“No,” she said.
“I’m going to get you,” Devin said. He jumped forward onto the next rock.
“I’m not afraid of a silly boy. You don’t know who you’re messing with.”
I grabbed Devin, I pulled him away as he cried and kicked. He was only four years old and they had tied him to a tree and thrown acorns at him. He wanted to fight me. He wanted to fight everyone.
“Stop,” I said. “I’m your friend.”
He hesitated. Then he squirmed in my arms.
“Aww did Devin’s little mommy come and rescue him?” Jenny teased.
“Piss off,” I said.
“That’s not something a mother would say,” Jenny said. “You’ll need to practice. Otherwise you ought never be a mom. No one likes you. If you had children, they would eat you. Wouldn’t you like that? To be eaten? That sounds just right for you.”
“Yeah and poop you out in a toilet,” Rebecca added.
“Devin! I’m your friend!” I said.
“Friends don’t matter anymore,” he said. He jumped to the next rock. It was a little further than he’d anticipated. His heels splashed and he fell forward in hopes of not falling back.
“This is between him and me,” Jenny said. “Go away, sister. Go fetch your parents.”
Rebecca wasn’t back yet, it made sense. I couldn’t trust Rebecca to do anything. I should’ve. I should’ve gotten them. I yelled at Devin. “Stop. Wait. Please! I’m getting mom and dad!”
I took off running. It wasn’t that far away. They should’ve heard me screaming.
I screamed my head off.
My father came running first. He begged to know what the meaning of it all was. I couldn’t sell out Devin. I just said. “Quick. Hurry!”
But my mother’s scream twisted my father away from me.
She was right to scream.
Devin was swept away in the current. The water tinted red all around him.
My father ran, he splashed as far out into the river before he had to swim. By then, Devin was past him, floating down the river.
“Where’s your sister?” my mother asked me.
“Up there!” I pointed, but I cared more about Devin. She had done this. He needed me and I wasn’t there to help him stand up to her. I started down river.
“Stay here!” my mother said. “Rebecca?”
Rebecca stood by the river trembling. She knew Devin was in danger. She wasn’t evil like Jenny. She didn’t know any better, and now she was scared. She should’ve gotten mom and dad when I told her to.
I thought it was all her fault.
Just for a second.
Then I ran to the river.
“Stop!” I heard my mother scream. I didn’t.
Down river I saw my father reach Devin. He tugged him to shore. He was fine.
Then I looked up river, and spotted Jenny.
She clung to the rock, the water smashed into her again and again. She too had fallen in. and a thick red line painted her face. She was hurt too.
I ran across the rocks. My mother urged me to stay.
I wanted to get to Jenny.
I was going to hurt her. Push her in the water for hurting Devin. I was so angry when I reached her, and then I noticed how hurt she was. Bruises covered her face and her shoulder was cut open, but not bleeding. It looked like when the top of a muffin splits. There should’ve been blood. But the flesh was all pale around it. I felt like I could see through layers and layers of flesh, down to a white bone.
“Jenny!” I held my hand out, and she turned and smiled at me. “Are you okay?”
She spit up and coughed, and then tried to shield her eyes by lowering her head. I couldn’t reach her. I didn’t know if I wanted to, the current was too strong between us.
“Just hold on. Dad will come. He saved Devin. He’ll save you.”
“You bitch,” Jenny said. Her eyes were navy from eyelid to eyelid. Her flesh was almost yellow, muscle flexed beneath her contorted face. She blamed me, but I knew it was her own fault. I would not accept the guilt she wanted me to have. She always passed it on. She always blamed someone. I saw that now. I realized she’d never be happy. She’d never be loved. “Bitch, bitch, bitch.” She repeated over and over again, her eyes were like teeth, bared and salivating. As if they would eat me if I stared too long into them.
“You made the rock slippery,” she said. And she was right.
Then the words slipped out of my mouth, leaving the flavor of regret to taste for a lifetime. It was the most hateful thing I could think of, it was what she asked me to say.
“We all hate you, even mom and dad. They know you’re an evil brat,” I said. “He loves Devin. He just doesn’t like his name, that’s all it is you stupid bitch. If Devin dies they will hate you forever!”
Water foamed from her mouth as she laughed at me. No one else could hear it except me. My mother still called for me to get back to the shore where it was safe. Rebecca still trembled around my mother’s leg. And downstream my father hunched over Devin’s body.
She pulled herself up out of the water, just a little more. It was then I saw her broken elbow protruding from her flesh. Her fingers were broken as well.
I knew the right thing to do. I tried to find my footing. I thought about jumping out to her and grabbing onto her. In swim lessons, we practiced using a pole, but how much time did Jenny have before she lost her grip and drowned. I readied myself. Tried to overcome my fear.
And then she said, “I gave him that name. I named him Devin. She wanted to call him Benjamin, but I choose his name! So that your father would hate him!”
Jenny bore a smile like I had never seen. It was a smile with silent laughter holding it from cheek to cheek.
She let go of the rock.
She showed me her hands for a second, still white from clenching on for so long. And before she went under I heard her speak, never breaking that wicked smile of hers. It echoed as her body was torn down river disappearing into the rapids.
The words haunted me ever since.
She said, “See you soon.”
REBECCA:
Mommy is crying. They’re all wet. Everyone went swimming without me.
I didn’t want to go swimming anyway.
“Oh baby, come here,” Mommy said.
She hugged me even though she was all wet and I wasn’t.
I tried to pull away.
“Jenny’s gone, baby,” Mommy said.
“Where’d she go?”
Mommy moaned like she had too big of a poop. I’ve had poops like that.
“She’s…dead.”
Mommy squeezed me too hard. Told me she loved me and would never let anything happen to me. She cried and cried and cried. Because she thought Jenny was dead.
“It’s okay,” I told my mommy. “Jenny is made of magic. She told me so. She said she can’t die. She’ll be back. She promised me.”
REGINALD:
I saw her today. Just now. I threw rocks as she drove by with her boyfriend. No. It was her husband. There was strain on her face, anticipation on his.
After all these years I found her—and on this very day!
So many wasted opportunities, so many false births.
No. They all guided me to this very moment. Put me in this very street.
Bless the gods that gave her to me. Bless their foresight.
Bless their blessing.
“I’ve found her,” I said aloud.
The man next to me tugged my arm. “What’s that, Reggie?”
“Let go.” I jerked my arm free and jumped into the street.
I didn’t die right away.
The sounds around me echoed in my head, but I couldn’t differentiate which ones were what. All I could think about was her.
Focus on her.
Shadow her.
Be ready, I told myself.
I could’ve made it a long while just like I was. I had good parents, and a trust fund for my 18th birthday. I c
ould’ve done a lot with it all. But I couldn’t have done what I wanted. It would never be enough as Reginald. There was one way to torment her. One way she would never forget.
THE PRESENT
KRISTEN:
I was never a mother.
“You have to look at it like this, honey. You did well as a mother,” my husband Michael said. He always told me that, even when I felt like I abandoned our son by working when he was just a toddler. Michael let me quit my job, he worked overtime to pay the mortgage. He did everything right.
Benjamin loved him.
Michael always took everything in stride.
Even this.
Even the death of our son.
No. He’s not dead. He never was.
Benjamin lives.
Benjamin is free.
All anyone wants to remind me is that if they don’t get him, he might return to make us look like terrible parents. He could frame us for abuse…or murder. And just who would believe us?
They try to steer my thoughts away from remembering that he was my child.
Wasn’t he?
His anatomy was that of a child. The only thing different, they told me, was his soul. It was beyond what we know.
Michael wants to have another—no—it would be our first child together. He tried to shove a pamphlet in my face.
“They can run tests to make sure it’s not another one of these things,” he said. “It’s all right there in the brochure.”
I punched it away.
The man, who told me all about Benjamin, grabbed Michael’s shoulder. “Maybe you should just let her grieve,” he said.
Michael tried to hug me.
I swatted that attempt as well.
“Jack, right?” Michael asked the know-it-all. “Is there any reason we were selected?”
I wanted to know this answer, too. I looked right at the man, this Jack. He just shrugged, then added, “Sometimes they are particular, most the time they chose based on convenience. If his original host body died, he might’ve had little time to choose selectively. I won’t pretend to understand these things. They only want to cause us pain.”
“How’s your partner doing?” I asked. I don’t know why I said it so meanly.
“He’ll probably live,” Jack said. He didn’t sound confident at all. It made me feel worse for asking. Just for a split second, and then my anger returned. I hadn’t been this angry in years. Not since…
“You guys deal with this quite often though,” Michael said. “So you’re used to this.”
Jack nodded.
“How come people aren’t allowed to know? I mean this should be explained in Sex-Ed class don’t you think? I mean if I was told, don’t have unprotected sex you might be birthing a demon child into this world…and believed it, I might’ve gone through college a little more carefully.” Michael’s poor attempt at a joke didn’t land with Jack the know-it-all.
“There’s a reason for the way things are done,” Jack said.
“Why not a net?” I asked. “A giant net.”
“Tried it.”
“See they tried it, honey,” Michael said. “Tranquilizer darts probably don’t work either. These aren’t animals—they’re supernatural, right?”
“These things have control of their human anatomy like you have never imagined. It might disturb you to know that most time he only pretended to be asleep. He likely listened to everything you ever said, he had to know he was fooling you all. If it wasn’t working out, he might’ve gone an alternative route.”
“Like what?”
“I shouldn’t be talking this much, not right now. Once he’s caught…”
“You need a freaking army.” I said. “He tore through you two like it was nothing. Your partner is Swiss Cheese’s regurgitated brother.”
“He got a good jump,” Jack said. “He calculated our attempt. Used you against us. It’s not atypical. I apologize. Apprehension has gone much smoother in the past.”
“I doubt that,” I said.
Jack didn’t take the bait.
Michael did. “How will you catch him now? What’s the backup plan?”
HANSON:
I rolled my head against the brick fireplace. The bricks snagged pieces of hair. Every moan came with a head toss and a tug on my hair. The sudden jolt of pain was almost sharp enough to take away how the rest of my body felt for just under a nano-second. So I volleyed my head off the bricks to see if I could make myself forget all pain.
It didn’t go as planned.
Nothing had today.
Jack had his hands full with this couple. It was a little better since the husband arrived. He was a strange voice of reason. It was almost creepy how eager he was to take advantage of not having a child to raise. Maybe he was just an optimist. I’ve always been a pessimist. Even before the twenty-six years I served as a collector.
That’s how long it had been?
Christ.
I was old. Slow.
No wonder this crap happened to me today.
I’d be pulled from field duty. My eyes were shit to begin with, so I won’t be doing too much paperwork. They’ll have me folding brochures, licking envelopes.
Christ.
Damn thing cut me open like a bag of gummy worms. Try as I might, I wasn’t very good at not looking, and not dabbing my fingers in the warm blood. I always felt more than I had intended. I’d puke if my organs were still properly connected.
I bang my teeth on glass. Jack stuck one in my mouth. Maybe my eyes had been shut for longer than a blink. I didn’t remember him walking over with rum. I was foolish enough to think it would help, but it was like drinking hot soup when you’re thirst on a hot day.
The mother glared at me because I spit the rum back up with blood. I almost spat again, just to soak the handmade blanket draped across her leather couch.
The husband, Michael, asked, “Is there anything I can do?”
I wanted to tell him to stop being so damn chipper.
I tried to remember a video they showed me twenty-six years ago. I could hear the sounds of the wonky synthesizer more than the tinny voice that I barely remembered saying, ‘Everyone deals with it in their own way.’
If this had gone smoothly we would’ve handed them brochures, showed them a different video and set up counseling sessions. Free of charge—supposedly. They’d never notice the money that came out of their tax refund next year. It was the easiest way to do it. Uncle Sam still thought it was a person’s fault for harboring a fugitive. Seems fair enough, given that perfect parenting would’ve led to an anti-Christ, right. We were supposed to pat them on the back and smile like we enjoyed doing it for free.
I had a pension.
If I live I have a pension.
I could take it.
I could cash out.
I’d taken enough of these assholes off the street.
But they keep coming.
They’ll never stop.
If not me, then who.
Oh, shut it. I’m talking to myself.
Feeling sorry for little ole me.
I was supposed to be a better person than that. I was supposed to understand that this woman had no idea that her day was going to go this way.
Silly me.
I watched her range of emotions, which had simmered into a blank stare. She looked through tables and floors and foundations. She’d look anywhere for some kind of explanation.
Her soft features vanished between thick creases of disbelief and horror.
Her eyes resembled the blackest of hells as her lids tighten up until there is none of the white showing. I watch tears dry on her cheeks. With a swipe of her hand, all her smudged makeup suddenly looked like war paint.
She said something like, “I remember…”
Jack thought she said something as well because he demanded that she say it again.
Michael encouraged it as well.
She didn’t repeat it.
Jack can’t keep her i
n the kitchen. He doesn’t have to, it’s not our job. That doesn’t stop him from trying. She bowls over him, knocks her husband into the kitchen island. It caught him in the kidneys. He’ll piss blood later.
Right now, he doesn’t have time to pee.
“Kristen, wait!” he said.
“Please,” Jack said. “Just wait here. We have others who are going after him.”
“It,” she said. “It!”
They left me in the living room. Jack will never catch her. I am—was—the fastest, despite my seniority. Just happened to be slow at the wrong time.
“Jack!” I called, hoping my voice traveled out the front door so he’d return. Jack needed to stop trying to be the hero. Another team would be set out on the boy immediately. We could even call in another team to deal with the crazy woman. We could get back to the office and stand in the break room making small talk about how we did our part in making contact. No one would judge us otherwise, it happened all the time.
No.
Mothers didn’t usually run out. They usually sat paralyzed in a fetal position for hours and hours. They racked up doctor bills trying to figure out how to feel love again.
Why did this one run?
What did she remember?
“Jack!” I yelled again. There was feeling on the bottom of my feet again. Crap. I was on my feet. I hopped out of the room, down the hall, and stopped at the doorway—because I fell. I called for Jack and screamed.
I ruined what was otherwise a quiet street. So I stopped.
It made more sense to barrel over and just hold my stomach in the vicinity of its former address. I tried to tell myself there had been occasions where I had been worse off.
The husband crawled under my arm. He wasn’t accustomed to holding another man. It was awkward for the both of us.
“You should probably try not to move,” he said.
“No, shit.” I coughed. A nice breeze tickled my innards. I wasn’t sure if I really liked it or not. It wasn’t a feeling I was supposed to know. But I didn’t ‘not’ like it.
It started to rain. Just like the weatherman had promised.
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