Wells, Dan - John Cleaver 01

by I Am Not A Serial Killer (v1. 1)

  Fire does.

  Fire is.

  "On what wings dare he aspire?" said a voice. I spun around and saw Mr. Crowley, sitting a few feet behind me in a camp chair, staring deeply into the fire. Everyone else had left, and I'd been too absorbed in the fire to notice.

  Mr. Crowley seemed distant and preoccupied; he was not talking to me, as I assumed at first, but to himself. Or maybe to the fire. Never shifting his gaze, he spoke again. "What the hand dare seize the fire?"

  "What?" I asked.

  "What?" he said, as if shaken from a dream. "Oh, John, you're still here. It was nothing, just a poem."

  "Never heard it," I said, turning back to the fire. It was smaller now, still strong, but no longer raging. I should have been terrified, alone in the night with a demon—I thought immediately that he must have found me out somehow, must have known that I knew his secrets and left him the note. But it was obvious that his mind was somewhere else—something had obviously disturbed him to put him into such a melancholy frame of mind. He was thinking about the note, perhaps, but he was not thinking about me.

  More than that, his thoughts were absorbed in the fire, drawn to it and soaked into it like water in a sponge. Watching the way he watched the fire, I knew that he loved it like I did. That's why he spoke—not because he suspected me, but because we were both connected to the fire, and so, in a way, to each other.

  "You've never heard it?" he asked. "What do they teach you in school these days? That's William Blake!" I shrugged, and after a moment he spoke again. "I memorized it once." He drifted into reverie again. " Tiger, Tiger, burning bright, in the forests of the night, what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?'"

  "It sounds kind of familiar," I said. I never paid much attention in English, but I figured I'd remember a poem about fire.

  "The poet is asking the tiger who made him, and how," said Crowley, his chin buried deep under his collar. " 'What the hammer? What the chain? In what furnace was thy brain?'"

  Only his eyes were visible, black pits reflecting the dancing fire.

  "He wrote two poems like that, you know—'The Lamb' and The Tiger.' One was made of sweetness and love, and one was forged from terror and death." Crowley looked at me, his eyes dark and heavy. "'When the stars threw down their spears and watered heaven with their tears—did he smile, his work to see? Did he who made the lamb make thee?'"

  The fire rustled and cracked. Our shadows danced on the wall of the house behind us. Mr. Crowley turned back to the fire.

  "I'd like to think the same one made them both," he said,

  "I'd like to think it."

  The trees beyond the fire glowed white, and the trees beyond those were lost in blackness. The air was still and dark, and smoke hung like fog. Firelight caught the haze and lit it up, overpowering the streetlamps and blotting out the stars.

  "It's late," said Mr. Crowley, still unmoving. "You run on home. I'll sit up with the fire 'til the coals die out."

  I stood and reached in with the poker, preparing to spread the coals around, but he put out a shaky hand to stop me.

  "Let it be," he said. "I never like to kill a fire. Just let it be."

  I set down the poker and walked across the street to my house. When I reached my room, I looked back and saw him, still sitting, still staring.

  I'd watched that man kill four people. I'd watched him tear out organs, rip off his own arm, and transform before my eyes into something grotesquely inhuman. Somehow, despite all of that, his words by the fire that night disturbed me more than anything he had ever done.

  I wondered again if he knew about me—and if he did, how long I had before he silenced me the way he silenced Ted Rask. I was safe at the party, and afterward, because there were too many witnesses. If I'd disappeared from his yard, after fifty or more people had seen me there, it would raise too much suspicion. I decided there was nothing I could do. If he didn't know, I needed to keep going with my plan, and if he did, then there wasn't much I could do to stop him. Either way,

  I knew that my plan was working—my note had bothered him, maybe very deeply. I had to keep up the pressure, building more and more fear until he was terrified, because that's when I could control him.

  The next day I sent another note, another way, to make my intentions clear:

  I AM GOING TO KILL YOU

  12

  Brooke woke up every morning around seven; her dad got up at six-thirty, showered and dressed, and then woke up the kids while their mom made breakfast.

  He went into Ethan's room and flipped on the lights, sometimes yanking the covers away playfully, sometimes singing loudly, and once actually tossing a bag of frozen broccoli into his bed when he refused to get up, Brooke, on the other hand, was more privileged— her dad simply knocked on her door and told her to wake up, leaving only when he heard her answer. She was a young woman, after all, both more responsible than her brother and more deserving of privacy. Nobody barged in, nobody peeked in, nobody saw her at all until she wanted them to.

  Nobody but me.

  Brooke's room was on the second floor of their house, in the back-left corner, which meant that she had two windows—one on the side, facing the Petermans' house, which she always kept tightly curtained, and one on l he back, facing the woods, which she kept uncovered. We lived on the edge of town, so we had no rear neighbors, no other houses behind us, and no people at all for miles in that direction. Brooke thought no one could see her. I thought she was beautiful.

  I watched her sit up into view, pushing aside the bedspread and stretching luxuriously before combing out her hair with her fingers. She slept in thick, gray sweats, which seemed like an oddly dull color for her. Sometimes she scratched her armpits or her butt—something no girl would ever do if she knew she were being watched. She made faces in her mirror; sometimes she danced a little. After a minute or two, she gathered up her clothes and left the room, headed for the shower.

  I wondered if I could offer to shovel their snow, like I did with Mr. Crowley, so I could put it where I wanted it and grant myself more access to the yard. It would probably be suspicious, though, unless I did the whole street, and I didn't have time for that. I was far too busy as it was.

  Each day I found a way to give Mr. Crowley a new note— some on his car, like before, others taped to his windows or shoved into doorways, higher than Kay could reach. After the second one, none of the notes were direct threats. Instead I sent him evidence that I knew what he was doing:

  JEB JOLLEY-KIDNEY

  DAVE BIRD-ARM

  As I left him notes about the victims, I made sure to leave out the drifter he'd killed by the lake—partly because I didn't know his name, and partly because I was still afraid he'd seen my bike tracks in the snow, and I didn't want him to put two and two together.

  On the last day of school I sent him a note that said:

  GREG OLSON-STOMACH

  This was the biggie, because Greg Olson's body hadn't been found yet—as far as Crowley knew, nobody knew about the stomach. After he read it, he locked himself in the house, brooding. The next morning he went to the hardware store and bought a couple of padlocks, adding extra security to his shed and cellar door. I was a little worried that he'd become too paranoid and I'd start to lose track of him, but no sooner was he finished locking up than he came to our house and gave me a new key to the shed.

  "I've locked up the shed, John; can't be too careful these days." He handed me the key. "You know where the tools are, so just keep it clean like you always do, and thanks again for all your help."

  "Thanks," I said. He still trusted me—I felt like whooping for joy. I gave him my best "surrogate grandson" smile. "I'll keep the snow shoveled."

  My mom came down the stairs behind me. "Hello Mr. Crowley, is everything okay?"

  "I've added some new locks," he said. "I'd recommend you do the same. That killer's still out there."

  "We keep the mortuary locked up pretty tightly," said Mom, "and there's a
good alarm system in the back where we keep the chemicals. I think we're okay."

  "You got a good boy," he said, smiling. Then trouble clouded his face, and he glanced down the street suspiciously. "This town's not as safe as it used to be. I'm not trying to scare you, I just. . ." He looked back at us. "Just be careful." He turned and trudged back across the street, his shoulders heavy.

  I closed the door and smiled.

  I'd tricked him.

  "Doing anything fun today?" asked Mom. I looked at her suspiciously, and she put up her hands innocently. "Just asking."

  I brushed past her and climbed the stairs. "I'm going to read for a while." It was my standard excuse for spending hours at a time in my room, watching the Crowleys' house from my window. This time of day I couldn't get up close, so watching through the window was all I had.

  "You've been spending too much time in your room," she said, following me up the stairs. "It's the first day of Christmas vacation—you should go out and do something fun."

  This was new—what was she up to? I'd been out of the house almost as much as I was in it, creeping around outside Mr. Crowley's house, and Brooke's. Mom didn't know where I went or what I was doing, but she couldn't possibly think that I was spending too much time in my room. She had something else on her mind.

  "There's that movie we keep seeing ads for," she said. "It finally made it to town yesterday. You could go see that."

  I turned and stared at her again. What was she doing?

  "I'm just saying it might be fun," she said, ducking into the kitchen to avoid my gaze. She was nervous. "If you want to go," she called out, "I've got some money for tickets."

  'Tickets" is plural—was that her game? There's no way I was seeing a movie with my mom. "You can see it if you want," 1 said. "I want to finish this book." '

  "Oh, I'm too busy right now," she said, emerging from the kitchen with a handful of bills. She held them out with an anxious smile. "You can go with Max. Or Brooke."

  Aha. This was about Brooke. I felt my face turn red, and turned and stalked into my room. "I said no!" I slammed the door and closed my eyes. I was angry, but I didn't know why. "Stupid Mom trying to send me to a stupid movie with stupid ..." I couldn't say her name out loud. No one was supposed to know about Brooke—Brooke didn't even know about Brooke. I kicked my backpack and it slumped over, too full of books to fly across the room like I wanted it to.

  Sitting in the dark with Brooke wouldn't be so bad, I thought, no matter what movie it was. I heard her laugh in my head, and thought about witty things I could say to make her laugh again. "This movie sucks—the director should be strangled with his own film." Brooke didn't laugh at that; her eyes went wide and she backed away, just like at the Halloween dance.

  "You're a freak," she said. "You're a sick, psycho freak."

  "No I'm not—you know me! You know me better than anyone in the world, because I know you better than anyone in the world. I see things nobody else does. We've done homework together, we've watched TV together, we've talked on the phone to—"

  Stupid phone—who was she talking to on the phone? I'd find out and I'd kill him.

  I cursed at the window and—

  I was in my room, breathing heavily. Brooke didn't know me because we hadn't shared anything, because everything we'd ever done together was really only stuff she'd done alone, while I watched through her window. I'd watched her do her homework a few nights ago, and knew that we had the same assignment, but that didn't count as doing it together because she didn't even know I was there. And then, when the phone rang and she picked it up and said hello to someone else, it was like a wedge between us. She smiled at the invader and not at me, and I wanted to scream, but I knew that no one was interrupting anything because I was the only one in the world who knew that anything was going on.

  I pressed my palms into my eyes. "I'm stalking her," I muttered. It wasn't supposed to be like this; I was supposed to be watching Mr. Crowley, not Brooke. I broke my rules for him, not for anyone else, but the monster had shattered the wall and taken over before I even knew what it was doing. I barely even thought of the monster anymore, because we'd merged so completely into one. I looked up and paced across my room to the window, staring out at Mr. Crowley's house. "I can't do this."

  I paced back to my bed and kicked my backpack harder this time, skidding it across the floor. "I need to see Max."

  I grabbed my coat and rushed out without saying anything to Mom. She'd left the money on the edge of the kitchen counter and I grabbed it as I passed, shoving it into my pocket and slamming the door behind me.

  Max's house was just a few miles away, and I could get there pretty quickly on my bike. I looked away as I passed Brooke's house, and flew down the road too fast, not caring about ice or watching for cars. I saw myself putting my hands around Brooke's neck, first caressing it, then squeezing it until she screamed and kicked and choked and every thought in her entire head was focused on me, and nothing but me, and I was her whole world and—

  "No!"

  My back wheel caught a patch of black ice and swerved out from under me, spinning me to the side. I managed to stay upright, but as soon as I was steady again I leaped off the bike, and picked it up and swung it like a club into a telephone pole.

  It clanged and vibrated in my hands, solid and real. I dropped it and leaned against the pole, gritting my teeth.

  I should be crying, I can't even cry like a human,

  I looked around quickly, to see who was watching. A few cars were driving by, but no one was paying me any attention.

  "I need to see Max," I muttered again, and picked up my bike.

  I hadn't seen him outside of school in weeks—I spent all of my time alone, hiding in the shadows and sending notes to Mr. Crowley. That wasn't safe, even without my rules. Especially without my rules. My bike looked okay—scratched, maybe, but not dented. The handlebars were skewed to the side, too tight for me to straighten without my tools, but I was able to compensate for it by holding them crooked. I rode straight for Max's house and forced myself to think about nothing but him. He was my friend. Friends were normal. I couldn't be a psycho if I had a friend.

  Max lived in a duplex by the wood plant, in a neighborhood that always smelled like sawdust and smoke. Most of the people in town worked at the plant, including Max's mom.

  His dad drove a truck, usually hauling wood from the plant, and was gone as often as he was home. I didn't like Max's dad, and anytime I went to his house, the big diesel cab was the first thing I looked for. Today it was gone, so Max was probably home alone.

  I dropped my bike in their front yard and rang the bell. I rang a second time. Max opened it with a dull expression, but his eyes lit up when he saw me.

  "Check it out, man—come see what my dad got me!" He threw himself onto the couch, picking up an Xbox 360 controller and holding it up like a prize. "He can't be here for Christmas so he gave it to me early. It's awesome."

  I closed the door and took off my jacket. "Cool." He was playing some racing game, and I breathed a sigh of relief— this was exactly the kind of mindless time sink I needed. "Do you have two controllers?"

  "You can use Dad's," he said, pointing at the TV A second controller was sitting next to it, the cord neatly rolled up. "Just make sure you don't wreck it, because when he comes back he's going to bring Madden, and we're going to play a whole football season together. He'll be pissed if you wreck his controller."

  "I'm not going to hit it with a hammer," I said, plugging it in and retreating to the couch. "Let's play."

  "In a minute," he said, "I've got to finish this first." He unpaused the game and did a couple of races, assuring me between each one that it was just a tourney thing and it would be over soon but he didn't know how to save until he got to the end. Eventually, he set up a head-to-head race and we played for an hour or two. He beat me every time, but I didn't care—I was acting like a normal kid, and I didn't have to kill anybody.

  "You suck," he
said eventually. "And I'm hungry. You want some chicken?"

  "Sure."

  "We have some from last night. It was our early Christmas party for Dad." He went into the kitchen and brought back a half-empty bucket of fried chicken, and we sat on the couch watching TV and throwing the bones back in the bucket as we finished each piece. His little sister wandered in, took a piece, and quietly wandered back to her room.

  "You going anywhere for Christmas?" he asked.

  "Nowhere to go," I said.

  "Us neither." He wiped his hands on the couch and rooted through the bones for another drumstick. "What you been doing?"

  "Nothing," I said. "Stuff. You?"

  "You've been doing something," he said, eyeing me. "I've barely seen you in two weeks, which means you've been doing something on your own. But what could it be? What does the psychotic young John Wayne Cleaver do in his spare time?"

  "You caught me," I said, "I'm the Clayton Killer."

  "That was my first guess, too," he said, "but he's only killed, what, six people? You'd do way better than that."

  "More isn't automatically better," I said, turning back to the TV "Quality's got to count for something."

  "I bet I know what you've been doing," he said, pointing at me with his drumstick. "You've been mackin' on Brooke."

  "'Mackin'?'"Iasked.

  "Making out," said Max, puckering his lips. "Getting it on. Busting a move."

  "I think 'busting a move' means dancing," I said.

  "And I think you are a fat liar," said Max.

  "Do you mean phat with a P-H or fat with an F?" I asked.

  "I can never tell with you."

  "You are so totally into Brooke," he said, taking a bite of chicken and laughing with his mouth wide open. "You haven't even said no yet."

  "I didn't think I had to deny something that nobody could possibly believe," I said.

  "Still haven't said no."

  "Why would I be after Brooke." I asked. "It doesn't even know I'm—dammit!"