The little girl is on her knees, crying before the desiccated corpse.
I swallow the bile that threatens to inch past my throat and move toward the child. She looks up at me, her beautiful blue eyes tear-stained and red from weeping.
“Daddy’s not moving,” she cries.
I don’t know what to say to her.
But I do what I can. I carry her away from her dead father, and she clings to my neck like I was not responsible. I keep my mask on but stay longer than I should—long enough to see her tucked into the bed of that small room and to watch her cry herself to sleep. Long enough to lie to her, to tell her he’s in a better place.
I call 911 from a nearby phone booth, keeping my voice a whisper as I relay details to the operator. I tell her I heard screams coming from one of the motel rooms but was too scared to check it out. I never remove my gloves, never put my hoodie down, and wipe the phone clean just to be certain. I make sure to leave no traces of myself behind.
I don’t wait for the police or the ambulance to arrive.
Instead, I drive until I find another parking lot—at a Costco—and stop the car so I can hold my head in my hands, with only the occasional sounds of vehicles passing by to break through the guilt I feel.
Sometimes I forget that assholes have children too.
“Tarquin?” I hear Okiku ask, the worry echoing in her rattling whisper. She understands that this can take a lot out of me, some days worse than others, but it’s not like either of us has any choice in the matter. She says my name again, and her voice changes.
“Tarquin.” I feel her hand on my hair. Then both her hands reach down to gently cup my face, and I look up to find her studying me. She’s adopted human guise again, and while her hands are cold to the touch, her eyes are warm. When she hugs me, it’s awkward because Okiku never really learned how.
It’s not like we both have any other options.
“I’m fine now,” I say after a minute, squeezing her hand. “Let’s get home.”
But she shakes her head. “No.”
“No?”
She turns to me, and I realize with dismay that the
take their eyes their limbs their heads
gouge out the pretties gouge
slither slither tiny festers hate
malice isn’t completely gone from either of us. Ki’s gotten hold of another scent, and the voices aren’t letting go until that’s over and done with too.
I check the time—9:30 p.m. Early enough for one more hunt. I don’t want to spend another night with crazy in my head if I can help it.
“Where to?”
Chapter Four
The Party
“I can’t believe you actually made it!” Trish Seyfried squeals as I walk in.
I can’t believe it either. Pulling up beside the McNeil residence felt even more incredulous than stopping by Five Guys, but Okiku doesn’t waver in that regard.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Ki.”
It’s a rhetorical question, but she shakes her head.
“McNeil’s? There’s a killer at McNeil’s? If you wanted to go to the party, you didn’t need to go through this roundabout way to—”
filthy necks kill strangle him take him
take the eyes
Ah, hell.
“Fine, fine,” I grumble, still half convinced this is all a mistake. If there was a killer studying at Pembrooke High, I know I would have spotted him long before this. “At least let me check it out before we do anything.”
The implication that someone I know from school might be a murderer isn’t lost on me. For once, I’m letting morbid curiosity take the reins. Something tells me I’m not going to like it, but I want to confront whoever it is before I sic Okiku on him.
There’s a reason I don’t go to these parties, and I’m already regretting setting foot in the place. Though the host is one of the few popular kids who’s never gone out of his way to bully me, Keren McNeil’s a wide receiver beloved for his ability to catch sixty-yard passes as if there aren’t a dozen defenders on his tail. He’s nice enough for a jock, except he hangs around with big-headed athletes like Matheson who talk smack about smack and treat the rest of us common mortals like dirty jockstraps. A lot of girls find these guys attractive, which is why I don’t understand a lot of girls.
I flash Trish a weak smile and catch sight of Kendele sitting on a couch with her back toward me, Hank Armstrong’s burly arm around her shoulders. The smile twists into a grimace. “Yeah, well, thanks for inviting me.”