Chapter 4
(Caitlin's POV)
I waited on the knitted couch in the living room with Nick by my side as Bo went to get Emily who was somewhere in the house with that Vincent guy. Suddenly they both came down the staircase to our left and walked into the room casually. Vincent was nowhere in sight. But then as I looked up the stairs I saw him lurking in the shadows of the long upstairs hall.
I shuddered, "Em? Can we talk…in private?"
I glanced at Bo who got the hint and eyed me suspiciously before exiting through the front door.
"What?" she asked, pulling up her dark skinny jeans.
I sighed and walked over to her, whispering so Vincent couldn't hear. "When are we leaving this place?"
I could tell she was chewing on how to answer that for a moment. She twirled her hair which I knew she did when she was nervous.
"I'm not leaving," she simply stated. I heard shuffling upstairs as Vincent walked down, dark jeans and a long black trench coat cloaking his muscular body.
"What?! But you're supposed to go to college to become an artist! You're throwing your life away for HIM!" I screamed, pointing at Vincent.
I stormed out, Nick rolling his eyes and following behind me.
"Can you believe that she isn't leaving? What are WE supposed to do?" I fumed, scuffing my boots in the dirt.
Nick shrugged. "Leave?"
"But she's my best friend. I can't."
"We'll think of something, Cait." He smiled.
We made out way down the long street and over to some church.
"Let's go in." Nick said excitedly, jogging over to the front door.
Sighing, I followed.
"Woah." I breathed when I caught up with Nick and got a good look at the church.
There were people sitting in the pews, not moving. A priest stood next to a coffin, and gospel music was playing. Nick and I exchanged a confused glance and then proceeded to touch one of the still, cold people.
Nick grabbed onto an old lady's hand, and then let out a horrified screech as the hand came off. I screamed, clutching onto Nick's arm as he chucked it, blood, bones and flesh showing where the hand should've been connected to her body.
"Th-that was a r-real person." I began hyperventilating, squeezing his arm even tighter.
"Covered in wax." He whispered, wiping his hand on his baggy jeans.
"Well, well, well. What do we have here? Two teenagers meddling with things they shouldn't. Do you know how hard both I and my brother worked to create that? You destroy it like our twenty one years of being destined to do this don't mean nothing."
I let out a scream, whipping my head and looking at the doorway. Bo was standing there, leaning against the frame with a huge axe in his hand. He was stroking it, a smile playing on his lips.
"What the FUCK is going on?!" Nick shouted, taking a step back.
I shrunk behind him, a chill going up my spine as I looked from Bo with the axe to the people in the pews which I squirmed away from.
"You really want to know? Fine. My brother, Vincent, immobilizes people in wax. I kill them first, of course, sometimes he does too," he chuckled, "But sometimes they don't get killed first. And then we place them in the House of Wax or…anywhere in town. Tourists that come here, visitors or people that originally lived here die and become art. And now that you two know," He eyed his axe, and then looked at us with a blood thirsty look in his eyes, strutting forward a little. "I'm going to have to kill you."
I stood there, in shock, my heart racing.
"Run!" Nick ordered as he whipped out the knife he had pocketed before.
The knife was no match against an axe, but it was something to protect us.
"Are you kidding?! We're not splitting up and I'm NOT leaving you!" I retorted, my eyes full of fear as Bo advanced, laughing maniacally, brandishing the axe.
"Don't be stupid! I'm not letting you get hurt!" He growled, pushing me forcefully away from him.
I was about to say something else when Bo swung his axe, missing Nick's head by inches, causing Nick to stubble back, trip and fall on his butt. Bo bent over him, swung the axe up and down, but Nick evaded him by rolling away. Nick thrust the knife forward, but Bo easily dodged it. I could hear my pulse in my ears as Nick's head missed the glinting axe, a terrified expression on his face.
"No! STOP!" I screeched, tears filling up in my eyes.
Bo immediately stopped and turned towards me. I sobbed and began back up, flat against the wall.
"What?" Bo pouted, "I'm not going to HURT you." He raised the axe.
My chest rose and fell rapidly as I imagined my death right then and there. My head was spinning and I couldn't think straight, let alone at all. Bo was now about two feet in front of me, laughing, getting ready to strike.
"BO! WAIT!" Another girl's voice echoed through the room.
Bo looked shocked. "Emily?"
I sighed in relief as he lowered the axe long enough for me to scamper over to Nick, him holding me defensively with one arm and the knife in the other.
"Bo! Stop it!" Emily screamed as Vincent appeared behind her. "You can't kill them!"
"They found out!" Bo protested, "They know and they're going to tell the cops!"
"We w-won't" I hiccupped, now to scared to move. "W-we won't."
"Shut up." Bo spat, actually spitting at our feet.
"I don't think we should kill them." Vincent said softly, so soft I could only make out 'Don't'.
"They're my friends." Emily stepped forward, not taking her eyes off of Bo.
He lowered his axe, his angered face melting away. "Okay. But only because you don't want me too. Anything for you."
"Thank you." Emily said crisply, walking over to me and Nick.
Both of us we now huddled together, and my face was buried into his chest. I still was in shock, and I still didn't trust Bo even though he had walked swiftly out of the church.
"You two okay?" Emily asked nervously, bending down besides us.
"What do you think?" Nick hissed, glaring up at her. She shot him a look.
"It's not my fault that Bo…well that he almost killed you. I just saved your life." She replied, leaning back on her hands.
"You brought me…us here!" I choked out, still crying.
"I'm sorry…I just thought…I thought you would be okay with all this."
"Killing people?! No, I'm not okay with that!"
Emily didn't reply, but instead helped me and Nick up. Vincent walked over to us and stood, staring at me. I shivered and backed up behind Nick again, whimpering.
"Sorry." I apologized as Vincent looked at himself and then walked away, looking a bit angry, making me slightly more nervous then I already was. Emily gave his hand a squeeze before he walked off into the darkness, his black hair hanging over his shoulders.
"Come on. There's a guest room at the house." Emily said soothingly, walking besides me.
Nick slipped the knife back into his pocket and I wrapped both of my arms around him.
When we got to the house, Emily showed us a bedroom upstairs which had a bathroom attached.
"Don't worry," she said as I gave a worried glance around the room, "Bo won't do anything. Or Vincent."
I nodded, sitting down on the bed, which caused a cloud of dust to appear. Nick sat down next to me.
"Do you have any clothes or something?" He asked, looking at his muddy jeans and sweaty shirt.
"I'll look." Emily smiled, walking out the door.
Nick stood up and locked it.
"Emily would never hurt us," I choked. "But I really don't know about Bo. And Vincent doesn't look like he would do anything to upset Emily. I don't like the way he glares at me though."
Nick growled, staring at his feet. "Maybe we should just hear them out."
"What?" I whisper yelled, afraid that they would hear us. "You would actually help them?"
"I didn't say help them, but maybe if…I don't know…"
"I don't know what to do." I confessed, lying down on the bed.
"Yeah, I know the feeling." Nick agreed, lying down next to me.
We stared at each other for a long moment before he leaned in and kissed me for what seemed like forever but it also ended too quickly.
"Just remember I will protect you," Nick said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~EMILYS POV~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I sat down on the work bench in Vincent's chambers downstairs. He stared over at me from his work station about two feet away, paining on the face of one of the trampy blondes from before. I watched earlier as he put them both in a chair with a horrific device around their faces as wax sputtered from multiple faucets onto their cold dead bodies after he waxed off all of their hair.
The fire smoldered behind us and provided the only light in the basement. Vincent's face looked almost real in the fires glow.
"What?" I laughed slightly, curling my legs up to my chest, hugging them, my hair spilled over my shoulders.
He shook his head and went back to work.
I scooted down the steel bench and over to the end where he was sitting on a chair, bent over an operating table with a wax covered body placed carefully in a specific position.
He looked up again.
I pulled on the sleeves of my sweatshirt and sighed.
He tilted his head slightly to the side as if to ask 'what?'
I shook my head and got up so I was standing behind him and ran my hands over his shoulders and across his back. Then I bent down a little, wrapping my arms around his neck and resting my chin on his shoulder.
"Don't be upset about Caitlin being afraid," I muttered. "She just is surprised."
He seemed to sigh slightly before talking a giant knife off the side of the table next to us with various medieval looking tools lying across it in piles.
He ran his finger across the blade, light enough so it wouldn't cut it open.
I kissed the side of his head before sitting back on the bench right next to him. "Where are you going to put them?"
He didn't take his eyes off the knife, "Don't know."
I didn't say anything and it seemed to bother him.
"Keep talking," he murmured. My mind flashed back to one day when I used to live here in one of those nights that I sat in the same place next to him as he worked, talking nonstop. At first I felt self-conscious about it, talking so much, and when I asked him if I was bothering him with it he told me he likes having someone talk to him. He also said it calms him.
I smiled a little, "Well, since you usually put the people in a position that they would fit in, like the Priest in the church, and the maid in the kitchen, maybe you should put them in the ballroom where parties took place. They certainly look like they did a lot of parting in their days."
He seemed to laugh slightly and seemed slightly like he was exhaling.
"You know what I never understood," I pondered.
He glanced up at me for a second then back to the girl, attaching a follicle of hair to her eyebrows.
"Why is the bedroom in the House empty?"
He shrugged, "I haven't been inspired yet."
"So…what do you think of Caitlin and Nick?"
"I don't care for Nick. I don't like Caitlin because she grimaces every time she sees me."
"She doesn't know you! And she just is scared and surprised, is all."
He didn't say anything, just continued to work on the girl's face.
"I think if she got to know you like I did she would like you. I mean I love you so you can't be THAT bad," I smirked and he did too.
"Maybe she just thinks you're cute," I poked him making him laugh.
"EMILY!" Bo screamed from upstairs. "EEEMILLYY!!!!"
"JESUS CHRIST CALM DOWN!" I called back, standing up. Vincent snickered slightly.
"I'll be back," I chortled. "Bo may bust a blood vessel if I don't go see what he wants."
Once I reached the living room where he was leaning on the big green and black pool table I saw that he had a machete in his hands and his face and clothes were all muddy.
"What happened to you?" I asked, eyeing him.
He snickered, "We got a few more visitors out in the woods. I got into a brawl with some girl out there, shes locked up in the gas station basement. And her little boyfriend is still runnin around here in town some place."
"Hmmm," I thought. "Did you finish off the girl yet?"
"Nope," he shook his head.
"I want her," I commanded. "Don't feel like a chase right now."
"That's unlike you," Bo laughed, standing dangerously close to me now and I backed away. "I guess Vincent and I will have to take care of his friend."
"I want to help," a voice said from behind me suddenly, making me jump a little.
"Nick?" I gasped.