by Bryan Smith
Lydia was supportive of this idea. She told him to go for it, which was all the encouragement he needed. He began keeping an eye out for prime opportunities to again indulge in his craft. That was how he thought of it, as a craft. He was a skilled artist, albeit one who worked with blood and body parts rather than paints and canvas. His kill sites were his canvases and he liked to decorate them as gaudily as possible. If crime scene investigators and forensics teams didn’t feel as if they had walked onto the set of a horror film, what it meant to him was he hadn’t done his job correctly. These would be his final kills. He wanted them to be spectacular.
To better facilitate this goal, he’d brought along an extra set of tools tonight. His trusty hunting knife, the one he’d been using since his first kill all those years ago, would see a fair amount of action tonight. It wouldn’t, however, suffice for everything he had in mind, which would include the severing of multiple body parts. He needed more heavy-duty tools for that. In the bag at his feet as he waited (and waited) in the closet were a hatchet, a bone-saw, a meat cleaver, a hammer, a box of long nails, more knives of varying types, a serrated surgical scooping tool, and a scalpel. The scalpel he would use for some of the finer bits of work, such as slicing off eyelids and lips. He hoped he’d be able to do that part of it while his victims were still alive, but that wasn’t always possible. They sometimes bled out from the initial wounds he inflicted before he could get around to torturing them, but even if that happened, he would still have fun aplenty. Taking apart the bodies and leaving them in creative places and poses would more than make up for any such unfortunate occurrence.
His targets tonight were a young couple. High school students. It was a classic slasher scenario, like something right out of an 80s stalk ’n’ slash movie. The girl who was his primary target was a babysitter. Tonight she was looking after a pair of young kids whose parents had gone out for a night on the town. Her boyfriend was planning to come over after the kids were put to bed for the night. They would do their fooling around in this bedroom. He knew all this because he’d eavesdropped on their conversation while dining alone at a nearby restaurant.
Containing his excitement as he listened to them talk was close to impossible. The entirety of his attention was so focused on what the high school seniors were saying that he stopped eating with his meal half-finished. His right hand remained poised with a knife over the plate in front of him for a stretch of several minutes, a fact he was unaware of until a waiter abruptly snapped him out of it by asking if everything was all right with his meal. After flinching in surprise, he said he wasn’t feeling well and asked the waiter to bring his check.
After paying his bill, he went out to his car and lurked in the parking lot, waiting for the couple to emerge. When they did, he followed them at a discreet distance until the boy dropped the girl off at her house and drove away. He circled the block and called Lydia to tell her what was going on. She agreed it sounded like an ideal scenario. There was just one problem. His parents were coming to town for a rare visit. Their flight was scheduled to arrive shortly after ten. He’d promised to pick them up personally so they wouldn’t have to get a cab or rent a car. In order to get there on time, he would have to be done with his work here no later than 9:30.
He grimaced when he checked his watch again. It was now five minutes after nine. The kids the girl was babysitting should have been put to bed over an hour ago, but he could still hear the faint sounds of them squealing and playing somewhere downstairs. The sound was driving him nuts. The girl had been so specific in telling her boyfriend how the evening would unfold, including when the kids would be in bed and when they would be free to fool around in the guest bedroom. Thus far, though, none of it was working out the way she’d said. The lengthy delay already meant he wouldn’t get to do the more elaborate things he’d planned. If another ten or fifteen minutes (at the absolute outside) elapsed with no sign of the girl and her boyfriend, he wouldn’t get to kill them at all. He’d have to abort the whole thing and wait for another opportunity to arise. One would come up eventually, but odds were it wouldn’t feel as perfect as this one had at the outset.
The next check of his watch showed another nine minutes had elapsed. Those play sounds from downstairs had died down, but he could still hear faint sounds of chatter. The kids weren’t in bed yet. A deep disappointment welled up inside him. It was time to face facts. This wasn’t happening tonight.
He took out his phone and sent a text to his wife explaining the situation, also telling her he’d be slipping out of the house in just a few minutes to head to the airport. Her initial response was a sad-face emoji. Before he could respond to that, flashing dots that meant she was composing another response appeared on the screen. He waited to see what she would say next, fully expecting an additional gesture of sorrow on his behalf.
What she said instead was this: No fucking way. You do you, baby. You need this. I’ll pick up your folks.
He quickly sent back a response: Are you sure?
She sent back smiley-face and heart emojis. Then she told him, Hell yes. I only ask that you bring me back a souvenir. You know the kind I like.
Grinning almost ear-to-ear, he typed in his next response: You got it. I love you so fucking much. You’re the best.
Shortly thereafter, he put his phone away and resumed the wait. Just over twenty minutes later, the girl and her boyfriend came into the room and crawled onto the bed together. Sounds of incipient passion soon ensued. The Lone Star Slasher observed them through the slats of the closet’s accordion-style door, waiting until they were fully disrobed before he donned his famous mask, pushed the door open, and emerged into the bedroom.
He spent the next hour doing so many of his favorite things, things he’d been unable to do for such a long time. There was a tremendous amount of hacking and slashing. Blood was sprayed all over the room. He used all the tools he’d brought with him to great, satisfying effect, disemboweling the corpses and severing every limb. Before he left the house, he took the babysitter’s severed head out to the hallway and set it at the top of the staircase, nailing it to the carpeted floor. The boyfriend’s head he placed in the room shared by the sleeping kids, who hadn’t stirred the whole time. Lydia’s souvenir (the boyfriend’s surgically-removed cock) went into a Ziploc bag.
On the way home, he stopped off at a grocery store and bought her a dozen red roses and the most expense bottle of merlot they had. Lydia was such a wonderfully supportive wife. She deserved more than just another piece of severed flesh. He’d given her many such tokens over the years. The flowers and wine would be a nice extra surprise.
He couldn’t wait to see her face light up when he saw her again.
PILGRIMAGE
A TOUR BUS PULLED INTO an almost empty parking lot early in the afternoon on the sixth day of August in the year 2019. Adjacent to the lot was a single one-story building. The only other vehicle in the lot was an unoccupied 1970s-era Chevelle. The old muscle car was in pristine condition, with new paint, new tires, and a set of fancy new rims that gleamed in the brilliant glare of the San Francisco sunshine. Of the eye-catching ride’s owner, there was no sign, but Jason Dobbs knew one thing for sure—whoever the owner was, he or she was rolling in cash. That or in hock up to their eyeballs, because a top-notch restoration job on a car of that vintage couldn’t be done cheaply.
He nudged the person in the seat next to him, then pointed out the window. “Hey, George. Check out the sweet wheels.”
George Sanderson took a break from making out with Karla Donahue, his girlfriend, and craned his head around to look in the indicated direction. “Oh, wow. Nice old school transpo.”
Jason nodded. “Hell, yeah. Can’t you just see yourself rolling down the strip back home in that thing in, like, 1976 or whatever?”
George grinned, warming to the idea. “Sure can. Bunch of hot girls in the back. Bell-bottom jeans and tube tops. Awesome tunes cranking on the 8-track player while a fat blunt gets passed arou
nd.”
Karla leaned over the guys for a look at the subject of conversation. She did so at an angle that allowed Jason to see straight down the front of her top. The view was pretty breathtaking. She had incredible breasts. His face flushed hot as he stared down the valley between them. He was pretty sure she’d done this on purpose. It was not the first time she’d blatantly taunted him with her sexuality. As always, he felt a mixture of titillation and shame. This was his best friend’s girl. He felt he should do something to discourage the behavior, but how he might go about doing that without making things awkward or even hostile between the three of them, he did not know.
She had choppy dyed-black hair that wasn’t quite shoulder length and was dressed in the manner of rock and rollers from a bygone era. The outfit included a studded black leather biker jacket, a studded dog collar around her throat, a tight, low-cut red top that left very little to the imagination, black-and-white striped pants, and Doc Martens. Rings adorned nearly every finger. Some were plain bands of various colors, but the selection included multiple skull rings. Dramatic black eye makeup rounded out a look Jason figured was best summarized as “rock and roll wet dream.”
She pulled back from the window, returning to her seat on the other side of George. “I don’t think they had that term back in the 70s. Blunts. That came out of hip hop. I think.”
Jason turned his face toward the window, hoping the others wouldn’t see the bright red tinge to his cheeks.
George, at least, seemed oblivious to his embarrassment, regarding his girlfriend with a frown as he said, “Okay, enlighten me. What was the preferred vernacular of the time?”
She grunted. “Doobies, I think.”
George snorted. “Doobies? Like the fucking Doobie Brothers or some shit?”
“Yeah. Where do you think those guys got their name? They were a bunch of pot-smoking hippies.”
George laughed. “You sound pretty knowledgeable on the subject. Name one song by the fucking Doobie Brothers.”
“Shut up. That’s not the point.”
George laughed again and nudged Jason. “You listening to this shit, man?”
“Yeah, Jason,” Karla said, her tone playful but with a subtle undercurrent of mockery. “We need your opinion on this all-important matter. You’re the authority on all things retro.”
Enough of the heat had faded from Jason’s cheeks that he felt comfortable turning away from the window. “Actually, I don’t—”
An abrasive burst of loud static from the overhead speakers made him grimace and fall silent. The abrupt sound elicited startled gasps of displeasure from several other people on the bus. All heads turned to the front, where a tall, abundantly bearded fat man stood with a radio handset gripped in one of his massive paws. He coughed and thumbed a button on the side of the handset. “Sorry, folks. Was having some technical issues. Anyway, I’m sure at least a few of you recognize the very famous building off to our right. It’s been featured in several documentaries and a great number of the most iconic photos in the history of rock and roll were taken inside this storied edifice.”
Some drunken-sounding individual from the back of the bus let out an obnoxiously loud whoop. “David Bowie! Woo!”
The fat tour guide smiled in an indulgent way. “You are correct, sir. Woo, indeed. David Bowie was indeed one of the many legends to play a show on these hallowed grounds. Others you might have heard of include Led Zeppelin in their infancy, the Doors, Humble Pie, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Van Halen when they were starting out, and many more. Lot of the biggest and most influential punk bands of the 70s played here, too.”
The same drunk from the back let out another whoop. “Sid Vicious! Sex Pistols! Woo!”
Karla snorted laughter and raised her voice in a whoop of her own. “Woo! Rock and roll! Woo!”
The drunk in the back laughed so hard Jason worried the force of it might result in a self-induced seizure. On the bright side, at least it would shut him up.
The tour guide’s smile looked strained now. He cleared his throat and again thumbed the button on the side of the handset. “The Shantyman has always been more than just a legendary place to see live music performed. It is a destination. It is living history. The venue has played host to a dizzyingly diverse range of artists, including some who later became figures of myth in their own right. And it is a place where the ghosts of the past never seem far away, where guitar chords struck at the end of legendary performances decades earlier seem to linger in the air still, at least for those attuned to the right mental frequencies. For those with a deep love for music, there is something almost sacred about the Shantyman. Little wonder, then, that so many are willing to travel from so far away to experience the special vibe of the place firsthand.”
Like us, Jason thought.
The guide sounded like he was reading from a memorized script and probably was.
Karla raised a hand. “I have a question.”
George smirked. “Oh, look at the proper schoolgirl. Being all courteous and shit. Not bad for a high school dropout.”
Karla glared at him. “Shut up.”
The tour guide sighed heavily into the live handset, a sound replicated in distorted fashion through the overhead speakers. “What would you like to know, miss?”
The angry look on Karla’s face was immediately displaced by a mischievous smile. “Is it true Johnny Kilgore of the Sick Motherfuckers blew his brains out right over there?” She twisted in her seat to point in the general direction of the venue’s entrance. “Right about where that penis on wheels is parked?”
A few of the other passengers giggled at this remark. Predictably, the drunk in the back honked more obnoxious laughter. Jason wished he had a hatchet to bury in the guy’s head. In a way, it was more than a bit hypocritical. He had, after all, indulged in his fair share of public drunken buffoonery in the past. It occurred to him that what was really bugging him here was the way the guy seemed so locked in on Karla with his over-the-top reactions to her every remark. He was jealous of the spontaneous camaraderie that had developed between her and this stranger. Which was ridiculous. She wasn’t his girlfriend. The only one entitled to any feelings of jealousy here was George, who either was oblivious to their rapport or simply didn’t care. In his friend’s place, Jason would have a hard time being blasé about it.
The tour guide again cleared his throat and spoke into the handset. “That is the unfortunate truth, yes. The year was 1979. The band to which you referred had just played their first headlining gig at the Shantyman, which was a big deal for them. Back then, it wasn’t easy for a band with a name like that to market themselves effectively. The sign on the marquee billed them as the Sick M.F.’s, which caused some drama between the band and venue management. This apparently offended the late Mr. Kilgore’s sense of punk rock purity, and near the end of his band’s set that night, he announced he would be killing himself as soon as the show was over. Unfortunately, it seems no one took this threat seriously. Not until it was too late.”
Some on the bus made clucking sounds of disapproval while others with grim expressions shook their heads at this tale of rock and roll tragedy. Jason wasn’t one of them, having been familiar with the details for years. The same was true for Karla, of course, who was being a tad disingenuous by inquiring as to the veracity of something she already knew all about.
The tour guide paused for a moment while some of the passengers aimed their phones at the venue to snap pictures. When he sensed the majority of his customers had finished recording this moment for something resembling posterity, he again thumbed the button on the side of the handset. “Okay, then. If there are no other questions, it’s time to move along to the next stop on the tour. We’ve got a ways to go before we’re done and a schedule to adhere to.”
Karla abruptly stood up and moved into the center aisle between the rows of seats. “We’ll be getting off here.”
George did a double-take at this unanticipated declaratio
n before glancing at Jason with raised eyebrows. “Uh, you heard her. Guess we’re debarking. Any objections?”
Jason sighed. “Would it matter if I had any?”
George chuckled. “Not really, man. It’s cool. We’ll just get an Uber back to the hotel later.”
“Fuck it, then. Let’s go.”
They both began to rise from their seats.
As the three of them began to move down the aisle toward the front, the tour guide moved aside to allow them room to pass. When they were within range, he addressed them without speaking into the handset. “It’s early in the tour, guys. Sure you want to get off now?”
By that point, Karla had already descended the short set of steps at the front of the bus and was standing in the parking lot, where she was lighting up a cigarette. George glanced back at the tour guide, grinning in a sheepish way as he shrugged. “Already a done deal, looks like.”
The tour guide nodded. “No skin off my back. Just remember there aren’t any refunds. Doesn’t matter where you get off.”
George cackled and said, “That’s what she said, bro.”
He descended the steps to the parking lot without another word.