by Dan Wells
‘Why are you asking me this?’
‘To keep us sharp,’ he said. ‘I already told you that.’
‘Why “us”?’ I asked. ‘Why do you keep saying “keep us sharp”?’
‘Don’t you want to be?’ He turned to look at the window, as if peering straight through the slats of his blinds. ‘You’re a very smart young man,’ he said. ‘You can figure this out.’
Forman seemed completely different every time I saw him - suspicious, or laid back, or nervous, and now . . . what? Sharp? What did that even mean? ‘The Clayton Killer took body parts,’ I said, ‘so I suppose, on a basic level, we could just say that he needed body parts. But there’s usually more to it than that.’ ‘Indeed,’ Forman mumbled. He was still facing the window, but he closed his eyes as if he was meditating.
‘The classic serial killer need is control,’ I continued, watching Forman carefully. I wasn’t even sure he was listening. ‘Killing people and stealing their body parts may have been a way of exerting control over them. That’s why a lot of serial killers keep souvenirs - it gives them a measure of control over the person even after they die.’
‘And you think the Clayton Killer was trying to control people,’ he said.
It was hard to know how to answer, because I couldn’t let Forman know how much I really knew. I had to think like Forman, which meant I had to think only of the things he knew, and set aside all the things he didn’t. He didn’t know the killer was Mr Crowley; he didn’t know Crowley was a demon; he didn’t know the demon was dead. As far as anyone else knew, the Clayton Killer was still out there.
Except, I suddenly realised that Forman was talking about the killer in the past tense.
‘You think the Clayton Killer’s dead,’ I stated.
Forman stood up and walked over to the map, running his finger along certain roads and stopping now and then to tap a thumbtack or a pencil mark. He was ignoring me completely.
‘You think the Clayton Killer’s gone for good,’ I said, louder. ‘You’re talking about him as if he’s dead, with no question. What do you know?’
‘You’re doing fine,’ he said, still studying the map. ‘Keep your mind focused.’
‘Why do you think these victims are related if you’re so sure the killer’s already dead?’ I asked. ‘Is there a copycat killer? Is there a . . . similar . . . killer out there?’
Forman paused and looked at me. ‘A “similar” killer?’
I was talking about another demon, but I couldn’t very well say that. ‘An organ snatcher,’ I said. ‘But nothing was taken from the first three bodies. Was something gone from the fourth?’
‘Too many questions, John,’ he said, turning back to his map. He tapped it one more time, near the wood plant - the approximate location, based on what I’d seen on the news, of the latest body. He sat down and pulled out a file. ‘Stop asking questions and start answering them; you’re only confusing things.’
‘I’m asking because I don’t know the answers,’ I said. ‘You’re not giving me anything.’
‘And don’t get frustrated,’ he said. He thumbed through the file.
‘Are you just doing this to distract me?’ I asked. ‘I’m here because I’m trying to help. I don’t want to get brushed off like a kid.’
‘You are a kid,’ he said, looking straight at me, ‘and the only person you’re here to help is yourself. You’re obsessed with death and you can’t wait till this corpse shows up in the mortuary so you want me to spill it all now; that’s why you’re here. Don’t pretend with me.’
I tried to think of a response, but he cut me off. ‘You can still help though, whether you realise it or not. I just need you to stay focused. Here’s a second question to keep you going: why did the Clayton Killer stop?’
He was playing me somehow, but for what? He couldn’t possibly want my opinion of the Clayton Killer - he was a professional serial killer investigator with all the resources of the FBI. My opinion was nothing he couldn’t come up with on his own. But then why so many questions? Where was he leading me?
I’d gotten his attention once; maybe if I kept talking I could get it back, and find out more.
‘There were two possible reasons for him to stop,’ I said, ignoring what I knew - that I had killed the killer - and spouting pure theory. ‘Either his need was filled, or he died. But serial killers’ needs are almost never filled; they just build up, and build up, until they’re completely uncontrollable and . . . the killer can’t stop himself.’ I thought about the burning warehouse, and the cat.
‘Good,’ said Forman, paging through the file intently. ‘Keep going.’
‘There are a lot of serial killers who go in cycles,’ I said, ‘killing actively for a few months and then disappearing for months or even years. BTK came back like that, long after everyone assumed he was gone. Edward Kemper just turned himself in one day because he decided he was done.’
‘He did,’ Forman mumbled.
‘But you don’t think this one stopped on his own,’ I said, leaning in and watching his eyes for a reaction. Maybe I could prompt a better response if I addressed him directly. ‘You’re pretty certain - though I’m guessing not a hundred per cent certain - that the Clayton Killer is gone. Dead. But none of the evidence suggests it, so you must know something else.’
Forman looked up. ‘What makes you so sure you know what evidence I have?’
His eyes were dark, but somehow bright and alive. He wanted to stay ‘sharp’ - is this what he meant? I felt like I was duelling with him, mind to mind, and every time I thought I had the upper hand he was right there to block me, just as quick as I was.
Just as sharp.
I had his attention now; it was time to press home the attack.
‘I was right in the middle of the final crime scene,’ I said. ‘I saw everything, and there was nothing to suggest that he was done with killing. If anything, the fact that he never stole anything from Dr Neblin suggests that he felt unfinished. He’d kill again just to get a sense of closure.’
Forman’s black eyes bored into me, and I stared straight back as I ploughed ahead. ‘You said the new victims were connected - but why? Why would you assume a connection?’
‘I’m sorry to break it you,’ said Forman, ‘but you live in a very small town. It’s extremely unlikely that you’d have two completely unrelated serial killers, right on top of each other, in a place like this.’ His focus had shifted from whatever had occupied him before, and it was now completely centred on me. Apparently my antagonism had rubbed off, and now it was his turn to press home an attack.
This was what I’d been building towards - he was interested now, and he was talking. Just as he’d done to me, I gave him a question to direct his thoughts. ‘And what could that relationship possibly be?’
‘The only logical one,’ he said. ‘They crossed paths. One killer met the other, they saw themselves reflected, and only one survived; maybe it was territorial, maybe it was coincidental, maybe it was something else. My job is to find out.’
A chill ran through me; he was describing me, though indirectly enough that he might not recognise it. He was closer to my secret than I’d thought. Suddenly my obsession with the new victims had turned into a desperate need to protect myself. I had to know what he knew, and what he suspected, about this killer.
‘Is there any evidence to support your theory,’ I asked, ‘or are you just shooting in the dark? Serial killers follow close patterns, and it seems pretty unlikely that the guy who killed the large, male Clayton Killer has gone on to focus on small women.’
‘A serial killer’s first kill is usually accidental,’ said Forman. ‘It’s likely that the presence of the first killer triggered a pre-existing psychosis in the second, catalysing it, throwing both people into conflict. When the dust cleared, the first killer was dead, but a second was created, and all of his subsequent kills were planned and carried out much more carefully. Those later victims would, naturally, be more in
line with the new killer’s awakened psychosis.’
He was so close to connecting me to this: that profile was almost, but not quite, a perfect description of me. Why hadn’t he made the final link? Because there were four new bodies, and I had nothing to do with them. But he’d been investigating for months, and the new bodies only showed up to confuse him a few weeks ago. There had to be something more - something that had happened months ago to throw him off my trail.
Of course. ‘You found a fifth body,’ I said suddenly. ‘Or a first one, I guess. Months ago, maybe all the way back in January, you found another body from the same killer.’ It made perfect sense. They’d been tracking this new killer longer than I thought because they’d known about him longer than I had. ‘Somehow you hid it from everyone,’ I said. ‘You kept the whole thing a secret.’
Agent Forman smiled.
‘I suppose you feel very clever,’ he said, ‘guessing at the existence of another victim.’ He pulled open the drawer of a filing cabinet. ‘You put all the pieces together, and you came up with that. Very interesting. Anyone else would have come to a very different conclusion.’ He took a gun from the open drawer and laid it, very gently, on the table. ‘We’ve already established that the Clayton Killer is dead, so most people in your situation would have guessed that the other body we found was the Clayton Killer’s corpse - but that didn’t occur to you at all. Why is that, John?’
Think fast. Point this anywhere but at me.
‘Because if you’d found the Clayton Killer you’d have told the whole world,’ I said, keeping my breathing slow and steady. ‘He was national news - the whole country was waiting for you to catch him. If you’d found his body, you could never have kept it this quiet.’
‘The thing about sociopaths,’ said Forman, ‘is that even though they’re missing a lot of emotions - guilt especially - one of the ones they do very well is fear. They don’t just cause it - they feel it intently. It guides their lives. Tell me, John: just now when I told you I was on the trail of a second killer, why did you feel fear?’
How did he know what I was feeling? Even my mom couldn’t read me that well. ‘Anyone would be scared,’ I said ‘The last killer nearly got me - it makes sense that I’d get a little worried about a new one.’
‘But you weren’t scared when we talked about the existence of a new one,’ said Forman, speaking evenly. ‘You were scared when we talked about catching the new one. More specifically, you were scared when we talked about the new one killing the old one. Is there anything you want to tell me?’
My mind churned through the possibilities, trying to figure this out. There was no way he could have read me that accurately. I’d built my life around learning how to read people, how to deduce their emotions from visual signals, since I couldn’t connect with them directly - and even I would have trouble picking up on the faint sense of fear from a practised, unemotive sociopath. And yet he had.
He’d flushed me into a trap, and I could feel it drawing closed; he didn’t have any proof that I’d killed the Clayton Killer, but he’d caught the scent, and he was ready to follow it like a bloodhound. I hadn’t expected a trap from Forman - he was too open, too direct. He’d had the last two bodies on the news almost as soon as they were found; he’d even told the reporter that he thought they were connected to the Clayton Killer, long before he could have performed any kind of meaningful study. Those were not the actions of a subtle man. And yet here he was, standing with a gun while I tried to struggle out of a trap I hadn’t even seen.
I forced myself to calm down and think this through, staring at him while he stared back at me, his hand on his gun. It made no sense that there was subtlety in some of his plans and not in others - it should be all or nothing. So why would he reveal something that might drive the killer into hiding?
Unless he thought it would flush the killer out.
‘You used the bodies as bait,’ I said.
His dark eyes grew more intense. ‘Bait?’
‘You told the reporter that the new bodies were connected to the old, knowing that the new killer would get rattled by the suggestion and possibly expose himself. This entire investigation has been a trap.’
‘One that caught you, apparently,’ he said. ‘I just didn’t expect you to come right into my office.’
‘If your only case against me is that I came to see you at a bad time, you’re going to have a very hard time proving it in court.’
He raised the nose of the gun, just slightly, from where it rested on the table. ‘Do I look like I need to prove this in court?’
‘Are you threatening to shoot me in a police station?’
‘No need to rush,’ he said icily. ‘I can shoot you anywhere.’
His hands were steady, his eyes barely blinked, and his face was as hard as granite. This was new territory for me. I’d spent months in the vicinity of a killer, but never, not until the very end, did he know who I was. I had always been safe. That Forman was watching me now, threatening my life face to face, was a completely different situation. Even if he didn’t shoot me, he was convinced I was guilty, and I might spend the rest of my life in court or in jail because of it.
Or on the run. If I could get out of the building without being shot, I could run and never come back.
But no, he was too close; he was too ready with the pistol. He had complete control over the situation, and I was helpless. And being helpless made me feel incredibly angry.
‘You must be the worst FBI agent in the entire world,’ I said. ‘The entire world. You’re just going to shoot every kid who comes in here and mouths off to you? No solving crimes, no due process, you don’t even ask good questions - you just haul out the gun whenever your magical fear detector goes off and you start threatening people. That’s some fine detective work, sparky.’
Forman raised the gun and aimed it straight into my face; the barrel was no more than two feet away from my nose. ‘Listen, you little mental case: this is not about the FBI, and this is not about a serial killer, and this is not even about two serial killers. I am looking for something very important, and you are popping up often enough that I figure you’ve got to know more about it than you’re telling me. So why don’t you cut the tough guy crap and tell me what you know.’
‘I’m the one doing a tough guy act?’ I sneered. ‘Did you forget the part where you pulled a gun on an unarmed sixteen year old?’
‘What do you know?’ he demanded.
‘I know that I’ve been threatened by much scarier things than you,’ I said. ‘If you think this “loose cannon” stuff is going to terrify me . . .’
‘What do you mean “things”?’ he asked.
‘What things?’
‘You just said “things”,’ he said. ‘You’ve been threatened by much scarier “things” than me. Not “people”.’
‘You think “people” is as far as it goes?’ I asked. ‘Do you have any idea what else is out there? There are things that would shake you to your . . .’
His eyes were wide - in surprise, yes, but not in shock. Not in confusion. It was not the look of a man who had found a monster under his bed - there was too much control. Too much recognition. Agent Forman had the face of a man who expected to find a monster under the bed, and found it in his closet instead.
I was trying to shock him with talk of the demon, but somehow Agent Forman knew exactly what I was talking about.
I could see him thinking: the way he pursed his lips, the way his eyes flicked rapidly from point to point, searching for something. I did the same, straining for a mental foothold.
He’d said he was searching for something very important - something unrelated to the FBI. His entire life might be a cover, pretending to search for serial killers while secretly trying to track down a demon. Or demons - he might hunt them professionally, for all I knew. Whatever he was, he knew about the demon - and from the stunned look on his face, he knew that I knew. Should I run? Should I play dumb? What was he go
ing to do next?
We watched each other, frozen in place, each one almost daring the other to make the first move. His gun never wavered. After a very long moment he opened his mouth to speak.
‘Mkhai?’
It was a heavy, ancient word, thick with dust and age and unfathomable sadness. I stared back, blank and wary.
His eyes grew dark, and his face, hardened. ‘Then he is dead,’ said Forman. The words were final, like a doctor’s pronouncement, made not to a person but to the entire world. Let it be known to the ends of the Earth that a man is dead. He stared intently at nothing, not at me or behind me but beyond me, as if existence had ceased to exist. After an eternity of waiting, his eyes focused back on me again. ‘We were afraid of this,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t believe it. You will tell me everything.’
But then he smiled, and I could think of nothing that would look more out of place.
