The Venue

by T J Payne

  As he neared the entrance, he glanced up at the five-story dorm. Many students on the upper floors stood at their windows, waving and gesturing wildly. They were trying to relay information to him. Some had typed up messages on their devices that they now held to the glass. Others had scrawled their messages on sheets of paper.

  Officer Cornett couldn't read any of it. It was all visual noise. Five floors of terrified students who knew a madman was loose in their building. They gesticulated wildly but made no sense.

  He approached the Smith Hall entrance.

  It was there that he found Body #1.

  ***

  Janice Holgate. Sophomore from Hood River. Electrical Engineering major.

  Janice's best friend, Moira, was leaving on Monday to study abroad in London and that night had been a surprise going-away party in the lounge of Moira’s dorm.

  Everyone got wasted.

  Janice woke up on the couch in Moira's dorm's lounge at 3:30 a.m. She had a dry mouth and a splitting headache. All she wanted was a shower, a toothbrush, and to sleep in her own bed.

  So, she walked across the campus back to her room.

  She fumbled with her key at the front door, struggling to fit it into the lock.

  That fumble, that delay, that distraction… that was the opening he needed to walk up behind her and bash in the backside of her skull.

  Janice died instantly. On the front step of her dorm.

  The killer used her key and entered the building.

  ***

  Officer Cornett saw that Janice's key still hung in the door lock. He stepped over her body and turned the key, pushing open the front door.

  He advanced down the first-floor hallway. All the doors were colorfully decorated with the names of each room’s occupant. They were all closed.

  Except for one.

  The door to Room 113 hung wide open.

  Officer Cornett crept forward. He shined his light into the room.

  Inside were Bodies #2 and #3.

  ***

  Sasha Hernandez. Junior from Portland. Biology major.

  David Wong. Junior from Medford. Psychology major.

  Sasha had been excited for this weekend.

  Her roommate had gone home to do laundry and get a home-cooked meal, meaning that Sasha and David—whom she had been dating for three months—had the rare opportunity to have a dorm room all to themselves.

  They had sex.

  Got high.

  Had sex again.

  Watched a movie.

  Had sex one more time.

  Then fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  At some point that night, David awoke and went to the men's bathroom down the hall. He didn't have a room key, so he left the door to Sasha's unlocked. When he returned to the room and crawled back into bed with Sasha, he forgot to lock the door behind him.

  Sasha awoke to the sound of David’s head cracking open under repeated blunt force blows. His blood splattered on her in the dark. She managed to get out a single terrified scream before her temple was struck with such force that her eye socket collapsed.

  Eight people reported hearing that scream.

  Three of the eight checked to make sure their door was locked. None of them called 911 at that time. Instead, they sat in their beds and listened for any other strange sounds. But there was silence and they went back to sleep.

  ***

  Officer Cornett scanned his light over David and Sasha’s bodies.

  Someone screamed on the third floor.

  He bolted out of the room and raced toward the sound.

  There was a stairwell at the end of the hall. He advanced upward, his gun held ready.

  When he reached the second floor, he saw Body #4.

  ***

  Tristan Peterson. Sophomore from Beaverton. Undeclared.

  That night, Tristan consumed two 40s and half a Mad Dog. He wasn't a social drinker or a party drinker. He was an alcoholic. He fell asleep in his bed but awoke a few minutes later. He covered his mouth as he vomited, which only resulted in the alcohol-and-stomach-bile-scented chunks of pizza spraying out at awkward angles.

  His roommate, with whom he already had an unpleasant relationship, demanded that he go to the bathroom and clean himself off. Tristan was very susceptible to orders when he was drunk, and so, he obeyed.

  He dragged himself out of the room and into the hallway. He walked into the wall twice and smacked his hip into a drinking fountain along the route to the bathroom.

  As he turned around the corner in the hallway, a claw hammer cracked into his forehead. It burst the blood vessels in his eyes. He stumbled around. He propped his back against the wall and slid to the ground. Tristan died in a sitting position with his bloody eyes open and staring toward the stairwell.

  ***

  Despite his efforts to stay calm, Officer Cornett audibly gasped when he saw Tristan. The body slouched on the floor, blood framing its face as its red eyes glared toward the officer.

  Officer Cornett quickly pushed the gruesome tableau from his mind.

  The screams had stopped, and Officer Cornett needed to locate the assailant. He raced up the stairs to the third floor.

  Four bodies would be discovered on this floor. Two males. Two females.

  ***

  Ritesh Rhat. Sophomore from Bend. Political Science.

  Justin Yamazaka. Junior from Wailuku. Electrical Engineering.

  Ritesh and Justin never locked their door. They didn’t drink, but they did own a futon. Their room had come to be called “The Oasis,” a haven where dorm mates could crash for the night if they got locked out of their room. As two self-proclaimed “good kids,” Ritesh and Justin enjoyed serving as sober guardians of the dorm. That’s why they barely stirred when their door opened. They assumed it was another friend in need of a place to sleep.

  Ritesh died quickly from a single blow to the head.

  Justin awoke to the sound of his roommate convulsing. He realized that someone was in the room with him. The door was open and the light from the hallway backlit the man.

  All Justin could think to do was to stay quiet and pretend to be asleep. Perhaps the man would leave.

  Justin died from a single blow to the head a few seconds later.

  The attacker left the room and closed the door behind him. He would find his next victim three doors down the hall.

  ***

  Maddie Rector. Junior from Boise. Undeclared.

  Maddie lived in the floor's only single-room.

  She was a light sleeper.

  Her eyes popped open the moment she heard her doorknob rattle. An ex-boyfriend had jammed gum in the strike plate three months ago, preventing the door from sealing shut. Maddie intended to report it to Facilities, but it always nibbled at the back of her mind that she would have to pay for the repair. And so, she ignored the problem, hoping it would fix itself.

  She saw the figure in the dark approach her.

  As it raised the hammer above her head, she was too terrified to scream, but she had the wherewithal to block the blow with her arms. The hammer shattered her forearm.

  She rolled out of bed and tried to run away, but she got clipped with a strike to the back of her head. She kept her legs moving, but she was woozy and disoriented. She stumbled out into the hallway. She never looked behind her. Never noticed that it wasn’t so much that she was outrunning her attacker, as that he was intentionally hanging back, waiting to see how her escape developed.

  In her dazed, confused state, the best plan Maddie could manage was to throw herself against the door across the hall. She clawed at it while weakly gasping for help.

  The room belonged to Body #8.

  ***

  Katie Hale. Sophomore from Portland. Latin American Studies.

  Katie was the second-string shooting guard on the women’s basketball team. The team was traveling to Los Angeles for the conference tournament the next week and Katie wanted to enjoy the trip without any homework hanging ove
r her head. Always a planner, Katie designated this weekend as the one where she would stay up all night and crank out her mid-term essays.

  Around 3 a.m., the caffeine started to upset her stomach, and so, she kept herself awake by taking long walks around the dorm.

  She hiked up and down the stairs, from one floor to the other, for 15 minutes.

  But as she did her fly-by of the second floor, she heard Sasha Hernandez’s scream. Katie froze. Was it a joke? Someone dreaming? Or was there an actual assault occurring in one of these rooms?

  Katie’s mind flashed to the story of Kitty Genovese, the famous case of the New York woman who screamed for help for approximately thirty minutes as she was stabbed and raped. Although dozens of people heard the screams, according to legend, not one of them came to her aid or called the police.

  The story still stuck with Katie.

  If something bad was happening in one of these rooms, Katie intended to help. She wouldn’t be a passive bystander. Evil can only triumph when good men do nothing, she thought.

  She hid in the stairwell and peered out at the second-floor hallway.

  One of the doors opened.

  A man stepped out into the light.

  Katie saw him.

  His dead, blood-red eyes.

  His gray, blood-splattered cardigan.

  That dull, blood-dipped hammer in his hands.

  He stood alone in the hall for a moment. He seemed huge.

  The man didn’t notice Katie hunkering in the stairwell. Instead, he stepped toward another room and tried the handle. Locked.

  Then he moved to the next door. Locked

  He worked his way down the hall, gently trying each door, checking for fresh opportunities and fresh meat.

  In the stairwell, Katie wanted to scream. She wanted to wake the world and warn her friends to lock their doors. But she couldn’t. She knew that to break the silence meant death. He would find her before help could. He would find her, and he would kill her.

  The rational part of her mind clicked off then. She was in the stairwell. One floor from the ground… from the exit… from freedom. She was also one floor from her room… her phone… a solid door she could lock.

  She chose the latter. For whatever reason, getting access to her phone suddenly seemed more important than getting access to the outside world.

  She tiptoed up the stairs to her room. She went inside and quickly locked the door. She woke her roommate, Trish, and urgently explained the situation. Katie called 911 while Trish sent a message to the dorm email list advising everyone to lock their doors—there was an intruder on the premises.

  Katie stayed on the line with 911 while Trish searched the room for something to use as a weapon. A desk lamp? A vodka bottle?

  They briefly tried to move a dresser in front of the door as a barricade, but the noise caused by the process seemed too loud. Silence felt more secure. The 911 operator assured them that police were en route and the best thing they could do was to lock the door, turn off the lights, and stay calm and quiet. That’s exactly what they did.

  Until they heard the knock.

  And the weak, gasping voice.

  “Please… help… Katie…”

  Katie knew immediately that it was Maddie. She was in trouble. The door’s peephole revealed nothing, just a narrow fish-eye of empty hallway.

  “Help… help…”

  Katie had to do something. The 911 Operator ordered her to not open the door. The best course of action was to keep the door locked and stay hidden until the police arrived.

  But Maddie continued weakly clawing at the door. She was right there. Two inches away. And she needed help. It would take only seconds to open the door, drag Maddie inside and close and lock the door behind her. Katie knew she could do it. She was strong. An athlete. Katie made up her mind.

  Trish was terrified but found comfort in deferring to Katie.

  They came up with a plan—Trish would open the door, Katie would drag in Maddie, then Trish would close and lock the door. Seconds. That’s all it would take. There wasn’t a moment to lose.

  Katie crouched by the door, ready to grab Maddie.

  In one motion, Trish unlocked the door and flung it open.

  He barged in immediately.

  With Katie crouching down, he had an elevated position. His single hammer swing had so much force that it went right through the crown of Katie’s skull. The hammer got stuck. He had to dislodge it from Katie’s bone.

  That distraction is probably why he never noticed Trish hiding behind the door.

  He pulled the hammer from Katie’s skull and left.

  ***

  Officer Cornett arrived in the third-floor hallway.

  When Officer Cornett saw him step out of Katie and Trish’s room, he didn’t fire. He had been expecting to find a student attacking fellow classmates. Maybe a crazy homeless person. Perhaps a gang of Satanists. What he saw didn’t fit his expectations. And so, he didn’t fire. He didn’t shoot to kill. He didn’t end it there and then.

  He saw a man that looked like his own grandpa. That gray cardigan over grease-stained overalls. That pure white ring of hair on an otherwise bald scalp. Those reading glasses. That full beard, trimmed daily with pride.

  This wasn’t a killer. It couldn't be a killer.

  This must be a Good Samaritan neighbor. Or a maintenance worker. Or the residential faculty advertiser. An old man with a kind heart who had heard the distressed cries of the kids under his care and grabbed the only weapon he had access to—a hammer—and rushed to their defense.

  Yes. That must be it.

  As Officer Cornett watched the old man turn and face him, saw the blood splattered on the cardigan, saw his red, lifeless eyes, it just didn’t make any sense.

  The old man saw the officer aiming the gun at him. His muscles seemed to relax. It was as if he had been expecting this moment. He dropped his hammer. He put his hands on his head and lowered himself to his knees.

  It still didn’t make any sense to Officer Cornett. Not even as he pinned the man down and slapped handcuffs on his wrists.

  This guy can’t be the killer.

  ***

  As police teams flooded the building, freeing residents and cataloguing the extensive crime scene, a reporter managed to grab Officer Cornett and pull him aside for a sound bite.

  “What were your first thoughts when you laid eyes on him?” the reporter asked.

  Officer Cornett hadn’t yet been briefed by the department’s PR officers. He was still too young and too shaken to give a “no comment.” He felt the role of a police officer was to preserve the honesty and integrity of society, and so, he gave an honest answer.

  “I thought he was the handyman," he said. "But he was actually The Devil."

  That single clip played around the country.

  A legend was born.

  The fascination began.

  The Handyman became America’s most famous killer.

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  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I’ve been a bit more introspective lately because, as I write this, the world is gripped in the midst of the Coronavirus Crisis. Some people think that as a horror writer, I should be right at home in the fear and uncertainty of the moment. But the truth is that I write horror not because I like being afraid, but because I so often am afraid — afraid that I might lose the people and things that bring me joy in life.

  I consider myself a very fortunate person to have been surrounded by so much love and support throughout my life, but there’s always the nagging fear that it can vanish in a moment.

  Truly, The Venue is my version of a love story. A twisted, violent love story, yes. But all the carnage and murder would be empty if it weren’t held together by the love between Amy and Mariko, as well as the love between Amy and her parents.

  With that in mind, I want to express my gratitude to all the people who have shown me lov
e in my life. Your love has supported me throughout my crazy journey as a writer. My wonderful wife who keeps me grounded and hopeful. My brothers who I know will always have my back. And, of course, my mom and dad who taught me strength and goodness (and hey, for once I didn’t write a book about a main character who has severe parental issues!).

  If I didn’t know love, then I wouldn’t know fear.

  Thank you for your support.