by Garrett Cook
“That’s the thing,” says Ian, “I think he might not be smalltime. In fact, I’m convinced that this guy’s huge.”
“Forty six kills is huge, Ian?”
“Not forty-six. Not forty-six at all. And he’s not the 84 killer. The 84 means something else.”
Now, this part intrigues me. I made up a random number, and the other carvings I made were totally random symbols. A smiley face, an upside down triangle, an awkward ankh? He’s way off base. Turns out he probably won’t catch on to the fact that it’s a big red herring. Amusements have been few and far between. I take a chance to sit and laugh inwardly. And then Ian dramatically produces a calculator from his pocket. Wonder what that’s about.
“As I said, not an 84 at all…” he inputs the eighty four and turns the calculator upside down. Holy shit. “h8. Hate.”
Page h8…page hate. 84 is h8. 84 is hate. And now I have to stop and wonder if it was all in the newspaper. I know what I know, I’ve read what I’ve read, and I couldn’t have made a mistake like that, I just couldn’t.
“And the others. The other random symbol killings that seem so meager and un-prestigious. A primitive diabolism. The rune language of a terrified man possessed by madness screaming out his discontent…an ironic, smirking smile betraying the sadness and desperation of the h8. An upside down triangle…well, we all know what that is….”
The crowd around Ian is laughing and I want to cry and there’s no perversity and no smirking superiority. I couldn’t possibly just be another bundle of mechanisms and neuroses like the devils and the robots and the reap kids. How dare he talk to me like that. I h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 him. He’s one of them after all. Obvious hive mother. Has to be. Kill him right now. Don’t listen to the theories. I find myself wanting to just break him, every bone in his body, everything he ever said, but if I kill the man, it doesn’t break the words and it doesn’t get rid of all the nanites in everybody’s bloodstream. The obsession and the self destruction burn through even my need to record objectively. Something is wrong with me. I swear I’ll find it.
“But the crème de la crème of all of this is that this one obsessive schizoid might have the highest count of them all. Totaling all of these very similar symbol killers, who incidentally, all strike blonde women between the ages of 19 and 31; we have a sum that exceeds even Godless Jack’s record.”
“But Ian,” Cass interjects, “Godless Jack’s record is 300 Dusties. You’d have to be a walking uzi to break that. That makes you a postman not a pomp.”
Ian looks deadly serious. I get a bit of pleasure from the knowledge that I have scared him every bit as much as he scares me. And that there is a violence that shakes even Reap guru Ian Sterling, the king of cool and the strongest stomach on the Reap scene. Of course this means that I may have done things that are shocking and serious in a heartless and mechanical world. Maybe it would be more of a victory to discover it than to be the one who did it. I hope he has the count wrong. He says I’ve broken Godless Jack’s record, but I can salvage the night and not feel like running if he gets the count wrong at least.
“377 kills, Cass.” His eyes water a bit in fear and then they gaze up in admiration.
“Excuse me…” I say meekly and almost nobody hears me slipping out into other parts of the crowd and the club.
The last thing I hear out of Cass’ mouth is “Jeremy gets a little squeamish sometimes.” Everything else is my adventure. My twitchy, violent and tragic adventure. And like the sordid adventures of many men, it begins at the bar. The bartender, the only person here that’s out of costume becomes real trustworthy to me real fast, particularly since there’s no telling how many telltale clues I could give up if I listen to the profile Ian is developing on me. So, I’ll choose a perfectly sane means of social smokescreening by having a drink. I make sure to look at the bartender so that my eyes don’t wander toward any of these abominations or toward any kind of trouble.
“Martini.”
I fail to notice the chunks of little blue dust until after I drink it.
“What’s this stuff?” I ask. The bartender seems to think it’s a joke. Whatever it is, it doesn’t feel too bad. So I order two more. It’s my way of saying, “well, this can’t get any worse.” But it ends up every bit as damning as if I’d said it out loud. The club gets blurrier and brighter all at once until the blur stops and my vision’s all clarity. Sharp, overwhelming clarity that threatens to burn my eyes from their sockets. I find myself distant and curious. One thing that I most certainly never felt towards this place and the people in it was curious, but that old blue magic takes care of that. I stumble from the barstool out into a world I feel a grand desire to comprehend as opposed to destroying.
I wander out onto the dance floor again and there’s a woman there, her chest swathed with bandages and stained with a massive red spot.
“Are you okay?” I ask, not even thinking that this might be a costume piece or something.
“I’m more than okay,” she says, sober, stern and proud, “Nationwide tribute to Thomas Gennaro. I did this myself because I, like much of the Reap Community, really miss the Cabana Boy. Spread the word, okay?”
“Umm…yeah, yeah…” now I’m stumbling. I don’t know whether she’s real or not. And if she is, I wonder if she did give her breasts for him. We feel angry and disappointed and shocked. We feel like we’re in hell. So much shock over her stupidity which seems like it’s just too much to fathom. I’m scared that Cass might do this for one of those monsters or another. Go out and mangle themselves since nobody else will do it.
“Are you okay?” asks the girl with the bandages. The nerve.
“I’m fine. Just a little wobbly. These martinis are really something.”
What the hell could have been in there? The woozy wobbly feeling leaves and ventures into euphoria as I look upon a magnificent little Whitechapel girl making eyes at me. Sweet, inviting smile, nice firm body and I don’t feel guilty. I don’t feel guilty because I can see Cass making out with a couple of Gacy girls. She eagerly licks fake blood off of their lips and necks and takes time exploring their long flowing skirts with her hands. But, what does it matter? I have a sweet, sexy girl who wants to be with me at the moment and Cass will want to be with me later, so it all works out okay in my ecstatic light headed mind. Without a single word, she leads me outside.
The alley is lit only by an overripe full moon. And she looks great. I will ignore the little metal spiders crawling on her fingers. We will ignore the little metal spiders crawling on her fingers. I will ignore the little metal spiders crawling on her fingers and I will have a good time. But they crawl harmlessly about and pass right through her. She won’t be a robot. I’m relieved. Not a robot at all, just a gorgeous smile, a well toned body and beautiful blonde hair. Little yellow cunt putrid little yellow cunt. Stop it, I tell myself, not a clone machine. Just going out here to get some excitement and joy out of this evening. What is it in me that tells me not to enjoy myself? Noises. The buzzing of little wispy scouts swarming like eager mosquitoes. If I could ignore this and just enjoy her unbuttoning my shirt and starting to massage my chest. I place my hands on breasts very like the moon above. I squeeze and I breathe.
“Milk…sweet, sustaining milk…” something says, “perfect. She’s just right.”
Glowing eyes look into mine. It is resting on her shoulder. Rat-grey fur, yellow eyes, clawed hands and tiny leathery bat wings. Most unsettling though is the snout, the long putrid stinking proboscis that drips the sticky, acrid black ooze that gives life to new Dark Ones.
“Do you like her, Jeremy? I like her fine. You can have her when I’m done with her.”
This makes me breathe very hard. She puts a finger on my lips. “Shhhh…”
She moves to kiss me and it drips the poison on her face. The little yellow cunt ripe for the taking, ready to be full of a squawking, soulless abomination. It has a great old time making its mess and taunting me. I can smell the stuff
and I’m about ready to vomit. I smack it like the horrible little bug it is, and I end up hitting her in the face too. My hand is covered in that gelatinous crap and I feel like apologizing, but instead she just lights up.
“Mmm…”
The Dark One flies around her head, circling it and laughing. “We’ll be in her soon. Would you care to join us? Good old time, Jeremy. She smells positively delicious. Quite ripe too. Could bear us a whole litter. Good stock too, none of those weak, worthless little scouts…”
It’s going to be in her soon. I have to push away the other voice that gets so loud. Can’t be told what to do. Not by a Dark One, not by voices either. What do I do? Going to be in her so soon. I try to get the Dark One again and again, but I keep on hitting her instead. It’s too fast and too devious. A smile emerges on her bruised face.
“Please, please, I love it…” She gets down her hands and knees and starts to fumble with my zipper with her teeth, and all the while she’s dripping the rancid, black venom that the thing has smeared her with. I keep hitting her, thinking that the Breeder will go away or she’ll run and be safe, but no, no, no. Too excited and too eager. The dress, the drink, the club, the Ripper boys make her such a willing victim.
“Cut me open,” her eyes say, although her mouth can’t form the words. Not just blonde, not just ripe, but maybe dead already, maybe a gazelle seeking the right lion. Her face is getting quite purple, her mouth is filling with blood and I can hear the tiny clank of a tooth spat onto the pavement. There is nothing that will make her stop exalting in the beating. One must wonder if a society of predators spawns a society of victims or whether it’s the other way around. Those are questions for Ian Sterling, not for me. I don’t want to kill anyone here. It wouldn’t matter. I knock her out at last and I leave her.
I’m nauseous, the place is spinning and my hands are covered in blood. Just a regular night at Le Couteau, I suppose. I slip in, go to the bathroom and for once feel quite lucky that I am where I am and no suspicion is aroused. Even the black goo washes off. As I faint in the middle of the club, I can’t help but think, “There must be some better way.”
I dream of a chorus of revved chainsaws and a crucified Cabana Boy smiling down from his cross. I hate it when my dreams are so simple and trite.
“I’m the hero, Jeremy,” he tells me. The ground dissolves and I fall into a giant children’s car seat just like the one my mother said goodbye to. Cass picks up the seat looking at me tenderly, and then plants a kiss on my head. “Bye, Jeremy,” she whispers as she leaves me at the bottom of a set of monolithic stairs, the top of which I can’t even see. I try to get up from the car seat, but like the trapped infant I am, I cannot even walk. It astonishes me to wake up with Cass’ face shining over mine, exhausted though it might be.
From the burgundy velvet draped over the seats, I realize that I am in Ian’s car. I hate to think that Ian is driving me home, but am relieved and puzzled to see purple haired Selene in the driver’s seat. I feel bad that the Whitechapel girl might very well be dead, but I feel worse because I owe Ian Sterling a favor.
Unmasked
4 am again and look at you. Just got home two hours ago tried your damnedest to sleep. Should have reminded Cass you were working today. Shouldn’t have loaded yourself up with mystery drugs. Probably shouldn’t have gone to a club you believe to be inherently evil. Funny way of sticking to your guns. And now the pills, the booze and the hate are conspiring against you. Sometimes, you must have just been paranoid, but this conspiracy is undeniably real. You can see because it’s creeping up behind you and ready to devour your day. More concrete than ever, this time. This is guts and liquor and everything I ate yesterday. Real as a hand in front of my face and a stench on my breath. As serious as a proverbial heart attack. All these consequences make me wonder if that Whitechapel girl that I left bleeding and beaten in the alleyway is still alive. She was squirming a bit, at least. I also have to wonder, if she is alive, if she was satisfied. Was that enough? I can’t really answer these questions for myself, and they seem like things I should know. I don’t know if this is the way. Every time they breed, should I have to sacrifice someone? One life in exchange for the swarm. But how many swarms, how many millions of them do I miss? This wasn’t in the paper or Lud’ s ranting. I don’t know if I can keep doing this. It feels too small. For all intents and purposes those filthy yellow cunts little mommies…those girls are innocent. Is Ian right? Am I just another knife wielding maniac who hates his mother? How scary am I? What kind of monster? What a clear head you get when you’re vomiting your goddamn guts out on account of something stupid you did. Too much time to think. Just can’t stop. When I kill, when I make love, it stops. The killing is louder, though. Maybe louder than the voices shouting back and forth. Peace is when you do something louder than your brain is. Two hours til work. It happens. Shit happens. What does it say about your job when every work day you tell yourself “shit happens”?
Too much thinking. I sit down on the couch in my nice, quiet living room and I think about how it is only ten hours until I get home from work. How lucky. That’s not long at all. Never mind that work hasn’t even started yet. Best not to think of that aspect. Look to the end of the day. At least I’m not one of those people who feel that way about life. I’d be the last person I’d ever kill. Most people who kill themselves have about six people they ought to have plugged first. When you consider that, a lot of these reapers start to make sense. I take my journal out and I look through it. My journal entries look like obsessive ranting, they feel like the stuff that was in my head. On this count, I can’t look away. I’m taken by surprise when six o’ clock rolls around. Out the door and down the street. There is no more time for reflecting.
There are a couple of Ripper kids out there, gaudy as ever, looking at the few cars parked. “Lookee ‘ere, guv,” one says in a cockney accent that would embarrass Dick Van Dyke, “Mercides Binz, ite points, aye?”
The oldest, clearly the leader leans down on his swordcane to examine the car. “Roit you are, me love, roit you are.” I know what comes next and I think I might vomit again. With all the blood I’ve seen, you’d think a game of Splat wouldn’t make me squeamish. But it does. I can think of few pursuits as nauseating in fact. Out comes the younger Ripper’s knife and I clench up. It seems particularly sick and visceral today with all the blood I’ve been reading about. The kid opens his palm with the knife and smacks the windshield with it hard. The cut is too deep, the handprint imperfect. The splatters fly, the hard gooey noise is too much.
The kid rips a piece of cloth off his shirt, starts to tie it around his wound, cut off the blood loss. He doesn’t manage it, the older one slaps him hard and grabs the boy by his wounded wrist. “Such a pretty cut, love, stop and enjoy it. Gather round lads, take a look. Little Joey’s done such a pretty job. Brave too, look how ‘e takes the pain.”
The young one’s eyes tear up. He lets out a whimper. The older gives him an ugly look and breaks accent. “You let it bleed, you little prick, and you let it bleed.”
Joey is about 13 and now understands one of the most important lessons of Reap; that death is inevitable and people so often bring it upon themselves. Maybe I’ll let the kid die like his fellow rip kids would. Life, death, all games. He put up his wager in blood and he lost. Lose the bet, lose the blood, lose the game, and lose your life. Put up your life for petty vandalism, fuck you, you little shit, you let ‘em see a killing right here, right now, story they can bring back to Murderland about how hardcore they are, lost a mate to a game of Splat.
But it doesn’t sit right, letting the boy leave just a handprint on somebody’s car behind. “My life was an act of vandalism; a graffiti tag on the earth. I will be washed off and erased, no more mess, no more Joey.” What is worse than that? That’s what everyone’s afraid of, that’s what I’m afraid of.
“Get him to a hospital, you little fuckers!” I scream out, the words wrong, the urgency present. The kids pick th
eir friend up off the ground and start to wrap the wound with the torn piece of shirt. The leader casts down an angry look on his pawns and they pull the cloth away, leaving Joey once more hemorrhaging and crying. They look to me again and then to the leader, the cloth and Joey.
“Fuck you, man,” says the leader, Cockney accent gone, “this is none of your fucking business! He’s tough, he’s one of mine, and if he’s not tough enough then…”
The boys around him are sweating bullets as Joey reaches for the piece of cloth. “Kyle, this isn’t cool…this isn’t fucking cool, Kyle, he’s gonna…”
“Everybody fucking dies! You touch that fucking cloth again and I’ll slit every one of your throats, just like I’ll do to this asshole! This asshole has no right; he’s got no fucking…” I charge him, put some weight into it, and he goes down. I reach for the kid on the ground and the makeshift tourniquet, but I’m stopped by a kick in the shins. Not the hardest hit a guy could take, but swift and painful nonetheless. I look behind me and I see that the ripkid leader’s gotten up and he’s sprung his swordcane. Certainly earned his position. Not only would he leave one of his own boys to die, but he’d slice up a stranger for helping him. The other rip kids look at me apologetically and they charge at me, too.
A good solid roundhouse, more punches than I’d like to count. A flurry of strikes that I’m not even sure I feel myself making. Somebody’s doing it, but I don’t know if it’s me. The cane is on the ground, the leader is on the ground next to the kid. Seems like the kind somebody would give up, but he stands up and he keeps trying to fight, keeps coming at me like a human bullet. Quick, angry, devoid of subtlety and looking to do only one thing. Little wannabe Cabana Boy, little wannabe Jack, Godless or Ripper or whatever. He keeps kicking, slapping, biting, screaming. I elbow him in the stomach, headbutt him, kick out his shins and throw him down again. He hits the pavement harder; he twitches and writhes and tries his damnedest to get back up onto his feet. It isn’t until he stops twitching and blacks out that it looks like he doesn’t plan on killing me anymore.
