Morbid Curiosity: Erter & Dobbs Book 3

by Nick Keller

  William made a desperate, tiny noise and went back to work on his hand, twisting and pulling. He initiated one last powerful tug, and it popped free.

  He sat there looking at both hands, dumbfounded. They were bloody, but free.

  He shot a gaze down to his feet. Both ankles were latched tight.

  He heard the sound of grunting way over in the warehouse. It wasn’t Graves. It was Graves’s monster. The thing was pulling itself up from the hatch, probably getting fully to its feet.

  No time. No time!

  William attacked the computer keyboard flipping rivulets of blood across the monitor screen. There was no pass-lock. Graves had overlooked the possibility of escape. Thank God!

  He brought up a web browser and typed LinkTech dot com. The open wheel spun. Too slow! He shot a gaze over to the right, listening. The thing’s step-slurrr whispered from the distance, its hacking and gurgling becoming clearer.

  The page opened.

  Sign In

  He entered his profile name and password lightning quick, the sound of smashing keys exploding. No time for silence. Another spinning wheel.

  “C’mon,” he whispered.

  His profile page opened. He navigated to the help screen. It opened, offered a cursor.

  A shadow pushed across the floor just behind him, cast by the far light of the warehouse. It was stretched way out, but Graves’s monster was getting closer with each step. It would be rounding the corner of his workstation in seconds.

  William typed:

  Jacky help 679 N Ave 21

  Graves turned the corner, noticed William through those insane eyes. William’s hands were free. Graves stood frozen.

  William slapped SEND.

  Graves attacked with an animal’s growl throwing his arms around William’s neck. William wrenched behind him tugging at his sweater, his hair, anything he could grab onto. Graves twisted him down onto the bed. A shot of agony went up William’s flanks. Graves’s arm covered his neck and mouth. William bit down hard. Graves snarled painfully, but his strength was immense. It was immeasurable. William was trapped, unable to budge inside Graves’s power. It was Theraphosa. It was the spider.

  Something pounded William in the back of his head banging his brain inside his skull. It was a hammer-fist, and William went lax, dizzy and blinking.

  “You fight,” Graves said, snorting and chortling. “Good. I like fight.”

  He released William and he slumped back onto the table. Graves clamped William’s left arm back into its restraint. All William could do was roll his head back and forth, try to focus, but his vision doubled, pulled apart. Graves now held a syringe in his hand. He pushed the plunger a tiny bit and a stream of liquid arced from it. William’s panic burned anew.

  Jesus. He hadn’t noticed that syringe a moment ago. Where had he gotten that thing? What did Graves plan, now?

  Graves squeezed William’s forearm with a monster’s power until the vein inside it swelled up and he jabbed the needle in.

  “N-no,” William mumbled.

  “Hush up,” Graves said. “This make you feel good again.” He depressed the plunger and in a rush, William felt his body melt away, become one with the still, stagnant air in the warehouse.

  He grumbled through lips that wouldn’t work, “Oh, God. Heh… heroin.” His eyes rolled back and everything went heavy, like a burden.

  Graves’s monster nodded at him with a big, ugly grin and said, “Uh-huh. Lots and lots and lots.”

  William felt himself start to fade. “Over—” Then he drifted away and away and away, “—dose.”

  44

  Gamma Oscillations

  William twirled spaghetti around and around with his fork, winding the noodles between the prongs, then unwinding them back into a pile. Then he repeated, winding and unwinding, staring into his tray of food like a hypnotic, hardly blinking. His mind was somewhere else, wondering things he knew he shouldn’t be. What did it all mean?

  Tulsa. Cincinnati. Buffalo. Wichita Falls. Phoenix. Baton Rouge. So many others. It was impossible. His own father? No, something was wrong. His father was the perfect dad, always involved, always loving, always with a positive word. The numbers were too perfect. The facts were unmistakable. A man murders a family. He likes it. So, he murders again. How could he go unnoticed? How could he evade the law so perfectly, make his crimes a seamless life’s calling? He travels, that’s how. He travels all the time, always hiding among the masses, another face in the crowd, another airport-person walking through checkpoints, eyeballs scanning, mind turning, all the time. And he hides behind a perfect family, a real Leave-it-to-Beaver lifestyle. Except for Mom. Why was she always so sad? What did she know?

  Milo grinned watching him through squinted eyes. “Dude, you going to eat that?”

  William twitched, looked up. “Huh?”

  “You going to eat your food?”

  “Oh, uh, yeah.”

  Milo’s grin grew wider. “No you’re not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lunch is almost over, man. You haven’t touched your food.” Milo laughed at his own words and corrected, “Actually, you’ve been touching the shit out of it. You just haven’t been eating it.”

  William threw his fork down. “What’re you, my mother?”

  “Sorry, man.” Milo scooped his last mouthful of food into his mouth and stood with his tray, started to leave but turned back, angry. “What’s with you, dude?”

  William snapped back, “Nothing, alright? Just nothing.”

  Milo huffed, “Whatever, man,” and walked off.

  Classes passed like dreams. The volume was turned down on the world. Everything was muted and dizzy. Everyone spoke to him from a faraway place. He moved through moments on autopilot, just doing things without being fully aware. He felt hypnotized, always sick in the stomach, always forcing his mind into other directions, but always coming back to the same impossible realization.

  My dad is the Portrait Killer.

  My dad is the Portrait Killer.

  My dad is the Portrait Killer.

  He stumbled through encounters, answering questions with blank words, nodding at teachers, making excuses to Milo and his team, acting sick, force-feeding himself at night, stumbling in and out of the shower, hardly sleeping. It was like being a ghost of himself casting less of a shadow than before, yet still present enough to convince everybody he was still there. He was at home. He was at school. He was in class. He was back home. Then school again, over and over. A day went by, then another, maybe a week.

  From somewhere he heard the words, “It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain: but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.” He snapped out of his daze and looked up. He was in English Lit class. He didn’t remember how he’d gotten here, but Mrs. Jenkins was covering the Tell Tale Heart. A story about murder and guilt. They were Edgar Allen Poe’s words sent through time directly into William’s ears. Now they were his words, his alone, resonating inside him.

  Later—perhaps hours—he found himself standing alone in a crowded hallway, everything in neutral. The day was getting late. He would be returning home soon. When he blinked and came back to himself he realized he’d followed DeAnna to her locker again. He watched her as she shuffled supplies into her book bag. This was his routine. It had become automatic. His brain had defaulted. Now it was on auto-pilot, just doing what was familiar. He watched her closely through dead, doll’s eyes. There was nothing beautiful in the world anymore, nothing worth desiring. How could he love her now?

  “Hey, what’s up, man?” came a voice from behind.

  William turned and had to look up. Kevin Ronin stood behind him with that every-boy grin on his face, eyes ablaze with life. “You’re William, right?”

  William forced a swallow as he realigned himself. “Yeah,” he said.

  “Oh cool. Dea’s told me about you. I’m Kevin.” He put a hand out. William just looked at it, then back up.

&nbs
p; “She told you about me?”

  “Yeah, man. You’re friends, right, same debate team and all? She’s really into that. Sounds like hard work. I don’t think I could do it, but …”

  “What did she say about me?”

  “Just that you guys are friends. In fact,” he snapped his fingers and gave a jocular sort of giggle, “you two are like the research gods of Truman High.” He laughed at his own joke. His head was always in motion, bouncing up and down with some sick, joyful nature. It made William frown. It seemed Kevin had his bell rung on the gridiron one too many times, apparently. Or maybe he was just too goddamn friendly, too goddamn sociable.

  “We’re friends, huh?” William groaned.

  “Yeah. That’s cool. That’s why I wanted to come say hi. Me and Dea—we want to be friends with each other’s friends, y’know?”

  “Dea?” William said ridiculously.

  “Uh, yeah. DeAnna.”

  “Right. So why do you and Dea want to be friends with each other’s friends?”

  Kevin smiled open-mouthed and looked around searching for an answer. He settled on, “Makes things easier and all. Plus, it’s just cooler that way, y’know.”

  It? What did it mean? What was it? This guy was a faker. He was see-through. He was going to hurt her, bad. And the sooner the better. Maybe the school loved this Kevin Ronin bastard, maybe the whole world loved him, maybe DeAnna loved him too. But they were blind. They didn’t see the things William could see. The world was a nightmare. It was a horror-scape. No one loved anyone. Not even fathers. “That’s the way it works, huh?” William said.

  Kevin drew back grinning unsurely. “Yeah,” he said.

  “I see,” William muttered, and walked off.

  It was after school, or at least it seemed that way. Everyone was shuffling toward the exits, spilling out into the parking lot. William figured he might as well follow. A voice called from behind. “Hey, weirdo!”

  He turned around. It was DeAnna. She moved her way through the crowd and came to him. She had a feint look on her face seasoned with a smile. “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I’m going home,” he answered.

  She clicked her tongue frustrated. “We’re supposed to meet in the library today, remember? We’re putting together data for our closing argument.”

  “Oh,” William said, trying to recall their earlier plans. Yes, he remembered. Meeting in the library. He switched his eyes back and forth. How could he do that? How was he supposed to spend the next hours shuffling facts, being logical and studious? He looked back up. “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t?”

  “I have something else.”

  “Like what?”

  He searched for an answer, but the attempt was only haphazard. He said, “Just something else.”

  She cocked a hip and put a hand on it. “What’s up with you?”

  “Huh?”

  “You’ve been weird lately.”

  Something ignited inside him, something like a grenade. “I can’t, alright!” he shouted, making her flinch. He turned and started walking, but her footsteps were quick on his heels.

  “Hey,” she blared, “we’re depending on you. We’re a team.”

  “So what!” He kept walking.

  “You’re just going to leave?”

  “Yeah, I’m just going to leave.”

  “Fine,” she sneered, “but if we bomb this debate it’s going to be on you, William.”

  He stopped, turned and beamed at her, red-faced like a psychotic. It made her shrink back. “What do I care if we bomb the debate? You got Milo, you got Tanvir. You don’t need me.” He spun around but stopped, anger still growing. He turned back and stepped toward her. “And you know who else you got? You got that big, dumb lugnut, what’s-his-face. So go get him. Just go.”

  Her eyes welled up, started to glisten. Her tears speared him deeper toward his madness, made him smell blood. “Oh yeah,” he shouted, “he’ll meet you in the library. Oh, you bet—he’ll meet all over you. So go. Go on!”

  Her face made a horrible, stupefied look as tears began to fall. Quickly, she turned away and rushed off. He watched her run away as a feeling of self-loathing sank into him so deep and so perfect it seemed an iron thing, like a hammer pounding at him. His stomach hurt and he had to turn the other way unable to watch her sink into the crowd any further with those tiny, beautiful girl’s hands covering her face, ashamed of her own tears.

  William made it as far as Pioneer Street marching like mad to cleanse his rotting mind, eyes down and cursing to himself, before Milo’s car came racing toward him from behind. The horn beeped making him step aside. Milo peeled into the empty parking lot just ahead and squealed the brakes. He got out, slammed the door and glared at him over the top of the car.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you, man!” Milo barked.

  William approached, his stride unbroken, and spat back, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Milo stepped into his path cutting him off. William growled at him attempting to move around, but Milo sidestepped again and said, “No!”

  “Milo, get out of the way,” William warned.

  “No.”

  William moved around, but Milo sidestepped to the left with his hands on him. William gave him a shove knocking him over, but a fistful of shirt snagged him back spinning him around. “What’s your problem, dude?” Milo said.

  “Nothing, alright, just—nothing!” His voice was high-pitched and reckless.

  “Fine, but don’t ever go talking to DeAnna like that again, man, that’s bullshit!”

  “Oh, you banging her, too?” William cried.

  “Oh man, is that what this is all about, DeAnna and that Kevin kid? Are you kidding me?” Milo scoffed. “That’s just childish, Will. It’s below you, man.”

  William slammed his book bag down on the hood of Milo’s car and growled, “Okay, you want to know what’s up, buddy?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Okay. Alright.” He rifled into the bag yanking out one research binder, then another and laid them gruffly out on the car. He laughed hysterically slinging pages. “You know that research I was doing, the Portrait Killer research, you know that guy that’s been going around offing people in different cities?”

  Milo threw his bead back, frustrated. “Jesus, I thought we dropped that, man.”

  “Check it out, look, I got all the dates of all his murders right here, look!” He found the page and hammered it with his finger. Milo stepped away, reluctant, but William grabbed his shoulder. “You’re not listening!” he roared.

  “Jesus,” Milo said looking down at the material. The pages were laminated. There were spreadsheets of information. Everything was color-coded by line, column. Different spreads were categorized by different tags. Even the headers had meticulous font usage. William had pored over the work for hours, days. It was obsessive. It caught Milo’s attention, made him focus.

  William continued, “Look, these are all his kills. Look at the dates. They go back to nineteen eighty-four. Twenty-one years. Look at this,” he ran his finger across one column. “Tulsa. Cincinnati. Buffalo. Wichita Falls. Phoenix. Look, they go all the way back to nineteen eighty-four. Chicago.” He looked at Milo. His eyes burned a hot red, out of control. “They’ve been trying to catch this guy ever since. Here, look.” He flipped pages ravenously and stopped at one, spinning the entire notebook to face Milo. “There’s FBI reports released to the public. They’ve been in contact with local constabularies all over the freakin’ nation, man. He goes to one city, does a whole family. Goes to another, does it again, always a step ahead, always, like, in the shadows. And look what he does, just look.” He flipped more pages, found the one with photocopy images of dead people, entire gene pools. Milo turned away, disgusted. “Milo, listen to me.”

  “No, man!” Milo exploded. “You’re crazy. You’re obsessed, man. Why—why are you even doing this? This is—this is so crazy. This is
n’t even your problem, man. This is the FBI’s problem. Let the FBI handle it.”

  “That’s not all. That’s not all.” William went to the other binder, opened it in a flurry. It was the same as the other—laminated pages, color-coded data, filled with spreadsheets. “It doesn’t look like a pattern, just a bunch of random nonsense. You have to reference it with other source materials. When you do, it all falls into place.” He found the right page. “You know my dad, right? He travels, flies around all over the place. He has ever since I can remember. He’s like some, I don’t know, trainer guy or something, for General Electric. So look, I found all his itinerary information, flight receipts and stuff going all the way back to nineteen-eighty-four.” He glanced up at his friend. Milo was only half-interested, rubbing his face doubtfully. “Listen, goddammit. This is serious!”

  Milo realigned his composure blowing his bangs up out of his face. “Okay, I’m listening.”

  William shuffled the notebooks side by side, showing spreadsheet information on his dad’s flight history next to Portrait Killer’s crime history. “Check out the dates. Look at the pattern. Go ahead, check them out.”

  Milo looked down at the pages. His head cocked to the side, eyes squinted. He read for a long moment making the connection in his head. The dates matched. Every one. He pulled back from the pages with a thoughtful grimace. William watched him, hungry for his reaction. His eyes went to William with both skepticism and realization. Then he broke into laughter; loud, hysterical laughter.

  “What?” William said.

  “Are you trying to tell me your dad, Mr. Erter—Mr. Oscar Erter—is this, what do they call him?”

  “Portrait Killer. Portrait Killer,” William said.

  “Yeah, Portrait Killer. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  “It’s right here, look!” William said, wildly indicating the binders.

  “Man, come on, William. That’s loony. Do you know how many other people were in those cities on those dates?”

  “No,” William cried. “Who?”