Damaged (22 page)

Darcy Wilson, a thirty-year-old waitress who somehow always had more money than she knew what to do with, said, "We have a right to know what's going on. We live here in this town, too."

"Watch your local news, Mam. All the information will be on A.S.A.P."

Some of them dispersed; others joined. Adam and Chris looked at each other, smiling. "I can't believe this!" Chris said. "This is like—NBC news big. Never in a million years would I have thought this kind of thing would have happened
here."

"Just goes to show you how fucked the world is, kid," a toothless gentleman behind him said. "World's goin' to hell in a hand basket."

"I just wonder who the hell it is," Chris said. "It could be somebody we know doing this. This is a small town."

"I don't know. I got a kid on the way. Y’wanna be safe and sheet like this happen. If somebody hurts my wife or kid, I'll track them down and kill them, myself."

Adam looked up at the guy. The guy didn't seem to notice him.
Kill me here and now then, gummy.

"I'm sleeping with a can of mace from now on," Chris stated.

Adam made a note to himself—
now people know and will try to protect themselves, so I have got to be even more careful.

Chris nudged Adam. "Let's go, man, I don't want to turn into an icicle.”

Adam looked on for one last minute at the mayhem he'd created all by himself, proud that he'd done something on so large a scale.

All these people, all their fear, all their pain, all their paranoia—ME on the inside for the past five years. If only they'd treated me like a human being, there wouldn't be one body six feet under and another on the way.

Good riddance, Pete.

Adam caught up with Chris halfway down Main Street. Chris' cheeks were red as apples. "It's so fucking hard to believe," he told Adam. "It's got to be someone at school doing this."

"Why?"

"’Cause, think about it. Who else would want to? Unless it was just a psycho, who else would? Only someone who didn't like Erica and Pete. It's revenge. I know it is."

Adam said, "It could be anyone. Someone who just moved here, maybe someone just passing through for the time being—"

“—I don't think so. Sure, there are some messed up people here, but not that would do something like that. Clues, too. There's got to be clues… tire tracks, DNA evidence, a piece of clothing. Something. But it's like they were snatched up by the night, itself, and disappeared until they washed up."

"Watch out!" Adam said, grabbing Chris by the back of his jacket and pulling him back just before Pete North's parents' station wagon plowed into him.

It stopped at the STOP sign. Pete's sobbing
father
was sitting behind the wheel. He looked right up at Adam.

Can he sense me? Smell me? Does he know I killed his son?

I'm fucked.

Instead, he went on down the road, none the wiser. He'd just stared his child's murderer in the eyes and had no clue. Adam could not believe such a thing.
I'm too good.

Adam itched for another kill the entire week but would not attempt such a thing so soon. Everybody in town was more alert than a snake waiting for a mouse. Besides, school was out. That meant that most Blake High students were either partying or spending much time together, and Adam was not about to tempt fate by kidnapping one person amongst others.

He sat back, waited, and invited Chris over.

The knock came at ten till ten in the morning.

"Coooooome in!" Adam screamed from the living room. He was sitting on the couch, flipping through television stations.

The door parted, and a mist of cigarette smoke billowed into the hall. Chris entered, a cancer stick hanging from his lips. "Hey. I got something to ask you." Chris sat on the couch beside from Adam, seemingly tense, as if he'd just heard some very bad news.

"What's that?" Adam asked.

"This…" Chris handed him today's newspaper. The obituary read: Angela McNicols. "Is this a misprint, man, or is this real? That isn't your mother, is it?"

Adam did not answer. He did not know what to say…
yeah, she's been dead and I've been manning the house alone, refusing my father's help, eating what little of what is left in the kitchen, dreading for the first bill to come in through the mail. She's dead, end of story, and oh—sorry, I forgot to tell you.

"I don't know why I never told you. Nobody really knows except my father and me. I… it shouldn't have happened. I figure that it's best not to talk about it. I miss her, Chris. I put her through hell and I never got to say I am sorry for anything."

Chris sucked in hard on his smoke, finishing it. "Holy fucking shit. Your mom—died in a plane crash? It wasn't a misprint? You don't have another relative with the same name?"

Adam shook his head. He could not make eye contact with him. "She died in the plane wreck. I can only image what she felt as she went down—"

"Don't think about that, man," Chris said. "You don't have any control over that. I'm sure it was fast and painless, and that when—"

"I
do have
control over that! I have control over everything in my life, not you, not God, not no-fucking-body! I control what happens to me.
Maybe not before, but now I fucking do!"

"Take it easy, Adam. I didn't mean anything."

Adam sighed. "Everybody means
something
. I never meant anything wrong to her or anybody. Seems that for every good thing I've ever done, ten bad things have happened to me."

Chris started to tear up. Adam fought away tears of his own. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.

"I can't believe it. Just a week and a half ago, I stayed here, and she was moving around, healthy, fixed us French toast…"

"Now," Adam finished, "she's in little pieces. Her legs and arms and head are ripped from her body. She never did a bad thing in her life, either."

Chris said, "And with what's been happening here in town, too, is just fucking crazy. Maybe somebody blew up the plane with explosives, and then—"

"
Fuck the people in this town!
To hell with the ones who died. I don't give a shit. They were bad kids in my school who, in my opinion, deserved everything that happened to them. My mother didn't. No matter how pissed off I used to be at her, I still loved her even when I truly believed I hated her and wanted her to die. If God was just, you know what He'd do? He'd prevent the plane crash and blow up our school."

Chris was at a loss for words. He could sense Adam's pain and wanted to give him a hug.

I'm a guy. Guys don't do that. Ever.

"But no, the harsh reality is that my life fucking sucks, man. It's always sucked for as long as I can remember. I wish I was like them. Maybe then things would be better," Adam said.

"Like who?"

"Any and everybody at school. Erica, her boyfriend—Pete even. They all have somebody. Nobody picks on them or beats them up or spits in their face. Only me. Why is that? Now,
they're
the only one with a mom. I have nothing."

"Nobody has it well, Adam."

"Horseshit!" Adam jumped to his feet. The floor boards trembled. "Have you seen Erica's house? A mansion. Her little apartment is nicer than my fucking house. Her boyfriend? Popular! Jesus, he might as well have security guards at his sides. Bastard's never been in a fight before, and it's not because he is tough, but because his little henchmen faggot football buddies protect him. Why! And Pete, a person lower on the food chain than mice. People don’t mess with him, they mess with me."

Chris shook his head.

"But my mother—her death? Not only do I get punished enough, but she has to die, too? In that manner? You know what? I'm out, man. I ain't even going back to that fucking school. And everybody says, 'oh, you'll regret it! You'll regret dropping out later on in life'.
Noooo
! I honestly can't imagine eternal damnation being any worse. That's probably a treat compared to Blake High. We’re supposed to learn, have a good time during those years, huh? It's a lie to get us locked down in that hellhole."

Chris sighed. He nervously lit up another cigarette. "I'm sorry, Adam. I really am. You need help. You can't deal with your life alone now. I'd lose my head literally if my mom—"

Adam immediately giggled. It was the most malevolent laugh Chris had ever heard from him. It almost scared him.

Adam turned away and continued. "You don't know how right you are, Chris. My mom died and my girlfriend dumped me in the same day, only minutes apart. Ha—" He laughed some more.

Chris stood and laid a hand on his shoulder. Adam stopped laughing, spun around, and whacked his hand off his shoulder.

"Don't touch me
! I don't ever want to be touched again. Touching gets me hurt. Human contact makes me sick." Vomit suddenly flew out of Adam's mouth and onto the floor, just missing Chris' Nikes. One component not usually found in puke was evident—
blood
.

"Holy shit!" Chris said.

Adam casually wiped his mouth. "You need to leave right now, Chris. I'm not feeling good."

"You want me to call a doctor? Your dad? Anybody?
That
is not normal."

"My only remedy at this time is isolation. I'll call you in a while. I just need rest."

"Are you sure? There's blood in the—"

"I will be okay. Serious."

"Call me later, okay? I'd like to stay here overnight while school is out. I don't like being by myself. I sure as hell don't want to die like them. See ya, bro."

Bro?
Chris had never used that term with him before. In the spare of the moment, it was his way of saying that he cared.

Chris turned and walked away.

"Chris?" Adam said.

Chris stopped and turned.

“Thanks, man. You can stay overnight anytime now. Anytime."

Chris smiled. Then he walked out the door.

Adam looked down at the bloody regurgitation. The release of blood had been caused by the ultimate destroyer of all humans: stress.

***

Chris did not stay that night. Adam forced the tears away as he lay in bed, looking up at the ceiling, wondering if his mother's spirit was standing beside him, wondering if Erin was screwing some idiot with bad acne. He could almost feel the blood swirling inside his stomach. His body was, in fact, breaking down.

"Mom? If you're up there or here in this room, what do I do? I don't know what to do anymore. I don't wish I was dead. I wish I'd never been born. And now I've taken the lives of two monsters. Then again, maybe I'm the monster. Society accepts most people, almost all people, but when the black sheep comes along once in a while, they want to destroy it. We don't ask to be born this way, and they still degrade us, tear us apart, and humiliate me. I'm the bullseye in the sights of millions. Put me in a room with a million people, I'm the
only
target. They can sense it. Are there others like me? All this time, people are afraid of Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Ed Gein ... but are they mentally disturbed? Is that why they kill people? Are they crazy? How can they be? Society targets them for no apparent reason
before
they take a single life. Society, in turn, creates its own monsters."

He fell asleep soon afterward.

The dream was broken up, intense, and painful. A twisted plane falling out of the sky like a shooting star… Angela screaming, bleeding, burning alive… Erica saying: "It's over. It's not going to work. I never loved you."… the aircraft exploding… Adam's mom plummeting toward earth… a drill in Pete's eye socket—"Please, man, I ain't gonna tell a soul. Just let me out. I'll be cool wit you."… Mom still falling… Adam screaming inside himself… kissing Erin on the hand in Pappie's Inn… Erica choking on blades, her flesh completely gone—Adam slamming into hard pavement… his body dissolving into the concrete.

"I'm not a monster!
" he screamed as he woke up, drenched in cold sweat.

I need to kill soon; fuck the precaution.

But how?

First, you need the most vital thing: information.

Where do I get it? And how?

You know where Erica's dopey boyfriend lives.

Tonight. Spy. Pleasant Avenue.

***

The problem with gaining entry into Bain's home was tenfold more complex than either of his last victims. First, Adam thought, as he sauntered down the sewer, was that the rich boy lived in a house two steps down from a mansion.
Security alarms
. Secondly, he lived in the upstairs alcove, thirty feet above solid ground. Either Adam had to finagle a way around that or somehow lure him to another place. Adam pondered these dilemmas constantly, but finding a suitable answer did not come easy.

Again, he trudged through the sewers.

When he finally reached the manhole cover he believed to be in the back alley of Bain's house, he put on his gloves and his mask and climbed the ladder rings. Using one hand, he pushed aside the cover and peered out—