“No!”
My back wheel caught a patch of black ice and swerved out from under me, spinning me to the side. I managed to stay upright, but as soon as I was steady again I leaped off the bike, and picked it up and swung it like a club into a telephone pole. It clanged and vibrated in my hands, solid and real. I dropped it and leaned against the pole, gritting my teeth.
I should be crying. I can’t even cry like a human.
I looked around quickly, to see who was watching. A few cars were driving by, but no one was paying me any attention. “I need to see Max,” I muttered again, and picked up my bike. I hadn’t seen him outside of school in weeks—I spent all of my time alone, hiding in the shadows and sending notes to Mr. Crowley. That wasn’t safe, even without my rules. Especially without my rules. My bike looked okay—scratched, maybe, but not dented. The handlebars were skewed to the side, too tight for me to straighten without my tools, but I was able to compensate for it by holding them crooked. I rode straight for Max’s house and forced myself to think about nothing but him. He was my friend. Friends were normal. I couldn’t be a psycho if I had a friend.
Max lived in a duplex by the wood plant, in a neighborhood that always smelled like sawdust and smoke. Most of the people in town worked at the plant, including Max’s mom. His dad drove a truck, usually hauling wood from the plant, and was gone as often as he was home. I didn’t like Max’s dad, and anytime I went to his house, the big diesel cab was the first thing I looked for. Today it was gone, so Max was probably home alone.
I dropped my bike in their front yard and rang the bell. I rang a second time. Max opened it with a dull expression, but his eyes lit up when he saw me.
“Check it out, man—come see what my dad got me!” He threw himself onto the couch, picking up an Xbox 360 controller and holding it up like a prize. “He can’t be here for Christmas so he gave it to me early. It’s awesome.”
I closed the door and took off my jacket. “Cool.” He was playing some racing game, and I breathed a sigh of relief—this was exactly the kind of mindless time sink I needed. “Do you have two controllers?”
“You can use Dad’s,” he said, pointing at the TV. A second controller was sitting next to it, the cord neatly rolled up. “Just make sure you don’t wreck it, because when he comes back he’s going to bring Madden, and we’re going to play a whole football season together. He’ll be pissed if you wreck his controller.”
“I’m not going to hit it with a hammer,” I said, plugging it in and retreating to the couch. “Let’s play.”
“In a minute,” he said, “I’ve got to finish this first.” He unpaused the game and did a couple of races, assuring me between each one that it was just a tourney thing and it would be over soon but he didn’t know how to save until he got to the end. Eventually, he set up a head-to-head race and we played for an hour or two. He beat me every time, but I didn’t care—I was acting like a normal kid, and I didn’t have to kill anybody.
“You suck,” he said eventually. “And I’m hungry. You want some chicken?”
“Sure.”
“We have some from last night. It was our early Christmas party for Dad.” He went into the kitchen and brought back a half-empty bucket of fried chicken, and we sat on the couch watching TV and throwing the bones back in the bucket as we finished each piece. His little sister wandered in, took a piece, and quietly wandered back to her room.
“You going anywhere for Christmas?” he asked.
“Nowhere to go,” I said.
“Us neither.” He wiped his hands on the couch and rooted through the bones for another drumstick. “What you been doing?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Stuff. You?”
“You’ve been doing something,” he said, eyeing me. “I’ve barely seen you in two weeks, which means you’ve been doing something on your own. But what could it be? What does the psychotic young John Wayne Cleaver do in his spare time?”
“You caught me,” I said, “I’m the Clayton Killer.”
“That was my first guess, too,” he said, “but he’s only killed, what, six people? You’d do way better than that.”
“More isn’t automatically better,” I said, turning back to the TV. “Quality’s got to count for something.”
“I bet I know what you’ve been doing,” he said, pointing at me with his drumstick. “You’ve been mackin’ on Brooke.”
“ ‘Mackin’?’ ” I asked.
“Making out,” said Max, puckering his lips. “Getting it on. Busting a move.”
“I think ‘busting a move’ means dancing,” I said.
“And I think you are a fat liar,” said Max.
“Do you mean phat with a P-H or fat with an F?” I asked. “I can never tell with you.”
“You are so totally into Brooke,” he said, taking a bite of chicken and laughing with his mouth wide open. “You haven’t even said no yet.”
“I didn’t think I had to deny something that nobody could possibly believe,” I said.
“Still haven’t said no.”
“Why would I be after Brooke.” I asked. “It doesn’t even know I’m—dammit!”
“Whoa,” said Max. “What’s going on?”
I had called Brooke “it.” That was stupid—that was . . . horrifying. I was better than that.
“Did I hit a little too close to the target?” asked Max, relaxing again.
I ignored him, staring straight ahead. Calling human beings “it” was a common trait of serial killers—they didn’t think of other people as human, only as objects, because that made them easier to torture and kill. It was hard to hurt “him” or “her,” but “it” was easy. “It” didn’t have any feelings. “It” didn’t have any rights. “It” was just a thing, and you could do whatever you wanted with “it.”
“Hello,” said Max. “Earth to John.”
I’d always called corpses “it,” even though Mom and Margaret made me stop if they heard me. But I’d never called a person “it,” ever. I was losing control. That was why I came to see Max, to get in control again, and it wasn’t working.
“You want to see a movie?” I asked.
“You want to tell me what the crap is going on?” asked Max.
“I need to see a movie,” I said, “or something. I need to be normal—we need to do normal stuff.”
“Like sitting on the couch and talking about how normal we are?” asked Max. “Us normal people do that all the time.”
“Come on, Max, I’m serious! This whole thing is serious! Why do you think I even came here!”
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know,” he said, “why did you come here?”
“Because I’m . . . something’s happening,” I said. “I’m not . . . I don’t know! I’m losing it.”
“Losing what?”
“Everything,” I said, “I’m losing it all. I broke all the rules, and now the monster’s out, and I’m not even me anymore. Can’t you see?”
“What rules?” asked Max. “You’re freakin’ me out, man.”
“I have rules to keep me normal,” I said. “To keep me . . . safe. To keep everyone safe. One of them is that I have to hang out with you because you help me stay normal, and I haven’t been doing that. Serial killers don’t have friends, and they don’t have partners, they’re just alone. So if I’m with you I’m safe, and I’m not going to do anything. Don’t you get it?”
Max face grew clouded. I’d known him long enough to learn his moods—what he did when he was happy, what he did when he was mad. Right now he was squinting, and kind of frowning, and that meant he was sad. It caught me by surprise, and I stared back in shock.
“Is that why you came here?” he asked.
I nodded, desperate for some kind of connection. I felt like I was drowning.
“And that’s why we’ve been friends for three years,” he said. “Because you force yourself, because you think it makes you normal.”
See who I am. Please.
??
?Well, congratulations, John,” he said. “You’re normal. You’re the big freakin’ king of normal, with your stupid rules, and your fake friends. Is anything you do real?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I . . .” Right there, with him staring at me, I couldn’t think of a thing.
“If you’re just pretending to be my friend, then you don’t actually need me at all,” he said, standing up. “You can do that all by yourself. I’ll see you around.”
“Come on, Max,”
“Get out of here,” he said.
I didn’t move.
“Get out!” he shouted.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” I said, “I need to—”
“Don’t you dare blame me for you being a freak!” he shouted. “Nothing you do is my fault! Now get of my house!”
I stood up and grabbed my coat.
“Put it on outside,” said Max, throwing open the door. “Dangit, John, everyone in school hates me. Now I don’t even have my freak friend anymore.” I walked out into the cold and he slammed the door behind me.
That night Crowley killed again, and I missed it. His car was gone when I got back from Max’s, and Mrs. Crowley said he’d gone to watch the game. There wasn’t a game that night for any of his teams, but I drove downtown anyway to see if I could find him. His car wasn’t at his favorite sports bar, or any of the others, and I even drove out to the Flying J to see if I could find him there. He was nowhere. I got home long past dark and he still hadn’t come back. I was so mad I wanted to scream. I threw my bike again and sat down on the driveway to think.
I wanted to go see what Brooke was doing—I was desperate to see what she was doing—but I didn’t. I bit my tongue, daring myself to draw blood, but stopped and instead stood up and punched the wall.
I couldn’t let the monster take over. I had a job to do, and a demon to kill. I couldn’t let myself lose control before I did what I needed to do—no, that wasn’t right. I couldn’t let myself lose control at all. I had to stay focused. I had to get Crowley.
If I couldn’t find him, at least I could send him a note. I’d gotten so distracted today, I hadn’t prepared one yet, and I needed to let him know that even though I couldn’t see it, I knew what he was doing. I racked my brain for something I could write with without incriminating myself. The mortuary stationery was out, of course, and I didn’t dare go upstairs looking for paper in case Mom was still awake. I ran over to Mr. Crowley’s yard, nearly invisible in the darkness, and looked for something else. Eventually I found a bag of snow salt on his porch; he kept it there to salt his stairs and sidewalks for ice. It gave me an idea, and I came up with a plan.
At one in the morning when Crowley pulled in, his car swung around and stopped suddenly, half in and half out of his driveway. There in the headlights was a word written in salt crystals, each letter three feet long on the asphalt and shining brilliantly in the headlights:
DEMON
After a moment, Mr. Crowley drove forward and smeared the words with his car, then got out and swept away the remnants with his foot. I watched him from the darkness of my bedroom, pricking myself with a pin and grimacing at the pain.
13
“Merry Christmas!”
Margaret bustled in the door with an armful of presents, and Mom kissed her on the cheek.
“Merry Christmas to you,” said Mom, taking a few of the presents and stacking them by the tree. “Do you have anything else in the car?”
“Just the salad, but Lauren’s bringing it up.”
Mom’s jaw dropped, and Margaret grinned slyly.
“She’s really here?” Mom asked quietly, poking her head out the door to look down the stairs. Margaret nodded. “How did you do it?” asked Mom. “I’ve invited her five times and couldn’t get a yes out of her.”
“We had a really good talk last night,” said Margaret. “Also, I think her boyfriend dumped her.”
Mom looked around the room frantically. “We’re not ready for four—John, run down and get another chair for the table; I’ll set another place. Margaret, you’re wonderful.”
“I know,” said Margaret, pulling off her coat. “What would you do without me?”
I was sitting by the window, staring intently at Mr. Crowley’s house across the street. Mom asked me two more times for a chair before I stood up, took her key, and headed out the door. It was only in the past few days that she’d let me touch the key again, and then only because she’d bought too much food for Christmas and we’d had to store the extra in the mortuary freezer. I passed Lauren on the stairs.
“Hey, John,” she said.
“Hey, Lauren.”
Lauren glanced up at the door. “Is she in a good mood?”
“She almost blew streamers out her ears when Margaret said you were here,” I said. “She’s probably killing a goat in your honor right now.”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “We’ll see how long that lasts.” She glanced up the stairs. “Stick close, okay? I might need backup.”
“Yeah, me, too.” I took another step downstairs, then stopped and looked up at her. “You got something from Dad.”
“No way.”
“They got here yesterday—one box for each of us.” I’d shaken mine, poked it, and held it up to the light, but I still couldn’t tell what it was. All I really wanted was a card—it would be the first news we’d had from him since last Christmas.
I got an extra chair from the mortuary chapel and brought it upstairs. Mom was flitting from room to room, talking out loud to herself as she took coats, and set the table and checked the food. It was her trademark style of indirect attention—not talking to Lauren or giving her any special treatment, but showing that she cared by making herself busy on Lauren’s account. It was sweet, I guess, but it was also the embryonic stage of an “I do so much for you and you don’t even care” yelling match. I gave it three hours before Lauren stormed out. At least we’d have time to eat first.
Christmas lunch was ham and potatoes, though Mom had learned her lesson from Thanksgiving and did not attempt to cook it herself—we bought the ham precooked, stored it in the embalming room freezer for a few days, and then heated it up Christmas morning. We ate in silence for nearly ten minutes.
“This place needs some Christmas cheer,” said Margaret abruptly, setting down her fork. “Carols?”
We stared at her.
“Didn’t think so,” she said. “Jokes then. We’ll each tell one, and the best wins a prize. I’ll start. Have you done geometry yet, John?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Nothing,” said Margaret. “So there once was an Indian chief with three daughters, or squaws. All the braves in the tribe wanted to marry them, so he decided to hold a contest—all the braves would go out hunting, and the three who brought back the best hides would get to marry his squaws.”
“Everyone knows this one,” said Lauren, rolling her eyes.
“I don’t,” said Mom. I didn’t either.
“Then I’ll keep going,” said Margaret, smiling, “and don’t you dare give it away. So anyway, all the braves went out, and after a long time they started to come back with wolf hides and rabbit hides and things like that. The chief was unimpressed. Then one day, a brave came back with a hide from a grizzly bear, which is pretty amazing, so the chief let him marry his youngest daughter. Then the next guy came back with a hide from a polar bear, which is even more amazing, so the chief let him marry his middle daughter. They waited and waited, and finally the last brave came back with the hide from a hippopotamus.”
“A hippopotamus?” asked Mom. “I thought this was in North America.”
“It is,” said Margaret, “that’s why a hippopotamus hide was so great. It was the most amazing hide the tribe had ever seen, and the chief let that brave marry his oldest and most beautiful daughter.”
“She’s two minutes older than I am,” said Mom, glancing at me with a mock sneer. “Never lets me forget it.”
“Stop interrupt
ing,” said Margaret, “this is the best part. The squaws and the braves got married, and a year later they all had children—the youngest squaw had one son, the middle squaw had one son, and the oldest squaw had two sons.”
She paused dramatically, and we stared at her for a moment, waiting. Lauren laughed.
“Is there a punchline?” I asked.
Lauren and Margaret said it in unison: “The sons of the squaw of the hippopotamus are equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides.”
I smiled. Mom laughed, shaking her head. “That’s the punchline? Why is that even funny?”
“It’s the Pythagorean theorem,” said Lauren. “It’s a math formula for . . . something.”
“Right triangles,” I said, and looked pointedly at Margaret. “I told you I’d already done geometry.”
Mom thought a bit, and then laughed again when she finally got it. “That’s the dumbest joke I’ve ever heard. And I think the word ‘squaw’ is offensive.”
“Then you’d better think of something better,” said Margaret. “Lauren’s turn.”
“I helped with yours,” she said, stabbing a bite of salad. “That counts.”
“You then,” said Margaret to Mom. “I know you’ve got something funny in that head of yours.”
“Oh, boy,” said Mom, leaning her chin on her fist. “Joke, joke, joke. Oh, I’ve got one.”
“Let’s hear it,” said Margaret.
“Two women walked into a bar,” said Mom. “The first one looked at the other one and said, ‘I didn’t see it either.’ ” Mom and Margaret burst out laughing, and Lauren groaned.
“A little short,” said Margaret, “but I’ll let it slide. All right then, John, it’s up to you. What have you got?”
“I don’t really know any jokes,” I said.
“You’ve got to have something,” said Lauren. “Where’s that old joke book we used to have?”
“I really don’t know one,” I said. I pictured Brooke laughing when we talked about the arson merit badge, but I couldn’t really turn that into a joke. Did I know any jokes at all? “Wait, um, Max told me a joke once, but you’re going to hate it.”