It started with an argument. It ended with murder.
Lisa’s chest went tight while she held her words inside and waited for what her parents would say next. Her plan was simple. She’d told them she’d hook up with friends at the boardwalk arcade, near the old change machine, the broken one that sometimes spat out five tokens for a dollar instead of four. So why were they making such a big deal out of it?
She peeked through the window to see the daylight retreating. She shifted restlessly. The sun had already dropped below the horizon, which meant she’d only have the moonlight to guide her. But the darkness and the late hour weren’t the problem. Her parents were. Could they know somehow? About him? Maybe they were on to her. Maybe they knew she wasn’t telling them everything. After all, the boardwalk wasn’t the only place she was going tonight.
Daytime in the Outer Banks meant sun, sand and surf. It meant oiled bodies and beach towels. It meant ocean spray in your face, sand between your toes, and cool breezes on your wet skin. It meant all these things, and all this was why Lisa insisted they vacation there.
The night-time meant the boardwalk and adrenaline-pumping rides. It meant food and friends and crowding into a photo booth to take goofy photographs. It also meant boys, fleeting summer crushes, and evenings ending with a kiss. But this evening was for someone else, and not even boardwalk crushes could keep her away.
She heard a memory, heard his voice, his words. A flutter ticked inside her chest, and her heart swelled. There was a place she had to be. It was her secret: no beach, no boardwalk, and certainly no parents. Eight twelve, the time on the wall-clock read, the second hand sweeping around the top, the smooth motion needling her, urging her to leave. I could do that. I could just leave. She couldn’t be late. Not to see him.
A nudge, cold and wet brushed against the back of her knee. Lisa reached for Tiny and ran her fingers behind his ears. The RV’s space was already tight, but they couldn’t have left their aging German shepherd with a boarder. Would they have known how frail he was? Or how to feed him properly? She left her seat, kneeling as parental voices droned on, their figures in Tiny’s cloudy eyes. She took to rubbing the dog’s legs, hoping it brought him relief, the joints stiff and swollen with arthritis.
“Are you even listening?” her mother barked, a crease forming in her brow, the wrinkles deeper since her weight gain.
“I’m listening,” Lisa answered sharply. But it was a lie.
Her mother made the face then. It was a look Lisa knew to be a bad sign. They were far from home, having rented an RV, a first for their family, but the vacation had become a disaster, and her parents complained about it constantly.
It was their size that was the problem, the quarters too cramped, the space unusually tight. Lisa sat at the center of the RV, far enough to be safely out of the way, a narrow hall separating her from them. Out of nowhere, Lisa imagined them suddenly getting stuck, their bodies wedged between the kitchen counters. She imagined having to call the fire department, the firefighters coated in grime and sweat, their muscled arms taking to the RV’s shell with clacking mechanical jaws to rip into it like a tin can and free her parents. A smile crept to her lips, but she hid it, knowing if she laughed now, that’d really get them going.
“You’re just too young,” her mother continued, her tone adamant.
“I’m thirteen,” Lisa said, her voice sharp, tears standing in her eyes. Some of her reaction was born from emotion, and some of it was rehearsed, helping her get what she wanted. “I see a lot of kids out at night.”
“It’s because you’re only thirteen,” her mother explained, her voice pitchy, her neck and cheeks pinking. She fanned the air. “And why is it so damn hot?”
“I’m thirteen,” Lisa repeated. She needed the time away from them. Now more than ever. “I just want to hang out with my friends!”
“For a week,” her father objected, his voice booming. Lisa reeled back. He caught her reaction and said in a calmer voice, “Lisa, you’ve only been thirteen for a week. And who are these friends? We’re on vacation. We’re on an island that’s hundreds of miles from our home.”
A long pause. Tiny whimpered and nudged Lisa again, wanting to be petted. “For Christ’s sake, be reasonable,” her mother said, wiping sweat from her face.
“You be reasonable!” Lisa shouted, standing and smacking the table. The tone cut the air and a sting set in her palm. “They’re just friends.”
“Where did you meet these friends?” her mother asked, her voice hanging on the last word. Tiny followed the exchange, his head swaying back and forth. Her mother poured a glass of wine, the fruity smell pungent. “All your friends are home in Pennsylvania.”
Lisa chewed nervously on her upper lip. “These are a different group of friends. I met them online.”
Her father’s eyes blazed as he traded looks with her mother. Lisa realized her mistake in her choice of words.
“But I’ve known them for almost a year.”
“Online?” he asked, breathing hard, his face a ruddy color. He ran his fingers through his thinning hair, brushing it from his damp forehead. “Can you even hear yourself? What have we told you about people online? They’re strangers.”
“Dad,” she began, her hand in the air, hoping he’d settle. She didn’t like when he looked like that. Her best friend’s father used to get that way, red in the face. And then he died. “Dad, they are real.”
“Have you ever met any of them in person?” her mother asked, her lips on the wineglass, her voice a hollow echo.
“Sometimes we video chat.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” her mother muttered. She shook her head and hastily tipped the bottle for a refill.
“Video chat?” her father asked, his tone shifting. He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking.
Tiny’s ears perked up, as did Lisa’s brow. She’d struck an interest.
“Yeah, we video chat all the time,” she added, believing it would help. “Like you said, Dad, with the tech these days, the world is a much smaller place.”
“I have an idea,” he began, surprising them. “How about I drive Lisa to the boardwalk?”
Her mother tilted her head, a sign she was listening. But Tiny leaped onto all fours and gave a sudden bark, enormous in the RV, at a shuffling sound outside. The hairs on his nape rose as Lisa’s mother pointed a finger, until he sat down.
“Come on, boy,” Lisa said, coaxing Tiny to come closer to her.
When the outside was silent again, her father continued. “Tell you what. I’ll drop Lisa at the boardwalk where I can see her friends. And if I’m comfortable with what I see, then I’ll—”
The crash came without notice, her father’s words lost amidst an explosion of metal and glass and particle board, the pieces flying inward like confetti at a parade. Lisa saw a foot and then a leg, a black leather boot, the heel thick and raised. Next, she saw a man, his face covered. She saw a wine glass shattering against the floor and her mother’s round face frozen in a scream.
Lisa sunk down and scampered into the RV’s bathroom, coaxing Tiny to follow, their motion hidden behind her father as they made their way inside.
The RV’s bathroom was small, like the kind in an airplane. From behind the pleated door she saw her parents’ legs. Commotion erupted, flesh pounding with grunts and yells. Through the panic, she had one thought: the police. She searched for her cell phone but found her pocket empty. Wide eyed, she peered through the opening and scanned the RV, finding the mess of white charging cables sprouting from a wall socket next to the wine bottle, a spaghetti strand plugged into her cell phone.
“What are you doing? What do you want?” her father yelled. Bodies crashed against the sides of the RV. His voice again, breathless, “Is it money? We have traveler’s checks, maybe some—”
“Oh my God!” her mother screamed. “Oh please God no!”
A blade was revealed, a hard light glinting as the intruder raised it above his head and plunged it into her mother’s neck. At once, her mother’s screaming ceased. Lisa ducked inside, covering her ears, all of her senses feeding on the nightmare beyond the pleated doors. She felt a huge thud vibrate through her like a heavy sack hitting the floor. Lisa had to see, had to look, and wished she hadn’t. Her mother was down, her legs kicking, her lips blue, her mouth a peculiar pucker, opening and closing as she desperately tried covering the gash in her neck.
Lisa’s father was a large man, but softer than the muscly young suitor she’d often admired from the family’s old photo albums when he was courting her mother. He took to the attacker with hands balled into fists like clubs, his knees lunging and overwhelming. Lisa held onto Tiny, his teeth bared with a menacing growl. She gripped the dog’s coat as hard as she could, knowing it would hurt, but knowing he’d be killed if she didn’t keep him inside the bathroom with her. Lisa tears were silent, her cries pinched by the terror gripping her.
She had to turn away again, wishing she could cover her ears, but having to hold Tiny as the fight was heard and felt, her father taking a stand. Lisa eyed the window above the toilet. An escape. She peered back into the RV, saw the bloodied knife on the floor, a hammer in the attacker’s hand, swinging wildly. There was a whoosh and a sharp thwack as the head of the hammer struck her father. His body twitched and twisted as he fell to his knees, a fold of skin dangling from his forehead. He swiped errantly at the wound while trying to regain his balance.
For a moment, Lisa could see the attacker, she could see all of him—his head and shoulders and front were covered in black, like the boots and pants he was wearing. She recognized the gear then, padded, the kind she’d worn with her father during paintball tournaments.
Her father saw Lisa, and motioned curtly, the expression on his face horrifying. “Run,” he mouthed. “Run now!”
Tears streamed down Lisa’s cheeks, all emotion this time, her mother dying or already dead, her father in a battle for his life. With her father’s focus on her, the attacker struck again, the blow dense, cracking, and sickening. Lisa saw her father’s fingers flex erratically.
She swallowed her cries and slithered toward the window, dragging Tiny. Despite his age she could feel him gaining strength, his ancestral instincts telling him to fight, to defend. She blocked her dog, clutching the door’s thin panels, her fingers frantically tracing the edges to secure it. The door’s latch was broken, leaving a frightful sliver of light eking through. Her heart cramped with a nightmare, her pulse beating feverishly in her head.
She grabbed the trashcan, near full, and rummaged through the litter until her fingers found a spent toothpaste tube. She curled the plastic-aluminum in half, rolling the remains, and formed a makeshift doorstop. She pinched the end, shoving it beneath the door panel, fixing it in place. It worked, but wouldn’t hold anyone trying to enter.
She struck at her doorstop once more, forcing it deeper as a scream from her father stopped her mid strike. The gruesome sound resonated throughout the RV, his voice cut short in a clotted and choking breath. The noise from the fight ended, the silence piercing. The killer had finished. Her eyes dried at once, the need to cry distant, her emotions replaced with a fear so dreadful her mind could barely comprehend it. She was going to die.
The window. She searched the inky black on the other side of the glass until her eyes adjusted. The faint shape of trees appeared, silhouetted, showing her the campground’s wooded lot. The window was short, narrow. She was growing, the cold winter bringing curves to her middle like her friends. Would she fit through?
She heard footsteps. Tiny fidgeted, his ears perked, his hair standing, his teeth bared. He wanted out of the bathroom. Lisa took hold of him, laying his head across her lap and covered his nose and mouth, squeezing, desperate to keep him quiet.
“Please,” she begged, whispering into his ear. She dared not wipe her tears. Dared not make another sound.
He answered with a whimper that crescendoed into a growl, a response to the activity beyond the door.
Her toothpaste doorstop held, but an edge of light remained, enough for her to dare a look. She saw her father’s body lying next to her mother’s—his eyes huge, round like saucers, lifeless. The killer stood over her father’s body, his frame set in black, the knife back in his hand, the hammer in the other. He glanced over his shoulder as though he knew Lisa might be watching. She froze, squeezing Tiny’s head and holding her breath. She told herself to look away, but couldn’t make herself move.
The killer kneeled as if to say a prayer. And like a painter preparing a fresh canvas, he brushed an area of her mother’s skin, cleaning it, and then took the knife to it. He began to draw, he began to carve.
The dead don’t bleed, Lisa remembered hearing in a movie once. It was true too. Her mother was dead, the cuts appearing like carvings in the mottled rind of a pumpkin.
Tiny barked, his voice monstrous and startling. His weight was too much as he squirmed free from her lap and jumped at the door, the signs of advanced arthritis gone, his front paws vaulting up in a push, revealing their hiding place. His barking came alive, saliva dripping from his lips. Lisa saw the killer stand to face them.
Terror struck her deeply. She yanked Tiny, his hair coming free, shedding into her palms. He stayed on all fours, panting, and charged the door again. A footstep.
Lisa was suddenly deaf, blood thrumming in her ears, her heart swelling in her throat, her bladder threatening to release. She took to the toilet, climbing atop the bowl’s lid and gripped the window. The attacker’s heavy footsteps rippled through the RV, the vibrations hitting her bare feet. He was coming for her. Tiny’s growls were furious as he incessantly pawed at the door’s corner. She glimpsed the makeshift doorstop, the rolled tubing saddled between the door and floor holding its place, but not for much longer.
The window opened in a rushing motion. Ocean sounds and smells filled the bathroom. Bells and whistles and joyful roars came from the boardwalk.
Jumping down, Lisa took hold of Tiny in a hug and pulled her companion toward the toilet, eager to push him through the window. She couldn’t leave without him. But he cried, whimpered, and wrestled against the hug until slipping free.
“Please,” she begged, trying again. But he was too bulky, too heavy. He let out a cry, baring his teeth, and then snapped at her face. Instantly she dropped him, scared of him. In all her years, he’d never growled at her, never once bared his teeth or shown any type of aggression.
It’s his arthritis, she justified sadly. I hurt him is all. I must have hurt him.
As if agreeing, Tiny nosed her leg, his round eyes apologetic the way a dog’s eyes sometimes are. He was seeing her again and she fell next to him. Her heart broke.
“I’m sorry. I can’t take you with me,” she whispered in his ear. Tiny lifted his paw, misunderstanding and playing an old trick he’d played a thousand times. “No, I don’t have any treats. I have to go.”
Lisa climbed through the window’s tight opening, her arm catching on the metal frame, ripping open her skin. There was noise from the other side of the door, the killer’s voice reciting strange words. Panic urged her to move faster, to ignore the pain. Tiny went back to the door, barking, scratching at the panel, his nails digging into the flimsy vinyl.
She got stuck then, her body stiff with fright, her waist latched sturdily onto the window’s sill. Behind her, Tiny’s feet scratched against the floor, his nails rapped on the toilet seat. He picked at her feet next, his teeth gently nipping at her toes, wanting to pull her inside the bathroom. Sweat covered her head and face, and with every muscle quaking, she lifted herself, shifting her body’s weight until she fell through the window. The ground came rushing at her like a high drop from an amusement ride, stone and sand crushing her hands and head as she tumbled into a somersault.
Tiny’s barks went silent as her vision clouded. She got to her knees, wobbling. Her stomach threatened to empty, a sour taste rising in her throat. It passed, her thoughts swinging to her dog, and to get help.
“Tiny,” she mumbled, staring overhead, his nails hitting the toilet seat again, his voice a whimper as he tried to follow. He stopped briefly, and then started again, another whimper and bark coming as Lisa clutched her chest.
The night was dark. Without the city lights she could disappear within a few steps from the RV. With no shoes, no cell phone, Lisa knew she had to find help. But what if he was after her? She’d seen the killer. She’d seen what he’d done. Who could she trust?
His voice returned. And with it came calmness, a serenity. He would know what to do. Lisa could go to him.
Tiny’s cries were louder as he tried to follow her. For thirteen, Lisa was tall, and she could reach the window with one leap. She eased herself up to the window’s edge, but had no idea how this would work, how she would lift a dog weighing more than she did. She only knew she had to try.
When she peeked into the bathroom, the killer was there, the pleated door shoved open, her doorstop discarded to the other side of the small room. In his arms, the killer held Tiny, his gloved hand gripping her dog’s face. A scream came. A vapid, empty sound, the horror cracking something fragile in her mind. Lisa dropped from the bathroom window, the air rushing past her, the stones and sand warm on her feet. And finally, she did what her father had told her to do. She ran.
I love the smell of freshly cut grass, of the walkways and roads after a spring rain, of gardens in bloom and of trees heavy with seasonal blossoms. My daughter loved this time of year too, her smile broad and dimpled, jumping excitedly from puddle to puddle like a butterfly working a row of flowers.
Her father was less pleased with what the season had to bring. He worked a tenth or eleventh pull on the mower’s starter, cursing under his breath at the old oil guzzler, a junk heap held together by rusting bolts. The cutting blade had stuck, and the grass was still too wet from the brief thunderstorm.
A distant rumble interrupted the birds singing, growling harshly as it bounced across the neighborhood, warning of another dark storm. I searched for threatening clouds, but the sky was clear. Hannah jumped into another puddle, her laughter pealing and the water splashing while her father muddled over the mower’s state. He disappeared behind our house then, leaving us alone, another thunderclap making me jump and consider going indoors.
“Don’t get too wet,” I warned, the sky remaining strangely blue, the blades of grass around me seeming to grow before my eyes.
Sunlight caught a charm from Hannah’s bracelet as she spun playfully like a ballet dancer. That’s when I saw the car at the top of our street: the color blazing red, its tires like claws chewing into the asphalt, the motor heaving with a thunderous boom.
Panic seized me when I saw the piercing eyes, their sparkle like diamonds gleaming from behind a black windshield. The woman’s ice-blue stare instantly turned me cold, her face dead below the eyes, her skin stitched together in odd-shaped patches like a quilt. I knew the car, knew the woman inside too. And I knew she was here to steal my child. I screamed, “Hannah!”
Hannah ignored me, her eyes stolen by the sight and the booming roar. Ronald was gone, so were the trees, so was everything except the lawn and the road. The car raced to meet Hannah, but I’d stop it this time, I’d take my child inside where it was safe. The lawn stretched into two, and then into three, the length of it growing. The car door opened its ugly mouth, Hannah laughing with delight as she climbed inside.
“Hannah!” I screamed. I trudged through the tall grass, panting, toothless mouths sucking the shoes off my feet and leaving me to run barefoot. The blades climbed my legs and whipped the air, slicing my hands as I batted away their attack. I saw my girl’s eyes then, saw her warm smile, her pudgy fingers waving me a goodbye as the car’s door slammed shut. “Please don’t take my baby!”
With a flash, the dream was gone. The woman and Hannah disappeared. I sat up in my bed, screaming, a coat of sweat sending a shiver through me. There were cries then, mine, as my heart broke just as it had so many times already. Like the woman’s face in my dream, my heart was a patchwork of stitched wounds, the seams nearly bursting with sorrow.
All I could think was, I did this. I’d lost my child. I closed my mouth, silencing the nightmare and what came after, and checked the time. It was two in the morning. I was certain I’d never get back to sleep and cursed the dream for sentencing me to toss about until the day’s first sunlight crept through my window.
I listened then for the woman’s laughter, holding my breath and the cries that wanted to come. I only heard ocean noises, the tranquility that came with my new beachfront apartment. The rolling and crashing of the waves unexpectedly lulled me closer to sleep, my eyelids heavy, although I still knew sleep would elude me. I’d lost count of the number of nights I’d woken sweaty and shivering, of the nightmares and the days of dark circles beneath my eyes. Perhaps I should have seen a psychologist, but I didn’t need a doctor to tell me what the dreams were about. They were about the guilt, about what I’d lost, and who should take the blame. The dreams were about losing Hannah.
My phone’s ringer jolted me from wherever we go when falling asleep, stirring me to sit straight up in my bed, the clock showing it was already five in the morning. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes to check again, finding a small miracle of miracles. I’d actually slept a few hours.
Checking my text messages, I found there’d been another nightmare last night, only it hadn’t been mine. It was born of reality rather than some dreamland. And it had ended in murder.
It’s a new summer season in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The temperatures are already sweltering, and the vacation town already teeming with tourists. This morning, there was a hurricane looming, early for the season, its breezy fingers stealing my hair and spinning it into a twirl. I’d let my hair grow out during the last year and was still getting used to the extra length on my shoulders. I stopped to study the scene of the crime when we reached the recreational vehicle. The first sight of the RV told me nothing out of the ordinary, except for the obvious: the door was almost destroyed, the handle and lock broken and the frame around it bent inward. What I couldn’t see was hidden just beyond the light, the RV keeping it like some terrible secret. A double murder had been reported. Every murder scene is bad in so many ways, but we’d been told this one was particularly so.
Despite it being just before seven in the morning, a crowd had already formed—curiosity having no sense of time, just an itch needing to be scratched, a desire needing to be satisfied. I studied the blank faces, the gawking, the empty eyes, and neck craning, the husbands and wives trying to catch a glimpse of the scene, their lips moving as they exchanged opinions. I took note of every person, every feature—the murderer might have decided to watch us work.
The area was cordoned off by a hundred feet of crime-scene tape, the black-and-yellow ribbon slung taut from tree to tree and wrapped around lamp posts and a park bench to provide a barrier. The edges of the tape twisted and flapped noisily, teased by the hurricane’s moist breath. A row of patrol officers stood at the ready, guarding the property as crime-scene technicians hurried toward the RV, talking amongst themselves, rattling off checklist items while waiting for me to give the okay to venture inside.
The early-morning light was dulled by a curtain of evergreens surrounding the campground, the RV and outdoor furniture beaded with dew. Another gust came, strong enough to force me into a lean as the tall trees groaned and swayed. Though we were a mile from the ocean surf, I could taste salt in the air.
The RV’s broken door flung open with a loud clack of metal striking metal, releasing the scent of blood and death. Sally Majors, a senior technician, raced to tie it shut. I wouldn’t know until we had measurements like body temperature, but from my experience, the death was a day ago, at most, possibly as recent as the previous evening.
The electricity leading to the RV had been cut when the call was made to the police, the manager of the campground pulling the powerline, citing the need as a safety concern. With no lights on the inside, the opening to the RV was as dark as midnight, reminding me of funhouses that were more horror than laughs—and the sight of it was enough to give me pause.
Two murders had been reported at the Neptune Campgrounds, located inland a couple of miles past the intersection off route 58 and 264. From Sally, I’d learned it was a popular campground, a touristy kind of place with families driving in from all parts of the country to call the Outer Banks town of Kitty Hawk their vacation home. A sticker on the RV’s rear bumper had a name and logo: Trenton RV Rentals. I made a note of it.
A scurry across the tall evergreens caught my eye: a flash of feathered blue-and-white as jays called to each other, playing a game of chase before making their way deeper into the woods. I flipped through the screens in my notes, finding a recent report from narcotics about drug activities traveling from the south. There’d been gangs creeping across the bay to increase their territory while the Outer Banks summer vacation season was readying. With the campgrounds completely hidden from the road—the nearest highway a mile or more—it was a perfect place for dealers and buyers to meet and do their business. I’d keep the idea in mind but wouldn’t make a call to the guys in narcotics just yet, not until I had more to work with.
Cameras, I thought, checking the telephone poles and trees, hoping for a security feed, even a still-photo camera like the kind used by rangers to capture wildlife and poachers. There was nothing, every pole and tree bare, which surprised me, given how cameras had sprung up everywhere. It was suspicious enough to make another note for the investigation—that left us with no record of traffic coming or going through the campground—and another point to mention to the narcotics team.
I could still smell death waiting in the dark as I mentally prepared to enter the RV.
“Got a flashlight?” I asked. I needed light. I saw the campground manager watching us from behind the yellow tape, his stout frame crooked, his hand resting on his hip. “Better yet, let’s have the manager turn on the juice.”
“Sir,” Sally ordered. The manager straightened and offered a curt nod, eagerness on his round face. “Would you mind getting power to the RV? We need the light.”
“Oh, certainly, ma’am,” he shouted, his accent heavy. “I turn on for you now.”
He circled round the taped area and went to the other side of the RV, disappearing from sight, his work boots scratching a path in the sand and stone. I heard him work the connections as plugs were plugged and switches were switched. A moment later, the interior lights flicked on and off and then came to life. With light came the sight . . .
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