"Party Time"

So, the first entry Ms. Carter posted had a date of April 4th, 2011. The closest I can find to that in this mess of papers on my desk is April 16th, 2011. There may be missing entries, but I don't think there are. Bradley was rattled by what he writes about in this one, I think it took him a while to put it into words. The penmanship's a lot shakier. Ah well. Presented to you here is the next entry in Bradley's journal, annotated by Ms. Carter in red, no italics. I've included red asterisks in the original text to indicate which part of Bradley's story I think each of Ms. Carter's comments are referring to. Sometimes she's drawn helpful arrows, sometimes she hasn't. Ms. Carter is fickle like that, so some of my asterisks are more accurate than others, I'd guess.

(Can you tell that she's insisting I refer to her as 'Ms. Carter' right now? Because she is.)

April 16, 2011

She said she was gonna 'host a party'. What a fuckin' joke.*

*NO JOKE KIDDO NO JOKE

Not really like any party I've ever been to. Nobody had any fun. I didn't have any fun.

Fuck I gotta write this down, I know I've got to write this down but I don't want to. I don't even want to think about it ever again. But if I don't, I'll go crazy trying to keep it inside. My mom* was big on expression. Always said it would ease a troubled mind and soothe a savage soul. Not sure if it'll do either of those things anymore.

*THE BITCH IS AN IMPOSTER. you can't trust her little Bradley, no no no. She may have been big on a lot of things but she's old and grey and dead and you're alive. You're a living fucking thing! Living things should not take advice from dead things [text gets too bunched up to read after this.]

I still jump every time the phone rings. She called...a week ago, I think?* She called up a bunch of us, sounded very excited about something. We got invited to this party...only it wasn't a party at all.** She had us meet her out at one of Joshua's old places, a little house in the middle of nowhere we used to take fucks who hadn't paid up money they owed for lessons. One of those places. 

*Rock-a-bye Bradley, when the phone rings. When the phone rings, his bowels will fail. Then Bradley will cry like a BIG FUCKING BABY!!!

**that's ridiculous of COURSE IT WAS a PARTY! all of my parties are the height of fashion, very chic, very "in". I have always wanted to hold parties like these. No one ever wants to come so I make them come! when I first started having them I set them up aaaaall by myself. Don't remember this one, because I wore the theme out....

I remember the smell, mostly. It was so strong the minute I walked through the door. Hell, as soon as Derek opened the door it got nasty. He swore and ran off back to his car. A couple of us got brave, or stupid, enough to go check out what the hell it was. That stench was decay, is what it was. I'd smelled it before, knew it immediately, we all did. And there was so much blood...[scribbled out text. I suspect this was Bradley's doing, rather than Ms. Carter's.] Fuckin' everywhere. Like I've never seen this much blood in my life, and I have fucked guys up real bad before.

She'd rigged some kind of intercom system up all over the place.* I don't know how the fuck she did that, but her voice came in loud and clear over these little stereos plugged in in every room. Don't know how she got that hooked up, don't care. It was fuckin spooky, is what it was.

*I did it myself! Took several hours and lots of screaming.

The next thing I know, she started giggling like some school girl. She tells us all 'Go upstairs, my little ducklings, I have a surprise for all of you.'* I know I was pretty convinced we were about to get killed. Most of the guys there that night were. But somehow she knew we weren't moving, because she started screaming pretty loud** about how we weren't going anywhere and how she'd kill us all if we didn't. We high-tailed it pretty fast after that. Fucked up bitch.

*I'll be honest...I'm no good at surprises. It's all well and good to see the look on the person who is being surprised's face, but it takes patience that I haven't got to lay in wait and not be gratified immediately. IT'S NO FUN. When I was little I used to smash the little bunnies in our backyard with bricks...catching them was always so hard. They were very hard to surprise. So I learned how to surprise that way. But I still don't enjoy it. It's been so many years....so many dead bunnies....once, I even managed to surprise some policemen who were trying to catch me! That was almost fun! But seeing their brains all over the walls and the floor after I smashed them with bricks was the most fun part. Not the surprise part.... [Note: This entire paragraph was written out on a sticky-note Ms. Carter stapled to Bradley's original work. The fact that it goes into Ms. Carter's views on surprises are what lead me to conclude it was intended to refer to this particular section.]

**I FUCKING HATE SLOW-POKES. HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE THEM

...that little girl...that poor little girl...

That's what the 'surprise' was, it was a little girl tied to a chair in one of the rooms upstairs. She couldn't have been older than twelve. so gruesome. it looked like someone had cut her open at the belly, let her intestines fall out. I couldn't move, none of us could. Shit was fucked up. I've seen some bad things but..... she was still alive! Who the fuck does that to a twelve year old girl!*

*Oh, I know who! Me! It's me! The answer is me! [There is a doodle of Ms. Carter raising her hand in the margin.]

Body parts strewn all over the floor around her. Not her's, I'm pretty sure, 'cause there were arms and hearts and....all kinds of fucked up shit.* There was a collection of buckets on our side of the room, and she... Her voice over the speakers told us to cut the girl up. Told us to tear out whatever organs we could find, in tact or in pieces, she didn't care. We had to put them in the buckets, load them up into a truck outside, and...

*No humans were harmed during the making of this journal. Except for all of them. Each and every one cut up by your's truly! I'm very good at it. I took my time with each one...carved beautiful blood and meat sculptures...[Illegible scribbling. Looks like 'open the doors to Heaven'?]

The whole time that little girl was crying and begging us to just kill her or return her to her mommy. One of my friends, he refused to do it. he went downstairs, got in his car, and left. Haven't heard from him since. I hope he got the fuck out of town. There was a guy in the front seat of the truck. He must have been one of ours, I don't see how he couldn't have been. I remember the look in his eyes though...scared. So scared.

We did it, though.* At least she died quickly. But I've never felt so fucked up in my life. Maybe I'll buy a plane ticket, move somewhere and never look back. I could do it.**

*She tasted so sweet, like a pear!

**No he couldn't. He didn't. He won't. NEVER. WON'T LET YOU.

I don't know what else to do.

There's your answer, Sanna. That's what one of Ms. Carter's 'parties' is like. Not exactly my idea of a good time, but eh, different strokes for different folks. Right?

Anyway, I've found the next entry in Bradley's journal already, but it's getting late and I'm an old man who needs his sleep. Next post will go up tomorrow, if I'm feeling up to it and Ms. Carter and I aren't busy. I've got to make sure she makes it to a meet-up on the south end of town some time in the afternoon, so we'll see how that goes. A couple of people need punishing, Ms. Carter tells me.

-Mr. Flint