Entry 8:
There's this news report that's been playing on the news on repeat lately. There's a clinical sense to it, like the kind in my dream, except this isn't a dream. An official looking woman is speaking quickly and the picture changes to dozens and dozens of photographs of teenage girls, smiling, caught unawares, in their casual Fridays, in their Sunday best. There's nothing out of the ordinary about them. Nothing that suggests they could ever do anything to warrant being on the news.
Except they are.
The woman drones on about missing girls, and no bodies recovered and a killer likely on the loose. There's a weird sense of deja vu the whole time I'm watching the segment, as though I'm looking myself in the mirror, or someone has released a whole bunch of my selfies without my permission.
I hate this segment, but I also can't get it out of my mind. Killer on the loose. Killer on the loose, I repeat in my head while washing the dishes, like something out of musical theatre. Dad then comes in from work with his usual muddy boots and kisses me on the cheek (we don't talk about what happened the last time—but he seems to have come to his senses, thank god.)
All except for the fact he's started smoking again.
Entry 9:
I shouldn't be writing this.
In fact I should be dead by now, dead like dad fucking wanted me to be. Did everything in his power to make sure I would be. All I could think of while he had the knife to my throat was this is it. So this is what it feels like to be on the other side of the hunt.
If it hadn't been for that FBI agent—
The paramedic on the ambulance said it's a miracle I'd made it so far and the worst slashed throat he's seen in his whole career and he must have really wanted to finish the job. That last bit I could tell he hadn't really meant to say out loud cause he was real quiet for the rest of the ride.The whole thing felt like one of those trips to the dentist, and being expected to be chatty with fifteen types of dental equipment in your mouth. Um, can you please excuse me? My neck's barely hanging on by a hinge.
At the hospital they said I had to be in a coma for three days.That the same FBI agent and his 'companion' (a psychiatrist?) had been visiting me the whole time. They said my dad must have really loved me, to do what he had done. To save me for last.
They said a lot of things.
I've been placed in a psychiatric hospital (Campbell would have loved this—bastard's been trying to get me institutionalized for years) where I have a lot of free time to think about a lot of things.
Like the fact my dad's a fucking serial killer. Like the looks the other patients (inmates, more like) shoot me with every time they see me. Looks that range from pity and incredulity to sheer disgust. An attitude they share with the FBI who come to visit me whenever they can, dragging along 'new evidence' with them.
Like the fact I had no idea what was in those pillowcases all along, or what's been holding our plumbing together. They come, and they ask me questions about an antler room, and hunting equipment and did you know what he was doing in his spare time?
It doesn't matter what I answer because none of them believe me. Because I'm the Shrike girl now, the one that got away.
The last victim.
I don't tell them about how familiar that news segment really was.
Entry 10:
The FBI agent that saved me—his name is Will Graham and he introduces his companion as Hannibal Lecter (another psychiatrist, like I'd thought—marvellous). They say they want to take care of me, take me out of this place. So long as I cooperate. So long as I tell them everything I remember about that day, breakfast with sausages, mom helping out in the kitchen because her and dad had finally made up. Vague plans to go on a trip.
But he doesn't care about any of that. What he wants to know about is a certain phone call before it all happened, and what the man on the other line sounded like.
This is important, Abigail, he pleads and there's this desperate haggard look to him. Like he's been making do with coffee instead of a good night's sleep for too long. What you tell us can help us catch your dad's copycat killer.
A copycat killer. The whole thing feels like finding out about a second family, some half brother I never knew I had. Dr. Lecter doesn't say much. He seems like a compulsive listener, like most therapists and I kind of want to shake him up a bit, ruffle his perfect hair out of place, mess up his three-piece suit. Everything about him screams money and if he offers therapy I think I'm just run the other way.
They're both so expectant I almost feel bad dashing their hopes. But I don't remember anything, and I just want to be left alone—why is that so fucking hard to understand? Will Graham looks like he's on the verge of giving up but Dr. Lecter smiles at me, like he can read my thoughts. Like he never got around to having a daughter of his own and is it really too late?
I have a feeling I'm not going to be left alone for a long time.