Serial Killers Incorporated

by Andy Remic

  ‘I will be discrete,’ said McGuinness in his soft Irish brogue. ‘I’ll be here if you need me.’

  Cal nodded, rubbing at exhausted and haunted eyes. He moved down the plush corridor and inserted his key. The door opened into ambient low–light; he paused, listening as he always did – to see if the bantam whirlwind named Mia had made an unannounced and uninvited entry.

  Satisfied he was alone, he strode forward, door closing behind him with a tiny click. He slumped onto a stool, unlacing and kicking off his borrowed, battered boots.

  A noise from the living room made him freeze.

  ‘I thought you’d never arrive.’

  Cal nearly screamed as a billion scenarios – all containing violent serial killers – machine–gunned through his brain. Instead, he leapt to his feet, whirled and scowled at Sullivan, sat neatly on Cal’s settee, a whisky in one hand, a strange – very strange – and distinctly eerie smile on his face.

  ‘How the hell did you get in?’

  ‘I’m not just some illiterate bike journo, you know. I do have other, shall we say – useful – skills.’

  ‘Well you’ve never felt the need to break into my apartment before.’

  ‘Break in? That’s a bit strong coming from the man who left me for dead.’

  Cal stopped then, locked his gaze to Sullivan’s hooded stare. In a day and night of strangeness, this seemed somehow worse than any of it. Cal sighed, took a couple of steps closer to his old friend, looked down with a haunted expression. ‘I knew you hadn’t forgotten. I know you said you had; that it was past, a childhood ghost, forgiven; but somehow I knew one day it would rear its ugly head.’

  ‘Just a passing comment,’ smiled Sullivan. He sipped his whisky.

  ‘OK Sully, you here for anything particular? Or is your reason specific, because man, I’ve had a real long and a real bad couple of days. I thought I’d just grab a whisky and stumble into bed.’

  ‘Is that a proposition?’

  ‘Bit of the old Sullivan humour nipping in there.’ Cal smiled, poured himself a generous measure. He waved the bottle at Sullivan. ‘Another?’

  ‘I’m driving.’

  ‘One for the road?’

  ‘You always were an inconsiderate bastard.’

  Cal stood, mouth open. He closed it. Then he frowned. ‘What’s this, mate? What’s going on?’

  Sullivan shrugged, staring down into his drink. He climbed to his feet, and moved close. Callaghan could feel something different between them. A change of intimacy.

  What happened? he thought. What the hell’s going on?

  ‘You remember the other day? In the pub? You called me up for advice? Afterwards, it finally struck me. You never thought to ask me how I was. You always call up when you have a problem – and it’s always a big one, ain’t it, Callaghan? Well, guess what? I did have a problem. A problem you wouldn’t believe, mate. And maybe you could have helped...’

  ‘Sullivan!’ Cal was shocked. Deeply shocked. ‘I... I don’t...’

  ‘You don’t know what to say?’ He laughed a bitter laugh. ‘I’m tired of it. Tired of you. You’re a selfish wanker, Callaghan. The most selfish bastard I’ve ever met. You proved that when we were kids; when you left me for dead... “In this together” we both laughed, but when the shit hit the fan you did your fucking Roadrunner act.’

  ‘We’ve been over that. A million times.’ Cal's voice was soft.

  ‘Yeah, but you still don’t get it, do you?’ Sullivan’s teeth had become a nasty cell with ivory bars. ‘You think these things we do as kids – you think we’re only kids, right? But you’re wrong. The things we do as kids shape us, mould us. And they can break us.’

  ‘I never knew you felt so bitter.’

  ‘Bitter? The worst moment was when you dropped us. After all we’d been through. After all the forgiveness. Yeah, you left me and Ralphy standing on that street corner for the last time. You never said it, but the implication was poison. “I don’t want to be like you; I don’t want to hang out with you; I don’t want to be a part of you; because you don’t possess the right vibes, you’re not the right fucking class, the right breed.” And you left, sniffing after your fine money and fine clothes and fine Penthouse apartment. Don’t you realise, we all feel that call? Of gold and poison? Doesn’t mean you have to answer it.’ He paused. His face was a snarl. ‘You cunt.’

  ‘Jealousy, is it?’ snapped Cal, angry now.

  ‘Jealous?’ Sullivan laughed. Genuine humour. ‘You have what I don’t want, Callaghan. But the worst thing is, you don’t see it. And you know something else?’

  ‘Surprise me.’

  ‘The happy pig neither knows nor cares he might soon be bacon.’ He dropped his empty whisky glass onto the settee. ‘Don’t bother seeing me to the door.’

  Sullivan stalked out, and Cal licked dry lips as the door slammed.

  I don’t believe it, he thought sourly. What a perfect end to a perfect day. And what was that supposed to mean? ‘The happy pig?’ Is that supposed to be a threat?

  Cal took a large gulp of whisky. He winced as it stung his back teeth, and his toothache returned in force and he decided he really did need to see the dentist. Well, at least one thing’s for sure. Oh yeah? Yeah, bitch. It can’t possibly get any worse.

  The phone rang. Callaghan picked up the receiver and hit the green TALK key.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Callaghan, it’s Sophie.’

  ‘I thought I told you, never call me on my land line!’ he hissed.

  ‘It’s Vladimir. He’s been following me.’

  It was one of those moments suspended between sleep and wakefulness. It could have lasted a second, it may have dragged on for infinity. For a while Callaghan didn’t know if he was awake or asleep; he could not quite grasp whether recent events were real or figments of an overactive cocaine–fried imagination. Was he really chased on his BMW? Did Sophie really kill that man? Did he and Jimmy really find two bodies? Was there really a serial killing serial killer out there stalking the dark?

  And then reality kicked him. Awareness slapped him awake.

  The bedroom was dark. Black. Silent. But something was out of place. An element disjointed – like a politician hugging a small child, or a lawyer praying to God for justice.

  There was a smell. In the room. A strange smell.

  Deeply acidic.

  Callaghan wrinkled his nostrils, and huddled under the bed covers. What the hell is that? he thought, frowning. Did a cat sneak in and piss on the bed? He sat up amidst rumpled duvet – and was swiftly, horrifically aware of a figure seated at the end of the bed.

  ‘Mia?’ he started to say, but didn’t quite finish the last syllable...

  The figure was quite obviously not Mia.

  Callaghan’s blood froze to crimson ice in his veins. His heart boomed, and threatened to tear apart his chest, to rip flesh into spaghetti shreds and punch its way violently from the gore–filled cavity.

  The figure turned to face him. Slowly. Theatrically. The man stared at Callaghan with eyes the colour of onyx.

  ‘Hello, Mr Callaghan.’

  ‘Volos!’ The voice was instantly recognisable; from the phone–booth, from the police tape. The voice which had led Jimmy and Cal to mutilated corpses... the voice which they all thought was...

  the serial killer.

  ‘There’s police outside!’ hissed Callaghan, reaching down the side of the bed for the baseball bat he kept as a treat for burglars, jealous husbands and exposed celebrities.

  Volos’s arm lifted. There came a gentle thump as the baseball bat drove a depression in the bed’s duvet. Volos tutted, head tilting, face easing into a broad, smiling, horror mask.

  His teeth are needles, thought Callaghan.

  His teeth are fucking needles!

  ‘I feel, my friend, that it’s at moments like this one usually releases a scream.’ Volos stood and shifted, long black coat drifting behind him. Callaghan stared up into that deathly pale fac
e, at those splinters of teeth, at those glassy eyes.

  Volos left the baseball bat where it was. His hand, fingers long and tapered, nails slightly pointed – like talons – produced a razor from the folds of his leather coat. It was an old style razor, known as a cut–throat. With precise, economical movement Volos unfolded the blade. It gleamed in the moon– and star–light which tumbled through floor to ceiling windows. Callaghan could not take his eyes from that blade. He could not take his mind from that devastatingly simple, brutal and savagely primal weapon.

  ‘Please don’t kill me,’ breathed Callaghan, aware as he spoke that the words were pointless; childish, and filled with an incredible stupidity, a naivety, a final humiliation uttered by a thousand murder victims. The mantra of the murdered.

  ‘Kill you?’

  Volos turned. His hair shone like liquid from a reflection of spilled moonlight. He laughed, a rich and decadent sound. A sound unique from the grave.

  Callaghan scrambled backwards until he was crouched, squatting on his rumpled pillows, back to the wall, knees trembling, hands clenched into balled fists. His mouth was dry. He could smell piss. He blinked rapidly, lids driven by a base animal urgency. He tried to swallow, but could not. He was paralysed.

  ‘I don’t want to kill you, Mr Callaghan,’ said Volos, mouth a round hole leading straight down to hell. He smiled, and flexed the cut–throat razor idly. ‘ I want to employ you.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  GODSMACK

  CALLAGHAN CROUCHED FOR a while in the darkness, watching Volos as he toyed with the razor. Fear, a ball of iron in his throat, a knife in his belly, held him there – motionless – a rabbit trapped in the glare of speeding headlights. To move is to die, he kept telling himself. I’m trapped in equilibrium; to break it will push him... it?... into action. Action with that glinting, deadly cut–throat...

  These weren’t cognitive thoughts; just ideas understood through instinct. Callaghan’s brain was not capable of sequential thought ordering. His body and mind were currently caught in an act of betrayal.

  ‘I apologise,’ said Volos, looking down at his blade. ‘This must be worrying for you.’ He folded the weapon with pale fingers and placed it somewhere inside the long coat. Volos took a step back, towards a wicker chair, and seated himself.

  Callaghan relaxed a fraction. His tension reduced a notch. Razor–death failed to materialise, to scream across his throat, blade opening flesh like a zipper, edge biting deep and severing his windpipe. He swallowed autumn leaves. His tongue was bark.

  ‘What do you want?’ Cal croaked.

  ‘As I said. To employ you.’

  Callaghan blinked. He moved from a squatting position on his pillows to a more relaxed stance on his knees. He groped forward, grasped the baseball bat, pulled the shaft of wood towards him. In possession of a weapon, now, he felt some confidence return and he glared at Volos – who had made no movement during this tense micro–drama – merely watched, with those black glass eyes.

  ‘You are the killer, right?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘So you must have come for me!’

  ‘No. I have been watching you, Mr Callaghan. I have been following your career for longer than you could dream. I see you as an ally in our crusade for Cleanliness.’

  ‘Crusade? What are you talking about? You’re a serial killer!’

  ‘Not so.’ Volos leant forward a little, fingers steepling, chin coming to rest on the tips of his pointed nails. Callaghan started at the movement, brandishing the baseball bat before him. Volos ignored this implied threat.

  ‘Let me ask you a question, Mr Callaghan. When you found Claw–hammer, and I used the girl to entice you up onto that rotting ledge – was she harmed?’

  ‘No. But you cut that bastard up like a butcher hacking a slab of beef. You gutted him like a fish.’

  ‘Yes. I maimed him. Tortured him. Killed him. But then, Mr Callaghan, he was a serial killer. He was self–perpetuating the myth of imposed mystique; he was extending the reach of the Breed.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There is so much to tell you, Callaghan. So much to share with you. But one thing we do have is time. Lots of time. Let me begin by bringing your mind into focus. Not so many years ago, did not the United Kingdom impose a penalty of death for acts of murder? And do not certain countries of our fine globe still not impose such acceptable penalties?’

  ‘Yeah, but...’

  ‘Serial killers are a scourge on humanity, Callaghan. They are The Feeders. The Breed. You think they are human because they walk like you, breathe like you, talk like you. They are not human.’ His eyes glowed. ‘They are The Deviants. The Deviant Strain.’

  Callaghan stared into gleaming eyes. At that white face, with its piranha teeth. He started to shiver, and a cold sweat broke out and beaded his brow. Callaghan swallowed hard.

  What a maniac, he thought. Heroin? Cocaine? If that’s what Class As do to your psyche then I’m a reformed character, hallelujah!... A new man! A stereotype of improved moral fibre! The Human, MkII. Amen to that!

  Volos smiled.

  ‘I can see I’m not getting through to you. You wallow in disbelief. You think of me as some drug–infused lunatic high on escape from a lax sanatorium, intent on making a name in the big–money game of killing. Book contracts, anybody? Film deals? A Serial Killer’s Harrowing Escapades as he Murders The Innocent? Should sell a billion. I’m laughing all the way to the bank.’

  ‘No,’ lied Callaghan.

  ‘I killed Kathryn Murray. She murdered those babies. She felt no emotion. No empathy. No sorrow as she injected their sleeping little bodies with adrenalin. And I killed Claw–hammer. He was murdering women, Mr Callaghan. He felt no emotion. No empathy. No sorrow as he buried a hammer in their soft flesh skulls. They were both Feeders. Parasites on the flesh of humanity. That’s what the core of all serial killers are, Callaghan – you understand? They are The Deviants. And inside of you, inside your flesh lies The Seed... it is this they seek.’

  ‘OK then, if you’re such a do–gooder, if you only kill the bad guys then why the hell do you torture them first, eh? You sick fuck! Answer me that. Why did you cut their legs off if you’re not just part of the same filthy fucking depravation?’

  Volos stood.

  Callaghan scrambled backwards, brandishing his weapon.

  Volos sighed, then smiled. His eyes glowed. ‘There are two Levels, Mr Callaghan... two... States of Being. The First Level is what you inhabit – your world, your existence, a Plane of Reality which you so regularly use and abuse. Then there is the Second Level. I send serial killers to the Second Level. But I must make sure they are trapped there; make sure the door is locked.’ His voice dropped to little more than a whisper. ‘I must carve bindings on their bones, Mr Callaghan. If I do not, then they escape. You understand? They return here to this plane – this Level, this State – to simply continue their unfinished work. Occasionally, this phenomenon of return is mistaken as a spurt of copy–cat killings – when in reality, the killer, now thought dead, has simply journeyed back.’

  Callaghan was smiling. It was a bitter, twisted smile. His eyes shone. ‘You don’t say. Well, thanks very much, that explains just about everything. Cheers mate! Thanks for dropping by. Call again any time.’ Despite his words, Cal’s eyes were hard. Focused.

  Volos took a step forward. He was a big man, broad, and Callaghan found the movement intimidating. ‘I see you need more proof, Mr Callaghan. I see that I need to show you the real world. For now, however, let me just say this: I kill only the killers. I butcher the butchers. I murder only those who would murder. You have seen this with your own eyes. You know this deep in your soul. I broke into Wakefield Prison and took Shipman. I sent him to the Second Level screaming and thrashing, vomiting his tainted blood like a curse. I killed Hindley, the child murderer – she squealed like a rat with a broken spine, begged on her knees to be spared, for me to preserve her life... as her victims begged for theirs. I sh
owed no mercy. I peeled her like a fucking fruit. I cut her bones. I severed her head. Then, Mr Callaghan, there was Fred West. The papers reported a simple suicide. How, then, could I know Fred West shit himself when I hung him by the throat? How could I know that West was castrated whilst hung, face turning purple, and left with his dick and balls poking out of his mouth for the law abiding prison officers to discover? How many suicide victims castrate themselves, Mr Callaghan? That would be an incredible feat, would it not?’ Volos’s voice dropped low. ‘West begged and drooled and whimpered. He offered me anything and everything. But I took my time with that fucking bastard, Mr Callaghan. I savoured the long hours of his pitiful squirming. I mocked him, with his little dick poking between ruptured lips. Then I cut into his chest and carved the bindings on his sternum before hoisting him up and watching him slowly strangle to death, eyes protruding as if on stalks.’ Volos smiled, and gave a little shake of his head. ‘And there have been... so many others. You have heard of James Francis?’

  Callaghan nodded.

  ‘I cannot even... explain what happened there. The madness. The exploration.’

  ‘You’re insane,’ said Callaghan.

  Volos laughed, voice rich. ‘As I said before, I have employment for you Mr Callaghan. I want you to be my biographer. I want you to be my photographer. I want a record of all that I do; I need a record of the Cleansing Process. The Transgression. You will do this. You will write for me. You will photograph the murdered Deviant Strain.’

  ‘Why me?’ said Callaghan.

  ‘You don’t know?’ Volos’s head tilted. ‘I see now. Inside you. Your skills are not yet advanced; but they are growing, Mr Callaghan, I can sense that – now we have a proximity. Your skills are growing strong; fast!’

  ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

  Volos leapt forward, onto the bed as Callaghan struck out with the baseball bat. Volos deflected the blow against his forearm, twisted, slipped the bat neatly from Callaghan’s grip.

  Volos stood on the bed, towering over Callaghan who lifted his arms to protect his face. Sounds of fear, pleading, weakness – they were implicit in Cal’s unbidden mewling.