Psycho Save Us by Chad Huskins Read Free Book Online Page B

will almost always do what they do because of a
perceived consequences and rewards system.  And Spencer understood that system to
be based off of what a person believed they could reasonably get away with.
    And that’s why few people understood Spencer Adam Pelletier.  Turning in a bully was never
about getting a pat on the head or his face on a poster.  Quite the contrary,
Spencer had perceived those “rewards” as drawbacks to what he liked
best—chopping people down.  Chopping down a teacher off her moral high horse,
or chopping down a mob boss in B cellhouse of the prison rotunda’s east wing. 
There was never any reward for that.  In fact, there was almost always
punishment for it.
    But another facet
of Spencer’s personality that his mother and father would come to find
disgusting was his blatant masochism.  He thought pain was funny, interesting,
and, quite frankly, a turn-on.
    An understanding
of this concoction was what was essentially missing when folks tried to suss
out why Spencer did what he did to Miles Hoover, Jr. in the school library
during his second repeat of the fifth grade.  And why things had only escalated
thereafter.
    Presently,
Spencer sat in a new stolen Ford Aerostar minivan outside of Pat’s Auto—he’d
ditched the Tacoma thirty minutes and six miles ago because he figured Mac
would give the po-pos his description as well as the truck’s—inhaling deeply of
his last Marlboro and exhaling ostentatiously, thinking back fondly on Miles
Hoover, Jr. 
    In those days,
he’d been quite the angel, and undoubtedly his parents’ favorite amongst their
three sons.  Fast-forward fifteen years, he was a murderer on the loose and his
brothers, Brian and Collin, had become a lawyer and a nightclub owner,
respectively.  Brian Pelletier was working on cases for old people who had
undergone hip replacement surgery and now needed to sue their medical providers
for giving them artificial hips that had been recalled, Collin was battling cancer
while facing low customer turnout in a bad economy, and Spencer was waiting on
lights to flick on in the windows of a chop shop.  O, the paths we take.
    When a light
finally did switch on inside Pat’s Auto, it was at the back of the shop.  A
single light in a single window.  Bingo , he thought.  Just in time,
too .  Down to my last smoke .
    Spencer checked
his watch—it wasn’t quite midnight—so he waited another ten minutes or so.  Just
about time for the third shift boys to start showing up and performing tasks
that the first and second shift guys would never dream of.  Pat’s Auto, while
having no clearly defined off-limits areas, was no less able to somehow convey
a sense of restricted ingress—a curb with no incline and a few junkers parked
at irregular intervals around the premises made the place feel off-limits.
    “Here they
come,” Spencer said to no one at all.  First it was a navy-blue Nissan Altima,
which killed its lights a block up and pulled around to the back.  Next was a
red, four-door Pontiac Grand Am, an old one, possibly late 90’s.  Following
quickly on the Grand Am’s heels was an old, beat-up Buick that had probably
once been red, but was now every color conceivable.  The two cars pulled around
back and parked beside the Altima.
    Spencer waited
to watch the figures step inside.  They were barely more than silhouettes under
a not-quite-full moon.  From where he was parked, he could only just make out
the back parking lot and its numerous junkers and other cars left overnight;
the latter being there to keep up appearances of honest business.  The three
drivers stepped inside a side door that Spencer couldn’t quite see, and a few
seconds after they were inside, more windows were filled with light.
    Atlanta’s
premier chop shop is now open for business, ladies an’ gents .
    Spencer hopped
out of the car and crossed the quiet street.  Terrell Street was as vacant as
it would be after the Apocalypse.  One