By Reason of Insanity

by Shane Stevens

  To make absolutely sure he built one final safeguard into his scheme, though he didn’t expect it would ever be needed. When Mungo first arrived at Willows, Bishop quickly made friends with him and soon they were taking showers side by side, laughing and joking and masturbating simultaneously. Bishop surreptitiously examined his new friend’s body for scars and tattoos. To his relief there were none.

  He, however, had a recent scar on his upper right shoulder. He suggested that Mungo get the same so they could be buddies forever, even long after they escaped—sort of blood brothers, he said to Mungo, and winked. Mungo had at last found a friend and being somewhat dull-witted, he readily agreed. That afternoon when they were alone Bishop carefully made a small V-shaped cut on the same spot as his. Every day he dressed the wound, and it rapidly formed scar tissue. By the time of the escape they had identical scars.

  On July 3 the rains came and Bishop went, over the roof and under the wall into a world he knew much about from watching television. Behind him he left his surrogate body and all the curses he could muster. He knew he was never going back.

  In the pouring rain he walked for hours, heading due south, as best he could tell, trying to keep to a fairly straight line away from Willows. Somewhere along his trek he hid the axe in dense woods where it would not be found. Somewhere else he buried the ring and watch deep in the ground. The severed finger he threw to the insects.

  The night was dark and fearful and afforded him good protection. No one was out, no cars moved. He felt alone in the universe and the feeling pleased him. Everything he touched filled him with delight, even the rain seemed friendly. He passed sleeping houses full of silent shadows that ignored him. Without breaking stride he crossed roads and culverts, gradually making his way unseen down the California land.

  Toward morning the rain stopped. He had only a few hours left before the body was discovered. He kept moving, running at times across fields and along the edges of roads, always listening for sounds of danger. At daybreak he came to a small community bordering woods. He paused to rest, hiding in a makeshift lean-to a few hundred yards from a clump of houses. Wheezing loudly, he tried to slow his breathing down; he was desperately weary but not particularly sleepy, sheer excitement was keeping him awake. He thought of how far he had come during the night. Eight miles? Ten miles? A good enough distance for immediate safety. “But not good enough,” he muttered savagely. Not good enough if he didn’t change his clothes fast. What he needed was to get into a home on this Fourth of July morning or he would surely be picked up as he was.

  As he was … The phrase made him smile, thinking of his plan and how it all had started. He suddenly wished for his wallet with the picture of his mother, that was his only regret. He had carried the little wallet all the years he was at Willows; someone had given it to him when he was very young. He loved his mother and always carried her picture with him. Now it was gone. He laughed, saddened by the loss.

  An hour later he saw activity in one of the houses, people coming out. He watched as a young man and woman got into a car and drove away, his eyes following the car until it disappeared. If he could only drive … He left the thought unfinished. Quickly he skirted the backs of the other homes, keeping himself among the trees. The house he had been watching was at the end of the row. If he could approach it from the blind side he might have a chance. He waited another hour, then walked toward the house and up the steps, intending to ask directions if anyone was inside. He knocked on the door, waited, knocked again. No answer. He turned the doorknob. Locked. Swiftly he went around to the blind side and raised a window. In a moment he was in the dining room.

  Another few seconds and he found the bedroom. From the closet he grabbed a brown pair of pants and a yellow dress shirt. He changed clothes, tightening the belt to the last notch on the loose pants. He traded his black institutional shoes, worn and mud-caked, for a pair from the closet. Almost a perfect fit. The other closet held women’s clothes. He searched through several pocketbooks; in a purse was a twenty-dollar bill. Luck was still with him.

  Within minutes he was walking toward the kitchen, his old clothes bundled under his arm. Something moved, ahead of him. He froze. Something else moved. He looked down. Cats. He swore softly. A bunch of cats was running around the kitchen. Under the sink he found what he needed. Kerosene. He took the can with him.

  Back in the dining room he stopped at a small writing desk by the window, leafed through the papers on top. Nothing he could use. In the drawer were a handful of paycheck stubs made out to a Daniel Long. On each was a social security number. He stuck two in his shirt pocket. He also took a used envelope addressed to Daniel Long at that location.

  At a clearing in the woods a half mile away he poured kerosene on the clothes and burned them. The shoes he buried farther on, then walked to the next town where he bought a small cardboard suitcase and shaving gear. After breakfast he waited with several others for the bus south. With his new dress clothes and suitcase he looked respectable, a young man on a short business trip or a brief vacation; certainly no one to be feared or even to create suspicion.

  That evening in Yuba City he stopped in a bar; he had never tasted alcohol. He ordered a beer, liked it, ordered another. “That’s very good,” he told the bartender in his most engaging manner. The woman next to him said she drank beer now and then, mostly on hot days. “Makes you sweat, you know?” She glanced at him, smiled. “It’s good when you sweat a little.”

  He returned the smile. When she ordered another martini he saw the roll of bills in her pocketbook. Soon they were deep in conversation. She was from Los Angeles, owned a beauty parlor there. Decided to take a month off, drive around her adopted state to really see it. “Most people don’t even know what they got here,” she said emphatically. “It’s beautiful, really beautiful, you know?”

  She was fifty-four years old, originally from Milwaukee. Married at twenty, her husband deserted her eight years later. No children. She worked a few jobs, then went to a trade school for four months to learn the beauty-parlor business. After six more years in Milwaukee she moved to Los Angeles. Her parents were dead, her sisters married and scattered. She worked in a dozen different salons in Los Angeles, managed a few of them over the next ten years. When she saved enough money she opened her own shop. She was good at her trade and she had a head for figures. The business prospered.

  “Twenty years I’m here,” she told him, “and I’m never going back.” She shook her head. “Never going back.” She ordered another martini. “It’s too cold in Milwaukee, you know? I don’t like the cold.” She giggled. “I like to be kept warm.” She looked at him, a warm smile painted on her face.

  He looked good to her and there was no use denying that. She was essentially an honest woman and long past the coy stage, and what she regretted most about her younger years were all the boys and men she had rejected out of traditional feminine virtue. Whenever she thought of it her anger flashed, and in recent years she found herself thinking about it more and more. Such a damn loss, she would say to herself bitterly. All those lost years of good feeling and good times because she was taught to guard herself and her stupid damn virtue. What was that her mother used to tell the girls growing up? A lady always keeps her pocketbook closed until after the marriage. Well, this lady’s goddam pocketbook was going to open any goddam time she felt like it. And she felt like it right now.

  She squeezed the young man’s hand, rubbed against his index finger. It was long and slim, that meant he had a long slim cock. She shivered in anticipation. She could always tell the size of a man’s cock by his fingers. God knows, she had seen some in her years. But not enough, not goddam near enough, she told herself bitterly.

  They had another round of drinks, for which she paid. Sometime during the evening a television newsman announced the escape of a homicidal maniac from somewhere up north. His picture was shown on the screen. Nobody paid any attention. The bartender, wise and weathered, turned the volume down a bit;
nut talk was bad for business. He looked his customers over; the only maniac at the moment was the dumb old blonde trying to pick up that nice-looking young guy. He shook his head sadly. They’ll never learn, he said silently for the millionth time in his bartending life.

  She must have had about seven drinks, she told herself on the way out. Not too much for someone who can handle it. She hiccupped. When they got to her car he helped her in. She liked that, such a gentleman. Must have had a good mother, She was not a mother herself, didn’t even like kids. But if you’re a mother be a good mother, that’s the only way. She felt a little light-headed in the cool night air but otherwise she was fine. And she expected to feel even better very shortly.

  She started the motor, touching his hand again for luck. He sat there quietly, smiling whenever she turned to him. Behind his eyes a plan was slowly forming.

  A few minutes and they were at the motel. She wheeled the car round the gravel driveway to the rear, parking in front of her room. In the soft porch light he looked awfully good to her, good enough to eat, she thought lewdly. He was young, twentyfive he had said, and lately she had been seeking younger men. Not just lately, she corrected herself; for a lot of years now she had this thing for young men. The older she got the younger she tried to get them. But this was the youngest she had ever lucked into, just a boy really, and she was not going to let it get away. She would get its long slim fingers inside her if she had to kidnap and rape it. And if she had to, she would even pay for it.

  In the room she turned on one small lamp. Not being romantic but realistic, she knew it would be better if the boy didn’t see her in harsh light. With a giddy schoolgirlish squeak of delight, she sat on the love seat in front of the curtained window, pulling him down next to her. She held his hand, soon placing it on her breast. She stroked his thigh. He was shy, and she liked that. Cooing softly, she brought her face near to his until they were kissing, timidly, awkwardly. As he started to separate, she moved her hand up the back of his head and pressed forward. Their mouths joined again and she opened his with her insistent tongue, weaving in and out like a silky snake. After some moments she released him and pretended to be shocked by his wildly passionate behavior.

  On the way to the bathroom she kept telling him that she had no idea he was such a real man, he just took her breath away and made her forget everything. She did not, however, forget to take her handbag with her. Several minutes later she returned in her nightgown, after he had snapped off the lamp and opened the curtains at her request. In the romantic glow of the porch light she saw his naked body, slender, boyish, and her nipples hardened as erotic sensations swept over her. She quickly slid under the covers, holding them open for him in smiling invitation. As he joined her in bed she loosened the bow on her nightgown and pulled the bottom up above her thighs.

  Her hands soon guided his slim fingers down to her vagina. Like many women, she needed physical stimulation to become lubricated properly, and now she pressed his hand into the slow rhythmic movement necessary for her. She sensed his inexperience, and that became an added thrill. After a while she began to feel her senses melding and she knew she was drifting toward orgasm. She slipped her right hand under his waist and rolled him on top of her, expertly guiding his penis inside her moist body. With quickening motion she began her own rhythmic dance, and as she floated into sensual ecstasy she murmured his name, softly, faintly, forming an endless litany of love. Danny, Danny, Danny …

  Bishop wanted to scream. He wanted to kill the woman six times. He felt sick, he felt disgusted at what she was doing, what she was making him do. She was old and she was fat and she had put her disgusting tongue inside his mouth and now his penis inside her disgusting body. She was horrible, a horrible monster that was trying to crush him, devour him. But he would fool her because he was smarter; he would learn what he needed to know and he would take what he needed to survive. Then he would kill her.

  He had never been with a woman, had never seen a woman naked except in pictures somebody once had at the hospital. He wanted to find out about sex, how it felt to be with a woman. He hated bodily contact, hated to touch anyone, but he wanted to see if sex was different. He had to see if it made touching somebody else feel good. Now he saw that sex was just another trick that women used to capture men, to kill them little by little instead of all at once. Maybe if they were dead it would be good, or if they were asleep. Or maybe if they were in his power, afraid of him, willing to do anything to save them selves, maybe then it would be nice to touch their bodies.

  The woman beneath him began to moan and toss her head from side to side. He thought he was hurting her and he became excited, wanting to hurt her more, but he didn’t know how. Her moans became louder, her tossing more frantic. She started to shriek, quick guttural gasps. He stopped moving, looked at her. She shook his body violently up and down on top of her, getting him to move again. Seconds later she lunged up at him in a final horrible gasp, her face contorted, her lips drawn back, her eyes feverish. For a moment he was frightened, thinking the demon was attacking him. Then she collapsed back on the bed, her voice silent, her body still. Soon her labored breathing stopped and she lay there, eyes closed like a broken rag doll. He hoped she was dead.

  Slowly, cautiously, he dismounted her. He put on his pants and went into the bathroom. He stayed there a long time. When he returned she was curled up on her side at the edge of the bed, her flabby face relaxed in sleep. She was snoring loudly.

  The roll of bills was not in her handbag. He knew he could find it hidden somewhere in her clothes but he didn’t look. He needed one more thing from her, something very important to him.

  He got into bed, well pleased with himself. He had come far in one day. The authorities were searching for Mungo, and he was free and clear in his new clothes and traveling with a respectable businesswoman. Tomorrow, he told himself finally, should be even better.

  In the morning he asked the woman to teach him how to drive a car, telling her that he had never bothered to learn as a kid. She was flattered of course, but more than that she saw it as a way to keep him a few days longer. She found him weirdly exciting, his inexperience and clumsiness titillated her. She wondered where he came from, wished she could find a few more like him. He satisfied her strange ways in bed, just as long as she directed him, and yet he didn’t seem to expect anything sexual in return. He didn’t steal her money, as others had done; he didn’t ask for gifts in the morning. Just to learn to drive. Damn right she’d teach him, and get all the good feeling she could while it lasted. Boys like that didn’t come along every day.

  For his part Bishop was willing to put up with her vile body and awful touch while he got what he needed. He was a master of emotional disguise, and each time they were in bed he smiled and laughed and did what was expected of him. For three days they lingered on the outskirts of Yuba City. He was a good student, clever and quick, and by the third day he could drive a car as well as anybody.

  The three days had been sheer ecstasy for the woman. She was sexually satisfied for the first time in years. She didn’t at all mind that she had to pay for the boy’s food since he had no money. She didn’t even care about the hundred dollars she was going to give him when they parted. She wished only that she could keep him forever.

  On their third evening together in bed the woman suddenly turned her body around and kneeled between the boy’s legs. She took his penis in her mouth and slowly and deftly brought him to climax. She did not usually give oral sex to men and she intended it to be something that the boy would remember. It was more than that. Afterward he lay in bed wondering how anything could feel so good. He soon concluded that what she had done was the only real sex; it was clean and he didn’t have to touch the woman and she didn’t have to touch him, except for her mouth on his penis. He quickly resolved that the only sex he would ever have again would be with a woman’s mouth. Not only did it feel good, he reminded himself, but it showed his complete contempt for women when he put into
their mouths the very thing he used for urination.

  The following day, July 8, they drove south. The woman was going to Sacramento and San Francisco on the way home. He told her he would go as far as San Francisco. The afternoon was sunny and cheerful and they drove slowly, enjoying the scenery along the way.

  Several times they stopped to eat fresh fruit from roadside stands. They were a happy couple, laughing and having a good time as friends do. At dusk they stopped by a field. In such a deserted place the woman felt that they were alone in all the world and she wanted the boy to make love to her right there in the field, as was once before done to her when she was seventeen and in Wisconsin.

  He smiled his warmest most engaging smile and as she got out of the car, deliciously happy and feeling for the moment like the pretty young girl she once had been, he hit her from behind with the tire iron. It was a savage two-handed blow that noisily cracked her skull. As she fell he hit her again. He then carefully ran the car over the body, the left wheels crushing the chest. Afterward he dragged the remains to a ditch off the road and covered the body with leaves and rotted wood. When he was finished he knelt down, his knees straddling the crushed head, and put his penis in the dead female mouth.

  Later that evening he pulled into a motel near Sacramento. in the room he examined the woman’s handbag thoroughly. The roll of bills totaled $800, plus $500 in unsigned traveler’s checks; these he put in his pocket. From the wallet he extracted the woman’s driver’s license, thought a moment, then returned it. Too dangerous. He looked at the pictures in the plastic slots, flipping rapidly: men, women, children, bodies, faces, eyes, all staring at him in silent pose. He came to one of the woman herself, younger, slimmer, crouched on a nameless beach in a seductive manner, her brief swimsuit intentionally revealing her charms. He pulled the picture and slipped it into another pocket. The rest of the contents was the usual female junk. He put the bag in the trunk with her clothes.