Lost Boys

by Orson Scott Card

  "No," said Step. "Here's my number. Take it down if you want."

  The man took it down and read it back. Step said good-bye and hung up.

  "Dead end, huh?" said DeAnne.

  "I don't know," said Step. "The guy wanted me to tell him, but I didn't want to get put on their list of cranks.

  So I'm betting that the fact that I wouldn't talk to anybody but Douglas either puts me on their serious crank list or it gets Douglas to call me back. Either way, maybe somebody talks to us."

  The phone rang.

  DeAnne laughed nervously.

  Step picked up the receiver.

  "This Stephen Fletcher?" asked a man with a soft tidewater accent.

  "Yes," said Step.

  "This is Doug Douglas, Steuben Police Department. What's on your mind?"

  Step mouthed to DeAnne: It's him. Then, to Douglas, he said, "Mr. Douglas, this is probably crazy and we're probably going to end up on your crank-call list, but we've got something he re that if we don't tell you about it we're probably going to go out of our minds worrying about it, so if you've got two minutes I'll give it a try and then you can tell me I'm nuts and I'll go away."

  "I got two minutes, son," said Douglas. "Go ahead."

  "We've got a list here that has four names on it. Jack, Scotty David, and Roddy."

  "Mm-hm."

  "That list was written early in June. Since then, and before we saw this article in the paper, we added three more names to it. Peter, Van, and Sandy."

  "So you telling me you're a psychic?" asked Douglas. The weariness in his voice told Step what he thought of psychics.

  "No," said Step. "Far from it. We got these names from some body else, for a completely unrelated purpose.

  But you don't have to take just our word for it. That same list is also in the possession of a doctor here in town, who also collected it for a completely unrelated reason."

  "Mm-hm."

  "So then back in June we also got a forty- five rpm record in the mail, anonymously, but it was postmarked Steuben. And the record was that one by the rock group The Police, the song called 'Every Breath You Take.' It has a part about how the singer of the song will be watching. We figured it was just somebody who wanted to scare us or punish us for something, and we didn't think the police would be interested or even if you were, what could you do? So we didn't report it. But now this article comes out, and we think-maybe the reason we had these names is somehow connected with the person who sent us that record. And maybe that person is somehow connected with the serial killer. And so maybe..."

  "You're being a little cute with me, Mr. Fletcher. You keep not telling me why you have that list of names."

  "I'm not trying to be cute, I'm just trying to tell you the parts that matter before I tell you the part that makes it all so hard for anybody to believe, including us. I mean, we want you to take this seriously"

  "So far I'm listening serious, and I'm waiting for you to talk serious."

  "Yes. Can you- first can you just tell me if our list really does correspond? I mean, was Jonathan Lee, was he ever called 'Jack.' Did Alexander Booth go by the nickname 'Sandy'?"

  "Mr. Fletcher, I'm still on the phone with you. Doesn't that answer your question?"

  "Yes, I guess so." Step took a deep breath. "Mr. Douglas, that list was written by my wife."

  "She's the psychic?"

  "No, she's the mother. I'm the father. The other person who assembled the same list is a psychiatrist. Our son's former psychiatrist. It's our son who came up with these names."

  Douglas let out a stream of air into the phone. It occurred to Step that he was probably smoking. "Well now, that's interesting," he said. There was a pause on the line, as if Douglas was thinking. Then he spoke again.

  "Does your son live with you?"

  "Of course," said Step.

  "Does he have a job? I mean, is he working today, or is he home?"

  "Mr. Douglas, our son doesn't have a job and of course he lives at home. For heaven's sake."

  "Mr. Fletcher, how old is your son?"

  "He turned eight in June."

  There was a loud squealing sound over the phone. Step thought: He just sat bolt upright, and his chair squeaks. "Eight years old?"

  "Yes sir," said Step.

  "Jesus H. Christ," said Douglas.

  "I suppose so," said Step.

  "I mean, you said your son's psychiatrist, your son came up with the list-I thought you were telling me your boy might be the serial killer. Hell, I've been having my boys here check out your address and I've got three patrol cars heading for your house right now and you're telling me that your son is eight?"

  "Yes!" said Step. He leapt to his feet, started pacing as he talked, urgently. "I'm only thirty-two myself, for pete's sake. Don't send a bunch of police cars here, we're not going anywhere! I was thinking about my son as a possible victim, that maybe this guy's been stalking us, stalking our son, trying to scare us or maybe even setting us up or something and you're sending police cars to arrest him?"

  "Oh, Step!" cried DeAnne. "That's insane! Are they really-"

  Douglas started talking again; Step held up a hand to make DeAnne be quiet so he could hear. "... already called them off, don't worry." Douglas chuckled. "See, we're a little excitable around here. The SBI wants to shove us aside on the investigation and so we kind of feel the tiger breathing down our necks, you know. But those cars are going back on patrol and so don't you folks worry. Still, I'd kind of like to come on over and talk to y'all. Think that's possible?"

  "We'll be here all afternoon," said Step.

  "Give me about thirty minutes, then."

  DeAnne immediately began worrying about what might happen if the kids woke up and found a policeman in the house.

  "He's a detective," said Step. "He'll be in a suit."

  "And they'll be in the family room, and there's no way to shut this door so they can't hear."

  "So we'll take him in the bedroom and close the door."

  "With our room in the mess it's in?"

  "So throw the bedspread up over the bed," said Step.

  "You really don't care, do you!"

  "I really don't think the appearance of our room amounts to a sparrow's fart in a hurricane compared to what he's coming over here to discuss, that's true."

  "That's your philosophy. Mine is that I don't want him to think he's just found another lowlife family who don't care about their living conditions."

  "But we don't care or our bedroom would already be cleaned up," said Step plaintively. But he followed her into the bedroom and joined her in a flurry of straightening. They were done, with a couple of folding chairs set up, when the doorbell rang. It had only been fifteen minutes.

  "Maybe it's not him," said DeAnne.

  It was Douglas, all right, standing on the porch, lighting up a cigarette. After the normal civilities, but before inviting him in, Step cleared his throat and said, "Excuse me, but we don't smoke."

  It took Douglas a moment to realize that this actually meant that he was expected to respond in some way.

  "You mean to tell me you don't ever have any visitors who smoke?"

  "We don't even own an ashtray," said Step. "And we have a new baby, which means that we just can't have smoke in the house."

  "Well don't that beat all. Antismokers in a tobacco town. My daddy worked in the tobacco factory all his life. What's North Carolina coming to?"

  "As soon as that's out," said Step, "we'd be honored to have you come in."

  Douglas hooted, then dropped the cigarette and ground it out with his shoe. "No offense intended," he said.

  "None taken," said Step. "And vice versa, I hope."

  This really wasn't the best beginning to their conversation, Step realized. And since the kids were still asleep, or at least quiet, DeAnne sat down across from Douglas in the living room while Step went back and quietly closed the kids' bedroom doors. When he got back, they had apparently got right down to business, b
ecause DeAnne was showing him the list.

  "Well, you know, this could have been written anytime," said Douglas.

  "It's not evidence anyway," said Step. "I mean, how could it be? But if you need corroboration, Stevie's psychiatrist at the time, Dr. Alice Weeks, has a copy of this list--which DeAnne gave her back in early June.

  And she made her own list of the others."

  "We deliberately kept the nicknames out of the papers," said Douglas. "We do that, among other things, so that we can tell the hoaxers from the real thing. Like they'll 'remember' seeing a man dragging a little boy along saying, Hurry up, Alex, only we know that Alexander Booth would have told anybody who asked him that his name was Sandy. So it's a fake."

  "And so you took us seriously," said Step.

  "Jack was the clincher," said Douglas. "Your wife was telling me while you were down the hall there that these are the name's your son gave to his imaginary friends."

  "That's right."

  "Pretty amazing," said Douglas. "And then this forty-five, this record. Comes in the mail. Every breath you take."

  "We didn't think that much of it, after a while. Till the article."

  "I'm not surprised."

  "But, I mean, an anonymous package like that, it had to be meant to scare us."

  "Oh, no doubt about it," said Douglas. "The trouble is, it doesn't help us much."

  "No?"

  "It almost certainly didn't come from the serial killer."

  "Oh," said Step. "Well I guess that's a relief."

  "But how do you know that," said DeAnne, "since you don't know who the serial killer is?"

  "We've got psychological profiles. Some guys, they try to tease the cops. Son of Sam, you know. Taunting us. They want to get caught. But then there's the Ted Bundy types. Smart. Cool. All they care about is not getting caught. Bundy never sent letters to the papers. Bundy never tipped his hand to anybody. I mean, he had a girlfriend that he was sleeping with during half the time he was going out killing those women, and she never had a clue. She knew he did some shoplifting and stuff, but had no clue about the killings. This serial killer-if there is one, cause it's not like we can prove it yet-he's like Bundy. He's smart, and he doesn't want to get caught. He's scared of getting caught, and he doesn't like being scared. He isn't in this for the thrill. He's in this for-something else."

  "What?" asked Step.

  "I'm not here to tell you about serial killers," said Douglas. "It'll ruin your sleep for a long while. It's sure as hell ruined mine. Begging your pardon for my language, ma'am."

  "I just wonder how you know all this about him," said Step.

  "We know it because we haven't found the bodies. Not a trace, not a clue. If he was a talker, after seven disappearances we'd've heard from him by now. Especially after the article. That's why we called in the press on this-we hoped we could flush him out. But he's the other kind. If he exists. He's the kind who can't stand the idea of public attention being focused on him. So now that the article's been run, I expect him to lay low for a while. He's been hitting every couple of months, but I imagine he won't hit again this year. All depends, though."

  "On what?" asked Step.

  "On how strong it is, whatever it is that's driving him to kill."

  "I hate this," said DeAnne. "Because he has something to do with my son."

  "Maybe not," said Douglas. "I'd like to meet your boy, if I could."

  "I don't want him interrogated," said Step immediately.

  "Oh, no, that's not my way. He's a boy, and he's a troubled boy. I've got children of my own. I just have to-make some sense out of him coming up with these names, don't you see. And if I meet him, get a feel for who he is, then that might help me understand what to make of this."

  "I really don't want you to," said DeAnne. "We'd have to tell him you're a policeman, and then he'd—"

  "So you wouldn't consider telling him I'm an uncle from out of town?"

  "He knows all his uncles," said Step. "And he's not stupid."

  "Why not trust me?" asked Douglas.

  "Why can't you just-work from the envelope the record came in? We've still got it, and the record sleeve.

  You could take fingerprints or something."

  "I'll tell you what," said Douglas. "Who do you think might have sent it?"

  At once Step and DeAnne both became reluctant. "Well," said Step, "it would only be speculation. We don't want to get some innocent person in trouble."

  "You see?" said Douglas. "You already have some people in mind who might have sent that record. You've got enough people you're thinking about that you know most of them are innocent, but one of them probably sent it. Right?"

  "But the one who did-- " said Step.

  "The one who did is not the serial killer. That's just a plain fact. If there's one thing I've learned about serial killers, they don't change their pattern. Once they've got it set, they don't change. Even the ones who think they're changing it every time, they're only changing stupid meaningless details. The basic pattern remains absolutely the same because that's part of the ritual, you know? If they didn't do it the same, it wouldn't give them ... what it gives them. But make a list of your acquaintances who might want to send you a threatening message. I won't go question them. I'll just hang on to the list. And then I'll compare it to other lists we've got, and if they show up on another list, then we'll go question them, and they'll think we're bothering them because of the other list, not yours. And if they don't show up on any other list, we leave them alone. Fair enough?"

  "All right," said DeAnne.

  "As for your record-sender, well, someday he might turn into a killer, but if he's still at the anonymous threat stage, he's got a ways to go. The evil is still creeping up inside him. Hasn't taken him over completely yet.

  In other words, he's still a basically civilized person. And he may keep that evil under control, too. May control it till the day he dies. Nobody'll ever know. And all he ever did, the worst thing he ever did was mail somebody a forty- five rpm record by the Police. Let's hope that's how it works out. That's how it usually does."

  "Usually? There are a lot of forty-fives getting sent around?"

  "A lot of anonymous messages. More than you could imagine. I'd say most people get a couple of them during their lives, and maybe most people send one or two. You get so filled with rage, you want to hurt somebody, only you don't have enough hate in you to poison them or burn their house down. So you send a letter.

  You throw trash on their lawn. You call them on the phone and then hang up-again, again, all night, until you start getting afraid that they might be having their phone traced so then you stop. You ever got strange calls like that?"

  "Once," said DeAnne.

  "Me too," said Step.

  "It's going on, all the time. There aren't enough policemen in the world to track down all of that. And most of the time it's just what you thought-somebody you know who's angry at you. Maybe even your best friend, only they can't bring themselves to confront you, so they send you a record and it gets it off their chest and nothing more ever happens."

  "That's a relief," said DeAnne.

  "Well, you should be relieved. But you should also find out who's at the door before you open it, and make sure you know who the next package is from before you open it. Because one time in ten thousand, the guy's not kidding."

  "With one hand he giveth comfort," said Step, "and with the other he taketh it away."

  "What can I say?" said Douglas. "I'm dying for a cigarette, and the thing I came out here for was to find out why you had all those names, and you aren't letting me meet your son."

  "We thought you'd tell us why our son knew those names," said Step.

  "Well, I'm not gonna subpoena him. But I'll tell you folks, every little boy in this town is in danger right now. This killer may lay low for a while, but he'll be back soon enough, and whatever he's doing, he's going to be damned hard to catch. How many more is he going to kill before he finally
slips up? I hope not yours, but he'll kill somebody's."

  "But Stevie couldn't possibly know-" Step began.

  "What are you hoping to find out from him?" asked DeAnne.

  "Not the name of the killer, so rest your minds about that," said Douglas. "Nothing concrete at all. I just want to get a feel for who he is. For the kind of person he is."

  "He's a good kid," said Step.

  "I'm sure he is," said Douglas.

  Step laughed. "And I bet you hear that from the parents of drug pushers and rapists and embezzlers all the time."

  "Either that or 'I always told him he'd end up in jail.' "

  Step looked at DeAnne. DeAnne looked at him. "We've come this far," she said.

  "We let him talk to that miserable shrink," said Step. "For two months. What can Mr. Douglas do worse than Dr. Weeks?"

  "I'll get him," said DeAnne.

  While she was gone, Step had to ask. "What do they get out of this? Guys like ... the one you're looking for?"

  Douglas raised an eyebrow. "Morbid curiosity?"

  "Yes," said Step. "But I'm also a historian. I study human nature, and somehow this guy is human, right?"

  "No," said Douglas. "Guys like that start out human, but there's an empty place inside them, a hungry place, and it starts sucking the humanity, the decency, the love, the goodness right out of them. And by the time the y get to where this guy is, there's nothing left but that hole. And so the guy spends all his effort trying to fill that hole, to find something to satisfy that thirst, that hunger, that nothingness in him, only he never can. He just tries over and over and over again, and it's never enough. If the guy has any decency left, some scrap of humanity somewhere in the shadows, then he'll leave clues for us, he'll do like Son of Sam and taunt the cops, he'll cry for help. Free me from this hunger that's eating me alive. But the worst ones, there's nothing left. This guy, there's nothing."

  "Well if it's all gone, his humanity, then wouldn't people around him know it?"

  "They may know it. He may be a complete son-of-a-bitch who sics his dogs on anybody who comes near his property. But then he might also be the nicest, most normal- looking guy. You just never know. It could be your dentist. The bag boy at the grocery. A minister. He fools everybody."