22
He sounded so normal.
So human.
I couldn’t understand it. It was the same sick, estranged feeling I got whenever I thought of his wedding photo with Ginger. The same thing I felt whenever I remembered unlocking the screen door and letting him into my house.
It didn’t make sense.
How could someone like him chameleon so effortlessly into humanity? How could he sound like a regular guy, voice light, almost kind, when he’d done what he’d done to me?
I thought of the way he’d smiled at me through the security door, vodka bottle held out before him like he’d expected me to reach through the mesh and take it.
Except that wasn’t what he’d expected at all.
He’d expected the door to open. He’d planned on it.
That was why he’d been wearing that shark smile.
He’d known he’d won.
He’d known I was already dead.
He was a monster. A shape-shifting morphling, able to mimic humans, to sound good and kind. But when you opened the door, when he got you alone, he’d hook his fingers in his cheeks and peel off his mask like a bad guy on Scooby-Doo.
I’d known him as a kid. I’d seen him kick his legs as he watched Disney movies.
I’d seen him play with his friends in the creek, water splashing, shoulders sunburned, face split into a wide, happy smile.
But he wasn’t that boy anymore. Something had gone wrong.
A monster had hatched, had eaten him from the inside out and was wearing his corpse like a skinsuit.
I couldn’t accept anything else. I couldn’t think of Kyle as human. I couldn’t face the idea that there was nothing special about him, nothing different.
Not then.