The Scribbled Victims

by Robert Tomoguchi

  Yelena looked into the center camera and spoke plainly. “Marcel,” was all she said.

  “Who’s that?” Ignacio asked but Yelena didn’t answer. Ignacio stood admiring Yelena’s nude body. He caressed her porcelain skin with his left hand. By his expression, Yelena knew he noticed how cold she was to the touch. He went to the tool chest and retrieved the knife. He looked at her once more. “Thank you,” he said, and kissed her thigh. “Now tell me how you know who I am.”

  “Your scribble. That’s how.”

  He then brought the blade to the spot he kissed and sliced deep into her leg. Yelena bled and Ignacio watched the blood trickle down her leg before looking at her in the face again, this time inquisitively.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “You didn’t scream.”

  Yelena didn’t forget that the screams excited him sexually. The slice was painful but didn’t hurt her enough to scream and she wanted to see what would happen if she didn’t. He appeared disappointed.

  “Show me the saw,” she said.

  Ignacio nodded and went to the tool chest. He opened the bottom drawer and removed a ripsaw with a wooden handle. He turned and showed it to her. Yelena shivered. The sight of such a crude and menacing instrument of death excited Yelena and she felt her heart beating and her blood pumping through her veins and dripping from her wounded leg.

  He set the saw down on top of the tool chest and returned with the knife. “Ready to tell me now?” he asked calmly and hopefully.

  Yelena shook her head and he stabbed into the side of her left calf and pushed it all the way through until the blade came out the other side and poked at the surface of the skin of her right calf. This was excruciatingly painful and this time Yelena let out a scream. He ripped the serrated knife out of her calf and she screamed again.

  “Tell me!”

  Yelena said nothing but to him her pain was satisfying and he stabbed her through the front of her right leg, by the inside of her shinbone. She screamed again. He was getting excited and questioned and stabbed her repeatedly, but Yelena didn’t answer and she got the knife again in her legs, her arms, through her left cheek. Blood dripped from holes in her nude body into the steel tub below. Very little spilled onto the linoleum. Yelena writhed and screamed in pain as he killed her.

  “You’re going to live like this until you tell me, bitch!” he said, and was about to slice her across the eyes but then suddenly, Ignacio stopped. Yelena looked down at him but was in too much pain to say anything. He stared at the second wound he had made through her shin. It had stopped bleeding. He stepped to the side and looked at the first wound through her calf muscle; it too no longer leaked.

  Ignacio dropped the bloody knife to the floor and returned to the tool chest. Yelena’s sense of fear rose as she waited for him to grab the saw, but he didn’t. Instead, he opened another drawer and took out a bottle of rubbing alcohol and returned to Yelena. He opened the bottle and poured it down the side of her leg. With his free hand he wiped the blood off of her calf and stared in disbelief. There was no wound. He did the same with her other leg. Her shin was smeared with blood that hadn’t washed away, but was likewise unharmed.

  Confused, he stared into Yelena’s pained expression. Yelena did nothing but pant. She was still dealing with the pain from the other wounds that hadn’t yet healed.

  “What are you?” he asked.

  She struggled to answer but finally muttered, “Immortal.”

  Ignacio didn’t say anything this time. He went to the tool chest and opened another drawer and removed an icepick with a dark blue handle. He returned to Yelena and plunged it into her abdomen. And then again and again, perforating her stomach, as she screamed in pain and writhed on the black cross. He stepped back and sat on the folding chair and stared at her. A quarter of an hour passed, and during that time her screams silenced, her writhing stilled, and the blood from her abdominal wounds stopped flowing. He rose and grabbed the bottle of alcohol and washed Yelena’s stomach. It was perfectly smooth. The wounds were no longer there.

  “Madre de Dios,” Ignacio said and dropped the bottle, spilling alcohol across the floor, and fell to his knees before her and crossed himself. “La Virgen Guadalupe.”

  Yelena was disappointed with this development and struggled to salvage what she could of it. “The saw,” she said. “Use the saw.”

  But Ignacio shook his head and wept.

  Thoughts raced through Yelena’s mind. She could play the part of the Blessed Virgin, but no, that would be bullshit. And then she finally admitted to herself that her whole visit to the house of a serial killer was bullshit. Sure, the saw was there on the tool chest. The saw that could end her life. But her instinct to live would have forced her to break the crossbar of the cross and free herself and become the predator within the killing room. Was she ever really in danger? Maybe. Maybe not. She certainly was not now. In his eyes she was holy and he would not harm her any further. He had lost his purpose. She had no further use for him.

  “Release me,” she said and Ignacio sprung to his feet and removed the carabiners. He lifted her off the cross and set her on the ground. He meant to lay her gently on the floor, but she chose to stand. Again, he was on his knees before her. He kissed her feet in worship. “Rise, Ignacio,” she said and he rose to his feet, his eyes wide open in awe of her. She gripped the back of his neck firmly and pulled his throat to her lips and exposed her fangs to his jugular. She fed so fervently that he was dead within moments. She let his dead, emptied body fall to the floor.

  She went to the tool chest and picked up the saw and studied it. She brought it to her throat and felt the teeth on her skin just to taste what could have been. She dropped the saw to the floor. She opened the rest of the drawers one by one. Knives mostly, more saws, and other tools, some of which she was not sure how they would be used to inflict torture. She shut the last drawer. She hadn’t found what she was looking for. She went to the door and opened it and walked out nude, went down the hall, through the living room and into the kitchen. She opened a cupboard below the sink. There she found two gallon-sized bottles of Mop and Glo. She took both of them and returned to the killing room, unscrewed their caps and then poured one gallon into the steel basin, contaminating her blood with the cleanser. She poured the other over the floor in the spots where her blood missed the basin. Berthold could now come to clean up.

  She went to the bathroom and started the faucet. She washed the blood off her cheek where he had stabbed her. Her skin was perfect. She didn’t need to wash the rest of her body. Her clothes would cover the bloodstains that remained on her skin. She got dressed and then removed all three cameras from their tripods. She would take those with her. Maybe she would watch the footage later to search her own countenance when he first showed her the saw blade he planned to use to behead her.

  She exited the house through the front door, which she closed behind her, but didn’t bother locking. A police car passed slowly as she stepped off the porch onto the concrete path that bisected a dirt plot covered in weeds. She looked into the face of the policeman driving the patrol car and walked casually to her car. She got in and started the engine and made a three-point turn to head back in the direction from whence she came. In her rearview mirror as she reached the corner, she watched the patrol car also make a three-point turn. She turned left, crossing the street and drove. The streets were empty. The patrol car also turned left into the lane Yelena used and followed her through two green lights. When Yelena finally hit a red light, the patrol car switched lanes and pulled up to the intersection on her left. Yelena felt the cop staring at her and she turned and smiled with her lips, not baring her teeth. The cop nodded to her and then turned on his police flashers and sped through the red light, only to turn them off on the other side of the intersection. He was far ahead of her by the time the light turned green for her but she would be on the freeway soon.

  *

  In her home, Yelena undressed and showered f
or a long time, much longer than was needed to wash away the blood that had dried. She thought again of Marcel finding her letter to him. The thought saddened her, but eventually she realized how useless it was to think of things that would never happen.

  She didn’t wear her robe that night. She put on black silk pajamas instead. As she unwrapped the towel that she wore to dry her hair, she sensed someone approaching outside her front door. The doorbell rang. It was still dark out and Yelena went to answer the door. She looked through the peephole and was stunned. She opened the door in a hurry.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I ran away,” I said.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Yelena stared at me as I stood in her doorway. She was thinking about whether to let me in. I reached in the pocket of my zip up hoodie and took out a piece of paper folded many times over. “I brought this for you,” I said and extended the paper to her. She didn’t take it, but she knew it was a scribble. “They’re married. Lots of years ago they kidnapped this girl and kept her in a closet for like seven months and then when she got pregnant the man choked her until she died and they buried her in their backyard. Her name was Marcie.”

  Yelena knelt to my level and looked me in the eyes. “Does this mean you forgive me?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said and I hugged her tightly around her neck. After a moment she put her arms around my back and squeezed. She stood up, carrying me, and brought me inside.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked as she carried me into the kitchen.

  “Do you have candy?”

  She set me down on a chair at her kitchen table. “Probably chocolates. I’ll have to see what Berthold bought.”

  I took off my hoodie and put it on the chair next to me. “Who’s Berthold?”

  “My lawyer.”

  “You lawyer buys you chocolate?”

  “Yes.” She came back to the table with a gold box of chocolates and hung my hoodie on the back of her chair and sat next to me. She peeled the cellophane off the box, removed the lid, and then placed the chocolates in front of me. I picked one that had a pink flower on top of it and bit into it. It was delicious. I put the rest of it in my mouth, licked my fingers and then tried to give her the scribble again. This time she took it. She unfolded it and looked at the scribble side first. That made me happy. I bit into a second chocolate and watched as she used her finger to trace over a piece of the scribble before turning it over. I watched how quickly her eyes moved back and forth across the paper as she read the details about Marcie’s kidnappers. She placed the paper down. “Would you like anything to drink?”

  “You have stuff that’s not blood?”

  She actually laughed a little. “Yes, all kinds of things.”

  I nodded my head and she got up and went to the refrigerator and began calling out the various beverages she had to drink. I didn’t know what some of it was, but it sounded fancy. I finally said, “Okay,” when she got to black cherry soda. She used a bottle opener to pull the cap off and put it in front of me. I thought it was neat that it came in a glass bottle. I drank some and then asked her if I could walk around her house. She said yes. I got out of my chair and grabbed the bottle to see if she would tell me to leave it on the table, but she didn’t and so I got to drink my soda as she showed me around.

  There was art everywhere. In her living room, family room, dining room, hallways, and bedrooms. And in the room that had been decorated for me hung only one piece—the first scribble I had done of Yelena when we were in the cafeteria. I liked it hanging there, over my bed. It was like she would keep watch over me as I slept. There was another guest bedroom that was larger than the one she had given me, but I figured she chose to give me the room she did because it was closest to her own bedroom. That felt nice. However, I learned later she had chosen my room for me, as it happened to be the only room in the house that no one had ever been killed in. She asked if I wanted to jump on the bed and I did. I took off my shoes and used my bed like a trampoline. It was fun and I was laughing and so was she, but my jumping didn’t last long before I lost my breath. She apologized for suggesting I jump on it and recommended I lie down. And so I did, and she even tucked me in.

  With my head on the pillow and the blankets pulled up almost to my neck, I asked her, “Where do you sleep?”

  “I showed you where I sleep,” she said, meaning she had shown me her bedroom.

  “You sleep in a coffin though. I didn’t see one.”

  “How do you know I sleep in a coffin? Maybe that’s just a myth. A bed is more comfortable, don’t you think?”

  I gave her a look telling her I knew she was bullshitting me. “I’ve seen you sleep in your scribble.”

  “Then you know where it is.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve only seen you inside it.”

  Her scribbles told me she slept in a coffin, but at that time, I couldn’t yet see where she kept it.

  “My resting place will have to remain secret,” she said. “But you look sleepy. You should rest.”

  “Do you want me to go to sleep so you can go kill the kidnappers?”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Orly,” she said and placed her cold hand on my forehead like she was checking me for a fever and I began to fall asleep. She turned off the lights before leaning forward to kiss my forehead where she had just been touching. Her lips felt warmer than her hand. Eventually, I began to dream. Yelena and I were someplace far away. It looked like the moon, but there was already a moon in the sky. The ground we were walking on looked dusty and gray. She was holding my hand, leading the way.

  *

  Yelena was shopping for shoes online when there was knock at the front door. I was asleep and didn’t hear it. Yelena opened the door and saw Sigrid and two police officers with her.

  “Thank you for calling,” Sigrid said.

  “Please, come in,” Yelena answered and all three of them entered. “She was tired when she arrived. I put her to bed. She’s resourceful. I never gave her my address.”

  My eyes hurt when the lights flipped on. Yelena was sitting on the bed, nudging me gently as I came out of my slumber. “Orly, it’s time to go,” she whispered.

  I opened my eyes, and blinked myself awake. Yelena handed me my glasses. When I put them on, I saw Sigrid and the police officers. “How did you find me?” I asked naïvely like the child I was.

  Sigrid didn’t answer. She looked at Yelena.

  “I called her, Orly,” Yelena said. “I had to.”

  “That’s right,” Sigrid chimed in. “She was doing what’s best for you.”

  I felt betrayed. “You said you wanted to be my mom.”

  “I do, Orly. I do. But I can’t be. Not like this.”

  She helped pull me up a little and tried to hug me of all things. I pushed her away and with effort I kept myself from crying because I didn’t want Yelena to see me in tears. Crying would have felt like I was giving her too much. My glasses fell off my face. She picked them up and held them out for me but I wouldn’t take them from her. Sigrid took them from her.

  Yelena followed behind me and Sigrid and the police officers as we went to the front door. I turned and looked Yelena in the face, hoping she would say something, but she didn’t. She said nothing and I was put in the back of the police car with Sigrid. Yelena shut her front door and the light outside that lit her doorstep was turned out.

  They drove me back to the hospital. I didn’t remember the hoodie I left on the chair nor the scribble I left on Yelena’s kitchen table until I was back in my room. Only it wasn’t my room. I had been moved on the hall again. Now I was closest to the nurse’s station.

  Yelena completed her shoe purchases before she went to visit the husband and wife.

  *

  “Marcie…Marcie…Marcie…” Yelena whispered rhythmically. It occurred to her how much the name sounded like “mercy” but she knew there would be none of that tonight. It hadn’t been difficult for her to summon the husba
nd and wife in their sleep and compel them to shut themselves inside the closet they had left Marcie in for nearly a year. Yelena could have probably figured out which closet it was had she inspected them all, but she didn’t need to do that. “Go to Marcie’s closet,” she instructed them, and as somnambulists they led the way. The closet was small. Yelena opened the door for them and they crouched inside and Yelena followed them and shut the door. Once they were all in the dark, Yelena allowed them to wake but confused them into thinking there was no way out even though the closet door wasn’t locked.

  “Why are we in here?” the wife asked.

  “Are you afraid of the dark?” Yelena asked.

  “Who’s in here?” the husband asked.

  “Marcie was afraid of the dark, wasn’t she?” Yelena asked.

  “That was an accident,” she said.

  “A seven month accident,” Yelena replied. “I wish I could stay and give you seven months before I kill both of you, but my daughter would be all alone.”

  The husband and wife began banging on the closet door but lacked the capacity to throw it open.

  “Did Marcie pound like that?”

  “Please. Let me out!” the wife shrieked.

  Yelena allowed them to pound and scream, and she enjoyed it, thinking about Marcie’s seven months and thinking about retribution. She sat with them for over three hours, letting them suffer. Telling them they would never leave this closet alive. That she would bleed them to death. Husband and wife both cried. And when the time for bleeding came, Yelena savored it and went slowly, biting into parts of their bodies—limbs and faces, but avoiding their throats. She bit parts that would hurt but wouldn’t cause them to bleed out too quickly. It was more of a torture session than a feeding. Eventually they were both fully perforated. The blood she sipped from her nibbling caused Yelena’s hunger to increase and finally she went for their jugulars. She killed the husband first. He groaned in agony and this caused his wife to scream even more loudly through her tears.