by Garrett Cook
MURDERLAND
By
GARRETT COOK
MorbidbookS.
PHX, AZ.
Everything Bleeds.
MURDERLAND is published in the US and A by MorbidbookS and the Grace of God.
Copyright Garrett Cook for words and music 2013. Original cover art and design by the charming and enigmatic Matthew Revert 2013. Stage direction and coddling by The Grim Reverend Steven Rage. Slice and dice by Dana Ducomb. Advance Reading and sage wisdom from Monica Roncancio. And a very special AFTERWARD by Jess Gulbranson.
The moral right, such as it is, of this author and his multiple personalities has been asserted.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this vicious tale may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic, alien or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, drawing stick figures, seventeenth century printing press, chain mail, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of The Reverend, Garrett mo’ effin Cook, The Great and Powerful Oz and the Hand that turns the Big Wheel, except where permitted by law or whatever you can get away with if you are feeling froggy. But if you do, please be advised that you will incur the unholy disdain of The Reverend. So, check yourself, player play-play.
All wonderfully realized three dimensional characters in this vicious tome are fictitious. Duh. Obviously. Any resemblance to real persons, be they living or dead, demons, succubae, demi-gods or the ‘formerly living’ (zombies) is purely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 978-0615855073
This is a MorbidbookS blunt.
ISBN-10: 0615855075
MorbidbookS i s a Grotesque Bizarro Ballet where the most profane things occur. An impious and perverse dwelling of Dark Revulsion. A Cozy Cottage where Torture Porn and Brutal Bible Tales are devised. A quiet place to relax and spin Tales of Depravity and Wickedness. A Halfway House for the Disturbed where rules no longer apply. A safe haven for Deviant Serial Killers to hatch their wretched schemes. Bring your Pets. The Tasty ones are always welcome.
http://morbidbooks.wordpress.com/
FRANCISCO de GOYA
Book 1: H8
“There’s a brand new dance, but I don’t know its name
That people from bad homes do again and again
It’s big and it’s bland full of tension and fear
They do it over there, but they don’t do it here.”
-David Bowie- “Fashion”
What a Wonderful World
I
Sometimes he has the courtesy to wear shades. There is something oh-so-thrilling about making the asshole behind the desk feel like losing his lunch, but this time he doesn’t. This time, he is wearing the shades, but it isn’t quite courtesy, no, he doesn’t really know the meaning of the word. He does this so the man will be able to look at him, and he’ll be able to look down over them and cause drama, cause the man’s blood to turn to ice. He waits for the question that bothers him most to do it.
“So, Jack, what made you want to do what you do now?”
He waits for it. He’s been working on his timing for awhile. 3, 2, 1…0. He always includes the zero when he counts down, and that’s when he goes. Down come the shades, and the surgically enlarged mandibles expand into a smile that other mouths are incapable of.
“Well, Richard, all the cowboy and astronaut slots were filled up.”
He smiles, although he stares through time, looking through the crack in the closet door to see a room full of old boxes, neglected tools and dusty books. The place where they put the forgotten things. He hears the squeal of joy in the distance, knowing his mother is lifting it into the air or tickling it. He hears the front door open and the heavy footsteps of his stepfather. Only a few hours until everybody goes to bed and his mother brings up a little tray of food. Why live when you don’t exist? He watches himself close his eyes and pretend that nothing is there, but he knows when he opens them the closet and the family and the baby will be there. If he closed his eyes on the set, the talk show would still be there, the audience would still be there, the Sun, big burning zero betrays its nature. We can only do what we can. There is less and less every day, someday, some wonderful day…
II
The pimp likes the prophet, but the prophet is never sure about the pimp. The prophet opens the box, and the pimp smiles. He genuinely wants to hug the old man, although the stench is nigh unbearable. The pimp claps his hands, and the girl brings a stack of papers. The prophet looks them over, reads words that nobody else knows are there and nods his approval.
“Will this help?” asks the pimp, who genuinely wonders, although the old man’s box is worth several hundred dollars.
“We can only do what we can,” says the prophet. He knows hundreds of others think the same thing.
III
Stupid fucking clowns. King shit Kyle springs his swordcane and Joey can’t help but sigh. Joey draws his knife and tries to let them know he means business with his eyes. The Gacys aren’t armed. Who would have expected them to be. They’re big, but they’re not armed. Their leader looks his boys over and looks Kyle’s boys over and knows sure as mama’s monthlies they’re dusties if they even bother. Joey knows that Kyle just wants to make a mess though, if he wants to pomp he should go ahead and pomp, find some sweet bait make meatloaf. The top hat falls over Kyle’s eyes as he advances.
Joey can’t help but laugh. Mr. Badass Ripkid leader made-up as the scourge of Whitechapel thinks he can stack the dusties but he can’t even wear his fuckin’ hat right. It seems for a second like a stupid way of life, but how else are you gonna feel free? So fuck ‘im. Go along with it. Swallow your pride. Kyle’s pathetic, but we can only do what we can.
A Walk in the Park
The grey-haired man I’ve been following looks down at his watch yet again and yet again starts to fidget a little. He knows that the woman starts jogging at 8 pm every night. 5’2, blonde, 24, it could be said nubile as all fuck. The mundanes are over there chatting away about what Ashley said to Chris and then how Chris was out with Julie at the Johnny Rockets at the mall when he told Ashley he had to stay home and watch his little cousin. What scandal. I hope they set that bastard straight. Chatting away with a mechanical whir. Fucking robots. Cut them open and see all the wires for myself. See the electric guts and polymer skin. See the silicon brains. But I get back to ignoring them because I don’t like the noises they make. Every night without fail when she goes jogging, the grey-haired man is there. I have not checked every night, but on my way home from work, I have checked frequently enough to know that every night without fail he is there. He’s neither fat nor jolly, but the media has dubbed him Kris Kringle. This is because he is known to leave brightly wrapped packages full of their organs on the doorsteps of their families like a proud kitty cat. Or like Santa Claus, as they think of it.
Kris is the grownup equivalent of the precocious child who takes apart daddy’s watch to see how it works. He deconstructs things. Returns them to where they came from when he’s done. A savage who thinks he’s a scientist. I don’t know his story, but I know his work. I have, as I mentioned, been watching him. I’ve sat in the park at 8 o’clock too watching the young blond filthy yellow cunt filthy filthy filthy yellow cunt little mommy fills it up dumps it out, full then dropped off, full then empty, squeezes me out and doesn’t think my little eyes might have looked and seen and remembered the bright gold sheen like all the other blondes not about that. Not about grudges. Fast, anonymous, above such things. Calm down and do it. Get home and document it, write it down, write it down, keep it near your head always keep it near your head. This is not for anyone to see. This is for me. This is not exhibit B or the documentary, this is for me. I am fast, I am anonymous; it is a matter of principle.
But I wonder what this guy’s doing tonight. What card from the less than full deck he’s working with does he want to play? What the fuck is his angle? Bag of groceries. Fuck you, Kringle. It’s not that I doubt it will work, I know it’s about 95% likely to, but it’s sad and banal. It shows no respect for her intelligence. Simple trap. Animalistic. Primitive like him. Bag of groceries, my ass. I would like to think that she’d be smarter, but no. And I’d like to think that I could leave her to him. She’d be dead anyway, no real chance of bearing the child, but no, I can’t let it happen. I have to do this. If he does it, she’s just another thing to be taken apart, if I do it, then she dies for a reason, which is I think the least a woman dead at 24 could ask for. I’ll just walk up, turn on my winning smile, lure her somewhere and open up the briefcase. She deserves better than this loser. I will smile, flash my big brown eyes, give her what she does deserve and GET THE FUCK HOME.
I hate this part of it, I honestly do. I just want to kill the little yellow sluts before the Dark Ones start to fill them up with their seeds and then they make more like me. Like what I should have been. They thought they had created the perfect little general for their legions. Charming, handsome, nice eyes, toned body, IQ 236. Gacy and Berkowitz combined. And most likely an average human being ahead of Mr. Kringle. And unlike the previously mentioned two, I am not gay, I am not stupid and I DON’T want to get caught. I am a righteous avenger of the wrongs done by my creators. I am retribution turned against monsters who make me do this. Who build the robots and the robots just walk around with their slow computer brains and wire guts and every once in awhile it seems there is a glitch in the program and the robots start to tear and dismantle each other. Mostly, there are robots mostly. But I look at the jogger, and I know that that little yellow cunt is made of skin and organs and juices and is ready, more than ready, ready and willing to be filled up with corruption by the Dark Ones in order to make another devil, another one of me, to come and to undo all my good works and all of my crusading and everything that makes me me and carry my head on a prideful pike and I can’t FUCKING STAND IT. They will not duplicate me. I will destroy the devil factories the clone machines DEEP BREATH don’t fuck up I won’t fuck up I won’t I won’t I won’t. Stand up, be casual. Look like a robot, look like a person. Don’t look like anything special. Subtle, discreet, nondescript, Mr. Casual, Mr. Suave.
And then there’s Kringle, suspicious, scary, more than a little off. Nothing avuncular, pleasant or especially trustworthy about him. He stands up, limping a little, plays up his age more than enough. That should have been enough for her to realize something’s up. I have to wonder if she watches the news, if she sees the T-shirts and the DVDs and the television shows and the baseball caps, videogames, and the newspaper. He asks if she can help him with his groceries, help load them in his car, says he’s got a bad back and hunches over to emphasize it. Then how did he carry them three blocks from the grocery store to his car, parked suspiciously in an alley near a public park? Why did he not park outside of the grocery store to begin with instead of a dark alley near a public park? It might be a public park in the Safe Zone, but still too many questions. I shudder when I once more realize that he’ll still get away with it.
Too many questions. But, she doesn’t ask any of them. Walks with him to the alley. Quick strike with a blunt object, dragged into the back seat. I do have to hand it to him, he’s pretty strong and pretty good at parking discreetly. I take note of the license plate and the next day; call my friend Shauna at the DMV. As Godless Jack Cavanagh wrote in “The Complete Reaper,” a photographic memory is one of a psychopomp’s handiest tools. I find the car is registered to a Joe Strickland. Strickland. Eww. He’ll never be too famous with a name like that. Nothing sinister. Nothing especially melodic or intense about it.
Joe Strickland, alias Kris Kringle. Alias Karl Edward Pratt. I see the name on the paper on his front lawn. Karl Edward Pratt. There we go. Much better reaper name than Strickland. Definitely. Kill count 14. Nowadays 14 makes it a hobby. Not a star, never. A murder enthusiast. I come to his house with my silenced .22 in my pocket. I hate guns, but I want this to end fast. This will be the first man I have ever killed and I would rather it be the last. I want this C list poseur barbarian out of my way and out of my mind once and for all.
I ring his doorbell. He comes to the door in a bathrobe. Part of me hates the idea of shooting a guy in a bathrobe. It seems like such an embarrassing way for someone to die. But then again, to be killed by this loser, whose handle has been mentioned on the news a mere three times. He’s 55, 56 maybe. Way too old. He’s in a young man’s game, too. His face is sunken and tired, his teeth tobacco stained. His gnarled, craggy hands light a cigarette out of a three dollar pack.
“Something I can do you for you, young man?”
“Kris Kringle? Kill count 14?”
A smile crosses his face. It’s always flattering to these guys when some armchair detective tracks them down for an autograph or a picture together or to answer some questions for his website. He probably hasn’t had any yet. Godless Jack’s address is on his website. There have been 28 published interviews with the I-80 Roadflare Stalker I’ve been told, 17 with the Ice Cream Truck Strangler. But not much Kris Kringle material, no. Derisive, stupid, primitive. Gimmicky, they think. I feel a little sick being mistaken for a fan of a pathetic son of a bitch like Karl Edward Pratt. A fan. I shudder to think how desperate, depraved and stupid his fans must be.
“No,” I answer, my face grim and stony, “a fellow psychopomp.”
He goes through newspaper clippings in his head. Thinks about Oscar coverage. Thinks about BLD news. Then moves on to the local Bundys. It’s clear he is doing this because he examines my profile, the contours of my face, tries to get to the bottom of it. He doesn’t recognize me. Of course he doesn’t. I’m not a celebrity. I’m not a role model. I have no merchandise and my killings can’t be rented at the local Blockbuster, so of course, he doesn’t know my face. I relish it.
“Jeremy Jenkins.”
Once more, he searches for the name and struggles idly for my face.
“What’s your handle?”
I huff. “I don’t have one.”
Why does nobody see that I’m up to something more important? No end of annoyance. No fucking end of annoyance. My dissatisfaction registers heavily and he thinks I’m offended for an entirely different reason. Then again, who wouldn’t?
“Don’t worry, kid. You keep it up and maybe someday…”
“I haven’t been caught.”
He still doesn’t get it. Very slow on the uptake.
“You should do something about that. Try letters. You really oughta read Godless Jack’s books. They’ve done wonders for me.”
I huff once again. “I don’t need advice. The blonde in the park was mine.”
The skinny grey old bag puts out his cigarette. “Look kid, I’m just doin’ my best to get by. I’m trying to get some attention, some coverage. I can’t go round worryin’ who belongs to whom. It ain’t my problem if some ‘pomp can’t stack the dusties. My meat’s my meat; your meat’s yours, man. You do your shit and you’re still choked to death, ain’t my problem. When the bait’s sweet, it’s sweet.”
“You’re nothing.”
These are the last words he ever hears. I shoot him. He’s nobody.
Television Man is Crazy
“In Ohio and Indiana, authorities report that Bundy award nominee, the I-80 Roadflare Stalker struck again. At 46 kills, it’s possible he might just bring home the Bundy. What do you think Valerie?”
“Well, Chet, The Roadflare is definitely a contender this year and since Jack Cavanagh voluntarily removed himself from the Bundy runnings, it seems that Mr. Right, the I-80 Roadflare and Hacksaw Sally…”
“Nice to see a lady in the runnings, isn’t it, Valerie?”
“Oh, definitely, Chet, if you ask me it’s high time…”
The remote clicks. The talking head
s bantering sport talk fade into cathode hell, burning and writhing alongside frames too numerous to mention. Cass yawns her way up from the quilt, and stretches up as if grabbing for something on the ceiling. The falling quilt reveals round breasts the color of bread dough and sharp russet nipples. Jeremy feels like rolling over and touching them, pinching them, kissing them, biting them, suckling on them just a bit, but Jeremy is trying to decide whether he believes she is a robot or not. He’s seen inside her, tasted her and it feels warm enough in there. Oh, God, it feels warmer than anywhere to Jeremy. But, it might just be some kind of plastics from the dimension the Dark Ones come from. After all, she, like all the others watches all the murders on the TV going down, places bets on her favorites, screams in the chatrooms now and again, jeers the boring ones and maintains the brand loyalty that only a true junkie can have. She is entertained. In the middle of all of the shit and the violence and the noise and the death, she is entertained. Sometimes she might be entertained by the irony, sometimes by the repugnant nature of what this country has become. Sometimes by the chittering stupidity of the inane newscasters and the cacophonous blaring of the loud and pointless commercials. She is occasionally disgusted by how far this has gone. By how reap culture has been perverted from its purer forms and reduced to a pop culture cult. It used to be just people who really understood why people kill and the defiance and the intensity involved. It didn’t used to be stupid teenagers who didn’t even know the names Jack the Ripper or Albert de Salvo, although there are still plenty who idolize those two.