Rob Thurman - Slashback

Inside the bus a kid nearly half a foot taller than Cal stood up and said something insulting from the sneer on his face. Behind the smoky glass I saw Cal look up at him and bare his teeth. It wasn’t a smile or a grin. What had he said the other day? “I like lions. They’re cool.” Cal showed the would-be bully the teeth of a lion and the kid sat back down hurriedly, letting Cal walk on to find his seat. By now the bus was halfway down the street and I was thinking that hateful idiot VanBuren could be right this one time.

Cal probably shouldn’t play sports anymore.

Lions didn’t play to win. Lions didn’t play at all.

Lions survived.

There was nothing in the newspaper or on the Internet in the high school library about a missing prostitute. But it had been only last night. That sort of information would take days, maybe weeks to pop up considering her occupation. Considering if she went with Junior at all. She could have the worst drug habit in the world, but one look at the sweaty, watery-eyed, generally leaky blob that was Junior could change anyone’s mind and put them on the straight and narrow. It could be that Junior had been asking for directions or decided that a prostitute the hepatitis yellow of old chicken fat was one disease risk too many. He did work in a hospital, cafeteria or not. He had to know some people were deathly ill by looking at them no matter how dim he was.

The hospital. Lawrence Memorial, had to be, it was basically the only hospital to speak of in New London. I could tell Cal we were checking to see if Junior did work there or if he’d lied. If he was behind plastic, slowly scooping up burned squares of lasagna with a blank expression, wearing a hairnet and plastic gloves, looking as harmless as he had in his bathrobe only more so, Cal could be persuaded no one like that could be a serial killer so clever that the police wasn’t aware he existed. I could convince myself as well. After last night, I was not having doubts, but. . questions. Junior wasn’t a killer, but you didn’t have to be a killer to be a predator. It was best to cover all the bases.

“Hey, Leandros.” There was a hot and heavy breath hitting the skin of my neck not covered by my ponytail. “My uncle lives on your block. He says your mom’s a whore.” There was the laugh of an excited monkey, screeching and aggressive. “’S’at true?”

I turned off the library computer and swiveled in my chair to see buzzed brown hair and gunmetal eyes. Rex. That wasn’t his real name. That wasn’t a dog’s real name these days, but it was all I could be bothered to remember. Rex. Bully. Brothers who were already in prison and waiting for him to join them. Completely not worth my time. “She is,” I said agreeably, standing a little too close in his personal space. He automatically stepped back and my lip curled. Bullies, so predictable. “But she charges extra for pathetic fumbling virgins like you. You might want to save up.” I walked around him and went out the door.

Cal was a lion, but he wasn’t the only one.

Cal shifted from foot to foot in the autumn brown grass. He was nervous. Cal didn’t get nervous or he hadn’t much past the age of seven. “It’s a good plan,” I repeated. “We go in, find the cafeteria, check that Junior actually works there. We might even be able to talk to some people there.” Or I would. Cal was not especially adept at being casual if there was nothing physical to be gained. “Ask what kind of place it is to work. Are the people nice. Are there any weirdos because I’ve worked with them before and I don’t want to again. It’s simple and it’ll work.” I wouldn’t use the word weirdos if it weren’t a con, if only a little one. When I went to college, I’d fit in. My vocabulary would be correct, my behavior perfect, my grades exemplary, and that would save Cal and me.

Being perfect.

Ducking his head, Cal stared at the strip of grass we stood on along with its one spindly tree that would explode with cherry blossoms in the spring. For now it was bare and vulnerable and Cal was doing a flawless imitation of the same. “It’s a good plan,” he echoed me with an uneasy mutter. He looked up at the ER entrance, the place that had the most people coming and going. Blending in would be easier there than the front. I’d taken a look there first. The moment you stepped in you were facing an information desk with sharp-eyed elderly volunteers who wanted to know where, why, who, when. . trying to be helpful. They would’ve been more helpful without the security office six feet away.

“Then what’s the problem?” I said impatiently. I shouldn’t be that way, but this was mostly for him. It was getting old, all of this and I was losing my patience. I had more important things to do than to keep trying to drag the ridiculous and stubborn delusion of a killer out of my brother’s head.

He wrapped his arms around himself. Normally he would’ve snagged a hand on my sleeve if something was bothering him, but I was annoyed and I had let him hear it. “It smells.” He swallowed. “Even from here. It smells like blood and death and cancer. Cancer smells like blood frying in a burned skillet, did you know? It does. But it smells like that mouse that died in the wall that one time and rotted until we found it. It smells like that too. And pus-it’s sweet but sick at the same time. How can it smell like both? They put alcohol over it all but that only makes it worse because it’s all still there. It’s like a graveyard but no one knows they’re dead yet. No one knows. . ”

I squatted down and pulled his face into my chest. His arms went from wrapping around himself to me and he held on tight, shaking-but minutely, because this was Cal. He was proud and he wasn’t afraid of anything. He couldn’t let himself be. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly, trying not to sound guilty, trying not to make it worse to him, that his difference stopped him from doing something that anyone else could do without thinking about it. I rested my chin on top of his head. Sorry, sorry-I was sorry, more than. Worse I was an idiot. The sheets from the Salvation Army that made him sick to be near and I wanted to drag him into a hospital? I didn’t ask myself what I was thinking. It was clear I wasn’t thinking at all. “It’s my fault, Cal. I was stupid and I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think I can go in, Nik.” He straightened and turned his back on the hospital. He had to smell it, but he didn’t have to see it. “You shouldn’t go either. If he’s killing people, you shouldn’t be by yourself.”

“It’s an entire building full of people.” I stood. “If Junior was Jack the Ripper himself he couldn’t do anything there.” I pointed at a bench across the entrance for the ambulances. It was close to fifty feet away but security was patrolling hospital grounds. It was safe enough. “Think it’ll be better over there? The smell? You could wait until I come back. I won’t be longer than a half hour.” This was it. I was done with Junior. I was done with his messing with Cal’s head and turning me into an ass to my little brother by sabotaging my self-control. Today I proved he was nothing, no worse than that jack-in-the-box that had scared Cal when he was five. That had been a toy. Junior was less than that.

He took in the bench with a quick glance and nodded. “It’ll be okay.” This time his hand did snag my shirt. “Be careful.”

I smiled and thumped him gently on the top of his head. “Isn’t that what I always tell you?”

“Yeah, but I never. . um. . just be careful.” He was dashing for the bench before I could take a swipe at his shirt. Never listened-this time I had a real reason to be annoyed and I couldn’t do it. I waited until he was on the bench and headed with grim determination toward the ER entrance.