The Promise

Chapter 11

We began to walk up the hill that lead towards Bo's house, hands intertwined.
"Is there anyone left alive in this town?" Questioned Nick, squeezing my hand lightly,
"Maybe that Vincent guy?"I replied," I mean he must be around here somewhere."
"Who knows if is name even is Vincent. We gotta get out of this place."
"What about Wade... And Dalton! We can't just leave them behind Nick. I know you took the fall for him when he crashed that stolen car or whatever and now you have that stupid criminal record, if you leave him here to die then that would have all been a waste."
"Don't talk like that." He snapped back, kicking the dirt underneath his foot, "I'd never leave him behind. Wade either."
We continued to walk in silence after that. After about 10 minutes we finally reached the house, the lights inside were bright and I prayed that no one was in there.
"You said you left your cellphone in the truck, right?" Nick broke the silence.
"Uh yeah," I replied, stopping and leaning against a metal structure outside the house.
"Look," he said bracing one hand against the metal beside my head, "here's what's gonna happen, I'm gonna go up to the truck and get your cellphone, see if I can get some help." I nodded slightly, waiting for him to continue. "You're gonna go back to the road and wait for-" I cut him off, slightly angered by his implication that I would leave him to do this on his own.
"No way."
"Hey-"
"I'm not leaving you."
"Why do you have to be so goddam stubborn-" he snapped, I raised my eyebrows at him and he stopped himself, smiling when he realised we shared the same trait.
"Okay..." He continued, "we stick together. Nothing's gonna happen to us, yeah?"
"Yeah." I said whilst nodding my head,
"C'mon," he said pulling me into a brief hug and kissing my forehead before leading the way towards the house.
"That way," I whispered, pointing in the direction of the truck, he nodded and continued forward, we got to the truck and Nick laughed lightly at the mess I'd left it in.
"Nice parking job" he quipped, letting me walk past him and over to the car.
I leaned into the car and fumbled around under the seat trying to find my phone, I sighed in defeat before turning to Nick and mumbling,
"It's not here." I looked towards the house and repressed a shiver,
"Wade and Dalton."
"Wade went in there and never came out..."
"Alright," Nick said, leaning over me and bracing himself against the car, "we're gonna go in there and do a quick pass, if we can't find them, we have to get the hell out of here."
"Yeah... Let's check the back, we should be able to get in through there." I replied quickly, leading the way to the back of the house.
When we reached the door Nick moved in front of me, taking the lead, he gently grabbed the door handle, slowly Easing it open. I grinned when I spotted a baseball bat left outside, I hurried over and picked it up, swinging it over my shoulder before wandering back over to Nick, smiling at his look of amusement.
Nick crept in, checking from left and right before signalling that it was okay for me to come in. I walked in and looked around, judging by the decor I could make out through the dingy lighting I expected we were in the kitchen. I reached over to grab the telephone attached to the wall, I lifted it to my ear and groaned in anger and disappointment when the only thing I heard was the useless dial tone.
I set the phone down and tiptoed into what appeared to be the living room of the house, bat still brandished in my hand.
"Dalton!" Nick whisper shouted, "Wade!"
I ignored him in favour of walking over to what seemed to be a gun case attached to the wall, the pistols were attached to the wall in a glass case, enclosed by a metal grate.
"Nick! Hey, look, there's guns."
He quietly wandered over and hooked two fingers between the holes in the grate and giving them a tug, he then turned to me and grabbed the bat out of my good hand, wrapping the bottom in an abandoned cloth as to mute the noise of smashing glass before slamming the bat in between the squares of the grate and shattering the glass beneath. I yanked futilely at the grate and then on further inspection realised with a sigh that it was useless.
"Nick, stop. It's bolted to the wall." He angrily slammed his fist against it one last time before turning to me,
"There must be a key around here somewhere," he muttered angrily, I nodded in response, and began to look around, I hurried over towards a chest of draws and when I didn't find anything on top I began to check the draws. I frowned in confusion when I discovered piles of newspapers scattered around the draw, I shuffled them round and carefully lifted up and picture of two baby's, one with its face covered by a bandage, I curiously read the title, "SIAMESE TWINS SEPARATED" my eyes widened in shock as I read the next part, "FATHER PERFORMS CONTROVERSIAL PROCEDURE" there father separated them?? What the fuck.
I continued to flick through the articals before coming across some family photos, my frown increased when I saw one of the young boys in every picture, his face was covered with what seemed to be a wax mask while the other boy seemed fine, I soon realised that these were the Siamese Twins that I had seen in the news paper, the boy with the mask must've been disfigured in some way.
Suddenly the door behind me swung open, surpressing a scream I ducked, accidently dropping the picture of the twins before the operation in the process.
Someone began stumbling around, feet tripping over eachother in attempt to get to their destination. I held the bat tightly to my body looking up to find Nick peeking around the side of a refrigerator in the conjoining room, he signalled for me to crawl under the pool table and I nodded in reply, slowly beggining to edge around it all the while watching Bo struggle through the room, hands gripping what I'd thought was a fatal wound. What the fuck. Are these people invincible?!
I watched in horror as he made his way over to the kitchen before bracing himself against the sink and breathing heavily as he gripped the arrow sticking out his arm from when Nick shot him, he screamed in pain as he wrenched it out, my eyes began to water in sympathy for the sick bastard.
Tears began to make their way down my face and he gripped the arrow sticking out of his chest and attempted to pull it out, I squeezed my eyes shut as he threw up all over the sink, praying for him to die. I peeked over the top of the table just in time to see him cut the arrow in half, leaving only a few inches sticking out.
Suddenly the lights of a truck shone through the window, making me jump and then duck back underneath the table. Who had just shown up? Was it this Vincent bloke?
Curiosity overtaking the rational side of my brain, I edged over to the window before sitting up on my knees and peering out.
Worst mistake of my life.
Tears sprung to my eyes as I saw two of my best friends, covered in blood, eyes staring lifelessly at the night sky, Paige's beautiful golden hair was now red and clumped, her head resting on Blake's corpse. I repressed a scream, wondering why the fuck these people had to do this to them.
Suddenly something dawned on me, where's Carley ? Is she okay? Wait, she must be, otherwise she would've been in the back of the truck as well. Thanking God for small blessings I ducked back underneath the window, bile settling in the back of my throat as I tried to deal with what I'd just seen. Tears streamed down my face in endless rivers as I placed my hand over my mouth in order to remain soundless. I shivered as I heard Bo's footsteps begin to approach me, curling up in attempt to make myself less visable. I rolled underneath the pool table, hands clutching the bat to my chest as I watched Bo's feet stumble over towards the window. Mumbling under his breath he then stormed over to the door, yanking it open before shouting,
"Hey! You don't ever leave here without me! You know better than that! It's just stupid. What's the matter with you?!" I looked round the edge of the table and stared as a slouched figure stumbled in, shoulders slumped, long, black, greasy hair hung uselessly behind him.
The figure followed Bo into the kitchen before reaching out to grab the arrow sticking out of his chest.
"Don't!" Barked Bo, making the man flinch back violently. He reached forward again, hands scrambling against Bo's chest in what seemed to be an attempt at helping him. "I said don't!" Shouted Bo again before making a dissmissive sound and sending the man away. "Fuckin' freak." He mumbled angrily. I gasped slightly as I saw the figure was wearing a mask. Vincent.
Vincent stumbled over towards a candle before grabbing a spoon and holding it over the flame and smoothing it over the damaged part of his wax mask. Bo hovered around him slightly apologetically before speaking.
"Hey, the town's looking real good, we've almost finished what momma started, those two you got are good. They'll fit perfect. What did I tell you? Ain't your work more real now?" He asked rhetorically, confirming my suspicions that Vincent was the artist the created the human wax sculptures.
When Bo got no response from the man he continued, "mom would be proud." Vincent turned to him. "Yeah, she'd be real proud." He continued "she always said your talent would make up for what God took away from you." His face continued to look apologetic, I sighed angrily, knowing that it was probably Bo that influenced him into doing these dreadful things. I perked up when he continued talking.
"There's two more..." He drawled," we still gotta a lot of work to do." He then turned and stormed off, leaving Vincent to fix his mask.
Bo stumbled back into the room, looking round a bit, before his eyes focused on the fallen picture. Fuck.
He lifted it up before looking round frantically, and then began searching, as soon as he turned his back to me I made a break for it and ran into the hallway, adrenalin shooting through me when I turned and saw him stop and stare at the table before dropping to the floor and staring at where I just was, my breath caught in my throat, realising how narrowly is escaped death. I slowly turned round and began to creep up the stairs, bat brandished in my hand.
Suddenly there was a hand wrapped around my mouth pulling me so that my back smacked into a broad chest, I tried to scream but all that came out was a muffled whimper.