Rattlebones (bxbxb)

A Lesson in Murder

Eugene and I drag Iggy into one of the upstairs closets and I shut the door behind us, plunging us into darkness. I can hear Eugene's stepmom and uncle talking from downstairs, the sound of their voices growing louder as they begin to wander around.

I wonder what would clue them in on our presence first; the human skull sitting on the sofa or the pan of burnt eggs left smoking on the stove. We had literally left a path of waste behind us in the last twenty-four hours living here. But I suppose that's what happened when three unsupervised teenagers ran rampant through a house.

"What's going on?" Iggy whispers from behind me. "Who are we hiding from?"

"My family," Eugene replies, and I can hear the anguish in his voice. Dear God, this whole time, I had never even thought once about how much he must have missed his life. His real life. I was a self-indulgent creature who only thought of myself and my own personal needs. Oh, the agony of being burdened with grandiose delusions.

"Why would your uncle be here with your stepmom?" I whisper. "Isn't that kind of weird?"

"They've always been kind of close," Eugene admits. "I guess I never thought about it much."

"Dude," Iggy pipes up. "Your uncle's totally banging your stepmom."

"No," Eugene replies stubbornly. "No way! Why would he do that? He and my dad are cool. They played football together in high school."

We all go quiet when footsteps start up the stairs and Eugene's uncle and stepmom start in our direction. We had chosen to hide in a linen closet off the side of the bathroom because nobody randomly decided to open up a closet in the middle of the day to look for a towel.

"Amanda? Someone's been living here!" Eugene's uncle declares in his nasally voice. "There's garbage all over the place and food still on the stove."

Eugene's stepmom crosses over in front of the door. "Look what I found." She says, and I hear rustling and the sound of a zipper opening. "It's a bag full of makeup and black nail polish! And that's not the only thing. Someone left condoms on the nightstand. This must be Robert's slutty little hideaway. While I'm slaving away at home playing the wife in mourning, he's over here fucking God knows what in bed!"

"Amanda," Eugene's uncle sighs. "It doesn't matter. Once we find the paperwork that declares me as the next of kin to receive Eugene's inheritance, we'll be rich! We can go anywhere that we want!"

I hear Eugene's breath catch and I reach up to hold onto his shoulder. I can feel his skin against mine and it feels alive. Like he's broiling from the inside out. If he decided to charge the door, I doubted that Iggy and I would be able to stop him.

"I'm still shocked that it was so easy." Eugene's stepmom laughs giddily. "A few drops of hemlock into that sugary soda that he always used to drink, and that little queer was gone the next day."

"Good riddance." Eugene's uncle sneers. "When he came out to us about his sexuality, all the guilt I felt about doing it just vanished. It's almost like we did the world a favor."

My heart ceases to function, and I can hear Iggy smothering the sound of his gasp.

They had been the reason behind Eugene's death? This whole time? The closet suddenly feels ten times smaller and I feel a rage, unlike any other shoot right through my heart like an arrow. I want to choke the life out of the useless piles of slime standing outside. Bury my fingernails in their eyes and pierce them like jelly doughnuts.

This was war. I needed to execute the inane twits that had dared murder Eugene Wilder.

My weakness.

My everything.

I grab the doorknob to open the closet, but Eugene and Iggy grab me before I can burst out and rip me backward, into the darkness. I try to scream out my fury, but Iggy has his hand clamped over my mouth and Eugene is holding me up in the air while I kick and flail, struggling to get free.

"What was that?" Eugene's uncle questions when he hears my muffled cry.

"A cat? Maybe?" Amanda replies.

I dig my nails into Eugene's arms and I arch against him, the rage inside of me narrowing down into the center of my skull like a bad migraine. I want my head to explode just to relieve the pressure, but I can't, so all the anger just rushes out of me at once.

Light cuts through the darkness and the closet doors begin to rattle and bang like shutters in a hurricane. And then they explode open.

Eugene's uncle screams and he reaches for his face, his skin broiling under the assault of light, bubbling like cheese on a hot pizza. His partner isn't any better and she crumples and shrieks from the floor, her hair turning ghost white right before our eyes.

"Let's get the fuck out of here!" Eugene shouts, and he hoists me over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes and takes off running.

"Holy shit! We're toast!" Iggy screams, and he slams down the stairs just behind us.

Eugene's uncle lets out an enraged howl as we fly down the steps and I can hear him running after us.

Iggy scrambles for his keys as Eugene kicks open the front door and we crash out into the pouring rain, thunder rumbling ominously above us.

I can't feel anything. Not the coldness of the wind or the ice water pouring down from the sky. I'm just hollow inside as if my guts had been lanced and poured out.

Eugene had been murdered.

Murdered.

He throws open the car door and tosses me into the back seat, hosting himself in after me. "Drive!" He shouts at Igor, who already has his key in the ignition and cranks on the engine.

"You fucking kids! Get back here!" Eugene's uncle comes screaming out of the house and he runs towards us, right as we tear out of the driveway.

"Do you think he saw our faces?" Iggy asks frantically.

"I don't know," Eugene replies. "Darcy did that weird shit with his forehead and blinded the fuck out of him."

I watch the cabin grow smaller in the distance, and lock eyes with Eugene's uncle as we turn the corner, and vanish onto the road.