She sat on the bed and took another swig of vodka, the liquid scorching all the way down. Then she unscrewed the cap and popped three Oxy. Took a long pull of vodka.
After waiting a few more minutes, she took more pills, washing them down with what her mother called “firewater.”
Regina alternated pills and vodka for a bit. Then she fluffed her pillow, head swimming, and laid down.
Five
Hope had texted Chris: come on over. Her dad was on a business trip again. It was a great way to start a Sunday: the sky was clear and blue, and his girlfriend’s dad wasn’t home. He told his mother he was shooting over there and they were going for Subway. She didn’t question it.
She lived two blocks over in a mansion on Main Street. It had once belonged to a prominent surgeon. Had a turret on one side of the house that reminded Chris of a battlement. If her father had his way, there’d probably be archers waiting to shoot at him.
Hope answered the door. She looked beautiful. Tank top. Shorts. Hair in a ponytail.
“You look great,” Chris said.
“I do? I didn’t even put makeup on. But thanks.”
“How long is your dad gone?”
“Don’t get any ideas. If my father thinks you’re up to something, he’ll have you hung at the traffic circle.”
She came up to him, put her arms around his neck. He leaned in and kissed her deep. She smelled great. Like coconut suntan lotion. She flicked her tongue into his mouth.
She broke off the kiss. “We’d better stop.”
“Um, yeah,” Chris said.
“Did you hear about the murders?”
“Where?”
“At the park. Joggers. I heard my dad on the phone. It was on the news, but they didn’t tell everyone that supposedly the guy cut the jogger’s head off.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. My dad’s friends with one of the cops who was on the scene. Want something to drink?”
They moved into the spacious kitchen, which was dominated by a granite-top island big enough to land a fighter jet. “Yeah.”
Hope went to the fridge and pulled a bottle of Dr. Pepper from a six-pack. She handed it to Chris. He unscrewed the cap and it hissed. He took a drink. “Cut the guy’s head off, shit.”
“Dad said the guy’s girlfriend saw the whole thing. And the killer disappeared. What if it was Him?”
“The Walking Man?”
Her eyes lit up. Hope regularly scoured websites about urban legends looking for info on the Walking Man. She’d even found some musty books at a library sale with a few references to the Walking Man in them. “Since we’re bringing it up, I saw someone walking home from Tully’s.”
“Where?”
“Near the house.”
He didn’t have to say which house.
“What did he look like?” Hope said.
“Hard to tell. It was creepy, though. I got the hell out of there.”
“We should go up to the house,” Hope said. “Check it out.”
“That place is falling apart. We might fall through the floorboards.”
“We survived the Richardson Complex.”
“Yeah, until that ceiling in the old psych wing almost came down on our heads,” Chris said.
“Where’s your sense of adventure? I wonder if he’ll mark four victims, like last time.”
Hope had filled him in on all things Walking Man. “Those girls that got killed in the sixties? The guy that killed them got the chair,” Chris said.
“The guy that got the chair? Dean something. He saw someone up by the caves. Cops didn’t buy it.”
Chris took a swig of Dr. Pepper. “He had blood all over his shirt. He killed them, Hope.”
“September fifteenth, nineteen ninety. Guy driving home from the night shift sees a tall figure cross the road. Long coat. Floppy hat. Describes the guy as zombie-like.”
Chris snorted. “Probably a homeless guy.”
“How many homeless guys you see in town? And there was the stuff that went down in oh-three.”
She had him there. Their town probably had some sort of ordinance in town against the homeless. “Some kids get killed, doesn’t mean it’s the Walking Man.”
“Let’s check out the house. What can it hurt? I’ll go alone if I have to,” Hope said.
Chris sighed. “All right. We’ll check it out.”
She came over and threw her arms around his neck. “Best boyfriend ever.”
“We’ll go tonight,” she said. “This is gonna be cool.”
That night, Chris came and picked up Hope, who had a whole backpack ready go, which didn’t surprise him. “What you got there?”
“Bottled water, granola bars, two flashlights, batteries, a poncho, a first aid kit and my dad’s hunting knife.”
“Planning on sleeping over?” Chris said.
She adjusted the straps and repositioned the pack. She had a big smile on her face and he knew she lived for stuff like this. In the fall they were going to explore the abandoned Central Terminal downtown and a few of the old grain mills by the river. Hope was thinking they’d run into a lizard man in one of the tunnels under the mill. Supposedly someone had seen a seven-foot-tall humanoid creature down there. Chris doubted it, but if it made Hope happy, he was down with it.
“Your parents would kill you if they knew we were doing this,” she said.
“Never mind them. Hey, we should check out the old slaughterhouse, too.”
“Why not?”
“Let’s go there first,” Hope said.
“Surprised you haven’t been already, urban explorer,” he said.
“Tough to sneak out, but with Dad out of town,” she said, and waggled her eyebrows
