Project Cain (Project Cain)

by Geoffrey Girard

The mystery of how or why this guy had found us wasn’t even the biggest issue.

  Castillo’s boss now was.

  Castillo’d spoken to him back at the motel, and apparently this guy now for the first time suspected I was with Castillo. Didn’t out and out say it but had, according to Castillo, hinted pretty strongly and had given Castillo an opportunity to come clean. Castillo hadn’t.

  And then things evidently had gotten weird.

  Castillo said his boss wanted him to come in and “talk about things” in person. Which was, according to Castillo, Defense Department–speak for “You’re done.” Castillo figured his days were numbered. Like his bosses were getting ready to sell him out. He’d somehow become a LIABILITY just like I was. Probably knew too much or something. Or maybe he’d just shot at the wrong guy.

  I felt terrible. I sat there wondering if Castillo was in trouble for not admitting to them about me. How simple for him to have just said, Oh, yeah. Jacobson’s private Dahmer clone, got him right here. Not a prob, Mr. Boss! Come and get him.

  But, for whatever reason, he hadn’t.

  Now he just sat there in the dark, pondering. Staring into space, chewing his lower lip.

  Eventually I asked what now. If he was just gonna quit the whole mission now that his bosses seemed mad at him. (What I really wanted to say was something like: WHY DON’T YOU JUST TURN ME IN? or maybe even HOW LONG UNTIL YOU DO?)

  Castillo answered my out loud question: If they tell me to.

  But I noticed he hadn’t answered his phones in hours. It would be tough for his bosses to tell him much of anything.

  Remember the Albaums? he asked in the dark.

  Edward Albaum. The first kid we’d found at Serpent Mound in Ohio. The kid whose whole family had been murdered by the kids from DSTI.

  I nodded.

  Castillo told me that a news story about the Albaums had just appeared online. The story reported that they’d died that morning when their house had burned down. Fire started in the garage. Old paint cans. Community in grief. Et cetera, et cetera.

  This morning?! It made no sense. They’d been dead for three days! The Albaums’ neighbors and coworkers and friends, the whole world, were being fed a total lie.

  I asked if DSTI burned their house down.

  Someone did, Castillo said. And he bet me that DSTI would be getting rid of other adoptive families and would be missing some more employees at their next company Christmas party.

  God, I wondered out loud, can these people just do whatever they want?

  Yes, Castillo replied.

  • • •

  What did that mean for us?

  According to Castillo, it meant my dad was right. I was a liability.

  A lot of people were now. Castillo, too, it seemed.

  He talked a lot that night. Castillo did. More than usual. Like ten whole words!

  He talked about maybe ditching me, about us going our separate ways. I appreciated his honesty. I really did. It was rare these days, and he seemed to be the only guy who gave me any. But he decided that wouldn’t work out for either one of us. He predicted I’d be dead in a couple of days. That he might get a couple of weeks. (More honesty.)

  No. The big plan now was that we still had time to work together and Save the Day.

  If we could just find the other guys. Find this canister of the bio-toxin stuff they probably had.

  I said: My dad gave it to them, didn’t he? This stuff.

  Castillo didn’t care. He just knew that if we didn’t find it by July 4, lots of people in three cities were gonna die. Die bad.

  He said: We need to find all of them. Your dad, too.

  He said: It’s the only way you and me get out of this safely.

  It sounded funny for Castillo to say it out loud. He and I had to basically save the world now just to save ourselves. Crazy talk. More crazy, he had no idea how to get started. No clue where the other guys had gotten to. Just “west.” My father was maybe, unlikely, still in Indianapolis.

  Castillo said we’d sleep a bit, try to think. Think less crazy maybe. Get moving again in a few hours, in any case.

  I handed him back his worn copy of The Odyssey.

  You’re done with it? he asked.

  Sure, I said. Plus, you like to read before you sleep.

  Castillo reached for the book, smiled wearily. He said: I try to tell myself it relaxes me.

  I asked if it did.

  He said mostly, but obviously not always. He was referring to his night terrors. He’d tucked the book away. Not even gonna try tonight, he said.

  I asked him if Kristin was the one who’d given him the book.

  He closed his eyes. Yes, he said.

  I asked if they use to, like, date and stuff, and he told me to go to sleep.

  Turns out they had a pretty complicated relationship. I figured it best to drop it.

  I slumped down, exhausted, reached out to pet the closest dog.

  I said: Good night, Castillo.

  Hey, Castillo said, and opened his eyes again.

  He asked: Where would you go to meet girls?

  I reminded him I was probably gay. How would I know?

  Castillo smiled back. It was honestly pretty damn cool to see him smile.

  He said: Dude . . . seriously, where?

  Then he told me that Kristin had said some of the guys would be looking for girls. Specifically Ted would. Cops had just found the body of Emily Collins in that dumpster. Cops were saying she and some unidentified boyfriend had butchered her whole family.

  Castillo asked again: Where would they go to pick up girls?

  I stared around the empty vet’s office, thinking. I was tired, but it was a pretty easy think. Just kept coming back to the same answer. Unless science camp was an answer, I sure know the only place I’d ever really talked to a girl. A place pretty much all the guys visited all day, every day.

  I told him to toss over his phone.

  Castillo looked real curious. Asked WHY.

  I was like, ’Cause I know a way to meet girls.

  He got up from the floor.

  Facebook, he said.

  Not bad for an old guy.

  • • •

  I hadn’t been on either website in more than six months. I mean, I was homeschooled. What was the point? Every science camp, I’d collect a dozen new contacts. This time around I had just four new friend requests. Twelve new messages about nothing. Had a total of forty-two friends on Facebook and only twenty followers on Twitter.

  One of them was named David. One was named Al.

  We clicked onto Al’s page and read the various threads and messages there.

  Clicked on to the pages of some of the girls Al was friends with.

  Henry was friends with Emily Collins.

  Jumping from site to site to site, reading their messages.

  These weren’t the fake sites these kids gave their parents to look at.

  These were the real sites. And everyone’s privacy setting was for shit.

  Then we hit a chain of messages on Twitter. Big party.

  Some girl named Laura Schriml bragging about the new guys she’d met. They were coming to the party. “Ready to party.” “Totally wild.” “YOLO.” Blah. Blah.

  Where is Orchard City? I asked.

  • • •

  Orchard City was in Colorado. Fifteen hours away.

  Castillo drove as fast as he could, and we arrived just before dark.

  He tried the parents first. The Laura girl’s parents, and then a close friend of Laura’s. Trying to figure out whose kid was having the big party. Castillo told the parents he was with the FBI or something and that some kids were planning to sell bad LSD at a local party. Just one more lie for the masses.

  Didn’t matter. These people had no clue where their kids were. Any more than us kids really know where our parents are sometimes, I suppose.

  But Orchard City isn’t that big, so we just started driving around town a bit, cruising d
own streets. Hoping to get lucky. Did this for about an hour.

  That’s when we heard the sirens.

  Castillo and I looked at each other right away.

  Knew exactly where those cars were going.

  We’d been close. But late.

  The killing had already started.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  We just followed the flashing lights.

  Red, blue, and yellow lights spinning and blinking at eighty miles an hour.

  All heading one direction.

  When we got there, the house with all the dead kids looked like every other house. Looked a lot like my house back in Jersey, actually. Wooded lot. Tucked back a ways. Big suburban we-got-money house.

  Castillo parked us just outside the flashing emergency vehicles. There were already lots of people wandering around. And not just the cops and stuff. The gawkers of Orchard City were showing up in full force. Even some parents looking for their kids. Teens still standing around, or just now showing up, waiting for their pals to come out. Their neighborhood now twinkled and flashed like a giant pinball machine.

  Castillo got out of the car. I was like, What the Hell?

  He said he had to check it out and for me to stay put. He’d be back. Same old Castillo.

  Castillo vanished into the crowd in half a second.

  I got out of the car.

  Same Jeff, too, I guess.

  • • •

  It was so damn loud. All the different sheriff cars and state troopers and fire trucks and ambulances showing up. Each one had its own annoying sound. Chirping and beeping and farting up a storm like some circus out of hell. Flares along the driveway cast the whole house in matching red flames.

  I was shivering cold even though it was still warm outside. People probably thought I was in shock or something. I worked my way easily through the growing crowd. No one knew what the heck was going on. The police were still arriving themselves, trying to organize, trying to block people off.

  I got pushed a dozen different directions. Someone even grabbed me. Some lady. She asked if I’d been in the house. I said no and she just looked at me like I was a piece of dog crap or something. Walked away without another word.

  Whatever. I kept moving deeper into the crowd. Drawn to the house. Like everyone else, I guess, I wanted to see what had happened in there. I wanted to know what these guys had done here. I deserved to know, didn’t I?

  Cops were yelling now. I saw this one kid get arrested. He was shouting at the cop about his brother. He didn’t know where his little brother was. Just kept yelling, My, brother, man. Gotta find my brother! while the cop was pulling him away.

  I moved back a bit with the crowd. Saw why the cops were yelling. Two stretchers being rushed down the driveway. With a dozen people around each one. Both completely covered with white sheets. The shapes beneath tiny. So very still.

  I naturally thought of DSTI and the pictures I’d seen.

  How many white lumps would THIS night bring?

  How many full-page portraits in the next Orchard City High yearbook?

  I pressed closer. Wanted to see more than a white sheet. Not because I was twisted and stuff. I just . . . I don’t know. I just did.

  KID, COME HERE. I heard this voice over the total commotion of the crowd.

  I think it was one of the cops. Figured he was talking to me. But didn’t wait around to find out. Dipped out of there in a hurry. Castillo was probably already back at the car, for all I knew. Getting ready to kick my ass in front of everyone for taking off on him.

  I started back. Worked my way through the crowd again, snuck between two ambulances. One of the guys in the back was complaining about how he couldn’t find his gas mask. He said the whole house reeked of “ammonia.” The guy he was with said he’d heard the bomb squad from Denver was flying in.

  Then the first guy looked over at me, said, What the hell do YOU want?

  I kept moving. So damn cold. I’d swear you could see my breath.

  I was about half a block from our car when I saw it.

  Him.

  Standing just outside the flashing lights within the night’s shadows among a clump of trees. Just a silhouette. Like the wooden cutout of a man.

  Standing there. Staring right back at me.

  I knew right away it was the same man from the motel.

  I knew it even before I saw his knives.

  • • •

  You hear their blood. From a hundred miles away, you hear it. Like music. Pulsating through veins like a bass drum, swilling like notes because its sounds echo in your own veins. Shared heart. Shared blood. And it’s calling out to you. The melody of his blood is infinite. Like a god. He sees you now, your dark skeletal face mirrored in his familiar painted clown’s eyes. And he is screaming, but you cannot hear his screams over the lyrical blood as you start stabbing and new sounds fill your ears. Hands driving downward. Slicing, splashing sounds, spraying sounds, blood has so many wonderful songs . . .

  • • •

  My whole head suddenly so heavy. Dizzy. Overstuffed all of a sudden with memories, echoes of something just passed. Then older remembrances blending with the new and the sounds of loud music, throbbing blood, screaming.

  I remembered walking down a long dark hallway. And the room filled with tall containers. Tanks filled with yellow water. Something floating within. Someone. Dozens of someones.

  The swelling hum of blood blotted out the next image/thought, and I stumbled in the street like I was drunk.

  The man with the knives moved toward me.

  • • •

  Then there was a bright light, blasting down from above.

  A helicopter—news or the cops—sweeping the scene. Its glowing beam cutting a path of light across the street and along the line of trees.

  Broken free from whatever spell I’d fallen under, I told myself I’d just imagined the dark shape. No different from the black-dress lady or nightmares or any of it. Except . . .

  I chased the thoughts from my mind, dashed the rest of the way to the car.

  Got inside in the backseat and warmed my arms with my hands. Seconds passing like minutes.

  Castillo finally emerged from the crowd. He looked pissed. Walked slowly, head down.

  I asked if it was them.

  Yeah, he said, and then handed me his cell phone.

  I was like: What’s this?

  Castillo’d started the car and was pulling slowly away down the street.

  He said: I need you to make a call.

  I said OK and asked who I was calling.

  Castillo stared me down in the rearview mirror.

  Your goddamn father, he said.

  • • •

  I’d been busted.

  Turns out one of the dead kids at the house was John Burton—John was the one who’d dressed like a clown because that’s what his DNA source had done—and he’d been gutted in the basement in his clown suit during this wild party. (There were, Castillo said, also, like, seven other dead kids lying around John. None of them was a clone, he thought, just regular kids who’d gotten in the way. Gotten in the way of some guy with knives.)

  And when Castillo had checked John’s body, he’d found a cell phone.

  And on that cell phone John had made several calls to a specific number.

  And so then Castillo got curious, checked his own phone records online.

  And that was that.

  Same number was on HIS phone records too.

  The three calls I’d made to my dad.

  Guess my dad had given out his new secret number to ALL his sons.

  • • •

  Hey. Hey, Dad.

  It’s me.

  Jeff. Jeff!

  No. Jeff Jacobson.

  Yeah. I’m . . . I’m OK. I know you told me not—

  Where are you? I need . . . I need to see you.

  No. It’s just . . . Yes. I guess. Is that OK?

  Winter Quarter? Quarters. No. Utah? Y
eah, I can look it up. Thanks. I . . .

  Midnight. Yes.

  Are you OK? You . . .

  Dad?

  When will you—

  Yeah. OK. . . . I—

  Yes.

  Yeah.

  I love you too.

  • • •

  My dad had finally agreed to meet me.

  The next night at midnight. Someplace called Winter Quarters in Utah.

  Castillo asked if I’d ever been there, and I told him no.

  I told Castillo: Sorry.

  He ignored that and just kept driving west.

  I didn’t care if he was furious or disappointed with me or not. I was totally excited.

  We were finally gonna see my dad!

  Or at least that was what I thought.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  It was another whole day until it was midnight again, the time when we were supposed to meet up with my dad. But Winter Quarters was only five hours away. So we slept some outside a McDonald’s right near Grand Junction, and then later in the morning Castillo found a Barnes & Noble and picked up a bunch of the books I’d asked for.

  Books on Jack the Ripper.

  These I read quietly while we drove for another three hours.

  • • •

  Castillo found somewhere to park at the Green River State Park. An hour north of Winter Quarters. Waiting for midnight. Castillo tried sleeping again. Couldn’t. He seemed anxious. Ready to get the day started for real. I kept reading, dozed off a little bit too. Neither one of us was much for talking. I assumed he was still pissed about me secretly calling my dad and not telling him about it. Probably assumed there was all sorts of things I was keeping from him.

  I was too embarrassed to talk. I HAD betrayed Castillo a bit.

  Figure he’d saved my neck a couple of times already. I probably should have said something earlier about the calls. But I didn’t even know what to say about them now. So I just kept my mouth shut.

  Lunch was Pop-Tarts and warm bologna. Dinner too.

  Waiting.

  Around seven I about jumped up through the roof of the parked car.

  What? Castillo even reached for his gun.

  I’d finally found something in the book.

  One of the biggest puzzle pieces yet.

  This puzzle piece, like so many of the others, was blood colored.