Evil in My Town

by Karen Ann Hopkins

  “I’m tired.” I forced myself to look directly at my aunt and swallowed the knot down my throat. “But I’m a lot better off than all those kids and teachers. They’re dead, Aunt Reni.”

  “I know. It’s terrible what happened in the school today. If there was any way I could have prevented it from happening, I would have, but it’s over. Now, we bury our dead and try to move on the best we can.”

  “That’s awfully cold of you,” I challenged, raising my chin.

  Aunt Reni leaned back and glanced out the window. I wondered if the icy, wicked looking day affected her as much as it did me. A shiver passed through me and I stuck my hands in the deep pockets of my jacket. The frozen image of a bloody Ms. Fletcher holding Jimmy Cramer in her arms appeared in my mind. They were both among the dead.

  I sucked in a breath and trembled. Aunt Reni raced around the desk and knelt before me. She placed her hands on my knees. “It’s okay for you to grieve, Taylor. You can cry or scream, whatever you need to do. The memories are never going away.” She must have seen the look of horror on my face, because she hurriedly added, “But they diminish over time. You see, you shouldn’t completely forget what happened anyway. Evil was unleashed and innocent people died. We can’t bring them back, but it’s my job to find closure for the victims’ families. In order for them to have peace”—she spoke forcefully—“for me to have peace, I have to figure out why Jackson Merritt stole his older brother’s AR-15, took it apart and hid it in his backpack to ultimately open fire on his classmates and teachers.” She rose and walked back around her desk. “I have to know why he did such a thing. What set him off? What or who pushed him over the edge? Was he a ticking time bomb that every person of authority in his life missed seeing, or did something else happen to the kid that made him commit such evil and ultimately cost him his own life?”

  I sniffed and nodded slowly.

  “Don’t you want to understand why Jackson Merritt killed your classmates?”

  I found my voice. “Yes, of course.”

  Aunt Reni sat down and stared at me. “Good. That’s the first step in healing, Taylor. I’ve seen more horrible things than you can imagine, but what keeps me sane is the ability to do something to help the people who are suffering most when crimes are committed. Justice helps healing. Knowing the truth also makes it easier to get up and go on after something like this happens. Truth is power. And that’s what I need your help with—discovering the truth.”

  “Maybe it’s completely random and there aren’t any answers,” I said.

  “I used to think that, but over the years and after dozens of homicide investigations, I’ve learned that there’s always an answer. It might not make any sense to reasonable, good people—but there’s answers that help us understand even the most horrific crimes.” She snorted. “The answers never give justification for a mass tragedy like this, but they help us heal. Perhaps even force changes that will help us identify troubled individuals like Jackson, and prevent shootings like this in the future.”

  I sat up straighter. Aunt Reni’s words made me feel stronger, almost as if I actually could make things better, even if only in a small way. “What do you need from me?”

  Aunt Reni pressed her fingers to her lips and narrowed her gaze on me. My heartrate sped up, but I didn’t look away.

  She picked up a pencil and scribbled something on the notebook in front of her. “Why were you hiding with Hunter Pollard?”

  The question took me off guard. “He opened the door for me and Lindsey to escape into the classroom. If he hadn’t pulled us in, we would have been gunned down for sure.”

  “Are you friends with Hunter?”

  My palms began to sweat and I felt a little dizzy. Did Aunt Reni know something about Hunter? I shrugged. “Just around school, that’s all.” I tried to keep my voice from cracking.

  Aunt Reni stared at me for several long breaths. “Were you friends with Jackson Merritt?”

  “No,” I quickly answered.

  Her brows rose. “You never hung out with him or talked to him at school, or out of school?”

  “No, no. Why are you asking me that?” I tilted my head, heat burning my face.

  Aunt Reni tapped her pencil on the table and looked out the window again. When her gaze settled back on me, my stomach twisted into knots. “Jackson Merritt entered the Blood Rock High School at seven-forty this morning. He pulled out his weapon and began firing right after the first bell rang at seven forty-five. It appears that he shot people randomly at that point, probably trying to exact as much destruction as possible while the hallway was still crowded. When his thirty round magazine was empty, he went to reload.” She took a long breath. “From what you and other witnesses have told me, and from our preliminary view of the crime scene, that’s when you found Lindsey and went into the classroom with her.” I nodded and she continued. “After Jackson reloaded, something changed. His focus pivoted from a desire to add as many bodies to the count as possible, to a hunting exhibition.”

  “Hunting?” The word tumbled from my mouth.

  Aunt Reni pursed her lips. “He had a death wish, Taylor. There’s a pretty good chance that if I hadn’t shot him and he hadn’t fallen to his death, he would have taken his own life. Yet, he left the more crowded area of the school to follow you and Hunter all the way down that vacant back hallway in a fairly methodical way.” She leaned over the table and stared hard at me. “Was he after Hunter…or you?”

  A memory flooded my senses. The forest was dark and wet and my heart hammered in my chest. I didn’t want to be there, but Lindsey had insisted. The campfire was almost out and the scent of wet coals wrinkled my nose. There was quiet laughter and Lindsey pushed me down into the folding chair. Hunter sat across the way. He was holding Danielle’s hand, a sixteen-year-old foster kid I barely knew. The girl held a can of beer and her eyes were glazed and staring.

  Lindsey giggled and kissed Matthew’s cheek. He whispered something in her ear.

  There were two more people standing by the green pickup truck. I couldn’t remember the one guy’s face, only that he had messy dark hair that acted as a mask of sorts to hide his features. But the other guy I knew.

  Jackson Merritt.

  That memory stung my mind and the room began to spin, and then there was blackness.

  6

  Serenity

  “She’s lying.” I rubbed my temples and looked up to see three pairs of eyes staring at me. “I know my niece very well. She’s a good kid, not the type to seek out trouble, and she’s honest to the core. She didn’t want to lie to me, and she did a crappy job of it—but she was lying nonetheless. For a girl who never stops talking, she was unusually quiet about Jackson.”

  Daniel grunted. “Damn, Serenity. Look what Taylor went through today. She saw her classmates gunned down before her eyes, and then she was chased by the lunatic who did it. Maybe she’s just too shell-shocked to speak much. Hell, she fainted. Why aren’t you more sympathetic here?”

  I leaned back and took a sharp breath, filling my lungs, before exhaling softly. Then, I took a gulp of the lukewarm black coffee. Bobby Humphrey, the town’s coroner, was seated in one chair and Todd occupied the other. I’d finally managed to escape the mayor and the media after ten hours of interviews and discussions, in addition to my office’s ongoing investigation. Talking to the victims’ families was the hardest part. They wanted to see their children, but there had been so many bodies and gore at the crime scene it had taken most of the day just to photograph and collect evidence before the dead could be bagged and removed from the school. I had to shake my head to clear the bloody images from my mind. If I focused too much on the fact that twenty-three of the fallen were just kids, I wouldn’t have been able to do my job. The heartbreak would tear me apart.

  It was inky dark outside and the window rattled from the hammering wind. A cold front was moving through
and snow was forecasted by morning. I was able to breathe again, being in the quiet company of three of the men I trusted most in my life. Even so, I still couldn’t shake the feeling of foreboding that jabbed at me.

  When I met my fiancé’s stare, I strained to remain patient. “I’m not being tough on Taylor. She passed out because she was thinking about something that overwhelmed her, and I’d bet my last dollar it had something to do with Jackson Merritt.”

  Todd spoke up. “What does it matter if your niece had contact with him at some point? He murdered twenty-six people. Taylor is lucky to be alive.”

  I pressed my lips together to gather my thoughts, but Bobby beat me to a response.

  “Serenity has a gift. She’s able to see the truth when it stares her in the face. Her instincts are, more often than not, dead on. We should hear her out. This might not be the simple tragedy we think it is,” Bobby said.

  “Tragedy? This is like the apocalypse for our little town. Besides the mountain of paperwork and slew of upcoming funerals, it seems like a fairly open and shut case. How could this get any worse?” Todd asked in a rising voice.

  Bobby pushed his glasses up on his nose and offered me a curt nod to continue.

  “It’s not that I think there’s any more danger, exactly. It’s more of a…feeling that there’s a lot more to Jackson’s melt down than we realize,” I said.

  “What does your niece have to do with any of this?” Daniel asked.

  “I don’t know yet, but she isn’t telling me the truth, and that scares the hell out of me.” I leveled my gaze on each of the men in turn, before settling it back on Daniel. “Jackson went out of his way to target Taylor and Hunter, or one of them, and I want to find out why.”

  “Yeah, I get it. We need to understand why this kid cracked the way he did. Go easy on Taylor, Serenity. She’s been through one hell of an ordeal,” Daniel pressed.

  There was a tapping on the door. “Come in,” I called out.

  Jeremy poked his head in. “I found out something you might be interested in, boss.”

  I waved him in and all eyes turned to the deputy.

  Jeremy hated any kind of scrutiny, and he took a long breath before he spoke. “Do you remember that sixteen-year-old girl who was found in the park last summer—she overdosed on heroin, laced with fentanyl?”

  I searched my memories, recalling the girl with long, straight brown hair and hazel eyes. I’d never seen those eyes filled with life, though. They were glazed over and had stared back at me from the metal table in Bobby’s examination room. She had been a pretty girl, with her entire life ahead of her, but like so many other young and old people alike these days, she’d thrown it all away to get a high that had killed her. I never forgot the kids I saw on the table.

  “She was a foster kid, wasn’t she?” I asked.

  “Yes, that’s the one,” Jeremy confirmed.

  “What of her?” My heart raced, imagining the connection before he responded.

  “I thought you might be interested to know she was being fostered by Jackson Merritt’s family when she ODed,” Jeremy said quickly.

  Daniel slumped against the wall and Bobby perked up. Todd shook his head.

  I slapped my hand on the desk. “Well, boys, looks like there is more to this story after all…”

  7

  Taylor

  Lindsey’s face was pale and her eyes were closed. Her hand was limp as I clasped it with my own.

  “Thank you for coming, Taylor. When she wakes up, she’ll be happy to see you,” Lindsey’s mom said.

  I sniffed, fighting the tears that threatened to fall. “She will wake up, won’t she?”

  Mrs. Meade’s eyes moistened. She hurriedly said, “Yes, dear, of course. The doctor said she’s very lucky that the”—she stiffened, struggling with the word—“bullet only grazed her skull. It will be some time before she’s back to her normal self, but she will get there again,” she insisted, like she was trying to convince herself just as much as she was me.

  I bobbed my head and Mrs. Meade put her arms around me, squeezing hard. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to grab something to eat in the cafeteria. I haven’t eaten all day.”

  I stepped back. “Go ahead. I’ll stay with Lindsey.”

  “Do you want anything?”

  “No, I’m fine. Thanks, though.”

  When Mrs. Meade was gone, I sat back down beside the hospital bed and stared at my friend. Tubes were running into her nose and her arm. The room was quiet except for the rhythmic pinging of the monitor connected to her. The sky beyond the window was dark and starless—like that night in the woods…

  Lindsey was in the truck, making out with a guy who didn’t even go to our school. Hunter was tugging on Danielle’s hand, and Jackson sat on a log, watching the dying flames of the campfire.

  “Dani, don’t go back to the park. I’ll take you home.”

  “It’s a short walk.” Danielle yawned. Her eyes were droopy and her words had come out slurred. From the pile of empty beer cans beside the fire, it was a pretty safe guess she was already drunk.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Danielle,” I spoke up.

  Danielle’s head swiveled in my direction. “No one asked you. Why are you even here?”

  I intertwining my fingers and avoided her fierce gaze.

  “She came with her friend,” Jackson said. “Just like me.”

  I glanced up and Jackson was looking at Danielle. The expression on his face made the hair go up on the back of my neck…

  “Taylor?”

  I blinked the memory away and leaned in closer to Lindsey. Her eyes were slits and her voice was weak, but she was awake.

  “I’ll get a nurse.” I stood up. She struggled to raise her hand and I stopped.

  Her words came out in a hoarse whisper. “It was…Jackson, wasn’t…it?”

  I bent over the bed, close to her face. “Yeah.”

  “How many…died?” It was such an effort for her to speak. I looked over my shoulder toward the door, wishing her mom or a nurse would come back into the room. Lindsey’s gray eyes were wide open and determined.

  “Too many,” I breathed. “I think twenty-three kids and few teachers—Ms. Fletcher died, and so did Amber Lewis and Greg Sullivan.” The names were thick on my tongue. To lose a favorite teacher and two of the most popular kids in school made it seem even more like a horrible nightmare.

  Tears dribbled down Lindsey’s cheeks. “He came for us. It’s our fault,” she whispered.

  I sucked in a deep breath, shaking my head. “He was crazy. No one knows why he did it. He’s dead, Lindsey. Aunt Reni shot him and he fell from the scaffolding in the theater storage room.” I lowered my voice. “I don’t think he told anyone.”

  Lindsey’s head rocked back and forth. “You have to talk to Matthew—tell him what happened and explain to him why I can’t meet up tonight.” Her voice gained urgency and I stepped away from the bed. The blood drained from my face and I felt light headed.

  The pitch of the monitor’s beeping changed and two nurses rushed into the room. They blocked my view of Lindsey as they worked to calm her and check her vital signs.

  I backed through the doorway and bumped into Mrs. Meade.

  “Is she awake?” she asked. Her face lit up.

  “Yes, just now…” I trailed off as Lindsey’s mom pushed by me to reach her daughter.

  The bright lights in the hallway made my head hurt and the back of my throat ached. Was Lindsey right—were we responsible for all those deaths?

  Hands clasped my shoulders and I jumped. When I swung around, I wondered if it could get any worse.

  “What are you doing here?” I hissed.

  Hunter frowned and searched the corridor, before he looked back at me. “I wanted to see how Lindsey was doing.” He merely shrug
ged. “I couldn’t believe it when my cousin said he’d heard she was in the hospital. There was so much blood, I thought she was a goner.”

  I grabbed Hunter’s arm and pulled him to the elevator. Once the door shut behind us and we were alone, I faced him.

  “You’re not fooling anyone. You didn’t even hang out with Lindsey. Why are you really here?”

  His eyes flicked to the ceiling. When the elevator stopped and the door opened with a dinging noise, he muttered, “Maybe I came to see you.”

  His words shook my mind, but I didn’t slow down as I stepped out of the elevator, crossed the lobby, and exited the hospital. I zipped up my coat and pulled mittens from the pockets. The wind whipped against my face, but the bitter chill was welcomed.

  “I’m not stupid,” I finally said. I stopped beside a van that afforded some protection from the wind, and turned on Hunter who was following on my heels. “We’re not friends, either.”

  Hunter’s hands were in his pockets and the gusts flapped his hood in the air. Snowflakes tumbled from the sky, speckling his hair with little white pebbles. He was a lot taller than me and when he moved closer, his body blocked even more of the wind. I was sixteen-years-old and a junior in high school, and I couldn’t recall ever standing so close to a guy before, other than my dad or brother. But Hunter’s demeanor wasn’t romantic. It was more of a threatening gesture the way he loomed over me, his eyes sparking. I shrunk back into my coat.

  “We barely escaped death together today. How can you say we aren’t friends?”

  I opened my mouth to speak and then smacked it shut. A couple huddled next to each other walked by. When they were out of earshot, I replied, “Maybe Jackson snapped because of us—because of what happened. It might be our fault that he killed all those kids.” The air was so cold that the tears that pooled at the corners of my eyes disappeared into the wind.

  Hunter closed the distance until he was only inches from my face. “That’s not true. Jackson had a lot more problems than anything we did—or didn’t do.”