by S. E. Green
He moves then, pushing off the brick wall he’s leaning against, and I expect him to cross through the parking lot toward the bus stop that will take him back to the half-way house. But he doesn’t and instead walks the length of the storefront. At this hour, only the grocery store remains open and the others—the running store, the shoe store, the pet store, and several others—have all closed for the evening.
I don’t know where Stabber Brother is going. If he’s going to make it back by curfew, he only has thirty minutes or so to dally.
With my window down, I put my Jeep in gear and creep through the parking lot, following him. A waft of fried chicken from the nearby Popeye’s flows through on the summer breeze, and I inhale deeply. It’s been a while since I had fried chicken.
Stabber Brother disappears around the corner and into the alley, and that deviant part of me I was waiting for urges me to follow. In my cargo pockets, I have multiple things stuffed—duct tape, pepper spray, pocket knife, Taser, zip ties…—not exactly sure what I’ll be in the mood for. It seems variety is quickly becoming my favorite. My bokken lays strapped along my back, and the screwdriver I’ve secured to my calf.
Parking my Jeep, I climb out and I whisper foot it over to the alley. A slight quiver passes over my skin, and I feel exposed and unready, and I know it has everything to do with the quickness of this whole thing. If it were just me, I would spend weeks following Stabber Brother and really learning him inside and out. As it is though, I don’t have a definitive plan, only a vague outline, and my spine crawls with the uncomfortableness of it.
I come up against the corner of the alley, merging with the darkness and a wave of euphoria rolls through me. I recognize the sensation and the giddiness of it makes the world feel right.
Leaning away from the wall, I peak around a dumpster to see Stabber Brother sitting on the ground cross-legged, his back to me, still smoking a cigarette. His head is bowed, and I can’t see what he’s doing, but from the faint glow, I think it must be a phone or a tablet, considered contraband at a half-way house.
From my pocket, I pull out my mask, but an impromptu idea has me pausing and getting a little more excited. I think the mask should be for him, not me.
I slip around the dumpster, coming up right behind him. My left arm slides around his neck, putting him into a headlock. “Don’t move and don’t make a sound.”
“What the—” he yanks against me. The cigarette falls into his lap and the phone clatters to the ground.
I tighten my hold, knowing exactly how much pressure puts the person on the precipice of breathing. He hisses for breath, followed by a gasp, and I simply tighten my hold. Why can’t people listen? “I said, don’t move and don’t make a sound.”
Stabber Brother falls quiet, and with my left arm still around his neck, I take the mask and slip it over his head, backward so he can’t see. Duct tape comes next, and I yank both of his arms hard behind his back, ratcheting the tape around his wrists.
“If it’s money you’re looking for, my wallet—”
I punch him hard, my fist connecting with his eye. “I said, don’t talk.”
From underneath the mask, his breath shudders and something way in the depths of my soul lets out a dark chuckle.
Tape goes around his ankles next and off balance he falls to the side. I leave him there while I pick up the phone and look at the screen. The chat room is up and active, his pseudo right there front and center. “StabberBro?” I ask. “Really? You couldn’t come up with anything better.”
“P-please,” he blubbers and I kick him hard in the ribs.
“I said don’t talk.” I slip one finger free of my glove and scroll his contraband phone, going to his pictures next. There are naked photos of women that he’s downloaded and probably whacks off to, but there are even more photos of people who have been stabbed with various objects—glass, tools, knives.
“Planning on branching out?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer. Smart guy.
Adam’s right. Stabber Brother needs to be dealt with.
I slip my finger back inside my glove and wipe down the phone. “Let’s talk about your sister.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah, oh shit.” Tearing off a piece of duct tape, I squat down in front of him, lift the mask enough to see his pale lips, and I smash the tape across, giving it a good cramming. “I’m going to need you quiet for what I have in mind.”
He mumbles something, jerking away, and I merely stand and walk to the end of the alley. I give the dark parking lot a good once over. Other than a few cars here and there, the grocery store at the far end, and my jeep parked in the shadows at the other end, the place sits empty. No one will hear a thing.
Back down the alley, I go to where Stabber Brother still lays on his side, trussed and waiting on me. “Ideally, I would have done this in the garage where you flipped your shit on your sister, but sometimes one has to improvise.”
More mumbling, or rather muffled sobbing, and instead of softening me, it hardens my resolve. I imagine his sister, laying there in the garage, helpless, sobbing for help. A whimper comes next, and I slide the screwdriver from where I’d strapped it to my lower leg.
“Four-inch number two Phillips head Craftsman screwdriver. Red and yellow handle.” I stroke the length of it as I advance on him and his entire body begins violently shaking.
I roll him over, climbing on top. I lift the screwdriver, aiming for the right shoulder, and my heart leaps into a full racing pulse that makes my hand quiver. But not a quiver of fear, a quiver of anticipation.
With a sure thrust, I come down into his shoulder, just like he did he sister. Skin gives, muscle tears, blood spurts, Stabber Brother jerks with a muffled scream. A pressure rises in me, climbing for release, but nothing happens.
I flip him over, and he begins to crawl away the best he can with his duct-taped wrists and legs. Yes, he tries just like his sister did. But I’m having none of that. The screwdriver goes into his other shoulder next, the one on the left, harder than the right and meeting bone.
The pressure is there again, growing inside of me, like something extraordinary is just beyond my grasp. Again, though, it doesn’t come.
In a disappointed and confused few seconds, I stare down at the blood seeping out to darken his gray tee. I wait for the confusion to lift, but it doesn’t. I almost forget to breathe.
His body moves again, and reality snaps back. Two more to go. This time the screwdriver, dripping now in blood, goes into his ribs, right between the second and third with more of a give as it encounters cartilage.
I glance up at the moon, glowing happily down at me, and for an unexplained reason, everything becomes necessary and right. The sureness of those two things take hold and for a moment I just stand and stare up at the moon in the perfect star-filled night.
But again Stabber Brother moves and I come back to myself. Last one. An unexplained shiver runs through me, making me sense something just there within reach. Something important and pure. Something so clear I should be able to hold it, but I can’t.
My gaze fixates on Stabber Brother and the C-one spot. The last insertion point. The one that severed his sister’s spine and put her in a lifelong paralyzed state. Anger festers in me at the injustice. The way his sister lay there, helpless and hurt, confused and desperate. The anger morphs into rage so quickly that my skin buzzes with electrical heat.
Like an animal, I want to roar. Instead, I tighten my grip on the handle, plant my boot into his mid back to keep him steady, and I come straight down. What a repulsive slug of a human being. A tingle of response tickles down my spine and through both arms and legs, like I’m on the brink of something wonderful, but not quite there yet.
His body thrashes and leaves me unsure if I hit the right spot.
As I’m contemplating whether to stop or to try again, whether to put more exploration into that teetering sense of release and satisfaction, the static sound of a guard’s radio filters through the ni
ght.
I stare down at this grub of a being, knowing I’m done. We’re done. The nearby guard is forcing my retreat and filling me with even more loathing. Just look at Stabber Brother, taped up, bloody, still trying to squirm away. The sight of him now seems rash and messy and leaves me with regret. Not regret I did it, just that I can do better.
Still, I give him a hard knock in the head, making sure he’s out. I grab the mask and sprint from the back side of the alley, leaving Stabber Brother as is, with the screwdriver and the contraband phone. All of that coupled with who he is will speak for itself.
Woods border the back of the building and I cut through them, eventually finding my way to a neighborhood, then on foot circling the long way back around the string of stores to my Jeep parked a distance away.
The guard obviously found Stabber Brother because cops are there now on the other side of the lot, along with an ambulance, their lights spinning and strobing through the night. I should feel satisfied with what I did to Stabber Brother, but instead, I’m moody as I climb in and drive away.
Something about the whole thing feels off. None of it would have happened if it weren’t for Adam. Yeah, he really came through in pointing me in Stabber Brother’s direction. This was his idea so maybe that is what feels off. He should’ve been involved. I shouldn’t have done it by myself.
He’ll be disappointed, angry even. I’ll explain it to him, though. I’ll say I was at the grocery store, making sure Stabber Brother made it to the bus, and that I was planning to follow him to the half-way house. I’ll say I saw him wander off and knew I needed to move.
Adam will be peeved and likely sense my deception, but I’ll apologize and he’ll forgive me.
The truth is, I’m not ready to share this experience. Yet somehow I know when I am, it’ll be Adam that I share it with. He does seem to embrace who I am. Maybe then the off-ness that I feel will turn to right.
33
A SCREAM RICOCHETS through my brain, and I shoot straight out of a dead sleep into complete wakefulness. Down the hall, Victor’s door opens, and I sit up in bed.
Through the dimly lit upper floor, he looks at me. “Are you okay?”
“That wasn’t me,” I tell him, swinging my legs over and sliding from bed.
He veers off to the right, quietly opening Justin’s door, and I head left into Daisy’s room. Under her pale green comforter and through the shadows, I see her body moving and squirming. She mumbles something, groaning, and I make my way over her throw rug to the double bed.
“Daisy,” I whisper, giving her shoulder a little shake.
More grumbling, followed by a whimper. What the hell?
“Daisy,” I say louder, more firmly shaking her shoulder.
“What?” she gasps.
I try to make out her face, but she doesn’t sleep with a night light like the rest of us. “Are you okay?”
Breathing out, she pushes the comforter down and sits up. “God, I’m covered in sweat.”
“Everything okay in here?” Victor asks, and I give him a little wave. “Okay, I’ll leave my door open if you two need anything.”
I lower myself onto the edge of her bed, my eyes better adjusting to her dark room. “Want to tell me about it?”
She scrubs her hands over her face. “That was crazy.”
“What did you dream?”
“I don’t think I want to tell you.”
I want to turn a light on but decide to keep it dark. It’s easier to share secrets in the dark. “You know you can tell me anything. No matter how weird or strange or off it is. Okay? I will never judge.” I’ve told her this before, but she needs to hear it again.
She glances over her shoulder at the open door, and I take that as my cue to go close it. When I’m back on her bed, I grab her mug of herbal tea that she sips ever night as she’s reading. There’s a little bit left in it and she eagerly drinks it down.
With the mug gripped tightly, she begins in a quiet voice, “I was in a room, and the walls were covered with shelves that held glass containers with body parts. Organs and fingers and toes. Eyeballs and ears and feet. It looked like some were human and some were animals. I was in the center of the room carving up a brain. I was humming to myself. Then Mom walked in, carrying one of those containers and slid it onto the shelf along with the others. She came over to where I was standing and looked over my shoulder, smiling. Then you walked in, carrying a dog. I think it was that Corn Chip you always play with. He was happy and licking your face. Then you put him on the table and he began eating the brain.” Daisy shakes her head. “What the hell, Lane?”
It isn’t until she stops speaking that I realize I’m not even breathing, so I inhale a breath that comes in almost like a gasp. For a second there I thought she was going to say I killed Corn Chip. “Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
Logic tells me that something similar to this may have happened. Her dream was likely a mixture of fantasy and reality. I mean, Aunt Marji had me dismembering a cat when I was just a toddler. Thankfully, I only know this through the letters I found. I don’t want that memory to surface. But this room she dreamt about could have been anywhere. For all I know it may have been at that trailer where I tracked Aunt Marji. Where I then killed her.
The need to tell Daisy everything rises up, but this isn’t the right time. I know that. “Listen, I’ve had a lot of weird dreams, too, since Mom died.”
“Weird like I just had?”
Of course I haven’t, but still, I say, “Yes, absolutely. A serial killer butchered our mom. Dr. Issa was stabbed to death. It’s not like we’ve had an easy year. Our minds are odd things and they take things you read, things you watch, things you hear, and twists and mangles it into a mutilated version. I’m sorry you had that nightmare, but that’s all it was, a nightmare. Nothing about it was real. It’s your body’s way of responding to anxiety and stress.”
Daisy chuckles. “Maybe I need to start reading fairy tales before I go to bed.”
“I don’t know. Fairy tales can be creepy. Maybe read a trashy magazine. Then you’ll dream you’re a housewife of Beverly Hills.”
“Ha!”
With a smile, I take her mug and put it back on the bedside table.
Daisy crawls out of bed. “Thanks, Lane, I’m glad we have each other.” She pads out of her room and into the bathroom, but I don’t immediately move.
This isn’t good. That dream unsettles me.
34
THAT AFTERNOON I decide to go find Adam before he finds me. With what happened in the alley with Stabber Brother, I ignored Adam’s texts that came in afterward and went straight home. With the event being on the news this morning, I know he knows what I did.
It’s time I see how this is going to play out.
I find Adam in the side yard of his McMansion, throwing a ball with his new puppy. He hears my Jeep and glances over his shoulder, and even from here I see the anger on his pale face.
I ignore it though as I climb out and cross his decorative brick driveway over onto the grass. “You alone?”
“Yep.” He grabs the tennis ball and gives it a good hard throw and the puppy yips his way across the grass.
“Did you name her yet?”
“Nope.”
“You seem angry.”
“I am.”
“Maybe you need to blow off some steam.”
“Maybe you need to shut the hell up.”
O-kay. I don’t let people talk to me this way, but I owe this boy, so I channel tolerance with his mood. I want to launch right into my reasons for doing Stabber Brother alone, to my reasons for ditching Adam, but something tells me I need to keep quiet.
The puppy comes yapping back toward us, carrying the ball, and Adam doesn’t bother praising the puppy, squatting to rub it, or giving the ball another toss. He’s too caught up in his own annoyance and frustration with me.
Leaning down, I do exactly what you’re supposed to. I praise the pup
py, rubbing behind her dark furry ears, and then I tug-of-war a few seconds with the tennis ball before slinging it back down the yard.
Adam turns to me. “There’s a lot of wrong in this world, Lane, and that was my friend we were getting justice for. It was supposed to be you and me and the brother. Not you and him. Hell, it should have been me and the brother, and not you. What don’t you get about that?”
I remind myself I killed his older brother, Scott, and I did purposefully do the alley screwdriver stabbing without him. I will be patient. “Listen, it really was an accident. He didn’t go to his bus like we thought. He headed in a different direction. I knew if I didn’t do something, the opportunity would pass.”
“Then we could have done it another night like planned.”
I hold my hands up, proud of myself for keeping my calm. “I’m sorry.”
With a sigh, Adam drags his gaze away from mine and down to where the puppy is now rolling around in the grass. “Maybe I’ll find someone else then.”
My brows go up. “Come again?”
Adam shrugs. “He was just a symptom to a screwed-up system. I’ve been doing a little digging, and really it’s the prison counselor’s fault who let him go early. Turns out that counselor has a record for just this thing—signing off on good behavior and convincing the parole board the prisoner is ready for society. Yeah, it’s the prison counselor who is the root to these type problems. Freakin’ bloodsucking, soulless person.”
Adam has officially lost it. He can’t go and “off” the counselor who recommended Stabber Brother be released. I try for reason, “Listen, with that mindset then you need to trace it back to the lawyer and the judge and the arresting officer… Everyone is just doing their job, surely you see that.”
“You’re right, it’s not just about the counselor, it is about everyone else. They’re warping and twisting the system. They’re putting people on the streets that don’t deserve to be.”
