Vanished in the Night (27 page)

“The girl is where it started. She’s the beginning and she will be the end.” Gary lifted his gun. Behind the Devil he could make out two more figures. “You know that I saw what you did that night, right?”

“I didn’t know. Not until now. I didn’t think anyone saw it except the people who were involved,” Burton said.

“I saw. I saw the way you kept kicking him, even after he was down on the ground, even after everyone else stopped. You kept kicking and kicking and kicking with those big, thick work boots you always wore. They looked like the kind of boots that would have steel toes.” Gary could almost hear the sickening crunch of Max’s bones again.

“I was wrong, Gary. I shouldn’t have done that. Things . . . things got out of hand.”

“You killed Max.” He wanted it stated for the record. He wanted everyone to know.

“I did. And I have spent every day since then regretting it, Gary. I can’t take back what happened that night. I wish to God I could, but I can’t.” Burton’s voice clogged with tears.

Gary regarded Burton with a detached air. “You were pretty quick to kill again to cover it up. I saw what you did to George Osborne.”

Burton hung his head. “How the hell did you see that, Gary? No one saw that. No one was there.”

“I followed you. I saw you punch him and kick him, just the way you punched and kicked Max. Kind of poetic justice, don’t you think? That the evil stepfather died the same way Max did? Then I watched you haul him up the stairs and hurl him back down. Did you really think that was going to fool anyone? Have you ever watched a single episode of
CSI?
”

“You followed me?” Burton sounded surprised.

“You were marking people for me. Your face was in the paper almost right next to Max’s. It was a sign. Max was asking me to follow you. I followed you to the Whore and I killed her, and I followed you to the Rapist and I killed him.”

“No. Oh, no,” Burton moaned.

“I like that you killed Osborne. He sent Max to Sierra and he had to pay for that.” He kicked a rock down onto Veronica. “She has to pay, too.”

“Why does she have to pay, Gary?” Burton asked. “What did she do?”

“It was her fault that Osborne sent Max away. She found the drugs in his dresser drawer and couldn’t keep her mouth shut.” He kicked some dirt into the grave and Veronica groaned.

One of the figures behind the Devil started toward
him, but the other grabbed his arm and stopped him. Gary pointed the gun down at Veronica.

“Steady there,” Gary said. “I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t miss from this distance. I could be the lousiest shot in the world and I’m pretty sure I would still take her head clean off.”

“Let her go, Gary. She didn’t do anything wrong.” Burton took a step toward him.

Gary swung the gun back up and pointed it at Burton. “She turned him in. She was a rat. We had plenty of those up at the Sierra School. You made sure of that, didn’t you? You rewarded us for ratting each other out. Rats got a little extra food. Rats got fewer chores and fewer beatings. You didn’t let Arnott take rats down into his nasty basement, did you?”

“You’re right, Gary. We did that on purpose. We wanted to keep you boys at odds with each other. It made you easier to control.”

“We were just boys!” Gary screamed. “How hard could we have been to control? You didn’t need to treat us like animals. You didn’t need to turn us against each other so we wouldn’t even have a friend.”

“We thought we were doing it right, Gary. We thought we had to break you down in order to build you back up. We just . . . we got carried away.”

“Is that what you tell yourself late at night when you can’t sleep?” He spat on the ground. “There was
something wrong with you—with all of you. But you were the one who led them. You called the shots. Old Mr. Joiner hardly knew what day it was, much less what was going on in his own school. Did he ever find out? Is that why you left so soon after you killed Max?”

Burton shook his head. “No. That wasn’t it. I . . . I couldn’t bear it. Every time I walked past that building, I could hear Max screaming all over again. Every time I went past where we buried him, I could hear him moaning. It was too much. I had to go.” Burton was shaking now. He looked as if he wouldn’t even be able to keep standing much longer.

“Oh, poor baby. So you actually had some tiny conscience and you got all tormented. Well, I don’t feel bad for you. You’re a murderer, plain and simple. You don’t deserve to live—much less happily ever after.”

A sudden glint shone in Burton’s eye. “Yes. I am a murderer. I killed Max Shelden and I killed George Osborne. That’s two people’s blood on my hands. How many people’s blood do you have on your hands, Gary? How many have you killed now?”

“Two.” Gary’s chin came up. “The Whore and the Rapist.”

“Veronica would make three, then.”

Gary nodded.

“Once you kill her, you’ll have murdered more people than I have, Gary. Doesn’t that make you a worse person than me?”

“No!” Gary yelled. “I did not kill out of anger. I did not kill for pleasure, or to protect my miserable hide. My kills were righteous. Those two deserved to know what it felt like.”

“I don’t think why you did it makes any difference, Gary. You still killed. And it’s not like it was in self-defense.”

“But it was defense.” Gary breathed harder now. “I was defending Max.”

“Max has been dead for twenty years. It’s way too late to defend him, Gary. This had nothing to do with Max.” Burton took another step toward him.

“It had everything to do with Max!” It was all about the bones, and what they were telling him to do. He didn’t get pleasure from it.

“Really? How did it have to do with Max, Gary?” Burton sounded almost amused.

“His picture was in the paper. Right next to yours. It was like he was pointing you out to me. So I followed you and where did you take me? Right to the Whore! He was leading me. He wanted me to punish her.” Gary calmed himself a little, thinking about how it had felt to watch the Whore die.

“Is that what you did, Gary? Did you punish her?”

“You wanted to punish her, too, didn’t you? I saw you slap her.” Gary smiled slyly. “All I did was punish her like she used to punish us. I tied her up the way she used to tie us up. Oh, excuse me—she
restrained
us. So I restrained her, too. I restrained her until she stopped needing to be restrained at all.”

Burton shut his eyes for a second and swayed. Slowly he opened them again. “And Arnott? What happened there?”

“You led me to him again. It was like Max was using you to show me the way. Like he was whispering in my ear.” It had been so comforting to have a friend again.

“What did you do to Arnott?” Burton asked.

Gary shrugged and looked away. “That was harder. I . . . I thought I would have enjoyed that more. I didn’t, though. That was another lesson that Max was trying to teach me. That even though I had killed, I didn’t have to be like them. I didn’t have to be like you. It didn’t have to turn me on.”

“You were worried that you were going to be like me?” Burton took another step toward him.

“Yeah. You liked what you did up there at Sierra. You can pretend that you regret it, but I remember. I remember how red your face would get, how hard you would breathe. I remember how you would go to the Whore afterward. How you’d fuck her and fuck
her and fuck her, sweating and grunting like a pig. It turned you on, didn’t it? It made you feel like a big man to kick little kids around.” Gary felt sick to his stomach remembering it.

Burton hung his head, his hands loose at his sides. “There’s no use lying to you, Gary. You know what I am. You know what I’ve done. You’ve seen the absolute worst of me.” His head came up. “But you’re not very different from me, are you?”

“I am completely different.” Bastard! He was nothing like the Devil.

“You’ve killed the same number of people I have. And maybe you’re even a little worse. I’m not a rapist.”

“Neither am I.”

“Ryan Arnott would argue that if he could. Was he already dead when you shoved that broomstick up his ass, Gary? Or did you want to hear him groan as you rammed it in?” Burton asked.

“Do you know how many of us he raped? How many times?” Gary shot back.

Burton shook his head. “No, Gary, I don’t. I intentionally tried not to know. That was wrong of me, too. I should have been the one protecting you boys, but I wasn’t. Not only was I cruel, I let others be more than cruel. I have to live with that stain on my soul, too.”

“Your soul’s so black, it’s impossible to stain it any
more. Do you have any idea of what that does to a boy? To be used that way? To be humiliated and shamed like that?

“And it didn’t stopped there. Oh, no. Cruelty breeds cruelty. Shame breeds shame. Do you know what happened in those dormitories after the lights went out?” Gary shuddered. “It was like a torture chamber. Until Max got there. Max got us to stop that. Is that part of why you killed him? Because he got us to stop feeding on each other like starving rats in a cage?”

“That was part of it. He made you all harder to control. He was a subversive element,” Burton said.

“He was a
child.
He was barely seventeen years old and he was more of a man than any of you. That’s why you had to kill him, wasn’t it?”

“Maybe so. But is it going to make
you
more of a man to kill his sister? The one person he loved more than anyone else? I heard him talk about her. The idea of going back and saving her from growing up with George Osborne was how he held on. And now you’re going to kill her?”

“She deserves to die. It’s her fault that Max died. It’s her fault that he was here. She was the beginning of it all.” Gary couldn’t let the Devil’s arguments sway him. He felt their flawed logic swirling through his brain, confusing him, making it harder to stay focused.

“Maybe so. Maybe so. I see your point about what
she did as a child being the beginning of it. But she’s not
entirely
why he’s dead, is she? We’re all a little guilty, aren’t we, Gary? Even you?”

Why did he have to sound so reasonable? “How could I be guilty? You had me so beaten down I couldn’t even defend myself.” Tears sprang to Gary’s eyes as he remembered it.

“Exactly. You couldn’t defend yourself. Do you remember what Max did, Gary? Arnott was coming for you again, wasn’t he? He had a special fondness for you, maybe because you were so small. Or because of the way you wept afterward. Who knows what turned him on about you?

“He was coming for you again. And who stood up for you? Who tried to defend you?”

“Max,” Gary whispered.

“That’s right. Max. That was his last act of defiance. His last big stand. It was protecting
you,
Gary. Not himself. Not his sister. Not anyone else. So, in a lot of ways, he died because of you, Gary.”

“No,” he whispered. “No.”

“Yes, Gary. What about the stain of guilt on
your
soul, Gary? What are you going to do about that?”

“Their blood. Their blood will wash me clean.” He had to stay focused. He had to remember why he was doing this.

“I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s what Max has
been trying to tell you to do. I think you know who needs to be punished for his death—don’t you, Gary?”

“I couldn’t stand it anymore,” he whispered. “He would come for me and there was nothing I could do. He’d make me strip and stand there while he filled that tub with ice water. Do you know what that feels like? To know what’s coming? To know what pain is just moments away, and not be able to do anything to stop it?

“But as bad as it was, as much as you wanted to get out of that tub, you knew what was coming next and you dreaded that even more. The way he’d shove himself into you. The way he’d grunt and thrust. And afterward . . . all the blood. He’d make you clean it up while he stood there and laughed. My hands would still be numb from the tub, I’d still be bleeding, and he’d make me get down on my hands and knees and clean it all up.”

“I should have seen it and stopped it, Gary—but I didn’t. It was Max who tried to stop it, didn’t he? And that’s the real issue here. Max died protecting you.”

“No. No. It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t just me. He did it for all of us.”

“Not that night, he didn’t. That night he did it just for you, Gary. Arnott wasn’t coming for anyone else. He was coming for you. The only person who stood between you and Arnott that night was Max, and he
did a pretty good job of it. Gave Arnott a hell of a shiner before we subdued him. Do you remember that, Gary? Do you remember us all coming in to take him down?”

Gary nodded. “There were four of you. Four against one kid! You dragged him out of the dormitory by his hair.”

“And where were you, Gary? Where were you while that was happening?”

“I was right there. I was watching. I saw what you did.”

“And I saw what you
didn’t
do, Gary. I saw you back in the corner, trying to hide behind one of the beds. Max was getting the crap beaten out of him for trying to keep you from getting raped again, and what did you do? You hid. You didn’t lift a finger to help him.”

“What could I have done? I was just one kid, and one of the smallest ones. Nothing I could do was going to stop you.”

“Max was just one kid. Max knew he couldn’t stop us. That didn’t stop him from trying. And not even to save his own skin. To save
yours.
Did you do anything to try to save Max that night?”

Gary had started to shake. The gun wavered in his hand, moving from Veronica to Lyle and back again. “I couldn’t. It would have been me you beat, if I had.”

“So really, Max took your beating, didn’t he? Those kicks, those punches, they weren’t really meant for Max, were they? They were meant for you. But you were too much of a chickenshit. You hid back there in your corner and watched Max die for you. He died in your place. How do you think he must have felt about that, Gary?”

“I didn’t ask him to do it.”

“But you didn’t tell him not to, either, did you?”

“No. When he stood up between me and Arnott, I was so relieved. I didn’t think I could take it anymore. I was going to lose my mind.”