Born Evil Page 3

  Shane was suddenly crying in my ear. “I’m sorry, Mom. I was so scared…I thought she was gonna kill me…”

  “Shhh. It’s okay, honey. I’m coming home in a few minutes. Will you be okay until then?”

  “Yes…” He hiccupped miserably. “Please come soon, Mom… I’m still so scared.”

  “I will, honey. I will. See you soon. Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye…”

  I pulled back out onto the road and took off, remembering the reason I’d come up with for calling Shane in the first place. My plan had been to claim to need a phone number from a business card in my bedroom to give to Beth. I’d needed a valid reason to call so suddenly or Shane might get suspicious. I hated myself now for having thought such a thing about my own son. I should’ve figured there was an explanation to what he’d done! I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions like that. When I got home, which would be in ten minutes if I drove real fast, I would find all the scratch marks and bites on Shane. He couldn’t make something like that up. He would never be able to explain away not having any marks, and he knew that. To be one hundred percent sure, I would have the cat checked for rabies. A veterinarian shouldn’t have a problem checking that out for me.

  I had to drive quickly or Shane would wonder why it took me so long to get back from Beth’s house. I didn’t want him to wonder, crying on his own about what he’d been forced to do to Macy.

  It was in that moment I saw the deer before me on the road. The large animal, frozen in place, looked at me in mild surprise. I swerved hard to avoid hitting it. Then all I remembered was driving off the road followed by a wall of black.

  6

  Mom? Mom? Can you hear me? Mom?”

  Slowly, I opened my eyes. The lids felt heavy, like someone had attached something to them that weighed a lot. Everything around me was bright and blurry and white, and someone sat next to me, looking down at me. No, there were two people, one bigger than the other. I forced myself to blink a couple of times to be able to see better.

  Shane sat there, and so did Beth. Both of them were smiling widely, excitedly.

  “Mom!” Shane exclaimed and grabbed my hand with both of his. “You’re back!”

  “Hi, Jennifer,” Beth said, also excited but in a more contained manner. Her long auburn hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was wearing glasses instead of contacts. Black-framed ones that made her look like a different person. “We were so worried we had lost you.”

  I looked around the room. I was in a squeaky clean hospital room, everything crispy white or shiny metallic, machines beeping and blinking. There was a window with the thick blinds drawn and shut on one side. An IV drip was attached to my hand on the side of the bed where no one sat.

  As soon as I realized that I was in a hospital bed and that I had just awoken, I remembered how I had driven straight into a gigantic fir next to the road. I hadn’t wanted to hit the big deer that had remained on the road, looking at me with that dumb expression, uninterested in moving and saving himself.

  I had been in an accident then. A car accident.

  Shane shot up from his chair, letting go of my hand. “I’ll go tell grandma and grandpa. They’ll be so happy you’re finally awake.”

  Before I could say anything, he was out of the room. I turned to Beth, who seemed to have barely noticed Shane leaving she was so focused on me.

  “How—how long have I been here?” I asked slowly, my mouth dry and my voice raspy.

  “Almost three days. You were in a car accident. Your parents are down in the hospital cafeteria, having a meal. They left only minutes ago. We’ve all been here since you were taken here. Waiting for you to wake up after the operation. It took a lot longer than the doctors predicted. We were so worried we’d lost you.”

  I frowned and tried to lift my head to get a look at myself, my body. I discovered then that my entire left leg was in a cast and raised from the bed, hanging from a stand. Fear shot through me and I turned my attention back to Beth. “The operation? What happened? How bad was the accident? Am I going to be okay?”

  Carefully, I watched her face as I asked the last question. I really wanted to know the truth now, and nothing but the truth. Even if it was bad. Better to hear about it now when we were alone.

  “Yes, the doctors say you should be fine,” Beth said and smiled warmly, sincerely, patting my arm. “You have a broken leg and a couple of broken ribs. Other than that, you’re okay. As soon as your leg heals, you should be back to normal. As I said, we were just worried that it took you so long to wake up after the operation. It lasted twelve hours. But here you are.” She squeezed my elbow and smiled encouragingly.

  “What exactly did they operate on?”

  “You had bone splints in your thigh that they had to remove. Lots of them apparently. You broke your femur. But everything went well putting it back together, and the doctors said you should be able to walk just fine again after some rehab.”

  “Oh.” I nodded. “That’s good, I guess.”

  The smile on Beth’s lips shrank then and she turned serious. “What were you doing out driving so late anyway, Jennifer? I thought you told me you were home with Shane, who was really sick. But he wasn’t. I found out as soon as he called me.”

  I looked at her, searching my brain for a reasonable explanation to her question. But things didn’t move as efficiently up there as I was used to. Trying to use my head made it hurt. And before I could say anything at all, the door to my room opened. A balding, middle-aged man with a big nose and jowls stormed in. He was dressed in a white doctor’s coat and held a chart in his hand. Behind him followed a small nurse with pin-straight, platinum hair.

  “Ah, there you are at last,” he said, beaming pleased. He came up to me and checked my vitals, using both hands and his stethoscope that hung around his thick neck. I noticed a brown suit and blue silk tie under the white coat. “I’m Dr. Cohen. We were beginning to worry you’d never come back you were sleeping so hard!” He winked at me to take the edge off his words. “How are you feeling, Jennifer?”

  I tried to shrug, but I had a hard time moving my shoulders, I discovered. They were stiff and ached. “Not too bad, all things considered, I guess. I’m sorta thirsty.”

  “Here you go,” the blond nurse said and handed me a paper mug filled with water. It was as if she’d expected me to ask for something to drink. I took it from her gratefully and chugged its contents.

  “How does everything look?” I asked the doctor when I removed the cup from my lips.

  “You sound and look good,” he answered competently. “You were lucky you got away rather easily. I’m surprised you’re not in worse shape, quite frankly. When you get a look at the front of your car, you’ll know what I mean. It was a head-on collision. What made you drive off the road if I may ask? You had very little alcohol in your blood.”

  I gave a smirk. “There was a big stupid deer on the road all of a sudden. And he refused to move. I didn’t want to hit him.”

  Dr. Cohen pinched his face and nodded understandingly. “I suppose that makes sense. Well, as I said, you got very lucky all the injuries you sustained were a broken femur and a couple of fractured ribs. The rest is minor, lots of bruises and scratches. You’ll be back on your feet in no time.”

  “That’s great to hear.”

  “You’ll need some physical therapy once the leg’s healed, but that’s really it. And crutches for the next several weeks, of course. It’ll make your upper body super strong!”

  He kept reassuring me I’d be fine in that borderline inappropriate joking manner. I was glad he was the talkative kind who didn’t really expect much in response. It allowed me to search my brain for what to tell Beth.

  Unfortunately, it still didn’t cooperate.

  7

  The doctor was done with me by the time Shane returned with my parents, having stayed for several minutes. I was to be discharged in a couple of days, when he could be certain my state was stable.

&nbs
p; My mother, who’d always been prone to overly dramatic outbursts, nearly threw herself at me as she, Dad, and Shane entered the room. Shane was following closely behind, competing for space to get his arms around me. Dad hovered in the background. Before closing the door after herself, the nurse advised them to be careful, reminding them that I had a couple of broken ribs. Mom controlled herself before she could envelope me in a bear hug.

  “Oh yes,” she said, satisfying herself with merely rubbing my arm affectionately. “I almost forgot.” She shot the nurse a warm smile. “Thank you, nurse.”

  Shane had stopped beside Mom and was holding my hand again, glancing at me with those golden-flecked teal eyes with the very long, dark eyelashes framing them. He had the most amazing eyes that he’d inherited from his father, alert and intelligent. He smiled at me, his dimples popping in his round face.

  “How are you, Mom? I was so worried I’d never see you again.”

  Holding his gaze, I returned his smile at the same time as I tried to determine whether he had figured out I had lied to Beth yet. Had she told him when he called her? It was impossible to tell from his current expression, which bothered me. I struggled to come to grips with what was going on in my son’s mind in general and right now, I could really use knowing. A disturbing image of him stabbing Macy entered my head instead and I instantly made it go away.

  Well, he will tell me about it eventually, or tell Beth, I thought. Nothing to worry about, I silently reassured myself. I squeezed my son’s large hand, which was almost the size of a man’s while his body was not yet that big. While he had grown a lot lately, measuring five feet eight now, he was reedier than ever.

  “I’m fine, honey, all things considered. How are you?”

  “I’m good. When you didn’t come home, I called Beth. She told me she had no idea where you were, but she thought it was only a matter of time before you got home and that I shouldn’t worry.”

  I caught Beth’s eye then, and I sensed that she was trying to tell me something. It seemed she hadn’t told him that I’d left her house hours earlier then. I focused on my son, who kept talking:

  “But I was worried! I knew something bad had happened to you, Mom.” His eyes filled with tears and he sniffled.

  “You did?” I asked, a little thrown. It wasn’t like Shane to act this emotional.

  “Yes. I could feel it in my whole body. You know, like you say you can.”

  “Really? Did you tell Beth that?”

  Shane turned his head and briefly glanced at Beth, who’d walked around to the end of the bed to give him and Mom space. Then he looked back at me again.

  “No,” he replied. “I didn’t think of it until we hung up. It didn’t hit me until then. I called your phone, but you didn’t pick up.”

  “I was worried too,” Beth inserted. “I really did think you’d be home any second, but when I didn’t hear from Shane again, I called your phone to see what you were up to. I got voicemail as well, but it still took a while before I got real worried. That didn’t happen until I called Shane thirty minutes later and asked if you were back and you weren’t. So I drove over to your house to wait with him. It was four in the morning when we found out that you’d been in a car accident. A couple had passed you on the road and spotted you. They called for help. Thankfully, your purse was beside you on the passenger seat with your wallet and driver’s license, so the authorities were able to identify you quickly. We got a call from them and were terrified.”

  “Your father and I nearly had a heart attack when we found out what had happened,” Mom cut in, pressing a sun-spotted hand to her chest that was covered by a flower-patterned cotton dress. “We were sure you were dead. We came straight to the hospital in the morning when you were in the OR. As soon as we heard—which could’ve been sooner.” She shot Beth a dirty look and harrumphed.

  “Shane couldn’t find your phone number,” Beth explained sheepishly, avoiding my mother’s stern gaze. I was grateful Mom let it go and merely shook her dyed head of strawberry-blond hair in response.

  I nodded and asked, “How long was I out for?”

  “A little over forty-eight hours,” Shane replied. “The operation began at seven in the morning and it’s nine now, so close to fifty.”

  You could always count on Shane to come up with such answers quickly. He had always excelled in every subject in school except for gym class. He had never been a particularly good athlete, mainly because he had no interest in sports. I had tried for the longest time to get him to take up a sport, but so far nothing had stuck. My next attempt involved soccer as he really needed to get off his butt more often. If only he had been as obsessed with sports as he was with taking pictures and drawing. Ever since he learned how to use a crayon, he’d been drawing or painting stuff. He also figured out how to use his father’s camera the first time he was allowed to touch it. We quickly discovered that he was a born photographer with an eye for the right angle and color schemes. For his fifth birthday, he got his own camera to use. Plenty of his drawings and photos covered the walls in our house, and in our friends’ houses as well.

  “Thanks, honey,” I said to Shane. I noticed that he was wearing a long-sleeved sweater and baggy shorts that ended right below his knobby kneecaps. There were some nasty scratches on his neck, and when I discreetly checked his hands, I noticed the same going on there. I felt my entire body relax. He must have told me the truth then.

  “What did you do with Macy?” I asked him. “Is she—” Catching my parents and Beth with my peripheral vision, I cut myself off. How was I supposed to phrase what Shane had done to the cat? I didn’t want to bring up the fact that he had essentially butchered Macy. Not without everyone knowing why first.

  “What’s wrong with Macy?” Mom asked, looking from me to Shane and then back again. She loves cats even more than I do.

  “She’s dead,” Shane answered before I could say anything. “She had rabies, so I had to kill her. With a knife. It was either her or me,” he added dramatically.

  “She had rabies?” my dad blurted, finally saying something. He had always been a man of few words. “How the heck did the cat get rabies?”

  “Probably from a bat or something,” I explained. “This part of the country is no longer rabies-free, Dad. That changed as of 2012. So about a year ago.”

  “Really?” Dad looked incredulous.

  “Where’s the cat now?” Mom asked.

  Shane looked at her for a tense moment, then said, “She was so messy that I took her to the creek and threw her in the water.”

  8

  I was alone with Shane an hour later. I had finally convinced my parents to go home and get some rest, and Beth had to go to work. Shane claimed that he wasn’t tired at all, so I had allowed him to remain with me for a while longer. Normally, I would have sent him home with his grandparents, but I wanted to speak to him on my own.

  “Can you remove the shirt for me?” I asked him a few minutes after my parents were gone.

  “Why?” he protested, looking at me like I was nuts. “It’s cold in here.”

  I gave him an encouraging smile. “You won’t have to keep it off for long. I just want to see what Macy did to you. Please take it off, honey.”

  Grimacing, he pulled the large sweater over his head. I sucked in a breath and blocked my mouth when I saw the state of his skinny arms. They were covered with thin, long scratches, some of which were swollen and most of which were an angry red. I thought I could spot a few bite marks as well. There were a few scratches on his chest too, but not as serious-looking as the ones on his arms and neck.

  “Oh my God, honey,” I whispered, staring at the many scratches. “Macy really did a number on you, didn’t she?”

  He cocked a brow at me. “I told you, didn’t I? Do you think I would’ve killed her otherwise? She was acting crazy. I seriously thought she had been possessed by a demon. Can I put on my shirt now?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. Put it on. Did you see a doctor y
et?”

  He scowled lightly. “No, why? I don’t need to see a doctor. I just cleaned the scratches myself and put some anti-bacterial ointment on them and Band-Aids on some. They’ll heal on their own. They already look a lot better. You should’ve seen me that night. Phew.” He wiped away imaginary sweat on his forehead with the back of his big hand. “If I’d have known you wouldn’t be able to see them until now, I would’ve taken pics of the worst ones!”

  I grabbed hold of his wrist and pulled him closer. “It’s not a matter of the scratches, honey. You need rabies shots. Right away. You’ll die if you caught the virus and it’s allowed to develop. Don’t you know that, you, who’re so damned smart?” I nearly shrieked the last sentence, I was so terrified by the idea that Shane would die from having contracted rabies. It had suddenly dawned on me that rabies was deadly once you developed the disease. I had a vague memory of having read that you needed to get post-exposure shots immediately after being bitten by a rabies-infested animal or insect. How long was it since Shane had been bitten now? I narrowed my eyes and thought hard, ignoring the pain it produced in my head. It had to have been at least three days ago now. Was that too late? Oh God, don’t let it be too late.