He decided not to turn the handle first this time. If they were still up and attentive enough they would notice it and so have a chance to react. Or maybe they would simply assume it was Zander, awakened by a nightmare.
Both Mother and father were asleep. Middle age, regular folk, Caucasians. The living dead.
He would take the father first. He was a large man, overweight perhaps but not fat. He wouldn't want to fight this man. The gun would be easier of course but that would alert the neighbours.
Jeremy glided over to his side of the bed, blinking madly for some reason.
He lifted the knife which caught the light of the TV and gleamed a dull blue and then he brought the blade down hard into the man's chest where it entered far, far easier then he imagined it would. It caught a piece of the rib cage but the force of the strike was sufficient and found a path past it into a lung.
The man bolted perfectly upright from the waist, almost comically Jeremy thought and gasped so hard he croaked like a toad and when Jeremy pulled the blade out a geyser of blood exploded from the wound like a pop can that had been shaken up and opened.
He had time to stab two then three times into the man's soft flesh which parted for the blade almost welcomingly before the wife opened her eyes. Once she did she flew from the bed and ran down the hall.
The man was dead, or essentially dead, he eyes wide with surprise or realization or something Jeremy didn't have the time or the inclination to try and read.
The mother had, he guessed, instinctively went to little Zander's room. He found her trying to shake him awake, hysterical yet quiet so as not to alert him to where she was. Even when she turned and saw him filling up the door frame she continued to whisper to her child in hushed soothing voice.
“Baby wake up. Baby wake up! We need to go. We need to go.”
And then he could see the moment she realized her boy was dead.
When Jeremy moved towards her she didn't react. She just continued to whisper things to her dead son which he couldn't quite make out and didn't want to.
This would be the easiest one he thought. This one would be a mercy. It would be more cruel to let her live.
This will be the easiest of them, he thought again. And it was.
CHAPTER 7
Water drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, dripped into the bath which had log ago turned lukewarm.
The water dripped from the faucet and Jeremy blinked and maybe he thought about things but he couldn't hear his own thoughts half the time to know what they were.
Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.
His brother had died in a bath tub. Drip. Or had they both? Drip, drip. The razor on the little ledge for the soap was the elephant in the room and he eyed it suspiciously from where he lay half submerged in the water like a melting iceberg.
Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.
Last night didn't happen. That wasn't him. It was Mister... It was Mister.
Drip.
A towel he used to scrub the white face paint off with lay on the floor and along with the razor they were both making him feel very, very uncomfortable.
He got out of the tub without bothering to dry himself, went into the bedroom where he pulled out a bottle of Xanax from his nightstand and popped whatever fell into his hand. Two? Six? He went back to the bathroom and fell into the cold tub.
Drip, drip, drip.
The razor and the towel were things. Things created by man. Tools.
Drip.
They were tools.
Drip.
Some time passed as he thought about razor blades and towels and tools. He knew there was some sort of important thought he wanted to consider but the Xanax started to kick in and his thoughts became heavy and difficult to hold on to.
Tools. That was the thought: Tools. Towels were tools. Razor blades were tools. Tools to make something easier... Face paint was a tool. White clothes were a tool. To do what?
Drip,
To do what?
Drip.
To make something easier.
Drip.
Terrorism.
Drip.
Fear.
Drip.
Why?
He could remember the woman's face. The glimmer of baffled recognition in her eyes. The recognition of looking a known predator in the face. The look a tribesman might make when confronted with a tiger.
Why does the image of Mister cause fear?
Because, he is a known predator. And with each kill that image gained more power. Which is what he wanted or he would change the image.
The image was a tool to cause fear.
As a therapist his goal was to minimize suffering. But Mister had used him as a tool to cause it.
Jeremy could feel his eye lids wanting to clasp shut. The water was freezing and he thought about turning on the hot but decided it would require too much effort.
His brother had died in a tub…
Drip.
He thought of the woman more than the father or even the little boy. He thought how easy it was to kill her. Almost as if it would have been cruel to not.
What was the purpose? Mister had one. This was not killing for the sake of killing.
It's as though the weight of the world itself was hanging off his lashes, forcing his eyes closed. Sleep started to take him and he realized that he might drown in the tub if he didn't get out. If it happens it happens. It would be fitting.
Just as the world dimmed on him a grouping of ghostly thoughts bubbled up to the border of his conscious mind: Costume-fear. Fear-tool. Tool- purpose. Purpose-identity. Identity-Mister. Mister-Authority. Authority-God. God-Almighty. Almighty-violence. Violence-tool.
CHAPTER 8
Kill the shrink Mister had told her. Kill the shrink and it will all be over. I will let Cindy go, I will let you live your little life and wait for us to be together in death. Whatever-the-fuck that meant. He was clever though. That was for sure. That message was tucked inside an electricity bill envelope. He must have known the FBI would check any suspicious mail before allowing it to get to her apartment.
Kill the shrink. Sure no big deal. A little strangulation, black widow murder, ice pick under a pillow waiting for the perfect moment when he would drop his guard. The death toll she had wracked up on the screen was astonishing, so how much different could the actual act really be? Then of course there were other things to consider. What to do with the body for starters. She would probably have to saw it up like a mafia hit man. Though that couldn't be easy, or tidy. Getting through the bone she imagined would take a little elbow grease. Maybe she could dissolve it with lye in the tub. Let it decompose for a week or however long it took and just wash the Jeremy-sludge down the drain. Easy peezy. Then of course she would have to go on the run. This was the FBI after all. They would figure it out. It would only be matter of time before they caught her because, let's be serious, she can't even go away to a resort for a week without packing enough crap for a small family to survive in the wilderness. So then she would have to worry about prison and how to avoid becoming the lesbian bitch to some hairy two hundred pound gang banging butch.
And then of course there were the really obvious things to think about. A) the only person who was really trying to help her was 'the shrink' and B) Mister was homicidal lunatic, so being a complete fucking liar most likely wouldn't pose a moral dilemma for him.
How long had something like this been fermenting, growing and waiting to destroy her life? If she was honest with herself there was always some faint sense of guilt for her career. Sure it was underneath a layer of fun, and satisfaction and money and a modicum of fame but it was there, like a pea under a heap of down filled mattresses. That guilt must have been there because she knew deep down that something like this might happen. That eventually she would attract the wrong person into her life. And she thought she already had but wow, she had really out done herself this time.
She lay in bed smothered in a warm womb of blankets trying to
figure out where this nightmare had its genesis. The Hilarious House of Frightenstein she finally had to admit. That's where it had all started. It was a charmingly ridiculous children's show her parents would let he watch on Saturday mornings, of course not knowing what dark sensibilities it would spark in their darling little girl.
The show had long been taken off the air but Mary, of course, owned the collectable box set and would sometimes while nursing a case of ‘the blahs’ would spend an entire weekend watching it and drinking cheap grocery store wine. It was an undeniable comfort.
The show was a spoof of sorts on classic movie monsters and completely void of anything approaching scary, even for a kid but it was enough to whet her appetite for the hard stuff. Before she turned fourteen she was an expert on anything and everything horror related. Before she was seventeen she was in her first movie and before she was even old enough to drink she had become the half naked, monster bait, disposable jerk off material for teenagers and creeps around the world.
Mary extricated herself from the soup of blankets and sheets and stretched her stiff back which was sore from laying in bed so long. How long had she been hidden away in the blankets trying to sleep? Twelve hours? A day? She honestly couldn't be sure.
She needed out. Not wanted -needed. Her lungs felt dry and sore like they would shrivel up and die if they didn't get some fresh air inside of them. Before she could talk herself out of it she was scrounging through the closet for something to wear. She decided on a pair of cargos, a knitted pull over and of course a baseball hat and sun glasses because everyone even vaguely famous in L.A. knew that was surely enough to remain incognito amongst one of the most populated urban centres in the world.
On her way out she tried not to make contact with the FBI guard dog at the desk and failed. She would make a terrible spy. The agent smiled politely and kept his cool even though she could detect a glimmer in his eyes that said: where the fuck are you going you idiot? Do you want to die?
But even if he could have asked her she wouldn't have the answer. She had no idea where she was going, all she knew was that she needed to move, she needed to breath and walk and clear her head and she could not do that smothered under the comforters.
Stepping out onto the street for only the second time in weeks she felt like how a puppy might feel being driven home for the first time. Sights and smells and sounds all competing for her attention. Mary took a deep breath and picked a direction at random trying her best not to keep looking over her shoulder as she hurried down the sidewalk.
She came to an intersection and crossed the street making a left turn only because the light was green allowing her to do so and she couldn't bring herself to just stand at the corner and wait. She walked for a bit slowly starting to realize that this little stroll was a very bad idea but too stubborn to turn around just yet. She came to another intersection, Mavis and Broadview and turned again up Broadview which was less busy. Small boutique stores flanked the street on either side. A homeless man without any teeth or shoes sat on the pavement outside of a coffee shop singing what she guessed might be the star spangled banner in Swahili.
He reached out with his dirty yellow nailed hand, palm up for change and Mary couldn't catch herself from recoiling in disgust. She quickly crossed the street and as she did she noticed a car moving slowly behind her. She was probably just being paranoid. But no, there was a serial killer actively trying to kill her. It wasn't possible to be paranoid in that circumstance. She snuck another glance and the car was still there, moving much slower than any other vehicle on the road.
She stopped and pretended to look at a newspaper box. The car slowly pulled over and waited. The driver was a white male, early forties she guessed. He was talking on a phone.
If he follows when I leave then I'm not just spazing out she told herself. If he follows when I start moving it's real.
She took a deep breath and casually began to walk down the street again. She counted to thirty, pretended to be sweeping her hair over her shoulder so she could turn and look and the car was again slowly following.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, she may have said out loud but couldn't be sure. Her knees were weak, her eyes filling with tears. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She began to run, oblivious and uncaring to the pseudo-curious faces who watched with uninterested surprise, most likely simply assuming she was part of a movie being filmed or on drugs. Either way, it didn't warrant their involvement.
She could hear the car's engine rev behind her to keep up. She wanted to scream but couldn't, she wanted to stop and fight but couldn't, she could only run.
Top forties music pumped from a small accessory shop and in her panicked state it drew her into it by way of some kind of instinctive logic: Music means people, people means safety.
The store was a posh little outlet which wooed its clientele into considering offensive mark up on designer hand bags with free cappuccino’s and hipsters soda drinks served by photo shoot ready failed actresses. Everyone turned and stared as Mary burst through the doors with her mascara streaking and her hair a hot mess on top of her head. Their neatly waxed brows all lifted in unison. The man from the car entered the store. He was wearing a dark blue suit, tall and strong. Mary found herself slowly backing up against a rack of sunglasses until it teetered and crashed to the floor.
“Help me,” Mary pleaded to everyone and anyone. “He's trying to kill me!”
The man exhaled deeply and raised his hands palms up.
“Take it easy,” he said. “Just take it easy,” Then he reached up and locked the door to the shop behind him.
“What's going on her?” An employee asked.
“It's Mister!” Mary blurted out and everyone flashed froze. “Please help me!”
“Hold on. Just relax. I'm with the FBI,” he said taking a slow step towards her. She looked around at everyone about to curse and scream at them for just standing by and watching as she was abducted but then the man removed his credentials from his pocket and extended it for Mary to see.
“Ma'am, it's okay. I'm FBI. You aren't supposed to leave your residence.”
The agent had to call in two more men to explain to everyone who witnessed the incident the importance of not comprising the investigation by talking to any media outlets about what they witnessed, though it was doubtful there wasn’t at least one of them that would try to sell the information to somebody.
“I'm sorry,” Mary said to the agent from the back seat of his car on their way back to her condo.
The man pursed his lips, probably hating his job at that moment.
“It's okay. You're scared. Everyone understands... You just can't put yourself at risk like that.”
“I know,” Mary said still inwardly scolding herself. Stupid, stupid, stupid bitch.
Then they were pulling up to her building.
“Please don't do that again Ma'am. We know how hard this must be for you but we are just trying to protect you.”
“I understand,” she said. “Thank you.”
She got out and entered her lobby too embarrassed to even look at the agent at the concierge desk. This was her life now and there was nothing she could do about it. But no, there was something. Kill the shrink. Sure, no problem.
CHAPTER 9
“Victor Matherport is dead.” Costa said as soon as Jeremy set foot in the debrief room. He gave him a second to absorb it before adding, “Suicide. Last night. Hung himself with strips of cloth he tore from his jumper.”
“Of course he did. That's just fucking fantastic isn't it?” Jeremy said crashed landed into a chair at one of the tables.
Green, Mathews and Moramarco looked up, with a uni-expression that said, welcome to the party new guy.
“Did he.. uh. Did we find any letters in his cell?” Jeremy asked, trying not to choke on the lump forming in his throat. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Victor’s death. On the one hand maybe he could have been convinced to cooperate and supply more information. Especially now that th
e case had a new break. On the other hand he knew that Mister was blackmailing him to kill like he had with him so maybe it was for the best that Victor was gone.
“Oh we found letters,” Costa chortled.
“Yes, hybristophiliacs excluded,” Jeremy said, loosening his tie a bit and rubbing at a knot of tense muscle in his neck.
“Hybritosto-what?” Costa asked.
“Love letters,” Mathews answered for him. “Hybristophiliacs are people, mainly women, who are sexually aroused and erotically fixated on violent offenders. All high profile serial killers have a following of them.
“Why not just say love letters Foster?” He asked bringing over a box of contents seized from Matherport's cell and placing it in front of him.
“Because if I start using laymen terms for every obscure fucked up mental disorder I will begin to forget their names.”
“Fair enough,” Agreed Costa. “He had quite the fan club it seems. As soon as we're done with this I'm going to see if I can't get these sick bitches put on some sort of watch list.”
Costa's phone rang followed closely by everyone else's. They exchanged looks of concern. Jeremy consolidated himself.
“Costa here... fuck… Okay, where? Yeah. Send the details to my mobile. We're on our way.”
Stuffing the phone back into his pants pocket Costa grabbed his suit jacket from the back of his chair.
“We got three more bodies. Looks like Mister's MO.”
“Was there an abduction?” Green asked.
“Doesn't look like it. We'll know more soon.”
The three of them get up and grab their things and get to the door before they realize Jeremy was still seated at his desk.
“Foster let's go,” Costa said, confused.
“I'm sure you guys got this. I'm going to stay and try and get through these letters.”
“It might be helpful to get some fresh eyes on a scene.”
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