86
As the day broke in the summer of 2007, a large SUV cruised down a lonely evergreen lined highway. Inside, five childhood friends were playing games that are only played on road trips. They were in the midst of their own version of 20 questions. One person picked a celebrity’s initials and all the others would ask questions until they could guess the person’s name.
Jim was the youngest of the group. At 6’ 8” he was a natural basketball player. He was a natural scorer who worked doggedly on defense. Jim was one of the best small forwards in collegiate basketball. As soon as he decided to come out, he was assured to be a lottery pick. But none of that was on his mind right now.
Right now, Jim was looking forward to celebrating his 21st birthday with his group of best friends. The big celebration was going to be held at Roy’s family cabin.
Roy was Jim’s oldest friend and the driver of the SUV. Growing up, Roy and Jim were always the two tallest kids in class (Roy came in at 6’ 4”). But where Jim had a passion for basketball, Roy focused on football. Roy anchored his college’s receiving core. It was almost a given that his number, 86, would be retired when his career was over.
Susan is Roy’s long time girlfriend. There had been rumors of marriage for a while now, but no rock as of yet. While not necessarily the best, Susan was definitely one of the best-looking tennis players on the college circuit. While most people would say that her toned legs were her best feature, Roy always said her face was her best feature.
Another close high school friend of Jim, Chuck was the oldest of the group. He had turned 21 in the prior year. And as such, he was the designated beverage purchaser. Chuck had recently undergone surgery to remove some bone chips in his shoulder. Otherwise, he would have missed Jim’s birthday because he was currently playing minor league baseball. Until the injury, Chuck was on target to get promoted to the big show come September. His natural smooth defense at the hot corner and his sweet swing was leading his team with a line of .315/20 HR/68 RBI. His coach’s were impressed with the amount of time he spent sharpening his skills.
The fifth member of the group is Jennifer. Jenny was a good-looking, tall, volleyball player. She had quickly made a name for herself as one of the best frontcourt players in college.
Soon, Roy was pulling the SUV down the gravel path that leads up to his family’s cabin. The cabin was perched atop a magnificent forested mountain. The cabin was the ideal secluded property for a party.
An older man was waiting at the cabin ready to meet the kids. John Herman watched over the cabin whenever Roy’s family wasn’t using it.
“Here’s the keys to the cabin. I’ll be around to pick up the garbage tomorrow afternoon.” John told Roy.
“So, you are our garbage man?” asked Jennifer.
“I’ll be much more than that for you, girl.” John replied creepily.
“As a matter of fact, if you need me at any time, call me on this walkie talkie.” John continued and handed the equipment to Jennifer.
Jennifer, disgusted by the come on of the old man, wearily grabbed the communicator and mumbled a thank you. She made a hasty retreat back to ranks of her friends.
“Well as I said, if you kids need anything, don’t hesitate to give the old ‘Garbage Man’ a call.” John said as he got into his 1986 Chevy El Camino. Seconds later, John’s truck was gone and a cloud of dust and gravel was left in its place.
“Could that guy have been any more pathetic? It was so gross.” Susan stated aloud.
“I’m not using this walkie talkie. Who knows where it’s been.” Replied Jennifer.
“Let’s just forget about him. It is time to party.” Stated Roy.
The group entered the cabin. Everyone was greeted with a great sense of being exactly where they wanted to be. The cabin was the epitome of everything they dreamed it would be. A large great room dominated the cabin. Off to either side of the Great Room stretched lengthy hallways that lead to various bedrooms, bathrooms, workout rooms, and spa areas. Each window had an amazing view of trees and mountains that surrounded the cabin.
After the scramble to claim the bedrooms, the gang reconvened in the Great Room. They then proceed to scrounge up some food. The gang decided to have a grill out; hamburgers, hot dogs, and plenty of beer. While normally this would be off limits, the athletes decided that a one-day splurge would be fine. They would just work it all off in the gym anyway.
As the evening progressed, and the drinks piled up, the conversational boundaries got pushed. Everything that is not to be discussed in polite society came out between the friends. It was an evening where the truths would bind them together forever.
After the intense discussion, the friends started crashing for the night. Everyone eventually retired to their rooms.
Jim walked into his room and looked at his bed. He took a couple of seconds to reach down an undo his squeaky clean white sneakers. It took him longer than usual. Half of that was because he was having difficulty with his balance; the other half was him fumbling his fingers. He finally kicked off his shoes and started towards his bed.
Jim only got in one step towards the bed. Before he knew it, Jim was splayed out on the ground. A person in a dark outfit had snuck up behind Jim and a 10-pound sledgehammer into Jim’s spine. Jim tried to get up but he soon realized that he no longer had control over any of his limbs. He had been completely paralyzed. In his last movement, Jim looked back over his shoulder. He saw the sledgehammer come down onto his head.
The next morning arrived. One by one, the friends started waking up. Eventually, they started questioning why Jim had yet to awaken. They decided to go wake him up as a group.
Jennifer was the first at Jim’s door. She flipped it open. She instantly had wished she hadn’t. She turned away in horror from the remains of Jim’s body.
As the other friends saw what had terrified Jennifer, the noticed something extra. On the wall above Jim’s body a word was written. It said, “Gabriel.”
At this moment, only one thing was important to the group, they had to get out of there. They ran out of the cabin like they were in a Scooby Doo cartoon.
Once they were outside, they each tried their cell phone to for help. No one had a signal. Roy suggested driving into town to get help. They all piled into the SUV, but it wouldn’t start. The gas tank had been drained.
The group decided to go back in the cabin and use the landline phone. On the way in, Roy grabbed an axe that had been used to chop firewood the night before. Picking up on his cue, the others grabbed their own weapons.
Timidly, they re-entered the cabin. The inside of the cabin had taken a whole new tone. Now, around every corner, in every shadow, and down each hallway became a hiding spot for a murderer. They moved towards the landline phone with their backs together. Susan reached out and grabbed the receiver. The line was dead.
A sense of doom leveled the room. They were trapped with a killer. Or were they?
“Jen, what about that walkie talkie?” Chuck asked.
“Are you serious? That creepy garbage man is probably the one who killed Jim. We’re not going to contact him.” Retorted Jennifer.
The accusation of John being the killer struck a chord with the group. They realized that John wasn’t the only suspect; any of them could be the murderer. A heated exchange of accusations sprang forth from this.
After a couple of minutes, cooler heads eventually prevailed. The group realized that randomly accusing each other isn’t going to get anything accomplished.
“Why don’t we split into pairs and see if we can find the killer,” suggested Chuck.
“You mean like in Clue?” asked Jennifer.
“Hmm, yeah, well they did eventually find the killer… and none of them died. So, it works for me.” Chuck thought out loud.
After a few minutes of debating, the group eventually settled on a plan. Roy and Susan would search one wing of the house. Chuck and Jennifer would search the other side.
Both couples started their way through the house. Very meticulously each person searched every possible spot. On the way through the kitchen, Roy looked inside the refrigerator.
“Are you getting a snack?!” Susan asked incredulously.
“Nope, I’m just leaving no stone unturned,” replied Roy.
“Yeah, a killer is going to be hiding himself in a fridge,” retorted Susan sarcastically.
From that point on, they searched places that only made some sense to hid in. Eventually, Roy and Susan reached the end of their wing where there was one last bedroom.
“He’s either in here or on the other side. Let’s take this room very carefully,” whispered Roy.
The couple slowly opened the door. As the crack opened, they scanned as much of the room as they could. With no signs of the killer, they continued opening the door. Now the door was about halfway open and still no signs of anything. Roy started pushing the door a little bit more and then…
CRACK! Both Roy and Susan jumped back with weapons ready at hand, but it was just the hinge of the door popping.
They couple waited for their respective heart rates to go down before continuing. Eventually, they had the door completely open. No signs of life inside the room. They each took a few timid first steps into the room. Eventually they work around either side of the bed.
To their relief, nothing was in the room.
Then, just as they turned to leave the room, a tranquilizer dart struck Roy in the neck. Before Susan could understand what had happened, a dart struck her in the arm. As she fell to the ground, she caught a glimpse of a green and white converse sneaker.
Chuck and Jennifer had made it through their half of the house and hadn’t found any new evidence.
“Let’s go see if they found anything,” Chuck said.
The couple walked back from their side to the middle. At that point, Chuck started calling out to Roy and Susan. There was no answer.
Against their better judgment, Chuck and Jennifer went into a dead sprint down Roy and Susan’s half of the house. They hurriedly shoved each door until they got to the end of the hall. Without thinking, Chuck drove his shoulder through the door. A massive shot of pain stretched from Chuck’s shoulder down to his fingertips. He had forgotten about his recent surgery. But the pain was short lived when Chuck saw his friends inside the room.
The killer had struck again. Roy was laid on his back. His chest had been sliced open and his heart was visible. The killer had continued the cutting deeper and had sliced Roy’s heart open. In addition, Roy’s arms were missing along with the axe he had been carrying. Above him, the killer had written, “Madonna.”
A second later, Chuck and Jen found Susan… and Roy’s arms. A large syringe was sticking out of Susan’s chest. She had been given a lethal injection. Wrapped around her body were Roy’s arms and above her the killer had written, “Crew.”
“Well, at least we know neither of us are the killer,” Chuck said dejectedly.
“It has to be the garbage man, right?” Jennifer deduced.
“Most likely, but what the heck are these words for?” Chuck puzzled.
Jennifer didn’t know, but she did have a plan.
“Why don’t we use the walkie talkies and call the garbage man, then jump him when he shows up?” Jen announced her idea.
“Even if he wasn’t the killer, we would at least have his car here to leave in,” Chuck added while nursing his shoulder and arm.
Jennifer pulled out the walkie-talkie and pressed the button, “John, help us! We need you. Please, come quick!” She was putting it on pretty thick.
After a couple of minutes, there was still no response. Where was John at?
The El Camino pulled into the driveway. John was in a one-piece jumpsuit with work boots on. He was coming to the house to pick up the garbage. As he made his way to the stack of garbage, he noticed something was out of place. One of the rooms’ windows was covered in blood.
“I bet they are going to expect me to clean that up,” John said disappointedly.
A second later, John heard the distress call from Jennifer. He rushed over to his truck where he kept a lead pipe. He grabbed his weapon and ran in the cabin.
John only made it three steps into the cabin. The killer jumped out from behind a corner and drove the axe deep into John’s chest. John was dead before he hit the floor.
Chuck and Jennifer heard a loud thump in the great room. Before Jennifer could react, Chuck was already out the door sprinting to see what caused the noise. Eventually, Jennifer got to her feet and started heading towards the great room.
Jennifer got past the first set of doors put was suddenly jerked backwards. The killer had grabbed her and had wrapped a string around her neck. She couldn’t scream or even breathe. She put all of her force to push the killer back towards the wall. The killer gave out a grunt has he was pushed into the wall. Jennifer caught her breath for a second. In that second, she let out a scream, “Chuck!” Shortly after that, the killer had her strangled again. She lost her energy and died shortly after. The killer dropped her and wrote, “Berlin,” on the wall above her.
Chuck hadn’t heard Jennifer’s cry for help. He was staring agape at the body of the garbage man. The killer had written, “Dick,” next to his body. Chuck turned back looking for Jennifer, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Chuck’s mind raced. He knew that the killer had caught her. But that also meant the killer was in one of the rooms down the hallway.
As he took his first step, he noticed a faint noise coming from down the hallway. It was music. Chuck took a second trying to figure out what song was playing. Then it hit him.
“It’s the Final Countdown,” the voice on the stereo blared.
Chuck started walking slowly down the hall. He stopped when he was ten feet away from the door where the music was coming from. The killer stepped out of the room and stood in front of Chuck. The killer was robed in a black sheet that covered his face and hid his hands.
They stood there for a moment taking in their opponent. The killer brandished a butcher’s knife he was holding. Chuck’s eyes got wide at the sight of the knife. The killer took this opportunity to charge at Chuck.
The killer started his charge, but he was tripped up. As the killer fell face forward, Chuck pulled the axe he had taken out of John’s corpse and took a Ruthian baseball swing. Chuck struck the killer right in the neck. The killer fell limp to the ground.
Chuck ran past the fallen killer and to the back room. Jennifer was laying half in the hallway and half in the room. She had grabbed the killer’s leg to trip him up. Now she lied on the ground dying. Chuck tried to give her CPR, but she was too far-gone. She died in his arms.
After a few minutes of mourning, a more physical pain settled in. Chuck’s arm was shredded. Chuck couldn’t move a single muscle in the arm. Oddly, Chuck’s mind instantly thought about his baseball career. It was for sure done now. But, in exchange for his life, Chuck was okay with it.
Chuck gathered himself and made his way out of the cabin. He continued up to the El Camino. He chuckled when he saw inside the car-truck was a car phone. He sat down in the driver’s seat and dialed for help.
Within 30 minutes, the cabin was a circus. Police cars and ambulances filled the driveway. Chuck was sitting on the edge of an ambulance having his arm looked at. The lead detective on the case walked up to him.
Chuck asked him, “So, do you know who this guy was?”
“Yeah, everyone around here knows about this guy. His name is… or was, Gary Franklin. He was born in this city back in 1968. Pretty nice kid growing up. Caused a little trouble, but not too much. He did decent in school. But when he turned 18, something went wrong. He started make outrageous claims about the world ending and things like that. Shortly thereafter we found out that he had killed his girlfriend, and her parents, and her siblings, and her cousins… Well you get the point. When we caught him, we saw that he had gotten tattoos, brands, and carvings all over his body of the number 86. Well, this was enough to get him off on insanity. He was locked up in one of those sanitariums, or whatever they call them now a days. We just found out that he escaped this past weekend.”
“86?” Chuck repeated.
“Yup, he was obsessed with the number. Actually, that’s probably why he came to this cabin after he escaped. It’s the 86th house on this street, and the street is the 86th to the west of the sanitarium,” continued the detective.
“What about those words he had written?” asked Chuck.
“We actually don’t know about those. We’ll have to look into that. But for now, you need to go to the hospital,” said the detective and he walked away.
Chuck laid back on the gurney in the ambulance. The EMT shut the doors and drove off to the hospital.
The End
Posted by Mikey 
Posted by Mikey 
Posted by Mikey 
