I Don't Want to Kill You

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’s just the way things go sometimes.’

  ‘Rachel’s right up here,’ he said, turning down a street and pointing ahead. He parked and ran to her front door while I shuffled into the back seat. A few minutes later Brad led Rachel to the car, opened her door, helped her in, and closed it after her. I watched carefully, preparing to do the same thing.

  ‘Hi John,’ she said, turning slightly to wave from the front seat. ‘Lookin’ good!’

  ‘Hi,’ I said. I was starting to remember how much I hated spending time with people; the bigger the group, the worse it got. This dance was going to kill me.

  We drove to Marci’s house, and I walked up to the door with my plastic corsage box. The front was open, as always, and I knocked on the screen. There was an instant crash and rumble as her siblings jumped off the couch and ran to see me. The house filled with shouts of, ‘Marci! John’s here!’ and the hallway filled with kids.

  ‘My sister looks beautiful,’ said Kendra. ‘You’re going to love her, but Mom says she’s immodest.’

  ‘Back! Back inside!’ said Marci, coming down the hall. She was wearing a long, dark green dress, lifting the hem carefully off the floor as the kids charged past her and back into the TV room. The bottom of the dress shimmered softly in the faint light of the hallway, while the top was an elegant, embroidered corset. Her shoulders and collarbone were bare, with more cleavage than I’d expected after her speech to me the other night.

  She opened the door and beckoned me in. ‘You’d better come inside. Mom wants pictures.’

  ‘Everyone’s going to want pictures,’ I said. ‘You look incredible.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I thought you were going with me because you didn’t have to show off the . . .’ I gestured vaguely. ‘You know.’

  ‘I’d already bought the dress over the summer. How was I to know I’d end up dating an actual gentleman? Plus there was a really good sale online.’

  I held up the corsage. ‘That’s great for you, but there’s literally nowhere for me to pin this. Plus I think your dad would shoot me if he saw me trying.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ she said, taking the box as we walked into the kitchen. ‘But this means you have to do your own boutonnière.’ She pulled a little flower box of her own from the fridge, handed it to me, and we pinned on our flowers while her mom laughed and took pictures. We posed, we held hands, I did my best to smile, and finally we escaped back out to the car. Brad threw it into gear, and we were off.

  We ate dinner at the nicest restaurant in town – a steak place that, precisely because it was the nicest restaurant in town, was crammed full of high-school kids in rented tuxedos and an explosion of multicolored satin. Marci had planned ahead and made reservations early, probably the same time she’d bought the dress.

  I’d spent several months as a vegetarian, trying to keep myself from thinking about dead meat in general, and dead humans in particular. Once I’d found my purpose and focused on killing demons, I’d been able to let some of those rules slip, and I figured it was okay to have a little meat for a special occasion. I looked over the menu and ordered a porterhouse steak – my favourite cut. Brad got the same, and Marci and Rachel ordered salads.

  ‘I absolutely love your dress,’ said Rachel, reaching over to Marci. She stopped just shy of touching her. ‘So much better than this boring thing I’ve got on.’

  ‘I love your dress!’ said Brad. ‘You look great.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Rachel, flashing him a smile. ‘You’re so sweet.’ Her smile was quick, and her face turned towards him, but I caught a glimpse of something . . . off. There and gone in a flash. Did Brad say something wrong? I wondered. Even compliments are hard to give right in a situation like this. I hate social politics.

  ‘Did you guys hear about the Sheriff?’ asked Brad.

  ‘Marci and I looked at each other silently; we hadn’t had much chance to talk about it yet, though I’d been working on my own theories all week. The demon had broken her pattern again, in ways we hadn’t anticipated, and that scared me. It meant I didn’t know as much as I thought I did, and that was a very dangerous situation to be in. I was desperate to learn more, and elated that Brad had brought it up.

  ‘Let’s not talk about that,’ said Marci, and shot me a warning look. I leaned back and sighed, listening as the conversation turned into gossip about the other kids in the restaurant.

  Brooke was there, on the far side of the room, in a light blue dress and a matching satin jacket. Her hair was up in a pile of curls on top of her head, and she looked radiant. She was sitting next to Mike Larsen, it looked like, and I found myself hating him passionately.

  A troupe of waiters brought out our plates, and my three companions dug in to their food. I stared at mine, suddenly queasy. The meat was red and juicy – medium rare, just like I’d asked – and staring out starkly from the centre was a sawed-off cross-section of bone. It was a piece of the vertebra, perfectly trimmed and perfectly normal, but all I could see - all I could think of – was the parade of severed wrists that had come and gone through the mortuary. Red, juicy meat around a neat central column of bone.

  It’s okay, I told myself, just eat. I pressed my fork into it, watching the juices run out from the holes, and I raised up my knife, and suddenly it was Mike Larsen on the plate, dead and bleeding: meaningless food to be chewed up and swallowed. I felt no wave of nausea; no rise of bile in the back of my throat. I knew that those thoughts were wrong, but they didn’t feel wrong. It was just another thing. It was the way I’d used to think, in the times before I’d gained control.

  My old thoughts and habits were all creeping back, one by one; my dark side, the part of me I called Mr Monster, was stirring. My angry fight with my mother; my paranoid suspicions of Marci – my urge to kill her that night in her room. It was all coming back. Why? Wasn’t it enough that I was hunting a demon? Wasn’t it enough that I was planning to kill?

  Of course not, I whispered, deep in the caverns of my mind. I don’t want to think about killing, I want to really kill. I’m a creature of action. Thinking about it will never be enough.

  The room grew dark, and I felt my skin grow hot. I shouldn’t be here. I have a demon to catch, and here I am wasting my time – and everyone else’s lives – at a stupid dinner before some stupid dance. I’m an idiot. I’m a fool. I’m sitting idly by while Nobody teaches her vicious lesson with a trail of death. I have to act. I have to find her, and I have to kill her. It’s the only way to stop her.

  But what then? Who’ll be next after Nobody, and how many people will die before I find that demon?

  I pushed my plate away.

  ‘Something wrong?’ asked Marci.

  ‘I don’t think I can eat it,’ I said. I don’t think I can even have it on the table. I flagged down a waiter and said, ‘Can you take this back?’

  ‘Is there a problem with it, sir?’

  If I blame them, I can dodge the embarrassing questions. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I ordered it medium rare, and this is barely medium.’

  ‘Of course, sir, I’ll have the chef prepare a new one immediately.’

  ‘Actually,’ I said, looking over at Marci, ‘that salad looks really good. Could I just get one of those instead?’

  ‘Of course, sir. Would you like it with grilled chicken?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘No meat at all.’

  Chapter 15

  The Homecoming Dance was held in City Hall, in a large open room with a marble floor circled by rows of ornate wooden pillars. It was probably too small for a crowd this size, but it was really the only choice. Whenever the city needed a bigger venue than City Hall they used the gym at Clayton High, and nobody wanted to hold the dance there. Instead, the students crammed into this small space, jumping and pulsing in time to the music, and retreating to the cool shadows outside whenever it grew too loud, too noisy, or too hot.

  Marci grabbed my hand and ploughed her way through
the crowd, becoming almost instantly separated from Brad and Rachel. I followed her, holding tightly to her wrist and apologising mutely to everyone we bumped into on the way. Nearly everyone smiled and waved at Marci, followed by a polite wave to me; people were accustomed to seeing us together, but that didn’t mean they knew how to react to us. To them I was still just the weird kid who lived over the mortuary.

  When we reached the centre of the room Marci turned around, cheered loudly, and started dancing. I did my best to follow along, which mostly just meant shifting my weight back and forth from one foot to the other. I decided in that moment that I was never meant to be a dancer. I also decided that of all the torture I’d experienced in Agent Forman’s house of death, nothing could compare to the torture of a high-school dance.

  Marci laughed, tried to show me what to do, then laughed again as I continued to suck. A more empathetic person would have said, ‘At least she’s enjoying herself,’ but I was ready to turn around and run. Thankfully, blissfully, the song ended and the dancing stopped. There was a chorus of cheers from the eager crowd, and then another song started – slow and bluesy. Marci stepped in close, wrapped her arms around my shoulders, and began to sway softly.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘this works a lot better if you touch me back.’ I glanced at the other couples around us, saw how they did it, and tentatively put my hands on Marci’s waist. It was soft, and perfectly curved, and I touched her lightly, like a balloon I was afraid of popping. She chuckled and sighed.

  ‘How are you liking your first dance?’

  ‘A few seconds ago it was also my last dance,’ I said. ‘But I have to admit that this part is pretty nice.’

  ‘It is,’ she said, stepping in closer. We moved back and forth, hesitantly awkward and blissfully comfortable at the same time.

  We were close to each other, yet still worlds apart. I have rarely felt truly connected to anyone, but those few connections were all powerful memories: brandishing a knife at my mom; staring hungrily at Brooke in Forman’s house. Each event was a scar in my mind, violent and intense, like a white-knuckle ride in a speeding car. I lived my whole life behind a hazy, emotionless curtain, cutting me off from the rest of the world, but for just a few seconds here and there I’d been able to break through it; I had been connected, sharing my emotions with another person just like a real, empathetic human being. Even then it was limited – not in the depth of emotion, but in the variety. It only ever worked with fear and control.

  Then Marci shifted slightly, beginning to rotate, and without thinking I went along with her: step forward with one foot, step back with the other. Forward with one foot, back with the other. Words were unnecessary; we were perfectly coordinated. Perhaps it was a coincidence. Perhaps we were thinking the same thoughts. Perhaps . . .

  Perhaps it was best to think no thoughts at all.

  We danced that way for an ageless eternity, locked in perfect sync, moving and turning and shifting in a harmony I’d never known. This is real. The song faded and still I clung to her, desperate to keep going, to hold onto that connection like a lifeline to humanity.

  Another grinding dance song exploded over the speakers, and the crowd cheered loudly. They shook the floor, stomping and waving, and I cocked my head towards the refreshment table on the side.

  ‘Can we sit this one out?’

  ‘What?’

  I leaned in close, whispering in her ear, feeling her hair on my face. ‘Can we get a drink?’

  ‘Sure!’

  We made our way back to the side, ducking into an alcove that made the sound less oppressive, and reached the drinks table just as Rachel found us in tears and grabbed hold of Marci’s arms.

  ‘Rach, what’s wrong?’

  Rachel was too much of a mess to speak, and I turned to the punch bowl while she composed herself. I reached for the ladle just as another hand got there first – slender and pale, flanked by a flash of blue in the corner of my eye. Brooke. I looked up just as she did; we stared at each other a moment, faces blank. She poured her drink, offered me the ladle, and slipped into the crowd.

  ‘This whole night is a disaster!’ cried Rachel, while Marci clucked and cooed to try to soothe her. ‘This dress looks horrible, I spilled some salad dressing on it, and Brad was just looking at you the whole time anyway.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Marci, pulling her into a hug. ‘You’re gorgeous, and he can’t take his eyes off you.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure,’ said Marci. ‘You look great, and he looks great, and he’s had a thing for you since last year. You need to get out there and enjoy yourself!’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Rachel, crying. ‘I wish I was as happy as you, or as pretty.’

  ‘Seriously, Rachel, you’re gorgeous.’

  ‘You’re the best friend ever. I wish I could be . . .’ And then she left, melting back into the crowd, and Marci stepped next to me.

  ‘Sometimes I don’t know what to do with that girl,’ she sighed. ‘She is an emotional issue with legs.’

  ‘She’s right, though, you know.’ I turned to face her. ‘You’re always happy, you’re always . . . there. I can read people really well, most of the time. I can look at a face and figure out almost exactly what that person is thinking. But that’s as far as I can go – I know what people are feeling, but I don’t know what I should be feeling about it. You can do the same thing, and then you actually use that knowledge productively.’

  Marci smiled and leaned in closer, grabbing my hands. ‘John Wayne Cleaver, you give the weirdest compliments in the entire world.’

  ‘You have empathy like I’ve never seen,’ I went on. ‘You know exactly how to talk to people, exactly how to connect. You think it’s weird because it’s easy for you, but for people like me, it’s . . .’ How could I explain what she had done?

  ‘People like you, huh?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And what kind of people are you, precisely?’

  In her heels she was nearly the same height as I was, and standing this close our eyes were perfectly level; our lips were level; our noses were almost touching. I stared deeply into her eyes. Does she really want to know what I am? Do I even dare to tell her?

  No, I don’t. I can’t. But if she could figure it out on her own . . .

  ‘You’re the social genius here,’ I said, pasting on a smile. ‘Why don’t you tell me what kind of person I am?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, grinning, ‘you’re smart, but very eclectic about it; you focus on the things that interest you and ignore everything else.’ While she was speaking, a movement caught my eye – not an individual motion but a wave of activity rippling across the crowd, accompanied by a rustle of voices audible above the music. I stood on my toes to get a better look, and Marci turned, crinkling her brow. ‘What’s that?’

  Someone shouted, though I couldn’t hear the words. The music stopped abruptly and in the sudden silence a girl screamed, harsh and terrified.

  ‘Get away from me!’

  The shout was like a signal for the dance to collapse into chaos, and the whole crowd started screaming and backing into the wall. Marci and I were pressed back; the drink table tipped and crashed to the floor, and a swarm of terrified dancers surged into it, scrambling on the wet floor, trapping people behind the overturned table, desperate to get away from . . . what? There was an old radiator behind us, and I stepped up on it to get a better view.

  ‘That scream sounded like Ashley,’ said Marci.

  ‘It is,’ I said, looking over the heads of the maddened crowd. Ashley Ohrn, a girl from school, was walking through the centre of the hall, eyes squeezed shut and sobbing loudly. There was a black harness draped over her satin dress, a web of straps holding six brown blocks to her chest. It was an image I’d seen in a hundred movies, now horribly real and barely fifty feet away – bricks of C4 explosive, strung together with brightly coloured wires. ‘She’s wearing a bomb.’

  ‘Ashley
,’ called someone. ‘What are you—’

  ‘Don’t talk to me!’ she shrieked. The crowd by the doors was fleeing in two trickling lines, but the rest of us were being trampled back into the walls, leaving a wide circle of terror with Ashley at the centre. ‘Everybody just get away!’

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Marci.

  ‘She’s here for me,’ I whispered. Nobody’s here, but she doesn’t know who I am. She narrowed it down and discovered I was a teenager, but not which one specifically. She stole Ashley’s body and made a bomb big enough to kill every teenager in town.

  Ashley reached the centre of the room, crying hysterically. Marci grabbed hold of my arm and stood up on the radiator with me, balancing precariously against the wall.

  ‘She’s really going to do it,’ I said.