I eased back and forth between the two dreams. At one point in the torture dungeon dream, the man wielding the knife sliced the victim’s throat. He continued cutting downward as the victim gasped and continued to yell. The pitch of the yell changed dramatically—it was blood curdling. It stopped when the knife sliced through the vertebrae and the head was separated from the body. Through it all, the lone man sitting in the shadows continued to watch with a sense of deranged excitement.
I woke up feeling sick, hung over, and in pain from the awkward position I’d slept in on the sofa. When I looked out the window and up the hill at the Henderson home, I didn’t notice anything unusual. There were no footprints in the snow leading from my house to the Henderson place. On the other hand, the snow had fallen so quickly and so heavily—
Nonsense! It had all been just a dream!
But it seemed so real!
I tried to put the nightmare images out of my mind the rest of the afternoon. I spent the rest of that day avoiding Ellen, who was angry with me for being out late, and for coming home drunk.
* * *
One day in early December, Susan and James were spoiling for trouble. This time they turned their attention on Ellen. The two of them were huddled together on their front porch, smoking cigarettes, when Ellen pulled our car into our driveway from a shopping trip. James sauntered over. It was Ellen’s screams of protests and Grace’s barking that roused me from my office where I was working. I stormed down the stairs and outside to see James pulling at one of the grocery bags—Ellen was holding onto it tightly. The bag split and canned goods and frozen meat spilled onto the sidewalk. James made a mock cry of shock. “Oh, I spilled your stuff! Oh, what can I ever do to repay you!”
My rage was so huge it eclipsed all rational thought. I hurled myself at him. Before I knew it, I’d delivered two blows to his face. I was moving in for a third when he came up from under me and landed a solid punch to my stomach. The air was knocked out of me and I was momentarily stunned by the precision of the blow. That was the only window of opportunity he needed. James followed this with a swift uppercut that caught me on the chin. The force of the blow knocked me back, and I almost fell. I literally saw stars. Then I was knocked flat on the ground and I could only curl in a fetal position as James began to rain kicks upon my body—my back, my thighs, my kidneys. Ellen screamed in rage and launched herself at James. Susan launched herself at Ellen. It all become one giant fight.
What stopped it was Allison. Through the chaos of that afternoon, it was Allison’s voice that stopped the fight dead cold. “Stop it, or I swear to God, I’ll kill you!”
The kicks James was raining down on me ceased. I heard Susan gasp, and then James said, “Now Allison, put that down. You know kids like you shouldn’t be handling weapons.”
I managed to crane my head around and see through blurred vision what had stopped the fight dead cold.
Allison stood at the edge of the driveway. She was holding a very large pistol in both hands, classic shooter stance, and that barrel was pointing directly at James. Her hands shook. Behind me, at the house, I could hear Grace barking furiously. I had no doubt that if she could get out, she would tear James to shreds.
James held his hands up. He smiled at Allison. “C’mon Allison. Put the gun down. Don’t be stupid.”
Susan scowled at her daughter. “You little bitch, did you take that gun from James’ coat?”
“Shut up!” Allison shouted. I saw her finger curl around the trigger and tighten. She was in tears. It took at least a minute for my vision to regain its center, but during that time I heard everything very clear. “I am tired of you…what you do to me…”
I spoke up, my vision still fighting to retain clarity. “Allison, don’t do this. James and Susan are leaving. They’re going to get into that car James drives and they’re going to drive away. You’re not going to shoot them. Am I right, James?”
“Yeah, you’re right, pulp boy,” James said. He began to move back and down the driveway. Susan backed away from Ellen, who was leaning against our car. Ellen’s hair was in disarray over her face.
I gritted my teeth as I rose to my feet. The pain in my abdomen was tremendous. A wave of nausea swam through me and I fought it down. Through it all, I watched Allison train the barrel of that gun on her mother and James as they backed down my driveway and onto the sidewalk. They backed up toward Susan’s house, and the car that was parked in her driveway—James’ vehicle, a 1928 Ford that had seen better days. I watched as James and Susan climbed in the vehicle, backed up, and drove away. Only then did Allison lower the pistol.
“Allison,” I called out gently. “Come here.”
Allison slowly turned to me. Tears streamed down her face. “I can’t…I can’t take this anymore! I just wanted to kill them!”
“I know, Allison,” I said. I held my hand up. It hurt to talk; it hurt to move. I’ve never fought a man as powerful and as lethal as James, and I’ve been in my fair share of brawls. This was the first fight I’d ever lost. “Put the gun on the ground, with the barrel facing away from us.”
Allison put the gun on the ground, then leaned against the car and sobbed. Ellen went to her and took the girl in her arms. Wincing in pain, I shuffled over to where the gun was. I picked it up, un-cocked it, and got the cartridge flipped open. It was loaded, with a round in the chamber. I very carefully unloaded the weapon, placed all seven shells in my breast pocket, and fought my way up.
By the time I made it to my feet, Ellen had gotten Allison under control. They helped me into the house. Ellen had to calm Grace down once we got inside—the dog was bouncing with nervous tension. Allison and I sat in the living room while Ellen herded Grace into the mud room, then went into the kitchen to pack ice in some towels for my wounds.
Allison stayed with us that day and the next. We phoned Linda and told her what happened. She gave Allison permission to stay with us for the next few days. Allison did not want to go back to the house, and I can’t say that I blame her. We talked a lot about the situation those three nights. On the night of December 10, when I felt good enough to get around without hobbling like a cripple, I made my way to Jack Henderson’s place and had a drink with him. Cathy had gone to bed early that night, so it was just Jack and I in his study. I told Jack everything that had happened and he listened quietly. “The two of them are the kind of people that nobody will miss if they were to disappear. The lifestyles they lead…if it wasn’t for Susan being allowed to live under Linda’s roof, they’d be your typical tramps. Vagrants. The kind of people the Cleveland Torso Killer likes.”
“I agree,” Jack said softly. He didn’t look at me. He was looking out the study window, toward Linda Kenyon’s home. “And now that you’ve told me about their history…especially how it relates to Allen Tinker’s death, it all makes sense. Does Allison still think Doug Tinker is a vampire? You know there was a murder recently, right?”
“Yes, I know.” Last week, the dismembered body of a tramp was found in an alley in the heart of New Castle. The body was frozen solid from the bitter cold, but the coroner determined the victim had been drained of blood. Allison had confided in me that she had been spying on Doug Tinker that afternoon with her binoculars and noticed Doug acting stranger than normal. “And yes, Allison still thinks Doug Tinker is some kind of supernatural creature.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” I said, my mind racing. “It’s only going to be a matter of time before a fuss is raised about these murders. I don’t know if they’ll focus on Doug this time. I suppose anything is possible.”
“Would Linda try to help him?” Jack asked. He turned to me. He appeared genuinely interested in my answer. “Do you think she and her son will ever make amends?”
I sighed. “I know Linda wants that very much.”
Jack nodded. He looked out the window again. He appeared to be in deep thought. I waited a moment, then continued. “Linda says Susan and James have gone to
Youngstown. He stays with family there, but I’ve been told he stays in YMCA centers too.
“Does he?”
Jack continued looking out the window. We spent the remainder of that night talking about Susan and James, the kind of people they were, what they’d done to Allison; we talked about the scant knowledge I had of James and his habits, the kind of places he liked to frequent; we talked about my hopes that I could sell a novel to a big publisher in New York, make enough money to move away from the Kenyon family and their troubles. Jack assured me that I had a bright future. “Things are looking up, my boy,” he said. We were on our third drink and the fire cast a warm glow in the room. “The economy is picking up. It’s still in the dumps, but it isn’t 1932 again, either. And damn the Nazi’s! Hitler can have all of Europe as far as I’m concerned. What’s going on over there shouldn’t concern us. What should concern us is what goes on here at home. Am I right?”
We clinked glasses and drank to that.
Five days later there was a fierce blizzard that dumped two feet of snow across Ohio and Pennsylvania. I spent most of that time in the house, pounding out a novel for Dime Mystery magazine. On my one venture outside I caught a wonderful sight: Allison was playing in the snow. Linda was with her, the two of them bundled up against the frigid cold. Allison had a sled; she’d climb the hill behind our respective properties, then slide down, screaming and whopping in delight. She was acting more like a ten-year old than the fifteen-year old young woman she was.
It didn’t occur to me to wonder where Susan was. I hardly thought about her anymore. But when Christmas came and went, then January turned to February and then into March and I still didn’t see her, I began to wonder. I didn’t see much of Doug Tinker, either.
We had a few more snowstorms that winter, but in between them I’d head outside to walk Grace. Allison would sometimes come out and wave at me. Each time she did, she smiled. I smiled back. She seemed like an entirely new person. Happy. Relaxed and outgoing.
And Susan was still gone.
I got a job at an advertising agency in Pittsburg, writing copy for display and print ads. I commuted to downtown Pittsburg every day. I began to see less of Jack Henderson, but that was okay. He was busy, too.
One day in late April, I took the risk of casually asking Allison where her mother was. It was a brisk, mid-spring afternoon. I was in my backyard with Grace, throwing a ball for her. Allison had ventured out onto her back deck wearing a pair of shorts and a billowy shirt. I couldn’t help but notice how she was blossoming. In the past six months or so she had truly come out of her shell. Instead of the screams of pain and terror I was accustomed to hearing next door, Ellen and I now heard peals of happy laughter. On some nights we could hear Allison and Linda talking and laughing, as if they were seated at the dining room table sharing a meal together.
Allison shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s just gone.”
“What do you mean, she’s gone?”
“After that fight we had in your driveway, she and James left.”
“They never came back?”
“No.” Allison wasn’t smiling by any means. But I could tell that the simple fact of her abusive mother no longer being in her life had made an incredibly positive influence on her. “No, she never came back. I’ll be honest, at first we were worried. My Grammy and I called a few friends of hers and nobody has seen her.”
“You never called the police?”
“What for?” Allison had started walking closer to my property. I could see she was going to grow into a tall woman. Her hair, now combed nice and clean, blew about her shoulders in healthy waves. A sharp contrast to the girl with the long, matted hair that hid behind her long tresses so nobody would see the fresh bruises around her eyes. “Look, Mr. Brennan…my Grammy and I…just want things to go the way they’re going now. Know what I mean? If my mom ran off with James to live with him, then that’s her choice. We’re better off without her and she’s better off without us.”
“So you’re not worried about her?” As horrible a person Susan was, I couldn’t help but feel that if she were my mother, I’d be worried about her. Call it an instinctual reaction.
“No.” Allison’s gaze was direct, strong. “I’m not worried and neither is my Grammy. We’re happy.”
I sighed. “Yes, I can see that.”
Allison smiled. “For all I know, my mom and James ran off and got married and decided to live somewhere else. That’s fine with me.”
But of course that wasn’t the case, and this was confirmed May 4 when the news hit the papers about three murder victims found in McKee’s Rock, Pennsylvania. I read the article with nervous dread, sipping my coffee as Ellen bustled about upstairs. My hands shook as I read the article once, twice, my mind focusing on the details:
Three bodies, found in three separate abandoned boxcars that had been left idle for several months in a Youngstown, Ohio railway yard; the boxcars had then traveled to McKee’s Rock, where railroad inspectors found the bodies. It was estimated all three victims had been dead since December.
The first two bodies, a male and a female, dismembered and stuffed into burlap bags, the heads missing. A third male victim was found in a boxcar between the other two bodies. He’d been apparently killed where he was found, his head cleanly cut off. The floor of the boxcar was stained with a great amount of blood.
The killer had carved the word NAZI, with an inverted Z, in the chest of the third victim. All three heads were missing and would never be found.
According to the article, police were still trying to identify the victims. I already knew who two of them were.
Once again, Cleveland Police descended into Pennsylvania. The lead detective in the Torso case was once again adamant who the killer was—the elusive fiend who had ceased killing hoboes and derelicts in Cleveland almost two years before. “I believe our Cleveland Killer has pulled up stakes and is stalking victims in the greater east Pennsylvania area,” the detective was quoted as saying in the newspapers.
A few weeks later, one of the victims was identified as James Nicholson, from Wisconsin. His was the corpse found with the crudely carved word NAZI across his torso. It turned out James had a criminal record as a thief and a part-time male prostitute.
I didn’t dare ask Allison in the weeks and months that followed the discovery of the bodies if she suspected Doug was involved. She never sought me out, either. That was the year she turned sixteen and re-entered the public school system thanks to the efforts of her grandmother, who no longer had her daughter’s threats hanging over her head. Ellen and I would move away from New Castle the following winter to Lancaster, PA, where I transferred to my agency’s satellite office and where we would go on to raise two daughters. I didn’t ask Allison if she and her grandmother ever contacted the New Castle police with their suspicion that the unidentified female body—that, according to the brief description in the paper—shared the same body type and weight as Susan. The dismembered bodies found in the burlap bags were badly decomposed, making it impossible to obtain fingerprints. No personal items had been left with the bodies. And the heads were never recovered.
That summer was the confirmation for me. That was our main reason for selling the house and moving to the other side of the state. I didn’t tell Allison and Linda this, nor did I say anything to Ellen. I worked hard to maintain my usual semblance of the good neighbor, even though I had a shady past. Once again that summer, our home became the place to come to for neighborhood picnics, late afternoon games of cards, bull sessions in the backyard over a bucket of ice-cold beer. Ellen and I began babysitting Jack and Cathy’s children more as the two of them were always so busy, she with her family and various activities, he with his job. I maintained my relationship with Allison on a casual level. But through it all, I was a paranoid wreck.
I kept tabs after we left, of course. There were two more murders in New Castle in the two years that followed. Both victims were discarded in the woods behind our homes
. Both victims, once again, were never identified. Through casually inquiring with old friends who still lived in the area, I learned that Doug continued his nightly walks around town. Around the time the last New Castle victim was discovered, in 1942, people in town began to make vague accusations toward Doug. Shortly after that, Doug and Linda reconciled. I understand it was very emotional. He sold his home and moved in with Linda and Allison. I wish I had had a chance to talk to Allison when this happened. I have to wonder if those first few weeks were filled with fearful trepidation at the discovery that Doug Tinker, who she was certain was a vampire or a ghoul, responsible for the New Castle murders, was in reality her uncle.
Jack and Cathy continued to live in the neighborhood and they raised two fine children. Jack became a senior executive with the Pennsylvania Railroad. He was largely confined to a desk job, but he occasionally traveled.
The murders in New Castle stopped by then; for almost eight years there were no Torso-like killings in either eastern PA or Ohio. There were, however, crimes of a similar nature in other parts of the country; upstate New York, Michigan, Indiana. In July of 1950, a vagrant named Robert Robertson was murdered in Cleveland, his dismembered and beheaded body discarded in a lumberyard. The county coroner was quoted as being quite chilled when he performed his autopsy. It was as if the specter of the Cleveland Torso killer was back in the city.
Where he haunted the collective nightmares for the next several generations.
Postscript
By 1951 or so, Linda was dead, Doug was back to living alone, and Allison was gone, I heard off to college. I lost track of everybody in our old New Castle neighborhood and I couldn’t really afford to keep up. I had my own growing family to take care of, and my career. If you google my name, you’ll see I had a pretty good run in the 1950s and 1960s as a novelist of paperback originals, mostly of hardboiled crime fiction and the occasional supernatural horror novel and thriller. It was enough to earn a comfortable middle-class life. In 1971, one of my novels was made into a very successful film starring Clint Eastwood. My career continued until I “retired” from writing in 1979 (writing without the pressure of a contract or deadline, that is…I remained active in writing and continued to publish novels and short stories until the early years of the twenty-first century).
It Drinks Blood Page 7