Dedication
Ten years ago, on my birthday, I received The Call every writer dreams about. I had sold my first novel.
I am thrilled to be working again with the best editor in terror, Don D’Auria.
This one’s for you.
Chapter One
The first time he acted on the urge it was spectacular.
He wasn’t sure what to expect, because most of the time his fantasies triumphed over reality. He owned a razor-sharp imagination, surround sound in high-definition 3-D, constructed by armies of laborers during his darkest years of solitude and suppression. It was a window, his getaway from a virtual cell. He scrambled eagerly into the arms of a fantasy world because he had nowhere else to go.
Like his earliest childhood aspirations of becoming a famous movie star, best-selling author, or jet fighter pilot, the acts of slaughter had begun as mind plays. In the beginning, there was no storyline, just a fast cut to the climax. He layered a dramatic symphonic score onto the sequence. The victims varied, but the adrenaline rush always pumped new life into his withered soul. Blame biology, genes, God or the devil, it felt good.
Those on the receiving end could be anonymous, blurred faces. Or they might be a particularly irritating individual who had crossed his path that day. Or perhaps someone repugnant from the TV screen. Usually they were women. There was something about their softness that invited the hard assault.
He did not value his own life, so he certainly felt no grief about ending another’s. As a child, when he had killed a stray cat with an aluminum baseball bat, neighborhood girls cried. He merely found their reaction curious.
Part of the problem was that no one could identify with his pain. They lived in glistening shrink-wrap. They had not been beaten down into the dirt by those close to them. They did not wake up every morning with ugly scratching on the inside. A tireless heckler didn’t occupy their brains, a cruel implant at birth.
He felt an obligation to share the hurt that ached in his bones. Once he wrote a poem called “Sponge,” about a man who dutifully absorbed life’s punishments, soaking them up until one day he was filled and could accept no more. Then he began squeezing out the vile residue, allowing it to dribble onto the ignorant people around him like acid rain. Their flesh melted away as they screamed, but the sponge kept squeezing until one day it was pure again.
Like squeezing a sponge, activating the mind plays helped expel some of the filth, but never enough. Then one day his inner voice picked at a sore spot and upped the antagonism. The Heckler grew more vocal with each passing day. He exposed the obvious in three short words.
It’s…not…real.
The truth continued to taunt him, rendering his fantasies impotent. Neutered, the mind plays wobbled and crashed. A lighting rig fell to the stage. Scenery backdrops toppled. The audience exploded with laughter and scorn. The curtain tumbled down with a fast whoomph. Performers bailed. The dramatic tension had deteriorated into a limp burlesque comedy.
The auditorium emptied, the play closed, and his urges required a new outlet. Beckoning, the years of fantasy offered themselves as rehearsals for an electrifying performance on the world stage. Was he prepared?
Most of the time, he recognized the insanity of taking this show on the road, packing it up for a journey out of his head and into the light.
But he couldn’t stop thinking about it. The notion swelled inside his cranium until the pressure was unbearable.
He shot into the neighborhood. He spent thirteen consecutive nights in various bars and clubs on Chicago’s North Side looking for individuals who could fulfill his needs. He drank. He stared. He ran rigorous auditions in his mind, debating possibilities with the Heckler. He indulged in evil thoughts amid swarms of cheerful activity and enjoyed the incongruity like a private joke.
He aroused no suspicion. He was youthful and good looking. He fit in with the singles scene, even as he kept to himself and avoided conversations. When necessary, he smiled with warmth. He nodded. He listened.
He was a good listener because he wasn’t much of a talker. He could go days without speaking, and then when he did speak—obligated perhaps by a store clerk or phone call he couldn’t avoid—his voice croaked as if awakened from the dead. The sound of his own words jarred him back to reality.
At those moments he might lose his grounding. He might stumble. But he never fell.
On the thirteenth night of barhopping, he felt fully prepared, like a student who had studied exhaustively for a final exam. Any subsequent delay might dull his edge, weaken the momentum.
He identified his target.
Not beautiful, somewhat plain. Short, curly brown hair. Medium, nondescript build. Good teeth. Occasionally flirting with males, but mostly sticking to her small circle of girl companions. Drinking. One, two, three…seven drinks, divided between beers and cheap Jell-O shots. She took care of his checklist: unattached, losing some balance, speech sloppy, judgment impaired.
He knew the time was near when a bartender announced last call. She reached for her coat. Put it back down. Picked it up again. Teasing him? Finally she began snaking toward the exit for real, joined by her friends.
The Heckler ordered him to follow in a crackling radio voice, like a helicopter pilot viewing the scene from above. Tense violin strings lifted out of the bar noise.
His big scene had arrived.
Outside, in the sharp winter air, he pursued the group of girls, keeping a measured distance. One by one, individuals peeled from the group. He waited for her turn to break from the pack.
When she stopped to exchange hugs and wave goodbye, a prickling sensation traveled his body. One block later, when she cut through a dark parking lot, concealed from view by SUVs, he felt awed by the gift-wrapped location. He pulled on his wool ski mask, the anonymous face of death. He sped up, silent in white sneakers. Before his head could contemplate any new thoughts, the scene reached its glorious climax.
The four minutes matched his expectations closely, including the fierceness of the struggle and the wetness of the blood. It wasn’t until the very end that something happened that his imagination had not prepared him for. It struck him like a slap.
Her eyes didn’t shut. Crumpled to the pavement, still clutching at the stab wounds with tense fingers, she died staring back at him.
He had just removed the ski mask from his face. For a moment, he swooned and nearly lost his balance. The lights around him grew brighter and he heard distant noise.
In his mind plays, the victims had always closed their eyes, a final sign-off and departure. But her gaze locked on him. It took his breath away.
When he got home, he burned his clothes in the apartment building’s incinerator. He showered and retired to bed.
He slept deeply.
When he awoke, close to noon, he waited for the crash of strong emotions. He didn’t know when they would hit or what they would be. He just knew he had entered a new space.
His first sensation was hunger. He ate a bowl of cereal and drank some juice. He turned on the television and channel-surfed until he found his performance highlighted on a newscast. According to a solemn news anchor, the murder had taken place in the back parking lot of the victim’s apartment building. A hefty Hispanic woman who worked for the Chicago Park District found the body kicked under her Jeep around seven that morning. With stuttering revulsion, she described finding the corpse and realizing that the woman’s eyes were gone.
That’s when the wall of feelings hit. He moved away from the television set. He paced a semicircle in his living room. He worked to identify the sensation. Not fear. Not grief. Not shame. Not relief. What was it? What was different compared to twenty-four hours ago? What drove the blood racing through his veins? What was h
e feeling at this very minute?
Alive.
Chapter Two
The first thing to catch her eye was the color red. She was sliding into the booth, purse flung ahead of her, left hand wrapped around a latte, when she glimpsed the spiral notebook with the red cover. It rested near the edge of the seat, where it had been hidden from view by the tabletop.
Somebody’s already sitting here.
Ellen Gordon started to rise, then froze in a crouch. The other patrons had already claimed their seats. No one stood at the counter, where a young clerk introduced a fresh pan of muffins into the display case.
She sat back down.
Perhaps someone would come retrieve the notebook. If not, she’d deliver it to a clerk on her way out so it could be put in the lost and found, where it would join separated mittens and forgotten sunglasses. She imagined a DePaul college student searching his backpack for it between classes later that morning. She could even hear him cursing. Damn it!
Ellen popped the top on her coffee to accelerate the cooling. She checked her watch. Thirty minutes separated her from the beginning of another workday. She savored this slice of time—the buffer between home and work. It allowed her to enter the real world gradually before she had to face responsibilities. She could sit here alone with her thoughts as the morning opened up around her.
Ellen found comfort in the contrived coziness of Pacific Coast Coffee, an injection of Portland into the heart of Chicago. The interior resembled a mountain lodge getaway, with textured wood, low ceiling beams, a stone fireplace and hanging lanterns. While she rarely spoke to the regulars, they sometimes exchanged nods or quick smiles. Most of them were solo like her, fueling up on caffeine before heading to their destinations. Some were “grab and go,” others sat for a spell to peel through the Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times or the weekly alternative paper, The Reader. Pacific Coast Coffee did not attract groups or chitchat. Interactivity was typically limited to Wi-Fi.
Occasionally, patrons of the bookstore where she worked spotted her. Their greetings usually jumped to the irony—the Book Shelf had its own café, yet here she was. Didn’t she like her employer’s coffee?
True, her co-workers indulged in the complimentary coffee, but Ellen felt awkward freeloading. Besides, she needed her caffeine sooner in the morning to carry her into work. Once inside the bookstore, she just wanted to do her job and hope that the hours moved quickly with minimal customer fuss.
Ellen took a cautious sip of her coffee. A jazz recording played from speakers overhead, fluid hands racing across a keyboard—energy without aggression. She liked it.
She checked her watch. Ten minutes left in the looming hourglass before she had to leave for work.
For a moment, Ellen’s eyes locked on a display of take-home bags of coffee beans. The bags had an unusual color—pink.
Then she saw the sign that accompanied them. What’s not to love? Share your passion for flavor on Valentine’s Day.
The sign meant no harm, but it stung all the same. It was just like the cuddly Valentine’s Day display at the bookstore, with thin, expensive books about love, sex and romance facing all directions. She had trained herself to avert her eyes from it. The display was a blunt reminder of the stone in the pit of her stomach.
Valentine’s Day was Wednesday, all day long. She wondered how many people felt bad at this time of year? The hopelessly single, the divorced and widowed, the forgotten. And, really, how much true romance existed for the rest of them? Happy Valentine’s Day, honey, here’s your card and flowers. We’ll resume our cold indifference tomorrow.
She checked her watch.
Almost time to go. The coffee had cooled to the point where she could take hearty swallows. She didn’t smoke, barely drank, and had never tried illegal drugs. But coffee could be considered her addiction. She didn’t know how she could face each day without the manufactured buzz. It brought her to life with a mask of enthusiasm. For a few hours, anyway, the things around her would matter.
She looked back at the red notebook on the seat next to her. It was plain and ordinary, the type found in any drugstore for a dollar…sitting there, alone and unattached, just like her.
“Maybe no one’s coming for you,” she said in a quiet voice.
She reached down and touched the notebook. Her thumb teased with an existing bend in a corner of the cover. She ran a finger along the thickness of the pages. They were not neatly aligned. There was a roughness that indicated they had been filled with activity.
She looked around the coffeehouse at various faces. No one looked back at her. Keeping the notebook on the seat, she opened it to a random page and glanced down. Just a peek…
Masculine handwriting. Sharp lines and angles, readable but not neat, rapid penmanship traveling the distance of every ruled line.
She read: The last time I remember joy I was seven years old.
Her eyes skipped ahead:
I am absent in my own life, a functional shell protecting a void.
She scanned the surrounding copy, not in any particular sequence, taking in clusters of sentences, the openings of paragraphs. She felt an unexpected rush.
Ellen realized she was reading somebody’s private journal.
Sensitivity is my vulnerability. Pain is the reward.
She turned the pages. She locked into a lengthy passage. The voice simmered with free-flowing passion, captured in dark prose.
The people closest to me have hurt me in ways they will never know. The notion of consequences did not enter their conscience. In two years, I will be thirty, and I have surrendered hope that the storm clouds will dissipate.
Ellen thought, he’s my age. She read: I have no one close to turn to. No outlet. I feed my own sorrow. This journal will be a means to examine what brought me to this state. I will hold nothing back. I will spare no one.
Ellen continued reading, fascinated by the intensity of the writing. The author alluded to traumatic experiences that had derailed him at a young age. The writing was candid and deeply personal. She read: In these pages, I will attempt to undertake the greatest challenge of my life: to confront and dissect the unspeakable.
With a loud bang, the entrance of the café swung open. Ellen immediately shut the notebook and removed her hand from it. She looked up. A tall, rugged man with a beard and glasses stepped into the coffeehouse.
Did it belong to him?
He walked over to the counter and fixed his eyes on the menu options listed on a sprawling blackboard in colored chalk.
“Espresso,” he said. “Large.”
The notebook remained unclaimed.
Ellen looked at the red cover. She looked at her watch.
I have to go.
Her boss, Terri Smith, rarely reprimanded her for being late. But there would be the glare, and that was enough.
Ellen slung her purse over her shoulder. She picked up her coffee and finished it. The final swallow was flat and bitter.
She studied the patrons around her. Preoccupied. She looked at the two girls behind the counter. They were talking about cross-country skiing in Minnesota. The rugged man who had ordered an espresso was busy at the half-and-half dispenser.
In a self-conscious effort to appear casual, Ellen reached down and picked up the notebook without looking at it.
It felt alive in her grasp. She felt frightened and guilty.
Was this like shoplifting?
I’m not stealing anything, she told herself. I’ll read it and bring it back.
Ellen wanted to hear more from the notebook’s intimate voice. It stirred and intrigued her. She couldn’t abandon it now.
Ellen left the coffeehouse with the notebook tucked under her arm.
Chapter Three
When she thought about the notebook that sat under the seat in her car, in the parking lot, it gave her a small chill. She wanted to return to the handwritten confessions that were never intended for her eyes. Taking the notebook had been a bold act, and she was not a bold
individual. Far from it—her former boyfriend, Jeremy, had called her “nonconfrontational”. Her shyness and passivity used to drive him crazy. He would provoke Ellen just to get a rise out of her. “You’re lifeless,” he once told her, exasperated.
It’s the opposite, she had wanted to respond. I feel everything too strongly. I need to hold back.
Jeremy hated how she sometimes flinched when he reached for her. She told him it wasn’t personal. She needed time to warm up before becoming intimate. She wanted him to advance slowly, like wading into a pool of water. She couldn’t be rushed. She locked up. It wasn’t a choice.
Ultimately, her vulnerability brought out a meanness in him. She realized she was giving him a strange power; worse, he was enjoying it. That was when the relationship became ugly. His behavior triggered old insecurities, sending her back to the scared child she had tried to shed. A nasty cycle kicked back to life: she became desperate for acceptance, then defenseless under attack.
When Jeremy finally broke off the engagement, she was both shattered and relieved. She had no one to love her but no one to hurt her. She learned to embrace the loneliness.
The Book Shelf drew a small attendance as snow flurries littered the sky, keeping the casual crowd at bay. The people who did show up lingered, in no hurry to go back out beneath the sagging clouds. Many patrons searched for Valentine’s Day gifts. She watched a cute little old man who never removed his earmuffs. He settled on a book called 101 Ways That I Love You. Ellen was touched by the long time it took him to find the right book. He sampled at least a dozen alternatives before making his choice. In contrast, she saw many other customers make random, impatient grabs.
To fill the hours, Ellen indulged in an old game. She wandered empty aisles, half-closed her eyes and reached out for the first book that grazed her fingertips, pulling it out and opening it somewhere in the middle.
Then she read a page or two, without any preconceptions or advance knowledge of the text.
Sometimes she didn’t know if she was reading fiction or nonfiction. She didn’t know the topic or purpose of the book.
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