There’s a trash man outside my window.
Not a man who picks up garbage cans, but a figure made of trash and various detritus. Dead leaves, bits of glass, scraps of newspaper and broken sticks, the components are varied, and I don't see how it is all kept in place without falling apart. The thing is huge and terrifying—with long arms and a barrel chest, it sits in my back yard like a nightmare scarecrow. I’m afraid to even go near it, and that’s only partially because of where it is and what it looks like.
The other reason is the sense of longing familiarity I feel when I look at it. That, and the dirt and muck caked under my own fingernails from something I don’t think I want to remember.
Three years ago, I killed a girl. I know how that sounds—either it’s a lie, or if it’s true, then I must be some terrible person, right? Even if I told you it was an accident, if I’m only admitting to it now, that must mean that I hid it at the time. That I felt guilty because I did something wrong to cause it.
But it wasn’t an accident, and while I did cover-up some of what happened to protect myself, I was never ashamed or remorseful for what I did. She deserved it, and the world is better off without someone like her in it. And if I regret any of it now, it’s just because I can see what’s coming for me, not because she didn’t need to die.
I was only a cop for a couple of years before I decided I didn’t have the stomach for it. It wasn’t the danger or the paperwork or even the low pay that got me. It was being regularly faced with the realities of how some people live and treat each other. I could only find so many abused children and dead junkies before I knew I had to get out before my view of the world was poisoned for good.
So I went to work for a company that does property management and maintenance throughout the state. If someone has a house or condo or business office they want to rent without dealing with repairs and upkeep themselves, they hire my company to deal with it. I’m fairly handy, but I don’t do the work myself. I just go around, make sure that everything gets done and that the customers stay happy.
Three years ago, I walked into an apartment that was supposed to be empty. It just needed to be checked for any damage from the last tenant, which usually amounts to some new carpet and paint. But I knew from the smell when I opened the door that something much worse had to be waiting inside.
It was the smell of blood. Not the putrid, thick smell of old blood, but that bright, coppery, almost spicy smell that blood has when it’s still fresh. Either just spilled or still flowing. It meant not just a mess to be cleaned up, or even some recent death or accident to be dealt with, but an ongoing danger that I was walking into.
I didn’t carry a gun any more. All I had was keyring pepper spray and a heavy flashlight, but I’d never felt like I needed anything else in my new job. And I could have just stepped back out and called 911, but I was worried that if someone was hurt in there, even a two-minute phone call might take too much time.
I couldn’t see anything out of place in the entry hall of the apartment. Stepping further in, I saw a small kitchen on the left and a tiny space on the right for a washer and dryer. Everything was bare and relatively clean, but there was also no denying that the smell of new blood was even stronger now that I was fully inside, and I thought I could hear a repetitive sound, a wet, meaty sound, coming from further down the hall.
Pulling out my pepper spray, I walked slowly to the edge of the living room. It was far enough for me to see her. To see what she was doing to those children.
I…I’ve never seen anything like that. I could tell all three of the kids were already dead, though I guessed that had happened within the last hour. All of them were grade school, though I could tell that more by the size than anything. She hadn’t been kind to their remains.
I’d like to say I don’t remember what happened next, but I do. I remember seeing enough to know that the older girl had done it…was still doing it. I felt sick and confused and afraid at first. But then she turned to me and smiled. Fucking smiled, and it wasn’t a crazy smile or a sorry smile. It was an evil, knowing smile. The smile of the Devil.
And the Devil belongs in Hell.
I beat her to death with the flashlight. She didn’t fight back, just smiled at me silently, her eyes never leaving mine until they were too broken to see. I was angrier in that moment than I’ve ever been in my life, but I was never in a blind rage. I knew what I was doing and I knew there could be consequences, but at the time, I just didn’t care. The need to destroy something so wrong was stronger than anything else in the world.
My flashlight was metal, but it was still falling apart by the time I stopped. The only sound was my heavy breathing, and I thought the girl was already gone, but then she sat back up with a rattling gasp, using her last breath to push out a few words before falling over dead.
”It must go on.”
Frightened, I hit her again, and then a second time to be sure. I was shaken now, but I kept my cool well-enough to cover my tracks. Not saying I did it perfect, but no one pushed too hard on my version of finding all four of them dead—at least not once they figured out the girl had abducted those kids and done what she did.
Her name was Tina Rhodes—a twenty-year old college drop-out that was apparently into drugs and all kinds of weird shit. There were eyewitness accounts of her walking with one of the kids and video footage from where she had snatched another from outside a daycare. They’d already been looking for her two counties over when I stumbled into that apartment, and I honestly think that anyone who suspected what I’d done probably thought I did the world a favor.
I won’t say that I’m proud of doing it because I’m not, not exactly. It’s like when I was growing up—one summer I was at my grandparents when a rabid dog came to the edge of the yard. I didn’t understand what rabies was, but I was still scared of the dog, all slick with spittle and snarling at me as it paced unevenly some distance away. I let out a small scream when a crack boomed over my head as the dog dropped to the dirt. My grandmother had killed it in one shot, and despite my earlier fear, I found myself crying for the dog and asking her why she had done it. Even if it was mean, I said, maybe it wouldn’t have come on in the yard.
My grandmother had crouched down by me, smoothing the tears from my cheeks with soft but strong hands. She told me that the dog was sick, not mean, but it didn’t matter. The kind of sick it was made it dangerous, and maybe it wouldn’t come into our yard, but if it wasn’t ours, it would be someone else’s.
I understood what she meant at the time, but I don’t think I could fully appreciate it until I saw that girl amid all the horror she had caused. It wasn’t about punishing her, not really. It was about removing her from this life and making the world a better place in the process. So no, I wasn’t proud of killing her. But I was proud that I was strong enough to do it.
Have I been bothered by it since? Sure, but more because of how terrible it all was, how strange, not because I felt guilty for my part in it. If I had it to do over, I hope I’d be strong enough to do the same again. I think up until a few nights ago, I would have been.
Because my problems didn’t start with the odd sculpture in my yard. I’ve been losing time for a few days now. At first, I thought I was just more tired or stressed than I was willing to admit. I wouldn’t have a clear memory of what I did the night before or I’d wake up in my car out in the driveway. Weird, but not unheard of, right?
But now, stepping out into the yard, I can already smell that rotting smell of old blood. At this distance, I can see movement along the surface of the trash man—there’s a panicked moment where I think it’s starting to come to life, but then I realize I’m just seeing hundreds of flies and worms crawl across its decaying skin. I feel my gorge rising, but it doesn’t matter. I can see something buried in the massive center of the thing, a patch of what looks like skin gleaming out from beneath the surface of the black muck and brown grass.
Oh no. What had I done?
I sink my hands into the trash man’s chest, raking away clumps of rot, my eyes watering as I choke and gag. It was skin. There’s a body buried in this thing, and who else could have done it but me? I’d seen my hands, I’ve been blacking out, and if I’d gone crazy and hurt somebody, put their body in this horrible thing…I tear away another patch of the scarecrow’s chest and find myself staring into a face.
My own.
I fall back, a low moan escaping my throat as I stare up at the thing growing inside that festering cocoon. My mind is skittering this way and that, frantically looking for an answer that makes sense or that explains it all away. Something that makes this all just some terrible nightmare.
Just then, the thing in the cocoon opens its eyes and looks down at me, its lips curling into a smile as it croaks out four words in a rough voice, a sound like you might hear from someone who has never spoken…or has just come from being hanged.
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