Fraternizing
5,110 words.
Chase Becker stood at the top of the stairs holding a knife. He had a big, cheesy white smile, a tie wrapped loosely around his head, and an eight-inch silver hunting knife with his father’s initials carved into the base.
“Come here, Thompson,” he crooned, and the crowd split à la the Dead Sea. Through the part came Jack Thompson, first-year business major with his shoulders shrugged up against his ears.
FROM TERRENCE “TERRY” MAYFIELD:
The kid was a disaster. He was always a disaster, like, drugs and stuff. We all did ‘em, but he was the guy who got us to. He threw great parties. His parents owned the cabin. They let Alpha Chi use it, like, all the time.
HE LAUGHS.
Alpha Chi Epsilon. Yeah. C-H-I. Your handwriting is great. Anyways. Ask his girlfriend. About the parties, I mean. Cherry Warner. I mean, everybody calls her Cherry. I don’t know her real name. He called her Cherry. He also called a few other girls, if you know what I mean.
HE LAUGHS.
You think Cherry had anything to do with it? I bet she did. I mean, she was there. I mean, they’re inseparable, those two. Cherry and Chase. I bet if he had the chance he’d lock her up. But, no, anyways. I didn’t see Cherry doing anything. So we can’t go after her, right? You can’t go after her? Well, whatever. You’re gonna question her, I hope. Do you guys have Pepsi? I don’t go for that Dr. Pepper shit.
It was a two-story cabin with a wooden exterior and a back porch. The interior was lined with wood paneling and shag carpet, and featured a handsome brick fireplace. In the master bedroom, a deerskin rug, and looming over the top of the stairs, a moose head on a solid oak mount.
FROM MACKENZIE DWYER:
Chase and I used to date, you know. In high school. We went to high school together. He was always very fun to be around. Life of the party, like, all the time. He dumped me, but it was totally cool, because I ended up dating his second-year roommate Robbie.
SHE LAUGHS.
Oh, um, Maxwell. Robert Maxwell. They were, like, really good friends. Like, always. Since high school. Robbie used to use his brother’s ID, to, like… Well, I don’t want to tell you that. Oh. Fine, then. You get the picture, right? Chase was big on Robbie.
SHE COUGHS.
I’m, like, totally trying to be serious. It’s just a lot. And this room is, like, not comfortable. No offense. You guys are nice, for cops.
There weren’t many true witnesses. Those that had survived had booked it, in waves, whoever could hitch a ride. Jack Thompson didn’t have the option to. When the police arrived, Terrence Mayfield, MacKenzie Dwyer, and Robert Maxwell were all standing over Jack in different stages of shock. Robert had given a police report then and there, wringing his hands and pointing absently around the exterior of the cabin. And it reeked, the cabin, to high heaven, of alcohol, weed, and rotting meat.
FROM ROBERT MAXWELL:
Actually, I went home early. Chase asked me if I could drive a couple people home at like 11:30, and by the time I was done I wasn’t feeling like a party. I ended up at my apartment at something like midnight. MacKenzie was still there. Dwyer. She’s my girlfriend.
HE SHAKES HIS HEAD.
I guess you want some crazy shit out of me, like he told me or something, because I’m the best friend, but he didn’t. I only found out because MacKenzie called me from the landline right before you showed up, at something like 5:30. She said something fucked up happened, and she needed me to take her home. I was only there for a couple minutes.
HE GRIMACES.
Around back smelled like a slaughterhouse.
It had been disgusting. Chase had taken the limbs and cut them into unrecognizable chunks, and then strewn them across the porch of the house, out by the back, blood seeping into the wood and slithering across the grass. It leaked slowly back inside the house. You could smell it, if you stood by the back door. Chase would clean the knife blade but not the handle, a slowly accumulating crust of reddish brown covering the hilt. It was the clean slice that enticed him, the feeling of flesh not ripping under the blade but coming apart smoothly, like a ribeye. So he sharpened it every time, and made sure he was able to see his stark-white teeth in the silver before it plunged.
FROM AMANDA “CHERRY” WARNER:
I really liked him.
SHE TRIES TO SMILE. SHE COVERS HER MOUTH.
He was a good boyfriend. Honest. Um… he was my sweetheart, you know?
SHE BLINKS BACK TEARS.
Wherever I wanted, usually, we would go. He made me breakfast, sometimes, and… he bought me cute tops, and he paid for dinner.
SHE TRIES TO SMILE.
Of course I knew about the knife. He liked hunting. He liked… you know… deer, rabbits, um… his dad took him hunting when he was little, at the— at the cabin. He went a lot.
SHE INHALES SLOWLY.
I don’t know much about his parents, really. He… he talked about his dad, but I never met anybody or anything.
SHE GNAWS HER LIP.
He did like his dad, though. He sounded… He never seemed, like, angry about him, or anything like that.
SHE SPLITS THE SKIN.
He told me right after the party started. He pulled me upstairs—he held my arm, he said it was all going to be okay, and that I should— I should just wait for him. He told me. He told me he was… he said he was going to—
SHE COVERS HER MOUTH.
It isn’t my fault.
SHE SOBS.
I didn’t know what to— I didn’t know he could do something so—
SHE GASPS. SHE TURNS AWAY.
I’m sorry. My mascara is getting everywhere.
Chase had created a sort of haven for himself upstairs, where the master bedroom was. He displayed his knife proudly on the nightstand when it was not on his person. He had a bottle of peroxide next to it, but the seal had not even been cracked open. He just liked to have it out.
FROM TERRENCE “TERRY” MAYFIELD:
No, but really, I liked the kid. Everybody liked the kid. I mean, he was a good kid. You know, before everything. Like, he was a mess, but the way the rest of us were. I never thought to myself, like, oh, that kid’s off the rails. That’s a bad egg. I’ve— I mean, other people, maybe.
HE LAUGHS.
Oh, everybody likes those parties. Of course I showed up. I show up. I know people. I know a bunch of people.
HE COUGHS.
I show up to most parties. I love parties. I love cabins. Everybody loves cabins. Plus it was a frat thing. I mean, you can ask anybody. Who passes up a cabin frat party? I might lay off ‘em after this, but that’s… you know. Special circumstances. Do you guys have more Pepsi, or do I only get one? Can someone go make that happen?
There were plenty of bodies, a pledge class almost wholly terminated, but it had been hard to classify whose flesh belonged to who. None of the bodies were full and complete. No heads were found. Chase found serene pleasure in keeping them from being identified, and took great care in making it happen.
FROM JACK THOMPSON:
I was pretty fucking scared. I’m still scared. I feel like I’m gonna puke.
HE RETCHES. HE IS SILENT FOR A FEW MINUTES.
Um… He— I mean, he got me pretty good. He was— he tried to get me in the kitchen, in—yeah, in the back—but I— well, I freaked out, ran into the woods. He stopped me, and— just… stabbing. Got my… well, you know. Whole left side is a mess. But— I think… I think there was someone else out there. Trying to get me. Um, no. I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I’m not sure, but I think so. I think so.
HE LOOKS AT THE CEILING.
There was somebody else out there.
FROM ROBERT MAXWELL:
Does this school have a hazing problem? I guess you could say that. A hazing problem. Nobody really— I mean, everybody was having a good time when the knife came out. He didn’t use it for a while. We thought it was funny. Who wouldn’t? Nobody has ever gotten seriously injured from hazing. Maybe some puking, overindulging. Nothing like that. Nothing dangerous.
HE LAUGHS.
You don’t think that shit’s gonna happen. I mean, who thinks that shit’s gonna happen? It’s not like a common thing. We’re in Vermont, for fuck’s sake.
The landline in the foyer had been disconnected, long before the party had begun. Even before brandishing his knife on the stairs he had watched, from a distance, a few people attempt outgoing calls that were not picked up. The landline in the master bedroom had not been disconnected. It was not something Chase had overlooked, rather a choice he had figured would level the playing field, with it being so violently tilted his way.
FROM MACKENZIE DWYER:
I guess there’s something exciting about hazing, you know? It was hard to look away from. And you think… I mean, you think it’s more of a joke, than anything. Like, everybody’s in on it. You don’t think, like, oh, something is totally wrong here. I didn’t. I mean really, it took a while before people, like, started to notice a problem at all.
SHE LOOKS AT HER REFLECTION IN THE ONE-WAY MIRROR.
No, I never felt that way. Chase was a pretty good boyfriend in high school. He was nice and everything. Looking back he, like, didn’t really give me a lot to work with. You know, emotion-wise. But, like, he bought me chocolates on Valentine’s Day. He asked me to Homecoming. It was—I didn’t have a problem with it. I guess looking back it makes sense. But not really. He’s always had so many friends. I mean, does he show emotion with Cherry? Robbie talks about him like he’s fucking Ghandi.
FROM ROBERT MAXWELL:
He was fucking around the whole night. Way early on, he was fucking with the Alpha Chi pledges, you know, freshman. He was at the top of the stairs with a big hunting knife, his dad’s or something, and it was like this show. He was just trying to scare them. He made them all wait outside, and then each walk through, one by one, to the top of the stairs. It was meant to be freaky. Like, they had to wait outside, so they didn’t know it was harmless. It was scary, I guess, if you’re one of them, but it was harmless. The rest of us saw the whole thing.
HE SHAKES HIS HEAD.
It was a total bit. Every one of them was scared shitless.
HE LAUGHS.
But at the top of the stairs, he just gave them a nickname, you know? Like a fraternity nickname. The knife was a bit. It was all a bit.
HE SHRUGS.
That’s when he told me to drive some people home, right after that. Some drunk kids, drunk too early, class tomorrow, that sort of thing. I’m like, sure. The party had only just started. I didn’t think I’d be missing something nuts like that.
HE SMILES.
I got home, like I told you. I thought I’d stay there. I figured MacKenzie could find a ride with one of her friends.
HE CHUCKLES. HE LEANS BACK IN HIS CHAIR.
She was having fun, she told me to go, it was all good.
FROM JACK THOMPSON:
After the stair thing, it was… I guess, really, it was cool, for a while. I mean, a good party. You start to, I don’t know.
HE FURROWS HIS BROW.
You start to forget about the… um, stunt they pulled. Whatever, Alpha Chi, you know. And really, compared to… I mean, the first thing really wasn’t that bad.
HE SHIFTS.
…And then boom, somebody screamed. I think Dylan Mayhue and Mason Silverstein were by the back door, trying to light up, when the yelling started. I mean, they totally flipped out. Mason screamed bloody murder. Pointing out back and shit.
HE EXHALES.
I guess it was appropriate. At the time I didn’t think I was going to get… fucking…
HE GRIMACES.
…Skewered. I thought, oh, he’s overreacting. He’s… He’s Mason, you know? We still thought everybody was kidding. Like, we thought it was a prank. To freak us out. So all the—all the pledges were like, we were like, standing there, talking about it. Like, “no way,” you know? “I can’t believe they’re pulling this shit on us, making us think one of the pledges is dead,” you know?
Chase had ambushed the first pledge on the back porch, dragging him to the edge and then stabbing him in the chest, in the side, over and over, something that resulted in very little time for screaming from the victim. He removed limbs at the joints, and then split them again and again, cutting off pieces and throwing them into the woods, scattering them around the property. Mason Silverstein screamed. The head never turned up.
FROM TERRENCE “TERRY” MAYFIELD:
If it was a joke, we’re like, that’s a crazy fucking joke. And we thought it was a joke, because nobody was really taking it seriously. I mean, it was stupid!
HE CHUCKLES.
We’re laughing at the pledges and everything, ‘cause they look all nervous and shit. The frat brothers, though, they started to huddle. Like, they didn’t look stoked, or like they knew what was up. They looked concerned.
HE TAPS ON THE TABLE.
They looked freaked the fuck out.
FROM JACK THOMPSON:
We’re, you know, looking around, and Brian Rosenthal isn’t showing up. He’s like, really not showing up. That was when everything went to shit. I mean, real shit. Mason was still flipping out, and he started telling everybody there were body parts back there. I mean, as soon as word started spreading that it wasn’t a bit, people flooded that back porch. And sure enough, body parts. Brian’s shirt, all fucked up. I mean, who would guess, right?
HE SHAKES HIS HEAD.
So… It was… you’re in shock, a little, I think. Everybody was. What are you supposed to do? There was a fucking… killer. At the party.
HE WINCES. HE IS SILENT.
Sorry. I’m— it’s not…
HE SWALLOWS.
It was like Scream or something. You know? Something nuts. We didn’t know it was Chase then. I mean… We were kind of stuck. Deer-in-headlights. What were we supposed to do?
HE LOWERS HIS VOICE.
There was somebody else. I keep telling you.
HE STARES, WIDE-EYED.
I know Chase never came home, right? You guys haven’t found him? Right. But I swear to God, somebody else was out there.
FROM TERRENCE “TERRY” MAYFIELD:
It started to dawn on everybody that it wasn’t a joke. But we didn’t know it was Chase. We just knew something fucked up was happening, or did happen, and somebody was here and doing it. You know? We didn’t connect the knife to it. Chase’s knife. No, we… we all put it together a little while later when we saw him for real, back at the top of the stairs.
FROM MACKENZIE DWYER:
He was holding a fucking arm. Like, a real life fucking arm. His knife, and a fucking arm. He—
SHE RETCHES.
He threw the— he flung it into— the thing came at us. He threw it into the crowd. Honest to God. And Robbie had already taken off, like, gone home. I kept trying to call him, but the service in there was, like, so terrible, and the landline was all fucked up. I didn’t know what to do. So I was like, huddled up with a bunch of these girls, and, like, everyone who didn’t have a ride. He dismembered another— another pledge, right there—right in the living room, like a— like a fucking— like, I don’t even know. Who does that? Who—
SHE BITES HER NAIL.
Sorry. Like, so sorry. I’m so— It’s a lot.
It was a forearm that he had thrown. It had been severed off the second body at the shoulder, and then severed again at the elbow, that part cutting through the air, spinning like a Frisbee, into the crowd. Chase watched the response from the top of the stairs and then began to descend. There was a mass exodus—people rushing, swarming like rats. Those who had cars peeled off. Those who did not were stranded. It was a short amount of time before the second victim was carved into imperfect sections on the shag carpet.
FROM TERRENCE “TERRY” MAYFIELD:
Pretty quickly, everybody started to go. I mean, he was doing some nasty shit right in the damn foyer, in front of everybody. People abandoned ship. I mean, people with rides. A bunch of us were stuck there—partygoers, you know, casual partygoers. Not even in the frat. Somebody called a cab, and they piled in like a clown car.
HE SHAKES HIS HEAD.
I didn’t get in. A few of us didn’t have anything—no car, nothing. But… it was nice to know he was just going after pledges.
HE GRIMACES.
Not like that. I mean, nobody wants— you get it. MacKenzie and I were kind of stuck together, because her boyfriend had already left, or something, but at least we were safe. We were camping out in the bathroom downstairs. And there was this constant screaming from outside. Crazy fucking screaming. Do you guys have air con? Can you turn on the A/C?
The third boy was in the living room, too. Chase had turned on the pledges quite quickly once he was done showboating his second victim in an attempt to prove that this was not, in fact, the fate of just two unlucky pledges, but that the rest of them were screwed as well. Using not a knife but rather a sharpening steel, Chase pinned this example’s shirt to the coffee table straight through the center of its wearer.
The fourth boy was pinned to the staircase, stopped very short in his desperate flee to the second floor. He writhed and floundered and Chase felt a sort of pity. He hadn’t even stabbed the kid yet and he still couldn’t claw his way out from underneath his attacker. Chase watched him thrash, disappointed. He wanted to let him go, hunt him across the top floor and catch him later, but he really didn’t have the time to indulge. Chase pierced him in the lungs and it cost him the nice white color of his J. Crew cotton-linen blend dress shirt.
He shot a victim only once, from a crouching spot in the woods as the fifth boy raced past him. With his Remington lever-action he fired off a shot and the boy hit the ground. He found it was not satisfying enough. When he approached to cut him apart the boy was already dead. After that he put the rifle away.
FROM JACK THOMPSON:
We found—
HE BLINKS RAPIDLY.
The group of us freshman found out that he was only getting the pledges. That was the— that was the kicker. I mean, we fucking— it was all this running, and screaming, and somebody said to stick together, you know, but we didn’t. We really didn’t.
The sixth boy was charred to pieces on the propane grill at the end of the back porch. Chase had skewered him by his arms and pinned him across the metal, and then lit the grill and watched. The screaming was ridiculous. Impatience got in the way. He started to slice the kid apart before he was done cooking.
The seventh boy, discovered dismembered in the fireplace, was cut apart so evenly and humanely that there was no splatter of blood against the brick; instead a gentle ebb of deep red that had sunk slowly into the ash. Then it was a slash to the windpipe, like he was killing a goat.
The eighth boy had been captured after a bold but stupid escape into the upstairs bathroom. With Chase right on his tail, there was no time to lock the door. Chase stood over him and held his head in the toilet. He, too, had a knife forced into him. He wriggled and thrashed in a purely instinctual attempt to resurface, and this movement only made it worse. Chase did not even have to move the knife; the boy was cutting himself open. Whether he drowned before he bled out is not certain.
FROM TERRENCE “TERRY” MAYFIELD:
That was—yeah. Right, exactly. That was when the sirens came. After— Christ, I guess after all the fuckin’ screaming. After Jack got—
HE GRIMACES.
You know. We heard sirens, and then cars peeling in. I kept expecting gunfire. We thought—I don’t know what we thought. But we came outside. We saw Robbie, and he’s yelling something, waving you guys over to… well, fucking… Jack, right? On the ground. So we came too.
The ninth boy was hacked up from the inside with what was interestingly enough not a hunting knife: instead a narrow, serrated steak knife that had clearly been substantially more difficult to cut with. The shoddy handiwork showed: not one even slice on the kid’s whole body, sawed apart hastily with none of the care that Chase had been implementing.
The tenth boy was grabbed by the back of the head and slammed face first, repeatedly, into the dining room wallpaper. His nose was crushed on impact and though it is possible he died very quickly, Chase did not stop bashing his head into the wall. Blood smeared the wallpaper in a harsh line, as though Chase had dragged his victim across it, and then turned and smashed him into the dining room table, where he was left.
The eleventh boy put up much more of a fight, out by the parked cars as if he could have gotten to his Subaru Outback before Chase caught up to him. But the boy had never been prey before. He flailed and kicked out. It only worked against him. The muted burbling of blood from his throat very quickly replaced his screaming.
FROM AMANDA “CHERRY” WARNER:
Robbie was nice about it. I mean, Robbie was nice to me. After. You know, at the station and everything. But I couldn’t take it. I mean, when you guys…
SHE SHUDDERS.
Um… Sorry. I’m sorry.
SHE IS SILENT FOR A FEW SECONDS.
Sorry. When… when you guys showed up, you know, and everybody was down there with Jack, you know, Terry and Kenzie and all them, I was— I was upstairs, like… freaking out? In the— in the master bedroom. And I waited until I heard sirens to even… move, or something, because— I— I—
SHE SOBS.
I didn’t— I didn’t know what to— Why would he tell me? Why would he try to— why would he tell me? I didn’t know— I don’t know what I was supposed to even—
Amanda Warner had figured out the landline in the master bedroom, the only person brave enough to set foot inside. She called for help and emphasized urgency, through choked sobs, and was told to remain on the line. That was where she was found, sitting with her knees to her chest on the deerskin rug with the receiver sweaty in her hands. She was crying. She could not get a word out. The officers brought her down the stairs to the squad car, where she was given a shock blanket and a seat in the back. On the drive to the station, she repeated to herself, only a few times: “He told me to wait for him.”
FROM MACKENZIE DWYER:
What do you mean, two suspects? Like another killer?
FROM TERRENCE “TERRY” MAYFIELD:
I told you, man. Total Cherry move. She’s like his pet.
FROM ROBERT MAXWELL:
Who said that?
HE RAISES HIS EYEBROWS.
Was it Jack?
Jack Thompson was the final pledge. Twelve boys, and none of them made it but him—he had been in the kitchen, pressed up against the screen door. A knife had come slicing through the screen to his left, cutting swathes of fabric, and a panicked Jack fled the kitchen. He cut through the house to the back door and bolted outside, across the porch and into the woods. It was so late into the night it was becoming morning. Chase stopped him with body mass alone at the edge of the property—gripped him by the arms, tight around his shoulders, and stared down at him.
FROM ROBERT MAXWELL:
A second killer. That doesn’t make any sense. How could there be a second killer? Chase showed everybody the knife.
The stabbing came from behind. Twice in his side, and Jack shrieked, a loud howl above the trees, and then once in his back, which elicited a more guttural sound. He started to crumple, muscles giving out, but Chase held him stiffly upright. He still had his tie on, silk red Ralph Lauren wrapped around his head. He stared down at Jack as if he intended to watch the life leave his eyes, which was beginning to feel like it might not take very long. Blood seeped in droves from his torso.
FROM ROBERT MAXWELL:
I mean, he threw an arm.
HE FROWNS.
Who do you think it could be?
The sirens started, far in the distance. Jack barely registered them when Chase let him go. He hit the ground hard and fast, groaning miserably into the dirt, losing consciousness as quickly as he was losing blood. There was shuffling, a conversation above his head. Chase took off, thudding footsteps receding into the forest. Jack’s mind was slipping. He rolled over onto his back, coughing and spluttering blood. Cars peeled in, sirens blaring. His vision blurred an opaque white at the edges, closing in. Robert ripped the sleeves off his shirt and stuffed them against the open wounds. Crouched above him, he called out, “Here! Over here! He’s alive!”
Chase escaped to New Hampshire in an unmarked Ford F-150.
It could be said that Chase played nice very well. It was not true that he enjoyed playing best friend and boyfriend all his life, but he was very, very good at it.
Bloody and ridiculously giddy around two he stood in that gorgeous master bedroom with Robert and smiled at him all toothy and said, in his serious voice, “It’s going great, isn’t it?” He was cleaning his knife with his gradually-nastier rag and was referring to their “con,” as he called it: convincing everyone that Robert had gone home to keep him out of trouble. Robert had dug his heels in about running away and this particular plan had been Chase’s idea, naturally, as all things were. “I’ve got such a fuckin’ handle on this, Robbie.” Robert had nodded and smiled and said he had too, that he had felt the power, something something. Chase did not really hear him.
Robert had always felt as though Chase and him were brothers, as if they had crossed through to the other side and finally understood being at the top of the food chain. Together, he believed, they had become what they deserved to be: above everyone else, in charge of who lives and who dies.
Chase had always felt as though Robert was unusually dedicated, like a bloodhound. He had stuck by Chase’s side all throughout high school, had listened to his drugged-up and sometimes staunchly sober murder fantasies with bright eyes. If he had any chance of being seen as an equal it was squandered when Robert had not committed to escaping. Chase knew Robert was not on the same page as him. He derived pleasure from being liked. So Chase gave him an out, like the good friend he was, and Robert got to remain human. Robert’s inability to disconnect from others would screw him eventually. Chase would have been certain of it if he had given his best friend more thought.
It was just that Chase was hungry, and game was not enough. He did not mind being seen as the bad guy. He had been the good guy for a long while, and it had served its purpose. He had secured himself a spot as quarterback in high school and as AXE president in college. He was good-looking and charming, stereotypically chauvinist, and exciting to be around. It had given him the opportunity to pull this off. It had all come to this point. Twenty-two years was enough. He had decided he was pretty much done with the fantasizing and the playing pretend. He had bathed in his social capital for long enough, and now he was going to kill some people.
His slight disdain for Robert was similar to his disdain for just about everybody, but Amanda he did not blame for being a social person. How could she know? In his eyes she was a rabbit, and in this way he felt almost bad for her. She was gentle with him, and kind, and she had played the girlfriend role so sweetly he could have asked her to come with him. But he knew what kind of person she was: in that she was below him, like the rest of them, even if he couldn’t hate her. So he didn’t ask. When he told her to wait for him it was prompted by something that took the shape of loyalty in the spot behind his lungs. He felt the need to say goodbye. It was the closest he ever got. Amanda he failed to forget.
Chase could not see outside of himself, so he would never know this, but it wasn’t his fault, either. He came out wrong. He couldn’t shake off the desire to hunt.
But you should have seen it. That first kill. The look on his face. “I did that?” He said it twice. It was awe. “I did that?” The most human he’d ever been.
“Come here, Thompson,” he crooned, and the crowd split à la the Dead Sea. Through the part came Jack Thompson, first-year business major with his shoulders shrugged up against his ears.
POLICE REPORT—INTERROGATION RECORDS
On Monday morning when Jack had recovered enough at Waitsfield General Hospital to give a sound-mind report, the investigators conducted a full questioning of everybody else who had come forward.FROM TERRENCE “TERRY” MAYFIELD:
The kid was a disaster. He was always a disaster, like, drugs and stuff. We all did ‘em, but he was the guy who got us to. He threw great parties. His parents owned the cabin. They let Alpha Chi use it, like, all the time.
HE LAUGHS.
Alpha Chi Epsilon. Yeah. C-H-I. Your handwriting is great. Anyways. Ask his girlfriend. About the parties, I mean. Cherry Warner. I mean, everybody calls her Cherry. I don’t know her real name. He called her Cherry. He also called a few other girls, if you know what I mean.
HE LAUGHS.
You think Cherry had anything to do with it? I bet she did. I mean, she was there. I mean, they’re inseparable, those two. Cherry and Chase. I bet if he had the chance he’d lock her up. But, no, anyways. I didn’t see Cherry doing anything. So we can’t go after her, right? You can’t go after her? Well, whatever. You’re gonna question her, I hope. Do you guys have Pepsi? I don’t go for that Dr. Pepper shit.
It was a two-story cabin with a wooden exterior and a back porch. The interior was lined with wood paneling and shag carpet, and featured a handsome brick fireplace. In the master bedroom, a deerskin rug, and looming over the top of the stairs, a moose head on a solid oak mount.
FROM MACKENZIE DWYER:
Chase and I used to date, you know. In high school. We went to high school together. He was always very fun to be around. Life of the party, like, all the time. He dumped me, but it was totally cool, because I ended up dating his second-year roommate Robbie.
SHE LAUGHS.
Oh, um, Maxwell. Robert Maxwell. They were, like, really good friends. Like, always. Since high school. Robbie used to use his brother’s ID, to, like… Well, I don’t want to tell you that. Oh. Fine, then. You get the picture, right? Chase was big on Robbie.
SHE COUGHS.
I’m, like, totally trying to be serious. It’s just a lot. And this room is, like, not comfortable. No offense. You guys are nice, for cops.
There weren’t many true witnesses. Those that had survived had booked it, in waves, whoever could hitch a ride. Jack Thompson didn’t have the option to. When the police arrived, Terrence Mayfield, MacKenzie Dwyer, and Robert Maxwell were all standing over Jack in different stages of shock. Robert had given a police report then and there, wringing his hands and pointing absently around the exterior of the cabin. And it reeked, the cabin, to high heaven, of alcohol, weed, and rotting meat.
FROM ROBERT MAXWELL:
Actually, I went home early. Chase asked me if I could drive a couple people home at like 11:30, and by the time I was done I wasn’t feeling like a party. I ended up at my apartment at something like midnight. MacKenzie was still there. Dwyer. She’s my girlfriend.
HE SHAKES HIS HEAD.
I guess you want some crazy shit out of me, like he told me or something, because I’m the best friend, but he didn’t. I only found out because MacKenzie called me from the landline right before you showed up, at something like 5:30. She said something fucked up happened, and she needed me to take her home. I was only there for a couple minutes.
HE GRIMACES.
Around back smelled like a slaughterhouse.
It had been disgusting. Chase had taken the limbs and cut them into unrecognizable chunks, and then strewn them across the porch of the house, out by the back, blood seeping into the wood and slithering across the grass. It leaked slowly back inside the house. You could smell it, if you stood by the back door. Chase would clean the knife blade but not the handle, a slowly accumulating crust of reddish brown covering the hilt. It was the clean slice that enticed him, the feeling of flesh not ripping under the blade but coming apart smoothly, like a ribeye. So he sharpened it every time, and made sure he was able to see his stark-white teeth in the silver before it plunged.
FROM AMANDA “CHERRY” WARNER:
I really liked him.
SHE TRIES TO SMILE. SHE COVERS HER MOUTH.
He was a good boyfriend. Honest. Um… he was my sweetheart, you know?
SHE BLINKS BACK TEARS.
Wherever I wanted, usually, we would go. He made me breakfast, sometimes, and… he bought me cute tops, and he paid for dinner.
SHE TRIES TO SMILE.
Of course I knew about the knife. He liked hunting. He liked… you know… deer, rabbits, um… his dad took him hunting when he was little, at the— at the cabin. He went a lot.
SHE INHALES SLOWLY.
I don’t know much about his parents, really. He… he talked about his dad, but I never met anybody or anything.
SHE GNAWS HER LIP.
He did like his dad, though. He sounded… He never seemed, like, angry about him, or anything like that.
SHE SPLITS THE SKIN.
He told me right after the party started. He pulled me upstairs—he held my arm, he said it was all going to be okay, and that I should— I should just wait for him. He told me. He told me he was… he said he was going to—
SHE COVERS HER MOUTH.
It isn’t my fault.
SHE SOBS.
I didn’t know what to— I didn’t know he could do something so—
SHE GASPS. SHE TURNS AWAY.
I’m sorry. My mascara is getting everywhere.
Chase had created a sort of haven for himself upstairs, where the master bedroom was. He displayed his knife proudly on the nightstand when it was not on his person. He had a bottle of peroxide next to it, but the seal had not even been cracked open. He just liked to have it out.
FROM TERRENCE “TERRY” MAYFIELD:
No, but really, I liked the kid. Everybody liked the kid. I mean, he was a good kid. You know, before everything. Like, he was a mess, but the way the rest of us were. I never thought to myself, like, oh, that kid’s off the rails. That’s a bad egg. I’ve— I mean, other people, maybe.
HE LAUGHS.
Oh, everybody likes those parties. Of course I showed up. I show up. I know people. I know a bunch of people.
HE COUGHS.
I show up to most parties. I love parties. I love cabins. Everybody loves cabins. Plus it was a frat thing. I mean, you can ask anybody. Who passes up a cabin frat party? I might lay off ‘em after this, but that’s… you know. Special circumstances. Do you guys have more Pepsi, or do I only get one? Can someone go make that happen?
There were plenty of bodies, a pledge class almost wholly terminated, but it had been hard to classify whose flesh belonged to who. None of the bodies were full and complete. No heads were found. Chase found serene pleasure in keeping them from being identified, and took great care in making it happen.
FROM JACK THOMPSON:
I was pretty fucking scared. I’m still scared. I feel like I’m gonna puke.
HE RETCHES. HE IS SILENT FOR A FEW MINUTES.
Um… He— I mean, he got me pretty good. He was— he tried to get me in the kitchen, in—yeah, in the back—but I— well, I freaked out, ran into the woods. He stopped me, and— just… stabbing. Got my… well, you know. Whole left side is a mess. But— I think… I think there was someone else out there. Trying to get me. Um, no. I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I’m not sure, but I think so. I think so.
HE LOOKS AT THE CEILING.
There was somebody else out there.
FROM ROBERT MAXWELL:
Does this school have a hazing problem? I guess you could say that. A hazing problem. Nobody really— I mean, everybody was having a good time when the knife came out. He didn’t use it for a while. We thought it was funny. Who wouldn’t? Nobody has ever gotten seriously injured from hazing. Maybe some puking, overindulging. Nothing like that. Nothing dangerous.
HE LAUGHS.
You don’t think that shit’s gonna happen. I mean, who thinks that shit’s gonna happen? It’s not like a common thing. We’re in Vermont, for fuck’s sake.
The landline in the foyer had been disconnected, long before the party had begun. Even before brandishing his knife on the stairs he had watched, from a distance, a few people attempt outgoing calls that were not picked up. The landline in the master bedroom had not been disconnected. It was not something Chase had overlooked, rather a choice he had figured would level the playing field, with it being so violently tilted his way.
FROM MACKENZIE DWYER:
I guess there’s something exciting about hazing, you know? It was hard to look away from. And you think… I mean, you think it’s more of a joke, than anything. Like, everybody’s in on it. You don’t think, like, oh, something is totally wrong here. I didn’t. I mean really, it took a while before people, like, started to notice a problem at all.
SHE LOOKS AT HER REFLECTION IN THE ONE-WAY MIRROR.
No, I never felt that way. Chase was a pretty good boyfriend in high school. He was nice and everything. Looking back he, like, didn’t really give me a lot to work with. You know, emotion-wise. But, like, he bought me chocolates on Valentine’s Day. He asked me to Homecoming. It was—I didn’t have a problem with it. I guess looking back it makes sense. But not really. He’s always had so many friends. I mean, does he show emotion with Cherry? Robbie talks about him like he’s fucking Ghandi.
FROM ROBERT MAXWELL:
He was fucking around the whole night. Way early on, he was fucking with the Alpha Chi pledges, you know, freshman. He was at the top of the stairs with a big hunting knife, his dad’s or something, and it was like this show. He was just trying to scare them. He made them all wait outside, and then each walk through, one by one, to the top of the stairs. It was meant to be freaky. Like, they had to wait outside, so they didn’t know it was harmless. It was scary, I guess, if you’re one of them, but it was harmless. The rest of us saw the whole thing.
HE SHAKES HIS HEAD.
It was a total bit. Every one of them was scared shitless.
HE LAUGHS.
But at the top of the stairs, he just gave them a nickname, you know? Like a fraternity nickname. The knife was a bit. It was all a bit.
HE SHRUGS.
That’s when he told me to drive some people home, right after that. Some drunk kids, drunk too early, class tomorrow, that sort of thing. I’m like, sure. The party had only just started. I didn’t think I’d be missing something nuts like that.
HE SMILES.
I got home, like I told you. I thought I’d stay there. I figured MacKenzie could find a ride with one of her friends.
HE CHUCKLES. HE LEANS BACK IN HIS CHAIR.
She was having fun, she told me to go, it was all good.
FROM JACK THOMPSON:
After the stair thing, it was… I guess, really, it was cool, for a while. I mean, a good party. You start to, I don’t know.
HE FURROWS HIS BROW.
You start to forget about the… um, stunt they pulled. Whatever, Alpha Chi, you know. And really, compared to… I mean, the first thing really wasn’t that bad.
HE SHIFTS.
…And then boom, somebody screamed. I think Dylan Mayhue and Mason Silverstein were by the back door, trying to light up, when the yelling started. I mean, they totally flipped out. Mason screamed bloody murder. Pointing out back and shit.
HE EXHALES.
I guess it was appropriate. At the time I didn’t think I was going to get… fucking…
HE GRIMACES.
…Skewered. I thought, oh, he’s overreacting. He’s… He’s Mason, you know? We still thought everybody was kidding. Like, we thought it was a prank. To freak us out. So all the—all the pledges were like, we were like, standing there, talking about it. Like, “no way,” you know? “I can’t believe they’re pulling this shit on us, making us think one of the pledges is dead,” you know?
Chase had ambushed the first pledge on the back porch, dragging him to the edge and then stabbing him in the chest, in the side, over and over, something that resulted in very little time for screaming from the victim. He removed limbs at the joints, and then split them again and again, cutting off pieces and throwing them into the woods, scattering them around the property. Mason Silverstein screamed. The head never turned up.
FROM TERRENCE “TERRY” MAYFIELD:
If it was a joke, we’re like, that’s a crazy fucking joke. And we thought it was a joke, because nobody was really taking it seriously. I mean, it was stupid!
HE CHUCKLES.
We’re laughing at the pledges and everything, ‘cause they look all nervous and shit. The frat brothers, though, they started to huddle. Like, they didn’t look stoked, or like they knew what was up. They looked concerned.
HE TAPS ON THE TABLE.
They looked freaked the fuck out.
FROM JACK THOMPSON:
We’re, you know, looking around, and Brian Rosenthal isn’t showing up. He’s like, really not showing up. That was when everything went to shit. I mean, real shit. Mason was still flipping out, and he started telling everybody there were body parts back there. I mean, as soon as word started spreading that it wasn’t a bit, people flooded that back porch. And sure enough, body parts. Brian’s shirt, all fucked up. I mean, who would guess, right?
HE SHAKES HIS HEAD.
So… It was… you’re in shock, a little, I think. Everybody was. What are you supposed to do? There was a fucking… killer. At the party.
HE WINCES. HE IS SILENT.
Sorry. I’m— it’s not…
HE SWALLOWS.
It was like Scream or something. You know? Something nuts. We didn’t know it was Chase then. I mean… We were kind of stuck. Deer-in-headlights. What were we supposed to do?
HE LOWERS HIS VOICE.
There was somebody else. I keep telling you.
HE STARES, WIDE-EYED.
I know Chase never came home, right? You guys haven’t found him? Right. But I swear to God, somebody else was out there.
FROM TERRENCE “TERRY” MAYFIELD:
It started to dawn on everybody that it wasn’t a joke. But we didn’t know it was Chase. We just knew something fucked up was happening, or did happen, and somebody was here and doing it. You know? We didn’t connect the knife to it. Chase’s knife. No, we… we all put it together a little while later when we saw him for real, back at the top of the stairs.
FROM MACKENZIE DWYER:
He was holding a fucking arm. Like, a real life fucking arm. His knife, and a fucking arm. He—
SHE RETCHES.
He threw the— he flung it into— the thing came at us. He threw it into the crowd. Honest to God. And Robbie had already taken off, like, gone home. I kept trying to call him, but the service in there was, like, so terrible, and the landline was all fucked up. I didn’t know what to do. So I was like, huddled up with a bunch of these girls, and, like, everyone who didn’t have a ride. He dismembered another— another pledge, right there—right in the living room, like a— like a fucking— like, I don’t even know. Who does that? Who—
SHE BITES HER NAIL.
Sorry. Like, so sorry. I’m so— It’s a lot.
It was a forearm that he had thrown. It had been severed off the second body at the shoulder, and then severed again at the elbow, that part cutting through the air, spinning like a Frisbee, into the crowd. Chase watched the response from the top of the stairs and then began to descend. There was a mass exodus—people rushing, swarming like rats. Those who had cars peeled off. Those who did not were stranded. It was a short amount of time before the second victim was carved into imperfect sections on the shag carpet.
FROM TERRENCE “TERRY” MAYFIELD:
Pretty quickly, everybody started to go. I mean, he was doing some nasty shit right in the damn foyer, in front of everybody. People abandoned ship. I mean, people with rides. A bunch of us were stuck there—partygoers, you know, casual partygoers. Not even in the frat. Somebody called a cab, and they piled in like a clown car.
HE SHAKES HIS HEAD.
I didn’t get in. A few of us didn’t have anything—no car, nothing. But… it was nice to know he was just going after pledges.
HE GRIMACES.
Not like that. I mean, nobody wants— you get it. MacKenzie and I were kind of stuck together, because her boyfriend had already left, or something, but at least we were safe. We were camping out in the bathroom downstairs. And there was this constant screaming from outside. Crazy fucking screaming. Do you guys have air con? Can you turn on the A/C?
The third boy was in the living room, too. Chase had turned on the pledges quite quickly once he was done showboating his second victim in an attempt to prove that this was not, in fact, the fate of just two unlucky pledges, but that the rest of them were screwed as well. Using not a knife but rather a sharpening steel, Chase pinned this example’s shirt to the coffee table straight through the center of its wearer.
The fourth boy was pinned to the staircase, stopped very short in his desperate flee to the second floor. He writhed and floundered and Chase felt a sort of pity. He hadn’t even stabbed the kid yet and he still couldn’t claw his way out from underneath his attacker. Chase watched him thrash, disappointed. He wanted to let him go, hunt him across the top floor and catch him later, but he really didn’t have the time to indulge. Chase pierced him in the lungs and it cost him the nice white color of his J. Crew cotton-linen blend dress shirt.
He shot a victim only once, from a crouching spot in the woods as the fifth boy raced past him. With his Remington lever-action he fired off a shot and the boy hit the ground. He found it was not satisfying enough. When he approached to cut him apart the boy was already dead. After that he put the rifle away.
FROM JACK THOMPSON:
We found—
HE BLINKS RAPIDLY.
The group of us freshman found out that he was only getting the pledges. That was the— that was the kicker. I mean, we fucking— it was all this running, and screaming, and somebody said to stick together, you know, but we didn’t. We really didn’t.
The sixth boy was charred to pieces on the propane grill at the end of the back porch. Chase had skewered him by his arms and pinned him across the metal, and then lit the grill and watched. The screaming was ridiculous. Impatience got in the way. He started to slice the kid apart before he was done cooking.
The seventh boy, discovered dismembered in the fireplace, was cut apart so evenly and humanely that there was no splatter of blood against the brick; instead a gentle ebb of deep red that had sunk slowly into the ash. Then it was a slash to the windpipe, like he was killing a goat.
The eighth boy had been captured after a bold but stupid escape into the upstairs bathroom. With Chase right on his tail, there was no time to lock the door. Chase stood over him and held his head in the toilet. He, too, had a knife forced into him. He wriggled and thrashed in a purely instinctual attempt to resurface, and this movement only made it worse. Chase did not even have to move the knife; the boy was cutting himself open. Whether he drowned before he bled out is not certain.
FROM TERRENCE “TERRY” MAYFIELD:
That was—yeah. Right, exactly. That was when the sirens came. After— Christ, I guess after all the fuckin’ screaming. After Jack got—
HE GRIMACES.
You know. We heard sirens, and then cars peeling in. I kept expecting gunfire. We thought—I don’t know what we thought. But we came outside. We saw Robbie, and he’s yelling something, waving you guys over to… well, fucking… Jack, right? On the ground. So we came too.
The ninth boy was hacked up from the inside with what was interestingly enough not a hunting knife: instead a narrow, serrated steak knife that had clearly been substantially more difficult to cut with. The shoddy handiwork showed: not one even slice on the kid’s whole body, sawed apart hastily with none of the care that Chase had been implementing.
The tenth boy was grabbed by the back of the head and slammed face first, repeatedly, into the dining room wallpaper. His nose was crushed on impact and though it is possible he died very quickly, Chase did not stop bashing his head into the wall. Blood smeared the wallpaper in a harsh line, as though Chase had dragged his victim across it, and then turned and smashed him into the dining room table, where he was left.
The eleventh boy put up much more of a fight, out by the parked cars as if he could have gotten to his Subaru Outback before Chase caught up to him. But the boy had never been prey before. He flailed and kicked out. It only worked against him. The muted burbling of blood from his throat very quickly replaced his screaming.
FROM AMANDA “CHERRY” WARNER:
Robbie was nice about it. I mean, Robbie was nice to me. After. You know, at the station and everything. But I couldn’t take it. I mean, when you guys…
SHE SHUDDERS.
Um… Sorry. I’m sorry.
SHE IS SILENT FOR A FEW SECONDS.
Sorry. When… when you guys showed up, you know, and everybody was down there with Jack, you know, Terry and Kenzie and all them, I was— I was upstairs, like… freaking out? In the— in the master bedroom. And I waited until I heard sirens to even… move, or something, because— I— I—
SHE SOBS.
I didn’t— I didn’t know what to— Why would he tell me? Why would he try to— why would he tell me? I didn’t know— I don’t know what I was supposed to even—
Amanda Warner had figured out the landline in the master bedroom, the only person brave enough to set foot inside. She called for help and emphasized urgency, through choked sobs, and was told to remain on the line. That was where she was found, sitting with her knees to her chest on the deerskin rug with the receiver sweaty in her hands. She was crying. She could not get a word out. The officers brought her down the stairs to the squad car, where she was given a shock blanket and a seat in the back. On the drive to the station, she repeated to herself, only a few times: “He told me to wait for him.”
FROM MACKENZIE DWYER:
What do you mean, two suspects? Like another killer?
FROM TERRENCE “TERRY” MAYFIELD:
I told you, man. Total Cherry move. She’s like his pet.
FROM ROBERT MAXWELL:
Who said that?
HE RAISES HIS EYEBROWS.
Was it Jack?
Jack Thompson was the final pledge. Twelve boys, and none of them made it but him—he had been in the kitchen, pressed up against the screen door. A knife had come slicing through the screen to his left, cutting swathes of fabric, and a panicked Jack fled the kitchen. He cut through the house to the back door and bolted outside, across the porch and into the woods. It was so late into the night it was becoming morning. Chase stopped him with body mass alone at the edge of the property—gripped him by the arms, tight around his shoulders, and stared down at him.
FROM ROBERT MAXWELL:
A second killer. That doesn’t make any sense. How could there be a second killer? Chase showed everybody the knife.
The stabbing came from behind. Twice in his side, and Jack shrieked, a loud howl above the trees, and then once in his back, which elicited a more guttural sound. He started to crumple, muscles giving out, but Chase held him stiffly upright. He still had his tie on, silk red Ralph Lauren wrapped around his head. He stared down at Jack as if he intended to watch the life leave his eyes, which was beginning to feel like it might not take very long. Blood seeped in droves from his torso.
FROM ROBERT MAXWELL:
I mean, he threw an arm.
HE FROWNS.
Who do you think it could be?
The sirens started, far in the distance. Jack barely registered them when Chase let him go. He hit the ground hard and fast, groaning miserably into the dirt, losing consciousness as quickly as he was losing blood. There was shuffling, a conversation above his head. Chase took off, thudding footsteps receding into the forest. Jack’s mind was slipping. He rolled over onto his back, coughing and spluttering blood. Cars peeled in, sirens blaring. His vision blurred an opaque white at the edges, closing in. Robert ripped the sleeves off his shirt and stuffed them against the open wounds. Crouched above him, he called out, “Here! Over here! He’s alive!”
Chase escaped to New Hampshire in an unmarked Ford F-150.
It could be said that Chase played nice very well. It was not true that he enjoyed playing best friend and boyfriend all his life, but he was very, very good at it.
Bloody and ridiculously giddy around two he stood in that gorgeous master bedroom with Robert and smiled at him all toothy and said, in his serious voice, “It’s going great, isn’t it?” He was cleaning his knife with his gradually-nastier rag and was referring to their “con,” as he called it: convincing everyone that Robert had gone home to keep him out of trouble. Robert had dug his heels in about running away and this particular plan had been Chase’s idea, naturally, as all things were. “I’ve got such a fuckin’ handle on this, Robbie.” Robert had nodded and smiled and said he had too, that he had felt the power, something something. Chase did not really hear him.
Robert had always felt as though Chase and him were brothers, as if they had crossed through to the other side and finally understood being at the top of the food chain. Together, he believed, they had become what they deserved to be: above everyone else, in charge of who lives and who dies.
Chase had always felt as though Robert was unusually dedicated, like a bloodhound. He had stuck by Chase’s side all throughout high school, had listened to his drugged-up and sometimes staunchly sober murder fantasies with bright eyes. If he had any chance of being seen as an equal it was squandered when Robert had not committed to escaping. Chase knew Robert was not on the same page as him. He derived pleasure from being liked. So Chase gave him an out, like the good friend he was, and Robert got to remain human. Robert’s inability to disconnect from others would screw him eventually. Chase would have been certain of it if he had given his best friend more thought.
It was just that Chase was hungry, and game was not enough. He did not mind being seen as the bad guy. He had been the good guy for a long while, and it had served its purpose. He had secured himself a spot as quarterback in high school and as AXE president in college. He was good-looking and charming, stereotypically chauvinist, and exciting to be around. It had given him the opportunity to pull this off. It had all come to this point. Twenty-two years was enough. He had decided he was pretty much done with the fantasizing and the playing pretend. He had bathed in his social capital for long enough, and now he was going to kill some people.
His slight disdain for Robert was similar to his disdain for just about everybody, but Amanda he did not blame for being a social person. How could she know? In his eyes she was a rabbit, and in this way he felt almost bad for her. She was gentle with him, and kind, and she had played the girlfriend role so sweetly he could have asked her to come with him. But he knew what kind of person she was: in that she was below him, like the rest of them, even if he couldn’t hate her. So he didn’t ask. When he told her to wait for him it was prompted by something that took the shape of loyalty in the spot behind his lungs. He felt the need to say goodbye. It was the closest he ever got. Amanda he failed to forget.
Chase could not see outside of himself, so he would never know this, but it wasn’t his fault, either. He came out wrong. He couldn’t shake off the desire to hunt.
But you should have seen it. That first kill. The look on his face. “I did that?” He said it twice. It was awe. “I did that?” The most human he’d ever been.