Close to Home

by Nolon King

  The only thing that made him even the slightest bit better was challenging Decker to a fight after school. He’d abandoned Corban when his brother needed him, but he could make sure Decker never touched him again.

  If he could make things right with Corban, maybe he could smooth things with Kari, too.

  And when she finally got tired of Corban, like she eventually would, she’d realize who she belonged with.

  And there it was again, another reason to hate himself.

  Corban was his twin brother, and yet Levi always ended up competing with him.

  “Were you born an asshole or do you have to recommit every morning?” Dane asked Elliot, interrupting Levi’s guilty thoughts.

  “It’s really too bad that two-thirds of your dick went to your personality,” Elliot said, ignoring him. “Your palm is really getting the shaft. Or not.”

  “I hope you die shitting.”

  “If your mom lies down and opens her mouth, then I might just give it a shot.”

  “I thought moms were out of this,” Elliot said, looking genuinely wounded.

  “Not yours.” Dane glared at him, his shoulders still hunched.

  Levi wondered if this was going to get seriously out of control. Corban had always been the buffer between them. Since he’d left the group, Dane and Elliot had grown increasingly obnoxious, and not just in their constant bitching at each other.

  Elliot shrugged. “Then you should know that you were birthed out of your mother’s asshole, because her pussy was too busy.”

  Eyes burning, Dane deadpanned, “I’m going to plant a tree in your mother’s cunt and fuck your sister in its shade.”

  “Dude …” Elliot fell a step back.

  Thankfully, the bell rang, interrupting whatever Dane would’ve said next.

  Levi had to fix things with Corban.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Corban still couldn’t believe he was ditching.

  Up until this year, he had liked, maybe even loved, going to school. And not for the same reasons as Levi. In that way, he had more in common with Dane. They both cared about how they did, because they saw higher education as an escape. The first rung on the long ladder to anywhere else. Dane had his eyes on Stanford, Corban was looking at Berkeley: their architecture school was one of the best, and close enough to come home when he felt like it, but not so close that his parents would be dropping in all the time.

  Like his mom, Corban got lost in his work, and was grateful for a good school that gave him plenty to do. Homework distracted him from how crappy his life had become.

  Kari waited for him a block down from the school entrance with her blue and yellow bike and a smile, even though he was running almost a half hour later than they’d agreed. She cleared her throat as he approached.

  “Sorry,” Corban said. “It was hard to get away because Mr. Jefferson was patrolling the front.”

  Kari rolled her eyes. “I have no idea why you walked all the way to school when you knew you were going to turn around and go back.”

  “I couldn’t let Levi figure out that I was ditching. The way he’s been lately, he’d text Dad.”

  “Now we only have a half hour to get home.” She stood on the pedals, pushed, and started rolling forward. Corban jogged to catch up.

  “We’re going to wait outside my house to see who goes inside.”

  “Then can we go to a movie after that?” Kari asked. “Or the mall?”

  “We should probably go someplace where we won’t run into people.”

  Corban was starting to feel out of breath. He didn’t usually jog one and a half miles home in summer heat with a fully-loaded backpack. “I’ve got to slow down.”

  Kari eased up, clearly reluctant. “If we miss him—”

  “He’s a regular patient. He’ll be back.”

  They got there with seven minutes to spare, enough time to settle into their predetermined hiding spot behind the bank of planters, where they could see anyone approaching the front door. Looking out from behind the bright magenta bougainvillea overflowing their giant terracotta pots, Corban glanced at the windows of the second-floor study, in case Patient X was already there, but saw no movement.

  His heart was pounding. He wondered if Kari could hear it.

  “Nervous?” he asked.

  “Maybe.”

  They waited in silence. Eight minutes felt three times as long.

  “Do you think we were too late?”

  “It’s my fault we missed him,” Corban said. Then, “What if I went inside?”

  “Won’t you get in trouble for ditching?”

  “It’d be worth it, to catch the killer … I’ll say I came home because I felt sick.”

  Kari nodded. “Take a picture if you can.”

  Corban ninja-walked on the sides of his feet to the front door, just like YouTube taught him. Then he quietly opened it, eased himself inside, and softly shut the door behind him.

  Corban froze, listening.

  The house felt empty, but he was never here at this time on a weekday. Maybe this is what it felt like.

  He crept toward his mother’s office, freezing again just outside it. He hadn’t really thought this part through. What would be the best way to find out Patient X’s identity?

  Gathering his courage, he softly pressed his ear to the wood.

  He heard murmurs. Mumbles and grumbles, nothing distinct. The tone seemed at times thoughtful, and other times hurried. Occasionally angry, then right back to thoughtful.

  And then the sounds changed.

  They became animal. Mumbles turned into moans, grumbles into grunting and growling.

  His mother screamed in pleasure, a sound that would surely haunt him for life.

  She was fucking Patient X?

  No. That wasn’t possible.

  And besides, she wouldn’t dare with his father’s car right outside.

  But she was definitely fucking someone.

  Maybe that was why she stayed with Dad even though he’d cheated on her. She didn’t care because she was cheating too.

  Corban wanted to leave, but his feet felt cemented to the floor. He had to know what this was. He had to—

  “Fuck me bloody!”

  That time he heard her perfectly. She issued a final guttural scream, then the man in her office furiously grunted.

  Corban did an about-face and ninja-walked as fast as he could without making a sound.

  The door behind him started to open.

  He ducked around the corner just in time.

  Corban couldn’t make it outside without being seen, but he could get to his room.

  But then he couldn’t see the man in her office, and would die if he didn’t know.

  So he waited to see who The Virgin might be.

  He peeked around the corner.

  It was his father.

  Despite his disappointment, something relaxed deep in his chest. Patient X must’ve canceled his appointment, and his parents took advantage of the free time to mess around. Not that he wanted to think about them having sex, but that was better than knowing their marriage was crumbling.

  They stood together in front of the door. Oddly, they weren’t holding hands and there seemed to be no tenderness between them, despite what he heard.

  His mother said, “Do you feel better after your session?”

  His father’s answer filled Corban with chills.

  “I always do.”

  His insides were eating themselves.

  This was impossible.

  It didn’t make sense, because it couldn’t make sense. If it did, then everything else was a lie.

  Yeah, his dad was annoyingly pleased with himself. He thought he was a lot funnier than he actually was. Maybe he was even a cheater.

  But … a serial killer?

  NO. Corban refused to believe it.

  Even though it made a sick kind of sense.

  His mom spent her life studying serial killers. Nothing lit her up more
than getting into the head of the sickest, most perverted people on the planet.

  It was only logical that she’d fall in love with one.

  The contents of her red notebook bled into his thoughts. His mother’s steady script, gliding across the page in perfect penmanship, describing the monster she called The Virgin, and all of the darkest, most perverted fantasies Corban had ever heard.

  The things he wanted to see and do.

  Although, he had not done them yet.

  Isn’t that what was special about The Virgin?

  Mom made her career with a book about how to stop yourself from becoming a serial killer.

  Oh God.

  He should read it. No, he couldn’t read it. He’d know things about his father that he’d never be able to forget.

  And his father would know he knew. He’d never be able to act like things were normal again. Because they never would be.

  What was he going to tell Kari?

  They’d been trying to prove that her father wasn’t a serial killer, and they’d accidentally proven that his father was.

  Corban waited until his dad made a left at the end of the hallway and trudged upstairs before sneaking out of the house where his girlfriend was waiting for the horrible truth.

  Maybe he shouldn’t tell her.

  Even though it meant her own father would stay in jail.

  How could he ask her to endure the same horror that he was trying to escape himself?

  Was he that much of an asshole?

  When he rejoined her behind the planters, she took one look at him and asked, “What’s wrong? What did you find out?”

  “Not here,” he whispered. “We need to leave, now.”

  She bit her bottom lip, but followed him back to her bike at the edge of the property. She swung a long leg over the seat and started to pedal, fast and then faster as Corban jogged behind her. They didn’t stop until they were far enough down the road that his house was out of sight.

  “So tell me everything,” she said.

  They were crying together by the time Corban finished his story.

  “Do you really think that your dad could be the killer?”

  “No.” He shook his head, emphatic.

  “No because he’s your father, or no because that’s impossible?”

  He looked at her, sifting through multiple impossible answers. Because what could he say?

  “I don’t know … both?”

  Corban was going to—

  And then he did. Vomited everywhere.

  “Oh my God! Are you okay?”

  Corban was doubled over, clutching his stomach. He looked up at Kari, licked his lips. “How can I be?”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Corban shrugged and shook his head. “What can we do?”

  “Um … tell the police.”

  “There’s nothing to tell them!” Corban exclaimed, surprised by his own anger. “We don’t know anything!”

  “What do you mean we don’t know anything? We just found out that your mom based all her research on a suppressed serial killer, and that that person is your father.” And now she was practically yelling. “What else do we need to know?”

  “We don’t have a single fact, Kari. Not that I want to think about it or anything, but we might have seen something totally different than what we’re imagining. What if that’s just some sort of weird sex game that my parents play, where he pretends to be one of her patients, confessing all of his fantasies? Then she writes it down, because that’s what she’s supposed to do as his ‘doctor’ before they have sex.”

  Kari looked like she was trying to find a parking spot six miles away from convinced.

  “I’ve heard of weirder fetishes,” Corban added.

  “Have you?”

  Corban actually hadn’t, so he shared in his silence rather than an answer. Then he finally said, “We can’t tell anyone. Not until we have more information.”

  “What more do we need, Corban?”

  “We need to know something. Right now we’re just guessing.”

  “You mean like all the things the police know about my dad?”

  He didn’t have an answer for that. Kari was right, but … just because her dad had been falsely accused didn’t mean they should do the same to his. Not when there was still time to investigate.

  Kari continued. “If the real killer gets away with this, and my dad goes to jail, then I won’t have any parents.”

  Corban felt desperate, torn between trying to make this right with Kari, right with his family, and right with the world.

  But the world had turned upside down.

  “You’re right,” he said. “And I promise that we’ll figure this out. Do you trust me?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “Then let me dig a little more. Once we have something concrete, we can go to the police together. Okay?”

  The following silence was long and painful, finally severed by the most reluctant whisper that Corban had ever heard.

  “Okay,” Kari said.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Adam tapped his digital pencil on the tablet’s eraser and deleted all the garbage he’d spent the last half hour writing. Every word was terrible. The TV in the background had distracted him. He was hungry. He needed another session.

  Who was he kidding? Excuses weren’t going to solve the problem. Adam hadn’t been able to make himself laugh in a while. Months, really. He was losing edge.

  Maybe a different kind of writing might be easier.

  He saw her in his mind. At first, her porcelain face was naked except for the lipstick, same shade of crimson as the blood that spattered her face as she flinched back in fear, her eyes widening with the knowledge that all of the life was leaving her soon-to-be-empty shell, spilling like syrup, bubbling onto the white tile floor, blood gurgling up from her lip and—

  Adam’s head spun toward the television.

  No.

  The anchorwoman looked grave.

  “… The fourth murder. Another family was the target, but this time the brake line on their SUV was cut. Their home was at the top of the hill inside the Rancho Vista Community, the highest private point in Almond Park. The family’s father, Benjamin Withers, managed to maneuver them down the hill well enough to save both his life and the lives of his two children.”

  The anchorwoman nodded gravely and her co-anchor took over.

  Looking solemn, he said, “Unfortunately, Jennifer Withers wasn’t so lucky. Her body was rushed to Almond Park Memorial, but the doctors pronounced her dead on arrival.”

  Back to the anchorwoman. “The police discovered an emerald green scarf with tiny yellow dots in the trunk of the Withers’ family car, a vintage Mercedes. This is the fourth scarf found at the scene of what the Almond Park Police Department is calling ‘the worst string of murders to ever hit this part of the country.’”

  The camera zoomed in on the scarf. It looked familiar, but that was probably because it looked like one of Selena’s. She sure as hell had enough of them.

  He wished he could write. It didn’t even have to be funny. Anything would do. Adam just wanted to empty his thoughts, and the words on the page at their best could do that. But there was something about these murders that bothered him. Burrowed into the depths of his mind, nesting in to fester and rot. There was something so wrong about all of this. They didn’t trigger his fantasies, they triggered revulsion.

  Adam stood and stretched, killed the TV and the commiserating anchors inside it, then went outside just to get the fuck out of his house.

  He stood by the pool and thought.

  Maybe he could go for a drive.

  Then have a little adventure afterward.

  Dinner, then dessert.

  Except … things were better with Selena following their session. And he wanted to keep them that way. He had to find another way to defend against his urges.

  His phone buzzed and he checked it, wondering if there was
even a one-percent chance that whatever he saw on the screen might invite a smile.

  It didn’t.

  Wayne was on Really, Tonight? and needed a few lines about the Almond Park Killer.

  Is that purfect 4u or what?

  Or what, asshole.

  The request pissed him off. It was in poor taste. Why did he think writing serial killer jokes were perfect for Adam?

  Because Adam was married to the one person in the world who seemed most pleased by the killings?

  There was a time when he would’ve resented Selena for putting him in this position, but now he blamed Wayne for being an insensitive prick. People Adam had known for years were dying.

  No thanks, Adam texted.

  The killer was hitting closer and closer to home. What if he and his family were next? Adam’s urges wouldn’t protect them. If Selena didn’t make a breakthrough soon, her expertise might not save them either.

  A collision with death or worse seemed imminent, drifting ever closer until he could feel its hot breath curling the hairs on his neck. Whoever this—

  Adam spun toward the TV.

  The anchor said something that couldn’t be possible. Adam had to be dreaming. Because if he wasn’t, then everything was over for him, and everyone he knew.

  The house filled with a bloodcurdling scream, and Adam knew that she’d heard it too.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Selena was cooking, and she didn’t even mind.

  She had the ingredients from her BistroBox spread out on the table. Everything was washed and ready. She was ready, to cut and sauté and broil. As long as she could stay where she was, cooking while watching TV.

  Selena was mesmerized. This was too much. Unlike anything she had ever seen. Especially in her own backyard.

  Four families. Dead. In one city.

  And whether Selena liked it or not, this was at least in some way all about her.