Wish You Were Dead (22 page)

Ethan typed. Results began to pop up. The word
nemesis
highlighted with someone whose first name was Lucy and someone else whose last name was Cunningham. Things in strange languages. PDF documents. Fragments that made no sense.

Then I saw something scroll past on the screen. “Stop! Go back.”

Ethan went back.

  
Str-S-d #7

about how Lucy Cunningham has disappeared. Some people think Lucy … wish I could make some of the kids around heeere disappeeear
.

IaMnEmEsIs said …
People get what they deserve.

Tony2theman said …
Why be sorry?

“What is that?” I asked.

“Looks like a blog.” Ethan clicked on the link and a new page appeared:

  
Str-S-d #1

Today at school Lucy Cunningham looked at me like I was something the cat coughed up. I don’t have to explain who Lucy is. You already know, because there’s only one kind of girl who would look at anyone that way
.

  
Str-S-d #3

This girl once asked me why I didn’t at least wear nicer clothes. That’s what she said, “at least.” As if it bothered her that I didn’t even try. Not that my mom has the money. But that’s not the real answer. The real answer is …

  
Str-S-d #5

It’s taken me a long time to get to this point. I said I was being honest in this blog, but I wasn’t completely because I didn’t say what I was really thinking. I mean, wishing people would die. That’s how I really feel most of the time. I just wish they would die. I didn’t write it before because I tell myself I shouldn’t feel that way. But the more I try to rid myself of these thoughts, the stronger they grow. So forget trying to be nice. Forget trying to pretend. Those people have made my life miserable. I want them to die
.

I’ll begin with Lucy. She is definitely first on the list. You can’t believe how it feels to be in the cafeteria and turn around and there she is staring at me like I’m some disgusting bug or vermin. Does she really think I WANT to be this way? I hate you, Lucy. I really hate you. You are my #1 pick. I wish you were dead
.

4 Comments

Realgurl4013 said …
I know just how you feel. Popular kids suuuck.

Ru22cool? said …
Did it ever occur to you to try and improve your looks instead of just being a crybaby complainer?

Str-S-d said …
Go read Str-S-d #4, Ru22.

IaMnEmEsIs said …
Perhaps your wish will come true.

Ethan turned and looked at me. “Any idea who could have written this?”

“Yes,” I said, and kept reading until I got to:

  
Str-S-d #11

This is the last blog I’m writing. I’m really scared. I wished three people would die, and now they’re all gone. I don’t believe anymore that it’s a coincidence. Someone’s been reading this blog. Someone crazy enough to do what I wished for. If you’re reading this right now, you know who you are. You’re the one person in the world who is always nice to me. But today in school you said something. I’m not sure you even realized what you were saying, but it totally creeped me out. Now I don’t know what to do. I could go to the police, but they’ll want to know how I know and then they’ll find out about this blog and blame me. The parents will blame me. Everyone will blame me. Everyone already hates me. But this is the worst thing that ever happened. Maybe I should kill myself. I could kill myself, but then someone would figure it out. I don’t want to be blamed for this. Even if I’m dead
.

I actually put my hand on his shoulder and stared at the screen, utterly, totally incredulous. This time Ethan didn’t turn around. He just said, “She knows who it is.”

I’d told him I had to get dressed and I didn’t want him in the house when I did. He said he understood and would wait for me outside. We went to the door.

“You realize I could still call the police?” I said.

His shoulders sagged, and he hung his head and stared at the ground. “Look, I’ve told you the truth. You read the newspaper stories and saw what was on the Internet. If I were Nemesis, why would I have told you about all that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But you just broke into my house and now you’re asking me to trust you.”

He sighed and nodded. “You’re right. I did that because I’m desperate. I’ve been on the run for a long time. I’m tired and dirty and smelly, and I feel like the whole world is against me—and if you’ve never felt that way, believe me, it’s hard to keep going. This is the closest I’ve gotten to Nemesis, but I need help. The person who wrote that blog has no reason to talk to me, but they may talk to you. So here’s the deal. You can call the police and I’ll be arrested. As soon as Nemesis hears about it, she’ll be gone … off to some new place and new identity, and sooner or later she’ll kill more kids. Or you can trust me and help me stop her once and for all. It’s up to you.”

He gestured back into the house. “There’s the phone.” Then he sat down on the front step under the portico. “Either way, I’ll be here.”

I closed the front door and locked it. By the time I’d gotten back to my room upstairs, I’d made my decision.

Rain splattered on the Audi’s windshield. The address was a street I’d never heard of, in a part of town I’d never known anyone to live. A few blocks of old, two-story wood and brick buildings housing a car-repair and body shop, a plumbing-supply store, a small industrial dry cleaner. On the second floors of some of the buildings were apartments. Rainwater dripped from the roofs and
awnings. The address was a store that sold and fixed vacuum cleaners. Above it was an apartment. I parked across the street.

“Want me to come with you?” Ethan asked.

“No, I’m afraid it will freak her out.”

I left the car and crossed the street in the rain. The paint on the small brown wooden door beside the vacuum-cleaner store was peeling. The door was unlocked. I pushed it open and went in. On the wall of the dark vestibule inside were two metal mailboxes. One said
BRESLISS
.

I climbed the narrow creaky wooden stairs. The steps were so old they dipped in the middle. On the second-floor landing were some children’s bicycles, a stroller, and two doors. I knocked on the one marked
BRESLISS
.

“Who’s there?” a woman shouted from inside.

“My name is Madison Archer,” I said to the door. “Is Maura there?”

“What do you want?”

“I’m a friend of hers.”

I could hear muttering on the other side of the door. Then the woman said, “That’s a first. Go get your sister. Someone’s here for her.”

I heard banging and yelling, and then the soft slither of footsteps. “Who is it?” Maura asked.

“It’s Madison.”

Silence. The door didn’t open.

“Maura?” I said. There was no answer. “Maura, I know what’s going on. I remember what you told me that day in the hall and I read your blog.”

“Your what?” the woman inside asked. Obviously she’d been listening.

The door opened just enough for Maura to squeeze out. As if she didn’t want me to see inside. I caught a glimpse of the woman. Small, like Maura, with a hard, deeply lined face.

Maura pulled the door closed behind her and then led me back down the stairs. We stood in the small, dark vestibule. “How did you find my blog?” she asked.

“A friend helped me,” I said. “You don’t know who he is, and he doesn’t know who you are, but I can promise you that neither he nor I will ever tell anyone. I swear, and I trust him. You can trust him. But there’s one thing we need to know, Maura. We need to know where she is.”

“You’re sure you want to do this?” I asked nervously as I drove.

“If you’re asking if I’m scared, the answer is totally,” Ethan replied. “But what choice do I have?”

“Can’t we just go to the police?”

He gazed steadily at me. “Look, I know you don’t know me and don’t have any reason to care about me, but I’m asking you to believe me. I’m begging you. The cops have a sketch. They have an FBI profiler telling them to look for a single male loner. The second you tell the police, I’ll be arrested for Molly’s murder, and by the time the cops figure out what really happened—
if
they ever figure out what really happened—your other friends will wind up dead.”

The address I’d gotten from Maura was in a town I’d never been to before. My GPS said we had twenty-seven minutes to go.

“Your friend Lucy,” Ethan said. “Was she popular?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And not real nice to kids who weren’t?”

“It wasn’t her fault.”

Ethan shrugged as if it didn’t matter.

“Was Megan … popular and not very nice?” I asked.

He nodded. “I can make excuses for her. Deep down she was really insecure and driven. But basically, yeah. She could have been nicer.”

“And you?”

“What did I know? I was just your typical high-school jock having fun.”

We rode a few more miles. The rain seemed to be letting up.

“Why does she do it?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I’m not a shrink.”

“But you must have an idea. You’ve been following her, researching, trying to figure it out.”

“Okay, here’s my theory,” he said. “But it’s mostly supposition, okay? I think maybe when she was a teenager, it was a seriously bad time for her. She was probably one of those plain, quiet girls—”

“But—” I began.

“Let me finish,” he said. “And for whatever reason, she got teased a lot. Stared at. Pushed around. Maybe her family didn’t have anything and she got singled out for that. I don’t know. I’m just guessing, right? So she grows up thinking someday she’s going to change. Become a totally different person. Make enough money to get all the cosmetic work done and be the person she always dreamed of becoming. The face, the breasts, who knows
what else? But it doesn’t work. Whatever she dreamed would happen doesn’t. She changes everything but nothing changes. The dream she’s clung to for all these years is dashed. Whatever it was, whatever she waited all this time for, it doesn’t come true.”

“So she becomes angry, bitter, resentful,” I said.

“Worse,” said Ethan. “Vindictive, revengeful. Nemesis.”

“What about the eyes? The animals?”

“Who knows? She’s got that science background. Maybe she tried veterinary school for a while and couldn’t cut it. Excuse the unintentional pun. One thing I do know is something a lot of serial killers have in common is animal torture.”

“I thought serial killers were always men,” I said.

“Mostly
men,” Ethan corrected me. “One out of six is a woman. Aileen Wuornos, Belle Gunness, Marie Noe. Not nearly as common as male serial killers, but not unheard of.”

“How did you figure out she was here in Soundview?” I asked.

“Before I left Kansas, I broke into the place where she’d lived while she was there. She’d done a pretty good job of cleaning it out, so there’d been no evidence … nothing I could show the police to prove I’d been set up. But I did find a printout of teaching jobs, and an ad for a chemistry teacher at Soundview High School was circled.”

We were getting closer. Each turn put us on a narrower, less well-paved, and less populated road, until we were headed up a hill with nothing but bare trees and ground covered with brown, dead leaves. Patches of mist drifted across the road, which was now only wide enough for one car, the asphalt crumbling and
dotted with potholes. We came to a narrow gravel driveway that wound back through the trees and disappeared. On a post beside the driveway was a dented mailbox and a small peeling sign that said, HILLSDALE KENNELS.