by Kurt Newton
Libby's eyes began to tear even more, her pupils widening once again.
"Shhhh," he told her. "It is the only way I can monitor your brainwave activity. It's quite ingenious really. I think a woman of your intellect would appreciate it. There is a device here behind you that is monitoring the incoming signals from the electrodes I've placed in your brain. What is special about this device is that it can also send signals – minute electrical impulses that stimulate the various regions where the electrodes are located. The more impulses received, the more impulses are sent. Once it gets going it is quite a roller coaster ride. I truly look forward to hearing how well you do, Libby."
He patted her on the shoulder. He slid a CD-R into the front panel of the home studio and pushed the start button.
"We will now begin."
* * *
Saul knew the killer was out there somewhere, doing to his next victim what he had done to Amanda St. Cyr. He knew it as surely as the name of the next song on the album he was listening to: "That's Amore." He knew it the same way he knew Amanda wasn't the killer's first victim, or third or fourth, for that matter. Amanda's murder was too clean, too precise, too exacting in its detail. Saul also knew there would be others. He knew because this time God wasn't fooling around. God had gone on vacation again. God was reclining in a chaise lounge on a beach in Hawaii sipping a Mai Tai eyeing the bikini-clad angels as they walked by barefoot through the sand. God had left the building, and wouldn't be back until Saul fixed this one for Him. Because Saul knew that the killer also knew that God wasn't watching.
* * *
The man in Libby Sabka's kitchen stood with one hand holding onto the headphones covering his ears, the other hand manipulating the slide controls on the mixer board. He stood in silence, lost in a world only he could hear.
Libby sat as still as before, the optical fibers arching like a thick white mane from the top of her head, down to the kitchen table where an audio converter collected her mind's cries and screams and transformed them into music.
Libby's eyes stared at the darkness where her kitchen wall met the corner of the ceiling. The darkness pooled and wavered like a sea of black ink, erupting now and then in a brilliant flash that blinded her momentarily. She felt her rigid body beginning to loosen as the screams that had deafened her thoughts fell to a dull murmur. Whatever the man had done to her, it was now reaching its end. A cool, void-like silence descended. Perhaps she had passed whatever sick test he had put her through. Maybe now he would slit her throat and be done with it.
But along with the sudden subsidence of pain and pressure and physical awareness came the realization that the terminal darkness that now greeted her eyes could only mean that she had faded permanently, slipping from this world into a world less complicated, a world without memories, without sadness, a world she had been too afraid to enter into but now welcomed with one long, soft, final sigh of relief.
* * *
The ring of the telephone sounded like an AK-47 firing inside of Saul's skull. He lifted his head up off a drool-soaked pillow and looked at the time. 1:23 a.m. No, wait: 1:24. Jesus fucking Christ, can't a guy drink himself into oblivion without interruption? He answered the phone on the seventh ring.
"This better be good," he said. His head pounded. His mouth felt as dry as fiberglass.
"It is. Get dressed. We've got a fresh one."
It was Gwen. They'd found another victim.
Available in Digital and Trade Paperback editions May 24th from Gallows Press
About the Author
Kurt Newton grew up in rural Connecticut. His interest in art and music at an early age laid the foundation for what would become his first love: writing. He is the author of The Brainpan Concerto, The Wishnik, Powerlines, and The Ultimate perVERSEities. He currently lives in Connecticut and is working on his fourth novel.
You can find more of Kurt's work at
http://www.amazon.com/Kurt-Newton/e/B006VYUMUM
About the Publisher
Gallows Press is a publisher of horror and speculative fiction. Since its launch in 2011, we have produced over two-dozen titles in trade paperback and digital formats. From thrillers to hard-core horror, science fiction to crime, our fiction runs the gamut of speculative fiction sub-genres.
For more information, and for a catalog of our titles, visit:
www.gallowspress.com
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Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
1
2
3
4
5
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EPILOGUE
THE WISHNIK
THE BRAINPAN CONCERTO