Caution Tape (Mutual Monsters Duet Book 1)

by Molly Doyle

Would his head pop off? Would it pop off like that little fucking piggie that went wee-wee-wee all the way home?

I manage to get through the work shift without committing homicide.

“What I want to know is where these guys get the type of wives that’ll leave them alone that long,” the sneering, higher pitched host replies. “Thank you! I can’t get through a playoff football game without hearing it from my wife, meanwhile John the Axe Murderer has a house of corpses, and his wife is like, ‘Well he works late sometimes and has his hobbies—’” “He’s a little quiet sometimes—” “A little distant—” “A little weird in bed—” “Ha! You ever wonder what these guys do in bed?” They go on, but I tune them out as I rotate that particular unique phrase in my head. House of corpses.

I’ve always experienced dark thoughts. Intrusive thoughts, Michael calls them. Except, to me, they weren’t intrusive at all. They felt normal. They felt right. Except I’ve always been warned to never act on those impulses, and now I realize it’s because they could get me into a lot of trouble.

I grab the bottle of fake blood from the table and squirt some onto my finger, like toothpaste on a toothbrush. A warm sensation rushes through me, traveling all the way down my body as I smear some of the blood on my chest, staring at my reflection in the mirror plastered on the wall. My heart beats wildly at the image. Suddenly, I’m smearing the entire container of blood all over me, bathing my arms, neck, and chest in the red liquid. “Jesus, Cora,” Jerri mutters. “You think that’s enough blood?”

“Yeah,” I answer, trying to imagine how it would feel if this were real blood instead. It would be warmer. Inviting. The knife I’ve stored in my boot calls out to me. “I’ve never been more ready.”

Serial killers always have a myriad of reasons and motives for why they do the things they do. Their mothers abused them. The devil whispered to them. God had his orders. I don’t like those ones very much. Some of us simply feel like killing. From my time studying I noted that men seemed to be much easier to kill.

“We’ll meet dressed up,” I text him. “It’ll be exciting.” Jerald texts in all lower case and misspells words to be cute. He sends too many kissy face emojis. It makes me want to stab him to death.

Jerald is there. He’s talking to a girl in a black dress that clings to her very well, accented with black boots that stop just below her knee. She’s covered in fake blood.

The girl turns slightly, and I feel a twinge of shock; it’s the girl from Target. The cute one with murder in her eyes.

“She’ll be here. You’re a good guy. I’m sure she’s excited to meet you.” I’m nodding and murmuring back at Natalie while I eavesdrop. I can’t place the reasoning, but I find that it kind of annoys me that Cora is friends with Jerald.

I can hear a hint of malice and boredom in the undertones of Cora’s voice when she replies. “Some people like to do exciting stuff. Life is so fucking boring. Wait, where is your costume?” Jerald grins and pulls out a cheap, flimsy Zorro mask, and slides it over his head. “What do you think?” “Oh, that’s real sexy, Jerri.” Jerri? Why does that annoy me?

The guy I saw the other night in Target is here. Why do I remember him? What makes him so memorable? Maybe it’s the way he seems to carry himself. It triggers something inside me.

Although, he doesn’t reek of normalcy like most people. When I look at him, it’s like catching a glimpse of myself in a mirror. He reeks of deceit.

“You’ll become the best of friends. Move in together. Get married. Have a baby. Have some more babies,” I mutter dryly while pouring myself another drink. “Before you know it, you’ll be celebrating your thirtieth anniversary and looking back at your mundane life wondering where the hell all that time went and how it all went to shit in the end.” He’s staring at me with a look of disapproval when I meet his eyes. “Well, fuck, Cora,” he mumbles, taken aback. “I don’t even know how to respond to that. That was—” Hesitating, he nervously gulps down the rest of his beer. “That was really depressing.” “It’s the truth, Jerri.”

“Touch me like that again and I’ll peel your face off to use as my next Halloween mask. Capiche?”

“As strange as you are…” Jerri eventually says. “Never change, Cora.” “I don’t plan on it. Now let’s go dance.”

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.

“I’ll be honest, I’m feeling kind of shy. I’ve never done this before.”

“No, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to hurt you. Very badly. But I’ve never killed anyone and I’m a little overwhelmed.”

hammer, twirl it once in my palm, and then slam into the top of Jerald’s knee. I do it with the gleeful joy of a kid hitting the Test Your Strength game at a carnival. I do it so hard that I can imagine the bell rising up-up-up, making the lights go ding-ding-ding and I win all the prizes. Jerald makes a lot of noise. His screams are clipped and hoarse, sounding more like disbelief than pain. They remind me of an alarm clock. “Ah! Ah! Ah!”

“I am not going to let you go,” I tell him, gently, like he’s my student who simply doesn’t believe in himself. “If you do not stop, I am going to see how many nails your balls can take before you pass out.”

I wonder if this will become something I do to all my victims, or if it’s a once in a while thing like when the mood strikes me. On Thursdays, it’s nails. Saturday’s chainsaws.

First, the nail blasts through his flesh and wedges halfway into his jaw. The thwack of the gun firing and the sickly galuck sound of the metal splintering bone sends a delicious thrill down my spine, and I can’t help but groan in delight. It went in so deep. And Jerald! Look at him go! It’s akin to when fish get pulled out of the water, how they jerk and twist and flop. Well, Jer-Bear can’t twist and he can’t flop, but oh baby, can he jerk!

A fantasy hits me like hot water is poured over my head. Cora, in that black dress, catching me in the act with Jerald. I imagine Cora, striding toward me and glaring as I shrug helplessly. Stopping an arm’s length away, she leans down, her hair falling in front of her eyes. Slim fingers work along her hips to the hem of her underwear, slipping them down long legs and stepping out of them with dainty precision. Then as she turns around, she bends over in front of me, tight dress riding up around her hips. With a smirk, she moves to place her panties delicately on the exposed nail that is artistically penetrating Jerald’s face.

Target Guy drove down the street, taking a sharp turn, disappearing into the night. He didn’t see me lurking in the shadows, and I assume he believed he was alone. Except he wasn’t. I saw it all, and I know Jerri is with him. In the trunk.

So, Nolan isn’t normal after all, just as I had suspected. That normal façade isn’t correct. He has layers… how interesting.

For a moment, I become fascinated just thinking about the idea of it. At least until I freeze, half choking on my drink as the booze drips down my chin and neck. What if there is no Jessi? What if there never was? I ponder why Target Guy has taken him and I wonder what exactly he has in store.

Abruptly, I find myself smiling with anticipation. For the first time in a long time, excitement consumes me. I’m going to find out.

Jerri begged for his life in a high-pitched voice, but sure babe, we can go get tacos after the yard sales. Yeah, I’d love to go out with you and your friends for your birthday next month. By the way, Jerri’s blood was stickier than I thought it would be, like old fruit juice that’s started to congeal.

There’s a chunk of Jerri’s jawbone in my pocket, polished clean. I run my thumb along the ridges, marveling at how I’d yanked and twisted it out. God, I feel good.

“You left the party with her. Then you came back and took Jerri.” I glance quickly at her. She doesn’t speak with the standard hesitations and hitches that normal people do. There’s no stutter, no intonations or… well, any emotion. Interesting.

I try to brush past her, but she plants a hand on my chest. I smirk, and start to shove her away when a small, glittering knife appears out of nowhere and is suddenly pressed to my throat, digging in just under my Adam’s apple. She pushes me against the wall, our backpacks thumping to the ground in a heap.

“Let go of me, asshole,” she growls. “Nope.” We’re both panting, and I have a feeling similar to when I was hunting Jerri. An excitement. This is fun. Finally, there are stakes, there’s a threat, and there’s something to defeat. An opponent. Someone to play with.

“Fuck. You,” she hisses. “He hasn’t answered his phone. Hasn’t been at school, and he’s not at his apartment. You killed him. I know you did.” I drop the knife over her shoulder, at her feet. I take the jawbone out of my pocket. I use it to brush the hair away from her cheek, and then caress her skin with it. Even though she doesn’t get a good look at it, it gives me pleasure. “You have no proof,” I murmur in her ear. “Natalie will say I was with her all night. The houseguests will confirm it. The police won’t be able to get a warrant.” “Fuck you!”

Cora turns around and glares at me. “I’m going to kill you,” she bites out. Twirling the jawbone fragment in my hand, I grin at her. “So, I guess I’ll be seeing you around then, huh?”

“I hate him,” I tell my therapist, staring at the wall with vacant eyes. “What is it that you dislike about this person?” “Everything,” I spit out, tapping my knee with my fingertips. “He thinks he can just do anything he wants without any consequences.” “Is that so?” he questions. “Did he tell you this?” “I’m going to stop him.” He clears his throat and shifts in his chair. “How do you plan on stopping him?” By slitting his throat— “Cora?” “I—I’m not sure,” I stammer,

“You’re upset,” he observes. Finally, I glare at him. “No shit. You need a degree to make this obvious observation?”

“Yes. Him. Perhaps you should tell him how you feel,” he suggests. Or perhaps I should bury my knife between his shoulder blades while I watch as he cries out in agony and sheer desperation. “Perhaps,” I say with a sadistic grin.

“I’m the opposite of normal. You should know this.” Rolling my eyes, I groan. “God, Michael. You really suck at your job. I hope you know that.” He chuckles, seeming to take it as if I were joking.

I’m upset because Target Guy gets to stroll around doing whatever his sadistic little heart desires while I’m stuck here with this moron.

They’re just living their lives, as if any of what they’re doing in their day to day has meaning. How pathetic. They look like ants. I want to squish them. Putting them out of their misery would be the nice thing to do.

“You are,” he speaks over me, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. I freeze in place. He’s looked at me like this before, like there’s a fire burning within his eyes, but he’s never actually touched me. Never acted on his impulses physically. “You are capable of anything, Cora. You just have to want it.”

“You must feel alone right now,” he points out, wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue. “Very alone.” “Do I?” My voice is a challenge, and my face is blank. I blink up at him, waiting for his reply. “Yes.” He slips his arms around my waist without warning and takes my ass in his hands, giving my flesh a firm squeeze. “But you have me,” he announces, finally revealing his true self. His true intentions. “I’m here for you, Cora.”

“I fucking knew it,” I declare. He says nothing, although the expression on his face almost appears disappointed with my rejection, as if I had failed his test. Yes. That is exactly what this advance on me was. A test. My hands ball into fists at my sides as I get the sudden urge to castrate him. Instead of acting on this impulse, I find myself turning away and heading for the door.

“Don’t bother trying to explain yourself. You’re just worried I’m going to run to mommy or the cops and tell them how my creepy doctor crossed the line and groped my ass.” He blinks at me, mouth agape, unsure as to what he could possibly say to make me stay.

I zone out; Cora is drifting back into my daydream. Suddenly, I’m not taking Natalie hostage. No. Instead, Cora and I are speeding away from flashing police lights together with a body in the trunk and oceans of blood in our future.

“I really don’t like you. You feel like an insect to me. Like a ladybug that has landed on my shirt. It was nice for a while… the ladybug. But now?” I shrug. “It’s time to flick you off.”

It sounds like “Are you kidding me?” which makes me break into a wide smile. The game with Cora can finally have my full attention.

Sometimes I daydream about dragging a body—hacked up and full of my teeth marks—and dropping it into the middle of the living room. What would they do? I don’t think they would react. My mother might look up briefly from her crossword and ask me not to track dirt on her rug.