Once I’m inside, I make the mail label as specified, the address a PO box in Burlington, Vermont, and pay in cash for the use of the computer and printer.
So far, so good, I think, once I’m back in my car. And then I flip open the phone, return to the assignment text, and read step five. It’s the one with the script.
SCOTT BROS. HUNTING and Fishing is located fifty-two miles north of Staples, in a tiny strip mall on the outskirts of Albany. As with the rest of the assignment, the directions here are so perfect, I have no need to plug the address into my GPS.
Once I’m in the parking lot, I take a long look at Scott Bros., which is located between a nail salon and a check-cashing place and seems very out of place in a strip mall—all that camo and killing equipment in a brightly lit space that probably used to be a Dressbarn. In a few minutes, I’m going to walk into Scott Bros. and buy a certain brand of hunting knife. There is no mention in this assignment of how or when or on whom the knife will be used. But what I’m supposed to believe is that, at some point in the not-too-distant future, it will play a role in the murder of one of the guilty.
I know that’s what 0001 would like us to believe, that this collective is real, that it’s been effectively meting out justice for years, none of its members getting caught, all of them （all of us?） working together to form, as 4566 drunkenly put it, A DEATH MACHINE.
Part of me wants to believe it. A lot of me wants to believe that Gerard Krakowski’s accidental shooting death was not some dark coincidence but the work of the collective, and that these steps I’m taking today will result in tangible justice for someone else. But the more I think about it, the more certain I am that this is nothing more than an elaborate role-play exercise, a type of behavioral group therapy for the mortally wronged.
It just doesn’t make sense as a real thing. If we truly are contributing to the murders of unpunished child killers, and if this has been going on for more than three years, as 0001 says, wouldn’t someone have messed up by now and wrecked the whole operation? We’re grieving mothers, all of us. Wild cards. How could this “great machine” continue to run smoothly when all of its parts are faulty and damaged?
The fascinating thing, though, is that it doesn’t matter to me. I’m willing to commit to this role-play, to believe in it when I haven’t believed in anything at all for the past five years. I’m willing to work my hardest to get every one of these steps to-the-letter right because of the way this all makes me feel—as though my rage has a purpose. As though I have the power to kill, and I’m no longer alone.
And so I do what the assignment asks. I pull out the notebook and the pen and write Buck 119 on one of the pages, then I rip it out and shove it into my coat pocket and go over the script one more time.
I’m ready.
“SO, A KNIFE, huh?” says the man behind the counter—a fiftyish wannabe tough guy with a bushy salt-and-pepper beard, a tattoo of a fanged snake on his biceps, and a thick chain around his neck that reminds me of a choke collar for a rottweiler.
“Yep.”
“Mm-kay.” Outside of the accessories, he’s not terribly threatening-looking. His build is bulky but soft, his voice nasal and high-pitched, almost boyish. But clearly, he wants to look like he belongs in this place, with its sleek handguns and rifles, its ammo belts and pocketed vests and knives with gleaming blades, displayed under the glass counter like engagement rings. It’s freezing outside but sweltering in here, and I imagine it’s so this guy can comfortably wear the tight camouflage T-shirt he’s got on, along with the matching cargo pants—head-to-toe hunter drag, save for a somewhat incongruous nametag. “Your name is Ashley?” I ask him, going off script. I can’t help it.
His face reddens. “My mom was a Gone with the Wind fan.” He clears his throat, and his voice comes back, deeper. “What are you hunting?”
“Deer.” I’m back on script. “Actually, it’s for my brother. A birthday present.”