Look What You Made Me Do

by Elaine Murphy

  I pull out my phone and text Becca. The detective is here. The one from my office. He thinks I’m nuts.

  Her reply is immediate. The best defense is an insanity plea.

  Shut up.

  I’m off Thursday and Friday, she writes. I’ll go to the next few. You go to work and act normal.

  For some reason, I type, Thanks.

  How is it? she asks.

  The funeral?

  What else?

  Sad.

  An eye roll emoji.

  I put the phone away.

  The funeral is brief, paid for by an anonymous uncle who’s not even in attendance. The only speaker is the priest, who offers a few stock phrases about lost sheep being welcomed back into the flock, and everyone who leaves looks more disappointed than mournful.

  I linger in my seat, filming as best I can while Greaves remains in his pew, two rows ahead. He hasn’t looked at me again but I felt him the whole time, like he knows exactly what I’m doing, if not exactly why. When I’ve filmed enough, I hurry out, sending Becca the link to the video, grateful to have no more funerals on the agenda for the week.

  It’s only four o’clock when I get home, but it’s already dark. The skies opened up on the two-hour drive back, heavy raindrops battering the windshield, bright slices of lightning severing the black clouds with whiplash precision.

  I drive past my house twice, slowing so I can study it for strange signs, any sense of evil. I’d left the living room curtains open and a light on when I left earlier, and they’re both as they were, the house looking warm and lived in.

  I park and climb out, hustling up the dark driveway to my front stairs, splashing in an unseen puddle that drenches my calf in ice water. I shiver and pull my keys from my pocket but stop before inserting the key in the lock, crouching to check my new welcome mat. Becca bought it for me as a safety precaution, even as she’d laughed at the irony of me setting out a welcome mat for a serial killer. We’d marked the landing with two tiny dots and positioned the mat just so. If it’s moved, someone may have been here. If it’s still in line, maybe not.

  It’s not the best plan.

  Thunder rolls in the distance, snapping at me to stop putting off the inevitable. The mat is in place, and I straighten, feeling moderately more secure. I let myself in and listen carefully, eyes scanning the living room, the stairs, as far back as the dark kitchen. There’s nothing out of place.

  I close and lock the door behind me, the smell of ozone still hanging in the air, and take off my coat and boots. I peel off my pantyhose where I stand, my left foot drenched, toes red from the cold and the damp. I’m two steps in when I smell it.

  I stop immediately, one hand on the banister, and sniff again. Ahead of me, the kitchen looms dark, and I think of Becca and her tricks. I wouldn’t put it past her to have lied about work, sent me to a stranger’s funeral, and come here to make a mess. Graham gave me a baseball bat to keep in the house, and I left it by the front door as a security measure. Even without any obvious warning signs, it makes me feel better to have it in my hand as I call, “Becca? I have a bat, and I’m going to hit you with it.”

  No answer. No sound at all. I move past the staircase and take two quiet steps, my bare feet growing even colder. I’d forgotten to change the thermostat, and it’s not programmed to kick in until five o’clock. I don’t want to turn it on now, knowing the sounds it will make will drown out anything I need to hear.

  The smell is stronger now that the front door is closed. Something vaguely rotten and mineral-like. I recall the one and only time that I’d ever called Becca a psycho to her face. The next day, I’d found a skinned rabbit sitting in a pot on my stove. Becca doesn’t know how to hunt things that know they’re prey so she hadn’t killed it herself, just bought it from a specialty butcher and then later complained about the price. Still. Message received.

  The entrance to the kitchen looms large and dark. Without a light in the backyard, there’s nothing to reflect into the room, to distinguish the inert shapes and shadows from something human peeling away from the wall, leaping for my throat, claws and fangs bared. I jab the end of the bat into the room, moving fast so if Becca leaps out, I’ll hit her first. But nothing happens. I hear only my own breathing, my damp foot sticking to the linoleum, fingers scrabbling along the wall for the switch, finding and flicking it on.

  The fluorescent light whines as it flickers to life, casting the room in its eerie yellow glow. I study the room. The stove—empty. The cupboards—closed. The back door—still locked.

  I whirl around, but there’s no one behind me. I consider marching right out the front door, getting into my car, and driving to Graham’s, but after last night, I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to hear him say how going to these funerals is making me paranoid, that there’s nothing to be afraid of. And maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe there’s no smell at all. Maybe I’m just imagining the scent of Ron Anderson’s body, my mind conjuring the whole thing.

  Except I know I’m not. After a life with Becca, I don’t need to use my imagination to dream up horrible scenarios. And while the floor upstairs is silent, no haunting creaks and groans to amplify my fear, my legs are still weak as I force myself to the bottom of the staircase, gazing up into the dark.

  I make it two steps before bile rises in my throat. My palms are slick with sweat, and the bat shakes in my fingers. I’m more likely to drop it on somebody’s foot than hit them with it. I clutch the rail with one hand and try to control my breathing, but it’s impossible. I’m desperate for air, but also desperate not to breathe. The odor is too strong here, too unmistakable. It smells like iron, the tang on your tongue when you prick your finger and suck away the pain.

  It’s blood.

  A lot of it.

  I think of Becca and her stupid game, lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce. I could do what I did all those times as a child, climb the stairs, sniveling and afraid, giving her power she didn’t earn. Or I could spend another sleepless night on the couch, afraid of the dark. But this is more than just darkness, and I don’t want to be afraid of it, even though I should be.

  I grip the bat with both hands and charge up the stairs without warning, making the creaky third step howl, swinging the bat in a wide, deadly arc when I reach the landing. It cuts a swath through the dark, the force and momentum taking me with it as I spin too hard to my left, the bat crunching through drywall.

  For a second, my own cry rings in my ears, and then the house is deathly silent. The metallic stink of blood is mixed with the powdered spray of drywall, and my nose twitches. I sneeze as I reach for the switch at the top of the steps and turn on the lights, the overhead fixtures too bright after the impenetrable dark.

  The hallway is empty. The doors are open, as I left them. The only thing different is the new hole in the wall.

  Sweat runs in rivulets under my arms, over my rib cage, catching in the elastic waistband of my underwear. My skin is flushed but I’m cold all over, my fingers numb as they pry the bat free, barely feeling its weight in my hand. I swivel my head, trying to discern the source of the smell, but it’s impossible to tell. There are only three options: my bedroom, the bathroom, or the guest room.

  Tears sting my eyes, sorrow for whatever or whomever I’m about to find. I move to my left, to my bedroom, since that’s where I last encountered Footloose. I hold my breath as I reach in a hand and find the switch, flicking it on.

  There’s nothing. My neatly made bed, the closet doors open, the curtains drawn. It looks safe, though I know it’s an illusion.

  I turn back to the hallway, the guest room at the end, the bathroom in between. As soon as I near the bathroom, I know I’ve found the source. It’s a small space, a single vanity, a toilet, an ancient tub and showerhead, and an ornamental grate in the ceiling that was the 1930s equivalent of a ceiling fan. It doesn’t do anything to help with the smell, the sickening reek of congealing blood, the sting of metal clinging to the back of
my throat and making my stomach seize.

  I find the light and force myself to turn it on.

  Then I scream.

  Chapter 7

  I stand next to Becca and survey the gory scene in my bathroom. The white of the tub is stained with bright-red blood, dark at the edges where it’s dried and congealed, carving itself into the porcelain like the outline of a map. The tiled walls, faded yellow with age, are now mottled with pink, the aftermath of someone taking buckets of blood and hurling them into the shower, letting the rancid mess drip down the walls and pool in the basin below. There’s approximately an inch of blood, red and black and clotting, with small, unidentifiable globs floating on the top. The smell is horrific.

  They put the tub’s plug in, whoever did this. Footloose, most likely. But possibly Becca, my brain whispers. It’s the kind of thing she would do. And guiltily, reluctantly, I think of Graham, who knew I’d be at the funeral and was unhappy with my decision to go. This seems a step too far for someone so kind and even-keeled, but right now no one is innocent, and no one is safe.

  Becca takes it all in, hands on hips. With her hair in a ponytail and a bright-green T-shirt with a teddy bear on the front, she looks like neither a serial killer nor a person who might know how to capture one.

  “It’s only in the tub,” she says finally, her brows tugged together in contemplation. I’m still on the fence about her guilt, but so far she’s done a fairly convincing job of appearing innocent and unaware. I’d woken her from a nap when I called, shrieking about a bloodbath, and when she’d finally dragged herself off the couch and driven over, she’d given me credit for my literal interpretation of things. Unlike me, she hadn’t screamed until nearly fainting, dropped a baseball bat on her foot, and gagged hysterically as she limped downstairs for her phone.

  I’d waited in the living room until Becca arrived, yanking the curtains closed in case he was out there, enjoying the show. Then I paced, a nervous, trembling mess with a throbbing toe, jumping a mile when the furnace kicked in with a low growl and heat squeaked out the ancient vents.

  “It’s only in the tub,” Becca repeats now, stepping into the room and plucking my toothbrush from the cup on the sink. She crouches and dips it into the bloody bath, snagging the plug and straightening as the gory mess swirls down the drain. It only takes a minute, the old pipes groaning as they swallow the mess, but the porcelain, its finish long since worn off, is porous, and even with the blood gone, it’s just as red empty as it was full.

  “So?” I say finally, unable to look away.

  Becca tosses my toothbrush into the sink, the bloody bristles leaving red scratches down the side of the basin. “So,” she says, “if you chopped up a body in the tub, naturally, that’s where the blood would be. Splashing blood all over the room would have been overkill. So to speak.”

  “Tell me you have a point.”

  She sighs, meeting my eye in the mirror. “Nobody died here, is my point.” She sounds like a bored teacher, reciting the alphabet for the thousandth time. “He’s framing you again. Messing with you, too, obviously, but framing you. If the police think you’re chopping off people’s feet, maybe they check the tub for blood. Ta-da. They found it. That’s definitely worse than the Soda Jack cans.”

  “No kidding!”

  She shrugs, and the shaking I’d thought had passed comes back, a shudder racking me so hard that my teeth snap together and I have to clutch the doorframe for balance. Becca reaches into the tub and twists the hot-water tap, using the handheld showerhead to spray it down. Bright-pink water runs in rivulets over the tiles, carving tracks through the basin and disappearing down the drain. She does this until the worst of the mess is gone, until the room is foggy with steam and my hair is sticking to my neck.

  “Bleach should work,” she offers, surveying the scene when she finally runs out of hot water. “It’s only been a few hours, probably not long enough to stain.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Bleach always works.”

  “How do you know it’s only been a few hours?”

  She stares at me for a second, eyes widening as the implication sinks in. Then her dramatic, unconvincing side takes over, and she presses a hand to her chest. “Do you think I did this?”

  “Did you?”

  Her eyes narrow, and she drops the act. “No, you moron. And I know it’s only been here a few hours because you were only gone a few hours. Unless you’re even stupider than you seem right now and failed to notice a lunatic dumping blood in your bathroom while you were at home.”

  She storms past me, taking care to elbow me in the ribs. I wince, rubbing the sore spot before following.

  “Sorry,” I say, just as she stomps on the creaky step and it lets out an otherworldly yowl. I don’t even know why I’m apologizing. She’s done far worse than pour blood in a bathtub.

  Becca stalks into the kitchen, and there’s a popping sound as she uncorks the bottle of wine I was saving for my Saturday-night date with Graham.

  “Do you know what your problem is, Carrie?” she asks, not for the first time. Then she drinks straight from the bottle of my expensive wine, also not for the first time.

  I grab a glass from the cupboard and extend it for her to fill. “It’s the two serial killers in my life.”

  After a second, Becca smirks, her teeth stained pink, and pours an inch into my glass. “You’re too negative,” she says. “You never look on the bright side.”

  “Educate me, Becca. What’s the bright side?”

  “If Footloose was here, dumping blood in your bathroom”—she gestures to the ceiling with the bottle, wine sloshing perilously close to its mouth—“then it means he wasn’t at the funeral.”

  “And that’s great because he was in my home, instead of watching me somewhere else?”

  “No, genius. Because we can use today’s footage to eliminate the creepers who’ve attended all three funerals. If he was at your house, he wasn’t at the funeral today, ergo, anyone on today’s tape can’t be Footloose. Ta-da! Bright side.” She toasts herself and drinks deeply, a tiny rivulet of wine running down her chin like an overfed vampire.

  I slump, burdened by my terrible consolation prize. “That’s something, I guess.”

  “Do you know how hard it is to chop up a body?” Becca asks after a minute. “It’s, like, incredibly difficult. That’s probably why Footloose only takes a foot.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I tried it once. I didn’t tell you because it didn’t work out. This is when I lived in that apartment with the blue door. I couldn’t do it now. Actually, I couldn’t do it then either.” She laughs at her own joke. “Anyway, I got him into the tub and tried to saw off his arm, but it was hard. I had a knife, a cleaver, a saw—I could barely get through the bone. So I gave up on the idea. It was the guy we buried at the golf course, remember? By the tenth hole?”

  “I remember the hole. Not the arm.”

  “That’s because it was still attached. He was wearing a sweater so I just put it back on. You could hardly tell the difference.”

  I finish my wine. “That’s reassuring.”

  “There you go, being negative again. I’m just saying, Footloose didn’t chop up the body here either. He probably never has. That might not even be human blood, we’ll never know. It’s just a message.”

  “What’s the message? Fuck you?”

  Becca chuckles. “You’re funny, Carrie.”

  I put my glass in the dishwasher. I’m tired, terrified, and not at all cheered by Becca’s positive outlook. “I’m not trying to be.”

  “He’s just having fun with you. Sometimes the hunter likes to play with his prey. But don’t worry. Not for much longer. You go back to work, business as usual. I’ll hit up the next few funerals and start comparing the footage. We’ll find something.”

  “And then what?”

  Becca grins and uses the tip of a manicured finger to collect a drop of wine near the corner of her
mouth. “Then we kill him.”

  * * *

  In my six years at Weston Stationery, I have never taken as many sick days as I did last week. Guilt propels me out of bed, no matter how ill I am. Sniffling, sneezing, dizzy—I show up. So it’s more out of obligation than desire that I go to work on Monday. When I arrive, I feel like the black sheep of a dysfunctional family, showing her face at Sunday dinner. My co-workers—never really my friends but at least my acquaintances—are torn between glaring at me and avoiding me. Their judgment and contempt are palpable, if not entirely unjustified.

  I’ve barely made it to my desk when Troy ventures from his office, blinking like a mole emerging from its burrow. Today’s tie is a threadbare yellow satin, and even from a distance, it makes my head ache, my eyes tired and gritty from another poor night’s sleep.

  Becca spent the night on the couch, baseball bat at the ready, but Footloose did not return. Not that it helped much. This morning, I’d opened a new toothbrush and freshened up in the kitchen sink.

  “Carrie,” Troy calls, his voice too loud in the quiet space, “may I see you please?” After a second, he adds, “In my office?”

  I hang my coat on the back of my chair and walk toward the corner, feeling every eye in the office tracking my progress. I’ve been through too much recently to feel properly nervous about whatever this is, but something oily still curls in my belly, a sense of foreboding.

  Troy closes the door behind us and gestures to one of the two chairs closest, while he rounds the desk. Vertical blinds cover the glass wall that looks over the rest of the floor, and as usual they’re closed, for which I’m grateful. I know how to hide my feelings, but I’d still rather not have an audience if I’m being fired.

  “So,” Troy says, folding his hands on the desk and using his thumb to flick at a hangnail. “Congratulations.”

  He says the word so somberly it takes three full seconds for it to register.