by Amy Cross
"I should go," I say, tucking the photo into my pocket and standing up. I need to tell Robert about Martina's death, but I feel as if this isn't the right moment. It's weird to think that I could open my mouth and shock him by confessing that I was the one who caused her to crash, but at the same time I'd also be destroying my own life, and I'm not sure whether I'm ready for that yet. Still, I've got this growing urge to tell the truth; I don't know where the feeling is coming from, but it's growing and growing, and I'm not sure I can hold it back much longer. Even Jennifer Mathis can't help me right now.
"You can stay for something to eat if you like," he says with a shy smile. "I'm just a lonely old man, but if you're really that stuck for company, I can whip something up."
I shake my head. "No, I'm fine. Thanks. I need to get home." Without waiting for him to offer again, I hurry away from the porch. Once I'm out on the sidewalk, I realize I'm starting to panic. I just came close to telling him everything; I almost let him know the truth about Martina's death. If I'd done that, my entire life would have been changed forever. He'd probably have called the police and told them, although I don't know whether they could prove anything. After all, if the jack-in-the-box was ever found in the wreckage, it doesn't seem like they saw it as being very relevant. Still, I can't quite work out why I'm so keen to tell Robert what happened. The whole business with Martina is in the past; it's settled, so why do I have this overwhelming urge to put myself in danger by blurting out the truth? Perhaps I should find some other way to deal with these urges?
By the time I get home, it's getting dark and there's no sign of my father. I head through to my bedroom and start going through the box of stuff at the bottom of the wardrobe. Eventually I find what I'm looking for: the box of pills I was prescribed many, many years ago by Dr. Larson. I never took them; instead, I made sure to squirrel them away for some vague purpose. It's not as if I was ever planning to swallow any of them, but I guess it seemed like I should always have the option. Now, after all this time, I feel like it's the right moment. Dr. Larson told me they'd cure me; he said they'd make me feel better, and happier, and more normal. Instead of telling Robert Hopkins the truth about his sister, I can just take a bunch of bills and become like other people. I carry the bottle over to my bed and sit down; this feels like a momentous moment, as if I'm about to say goodbye to myself. Obviously, the pills won't work immediately, but if I take one each day, I should start feeling the effects pretty soon. I'll be normal; I'll be like everyone else.
Taking a deep breath, I slowly unscrew the lid of the bottle. Soon I'll be re-wired. Maybe Dr. Larson was right all those years ago when he said that I needed help; maybe it's just taken me a while to realize that I need help. I still remember walking away from his office; I remember the bottle of pills rattling in my father's pocket, and I remember how close I came to taking them. It was only at the last minute that my father decided I shouldn't be medicated. For the past eleven years, the pills have sat there, waiting for the time when I'd be brave enough to take them. To be honest, this feels like a kind of suicide. My body will live on, but my mind will be changed. My harsh edges are going to be removed. I'll be like other people. I'll be normal.
"Goodbye," I whisper, imagining my old self slipping away like snake skin to reveal a new 'me' underneath: a good 'me' who won't do evil things. I should have done this a long, long time ago. Holding out my hand, I tilt the bottle and -
Nothing comes out.
I try again.
Still nothing.
I look inside.
The bottle is empty.
Book 7:
So Low
Chapter One
Today
"He drugged me," I say, holding the empty bottle of pills in my trembling hands. "All this time, he's been drugging me. Filling me with pills to change the way my head works, tricking me into taking all those chemicals." I pause for a moment, feeling a kind of white, tense rage rising through my body. I've been angry before, but never like this; this time, something's different. "That's why he stopped forcing me to see Dr. Larson," I continue. "He knew there was no point. They planned this together. They let me think I'd won, and then they slipped the pills into my food. It explains everything."
"Does it?" Jennifer Mathis asks, standing next to me.
It's close to midnight and we're in the abandoned ward. Since I discovered the empty bottle earlier today, I've been lost in my own mind, trying to work out what's been happening. I've gone over and over the situation a million times, thinking of every possible permutation, but I always come back to the same conclusion. I kept those pills securely stashed for over a decade, figuring that if I ever needed them, I had the opportunity to use them on myself. But now it's clear that not only did my father make me take the pills in that first bottle, but he's been making me take the same pills ever since. Pills to control my mind. Pills to change my mood. Pills to make me more normal, more like the kind of daughter he always wanted. He tried every other method, and eventually he went for the direct, pharmaceutical route. Damn it, how could I have been so stupid?
"Everything makes sense," I continue, staring at the floor. "He insisted I had to go and see Dr. Larson, and then one day he just changed his mind. Out of the blue, he said I didn't have to do it anymore. And obviously that was because he'd come up with this plan." My father has always been keen on cooking, coming up with elaborate meals for us; now I understand why he cared so much about what I was eating.
"When you say that everything makes sense," Jennifer replies, sitting next to me, "what exactly are you referring to? What didn't make sense before?"
"My whole life," I say, still staring down at the dirty tiled floor. "The way I've been feeling. The way I've been acting."
"All the things you've done? Are you trying to blame your father for the fact that you killed those people?"
I pause for a moment. "These pills are designed to change the way I think," I say, holding the bottle up. My hands are still trembling as I read the label. "See? The whole point of them is to change my hormone levels, stuff like that. He used them to get inside my head and rewire my brain. How do I know what I would have done, or wouldn't have done, without all those chemicals flowing through my blood?"
"I thought you were proud of your actions?" she continues. "I thought you'd justified those deaths to yourself. You killed Piotr Cymbalista because he was threatening Crestview. You killed Dr. Larson because -"
"I know!" I say firmly. "But now I don't know what I really think! Even this conversation we're having right now, it could just be the pills making me think these things. Even..." I stare at her for a moment; it's as if all the illusions and lies are falling away from my eyes and I'm seeing the world properly for the first time.
"Even me?" She smiles. "You think I'm not real? You think the pills drove you crazy, and that being crazy made you imagine me?"
I open my mouth to reply, but I'm not sure what to say. The truth is, I don't know where Jennifer Mathis came from. Her presence in my life over the past weeks has been the big, unanswered question that I've been carefully avoiding. I guess I'm scared to find out who or what she is, because it seems so absolutely certain that the answer is going to be something I won't like. Sure, she could be a concoction that emerges from my own drug-addled brain; equally, she could have existed before I ever came to Crestview, haunting the corridors and waiting for someone who'd be able to work with her. There's just no way of knowing, thanks to my father: he's left me in a condition where I don't know what's real and what's imagined.
He did this to me. It's all because of him.
"You don't know for certain that these pills -"
"I do!" I say, raising my voice a little. "I know! He's been putting them in my food! He's probably been grinding them down and adding them to my drinks! He's been getting them inside me, changing me, turning me in to this!" I drop the bottle and it rolls across the floor, eventually stopping when it hits the door jamb. "He thought he could mold me and
shape me and twist me until I'd become the perfect daughter." I take a deep breath. "The only way to know what's really happening is to detox completely. I have to get them out of my system. Even then, my brain might be permanently changed, but it's my only hope. I need to go online and find out what the permanent side-effects might be. I've had these chemicals in my head for more than ten years."
"And then what?" she asks. "You think you'll change?"
"Of course I'll change. I'll have to change."
"And you want that?"
I stare at her.
"You want to change?" she continues. "What if you don't like the change? What if the pills have been a good thing? I mean, they've allowed you to reach this point in your life. Until today, you seemed happy." She pauses for a moment. "What if you stop taking the pills, and I disappear? What if the pills have finally got you to the stage where you can deal with the world, and then you throw it all away?"
"What if I don't stop taking the pills?" I wait for her to answer. "What if I just carry on taking them like a good girl?"
"Then life will carry on in the same way as now," she says. "You don't seem to have noticed any side-effects, so what's the problem? I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but I want you to think very carefully about any decisions you make, because the consequences might not be reversible."
I nod, knowing that she's right. I feel as if my entire existence is delicately balanced, and I have these conflicting desires that don't seem to make sense. I hate the idea that I've been secretly drugged by my father, but on the other hand I also felt - until I made this discovery - that everything was going well. I wish I knew what would happen to me if I cut the pills out entirely. Then again, maybe any kind of change to my mental balance would be dangerous. Jennifer might be right when she suggests that I should be happy with what I've got. Nevertheless, this anger isn't about who or what I am; it's about the things my father has done to me, and the way he's done them.
"What are you thinking?" Jennifer asks.
"I'm thinking that I need to punish him."
"I see. And when you say punish..."
"I've wanted to do it for years," I continue. "Years and years and years. I've always hated him, even when I was just a kid. I don't even know why, but from my earliest memories, I've had this really strong, visceral hatred of him. And now I've found out that he's been doing this to me, it's as if there's only one sane response."
"How are you going to do it?"
I shake my head. "I don't know. There are too many options. I'm not looking to torture him or anything like that. I just want him to know that I found him out, and then I want him to die so that I don't have to worry about him again."
"And will this be the last one?"
"The last one I kill?" I pause for a moment. "I don't know. But you'll help me, right? I mean, with the others, you were able to make sure that no-one ever went looking for them. You'll do that again. Right?"
"Will I?" She smiles. "What if you stop taking the pills and I disappear?"
"Then I won't stop," I say. "Not yet, anyway. I need to be in control of everything that happens. I've been thinking about this for a while. I took my driving test recently, because I knew I might need to kill him at home and then drive his body here." I pause for a moment. "I swear to God, that's the only reason I took that test. My father's been on at me for years, telling me I need to be able to drive, and then one day I said I was going to go for it. He was so pleased. I guess he thought his nagging had paid off. If only he knew the real reason I'd done it."
"Sounds like you've got everything worked out," Jennifer replies.
I nod. "All I need to do is work out the method, and I'm ready to start."
"Today?"
I nod again. "There's no point waiting. He deserves this. The longer I leave it, the longer I'll have to maybe make a mistake. I need to just dive straight in and strike as soon as I've made the decision."
"And you're sure you're not missing anything?"
I stare at her. "What do you mean?"
"Just that you're focused so firmly on this one, overriding objective, that I'm worried there might be something else you've overlooked. Something that's happening, something important, that might have slipped your eye completely."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. I'm just... throwing the idea out there. You need to keep an eye on the bigger picture, Juliet. If you just focus on individual elements, you might lose control of what's really happening."
"There's nothing," I say. "I'm good. I've got a plan, I just need to execute it properly. This time tomorrow, my father's gonna be dead, and I'll be sorted. Then I just need to focus on..." I pause, as I realize that my father's death would free me up completely. I'd have no problems, no hassles; I'd be free of his influence forever and I could make my own choices. "I can stay here," I say eventually. "Charles Taylor's living on borrowed time. Trust me, he won't be around much longer."
"Are you going to kill him too?"
"I won't need to kill him," I reply, feeling a new sense of determination. "The guy's been cooking the books for years. Don't you remember all that stuff Piotr Cymbalista was ranting on about? He might have been an asshole, but he was right about one thing: Charles Taylor has been taking money from the facility's budget and using it to finance his personal life. All I need to do is gather the evidence and make sure he gets caught. It's all there in the accounts. They'll need someone to take over, and I'll be the most obvious choice. I don't have to go off to college or do any of that crap my father wants me to do; I can just stay here and manage Crestview for the rest of my life."
"Doesn't sound very ambitious," Jennifer points out.
"I like it here," I say. "It's the only place I've ever felt comfortable. Why do I have to be ambitious? Why do I have to want to save the world? I'm fine here. If I stay, I can make it even better. I can treat the residents like they're real human beings, rather than just numbers to be fed into a machine. I can give them better activities. If I take a course in medicine. I can get rid of all the other staff and run this place completely on my own."
"We'll see," Jennifer replies. "Just make sure you're seeing the wider picture, Juliet. Make sure there's nothing you're not seeing."
"You keep saying that as if you're trying to hint at something."
"Not at all. I just want to give you a little advice."
"There's nothing I'm missing," I say, trying to control my frustration. "For the first time in my life, I actually know what I'm going to do." Taking a deep breath, I realize that it's true: I have a plan, and I'm going to stick to it, and everything going to be okay. The first part of that plan, however, is going to be the most difficult: I have to go home, tell my father that I know what he's been doing, and then end his life. I just need to work out the best way to kill him; after all, I hate blood, so I don't want anything too messy. Something neat. Something clinical. Something easy.
Chapter Two
Eleven years ago
Every morning, I check the animals one by one and make a note of their progress. I'm keeping extensive records, marking down the date when each of them died, as well as the circumstances of their death and any other relevant factors. It's important to take these things into consideration. After all, the seagull was found dead by the side of the road, whereas the neighbor's cat had to be stabbed, which means they have very different types of injuries. So far, they seem to be rotting at different rates, and in different ways, and they have different-colored maggots. I'm looking for patterns, but so far all I see is chaos.
"Juliet!" my father calls out from the back door.
Ignoring him, I grab the magnifying glass and train it on the cat's neck. The wound is dry now, and little yellow maggots are crawling through the flesh. This is exactly what I wanted to see: in fact, if I had the time, I'd just sit here all day, every day, even during the night, and try to catch the changing of the different states. The maggots are slowly getting bigger, and I'm curious to see what will hap
pen when they've finished devouring the cat's corpse: they'll have to go somewhere, but what's the next stage of their life? When they've used up all the resources at their disposal, will they just die? In a strange way, I feel kind of protective, as if I want to make sure they're okay.
"Juliet!" my father says, standing right behind me.
"What?"
"I just wanted to see what you're doing."
"I'm doing my work." I turn to look at him. "Why?"
"I just wondered." He peers past me, and I can see the slight look of disgust as he stares at the dead animals. He obviously hates to see them, but at the same time he's started to keep quiet about his thoughts. It's as if he's made a conscious decision to tolerate some of my behavior; he probably thinks I'll grow out of it eventually, and that there's no point pushing me any further. "Any developments?"
"No," I say, looking back down at the cat. "It's the same as yesterday. I think the cold weather has been slowing them down quite a lot."
"Do they work faster when it's warm?"
I nod.
"Why's that?"
"It's all about giving them the best conditions," I explain. "When it's warmer, they have more energy, so they move faster. It kind of makes sense, if you think about it."
"And what do you think it'll be like when the weather changes? When it gets really hot, do you think they'll get a lot faster?"
"When it's hotter, they'll have more energy," I say again, feeling as if he's not listening to me. "Most life forms like heat. To be honest, I'm not totally certain what'll happen, but I think they'll be a lot more active." I hold up the notebook I've been using to record my observations. "It's all in here. When I've got enough data, I'll start trying to work out what's really happening, but until then I'm just having to make a lot of guesses."
