Slashback

12

Niko

Twelve Years Ago

Coincidence, I wasn’t a big believer . . . philosophically or practically.

The books I’d started reading on men and women throughout history and their thoughts on the universe, the ones I was drawn to the most told me coincidence was my mind glimpsing a truth I didn’t understand.

There were more coincidences around Junior than I cared for.

But a serial killer next door—it would be ridiculous overkill on the universe’s part with all the rest we had in our lives. How could someone believe that? What I meant, of course, was how could I believe that?

I decided what I found in the library at the end of the day would make up my mind for me. If I found something about a missing prostitute, unlikely, Cal and I would leave. If I found nothing, I’d tell Cal he was wrong, to stay out of Junior’s backyard, and we’d get on with our lives—as weird and strange as those lives were.

The decision should’ve made me feel better, but the back of my neck itched as I continued with the test on my desk. Miss Holcomb, the psychology teacher, hovered over my shoulder watching for a few minutes although I always scored As and never needed help. Some teachers took their jobs very seriously and sometimes . . . I sighed and finished up.

With each period and through lunch the itch grew worse until finally it was sixth period and time for study hall and the library. I liked school. I always had. I liked any and all subjects. I liked reading ahead as the classes were too slow. That didn’t change when I skipped a grade. But while I liked schools I was obsessed with libraries. I could spend an entire day in a real library. I’d not been to a school with what I considered a genuine library yet, but some towns we lived in were college towns and college libraries were amazing enough that I thought living in one would be better than any place else I could imagine. Cal thought I was crazy. He, naturally, wanted to live in the volcano lair of a supervillain. He considered superheroes too mopey and whiny with highly substandard costumes. He was so heated on the subject that when I pictured myself in college in a few years and Cal living with me, the mental image was always in a volcano with black capes everywhere and thousands of bookshelves, before the image morphed into your average student apartment.

Considering once Cal made up his mind, thus it was written and so it would be, I should give serious thought to either making certain the college of my choice was far from a volcano or finding lava-proof shelves.

This school, the Hermann T. Jeffries High School, didn’t have the worst library I’d seen, but it didn’t have the best either. Normally that would’ve bothered me as I spent study hour there, but today all I was interested in was the computer. The one single, solitary, slow enough ancient Egyptians could’ve carved the information I wanted in hieroglyphs into a pyramid inner chamber wall before it booted up computer.

“Niko, are you waiting for . . . Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I’m just checking my e-mail. I know you probably want to really work. You’re completely smart. I get that. You need it more than I do.” The girl stood up and spilled the contents of her backpack on the floor. “Oh my God,” she repeated. “Oh my God. Shit. Oh my God. I know you don’t say things like that. At least I never hear you. I’m sorry. Are you religious? Did I offend you?”

That was Avery. She wasn’t in any of my classes, but she spent sixth period in the library too, more because she didn’t have anything better to do than a love for books. She didn’t wear makeup and was neither pretty nor plain, although she had autumn-gold eyes and dark brown hair that was thick and hung in long natural waves. She wasn’t smart and she wasn’t stupid; she was a nice average girl who didn’t realize that average can sometimes be the best thing to be. There was nothing wrong with walking the middle path, being neither the high nor the low. I liked being smart, but I knew it was an accident of birth, a genetic gift. It wasn’t encouragement on the home front. I enjoyed the escape that books and tailoring my future that intelligence let me have. The downside of being smart was realizing how hard it would be to get that future and the truly desperate need for escape I had.

I saw too much.

Cal was smart and Cal saw the things I did, but he reacted differently and saw what I saw in a way unlike mine. My intelligence had me clawing at anything and everything to get us free. Jobs, education, plan after plan. Cal’s intelligence had him seeing the only way out as patience. He was like a wild panther in the zoo, still as a stone, eyes unblinking, never sleeping, waiting for the one day someone got sloppy with that cage door and then it would all be over.

I didn’t know which way was the best, the least painful, but I did know at times I wished I was average, normal . . . even if that meant only I was somewhat less smart. I didn’t like seeing too much, as necessary as it was.

Bending down, I helped a self-conscious, bright red Avery gather up her books, papers, a handful of discarded costume jewelry. “No, I’m not religious. My little brother curses worse than you. Don’t worry about it.”

“Good. Great!” She took everything from my hands and stuffed it, Cal-style, back in her backpack. “The last thing I’d want to do is embarrass myself in front of you. You’re”—her blush intensified and she swallowed—“you know.”

Avery also liked me. I thought it was another reason she spent her study period in the library. I liked her too. I wasn’t the kind of snob that thought I was too smart for certain people. With my life, I appreciated, wanted normal. Average and nice was better than brilliant and beautiful in my mind.

But I also remembered what Cal had said, that we couldn’t have a normal life. That meant we couldn’t have normal people around us . . . any people when it came down to it. He’d been right for now. I hoped I was right when I said the future would be better, that then we could have a normal life—normal for us at least.

Now though . . . now I couldn’t do anything about Avery liking me. When she finished zipping up her bag, I gave her the smile—it was a practiced one. It said you’re a nice person but you’re not for me. Friends? You could read a lot into that smile. He has a girlfriend at another school, he’s gay, he actually is screwing Miss Holcomb. It usually worked and as Avery gave me a wobbly but not a terribly upset smile back, I hoped it had worked again.

When she was gone, I sat down at the computer, the itch now claws digging into my neck, and started searching the online news for New London. I wouldn’t find anything. There was no chance, I told the claws clamping tight. If Junior had taken that hooker and that was very unlikely, it wouldn’t be in the paper yet. Prostitutes disappeared all the time. Often they never make the news, vanished or not.

Unless you happened to be the daughter of a cop. Doctor, lawyer, cop—it didn’t matter how high your parents were, drugs could take you to the lowest of places. Marcia Dawn Liese had known that. It was hard to recognize her with blond hair, a cheerleader uniform, and pom-poms from a two-year-old picture compared to the Goth wig and little else she’d been wearing when Junior had pulled up in his truck, but it was her. I remembered that distinctive mole at the corner of her mouth. Marcia had been missing at least twenty-four hours if not longer and that put her disappearance close enough to her interaction with Junior that I could’ve set my watch. The claws left my neck and now were ripping their way through my stomach.

Our neighbor is a serial killer.

He smells like blood.

Like roadkill.

The basement is full of bodies.

Cal had told me and I hadn’t believed him . . . because I hadn’t wanted to believe him. My life was an abusive mother and a little brother who wasn’t completely human and the monsters who watched him. I didn’t know what to do. Every day I straightened things, I kept schedules, I made rules, and it was all to cover up to Cal and to myself that I didn’t know what to do.

I had known I couldn’t handle anything more. A serial killer? That was insane and I wouldn’t have cared what Cal had said; it absolutely was not an option. I couldn’t believe it, as I couldn’t deal with it.

That was the joke—because now it was dealing with me and that was much worse than anything I could’ve imagined. Junior right next door. Cal’s school getting out a half hour before mine. I was already running for the door. It would be all right. Junior didn’t know. He hadn’t seen us follow him. He hadn’t seen me in the hospital. He was a killer—I tasted vomit in my mouth—but he wasn’t smart. I’d looked into his eyes. He was dull and slow. He didn’t have any idea we suspected him . . . Cal had suspected him.

I’d go home, get Cal, and we’d leave. Like we should’ve done from the start . . . but hadn’t as I was too much of a coward to believe my little brother.

Smells like blood.

Home and then out of this town. It would be all right. Junior wouldn’t even suspect why we left. It would be all right. It would.

I kept running.

And my mind kept telling me no matter how true it was, I would always be stained a coward and a liar from this day on.

By the time I ran the ten miles home I was drenched in sweat, my lungs raw, and my legs cramping from a speed I’d not pushed them to before. I jammed the key with a fatigued shaking hand into the lock and threw open the door.

“Cal?” I slammed the door behind me and locked it. “Start packing. Hurry! We’re going. Now.”

I heard the sound of a comic book being thrown against the wall and fluttering to the floor from our bedroom. “We don’t have time for this! Don’t pretend like you’re upset. You’ve been saying we should go for days.” Cal rarely threw temper tantrums or showed physical anger of any kind. Not since he’d found out he was half-Grendel. He was afraid what might happen if he did, that he’d start and not be able to stop.

Grendels didn’t have the teeth they did only to play peekaboo through the windows.

“Did something happen? Next door? Cal, seriously, we have to go. I looked up that prostitute. . . .” I stepped into the bedroom and two prongs hit me in the side of the neck. I fell, convulsing. Every muscle locked, the pain hot and unrelenting through every nerve I had.

“Something did happen next door, neighbor.” Junior grinned down at me with dull yellow teeth. “And a fuck’s sight more is going to.”

I hadn’t expected him to be in our house. It didn’t cross my mind. It should’ve. Every instructor I’d had told me the people who go down in attacks, the people who sometimes die, they weren’t watching. You watch every second and you don’t stop that, not for any reason.

The prongs and wire retracted into the boxy shape in Junior’s hand. “Your kid brother didn’t much like this either. He’s pretty small. I thought for a minute I’d killed him and that would’ve been a damn shame. I have big plans for him and for you, so don’t you feel left out.” A hand covered my mouth with a folded cloth as I tried to get up, but I couldn’t do more than twitch. “It’s chloroform, but it’s homemade. I’m afraid it’ll give you one helluva headache when you wake up or if I mixed it wrong you might not wake up at all. You’d probably prefer that, but I wouldn’t. Keep your fingers crossed for me.”

Yellow and black pools of hazardous waste began to puddle across my vision. It was almost dark outside. He had to wait fifteen or twenty minutes; then he’d be able to drag me over to his house and no one would see. I used all the energy I could gather to reach up a hand and claw at the rag across my face.

“Now, Niko, that’s the name your brother screamed when I was waiting for him like I waited for you. That must make you Niko. Don’t be that way, Nicky. Don’t you want to see your little brother again? Whole anyway? It’s harder to make them out once they’re in pieces, the bodies. You have to blur your eyes, you know, like at those crazy posters with the hidden spaceships.”

The hand across my face was unmovable. I thought Junior was fat and sloppy, but there was hard muscle under it. It was one more thing I hadn’t seen. I’d thought he was dim and slow. I hadn’t seen the cunning predator in his eyes or heard the lie in his words. And now . . . now I couldn’t see anything. I could still hear the mumble of his voice, dribbling on, but that too faded. I faded with it with five words echoing over and over in my mind.

Your little brother.

In pieces.