Todd Strasser - Wish You Were Dead

I started to run toward the breezeway. I had to get into the house. There was a panic button by the front door. I would trip it, then lock myself in a bathroom.

“You have to listen to me!” he yelled, still moving alongside me.

What I had to do was get to a phone and call the police. I started toward the house. Outside, the man raced ahead, trying the sliding doors that lined the breezeway. “I have to talk to you!”

Forget the panic button , I thought. Just get to the phone. Call the police. Then lock yourself in a bathroom .

“Wait!” He thumped his hand against the glass.

I kept going. Up ahead, near where the breezeway met the house, someone had left a wheelbarrow and a shovel outside. The man stopped and picked up the shovel. I kept running.

Crash! Glass shattered behind me.

Get to the phone , I told myself as I ran. You have to get to the phone .

I went through the door at the end of the breezeway and into the exercise room, past the treadmill and stationary bike. From behind me came grunting and the clatter of broken glass falling to the floor.

He’d gotten in.

The next room was the kitchen.

Get to the phone. Dial 911 .

I got into the kitchen, grabbed the phone, and turned the keypad to face me. I could hear footsteps and heavy breathing coming closer. I jabbed my finger down. 9 … 1 …

The phone was ripped from my hand, and clattered to the floor. I felt his hands close tight around my arms, and looked up into his face. It was dirty, the beard untrimmed, his hair wild. He smelled of sour sweat. “You have to listen—”

I could hardly breathe from fear. My heart was speeding, my whole body shaking. My stomach felt like a rubber band twisted a thousand times. I knew what I was supposed to do. Kick him , I thought. Do it!

But I’d never kicked anybody on purpose. I’d never even hit anyone. I knew it was okay. There was nothing wrong with it. It was exactly what I was supposed to do. What my parents would want me to do.

“Listen to me!” he demanded.

I shook my head and tried to twist out of his grasp, but it was no use. He was squeezing my arm so tight it hurt.

“Stop fighting!” he said.

Kick him , I thought. Do it!

“Listen!”

I stopped struggling. I was terrified, and dizzy. My head felt light. Everything began to spin. The floor was racing up toward me.

When my eyes opened, I was lying on my back. The lights in the kitchen ceiling were off. Something cold and wet was on my forehead. I could hear crunching. I propped myself up on one elbow. The man was sitting on the floor beside me, eating a bowl of granola. A little white ribbon of milk trickled down his beard.

“You okay?” he asked, chewing.

I slid the wet dishtowel off my forehead and sat up. My robe was pulled down past my knees, as if he had arranged it to cover as much as possible. With one hand I pinched the collar tight around my neck. Somehow I knew he hadn’t touched me. Still, even with the robe on, I could feel my nakedness beneath. I looked around. Where was the phone?

“Don’t worry,” he said, and swallowed. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Was he saying that to get me to drop my guard? If he didn’t want to hurt me, why had he broken in? I wished I had more clothes on and wasn’t trembling so much. After swallowing to moisten my throat, I asked, “What are you doing here? What do you want with me?”

Instead of answering, he shoved another spoonful of granola into his mouth and chewed. “You can’t believe how hungry I am,” he said, his cheeks bulging.

You shouldn’t talk with your mouth full , I thought nervously.

He swallowed. “The cops are looking for me. Your friend Tyler is looking for me. They all think I killed Megan.”

“Megan Woodworth?”

He nodded. “Tyler told you?”

“No, someone e-mailed me a newspaper article,” I said. I’d also once read an article about a woman who’d been kidnapped and had spent hours talking calmly to the kidnapper until he let her go. But was that kidnapper a granola-eating serial killer?

He nodded and shoveled another spoonful between his lips. “Megan was my girlfriend.”

“Why is Tyler looking for you?” I asked.

He stopped chewing. “He didn’t tell you?”

I shook my head.

“Megan’s his sister.”

“But his last name is Starling and I thought her last name was Woodworth.”

“Starling?” He stared up at the kitchen ceiling as if thinking. “Oh, I get it. Clarice Starling.”

“Who?”

“The Jodie Foster character in Silence of the Lambs,” he said. “Tyler’s convinced himself that I’m a serial killer.”

“You’re not?”

He leveled his gaze at me and smiled slightly. “Do I strike you as a serial killer?”

He didn’t. He sounded like a reasonable, intelligent, hungry, dirty, smelly person. Was it possible that he was some kind of psychopath? One of those people you read about who acts perfectly normal and then goes out and kills people? And all the neighbors say he was such a nice, quiet man who wouldn’t hurt a fly?

“Do you have a name?” I asked.

“Ethan Landers.”

“And you’re on the run?”

He smirked. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

I realized I could add “sense of humor” to his description. No, he didn’t seem like a psychopath at all.

“Why don’t you just go to the police and tell them the truth?” I asked.

“You mean, go to them and say, ‘Hey, guys, despite the evidence you have against me, I’m really innocent’? Now there’s a novel idea. Wonder if it’s ever been tried before?” The words seethed with ironic bitterness. “I was set up to make it look like I killed Megan. You can’t believe something like that could actually happen in real life, and then it does and it’s just uncomprehendable. And maybe the police don’t have all the evidence against me that they’d like to have, but they have enough to charge me and make me stand trial. And then I either have to hire an experienced lawyer, which costs a fortune and there’s no way I can afford it, or I have to put my fate in the hands of some overworked, inexperienced public defender. Think about it. Your entire life in the hands of some guy or girl who just got out of law school six months ago, has way more cases than he can possibly handle, probably little or no experience with murder cases, and he’s supposed to defend you for a killing you didn’t even commit? It’s like something out of Kafka. Would you take that chance?”

I shook my head. He sounded as rational and logical as anyone I knew.

“Yeah, well, neither would I,” he said. “Running from the law is probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but at least I feel like my fate is in my hands. At least this way I have a chance to prove I’m innocent and show them what’s really going on.”

“And what is really going on?”

He told me.

* * *

Ethan was the one whose footsteps I’d heard in the boatyard, where he’d been hiding in the dry-docked boats ever since he’d arrived in Soundview. It was he who’d left the notes and slashed my tires. He’d done it to make sure I didn’t go to Courtney’s the night she’d had that get-together. He was worried that something bad might happen to me.

“Why me?”

“I’d heard about you. You sounded like my best chance at finding someone I could trust. I need someone on the inside. Someone who knows everyone and can tell me what’s going on.”

It all sounded logical and plausible. Why do we believe one stranger and not another? I wondered. What made me think I was smart enough to tell the difference between honesty and a well-disguised lie? Could I take that chance?