by Ed Gaffney
His glance rested on the pruning shears. Who would have imagined how astonishingly effective they were for the post-mortem removal of fingers?
And then he smiled. Stephanie would be the final movement in this masterpiece. Her death was going to be unique—why shouldn’t her dismemberment be unique as well?
He lifted the shears in his right hand, and lightly, lightly, ran the tip of his left index finger along one of the blades. Despite all the work he had done with the tool, it was still razor-sharp.
But would it cause the necessary quantum of pain to Stephanie? As she approached the end, his hope was that she would be the source of a spectacular symphony of shrieks and screams, marking with their volume the excellence of his work.
He could, of course, try it on his next victim, and see. But that would mar its use on Stephanie. If she was to be the first to lose her finger while still alive, then he couldn’t very well take the technique out for a test-drive on some far less important victim.
And then an idea crossed his mind. An experiment. It would be imperfect, but it would be useful. And, if he were careful, there was no reason it shouldn’t work.
Full of excitement, he raced out of his special space into the main part of the house to get the supplies he’d require—a towel, a box of Band-Aids, some gauze, tape, a little plastic bag full of ice, and antibacterial gel. As his hands filled with the items his heart rate increased steadily. This was going to be a fantastic experiment.
He hurried back down to his sanctuary, and set everything onto the table next to his computer. Then he collected the pruning shears and brought them over to the table. He sat down in front of it all, bent down, and untied his left shoe.
If there was an accident, he certainly didn’t want any damage to occur to his right foot. That was his dominant side.
He took off his shoe and his sock, and crossed his left ankle over his right knee. And frowned.
The problem was that the target was his pinky toe. He needed to use the pruning shears with his right hand, and there was no way he could do it except in a most awkward manner. He would have to hold the shears to the right of his foot, and have the blades converge on the toe from below. And his only view would be from the left side—over the top of the foot. If he tried to do it this way, the view of his right hand would be blocked almost entirely by his left foot as he leaned forward to see what was happening to his toe.
That would not be satisfactory.
So he uncrossed his leg, pushed back a bit from the computer table, and propped his left foot up onto the edge of the work surface. It was still not ideal, but his pinky toe was now much more accessible to the shears which he wielded in his right hand. It would have to do.
Using his left hand, he carefully took hold of the target digit with his thumb and index finger, and pulled it gently away from the others. It was funny how it always seemed like the little toe was actually clinging to its larger mates, as if for safety. Human instinct was so amusing sometimes.
Once he had made some space between the pinky and the fourth toe, he slid the open shears into place, setting the base of his toe in the V created by the open shears.
His right hand held the shears carefully. One part of the tool’s handle rested at the base of his thumb and across his palm, the other rested across the four opposite fingers. The question to be answered by the experiment had to do with the manner in which Stephanie’s digit was to be removed.
When he was cutting fingers off of his previous victims, they were dead, so the method of removal was immaterial. He squeezed the two ends of the handle together, the blades scissored across the flesh and bone, there was a satisfying crunch, and the deed was done.
But when Stephanie was to be mutilated, the effect was not only intended for those who would discover her, but for her. She would be alive to experience it. The question was: How best to create in her the maximum experience of terror?
It was not an idle question. The obvious answer was to cut through her finger slowly, so that she experienced every second of the destruction of that part of her body sequentially, rather than as one rapid event. As the gradually increasing incision grew, there would be time for Stephanie’s imagination to create and even dwell on the boundless horrors available to the human mind.
But there were risks. The terror, or the pain, might overwhelm her senses, and cause her to faint. That would be the worst possible outcome. The whole point was for her to be witness to her own fate, her own mortality. Not to fall unconscious as it was happening.
But if the cut was made quick, the pain would be swift, and she would probably be spared some of the physical agony. So it was less likely that she would faint, but would she really suffer?
And suffering was all about psychological pain—that’s where the big money was. What would maximize that?
The monster focused on his relaxed right hand, and then moved his gaze down to the little toe resting between the two blades. There was approximately a half inch of space between each blade and either side of the toe.
Then, slowly, he began to squeeze his right hand.
At first, the tension in the handle resisted him, so that the blades did not move. But then, as he contracted the muscles of his forearm and hand, and put a little more force on the handles of the shears, he could see the blades twitch closed just a fraction of an inch. There was now probably three-eighths of an inch from the edge of the blade and the skin of his toe.
He froze, keeping the blades still at that distance.
This experiment was, of course, flawed in the most critical of ways. He was in control of the blades, and his toe was at stake. That made everything different.
When the time came to cut off Stephanie’s finger, she would be well aware of the fact that she was no longer in control of anything. And that was surely going to be his most powerful ally in bringing her to the edge of true, raw terror.
He focused again on his toe, squeezing the handle tighter. Now a quarter of an inch separated his toe from the blades.
And now only an eighth of an inch.
It was undeniably exciting to observe, even though he was fully aware that at any moment, he could simply release his grip on the tool, take his foot off the edge of the table, put on his sock and his shoe, and walk out of the room.
When Stephanie reached this moment, of course, she would be in an entirely different situation. She would have no choice about anything. And the emotions she would be feeling would be described as far more than merely “exciting.”
Indeed, at the moment that he would squeeze the blades closer to the tender flesh of Stephanie’s finger, what the monster would be going for was something closer to terrifying. Or possibly paralyzing. Yeah. Paralyzing would be good.
He realized that, at least at the beginning of their encounter, he would have to tape her to a chair, because if she was going to get the full impact of the experience of having her finger amputated, she was going to have to watch. He’d probably have to force her to watch.
He could live with that.
He squeezed the handle tighter, and now the blades were touching his toe on either side. Just touching. Scarcely even pressing against it.
He was sweating. This was awesome.
Regardless of how he decided to make the final slice through her finger—with a swift, shocking cut, or with deliberate, insistent, and oh-so-relentless pressure—he knew that he would definitely perform this preliminary part of the operation slowly. Make her watch as the separation between the skin of her finger and the cutting edge of the blades of the pruning shears gradually, incrementally, disappeared.
Interestingly, even though the edges of the blades were in contact with his toe, he really didn’t feel anything down there. But that made some sense. The nerves at the base of one’s pinky toe were probably not the most sensitive.
Ever so gently, he applied more pressure to the handle.
He not only felt the shears’ honed metal edge squeezing his toe, but he could se
e the skin on either side of the digit dented beneath it.
And then he felt something different there. Something hot.
A little bubble of blood formed directly at the contact point between the blade and the toe, and he was transfixed as a tiny but growing bead of glistening crimson liquid pooled on the blade on the outside—the left side—of his toe, where the first incision had been made.
The blade on the right hadn’t yet broken skin.
The pain was unpleasant, but bearable, and so, again, he gently squeezed tighter on the handle.
Now the right blade bit in, and the blood on the left blade became a small but steady flow.
The pain was very hot, and now, even though he wasn’t applying any more pressure, increasing.
He was breathing hard, and his heart rate was undeniably elevated. The toe, trapped between the blades, was being severed very slowly, just by the pressure of the squeezed flesh against the blades which had cut through the skin on both sides and were pressing ever more insistently.
A droplet of sweat ran from his hairline near the right temple down past his ear to his jawline. The time had come.
Taking a deep breath, and letting it out, he squeezed hard. There was a popping sound, and blinding, searing pain. It was good that he had soundproofed the place, because he was roaring with agony. He felt sick to his stomach, and he was having trouble focusing his eyes. When he finally blinked past the tears and the tunnel vision, blood was pouring out of his foot.
He dropped the shears, grabbed the ice, the towel, and the bandages, and began to stop the bleeding.
He had read once that the nerve endings in the fingers were far more developed and sensitive than those in the toes, especially in the pinky toes.
So that meant that what Stephanie Hartz was going to experience was much worse than what he was going through.
Despite his anguish, he smiled.
The experiment had been a total success.
EIGHT
“YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS ABOUT GOING PUBLIC on live television.”
Stephanie was driving her father to the cardiologist’s office. Malcolm went twice a year, because he was at risk for heart attack.
Not exactly a surprise, given the way the man had lived most of his life.
What was a surprise was that he had asked his daughter to come along. Normally, he was pathologically closemouthed about his health. She feared the worst, and immediately switched shifts with Donna at the hospital so she could go.
“I am gravely serious, my dear. There is a history in all men’s lives, and in mine, it is a history of cold fear and cowardly inaction. I have been forewarned that the squalid vultures of the press have again turned their diseased gaze toward my reputation. This time, I have screwed my courage to the sticking place, and I shall not slumber through the attack.”
Stephanie sighed as she turned onto the street where the doctor’s office was located. Her father had always been in love with Shakespearean prose, but when he got wound up, it could be a little much.
“But Leif Samuelson?” she asked, “Did you have to pick that squalid vulture? Have you ever even seen Public Forum? What a horrible show!”
“Yes, I have seen it. And of course it’s execrable. It’s television. But it has the largest viewing audience of any program of its kind.”
Public Forum was little more than the opportunity for a blond-haired bully who pretended he was a descendant of the Vikings to kiss up to celebrities who agreed with him, and shout down anyone else. For some reason, people ate it up with a spoon. “But couldn’t you have gone on another show that wasn’t so…I don’t know. Unfair? Do you really think you’re going to get a chance to say anything?”
By now they had pulled into a parking spot directly across from the doctor’s office. They were a good fifteen minutes early.
“I didn’t choose Leif Samuelson. He chose me.”
“What?”
“The show’s producer contacted me yesterday evening, and informed me that the good Mr. Samuelson was planning to do a show on last week’s murder in Indian Oaks, and invited me to be his guest. The implication, of course, was that I was going to be a target of the man’s evil speculation regardless of whether I was a guest or not. So I took up the gauntlet. Tomorrow evening a camera crew from WFFT will invade my home in the middle of the afternoon, and later that evening, from my own living room, I will make my first live appearance on television. Just Leif Samuelson and I, one on one. No six-way shouting matches, no other distractions. My chance to finally stand up for myself. God help me.”
Stephanie switched off the engine, and turned to face her father. Like every day of his life, Malcolm was dressed like the only place in the world to buy clothes was the L.L. Bean catalog. “Speaking of God help me, you are sure that there is nothing wrong with you, right? This is just a routine visit to the doctor?”
Malcolm cleared his throat and looked straight ahead, through the windshield. The day was overcast, and unseasonably cool. How could it feel like autumn in the middle of the summer? “Do you recall a rather unpleasant exchange between us that took place approximately three years ago?”
Did she recall? It may have been three years ago, but she recalled it quite well. And it still got her plenty mad. “You mean the time you contacted me the day after you had emergency coronary surgery?”
Malcolm turned in his seat to face his daughter directly, and raised his voice a bit. “While the procedure was, I grant you, technically emergency coronary surgery, I can assure you—” But he stopped himself abruptly, looked down for a moment, and then met her eyes again. “Yes,” he said, much quieter. “The time I called you after I had the stent put in. After I had the emergency coronary surgery.”
Malcolm’s abrupt change in tone caught Stephanie off-guard. She couldn’t help but back down herself. “Of course I remember.”
“Well.” Malcolm took a soft breath. “I have given my actions a great deal of thought, and I have come to the conclusion that I owe you an apology for that entire episode. I was, I acted—” He frowned. “What I did was wrong. I should have told you about the diagnosis, and I should have told you about the surgery before I had it.”
This was new ground for them both. Stephanie wasn’t quite sure what to do. So she just waited.
“Therefore, in order to avoid another such imbroglio,” Malcolm continued, with a smile, “I thought that I would give you the opportunity to accompany me on these biannual adventures to Dr. Uppal. He has agreed to speak to us both after my examination, if you are willing.”
Stephanie was willing, but increasingly suspicious. “And you are sure that Dr. Uppal hasn’t said anything bad about your condition that you have been hiding?”
“I know that your trust in me has been understandably shaken, too often, in our time together. But I assure you, my dear, with all the gravitas I can muster, that I am not hiding anything about my condition from you. That is not why I have asked you to come with me to the doctor today.”
“Your condition is serious, but it is definitely better than before the surgery. And there has been no deterioration in the past several visits, so that is also encouraging.”
Dr. Uppal was a few inches shorter than Steph, who was only about five foot seven. And although he was somewhere between Stephanie’s and her father’s age, he had such a peaceful aura that he seemed like he was a two-hundred-year-old holy man in a lab coat. He was almost always smiling, and when he wasn’t, it looked like he was just about to. Regardless of what he was saying. For a cardiologist, that was some trick.
“I would like to see your cholesterol level drop a little, and your blood pressure seems stubborn. Very stubborn indeed. You are taking your medicine?”
Malcolm raised his right hand as if swearing an oath. “Every night. Lipitor, Toperol, aspirin. My three best friends.”
Dr. Uppal made a note in Malcolm’s chart, and nodded. “You could still stand to lose a few pounds. You are trying to get some exercise every da
y, right? A little walking? Even light jogging, if you are up to it.”
“I walk every day,” Malcolm replied. “Usually a mile, sometimes a little more.”
Well, that was news. Steph considered her father the most sedentary individual she had ever known.
“Okay. Very good.” Dr. Uppal looked up at them. “Do you have any questions for me?”
Steph waited for a moment to see if Malcolm had anything to say, but he was just looking at her. So she dove in. “When you say that my father’s condition is, um, serious, can you be more specific? I’m a pediatric nurse, so I have a general understanding of why he needed the surgery, but I don’t have much experience with treatment plans and prognoses.”
“This is an excellent question, Ms. Hartz.” Dr. Uppal sat back in his chair, laced his fingers together on his chest, and smiled. “What I am doing when I am treating people with cardiovascular issues is I am helping these people manage their risk. Risk of heart attack, risk of stroke, risk of aneurism, risk of arteriosclerosis.”
How could he talk about things like this and look so, well, jolly?
“So even though we were able to treat your father’s acute condition with the angioplasty, we still know that there are significant risk factors which make him more likely than the normal person to suffer any of these problems. For example, elevated cholesterol, and elevated blood pressure. Age is a factor. Certain arterial walls have already hardened considerably. The management of stress has been a source of difficulty for your father, and that is not a good sign. And of course there are other historical factors which further indicate that we should be cautious.”
Malcolm cleared his throat. “What the good doctor is saying, ever so discreetly, is that by abusing my body for decades as an active alcoholic, I have contributed, quite possibly significantly, to my current condition.”
Even if Stephanie had wanted to say something, she wouldn’t have been able. It was just too much to take in all at once. She knew that her father wasn’t in the greatest shape, but to hear it laid out so starkly, even by Dr. Twinkly Eyes, was profoundly upsetting.