The Tragedy Man: A Serial Killer Thriller

by Staci Layne Wilson

  "One could say the same about your cooking," Cary teased.

  "Let's go," Diana said, leading the way downstairs.

  The house was dimly lit, and the windows were dark with night. Cary hoped he hadn't kept dinner waiting for too long. The den was partially lit from the light spilling in from the adjacent dining room. The couple entered and found Marlisa, already seated at the table. The table was big enough to seat twenty-four persons, and it looked strange to see just three settings, all crowded into one end. Marlisa sat regally at the head and smiled as they entered the room.

  "Come on, kids, it's getting cold." She had already heaped their plates and filled their wine glasses. "Did you have a nice rest, Cary?" She sounded slightly disapproving, as if Cary should realize sleeping during the day was slothful.

  "Fine," he said as he pulled out Diana's chair. He had noticed the barb, but let it pass. "You look fantastic," he added as he seated himself at Marlisa's right hand.

  Marlisa was the only person Cary had ever met who dressed for dinner in her own home. She wore an elegant black and white pantsuit, and her hair was freshly done up. Diana, Cary noticed, had changed clothes as well. She was in her satiny green pant-suit. Cary was glad he'd changed into his nicest pearl-gray pin-stripe trousers and white starched shirt, which was a bit wrinkled thanks to his hurried packing job that morning. He hoped Marlisa wouldn't notice.

  She did. "Diana," Marlisa said, "Don't you know how to iron yet? Look at your poor man," she smiled with saccharine sympathy at Cary.

  "It's my fault," Cary said. "I actually take all my clothes to a dry cleaner, but in this case, I just didn't pack properly."

  Marlisa looked at Diana, as if to say, "You let him pack?"

  Cary changed the subject. "Mmm, this food looks marvelous!" He stabbed a piece of the breaded chicken and began to saw at it with a serrated knife.

  "Just a moment!" Marlisa said sharply. "We must first thank the Lord for our bounty."

  Cary was embarrassed. "Of course," he mumbled. "I'm sorry." Diana was looking at him with disappointment. She didn't make a habit of saying grace herself, but she had expected Cary to remember her mother's ever-present religion.

  "Why don't you say grace tonight, Cary?" Marlisa smiled with satisfaction. That should knock him for a loop, the writer of profanity.

  "Me?" Cary repeated. He didn't want to say grace. He didn't know how to say grace. Would she be expecting a specific prayer? He hoped not.

  Marlisa nodded. "Go on, we're hungry."

  "Uh, let's see...thank you, O Lord-- "

  "Clasp your hands and lower eyes in reverence to the Almighty," Marlisa prodded.

  Cary did as he was told. "Dear Lord, thank you for good food and good company. Amen." He hoped that would do. He held his breath.

  "Well spoken," Diana said as she raised her glass. "I propose a toast to our chef."

  Marlisa grinned with false modesty and raised her glass as well. Cary did the same and the three crystal goblets chimed like a musical note when they made contact. Cary raised the glass to his lips and took a sip of the zinfandel. Only a small sip. He blanched when he tasted the small amount of wine but forced himself to swallow with a gulp. It tasted like urine. Not that I would know what urine tastes like, he said to himself, but it sure tastes like urine smells. It's the worst wine I've ever had. He looked at the wine; his seemed a bit yellower that Diana's or Marlisa's, but it could easily have been a trick of the candle-light. He hoped.

  "Oh, Mother, you've really outdone yourself this time," Diana exclaimed as she tried the breaded chicken and white sauce.

  "Thank you," Marlisa said, still not satisfied. Everyone had to love it. "What do you think, Cary?"

  Cary finished cutting his bite and was thankful for anything to rid his mouth of that horrible taste. But the new taste was even worse. The white sauce oozed in his mouth like hot sperm, and the meat tasted like a stale, sweated penis. Again, he could only guess at his identification of the tastes, but those were the things that immediately leapt to his mind. His stomach roiled and he swallowed his mouthful without chewing it, but he could not keep the expression of disgust from his face. He wanted desperately to spit into his napkin, but that was unthinkable.

  "Is something wrong?" Marlisa asked worriedly, "Have a sip of wine."

  Cary couldn't do that. Instead, he speared his cut green beans with his fork and shoved them into his mouth. He chewed quickly and swallowed without tasting. "No, nothing's wrong. My head is really hurting, that's all. The meal is delicious. Don't let me bother you," Cary said with forced gaiety. "I'll be fine. I'm sure all I need to do is eat. I don't think I had breakfast." He turned to Diana, "We didn't, did we, sweetie?"

  "No, I don't think we did," she agreed. "Which reminds me, I called Birds of a Feather, so you needn't worry about Tweetie missing any meals."

  "Tweetie," Marlisa said, her voice faraway. "I had a parakeet called Tweetie when I was a girl..."

  Cary was grateful the conversation had turned away from him, and he stopped listening. As his mind wandered, he continued to eat his food, which still tasted absolutely disgusting. First it had been his sense of sight and smell which had been affected by these strange hallucinations, and now his sense of taste. How long before he felt unseen hands on his body, or heard ghostly voices whispering his name? The very thought filled him with dread. The sedatives obviously weren't helping. He didn't know what to do next.

  He would have to face the possibility that maybe he was like Mommie. But not yet.

  Cary chewed his food quickly, so as not to actually taste any of it, and as a result he started to feel nauseated. Sweat began to bead on his forehead, but he couldn't say anything about the food. He forced down the last bite.

  "Seconds?" Marlisa asked.

  The very thought of eating more of that food made Cary's gorge rise, but he held it down. "No thank you," he said pleasantly. "I'm so full I could pop." He patted his tummy, punctuating his remark.

  "Well, how about some coffee? I've got it brewing and mints ready to go." Marlisa stood and began to clear the table. Diana helped her. "You go into the den, Cary, and let us women take care of the dishes," she said, her hands full of plates.

  Cary didn't argue. He wanted to get into the den and away from the candle-light. The tiny flames made him uncomfortable, and he didn't know why.

  He walked into the shadowy den and snapped on the lights. The room, with one entire wall lined with books, seemed to be beckoning him. The huge leather couch looked soft and inviting, and he settled himself into one end, his hip resting against the arm. He listened to the rattling of dishes, and the faint voices of the women in the other room for a moment, then he plucked a book from the shelf behind him. Most of the books were religious or Victorian-romantic in nature, so Cary just blindly picked any one to help pass the time and keep his mind off of his problems.

  He opened it up, appreciatively noting the gold leaf on the edges and the hand-tinting of the illustrations as he flipped the pages. There was some text, but the book was mostly illustrations of religious figures. Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, St. Peter, and... Who was that? He'd already gone past. Cary thumbed back through, trying to find the page that went by his eyes so quickly but had left its image burned in his mind. He finally found it.

  The drawing was not a religious portrait. Oh no, it couldn't be any further from that, but then Cary didn't expect it to be. He saw exactly what he thought he had: a woman, crudely drawn, sitting propped up with her back leaning against the trunk of a tree. Her clothes were torn away and her eyes were stuffed into her slashed breasts. Her mouth was slack with death, and the artist had even taken care to draw a spider-web line of drool hanging from the small, well-defined chin. The woman looked just like Diana.

  "Oh, I see you're admiring my most treasured book," Marlisa said with delight as she entered the room balancing the coffee tray in both hands. Cary slammed the book closed so hard she nearly dropped the whole tray in alarm. Diana, who was trailing
her usual ten paces behind Marlisa, shot Cary a look as she entered the room. She held a silver cup with long chocolate-covered mint sticks it.

  "My, my," Marlisa chided with annoyance as she set the silver tray down on the coffee table. "What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?"

  "I'm sorry, Mrs. Moon," Cary replied. "You just surprised me."

  "That absorbed in religious writings? I should hardly think, judging by what you write, that you would have the slightest interest in such works."

  Diana answered before Cary had the chance to. "Oh, Mother. That's not fair."

  "You're right, I'm sorry," Marlisa replied, smiling apologetically at Cary. She still wanted to cultivate him as a son-in-law. But she didn't want him to think she condoned what he wrote, either.

  "No harm done," Cary replied. He took a mint from Diana's cup as she seated herself beside him. She was blushing. She was embarrassed. But not at her mother's outburst. No, Cary knew she was embarrassed by his book. She was proud of him; she kept up a file and noted the skyrocketing sales figures with satisfaction, but he knew she thought The Brandie Killer was trash. He realized now that he did, too. Sometimes when critics quoted passages from the book, or when interviewers read them, he couldn't believe he actually wrote it.

  He bit into the mint, not knowing what to expect, but steeling himself nonetheless. It tasted like bitter aspirin, and again his gag reflex tried to work itself. He set the mint aside, trying not to grimace. He had to keep up appearances, so he poured himself a cup of coffee and pretended to take a sip. "Good," he said, "But I'd better not drink too much caffeine. With that nap I had today, I'll be lucky to get any winks, let alone forty."

  "Well, drink up," Marlisa smiled. "It's unleaded. My own special blend."

  Cary gulped. Damn. No excuses. He raised the cup to his lips and took a quick drink, the fleeting taste of fetid swamp water rushing past his tongue and down his throat in a sickening lump.

  Diana sipped at her coffee and nibbled delicately on a chocolate-covered mint stick. "So, Mother, what do you have planned tomorrow? You're more than welcome to join Cary and me on our picnic tomorrow morning."

  Cary could have kicked her.

  "Why, thank you, dear," said Marlisa, "but I really must do some dusting around here. I didn't have a chance to clean everything before your arrival, but I want to make sure it's all done before your departure. We'll have another feast tomorrow night and we'll spend time nice quiet together afterward, like we are now. Isn't this nice?"

  The question had been directed at Cary. "Oh, yes. Yes indeed, Mrs. Moon. Lovely." He felt like throwing up. He wanted to go to bed and sleep. Just sleep, and maybe never wake up.

  "Diana tells me your book is doing quite well," Marlisa said, trying to make amends and draw Cary out and into some conversation. For a writer, he sure doesn't have much to say, she thought.

  "Yes, it is," Cary said. "But I'm ready to write some serious fiction for a change. The horror thing was really my agent's idea," he finished almost apologetically.

  "I see," Marlisa replied, as though she really didn't see at all. "Well, it amazes me what people will read and watch on television." She turned to Diana. "Why, I turned it on the other day, just to make sure it still worked, and they had..." She paused, as though struggling for the right word to use in mixed company. "Well, fornication, on. Right there in the middle of the day!" Her expression was beyond indignant. "I couldn't believe my eyes."

  "I'll bet not," Diana said wryly. "It was probably a soap opera. Those things can be pretty racy sometimes."

  "Well, Heaven forbid a child should turn on the TV without his parents around. Why, I don't know what I would do if I were a young mother today. It wasn't easy raising you, Diana, and I obviously made my mistakes." She was referring to Diana's so-called "sinful" life, and they all knew it. "But nowadays a person can't turn around without being bombarded by explicit songs on the radio, half-dressed women on the television, porno on the computer, and Satanic novels in the bookstore," she looked pointedly at Cary. "And who knows what else? I keep myself pretty much shut in here, except when I go to church or the grocery store."

  "Well then," said Diana jokingly, "if you think Sherwood Heights is decadent, don't come to New York."

  "You can count on that," Marlisa replied emphatically. Then, "Why don't you move back home? This place is so big. It's big enough for a family..." Cary shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Diana just laughed nervously, and Marlisa wisely changed the subject. "I'll make you two kids a nice picnic basket tomorrow morning. What would you like in it?"

  "Oh, that's sweet, Mother. I was just going to get some fruit and bread at the market and go from there."

  "Nonsense. I've got some lovely seven grain bread I baked myself, creamery butter, some apricots and apples from the backyard, and some wonderful lemonade. Does that sound good?" Marlisa asked.

  As expected, Diana nodded. Cary yawned.

  "Are we keeping you awake?" Marlisa asked sharply. She quickly tempered her statement with a laugh, as though she was only joshing him.

  "Oh, sorry," he said sheepishly. "But I am awfully tired. Would you ladies mind excusing me?" Cary stood up and replaced his Wedgwood teacup to the Sterling silver serving tray. He had managed to down the whole cup of...whatever it was.

  "Of course not, honey," Diana answered. "I'll see you in the morning," she added, reminding him that they would not be sleeping together either literally or figuratively.

  Cary, against his better judgment, took two sedatives that night before getting between the sheets. He wanted complete oblivion and hoped two tablets would keep the nightmare at bay where one had failed. After about twenty minutes, Cary felt a cool floating sensation, and an inability to focus on his thoughts. Within a few feathery moments, he was dead to the world.

  He'd been sleeping fitfully when all of a sudden, he woke with a start. He listened intently; the house was dead quiet, and judging by the stillness, it was quite late. He was sure Marlisa and Diana had gone to bed hours ago. What had awakened him was another nightmare. Not his usual nightmare, not the one he had come to expect whenever he closed his eyes.

  This was not a new nightmare, however. This nightmare usually came to him in waking moments, which made it all the more threatening. And now his subconscious had latched onto it, too. This was the nightmare/daydream in which he strangled Diana. It always started the same. They were on the hardwood floor of her apartment, making out like teenagers. Couldn't even get to the bed. They were kissing, and he was on top of her. He was unbuttoning her blouse, and he was so hot he didn't know if he could contain himself until he got to the skirt. His hands were caressing her small, firm breasts, moving up, over her collar bones and around her throat. He began to squeeze. That's where it always cut off.

  Sometimes in his daydreams, he felt the stirrings of an erection but he always shamed himself into letting it go. Now, in the throes of his nightmare, he had actually ejaculated. He felt the moist warmth and the stickiness between his legs. He felt disgusted with himself as he got out of bed and made for the guest bathroom. He desperately hoped he hadn't left a stain on Marlisa's sheet.

  Once in the bathroom he took his pajama bottoms off and rinsed the crotch in the sink. Then he tended to himself. As he rinsed himself off and touched himself, he started to think about the dream again. He began to get hard, and then harder still. He simply had to have Diana. But how could he? He promised her that he wouldn't try any hanky-panky, and he had agreed with her reasons. But his stiff prick had no such conscience.

  Cary, leaving his soaked pajama bottoms in the sink, shut the light in the bathroom off and tip-toed down the hall toward Diana's room. He wondered briefly what he would have done if Marlisa had been up to get a glass of warm milk, and she ran into him in all his naked glory there in the hallway. He suppressed a giggle, imagining what the look on her face would be like. She'd probably look like an angry blowfish with perfectly coiffed hair.

  He opened Diana's bedroom
door slowly, wincing when it creaked once. He stepped into the comforting, all-enveloping darkness of Diana's childhood bedroom and make his way quickly to her four-poster. He pulled the sheets back gently, so as not to wake her and climbed in beside her. She moaned softly in her sleep as he spooned with her and began to caress her shoulders with sensuously languid strokes. When he probed between her legs, she came awake with a jolt.

  "What are you doing?" Her voice was a hiss. "I told you no!"

  Cary did not reply. He kept at her, kissing, caressing and kneading, until she couldn't deny him any longer. "Okay, but be very quiet," she whispered.

  Immediately, as he entered her, Cary began to moan and cry out her name. Diana tried to keep him quiet, as her mother's room was right down the hall, but it did no good. Then the headboard of her bed began to hit the wall in rhythm to Cary's hard, urgent thrusts. Diana was completely mortified. But nothing could prepare her for what Cary did next.

  He was on top of her, bracing himself on his knees and using his hands to caress her nipples. Then the hands moved up to touch her face and hair, then back down to her throat. The hands did not move from her throat. As Cary's hips drove against her faster and faster, his hands about her neck got tighter and tighter. All of a sudden, she couldn't breathe. She began to wheeze and choke as Cary screamed out her name with astounding volume and suddenly collapsed, heaving, onto her chest. His hands loosened immediately and Diana began to breathe in ragged gasps.

  She pushed Cary with both hands and rolled over, dislodging him. "Get out," she croaked.

  Suddenly, as though waking from a nightmare, Cary realized the gravity of what he had done. He rolled out of her bed and literally ran into the guest bathroom, slamming the door behind him. He managed to open the lid of toilet just a split second before what seemed like a gallon of vomit came rushing through the floodgate of his open mouth. He coughed and sputtered, his stomach lurching, then got shakily to his feet. He staggered two steps over to the sink and turned on the tap. He rinsed his mouth and looked up at his reflection in the mirror.