The Outkast

by Craig Thomas

  The Outkast

  Copyright @ 2012 Craig Thomas

  Chapter 1

  Thursday, August 13

  It was 10:25 in the morning.

  Exactly one week prior to the incident that brought abysmal tragedy upon Ogre’s Pond, Trevor Carter’s body lay on the floor near the doorway to the toilet, smiling up at the men as they ran into his office. A tiny ring of blood sat on the front of his neck.

  “Shit. He’s dead,” Donnie Murphy said.

  “No, not yet. Maybe later.” Breathing hard, Brad Conner stood with his hands propped against the edge of the principal’s mahogany desk, slightly shaking. It appeared the morning sprint from the staff room to the principal’s office—coupled with the bad news lying on the floor—had got him winded. His tiny frame seemed to have started diminishing even further.

  “How did you figure that out?” Donnie asked, bunching up his eyebrows and scowling at Brad, as if the short and hearing-impaired man had just uttered the most disgusting statement of all time. “Are you a doctor, or what?”

  “Do I need to be one to use my eyes and common sense, Donnie? Or can’t you see he’s not drenched yet?”

  “Drenched?” Donnie said, puzzled. “Who mentioned anything about being drenched?”

  “Oh, I thought you implied that he’s drenched with his own blood.”

  Leaning a little towards Brad so that his mouth aligned with the short man’s ear, Donnie shouted, “D-e-a-d. I said he’s d-e-a-d.”

  “Okay, okay, I get it. Donnie, I get it. You know you don’t have to scream that much to drive your point home.”

  “Like hell I don’t. How else can you get a message into the chambers of your ears—especially when you keep forgetting to bring your hearing aid from home? Have you started suffering from amnesia, too?”

  “Amne ... what?”

  Donnie rolled his eyes. “Never mind.”

  Mrs. Kathy Wilson, who had just learned of the incident, and was now rushing to the scene, heard Donnie’s voice as she was about to enter the principal’s office. “Oh, my God,” she cried, and skittered inside. She had been teaching the fine arts at Our Lady of Peace Junior High for more than a decade. On several occasions, she had created well-painted pictures of war carnages, of soldiers screaming and holding on to the ruins of their severed limbs while blood spurted out and ran tracks of claret behind them like slime trails after a snail. But her bravery to handle the macabre didn’t go beyond her paintings. Real life brutality scared the crap out of her. She stopped dead beside Brad, clasping her plump fingers over her flabby bosoms, her blue eyes wide. “Is it true, Brad?”

  “As you can see, Mrs. Wilson,” Donnie said with nonchalance before Brad could utter a word, pointing to the body on the floor. He was a fairly despised man among both the staff members and the student body, as well as in the entire community of Ogre’s Pond, and he had worked really hard over the years to maintain that notorious status.

  “Oh, my God.” That was Mrs. Wilson again. It appeared that was all she could say at the moment. She put her hand over her mouth as she began to weep.

  “Did you notice anyone come into the school premises at some point today, Mrs. Wilson? Any strange faces?” Brad asked.

  Mrs. Wilson dabbed at her tears. “Well, not that I can recall. Did you?”

  “No, but I was wondering that since your office overlooks the main entrance gate—”

  “Then, I should be the watchman, right?”

  “Oh, no. Don’t get me wrong. What I meant—”

  Mrs. Wilson waved Brad’s comment aside, and said, “Anyway, you have the right to mean whatever you desire to mean. Where’s the security guard? He’s got a lot to answer for. And if—”

  Walking around the desk to pick up the phone, Donnie interrupted. “I wouldn’t ask any questions even if it was necessary. It’s the cops’ job, you know. Now, I don’t want anyone messing around here. Keep your hands off everything and anything that can bring about complication.” He rubbed his balding pate as he spoke, and looked at Brad. “Got it?”

  Brad, who hadn’t moved an inch away from the desk since he came in, nodded.

  Donnie called 9-1-1.

  ******

  Mrs. Wilson took a step closer towards Trevor, squeezing the hem of her blue denim jacket as if trying to wring out comfort by that stroke of action. Looking down at the face of the man who had once been her boss, she shivered.

  Trevor Carter was the sixth principal of Our Lady of Peace, and the youngest among his predecessors. He was renowned for his diligence and thoroughness in running the affairs of the school. There were hardly any similarities between Donnie Murphy’s personality and his, and they never enjoyed each other’s company—except in matters concerning their common enemy.

  From behind the desk, Donnie watched Trevor’s body with a vested interest, and he was sucked into a preternatural communion with the dead man in the process.

  Lying on the floor with his eyes slightly parted and his face adorned with a cool smile, Trevor seemed to make an exclusive call out to Donnie, saying: Hey, I know you’re an irredeemable asshole, and there’s nothing anyone can do about that. But regardless of what you are, I want you to carry on with my fight—the only one you’re good at, of course. I’m resting now, but you won’t have any rest of your own until you’ve finished the task ahead of you, until you’ve brought the boy down—the useless, runty troll. But if he outsmarts you and fucks you up, well, that’ll be your own downfall. And the broad you’ve dreamt of your whole mediocre life will slip through your fingers. I’m out of the game. Lights out.

  Donnie startled a little.

  “Are you okay?” Brad asked, having noticed him jerk backwards.

  “Yeah, I’m all right,” he said, thinking, I’m just having a fucking broad daylight trance, that’s all.

  Making sure to bypass a mush of chewed sandwich on the floor, Donnie walked to the door and locked it, resting his back against the cool slab of woodwork. His Hawaiian shirt rucked up at the front, where his fat belly cascaded.

  Mrs. Wilson cast a weird look at him. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Aren’t you feeling sick already?”

  “No, I’m not,” Donnie said. “Actually, I’m feeling pretty giddy with delight.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Brad snorted. “What’s good about murder?”

  “Don’t be so literal-minded, Brad. I’m not feeling giddy with death, but with justice. I’m so glad justice is around the corner.” Donnie grinned, showing a faintly stained dentine.

  “Well, I am,” Mrs. Wilson said. She moved away from the door and caught sight of her face in a small mirror mounted on the wall. She had turned awfully pale in such a short time, her strands of blonde hair flying every which way. “I’m feeling really sick, and you’ve just made the situation worse by locking that door.”

  “Mrs. Wilson, if you’re feeling sick, you have every right to walk out of this room, and no obligation at all to stay here in the first place. In fact, go out now, talk to Cheryl and Blake and Jennifer. Encourage them to stay calm and focused so they can monitor the kids. Everyone should get back inside the class and stay put until the cops arrive.”

  “Yes, I will do that. Need some fresh air, anyway.” There were two and a half men inside the office, with Mrs. Wilson being the only female. But hitherto, she hadn’t noticed the boy cowering against one corner of the office toilet. Perhaps Mrs. Wilson’s oversight had occurred as a result of her nervousness when she had come running in. Or perhaps because the northern wall of the office had been in the way, and unless one crossed the border a little to the south, there was no way to glimpse the boy. Anyhow, he was there, curling up at one corner of the toilet with his back to Mrs. Wilson, just about three f
eet away from Trevor, closer to the dead man than any of them were. “Holy Sister of Mary! Isn’t that Robert Smallwood?”

  Brad nodded.

  “What’s he doing in there with the dead?”

  “He got here first,” Brad said. “In fact, he was already in here, screaming at the time we opened the door.”

  “Yeah, but what’s his business in that corner right now? Isn’t he supposed to be with the rest of the kids?”

  Donnie said, “He’s waiting for justice.”

  “Oh, I see,” Mrs. Wilson said with unmasked irritation, flogging Donnie with a disdainful look. “What’s this justice nonsense you’ve been spouting about, anyway?”

  Donnie ignored her question, unlocked the door instead. “Are you ready to step out for some fresh air now, Mrs. Wilson?”

  “Open the door and let me out,” she said, turning to Robert, who was now sobbing quietly in the corner. “And you—get your butt up right away and follow me.”

  “Not in a million years, Mrs. Wilson. Unless you’re craving to be charged with abetting a criminal,” Donnie said, stomping towards Mrs. Wilson, as if in preparation to wrestle with her if she so much as moved an inch closer to Robert.

  “What’re you talking about?” asked Mrs. Wilson. “Who’s the criminal?” She wheeled around towards Brad. “What’s this all about?”

  Brad shrugged. “I don’t know.” Then, turning to Donnie, he said, “See, you can’t be so sure yet of what you’re accusing the boy of—”

  “Stay out of this, Brad,” Donnie snarled like a wild dog. “He’s the culprit here, and I don’t need your okay to say what I know. He’s a murderer!”

  Mrs. Wilson flinched.

  “Yes,” Donnie pressed on. “He’s a murderer, and he’ll pay the full price that is required of a heartless killer like him.”

  Outside, sirens and the wind wailed in unison.

  Chapter 2

  “Mr. Murphy, you should have a sufficient understanding that a crime scene isn’t a place to violate but rather vacate. You—and your colleagues—weren’t supposed to be in that office after you’ve discovered the body and called the cops,” Sheriff Brian Stack said, standing in front of Donnie’s office after the men from the Coroner’s Office had set to work and the kids had been dispersed home.

  “I know perfectly well, Sheriff. And trust me, I took every necessary precaution to avoid screwing something up back in there. I made it my responsibility to warn the guys to stay away from touching anything—to not even try sweeping the sandwich that littered the entire floor,” Donnie said, as if anyone would have wanted to clean up the mess in the first place.

  Brian shook his head gently. “Taking adequate precaution at a crime scene goes beyond keeping away from things while you’re still present at the place. Apart from the objects you’re liable to touch, which your consciousness forbids you from doing, there’re also myriads of things your movement displaces—things outside your awareness.”

  Donnie made a move to say something, but then decided against it. The corners of his mouth twitched momentarily.

  “Not to mention the alien particles you carried in there with you,” Brian added. “See why staying away from the crime scene altogether is the best choice?”

  Donnie nodded.

  “And why were you so bent on staying in there, by the way?”

  “The kid, Sheriff. I didn’t want him to escape. I wanted him to be in there and get arrested when you arrive.”

  “Come on, Donnie, I don’t think that should have been necessary.”

  ******

  The men from the Office of the Coroner recovered the knife—six inches of glinting blade—from Robert Smallwood.

  They found several strands of red hair in the bathroom as well as on the desk and floor. Robert was a redhead—the only one present at the scene of murder.

  The stab wound on Trevor’s neck appeared to contradict the supposed weapon of murder. It wasn’t a gaping gash wide enough to poke a thumb through, but a narrow, near-circular impalement that seemed to funnel down into his flesh.

  Although a few bits and pieces picked up at the scene were strongly indicative of the boy’s presumed act of homicide, forensic principles demanded that all necessary procedures be painstakingly executed first, leaving no room for rashness. A number of tests would be run to affirm that Robert indeed committed the crime.

  ******

  Robert was brought to the Sheriff’s Office. His mother, Holly Smallwood, had been contacted at her home on Bran Street. She sat in the lobby of the department, the closest she was allowed to her son at that point in time.

  ******

  “Coffee or tea?” Sheriff Stack opened a cabinet and brought out two cups. “I’ve got some orange juice in the fridge, too. Feel at home and take your pick.”

  Robert shook his head.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  Brian got himself some coffee and sat down in his chair, across the desk from Robert. “Listen, kid. Don’t you be afraid at all. I just wanna ask you some questions like your teachers do. Let’s just say I’m helping them to look after you so you don’t get all lazy and rusty.” He favored Robert with two winks. “Your school’s closed down now, and you might not be back till Monday, maybe a little later. You wanna be a lazy student?”

  Robert shook his head again.

  “Good boy.” Brian took a sip from his coffee. “What’s your favorite subject?”

  Robert paused for a while, gazing at the floor. “Literature,” he said at last.

  “Mine, too—especially back in the days when I was your age.” Another sip of coffee. “That makes two of us, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And who’s your favorite author?”

  His answer came with some alacrity this time: “Orobbs Porter.”

  “Ah,” Brian said. “The famous horror writer?”

  A quick nod.

  “Don’t think your teachers recommend such a book, do they?”

  “No, I read them on my own. Bought them with my pocket money.”

  “Wonderful. I’m impressed.”

  “Yeah, I’ve read all of his books,” Robert enthused. “Have you, Sheriff?”

  “Um ... I’m not so sure. I know I’ve read a lot of his works.”

  “You ever read The Black Mirage?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “It’s the best of them all. You should read it. I’ll loan you mine if you want.”

  Brian had learned something very significant about the boy’s character within the brief duration of their chat. Robert Smallwood was very passionate about his books—his horror books. His level of rapport grew astronomically as soon as the topic veered towards his favorite author and his published books. “Oh, that’s really kind of you. I’m sure I’ll love it,” Brian said. “Have you read Oedipus’s Return?”

  A look of confusion on the boy’s face. “Who wrote that? Orobbs Porter?”

  “That’s right.”

  Robert shook his head.

  “Well, I guess you haven’t read all of his works, then,” Brian said with a smile.

  Robert slumped in his seat, looking defeated—like a little boy who had just disappointed his beloved author by not guzzling all of the author’s pieces of work. “Maybe it just got published,” he said quietly. “I should have heard about it.”

  “Oh, no. It’s been out awhile.”

  Suddenly, Robert’s countenance brightened up. “Hey,” he said, “may I ask you for something Sheriff ... Stack?”

  “Anything, Rob.” Brian smiled again. “And you may call me Brian. We’re just a couple of good pals around here, aren’t we?”

  Robert nodded. He looked down at his small feet while he said, “I wanted to know if you could loan me the book. I promise I’ll take good care of it, and I’ll return it next week. My mom doesn’t have so much money now, and I can’t buy new books.”

  “You mean the Oedipus’s Return?”


  The boy nodded.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, Rob. The book’s not mine. I borrowed it, too. But rest assured as soon as I lay hands on it again, I’ll let you know.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Brian drained his cup of coffee. “So, tell me something,” he said. “Were you in Mr. Carter’s office earlier this morning to borrow some horror books, or what?”

  “No, he never read horror stories. He hated them.”

  “Oh, I see. Then, what were you doing in his office?”

  “Mr. Carter locked me up in the toilet.”

  Brian frowned. “Locked you up in the office toilet?”

  A nod.

  “Why’d he do such a thing?” Brian asked, setting his empty cup down on the desk.

  “I don’t know. He said I was good for nothing.”

  “He locked you up because he thought you were good for nothing?”

  “No, he didn’t say that this morning. But he used to say it, along with Mr. ...” Robert trailed off, looked up at Brian, and then dropped his gaze.

  Brian shifted forward in his chair. “Along with whom?” he goaded.

  Rather than responding, Robert dug at the floor with the toe of his left shoe. His gaze was now fixed on the desk top, and his eyes had suddenly become wet with tears.

  “Rob?” Brian called.

  He looked up at Brian, small and innocent and needy.

  As he stared at the boy, Brian felt those words fly around and pepper the wall of his mind like bullets from a blunderbuss, ricocheting off and hitting the wall again. He was moved.

  “Here, take this.” Brian passed a sheet of Kleenex to the boy. “I want you to stop crying. Don’t you know it breaks a man’s heart to see his pal cry?”

  Robert seemed to deliberate on a response.

  “I don’t want you to cry. What I want you to do is talk to me,” Brian urged. “Tell me everything.”

  Robert snuffled. “Mr. Murphy,” he sobbed. “He calls me useless, too. They say I’m no good, and that I’m the laughingstock of all other students and everyone in Ogre’s Pond. And maybe they’re right.”