Spare the Lambs (3 page)

As if her acceptance was the last test, Gerald introduced everyone else.  Samantha, or Sammy as she liked to be called, was a sickly looking girl.  She was sixteen and I found out later that she was dating Gerald.  That gave me an insane hope for the future of me and my goddess.  Sammy had long straight
black
hair that made her oily skin look even paler.  She was an inch taller than I was and her eyes were an odd shade of green that made her look slightly supernatural.  Large puffy bags
drew
my attention to her eyes more than the shape of her nose or thin lips.

I thought she was on drugs, like the hard stuff.  She had paper white skin that you could see some of her veins through.  It looked like little blue lines ran along the skin of her arms.   She always wore tight jeans and shirts that hugged her
body
, no matter the weather.  Her
body
was thin and almost boyish.  The skimpy clothing didn’
t
keep her warm enough, the slight blue tint to her skin was not appealing.  Much later, I
realized
those bags under her eyes had to be from nightmares, because my eyes match hers now.

Over time, I noticed that she never seemed to be alive until Gerald was around.  She would sit silently in a corner or stared out the glassless windows.  If I managed to get her attention she would stare at me with a far off look in her eyes, as if she stared through me.  When Gerald came in she would be filled with life, like a tree in springtime.  She touched him all the time, as if to make sure he was real, and was always at his side.

The two boys looked so similar, even with the slight age difference, they could have been identical twins.  But, as far as I know, they weren’
t
related.  Their names were
James
, fourteen when I met them, and Lee who was thirteen.  They had short cropped hair of almost the same shade of dark
brown
.  Both had blue eyes but Lee’s were a few shades lighter.  They were very close and looked like they were constantly planning a prank that could hurt someone.  Tattered jeans and band
t
-shirts were their standard uniform.  Both were
left handed
as well, the only two in the group.

James and Lee had to be a one in a billion pair.  They make me believe in that whole doppelganger thing someone told me about.  They were tricksters as well.  I got quite a few bruises, minor cuts, and a sprained ankle thanks to their pranks.  Once I had to run home with my pants split up the back because of a joke.  Lily saw and I avoided the group for almost a week in shame.  I wasn’
t
the only target for their
humor
, everyone got it and we always laughed about it later.

After some light “get to know you” conversions, they brought out the normal cool kid combo: beer, cigarettes, and pot.  I begged off the beer.  I swore to myself that I would never ever drink.  My parents were passed out drunk or heading that way every night and I never wanted to be like them.  After a little pressure, I smoked the weed and cigarettes though.

We spent that day and many others together.  They seemed interested in me and my terrible jokes, they hung on every word.  I answered their questions about my past and in return they told me some of their more embarrassing secrets.  It made me feel important, warm, and cared about.  At home and school, I was little more than a ghost.  My parents were drunks; able to hold a job but drinking from the moment they punched their cards until the next work shift.  At school I was just the quiet, poor, kid that everyone liked to pick on.  But with the group, and especially Lilly’s interest in me, I felt like a god.  Thinking on it now, I wonder if she ever really liked me or if it was just another tool to hook me to them.

We spent most days together, but I went to church every Sunday with my parents.  I never really believed but it’s the one day they were sober, as if God wouldn’
t
notice all the other days if they were hungover in church.  One time, I mentioned to Gerald that I go to church and he asked if I really believed in “the God of the
prey
?”

I must have looked confused because he gestured at nothing and said, “you know all that Christ crap.”  I explained that I didn’
t
and only went because of my parents.  He must have been tense because he visibly relaxed and said, “They are weak and pray for protection during their terrible existence.  But, humans didn’
t
take over the world by praying.  We didn’
t
survive because the herd was big enough to lose as many members as the predators wanted to take.”  He gave me that horrible smile and continued, “No, we survived by hunting and killing the herd beasts.  We are alive because we killed the other predators.”  He looked out the window and said in a sad tone, “we seem to have forgotten that along the way.”

His words sent a chill over me but it also made a kind of twisted sense, too.  I had noticed, while I watched the news as I waited to see if my parents would be home in time for dinner, people were all too willing to kill or hurt each other.  Kindness wasn’
t
the first thought people had; many people followed their impulses and hurt others all the time.  God and laws seem to have been thought up to protect people from others’ violence.  But, I didn’
t
think Gerald would have liked my pointing that out.  I doubt he would agree that the world might be better with the “God of the weak” and laws in it, than without them.  After all, the strong couldn’
t
defend themselves all the time, and the weak oiled the machine.

As the weather warmed, Lily wore clothing that showed off her figure.  She wore tight hip hugging jeans and shirts that were cut high enough to show off her flat stomach and V-necked exposing her cleavage.  Her flirting with me was almost a constant.  Whenever she arrived, she would seat herself directly beside me, no matter who was already there.  For the first few months it normally forced them to move away from me, but after a while the others simply got up whenever she came in the room so she could take her place.  James and Lee would wink at me and sometimes poke fun of her when she did this, but no one really minded.  Sammy and Gerald would always give each other an odd smile when they saw Lily touching me, as if they were sharing a pleasing thought that was still not funny.

I started to miss school and stay out later and later to increase the time I spent with the others.  My grades, which had always held around a low C, slipped to Fs.  My parents, teachers, and I didn’
t
care.  I loved the way they made me feel a lot more than ever doing well on a test.  The few times I went to school, I daydreamed about hanging out with them.  Every night I dreamt of Lily, doing more and more embarrassing things.

By March, I was in on almost all of their jokes and knew a lot of their stories.  Like the time Gerald and
James
fought because
James
had made a pass at Sammy.  Or when Lily forced Sammy to go shopping with her because she had showed up wearing a purple shirt, red pants, and blue shoes.  Another time, Lee fell asleep and talked in his sleep.  He had a dream about Lily and the others made fun of him for a few months for it.  They told me of the time when Gerald had been caught in a rope trap left by
James
and Lee.  He hung upside down a few inches off the ground for almost an hour.  He started carrying a large knife with him everywhere after that.

But, there was one thing that I couldn’
t
figure out, and now I wish I never had.  At the time, it made me feel like an outcast and I hated it.  I could tell it bound them closely together, and I wanted to be in on that as well.  I wanted to, burned to, be truly one of them.  In the two months I was with them, they mentioned it only a few times.  It normally started with a conversation about when each of them joined the group.

Gerald started the group five years ago, but it wasn’
t
a group until a year later when Sammy joined.  Lily joined a year after that.  James came in two years before I arrived and Lee joined the year before me year.  I found it weird that none of them made any other friends within a year’s time, but I felt
honored
that I was that year’s friend.  After talking about where they first met, they would say the thing that alienated me.  They would say, “all those
lambs
.”  Whenever someone said this some of them would chuckle, but all would look into each other’s eyes with a kinship that made me burn to be one of them and a depth that scared me a little.

On the first Sunday in March, I was in church with my parents and bored out of my mind.  I wasn’
t
the only one.  People had their chins rested on their chests and others read paperback
books
with bright and glossy covers.  I was there because my parents made me, but I couldn’
t
figure why those bored or distracted adults were there every week.  If they believed in God, didn’
t
they also believe that he could see their lack of interest?  If they didn’
t
believe, why continue to waste time every Sunday?

The priest said something that grabbed my attention from whatever odd daydream I had been having.  The phrase, “
Lamb
of God,” snapped me out of my fantasy with Lily.  After the service, I approached him.  He was annoyed when I asked what the
Lamb
of God was.  I had to listen for thirty minutes as he raged about how “young people don’t know the word.”  Once he calmed down, he explained that the whole faith was built upon a guy named Jesus Christ.  Christ was the son of God and God chose to have his son die horribly in order to save mankind.  A
lamb
was the normal sacrifice given by the Jews to God, so God sent his son as sacrifice for man.  I had trouble believing, but thinking of a human as a
lamb
troubled me for some reason.

The next Saturday, Gerald called me over to one of the large glassless windows.  With a thoughtful and distant voice, he told me to look at a large group of kids walking down the sidewalk a few streets away.  They looked to be heading to an arcade I’d gone to years ago.  I watched them.  They were normal, maybe younger and a little better dressed than me, but still normal.  I wondered what I was meant to see as they vanished behind some buildings.

He looked at me with a wolf’s grin and a glint in his eyes he asked, “Didn’
t
they remind you of a flock of
lambs
just waiting for the slaughter?”

The muscles in my abdomen clenched and bumps raced up my arms making them look like a plucked chicken.  I can’
t
remember my response, but I tried to act normally until an acceptable time had passed before leaving.  The next day, I told my parents that I was too sick to go to church.  It didn’
t
take much to talk them into leaving me home and I wondered if I ever really needed to go to church in the first place. 

I went to the local library and used their really slow but free internet.  Knowing the length of time each person had been in the group and my fears that they had killed people, I searched the news for anything that could prove my suspicions.  It took me most of the day, a lot of people had died during those five years.  It shocked me, with only forty-thousand people or so in and around the
city
, there were an average of three or so deaths per-day.  Finally, I found what I feared.  The “Easter
Murders
” or “Easter
Copycat
Murders
” depending on the newspaper, fit a little too well with what I knew of my group of friends.

I found five
murders
had happened for five years straight.  Every
victim
had been killed on the Friday before Easter and found the next day.  They were thought to be the work of
copycat killers
because other than the
victim
's’ age,
ten years-old
, manner of death, hacked to pieces with a hatchet or some other chopping tool, and manner or disposal, all parts in a single
black
plastic trash bag left on the
beach
, nothing else was the same.  The kids were different races, sexes, lived in different areas, and went to different schools.  Their parents were all
middle class
but none shared a profession.  Somehow, the wounds or something else told the cops that each
murder
was committed by a different people.  But, the papers didn’
t
explain how they knew or if they did, I was unable to understand and remember.  I do remember the last two murders were said to have been done by
left handed
killers.

I walked home in a daze and that night I had the first of many horrible dreams.  On
Monday
, I went to school and came home on the path that took me past the
shop
.  The nightmares got steadily worse.  In most of them I would be hanging out with Gerald and the others and they would slowly turn into wolves.  The change always started with Gerald’s smile and ended with the group attacking and ripping me to pieces.  I figured if I stopped showing up at the hangout spot, they would forget about me.  After all, I had been a ghost most of my life, it couldn’
t
be hard to become one again.  I hoped that they would believe I had gotten in trouble for
missing
school or something and wouldn’
t
find out what I knew of them and their oddly formed group.