New Title 1 (21 page)

* * * * *

For a long time Jacob didn’t leave his room at all. Not to eat, not to drink, not even to relieve himself. He just sat in the corner of his room sobbing, pissing and shitting in his pants as the urge came. He had no idea if his father was home. He had no idea if Michael’s absence had even been noticed. He had no idea about anything.

Not even how long had passed before there was a knock on the door and his father entered; beer in hand. He didn’t particularly care though.

‘Why aren’t you at school?’ His father’s question at least told him it was a weekday. Jacob could feel the anger seething off the man but it didn’t bother him. He just shrugged and his father glared at him for a moment as he took another slurp of his beer. ‘Have you seen your brother, the cops have been looking for him again.’

Jacob shook his head.

‘You sure now?’

This time he nodded and they lapsed into silence for awhile.

‘Well get to fucking school then, I’ve got work to go to.’

Obediently Jacob rose and his father’s face wrinkled in disgust.

‘And take a fucking shower why don’t you, you smell like you shit yourself.’

Jacob didn’t comment on the hypocrite’s own thick stench that engulfed him as he followed his father out into the hallway. He’d already pushed it as far as he dared.

* * * * *

When he arrived at school, the rumours were already spreading thick and fast. Apparently the cops had been out that morning, questioning the students. Jacob ignored them as best he could but it was clear to him that things had changed. That his fellow students had realised the full horror of what the original DVD had grown into.

He felt the eyes on him the whole time. He saw the way the others shied away. Particularly the girls. It was easy enough to see it was going to be guilt by association. That, in the boy’s absence, they’d already decided on their scapegoat. He knew it was pointless trying to explain. That he hadn’t wanted to be involved.

Apparently they’d been spotted going into the Claypits by a couple of teens heading there to ride their bikes. They’d seen both Jacob and Clint’s sister with the other boys and when her body was found, it hadn’t taken them long to start blabbing it all over school. Jacob knew there was no point trying to defend himself. That no one would believe him.

It was a complete one eighty in opinion and he couldn’t help wondering exactly when the DVD’s had stepped across the boundary. Exactly why the other kids who had raved about the first DVD’s coolness were now sickened to hear what it had grown into.

Jacob couldn’t stop wondering what it had taken.
Had it been blood? Was it all right so long as the slaps and pinches didn’t break the skin? Was it no longer hilarious if they weren’t just molesting the girls but also killing them?

What was it?

He didn’t know and the worst bit was, the longer it went on, the less he really cared. The less he felt the victim in his own mind. Because deep down inside, he really felt he deserved it. He could make all the excuses he wanted but he just couldn’t make himself believe them. Because he had been part of it all. He’d known from right near the start and he hadn’t breathed a word.

And now every night when he closed his eyes, he saw her face. Clint’s sister’s and her screwed up eyes beneath him.

And things only got worse.

Although Clint’s sister’s body had been found, the boys had just disappeared and the cops made it clear what they thought of the story Jacob told them. That it was bullshit and that he’d only get in more trouble for covering for the others. Jacob tried to explain that he wasn’t; tried to explain what had happened down at the Claypits but the more he spoke, the more ridiculous it sounded to his own ears. He knew there was no hope of convincing the cops he was telling the truth.

Then after the police had finally released him – with stern words about seeing him again once the DNA tests were done – he learned that he’d been blacklisted by the school. That they’d sent out a notice to all parents warning them about him. And he knew exactly what that meant. It was the end of any hope of a friend in Muirtly again. That a girlfriend was something that would remain a dream forever.

He’d already made up his mind before the first DVD arrived in the mail addressed to him.

It was just the finishing touch really.

* * * * *

As he looked at the plain white envelope with his name scrawled across the front and his fingers felt the shape through the paper, Jacob thought he would be sick. By the time he reached the DVD the sweat from his palms had left visible imprints on the envelope.

He had already sort of guessed what it would contain even before he flicked on the television and loaded the DVD. He paused for a long time before he hit play. The thought playing over and over in his mind.
They never found the boy’s bodies.

As he depressed his finger and the screen burst into life, Jacob felt the first tears on his cheek.

It took him a moment to recognise his brother for all the blood.

As he watched, the camera panned down the body to where a razor blade slowly flayed the skin from Michael’s penis, baring the gristle within and Jacob dropped to the floor.

* * * * *

I am the first to admit that things don’t always turn out the way I intended. I think I said earlier that it is difficult to imagine what my influence will do to a person. It was a bad call. I’ll admit it. I never intended for the boy to take his own life. I just wanted him to see what it was like. To banish any ideas he might get of following in his brother’s footsteps. Stupid I know but let me ask you one thing. Would you have done it differently? Would you have let it go and taken the risk it’d start up all over again?

Make no bones about it, the whole thing doesn’t really sit easy with me but I just couldn’t see any other way it could play out.

Sometimes I even think it might have been for the best seeing as what his life was about to become. Both the cops and the community were eager for a scapegoat.

Other times I don’t.

Usually I just try and put the whole sorry affair out of my mind. I don’t want to sound callous but there is a lot of other stuff to worry about.

Most times I just try to write him off as the final victim of those fucking cowardly boys because then I can comfort myself with the knowledge that The Filmmakers will never take another life again.

WRITER'S BLOCK

So I sit in the room that has become my cell and I write, hoping this time it’ll be what she wants.

The words do not come easily. They dribble free in fitful, disjointed spurts which I alternate with staring around the spartan room that has become my entire reality. Cream walls, white roof, no windows and only one exit: a sturdy oak door that I know from listening to the tumblers click is at least triple-locked. The furniture is a wire-framed bed with its thin mattress and doona and this writing desk and chair that I sit in.

The only other objects are the empty food tray propped on the floor beside the desk and the overflowing bin in the corner of the room that I refuse to look at. It has somehow come to symbolise my failure. Oh, and there is the camera: sitting on its pivot up there in the corner of the room.

I always seem to forget about the camera

Time grinds onward; just as it always does.

When I look down at the foolscap sheet in front of me and the words on it that seemed to take an eternity to write, I no longer know what they mean. It had been there briefly, a fleeting image in my head, but has promptly vanished. In frustration, I screw up the paper into a tight ball and lob it into the bin.

I sit back uncomfortably on the chair, its seat just too narrow to accommodate my ever expanding bulk. I know she is watching me and that she will be disappointed, but I can’t help that.

She thinks she is helping but she isn’t.

I lean back and try to remember what the sky looks like…

* * * * *

…The sound of the tumblers clicking snaps me from my reverie and quickly I scramble for my paper and the chewed nub of my pencil. As the second tumbler clicks I begin writing hastily; just scrawling random words. I know it is stupid. I know I can’t fool her. I am well aware that she has been watching me on cameras and knows that I haven’t been writing but I scribble away anyway.

The door swings open, creaking on its hinges and I see her figure filling it. It disgusts me but I cannot look away. She is wearing a tank-top that displays her bulging muscles in grotesque detail. The thick ropes that stretch down her arms bulge and jump beneath the room’s fluorescent globes. She must have oiled herself up again.

She barely looks female anymore. The swell of her breasts has been transformed into hard, jutting slabs of muscle. Her former hourglass figure - now nothing but a dim memory - has been sculpted by the weights into a taper from shoulder to hip.

In her hands she grasps a laden tray. On top I can see the cut up pieces of a full family-size pizza, a side of potato chips and a two litre bottle of coke. As always I can’t help but wonder if she is a feeder. The pockets of her gym shorts bulge and I just know that they are stuffed full of candy bars. It has been this way since my last attempt to escape. She doesn’t want me strong so she feeds me this junk. Vegetables are just a distant memory.

She is transforming me into a blob.

She wants me helpless.

I have long since given up not eating what she brings me. The last attempts have failed miserably. My determination always seems to fizzle out before hers. If everything on the tray isn’t finished she won’t bring me any more.

Even her tread on the threadbare carpet seems threatening as she moves over toward me. She no longer even bothers locking the door behind her. She knows there is nothing I can do.

That I am powerless to stop her.

It is quite a blow to one’s self esteem to know that your mother could kick the shit out of you. I’ve only tried to escape once and my leg has never really set right again; despite the splint she’d applied later.

‘Oh good, your writing again,’ she coos, her soft tones completely out of tune with the hulk of a body. Even her jaw appears to have gained muscles; widening it until she resembles some sort of American action hero. I almost expect to see stubble.

‘It’s not very good… It needs a lot of work,’ I stammer out. Suddenly ashamed of the scribble, I attempt to cover it with my arm.

I should know better; I can’t fool her.

She deposits the tray on the desk beside me, reaches out and effortlessly moves my arm away. My eyes fall on the veins bulging prominently through her forearms and I feel like vomiting.

Doesn’t she know what she looks like?

I can feel my heart start to beat a little faster as I watch her scanning over what I’ve written, trying to gauge her reaction from her eyes. As always they are unreadable. The same as they’d been everyday since he left. Since she’d started to feel unsafe. Like if she showed any emotion it would be a weakness that others could exploit.

Especially me. It was as though she thought that I could somehow capture her in one of my stories and force her to leave. Just like I had done to him.

It was only once he left that she bought the first weight set. I need to be strong, she’d told me, there is no on else to protect me now. She hadn’t said thanks to you but she hadn’t needed to, I knew she blamed me.

‘What’s this?’ she asks now, her voice deceptively light. I wince inside not knowing what to say. ‘I think someone is being a little silly.’

To a stranger listening in, it would be easy to miss the underlying menace in her voice. Unfortunately, I can hear it all too well. Suddenly my bladder seems too full. I fight against the urge to release it. She won’t bring the bucket in for my toilet break just yet and I shudder to think what she’ll do if I soil myself.

Her hand snakes from the page to slide through my rumpled hair and I can’t help but cringe away. I hope I’m not whimpering as her fingers close and I feel her pull my head back to its original position and resume her stroking. The power in her grip makes me think she could crush my skull like an eggshell if she so desired.

What a relief that would be. To feel my brain just oozing out through the cracks, dripping over my ears, down my cheeks. Knowing that it was over and I could finally stop thinking. Stop wracking my brain for what she wants.

Stop trying to write the masterpiece that I know is just not in me.

Her hand slips from my hair and she steps back a pace. I sigh in relief as I realise their will be no punishment this time.

‘Eat you dinner,’ she commands, ‘and try to write something, huh?’ The way she phrases it is like I’m the unreasonable one. Like what she wants me to do is perfectly simple and fair but I’m just being a naughty boy and refusing to do it. ‘I’ll be back soon to give you a bath. You smell a bit off… Have you been masturbating lately?’