Silver and Salt(18)

I could leave an anonymous tip like they do on the crime shows or in real life when you want to snitch and not get shot in the head for it. That wasn’t direct contact with the police, and I could use one of the school phones or hop a bus, go to the nearest mall—nearest being at least forty minutes away, make the call there. But the man…there was nothing to say that would help the cops. He had average hair, not brown but not blond, either. He wasn’t tall, he wasn’t short. Wasn’t fat, wasn’t skinny. Wore the same thrift store clothes everyone did around here. Jeans and an old shirt that could be black or could be a dark blue that was practically black. I hadn’t been close enough to see the color of his eyes.

He was as I’d thought when I first saw him. He was a predator, the city his wilderness. He had a natural camouflage that was so good, it was freakish, goddamn genetic. You could walk right past him and not see him at all. I’d notice him again if I saw him, but it might take me more than a few seconds, maybe an entire minute, which was f*cking unsettling, considering my near lifetime of training that forced me to notice virtually everything in my immediate and not-so-immediate area. The police already knew where she’d been found, though. They’d cover that area for blocks, blocks including the park. I knew wherever she’d been found, he’d killed her in the park. That was his place—where he found them and where he ended them. His f*cking lair. Maybe the police would find her blood there. Maybe they’d find him. Find the invisible man.

I knew they wouldn’t.

A monster had gotten Mels. Nothing would change that for her. She’d been happy with her toy pony, running to her grandma’s car with her scabbed knees pumping, her sandals flying, and then was gone. No more parks, no more freckles, no more ponies, no more Mels. That’s what monsters did. They took everything in your life and then they took your life, the whole thing.

I studied my reflection blankly in the TV screen, wondering how he found her. Trying to think like a monster would think. He could’ve gotten Mels to tell him where she lived. Mels had been trusting. She’d trusted me and I was half “boogety-man” myself. She wouldn’t have told him her direct address, little but not stupid, but the block she lived on, maybe. Then he would’ve known to watch for her and see which house she went into there. He had probably had said something close to “Do you live on Daisy Avenue? Is that why you have daisies on your shirt?” And Melanie, who hadn’t known about monsters before me, would’ve giggled. She knew about mee-maws that liked to dance, moms with needles in their arms, and, yeah, she would’ve giggled at the silly man. “There’s no Daisy Avenue around here.” She lived on this or that street. Whatever street it had been, they might as well call it Little Girl Lost Lane now.

I thought I’d saved her. I’d been proud of myself. I couldn’t count the times on one hand I could say that.

I rested my forehead on my knees as I heard Niko say supper was ready. Mels wouldn’t eat supper again, thanks to that monster. The police wouldn’t find him. He was so weirdly intangible and vague, he could barely find himself some days, I’d bet. No one would recognize him from a description of basically anything and nothing all in one. No one would turn him in, since no one would be able to see him. That was that.

No one would find him.

No one.

Unless….

They knew exactly how to look.




Unseen Glory



I looked.

Sue me. It wasn’t like I was sentimental. Or that I knew what the word meant, for that matter. It was a monster thing. Half-monster, whatever. He thought this territory was his, and he was wrong. Not that I was a killer, not like him. I wasn’t like him in any method or means. I had my own way and my own why of doing things. I couldn’t claim I was a shepherd either, or a barking sheepdog, or anything else. It didn’t matter what I was or if I had any idea whatsoever about me, myself, and I. All I knew was you did not poach on my f*cking territory. I’d walked this route for six months and only seen him once. That made the schools, the park, the blocks between and beyond all mine. He’d also proved me wrong and I didn’t like that at f*cking all.

Mels….

I didn’t want to think what Mels meant.

Not now.

Instead, I worked on being patient, not something I’m known for, but I knew predators—the kind that walked on four legs and the kind that walked on two. Whether it was in the woods, the Everglades, the jungle or in the crumbling concrete wasteland of every city, predators didn’t move on from a good hunting ground. It was the same as when you found a tasty, roach-free Taco Bell. You didn’t stray. You knew a good thing when you found it. Why go anywhere else? The invisible man, if he’d been into seven-layer soft-shell tacos instead of raping and killing little girls, would’ve agreed. You find a hunting ground and stick to it.

If you’re an idiot.

What's more, if you’re curious, there are tasty, roach-free Taco Bells everywhere.

Holing up in one place will cause a pattern. A pattern will get you killed. Niko hadn’t taught me that. It was something I’d been born knowing…in my bones.

Luckily, my bones and I didn’t have to stay patient long. This monster might be the next best thing to a chameleon, but he wasn’t too goddamn bright. I walked past the park for seven days after Melanie’s body had been found. It was the single place I’d seen him, but for him, idiot, it was a damn good hunting ground he didn’t know enough to give up. Figured. He was a human, by dictionary definition, and not a coyote out in the country. Coyotes that live far from man don’t have to worry about patterns versus a rich hunting ground, but coyotes that live in suburban and even urban areas knew. The invisible man didn’t. He wasn’t half as sneaky as a coyote. Keep that pattern long enough and Mr. Invisible himself would’ve eventually found himself in trouble. When you’re invisible or close to it and the cops are slow, eventually could turn out to be years and years, true. By that time, a shitload more kids would die, true as well.