I couldn’t see anything down the street. The Sizemore house, Henry’s blue car, and half the block lost beneath a low dip in the road. Thought about getting out of the car to see. Did Castillo want me to just wait in the car or what? My eyes darted about the car’s various mirrors, a hundred angles showing more of nothing.
Looked down to study the gearshift, finally found PARK.
By the time I looked up, a car was passing. A dark blue car.
And Henry was driving.
I froze. I’d met Henry a dozen times at DSTI. But in less than a month, he already looked like a different kid. Older. Darker. Maybe it wasn’t even him (wishful thinking). Because if Henry turned right then and saw me . . .
But the car totally passed. Kept going.
I’d already collapsed against the steering wheel.
The car door flew open. I cursed, scared.
It was Castillo yelling at me to get out of the way. So I scooted over, and Castillo hopped in and tossed the car into reverse and pulled a quick K-turn that would have made stuntmen applaud. Castillo told me Henry had just knocked at the door, talked to the Sizemore dad for a minute, and then taken off again.
Castillo thought he was just casing the place and would probably come back later with the other guys.
To free Gary Sizemore. And to kill again.
• • •
We followed Henry’s car. Just like in the movies. Always a couple of cars back.
I could easily imagine Castillo doing the same in some car over in the Middle East. Slowly weaving through some crowded Baghdad street. Guy looked like he was having fun. His specific prey right in front of him now for the first time in years, I figured.
He called his Department of Defense boss and told him he was pursuing Henry in Hitchcock, Indiana.
For the first time it really hit me that I’d done this. I’m the one who’d figured out the town and the family that had a clone. I’M the one who’d captured Henry and probably the others. And I’d figured out more of the clues too. Working with Castillo, I really could fix this whole thing. Get everything back to normal.
Or whatever the new normal was going to be. But something NOT this.
At the VERY least we’d found one of the original six.
A murderer. A guy who’d killed teachers and classmates.
At the VERY least, we’d found Henry.
• • •
About Henry.
He was seventeen. His adopted name was Henry Roberts.
His Clone Name was Henry/61. One of SEVENTY Henrys made in DSTI’s laboratories. Sixty alone had died in various Ukrainian girls’ wombs. (Quite normal for clones. The miscarriages, I mean.)
His Parent Gene (his original DNA) was that of Henry Lee Lucas.
Henry Lee Lucas murdered about a hundred people.
Lucas’s first victim was his own mother. He was twenty-four. He’d used a knife.
Of course, when Lucas was a boy, she beat him and his brother so badly, they often went into comas that lasted days. One beating, Henry Lee lost an eye. She would have sex with men in front of her children. She’d dress her son up in girl’s clothing and encourage the men to touch him. One day, the teachers at school gave him a teddy bear, and when he got home, his mother beat him for “accepting charity.” (And I’m not saying it’s right that he killed her. Only, I suppose, that it maybe shouldn’t have been a surprise for either of them.)
After his mom, Henry drifted along between the southern highways and towns from Florida to Texas. Killing and killing until he was caught in 1983. Lucas was supposed to be executed, but the governor of Texas at the time (that’d be one George W. Bush), changed his death penalty sentence to life in jail. Lucas was the only Texas inmate on death row ever to get this pardon. All the rest were executed.
Why? Because my father made a phone call. That’s why.
See, when George W. Bush was the governor of Texas, his father was president and an ex-director of the CIA. Word trickled up, and then down again, that a little company outside Philadelphia doing work for the Department of Defense wanted Henry Lee Lucas to stick around a little longer. Done.
The next batch of Henrys showed up just two years later.
I always thought Henry, Henry Roberts, was a dick. He’d do stupid things like fart on you or run his thumb between your ass cheeks as you walked past. He’d call you over to look at something on the Internet, and it’d always be something gross and sexual. I hated when he was at Massey. I hated being around him.
But I didn’t know everything about him then. I do now.
Or enough.
I know that Henry Roberts was “adopted” out to a woman DSTI found somehow.
I know she was paid to beat him. Paid to dress him up as a girl.
I know she was paid to have sex in front of him with men. And sometimes the men would do stuff to Henry, too.
I know that somewhere in the tristate area, another “Henry” was adopted out to another family who never did a thing to him. They were paid to raise him as tenderly as possible. To dote on him. Spoil him. With love. (Guess money CAN buy you love after all).
DSTI, my father, did this to determine if there’d be a difference in the end.
Nature/Nurture.
Did the NATURE of our genetic makeup determine who individuals eventually became? OR was it the NURTURE of our environment and upbringing? Or, likely, if it was some combination of the two, was one the more dominant influence?
One of the world’s oldest and deepest questions still being sorted out, it seemed.
Would BOTH Henrys end up with knives in the their hands in the end?
Would the violence inside grow if nurtured properly?
This is what the Department of Defense was doing with its money.
• • •
I didn’t want to know any of this.
I didn’t want to know anything about what was really going on.
I didn’t want to know how the world really worked.
I wanted to be clueless like everybody else.
• • •
We followed him for maybe half an hour. Castillo hadn’t made a single sound, and I followed his lead. Henry did a Burger King drive-through and then finally turned into something called the Paddy Creek Park. Castillo drove past and doubled back after a few minutes.
Henry had parked and already vanished. The rest of the parking lot was empty. The summer sun had dipped behind the heavy trees that surrounded the park.
Castillo parked far away from Henry’s car and got out. Told me to stay put.
He handed me his cell with a number already punched in. Told me to call it if he wasn’t back in ten minutes. To tell them Paddy Creek.
I assumed “them” was the Department of Defense. Or DSTI. Technically different players in all of this, but still on the same team as far as I was concerned.
Castillo said: You don’t have to be here when they arrive.
It occurred to me finally that Castillo could be coming up on four, five, six ruthless killers. Bred for their violence. Already killed before. Sure, I’d seen Castillo handle those dirtballs at the motel, but this . . . this was something else entirely.
I wished I could help him. Get out of the car and go into that park with him. But there was nothing I could do now. I’d done enough. Or, if not enough, maybe I’d done all I really could.
I just said: Be careful.
Castillo nodded and started off into the park.
He’d been gone about a minute. Alone, phone.
I figured it was a good time to call my dad.
• • •
Hello? Is there—
Dad? Dad!
It’s Jeff. Yeah, I . . . I’m in Hitchcock.
Yeah. Yeah. I figured out The Birds and—
Yes, I saw him.
I figured out some of the other clues too. I—
Oh. I figured you wanted me to—
OK. Then OK. Fine. Henry is here too.
Yes. I don’t k
now.
Where are YOU?
Fine. I guess it doesn’t matter anyway.
Hey, I want . . . I need to ask you a question.
Why me?
Why ME? Why Dahmer? You could have chosen any of them.
It matters to me.
OK.
Well, that’s not what—
No. I haven’t.
No. I won’t.
You’re wrong.
Why can’t I? How much worse?
But, Dad—
Yeah. Bye.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I’d gotten out of the car and made off in the same general direction that Castillo’d gone. Couldn’t stay in that car one minute longer by myself. I followed along the upper road, with the park down below. I passed Henry’s blue car and wandered deeper into the park. There were picnic tables and then some restrooms and a playground to my right. And trails vanishing deeper into the woods. To my left, a gravel drive down to a wide open space of some kind. The thought of going into the woods didn’t appeal, so I went left. Good choice.
The path overlooked a small outdoor amphitheater. The seats were long descending rows of grass marked off with sunken wood planks. Below, a concrete stage four feet off the ground, covered with a simple wood roof. Perfect for a small concert or something.
Tonight’s show was something altogether different.
There was Henry right up on the stage. Something at his feet.
A body.
Wrapped in an old blue tarp.
Castillo was at the far right side of the stage. He was talking to Henry. The specific words lost in the distance between them and me. Talking, yes, but Castillo also had his gun out.
I crept behind a tree and watched.
Watched them talk more. Watched Henry pull out a knife.
Watched Henry crouch down to grab hold of the body.
A woman, I saw clearly now.
Castillo getting closer.
Henry shouting. Lifting the knife.
Castillo shooting. Henry folding over sideways like he had no bones.
Castillo rushing to Henry’s body. Trying to stop the bleeding. Trying CPR. Cursing.
Henry dying anyway.
I approached slowly. Castillo saw me, tried waving me back away, but I just kept moving closer. I had to see.
Death had been hovering just out of sight for weeks now.
It was time we officially met.
• • •
My relationship with Death prior to all of this, prior to watching Henry bleed out on that stage:
1. I had been brought to a grave and told my mother was buried there. For a long time, I thought that was Death. Just not being HERE. Being somewhere else. In the ground. In Heaven. Whatever.
2. At a summer camp once, a boy named Collin kept picking up caterpillars and pulling them apart. The big fuzzy ones. He’d just hold them between his two hands and pull. Kept laughing the whole time too, like it was the greatest thing ever. I told him to stop. He wouldn’t. I got crying pretty good and the counselors eventually got involved. Collin acted like he didn’t know it was wrong, apologized, and was off playing again in ten seconds like nothing had ever happened. The counselors talked to me for, like, half an hour, like I was the one who was the freak. A small pile of dead caterpillars at our feet. For a long time, I thought that was Death. Something that was done TO you.
3. About four years ago, we were living in Bryn Mawr and this older kid from the neighborhood was on drugs and stuff and spent the night out in the woods stoned in the middle of winter and got hypothermia. My dad and I were there when they pulled his half-frozen body out of the woods. There were all these police and stuff, and everyone was there. The police lights flashing against the newly fallen snow. His body was covered. My dad said he was in a coma. The next day, my dad said they had to cut off his feet and hands to try to save him. Couple of days later, my dad said the kid was dead. This was Death now too. Something that just happened.
OK, one more Death Story. The incident with the bird.
I’d never given the whole thing much thought after the day it happened. But these Project Cain days, I was thinking about it all the time.
It’d gotten into our house when I was younger. Flapping all over the place, confused, scared, trying to get back out, and my dad was trying to chase it out with a blanket. I was just a little kid. I thought it was funny. Exciting. I kept running around the house. Making too much noise. Jumping around in my pajamas kinda thing. Being a little kid, you know. Well, as I was running around, this bird, it, like, swoops down for the opened door. I mean, it’s a foot away from freedom.
And then I stepped on it.
Not on purpose. I will go to my grave swearing that. But it happened. One in a million, right? Chance. Or Fate. Or an “On Purpose” I will never, ever, ever recognize. But I somehow stepped, stomped, right on it. Felt it squish beneath my bare toes. Warm and soft. Blood and guts burst onto the carpet. Tiny drops. I’d never screamed so loud in my life. (I have since.)
I remember looking up and my dad just staring at me. His face. Horror. Shock. Fascination. I don’t know. Now, of course, I get why he was staring at me like that. I’d just ruined everything, maybe. Ruined the “perfect” nurtured environment he’d created for me. Or maybe this was just the opportunity he’d always been waiting for. To see the true MONSTER hidden inside his clone. Would I pick up the bird? Play with its exposed intestines? Would I run outside and immediately stomp another bird?
No. THIS monster ran to his room and cried himself to sleep.
• • •
Henry was dead. There was blood everywhere.
I mean EVERYWHERE.
It was like he’d exploded.
And there was weird black stuff all over Henry’s stomach that wasn’t blood.
I didn’t know what it was.
Castillo was on his phone. Talking to his people. He put the phone away and bitched about me being out of the car.
I’d stopped moving toward the stage but I could see the woman now.
Now that Death and I had met more formally, he was everywhere.
She looked bad. Dirty. Her skin was odd colors. Bad colors. I think she’d been dead for a while. I asked: Is that . . .
Castillo told me it was one of the missing nurses from Massey. One of the two that had vanished the first night with my father and the six boys. He confirmed that she and Henry were both dead.
I asked Castillo why he’d shot him.
Castillo explained that Henry had a knife, that he’d thought the nurse might still be alive and Henry was gonna kill her. He explained that he’d only and purposefully hit him in the shoulder and didn’t expect it to be such a damaging shot. Then he cursed at me.
I just stared at the two bodies. Perfectly level with my view of the raised stage.
Castillo said: Look, Jacobson, I ain’t gonna apologize for this shit.
Castillo said: Henry gave me no choice here. I just did what I was trained to do.
I looked up from the two bodies to Castillo.
I said: So did Henry.
CHAPTER THIRTY
We crashed in some motel in east Missouri. It was afternoon. Castillo lay on his back in his bed, fully dressed, staring up at the ceiling. I was in my own bed kinda freezing my ass off. Maybe from the room’s AC, which was clearly broken, the unit frequently humming and rattling like a living creature nested across the room. Mostly I thought I had a cold or something. Felt just awful, really.
I’d spent most of that whole day hiding at the end of the street, waiting for Castillo to finish up with the people he worked with. They’d eventually come to the park. Cleaned up everything. Henry and Nurse Stacy, too. Just as if none of it had ever happened.
Here we were, just a few hours later. Castillo looked upset. I was used to seeing him mad, but this was different. He looked kinda sad. I asked him what was wrong. I expected him to say something about killing Henry. That he was upset about that, which I honestly
think he was.
Instead he sat up, passed over his smartphone to me. On it was a picture I hadn’t seen before.
A picture of a notecard.
Words written in my father’s handwriting.
A notecard and words smeared with blood.
ShARDhARA
ZODIaC BaBYSITTeR PhaNTOM
Independence Day
I also gave birth to the 21st century
Castillo’s government contacts had just sent this to him.
Pictures from some crime scene.
They’d already confirmed it was my father’s handwriting.
• • •
The AC started shuddering so bad, for a minute it felt like the whole room was shaking.
Shardhara?
I asked Castillo where they’d found the card.
Just outside of Indianapolis.
He’d wanted me to see just the picture of the notecard, but I thumbed back to the previous picture. I couldn’t tell what I was looking at.
Something spread all over a bed. Black stains everywhere. Mostly red, however. I think it was a woman I was looking at. I saw hair. Wet with blood.
I cursed, slammed the phone against the wall. Castillo lunged up to take the phone back from me. Too late, I said, and gave the phone back. I asked: Who is she?
Just some woman, he said and added that the card was next to her when they found her.
Had my father done this? Had he just written the note? Had he really killed this woman? No, not just killed her. Butchered her . . .
For so long now I’d clung to the possibility that my dad had really nothing to do with this. That he’d just been another victim in all of this.
But not a killer himself. Not . . .
It was getting harder and harder to make excuses for him. To pretend like I didn’t know what Castillo knew. That my father was behind (in front of?) all of this.
He was the one calling the shots.
And people were getting killed.
Castillo asked: You OK?
Yeah, I lied again.
• • •
Castillo tried to move on from the woman and focus on the card my dad had written. Turns out all three names on the card were serial killers from specific cities. Three serial killers who’d never been caught. NOT clones, because no one ever figured out who these guys were.
Project Cain (Project Cain) Page 19