Serial killer.
Get out.
“I’m sorry to intrude,” she said. “I’ll be going now.”
“You stay there,” he said, sputum dribbling down his chin. “You move, and my dead friend here will have a new companion.”
Rose said nothing.
The man turned and walked to the sink. He hesitated for a second, clearly uncomfortable with his task. He looked from his blood-soaked hands to the tap and back again. A smile crept across his lips and he nodded. “Put the bag down.”
Rose did as she was instructed, placing her pack on the floor.
The man smiled. “Good. Now, get over there, by the body.”
Rose remained where she was.
The man scooped a knife from his belt, held it underarm, and pointed it at her. She heard blood squelch on the handle. “Do it or I’ll spill your insides all over the floor!”
Rose nodded, waited a second, and sidestepped to the body. She kept her hands by her side, her eyes on her foe, wishing she’d put her Swiss Army knife in her pocket.
The mysterious killer watched her cross the room and nodded. “Good. Now, sit in the armchair.”
Rose lowered herself. The leather squeaked beneath her pert rump.
“Put your arms on the arms, palms flat.”
Rose acquiesced to his demands. Her eyes remained on him.
“Excellent. You’re good at obeying instructions. You wouldn’t believe the people who blather and whine and end up with a fork in the fucking eye. I wish people would just do as they’re told! Things would be so much easier.”
Rose said nothing.
The man nodded. “You just earned yourself a reprieve. I won’t kill you just yet. If you move, I’ll hear you, I’m the fucking zenith! I can turn and throw this knife at you from any angle. Ask yourself: Is it worth it?” He chuckled and turned the tap on. Water splashed the metal sink. He washed his hands quickly and wiped them with a towel. Satisfied at the rush job, he bent down, zipping his bag closed. He straightened up and walked to the body, prodded it with his toe.
Rose glanced at the mutilated corpse on the floor. It was a complete mess. The face was a battered pulp – broken pink bones and severed muscle and ruptured skin. Blood still dripped from multiple, ragged open wounds, forming a dark pool around its head. Fluffy black hair lay on the carpet beside the corpse, like a discarded toupee, recently scalped. The pink flesh underneath glared at her, crinkled and creased. She noticed the jaw was hanging off, wavering on the slight, humid breeze.
The familiarity tickled her brain once more. She still couldn’t place it.
The torso was slit from throat to naval, a long slim cut, perfectly executed. Precise pincers, which looked like elongated, blunt scissors, pulled back the flesh in large unequal flaps, exposing the blood-soaked ribcage. Several of the organs sat on the carpet too, in line, organised, as if the serial killer had been preparing them for something. The rest of the body seemed intact, but for the first time, Rose noticed the victim was also naked.
“Admiring the handiwork?” the man uttered, still keeping his distance.
Rose flicked her eyes to him. “Naked?”
The man nodded. “All part of the fun. For me, anyway. It’s a big ‘fuck you’ to the police. Nothing worse than a naked man shaking and flailing, leaving skin and hair and spit and shit everywhere. And the evidence shows he suffered horribly. Nothing quite like making a police officer spill his guts. It’s quite the achievement.”
Rose looked around the room. Keep him talking. “How do you know they throw up?”
The man tapped his temple. A dull fleshy thud echoed across the room. “I’m one of them. I do my business, get out of dodge, get dressed into my uniform and turn up with the rest of them. Easy. No one suspects a thing. The police are thick as shite sometimes. Always helps to insert a little misdirection here and there.” The man chuckled, closing his hand into a fist.
Rose narrowed her eyes. “There are no police. Haven’t you seen outside?”
“The police will always exist, young lady. There’s always a law to follow, and always a law to be broken. Even now, with the dead walking the streets and the living fearing for their very existence, that law still exists to keep us striving, keep us alive, as a race and individuals. Just because there are less of us, doesn’t make it so.”
Almost there, she thought. Keep him talking. “What about DNA?”
“DNA? Please. I have access to the crime scenes, both before and after. It’s not hard to contaminate DNA and make it unusable. That’s the wonder of humans relying on technology. It’s come on in leaps and bounds, but when you drop some hydrogen peroxide into the mix, it royally screws it up for the chemical reaction analysis. Anything is possible if you put your mind to it.”
Rose nodded. “So you leave DNA behind?”
“Yes. Why bother worrying about it when you can sabotage the tests? It’s like a proverbial Get Out Of Jail Free card.”
Keep him talking. “You a Monopoly fan?”
The man tilted his head. “I don’t have time for games. You’re beginning to test my patience. I have a job to do.”
Rose clenched the arm of the chair. “Why do you do it?”
The man clapped loudly, shocking Rose. She flinched, but remained in her seat.
He laughed. “And there’s the clincher. Why does everyone come around to it? People are so fucking nosy!”
Rose said nothing. She flicked her eyes to the door, then back to the man. The familiarity now burned the inside of her skull, jabbing it like a hot poker. She prepared. Tensed.
She knew. Understood.
He continued. “Someone needs to do it. I always hated the idea of hunting animals, poor defenseless bastards. Why bother when you can participate in a real sport?”
Rose nodded. “So you enjoy it? What a sad lonely life you must lead.”
The man stepped forward, said nothing.
Rose continued. “It’s pathetic. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
She noticed a change in his posture, a tensing in his shoulders. His cheeks reddened, and the black orbs darkened, misted over.
She knew her time was up. One question too far.
He twisted the knife in his hand and held it downwards.
Rose shook her head. “I’ll shut up now.”
The man chuckled. “Yes. Permanently.”
He walked forward, the gleaming blade aimed at Rose’s heart. He stepped from the kitchen tiles to the carpet, his footfalls changing from loud to soft within half a second, and lunged towards Rose.
She leapt out of the chair and landed beside him. She heard the knife whistle on the air, inches from her neck. It sliced into the leather cushion, where her torso had been.
With all his weight now in the chair, Rose struck out, kicking the attacker in the knee. She heard the patella pop and explode, the pressure pushing the joint sideways unnaturally far. His leg buckled and bent, crunching as his entire weight slipped right and tore every ligament around the cap.
The man screamed. Rose punted him in the side, lifting him and the knife away from her. He released his grip on the weapon and dropped it onto the chair. Then he collapsed over the arm, flopping to the floor in a tangled heap. Loud moans of agony emitted from his mouth as he scrambled to regain his composure.
Not going to happen, Rose thought. You just shattered his knee. Muscle and ligaments and cartilage and bone. He’ll need crutches for the rest of his life.
Rose scooped up the knife slowly and twirled it in the air, stalking the injured man. He rolled onto his back, dragged his body across the carpet and pulled himself up against the wall. Tears streamed down his face and pink sputum dribbled from his mouth.
Rose smiled. “My, how the tables have turned.”
He said nothing, a wet whimper in his throat.
“You think you’re a hot shot? Huh? You’re a fraud, a nobody, a fake. You’re disgusting.”
The man narrowed his eyes and stared at her.<
br />
Rose smirked. “You give us all a bad name.”
She stabbed the knife upwards and into his chin, hard. The blade shredded through knotted muscle and slick skin and severed his tongue down the middle. The loud punch associated with penetrated flesh filled the room. The blade scraped against the back of his teeth, creaking and groaning against the enamel, and probed the roof of his mouth. Blood squirted from the open orifice, dribbling down his chin and splattering Rose in the face. She smiled.
“You’re a disgrace. No serial killer worth his or her salt ever leaves DNA at a crime scene. We follow a code, a set of rules. DNA is the one thing that can ruin our crusade, the one thing that can put an end to the justice we serve. If you have a hunger, a thirst even, you do anything and everything to ensure it remains satisfied. Even in this… this abomination of a world, where the dead walk and the pathetic rule all.”
Rose twisted the knife sideways. It squeaked against his teeth like nails on a chalkboard, pushing several to the side. His gums split and blood sluiced down his throat. A wobbling tooth pinged to the floor, clattering away beneath a table. The wound in his chin opened further, sluicing a mass of crimson into his lap. The man let out a muffled howl as the blade shredded the roof of his mouth.
“My thirst for bloodshed is unlimited, but I don’t cut corners or hide behind a fucking uniform to do it. And I don’t claim kills that aren’t rightfully mine. This body over here?” Rose pointed to the corpse. “I know you didn’t do this. You don’t have it in you. The right pep, the right… attitude. I see weakness in your body. When it comes to a harmless woman – because that assumption of me worked out well – you’re all balls and bravado, but when it comes to a man, well, I imagine you keep quiet and hide in the corner behind your newspaper or porno magazine or a filthy keyboard. I’ll give you credit; you have the eyes for it. Kudos on that. It’s the toughest part, but it’s nothing but empty threats. A façade, a front. Like playing a part in a movie. Am I right?”
The man stared at Rose, incredulous.
She twisted the knife more. Teeth screeched on enamel. The man howled, spraying blood onto Rose’s hand.
She firmed up her grip, feeling the hot blood trickle between her fingers. “Tell me the truth. This kill wasn’t you, was it?”
The man slowly shook his head. Tears rolled down his face.
Rose chuckled. “I thought not. Sure, you roughed him up a little, kicked him about like a big boy. After all, a dead body can’t fight back. Then you found the knife and decided to try it out, go to work on him a little. After all, no one will stop you. The world is a different place now.”
The man began to sob. “Darrrnn ssoooorrree,” he uttered.
“You’re sorry?” Rose asked.
He nodded.
“Unfortunately, I can’t forgive you. It takes skill and practice to follow our code, to quench our bloodlust, and a competent serial killer should be able to kill a target without leaving a single trace. But a serial killer who falls at the first hurdle – a chicken-shit sociopath, basically – will never amount to anything. And taking someone else’s kill? Well, you might as well fuck your brother’s wife. If you kill competently, fair play. If you can’t, you’re a fucking amateur. And the amateurs don’t get a chance to headline the main event.”
Rose shoved the blade upwards, slicing through the roof of his mouth, crunching behind his eyes and into the brain. She felt the knife stop, and watched as his eyes rolled into the back of his head. His chest ceased to inflate. His body went limp.
Rose closed her eyes and smiled.
Another perfect crime. The impossible is possible.
And because of the apocalypse, it isn’t changing any time soon.
Rose ran her fingers through her hair, breathing out slowly, pushing it back against her scalp. She sighed and walked over to the body, prodded it with her toe once again, like before, but there was no rustle of a plastic booty this time. The mangled face leered up at her, the bones smashed to pieces, the eyes lopsided and swaying on their twisted optic nerves.
All her hard work and hours of preparation, destroyed.
So much for the MO.
She glanced at the mysterious man behind her. His body lay slumped against the wall, the knife handle protruding from his chin.
Oh well. No one will ever know.
And you never claim another killer’s kill. A wise man once said that.
She tried to force the thought from her brain. This time, it stuck. She felt a tear roll down her warm cheek. The stench of decay hung heavy in the air. She bent down and smiled. Then she addressed the wise man in question, stroking his shredded cheek.
“Hey, Dad.”
Taming the Tongue by Chad Lutzke
The sun beamed down on the ice in Tim’s cup, intermittently catching his eye as the cubes shifted like misshapen disco balls in the brown, refreshing drink. He downed the rest of the tea and looked into the cup. It was stained near the bottom from 364 days of partaking in his new habit.
Before last summer, Tim had never been much of a tea drinker. It was for old folks, along with naps, bifocals, and complaining. But for the past year the drink had acted as a reminder of how sometimes things just happen that need to happen. They have a way of working themselves out.
Like two summers ago when a tremendous storm had ripped through the neighborhood, knocking the power out for days, even uprooting several trees – one of them being in Tim’s front yard. The monstrous thing had crushed the roof of his front porch. Initially Tim had found himself distressed over the destruction, but within two weeks he was cashing a two thousand dollar check from his insurance company and stacking a full cord of free firewood against the garage for the following winter.
And last summer there was Mrs. Lawrence…
Things happened all in due time. Life wasn’t a mistake, and neither were its happenings.
***
Mrs. Lawrence brought a unique degree of chaos with her, concealed well inside a petite, wrinkled body that was hunched far closer to the ground than it should be. At first glance the old woman gave a gentle demeanor with a face that cracked like tree bark when triggered by a smile. Eighty-five summers under a California sun had built the tanned hide she’d worn.
Her pride and joy was her garden. An abundance of flowers, herbs, and even mushrooms covered the ground in organized clusters throughout her backyard, butting up to the wooden fence dividing her property from Tim’s. A gate sat oddly placed along the fence, opening to each lawn. Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence – being the original owners of both houses – in their younger years had built the gate to make room for a riding mower in order to conveniently mow both lawns. Tim had purchased the home three years ago, and the rickety gate still stood.
After Tim bought the house, he, of course, tended to the lawn himself. The outdoor maintenance had helped him get through his divorce. Energy once used on scheming ways to keep his cheating wife was then spent putting to shame even Mrs. Lawrence’s colorful backyard canvas. But while the old woman’s green thumb gave vibrant life to an otherwise cramped piece of land, over the years her mouth had torn down the once-strong foundation that was her World War II veteran spouse.
Mr. Lawrence often ignored his wife’s verbal abuse, but Tim could tell over time the relentless belittling had softened the man from a sturdy brick wall to an absorbent castle of sand, slowly eroding. The upright walk he once held had become a slumped crawl, by no fault of his aging spine but that of his wife’s venomous tongue.
The woman’s nagging often played as a soundtrack to Tim’s hard work in the yard. He did his best to tune out the disparaging words, but accented bits like ‘useless,’ ‘no good,’ or ‘idiot’ often penetrated his ears – a cringe-worthy chorus on otherwise beautiful days. At times Tim would watch from afar as Mr. Lawrence stood calmly with his broken ego, absorbing each blow from his unrelenting hag of a wife.
However, Mrs. Lawrence didn’t limit her gripes and criticisms to just her husband. Through
the summer months in particular, Tim often received verbal lashings himself concerning his dog and its bark seemingly directed toward Mrs. Lawrence alone.
“That hellhound of yours runs out here and scares the holy out of me,” she’d complain.
It was true. Tim’s German shepherd, Shadow, had no qualms about loudly declaring his opinion of Mrs. Lawrence to the rest of the neighborhood.
“I come out here to relax, not suffer a stroke because you can’t keep a handle on your mutt. Either shut him up or I’ll do it for you!”
Most days Tim would let Shadow out only when there was no sign of Mrs. Lawrence. But on occasion, when the old hag let loose on her unfortunate husband, Tim would allow Shadow to go and ‘scare the holy out.’ It helped switch her focus from the old man to the dog, who could certainly take her abuse better than any broken man.
Early last spring, Shadow had been out most of the afternoon. All was quiet, until Tim heard the most maniacal sounds the dog had ever emitted. Tim scurried to the back deck and found Shadow frantically clawing at the gate with a cacophony of intimidating growls and barks. Part of the gate was splintered, with shards of wood scattered on the ground nearby.
“Shadow! Come!” Tim yelled across his yard.
The dog obeyed and retreated to the house, his mouth covered in foam, strings of thick drool clinging to his muzzle. Tim looked over and saw Mrs. Lawrence. But instead of her usual tirade and without once looking in Tim’s direction, she moved swiftly through her backyard and into her house, wearing only a housecoat and slippers, like a child up to no good.
Later that night, Tim woke to a putrid smell. He went into the dining room to find Shadow lying on the hardwood floor next to a large puddle of his own runny feces. The dog looked up shamefully at Tim and whimpered. He tried to stand but only his front legs were able to function, his back half paralyzed.
Tim cleaned up the mess and threw a blanket on the floor next to the couch in the living room. He carefully maneuvered Shadow onto it and placed a bowl of water nearby. After consoling his ill dog for several minutes, Tim stretched out on the couch and slept. He would call the veterinarian first thing in the morning.
What Goes Around Page 8