1982.
She was wearing Calvin Klein, though I was more of a Jordache guy. Not that it mattered. Holly Kolakowski could make bargain rack Levi dungarees a denim billboard of sin the way she rocked her lean hips and trim ass, thrusting her crotch at video game machines. She conquered them like older ladies did with men.
Playing Galaga and Time Pilot, Holly was clothed in amateur porn when she had her fist clenched upon a joystick and her rightward middle three fingers pounding fire buttons. She’d made Galaga her bitch and seldom few got their turns if she’d claimed the alien shooting game first.
Holly Kolakowski was hardly my crush. That was Jeannie Maser, who didn’t know I existed, even having three classes together.
Holly was dropping the equivalent of a hate fuck upon the Dig Dug machine, of all low-stress games. Her toned buttocks were clenching and grinding, putting on a hell of a show for the lookee-loos.
By the time I said what I had to say to Holly, the show would be over.
One of us would be gone for good.
Space Port was popping tonight, for a Thursday. The neon piping broke into the dimly lit fugue of the arcade, reminding me of Tron. The movie, of course, since the way-too-easy game had laid like a wet fart without the roast to check oneself. The Tron machine stood there right now, unwanted, like a lone, greasy spaz at Prom Night.
The orchestra of electric mayhem in the way of bleeps, doops, zaps and artificial detonation was supplemented by jangles of the dollar changer machines and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” waxing overhead. The song had already become a cliché for me.
The murkiest part of Space Port, between other shunned games like Pengo and Xevious was a crevice just enough for two people to squeeze into. Amongst us kids, it was called “The Makeout Zone.” Right now, occupied by Keith Shaw and Valerie Spinelli. They were going at it hot, to the point Keith went for the hooter honk in plain view and Valerie didn’t check him for it.
“Get bent,” Valerie snarled at me as I lingered too long watching them.
“The looks of things, I’m not the one getting bent tonight,” I sent back with the same smartass tongue my parents warned would get my duff kicked one day. Val snickered at my jibe. Kevin flipped me off.
Holly was hammering the pump action button on Dig Dug so hard I’m surprised she didn’t sprain her wrist. Not fast enough, however, as she was gobbled by one of those weird, bloated ghost things wearing what looked like ski goggles.
Game over.
“Holly,” I said, feeling provocation rise inside my throat.
“The hell do you want, Ricky Lowe?” she sassed with a whirl from the machine. “Got a quarter? I’m out.”
“No,” I said flatly, a total lie since I still had seventy-five cents inside my pocket.
“Then take a hike, already,” she said with more dismissal than Rhett Butler’s brutal parting shot to Scarlett O’Hara.
“I just want you to know, Holly,” I said, looking into hazel eyes now darting around nervously. Murderer’s eyes. “I know what you did.”
“Say what?” she hissed, taking a step away from me.
I took the same step, blocking her path.
“I know.”
“You don’t know shit,” she growled, guilt flashing across her face. The gleam of an unoccupied Missile Command machine accented her culpability. “Whatever it is you think I did.”
“Two words for you,” I said confidently, again stepping into Holly’s path.
“Out of my way, Ricky, before I kill you,” she fumed, clenching both fists.
Now I had her.
“Like you did to Wayne Reynolds. Well, that was six words, but whatever.”
If a girl could go paler than a winter whiteout, that’s how Holly looked, even with aquamarine, yellow and ultraviolet flushes slashing her liable face.
It was a wild card play, but last night my curiosity was up. I’d found a watermelon Bubblicious gum wrapper at the crime scene where Wayne Reynolds’ brains had been bashed out with a hammer. No prints detected. Holly’d had enough savvy to wear gloves.
Wayne once bragged to me in the locker room he’d kissed Holly underneath the visiting side bleachers on the football field. He’d said her breath was “rancid from that stupid watermelon gum.”
Why Holly had killed Wayne, I didn’t know.
All I do know is the following morning, the cops had their girl.//
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ray Van Horn, Jr. is the author of Bringing in the Creeps, Behind the Shadows, Coming of Rage and Revolution Calling.
Ray is a contributing writer for The Metal Hall of Fame and he has covered music and film for outlets such as Blabbermouth, AMP, Pit, Dee Snider’s House of Hair, Music Dish, DVD Review, Horror News.net, Fangoria Musick, Hails & Horns, Metal Maniacs, Noisecreep and many others.
Ray was an NHL game analyst for The Hockey Nut. Ray was a runner-up finalist in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine’s “Mysterious Photograph” contest.
His work has appeared in Rue Morgue, Eternal Haunted Summer, Punk Noir, Atomic Flyswatter, Horror Tree, Cyber Age Adventures, Flash in a Flash, The Rubbertop Review, Story Bytes, Quantum Muse and New Noise, plus the anthologies Dread Mondays, Horror A-Z: X, Axes of Evil and Axes of Evil II.
About the Author
