Life Is Short and Then You Die

by Kelley Armstrong

  Emotions had warred inside Jasper. It would be easy—so, so, so easy—to kill Howie. There was really no challenge there at all.

  And yet, it was funny. He had to admit it. He’d laughed, and then Howie had laughed and pulled him in for what he called a “hemo hug,” which was the lightest, least clingy hug you could imagine. In Jasper’s ear, he’d said, “Dude, I’m here for you,” and Howie had been. For everything that followed, Howie had been there.

  And was still there.

  “How’s life in the crazy house?” Howie asked when he saw Jasper.

  Jasper opened his mouth to answer, to tell Howie about the SOLD! sign, but Mrs. Gersten interrupted them.

  “Don’t even get started,” she admonished. “Dinner is ready now.”

  So they gathered in the dining room, where Mr. Gersten hurriedly put out a fourth place setting.

  “Jasper, it’s your lucky day,” Mrs. Gersten said, bearing a square glass baking dish from the kitchen. “I seem to remember macaroni and cheese is your favorite.”

  “Yes!” Howie fist-pumped in joy. “The secret is the bread crumbs on top,” he confided in Jasper. “She uses garlic bread, not regular.”

  Jasper nodded and feigned satisfaction as he bit into the elbow noodles, which oozed cheddar. Macaroni and cheese was his favorite. But not this kind. His dad had some kind of personal recipe, where he made macaroni and cheese not with elbow noodles, but rather with linguine. He still called it mac and cheese, but it was some other species. The result was less pasta-doused-in-cheese sauce and more like a solid pie, with the linguine held together by the clotted cheese. Billy baked it in a round Pyrex dish and served it cut into wedges.

  Jasper had never asked how he made it. He probably should have. He knew exactly who and what his father was, that when Billy went away on “business trips,” he was actually slipping into another identity and into someone else’s life. That he was scratching a very specific and very intense itch. He knew this because Billy was grooming Jasper, raising him to be the next generation of serial killer.

  And Jasper had both wallowed in his father’s teachings and fought against them at the same time, but right now all he could think was Why didn’t I ask him to write down that stupid recipe?

  It was so self-absorbed that it was almost painful. He knew it was wrong to obsess over something like his dad’s cooking, but his own home had been sold out from under him and he felt like everything in his life was in danger of evaporating like a rain puddle on a hot day. He could grab at the vapors of his old life around him but never keep them.

  * * *

  By the time he got back to Gramma’s, he was angry, wrung out, exhausted, frustrated, and still no closer to knowing anything at all about that damn SOLD! in his front yard. Out of deep desperation, he did the one thing he hated to do more than anything else in the world: He called Melissa Hoover.

  “Jasper,” she said when he told her why he was calling, “I’m sorry. I was going to call you last night when I found out, but I had a … a case. I can’t tell you about—”

  “I don’t care about your other case! Who bought my house?”

  “It’s not … I’m coming over there.”

  He didn’t want her to come, but he had no choice. He was just a kid, and he had zero control over what she did. Over what anyone did, really. He couldn’t stop any adult from imposing their will on him.

  Well, except for one.

  FOUR: THE MISUNDERSTANDING

  The riskiest method. Requires the ability to confound and to lie with true conviction, a skill Billy had spent many, many hours imparting to his son.

  First, you dress in all black, including a ski mask. Pretend to attack Gramma.

  She defends herself, of course. In the ensuing melee, she hits her head or falls down the stairs or what-have-you.

  Ditch the mask. Call the cops. Explain to them that there’d been some sort of horrible misunderstanding: You came home late; she was out of sorts, thought you were an intruder … She attacked, and you had no choice but to defend yourself …

  At this point, break down sobbing. Very important. Emotion sells the story. Oh, what a horrible accident, and he’s only fourteen and his mother is missing, and his father is in jail.

  The police and the courts go easy on you. You’re free.

  * * *

  Melissa Hoover was that odd blend of gentle and tough that he never could wrap his head around. On the one hand, she was clearly able to put up with a lot of abuse—he’d hurled plenty of it at her in the year since Billy had been taken away, and she’d never even blinked. At the same time, she relied on a steady stream of platitudes and adages, a crutch for people who can’t think on their feet. Her voice was always pitched too young, as though for some reason she thought he was ten years old. Everything about her grated, and he always had to fight not to let his contempt bleed through.

  “A man named Roland Hunt bought the house,” Melissa told him, sitting in the living room. Gramma was upstairs, asleep, so Melissa spoke more softly than usual. “He’s the father of one of your father’s victims.”

  Jasper had a good memory, and he’d spent a lot of time in the rumpus room, poring over Billy’s kill trophies. The last name Hunt didn’t mean anything to him, but fathers and their kids didn’t always have the same last names.

  “So…,” he said slowly, turning it over in his head, trying to make sense of it. “So … this guy wants to live in the house of the guy who—” He broke off. It’s not that he couldn’t say the words “killed his kid.” It’s just that there was no point to it. He knew what Billy had done; Melissa knew. Why say it?

  Melissa hesitated before answering. “No, not really,” she said.

  “Then why?” He was standing near the TV cabinet, arms folded over his chest, as far from her as he could get and still be in the same room.

  Her entire expression fell. She would have been a lousy poker player. Or serial killer, for that matter. “I want you to know that I’m here for you—”

  “I know that. Just tell me what’s going on.”

  She heaved a sigh. “Hunt plans to demolish the house.”

  Jasper blinked a few times. He rooted around in his memory, certain that he must have forgotten some crucial, obscure definition of the word demolish. Sometimes people used it to mean “gobble down.” Howie sometimes said things like, “I’m gonna demolish that pizza!” before diving in.

  “Take your time,” Melissa said too soothingly. “Process it.”

  It snapped him out of his idiotic reverie. Process it? Was she kidding?

  “They’re gonna destroy my house,” he said. His voice sounded hollow and too high-pitched to his own ears.

  “It’s not yours, Jasper. I’m sorry. The bank foreclosed after your father couldn’t keep up the payments. They sold it to Mr. Hunt. He can do whatever he wants with it.” She wrung her hands, and he had the distinct impression that she wished he would let her hold his. She was the sort who believed that human contact meant something. As though the press of someone else’s flesh could in any way compensate for the knowledge that the only home he’d ever known was going to be reduced to rubble.

  “When?” he asked.

  She told him. It was sooner than he’d thought to be possible. Then again, it was probably pretty easy to knock down a house.

  “Jasper, I think maybe we should—”

  “You can go,” he told her.

  With a shake of her head, she stood up, put her fists on her hips. She thought a superhero pose meant something to him. “I think I should stay. You need someone to help you work through this.”

  “There’s nothing to work through.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Are you going to do something stupid?”

  He laughed. For a fleeting instant, he had considered handcuffing himself to something in the house in order to stop the demolition, but he didn’t have handcuffs. And if they were going to destroy the house, they would have no compunctions about cutting away what
ever he’d cuffed himself to anyway.

  Once he’d gotten her out the door, he trudged upstairs to his bedroom. He was exhausted, and he just didn’t have any energy left in him to rage against Hunt and his bulldozers. He collapsed in bed with his clothes still on and gratefully dropped into an immediate slumber.

  A slumber that was absolutely wrecked twenty minutes later by a high keening sound and a rapid tattoo of knuckles on his door. Bleary-eyed and jolted from a deep sleep, he rolled off the bed and crashed to the floor before he realized it was his grandmother. Of course.

  “They’re here!” she hollered. “They’re here, oh Lord, they’re here!”

  Picking himself up off the floor, he demanded, “Who’s here?” though he thought he knew. He had always known that this was possible, that someday the families left behind by Billy’s predilections might decide to take their revenge on the only people they could access, Billy’s last living relatives. It had been a constant worry at first, during Billy’s trial, as the courtroom was packed with angry fathers, mothers, siblings, best friends. Jasper knew that their hate and potent rage were aimed at Billy, not him, but he sat behind his father in court most days, and the blasts of sheer loathing went right through him on their way to Billy.

  He knew it would be ridiculous to think—even for a minute—that none of that hate would transfer.

  Now, sleep-jostled, he stumbled into the hallway and tried to calm her screaming. He told her to call 911, but she wouldn’t listen, slapping at him, crying out, all while Jasper’s danger senses spiraled into high alert.

  And then, slowly, as he came more awake, those same senses quieted down.

  There was no one here. “They” were just more figments of her fragmented imagination.

  “Goddamn it!” he swore at her, and she didn’t even hear it, now roaming the upstairs hall, poking her head around every corner, scrutinizing every dark nook. “Gramma! You have to stop this!”

  He resolved to sleep with earplugs that night, and to lock his door. And as he made his way back to bed, he realized that—in a way—she’d given him a gift.

  FIVE: THE REVENGE

  The most poetic plan. Also the most intricate and, no doubt, the most satisfying.

  Requires falsifying evidence, planting bogus clues and leads for the police, and generally developing an entire alternate reality to present to the world.

  You make it appear as though a relative of one of your father’s victims has come to the Nod with the express purpose of killing Billy Dent’s only living relatives as revenge. They succeed, partially. Clara Dent lies dead in her own home.

  You injure yourself, of course. Somewhat seriously. To make it look real. The house becomes a bloodbath.

  Make it a game. Leave behind snippets of evidence to lead the police on a merry chase that ultimately dead-ends.

  Difficult, but utterly believable.

  * * *

  Maybe five plans was overkill, but Billy had always been fond of the adage “Measure twice, cut once.” That was the closest thing to Scripture in Jasper’s house. It was Billy’s mantra, his philosophy, and his crutch all at the same time. It had kept him out of prison for the length of a twenty-plus-year-long killing spree that had ranged over thirty of the fifty states, encompassing multiple serial killer identities and evading dozens of local law enforcement organizations, a wealth of task forces, and, of course, the FBI itself.

  In the end, it hadn’t saved him, though.

  Now, in a twisted way, Jasper wanted to ask Billy for advice. Which of the five ways made more sense? Some were obviously easier than others, but simplicity was not always the hallmark of success.

  Knowing that he had five ways to do it, five ways to get away with it … The thought warmed him. Made his life more tolerable.

  Everything, he realized, was better when you had an escape route planned.

  He wasn’t really going to do it, of course.

  He didn’t think he was going to do it.

  He wasn’t entirely sure.

  He wondered if his father had thought, that first time out of more than a hundred: I ain’t really gonna kill this girl. I’m just pretending. I’m just fantasizing.

  And he shivered all over.

  * * *

  Days later, it happened.

  Sitting on the living room sofa, watching some sitcom rerun that took his mind off the real world for a while, the local news cut in.

  In the kitchen, Gramma was puttering and banging pots and pans together. Jasper was just making a mental note to himself to check in five minutes to be sure that she hadn’t set anything on fire when the picture on TV switched to something very familiar—his house.

  Billy’s house.

  A crowd had gathered. In the background, he saw a bulldozer. A man with a hard hat was speaking to reporters, but even though the volume was turned up, Jasper suddenly couldn’t hear him.

  This wasn’t really about to happen, was it?

  Oh God, this was really about to happen.

  Smoke purled from the exhaust pipe atop the bulldozer. The crowd shrank back.

  As Jasper watched, the bulldozer full-on collided with his house. The walls crumpled like paper. He couldn’t believe it.

  The crowd … cheered.

  Frozen, rooted to the spot, he was helpless to change the channel. He could only watch, numb. The bulldozer backed up and took another run at the house.

  More cheering. More walls collapsing. It had felt so solid to him, when he’d lived there. It had been his shelter.

  And now, in mere minutes, it was gone. It was all gone. It was a pile of rubble.

  When it was over, Gramma entered. “Dinner!” she announced, brandishing a plate with a flourish. He dragged his eyes away from the TV.

  On the plate, a shakily cut wedge of linguine and cheese.

  “Wait, what?” he said, so surprised that he momentarily forgot the television.

  “Dinner!” she said again.

  “But … but this is Dad’s recipe.”

  She clucked her tongue and shoved the plate at him again. “Who do you think taught him that recipe?”

  He took the plate and stared down at it. On television, someone said, “This can’t bring back the dead, of course, but maybe this can start the healing process in this town.”

  “How did you remember?” Jasper asked.

  Gramma snorted. “How could I forget?” And then she stomped back into the kitchen.

  Hesitant, half expecting the dish to be loaded with Tabasco or sugar or glass, he took a bite.

  And oh God, it was perfect.

  He felt a stupid tear well up, and he rubbed it away savagely.

  And then he ate every last bite.

  SIX: MERCY

  Do nothing.

  Wait.

  Be as kind as possible.

  Hold your tongue when you can; apologize when you can’t.

  Let time and tide do their work.

  And someday in the future, let her go gently in her sleep.

  * * *

  That, he decided, was the best way.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  KELLEY ARMSTRONG is the author of the Rockton crime series and the YA thrillers Aftermath, Missing, and The Masked Truth. Past works include the Otherworld urban fantasy series, the Cainsville modern gothic series, the Darkest Powers & Darkness Rising teen paranormal trilogies, the Age of Legends fantasy YA series, and the Nadia Stafford crime trilogy. She lives in Ontario, Canada, with her family. You can sign up for email updates here.

  DAVID BART’s short fiction has been published in the Mystery Writers of America anthologies Show Business Is Murder, edited by Stuart M. Kaminsky, and A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime, edited by Jeffery Deaver, which has recently been republished, as well as the anthology Fedora III, edited by Michael Bracken. Many of his short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. His story “Under the Playground,” originally published in AHMM, was chosen to be repr
inted in a French anthology. David and his wife, Linda, live in New Mexico with their rescued cat, Ripley.

  ANTHONY FRANZE is a critically acclaimed novelist with St. Martin’s Press and a prominent Washington, D.C., lawyer. A family member’s experience with ADHD inspired his story in this collection. The Strand magazine said that “Franze has earned a seat at the table of legal thriller masters.” His latest novel, The Outsider, has garnered accolades from #1 New York Times bestsellers James Patterson, Lisa Gardner, and the Associated Press. With respect to his previous novel, The Advocate’s Daughter, the LA Review of Books said, “Lawyers by trade are storytellers, and good lawyers tell good stories—Franze’s book is a case in point.” He is on the board of directors for the International Thriller Writers organization, where he is a vice president charged with managing the prestigious ITW Thriller Awards.

  BARRY LANCET is the author of the award-winning Jim Brodie series that began with Japantown (Simon & Schuster). The mystery-thriller won the Barry Award for Best First Novel and has been optioned by a major production company for television. The follow-up, Tokyo Kill, was a finalist for the Shamus Award. Lancet’s most recent Brodie novel is The Spy Across the Table. He is currently working on the next Jim Brodie book and a stand-alone novel.

  EMMY LAYBOURNE is a young adult novelist best known for her Monument 14 series, an internationally bestselling trilogy that has been translated into nine languages. Her stand-alone book Sweet won a Junior Library Guild Award, was a YALSA Quick Pick, and got a Perfect Ten rating from VOYA. Her latest books, Berserker and Ransacker, tell the story of a family of Norwegian teens with ancient Viking powers and are currently being adapted for television. A former character actress, she is occasionally recognized from her role as Mary Katherine Gallagher’s best friend in the movie Superstar. She lives outside New York with her husband, two kids, faithful dog, and flock of seven nifty chickens. Visit her online at www.EmmyLaybourne.com.