Back From The Dead

have six years of baggage on him, branding him as an outcast. If he’d learned about any of Tim’s history from the other kids he never revealed it, or let it affect him. Tim had known Al, Matt, and Chelsea casually since Middle School and everything seemed to just magically come together when George arrived. They started hanging out together at school. And it was shortly after that he began to really notice Chelsea. She’d always seemed to carry an aura of trouble about her. Tim could never pin anything specific to her, but the impression he had was she was not the typical cliched fake tortured soul so many artsy kids pretended to be. It had taken Chelsea a good two months to open up to the others during their lunchtime conversations. It wasn’t until the last few weeks that Tim noticed three things about her: he really liked her as a human being, he was physically attracted to her, and she’d had some serious psychological problems in the past that had caused her to cut herself. More than once Tim caught a glimpse of scars running diagonally along her right inner forearm. The first time he noticed them it immediately made sense. Late in their tenth grade year, Chelsea had missed school for two weeks, with no explanation given for the absence. He’d wanted to ask her about it but wasn’t sure how to approach the subject. Maybe it was better if he didn’t. Besides, it didn’t matter. He liked her, and that was all that mattered.

Tim walked to class and slid into his seat in Mrs. Fegley’s Algebra class. The rest of the afternoon went by in a dreaming haze.

* * *

Through all the laughter, David couldn’t hear Scott yelling at him to stop. He hit the bum in the face again, his fists plowing two front teeth out. The bum’s face was a swollen, bloody mass of flesh. His right eye was completely swollen shut. He’d been pounding on the piece of shit the past minute or so and he was already working up a sweat. His fists and face were spattered with the man’s blood.

A hand gripped his wrist, stopping his next blow. “I said stop!” Scott yelled.

David started, suddenly back in focus. He blinked, panting with exertion.

They’d trussed the homeless guy up by a pulley they installed on the ceiling via a heavy steel hook. Dangling from thick chains at the wrists, the homeless man had been stripped to the waist. His body was a mass of contusions and heavy bruising. His left side was puffy and swollen from repeated kicks and blows. The hardwood floor he dangled above was wet with piss and blood. The bum dangled, his breathing raspy, barely conscious.

Scott hauled David back. “Jesus Christ, I can’t believe you!”

David stepped away, confused. “I thought that’s what we brought him here for?”

“We didn’t bring him here so you can kill him on the first day!” Scott yelled.

Scott and David were the only two in attendance in the guest house after the abduction. Since then, they’d pretty much left the bum alone. Scott had kept him gagged and tied up and allowed him to regain his senses. Then today after school he and David showed up to have some fun. Scott’s mistake was letting David go first.

“I want a crack at him too, you fucking asshole! Look what you did to his goddamn eye! You damn near punched it the fuck out of the socket!”

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” David rubbed a grimy forearm against his sweaty brow. Scott managed a grin and threw a mock punch at David. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

They left the guesthouse; Scott locked the door behind them. They could leave the homeless guy dangling there all night for all he cared. His throat was already blown out from trying to scream his way through the gag. Scott discovered that this morning when he’d gone in to check on him.

They paused at the little gazebo in the center of the well-manicured back yard. Scott sat down on the quaint oak bench and David sat down next to him. He peeled off his shirt, revealing a well-muscled abdomen. Scott leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. “Gordon and Steve haven’t said anything, right?”

“Nah,” David said. He looked at Scott. “They’re cool, man. I told you we’re all cool with it.”

“Yeah, but the more people know, the more of a chance we’ll get caught!”

“Not if we keep it to the four of us.”

“All I want is a week with him,” Scott said. “I want my turn in a day or two. Then we can let Gordon and Steve have a turn.”

“And no filming,” David said.

“Goddamn right. No filming the shit and posting it to Youtube. That’s how all those other assholes get caught.” He rose to his feet and David followed. “Come on, I’m hungry.”

They headed to the house. “He’s only gonna last for so long. I figure when we’re done we can bury him in the woods that border Zuck’s Farm. We’ll do it right, too. Wrap him in plastic and dig a good five foot hole, drop him in.”

David nodded. “Yeah, that’s the ticket.”

Scott led the way in to the spacious house through the breakfast nook. As they stepped inside, David was struck by the immense size of the Bradfield home. It was immaculate. Well over four thousand square feet, it had five bedrooms and five baths, a large great room with vaulted ceilings, a large kitchen, a dining room, and a four car garage. There was an indoor swimming pool off the combination mud room/laundry room near the garage. The basement was finished and contained a family room with a wet bar, a media room, guest quarters, and a small workroom where Scott’s father had woodworking tools: bandsaw, various hammers and pliers, even a goddamn chainsaw. That was a lot of house for only three people, but David lived in a house that was only slightly smaller, with his brother and sister.

Scott opened the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of orange juice. “Thirsty?”

“Yeah.”

David sat on one of the stools at the counter as Scott pulled down a pair of drinking glasses. As he poured the juice, Scott glanced at the clock on the wall. It was just after four P.M. “Your folks working late again this week?”

“Dad is. Not sure about Mom.” Scott handed a glass to him.

“I can’t believe your mom still works,” David said. He took a sip of his orange juice; it was freshly squeezed, just the way he liked it. “When my dad was made senior partner, Mom quit her job.”

“My mom loves this shit,” Scott said. He was standing on the other side of the counter. He took a quick gulp of orange juice. “She always has. I mean, they met at work.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” Scott finished the rest of his juice in several gulps, set the glass down and sighed. “That hit the spot.”

“So…your mom’s always worked, then?”

“Pretty much. She works, does her country club shit on the weekends.”

David took another sip of his orange juice. When his mom quit her job, she said it was because she wanted to be home for when he and his sister returned from school. I don’t like the idea of you coming home to an empty house or spending the afternoons at the Rec Center, she’d said at the time. David had been hoping she’d change her mind; having mom around now was like being under the watch of the Gestapo. Ever since that day five years ago when his parents received that call from school telling them what he’d done to Count Gaines, Mom never fully trusted him again, even after he apologized a thousand times and went out of his way to be extra nice to her and shower her with presents. Now she was constantly checking up on him, calling the homes of his friends to inquire about him.

“That sucks,” Scott said.

David nodded. That pretty much echoed his sentiment.

“So…we cool?” Scott asked. He was looking at David as if he were trying to get a read on him.

David finished his juice and set the empty glass down on the counter. “Yeah, we’re cool.”

“I’m going to keep Rebecca away from the house.” Rebecca was Scott’s gorgeous, and incredibly nosy, girlfriend. It was a minor miracle Rebecca wasn’t along last night. She was known for dropping by Scott’s house unexpectedly to check up on him.

“She still doesn’t know about the Intercourse incident, right?”

“Hell no!”

David grinned at the memory of the Intercourse incident. Late last summer, just before school started, he, Gordon, and Scott had gone cruising around in Intercourse, a small town about fifteen miles away. Intercourse was a big tourist attraction, drawing thousands of people a year to its quaint streets and shops run by the Amish. There was actually a big Amish population in Intercourse, with the majority of them living on farms in the surrounding countryside. On the day in question, with David driving, they’d cruised around the town until they found their likely