Chapter 15

Holly rushed home early without returning the keys of all the bunkers to the home office. She needed to get Billy to the shrink’s place on time. She should have put them back, but she’d started her rounds late today due to a staff meeting, and she needed to get her brother to the doctor.

She’d left him a note this morning that he should be ready to go when she got home, and a shower would be necessary.

Taking the stairs two at a time, she dug through her pockets for the keys and cursed the parking situation at the apartment building. The closest spot she could find had been two blocks away.

After pulling them out, she jammed one in the door when she reached their apartment and hurried inside. Her muscles throughout her body tensed in anger as she took in the scene, and she began to shake.

Billy lay on the couch, softly snoring, while Judge Judy yelled at someone on the television. He still wore yesterdays clothes, and the odor in the room clarified he definitely hadn’t showered.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm herself. Billy suffered from PTSD and severe depression, and she had to cut him some slack.

But there’s a difference between being patient with someone and having them take advantage of you.

Something inside her snapped, and her anger exploded. She marched over to the television and turned it off.

“Get up, Billy!” she shouted.

He slowly opened his eyes.

“I asked you to do one thing today. Do you remember what it was?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I asked you to take a shower and be ready to go when I got home. Was that too much to ask? Apparently.”

“I’m not going,” he mumbled and rolled over.

She barely heard him as the hurt of being taken for granted stabbed at her. Her eyes welled with tears, and she swiped them away. “Billy, I have been working my ass off trying to support us, trying to make sure you get the proper treatment that you need. I ask nothing of you! Nothing! I don’t ask you to do the dishes, or laundry, or even contribute to the bills! I let you gamble away your monthly pension because it seems to make you happy! All I asked of you today was to get in the damn shower and be ready when I got home!”

“I’m not going,” he mumbled again.

“I’m sick and tired of this shit, Billy! I can’t keep living like this!”

He turned over and glared at her. “Then leave. I don’t fucking care. I never asked you to be my babysitter, Holly.”

Shaking with anger, her chest heaved as the tears rolled down her face. She wanted to smack him across the face; she wanted to beat him with a baseball bat. As she trembled, she realized she needed to put some space between herself and this situation, or she may do or say something that she’d regret.

“Fuck you, Billy,” she mumbled as she went into her bedroom to change and grab her sneakers.

“I’ll see you when I see you, Holly,” he said as she slammed the front door.

She bounded down the stairs and took off running, not bothering to stretch out. A raised planter stood to her left, and she jumped on it, ran the cement rail, then did a flip of the end, hitting the ground with her shoulder and rolling back into a standing position.

As she continued her run, the tears streamed down her face. The muscles in her legs burned as she pushed herself harder and faster. She wanted to run away from all the feelings she had, but as she pumped her arms, she also knew that trying to outrun them would be useless. Instead, she would have to deal with them, and figure out what would be best for both her and Billy because she knew she’d reached the end of her rope.

Perhaps she should see about having him committed to a mental facility, even for just a short period of time. The thought made her heart hurt as she remembered the last time he’d been committed. They’d had him so drugged up he could barely walk, but the medication did help combat the night terrors he experienced.

Maybe she needed to call his counselor and talk to him about it, demand it become an option. If Billy couldn’t even get up to take a shower to meet with his shrink, his mental state had definitely declined, and it needed to be addressed. However, it wasn’t like she could throw him over her shoulder and take him to the doctor.

Not being able to go any farther, she stopped and stooped over, placing her hands on her knees. Sucking in deep breaths, she tried to calm her racing heartbeat. Between the tears, snot, and sweat running down her face, she must look like she was the one who belonged in a mental institution.

She grinned at the thought, almost feeling like being sacked out on a bunch of drugs while staring at the walls would seem like a vacation from her current life.

Standing upright, she decided something needed to be done, and it had to be done fast. She guessed she’d gone a little over a mile, but the emotional drain and her hard sprint had left her with little energy, so she walked home.

Twenty minutes later, she’d made up her mind. Although Billy would fight it, he needed more assistance than she could give him. He needed professional help, and he’d be angry with her, but she would make sure he got it.

As she entered the apartment and shut the door, it registered that something seemed to be off.

A jolt of fear ran through her as someone grabbed her from behind, placing a latex glove over her mouth and nose and wrapping an arm around her waist. She couldn’t breathe. Panic rose as she called on her training and tried to fight him off. A heel to his foot, an elbow to the gut, and she tried to spin out from his grasp, but he overpowered her, and after a moment, she stilled. Her run had zapped the strength she needed to overcome him.

“Good girl,” he whispered in her ear as he slipped something hard into her hand and then put his fingers around hers, forcing her to grasp it. He stood very still for a moment, and she wondered what it could be. Her hand closed around it fully, and she realized it felt like some type of handle. But to what? She also recognized a wet and sticky sensation.

He stepped away and quickly moved in front of her, leveling a gun at her forehead.

She glanced down at what she held and saw a bloody knife. At the same, the coppery smell of blood wormed its way into her olfactory senses and she glanced around the room.

“The guy is dead,” her attacker said. “I did you a favor and killed him.”

Tears of fear stung her eyes, and her body began to shake. He’d killed Billy?

“I heard your argument before you left. I can’t stand loud noise, and you definitely let everyone hear exactly what you thought.”

She dropped the knife, barely able to stand. Her hand looked crimson, and she absently wiped it on her shorts and t-shirt as she remembered she hadn’t locked the door when she left.

“See, some people are so simple. Your feelings are basic, almost rudimentary.”

Glancing around the room again, she saw Billy’s bare foot hanging over the edge of the arm of the sofa, just as it had been when she left.

“If you doubt that he’s dead, please … go ahead and check for yourself.”

She looked from the intruder to the couch.

“Please. Go ahead.”

She inched toward the couch, but she already knew the answer as the smell of blood had become so pungent, her throat constricted and she felt light-headed.

Peeking over the back of the sofa, she saw Billy lying there, blood pooling from his throat and dripping down the couch. His dead, blue eyes stared up at her, and she realized that they hadn’t looked much different when his heart had been beating in his chest.

The life had gone out of him long before he’d been murdered.

She sank to her knees and brought her hands to her face. The tears came in waves, the guilt eating at her with each passing moment. Her chest ached, and for a moment, she forgot about the intruder as she remembered her last words to her brother—fuck you.

“Although I appreciate the theatrics, get up.”

Placing her hand on the back of the sofa, she did as instructed and fully expected to meet her own demise. She studied the intruders’ disheveled black hair, his intense blue eyes, and terribly average face and body, and she longed to find the energy to lunge at him, to do to him what he’d done to her brother. However, it seemed with each passing second, the life drained out of her as well.

“See, the thing with people like you is that you have a conscience. My guess is right now, you are feeling horrible that the last words you spoke him were, and I quote, ‘fuck you’.”

Her chest heaved, laden with guilt and morose, leaving her unable to speak.

“Well, I took care of your problem for you, so actually, instead of standing there in front of me like a meek little troll, you should be thanking me. You should be thrilled that I don’t have a conscience and it doesn’t matter who I kill.”

She looked to the ratty, brown carpet.

“Yes, I heard the whole thing. What an ungrateful piece of shit he was. You can thank me at any time.”

The lightheadedness returned, and she fought the urge to sink to her knees again.

“But see, here’s the thing, Holly.”

She glanced up at him at the sound of her name.

“Oh, yes, he told me your name before he died. I actually think he appreciated what I did, but that’s a different discussion, one I’m not going to have with you.”

Had Billy wanted to die?

“Anyway, like my master says, there are people like you, and there are people like me. I don’t have that little voice inside me telling me right from wrong. Now, I’ve taken the life of your brother, but my master says that I can also make your life terrible, absolutely awful, without laying a hand on you.”

He approached her, standing directly in front of her.

As she gazed up at him, she trembled, and fear immobilized her further. Her whole being turned cold with terror, and she felt as if she gazed directly into the eyes of pure evil. The Devil himself couldn’t have scared her any worse.

“Guilt,” he whispered. “The guilt that is bubbling up inside you will slowly eat at you. You will never be able to forgive yourself for what took place here.”

She shook her head, the tears unstoppable. “You did this, not me.”

He grinned at her, and her knees weakened yet again as he leaned in close to her ear. “Yes, I did. But here’s the thing, Holly. You are the one with blood all over you. Your fingerprints are on the knife. You will rot in jail for the rest of your life, your physical form decaying away slowly, day by day, while the guilt eats your soul.”

He stepped back and grinned, his crooked teeth gleaming in the low lighting.

“No!” she yelled, pushing him away from her. “People will believe me when I tell them what happened!”

He chuckled as he removed his bloody gloves and shoved them and the gun into his pocket. “You go ahead and see what the police say, Holly.”

Pulling out his phone, he dialed. As his words sank in, she realized he may be right. All the evidence led back to her as Billy’s murderer. Glancing down at the knife, she knew she had to incapacitate the intruder, then call the police and tell them what happened.

In a quick succession of movements, she bent down and retrieved the knife then lunged at him. He stepped aside, then slammed her headfirst into the wall.

Pain exploded in her skull, and the impact made her head spin. She dropped the knife and sank to the ground.

“You try anything like that again, and I’ll cut you up into a million pieces, Holly. Don’t fuck with my plans. My master will appreciate this killing so much!”

She glanced around the room as he giggled, trying to calm the ache in her skull. The laugh sounded like something from a villain out of a horror movie.

“Yes! Operator! I think there’s a problem with one of my neighbors! They were screaming at each other, then she threatened to kill him! There was just a bunch of banging around—you need to send someone!”

He gave the address, then hung up the phone. “Goodbye, Holly. I will get great pleasure thinking of the misery you’re experiencing at my hands.”

Staring at her a moment, he shook his head. “And to think I didn’t even have to kill you to feel so satisfied. That’s never happened before.”

He slipped out the front door, and she was left alone with Billy’s body.

Placing her head in her hands, she tried to think logically about the situation as the sobs wracked her body, the tears never-ending. Yet, she couldn’t clear her clouded mind as her brother lay dead mere feet from her.

She heard the sirens in the distance and got to her feet. Her prints were on the knife. She had blood on her hands, her shirt, her shoes. She’d fought with Billy, and people had heard it. Certainly, no one would believe she’d be capable of taking his life, but all the evidence pointed that way.

Images of a prison cell flashed through her mind. She’d watched enough television to know she didn’t want any part of it. She was innocent, and she wouldn’t spend a second locked behind bars for something she didn’t do.

Racing into her room, she pulled on a sweatshirt and quickly washed her hands and face, then grabbed the keys to the car. The sirens drew closer, and her chest tightened as panic welled within her.

Staring at the keys to the bunkers, an idea began to form. She needed to hide until she worked out how she would get out of this mess, until she could figure out who that psycho had been and turn him over to the authorities. He obviously lived in the apartment complex close by, and she should be able to find him without too much trouble.

The bunkers could provide her refuge, so she shoved that set of keys into her sweatshirt pocket along with the others.

Opening her bedroom window, she climbed out onto the fire escape and jumped over the edge, landing on the cement. She cursed as sharp pain radiated up her legs and she looked around to make sure she hadn’t been spotted.

“Goodbye, Billy,” she whispered, and then took off a dead run for her car parked two blocks away.