That was Max's dad.
"No!" I screamed, but it was too late—Max's dad looked up, looked right at me, and Crowley staggered toward him, claws out, knocking him to the ground with a gleaming claw and then falling on him with animal fury. Max's dad went down in a whirlwind of blood and claws, and Crowley stood over him unsteadily for a moment before collapsing next to the body. Both men lay inert in the frozen slush. The street was silent as a grave.
I took a tentative step forward. Crowley had pushed himself too hard—maybe he'd pushed himself past his own ability to regenerate. He hadn't even taken an organ yet. Maybe Max's dad was still alive, and I could help him. The houses were dark and still—no one had heard my scream, or the attack.
I trotted slowly across to the bodies, nearly slipping on a patch of ice. Nothing moved.
As I got closer, I could see that Max's dad was beyond hope—his body was in pieces, ragged and bloody. A pile of entrails lay steaming on the frozen asphalt. I felt the monster inside of me stirring more strongly than ever, urging me to kneel down, to feel the glistening organs. I closed my eyes and fought for control. When I opened my eyes again I looked at Crowley, face down and still half demon, his elongated arms corded with inhuman muscle. His long, black fingers ended in terrifying claws as white as milk. Like the exposed entrails, Crowley's body was steaming in the cold.
I wanted to kick him. I wanted to punch him and beat him and pound him into the street until there was nothing left— no demon claws, no human body, no clothes, no memory at all. My mind raged to think of all the evil he'd done, but it was more than that. I was jealous. He'd killed himself, and taken away my chance.
The steam boiled around him, and suddenly his body spasmed. I jumped back, slipping on the ice and falling onto my back. The demon's head came up abruptly, gasping for breath through a mouth too full of fangs to be real. I scrambled to my feet and backed away again. The demon feebly pushed itself up on its arms, and turned to face me. Its dark eyelids slid grotesquely over its wide, crystalline eyes, as it if couldn't see me clearly. I felt my face to make sure the ski mask was still there. In this darkness, it probably couldn't tell who I was. Its fangs glowed faintly in the darkness, pale and phosphorescent. It crawled toward me one faltering claw-length before collapsing again on the ice. It coughed and turned its head, searching for something, and when its gaze fell on the tattered remnants of Max's dad, it forgot me and painfully crawled toward them.
I took a few quick steps around it, trying to see if I could move the body—drag it out of the demon's reach—but it was too close. I'd missed my chance. The demon was going to regenerate, and then it was going to come after me. I could only hope that it hadn't recognized me in the dark. If I could get away quickly, and stay ahead, it might never know I was there.
My house was twenty minutes away by bike during the day, but I made it there in ten—speeding down the middle of empty streets, barreling heedlessly through intersections, taking time only to stay out of the snow in order to leave no tracks.
I placed my bike carefully against the side of the house, trying to match its previous position as closely as I could, just in case; the house had to look exactly as it was when he left, so it wouldn't suspect me. I crept up the stairs and listened at our door—the TV was off, and it sounded like Mom had gone to sleep. I opened the door quietly and slipped into the darkness, locking it tightly behind me. I tore off my gloves and ski mask, grateful for the warmth, and flopped wearily onto the couch. I was safe.
But something was wrong, and I couldn't put my finger on it.
Everything seemed quiet enough, but not too quiet—the clock in the kitchen was ticking like normal, the furnace was blowing as usual. I listened at my mom's door, rubbing my hands together in the cold, and heard her low, even breathing. Everything was fine—
Why was it cold? I hadn't noticed at first, because it was so much warmer than outside, but I could tell now, especially here in the hall, that it was definitely cooler than it should have been. I opened my door to check my room, but the handle wouldn't turn. It was locked.
I'd left by the window, not the door, and the window was still open.
Mr. Crowley would be home any minute, wondering who had been watching him, and he'd see my open window and the footprints in the snow below it. He'd get suspicious; he'd wonder if it had been closed when he left. He'd come to check, and there I'd be, alone in the dark, locked out of my room, wide awake at one in the morning. Mom would wake up and ask—in front of him—how I got out of my room. He'd know, and he'd kill us both.
I started to go back to the stairs, to go outside and close it, but that would be even worse—he'd come home and see me outside, trying to climb back into the second story window, and know that I had followed him.
My bedroom door opened in, so I couldn't reach the hinges to pop them off. I thought about kicking it down, but I didn't know if I could—and I knew that Mom would hear me and wake up, and she'd never forgive me for destroying a door. I was amazed she could sleep in this cold at all. I peeked out the living room window. The street was clear. He was still gone, there was still time. What could I do?
Crowley would get suspicious if he saw me trying to hide, but what if I didn't hide at all? The street was still empty; I pulled off my coat and put on my old one—it was a different color than the one he'd seen me in—and went back outside without my gloves or ski mask. I reached the snowbank below my window and crawled up onto it just in time. Mr. Crowley's headlights appeared at the end of the street, far away. I watched them draw closer and closer, watched the car itself come into view, and just as it started to slow I ran out in front of it, waving my arms wildly in the headlights. The car screeched to a stop, and he unrolled his window.
"John, what in blazes are you doing out here?"
"Can I sleep at your house tonight?" I asked.
"What?"
"Mom and I had a fight," I said. "I jumped out of my window. I was going to run away, but. . . it's cold. Can I please sleep in your house?"
He glanced across the street at my house, my window open, and my curtains flapping faintly in the breeze.
"Please?" I asked.
"I don't think that's a good idea," he said. "My house isn't. . . it's not safe to be out like this at night, John, there are . . . prowlers. It's not safe for you or your mother."
"Don't take me back," I said, trying to summon up tears.
I couldn't. "I don't want her to know I left."
He thought a minute. I could tell he was healthier than before—more alert, more composed, and far more steady. You could barely tell he'd been sick. "If I promise not to tell your mother, will you go home?"
"My bedroom door is locked from the inside—I can't gel back in, and if she sees me in the living room she'll find out eventually."
He thought a moment longer, and glanced nervously around the neighborhood; he obviously thought his stalker was watching. "My ladder will reach," he said at last. "We can put you back in that way—but you've got to promise not to run out like this again."
"And you won't say anything to Mom?"
"I promise," he said. "Deal?"
"Deal." He drove past me into his driveway, and together we pulled his extendable ladder from his shed, and set it up under my window. "Can you get it put away by yourself?" I asked.
"I'm an old man," he said, smiling, "but I'm not helpless."
"Thanks," I said, and climbed up to my window. I got inside, waved at him, and he folded the ladder up and took it away. I closed the window tightly, closed my curtains, and watched him from the darkness. I'd fooled him again.
Mr. Crowley put the ladder away and went inside—but didn't close his door. I kept watching, intrigued, and a moment later he came back out and did something I didn't expect—he wrote something on a piece of paper and taped it to his door. I rummaged in the dark for my binoculars, and tried
to focus on the note without budging my curtains. It was too dark to read. I sat by the window all night, waiting, and w
hen morning came I looked, reading through the binoculars in the feeble pre-dawn light.
YOU COULDN'T STOP ME, AND YOU NEVER WILL
It was a note to his stalker, flaunting his power and practically promising to keep killing more people, again and again.
It was barely a week since the last one—how much longer 'til the next? He was a killer, cold-blooded and evil, no matter how much he loved his wife or helped his neighbor. He was a demon. It was a demon.
And it had to die.
15
The new death was all over the news the next morning:
Roger Bowen, local truck driver, husband, and father, was found torn in half in the street in front of his house. The killer hadn't even bothered to move the body, let alone hide it.
Mom looked like she wanted to hug me—to reassure me, or herself, that everything was going to be okay. I suppose that's what mothers are supposed to do, and I felt guilty that mine couldn't do it. I could tell by the way she watched me that she wanted to comfort me, and that she knew I didn't need to be comforted. I wasn't sad, I was thoughtful. I didn't feel bad that he was dead, I felt guilty that I hadn't been able to stop his killer. I wondered, then, if I was doing all of this because I wanted to save the good guys, or if I just wanted to kill the bad guy. And I wondered if that made a difference.
Mom asked after a while if I wanted to call Max, and I knew, objectively, that I should have, but I didn't know what to say, so I didn't. Just as no one could comfort me, I couldn't comfort anyone else—that was the realm of empathy, and I would be completely useless. I suppose I could have said "Hey, Max, I know who killed your dad, and I'm going to kill him back," but I'm not an idiot—sociopath or not, I'm smart enough to know that's not how people talk to each other. Better to keep it all a secret.
As soon as the police cleared the crime scene on Saturday night there was a vigil for Max's dad. It was not a funeral—the FBI forensic team was only just beginning their autopsy—but a simple gathering, where we all came together and lit candles and prayed, or whatever. I wanted to watch Crowley's house instead, but Mom made me go. She pulled a couple of old dinner candles from a back drawer somewhere and we drove over. I was surprised at how big the vigil was.
Max was sitting on his porch, surrounded by his sister, his mom, and the whole Bowen family from out of town, who'd driven in to comfort them. It seemed to me that they'd want to drive away from a town under threat from a serial killer, not into it, but what did I know? Emotional connections made you do stupid things, I guess.
Margaret joined us, and we put flowers in the street where the body had been found; there was already a big pile. Someone had started a second pile for Greg Olson, also a family man, and still missing, but it wasn't nearly as big; many people still clung to the idea that he was guilty of something. Mrs.
Olson and her son were there, showing solidarity with the community, but there was a police escort hovering nearby, just in case anyone started a fight.
I was cold, and I was anxious to get back to watch Crowley's house, but most of all I was bored—all we were doing was standing around holding candles, and I didn't see the point,
We weren't accomplishing anything. We weren't finding the killer, or protecting the innocent, or giving Max a new dad.
We were just there, milling around, watching impotent little flames melt our candles, drop by drop.
At least our neighborhood-watch meeting had used a fire. I could start one now—we'd be warm, we'd have light, and, well. . . we'd have a big fire. That was its own reward. I looked around for something that would burn, but Mom pulled me suddenly toward the other edge of the vigil.
"Hello, Peg," she said, reaching out and hugging Mrs.
Watson. Brooke and her family had just arrived, all crying.
Brooke's face was wet with teardrops, round and raised like blisters, and I had to stop myself from reaching out to touch them.
"Hello April," said Mrs. Watson. "It's so terrible, isn't it? It's just so ... Brooke, honey, can you take the flowers over? Thanks."
"John can show you where they are," my Mom said quickly, turning to face me.
I shrugged. "Come on," I said, and Brooke and I walked through the crowd. "It's a good thing I'm here," I said, half joking and half bothered. "It's pretty hard to find the big pile of flowers in the middle of the street."
"Did you know him?" Brooke asked.
"Max?"
"His dad," she said, wiping her eyes with a gloved finger.
"Not very well," I said. I did know him pretty well, actually—he was loud, arrogant, and shot his mouth off about anything he had even half an opinion on. I hated him. Max idolized him. He was better off without him.
We reached the pile and Brooke set down the flowers.
"Why are there two piles?" she asked.
"That one's for the missing guy, Greg Olson."
She knelt down and pulled a flower out of her bouquet, and took a step toward the smaller pile.
"Brooke," I said, then stopped.
"What?" Her face darkened. "You don't think he's the killer, do you?"
"No, I just . . . Do you think this helps? We throw some flowers in a street, and tomorrow he lolls another one. We're not helping anything."
"I think maybe we are," said Brooke. She sniffled, and wiped her nose. Her eyes were red from crying. "I don't know what happens when we die, or where we go, but there's gotta be something, right? A heaven, or another world. Maybe they're watching us, I don't know—maybe they can see us." She placed her flower on Greg Olson's pile. "If they can, maybe it will cheer them up to know we didn't forget them." She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering in the cold, and looked off into the darkness.
"Max remembers his Dad pretty dang well," I said, "but that doesn't bring him back. And what about all the others? He's killed people we don't even know about—he must have. If he hid Greg Olson's body, he's probably hidden somebody else's. If remembering's important, then what happens to them? Nobody even misses them."
Brooke's eyes teared up again. "That's terrible." Her face was bright red from cold, as if someone had slapped her hard on both cheeks. It made me mad to look at her, and I felt my breathing speed up.
"I didn't mean to make you sad," I said. I stared at my candle, deep into the heart of the flame. Remember me. . . .
Brooke took another flower from her bouquet and set it off to the side, starting a third pile on the street.
"What's that for?" I asked.
"For the others," she said.
I thought of the drifter at the bottom of Freak Lake. Did he care that some stupid girl put a flower in the street? He was still at the bottom of the lake, and the man who put him there was still killing, and that flower wasn't going to help either situation.
I turned to walk away, but someone walked past and placed another flower on Brooke's new pile. I stopped short, staring down at the two flowers crossed on the asphalt. A moment later a third one joined them.
Everyone seemed to know what was going on. It was like watching a flock of birds wheeling in the sky, turning and dropping and soaring without any command—they just knew what to do, like a shared mind. What happened to the other birds—the ones who couldn't read the signals, and kept going straight when the flock took a wide, communal turn?
I heard a familiar voice and looked up—Mr. Crowley had arrived, with Kay alongside, and they were talking to someone just ten feet away. He was crying, just like Brooke—just like everybody but me. Heroes in stories got to fight hideous demons with eyes red as burning coals; my demon's eyes were only red from tears. I cursed him then, not because his tears were fake, but because they were real. I cursed him for showing me, with every tear and every smile and every sincere emotion he had, that I was the real freak. He was a demon who killed on a whim, who left my only friend's dad lying in pieces on a frozen road, and he still fit in better than I did. He was unnatural and horrible, but he belonged here, and I did not.
I was so far away from
the rest of the world that there was a demon between us when I tried to look back.
"Are you okay?"
"What?" I asked.
It was Brooke, looking at me strangely. "I said are you okay? You were grinding your teeth—you look like you're ready to kill someone."
Please help me, I begged her silently. "I'm fine." I'm not fine, and I am going to kill someone, and I don't know if I'll be able to stop. "I'm fine, let's go back."
I walked back to Mom. Brooke followed, her hands shoved tightly into her pockets, her eyes darting up to my face every few steps.
"Can we go?" I asked Mom. She turned to me in surprise.
"I'd like to stay a while longer," she said, "I haven't talked to Mrs. Bowen yet, and you haven't seen Max, and—"
"Can we please go?" I kept my eyes on the ground, but I could tell everyone was staring at me.
"We started a new flower pile," said Brooke, breaking into the awkward tension. "There's one for Mr. Bowen, and one for Mr. Olson, but we started a new one for the victims we don't know about. Just in case."
I glanced at her, and she smiled back, weak and . . . something. How was I supposed to know? I hated her then, and myself, and everyone else.
People were still staring at me, and I couldn't tell if they were staring at a human or a monster. I wasn't even sure which I was anymore.
"It's okay," said Mom, "we can go. It was nice to see you,
Peg. Margaret, please give our regards to the Bowens." We walked to the car and I got in quietly, rubbing my legs in the cold seat. Mom started the car and blasted the heater, but it still took a few minutes before anything warmed up.
"That was very sweet of you to start a new pile," said Mom, halfway home.
"I don't want to talk," I said.
I could feel myself getting worse—dark thoughts crawled over and through me like maggots in a carcass, and it was all I could do to quell them. I wanted to kill Mr. Crowley, but not anybody else. The monster was confused, and ratded my mind like the bars of a cage. It whispered and roared, begging me constantly to hunt, to kill, to feed it. It wanted more fear. It wanted to possess. It wanted Mom's head on a pole, and Margaret's, and Kay's. It wanted Brooke tied to a wall, screaming for no one but us. Over the past few weeks, I'd found myself yelling at it to stop, or hurting myself to hurt it, but it was stronger than I was. I could feel my control slipping.
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