Prologue
The acrid smell of gun oil filled the room. He sniffed a few times, his nose beginning to run slightly from the fumes. He wasn’t even sure he was cleaning it properly, but after all, he only needed it to work the one time. The thought of terrified classmates, at least the ones who had tortured him for so long, filled his head, and an off-kilter grin enveloped his face as he continued rubbing the liquid onto the metal with zeal. He could hear his mother playing Christmas music downstairs, even though Thanksgiving was still over a week away. She was fanatical about the holidays, which meant he would be dragged to another church service and another eventful family dinner at her brother Al’s house in upstate New York. He didn’t mind, so long as it meant he could stay home from school. William leaned back against his pillow, examining the now shiny .32 caliber pistol in the palm of his hand. It was fairly lightweight, little more than a gameboy waiting to be put to good use. But there were no delusions about the damage this little gameboy would do. He had cried himself to sleep numerous times after suffering at the hands of his tormentors by day, only to wake up in the middle of the night and begin cradling the gun as if it were a security blanket, thinking long and hard about how he would utilize it. He pushed the barrel to an open position, relishing the feel of the cold steel against his fingers. One lone bullet occupied one of the six chambers, and he gently nudged the back of it, his mind wandering off suddenly as he caught a piece of “Holly Jolly Christmas” down below. His face became ashen with the memories of holidays past, better times than now, and his gaze drifted down toward the floor. All was still briefly, save for the sound of a light wind rustling the branches outside of his bedroom window and his mother’s incessant singing. The song ending, he remembered what he had been doing, and spun the barrel quickly with one hand, afterward snapping it shut and standing up. He turned his ipod system on with the flick of a switch and his own brand of celebratory music came rushing forth from the portable speakers. Jansen Feathers began screeching one of his signature songs, a propulsive drumbeat leading the way, and William began nodding his head and pumping his fist along with the music, a defiant stare removing some of the sadness from his face. A quick tap on the floor beneath his feet told him that his mother believed the music was too loud. He grimaced, turning the volume down slightly and moving toward the window, mindful that he was in his boxers and a t-shirt but not caring for once. He caught sight of his reflection in the glare, and loathed the sight of his pudgy, underdeveloped frame as he always did. He moved closer, and now he could see a clear view of the neighborhood. Their little section of town to the west had been dubbed “The Heights”, since most of the people in the surrounding areas strived to live there. The riverfront was a few blocks away, and in the opposite direction, a few blocks further, was a small section of antique shops and art galleries prized for their culture and predilection in keeping most of the garden variety tourists away at the mall on the eastern edge of town. The houses below were quiet with the oncoming storm. Several lights were on in living rooms, but otherwise, the view was his and his alone. Not even a car to pass on the road off to his right, now covered with a thin layer of snow. He placed his palm against the window, his breath clouding up on the glass in front of his face. Jansen’s first song finished, and then his favorite tune began with a quiet guitar intro, a small keyboard following along. The first verse came in, and William sang along quietly from memory. “We are you tired and your hungry, your poor and so confused, we take what you will give us, and wait to be abused….we are your children, living out the dream, a nightmare so disturbing, we hide behind our screams.” He stopped there, his voice trailing off as the song continued, his face heavy again with the weight of the moment. He sat down on his bed once more, covered with Star Wars sheets which he told his mother he had long ago outgrown, and chuckled at the thought of planning mayhem while Jar Jar Binks looked on unknowingly. His laughter grew quickly, and soon he was holding his side with his free hand, the other still gripping the gun tight. He found himself beginning to tear up as he calmed down, and soon he was holding his hand against his mouth to help him choke back sobs. Though he had them under control after a moment, his face now seemed altered by the emotion, a new frown highlighting the dampness around it. He picked up his cell phone quickly and autodialed Toby’s number. The message picked up, and he closed the phone before the beep. Slowly he raised the gun, and then a smile crept back onto his face. He opened the barrel and began loading the rest of the bullets inside as Jansen continued to do battle with Burl Ives, the thought of bittersweet revenge warming him on this cool night.
Fresh snowflakes dampened his cheeks as Toby quietly closed the door behind him and stepped down onto the front porch of his home at 428 Emperor Drive. His heart was beating rapidly, yet he felt strangely calm and at peace. It was cold, but not bitterly so, and without the wind chill to harm him, he simply wrapped both arms tight around his chest and stepped slowly down into the new, untouched snow in his bare feet. He usually slept in his underwear, but he had thrown on a pair of green sweats and a t-shirt depicting his school mascot in deference to the cold, hoping at least that the denial of a jacket and shoes and socks would keep him mindful of the task at hand. He had been planning this for some time, often changing the exact scenario as new ideas would come to him. Sometimes he thought of waiting until his Dad was out on one of his routine all-nighters, then he would lie down all snug in his mother and father’s bed, quietly and with little fuss swallow the contents of the bottle he had been keeping, and wait for the old man to pull back the covers the next morning. That way would sting the most, he presumed. He had been told that the body lost control of itself once it was dead, and this thought had first made him laugh, then acknowledge the evil side of himself with a giggle, realizing that this fact made the long goodbye in mom and dad’s boudoir even more enticing. But tonight’s method and location had been his choice, made for his own concerns, not out of willingness to ease someone else’s pain or make it worse. The white heat of the snow melting between his rapidly cooling toes jarred him back into reality, and he took a long, careful look out at the cul-de-sac before him, draped in white as far as he could see. The snowfall was measured enough that he could still see the deep shine of the full moon high above him, illuminating the courtyard just ahead and the covered pavement which trailed off into King Street and the rest of the development to his right. Plumes of steam rose up and out of his mouth as his breathing became slightly labored with each frigid step. His teeth were nearly begging to chatter, but he stifled the impulse, willing it and his nerves away. Solemnly he fingered the bottle of sleeping pills in the front pocket of his sweats, remembering the day some year and a half earlier when he had purchased them at a local drug store and begun mapping out exactly how and when he wanted to leave this existence. It had been a long, hard road between that initial purchase and now. How many nights had he sat at the edge of his bed fingering the bottle in despair…waiting for the courage to see his desires through? Far too many to count, he thought, smiling sardonically as he stepped off of the sidewalk and into the street, following Emperor Drive out toward the main gate. The air was quiet with stillness as he passed the presentation house, the tot lot beside it hauntingly beautiful beneath the drifts of spreading whiteness. A large covered swimming pool caught his attention in the houses’ back yard, the water underneath the thick black tarp causing it to rise and fall peacefully as the weather raged silently around it. Phase One of the development stretched off to the east, beginning with a row of two-story homes, followed by several miles of mother-daughters, as his own mother often called them, and ending some four miles from his position with simple ranch-style houses which his father delighted in referring to as the “underachievers”. These were most often low-income houses. The main road branched off into numerous cul-de-sacs before circling back around toward the western end of the development where more condos and two-family homes were located. In all, if he remembered correctly, Royal Fields contained 200 homes of similar design but cookie-cut into whatever was necessitated by the consumer. Toby had traversed every inch of the main road in the two years that they had lived here, and it was a long trip from one end to the other if you took every branch along the way. A pair of headlights startled him back into reality, and he was suddenly keenly aware of the raggedness of his breath and the horrid needles and pins of the cold piercing the flesh on his feet. Funny as it sounded, and he chuckled even before he had finished forming the thought, he was more embarrassed to be discovered outside in sweats and bare feet than he would be to explain away the bottle of pills in his pants pocket or what exactly he was doing at this hour of the morning. But the car had turned into the main drive and pulled off to the east without taking notice of the fourteen year old huddled, nervous but calm, beside a row of shrubs. His toes had gone numb, and his teeth were beginning to chatter loudly. Determined, he furrowed his brow and looked past the front gates of the complex toward his destination, the small peak that overlooked the whole of the neighborhood and had been dubbed Indian Point since long before Royal Fields had been built there. Legend had it that the hillside had once overlooked a native American settlement, though Toby’s father and the other assorted talking heads involved with the development had never been able to find staunch proof of that fact. It remained, however, that locals knew the elevated area by the mysterious moniquer. He started moving again, the blood pulsing through his bitterly cold feet, his arms wrapped tight around him to counter, at least until he was ready, the cold of the night.
He had just stepped between the large white columns that welcomed visitors onto the main drive when a loud noise startled him out of his concentration. He realized suddenly that it was his cell phone ringing from the pocket of his sweats. He had brought it along almost as an afterthought, thinking he might call someone before drifting off. The poet in him felt he might leave some sort of explanation. In the end, it had been mostly habit, as he was used to carrying his cell phone with him everywhere he went anyway. There was no need to check the phone really, since there was only one person who might call him at this hour of the morning, and the phone was ringing to the tune of an old Def Leppard song named “Billy’s Got a Gun”. He and Will both loved hair metal, though his friend despised being called “Billy” for short, so the song had been somewhat of a joke but also an homage to their friendship. Toby thought about ignoring it for a moment, then stopped once more and removed the phone from his pocket. He flipped it open and watched as Will’s text message scrawled across the tiny screen. “Just called you. Where are you? You never ignore your phone.” Toby smirked, enjoying the act of making someone else worry about him for a moment, then his face darkened with sadness. A few random snowflakes landed on his eyebrows, and he wiped them away absent-mindedly, afterwards holding a cupped hand to his mouth as a batch of tears threatened to erupt from him. Slowly he put the phone back in his pocket and started walking again, turning around only once to view the pristine set of footprints he had trailed from the front door of his house and the sleepy, unassuming hamlet he was leaving behind in his wake. He stopped at the foot of the incline; taking a deep, forceful breath and closing his eyes as the steam billowed up from his mouth, countering himself for the long, last push toward oblivion. He was glad that the idea had come to him last week to use Indian Point for the place where he would breathe his last. He had always loved nature and the open country, a fact which often ran contradictory to the congested area in which they lived and the locust-like nature of his father’s business. A slight wind rustled through his longish blonde hair, and he pushed his bangs away from his eyes, feeling a few errant beads of sweat forming there despite the chill surrounding him. He took a moment to glance off to the west, where the Mcnulty farm stretched as far as his tired eyes could see in the darkness. He was thankful, at this moment as always, that the local farming family had refused to sell their land when the town and his father’s corporate backers threatened them with numerous means. Now, it gave him an unfettered view of the moon, hanging limply on the horizon in crescent form, and the few stars he could see around it despite the heavily light polluted area he was standing in front of. The click of his teeth once again reminded him of the temperature and the light suffering he was putting his body through. One lone tear strode down his already dampened cheek, and he wiped it away with a sniffle, turning back ahead at the expanse of woods and rocky slopes before him.
He found himself overcome with peace as his feet carried him the first few hundred yards, and slowly, with great concentration and the warming of his body through exercise, the cold ceased to bother him. The woods were dense at the bottom, and he regretted the fact that he had not brought a knife to ease his passage. Several branches and shrubs clipped the side of his face as he stammered past, leaving small welts and one bloody swath below his left eye. His hair had now become matted with sweat, and his breathing shallow with exertion. He paused momentarily, noting with a quick glance to his left that he was at least half way up the peak now. Several spots became rocky and he was forced to grapple in the snow with his hands for a foothold as he inched his way further up the slope. Soon, he could see the very top of the peak, with its lone picnic table that had been placed there by the Royal Fields Home Owner’s Association jutting out into view. A few more steps and he was upon it, pulling his weary legs up over the top and falling down into the mixture of snow and dirt beneath the table, his breath escaping him now in large, hacking shudders as his body attempted to recuperate. His back was cold after a few moments, and Toby sat up, his eyes awash with sadness, his face a grimace of pain and determination. His sweats were soaking wet and dirtied beyond recognition, his feet a pair of blackened wrecks soaking up the fire of the snow they were sitting in, the left one just beginning to trail a small crimson line of blood from several cuts he had sustained. He stood up slowly, gritting his teeth against the ache, and looked out over the neighborhood below with both revulsion and heartbreak fighting for dominance over his features under the moonlight. He had been to the top only once before, three years earlier when they had first moved here, but he had paid little attention to the view at that time. He had been interested only in pleasing his father, as the trip was a surveying trek so that Andrew Kirkland might get a good view of the land he was preparing to plunder, much as a king might survey his lands. Royal Fields had been aptly named, Toby thought to himself, chuckling despite the pain he was in. His laugh disappeared as he remembered Andrew’s words to him on that long ago day. “When you’re old enough, Toby, maybe you can come work with me. We can do all this together. That would make me very proud.” his father had told him, and at the time Toby had nearly cried. He had waited for so long for his father to notice him. The words would soon seem like a curse, though he wasn’t aware of it at the time. He smirked, looking out over the tops of the houses and examining the development below him, noting that from this height you could see far across the landscape to the edge of Johnson’s Creek, and just make out the twinkling lights and neon signs of the mall nearby. The snowfall was getting heavier as he stood there, and his eyes soon refused to focus through the white-out. He turned, picking out a very large oak tree that stood on a slant some twenty feet beyond the picnic table, its countless branches stretching up toward the sky in every direction. Its trunk was massive, with a large cleft directly in the center and a mound of leaves and dead grass piled up beneath it. It would afford him a less uncomfortable place to lean, at the very least. He lowered himself to the ground so that his back and head were nestled in the cleft, taking the bottle of pills out of his pocket before settling back with a sigh. A torn condom wrapper lay in the leaves just to his left, dismissing the notion that the area was completely uninhabited, but he felt confident that he would be the only person making use of it tonight. The thought that someone had recently had sex in the very area where he lay burned through him, and soon his sweats were beginning to tent with his erection. He smiled, thankful that despair didn’t kill every desire, placing one hand proudly over his stiffening crotch and uncapping the bottle of pills with the other. He downed them with some effort, nearly choking at the halfway point, but managing to keep them down. When he had finished, another tear escaped from his socket, and he placed the empty bottle down in the snow beside him and the look of sadness returned to his face. For one fleeting moment he thought that this would be the last view of his town…or his life…that he would ever see. He prayed that the pain would be over once his life was over. Almost subconsciously, once again mindful of the cold, he pulled the large pile of leaves around him as a sort of makeshift blanket, curling up, tense with the knowledge of what was to come, as his last few waking breaths drifted off and his eyes began to close.
Incredulity came to him first, just before the sour copper taste on his tongue and the deep wheezing from his chest. His eyes were heavy and caked with bits of snow and dirt where his head had lain against the dampened ground. But they opened, much to his surprise, on what appeared to be a windy morning overlooking Royal Fields. He was groggy and a little ill at ease as he propped himself up on one arm, his muscles creaking with the effort, his body just beginning to feel the chill of winter now that his senses were once again aware. He coughed, a deep mucous-filled bellow, then sat upright, looking down at his pale hands as the air hit them once more and the blood began pumping more furiously with his alertness. He was covered in the blanket of earth and leaves still, though one foot, the left, which had been bleeding slightly when he had drifted off, had found its way out and into a mound of snow where it was perched askew to the rest of his body, one lone toe signaling its presence. He moved his left leg gently, and waves of pain cascaded through him. Though his foot had shifted a bit, Toby soon realized that he felt nothing below his left ankle. With a growing sense of dread, he leaned forward, his back raging against the movement, and brushed clumps of snow away from his leg, his fingers burning anew with the temperature change. His foot was black and dusky with frostbite, and he tried in vain to wiggle his toes. His natural yet pale skin pigment took over just below his ankle. He began rubbing the sole of his foot harshly, trying to bring back the feeling. His skin was raw and ragged as he ran his hands over it futilely. After a few minutes, his breath arcing up in misty plumes, he forced himself to stand by leaning onto the tree behind him. The ache was nearly unbearable, but he managed, putting his head back against the ancient oak and taking a few deep breaths as he prepared himself for the long, slow descent back home. He remembered only after he had stepped over the ledge with his good foot that he should have been disappointed seeing as his goal had not been accomplished. He found that he was actually glad to be awake and breathing, frostbite and all. Mild relief soon boiled over into sour fury though, as he slowly limped toward the bottom of Indian Point, several times nearly falling over but steadying himself after much effort against a rock or shrub or whatever natural lean-to was available. His right foot was soon bleeding from several scrapes against snow coated rock and throbbed incessantly as the woods surrounding the bottom of the incline enveloped him. Several more inches of snowfall had covered the town as he slept, vanishing his tracks from the previous evening, but he managed to wend his way back through the path he had cut quite easily despite his limp.
He was two hundred yards from open space when a flash of yellow caught his eye amidst the blanket of white. He tried hard to focus, turning his head to the right slightly, squinting through the trees at what appeared to be a pile of straw lying in the snow. Suddenly, as he tilted his head and a line of sight opened up between overhanging branches, his eyes focused on what he now saw was the body of a girl. He moved a few paces forward, the steam from his mouth more noticeable as his breathing quickened with excitement and fear. What he thought had been straw was long blonde hair, matted in several spots with dried blood, but still cradled gently in the snow around her face. She was young, he could tell that even through the bruises on her cheek and below her right eye. Her legs were open and spread-eagled, her arms tied together above her head with a thick crimson sash or ribbon. She was wearing a denim skirt which had been hiked up to reveal her naked crotch, the pubic hairs covered in frost in places. Toby took a deep breath and swallowed back a bit of bile, willing his hard-on away successfully, feeling ashamed but also mindful of the fact that he had never seen a naked girl before. Her eyes judged him, the pupils dilated, the stare seeming to cry out in terror even though any cries were long ago extinguished. Her lips were covered in red gloss, though the blue pallor of death had overcome it. Her mouth was open slightly, her head tilted to the right where a large black area had been seared into her cheek from frostbite. He watched her there for several minutes, hoping against suspicion that she would suddenly take a breath and ask him his name. But there would be no such question, today or forever more. He felt himself swaying against the wind and exhaustion and reached out to grab hold of a sturdy branch a few feet away so that he could remain standing. He remembered the cell phone in his pocket and took it out quickly, still trying to keep himself righted despite the fury emanating from his crippled leg and aching joints. He found that he couldn’t face her, and turned toward Royal Fields. He flipped the receiver down and watched as the screen notified him of Will’s numerous messages. He was about to dial 911 frantically when something occurred to him, and he snapped the phone shut again. How would he explain his presence at Indian Point in a t-shirt and bare feet in the middle of November, let alone beside the body of a dead girl who had obviously been violently killed? There would be countless questions, and maybe even some time in an institution, depending on how much of his suicidal goal became clear to the authorities. He stood there for what seemed an eternity, watching the shimmer of the sunrise on the horizon, glancing in all directions nervously for signs of life that might place him at the scene of the crime. But the development was still unnervingly quiet on this weekday morning, much to his delight. He thought a few seconds longer, then breathed a weary sigh and flipped the phone open again, auto-dialing Will’s number. He answered before the first ring had completed, his voice heavy with worry. “Where the hell have you been?” he asked, not with anger, but concern.
“I can’t talk right now. I need you to do me a huge favor.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t…”
“Will!” he snapped, his voice cracking as he recalled the motionless body lying in the freshly fallen snow behind him. “You know the dirt path off of Marsten Street?”
“At the bottom of Indian Point?”
“Yeah. Meet me there as soon as you can. Bring your bike, I’m going to need a ride. And is your Dad home?”
“Yeah. He hasn’t left for the office yet.”
“Do you think you can get him to look at my foot?”
“What’s wrong…”
“I think I have frostbite.” he answered succinctly.
There was a pause during which he could hear Will breathing in the information carefully. “Toby, what is this?”
“Please.” he responded, his eyes welling up and his voice cracking slightly with emotion as he continued. “I can’t talk right now. I need you to meet me.”
“Ok. I will. I’m leaving now.” he answered, sensing that this was the best course of action for his friend’s well-being and hanging up without further protest.
Toby turned around once more, fighting back tears as he looked down upon the face of the girl who had died instead of him at Indian Point. He looked past her, to the eastern ridge of the woods which trailed off on a dirt path that he knew would lead him to Martsen Street, a still undeveloped area where no houses were built as of yet. There was only a small fragment of the Mcnulty farm and a mile long stretch of flatlands that had once, in Toby’s parents’ time, been a drive-in movie theater and more recently an open air flea market. His father had only recently convinced the owners to sell so that Royal Fields could annex it, but for now, it would suit his purposes of being desolate and out of view of the main road, especially this early in the morning. It would be a much longer haul to limp his way to the far side of the ridge rather than going the two hundred yards further toward the outer edges of his complex, but discretion, he thought, was far better than valor, no matter how shameful it made him feel. He wiped his eyes softly, taking one last look at the girl’s face, frozen literally in terror, then smirked almost against his will. “Just another day in the neighborhood.” he told himself weakly, his face once again overcome with grief as he stepped past her fallen frame and began the trek to Marsten Street.
He was stopped dead in his tracks after several feet, his left foot now numb and his right foot throbbing anew with the sting of the cold, his line of sight trailing some fifty yards ahead and to the left, where a young girl was standing beneath an ancient, overhanging birch tree silently smoking a cigarette. She had long, straight black hair with two pink streaks on either side, and she was dressed in a pair of black jeans which seemed to have been painted on. A thin plume of smoke rose up from the cigarette in her hand, which was held calmly at her side. As she watched him, steam emenated from her mouth slowly. His mind raced with the possibilities for a course of action. For the first few seconds, he was sure she hadn’t noticed him at all since she was quite busy attempting to blow a smoke ring with the air already being held in her lungs. When the large, failed puff burst free and she sputtered slightly, he knew that their eyes had met. And the look of bemused confusion which crossed her face as she took in the young boy in sweats and a t-shirt with no shoes on his feet only confirmed this. He was sure the panic registered on his face. His first thought was to turn and run, though how fast he could hobble away was certainly foremost on his mind. He could also shout some feeble excuse across the short distance, but at this point, he felt that any interaction would only make things worse. He had seen this girl in school on several occasions, hanging with the emo crowd one grade above him. As a freshman, Toby tended to keep his distance from the higher grades. A few of his friends had already been through freshman hazing, and he was sure that his veritable anonymity, chorus notwithstanding, had helped him in that regard. His breaths were coming fast and sharp, a harsh pain shooting through his lungs now as the cold and the stress began to take their toll, but he stood his ground, unable to move, his wounded left foot slightly behind him, buried in the snow. They stared at each other, he with a sorrowful look, she with a growing concern, as several beats passed. Her face soon took on a heaviness, and it was almost as if they had shared some secret thought, though Toby knew his secrets were intact, and only the body, which was, in truth, someone else’s secret, remained. Mercifully, as if sensing his distress with the whole situation, she wrapped her winter jacket tighter around her, tossed her unfinished cigarette into the snow beneath her feet, and turned, walking back toward his development, in the direction which he had avoided so as not to be discovered. He only noticed when she was almost out of sight, after holding his breath in agony for a moment and pondering what she might do, that she had been wearing a fluffy pair of Tweety Bird slippers, and he allowed himself a small chuckle amidst his worry, as it was completely out of character with the rest of her. He waited for the pink streaks to disappear around the bend onto Emperor Drive, then he lowered his head in his hands, the icy sweat on his brow alerting him to the fact that his teeth were beginning to chatter again. He felt on the verge of tears as he turned around to glance back at the blonde girl’s body. It was only then that he realized he couldn’t see the body from his position as it was surrounded by several bushes and a young oak tree whose branches, empty though they were, aided in the subterfuge. He turned back toward Emperor Drive, convincing himself that the smoking girl hadn’t seen a thing except for a boy one grade below her out without a coat on. His feet were hidden beneath the snow, and he hadn’t moved once she had spotted him. The only way she would have seen the body would have been during the walk back, but she hadn’t turned around. Surely she wouldn’t have spotted a dead body on the walk over and then calmly stopped to smoke a cigarette. Color came rushing back to his face as a new calm settled over him. He decided to believe what his mind was reasoning and get back to the matter at hand, which was heading out to Marsten Street to meet with Toby and tend to his injuries. He began moving, but he dared not turn back again, as it became easier with each step to convince himself that none of this had ever happened.
