by Brian Keene
There is no regret in his voice as he says this. There is only grim satisfaction. His smile is a death mask. He takes another sip of beer and then continues.
“Upstairs, Janey and her mom were still hollering at each other, so I grabbed a knife from the drawer and tip-toed out of the kitchen. Janey’s little brother, Mikey, was standing there. He screamed, so I stabbed him, just to shut him up.” He chuckles, but there is no humor in it. “Yeah, I shut him the fuck up, alright. I remember when I pulled the knife out, blood just started gushing. It was hot and sticky, you know?”
I do indeed. I know all too well what another’s blood feels like on your hands. How it smells. How it steams on cold nights and turns black when spilled on asphalt. How it dries on your flesh like mud, and can be peeled away like dead skin.
I tell him none of this. Instead, I finish my scotch and reach for the second glass. I hold it in my hands, not drinking.
“How did that make you feel?” I ask.
He blinks, as if he’d forgotten I was there.
“W-what?”
“Killing your girlfriend’s brother. How did you feel about it?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I didn’t really feel anything at the time, except maybe scared. Janey’s mom heard him scream. By the time Mikey hit the floor, she was running down the stairs, hollering at Janey to call 911. So I chased her down and shut her ass up, too. I didn’t really think about it. I just did it. The news said I stabbed her mom forty-seven times, but I didn’t count.”
I arch my eyebrows, bemused. Forty-seven is a powerful number. It has meaning in certain occult circles, but I doubt he is aware of the significance.
“I went into Janey’s room. She was hiding in the closet. Crying and shit. I told her we could be together now. We could leave, before anybody figured out what had happened. Take her parents car and just fucking drive, dog. Just hit the road and see where it took us. Go live somewhere else. Together.”
I know where that road leads, but I don’t tell him that, either.
“But Janey . . . she . . . she wouldn’t stop hitting me. I slapped back and the knife . . .”
A shadow of genuine emotion—the first I’ve seen him express—flashes his face. I raise my glass and drain it. Then I set it on the bar and slide two twenty-dollar bills beneath it.
“I’ve got the tab.” I rise from the stool.
“Yo!” He grabs my arm, and I allow him to pull me close. “You gonna call the cops? You gonna tell somebody?”
I smile. “No. Your secret is safe with me.”
“Bullshit. You’re gonna go outside and call someone.”
I grab his hand and squeeze. Hard. He flinches. My face is stone as I step away.
“I’ll do no such thing,” I say. “I have heard your tale and it means nothing to me. Do you think yourself some great murderer? You’re not. You’re an amateur.”
“Fuck you.”
“On the contrary. Fuck you. You play at being a killer, but have you murdered anyone since your girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Well, there you go. If you really want to transcend, you’ll go out tonight and continue your spree.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No. I am the last sane individual in the world.”
I leave him sitting there and walk away. I leave the hotel bar and instead of returning to my room, I sit on the smoker’s bench outside and keep careful watch on the lobby through the big glass doors. Out on the highway, miles from here, a big rig’s air brakes moan. They sound like a ghost.
I only kill out of necessity. I only do what needs to be done. There are doors in our world, and things can come through them. What is an entrance, but an exit? I shut those doors. I close exits.
Eventually, I see him stumble through the lobby, heading for the elevators. He is far too inebriated to notice me re-enter the hotel. He just leans against the wall, waiting for the doors to open. I smile and nod at the desk clerk. The doors slide open. He steps inside, staring at his feet. I join him.
The doors close.
“What floor?” he asks, still looking at his shoes.
I do not answer.
He looks up and I cut his throat before he can scream. It is a practiced stroke. Perfunctory. Clinical. But I grin as I do it, and my heart beats faster than it has in many years.
I am breaking my rules, just this once. I am killing not out of necessity, but out of justice. Out of mercy. This is about putting down a rabid animal.
This is not an exit.
But I am.
***
Readers have often asked me for a follow-up to “I Am An Exit”, so I eventually wrote one. It appeared in my short story collections Unhappy Endings and The Little Silver Book of Streetwise Stories. This tale tells you a little bit more about The Exit (as I’ve come to call the serial killer)—but not so much as to reveal everything about him. So who is he? Why is he killing people at highway exits? Well, I know, but I ain’t telling. Not yet. He was supposed to appear again in my novel A Gathering of Crows, but about halfway through the first draft of that novel, I realized that he was stealing the show, so I went back, changed the plot, and wrote him out. You’ll see him again in a different, as-yet-unwritten novel. Maybe the rest of his secrets will be revealed there. In fact, I’m sure they will.
‘The King’,
in: YELLOW
The man stood rotting on the corner. Frayed rags hung from his skeletal frame and ulcerated sores covered his exposed flesh, weeping blood and pus. He stank. Sweat. Infection. Excrement. Despair.
Finley considered going the long way around him, but Kathryn waved impatiently from across the street. He shouldered by; head down, eyes fixed on the pavement. Invisible.
He can’t see me if I can’t see him.
“Yo ’zup,” the rotting man mumbled over the traffic. “Kin you help a brutha’ out wit’ a quarta’?”
Finley tried ignoring him, then relented. He didn’t have the heart to be so cold, although Kathryn’s yuppie friends (they were supposed to be his friends too, but he never thought of them that way) would have mocked him for it. He raised his head, actually looking at the bum, meeting his watery eyes. They shone. He glanced across the street. Kathryn was incredulous.
“Sorry, man.” Finley held his hands out in a pretense of sympathy. “I’m taking my girl to dinner.” Feeling like an idiot, he pointed at Kathryn, proving what he was saying was true. “Need to stop at an ATM.”
“S’cool,” the vagrant smiled. “Ya’ll kin hit me on da way back.”
“Okay, we’ll do that.”
He stepped off the curb. The man darted forward, grasping his shoulder. Dirty fingernails clawed at his suit jacket.
“Hey!” Finley protested.
“Have ya’ll seen Yellow?” the bum croaked.
“No, I don’t think so,” Finley stammered, clueless.
“Afta’ ya’ eat, take yo’ lady t’ see it.”
Cackling, he shambled off toward the waterfront.
Kathryn shook her head as Finley crossed the street. “So you met the Human Scab?”
“Only in Baltimore,” he grinned.
“Fucking wildlife,” she spat, taking his arm. “That’s why I take my smoke breaks in the parking garage. I don’t know what’s worse—the seagulls dive-bombing me, or the homeless dive-bombing me.”
“The seagulls,” Finley replied. “How was your day?”
“Don’t try to change the subject, Roger. Christ, you’ve become so liberal. What happened to the conservative I fell in love with?” She paused and let go of his arm, lighting a cigarette. In the early darkness, the flame lit her face, reminding Finley why he’d fallen in love with her. “But since you asked, it sucked. How was yours?”
“Alright, I guess. Pet Search’s site crashed, so I had to un-fuck that. Fed-Ex dropped off my new back-up server. On Days of Our Lives, John is still trying to find Stefano and Bo found out about Hope’s baby.”
“Wish I could w
ork from home. But one of us has to make money.”
“Well isn’t that why we’re going out to dinner? To celebrate your big bonus?”
They crossed Albemarle Street in silence. Ahead, the bright lights of the Inner Harbor beckoned with its fancy restaurants and posh shops. The National Aquarium overlooked the water like an ancient monolith.
Kathryn’s brow furrowed.
“Beautiful night,” Finley commented, tugging his collar against the cold air blowing in across the water. “You can almost see the stars.”
Kathryn said nothing.
“What’s wrong?”
She sighed, her breath forming mist in the air. “I feel—I don’t know—old. We used to do fun things all the time. Now it’s dinner on the couch and whatever’s on satellite. Maybe a game of Scrabble if we’re feeling energetic.”
Finley stared out across the harbor. “I thought you liked coming home every evening with dinner made, and spending a quiet night around the house.”
She took his hand.
“I do, Roger. I’m sorry. It’s just—we’re both thirty now. When was the last time we did something really fun?”
“When we were twenty-one and you puked on me during the Depeche Mode concert?”
Kathryn finally laughed, and they walked on, approaching Victor’s.
“So why did your day suck?”
“Oh, the lender won’t approve the loan on the Spring Grove project because the inspector found black mold in some of the properties. Of course, Ned told him we were going to rip out the tiles during the remodeling phase, but he—”
Finley tuned her out, still nodding and expressing acknowledgement where applicable. After ten years, he’d gotten good at it. When was the last time they’d really done something fun? He tried to remember. Didn’t this count? Going out to dinner? Probably not. He tried to pinpoint exactly when they’d settled into this comfortable zone of domestic familiarity. By mutual agreement, they didn’t go to the club anymore. Too many ghetto fabulous suburbanites barely out of college. They didn’t go to the movies because she hated the cramped seating and symphony of babies crying and cell phones ringing.
“—so I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Kathryn finished.
“You’ll be fine,” Finley nodded, squeezing her hand. “You can handle it.”
She smiled, squeezing back.
The line outside Victor’s snaked around the restaurant. Finley maneuvered them through it; thankful he’d had the foresight to make reservations. The maitre d’ approached them, waving.
“Hello, Ms. Kathryn,” he said, clasping her hand. “I’m delighted you could join us.”
“Hello, Franklin,” she curtsied, smiling as the older man kissed both her cheeks. “This is my boyfriend, Roger.”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’ve heard much about you.”
He winked and Finley grinned, unsure of how to reply.
“Give them a good view,” Franklin told the hostess, and turned back to them. “Sheila will seat you. Enjoy your meal.”
“I come here a lot for lunch,” Kathryn explained as they followed Sheila to their table. “I told Franklin we’d be coming in tonight. He’s a nice old guy; a real charmer.”
“Yes, he does seem nice,” Finley mumbled, distracted. Not for the first time, he found himself surprised by how little he knew about Kathryn’s life outside their relationship. He’d never thought to wonder where she spent her lunches.
In many ways, they were different. Strangers making up a whole. She was the consummate twenty-first century yuppie—a corporate lioness intent upon her career and nothing else. He was the epitome of the Generation X slacker, running a home-based web-hosting business. They’d been together almost ten years, but at times, it seemed to him as if they were just coasting. The subjects of marriage and children had been broached several times, and usually deflected by both of them. He needed to devote his time to developing his business. She wasn’t where she wanted to be in her career. Despite that, he thought they were happy. So why the disquiet? Maybe Kathryn was right. Maybe they needed to do something fun, something different.
“—at night, isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry,” he stammered. “What’d you say hon?”
“I said the harbor really is beautiful at night.” They were seated in front of a large window, looking out towards the Chesapeake Bay. The lights of the city twinkled in the darkness.
“Yeah, it sure is.”
“What were you thinking about, Roger?”
“Honestly? That you’re right. We should do something fun. How about we take a trip down to the ocean this weekend? Check out the wild horses, maybe do a little beach-combing?”
“That sounds great,” she sighed. “But I can’t this weekend. I’ve got to come in on Saturday and crunch numbers for the Vermont deal. We close on that next week.”
“Well then, how about we do something Sunday? Maybe take a drive up to Pennsylvania and visit some of the flea markets, see the Amish, or stop at a produce stand?”
“That’s a possibility. Let’s play it by ear, okay?”
They studied their menus, basking in the comfortable silence that only long-time partners share. That was when Roger noticed the woman. She and her companion sat at the next table. The flickering candlelight cast shadows on her sallow face. She was thin, almost to the point of emaciation, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Heroin, he wondered, or maybe Anorexia? She obviously came from money. That much was apparent from her jewelry and shoes. Her companion looked wealthy too. Maybe she was a prostitute? No, they seemed too familiar with each other for that.
What caught Finley’s attention next was the blood trickling down her leg. Her conversation was animated, and while she gestured excitedly with one hand, the other was beneath the table, clenching her leg. Her fingernails clawed deep into her thigh, hard enough to draw blood. She didn’t seem to care. In fact, judging by the look in her eye, she enjoyed the sensation.
Kathryn was absorbed with the menu. He turned back to the couple, and focused on what the woman was saying.
“And then, the King appears. It’s such a powerful moment, you can’t breathe. I’ve been to Vegas, and I’ve seen impersonators, but this guy is the real thing!”
Her companion’s response was muffled, and Finley strained to hear.
“I’m serious, Reginald! It’s like he’s channeling Elvis! The King playing the King! The whole cast is like that. There’s a woman who looks and sounds just like Janis Joplin playing the Queen, and a very passable John Lennon as Thale. The best though, next to the King of course, is the guy they cast to play the Pallid Mask. I swear to you Reginald, he’s Kurt Cobain! You can’t tell the difference. It’s all so realistically clever! Actors playing dead rock stars playing roles. A play within a musical within a play.”
Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, and Finley leaned towards them.
“The special effects are amazing. When the Queen has the Pallid Mask tortured, you can actually see little pieces of brain in Cobain’s hair. And they have audience participation, too. It’s different every night. We each had to reveal a secret that we’d never told anyone. That’s why Stephanie left Christopher. Apparently, he revealed a tryst he’d had with a dog when he was thirteen. She left him after the performance. Tonight, I hear they’ll be having the audience unmask as well during the masquerade scene!”
He jumped as Kathryn’s fingertips brushed his hand.
“Stop eavesdropping,” she whispered. “It’s not polite.”
“Sorry. Have you decided what you’re going to have?”
“Mmmm-hmmm,” she purred. “I’m going with the crab cakes. How about you?”
“I think I’ll have the filet mignon. Rare. And a big baked potato with lots of sour cream and butter.”
Her eyes widened. “Why Roger, you haven’t had that since your last visit to the doctor. What happened to eating healthy, so you don’t end up like your father?”
She laughed, and the lights of the bay reflected in her eyes. Underneath the table, she slid her foot against his leg.
“I love you, Kathryn.”
“I love you too.”
The woman at the other table stood up, knocking her chair backward, and began to scream. Silence, then hushed murmurs as the woman tottered back and forth on her heels. Her companion scooted his chair back, cleared his throat in embarrassment, and reached for her. She slapped his hand away with a shriek.
“Have you seen the Yellow Sign?” she sang. “Have you found the Yellow Sign? Have you seen the Yellow Sign?”
She continued the chorus, spinning round and round. Her flailing arms sent a wine glass crashing to the floor. Her date lunged for her. She sidestepped, and in one quick movement, snatched her steak knife from the table and plunged it into his side. He sank to the floor, pulling the tablecloth and their meals down with him. The other patrons began screaming as well. Several dashed for the exit, but no one moved to stop her. Finley felt frozen in place, transfixed by what occurred next. Still singing, the woman bent over and plucked up her soup spoon from the mess on the floor, then used it to gouge out her eyes. Red and white pulp dribbled down her face. Voice never wavering, she continued to sing.