Born Evil

by Julia Derek

  “You need to get those shots right now, Shane,” I told him in a grave voice, tightening my grip around his wrist. “Get the doctor here. Tell him I need to speak to him. Go now and find the doctor for me, any doctor. Go, go.” I let go of him, ushering him out of the room at the same time as I pressed the button for a nurse to come see me. I was desperate to see someone who could give Shane the shots and tell me it wasn’t too late. Shane left the room and I kept pressing and pressing on the button.

  It didn’t take long for a nurse to enter the room. She was older than the other who’d been in the room earlier, gray-haired and with a lined face that had no makeup on it. She moved slowly, like she was in pain. Adjusting her wire-rimmed glasses, she peered at me.

  “You called for assistance?”

  “Yes. My son was bitten and scratched by a cat that had rabies a few days ago. He needs post-exposure rabies shots. How long does he have before it’s too late for them to work?”

  The nurse pursed her mouth. “I believe it’s ten days, but I’m not entirely sure. I would have to double-check.”

  “Please go and do that now. For every second that passes, my son could develop the disease. I can’t have him die from rabies!”

  She must have picked up on me turning frantic again, because she held up a hand and said, “I’ll double-check for you. Please calm down. If it’s only been a few days and he hasn’t displayed any signs of the disease, he should be fine. I’ll be right back.”

  She disappeared out of the room, leaving me alone with my panicked thoughts. It was getting increasingly hard for me to breathe. Had Shane shown any signs? What were the first signs anyway? I tried to remember what I had read in that article, but nothing of use came to me. I looked left and right in the room, at the table beside my bed, at the bench along the wall. Where was my phone? I needed my phone so I could google the answer. Damn it, where was my phone?

  Another minute filled with agony passed until the door opened again and Shane came in with a doctor I didn’t recognize.

  “I couldn’t find your doctor, so I brought Dr. Lunden,” he explained.

  Dr. Lunden, who was younger and more attractive than Dr. Cohen, gazed at me with an attentive face. “Your son has been bitten by a rabies-infected cat?”

  “Yes, and he needs the shots right away. It happened three days ago. Or four. It’s not too late, is it? Please tell me it’s not too late.”

  “No, not at all.” Dr. Lunden tossed a glance in Shane’s direction. “How are you feeling, son?”

  Shane shrugged his lanky shoulders. “Fine.”

  “Someone should also take a look at all the scratches and bite marks on his arms,” I said. “Some of them are pretty bad.”

  The doctor nodded. “Sure thing. Why don’t you come with me, Shane, and we’ll have you looked over? We can do the shots here at the hospital.”

  A big smile stretched my lips and I relaxed. “Thank you so much, Dr. Lunden. I really, really appreciate it.”

  Telling me he was happy to help, the young doctor took my son with him out of the room.

  9

  I was back in the country house two days later, seated on the comfy blue couch in the living room, talking to Beth on the phone. My broken leg was resting on a side stool, while my other was curled up halfway under me. We hadn’t gotten a chance to really talk until now, as it was the end of the month and Beth had been busy working on her company close-out. She was a sales rep for a health club and every last three days of the month, it was the same story—she was super busy trying to hit sky-high sales goals corporate had set for them. It was the best time to buy a gym membership as the sales reps gave people special deals, desperate to get their numbers up.

  “You thought I had what?” I asked her. “An affair? How could I be having an affair when I’m a widow? Did you forget that? I can do whatever I want with whomever I want. There’s no one to report to.” Though I wish there were, I thought but didn’t say, swallowing. I wasn’t in the mood to go over yet again how much I missed Peter. No matter what Beth thought and I myself kept hoping, I very much doubted I would ever meet someone I loved as much as I had loved my dead husband. My throat tightened at an alarming rate and it got hard to breathe, so I quickly pushed further thoughts of him out of my mind.

  “Okay, not an affair-affair, silly.” She sighed theatrically. “I obviously know you can do whatever you want with whomever. I just thought it was a new thing that you wanted to keep secret for a while. You know, that it was the reason you didn’t go straight home to Shane and why you lied to me. You did lie to me, you know.”

  “Yes, that’s true. I did do that.”

  “So why did you lie to me? If you didn’t meet up with your secret lover, where did you have to go? You obviously didn’t have to go be with your son because he was so sick like you claimed. Though, I have to admit, he was quite pale and clammy when I got there. He also acted weird, like he was in shock or something. I thought it had to do with you missing and him being worried. He wasn’t actually sick, was he?”

  “No, no, he wasn’t. He was in shock. Remember how Macy attacked him? He had no choice but to kill the cat. He felt terrible afterward. Very guilty. He really didn’t want to have to kill the cat, but it was either him or the animal. You should see some of the marks on his arms. They’re pretty bad.”

  She sucked in a breath. “Oh my God, I totally forgot about that. Poor thing. I do remember that he had some scratches on his hands now that I think about it. That was all I could see because he was wearing a hoodie with a big collar. Is he going to be okay?”

  “Yes, he’ll be fine. He got post-exposure rabies shots at the hospital, so it’s all good now. None of the scratches are expected to leave scars, they told us.”

  “Good. So why did you lie to me?”

  I searched my mind to come up with a plausible reason for my odd behavior. I still didn’t feel like bringing Beth up-to-date regarding my son’s psychopathic tendencies. It was better that I kept my son’s secret from every single person, even my closest friends. Hell, I hadn’t even told my mother with whom I was close. I didn’t want anyone to know about Shane’s state. All that would lead to would be them judging him, jumping to unfair conclusions. I didn’t need that. My son didn’t need that. Especially not since I would make sure he didn’t do anything bad to anyone ever again. Thank God it had turned out he hadn’t snapped in the end, stabbing the cat to death just because. Fixing him wouldn’t be as hard as I had feared that night.

  I considered how close I had been to telling Beth the truth when I had driven away from the country house, brutal images of Shane killing Macy firmly etched onto my retina. I had been dangerously close to spilling everything. But in the end something inside me had stopped me. I would have been furious with myself now, having realized it was just me freaking out, jumping to conclusions. As usual, there had been an acceptable explanation when all was said and done.

  “Hello, Jen? Are you still there?”

  My brain was unable to produce a suitable alternative to Beth’s accusation, so I did the second best—I went with hers. It wasn’t bad actually.

  “Yeah, sorry,” I said and let out a defeated breath. “Okay, I confess: I did go meet up with a guy. I met him at the post office in town the other day. I didn’t want you to know about it, or anyone else. Not after all the disappointments I’ve been through since I started dating again. This time I promised myself that I wouldn’t tell anyone about my latest guy before I’d gone out with him a few times and it had developed into something. I’ve realized something about myself—the only reason I get upset about guys I barely know rejecting me is because everyone’s asking me for the latest status. And I can’t blame them for asking me when I keep talking nonstop about the latest guy I’m excited about! Honestly, when all’s said and done, I haven’t been all that excited about anyone really. I only thought I was at the time. But a few weeks later, I can’t even remember their names.” In reality, no one ever measured up to Peter
in the end, but I wasn’t about to admit that out loud. It wouldn’t help me move on.

  Beth chuckled. “Ha! I guess you’re right about that. It’s smarter to let things develop a bit before you start obsessing about them.”

  “Exactly,” I said a little too quickly and with a little too much emphasis.

  “So it was another loser then?”

  “What was?”

  “The guy you went to see when you lied to me, silly! What else could I be talking about?”

  “Oh right, sorry. The painkillers I’m on are making it hard for my brain to function properly.”

  “I thought you told me you hadn’t taken any painkillers ’cause you didn’t have any pain.”

  Damn it. “I said that? Well, there you go. Those friggin’ pills are making me forget everything.” I cleared my throat and rambled on. “Yeah, Dan was a real loser. I honestly wasn’t sure what had attracted me to him in the first place. I should never have given him my phone number. It took me until the main entrée to conclude that, though, so that’s why I stayed so long. I suppose I wanted to give the guy a chance. He was trying so damned hard. I felt sorry for him.”

  “What was wrong with him?”

  “Well, first of all, he was totally obsessed with himself. All he did was talk about what he did and where he was from. But what was even worse was this annoying thing he did with his tongue.”

  “What did he do with his tongue?”

  “It kept shooting out of his mouth like a reptile’s, swiping his lower lip like a windshield wiper. I swear, I think he has some kind of condition and forgot to take his meds or something. Cause he sure didn’t do that weird thing when we spoke at the post office or I’d never have gone out with him.”

  “Oh wow. Poor guy. Maybe he was nervous.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought too at first, which was why I decided to stay till dessert. You know, to give him a chance. But I don’t think it was nerves. The guy’s what, forty? He can’t be that nervous on a first date any longer. Anyway, that tongue tic turned me off even more than his self-absorption, so when we were done eating, I told him I had to call it a night. My son was at home waiting for me.”

  “How much wine did you have?”

  “Only a glass and a half. I wasn’t even tipsy. I really don’t think I drove off that road because I was intoxicated. By the time I was driving home, at least an hour had passed since I had the last wine.”

  “They didn’t check your alcohol levels, did they?”

  “Yes, they did. And the doctor said my alcohol levels were low.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  We spoke some more, finishing the conversation by settling on a time for Beth to come over and have dinner with me and Shane the following night.

  When I had disconnected the call, I placed the phone to my chest. I pricked up my ears to check if I could hear the sound of Shane playing videogames in his bedroom. Playing videogames was one of his favorite pastimes, second to editing photos on his computer. After dinner tonight, he’d gone straight to his room to play his latest obsession, Killing the Hare. That’s when I went to the living room to enjoy a glass of red while catching up with Beth.

  The faintest sound of firing guns reached my ears. Good, I thought. I preferred that he stayed in his room tonight. I needed time alone. Time to pore over what had happened in the last week.

  Shane had gotten his rabies shots at the hospital and was fine, just like Dr. Lunden had promised. He’d also had his scratches and bite marks attended to. They were healing quickly.

  It did disturb me that he had tossed Macy’s body in the creek. I suppose I could see why he had chosen to do it, but I had really wanted to have the cat checked for rabies. If I knew the cat had rabies, I could be one hundred percent sure Shane had told me the truth. As it was, I had this niggling feeling inside me that he had just made it up, feigned all the scratches and bite marks on his arms. Well, there were mostly scratches. It would be hard to do, but it was unfortunately possible nonetheless. As I had taken a closer look at them, I had reluctantly concluded that.

  I swallowed the rest of the wine and shook my head. I really needed to stop thinking about this. Of course he had told me the truth.

  10

  Four weeks later, I had succeeded in putting the disturbing incident with Shane and Macy behind me. All the scratches and bruises from my accident were gone. I was mastering moving around the house with my crutches and my broken ribs were almost fully healed. My thigh bone was doing well, too. According to my doctor and the physical therapist I was working with, if I kept up the good work, I would be able to ditch the crutches in a month and a half. I could hardly wait. I might be a lot better at using them now that I’d developed more upper body strength, but that didn’t mean I liked being forced to use them. It was still a pain to get around with them, especially outside, like when I had to take the subway, for example. I’d come to learn the hard way that people in Queens where we lived weren’t any friendlier or more helpful than busy Manhattanites. Sadly, I couldn’t drive a car in my condition, so I had to rely on public transportation. I wasn’t about to waste money on cab rides when one could take the bus or the subway everywhere. We weren’t that rich and frankly, at least the subway was typically much faster than driving. Fortunately, I didn’t have to use either very often.

  After having spent most of August followed by Labor Day weekend upstate, Shane and I were back to our regular lives. That meant he was in school, in seventh grade to be exact, and I was working from home as well as keeping up with the latest research relating to psychopathy. Thankfully, being a developmental editor for an online romance publisher named Lovestruck, I had the kind of job that didn’t require me to go into the office. I went through manuscripts at home. In fact, my boss encouraged me to use my study as my main office, as the company in Brooklyn was tiny and usually crowded. The company had several employees, but little space for us to work. The only times I really needed to be there were when we had staff meetings that couldn’t take place over Skype.

  I had been working for Lovestruck for almost two years now and I enjoyed it, as it involved using my creative side. I had begun as an editorial assistant and quickly worked myself up to taking on my own manuscripts. The pay wasn’t amazing, but it did pay our bills, of which there were plenty, not to mention part of the rent. Shane and I were still making do on the money Peter had left us, but the account was thinning out. Lovestruck was doing well, though, so I expected to get a substantial wage increase soon. One way or another we would be okay.

  I missed not writing on a screenplay, but I couldn’t imagine doing it again, even if I had the time to mess around at home. Not when it had—indirectly—resulted in my husband’s death. The mere thought of starting another screenplay made me physically ill. Editing other people’s stories allowed me to at least live out their characters in my head.

  Peter had been anything but creative, so Shane must have gotten his genes from me. He really was a talented artist and even more talented photographer. The very best of his paintings and pictures hung on the living room walls in our apartment, some of them framed. When people visited us, they often commented on how stunning they were, how different and creative. How Shane was born to become an artist. As he had gotten older, he focused more and more on photography and editing as opposed to drawing and painting. These days he took pics using his smartphone, as the camera in it was almost as good as his regular one and it was always with him. In the evenings, he often showed me amazing shots he’d taken during the day. He kept improving.

  This morning Shane had overslept and forgotten to bring his phone when he took off for school. I couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. He kept that phone next to him every second of the day, even when he went into the bathroom to take a shower. It was like it was a part of him and he couldn’t function without it.

  I found his phone on top of a chest of drawers in his bedroom when I went there to see if he had any sour patch candy lyin
g around somewhere. It was my favorite kind of sweets. I usually had a big bag of it a few times a week, but now that I couldn’t move as much as I should, I needed to be careful that I didn’t gain weight. I stopped buying it whenever I went to the grocery store. Yesterday I had caught Shane eating some in his room that he must have picked up on his way home from school. Unlike me, he didn’t eat the whole bag, so I was hoping I could score the remaining pieces. A few wouldn’t make much difference in my waistline, I told myself.

  But the only thing of interest that I spotted when I entered his room was his forgotten phone. There was no candy anywhere in sight, unfortunately.

  Oh well, I thought and grabbed the phone. It was for the best. The sudden candy urge would go away soon anyway. If it didn’t, I’d have an apple instead. Much healthier. With the phone in the pocket of my sweatpants, I made my way out of his room and back to my home office. I’d work another couple of hours and then I’d go make myself some lunch.

  As I was about to go into the kitchen and prepare something to eat, my own cell phone rang. I sat back down in the chair and picked it up from the desk. I didn’t recognize the number on the screen. Pressing Talk, I placed the phone to my ear.

  “Hello.”

  “Mom? It’s me, Shane.”

  “Hi, honey. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. I forgot my phone, so I’m calling from Leo’s phone. I need something I saved on my phone for school, though. Can you get it for me? It should be in my room.”

  “It’s already in my pocket. I went into your room earlier to see if you had any candy left for me. I saw your phone on the drawers, so I took it with me.”

  “Oh. Sorry, there’s no more candy. I ate it all yesterday. Can you pull up a thing for me and email it to me? I saved it in the Notes app.”

  “Of course. Hold on while I get it out.”

  I stuck my hand into the pants pocket and pulled up his phone. “Okay, I’m ready. What’s your password?”