by Dan Wells
“No one … else.”
“Listen,” I said, leaning closer. “I killed Forman and I killed the one before him. I will kill you too, in a heartbeat, if I think you’re not going to tell me what I want to know.”
“Clark … Forman? The Torture House Killer?”
I hadn’t heard that label before, but it was accurate enough. “Yes. And the Clayton Killer.”
“But that’s why I came,” he said, and his voice sounded closer to the door now. “I came to … save you from them. If you’re the one who killed them, then … you’re on my side.”
His side. “No,” I hissed, “not your side at all. You kill any random idiot that you decide is evil. I kill real demons, real evil. They’ve been killing for thousands of years, maybe more, feeding on humans like predators. Like parasites. I am not just killing people, I am saving us.”
He retched again. “Yes,” he croaked, “you’ve seen them.” He started crying. “No one else would believe me—they thought I was a common murderer. But you know. You know what they really are, and you know what we really are.” He broke down in a fit of coughing, hacking, and retching until I thought he might die. The coughing slowed, stopped, and his voice sounded closer than ever, as if he was pressing his face against the door.
“We’re saviors.”
He’s insane. I told myself. He’s crazy. He’s a psychopathic serial killer saying anything he can to justify his actions.…
… just like I’m doing now.
I pulled back, lowering the gun. I’d speculated that there might be other demon hunters in the world, and that the Handyman might have killed one. I never thought he might be one. I scanned the darkness again, half hoping I’d see a demon flying out at me from behind a shadow. At least then I’d know what to do with it. This one in the trap … was he a demon who hunted other demons? Was he even a demon at all? Maybe he was a normal human, like me, who’d seen too much and sworn to stop it by any means necessary.
And now he’d killed ten people, maybe more. Had any of them really been demons?
“You’ve seen the demons,” I said. “Describe them to me.”
Silence.
“Describe them!” I said, leaning in toward the door. There was no answer but the stench of exhaust.
Damn. I stared at the door, trying to remember what I’d heard. Had he fallen? Was he still standing? Had the exhaust knocked him out, or was this a trick? I glanced down at the gun in my hand, trying to decide if I dared to move the car. He can’t die yet, I thought. I still have too many questions.
For one brief moment I saw him in my mind’s eye, a hulking demon in a cloud of black smoke, waiting silently to eviscerate me when I opened the door. I hesitated, suddenly wary, but then I saw something else: me, trapped in Forman’s closet, beating uselessly at the fortified walls while he stood outside with a gun. I looked down at the gun in my hand, glaring as if it had betrayed me somehow.
I threw my weight against the back of the car, but it was heavy—far heavier than any car had a right to be. All the weight that had pinned the door closed was now working against me, and even with the wheels to help I only budged it an inch. It’s still in park, I thought. I stepped back. I have to get into the car to move it, but that will take me away from the door. If he makes a run for it, I’ll lose him. I stared at the door, at the hose running out from the exhaust, and swore. I have to do it. I pulled on the hose, ripping it away from the pipe, and aimed my gun at the door. Nothing moved, and there was still no sound from inside. Slowly I walked to the driver’s side open door, leaned in, and shoved the gear shift into neutral. I jumped back out immediately, aiming the gun at the door.
Nothing.
Setting the gun carefully on the roof of the car, I braced my hands and shoulder against the inside of the door and pushed forward. Even out of park, the car was fiendishly heavy, but I strained hard against it and started to overcome its inertia, creeping it forward inch by inch, foot by foot, until the side door of the house was exposed. I grabbed the gun again and walked back carefully, keeping the barrel trained on the door. Nothing moved, and I reached forward cautiously; the doorknob was shattered and twisted freely without pulling open the latch. I tugged on it, yanked it, and finally kicked it with my foot, hearing the wood crunch around the broken latch. I held the gun forward like it was a holy symbol, as if its mere presence would ward off danger, and pulled the door open.
Collapsed inside lay a man in a worn brown suit and black leather gloves. He was draped across the stairs like a sack of cement. At his feet was a black pistol and an open duffel bag full of clear plastic sheets; in the corner was a small hatchet. Thin, poisonous smoke poured out of the stairwell and I stepped back, coughing.
“Are you dead?”
He didn’t answer, and I crept forward far enough to reach out and nudge him with my toe. His eyes stayed closed, but he groaned and coughed, rolling onto his side.
“Hey,” I said, “can you hear me?” He moved again, and I remembered his gun; I jumped forward and stepped on it, dragging it out into the driveway with my foot. “Hey,” I said louder. “Just answer my questions.”
The Handyman coughed and tried to sit up, only to fall back down and tumble to the bottom of the stairs. He moaned and squeezed his eyes shut, then reached out his hand and crawled a few inches forward into the driveway.
I stepped back. “Stay there. Can you talk?”
“Yeh,…” he said, his voice ragged. He coughed again, more purposefully. “Yes.”
“You said you’ve seen the demons,” I said. “Describe them.”
“Evil.” He spoke without moving, his face down on the asphalt, sucking in clean air with each breath. “They abuse their power; they lead innocents into sin. They have to be … destroyed.”
“Describe them physically,” I said. “Did you see claws? Fangs? You stab your victims with poles to give them wings—did you see wings? What did you see?”
“No wings,” he gasped. “Only in the world beyond.”
“What world?”
“Heaven and hell. There we will take our forms and live forever in peace, or forever in torment.”
I stared at him, feeling my rage grow. My finger tightened on the trigger. “Is that it? Is that really all this is? You haven’t seen anything—you’re not a demon, you’re not a demon hunter, you’re just another lunatic serial killer.”
“I’m a—”
“Shut up!” I shouted, irrationally desperate. “You’re nothing; you’re delusional. The things I’ve seen are real—they’re real!” I waved the gun. “If you’re not hunting demons, why are you even here?”
“Too many deaths here,” he said, reaching out weakly. “You were being punished for your sins—I came to save you. I came to cut out the corruption.”
His arm was stretched toward me and I saw his glove, the black leather barely visible in the darkness. My pulse quickened and I felt a surge of hope. “Your hands,” I said quickly. “You wear gloves because you hate your hands. Show me why.”
“No.”
“Take them off!” What would it be—claws? Scales? It has to be something; he has to be a demon. He rolled on his back, staring up at me with a scowl of pure hatred. I pushed the gun closer and he raised his hands, growling deep in his throat.
Slowly he took off one glove, revealing a pale white hand covered in tattoos—symbols, words, horned skulls, even a swastika. I stared, trying to fit the hand into my profile, and he whimpered softly. He pulled off his second glove and as he did, he broke down—another soft whimper, a slackening of the shoulders, a droop in his face, and a long, prolonged sob. His second hand was just as tattooed as the first.
“Forgive me, for I have sinned,” he said, rolling onto his side and covering his face in his hands. “Forgive me, for I have sinned.”
It’s the source of guilt, I thought, stepping back. Those tattooed hands are why he kills—the sign of a sin he can never remove. Each kill pays for the last one, ridding the worl
d of another sinner, but in killing he sins again. It’s a chain he can never escape, leading back to …
“Who was the first?” I asked, my voice hushed.
“No,” he moaned, rolling slowly back and forth.
“The first one you killed,” I asked. “Who was it? It was a priest, wasn’t it? A religious leader, probably one who punished you too harshly; maybe one who abused you.”
“No,” he said again, sobbing. “No, no, no—I didn’t mean to.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, standing up straighter. The gun was firm and powerful in my hand—a magic wand that would make this killer go away. “You’ve killed too many people, and for too long. This is my town, and I set out to save it from parasites like you—demon or not.” I aimed the gun at his head and he cowered under his arms, crying pathetically. He was a perfect picture of weakness and evil—a misguided killer living from lie to lie, reduced to a quivering wreck because he couldn’t find another victim bad enough to justify the others. All his crimes, all his horror, all his sins, were crushing him to nothing. This wasn’t even my choice; I was simply the mechanism by which the world as a whole chose to rid itself of his cancer.
I held the gun, but I didn’t fire.
He needs to die. I told myself. There are a million reasons for him to die and not a single one for him to live. Who will be better off with this wretch in the world? Who will cry over his grave? Who will even care where his grave is? I’ve killed two others, and he’s no better than they were—he might even be worse. Mr. Crowley killed to stay alive. This worm can’t even say that.
My finger on the trigger didn’t move.
I gritted my teeth, willing myself to see him as a demon, as an object I could break at will, but instead I saw him as something else—not just as a human, but as me. He’s me. If I keep going down this path, this is how I’ll end—scared and weak and guilty, always running from what I’ve done, always desperate to do it again and again and again. I saw Crowley and Forman, both in the same position—helpless on the ground, looking up as I ended their lives. Two down, and one more makes three. Three was a charm. Three was a pattern. By legal definition, three victims made you a serial killer.
And I am not a serial killer.
I lowered the gun. “I’m calling the police.”
“No.”
I pulled out Forman’s phone and flipped it open. “I won’t kill you,” I said. “I’m not a killer. The police will take you, they’ll find all the evidence they need, and they’ll put you in jail for the rest of your life.”
“They’ll kill me!”
“I didn’t say the rest of your life would be long.” I dialed 911 and looked around, at the car and the gun and the hose and the whole elaborate trap I’d set. “And I’ll have a hell of a lot of explaining to do.”
The phone rang, and I held it up to my ear. What would I say? “I trapped the Handyman in my house; come pick him up before I kill him?” The phone rang again—
—and the Handyman lunged for my leg. I stumbled back and lost my footing, realizing as I fell that I’d dropped both the phone and the gun in a reflexive move to catch myself. I stretched my hands back out, trying to catch the gun; it hung in the air as if time was frozen, spinning just beyond my reach, and then I landed heavily on my back and cracked my head against the driveway. I grunted with the pain, screwing my eyes shut as bolts of pain and light flashed through them. Something clattered in front of me, and my mind screamed gun! just in time to make me roll over, then over again, each time hearing the horrifying whisper of a silencer and the grating clang of metal on asphalt. I rolled over something cold and metal, grabbed it, and pointed it at him.
It was the cell phone.
“You think you can threaten me with that?” sneered the Handyman. All trace of weakness was gone—he loomed over me like a nightmare, hair skewed, eyes wild, teeth bared. He held his gun with both hands, shaky but level, pointed straight at my head. “It looks like I’m going to slay a demon after all.”
I have one chance to scare him off. “Harry Poole,” I said loudly. “Out-of-town reporter. The man who claimed several weeks ago to have a message from the Handyman turns out to be the Handyman himself.”
“I’m not the Handyman,” he said, lips curled in rage, “I am the arm of the Lord, the arrow in his quiver, the lightning of his wrath.”
“Clayton Mortuary,” I said. “724 Jefferson.” Very slowly, I pulled the phone back and held it to my ear. “You get all that?”
The Handyman’s eyes went wide, and I held out the phone again. “They got it. What’s your next move?”
He stepped back, then forward, then charged toward me and shoved me back, knocking the phone out of my hand. It flew to the ground and he stomped on it violently, grinding it under his heel. He stepped back and shot it, twice.
“They already know who you are,” I said, sitting up painfully, “and they already know where. I figure you have maybe two minutes to get out of here. When I called the cops for the Clayton Killer last year, they had the entire neighborhood blocked off in under four minutes.”
“They’ll kill me,” he said, looking up slowly from the shattered phone. His face was pale, his eyes still wide with fear. “They’ll kill me.”
“It’s worse than that,” I said, forcing myself to ignore the gun and remember his profile. I have to attack his weak spots. “They’ll judge you. A whole parade of cops and lawyers and witnesses and judges—even your fellow prisoners in whatever jail they put you in. They’re going to look at you, and laugh at you, and call you evil.”
“Shut up.”
“Psychologists will interview you and call you a schizophrenic—not enough for an insanity defense, but enough to tell a jury that you justified your crimes with a delusion of God. Priests will testify in court that your divine message is the raving of a sinner—”
“Shut up!” he screamed, sticking the gun in my face.
“They will punish you,” I said, forcing myself to stay calm. “Leave now and you can get away—I’ll throw them off your trail, one demon hunter to another, but you have to go now. They’ll come after you and they’ll post your name and your face all over the country, but if you’re careful you can stay hidden. Run.”
“The whole country,” he said, eyes focused on nothing—on some memory, perhaps. “She’ll know.”
I frowned, not sure what to say next. I nodded. “She will.”
“I will not be judged of man.” He raised the gun to his chin, a spout of red flew up from the top of his head, and he crumpled to the ground like a broken doll.
20
“Hello, John,” said Officer Jensen, sitting across the table from me. “You’ve met Officer Moore, and this is Cathy Ostler from the FBI. I know you’ve answered a lot of questions already, but they just want to ask a few more.”
The Handyman’s body never disintegrated. I thought. He was never a demon at all. There had to be a real demon in town somewhere, but where?
“Hi,” I said. Agent Ostler sat down, and Officer Moore leaned against the table.
“So,” said the woman—Agent Ostler. “Sounds like you’ve had quite a night.”
“You could say that.”
“Yes, I certainly could,” she said. “At ten o’clock at night we get a phone call from a dead serial killer, we hear the confession of another serial killer, and when we arrive on the scene we find a wanted fugitive from ten states away dead at the feet of a teenage boy who’s been previously involved in the deaths of one-two-three-four other people. ‘Quite a night,’ seems to be putting it pretty mildly.”
“Are you accusing me of something?”
“Have you done anything?”
“Well, I’ve apparently witnessed too many crimes. How often can I almost get killed before you assume I’m guilty of something? Is there a specific legal limit, or do you guys play it by ear?”
“Nobody is accusing you of anything,” said Officer Jensen, scowling at me. He’s warning me to wat
ch my mouth. “But even you have to admit that your involvement in this most recent attack is a lot harder to explain away than the last two.”
“Not really,” I said, hoping my confidence would make my story seem stronger. “The Handyman thought that certain community figures were leading the others into sin, so he killed them. He admitted that much in his letter. Then every news outlet in town made me look like a hero for saving the kids at the dance, and he came to the conclusion that I was one of the ‘bad’ community figures. He came after me. End of story.”
“And the barricade in your living room?” asked Officer Moore.
I’d had just enough time to hide the gun and the exhaust hose before the police showed up; there hadn’t been time to hide the barricades, so I tried to explain them away. “I was home alone,” I said, “and I saw a man sitting in his car in front of my house. I got scared—‘stranger danger’ and all that. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“If you were so scared,” asked Agent Ostler, “why did you crawl out the window to confront him?”
“I crawled out the window to escape,” I said. “He just kept knocking and knocking, and I thought he was going to get in. I thought I could drive away before he found me, but he must have heard the car.”
“He must have,” said Agent Ostler. “He also must have the fastest pistol in the world, to have hit your moving car with two shots so close together. The bullet holes were less than an inch apart.”
“I was going very slowly. I thought if I just put it in neutral and pushed it into the street, he wouldn’t hear me.”
“But he did.”
“Turns out it’s hard to steer while running alongside and pushing, so I hit the house. I’ve had an astonishing amount of bad luck over the last year.”
Agent Ostler stared at me, silent as a hawk, while Officer Jensen scowled at her. Officer Moore shook his head and spoke. “Everything you’ve told us makes a certain amount of sense,” he said, “obviously pending a full forensic analysis. The only piece we’re not sure of yet, and perhaps you can help us explain it, is—”