Episodes of Violence Read online

Daemon ignored her, concentrating on what Bobby was saying.

  “I heard cops talking over the police scanner,” Bobby said. “The driver and passenger died at the scene.”

  Daemon remained silent, unsure of what to say. People died all the time. People he didn’t know. The people driving the SUV were no different than someone halfway around the globe dying, except that they lived in the same area as him. The other difference was that the SUV people had been Waiters and stupid. In today’s world, who would be dumb enough to chase after someone who just destroyed their mailbox? People were crazy, hadn't the SUV people realized that? And besides, he despised Waiters. Fuck them. He was glad they were dead. Truly glad.

  “Did you hear me, dude?” Bobby asked.

  “Yeah, I heard you. They’re dead. Good riddance. Two less morons in the world.”

  Sage lifted her head off his chest and looked at him. “Who the fuck died?”

  “But we caused it,” Bobby said.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Daemon said, sitting up and throwing Sage off him.

  “What the fuck?” she shouted and shoved him.

  “This ain’t a conversation to have on the phone,” Daemon said. “I thought you were supposed to be the smart one?”

  “No one’s listening to our call, Daemon,” Bobby said. “We aren't on some watch list.”

  “Whatever,” Daemon said, grabbing his pack of smokes off the nightstand. “Just drop it. There was an accident. People died. Oh well. If you hear anything about the individuals involved, then call me back. Otherwise, I need to get some sleep.” Daemon ended the call and returned his phone to the charger on the nightstand.

  With slits for eyes and lips but a thin line, Sage was sitting up and staring at him. Her tattooed arms were crossed over her chest. Daemon focused on her forearm where the inked version of Sage as a baby resting in a bassinet coffin lay. A serpent tongue protruded from the mouth. After getting it, she’d told him that until her death, the snake would remain inside her and cause her do and love evil. He didn’t know about all that, but he loved it and her.

  Knowing she was pissed for how he treated her, he said, “The Waiters who chased us are dead.”

  Sage’s eyes widened as her lips parted. “You mean, from the crash?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Damn.” Her eyes moved around the room, focusing on this and that. Daemon could tell she was processing what she’d heard. He was beginning to feel a bit worried and asked if she was all right.

  “I don’t know what I am,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting to be woken up by such news. It’s… weird.” She said weird as if she were stoned out of her mind.

  “Yeah, I guess. But fuck it. Dead’s dead. Nothing we can do about it.”

  “Yeah, but we caused it. We’re responsible.”

  “They started it,” Daemon said, lighting a cigarette. Inhaling, he tossed the lighter on the nightstand where it slid to a stop against the clock radio. “The world is full of psychos and shit.” As he spoke, smoke exited his mouth in uneven waves. “They performed an act of vigilantism. That’s illegal. We defended ourselves.” He paused, taking another drag, waiting for Sage to say something. When she didn’t speak and continued to stare into space, he asked her if she cared that they were dead.

  “No. I don’t, actually. Can you believe it?”

  Daemon felt relief flood through him. As he continued to stare at her, her cheeks rippled as a smile formed on her pretty face. She looked sinister, like a salivating feline ready to pounce on an unsuspecting mouse.

  She giggled. “I… I think I just came.”

  “You what?”

  “I just had an orgasm. Thinking about what we caused. I fucking love it.” Her eyes were bright. “We killed people. Took lives, and we didn’t even mean to. Imagine if we had meant to.”

  Daemon nodded, an eyebrow cocked.

  “I’m so fucking horny right now,” Sage said, her chest rising and falling with haste.

  “It is hot, isn’t it?”

  “Fuck yeah it is.” Sage snatched the almost-finished cigarette from his lips and stuck the butt between hers. Inhaling, she then said, “Maybe next time we can be more direct about fucking shit up,” and then snuffed out the cancer stick on her tongue, tossing the butt onto the floor.

  The two lovers stared at each other, Sage’s crotch soaked, Daemon’s cock rock hard. She shoved him to the bed, climbed on top of him and slid his throbbing member into her, riding wildly until they both came.

  Chapter Five

  The next day Daemon and Sage hopped into the Camry and headed over to Bobby’s house. The wealthy kid's parents had been away for a week and weren’t going to be home again for another month. The affluent couple had gone on a business/vacation tour of Europe—of course not asking Bobby if he’d like to tag along. Instead, they had left a typed letter about their plans on the fridge. A number of credit cards and stacks of cash were on the counter. Bobby had his own bank account with plenty of greenbacks in it, but his parents seemed to love throwing money at him in other ways, as if the physical sight of plastic and cash showed how much love they had for him.

  Daemon drove along the quarter-mile long driveway through dense woods, the pavement twisting and turning like the body of a gigantic snake. It opened up to ten acres of sprawling lawn that surrounded the five-bedroom, four-bathroom, three-fireplace and five-car garage mansion.

  The structure was of modern design, boxy, and had large, wall-encompassing windows that allowed for views of much of the first level. Bobby hated that anyone walking by could see inside, causing him to always keep the blinds closed despite the house being surrounded by acres of woods and not visible from the road.

  After parking the car, they went around back.

  Bobby was lying on a sunbathing chair poolside, his flesh the color of chalk. His right wrist was wrapped in a bandage.

  “Mommy fix you up?” Sage asked, laughing as she took a seat on one of the chairs positioned around a glass table.

  “Fuck you,” Bobby said. “My parents aren’t even home.”

  “I know. I was joking.” Sage plucked a few grapes from a bowl of fruit that was sitting center table, then leaned back and threw her legs up onto the glass top.

  “Still hurts?” Daemon asked as he pulled out the chair closest to his long-time friend.

  Bobby held out his injured hand. “Yeah, but it ain’t broken. So, physically, I’m good.”

  “Fucking Brewmeyer,” Daemon said. “We need to get that piece of shit.”

  “I’d love to make him eat my shit,” Bobby said, his tone hollow. He ran a hand over his head, smoothing back his long hair. “Literally, shove my shit down his ugly face and then break his ribs.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Sage said. “But I ain’t getting near your shit.”

  Daemon withdrew a lighter from his jeans pocket and extended it toward Sage, who had placed a cigarette between her lips. Using his thumb, he rolled the flint and produced flame.

  “What a fucking gentleman,” she said, her cigarette bouncing up and down as she spoke. She leaned forward and let the flame do its thing.

  Daemon popped one of his own cigarettes into his mouth and lit it. He pinched the butt between his teeth, ready to chew the thing, but took a long, hard drag instead. The coals at the end burned bright and fast.

  Bobby was his best friend. They had always been there for each other. His friend had been attacked. And not just by any someone, but a despised someone. Something had to be done about it.

  They had met in the sixth grade during detention. Bobby had only been in town a couple weeks. That day he'd been wearing a Slayer T-shirt and they discovered they liked the same music—heavy metal—as well as the same girl, Delilah Sparks. She was completely out of their league, but it didn’t stop them from telling each other all the sexual things they wanted to do to her.

  Daemon had had no idea how wealthy Bobby was until a month after they started hanging out. They never went to the gu
y's house, and it wasn't until Daemon finally did go, that Bobby had told him that his parents were fucked up and could be really judgmental assholes. Then again, they could be just fine. Bobby never knew which version of his parents would show up when he brought friends home.

  Daemon had come to learn that Bobby, as a tall skinny, kid with pasty skin and long hair, didn't have many friends in his previous school. It was mostly a preppy, jock school, a place where Bobby stood out like a zit on a prom queen. Spencer High School had its jocks, geeks and other groups, but it also had its metal heads, and troublemakers. Bobby had finally found a true friend and a place where he belonged. In turn, Daemon had found someone he could trust and treat like a brother.

  They got high on Bobby’s home grown weed, occasionally sprinkling it with angel dust, before moving on to LSD and cocaine. Bobby could get whatever they wanted, his money stream endless. Normally, Daemon would’ve taken advantage and drained as much money as possible from the kid, keeping him as a friend only for that very reason. But with Bobby, he felt like he'd be ripping off a member of his family. Daemon rejected the kid's money until Bobby wouldn't shut up about what a pleasure it was to spend his parents' seemingly endless supply of cash. When Daemon finally met Bobby’s parents and they barely gave him a glance, he realized they were no better than his own parents. Instead of all the physical and verbal abuse, Bobby received silence. The guy was left hollow, with the pain of emptiness. Bobby was the invisible boy, a ghost, lucky enough to at least have money. Daemon would’ve traded places with him in a second, even though he knew the implication about grasses always being greener. The two became inseparable, closer than any blood brothers could be.

  It wasn’t long before the town knew that the Weatherly family had money. Kids started using Bobby. He had more fake friends than Barbie. Having seen enough, Daemon lost his cool one day after Gerald Higgins borrowed a hundred bucks and refused to pay it back. When the moron went around school showing off his newly acquired sneakers, Daemon decided to make an example out of the kid. Not only did he beat the shit out of Higgins, but he stole his sneakers, filled them with dog shit later that night, then forced the kid to put them on the next day and walk along the hallway singing how he was full of shit. Daemon was suspended, but it had been worth it. After that, people treated Bobby with a lot more respect.

  As the boys got older and trouble grew more serious, Bobby’s money came in handy when Daemon started getting arrested. The crimes weren't serious—public intoxication, destruction of property, public urination, spray painting—until the night he got in a fight with a redneck who knew his mom back when she was hooking. The scumbag said how much he missed fucking her in her ass, then watching her blow him dry. Daemon threw the first punch, but the guy was much bigger and didn't go down. They exchanged blows until Daemon pulled out a knife and stabbed the guy in the stomach. In the end, Daemon received probation.

  Eventually, Daemon got a job at a garage outside of town where he put his mechanic skills to use. As much as he hated working and loved sitting around getting high and letting his mind melt away, he knew having a job where he could do something he enjoyed would be a good thing. He’d always loved working on cars and understood that he’d never amount to being some kind of executive or lawyer or doctor. But regardless of Daemon getting a paycheck, and despite his wanting to pay his own way, Bobby paid for everything. “Fuck it, Daemon,” Bobby had said. “I love putting my asshole parents’ money to good and bad use. Or have you forgotten?” They both laughed at that, knowing that most of the money was spent on partying.

  Daemon’s thoughts came back to the present. His eyes focused on the bandage that covered Bobby's wrist, then on Bobby’s face where a number of cuts took up residence. He shook his head, seething with rage. He needed to scream. Someone had come after his brother and almost seriously hurt him. Shit, Bobby could’ve been killed. What if he’d fallen out of the car? Or hadn’t had a hockey mask on when the chunk of bat flew into his face? Or if a jagged piece of the bat had sliced his jugular?

  A stinging heat sparked in Daemon’s palms. Looking down at his hands, he saw his nails had dug into his flesh.

  “Babe, are you okay?” Sage asked. “You look like you need to kill someone.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I think I do.”

  “Speaking of killing,” Bobby said, sitting up and putting his bare feet on the cement. “Are we all okay with what happened last night?”

  “It made me wet,” Sage said.

  “We killed people,” Bobby said. “It’s not something to take lightly.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay with what we did?” Daemon asked. “Because the dead are dead. There ain’t nothing we can do for them. And those motherfuckers were assholes looking for trouble. They got what was coming to them.”

  Bobby nodded. “I was a little freaked out last night. I couldn’t sleep. Kept listening to the scanner. But it wasn’t because those people were dead. I realized I was all fucked up because I didn’t want to get caught. Prison just isn't for me, you know?”

  Daemon focused on his friend, looking for a sign that the man was bullshitting. Trying to fit in with him and Sage. He loved Bobby and would do anything for the guy, but he needed to make sure the dude was truly okay with what happened because the plans he had were going to lead them down a fun-filled, crazy path of notoriety; something they could not come back from.

  “We all had a hand in those fuckers’ deaths,” Sage said, clearly wanting part of the credit for the act.

  Daemon pulled out the pipe he'd brought with him from one of his jean pockets. “Time to smoke up,” he said. Sage eagerly agreed. Bobby tossed him a bag of weed. Daemon packed the bowl before bringing it to his lips. He flicked the lighter, sparking it to life, and inhaled as the green plant glowed orange and burned. After filling his lungs, he held in the smoke for a few seconds, then exhaled and said, “We’re all killers, at least to some degree. Indirectly or directly. Who gives a shit. Doesn’t matter. The cops ain’t after us. We left no trace. The only thing that could be bad for us, as far as the cops are concerned, is Brewmeyer.”

  “Fuck him,” Sage said, taking the pipe from Daemon.

  “His place is nowhere near where the accident happened,” Bobby said. “Unless he saw you when you got out of the car and told the cops. If he did then the law will assume we’re the ones who’ve been smashing mailboxes. The cops will at least haul us in for questioning.”

  Daemon shook his head. “Fuck. I was thinking there was a chance the fat fuck Brewmeyer had been recording when we smashed his steel box, including recording me when I got out. He’d want something to watch over and over again to get his kicks on how smart he is. And if he knows it was us, he might leak it to the cops for all we know.”

  “We’d get nailed for the mailboxes and possibly the accident,” Bobby said.

  “That sneaky piece of shit,” Sage said blowing out smoke.

  “We don’t know if he recorded us, let alone saw our identities,” Bobby said. “Though it was dark and his yard tree-filled, the moon was full and the sky clear. We don't know what the camera was able to pick up. Remember, the man loves getting others in trouble, punishing students and people he dislikes. So why hasn’t he called the cops yet?”

  “He doesn’t want to get in trouble for his own mailbox stunt,” Daemon said, taking the bowl from Sage.

  “Right,” Sage said. “Like that burglar who broke into that family’s home and got hurt and then sued and got like a lot of money.”

  “That was bullshit,” Bobby said. “An old urban legend. If I’d have gotten injured, I’d be shit out of luck as far as suing.”

  “No, it was real,” Sage insisted. “Don’t be naive.”

  “Whatever,” Daemon said, exhaling smoke as he talked. “What we need is to be sure he ain’t got nothing on us.”

  “So what? Break into his house and look for a fucking video camera?” Bobby asked.

  “Exactly,” Daemon said, tapping out the ash
from the bowl.

  “And we should break Brewmeyer’s arms and legs while we’re at it,” Sage said, sitting up, her eyes beaming like a proud parent’s.

  “That’s why I love the shit out of you, babe,” Daemon said. “You’re always ready to shine.”

  “If you guys are serious, then we’re going to have to be smart about it,” Bobby said. “Plan it out. Wait and watch. Be patient—”

  “Screw that,” Sage said, and threw the grape she was rolling back and forth on the table at Bobby, hitting him in the forehead. “I say we storm in like Vikings. Rape and plunder.”

  Daemon stared at her.

  “What?” she asked, shrugging.

  “You’re a sick bitch, you know that?”

  “Yes, you tell me that all the time and I love hearing it.” Sage smiled and batted her lashes.

  Bobby groaned, his patience obviously thin. “We can’t bust in there. It needs to be calculated and clean.”

  “Don’t worry, man,” Daemon said. “It will be carefully planned out. We don’t want to get caught. I’ve been itching to get revenge on Brewmeyer forever. I'm talking real revenge. Something that will make mailbox baseball look like the game it is. We’ll teach that asshole a lesson and make sure we walk away clean. Nothing will lead the cops to us.”

  “So we’re really doing this?” Bobby asked.

  “Hell yeah we are,” Sage said pumping her fist.

  Chapter Six

  After Daemon spoke about what he intended on doing, Bobby came up with a plan. The first part involved waiting at least a month before any action was taken. The plan was nothing incredibly sophisticated, but it was thoroughly thought through. Although it was still unknown whom the mailbox baseball vagrants were, the authorities surmised that the traffic accident involving the SUV and two deaths was the result of the lesser crime resulting in the larger one. Buckshot was found in the truck’s front end and blown-out tire. The surviving wife of the driver told police that her husband and his brother-in-law were waiting to catch the people who had been smashing their mailboxes, wound up chasing them and getting killed. This moved the investigation way up on the police’s radar. Still, no one came knocking on any of the trios’ doors.