I miss him. You all probably miss him too.
But where is he, really?
I thought about what I can do to reach him.
There’s only one thing I can do—so I go through the trouble of having it recovered, driven the many, many mile markers to where the girls and I wait.
When I’m back behind the wheel, it feels like everything that happened after the night I found out that the Candy Man had been executed has been erased.
Data erased.
In the red convertible, I feel like I’m only a few cars behind. I can almost see his brown coupe.
By now he’s fixed it. By now he must be near the south of the border.
By now. . .I shouldn’t have to feel the way I feel.
Let’s get lost together.
1.
I drove through the night.
I kept filming even though I hadn’t a clue what my pet had done.
I’m waiting for his apology.
I’m waiting for him to notice that master is not pleased.
It’s true, what I said. That I miss him.
And it’s all I can do to go on: I imagine what’s happened. The way I would have liked it; the way it was originally planned.
I can imagine the entire mystery.
So much that I can lose myself for as long as I’d like.
2.
I imagine. . .
That the mystery will never end. It remains the peak of curiosity, back when we first took to the interstate. It’s there that I’m exactly who I am and I don’t ever feel any less than when I didn’t initially get what I want. It’s there that I imagine the wide-open road before anything else.
Flicker and it’s back to when it was fresh. Fade in on the mystery speeding down the interstate picking up theories.
Some drive until the road ends. Some turn around and try learning a different road. Some never find a place they can call home. They commit to theories that speak of a life that only ends up coiled around mystery.
They might as well have kept driving.
Virginia welcomes you. Sign’s gone as soon as it is seen.
Keep on driving. The road will soon look the same.
The mystery rides the interstate carrying the only theory that’s ever mattered:
The one he learned from me.
I’m imagining the road leaning to the right as if reminding him that this is it—This is your exit. Don’t want to be late. The mystery ends up at another prison, where a guard waits for his cut. Paid in full, the guard retrieves the one who would have been next. By my predictions, it’s the quaint and even-tempered killer that went by the alias, “The Bystander.”
The mystery poses as a social worker, would be under the basis of what I do know about Bystander: He’s born-again, working to get off death row. Been saved from lethal injection once already. He’s deader than dead under the illusion that conversion might bring him back to life.
The mystery drives to a nearby park.
Settle on a calm scene between two people sitting at a picnic table in tranquil early morning sunshine. Birds chirping, gentle breeze. . .both are silhouettes long before one swiftly takes care of the other. The mystery errs towards brutality, so that means a close-up on the Bystander’s body, thin blade punctured through the right eye, just enough to induce shock; the pain there but more numbing than anything else.
Eyes wide, the Bystander is beginning to see how mysterious the world can be.
The Bystander didn’t expect a thing.
3.
It would have been a beautiful sight: Bystander hanging from a tree by the rope knotted at his ankles and wrapped to his toes. The sunlight bouncing off a face masked with blood. Peering into that face, I’m seeing my own reflection. As if I were there; as if I could have been there.
Rope wraps around each wrist, pulls in opposite directions.
The mystery cuts three-inch incisions wherever veins are visible.
Thin blue veins pour out more of the same, red and dripping. A pan is placed below the elevated body, collecting the blood.
The Bystander may be weak, but he still manages to fight against the rope.
I’m imagining what the mystery could have done to thoroughly enjoy the kill. . .but just as quickly, the mystery conforms to how I had planned the Bystander’s gimmick.
On target with the bloodletting, the weakened victim gives into the rope.
Rope pulls arm and leg from each socket.
Body slacking, yet the Bystander won’t make a sound.
The mystery waits and watches. It’s almost done.
The camera is stationary; the scene solemn and calm makes for an even more unsettling and jarring display. Heartbeat slowing as mine would beat quicker with every passing frame.
Watching it, I’d be proud. I’d say something like, “It looks so easy. He’s getting better.”
The mystery would leave both body and blood there, on-point with the Bystander right down to the abandoned scene. It would baffle the authorities. It would help corroborate that someone’s offing incarcerated serial killers.
But the mystery would remain because of one clear detail:
No one knows that I’m part of the mystery too.
I’m the key piece of evidence—one that’ll never be revealed.
Everyone watching would keep a secret too. Leave it to mystery.
If you told anyone, you’d be an accessory.
You’re in this too. And so, because this is true, there’s no reason why the mystery would continue to unfold with or without a new episode.
I imagine. . .
4.
Without me there, he would have no reason to film.
No reason to speak. The entire state of Virginia would pass by in complete silence.
He would continuously think of his cellphone.
But he won’t call. He wouldn’t film until he felt completely alone.
And then it would take everything just keep to the fantasy alive.
He’d drive faster, lured by the idea that around the next corner, I’d be there, waiting.
5.
“I need someone that’ll need me, want me, covet me, consume me, captivate me, just as much as I do all those things and more to them. I’m selective in that way. But really, how can you not be?”
Just in time to keep you interested, the mystery is back with a brand new season!
A whole lot has happened since traveling down the interstate.
New love. New lust turned pure jealousy.
Fresh kills and pure potential.
Full frontal fantasy.
Betrayal. Relationship tension.
Candid “1-on-1” confessionals with the audience.
Even a few cast disappearances and one hell of a coup.
And that’s not all!
Season two will now be moving to Monday and Friday!
That’s two hour-long episodes a week.
Season premiere begins at 8PM Eastern/7PM Central with a special half-hour recap with the starring cast. Get firsthand commentary from the fans as we dive back in.
The mystery is about to take a sharp turn. . .
You won’t want to miss a thing!
6.
I imagine the apology.
I imagine the next juncture.
I imagine how, given not a whole lot of time, it can be forgotten. One argument doesn’t need to be the end.
I imagine it’s all so stupid anyway.
I imagine what we’d do after he’d apologize to me.
I imagine everyone would watch.
See every part of us.
Watch as we teach you new things about sex and violence.
I imagine it would last a half-hour before we part ways yet again, conforming to our cover stories, letting the fantasy conceal reality.
I imagine me and the ladies speeding down the interstate at sunset, naked and warm, shouting and feeling empowered, a sort of celebration.
I imagine we’re celebratin
g, my pet and I. We’re celebrating what will come next. We’re celebrating for the sake of celebration, once again realizing what this study will bring us.
This study, which in turn is more show than anything else, will produce results.
Any way you look at it, the mystery isn’t just a road and it isn’t just new love.
It’s everything and, if you let it, it can be purely fiction.
A lot can be lost along the way. Can really lose oneself in the mystery.
I’m thinking this might not be as perfect as I imagined. I don’t need perfect; I need my pet.
I’m thinking it’s about time for that apology.
I’m thinking he’s been waiting for me.
7.
No matter what the show’s about, everyone ends up traveling. It’s a mystery that anyone knows what the hell’s going on now, after all that’s happened, but I know that I’ve got to keep with it. I’ve got to be patient and observant. I can’t keep getting lost in ideals, my overactive imagination. I have to keep going until I pick back up where the mystery stopped.
Keep on driving until it all makes sense.
Keep on driving until we’re all caught up.
No use getting lost alone.
Sincere apologies make for an excellent aphrodisiac.
1.
She wouldn’t shut up about it.
“Claire, just call him.”
My reply being, “Even I’m not above the rules.”
“He doesn’t have a clue.”
Relentless, I tell you.
“I’m driving.”
Focus on the road. I don’t see either of them offering to drive. They’ve been kicking it all casual in the backseat, giggling and having the time of their lives.
Meanwhile I hate everything and I want to crash the car into a gas truck, taking out an entire patch of the interstate in one perfect explosion.
You’d probably like that, huh? Surprise twist.
At least someone would be surprised. Yeah, so what—pretending nothing’s wrong only works for like a few miles.
“Claire, you look miserable. I’m telling you, call him!”
“Look, I’m tired, okay? Shut up.”
She wouldn’t shut up though. Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore; got the hell off the interstate and got the hell out of the convertible.
Walked into one of those newer rest stops with full-featured food court and sat in one of the back booths alone with scalding hot chai tea.
And I don’t even like tea.
But that’s where I am, alone.
Sipping the beverage. Not admitting that I can’t see myself getting back onto the interstate in the foreseeable future. It doesn’t seem like it’s possible.
Can’t even conjure up the image.
Maybe I’ll just stay here.
These rest stops are twenty-four hours; I could live in this back booth here. I’m the back booth lady. I’d tell crazy stories to passerby’s, anyone willing to listen; they wouldn’t believe any of it. Like you, though, they’d listen and they would assuredly be entertained.
I’m here for what feels like only a moment, but it ends up being a couple of hours.
I see her blonde hair over the partition diving the food court long before I see her face. She’s looking around for me. I’m not going to wave her over. She can figure it out herself.
Maybe she won’t see—oh, too late. Spotted.
Runs over in a way that annoys me.
Everything annoys me.
She’s out of breath. I tell her to calm the fuck down.
But she can’t, she won’t—something’s happened.
It doesn’t make any sense though, pure nonsense until she repeats it for the fifth time.
My assistant has disappeared.
Hits me hard. Another betrayal.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
It’s the truth. When get back to the convertible she’s not there.
“How the fuck could this have happened?”
Here’s how she explains it:
Apparently the coupe pulled into a parking space. Neither paid much attention to it until, sure enough, it was my pet that got out of the driver’s seat. One assistant remained voyeur while the other ran for the coupe, got into the coupe, and before she could be stopped, my pet walked back with a coffee in hand, playing up his side of the fantasy, completely immersed in his self-conscious self. Probably didn’t notice her in there until much later.
She’s told me everything she knows. My assistant sighs and says, “So now what?”
I’m speechless.
It took her disappearance to make me do something about it. I don’t know, it’s just that sometimes I don’t feel like myself. Everything’s going my way, yet I feel like it’s all washed out, numb. I don’t feel much of anything. I could hear him apologize and I’d probably feel nothing at all. Maybe I’m tired—that’s my go-to excuse. Maybe I’m miserable because I’ve lost sight of what this is, and the mystery’s bound to get old sooner rather than later. Maybe I’m just jealous. But I dismiss that almost immediately.
I give them everything and this is what ends up happening.
It’s so much easier for others to let go, but not me. I hold a grudge.
My phone rings.
We both look down at it, safe and stowed away in a cup holder. We listen to it ring over a dozen times before I can get my body to move.
Pick up, can’t bring myself to say much of anything this is so fucked up. . .
Her voice comes through loud and clear. Of course.
“Claire. Claire?”
What the hell. . .
“Claire??”
“You know who this is.”
“It’s me.”
No shit. When I get my hands on you, they’ll add this to the highlight reel. . .
“Look, you’re angry. I get it. I know, but hear me out.”
Why?
“Are you listening?”
Let’s just say. . .my jaw is clenched so tightly I can feel my teeth starting to ache.
“Hear me out: It’s all in your head, Claire.”
Digging your own grave.
“You make things out to be so much more than they really are.”
Yup—you can forget about everything I told you. Your part ends here.
“He likes you. He’s always liked you. More importantly, he’s afraid of what you might do.”
“What are you saying?”
“He didn’t know.”
I’m cupping the phone, telling my other assistant to start up the car and drive.
“He assumed you were testing him. He only wanted what’s best. He wanted to impress you.”
“Where are you?”
She tells me where they are. We’re about a half hour behind.
She’s also saying that he didn’t pick her up, “I snuck into the back of the coupe. I knew you wouldn’t just talk to him. I tried and tried and tried to get you to realize what’s real versus what’s just some idealization of what didn’t end up going your way.”
I’m sighing and she must have heard it because she’s apologizing.
“He’s headed for him. We’re on our way to Scott. But we left a tape.”
I hear a voice that’s not hers.
I’m not sure what he said until she says it for him, “He’s sorry.”
Then he’s saying it. My pet is apologizing, “I’m sorry, Claire. I’d do anything for you. I want you to know that nothing’s changed.”
I know where the tape should be.
I’m telling my assistant to drive faster.
Before she hangs up, I hear him say, “What does she want me to do?”
It’s enough to get me excited.
2.
How it feels to be depressed, I imagine, is something like being completely disappointed. Coupled with the anxiety of things not going as planned, I’m thinking depression is finding out that your car won’t go as fast as you want.<
br />
Go, go, go—my excitement leads my assistant to tears.
I’m too excited to tell her that it’s not her fault.
Too excited to tell her it’s okay.
Too excited to tell her to slow down when we get there.
Too excited to feel the pain when I fall face-first while getting out of the moving car.
Too excited to look and see whether or not anyone’s watching as I walk into the men’s restroom, into one of the stalls, lift the lid and reach in to remove the plastic sealed bag containing the tape. Too excited to wait and watch it back in the car. I sit down in the stall, shut off the camera, and load his tape.
As it starts, I see nothing but grass. Camera is held down low, haphazardly, as if he’s mocking me. I can’t tell if he forgot that he turned it on or that he wouldn’t have been able to turn it on later, after everything started. I don’t have a lot of time to think about it since it cuts to a long continuous shot of my pet speaking to a guard.
The guard isn’t interested in bribes.
It’s not the same when my pet tries to do it all on his own.
He tries and he fails. Though it’s never said, he shows me that I am not only missing but also missed. He really misses my guidance, my aid.
The shot continues despite a lack of light when it gets interesting.
I don’t care. I don’t care that I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t care because it’s not what’s on camera that matters; it’s what isn’t captured on camera. It’s what he can’t quite do.
It’s what he ends up having to do in order to still keep with my plan.
Not his plan, my plan. He has to follow orders. He must follow master’s command.
Where he ends up, the camera cannot follow, but as the shot abruptly ends, I’m treated with a sudden glimpse of someone I could never, ever forgot. Her name was Macy, but people referred to her as the Damsel. She and I met when Damsel was only beginning to explore what she might be able to do with herself, trying out new things, setting boundaries.
We were close, real close.
My Pet Serial Killer Page 27