My Pet Serial Killer

by Michael J Seidlinger

  Is it true that a killer is considered popular culture?

  He tries to get angry and blames me.

  How many kills does it take a killer to get comfortable with his craft?

  He apologizes.

  Does a killer keep killing, or does a killer stop once the passion is gone?

  He wants me home.

  Might a killer simply be someone trying to find themselves?

  He tries to seduce me.

  Is a killer capable of finding value in another person?

  He breaks down.

  Or is the killer just taking life?

  He sobs.

  I hang up.

  4.

  I went to class.

  I went to class.

  I am in class.

  I am studying.

  I am onto something. . .

  5.

  Jump back to the dark, desolate interstate. A scene from a killer’s past, when the mystery was as alone as the vehicle appearing in the distance, singled out by the darkness of the night.

  The mystery holds onto her like she’s a mannequin, signing the registry and receiving the key with zero suspicion and zero effort. The receptionist never looks up from the book he’s reading. 201—remember the number.

  It’s a wonder the man doesn’t drug her ahead of time. Got to be careful with these things. The mystery lays out a series of syringes, all new, still capped with the protective plastic seal.

  Too much, and there goes the most important part.

  Too little, and it’s nothing more than a stupid, ignorant fight like in any horror film.

  Time for your medication. . .

  She’ll try to escape. She wakes up in a cold sweat. Panic.

  It’s still wet enough outside; in the aged gravel of the parking lot footsteps can be seen. Focus in on those footsteps. Pull back to see a new set being printed next to hers. The man walks with hers, a familiar image out of Catholic fable. During those hard times, the mystery carries the burden, solitary footsteps in the sand.

  Familiar imagery flickers; call it nostalgia. Jump cut to her running down the dead interstate. The interstate leads back to the motel. It only leads back to the mystery.

  The man waits patiently. When she sees the mystery, she stumbles, trips, falls, and tears up her knees.

  Oh come on, I thought we’d had enough of these kinds of chase scenes.

  Do we really need to be derivative?

  The mystery turns to the audience.

  Frame skip—static interlaced while focusing right on the mystery, then cuts to the motel.

  Man has her in arm, bleeding.

  You’re a feisty one.

  She’s naked on the bed, and there’s a close-up shot of the syringe, the end being pulled, the needle pricking the vial, the medication squirting in one long stream. Focus on her neck. The needle punctures skin.

  The audience wants what it wants. Will it get it? Will they be satisfied?

  The man sits on the side of the bed.

  Waiting.

  You know, it’s not all bad. I don’t intend on being a fantasy.

  You get to be the first. There’s something to that.

  Hear me, you’ll be remembered.

  You’re my first.

  The mystery cuffs her to the bed.

  Various shots of her naked body, lifeless eyes releasing tears, the man drinking wine. Putting on latex gloves. Lighting a sheet of paper on fire to test the fire alarms in the motel room. Alarm doesn’t go off. Man puts a plastic bag over it anyway.

  These are shots of the mystery unfolding.

  Man leaning in and sticking two fingers inside of her. Looking for a reaction, gets no reaction from her so he tries again. This time three fingers. No reaction.

  Four fingers. Again, no reaction.

  Man looks around the room, looking for the remote.

  Insertion proves to be difficult but the man is able to fit the end of the remote into her and, yet again, no reaction.

  I bet this would hurt if you could feel it.

  How about I tell you what I’m doing?

  I’ve tried my fingers. I’ve tried this remote. I’m going to try. . .hmm, what am I going to try? Crazy how the human body can be so fragile, yet so versatile. How about. . .

  Focus on the man. Focus on the mystery. Zoom in close on his face.

  Notice the excitement.

  Cut to much later. The body looks the same but something’s off. Something about it isn’t right and there’s no mystery. She’s dead.

  The man sits on the edge of the bed.

  Man takes a few puffs from a cigar. Knocks over the glass of wine. Splatters it down the side of the bed. The sheets being white makes it clear, almost like blood. Man mutters profanities. Stands up and walks to a bin seemingly empty until the angle changes and inside there are numerous latex gloves, garments, used syringes, and a plastic sheet speckled in red.

  The mystery might not make sense, but it has been planned.

  Everything up to the wine. That was an accident.

  Jump to the man standing over the body. Glances out the window.

  It’s going to be light soon.

  Montage of the man cleaning and deciding to leave the body dressed in lingerie. Leave the body cuffed, cleaning the body of any and all fingerprints and DNA with a series of chemicals. The body begins to look more like porcelain than a dead corpse.

  The man sings, catering to the mystery.

  The end of the montage leaves the body and audience behind. Man leaves just before dawn. Shot of the bin placed near the dumpster, ash and melted nothingness within.

  The audience is left in bed with the mystery.

  Everlasting over the entire scene is the feeling that it had just begun.

  What part of human nature is a mystery?

  1.

  I left class early to have a look.

  I knock on neighbor’s door. Nobody answers, so I try turning the knob. No surprise it’s open. Doubtful whether or not he ever locks the door.

  Doesn’t really matter. There’s nothing in here worth stealing.

  I wander over and look through the hole in the wall.

  I watch the killer watch TV.

  He didn’t used to watch TV.

  He’s changing. He’s changed.

  He’s watching the news story about himself, and when it’s done he rewinds it and watches the news story again, and again, and again.

  The killer is worried.

  At some point I must have fallen asleep. I wake up when I hear him slam the front door. I hear the sound of the door locking.

  I know where he’s going.

  I leave one apartment for the next.

  I go inside my apartment and see two women drugged and near death in the cage, unaccounted for. What are their names?

  I notice all the small details.

  He’s letting both craft and domicile go to waste.

  I take both women, one by one, down to my car.

  No one seems to notice what I’m doing.

  To them I’m a woman with a piece of luggage.

  With both bodies safely stowed in my car, I return to the apartment to gather a few things and to leave behind a little something. Something small, insignificant, noticeable.

  I wander each room wondering what it might be.

  After a few minutes of contemplation, I fill the kettle with water and place it on the stove.

  I remember the cameras, recording everything.

  I return to my room, sign into the video software noticing that he signed in recently. I’m amused rather than angry, and I proceed to remove the entire visit from all angles.

  I climb out onto the balcony and down the fire escape.

  It isn’t until I’m free of the two bodies, in the pensive quiet of the motel room, that I realize my heart beats quicker, my body warm and aroused when I think of what I just did.

  I plan on doing more.

  I aspire to control from behind the scenes, recor
ding a killer’s sanity unraveling.

  I’m laughing, touching myself, as I turn to the new laptop I borrowed from the forensics department for the purposes of my research. I turn on the webcam.

  I watch myself on webcam.

  I unclothe myself.

  I turn to the various internet sex chats.

  I say hello.

  They have no idea who they’re talking to.

  And I find it compelling.

  2.

  Whole eras begin and end at night. A narrow shot down an alley at the moment of sunset. The thing about mysteries, you’ve got to keep up with all the details or you’ll end up lost in the big picture. It’s good that you’re patient, waiting for the man to reappear.

  Glimpse the bare feet walking, stepping in putrid puddles of rainwater, drunken vomit, and dog shit. Pan up showing ankles, legs, a bare heart-shaped behind, bare back with long, blonde, no, maybe brown hair draped over skin the color of porcelain.

  See this woman? Want to see the other side of her, the full-frontal?

  The thing about mysteries—they’re written to give prying minds a means of flexing mental muscle, but, inevitably, the quality of any mystery is in its management of ambiguity.

  The more given, the less mysterious she becomes.

  Woman casually walks the length of this decrepit alley without a care at all.

  Untouchable.

  Surely the woman is out of place. Strange. And the question is, why is there a woman?

  How is she not being attacked?

  The mystery yawns wide, falling into a loose embrace with the audience.

  Woman stops at door labeled, Employees Only.

  In the pale blue light cast by a single bulb hanging right above the door, the woman is finally seen, full-frontal, her face blurred out.

  Panning in circles, the audience tries to get a good look at her.

  Despite what’s left unseen, it’s unanimous. She is beautiful.

  The woman knocks on the door and waits.

  She’s got nothing to hide.

  Close-up as the woman licks her lips. The audience is silent.

  Various quick shots of the woman in showcase, every naked angle of her body but her face. The face is pristine. The face is left unseen.

  The door opens. There’s no one on the other side.

  The woman walks in, leaving the audience behind. Zooming out, the audience is bound to the retreating shot, backtracking down the alley, being pulled away from the woman they had just met. A retreating shot makes it feel like the glimpse given was an accident. It wasn’t intended. Someone slipped in a series of shots from a scene.

  Where did the woman come from?

  The mystery doesn’t want to be solved.

  Getting too close, it’s time to back off before the mystery notices that the rest of the scene is erased. The existence of the woman cannot be reversed. The woman—the only other that knows the reason behind the mystery. The solution is in the hands of a naked woman that’ll let you see her entire body before she’ll let you see her face.

  3.

  The killer returns to the sound of a blood-thinning screeching.

  The killer doesn’t notice that she’s watching.

  The killer is running to the source, leaving her behind, the one he picked up tonight. The killer finds the kettle nearing full capacity. Steam escapes from the spout and threatens to overflow and spill onto the stove.

  The killer burns his hand but manages take the kettle off the stove.

  She’s laughing, and by “she” we don’t mean her standing by his side, drug dosage beginning to kick in.

  She’s laughing, “You’re a wreck without me.”

  The killer wanders into the bathroom.

  The killer returns with a tray full of toys and a bandaged hand.

  She’s watching blissfully as he reenters the cage.

  The killer exhales deeply and holds back a few tears.

  Only she knows why.

  “Where’s your master when you need her most?”

  The killer wants his master.

  The killer isn’t much of a killer without her.

  This is how she perceives the scene.

  This is what she believes is occurring as she watches from next door, bird’s eye view via the cameras, and an ear pressed to the hole in the wall.

  She can hear him crying.

  4.

  Fade in on an auditorium in the heart of modern American academia. Counting sixty seats; spread out stadium seating. With a lonely professor at the podium, he speaks too closely to the microphone muffling his speech. The mystery is in the back. Watching.

  The mystery is the offhand inquiry, asking—

  How does anyone learn anything in this kind of

  environment?

  And the audience already knows the answer, having experienced this personally.

  “I know that I’m wanted,” murmurs the lonely professor, lips pressed to the microphone.

  “Want to go watch a movie?” Lonely professor is reading, desperately reading, from today’s prepared lecture.

  Students take notes. Pretend the students take notes.

  Pretend the students want to be here.

  Pretend the students know what they’re majoring in.

  Pretend the students are being taught how to be apathetic, vicious and heartless victims.

  Victims of the system they will one day dismantle from the bottom-up.

  The mystery throws in a scene of absent humility to throw the audience off the scent of the man’s trail. The man waits elsewhere, noticing he hasn’t been followed for a few hours now.

  Something’s wrong. The mystery was once exclusively the man’s, and the man won’t want to share even a second of the feature presentation with the woman.

  Too bad. It’s a done deal.

  The man needed the support of a woman to make this work.

  “Want to go to a show?” Poor lonely professor. The audience is already bored with you.

  “Want to go to the beach?”

  “What do you want to do? I’m up for anything!”

  The woman is here as a contingency, having stumbled upon the man’s activities.

  “I just don’t want to be alone,” the lonely professor looks for approval. Students remain busied with their laptops. Not even one looks up at the professor.

  The professor is alone at the podium.

  The mystery derails while this woman remains front-and-center. Every shot of the woman distracts. How can the woman not be a diversion?

  The audience is beginning to see how they’re directly involved.

  Hitting new highs means hitting moral lows.

  “People do bad things when they’re left alone.”

  Clock strikes twelve. It’s about that time. The class is officially over. Jump shots, picture-in-picture of students rushing to close their laptops, packing up their things, center shot remaining fixed on the lonely professor who keeps talking, “Loneliness is a killer of confidence. Who wants to be around someone who lacks confidence?”

  The professor’s pleas fall on deaf ears.

  Glance at the back of the auditorium. The woman is gone.

  If there’s a mystery, it’s impossible to be alone as long as the mystery is alive. The mystery provides everyone involved a meaning to keep moving, keep making connections with others. There’s always at least one with the answer and at least one other trying to solve it.

  When there’s no mystery, well, there’s only a professor, alone swimming in his misery.

  The professor is on the verge of tears, an emotionally anchoring scene, but the audience is too busy looking for evidence of where the woman went.

  The woman reserves the audience’s full attention.

  Glimpses here.

  Glimpses there.

  The audience is getting desperate waiting for the scene to finish. The scene doesn’t end. It stays on the professor, as if by sheer willpower, the professor takes the stand and re
fuses to let this finish without winning over the audience.

  It’s a part of the mystery that gets the audience down, discouraged. . .wondering if this is going anywhere or if they’re missing something.

  What is this scene about?

  There’s a question in need of being answered. Help the audience help you.

  He cannot hear the audience. He cannot hear anyone.

  As the shot stays and slowly, achingly, like the drooping of an eyelid, the professor is the audience’s direct focus. The lonely professor reminisces past events in his life that he refers to as a “past life.” The professor talks about a wife, a divorce.

  Audience begins to suspect the point of the scene is the professor. The professor is lingering, speaking of something—he knows something about the mystery. The professor is speaking about victimization, about brutality, about the end.

  The screen quickly fades, as if there was a technical malfunction.

  Audience is left in the dark, staring at a black screen, the professor’s muffled voice barely audible over the censor beeps. Suddenly, the woman is seen again, transparent; the same scene in the dark alley from before.

  But this time, a new shot has slipped in between the last glimpse of a pulled back view of the naked woman in alley and the first close-up of the woman in pale blue light facing the Employees Only back door. In this new shot, the woman looks right at the audience.

  Gasp. Confusion. Dread.

  Everyone has seen this face before.

  The mystery wears a mask of horror.

  5.

  I no longer went to class. Class went along with me.

  I was offered a scholarship and a paid-for stint of independent study.

  All they need is a meeting once a week where I update the department chair on any and all new developments. Sure thing. That’s what I said.

  I’d surely show them something.

  But what I would show them would be like the disguise we offer to others during first introductions. The meat of my research wouldn’t be found until you cut through to the bone.

  I rigged remote access to my laptop and his.

  I made it possible to watch and document and erase from my motel room.