A Killer Harvest Read online

  If the operation truly has been a success, he’ll soon know what all of that means.

  TEN

  It arrives a couple of hours after his mother leaves. The itching. It’s not only behind his eyes, but somewhere in his brain, deep within, like a splinter he can’t get to, and every second that passes with him unable to dig into it, it grows.

  He has a private hospital room. He knows most people in the hospital have to share large rooms with four or five other patients, and he’s grateful that’s not him. He doesn’t want to make conversation with strangers he can’t see. Sometimes he lies on the bed listening to the sounds of the hospital. There are always voices somewhere, there are often things being wheeled past his door. Sometimes he can hear crying, other times laughing.

  When he’s not listening to the hospital, he listens to his MP3 player, which his mom brought in for him. It’s full of music and books. He is currently one-third of the way through a novel about a vegetarian vampire. The vampire’s name is Frederick, who, before he was turned into the living dead, lived on a diet of fruit and vegetables, and now that he has fangs is forced to eat animals. Of course, his challenge is to not eat people—that’s where the story is going—and Joshua likes Frederick and hopes the best for him. The itch behind his eyes is matching Frederick’s increasing need for blood, and by chapter ten it’s really getting its groove on. He tries to ignore it the same way Frederick ignores the itch to separate people from their blood. A couple of chapters later, neither of them are doing that great. Frederick drains a serial killer he thinks society can do without, while Joshua pushes his palms into the bandaging, twisting them back and forth. With enough pressure, he’s able to make the itch disappear. He wins. This time.

  Day two of his recovery, Wednesday, starts out with a breakfast he eats quickly, and a shower he’s allowed to take as long as he keeps the bandages dry. Doctors and nurses come and go throughout the morning. His mom hugs him when she arrives, and hugs him again before leaving. He is lonely. He is bored. He is sad. He wants to go home. He wants to go back to school. He wants life to be how it was a week ago. He wonders what Mr. Fox is teaching right now, figuring he’s probably moved past eye color and on to something else. He misses his friends. Misses Mr. Fox, for that matter. Misses learning. Most of all, he misses his dad. His hunger returns around lunchtime, as does the itch. The palm trick doesn’t work. He forces his eyes closed as hard as he can, moves them around, then forces them closed even tighter. It’s painful, but the itch fades.

  It’s the middle of the afternoon when William and Pete show up. He’s so happy to hear their voices, he could cry. Having his mom around is one thing, but having his best friends around is another. They ask him how he is, and he tells them he’s okay, which isn’t true, and he asks how they are, and they tell him the same thing. He asks what happened after he left school, and they tell him Mr. Fox told them all what had happened. As they give him the details, he can hear the pity in their voices, and soon it becomes clear they’re not really sure what to say, which is fine because he doesn’t know what he wants to hear. They talk about his operation. There is something different in their voices, but he can’t identify what it is, just that it’s something he doesn’t like. After twenty minutes William and Pete tell him they need to go. They sound like they would rather be somewhere else, perhaps anywhere else. He tells himself that hospitals are like that, because even he doesn’t want to be here.

  “I’ll see you at school,” Joshua says, trying to keep hidden his disappointment that they’re leaving so soon. At least they came.

  “Yeah, but that’s the thing, right?” William says.

  “What thing?”

  “You’ll be able to see us, but we won’t be able to see you,” William says.

  “And anyway, you won’t be going back there,” Pete says.

  “Of course I’ll be going back to school.”

  “Not our school,” William says, in a way that makes the school sound like it belongs to a lot of people, and Joshua isn’t one of them. “A few days ago you were one of us. Now you’re somebody who can see, and that means you’ll be going to a school where everybody else can see too.”

  William is right, and Joshua feels like a fool for not having thought of this sooner.

  “There’s no place for you at our school anymore,” Pete says.

  “I . . . I hadn’t thought about it like that.”

  “Yeah, well, we have,” William says.

  “We’ll still hang out though,” Joshua says.

  “Will we? Will we really?” William asks.

  “Of course.”

  “You’ll make new friends. You won’t need us anymore,” William says.

  “It’s not about needing you for anything,” he says. “You guys are my friends. My best friends.”

  “You’ll have new best friends soon enough,” Pete says. “Friends who can see.”

  Joshua doesn’t get it. They sound annoyed. “Are you guys mad at me?”

  Nobody answers, not for a few seconds. Then one of his friends sighs, but he can’t tell which one, and then William talks. “No. Not mad,” he says, “but things aren’t the same anymore, Joshua, not for you and not for us.”

  “I’m sorry,” Joshua says.

  “No, you’re not,” William says, “because you don’t even know what to be sorry for, and anyway, you don’t need to be.”

  “I don’t understand what’s happening,” Joshua says.

  “We better go,” Pete says. “My mom is waiting for us in the corridor.”

  “Please, please don’t go.”

  “Good-bye, Josh,” William says, and there is something final in that, as if he’s never going to see them again.

  “We’ll see you around,” Pete says, which is a joke they always used to say back in school, but this time it doesn’t sound funny. Then they’re gone, leaving him confused about their visit. Everybody is leaving him, the curse is making sure of that, taking them one by one.

  The afternoon rolls on. Music. The itch. Frederick keeps fighting the desire to kill. A nurse catches him rubbing at the itch and tells him off, and another nurse catches him doing the same thing an hour later.

  “You need to stay strong, Joshua,” the second nurse tells him. “You have to fight it.”

  He fights it. Fights it while his grandparents on his mom’s side come and visit, his grandmother patting his arm and his grandfather tussling his hair. His grandparents on his father’s side visit too, and he thinks that as hard as it is for him, and for his mom, it could even be harder for them. They lost their daughter, who was his biological mother, sixteen years ago, and now they’ve lost their son. They do their best to sound upbeat, but he can hear the pain in their voices. He fights the itch while they talk to him, fights it while eating dinner that evening, fights it right through to the end of the day when a nurse catches him unwinding the bandaging to make way for his finger. He doesn’t get far. She tells him off, he ignores her and keeps on trying. He can’t fight it anymore. They sedate him.

  Day three is the day of the funeral. Dr. Toni tells them that the previous night, while he was sedated, she checked his eyes and replaced the bandages. “It’s all looking good,” she tells him. “Your pupils responded to the light. There’s no sign of infection and every reason to be positive.”

  His mum spends the morning with him. They talk about everything else other than the funeral, other than his father, and they do this until they can avoid the subject no longer.

  “It’s time,” she tells him.

  “Are you sure I can’t come?”

  “I wish you could.” He can hear her fighting back her tears. “It would make it easier for me if you were there, but you can’t, Joshua, I’m sorry,” she says. “You can’t.”

  She hugs him good-bye and then she’s gone, and he’s alone. He sits near the window so he can feel the sun on his face while eating lunch. He listens to his horror novel and he thinks about Frederick’s lifestyle choice to eat
only those who deserve it—and to Frederick, that involves feasting on murderers.

  He wishes it had been Frederick who had gone to the construction site instead of his dad. He wishes . . .

  “Joshua?”

  He takes out his headphones. “Dr. Toni?”

  “I wanted to come by and see how you were doing and answer any questions you might have. It’s a good opportunity to discuss the changes that are going to happen in your life.”

  “You’re here because my dad is being buried right now, and you want to make sure I’m okay.”

  “Joshua—”

  “It’s okay,” he says. “I appreciate it, I really do. It’s really nice of you.”

  She pulls a chair close to his and sits down. He tries to imagine what she looks like with the sun hitting her face.

  “How come you didn’t go to the funeral too? If you knew him?” he asks.

  “I . . . I wanted to be here for you,” she says.

  He isn’t sure whether to believe her, but either way, it doesn’t matter. “I don’t think my friends like me anymore.”

  “No, it’s not that, Joshua. They don’t know how to be around you, or what to say. You’ve lost your dad, and they’re sad for you, but you’re getting your sight back, and for that they’re happy.”

  “They didn’t sound happy.”

  “I want you to do something for me,” she says. “I want you to imagine that right now you weren’t getting your sight back. I want you to think about how you would feel if you got the news your friends were getting the gift of sight, and you were facing a life of blindness. Tell me, how do you think you would feel?”

  “I don’t know,” he says.

  “I think you do know.”

  He shrugs. “I guess I’d be happy for them.”

  “I’m sure you would be, in the same way your friends are happy for you.”

  “But?”

  “But there’s something else you’d be feeling.”

  He nods. She’s right. He’s annoyed at himself for not figuring it out earlier. “Jealousy.”

  “There would be something wrong with you if didn’t feel it.”

  “Don’t they get what the cost was?”

  “I’m sure they do,” she says, “but they don’t get it as much as you get it. They don’t feel it the same. Give them time,” she says. “They’ll come around.”

  “They said I’ll have to go to a different school now. Is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know how to write, or read.” He starts to laugh. “I don’t even know what an alphabet looks like. How am I supposed to go to a school full of people who can do all of that?”

  “You’ll be able to go because people are going to support you, Joshua. Nobody expects you to be at their level on day one. It’s going to take time, and this might sound funny, but you’ll start on children’s books.”

  “Like A is for apple?”

  “Something like that,” she says.

  “I don’t even know what an A looks like.”

  “No, but what you are doing is talking yourself into a panic. You have to give it time. Think of it this way,” she says. “If a five-year-old can learn to read and write, I think you can learn too.”

  He laughs again, and she laughs with him. “You’re focusing on small things that you’re going to overcome so quickly, when what you should be doing is focusing on how the world is going to open up to you. You are going to see things that will take your breath away.”

  “What else?” he asks.

  “You’ll see things that—”

  He shakes his head. “You said there are going to be changes in my life, and I know I’ve never seen the world, but I know enough about it to know not all the changes can be good.”

  “That’s . . . that’s showing a wisdom beyond your years,” she says.

  He wants to tell her it’s not wisdom at all, but the curse. It’s true his dad died, enabling him to see—but the curse isn’t about balance. The curse takes and takes and takes.

  “I’ve been doing this a long time,” she says, “and I’ve helped countless patients with vision problems. I’ve performed enucleations, removed cataracts, transplanted corneas, I’ve done it all, and it changes people’s lives for the better. But the surgery I gave you I’ve only ever performed twice before, and I can tell you that it doesn’t change only your life, but the lives of those around you in fundamental ways. One of those recipients, her husband left her three months later, and she still doesn’t quite know why. The thing is, what I’ve learned from my patients is there are going to be people who won’t know what to say, there will be others who are jealous, and in this day and age of social media, there will be those who will call you a freak.”

  “Why would people do that?”

  “Because people who don’t like themselves are drawn to the idea of belittling others online.” She takes his hand. “Look, Joshua, those are small trade-offs for what you’re being given, and the reality is most people are going to be excited for you. I just think you should know not everybody will be.”

  When his mom shows up later in the day she’s brought dinner with her. They go outside and sit on a bench in the sun. They eat burgers and fries and he drinks cola while she tells him about the funeral. It was held in a Catholic church even though his dad wasn’t a Catholic. His dad wasn’t an anything when it came to religion, but it was a police funeral and police funerals usually require big churches with lots of standing room.

  “There were so many people, not all of them could fit inside,” she says. “And the day, the day was so beautiful, so warm, it was the kind of day your father used to call ‘good funeral weather’ if he ever had to attend one.”

  The priest’s name was Father Jacob, and she tells Joshua that he would have liked him. “Kind and considerate, he spoke incredibly well. Your father had met him, actually. They met at a police funeral last year that Father Jacob presided over. You remember the one? I went to it with him while you were at school.”

  “I remember.”

  “They met again a few months ago at”—and he hears her breath catch for a moment—“at another police funeral. It seems . . .” she says, and lets the words trail off. He knows what it seems like. It seems like lots of police officers are dying. It seems like the funeral business is a good business to be in.

  She tells him who was there. All his grandparents, of course. Cousins and aunts and uncles from every branch of the family tree. Most of the seats were taken up by colleagues from the police force. “There had to be over a hundred of them,” she says. His mom’s work colleagues, friends from school, from life. People his dad had helped through the years came to pay their respects. William and Pete came with their parents. “Even Principal Anderson was there,” she says. “So many people loved him. It was . . . it was a beautiful service, and so many people had stories to tell.”

  “I wish I had been there.”

  “I know you do, honey, I know you do. Reporters were there. It’s going to be all over the news, so you’ll be able to see footage of it when the bandages come off.”

  He doesn’t know if he wants to. He wanted to be there, yes, but watching it replayed on television or on the Internet . . . he isn’t sure. They finish their burgers. His father isn’t just dead anymore, but dead and buried. Life is moving on. His eyes don’t itch that night. Maybe the tears are helping.

  Day four and it’s Friday and it’s the itch that wakes him. He claws at the bandages. He has to get them off. Has to. He pulls at them, then there are hands grabbing at him, he’s being held down and they’re treating him like a madman. He yells at them, and they tell him he’s going to be okay. He’s sedated. When he wakes up a few hours later the itch has gone and the bandages have been replaced once again. He wants to go home. He can’t do this anymore.

  He listens to his audiobooks when he’s awake, or talks to his mother. He listens to music. He eats. Nurses flow in and out of his room. In eighteen hour
s the bandages will come off. In twelve hours. Nighttime comes. Nighttime goes. Saturday morning arrives. It’s day five. It’s early. His eyes are itching.

  This time nobody has to hold him down.

  Day five, and Dr. Toni Coleman tells him that it’s time.

  ELEVEN

  The day after Simon’s death starts with a hangover and a call to his boss to report in sick. It’s been years since he’s had a hangover. Sure, he and Simon would drink when they were out at the cabin, but never enough to end up blacking out like he did last night and waking up feeling like he had fallen asleep in a desert. The worst thing is he didn’t have any of his own beer left, and even though he had another batch fermenting out at the cabin, it wouldn’t be ready for a few more days, so last night after he finished sanding down the rocking horse he went out and bought some. The bottle stores and supermarkets were closed, so he ended up buying it from a gas station. The stuff he bought had dragons on the label. It looked cheap, and that’s exactly how it tasted. The dragons should have been a giveaway, but he didn’t give a fuck, and he drank it anyway, and he drank it at home rather than driving out to the cabin as he had planned. He couldn’t be bothered making the drive. Sure, he needed to go out there to feed the dog—she was cooped up inside, and he needed to walk her too—but she was used to being left alone for a day or two and never seemed to mind, as long as they left enough food and water out for her.

  So far he’s spent the morning massaging his hangover while reading news online about Simon. For the first time in years he misses having a TV. It would have been easier to relax on the couch and watch the media paint his friend as the worst human being to have ever lived rather than sitting upright at his computer having to Google it. People who worked with him or lived near him say Simon was quiet, Simon was a good neighbor, Simon was a good person to work for, Simon was quiet, was quiet, was quiet. He was a guy who dotted his i’s and crossed his t’s and took pride in his work, but he’s also a guy who killed a woman and a policeman. The people interviewed are folks Vincent has never seen before. It’s all six-degrees-of-separation bullshit by sad sacks wanting to get their faces in the news. Vincent doesn’t have any social media accounts, but a quick check shows him that Simon is trending. The six-degrees folks didn’t have much to say on camera, but online they can’t keep their traps shut, calling him a hundred different kinds of pervert and a hundred different kinds of creep, and they’re all wrong, because Simon wasn’t like that. Part of Vincent still can’t believe his best friend is dead. Part of him keeps holding out hope for his cell phone to ring, and for Simon to say, Geez, buddy, have you heard about the guy with the same name as me being accused of all that weird shit?