It was a quarter to three now. That dreadful aftermath that befell Holly's mind, soul, the environment around her after the sight of a devastating bloodbath was hanging in the air, heavy, reeking, awful...and she was completely oblivious to it. She felt its presence but not its hazards. Killing Kirsten was the most overwhelming rush she had ever been through; her first roller coaster ride, the first time she shoplifted, all these moments gave her an adrenaline rush that jolted her nerves and sent a bolt of electricity to her heart and brain reminding her that she was alive.
This, however...this was more than a rush...it was life-altering; it was a transformation; it was the most ultimate remedy for a walking hollow shell such as she and Spencer both used to be. It granted not only fulfillment, but fulfillment and an immune system so unbelievably strong and unyielding towards aura or emotion.
She and Spencer both sat down on the floor with their backs to the wall, facing each other.
“So how were you gonna do it?” Spencer said.
“Huh?”
“What was your original plan going to be? You had to have had a plan, right? Did you bring any shovels? Trash bags? A plan on how to get rid of the corpses? Or were you planning on slicing and dicing us, leaving the evidence and just Thelma-and-Louise-ing off in Willy's car?”
Holly took a deep breath, held it and exhaled slowly.
“Kirsten's uncle passed away last year and left his house behind to her other aunt, it's west from here. It's a one-story cabin and it was pretty similar to this one; out in the middle of nowhere, two-bedroom, electricity and water still running up for another two months. I think she said her aunt wanted to keep it running and rent it out but for now it's legally hers and she doesn't want to do shit with it now. That's where we were gonna take you guys, or have you guys take us. Kirsten had everything she said we would need stashed over there—cutlery, trash bags, lighter fluid, Drano, fresh clothes—and had it all ready and hidden for when we went out there. She had everything arranged almost immediately after you guys—Willy asked us out.
“Then after that, Willy called her up and told her there was a development, which was this place. Thank God he did this in plenty of time, too. Kirsten objected it all to hell; I remember how pissed she was about it, too, after all the shit she just went through. Eventually Willy calmed her down and and Kirsten demanded to see it. So Willy drove her down to check it out. Later that day she called me and said 'You won't fucking believe how lucked-out we are right now. Think about my uncle's house but like four-stories and more spacious and has all the scenery that suits this evening perfectly.'
“She told me that after she saw the place and more than met to her standards, and unbeknownst to Willy, she took the directions down on the GPS system on her cell phone so that she could get her way back here to grab the necessities from her uncle's house over here, which she did just yesterday, too. And that was what she did—she drove to her uncle's, grabbed the stuff, and brought it all here. She told me she stashed it in a closet underneath the basement stairs.”
The same wave of mind-numbing disbelief and bolt of awe-filled shock both attacked Spencer speechless. He had difficulty asking his next question.
“It...it didn't make...it didn't make her the least bit peculiar that it was another isolated house just like yours?”
Holly shrugged. “She was so mindblown that I guess she overlooked it. Fortuitous luck.”
“What about our car?”
“That was going to be the scary part. Seeing as she was totally brain dead about this area, she had no idea about what to do with your car. Then she had the idea of after we...did you guys, we'd drive it all the way out to our original spot in the middle of the night and run it off a ditch that's about a mile from her uncle's house. We'd carry out our original plan, which was to clean the mess up quickly and efficiently as possible, drag your corpses out to your car, drive it down to the ditch near Kirsten's uncle's house, drive it off, and then go to a local diner to phone the cops, saying that our dates ditched us.”
“You couldn't have just taken your own car?”
“That's exactly what I told her. But Kirsten said it was 'important to make you believe you guys were in control; to have everything go as ordinarily as possible; the less inconspicuous you were, the better and easier this would turn out.' And if Willy wanted to treat us to a ride out to a carnival and then a strange place to fuck, then we should just let him do so. Besides, people come up to pick their cars up anytime—anytime—at a bar, whether it's during the wee hours of the night or in broad daylight. No one would think a single solitary deviant thought if they saw one of us drive up in Willy's SUV and the other take Kirsten's car. If anything, they would think they were picking up a car for a friend that got hammered out of his skull the previous night.”
Spencer continued to hold his gaze on her, computing every word she said, analyzing it, and then grinned.
“Pretty cool.”
Holly smirked. “What was yours?”
“Basically the same thing, except we were gonna cut you to pieces, throw you in a Glad bag and stick you in the ground outside.”
Holly's smirk disintegrated. She held a blank stare on him. Spencer's smile dimmed down to a thin straight line and watched back, returning an empty expression on his face as well. For a brief pause they held that moment of awkward silence, and then literally simultaneously, the two youngsters broke it with a sudden fit of boastful laughter. Laughing, sharing, enjoying the moment as they held their gaze upon each other like they were holding hands.
This was her hugging her mother again for three whole hours—this was the aftermath of the whole thing; the engulfment, the overwhelming breakdown, gargantuan sense of total shock—it was hanging in the air, but she was unfazed, untouched by it. It was like a contagious disease plaguing the entire world known as human emotion, but she and Spencer were both immune to it. Like Superheroes with their super science-law-defying abilities. Before, in her ragged, filthy, rotten cocoon she always recollected that moment as the most terrifying, daunting experience of her life, mainly because of her mother and the distraught, horrified state she was in; Holly had never seen her that way before. Now the same exact moment was here and she had it underneath her fingernail. Her mother would be proud.