I Don't Want to Kill You

The phone rang four times before someone picked up.

“Hello?” A woman. Perfect.

“Hello,” I said, speaking clearly. I’d muffled the receiver
with a sweater to mask my voice, and I wanted to make sure she could understand me. “Is this Mrs.Julie Andelin?”

“I’m sorry, who is this?”

I smiled. Right to the point. Some of them babbled on
forever, and I could barely get a word in edgewise. So
many mothers were like that, I’d learned: home alone
all day, eager to talk, desperate for a conversation with
anyone over the age of three. The last one I’d called had
thought I was from the PTA and talked to me for nearly
a minute until I had to shout something shocking just
to get her attention. This one was playing along.

Of course, what I had to say was pretty shocking
regardless.

 “I saw your son today.” I paused. “He’s always such a happy kid.”

Silence.

How will she react?

“What do you want?”

Once again, right to the point. Almost too practical, perhaps. Is she scared? Is she taking this too calmly? I need to say more.

“You’ll be pleased to know little Jordan walked straight
home from day care— past the drugstore, down the street to
the old red house, then around the corner and past the apartments and straight home to you. He looked both ways at every street, and he never talked to strangers.”

“Who are you?” Her breathing was heavier now; more scared, more angry. I couldn’t read people very well over the
phone, but Mrs. Andelin had been kind enough to answer the
phone in the living room, and I could see her through the window. She looked out now, wide eyes peering into the darkness, then quickly wrenched the curtains closed. I smiled. I listened to the air go in and out of her nose, in and out, in and out. “Who are you?” she demanded.

Her fear was real. She wasn’t faking— she was legitimately
terrified for her son. Does that mean she’s innocent? Or just a really good liar?

Julie Andelin had worked in the bank for nearly fifteen
years, her entire adult life, and last week she had quit. That wasn’t suspicious in itself— people quit jobs all the time, and it didn’t mean anything except that they wanted a new job— butI couldn’t afford to ignore even the smallest lead. I didn’t know what the demons could do, but I’d seen at least one who could kill a person and take its place. Who was to say that this one couldn’t do the same? Maybe Julie Andelin was bored with the bank, but maybe— maybe—she was dead and gone and replaced by something that couldn’t keep up the same routines. A sudden change of lifestyle might be, from a certain point of view, the most suspicious thing in the world.

“What do you want with my son?”

From I DON’T WANT TO KILL YOU by Dan Wells, copyright 2011 by the author and reprinted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.