4

They made it to Main Street, while crossing 34th and 67th street from a near dead-end like intersection. It seemed too quiet for a normal night. There should be some cars by now. He knew someone should be working late tonight.

"You know where my house is, right?" Oliver asked.

"Is it by Big Pete's Supermarket?"

"Yeah, but it's more down the middle by the end of the street from where you enter there, Richard."

"All right," he said, and did as he was told.

They drove up front at the Fitzgerald's residence. Their house was sleek, built by good wood and bricks. He wished he could identify what they were and how it was built. All he could do was stare at the door, the porch, and the windows that seem to show both sides of the house—the right and the left side—and just stands proud. It stands with pride and doesn't care about what you think of it.

"Come on in," he said, immediately getting out of the car.

Richard got out as well, but backed off a bit when Oliver lit up a cigarette. He didn't know he smoked, but what startled him was how he was acting when he got a light of that addictive nicotine. He looked uneasy now. It was almost as if he was shot up with adrenaline and wanted to wreck stuff. But it also had that nervous feel to it. Almost as if he didn't want to go in the house. Almost as if he was scared.

Nonetheless, they walked up the stairs and—

There were a couple of drops of blood on the welcome matt. Richard noticed, but Oliver just hurried up and opened the door. When he did, Richard was startled.

There lied the mutilated body of Mrs. Fitzgerald, his wife whom he didn't know her name. He probably saw her a couple times, maybe. But he never met her. He knew that how they met with her a bullet hole from behind her head.

He felt the need to puke, maybe. Vomit, even.

Die, even. Walking in that room seemed to have driven a knife, deep, in his very soul.

"Oh god," he whispered, before tripping on something.

He looked down and saw there the body of their youngest daughter. He didn't know her name, either, but the body that streamed down her mouth and eyes seemed to have given Richard the best, worst first impression the world has ever known. Maybe it only counts when you meet alive, maybe not. Her body was stabbed multiple times before dying. He noticed how the eyes seemed to have been gut out, even.

He cuffed his mouth with both of his hands in shriek terror.

"Oliver, what happened?" he asked. He couldn't bear to look him in the eye.

"Oliver," he repeated, this time looking at him. But he wasn't there anymore.

He looked over at the stairs that lead to the second floor of the house…He saw now the body of Penny Fitzgerald—at least, just the top part of her body. (He knew her when his son, Gumball, always said he had a crush on her. He even told them about their mom and younger sister. He never mentioned their names, but that didn't matter.) The head was gone, it seemed. But blood now dominated the stairway, as it could trip anyone who stepped on the blood and fall and break their backs, leading them to a permanent paralyzes.

He saw the light from upstairs turn up, coming down fast, with a suitcase (some clothes stuck out from each end) and a gallon that seemed to have had milk previously, but something else was now in it.

"Oliver, what the—"

"No time," he said. "We got to go, Richard."

He stumbled, almost tripping against the dead body of his wife, which he refused to look at.

"No," he said, grabbing his arm. He took enough pain from his own past, and this was one that could happen if he just lets him leave, ignoring the corpses like they were nothing—dust, even.

"Richard…Let go…We don't got time for this."

"Then tell me in a long-story-short way. I need to know what happened here."

"You want to know what happened, is that it? I killed them. Those guys out there were shooting us out in the road were there for something; they may be the ones that I did my assignment for to get paid for all that money. Now, they said they were going to kill my family. I didn't want that, Richard. But I can't protect them. I was too involved in trouble to just escape and ruin their lives. They would have suffered worse than what happened here. I shot my wife in the head, and my own daughter—both from the back. I didn't count on her getting shot in the eyes when I did it. Penny was the worse. She struggled. I tried choking her, but she slipped down the stairs and was hurt. She was, real bad, Richard. I tried to do it again, but it hurt worse. So I had to cut it off…I couldn't think at the time, Richard. I had to do something quick."

"What was the assignment?" he asked.

"It doesn't matter. What matters is that those guys outside will kill us. They will kill us, both of us. I want you to leave your family behind. I know what I said back then, but that was before I thought we had time to get out of here. I want you to come with me so they won't catch us. We'll leave them so they won't get hurt. Please, Richard. Look what I had to do…Don't suffer from making the same decision I had to make. Just come along with me, and we'll fix this. Your family can't get involved. Mine did because they knew who I was. Not yours, Richard, not yours, anyway. You can still make it, hide away a bit, and then come back. "

"I can't believe you got me into this."

"I know, and I'm sorry. But with the money, we can live a better life; we can travel places we have always dreamed about when we were little kids. Trust me, and just go along with me. Trust me."

Hey, it's me. If you want to know top ten facts about me, go on to my profile page.

~ EvelioandZgroup