by Maxwell, Ian
“So she’s a cannibal now?”
“What difference does it make? Serial killer, cannibal… it’s all one to me… all creepy as fuck.”
“What… difference? Seriously did you just say that?” Tyler stared at Jake in disbelief, “Get your genres sorted out asshole.”
Just then Bill returned with their fries and beer, “This one’s on the house guys… umm, I mean deputies. Appreciate all your hard work.”
“Appreciate your appreciation, Bill.”
“Don’t mention it. Hmm, the weather these days huh… it’s hot for a few months and then cold and then medium hot… I mean can you believe it,” after bringing up the weather for no reason, Bill let it slip casually, “So how many data points do you have on the killer’s profile?”
Tyler rubbed his forehead in frustration, “Bill, this isn’t CSI Miami.”
“No, of course not,” Bill replied evenly, “you guys are small town deputies. Like the ones on Sheriff Longmire.”
“Oh boy,” even Jake was beginning to regret his serial killer angle on the investigation. Perhaps he should have gone easy. But in his defense he’d simply tried to spice up a mundane Wednesday.
But Bill wasn’t done, “In your case, the Sheriff’s outta town, which makes you the big dudes. But that show also has a fowl mouthed chick. She’s kinda hot but annoying as hell, swears way too much. Kinda like Carli, but way hotter.”
“No… don’t bring up Carli.”
“Anyways you guys got a profile or not?”
Tyler gave up, “No Bill, we don’t have one. The Sheriff’s outta town and the County is busy with the Moshpit…”
“But guys… I mean deputies, you gotta do everything to create this profile. Profiles are the like super important in catching serial killers.”
“Exactly,” Carli said making a grand entrance or rather a reentrance. “Thank you Bill that was exactly my point. If you guys cut me in on the deal, I’ll be able to whip up a profile in no time. No time at all,” Carli snapped her fingers for emphasis.
Falling for her theatrics, Bill caved, “Wow Carli, you for real? Can you actually profile this guy?”
“Yes, of course. I am a trained guidance counsellor in a premier institution of learning and I come across a wide variety of characters… society’s misfits… the lemons… the oranges… the square pegs…”
“Bullshit,” sniggered Tyler.
“I’m a keen observer of the human psyche… its desires… fears… pains… thrills… and most importantly what turns it into a monster…”
“Monsters? Thought you wanted to profile a serial killer.”
“Bill, it’s a figure of speech.”
While Bill lapped up the pseudo-babble, Tyler gagged, “Jesus H. Christ. Carli, you are a barely employable, once suspended, guidance counsellor who advises kids to go into dealing pot.”
“Fuck you, Tyler.”
But Bill wouldn’t have it. He latched onto Carli like she was some culty prophet, “Guys, come on she does have a degree from college. From college.”
Before the deputies could frame a convincing counter argument, Carli smiled triumphantly, “Well that settles it. Bill get me a notepad.”
“No, it doesn’t. County has professional psychiatrists and profilers. If they can’t crack it, they go up to Denver. Then Chicago. Or probably DC. What I’m saying is, there’s a whole chain of command in place for situations like these…,” Tyler desperately tried to prevent a train wreck at an airport.
“Sorry Carli, all we got are these napkins,” Bill held up a bunch of napkins with the Kitty’s logo.
Carli snatched it, “Perfect. Now you got a pen?”
“What sort of profiler doesn’t even carry a pen? You’re the worst profiler in the history of profilers aren’t you,” said Tyler. With his Heather date nullified, Tyler suddenly had the entire evening wide open and decided to actually allow this train wreck at an airport in slomo.
“Jake, you got a pen?”
“Nope, but I got this app on my phone for taking notes.” Even in small towns like Lone Lake, no one carried pens these days. Not even cops.
“But I prefer freestyling on paper. Typing is so impersonal,” Carli vexed.
As Carli’s scheme teetered on the verge of collapse, Bill saved the day by producing a box of chalk, “Carli, you could use this on the board.”
“What board?”
There was only one board at Kitty’s Roadhouse and it was the big black board on the wall with the menu.
“You sure that’s a good idea, Bill?” asked Jake.
“Yeah, yeah go ahead.”
“Won’t your other patrons object?”
“Who Monroe and his friend? They’re cool,” Bill assured them about the old timers, “they can’t see this far. Wonder if they can even see each other’s faces.”
“Walt won’t say anything?” even Carli seemed unsure. Perhaps the joke had gone too far.
“Nah go ahead. I’ll rewrite it before he comes in tomorrow. We’re all good.” Bill rapped his knuckles on the bar, “Carli, go on… get on top of the bar.”
“What, just like that?”
“Yeah.”
“You got no ladders?”
“Don’t be silly. You just gotta lean in.”
Jake kicked off his boots and settled back. He realized it was going to be a long night. Mimicking his partner, Tyler ordered another round of beers, “Bill, two more beers… wait, make it two pitchers… two fries… extra-large.”
After tucking in her t-shirt, Carli cautiously climbed up the bar.
***
With a calligraphic scribble-ability that only women seemed to possess, Carli screeched out the words, ‘Lone Lake Killer – An Introductory Profile’.
Down under Tyler remarked, “Damn, still can’t believe that Heather cancelled on me.”
“Who’s Heather?” asked Bill.
“Yeah, she was pretty too,” Carli said from above.
“You know her?” asked Tyler a little surprised.
“Met her while I was out smoking.”
“What… so she came here?”
“Oh yeah, we spoke for a while. New in town. Works for Dr. Sanderson as a dental assistant.”
“Aha, she’s a dentist. Told you she’s not a serial killer,” Tyler punched Jake’s shoulder, “But wait, so why’d she leave?”
Jake shrugged “According to the FBI almanac, all serial killers have menial day jobs to feed their inner demons.”
“Jesus Christ, dude.”
“Yeah, it’s usually something related to dentists or truck drivers. Something about those professions… probably the unions.”
Tyler gave up on Jake and turned to Carli, “So why didn’t Heather come in?”
“Perhaps she had a dental emergency,” offered Bill.
“No,” said Carli, “definitely not a dental emergency.”
“Umm, to feed her cat?”
“Nope,” smiled Carli.
“Knowing Carli, she probably went to change her locks.”
“Noo.”
“To get her perv whistle?”
“Hey, what the hell?”
“Ooh I got it,” Jake slapped the bar excitedly, “Dude Tyler, I think she poisoned the well.”
“What well?”
“Sweet.”
And then Bill got excited, “Sweet? So the poison is sweet?”
“No Bill, poisons are not sweet.”
“How would you know, have you tasted it, plus I’m pretty sure there are some spiders that secrete sweet poison… Black Windows.”
“Okay Columbo, it could be sweet poison. I don’t know. I don’t care.”
“So Deputy Jake, where is this sweet poison lake?”
“What lake?”
“It’s not a lake, it’s a well.”
“What?”
“She poisoned the well, not the lake. Poisoning lakes is epically bad… and a bigtime social crime. Total felony.”
With thin
gs devolving around her rapidly, Carli yelled above the din, “I told her, Tyler might have herpes.”
“What??”
“Herpes. Told her you got herpes.”
“Fuck you Carli, you serious right now?”
“Well, oral herpes.”
“Carli, is that the good kind?” It was Bill.
“Yeah. You definitely don’t want the other kind, Bill,” confided Jake.
“Gotcha.”
“The fuck is wrong with you Carli… so you did poison the well… my sweet, sweet poison well,” Tyler said dejectedly.
Carli bit her lip, “Also told her Jake might have given it to you.”
Chapter 4
The killer’s memory had served him well. Arriving at the leeward side of Jensen Manor he was greeted by unkempt shrubbery, a rotting Cutlass and that dilapidated structure. Manor my ass, thought the killer. The front obviously led one to believe that the manor was well cared for, but Lars knew it was a total scam. A complete hogwash. Whoever was maintaining the place had put in a lot of effort on the front side and a lot less on the rear.
Within moments Lars identified the broken window at ground level. Despite the lawn being overrun by weeds, it wasn’t hard to spot. Lars assumed it opened into the basement and ultimately led into the house.
The thought of crawling through the two by two opening reintroduced Lars to claustrophobia and caused him to instinctively suck in his gut. But on the bright side, the cashmere guy wouldn’t have that problem. The dood had no love handles. Not even slightly.
After making sure that all was quiet around Jensen Manor, Lars stealthily walked across the yard and slid the body through the basement window. Even if he couldn’t get himself past the opening, at least he would’ve gotten rid of the evidence… the darn body. Plus if a vagrant or some creepy cretin was already in the basement, Lars wanted to give it a chance to escape… his wrath.
The body landed on the basement floor with a solid thud, like a piece of dough or meatloaf. No creaking or cracking, which again proved that the guy was a total meatloaf.
Lars waited and listened for a bit as he allowed his eyes to accustom to the cellar’s darkness. All he saw was basic cellar stuff and maybe a staircase leading up into the house. As for sounds other than the thud created by the body’s impact, everything seemed quiet at Jensen Manor.
Lars waited a little longer for rats, raccoons and other little shit to get out of his way. But nothing came.
A minute later, the killer lowered himself, feet first into the cellar. As expected he had to suck in his gut quite a bit.
Flailing awkwardly and trying not to squash the body on the floor, the killer lost his grip and landed ass first on something rock solid. The ass thumping reverberated around the abandoned cellar for at least three seconds.
BOOM… OOOM…. OOOOM.
As pain… as in, ass pain reached the extremities of his spine and neural circuits, the killer winced, “Wufk.”
But something felt off about his fall… his ass had arrived rather quickly at its destination. Not the typical, one second for an eight feet fall. Seemed faster… much faster. Or maybe he’d miscalculated the drop height. Perhaps this was a cellar for dwarfs… a dwarf cellar, or… or… a dwarf dungeon… a dungeon where the dwarfs kept Snow White imprisoned…
As his eyes acclimatized to the darkness, Lars dismissed the rather cool, Cellar for Snow White theory and realized that he wasn’t even on the floor. Yep, he sat about two feet above the cellar floor on some kind of a weird box.
A weird rectangular box… white in color… well whitish… a whitish rectangular box… but boxes were cubes… so a whitish, cubish box… but as his pupils accepted more light the whitish seemed more sullen-yellowish... hmm.
He ran his fingers over the contraption and felt the smooth plastic surface. The entire thing was a bit warm, nothing drastic, but just a hint of unnatural heat. Still plopped on top of the box, Lars let his hands roam the extremities of the contraption. Smooth… rubber… rubber beading… smooth… smoother and then a… super nasty shock as 125V shot through his heart.
“Yeowwfuk,” yelped the killer as the electrical shock hurled him halfway across the cellar.
***
Lars woke up with a splitting headache, and for once it wasn’t due to questionable decisions from the night before. Nope, this was due to questionable decisions from twenty minutes ago. Running a hand over his head he felt the swollen bump. Cursing at his naiveté, Lars turned his head and looked across the room at the fucked up cubish box.
Like a possessed demon the box was spewing hazy white smoke from its top… the same top where Lars had landed his sweet bottom. As he tried to crawl away from the evil box, he touched something… something hard… something cold… something hard and cold enough to give him the creeps.
“Wufk” shrieked the killer as realization wanked all over him.
Alongside Lars lay a body part… a frozen body part.
***
A minute later Lars chided himself for getting carried away and believing in ghosts and body parts. The whitish box, as it turned out was the Jensens’ freezer in the basement, which due to its contents – the sweet meats – had been left running. And the ghostly white smoke bellowing – was just water vapor from the freezer. Basic physics bullshit.
And then of course, the improperly earthed freezer had shocked him and flung him across the cellar. During the act the demon freezer had thrown itself open and hurled a bunch of its contents - steaks and frozen veggies - all over the cellar.
Thank goodness no one had seen him freak out over a fucking freezer.
Sifting through the peas and cold cuts Lars suddenly felt something. His old yearning for meat. Being a recent convert to veganism, he was about to wilt. Sure those berries were the bombs, but who was he kidding, meat was meat. No two ways about it. (Unbeknownst to the killer, some kids in Colorado had hypothesized that a lack of meat could turn anyone into giant wuzzies.)
The killer hadn’t tasted meat in a while… not since that incident at Soldier Field.
Dodging memories from that wretched night, Lars returned to the task at hand. Obviously his initial plan had been to hide the body somewhere in the Jensens’ attic, but this discovery of the meat freezer literally changed the game and provided him with an array of options – each more deplorable than the other. Plus that old hunger for meat was on the comeback… only a matter of time before he succumbed.
But despite his inner turmoil, the killer ultimately did what he had to do and got down to business. Yep, he was a total tcb kinda guy… a take care of bodies kinda guy. He threw out the peas, moved around some meat and then stuffed the body of the dead guy into the freezer and slammed the door shut.
SQUEAK
As he picked up the veggie bags off the floor, he heard an unnatural squeak from upstairs.
SQUEAK
Hinges. Old unoiled hinges holding a window. Unoiled window opening.
SQUUEEAAK
Unoiled window closing.
SQUEAAK
Had to be that un-boarded window he’d noticed earlier. Allowing the situation to develop, Lars held his breath for what seemed like an eternity.
CLICK
Latches. Yep, that was definitely that fucking window. No doubt about it. Someone had latched it from the inside.
CREAK… SQUISH… CREAK… SQUISH
Someone, probably a burglar but more likely an asshole, was walking on the wooden floor above wearing his new pair of Jordans.
***
As thoughts of pursuit and stylish shootouts with the cops flooded his mind, Lars smelt something… something that was a controlled substance in like forty states.
The home invader… or rather the co-home invader… Lars tried to be fair in his assessments as he too was sort of a home invader… so yeah, this punk co-home invader was fucking smoking weed.
“Wufk,” exclaimed the killer as the punk, whoever he was, rolled up a second joint. Lars couldn’t be
lieve it. Who in their right mind would break into a house to smoke weed. This wasn’t Detroit… not even close. The fuck was wrong with the country. Perhaps the Jensens had a darker side… perhaps they were dealers…
Lars’ unorganized thoughts were interrupted by a stupid sounding voice.
Above, in the Jensens living room, a post-puberty-pre-sanity male voice hollered into a cellphone, “Cody? That you Cody… oh hey Mrs. Sanderson… um, this is Shane… uh… yeah the Monson kid… Shane Monson, yeah that’s me… I was wondering if I could talk to Cody… thank you…”
Lars silently shook his head as the darned teenager named Shane Monson waited for the fool Cody.
The veggies were melting fast.
After what seemed like an eternity, the conversation came back on, “Cody… dude, I’m lighting it up right now… wanna come over… where? ... Dude you won’t believe it… it’s like the most genius place in Lone Lake… no one will ever know… guess where… no, got nothing to do with the lake… it’s in town… nope… not on top of the diner…”
The killer suddenly realized what was about to happen.
“No… try again… if you guess it right… I’ll give you a free pound… umm… nope… fuck it dude… I will just say it… I am at the…”
Lars dropped the bag of frozen veggies.
***
CRASH
The killer rushed up the stairs and crashed right through the basement door.
“What the hell,” exclaimed the teenage voice on the phone, before getting snuffed out by Lars and his mammoth hands.
And this time he knew exactly how to use them. Who woulda thought practice made things perfect.
Standing over the brand new body, Lars rapidly reassessed the situation. Teenager. Definitely not the law. Smoking pot. About to invite friends. Yeah, he was becoming quite good at this shit.
Lars had to get rid of some real good cuts to make room for the second dead guy. Of course, being vegan he would have to donate it to that raccoon family near the tracks… maybe earn their respect and trust.
With the evidence and other incriminating shit secured, the killer headed out to Lone Lake for a well-deserved dip. He needed to get rid of these dead guy smells.
Chapter 5