Another Jekyll, Another Hyde

by Daniel Nayeri

  Thomas heard the clatter of an officer’s shoes on the marble floor outside the nurse’s office. The thin strip of light turned into darkness. Thomas regained enough composure to stay silent just as they entered. As the door to the infirmary opened and spilled the light of the hallway into the room, the door to the medicine closet gently closed.

  “Don’t know what he expects to find,” said the voice of one officer, “but for my sake, I hope that nurse is shacked up in Atlantic City right now with her boyfriend.”

  “Why is that, Tony?” said the other voice.

  Thomas heard the familiar chime of a computer booting up.

  “What do you mean, why? ’Cause if she ain’t AWOL on some spontaneous booze weekend, then she’s tied up in some psycho’s basement. She’s probably the third victim of the same crazy kid that attacked the other two. Do you know how much paperwork that is?”

  Thomas caught his breath. This is exactly what Nicola must have wanted — to make them think that the nurse was Thomas’s third victim, to make him culpable for even more hideous crimes. Several drawers ground open on their rollers, then closed again. A file cabinet squealed, got stuck, then lunged open.

  Thomas wouldn’t last much longer. He was losing grip once again, and by the sounds of it, the cops would find him any second.

  I could kill them both.

  “I don’t see anything on her computer about a vacation, Tony.”

  “Great. Now we got another missing persons to write up, about a dozen acquaintances to interview, dust her apartment, make a timetable of last known whereabouts — just great.”

  “Let’s just get outta here.”

  The computer clicked off. The file cabinet rattled shut.

  “Check the closet before we go.”

  The clacking of shoes on marble. One. Two. Three.

  Come on, let’s kill them.

  No! thought Thomas. The cop would open the door any second. It occurred to Thomas that Edward had asked his permission just then. And if he had asked permission, it meant he couldn’t take control. At that moment, when Thomas was milliseconds away from being discovered, he formed a plan. Though he had never allowed himself to think deeply about it (Edward might be listening), the idea had begun to take shape the day Bicé told him that he had a choice to take the rest of the W. It was his choice, his fight to the death.

  But no one could have foreseen what Thomas would do next. Not even Thomas.

  The doorknob turned.

  Thomas reached into his pocket, grabbed the bottle — all the W that was left — and swallowed all the pills at once. They jammed in his throat like a fistful of rocks, but he swallowed harder, forcing them down.

  The officer opened the closet door. “What the —?”

  A husky teenager with long dark hair lunged out of the medicine closet and grabbed the cop by the throat. Instead of reaching for his gun, the officer panicked and grabbed the stranger’s hands. He tried to pull them off his throat, but the stranger was stronger.

  “Put your hands up!” screamed the mustachioed cop from across the examination table, but no one was listening. He pulled his firearm and trained it on the struggling pair. He couldn’t take the shot without risk to his partner.

  “Outta the way, Jimmy. Get outta the way!” He reached up to his shoulder and pressed the button on his radio. “Need backup in the nurse’s office.”

  Edward had both hands around the neck of the officer named Jim. He seemed mildly amused by the squishiness, like those tube-shaped toys that slip out of your hands when you squeeze them. Every time he tightened his grip, the cop gave out a gurgle. Edward said, “It’s nice to feel things. He’s got little bones in there.”

  “Put him down, son,” said Officer Tony — the one with the mustache and the gun. The barrel of his firearm was shaking in and out of a hit zone. Edward looked up. He seemed to notice Officer Tony’s presence for the first time. The officer’s command seemed to echo in the silence. The phrasing was unfortunate. Edward’s perverse mind took it as an invitation. He shook Officer Jim with both hands, as if he were strangling a puppet. Then he slammed the officer’s head into the examination table. The cop went limp. Edward smiled. Officer Tony took a step back into the wall.

  Edward said, “I don’t feel the bones anymore.” He lifted the body in front of him and ran toward the door. All Officer Tony could see was his partner’s back getting closer and closer. He made a startled grunt, then fired his gun. He aimed at the floor as a warning, but the bullet made a sharp ping! then ricocheted upward. A jar of cotton swabs on the back wall shattered.

  Edward charged forward and shoved the limp body of the fallen officer into his partner as he ran out the door. As soon as Edward entered the hallway, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head and crumbled to the floor.

  When Officer Tony stumbled out into the hallway, he saw Detective Mancuso standing over the young man, holstering his gun. Mancuso wasn’t pleased.

  “You fired your gun in a school?”

  “He had Jimmy by the throat.”

  “In a friggin’ rich school like this? They got SWAT on the way.”

  “Sorry. Let’s book him.”

  Mancuso nodded. “Help me get him up.”

  The two men slapped the handcuffs on Edward just in time. As they dragged him out of the school, flailing and shouting like a wild animal, the students of Marlowe packed the hallways. As he passed Annie, Edward squinted, then smiled wickedly at her. She stared at the thuggish stranger as though she had met him someplace before. But before anyone could get a good look at him, the officers pulled him through the double doors and threw him into the back of their police van.

  I never thought you’d do it.

  Well, I did.

  I know. I just never thought you would.

  OK.

  Do you know how you got here?

  Where?

  With me in control. With you losing your own mind.

  I took all the pills because the cop was gonna find me.

  No. You took them because you finally figured it out.

  Are you gonna say, ‘It was inevitable’?

  Wrong again. I was gonna say that you figured out that your mom — she’s not here. Your dad — he’s not here. You’ve been in a bad spot for weeks now, little boy, and nobody’s noticed.

  Wait. You think I tried to kill myself ’cause your mommy loves you more than my daddy loves me?

  Don’t be stupid, Tommy. You did kill yourself.

  Annie watched the police drag the kid through the hall. She thought, I’ve seen him before. I know I have. But it was hard to get a good look. The cops got in the way as they wrestled the kid, who was thrashing around wildly. He tried to head-butt one of the officers but hit his shoulder instead. He pounded the shoulder several times, then tried to take a bite out of it. The officer groaned, then punched the kid in the gut.

  “Kid” wasn’t the right word. He looked like he should have been in college. His arms seemed too long. His head seemed too little.

  Detective Mancuso, who wasn’t in uniform, said something Annie couldn’t hear. The cop jostled the kid some more and replied, “What? He friggin’ tried to bite me.”

  Finally, they arrived at the double doors. The detective opened the one on the right, but the cop shoved the kid into the closed door by accident and ended up using his face to push it open. After a few noisy minutes, curious students began pouring out of the atrium. A girl named Lucy, standing near Annie, turned to a friend and said, “Ever since they started giving out scholarships, this place might as well be a public school.”

  “He didn’t look like one of the urban kids,” said her friend.

  “Oh, Charlotte, don’t be so racist. Anyone can be poor. My dad’s sending me to Choate next year.”

  Annie gave them a sidelong glance and took a step away. Someone else in the crowd said, “Is that the guy who put Roger in a coma?”

  Annie cringed at the name. The last time she had seen Roger was a few
days ago. The hospital had moved him from intensive care to the main ward after the swelling had come down. For a while, they thought the trauma to his skull had caused brain damage, but when Roger woke up, he said, “I dreamed I went to Sea World — or was that real?”

  Annie knew he was far from recovery. Maybe it was all the painkillers. He slept nineteen hours a day, and when he was awake, he seemed distracted. Annie sat with him almost every day. As a joke she brought him a bunch of children’s books. She’d read him the fairy tales and show him the pictures, as though he were five years old. Every once in a while, Roger would make a joke, but mostly he seemed apathetic and sleepy. Annie brought him a few trashy reality shows, but Roger wasn’t up for the usual running commentary. Loud noises seemed to scare him. Any quick movement made him jump.

  Annie knew that her best friend wasn’t just going to get up from the hospital bed and pick up where they left off.

  One night as Annie kissed him on the cheek and said good-bye, Roger asked, “They find him yet?” Annie shook her head. He sighed. “It was dark,” he mumbled. “I didn’t see him very well.”

  “They’ll find him,” she said.

  “So he’s out there, and I’m still in here. . . .” said Roger. He closed his eyes and turned his face into his pillow.

  “I promise they’ll find him,” said Annie, feeling her cheeks flush.

  “And then what? You’ll beat him up for me?”

  Annie paused. “No, I dunno. I’ll make him send you an e-card.”

  Roger laughed. “Thanks, Annie. You’re a good friend.”

  “A good best friend,” said Annie.

  Annie stood in the Marlowe hall, watching the same detective haul away Roger’s attacker. Someone she knew from someplace, maybe a class freshman year. And her sometimes boyfriend, Thomas Goodman-Brown, was still nowhere to be seen. Annie wondered how much more F’d the situation could get. She was watching this and all she could think was how relieved she was that it wasn’t Thomas.

  Annie couldn’t have articulated it until then — she couldn’t bring herself to admit that, all this time, she had suspected Thomas. He had been acting so jittery, so torn up, that he must have been hiding something. The biggest piece of evidence — was it even evidence? — was the paper she had found in Marla’s locker. The handwriting was definitely his. And if it wasn’t evidence, it was certainly shady. It could have been a writing assignment, a persona poem. Or maybe he was just cheating on me, thought Annie with a bitter laugh. Whatever it was, at least he wasn’t —

  “Evil?”

  Annie whirled around at the sound of a female voice. It was Nicola Vileroy, Thomas’s stepmother, dressed in a beige Chanel blouse and a pencil skirt. Annie instinctively took a step back.

  “I was gonna say ‘guilty.’” The words were out before she could take the time to wonder how Thomas’s stepmother could know her thoughts. Maybe she had said it aloud.

  “Aren’t they the same thing?” said Vileroy.

  Annie didn’t have an answer. Madame Vileroy smiled, as though on cue. Her blue and branded eye twinkled. Annie was almost certain now that she hadn’t spoken out loud.

  “H-h-how did you . . . ?” Annie stammered.

  Madame Vileroy nodded at the double doors and said, “Young men like that make you wonder if there is such a thing as pure evil.”

  Annie looked at the doors as well, even though there was no one there anymore. The way Vileroy spoke seemed almost wistful. As crazy as that sounded, Annie could have sworn that she was amused by it all.

  “I hope Thomas is all right,” said Annie, searching for something to say.

  Vileroy looked at her. “Hmm?”

  “Thomas,” said Annie. “I haven’t seen him in all this craziness, and I hope he’s OK.”

  “I’m sure he was around,” said Vileroy.

  Annie nodded. They were the only two people left in the hallway. She wondered what Thomas’s stepmother wanted. Neither of them said anything. Annie had never seen Madame Vileroy behave this way. Granted, she’d seen her only a couple times, at the wedding and a party or two. She snuck glances at the patrician lady, so nearly perfect in her physical features. But now she seemed purposeless, lost.

  She seemed to be sleepwalking. Annie needed an exit strategy. She turned to Madame Vileroy and said, “Well, it was nice seeing you.”

  Before Annie could make her getaway, Vileroy snapped out of her contemplative gaze and said, “That’s why I’m here.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Thomas. I came to see his therapist. He’s been very unwell, Annie.” Annie didn’t know how to react. It couldn’t be that bad if Vileroy was telling her about it. “I’m telling you this because he has been very . . . focused on you lately.”

  Madame Vileroy seemed genuinely concerned. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Uh, OK,” said Annie. “I have to go to class now.”

  She had already gone down the road of suspecting Thomas. Now she had decided to trust him.

  Madame Vileroy glanced down the hall in both directions. Then she leaned toward Annie and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper: “His therapist had him write a journal, and I think, well, he seems to be dealing with a lot of guilt.”

  Vileroy took Annie’s hand. Her grip was icy, almost painful. Annie tried to pull away, but Vileroy held on until, finally, Annie looked her in the eye.

  “Be careful, Annie,” said Madame Vileroy. She pressed a thin stack of folded paper into Annie’s hand, then turned abruptly and walked away. Her high heels rapped out a sound like a twenty-one- gun salute.

  Annie waited for her to leave — and for the echoing to stop. “Weird,” she said under her breath.

  The way Madame Vileroy talked, it seemed as though she might be afraid of Thomas. Annie looked down at the pages. She recognized the handwriting — the same as the pages from Marla’s locker. They were definitely from Thomas’s journal. . . .

  I asked her if she wanted to go skiing, and she said, “Sure, let me check with Roger,” like he was her dad or something. Like she couldn’t go take a walk in Central Park without his permission. . . .

  Oh, and it wasn’t “Roger”— it was “Rog” or “Roj” or however you spell it — she was like, “Let me ask . . . Roj.”

  What is that? Does she even know how that sounds? Wanna go out? I dunno, let me ask Roj. Want some hot sauce? I dunno, What Would Roj Do with HIS chicken platter?

  I really like her, but I just get this feeling that the two of them are laughing about me all the time.

  It continued for another page and a half. Annie was most unnerved by the fact that he never wrote her name. The handwriting became more and more erratic. Several pages later, it said:

  I saw him at Elixir — I guess someone invited him and he didn’t have to check with her first.

  I followed him.

  He saw me, but he didn’t recognize me, ’cause I wasn’t me.

  He was with a friend, who asked him to keep him company while he grabbed a smoke out in the alley.

  The friend stopped in the bathroom on their way. I pushed down a girl who got in my way. The guy’s head hit the stall door — kept hitting the stall door till it cracked open.

  Then the alley.

  I went to see ol’ Roj.

  Annie gasped. The handwriting became jagged and illogical, but the image was clear. Only two people could have given such a detailed and horrific description of what had happened the night her best friend was attacked — Roger, and the monster who did it.

  Annie’s hand shook as she finished.

  It was Thomas. He had beaten Roger to within an inch of his life. And whoever that was that the cops dragged away — from the pancake social! thought Annie; that was where she had seen him — that guy was Thomas’s scapegoat. Paid off, or framed.

  It was evil.

  Annie walked to class in a daze. She’d made the wrong choice.

  Saved Drafts

  Dear Dad —

  I’m
writing you through the in-game messaging system ’cause my e-mail account is probably being monitored. I figure Nicola doesn’t pay much attention to a fantasy RPG, so this is the best way to reach you. If you get this, it’s because I told one of our guildmates to log in to my account if I’m not on for ten days and send you this message.

  It means you’re probably still out looking for me. Or, if she’s convinced you that I’m dead, I guess the funeral is over and you’re doing something like going through my things, trying to figure out what went wrong.

  Well, I’ll tell you: it was Vileroy.

  You brought her in, Dad. I always thought you’d give me a little heads-up, but you didn’t. For what it’s worth, I’m not mad about that anymore. I know what she can do, and even if she didn’t have supernatural powers of mind control, plus the French seduction skills, you still wouldn’t owe me anything. It’s your life. I’m sorry about what I said about you cheating on Mom. That one was a cheap shot.

  I’ve lost track here. There’s a lot to say, I guess, and I’m in a hurry.

  Dad, it was Nicola. She’s not human. She’s evil. I know you won’t believe me, so I made a case file. It’s hidden in my room in the place I hid Mom’s things from Aunt Julie that one time. Find it, Dad. It proves that I didn’t run away or kill myself.

  I was murdered.

  There’s some strange stuff in there — I know. I know how weird it sounds. But look at some of the facts, like how she brainwashed the lady from Florida. . . . There’s evidence. I hope you see I’m still rational. In fact, I’m better than I’ve been in a long time. I’m not obsessing over Belle anymore.

  People will say I’ve gone crazy, especially Vileroy. But you tell them that saying that is an ad hominem attack, and it’s not good debate. Show them my case. It’s my best work. I think I would have made a pretty good lawyer. Anyway, I love you, Dad. This wasn’t your fault.

  Your son,

  Thomas

  “Get him in there, Detective. Get him in or I break his jaw,” said Officer Tony.