“You won’t do shit,” she says, stepping backward off the porch. “He’s my son. I’ll raise him how I see fit. That’s not abuse.It’s showing him what the world is actually like. And you can stay the hell out of it.”
And then, in an instant, she transforms. The coldness goes out of her expression. She gives me a dazzling smile—the kind of smile you see on the head of the PTA, on the mother of the high school valedictorian. “It wassolovely talking to you,” she chimes out. “We’ll do it again soon, won’t we?”
I’m too stunned to react, which gives her just enough time to slip away, sashaying across the grass. As she does, she raises one hand in greeting and calls out, “Evening, Janet! I hope Robert is doing well!”
I jerk my gaze over to where Blaire is looking, and I see my other neighbor, an elderly woman I almost never speak to. She waves back at Blaire. “He’s doing just fine, honey! Thanks for asking.”
“That’swonderful.” Blaire looks back over at me again, still holding that picture-perfect smile. “No one will believe you,” she says in a voice dripping with honey.
And then she cuts back across the grass, and all I can do is watch her go, my heart hammering in my ribs.
28
THEO
Iwatch it all happen through my telescope, sitting there on the lakeshore surrounded by the deep green shadows of the woods. I watch the woman arrive in her dark car. I watch her leave. I watch Oliver’s blonde mother stroll across the yard and disappear into the front of Chloe’s house, and then reappear as she walks back home.
And through it all, I feel Chloe. Her anger. Her despair. Her fear. It’s faint, at this distance, but undeniable. And when I catch on to it, I breathe it into myself, and I feel it inside me, fueling my own hot rage.
Fueling the killing moon.
There’s no denying it now. The sun has dropped below the horizon, and the killing moon is rising, making its slow and unmistakable arc over the trees of my peninsula. And I keep staring through the telescope, watching the houses on the other side of the lake.
Watching my prey.
My heartbeat is slow and steady. I don’t usually watch them beforehand. I certainly didn’t do it that first time, after I woke up from five years in the ground. I was driven by rage then. Rage atthe death of my mother; rage at my own death. The killing moon was the thing that told me what I needed to do to cool my rage:
Just follow the moonlight until all it illuminates is spilled blood.
The other times weren’t that different. I’d hear the whispers as the moon swelled, but when it hit, it hit fast. Twenty years ago, I even thought it was a normal moon at first. But its light kept burning my skin, and all I could think about was the slipperiness of entrails between my fingers. I didn’t stop until I crossed the water. Until that woman shot me in the chest.
Because that’s what the killing moon wants. What it always wants. Not just human death, but mine, too. It wants me in the ground to start the cycle over.
I blink. Something hot and wet drips down my cheek.
I promised Chloe I would never hurt her or Oliver. And that’s a promise I know I won’t break. When the frenzy of a killing moon starts, I don’t lose sense of myself, not in that way. And there are always people left alive. There are enough beating hearts over there to give it all the blood it wants without me having to break my word.
There are three beating hearts in particular that I want to end, all of them in Oliver’s house.
But it’smydeath that makes my eyes feel wet and heavy. It doesn’t matter that my deaths aren’t permanent, that I’ll claw my way out of the dirt again.
She’ll be gone once I do. I’m sure of it. And so will Oliver.
But maybe—maybe they can run away together. He’ll have someone who will take care of him, who won’t hurt him. Maybe that’s enough, knowing the two of them will be safe, even without me.
I squeeze the telescope and slide it sideways on its mount, pausing on each house. It’s easy to tell the ones that have people inside, and my body shudders with the need to crack thehouses open one by one, dragging my victims out to the shore of Hanging Lake so the killing moon can see my prizes.
The wind stirs, and I can see the moonlight on the water, and it reminds me of the first time I did this. The screams. The begging. The orgasmic rush of pleasure as I cut down the people who hurt me the most.
I wrench myself away from the telescope and scramble back into the woods, my gaze still fixed on the lake houses. Five of them are lit up, marking the humans inside.
My breaths are thick and heavy as I slide backward into the woods, where the moonlight can’t quite reach me through the trees. The darkness is a comfort, and I wrap my arms around myself and try to focus on Chloe, on the memories of fucking her, like I can convince myself that’s all this is, this terrible tugging in my chest. It helped before.
It doesn’t help tonight.
I lash out, slamming my fist into a nearby tree so that the branches rattle. Then I stalk through the underbrush, swinging my arms out in a wide path of destruction. It’s not the right kind of destruction, though, and I know it. Broken branches and shredded leaves aren’t what the killing moon wants.
They aren’t what you want.
