"She can't be dead.” Tears came to his eyes. “I should be dead, too."
13
"I cain't write, I cain't read, and I'm stupid,” he said into the small tape recorder. “I know it's all true because my daddy told me so.” He nervously fingered the pistol in his right hand. “Momma said so, too."
He clicked the button off thoughtfully. The sultry heat made him sweat, and perspiration dripped from his greasy black hair onto his grey overalls.
He paused. His house was small and most unremarkable. It was barren of furniture, of anything really, except for the corpse of a young woman. He sat with his back against the front door and stared at her lifeless body.
He clicked the tape recorder on again. “Let me tell you about myself; things you'll all want to write about in the papers and show on the news.” He paused to breathe. The stench of the rotting body permeated his nostrils. “Boy, it's funny what the heat can do to a dead woman. But that's beside the point. My name is Clark Greene, C-L-A-R-K and G-R-E-E-N-E. Now, don't forget thee . It belongs on the end of Greene."
Clark clicked the tape recorder off to gather his thoughts. The police had cracked the case. He had been spotted at one of the Memphis Butcher's murder scenes and had been identified. He couldn't remember her name, and it didn't matter. She was just a way to keep count. The only murder that mattered was the one on the floor before him.
He restarted the recorder. “I've always wanted to be famous. My momma, before she died, said I'd never amount to much, but I showed her.” He took a breath. “I guess it's time to confess because I ain't goin’ to jail. I am the Memphis Butcher. Bet you didn't ever think you'd catch him way up in Friendship, Tennessee, did you?” Clark laughed. “I don't suppose any of you will understand the good I've done."
He stopped speaking. The spindles still wound off inches of magnetic tape, recording individual heartbeats. Sweat poured over the revolver, making the handle slippery. Clark toyed with the hammer slightly.
"You'll find this is the murder weapon. Spell the brand name right, ‘cuz this is what I used to kill all them sluts. You see, I stopped ‘em from breedin', from puttin’ any more stupid, uneducated shitasses like me on the planet."
Clark laid the gun down and got up off the floor, the tape still rolling. Walking over to the corpse, he flinched momentarily at the smell. She was face down on the floor, wearing cut-off jeans and a red halter top. She had been there much too long; the flies had found her. The southern heat accelerated the body's rotting process, its fetid stench permeating the air.
"I killed this bitch, Candy Mae Bullock, four days ago. She's number 12. Oh, I don't know her at all, she just happened to be there when I needed number 12.” Clark turned her over with his foot. She was a small woman and weighed very little. “I marked her for you. Now, get it right. Candy Mae Bullock is number 12. I guess this will make her famous, too."
He paused again, admiring the digits he had carved in Candy's forehead. Unsatisfied with his work, he took the small knife out again and opened the blade.
"She's number 12, don't forget.” Clark knelt beside her, placing the tape recorder near her head. “Listen carefully, I want you all to hear so you don't forget she's number 12. Just imagine what I did to her when she was alive."
Clark edged the knife tip into the congealed wound, pressing the blade through the flesh until it came in contact with bone. Easing the knife around the outer edges of each digit, he carefully scraped out the tissue, collected the mass of limp flesh in his hands. Most of the skin was soft, swollen, and rank. Its consistency was strangely fascinating as it slid between his fingers. He tossed the skin carelessly aside.
Standing, he wiped his hands and knife clean on his pants, put the blade away, and picked up the cassette recorder. Outside, three police cars had pulled up, and several men were now hidden behind the car doors, weapons drawn and aimed at the front door.
"So, I guess this is it,” Clark said. “Today, by the way, is the 13th. I know you'll all say it's some strange coincidence, but it's not. My mother died on the 13th, too. Get it right in the papers; it all happened on the 13th. There were 13 victims, and my mother died when I was 13, too. It's all got to be in the story. You might wonder why there's only 12 girls, not 13?” He took a breath, adrenalin shoving his blood pressure into the stratosphere. “I'm not coming out alive. I don't give a shit, just so I die famous. I've left you lots and lots of stuff all over this house to help with the story. In the basement are three shallow graves with women from Memphis. I cain't remember their names, but I'm sure you can figure it out."
Clark checked the chamber of the revolver and cocked it, placed the cassette recorder on the floor, then lay down with his head near the microphone. “13 has never been my lucky number."
Iron Chair
Arthur Gold squirmed uncomfortably in a cold, blackened iron chair sitting in the middle of nowhere. He wondered what sort of place this was—dark, cold, with only a few stray beams of the most brilliant light he'd ever seen. He glanced around; nothing but empty shadows stretched beyond his tiny imagination.
Then, he noticed to his right, a woman sitting in a wooden rocking chair. She was not very old, yet experience had molded her face into a tell-tale book of woe. She turned her head, smiled gently to him, and nodded. Her smile reminded him of something, but he couldn't quite remember what. Beneath the time-scarred surface of her face was a twinkle, a brief glimmer, of someone much younger.
"When I was alive, I was insane.” Her blue eyes sparkled, and her mouth was bare of any teeth to form words properly.
The statement shocked Arthur. “What did you say?"
"I'm so glad to finally rest.” She looked at him with great interest. “I wrote a letter to the Mayor of Detroit once and told him how to get the downtown area popular again. I told him to tear down all the buildings and build canals. Then he could make rubber-coated boats to go in them."
Mr. Gold became disinterested with his companion. “I would like to know where I am. This isn't at all funny."
He struggled to get free, but couldn't. Arthur sighed and peered off into the shadows. He thought he had seen some movement.
"What on earth are you looking at?” she asked.
"Quiet, will you,” he scolded. “I think I see someone coming."
She laughed and pushed her frazzled, brown hair away from her eyes. “I can tell you, mister, there ain't nobody over there for you to see. But my ex-husband, boy could he ever dance. Do you have anything to eat? I'm so hungry."
"Hush,” he snapped. “I was right, there is something over there."
An unearthly and vaporous, creeping fog moved towards the seated pair. The mist then took form. It was an apparition, an angel made up of the most glorious silk veils. The seraph was tall and elegant, truly borne of heaven's breath. Its face seemed to be that of a beautiful maiden, yet when close, it turned its face so that Arthur couldn't see any detail, only a shape masked in veils.
"Do you believe in fate?” the ghost sang.
He paused to think. “Everyone makes their own fate."
"If that is true, then you deserve yours,” the specter stated in song.
"Please, I would like to know where this place is?” His voice quivered.
The celestial being grew silent, drifting around like dandelion fluff in the wind. The veils floated on invisible currents, making strange, almost recognizable shapes. The face in the folds of delicate cloth was one of torture and longing, similar to the woman seated next to him.
Then, the angel addressed him: “Everyone is possessor of both heaven and hell. Their souls nothing without the other to balance.” The angel lifted a bony, cloth-shrouded appendage. “She has experienced hell. She is now to endure heaven.
"The way you conduct your heaven is conducive to the way hell acts upon your soul.” The angel came in close to Arthur. “You have had heaven,” the shape whispered and vaporized into the void of shadows.
A great clap of thunder echoed in sequence
as lightning filled the sky, and he struggled against the chair futilely. His companion gently rocked and talked to herself. She was at peace. Whatever her burden was in life, it had been taken away from her. He could hear her soft utterances. She breathed deeply, grinning complacently.
Mr. Gold struggled again to get his hands free. “Help me!” His face puckered in distress; he didn't understand this treatment. “Is this hell? Must I sit here forever, unable to move, listening, listening to this crazy woman ramble about fried chicken and rubber-coated boats?"
As he uttered the last syllable, the wind and the lightning stopped. And silence that weighed more than the Earth itself came upon him. A new smell permeating the room, the stench of hospital disinfectant.
Suddenly, bright light flooded the area around his iron chair. Abruptly, the chair beneath him warmed slightly. It trembled and began stretching and changing, all the while with Mr. Gold trapped like a tack to a magnet. Slowly it transformed into a hospital examining table. A straightjacket materialized around his torso. The cloth was tight and dug into his flesh without mercy.
The voice spoke again, “There is nothing merciful about the pain man inflicts upon man. Man created this to restrain the insane. How does it feel?"
Mr. Gold's face was bathed in a river of silent, heavy tears. “Please let me up. I don't deserve this."
"Oh, but don't you?” The sarcasm felt like sulfuric drops upon his skin.
The chair trembled once again. The head of the iron hospital examining table elevated slightly.
"There, can you see better?"
"No more, please, stop,” Arthur begged, his fat forehead shining like a lighthouse in the harsh brilliance. “My arms, please."
His eyes searched skyward, begging for release. Then, as if by a miracle, the cloth of the jacket became weak and brittle. He pushed his arms up through the mantle of restraint. Just as he felt the jacket sleeves ripping into jagged holes, the area around the fractures turned bright, bloody red. His hand burst through in a fountain of hot blood, spewing like a whale.
Screaming, Mr. Gold thrashed from the jacket, his eyes pinched shut. “Oh God! Oh God!"
"Would you like something for the pain?” the voice asked with gentle sadism.
Hysterically, he struggled against a new power that pulled his arms to the bed. He opened his eyes, mentally preparing himself for the sight of his own innards splashed across his torso, but his body lay untouched and on the iron table. There was no blood, no guts, and no straightjacket.
His heart pounded in his throat. “I think I'm having a heart attack!” he shouted as pain roared through his chest.
"You must have a heart, first,” the voice cackled.
Arthur's body shook with unbearable pain. Everything was getting foggy, the lights blending together into one, unfocused blur. Arthur closed his eyes.
* * * *
Warm breezes flowed over the linen covering him. His bedroom windows had been left open all night, and everything seemed fresh. He loved the smell of clothes that had been dried on the line. When he was a little boy, his mother would put a load on the line and go pick green beans while he played in the willow tree.
Arthur slowly opened his eyes and grinned. He squinted at the stream of sunlight, willing away the heaviness from his eyelids. He hated the wallpaper his wife had hung; a bedroom is no place for rubber-boats and Cornflake fried chicken.
"It was all a dream!” he yelled, sitting up in bed.
His bed sat in the dark abyss, and the sun was a narrow beam focused intensely. The sheets and the bed were real, the wallpaper just an image that quickly faded.
He was not sure how long he had been asleep. After what seemed like hours, the angel returned. It did not speak nor come to him; instead it approached the woman. She smiled at the sight of what was behind the veils, something that still eluded Mr. Gold.
Soon, it began moving close to him and turned so that only its right side faced him.
"Why can't I see you? Why won't you let me see you?” Mr. Gold asked fiercely.
"I am many things to her.” The seraph's voice was beautiful and unnerving. “I am the face of mercy as well as the face of death."
"What are you to me?"
"To you, I am Death."
The words humbled Arthur. “I find it hard to remember things."
"No one chooses whether heaven or hell comes first. There is no order, only randomness. You had heaven, and she has had hell. It is time to have the other."
"I have been a good man, a loyal husband, and a great employer."
"True,” the voice said. “True also is the fact that you drove many small businesses to ruin, spent greedily, and gave little in return."
"I made that money. I had the right to it,” he objected defensively.
"You also had responsibilities,” Death replied. “Do you wonder what this woman's hell was? Did you think she was just a companion waiting with you?"
Arthur looked at the woman who sat, rocked, and talked with unknown companions. “Her? She's crazy."
His flip tongue enraged the angel. The apparition shot up twenty feet and looked down upon Arthur with, for the first time, an unveiled face. “I have failed you! You will never understand the purposes herein!"
Misty shrouds of white had hidden the violent-looking grimace of a rotting, flesh-bare skull on one side and the face of an alabaster-skinned lady on the other half. A face cut in half by two images. Twisted knots of sinewy skin stretched from the dead half to hold the beautiful side in place. The dead eye was a hollow socket while the woman possessed an emerald gem with a piercing gaze.
"You remember what insanity was like, Mr. Gold, for it would have been your heaven!"
His hideous screams were heard by no one but the laughing angel.
"Let your memory serve and remind you of your greatest sin."
The angel eroded into the shadows as he wept silently. The soft sheets slowly faded until nothing was left but the iron bed. It began to vibrate and swiftly turned into the original iron chair. Arthur sat upright.
The old woman's rocker was now facing him. He struggled to see through flowing tears as he looked at her. Her face began getting younger and younger, yet more and more bothered. She was aging in reverse. Her hair styles changed rapidly as did the obvious status of her mental health.
Then, something familiar appeared. He saw four injection marks appear on her hands. They were red, swollen, and infected but passed swiftly as the backward aging continued.
Another familiar moment occurred. Out of the nothingness of space, a straightjacket instantly bound the woman's body. She struggled and laughed and cried. The woman was trying to bite herself. The jacket vanished just like the injection scars.
As she got younger, Mr. Gold began to recognize her. She was now in her late twenties. His mouth dropped open as she became more recognizable with each regressive stage. She approached her early twenties, and then her late teens. Her hair became long, unkept, and tangled. She pulled at it with her hands, and clumps came out, along with skin and blood.
The age reversal finally slowed, and Mr. Gold sat unmoving. In front of him sat a young teenage girl who burst from her rocking chair.
"Daddy! Daddy!” She smiled and giggled. “Can I come home from this place soon? They don't like me and treat me bad.” She jumped up in his lap, and he wept. “Why did you send me away? I'm not sick anymore!"
"Stop!” His command was louder than any bomb imaginable. He squeezed his eyes closed, and the tears raged out. “Stop."
Arthur felt the weight of the girl leave his lap. He waited for several moments before opening his eyes. The old woman, his adult daughter, was still rocking. She was unaware of him or of anything that had transpired.
His brow wrinkled sadly. Sobbing with great, burdened breaths, he looked at her. Her hell, for the most part, was all because of him; only now did he realize this truth.
"I didn't know.” His head hung low.
The angel appeared before
him again, the face shrouded once more. “You could have known, but chose not to. Perhaps the burden was too great, or your heart too small."
Mr. Gold raised his head to look at her.
"Well, where have you been?” she asked. She smiled a toothless grin and slapped her leg. “You were here one minute and gone the next. I was trying to remember what I did with my box of clothes that I brought with me from the hospital. I had two dresses, you know. I wore one to the funeral, see I still have it on. Ain't it just beautiful?"
Mr. Gold smiled at his pretty little Bernice.
She started to dissipate like morning mist, and her voice traced into an echo. “Yes, Daddy, I sure was pretty that day.” Bernice disappeared.
SLClimer - Rumours of the Grotesque Page 16