Project Cain (Project Cain)

by Geoffrey Girard

  Better than twenty thousand Baums, huh?

  Hell, yeah, Castillo said. He nodded, impressed. I’d just given him back the exact same number he’d quoted days ago. I gotta admit, I’m no dummy.

  So how many Albaum families in Ohio? I asked.

  Castillo turned, smiled.

  There was one.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Boston Strangler” (the man from whom Albert McCarty had gotten his DNA) is one of the more famous nicknames for serial killers. You’re not, it seems, officially part of the club until you get a nickname. I haven’t, actually, found a single serial killer yet without one. It comes gratis with the dead bodies. (I assume it helps sell newspapers.)

  These names seem to come in four main categories and, whenever possible, favor alliteration.

  1. Location (the most popular): The Bavarian Ripper, The Rostov Ripper, The Pied Piper of Phoenix, The Vampire of Sacramento, The Werewolf of Wisteria, The Monster of Rillington Place, The Cincinnati Strangler, The Sydney Mutilator, The Buttermilk Bluebeard, The Demon of the Belfry, The Skid Row Slasher, The Berlin Butcher, The Butcher of Hannover, The Mass Murderer of Munstberg.

  2. Technique: The Sunday Morning Slasher, The Granny Killer, The Happy Face Killer, The Doorbell Killer, The Machete Murderer, The BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) Strangler, The Cannibal, The Singing Strangler, The Mad Biter, The Torture Doctor, The Night Stalker, Charlie ChopOff, The Vampire Rapist. Oh, and Jack the Ripper.

  3. Appearance: Metal Fang, Candy Man, Green Man, The Fat Man, The Alligator Man, The Red Spider, Killer Clown, Bloody Face, Rattlesnake Lissemba, The Red Demon.

  4. Generic Death: The Angel of Death, The Mad Beast, The Terminator, The Boogeyman, The Death Maker, Citizen X, The Sex Beast, The Monster.

  • • •

  The “Milwaukee Monster” is what the press called Jeffrey Dahmer for a while, but it never really stuck. “DAHMER” was enough. You don’t need a nickname to make it any worse than it already is. Folk just say his name and everyone knows exactly what you mean. The MONSTER part is implied.

  • • •

  Castillo dumped me in another motel room while he went off to check out the Albaum family. If I was right, if my dad’s notes made sense and that squiggle really was supposed to be Serpent Mound, the Albaums would have an adopted son. A clone my father had given to them to raise as their own.

  Now, what Castillo would do if I was right . . . That was another story.

  • • •

  He’d been gone for hours.

  I stared at several sheets from the dozens Castillo had gotten printed before he’d left.

  The last names, if we were right about “Albaum,” were easy enough: Richardson, Sizemore, Howell, and Gilronan. But the stupid pictures were nothing but a big bunch of MAYBEs.

  I scanned Castillo’s Murder Map again, searching for any town that made sense.

  But there were thousands. Tens of thousands of little towns all across the country.

  Castillo had told me to focus mostly along Route 50. Still, there were hundreds of possibilities. And hundreds is better than thousands, Castillo had said when he’d left.

  I eyed the room’s small digital clock again. Castillo’d said he’d probably be gone a while, but it’d been five hours. Had he found the Albaum boy? The clone? Had something bad happened?

  I tried refocusing on the printouts. Made my own lists and notes next to each name and symbol. My blocky lettering right next to my father’s scribbles. Beside “Richardson” (was it a heart or a bow and arrow?), I’d written down everything from Bowmansville, Pennsylvania, to Points, West Virginia. Then there was Hunter, Ohio. Or Sherwood Forest? Or Center Point? Or maybe even Loveland? It was maddening.

  The bird could easily be Birdsville, MD, or the Baltimore Ravens or Birdseye, Indiana. Maybe Odon, Indiana, because the Norse god king Odin had two ravens as messengers. But “Odon” was spelled wrong, so I crossed it out. The other two symbols—something with a moon and a bug with a hat.

  No clue. None.

  And besides, even if I could figure it out, then what? More of the clones would be found, sure. But for the first time I stopped to think: What happens to them?

  And me?

  If this Albaum kid existed at all, he wasn’t a killer like the six who’d ripped through Massey. He was just a kid. Probably didn’t even know he was a clone. Let alone the clone of some terrible serial killer. He was just a normal kid. (Or “normal” like Albert McCarty in Delaware, right?)

  And thanks to me, Castillo was coming for him. Just like DSTI had come for me a week ago. Would Castillo tell this kid who he really was? Would they take this kid from his family now? Bring him to DSTI? That had become synonymous with something bad to me. Something unspeakable.

  I brushed the printouts aside onto the floor and eyed Castillo’s other files. He’d just left them in a pile on the chair on his side of the room. Almost like he wanted me to take a look.

  I stood over the chair. Fingers ran over the same folder again.

  JD658726h56-54 it read up top. I’d already peeked inside. Jeffrey Dahmer/54.

  The Dahmer clone Castillo was after. Jeffrey Williford. One of the six.

  I’d already flipped the folder open twice before. Just enough to see the name.

  To see pictures of the guy I would soon become. Or already was.

  Whatever else was within, I didn’t yet know.

  Didn’t want to. And, at the same time, wanted to.

  My eyes moved instead to Castillo’s book. Castillo kept it in his duffel bag, and I’d seen him reading it late at night when he thought I was sleeping. I picked it up and riffed through its pages. It was a copy of The Odyssey by Homer. I knew it had something to do with Greek mythology but hadn’t read it yet. Castillo had made little notes throughout in the margins. Had underlined and bracketed stuff too. A lot of the pages were dog-eared.

  I read one of the underscored passages:

  I am a man of much grief, but it is not fit that I should sit in another’s house mourning and wailing. It is wrong to grieve forever without ceasing.

  Then flipped to another, one Castillo had put a little star next to:

  Since it is not possible to elude the will of Jove or make it vain, let this man go alone over the barren sea.

  I wasn’t sure what it meant, but inspected some of the other marked passages.

  To me, O stranger, thou appearest now a different man from what thou wast before, thou hast other garments, and thy complexion is no longer the same. Thou art certainly one of the gods who possess the whole of heaven.

  I closed Castillo’s book, moved my eyes and hand to the folder again.

  Jeffrey Dahmer/54.

  I propped the folder open some. The first page was just numbers and a picture. The numbers made no sense. The picture was . . . The picture was what I would look like if I were . . . what? Cool, maybe. Jeff Williford looked exactly like me but not. He looked way older. Tougher. Like he wasn’t afraid of anything. (I, however, was a guy who looked like he was afraid of everything.)

  I cleared space on the small desk and opened up the folder all the way.

  There were a lot more numbers. The next page. More numbers. Asymmetry scores, MMPI fmab, MAOA, karyotype levels. And so on. It meant nothing. This folder had, at first glance, even less meaningful info than the folder my dad had given me back at the house.

  My heart weighed a thousand pounds. Hand shaking.

  What would the next page reveal?

  I’d expected everything to be spelled out. Black and white.

  THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED ABOUT “JEFF.”

  THIS IS HOW MUCH OF A KILLER “JEFF” REALLY IS.

  THIS IS WHAT “JEFF” SAID ABOUT WANTING TO MURDER.

  There was none of that.

  Just more numbers. A human being reverted to nothing more than a bunch of charts and graphs. No more than a summer science lab trying to figure out the pH levels of Ivory soap or the density of some random liquid
. No more than Mendel and his stupid peas. I turned the pages over one after another. Nothing.

  Until the second to last page. There, I saw a few notes someone had typed. My father? Another one of the smiling shrinks at DSTI? Maybe it had been Mrs. Jamieson. She was one of the smiliest shrinks they had up there. (And one of those murdered, btw.)

  need for stimulation, prone to boredom, lack of realistic long-term goals

  propensities to risk-taking behavior, promiscuous sexual behavior? deprecating attitude toward the opposite sex—likely homosexual, lack of interest in bonding

  conning/manipulative, inclinations of excessive boasting

  Ritualistic behavior/OCD? how much alcohol introduced? killed cat with bb gun. buried?

  That was all. Then another page of numbers. I turned back to the notes and looked for anything that was the same. Anything that was different between Jeffrey Dahmer/54 and me. It did not say if the other Jeffrey had musical talent. But I only played bass and not particularly well. Maybe it meant nothing. Or everything.

  “Lack of realistic long-term goals?” What the hell did that even mean? I’d never thought much beyond what was for dinner or what I needed to do that same week for schoolwork. I wanted to be a teacher maybe or, I don’t know, work for NASA or something. It wasn’t really something I spent hours sitting around thinking about. If I ever thought about the future, it was daydreams about playing bass professionally or getting paid to invent new video games. These were not, I think, “realistic long-term goals.”

  “Promiscuous sexual behavior?” Stupid. I hadn’t even kissed a girl yet. Or any guy, either, for God’s sake! So I wasn’t likely anything. If anything, I was kinda asexual, and the whole notion of hooking up and falling in love and stuff like that quite honestly terrified the shit out of me.

  Was tapping my knee all the time “OCD”? Or making sure my books were lined up in certain ways on the shelf? Or the fact that I would never, ever use the last bit of milk left in the jug, but would pour it out into the sink? Did that count?

  I’d never killed an animal like this guy had. Unless the thing with the bird . . . which had been a total accident. Did that count?

  Me and this Williford kid in this folder were genetically, physically, the exact same person.

  And genetically, physically, the exact same person as the original killer.

  But beyond the blue eyes and blond hair, how much else was the exact same? Judging by the details in the folder, not much.

  In that empty room, I cursed my father. Closed the folder, stuffed the whole thing down to the bottom of Castillo’s pile.

  I crossed the room and retrieved the scattered notes from the floor and end of the bed. The last clue had led us straight to Serpent Mound and, probably, a clone in Ohio. I’d seen it almost immediately once I’d really thought about it.

  Of all the little pictures to draw, why that? Had my dad known his adopted son would recognize it? Did you? I asked the empty room. Serpent Mound was on purpose. For me to figure out. Right? Maybe they all were. But the big remaining question: WHY?

  Something to ask my dad later, if I ever got the chance.

  I collapsed onto the bed, my mind racing a thousand different places with questions as I stared up at the ceiling. Another hour went by, maybe more. My eyes grew heavier, my thoughts darker. Eventually sleep came for me again. I didn’t mind. It would be a break from thinking.

  I closed my eyes. Slept.

  And then I murdered someone.

  • • •

  You hear his blood. From a hundred miles away, you hear it. Like . . . like the sounds of traffic moving by whizzing past through veins or rumbling like eighteen wheels his pounding heart shunting out even more blood in the whoosh whoosh whoosh sound. You hear his blood because its sounds echo in your own veins. His heart whooshing perfectly with yours now one shared heart shared blood like a car engine starting firing alive. And it’s calling out to you. Many miles pass by, you drift easily over them in the dark, always in the dark. You started at his house, moved past the dead woman in the living room followed across the street. Your own heart thumping at what he’d done there and then you just listened. For more blood. He is close now. Your prey. Your brother. You smile, the blades in your hands are sharp and brand-new they are nine inches long they were made to cut and slice meat. You see him now across the parking lot. Move slowly behind him, wait in the darkness. Hold the knives out in the glow of the building lights. He moves, you move. When he goes in, you don’t want to be seen, and wait just a little more. The sound of his blood roars like goliath machinery in your ears. Pounding, pounding. Your hands on the door, black fingers. There is a voice but it’s lost beneath the pounding, pounding. Knuckles pushing painfully at the door. The knives leave long scratches. Now you are moving, gliding over the wall as if flying behind him over him floating. The tune of his blood is boundless like God. He sees you now your dark skeletal face mirrored in his widening eyes and he is screaming but you can no longer hear his screams over the lyrical blood. You start stabbing and new sounds fill your ears, hands driving downward slicing meat. Sputtering sounds. Hissing sounds. Like . . . like air from hydraulic brakes or maybe even a slashed-open tire . . .

  • • •

  I was outside. Huh? Behind the motel. Wait!

  Reality returning as softly as it’d first snuck away.

  Crouched behind a huge dumpster. No. . . .

  Both my hands remained clenched into fists like I was holding something. I thought of sharp steel.

  How I got there, I still haven’t a clue.

  There was no one else around.

  I’d killed no one. (I told myself this anyway . . . not really knowing if it was true or not. I mean, there was no blood on me. I had no weapon. There was no body.)

  Worse thought, maybe, I’d only imagined the whole thing. Dreamed it.

  Spellbound. Sleepwalking.

  Lunatic.

  I stood up straight and got my bearings. The empty parking lot. The darkened motel. Just past the motel was the freeway, the sounds of passing cars whooshing by all too familiar.

  Obviously (or so I told myself) the reality of the nearby freeway had bled into my dream, as sounds sometimes do. What else could it have been?

  I moved slowly back to the room. The door had been left open. First I thought Castillo might be back, but then I realized I’d just left it that way. But how? Why?

  I hadn’t killed anyone, that part was still true. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t a dead guy somewhere. As much as I wanted to write it all off as some nightmare, I felt in the pit of my mind/body/soul that there was something else going on here. There was, in fact, great suspicion in my mind/body/soul that someone else had just killed. Something else.

  Because, as I crept back into the room, I could still hear all that blood.

  And I could tell that Someone Else, whoever/whatever it had been, wanted to hear more.

  I could tell this killer was just getting started.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Albaum kid was a clone.

  His parents, against my father’s instructions, called their new son Bryce, a middle name they’d added in honor of his adoptive mom’s grandfather.

  But his legal name, his REAL name, was Edward.

  Edward Bryce Albaum.

  The clone of Ed Gein.

  • • •

  This was another name I did not know. Castillo says he hadn’t heard of him either but the boy had a folder completely filled with information about Gein. (You know, charts, pictures, biographical data. That old story.) Ed Gein only murdered a couple of people. Small-time killing compared to the other guys DSTI had collected. But he is still a deity in the pantheon of serial killers. His nicknames were: “The Plainfield Ghoul” and “The Mad Butcher.” Mostly, he just dug up graves and did stuff with the bodies. Really disgusting stuff. Again, I won’t go into details here. That’s up to you. But here’s a hint:

  Ed Gein was the specific inspirat
ion for Norman Bates (the killer in Psycho who dresses like his dead mother and keeps her corpse in the house).

  Ed Gein was the specific inspiration for Buffalo Bill (the killer in Silence of the Lambs who abducts overweight women and then uses their skin to make a “woman suit” for himself).

  Ed Gein is the specific inspiration for Leatherface (the killer in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre who eats people and keeps bodies hanging on huge hooks in his house, just like dead cows).

  That’s three of the most famous serial killer movies EVER made. All from this same guy.

  It’s kinda amazing.

  The police could simply not believe what they’d found in Gein’s Wisconsin house. In fact, the local sheriff in charge was so traumatized by what he saw that he died of a heart attack less than one month after testifying in court against Gein. This sheriff was just forty-three years old.

  Neighbors burned down Gein’s house.

  In the early 1980s representatives from DSTI visited Ed Gein at the Mendota Mental Health Institute and took blood and tissue samples with his permission. They told him he’d “live forever.” And though he died a couple of years after, DSTI hadn’t completely lied. There was still a whole lot left of Edward Gein in the world.

  Skin, hair, eyes, cells, muscle, brain tissue.

  Only now, everyone was calling all that stuff Edward Bryce Albaum.

  A rose by any other name . . .

  This other-name’s whole family had been murdered.

  • • •

  Castillo found the boy alone in his house. The kid was only eleven.

  His family—mom, dad, and an older brother—were dead. Castillo said the kid had covered their heads with some opened notebooks so he wouldn’t have to see their faces.

  The Albaum kid had NOT killed his family.

  Some other kids—the kids we were looking for—had done that for him.

  • • •

  They’d come to his house two days before. Four or five teens. Pulled up in two cars and came into his house like it was their own. They bashed his father in the face with a golf club. They did worse to the others. But they left him completely alone.