Hangman

by Jack Heath

  Rape survivors often came to the youth shelters where I spent my teenage years. They’d stay in the corners, watching everyone, cheeks swollen from the tears, rubbing their arms like they were scrubbing with soap. And those were the lucky ones—some just switch off, stare at the walls, don’t even realise you’re talking to them. In both cases, it can be weeks before they start acting normal again, and even then you can tell they’re only acting.

  I head for Park Plaza Hospital. I’ll tell the doctors I saw a man dragging Greene out of a bar, and that he ran when I confronted him. The doctors can treat her for the drugs and confirm that she wasn’t raped. She’ll think she had a lucky escape, but she won’t realise just how lucky.

  My fingers twitch as I drive. There are two dead bodies with my tooth marks on them, in a house which recently called attention to itself with gunshots and sounds of breaking glass. I need to clean up the mess before I’m due to meet Thistle at 8.30 am.

  ‘Who are you?’ Greene asks when we pull into the hospital parking lot. She speaks slowly, eyes closed.

  ‘I’m no one,’ I say. ‘Come on.’

  •

  I get home at 5 am. No cop cars out front. I guess no one called.

  Inside, Johnson lies in a lake of blood, stretched out like he’s trying to backstroke towards the shore. The wound in his forearm shines at me.

  I take off my clothes and hurl them into the corner of the room. Falling to my knees, sending ripples through the puddle, I reach for the mutilated arm—

  And see the gun still in his hand.

  The grimy mirror beside the TV reflects a thirty-four-year-old naked man, dribbling, covered in blood, preparing to eat a dead body. This scene wouldn’t have horrified me a week ago. But suddenly I find myself seeing it through Thistle’s eyes. For a fraction of a second, I catch a glimpse of what I really am—a monster.

  My reflection lifts the revolver and presses it to his temple. The barrel has cooled to room temperature. My finger trembles outside the trigger guard.

  I could end this right now. No more hunger. I’m smart enough to know that I’m criminally insane, so killing myself might save lives in the long run. And to do it without finishing the feast in front of me would prove that I still have some humanity left.

  My suicidal urges are rare, and they evaporate quickly. If I don’t act right now, my life will end on someone else’s terms. A bullet from a cop, or a lethal injection at the Death House, or a battle with AIDS after eating the wrong body.

  I move my finger to the trigger. My shaky breaths form clouds of condensation in front of my face. This house is always cold. I feel the absurd urge to stick my fingers in my ears, even knowing that I’ll be dead before I hear the shot.

  The hungry man in my brain, the cannibal, screams at me to drink all that delicious blood.

  ‘Fuck you,’ I tell him, and pull the trigger.

  The hollow click is deafening. My heart skips a beat, goosebumps rise on my arms, and the world warps around me as my eyes fill with tears.

  ‘Fuck you!’ I scream again, this time at Johnson, who didn’t buy enough bullets, and at the God that I don’t believe in, and most of all at myself. Then I fall forwards and start to eat.

  •

  The army recruiter looked like he was barely out of high school—a thick-browed boy with forearms like legs of ham. He was dubious at first, seeing my sun-hardened skin and my hollow cheeks. I eased his worries by seeming like I wasn’t sure I wanted this. Made it about him convincing me, not me convincing him. Played hard to get.

  I wasn’t here to serve my country. I wasn’t here to kill people. I just liked the sound of three meals a day and a bed every night. People said life in the army was tough, but I figured it couldn’t be tougher than sleeping on the sidewalk.

  A good recruiter isn’t looking for a guy like me. He wants someone who’s just finished high school. Someone who’s good at football, but not so good that he got a college scholarship. Smart, but not so smart that he’s already locked into another career.

  I was already twenty-four years old, but I had cleaned myself up. I dug through somebody’s trash until I found a disposable razor, and shaved carefully—most discarded razors are just dirty rather than blunt. I cut my hair short. The only suspicious thing about my clothes was that they stank, so I threw myself into Buffalo Bayou and swam a couple of laps. Then I dragged myself out and walked around in the summer heat until I was baked dry.

  When I signed the recruiter’s forms, he told me to show up to Fort Sam on assessment day. So I stole a respectable car and drove to San Antonio.

  I sat on a bench alongside twenty other recruits, mostly men, mostly young, mostly black. The guy next to me was all three, and seemed nervous. He tried to strike up a conversation with me, but gave up after a handful of one-word replies.

  When they called my name, I was led into a room that looked like the inside of a styrofoam brick, where a doctor who didn’t introduce himself told me to take off my clothes and asked me questions as I did. Was I asthmatic? No. Was I diabetic? No. Was there anything else he should know? No.

  He made me stand on a set of scales, which said I was only a hundred and thirty pounds. Looking at my ribs, he said, ‘You’re very thin.’

  ‘I’ve lost almost twenty pounds this last year,’ I said proudly.

  He seemed to buy it. ‘Well, you can stop now. Much thinner and I couldn’t let you in.’

  He stuck a needle in the inside of my elbow and gave me a stress ball to squeeze while he siphoned off my blood into a vial. I watched, fascinated. Then he pointed me to the bathroom, gave me a cup, and told me to fill it with urine.

  After I was done with that he told me to put my clothes back on, and then I had to do a few more tests. Could I read the smallest letters on this chart? What about with this eye covered? With these headphones on, could I hear the beeping sound? Could I walk while squatting? ‘Recruits call this the duck walk,’ the doctor said as I waddled around.

  Eventually he sent me out. I thought I was done, but it turned out there was one more test: a psych exam.

  The shrink was a middle-aged man with a moustache like Stalin and a missing finger on his left hand.

  ‘Mr Blake?’ he said. ‘I’m Dr Fallun. Take a seat.’

  I did.

  ‘I’m going to ask you some questions,’ he said. His voice was quiet, soothing. ‘Then I’m going to use your answers to see if you’re psychologically fit for duty. It’s important for you to know that we’re not looking for perfect people, but we are looking for honest people. Don’t try to impress me—if you do, I’ll know, and this exam will be considered invalid. You understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Why do you want to join the army?’ he asked.

  ‘To serve my country,’ I said. ‘Sir.’

  ‘That’s one,’ he replied without hesitation. ‘Lie to me again, and you’re out of here. Again: why do you want to join the army?’

  Honesty. Fine. ‘Nothing else to do,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘You married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ever?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Girlfriend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did your parents do for a living?’

  ‘They died when I was one.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that. But it’s not what I asked.’

  ‘My pop worked at an electronics store. My mama was a train conductor, but she gave it up when I was born.’

  ‘How did they die?’

  ‘Is this relevant?’ My feet were sweaty inside my shoes.

  ‘I need to hear your answers to judge their relevance, Mr Blake. How did it happen?’

  ‘They were killed during a home invasion.’

  ‘Beaten? Raped?’

  ‘Just shot.’ I swallow. ‘I’m told it was quick.’

  ‘Did the cops catch the perpetrator?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You ever think about what you’d do to him if you m
et him?’

  ‘No. I was too young to understand, and when I got older, I didn’t really remember my folks.’

  The shrink stared for a while, then said, ‘So killers should only be punished if you remember the victims?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I just don’t think about it, is all.’

  ‘Where were you when they died?’

  ‘I was there.’

  ‘Where exactly?’

  ‘In my mama’s arms.’

  His questions started to get very specific after that. Had I ever engaged in self-harm, cutting, burning? No. Did I find it difficult to control my anger? No. Were my relationships often intense and unstable? I had no relationships. Did I suffer from chronic feelings of boredom or emptiness? No.

  He asked if I engaged in reckless activities, such as dangerous driving, spending more than I could afford, risky sex, drugs. I said no to all until he asked about binge eating, and then I paused for too long.

  ‘Sometimes I eat too much,’ I said. ‘Everyone does that now and then, right?’

  But I always did. I ate everything I could find. I hadn’t eaten any people yet, but I’d thought about it. His questions changed direction again, and my honesty diminished. If I told the truth to these questions, I’d definitely fail the psych report.

  ‘Do you induce vomiting when you feel uncomfortably full?’

  ‘No.’ False.

  ‘Do you wear baggy clothes because you worry about your body shape?’

  ‘No.’ True.

  ‘Do you worry that you’ve lost control of your eating habits?’

  ‘No.’ True—I’d lost control, but I’d stopped worrying.

  ‘Would you say that food dominates your life?’

  ‘No.’ False.

  ‘Ever used laxatives to lose weight?’

  ‘No.’ True.

  ‘Do you count calories?’

  ‘No.’ True.

  ‘After you eat, do you feel disgusted with yourself?’

  ‘No.’ False.

  I think at first he thought I had borderline personality disorder, which I don’t. At most, I have borderline borderline personality disorder.

  Then he thought I was bulimic. But I didn’t quite fit that mould, either. Yes, I ate compulsively, sometimes to the point of puking afterwards, but it had nothing to do with body image. I rarely thought about how fat or thin I was—I rarely thought about myself at all. I was just a seashell being dragged around by the ravenous crab inside.

  Fallun seemed to have run out of questions. He stared at me, scratching his moustache. I stared back. His expression went from puzzled to thoughtful to unnerved.

  ‘Well,’ he said finally. ‘I guess that’ll be all, Mr Blake.’

  ‘Did I pass?’

  He leaned back in his chair and glanced at the computer on his desk. ‘I have to put your answers into the system. You’ll be notified by mail.’

  Leaning back, not making eye contact—he was lying. There was no need for the computer. He wasn’t going to pass me, and he wanted me out of here before I realised it.

  ‘I need this,’ I said.

  ‘Well then, I wish you the best of luck,’ he said.

  I stood up. ‘I want to serve my country.’

  The shrink had one hand under his desk. Like he was ready to push an alarm button, or holding a gun.

  ‘God bless you,’ he said. ‘Thanks for coming in.’

  With his free hand, he motioned to the door. For the first time, I noticed that the stump of his missing finger was mangled, as though it had been chewed off.

  I left.

  For weeks after, I avoided my usual street corners. I kept my back to alley walls, waiting for someone to come looking for me. I thought the shrink had figured out what I was, and I had to assume he told somebody—his review board, the cops, both.

  But no one came. I guess someone decided that a psychological profile isn’t enough evidence for an arrest warrant. Or maybe when my residential address turned out to be fake, they decided they didn’t have enough information to track me down.

  Since then, I never tell people what happened to my parents. I don’t discuss my eating habits. I can never forget how vulnerable I am—if someone guessed I was a cannibal, they wouldn’t have much trouble proving it. The only thing that keeps me visiting death row rather than living there is that I haven’t given anyone reason to suspect me.

  But if Fallun figured it out based on a few simple answers, other people might figure it out too.

  CHAPTER 14

  Why didn’t the vampire attack the snowman?

  Robert Shea’s school is a brick building so square it might be made out of Lego blocks. Decades’ worth of graffiti splatter the walls, scrubbed enough to be illegible but not enough to restore the building’s original colour, which I’m guessing was brown, like a seventies sofa.

  There’s a warden—a slender black woman in a high-visibility vest whose job is to report suspicious-looking strangers. She’s looking at Thistle and me. Thistle pulls her jacket aside to reveal her badge, and the warden nods cautiously.

  Every time Thistle looks at me, I worry that I missed something. A vein between my teeth, some viscera in my hair. I was late, because I scrubbed my skin raw in the shower for a straight half-hour. Even so, it’s impossible not to worry that she can tell.

  Johnson used intravenous drugs, and he was sexually promiscuous. He probably had all sorts of diseases. The thought makes me feel a bit sick. I shouldn’t have eaten his flesh raw, but I couldn’t help myself.

  The first few kids flood out of the school bus. Six graders, shrieking and laughing at one another, bouncing on their toes like boxers. The eighth graders are right behind them, mostly paired up, couples nipping at one another’s ears and grabbing each other’s butts.

  It doesn’t take me long to spot Jane Austin in the crowd. She’s walking alone, schoolbag over one shoulder, her eyes on the school like she’s not really seeing it. She looks right through me until I wave.

  She stops dead. Looks at me, looks at Thistle, looks at the badge.

  ‘Jane Austin?’ Thistle says.

  ‘Fuck,’ Austin says, looking at me. ‘You’re a cop?’

  I say, ‘Robert wasn’t your boyfriend, was he?’

  She half laughs. ‘What? What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘He was dating a girl named Portia,’ Thistle says. ‘She plays the guitar.’

  ‘Portia Gillies?’ Austin glares at us. ‘She’s a lying bitch. Robert would never be interested in her.’

  Her voice wavers. She’s lying.

  ‘That’s what you told yourself,’ I say. ‘How could he be so obsessed with her, while you barely registered on his radar? What did she have that you didn’t?’

  ‘This is bullshit,’ she says, and turns away. ‘Get lost.’

  ‘Someone kidnapped Robert,’ I say.

  Austin stops walking. Thistle gives me a sidelong glance.

  ‘And his parents,’ I continue. ‘And then the kidnapper made sure no one would report them missing. He emailed Robert’s mom’s friends and his dad’s boss, telling them the family was going to Chicago. He sent emails to the drummer in his band, telling her Robert was quitting, and to his girlfriend, to say he was leaving town. He even cancelled Robert’s gym membership online.

  ‘The only thing he missed was you. A girl who was sweet on Robert, but who never had the guts to talk to him. So the only photo she could get was one someone else took at a party. So she was never even close enough to him to call him Bobby like everyone else did. He never knew she existed, so the kidnapper never knew it either.’

  ‘Shut up!’ There were tears in Austin’s eyes. ‘You don’t know anything!’

  ‘Not for sure,’ I said. ‘But I’m real good at guessing.’

  She’s wheezing, like a panic attack. I feel sorry for her—but if she’d told me the truth two days ago, I might have found the kid by now.

  ‘Why?’ she chokes. ‘Why would anyone want to kid
nap Robert?’

  ‘That’s what we came here to ask you,’ Thistle says.

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘Is he friends with anybody important? Someone who might tell him their secrets?’

  ‘Robert’s buddies are musicians!’ Austin says. ‘What important secrets could they possibly have?’

  ‘He got money? Does he do drugs?’

  ‘No. He’s good. A poor and decent guy. All he has is his looks.’

  I think of my new profile of the kidnapper—a rapist with a fetish for young blond boys.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘He has his looks.’

  Austin is rummaging through her bag. ‘I logged in to someone else’s profile,’ she said. ‘Someone who was friends with him. I got some more pictures—I was gonna make more posters.’

  She hands me a crumpled envelope. The warden is looking at us. This probably looks like a drug deal to her. I stuff the envelope into my jacket pocket.

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’ Austin asks. She’s sobbing, like it’s only just hit her. ‘Can you help him?’

  Hostages make terrible pets. Tough to keep them fed and quiet. You need somewhere they can go to the bathroom. Sometimes they need insulin, or asthma inhalers. Robert and his parents have been gone more than a week. Their chances aren’t good.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘We’ll find him.’ Maybe alive, maybe not.

  Thistle hands her a business card. ‘If you think of anything,’ she says, ‘you call us. Got it?’

  Austin nods miserably.

  ‘Good. You should go to class.’

  She wipes her eyes with her sleeve, and turns back to join the river of running kids.

  When she’s out of earshot, Thistle says, ‘You really believe the kidnapper took a whole family?’

  ‘Do you?’

  She watches Austin disappear through the doors of the school. ‘It fits the facts, but it’s weird as hell.’

  ‘You got that right. I’ve never seen a case like this before. And I’m not sure how to solve it.’

  Thistle digs her phone out of her pocket, fiddles with it for a moment, and hands it to me. ‘I’ve blocked the caller ID,’ she says. ‘Officially, I’m still sick.’