SKA: Serial Killers Anonymous

by William Schlichter

  “It only got harder to track down the next dealer after this success. I spiraled downward. I had to employ the prostitute to give up a location. Part of me sought to end my life at the commuter lot. I couldn’t live with what I was doing.”

  “But your granddaughter needed vengeance,” Robert says.

  “You had the apartment, dude,” Kenneth says.

  “He was going to be the way to cash in my chips,” Jack says.

  When they repeat statements it assists Jesse in keeping track of facts for his investigation.

  “You thought about killing yourself?” Al seeks confirmation.

  “It was in the back of my mind, with all my family being dead. I was going to step into the drug dealer’s apartment and draw my pistols. Go out like John Wayne in The Shootest, take as many of them as I could with me. I already shared my plan with you,” Jack says.

  “Beats the Hemingway cancer plan,” Edgars quips.

  “What’s the Hemingway cancer plan?” Jesse asks.

  “You had to ask, kid,” Al chides.

  “They don’t do a good job teaching the classics anymore in school, do they.” Edgars says.

  “I never read him,” Jesse says.

  “Ernest Hemingway believed he had cancer after a visit to the Mayo Clinic. When he got home he ate the barrel of his shotgun.”

  “A shotgun is such a messy way to go,” The Plagiarist says.

  “They’re all messy,” Ed says. “Even passing away in your sleep, you shit yourself.”

  “You choke your victims,” The Plagiarist points out.

  “Still messy. People piss and shit. Some puke,” Ed says.

  “Little blood splatter. The tiniest of drops are what convict people on Dateline all the time,” Jesse says.

  “They don’t show you all the evidence on TV news shows. They show you enough to make it dramatic,” Al says. “So much is left out.”

  “Still the cops pursue one suspect.”

  “They check out a few and true, many cops chase down one guy or woman because most likely they had a real motive—money. A good motive is stronger evidence than a random stranger arriving in town and killing someone.”

  “It’s what makes us—what we’ve done—terrifyingly fascinating,” Edgars says. “The random nature. Husbands beat wives to death all the time. Wives poison husbands all the time. Most ingestions are even ruled as natural causes. But some crazed person driving through town killing and driving off—scary. Terrifies people.”

  “It sells books,” Kenneth says.

  “It does. Most murderers aren’t repeat offenders. They have killed who they want dead and wouldn’t kill again. But us? We live for the kill,” says Edgars. “No matter what religious path you choose in the moment we take a life, we are Gods among men. We all live for the ultimate power over another living person.”

  “Taking a life isn’t the ultimate,” Jane says.

  “None of that women create life shit,” says Ed. “You grow it in your uterus, but you alone didn’t make it.”

  “Women are vessels, a sacred chalice to nurture life. But Ed, you must stop with the neutral pronouns. It is a baby. A person. We don’t kill people,” Jane says. “From now on we must view living people, not objects, not its.” She accepts they must cease dehumanizing their prey.

  “I don’t see how naming my victims helps, but I’ll work with what the group wants.”

  “I’m never closer to God than when I’m inside a woman, not killing her,” Al says.

  “But to get there you bring them to the edge of death—repeatedly,” Kenneth says.

  “And each time you do you risk killing the poor girl you have locked away,” Jane says.

  “I have backed off. I’ve controlled my urges with her,” Al says, leaving out he shifted to another victim. He won’t admit her to the group, or how he’s unable to give up his love.

  Jesse requires more information, information useful in determining the home location of each group member. It is impossible to track them through the chatroom, so he needs a city as a starting point. With many of the facts they share, a city would allow a viable search yielding results. Maybe a state. It would determine where these killers operate. “Have you killed lots of people with shotguns?”

  “I’ve killed with just about everything in my copying of murders,” The Plagiarist says. “People will use anything handy when they are in a passion kill.”

  “I think you should share.” Jane points to The Plagiarist.

  “I have taken many lives, maybe more than I counted. After the Harvest killings lost their thrill, I made my next selection based on a well-known inactive serial killer, and that was my mistake. The cops knew instantly it was a copycat. They would be searching for me. Not me, but a fresh new suspect. I rethought my strategy.”

  “Wouldn’t they have to be caught, and details of the crime scene released, so you’d be a true copycat?” Jesse asks. He must be my prime suspect.

  “Correct. But I took the moniker The Plagiarist, who steals others work and claims it for his own. There is some leeway in how close it has to be.” Even in the dusk of the room everyone detects the sheepish grin. “I was hard for the fame, not a hundred percent accuracy.”

  “Meaning you don’t have to have every detail correct,” says Edgars. “I knew my literary degree would pay off someday.”

  “I explored active serial cases where they had not caught a suspect and I repeated a similar murder. It was challenging. It did monkey wrench with what the police were investigating. It might have even pissed off the real killer, many of whom would take credit for the kill, anyway, if caught. Before switching to a current and active killer I was inspired by the master’s first attempts.”

  “Jack the Ripper?” Jesse says.

  “The first recognized modern serial killer, but in no way would the cops believe he was over a hundred years old and still killing,” Kenneth says.

  “I didn’t take up his mantel,” The Plagiarist says. “Carving out women’s uteri is messy business and blood is slick. I knew personally. Before Jack, Jack the Ripper was news from Whitechapel there were murders in the United State. They didn’t make the news nor gain the notoriety as they did in London. Sadly, the simplest explanation as to why the American Jack wasn’t a household fear was because of his choice in victims—they were black.”

  IV

  AUSTIN, TEXAS 1885

  The thing about these murders was they were all black women, many who lived in a backroom servant chamber or on the property of rich white people. They were, by all accounts, well-treated house maids and paid until the last death fitting the pattern. I believe she was a copycat to get rid of this white woman for reasons unknown. But again, despite outrage, no one suspect could be matched to all of the murders.

  It wasn’t even that the cops didn’t care. Of the six one was a black officer. They were just overwhelmed. Austin had grown so big six officers weren’t enough to patrol the streets and devote to a full investigation.

  Our killer was brazen. He hacked one woman to death while her children witnessed, another while her lover was in the bed next to her. He lived with a head wound from the axe.

  I read the newspaper accounts reprinted in several books and traveled to Austin.

  I made several stops along the way to purchase an axe. The killer used a new—new—axe with each killing and left it at the crime scene. He also attacked barefoot and ran away, leaving tracks in the snow. With modern forensic techniques I’d not leave behind such evidence as telling as a foot print and possibility skin DNA.

  Trolling Austin for the correct victim was not what I thought it would be. When I found a black maid who worked for an affluent household, it had security cameras and fences along with guard dogs. No strolling in the back door of those mansions.

  I rethought my plans and followed my little maid home. She wasn’t doing too bad in her quaint little house.

  People, when home, make poor choices. People make poor choices anywhe
re, but at home they think they are so safe. They drop their guard completely.

  This woman left her back door open at dusk. I stepped into her kitchen. Her scream didn’t last long as the axe sliced off half her face.

  The fleshy part at least. It stuck in her jaw. It was more a horror movie kill with skin peeled off the bone. Blood flowed down her face. I made the second blow to the back of the head. She crumpled to the floor in a heap and I ran, axe on the table. I figured her screams would draw attention.

  The original killer had left his new axe at each crime scene. It amazed me in all the original reports how no one noticed someone buying new axes. There was no report of them even investigating the purchase of new axes in any of the literature. I doubt the killer bought it on credit and buying outright for the suspects would not have been easy. If the suspect was negro, like the one they arrested, it was reasonable he was impoverished. No one had lots of extra cash laying around to keep buying new tools. Who at that time would buy an axe and not use it?

  He could have stolen them.

  My copycat attempt failed. ‘Jilted lover or hate crime’ filled the modern newspapers. Not one reporter tied this kill back to those in 1885.

  I scoped out a mansion next. The cameras were for show except those viewing the driveway. There was a surveillance hole in the back yard I could have driven a truck through and reached the back porch. I’m betting the wife didn’t want their hot tub adventures on film.

  The killings were at night, but then this maid wouldn’t bet here, and the family would be home. I broke in. Sunk the axe into her skull until the face was unrecognizable then left it there.

  Again, hate crime, though they arrested the boyfriend for a while. But they let him go—he was white. With two dead women by axe they called it a hate crime due to the massive attack to the head and the passion it must have taken to do such brutalization to another person.

  I was sickened by no one even noticing the similarities to the murders in 1885. The liberal news media turned it all into a white-on-black hate issue. I had no idea how poor news reporting had become. In the original papers they spoke in detail about the attacks. Now it was simply black woman murdered in a hate crime.

  Fine.

  I showed them hate. I hacked the third victim into fish bait, then scrawled with her blood on the wall:

  I named myself. I got the point across. Someone finally investigated and rediscovered the murders.

  I was now finished in Austin. I would not attack another. I’m sure it would have gotten me caught. I had plans to abscond into obscurity the same way the original killer had. I would expect notoriety later, the way he did when his second round of murders occurred in London two years later.

  V

  “YOU’RE SAYING THIS guy was Jack the Ripper? The MO is not the same,” Jesse says.

  Flustered, The Plagiarist clinches his fists, “I’m stating facts. One of the suspects in the Austin murders was also reported in Whitechapel at the same time as Jack was active.”

  “You’re saying Jack the Ripper was an American?” Kenneth says.

  “We do tend to export murder,” Ed says. “We’ve grown more killers than any other nation.”

  “Europe,” Kenneth says.

  “Has the second most, but nowhere near the numbers of the good ole U-S-of-A,” Ed says.

  Jesse pops in, “But African warlords in Rwanda mass murder daily.”

  “War,” Al says. “They are at war. Killing is not only acceptable, it’s expected and rewarded.”

  “Joke all you like. There was circumstantial evidence that Jack was this man, and a more plausible explanation than many theories,” The Plagiarist says.

  “Personally, I like the one where Jack was a woman,” Jane says.

  “A woman?” Jesse, in all his serial killer studies, never heard this theory.

  “One lesser accepted concept was Jack was a Jill. She was an abortionist who botched a procedure on one of the local prostitutes. Even uneducated she would have had some of the medical knowledge of women’s parts the killer was suspected to possess. She killed several other prostitutes to cover her first accidental murder. A murder which, if it got out, would ruin her business. Which I’m sure in an age of no birth control and heavily active drunken courtesans was lucrative enough to keep her well-fed.”

  “It’s a theory like several of the others which cannot be dismissed. Still, the Serving Girl murders occurred in Austin, and so did some similar brutalities over a hundred years later. Only the media didn’t see them for what they were,” The Plagiarist says.

  “Gruesome copies?”

  “Works of art!” The Plagiarist’s passion matches his surge from his chair. “They cried hate crimes.”

  “Hate sells newspapers.”

  “So does the blood of innocents.” The old man’s accusing finger pierces the darkness.

  “My failure with the Serving Girl murders sent me in other directions. Unappreciated, I sought out active serial killers or repeat murderers who had yet to be classified out of fear of terrifying the public and copying their killings.”

  This could be the guy who did my sister in, Jesse wishing he’d read the file on his desk.

  “I found several more active repeat killers who target prostitutes,” The Plagiarist says. “I added to their body count. The police should spend more time reviewing their deaths than ignoring them because they engage in the sex trade.”

  “We need to fix ourselves before we attempt to prevent others from killing,” Jane says.

  “And deal with them how? Kill them?” Jesse asks.

  “It’s the only way to stop some of them,” Jack says.

  “We haven’t even figured out how to help Al with his guest or our own urges. We’re not ready to save the world,” Robert speaks out.

  “Three meetings means we have spared how many people because we are here? We’re communicating with each other. We have built trust. We will help each other.” Jane dumps out a bag of sealed burner phones. “When we leave today we will share a single number with a partner and if we think of attacking we contact our sponsor.”

  “You ending the meeting?” Jesse asks.

  “No.”

  VI

  AL’S OWN THOUGHTS drift from the meeting to his fantasy harem collection. Some women had a harem fantasy. No. Don’t. Nothing justifies what you forced those women to participate in. Not only does his brain shift focus, his body betrays him. He smashes his thighs together to quell his growing erection.

  How do I explain…

  No sharing. Not this time. This is how…who I am. The group should know. They’ll understand.

  The pressure builds against his pants as Al recalls the tale he refuses to share with the group.

  My fingers were around her throat. I don’t always use the dog collar, sometimes I enjoyed my hands around the soft flesh. This girl just laid back, elongating her neck, demanding to be violated. She rubbed her thighs against me. And I felt it. I felt her burst. She enjoyed the asphyxiation.

  Al shakes from his memory. If he stood up to leave what would the group make of his full salute?

  I released my fingers, allowing her airway to open. I never removed my grip from her tender skin. New energy surged in me. I pumped her harder. I pulled down on her to keep her from flying away as I thrust as fast and as hard possible. When I exploded, so did she.

  I desired to lay next to her. I dared not. I got up, jetting across the room to my chair where I sat as the girls did what I commanded while I watched.

  She had to suspect. I didn’t hook her back in her collar right away. I let her lay there and enjoy the moment.

  It was not love.

  We connected. I connected with this woman. I could tell from her eyes, as she tilted her head to gaze into mine, that she felt it. Now she had a new fear. If she thought I was falling in love, I may kill her. Get rid of her to prevent my emotions from making a poor choice. I might love her enough to trust her. She would use that chance to
escape.

  Extra time in the box. I cuddled against her. Hold her until I got hard again. This time I made love to her. Made love.

  Do I even know how? I never learned. I never learned what it was to make love to a woman. It’s not an excuse, I don’t make those.

  I do what I do. And I like killing women from my sexual thrills. I don’t care for disposing of the bodies. I don’t—often. I built the three boxes so I could keep them around longer.

  My loins stirred. No way. If I put it in her, I would make love. Love is dangerous.

  My hand closed like a vice around her ankle and she was halfway to the floor before she even knew I moved. I jerked her to her feet, shaking her as a mother scolds a bratty child. I shoved her from the bedroom.

  She came close to protesting, as I flung her hard enough it cost her balance. She skidded across the floor. Later, in the dark, her side was reddened from the carpet burn.

  I wonder if she knew this punishment was is to protect her. Part of me wanted to slap her, beat the love out of her.

  Sweat beads along Al’s hair line. How no one in the room doesn’t hear his thumping chest he doesn’t understand. Throat dry, he gulps a breath.

  “Al, you okay?”

  Not sure who at the meeting inquires about his health, all he hears is her pleading.

  No. Please. Don’t lock me in there. I’ll do whatever you want. Please. Chain me to the bed, but not in there.

  Her pleading meant nothing. I threw her collar. It cracked like a softball in a catcher’s mitt against her abdomen.

  Put it on!

  Tears flowed. With shaking arms, she slipped the belt through the buckle.

  She was mine. She slipped the metal tine to the tightest hole. It made it difficult for her to swallow, but she obtained air.

  I secured the door and slid the bolts on three hasps to lock. I glanced at her eyes through the peeking window.

  “Please. I hate the…” closing the sliding door didn’t muffle her voice, but it finalized she must be in her box, “dark.”