by Hadena James
So, I’d gotten drunk to avoid that feeling. It had worked for a few hours. Now, I was sober and felt like Karma had kicked me in the teeth with steel-toed boots lined with spikes and the feeling had resurfaced.
The water was still running hot when I got out of the shower, but it usually did at hotels. It was hard to run out of hot water at a hotel. I’d done it, but only once.
Steam had clouded the bathroom mirror, for this, I was thankful. I didn’t want to see myself now. I didn’t want to look at the scars that covered my body, marking me as one of the death dealers of the serial killer world. I didn’t want to stare at my reflection and wonder who was staring back.
Slowly, I wrapped my hair in one towel and my body in another. The towels weren’t big enough to hide the brutality my body had seen. My memory, intent on driving me mad, flashed a quick replay of a group of people playing darts. They had been happy. They had been among friends. My mind had latched onto that image before the intoxication had sat in and decided that while I wallowed in self-loathing and pity, it would remind me of it.
I shook my head. These days one in five people would deal with a serial killer in some capacity. There was a better than average chance that at least one person in the bar last night had actually been a serial killer. My body wasn’t the only one that bore the scars of this newest menace. Hundreds of thousands of people had fallen prey to serial killers since the 1960’s. And that was just an estimate, possibly a very low estimate. You couldn’t have a dramatic rise in serial killers without a dramatic rise in victims. Lucas liked to remind me that I wasn’t alone, everyone in the SCTU had experienced a serial killer on a personal level.
Hell, the man outside my bathroom door had survived several. He’d been attacked twice by the monsters who didn’t recognize him as lethal because of his suave manners and charming personality. I was positive there were a few others, others that no one knew about. Ones that Malachi had unleashed all his rage upon. Their bodies would be in worse condition than anything Patterson had created.
I stuck my head out the door, “do hangovers make you feel self-pity?”
“I’m not sure, why?”
“Just curious,” I closed the door again. He was undressing, getting ready to take my place in the shower. I opened the door again. “When you look in the mirror, what do you see?”
“I see a face,” Malachi answered, he was down to just a pair of jockey shorts. They were black with blue pinstripes. His body was as battered and beaten as my own. “I’m not sure it’s my face though. Usually, it’s the mask, the face I wear to appear mostly normal. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my real face, I don’t think we’re supposed to. When we do, it causes us to have a meltdown, like you did last night. What do you see?”
“A stranger, a woman who looks like me and copies my movements, but does not feel like me.”
“You see the mask too then,” Malachi walked closer to the bathroom. If I wasn’t me and he wasn’t him, it might have been sexy. Instead, I felt like I was looking into a mirror. The face wasn’t mine, the thoughts weren’t exactly the same as mine, but it felt more like the real me than my reflection ever felt. “I’m sorry you saw that Aislinn, the real you, the one without the mask.”
“Have you ever seen the real you?” I asked.
“No,” Malachi frowned and his eyes locked on mine. “The closest I come is when I look into your eyes and they stare back at me with that cold blank stare that makes me wonder if you have a question or are wondering where to stick the knife first.”
“I do not mean to look at you like that,” I defended myself.
“Maybe not, but around me, you drop the mask more often, probably because I’m more monster than you.”
“Good to know.”
“I’m your comfort zone. You have friends and family and they mean a lot to you. But you still hide part of what you are when they are around. You don’t bother to hide it when it’s just us. Like now, you are staring at me and it could be that you want to ask more questions or it could be that you are admiring the scars, but it feels like your sizing me up, waiting to pounce and slit my throat. And before you ask, no, I don’t know what sort of person that makes you. I think it makes you, you. Since finding out Patterson was The Butcher, you’ve been in this quasi-identity crisis that makes you question yourself. It’s terribly annoying, I understand it though. You’ve often compared yourself to me, now you have Patterson to compare yourself to and the answers you’re finding aren’t what you want. You understand him, because his killings make sense to you. He isn’t just wandering around the state, killing anyone with blond hair or wearing a purple shirt. And to make it worse, the one person that can answer your questions, is in the hospital, in a coma, unable to speak to you about your identity.”
“Why am I comparing myself to Patterson? I get comparing myself to you. We’ve been locked in a silent battle for years, using mind games and logical tactics to put chinks in each other’s armor. It’s a way to connect and understand each other. But why Patterson? Why do I feel like I’m too much like him?”
“Because despite the name change and the not turning into a serial killer, you are his granddaughter. What better killer to compare yourself to than the one that donated your DNA? If Donnelly was still alive, he’d be asking himself similar questions and finding he didn’t like the answers either.”
“What would you know of my father’s thoughts?”
“I know you’ve met Patterson before, live and in person. It wouldn’t have happened if your father hadn’t agreed.” Malachi pulled me out of the bathroom. He entered closing the door behind him.
I sat down on the bed, unwilling or unable to change out of my towel. It had been a long time since anyone had said my father’s name aloud to me. It was sacred, using it felt blasphemous. But Malachi was right. I pulled the small cross out of the pocket on my duffle bag full of clothes. I had met Patterson before. Like my father, his face was a blur, but he had given me the tiny cross. Chub had introduced him as a “friend” of his, but something had told me they were more than just friends. My eight year old mind had immediately made the connection between the brothers. Chub had taken me to meet Patterson Clachan and my father, Donnelly Clachan had agreed to let me go with Chub that day. Even I didn’t buy the idea that my father hadn’t known Patterson would be there.
Malachi exited the bathroom. He was in different jockey shorts, these were red with polka dots. I couldn’t imagine Malachi wearing polka dots of any sort, let alone multicolored polka dots on his underwear.
“I do not remember his face,” I told Malachi. “Patterson’s I mean. I remember the way he talked though. His voice was smooth as silk and while he was introduced to me as a family friend, I could tell that the interactions between Uncle Chub and him were all wrong for friends. It did not take much for me to figure out they were brothers. That morning, my dad went out and bought me a silver necklace. He gave it to me, wrapped in a box with pink ribbon, only a few minutes before Chub come over. I asked why there was not a pendant and my dad told me there would be one soon enough, but it had to be the perfect pendant. At lunch, Patterson gave me a silver cross to put on it. My dad never asked about it, despite wearing it every day. He told everyone that Chub gave it to me and after a while, so did I.”
“How does that make you feel about your father?”
“I do not remember him very well, strange since he did not die until I was in my teens. For some reason, I have blocked him out of my memories. His face is a complete mystery.”
“I remember that you used to worship him. You swore you would follow in his footsteps and become a cop. Then you met Callow. Callow didn’t change your father much, but he changed you, a lot. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true. Donnelly became more protective of you, monitored your movements more, but he did that because he loved you. He saw that you would be like him, like Patterson, a magnet for people intent on doing evil deeds and he didn’t want that life for you.” Malachi sig
hed. “I know you say Callow didn’t touch you, but he did. Maybe not physically, but psychologically, he touched you and you changed. You’d been a little bit of a trouble magnet before Callow, but after him, it was almost as if you went looking for it and it always found you.”
“Malachi,” I lit a cigarette. “Callow did not molest me, he did not touch me at all. His hand was shaking when he crawled into that hollow where he kept me. Callow did not molest me, because Callow was afraid of me. I have always known that. That is why I did not scream when the police arrived at his house. It would have gotten me out of there sooner, but I was enjoying the fact that he had kidnapped the wrong girl and was afraid of her. It was my chance to turn the tables on him. I planned to kill him from the moment I woke up in that hiding spot. Somehow, Callow knew.”
“You’ve never told me that.”
“I have never told anyone that. For years, I would not even admit it to myself. It was not the kill that I liked, it was the anticipation of it. Does that make me a serial killer?”
“No, that makes you Aislinn Cain, scourge of serial killers all over these crazy United States. Do you know why? Because you didn’t act upon the urge again until you were forced into a similar situation. You aren’t a cold blooded killer. You’re a survivor, liking it doesn’t make you evil.”
“I did not like killing Callow. I felt dirty afterwards. I showered six or seven times during my first day home. I still dream of him. And now, I do not want him dead, I want him languishing in The Fortress, being tortured by other serial killers.”
“That sounds rather normal to me.” Malachi said. “If I had been in your position, it would be different. I would have enjoyed the kill and I wouldn’t have just defended myself and run away, screeching like a banshee to attract attention. I would have tortured him and I would have loved every scream that came from his lips. And that is rather normal too. Not because he was a pedophile or a serial killer, but because you were a victim. I know you never think of yourself as such, but you were. Perhaps for the only time in your life, you were a victim and victims have feelings that they can’t express because it makes them feel bad.”
The word was foreign in my ears. I couldn’t imagine myself as a victim, but listening to Malachi, I realized that the word did apply to me. It was why I had feelings for people impacted by Callow. We were all victims of Callow.
Twenty-Five
Rollins met us in the lobby. He held two bottles of water and two small packets of something. As we drew even with him, he handed each of us a bottle and a packet. I stared at them blankly.
“Well, come on then, plop, plop, fizz, fizz,” Rollins grinned.
“Why is he saying the Alka-Seltzer commercial tag line?” I asked Malachi.
“You have a hangover,” Rollins said.
“I do have a hangover.” I agreed, staring at the bottle and packet. “So, is this a powder or a pill?”
“You’ve never had Alka-Seltzer?” Rollins’ grin faded.
“She’s never had a hangover. She’s never been drunk either. I also don’t think she’s ever vomited on herself, gotten into an argument with a mirror, or crawled under a table to avoid being seen by goblins. The last twenty-four hours have been full of firsts for her.”
“Wow. You’ve never been drunk?” Rollins was taking the bottle and packet back. He opened the packet and snapped two large tablets into four pieces. Then he opened the bottle of water and dropped the tablets into them. They immediately began to hiss and fizz.
My water was turning bubbly and pink. Malachi had already up ended his bottle and chugged it. If I chugged it, I was going to toss my cookies again. I took a drink, not liking the taste or the feeling. There was a hint of cherry to the tablets.
“There is no relief in this.” I told him.
“It gets worse,” Malachi said.
“It cannot get worse,” I took another drink. Alcohol was off my list again, this time it was a permanent situation.
“Not the Alka-Seltzer, this,” Malachi handed a credit card to me. The name on it read Virgil Clachan.
“Where did you get this?” I asked, flipping it over. It wasn’t signed, but the stripe was wearing off from heavy use.
“He paid your bar tab last night,” Rollins told me. “What’s weirder is that there is a card to that account in your name too, but there isn’t a signature on file. Now, we have a dead body in Boonville and we need to get some dinner into the both of you. Which do you want to do first?”
“Arby’s, as we leave town,” I told him. In the backseat, I ate my dinner. The sun was already starting to set. Rays of sunlight stabbed through the windows. My sandwich was great though and I could use Malachi to avoid the setting sun daggers. He was busy looking at a file folder. I couldn’t read in the car, it made me sick. Staring down at my food threatened to do the same thing. It was all about the feeling of motion without being able to see the motion.
“Hey, Ace,” Malachi turned enough to look at me. “The victim’s name is Jeremy Cole.”
“Nyleena’s Jeremy Cole?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Yep.”
“Of course it is, what was I thinking,” I went back to eating my sandwich. Nyleena was quite a bit older than me, but she was my best friend. I knew all her secrets and some of them were less secret than others. Jeremy Cole was less secret because he was a jackass. I had threatened to kill him years ago, but he’d been arrested first. The man had served six years for assault and battery as well as sexual assault.
Nyleena had been in her last year of high school. Jeremy Cole was a “cool dude” that was a few years older than she was. They started dating. One night, he beat the shit out of her and raped her. I hoped Patterson had done something particularly nasty to him.
This newest kill earned Patterson some points with me. I was still pissed that he had shot Nyleena in the face and put her in the coma, but it waned just a little bit as I saw the crime scene tape wrapped around the house.
There are a lot of ways that you can describe death and a dead person. Except in this case, the only thing that described this guy was hacked to death. From head to toe, Patterson had taken an axe or other sharp object and disarticulated the joints. He didn’t bother with the fingers or the toes, but the rest of them had been hacked through. Patterson had a sense of humor, the head had been removed and placed on a silver platter. By the looks of things, I was guessing he’d brought the silver platter with him.
The primary decor was made up of empty beer cans, moldy plates, and marijuana seeds. Just standing in the place made me wonder about the types of fungus that could become airborne and make a person sick. I was positive they were growing in the place. There was probably E.coli and Anthrax reproducing in the dirty carpet.
“We have a survivor!” Someone shouted from another room. This surprised me. Survivors were a rare thing with serial killers. I had to see, so I followed the voice down a dirty hallway to a bedroom.
Tucked inside the closet was a young woman. She was roughly my age. Her eye was black, her lip busted open, and there were needle marks on her arm.
Rollins came in and started trying to talk to her. This was an exercise in futility. She rambled about waking up to find the devil had come to visit. There was some truth to this, but I was guessing that she’d been stoned out of her gourd when Patterson came by. Since she wasn’t a threat, he hadn’t killed her. It was nice to know there were limits.
An EMT pulled her out of the closet. There was a note pinned to her back. I smiled. The note said “needs rehab and a bath. didn’t shower here, too dirty. check casino hotel.”
“Great, he’s taunting us,” Rollins groaned.
“He’s been taunting us, you just hadn’t figured it out yet. He killed the guy in Jeff City two days ago, but he still showed up at the bar where Aislinn and I went for dinner in that town, even though I’d bet he was staying in Columbia, and he stuck a victim in a field with mutilated cattle.” Malachi snorted.
“But, we have the
upper hand now,” I looked at Malachi. “His next stop is going to be Kansas City. He has a head start, but that’s not going to matter a whole lot. We know his targets there. I would rejoice about finding the video footage from the casino, but aside from the cane, I bet he’s wearing a disguise.”
“Who is his next target?” Rollins asked.
“Gertrude,” I answered. Somehow, Patterson had a plan to get to his sister. It would be his last kill. This was all getting tiring for him. It showed in his writing, which had a minute wiggle in the letters, indicating his hand was shaking. And his victim choice, there were other people in Columbia that he could have killed, but he didn’t. He’d moved on. This one was important; for Nyleena, the head on the silver platter was a peace offering. An “I’m sorry I shot you in the face” gift. The affect wasn’t lost on me. I’d tell her about it when she woke up.
I walked outside and lit a cigarette. Reporters were gathering outside the house, they invaded the lawns of the neighbors. Of course, the neighbors were invading their own lawns as well. A few peeked from around their curtains, but most were brazenly standing in their yard. How many of them had known about the drug user and abusive asshole in the house next door? I didn’t know, but I felt a touch of contempt for each of them.
Smoking in the cold ranked higher than standing in rooms with dead bodies on my list of things to do, so I lit a cigarette and moved outside the protection of the tape, into the street. If I was smoking, the press wouldn’t film or talk to me. It was a trick I’d learned a while ago.
As expected, none of them approached me. None of them turned their nosy, unforgiving cameras my direction. Some even moved away, back towards filming the house. Malachi stepped out and for a moment, it looked like they might mob him. But he’d learned the trick as well and lit his own cigarette. The reporters went back to standing on the dead lawns of the neighbors. Malachi moved to stand in front of me, his back to the reporters, like we were sharing important information. The protective gesture was kind of sweet. Except more than one reporter had speculated over the years that Malachi and I were an item, even before I’d become a member of the SCTU. The fact that we worked for different federal agencies only fanned the flames and fueled the imaginations of those that liked to dig up dirt on law enforcement officials. If they knew the truth, they would be shocked and horrified.