“Murderer,” they’ll say to the camera. “Trailer trash,” they’ll whisper to one another when they think they’re alone.
Ah. Yes.
There’sthe panic. There’s the band of iron wrapped around my chest and the fear sinking its claws into my throat.
It ends up being a moot point when the call won’t connect.
A warning message pops up when I try 00000 as the password, and then again with 12345. I try his fingerprint, but that doesn’t work either. Face ID isdefinitelyout. It’s difficult to resist the urge to smash the phone with a rock to get at its insides.
“You a serial killer, or what?”
The corpse doesn’t answer, but Ripley does look up from the log she’s smelling. Her eyes are still bloodshot. My fingertips tingle, and I realize I’m not breathing so well.
What’ll happen to her when I’m arrested? Emma’s apartment doesn’t allow dogs. My mom can’t… she just can’t. The truth is that Ripley will be taken to a shelter where, from the moment she walks through the doors to the second the needle punctures her vein, she will be afraid and, most of all, she won’t understand why I’m not there.
I take slow breaths. In through my nose, out through my mouth. Eventually they shift from shuddering gulps to something almost normal.
It takes a few hard pulls to get the passenger door open. There’s a dent near the handle and a crack in the window. Sheriff Cory’s gun tumbles out of the car when I finally manage to open it. It takes less than a minute to put the safety on while I’m handling it, check the chamber, and see how many rounds I’m dealing with.
The one that went through Clarence was the only shot Sheriff Cory got off. There’s sixteen left in the magazine. The handgun goes on the dash while I sit and riffle through the glove box in a search for… something. Something to help me. Something to tell me why he did this, and what “this” even is. Out comes a locked pair of handcuffs with no key, a car manual, a wrinkled yellow bandanna, and three crumpled candy wrappers with melting chocolate smeared on the insides.
Something shiny falls out of a pile of random receipts and crumpled papers. It thumps heavily in the footwell and settles against my shoe. It’s dark. The thing is surprisingly heavy when I pick it up. The legs are needle-sharp, and prick at my skin. It’s metal, green-black and smooth.
One special thing, my brain supplies.
It’s a cicada… or a cicada pupa? Whatever it’s called, this little metal thing is a perfect representation of what’s left behind after the thing inside crawls out.
A shrill sound splits the air. My hand closes reflexively. When I open it, there are pinpricks of blood where the cicada’s feet pierced my skin.
Hungry, the goblin in my brain says.
Weird, I say back.
Sheriff Cory’s phone is lit up and ringing where it lies on the center console. There’s no name, just a string of numbers with a central Ohio area code. I drop the cicada and put the phone to my ear.
“Where—you?—supposed to—her—a schedule, Cory.”
The voice is annoyed. It sounds like it’s coming from a long way away.
“Can—hear me? Come—Sh—backwoods service! Sh—”
There’s a beep, and the call ends. Service lost.
My breath is coming quickly, despite feeling like I can’t breathe at all. The sheriff was taking us somewhere. He was taking ustosomeone. Maybe several someones. Was the caller referring to him and Sheriff Cory as “we”? Or the two of them, plus others?
Every podcast I’ve ever listened to about abduction and trafficking and partnered-up serial killers explodes in my brain like an overfilled water balloon. Leonard Lake and Charles Ng killed people together. Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono abducted women and girls as a pair.
Ripley sets her head on my knee. She looks up at me, patiently waiting for me to scratch under her chin.
I’m out of the car and swinging my backpack on before I can think too much about it. The phone goes in my pocket. I pull the holster off the sheriff’s belt and clip it to my own.
Something weird is happening on my face. I can feel it, but I don’t know what it is until I trace my fingers along the Joker grin that’s taken up on my lips. It’s not a happy smile. It’s certainly not a good one. It’s the sort of thing that happens when you’re so scared, so utterly fucking terrified that the wires in your brain irreparably twist and you can’t do anything but laugh.
I amsogoing to prison.
Ripley is looking at me with her tail tucked and her ears back, and I realize I’ve been quietly laughing to myself as I buckle the holster.
“Sorry.” I crouch to hug her close. “I’m sorry. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. You wanna go for a walk?”
