Page 37 of Trapper Road

CONNOR

Mom taps on the connecting door between our motel rooms early the next morning. “Connor,” she says softly, “You awake?”

I groan and shift under the covers, pretending I haven’t already been up for hours. Mom’s so clearly on edge about me that if she knew I wasn’t sleeping well she’d flip out. “What’s up?” I mumble, rubbing my eyes for good measure.

“I’m headed out to talk to a few people about the case. I’ve left money on the dresser in my room if you and Vee want to grab breakfast at the diner next door. Otherwise, I don’t want you two going anywhere without letting me know, and definitely not alone. I should be back in time for lunch, but will text if that changes.”

“Sure thing.” I don’t bother telling her that it’s unlikely Vee even wakes up before noon.

She hesitates. “You going to be okay here on your own?”

“We’ll be fine.”

She pauses again. Mom has always been paranoid about leaving us on our own, but something more is bothering her. I’m pretty sure it’s because of what happened at school. I know she wants to talk about it, but I’m not ready. I’m afraid that if I even bring Kevin up I may start screaming and never stop. I’m so angry and confused and frustrated and fucking furious at him. Mom’s big into therapy, and I’m sure she wants me to process my feelings, but I don’t want to.

I especially don’t want to face the fact that he was my best friend and that I’m scared for him and that he might die, even after everything he did. I know I should hate him just like I should hate my dad and I do, but I also don’t. It’s just not that easy for me.

“Ok, then,” she finally says. “Don’t forget to lock up after me.”

“I know.” I try to keep the irritation out of my voice but am not sure I succeed. I know she can’t help it — she has reason to worry about us. It just grates after a while.

She lets out a sigh as she retreats to her room. I hear her moving around, gathering what she needs, before the motel room door opens and closes. I slide out of bed and pad into her room, rattling the chain loud enough for her to hear on the other side of the door before sliding it into place.

A moment later her car engine starts then fades as she pulls out of the parking lot. I retreat to my bed, keeping the light off and staring up at the dark ceiling. I wish I could sleep but I know I’m not going to be able to. My thoughts have been too loud, memories too sharp.

Even though I know I shouldn’t, I grab my phone, keeping the screen dim as I pull up the internet browser and search for my name. I already know what I’ll find, but I can’t stop myself. It’s like the hole in your gum left over after you pull a tooth — you can’t stop worrying at it even though it hurts and know you’re probably just making things worse.

There are a dozen new articles since I last checked a couple of hours ago. A few are actual news reports from reputable sources, focusing mostly on the facts, but most are little more than sensationalized click bait that don’t seem to give a shit about privacy or the fact I’m a minor who should be protected.

The headline for the top result is “Like Father Like Son,” and I click through it, a glutton for punishment. At the top of the page my school picture from last year sits beside Dad’s prison photo. I stare at it a moment, searching for the similarities and differences and wondering what other people will see when they look at it.

The article itself is full of crap. It doesn’t matter that Kevin was the shooter, and I was just a witness, it’s more of a story if I — the son of a notorious serial killer — was somehow involved. There are interviews with several of my classmates, and my chest burns as I read them. They describe me as a loner, a weird kid with no friends. One guy brings up the time I beat up another kid so badly I sent him to the hospital. He fails to mention it was during an active shooter drill at school and my PTSD had kicked in, sending me into a blind panic.

A girl named Emily from my biology class says she wouldn’t be surprised at all to learn I had something to do with the shooting. “He’s that kind of guy, you know? That squicks you out? There’s just something off about him. I never let myself be alone around him. None of my friends did either. We were all afraid of him. Turns out we were right.”

My cheeks flame at her words. Emily and I had been lab partners a few weeks back, and I thought we’d gotten along. She’d acted normal around me, even friendly, and I thought that maybe my reputation as the weird kid had been wearing off.

I close my eyes, running through all of our interactions and trying to view them objectively. Had I just seen what I’d wanted to?

There are more quotes from other classmates along similar lines. I recognize all of their names. None of them had been friends, but they’d never seemed to have a problem with me, not like some other kids at the school. They seem to be coming out of the woodwork, these kids claiming to know me when in reality they know nothing about me.

In an odd way, reading all of their shit makes me miss Kevin. He’d get a kick out of these article,s and he’d have plenty of choice words to say about Emily and all the other kids lining up for their fifteen minutes of fame.

Thinking of Kevin makes me think about the moment I saw him in the hallway that day and how absurdly long it took me to actually understand what he was holding. It just didn’t make sense to me. Why would he have brought a gun to school? And why would he be holding it?

Everything became so jumbled because I wanted to think it was a joke or a mistake or that he was showing off, but then there was a gunshot and it was so fucking loud because we were inside and there was no ear protection and the metal lockers and linoleum floor and tile ceilings did nothing but magnify and echo the sound so that it felt like an explosion in my head.

I drop my phone and roll onto my stomach, groaning into my pillow as my stomach turns sour. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to see it again.

I should know how to make the endless cycle of memories stop. I’ve been to enough therapy for all the other trauma I’ve survived: Being kidnapped twice. Being involved in a gun battle between the FBI and a crazy cult. Laying on the ground while a man stood over me with a gun aimed at my head, ready to shoot. Watching as a woman stabbed a knife in his neck, killing him. Seeing the life leave him, the light go out of his eyes, and feeling his blood hot on my face as he collapsed on top of me.

But I don’t know that I want to stop the memories of what happened at school. I don’t know if I deserve any peace. Because I was there and Kevin didn’t shoot me and I escaped when Mike and Junior didn’t.

I’m furious at Kevin for doing something so awful. I’m even more angry at myself for not somehow seeing it coming. And I can’t stop wondering if the signs were there and I just somehow missed them.

I’m also ashamed that there’s a part of me that’s sad because he was — is — my friend and he’s in the hospital and may not survive. And no one else seems to care. Actually, that’s not true — there are a lot of people who care what happens to him: they all want him to die. Either in the hospital or via the electric chair.

They all see him as a monster, but that’s also all they know about him: that he took a gun to school and shot two friends. They know nothing else. They don’t want to know anything else. They don’t want to know how excited he got about learning new random fact or how much he loved a good debate over something important to him. They don’t want to know that his dad drove him crazy sometimes, but he still watched Monday night football with him because it made his dad happy.

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