The Diary of a Serial Killer's Daughter
Page 8
12 years old
September 10, 2014
6:57 p.m.
Dear Diary,
Sometimes I get these dark, dark thoughts swirling in my head and they won’t go away. They’re like glue in my brain, like pieces of black glitter that someone blew out of their hands and into my soul. They float and flutter around and about, never far.
I think it’s seventh grade. It’s so much harder.
I’m in a new school building now, the big one at the other end of town. Daddy and I have to get up earlier to make it there on time. He still drives me because the bus is too loud and the kids are so mean. He drives me in the morning, but I have to ride the bus home because Daddy isn’t out of work yet. I have to ride the bus to the stop way at the end of the lane and walk the whole way home. I don’t mind the walk—it’s peaceful. The bus ride, though, is terrible. One bus ride is enough for one day, so thankfully Daddy can at least take me in the morning.
The building sits right across from the papermill in town. I hate the stink of it. The sulphur-laden, burning smell makes me want to vomit every time. The stench seeps into my pores. I can smell it on my backpack even when I come home. It lurks about on my fingers, on my shirt, in the strands of my hair.
The building is enormous, like a puzzle. There are all sorts of hallways that intersect and numbering systems that don’t make any logical sense. It’s not organized at all, not like Farmer’s Heights Elementary with its neat and tidy hallways in perfect lines. It’s a chaotic swirl, and the kids run and dash down the hallways, bumping and shoving all which ways.
Daddy got me permission to leave my classes two minutes early so I can get out of the noise, but it doesn’t help. The kids tease me for it, and I always feel like I’m missing something, which makes me super nervous.
I have to go to so many classes in a day, and the blaring bell is set too high. I’ve even emailed the principal to tell him, but he must be busy because he never responded. Every time it sounds, each hair on my head and on my arms stands at attention and I feel tingly in a bad way inside. I squeeze my eyes shut religiously when I hear the grating sound, but it never gets better.
I have so many teachers now, too. None of them seem to understand anything about me. They take points off because I won’t talk in class. They always try to have us collaborate—which means working in groups with kids who pick on me and steal my stuff and kick my shins when the teacher isn’t looking. Or call me names or make fun of my hair or touch my arm because they know it makes me angry.
There are all new faces now, too, since we’re in a bigger school. I hate it. I hate new people. I hate the cafeteria where everyone is corralled like cattle and acts worse than beasts. I hate all the loud shrieking and the announcements and gym class where we’re supposed to change into scratchy shirts and shorts and run around and get sweaty.
I hate it. Hate it. Hate it.
I wish I could disappear. I think about what it must be like to be those ladies that Daddy buried in the peaceful, quiet field. Sometimes I think about how nice it would be to sleep there amongst them, the beautiful ladies resting gently underneath the soil. No homework. No scathing remarks from teachers. No rude kids or hair pulling or book dropping. Nothing but peace.
How would I do it? I wonder sometimes.
We had a suicide prevention talk a few weeks ago in our health classes. It was supposed to show us how bad suicide can be and how we can ask for help. But I was fascinated by it all. By the talk of ropes and hangings and pills. By the talk of razor blades on veins. I wonder if Daddy would be interested in it, too.
That’s how I would want to go. Razor blades. Blood squirting from my veins, splattering in exquisite patterns, leaving one final masterpiece behind.
And I know Daddy would know how to clean it up just perfectly. I wonder if when we die we can see what happens afterwards, sort of like watching a movie? A lot of the kids at school complain about their parents making them go to church on Sundays, where they learn about heaven and hell and what happens when you die. Daddy never took me to church. I asked him once about it, but he said it’s all a bunch of nonsense to raise money. He said no one knows what happens when you die.
But Daddy sort of does. He’s watched the life leave all those beautiful women. He’s stared them in the eyes, I would imagine, as they left this world. What was that like, to watch another exit this hard life? Did it give you any insight into the next? Sometimes I think about what that must be like, to have that power, to have that control over someone. But I also think about what it would be like to be on the other end, helpless, at someone else’s mercy.
I’ve noticed people don’t like to think about death or talk about it. It’s okay, though. I don’t like to talk about anything with anyone, in truth. It just leads to confusions and miscommunications and more teasing to endure. I rarely talk to anyone at school. I sit alone at lunch, and I try my best to avoid group work. When I’m forced to interact, a simple head shake or nod is usually all I offer. There are new kids now, from other elementary schools, but they’ve already come to the same conclusion as all the kids who think they know me—I’m weird, dumb, and one to avoid.
Usually I’m fine with being quiet, prefer it even. I’d rather write out my words in you. Sometimes, however, the conversations at school do interest me. In history class once, we talked about medieval torture and punishment. I was all ears. I even answered discussion questions about it. Many of my peers turned to look at me. It was the first they’d probably heard my voice.
They called me a sick freak afterwards for my comments about death and torture and about the artistic beauty of some of the torture devices. The teacher, who is a young guy, looked very uncomfortable. I thought I might get sent to guidance, but I didn’t. I was glad.
Still, even with the few good moments—like when we get to write poetry in English class, or when school got cancelled because of a water break—it’s all so bleak. I don’t feel like I can survive. I don’t feel like I can manage to make it through.
Then I look at Daddy.
He’s often in a dark mood. More and more lately, he seems troubled. Sometimes, by the look on his face, I think he’d rather go out and sleep with those ladies in the field, too, and find out what happens after we die. But he doesn’t. He perseveres. Even when his eyes turn dark and an uncontrollable rage burns within him at the smallest thing, he finds ways to keep on going. He finds ways to tame the anger, the gloom. And when things get really tough, his moods unbearable, he turns to the killing game in the garage. It’s his outlet. It’s his way to control those dark, dark feelings. Maybe I just need to find a way, too, besides my poetry. It helps, but lately, things are getting harder.
And I can tell you this—my outlet isn’t chess club. I quit after Tommy Coinshall cheated. I hate cheaters. I hate it. There’s nothing more unforgivable than that.
Stay Safe,
Ruby
September 15, 2014
6:57 p.m.
Dear Diary,
Today was a really bad day again.
Clarissa Thompson is now in my gym class. You know, the one who tortured me all through elementary school? I thought that at least one benefit of being in this godforsaken, confusing building would be that I’d have less interaction with her. But I was wrong.
She doesn’t really talk to Sarah and Chloe anymore. I guess she’s too cool for them now, her lowcut tops and too short skirts drawing in the eyes of the boys. She prances down the hallways like a giraffe on stilts, her red lips always pouty and her red nails way too long. I like red—but not on her. It almost would make me hate that color if it weren’t so perfect.
And now she’s in my gym class, my least favorite class anyway.
I always change in the privacy of the bathroom stall in the locker room. I don’t want anyone gawking. Today, like every other hellish day that I have to go to gym class, I changed into the horrific shirt and shorts like I have to for my grade and carried my clothes out, getting ready to
put them in my locker. 3-12-04, my combination. I chanted it under my breath like I always do, needing to get it on the first try so kids don’t make fun of me or call me retarded.
3-12-04.
I was beelining for my locker, trying not to peek at any of the girls or they call me a pervert.
“Oh shit, the retard’s in this class? Fucking great. Just want I want. A pervert to spy on me,” a nasally, familiar voice bellowed from right beside me as I tucked my clothes into my locker.
I turned to see the face I’d already identified, more bronzed and more angular, but still familiar.
Clarissa Thompson.
I ignored her, scratching my neck as I tried to edge out of the locker room area and to the gym.
“What, too good to say hi to me?” she asked, bumping into me. She was only wearing her bra.
I scratched my neck more, my cheeks burning as her naked flesh bumped against me. I wanted to shove her away, but I knew I’d get in trouble. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be.
“Still sleeping with your Daddy?” she whispered in my ear, and I spun around, shoving her against the locker so suddenly and forcefully that it even alarmed me.
Clarissa squeaked, stopped in her tracks, as I banged her against it. “Don’t talk about Daddy. You hear me?” The voice was animalistic, like it wasn’t even my own. My hands were shaking.
Just like Daddy’s
“Relax, freak,” Clarissa said, shoving me backwards. I headed out of the locker room as I heard the girls murmur about me. I didn’t care if I got in trouble. I didn’t. She shouldn’t be talking about Daddy like that. She didn’t even know him.
Gym class was a misery, as usual. Kickball turned into me being the target over and over until Mrs. Carlisle let me sit on the bleachers. I counted the points for the teams, frustrated that Mrs. Carlisle was wrong about the final score.
Back in the locker room, I grabbed my clothes quickly and rushed to the bathroom to change. I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible to avoid Clarissa. But when I returned to my locker to put my uniform away, I stopped to stare at the front of it.
Bright red lipstick that matched Clarissa’s lips was smeared all over my locker.
Freak.
One word. The girls were laughing, videoing my reaction on their phones. Tears started to well as I found it hard to breath. I don’t know why, but seeing that word in bright red, red like the garage red, I melted. I cracked. It was like all the horrible things she’d said and done to me were swirling into that one word on my locker.
I threw my uniform on the floor and dashed out of the locker room, ignoring Mrs. Carlisle’s pleas for me to stop. I dashed out the door on the left, ran through the parking lot, and didn’t stop until I was under my second favorite tree by the soccer field.
I stayed there until the security guard came to retrieve me.
I stayed there, clinking my head against the bark, wringing my shaking hands, and thinking about how much I needed Daddy to go back to the garage—maybe with a familiar face.
Stay Safe,
Ruby
September 22, 2014
7:57 p.m.
Dear Diary,
Gym class has gotten worse. Way worse.
Every day is a new dilemma, a new conundrum. With her tight body and charming smile, Clarissa’s won over the girls in our locker room. They work together, distracting Mrs. Carlisle while Clarissa makes my life hell.
It started out small, with the nasty messages on my locker, the broken lock, the stolen clothes. It moved to the planting of horrible pictures in my locker of naked girls, of naked men. I needed it to stop.
I tried talking to Mrs. Carlisle, but the words wouldn’t come out right and she thought I was just making excuses to get out of gym class. I wrote her a note, but even that came out jumbled as I tried to explain what was happening in a way that made sense. But the other girls, of course, vouched for Clarissa, and there are no cameras in the locker room.
I tried skipping gym class, but that only lasted one day until I got into trouble for that. Now, the security guard personally escorts me from my 2nd period science class straight to the chamber of hell, as I now call the locker room.
The truth is, like with so many things, I’m on my own. I try to grin and bear. I try to be strong, like Daddy told me once. But today, things went way too far.
Today, while Mrs. Carlisle was busy talking to Annie in her office about grades, Clarissa took it to a new level, even for her. When I came back from the bathroom, there was something taped on my locker.
A picture of my mama. It looked like a high school yearbook picture. My mama’s smile, her red hair, though . . . it was unmistakable. It was her. Tears welled. I didn’t understand. Because above the picture was one word.
Murdered. Written in red lipstick that was also X’d over my mama’s face.
“Where did you get this?” I half-whispered.
Clarissa looked over. “Who, me? You think I did that? Please,” she said, rolling her eyes that were covered in makeup.
I couldn’t stop the rage. I shoved her against the locker, pinning her tightly.
“Where did you get it?”
I squeezed, feeling her spindly neck in my hands. She tried to stay calm, but I saw her flinch. I smiled at the glimmer of fear in her eyes. So this was what it felt like to have the upper hand.
“It’s not that hard, you know. Your mother went to school here, after all. She was my mother’s age. Put it together, retard.”
I blinked, letting go of her neck just a bit, easing up on the pressure. I didn’t know that Mama went to the same school as me. I had no idea. How could I know, though? Mama was like a censored topic in our house. It made me realize once more that there was so much I didn’t know. It hurt that Clarissa knew more about my own mother than me. Which brought me back to the message.
“Why did you write this?” I asked, pointing to the word as I tightened my grip again.
“Use your head. If you’d stop screwing your dad for two seconds, you’d realize the truth about the psycho. My mom says there’s no way it was a suicide.”
I blinked, staring into the face of the girl I wanted to hurt so badly—but also the girl who told me more than I ever had known.
Suicide? Murder?
I let go of Clarissa, who gave me a bit of a shove. I stepped back, falling to the ground, leaning against the locker. I gently rocked, banging my head over and over.
Was it true?
Did she kill herself?
Or was she murdered?
And could Daddy . . .?
If Daddy did it, then why does he miss her so much?
I wanted to say it was crazy, it was nuts. And when Mrs. Carlisle found me at my locker after the bell, she scooped me up into her arms and told me the girls were horrible liars. I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe that Clarissa was just a horrendous person who lied. But here’s the thing, Diary.
We both know something Mrs. Carlisle and even Clarissa doesn’t.
Clarissa might just be mean—but she doesn’t know Daddy like I do. She doesn’t know about the killing game. She doesn’t know how good Daddy is at cleaning up blood. She doesn’t know what I do . . . then again, is there more to Daddy than even I can see?
I’m confused, Diary. So confused. I hope I can figure it all out. Because if Mama died like the ladies in the field . . .well, then what? Then what, indeed.
Maybe nothing changes.
Maybe everything changes.
Maybe Daddy is even darker than I thought.
Stay Safe,
Ruby
September 23, 2014
1:57 a.m.
Dear Diary,
I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I was thinking about the whole situation with Clarissa, about what she said about Mama. I guess I just wanted answers. But I did something very, very bad today. Very bad.
When Daddy was sleeping, I crept down the stairs, my tools in hand. I’d watched a vi
deo once on how to get into a lock with a bobby pin. I knew it was a longshot, truly. But I’d memorized the video in case I ever needed it.
Now, it seemed like a time that skill was worth trying. I was desperate to get in, even if it meant breaking the rules. Sometimes you have to tell white lies to save relationships, and sometimes you have to bend the rules to save yourself.
I felt a sudden urge to be in the garage. Not outside, not looking in. But actually inside. I guess I thought that maybe I could find a clue, a hint about Mama. A ring or a note. Or maybe just a presence. I would feel her presence in there if Daddy put her in the killing game, right? I didn’t know. I didn’t know at all.
I also thought that maybe I could borrow one of Daddy’s tools, a sharp one, to protect myself. Clarissa’s games were getting more and more annoying, scarier. I needed to stop her, and nothing else was working. Maybe it was time for a little game of my own. I fiddled with the lock, trying to find the right angle like I’d remembered in the video. Over and over, I jiggled the pin in the lock, trying to get in and praying I was as masterful at sneaking around as I thought. I needed to get in. My hands were shaking, tears falling. But sometimes we believe what we want to—I believed I was masterful at sneaking around. I was wrong.
“What the fuck are you doing?” a voice bellowed from behind me.
I turned, and my heart stopped. I almost shrieked, thought about running. Daddy snatched the pin out of my hand and grabbed my wrist.
“I’m so disappointed in you. What the fuck are you doing?”
Daddy never talked to me like that. He never grabbed my wrist like that. Suddenly, for the first time, I was terrified. Truly terrified—of Daddy. His hands were shaking, after all. He pinned me against the wall of the garage, putting his face right up against mine. He never made me look at him, but this time, his fingers wrapped around my jaw.
“Look at me,” he demanded. This was how I knew he was mad. This wasn’t the Daddy I knew, the kind one who made waffles and drove me to school and bought me new red rainboots every year. This was someone else.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I chanted the words, over and over. They mingled with the tears cascading down. “I’m sorry.”