The Journal of Rosie Rise - Entry #1

Warning: seriously dark, triggering content

#1

If you’re reading this, you’re probably the police. You’ve searched our house because you need evidence of what we did. And that’s okay—I wrote this journal for you and hid it well enough so only you would find it. I probably even told you where to look. That’s because I want you to know everything.

Dad told me you’d catch us one day. I just hope we’ve killed enough of them before you do.

My job was to lure predators into our shadowy house. Lull them into a false sense of security by giggling like the girls at school, like someone who wants to be chased. When they're far enough inside, Dad would spring from a corner, his huge fist sounding like a baseball bat against their jaw. Most of them went wobbly and helpless. Other times, like tonight, they would go out cold, and Dad would lift them into a chair like a ragdoll, slump them against the dining room table until they woke up.

And when they woke, it was the silence that petrified them more than anything else. That’s what got their beady eyes flickering. Silence frees your imagination, lets you think up the worst possible scenarios, every violent possibility. I doubt they ever guessed the extent of what would happen to them, though. Nobody’s imagination is that good.

Tonight we snared a great oaf of a man—Dane, he said his name was (probably not). When his grey head lifted from the table, forehead shiny, moustache beaded with sweat, he caught sight of me at the opposite end, sparking up a cigarette, the orange glow bouncing off his reflective skin. I simply stared. Took a puff. Listened to embers eating paper. I liked letting them figure things out. He looked bewildered and panicky, questions firing in his eyes. The evening wasn’t shaping up how he expected. He wanted me in his position, him in mine. Too bad for him.

Dad was sat beside him. The predator didn’t know that until there was a scrape of wood on linoleum: Dad spun the predator’s chair to face his, probably shifting the weight of a fridge-freezer, but he didn’t look put out by the feat at all. If you have my journal then you know who my dad is; you know he could have done it with his little finger.

There was a metallic thud on the table when Dad dropped a hammer onto it. Then a combat blade. Then a crowbar. Then a gas canister. He pulled each item from a bucket between his feet and tossed them down for dramatic effect. That’s all it was: drama. The real weapon of choice was our silence.

“Rosie?” the predator sputtered, the word garbled. I wondered if Dad knocked his teeth out. I answered by exhalling a plume of smoke in the predator’s direction. Dad folded his trunk-like arms, stared at him without blinking.

“Rosie—t-tell him we weren’t going to—we were just…”

His head turned a single degree in my direction. He wanted to look at me, to confirm I was the sweet, innocent thirteen-year-old girl in the pictures I sent him, as if that would somehow make a difference. But really, he didn’t want to take his eyes off Dad. If you accidentally stepped in front of a speeding lorry and saw it barreling towards you, you wouldn’t glance at the pavement you were trying to get to.

“Are you the police?” he asked, hopefully. He preferred to face the police, you, than the dad of the girl he came to ruin. His plaid shirt was saturated with sweat. Liquid fear. Blood shimmered on the corners of his chapped lips.

Dad continued to stare. The predator continued to sweat.

We never planned the silence thing. The first time we killed (well, technically the second), we were both so intrigued about what the predator would say, how they’d justify themselves, that we just sort of froze and watched them spew pathetic, fragmented sentences until their voice went hoarse. This was number seven (technically eight), and still we simply waited like we always did. And always, they turned into an absolute blubbering mess. They cried for their life, for mercy, for anything other than what they knew would come. I needed them to reach a point of utter defeat, because they wouldn’t have said what I needed them to if they thought they still had a chance.

I slid my chair back, tapped the ash off my cigarette and onto the floor, and sauntered over to where the predator sat with Dad. I edged between their chairs, calmly glanced sideways at the predator as I brushed my shoulder-length hair behind my ears, and set a tape-recorder on the table, purposely clipping it against the blade so it would spin. When it stopped, the tip pointed at the predator, and he made a pained sound, as if it was already in his flesh.

I clicked play on the recorder. The snap of the button made the predator jump. I smirked at him then stepped aside.

“Confess,” Dad said.

A funny look crossed the predator’s face. Was he actually relieved we were finally talking to him?

“Whatever you think, you’ve got it all wrong, I’m just here to—”

“Confess.”

“I wasn’t here to do anything bad—”

“Confess.”

They continued on like that, the predator trying to disarm Dad with lies, Dad cutting him off each and every time. Dad didn't really care about the confession. Well, he did, but only because of me. You’ve probably found the tapes, and I know you’ll say they’re not really confessions because they count as coercion, or whatever. That's fine. I didn't make them for you.

When the predator paused to catch his breath, a flash of light caught his attention. I unlocked my phone, activated the app I used to lure him.

“How old are you, Rosie?” I said, reading the transcript of our first conversation. I wore a pink T-Shirt and pigtails for my profile picture, though I don’t dress like that in real life. It was just a lure, and it worked. I always knew I found a good target when the first thing they asked me was my age. Then it was just a matter of letting them groom me, so I could groom them.

“I’m thirteen,” I quoted—the only truth “Rosie” ever told him. The only part that ever mattered.

The predator had a hunted expression at that point. He knew we had him dead to rights, that we planned this from the word go. He shifted in his chair. “Please. Don’t read any more!”

“Do you know what I’d like us to do together?” I said, giving his own words back to him.

“Please, call the police! That’s what you want, right? For me to—to be sentenced? That’s what I deserve, right?”

“That count?” Dad asked me, not peeling his eyes away from the predator.

“He has to say it properly.” The confession had to tie him to the messages, to his profile name. I needed the tapes of their voices, admitting what they were.

I read aloud more things the predator messaged me. You know exactly what I'm talking about because you found my phone with this journal. If you haven’t already unlocked it, the password is 1234 and the messages are on the app called Pinky Promise.

“Say your name,” I told the predator, meeting his dark eyes with my own. “Admit you sent these messages and that you came here to do every word of what you said.”

He glanced at Dad then back to me.

“The more I read what you said, the angrier you’ll make my dad.”

He blinked. So I continued to spew his disgusting words to prove my point. Dad picked up the hammer and slowly scraped the clawed side along the table, leaving two white trails.

That’s when the predator gave in. If you're interested, listen to the tape labelled #7 (technically #8 but we didn’t tape our first kill because there wasn't a confession that time). If you don't have time, just know that the predator said everything I wanted him to (his name was Gareth, not Dane). He admitted to all of the messages, said the reason he came to our house, then crumpled in on himself, a defeated mess, a hunter hunted.

I stepped between them again and shut off the recorder. The stop button clicked with a ring of finality, like closing a book after reading the last page. I sparked another cigarette, got it going with a few purposeful puffs, then passed it to Dad. He puffed it long and good, almost got the cherry to the midpoint with one drag, then stood, towering over the predator, and blew smoke into his eyes, blinding him with its sting. Then Dad stamped on his foot, crunching bones, flattening toes. The predator’s mouth flew open in horror, but before his scream could escape, Dad shoved the cigarette inside and clamped one large hand over the predator’s lips, the other on the back of his head. There was a faint tsss! as the cigarette seared his tongue—his mouth must have been very dry at that point, because it took a while for the hissing to stop.

Tears poured down the predator’s temples and a strangled groan filled the room as he struggled against Dad's vice-like grip. I knew it was almost time for me to leave.

Sure enough, Dad lifted him, chair and all, and carried him into the living room. It used to be where we watched TV, surrounded by pictures of my dead mum. Now it was where Dad rid the world of people who should never have been born into it.

The walls glistened with what little moonlight poured through the bay window: a kind of heavy-duty cling film covered every inch of the room, made a sticky sound when we walked on the veiled carpet. We stole the idea off some TV show. Stopped Dad from making a mess. That’s why you won’t find much evidence in there.

Dad pitched the chair, flinging the predator to the floor, where he whimpered softly, unable to form coherent words because of the hole in his tongue. Dad looked at me over his shoulder. There was nothing soft about his expression. Nothing at all.

“Catch another one,” he told me. Then he turned back to our prey. I nodded even though he couldn’t see me, stepped out of the room and pulled the door shut. It didn’t close properly because it was wrapped in plastic.

I pulled out my third cigarette of the hour and sparked it on my way up the stairs. When I got to my bedroom, I could hear muffled screams rising from below. The nights when we killed would always end with me lying awake, listening to the screams that were meant to be mine. I never let myself sleep until they stopped.

I had to know there was one less predator on the streets.

Then I would drift off, trying not to imagine how many were still out there.