You Shouldn't Have Come Here

by Jeneva Rose

“It was dark out. He was drinking. Probably got turned around.” Turned around? On a ranch he was clearly very familiar with? That picture of him, Calvin, and Joe was more than a decade old. I considered prying more but decided to play it safe and just agree with him. “You’re probably right. It’s just such a shame,” I said, delivering a sympathetic glance.

There was a sadness in his eyes along with tinges of anger, frustration, and fear—all mixed into a perfect recipe of what, I presumed would be, a disaster. I nearly flinched waiting for his reply. Instead, I raised my shoulders and my chin. I had learned confidence was the best armor.

I smiled and headed toward my bedroom. Right as I reached the long, dark hallway, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It whipped me around with so much force that I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. Calvin’s lips were on mine, and they were hungry, as if he hadn’t eaten enough at dinner.

His hands ran up and down my back. His tongue pried open my mouth and forced its way in. His lips and tongue were wet and sloppy, not like I had experienced before.

“I’m leaving tomorrow.” Calvin took a deep breath that sounded more like a grunt. “I know you think you are, Grace,” he said, narrowing his eyes. I blinked a few times and stepped back. “What did you say?” “I said I know you are, Grace.” I took another step back. Is that what he said? I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

I retreated down the hallway, not turning around until I felt the door handle in my hand. I opened the door and closed it behind me. When I reached for the lock, I realized he hadn’t fixed it like he said he would. Before getting into bed, I leaned the desk chair against the door, securing the back underneath the handle. I hoped he’d leave it unlocked for me in the morning.

In the middle of the night, my eyes shot open. The room was pitch-black, silent. I wasn’t sure what it was that had roused me but something must have. My body was soaked with sweat. My heart raced, and my breathing was quick and uncontrolled like I had just run a marathon. I listened for any sound, any movement, but nothing. Perhaps it was nothing, a freak anomaly of the mind jarring me back to consciousness. But no—the brain doesn’t just do that, not for nothing. Then a hand, cupped to fit the curvature of my face, rested over my mouth, gently at first, but then the pressure began to force my head deeper into the pillow, sending pain up the sides of my jaw.

“Shhhhh, time to be quiet, Grace Evans.” I still couldn’t see well enough to make everything out, but that was Calvin’s voice. I’d know it anywhere. I went to grab for his hand, but a tight burn dug into both of my wrists. I had been tied to the bed in my sleep, legs as well, a bound victim afloat on a padded mattress. I tried to scream but it was nothing more than a muffled wail through the hard-pressed skin and bones. “Now, now, now, Grace. I said it was time to be quiet. Haven’t we caused enough trouble already?”

“I’m sorry, Grace. Truly, I am. I can’t promise you will enjoy any of what is about to happen to you. In fact, I can promise quite the opposite. But just know that it wasn’t your fault. You merely, well . . . made it worse.”

Goose bumps covered my body as something cold and lifeless pressed into my center. And then a heat like I have never felt before, followed by immense wetness. It was as though I had pissed the bed. Then it came. The worst pain I had ever felt in my life. My muffled screams were drowned out by Calvin’s deep laughter. The steel moved up toward my navel, meeting resistance as it passed every sinew and fiber of muscle, bone, and tendon. I was being treated like a freshly caught fish, laid out on a newspaper. “Remember what I said about fishing? The trick is to get the hook all the way through it from end to end, so it can’t get off. You’re the worm, Grace. You could have been the fish, but you wanted to get away from me so badly.” He laughed maniacally.

I felt the steel press farther inside of me, scraping and tearing my insides. A hand squeezed my throat, crushing it further like a vice grip. My last breath was mere moments away. My mind closed off as the steel and barb began to push up through my esophagus and then . . . “uggghhh.” Panting breaths and cold sweat consumed me as I jarred awake, sitting up in the bed. I ran my hands all over my body, my throat, my wrists, my stomach—all unscathed. Oh my fucking God! What was that? I looked around the dark room. There was nothing—just blackness and sile...

I finished the second cup of coffee and set the mug down on the counter. It being lukewarm made it taste funny. Not hot enough to punch with bright acidity and warm the body, but not cold enough to thicken into a sweeter, smooth experience—the worst of both worlds, something undesirable.

“I really enjoyed our time together,” she said, and for the first time, I saw the dimples her smile created. I wasn’t sure if they were there before. I assumed I would have noticed something as cute as Grace’s dimples, but maybe I wasn’t seeing things clearly—enamored by the entirety of her and not the details.

Grace slid the key into the ignition and delivered a small smile before turning it. The engine went click, click, click. She struggled, turning the key again. Click, click, click. The engine wouldn’t turn over. Her face became panicked, and she tried a third time. Click, click, click. Music to my ears. Her arm flailed like a windmill as she cranked the window handle on her dated vehicle. Grace gritted her teeth, clearly displeased. “I thought you said you fixed it?” “I thought I did too,” I lied. “Go ahead and pop the hood.” I moseyed over to the front of the car and lifted the hood, toying around with some wires, pretending to examine and make adjustments to random parts.

“You promised it’d be fixed by today.” I turned my head toward her and a sinister smile slowly crept its way across my face. The mask beginning to slip. “I promised a lot of things.” “What the hell does that mean?” she nearly yelled.

I couldn’t help but laugh and, in an instant, I was lunging toward her. She had no time to react. Grace tried to swat me away, but her pretty blond hair was already wrapped around my hand. She screamed so loud her voice cracked. “I promised I’d let you leave, and we both know that’s not happening,” I said, dragging her back toward the house.

Her legs gave out, and she kicked at the ground. One of her heels slipped off. A Cinderella in the making. Grace’s hands shot up to my arms. She pinched and slapped and cla...

“You shouldn’t have come here, Grace, but I’m glad you did.” I smiled.

I thought she’d try to run. I enjoyed the chase. But instead, she completely caught me by surprise. Grace charged at me, hitting me in the stomach like a lineman on a football field. I gasped, falling backward. This wasn’t the first time she took my breath away. When I first laid eyes on her, I knew she’d be a fighter.

The hunt is always much more fun than the catch.

There she was, my amazing Grace, standing in the corner, holding my knife. She must have found it when she was snooping around the basement. Such a naughty guest.

“You’re the one that shouldn’t have come here, Calvin,” she said.

“Is this about that goddamn missing bitch?” I spit. “Is she here?” Grace tilted her head. My eyelids so badly wanted to close. Tears streamed from the corners of them, slithering down the sides of my face. I struggled again to move my arms and legs. Nothing. “Yes.” Even speaking became a chore, every muscle in my body seizing up, useless. “Is she alive?” “I think so.”

“Please . . . no,” I begged. “Just call the police. The girl is . . . in . . . a shed . . . the woods. Forty yards . . . behind the apiary.” She tilted her head to the other side. “Did you kill Albert?” “No.” I panted. “That bitch . . . was . . . hollering and . . . Albert’s drunk ass . . . must . . . have heard it. He stumbled right . . . into the bees.”

“The computer. There’s a Wi-Fi router beside it. Just plug it in.” She raised an eyebrow. “You lied about the Wi-Fi too?”

“I have to know,” Grace said, standing from her seat. “Because it’s been bothering me. What really happened the night Lisa died?”

Lisa sat in the passenger seat beside me while I drove Joe’s truck on the black twisting road. It was dark outside, the only light coming from the moon and the vehicle’s headlights. I couldn’t tell if the rumbling was coming from the truck or Joe asleep in the back seat, snoring away. She glanced over at me and smiled. Her hair was full of blond ringlets and her eyes were green like emeralds. The evening was perfect until it wasn’t anymore. “Calvin, I’m leaving next week,” she said shakily. “What do you mean?” I tried to keep my eyes on the road, but I kept looking over at her. “My assignment is over.” “I thought you extended it already.” I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. Lisa tilted her head. “I tried. But they don’t need me anymore, so I accepted a temporary nursing position in Alaska. I start next week.” “You didn’t even talk to me about this,” I yelled. She reached out and put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m talking to you right now.” “No, you’re not. You’re just telling me how it’s going to be.” I flicked her hand off and shoved her back. “Calvin,” she nearly cried. “This doesn’t have to be the end for us.” I saw red and pressed down on the gas pedal. The truck sped up from forty to forty-five. “Yes, it does,” I said. “Slow down, Calvin,” Lisa begged. Up ahead an animal prepared to cross the road. The headlights made its eyes glow. Lisa swatted me several times, telling me to slow down. I shoved her again, harder this time. Her head cracked against the pass...

I knew this was the end. Where had it all gone wrong? How did she know? How did she get the upper hand?

This part was inevitable. Calvin’s own behavior made it so. One of us wasn’t going to leave here, and it wasn’t going to be me.

I tossed the empty hair dye box into a garbage bag beside the bathroom sink. My hair was swooped up into a bun, covered in brunette hair dye, my natural color. I looked at my bloodstained face in the mirror. Leaning closer toward my reflection, I pressed a finger to my eye and pulled out a blue contact from one and then the other—revealing my caramel-colored irises.

Startled, I screamed and nearly fell backward. Three motion lights flicked on, each one lighting up a mounted head. But they weren’t animals. Their faces were frozen in the fear they experienced just before their last moments. Small wooden plaques hung below them, each one with a name carved into it—Cristina, Kayla, Amber. I closed my eyes for a moment. You were sicker than I thought you were, Calvin. I shook my head, noticing two plaques hung on the wall beside the others. No mounts were above them, just a white wall, a blank canvas for his vile art. The names carved into them were Briana and Grace.

Her face crumbled, and she seemed to laugh and cry at the same time. “Are you Grace?” Her voice croaked. I tilted my head. “Yeah. How did you know that?”

She let out a howl of a cry, a mix of relief and sadness. “Calvin told me about you. You were going to replace me just like I replaced the last girl.”

Up close I could see fingerprint-shaped bruises around her neck and popped blood vessels surrounding her eyes.

The old man twisted his wiry beard. “Avery Adams.” My shoulders tensed, and I took a deep breath. He slid out a drawer underneath the register and flipped through a stack of papers. The old man held out his hand, extending a driver’s license. “You dropped it when you were in here. Tried to tell ya, but you sped off like a bat out of hell, so I’ve just been holding it for you. In case you came back.” He smiled, revealing cracked yellow teeth.

In the rearview mirror, I watched the sun go down. A ball of fire engulfed the skyline for a moment as Gunslinger 66 officially went out of business. The explosion was sudden and fiery, sending debris in all directions. Everything that was Grace Evans burned. The blood-soaked clothing, license, credit cards, and anything else that tied me to that identity. Grace Evans was dead. Same with that poor old schmuck. They both didn’t exist anymore. I wasn’t worried about fingerprints or DNA or anything like that. Avery Adams wasn’t in the system. She was a saint, an upstanding citizen. Grace Evans was here, but Avery Adams had never been to a place like Dubois, Wyoming.

Let me reintroduce myself. My name is Avery Adams. I’m your next-door neighbor. The woman at the café. The girl who jogs in the park every day. Says hello to strangers. Holds the door open. Gives up her seat for the elderly. A volunteer for an animal shelter. I’m the girl at a bar on a Friday night and the woman in church on a Sunday morning. I’m every girl you’ve ever known and every girl you have yet to meet. My name is Avery Adams. I love meeting new people—and I love killing them too.

Calvin’s truck was somewhere in Nebraska. I swapped it out for my rental car. The Mazda I had driven to the ranch was purchased privately for five hundred in cash from a shady guy who couldn’t say more than a few words. The VIN had been scraped off, so I knew it was stolen. Even better.

“Want that in the back?” He gestured to my messenger bag. “No, that stays with me.” It had my prized possession in it, a token of my travels, the knife I had snagged from Calvin’s collection.

Everything had gone according to plan—mostly. This wasn’t my first rodeo. This was what I needed to do. It kept my life in balance. It kept me in equilibrium. Have you ever had an itch in the middle of your back, just out of reach? I have, and I’ve learned how to scratch it. From a young age, I knew I was different. I wasn’t like the other kids. Nothing bad ever happened to me. My parents didn’t abuse or abandon me. I was never sexually assaulted. I was just different. My brain was wired like the handy work of an electrician in the middle of an apprenticeship—not right by normal standards, but it still worked, just a bit different.

Some people kill because they enjoy it. And I know that’s frustrating to hear. There is no why. There’s no rhyme or reason. I just enjoy it. Call it a hobby if you will. You like to read. I like to watch the life drain from a person. To see the light behind their eyes flicker out. To watch their face go lax. To watch the future they had envisioned for themselves disappear. Like a magic trick. Poof, it’s all gone. Call me a magician, why don’t you? Serial killer has a nice ring to it. But I actually prefer just Avery. You can call me Avery.

He was like me—well, not exactly. I’m not that sick, and I was born this way. Calvin was molded into it. The whole nature versus nurture argument. I saw it in him, but he didn’t see it in me. Survival of the fittest, as they say.