Psychomania: Killer Stories

by Stephen Jones

  She pauses, peering into Ma’s eyes. “I hope you’re getting all this,” she says. “I hope you understand what I’m saying. Because you see, Phyllis, I’m one of those people. Which doesn’t mean that I’m cruel - on the contrary, I’d say I was quite compassionate. It just means ... well, it’s simply the way I am, the way I was born. I’m not a monster. I’m a human being, just like you. But I’m also ... different. A freak of nature, I suppose you’d call me.

  “I’m faster and stronger than you could ever be. I live longer - much longer - and I’m pretty much impervious to the illnesses that afflict most human beings, and also to the drugs that you use. I eat and drink only for the pleasure of it, not because I have to. My real sustenance, you see, as I’ve already said, comes from killing - or rather, not from the act of killing itself, but from absorbing the memories and emotions of fellow human beings at the point of death. Absorbing their essence.”

  She shrugs, as if to say: I know it’s crazy, but there you are. “When I was growing up,” she continues, “this was a big problem for me. I didn’t like killing people, but I had to. For a while I survived on old people, who were nearing the end of their time, or people with terminal illnesses, who just wanted relief from their pain. Then I hit on the idea of feeding off those who feed off others. That way I get not only the memories and emotions of my chosen subjects, but the residual emotions of those on whom they’ve inflicted pain.

  “Because that’s the way it works, you see. The more extreme the memories and emotions, the longer they sustain me.” She waves a hand between her captives. “I mean, you two will keep me going for simply ages. I won’t have to kill again for a long time after this. Now, isn’t it nice to know that out of all your evil some good will ultimately come? True, it’s not much of a consolation to all the girls you’ve tortured and murdered over the years, but at least there’s a kind of cosmic balance.”

  She smiles gently and says, “Right then, who’s first? I can’t pretend it won’t hurt, but at least it’ll be quicker than the ordeal you were planning for me.” She raises her head and twitches her nose as if sniffing the air. “I’ll start with you, Gerald, if I may? I don’t wish to be cruel, but your wife is more frightened than you are, and when she sees what’s in store for her she’ll go out of her mind with terror. And that, frankly, will be all the sweeter for me. Now, are you ready? Brace yourself.”

  Ma opens her mouth, but she still can’t scream, not even when the girl walks up to Pa, places her hands almost tenderly on the sides of his head and pushes her thumbs into his eyes.

  Ma can’t scream, but Pa certainly can.

  Over the next few hours he screams more than enough for the both of them.

  <>

  ~ * ~

  MICHAEL KELLY

  The Beach

  THE LONESOME BEACH. The shrieking gulls. The ceaseless rain.

  Elspeth hears the rain, beating against the window in an incessant murmur. Rain is her religion now. Rain and the changing seasons. It’s all she has left. It’s all she believes in.

  All too soon summer is over, she thinks. It’s autumn now, the rainy season, and soon it will be winter. The seasons pass quickly. Elspeth sighs. The years pass quickly, too.

  She moves to the front window. It’s another grey day. For a moment all she can see is herself reflected back at her from the dark pane. She doesn’t recognize the face. It’s as if someone else, some other Elspeth, is outside on the damp lawn staring in at her impassively, as if there is another her, another world beyond the thin pane. And sometimes, alone in her house, staring out her window, she truly believes there is another world, a thin place of shadows and unreality.

  She moves closer to the rain-streaked window, and as she does, one of the Elspeths disappears. Which one is the real me? she thinks.

  The cottage is silent except for the rain and the beating of her heart. Outside, she hears a gull cry. She pictures its small red-lidded eyes, its curved yellow beak. Sometimes all she can hear is their shrieking.

  There is a pot of stew simmering on the stove, its savoury tang hanging in the air. She’s made too much stew - there’s only her - but what she doesn’t consume in a few days, she’ll freeze. She takes her small comforts where she can.

  Outside, the rain falls in a steady, soothing rhythm. It puddles on the green lawn, the cracked sidewalk, and bumpy grey road. It runs in the gutters.

  On the street, a small child in yellow rain-gear is splashing through a puddle. Elspeth smiles. She can feel her heart beating in time to the rain. Watching the child play, something inside her flares briefly, a sweet pain. She hearkens back to her own childhood, when she still believed. Then she grew up. She wished she’d never grown up.

  Elspeth stares out the window, eyes dry and unblinking. She’d imagined a different life, or different lives. She thought she’d marry, have children. Then she thought she’d travel, maybe actually go to China, for her father’s sake and for herself. Go to Chile. She’d seen a documentary once about Rapa Nui, Easter Island, thousands of miles off the coast of Chile. Huge carved stone heads covered the island. They were a mystery. Because of their strange proportions and their geometry, everyone assumed they were just heads. But they weren’t. They had bodies under the ground. They’d been buried up to their necks. Implacable stone faces peering out to the ocean. It always made her think of her father. She wished she could have gone to Easter Island or China.

  ~ * ~

  The girl, Anna, is walking through puddles, kicking dead leaves, searching for frogs and looking for fat worms. Her mother had told her not to get soaked. “You’re too old,” she’d warned, “for playing in puddles.” Anna hopes she’ll never be too old to play in the rain. Still, she’s made sure to put on her mackintosh and galoshes. It wouldn’t do to return wet. She would get a smack. Maybe two, to make up for not having a father.

  ~ * ~

  Like Elspeth, the cottage is old and small. It hasn’t changed. Even as a child, when the world seemed impossibly big, the cottage appeared small to Elspeth. That was its charm, she supposed. That, and the lonely beach that ran outside the back door. As a child she’d spend her weekends on the warm summer sand with her plastic bucket and shovel, digging, making sandcastles and moats, dreaming of far-off places. Back then, peering out to the far horizon where water met sky, the effect was of a wide, carnivorous smile, a thin wedge of unreality that thrilled and scared her. The world was vast and cosmic. The cottage was small and insignificant. Still, she thinks, it’s big enough for one, for her.

  Elspeth watches the child, a girl, she thinks - what boy would wear yellow? - playing in the rain. It’s late in the season for children. Most of the families have left. Most everyone has gone. And Elspeth ... well, Elspeth is used to being alone.

  ~ * ~

  Anna is whistling, poking at a worm with a stick, when the woman appears. The woman has a hood over her head, hiding her face in shadow, but Anna can see that the woman is smiling.

  “Shouldn’t you be gone?” the woman says, not unfriendly.

  Anna straightens, blinks.

  “Home, I mean,” the woman says. “Away from here. Back to school.”

  Anna drops the stick, steps closer, squints up at the hooded woman. “We always come late, my mum and I,” she says. “It’s cheaper.”

  Elspeth considers, looks up and down the grey, empty street. “You shouldn’t be out here,” she says.

  “I’m allowed,” Anna says. “I like the rain. I’m going to be a meteorologist. Or a pilot.”

  Elspeth barks a laugh. The sound startles her. She can’t recall the last time she laughed aloud. Perhaps there is hope for her yet. Perhaps she can reclaim some faith.

  The rain is fat and unremitting. It streaks off Elspeth’s rain hood and blurs her vision, as if she’s crying. Overhead a gull cries, a white speck against the crumpled, dark sky. Elspeth shivers. “Would you like some lunch?” she asks. “Some stew?”

  ~
* ~

  Her father ran away. Years later, her mother died. All she has left is the cottage and her memories.

  Elspeth remembers the last weekend she’d spent with her father at the cottage before he left for good. They were on the beach. It was a sunny, cloudless day; blue skies and green water. The cool, salty breeze. The cry of gulls. He’d asked her if she wanted to dig to China. “Let’s see if we can dig to the other side of the world,” her father said. And they tried.

  Her father retrieved a shovel from the bed of his pick-up truck. They took turns digging the hole, laughing in the August sun. After a time, exhausted but happy, Elspeth stopped. “We’ll never make it,” she said, feigning disappointment.

  Her father smiled, picked her up and placed her in the hole. Elspeth squirmed, lacked her legs, laughed. “We’ll bury you,” he said. “Just to your neck. Promise.” And he began to fill in the hole. Elspeth was in the damp hole, buried to her neck. “Look at you,” her father said. “From a distance, you could be a discarded beachball. We best make sure no one tries to kick you.” He smiled. “Hmmm, perhaps I’ll go in for a bit, leave you to the gulls. ‘Bye, El,” her father said, turning.

  “Dad, no!”

  He turned back. “El, I’m joking. You know that.” He dug her out of the hole, hugged her tight, kissed her forehead. “I would never leave you.”

  But he did leave her. A child shouldn’t grow up without a father, she thinks. A child should never grow up.

  ~ * ~

  “Is it good?” Elspeth asks the girl.

  Anna looks up from the bowl of stew. “Yes. Delicious. My mum doesn’t cook. Not like this. Her speciality is grilled cheese. Heck, even I can make grilled cheese. But I like grilled cheese.”

  “And your father?” Elspeth asks.

  Anna blinks, spoons stew into her mouth, swallows. “Don’t know,” she says. “Mum says he got scared. Took off.” She rests the spoon in the bowl. “It’s okay. I don’t mind. My mum tries.”

  Elspeth turns to Anna. “Would you like to go to the beach?” Then, “Would you like to go to China?”

  “When I’m a pilot,” Anna says, “I’m going to travel the world. When I’m grown up.”

  “I hope you never grow up,” Elspeth whispers.

  Anna brushes a strand of wet hair away from her eyes, squints at Elspeth, then looks toward the door.

  Elspeth stares at the young, skinny thing. “Are you strong, Anna? Can you dig? Will you help me?”

  “I have to go now,” Anna says.

  ~ * ~

  Once, long ago, when she was a young woman who still had faith in the world, there was a boy, Matthew. She’d met him on holiday, here at the cottage. He was on the beach, alone, tall and tan, blond and bright-eyed. On the beach, at night, he kissed her. And she believed in the power of love. Then, like summer itself, it ended.

  “It’s been fun,” Matthew said, smiling, idly kicking the sand, “but I have to go now.”

  It was a grey day. The wind howled, and the gulls squawked. The beach was barren save for the two of them. The sand was a gritty irritant. It blew in Elspeth’s face and brought tears to her eyes. She blinked, squeezed Matthew’s hand. “You’ll visit, keep in touch?” She hated the pleading tone in her voice.

  Matthew shrugged his shoulders, released Elspeth’s hand. “It was just a summer fling. Nothing more.”

  “Please,” she said, “don’t go.”

  “You need to grow up, El,” he said. “I have to go now.”

  Then he was gone.

  Elspeth stood alone on the dark beach with the wind and the gulls. Dark clouds filled the sky. Then it rained. Still she stood in the cold rain, unblinking, unmoving, staring at nothing. Alone.

  ~ * ~

  It’s raining, a pounding against the glass like gull wings. Elspeth moves to the back window. The beach is a thin dark finger of soft bone. Rain blurs the windowpane, and for a moment all she can see is herself reflected back to her from the dirty glass. She doesn’t recognize her face. It’s as if some other Elspeth is out there on the dark sand staring in at her.

  She moves closer and one of the Elspeths disappears. She leans against the cool glass, squints.

  She sees a pale world like stretched canvas, a thin veil, grey and unending, no line on the horizon.

  She sees the water, dark and rumpled muslin, heaving.

  She sees the wet black sand, a dark round shape, and the shrieking, hungry gulls.

  The long, empty beach.

  The ceaseless rain.

  <>

  ~ * ~

  ROBERT BLOCH

  Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper

  I

  I LOOKED At the stage Englishman. He looked at me. “Sir Guy Hollis?” I asked.

  “Indeed. Have I the pleasure of addressing John Carmody, the psychiatrist?”

  I nodded. My eyes swept over the figure of my distinguished visitor. Tall, lean, sandy-haired - with the traditional tufted moustache. And the tweeds. I suspected a monocle concealed in a vest pocket, and wondered if he’d left his umbrella in the outer office.

  But more than that, I wondered what the devil had impelled Sir Guy Hollis of the British Embassy to seek out a total stranger here in Chicago.

  Sir Guy didn’t help matters any as he sat down. He cleared his throat, glanced around nervously, tapped his pipe against the side of the desk. Then he opened his mouth.

  “Mr Carmody,” he said, “have you ever heard of - Jack the Ripper?”

  “The murderer?” I asked.

  “Exactly. The greatest monster of them all. Worse than Springheel Jack or Crippen. Jack the Ripper. Red Jack.”

  “I’ve heard of him,” I said.

  “Do you know his history?”

  “Listen, Sir Guy,” I muttered. “I don’t think we’ll get any place swapping old wives’ tales about famous crimes of history.”

  Another bull’s eye. He took a deep breath.

  “This is no old wives’ tale. It’s a matter of life or death.”

  He was so wrapped up in his obsession he even talked that way. Well - I was willing to listen. We psychiatrists get paid for listening.

  “Go ahead,” I told him. “Let’s have the story.”

  Sir Guy lit a cigarette and began to talk.

  “London, 1888,” he began. “Late-summer and early-autumn. That was the time. Out of nowhere came the shadowy figure of Jack the Ripper - a stalking shadow with a knife, prowling through London’s East End. Haunting the squalid dives of Whitechapel, Spitalfields. Where he came from no one knew. But he brought death. Death in a knife.

  “Six times that knife descended to slash the throats and bodies of London’s women. Drabs and alley sluts. August the seventh was the date of the first butchery. They found her body lying there with thirty-nine stab wounds. A ghastly murder. On August the thirty-first, another victim. The press became interested. The slum inhabitants were more deeply interested still.

  “Who was this unknown killer who prowled in their midst and struck at will in the deserted alleyways of night-town? And what was more important - when would he strike again?

  “September the eighth was the date. Scotland Yard assigned special detectives. Rumours ran rampant. The atrocious nature of the slayings was the subject of shocked speculation.

  “The killer used a knife - expertly. He cut throats and removed - certain portions - of the bodies after death. He chose victims and settings with a fiendish deliberation. No one saw him or heard him. But watchmen making their grey rounds in the dawn would stumble across the hacked and horrid thing that was the Ripper’s handiwork.

  “Who was he? What was he? A mad surgeon? A butcher? An insane scientist? A pathological degenerate escaped from an asylum? A deranged nobleman? A member of the London police?

  “Then the poem appeared in the newspapers. The anonymous poem, designed to put an end to speculation - but which only aroused public interest in a further fr
enzy. A mocking little stanza:

  I’m not a butcher, I’m not a Yid

  Nor yet a foreign skipper,

  But I’m your own true loving friend,

  Yours truly - Jack the Ripper.

  “And on September the thirtieth, two more throats were slashed open.”

  I interrupted Sir Guy for a moment.