Frenzied - A Suspense Thriller

  FRENZIED

  Brandon Massey

  Dark Corner Publishing

  ATLANTA, GEORGIA

  Copyright © 2017 by Brandon Massey

  Dark Corner Publishing Edition: October 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  Dark Corner Publishing

  Atlanta, GA

  www.darkcornerpublishing.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Frenzied/ Brandon Massey – 1st edition

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  Chapter 1

  When her son didn’t answer the first time she called his name, Beth Turner wasn’t concerned. Ryan was a student at the University of Georgia, home for summer break. He loved to stream music on his iPhone and play the Xbox in the media room in the basement. If he were doing any of those things, Beth doubted he would have heard a pressure cooker explode in the kitchen.

  Besides, when she had texted him earlier that afternoon, during their layover in Denver, he’d remarked that he wasn’t feeling well, that he had a headache and might lie down for a while. She wasn’t feeling too hot, either. She and Howard had just arrived home from a seven-day Hawaiian cruise to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Although it was only six-thirty in the evening, she was jetlagged and looking forward to getting some sleep.

  Silence greeted them in the entry hall of their house. All the lights were off, too, the thick shadows relieved only by a few stripes of sunshine filtering around the front blinds.

  The house felt empty, but when the Uber driver had dropped them off she had noted that Ryan’s Prius was parked in the driveway on the side of the house. Ryan rarely went anywhere on his own without driving his beloved car, even though their community, South Haven, was designed for walking and cycling.

  “Doesn’t look like he had any wild parties while we were gone,” Howard said, and snickered. He switched on a hallway lamp and ambled down the hall, hands on his ample waist. Dressed in an authentic Hawaiian shirt and khaki cargo shorts, Howard was as well-tanned from their vacation as he had ever been, and she’d always envied his ability to get bronzed. She was a redhead, and had to lather on the sunscreen and manage her exposure to the sun.

  “Everything’s in one piece,” Howard said.

  Beth had never been worried about Ryan throwing a party, but while they were away, Howard had joked about such a possibility. She suspected that Howard had wanted to return home to chaos, that he was disappointed their youngest child wasn’t the keg-tapping frat-boy that Howard had been in his college days at UGA, or that his older brother had been. He was a studious kid.

  She set down her luggage and shuffled to the end of the entry hall, her flip-flops clapping across the hardwood floor. Their two-story, six-bedroom home was built in a Colonial style, like many of the residences in South Haven, but the interiors featured modern design: free-flowing spaces, arched doorways, lots of windows to let in natural light. They had lived there for nine years and had filled the place with furniture and interesting souvenirs from their many travels abroad. A glance around confirmed that nothing was out of place.

  “Any sign of Charlie?” Beth asked. Charlie was their four-year-old tabby.

  “Haven’t seen him,” Howard said with a shrug of his wide shoulders. “You know how he is, could be anywhere.”

  That was when she heard the noise: a thumping on the ceiling, which would have come from something going on upstairs, in the approximate region of her son’s room.

  “Did you hear that?” Beth asked, head cocked.

  “Huh?” Howard was in the kitchen leafing through a pile of mail stacked on the counter. “Hear what?”

  “Ryan?” she said, almost yelling.

  As she spoke, she was heading to the staircase. Tension clenched her stomach in a vise.

  “Hang on, Beth . . . Jesus.” Puffing, Howard shuffled after her.

  She ignored her husband and hurried up the stairs, taking them two risers at a time. It was mother’s intuition, singing like electricity in her veins. Something was wrong with her son.

  Another thump, from the end of the second-floor hallway, behind Ryan’s closed bedroom door. She slammed into the room without knocking, though she knew Ryan hated for her to barge in on him, but her anxiety was at a fever pitch and nothing was going to keep her from her seeing her baby.

  The room was shadowed, every curtain fastened across the windows, no lights on. But she saw Ryan on his bed. He wore only a pair of dark boxers. Lying atop the bed sheets, cradling his head, he thrashed so violently that the entire bed rocked, banging against the floor. He moaned in pain, but mumbled words escaped him.

  “God . . . oh . . . so hurts . . . bad . . .”

  Terror spiked Beth’s heart, but she tamped it down as the maternal urge kicked in, and jumped into action. She flipped the light switch near the doorway.

  “Fucking out get!” Ryan screamed.

  Beth froze, stunned not only by her son’s garbled stream of angry words but how he looked. His eyes were inflamed, outlined with crusty crimson whorls, his pupils dilated. Similar red lesions spotted his face, back, and arms. Blood trickled from his nostrils.

  He’s sick, Beth thought. But with what?

  “Holy shit, son.” Howard moved into the room ahead of Beth. His normally booming voice was almost a whisper. “What happened, buddy?”

  “Out fucking get!” His voice was ragged. Ryan clenched one hand into a fist, and Beth saw the back of his hand was marked with the strange lesions, too. Spittle had foamed in the corners of his mouth. “Out . . . get . . . now.”

  Something’s wrong with his mind, Beth thought. She was a real estate agent, with no medical background whatsoever, but she thought he may have been suffering from some kind of fever, or virus, that had brought on a state of delirium. She didn’t know what else it could be.

  But she was afraid to get too close to him. The idea jarred her. He was her youngest of two children, but she had always secretly thought of Ryan as hers; and Howard had claimed their oldest, Eric, as his. It had been an unspoken agreement between her and Howard, and the kids had known it, too.

  But Beth’s survival instinct overpowered her maternal inclinations. She was afraid to get any closer to her baby.

  “Listen to me, buddy, you’re not well, we’re getting you to the hospital,” Howard said in a gentle but firm father knows best tone. He went to put his hand on Ryan’s arm.

  “Don’t touch him,” Beth started to tell her husband, but too late.

  Howard touching Ryan was like setting off a detonator on an explosive device. Ryan snarled and punched his dad in the face. Howard was a sizable man, six feet and two hundred something pounds, while Ryan was significantly smaller in stature, but the blow came with such force and speed that Howard staggered backward and crashed into the dresser. A clock, some old woodworking project of Ryan’s from his middle school days, clattered to the floor.

  Beth broke her paralysis and stepped to Howard. A flower of blood had bloomed on his face. He blinked, stupefied.

  “He hit me?” Howard asked.

  “We’ve got to call the
paramedics,” Beth said.

  Ryan leaped off the bed, blinking against the light. Beth feared he was going to attack them, though that was such a crazy thought—Ryan, her quiet, somewhat introverted son, who had never displayed any violent impulses whatsoever. He didn’t run at them. He scrambled to the other side of the bedroom, moving with a sort of bug-like, twitchy speed.

  When Beth realized what Ryan was going to get, she grabbed a fistful of Howard’s Hawaiian shirt and whispered: “We’ve got to get out of here and call for help. Now.”

  Howard wiped his nose and looked at the blood on his hand. He still looked dazed.

  “Now!” Beth said, and tried to haul him upright, peeling back one of her manicured nails.

  Throughout the room, Ryan had hung and shelved artifacts of their family’s travels over the years. There was the beer stein from a pub in Munich. A pair of maracas he’d gotten in Puerto Rico. The painted wooden mask from South Africa.

  And the machete from last year’s visit to Brazil.

  “Ryan, no!” Beth screamed. “Please!”

  Muttering an incoherent stream of words, Ryan snatched the machete off its display hook on the wall.

  By then, Howard had finally struggled to his feet. Beth bolted out of the bedroom, and Howard followed close behind, nearly knocking her over, but he had the presence of mind to slam the door shut behind him. It would grant them only the briefest reprieve.

  The doorknob rattled. Ryan roared with rage.

  Our son wants to kill us, Beth thought. God in heaven, how is this happening?

  She dashed to their bedroom at the end of the shadowed hallway. One of her flip flops came loose and went flying. Shambling like a man caught in a bad dream, Howard knocked over a table in the hall, and an expensive Lalique vase hit the floor and smashed to pieces.

  A pair of French doors granted entry to the master bedroom. She and Howard hustled inside and were swinging the doors shut when Ryan exploded out of his room. He gripped the machete. His swollen eyes seethed.

  “Mommy . . . Daddy . . . pieces . . . hack you . . .”

  Beth shut the door, locked it. Howard grabbed the back of a nearby upholstered chair and dragged it in front of the door. Then he clutched his chest, grimacing.

  Beth had been going to get the telephone but stopped in midstride. “Howard? What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll be okay.” Blood from his busted nose trickled over his lips. He sounded out of breath. “Just palpitations.”

  She doubted his diagnosis. Howard was on a statin and had been advised by his physician numerous times to lose weight, exercise, and eat better, but he went on drinking his beloved tequila and eating whatever he wanted, and his exercise usually amounted to no more than strolling across a golf course with business clients. He was a prime suspect for a heart event, especially then.

  “I’m calling 911.” She punched on the telephone handset. She could barely make out the buttons on the phone, and realized it was because tears had flooded her eyes.

  “Beth, they’ll kill him,” Howard said.

  “What? He’s sick.”

  “They see our son with a machete, they’re going to kill him,” Howard said matter of factly. He shook his head. “I don’t know what’s happening, but he’ll attack them. And they’ll kill him.”

  Outside the room, Ryan bellowed. The French doors buckled inward as he rammed against them. He was screaming something. Beth couldn’t understand him.

  She half-believed she was still asleep on the airplane, that all of this was only a terrible nightmare from which she would soon awaken with great relief. It was tempting to lie down on the bed, pull the covers over her head, close her eyes . . . and hopefully wake up back in the world she knew and understood.

  Howard switched on a lamp on the nightstand on his side of the bed. He dug into the nightstand drawer and removed the .357 revolver.

  Crime never had been an issue in South Haven. It was a gated live-work-play community patrolled by a private security force. But Howard had been raised in an old-fashioned Georgia family that counted hunting and gun collecting as favorite past times. Heck, when Beth had met Howard’s dad for the first time and demonstrated she knew how to hold a rifle, the old guy had winked at his son and cracked, she’s a keeper, son.

  “What are you doing with that?” she asked.

  “Protecting us.” Hands shaking, he checked the chamber for ammunition.

  “He’s our son. He’s just sick, dammit, clearly. You’re going to shoot him?”

  “He’ll try to take us out, Beth.” Howard snapped the cylinder into place. “I don’t want to hurt him, Lord knows I don’t, but I’ve got to protect us.”

  The machete cleaved through the door, eighteen inches of gleaming, sharpened steel.

  “Ryan, stop it!” Beth screamed.

  But Ryan slashed at the door with the machete. Wood fragments flew.

  “Go into the bathroom, lock yourself in there, call help,” Howard said. “I’ll stay out here and try to slow him down.”

  “Don’t you dare hurt him, Howard. I swear to God I will never forgive you if you do.”

  “He’s my son, too.” Swallowing, Howard wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “Go on, hon.”

  Beth hurried into the bathroom, locked the door and flipped on lights. A short scream escaped her.

  She had found Charlie.

  The cat lay on the travertine tile floor, head twisted around a full one-hundred-eighty degrees, lips parted in a frozen cry, green eyes gazing at the ceiling.

  The sweet-natured tabby was a rescue. He’d loved to curl up in her lap while she caught up on her favorite shows, would purr with pleasure whenever she scratched behind his ears, and liked to nap on the sofa beside the front windows.

  Ryan had loved the cat, too. She couldn’t believe he had snapped the animal’s neck.

  “Oh, Charlie,” she said in a broken voice. Kneeling, she covered the cat’s corpse with a bath towel. “I’m so sorry.”

  As she rose, she caught a glimpse of herself in the huge mirror that hung above the dual vanity. Her hair was wild and her mascara was smeared by tears. She looked like hell, which was appropriate, because once they had walked through the front door, she had been plunged into hell on earth. The Hawaiian cruise, seven days of sunny paradise, felt like a vague memory from the distant past.

  She dialed 9-1-1.

  A woman answered. Beth struggled to explain to the operator what was going on, but managed to describe that her son was sick and was “behaving erratically.” She didn’t tell the operator that Ryan had evidently murdered the family cat and was presently hacking his way into their bedroom with a machete. She couldn’t say such things—the police would come here guns blazing if she told them those details. The operator assured her that authorities were being dispatched and cautioned her to stay in a safe place if she felt endangered.

  “No, no, we’re okay,” she said, and just as she spoke the words she heard a loud crack of rupturing wood, and Howard yelled.

  “Ryan, dammit, stop right there!”

  “Hurry, please,” Beth said, and ended the call. She dropped the handset on the vanity and wrung her hands. She worried that she had given the operator too much information, or that the woman had overheard too much background noise and was already conveying to the cops, suspect is armed and dangerous, go get him, boys.

  Howard let out a choked cry, like a wounded animal. Something crashed against the floor with enough force to rattle the tiles on which Beth stood.

  Her pounding heart felt as if it had crawled into her windpipe. Slowly, she stepped to the door, unlocked it, cracked it open an inch.

  Ryan stood over his father at the foot of the bed. He swung the machete in wide, powerful arcs, like a diligent laborer clearing underbrush in a jungle. Blood covered the blade, the walls, the bed sheets, and most of all, Ryan’s own body, gore splashed like war paint on his face and chest. Howard wasn’t moving.

  Beth screamed.
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  Ryan’s head ratcheted in her direction as if his neck pivoted on a pole. His swollen eyes simmered with inhuman fury.

  “Mommy . . . you . . . hack . . .”

  He loped after her, running across the bed, his bare feet leaving bloody footprints on the sheets. She pulled the door shut, fumbled to lock it for whatever good that might do, and retreated from the doorway. She scanned the vanity for something to use to protect herself, grabbed an aerosol can of hairspray and twisted off the cap, the cap clattering to the floor and spinning away.

  Ryan kicked the door open as if it were constructed of cardboard. He lunged inside.

  Beth directed a jet of hairspray right into his inflamed eyes, the fragrant mist filling the air. Ryan howled and staggered into the bathtub like a blind man tumbling into a swimming pool.

  She took no pleasure from his pain, she’d wanted only to slow him down until she could get somewhere safe. She turned the lock on the doorknob and hustled out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

  She was hyperventilating, and felt light-headed. She looked around her own bedroom as if she had never seen it before.

  There was so much blood.

  Howard’s blood.

  Slightly dizzy, she moved through the room, feeling as though she were floating. Blood everywhere, and there, near the bed, lay Howard, chopped into a random assortment of pieces.

  Before she realized what she was doing, she was kneeling to touch her husband’s head, which had been mostly severed from his neck. Blood smeared his face, and her fingers came away dipped in crimson.

  “Oh, dear God.” Vomit surged up her throat. Forcing herself to look away, she stumbled out of the room.

  Behind her, the bathroom door rattled in its frame.

  She also heard, distantly, the familiar and comforting warble of sirens.

  Got to . . . get out . . . .

  From there, it was as if she were seeing everything unwind through a series of jump-cut scenes in a found footage film. Running out of the house into the evening sunshine. Three Roswell police cruisers converging in front of their residence, light bars swirling. Her nosy neighbor, Miss Eleanor, coming up to wrap an arm around her and pull her aside. Ryan scrambling outdoors, nearly unrecognizable in his suit of spilled blood, but still armed with the machete, and still snarling with fury . . . and finding a new target in the group of police officers hurrying out of their vehicles with guns drawn.