The Swamp Killers

by Sarah M. Chen

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  “He’s an arrogant prick.” Joey said. “He claims he’s related to Charles Manson, which makes him both a delusional liar and creepy as fuck.”

  “Manson’s not his real name,” Pelletier said. “He’s used a pile of aliases. Bundy, Gacy, Barrow. Most of them are killers, but he’s used some other names, like Popkov.”

  “The Werewolf.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mikhail Popkov is a Russian serial killer—one of the greatest of all time,” Joey said. “At least according to Erik. He’s kind of obsessed.”

  “What else do you know about Erik?”

  “He works for Mara’s parents. That’s how they met in the first place. Mara would talk about him occasionally. I didn’t mind at first, but then…it kind of bugged me.”

  “You were jealous?” Pelletier prodded.

  “I guess,” Joey said, knowing that it sounded like a normal enough explanation, even if it wasn’t the way the FBI agent meant. He had been jealous, because even though he and Mara weren’t romantically involved, they were like twins. He and Mara had something special, a relationship that not many people ever got to experience. They trusted each other completely. They were safe harbors for each other in a harsh world. And Erik Manson had barged into that, mocking their closeness, doing everything in his power to break it.

  Truth be told, Joey hated his guts.

  He took a deep breath. “First time I saw him, he was picking Mara up from school one day. He showed up in a flashy sportscar, in a tight-fitting shirt, with his hair slicked back like he thought he was…”

  “Like he was what?”

  Like a gangster had been on the tip of Joey’s tongue. That would’ve been a mistake. Mara had told him things about the shady family business of the Dubicas, things he would’ve been in serious trouble for spilling. He had to tread carefully. “Like he was a rock star or something,” he improvised. “He clearly thought he was hot.”

  “You talk with him?”

  “Not really.” It had only been a few words. Ah, you must be Lennie, Erik had said with a smirk. No, I’m Joey, he’d answered, and then he’d remembered Of Mice and Men, which he’d studied in English class. Joey’d read it a couple of times, because he’d had to repeat a few classes. He was slow, not stupid. “We didn’t really talk that time. Mara just took off with him.”

  “You said you met him a couple of times,” Pelletier prodded. “When else?”

  “He came here once,” Joey said. “Mara and I were listening to records.”

  “Records?” Pelletier sounded incredulous.

  “Yeah, vinyl. My parents have this amazing record player. The sound quality is out of this world.” This was completely true, and one of Joey’s obsessions. He had a collection of old recordings that couldn’t be beat. Mara loved them as much as he did; at least, he thought she did. He wasn’t so sure anymore “Erik came over here looking for Mara. I offered him a drink. Iced tea. When I came back, I overheard him talking about me.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He was…calling me names.” That was the best Joey could improvise. The rest, he wouldn’t repeat. He might have difficulty remembering some things, but certain details played in his head like an old record.

  “What did Mara say?”

  “Not much,” Joey lied.

  The memory hurt his head. Your gay puppy dog should be our first kill, Erik had said.

  No, Mara had answered. There are a couple of other people who need to go first.

  There was always a splitting headache inside Joey’s brain; that was simply how things had been ever since his accident. He’d spent months in a medically induced coma, time he couldn’t recollect. When the doctors finally brought him out of it, his body was mostly healed: the broken bones had knitted together, the burned skin had been replaced by grafts, and the bloody gashes had transformed into pale scars. It was his brain that wouldn’t heal properly. He’d never been a gifted student, but it was as if he’d been demoted several grades. There was a pounding in the back of his head that drowned out anything a teacher had to say.

  “That must’ve hurt your feelings,” Pelletier said. “Your best friend dissing you with her new boyfriend.”

  Joey stared at him, not entirely comprehending what the man meant. “I love Mara,” he said. “No matter what. She’s the sister I always wanted.”

  Pelletier gazed at him, as if trying to measure his sincerity. “Where do you think Mara is right now?”

  “She didn’t tell me where she was going.”

  “But if she needed to hide out for a bit. Where would she head to?”

  “Mara always dreamed about living in New York City,” Joey said, simultaneously aware that this was true and yet it was the last place she would’ve gone with Erik Manson.

  “What about family? Does she have any in other cities, other states?”

  “Not that she ever mentioned.”

  “This is feeling like a dead end, son,” Pelletier said. “Which makes me worried for your friend Mara.”

  “Why? Do you think she’s in danger?”

  “She and Erik Manson skipped out with a big bundle of cash,” Pelletier said. “The Dubica family didn’t get to where it is by letting underlings steal from them, but…”

  “Mara’s parents aren’t going to let anyone rip them off. They’re tough.” Mara had always made them sound like monsters. Do you ever think about what it would be like if your parents just died? she’d asked Joey once.

  Never, Joey had answered. Do you?

  Mara hadn’t answered that, and she’d never brought it up again.

  “Mara’s parents are dead, son,” Pelletier said quietly.

  Joey felt the ground slipping out from underneath him. It was like he was thirteen again, seeing that group of men coming for him, not realizing until it was too late what had happened. “How?” he gulped.

  “We’re still putting the details together, but it was a professional hit,” Pelletier said. “Single gunshot to the head, both of them. I don’t have enough proof yet, but I believe Erik was behind it.”

  Right after the cops left, Joey made a call to Yazoo. “Can I speak to an inmate named Pete Grushcow, please? This is his son, Joe.”

  There was a long wait, which was good for Joey because it allowed him to formulate his question. All lines at the prison were recorded; there was no such thing as privacy.

  “Joe?” His father’s voice was anxious. “Are you okay? Is your mom okay?”

  “We’re fine,” Joey said. “I just wanted to tell you I love you, Dad. That’s all.”

  “It’s always good to hear that, son. You know I love you, more than anything, right?”

  Joey smiled at that. Even though his dad couldn’t see him, he sensed he could feel it.

  “You sure everything’s okay?” his dad asked.

  “Mara’s in trouble,” Joey said. “But it’s okay. I’m going to get her out of it.”

  “Careful, son,” his dad cautioned. “You can’t get anyone out of trouble they want to be in.”

  Joey thought about that when he went into the basement, rooting through his dad’s locked up cabinets. In his dad’s absence, the business was still thriving. Joey figured it was a credit to his dad that none of his employees had tried to start up a competing business with the boss in jail. His dad was a stand-up guy; everybody knew that.

  As he headed out of the house, his mother called to him, “Where are you going, Joey?”

  “I’m going to look for Mara. Like you said I should.”

  “I didn’t mean that you should get mixed up in a big mess.” She frowned. “I like Mara, but girls her age can be flighty. Now that she’s taken off with a man ten years her senior, well…” She crossed her arms. “Obviously, she’s not the girl for you.”

  “She’s my best friend, Mom,” Joey said. Then he added, as gently as he could, “There�
�s no girl for me. I told you that when I was ten.”

  He’d never made the drive to Jacksonville, Florida before. He figured he could’ve lived his whole life without making that drive and been perfectly happy. But Joey hadn’t told the FBI agent everything; he remembered the chill he’d felt running down his spine when he’d overheard Erik talking to Mara.

  You even have the same initials as her. It’s like destiny, Erik had said.

  Everyone always talks about how she was this great beauty, Mara had answered. Like she was a goddess.

  Let me tell you something. Melody Duplass would be nothing next to you. You could be so much greater than she ever was, Mara. We could be the greatest in history.

  At the time, Joey knew he’d heard the name Melody Duplass before, but he couldn’t remember where. He’d had to look her up and read the story of the Jacksonville crime spree she’d gone on with her boyfriend, Timmy Milici. Joey had known that Erik Manson was a killer in search of a crime; what horrified him was that he’d managed to con Mara into his scheme. Joey didn’t know where she was, exactly, but she’d left him a way to get in touch with her and he was going to find her before she went any further down the path Erik was leading her.

  Half an hour out of Atlanta on the I-75, Joey called the number Mara had given him from a roadside rest stop and left a message for her. “Your parents are dead,” he gulped. “I’m so sorry. The cops say Erik was responsible. You need to get yourself away from him right now.”

  It didn’t take long for his phone to buzz in response, with a text from a number he didn’t recognize. I need to talk to you in person. Sending location soon.

  Joey grimaced. That wasn’t a message from Mara. Even his foggy brain knew that. Somehow, Erik Manson had intercepted his message and was planning to deal with him.

  That was fine with Joey. He was planning to deal with Erik Manson, too.

  He turned the radio on, hitting the jackpot with a station playing 80s hits. He heard George Michael singing, “Take these lies and make them true.” It was like the radio was speaking to him. He lived his life wrapped in a cocoon of lies. Mara was his best friend in the world, that was a truth to hold onto. But Mara was never his girlfriend; they’d let some people make that assumption, never correcting the lie because it was convenient. Joey knew it put his mother’s fears to rest; it allowed her to think her son would fit in with her idea of society, after all.

  The drive down to Florida gave him a lot of time to think. The name Jacksonville brought to mind his hometown of Jackson, a place he’d never gone back to after his accident. No, not an accident. Call it what it was, Joey told himself. It always bothered him how his mom dressed the truth up in clothes that didn’t fit, how she forced it to be something it wasn’t.

  Jackson, my hometown, where a group of adult men tried to murder me, Joey said to himself.

  Three hours and several rest stops later, he checked his messages and found that there was another message. Head to Moniac, it said. Joey had to look that up. It was a tiny town on the Georgia side of the border, near where the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge bled into a series of wetland conservation areas in Florida. Swampland. Guns and gators. That was undoubtedly Erik Manson’s plan: shoot him dead, let the gators deal with the evidence. Only Joey had a plan of his own.

  He texted back when he finally got to Moniac, only to get a weird set of instructions that would lead him…directly into the swamp. Joey obeyed; what else could he do if he was going to save Mara? He drove into the swampland, spotting a sign for the John M. Bethea State Forest. He parked there and got out of the car.

  He looked to the right and the left, expecting to spot Erik Manson. Instead, there was Mara, just four yards away, long-limbed and tan in cutoffs and a white T-shirt.

  “What are you doing here?” Joey asked.

  Before she could answer, a shot rang out, catching Joey in the chest. He fell forward, his face in the dirt.

  “I told you he would be jealous.” That was Erik’s Manson’s voice, cool and sardonic. “I warned you even your gay little puppy dog would get all mad at you for ditching him.”

  “You said you wouldn’t kill him!” Mara shouted.

  “I didn’t,” Erik said. “He’s playing possum.”

  Joey didn’t move. His chest was on fire. He knew exactly where he was and why he was there, but that didn’t stop his mind from flashing back to when he was thirteen, when that group of men attacked him. One had swung a baseball bat, hitting the back of his head like it was a fastball, knocking him into dirt. You fucking freak, one of the men had spat at him. You fucking rapist. You belong in hell.

  Joey remembered how confused he’d been. Rapist? All he’d even done was kiss another boy. It wasn’t until a year later, when he’d woken up from his medical coma, that he came to understand what had happened. Someone had seen him kissing his boyfriend and reported back to the boy’s father. Fearing for his own life, that boy had told his father Joey had forced him to do it, that it wasn’t his fault at all. That father, a rich and powerful businessman, had rounded up his lackeys and set them on Joey like a pack of dogs.

  Joey felt a toe nudge at his side. “You dead?” Erik sounded casual about it.

  When Joey didn’t respond, Erik put his hands on Joey’s shoulders and flipped him over. The pain was excruciating, but he’d had far worse. It was his opportunity. He held up the small aerosol can he was clutching and sprayed it into Erik’s startled face.

  Erik coughed. “What’s that supposed to be, pepper spray?” he laughed. “I told Mara you should’ve been our first kill, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  He picked up the can and sprayed Joey in the face. Joey didn’t care; he was dying anyway. Tasteless, odorless, the poison didn’t even register. He’d bleed out first. The only thing that would speed up that clock was another bullet. Erik took aim at Joey’s head with his gun.

  “No!” Mara shouted. “Don’t kill him!” She came closer.

  Joey tried to speak, but he couldn’t get air into his lungs. “He killed…your parents,” he whispered, the words drowning in the blood on his lips.

  “I know,” Mara said.

  Erik kicked him in the side of his head.

  “He’s already got a brain injury,” Mara said, shoving Erik away.

  “You can’t go soft now,” Erik said. “We’ve come too far.”

  “I’m not soft,” Mara said. She kneeled down, next to Joey’s head. Her expression was dark as she regarded him. “My parents deserved what they got,” she said. “My father abused me since I was eleven. My mother knew and pretended she didn’t. I thought about killing them every day. I just never worked up the nerve to do it. That’s why I…”

  “Mara has me to thank for freeing her,” Erik said proudly. “Now she’s mine forever.”

  “I don’t belong to anyone,” Mara said.

  “Wrong. You’ll do what I say and you’ll like it,” Erik snapped.

  Joey gazed at his friend. “Cockroach spray,” he murmured.

  “Let’s kill him,” Erik whined. “He’s too stupid to live.”

  “I told you no,” Mara said.

  “You should watch how you talk to me,” Erik said.

  Mara slowly got to her feet. Her expression was blank. “Don’t be mad at me, baby,” were the words that rolled off her lips, but Joey spotted the spray bottle in her hand.

  She walked away and Erik followed a heartbeat later, forgetting Joey on the ground. Joey lay there cooking in the heat, in spite of the shade of trees.

  Cockroach, he thought. You’re going to be gone soon. Then he passed out.

  When Joey came to, he heard beeping. There was a white light, but he knew he wasn’t dead. It was like a flashback to when he was fourteen, being roused out of his medical coma. He was in a hospital. When he opened his eyes, the FBI agent, Pelletier, was standing there.

  “You gave us quite the scare, son,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
<
br />   “No worse than usual,” Joey said. That was actually true. The constant pounding in his head had been replaced by a throbbing pain throughout his whole body. It was more prominent yet duller-edged. “Did you get Erik?”

  “Not yet, but we’re closing in,” Pelletier said.

  “Tell the doctor he sprayed me with poison,” Joey said. “Thallium. The antidote is Prussian Blue. You need to tell the doctor.”

  “You get that?” Pelletier asked someone out of Joey’s line of sight.

  Joey heard a woman respond. “I did. You’re sure it was Thallium?”

  “Positive. The dose he gave me, it would take two or three days to kill me.”

  “Okay, we’ll get on that immediately.” He heard her heels clicking on the tile, out of the room.

  “It wasn’t enough that he shot you?” Pelletier said. “He tried to poison you, too?”

  “Mara wouldn’t let him shoot me again. You have to save her. Erik put a gun to her head. She’s in danger.”

  “We’re doing everything we can.”

  He thought of Mara with the spray bottle of Thallium in her hand. When they found her, Erik would already be dead. He was certain of it.

  “How’d you find me?” Joey asked.

  “We didn’t actually,” Pelletier admitted. “Your mom did.”

  “What?”

  “She’s got some app on your phone that tells her where you are.”

  “I thought you planted a bug on my car…”

  “You ever hear about the Fourth Amendment, Joey? No can do, not without a warrant. Moms don’t need those.”

  “I should’ve figured.”

  “You need to rest, Joey. Let the professionals take it from here.” He touched Joey’s shoulder. “You need to get well, son. I’ll be back to see you when I can.”

  After Pelletier left the room, Joey closed his eyes. He couldn’t tell the FBI, but Erik Manson’s days were almost over. That first dose of Thallium would kill him in two to three days; if Mara dosed him again, he’d be dead within the hour.