The End Of Desire argi-8

by M. R. Sellars

  If she had noticed my slip-up, there was nothing in her face that said as much. She simply pointed to the mail slot in the door and replied, “It’s no problem, hun. You can just drop the key in here when you’re finished.”

  “Will do, and thank you very much. Again, I’m sorry I had to disturb you at this hour.” I was doing my best to recover from my stumble and sound official, so I added, “Now, make sure you lock the door behind you.”

  She simply nodded in reply, but I waited until she was back inside and I heard the click of the deadbolt before I turned and headed toward the room.

  “Dammit! Stupid. Stupid.” I muttered the admonishment to myself as I walked.

  Concerned that I might need to simply veer toward my car instead of continuing on with this insanity, I cast a furtive glance back over my shoulder. Fortunately, I didn’t notice anything unusual, such as her spying on me from the window, so I mutely worked at convincing myself she was half asleep and had completely missed the gaffe.

  It didn’t take me very long to cover the distance between the office and the far corner of the building, and though I made it a point to walk at a modest pace, my heart was thumping hard against my ribcage by the time I arrived at the door.

  I stood there for a minute, simply inspecting the surroundings. The physical characteristics of the building made room 7 an obvious choice even over and above Miranda’s penchant for the number. The way this particular end of the structure terminated, there was an open stairwell leading up to the second story of the addition. That dead space would have acted as a sound barrier to dull any errant cries from her victim. Still, there was a room on the opposite side of this one and, given the limited availability of lodging in the city lately, it almost had to have been occupied by someone. Had that been the case, surely the guest would have heard something.

  I gave my head a small shake then reached up and massaged my temples. I was tired, I had a headache, and I had just lied my way into a crime scene. My brain was launching into rampant speculation while ignoring the facts. It remained that a murder had occurred in room 7, and no one had reported anything suspicious, so I needed to stop over thinking the situation and just do what I came here to do.

  Glancing back toward the office, I still didn’t see anything to raise any alarms. Turning in place, I saw nothing on the parking lot to worry me either. Giving up and deciding I must be in the clear, I stuck the key into the lock.

  The moment metal touched metal, I felt the chill on my spine once again. This one, however, was just like the first, carrying with it not fear but a feeling of excitement. As sick as it seemed, the sense of elation literally felt like the passionate rush of anticipated sexual release, and it coursed through me, branching out to touch every nerve. At that instant, there was no doubt in my mind that Annalise and Miranda had been here.

  I closed my eyes, drew in a deep breath, and then let it back out slowly as I struggled to ground myself, mentally fighting to maintain a solid earthly connection and not allow the cries of the dead to drag me across the veil. Then, opening my eyes once again, I twisted the key in the lock and pushed the door open, tearing the tape seal between it and the jamb in the process.

  Ducking beneath the yellow crime scene tape, I stepped into her world.

  CHAPTER 5:

  I froze in place, an involuntary physical pause brought about purely by things felt, rather than seen.

  I had only taken a single step across the threshold and then come back upright before hitting the invisible wall. Now, as I stood there motionless, the incandescent bulbs in the walkway overhang were spilling illumination inward through the open door at my back. The light edged in past my form, revealing random bits of the room in narrow swaths, making it appear far more eerie than I suppose it would have under less horrific circumstances. Of course, it didn’t help that my own distorted shadow fell along the floor down the center of the oblique display and then disappeared into the otherwise blue-black darkness, adding an urgent sense of foreboding to the overall picture.

  Of everything permeating the unmoving air, to me, sex was the most palpable. But, it wasn’t the same stale funk of peddled intercourse and spent prophylactics that oozed throughout my lodging back at the Airline Courts. In fact, sweet watermelon, cigarette smoke, and what might have been a hint of burnt flesh were actually what formed the base of the obvious olfactory signature here. However, raw, uninhibited sex was definitely the high note, and in that way, it rose above everything else.

  Simply being the accent, however, wasn’t good enough for it where I was concerned. It hit me hard and didn’t let up. Even at a week old, the assaulting pheromones seemed fresh enough to have been released into the atmosphere only a moment before. Unfortunately for me, my awareness of things ethereal served only to amplify their effects several fold, and no amount of grounding could stop them.

  But, even then it went deeper still. Intertwined with the base physicality were two very distinct emotions-love and fear. And, even given the opposite natures of the two, it was obvious to me that they were not mutually exclusive. Though starkly different, the feelings wrapped around one another and then wove themselves tightly into the sex itself. On the surface, they seemed symbiotic, feeding on one another in an endlessly growing spiral of depravity.

  I blinked hard in the darkness then forced myself to relax and simply observe. I didn’t know how long I would be able to actually accomplish that feat, but for now it worked, and that was enough to allow me to move once again. Taking a pair of steps farther inward, I twisted in place, carefully shut the door, and then flipped on the light switch before turning back to scan the interior.

  It looked much as I had imagined it would. Cheap paneling covered the walls, leading upward from dark institutional grade carpeting and ending at an off-white acoustically textured ceiling. A single light fixture clung to the center of that light-colored plane, spreading luminance downward from a pair of medium wattage bulbs.

  A full bed all but dominated the narrow room, jutting out from the wall to my left. It had already been stripped of linens, but the vinyl mattress cover showed several rusted smears of varying size and shape that I suspected were the product of blood that had soaked through the sheets. Along the wall to my right was a low dresser with a television perched on its marred top.

  Also to the right of center, on the back wall was a doorway leading into a small room housing a vanity-style sink and dressing mirror; left of that, on the perpendicular wall I could see what was most likely the door to the shower and toilet. Oddly, in the far left corner of the main room, a table lamp and telephone sat on the floor between two outdated chairs. A small, round table that looked like it might have originally made a home beneath them was sidled up close to the head of the bed.

  I stepped slowly through the space, negotiating the tight area between the foot of the mattress and the short bureau. All the while I was fighting against feelings of arousal. Under different circumstances I am sure I would have considered it a pleasant sensation, but at the moment it seemed sick and twisted. It kept hammering at me, gaining ground with each shuffling step I took.

  I paused again and took a deep breath, focusing instead on the pounding headache I’d been trying so hard to forget. The pain wasn’t exactly what I would call welcome, but it was preferable to the sickening idea of being turned on by what had happened here, and that was the ethereal sensation I needed to deny.

  Extreme arousal was almost too mild a description for the feeling that had been coming over me as I stood out on the walkway, and now that I was directly exposed to the scene, the excitation was taking over. Though I was alone and had no need to speak, what little of my rational self that remained wanted desperately to put what I was feeling into words. However, try as I might, nouns, adjectives and any other modifier for that matter had become all but meaningless. I could think of no way to accurately convey the sensation with simple syllables. Even the verbal theatrics of an adult film didn’t seem as though they would do
it justice.

  I had felt something very similar to this at the crime scenes in Saint Louis and had thought it close to overwhelming then. I had even experienced it all first hand the night Felicity had tried to kill me while under Miranda’s control. However, each of those instances was merely a faint hint in comparison to now.

  I’m sure that at the other scenes the sensation had probably been masked by a host of conflicting energies occupying the room, namely evidence technicians and cops. As for the night of my direct encounter, I was too busy dealing with my own fear to take much notice of anything else.

  This, however, was different. It was the first instance in which I had been alone and unthreatened in her world. Although, whether or not I was truly unthreatened remained to be seen.

  Even as I concentrated on the aching in my skull, an intense and very pleasant tickle slowly undulated through my groin. I instantly caught my breath and even felt myself rock slightly as my knees seemed to buckle momentarily. Even though it was a shock, the level of pleasure the sensation carried with it was unlike anything I had ever felt before. I felt sick to my stomach at the thought of what had caused it, but at the same time it felt so amazing that I found myself consciously wishing it would happen again.

  Out of reflex I looked down. Even though no one was here but me, I couldn’t keep from making a self-conscious check to be certain I wasn’t embarrassing myself. Surprisingly, given the nature and intensity of the sensation, what one would assume to be the affected body part appeared to be at rest, and nothing was out of place.

  But, then, when I gave it some thought, I suppose it shouldn’t have been such a surprise after all. There was something about the sexual energy that was alien, and having been down this road before, I knew exactly what it was. The arousal was patently feminine, just as the fear was wholly masculine.

  I simply stood there for at least a solid minute, maybe even two, struggling to center my thoughts on the ethereal migraine and deny the other sensation. If my ploy was truly working I couldn’t say, but since there was no repeat of the tickle, I pressed forward.

  Continuing around the end of the bed, I made my way over to the table. Its surface was crusted with reddish-brown smears of dried blood in various patterns just like the mattress cover. One recognizable outline was almost certainly that of a knife or maybe even a pair of scissors. Others were not so defined, some of them large, some of them small. I had seen what Miranda had done to Officer Hobbes back in Saint Louis, so I knew mutilation was a big part of her sick turn-on. Therefore, it really wasn’t a stretch for me to imagine a severed body part or two from the victim being responsible for the more generous stains.

  Here and there, around the edges of the table, a silvery glint of bi-chromatic fingerprint powder glimmered in the soft light. A basic effort to go through the motions, I assumed, because I’m sure the police didn’t really expect to find anything by way of a usable print here.

  Thus far I had been observing a hands off policy, making it a point to look but not touch. I wish I could say the decision was because I didn’t want to disturb anything given that the scene had apparently not yet been cleared. However, noble as it sounded, that idea had become moot the moment I pushed open the door. I had broken the seal, so if the police needed to return in search of further evidence, I had already rendered anything they might find inadmissible because I had contaminated the room, thereby breaking the chain. I wasn’t really certain whether what I had done was a misdemeanor or a felony, or even what penalty it carried. But, I was definitely hoping I wouldn’t be finding out anytime soon.

  To be painfully honest, the real reason I was keeping my hands to myself was self-preservation because I feared my inherent predisposition for uncontrolled psychometry. Simply being in this room had already bombarded me with more than I was sure I could handle, the most recent sensation being a case in point. Actually touching something could put me into a spiral, sending me through an ethereal event from which I might not recover.

  It’s not like it hadn’t happened before. Over the years I’d almost died more than once while channeling homicide victims. I wasn’t too keen on it then, and I definitely wasn’t interested in becoming one of Miranda’s fatalities by proxy now.

  Squatting down, I brought myself to eye level with the bed. I don’t know what I thought I was going to see from that angle, but one never knows until he tries, so I did. I panned my gaze across the tableau and tried to visualize what had gone on here one short week ago. Having had what amounted to my own firsthand experience, I expected it would be relatively easy to do. What I didn’t expect, however, was the visualization coming upon me with a vengeance.

  In front of me, there is a nude man tied to the bed, a standard clothesline rope criss-crossing beneath the metal frame and securing tightly to his wrists and ankles. An extra loop of the rope is visible around his neck. The reason for it becomes clear as I watch him struggling against the bonds. Each time he pulls against them, the noose tightens and he begins to choke. I can actually hear the distant echoes of him gagging, muffled though they are, as his mouth is covered with a wide swath of duct tape which is wound about his head and lower face.

  I watch as, with each desperate twist or pull, the rope bites deeper into his throat, forcing him to cease his fight. A look of suddenly realized terror is filling his eyes, and between each bout of choking himself, he lets out a nasal whine.

  I know that seeing this should disturb me, but it doesn’t. Not in the way that it should.

  What actually does disturb me is that I feel no compassion as I watch him. No empathy. But, even that isn’t the worst of it. If I was feeling nothing at all, perhaps I could make sense of my uncharacteristic disregard by attributing it to a forced clinical detachment.

  But, unfortunately, that isn’t the case.

  I am feeling something.

  I am amused.

  Worse than that, the tickle has returned, and I am becoming increasingly aroused by his plight.

  Though the immediate feelings I had sensed upon entering the room had been a combination of both killer and victim, my primary concern for my own safety had been in regard to him. Not her. While I’d had my brushes with channeling killers, they were always alive when I had done so. Though I knew that this one, or at least part of her, wasn’t, I hadn’t considered it as fully as I should have, and now that changed everything.

  The dead were the ones who spoke loudest in my head, and they were the ones who most often tried to pull me deeper into their world in an effort to make me understand. I suppose I couldn’t blame them for trying to get their points across any way they could. Dead or not, everyone has a story to tell, and it helps if someone will listen.

  But, this one didn’t just want someone to listen. She wanted someone to control. Though I could feel the victim and hear his anguish, he was a bit player on this mental stage. Miranda had a far stronger presence, and she intended to dominate the scene now-just as she had done then.

  That was one of the problems with channeling. It didn’t really matter what you as the channeler wanted or even what you personally found to be distasteful. You were simply a conduit, and it was all about the likes and dislikes of the one flowing through you.

  I definitely didn’t want Miranda this close to me, but it was too late. She was already inside my head, or I obviously wouldn’t be feeling the things I did. It was this realization that I clung to, using it as a shield against her onslaught and denying her control over me. My gut feeling was that I needed to cut and run right away because I no longer feared becoming her victim, I was afraid of becoming her. Given the pure insanity of that very thought, I was starting to believe all of this wasn’t just a risky move-it was a flat out mistake.

  But, I also knew that if I left now, I would leave empty-handed. All the deception and trespassing I had engaged in so far were only worth the gamble if I was going to have something to show for them in the end. I had to keep going until I found something tangible that would hel
p me locate-and stop-both of these killers.

  Of course, a raging psychosexual event that might possibly leave me blithering in ethereal bliss was definitely not the result I needed, especially when one considered the imagery that would bring it about. Unfortunately, that seemed to be where this was all heading, and very quickly at that.

  Since running wasn’t an option, I decided maybe I should find a different way to approach all of this. But, before I could do that, I was going to have to back out of the path I had already taken.

  I started to stand up but found I was once again frozen in place, unable to make myself move. I chose to try the same thing I had done earlier-I blinked hard and willed the image to go away

  But, when my eyes fluttered open, it remained. In fact, it seemed even more tangible than it had before. It looked real enough to reach out and touch, and I even found that I had to stop myself from doing just that.

  Trying again, I drew in a deep breath, shut my eyes, then slipped my thumb and forefinger beneath the rim of my glasses and pinched the bridge of my nose. After a moment, I let the breath slowly out through my mouth and allowed my hand to fall. With trepidation, I opened my eyes once again.

  He still hadn’t gone away, and now it was even worse- because he had company.

  CHAPTER 6:

  The new arrival in question was a petite redhead, and it was visibly obvious from what I saw happening in front of me that she was this poor man’s worst nightmare. Unfortunately, he was not alone in that, as she was mine too.

  I had a sense, within the vision at least, that a good deal of time had passed between what I had been witnessing moments ago and what I was seeing now. It appeared that the man was still alive, but judging from the visible wounds, blood, and burn marks on his face, I could only surmise that Miranda was well into his torture at this point.

  As I watched, conflict stormed through my brain in the form of internal voices locked in a heated debate. One of them was demanding in no uncertain terms that I close my eyes or look away immediately. It was telling me I should do whatever it takes to break this connection. I knew in my gut this was the voice I should be listening to, but it was only one of the three bickering inside my skull; and, the other two were ganging up on it.