Lambs Read online

  It was the closest thing to a real date a group home kid could ever hope for and Arthur had been busting his ass for two solid weeks in hopes George would stick to their agreement.

  Even more crucial, Marvin and Leon were in league to help Arthur “Get some.”

  A week into their relationship, a day after their first kiss, Melanie set a date and had been trying to get Arthur to sneak out. She had gotten her driver’s license over the summer and once she had six months of problem-free driving under her belt, her dad was going to let her take his Range Rover out. She had circled the day on her calendar and wanted to take Arthur someplace where they could be alone. Call it fate or destiny or luck, but the very Saturday that she had been hoping he could sneak out, just so happened to fall on Movie Day (before Movie Day was even earned). After Arthur told her about the movies, excited for the opportunity to spend some quality time together outside of school without having to break the rules, she said it was nice, but not good enough, and she begged him to sneak out after he got back to the group home so they could spend the entire night together.

  It felt weird and heady, a giddy jolt making his knees weak, to be wanted so badly, so insistently, but Arthur had no choice but to sigh and tell her that there was no way. Cottonwood was a veritable fortress; there was no sneaking in or out. And getting caught was a one-way trip to juvie.

  Disappointed, but still pumped for Movie Day, Arthur bragged to his housemates about how badly his girl wanted him (they were all still virgins and this was huge, huge news). Marvin and Leon, who were nosey and liked to fuck with the kids, got wind of Melanie’s proposal and pulled Arthur aside. They felt for him and made him a deal. If he kept quiet and played it cool and promised to be back before the sun came up (and promised to “Get some”) they would accidentally leave the door to the garage unlocked and the garage door a few feet ajar.

  Not that it mattered now.

  He couldn’t go.

  How could he, what with his bleeding, broken wrists?

  How could he when he knew his ghosts were chomping at the bit, awaiting the final wound, preparing for the imminent slaughter?

  He supposed he might be able to manage if he only had to contend with the bleeding wrists, but the other looming, disgusting, drippy wounds (one tomorrow morning, one Saturday morning) were going to make things a million times more uncomfortable.

  If he woke up tomorrow with wound number two (things could be different?) wound number three was sure to follow and there was no way he was going anywhere.

  * * *

  When the passing bell rang fifty-four agonizing minutes later, Arthur was ready to get moving. He needed some fresh air in the worst way. The classroom, his endlessly circling thoughts—murder, Melanie, death, the first date that would probably never be—felt as if they were closing in on him and boxing him up. Walking would do him some good and allow him to concentrate on the menial task of getting to his next class without being seen.

  Standing up he gasped at the huge pond of blood that had formed over the duration of the class. It encircled his desk like a dark red void. Arthur closed his eyes, and imagined that the inch deep, two-foot-wide lake of scarlet didn’t exist. He put on his backpack, stepped out of his desk and faced in the general direction of the door. Reopening his lids he kept his eyes trained straight ahead, eye level all the way, refusing to look down at the red-slicked floor as he bolted from the classroom for period two.

  Through the halls, vision blurred. Arthur preferred the muddled streaks, the smudgy faces, and he refused his eyes’ struggle to center on particulars. Avoidance, his sole focus, burned away all thought and streamlined cognition. He didn’t want to chitchat or engage acquaintances in conversations; he didn’t want to talk shit with his group home friends or pretend to be normal with his civilian friends, and most, most, super most of all he didn’t want to run into Melanie.

  Like before first period, she would be waiting for him in their designated meeting spot and he had to take care to follow specific, alternate routes to circumvent her. It was a good thing they didn’t share any classes, she was smart, he was dumb. On a day like today the distinction was a godsend, but during each passing period and especially throughout lunch he had to stay sharp for she would surely be on the lookout.

  Ditching her sucked, royally so, she had become a bright spot in his otherwise dreary, regimented days, and he would miss her company sorely. But, given the situation he really had no choice. Maintaining composure while the blood flowed and his wrists gaped would be impossible around someone who was likely to ask questions about his nervous unease. Enough concern and he was liable to crack.

  Besides, he was dangerous to boot.

  For the next six days he was a ticking time bomb and he didn’t want Melanie anywhere near him for fear one of his ghosts would target her.

  Worse, once everything died down he would probably be moved to another group home in another city and never ever see her again.

  As much as his brain tried to go there, as much as it tried to break his heart, as much as it tried to warn him that she was sure to dump him or he was sure to be transferred and that he would never have the opportunity to get to second base (or third, or home), he wouldn’t allow the spongy gray bastard to think about anything but disappearing.

  Navigating the halls, blending with crowds, he became an expert of evasive maneuvers. Like a ninja (if only he didn’t leave a tell-tale trail of red, red blood splashing behind him everywhere he went).

  During his next two classes, he exerted every effort to sit dead still, careful, quiet, keeping his wrists out of view and his gaze locked upon a particular focal point.

  Friends smiled, pestered him, asked “What up?”, fucked with him, grew annoyed by his silence, fucked with him some more, but through it all Arthur held fast, a pillar of resolve. He embraced stoicism and became a Zen Master of pure nothingness.

  In History he stared at Mr. Bosch’s framed credentials and thought about thinking about nothing.

  In English he stared at a goofy caricature of William Shakespeare with a bulbous head and thought about thinking about nothing.

  With this system in place, no emotion, no thoughts of the coming days, no interaction other than what was required of him, the morning went by much smoother than expected. He ignored his wrists, his nagging thoughts, his ever-growing blood puddles and thankfully his teachers ignored him (as they always did), his peers ignored him (as they almost always did), and save for the occasional slip, the occasional inadvertent glance at those bloody, savage wounds, he was starting to feel almost okay.

  Bothersome thought continued in its efforts to bring him down and derail the quasi-contentment of nothingness, but Arthur fought it off tooth and nail and remained unremitting in his quest to get through the day detached and uninvolved.

  Not to worry, his brain threatened, there would be plenty of time for thought later.

  Too much time in fact, and merely thinking about the long, night ahead, the endless hours, him and the dark and his worries, made him nauseous.

  Oh yes, his brain warned, after lights out, it was on, it was on like Donkey Kong.

  Suppression wouldn’t hold forever, the proverbial dam of anti-thought would eventually break and real thought was sure to run rampant and eat him alive.

  * * *

  When the lunch bell rang he got those (soaking) sleeves into place, kept his line of vision fixed, and then ran for a quiet, out of the way spot behind the cafeteria.

  Sitting alone Arthur wanted more than anything to fall apart, to cave internally, to run and tell someone about his fracturing psychosis, about the horrors only he could see, about the impending murders, but he promised himself daily for the past three years that should the wounds return he would play it cool and keep quiet.

  It was the only course of action that made sense.

  There was nothing he could do about anything anyway. There was no way he could prevent the ghosts from coming and telling people, surely disbeli
eving people, would only complicate matters and get his meds increased and put him in danger of being pulled from the group home and institutionalized.

  Besides, there was still that small, fluttering hope: maybe it would be different this time.

  Maybe tomorrow could be different.

  If he gave in and blabbed about his bleeding wrists and the coming of vengeful, murderous ghosts and then nothing happened, no one died, he would come off as crazy as he felt and there would be consequences. He would feel like a complete jackass. There would be evaluations. Medications. Psych reports. It was far safer to just play dumb and keep his nose clean. He was sixteen, not thirteen or ten or seven or four. People weren’t going to be as accepting of his outlandishly morbid stories as they had been when he was just an idiot kid with a supposed wild imagination.

  If nothing happened, if this was all in his head—great, crazy was much better than murderous.

  And if people died (as they died every time before) and things got ugly—great, it was sad that people were going to die, but their gory deaths would prove that he wasn’t as crazy as he felt. And if he was smart and tight-lipped his cool, calm, silence would disassociate him from the grisly murders.

  Arthur didn’t want to give in to those thoughts, but sitting alone, hidden, not engaged in hiding, did little to thwart gathering worries. Images began to filter out of the quagmire of repressed memory. Luckily (or not), just as deep reminiscence and seriously fearful hypothesizing started to unfurl, Melanie came fast-walking around the corner.

  As crafty and cunning and tenacious as ever, his girlfriend made quick work of his ninja skills.

  Her blue, blue eyes narrowed when they alighted upon him sitting there, despondent, head hung low, lamenting his blasted afflictions. An incensed fire rose within, turning those lovely blue eyes an angry purplish. Melanie opened her mouth and was about to give him the business for carelessly ditching out on her (their first fight?), but before any words could be born of her hurt she was quick to surmise that there was something deeper going on. Just as fast as anger flared that furious fire died, the pure blue flittered back in, and her face softened.

  “What’s wrong babe?” Concern tweaked her voice as she knelt down beside him and put a hand on his shoulder.

  Arthur quickly shook her off, got to his feet and then backed away. He couldn’t let her near him, his entire body was drenched with blood and his clothes, the ugly, ugly, ugly green shirt, his jeans, his tennis shoes, were heavy with the stuff.

  Melanie remained for a second and then stood up slowly. Frowning, taken aback, she asked again, “Babe?”

  They had only been dating, if you called meeting between classes and eating lunch together dating, for a little more than three months and she had already taken to calling him “Babe.” It was cheesy and weird and at first Arthur hated the syrupiness of it, but the sentiment had since grown on him and he didn’t mind so much. It was sweet and it made him feel good, it made him feel wanted.

  She was his first real “girlfriend” ever and she was pretty and seventeen and smart and they had already kissed four times (twice with tongue) and he had even almost touched her left breast, but there were instances, like right now, when concern practically oozed from her pores and it felt like she was only into him because of his damaged, broken, maybe crazy status.

  Which was probably true, she seemed to like the fact that he was a ward of the state, that he was unwanted and medicated, that he wasn’t as smart as her civilian friends, as if he was some kind of pet project, a group home rescue mission for her to repair or something, but Arthur liked to think there was more to it and that she wanted him for him, for his personality and looks (although he could see why she wouldn’t want him for such). In any case, though she was just being nice and her concern appropriate (given his state), it still bugged. He kind of wished she would have gone with her first impulse, gave into the building fire, and just yelled at him some.

  Alas, Melanie was extremely intuitive and after sensing Arthur’s irritation, quickly figuring that he wasn’t going to discuss whatever was eating him, she effortlessly switched gears. Just as the fire had extinguished when she detected his sorrow, that heartfelt look of concern vanished on a dime and she took another approach.

  Her eyes flashed brilliantly as she tucked her blonde hair behind her ears, smiled, and then mercifully complimented him on his horrendous shirt. “Cute,” she purred and her nose wrinkled attractively as she reached out to touch him again. “Saturday—”

  Arthur danced back and hugged his blood soaked (drenched, saturated, sopping) arms to his chest.

  Nearly undaunted, Melanie paused mid-sentence, gave him a slightly confused look, and then instantly reverted to that sparkling smile and moved in again, this time with more force, for a full-on hug rather than a simple comforting touch. “Saturday—”

  Again Arthur sidestepped her advances and again she stopped mid-sentence and gave him a confused look. He couldn’t help acting jittery, nor could he erase the worry rimming his eyes, nor could he manage a single word and he felt horrible for silently snubbing her like this, but it was hard to speak for fear what might come out and it was even harder to get close, what with the rivers of blood trailing from his wrists and flooding every inch of the dry world around him.

  The look of confusion dissipated yet again and Melanie stood her ground. Her face was even, no more big smiles, no more dancing eyes and instead of moving toward him for a hug she decided to finish her sentence, “Saturday’s the big day remember?” Her eyes widened and that magnificent smile returned.

  Arthur nodded.

  “Saturday, Art? Saturday night, aren’t you excited?”

  He nodded again, gave her a weak smile and then stared at the blood soaked ground.

  After a few more attempts at sweetness Melanie eventually got frustrated with his silence. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” The first word he spoke aloud all day.

  “Nothing? Really? Are you trying to break up with me?” Her emotional control wavered some.

  “No.”

  “No? Well, what is it? Are you sick? You look horrible Arthur.”

  Arthur felt as if every molecule in his body was threatening to vibrate off into the ether. His head spun. This conversation, as simple and monosyllabic as it was (on his part), was killing him. Last year he had eaten some bad seafood and come down with a horrible bout of food poisoning. Nausea rode him hard for a solid twenty-four hours and made it impossible for him to feel comfortable for more than a few minutes at a time. If anybody tried to talk to him he could barely pay attention. It was pretty much the same here. There was no rising vomit, but staring at Melanie’s perfect lips as they moved in time with her words he had trouble fully processing what she was saying. Conversely, he couldn’t communicate how he was feeling beyond curt, one word responses.

  Melanie asked a few more questions and he continued with a series of yes and no answers that implied he was in fact sick.

  Apparently satisfied, his girlfriend did some sort of half-curtsey. She half-frowned, half-smiled, and then half-turned to go.

  Arthur stared on stupidly, neurosis rendering him mute.

  A few half-steps, “I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

  She waited for a response, but all he could do was nod weakly and lower his head yet again.

  Sighing loudly she full-turned and walked away. “Anyway, hopefully you’ll feel better and we can talk then,” she trailed behind her as she abandoned him to his lonely lunch behind the cafeteria.

  When she was clearly out of sight Arthur began to cry softly to himself.

  Their date.

  How could he miss their date?

  And she was so pretty and so cute and so into him. She didn’t even seem too mad about the silent treatment, perturbed maybe, unnerved, but willing to stick by him just the same.

  Their first date.

  In a darkened movie theater.

  A little ways off from the group.<
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  And then late night in the back of her dad’s Range Rover.

  And for the past couple weeks Melanie had been whispering things into his ear, things about their hands and lips and whatever else they could get away with in the dark.

  Arthur’s stomach ached something fierce.

  There was no way he could go through with it. Not if tomorrow was to begin with a new wound as he expected it to.

  * * *

  After lunch the rest of the day continued on without event.

  Dead inside, stealthy maneuvers, wrists hidden, eyes fixed, thoughts held in check, Arthur sat through his remaining classes and alternately tried to think about and not think about what he was going to do tomorrow and the next day.

  In Math he stared at a picture of Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out and thought about thinking about nothing.

  In PE he ran the track, blood spraying behind him, misting like a red vapor trail, and he thought about thinking about nothing.

  He hated showering at school but his pervert teacher made him. Blood streaked his skin, the water running over his body gone red. The tiny birthmark on his left, inner thigh, an odd shape that looked like a pin-sized upside down star, throbbed and itched. He scratched at it and got lost watching the blood-water whirlpool down the drain.

  Ever staring, thinking about thinking about nothing, all the while the wheels turned and he pictured Melanie sitting next to him, holding his hand as blood seeped from his wounds and stained her soft skin. He pictured her going in for a kiss and a waterfall of blood washing over her face, into her mouth, drowning her with his misfortune.

  * * *

  During the van ride home Santos and Gabe resumed calling him a “fag,” but Marvin, just starting his shift and ready for war, wasn’t having it.

  “Quiet!” He glared at the chumps in the rearview mirror. “You idiots want to screw up Saturday?”