The Boy Meets Girl Massacre (Annotated)

by Ainslie Hogarth

  27. Story mostly confirmed. Some of the details were invented, however, either by Noelle or warped over years by the imperfect whispers of town lore. The baby wasn’t eaten, but had in fact been born a few weeks before they murdered their first victim. According to his journals, Wink wanted to kill the baby, but Margaret convinced him to allow her stepmother to quietly adopt it instead. After the murders, Margaret’s father and stepmother moved to another state. Their current whereabouts, as well as the child’s, are unknown.

  Eighth Entry

  Big clump of hair in my hand, an island of bloody scalp hanging from the end. I want to eat it. I want it to be squishy, pudding soft, so I can bite right through it. But I won’t. Cuz it won’t be squishy pudding soft, it’ll be chewy and grainy and juicy. Overripe even though it’s just fresh off of someone. Me. Just do it Noelle, just eat it up because then you’re closer. Closer to the spot. You’ll get there, you can soothe it right up close. Touch it Noelle. You can touch it.

  Keep digging.

  Don’t stop.

  You’ll get there.

  Keep digging.

  There’s a tool down here. A big sharp tool I could use to dig. I wanna wind up, let the weight of the tool in my hands move my arms in big walloping circles, then let it land THUD heavy in my head, pierce through my skull, right into the sore spot. God yes, yes, yes. But I can’t. It’s too heavy for me right now. I’ve gotta get stronger still.

  Here kitty kitty kitty. Kitty kitty kitty. I’ve got a treat for you. Flesh-eating piranha kitty.

  Maybe one of the piranhas will eat it. One of the flesh-eating piranhas. Swimming around down here, rubbing up against each other all night.

  I got one. I got a piranha. It was easy. It trusts me. It wants to be fed the meat, the island of flesh. I put it in his face but he doesn’t want it anymore, I smush it up into his mouth and some gets in his nose and he sneezes and tries to get away. Sammy. But I’ve got him I’ve got him and he can’t get out and he’s kinda scratching at me but he doesn’t have any claws because he got away from someone’s home, someone who took his claws away when he was small, and he’s since been depending on just his charm and good looks to get by in the mean streets.

  I have him squished under one arm, dragging the big tool behind me in the other. He tries to fight as I take him down the dark hallway.

  The more he fights the harder I press down on him.

  Then we are in the room. Whispering whispering whispering outside and even inside and sometimes it sounds like it’s right in my ear, warm whispers tickling, filling my ear with real wet heat, then an icy finger fast and hard, bypassing my skull, penetrating the sore spot, so cold and soothing. I just want to lie here and feel that finger all night so cold and good.

  But I can’t lie here all night. It urges me to feed the piranha.

  I have my knees on Sammy, both of them, hurting him I can tell, because he cries out. One hand claws around his little body like a harness, holding him down. I use my thumb to try to open his mouth and shove the meat in but he won’t eat, he won’t listen, he won’t listen to me. BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD. EAT IT. EAT! EAT IT! YOU MUST EAT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  But he won’t. What kind of flesh-eating piranha doesn’t want any meat?

  So I smash part of his head in with a can of deck stain. Kind of smash and smear so his eyeball pops like a paintball and leaves a streak of blood and guts and color along the floor. His mouth opens easily after that. He eats it up. Eats it right up. Kill the greasy oily piranha. Oh piranha why wouldn’t you eat it on your own?

  The piranha’s not dead though. He’s alive but not really. Somewhere in between. This lucky little cat piranha is in patterned space and I put him there. And I’m glad too because he was always such a good cat and All Good Cats Go To Patterned Space.

  I get the tool and drag it over to the kitty kitty kitty. I think about spearing him with the big tool’s sharp end. Imagine it THUNK through his soft warmth. What do you call this thing? This thing that goes THUNK through living softness.

  I make a move to kill him but something stops me. An icy white hand, the same cold fingers that’d been in my head, now on my wrist and whispering whispering whispering that says if I kill the kitty I’m fucking dead fucking meat. I’m dead meat and she’s going to eat me. So don’t fucking do it.

  Who are you?

  Who are you?

  Put it back, the whispering whispers whispers whispers put it back. Put it back Noelle. It’s not time yet. Put it back. So I do. 28

  28. It should be noted that in the original diary, this section takes up over twelve pages. It’s written in big, wide scrawl, recognizable as Noelle’s in some ways, but also very different from her regular handwriting. At the request of our hired parapsychologist, the forensic document examiner has located handwriting samples from Margaret Grimley, Nathanial Holcomb, and Wink and she’s comparing them with this version of Noelle’s handwriting. To what end, I’m not entirely sure.

  Ninth Entry

  Um. Hi, diary. Yeah. Hi. Um. Just a quick question, ahhhhh what the fuck was that? What the fuck was it? What the hell?

  Did that happen? I don’t understand. I don’t remember writing it. All I remember is going to bed, falling asleep at some point I guess. Then I woke up this morning, brought you into the bathroom (sorry), and found all this crazy stuff inside you.

  That stuff is fucking weird. It’s really fucking weird. What the fuck is it, diary? Don’t show me stuff like that you dick, if you can’t explain what the hell it is. Don’t make me read it.

  Or … write it I guess. Did I write that? It doesn’t look like me, it doesn’t sound like me. Why did you make me write that? Did you make me do that? Did you? You cat-hating bitch diary?

  Okay. Did that happen? Did that happen for real?

  Diary, you’ve gotta tell me honestly if that happened. If I did that. Now that you’re alive and I’m your mother and your father you’ve gotta tell me the truth all the time. Did that happen last night? Did I do that to Sammy? Jesus christ I feel sick. I really do. I wanna rip those pages out of you but I don’t wanna hurt you, diary. Don’t show me that stuff again or I’ll have to hurt you. I won’t want to, but you’ll have made me, do you understand?

  Okay let me think.

  The very very very last thing I remember from last night was lying on my blanket, drifting off into patterned space, and I guess just falling asleep that way. Which is odd actually.

  Because I can’t fall asleep in patterned space.

  Usually something pulls me out before I’m even close to sleep.

  But I guess last night I did? I must have? Because it’s all I remember.

  It used to be I would have found the idea of falling asleep in patterned space amazing. It would have been a dream come true. But right now it doesn’t feel like a dream come true. Right now it feels like bad things happen in patterned space when you fall asleep in it. And if you’ve got a diary to write it all down in, then you’ve gotta read about it.

  Diary, you’re the only true account. Because you weren’t asleep when all that was happening because you don’t sleep. You’re just as conscious all night long as you are now. Are those pages true? DID THAT REALLY HAPPEN? YOU FUCKING TELL ME YOU BITCH! You just want me to feel bad. You had me write that stuff down so you could judge me. So I could judge me. Quit building a judge into my brain, I don’t want it. I don’t wanna judge myself this way. Maybe if you were a JOURNAL you wouldn’t be such a bitch.

  Because maybe this is why little girls have diaries, to build the brain judge, start policing ourselves early because there are a lot more rules for girls than boys. A lot more rules for DIARIES than there are for JOURNALS. Diaries have to start with DEAR DIARY, and they have to contain deep dark secrets, and they have to be kept private. Diaries are worst enemies disguised as best friends. You make us write in you, you make us tel
l you everything, then you TURN ON US.

  I’m sorry. It’s not you.

  My head is throbbing.

  It must have been Alfred. Diary, was it Alfred? Did Alfred get in and write in you? That stupid fucking jerk. Is this some kind of weird prank? I hope you’re reading this right now Alfred, you fucking asshole stupid jerk-face bitch writing that fucked-up shit in my private fucking diary type thing, Alfred you DICK. You stupid tippy-toe butler bastard!

  But I know it wasn’t Alfred. Alfred would never open my diary. I could leave it anywhere and I know he would never look. That’s why I can write such terrible things about him in here. Because he’s such a good person.

  If Alf used his JOURNAL I know I’d look inside. Because I’m such a bad person. I kill fucking cats apparently for god’s sake. Doesn’t get much worse than that.

  Okay, okay, okay.

  It was me who wrote those pages, definitely and absolutely. I do recognize my handwriting in there, sort of, even though it’s kind of fucked-up looking. And I’d never told Alf about patterned space before because uhhh I’m not SO fucking psycho that I’d tell someone about that psycho-ass shit.

  Whispering. Whispering. Was that the same whispering I heard in my bathroom that night? What was it telling me? Was it telling me to start writing in you? Because I did after that. I obeyed. I started writing and now I can’t stop. Goddamn you, diary. What are you? Are you a ghost too?

  Okay okay I’m sorry. That’s stupid, I know. I’m sorry I keep blaming you. This isn’t your fault.

  There was a dark concentration of blood all over my pillow this morning. Black under my nails. Dried blood. My blood. I think. Or maybe Sammy’s. A section of hair missing. Island of flesh. Jesus. That island of flesh came from my fucking head. It’s a proper gouge now, a tiny canyon on my scalp with jagged cliffs. I pressed into it hard, my finger in deep, and it felt good.

  Okay, diary, I promise I won’t touch it again today. Really. I’m going to try to leave it alone.

  It’s sore. It’s so sore I don’t even wanna look at it yet. It hurt to put up my ponytail but I had to have it up to cover the spot.

  I’m scared.

  My dad was already awake when I came home. He’d heard me close the front door downstairs and hollered at me from his room.

  I found him on his small, messy bed, sitting up with the tray of Q-tips pulled out of the big blue box next to him. His legs crossed under the blankets. He patted his lap.

  So I got on the bed and laid my head in the blanket hammock over his lap.

  Real Q-tips, not generic “cotton swabs.” Even though we’re poor he always buys the good ones because he knows I love this.

  I told him when I was little that I wanted him to clean my ears forever and he always has and he’s never made me feel weird about liking it as much as I do. And he loves it too. Because this is really the only thing he gets to do for me now, the only thing he really can do. He gets to touch me and be close to me like he was once a long time ago when I was a baby and couldn’t do anything for myself. I still love this even though I hate him.

  Now you know, diary. It’s fucking weird, right? Fuck. Writing it down feels weird. Whatever. Don’t judge the person who gave birth to you. If I’m weird you’re weird too.

  He made teeth of his fingers and combed the hair off my face, away from my ears, making himself a nice clean area to rest his arms without leaning on my hair, pulling it so I yell at him.

  And then he started digging. And it felt so good. Sort of loud and ticklish and kind of painful. Or, not really painful, but kind of wrong. Like I was tempting permanent ear damage. Tracing the cotton swab in and around the spirals and caverns and folds of my ears. Sometimes the feeling made me shiver and he’d press down on my cheek with his fingertips and say, “Stop that, I don’t wanna stab your brain.”

  He would never stab my brain.

  The TV was on in his bedroom, low volume and bright colors flashing just right in the not quite dark. The Home Shopping Channel. A woman with big dark hair talking about an AMAZING BLENDER. It makes ice cream, soup, smoothies, lattes, pasta sauce, dips, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc. The list has to go on for at least an hour. Herman has already bought this blender, a tower on our kitchen counter, so tall, wider at the top like a sarcophagus and thick with dust. He once even phoned in during one of the on-air call-in segments to gush about how great it was, what a healthy lifestyle he was living now, now that he could make smoothies in the morning before work. How he made his daughter healthy sorbets for dessert at night and, oh heck, I make them for me too! Gotta treat yourself, right? He was so personable on the phone. So different. And when he hung up he slumped even more in his chair.

  I stared at the TV. At the UNITS SOLD counter slowly increasing.

  Early morning light seeping slow and dough-like through the pulled-shut-but-no-longer-effective blinds.

  This was the perfect light, the perfect volume on the TV, the perfect ear pleasure to fall asleep to. But then he ruined it. He started talking.

  “How was work, sweetie?” He lifted the Q-tip out of my ear so I could hear him. Which made me very angry.

  “It was fine.”

  “Anything weird happen again?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know. What did Olivia call it? Bumps in the night?”

  “Oh, that. No, not really. I guess, there’s been a lot of weird noises. Definitely some of those cold spots we’ve heard about. But I haven’t seen anything, like a ghost or anything, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Oh, um, I did kill a fucking cat though. Maybe. Yeah, and tried to feed it part of my head. Sooo.

  And oh yeah, maybe a ghost told me to do it. Or told me not to do it. I don’t really know yet.

  It was a giant mistake to tell him about the first weird thing that happened at the inn. The bathroom thing. He had a thousand theories as to what it might have been. He retold it over and over again to Dr. Schiller’s other patients on the phone. He’d fret about it every time I left for work, he called me late at night now sometimes to make sure I was okay alone in my room.

  I wouldn’t be sharing any more close encounters with Herman.

  “It worries me, you know,” he said. As though I hadn’t already heard that a thousand times before.

  “I do know.”

  “If anything happened to my baby, I’d die.”

  “I know, Dad.”

  And I squirmed my head a little, to indicate that he should keep cleaning. So he stuck it in again. The Q-tip dangerously deep, thunderously loud, my neck pulled into my body, smile spreading slowly across my face like a dog scratched in just the right spot. He dug and dug, not noticing.

  “There should be some kind of drill for you guys to do, like, if something happens again like last time.” I could barely hear him over the scraping.

  “Like a fire drill?” I whispered, the low volume of my voice a hint for him to stop talking.

  “Yeah! Like that. You should draw one up. I’ll draw it up for you. Or actually, I’ll tell you what to draw and you draw it. My carpal tunnel has been acting up lately.”

  “Right, your carpal tunnel.”

  “You know, sarcasm doesn’t help.”

  “It’s just weird to me that you should be suffering from a working person’s disease.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “Now who’s being sarcastic?”

  “Keep still.” And he pressed his warm fingers into my cheek. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to antagonize a person working in your ear?”

  “Well, you would have been the person who failed to teach me that.”

  “Okay, I’m teaching you now.”

  I gestured at the TV and said, “Look, it’s your blender.”

  “I know!”

  “You make a smoothie today?”

  “D
on’t be smart, Noelle.”

  “I’m just asking. Say, wanna go to the kitchen and whip us up some homemade soup in minutes?”

  “You know, it’s not fair.”

  “What’s not fair?”

  “These commercials, they’re very manipulative, you know. They tell us, you know, we can only live once, so we better eat and drink everything we want, buy everything we want, you know, always get yourself a chicken from Ollie’s if you want one because you only live once. And then the next commercial tells us we’re all fat and unhealthy so we’ve gotta buy blenders to make the smoothies. It makes my head hurt. I mean, I guess that’s the idea. You buy stuff to make your head stop hurting for a while.”

  “Well here’s another idea, Herman. Stop watching the goddamn shopping channel.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Here, it’s easy.”

  I grabbed the remote and changed the channel. A talk show. About a woman who’d been ripped apart by her two dogs.

  “Cripes!” And I went to change it again.

  But Herman said, “Leave it!”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I guess … maybe it’s nice to see people worse off than me.”

  And he laughed, but I know he was trying to make me feel bad for him.