Horrorscopes: Twelve Tales of the Macabre

Closer Together

 The boy is screaming in the cellar. I've had him for about a week now and he's screamed off and on, never seeming to realize that no one is coming to help him. The closest neighbor is half a mile away and the cellar walls are thick. Cinder blocks with concrete poured into the hollow bits. Virtually soundproof. I can hear him screaming through the laundry chute, and I can hear him no matter where I am in the house. But the neighbors? Not a chance. Even on a still evening, when the sound carries the best out here, no one will hear him scream from the end of the driveway, let alone a half mile down the road. But the boy keeps on screaming.

I took him from a music shop in town. He was looking at the guitars hanging on the walls. He said he wanted to learn to play as soon as he'd saved up enough money to buy one. It was easy to get him to come home with me; all I did was offer him a bargain he couldn't refuse. I told him I had an old Gibson Les Paul that hadn't been played in years, not since my son had died, I said. I told him it was a shame to see such a beautiful work of craftsmanship go neglected and that I'd be willing to part with it for the seventy dollars he'd saved up.

I'm not a pervert, if that's what you're thinking. It isn't a sexual thing. The boy is still wearing the clothes he had on when I took him, and I have no intention of taking them off. It's about control. It's about dominance. It's like keeping a pet. The same way that a caged rabbit can comfort the turbulent life of another person, my caged boy can comfort me. A pet owner takes solace in the fact that if they can afford to feed a pet, they can afford to feed themselves. It is no small comfort that the caged animal reminds the human of his own superiority, that it takes more than opposable thumbs to separate men from beasts. Most of all, though, is that the feeling of having the survival of another living thing—a sentient thing—trembling in the palm of your hand... it's nothing short of rapture.

The boy screams and I hear every utterance. He screams for his mother, for his father. He's about thirteen or fourteen, but he has been reduced to emotional rubble; he has regressed into early childhood and he calls for mommy and daddy night and day. It is simultaneously amusing and tragic that mommy and daddy haven't yet realized the boy is missing.

His parents are divorced; I always go for children of divorce. Divided familial units are all too often ignorant of day-to-day family functions. The boy's father lives in another state now, but he emails twice a week. The boy can't say for sure—as I said, his mind is reduced lately—but he thinks it's been six months since he last saw his dad.

The boy's mother is some hotshot attorney; at least, she thinks she is. Her name isn't on the letterhead of the firm where she works, but she puts in the hours like it was her own brainchild. She's on the job from seven in the morning until nine or ten at night. In court, in the office—it's all the same to the boy. He doesn't see her. Most nights, she doesn't even come home. The new boyfriend lives in the city and keeping a toothbrush and change of clothes at his place is easier than a forty minute commute six days a week.

This sort of thing may sound appalling, but it's more common than you may want to believe. This is a specification that I scope out, that I troll for, when I'm looking for the next boy or girl. Divided families, over-worked, detached parental figures. Children of types like these are all too willing to talk to strangers, despite the dangers detailed on the posters. Any surrogate parent will do; priests, librarians, soccer coaches. Any adult willing to pay them a little of the attention they don't get at home.

They haven't been without contact with the boy, of course. These people aren't monsters. They aren't drug users or alcoholics and they don't fit the demographic of 'negligent parents'. They are simply hard workers, beating back the stress to stake a name for themselves and pay the bills on time.

Cell phones are the real heroes here. I couldn't do what I do without them, that much I know. The boy's mother sends text messages from her own cell to his, once every two hours or so. When I first locked him up downstairs, I took the phone and read through his Outbox. Learned his particular vernacular. He doesn't use punctuation, except for periods; he never capitalizes; he has apparently never taken the I before E rule seriously. It was simple to become the boy and I didn't even need to speak in an unconvincing falsetto. I simply text the way he would text, respond the way he would respond.

His mother texts and says there are microwavable dinners in the freezer or pizza money clipped to the fridge—she won't make it home for supper tonight. I text back that Conner invited me over for dinner. Conner is a contact saved to the boy's cell phone, a number the boy has dialed twenty times in the three days before I took him. It's a safe bet that this is a close friend and if the boy's mother even batted an eyelash, she didn't waste time in doing it. Her reply was nearly instant: OK BE GOOD.

It took some coercion, but I eventually convinced the boy I'd stop bringing him food if he didn't give me the passwords for his email and social networking accounts. Text messages aren't enough, you see. Kids are active, they do things; and detached parents often look in on virtual environments to reassure themselves that they are not immediately needed in the real one. I post complaints about homework on the boy's Facebook page, the mother 'likes' the status. I tweet on Twitter that the school bus smells like puke and sawdust. The boy has over forty thousand followers, which I must say is impressive.

I use Foursquare to check in at places a boy his age would likely be. The mall, the library, the movie theater. The boy's mother is active and encouraging in his online virtual life, but she is so far removed from his physical life that she doesn't even suspect that I'm not her son.

The father sent emails a few times. He talked about the weather, the ocean. What they would do that summer when the boy comes to visit. He speaks the way that geographically distant fathers always speak; everything is hopeful, every sentence ends with “I promise.” My replies are short and satisfactory.

I don't know what I'll do with the boy when I'm finished with him—and that time is coming close, I can feel it. I'm not getting the same thrill out of the screams that I got even yesterday. My curve of dominance has begun to plateau. Maybe I'll let him go. Maybe I won't.

I let the last one go home. The one before that, I didn't. That one was a girl of about eleven. I decided early on that if her detached familial unit could go a week without the slightest suspicion of her mishap, I would kill the girl. I was deliberately vague and ambiguous in the text messages and IMs. I gave them every opportunity to ask if everything was all right. But the parents never questioned me. It was tragic, to say the least.

It's only fair to give this boy the same chance that young girl had had. I'm sending a plea to the mother's cell phone. I text, CAN YOU COME HOME TONIGHT? I NEED HELP WITH MATH H/W AND I MISS YOU.

If she agrees to come home, shows the slightest bit of humanity and responsibility, I'll let the boy go. If she makes some excuse as to why she can't, I'll have to kill him. I don't particularly want to, but the stakes are set. As I wait for her reply, the phone is silent in my hand. My laptop is open to the boy's networking websites and email account, all these miracles of technology. These devices and sites which bring us closer together. As I stare at the phone in my hand, I repeat like a mantra, “If she comes home, I'll let him go. If she doesn't, I'll have to kill him.”

The phone's text alert begins to chime and the boy is screaming in the cellar.