I WILL BEGIN WITH what I saw on the night of April 15. But, first, a word from your narrator.
I, David Kallas, am a Genius.
This is not a boast. I don’t look or talk anything like a Genius. My grades are pretty mediocre, and I have a lazy streak from here to Montana.
But my test scores confirm it: IQ Level — Genius. Right up there with Hair and Eyes — Brown and Height — 5’11’’ So I don’t fight it.
What does it mean to be a Genius? It means teachers always look at you perplexed and disappointed. It means every adult you’re in contact with thinks he or she must be doing something wrong. It means you must be doing something wrong, because you’re exactly like everybody else.
For a Genius, I did an extremely stupid thing on April 15. Now, I could have detected warning signs, as early as February, but I’ll go into that later. Anyway, on that night, I took a walk in the Ramble.
The Ramble is a small forest at the edge of town, sloping downward into a wimpy river called the Wampanoag. A few well-worn footpaths wind through the trees, and one path of tire tracks leads to a secluded clearing. To many people in my drab hometown of Wetherby, Massachusetts, the Ramble is Nature. To others, especially those who know the clearing well, the Ramble is Sex.
I’ll put it more delicately. As a teenager in Wetherby, book-learning goes on in school. Learning about everything else happens in the Ramble.
Parents warn their kids never to go there after dark. The older the kid, the more frequent the warnings. Once puberty hits, it becomes the world’s most dangerous place. Oddly enough, no one can actually recall a crime there in years. You are more likely to come upon a parked car with steamed-up windows than a mugger.
Well, I did come upon one of those cars that fateful night. And Ariana Maas was in it. With someone who was not me.
I admit, I asked for it. I kind of thought she’d be there. I was on a very indirect route to the print shop to proofread our high school yearbook, the Wetherby Voyager. I guess my curiosity had gotten the worst of me.
Her thick red hair was unmistakable, even mashed against the mousy brown hair of her boyfriend, Smut. (Yes, Smut. The initials stand for Stephen Matthew Underwood-Taylor.) I had an urge to pull open the car door and yank the guy out. But I didn’t.
I may be a Genius, but I’m not a Hero.
I slunk away before they could see me. If I had had a tail, it would have been between my legs. Ariana was discovering heaven in a Chevy, while I was off to check for apostrophes. What a life.
The weather had been horrendous for months, so the river was pretty swollen. It wasn’t the measly sewage-choked trickle we’d all come to know and love. I decided to follow it to the other side of the Ramble. That would put me on the road to Someday My Prints Will Come, which I think is the dumbest name for a print shop ever invented.
That was when I saw the brownish lump of fur. It was floating on the water, mostly hidden by a boulder.
At first I thought it was a badger, or a river rat. I was still angry and frustrated and hurt, thinking about Ariana, and that is the only explanation I can give for what I did next.
I picked up a rock and tiptoed closer. Being quiet was easy. After all the recent storms, the fallen branches were soggy, and the ground soft.
Slowly I made my way around the boulder. The critter was still, sleeping maybe. Easy target.
I cocked my arm, took aim, and threw.
Thud. Dead on. Right in the critter’s side.
I braced for a yelp or a scream. If the thing came after me, I would need to book.
But the rock bounced silently away. It left a small indentation in the flesh. I slumped and sighed. Hooray for me. I’d hit a dead rat.
I stepped out from behind the boulder, feeling extremely stupid. Now I got a closer look at the fur.
It wasn’t fur.
Fur was not that long. Not on any animal you’d find in the Ramble.
But it couldn’t be what I thought it was. The body — the object — covered with this hairy substance, was almost flat. As if it had been stepped on. As if it were a thick, wet mask, not a living thing.
I noticed the smell then. Not an ugly smell, but sort of chalky and slightly sweet, like dried milk.
Leave.
Leave now.
My brain echoed with that warning. Did I listen? Noooo.
I kept walking around the boulder. I reached down and pulled the brown hair ball toward me. Why? I’m still asking myself.
I should have taken a look at the whole thing before I touched it, but I didn’t. Only when I had a fistful of hair was I angled close enough to see the whole body. Only then did I realize it was human.
My hand froze. I felt something shoot through me, like an electric jolt. The smell was overpowering now.
When I yanked my hand away, the face lolled around. It was a young face, familiar somehow. But there was no way on earth I could tell who it was. Its eyes were missing, its mouth two sunken flaps of skin. Flesh hung from its face and arms in thick, shriveled chunks.
A scream caught in my throat. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t move. My eyes were locked on the corpse.
Under an outfit of black pants and a shirt, it was grotesque, distorted. It bent to the right and left, not at the joints, but everywhere. Its calves curved into the opening of a drainage pipe, bending forward in a smooth and perfect C shape, opposite to the way the knees were supposed to bend. Like a Gumby.
A Gumby? A vicious laugh welled up inside me. But I didn’t open my mouth for fear that all my sanity would go rushing out. I just kept staring.
And I realized I was looking at a person who had had his insides removed.
Then, for the first time in my life, I fainted.