Killer

Mickey wakes with a crick in his neck, his thigh jammed awkwardly against the gearstick. He scrambles upright, checking around for the roach, in case it’s burning holes in the seat of his dad’s pickup. With a dash of relief, he finds it stubbed safely out in the ashtray. He tosses it through the open window into the bushes, then squints, a hand over his eyes as they blink into better focus.

The others have gone.

That’s not right. He’s supposed to be their ride home. It’s the only reason Stu let him tag along. It’s hard to remember, now, why he wanted to. He hates the woods when it’s dropping dark, with the bugs biting and the animals coming out, hates the way Jordan and Tyler act when they’re around Stu, or Killer, as his cousin is insisting they call him now. Killer – Mickey snorts to himself. He might not be cool – ok, he, Mickey will never be cool – but at least he knows it. Stu isn’t cool either. People are just too frightened of him to say so.

The thought makes his stomach drop away, and he feels himself all over, then checks his face in the rearview to make sure they haven’t done something to him, shaved his eyebrows or drawn on his face in Sharpie. He’s fine. He breathes a sigh, then frowns. What, then? If they’re not waiting to jump out at him, laughing at his humiliation? Why is everything so quiet?

Cautiously he cracks open the pick-up door and steps out into the clearing. He can see the patch where they were sitting, littered with empty bottles, the grass flattened and starred with stubs and spent matches.

“Guys?”

Nothing.

One hand pats a pocket, checking the keys are safe. He turns back and locks the car anyway, winding up the window. It would be just like Stu to leave him here and drive off, thinking it was funny. The thought makes him want to do the same, just drive off and leave them all to walk home. He almost does it, too, until a movement in the bushes catches his eye.

Carefully, expecting to be jumped at any second, he edges forward, stoops over to peer between the leaves, and his breath snags in his throat.

It’s a little pup, scraggy and dirty, its coat matted with something sticky and red. It cowers away from him, whimpering.

“Hey little one,” he croons, “it’s ok, I won’t hurt you.” His head whips around, scanning the trees. “Did someone do this to you? Let me see.” Before he can get closer, the creature scrambles to its feet and drags itself into the brambles. “No, come back! You need help!” he calls to it, like it can understand. There’s another rustle a little further off as the pup flees. Feeling like an idiot, Mickey follows.

It's dark under the trees, too dark to see properly, so he whips out his phone and trains its light in front of him. The rustling’s stopped, but up ahead, the light catches on something that glistens. A few droplets of blood, clinging to leaves at knee height. Still making soothing noises, Mickey creeps forwards, training the beam on the ground. It glances off something white, and he stops in his tracks.

Jordan’s baseball cap. There’s a stain on the back of it. Without touching it, he knows what it is.

“Come on guys! This isn’t funny!”

His mind’s racing. Are they twisted enough to hurt the pup just to prank him? He can easily see Stu doing it. He’d enjoy it, too. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something like that to a little animal that couldn’t fight back. Mickey’s stomach clenches at the memory of his cousin, crouched in the shadows of his garden shed, something twitching between the white toes of his sneakers. White spattered with red. Mickey had backed away, unseen, and pushed the memory down deep, but he’d never forgotten.

There’s something wrong with Stu, everyone in the family knows it. But he can’t see Jordan and Tyler going along with a thing like that. Hurting an animal for fun. Not unless Stu made them somehow.

There’s a sick feeling in his throat, but he makes himself follow the trail of red droplets through the forest. In a little while, he’s back on the path and the droplets are getting thicker. The pup’s vanished, and he’s not sure what he’s tracking now, if he even wants to know.

“Guys! Joke’s over! If you don’t come out, I’m heading home!” He flashes the phone light in a wide circle, picking out the branches around and above too, as if they might drop on him from the trees. Stu would like that; it would make him feel like some kind of ninja. Mickey hunches his shoulders over and edges into the middle of the path again. Despite himself, he keeps walking forward, deeper into the forest, following the blood.

There are noises now as the darkness gets thicker, rough birdcalls and strange whoops and shrieks he can’t identify. Suddenly he’s scared of more than just his cousin and his stupid friends. He should go back to the pickup, he’s thinking, wait for them there. They’ll get bored quick enough when he doesn’t fall for their dumb trick, whatever it is. He casts the phone beam around one last time. It snags on something dark and small just off the path.

“Hey there,” he coos, creeping forward, but when he stoops to the little shape it’s not fur he finds, but hair. And blood.

He can’t stop his fingers as they reach forward to touch it, Where the blood hasn’t darkened it, the hair’s reddish blond. The same colour as Tyler’s. Not one or two strands, either, or a clump pulled out in a fistful. It’s a patch about the size of his palm, the scalp torn right off with the hair. Mickey feels the bile sour in his throat as he wonders what the fuck his cousin has done this time. Deeper in the shadow of the bushes, Stu’s pocketknife glints, the blade gouted in blood. Tossed aside? Or kicked away in desperation? What the hell happened while he was sleeping?

His legs push him up to standing and his feet are tingling, telling him to run, get back to the pickup and get the hell out of there. Whatever mess Stu’s made, it’s more than he can deal with. He doesn’t want to know. He needs to go.

There’s a whimpering sound, and for a moment he thinks it must have come from him, but then he hears a rustle and turns, and the pup’s crouched in the pathway, looking at him. He stretches a hand out and it retreats a little, but doesn’t run this time. He steps a little closer. It limps off again, but it’s moving slower now, and he thinks he can catch it, help it. Suddenly it seems really important to Mickey to do something good, to fix something, even if it’s only an injured pup.

He follows.

The clearing’s lit by fingers of moonlight, so bright he doesn’t need his phone. So bright, Mickey can see everything.

The little pup curls next to the dark mass of its mother, her glare upon Mickey like a searchlight. Three other dogs, hackles up and white teeth bared, their throats rumbling, stand proprietorially over their prey.

It’s a body, a human shape, the guts dragged out of it like bloody sausages, the hands torn and shredded. Mickey’s eyes travel over the white sneakers, spattered with red, and something in his memory goes “click”.

Hands spread before him, eyes on the growling dogs, he backs away, leaving them to their meal.

From the corner of his eye, he notices that the sneakers are still twitching.