh, it eats insects, run for the hills.
Buster thumped against the door and it vibrated in its frame. She rolled her eyes and shook her head. Dumb cat. He was lucky he was cute and fluffy, otherwise she wouldn't let him in the room when Lana wasn't here.
She turned the knob and opened the door. "Alright, Bu -"
Her words cut off when she caught sight of the monster grinning back at her, its sallow flesh sagging down its face and its black eyes burning with malice. Her heart dropped into her stomach, and before she could scream it lifted something long and hard to its hip and charged; Lola's eyes widened when the wood closet pole rammed into her midsection, cracking ribs and sinking deep into her chest cavity. Fiery, stinging pain engulfed her and she was driven back, blood bursting from her lips and gushing down her chin. The thing lifted the rod and Lola with it, her pink-polished toes spasmodically brushing the carpet.
The pole punched through Lola's back, grazing her spine, and she sucked a reflexive breath, drawing blood into her lungs. The thing pushed her back against the wall, the rod smashing the plaster and tacking Lola in place like a macabre decoration. The thing let go and stepped back, its breathing ragged with excitement, and Lola's body convulsed as death settled in, tremors racing through her frame and her toes curling and uncurling.
Darkness stole rapidly over her, and with it the cold of approaching night. Her vision dimmed, and just before she died, a revelation, jogged loose from her mind, dropped into the light.
Fifty-six.
Fifty-six people signed the Declaration of Independence.
Lola's body went limp and her head lolled forward, her chin against her chest and her blonde hair veiling her bloodless face. Ronnie Anne tilted her head to one side and studied the corpse as though she'd never seen one before. She thought the girl was dead, but she could still hear her voice echoing through the chambers of her skull, her inflection cruel, haughty, and taunting, just as her tone had always been. Of Lincoln's sisters, she disliked Lola the most...aside from Leni. She was a snooty little bitch who thought she was better than everyone else just because she was Lincoln's sister and he loved her.
But not anymore...you can't love that which is dead.
A knife-blade smile carved across Ronnie Anne's face and she turned to the half-closed door opening on the hall.
Now, she thought and slipped her ax out from her jumpsuit, it was time for the rest.
Lincoln emerged from the bathroom in a puff of steam, a towel wrapped around his waist and another draped over his shoulders. His damp white hair was plastered to his scalp and water glistened on his naked chest. Most nights he let Leni comb his hair because she enjoyed styling my Lincy and he liked playing the part of the contented cat being scratched behind its ears. Right now, she was probably too busy making that baby blanket, so he'd just let it air dry.
At her door, he leaned against the frame and watched her feeding fabric through the machine, tiny metal pins jutting out from between her clamped lips and crazily reminding him of a cigar chomping newspaper editor. I want pictures of Spiderman on my desk by 5pm. Her face was a blank slate and she moved nary a muscles other than the ones required to complete the task at hand. She was so energetic and outgoing that it was always a bit of a shock to see her work - she entered the proverbial zone and almost nothing could rouse her...except for affectionate kisses and playing with her hair, those always brought her out of her reprieve.
He briefly considered going over, hugging her from behind, and attacking her face with his lips, but decided against it. Instead, he went to his room, grabbed his toothbrush from the dresser, and carried it into the bathroom. With so many people in the house growing up, everyone kept their toiletries in their rooms so as not to overwhelm the john. There weren't as many people in the Loud house these days, but old habits die hard. Plus, after seeing that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry accidentally knocked someone's toothbrush into the toilet and then put it back like nothing happened, he wanted to keep a closer eye on things. Some people might call that strange, but to him it made perfect sense. He could totally see Lily or Lana doing the same thing. Lana especially. She probably wouldn't even think twice. Toilet water's the best kind of water he could hear her saying.
Switching the light on, he went to the sink, grabbed the Crest from its spot by the soap dish, and squeezed some onto the bristles, rolling the bottom of the tube up to get enough for the job. He bared his teeth and started to brush, making sure to get as far back as he could. When he was younger, he neglected his dental hygiene as his dentist would say. He brushed once or twice a week and never gargled with mouthwash. That changed when he was seventeen: He was eating a salad and bit down on a crouton, not knowing he had a cavity. Th pain was exquisite. Felt like he tried to eat a rock. After having it filled, he vowed to never slack on his oral care again - he brushed twice a day (sometimes three), used mouthwash, and rinsed with water after every meal.
Opening his mouth, he flipped the brush and worked it along his bicuspids. In the mirror, Lucy's door opened and she came out into the hall, her head down. Lincoln's eyes darted away and to his teeth. That should be good. He bent, spat, and cupped his hands under the faucet, collecting water and then sucking it up. He swished it around then spat again. Cutting the spray, he stood, and the hall was empty.
He sat the brush down, pulled on his lounge pants, then his T, then carried the brush back into his room, where he laid it on his dresser. In the hall, he started toward Leni's room, but stopped at Lola's door. He hadn't seen her in a while and though that wasn't uncommon (you can't be up your sister's butt 24/7) given the circumstances...he wanted to check on her. He lifted his hand to knock but paused when Leni called his name.
"What?" he replied.
"Come here," she piped, "I got something to show you."
Letting his hand drop, he walked over to Leni's door and leaned against the frame. She turned in her chair and preened. "I'm finished with the blanket."
Lincoln blinked in surprise. Done? She worked fast, but jeez, she literally just started it.
She must have seen the doubt on his face; she held it up, her fingers pinching the silky blue fringe. The side facing him was pink with a teddy bear and the words TOTES CUTE in white cursive. She flipped it around; blue with a little building block and TOTES HANDSOME. She trembled with excitement like a small dog, and Lincoln couldn't suppress a chuckle. "So? Do you like it?" she asked urgently, a faint shadow of anxiety crossing her features.
"I love it," he said. He went over and stroked the side of her face, the pad of his thumb skimming her chin.
She beamed proudly. "I'm gonna start another one." She twisted around and opened the drawer where she kept her fabric. "Should I make it a boy one or a girl one?" she asked and touched her index finger to the side of her face.
"Boy," Lincoln said off the top of his head.
Leni's finger tapped her cheekbone in a steady monotone. She was already entering the zone and probably didn't hear him. "I know," she finally decided, "girl." She turned to him. "Do you want to watch me work?" she asked, her voice sobering. There was an almost pleading edge that told him she wanted to spend time with him before their night ended and they were forced to part. That was probably the hardest thing about living at home and keeping their relationship a secret from their mother, not being able to be open with their affections. For obvious reasons they couldn't sleep in the same bed together, at least without risking discovery.
Earlier, he agreed that it was time for them to tell their mother and move out on their own. He did so with a twinge of reluctance, but right now, he felt a twinge of something else: Wanting to get the hell out of here so he could hold his Leni through the night and never have to let her go. "Sure," he said.
Leni brightened. Lincoln crossed the room, got the extra chair from its post in the corner (moving a stack of fashion magazines in the process) and brought it over. He sat and laid his hand on Leni's leg, his palm coming to rest on the hem of her dress. She scooted to the edge of her seat to be as close to him as possible and their knees knocked. She grinned mischievously. "If you watch close, you might, like, learn a thing or two."
"Yeah?" he asked with faux incredulity.
She nodded slowly, her eyes narrowing to sly little slits. "Umhm. I'm gonna totes turn you into a clothes makerer that way you can make clothes for me."
He cupped the back of her neck in his hand and squeezed. "Alright. I promise to watch and take notes."
"Good," she said, and turned to the sewing machine. "You're gonna need 'em."
Frank Rudd woke himself up with a deep snore, his drooping eyelids blinking open and his lips smacking.
He was nestled in the armchair with his legs straight out in front of him and his arms wrapped around his considerable chest, his head lolling to one side and resting against his shoulder. He tried to lift it, and pain shot through his neck; he winced and sucked a sharp intake of air through his teeth. Shit. He shifted his weight, and the muscles in his lower back clenched like an angry fist. Squeezing his eyes closed, he sat up straight, a long, agonized groan passing his lips.
When the discomfort subsided, he stretched his arms and yawned. Twenty years ago, he worked all night stakeouts like nothing, now he he could barely keep himself awake past 9pm. What time was it, anyway? He glanced at the TV: A scrubbed and polished weatherman in a tailored suit stood in front of a regional map dotted with words and numbers that Rudd had to squint to see. ELK PARK: 43. ROYAL WOODS 46. CHIPPEWA FALLS: 39. "...day for tomorrow. Temps will be in the sixties across the viewing area and maybe even into the low seventies for Royal Woods and points south."
Some time past ten if the news was on. Maybe even as late as eleven. He dug in his pocket for his phone and pulled it out, his thumb pressing the button on the side. 10:24. He'd been here since...five? Six? Long enough that he and the credenza were on a first name basis at. Despite being older and a little overweight, he'd rather be out and about than slumped in a chair. At least pounding the pavement would stave off the fatigue and keep his blood pumping.
He reached for his coffee cup and found it empty. He'd give himself a goddamn heart attack if he had anymore. Even so, he got to his feet and arched his back, his free hand going to his right hip to massage a sore spot. It was amazing the difference two decades makes in a man. Twenty years is not a long time in the grand scheme of things - a grain of sand on the shore of time, really - but for a person, it's like night and day. When he was a young man, he could sit, stand, run, and crouch for hours on end with no ill effects. Nowadays, just thinking about moving wrong set him screaming for the Ben-Gay. The scariest part was how damn fast the years crept up on him; one minute he was a patrolman barely into his twenties and the next he was fifty-six and riddled with aches and pains; his knees ground when he bent them and if he stepped too hard his hip bone rolled. If he was a horse like the kind his uncle used to breed, he'd have been lead out back and shot ten years ago.
The more he thought about it, the better retirement sounded. He could move to Florida where brutal, marrow chilling winters didn't exist, play golf, eat dinner at four o'clock, and watch The Golden Girls on Nick at Nite while he waited to fall asleep.
He stopped and tilted his head back in a gesture of reconsideration. The Florida part sounded nice, but turning into his grandfather did not.
Frankly, the idea of retiring intimidated him. He'd enjoy it for a little while, but he knew himself, and he'd get bored after three months. He was unmarried, had no children, and only saw his nieces at Thanksgiving and Christmas; the only people he knew outside of work were his neighbors, Fred and Martha, and he couldn't stand either one of them. If he retired, he'd have no idea what the hell to do with himself. Grow a spice garden? Tape The Weather Channel so that he could watch it later? Ha. He'd rather get shot in the line of duty.
Before going into the kitchen, he shuffled to the front window and pulled the curtain to one side. The night was unchanged; the trees up and down the darkened street rustled in the breeze and the street lamp continued casting its hellish glow upon the cruiser's hood. The moon was higher than it was before, its face leering through interlaced branches like a peeping tom. Didn't the lunar cycle affect crazy people? Asylums supposedly explode with activity during the full moon, every nut up one side of the hall and down the other barking, stomping, and banging their head against the wall. Wonder what it's doing to the Santiago girl.
His stomach turned at that. He flashed back to what she did to those people at the gas station, one hanged upside down, throat slashed, and the other disemboweled, their guts heaped around them like a pile of rope sausage. The body they found by the side of the highway, hidden in the tall grass, had its neck snapped. How in the hell could a 105 pound woman break someone's neck? How could she hang a fully grown man upside down from a fucking rafter? He didn't know and it had been bothering him all night, now, as he stared upon the bright face of the moon, the sky around it glowing ghostly white, he thought he knew.
A shudder went through him and he turned away, letting the curtain fall back into place. His eyes went to the TV screen, where a woman in a pink blazer sat behind an anchor desk, her expression one of practiced neutrality. "...are searching this hour for an escaped mental patient who, they say, has claimed five lives in a cross-state killing spree."
Video played of police cruisers patrolling residential streets; bloodhounds leading uniforms through knee-high grass; and a roadblock outside Kitzmiller, burning flares laid out on either side of the road and state policemen in crisp campaign hats walking a line of idling cars with dogs and flashlights.
All that and we still can't find her, he thought with a flush. Earlier he caught himself thinking of her as Jason Voorhees, now he was starting to wonder if she was a ghost instead.
He shook his head and went into the kitchen. At the threshold, he missed a beat: One of the girls, the goth, stood at the sink with her back to him and her head down, her hands splayed on the countertop. She wore a black dress that stopped above her knees and a pair of clunky black boots with red laces. What was her name again? Lucy, that was it. He dated a Lucy in high school. Her last name was Westenra and she had fiery red hair...had a nice butt too.
Lucy didn't speak or move, and for some reason Rudd felt awkward. He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced at the table, where a slice of pie sat on a plate next to a steaming mug of coffee. "That's for you," Lucy said flatly, her voice barely above a mumble.
Rudd's stomach rumbled. "Thank you," he said and went over, sitting in the chair; it creaked dangerously under his weight but held. He picked up the mug, blew a curl of steam away, and took a sip. It was hot and sweet and good, like coffee should be. He tried to think of something to say to break the uncomfortable silence. "This is taking a lot longer than I thought," he said with a chuckle. He sat the cup down, picked up the fork, and carved a piece of the pie off. 'For my money, she's hiding under someone's back porch." Even as he spoke those words, the truth in them dawned on him. "That's gotta be it. Every cop in the area's out there right now." He tossed a glance over his shoulder; Lucy nodded her agreement. He turned, shoved the pie into his mouth, and chewed. Cherry. Nice, flaky crust, tart filling.
Taking a sip of coffee, Rudd sighed. "I still think we'll get her before sunrise." He cut another piece.
Behind him, Lucy lifted her head and stood up straight. She reached out, closed her fingers around the black handle of a butcher knife, and slowly, deliberately, turned, like a woman on a carousel. Her pallid, blood speckled flesh sagged down her face like drooping wax and her ragged eyeholes revealed not her eyes but someone else's, wide and muddled with insanity. A tongue darted out from the mouth beneath and licked her cold, dead lips, tasting her chilled saliva. The mask began to slip, and one brown hand pressed it against her face, the tacky, drying blood holding it in place.
Beginning to pant, Ronnie Anne took a silent step forward.
"I remember fifteen years ago," Rudd said around a mouthful and jabbed his fork at the wall, "a couple guys broke out the county jail and stole a car, took a woman hostage. Real pieces of work." He swallowed and took a drink.
Ronnie Anne's feet made no noise as they crossed the floor. Her heart raced at the promise of a fresh kill; she could already feel his hot blood on her hands, hear his dying screams like music in her head.
"...a week," he was saying, his posture relaxed. "They got into Canada and the mounties got 'em." He laughed.
She stopped at the back of the chair, so close she could smell his aftershave through Lucy's nose. His rumpled suit coat stretched tight across his shoulders as he hunched over his plate, the vulnerable nape of his neck exposed. "You'd be surprised how good those mounties are," he said.
Sneering, she lifted the knife above her head.
Rudd rasped laughter. "In fact, they -"
She flashed the knife down with all her might; it plunged deep into his neck at an angle, the blade piercing through the back of his throat and poking out of his mouth in a spray of blood like an alien chestburster. A jarring vibration ran up her arm and Rudd's body jerked, the chair collapsing under his weight and spilling him to the floor, the knife ripping from her hand. He toppled to one side and twitched amidst the splintered wood like a crushed bug, his spasming movements quickly ceasing as he lost consciousness. She stood over him for a long time, her shoulders rising and falling with the tide of her excited breathing, then she nudged him with her foot.
He didn't move.
Satisfied, she squatted down, grabbed the knife handle, and pulled the blade out like Excalibur from the fabled stone; it made a wet squelching sound as it withdrew, and once it was free, rich, red blood welled out of the wound. She held it up to the light and studied it closely...then brought it to her lips and licked, the coppery taste of pennies filling her mouth. A shiver of delight raced down her spine, and, getting onto her knees, she pressed her lips to the entry wound and greedily sucked like a vampire.
Not one of us, not one of us, the Louds chanted. She rocked back and looked around, but didn't see any of them. You're totes not Lincy's sister, Leni said.
"Yes I am," she said and got to her feet, her hand clutching the knife tighter. She took a step toward the threshold to the living room, wood crackling under her foot.
She was Lincoln's sister...and she was about to prove it.
Once and for all.
