Red-Blooded Heart

by V. J. Chambers

  He flinches.

  Oh, fuck him for being hurt, for being vulnerable. Why is he acting like this now? Where is the guy who growled at me to untie him, who got himself free from his ropes and fucked me against a wall?

  I shake my head at him. “And you said that you were in love with me.”

  “I didn’t actually say that,” he mutters.

  “So, now you’re taking it back. Because it’s not love, anyway. It’s some sort of twisted obsession. It’s unnatural and creepy. You make me sick.”

  He sucks in a breath. “I don’t know what the difference really is, between love and obsession. I think it’s all down to whether the object of your obsession returns your feelings or not.”

  “It would never be okay for you to watch me like that.” Except, now I’m thinking about the idea of it, about the room being there, and wondering if he’s down there at any point in time, watching me, and it’s kind of hot. The difference is that I would know. He did this without my knowledge. He violated me. That’s not hot. I am nothing but rage, and he has ruined everything. “I never want to see you again.”

  “Well, I’m leaving,” he says.

  “Good,” I say. “Because if I ever do see you again, it is open season, you got that? I will do anything I want to fuck you over.”

  He looks up at me again, and now I see rage in his eyes, and it scares me.

  I don’t let it show that I’m frightened. I point to the woods. “Go. Get the fuck out of here. Now.”

  “Fine,” he says, turns on his heel, and leaves.

  Once he’s gone, I go and look at the stupid tunnel under my house. He disguised it well. There’s a little door with hinges, but the hinges are on the inside. I find some scrap wood and a hammer and nails, and I nail the damned thing closed so that he can’t get in.

  When I get inside, I feel like someone’s still watching me.

  I go to my sink, and all I can think is that he has taken so much from me. My dignity. My peace of mind. He did it without even thinking about it. He’s a selfish, horrible person. He’s just as bad as Graham.

  Hell, maybe he does deserve to take the fall for Watson’s murder.

  But I can’t risk that. If he lays out an accusation against me, it could color the authorities’ opinion of me. No, I’ll just go with my original plan. I’ll blame Graham. Deke said it was stupid, but he’s an asswipe, so who cares what he thinks?

  I can do this on my own. I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone.

  * * *

  My plan is to go to Watson’s door and knock and introduce myself. It’s been a long time since he knew me. I don’t think he’ll recognize me. I was a teenager back then with acne and braces and I used to dye my hair really, really blond. It was pretty awful. On top of all that, I was skinny as a rail then. I’m not overweight or anything now, but I’ve filled out, and my workouts have given my shoulders definition. Anyway, I’m not worried about him remembering me.

  I’ll ask him to dinner, and he’ll accept. Then, at dinner, I’ll do it, and it’ll be over.

  I feel giddy thinking about it.

  Also, my stomach churns. I feel literally ill in anticipation.

  I go to his house the next day, but when I get there, he’s outside with his head under the hood of his truck. And I chicken out.

  I drive past his place and then pull my car over a ways down the road.

  I hike back up and watch him from a far enough distance that he can’t see me.

  There he is. It’s the first time I’ve seen him, really seen him, since I was a kid. The last time I saw him, I had no idea that he was a monster who had been drugging and raping my little sister. Now, I look at him, and he looks older. He’s not a very strong-looking man, and he has a bald spot on the back of his head.

  I feel overcome by emotions, so many that I can’t even sort through them.

  All I know is that I’m crying.

  I’m crying for the loss of Elsie’s innocence, and I’m crying for the loss of my own, and I’m crying because this is going to happen, this is finally going to happen, and maybe it will set me free.

  I think about just doing it now.

  I could pick up a rock.

  There. That one right there. It looks big enough.

  I could take that rock and sneak up behind him and slam it down on his bald spot, and that would be all it took. I don’t need to invite him to dinner. I don’t need to do anything but to kill him.

  But…

  No, I can’t do that.

  It has to be like I planned. I’ve imagined it so many times. I can’t deviate from the way I’ve plotted it out.

  Besides, I want him to know why he’s dying. I want him to know that there are consequences for what he’s done.

  I watch him for a while.

  He finishes working in the yard and then he whistles, and a dog appears, happy and stupid, loping across the lawn to him with its tongue hanging out.

  I didn’t know he had a dog.

  He crouches down and scratches the dog behind its ears, and the dog licks his face and the dog loves him.

  I can’t handle that, that there’s some creature that loves him. He doesn’t deserve it. The dog doesn’t know better, of course, but it shouldn’t love that monster. Watson will die alone and with no one to love him.

  I will see to that.

  But I can’t talk to him today.

  Instead, I go back to my place. First, I check on the entrance to the crawlspace under my house to make sure it is still nailed shut. It is. Then I go inside and start doing pull-ups.

  * * *

  -deke-

  Later, at home, the obvious solution presents itself to me.

  I should kill Juniper.

  I don’t want to leave. I like where I live. I don’t want to go on the run. I killed Darius for no other reason that he’d figured out my secrets, which is essentially the same thing as Juniper. True, Juniper didn’t figure things out entirely. I volunteered some of it. It seems worse to kill her because I confessed to her.

  But.

  It would solve all of my problems.

  I spend a day trying to work myself up for it. I don’t pack, and I don’t make any more attempts to leave, I just try to plan out killing her and how I’ll do it.

  I don’t like any of the ideas I come up with for various reasons.

  I don’t want to shoot her. There are too many corpses out there with bullet holes in them. Eventually, someone is going to find a body and then everything is going to come unraveled.

  But I can’t imagine strangling her or suffocating her. I know there would be no way I could manage that.

  And when it comes down to it, I likely wouldn’t pull the trigger either.

  There are limits to my murderous tendencies, apparently.

  When I came up to this place, I assumed that killing my stepdad had been a one-time kind of thing, a rage-fueled decision that had no bearing on my moral compass.

  Then I killed Darius.

  You know, I didn’t plan either of those things. They were split-second decisions, and they seemed like the thing to do in the moment. Once they were done, I had no choice but to cover them up. That’s only self-preservation.

  Graham, now, that was pre-meditated. So, I suppose I am evolving as a serial killer.

  I don’t know a lot about serial killers. It’s never been a thing I found all that fascinating. But from what I understand, serial killers kill because it really gets them going.

  I’m not like that. I don’t enjoy killing. I don’t fantasize about it or fetishize it. So, maybe I’m not really a serial killer. Maybe I’m just a guy who’s had really bad luck.

  Two of my murders were altruistic, the way I figure it. I was rescuing people I cared about.

  One of them was selfish.

  Of the three, the only one I feel really guilty about is the selfish one, although I have to admit that sometimes I remember the way that Graham begged me not to kill him and when I do that, I sho
ve that memory deep down and run from it.

  Truth is, after the thing with my stepdad, I did feel guilty. Really guilty. I had nightmares and I sleepwalked. It was very Lady Macbeth.

  But over time, I figured out how to deal with the guilt, and that was to just push it down in a hole and pretend it wasn’t there. You can’t control what thoughts flit across your brain, but you can control the thoughts that you give attention to. So, ignoring something is the best way to deal.

  I have this feeling, though, that there will be no erasing the guilt I’ll feel if I killed Juniper.

  I can’t do it. I won’t do it. It’s obscene to think that I committed one murder to protect her and then that I would turn around and kill her. That isn’t who I am.

  I try to convince myself that Juniper deserves it. That she is not the woman that I thought she was. She is a liar and manipulator and that she intends to screw me over and that I have to take her out. When I protected her, I was doing it under faulty intel. Now, I know the truth. It’s not obscene, it’s just the way things have to be.

  It doesn’t stick.

  I can’t buy it. It’s all true, but I can’t get behind the idea of murdering her.

  It’s never going to happen.

  Maybe it really comes down to the fact that she’s a woman. I mean, call that sexist, and I guess it is, but I think there’s biological programming inside most men’s heads and it says that women are sacred and you don’t kill them. That was what made people like Graham and my stepfather so screwed up, because that switch in their heads had somehow not gotten flicked. Some little error in copying DNA or something that usually got turned over in infanthood with a loving parent or something.

  However it happens, those kinds of men are wrong.

  I am not wrong.

  Okay, I am a killer, but maybe killing is only bad because civilization says that it is. Maybe in the bestial part of myself, it’s all fine.

  Damn it, I’m drowning in guilt, aren’t I? And I can’t even get myself to believe my half-baked, pseudo-intellectual rationalizations.

  What is wrong with me?

  * * *

  -juniper-

  That night, it gets very, very cold. It’s not just a frost, which we’ve already had, but deep down into the teens. I go through more firewood than usual, and I have to get up in the middle of the night more than once to feed the wood stove in order to keep my house warm.

  When I wake up, I hear the coywolves outside, making their strange, inhuman sounds, and it chills me to my bones.

  For the first time, I feel incredibly alone out here. I realize there is nothing between me and the outside except the thin layers of wood and insulation of my house. I wonder what kind of idiot I am for coming all the way out here and living on the edge of the wilderness. Is it worth it, just to kill one man?

  It has to be.

  He’s escaped justice out here, hiding from the law. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with what he’s done.

  There are some things that can’t be fixed. Some sins simply can’t be forgiven.

  I lie awake in the dark, and uncomfortable thoughts begin to flit through my brain.

  Would someone really choose to be attracted to children? Wouldn’t a person want a partner who could be an equal, who could be willing?

  But, I argue with myself, I don’t know if that’s true. Because there are people like Graham, and he never wanted anything like an equal in his life. All he wanted was someone he could control and someone he could hurt. Hurting other people made him feel big.

  Maybe Henry Watson is the same way. Maybe that’s why he hurt my little sister.

  But he did drug her, as if he wanted to spare her the—

  No, he did that so that he wouldn’t be caught. He did it so that he could do it over and over again and that no one would know what was happening. If my sister had never woken up, maybe she never would have known. And, in any case, it worked. He got away with it.

  I decide it doesn’t matter. Whether he could help who he was attracted to or not, he had the choice to act on his attractions, and he chose to inflict pain on a little girl for his own pleasure. That makes him a horrible, horrible person and he needs to die.

  I roll over in bed and refuse to think about it anymore.

  Why am I thinking about this now? Why has it never bothered me before?

  It’s got to be pre-murder jitters. I’m having second thoughts now that I’m so close to accomplishing it. I can’t listen to these thoughts.

  And the coywolves are howling, and it sounds like they are right outside my window.

  * * *

  In the morning, I realize why they sounded so close when I go out to feed my chickens, because my chickens are all dead.

  It’s carnage in my coop. Every single bird has been killed, and I don’t understand it, because it doesn’t seem as though the wolves killed for food. They have left at least half of the bodies behind. They are still small, not completely full grown, and their little bodies are broken and torn apart all over the frozen ground. Why didn’t the wolves take the meat with them? Why kill it and leave it behind?

  I wonder if it wasn’t the coywolves, but some human who has done this. Maybe someone is trying to send a message to me.

  Who?

  Deke? It doesn’t seem like his style, but I have to admit it didn’t seem like his style to spy on me either. For all I know, Deke is planning to kill me, and this is his first step. Maybe he’s going to mess with my head and scare the hell out of me. Maybe he’ll force me out into the woods and hunt me down with his shotgun. Maybe that really gets him off.

  Graham? Maybe he’s not dead. Maybe he’s been living in the forest, and now he’s come to get his revenge on me.

  Watson? Maybe he knows what I’m up to?

  Someone else? Some other crazy person out there who likes to kill chickens for sport?

  But it looks like the work of wolves. I think it does. I don’t know. I’m not an expert on animal killings.

  I feel awful.

  I have raised these chickens from the time that they were babies. I brooded them and fed them and brought them here. They depended on me to feed them and keep them safe, and I have failed them.

  I gather up their broken bodies and I lay them to rest.

  I came here to kill Henry Watson. I have planned and prepared for over ten years. If there is someone here who wishes me ill, then I have to accomplish this, my most important act, my legacy, before it’s not my chickens being hurt but me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  -juniper-

  I am knocking on Henry Watson’s door. It’s happening. My heart is beating wildly out of time, bouncing against my rib cage, and my palms are sweating. I can’t believe I’m doing this, that this is finally happening. I feel frightened and worried and giddy with excitement, like a kid opening presents on Christmas morning.

  Nothing happens.

  The door doesn’t open, and I hear nothing from inside.

  I knock again.

  Now, the dog is barking.

  My heart continues to thud. I clasp my hands together and unclasp them.

  Several long moments pass, and it is as if the earth turns a thousand times within them.

  And the door opens. “Sorry about that,” he’s saying. “Just put my dog in the bathroom. She gets excited.”

  “Hi,” I say brightly, not responding to what he said. I’ve been practicing in my head for too long. “I wanted to introduce myself. I’m June, and I’m your new neighbor.” I’m glad that I came to scope him out before, because I am not surprised by his appearance, by how old he seems.

  He squints at me. “Wait a second. Juniper Gilbert?”

  What? He recognized me? I laugh a little, a strangled sound. “Um… do I know you?”

  He laughs too, but his is more full of actual mirth. “You probably don’t remember me. This was, God, over ten years ago. You must have been only sixteen or seventeen. You had a little sister, named Elsie. I us
ed to babysit her for you sometimes.”

  I cough at the sound of Elsie’s name.

  “It’s me.” He smiles widely. “Henry Watson. Do you remember?”

  I am struggling to breathe. I let out another ghost of a laugh. “Um… okay, yeah. I guess I do. This is crazy. What a coincidence, both of us living out here of all places.”

  “You’re telling me,” he says. “What a small world. I really can’t believe it. I never thought I’d see you again.”

  “Oh, me either,” I say.

  “Well, you should come in,” he says. “I’ll make coffee, and we can catch up. You can tell me all about Elsie. She must be all grown up by now.”

  I suck in a sharp breath. “Oh, I don’t have time right now. I, uh, some coywolves got into my chicken pen, and I’ve got cleanup to do.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.” He furrows his brow sympathetically. “That’s awful. Really awful. You know, those coywolves are getting worse and worse. It might be good for the ecosystem to have some predators out there, but it’s no good for those of us who’ve settled out here. They scare my Daisy. That’s the dog’s name.”

  “I figured,” I say. “Look, I only came by to, uh, issue a friendly invitation. You should come by my place for dinner some night. What are you doing tonight? Any plans?”

  “Oh, that doesn’t seem right,” he says. “I think if you’re new in the neighborhood, you’re not supposed to have to cook.”

  I laugh. “It won’t be any trouble. I’m going to be cooking anyway, for myself. I’d love the company.”

  He hesitates. “I, uh…”

  “Tomorrow, if tonight’s no good?”

  “Okay, then,” he said, nodding slowly. “Tomorrow. That would be just fine. I don’t have any plans. There’s nothing to do out here, after all.”

  “Excellent,” I say. “Then I’ll see you around 6:30? Would that be all right?”

  “Sure thing, Juniper.” He shakes his head. “It really is a small world.”

  “It sure is,” I say.