Red Discord

Chapter 3

Amie always liked the room. Her parents called it the family room, but she always liked to call it her playroom. She also liked the clown's big hands as he guided her through the room. They made her feel safe, like there would be no worries in the world left if she stayed with him. 
   
She looked up at the clown, who guided her by the hand through the room, when they started to walk toward the laundry room door. “Hey, Mr. Clown, what are we doing? Amie wants to play in here.”
   
The clown merely smiled down at the small girl and continued to drag her towards the room.

.

“What is that room?” James held out his finger to a blue-painted door. “He could be in there, couldn’t he?” He tried to stop his voice from shaking the best he could, but it was obvious to everyone in the room who listened to his voice go up and down.
   
“He has to be,” Kassy said, without looking up from her husband’s face. “It’s a closed room. If he’s not in here, then he has to be in there since he rattled the door knob earlier.” 

The sound of the washer kicking on could be heard from inside the room.

“Stay back!” Madeline threw her hands up to her sides, jumping in front of the two siblings. “I’ll... check. So, both of you just stay right there and don’t move. It’s better if one of us dies then all of us.” 

“Mad—” 

“Kass, stay there. Okay?”

Kassy nodded her head. She grabbed James’ arm with a hefty tug and rested her forehead on it. “I don’t want to see,” Kassy whispered to James. “I don’t want to see her die.”

Madeline inched toward the room, each step stuck deeper in mud. She placed her hand on the doorknob and her ear to the door. When she heard nothing but the drier, she took her head off the door and, with a deep breath, pulled open the door. There was nothing there, nothing that jumped out at her, or came flying at her. She walked in and turned completely around two times. The towel closet was the next thing that caught her attention. She slowly pulled open sliding shuttered doors. Again, there was nothing there. With her reluctant nod as a sign, Kassy and James walked into the room with her.

“How could he not be in here?” Kassy asked, shifting uncomfortably, moving her weight back and forth on her legs. “He messed with the fucking door knob!” A tear rolled down her face. 

“It could have been a trap,” James pointed out. “Something like..." James looked around the room quickly with his eyes until he found the vent under the curtain. "...the air coming on could have triggered something in the room to pull at the door knob. From there.... the knife.... you know.”

“Then what about the dyer?” Madeline asked. “How’d that turn on?”

“It—both the washer and dryer,” Kassy explained, “have an... an automated time-set or something. You can set the time whenever you want and it will turn on then, whenever you set it to turn on.” Kassy walked over to the washer and pressed the stop button. There was a banging noise as the dyer slowly stopped its spinning cycle. “What the...”

“Open it, Kassy,” James ordered. 

She turned around to face him. James motioned for her to go raising his eyebrows at her. His eyes looked as if they wanted to tell her that she couldn’t make Madeline do all the work. Kassie reached for dryer door and opened it. Her face turned pale as wad of tangled black hair fell out of the dryer. Red drops of blood started to leak out from bottom of the hair wad. Kassy reached out with her shaking hand and stroked some of the hair away. Amie’s scratched face was shown underneath the hair. Kassy screamed. Madeline joined her once she saw whoes face it was in the hair.

Footsteps echoed throughout one of the rooms. It barely reached James’ ear over the girls’ screaming. James reached for Kassy’s arm and pulled her back into the towel closet. He closed the door and covered her mouth. 

“I know this will be hard with your big mouth, but please don’t make any sound no matter what, or both of us will be killed.” 

Madeline didn’t notice when James dragged Kassy back into the closet. She was still gawking at Amie’s head. She bent down and stroked the girl’s decapitated head, her eyes a river of tears. A creak came from the wood floors. 

“Kassy, Amie is—” Madeline’s eyes flew open when she looked to the door. She jumped up from the floor and banged back into the washer. “No!” She screamed.

James pressed his hands down on Kassy’s mouth and eyes, so she wouldn’t see anything or make any sound that would give away their position. He tilted his head until he could see through the shutters. Giant, red clown shoes were the only thing that he could see through the millimeter of space between the shutters. They moved forward toward the screaming Madeline. Her scream was cut off with a crack. Her body hit the floor with a loud thump. She didn’t move. The shoes turned toward the closet. They stayed in the same spot as if examining the closet. James’ strength on Kassie increased as his tension rose. They took slow steps toward the closet. The shoes kept coming and coming, drawing ever closer until, finally, they were only five inches from the closet. James could make out the dark, shadowy figure of the clown as it bent closer. 

The doorbell rang, chiming throughout the house.

The shoes didn’t move. Finally, after ten seconds—ten second that seemed like ten years for James—,he could make out the shadow move away from the shutters and the shoes stalk out of the room. The door slammed shut. James released Kassy from his grip. He shushed her, reminding her to be quiet.

“Kassy,” he whispered. “Be quiet when you answer me, but do you have any idea at all of who that could be at the door. We don’t have time Kassy. Think!”
   
“It—it—it was probably the stunt actors I hired in place of the clown. They said they were going to be late, so I—James? James. James, what are you doing?!”

“Be quiet!”  he yelled through his teeth, placing his finger to his mouth. James slid open the door to the closet and walked over to Madeline’s body. He moved the woman’s body, picking it up in his hands and placing it back down on the ground face up. Then, he walked over to Amie’s head, still hanging from the dryer and rubbed his hand on the bloodied part of her neck. In the distance, ringing through the house, James and Kassy could hear the ear curling screams of men. With his dripping wine-stained hands, he started to rub his hand against his the doorframe, the small table by the door, some other furniture and the door that connect to the living room. After he was done, he ran back to the closet, and closed the door with his clean, left hand. He scooted back into the position Kassy and him were in before he had gotten out, wiping his bloodied hand onto his pants. A minute later, the shoes walked back into the room. They turned around the room, examining the moved body and blood-stained doorframe. The shoes followed the blood spots that James had left out of the room. Once James heard the creak of the stairs, he knew that the clown had headed upstairs. He took this opportunity to get him and Kassy out of that room and try to run to safety, however hard it would be. They headed for the front door, thinking they would be able to escape outside. However, they were stopped before they could reach the door. The entranceway was dyed red. Kassy covered her mouth, letting the food in her stomach settle down so it wouldn’t come back up. There were bodies thrown about, all of them having their limbs torn off—and the limbs were found decorating the wall; the blood and guts smeared all over like a Picasso painting. James didn’t let the sight distract him for long before he carried on and moved to the door. He had crunched time; there was no time left for them anymore. It would have all worked out perfectly, that is, if the door had opened. 

“Don’t bang it!” Kassy said. “You’ll make too much noise. There’s this... underground bunker thing under—in the dining room, under a, a rug by the wall. Trevor and I had it for emergencies. There’s a way outside from there.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?!” James scolded, grabbing Kassie’s hand and running off into the dining room as fast as he could. He found the hand-knitted rug on the right side wall in the lower corner of the room. Kassie watched him as he scrambled to peal the rug off the ground and open the hatch door. While he was doing that, she walked over to a small cabinet. 

“Kassy!” James yelled. “Hurry up.” 

Kassy closed one of the cabinet doors she opened and quickly shoved a small black box into her back jean pocket before she ran over to where James was and crawled down the metal stairs. They wobbled with every move she made, and on the back, from the dipping mildew, was a small rust spot that cut her finger as she descended. 

The bunker was a rectangular, underground block of bricks divided into four sections by five thick metal doors that Kassy and Trevor had made in case of a nuclear war, or something of the likes that an underground bunker was needed for. They never did use it until now. The grey, brick walls were filled with seeping mildew that stained the walls a seaweed green, decorated with multicolored fungus. It was a tight fit as the passage was narrow, and filled with musty, dank air, causing the two siblings to have trouble breathing.

James and Kassy slid down the back wall to the ground, where Kassy hid her face as she huged her knees.

“We’re about to die.” James started to cry, his tears falling down his face like rain drops on a spring morning. “We’re gonna die. God help me. There’s no air in this fucking place. We’ll die before we ever get out.”

Kassy tightened the grip on her knees without a word, or a sound, for that matter. 

“I haven’t even finished that painting in my room. Oh God, oh dear God. I’m going to die at twenty-nine.” James closed his mouth as he hear Kassy slam her head against the wall.

Her eyes were glazed over, red from crying. She started to sing. “Lit-tle chil-dren, lock your door and bo-lt your win-dow, close you-r eyes for the boog-ie-man, hide and seek - you must play - don’t get caught or you might go awa-y...” Her laugh was high pitched and thrill in the silent room.

“Kassy.” James moved over just a bit as he watched his sister. “Kassy?” 

She let her head fall to her chest. “James, I have a confession to make,” Kassie whispered. “I killed him once. It was at my birthday party when I was six years old. Remember? Mommy found that clown dead? Well, it was my fault. He—he kept coming closer and closer to me with that horrid smile of his. I warned him not to come any closer, but he kept coming and coming until I finally took mom’s vase and smashed it against his face. He stepped back with his face full of blood and smiled at me. And you know what he said? He said, ‘Burn in hell.’ He said burn in fucking hell!” 

“Goddammit, Kassy!” James moved in front of his sister and got down on his knees. He grabbed her by the shoulders and began shaking her back and forth without an inkling of the brute force he was using on her. “What the hell happened to ‘no more secrets between us?!’” When he came to realize what he was doing, he pulled his hands off of her and shook his head, closing his eyes and rocking himself back and forth in an attempt to recompose himself. His breathing was heavy—his chest bobbed up and down in uneven rhythm, his lungs red. James got up onto his feet and walked back and forth between the two bricked walls, wringing his fingers through his hair. “You created a monster.”

“He’s not a monster... he’s a killer.”

James pressed his hands and head on the concrete wall. “We have to get out, get help—yeah, we have to get help. We can’t do this alone.”

“We can’t run. He knows where we are. He always knows where we are. James—” Kassy leaned forward on her knees and crawled to her brother. He bent down and Kassy grabbed hold of his shirt. “—we’re not alone.”

“What are you talking about, Kassy?”

“He’s already down here with us.”

“That’s impossible!” James shouted. “We heard him go upstairs, and if he tried to come down here, wouldn’t we have seen him?”

“We also heard all those screams and saw the doorknob move too. Yet he wasn’t there. It was trick, James! He tricked us to come down here so we’d be trapped with him. But, you know what? You know what, James, my wonderful brother, it’s okay.” Kassy pulled out the black box she hid earlier and pulled the top off. In the middle of the box was a round, red switch. “I had bombs planted in the house when it was being built.”

James pushed his sister off of him and stumbled backwards. “You’re crazy!” he screamed. “Well, mother always said that someone in this family was going to go off the deep end, but bombs?! Kassy, just put the switch down. We have too much to lose if we die!” 

Kassy let out a muffled laugh. She stood up and faced her brother. “I have nothing anymore—both my husband and daughter are dead—and you never had anything to begin with. What’s the point in losing to lose?”

He didn’t reply, instead, however, his eyes grew into discuses and his mouth dropped open. James pointed his finger forward. “It—it—he—behind.”

Kassy began tilting her head back and forth, her thumb rubbing circles around the red button in her hand. “You said burn in hell, and that’s exactly what I plan to do.” She pressed the button and threw the switch to the ground. The ground shook violently as if there were a 6.0 earthquake going on. The clown spread his hands and feet out like he was about to surf. Kassy grabbed her brother’s wrist and dashed forward. The door started to close as she grabbed James. They made it through just as the doors closed. James’ shirt sleeve had gotten stuck in the door, but with a quick pull and a big rip, James was able to free himself. The bomb went off. James screamed, falling into a fetal position. 

“It’s okay,” Kassy heaved, falling to her knees, “this room is the only room that we sealed up. The bomb won’t reach us here. We did it, James—we’re free.” Tears streamed down her face like streamers and James cried buckets as well. Kassy crawled over to a wooden barrel in the corner of the room and shoved it out of her way. With nothing in it and light wood used to make it, it was easy for the drained woman to move it with little effort, as it was designed to be. Behind the barrel was another passage like the one they had crawled down before. It led outside to the porch, or what remained of the charcoaled mess. Kassie reached for the sunlight as she cried, yelling, “We’re safe!”