The Cereal Murders Read Online Free

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"Oh, no. Please." I shook Keith's shoulders. The boy didn't move. I couldn't touch his head. His slick hair lay in a dark puddle of blood and snow. The moon lit his frozen grimace. The open mouthed expression was ghastly, contorted with the fear of death. My fingers caught on an icy cord that had been wrapped around his torso and attached to the sled.
     
     
I pulled away. My voice made high, unhuman sounds. The deep snow disintegrated like quicksand as I clambered backward. I raced to the headmaster's house, careened across the slate floor of the empty entryway, and dialed 911.
     
     
The operator impassively took my name and asked for the fire number, a standard localization procedure in the mountainous section of Furman County. Of course I didn't know it, so I screeched for somebody, anybody, in the house. Julian appeared from the kitchen. A bewildered-looking Headmaster Perkins came tripping down the stairs from the living quarters. Behind him was a lanky, acne-scarred teenager who looked vaguely familiar the one who had made the Stanford comment. The headmaster's tweeds were disheveled, as if he had begun to get undressed but had abruptly changed his mind. He couldn't remember the fire number, turned to the tall boy, who crinkled his nose and mumbled off six digits. Perkins then trotted off quickly in the direction of the kitchen, where, apparently, he believed I had started a fire.
     
     
The voice on the other end of the phone patiently asked me to repeat what had happened, what was going on. He wanted to know who else was around. I told him, then asked the tall teenager his name.
     
     
"Oh," said the boy. He was muscular in addition to possessing great height, but his acne made him painfully repulsive. His voice faltered. "Oh, uh, don't you know me? I'm Macguire. Macguire... Perkins. Headmaster Perkins is my father. I live here with him. And I, you know, go to the school."
     
     
I told this to the operator, who demanded to know I how I knew the boy in the snow was dead.
     
     
"Because there was blood, and he was cold, and he... didn't move. Should we try to bring him in from outside? He's lying in the snow - "
     
     
The operator said no, to send somebody out, to check for a pulse again. Not you, he said. You stay on the phone. Find out if anybody in the house knows CPR. I asked Julian and Macguire: Know CPR? They looked blank. Does the headmaster? Macguire loped off to the kitchen to ask, then returned momentarily, shaking his head. I told them please, go out and check on Keith Andrews, lying still and apparently dead in the small ditch in the pine grove. Stunned, Julian backed away. The color drained from his face; bruiselike shadows appeared under his eyes. Macguire sucked in his cheeks and his ungainly shoulders went slack. For a moment I thought he was going to faint. Go, go quickly, I told them.
     
     
When they had reluctantly obeyed, the operator had me go through the whole thing again. Who was I? Why was I there? Did I have any idea how this could have happened? I knew he had to keep me on the phone as long as possible, that was his job. But it was agony. Julian and Macguire returned, Macguire slack-jawed with shock, Julian even paler. About Keith... Julian closed his eyes, then shook his head. I told the operator: No pulse. Keep everybody away from the body, he ordered. Teams from the fire department and the Furman County Sheriff's Department were on their way. They should be at the school in twenty minutes.
     
     
"I'll meet them. Oh, and please, would you," I added, my voice raw with shock and confusion, "call Investigator Tom Schulz and ask him to come?"
     
     
Tom Schulz was a close friend. He was also a homicide investigator at the Sheriff's Department, as Julian and I knew only too well. The operator promised he would try Schulz's page, then disconnected.
     
     
I began to tremble. I heard Macguire ask if I had a coat somewhere, could he get it for me? I squinted up