The Barrens & Others

by F. Paul Wilson

  Leave the eyes.

  The boyfriend groan again. Move arm. Must leave quick. Take last look blood and teeth and stare-eyes that once pretty girlface.

  Sorry, girl. Not your fault.

  Got go. Get way hurry. First take money. Girl money. Take the boyfriend wallet, also too. Always take money. Need money.

  Go now. Not too far. Climb wall of near building. Find dark spot where can see and not be seen. Where can wait. Soon the Detective Harrison arrive.

  In downbelow can see the boyfriend roll over. Get to knees. Sway. See him look the girlfriend.

  The boyfriend scream terrible. Bad to hear. Make so sad. Make cry.

  *

  Kevin Harrison heard Jacobi's voice on the other end of the line and wanted to be sick.

  "Don't say it," he groaned.

  "Sorry," said Jacobi. "It's another one."

  "Where?"

  "West Forty-ninth, right near–"

  "I'll find it." All he had to do was look for the flashing red lights. "I'm on my way. Shouldn't take me too long to get in from Monroe at this hour."

  "We've got all night, lieutenant." Unsaid, but well understood, was an admonishing, You're the one who wants to live on Long Island.

  Beside him in the bed, Martha spoke from deep in her pillow as he hung up.

  "Not another one?"

  "Yeah."

  "Oh, God! When is it going to stop?"

  "When I catch the guy."

  Her hand touched his arm, gently. "I know all this responsibility's not easy. I'm here when you need me."

  "I know." He leaned over and kissed her. "Thanks."

  He left the warm bed and skipped the shower. No time for that. A fresh shirt, yesterday's rumpled suit, a tie shoved into his pocket, and he was off into the winter night.

  With his secure little ranch house falling away behind him, Harrison felt naked and vulnerable out here in the dark. As he headed south on Glen Cove Road toward the LIE, he realized that Martha and the kids were all that were holding him together these days. His family had become an island of sanity and stability in a world gone mad.

  Everything else was in flux. For reasons he still could not comprehend, he had volunteered to head up the search for this killer. Now his whole future in the department had come to hinge on his success in finding him.

  The papers had named the maniac "the Facelift Killer." As apt a name as the tabloids could want, but Harrison resented it. The moniker was callous, trivializing the mutilations perpetrated on the victims. But it had caught on with the public and they were stuck with it, especially with all the ink the story was getting.

  Six killings, one a week for six weeks in a row, and eight million people in a panic. Then, for almost two weeks, the city had gone without a new slaying.

  Until tonight.

  Harrison's stomach pitched and rolled at the thought of having to look at one of those faceless corpses again.

  *

  "That's enough," Harrison said, averting his eyes from the faceless corpse.

  The raw, gouged, bloody flesh, the exposed muscle and bone were bad enough, but it was the eyes – those naked, lidless, staring eyes were the worst.

  "This makes seven," Jacobi said at his side. Squat, dark, jowly, the sergeant was chewing a big wad of gum, noisily, aggressively, as if he had a grudge against it.

  "I can count. Anything new?"

  "Nah. Same m.o. as ever – throat slashed, money stolen, face gnawed off."

  Harrison shuddered. He had come in as Special Investigator after the third Facelift killing. He had inspected the first three via coroner's photos. Those had been awful. But nothing could match the effect of the real thing up close and still warm and oozing. This was the fourth fresh victim he had seen. There was no getting used to this kind of mutilation, no matter how many he saw. Jacobi put on a good show, but Harrison sensed the revulsion under the sergeant's armor.

  And yet...

  Beneath all the horror, Harrison sensed something. There was anger here, sick anger and hatred of spectacular proportions. But beyond that, something else, an indefinable something that had drawn him to this case. Whatever it was, that something called to him, and still held him captive.

  If he could identify it, maybe he could solve this case and wrap it up. And save his ass.

  If he did solve it, it would be all on his own. Because he wasn't getting much help from Jacobi, and even less from his assigned staff. He knew what they all thought – that he had taken the job as a glory grab, a shortcut to the top. Sure, they wanted to see this thing wrapped up, too, but they weren't shedding any tears over the shit he was taking in the press and on TV and from City Hall.

  Their attitude was clear: If you want the spotlight, Harrison, you gotta take the heat that goes with it.

  They were right, of course. He could have been working on a quieter case, like where all the winos were disappearing to. He'd chosen this instead. But he wasn't after the spotlight, dammit! It was this case – something about this case!

  He suddenly realized that there was no one around him. The body had been carted off, Jacobi had wandered back to his car. He had been left standing alone at the far end of the alley.

  And yet not alone.

  Someone was watching him. He could feel it. The realization sent a little chill – one completely unrelated to the cold February wind – trickling down his back. A quick glance around showed no one paying him the slightest bit of attention. He looked up.

  There!

  Somewhere in the darkness above, someone was watching him. Probably from the roof. He could sense the piercing scrutiny and it made him a little weak. That was no ghoulish neighborhood voyeur, up there. That was the Facelift Killer.

  He had to get to Jacobi, have him seal off the building. But he couldn't act spooked. He had to act calm, casual.

  *

  See the Detective Harrison's eyes. See from way up in dark. Tall-thin. Hair brown. Nice eyes. Soft brown eyes. Not hard like many-many eyes. Look here. Even from here see eyes make wide. Him know it me.

  Watch the Detective Harrison turn slow. Walk slow. Tell inside him want to run. Must leave here. Leave quick.

  Bend low. Run cross roof. Jump to next. And next. Again til most block away. Then down wall. Wrap scarf round head. Hide bad-face. Hunch inside big-big coat. Walk through lighted spots.

  Hate light. Hate crowds. Theatres here. Movies and plays. Like them. Some night sneak in and see. See one with man in mask. Hang from wall behind big drapes. Make cry.

  Wish there mask for me.

  Follow street long way to river. See many light across river. Far past there is place where grew. Never want go back to there. Never.

  Catch back of truck. Ride home.

  Home. Bright bulb hang ceiling. Not care. The Old Jessi waiting. The Jessi friend. Only friend. The Jessi's eyes not see. Ever. When the Jessi look me, her face not wear sick-scared look. Hate that look.

  Come in kitchen window. The Jessi's face wrinkle-black. Smile when hear me come. Tv on. Always on. The Jessi can not watch. Say it company for her.

  "You're so late tonight."

  "Hard work. Get moneys tonight."

  Feel sick. Want cry. Hate kill. Wish stop.

  "That's nice. Are you going to put it in the drawer?"

  "Doing now."

  Empty wallets. Put moneys in slots. Ones first slot. Fives next slot. Then tens and twenties. So the Jessi can pay when boy bring foods. Sometimes eat stealed foods. Mostly the Jessi call for foods.

  The Old Jessi hardly walk. Good. Do not want her go out. Bad peoples round here. Many. Hurt one who not see. One bad man try hurt Jessi once. Push through door. Thought only the blind Old Jessi live here.

  Lucky the Jessi not along that day.

  Not lucky bad man. Hit the Jessi. Laugh hard. Then look me. Get sick-scared look. Hate that look. Kill him quick. Put in tub. Bleed there. Bad man friend come soon after. Kill him also too. Late at night take both dead bad men out. Go through window
. Carry down wall. Throw in river.

  No bad men come again. Ever.

  "I've been waiting all night for my bath. Do you think you can help me a little?"

  Always help. But the Old Jessi always ask. The Jessi very polite.

  Sponge the Old Jessi back in tub. Rinse her hair. Think of the Detective Harrison. His kind eyes. Must talk him. Want stop this. Stop now. Maybe will understand. Will. Can feel

  *

  Seven grisly murders in eight weeks.

  Kevin Harrison studied a photo of the latest victim, taken before she was mutilated. A nice eight by ten glossy furnished by the her agent. A real beauty. A dancer with Broadway dreams.

  He tossed the photo aside and pulled the stack of files toward him. The remnants of six lives in this pile. Somewhere within had to be an answer, the thread that linked each of them to the Facelift Killer.

  But what if there was no common link? What if were all the killings were at random, linked only by the fact that they were beautiful? Seven deaths, all over the city. All with their faces gnawed off. Gnawed.

  He flipped through the victims one by one and studied their photos. He had begun to feel he knew each one of them personally:

  Mary Detrick, 20, a junior at N.Y.U., killed in Washington Square Park on January 5. She was the first.

  Mia Chandler, 25, a secretary at Merrill Lynch, killed January 13 in Battery Park.

  Ellen Beasley, 22, a photographer's assistant, killed in an alley in Chelsea on January 22.

  Hazel Hauge, 30, artist agent, killed in her Soho loft on January 27.

  Elisabeth Paine, 28, housewife, killed on Feruary 2 while jogging late in Central Park.

  Joan Perrin, 25, a model from Brooklyn, pulled from her car while stopped at a light on the Upper East Side on February 8.

  He picked up the eight by ten again. And the last: Liza Lee, 21. Dancer. Lived across the river in Jersey City. Ducked into an alley for a toot with her boyfriend tonight and never came out.

  Three blondes, three brunettes, one redhead. Some stacked, some on the flat side. All caucs except for Perrin. All lookers. But besides that, how in the world could these women be linked? They came from all over town, and they met their respective ends all over town. What could –

  "Well, you sure hit the bullseye about that roof!" Jacobi said as he burst into the office.

  Harrison straightened in his chair. "What you find?"

  "Blood."

  "Whose?"

  "The victim's."

  "No prints? No hairs? No fibers?"

  "We're working on it. But how'd you figure to check the roof top?"

  "Lucky guess."

  Harrison didn't want to provide Jacobi with more grist for the departmental gossip mill by mentioning his feeling of being watched from up there.

  But the killer had been watching, hadn't he?

  "Any prelims from pathology?"

  Jacobi shrugged and stuffed three sticks of gum into his mouth. Then he tried to talk.

  "Same as ever. Money gone, throat ripped open by a pair of sharp pointed instruments, not knives, the bite marks on the face are the usual: the teeth that made them aren't human, but the saliva is."

  The "non-human" teeth part – more teeth, bigger and sharper teeth that found in any human mouth – had baffled them all from the start. Early on someone remembered a horror novel or movie where the killer used some weird sort of false teeth to bite his victims. That had sent them off on a wild goose chase to all the dental labs looking for records of bizarre bite prostheses. No dice. No one had seen or even heard of teeth that could gnaw off a person's face.

  Harrison shuddered. What could explain wounds like that? What were they dealing with here?

  The irritating pops, snaps, and cracks of Jacobi's gum filled the office.

  "I liked you better when you smoked."

  Jacobi's reply was cut off by the phone. The sergeant picked it up.

  "Detective Harrison's office!" he said, listened a moment, then, with his hand over the mouthpiece, passed the receiver to Harrison. "Some fairy wantsh to shpeak to you," he said with an evil grin.

  "Fairy?"

  "Hey," he said, getting up and walking toward the door. "I don't mind. I'm a liberal kinda guy, y'know?"

  Harrison shook his head with disgust. Jacobi was getting less likable every day.

  "Hello. Harrison here."

  "Shorry dishturb you, Detective Harrishon."

  The voice was soft, pitched somewhere between a man's and a woman's, and sounded as if the speaker had half a mouthful of saliva. Harrison had never heard anything like it. Who could be–?

  And then it struck him: It was three a.m. Only a handful of people knew he was here.

  "Do I know you?"

  "No. Watch you tonight. You almosht shee me in dark."

  That same chill from earlier tonight ran down Harrison's back again.

  "Are…are you who I think you are?"

  There was a pause, then one soft word, more sobbed than spoken:

  "Yesh."

  If the reply had been cocky, something along the line of And just who do you think I am?, Harrison would have looked for much more in the way of corroboration. But that single word, and the soul deep heartbreak that propelled it, banished all doubt.

  My God! He looked around frantically. No one in sight. Where the fuck was Jacobi now when he needed him? This was the Facelift Killer! He needed a trace!

  Got to keep him on the line!

  "I have to ask you something to be sure you are who you say you are."

  "Yesh?"

  "Do you take anything from the victims – I mean, besides their faces?"

  "Money. Take money."

  This is him! The department had withheld the money part from the papers. Only the real Facelift Killer could know!

  "Can I ask you something else?"

  "Yesh."

  Harrison was asking this one for himself.

  "What do you do with the faces?"

  He had to know. The question drove him crazy at night. He dreamed about those faces. Did the killer tack them on the wall, or press them in a book, or freeze them, or did he wear them around the house like that Leatherface character from that chainsaw movie?

  On the other end of the line he sensed sudden agitation and panic: "No! Can not shay! Can not!"

  "Okay, okay. Take it easy."

  "You will help shtop?"

  "Oh, yes! Oh, God, yes, I'll help you stop!" He prayed his genuine heartfelt desire to end this was coming through. "I'll help you any way I can!"

  A long pause, then:

  "You hate? Hate me?"

  Harrison didn't trust himself to answer that right away. He searched his feelings quickly, but carefully.

  "No," he said finally. "I think you have done some awful, horrible things but, strangely enough, I don't hate you."

  And that was true. Why didn't he hate this murdering maniac? Oh, he wanted to stop him more than anything in the world, and wouldn't hesitate to shoot him dead if the situation required it, but there was no personal hatred for the Facelift Killer.

  What is it in you that speaks to me? he wondered.

  "Shank you," said the voice, couched once more in a sob.

  And then the killer hung up.

  Harrison shouted into the dead phone, banged it on his desk, but the line was dead.

  "What the hell's the matter with you?" Jacobi said from the office door.

  "That so-called 'fairy' on the phone was the Facelift Killer, you idiot! We could have had a trace if you'd stuck around!"

  "Bullshit!"

  "He knew about taking the money!"

  "So why'd he talk like that? That's a dumb-ass way to try to disguise your voice."

  And then it suddenly hit Harrison like a sucker punch to the gut. He swallowed hard and said:

  "Jacobi, how do you think your voice would sound if you had a mouth crammed full of teeth much larger and sharper than the kind found in the typical human mouth?"

>   Harrison took genuine pleasure in the way Jacobi's face blanched slowly to yellow-white.

  *

  He didn't get home again until after seven the following night. The whole department had been in an uproar all day. This was the first break they had had in the case. It wasn't much, but contact had been made. That was the important part. And although Harrison had done nothing he could think of to deserve any credit, he had accepted the commissioner's compliments and encouragement on the phone shortly before he had left the office tonight.

  But what was most important to Harrison was the evidence from the call – Damn! he wished it had been taped – that the killer wanted to stop. They didn't have one more goddam clue tonight than they'd had yesterday, but the call offered hope that soon there might be an end to this horror.

  Martha had dinner waiting. The kids were scrubbed and pajamaed and waiting for their goonight kiss. He gave them each a hug and poured himself a stiff scotch while Martha put them in the sack.

  "Do you feel as tired as you look?" she said as she returned from the bedroom wing.

  She was a big woman with bright blue eyes and natural dark blond hair. Harrison toasted her with his glas.

  "The expression 'dead on his feet' has taken on a whole new meaning for me."

  She kissed him, then they sat down to eat.

  He had spoken to Martha a couple of times since he had left the house twenty hours ago. She knew about the phone call from the Facelift Killer, about the new hope in the department about the case, but he was glad she didn't bring it up now. He was sick of talking about it. Instead, he sat in front of his cooling meatloaf and wrestled with the images that had been nibbling at the edges of his consciousness all day.

  "What are you daydreaming about?" Martha said.

  Without thinking, Harrison said, "Annie."

  "Annie who?"

  "My sister."

  Martha put her fork down. "Your sister? Kevin, you don't have a sister."

  "Not any more. But I did."

  Her expression was alarmed now. "Kevin, are you all right? I've known your family for ten years. You mother has never once mentioned–"

  "We don't talk about Annie, Mar. We try not to even think about her. She died when she was five."

  "Oh. I'm sorry."