I am hiding outside. Terrible screams and grunts of satisfaction and pain drift out the open window. My back is pressed against the wall outside by the backdoor, obscured by a triangular recess in the wall and a short hedge. I am in a partial squat behind the hedge. I concentrate partly on the sound of my panicked breathing, keeping it low. Despite the noise inside the house, I fear that the slightest rustle of my pants fabric, the lowest whimper, will betray my presence. Not twelve feet away from me lies the body of the young brunette who died screaming, who with every last movement tried to escape. I had stood and silently watched as her attacker fell on her like an animal falling on prey. I had watched the horror of that woman’s last moments, and I had done nothing. I did nothing because I could not risk being found.

They know I’m here, and I’m next.

*****

Charlie poked his head in the door of the lean-to I was using as a bedroom earlier that day. I was still on my blanket on the ground, my back propped against the wall as I read a novel, and I looked up at the interruption of the sunlight. He stood in the doorway, and for a short man, pretty much filled it, but as he came over to me, his stern face suddenly beamed, as if a switch had been turned on. I braced for confrontation when I first saw him, and that smile caught me off guard. He handed me a slip of paper.

“How’d you sleep last night?” He asked.

I took the slip of paper and looked at it. “Fine.” The paper had an address handwritten on it. “What’s this?” “I want you to do me a favor.” He crouched so his head was even with mine. “Go to this house tonight and take a look around. See if you can find anything there that can help us out here.”

“What’s at this address?”

He laughed. “Bobby, there’s river of gold there, so bring a bucket. I used to know the guy that lived there, a Hollywood brat. He moved out and some other rich people are renting it. Europeans. They’re the kind of people who throw money away because they have too much. Their stuff’s there now, but they aren’t there yet, not for a few weeks.”

“You know these people?”

“They’re all the same, aren’t they? Don’t worry, they won’t be there. I know this.”

I nodded, and he continued. “Tex will take you in the van. No rush. You guys will take off around 11 or so tonight. See if you can fill up that van.”

“Sure,” I said. “No problem.” He patted my leg and stood up. Without another word, he walked out briskly, the time for artificial smiles concluded.

He knew that I had done this sort of work before. My first night at the camp, I told him about my background…my arrests for just this sort of work. I read the address again. I never saw it before, but I knew the area. Benedict Canyon. 10050 Cielo Dr.

*****

He had what seemed like a natural warmth that first night I met him. I found it easy to be comfortable around him, and I was not the person who’s comfortable around people. I am also not the most talkative, but that night, I found myself sharing stories about myself I just did not tell anyone else. And here in front of an audience, no less. He was there by a bonfire holding Heather’s hand, with several other girls I had not met. There was a look in his eye, a reflection of the fire maybe, which gave me an impression of complete joy. That’s what first caught me about him—that total joy.

At first, I sat off by myself away from the fire, drinking a beer, quietly fascinated by the ground under my toes. Heather was still the only one I knew at the camp, and I had only met her earlier that day. I sensed him looking at me and looked up, and he gazed with a bemused expression.

“I can’t even see you over there, you ghost. Come over here and make yourself heard.”

Heather waved me over. She also had a natural ability to draw you in, but her power was easier to explain. I had met her in the city earlier that day, just off a prison bus with nothing more on my mind than my next sandwich. I had fifty dollars in my pocket and clothes on my back, and at that point, I had no idea where I was spending the night. I had wandered a few blocks from the bus station before I settled on a hot dog place, and then on a picnic bench.

“You going to eat all three of those,” said a woman’s raspy voice behind me. I turned and saw a blonde woman in a yellow dress and jeans, looking more at my lunch than at me. The sun shined around her shoulders and blonde hair, and I was attracted to her before I could even make out what she looked like.

“Yep.” I turned back to my lunch, but she stayed where she was behind me, standing and swaying slightly as if dancing to music I couldn’t hear, not talking, not leaving. I realized then that 3 hot dogs were a bit much, so with an exaggerated sigh, I slid one over to the opposite side of the bench.

“I’m Heather,” she said with her mouth full, half a hot dog gone. She held out her hand as if we were lawyers, and I shook it.

“Bobby.”

“You got any money, Bobby?”

I didn’t know if she was offering something or planning to rob me, but on instinct, I went with the first.

“No. You’re eating a third of everything I own.”

She smiled and nodded as if she knew that already. “Where do you live?”

“What’s with all the questions?”

“I don’t know. Small talk, I guess. I’m not very good at small talk.”

I told her she happened to be sitting in my dining room, eating my lunch. No smooth hand with woman, I did what I always did when I was nervous and needing small talk: I took her deposition, but she was game. She was 22 years old, a few years younger than I, and she was staying at a commune outside the city with a group of friends. She invited me to catch a ride back with her and stay a while, to look around, and me without more pressing plans, I agreed.

By the bonfire that night, I told them that I was just out of prison. A year ago, I broke into a grocery store, attracted more by the prospect of food than money, and I was surprised to find out that the people who worked there locked the doors and turned off the lights before they actually left. In the break room in back, a man and a woman in store uniforms looked up from their conversation when I burst in, fear on their faces, but their fear was only matched by my own as I ran back to the front and made for the door…where I was seen by another couple. The woman tripped me and called for a cop while the man held me down, and it just so happened, a cop wasn’t that far away.

Charlie grinned and shook his head as I told my story, so I kept talking. My background, my living with one of my Dad’s cousins and then my Mom’s sister after my parents died. I told him I ran away from my aunt’s house when I was 16, but I didn’t imagine she and her husband were all that broken up by the loss. They spent most of their days pretending they were alone, and I spent most of my day breaking things in the house or ignoring them completely. When things were their best, we had a nodding relationship, but the nights were not so easy for them. I would keep the television on loud or stare at the front door, forcing myself to stay awake, and it was several mornings they found me asleep on a love chair, kitchen knife in my hand. Some nights, I simply went to bed and woke up yelling.

Charlie put his hand on my shoulder like my closest friend, a man I had met less than an hour ago. “What were you dreaming about?”

It turned out I still had some reserve, and not all my stories could be so easily lured out with the promise of a beer from a nice guy. The dreams I had, I kept to myself. Other people knew the story—psychologists who had my file before they interviewed me, the police… They all knew how my parents were murdered one night not a few feet away from me, while I hid in my bedroom.

*****

We did not live in a rich man’s house. The living room and dining room were overlooked by the thin upstairs hallway leading to the only two upper floor rooms, mine and then my parents. My father was a line supervisor at a factory, and my mother worked a few hours a week at a book store, and money was the source of many conversations between them when they believed I was out of earshot.

Most nights I could hear them watch television before they came up to bed. They would typically send me up at 10 pm and then watch the news before they went up themselves. Mom would pause and look in on me when she passed my room, but I pretended to be asleep. I think she knew I was pretending. I was almost never asleep when they came up. Too anxious to sleep alone upstairs, I still came to enjoy this time, just lying in my bed fantasizing that I was a superhero or the captain of a spaceship on an alien planet; this was my favorite time of day. When they came up, and when I could hear them settle, the sound was typically the last I heard for the night.

I stayed awake a little longer this one night, though. They came up to bed, Mom paused as she did, and they went to their bedroom. This night, though, they closed their bedroom door. I hated when they closed the door.

I was 11, and no one had ever told me about sex. I never had any idea as I lay there those early nights why my parents would close the door, and then open it again twenty minutes later. I heard sounds from their room I lacked the vocabulary to comprehend, and when it happened, I merely waited it out in the knowledge the door would be open again soon. They had not forgotten about me.

This night, though, I could not lay comfortably and wait for their door to open. This night, I heard a noise from downstairs. It was in our living room, a patch of hollow wood under the rug would creak softly. It was a sound we never heard in the daylight hours, so used to it we were, but at night, with my parents’ bedroom door closed and myself out here with whoever made that sound, it could not have been more clear. My Dad often grabbed a late snack after he thought we were asleep, and I could sometimes hear him rummaging down there, sometimes grunting after stubbing his toe and cursing quietly, but still keeping the lights off to preserve our sleep. My Dad knew that hollow patch, and he avoided it when he went downstairs at night. No, this was not Dad. I could still hear him in the bedroom with Mom. Someone was downstairs.

Many times since have I laid awake at night thinking of that moment, that particular moment when I could have alerted my parents. I don’t know what would have happened. Could I have made it to their bedroom? Could simply yelling “Mom!” Dad!” have been enough to preserve their lives? In my worst nights, I think it would have made all the difference.   But I did not yell “Mom! Dad” that night. I did not run to their bedroom to summon their attention, and I did not heroically threaten the invaders, or plunge down the stairs after them. What I did was, I slipped off the bed and under it.

The footsteps—more than a single pair—came up the stairs. My bedroom was first in line down the hallway. I remember every instant, every crazed imagining that went through my head as I cowered under that bed. I thought of monsters, I thought of movie villains holding guns at their breast. I wanted to call for my parents. I didn’t.

The footsteps stopped outside my door, and I heard a giggle like that of a young boy. Then nothing. They began walking again towards the master bedroom.

My Mom must have opened the door just as they walked up, and when I heard that, I knew she was opening the door for me, so I could sleep. The police found her right there later that night, lying on the floor, but the first shot didn’t kill her. The police put this together for me later. As she moaned with a shot to her abdomen, the two stepped over her into the room. My Dad didn’t say a word; he never had time. He was kneeling on the bed when they got him. Two shots, one to his head and one to his chest. The two turned and walked out of the room, but my Mom’s moan must have stopped them. One more to her chest, and my Mom was gone. My Dad was gone.

My first thoughts were not of their loss as I shook wide-eyed under the bed. I did not mourn, and I did not think of days going to see a baseball game with Dad or Mom holding me after I was bullied in school. My only thought was I was about to die.

The steps approached my room again and stopped again. I heard a young man’s voice say, “I’ll check.” I could see his sneakers as he walked to my bed, I could see his knee as he kneeled on the floor to bend down. The other voice hissed, “Come on.” But he didn’t run off, that young kid in sneakers looking for witnesses. He bent down and looked, and he looked right at me. By some miracle I never understood, his eyes must not have registered me. I could see his eyes looking right at mine, but there was no recognition, and he got up and walked out with the other guy. They moved faster down the hallway, down the steps and out the door.

The police found them that very night. It was some guy who worked for my Dad, whom my Dad had fired a few days earlier. He had grabbed his older brother and they came to our house. Later in the evening, their manic behavior and bragging caught the attention of a woman in a bar who called the police. The guy who was fired tried to shoot his way out and died on a pool table in that bar, while his brother went quietly and is now serving a life sentence.

As I sat by the bonfire that night, I got my first sense of how spooky a guy Charlie could be. He put his a hand on my shoulder again and said only, “You were only 11. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Had I told that story out loud?

He looked around the camp and gestured to all his surroundings. “Stay here with us, brother. You’ll be comfortable. It’s out in the open, and there’s pretty girls hanging from the trees. Relax, and get your bearings. In a day or two, I may ask you to help out a bit around here. Maintenance on the ranch, no big deal.

“Heather, why don’t you take our new friend and find him a place to rest. No need to hurry back,” he turned to me and winked.

*****

I arrived at the house on Cielo at around 11:30 in the evening. The slight breeze made the evening cool, and the only sound was my footsteps on the paved drive below me.  I did not hear cicadas, birds, or other sounds I associate with the outdoors at night. Tex had dropped me off about half a mile down the road; he had found an out of the way spot, and he did not want to be observed by a local resident or a policeman. I had met Tex around the camp a few times, and he’d seemed decent enough, but I got no sense of his personality. He had two women from the camp with him. Pat, who I hadn’t met, and Susan, who gave me a weird vibe and whom I found myself avoiding.

In the moonlight, I could see a large rancher, red brick or stone fading into a wood structure towards the roof. My eyes were used to the moonlit night, and I could see my way around the house. Every light was off but a porch light in the back, which I assumed had been left on by the owner when he left, but I decided to move with care just in case.

The house had a large backyard with a swimming pool. I walked to the pool and stopped: there was a smaller house a ways down the yard, and its lights were on. I could hear “Norwegian Wood” coming out of what looked like a kitchen window. Someone was in there. If no one was in the house, maybe this was a caretaker, maybe a squatter. A voice inside me nagged that I should go, the risk was too great, and this was just the sort of risk I tended to take before the cops found me, but I wanted to prove myself, and I wanted to help them out back at the camp. I resolved to continue. Perfectly still for about 5 minutes, I took the time to internally rationalize my decision and make sure the way was clear. When “Norwegian Wood” ended, I didn’t hear another song, and the guesthouse was quiet. After a few minutes, I started to move again.

Slowly, I approached the rear of the dark house. From my perspective, it appeared that every light inside was off, which gave me the confidence to continue. The back door was not far from the pool, and the lock was just a matter of seconds. I inched the rear door open quietly, and it opened without complaint. There was no sound from inside the house. The moonlight did not shine in the interior of the house, so I was momentarily blinded. With one foot in the house, one foot on the patio, I stopped completely and waited to get my vision back. Soon I could see better, and I stepped forward, both feet in the house. The floor made no complaint below me.

I untied the canvas bags I had around my waist, and slowly and quietly, I laid them on the floor of the house and began my initial reconnaissance. With another step in, I could see that I was in the living room. A fireplace was directly in front of me, my view of it partially obscured by the back of a long sofa. There was a love seat to my left, and to my right, I could see a hallway leading to what were apparently the bedrooms.

Slowly…slowly…I approached the sofa. I could see that there was a long coffee table in front of it. I heard then a sound in the living room, soft and barely audible, right in front of me and just a few feet way. It was a snore. Someone was sleeping on the sofa.

Outside, somewhere, the front or the rear of the house, I heard what sounded like a young man screaming, “No!”

*****

It was clear Charlie was the leader in this camp. No one disobeyed him. Some of the women looked at him with adoring eyes, like they were looking at their own children or at a long-lost parent. Many of them were transients like me, there for drugs or sex, maybe just running away from the rest of the world. It was clear that some of them just wanted to be with him. He would give speeches almost every night, and the people who listened hung on his words. I had the distinct impression that I was back in church.

True to his word, Charlie gave me some assignments to do after a few days. Some of the jobs lay outside my range of competence, like repair work on some of their cars or maintenance work around the camp. He joked, “I guess you don’t break into houses to fix things,” and I reminded him that I proved no competence in that field either.

I went on what were simply called dumpster dives, a self-explanatory chore. A few of us would drive to the city, and then we would scrounge. If you hit the trash cans around grocery stores, you sometimes found perfectly edible food. A dumpster outside electronic store could yield a workable radio, as long as someone had the skills necessary to make it workable. I was happy to help, and I was pleased that there was something I could actually do.

Heather and I seemed to bond from that first night after the bonfire, when she led me to a grassy area under a tree and laid out a blanket. We talked more about ourselves that night. She told me she lost her parents to cancer. They died just a few years apart, and she’d ended up living with an older brother she found it impossible to stay with. She went out on her own and stayed with a friend who got her a job waitressing, but her roommate’s drug habit soon became her own, and her drug use made her unemployable. There was one job she could still do, however, and her good looks and her willingness to earn an old-fashioned dollar made her cash anytime she needed it. One night, she was plying her trade at a party when she met a guy named Tex, and Tex brought her to the camp.

She loved being in the camp surrounded by fellow spirits, feeling that she finally belonged somewhere. Charlie would send for her at night on occasion, but she didn’t mind. He warned her never to get particularly attached to any one person unless, he said, it was him. He told her he did not believe in bourgeois one man/one-woman hang-ups. He called for her more and more as her stay continued, and she found herself ignored by some of the other girls. She shrugged and continued to enjoy herself.

She helped me out a lot those first few days in the camp. She introduced me to many of the people  who hung around Charlie. She explained the pecking order of the camp, and she often relayed messages from Charlie. For example, if he wanted me to go on a run to the city, she would often be the one to tell me. The week I was there, she often ended up with me when she was not called for by Charlie.

She also warned me that Charlie’s anger could be something to be feared and she warned me when that particular anger was directed at me. A guy at the camp named Clem had rolled in with a considerable marijuana haul one day, and that night, everyone gathered around another fire and enjoyed it. I left the party just before sunrise, with Heather tailing behind me. I passed Clem’s car and saw most of the weed still in his backseat. I waved to Charlie, but he just looked back, unsmiling, making no movement and showing no emotion. In my condition that night, I thought nothing of it.

The next morning, I was alone in my lean-to when Clem came in. He nodded without speaking and looked around the inside of the shack, leaving again in a few minutes without a word. Heather came in later in the day and she told me the marijuana was gone and Charlie was angry. She didn’t say Charlie thought I took it, but I was the most recent visitor to the camp, and I could hear what she was saying. I need to have a conversation with Charlie. I looked for him during the day, but I never saw him.

*****

I am standing in the living room and I hear a man outside scream, “No!”

I cannot tell where the sound is coming from in this canyon echo. The voice yells, “Please!” Then there are a series of pops. I had heard real gunshots before. The sound of a man weeping, another shot, and then nothing.

I do not move, and I try to assess the situation, my mind racing. I do not know what is going on outside, or where the shots come from or how far away they were. The canyon make it difficult to trace the sound. If someone was shooting outside, my first thought was that it would be best to stay inside. But I cannot stay inside. There’s at least one person here, and he may wake up. He should have.

The living room is large. I look again at the bedrooms to my right, and I see what I had not seen before, that light was shining from below the doors of two bedrooms. There were people in the bedrooms, and I could hear voices coming from one of them, a man and a woman speaking.

The woman said, “-you’re saying is, I’ll be a single mother.”

“I’m not saying that at all, Shar.” Then, unintelligible.

No question, I have to go. I slowly step backwards towards the door behind me, towards the wall, and with my left arm, I reach back and feel for the doorknob. I find it and stop to listen again. I do not know if the backyard is safe, but it seems clear, and out the backdoor, it would be easy to just disappear in the wooded elevation out back.

Then, a scratching from somewhere in the living room. After a moment, I can tell that it’s coming from the front window, by the love seat. Someone is cutting the screen. Someone is breaking into the house.

The woman’s voice, “Jay…(unintelligible)…hearing me out.” The people in the room still don’t hear anything.

I consider arming myself with a kitchen knife. I do not know the layout of the house, specifically where the kitchen is. A frantic scan of the house does not reveal an obvious location for the kitchen. Also, I realize that if I were to move in the opposite direction of the bedrooms, I would have to pass that window.

The man on the sofa continues to snore. Should I wake him up? Should I try to get the attention of others? The person in the window is not coming in to steal. He just shot someone outside, and now he was ripping the screen with a knife. But I do not know these people, and they do not know me. I have no idea what I would say to them, and these people are not my problem.

I scanned the backyard again and it still looks clear. Even more slowly than before, I turn the knob and begin to inch out the door. I slipped out, and very slowly, I’m able to close the door in front of me.

As always, my first instinct is to freeze, so I back myself into a triangular recess of the wall in the backyard, slightly behind the hedge. There’s a window with the screen just to the left of my head, and the window was open, so I can see in here what is going on outside. Since the backyard is mostly dark–the porch light is shadowed in this portion of the yard–it’s likely they cannot see me.

I see a man enter the living room and walk around, confidently, not showing a care in the world. He walks to the front door and unlocks it, and that’s when I can see Pat and Susan walk in. The man who opened the door must be Tex.

“Who are you?” It was the man from the couch; I didn’t notice him sitting up. I can only see the back of his head, and I could see Tex look at him and smile. Tex walks up to him, holding both the knife and gun, and says, leaning in, “I’m the devil.” Tex then tells the man to stay where he is, and then turns and says something to the two girls I cannot hear. They walk towards the bedrooms, out of my line of sight.

I dare not risk running away or making a movement in this backyard to get their attention. These people I laughed with, shared beers and weed with, were now threatening strangers with knives and guns, and someone outside had been killed…and I had been lured here.

Pat and Susan walk back into the room with two other people. It is a man and woman, I assume the two who were talking in the bedroom earlier. There is also a quiet brunette who looks around nervously, and then stares at the man on the sofa. The other woman, a blonde, looks to be about nine months pregnant. She’s huddled close to the man she came out with.

Tex says, “Give us your money, give us your jewelry. You’ll be giving us everything you have.” The pregnant woman is not dressed. The brunette and the man with the pregnant woman still had some clothes on, and produced whatever was in their pockets.

I cannot hear everything that’s said, and I strain to hear while I watch. I see one of the women from the camp walk out of my view and come back with a rope that she hands Tex. Tex grabs the rope and throws one end up in the air. The rope’s end comes down, obviously wrapped around a ceiling rafter. He begins to tie one side of the rope around the man’s neck, and when he approaches the pregnant woman to do the same, the man wearing the noose man says something and holds out his arm, and all I can hear is the word “pregnant.”
Tex turns suddenly and shoots him in the stomach. The man doubles over and falls, and the pregnant woman starts screaming and backs away. Tex leans over the man on the ground and begins to stab him repeatedly. In the confusion, the man on the sofa gets up and breaks for the front door while the brunette runs towards the back door. She is running towards me.

Then the room is total commotion. Pat chases the brunette while Susan attacks the man from the sofa. Tex continues to stab the man on the ground. The man fighting Susan is able to push her away and run for the door, but she leaps at him and stabs him in the leg. He still makes it to the door and gets out. Tex gets up from the dead man on the ground and he and Susan run out the front door after him, bellowing like soldiers in battle.

The brunette comes towards the back door. I am pressed against the wall, my mouth and eyes open wide. I am just to the left of the backdoor, and the brunette breaks to the right, towards the pool. She looks back to see if she is pursued and the first thing she sees is me. She looks right into my eyes. She then sees Pat approaching and screams as Pat tackles her. Pat falls on her like a starved animal falls on prey. She pins the brunette with her knees and stabs repeatedly. The brunette screams, and with all she has in her tries to escape, but she cannot move.

Pat gets up, her work done, and turns to walk back into the house. I am down further behind the hedge. The brunette has stopped moving. It would be a simple thing for Patty to see me there, but she is focused on the door and misses me.

I hear a low whimper from the backyard, and then nothing. I see the brunette has turned her head to face me, her unseeing eyes facing mine. I wanted to help, badly, but what she went through sounded so horrible I could not move. I am back in my bedroom, hiding under the bed. I cannot move.

Everyone is back in the house, and this is my chance to run. It can simply disappear in the canyon behind the backyard. My feet do not register commands to move. I cannot run. I cannot lose my hiding spot. I cannot risk dying like the woman a few feet away.

Tex is back in the house, pacing back-and-forth with what appears to be a look of elation on his face. The man who ran out the front door must be dead. The only one left alive is the pregnant woman, who is crying by the fallen man she came out with, arms stretched in front of her defensively. Susan approaches her as if to console her, but her knife is up. The pregnant woman pleads for her life. She gestures towards her stomach, towards the baby. The child who appears to be due any day.

I know there will be no mercy, and I close my eyes. I cannot watch the rest. I hear another war whoop from Susan as she sets to work and I hear that awful sound of the knife. I hear the last person of the house dying, the last two people of the house dying.

Tex, Pat and Susan meet in the center of the living room. These are people I’ve been with for several days now. The house is completely quiet, and they are still, breathing heavily as if post-coital, listening for anyone else. They walk out of my range, as I can see them shuffling around the house. Susan seems to scratch something on the door with her knife.

And then I hear the most frightening thing I have ever heard. Tex is looking around slowly, and he says, “Bobby… Bobby… Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

Charlie wants me dead. He thinks I’d stolen his drugs or I’d stolen his favorite woman, or maybe there was something about me that he just doesn’t like. I don’t know why these people in the house had to die, but it is clear I am there to join them.

As if he knew all along where I hid, Tex turns his head and looks out the window of the backyard, right at me, and says, “There you are.”

I can hear them laughing as I run.