Dan Wells - I Am Not A Serial Killer

I AM NOT ASERIAL KILLERDAN WELLSTORA TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOKNEW YORKThis is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed inthis novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLERCopyright 2010 by Dan WellsAll rights reserved.Excerpt of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, from Collected Poems 1909-1962,by T. S. Eliot, used by permission of Faber and Faber, Ltd.A Tor BookPublished by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC175 Fifth AvenueNew York, NY 10010www.tor-forge.comTor is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataWells, Dan, 1977-I am not a serial killer / Dan Wells.1st ed.p. cm.A Tom Doherty Associates book.ISBN 978-0-7653-2782-6 (paperback)ISBN 978-0-7653-2247-0 (hardback)1. Serial murderersFiction. I. Title.PS3623.E4688I32010813'.6dc222009040729First Edition: April 2010Printed in the United States of America0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1For Rob, who gave me the best incentive

a little brother can give, he got published firstAcknowledgmentsThis book owes its existence to many people, most of whomare (to my knowledge) not serial killers.First and foremost I must mention Brandon Sanderson, whoshut me up in the car one day and told me to stop talking aboutserial killers and just write a book about them. That turned outto be a pretty good idea. This idea was further developed andrefined by a series of writing groups and critical readers, including(but not limited to) Peter Ahlstrom, Karla Bennion, SteveDiamond, Nate Goodrich, Nate Hatfield, Alan Layton, JeanetteLayton, Drew Olds, Ben Olsen, Bryce Moore, Janci Patterson,Emily Sanderson, Ethan Skarstedt, Isaac Stewart, Eric JamesStone, Sandra Tayler, and Kaylynn Zobell.In the professional realm I must thank my editor, MosheFeder, and my absolutely incredibly wonderful agent, SaraCrowe. Without their help this book might still be okay, but itwouldn't be awesome and you'd have never heard of it. If youfind that it is awesome, and, indeed, if you find it at all, youhave them to thank.Special acknowledgment goes to my loving wife, Dawn, whosupported me all through the writing of this book and thendidn't leave me after she'd read it. Other family members whodidn't abandon me include my sister Allison, my brother Rob,my mother-in-law, Martha, and my poor parents, Robert andPatty. To all of you: let me please reiterate that this book is notautobiographical. I promise.I should have been a pair of ragged clawsScuttling across the floors of silent seas.The Love Song ofj. Alfred PrufrockT. S. ELIOT

I AM NOT ASERIAL KILLER1Mrs, Anderson was dead.Nothing flashy, just old ageshe went to bed one night and never woke up. They say it was a peaceful, dignified way to die, which I suppose is technically true, but the three days it took for someone to realizethey hadn't seen her in a while removed most of thedignity from the situation. Her daughter eventuallydropped by to check on her and found her corpse threedays rotted and stinking like roadkill. And the worstpart isn't the rotting, it's the three daysthree wholedays before anyone cared enough to say, Wait, where'sthat old lady that lives down by the canal? There's nota lot of dignity in that.But peaceful? Certainly. She died quietly in hersleep on August thirtieth, according to the coroner,which means she died two days before something toreJeb Jolley's insides out and left him in a puddle behindthe Laundromat. We didn't know it at the time, butthat made Mrs. Anderson the last person in Clayton County todie of natural causes for almost six months. The Clayton Killergot the rest.Well, most of them. All but one.We got Mrs. Anderson's body on Saturday, September second,after the coroner was done with itor, I guess I shouldsay that my mom and Aunt Margaret got the body, not me.They're the ones who run the mortuary; I'm only fifteen. I'dbeen in town most of the day, watching the police clean upthe mess with Jeb, and came back just as the sun was beginningto go down. I slipped in the back just in case my momwas up front. I didn't really want to see her.No one was in the back yet, just me and Mrs. Anderson'scorpse. It was lying perfectly still on the table, under a bluesheet. It smelled like rotten meat and bug spray, and the lone

ventilator fan buzzing loudly overhead wasn't doing much tohelp. I washed my hands quietly in the sink, wondering howlong I had, and gently touched the body. Old skin was myfavoritedry and wrinkled, with a texture like antique paper.The coroner hadn't done much to clean up the body, probablybecause they were busy with Jeb, but the smell told me that atleast they'd-thought to kill the bugs. After three days in endof-summer heat, there had probably been a lot of them.A woman swung open the door from the front end of themortuary and came in, looking like a surgeon in her greenscrubs and mask. I froze, thinking it was my mother, but thewoman just glanced at me and walked to a counter.Hi John, she said, collecting some sterile rags. It wasn'tmy mom at all, it was her sister Margaretthey were twins,and when their faces were masked I could barely tell the difference. Margaret's voice was a little lighter, though, a littlemore... energetic. I figured it was because she'd never beenmarried.Hi, Margaret. I took a step back.Ron's getting lazier, she said, picking up a squirt bottle ofDis-Spray. He didn't even clean her, just declared naturalcauses and shipped her over. Mrs. Anderson deserves betterthan this. She turned to look at me. You just gonna standthere or are you gonna help me?Sorry.Wash up.I rolled up my sleeves eagerly and went back to the sink.Honestly, she went on, I don't even know what they doover there at the coroner's office. It's not like they're busywecan barely stay in business here.Jeb Jolley died, I said, drying my hands. They foundhim this morning behind the Wash-n-Dry.The mechanic? asked Margaret, her voice dropping lower.That's terrible. He's younger than I am. What happened?Murdered, I said, and pulled a mask and apron from ahook on the wall. They thought maybe it was a wild dog, buthis guts were kind of in a pile.That's terrible, Margaret said again.Well, you're the one worried about going out of business,I said. Two bodies in one weekend is money in the bank.Don't even joke like that, John, she said, looking at mesternly. Death is a sad thing, even when it pays your mortgage.You ready?Yes.Hold her arm out.I grabbed the body's right arm and pulled it straight. Rigormortis makes a body so stiff you can barely move it, but it onlylasts about a day and a half and this one had been dead so longthe muscles had all relaxed again. Though the skin was papery,the flesh underneath was soft, like dough. Margaret sprayed thearm with disinfectant and began wiping it gently with a cloth.

Even when the coroner does his job and cleans the body, wealways wash it ourselves before we start. Embalming's a longprocess, with a lot of very precise work, and you need a cleanslate to start with.It stinks pretty bad, I said.She.She stinks pretty bad, I said. Mom and Margaret wereadamant that we be respectful to the deceased, but it seemed alittle late at this stage. It wasn't a person anymore, it was justa body. A thing.She does smell, said Margaret. Poor woman. I wish someonehad found her sooner. She looked up at the ventilator fanbuzzing behind its grate in the ceiling. Let's hope the motordoesn't burn out on us tonight. Margaret said the same thingbefore every embalming, like a sacred chant. The fan continuedcreaking overhead.Leg, she said. I moved down to the body's foot and pulledthe leg straight while Margaret sprayed it. Turn your head. Ikept my gloved hands on the foot and turned to stare at the wallwhile Margaret lifted up the sheet to wash the upper thighs.One good thing that came of this, though, she said, is thatyou can bet every widow in the county got a visit today, or isgoing to get one tomorrow. Everyone who hears aboutMrs. Anderson is going to go straight to their own mother, justto make sure. Other leg.I wanted to say something about how everyone who heardabout Jeb would go straight to their auto mechanic, but Margaretnever appreciated jokes like that.We moved around the body, leg to arm, arm to torso, torsoto head, until the whole thing was scrubbed and disinfected.The room smelled like death and soap. Margaret tossed therags in the laundry bin and started gathering the real embalmingsupplies.I'd been helping Mom and Margaret at the mortuary since Iwas a little boy, back before Dad left. My first job had beencleaning up the chapel: picking up programs, dumping outashtrays, vacuuming the floor, and other odd jobs that a sixyear-old could do unassisted. I got bigger jobs as I grew older,but I didn't get to help with the really cool stuffembalminguntil I was twelve. Embalming was like... I don't know how todescribe it. It was like playing with a giant doll, dressing it andbathing it and opening it up to see what was inside. I watchedMom once when I was eight, peeking in through the door to seewhat the big secret was. When I cut open my teddy bear thenext week, I don't think she made the connection.Margaret handed me a wad of cotton, and I held it at theready while she packed small tufts carefully under the body'seyelids. The eyes were beginning to recede, deflating as theylost moisture, and cotton helped keep the right shape for theviewing. It helped keep the eyelids closed as well, but Margaretalways added a bit of sealing cream, just in case, to keepthe moisture in and the lid closed.Get me the needle gun, will you John? she asked, and I