A Blood of Killers Read online

  “In the city, it’s easy to get away with it. Nobody cares. Out here, a family going one by one gets noticed. Of course, a few people in the right place, helping things along, and the family goes anyway. One at a time.”

  Paul shivered. Kessler took his hands away and rubbed them together. He looked back at the plumber’s house. “Heard about it happening,” he said. “Never seen it, of course. Just a thought.”

  “Killers, you know, they need for it. Born to do it. They get a taste for that blood, maybe from the service, or their job, or something terrible that happens to them when they’re a kid, or something that happens when they’re travelling. Lots of stuff happens to tourists. You’d be surprised what goes on during little getaways, how they change people. Maybe folks find out this,” he said, with a wave to the plumber’s house, “is what they’re about. They get real good, and they don’t get caught. Practically doing it for sport. After a while, maybe they get lonely. That’s a special taste they got. They get together. A killer club? How about that? Things go from there, and they get out of hand real fast.”

  Paul felt rooted to the spot. The roots went deep beneath the concrete and tar, spread far, to find old cemeteries and ancient burial site, forgotten killing fields, and bloody battlegrounds. The roots touched something dark in his mind, and connected that darkness to the plumber’s house.

  He whimpered when Kessler looked back at him.

  “Maybe we’re all killers, Mr. Tourist,” Kessler said.

  Blood drips from the stars, tumbles from the face of the moon, splashes on trees and roads and people scurrying for cover. Blood floods city streets, overflows from river banks, rolls in from the sea in enormous tidal waves washing over bridges and skyscrapers and mountains. Blood licks planes from the sky, kisses the clouds, blots out the sun. Hollow skins float in blood. I swim in crimson, drinking the life, the freedom.

  “—process of dehumanization,” the stranger next to Kessler said, syllables shooting out from his mouth in rapid-fire. He was tall, with long, dark hair, a hooked nose and pronounced chin. The battery lamp at his feet cast sharp shadows across the angular features of his face. One hand tightly gripped a pocket tape recorder; the fingers of his other hand rapidly drummed his thigh, as if unable to contain the energy coiled in his lanky body.

  Kessler kept his face turned to Paul, away from the light. His eyes gazed past Paul, fixed on the wall of trees across the street. He had his hands in his jacket pockets. Insects sang, car tires sighed over the highway roadbed.

  A chill passed through Paul. He glanced at the sky, flinching, expecting blood on the stars. He caught up to the past: Detective Kessler talking; the stranger walking up to them from the other side of the plumber’s house, exchanging greetings, whispers, laughter with the detective, then staring at Paul while the detective droned on about—what? Paul could not remember.

  Finally, the stranger had jumped into a pause in the detective’s babbling. And started on his own rant.

  “Information overload,” the newcomer said, continuing his monologue, looking with eager anticipation from Paul to Kessler and back again.

  “Everything is amplified, over-dubbed, speeded-up. Humanity must evolve to deal with the new information environment. New stresses and ecologies demand adaptations, even new life forms. The old ways must break down to make way for more appropriate means of dealing with the world.”

  Kessler grunted, spoke softly, “Ask that plumber if cutting up his wife was an appropriate way of dealing with the world.”

  “It’s not, it’s not, by our standards,” the stranger said excitedly. He looked to Kessler, and when the detective would not make eye contact he focused his manic attention on Paul. “But don’t you see? These are new life forms we’re talking about here. The behaviors we consider a part of humanity have been stripped away. These creatures have regressed, they’ve been reduced, distilled, purified. They carry the sharpened intelligence and organization, the manipulative skills and imagination of mankind, combined with the primal instincts and predatory skills of animals.

  “The first were probably made for war. Disciplined, trained, kept on the fringe, called in for special jobs or maybe aimed like guided missiles and fired off to see what happens. Experiments both failed and successful, or simply retired. They became the models for an entire genus of others, shaped by accident, by natural forces, by the world as it’s become. Humans who lost their humanity. Freaks of nature, perfectly suited for the anonymity of cities, computer networks, highways.”

  “What do you call them when they come together?” Kessler asked, turning to scan the trees, street, houses. “There’s a kettle of hawks, a route of wolves, a grist of bees. Do you call them a blood of killers? A slaughter of murderers?”

  A wave of nausea passed through Paul as he realized the two shared a secret. It was in their greeting, the way they stood, talked in the emotional shadow of the plumber’s house. The secret was in their words. It was a terrible secret, Paul was certain, with a long history and deep roots in bloody death. And they were letting him catch glimpses of that truth between them. He felt the pull of their dark bond on the empty, lonely part of his self. He caught himself yearning to join them, to share their secret.

  Even as the certainty came over him that what they had between them was sick, and repulsive, and would fill his emptiness with pain.

  “Who the hell are you?” Paul croaked, his body shaking, staring at the stranger, uncertain about what was real and what was nightmare.

  Kessler laughed and passed a hand over the holster at his side, half-hidden under the jogging suit jacket.

  The stranger squinted at Paul, then picked up the lamp and held it up between them. “I could have sworn I introduced myself when I came up on you guys. The detective here knows me. John Garland. Reporter for the Global Eye. We Keep Watch, the masthead says. Every bloody perverted minute, we do. I’ve been tracking killings all over the country. I could be a consultant with the FBI.”

  “He carpools with one of the guys you talked to yesterday morning,” Kessler said to the newspaperman. “We keep watch, too,” he added, with a wink.

  “Really?” He stepped in front of the detective and thrust his tape recorder at Paul. “You have any thoughts about who did this? Why it happened? The Global Eye always listens to the citizen’s opinion.”

  The receptionist’s smile fades as my newspaper crumples against her throat, as the knife hidden under the paper slides into her throat. Spurt of blood. Ruined paper plummets to slippery floor. Any scream is silenced; the second mouth steals speech. The second mouth talks truth. Blood flowing, it tells me to liberate myself, to release the life within me. Through the doors, floating inches off the floor down brightly lit corridors. Darkened offices invite me, caress me as I go by. In a lit room I find my boss. He looks up, drones on about falling sales, initiative, aggressiveness, market share. He takes the knife in the groin. I have to stretch over the desk, bend down, but he never sees it coming. Next lit office, the Personnel Officer takes the knife twice, once through each tit. She’s still waving insurance forms when I leave. I sit in the cafeteria, at the back, in the dark. Pots and dishes bang and clatter in the kitchen. Voices drift down the hallway as workers arrive to work. Ben’s voice, and Charlene’s, and Dave’s, and Nate’s. I wait for them to come in, to grab their cup of coffee. To take the knife.

  There was a third man. Coming out of the dream, Paul saw the three standing around him and searched desperately for what he had lost in the past few moments.

  The third man, the shortest of all of them, had emerged from the trees across the street to join the gathering in front of the plumber’s house. The newcomer made Paul feel like the tall, athletic man of his dreams. A bowling ball on short, bowed legs, the man’s jowled face glistened in the light from the newspaperman’s lamp. Curls of blond hair lay plastered against his forehead. Stains dotted his T-shirt. The fly to his tight-fitting pants was partly opened.

  His appearance had silenced G
arland, drawn a grunt out of Kessler. Small, hesitant steps had brought the new man to a silent Garland, standing like a trembling exclamation point, and Kessler, who suddenly did not know what to do with his hands. Another exchange of greetings. And more. A few whispered words. Garland’s leer, a curt nod of the head from Kessler. There was tension between them. Secrets. Darkness.

  Paul shivered. They were all strangers to each other, like Nate and the rest of his co-workers, like his family. Their awkwardness, the vague contempt they held for another that was apparent in the way they stood, like blocks of living concrete, while furtively glancing at one another, reminded him of an inter-departmental meeting at work. But these three were connected to one another on a level that made their superficial differences irrelevant. Paul watched and was jealous of their intimacy. He found himself drawn even more powerfully, with the addition of a third member, to their cabal. He wanted to run away. And he wanted to be included.

  Detective Kessler shook his head while the new stranger whispered into John Garland’s tape recorder. “Another tourist,” Kessler said with a roll of his shoulders. He had resumed watching the plumber’s house.

  “It’s the tourists that keep my site going,” Garland said testily.

  “Not every tourist is the same,” the new man said softly, his tone gentle and reassuring. “Some want to escape the daily grind for a short while, others want to be educated. Then there are tourists with appetites, looking for something new to satisfy their hungers. They’re the ones who aren’t really tourists. They’re just looking for a new place to settle.”

  “Well, just ’cause the plumber and his neighbors cut out until this blows over doesn’t mean you can move right in,” Kessler grumbled. “Though I bet if you come back in six months, you’ll see a lot of real estate signs around. Should be able to pick up one of these houses cheap. The plumber’s should go for a song.”

  “It’s not always the place, officer,” the new man said. “Sometimes it’s the state of mind.”

  “He’s a detective,” Garland corrected.

  Kessler gave the new man a long, appraising look. “Sorrel, you said your name was?”

  “Albert,” the stranger added, nodding his head.

  “States of mind, is it?” Kessler said, turning back to the house. “Well, you got to be careful about what’s really in your mind, Sorrel. Most people can’t handle the kind of crap they might find. Look at Paul, here. Found him wandering around, hardly knew where he was, what he was doing. Doesn’t hear half of what’s going on now. If you ask me, he came to a place where he drank the water and got sick. He’s not much of a tourist.”

  “He’s not a tourist at all,” Sorrel said, patting Paul’s arm reassuringly. “He’s a survivor, washed ashore from some shipwreck far out at sea. Maybe he’ll go back home. Then again, maybe he’ll decide to stay.”

  Kessler turned his attention back to Sorrel. “And just what are you, some kind of lifeguard pulling in lost souls? The immigration officer, figuring out backgrounds?”

  Sorrel giggled. The detective’s face remained impassive; the newspaper man scowled. “Oh, no, I rather thought you were the lifeguard, Detective Kessler. And you,” he said to Garland, “you’re a reporter? Definitely immigration. Me, I really am a travel agent.” He giggled again, flesh jiggling on his face and at his waist. “My office is on Dupont Avenue. You don’t need much for a mostly internet clientele.”

  “So, you see, I’m rather the expert when it comes to travelling and tourism, gentlemen. I’ve been all over, done the most amazing things. Savored some most unusual experiences, I can assure you. Things I never imagined could be done to a—well, you understand. My travels have opened me up to myself. Liberated me, actually. Opened me up to others, as well. My vision is quite clear, unencumbered by fears, self-doubts, and all the other impositions the everyday world places on sensitive people. I can tell what people like, what they’re about. It’s what I live for, actually. Sharing my experiences, showing others how to find the most unusual places in which to take a rest from reality. I love to see people discover the things inside them that are so very obvious to men like us, just by giving them a chance to explore a new, untamed country.”

  “Do you have any comments on the effect of the murder on your nearby business, Mr. Sorrel?” John Garland asked eagerly, holding his digital recorder with a trembling hand. “Getting more walk-ins?”

  “So what are you doing around here, Mr. Sorrel?” the detective asked, a bemused expression crossing his face. “Scouting sites for a bus tour?”

  “As a matter of fact—”

  Beth comes through the door, hands filled with bags; back bent by their weight. Looks up, surprised. It’s only me, standing by the door so near to her. Mouth opens, face flushes. Shock changes to anger. Her keys land on the floor. Metal clatters on tile. Bags follow. Turning, eyes narrowing, her mouth works to shape the rage she feels over my watching her struggle to the house, fumble with door, while doing nothing. Body twists, leans to me. Whips right back around, head snapping back, when I lay the pipe across her cheek. Bone cracks. Another hit, on the comeback, right on the forehead as she falls. Two-handed golf swing drive into the base of her skull when she’s down. Then it’s methodical, a steady beating, driving a stake into the ground, until there’s nothing left but bloody pulp and shattered bone. Outside, night. I step out for a moment, take a deep breath. Full moon smiles down on me from a dome of stars. Back inside, I’m not covered with blood and gore and bone chips. Anymore. I go upstairs, floating over the steps, to bring the kids down to be with their mother.

  Another day gone.

  Standing in Nate’s yard, cloaked in the deeper darkness of night under trees, the realization hit Paul with the startling suddenness of a searchlight turned on his face. The night was warm, humid; he was sweating inside his coveralls.

  Coveralls, like a painter’s, with heavy, weighted boots two sizes too big, thick gloves. And a cap, and nylon hose stretched over his head. There was a tool belt, as well, with hammer, chisel, hack saw, box cutter, screw driver; and a pillow under his arm, to muffle the sound of breaking window glass.

  The small window to the study, Paul had been told. The door was closed. Nate was closest, watching a game on television. The volume was turned up high.

  The day flashed past like a music video clip: fight with the kids; call from Beth saying she was going to be away for a few more days; Nate in the car gloating over his promotion; a written reprimand over a statistical error in one of Paul’s reports; computer system breakdown; his link down in a teleconference call; co-workers teasing him again about getting fired by a carpool partner; missed deadlines; uncooperative staff; rebellious contractors; traffic going home; cold dinner; no beer.

  He had gone out for beer. A simple ride to the store. He had found the package with the outfit on his car seat.

  Go ahead, someone had said. I’ll watch your back.

  Just tell me how it feels, someone else asked.

  Be sure to drink the water, another added, between giggles.

  He remembered last night. The trip taken into the dark, empty parts inside himself. The tour of the plumber’s house, with Detective Kessler leading the way, Garland recording, Sorrel sniffing and tasting and touching with latex-glove-covered hands anything that had to do with the murder. Passion burning in Kessler’s descriptions, in Garland’s questions, in Sorrel’s sensory studies.

  He remembered the words they whispered to one another, the ones they let him hear, the ones that drew him into the group’s web of commonality. Kessler’s ideas on murderers coming together on protected message boards, in secret rooms and wilderness retreats, carried the weight of practical experience with more than just criminal, terrorist or even espionage activities.

  Nor had the question of whether he would join such a group, or face the consequences of knowing about their existence, been completely hypothetical. But by that time, Paul recalled, he had been well beyond abstractions. By that time, he ha
d tasted his darkness. The gates between him and the three men had opened. Connections had been made.

  He remembered how darkness turned to light, and the barren wasteland of his spirit bloomed with life. Standing outside Nate’s window, he felt alive again, as he had when he was young, as he had for a brief moment the night before, standing in the plumber’s house with the detective and the reporter and the travel agent.

  Free, light, like flying while I stand in my living room. Muscle ripples under taut skin. Darkness seethes. The way I want it to. Beth runs her long nails up and down my chest. Her fingers in my thick hair. She’s slim, tight, young. Leans into me, bites my ear. I squeeze her in my arms, against my hard body. Lick the nape of her neck. Good. So sweet. Hot. All over my body, throbbing. Grind my hip into her crotch. Her hand slides along my ribs, over my smooth, flat stomach. She pulls me after her. Fuck dinner, she whispers hoarsely. Fuck the knife, I say.

  Inside the house, Paul stood shivering in the living room. By the glare of the television, Paul could see Nate sitting on a couch, hands in his lap, television remote dangling between his fingers. Paul recognized him by his build, the school ring he always wore on his thick finger, the sweat pants with his old college’s letters emblazoned down one leg. He knew this was Nate because he was in Nate’s house; pictures of Nate and his family decorated the side tables and walls. Only in the pictures, Nate still had his face.

  Paul walked over to the nearest picture and removed it from its frame. With the box cutter, he cut away Nate’s face with a quick flick of the wrist. The paper face was easier to remove than the one made of flesh, but the deep, warm sensation of pleasure he had enjoyed when he had worked on Nate and his family was not the same. It was all the difference between hearing the low, guttural growl of a predator cat on a cable nature show, and feeling the cat’s guts vibrate as it stood over you, pawing over its dying kill, foul carrion breath filling your lungs as you took your last, agonizing gasp for life.