Teen Frankenstein (40 page)

“I killed you,” I said softly. “It was me that night.” A strangled groan, nearly inhuman. “It was an accident.” Since the night of the wreck, we'd come miles, but when I stared across an endless chasm at my creation, I felt that I'd returned to our start. I stood dripping wet in front of him, begging for his forgiveness, pleading with him to understand. I didn't know whether I deserved it, only that I was what I was and he was what he was and that neither of us could hide from it. Neither of us were perfect, only special.

He wrapped his hands around his head and pulled his elbows over his face like a cage. The air between us crackled, and I mentally readied myself for an attack. I could feel the violence raging within him. My own creation may kill me with his bare hands, I realized.

Find the thing you love and let it kill you.
That was what my father had done.

He lowered his hands. His entire body was shaking now. “I remember,” he said. “It's…”

Out of the corner of my eye, there was movement. I tensed. McCardle stretched his fingers for something. The gun on the ground. “Adam!”

There was less than an instant. Adam's decision balanced on the edge of a razor before it tipped over and fell. Forever. Irrevocably. And then he was mine.

He lurched on a damaged leg and pinned McCardle's arm. “Not … Victoria.” I watched horror-struck as Adam's hands wrapped around the neck of the man who used to be our school's janitor. Tearing myself from the spot, I reached for the gun, pulling it to safety and out of reach. The weight of it in my hands again felt deadly and even scarier now that it had been pointed at my brain. Milliseconds went by that felt excruciatingly long. McCardle began to gurgle. His frail lips worked for words.

I could have stopped Adam, but I didn't. I was ready to watch McCardle die, when suddenly, Adam released his grip. He slid away from the old man and sank his head into his hands. “Not yet, Adam,” I said, too quietly for anyone to hear.

“My son,” McCardle wept. “My son.” The contorted evil that had engulfed his features had vanished, and what was left was just a man stricken with grief.

I sensed the defeat in McCardle as he dragged himself to his feet. The retreat in his step. I watched as he tried to shift into the shadows, to disappear into the woods he knew so well. The Hunter of Hollow Pines. Only, it was too late. I couldn't let that happen. He knew our secret. He knew what Adam was. He knew what I had done.

My hands were slick with sweat. I held the barrel of the gun straight out from my body. I had to do something. I always knew when something hard had to be done and when someone special had to do it. So I did. I fired. The first bullet missed, whizzing by to lodge in a tree trunk somewhere. Lost. I fired a second shot.

This time Old Man McCardle doubled over. He clutched his stomach. The word
son
made it halfway out before he collapsed. The muscles in my arms dissolved, and the gun plummeted from my hands.

 

THIRTY-NINE

A description of the event: The storm approached Hollow Pines from the northeast corridor. As it neared, it became clear that the lightning was both attracted to and reinforced by the presence of the generators. A few stray lightning bolts hit close to home, but when, at last, a series of bolts found their mark, the electricity was harnessed and strengthened through the use of the adjustable spark gap. The tangle of lightning was too bright for the bare human eye to view without discomfort. A single, combined bolt made it to the ground, amplified in brightness and intensity more than any observed in nature of which I am aware.

*   *   *

The adrenaline drained from my body with the waning storm and we were left with the damage. The final shot rang in my ears. My eyes were too wide. I stumbled to the overturned lantern, barely seeing. I stared at the wreckage, which seemed to fan out from me like I was a bomb that had already detonated.

McCardle's son stared into the vast nothingness with eyes that would never close. A puddle surrounded him. In the debris, the stitching on his legs had loosened to expose the ends of whitewashed bone that glistened in the moon now beginning to peek through the passing clouds. I hugged my torso. My sopping clothes chilled me to the core. A single trickle of blood dribbled from the corner of Old Man McCardle's mouth. Red blossomed through the front of his flannel shirt. I stepped over his legs when I heard Owen's voice calling.

I'd been so lost in the small blown-up world between the generators that I had forgotten all about Owen and Meg. It felt like I'd spent hours in a cage match, and yet it couldn't have been more than minutes. I glanced back at Adam, who was still hunched over, catatonic. Reluctantly, I left the circle. I followed the sound of Owen's voice and followed the light of the lantern. The sobbing had stopped, and I now heard faint whispers through the noise of the rustling branches.

I found Meg with her arm wrapped over Owen's shoulder. She'd taken off her shoe and held her foot a few inches above the ground.

“Easy does it,” Owen said as he guided her closer. The lantern glinted off his glasses. His forehead wrinkled when he looked up. His face broke into a broad smile at the sight of me. “Tor,” he said. “You're okay. What happened?” He caught my wrist and pulled me into a tight hug, which ended up being crowded with the three of us, and it was like we were long-lost friends reuniting. “Janitor McCardle was the Hunter?” he said.

I nodded. “I guess he really was as crazy as people said he was. How bad is it?” I gestured to Meg's foot.

She winced. “He says it will heal and that I was lucky it only got my foot.”

“The puncture wounds are deep,” Owen said grimly. “And there are probably a few small fractures. She should keep it still and elevated as much as possible. See a doctor … if she can.”

As though drawn by a magnet, we gathered back at Adam. Meg whimpered at the two remaining bodies.

“I was going to kill him.” Adam was still hunched over. He let his hands fall from his face. “I already killed two people, and I was going to kill him, too. With my bare hands.” He turned his hands over, examining them front and back. “I remember now.”

A cold sweat spread to the backs of my knees. The three of us standing shared glances between us. “What did you see, Adam? What do you remember?” I asked.

“Everything.”

I bent down. A tuft of his dark hair fell over the bridge of his nose. I brushed it away.

“I'm John Wheeler,” he said, staring at his boots. Blood seeped through his pant leg where the trap had caught him, but he didn't seem to feel the same pain that Meg did. “But I'm Adam, too.” He looked at me imploringly. The naive boy I'd created was fading and being replaced by something wiser and less familiar. “I saw it,” Adam said. “I know why the house was burning. I—I killed someone. I punched him. I didn't mean to kill him, but, I punched him again and … I don't think I was sad. I was standing over his body.” He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched his chin to his chest before continuing. “Then there was gasoline. I … poured it in the house and then I lit the match.” He sucked in a deep breath like coming up for water. “And you were there.” He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at Meg like this was the part he couldn't quite place. “You were screaming for me. You told me to go. So I went.”

Owen and I both looked to Meg. Her eyes watered, and I didn't know if it was from pain or the memory. Who knew, maybe the memory was pain. “Here's what you have to understand,” she began, taking a deep breath. “Hugo is a piss-poor excuse for a town.” I started to open my mouth. “Wait. I know you think because you're not exactly from New York City that you've got the whole small-town bull nailed down, but this place deserves its dot on the map. Where we come from, people sit around waiting to die. And when they're bored, they sit around thinking of ways to speed that process up. John was going somewhere. He was an athlete. He was dynamite on the football field. Probably would have gotten a scholarship.” Her smile was soft in the trickles of moonlight. “But John's biggest problem was me. Like I said, he's been in love with me since we were kids. He'd have walked through fire for me if I asked him.”

I set my jaw. “And did you?”

“I didn't have to. I got involved with this guy, see.”

“I thought you said you two were madly in love,” I said.

She looked down at her knotted hands. “This guy and his friends were bad, and being with him meant being involved with both. I did some things I shouldn't have. I'm young. I experimented. We all did. Better than sitting and waiting to die.” She rubbed her arms like she'd caught a sudden chill. “But by the end, I owed them money and I wanted out. When I tried to stop, Jimmy wouldn't let me.” I recognized the name. Jimmy, short for “James.” James Flacco, the man who died at 408 East Trice Street. “I told John that Jimmy had been hitting me. It wasn't true. But I did believe he might have killed me. Sooner or later, anyway. I knew John had … a temper. There'd been a few other incidents. Lots of guys in Hugo were angry, though. I knew when I told John about Jimmy that he'd lose it. So I let him and that was when it happened.…” She trailed off.

My eyes flashed with anger that she'd done this to Adam. But then again, there would be no Adam without her. “Then how come
you
had a gun?” I demanded of Meg.

She let out a short, mirthless laugh. “I knew that looked familiar. For protection. From Jimmy's friends,” she said. “I'm not exactly the most popular girl in town right now. John even less so. The question is why'd you go searching through my things.”

“I needed to find you.”

Adam studied his knuckles. “I killed Knox. I killed Jimmy. I would've killed him, too.” He looked over his shoulder at McCardle's crumpled body. “I'm a monster.”

I grasped his chin between my finger and thumb and looked into his eyes. “The generators worked, Adam. You're not a monster. If I'm right, the energy source should hold. At least a lot longer. You can be Adam.”

“I can only be both,” he said. I cut my glance to Meg. She looked away, shifted her weight. “And I'll always be this,” he continued. “Dead.”

“No. Don't say that. I made you.”

“I know, Victoria. Thank you. But you
made
me.”

My intestines writhed like slime-laden earthworms. “Adam, you can't stay here,” I said. “Not after Knox. Not after Jimmy. You'll never get a fair shot.” I had destroyed the keeper of the secret, the one who knew
what
Adam was, but
who
he was could still catch up to him.

“Victoria, no.”

I shut my eyes to block out his pained expression. I'd abandoned him once, and now I was doing it for a second time. “You have to. It's the only way that makes sense. At least for now.”

All around us, the clearing was cast in an eerie light.

“My aunt has a house in Laredo,” Meg said. “We'll head there for now.”

“What about your injuries?” Owen asked.

Carefully pinching the fabric, I peeled up Adam's pant leg. Deep lacerations churned up loose skin. Blood coagulated in the sunken wounds. I was pretty sure the cuts went down to the bone. “His platelet count has been double what it needs to be. It may be enough to heal him more quickly.”

Beads of rain dripped from his hair. I thought of the tree-branch scars that braided his chest, and I wanted to memorize him, all of him.

“Adam,” I said softly.

“Victoria.”

I breathed in from my nose, out through my mouth, and tore my eyes away. “The charge should hold, but if it doesn't, don't let it get too far. Always stay alert.” I glared at Meg when I said this. “You let him get too far gone. You see what happens now. Promise me.”

“I promise,” she said, and I knew I had no choice but to trust her, even though I still didn't.

The rain had nearly dissipated. The sky had turned milky. The night clouds swirled in uneven patterns, blotting out the stars.

“Go,” I said before I could change my mind. “We'll take care of all this.”

My throat became sore and achy. With Adam's last look, he didn't hug me. We didn't shake hands. He only held my gaze for what felt like a small eternity, and then he was gone. Owen wrapped his arm around my shoulders and squeezed as the pair of them disappeared into the Hollows.

 

FORTY

With a heavy heart, I'm closing the Adam file today. Adam has been my greatest achievement. I'm looking into the possibility of getting recently euthanized cats and dogs from the local animal shelter. Will report with availability. Otherwise, I may have to look into less palatable means of getting large mammals.

*   *   *

People would believe anything that fit within their version of reality. Some days I was convinced that the people of our town chose not to see Adam for what he really was. Now he was nothing more than a memory in Hollow Pines—a ghost—which was funny seeing as how he'd been dead all along.

I stood with Owen next to our flimsy piece of poster board, waiting for the judges to evaluate our project. By now the burns around my wrists from McCardle's rope were a ring of ragged orange scabs, half peeled from the skin. I used my sleeves to cover them up and the nubs of my fingernails to scratch them now that they itched constantly. The judges consisted of two senior science teachers, a junior college professor, Principal Wiggins, and an oil-rig engineer. All around the cafeteria, students sat with their creations—oozing volcanoes, models of the solar system, and seeds sprouting weeds.

“That kid blew up balloons using Pop Rocks,” I said, crossing my arms and eyeing a set of three soda bottles whose necks were covered with blown-up latex. “And I thought our project was bad.” Science fair projects were mandatory in most science classes, but effort tended to be lackluster. The school fair was only a stepping-stone, anyway, for the team that got to move on to county and then state. Owen and I had won every year, and this one was supposed to be our best. Our brightest.