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BK: Hello, Norm. I hope we have time to have this conversation since it looks as though closing time is upon us.
Norm: Where the heck would you get that idea?
BK: The overhead lights are getting turned up. I’ve been to enough bars in my time to know that’s usually a sign that the end of the night is coming.
Norm: Still looks the same in here to me. The boss is in charge of all the bigger stuff. He hasn’t told me nothing except that I should come and talk to you. Seems as though he has taken a bit of a shine to you, since he’s told us all to come and have a jawing session.
BK: Can I talk to the boss once we get done?
Norm: That’s entirely up to him and it ain’t got nothing to do with me. If he wants to sit awhile, he’ll let you know in his own good time. The question now, though, is what it is that you want from me.
BK: Well, I don’t know how much you know about why I’m here. I operate...
Norm: I know why you’re here; I need to know which part of my story you are interested in. There are some juicy parts throughout, some of which might help you start piecing together the other things that you have heard tonight. My guess is that, as a writer, you want all the little warts and blemishes included unless, of course, you plan on taking what you are told and getting all creative with it.
BK: Given what I’ve heard to this point, Norm, I don’t believe I could get any more creative. It’s been a bit of a horror show, to be honest, and while I’m reaching the end of my rope, I get a sense that I haven’t heard the whole story. There are loose ends and inconsistencies all over.
Norm: I’m not sure how many of those loose ends will be pieced together for you here, but what I can do is give you my part and let you do with it what you will. Even if you do get creative and start messing around with the details, I’ll never find out. I'm not planning on reading anything you write. You know that old saying about the truth being stranger than fiction? I think that applies to our town.
BK: I believe you, Norm, I truly do, so let’s get to it. Let’s forget about the song and just jump right into your time in Redfield. How does that sound?
Norm: Works for me. Now, where to begin? I’m a little different from the rest of this group in that I wasn’t born here, but I have lived most of my life in Redfield. By most, I mean all but the few days I spent in hospital in Atlanta after I was born. Shortly after my momma dropped me out of the womb, she went for a walk and never did bother coming back. I was destined to be put into the system and left to rot, but that’s not how things played out for me. I don’t know the full story of how I ended up with the Ramsey family, but given that I was born around the same date as my half-brother Peter, my guess is that some sort of deal was struck at the hospital to get me out of there and into a loving family. I never knew any family other than the Ramsey’s, so I loved them as you would your own, all except for Peter. Me and him never did see eye to eye.
BK: What was the problem with Peter?
Norm: From the moment we were old enough to communicate, he made it clear that he was none too happy with me being part of the family. That boy was born with an air of superiority, and he would often tell me how the Ramsey family was one of the original founders of Redfield and how my blood wasn’t pure enough to live up to the family name. He was constantly trying to get under my skin, and while it sure did hurt, I never let him see that he was getting to me. I figured that if I ignored his taunts, they would stop, but he kept right on trying to annoy me, almost as if he were trying to goad me into a fight. I’m sure that he believed that if I lashed out and hit him, I would be banished back to wherever I came from. Life was too good for me to fall into that trap.
BK: He sounds like an asshole.
Norm: Oh, he was a whole lot worse than that, let me tell you. He was an entitled little shit, but his mean streak was creepier in that he was able to switch it off and on at will. Momma and Poppa thought the sun shined out of his ass because he was always as sweet as pie around them, but when they turned their backs, you could see the light go out of his eyes and the darkness sweep in. He annoyed me when we were young uns’, but as we got older, that annoyance turned into fear. That boy was a sociopath, straight up.
BK: What makes you say that besides the way he treated you?
Norm: It was the way he treated everyone, not just me. It was as though he was born without any kind of emotion, other than hate, or empathy. He read books about murderers and serial killers, and he had a weird obsession with the very worst parts of history. He had zero friends at school, at least not that I saw, and he would sit in the lunchroom and survey the scene with a blank expression on his face. He would have probably been picked on had everyone not been totally terrified of him.
BK: Did he do something that made people fear him so?
Norm: He didn’t have to. He had this weird aura around him that acted as a shield of sorts. People didn’t want to be anywhere near him, and no-one ever thought about fucking with him. Imagining the things that he could do was a whole lot worse than anything he could have done, or so we all thought, so people let him brood and wallow in his own weirdness.
BK: What about the teachers and other adults? How did he interact with them?
Norm: The very same way he behaved around my parents. He was a straight A student and never got into any kind of trouble. If a teacher needed help or called on someone in class, he was always the first to get involved. They all loved him, and they all failed to see what the kids saw. In fairness, he made it easy for them to be blinded to who he really was.
BK: But you saw him, right?
Norm: Man, I saw right through him, although his varnished veneer disappeared around me. He made no effort to hide who he was when I was with him. Honestly, I think he was taunting me and trying to get me to say something to Momma and Poppa, even when we got older and were beyond the point of me getting sent away to some shitty orphanage. I knew that the time would eventually come when I wouldn’t need to be in his life, but he made that change, made me realize that I always needed to be around to keep an eye on him.
BK: That seems a little too calculated even for someone as off as he sounds. What happened that made you feel that way?
Norm: It was the night that poor woman got hit by the car. We saw the whole thing go down, and before you ask, no, we never saw who was driving. The cops grilled us about that for hours, but the glass on the car was as black as coal. You couldn't see shit, and I honestly don’t know how the driver was able to see out.
When she went flying over the car and snapped her legs on the landing, I can honestly say it was the only time in my life where I saw Peter look genuinely happy, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The moment she hit the ground, he wheeled around and grabbed me by the arm, yelling “DID YOU SEE THAT?” after which he let out this weird cowboy yeehaw. I pushed him away and asked what the fuck was wrong with him, which was when I noticed that he had a hard-on. He was giddy as all get out, but he took on a somber tone when the cops arrived on the scene. I think he might even have cried in front of them. I knew then that he was more messed up than I thought, but he really made it obvious once he picked up a part-time job at the barbershop.
BK: What happened then?
Norm: We were about sixteen years old when he applied for that job. The help wanted sign was taken down about two minutes after he went in to talk to the owner. Like I said, he had all the adults fooled and wrapped around his little finger. He came strutting into the house that day, proud as punch, and loudly declaring that he was a working man now. I swear, if you didn’t know him the way I did, you would have thought him to be the most charming kid in the world. It was frightening the way he was able to switch it off and on.
So, he took that job and never missed a single day. It was nothing more than grunt work, sweeping up hair and making coffee for the barbers. Still, he was a daily fixture at work, even on days when he wasn’t scheduled to be there. He would work for free, which I thought was very strange until I found out what he was doing. It was...damn, this is tough to put out there.
BK: We can take a break. I’m more than happy to get off this discussion.
Norm: No. This story has to be told. Okay, so, we shared a bedroom, which was not very pleasant for me given that I thought Peter might snap at any given moment. Momma and Poppa always talked about putting an extension on the home, but they never got around to it. I believe they thought that Peter and me were the best of friends and that we enjoyed our shared space. It reached a point where I simply didn’t have the heart to tell them what their son really was, but the thing with the hair almost made me break my vow of silence.
BK: Hair? I’m really not so sure that I want to hear any more of this.
Norm: Let me go talk to the boss and see what he says.
Authors note: Another few minutes passed while Norm was apparently away talking. Again, the only sound heard on the recording at that time was my breathing, which was beginning to sound rather ragged.
Norm: The boss says that he would like for you to stay a little while longer. He says he’ll talk to you when you have heard from all of us.
BK: How many more?
Norm: The boss says that there is just one more after me, at which point he will sit with you and tell you his story. Can you hang in there?
BK: I guess so. I suppose you had better tell me about the hair then.
Norm: Like I was saying, Peter and me shared the same room, and there were times when I would hear him shuffling around at night. Being so close to him made me a very light sleeper, so I was aware of all his movements, although I couldn’t ever really pinpoint what the hell he was up to. He became even more active at night after landing the job in the barbershop. I started hearing what sounded like a lock being rattled, so I took it upon myself to search our room one day when he was at work. He had a small lockbox hidden under his bed, but it was protected by a big padlock, which is what I assumed he was messing with at night. I wanted to bust that thing open, but I was also afraid to see what was inside and what he would do to me when he found it broken. Instead, I decided to pretend I was asleep that night and keep an eye on what he was doing.
BK: Jesus, I’m not so sure I want to hear this.
Norm: Sorry, but it’s part of the story. I was expecting a bit of a long haul that night, but I heard him get up and start fiddling with the lock about an hour after lights out. I stayed as still as possible, not wanting to alert him to the fact that I was awake, although I felt as though my breathing was loud enough to wake the dead. He didn’t appear to notice though, as he went about his business as usual. The rattling with the lock was over in no time, after which I heard this weird crinkling sound that seemed to be keeping perfect rhythm with his heavy breathing. Curiosity was killing me, so I jumped up, flipped on my bedside light, and then wished that I had just gone to sleep as usual.
Given what was going on, it’s probably odd to say that the first thing I noticed was the open lockbox sitting on the floor. It was full to brimming with Ziploc bags filled with hair. Each of the bags had a name written in Sharpie on the front, as well as a date filled in below the name. It was serial killer stuff, but rather than focusing on one type or hair color or gender, he had a little bit of everything. I felt sick to my stomach, but the bile really started to rise when I saw what Peter was doing. He was laying on his bed, huffing on a bag of hair and having a real good go at himself if you know what I mean. The worst part of it all is that he was staring right at me as he hammered away.
BK: What the hell did you do?
Norm: I ran out the room and made it to the toilet just in time before I threw up everything that I had eaten for the past month. Momma came out to check on me, as I guess I was loud enough to wake her up. I was weak-kneed and trembling by the time I was done, and even though I assured her that I was okay, she insisted on helping me back to my room. I didn’t want her to see Peter going cuckoo, but I also thought that she might be able to get him some help if she could see for herself that he wasn’t right. None of it mattered, though, because his side of the room was neat and tidy, and he was lightly snoring under the covers of his bed. It was at that point that I started to think that maybe I had imagined the whole thing, that maybe I had eaten something bad and was suffering from the effects of that. I never could fully convince myself of that idea though, as I continued to hear him doing his business in our room most nights from that day forward.
BK: How were you able to maintain your cool in that house knowing what he was up to? I think I might have gone nuts.
Norm: I knew he was leaving soon. He had been accepted to the University of Georgia with the goal of becoming a teacher, which struck me as an odd profession for someone who didn’t seem to care about anyone but himself. I didn’t spend too much time thinking about it though, as the thought of getting him out of the house for a few years was incredibly appealing.
BK: Did you go to college? You certainly sound smart enough, yet I am told that you are a janitor.
Norm: My grades were just okay. I graduated high school, but I really didn’t do well enough to get into a decent school. I was okay with that though, as Momma had become quite sick in our senior year. Poppa did his best, but he wasn’t really handy around the house. He needed help, and I was more than happy to lend a hand in any way that I could. By the time Momma got better, I was pretty much settled in Redfield, working odd jobs here and there and never settling too long in one place. I had a little bit of money in my pocket and was happier with Peter gone, so life seemed to be as good as it was going to get.
BK: How did you end up in the janitorial position in the high school?
Norm: It was Peter’s return to Redfield that led me to Haskins High. When he graduated from UGA, he announced that his dream was to teach high school in his hometown. He said that he had been afforded certain privileges by being part of one of the original families and that he wanted to give back to the community. It all smelled like bullshit to me, but I will say that he seemed like a changed man when he came home. The darkness seemed to have fled his eyes, and he seemed genuinely happy to be back in Redfield. Damn, he was even civil to me, perhaps for the very first time in his life. The school was in desperate need of a new English teacher with the new school year fast approaching, and while Peter was overqualified for the position, he willingly took it on. As the start of the school year got closer, I could see some of the old Peter start to creep back in, as though he was split again. I’m of the belief that a residue of shit gets left behind when something awful happens in a place, and given what has gone down in Redfield, it stands to reason that Peter would breathe it in and rediscover his wicked self.
BK: You make it sound as though he was possessed.
Norm: That makes sense to me. He absorbed the negativity of this town, and it made him bad. I’m not suggesting that he wasn’t off from the beginning, because he obviously was, but returning to this town is what did him in. When the janitor job came open at the school, I decided to take it so that I could keep an eye on him. Obviously, I couldn’t watch him at all times, but I could be close if he decided to do anything crazy.
BK: You were looking to protect your brother?
Norm: What? Have you lost your mind? Have you not been listening to what I’ve been saying about him? No, I was not there to protect my brother. I was there to take him down if he did anything to the kids he was teaching. I’m the only one who knew what he really was, which meant that everyone else he came into contact with was potentially in danger. Look, as far as I knew, he had never done anything to harm someone physically, but you have to keep in mind that I had no idea what he was capable of doing, but the longer he was back in town, the more he looked dead in the eyes. He had left his lockbox behind when he left for Atlanta, but it disappeared after one of his visits, probably into the house that he rented after he returned home. I mean, was he going to be happy with his hair collection or was he looking to upgrade? I wasn’t about to sit around and wait for that answer to come from a cop via a coroner’s report.
BK: Okay, Norm, I get it. So, how did things go with him at the school? Was he able to control himself?
Norm: He instantly became the goddamn teacher of the century. Every kid in his class saw their grades steadily start to climb, plus he was involved in all kinds of different after-school activities and fundraisers. People saw him as a saint, except maybe for the kids. I would always take a moment to peek into his classroom while I was mopping the halls and was always stunned at how quiet and attentive his kids were compared to other classes. They all had this vacant stare thing going on when he talked. It was like, it was, you know how they say that kids can see ghosts and demons and shit before they are conditioned to believe that it’s all bullshit?
BK: Yes.
Norm: It was like that, like they saw him for what he really was, but it didn’t quite fully register. They were in the same position as I was in that they couldn’t say anything about him. They were getting good grades, and that was all that the parents cared about. The problem, though, was that a couple of them were starting to act out a little outside of school. Craig Black was the first to become a problem child. He was a quiet kid, grade A student, and all-around good guy, but a couple of months in the presence of my brother changed all that. He developed a mean streak and became the school bully. Things eventually got really bad with him, even after Peter was gone. I’m guessing my brother must have got his hooks in that boy in a big way. The other kids who were under his spell seemed to snap out of it once he died, but not Craig.
BK: Does the plane crash that Eric was talking about have something to do with your brother’s demise?
Norm: It certainly did, and it almost got me too. We ended up with a hostage situation in the school that day, but I should probably fill you in, as best I can, on how we reached that point. It was the second to last day of the school year, so only about half of the kids had shown up. All the important business had been taken care of, so no-one was going to bust their balls for skipping the last couple of days. Some of the parents were keeping their kids out because things were starting to get a little weird. One teacher had already slaughtered her husband, and the rumor mill was starting to go into high gear in regards to my brother. He was always affectionate with his kids, hugging them and generally just being handsy, although not in a way that initially aroused suspicion in anyone. It was when he was caught sniffing their hair that things took a turn. When confronted by one of the parents, he laughed it off and basically accused the parent of being paranoid. He turned on the charm again with that conversation, making everyone believe that he was the salt of the earth. Peter was a lot more careful around the kids after that though, but I was watching, and I saw him doing the hair smelling thing. I should have gone to the cops before I did, although choosing not to meant that my brother was taken out of the picture permanently, so not a totally awful decision.
BK: When did you eventually talk to them?
Norm: On the day he holed up in the school with a kid that was threatening to blow the whistle on Peter’s weirdness. This kid had just moved to town a month earlier and seemed immune to the spell that my brother was casting. I have a theory about that. Peter seemed to be returning to the way he was after he first came back from Atlanta. It was as though whatever evil shit was inside him was being transferred to the kids, like a demon jumping from one possessed body to another. He was getting better, I could see it, but he wasn’t quite fully there yet when it all went down in the school that day. I guess Peter and the new kid got into it in the classroom, with the student saying that he was going to get my brother sent to jail. A scuffle ensued, which sent some of the kids running out of the room. I’m told that Craig Black was standing on his desk yelling at Peter to kill the kid and that he tossed a knife in their direction as his classmates dragged him out. The cops had been called by them, and no-one wanted to get caught in the potential crossfire. Someone pulled the fire alarm, which sent the few remaining folks, myself included, running for the door. It wasn’t until I got outside that I was filled in on what was happening.
BK: What did you do?
Norm: The cops were on me right quick, telling me that my brother had a knife pressed to a kid’s neck inside his classroom. They were looking to me for a way to talk him down, hoping that I would know how to get through to him. It was then that I told them about the lockbox and how I’ve always believed him to be a little off. You could feel everything change at that point, as it became clear that the cops wanted blood. They got plenty of that, but just not in the way they were expecting.
BK: What do you mean?
Norm: Shut up and listen, man. Peter’s classroom was on the bottom floor, and there were about twenty cops with their guns trained on him, ready to pull the trigger if they got a clear shot. I’m not sure how he managed it, but Peter had picked me out in the crowd and was staring me down. He looked scared to me, which was something I had never seen him be before. No-one was paying me any attention at that point, so I ran back into the school and made a beeline for his classroom. He was still looking out the window when I arrived, but he knew I was there just the same.
I told him to back up and come to the door, which he did. The kid was screaming at me to help him, but my full attention was on my brother. I figured if I could keep him cool and calm and get him to drop the knife, we might all get out of this alive. He made it all the way to the door, dragging the kid with him and keeping the point of the knife pressed against the boy’s neck. There was a little trickle of blood running down and staining the collar of the kid’s white shirt. I could see the veins in his neck standing out because of how tightly Peter was grabbing hold of him, and I knew that too much pressure on one of those veins with the blade of the knife was going to create a real problem. I put my hand on Peter’s shoulder, feeling him flinch under my touch, and I spoke as softly as I could, telling that he needed to give me the knife, let the kid go, and come outside with me. He turned his head to the side then, tucking in behind the kid, almost as if he knew he was in the crosshairs. There were tears spilling down his cheek, and he looked like a scared little boy. He told me he was sorry for everything as he handed me the knife. I was sure that the cops could see it all going down from their vantage point, so I pulled Peter and the kid out into the hallway so they wouldn’t have a clear shot, which was right about the time we heard the noise.
BK: What noise? Was it the plane?
Norm: It sounded like a wounded animal baying in pain. I wasn’t hanging around waiting to see what it was, so I grabbed the kid’s arm and headed for the exit, yelling at Peter to come with us. He shook his head and stepped back inside the classroom, the sound of the bullets tearing through the glass competing with the sound of the plane, which was getting steadily louder. I knew that he was gone as soon as I heard them start shooting, so my sole focus now was on getting the kid out of there.
As soon as we set foot outside, it was obvious that the plane was heading in our direction. It was the crop duster that we had all become used to seeing fly overhead, but you could tell it was in trouble, and it was heading our way. The kid pulled himself free from my grip and took off towards the cops out in the parking lot. That seemed liked a pretty solid idea to me, so I went right after him, just as the plane flew over, dumping shit all over all of us before crashing into the water tower. I threw myself down on the ground, bracing for an explosion that never came. There was a loud bang, but not the hellfire that you might expect. That said, the force of the impact was enough to send the water tower teetering to one side, where it hung, seemingly suspended for a moment, before crashing down on top of the school. Bricks and chunks of metal came cascading down in a mini tidal wave, but no-one was seriously hurt, although a few did have some cuts and bruises that needed attending to.
BK: That must have been some cleanup job. Did they recover the body of your brother and the pilot?
Norm: It took weeks to clear the area, but yes, they got the bodies out, including one that was unexpected.
BK: Was there another kid trapped in the school at the time of the crash?
Norm: No, this one was in the pesticide tank of the plane. It was the body of a headless child. Word was that it was badly decomposed due to being mixed with the chemicals. The plane had been spraying blood and little niblets of flesh along with the pesticide, with the assumption being that the potent mix clogged up the works and somehow messed with the controls. I don’t know about everyone else, but I spent days in the shower after that little revelation, although some stains never wash off even though they aren’t visible to the naked eye.
BK: Wait. A headless child? Was it Calvin? You know, the kid whose body went missing during the tornado?
Norm: There wasn’t really enough left to identify it properly, but the general consensus was that it was indeed that boy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go report to the boss and let him know that it’s almost his time to talk.