Page 18 of Caution Tape

Jessi: I’m lost. Could you come outside and wave so I know which house it is?

Jerri, of course, obliges.

I watch from the shadows as the door opens and Jerald ambles out, laughing with someone from inside, before closing the door and descending down the steps, his eyes on the blue-white glow of the phone.

Jessi just can’t find the street.

Jerald begins strolling down the sidewalk.

Jerald: I’ll walk up and down the road. Let me know when you see me!

He passes my car as I pull on the mask and shrink down in my seat. He’s still tapping away at his screen. I slip out carefully and glide along the length of my car behind him, cursing my footfalls on the concrete and hoping he doesn’t hear.

Somewhere in the distance a cat yowls.

Without warning I’m behind him, looping the rope around his neck and pulling it as tight as I can. A yelp catches in his throat, swiftly turning into a choked gargle. His hands attempt to beat the side of my face as he flails backwards, but I pull tighter. His hands jump to the rope instead, desperately trying to dig for separation. I catch his scent while his hair drifts into my mouth in the struggle, smelling like beer and weed. He’s heavier than I expected, but he’s still going to die.

I drag him backwards toward my trunk. His body sags, legs going limp and parallel to the ground. Hauling him up I fumble to open my trunk with one hand while squeezing the rope with the other.

I have to get better at this.

As the thought arcs across my mind, Jerri coils his legs and pushes backwards, flinging himself into me and making us both fall. Bouncing off the car’s bumper we land in a heap on the pavement.

The groan he emits is a half-wheeze and he scrambles to his feet, setting off on a tottering run, hands outstretched to the light of the house. To the party, and safety.

It’s a fair attempt, but I’m much faster.

The rope is back around his neck. This time all he can manage is a weak cry of, “Please?”

Then his head droops, he stops struggling, and it is delectably easy to tip him into the trunk and drive away.

I’m feeling so much better.

There’s an alacrity to my thoughts, a crisp cleanness, like each synaptic connection is super-charged. How good a feeling, to begin the assault on a fortress of an idea after years of contemplation. Of building and amassing yourself for the attack.

It is about to happen. I am about to become a serial killer.

The headaches have subsided, and the loose, frayed sensation of reality has been replaced by a deadly—almost delirious—focus.

Things are going wrong, sure, but I handle them with gentle efficiency. Almost like an aging husband dutifully caring for his elderly wife near the end of her time on this earth.

Jerald struggles when I pull him out of the car and drag him to the shipping container, so I beat him until he’s still, the blows landing with flat, muffled thuds in the chilly night.

He’s too heavy to haul onto the table, and that’s disappointing. I tip him into a rusted folding chair that I’d found during my various excursions around the shipyard.

Using bike locks, I bind his wrists and ankles to the chair. He’s loosely conscious, mumbling incoherently. When the last lock snaps closed around his left ankle, he jerks awake and screams.

I stand up. “I will keep hitting you if you don’t stop.”

His head droops and he spits out one of his teeth.

“Unh,” he groans, then clears his throat.

I drag one of the totes over to him and begin rummaging through it, delicately placing tools at his feet. A hammer, a screwdriver, and a wicked looking pair of gardening shears.

Finally, a brand-new nail gun, the smell of the orange plastic still fresh and chemical.

I sit cross-legged at his feet, looking up at him and I smile. “I’ll be honest, I’m feeling kind of shy. I’ve never done this before.”

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