by E. R. FALLON
A young man in a dark blue uniform exited the building through a side door, stood on the pavement, and lit a cigarette. A facility worker on his break. The city was large enough that he minded his own business and didn’t pay attention to me, a stranger loitering outside.
When he put out his cigarette and I knew I had limited time left to approach him and ask if he knew Rachel, I stepped close and described Rachel to him, fully aware I’d look suspicious. Again, I pretended to be a relative of hers and the man’s posture became less threatening.
“You’re a relative? All right, then. I was going to say how you look a lot like her,” he said.
“Everyone tells me that.” I managed a smile. “You do know her?”
“Yeah. I’m one of the attendants they have working with the lunatics in there.” He chuckled, and had the hacking laugh of a lifelong smoker. “Joking. I’m joking. Rachel’s not as mad as the others. That’s why she’s allowed to come and go.”
“She can come and go, isn’t that an odd privilege for a patient? How well do you know her?”
“I know her pretty good. Better than you it seems. She’s an adult and what we call a voluntary patient, so she can leave when she likes but she hasn’t wanted to move out entirely. I think she has nowhere else to go. I don’t think her family wants her to move in with them.”
The irony of her having been declared mentally stable enough to enter and exit as she desired didn’t elude me.
He looked at me askew. “Shouldn’t you know all this since you’re her relative?”
“I haven’t seen her in a very long time,” I said.
The orderly nodded but I could tell he didn’t quite trust me any longer. “Like I said, I get the sense she stays here because she doesn’t have anywhere else to go, no family who are willing to deal with her. But all that will change now, won’t it, with you here?”
“It should, yes.” I thought up a question a relative would ask. “Do you know how she’s been lately?”
“I know she has a fellow. I figure her brother would want to know that.” He grinned.
“What’s his name?” I asked.
“Don’t remember his name. A-something I think, or maybe that’s his nickname. Yeah, that’s it—she calls him A. Rachel told me he’s a friend of her family’s and that he travels a lot, to France and places. Apparently, he has more than one apartment in more than one city, due to his work. I get the feeling her family are rich folks. Judging by how they treat Rachel, they’re not very nice people, I’m sorry to say. I have hope you’re a better person.” He stared at my clothes as though he wondered how the hell I fit into the picture. “My name’s Brian, by the way.”
We shook hands.
“What’s her fellow’s line of work?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. Something that requires him to travel a lot, she said. He comes to visit her once in a while, more than her family, that is. They hardly ever come.” Brian gave me a judgmental glance. “I’ve finished my break and can take you upstairs if you’d like to see if she’s around.”
I didn’t want to tell him that I’d seen her go inside but hadn’t approached her.
“I know she leaves for work at some point in the late afternoon,” Brian said.
“She has a job?” My surprise became exposed through my voice.
He watched me closely. “Yeah, she’s a cashier at the department store down the street. The store’s one of our work program sponsors. I have to head in, so do you want me to take you inside with me and tell her you’re here to see her, or what?”
I pretended to check my pockets for my phone. “You know what, I left my phone in my car. Is it all right if I run and fetch it first? I’m parked a few blocks away. I can come inside when I’ve retrieved it.”
I wanted to check out where Rachel worked, as though understanding her life could have aided me in comprehending her motives and why she’d done what she might have done, and continued to do. I still hadn’t decided where I wanted to confront her, or if I even wanted to confront her. I’d caught a glimpse of her but that wasn’t enough, possibly. I had to attempt to speak with her, although I comprehended the hazards of doing so solo.
Brian’s demeanor hardened, and his eyes clouded over with disappointment. “All right. Just let the lady at the desk in the lobby know you’re here to see Rachel. I’ll tell her also. I have to return to my shift and I won’t be able to wait for you.”
That was what I’d hoped he’d say. “Thanks,” I said. “I’m grateful.”
“My pleasure,” he muttered.
I found the department store down the street from the facility like Brian had mentioned. On the outside it seemed like the kind of place you went to when you wanted to purchase something for a large discount, and the décor was rather drab and outdated. Rachel couldn’t have begun her shift yet but I browsed around without asking the other employees questions about her.
The department store was vast, and by the time I exited I’d learned little of Rachel’s life besides the fact that her occupation seemed surprisingly ordinary. It was the early evening and I passed a woman standing outside in an adjacent alley, smoking by a dumpster. Rachel, having a cigarette before her shift.
Aware that my face might startle her, I didn’t cease walking to stare at her, and continued forward. I did feel her look my way but when I glanced back, it appeared she hadn’t come out of the alley onto the sidewalk. At some point, after walking a couple more blocks, I turned and walked with a determined stride back to the alley. The dumpster was far enough inside the cobblestoned alleyway that my heart gave a start at the isolation from the public street.
She was staring at the ground when I approached her with caution. I had nothing on me that could be used as a weapon.
“Do you have a light?” Rachel asked, looking up at me. She’d been standing there with an unlit cigarette in her hand.
“No,” I said.
She watched me with anticipation. “Well, then?”
“Rachel. I’m . . . We’re related.” I didn’t waste any time. “I’ve spoken to our mother.”
She gave me an odd, wistful smile and tucked the cigarette into her jacket like she wanted to save it for later. “I know who you are. I knew who you were when you walked by. I’d been waiting for you to turn around and talk to me. The receptionist where I live told me Brian told her that my brother was looking for me.”
I couldn’t read her expression. Her eyes were warm, not glassy like how I’d always believed a murderer’s would appear in person. “How did you . . .”
“I’ve been following you, Evan. The uncanny thing is that I found out about you—you know—by accident. I was on the web one day—this was years back—and I saw a story your college newspaper had done on you. They called you their ‘gender pioneer.’ I’d lost you for years and then I found you.”
I remembered the article well: From the Navy to College Student and Gender Pioneer. I’d been genuinely touched by the journalism students’ enthusiasm and so I reluctantly participated in the interview.
Rachel moved a step toward me and I backed up into the cold, damp brick of one of the walls that formed the alley. She had me cornered and we were far enough away from the sidewalk that passersby couldn’t see us. Rachel continued. “I recognized your face as mine.”
She’d found me again by random, by chance. Oh, what luck I had. I grabbed at her jacket and pushed her away from me. Rachel stood aright and leaned against the brick. She gave me a shot at escaping but I didn’t move. For a reason I didn’t know, whether I was frozen in fear, or it was morbid curiosity, or because even though she was a bloodthirsty maniac, she was still my twin, my blood, and therefore the closest visceral connection I would have to anyone, I stayed. Though she wasn’t pinning me against the wall and I could have fled right then, I didn’t move. I craved the answers only she could give me.
“You killed Ben,” I said.
Rachel crossed her arms. “He thought I was you. It was the wintert
ime, I tucked my hair—it was longer than yours—under a hat.”
Too much to bear. What a cliché. But that’s how I felt. It was too much to bear. I shouldn’t have let Rachel see me crying but I couldn’t hide the water swelling in my eyes and the steady, warm flow of tears down my cheeks. The tears burned my face and the revelation about Ben’s death thrust me closer to the edge of a breakdown more than I ever had been before. How betrayed he must have felt before he died.
She seemed to anticipate a verbal reaction from me, for me to curse her aloud, but I held back my words, for anything I could have said to her would have been spoken too late.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” she said, moving out from the wall. Her tone implied the chain of events unfolding between us wouldn’t end well for me.
I jumped a step toward the sidewalk but only made it halfway when she backed me up against the wall again.
“I don’t know why I started again.” Rachel sounded in awe of the horrors she’d committed. “I don’t know what came over me.”
Compulsion, like Mack had said about Alice.
“She—our mother—stopped exchanging letters with me. That upset me.” Rachel wiped her eye. “Don’t worry. I haven’t told her what you are now. I wonder what she would think if she found out you aren’t so perfect,” she threatened. “I promised the boys—the recent ones—to pay them money to fuck me, that’s how I got them to come with me. They were convenient. Before Mom stopped writing to me, I felt that her going to prison for me showed how much she loved me. That’s why I’d left you alone, because I thought she loved me more than she loved you.”
Despite her pleasant appearance, Rachel wasn’t of as sound of mind as she looked. I slumped forward, away from the wall.
“We don’t write each other, either,” I said with desperation. “My mother—our mother—doesn’t write to me. Why are you doing this to me?” I had trouble seeing her through my tears. I cursed myself for crumbling in her presence. You can’t rationalize with a serial killer and I should have known that better than anyone. “Rachel, please, I’m your brother . . . ”
“I never wanted you,” Rachel said. “When I looked you up again recently, I read about how you won that award from your city for your work. I left the bodies so you’d find them. I forgot to say congratulations—your girlfriend—or is she your wife?—is beautiful. I saw a photo of her with you when I went to your apartment. Your little dog’s sweet, by the way. You’re so successful, no matter who you are, and Mom always loved you more than she did me, that’s pretty clear.”
Her erratic speech alarmed me. “Rachel?” I spoke softly.
“I thought I could get her to love me a little more than she loved you, or at least notice me.”
“She does love you. She went to prison for you.” I reminded her of the good things she had, a boyfriend, a job, and a family who were paying for her to get better, and how I, too, was estranged from our mother.
“How do you know all that about me?”
For a second I thought I’d disarmed her.
Then she said, “I live in a fucking mental hospital. I’m never going to get better, and I know that. As for my boyfriend, our family pays him to keep me company, that’s the only reason he’s with me. He’s a male escort. That’s how come he travels so much. I hate men. I killed those boys before they could become like our bastard father who abandoned us. No one really loves me. Not our mother, not you. No one.”
“Our mother’s dying,” I said carefully, so as not to startle her. “She has cancer.”
Rachel gave me a withering sneer but her eyes appeared melancholy. “It’s what the bitch deserves.” She spoke like a sullen child, and such malice from even the likes of her surprised me. “You want to know something interesting? I’m not going to kill another man after you, I’ve decided I’m going to kill a woman, someone close to you, someone you love very much.”
Rachel knew what Sammie looked like and where we lived. Rachel had an evil smile then. Her eyes shone. She seethed and her face reddened. Part of me felt for her. After all, it was Evelyn who Alice wanted to see, not Rachel. But I wasn’t going to let her stop the love Sammie and I had, and I wasn’t going to allow Rachel to ever hurt Sammie, for if I let Rachel kill me, then she’d be able to get Sammie.
Rachel’s frame, not much smaller than mine, surrounded me. “I’ll slit your wrists right here to make it look like you ended your life over your guilt that you killed those people, Evelyn. Like mother, like son. I’ll use your phone to text your suicide note to the media beforehand. Who’ll protect your woman then?”
I hadn’t seen a weapon on her. She looked into my eyes and all I saw in hers was my demise if I permitted it. I wouldn’t allow her to hurt Sammie. I might not have lived myself but the chance that Sammie might was worth the peril. I pushed against Rachel’s chest and shoved her out of my face.
She bent backward, swayed, and then found her balance. Then I noticed the small knife in her hand, its blade rusted and glinting faintly. Had she used that to carve the messages on the boys’ flesh and take souvenirs or eat them? She must have taken the knife out of her pocket at some point as she regained her footing.
I shouted for help and bounded for the sidewalk. Something caught my arm. Rachel had a piece of my shirt clenched in her hand. I’d underestimated her strength, and every time I tried to shake her off me, she grabbed more of the cloth material. I kneed her in the groin, which didn’t affect a woman like it did a man, and her face barely registered pain.
She yanked me around to face her and came toward me, forcing me to back into the brick wall. Rachel held the blade lightly against my throat, and even at that distance I felt its coolness and its power.
I risked a joke. “Whatever happened to cutting my wrists?”
Rachel spat in my eyes. “Fuck you. I’ll decide what’ll happen to you.”
I blinked and her saliva trickled down my face. I began to call for help again. Rachel shook her head and pressed the blade against me a little more. I breathed heavily. I looked down and saw that the blade had become dulled over the years she owned it, but it still looked sharp enough to slice into my neck where my muscles throbbed in panic through my flesh.
My skin burned from head to toe, but the spit had cooled me, surprisingly, and the movement of her softly touching the blade across my neck was so vigorous and constant that I heard it. That was one thing I hadn’t learned throughout the many years of my job: that you felt more alive than ever the moment before you died.
She pressed the blade more to my throat. Panic rose up within me and I swallowed. Rachel rubbed her other hand across my neck and showed me the faint smudge of blood on her fingers. She’d cut me but not deeply, and I grasped that if I didn’t hurt her myself she would kill me. A strange thing it is, to realize you have to kill your sister to save your life.
“Get the hell away from him,” a voice said.
Mack, and he sounded near enough to help.
Mack stepped farther into the alley. He held a gun in his hands, pointed at Rachel. “I’ve called for backup. They’ll be here any second. Once they come, you won’t stand a chance,” he told her. “Put down the knife. That’d be the best thing for you to do, or else I can’t promise it’ll end well for you.”
Rachel glanced his way. “Lose the gun or I’ll slit his throat.” When Mack didn’t reply she said, “I mean it.”
“Okay. Take it easy. Don’t do anything stupid.” Mack dropped the gun and I felt defeated at the sound of it hitting the cobbled ground. He held up his hands.
“Don’t lecture me on stupid.” Rachel laughed. “I’m not the one who sent the wrong woman to prison.”
With the knife constricting my throat, I barely managed to whisper to Mack, “I’ll explain later.”
“No, I’ll explain when I feel like it,” Rachel said. “How about right now?” She’d stopped looking at me and focused on him.
Mack nodded at me and I knew he was checking to see how I was
coping. I smiled weakly at him.
“I killed those boys,” Rachel said. “The recent ones, too. That’s how come the killings started up again. Our mother went to prison for me for the first killings.”
I’d expected to see surprise on Mack’s face but it was clear he already knew. “It’s over, Rachel,” he said in a soft voice. “Put down the knife. Let him go.”
“It isn’t.” She dug the side of the knife deeper into my throat and I cried out in pain. “It’s not over unless I want it to be.”
Mack made a gesture with his hands as though to calm her. “Okay.” His tone implied he’d handed control over to Rachel. “Why don’t you let him go and then the two of us can talk? How does that sound?”
Sirens blared and their distance between us lessened. Going by how Rachel increased the pressure of the knife on my throat, she heard them also.
“It’s done,” Rachel whispered to me.
I winced and braced myself for the end. During what seemed like a mere second, she stepped back from me and dragged the knife across her own throat. The knife fell from her hand to the cobblestones and echoed in the quiet alley. Blood shot out of her and decorated her pale throat with a bright smear. Rachel touched her throat and looked at the blood covering her hands, as though shocked by what she’d done.
Mack reacted before I did and ran toward Rachel.
“She can’t die,” I screamed, and reached for her, because although she would have had no problem killing me, she was still my sister, my blood.
He kept Rachel upright in his arms and tried to lessen the blood spilling out of her by pressing his hand to her throat. As I touched the cloth of her jacket, her knees buckled and she fell out from Mack’s arms to the ground, and landed on her side.