Praise for Emily Schultz and
Little Threats
“My new hero.”
—Stephen King
“Little Threats hooked me from the first line. A gripping, haunting story about family, memory, and most of all, grief—this book is difficult to put down, and more difficult to stop thinking about.”
—Rob Hart, author of The Warehouse
“At its heart, Little Threats is a devastating and elegiac novel about teenage friendships, sexuality, drug use, and ultimately betrayal. Emily Schultz is unflinching in revealing the way prison isn’t merely a place but a feeling that can haunt a girl who grew into a woman behind bars. Freedom isn’t absolution, and the answers are as painful as the questions in this heart-stopping, powerful story.”
—Bryn Greenwood, author of All the Ugly and Wonderful Things and The Reckless Oath We Made
“Emily Schultz gives us fierce, if damaged, Kennedy Wynn, a young woman returning home from prison, haunted by a crime for which she maintains her innocence and plagued by a legacy of pain and loss. Schultz has the reader eagerly flipping pages as secrets are revealed, while also pausing to consider Kennedy’s poignant observations about trust and love. It’s a pulsating mystery and a deftly rendered portrait of a family in crisis, where small details, like little threats, enlighten and illuminate.”
—Lori Lansens, author of This Little Light
Praise for
The Blondes
An NPR Great Reads Selection of 2015
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2015
A BookPage Best Book of 2015
“Wow!”
—Margaret Atwood
“The Blondes is scary and deeply, bitingly funny—a satire about gender that kept me reading until four in the morning—and a fine addition to the all-too-small genre of feminist horror.”
—NPR
“Intelligent, mesmerizing, and fearless. An entirely original and beautifully twisted satire with a heart of darkness.”
—Emily St. John Mandel, bestselling author of Station Eleven
“This frighteningly realistic nail-biter is as acidly funny as it is twisted.”
—People
“Schultz spins an eerie tale with perspective into our cultural attitudes about beauty.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“What sounds like George Romero with a bottle of peroxide is surprisingly sensitive and contemplative . . . As classic blonde jokes acquire deadly hues, the novel’s satiric color remains subtle.”
—The Washington Post
“A road story, and a feminist bildungsroman, and a parable about prejudice and reproductive freedom and immigration.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Those who enjoy Margaret Atwood should sign up for it. I did, and gladly.”
—Dallas Morning News
“The literary love child of Naomi Wolf and Stephen King.”
—Helen Wecker, bestselling author of The Golem and the Jinni
“A nail-biter that is equal parts suspense, science fiction, and a funny, dark sendup of the stranglehold of gender.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Funny, horrific, and frighteningly realistic . . . A must-read.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“[A] ferociously clever, exceedingly well written variation on the pandemic novel . . . This canny, suspenseful, acidly observant satire cradles an intimate, poignant, and hilarious story of one lonely, stoic, young mother-to-be caught up in surreal and terrifying situations.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“The Blondes is the book you can’t put down; it’s also the book you can’t stop thinking about after you do.”
—BookPage
“Emily Schultz balances biting humor and thrilling suspense in a complex story.”
—Us Weekly
“A campy, King-inspired nightmare sure to satisfy the scream queens in the audience . . .”
—Bustle
“The Blondes by Emily Schultz gives a twisted meaning to the phrase ‘blondes have more fun.’ I giggled and shivered.”
—Minnesota Journal Sentinel
“Fast-paced drama, punctuated with humor . . . Schultz writes a subtle commentary on how discrimination operates around the globe.”
—Shelf Awareness
“A wild and smart look at cultural theory, gender roles, and societal expectations.”
—LongReads
“With a lively sense of danger . . . and an absurdist but compelling feminist premise, the book has the enviable qualities of a smart page-turner.”
—Flavorwire
“Corrosively humorous commentary on social, sexual and cross-border politics.”
—Toronto Star
“Skin-crawling, Cronenbergian satire.”
—Rue Morgue
Also by Emily Schultz
The Blondes
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
Publishers Since 1838
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 2020 by Emily Schultz
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Schultz, Emily, 1974– author.
Title: Little threats / Emily Schultz.
New York : G. P. Putnam’s Sons, [2020].
Identifiers: LCCN 2020016460 (print) | LCCN 2020016461 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593086995 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593087008 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PR9199.4.S394 L58 2020 (print) | LCC PR9199.4.S394 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016460
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/202001646
p. cm.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design: Tal Goretsky
Cover images: (woman’s face) Hugo Cattelain / EyeEm / Getty Images; (leaves) David Rothschild / Stocksy United
pid_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0
For Brian,
my nineties, my now
Contents
Cover
Praise for Emily Schultz
Also by Emily Schultz
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
November 3, 2008
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Acknowledgments
Discussion Guide
A Conversation with Emily Schultz
About the Author
We are all detectives walking around with our flashlights and notepads. We all feel that there is more going on than meets the eye.
—David Lynch
November 3, 2008
Final Assignment:
Write about your victim.
The dead girl never gets to write her own story. She never gets to shake her cramped hand after falling into the words for too long, like I get to do. The dead girl never gets to take a creative writing class taught by an instructor from the local college who is nervous and excited about being in a prison for the first time. The dead girl doesn’t get to put up her bloody, leaf-encrusted hand when the teacher asks, “Does anyone know what epiphany means?” Her side of the story is always unwritten, and that becomes the secondary tragedy. She’s the only one who knows what went down. Everyone else is a tourist in her resting place, even me.
This is what I know, and what I keep on imagining, happened.
In the woods she looked battered and sunken, like a tossed-aside doll. At first I thought it must be a game, an act. But Haley remained still where she lay with her legs in the creek and the rest of her on the sand. An Ophelia in Doc Martens. “Haley,” I said, kneeling beside her. “Your mom is going to freak out.”
I saw that blood filled Haley’s transparent blouse. I tried to stand but my legs were shaky and my velvet skirt was heavy with water. Even then, I wasn’t sure this was happening. The sand beneath the girl was dark, like an oil stain. I was coming down from the acid trip, and the air still felt scratchy as yarn and the trees waved in time like music. I reached out and pushed Haley’s shoulder and thick blood poured out of her like she was a tipped cup. I sat back, trying to breathe.
Haley was my friend and now she was falling apart, becoming part of the ground. I couldn’t leave her like this. I leaned forward and hurriedly rearranged her, crossing her hands over the wounds to hide them. There was dirt beneath the nails, as if she’d gripped the ground at some point. One hand had a wound through it, a place where the skin gave way. Under the swaying trees of Blueheart Woods, I fanned out Haley’s hair, brushed it back with my fingers, trying to make her beautiful. The curls felt the way they always did, but why wouldn’t they? Giving way to frizz, this reddish bush of it around Haley’s face.
I thought about the boy, Berk—there is always a living boy to go with a dead girl. I did not remember anything between getting out of his car the night before and this moment now. I thought he could never have done this. I’d seen him care about her, sometimes I thought more than he cared about me. Berk had left us by the woods, angry at me. Then I was angry at Haley, because she left me alone on acid. I remember seeing her walk into the dark woods, singing “Feed the Tree” as the night lowered on her like a sheet. Silver baby come to me. I’ll only hurt you in my dreams.
Then nothing, until I was in my room after the sun came up. I said, “Haley,” and jumped out of bed, knowing that I needed to find her. And I did.
This would be Haley’s burial, I reasoned, so I arrayed several twigs and branches around my friend’s head, like a Renaissance halo.
I tucked the trimmed hair into a side pocket in my purse, where it settled next to a tampon.
My sister, Carter, had always said that when something happened to me, it was like it had happened to her. Just one of those twin things. I knew she would call the police so I tried not to tell her about Haley. I was afraid that if someone could do this to her, he could do it to me. But then more terrible thoughts came, and really, never stopped coming. What happened? Who did this? In the end I wasn’t good at secrets, not at that age anyway. I went back to the woods, and after I got home, I managed to keep my silence about half an hour.
Before I confided in Carter, I stashed the orange curl in between the pages of Jane Eyre. The strands became flattened and dull inside the book, like the hair a child might unthinkingly cut off a doll. It didn’t stay together, pretty, the way I had hoped it would.
—Kennedy Wynn
Heron Valley Correctional Facility
Chapter 1
Gerry Wynn had chosen his daughters’ names after presidents, so they would know anything was possible. If they’d been boys they would have been Jack and Jimmy, or more formally John and James. But thirty-one years ago they had been handed to him screaming, pink, and female.
The afternoon before his daughter’s release from prison, Gerry finished preparing things for Kennedy’s arrival. He walked out to his SUV and placed her old army jacket in the front seat so she would have something to wear when she came out of the Heron Valley Correctional Facility. He had commissioned Carter to arrange for a new wardrobe for her, but she had forgotten to buy her sister a coat. Already blouses, pants, belts, and boots were stashed in an upstairs bedroom. And it was Carter’s job to bring the cake to the party, although she hadn’t said yet whether she would come with him to the prison to fetch her twin.
Gerry thought that strange—Carter had dutifully visited her sister every week throughout her sentence but had stopped as the release date came closer. He had never understood daughters, much less twins. After he finished making up the room, he would call Carter, he thought, try again to convince her what a momentous occasion this was. With the exception of their mother, Laine, the family was going to be together again.
He was excited to show Kennedy the renovated house. Hers was the only room he hadn’t redone. He stood in the doorway often but didn’t cross into the space, as if it were still hers. Now it would be. As he went in, he discovered the bedroom had gathered dust. He remembered changing the sheets before her first parole hearing five years ago. She should have been let out then, given that the evidence in the case had been purely circumstantial. No weapon. No blood anywhere in the Wynn home. Only that goddamn lock of hair forced her into a plea. The Kimbersons had protested the release at a press conference that time, trotting out their living child, a boy. Everett was hardly old enough to shave then, let alone read a victim impact statement about what it had been like to lose his big sister when he was just nine. Distasteful, Gerry thought, to use a child that way. Kennedy had been denied that time. This time, they hadn’t shown and Kennedy had been given the release date of November 7, 2008.
Gerry gripped the new set of sheets against his leg. He stared at the contents of the shelves: books, perfume bottles, and banners, ribbons she’d won, tennis trophies. Kennedy and Carter had played doubles until they were fourteen; on the tennis court, they’d moved like music. His favorite memories of Kennedy involved driving long-distance to sporting events—she and Carter were twelve, then thirteen, that little window of time before he would lose them. Even then, he’d known they would go: it was just that he’d thought it would be to school dances and sleepover parties.
Gerry walked over and opened the window, hoping to get s
ome air into the room. The floor around the end of the bed was still strewn with old tapes, titled, personalized, and annotated with a story known only between the gifter and the giftee:
Extremities, Dirt & Various Repressed Emotions for Kennedy
Side One
Screaming Trees: Nearly Lost You
Dead Kennedys: Goons of Hazzard (I had to!)
Dinosaur Jr.: The Wagon
Sebadoh: Wonderful, Wonderful
Killing Joke: Love Like Blood
Soundgarden: Flower
Soundgarden: Big Dumb Sex (Don’t play when your parents are around!)
Side Two
Radiohead: Creep
Bauhaus: She’s in Parties
Lush: Nothing Natural
Jesus and Mary Chain: Reverence
Echo & the Bunnymen: Killing Moon
Jane’s Addiction: Summertime Rolls
Nick Cave: Straight to You
Kim Gordon’s Silver Hot Pants for Berk, xo
Side One
Nirvana: Come As You Are
Suede: Animal Nitrate
Concrete Blonde: Tomorrow, Wendy (Kennedy reference back at you)
Sisters of Mercy: This Corrosion
Cure: Lovesong
Sugarcubes: Leash Called Love
NIN: Something I Can Never Have
Side Two
Skinny Puppy: Chainsaw
Thrill Kill Kult: Sex on Wheelz
Smashing Pumpkins: Rhionceros
L7: Pretend We’re Dead
Pixies: Here Comes Your Man
Iggy Pop: Candy
Siouxsie and the Banshees: Kiss Them for Me
Pavement: Summer Babe
He kneeled down and looked at them. He detested Berk Butler. Until Haley’s death he hadn’t even known his daughters and their friend had been involved with him. Gerry had to admit to himself how distracted he had been that summer, with he and Laine working through things.
The hand lettering on the tape case from Kennedy to Berkeley was loopy and doughy, the o’s and a’s almost square instead of round. The one from the young man to her had thin, tight lettering, as if he had forced himself to print neatly, pressing hard with the black pen. It didn’t occur to Gerry that the fact that there were two tapes was an upset to the usual order—that Berk Butler should still have been in possession of the one she’d gifted him. That either she’d changed her mind about giving it, or he’d given it back. The song names held nothing for Gerry—they brought no winding ribbon of melody to his mind. For him, it was all teenage code. He gently placed the tapes back on the floor beside a milk crate that housed other homemade Maxells.