Deranged

by Jacob Stone

  That was unfortunate. He hated the idea of scrapping his plan, because at this point it had become fully hatched, and it was a darn nice plan. But, as he often told himself, there’s more than one way to crack an egg, so he next tried researching spy cameras with the idea of planting a camera so he could watch her building’s entrance from several miles away. Twenty minutes of reading the instructions and trying to make sense of how to use one left his head spinning, and he accepted that figuring out these spy cameras was beyond him.

  Henry wasn’t about to quit that easily, and after some more pondering, came up with a new plan. He could dress up as a maintenance person, find a way to gain access to Hawes’s building, and knock on her door late at night, but he quickly saw a number of ways that could blow up in his face. What if she recognized him before he was able to shut her up? She looked like a screamer to him. Someone with a healthy pair of lungs who’d be able to make sure everyone in the building heard her. But heck, even if he could shut her up fast enough, he didn’t even know whether or not she lived alone. That would be all he needed—to shove a sock into her big mouth and knock her to the floor only to have a boyfriend or husband or roommate walk in on them.

  First step had to be finding out whether Hawes was living with someone, and for that he searched for her on Facebook. Not only did he find her, but she made everything she posted public. And she posted about everything! At first, as Henry looked at her posts documenting every mundane aspect of her life, he felt a tinge of panic over whether she’d secretly taken a picture of him the other day and put that on Facebook also, but Hawes running into him and Susan seemed to be the only thing she’d done in the last few days that she’d kept to herself. As Henry read all the tidbits of her life that she made public, he learned her relationship status was “it’s complicated,” whatever that meant, and that she presently lived with her three best buddies—Persian cats named Hermione, Ginny, and Professor Snape. He also learned about the waitress with an attitude that she had encountered at lunch yesterday, saw copious pictures of her turkey lasagna that she had ordered, and a number of other annoying details of her life, all of which made him even more glad that she was going to be his next victim. Most important, he read about her plans for today, including what time she was going to be leaving her apartment. Thanks to that, Henry scrapped his idea about masquerading as a maintenance guy and went back to his original plan that he liked so much.

  Henry used his iPhone to once more check her tweets and Facebook posts to see if she had changed her plans, but no, she was still on schedule. He was parked five miles away at a strip mall parking lot sipping on a mocha latte. Timing was still going to be tricky, but he decided to give it two more minutes, and then he pulled his car back onto the street and headed toward Gail Hawes’s address.

  He found a parking space two blocks from her apartment building. Earlier, he’d attached stolen license plates to his car, and later when he was done he planned to put back his Oregon plates. Henry had dressed in a suit and tie for the occasion, the first time he had done so in years. Before leaving his car, he checked once more whether Hawes had tweeted or posted anything new, saw that she hadn’t, and hustled out of his car carrying with him a briefcase that had everything he required inside of it. He moved at a fast clip, almost jogging. Thanks to Hawes’s need to tell the world where she was going to be eating lunch, he knew what direction she’d be walking, and sure enough he intercepted her less than a third of a block from her building.

  “I know you, don’t I?” Henry asked, his eyes squinting as if he were trying to place her.

  She turned to him with a plastic smile etched on her face, but then she recognized him and her smile melted into more of an amused one.

  “You’re Susan’s new friend,” she said.

  Henry smacked his forehead with his palm. “That’s right,” he said. “We ran into you just yesterday. You were pretty crafty the way you put two and two together.”

  She laughed at that. “A woman’s intuition.”

  Henry held out his hand. “Howard Donner,” he said.

  “I remember,” she said. “Gail Hawes.”

  “I remember,” Henry said with a thin smile.

  Mischief sparkled in her eyes as she asked, “How was your secret rendezvous with Susan?”

  “If I told you I’d have to kill you.”

  She laughed at that. “A man of discretion. So what are you doing in my neck of the woods?”

  “Your neck of the woods?”

  “Yep. I live in that building right over there.”

  She pointed to her apartment building. Henry squinted in the direction where she pointed.

  “Nice place,” Henry said. “That’s one of the buildings I’ve had my eye on.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I buy and manage apartment buildings. That’s why I’m here.”

  Her interest in him perked up. As she appraised the suit he was wearing, which was an expensive one, and the briefcase he was carrying, also expensive, Henry could just about read her thoughts. That’s why Susan is interested in this ugly turd. He’s loaded! All at once, she started twirling her hair in a flirtatious manner. She even batted her eyes at him.

  “Which building are you thinking of buying?” she asked.

  “A twenty-unit one three blocks over on North Orange Grove. I got there a half hour early and thought I’d walk around the neighborhood and see what other buildings might strike my fancy.” He gave her an embarrassed smile and added, “To be honest, I was also hoping to find a restaurant or bar with a restroom. My bladder’s about to burst. Since you live right over there, any chance . . . ?”

  “It could be arranged,” Hawes said as she twirled her hair into a tight twist. Then she got sly. “But there’s a price. You have to tell me all the juicy bits about your rendezvous with Susan.”

  “You’ve got me over a barrel,” Henry conceded. “Deal.”

  So far no cars had passed them, and they didn’t encounter any of the other apartment residents as Hawes led Henry to her apartment. Thanks to the large mocha latte he had drunk earlier, he really did need to relieve himself, and after he was done he lived up to his end of the bargain and told Hawes the full story of what had happened between him and Susan the other day. While he could see her disappointment over not hearing any particularly salacious details, he noted a calculating look in her eyes as she tried to figure out whether he was wealthy enough to bother seducing.

  “How many buildings do you have in your portfolio?” she asked,

  “Quite a few.” He gave her the impression that he was adding them up. “Thirteen,” he said. “With number fourteen to be added very shortly.” He showed a surprised look and pointed behind Hawes. “What the heck is that?”

  Startled, she turned around to see what it was that had alarmed him, and Henry used the opportunity to bop her on the back of her head with the iron pipe that he had taken from his briefcase when he used her bathroom, and had since kept hidden in his suit jacket. He didn’t hit her hard enough to kill her or even to knock her out, but hard enough to leave her dizzy so she couldn’t shout out for help while he shoved a sock into her mouth. The blow also left her unable to put up much of a fight as he bound her wrists together behind her back with duct tape. Once that was done he took his time moving her to the right spot on the floor, and then setting up his iPhone stand so that he could record what was going to be happening. Then he used the chisel and hammer he’d brought so he could keep the promise he’d made to her about what he’d have to do if he told her about himself and Susan.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Long Island, 1982

  Henry wasn’t much different at sixteen than he was at thirteen. He was still a quiet kid; still physically squat and awkward-looking, although he was wider and his hair was much longer making him look more than a little like a shorter and lumpier version of the singer Meatloaf. He had a tiny circle of friends—really only three, with Nancy Bower being his closest bud, as
she liked to call him. He still struggled in math, barely passing each semester, still excelled in art, and still created his own comic books, although no longer superhero ones. Instead the comic books he drew were the stuff of nightmares. Horrific monsters doing horrific things to their victims. One major difference between thirteen- and sixteen-year-old Henry was that bullies steered clear of him, especially Brad Black, whose surgically repaired earlobe looked as if a blob of silly putty had been used to fill in the torn-off piece.

  Henry, a sensitive boy, had a penchant for steering clear of trouble. As long as others left him alone, he was more than willing to do the same. This was why it was so surprising to Johnny Franco, quarterback and captain of the school’s football team, and his two cohorts, also starters on the team, when Henry told them to quit picking on Gary Fleishman. At the time Franco had Fleishman, a scrawny fifteen-year-old freshman, in a headlock while Franco’s two cohorts were in the process of removing Fleishman’s corduroys.

  “Mind your own business, fat boy,” Franco ordered.

  Instead of doing that, Henry told Franco again to let go of the kid they were picking on.

  “If you don’t I’m going to knock you down to the floor, and then I’m going to break both your arms,” Henry stated calmly.

  By this time a crowd of other students had gathered. Even though the incident with Henry and Brad Black had happened in middle school, Franco had heard the story about the odd ogre-looking kid who had gone all mental on Black and had left Black with half an earlobe missing. He let go of Fleishman, as did his two cohorts. Fleishman, for his part, gathered up his pants and fled to safety. It might’ve been over then if a crowd hadn’t formed. Franco couldn’t just walk away, not with how several of the kids in the crowd were jeering him on.

  “What’s to stop me right now from beating the stuffing out of you?” Franco asked, his voice a low, menacing growl, his eyes closing so that they were barely slits and his hands clenching into fists.

  “Because if you try, I’ll knock out your two front teeth.”

  That caused some more egging on from the other students. Franco turned to them making a can-you-believe-this-moron face, then sucker punched Henry in the jaw.

  The last few years Henry’s dad often told him that he was as strong as an ox, and that he should be playing football. “High school girls go nuts over football players, Henry, especially the cheerleaders. With how strong you are, you’d be a monster playing on the offensive line.”

  Henry didn’t believe his dad about the girl part, and he had good reason not to. Whether or not he played on the school’s football team, it was doubtful any of the cheerleaders or other girls would be interested in him as a boyfriend. His dad was also exaggerating about him being as strong as an ox, but he was still a deceptively powerful kid with heavy hands and a low center of gravity, and Franco’s sucker punch didn’t budge him. Instead, Henry immediately went for Franco’s knees. In a flash he lifted Franco up and slammed the teenager to the floor, then sat on his chest. With one hard punch, he lived up to his word knocking out Franco’s two front teeth, as well as two of his bottom teeth.

  Franco’s two football team cohorts jumped into the melee, and as they wrestled with Henry while Franco lay on the floor bawling, teachers rushed in to break up the fight.

  Things got confusing then. Because of Franco’s teeth being knocked out and his mouth being turned into a bloody mess, the school at first wanted to make this a police matter and have Henry arrested, but then as students came forward and the school’s principal got a clearer picture about what had happened, he shut down that idea. These were three of the school’s top football players, and if he went after Henry, he would have to go after those players even harder. The whole mess gave him indigestion.

  “Why’d you get involved in the first place?” the principal demanded of Henry. “Did you have some sort of vendetta against Johnny? Is that it, you were looking for an excuse to hurt him?”

  Henry’s jaw dropped as he stared at the principal, not quite believing what he was asked. He stuttered in his confusion and anger as he told the principal that he had warned Franco and the other two to stop picking on Fleishman. “They were pantsing him right there in the hallway! What they were doing to him was humiliating! And Franco punched me first!”

  There was no denying that Henry had a swollen jaw, as well as other lumps and bruises that he’d gotten while wrestling with the other two football players. There was also no way of getting around the fact that the students who came forward all claimed Franco threw the first punch. The principal, though, persisted, asking, “Are you friends with this Fleishman kid?”

  Henry, still confused, shook his head. “I don’t know him,” he said.

  “You should’ve found a teacher to handle the situation,” the principal said coldly. “Because of your actions a fellow student has been seriously injured. That type of behavior won’t be tolerated.”

  Henry was sometimes slow on the uptake, but he wasn’t a stupid kid, and he understood then what was happening. At that point he refused to answer any more questions, which allowed the principal to get away with suspending him for two weeks while Franco and his two cohorts escaped punishment. After leaving the principal’s office with his suspension starting immediately, he saw Aisley Martin hanging out in the hallway, obviously cutting class. Aisley was one of the goth girls in the school who wore all black, dyed her hair the same pitch black as her eye makeup, painted her fingernails blue, and her lips bloodred. Henry had had a crush on her for over a year, although he never would’ve been able to work up the nerve to talk to her. As he approached her, he tried to act as if she weren’t there, or at least as if he hadn’t been gawking at her a moment earlier. When she started walking alongside him, his face flushed and his heart thumped like mad in his chest.

  “They suspend you?” she asked.

  Even though she was walking less than a foot away from him, it surprised Henry that she actually talked to him. His voice noticeably cracked as he squeaked out that he’d been suspended for two weeks.

  “That’s bull. I bet they don’t suspend those fascist jocks who started everything.” There was a pause, then, “Mind if I walk with you? I’m heading outside for a smoke.”

  Even though Henry’s heart now thumped so hard that he thought he might faint, he was able to croak out that he didn’t mind, and so Aisley Martin continued to walk alongside him as they left the school building.

  “I think that was so cool of you standing up for that kid like you did,” she said.

  “I don’t like bullies,” Henry said.

  “Neither do I.”

  They continued on until they were half a block away from the school, then Aisley stopped so she could take a pack of cigarettes from her purse. “Do you smoke?” she asked.

  Henry shook his head no because he didn’t smoke, and then felt sick to his stomach as he realized that Aisley was really asking him to hang around and smoke a cigarette with her.

  “Then we should get coffee sometime,” she said. “Maybe after your suspension.”

  “Cool,” Henry said, trying his hardest to sound cool.

  “Cool,” Aisley agreed.

  * * *

  That night Nancy Bower came over to visit. She’d blossomed from the thirteen-year-old girl Henry had first talked to. No longer pear-shaped, her braces gone, her skin having cleared up, and her blonde hair no longer oily but shoulder-length and curly, she was actually quite pretty, but she and Henry had long established themselves as platonic buddies.

  “I missed all the fireworks earlier,” she said. “You’re all the school’s talking about. What possessed you to take on three football players?”

  Henry was at his desk hard at work on his latest comic book, the fourth in an apocalyptic series he called Shriekers, which had these horrific creatures that one day showed up and started following people around shrieking, and then ripping to shreds anyone whose heart rate goes up, or if their physiology in any other way
indicates fear.

  “I won the fight,” he said. “And I’ve still got my teeth.”

  “You did, and you do,” Nancy conceded. Her expression melted into one of concern. “You also got suspended, and you look like you’ve been hit by a truck. So why’d you do it?”

  Henry shrugged. “I flashed back to when Brad Black and those others used to bully me like that. But I warned them. It wasn’t like I started it. They should’ve listened to me.”

  “Are you okay? Your face looks pretty beat up.”

  Henry grinned at her. “You should see the other guys,” he joked. “And it’s not like they made me any uglier.”

  “You know I hate it when you talk like that. You’re the sweetest boy I know, even if you do draw the most disgusting comic books.” Nancy walked over to Henry’s desk, her hand resting on his back as she looked over his shoulder. “Are you still working on volume three of your Shrieker books?”

  “Nope, I had all this extra time this afternoon so I was able to finish it. This is number four.”