- Blood in the Gutter
- By Jenna McDonald
"Nine one one. What is your emergency?"
"Come quickly," I say. "I'm about to kill my son." I place the phone down on the kitchen table, leaving it off the hook so that they can trace the call. Then I pick up my gun, new and shiny, glimmering like polished bone in the moonlight, and walk into Max's room. The window is open but the night is silent, as if the dead are waiting to claim their own. He sleeps, looking like an angel.
And here I stand, my hands so sweaty the gun keeps slipping. As my heartbeat races, I look down at my sleeping son, sandy blonde hair falling into his eyes. He looks innocent. That's so rare, anymore. Sometimes it seems . . .
". . . Almost as if he's another person," Max's principal said, frowning. "As though there are two of him. One who's violent and another who's calm. The violent side seems to be coming out more often." He reached for a folder on his desk, thick with reports of what Max had been caught doing over the past year. "I'm aware that boys can be mischievous, but he seems . . . disturbed."
Angela shook her head, ready to defend her son, but was interrupted by a noise in the hallway where Max waited. As one, the adults stood, hurrying to the door. Angela reached it first, opening it and stepping out so the principal could follow.
Max knelt before them on the floor, blood on his face and hands. He was cradling a dead mouse lovingly, smiling slightly as he traced the broken line of its body with an index finger.
Horror and shock colored Angela's voice, making the word a whisper. "Max?"
His head snapped up, a snarl on his lips, an odd look in his blue eyes that was gone almost as quickly as it had arrived. As he looked at them, Angela watching her son in disbelief, a puzzled expression came over his face. Slowly, hesitantly, his eyes not leaving his mother's until his head could turn no farther, he twisted and looked down at the mouse he held in his hands.
"Oh, God!" Max yelped, dropping it and leaping backward. His gaze shot down to his bloody hands, and he wiped them off on his pants. Even his breathing trembled as he looked from the streaks of crimson to the mouse. "Christ."
He used to be so careful with animals. He would find baby birds fallen from their nests and bring them home. We'd give them to a vet, or send them off to the animal care center. Max would call and check on them daily, until he was told that they'd grown up enough to fly away.
Stray cats and dogs would find their way to Max, somehow, recognizing that he was a soul who would care for them.
The animals stopped coming several years ago.
Angela jumped as the barking started, the large rottweiler racing to the edge of the fence before digging large, blunt claws into the ground and stopping. The noise it made was horrendous. One moment the dog had been lying in the sun, warming itself, and the next it had charged across the short expanse of lawn in an attempt to attack Angela and Max through the chain link fence as they walked along the sidewalk.
Angela shook her head slightly to herself, frowning. She had never owned a dog, but surely there was a way to keep them from terrorizing others.
"I never understood why people would let their animals get so wild," she murmured to the boy walking beside her.
Max looked up, apparently not even having noticed the dog, and frowned slightly. With an absent toss of his head he twitched sandy hair out of clear blue eyes and shrugged. "It probably doesn't bark at everyone."
A wry smile twisted Angela's lips as they turned the corner. She stepped behind Max to avoid running into the mailbox, then slid back up. "You think it's just us personally, huh?"
Her tone had been teasing, but when Max looked up he was very solemn. "Yeah," he said quietly, glancing back over his shoulder toward where they could still hear the dog. "I do."
The breeze rattles the verticals lightly. They tick together, a steady tap-tapping rhythm that's a direct counterpoint to the rise and fall of Max's chest. In his sleep he looks sweet; the blond baby I raised grown into young adulthood.
I can't tell what it is about him that animals don't like anymore. But it isn't only animals; it's people, too. Adults who give him odd looks in the grocery store, though they have no reason to do so. Teenage girls who chitter and move aside when we walk anywhere. Not even the boys in his class will speak with him, and he doesn't have any friends.
"Bang! No, idiot, now you fall down," Jimmy snapped, dropping his 'gun' and storming to where Zach stood, sulking.
"I don't want to," Zach mumbled, folding his arms across his chest and glaring at Jimmy.
"Too bad! I shot you!"
"No you didn't. I ducked."
Jimmy glared.
Zach glared back.
"Maybe he has a healing factor," a new voice offered, hesitant.
Jimmy and Zach exchanged glances that said clearly the speaker was stupid.
"There is no such thing as a healing factor," Jimmy said condescendingly. Zach snickered.
Max shoved his hands into his pockets, studying his toes. "Is too," he muttered unhappily. "Hybrids have them. Hybrids are real. They are."
"Whatever," Jimmy answered, shaking his head. He looked at Zach and rolled his eyes, and Zach giggled.
"I'm not dumb," Max snapped. "They're real, I read about them!"
"In comic books!" Jimmy laughed. "And movies, maybe. Stupid movies that only dorks watch, and stupid comic books that only dorks read. We don't play stupid games where people have 'healing factors' or 'super strength' or anything stupid like that." Jimmy glared at Max, daring him to object.
Max hunched his shoulders and scowled at the ground as if it had something to do with Jimmy's comments.
"And no," Jimmy continued, sneering. "You can't play." He smiled smugly, only to have that smile falter as Max looked up once more. Max seemed . . . different, suddenly. He stood with a quietness about him that spoke of a predator, and when he smiled it was without mirth. "You can't play," Jimmy repeated, somehow angry at this unexpected shift in Max's disposition.
Max's smile turned into a grin, a feral baring of teeth that did nothing to express good humor.
"Go away!" Jimmy snapped, and picked up his 'gun,' throwing it at Max.
Max ducked and chuckled quietly as a teacher came running out, shouting at Jimmy.
"Freak!" Jimmy yelled, and Max laughed. Then the teacher reached Jimmy and was scolding him, though Jimmy wasn't listening. "You're a freak," Jimmy hissed, "a crazy weirdo!"
Max stopped smiling. No emotion crossed his features, which, somehow, was far more frightening than anything else.
"I hope you go to hell!" Jimmy snarled as the teacher hauled him inside.
Max watched, cold blue eyes following the larger boy.
That afternoon, after everyone had gotten out of school, Jimmy disappeared. It was hours before someone finally found him, curled in the corner of a small, dank alley, his blood coloring the water around him, draining into the gutter. Claw marks ran down his back like trenches, a broken rib pierced his lung. He never told what had happened. And he never spoke to Max again.
This is my son. And I'm going to kill him. I'm doing the right thing.
I am.
I must be. God help me if I'm not.
What if I'm not?
But . . . there was the murder. A week ago.
"How horrible," Angela said, watching as the news report told of a man mauled in a downtown parking lot. The police were looking for a serial killer, a strong person who had a penchant for knives.
"What's horrible?" The voice was soft, velvety. A young voice, that of a boy who would be a man someday too soon.
Angela jumped at the noise and turned swiftly, not having heard Max as he walked to the sink. She turned off the television, then twisted back and leaned against the counter tiles, shivering at the cold. For several long moments Angela watched as Max turned on the water and dipped his hands beneath, letting the liquid run off in streams.
"Someone was killed. Gutted," Angela answered Max's question at last. He was fifteen and would hear about it at school if she didn't tell him now, that much she was well aware of.
The reaction she got wasn't one she was expecting. Max smiled slightly, as though remembering something he was fond of, and stared vacantly at the water cascading off his hands.
Angela suppressed a shudder. The water was pink. She opened her mouth to ask why, and after a tension-filled moment decided she wouldn't. It could have been her imagination; the water was clear again. It could have been that Max had gotten cut. Bracing herself to hear she was right, Angela once more opened her mouth to ask.
Max looked up then, and smiled at her. A cold smile, as if he were laughing privately.
Angela's stomach twisted. Max didn't get cut. Ever. She didn't know why. She closed her mouth once more and watched as, with a flick of his wrist, Max killed the water and then dried his hands on the dish towel. He was noiseless as he padded to the refrigerator and opened it, spilling pale white light across his compact body. He pulled out a soda and let the door go, allowing it to close on its own.
Angela's breath caught as a single long claw slid smoothly out of Max's middle finger, and he snapped the tab off his can easily. They both watched as the tab arced away through the air, and hit the tile floor with a lonely 'tink' in the deathly still room. Angela's already pale skin drained of all color as the claw slid back as silently as it had come out. Her mind worked frantically, emotions crossing her face as they manifested in her mind.
People didn't have claws. It simply wasn't possible.
I have no proof the killer was him.
I tighten my grip on the gun. I can hear wailing sirens like wraiths coming closer through the silent and dark night, flashing blood red light on the buildings they pass. My heart stops as I see Max's cold blue eyes flutter open, and he looks up at me calmly. "You're afraid." It isn't a question; it's a fact. And he's right.
Afraid of him, and what he's become. Afraid for my safety.
Maybe it's my fault. I don't even know who his parents are. I swore to protect him as my own, and now . . .
"Don't worry, Ms. Castile," the woman said, brushing imaginary lint off her perfectly creased slacks. She smiled to the young mother standing before her and continued, "We'll find a good home for him." A frown marred the woman's smooth forehead, and she added quietly, "All the paperwork has been finished, but are you sure you don't want to help pick the family?"
Kelly Castile smiled and brushed her thick brown hair away from hazel eyes that darted nervously around the adoption services office. "I'm sure. Wherever he goes, he'll be well taken care of." A questioning gaze flickered about, seeing framed pictures, a nondescript landscape painting, pencils lined neatly in a tray, papers piled on one end of the clean desk. That anxious search finally arrested on the baby as it lay there, blowing saliva bubbles. Kelly's stomach churned and she barely suppressed a shudder at the sight of the child. She couldn't kill it. No matter what she thought, she couldn't do that.
Kelly managed a smile at the woman as they exchanged parting pleasantries, and then made her way as quickly as she could out the door.
God help whoever adopted that creature.
I must have done something wrong. Maybe I didn't read enough parenting books, or maybe it's because I didn't have a male role model for him.
There must be something--anything--I can do. I can't kill him.
"What's wrong, Mom? Scared? Of li'l ol' me?"
The voice is taunting. Quiet. Calm. He's enjoying this.
Jesus Christ. This isn't my son. Not anymore. Whatever this . . . thing . . . is, it killed my son. The boy I raised must already be dead.
I shoot him. Once, in the neck, I think. I'm not a good shot. He snarls, the liquid flooding into his windpipe and giving his animal-like noise an odd, bubbly sound. Then he lunges at me, his own blood already on his hands and arms. Things seem to move slowly, glacier-like, as his claws rake my forearms and I shoot him again, in the chest.
And I shoot him again.
And again.
And again.
Angela looked down at the week old baby lying in her arms. He was so tiny, so trusting. His eyes, a blue that was almost painful to look at, watched her with the complete certainty that she would never hurt him, though she was a single mother who had never had a baby. Angela smiled and prayed fervently that she would be able to live up to that trust.
The police are here. Their cars spill gory red light on my lawn. Reporters, like buzzards coming in for the kill, are already swarming the place. Like flies to dead meat.
There's blood on my carpet. It's going to be hard to clean up. Already it's turned black and crusty.
The officer beside me keeps talking, trying to get me to respond. It's morbid somehow, how they can keep going even with a dead body in the next room. I want to scream at him, to tell him to be quiet, tell him to stop talking to me because I can't think right now.
I don't.
A man on my other side sips coffee, and I watch the steam rising up from the mug like bad special effects in a graveyard horror movie. A reporter breaks through the barrier and comes charging this way, his team of cameramen struggling to come with him. The cops are on the man instantly, pushing him away and out again. He's still screaming questions at me as he goes, but it's not hard to tune him out. Somewhere in the back of my mind I know the reporters are all there, I can hear their sharp calls. Harpies, trying to get through the gates of hell, the hastily erected police barrier.
The police. There must be thirty of them in his room alone.
He's dead.
A shudder runs down my spine. Thank God.
But I killed my own son.
Thank God.
Three more medics enter his room.
"Sir?" Another paramedic. The man talking to me turns around. The other watches me like I'm a wild animal, ready to kill again at any moment.
"Yes?" from the man turned away.
"It looks like he'll be okay."
No.
The medic eyes me. "The blood must be hers; he's not hurt."
That can't be. He's dead. I shot him.
I saw him bleed, choke.
His eyes had glazed over.
I saw him die.
He walks out of the room with a white-robed paramedic, his blond hair ruffled slightly by the breeze coming through the open door. Smiles at me knowingly. Rubs his throat where I shot him.
He's healed.
The medic puts a hand on his back and starts leading him out into the black and hopeless night.
Max turns back just before leaving. Looks at me. Blows a kiss. Smiles, showing sharp fangs under blood-thirsty eyes.
I start screaming.
I never stop.
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