I dropped my bike in their front yard and rang the bell. I rang a second time. Max opened it with a dull expression, but his eyes lit up when he saw me.
"Check it out, man—come see what my dad got me!" He threw himself onto the couch, picking up an Xbox 360 controller and holding it up like a prize. "He can't be here for Christmas so he gave it to me early. It's awesome."
I closed the door and took off my jacket. "Cool." He was playing some racing game, and I breathed a sigh of relief— this was exactly the kind of mindless time sink I needed. "Do you have two controllers?"
"You can use Dad's," he said, pointing at the TV A second controller was sitting next to it, the cord neatly rolled up. "Just make sure you don't wreck it, because when he comes back he's going to bring Madden, and we're going to play a whole football season together. He'll be pissed if you wreck his controller."
"I'm not going to hit it with a hammer," I said, plugging it in and retreating to the couch. "Let's play."
"In a minute," he said, "I've got to finish this first." He unpaused the game and did a couple of races, assuring me between each one that it was just a tourney thing and it would be over soon but he didn't know how to save until he got to the end. Eventually, he set up a head-to-head race and we played for an hour or two. He beat me every time, but I didn't care—I was acting like a normal kid, and I didn't have to kill anybody.
"You suck," he said eventually. "And I'm hungry. You want some chicken?"
"Sure."
"We have some from last night. It was our early Christmas party for Dad." He went into the kitchen and brought back a half-empty bucket of fried chicken, and we sat on the couch watching TV and throwing the bones back in the bucket as we finished each piece. His little sister wandered in, took a piece, and quietly wandered back to her room.
"You going anywhere for Christmas?" he asked.
"Nowhere to go," I said.
"Us neither." He wiped his hands on the couch and rooted through the bones for another drumstick. "What you been doing?"
"Nothing," I said. "Stuff. You?"
"You've been doing something," he said, eyeing me. "I've barely seen you in two weeks, which means you've been doing something on your own. But what could it be? What does the psychotic young John Wayne Cleaver do in his spare time?"
"You caught me," I said, "I'm the Clayton Killer."
"That was my first guess, too," he said, "but he's only killed, what, six people? You'd do way better than that."
"More isn't automatically better," I said, turning back to the TV "Quality's got to count for something."
"I bet I know what you've been doing," he said, pointing at me with his drumstick. "You've been mackin' on Brooke."
"'Mackin'?'"Iasked.
"Making out," said Max, puckering his lips. "Getting it on. Busting a move."
"I think 'busting a move' means dancing," I said.
"And I think you are a fat liar," said Max.
"Do you mean phat with a P-H or fat with an F?" I asked.
"I can never tell with you."
"You are so totally into Brooke," he said, taking a bite of chicken and laughing with his mouth wide open. "You haven't even said no yet."
"I didn't think I had to deny something that nobody could possibly believe," I said.
"Still haven't said no."
"Why would I be after Brooke." I asked. "It doesn't even know I'm—dammit!"
"Whoa," said Max. "What's going on?"
I had called Brooke "it." That was stupid—that was. . . horrifying. I was better than that.
"Did I hit a little too close to the target?" asked Max, relaxing again.
I ignored him, staring straight ahead. Calling human beings "it" was a common trait of serial killers—they didn't think of other people as human, only as objects, because that made them easier to torture and kill. It was hard to hurt "him" or "her," but "it" was easy. "It" didn't have any feelings. "It" didn't have any rights. "It" was just a thing, and you could do whatever you wanted with "it."
"Hello," said Max. "Earth to John."
I'd always called corpses "it," even though Mom and Margaret made me stop if they heard me. But I'd never called a person "it," ever. I was losing control. That was why I came to see Max, to get in control again, and it wasn't working.
"You want to see a movie?" I asked.
"You want to tell me what the crap is going on?" asked Max.
"I need to see a movie," I said, "or something. I need to be normal—we need to do normal stuff."
"Like sitting on the couch and talking about how normal we are?" asked Max. "Us normal people do that all the time."
"Come on, Max, I'm serious! This whole thing is serious! Why do you think I even came here!"
His eyes narrowed. "I don't know," he said, "why did you come here?"
"Because I'm . . . something's happening," I said. "I'm not... I don't know! I'm losing it."
"Losing what?"
"Everything," I said, "I'm losing it all. I broke all the rules, and now the monster's out, and I'm not even me anymore. Can't you see?"