The Bighead

by Edward Lee

  “There’ve been a couple murders, folks,” the cop finally had out with it. “There’s no cause fer alarm, I just—”

  “Murders are no cause for alarm?” Jerrica testily remarked. “Well, ma’am, a’corse they are, but these murders’ve all been committed quite south’a here. Spread out as this area is, and bein’ that Luntville don’t have a police department of its own, it’s takin’ us a while to talk ta folks. Just a precaution is all, ta be on the safe side. You know how folks can be ’round here, don’t feel it necessary to lock their doors an’ windows an’ all. I’m just here to advise ya ta do so.”

  “Just as a precaution,” Jerrica mocked.

  “That’s right, ma’am.”

  Alexander asked, “Could you give us any details relative to the murders, Sergeant?”

  “Well, Father, I really cain’t do that,” Mullins replied, more heat lightning flashing at his back, “‘cos it’s confidential. All I’m allowed ta say is that over the past coupla weeks some women have been found dead a right nastily. Just hill girls mostly, an’ mountain gals.”

  Hill girls, Alexander considered. Mountain gals. “Were the murders sexually motivated?”

  “Uh, yeah they was, sir, er I mean Father.” Mullins flinched as if chilled. “The crime scenes was all really bad is what I was told.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “Not until tonight, Father. What happened tonight is the killer attacked a farmer in his home, murdered the poor guy right there while his kids watched. Thank the Lord he didn’t turn on the kids, too. And them poor kids, they was understandably hysterical, not much useful they could give us fer a description, ’cept that the killer was big.”

  Alexander felt obliged to ask the next pique of his curiosity. “Was there also evidence of sexual assault with this latest victim, the man?”

  Mullins grimly nodded. “An’ I’m afraid that’s about alls I’m authorized ta say regardin’ the details, Father.”

  “But where did this happen?” Charity asked. “You can tell us that, can’t you?”

  “The one tonight? Cain’t tell ya the victim’s name, but he’n his kids lived in an old farmhouse just outside’a Crick City.”

  Aunt Annie, at once, seemed relieved, a hand to her bosom. “That’s close to fifty miles away.”

  “Yes ma’am, so you can see, like I said, there’s no real cause fer alarm. Just want’cha ta be careful fer the time bein’, until we catch this guy. You know, like I was saying, lock yer doors an’ windows, an’ keep an eye out.”

  “We will, Sergeant,” Alexander offered, “and thanks for coming out.”

  “But wait a minute,” Charity’s next question leapt ahead. “What about the other murders, the women? Where did they occur? Where they further away?”

  “Yes, ma’am, they was, all in the next county to be exact.” But then the trooper faltered again, shifted uncomfortably. “And that’s actually the main reason we’re notifyin’ folks in the Luntville area.”

  Alexander peered quizzically. It didn’t make much sense; it seemed, even, like a poor judgment call on the part of the state police commander, or some grievous over-reaction. “I don’t get it,” the priest challenged. “If these murders happened that far away, why notify Luntville residents?”

  Another shift, another pause. The cop was a grim silhouette before them. “The first coupla murder victims were found just north’a the Boone National Forest and Game Preserve. Then we found another one near Stearns. Two more between Bristol an’ Lockwood, an’ two more after that between Lockwood an’ Rocky Top.”

  Annie gasped. “And the one today, the farmer. Just outside’a Crick City, ain’t that what you said, Officer?”

  “That’s right, ma’am,” the trooper replied in his darkest tone yet.

  “My God,” Charity said.

  But Alexander looked around, examining the sudden severity of their faces. “I don’t get it. What’s the big deal?”

  Lightning crackled in silence; the warm air stirred. “See, Father,” the trooper began, “based on where we’ve found the bodies of the victims, the killer seems ta be movin’…in a straight line—”

  “Straight for Luntville,” Charity whispered. And—

  “Annie!” Jerrica squealed.

  Confusion diced the moment. What the hell? Alexander thought, but then he heard thunk! and he blinked and darted forward. The state cop rushed to assist.

  Aunt Annie had fainted instantly, and collapsed to the floor.

  — | — | —

  TWELVE

  (I)

  Alexander and the cop carried Annie into the parlor, and lay her out on the old crushed-velvet scroll couch. Charity and Jerrica briskly fanned her face, with straw fans from the highboy. Alexander elevated her feet. “I better radio fer an ambulance,” Sergeant Mullins said.

  “Wait, I—” Alexander leaned over, peering down and holding the elder woman’s hand. It felt cool, fragile. “She’s coming too.”

  In time, Annie’s eyes opened fully. She looked wilted lying there, and stark when she realized what had happened. “My…gracious,” she whispered. She squeezed the priest’s hand. “I…just got so light-headed for a moment.”

  “You fainted, Aunt Annie,” Charity said, she and Jerrica still waving the fans.

  “Are you all right?” Jerrica asked. “The officer can call an ambulance.”

  “Goodness no.” Her eyes fluttered, then she seemed to pinken with embarrassment. She sat up then, validating her recovery. “I’m fine, really. I’m so sorry to be such a burden.”

  “It’s no trouble, ma’am,” Mullins offered. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. Thank you, thank you all. I feel much better.”

  “Let’s get you to bed,” Jerrica suggested, whereupon she and Charity aided the woman to her feet. “You’ve had a busy day.”

  “Too busy,” Charity added. “All that walking today in the hot sun, and this beastly humidity.” They both gently guided Annie toward out of the parlor and down the hall for her room.

  Alexander walked outside with the cop.

  “I really am sorry to cause all this ruckus, Father,” Mullins apologized.” The heat lightning continued to whiplash when they got out to the car. “Guess there ain’t no subtle way to tell folks that a killer might be headin’ fer their town.”

  “Hey, you’re just doing your job,” the priest said, and lit a cigarette. “We appreciate you taking the time to come out. Annie’ll be all right. I guess it was just a combination of the news of the murders and all this heat.” Alexander paused to reflect, dragging his Lucky. “But it seems strange, doesn’t it—these murders, I mean? A laid-back, remote area like this, I’d think that there’d be almost no crime at all.”

  “‘Round here, shore,” Mullins agreed. “Originally, I was thinkin’ that maybe the murders are spillover, but they ain’t ’cos the m.o.’s so different, and they’re coming from the wrong direction.”

  “Wrong direction? Spillover? What do you mean?”

  Mullins shrugged, lit a cigarette himself. “You’d be surprised by the murder rate along the state line forty, fifty miles west’a here. BATF’s always findin’ bodies, hooch-related.”

  Hooch? the priest wondered, but then he considered, BATF, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. “You mean moonshine, unlicensed whiskey.”

  “Right, Father. Them shiner-runners off each other two a week, and a right dag bunch’a sick’n crazy bastards they all are. But most’a them all happen on the other side’a the line, an’ they ain’t nothin’ like these murders I came to tell yawl about. You’re right, murders round here, ’specially sexual murders, never happen.”

  “And now all of a sudden you’ve got—what?—half a dozen?”

  “A few more’n that, Father, if ya wanna know the truth. I ain’t seen none’a the bodies myself, but we all read the alert-fax from HQ at the substation. This boy makes them ’shiners look like a bunch’a toddlers. Right sick wh
at he done to them gals, and that farmer. Real devilish work, Father.”

  Devilish. Yes, the devils were everywhere these days, right around every corner, the priest knew. Human devils. Psychopaths. It was sad to recognize that the world’s evil reached out even this far. “Any leads?” he lamely asked.

  “Naw, I shore wish I could tell ya otherwise, but so far our forensics unit ain’t got squat. We’ll get him though, whoever this sick son of a bitch is—an’ pardon my language, Father.”

  “Think nothing of it. And good luck.” I hope you bust him and break his balls, he thought. Crack that motherfucker’s chops… “I better get back in to check on Annie.”

  “Good night, Father. An’ again, sorry ta disturb yer night like this.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Take care.”

  Mullins pulled off in his shiny cruiser. Alexander watched the ruby-like taillights fade around the bend. Christ, what a night, he thought. Then he closed the great oak door.

  And locked it.

  ««—»»

  “She’s asleep,” Charity announced, gently closing Annie’s bedroom door. “Went out like a light.”

  “Good,” Alexander said. “Rest is exactly what she needs.”

  “The poor thing,” Jerrica added. “I guess everything just caught up with her at once.”

  Alexander nodded. “Yeah. A long, hot day, plus that heavy wine on top of it, and then a cop coming by with reports of murders—”

  “And me bringing up that creepy Bighead story probably only made it worse. Me and my big mouth.”

  “Don’t blame yourself—it was nobody’s fault,” the priest asserted. “The important thing is she’s all right. I’m sure all she needs is a good night’s sleep.”

  “That’s what I need too,” Charity said, caught in a yawn.

  “That’s what we all need,” the priest finished.

  “Goodnight all,” Charity bid and headed up the stairs. Alexander made to do the same, but then Jerrica touched his arm. “Care to join me in a last glass of wine?”

  He considered it, then shook his head. “No thanks. I’ve had my fill; any more alcohol for me and I’d be the next one fainting.” She seemed disappointed, though, when he’d said this, and she also seemed…fidgety. “You okay?”

  “Sure,” she said but her mind seemed elsewhere. She followed him up the stairs, and once they arrived on the landing, she appeared even more distracted, rubbing her arms, her eyes down cast.

  The priest’s brow cocked. “You sure you’re all right, Jerrica?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I guess all the excitement’s still got me a little wound up. Good night, Father.”

  He passed her, down to his own door. “Good night.”

  “Oh, and Father?” She offered a final smile. “Thanks for saving me from those thugs at the bar.”

  Alexander laughed. “All in a priestly day’s work.” Then he heard her door clicking shut as he shut his own. He rubbed his chin, thinking. Yes, something was wrong; all at once Jerrica seemed on edge, hyper even.

  I wonder what’s eating her all of a sudden? he thought.

  (II)

  “A cool shower, Jerrica, that’s what you need,” she muttered aloud to herself. She wouldn’t think about the sudden fear, which had nothing whatever to do with those silly Bighead stories, nor even the grim revelations made by the police officer. It was a fear of herself that suddenly seized her.

  And a familiar one.

  But if it wasn’t one thing, it was something else. That mean, irresistible edge began to rear. It had been a while, hadn’t it? She thought she’d lost it…

  So instead she took flight in her muse of flesh. Once naked and in the shower, she let her visions claim her; again, she fantasized of the two of them there, together, in the cool sprinkle.

  Herself and the priest…

  Their bodies pressing. Their hands lathering each other into suits of cool, white froth. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, she couldn’t stop imagining…

  Goddamn, she thought, touching herself as the water sprayed down on her face.

  Yes, if it wasn’t one thing, it was something else.

  And she knew what the something else was, all too well…

  No, she told herself. I will not. Yet she toweled off in haste, haphazardly, then walked naked across the bedroom. Her laptop, sitting there like a bored mascot, didn’t even occur to her, nor did the idea that she might type in some more notes, get some work done. After all, that’s why she was here: to work.

  Her heart began to race; she could feel the blood thumping hotly in her breasts. Her sex felt inflamed and her hands shook. Habituated personality, the counselor had said. Conative fixation-disorder. You’re a sex-addict, Jerrica, and when you can’t get sex, you seek your escape elsewhere.

  “I. Will. Not,” came her slow staccato murmur. Her hard eyes fixed down on the travel bag. “I won’t. I…promised.”

  It had been so long—it had been years. The only reason she even brought it was to remind her of her resolve—

  She began to masturbate, flooding her mind with the images of her desires—with the image of the priest. Her fingers slickened herself, her eyes were rolling back in her head nearly at once—a minute was all it took. Oh, God, she thought. She imagined his cock in her, stuck up right to the balls, while his mouth sucked her tongue as though it were a cock itself. But she’d already opened the tiny tin…

  Oh, God…

  It was something she learned from some nameless former lover, some one-night-stand. She’d been fellating him—his was quite large, as she recalled; perhaps that was the only way to remember men, not by their faces or their names but by their penises—and upon the brink of his orgasm, he lit a small glass pipe full of crack. Jerrica’s hips tremored at just that moment, her breasts seemed to rush forward in the sensations. She dipped the fingers of her other hand into the tin of pearlescent powder, brought them hastily to her nostril, and sniffed—

  —and came at the same time.

  It rocked her. It racked her. The delectable feeling seemed to squeeze the juice out of her brain, a wet sponge in a pail.

  It seemed to take forever to wind down, to finish. Next thing she knew, though, she was leaned raw-breasted over the tin, dying for more.

  “I. Will. Not,” she avowed to herself, as she had so many times. “No. No. No. Enough.”

  Then she upended the tin onto her travel mirror—

  I hate myself, she thought.

  I should kill myself.

  Then she began to cut the rest up into lines.

  (III)

  She dreamed of hot, licking lights and fertile air. She could smell the fecundity.

  The broth, she thought.

  She dreamed of herself, standing in worried wait before the bed. The bed’s host, another woman, flinched with her legs spread, her face a stamp of pain, her gown pushed up over the distended belly.

  They’d told her what to expect, hadn’t they?

  That’s why—

  The broth…

  The broth.

  The broth…

  What had she done? She couldn’t remember now, not even in her dreams. Or maybe she only thought she couldn’t.

  Maybe it was something she dared never to remember.

  The host’s breasts began to bleed a film of milk. The raw vagina spread, like a maw unhinging its jaw and widening to eject some huge, unearthly contents.

  “Get ready,” came another voice, some man’s. “Ain’t gonna have this. No we’se ain’t.”

  She opened her hands before the painfully spread legs. Please, please, she thought. Let her git through this…

  But then blood began to pour.

  She screamed.

  And she saw.

  Teeth like shredders grinding tender meat—

  —then the dream traversed—

  Gerladine, she thought, with tears pouring.

  Geraldine?

  Geraldine…

  —she thought once more
as she lit the match and brought it to her nipple—

  —and, again, the dream prolapsed—

  —she was somewhere else—

  —she was naked and sweating in some moonlit field of thatch, her own wilted desires forcing the fantasy. No, no, she thought. I can’t allow this, not even in a dream…

  The priest was fucking her, sucking her nipples as he fastidiously humped. I love you. I love you, bitch, he said to her in his thoughts. Then he bit her nipple, till blood gave. She screamed in ecstacy.

  Yes, of course. It was just a fantasy now, not a retelling. It was the fantasy of her forbidden attraction.

  Slap me.

  He slapped her, hard, in the face.

  Bite me again.

  He bit her so hard on the nipple, it almost came off.

  Choke me.

  His hand grabbed her throat, squeezed, as his hips continued to steadily pump. He squeezed, let go, squeezed, let go, like that for some time, her brain flashing right along with her running sex. He squeezed, let go, squeezed, let go—

  Squeezed.

  This time, he didn’t let go. His grip clamped off the blood to her brain as effectively as a hemostat. Her tongue extruded, her eyes drawing to wanton slits. As her vision darkened, a delicious buzz filled her brain, then began to spread. Soon she felt disembodied; she could still feel the priest’s cock tilling her sex, yet she seemed to be watching it. She watched her body starfish beneath the frenetic, humping figure; her face was a twisted mask of lined, dark-pink flesh, grinning hideously. He squeezed harder, fucked her harder. She began to orgasm in clutching, jerking salvoes…

  He let go just before she would die, her consciousness rising back through the blackened buzz, her skin electric, her nipples erect as if plucked at with pliers.

  Come hard. Fuck me hard. Fuck me till I bleed.

  He did so, without reservation. She was still coming.