Vincent Ivan Norton’s Past
Part Two of Three
Part Two of Three
Vincent pulled up to the house, parked the car, and lifted the medium cheese and green olive pizza from the passenger seat. He kicked open the door to his car and stepped out. Walking up the shrub-lined sidewalk, he couldn’t help but approve. The lawn looked like a golf course and he had the urge to take his shoes off just to wiggle his toes in the luscious grass. Shaking the thoughts away, he stopped at the door and rang the bell of the ugly gray house, holding the pizza on his palm as he pulled out the receipt and checked the time. Last delivery of the night at ten. For god’s sake, he needed a life. Printed on the receipt, the name “Jonathan Anderson.” Pathetically common name.
In the darkness, the couldn’t hear anything. No footsteps, nothing. He rang the doorbell again, growing slightly impatient with his customer. Come out and get your damn pizza already, a*****e, he thought crabbily. Footsteps echoed in the house, bringing the occupant to the front door. Clicks and scraping signaled he was taking down his defenses, opening the door. With a groan, the door pulled open a few inches and a sickeningly familiar, grotesque face peered through it.
Couldn’t be.
No way in hell, it just couldn’t be.
‘Johnny Dangerously.’
Vincent almost dropped the pizza. He let the receipt flutter to the cement step as he caught the pizza in both hands and used the box to lower the bill of his Domino’s hat. Fumbling with the pizza, he kept his eyes on the pavement, unable to bring himself to look anywhere near that man. He held the pizza out towards him, letting him take it and almost turning tail right there and getting the hell out of Dodge.
“Hey, I have your tip, it’s on the kitchen table. Would you like to come in?” the man asked. He wasn’t in his thirties anymore, he was older and, if possible, looked even more disgusting than he had when he was younger.
Vincent shook his head. “That’s alright, I have a few other deliveries to finish up with-”
The man stopped, his hand on the door. He turned towards Vincent with a strange look on his overweight face. “More deliveries? But this was your last one, your employer said so.”
Vince felt a familiar panic welling in his chest. s**t, s**t, s**t, s**t, s**t... He took a step back but tripped over the cement step, falling back, landing hard on the sidewalk. He coughed and wheezed, surprised by what happened. When his vision cleared and he looked up, Anderson stood over him, minus the pizza, staring at him like he had seen a ghost.
Vincent scrambled to his feet, backing away from the disgusting man. He wasn’t fast enough. As Anderson lunged forward to grab his arm, Vincent turned to run and fell over a low-lying shrub, falling into it. Thorns sliced his bare skin, drawing blood. Struggling to stand only made the thorns dig in deeper, he looked like he had been attacked by a hoard of rabid cats. Finally breaking free of the thorn bush, he found himself face to face with Anderson. The man from his nightmares. The man all those years ago, the man responsible for Vincent’s horrible life.
“You’re Vincent,” Anderson growled through gritted teeth.
“Stay the ******** away from me,” Vincent snarled, feeling very much like a cornered animal as his green eyes desperately searching for a way out, a way past this psycho and to his car.
“You know, I always wondered what happened to you. I always wondered why you didn’t say anything to the cops,” Anderson said with a chuckle. “And now I know why. You’re embarrassed as hell. You wouldn’t have had a case anyway. Condoms are a criminal’s best friend,” he said, a demonic smirk crossing his ugly features.
Vincent flushed, his cheeks turning bright red as he struggled to breath. Every time something happened, every time he was stressed, it was hard to breath. It made getting out of this situation considerably more difficult. He didn’t want to give Anderson the satisfaction of an answer as he tried to find a solution to his dilemma. Absolutely nothing came to his mind as the situation became more and more dire.
Vince hadn’t noticed it, but Anderson had been backing him into a corner. Vincent, now wedged between the house and the garage with a breezeway blocking the only possible escape, panicked. He ran for the breezeway door, throwing it open. His cold, sweaty palm closed around the handle as a gnarled hand grabbed his shoulder, spinning him around and throwing him against the breezeway door. He heard a crack and found himself staring at the sky, laying on the broken door.
“Vincent, now that you know where I live and who I am, I’m afraid I have to kill you,” Anderson said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Ah well, I guess it doesn’t matter all that much.”
Vincent gasped for air as he lay on the broken door. He came to his senses as Anderson spoke of killing him, pushed himself to his feet, and booked it. Around the house, to the front lawn. His car was in sight, beyond a man-made pond. Making a fateful decision, the blonde opted out of crashing through the pond and hugged the side of the house. Rounding the corner, he smacked into the warm, fleshy blob named Anderson. Vince was on the ground in seconds, hands pinned behind his back under a heavy knee, face pressed into the cold, wet grass. Not again, not like this, for god’s sake please... What the ******** did I do wrong?!
