Don't Look Behind You (Don't Look Series Book 1)

by Emily Kazmierski

  The quesadillas are almost ready. The delicious scent of melted cheese wafts as I go down the hallway. An elaborate collage of photo frames runs the length of the wall, broken only by the closed doors. There are photos of a young couple who must be Noah’s parents. I recognize his nose on the woman’s face, but his smile is definitely from his dad. Baby Noah grins at me, his hair slicked up in a mohawk of soapy bath water. Beyond this are photos of his siblings as babies, swaddled in pink and blue blankets and wearing hospital beanies. His mother smiles at the camera with tired eyes. Interspersed between the faces I recognize are images of a boy I can’t place.

  “Hey Noah, do you have another brother?” I call.

  When he doesn’t answer, I peek into the kitchen.

  Noah’s jaw is tight, his eyes fastened to the griddle where the quesadillas are browning.

  I’m starting to get to know Noah, and the look on his face makes it clear that I’ve stumbled on to a sensitive topic. Biting my lip, I retreat into the hallway.

  Did he say the bathroom was the first door on the right, or the second?

  Taking a guess, I open the first. Definitely not a bathroom. Instead, my eyes fall on a twin bed, unmade with a rumpled blue comforter kicked down to its foot. There’s a small, well-loved wooden desk and chair in the corner. I turn to take in the rest of his room, hoping he’s okay with me being in here.

  Above the bed there’s a large poster of an anime character with wolf ears and red clothes standing next to a girl in a green and white school uniform. I’m guessing this is a safer topic. “You’re an Inuyasha fan?” I toss out, hoping he can hear me over the crackle of melting cheese and browning tortillas.

  No answer.

  Still, I’m pleased that he has a poster of one of my favorite anime shows. A spark of something like enthusiasm ignites in my chest, but it’s quickly snuffed out by what I see next.

  Taped to the back of Noah’s door are articles and maps. A collage of face sketches done by a forensic artist have been printed from a printer low on ink. Headlines cut from newspapers shout at me in thick black letters. Serial killer. Gruesome murders. Artist rendering. Mayday murders. If you have any information on the identity of this person, please call...

  My stomach lurches at the soulless look of the man in the sketches. They’re not great, but my mind fills in the rest. The room starts to spin and my pulse goes thready. Someone is breathing hard, and it takes a second to realize that the ragged inhales are coming from me. Something deep in my belly recoils. Recognizes the base undercurrent in that gaze. Recalls the one and only time I beheld someone with that animalistic sneer on their face.

  Panic gurgles in my throat, making me lurch backward when the door swings open.

  “There you are. The quesadillas are…” Noah’s words drop off at my ghostly expression. “What’s wrong?”

  I swallow, throat dry. My eyes bob between the boy and the murder board he’s got hidden behind his bedroom door. Tears threaten, but I bite my tongue, fighting them back.

  Understanding dawns on Noah’s face and he opens his mouth to speak.

  I’m shaking my head. My entire body is quaking as I back away from him toward the hallway. I can’t talk about this. I can’t. Before he can get even a word out, I bolt.

  Scrambling down the pebbled drive, I dig my phone out of my backpack and panic-dial Aunt Karen.

  “Megan? Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

  “Please,” I choke out. “Come get me. I can’t stay here.”

  “Don’t panic. I’m coming!”

  “Too late,” I mumble after the phone line goes dead. My fingers glide over a folded piece of paper as I return my phone to the front pouch of my bag. Dread fills me as I stare at it. I’ve seen those ripped edges before. Plucking it out, I warily unfurl the lined sheet.

  Don’t try to find me. I’ll come for you when the time is right.

  The tide of panic in my chest rises as I swivel around, looking for the boogie man hiding in the trees. When the time is right. What does that even mean?

  Noah is standing on the porch, watching me with a worried frown. He acts as lookout until Aunt Karen pulls up in her car and I scramble inside, slamming the door to ward off the demons chasing me.

  Day 87

  The room is immaculate. A row of cabinets lines the wall, each labeled with something more ominous than the last: utensils, gauze and skin grafts, prosthetics.

  My fingers curl around the edges of the chair I’m sitting on until they hurt, but I don’t let go.

  Don’t dare look to the mirror in the corner, afraid of what I’ll see reflected there.

  I have to do this. There is no other choice.

  “Are you ready?” Aunt Karen asks, her eyes steady on mine.

  I nod, once.

  “Hold still,” the woman wearing latex gloves scoots her stool closer and studies my face. My cheek. The cleaning cloth stings as she rubs it over my skin.

  She examines the reference image on the computer screen at her elbow before sliding her concentration to land on the planes of my face. Pulling her tray of tools close to her knee, she selects one and holds it up.

  I feel nothing as the woman pulls the skin taut and gets to work.

  I refuse to close my eyes, forcing myself to watch as the branding scar

  blooms

  on my

  cheek.

  Chapter 10

  Day 109, Thursday

  I’ve been thinking about the second note, but no matter how much I wrack my brain, I can’t figure out how it got into my backpack, unless it happened at school. The only times I don’t have it are during PE and drama club. Someone must have snuck into the locker room while we were outside running a mile despite the heat and put it in my bag.

  Which means the killer has help from someone on campus, or he’s here.

  The new janitor comes to mind. It could be him, despite what Aunt Karen says.

  Noah smiles uneasily as I walk into art class and slip into my usual desk next to his. He tries to catch my eye, but I busy myself with the time-honored tradition of digging around in my backpack, pretending to look for something.

  “Megan?” he asks, putting a gentle hand on my arm. “Can we talk?”

  I sigh. “I don’t really want to talk about it,” I say. “I just want to—”

  “Good afternoon, everyone!” Mr. Baugh grins at us from the front of the classroom. “I hope everyone is ready to spend this period working on their projects?”

  A flurry of answers—some eager, some half-hearted—come from my classmates.

  I’m equally unenthusiastic. I hoped Mr. Baugh would give us something we could work on individually today so I could keep avoiding having that conversation with Noah. It’s only been two days since the discovery of his murder board and the second note and I Do. Not. Want. To. Talk. About. It. But instead of working on my own interpretation of Starry Night, or making a cast of my own face with papier mâché and breathing straws, I’ve just been sentenced to an hour of stilted conversation and nerves strung tight.

  The pairs around us are already getting down to work, and I’m still staring down into my backpack at nothing.

  “Megan, please,” Noah breathes. “Let me explain.”

  “I don’t want to hear an explanation about how you’re a serial killer groupie or something. Not today.” Okay, so maybe my tone is a tad harsher than I intended, but seriously? The guy has a map of everywhere the Mayday Killer has been spotted on the back of his bedroom door. What else am I supposed to assume than that he has an unhealthy interest in what happened?

  For all I know, Noah could be helping the devil.

  Noah scratches his ear under his glasses. “You think I—wow.” He mouths the last word, his own face turns down toward his desk, and he doesn’t say anything else.

  A twinge of guilt curls behind my breastbone at the crestfallen look on his face, but I let it stand. At least now I won’t have to hear anything else about the killer who’s already t
aken twelve lives and has managed to elude the police for nearly six months now. Hell, despite all of their technology and man-power, they don’t even know who he is.

  For the rest of class, Noah works on the outline for our collage while I sort the photos on my phone by color to see how many more will be needed. He doesn’t say anything else, which is fine. It’s not uncomfortable at all.

  “Looks like someone doesn’t hate you, after all,” Fiona says when I walk into drama club.

  “What are you talking about?” After the painfully awkward period I spent with Noah, I had been hoping that drama club would be a positive change of pace. Having a friend group again feels fantastic. We have so much fun that it’s almost easy to overlook what a bossy ass Esau is to me ninety percent of the time.

  “You told him that he should be using natural light and portrait mode for his social account, right? Take a look.” She holds her phone out to me and I take it, scrolling through Esau’s feed and noting that he’s done both. Instead of dark, grainy photos, the newer ones are well lit and crisp. He’s also cleaned up his profile. Another suggestion I made.

  “That doesn’t mean anything. He still hates me.”

  “Right,” Fiona says, arching a brow. “He hates you. I gotta say, I do not look at guys I hate the way that boy looks at you.”

  I roll my eyes. “Then you clearly aren’t looking carefully enough.”

  “What are we looking at?” Viv asks, popping her round face over Fiona’s shoulder. She’s got a bunch of sewing pins in a watermelon-shaped cushion at her wrist. She’s been hard at work in the hallway, sewing and altering the costumes for the play, and she’s pretty talented. The color palettes she’s putting together for the characters make my mind come alive with so many ideas.

  Too bad our director has his head stuck up his—

  “We’re talking about how Esau looks at Megan.”

  “Oh, I like this conversation. How does he look at her?”

  “Like he hates me,” I say at the same time that Fiona says, “Like he wants to eat her face.”

  All three of us bust up laughing at the absurdity of the idea. Viv mimics chomping with one hand, making us laugh even louder.

  “Plus,” Fiona says, once we’ve all calmed down. “Dariel had something very interesting to say about that day we all went to the boardwalk.”

  “What about it?” I hate how curious I sound.

  Viv’s cheeks go round as she grins. “I heard about this!”

  Fiona puts an arm around each of us and pulls us in mischievously. “He told me that when we lined up for the mine carts, Esau asked Noah to switch places with him so he could ride with you.”

  “No way!” I say much louder than necessary.

  Viv cups her face. “Isn’t that the cutest thing you’ve ever heard?”

  “That is absolutely not true. There is no possibility on earth that Esau wants to do anything other than order me around until I’m so sick of it I quit drama club.” Too bad for him. I’m not a quitter. On a dare, I once climbed to the top of a human pyramid with a sprained ankle. The look on my mother’s face when I limped off the field afterward? Let’s just say she wasn’t thrilled.

  My eyes start to burn, and I blink rapidly to clear them.

  “Are you okay?”

  The deep timber of Esau’s voice makes me freeze. Is he talking to me? I swivel my head slowly toward where he’s standing a handful of feet away, his arms crossed over his stupidly attractive chest. There’s a thick, blue rubber band around one of his wrists. His eyes lock on mine. He’s waiting for something.

  Oh.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.” My mind is struggling to keep up. Grumpy Pants Esau just asked me how I am? Do I look sick or something? Because there’s no way he could have noticed that my eyes were threatening tears, could he?

  “The stage crew could use your help painting the sets today.” Esau’s nostrils flare as he inhales. His eyes flick over my face before he turns away. Snapping the rubber band, he stalks off.

  And there it is. He was simply wondering why I wasn’t already working on something. That makes a whole lot more sense than the ludicrous idea that he was actually checking on my emotional wellbeing. Because come on.

  Fiona moves closer. “You’re sure you’re okay? I thought you were going to lose it for a second there.”

  “I’m fine, really.” Shaking my head to clear it, I point toward where some of the members of the stage crew are painting a fake window on to one of the backdrops. “I’d better get to work before I get yelled at.”

  Viv makes chomper hands again.

  Fiona chuckles. “Or eaten.”

  I’m in the back of the theater, wearing a trash bag to protect my clothes from paint, when I hear a loud shutter click. Spinning around, I see Esau standing in the center of the stage talking to a middle-aged woman in a bright red skirt suit. Beside her is a twenty-something guy holding a professional camera with a lens that’s so long it’s obscene.

  “Who is that?” I hiss at the girl nearest me, Josie.

  “No idea,” Josie says. Unphased, she goes back to painting the hydrangea bush she’s been working on for the past hour.

  Esau and the woman talk back and forth for a few minutes before I notice she’s holding a recorder in one hand. The camera man is tramping around the theater, taking photos of anything and everything. He takes a photo of Fiona coiling a cable and asks her if she’ll sign a release in case they use the image.

  “Definitely! I’ve never been in the newspaper,” she replies, signing the page on the clipboard he holds out to her.

  Newspaper? Wait, that woman is a reporter?

  My stomach churns and I’m pretty sure I’m turning green. Lurching up from where I sit on an overturned milk crate, I tear the plastic bag off my body and wad it up into a ball. “I have to go to the bathroom,” I tell no one in particular. Then I bolt toward the rear stage door, away from the reporter lady and her co-hort’s giant camera.

  I cannot be in the newspaper. I don’t know anything about the madman who’s after me, but drawing attention to myself cannot be a good idea.

  When the time is right...

  Fiona yells, “Wait!” as I pull the door closed behind me.

  Leaning back against the prickly stucco wall of the structure, I take a couple of deep breaths. Everything is under control. The reporter didn’t talk to me at all. She doesn’t have my name. And the camera man would have had to get a release if he wanted to use any photos of me. Which he didn’t do. So I’m fine. There aren’t going to be any mentions or photos of me in the local newspaper.

  No extra incentive for anybody to come after me.

  Still, that was way too close.

  Chapter 11

  Day 113, Monday

  Four days since the fiasco at Noah’s house. Now that I’ve had a lot of time to agonize over how I reacted, I feel terrible about it. Seeing those articles and photos, the map of places where there have been possible sightings of the Mayday Killer over the past four months, I panicked. I made some assumptions about Noah that probably weren’t fair.

  There’s no way someone as gentle and sweet as Noah is helping a killer.

  I should have let him explain why he’d gathered all of that stuff behind his bedroom door instead of running out of there like a small dog running from a pack of coyotes. Which is why, when I sit down next to him in art class, I don’t look away when he glances at me.

  When I don’t immediately turn away, he perks up.

  “Does this mean you’re talking to me again?”

  A quick survey of the classroom confirms that there’s no one sitting in the desks immediately surrounding ours. There are a couple of guys in the far corner washing paint brushes in the sink. A girl in the front row is doing pencil sketches in a notebook.

  “Yeah. Look, Noah, about Sunday—”

  “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he jumps in with an earnestness that makes my chest loosen.

  “It’s
okay. You’re allowed to have hobbies. It’s just that I, all of the Mayday Killer stuff, freaked me out.”

  Noah lowers his head. “It sort of freaks me out too.”

  We look shyly at each other, our gazes skimming before pulling away. I’ve missed talking to him the past few days, and his candid admission brings home how much. There’s something so easy and open about Noah, like what I see is what I get. There’s no pretense with him.

  “So you’re not a serial killer fanboy?” I ask, still needing to hear his answer.

  Noah’s eyes widen behind the black frames of his glasses. The incredulous laugh that bursts from his mouth is sort of cute. “So that’s what you thought. Huh.”

  I shrug. It sounds ridiculous now that he’s said it out loud. Noah is far too kind and gentle to be a secret murder fanboy. Or worse.

  “It’s nothing like that. The thing is, I’m interested in true crime stuff. And since the Mayday Killer is still at large…”

  Mr. Baugh comes in carrying a stack of old newspaper clippings that he plunks down on his desk.

  The girl in the desk on Noah’s other side shifts closer to him. Is she listening in on this conversation? She takes out a book and starts to read.

  I pull my shoulders down from around my ears. I’m getting more than a little paranoid.

  Noah glances over at the older man before leaning closer to me, voice lowered. “Since he’s still at large, a lot of people in the true crime community are trying to find him.”

  “The sooner the better,” I breathe.

  “Exactly.”

  “That makes a lot of sense.”

  Noah visibly relaxes. “Right? Hey, you wouldn’t want to help me gather info on him, would you? Because there’s a lot out there, and it would be awesome if we found something that could help.”

  The bell rings, and Mr. Baugh starts walking up and down the now-full rows of desks. “All right everyone. Today we’re going to exercise your ability to improvise creatively. Each of you will be given a newspaper article, and it’s your job to come up with a collage piece that conveys the emotion of the article.” He goes on to detail the list of supplies we’re allowed to use and reminds us that it’s a timed exercise that ends when the bell rings signaling the end of class.