by Dan Wells
And if he’d done it once, he could do it again. I was terrified to think of where and when it could happen, and what I could possibly do to stop it.
“Please . . . my daughter was attacked. She was brutally beaten by a citizen of your community, who’s still out there right now. No, I’m not being unreasonable! May I please speak with your superior?”
I sat on the floor of my room, the door locked tight, my body squeezed into the gap between my bed and the wall. I had a pillow pulled down over my head, but I could still hear the shouting.
“Hello, Agent Forman? This is April Cle—” Pause. “Yes, I know, and I’m sorry to call you again, but—” Pause. “But I’ve already talked to them, and there’s nothing they can do.” Pause. “No, I’ve talked to her too—” Pause. “But there has to be something you can—”
There had been a lot of bugs in that warehouse, I thought. I probably killed them all. Were bugs against the rules? I bet I’ve killed plenty of bugs in my life—there were some dead ones on the windshield of my car, for crying out loud. Was I supposed to feel guilty about all of them? I turned the thought over in my mind, examining it. Bugs were probably fine. They didn’t feel anything, and they didn’t care what you did to them, and nobody else cared either, so I might as well do something. That’s practically why they’re here in the first place, right? They’re not doing anything else for us. I should go outside and find one—just one. I wouldn’t even kill it, just pull off a wing or a leg. Just something small. No one would ever notice.
“Hi, is this the domestic abuse hotline? My name is April, and I live in Clayton. . . .” Pause. “Yes, Clayton County.” Pause. “I know you don’t have an office here, I called long distance to reach you. . . .” Pause. “I’ve already called the police, and they won’t . . . yes, I’ll hold.”
I stood up to go outside. I only needed one bug—a tiny one, like a ladybug. There was usually a big pile of ants by one of the cracks in the sidewalk, and I could mush a whole footprint-full if I wanted, but that wouldn’t help. There’d be no satisfaction in a quick stomp. I wanted one bug I could spend some time on, and watch what happened as each leg came off. I wanted it to know that it was being hurt by me, by a purposeful mind, and not by some change in the weather. I unlocked my door and started down the hall, hoping I could get out without Mom stopping me.
I was just three steps from the apartment door when somebody knocked.
Mom looked up from the phonebook, red-eyed and gaunt. She stared at the door with a blank, uncomprehending gaze, as if she wasn’t sure what it was. The knock came again.
“Well, see who it is,” Mom snapped.
I opened the door and felt my stomach lurch; it was Lauren, her eye black and her face streaked with dry tears. She looked at me with a broken smile and reached for my face where Rob Anders had punched me.
“We’re twins,” she said softly. She rested her fingertips on my cheekbone, right below the thin scab where Rob’s punch had split the skin.
“Please tell me you’ve come to your senses,” said Mom, standing up. “You can stay here if you need to—”
“No, Mother, I’m here to tell you to stop,” said Lauren. “I tried to call you, but I can’t even get through because you won’t get off it. Stop calling the police!”
“But you need to report this!”
“No I don’t!” said Lauren. “Listen, I was just scared that day when I came here, and I didn’t know what I was thinking, but now I do. I know you don’t understand—”
“You think I don’t understand?” Mom asked, stepping forward. “You know what we lived through here! You know what your father did to me!”
“Stop trying to bring Dad into this!” cried Lauren. “It has nothing to do with him, because Curt is not Dad and I am not you. Curt really loves me, and we’ve talked about it, and we know that it’s never going to happen again, and—”
“Don’t be such an idiot, Lauren!” Mom shouted. “How can you possibly—”
“I didn’t come here to get yelled at, Mother!”
“No, you’ve got someone at home to do that for you!”
I turned to walk back into my room, but Mom grabbed my arm.
“Don’t walk away from this,” she told me, “you’re as much a part of it as any of us. Tell her she needs to call the police.”
“Don’t drag John into this. . . .” said Lauren.
“Tell her!” said Mom.
I didn’t know what to say, so I stared back helplessly and tried to think peaceful thoughts: Freak Lake in winter, alone and calm; our street at night when nothing moved; a body on the embalming table, perfectly still and silent.
“You can’t live like this,” Mom told her, then looked back at me. “Tell her she can’t live like this.”
“I don’t want to get involved,” I said quietly.
“You don’t want to get involved!” Mom shouted. “All you ever do is overreact to problems, and now you’re not reacting at all?”
“I don’t want to get involved,” I repeated.
“You’re already involved!” Mom shouted. “Am I the only sane person left alive? Am I the only person left in the entire world who thinks that my daughter getting beaten up is a big deal? That it’s something worth fighting back about? I mean . . . Lauren, baby . . . don’t you love yourself at all?”
“I don’t know why I came here,” said Lauren, turning to leave. “It’s like talking to the most hostile brick wall in the world.”
“You came here because you know that I can help you,” said Mom harshly, following her onto the stairway. “I’ve lived through this, and I know what you’re going through.”
“Just because you ruined your own relationship doesn’t mean you get to ruin mine,” said Lauren, her voice distant. She was halfway down the stairs.
Mom laughed—the kind of dry, brittle laugh that wanted to be a scream and a cry, and compromised somewhere in the middle. “You think I ruined my relationship? You think my black eyes and my broken ankle and the whole divorce were all my fault?” Her voice grew even more raspy and desperate. “Do you think your black eye is your fault? Is that what this is all about?”
The door opened downstairs, but instead of Lauren’s footsteps storming away I heard Brooke’s voice.
“Um, hi,” she said brightly. “It’s Lauren, right?”
“Yeah,” said Lauren slowly. She apparently didn’t recognize Brooke. “Are you here for John?”
“Hi Brooke,” said Mom at the top of the stairs, hastily wiping her eyes. “Come on up, sweetie.”
“I don’t want to interrupt anything,” said Brooke.
“No, no, it’s fine,” said Mom, gesturing toward the living room. “Everything’s fine. Come on in.”
“What happened to your eye?” Brooke asked.
“John’s got one just like it,” said Lauren, avoiding the question. “They run in the family.”
Mom glowered.
“I hope you’re okay,” said Brooke.
“I was just leaving,” said Lauren, and called out to me. “Bye John!”
I didn’t say anything for a moment, then shouted “Bye Lauren!” when I heard the door hinges squeak open louder. Footsteps creaked up the stairs, and Mom stepped aside to let Brooke in. She was dressed the way she typically was, in bright summer colors, and I slouched down in my black, rumpled pajamas; I hadn’t even bothered to get dressed yet.
“Hey John,” she said, her eyes lighting up. She laughed. “Wow, I wish I was still in pajamas.”
“Yeah,” I said. Mom was scowling behind her, eyeing the stairs, obviously wanting to chase Lauren outside and continue their fight.
“No!” said Brooke, suddenly embarrassed, “I don’t mean to . . . I’m not trying to make fun. Dangit.” She squeezed her eyes shut. There was an awkward pause, then Brooke smiled again. “Pretty crazy night the other night, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. Outside, Lauren’s door slammed, and a moment later her engine roared to life.
“So anyway,” said Brooke, “I um . . . this is stupid, but . . . I wrote you a poem.”
I stared back. “You did?”
“I know it’s kind of cheesy,” she said, “but it was my mom’s idea. I mean, the poem was my mom’s idea, but the thing the poem’s about was my idea, I don’t want you to think that . . .” She rolled her eyes, embarrassed, and then grinned cheerfully. “I am really screwing this up, aren’t I?”
Mom was crying silently behind her.
I waited a moment longer. “So, did you bring it?”
“Oh!” said Brooke. “Sorry, I’m just kind of nervous. Yes; here.” She handed me a piece of paper. “It’s just a short poem, I don’t want you to get all excited about getting a big sonnet and then it’s just a little . . . so anyway, here you go.”
She grinned again, looking at me, not moving. “I was going to recite it for you,” she said, “but then I’d have to crawl into a hole and die of embarrassment, so you’re on your own. Sorry.”
I looked down at the paper. It was four lines, written in a curvy, slightly ornate handwriting that said she’d written it somewhere else and transferred the finished product here to make it look nice.
We went out to the Bonfire on a dark and stormy night.
We thought it would be lots of fun; instead we got a fright.
I still want to go out with you, so we should try again.
Come pick me up tomorrow night, if you’re not busy then.
She wanted to go out with me again—after everything that had happened, after every horrible thing I’d done in the last week, she still wanted a date. And I didn’t know if I trusted myself anymore.
“I know it’s a dumb poem,” she said, looking down. “But I thought it would be fun, since we didn’t really get to finish our last date . . . I mean, we barely started, really, and anyway . . .”
I couldn’t rely on the mortuary to let out pressure anymore, and the fire hadn’t worked at all—it had made me more anxious, not less. Brooke might be the best way to forget everything and feel normal.
She pursed her lips, and her face started turning red. I suddenly realized I hadn’t said anything yet.
“Yeah,” I said quickly. “That sounds great.” Her face brightened immediately. “Tomorrow night?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Around five?”
“Sure.” I paused. “What do you want to do?”
“Just let me take care of it all,” she said. “You just bring you. And your car.” She laughed.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll come get you at five.”
“Cool,” she said. “Great!” She turned around, smiled at my mom, then waved at me and clattered happily down the stairs. “See you tomorrow!”
“That figures,” said Mom, stepping in from the landing and closing the door. “The only member of this family with a normal relationship is a sociopath.” She laughed thinly and sat on the couch.
In the back of my head, a tiny voice told me that this was a bad idea.
That’s weird, I thought. Usually the voice tells me to follow Brooke, and I tell it to stay away. Huh.
13
In the trees behind my house I made a pile of crickets, small and black, wings fluttering wildly, and next to them a pile of tiny cricket legs like thin plastic shavings. Without their legs the crickets wiggled helplessly, abdomens curling like stubby fingers, wings flailing against air and dirt and gravity. They couldn’t take off from the ground, it seemed—they needed legs to leap up and catch the air. It was fascinating to watch.
I thought perhaps their leg stumps would bleed, either blood or whatever was inside a cricket, but the joints popped apart like petals from a flower, separate and whole. There were no wounds.
I buried the squirming pile and brushed off my hands. I needed to get ready for tonight.
Brooke was in absolutely no danger from me—and for a lot of reasons. First were my rules: they stopped me from doing anything I shouldn’t do, and I’d been following them strictly for days without a slip. The second reason, related to the first, was the simple fact that Mom had been out of the house all day. She’d gone to Margaret’s, then to Lauren’s, to try once again to persuade her to file a report of domestic abuse. I had pushed them all from my mind, filling it instead with pleasant thoughts and calming mantras: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21. I was at peace. Brooke had nothing to fear from a mind at peace.
The third reason, of course, were the crickets; any violent or dangerous tendencies I might have had were sated and still, buried with them in the dirt. Mr. Monster was happy, I was happy, the world was happy.
I paused in the woods behind my house. Brooke’s house was just a little ways off on the left; I could see the roof from here. During the winter I’d spent many hours in these woods, high up in a tree behind Brooke’s house, watching through her window. It was dangerous, but I was careful, and no one ever saw me. She never closed the curtains, probably because she never expected anyone to be back there—our street was right on the edge of Clayton, and there was nothing behind any of our houses but a mile or two of forest.
I’d stopped, of course—it was dangerous to spend that much time thinking about Brooke, which was why I’d started avoiding her in the first place. But things were different now. I was spending more time with her—and she wanted me to spend more time with her. I could think about her without feeling guilty. And I still had my rules, so nothing was going to happen.
There was at least one rule, though, that I really ought to change. It felt stupid, on our last date, that I hadn’t allowed myself to look at her shirt. It’s not like I was staring at her breasts or anything—I just wanted to know what kind of shirt she was wearing. There was nothing wrong with that.
I was standing behind her house now, still buried fifty yards or more in the cover of the trees. I could see her window from here, but it was too bright outside to see inside—and I wasn’t there for that, anyway, I was just passing by. Though if I could see in, I’d be able to know what she was wearing, and I could dress to match. I still had no idea what we were doing: something classy? Something messy? Something in between? I might dress completely wrong for whatever we were doing, which could ruin the whole date.
Don’t do it.
I caught a flash of movement in one of the lower windows. Maybe just a quick peek—I didn’t want to stalk her, like before, but a quick peek wasn’t stalking. I just happened to be in the area, and if I happened to see what she was wearing, there was no harm done. It would actually be a good thing. Considering how devastated she’d feel if I showed up in the wrong clothes, or in clothes that clashed with hers, I practically owed it to her to take a peek. She invited me on this date, after all—the least I could do was dress appropriately.
I crept closer, my eyes darting back and forth between the two rear windows. They had a sliding glass door in their kitchen, leading onto a low deck, and I could see someone moving around inside. Was it Brooke or her mom? The door opened abruptly and I stepped behind a tree as a small form dashed out. Brooke’s little brother, Ethan. What if I was found? Would she call off the date? I ducked down and began to walk backwards, crouching below the line of brush, when suddenly a voice rang out from the house, clear and beautiful.
Brooke.
I rose up slowly from my crouch, moving my head slightly to the side to peer through the trees. She was standing in the doorway, calling Ethan back inside. She was wearing jean shorts, as always, and a pink top with white flowers. She was gorgeous. Ethan ran back in, and Brooke slid the door closed again.
See? No harm in that at all. It was good to drop that rule and let myself look at Brooke freely.
This date was going to be perfect.
Back at home I picked out some clothes—nice, but casual enough to match what Brooke had been wearing—and then showered carefully, washing my hands five times to be sure the smell of dirt and crickets was gone. I’d been in the woods most of the day, and it was almost time to pick her up.
I dr
essed quickly and grabbed my wallet and keys from their spot on my dresser. Next to it was an old pocketknife, from my days in Cub Scouts; I’d started sharpening it over the last few days, just to fill the time. Should I take it tonight? I wasn’t likely to need it, of course, but you never know. What if I’d had it at the lake, for example, when we found the body in the reeds? I could have cut it out of the ropes. And after all, I still didn’t know what Brooke was planning for our date—we might very well come upon a loose screw, or one that was too tight; we might need to open a bottle or puncture a can. Brooke was dressed pretty casually, after all, and she’d said last time that she loved fishing at the lake, so for all I knew we were headed out there, and I might have to scale and gut a fish.
Don’t take it.
Nonsense; the knife was honed and sharp, perfect for sliding into the meat of a fish and slicing it clean from end to end. Brooke would love it. I patted the knife in my pocket and smiled. Time to go get her.
I arrived at Brooke’s house early and knocked on her door. There was a shout from inside, followed by the clomp of hurried footsteps on the stairs. When Brooke opened the door, smiling widely, she was in a different shirt: blue and white and black in jagged stripes. I frowned and stepped back.
“Hey John!” she said.
Why had she changed?
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I smiled falsely. I thousand reasons ran through my mind: she knew I’d been watching, and changed her shirt as revenge; she guessed I’d been watching, and changed her shirt to gauge my surprise and learn the truth. It didn’t matter why—it was different, and it felt wrong. An afternoon full of imagined scenarios crumbled away, false and sickening in the face of this new, unseen, unplanned-for shirt.