Speak No Evil_ A Novel - Allison Brennan [4]
Jim shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think he glued her mouth shut, then suffocated her.”
He had first killed twelve years ago.
That victim hadn’t been human, wasn’t even a mammal. But he remembered the day with vivid nostalgia as the day he gained a mature self-awareness and an inkling of the darkness inside.
He’d been sitting on the front steps of his house waiting for his mother’s friend to leave so he could go inside and watch cartoons. He hated sitting here by himself doing nothing. His mom wouldn’t let him leave the yard, but she wouldn’t let him inside when one of her special friends visited, even when it was really cold or hot.
He heard shouts down the street. “Get back here, you motherfucker!” an older boy—a bully, Tommy Jefferson—screamed at Jason Porter, the little black kid who lived on the corner in the only two-story house on the block.
Jason looked scared and was running fast, but Tommy and another kid caught up to him and tackled him right there on the sidewalk. His head hit with a dull whack on the cement and left a smear of blood. Red dripped down Jason’s face as one of the boys pulled him up and shook him back and forth so his head flopped.
The big kids shouted bad words at Jason and pushed him down again, but Jason managed to jump up and run quickly back up the street. The bullies were surprised and raced after him, but Jason got inside his house before they caught up.
He watched the bullies throw rocks at the door until Jason’s mother came out, a steak knife in hand, Jason at her side. She used some of the same bad words they’d used on her son.
“Tommy, you touch my son one more time and I’ll cut off every one of your fingers, don’t you forget it!”
The kids ran off, laughing.
Jason’s mother slammed the door shut and the neighborhood became quiet. He was alone on the porch again. He wondered if his mother would protect him from bullies like Jason’s mom. He doubted it.
A butterfly fluttered into the yard. It flew from one dying flower to another, searching for something it couldn’t find, its black-and-orange wings pumping up and down. When it finally landed on a wilted petunia near him, he leaned forward and captured the creature in his fist. It trembled against his closed hand, the insect’s little body moving frantically.
The screen door slammed behind him and he jumped.
“You can go back in now, kid,” the man said as he walked down the stairs.
“When my daddy comes home he’s going to kill you.”
The man laughed as he got into his truck and drove away.
He pouted and thought about what Jason’s mom said. Maybe next time that man came over he could cut off all his fingers.
Something caught his eye on the sidewalk where Jason had fallen. Curious, he crossed the dry lawn and squatted. On the rough surface of the cement a layer of skin and some blood dried in the summer sun. He pictured Jason’s bleeding face and the large scrape on the side of his head.
Cool.
Something moved in his hand. He looked at his closed fist, then opened it just a bit, a bug curled in his sweaty palm. He picked it up by a wing and it tried to fly away. Grabbing both the butterfly’s wings, one in each hand, he watched the legs and antennae frantically reaching out, trying to get away.
He was fascinated by the struggle. So much movement, but it wasn’t getting anywhere.
Slowly, he pulled the wings from the body of the bug. One came off clean, but the other tore. The dying bug fell to the sidewalk, its body jumping, squirming.
He stared, fascinated and detached at the same time, until what remained of the butterfly stopped moving. It took several minutes. Peering closely, he realized it wasn’t dead. He pushed it with his finger; it jumped once, twice, then stopped.
He brought the pieces of the butterfly into the kitchen to find an old jar to keep them in.
The bug was not much more than dust twelve years later, but the old mayonnaise jar still rested on his nightstand.
It had taken him nearly two hours to remove all traces of the slut from his bedroom. He wrinkled his nose