Black Creek Crossing

Chapter 43

E TRIED TO KILL ME!” CHAD JACKSON HOWLED. “THAT little shit tried to fuckin’ kill me!” He and Jared were in Chad’s bedroom.

The broken bottle was gone — dropped somewhere as he’d fled down the alley to the safety of his house. As he stared at the blood covering his right hand, he felt as if he were going to throw up. He hurried to the bathroom and got there just in time to drop to his knees in front of the toilet before a violent contraction seized his stomach and he felt the remains of his lunch rise in his throat and spew out of his mouth.

Gagging and retching, Chad hung onto the toilet, and three more times the nausea overwhelmed him. When his stomach was finally empty, he dropped down onto the bathroom floor, half panting and half sobbing. What had happened? How had Seth — Seth Baker, for Christ’s sake — done it? He and Jared had spotted him half an hour ago, and it hadn’t take them long to figure out what he was up to. They followed him almost all the way, concealed in the darkness in the park, then cut down Elm Street and through a couple of yards when they saw him heading for the alley.

It should have been easy — Jared was ahead of Seth, and Chad was behind him.

He was caught.

Caught!

Caught all by himself, except for that stupid cat.

Where had it come from? And how could it be alive? They’d killed it, all three of them, and stuffed it in Angel Sullivan’s locker. It boggled Chad’s mind to the point where he could only dismiss it, stop thinking about it. And anyway, it was nothing but a stupid cat! If Jared had just kicked it or something—

That was it — it was Jared’s fault.

The last of his nausea giving way to anger, Chad scrambled to his feet, intending to find Jared, and—

Jared was standing in the bathroom door.

Standing there staring at him.

“What are you looking at?” Chad snarled.

“Jeez, Chad,” Jared breathed. “All that blood — I thought we were just going to scare him!”

Now it was Chad who was staring. “I should have killed him!” he screamed. “After what he did to me!” He put his finger to the cheek the broken bottle had slashed only a few minutes ago, and yanked it away as he felt the sting of his own touch. “He coulda killed me!” He turned and gazed into the mirror at the throbbing, burning wound. But he also saw Jared Woods gazing at him, and he saw the doubt in Jared’s eyes. What was going on? “You saw him,” he said to Jared’s image in the mirror. “Jeez, Jared — you saw what he did to me!” As he turned to face Jared directly, he saw his friend pull away. “You saw it!” he said again.

“It — it was dark,” Jared stammered.

Chad’s voice rose. “He came at me! He grabbed the bottle and—”

“I didn’t see that,” Jared said, taking a step backward. “I only saw you holding the bottle.”

“So what are you saying?” Chad demanded. “You think I did this to myself?” Again he put his fingers to his throbbing cheek.

Jared shook his head. “It was dark, and… Jeez, Chad—you had the bottle.” Chad moved toward him, but again Jared backed away.

“You saw it,” Chad said, the fury in his voice dissolving into a whine. “You—”

“It was dark,” Jared said. “I couldn’t really see—” He licked his lips nervously, then: “I think I better go home.” He turned and hurried down the stairs. A moment later Chad heard the front door slam.

What had happened? Why didn’t Jared believe him? He turned back to the mirror and gazed once again at his face.

How had it happened? It was Seth’s face the broken bottle should have laid open, not his own. How could Seth have gotten hold of him and twisted the broken glass around like that?

And why couldn’t he remember it happening?

He could only remember charging at Seth with the shattered bottle, feeling the warmth in his belly as he anticipated the razor-sharp glass sinking into Seth’s flesh.

But it hadn’t happened. The glass had sunk into his own flesh instead, and torn at his own face.

Had he tripped?

But he didn’t remember tripping.

All he remembered was Seth watching him, staring at him—

He caught a flicker in the mirror and whirled around, half expecting to see Jared again standing in the doorway to the bathroom.

But the doorway — and the hall beyond — were empty.

Chad turned back to the mirror, and froze. The image was back, but this time it wasn’t just a flicker of motion. This time it was a face, and the face was clear.

It was Seth Baker, and Seth was staring straight at him, his eyes cold and boring deep into his.

As he gazed back, something inside Chad Jackson began to understand the truth, and he knew that the pain he was feeling now wasn’t the pain of his own wound.

Now he was feeling the agony of all the wounds he had ever inflicted on Seth Baker.

As the seconds stretched out, Chad’s eyes remained fixed on the image of Seth in the mirror, and a terrible urge came over him. Against his own will and with his eyes still fixed on the image of Seth Baker, which seemed to be suspended somewhere deep in the infinity behind the mirror, Chad opened the top drawer of the counter beneath the bathroom sink and picked up the razor that had been his grandfather’s and was now his father’s and would someday be his.

But he needed the razor now.

He picked it up in his right hand, opening the blade with his left. He didn’t test the blade — didn’t even see it, really.

All he did was raise it so its point lay against his neck just below his left ear.

He knew what was going to happen next but there was nothing he could do to stop it. It was as if the force of Seth Baker’s will had taken control of his body, and it was a force Chad Jackson was utterly powerless to resist.

With one quick motion he pressed the blade of the razor deep into his neck, cutting through skin and muscle and sinew. As blood began to flow from the wound, he jerked the razor across his throat, and watched in shocked awe as his throat gaped open and the flow of blood surged to a pulsing gush as the blade ripped through his larynx and aorta.

As his life drained away, the razor fell from Chad’s hand and clattered into the sink, but as he sank to the floor and the darkness of eternity began to close around him, all he heard was the faint sound of laughter.

Seth Baker’s laughter.

In the quiet of his own room, Seth clung to the fading image of Chad Jackson for a few more seconds, watching as Chad’s life drained away into the pool of blood spreading around him. Only when Chad lay still and the flow of blood had slowed to a trickle did he finally turn away from the mirror over his dresser, in which the vision of Chad’s death had been so vivid that Seth was certain it had happened exactly as he’d seen it.

The day of reckoning had come, and the first of his tormentors had fallen.