Don't Scream

Chapter 65

Brandon looked at the G.I. Joe doll, half listening to the news. Paisly's t.v. was turned on CNN headlines, so the top stories got repeated every few minutes. He never had to wait long before they started talking about him again. Psychopath. Serial Killer. Sexual deviant. The Hunter. No. That last one was loosing favor. The Stalker now, even the Tormentor.

Finally they were starting to get it.

And the talking heads were wild with speculation. People Brandon hadn't thought of since he was a teenager were being interviewed. Telling one story after another. He glanced in the direction of the dining room, hoping Christie wasn't listening. Most of the stories didn't hold a grain of truth. He wouldn't be surprised  to hear someone suggest that he killed his little sister, saved her in a freezer and eaten her, like that  maniac Jeffrey Daumier.  Strange how being connected to a murder suddenly made a person clamor to be in the spotlight, to say someone no one else knew, to be the one appeared on the morning news shows saying "I knew him when...."

They didn't know him when Brandon thought. No one had ever known him. Mother made sure of that. No one could see past the flowers and the songs.

Suddenly the drone of headlines changed. Brandon looked up to see the word LIVE pop up on the top left corner of the screen. As the camera's panned over a grave yard, then closed in on a bunch of people standing in the drizzle in dark jackets, the yellow letters FBI across the backs. A back hoe sat in the picture, a few people holding shovels. The camera homed in on a empty grave, then tightened further on a small white brick Marker James, 1990.

Grandpa? They were digging up grandpa?

Another grave came into view, another white brick: James 1992. Then the camera's followed the officials loading two coffins in a hearse. Grandpa and Mother.

Brandon's lungs froze for a moment. He couldn't believe it. There is only one thing they could want his mother's corpse for to review the cause of death. It wouldn't be the 1rst time they had wondered about that. and Brandon didn't care. But grandpa? why Grandpa?

It hit him. And his chest tightened. "She can't feel, She has bad blood."

"It is OK Christie." He said aloud. "I will take care of you."

But inside he was nauseous.

Damn them. damn them all. Damn Brian Fuller.

Yes especially Fuller. Brandon punched the t.v. off and looked at the G.I.Joe doll in his hands. Brian haunted him, hunted him, from the very beginning, after Gloria's death and if that weren't enough, his careless actions with the duffel bag in Sarra's house  had sealed his fate. If Brandon was a different type of person, like the simpleminded killers he had known in prison, he would just catch the asshole late one night and pop him with one of Damien's pistols , be done with it. But Brandon was better than that. Sarra cared about Fuller, that was obvious from the rare glimpses a camera caught of the two of them together. A relationship has even been speculated upon by one reporter on channel 7. So Brandon would do more than just kill Fuller . He would use Fuller's demise to up the ante in Sarra.

He sat back down on the couch, pushing the news about the grave yard out of his mind. He picked up the .22 he used on the woman at the church and screwed on the silencer. Two of Paisly's thick phone books made the perfect bed. He laid the G.I. Joe on top, face up, pressed the muzzle of the .22 against the doll's left pectoral muscle, and squeezed.

A thrill ran through his limbs. He couldn't wait to deliver that message.