They Call My Son Jeff 'the Killer'

The hand-rolled cigarette had reached the point where it was burning my thumb and index finger. I wasn't paying attention to that. Instead, I had fixated on the spot to the right of the caseworker's legs.

"Margaret, do you understand what I'm saying?" she asked after a minute of silence.

I snapped back to reality, flicking the cigarette onto the table and missing the ashtray. I shook my hand vigorously as if that would make the burning sensation dissipate.

The caseworker and officer wore grim expressions, but I could also tell their concern at my indifferent reaction.

"So he's escaped," I said calmly. "You let my son escape."

"We did everything we could to stop him," the caseworker rebuked. "He had been showing promising behavior for two years. So much so that we lowered his medication intake and..."

"And he stabbed an orderly, two patients, and killed his doctor," I finished for her, tone of ice.

"We think you should be moved to a safer location," the cop said. "Until we can contain him again... Given what happened in the past you are very likely a target."

I stood up, sending a strike of pain through my abdomen. The doctors had done what they could, but having your own son try to gut you left some wounds that could not be fixed.

"You can park a car outside, but I'm not going anywhere. If we abandon this house he'll set it alight."

"Exactly, Margaret," the caseworker emphasised. "He will try to kill you and burn the house down."

"And I won't let him," I assured her. "There are dark memories here. Horrible ones. I've built new ones. I have a new life. He's not taking it from me."

The caseworker grimaced.

"We will station a car outside twenty-four seven until he's caught again," the cop said firmly--it wasn't an option.

I shrugged, glancing aimlessly out the window at the cop car already parked there.

"I think it would be a risk to too many other lives to do that. He's very violent... which is why I question how anyone thought it was a good idea to decrease his medication."

The caseworker opened her mouth, but I didn't let her speak.

"No matter. Annie, you should probably go into hiding yourself. He kills anyone who shows him any sort of sympathy... He'll come for you before he comes for me."

She cocked her head to the side.

"Why's that?"

"He's gonna pre-game. Building-up to his goal. Don't sleep tonight."

She gave me a look that said "you're just as crazy as he is". That wasn't true. I was just a woman who had lost her family, both living and dead.

"Good day, Ms Woods," she said as they departed. "I do hope you reconsider staying put."

I said nothing, walking them to the door and locking it behind them--two bolts and a padlock. No level of security had ever felt like overkill since my son burned off his eyes and stabbed Peter and Liu to death.

Perhaps I should feel more guilty as a mother. But the maternal instinct isn't there. Perhaps the fact Jeff and Liu were adopted--from Russia and China respectively--meant I never developed my brain to be maternal in the way it needed to be. That unconditional love, that endless desire to put your child first no matter their flaws did not ring true. And maybe it was my fault he was the way he was, or maybe it was the first three years neglected in a Russian orphanage, born to a Krokodil-abusing mother, that built the homicidal nature into him.

They left behind a photo of him from the case file, just in case I didn't recognise the man with a burned face, no eyelids, and a scarred smile. I don't think I was going to mistake him for anyone else.

But he didn't look the same he did when they first caught him eleven years ago. He was a full-grown man now. No hair--they kept it shaved because he would try to rip it out. He had to wear these funny clear goggles to keep his eyes protected. Jeff really hadn't thought through the whole 'burning my eyelids off' incident. He had to use artificial tear droplets every hour apparently--not surprising. He had never been one to cry naturally.

___

I slept with a handgun in my nightstand. I had ever since I got out of the hospital. He had been on the loose for four months the first time. I didn't know how long it would take to catch him again now that he was older, smarter. Perhaps they never would. If he came her I was going to make sure he didn't get the chance to get caught.

But that night he didn't come for me. I was right. His caseworker, Annie McGriffin, was found in a horrific state. Bleach had been poured down her throat and then a match in her mouth. She had burned from the inside. He had left his fingerprints all over the scene--he wasn't trying to be covert. She had been his advocate for a decade, trying to ensure he was treated humanely and being the given the best opportunities possible. All for naught, of course.

It was a week later when my porch light went on--motion-detection. Looking out the window at 3am, there was a splatter of blood against the window. The cop made the mistake of letting himself rest his eyes for a second. Jeff was very patient. He probably knew I wake awake even with all the lights out, but this one he couldn't wait for me to fall asleep. Bloodlust was going to get the better of him.

And that's why I heard the window break downstairs. I had already dialed the police, but in this suburb it would be a quarter of an hour at minimum. That was plenty of time for a murder: his or mine.

Holding the handgun, I glanced at the photo on my nightstand. The three of us: me, Peter, and Liu. Anyone looking closely would realise the image had cut a fourth figure out.

The seventh step on the stairs creaked. He was walking slowly. I wondered if he was looking around, remembering this place. Remembering how he was hurt so badly here, how he hurt his own family.

I fired through the door. There was no sound. My eyes were deadlocked on the white door. I had installed a lock on it, so he was going to have to kick it down, and that would make him vulnerable.

I could get off two shots in twelve feet. That was the distance between me and the door. I would have to make them count. I couldn't miss.

But I must give my son some credit for his intelligence. I was caught off-guard by a hand smashing through the window and grabbing my hair.

He had gone to his old bedroom and climbed onto the roof... coming in that way.

There was a moment I wondered if this was it when I felt something slice my eye. I fired half-haphazardly in his direction. The shot seemed to stop him, but I wasn't sure if it had been fatal.

I fell over the bed and scrambled to the other side, clasping my bleeding eye. There he stood, six foot now. Not a single muscle on his scraggly frame but very intimidating nonetheless. He wasn't wearing his goggles, leaving his eyes red and dried, but still gazing right into my soul.

"Remember how you lied, Mommy?" he asked. There was nothing youthful about his tone. He sounded aged beyond his years now. "You said you liked my new face, but you wanted Daddy to kill me."

Dribble and blood oozed out of his flapping mouth as he spoke. They had attempted to fix his mouth after he sliced it open, but somewhere in his journey home tonight he had reopened the old wounds.

The scalpel--God knows where he got that--was bloodied in his hand. He tightened his grip and began to walk around the bed.

"Yes," I admitted. "I lied. Mommy lied because you were a bad boy, Jeff."

He stopped.

"I wanted to protect him. All I wanted to do was protect him."

It took me a moment to realise who he was talking about. Him... Liu. Possibly he knew what remorse was after all. But it was too late for that.

"You killed him," I said firmly, pointing the gun as best as I good with my good eye.

He let out an inhuman howl and lunged. I fired back, two shots and continuing to pull the trigger even when it was empty.

The police broke down the door minutes later. They had been anticipating a call after there had been no response from the duty officer.

Sergeant Howard called out my name, but there was no response.

The police secured the bottom floor before attempting to come upstairs. The bedroom door was still locked--with a noticeable bullet hole through it--and had to be knocked in.

"Ma'am are you..." the sergeant trailed off.

I leaned against the bed, mindlessly stroking Jeff's bald head as it rested, bleeding, in my lap. There was a sharp pain in my stomach from where the scalpel was lodged, but in that moment I felt serene relief.

It's only fair the creator of a monster should be the one to destroy it.