Wish You Were Dead

away. You can give Courtney water. Just promise me you’ll give me a few hours. You’re a good girl, Madison. I know you’d never break a promise.”

She was lying, and we both knew it. She wasn’t about to let me go.

“I swear to you,” Ms. Skelling said. “You have my word. Let me go and nothing bad will happen to any of you.”

I glanced at Tyler. He lay on the floor of the pen, his eyes filled with terror and his mouth open, either too exhausted or in too much pain to speak. I looked back at Ms. Skelling and said, “You’re not going anywhere. I want you to give yourself up. We’re going to find a phone and call the police.”

Ms. Skelling hesitated, then said, “All right.”

“I want you to get up … very slowly.”

Ms. Skelling stared up at me. Hands still on the ground, she started to rise, pulling her feet under her. Suddenly her hand darted toward the pipe.

I jabbed the hayfork forward, stopping just inches from her face.

“I won’t!” she gasped, jerking her hand back. “I’m sorry. Really! I can’t always control it. If I could, I wouldn’t be this way in the first place.”

Still trembling—from the cold, the fear, the terrible thought of what I might have to do—I held the hayfork level with her eyes. Crouched on the ground, Ms. Skelling stared up at me, a puzzled, almost curious expression on her face, as if she didn’t understand why I didn’t just do it.

She slowly started to rise. “You don’t want to do it, do you? You don’t want to hurt me. You’ve never wanted to hurt anyone. That’s why everyone likes you so much, Madison. It’s why I like you, too. It’s why you were never one of the ones we singled out. It’s why I won’t hurt you now. I swear you can trust me, Madison. I know what we’ve done is terrible and evil. I know we’re sick. Horribly sick.”

She was standing now. I held the hayfork, aimed at her stomach. Ms. Skelling’s right hand began to slowly move toward the tines of the hayfork and gently but firmly pushed them aside. “You see?” she said calmly. “We’re not going to hurt you. And we’re not going to hurt your friends.” She placed her hand on the handle of the hayfork. “You can let go, Madison. It’s all right.”

I felt her take hold of the hayfork handle, could feel her start to ease it away from me. I didn’t want to kill her. I wanted her to give herself up.

Don’t let her …, a voice in my head said. I saw Lucy, Adam, and Courtney. My mother and father. They all knew. It was their voices I heard. My hands tightened on the handle.

Ms. Skelling felt the resistance. Her eyes narrowed and suddenly she pulled hard, trying to yank the hayfork out of my grip. But I didn’t let go.

It was a tug-of war-now, with Ms. Skelling holding the hayfork handle near the tine end, and me on the other end. Ms. Skelling yanked. “Let go!”

But I held on. For dear life.

“I said, let go!” Ms. Skelling yanked again.

“You have to give yourself up,” I said, still holding tight.

“Yeah, right,” she scoffed.

“I mean it!”

“You couldn’t hurt a fly, you wimp!” Ms. Skelling snarled and pulled hard on the hayfork.

This time I didn’t resist. I jabbed the hayfork as hard as I could.

Ms. Skelling stumbled backward and slammed into one of the pens.

The hayfork kept going.…

Ms. Skelling’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open. She stared down at the hayfork buried deep in her middle, at the red stains growing around the tines. Then she looked up at me.

“You … little … bitch.”

“Damn right,” I said.

chapter 22

I CALLED 911, then brought water out for Courtney. Ethan was still unconscious on the kennel floor, but his heart was beating. When the police arrived, I was sitting with Tyler’s head in my lap, just holding him.

The police would eventually establish that Joyce Carol Alberti—age 47, aka Mary Louise Smith, Rhonda Petersen, Carol Skelling, and IaMnEmEsIs—was responsible for at least seven deaths in five states. All the victims were considered popular kids and all lived in “nice, safe, well-to-do” suburbs like Soundview, the last places on earth where anyone imagined something like that happening.

But it indeed happened, and more sadness would follow. Lucy’s funeral was held three days later. Adam’s, two days after that. School closed and everyone went and cried for days afterward. Even today it’s still indescribably sad. Life in Soundview will never be the same.

The blow to Ethan’s skull caused some slight brain damage. His parents took him back to Shawnee Mission, and he’s getting all kinds of treatments and therapy. We send each other a Facebook message now and then, and he tells me he’s getting better.

Courtney recovered completely. Her mother came back from India. They fight a lot about her curfew.

Maura hasn’t come back to school, and I’ve heard she’s moving away. I sent her a message saying that it wasn’t her fault and nobody blames her. But she didn’t write back.

At low tide, the seagulls picked up clams and dropped them on the seawall behind my house. It was a cold, clear December afternoon, and I sat on a bench in our backyard, watching the gulls and enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face.

Suddenly I felt the presence of someone behind me.

Tensing, I swiveled around.

It was Tyler. The momentary fright drained out of me, and I smiled.

“Your mom said I’d find you back here,” he said.

I patted the bench beside me and he sat down, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. For a few moments we watched a gull peck at a clam in a broken shell.

“I always think seagulls have to be pretty smart to break open clams by dropping them,” I finally said.

“Not as smart as the ones in Kansas City,” said Tyler.

“Why’s that?”

“In KC they just hang around in the parking lot at McDonald’s.”

I glanced out of the corner of my eye at him. “Are there really seagulls in Kansas City?” “I can let you know, if you’d like.”

I felt my heart sink. He’d come to say good-bye. He was going home. “What about finishing high school?” “I graduated two years ago, Madison.”

Yes, I thought sadly. I should have guessed. “I always thought you seemed more mature than other guys. Didn’t your parents wonder where you were?” “I told them I was living in the city, staying with friends and working as a bartender. That’s the funny thing about cell phones. People never really know where you are.” A gull dropped another clam. We watched the small white dot drop against the blue sky background and shatter on the wall. “Bull’s-eye,” Tyler said.

“I have another question,” I said. “If Ms. Skelling taught at your school, didn’t you know her?” He shook his head. “She must have started there the year after I graduated. I guess you’ve probably figured out by now that I’m not the kind of guy who’d go back to visit.” I nodded.

“I’ve got a question for you,” he said. “You ever figure out who PBleeker was?” I nodded again. “I’ve promised not to tell.”

It was Dave. He’d told me at Adam’s funeral and apologized. I’d recalled that day in the library when I’d asked him if he was PBleeker, and how convincing his denial had been. Maybe I just wasn’t that good at reading people.