Blood Will Out

by Jo Treggiari

  Recently, he seemed to pop up all over the place. No, not all over the place—just where she was, both at school and outside it: the coffee shop yesterday when she was helping her mother, the bookstore the day before, and now the library. He was staring at her again, blue eyes glittering like chips of ice.

  With an effort, she flicked her eyes away. What the hell is wrong with him? Miss Byroade had followed her gaze.

  “Not a nice boy,” she said, a touch of steel in her voice.

  “No.” Possibly someone who kills helpless dogs and cats and gets a kick out of it. She suppressed a shudder.

  “Was there something specific you were looking for?” Miss Byroade said, looking at her expectantly. “Something I can help you with?”

  Ari tried to collect herself. She could hunt for the books herself, but the archaic card catalog and the computers were right next to Jesse and there was no way she was going over there.

  She pushed the scrap of paper she’d jotted a few names on across the counter and lowered her voice. “I’m just doing a little independent research. For a short story I’m writing,” she improvised. Another reason she liked coming to the library rather than just looking things up on her computer was that Miss Byroade was a surprising source of obscure information. She seemed to know a little bit about everything, and she had every book in the place mapped in her head.

  The woman glanced at the paper. Her eyebrows rose and her soft brown eyes widened. “Dahmer. Jeffrey Dahmer, the mass murderer?”

  Ari looked around. Her voice seemed ridiculously loud. Jesse’s head bobbed up. A group of kids doing paper crafts in the corner snickered.

  “Um, yeah. Just for some research.”

  “Why would you want to find out anything about him? He was a demon.” Her fingers tapped the paper. “And these others as well. Sick, sick men.”

  “I know.” She pitched her voice low, hoping the assistant librarian would mimic her tone. The woman had turned to her monitor and now typed in a few key words. Her mouth was twisted in distaste, and she pushed the paper back toward Ari with one finger, as if it were a dead bug. “Criminology. The three-sixties. Behind historical nonfiction.”

  Ari nodded. She’d done a paper on Leonardo da Vinci last year and spent a ton of time sitting on the floor by those shelves. Luckily, that section was located on the other side of the library from Jesse Caldwell.

  Once she’d crossed the floor, she skimmed the shelves. There were at least twenty books on the big killers, most with eye-catching titles like The Devil in Me, Deviant, An American Nightmare and The Stranger Beside Me. She collected an armful and scooted down with her back against the wall. Why were the killers almost revered and the people they killed just numbers? What does that say about the rest of us? Ari wondered. And how are we any better than these terrible people? The murderers became celebrities, the subjects of best-selling books, but no one even recalled the victims’ names.

  She picked up a book about John Wayne Gacy and flipped through it, stopping at various passages that leapt out at her. He’d been an alcoholic and possibly suffered from mental illness. The memory of Sourmash’s rage-suffused face popped into her head. Just like that, her mind’s eye painted him roaring insults and grabbing for her with those gigantic hands, veins bulging, saliva spraying from his lips.

  It was only too easy to imagine him inflicting pain.

  She perused another book. Ed Gein nursed his sick mother, but at the same time he was collecting bone and skin trophies from his victims. What made him caring on the one hand and completely inhuman on the other? How can you tell? she wondered. Are there signs to watch for? What turns a normal person into a beast? Is it something that happened to them in childhood? But then every abused kid would grow into an abuser, and that isn’t the case.

  The thing about Ted Bundy was that college girls basically threw themselves at him, seduced by his good looks and all-American boyishness. All he had to do was get them into his car, where he raped and beat them to death. He had a successful modus operandi and he stuck to it. It was almost like his signature.

  She shivered. With these men, psychosis wasn’t right there on the surface. Their eyes didn’t tell you what was going on in their heads. If she hadn’t been able to evade Sourmash, would things have played out differently? What if she’d run into him in a dark alley? If he’d had the opportunity with no one to bear witness? Right time, right place? Maybe that was all it took.

  She shifted her weight on the hard floor in an attempt to take pressure off her tailbone and dumped The Stranger Beside Me back onto the pile. Stifling the urge to run into the bathroom and wash her hands, she picked up the Dahmer book and started jotting down information, as if she truly were writing a story.

  Serial killers were almost always men. There were scientists who now believed that psychopathic killers had endured some kind of injury to the cortex of the brain early in development, like shaken baby syndrome. Others speculated that a killer gene was sex-linked to the X chromosome and came from the mother. She re-read her notes: MAOA, the killer gene. Weirdly, they thought it came from too much serotonin during pregnancy. The fetuses didn’t reap the benefits of all those happy hormones. It was as if the pleasure centers in their developing brains were blown out. So, not only did they not feel joy or love, but they also didn’t understand pain, and had no difficulty causing it.

  Ari thought it must be like living as a zombie.

  And here was another interesting fact. Killing animals was where these killers perfected their brand. It was part of what researchers called a “Triad of Warning Signs in Childhood.” Besides animal torture, the list included fire-starting and bed-wetting.

  She shuddered and thought of the grove. There’d been something so deliberate about the way the pets were displayed. They hadn’t been hacked apart but sectioned neatly and hung like meat in a butcher shop. As if the killer were making an announcement: Here I am. Take notice of me. Watch what I can do. The deer in the back of Sourmash’s truck had been skinned and gutted with precision too. It had been the work of a professional.

  What had her dad said over breakfast? “It wasn’t a local.” As if it was a fact. It sounded more like a platitude—something to ease the tension.

  It occurred to Ari that whenever someone was caught doing something really awful, the neighbors always remarked on what a nice, quiet man he was. “He was so kind to the elderly and the neighborhood children. On Halloween he gave out more candy than anyone!” And in the meantime, his wife was boiling away merrily in three separate pots on the stove and her head was in the refrigerator. Her dad hadn’t seen the way Tallulah and the others had been skinned, their fur and heads carefully removed, the corpses arranged in the trees like some kind of horrific Christmas window display. He hadn’t heard the resolve in Sourmash’s voice as he threatened her.

  Was Sourmash an actual textbook psychopath? Wouldn’t a true predator avoid being a poster child for antisocial behavior and violence? These other men, they’d hidden their true natures with church socials, neighborhood groups and volunteer work. Sourmash was just so fucking obvious. And yet she couldn’t shake this rootless, vague sensation of unease, even if at moments it felt totally absurd. So much so that she hadn’t even confessed it to Lynn.

  It seemed cold in the library all of a sudden.

  “Put those poor animals out of your mind,” her mother had said. “It’s over.”

  Ari had tried, but the feeling kept gnawing at her: maybe this wasn’t an ending but a beginning.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man,” said some priest or another. I have been wondering about this. In my mind I was a formless thing, dull and uninspired until I took hold of my destiny. Did the Cosloys mold me with their punishments and strictures, or did they just uncover what was already there? Was it a gift from my mother?

  There are certainly many pivotal moments in my life—Ferdinand, the piglets and hens, the first time I fire
d a gun and killed something, later on, the boy in the woods—but there are bitter experiences as well. And those wormed their way into my body and nested, and grew fat until my skin could no longer contain them.

  Here, I am eleven.

  It is the worst day. When I get home from school, Ma Cosloy is in the hen yard. Smoke billows from the mountain of scrap lumber, branches and trash Pa and I accumulate while we ready the farm for the winter months. I can feel the heat of it crisping my eyelashes. The chickens are huddled in a scared mass by the barn.

  “Empty the wheelbarrow onto the bonfire,” she tells me, pointing to where it waits, piled with more refuse wood, some odds and ends of rubber tubing, and the mildewed tarpaulin that used to cover the rabbit hutch—until all the rabbits disappeared. Fox, Pa said, daring me to contradict him with any sign, any flicker of emotion. I kept my face perfectly still. That week I got to shoot as many foxes as I wanted. Their tails hung like pennants from the barn eaves. Their ruby hearts pickled in my treasury of mason jars buried deep in the woods.

  I put down my school bag and roll my sleeves up as I prepare to push the wheelbarrow closer to the flames. The heap on the barrow is precariously high, and I steady it with one hand. Once I am near enough, I start tossing things onto the fire. It’s been burning for a while. The embers glow deep red. Ma is still watching. I dump the load mechanically, but my mind wanders into the flames. I’m thinking of a story I just read. A tale about a massive golden bear cloaked in leaves that comes out of the fire and assigns an impossible task. Deep within the layers of timber and trash, I glimpse two books, their pages just beginning to catch. The covers are singed but not so much that I can’t read the titles. My Tales of King Arthur and my Fairytales and Legends from Around the World. The only two books I own, earned at school for perfect attendance, and hidden safe under the loose floorboard beneath my narrow bed. Read over and over again until the spines snapped and the pages flapped loose, held together by strips of masking tape. How had she found them? And then I see my sketchbook.

  A sound like a wounded animal’s cry escapes from my throat. I lunge toward the fire, my hand outstretched. If I can just get close enough I can pluck it from the flames or knock it free.

  The teepee of wood collapses in on itself. Ash and burning paper rise on the updraft, dancing like bats. The books are almost buried. I reach again. Flames lick my shoes, my fingers. I feel nothing at first, and then the excruciating agony as my skin begins to burn, but still I try to scoop it out. I reach for a stick, prod a hunk of burning rubber out of the way. Acrid black smoke billows out, choking me. There is a push of hot air against my chest like the invisible hand of God, and everything implodes as the flames soar toward the sky.

  Another cry rips itself from my throat.

  “Child,” Ma says. “Come here.” I cannot challenge her. Her voice holds quiet warning. I wrap myself in the throbbing pain of my scorched fingers as if I am wrapping myself in armor and I feel myself disappear into my place of nothing. Later I will suck on them until the blisters pop, and the pain will be as pure as a knife.

  With one backward look at the pyre, I go to her.

  “I have something for you.” She shows me a thick plain-bound book. I don’t understand. She burned my books, now she gives me another?

  “This is the only book you need. I wrote your name on the flyleaf. You may thank me now.”

  It is the Bible. I know it well.

  “Thank you,” I tell her as I take the book, and I wish with all my heart I could bludgeon her with it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Ari didn’t know she’d fallen asleep until she bashed her nose on the wall with enough force to knock her onto her ass. She’d been sleepwalking. She tasted metal at the back of her throat, and when she put her hand to her face it came back wet. Her nose felt mushy and pulsed with pain. She didn’t think it was broken, but at this point she honestly didn’t care. Injury, discomfort were small things in comparison to what was ahead of her. Dying by inches.

  She’d been dreaming about the maze, running, hiding from Lynn, and then she’d heard the sirens.

  She stood up, gripping the wall to steady her footing. Sirens. Police. Coming to rescue her? What else could it be? Hope momentarily robbed the breath from her lungs. She inhaled too sharply and her muscles cramped.

  “I’m down here. Here!” she screamed. “It’s me, Ari Sullivan. Ari Sullivan!”

  She imagined her parents appearing at the well opening, throwing aside the cover, flashlights illuminating their tear-stained faces, a rope ladder lowered, some big cop who could carry her up, warm blankets and hot coffee, her dad’s arms crushing her to his chest. Safe again. Saved.

  All of this in the past.

  She waited, face turned up toward the well cover, that almost perfect circle with the tantalizing crescent of sky beyond it. The sound still pulsed in her ears, but gradually the notes separated and rearranged themselves, becoming purer, wilder. Her breath caught in her throat. Not sirens. Coyotes. Out in the hills, calling to each other, their yips like ice breaking on a pond. Hunting her, probably. East Coast coyotes had bred with wolves and were almost as big. She could smell the sour stink of sweat that permeated her clothing, the fresh blood that had dripped onto her chest; to them it must be a dinner bell.

  Her legs went out from under her and she fell heavily. A moment later she was laughing, a thin weak sound that caught behind a rib and ended abruptly.

  The only good thing was that coyotes couldn’t climb down. Thank goodness all the panthers had been wiped out. She huddled in her pile of leaves, gripping the long leg bone, giving herself up to an awful emptiness that encompassed everything, bringing the walls in closer.

  It was paralyzing fear. Until now, she’d never really understood what that felt like. When Sourmash had threatened them, she’d felt panic, but she’d been able to run, to dodge. When she’d first attempted the high-diving platforms at the pool, she’d been able to stop halfway up the ladder and climb back down. Now it was as if she’d been robbed of her free will. She could run, but only in circles. She could plot and plan, but until Sourmash showed himself and she mounted an attack, all she could do was wait and hope that something happened before her body gave up.

  The thought of a weakness that was inevitable and that she could do nothing to prevent was terrifying. She would dehydrate; she would starve to death; her body would cave in on itself. She would never get the chance to fight for her life. How fucking sad was that? She could lie under her blanket of leaves and cry until she fell asleep again, but that felt too much like dying.

  She thought about the first time she’d ever tried to swim by herself. She was eight.

  She remembered thrashing around, the water going up her nose, down her throat, the chlorine burning. From somewhere far away, all echoey and distorted, she could hear her father’s voice saying, “Blow bubbles, Ari. Move your arms.” But the words made no sense.

  And then suddenly she realized that her head was above water, that she was somehow afloat and moving forward as if her body just naturally knew what to do.

  She stowed the bone and stood, bracing herself until her knees stopped shaking. Her nose was crusty but it was no longer bleeding. She knotted her sweatshirt around her waist, wanting to feel coolness against the bare skin of her arms. If she closed her eyes she could pretend water was all around her, buoying her body and lifting her. “Push, pull, recover,” she chanted as she had so many times before. She swept her arms through the air until she found her rhythm, and although her muscles protested, she felt as if she were flying in her element.

  A muffled boom sounded in the distance, echoing around the well shaft and shocking Ari out of her rhythm. Thunder? She waited breathlessly but it didn’t reoccur. A gunshot? The hairs rose on the back of her neck and adrenaline spurted, waking up her tired muscles. Sourmash. He was on his way back, armed and intent on finishing the job.

  Get out! screamed her brain. Get out now! She paced back and forth, star
ing up at the well cover.

  She tried not to think of how much she had weakened. That her cramping stomach meant that her pee spot was about to become a latrine. She leaned against the wall, felt the damp groove under her cheek where the water dripped, picked at the crumbling mortar and peeling paint.

  “Keep moving,” she told herself, unkinking the knots in her shoulders. Her fingers went to the tiger’s-eye bracelet. She stroked it; thought of Lynn. Movement meant she was still alive, capable of fighting. Could she climb up? She brushed wet grit from her hand. Was there even the slightest chance? How far to the top? Twenty feet. Maybe twenty-five.

  She fell to her knees and scrabbled around, found that one bone again and ran her fingers along the back edge where the mass flattened and curved slightly, forming a rough cup. Probably part of the shoulder blade. The other end was far narrower.

  She felt the heft of it, ignoring the sweet stink that clung to her fingers, thinking hard. It could be a digging tool—and a weapon.

  She reached high, as far as she could stretch, and began to chisel out a handhold in between the bricks. The crack was only an inch deep but she could cram her fingers in there, she could.

  “Fuck yeah,” she yelled as desperation turned to possibility. She felt a dizzying lightness in her body, a rush of endorphins.

  She dropped down and removed her shoes, retying them around her neck. She’d use her toes too. Just like the climbing wall in gym. You fell three times, her enemy brain reminded her, but she ignored it. She had to.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Do you recall what it feels like to be a child? To have no voice, no say, no strength? To be powerless against all those who have authority over you?

  I’d never have believed I could change anything. But slowly I have.

  No one knows it yet. They can’t see past my restless gaze, my quiet demeanor. They don’t know the thoughts that seethe beneath this mask I’ve created. They believe me ordinary. But they’re the ones who are ordinary. I am becoming something other.