All but one of the users were certain that the unsub was male. Apparently almost all unsubs were men. Women were rarely serial killers. But the fact that this unsub targeted teenage boys made it different from most cases, more likely that a woman could have been the attacker. But how would a woman overpower a teenage boy? DeadBunny wanted to know. The user, DiadeMuertos, spit back that DeadBunny was just being sexist. Call me crazy, but a stronger disposition to become a murderer was something I was okay letting the XY chromosomes take.
When I’d combed through the responses, I flipped to the next page. This one was shorter. Not as many responses. I skimmed. There was one poster who believed that it was a vagrant oil-rig worker and that the concentration of crimes was a usual part of his modus operandi, only he wasn’t at one place for long, so the cops never pieced it together. This added to the fact that as a rig hand, he would prey on small towns, ones with incompetent police forces, which by the other comments, incompetence seemed to be the prevailing opinion with regard to all police forces, anyway.
I was buying into this theory hook, line, and sinker until DeadBunny swooped in with another of his fatal counterpoints. The unsub had stashed the bodies in two completely independent areas, signaling a comfort level with the area. It couldn’t have been a nomad. It had to be a local job. I chewed through a flake of dead skin on the side of my thumb and swished it off my comforter.
Hollow Pines, Texan here, an anonymous post began. I’ve been following these events with interest and I’ve carefully drawn out the timeline and I’ve noticed one thing. A new student started at Hollow Pines High the very day before the first body was found and he was even present when the second body was found. Coincidence? Could be. His name is Adam Smith.
I snapped my laptop closed as though it might bite me. Or worse. My chest rose and fell. Shallow breaths. Nothing felt real. I clumped my blankets into my fists and squeezed just to feel grounded. Buzzing filled my ears. I looked around, unable to process what I’d read. Everything seemed normal. Posters, books, college paraphernalia. I slid my legs out from under Einstein. She looked up at me through wrinkled lids and sneezed into the soft cotton.
“Come on.” I scooped her up in my arms and set her down on the carpet. She shook her hide, jangling her collar. I held my finger to my lips. “Shhhh.” I didn’t know if she understood, but she waddled after in silence, completely content to have been allowed to come along.
I tippy-toed across the living room’s shag carpet and through the kitchen all the way to the back door. I jiggled the doorknob until it opened without a creak. Einstein rolled off the ledge, onto the driveway, and I closed the door behind her. She shuffled ahead and scratched at the cellar door.
I paused. It was one user. One person’s harebrained theory about what could have happened to those boys. None of it was true. Adam was mine. I knew him. I created him. And I could trust him.
But if that were true, what was I doing? I’d recognized the cold, metal glint in his eyes as something dangerous. I’d wondered. I’d felt my own blood run cold when he screamed beneath the shock. I’d heard him call himself a monster.
With my heart pounding, I pushed Einstein away with the side of my leg. Tonight held the first real hints of fall. There was a coolness that had been hidden all summer by the ferocious blaze of the Texas sun. That warmth had disappeared like a shower with all its hot water used up, and I slipped my hands into my sleeves before descending into the dark cellar.
TWENTY-FOUR
The brain stem includes the medulla, the pons, and the midbrain. These three parts control autonomic processes like breathing and digestion. The cerebellum sits at the back, underbelly of the brain anatomy. It controls motor skills, balance, and other cognitive functions like language and procedural memories. The medial temporal lobe near the divide of the left and right hemispheres holds the brain’s declarative and episodic memory. Finally, the hippocampus possesses the ability to store long-term memory and the adjoining amygdala processes emotional and sexual behavior.
*
“Adam?” I flicked on the lights. The glass jars magnified the specimens bobbing inside them. I quickly scoured the room. The open-jawed skeleton standing in the corner mocked me. “Adam? Come out.” I sounded angry. I imagined him cowering, scared. But he wasn’t there. The room was empty and, for the first time since Adam had taken up residence in it, it felt abandoned.