SKA: Serial Killers Anonymous

by William Schlichter

  “Yes. You were going to stab me.”

  I pulled back her hair, exposing her neck. My hot breath caused her to shiver. I wanted the traditional vampire bite next.

  I found the fangs must hit the vein for there to be a flow of blood. There was an art to it, one I wouldn’t perfect here. I wouldn’t need to. I gleaned much information from the neck bite and wouldn’t risk swallowing too much of her blood.

  I decorated her arms, with a single bite on each breast. The abdomen was difficult to puncture because of the angles of the teeth and mouth, but by the time I had reached her navel, her protests had shifted from verbal abuse to tears. I spread open her legs. She was nothing but a whimpering mess.

  The inside of the thigh was the softest, best area to bite. I even hit the artery. She bled. I doubted she would bleed out from it, but it would be a large blood loss. As she lay on the ground riddled with fang holes and glistening blood, I wondered what else I could glean from her pain. I had not asked her about it, not like normal. I was more interested in how the bites appeared and felt from the vampire perspective.

  She wouldn’t beg me to stop. I didn’t know if she would inform me if I did question her. Besides, I wanted her death to reflect the vampire fetishes. I palpated her clean thigh until I found the femoral artery. I bit three times, opening it up. The blood mushroomed from each hole.

  She lasted an hour. I had to use her skirt a few times to unplug the coagulating holes. I cleared the location of as much of my physical presence as I could and waited. When her last breath wheezed I left her.

  Part of me wondered at her motivation. Part of me wondered if she and I couldn’t have teamed up. But in the end using her to learn of the bite and leaving her for the police to investigate the vampire cult was satisfying enough. A trusting partner who enjoys your passion is a keeper. I’m not sure she was such a person. She was sloppy. Her killing would lead to being caught. She could only claim in court the defense of her person once…no more than twice before a jury questioned her character. She would have drugged me down. She was a thought-provoking woman.

  I wore the teeth through customs. No one asked me to smile nor expected one. Once in an airport stall, I packed them in my carry on. At home I reluctantly smashed them, scattering the pieces. The dentist who made them may have kept no record. I’m sure the bite marks could be traced to these teeth and since they were fitted dentures, custom to my mouth, to appear as my real teeth sans fangs. They were a major nail in my coffin if found by the police.

  IV

  “MAYBE YOU SHOULD have gone by Vlad instead of your pen name.”

  “I am who I am,” Edgars says.

  “Were you going to be the girl’s first kill?” Jane asks.

  “I did check the news on her. One reporter followed a non-traditional route with her story. Most papers were content to blame the brutal attack on the want-to-be vamps, but they were actually harmless.”

  “They bite.”

  “It was all consensual. The girl, however, was seen with another man a few weeks earlier who was found stabbed to death in the back seat of his car with the same hunting knife found next to her.”

  “She was blossoming into one of us,” The Plagiarist says.

  “She would have been on his lap or on her knees in the seat to make the downward thrusts the same way she was attempting to get to me,” Edgars says.

  “She was developing a pattern,” Al says.

  “She had anger toward your gender,” Jane states, not sure if she is asking a question.

  Edgars responds, “The odd ball reporter questioned this girl’s attack because this would have been the third incident to occur while she was around. She jabbed a boy at her high school, claiming he was touching her. He swears he did but she asked him to. No one wants to shame the victim, but in this case she was asking for it.”

  “We all are,” Kenneth mumbles.

  Al notes how Jesse doesn’t seem to be the enthusiastic kid he’s been at the past meetings. “You okay, Jesse?”

  “Yeah, fine.”

  “You don’t seem yourself,” Al says.

  “Have you had a new urge, kid?” Ed asks.

  “No.”

  “Something is bothering you. You should have messaged me,” Jane says.

  “I. I’m. Look, Robert not being here. It…really bothers me.”

  “Bothers you how?” Al asks.

  Edgars picks up on Al’s concern and the kid’s nerves. “We’re here to share our motivations, kid. Why does Robert not being here cause you anxiety?”

  “I guess, if caught, you’d have the longest time in prison.” Al adds, “Being the youngest among us.”

  “Hell, they’ll tap his cute, white ass,” Ed throws in.

  “Enough. No one in this group is going to prison. We’re going to control our urges and not kill again,” Jane says.

  “Not unless someone marches into a police station and confesses,” Al says.

  “Confession clears the soul, but not to the cops. This is my confessional,” The Plagiarist says.

  “Everyone here be clear,” Edgars says, “If caught we are locked away for life. Pointing out other killers won’t reduce a sentence, it harms the rest of us.”

  “Cops lie, anyway. We only help you if you tell me.” Ed mimics. “Bullshit. They want to close a case. Cops speak to you, I’d ask for a lawyer even if it was for jaywalking.”

  “Have you spoken to the police, Jesse?” Al asks.

  “NO.” Jesse blurts too fast for the room to remain comfortable.

  Al stands. “I think this session’s over, Jane?”

  As reluctant as she sounds, Jane agrees. “You may be correct.”

  None of the group speaks any more. Al disappears into the darkness. After a few minutes Edgars slips away. One by one they all dissolve away until Jane and Jack remain with Jesse.

  “Should I invite you to the next meeting?” She asks.

  “I just got to work through something,” Jesse mutters.

  “It might be best you work through it on your own, kid.” She slips away.

  “Are you it Jack?” Jesse asks.

  “I never can tell. This old factory has many dark corners. I would never speak privately here.” Jack leaves.

  I

  BUSTED—NOT BY THE therapy group, but by the FBI. Jesse left out facts, including Edgars. Once he listed the author’s books in his report they would launch an investigation into him. He’d never get a shot at discovering his sister’s killer.

  Even if her killer wasn’t part of the group, the group could lead him to her. Dozens of people had applied to Jane’s quiz for help. He could have been among future addition to the group.

  With Agent Sutherland dead and Agent Smith present at her funeral services, a new FBI agent was assigned to be his handler. Agent Thornton slaps a yellow legal pad down on the table.

  “I don’t know if you warned them on purpose, or why you would. Maybe you were nervous with the wire, but you didn’t behave as you had before.” He scolds with all the personality of a bobcat caught in a bear trap.

  “Robert’s failure to attend set them on edge. You weren’t in the room to detect the tension. I don’t know which of them didn’t watch the news, but his not being there was the issue,” Jesse eyes the paper. All meetings in the interrogation room are recorded. He ponders the purpose of the paper.

  “You exacerbated it. I’m not going to treat you with kid gloves, the way Smith did. You may be cooperating, but you left out that one of the killers was P. A. Edgars. Pretty big clue, kid.” Agent Thornton shoves the legal pad at Jesse. “Write down everything else you left out.” He tosses a felt marker at him.

  Jesse opens his mouth to protest, but Thornton cuts him off.

  “Agent Smith just buried a partner. When he figures out you held back I doubt his badge will protect you from him beating the information out of you.”

  Jesse guesses if Smith got the chance he would swing on him. He glances down at the paper kn
owing he did have a part in Sutherland’s death.

  “Not revealing Edgars’ name makes you an accessory.”

  No more meetings. No more chances to learn about my sister’s killer. Jesse confesses, “He said he was an author. I didn’t believe he was actually Edgars.” He lies, but he knows since the group uses monikers it was a plausible lie. “I didn’t want you harassing the wrong person and giving away my chance to uncover my sister’s killer.”

  “I read about your obsession with her death, but she has been dead for two decades. I’ve seven killers, now and how many living people does that place in danger?”

  “At least one. Al. Al collected his girls. He still has one. He was contemplating how to release her, but now if they find themselves compromised he might end her. Cover his tracks.”

  Agent Thornton wasn’t expecting a confession. “Write everything or this girl’s death will be, in part, your responsibility.”

  Jesse explains how Al framed the man and stole the redheaded girl. The raving of a perpetrator and how innocent he was happening a dozen times a day in courts across the country. “We must find the county with the missing red-headed girl. And Al never said what happened to the red-headed woman. She could still be his prisoner. She has to be on a missing persons list.”

  “No. If this perp was convicted of this woman’s death then she may not be considered actively missing. But you are thinking, kid. Write it down. We have to find Al and save this girl.”

  Jesse uncaps the marker. He scrawls what he knowingly left out the first time.

  II

  THE MOMENT THE squeak of the tip on the page ceases Jesse hears Agent Smith ranting. Cramped from all the writing, Jesse drops the marker to free his fingers for flexing.

  “He’s my CI. You had no right to use him. You may have ruined all chances we have to capture those killers. What were you thinking?” Agent Smith says.

  “I didn’t want to miss the chance to gain an inside track to the meetings transpiring among a group of serial killers. You were attending Agent Sutherland’s funeral. What would have happened if the kid hadn’t attended this last meeting?” Agent Thornton asks.

  “They would have been a lot less suspicious of him than they are now. He’ll never gain back their trust.”

  “He may not need to. I’ve got him filling in any blanks now,” Agent Thornton says.

  “Now you scattered them.” Agent Smith bursts into the interrogation room. “I just lost my partner. I’ve got another agent going to require multiple skin grafts. You’re going to tell me everything that occurred in those meetings.”

  Jesse slides the legal pad across the table. Smith snatches it up and reads, flipping a page and reading more.

  Agent Thornton slips inside. “We’ve got a possible kidnapping and I’ve put in a call to a judge to get a warrant to search the home of author P.A. Edgars.”

  Smith considers slapping Jesse with the legal pad. “I don’t know, kid, if any of this would have changed Agent Sutherland’s outcome, but you’ve allowed these people a chance to escape, putting them on guard against us. Some will elude capture and return to killing. And those deaths—those deaths will be on you. You’ll have to live with that the rest of your life.”

  His words sting much worse than a slap. Jesse knows it’s true. And even if some don’t kill, those they track down will not surrender and more officers’ lives are at risk. After all he went through he’ll never learn who murdered his sister.

  JANE PLACES HER cheeseburger back onto the plastic wrapper. A news story in the crawl at the bottom of the flat screen catches her attention:

  Police believe after a standoff the FBI has taken down a serial murderer known as The Bowhunter.

  As she wakes from the moment, Jane realizes she has a mouth full of unchewed sandwich. She brings her teeth down to decimate the hunk of meat while she reaches under the table and into her purse. Hard, cold metal remains in its concealment holster ready for a quick draw. She laces her fingers around it to check the grip and a little tug confirms it will pull with ease.

  Jane decides she won’t be taken alive. She wouldn’t share such a fact with the group, as her determination was not male posturing but rather a practical assessment. After all she learned about her halfway house girls’ time behind the fence she wanted nothing to do with it. Besides answering for her philosophy was never part of her plan. She won’t become the same burden on society she used to eliminate.

  I did intend to start a group to stop serial killers. I wanted a PHD thesis never seen.

  She scrawls on a napkin, SKA Meeting Rules.

  Clicking on her iPad she connects to the mall food court WIFI the perfect camouflage to disguise her last messages to this group.

  I

  AL GRABS THE small, brown-skinned man, shoving him behind a dumpster. The Middle Eastern man struggles, but is no match for the swift reflexes of a practiced wrestler whose normal fare is a struggling woman.

  Al gets one bracelet around the left wrist. “Federal Agent, motherfucker. Abdul-Hamid, you’re under arrest for human trafficking.”

  With the second cuff securing the arm behind Abdul-Hami’s back, Al jerks the man to his feet and marches him to the back of his unmarked car.

  “You’re no FBI. You have no warrant. I want my lawyer.”

  Al shoves Abdul-Hamid in the passenger seat of his SUV before waving his FBI credentials in the man’s face. What he refuses to explain that this is not his case, nor his arrest, or that he was to report back to his examination of the Car Tap Killer after Agent Shawna Sutherland’s funeral.

  He clicks the seatbelt into place. Glancing into the dark eyes he detects the anxiety and smells the fear. Al never gets this close to killer a when on a case.

  Had he had light in the basements of the group’s meeting locations he might have read Jesse better. The kid was green, but not working for the FBI. Al detected no institution vibe. Having access to active cases would have revealed an investigation to the group just like learning of this pending bust.

  “This a, how you Americans say…a shake down?” Abdul-Hamid spits. “What do you want?”

  “To see you in the same cage you place these women in,” Al presses the push-start.

  “No. You not behaving like regular arresting cops. Maybe you just want to harass an A-rab. Not enough blacks for you to bother. They riot now. Maybe instead of harassing, I pay you, make this all go away.”

  “Bribing a federal agent is a crime,” Al says.

  “Better to go to jail for bribery than for selling little white girls. Maybe you want…little white girl. I get you one. I guarantee she look just like your niece.”

  Al balls his fist, raising it to release a punch. He ignores the contradiction in his disgust of this man over his own addiction. He doesn’t chase underage girls. The punch would give him an appearance of being normal. Normal, healthy people who don’t choke out women should beat this man to a pulp. No matter what he does or what level of hell he’ll burn in for what he does to women, they were all adults—no children. Al presses the brake and drops the vehicle into drive.

  “Even if you are a cop, you want something, or we would be driving to your station. You want a little girl. I get you two. Whatever you want. Any age you like.”

  “Shut up.” Al should cap him and drop him in the river. Normal, well-adjusted people would. No, it’s still killing. I’m trying to stop. What you want is death. Not by me.

  After a block of travel Al pulls over and cuts the engine.

  Abdul-Hamid peers out the windshield.

  Men in tactical gear marked in the lightening white S.W.A.T. BDUs attack an Asian restaurant next to an abandoned factory building.

  “I know you operate your business out of there,” Al says.

  “I care not for Asian food.”

  “Not food, Asian pussy.”

  The SWAT teams penetrate the building, followed by men in FBI windbreakers. Lots of barely audible yelling reaches the car.

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sp; “Had I not arrested you, you’d have made it to your business today and be inside right now.”

  “As you Americans believe—I owe you,” Abdul-Hamid says.

  “All I have to do is pull up and say I caught you running away from the scene I caught you outside the perimeter where they expected you to be.”

  “In a Post 9/11 America where cops are shooting people based on skin color, I’m fucking brown, motherfucker. My lawyer will claim I feared for my life. You’ve got nothing on me,” Abdul-Hamid spits.

  Al could never tell the age of Asian women. They never seem to grow old in appearance. All the long dark-haired females being escorted outside to waiting ambulances appear to be young Asian girls, dressed the way they are in the kinds of pop-up ads on the Internet claiming they are ready for love.

  “You’re one sick mother, Abdul-Hamid.”

  “Then why aren’t I with the rest of the men being arrested?”

  “Because I’m one sick motherfucker as well, and as you said, I want you to owe me,” Al admits.

  “What you want? One of those girls? You have to wait until I get some new ones. I bet you want Asian girl with big tits. Those cost, but not for you.”

  “Abdul-Hamid, I don’t need you to provide me with a girl.”

  “You Americans. If it’s not sex it’s money—usually to buy sex. How much do you want?”

  “I have a problem only you can fix.”

  “If you want Arab boy…it take me a week.”

  “Listen motherfucker, my hands are no cleaner than yours and now I’m in a bind. You might end up in prison. But now you know they’re on to you and I bet if I let you go you’ll flee the country and not return,” Al says.

  “I have places to go,” Abdul-Hamid says.

  “If you leave does your operation shut down?”

  Abdul-Hamid considers his answer, “As long as there is demand someone will provide a product. And there is a great deal of demand. Men always pay for sex. If not me someone else.”