Diary of a Teenage Serial Killer

by Jem Fox

  “Do you need me today? Because I could come back later or meet you guys wherever you’re shooting next. It’s no problem.”

  “This is all we’re doing today, but I’ve got your number. We’ll work you in for something else. As long as you do this right and don’t mess it up, I’m sure they’ll use you again.”

  “That’d be great. You know, my parents think being in drama is a waste of tuition money. I was in plays in high school, I mean I starred in plays in high—”

  “Okay, we’re almost there. Lance — remember, do not stomp the gas until I am clear. Be careful. I don’t want you driving over me.”

  “I can handle it — no worries! Do you do your own stunts like this all the time?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  On their grainy black-and-white monitor, they saw a car pull up without stopping, the back door open, and a girl get pushed out onto the gravel. She rolled to a stop and started struggling against her restraints. The car peeled away.

  There was no one else.

  After a minute, the door opened and a thug stood there, looking down on me, my hair in my face, my cries muffled by the piece of tape pressed across my mouth, my pink shirt riding up and showing my belly. He looked left and right and then called to someone inside. The two of them hauled me up by the armpits and dragged me in.

  They dumped me on the floor and I squirmed to sit up with my back against the wall, my head hanging down and my hair in my face. I was careful not to accidentally rip the tape off my hands and wrists.

  One of them nudged me with the toe of his shoe.

  “Who’re you, little girl? I didn’t know we were getting deliveries now.”

  He looked over at his friend.

  “Maybe we should keep her tied up, what do you think?”

  He leaned over and trailed his finger down my cheek, my neck, and then pulled my shirt open to look down inside it.

  A plastic intercom on the wall buzzed. The second guy walked over to it and punched the button. Creepy geek’s voice came out: “Bring that girl back to me.”

  “Sure, boss.”

  When he turned around, I was up and the other guy was already dead.

  I didn’t want to use a gun. Too loud, and I didn’t want the others to have any warning. I was sure GLG was there somewhere. He wouldn’t miss me coming back with Celia. And the geek was obviously in the house. I didn’t want them to know I was coming.

  Thug #2, the doorman. His mouth fell open when he turned around and saw me standing there holding the knife, my hands and feet loose, my hair back from my now-familiar face, and his colleague lying at my feet. If he’d had a better response time — if he’d had the least bit of protective reflexes — he would have grabbed that card table by the corner and flung it at me. Instead, he just stood there while I lifted thug #1’s gun up and leveled it at his chest.

  “Turn around and face the wall.”

  He turned around.

  “Hands on the wall.”

  He put his hands on the wall.

  I had second thoughts about coming close enough to use the knife. It wasn’t my preferred weapon. This knife, I mean — the cheapie I got from the hardware store. In general, a knife is my preferred weapon. Mine was in my backpack somewhere in this building. His arms and legs were tense, and he turned his head just a hair to glance back at me over his shoulder.

  “You don’t scare me, you little bitch.”

  “See? That’s the difference between you and me. I don’t use guns to intimidate people. I use guns to shoot people.”

  And then I shot him in the back.

  The noise was extremely loud in that small space by the metal door, but the others were way at the other end of the building. I listened carefully and heard nothing. No screams, no running feet. I hoped there were no girls in the building. If there were, I’d have to order them out, and now they’d have to step over two dead guys along the way.

  I patted down their pockets in case they had something I could use. Thug #1 had a handful of Polaroids in his front pocket. The girl did not look like she was enjoying herself. I dropped them on the floor.

  I put thug #2’s gun in the back of my waistband and the cheap knife into my right front pocket. I held the other gun with a two-hand grip and walked carefully down the hallway, checking each room as I passed it. Nobody.

  I edged carefully to the end of the hall where it opened up into that big room. I crouched down and did a quick peek. I could see under the desks. No one there. On the far side was the darkened hallway where the creepy geek’s office was. Off to my left were a couple of closed doors and the half-open door to the kitchenette. All was quiet. The only noise was the grinding of the ice machine in the kitchen and the buzz and crackle of the fluorescent lights.

  I ran lightly on tiptoes down to the far hallway and quickly checked around the corner. Nobody.

  I stood to the side of the geek’s office door as far away as I could get and still reach it by stretching out. I rapped my knuckle against the fake woodgrain: two taps.

  Somebody on the other side put three quick bullets through the center of the door, splintering it all to hell. When the shots faded away, I could hear labored breathing from inside. It sounded about six feet on the other side of the door. Whoever it was was listening carefully and probably trying to peer through their new XXL peep hole.

  I hunkered down and sat on my heels, reached around and shot three times through the door, about 18 inches off the floor. Something connected with flesh and bone, and whoever I hit was screaming as he went down.

  I kicked the door down. Thug #3 was lying on his back on the floor, eyes trying to look up into his own brain, fingers spasming on the gun still lying on his open hand. I kicked it away.

  It had been so dark in there the day before, I’d missed that there weren’t just windows covered up, but also an outside door. It was ajar now. I walked over and yanked it open. An empty concrete parking lot where the geek’s car had probably been sitting when I came in the front. He must’ve taken off when he heard the gunshot. He could have taken his bodyguard with him, but he left him behind to die. I looked down at him. He wasn’t twitching anymore.

  I heard a scuffle in a nearby room, like a mouse in the wall, but bigger. A rat.

  I stepped in the hallway and listened. It was coming from one of the rooms off the kitchen.

  I walked over. There was the muffled sound of struggle and complaint, then a heavy thud and silence. I took a quick step to the far side of the door and ever so gently checked the doorknob. Locked.

  The doors in this place were built of something only slightly more substantial than balsa. I thought about it for a second, scratched my chin with my thumb.

  “Hey Glenn.”

  Silence.

  “Your boss took off. There’s nobody else here.”

  I heard movement inside that sounded like GLG dragging Lucas. I backed up and edged myself into the kitchen. The ice machine was between me and his gun now.

  The door banged open and he came out into the hall holding Lucas like a limp doll. He was having trouble holding his dead weight with just one arm while he held his gun with the other. He kind of propped Lucas up with his knee.

  “You going to walk him all the way outside like that?”

  He couldn’t even go three feet. Lucas started to slip down and he had to grab for him with both hands. I stepped out into the hall with my gun aimed toward his head, squinting carefully down the sight.

  He’d finally lost a little of his cool. “I’ll shoot him.” He had one arm wrapped around Lucas and the gun pointed up at his chin. “Get that fucking gun off me.” I could see him taking in my changed appearance and trying to figure it out, pressing his brain to work a little harder than it was used to.

  “I told you,” I said patiently, “I just met him yesterday. Go ahead and shoot him. Then I’ll shoot you.”

  “If you don’t care about him, why’d you come back?”

  He was holding Lucas�
��s belt with his free hand and the strain of holding him up — maybe mixed with the sight of me holding a gun on him and the overwhelming silence in the rest of the building — was making a vein in his temple pop out. He was sweating like he was bench-pressing his top weight and there was no one there to spot him.

  His eyes shot sideways back to the room he’d come out of like he was thinking of jumping back in there.

  I was only standing ten feet away. I thought about taking the top of his head off but that high up on his skull I wasn’t sure this crappy ammo would penetrate. I shot him in the leg instead.

  He screamed and dropped both Lucas and the gun, staggering backward. I was right up on him then and I shot him again in the gut. Then I kicked the gun away. Lucas was just a heap of flesh and bone on the floor. But he was still alive. I could see him breathing.

  GLG was chalky white, with his hand pressed to his belly and the other one opening and closing on nothing. I leaned over him and spoke pleasantly. “Celia says hi.”

  He licked his lips. “Don’t kill me.”

  He started talking, stumbling over his own words, trying to get it all out, but it still came out slow. His voice was raspy. “I killed somebody once. My foster brother. I lived with him for five years, from when I was eight till I was 13. He was three years older than me and a lot bigger. He did things to me for that whole five years. I couldn’t stop him. And our foster parents, they didn’t care. They were just in it for the money.” He took a ragged breath. “I ran away twice but I got brought back both times.”

  “I’m not really interested in your life story, Glenn.”

  “I went back four years ago and found him. He was a mess. He’d been using meth. He looked like a walking corpse. I shot him and killed him. It was hardly murder – he was already mostly dead.” His voice was slowing down, like a tape at the wrong speed. “It wasn’t like I thought it would be. It made me sick. He was a piece of human shit and he deserved to go to hell for what he did to me. But when I killed him…” He reached out one white hand toward my foot, beseeching me for mercy.

  I looked down at him. “I saw a picture of you. It was in the van.”

  He looked up at me, confused.

  “It was a nice picture. Taken at the playground. Who’s the little boy?”

  He licked his lips again. “My brother. My baby brother.”

  I sighed. “Aw, Glenn. That’s a lie, isn’t it? I know that wasn’t your baby brother. You know how I know?”

  He blinked.

  “Because that was Melody’s little brother.”

  And then I shot him in the face.

  I don’t know much of anything about computers, as is probably clear. I went back to the offices and got all the laptops and brought them to the geek’s office. Then I went around and scavenged whatever I could find that was flammable. I lucked out and found a bunch of boxes of old computer paper, the kind with holes along the side. It was dry and brittle and would burn like nobody’s business. I pulled it out of the boxes and filled the room with piles of it. I’d picked up a book of matches at Melody’s. Lots of smokers there.

  While I was looking around, I found my backpack. Everything was still there except Robby’s gun. They hadn’t found the money I had hidden in the strap. My tapes were all there. My notebooks were there, including this one.

  I figured the place would burn but I didn’t realize such cheap, shitty construction would go up like tissue paper.

  I stood in the outside doorway of the geek’s office until I was sure it was going good. I wiped my fingerprints off the doorknob and started the long walk back to town.

  I left Lucas there. Not inside, of course. I dragged him out past the parking lot to a grassy spot far from the building and laid him out under a scraggly tree. I couldn’t pick him up; he was too heavy. I took a blanket off one of the beds and rolled him onto that, then pulled him along. I didn’t see another soul. It was possible some security camera caught me dragging him across the cement and then walking away from the burning building. At least I was in disguise, more or less. Long black hair, etc.

  I washed the dye out of my hair before I went back to the apartment. No reason not to go back. Everyone except the geek was dead. Well, Robby and Ramón were question marks. But I was pretty sure I didn’t have to worry about them anymore.

  The apartment was locked up tight. Despite the fact that I’d walked away from it leaving the door open, it was fine. One of my neighbors must have closed it up for me. I had a key hidden out back. I let myself in and it was like I’d never been gone.

  That night I laid there in my own bed and listened to my tapes for a long time before I finally fell asleep.

  D: What about cops? What about the military? They kill more than two people and they have rest periods in-between.

  J: They operate under a code of ethics.

  D: My father operated under a code of ethics.

  J: Your father invented his own rules.

  D: The military invents their own rules. Don’t you read the papers?

  J: When soldiers or police officers break the law, they’re punished.

  D: [unclear]

  J: The military and the police force are people that society has chosen to uphold its laws…

  D: My father upheld the laws.

  J: When one man decides to do what he thinks is right, despite what anyone else says, despite what the laws say, and when he’s willing to break the law to do it…

  D: When you let society have dominion over you, you give up your soul.

  J: That’s your father talking.

  D: You’re saying he was a vigilante.

  J: He murdered people.

  D: You’re saying he was a serial killer.

  J: He killed people. Many people.

  D: He didn’t kill people because he wanted to kill. He killed bad people.

  J: Darla, it wasn’t his job to decide who was bad and who deserved to die.

  D: See there — that’s the problem. If no one gets to decide, fine. But when you start saying some people get to decide but not others, then you naturally come to ask yourself — why not me?

  There is a difference between being a killer and a murderer. There is a difference between being a murderer and a serial killer. A serial killer kills multiple people, usually at least three, over a period of time, with times in-between when he doesn’t kill.

  My father was a serial killer. He didn’t kill for psychological gratification. He didn’t dream about the kill. He didn’t crave the kill. He lived by a set of rules that he created himself. He killed people who needed killing. The Rapists, the Murderers, the Pedophiles, the Liars, the Frauds, the Thieves. He killed the Bad Men.

  I did not want to be a killer. I did not want to be a murderer. I am both.

  I did not want to be a serial killer. I did not want to be like my father.

  I wanted James to forgive me, but then he died and it was too late. I wanted him to forgive me, but all he would ever say was that I was the one who needed to forgive me. He said he thought he could help me do that, in time. But we ran out of time.

  When I met James, I was already a killer and a murderer. But I wasn’t yet a serial killer. I believed that I could live my whole life and not kill again.

  I knew that the things my father had been saying to me since I was born were like slow poison he dripped into my veins. Men lie. My father was a man. Therefore, my father lied.

  But I am living and walking on this earth and everywhere I go, I see evidence of my father’s truth. I look for his lies and I think I see them out of the corner of my eye, but when I turn, they’re smoke.

  The men at that industrial park were Bad Men. They were young, but they were Rapists and Thieves and Murderers. They raped girls and stole their future and murdered their idea of themselves. They tricked boys into raping girls and murdered their souls as well.

  I tried to make my own rule: I would only kill someone who tried to kill me first. But then I found myself doing Daddy ma
th. The world minus this person equals X. The world plus this person equals Y. How many innocent people will suffer if this evil stays in the world?

  I waited two weeks before I went back to the professor’s house.

  Lucas answered the door. His eyes widened when he saw me. He checked behind me and then invited me in.

  He didn’t see me at the industrial park when I went back for him. He didn’t know what happened. I said I’d be back, then the next day all hell broke loose. Glenn came in the room where he was being held and they struggled and Glenn ended up knocking him unconscious. He woke up outside and the building was burning and there were sirens and cops and firemen and EMTs. The bad guys at the industrial park had turned against each other, or maybe some other crew had taken them out. No one knew for sure what had happened. Only that it was something bad.

  He asked me if I was okay. He asked if I went back. I told him I did.

  He asked me if I saw the building burning. I told him I did.

  He said it was lucky that we both got away without being hurt. I said it was.

  I asked him if he told the police about me and he said he had to, because my bloody fingerprints were all over the kitchen and his parents had already told them my name. I was surprised the cops hadn’t already showed up at my apartment looking for me, but evidently they weren’t in a big hurry now that everyone was dead. It was probably a drug thing, and Lucas and I were two lucky kids who escaped some very dangerous men.

  I was a little offended that no one had bothered to follow up and make sure I was okay. I was even a little irked they hadn’t dug into my story a little, made sure I wasn’t in on the operation. I had no family to demand my return and no criminal record. My file was on the bottom of a pile somewhere. Maybe they’d never get to it.

  Lucas fiddled with the zipper on his hoodie. He said they wanted to know about Flunky and he told them two men came, he didn’t know them, they got into a fight, and one killed the other then took us hostage.

  He looked embarrassed. “I told them you pulled the knife out. Because … you know. Your fingerprints.”