The stranger's breaths came hard and ragged as he approached the door to Charity's bedroom, twisted and belabored both by pain and a frenzied desire.
He put his hand on the doorknob, turned it.
He expected the door to be locked or barricaded. Instead, it swung open easily. Confused, he stepped inside.
Alicia was standing near the window. When the hulking man entered, shovel in his hands, she felt a geyser of fear erupt beneath her. She suddenly felt weak in the knees. Her body wanted to collapse and her mind urged her to run. But that wasn't what the plan called for.
“Th...there you are!” she shouted, trying to sound stern. “Where have you been? It's past your bedtime!”
The stranger tilted his head to the side, confused. “Hehhh...” he breathed.
“Your parents left me in charge, so you have to do what I say,” she scolded.
The stranger listened, then took a few determined steps forward, stopping in front of her. Alicia forced herself to stay rooted, and also to keep from peeing herself. “N-n-no more fooling around!” she stammered, looking up at him. She pointed at Charity's bed. “I'm your babysitter, and I say it's time for bed!”
The man stopped. He looked down at the girl, then at the bed, perplexed. Behind him, Maxine and Charity silently crept out of the closet and out of the room. Alicia swallowed. All she had to do was keep him confused and distracted long enough for Maxine and Charity to get everything ready.
“Hennhhh...hennnnhhh...” he breathed. He breathed for a long time, keeping Alicia pinned under his gaze. Alicia prayed she wasn't trembling. Any sign of fear might break the illusion. She needed this stranger to believe that she was his babysitter. At least for a little while.
Finally, he spoke. His voice was harsh and mangled with age and screaming in a padded cell, but with a rawness and slow awkwardness that showed it was poorly practiced, rarely used. “Don't want...Bed...”
“Hmm,” said Alicia thoughtfully. “Well, I guess you can stay up a BIT longer. What do you want to do instead?”
“Kill...babysitters...”
Alicia gulped. “You...you say you want to play with your toys?” she asked. She picked up one of Charity's dolls from the floor and held it out to him. “Well, I guess it's okay. Since you asked so nicely.”
The stranger stared at it for what seemed like an eternity. Then, he took it from her hand. The shovel dropped to the carpet. Alicia breathed a sigh of relief. “Like...toy...”
….........
Alicia and the killer sat on the floor of Charity's room for a while, playing with Charity's toys. The shovel was lying nearby. Maxine's blood was soaking into the carpet. Alicia's heart pounded. How were Maxine and Charity coming?
Before the stranger arrived, the three girls had briefly gone over their options. There weren't many. The house did not have many weapons. They still had their knives, but after tangling with the stranger a couple of times they seemed increasingly ineffective. Their skill with the knives was seriously lacking, as was their strength. With his chosen weapon of the shovel, the stranger clearly had them beaten in both of those departments, as well as in reach. Alicia had only gotten close enough to stab him out of sheer luck, and with the help of an unexpected distraction that had nearly cost Maxine her life. Charity still had no clue where her dad's gun was, although she did mention he had golf clubs. Those might have done something against a normal assailant, but realistically, it was hard to picture the stranger being stopped by them.
The girls needed killing force if they wanted to see another sunrise. It was as simple as that. And killing force, in this child-safe house, seemed hard to come by. Coming up with a plan to acquire it had taken some ingenuity...and a lot of faith. Alicia still wasn't sure it would work.
They discussed the possibility of having one of them distract the stranger, much like Alicia was doing now, while Maxine and Charity took the opportunity to run for help. But that would mean leaving Alicia here alone with him, and that was something they weren't willing to do. At least if they were here, in the house, they would be able to hear her if she screamed. Even so, it was unlikely they could arrive in time to save her should the wind change in the mad murderer's mind and strike him with the urge to end her life. But Alicia tried not to think about that.
“Like toy...” said the stranger, making one of Charity's dolls walk around and talk to Alicia's toy. “Small and breaks easy, like babysitter...”
Alicia saw him suddenly squeeze the doll, and interjected. “Don't break it, now...those are surprisingly expensive, you know. That was your birthday present.”
The stranger held the doll in his palm. He blinked at it. “Oh...” He went back to playing with it. Charity had a pink toy car big enough to seat the doll, so the stranger put it behind the wheel and began driving it around.
“Are you happy to be out of the asylum?” asked Alicia.
“Yes...no good there. No babysitters...”
“No?”
“Lots of nurses...” he said gruffly. He thought about them for a moment, remembering. “They're not the same...”
“What's so special about babysitters?”
“Nothing...Babysitters bad...Not special at all...” He drove the car over Alicia's leg like it was a jump. “Vroom...whoooossshhh...Babysitters bad...when babysitter comes, mom goes away...mom shouldn't go away. Never liked when mom goes away. But when babysitter leaves...mom comes home...”
Alicia took a moment to let this sink in. Once it had, she did something she knew she really shouldn't have, something she couldn't afford to do. She felt sorry for him.
This was a sick man. It sounded like he barely understood what he was doing or why he was doing it. Alicia saw something in him she felt could be reached. The seed of something good. She felt a desire to nurture that seed. She was teased with the possibility of ending this without violence, and it was painful.
It was ridiculous. He'd been in an asylum for decades. What could she do for him that a score of doctors and professionals could not, in all that time? Logically, she knew the answer was nothing. And yet, somehow, something in her heart wanted her to try. The feeling shocked and slightly shamed her. Perhaps she really was as naive and stupid as Maxine said.
She knew there was nothing she could do. Her sympathy would not have hurt as bad as it did otherwise. This stranger was ill, but his illness was an imminent danger to her and her friends. She had him pacified for the moment, but anything could set him off. Every second she spent with him, she was on the brink of death. She hadn't lost sight of that fact. She knew she could not place anything before the safety of Maxine, Charity, and herself. So, she did have some grasp of the reality of the situation.
But somehow it felt right to feel these doubts, all the same. If she didn't feel at least a little sympathy for him, after sitting with him like this and listening to him...something was wrong with her. That was honestly how she felt. She would just have to feel these doubts, and not act on them. She would have to just feel bad for him...and try to kill him anyway. If she was able.
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How on Earth did Chase deal with this? She didn't, Alicia supposed. Chase wasn't foolish enough to worry about the feelings of the person who was trying to kill her. That was a big part of why she was so strong, could be that decisively acting person, could be that person Alicia relied upon so deeply. Of course, at the same time, if Alicia had not opened her heart to Chase and given her a chance to redeem herself, they would never have become friends...
While Alicia became lost in thought, it took her a while to notice the stranger was no longer playing with his toys. The car was motionless, and though it rested in his hands, it seemed as utterly forgotten as if it had been tossed on its side in the corner. His eyes were not on it, but on Alicia.
Alicia felt herself shrink under his gaze. The mood in the room had changed without her knowing. Something fateful, dangerous, was brewing in the air, and in the stranger's eyes. It was as though every toy, every piece of furniture, was bracing itself for the fight about to begin.
“I, uh, have to go to the bathroom,” said Alicia, standing up. “Don't go any-”
The stranger grabbed her arm. Alicia screamed. She could no longer pretend not to be scared. “When I made the first babysitter go away...all I wanted was the next one. Was tough, in the house with lots of nurses. Many years with no babysitters. Spent whole life...in there...waited whole life...for you!”
He sprang up to his feet and threw her to the floor. His shovel was in his hands by the time Alicia looked back.
Alicia's mind was a static tangle of fear and panic as she rolled out of the way. He swung the shovel down, and she found her feet as its broad face whacked the carpet. He swung at her again and she sprang backward out of reach. He pulled the shovel back and stabbed it at her in a forward thrust, prompting her to gracefully sidestep. Her cheerleader agility was saving her neck once again, and the fear keeping her adrenaline surging was not exactly slowing her down.
But all she was doing was dodging and running. As much as her terror had her on the 'flight' side of 'fight or flight', she realized she needed to go on the offensive. Even if she couldn't finish him by herself, a wound might slow him down. Stabbing him in the neck had bought them a lot of time before. But she had no weapon. She needed her knife. It was better than nothing.
Another swing backed her up against the wall. The stranger swung again, and she responded by leaping up and kicking off the wall to rebound over him. She hit the floor behind him in a tidy tumble, coming up right next to her knife. By the time she snatched it up and stood, the stranger was already bearing down on her. He swung the shovel at her head. She ducked, and realized this was her chance to get close. She stepped forward, under the shovel's arc, and stabbed the knife into his stomach.
The stranger groaned and his torso curled forward in pain as one of his hands left the handle of his shovel and went to the knife handle. Alicia stepped backwards to see what would happen, putting some space between her and him again.
Not enough. The stranger suddenly retaliated, whanging the shovel against the side of her head. Alicia hit the floor again, unconscious, blood oozing out of her.
The stranger gripped the knife handle. The weapon made a smooth, meaty sound as he yanked it from his core. He dropped it to the carpet, his blood glistening red on its blade.
“Hehh...Hehh...Hehh!” The stranger's breathing was furious as he looked down at the sleeping girl. He leveled the blade of his shovel against her neck, then raised his boot.
“Rrrah!” shouted Maxine. With both hands, and a resounding clang, she clobbered the stranger on the back of the head with a heavy iron frying pan.
For a second, Maxine thought she'd knocked him out. He dropped, clumsily and heavily, to one knee on the floor. The shovel slipped away from Alicia's neck, and a hand left the handle to catch himself, Alicia's body beneath him. But he was still upright.
Maxine thought she wouldn't get a better chance to finish him off. She raised the pan high to bash him again.
Clang! The man recovered quicker than she expected. He whirled around, swinging the shovel with him. By sheer luck, he was aiming high, and Maxine was able to block with the pan. If he'd been aiming at her legs, she wouldn't have been able to react in time, and he'd have probably broken one.
He rose to his feet and swung again. This time, he was able to put more of his weight into the blow. Maxine felt fear rise as she braced herself and blocked. The force of the impact rattled her arms and knocked her back a couple steps.
Another couple of narrow blocks, and she felt her back bump against the wall. She did not have Alicia's agility or athletic background; she could not dodge and skirt around his swings the way Alicia could. All she could do was block, and every blow she absorbed weakened her fingers, wrists and arms even more. Very soon, her defenses would crumble. And when that happened, she'd be dead.
A hard hit finally did it. The pan left Maxine's aching fingers and hit the floor.
“Hennnh! Hennnh!” breathed the stranger, thrilled, possessed with excitement in his moment of victory. He raised the shovel.
Alicia threw the toy car at him. It hit him in the shoulder and rolled across the floor, flinging the doll from the driver's seat. The stranger looked for her, found her near the door. “Over here!” she shouted. She dashed out into the hallway.
With a growl, the stranger slowly followed her. As she ran down the upstairs hallway toward the stairs, she glanced over her shoulder. She did so just in time to see the stranger pull back his arm to throw the shovel.
As he let the shovel fly, Alicia leapt up and to her right, alighting on top of the upstairs railing. A long fall below her, somewhere in the dark, was the entryway.
The stranger walked to his shovel, picked it up in both hands, and turned to her. Alicia waited, heart pounding, balancing precariously on top of the railing. Their eyes met. “W-well? What are you waiting for?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips. “I'm your babysitter, and if you want mom to come home...you better kill me. Otherwise, I'll just keep her away forever.”
Between panting breaths, the stranger shouted a tortured battle cry: “Bring mom back!” He lunged at her, thrusting the shovel forward like a spear.
Alicia sprang off the railing, doing a flip over the barrelling man and landing behind him.
Crack. He hit the rail. The places she and Maxine had weakened splintered, but did not break.
Maxine was there with her before the man could recover. She and Alicia looked at each other, then charged at the stranger's back shoulders first, ramming him through the railing and into open space.
He fell through the darkness. He expected to hit hardwood floor, but he did not. He landed in shallow water. A wet cold instantly soaked and permeated his clothes.
And then the burning started. The stranger screamed. This wasn't water at all.
Charity was still emptying the last bottle of drain cleaner into the kiddy pool when Maxine and Alicia arrived at the bottom of the stairs. “Back up, Charity! Back up!” shouted Alicia, as the stranger began thrashing and writhing in agony. All over his body the acid was burning him, no, devouring him. Eating away at his skin and flesh. He screamed and screamed, allowing some to splash in his open mouth.
He tried desperately to get out, but Alicia and Maxine were already pushing on the huge, heavy bookcase. With a burst of strength, they tipped it over onto him, pinning him in the deadly pool.
…..........
It took a long time before he stopped screaming. Whether he died first, or the acid ate away his vocal cords first, they could not say.
Once he was truly, completely dead, Alicia made the trip to a neighbor's house and asked to use their phone. Within moments an ambulance arrived on the scene, and Charity's parents were not far behind.
“I don't know how to thank you both,” said Mrs. Stafford, as paramedics got Maxine on a stretcher. “You saved Charity's life.”
A second pair of paramedics wheeled the stranger out on a stretcher of his own. What was left of his face was covered with a blanket. Alicia shivered. The paramedics had given her a blanket too, and she tightened it around herself. “Well, we weren't gonna just save ourselves and let him have her,” she answered.
“You don't need to do this, I can sit up,” said Maxine. She was looking more pale than usual, and her makeshift bandage was very red.
“Please, ma'am. Just lie down,” a paramedic insisted. Maxine nodded weakly, then complied.
Before they could cart her away, Mr. Stafford paid them. He made sure to include some thick bonuses.
“Oh, gosh,” said Alicia in amazement, looking at all the money in her hands. She looked at the Staffords. “Are you sure? I don't want to horn in on Maxine, she's the one you hired. I shouldn't even have been here.”
“Alicia, just shut up and take the money,” Maxine permitted.
“Anytime we need a babysitter, you'll be the ones we call,” promised Mrs. Stafford.
“Both of us?” asked Alicia and Maxine in unison.
Mrs. Stafford nodded. “If you don't mind it. Charity really likes you. Honestly, we've had trouble finding babysitters who'll click with her. She can be kind of spoiled. A bit selfish.”
“Spoiled? No way. She was an angel,” said Alicia.
“If you'd rather not work together, maybe you can trade off. Alicia can do one week, Maxine can do the other?” suggested Mr. Stafford.
“NO!” shouted Charity, stamping her feet. “I want BOTH! They're both MINE!” And that was that.