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  They were too close. Maybe another six months, or sooner, Brett told him and Shannon, and they could cash out and retire. It had taken them just over two years to get to this point. And they hadn't gotten caught. Neil could taste the money. Then that bitch Beatrice had threatened everything when she discovered the irregularities.

  After finding an intruder in the garage and then subduing him, he immediately called Shannon, waking him, “Dude? What the hell?” Shannon said groggily.

  “I need you to come over to my house right now!” Neil said.

  “Uh, why? I don’t want to drink right now. We work in the morning. I …”

  “Shut up dumbass! Her cousin is here!”

  “What?” Shannon asked. “Who’s…”

  “I caught Beatrice's cousin in in my garage! Wesley Cole. The guy you followed.”

  "Yes, I remember him," Shannon said, "I'll be right over." He was at Neil’s house within fifteen minutes. He brought a six pack of beer.

  Neil met him outside the garage. He wasn't sure what there were going to do. Was this guy here looking for something? If so, what? They shook Shannon’s hand.

  Shannon handed him a beer. “So, what’s the situation? Why is he here?”

  “I don't know. The motion detectors in the garage were triggered, woke me up. At first I thought it was the neighbor’s cat again, hunting mice. Couple of weeks ago a cat got in and set off the sensors. My uncle had the house and the garage wired up.” Neil knew about a hole in the soffit, on the south side of the garage. Squirrels entered through there, but wasn't sure how the cat got it. All he needed to do was cover the hole with wood or rabbit-wire mesh. He would be sure to cover it up within the next day or two. He continued. “So, I entered the garage, but it wasn’t the cat. It was Wesley Cole, Beatrice’s cousin. Fucker was looking around in the dark with the light on his phone. Snooping around.”

  “He’s still here? Inside?” Shannon asked, pointing to the garage.

  “Yeah, he’s inside. I duck-taped him to a chair.”

  “How’d you do that?” Shannon asked.

  Nervous, Neil turned and stared at him. “I hit him with a bat. It dazed him and I grabbed the tape.”

  “What the hell was he be looking for?” Shannon asked, taking a drink of beer.

  “You asked that already! How the hell am I supposed to know?” Neil stared at him.

  “Hey, man, calm down. It’s just a question. Just talking it out. We need to know why he’s here. We are too close for anything to go wrong! I'm already looking for beach-front property in Florida.”

  Beach-front property? Neil thought it was too soon to be doing that. “Yes, I know. Let's go inside.”

  Both of them entered the garage and walked up to Wesley. He remembered hitting him with the bat. Wesley wasn’t a big guy, five eight or nine, about buck seventy. Dark brown hair, clean-shaven, Wesley also had blue eyes.

  Shannon spoke first. "Why are you here?"

  Wesley smiled. “Uh, because I was looking for something to steal. I say call the cops.“

  "No, we aren't going to do that,” Neil said.

  "What are you going to do? Hurt me? Kill me?" Wesley asked.

  They just stared at him.

  Neil caught a whiff that Wesley might know something. Regardless of what he thought he knew, Neil was positive that he didn’t leave any evidence. None. No way this guy knows anything.

  Wesley looked around the garage, and said, "What is this? Do you have a hobby or something? What's with all the tools and shit?"

  Neil looked around and said, "No, I inherited the house. The garage and its contents too. All from my uncle. Uncle Bob passed earlier this year. He was a locksmith, carpenter, all around handyman. Never married or had any kids, so he left me everything."

  “Wow. Lucky you!" Wesley said.

  "Why are you here, sneaking around in the dark?" Shannon asked.

  "It's over guys. You are both done," Wesley said, staring at Neil.

  “Yeah right." Shannon snorted. "What does that mean?” Shannon took a sip of beer.

  Wesley said, “You were there that night. That night, you Neil, were at my cousin’s apartment. You killed Beatrice!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  A machine

  EACH MAN STOOD over six feet tall. Neil was bigger by forty or fifty pounds. Big, yes, but not strong. Bigger only meant fatter. God, he was quite disgusting; he had moobs, also known as bitch tits. Beatrice was right. A bowl of black hair rested on his head, reminding Wesley of Moe of the Three Stooges; his beard not-so-covertly covered his double chin. Shannon had wafer-thin shoulders; his lips were two pink filaments under his nose, and he barely had any hair on his head.

  Neil chuckled. "No, I was not at Beatrice's place. I don't remember the day she killed herself, but I am sure I was out drinking. Probably at Shannon's place. Besides, I don't even know where your cousin lived, asshole!"

  Shannon laughed like a lunatic before he took another swig of beer.

  "If both of you are arrested, one can't alibi the other. Just for your information," Wesley informed.

  Neil shrugged. "Okay. So what. I don't need an alibi. I wasn't there."

  "But you guys did go drinking with Beatrice and Patti, correct?" Wesley asked. “Ride in the same car? Sat near each other at the bar?”

  "Yeah, Patti ended up giving me a blowjob," Neil said.

  “Good for you, but the cops will think that you could have looked at her ID and got her address that way since you were near her. Easy access.“

  Neil shrugged. "Okay, maybe, but that seems a little weak."

  "The night you guys went out drinking with my cousin and Patti Summerland, you guys stopped by here. Neil's house. That's where you fucked up. Amateurs, both of you. The police will get a warrant to check the house and the garage.“

  "No way, Jose!" Shannon said. "We didn't come here that night.”

  "Okay, if you say so. But when the cops talk to Patti, she will tell them everything that happened that night. Even that Neil told her to bring her friend, Beatrice, because you were bringing a friend, Shannon."

  Neil smiled. Shrugged. "If true, doesn't matter. Let the cops come talk to me and Shannon. I'll make coffee and have some doughnuts ready."

  "But there is something else. Something that you don't know about. Earlier today, after the funeral, I discovered that Beatrice left me a voicemail from that night she supposedly committed suicide. She said that you, Neil were outside her door, wanting to talk. To come inside and talk. I've sent the voicemail to Beatrice's dad earlier. So you know that he'd probably at the police station now, telling them about you.” Wesley stared at Neil, and said, "Dude, while you were outside her door, she was leaving me a voicemail. The cops will investigate you, period. And let’s not forget the fact you did not come forward to tell them you went there that night. In case you deny it, they will get security footage from surrounding buildings, traffic cams, and whatever other stuff cops do to find murderers."

  "I was not there, dude." Neil took a swig of beer.

  "Yes, even if you weren’t there, doesn't mean you were ever inside her apartment. But then..." Wesley drifted for a moment.

  "Then, what?" Shannon said.

  "Something else bothered me," Wesley answered.

  "What?" Shannon asked.

  "Not sure if you guys know, but I am the person who found Beatrice's body. It was the very next day, I found her. Dead less than twenty-four hours."

  "Inside her apartment?" Neil asked.

  "Yes. The door was locked, but I have a key to her place, so I let myself in. And—"

  "Wait a minute! So the door was locked?"

  "Yeah, but—"

  "What a dumbass!" Shannon said, shaking his head.

  Both looked at each other, not saying anything, but laughing.

  "What?" Wesley said.

  "If I was there and I killed her, like you say, how did the door lock behind me?" Neil asked with a tone of superiority.

  Wesley smile
d. “Oh yeah, that’s easy! You see, that was my question when I listened to her voicemail. How did you lock the door behind you? The cops found her keys, and the apartment key was there on the keychain. Each of parents had a key and I had a key. That’s it.”

  "Exactly, dumbass! Neil couldn't have killed her. We were drinking that night," Shannon said.

  "Yes, but I asked myself, why did you guys come here that night?"

  "We didn't come here, clean your ears out!" Shannon said.

  "That is why I came here. Right over there, I found your key-making machine. Under the tarp. It's like the kind you find at Home Depot or other hardware store. And you said, your uncle was a locksmith. The police will put all the pieces together. That night you got her address by looking at her driver’s license, and then you guys stopped here, so you could make a copy of her key without her missing it. If you returned it the next day it would immediate suspicion at the time of her death. Then they would investigate the motive. If Beatrice found the irregularities in books at work, someone else would find it too.”

  Neil exhaled, glancing over at Shannon.

  “You screwed up by coming here. Also, by knocking on her door. You should’ve just waited until she was a sleep. She left me a voicemail.”

  Neil shook his head, and chuckled. “I thought she liked me. I was hoping to get lucky. Thought it would have been easier to slip her the pills.”

  "What the fuck, Dude!" Shannon complained. "Never admit it!"

  “Ha! She found you disgusting,” Wesley commented.

  “Alright. I made an extra key. Been making keys ever since I was a kid, helping my uncle. I had to use it to get into her place after she went to bed,” Neil admitted.

  And she complied.

  Both, Neil and Shannon, were not only quiet for several moments, but looked like they really wanted to kill him.

  The police would be able to piece enough of it together without him, but he would love to be able to talk to them through it himself. Wesley did not want to die, he was no hero.

  They had him duct-taped him to a chair. And that fact should have pissed him off, but Wesley was afraid; he was no badass. He had them dead to rights, but he was the one duct-taped to a chair in a garage filled with tools that could be used to torture then kill him.

  Coming here at this time was a big mistake, didn't know what he was doing here; he should've done this during the day, while Neil was away. Less problems and his death would not be imminent.

  Fear grew within him the more he thought about his impending death. Hairs on his arms stood on end. One of the light bulbs, on the ceiling, flickered; both of them looked up, then back at him.

  "So what do we do with him? Kill him?" Shannon asked.

  Wesley did not like that statement. The bulb flickered again.

  Neil shook his head, staring at him, smiling. "Because of him, we will have to make a run for it. We got maybe a couple of hours, at the most. So, yeah, we kill him.” He turned and looked at Wesley, revealing a knife with a six inch blade. "But before we kill him, I want this fucker to feel some pain!"

  CHAPTER TEN

  Multidimensional

  HE BROUGHT THE shinning piece of metal up, and came down hard on his leg. As pain erupted in his leg, Wesley heard Shannon laughing again.

  "Does it hurt?" Neil asked, grinning.

  Wesley glared at the blade, not really believing he was just stabbed. The pain sang louder than a choir of ten-thousand. Never in his life had he ever felt such pain. Although the pain was severe, something caught his attention. Something that allowed him to not necessarily dismiss the pain, but put it aside.

  Like a light-dimmer slowly turned up, something was being revealed. About two feet in front of him, a kind of hole emerged. Immediately, Wesley understood that it was not a three-dimensional hole, but multidimensional.

  Thick segmented worms of blue light, red-dotted critters, and many other kinds of creatures swam back and forth through the hole. They're actual living organisms, Wesley thought.

  Wesley did not understand how he knew, but he knew that the not only the hole, but the creatures too were multidimensional.

  Wesley somehow obtained a sixth sense: a multidimensional sense. It was like adding the two senses of: seeing and touching. See-touch. He felt his mind seeing and touching, as if reaching out with invisible fingers or tentacles. See-touch sense was like sonar, but different. It was a sense needed in the multidimensional realm. And the creatures, he suspected, were helping him see-touch; he felt the creatures see-touching him.

  Everything that he could see-touch not only had kind of texture, but it had information. Wesley could not digest all of it; it was immense and most of the information he could not translate. One thing he did understand, on the other side of the hole, the multidimensional realm, was the source of his ability.

  Overwhelmed, he switched back to his native four-dimensional realm by simply stopping his see-touching sense. He couldn’t explain how he did it either. The hole and creatures disappeared. Somehow, he was still connected; he could feel the other side.

  Gears changed when he saw Neil and Shannon. Allowed anger to seep up to the surface, he clinched his jaw. They were still giggling. Unaware of what was about to happen to them, they took sips of beer.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Chest wounds hurt

  NEIL STABBED THE fucker in the thigh; he was going kill him, but he wanted this guy to pay for making them skip town. No way he was going to prison. Everyone knew what happened to the good-looking guys in prison, and he was no faggot.

  Neil watched as Wesley just sat there, not screaming or yelling. It had to hurt. Where's the screaming? The begging? Wesley just stared back at Neil. No, he wasn't staring at him. He was seeing through Neil. Or at something else. He looked behind him but nothing was back there except hanging tools.

  Lightbulbs, all of the sudden, burst like glass balloons. Glass rained down on top of them. He felt them hit all over his body. Bits of glass shards stuck in their hair as they ducked.

  “What the hell!” Shannon said, looking up at the ceiling. “What the hell happened?”

  Staring up at the ceiling too, Neil shrugged. “I don’t know! Power surge maybe? Who cares? We have to deal with this guy!” When he turned to Wesley, he noticed there wasn’t any glass in his hair, shoulders, or any other part of his body at all. But glass was all around him on the floor.

  Neil just grabbed the knife and pulled it from his thigh. "No way I'm going to prison!" he said. "We just need to kill him and tell Brett that we need whatever money is available now. Then we get out of town!"

  "Where would we go?" Shannon said. "Hawaii?"

  "I don’t—“ Neil said, before being interrupted by Wesley.

  “I am tired of listening to you two,” Wesley said. “Release me or else.”

  Neil smirked and said, “Really?”

  “‘Or else’?” Shannon mocked, chuckling. “What you going to do?”

  He took in a deep breath. “Or I will kill you,” Wesley said. "I'll give you one chance. Let me up and admit what you’ve done to the police.“

  Neil did not like that option. “Or else?” He chuckled, slicing this fucker across his chest would show him.

  “Yes, ‘or else’.”

  “Wesley, you are so stupid.” As he bent over to cut him, Neil realized that he couldn’t move. He could not budge one millimeter. He couldn’t even turn his head to look at what was holding him in such a position. Frozen in air. He couldn't even move his mouth to speak. His eyes were the only thing he could move.

  Wesley chuckled, shaking his head slowly. “Guys, don’t say I didn’t give you a chance.”

  Neil watched as Wesley's ropes untied themselves. Once free of them, Wesley stood, not taking his eyes off of Neil. What the hell? Neil thought. He saw Shannon standing with his beer can almost to his mouth. Unable to move.

  The knife in his hand was pried from his hand by an invisible force. Floating in front of Neil’s face, th
e knife rotated in midair, and began hacking away at his wrist. Neil tried to move, but couldn’t. None of this seemed real; Neil began screaming, because the pain was ever so real. Blood gushed from his wrist.

  With a couple more hacks, his hand fell to the ground. He glanced over at Shannon when he heard guttural sounds. Strips of flesh were being peeled from Shannon’s arms and face.

  Invisible forces tore Neil's clothes from his body, including his pants and underwear. Pain exploded all over his body as small cuts formed all over his body.

  Wesley stepped closer to him, and stare at him. “Does it hurt?”

  Neil was able to speak now. "Yes! Tremendously! How are you doing this?"

  "That does not matter. You killed my cousin. You and this dumbass. Who else was involved?”

  Neil shook his head. "I don’t—” Neil abruptly became quiet because of the new pain. One by one, he watched as each toenail, starting with the left pinky toe, was pulled out. Four toenails were out before nail-pulling stopped.

  "What was that?" Wesley said.

  “Okay, yes, we did it. Shannon watched you, at your place. We knew you went to her place a lot. And when we thought you weren't going to Beatrice's, I let myself in. I woke her up and put the barrel of my gun to her head and told her to swallow all the pills or I’d just shoot her in the face. Then I told her that her mother would see her face all messed up and Beatrice cried.” Neil paused then continued. “Then, after a couple of minutes, she swallowed the pills.”

  "Why kill her?" Wesley asked.

  "Brett told us to."

  "Because you guys are embezzling from your company?" Wesley said.

  "Yes, but Beatrice found some anomalies in the financials that were dangerous for us. She was really good at her job. So we had to discredit her and get rid of her.”

  Wesley nodded his head. "Is he telling the truth?" he asked Shannon.

  "Yes, he's telling the truth,” Shannon whimpered.