Final Cut (6 page)

After taking a few minutes to catch his breath he prepared for the trek up into the attic. He pulled the attic steps down and prepared to climb up them, which he would have to do mostly with his arms. He was not sure his legs could have allowed him to do another round right then. But he had to find out some vital information.

Bill decided that he would have to look his entire house over top to bottom to see if there were any more surprise souvenirs lying around for he or someone else to find. He doubted there was because whoever had been taking care of the cleaning of his place had not found anything strange or they might have talked to him about having some damn explaining to do. That led him to thinking that whoever had planted that evidence in his linen closet had done so after it had been cleaned last. The linen was fairly fresh, which meant that someone had washed it at least a few times in the past few months to get the stale musty smell out of it.

Bill took a deep breath and began to climb up the ladder to the attic. He remembered being surprised that his house had a full attic in it when he had first looked at it to rent. The house seemed bigger on paper than it actually was. Even though it had a full attic and an attached garage the inside of the house was really kind of small. The rooms were tiny, yet cozy. He had been a bit disappointed when he arrived initially to see the house, but the price and the dimensions of the attic and the attached garage had piqued his curiosity. It all made a lot more sense when he saw the way the house was laid out. But it worked for him and he had always considered the place to be very cozy.

Bill felt the pressure and the pain in his back as the spasm started up, traveling down to his legs. His body was screaming at him to stop and to go back down, but he was almost there. And he had to do this. There was no one he could ask for help on this. He had searched the downstairs and the upstairs already. He had to search the attic. It had taken him most of the day to allow his body to recuperate after each exhausting search, but this was the final piece of the puzzle and he had to make sure that nothing was in the attic. Then he would have a better grip on where to start with this whole thing.

Bill realized that he had no idea what he was doing. If he didn’t find anything in the attic to give him some tips or some pointers about where to begin searching for who the ears might have belonged to then he was going to be back at square one. This was a terrifying realization because it took him completely out of control. If that was the case then it meant that some crazy person had access to his life and his world and could come and go into it as they pleased. He would never be able to rest knowing that his life might be over at any second. So come hell or high water he was going to get to the bottom of this.

Bill pulled as hard as he could to get himself over the last bit of ladder and tumbled into the attic. He lay back on the floor and allowed the exhaustion to overtake him. His body was done for. He was curious as to how he was going to be able to get back down. He didn’t know if he would have the strength later to do so. He might end up sleeping in the attic, which was not so bad, except he was supposed to be ready for a date with Teri in two hours. He would not allow himself to miss that no matter how tired he was. He looked around at the nice full attic that he had fallen in love with it right from the get go when he first saw it. He had wanted to turn it into a reading room, but he had never really gotten a chance to do so.

The room was just as he had left it when he entered his coma and he found a sense of déjà vu washing over him. It was eerie being up here and he suddenly felt as if he was being watched for some reason. It felt like there was something up here that he was not expected to find.

It was probably just wishful thinking on his part after all of the exhausted effort he’d put into getting up here. If he had not found anything out at all he would have been incredibly frustrated with himself.

Bill somehow staggered to his feet and began looking around at the empty room. His eyes moved from corner to corner as if there was something hidden in plain sight that was going to leap out at him. He was impressed by the way the wood of the walls seemed to speak to him, but he did not understand what they were saying. It was just a feeling, an impression that they gave off. He felt like he was shut off from the whole world up here and he supposed that was the way the attic had been designed to make one feel. It was not a storage attic necessarily; it was in fact a place to hide out. It reminded him of the forts he had built when he was a kid. He wished to hell he’d had a place like this to come and hide away from everything when life got too damn tough to deal with, but he’d had no real place like this.

There were several boxes in the corner that held various books and things from his childhood that he had brought with him when he moved into the place. He had not actually looked at most of the items for years, but he decided that now was as good a time as any.

Bill opened up the first box and thumbed through all of the comic books he’d spent his youth collecting. It was a hobby that he wished he had never outgrown, but now he felt he was too old to resume. If he’d never stopped doing this then he would perhaps have a much more extensive collection and he would feel that he was pursuing a lifelong passion and not a passing fancy or some man trying to relive his youth.

He perused the box for a good half hour leafing through old comics and wondering if any of them might actually be worth something nowadays. He didn’t really think so, but it was possible. He had a good mind to take them down to Joe’s comics on 49th street and ask Joe what he thought. Joe was a pretty standup guy and might cut him a fair deal if any of them happened to be worth any damn thing.

Bill opened up the second box. It was full of books mostly. He had become an avid horror novel fan when he was about twelve and started reading everything that he could get his hands on, building up a huge collection of Stephen King and Dean Koontz novels. They were a great escape from the turbulence of his home life when he needed it most. He had gotten away from it a bit in recent years, but it was something that he really wanted to get back into. He found that he missed the lazy and quiet evenings caught up in a great book.

He realized the time was running away from him and he needed to shower and get ready for his date with Teri. As he started to close the box he noticed something near the bottom that he did not recognize. Reaching his hand deep in the bottom his fingers clasped around a small box. His heart just sank like a stone as he relived the terror that he had felt the first time he’d seen the box falling out of the linen closet.

As he pulled the box out of the cardboard box of books he noticed that this was not a jewelry box. It was actually not a box at all; it was a small plastic case that blank DVD’s came in. Inside the case were three DVD’s with writing on them.

Bill was not sure what was on these DVD’s but he was almost afraid to look. He had to pop them on the DVD player and he had to do it now. But he had no time. Not if he was going to be ready for his dinner date with Teri. His first impulse was to cancel the plans that he had with her. This was much more important. He had to get to the bottom of it. But if he found something terrifying on there he might not fully recover.

A thought popped into his head right then. It was a thought he realized had been moving around in the back of his mind since the moment he had received his special surprise in the linen closet that morning. But the thought was so terrifying that he was not sure he would ever be able to live with himself if it ever turned out to be true. It had already terrified him to the very core and he knew at that moment he would be in shock if he discovered what he was afraid of discovering on these films.

What if he was the killer?

It was the most idiotic and outrageous concept he could conceive of and the second that he gave the thought merit as a legitimate idea in his head he tried to laugh it off. But once it was there and it had made its presence known it was impossible to get out of his mind. He knew himself. He knew that he would sooner kill himself than take anyone else’s life.

But what if he was different before? What if there had been a dark side of himself that he no longer remembered? What if the car accident had cured him of some evil affliction to commit violence and murder and he was just now seeing the results of the life he formerly led?

These thoughts began to swirl around his brain like vultures waiting to peck out the eyes of a dying man in the desert. It could not be. He knew that he could not be a killer. But what other explanation was there? He had read enough novels and true crime books to know that this sort of thing happened to people. The human brain was a very complicated instrument and there had been countless cases where people had committed heinous crimes and they truly remembered nothing. They had really convinced themselves of their own innocence and they could beat polygraph tests all day long. That was why the things were inadmissible in court. The human mind was capable of so much more than the average person realized.

What if he had snapped and gone on some killing spree? Why else was he finding all this weird stuff in his house? It didn’t make any sense.

“Cool out, Big Bill. Just cool out,” he whispered to himself taking several deep breaths.

He was getting ahead of himself. He had no damn clue what was on these DVD’s and it was pointless to let fear take over and cause his imagination to run wild. He had to just let it go and relax. He would watch the videos and then he would know for sure.

But he had a date to get to. He really wanted to see Teri. He was vaguely aware that it was the perfect excuse to delay the inevitable and to keep his eyes away from the content of the videos he now held in his hands, but he didn’t care. Right then he was too nervous to think. He needed just one night of fun and relaxation, or at least as relaxed as he could be with the fact that he had found himself caught up in one psychotic adventure here. He knew it was insane to be worried about spending time with a woman he was starting to really like when he had just discovered a severed set of body parts in his closet that morning and the whole thing was sort of laughable when he thought of it that way, but he needed the distraction. Bill honestly felt that if he didn’t have this distraction where he could pretend that everything was right with the world and he was back to his life and everything was totally back on track then he would go insane. Or he would have a heart attack. He was not sure which one was going to happen first.

With those flimsy excuses in hand he grabbed the case of DVD’s and headed back down the ladder. It was ten times easier on the way down and he did not even slip one time. He considered that to be very lucky.

Very lucky indeed.

“MAN ABOUT TOWN”

Billy could not believe what a great time he was having with Teri. She was even sexier out of the nurse’s uniform and wearing a form fitting dress with a short skirt showing off her incredible and shapely legs. His eyes would not stay in his head it felt like as he had to consciously focus them on her face to let her know he was paying attention when all his eyes wanted to do was roam all over her amazing body.

It was nice to get out and get away from everything. But as much as Bill tried he could not stop the sinking feeling deep inside. He was caught in a weird position of not wanting this date to end any time soon because he was having such a great time and wanting to break every traffic law he could just so he could get home as fast as possible and see what was on those damn videos.

They might have even been nothing. That was wishful thinking at best. He knew that but he was so scared he was grasping at every possible straw he could to make himself feel better.

“Do you remember the homecoming of your senior year?” Teri asked.

Bill shook himself away from his deep thoughts. “What? Oh, yea. I remember. That was a wild night!”

“Yea. I was only in the eighth grade, but when you showed up at our door to pick up Buzz with your date I was so jealous. I wanted to be that girl so badly and I wanted to punch her in the face,” Teri confided with a smile.

“That is funny. Her name was Sherri Francis. We dated most of that month and then decided to just be friends. I was pretty sure she was already friends with too many other guys,” Bill said. He took another swig of his beer and relaxed a bit, thankful for the distraction.

“Did you know I used to have a crush on you?” Teri asked.

“What do you mean used to?” Bill joked.

Teri laughed. “Little girls have crushes. I have matured way past that,” Teri said.

“I can definitely see that,” Bill flirted with a wink. He wasn’t sure where his debonair charming side was coming from tonight but he was glad it was there. It was boggling his mind a little how well he was compartmentalizing everything and letting go of the insanity in his life right then so he could focus on just being there and enjoying his evening with Teri.

Of course he was not sure how much was just separating things in his mind and how much was just pretending that the elephant in the room was not really there. He found himself glancing at his watch nervously every few seconds. Once he was aware of this he then began to consciously pretend that he was not glancing at his watch so that Teri did not see it. It would be a tragedy if she got the wrong idea and thought that he was not enjoying himself there when he clearly was.

“So, what is it like being your own boss?” Teri asked.

“Well, it is really the dream thing for me. I’ve always wanted to work with wood ever since I was a kid and when the opportunity came for me to take this chance I jumped at it. It’s just the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do. I think it’s important to find what you are truly passionate about and try to make a living from it. Otherwise your life and your contribution to the world will be very small.”

Bill took another drink of his beer and marveled at how philosophical he had just sounded. He had no idea where that came from and he doubted that he could reproduce what he had just said. He had never really thought about it that way before, but now that he said it he realized that he was completely right with the way that he felt.