Jack Kilborn & J. A. Konrath (16 page)

“Well, all right…”

“Okay, I think we’ve seen enough,” said Ms. Peckin from her desk. “The three of you can sit down.”

“But we weren’t done!” I insisted.

“Don’t argue with me, Andrew Mayhem. That skit was not appropriate and you know it.”

I just stood there, appalled. We’d spent an entire evening coming up with the clever dialogue and shocking plot twist (Clumsy Joe drops the baby). And I personally had spent several hours rigging up and testing the baby doll so that the fake blood sprayed just right when it hit the tile floor. Ms. Peckin hadn’t notified us about any content restrictions on the assignment beforehand, so how dare she decide at the last second that baby splatter was inappropriate?

“Does that mean we get an F?” I asked.

“No, it means that you’ll redo the assignment. Now sit down.”

I sat down. Vile old twenty-five year-old crone. Revenge was in order. Sweet, cruel, delicious revenge.

The following Monday, Ms. Peckin walked out into the school parking lot to find her car covered with bloody dismembered baby doll body parts.

Somehow she figured out that I was responsible.

Detention was not unknown to me. I sat up front, staring at the periodic table of the elements poster on the wall, wishing the clock would magically fade to an hour from now the way it did in the movies.

Ms. Peckin looked up from the paper she was grading as the classroom door opened. “You’re fifteen minutes late,” she said.

“I couldn’t find the room.”

“Then you’re here until 5:00.”

I turned around as the kid sat down.

“Up front, please,” said Ms. Peckin.

The kid got up and sat down next to me. I didn’t recognize him, but he was extremely skinny and had a sizable nose.

“What am I supposed to do while I’m here?” he asked.

“Just sit.”

“No homework?”

“Just. Sit.”

The kid nodded. When Ms. Peckin returned to brutally savaging the paper she was grading (at least, that was a safe assumption), the kid turned to me and rolled his eyes. I rolled my eyes back.

We sat there for a long moment.

The kid took out a blue pen and wrote on his palm. He quickly flashed the message to me: “I’m Roger.”

I didn’t have a pen handy, but he passed his over to me. I wrote “I’m Andrew” on it and flashed it to him.

Roger nodded, and wrote a message on his other hand. “Ms. Peckin seems pretty cool.”

What the hell was he talking about? Ms. Peckin was the evil antithesis of cool! Clearly, the new kid was wacky in the head. I gave him a facial expression that indicated that I felt he was wacky in the head.

He kept holding up his hand to show me his fatally flawed message.

Ms. Peckin looked up again. “What are you doing?”

Roger balled his hand into a fist. “Nothing.”

Ms. Peckin stood up and walked out from behind her desk. “Let me see what’s in your hand.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Open it.”

Roger opened his hand and smiled sheepishly. Ms. Peckin read the message. “Oh. Well, this time is really meant for silent reflection, so no more of that, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

We both got out at 4:45.

As we walked home from school, Roger told me his life story, which even for a seventh grader was pretty uneventful. He’d lived in Arizona all his life, until his dad got a job in Chamber, Florida.

“What is there to do in this town?” he asked.

“Well…you can go to school, I guess.”

“Joy.”

“Do you like comics?”

“They’re okay.”

“You can buy comics.”

“Okay.”

“There’s a guy who wanders around quoting TV shows while he’s giving everybody the finger. He’s been doing it since before I was born. You can watch him if you want.”

“So basically, you’re saying that Chamber sucks.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s not that bad. We’ve got a movie theatre, and they’re going to be opening this new place called The Blizzard Room that I think is going to be an ice cream shop.”

“So basically, you’re saying that Chamber sucks.”

“Okay, yeah.”

“There aren’t even any cute girls in school, except for Ms. Peckin.”

“Don’t even joke about that. The whole school will beat you up.”

“Did you know my neighbor is a psycho killer?”

I stopped walking, unsure where this sudden shift in the direction of our conversation had come from. “Huh?”

“He is. I think. He wanders around his living room waving a butcher knife and talking to himself.”

“How do you know this?”

“I saw him through my telescope. I was watching his house hoping that Ms. Peckin lived there.”

“I mean it, stop joking about Ms. Peckin. Even the band geeks will kick your ass.”

“I just thought the whole butcher knife thing was kind of weird, that’s all.”

“Well,
yeah.
Did you call the police?”

“No. They’d just tell me to stop peeking in people’s windows with a telescope.”

“What does he talk to himself about?”

“I don’t know. I can’t read lips. But he’s done it the past couple of nights. He’s quaint.”

“I’d like to see that,” I said. “I’ve never watched a psycho killer rant before.”

“Well, what are you doing this weekend?” Roger asked.

I shrugged. “Watching TV.”

“Anything good on?”

“Does it matter?”

“If you wanted to come over, we could watch TV and my neighbor.”

“Sure. Sounds like fun.”

“How did your skit go?” asked my dad as I walked into the living room.

“That was last week.”

“Well, how did it go?”

“Pretty good.”

“What was it about again?”

“Shakespeare.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s right.”

“Hey, can I spend the night at a friend’s house tonight?” I asked.

“Which friend?”

“Roger. He just moved here.”

“Is he a miscreant?”

“No.”

“Did you take out the garbage this morning like you were supposed to?”

I hesitated. “Part of it.”

My father sighed. “You really need to get out of the habit of lying, son. Guilt doesn’t make a very fluffy pillow.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Someday you’ll understand. Yeah, you can spend the night, but do the dishes first.”

I peeked into the kitchen. “There aren’t any dishes.”

“Then clean your room.”

“I haven’t messed it up since mom cleaned it yesterday.”

“Then…I dunno, do
something
to demonstrate responsibility.”

“If you give me some money, I’ll spend it responsibly.”

“Don’t be a smartass.”

“I wasn’t. I was offering to demonstrate fiscal responsibility.” I didn’t get that C+ on my economics test without learning a few things.

“You know what, Andrew? You’re going to have smartass kids just like you, and they’re going to drive you to an early grave.”

“Yeah, right.”

“And I’ll be having a big ol’ laugh at you from the early grave that you drove me to. Go on, get out of here.”

“No money, huh?”

“Oh, all right. But don’t tell your mother.”

Roger’s second-floor bedroom consisted of a bed, a dresser, a telescope, and lots of unpacked boxes. We’d spent the evening watching television in a pleasant state of zombie-like vegetation, and now I was unrolling my sleeping bag out onto his bedroom floor.

“See anything?” I asked.

“A few naked women having a pillow fight. Ooooh…good hit! That had to hurt!”

“What about your neighbor?”

“He’s just sitting there, reading a book.”

“What if he looks up and sees you?”

“I’ll scream like a girl and faint.”

“Good plan.”

“Thanks.”

We just hung out in his room for a while, chatting about subjects that were awe-inspiring in their lack of substantive content, until finally—

“Oooh, he’s doing something,” said Roger, adjusting the telescope. “He’s walking around, yep, he’s got the butcher knife…take a look at this!”

I peeked through the telescope. Roger’s neighbor, a slightly overweight, balding guy who looked about forty, was indeed pacing around his room, waving a butcher knife.

“Holy cow,” I said. “He’s gone nutzo.”

“I told you. Can you figure out what he’s saying?”

I stared at his mouth, but there was no way to translate. He was speaking very quickly and animatedly, poking the air with his butcher knife for emphasis.

“He’s saying, ‘Roger…Roger…the time of reckoning is at hand…sweet, delicious Roger, I’ve killed for our love and will do so again…’”

“Shut up,” said Roger, laughing.

“He’s got your picture tattooed on his chest.”

“Seriously, what’s he saying?”

“I can’t tell. Something funky, I bet.”

“So is that weird or what?

“Pretty weird. But it doesn’t mean he’s a killer. He could just be a torturer.”

“We should go over and get a closer look.”

“Yeah, right. What if we get caught?”

“Death. Dismemberment. Extra chores.”

I peeked through the telescope again. “We’d better not. There’s definitely something wrong with this guy. At least there’s no blood on the knife. That’s a good sign.”

“Let’s go over.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t do dumb things that will get me in trouble.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t be such a wuss.”

“I’m not a wuss.”

“You’re a large, large wuss.”

“I’m not sneaking over there,” I said. “Especially not with you. I barely even know you. You could have bodies stacked in your closet. Here, open your closet so I can make sure there aren’t any bodies stacked in there.”

“Fine, whatever,” said Roger with a sigh. “I didn’t want to go over there anyway. I hope he gets the part.”

“What part?”

“The play part.”

“What play part?”

“He’s practicing for a play audition. Something about a serial killer who paces around with a butcher knife.”

I gaped at him.

Roger grinned.

“You dork!” I said. “You made this all up?”

“No, I was absolutely serious when I said that he was practicing for a play audition.”

I looked around for something to throw at him, preferably something with jagged edges and an internal combustion engine, but there wasn’t anything. I settled for calling him a dork again.

“Don’t blame me,” said Roger. “It’s your sorry excuse for a town that forced me to resort to this kind of entertainment.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Chamber.”

“Where else have you lived?”

“Chamber. But there’s nothing wrong with it.”

“Well, then what should we do?”

“We could watch some more TV.”

Two hours of quality television later, Roger chugged the last of his can of soda and let out a belch that freaked out his cat. “I was lying about him auditioning for a play,” he said.

“No, you weren’t.”

“Okay.”

I finished off my own drink and emitted my own, less-effective belch. “You know what would be funny? If somebody thought he really was a psycho killer and called the cops.”

“Wanna do it?”

“No.”

“Good. That would be wrong.”

“What if we just called him up and said ‘I know where you buried the bodies.’? We could go on and on and say ‘We know what you did, you sick twisted bastard’ and at the end of the call just say ‘We hope you get the part!’ and hang up.”

“He’d know it was us.”

“How?”

“Because we live next door, dorkwad.”

“We could pretend we were strangers from out of town who were peeking in his windows.”

Roger grinned. “It might be kind of funny.”

“Do you want to call him?”

“No, but you can.”

“I might.”

“Go for it.”

“What’s his name?”

“Dennis Catovin.”

“Have you got a phone book.”

“In the kitchen.”

We tiptoed into the kitchen (well, not literally, we just walked quietly) to avoid waking up Roger’s parents, although if they could sleep through the monster belches, they could sleep through anything. Roger handed me the phone as he looked up Dennis’s number. “Make sure you disguise your voice,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” I said, disguising my voice.

“Disguise it better.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, disguising it better. I was going for something in a low, raspy, vaguely sinister motif, but thinking back, it probably just sounded like puberty gone terribly wrong.

I dialed the number and waited.

“Hello?”

“We saw the butcher knife,” I whispered. “We know…”

“Fuck!”

A click on the other end, and then a dial tone.

“Oops,” I said.

“What happened?” Roger asked.

“He said ‘fuck’ and hung up.”

“Why did he do that?”

“I dunno.”

“Well, call him back. Let him know we were just kidding.”

I dialed again.

No answer.

And then an answer: “
Leave me alone! You didn’t see it
!”

“Uh, Dennis…?”

He hung up again.

“Okay,” I said. “That was…weird.”

“Did he know it was you?”

“He’s never even met me!”

“Is he coming over here?”

“How should I know?”

“Let’s go look!”

We hurried upstairs into Roger’s room. He immediately peeked through the telescope. “He’s there in his living room. He’s lying on the floor.”

“Is he hurt?”

“I can’t tell. The knife is next to him. Oh, jeez, what if he killed himself?”

“Should we call the police?”

“I don’t know…I don’t see any blood…”

“Maybe we should go over there.”

Roger nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”

We hurried back downstairs, quietly opened the front door, and then rushed across Roger’s yard over to his neighbor’s house.

“Should we knock?” I asked.

“No, we shouldn’t knock,” said Roger, giving me a “You’re a rather dumb person” look. He threw open Dennis’ door and we walked inside. Dennis still lay on the floor. No pool of blood that I could see. The door swung closed behind us.

“Dennis?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

No response.

“Is he breathing?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?”