by David Archer
Cynthia, however, was different. She wasn’t the kind of girl he normally spent time on, because she wasn’t interested in giving up what he wanted. However, she made it clear that she thought he was pretty cute and hinted that they could become an item, as long as he was willing to be patient.
They never actually dated, but both of them went along with other kids to a couple of movies, and occasionally hung out at the pizza place. It wasn’t what he considered a relationship, but she certainly seemed to be inclined to believe it was.
And then she had vanished. Nobody knew exactly what happened, but she disappeared one day. She left school like she always did, but never made it home, and no one ever saw her again. Most of their friends figured she had run away, but her parents and neighbors insisted that couldn’t be true.
C.J. had been questioned by the police, not as a suspect, but just to see if maybe he had some idea where she would go. He told them he wouldn’t be able to hazard a guess, and that they weren’t all that close. They took him at his word, and that was the end of that.
And yet…
Over the next few weeks, Cynthia faded from his memory. He remembered a few times when somebody mentioned her sudden disappearance, and he looked at them in confusion, barely able to remember who she was. He would try to recall her face, but that awful feeling would start up, and he always felt there was something he couldn’t quite remember. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew it made him very uncomfortable when he tried to think about it, so he finally quit trying.
And then, over the years, that feeling would come occasionally on its own. He didn’t know what would cause it, but it would pop up when he least expected it. That strange feeling that there was something he couldn't quite remember, that there was something wrong that he needed to put right, would nag at him.
He just could never remember what it was. It was an eerie feeling, as if there was something haunting him. He occasionally wondered if maybe he had suppressed a memory of something bad that happened to him, and whether it might someday come back to ruin his life. He’d thought about it a lot over the years, but never did remember what it might have been.
Now, though, sitting and watching as human remains were being carried out of the house he had grown up in, the floodgates suddenly opened. He remembered that last day, when Cynthia spotted him walking home from school and asked him to come over to her house and study for a while. He told her that he had to get home and clean up, so he could go to the shop and work with his dad, but she was persistent. She said she just wanted to spend some time with him, and offered to follow him home and wait while he changed, then walk him to work.
C.J. had shrugged. She could come along if she wanted, he figured, and maybe she was even getting to the point she might be willing to think about the two of them becoming closer. Letting her come to the house wasn’t going to make him late, so he let her tag along.
“C.J.,” Cynthia said as they got close to his house, “is anybody home at your place?”
He turned and looked at her, his hopes rising. Maybe she really was ready to take the next step. “Probably not,” he said. “Mom would be down at the shop, doing the paperwork for the end of the month.” He gave her what he thought of as “the look,” the same look that got so many of the other girls excited. “You ready to spend a little quality time with me? Just the two of us, all alone?”
She batted her eyes. “Maybe,” she said teasingly. “I guess it all depends.”
He smiled at her, then walked through the front door and held it open for her. She came inside and let him close it behind her, then didn’t object when he stepped close and put his arms around her. It was the first time she had ever let him actually kiss her, and C.J. started getting excited.
“I gotta go upstairs and get dressed for work,” he said. “You want to come along?”
“Up to your room? I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t.”
“Oh, come on,” C.J. said. “You know you want to. Don’t you?”
“Just because I want to doesn’t mean I should. You know I’m not going to go as far as you want, C.J. We’ve been over that enough times, haven’t we?”
C.J.’s excitement waned suddenly. He looked at her for a moment, then turned and walked away, stomping angrily up the stairs to his room. He slammed his bedroom door behind him, frustrated and angry that she had somehow become a tease.
He stripped off his school clothes and dug out the worn jeans that he usually wore to the shop, then pulled on an old work shirt his mom had found at the thrift store. He buttoned it and tucked it into his pants, then yanked open the door and started back down.
Cynthia was standing right where he had left her, and he noticed that she seemed on the verge of tears. That was her problem, he figured, because she was the one who decided to be a tease. He walked over and opened the door, then looked back at her.
“I gotta go to work,” he said. “That means you gotta go.”
She did start crying, then, and walked over to him. “C.J., don’t be mad at me,” she said. “I’m just not ready to do those things. I think you’re a great guy, and I really want to get to know you better, but there’s more to life than just—you know, sex.”
He looked at her, trying his best to feel compassion, but it just wasn’t there. As far as he was concerned, she had led him on and then let him down. He didn’t have time for a girl who just wanted to be a tease, not when there were so many willing ones out there.
“I gotta go to work,” he said again. “If you really want to be with me, you need to think about what that means.”
She stood and looked at him for a couple of seconds, then reached up and put a hand against his cheek. She opened her mouth and tried to say something, but no words came out. She looked into his eyes again, then leaned forward and tried to put her lips against his own.
She’s giving in, he thought. He reached out and put a hand on the back of her head, pulling her close and trying to control the kiss, but she panicked. She threw her hands against his chest and pushed, and he fell backward and his head hit the door.
C.J. stared at her for a moment, then reached out and grabbed her again. He got hold of her by her arms and pulled her away from the door, then kicked it closed.
“You want to play games?” he asked angrily. “Come on, I’ll show you some games.” He dragged her to the couch and threw her on it, and she started to cry louder.
“C.J., stop,” she yelled. “Just stop it, right now.”
He didn’t intend to hit her, but he remembered it. His fist had reared back and then flown forward, and he must have made her teeth split the inside of her cheek. Blood sprayed out of her mouth and her eyes flew open wide, and she opened her mouth to scream, so he hit her again.
“Just shut up,” he yelled. “Just be quiet. You’ve been wanting this for a long time, and you know it.”
With her wide eyes staring at him, C.J. reached down and yanked her skirt up. He grabbed hold of her underclothes and pulled, tearing them in his enraged excitement, and then he stood just enough to unbuckle his belt and shoved his pants down.
It was exciting. All of the other girls he’d been with had been willing, but there was something exciting about taking from Cynthia what he wanted. He wasn’t sure how long it lasted, but it was better than anything before. When it was over, he rose and looked at her, but she had her eyes closed and her face turned away.
“See?” he asked. “Wasn’t that what you wanted? Now we can stop playing all the stupid games.”
She turned her face and looked at him, and C.J. saw the absolute loathing in her eyes.
“How-how could you?” she asked, sobbing. “C.J., how could you? You knew how I felt about that, you knew I didn’t want to—that I didn’t want to do that. You’re not the boy I thought you were, not even a little bit.”
Sitting on the bed, he realized that had been the moment when his life turned. In that moment, seeing that pure loathing, hate-filled expression, something
inside C.J. Willis had been unleashed.
“What makes you think you have any right to decide who I should be?” he asked. “Who are you to decide who I am, or even to think you know who I am? You’re just some dumb, stupid girl who thinks she won’t have to live in the real world, but everybody does. Sooner or later, you would’ve figured it out, so you ought to be thanking me. Now you don’t have to worry about it anymore.”
He stood and pulled up his jeans, then reached down and grabbed hold of her hair. He yanked her to her feet and dragged her through the house, striking her again when she started to cry out. He took her into the kitchen and slammed her down in one of the kitchen chairs, then grabbed the old metal cabinet and moved it aside. He looked at her for one more moment, then reached down and opened the trapdoor into the cellar.
“What-what are you doing?” Cynthia asked, but he didn’t answer. He reached out and grabbed her arm, yanked her to her feet and then picked her up and threw her down through the trapdoor.
He’d known about the basement for a long time, and had even dug himself a secret entrance. He liked coming down here alone, he liked the feeling of solitude that it gave him, and now it would be the place where he would keep his biggest secret. He climbed down the steps and looked at Cynthia, who was lying on the dirt floor and crying.
“You want to play games? Here’s our new game. You’re going to stay down here, and I’m going to come down and do whatever I want with you, whenever I want. If you behave yourself, if you make me happy, I bring you food and water. If you don’t, you can starve. How do you like that game? Huh? How do you like that one?”
“C.J., you have to help me,” she said, gasping. “I think—I think I’m hurt.”
“You’re not hurt,” he said. “Don’t think you’re going to trick me, I know better. The dirt down here is soft, it didn’t hurt you to fall down on it. Now, are you going to stay down here and be quiet like I tell you? Or do I need to teach you another lesson first?” He raised his fist and shook it in front of her face, menacingly.
That was when he got close enough, and Cynthia kicked out with her foot. She caught him in the groin, and he clutched himself as he fell to his knees. Instantly, she was on her feet and skittering around him to get to the stairs, but C.J. reached out and grabbed her ankle. He yanked her off the stairs and pulled her onto the dirt once more.
He lost his balance for a second and reached out to catch himself, and that’s when his hand found the old butcher knife. He brought it down there weeks before, something to use as a tool when he was digging his secret entrance. It hadn’t worked, so he had cast it aside on the floor and gotten his father’s shovel, instead.
His hand wrapped around the handle of the knife without any thought in his mind, and then it came up. Before he realized what he was doing, he had already stabbed her a dozen times.
When it was over and he realized what he had done, he knew that he needed to hide her. The shovel was still down there, and he quickly dug a shallow grave, pushed her into it and started shoveling the dirt onto her. He felt like he was running out of time, however, so he grabbed an old sheet of plywood he had brought down to use to make a table and laid it over her, then shoveled some of the dirt on top of it.
He hurried up the stairs and closed the trapdoor once more, put the cabinet over it and rushed into the living room. He picked up her torn panties and cleaned up the best he could so his parents wouldn’t notice anything, then hurried upstairs. He knew his dad was going to be angry that he was taking so long, but he got a quick shower and then climbed into the same soiled jeans, but he got a clean shirt out of the closet and put it on.
He hid the panties and his bloodied shirt under the loose board in his closet floor, then hurried to the shop. Charlie yelled at him for being late, of course, but there was too much work to do for him to take time to give C.J. a beating. They both got to work and the incident was forgotten by the end of the day.
C.J. even forgot why he was late. He tried to remember a couple of times, but there was some sort of fog in the way.
For some reason, C.J. never went down to the basement again.
TWENTY
He shook it off. Those old memories had come flooding back, but they were certainly no worse than the more recent ones he had acquired. The only thing it meant to him was that there was no point in ever trying to speak to his mom again, because Sam had been down to see her. That meant he probably told her everything, and finding what was left of Cynthia was only going to convince her that Sam was telling the truth.
“Some brother you are, Sam,” C.J. muttered.
C.J. had known a couple of sets of twins when he was younger, and he’d always been jealous of how close they were. That was probably why he had invented his own imaginary twin, but now that he knew he really had one, he was learning that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. His twin brother was out to destroy his life, that was obvious. Well, two could play at that game.
His computer was still open on the bed, and he looked at it. Sam had ruined everything for C.J. back home, so even if he wanted to go back now, he couldn’t. Even worse, Sam had been the lucky one of the twins, because Sam had grown up with his real mother.
It was dark outside. C.J. glanced at his watch and saw that it was almost 10 o’clock, and he wondered where the time had gone. The sun had still been above the horizon when he checked into the motel, but hours seemed to have passed since then.
He pulled the computer close to him and looked at the addresses on the screen. Grace, their mother, was only a short distance away. C.J. thought about paying her a visit of his own, maybe ruining things for Sam the way Sam had ruined them for him, but that would almost seem too easy. He sat and thought about it for a couple of minutes, then let a wicked grin spread across his face.
There was a telephone number on the screen, as well. Grace was a real estate broker, and he found her website. Her cell phone number was prominently listed on the front page, and he copied it into a notepad. Maybe there was a better way to handle things.
He found a pencil on top of the dresser and scribbled the number down, shoved it into his pocket and then picked up his phone and his keys and went out the door. The phone was one of a dozen that he kept, so that he could always have a number that no one could trace. He got into the Mustang and started it, then drove toward his real mother’s home.
He found the place easily and parked on the street. He sat and looked at the house for a moment, then picked up his phone and took the scribbled note out of his pocket. He dialed the number and put it to his ear as it began to ring on the other end of the line.
“Hello?” Grace said as she answered.
“Mom?” C.J. said. “Mom, I need your help. Can you come over right now?”
“Samuel? What’s the matter?”
“I can’t talk about it on the phone,” C.J. said, grinning at the thought that she couldn’t tell his voice from Sam’s. He’d counted on it, but it was a thrill to know that it was working. “Just come over, okay?”
“Yes, I’ll be right there. Just hang on, Sam, I’m coming.”
A light came on in the house, and C.J. saw the shadows on the curtain that meant his mother was hurrying toward the door. He sat in the car and watched until the front door opened and she came out, but she wasn’t alone. There was another woman with her, and they hurried down the steps and into the car. The engine started, the lights came on and they backed out of the driveway, then took off down the street.
C.J. turned on his own lights and followed at a distance. He had Sam’s address, and could have found the place easily, but there was something about following their mother that made this all feel more exciting.
It took half an hour to get across town. The car pulled up in front of Sam’s house and C.J. pulled his own car over a block and a half away. He killed his lights and sat there as his mother and her friend hurried up the steps to Sam’s front door.
Sam would figure it out, he knew. Sam would know insta
ntly who had called their mother, but C.J. was counting on it. He’d probably be coming out the door any second now, and C.J. would finally get a look at his identical twin. He got out of his car and started walking up the street, staying to the shadows of the trees that lined it whenever he could.
There was something strange. C.J. expected Sam to come running out the front door, looking around to see if he was close by, but the door stayed closed. He stopped under a chestnut tree that stood a few doors down from Sam’s house and leaned against the trunk as he watched. Surely, Sam would be coming out any moment.
But he didn’t. C.J. stood there for a minute and a half, but there was no reaction from inside Sam’s house.
Grace would have told him that she got a call, that she thought Sam had called and asked her to come over. Sam would have figured out instantly that it had to be C.J., and that C.J. would almost certainly have followed her. That was simply logical, it was the way it had to go, so why wasn’t Sam coming out and looking for him?
No, something wasn’t right. C.J. stood where he was for a few more seconds, then slipped out of the shadows and started toward the house.
* * * * *
Grace’s frantic rushing awakened Kim, who was sleeping lightly in the next room. She quickly got up and asked Grace what was going on, and Grace told her that Sam called and said he needed her to come right away. Kim had quickly gotten into her own clothes to go with her friend, and had taken out her phone as they got into the car and left their house.
“Indiana? What’s going on?” she asked when her daughter answered the phone.
“Going on? What do you mean, Mom?”
“Grace says Sam called and needed us to come over. She said he sounded like there was something terribly wrong. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, as far as I know,” Indie said. “Sam? Did you call your mother and ask her to come over?”