Snuff

by Simonson, Melissa

  That book never did anything for her, anyway. It didn’t offer consolation or remedies, though I’m sure she didn’t think to ask the Good Book for such things. She’d stopped smiling after Them, and moved through the days that followed like a ghost; just as pale, but a little more substantial.

  It’s like she orchestrated her movements, they were so fluid. Like she’d practiced them every night since They happened. Once across the arc of both wrists, one through the violet handprint bruises ringing her forearms.

  Looking back, I wonder why I didn’t stop her. I can only assume her desperation for it all to be over called out to me, rolling over the air until it threaded through the keyhole where I stood, watching and understanding in a tiny vacuum of transfixed anticipation.

  I had to stand on the toes of my shoes to see it all, I was that small.

  I’d seen her bleed before, when They did what they did, but this was elegant as opposed to undignified. And her orifices were empty this time, not plugged with wrinkled bulges of male skin.

  She almost looked happy when it was over.

  Friday at 9:21 p.m.

  IP Address: 75.84.67.69

  Sent via contact form by an anonymous viewer on your website

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I vomit until it feels like I’m completely hollow. No intestines, guts, or even blood. He’s been gone for a while, but I keep dry heaving. Abby’s light hand lingers on my back, twisting my hair around her knuckles. She wants to, I can tell, it’s not in a drunken sorority girl well I guess since we’re friends I’m obligated to do the hair-holding sort of way.

  A shiver skitters up and down my spine. Her hand strokes the back of my neck, but I disentangle it from my hair and flop against the wall.

  “I’m fine,” I tell her, sensing an are you okay? on the horizon. How can she worry about me when he burned her over and over? I can’t bring myself to ask where he did it. I don’t want to know, but it had to be somewhere sensitive, somewhere delicate and tender, because her screams had cut off abruptly when she fainted.

  Now I’m glad we’re in the dark. I don’t ever want to see what he’s done to her.

  “He left us some water.” She forces my hand open and closes my fingers around a dripping bottle. “You need it. You’ll get dehydrated. You threw up everything in your system.”

  I can’t be too dehydrated, since tears well up. “Oh God, Abby.” I slap at my eyes, but all it does is make boiling waterfalls flood my face. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t stop him. I’m so sorry.”

  Her voice is soft, too understanding for my empty stomach to handle. “There’s nothing you could have done. There’s nothing we can do when we’re blind and stuck.” She sighs. “I told you I always knew something like this would happen. It’s been just around the corner, waiting for me.”

  “Goddamnit.” Her lack of outrage sparks mine. “Nobody deserves that.” Then I feel bad for shouting. She’s the one bearing the brunt of this nightmare. If anyone’s allowed to shout and rage, it’s her, only she refuses.

  “Guilt’s a part of being Catholic.” She musters a brave laugh.

  Her quiet acceptance makes me weaker and sick with fear. Not for my sake, but hers.

  And this is just the beginning.

  ***

  The clock on the wall says its two a.m. when my eyes pop open. It must be a cruel practical joke from God, willing me to wake after my ten-minute power nap exactly twenty-four hours after Abby died. She’s sleeping for eternity. My penance won’t allow more than a few minutes.

  My latest and greatest walk down memory lane was a doozy. People in scrubs converged within the room, yelling different things, changing sheets, stuffing thermometers in my mouth. They’d ordered everyone but hospital personnel out, and Lisette hadn’t looked happy.

  A sigh inflates my chest, and I try to roll my shoulders, but the Velcro freezes my wrists to the rails. Still strapped down like a basket case. This is getting ridiculous. They don’t even trust me to urinate on my own—I now have my very own catheter. And an IV, I note, examining the needle in my arm.

  For a moment I do nothing but stare—why is it there? I don’t remember a nurse setting it up, and I doubt I could sleep through a needle prick. I’m not sick or injured, physically at least—it feels wrong, like it’s thrown off the room’s equilibrium. As if it’s suddenly three sizes smaller because this needle is buried in my arm, covered with medical tape.

  A light bulb clicks on in my brain. How could I forget? Abby’s probably up there in heaven, frowning at me. Was all this for nothing, Brooke?

  I crane my neck, snapping at the tube with my teeth. It takes forever to gnaw the damn thing from my vein, and it stings like hell when it rips out.

  Liquid drips from the tubing, and I fall back against the flat hospital pillows, panting. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Strangely it’s not as soothing at it seems on TV, when cops tell people to do the same and put their heads between their knees.

  I think about calling for a nurse, but I can’t reach to punch in the emergency button by the bed.

  The clock’s struck three fifteen by the time someone comes to look in on me. The door cracks open and Lisette slides through.

  “Hi,” I croak, struggling to sit up.

  Dark crescents tint the skin beneath her eyes blue, but she looks alert as ever despite the fact she couldn’t have slept more than a few hours. Probably due to the jumbo cup of coffee she’s clutching. “I thought you’d be sleeping. You really need to get some rest.” Her gaze sweeps the bed and zeroes in on the blood dripping from my arm. The cup slams on the counter and her eyes go slitty.

  She fixes me with a deep frown and whips her phone out of her back pocket. “What the fuck are you thinking, Brooke? You can’t go around chewing off medical equipment like a goddamned coyote.”

  “I can’t have it.”

  She stabs the emergency button, one anxious foot tapping. “They have your medical records. They wouldn’t have given you something you can’t have. Do you think you’re allergic?”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  She’s stunned into silence for a moment before she explodes. “When the fuck were you going to tell anyone? We should have gotten you checked out right away. Something could be wrong with the baby.” She pounds in the emergency button again and sticks her head out the door.

  “Jesusfuck, does anybody work here?” She turns back to me, blonde and bouncy ponytail whipping across her cheekbones. “I’m going to go fuck up the lobby until I find someone to examine you.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Someone wheels an ultrasound machine into the room. Lisette jitters nearby as a nurse spreads cold, thick gel over my stomach.

  I can’t look at the baby. It’s the reason Abby’s dead. I look at Lisette instead, and her face cracks into a luminous smile I didn’t realize she was capable of. She wraps her hands around one of mine.

  Her voice is gushy, full of warmth and love. “You can see the heartbeat. It’s fine.” She nods at the screen. “Your baby’s fine, Brooke.”

  “The fetus looks about nine weeks,” the nurse says, and Lisette’s smile evaporates.

  “It’s a baby. Her baby. Not a fucking fetus.”

  Technically it is a fetus—we all know this—but her meaning is clear. The nurse gives her a patronizing stare. “Baby. Sorry.”

  Lisette leans forward to get a better look at the screen. “I’m going to get Jack. I made him go home to sleep, but he’ll want to be with you.”

  The nurse wipes the gel off with a rag and coils the tubing. “Everything seems fine, but we’ll need to do more tests as it grows to see if it’s been affected by what…by what you’ve been through.”

  Nothing happened except a Taser bite.

  “I don’t want to see Jack.”

  Lisette gives me a hand-on-hips squinty-eyed scowl. “Christ on a bike, Brooke. This is his baby too. He needs to know. Why didn’t you tell us right away?”

  “I’m not hurt. I di
dn’t think they’d medicate me. There’s nothing wrong with me.” I shouldn’t even be here.

  “You still should have mentioned it.”

  I close my eyes, listening as the wheels of the machine bump over the grout on the floor on its way out the door. The door clicks shut.

  I just want to be alone. ,l

  Lisette relents with a drawn-out sigh. “I’ll hold off calling him for a few hours, if that’s what you want. But he’s got to know eventually. A baby is a blessing. You know he’ll be happy.”

  That’s exactly what Abby said.

  ***

  I’m floating somewhere on the borderline of Sleep and Awake. I think I’ve been walking that line for a long time.

  One of those leg spasms attacks the muscles in my thigh, forcing both me and Abby into instant consciousness.

  “Are you okay?”

  I wish she’d stop asking such stupid questions. She knows perfectly well I’m fine. He’s hardly touched me. “I’m fine.”

  “You threw up a lot.”

  I hate the concern lacing through her wavering voice. “It doesn’t matter. I’m fine.” I’d tell her I only vomited because the smell of her singing flesh flipped my stomach inside out and twisted it in knots, but that would only be a half-truth.

  “You’re not fine.” Her voice gets weaker, so soft I have to bend as close as I can to hear it. “You’ve thrown up more than once.” She clears her throat. “When did you know?”

  I sigh. Eventually the silence prods for an answer.

  “For sure, the day he took me from the parking lot. I must have been too busy practicing lines of what I’d say to Jack and didn’t hear him behind me.”

  I can feel she’s puzzling over whether she should congratulate me. It’s kind of difficult to say anything sincerely under these circumstances. “This is a blessing. I know it’s hard to be happy about it now, but it is.”

  “I didn’t even think I was going to keep it. Jack and I don’t have any money. He’s up to his eyeballs in med school bills, and I wait tables. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “Yes it was.”

  “How do you figure?”

  She wraps her fingers around mine, and it must be her lips brushing against them—parched and puckered skin. “You’ll never regret your baby. God wouldn’t give you something you couldn’t handle.”

  It sounds like she’s saying that for both our sakes.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Stacy’s ringtone chimed when John was pulling a navy shirt from his suitcase. He answered on speaker, fumbling with the row of buttons.

  “Morning roll call,” she chirped. “Just checking in. I’m better than an alarm clock, right? Anyway, I don’t have much for you yet, sorry. Is there other stuff you want me to look into?”

  Something Lisette said floated to the forefront of his mind. “Actually, yes. Can you look into large order contract jobs in the area?”

  “Sure. I figured I’d get a jump on this and look into red light cams and other moving violations on the nights and times of each dump job. Can’t hurt, right, I bet this nut drove like a bat out of hell after he kicked the girls out of his car. If anything pops I’ll send you the information—it’s a big white van or SUV, right?”

  “Right. I’ve emailed the coroner’s files and case reports. I need you to go back three years and look for crimes that may fit the MO. There’ve got to be victims who haven’t been linked to this man yet.”

  “I’ll get on that after the traffic research.”

  John frowned at his reflection. “Does light blue go with navy blue?”

  “Wear the stripey tie.” She tapped in the background. “Looking through contracting records will take longer than traffic research since I may have to get a little creative with their firewalls. You know how people always hang up on me. They never believe I work for the Bureau.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  She snapped her gum and laughed. “Okay. Well I’ll call in a few hours with what I’ve got. Are you going to the station or the hospital first?”

  “The hospital. I need to speak to Brooke before I think about constructing a profile.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  John slung the tie over his shoulder and flipped the collar of his shirt up. “She had a guard dog last time I saw her, so I can’t really say. She looks sad, obviously. Refuses to see her boyfriend for long, which doesn’t bode well. Hopefully I won’t frighten her.”

  “You’re the witness whisperer. Witnesses think you walk on water. And you’re pretty easy on the eyes except when you do the death glare.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “I thought I’d have an easy time choosing who wins, but it’s been harder than I thought. Maybe because you two look similar.”

  This is news to me. Abby’s nothing but a faceless phantom, someone I feel and hear but never see. Something present but invisible, like Christians claim God is. They can’t see him, but he’s there, they say. And I can’t see her, but I feel her tremble and her tears, when they slide down my skin, and her flesh oozing like it’s crying along with the pair of us when it crumbles beneath my fingertips.

  But if I work off that logic, it’s the same for this man. His presence is here even when he isn’t, a whole lot more than lingering smoke from his Zippo, a demon that lives not so much above us, but in us. Because that fear is never gone, even when he is.

  “Go to hell,” I spit at the ceiling.

  “I think I’ll meet you there, sweetheart.” He laughs. “But Abigail might get there first.”

  I crush Abby’s face into my chest as she tucks into a fetal position and lock my legs around hers. “Stay the fuck away from her.” It comes out wobbly but rips through my throat with jagged edges, and for a moment I think he might listen this time.

  But I’ve never been lucky.

  “Or what?”

  He has me. I can’t see where he is to attack him, wouldn’t get very far if I run.

  I say nothing, and he doesn’t either. It’s just our three distinctly different breathing patterns. His from one floor above, Abby’s slight, barely there, her skinny chest rising and falling against mine, but not panicked—more resigned.

  I’m so furious I think I’m exhaling smoke.

  “Don’t get any ideas. You don’t want me to tie you up, do you? I have a ball gag somewhere. Some might like to see that.”

  I never considered he’d do that. If he ties me up, how can I pathetically try to protect Abby?

  I shake my head.

  “Then maybe you should be a good girl and let Daddy get on with business.”

  I shudder. My father’s been dead since I was ten, drank himself into an early grave beside his own father, and I haven’t called anyone by the moniker since.

  The door above the staircase opens. A splash of blue leaps in the blackness and evaporates when it clicks shut.

  The hiss of his blowtorch extinguishes. Four footsteps pound until I know, tightening my arms around Abby’s crispy shoulders, that he’s right next to us, sucking in our air, sinking into a crouch.

  His fingers walk up my ankle. I pull my knee back and kick, but it hits nothing but air.

  “Please.” I hate that I have to stoop to begging. “Please don’t do this. I’ll do whatever you want. Anything, I promise. She can’t handle anymore. Please.”

  He doesn’t answer, just sparks the blowtorch again. It stains the exposed bits of his face blue for a moment until bleeding to black. He’s wearing some stupid headband in addition to the ski mask and goggles. A blinking red light flashes on it—a camera?

  Seconds tick by in slow motion. Flames spring again, and I know what he’s after—the folds of flesh half-hidden between her legs.

  I wish I was blind and it was dark again.

  I fight with everything I’m worth, which isn’t much, but he still manages to splay her legs into a quivering V.

  The torch shaves a path through a patch of curls, and the hair smokes before it melt
s and melds together, fusing into skin I know is sensitive, and only because it’s almost like I feel it too, every one of my muscles clenching like they’re performing Kegels on their own.

  Her nails claw and cut through my forearms, and she screams louder. Thick tears of rage and fear and pain I can’t even imagine seal my eyes shut. I tug Abby sideways—the only movement I can manage when pinned between the wall and him—but it doesn’t help.

  So I sag into the floor inhaling dust and old urine and cry until my lungs hurt, and I feel dryer than bone.

  ***

  Whatever happened to traumatic events giving people amnesia? Just my luck I’m not fortunate enough to forget.

  TWENTY-NINE

  “I ran traffic violations and looked through red light cams, and I might have someone,” Stacy told John, not half an hour after their last phone call. “No idea if the guy’s got anything to do with the abductions. I mean maybe he’s just an unlucky, crappy driver, huh? He blew through a red light the night of the second dump job and was stopped for speeding the night of the third. I guess someone called LAPD and gave the guy’s plates saying they thought the driver was drunk. FYI, he wasn’t, I checked the incident report.”

  He plugged the ear he wasn’t using to drown the sporadic hospital alarms and chatter of nurses in the hallway he walked through on his way to Brooke’s room. “What does he drive?”

  “White panel van. It fits, but it might be a dead end. Nothing else popped those nights. As for contracting jobs, well, there’s a boatload I’ve combed through, and I found about a hundred and fifty matches. I’ll email the information. Sorry, I wasn’t able to trim it down more, because I kept the parameters wide so nobody would slip through the cracks.”

  A hundred and fifty matches would be hell to investigate. He’d be forced to delegate to detectives and patrol units, which he hated, since he never fully trusted anyone that wasn’t him. “And the other searches?”