just like connect the dots.
Castillo replied, staring: Just like. But with dead people.
He still totally hated me. The few times he left to get food or make a phone call or something, he’d always come back into the room pissed. Disappointed I was still there. Best just to stay out of the guy’s way. Pretending to be asleep, hiding in the bathroom. Invisible . It was easy enough to do now. I’d become the invisible boy. The Old Navy clothes and haircut had been just the start. Not a single person on Earth would notice, let alone recognize, me one bit if they saw me. I’d ceased to exist. Not that anyone cared if I did anyway.
I realized my father had spent a great portion of his life making sure no one gave a good goddamn about me. I’d never attended the same summer camp or science camp twice. Never been in the same soccer or basketball league twice. Homeschooled since birth (whatever “birth” meant now). Different piano teachers and instructors every year. We’d even moved three times. I’d been frankly amazed when Mr. Eble had come back for the second year. Hadn’t realized my dad was already planning to send him away.
Massey and DSTI were the only places I’d really been to for more than a couple of months. The only people I really knew. And now, according to anyone who would talk to me, they wanted me dead.
This is what a killer looks like .
Looking in the mirror now, I tried to picture myself as I’d been just a day before. Then imagined myself at eighteen. The same age as Jeffrey #54. The other one my dad had built in a lab. The one Castillo was chasing after. The one who’d probably helped kill all those people at Massey. Eighteen years old. That was just a couple of years from now. Maybe I’d grow some sideburns or a little soul patch. I’d probably be a couple of inches taller.
I wondered how old all the others were. The other JEFFs. How many were there in the world? According to the notes my father had given me that first night, I was really Jeff #82.
Another seventy copies had died, by both flaw and design, prior to my . . . birth .
Seventy.
And I was one of, then, maybe four, five, other Jeffrey Dahmer clones that’d survived.
I thought of a joke I’d heard: What’s worse than a barrel full of dead babies?
A live one at the bottom, trying to eat its way out.
That was me.
I tried to imagine him ( me ) at twenty-five. Jeffrey Dahmer #1. The Original. The one in the files. The one who’d murdered seventeen people in cold blood. That was the face I was looking for now. The face smashed open with a broom handle because that’s what God wanted. It wasn’t too hard to imagine at all. I’d seen his pictures in my file. Brown hair dye wasn’t enough. It was still the same face underneath. Add a couple of pounds maybe. Not too many.
My fingers pressed into my skin against the skull and jawline beneath. Pressed harder and harder until my nails were digging intothe skin. I imagined just tearing. Ripping the flaps of skin away. My hair. Pulling off my cheeks and lips. I realized it wouldn’t help, would only make everything worse. The gleaming skull just beneath. The very last thing seventeen people saw just before they were killed.
Maybe not literally my face, of course. But they saw it all the same. One that looked identical to mine. Yeah, and no doubt about it. It was the same face in the mirror. HIS face.
I suddenly imagined the face with painted-on eyes. . . .
This is what a killer looks like.
I turned the hot water faucet all the way. It took another minute to steam the mirror completely. Faces, or maybe only the shapes of them, had already appeared in the emerging coating of vapor. But my own had now vanished completely.
Thank God.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
C astillo was pissed.
I’d finally gotten out of the shower, and he was standing at the front door, eye at the peephole, arms angrily crossed at chest.
Turns out the drunk tattooed jerk from before had a couple of
Castillo replied, staring: Just like. But with dead people.
He still totally hated me. The few times he left to get food or make a phone call or something, he’d always come back into the room pissed. Disappointed I was still there. Best just to stay out of the guy’s way. Pretending to be asleep, hiding in the bathroom. Invisible . It was easy enough to do now. I’d become the invisible boy. The Old Navy clothes and haircut had been just the start. Not a single person on Earth would notice, let alone recognize, me one bit if they saw me. I’d ceased to exist. Not that anyone cared if I did anyway.
I realized my father had spent a great portion of his life making sure no one gave a good goddamn about me. I’d never attended the same summer camp or science camp twice. Never been in the same soccer or basketball league twice. Homeschooled since birth (whatever “birth” meant now). Different piano teachers and instructors every year. We’d even moved three times. I’d been frankly amazed when Mr. Eble had come back for the second year. Hadn’t realized my dad was already planning to send him away.
Massey and DSTI were the only places I’d really been to for more than a couple of months. The only people I really knew. And now, according to anyone who would talk to me, they wanted me dead.
This is what a killer looks like .
Looking in the mirror now, I tried to picture myself as I’d been just a day before. Then imagined myself at eighteen. The same age as Jeffrey #54. The other one my dad had built in a lab. The one Castillo was chasing after. The one who’d probably helped kill all those people at Massey. Eighteen years old. That was just a couple of years from now. Maybe I’d grow some sideburns or a little soul patch. I’d probably be a couple of inches taller.
I wondered how old all the others were. The other JEFFs. How many were there in the world? According to the notes my father had given me that first night, I was really Jeff #82.
Another seventy copies had died, by both flaw and design, prior to my . . . birth .
Seventy.
And I was one of, then, maybe four, five, other Jeffrey Dahmer clones that’d survived.
I thought of a joke I’d heard: What’s worse than a barrel full of dead babies?
A live one at the bottom, trying to eat its way out.
That was me.
I tried to imagine him ( me ) at twenty-five. Jeffrey Dahmer #1. The Original. The one in the files. The one who’d murdered seventeen people in cold blood. That was the face I was looking for now. The face smashed open with a broom handle because that’s what God wanted. It wasn’t too hard to imagine at all. I’d seen his pictures in my file. Brown hair dye wasn’t enough. It was still the same face underneath. Add a couple of pounds maybe. Not too many.
My fingers pressed into my skin against the skull and jawline beneath. Pressed harder and harder until my nails were digging intothe skin. I imagined just tearing. Ripping the flaps of skin away. My hair. Pulling off my cheeks and lips. I realized it wouldn’t help, would only make everything worse. The gleaming skull just beneath. The very last thing seventeen people saw just before they were killed.
Maybe not literally my face, of course. But they saw it all the same. One that looked identical to mine. Yeah, and no doubt about it. It was the same face in the mirror. HIS face.
I suddenly imagined the face with painted-on eyes. . . .
This is what a killer looks like.
I turned the hot water faucet all the way. It took another minute to steam the mirror completely. Faces, or maybe only the shapes of them, had already appeared in the emerging coating of vapor. But my own had now vanished completely.
Thank God.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
C astillo was pissed.
I’d finally gotten out of the shower, and he was standing at the front door, eye at the peephole, arms angrily crossed at chest.
Turns out the drunk tattooed jerk from before had a couple of
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