Slasher Girls & Monster Boys

by April Genevieve Tucholke

  They didn’t understand. They weren’t the one. But Cassie’s different. She said bad things about Momma and I’d never think those things, but the start is always hard, isn’t it? Before people really get to know each other? It’ll be okay this time. She loves me. She’ll understand the person behind the screen is the same person in front of her now. Of course she will.

  She has to.

  I don’t know what I’ll do if she doesn’t.

  I feel sandpaper skin against my lips. Smell vanilla and roses over my shoulder.

  Yes, you do.

  × × ×

  I’m pretending to read when she steps out of the bathroom in a swirl of warm steam. Damp blond hair framing an angel’s face. She’s wearing black bunny slippers with X’s for eyes. Her pajamas are black too, patterned with skeleton teddy bears. I don’t like them. At all.

  But the robe is perfect. Fluffy and pink. Embroidered with dozens of tiny red flowers. She looks beautiful. She looks—

  “I look ridiculous in this thing,” she says.

  “No, you look great.”

  “I look like someone’s mother. Someone’s tragic, saggy, seven-million-year-old mother.” She plops down on the couch opposite me, plucking at the hem. “I look like I murdered Martha Stewart and stole her skin.”

  My butterflies are all dead.

  “I don’t have anything else,” I manage to say. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s only for tonight, right?” She gives me a thin smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

  This isn’t going well at all. She moves differently than I thought she would. Slumps in the chair with her legs slightly spread instead of crossing them like a lady. Picking at the browning leaves of the potted plant beside her. And her voice is wrong. Her accent is hard. And she chews her fingernails. I don’t like that.

  “When’s Wolfie coming?”

  “He’ll be here in the morning, like I said.”

  Silence stretches for miles between us, broken only by the rolling thunder. Her gaze roams the room—she’s obviously looking for something to say. It’s so easy for us, usually. We talk for hours. Words flowing like water. Surely she can still sense that? Surely she can find something worthwhile talking ab—

  “How long you lived out here?” she asks.

  The question’s so banal, it makes my teeth ache.

  “A long time.”

  “God, I’d go crazy out here all by myself. Don’t you miss the city?”

  “I like the quiet.”

  “I think I’d kill myself out of boredom.”

  No, no, no.

  “Wolfie lives in a place like this, right?” she continues. “Some old crappy farm thing? God, no wonder he wants to split. Psycho mom aside, I mean.”

  My hands curl into fists on my armrests.

  She seems to remember herself. Something like apology creeps into her voice, matched by that eyeless smile. “I mean, I’m sure it’s okay for a guy like you.”

  “. . . A guy like me?”

  “Yeah. Old. I mean, older. You know.”

  It feels like I’ve been stabbed in the stomach and all the air is leaking out of me. Flames are crackling in the fireplace. The wind outside sounds like howling wolves.

  Someone’s tragic, saggy, seven-million-year-old mother . . .

  I look into her eyes and I suddenly realize they aren’t blue at all.

  A guy like you. Old. Older. You know.

  They’re gray.

  She’s just like the others, you know. They’re all the same . . .

  Shiny white pills in the cupboard above the sink.

  “Would you like something to drink?” I hear myself say.

  “Yeah, coffee would be awesome.”

  She’s still speaking as I walk toward the kitchen, but I can’t hear what she says. I want to ask her to keep her voice down in case she wakes up Momma, but suddenly I can’t stand the thought of looking at her. It’s not the same. It’s never the same. It’s so easy when it’s all happening behind a screen. So clean. You never have to notice that their eyes have dark shadows under them, or they fidget when they talk, or their fingernails are chewed down to the quick. I should never have brought her here.

  There’s no delete key in real life.

  I bring back the coffees (I know the way she likes it, I know everything about her), watch her nurse it in her lap, waiting for it to cool. She’s still talking and I want her to shut up in case Momma hears, but I don’t want to be rude.

  Drink it, drink it.

  “Are you okay?” she asks.

  The apologetic smile on my face feels made out of plastic.

  “Just tired.”

  “I’m cold.”

  Wood snaps in the fireplace, sparks spilling up the chimney like fireflies. I get up and throw another log into the burning mouth, let the flames tumble and catch. I’m not sure how long I stand there, watching the heat lick and the bark blacken, trying not to hear her talk about her bad dreams and the voices she hears when she closes her eyes and everything about her I once wanted, and now want to rip bleeding out of her chest. But I’m still. So still and quiet.

  Like a good little boy.

  When I turn back around, the butterflies in my stomach wake up as I see her draining the last of her coffee, thumping the mug onto the table.

  She doesn’t use the coaster.

  “Urg, what flavor was that? Sweaty underwear?”

  “Just instant.”

  “Tasted like something died in it.”

  “Justin!”

  My stomach lurches. Cassie’s eyelids are fluttering, the corners of her mouth starting to sag. She runs her hand across her eyes, blinking hard.

  “Justin!”

  “Excuse me for a moment.” I smile. “I’ll be right back.”

  Down the hallway on shaking legs, past the black-and-white stares toward the crucifix door. I knew she’d wake her, I knew it. She’s spoiling everything, God why can’t it ever be—

  “Justin!”

  “I’m here, Momma,” I say, pushing the bedroom door open. It smells damp in here. Wrong. I think the rain is creeping in somewhere, rotting the wood.

  Momma is staring at me. Through me. “Who are you talking to? I heard voices.”

  “Nobody.”

  “Don’t you lie to me, boy, God and almighty Jesus help me, don’t you lie.”

  “It’s just the television, Momma.”

  “You think I don’t see, don’t you? You think I don’t know what you get up to?”

  “Momma, go back to sleep.”

  “Don’t you take that tone with me!”

  “I’m not taking a tone!”

  “You’re just like him, Justin. Just like your daddy.”

  “I’m not like him!” I shout. “I’m still here. I’m a good son! A good boy! Who got you back from that awful place they put you in after the accident? Who looked after you?”

  “It’s not an accident when it’s on purpose, Justin.”

  My butterflies are all dead again.

  “I said I was sorry!”

  “I was happy where I was. It was quiet there. I could sleep.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “No. You belong here, this is your home.”

  “I belong in the ground, Justin,” she sighs. “Put me back.”

  “Who’rrre you talk . . . talking to?”

  I whirl and see Cassie standing behind me with those wide eyes that are gray, not blue.

  “Is she . . . ?”

  And she’s looking past me to the thing in the bed—that thing of dry skin and cracker-brittle bones I dug up out of that awful place they put her. I said I was sorry. It was an accident. Oh God, I didn’t mean to hurt you, Momma. And Cassie’s hand creeps up to her mouth as she realizes her hair is the
same color and the robe I gave her is identical and all the rain and the candles in the world still can’t quite cover the smell.

  “Is she . . . dead?”

  Pale blue eyes that never blink.

  Her voice always inside my head.

  Only inside my head?

  “Don’t you talk that way about my momma.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Cassie whispers. “Oh, my God . . .”

  She turns to run, but the pills have got her now. Her hands on the walls as she tries to keep her balance, stumbling and knocking one of the photos loose. It’s an old one—soldiers and nurses—my mom and dad during the war. It shatters on the ground, glass shards spinning slow in the air until they fall, down, down, just like Cassie, down to her knees and then to the boards, hair the color of damp straw splayed about her head in a ragged halo.

  I stoop and heft her over my shoulder, boots crunching in broken glass.

  “I’m going down to the cellar for a while, Momma.”

  I close the bedroom door behind me.

  Momma doesn’t say a word.

  × × ×

  I lay Cassie down on the workbench, plastic sheet beneath her. I’ve slipped Momma’s ring onto her finger and she looks so perfect. So pretty. So peaceful now. With all those bad dreams, I bet she hasn’t slept this good in years. I almost want to leave her a little longer to enjoy it. But I suppose she can sleep forever now.

  A breeze is tickling the back of my neck as I look through my dad’s tools, taking the ones I want to start with. Wood saw. Pliers. Claw hammer. I plonk them onto the table beside Cassie, watch her chest rise and fall. There are goose bumps on my skin. It’s really cold in here.

  I don’t want to strap her down yet. I’m not sure what part I want to keep. I want to wait until I can’t wait anymore. Until the need makes me shake. And so I rip open her backpack, upend it on another workbench. Sifting through the socks and tees and underwear, pulling apart her toiletries bag—paint for those blue lips and polish for those too-chewed fingernails. I’m beginning to think there’s nothing worth keeping until I search the side pocket, find it sitting in there like it was just waiting for me.

  Her diary.

  I glance at her on the table, smile sneaking and creeping to the corners of my mouth. Opening up these pages will be like opening up her head. I have to keep it. It’s too perfect.

  I flip through with trembling hands, eyes scanning the text.

  . . . Mom on my case again about staying out so late. She just doesn’t . . .

  . . . no sleep again, yay for double-caff . . .

  . . . sometimes wonder why they picked me . . .

  . . . bad dreams . . .

  . . . the worst. She swears like a goddamn sailor. I try to . . .

  There’s nothing in here, I realize. My frown deepens and I keep flipping, page after page.

  There’s no reference to Wolfie at all.

  But she said she loved me . . .

  . . . followed him home from work last night. Some crappy dishpig job . . .

  . . . think I found another one . . .

  . . . nightmares again. Latino kids with their eyes missing. They showed me his face. Long greasy hair and acne scars. I know where he put . . .

  What the hell is this?

  And from inside the pages, something tumbles. A photograph, fluttering down to the concrete at my boots. As I stoop to pick it up, I see there’s a red X marked across it. The face still looks familiar, though. Hollow eyes. Terrible comb-over. I’ve seen it somewhere before . . .

  Television, I realize.

  That missing kiddyqueer they were talking about on the news . . .

  wolfboy_97: wut r ur dreams about?

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: voices

  wolfboy_97: wut they say?

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: sad stuff

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: makes me cry

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: makes me mad

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: sometimes when I open my eyes i think i can still hear them

  No.

  . . . followed him home from work last night . . .

  . . . sometimes wonder why they picked me . . .

  . . . They showed me his face . . .

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: wouldn’t that be cool, tho. Sum1 out there hunting these freaks down and giving them what they deserve

  I turn and she’s sitting up on the workbench. Head slightly tilted, staring at me with those bruised gray eyes. Skeleton teddy bears on her pajamas. Claw hammer in her hand.

  She swings it faster than I can move. It catches me on the jaw and I feel the bone shatter, taste bright copper in my mouth. I stumble, legs going out from under me. Knees cracking on the concrete, sharp pain lancing through the bloody haze over my eyes. And as she brings the hammer down again, her words cut like razors in the dark.

  “Sorry, Wolfie.”

  × × ×

  I wake up and all I taste is blood, metallic in my mouth. The light-globe above me is etched in triplicate—three burning suns to blind me. My head doesn’t feel right. I try to speak, remembering too late my jaw is broken. Bone grinding bone. Whatever I was going to say turns into a bubbling whimper.

  I’m still in the cellar, I realize. Strapped to the table. The suns overhead are eclipsed as she leans slowly over me, looking down. Gray eyes and blue lips.

  It’s freezing, I realize. Her breath hangs in the air between us as she speaks.

  “You cold, Wolfie?”

  I can’t speak. Nod instead.

  “Can’t say I’m real sorry about your comfort level. But it gets cold when they get angry. And they’re real angry at you, Wolfie.”

  They?

  I glance around the room, seeing nothing but blank concrete and my father’s tools on the walls. Some are missing, I realize. Not in their places.

  “Don’t bother looking for them.” She wiggles her fingers in front of my eyes. “You gotta have the touch. The curse. The crazy. Whatever you wanna call it. Alice doesn’t look too bad, but it’s not like you’d want to see Sally and Lucy, anyway. They mostly keep the shape they died in, see. And you didn’t let them die easy, did you?”

  I try to speak, but it’s just a gargle of pain and bone splinters.

  “Shhhh,” she whispers, putting her finger to her lips. “You don’t have to explain. They told me all about it. Chatroom creeper. IM flatterer. Solid pro at spotting the easy pickings in the crowd, right? Lonely girls. Sad girls. Lost girls. Big bad wolf, huh?”

  She picks up the wood saw. Holds it in front of my eyes.

  “This is what you used on Lucy, right?” Her gaze flickers along the saw-tooth blade. “They told me what you did to them. What you did it with. So I didn’t drink your coffee, Wolfie. Your plant looked thirsty. Mistakes of the past, remember? I’m real good at history.”

  I flail at the straps holding me down. But she’s bound me tight. My muscles cord and tendons stretch, but it’s no good. No good.

  “Wuh . . .” I wince, agony nearly drowning me. “Wuh . . .”

  “What do I want?”

  I nod. Tears running down my cheeks.

  “I want to sleep, Wolfie.” She sighs the words, and I see the red veins scrawled across those big gray eyes. “Just a single night without one of them finding me. Pleading. Waking me in the dark. They just wander, see. The Sleepless. Looking for someone who can hear them. And eventually they find me. They won’t leave me alone.” She rubs at her temples, frozen white spilling from her lips. “The only way to shut them up is to give them justice. Vengeance. Whatever you call it. Then they can sleep.”

  Another sigh.

  “Then maybe I can too.”

  I jerk against the straps again, leather and buckles cutting into my skin. She pats my shoulder, somewhat apologetically.

  Lifts the wood saw.

 
“So, this is really going to hurt. And from what I understand, the place you go after this hurts a lot worse. But don’t hate the player, hate the game, right?”

  I feel metal teeth replace her hand on my shoulder.

  The first tiny sting.

  “Noohh . . .” I try to say. “Muh . . .”

  “Mother?”

  A weak nod.

  “The thing in that bed stopped being your mother a long time ago, Wolfie. But she’ll be cremated. Along with this house. Along with you.”

  No.

  She leans in close. Whispers in my ear.

  “This is for Alice. And Lucy. And Sally. And all the others you would’ve done for if someone like me didn’t stop you.” She shrugs, and her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “At least someone’s going to sleep easy tonight.”

  Metal teeth gleam in the dirty light.

  I pray to God and almighty Jesus she makes it quick.

  They don’t listen, though.

  They never listened.

  And she takes her time.

  M*

  STEFAN BACHMANN

  She could hear them below in the garden, the hiss of their feet in the cool grass, voices soft as moth wings as they whispered to one another. A childish screech floated up toward her window. Then they were singing again, the sound of it eerily high-pitched and wavering:

  A is for Anna, who licks all the forks

  B is for Bobby, who’s thin as a stork

  C is for Camden, who ought to be kicked . . .

  She smiled at that: Camden did need be kicked. Lady Gortley had said so the other day at luncheon, whispering it to her husband while young cousin Camden had a screaming tantrum on the floor. Everyone at the table had heard the remark. And somehow the children had heard it too, though they ate in the nursery, in another part of the house entirely.

  She moved closer to the window. A breeze was drifting through the open panes. She felt it on her face, felt it stirring the lace at her sleeves, a slow current, heavy with sunlight and the thick scent of apple blossoms. She extended one hand until her fingertips brushed the warmth of the light. Then she stopped, still in the shadows. If the children looked up now, they would not see her. They mustn’t.