Slasher Girls & Monster Boys

by April Genevieve Tucholke

  wolfboy_97: ooh deep

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: not like ur other girls huh

  wolfboy_97: ur not like anyone i know

  2muchc0ff33_grrl:

  wolfboy_97: so wut u doin?

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: homework

  wolfboy_97: *yawn*

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: maybe u should try it sometime, C boy

  wolfboy_97: so mean

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: u luv it

  wolfboy_97: maybe. u luv me?

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: mmmmaybe

  wolfboy_97: only maybe?

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: how can I say I luv u if I’ve nvr met u?

  wolfboy_97: lol u’ve met me every nite for 6 months

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: chat not the same as IRL

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: i thought u’d wanna meet me

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: thought u boys were only after 1 thing :P

  wolfboy_97: i not like dat

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: pity ;)

  wolfboy_97: 0_0

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: u goin 2 school 2morrow?

  wolfboy_97: ya why?

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: i dun wanna sleep

  wolfboy_97: bad dreams again?

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: always

  wolfboy_97:

  wolfboy_97: wut r ur dreams about?

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: voices

  wolfboy_97: wut they say?

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: sad stuff

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: makes me cry

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: makes me mad

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: sometimes when I open my eyes i think i can still hear them

  wolfboy_97: D:

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: need sumthing to keep me awake tonite

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: coffee not working

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: figured I’d use u ;)

  wolfboy_97: orly

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: ya rly

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: wut u wearing?

  wolfboy_97: just sum shorts.

  wolfboy_97: y

  wolfboy_97: wut U wearing?

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: i show u

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: rdy?

  wolfboy_97: k

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: imgfile:thong_1.jpg

  wolfboy_97: @_@

  “Justin!”

  The shout jars me out of the moment. Chokes the blood flow south. I slap the laptop closed and roll out of bed, shrug on a band T-shirt old enough to be in the vintage stores. Her voice trails down the hallway again.

  “Justin!”

  “Coming, Momma!”

  The scent of roses and vanilla wraps me tight me as I step out of my room. Cloying. Choking. I hurry down the creaking floorboards toward her door. A crucifix of plain, dark wood nailed into its center. A ribbon of light spilling beneath. The walls are lined with dusty family pictures. Soldiers and nurses. Black-and-white. Watching as I walk past.

  I knock gently, step inside. And there she is. Wrapped in a fluffy pink robe embroidered with tiny red flowers. Surrounded by plump white pillows and a thin gauze of mosquito netting. Scented candles burn on the nightstand, vanilla and roses thick in the air. Her hair is the color of old straw. Crow’s-feet eyes of milky blue. Staring right at me.

  Through me.

  “What were you doing?” she demands.

  “Nothing, Momma.”

  “You were talking to her again, weren’t you?”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Don’t you lie to me, boy, God and almighty Jesus help me, don’t you lie.”

  I’m not looking at her face, but I can feel her eyes on me. Sometimes I swear I can feel them when I leave the house. When I sleep or eat or shower. She never blinks.

  “I’m not lying, Momma.”

  “She’s just like the others, you know. They’re all the same. They only want one thing. You hear me?”

  “I hear you, Momma.”

  Bible on the nightstand beside her scented candles, open to her favorite book.

  The last book.

  “They don’t love you, Justin,” she says. “Nobody loves you like I do. A boy’s best friend is always his momma. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Momma.”

  “You’re a good boy. My special boy.”

  I know what comes next.

  The butterflies in my stomach are all dead.

  “Come give your momma a kiss.”

  The three feet to her side feel like miles. I paw my way through the mosquito netting and sit beside her on the creaking mattress. The bed that’s been her prison since the accident. This close, I can see how thin she’s gotten. Skin stretched on her bones. She used to sing to me when I was little. Songs of praise and glory to His name. She stopped the day Dad left us, though.

  My stepmom is two years older than I am.

  I guess I wouldn’t feel like singing either . . .

  I take her hand. Stick-thin fingers. Cracker-brittle bones.

  “I love you, Justin.”

  “I love you too, Momma.”

  “Don’t you ever leave me.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  Where would I go?

  As I lean in close, I smell what’s coming for her, dark and sickly sweet under the candle smoke. I kiss her cheek. Sandpaper skin against my lips. Her eyes still locked on mine.

  “My special boy.”

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: where’d u go last nite

  I’m in the living room, sprawled on the couch. The TV is on; coupon sales and silicon lips and the milk-carton faces of missing people on the news. A Mexican guy a little younger than me with greasy hair and pock-marked skin. Yearbook photos of a girl with an orthodontist smile and long blond pigtails. Some old kiddyqueer the cops probably won’t look too hard for, all comb-over and empty eyes.

  Black-and-white photographs on the walls and dirty dishes on the coffee table and slowly dying pot plants. I try to keep the place clean, but it’s hard to find the time. I suggested to Momma we get a maid once. She got so angry, she didn’t talk to me for a week.

  I didn’t mind much.

  wolfboy_97: internet went down, sorry

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: u missed out, had 2 keep myself awake

  wolfboy_97:

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: beginning 2 think u dun like me anymore

  wolfboy_97: u kidding i’m crazy 4 u

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: y u bail every time i get sexty then

  wolfboy_97: told u my net went down.

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: :P

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: so

  wolfboy_97: so?

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: so when can we meet irl?

  wolfboy_97: not yet

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: y not? i want to see u so bad

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: u only 1 town over

  wolfboy_97: soon ok?

  wolfboy_97: i want it 2 b rite

  wolfboy_97: 2 b perfect

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: sigh

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: well in other news

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: my mom being a total psycho again

  wolfboy_97: wuts up

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: i swear she wants to put me in a freakin convent

  wolfboy_97: noooooo

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: lol

  wolfboy_97: you haven’t told her about us have u

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: god no, she’d explode

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: she just doesn’t shut up, you know? she has no idea wut it’s like. She’s always on my back. sometimes i just wanna pack up everything and spilt.

  wolfboy_97: i know exactly what u mean

  wolfboy_97: sometimes I wish I’d have gone with my dad when he took off. he was kinda awesome

  wolfboy_97: but ur stronger than them. ur the most amazing person i know

 
2muchc0ff33_grrl: u always know how to cheer me up

  wolfboy_97: i really like u

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: I like u 2 <3

  wolfboy_97: i think about u all the time

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: what u think about

  I look at her picture taped to my laptop screen. Her skin is like milk. Her hair is liquid summer. Her photo wears a sly, knowing smile that makes me smile back every time I look at it. Her eyes take me away. Someplace quiet no one else can see.

  wolfboy_97: i think about being with u

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: like dinner at mcdonalds and 2 for 1 movie “being with me”?

  wolfboy_97: no

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: what then?

  wolfboy_97: being alone with u

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: and what will u do when ur alone with me J

  wolfboy_97: stuff ;D

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: lol, do tell

  wolfboy_97: i been looking at the pic u sent me last nite

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: excite u?

  wolfboy_97: yeah

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: u want me?

  wolfboy_97: y—

  “Justin!”

  I close my eyes and try not to sigh. Try not to think bad thoughts. To wish she’d just go away like Dad did. How much easier it would be. How much quieter in my head. I know it’s wrong, but sometimes I think it’d be better if I was just on my own. I pray to God and almighty Jesus for strength, but they don’t listen. They never listen.

  Honor thy father and thy mother.

  “Yeah, Momma?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Talking to a friend on the computer.”

  Her voice rises an octave. “Is it that tramp again?”

  I sigh, push the laptop aside. Stalk through the house, toward the back door. Pizza boxes and dirty dishes and dust bunnies in the corners. She wanted to sit on the porch tonight. Listen to the crickets sing. Insisted I drag her from the bed, wheel her out to watch the sunset. It can’t be good for her skin, but I didn’t have the strength to argue.

  I push open the back door, stare down at her in her wheelchair. All the crickets in the yard fall silent. Like they’re waiting. She looks so small. So thin. I know it must be hard for her. She just never thinks how hard it must be for me.

  “Momma, please don’t talk that way.”

  Her eyes are on the horizon. Dying sunlight reflected in that milky blue.

  “I don’t like it here anymore. Take me back. Take me back, Justin.”

  She does this sometimes. Tells me to take her back to the place the county put her after the accident. They said I couldn’t look after her, that they’d take care of her. She says it was nice, to get on my nerves, but we both know it was horrible. Gray stone and cheap pine and padded walls. Crowds of gawping visitors on a Sunday, milling about like pigs at a trough.

  “I’m not taking you back,” I say. “This is your home. No good son would leave his momma in a place like that.”

  “And you’re a good son, are you?”

  “I try to be.”

  “You keep this up, you’re going to burn, Justin. You’re going to burn in hell.”

  “Momma—”

  “I know what you’re thinking. I can see it in you. You’re going to leave me, just like him. Some teenage piece of tail wags itself at you and that’s all it takes. I know it.”

  “Momma, stop it.”

  “She’s nothing but a tramp, Justin. She’s just like all the others. Sending you pictures of herself. It’s ungodly.”

  I glance back into the house. “. . . How did you know that?”

  She’s refusing to look at me. Thin lips drawn back against her teeth.

  “They’re all alike,” she spits. “Wicked. No good. Dirty girls.”

  The words I bite back taste like sour milk in my mouth.

  “Momma, stop it. She’s really nice. She’s sweet and funny and—”

  “And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color,” she hisses, “and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornicati—”

  I’m tired of this. Of scripture and revelation, of those eyes that never blink, of her always being inside my head. I grab her wheelchair handles, drag her in through the back door. She shrieks protest, but I don’t listen. Trundling her through the sprawling rooms, past those staring photos and Bible pages in dusty frames. Every word is a nail driven into my head. I pick her up, and she weighs almost nothing in my arms. And careful as I can, I put her back into her bed, back into the cloying stink of those scented candles and musty pages. Screaming all the while.

  Tramps. Harlots. Floozies. Trollops. Jezebels.

  Shut up, shut up, shut up.

  I slam the door, muffling her venom. Snatch up my computer. Fling open the stairwell door and stomp down into the cellar. It’s always quiet down here. Thick concrete walls and rich, dark earth. Sheets of old plastic. My dad’s tools hanging on the walls. The only things he left behind. The only place I can really go to escape her voice.

  I’ll wait down here awhile. She’ll be calm in an hour or two. Everything will be normal.

  Normal.

  wolfboy_97: sorry, back

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: missed u

  wolfboy_97:

  wolfboy_97: we shud do it u know

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: um slow down stud

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: u run a mile when I send you a pic of my undies

  wolfboy_97: lol no

  wolfboy_97: i mean run away together

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: lol, ur crazy

  wolfboy_97: only about u

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: u don’t know me.

  wolfboy_97: I know ur amazing

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: might not think that the 1st night i wake up screaming next 2 u

  wolfboy_97: i wouldn’t care. Coz u’d be waking up next 2 me

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: I’m a total headcase, wolfie

  wolfboy_97: u can’t be as bad as my other gf’s lol

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: o so I’m ur gf now?

  wolfboy_97: . . . aren’t u?

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: tell me bout them

  wolfboy_97: who

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: ur old gfs

  wolfboy_97: y?

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: told you. I’m good @ history. Mistakes of the past and all

  wolfboy_97: this is like a golden rule or sumthng. Never talk about exes

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: if ur as hawt as ur pics, they must have been too

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: so

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: were they?

  wolfboy_97: lol i’m not talking about this

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: WERE THEY

  wolfboy_97: . . .

  wolfboy_97: they were pretty, yeah

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: prettier than me?

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: think carefully b4 u answer, wolfboy

  wolfboy_97: ur way prettier

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: huzzah u have passed the test!

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: how many gfs u had?

  wolfboy_97: I plead the 5th

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: afraid u’ll incriminate urself?

  wolfboy_97: u make me smile

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: lol i make u squirm

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: crazy headcase psycho girl I told u

  wolfboy_97: i like that ur psycho

  wolfboy_97: i’m psycho too

  wolfboy_97: hello?

  wolfboy_97: u there?

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: *sighs* gotta jet, wolfie. mom screaming again

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: back around 10

  wolfboy_97: k

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: xxx

  I stare at her kisses for I don’t know how long. The sound of the world down here is m
uted. Soft and dark but for the house breathing. I can’t hear Momma yelling anymore.

  My mind drifts, wandering in the unwelcome direction of former girlfriends. Why’d she ask about them? Why take me there? Now I’m remembering and it makes me sad. I don’t like thinking about how it never works out.

  Shy Alice with her freckles and her glasses who never really kissed me back.

  Lucy with her tattooed arms and pierced tongue.

  Sally, who never really talked much, but still liked to scream my name.

  A parade of imperfections and unhappy endings. Failed experiments. Sometimes I wonder if the right girl is out there. Sometimes I wonder if Momma isn’t right about all of them.

  No.

  C0ff33’s different. She’s special. She’s the one.

  Just like me. Lost. Lonely. Looking for someone.

  Someone special.

  That special boy.

  × × ×

  I met her on Reddit. Some true-crime author AMA. I visit lots of chat rooms. Books and hobbies and music and movements. Just watching. People would say I lurk, but I hate that word. Sounds like I’m some kind of creeper, and I’m totally not. I just don’t talk unless I’ve got something to say. Mark Twain said it’s better to remain silent and be thought of as a fool than to run your mouth and remove all doubt.

  Anyway, after the AMA was done, she got into a flame war with some nub who insisted Pedro Lopez was the worst serial killer in history. I watched her take him apart, smart and funny all at once. Explaining Lopez was second-string, that Luis Garavito had over four hundred possible vics. The nub disappeared with his tail between his legs.

  I sat staring at her name. 2muchc0ff33_grrl.

  I don’t drink coffee. Gives me headaches.

  Took me ten minutes to muster the courage and PM her.

  wolfboy_97: ur wrong btw

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: wut

  wolfboy_97: about Garavito

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: omg another Lopez fanboy? Learn 2 google, kid

  wolfboy_97: not Lopez. Harold Shipman

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: lol he bushleague. 250ish

  wolfboy_97: your wikifu sucks, they solved over 400 murders off Shipman.

  wolfboy_97: but they think it could’ve maybe been 1000

  wolfboy_97: and Lopez maybe beats Garavito. No way for them rly know who the #1 is

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: who the hell r u, guinness?

  wolfboy_97: just another freak

  wolfboy_97: like u

  2muchc0ff33_grrl: well thank u very much

  wolfboy_97: freaks beat normal any day