Kayla's Massacre: Part 8

Micaiah and Caroline arrived at the slides five minutes too late.

"Hey, is that Jenny and—"

Micaiah stopped, turned around, and walked the other way. Caroline stayed a moment longer. Micaiah stopped and gave her time.

"Still don't want to hurt her?" she said. Micaiah let the silence carry her answer. Dead, scary silence. It was far too quiet.

"How many do you think are dead?" Micaiah said slowly. She felt Caroline's footsteps behind her. Then she felt Caroline's arms around her and her head on her shoulder. She felt her friend quivering and felt her tears on her shoulder.

"Too many," Micaiah agreed.

They stayed that way for a good 30 seconds before Micaiah said, "We should move. We should hide."

"No more hero time?"

Micaiah shook her head. "Against someone who can do that to another human being, I'd feel much safer under one of those tarps."

The girls made their way across the park, much more quietly now. Every sound they made sounded like a bong in an auditorium against the absolute silence. There wasn't even any water running. There was no splashing. No voices. No footsteps.

Caroline pointed at a tarp over what Micaiah assumed was a large pool. Micaiah looked around to check if they were alone before lifting the edge of the tarp. The water was pink. Micaiah dropped the tarp. The realization struck her then, hard, right in the brain: all these tarps covered the remains of her dead classmates.

Caroline checked under the tarp next. She looked all the way under toward a spot where the tarp raised over the water.

"Berri," she whispered. She dropped the tarp as well. "If she's dead, that means Amber can't be far."

Micaiah closed her eyes.

"I'm not far," said Amber's voice from below the tarp. Micaiah and Caroline looked at each other, then lifted the tarp again. Amber was about halfway between them and the

deep end. She was curled in a ball on the side of the pool with bits of the tarp tied around her neck and left hand. "Come here," she said. "Don't let anyone else see you."

Micaiah and Caroline obeyed. They crawled under the tarp and formed a triangle with Amber. Up close, Micaiah could see her injuries. There was dried blood on her shoulders and chest, dripping out from under the piece of tarp around her neck. One of her hands was sliced up, but whole. The other, wrapped in blue, looked a little too thin in the finger area.

"Berri's dead," said Amber. "I heard someone scream a while ago—I think it was that girl with the red hair."

"Nope," Micaiah said. She filled in Amber on the details. She told her how the red-haired employee was actually the killer, but was being forced to commit the murders by someone else. "She's got a knife on her and a stronger grip than you'd think." She massaged her neck.

"There's three of us and one of her," said Caroline. "I doubt she could kill all three of us."

"She's killed God knows how many already," Micaiah pointed out. "But maybe she's burning out. She actually seemed really pathetic when she tried to kill me."

"Burning out? Allison and Jenny would've loved to hear that."

"Point taken."

"What happened to Allison and Jenny?" Amber asked. Micaiah told her. She just looked more distressed afterward. "All right," she said. "Who was that last person you both saw, and where were they going?"

Micaiah thought back. Caroline answered first. "The twins. They were looking for Ivy, said they wanted to help her have fun for once."

"Besides Caroline," said Micaiah, "I saw Jenny and Allison with Fiona."

"Fiona?" Amber confirmed. "And you didn't see her body?"

Micaiah shook her head.

"Then she could be alive."

“Or under a tarp,” Micaiah pointed out.

Caroline stood. Micaiah and Amber each grabbed one of her arms. She glared down at them, froze, and let her expression soften.

"If we hear anyone, we'll check and see who it is," said Amber. "If it's Fiona or anyone else we know, we'll—”

Micaiah cut her off. "Wait. Wait just a minute." She ran through the evidence in her head. "What if Fiona's with the redhead?"

She expected a protest from at least one of her friends, but none came. She continued.

"I mean, she was with Allison and Jenny last I saw, and then we both saw Allison and Jenny dead. Fiona was gone."

Caroline hesitated a bit before talking. "And what if we wait a few hours, come out of here, and we find Fiona's corpse along with the others? We could save her."

"I want to," said Micaiah. "But did you see Jenny and Allison?"

"I didn't want to. Not like that."

"Case in point," Micaiah said. "Whoever killed those two has more than just a knife on them. A grenade, at least."

"She didn't have a grenade," said Amber. "Just a camera. But I didn't see her knife either."

Micaiah heard something and silenced her friends. They all listened. Far away, there was a dull thump, like something heavy slamming into the ground. It repeated itself again. Then once more. For a minute, all three girls said nothing.

"What was that?" Caroline eventually said.

"I don't know," said Amber. "And I don't want to know. We'll stay here until the bus comes back. The driver will know something's wrong and hopefully call the cops. Then, when the cops come, they'll find us and we'll be safe."

"That's a long time to wait," said Micaiah. "We've got hours left."

"I'd rather wait a few hours than die in a few minutes," said Amber. Micaiah and Caroline nodded their agreement.

They waited a long time.

***

Kayla found Fiona Banks near a playscape. She was standing under a small waterfall pouring from a plastic Buddha sculpture's mouth. Kayla set up her camera and focused it on the spot where Fiona would die. Then she walked toward the girl and cleared her throat. Fiona looked over her shoulder when Kayla approached.

"Hey, employee!" Fiona said. She smiled. Kayla noted her breasts bouncing in a beige bikini when she ran a few steps. She stopped a few feet from Kayla. "Where is everyone? Did I miss an event or something?"

"Nope," Kayla said. She put her hands on Fiona's shoulders. "You're just in time."

Fiona was a round-faced girl with bright blond hair and brown eyes. She was definitely cute, her face slightly offset by a developing body that was filling out rather nicely. Kayla had an idea. She stood back and checked her stolen phone. On it, she accessed several of the cameras she'd set up around the park. She hadn't set them in every pool, as she hadn't trapped every pool, but unfortunately, she'd neglected to put one in the pool where Amber and Berri had died. There was also a pool full of acid that she'd forgotten to put a camera by, and one of the playscapes as well. Fortunately, she'd remembered to put one here, just inside the Buddha statue's mouth. She saw herself and Fiona standing there.

She checked several spots and counted up the corpses. She came out to 14, then added on the girls she'd killed where there were no cameras. Micaiah, Amber, Berri, Tay, Ivy, Kelsey, and a little girl near Kelsey whose name she didn't know. Twenty-one left Fiona and Caroline.

"Hey," said Kayla. "Do you know where Caroline Leese might be? She's also missing."

***

There was something about this girl's voice that made Fiona a bit wary. Was it in her eyes, or in her smile? Or the suspicious lack of any sound whatsoever aside from the water pouring out of the plastic Buddha's mouth? If there was an event Fiona was late for, it was quiet. Very quiet.

"I have no idea where she is," Fiona said. "She wasn't on the bus."

The redhead looked contemplative for a moment. Then she shrugged. "So she's not here. I suppose that's good for her."

Fiona had a feeling she'd regret something very soon. Maybe it was something the redhead said. Maybe it was in how she said it. Maybe it was the way she was looking at Fiona's body. Whatever it was, Fiona didn't want to find out.

"Hey," she said. "I'm gonna go run off to the bathroom real quick. Where's this event at?"

"Right here."

***

Kayla had her knife in the girl's side before she could move and her hand over her mouth before she could scream. She pushed her victim to the ground and straddled her hips. She left her knife lodged in Fiona's side and pulled her bikini down. She wiggled out of her own lower garment and began grinding. Fiona stayed relatively still through this, presumably in shock. Kayla pulled her knife out of Fiona's guts and tossed it aside before returning to her duty. She stuck a finger in the knife hole and pushed on her victim's intestines. Then she pulled it out and lifted one of Fiona's legs over her shoulder. Fiona's eyes met hers, frightened and filled with tears.

"Sorry," Kayla said. "If it makes you feel any better, I killed all your classmates already. You're the last."

Apparently this didn't make her feel any better. Fiona started moving and screaming—or maybe wailing was the proper word, frightened and near hysteric. She brought her arms up from her sides for the first time and tried to push Kayla away. Kayla grabbed Fiona's breasts and pushed her down, groping her. Fiona glared up at her and dug her nails into Kayla's arms. She made sure they broke skin near the elbows, then dragged down toward her wrists. Kayla remembered doing the exact same thing to Alyssa. It hurt more than she thought it would. She didn't let go of Fiona's breasts and kept fucking her as she bled, weakening every second.

Kayla looked up. She—and more precisely, Fiona's head—was under a giant cement block attached to a chain. It was part of the playscape since yesterday. The old one had been a plastic box meant for use as a semi-stable standing swing. Kayla and Bart had decided that cement was much more fun to play under, or to have someone else play under.

"Look up," said Kayla. Fiona looked up. Any sound coming out of her mouth halted abruptly. She saw the cement hovering over her head and only fought harder. Kayla let one of her breasts go and went for her knife. Fiona stopped fighting and put her hands above her head.

"Stop," she said. "Please, just stop. I don't wanna die."

Kayla shrugged. "Sucks to be you."

She slid the knife into Fiona's unharmed side, apparently stunning her. She yelped and trailed off in a pained moan before she stared blankly up at Kayla again.

"What?" Kayla said. "No life story? Nothing about how much you love your parents? Not gonna tell me your hopes and dreams?"

Fiona looked confused for a moment. Then she opened her mouth. "I wanted to—"

Splat.

The cement block flattened Fiona's head against the wet ground. Blood spattered out the bottom; a few droplets landed on Kayla's legs. Fiona's hands tried to reach for her head and hit the cement block instead. Three seconds later, she went completely still. Kayla let her voice out and moaned loudly into the empty air. She gave Fiona's dead cunt a few more good thrusts, then came. The cement block raised into the air, slowly. Kayla watched it go. A few strands of blood connected it and what used to be Fiona's head on the ground. Kayla saw half her brain smashed against the block and the other half smeared on the ground. Her face was unrecognizable. The splotch of pink and red and blond didn't look anything like a human head.

Kayla stepped back when she remembered how the block was programmed. She'd had time. The block waited ten more seconds before lurching down a few feet, then falling again. This time, it crushed Fiona's torso from the navel up with a sound much like the first one: an actual splat, only bigger, wetter, and more satisfying. Kayla suspected this wasn't what the onomatopoeia had come from, but it fit pretty well. The block rose and took bits and pieces of what used to be a nice, attractive set of breasts with it. Kayla vaguely recognized the shape of Fiona's heart and the shattered white bits of her ribs, but everything else just looked like a mess of blood and a bit of breast fat to her.

The block came down again on Fiona's hips and thighs, and then for a last time on her shins and feet. When it raised after that, there was nothing recognizably human about Fiona's remains. Kayla rubbed herself. Looking at this mess was surprisingly arousing—or maybe not that surprising, considering she'd had a similar reaction to Erica and Dani's remains. She moaned, stared down where Fiona's eyes had been, and squirted.

***

In the end, Fay hadn't been able to squeeze much information out of Kitty. Nothing personal, anyway. Nothing about her death besides how she felt about it. Nothing the public didn't already know.

"I live in a house on a street in Summermount," Kitty had said. "I'd like to keep it secret a bit longer."

Why? Fay couldn't figure it out. On one hand, Kitty could be with the killers, but that would make no sense. She was saving lives, not ending them.

"I have a cat named Baseball," she'd said. That was the most personal information Fay knew about Kitty. She could run an article on Kitty and the creature she dubbed the megacat, sure, but she wanted more than that. Kitty was the first person she'd known of to survive being killed. She couldn't just come out with nothing.

For now, she'd have to. Fay watched Kitty wander away somewhere and decided to head off to the water park. It was supposedly open to just her sister's class today, but it wasn't like they'd turn away a reporter. She ran some practice headlines through her head as she walked. It would take her a good half hour to get there on foot, but she had plenty of time.

She heard something above her. She looked up to see a shadow crossing the gap between the two buildings she stood between.

"Hey!" she called. "Casey!"

No answer. Fay shrugged to herself and kept walking. She heard two metallic clinks behind her, followed by a yelp. She turned around. Casey sat on the ground with her prosthetic legs out in front of her. She smiled up at Fay.

"Yo. Covering something other than murders today?"

Fay nodded while Casey stood. She still had a cast on one arm; it hadn't been long since her fall.

"Kitty went back and talked to the thing that killed her. She calls it the megacat."

"I saw that," said Casey. "I was above you the whole time."

Fay raised an eyebrow. "Already? Seems kinda dangerous so shortly after the first time."

"Nah, I'm safe. No more ziplines, no buildings taller than three of me."

"Both the buildings over the megacat's alley are more than three of you, that's for sure."

"She actually went up and talked to the thing that ripped her throat out. Kitty's gotten pretty badass, hasn't she?

"I wouldn't say 'badass,' but she sure is something."

"I'm completely straight, Fay."

"Yeah?"

"I think I'm in love with Kitty."

"So?"

"So I'm not supposed to be."

"Isn't it normal to love your friends?"

Casey appeared to consider that. Fay continued, "Loving someone doesn't always mean romance or sex. Think of your parents. Do you have a sister or brother?"

Casey shook her head. "Used to have both. Then bang, crash, PTSD, fuck you life, oh hi there rooftop parkour, oh hi you nice little wall, ow my fucking legs, hello Kitty, and hello prosthetics."

Fay blinked. "Was that your entire life story there?"

Casey shrugged. "More or less. I suppose I could've added in the years before the crash, but the me back then feels like a completely different person. Cute little honor student, I was. Social butterfly, goody two-shoes, played clarinet. Had a crush. Bang, crash. Gone."

"Wow." Fay hadn't even asked. Casey probably just needed someone to talk to.

"But yeah, I know what you're getting at. Kitty's like a sister."

Fay thought about it. "I'd almost say like a mom, but she's younger than you."

"And hello, Back to the Future."

***

Bart returned to a rather impatient Alyssa waiting in their car.

"Kitty on one side, Fay on the other, and you let them both live?"

Bart shrugged. "Come on. It was right out in public. Besides, I like Kitty. And it turns out Fay Ryan's cat is the one who photobombed at our wedding."

"That little hairless thing?"

"Yeah."

"Speaking of hair, let's go to the park. I wanna see Kayla as a redhead."

Bart drove to the water park. There was no one on the road around them, as the entire place was reserved today, so no one would see the car. The park's gates were closed and locked. Bart honked the horn twice and waited. A minute passed. Then Kayla showed up with her camera, looking absolutely nothing like the girl he'd first found in the alley. He liked her better like this: aggressive-looking, alluring, the camera strap between her breasts emphasizing their shape.

"Hey," she said. "Bart, help me get the cameras. Alyssa . . ."

Kayla unlocked the gates and handed Alyssa the camera and a phone Bart didn't recognize. She'd probably stolen it.

"Alyssa, you can either watch the whole thing on those, or wait till we get home and I get the chance to edit it into something more watchable."

"Can I see the site of the crimes?"

Kayla nodded. "Follow me. Bart, let's split up and get them faster."

The three of them headed off into the park. Kayla noted that Micaiah's body was gone, but said nothing about it. If Alyssa asked later, she could say she dragged the corpse into a grinder or something, or maybe burned it. No one had touched the water guns she'd filled with lighter fluid, but Alyssa didn't have to know that yet. She hoped Micaiah had hidden herself well.

At every death site, Alyssa gave Kayla a grade for creativity. Jamie and Jill got an A. Most of the knife kills received a D, but Ivy got a B+ for brutality.

"There's more to these two's deaths," said Kayla when she and Alyssa were in the bathroom. Tay still hung there and Ivy's blood had stopped flowing. "I'll just let you watch the video."

"Will I have to revoke your B+?"

"Dunno. You tell me."

The grinder deaths all got a B, the decapitations both got a B as well. Sena's was a little different. Alyssa added points for every minute she spent searching for her head, and Kayla ended up with an A. She didn't go to the pool where she'd killed Berri and Amber, since there were no cameras there, but she preemptively gave herself an A- for Amber's underwater hanging and a B+ for Berri's impalement. Fiona got an A-, with Alyssa complaining that it was hard to find a big enough piece to masturbate with.

Kayla met Bart back by the gates with half her cameras in a plastic bag Alyssa had provided. Bart's hands were bleeding when he held up his bag.

"It was a good idea," he said. "But getting a camera off a meat grinder in the middle of a tunnel is a bit difficult."

Kayla had intentionally skipped that one for that exact reason. She'd planned on getting Bart and Alyssa to help with it after they had the rest, but as long as they had it, it would work.

"All right," said Bart. "Let's get you girls home. Kayla, get your reel put together and we'll all watch it either tonight or tomorrow."

"You're not taking the meat grinders or anything down?" Alyssa asked.

"We wore gloves putting them up," said Kayla. "We'll let the police handle that. I, for one, don't want to go anywhere near those things."

"Fair enough."

***

Kayla spent a long time editing her video. Firstly, she went in and removed anything that would indicate Micaiah had survived and added a disclaimer saying that she'd thrown the corpse in a trash can and forgotten to show it to Alyssa. She copied and pasted Fiona's death at the end and showed it twice, once normally, and once in slow motion. She also appended Jamie's death with a slow motion clip, and then Bart brought her coffee.

"They found the bodies," said Bart. "Whole town's gonna be a shitstorm for weeks. Apparently you killed the kids of some pretty influential people.

"Influential people have sexy daughters," said Kayla. "Their fault."

She was still editing the day after when Alyssa sent her an email containing a link to an article on the massacre.

***

 
The Summermount News E-edition
June 3

23 murdered in water park massacre

Yesterday, June 2, 23 girls and women were found dead in the Fun Falls water park. Evidence suggests more than one person was responsible for the deaths. Among the victims was 12-year-old Leeli Ryan, sister of Fay Ryan, our intern editor. In lieu of this murder, Fay has taken time off.

Josh Brown, news room editor

Comments

Adrian Winters (9:12 a.m.)
Christ. We need the army here or something.

Jody Long (9:12 a.m.)
23 murders and kitty grant didn't save anyone? where was she?

Adrian Winters (9:13 a.m.)
Is that sarcasm? Is she a superhero or something? She's only human.

Erin Gray (9:13 a.m.)
Where was Kitty Grant?
EDIT: NVM, Adrian's right.

Kitty Grant (9:14 a.m.)
I'd have done everything in my power to save those girls if I knew they were in danger. I'll do my absolute best to prevent any further deaths. This has to end now.

Josh Brown (9:15 a.m.)
It should have ended a long time ago. No one expects you to be a superhero, Kitty. Just survive.

Jody Long (9:15 a.m.)
I guess people actually do expect a superhero, sorry Kitty. I know a lot more people who think she should have been there. And Erin, how do you edit posts?

Audrey Williams (9:15 a.m.)
This is really sad. This really needs to stop.

Eric Long (9:16 a.m.)
cops r useless we need the fbi not kitty grant

Grammar Nazi (9:17 a.m.)
Punctuation, motherfucker. Do you use it?

Jody Long (9:18 a.m.)
Eric is 10.

Trisha Levine (9:19 a.m.)
Wait Amber is not dead Shes behind me right now.

John Sarin (9:21 a.m.)
Can you see ghosts, Trisha?

Trisha Levine (9:30 a.m.)
NVM