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HALIFAX, NS OCTOBER 17, 2010
7:32 a.m.
My earliest childhood memory involves screams and the frantic scrapes of fingernails clawing at wood.
I stood outside the cedar chest, listening to my twin brother, Joshua, fighting to get out. At seven years old, I never realized his dire situation. He was suffocating inside that dark wooden tomb.
I remember being captivated by the terror in his voice, growing ever more shrill as the seconds passed. It triggered things in me, changes. I felt a charge of excitement shoot through my body, revving my heart. Euphoria filled my skull, as if my brain had kicked loose a flood of endorphins. It reminded me of the sensations I used to get with our rabbit, Nibbles, and those high-pitched cries he made whenever I’d twist one of his legs a little too hard. He’d sounded just like a human baby.
Joshua and I had been playing hide-and-seek, but I’d grown bored of the game. When my turn came around, I covered my eyes and counted to ten. Joshua ran off. I heard him running up the steps and then down the hallway upstairs. He had chosen one of the bedrooms this time. Probably a closet or under a bed.
I didn’t bother looking. Eventually, he would get tired of hiding and come out asking why I hadn’t searched for him.
Lazy Saturday mornings meant cartoons. He-Man battling Skeletor. Captain Caveman solving mysteries with the Teen Angels. Wile E. Coyote putting together wild contraptions to catch the Road Runner.
In the living room, I switched on the TV and knelt on the floor close to the screen. I soon forgot all about Joshua until I heard the thumps on the ceiling, the muffled cries for help. I snapped my head around, frowning.
Our father, I knew, had gone into town. Our mother was in the backyard, tending the garden. Joshua and I were alone in the house.
I went upstairs and tiptoed down the hallway. The thumps continued. The cries morphed into piercing, frenetic screams.
I stopped at the doorway to our parents’ bedroom, looking in. Mom’s old hope chest bucked on the hardwood floor as if it had come alive. Joshua had decided it would be a perfect spot to hide in. He’d emptied the blankets and pillows onto the floor and climbed inside. I didn’t know it at the time, but the chest had one of those latches that automatically locked when the lid closed. It opened only by pushing a button on the outside. That I did know. And so did Joshua.
The chest was a family heirloom our mother kept at the foot of the bed. It looked solid and expensive. Egg-and-dart molding accented the edges. A carving on the front depicted two hunters chasing wild boars through a forest.
I moved into the room, approaching the chest with slow steps. My young mind couldn’t imagine then what my adult mind can now—the sheer terror Joshua had gone through.
I touched the button, tracing my finger around its outer edge.
Still, I never pressed it.
I listened to Joshua’s body thrashing around inside, his bones making these painful thunks as they impacted the wood. I listened to his screams, his coughs from a throat growing raw. I listened to his breaths turning to ragged gasps.
Still, I never pressed the button.
At the corner of my vision, I caught my reflection in the dresser mirror. I looked over to see my lips drawn back over my teeth in an almost-crazy grin.
“What are you guys doing in here?”
The grin fell away. I spun around to the doorway. Mom stood there, dressed in soiled gloves and overalls. Her eyes darted from me to the chest in rapid flits.
“Oh God,” she screamed, breaking into a run. “What did you do?”
She flung the chest lid open, and Joshua catapulted himself into her arms. He gulped hungrily for air. There were long scratches dug into his face, blood on his fingertips. Welts and bruises covered his arms. Sweat dripped off him in beads.
“I’m here,” Mom said in a comforting tone. “I’m here, honey.”
His fists beat on her back as he sobbed into her shoulder. Mom swung angry eyes toward me.
“Why didn’t you let him out?”
I opened my mouth but offered no explanation. Why didn’t I let him out? In retrospect, I realize my excitement was too great. I didn’t want to see it end.
“What is wrong with you?” Mom yelled. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Holding Joshua to her, she hurried from the room. I found myself looking into the chest, fascinated by the pattern Joshua’s sweat and tears had left behind on the bottom.
That night, our father removed the latch. We were forbidden from ever going near the chest again.
The words my mother said that morning stuck with me more than anything else. What was wrong with me? What the hell was wrong with me?
She often told me about the difficulty she had birthing me. She delivered Joshua with ease. He arrived into the world first, a healthy, vibrant baby boy.
She told me that with a smile. Always with a smile. Like a proud mother reminiscing.
I hadn’t fared nearly as well. There’d been complications. Somehow I ended up in a breech position. When the doctors had to resort to a C-section to get me out, they found me dead. No heartbeat. No breath. No sign of life. Just a grotesque shape of muscles and tendons covered by a pale layer of skin.
She told me that with a frown. Always with a frown. Like a disappointed mother wanting to forget.
The doctors managed to resuscitate me. I spent several weeks in the NICU, hovering between life and death. Mom never expected me to live.
At different times in my life, I’ve found myself wondering if she secretly wished I had died. That maybe the family would’ve been better off. I know a lot of people in the years ahead would’ve been.
Like this woman on the ground below me.
Minutes ago, I looked into her eyes, wide and rabid with fear, and I saw my distorted reflection swimming there in the tears. The fear has disappeared; an expression of surprise replaces it. Surprise, I suppose, that I actually went through with it.
I can no longer feel her pulse throbbing through the rope, but I give the ends an extra tug to make sure. The muscles in my forearms burn and quiver. That familiar high rushes through my brain, almost orgasmic. I call it the climax of the kill. I wonder if big-game hunters experience a similar sensation when their arrow or bullet finds its mark and they see the animal expire.
Staring down at the woman, I try to remember what her face looked like before it became this swollen, purplish mess. It was attractive, I recall. Diamond shaped, with a cute, turned-up nose and chestnut-brown eyes.
Around me, an earthy, musty smell of decaying leaves drifts in the cool air. A dawn chorus of birds fills the woods—trills, whistles, flute-like sounds. I read somewhere they are caused by the males trying to attract mates or to warn other males to stay away from their turf. Nature has its daily battles, just as we do.
I uncoil the rope from the woman’s neck. She scratched my face, and it burns. But the scratch doesn’t feel sticky when I remove my glove to touch it. I see no blood on my fingertip, either. I won’t know how bad it is until I get back to the hotel. Hopefully, there won’t be a mark, because I’ll have to explain it to my wife.
This work is hard and dangerous. Injuries do happen to me occasionally. Some people can have a lot of fight in them. You can never underestimate a person’s strength when they’re in panic mode. I nearly lost an eye in Huntsville last year.
I put my glove back on and drag the woman’s limp body off the trail before someone comes along. Dead weight feels so heavy and awkward. Reaching into my coat pocket, I bring out a cigar cutter. Through trial and error, I’ve found the cutter to be faster and more efficient than a knife.
I pick up the woman’s left arm by the wrist and splay her fingers apart. In the coming days, I’ll learn her name in the newspapers. Just as I did with the last one.
For a moment, I close my eyes, conjuring up her image from the deep well of my memory. Oh yes, there she comes. Gorgeous, curly red hair. Pretty green eyes. I inhale a deep breath, still able to smell that perfume on her freckled skin.
Strawberries.
She smells just like strawberries.
