Three months ago. The best.
And last night she had done everything in her power to kill him.
“I’ll kill you if I have to – to get to him.”
Suddenly Mary was at the door, being led inside by a uniformed officer. She sat down in a chair across from Angela. The chair was metal, bolted to the floor, and Mary was handcuffed to it with her good hand. She had already changed into prison clothes. The grey shirt and trousers looked like unwashed pyjamas – baggy and unflattering. Angela was appalled at the change in her friend's appearance.
Ordinarily Mary was a beauty. Her brown hair was cut short, as was Angela's, but it wasn't the same because Mary's had that extra gloss that separated the blessed from the non-blessed. At least that was what Angela had told Mary not long after they'd met. Mary had been quick to disagree. Mary's eyes were large and liquid green, Angela's a simple blue. Mary was voluptuous – in a bathing suit she could turn heads a hundred yards away. Angela was slight and had trouble gaining weight, probably because she seldom ate much.
Eating wouldn't be a priority that day. Just looking at Mary took away her appetite. Mary had a huge bandage wrapped round her head, and the doctors had not spared her hair while treating her wound. They had lopped off a handful of it right at the top. Common treatment for a murderess, Angela supposed. Her right hand was bandaged to her wrist. Nguyen could shoot straight.
Mary stared across the table at her with bloodshot eyes.
“Well,” Angela said.
“Well,” Mary muttered.
“How's your head?”
“I don't know.”
“Does it hurt?” Angela asked.
“I don't know.”
“Did you sleep last night?”
“A little. Did you?”
“Some,” Angela said.
“That's good. What are you doing here?”
“I came to see how you're doing.”
“I'm all right. Anything else?”
“Yeah.”
“What?” Mary said.
“You know what. What the hell happened?”
Mary shrugged. “You were there. You saw it all.”
“That's not what I mean, and you know it. Why did you do it?”
Mary acted bored. “If I told you, you wouldn't believe me.”
“Try me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You won't believe me.”
“Mary, you killed two people. You almost killed a third – Jim. How do you feel about that?”
Mary stared at the floor. “I feel nothing.”
“Nothing? Not even regret? God, do you know what you've done to their families?”
Mary took a breath. “I feel bad for their families. I also feel regret.”
Angela sighed. “I know you must.”
“I regret that the cop stopped me before I could get Jim.”
Angela was exasperated. “Why? What did Jim do to you?”
Mary raised her eyes to Angela's. “He didn't do anything to me.”
Angela paused. “Did he do anything to anyone else?”
“Trust me, Angie. There's no point in talking about it.”
“What did Jim do?” Angela insisted.
A bitter chuckle escaped Mary. “Boy, if you only knew.”
A remark Mary had made the previous night came back to Angela right then.
“Because he's not human.”
“Not human,” Angela whispered.
Mary was instantly alert. “What?”
“You said last night that Jim wasn't human.”
“No. I didn't.”
“I heard you, Mary. I remember. Don't deny it. Why did you say that?”
Mary changed. No longer was she bored, indifferent, or defiant. She was pale, and her check twitched. She was scared. This in itself frightened Angela more than anything the previous night had. Mary turned away and pressed her hands to her face.
“Because it's true,” she said.
Angela reached across the table and touched Mary’s arm. “What's true? What did he do?”
Mary was having trouble breathing. “Horrible things.”
“Tell me?”
Mary slowly raised her head. “You won't believe me,” she said for the third time.
“Try me. Please? I’ll believe you.”
Mary chewed on her lower lip. She was thinking, but not normal thoughts. There was a faraway look in her eyes, and where those eyes were focused was not a happy place.
“Todd and Kathy,” she said finally, “were not human beings anymore. That's why I killed them.”
“You mean they did something inhuman? They hurt somebody?”
“I mean they were no longer like you and me.”
Angela had no idea what she was talking about. “What were they, then?”
Mary's lower lip trembled. “Monsters.”
“Mary?”
Mary smiled, a grotesque twisting of her face. “I told you.”
“No. Tell me more. I don't understand.”
Mary sat back in her chair and stared at Angela. “You want me to start at the beginning?”
“Yes.”
“It'll be a waste of time.”
“I have plenty of time to waste.”
Mary closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them and began to speak, her tone had changed. She spoke softly and simply, as if she were recounting a great tragedy.
“You know how the cheerleaders and the football players practise before school starts at the beginning of September,” Mary said. “They meet and go through their routines and their plays. They do this every year. Well, this year you also know that I was seeing Jim. Sometimes I'd be bored and drive over to the school in the morning, just to watch the guys bang heads. I'd watch the girls on the squad work out, too.” Mary shrugged. “That's when I began to get a clue.”
“A clue to what?” Angela asked.
Mary frowned, as if remembering her confusion at the time. “I’d watch the guys, and notice how Jim and Todd stood out. I don't mean in a normal way. They've always been excellent athletes. What got me was that all of a sudden they were too good. Todd was a linebacker, and Jim the quarterback. Jim would hand the ball off to Todd, and no one could stop him. He wouldn't even bother dodging. He simply mowed down anyone in his path. Guys would crumble as if he were made of steel. When Jim would pass, he'd throw tight, clean spirals that could barely be seen. When one of his passes hit a receiver, the guy would double up as if he'd been shot. Those passes hurt, and I mean hurt. The coaches thought it was great, but I saw guys staggering off the field shaking their heads and clutching their stomachs, refusing to come back.”
“That happens all the time in football practice,” Angela said.
Mary ignored the remark. “Then there were the girls. Kathy was head cheerleader. I'd watch the squad practice and they'd do some kind of pyramid thing, and Kathy would come from out of left field and vault on to the of the other girls. She'd leap up ten feet easy. Right off the ground.”
“That's not possible.”
Mary went on. “I began to watch those three. Jim, Todd, Kathy. You might think that's weird. After all, Jim was my boyfriend. Of course I didn't need to watch him – I saw him all the time. But the truth was that I wasn't going out with him much. He didn't call me as he had, and when I was around him he was aloof. But that wasn't all there was to it. He had changed in some way that I couldn't explain. He would talk about the same things, but you know that feeling you get when someone's talking about something that they don't really believe in? Or that they have no interest in?”
“Yes.”
“I felt Jim was just mouthing words because it was expected of him. He would hold me, he would kiss me – we continued to make love when my parents weren't around. But he wasn't with me. He wasn't there.”
“So?” Angela said. “He was losing interest in you. I’m sorry, Mary, but it happens all the time. It doesn't mean he was a monster.”
Mary showed impatience. “I tell you he was different, and I know what I'm talking about because I knew him. His mind, his heart – when I was with him they weren't there.”
“Where were they?” Angela asked.
“Gone.”
Angela shook her head. “I still don't know what you're talking about. If he acted so indifferent to you, why did you go to the trouble of watching his practices?”
“Good question. I think I went because I needed proof that he had changed.”
“Mary.”
“Let me go on. There was a time – I think it was about two weeks ago – that I went to practice for only a few minutes. I accidentally left my purse and had to go back for it. When I got there none of the guys was on the field, and all the cheerleaders appeared to have left also. I noticed that the weight room was still open and walked over to it. By then I had no hope left for Jim and me. I didn't walk into the weight room, I peeped in, slyly. Yeah, I was definitely looking for something unusual. And I got it.”
“What did you see?” Angela asked.
“Kathy and Todd and Jim were inside. They were alone, lifting weights. Have you ever seen a cheerleader lifting weights? I haven't, but I suppose that isn't so strange. But good old Kathy – she wasn't pumping a few extra pounds to give her arms tone. I saw her lift at least a thousand pounds straight over her head.”
“That's impossible,” Angela said.
“I know. But I saw her do it.”
“You must have misjudged the weight on the bar.”
“No. In fact, the bar she was using bent after she lifted it, she had so much weight on it. What do you think it would take to bend one of those metal bars? A strong girl, that Kathy.”
“Were Jim and Todd lifting as much?”
“I couldn't tell. They were working the machines. But it seemed as if they were pushing the machines to the limit, without sweating. Here's something else: when Kathy made her dramatic lift, neither of the guys seemed to notice. The whole time I stood there watching them not a single word was said. The atmosphere was cold as a morgue.”
Angela considered. “Anything else?”
“Yes.” Mary leaned forward on the table. She had begun her tale with no hope of convincing Angela, but now she had warmed up. Now it was clear she wanted Angela to believe her. “After the incident in the weight room I began to spy on them. I noticed that they hung out together a lot. They'd go off alone to a corner of campus and talk. I also noticed that none of them ever smiled unless someone else was around. I stopped going out with Jim altogether, but I often drove over to his house at night and sat down the street in my car – waiting.”
“For what?” Angela asked.
“For him to come out and play with his strange friends.”
“You talk like they were vampires.”
Mary's eyes grew dark. “They were worse than vampires. One night I was waiting outside Jim's house – it was after midnight – and he went out and drove off in his car. I followed him and he picked up Todd and Kathy. They went here, to Balton, to a bar. I assumed they'd be tossed out because they were under-age, but they stayed inside until two o'clock, when the bar closed. When they came out they had two couples with them. The other four appeared to be in their early twenties. They were all laughing and carrying on. It was obvious to me the new people were drunk. I was sitting across the street in an all-night coffee shop. I couldn't hear everything they were saying, but I caught the words party and orgy and warehouse. Jim and Todd and Kathy were trying to convince the two couples to go with them, and they must have done a good job because the others got in their car and followed Jim as he drove away. I had to hurry to catch up with them. Jim headed to the edge of town. He parked in the deserted lot of a boarded-up warehouse. The others parked beside him. They were still laughing and talking out loud as they followed Jim and Kathy and Todd inside the warehouse.”
“How did they get inside if it was boarded up?” Angela asked.
“Jim prised the boards off the door with a crowbar.”
“Why didn't he pull them off with his hands if he was so strong?”
“I don't think he wanted to demonstrate his strength – yet.”
“Those two couples must have been awfully stupid to go into a warehouse that was clearly deserted. Especially if they thought they were going to a party.”
“I told you how drunk they were,” Mary said. “And you know how sweet and innocent those three could look. They could pose for a picture on American values for a Christian TV station. Anyway, the point is they went inside. I stashed my car down the block and waited outside the warehouse behind a stack of crates for them to come out. They did, about an hour later. At least Jim and Todd and Kathy came out – not the others.”
“What happened to them?” Angela asked.
Mary leaned an inch closer. “They were killed. Our innocent all-Americans murdered them.”
“You saw this?”
Mary sat back and waved her white-bandaged hand in disgust. “Of course I didn't see it directly. I told you, I waited outside. But when Jim and Todd and Kathy emerged they were carrying those giant green plastic bags you put garbage in. They each had one thrown over a shoulder. They threw them in the trunk of Jim's car and drove off. It made me wonder. I walked back to my car and got a flashlight. I returned to the warehouse and crept inside. At first I didn't see anything. The place was empty, with dust everywhere. I called out, but no one answered. Then I saw this area on the floor. Here all the dust was brushed away.” Mary stopped and shut her eyes. She took a deep breath, then another, but seemed not to let either go. Angela found herself leaning forward.
“What did you see?” Angela asked.
Mary opened her eyes. She shook her head. “Blood.”
“Blood?”
“Blood.” Mary lowered her head to sure at her bandaged hand, perhaps thinking of the blood that was now on her hands. “Most of it had been wiped away, off the concrete floor. They were careful, but not careful enough. There was still blood left to see.”
“There were no bodies?”
“No,” Mary said.
“Torn clothes? Bloody clothes?”
“No.” Mary looked up wearily. “I think our dear classmates took the clothes with them in the green garbage bags.”
“I thought you were implying that the bags contained the bodies of the two couples,” Angela said.
“Hardly. The bags were not that big.”
“Then the bodies — What are you saying, Mary?”
Mary met her eye straight. “They're monsters. What do monsters have for dinner?”
Angela was appalled. “They didn't eat them, for God’s sake.”
“I don't think God had anything to do with what they did to those four.”
“Mary.”
“Seven people went in that warehouse, Angie. Only three came out.”
It was Angela's turn to close her eyes and shake her head. Shake it all out of her head, she wished. These awful images Mary so easily invoked. Super strength, strange appetites. All this from a girl who had killed two people only twelve hours ago. What was she to believe from such a person? Nothing – she could believe none of it if she wanted to be sane.
Mary’s raving. She can’t accept what she’s done and she’s invented this fantasy. There are no monsters.
Angela opened her eyes. “Why didn't you go straight the police and tell them what you'd seen?” she asked.
“I wouldn't have been able to prove that Jim and Todd and Kathy had killed the two couples.”
“But the people at the bar would have been able to confirm that they all left together. And you had the blood-stains on the warehouse floor.”
“I did go back to the bar – but to the owner it had been just another night of faceless people. He couldn't remember anybody. I also went back to the warehouse a couple of days later. The bloodstain had been washed away.”
“By who?”
Mary shrugged. “Probably by them. I t
hink they began to suspect they were being followed.”
“What makes you say that?” Angela asked.
“It was just an impression. The next time I saw Jim, he looked at me funny.”
“What was the name of the warehouse?”
“I don't know if it had a name.”
“Do you know the address?”
“No,” Mary said. “But I could show it to you.”
“Could you draw me a map to it?” Angela asked.
“I don't think so.”
Angela nodded. Mary was dodging every chance to have her story verified. It was all an illusion. “You should have gone to the police if you believed you saw what you did,” Angela said.
Mary exploded. “And tell them what? That I saw a cute little cheerleader lift a thousand pounds over her head? That my ex-boyfriend eats people? I would have been shown the door faster than you could blink.”
“Mary,” Angela said patiently. “They’re not going to show you the door now.”
Mary quietened. “I had to do what I did. I had to stop them while there was still time.”
“What do you mean?”
Mary was defensive. “Nothing.”
“You've told me this much. You may as well tell me the rest.”
“Why? I can see what you're thinking. Mary went berserk and now she's concocted this crazy story to try to explain why.”
“That's not true,” Angela lied.
“It is true. I told you, you wouldn't believe me. Well? Do you? See?” Mary was angry at herself. “I must have been crazy to think you would.”
“How come the two couples were never reported missing? That would have been big news in these parts.”
Mary frowned again. “I don't know why. I suspect though, that Jim and Todd and Kathy only picked up people who were passing through.”
“You think they killed people every night?”
“I think they had strong appetites.”
“Look, what do you want from me, Mary? All right, I don't believe your story. It's too ridiculous. If I was in your position and I told you the same thing, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“That's true.”