Free Cain's Blood by Geoffrey Girard

older voice. Three years separated them, but it might as well have
been a thousand. In the end, it would bear out that only one true Jeffrey
Dahmer traveled through time untouched, unfettered. In the end, his
progeny, all of them, would spill blood as effortlessly and jubilantly as the
original.
“funny you should say that.” he pointed at the boy as elusive
memories of talking to his own Jeff half arose in his mind. Where is
he now? Already discarded by DSTI? Or, perhaps, even now finding his true
self as these unchained souls are doing. “hebrew Apocrypha suggests Cain
eventually met Lilith, Adam’s first wife. That she taught the world’s first
killer to drink blood for power. That they had many children together.
Demons and monsters, if you believe in such things. Other ancient texts
claim Cain was the bastard son of Satan and eve.”
“That’s gay, too,” Dennis giggled. And several of the other boys
laughed.
Jacobson smiled with them. It’s their time, too . “In either case,” he
concluded, “he is said to have lived forever as a nomad, finally begging
people to end his boundless suffering. No one did. eventually, or so
they believed, he fled to the moon itself.” he looked up again, and some
of the boys looked with him.
“yeah,” Ted stared. “It kinda makes sense. Some nights, you know,
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GeOffrey GIrArD
    when there’s that weird feel in the air. Like something bad is going to
happen . . .”
“Like tonight!” henry hooted.
“Like tonight,” Ted agreed, but his voice revealed he recognized
that tonight’s revelries were over.
Jacobson leaned forward. “And today,” he assured the boy. “And the
next day, too.”
Now all the boys were listening.
“Today, we will part,” said Jacobson, and the boys shot each other
quick looks. Many had been waiting for this, already grown tired of
doing everything Jacobson told them, and he knew that. he wondered
how far some would make it. “you are all free in every possible way. I
ask only two more things of you.”
“fuck that,” henry laughed.
“Shut up.” Ted glared at the other boy, and henry just shrugged.
Ted turned back to Jacobson. “What?”
“Two lists,” answered Jacobson, reaching into his shirt pocket and
handing one paper directly to Ted and the other to Dennis. On each,
scribbled words. “Names and addresses of others. Others like you. Like
Albert. Like John here.”
John was the boy they’d found hours ago. When Jacobson had explained what he was, the boy had gone into the next room and beaten
his own little brother to death with a baseball bat from the garage. All
this while the other boys had been having fun with John’s adoptive parents, now both nude and still and bloody in the family’s dining room.
After all that, there’d been no question about what to do with John. he
was a keeper. And now, a new day emerging, he was inside, putting on
the makeup, getting ready to drift with them in perpetuity.
“I have folders with specific information for each in the car.”
“you want us to free them, too,” Ted confirmed.
“Oh, yes.”
“Why can’t you do it?” henry asked.
Jacobson’s eyes flashed in the darkness, something in them the
boys had only seen once before. When it had all started back at Massey.
When the “quiet old man” had pulled Mrs. Gallagher into his office.
“I have other responsibilities now.” his voice too had become another
voice altogether. Terrible, like some provoked god. “you’ll indulge me,
yes?”
“Sure, yeah. Just asking.” The boy’s words shook some with his
reply.
“Not a prob, Dr. Jacobson,” Ted said carefully. “What else?”
Jacobson reached down into the backpack and brought something
out for them all to see. They each crowded for a closer look.
“What is it?” Ted stood, and Jacobson handed him the canister.
It looked just like a Pepsi can.
INTrODuCTIONS
JuNe 04, SAturdAy—HAddoNField, NJ

“I won’t hurt you,” Castillo said into the empty