Brooke woke up every morning around seven; her dad got up at six-thirty, showered and dressed, and then woke up the kids while their mom made breakfast. He went into Ethan’s room and flipped on the lights, sometimes yanking the covers away playfully, sometimes singing loudly, and once actually tossing a bag of frozen broccoli into his bed when he refused to get up. Brooke, on the other hand, was more privileged—her dad simply knocked on her door and told her to wake up, leaving only when he heard her answer. She was a young woman, after all, both more responsible than her brother and more deserving of privacy. Nobody barged in, nobody peeked in, nobody saw her at all until she wanted them to.
Nobody but me.
Brooke’s room was on the second floor of their house, in the back-left corner, which meant that she had two windows—one on the side, facing the Petermans’ house, which she always kept tightly curtained, and one on the back, facing the woods, which she kept uncovered. We lived on the edge of town, so we had no rear neighbors, no other houses behind us, and no people at all for miles in that direction. Brooke thought no one could see her. I thought she was beautiful.
I watched her sit up into view, pushing aside the bedspread and stretching luxuriously before combing out her hair with her fingers. She slept in thick, gray sweats, which seemed like an oddly dull color for her. Sometimes she scratched her armpits or her butt—something no girl would ever do if she knew she were being watched. She made faces in her mirror; sometimes she danced a little. After a minute or two, she gathered up her clothes and left the room, headed for the shower.
I wondered if I could offer to shovel their snow, like I did with Mr. Crowley, so I could put it where I wanted it and grant myself more access to the yard. It would probably be suspicious, though, unless I did the whole street, and I didn’t have time for that. I was far too busy as it was.
Each day I found a way to give Mr. Crowley a new note—some on his car, like before, others taped to his windows or shoved into doorways, higher than Kay could reach. After the second one, none of the notes were direct threats. Instead I sent him evidence that I knew what he was doing:
JEB JOLLEY-KIDNEY
DAVE BIRD-ARM
As I left him notes about the victims, I made sure to leave out the drifter he’d killed by the lake—partly because I didn’t know his name, and partly because I was still afraid he’d seen my bike tracks in the snow, and I didn’t want him to put two and two together.
On the last day of school I sent him a note that said:
GREG OLSON-STOMACH
This was the biggie, because Greg Olson’s body hadn’t been found yet—as far as Crowley knew, nobody knew about the stomach. After he read it, he locked himself in the house, brooding. The next morning he went to the hardware store and bought a couple of padlocks, adding extra security to his shed and cellar door. I was a little worried that he’d become too paranoid and I’d start to lose track of him, but no sooner was he finished locking up than he came to our house and gave me a new key to the shed.
“I’ve locked up the shed, John; can’t be too careful these days.” He handed me the key. “You know where the tools are, so just keep it clean like you always do, and thanks again for all your help.”
“Thanks,” I said. He still trusted me—I felt like whooping for joy. I gave him my best “surrogate grandson” smile. “I’ll keep the snow shoveled.”
My mom came down the stairs behind me. “Hello Mr. Crowley, is everything okay?”
“I’ve added some new locks,” he said. “I’d recommend you do the same. That killer’s still out there.”
“We keep the mortuary locked up pretty tightly,” said Mom, “and there’s a good alarm system in the back where we keep the chemicals. I think we’re okay.”
“You got a good boy,” he said, smiling. Then trouble clouded his face, and he glanced down the street suspiciously. “This town’s not as safe as it used to be. I’m not trying to scare you, I just . . .” He looked back at us. “Just be careful.” He turned and trudged back across the street, his shoulders heavy. I closed the door and smiled.
I’d tricked him.
“Doing anything fun today?” asked Mom. I looked at her suspiciously, and she put up her hands innocently. “Just asking.”
I brushed past her and climbed the stairs. “I’m going to read for a while.” It was my standard excuse for spending hours at a time in my room, watching the Crowleys’ house from my window. This time of day I couldn’t get up close, so watching through the window was all I had.
“You’ve been spending too much time in your room,” she said, following me up the stairs. “It’s the first day of Christmas vacation—you should go out and do something fun.”
This was new—what was she up to? I’d been out of the house almost as much as I was in it, creeping around outside Mr. Crowley’s house, and Brooke’s. Mom didn’t know where I went or what I was doing, but she couldn’t possibly think that I was spending too much time in my room. She had something else on her mind.
“There’s that movie we keep seeing ads for,” she said. “It finally made it to town yesterday. You could go see that.”
I turned and stared at her again. What was she doing?
“I’m just saying it might be fun,” she said, ducking into the kitchen to avoid my gaze. She was nervous. “If you want to go,” she called out, “I’ve got some money for tickets.”
“Tickets” is plural—was that her game? There’s no way I was seeing a movie with my mom. “You can see it if you want,” I said. “I want to finish this book.”
“Oh, I’m too busy right now,” she said, emerging from the kitchen with a handful of bills. She held them out with an anxious smile. “You can go with Max. Or Brooke.”
Aha. This was about Brooke. I felt my face turn red, and turned and stalked into my room. “I said no!” I slammed the door and closed my eyes. I was angry, but I didn’t know why. “Stupid Mom trying to send me to a stupid movie with stupid . . .” I couldn’t say her name out loud. No one was supposed to know about Brooke—Brooke didn’t even know about Brooke. I kicked my backpack and it slumped over, too full of books to fly across the room like I wanted it to.
Sitting in the dark with Brooke wouldn’t be so bad, I thought, no matter what movie it was. I heard her laugh in my head, and thought about witty things I could say to make her laugh again. “This movie sucks—the director should be strangled with his own film.” Brooke didn’t laugh at that; her eyes went wide and she backed away, just like at the Halloween dance.
“You’re a freak,” she said. “You’re a sick, psycho freak.”
“No I’m not—you know me! You know me better than anyone in the world, because I know you better than anyone in the world. I see things nobody else does. We’ve done homework together, we’ve watched TV together, we’ve talked on the phone to—”
Stupid phone—who was she talking to on the phone? I’d find out and I’d kill him.
I cursed at the window and—
I was in my room, breathing heavily. Brooke didn’t know me because we hadn’t shared anything, because everything we’d ever done together was really only stuff she’d done alone, while I watched through her window. I’d watched her do her homework a few nights ago, and knew that we had the same assignment, but that didn’t count as doing it together because she didn’t even know I was there. And then, when the phone rang and she picked it up and said hello to someone else, it was like a wedge between us. She smiled at the invader and not at me, and I wanted to scream, but I knew that no one was interrupting anything because I was the only one in the world who knew that anything was going on.
I pressed my palms into my eyes. “I’m stalking her,” I muttered. It wasn’t supposed to be like this; I was supposed to be watching Mr. Crowley, not Brooke. I broke my rules for him, not for anyone else, but the monster had shattered the wall and taken over before I even knew what it was doing. I barely even thought of the monster anymore, because we’d merged so completely into one. I looked up and paced across my room to the window, staring out at Mr. Crowley’s house. “I can’t do this.” I paced back to my bed and kicked my backpack harder this time, skidding it across the floor. “I need to see Max.”
I grabbed my coat and rushed out without saying anything to Mom. She’d left the money on the edge of the kitchen counter and I grabbed it as I passed, shoving it into my pocket and slamming the door behind me.
Max’s house was just a few miles away, and I could get there pretty quickly on my bike. I looked away as I passed Brooke’s house, and flew down the road too fast, not caring about ice or watching for cars. I saw myself putting my hands around Brooke’s neck, first caressing it, then squeezing it until she screamed and kicked and choked and every thought in her entire head was focused on me, and nothing but me, and I was her whole world and—
“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.