Mean girl_A dark, disturbing psychological thriller

by Natasha A. Salnikova

  Corby took the phone out of her jacket pocket and pressed the button. The screen didn’t light up.

  “The battery’s dead,” she said.

  Mom came close to Corby and she moved away from her.

  “I’m going to my room.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  “What, Mom?”

  “Look at me.”

  Corby was glad the hallway was dark, but not happy that her mother began to pay more attention to her. She hoped the odor from the smoke had completely evaporated.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Your eyes. Where have you been?”

  “I was just walking around!”

  “Where?”

  “I stopped at the market for cannoli, but it’s disgusting there and smells horrible. What do you want from me?”

  Corby rushed upstairs, but Mother grabbed her hand. Corby decided it was better not to argue about anything today and stopped.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You look strange.”

  “You and Dad think I look strange all the time lately. I lost weight and I’m still upset about your wonderful show.”

  Mom pulled away her hand.

  “I wanted to help you. I told you that and apologized many times!”

  “Yes, yes, I understand.”

  “Corby, maybe I can still take you to see a therapist. It’s not bad, trust me! Or you can visit your grandmother in Florida. We talked about it. I can’t be with you twenty-four seven. I can’t lock you in the house and you need help.”

  “Thank you, Mom, but no. Can I go to my room?”

  “We are going to have dinner soon.”

  “Okay. Let me just change.”

  “Baby, I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Mom, everything is fine. I promise.”

  Corby went to her room and closed the door behind her. “I’m not a virgin anymore,” she said. “I’m not a virgin. I’m not a virgin!” She shouted in a whisper. “Kiss my ass, losers! I’m not a virgin!”

  And then she went to the bathroom where she washed her panties and took a shower. Her mood was beautiful.

  CHAPTER 38

  Mom went beyond reasonable limits to please her daughter. She got up early to prepare breakfast before putting on her makeup or doing her hair. She didn’t argue with Dad. She didn’t argue about anything. Even when he told her that cows contributed to global warming. She also didn’t look happy when he said that he hadn’t meditated for a week and wasn’t even surprised when he asked her to make scrambled eggs for him too.

  This morning her parents went to work as always and the tutor came and left early, long before her parents returned, so Corby wrote to Jacob that he could pick her up. She couldn’t wait to see him again and was ready to do anything that he planned to suggest to her. Weed and other drugs, sex—didn’t matter. She was ready to experience everything with him.

  She took a shower and dressed with special care. New underwear, new pants that fit her new size, new sweater. Mascara on her eyelashes, glitter on her lips. She was almost out of the room when her phone rang. Corby was in such a great mood that she was about to fly, so she answered despite the fact that she didn’t recognize the number reflected on the phone.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Bitch. A fat box of meat,” the voice said. It wasn’t Jane, but someone called on her behalf. She didn’t want to leave her enemy alone. This fact, however, didn’t upset Corby, she didn’t even think about it.

  “Fuck you,” she said and broke the connection. The phone rang again, but she didn’t intend to answer anymore. Ten minutes later, she climbed into Jacob’s car next to the cafe where they had met the first time and went to his house. Corby thought she would be scared, but she wasn’t. She also wasn’t scared on the terrace of his house where they smoked weed (five puffs this time), nor in his bed thirty minutes later. She stared at the gray walls of his room, feeling the cold sheets under her hands. The light from the window shone directly at them, but she didn’t care.

  Later, they lay under the blanket in each other’s arms and talked about how good they felt together. Corby’s head was still spinning and it seemed like anything was possible in life. She looked at the pile of papers and magazines on his desk, at the open laptop, thinking about whether his mother made him clean his room.

  “Jane called me,” she said when there was a pause in their conversation. “Actually not her, but someone on her behalf.”

  “Really?” Jacob sat up. “What did she want?”

  “I don’t know.” Corby pulled the blanket to her chin. “I hung up when she called me a box of meat. I just want to forget about her.”

  “Corby, you don’t understand. She will never forget about you or about me. That’s her life. Don’t you understand?”

  “She will. After school is over she will.”

  “She’ll go to college and do the same. But that’s not the point. The main thing is she thinks she can get away with anything.”

  “Jacob, I don’t want to talk about her.” Corby reached for her clothes and he didn’t seem to notice, he was so focused on his idea. He didn’t even look at Corby when she dressed. He just kept talking, occasionally looking at her, but didn’t seem to see her.

  “No, you don’t understand. The dynamic in our school is destroyed and I’m not saying it’s bad. I didn’t become less popular or anything, but our team is now divided. Some are on my side, some are on Bronson’s. It’s so fucked up. And why? Because of that girl!”

  “It’s all my fault.”

  “Stop it!” Jacob waved. “It’s River’s fault and I’m not going to leave it like this. She and Payton have to pay for what they did. They need to understand how wrong they were.”

  Corby sat next to Jacob and touched his bare back. He pushed her hand away then apologized and turned to look into her eyes.

  “They have to pay for it,” he said.

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  But Corby knew what he meant. Her stomach turned cold and her head began to spin again, but not from marijuana. The action of the drug had passed.

  “Corby, forget everything I told you. Forget what I said about how bad it was what you did to Vera and Sylvia. I understand you very well today. You did what you had to do. Nothing changed in the world because those two bitches are gone. Except, maybe it became a little better.”

  “He’s even crazier than you!” the inner voice shrieked.

  “Jacob.”

  He grabbed her by the shoulders. The blanket just barely covered him from the waist down, so he jumped, pulled on his underpants and jeans, walked across the room from one corner to the other. Corby couldn’t recognize her calm, stately Jacob whom she had seen at school every day. There was a neurotic in front of her.

  “I’ve thought about it and I considered every detail. I know how to do it.”

  “You aren’t thinking about killing someone?” Corby asked hopefully. She hoped not, but was filled with apprehension.

  Jacob stopped in front of her.

  “They have to pay,” he said.

  “Kill them all! Kill them all!” the voice cheered.

  “They’re just kids,” Corby said weakly. She didn’t want to argue with him. Not today, not now.

  “Kids? What are you talking about? We are all just kids.”

  “You don’t have to kill them for what they did.”

  “You are telling me that?” Jacob laughed and Corby shivered. She wasn’t scared when she came here and she was ready to do whatever he said, but now she felt scared and she wasn’t sure that the entire agreement was what she really wanted. “I’m sorry honey, but you are my inspiration. Now I know exactly what I want in life.”

  “Killing people?”

  “I want to kill a few people,” Jacob said seriously, “but it’s a short goal of my life. I’ve already talked to my mother and she agreed with me. I talk to her about lots of things. I haven’t talked about you, but I’ll do it when you’r
e ready. I’m proud of you and proud to be with you.”

  “A family of psychos! You are lucky!”

  Corby shook her head.

  “Wait, wait. Your mother is fine with you killing people?”

  “What? I wouldn’t tell her about this. I want to work for the FBI. That’s going to be my career.”

  “I don’t understand. You want to commit crimes and then investigate crimes?”

  “That sounds right.”

  “He’s a real psychopath! You are so lucky!”

  “I ...” Corby paused. “I didn’t quite catch the logic.”

  “I think it’s pretty simple.” Jacob sat next to her. “To become a great detective, you have to think like a criminal. Have you watched Dexter?”

  “No.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Jacob, I’m sorry, I still don’t get it. Do you want to kill someone for revenge or to gain experience as a killer?”

  Corby’s head stopped spinning and started to ache. The voice in her head was choking with laughter.

  “It’s all connected. It doesn’t matter. You’ll understand everything, but first we need to concentrate on River and Bronson.”

  “You want to ... to kill him too?”

  “It’s an option,” Jacob said thoughtfully, “but he’s also a victim. River brainwashed him. It’s all her fault.”

  “They could catch you.”

  “They haven’t caught you.”

  “Yes, but ...” Corby suddenly wanted to leave and be home.

  “You will help me.” Jacob took her by the shoulders. He didn’t give her any choice with his declaration.

  “No! They will figure it out in an instant!” Corby shouted. “They know we had a big fight, they will suspect us first!”

  “I’ve thought of everything. No one will figure out the truth.”

  “How are you going to do it?”

  “We’ll invent a serial killer.”

  “What?”

  The voice laughed even louder.

  “A serial killer who will focus on young girls. We can add Sylvia there later. He will cut their hair as his distinguishing mark. That’s how the police will recognize him. Do you follow?”

  “No.”

  “It’ll be enough to kill one girl before Jane to lead the police in a different direction, away from us.”

  “Us?” Corby felt her tongue go numb.

  Jacob squatted in front of her, took her hands in his.

  “You’ll help me, right? I want to do it. I want to experience what you have experienced. We’ll do it together and we will be together forever. Don’t you want that?”

  “I don’t want to kill anymore,” Corby muttered. “Especially someone who hasn’t done anything to us.”

  “Not to us, but to someone else. We have to concentrate on our goal and skip the minor details. Think of it as bringing benefits to mankind. Sacrifices have to be made.”

  “What mankind?” Corby felt even worse because of the fact that he repeated almost exactly what she had said, when she thought about murdering Jane.

  “Jane is a horrible human being and she doesn’t deserve to live. We need to let her know that she was wrong.”

  “I have to go home, it’s getting late.”

  Corby tried to stand up, but Jacob held her. He didn’t take his eyes off her.

  “Promise me you’ll think about it. I need your help. I need you. I love you.”

  Before Corby had time to say anything, he kissed her, and then stood up.

  “I’ll take you home. Let’s go.”

  They drove to the cafeteria in silence. Corby couldn’t understand how the tables had turned against her. She was a murderer and he was an accuser, and now everything turned completely around. How did that happen? Actually—not yet. She was a killer because she had killed a person, and he hadn’t done anything. He had a chance not to hear the inner voice, not to hear the whispers of the dead at night.

  “You thought he was in love with you? He fell in love with you because you killed someone! He is insane!” the inner voice shouted.

  “That’s not true,” Corby said.

  “What?”

  She turned to Jacob, who was looking at the road.

  “Do you like me because I killed someone?” she asked.

  “No,” Jacob looked at her. “Of course not! You are everything I’ve been looking for in a girl.”

  Corby turned back to the window. She couldn’t wait to get home. She pulled away from him when he wanted to kiss her good-bye in the car and told him that everyone could see them.

  “Sooner or later we will have to tell our parents about us.”

  “Sooner or later, yes,” Corby said as she opened the door.

  “Corb?”

  “Yes.” A quick glance at him.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Promise me you’ll think about what I said?”

  “Of course.”

  Corby got out into the street, slamming the car door shut, and headed for home. Fortunately, her parents still weren’t there and Corby went to her room with a cup of yogurt that she grabbed from the fridge along the way.

  Sitting on the bed behind the closed door of her room, she ate the yogurt and gazed through the window without a single thought in her head. The voice whispered something, but she could barely hear it. It seemed that she could hear music and then a conversation between Vera and Sylvia, but she couldn’t remember their voices anymore.

  When she came back to her senses, she discovered that she was scraping the empty bottom of the yogurt cup. She stood up, put the cup and the spoon on the desk, and went to the window, picking up a stuffed toy from the floor.

  “I don’t want to kill anymore,” she said to the closed window. “I don’t want to kill.”

  “He’ll make you,” the voice whispered. “You’ll do whatever he says. You can’t resist him and you will kill another person. And then another. It’s only difficult the first time and then it’ll feel like a calling. We’ll have something to talk about.”

  “I’ll tell him no.”

  “Really? He’ll say no to you and you’re never, ever going to have sex with him.”

  “He said he loves me!” Corby stamped her foot capriciously as a three-year-old girl.

  “Because he wants you to ax Jane as you did to Sylvia.”

  “That’s not true. He said it’s not. He will understand that I am not a murderer. What I did, I did because ...”

  “Because you wanted revenge. You wanted her to know and be sorry.”

  “I just wanted to stop the bullying!”

  “It’s all the same. You could have switched schools or started home schooling a long time ago. You know what would have happened then? Vera and Sylvia would still be alive and their parents would still be happy. They were just silly kids for their parents.”

  “I didn’t think about that! I’m sorry!” Corby began to cry, burying her face in the soft belly of the bear. “I didn’t think about it. I don’t know how I could do it! I don’t know!”

  “Honey, are you upstairs?” The voice of her mother came.

  “Yes, Mom!”

  “Come down. I brought us some food. Potatoes and chicken—your favorite.”

  Corby wasn’t hungry, but she knew it was better to go down.

  She wiped her tears with the sleeve of her sweater and left the room.

  CHAPTER 39

  Jacob asked Corby to think, but she wasn’t in a hurry to give him an answer. Between him and the voice in her head, she was trying to find herself, to figure out who she was and what she wanted. On the second day, Jacob went to school and then invited her on a date, but she refused, no matter how hard it was for her. She couldn’t even believe she gave him no for an answer.

  “Is it because of yesterday’s conversation?” Jacob asked.

  “I don’t feel well,” Corby lied convincingly. She was still getting used to her virtuous lying. At first it w
as terrifying, but now nothing even fluttered inside, she didn’t feel a single gram of regret or guilt. Even the voices fell silent in her head, like they didn’t care. Maybe they agreed with her. She needed to think.

  Corby hadn’t seen Jacob the whole week, they only texted each other or talked on the phone. She missed him, she wanted to hug him. She wasn’t sure she wanted more sex. She didn’t understand what all the buzz was about. The orgasm that she’d felt the first time refused to come again with him and the whole process wasn’t very pleasant as she returned in her thoughts to the room with gray walls, thinking about her feelings. Sylvia and Vera mocked her. She had to talk to them.

  “Maybe you think I can’t do it myself and want to make you seal the deal?” he asked her in one of their telephone conversations.

  “No, I don’t think that,” Corby said, but that was only half true. She didn’t want it to be like that, but she was afraid it would happen. He had never killed and he didn’t know what it was like. He didn’t know how it felt to drop an ax on the head of an unsuspecting person. Hearing her cry, seeing the blood. He hadn’t even worked in a butcher’s shop before and hadn’t seen animal flesh being cut! She saw and she knew that people were also meat.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “We can be unstoppable like Bonnie and Clyde.”

  “Who are they?”

  “I’ll send you a link. You should check it out.”

  He sent links and Corby checked them out. They were a man and a woman who terrorized America even before Corby’s parents were born. They were an inseparable couple who committed crimes together. Corby wasn’t sure she saw her future like that without a house, children, or a job. She thought about it. And spending time with her parents.

  Mom seemed happy. She talked about home education and what a great idea it was. The teacher said that Corby’s knowledge was enough to go to any college, Corby never complained about not getting along with anyone, and also it was cheaper. They were going to visit Canada in the summer on vacation, but now the conversation concentrated only on Europe; Paris. Mom kept tossing out words in French at the table and she told her family that she had bought a French cookbook. She would learn how to cook French food to feed her family. She also would know what to order in a restaurant when they went to France.