The Black Chronicle

by Oldrich Stibor

  With the poker concealed by his side he opened the door to reveal…

  Nothing. Suburban silence. The sprinkler system jutted and sprayed, jutted and sprayed. He looked behind the small row of bushes next to the door for good measure. Nada.

  He could feel his anger starting to bubble up again. The urge for sex and thoughts of his ex were both gone now and all he felt was the need to sleep. He wanted this situation to be over but he was confused. There was no way it was a coincidence that they’d received that disturbing call and someone had rung their bell only minutes later. This was someone having some fun. He thought about calling out Kevin’s name to let him know they knew it was him, but for some reason he didn’t understand, decided against it.

  Closing and locking the deadbolt he went to make sure the back door was locked knowing, Sara would insist he do so anyway. Somewhere in the safety of his home something foreign and unwelcome moved. Two quick footsteps and a mass was on him. A cold object pressed against his neck and there was a loud clicking sound his mind instinctively tried to place even as painful convulsions overtook him and brought him down to the floor, rigid and immobile. Just before the darkness swallowed him he recognized what the sound had been: a stun gun.

  ***

  Sara sat stiffly in bed, her lungs hungrily sucking at the air while she tried to bring some semblance of calm to her mind. Where was Greg? He had been gone for longer than she’d expected. Her fear had begun to be undercut by a sour note of annoyance; he knew how scared she was. She was annoyed at herself for feeling this way, and annoyed at Greg for taking so long, and really annoyed at her brother Kevin if it was him. She threw the book on the floor and cocked her ear to the side, as if angling a satellite dish for better reception.

  It was amazing what you could hear when you sat perfectly still. She could hear the barely detectable hum of the light bulb in the lamp next to the bed. She could hear the cool central air gently seeping from the vents. She could even detect, she thought, the sound of her own heart, thumping wildly like a tiny animal hopping around madly in its cage.

  She thought about going to hide in the kids’ room. She could tuck the three of them away in the closet but couldn’t stand the thought of Greg teasing her all night when this all turned out to be some sort of stupid joke as he suspected. Maybe it was even him playing this joke. He’d left the room right as she’d gotten that call. Would he do something like that?

  Then there he was. Impossible but true. His ghostly white mass filling the door frame; she recognized him instantly. He stood perfectly still at the entrance to her bedroom, heightening the surrealism of the moment. He just stood there, unmoving like an ivory statute or a ghost stuck in time. He was facing away from her, looking at something else down the hall. She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t even conjure the impulse to want to scream. She was petrified and it was only her stomach which seemed to have the ability to react, as it tightened and turned once she realized what the intruder was staring at: the children’s room.

  Finally her empty lungs found enough air to gasp, and she did so loudly again and again. Mister slowly turned his head to face her, as though he’d only then realized she was there.

  He was dressed all in white: white shoes, white pants and white shirt. A long white trench coat and hood which hung down low over his face, which was also painted white. His tie, his gloves – everything white. Every single inch of him was somehow covered in white.

  It really was him, the serial killer – Mister. This couldn’t be real, but it was.

  What had he done to Greg and why hadn’t she heard a struggle? Knowing he would do whatever it took to protect his family, she decided right then and there that he must be dead.

  ***

  Mister remained very still and watched with a certain sense of satisfaction as Sara struggled with the hopelessness of the situation, grappled with the unbelievable. He could tell she recognized him. He was famous now and all of his victims recognized him. And why shouldn’t they recognize him? He was their nucleus after all.

  That of course didn’t mean it wasn’t still fun for him. It didn’t reduce the act to masturbation or self-mutilation. There was still the distinction of him and them, even if it was all so much illusion.

  He knew that the first step he took towards her would throw her into a frenzy so he let the moment between them stretch out. The tension was exhilarating. He let it grow and swell until it hung in the air, thick and dense like a noxious industrial gas.

  Finally, he took exactly one theatrical and elaborate step into the room and watched the fear dissolve her like acid dumped on a flower. Dance, puppet.

  It was amusing to see her clutching the pillow in front of her like some sort of shield. But it wasn’t a shield, it was simply a sack of feathers. The phone was right there on the bed. Why didn’t she try to call for help? Why didn’t she grab the lamp and try to fight him off? Was his will too strong for her? This phenomenon was familiar to him now. The ability to use terror to petrify the no-men. He was the snake charmer, her fear was the flute and he played it in sharp dissonant notes. He knew her type. She would comply. She would cry, and try and block it out and deny what he was about to do to her, but in the end she would comply.

  He took another slow step towards her. She was a beautiful manifestation. He inched closer to her, captivated by her pretty bloodshot eyes. Her tears were like diamonds streaming from red pools of amber and onyx.

  Sara lost bodily control and began wetting herself. Suddenly Mister felt his longing get the better of him. He watched as the wetness darkened the crotch of her pyjamas and slowly spread outwards. It was just so fucking cute. She had gone and wet herself just like a sweet little baby. His baby. His little baby doll for as long as he wanted her. She was so precious. But he shouldn’t be too gentle with her, lest she get spoiled and try and sass him. No, no, no. He would not tolerate any sass.

  He wanted to open his mouth and speak. He wanted to introduce himself and explain what he expected from her. But he kept his mouth closed for fear that she would see the red of his tongue or the pink of his gums as he spoke. He would not reveal so much of himself to her. She was not deserving of that. Not yet.

  ***

  In a flash he was on her but Sara still found herself unable to move. It was as though her body refused to take any actions which might validate that what was happening was really real.

  He grabbed her by the hair and tore her off the bed. He then took a handful of her hair by the roots and curled his fist full upwards, tautening it at the scalp. They were out in the hallway and headed for the stairs before Sara was able to start struggling.

  She kicked and thrashed with her long legs, twisting and turning and flopping and shrieking, her hands wildly slapping at him. She was possessed by a single thought: The children will be next.

  Mister just laughed at her as though she was a little kitten making hissing sounds. With a sigh of exasperation he grabbed her head with both white gloved hands and bounced it off the high polished glossy hard wood flooring, then calmly stepped over her and jabbed her in the mouth. He took a brief moment to observe the smattering of red blood across his white fist and then leaned over her and appraised her broken and bloody lips.

  Sara thought she could see his white ghoulish face spread into a smile as he turned and pulled her down the stairs so fast the world around her blurred into a smear. And then she was at the bottom, her spine aching, unbearably hot and wet with sweat and blood and urine.

  Then, as though he knew the layout of their house as well as she, he pulled her straight to the door leading to the basement and dragged her down by her ankles. This time she didn't struggle and focussed only on taking the steps with minimal injury.

  The basement was cool and dark save for the light from the stairway which cut through the door frame in an elongated rectangle. He flipped her over and pushed her face into the soft carpet. Her first thought was that he was going to take her like this, with her face down on the floor of th
e room where she’d played board games with her children and watched movies with Greg late at night. But the rip she expected to hear on her pyjama pants never came. Neither did he begin to pull them down over her hips. Instead he fastened cold handcuffs around her wrists.

  Only once she was secure did she feel his hands touching her buttocks and gripping her around the waist. He rolled her over, his sinister, white painted face sneering down at her like a scornful ghost. He began to slap and squeeze at her with such casual curiosity that it made what he was doing seem all the more morbid. It was less a lustful exploration than a taking of stock—as though he was concerned only with the width and roundness and depth of her proportions than from gaining any sexual pleasure from it.

  Then his hand was on her crotch, his fingers measuring and gauging. He quickly punched her there and she cried out in pain. He punched her again and again, not as hard as he could, but hard enough to cause sharp ripples of pain to explode around her pelvic bone, shoot up her spine and explode in a strobe light of pain somewhere deep in her brain. He grabbed her by the throat and pulled himself in close to her. He began to lick at her tears and the blood flowing freely from her nose and mouth, moaning with satisfaction, as though they were the most delicious things he had ever tasted.

  Once satisfied he slowly rolled off of her and went to a white duffel bag he had waiting on the sofa behind them. He removed a collar, leash, and hood—all white. He hooked the leash to the collar, strapped the collar around her slender neck and tied it around the leg of the couch. He took one last look at her bloody tearful face before dropping the hood over her head.

  Sara could hear him walking away, climbing the stairs. She tried to roll onto her side so she could leverage herself up on to her knees but there wasn't enough slack on the leash to do so. She kicked and struggled and screamed as loud as she could. She would scream and scream and scream until someone heard her and called the cops or came and investigated themselves. Before long her throat was sore and hoarse but it was the only thing she could do. She couldn't just lie there and cry while her children were being hurt.

  Finally she could hear footfalls coming back down the stairs and then the sound of her two children Jake and Jordan crying. Mister’s warm mass was back on top of her again.

  “Don’t worry my dear one. You were never real. Neither were they,” he whispered through the cloth of the hood.

  This couldn’t be happening, it just couldn’t. Then as of to assure it could and it was, came the cruel ripping of her pants.

  CHAPTER 2

  Jeremy Foster leaned back in his chair and folded his legs in a composed, gentlemanly fashion, though inwardly he felt about as composed as a rabid hyena…on meth. His client, Evelyn Dursten, sat across from him jabbering nonsense with such rapid and breathless ease, it reminded him of an auctioneer speaking in Pentecostal tongues…on meth.

  Evelyn had been with him nearly from the beginning when he left the FBI's elite behavioural unit to start up his own private practice in civilian therapy. For five years now, he had been a “custodian of the skewed,” as a colleague in the bureau had referred to him. Sometimes he missed the company of proper madmen.

  “I just . . . I don't know. It's not that I don't love him . . . I mean, if you had a goldfish for twenty years – though that's impossible because they only live, like, what? One year at the most – you would love it. But, okay, I guess that's a bad example because it's obviously not the same thing. It's like if you had the same hairdresser or, or, or, I don't know, like the same server at your favourite restaurant . . . ”

  “—Evelyn. I understand what point you're trying to make,” Jeremy interrupted. “Time has created a bond between you and your husband despite your perceived incompatibility.”

  Very discreetly he looked down at his Graham Swordfish wristwatch. His sessions with Evelyn were always an exercise in patience. Endurance may be a better word than patience. He groaned inwardly, sickened yet mesmerized by the way her lips parted and closed, barely perceptible, like hummingbird wings. Her vocal cords struggling to keep up with the never-ending prattle spilling from her mouth. It did, however, all ultimately translate in therapist-ese to “Cha-ching!” He was operating a business, after all. Which is not to say that he didn't want to help Evelyn. He really did. But he had learned a long time ago that some people just need to dump their shit on somebody. They aren’t looking for insight, or perspective, they simply need someone to listen to them vent. So he sat there and let her get it all out.

  “—If I was going to go through all the trouble of making a potato salad, you would think he would assume I didn't hate his sister anymore.”

  “—I just don't see what the point of exercising so much is. It's not like he's single.”

  “—I don't believe we ever landed on the moon. I don't know why he can't just accept that.”

  The cacophony of syllables crashed against him like an auditory tsunami until mercifully, the session expired and he very calmly, very happily announced:

  “Unfortunately we are out of time Evelyn. But I think we've unearthed some really important stuff here. Let's dog-ear this for now and pick it back up next week.”

  Once she was out of the room he allowed himself a moment to decompress. A knocking at his office door broke the sweet silence.

  “Come in,” he said and his secretary Margret entered, her face ashen.

  “What's wrong?”

  “It's the hospital. I think something has happened.”

  An inexplicable feeling came over him—a quiet knowing in his heart. It somehow told him that it had finally happened; his twin brother Christopher was dead. It was the strangest feeling, this knowing without really knowing. Yet he knew it was true: Chris was gone.

  “Thank you Margret,” he said slipping into a kind of adjacent reality. He walked to the desk, each of the nine steps precise and mechanical. He picked up the phone, watching himself do so, noticing his arm and his hand and then his finger jabbing down at the blinking light.

  He held the receiver to his chest and waited for Margret to leave.

  “This is Dr. Foster.”

  “Dr. Foster, this is Dr. Alysulvun at Good Samaritan hospital. I regret you inform you that your brother Christopher has passed away. We require your presence to identify and claim the body.”

  “Uh, yes. Yes, of course. At the hospital?”

  “Yes sir. The general reception desk will be able to direct you once you're here.”

  “Okay, I'll be there.”

  “So sorry for you loss, Dr. Foster.”

  He didn't even have to ask, he knew it was suicide.

  Jeremy avoided particulars with Margaret and instructed her to cancel his appointments for the rest of the day. Then, like a zombie, he put one foot in front of the other until somehow he found himself in the parking lot. For the first time since he’d driven it off the lot the two weeks prior, the new car smell of his BMW M6 Coupe failed to put a smile on his face. Instead it just made him feel like an asshole. The only thing his brother Christopher had ever driven was a bicycle.

  How had he known he was gone?

  Jeremy turned the key and the engine purred to life. The drive down Cedar Oak and across Jefferson was carried out exclusively by rote. It wasn't until he reached Wilshire that he made the very sudden decision that he couldn't face his identical brother's dead face in his present state. He knew would have to go home first to consolidate himself.

  Jesus, he would have to tell his son Charlie. That could wait for the moment too. Besides, if he called the house and spoke to his ex-wife right then, he felt as though he might cry.

  Jeremy's condo was a tasteful pastel and hardwood habitat for one, situated within the very exclusive condominium complex of the Shoreham Villas, in West Hollywood. A vainglorious community where the ‘haves’ seemed compelled to congregate like moths to a light bulb; fluttering around the most dazzling point they can find, never really going anywhere. He felt the buildings were charmless and ironica
lly uninspired, and in a resolved sort of way, suitable.

  He entered the perfectly chilled atmosphere of his home, calmly removed his shoes and gently placed his keys on the marble countertop of the kitchen island, just as he would any other day. He went to the cream coloured leather sofa to sit but something told him he should stay on his feet. So instead he proceeded to his bedroom’s en-suite bathroom and began to remove his clothes. He delicately removed his tie and hung it back up in his closet and proceeded to unbutton his shirt. There was a hanger he kept on the back of the bathroom door for when he got home and he utilized it.

  Shirtless, he stood in front of the mirror over the ironically double-sinked counter and lamented, albeit in a casual sort of way, the fact that he had nobody to share this present grief with. How long had he been an island? How long had he remained the sole citizen of his precise, hyper-felicitous world?

  He looked in the mirror at the face, which until this afternoon, had not been solely his. He was tall and broad-chested and handsome and alone. Where a life led with a little more- what? Vulnerability? would have secured a wife, he had only an ex-wife. No girlfriend either, but plenty of those in the ‘ex’ column. Not even a cat.

  It was never too difficult for him to find a date. But his needs for companionship of course were never—could never be—met on an emotional level. As he inspected his lean, gym-sculpted body in the mirror, he realized that it was possible he had broken the heart of every single woman who had ever cared for him.

  It was starting to become clear, though that time would humble him yet. Time would eat away at his self-reliance until, as an old and decrepit man, he would finally be forced to acknowledge that he was not an island, or at least that he shouldn't be one.