This is kind of a sequel to my preview short story, Stop and Smell the Roses, but you don't need to have read that one to understand this one. (At least I don't think so.)
Sometimes, we think we’ve conquered out fears, only to be confronted by a greater fear.
We had searched every section of the campground, but we couldn’t find Bill anywhere.
“The idiot probably just got lost and will stumble back in the morning,” Jeremy said as we made our way back to the cabin.
Craig and I nodded in agreement.
It had been two years since that whack job had kidnapped Jake; I was now a sophomore in college, majoring in Criminal Justice. Bill, Jeremy, Craig and I had all decided to take a break from all the work and come up here camping for Labor Day weekend. I had gotten a flyer in the mail for this place. It was a small campground in London that was having a special. Airfare and the weekend only cost us a little over $100 each.
The trip had been going great until three hours ago, when Bill had left the cabin to take a leak in the woods. When half an hour went by and he hadn’t come back, we decided to go out and look for him.
The three of us joked around as we followed the long winding path back to where our cabin was. When we could finally see the cabin, the porch light was on. As we got closer to it, we could see a shadow standing on the porch in front of the stairs.
“There he is.” I said pointing to the figure.
“Asshole was probably here the entire time.” Craig said.
The three of us jogged the rest of the way to the cabin, yelling various insults and obscenities at Bill. Jeremy was the fastest and got to the cabin first. When he reached the cabin he stopped abruptly, causing Craig and I to crash into him.
“What’s up dude? Why’d you stop like that?” Craig asked when we regained out footing.
Jeremy said nothing. He just raised his hand and pointed to Bill. Bill was not standing on the porch, he was handing from the roof with his throat slashed.
That was not even the worst of it. Behind him, on the cabin door was a message. It was written in Bill’s blood. Stop and Smell the Roses. I lost if right there. I emptied the contents of my stomach onto the path.
The three of us took off running back down the path. We tried calling 911 but none of us could get a signal. We ran to the only other occupied cabin, where Jim, the owner lived. When we got there we banged on the door and yelling his name. It seemed like an eternity before he finally opened the door.
“What in the blazes are you kids up to?” He yelled when he swung the door open.
“Bill...” I stammered. “Bill’s been murdered!”
“Murdered?” What the bloody hell are you talking about?”
“When we got back to the cabin, he was handing from the porch with his throat slit.” Craig told him.
Jim grabbed a shotgun from next to the door and stepped out onto the porch. “Show me.”
We followed close behind Jim during the walk back to the cabin. “So, where is he?” Jim asked when we got there.
The body was gone! “He was right there!” Craig said pointing to where Bill had been hanging.
The entire porch was spotless. No body, and no blood either. Jim searched the house with us. There wasn’t anyone in there, dead or otherwise.
“Are you kids done with this stupid prank now?”
“He was here! I swear!” Jeremy yelled.
Jim shook his head and walked away. “Yeah, sure.”
When Jim left, Craig went out to his pickup truck and got his own shotgun from under the seat. We spent the rest of the night sitting around the fire talking everything over.
“Bill must be playing some kind of prank on us.” Jeremy suggested.
Craig agreed, but I had my doubts. That phrase kept repeating over and over in my mind. Stop and Smell the Roses. Stop and Smell the Roses. Stop and Smell the Roses.
None of us slept that night. No one would admit it, but we were all terrified. The next morning, we stayed around the cabin, hoping Bill would return. We only left in groups to use the bathroom.
Night came pretty fast and Bill still wasn’t back. Craig and I decided to go out and take one last leak for the night. We took the shotgun and left Jeremy in the cabin.
While we were out taking a leak, Jeremy was pacing back and forth in the living room, nervous about being alone. We went upstairs to get a book to read. His bag was still sitting at the foot of the bed where he left it.
When he sat on his bed, it felt like he sat on something. He stood up and looked at the bed. “What the hell did I leave on the bed this time?” He asked out loud
He pulled the covers off the bed and fell over backwards with surprise. Lasting in his bed was Bill’s corpse. Slit throat and all.
Jeremy ran from the house screaming. He ran straight down the path where a man was waiting for him, laughing.
When we heard Jeremy’s screams, we ran back to the cabin as fast as we could. When we got there, the front door was wide open but Jeremy was nowhere to be found. We searched around the cabin and didn’t see anything. When we went back inside, the house was empty. No one was inside, Bill’s corpse had once again disappeared.
Craig and I ran back down the path to Jim’s cabin. We banged on the door but he didn’t answer. We took and chance and turned the handle. It was unlocked so we went in. “Jim? You here?” I yelled out.
His shotgun was still sitting next to the door. Craig went upstairs while I looked around the downstairs. No one was there. I heard a scream come from upstairs. I ran up the stairs to a small room where I could hear Craig’s voice. I opened the door and Craig was laying on the floor clutching his shoulder which was leaking blood.
Standing over him was Jim, wielding a butcher knife. I reached under my shirt and pulled out the Stiletto blade. I had been keeping it with me ever since Jake’s kidnapping. When he swung the knife at me, I jammed the stiletto’s blade into his bicep. He dropped the knife with a loud, piercing scream.
I picked up Craig and helped him get down the stairs. I ran him outside and sat him near the edge of the woods, propped up against the tree.
“I’ll be right back. I’m gonna go call the cops.” I told him
I ran back inside and searched the kitchen for a phone. I finally found it buried under a bunch of newspapers, next to the stove. Most of the papers were about the death of a murderer and kidnapper. The same kidnapper whose throat I had slit two years ago. The rest were about another murderer. This one was known as Scrabble.
I picked up the phone but the line was dead. I slammed it down on the receiver. “Damn it!”
“What’s wrong? Phone dead?” Jim said appearing in the doorway.
“What the hell is with you?” I shouted at him.
“You kill my brother.” He told me. “Now, I’m going to kill you.”
“What?” I stammered out.
“You killed my brother, Monopoly.” He practically yelled at me.
I looked over at the stove that I was standing in front of. It was the same one we had in our cabin, gas. I managed to reach behind me and flip open the burners without him noticing. “Your brother tried to kill me! He deserved to die!” I shouted, trying to buy some time for the room to fill up with gas.
“Liar! He was a good man! He didn’t deserve to die!” Jim was starting to go psychotic.
“How’d you even know I’d be here?” I had to know.
He started to calm down a bit. “Who do you think sent you that flyer in the mail? Did you think it was by accident?” he said gloating. “I’ve been planning this for the past two years!”
Damn it, I thought to myself. Why didn’t I just ignore that damned thing? I knew it was too good to be true!
“But the body! How’d you get rid of the body so fast?” I asked
“Easy. I was in the bushes the entire time. As soon as you were gone I wiped up the blood and put the body in the bushes. Then I used a shortcut to get back to the cabin. Didn’t you notice it took a while for me to answer the door?” He was confident, cocky even.
“Damn it.” I muttered.
“Now, it’s time for Scrabble to take care of what Monopoly couldn’t.” He started coming towards me with a smile on his face. The same smile that ‘Monopoly’ had.
I sniffed the air. I could already smell the gas in the room. I reached behind me and felt for the phone. Once I felt it, I ripped it out of the wall and threw it at Jim. I hit him square in the face. It didn’t do much damage, but I was able to stun him.
I fumbled in my pocket for the matches that Jeremy had asked me to hold earlier. As soon as I got onto the deck I lit one of the matches. I threw the lit match into the kitchen and jumped off the deck and started to run as fast as I could away. I was maybe 10 feet away when the kitchen erupted into flames. The explosion knocked me off my feet. I stood up and stared at the cabin. It wasn’t long before the entire thing was engulfed in the flames. The cabin was burning, burning, like a wildfire through a field of roses.
I went back over to where Craig was sitting. I helped him up. “Let’s get you to a hospital.” As we walked from the cabin back to his pickup truck, I could hear Jim’s screams penetrating the night.
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