by Dave Dykema
She took a step forward, and lifted the knife. She hesitated for a moment, looking back, confused, seeking guidance.
“Go on,” he whispered. “The others are waiting.”
Without noticing, the contingent of robed figures had drawn in, circling the cistern, pressing closer. She looked into their faces, and saw mostly smiles and looks of encouragement. Suddenly it seemed all right.
She raised her arm and in a swift motion brought the blade down. At the last second though, she veered off, barely pricking the skin. The knife fell from her limp fingers into the standing pool of blood collecting around the body. She shuddered.
From behind her an arm reached around, dipping into the sanguine fluid, and withdrew her dagger, sticky and wet. He placed it back in her hand. Once the shock left her, she gripped the slippery handle again. The man cupped both hands into the blood, and then rubbed her forearms with the gore, stroking sensually up and down along her tingling skin. It was a cool, smooth sensation. Her breath quickened. He hugged her from behind, his powerful forearms crossing her chest.
“Come now,” the man with the broad shoulders, angular chin, and paper-thin lips said softly, stroking her hair gently, taunting her. “You can do better than that.” He gave her a subtle nudge.
Determined not to disappoint, and before she could change her mind, Janet advanced rapidly on the body, slashing down, cutting the air with a brutal ferocity. This time she did not wince away, but connected solidly. The blade bit into rib bone, stopping suddenly after passing easily through flesh. The shock reverberated through Janet’s arm, into her whole body. Her hand stung, like she just hit a baseball on the wrong part of the bat. Undaunted, she pried the knife free from the cartilage surrounding the ribs. The corpse rocked lifelessly as she jimmied the blade out, its head lolling over to one side, splashing into the blood. Again and again she brought the knife down, cutting, slashing, finding it easier as she went on and on and on…
Behind Janet, her teacher smiled.
*15*
Dave fumbled with the paper, trying to roll it again before the dried brown flakes blew away in the wind.
“It never looked that hard when my brother did it,” he grinned sheepishly at Tommy.
Tommy sat nearby, skittishly on the lookout. A few miles off to the west a huge thunderstorm raged. Before Dave showed up with his booty, he wondered if they would still go through with it, with the threat of rain looming. Tommy’s heart thumped in his caved-in chest. He had second thoughts.
Ever since Dave stumbled upon where his brother Kurt stashed his marijuana, he had been itching to try it. Kurt sometimes lit up when their parents went out, and Dave watched everything he did—the way he laid out the paper, how he measured the weed, the careful method of rolling, and finally licking the paper before he could smoke.
Dave was once foolish enough to ask for a puff, and Kurt smacked him so hard his face stung for hours. Kurt told him it was dangerous stuff, not to be messed with, and if he ever saw Dave doing drugs he would beat him senseless. Dave asked why it was okay for him to do it, but Kurt just shrugged and walked off, leaving Dave alone, smarting.
When Dave found Kurt’s hiding place, he swiped a tiny amount and a couple papers. He hid them in a tiny plastic bag tucked into a sock in the back of his dresser drawer, waiting for an opportunity to use them. He told Tommy about his find, and egged Tommy to try it with him. They mutually decided on this night, at midnight, in McAlester Park.
“Do you have a lighter?” Dave asked Tommy.
Tommy fumbled in his pockets for the Bic he took from a kitchen drawer at home. He looked up suddenly, ears pricked.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“What’s what?”
“Didn’t you hear something?”
Dave shook his head. “You’re just paranoid.”
Tommy sat upright for a moment longer, listening intently, hearing nothing, before laughing at himself with a smirk. “You’re probably right,” he said, pulling out the lighter. “I’m a little nervous.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Dave said, taking the lighter from Tommy. “I’ve seen Kurt do this hundreds of times.”
That in itself was something to be afraid of, for Tommy didn’t want to turn into some kind of junky. He pictured himself years from now, having graduated from grass to cocaine to LSD to heroin, wandering the streets, homeless, pandering for money to support his habits. It was a naïve exaggeration, but he was only twelve, and afraid.
Dave flicked the Bic, its orange flame illuminating brightly in the darkness. He was about to light up the rolled end of the joint when he too heard a noise. With a gasp, he quickly extinguished the flame, hoping no one saw it. The boys stared at each other, wide-eyed. Dave threw the joint and the lighter into some bushes. They sprung off the bleachers and crawled underneath them, breathless.
A car approached, coasting slowly with its lights off, engine in idle. The only sound was the tires on the gravel. Had they been talking when Dave lit up for a toke, the boys might never have heard it approaching until it was too late.
A man got out of the car and walked to the trunk. He opened it, rummaging around for some time.
“What do you think he’s doing?” Dave whispered.
“Shh!” Tommy hushed him. “Do you want him to see us?”
Dave shut up, burying his head once again in the grass. Tommy glared icily at him one last time, and then started to hunker down. A gleam of blue chrome caught the corner of his eye, and he froze. His Schwin still leaned against the bleachers, partially illuminated by a far away streetlamp. The skin on his belly crawled, his testicles withdrawing into his body. He touched Dave on the arm and pointed to his bicycle.
Dave mirrored Tommy’s worried look. He lived close enough to walk, so he hadn’t thought about the bike at all. In fact, he never saw it until now. He could only hope that the man wouldn’t see it either.
The man struggled with something large, wrapped in a dark cloth. He carried one end while the other dragged. He made his way toward a Dumpster. From there, Tommy’s bike was right in his line of sight.
Dave started to crawl over Tommy, toward the bike.
Even though he wished to stay silent, Tommy had to whisper, “What are you doing?”
“Look,” Dave whispered back, “you might think I’m a dumb shit, but I do read the papers.”
The realization hit Tommy. “You don’t think—?”
Dave nodded. “Your bike. We’ve got to move it—get it down on the ground. At least then he might not see it. He’ll kill us if he does.”
Before Tommy could reply he moved off. Tommy panicked as he imagined the loud clanging as the metal bike crashed against the metal supports of the bleachers while Dave tried to move it alone. He shut his eyes, trying to block out all thoughts, and began to snake over to the bike. They might be able to do it if two people worked at it.
The man was halfway to the Dumpster. Once he cleared the backstop, the bike would be in plain view.
Dave reached up and grabbed the straddle bar of the bike, lifting it off the bleachers. Tommy put his hands on the tires and slowly pushed them away as far as he could while Dave steadied the top half, lowering it carefully toward the ground.
The man reached the Dumpster. He lifted the lid, walking with it all the way until it was down, rather than flipping it open and letting it clang loudly like a sanitation worker might. His movements were cautious, precise. He had his back to Tommy and Dave, unaware of the boys’ desperate movements behind him.
Fumbling, Tommy pushed while Dave pulled. It was awkward, but the mountain bike slowly came down. It would still be in sight, but it would be out of the streetlamp and into the shadows. It would also be flat—to see it, you’d have to be looking for it.
The right handlebar got stuck, its ram horn-shaped curve hooking around a support strut. Tommy didn’t see, and kept pushing at the tires, plowing through the loose gravel, raising quite a mound. Dave tried to get his attenti
on, patting him on the back. Tommy ignored him, intent on getting the bike flat in the dirt. Dave gave up, and feverishly worked on trying to untangle the handlebar before Tommy pushed the tires too far and the slack was gone. His hands pulled and lifted, but his arms were tired from supporting the weight of the bike at this odd angle. He twisted his body to try another approach, and in that instant of rest, the handlebar shifted and pinched his pinky finger against the strut. A flap of skin tore off as easily as the plastic wrapper around a slice of cheese. He bit down hard on his lip to avoid crying out, tasting blood in his mouth.
The man lifted the bulky form and dropped it into the garbage container. He then ran around to the other side and lowered the lid gently back down.
Clanging loudly, the handlebar suddenly got unhooked, and the bike came crashing down. Tommy and Dave became one with the ground, pressing as close to the earth as she would let them. They held their breath—and waited.
*16*
“What’s going on out there?” a voice inquired, trying to sound tough, but betraying some fear.
A house light clicked on nearby, and a man clad in an undershirt and work pants unbuttoned at the waist stood on his porch, looking across the street into McAlester Park.
“I know I heard something over there!” he bellowed again, not caring whether he woke the neighbors or not.
He peered into the inky blackness pervading the park. He had written the City Council several times asking for more lights to be installed. The wimpy ones just weren’t enough. He complained of the homos loitering in the park after dark, lurking in the bushes, recreating Sodom and Gomorrah. Ask him, and he’d tell you he’d seen enough used rubbers lying about to attest to that. He wished to God that AIDS would kill them all off as part of His vengeful wrath for their unnatural acts.
It wasn’t just the homos that bothered him. It was the druggies, the winos, the bums, the gangs—anyone who preyed upon others. He was an upstanding man of moral Christian character, and he was tired of the Devil’s work rotting the minds of others, polluting the city with a stench like a soiled diaper. He was tired, ready to take action. He took a step forward.
But when he heard the screams from the two boys, he darted back inside his house as fast as his chubby legs could carry him, and dead-bolted the lock. He leaned back against the solid oak door, panting, and thanked God that whatever was happening to them wasn’t happening to him.
They probably deserve it anyway, he tried to reason. Nothing awful happens to the truly righteous—He sees to that.
*17*
Tommy yelled first. He thought he only imagined the first question, but when he heard the man say, “I know I heard something over there!” he knew he wasn’t dreaming. God had answered the desperate prayers he was sending upstairs. He screamed for help, loud and long.
Once Dave recoiled from the shock of Tommy giving away their position, he joined in. The man by the Dumpster obviously knew where they were now—being silent held no advantage. If he cried out, someone might come.
Panic hit the man. He ran to his car, still idling, jumped in, and peeled out of McAlester Park, hoping the children didn’t have the good sense to read his license number. It was a plate stolen off another car, but it still might be traced to him somehow.
Tommy and Dave still didn’t move from their spot for a good two minutes. Since their cries for help, they kept expecting some kind of cavalry to come to their rescue. They didn’t want to crawl out from hiding until that happened. When none came, Dave finally emerged, cautiously.
“Do you see anything?” Tommy whispered.
Dave took his time answering, shifting his eyes briskly in all directions, spinning his head when moving his eyes alone couldn’t cover an area. At last he shook his head. “I think it’s safe.”
Tommy scooted over his bike, leaving it lying right where it fell, and joined his friend. He shuddered as he looked at it, thinking what might have happened if things turned out differently.
“Do you really think that guy was the Dumpster Killer?”
Dave nodded, and then gulped. “There’s only one way to find out.”
Tommy immediately knew what he meant. They had been friends too long not to be able to read each other’s mind when it came to things of this nature. Peering into the Dumpster was not something he looked forward to, but he understood it had to be done. If that man had nothing to do with murder, and was only out disposing the carcass of a deer shot out of season, they would never know, and sleep would not come easily as their imaginations ran wild.
They stood by the Dumpster, afraid to lift the lid, afraid of what they might see. Never having seen a dead body before, they didn’t know what to expect. One of their mutual friends at school had seen Faces of Death and had taken ghoulish delight in informing the uninitiated about all the details. At the time, they wanted to get the movie for themselves to see what all the fuss was about. Now, they just wanted to forget all about death, and get on with living.
Dave lifted the lid, not looking down. He was afraid he would drop the heavy metal covering if he saw something unpleasant, the loud clang bringing the curious. He didn’t want to have to answer questions about why he was there at this late hour on a school night. All the noise in the world wouldn’t have mattered, for soon he’d have to answer those questions anyway.
Tommy clapped a hand over his mouth to contain a scream. Wrapped in blankets, stained dark with blood, was what was left of a beautiful young woman, twenty to twenty-five. They couldn’t tell she was pretty now—it was only after they saw her photograph at the police station did they realize that. What they saw was a nightmare of carnage, an obscene butchering of the flesh. They could be thankful she was wrapped up in the blankets. They were the only things keeping her entrails from spilling across the other garbage.
When he finally collected himself, Dave said, “We’ve got to tell somebody.”
Tommy agreed, but under one condition. “We can’t tell anybody that we were here to smoke pot. We’ve got to come up with another story.”
Despite the horrific situation, Dave uttered a nervous laugh. “After this, I don’t think I’ll ever want to smoke pot again.”
*18*
Dan walked into his dark apartment and turned on the radio. The announcer went on about another body found in a Dumpster. Dan felt sick.
What is happening to me? he thought. What am I doing following Janet? What am I doing with my life?
Disgusted with himself and looking over his room, he came to a sudden decision. He strode resolutely to the kitchen to pick up his garbage can. He then went back to the living room and turned on the overhead lights, the exposing brightness stinging his eyes, illuminating the room with its cleansing light. The room looked completely different fully lit. None of his posters looked particularly threatening. In fact, they looked rather silly. Janet was the one who said they were for little boys.
Before he could change his mind, he approached the nearest poster and tore it from the wall. Scream and Halloween came down next. Their value as collector’s items didn’t matter to him as he ripped them in half, wadding them up and throwing them away. He moved in a flurry. He lifted his Freddy Krueger standup and folded it over, stuffing it into the trash. Dark Shadows trading cards fluttered into it next, followed by a stack of Fangoria magazines. Everything went.
Everything, that is, except his Stalker poster. He had just gotten it. Dan felt like he would betray Mr. Peters and all the secrecy he went through to keep it for him if he threw it away so soon. Besides, it was kind of cool. Surely he was allowed one reminder of his hobby.
A little more in control, he moved back to the couch and noticed that in his fury he had knocked an empty can of beer from his coffee table. Looking at the number of dead soldiers that were there, he realized that he’d also been doing a lot of drinking lately. He dragged the garbage pail to the edge of the table. With a sweep of his arm, Dan knocked them all into the trash. But he didn’t stop there. He went to the refrig
erator next, and threw away all the beer that was in there as well.
Dan stood in the middle of the room, his hands on his hips, and surveyed the damage. The walls were bare, desolate. They looked strange to him—he felt like he was in another apartment. He had lived for so long with his walls and shelves plastered with scary things, especially for the last few months when he really immersed himself in his hobby, traveling to conventions, picking up collectables and holding his own marathon horror video “film fests.”
He looked down into his Rubbermaid can and saw bits and pieces of gruesome eyes, hideous faces, sharp teeth, sinister grins. While there was a part of him that wanted to reach in and salvage some of it, the other part felt cleansed. Tearing down the posters and throwing them away had been therapeutic for him. He only hoped that his ghosts would go away.
Book II
Stalking
Press Conference
*1*
Three weeks had gone by since Tommy Phillips and Dave Brown found the body in McAlester Park. Three weeks of the city living in fear’s grip.
All over, people banded together, forming citizen’s groups, block watch programs, trying to fight something they didn’t understand. Parents set curfews, and for once they were being obeyed. Police upped patrols. Politicians screamed for heads. The masses were angry, fearful, vengeful.
Some bordered on hysteria. Twice mobs attacked suspicious people, their only crime being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One was hospitalized with broken ribs and a punctured lung.
Sergeant Miles Cameron could stomach little of the chaos. Self-made vigilantes running amok in the streets dealing out justice as they saw fit brought him to the boiling point, and when he reached the boiling point he was not a man to be messed with. He wished more people would stay inside and heed his warnings. Maybe he could say some comforting words to calm people down during his press conference.
