A Blood of Killers

by Gerard Houarner

  On the headboard, a painted face design leered at him.

  He found another rendered carcass and painted face in Diane’s room. He lingered for a moment, staring at the scattered dolls and stuffed animals all stained with blood. He tried to vomit, but only a searing, bitter stream of bile spilled from his mouth.

  He was ready for his wife’s corpse in their bedroom. When he opened the door and found the remains, he went to the bed and sat on the edge. He studied their wedding pictures on the dresser, the family portrait on the wall, the painted face—in blue and violet, with glitter highlighting the eyes—on the headboard. Then he slipped to the floor and put his hands to his face to try and shut out the world. Cool, thick blood soaked the back of his shirt and the seat of his pants.

  His fingers began to tingle, then his hands, arms and legs. Numbness crawled in from his extremities, along his spine, towards his heart. He sat for a while hoping for a heart attack or a stroke. Then something brushed against his hair. Gene looked up, startled, blood suddenly rushing to his head. His eyes refused to focus for a moment. Then he fixed his gaze on a figure in front of him.

  “Hi, Daddy,” Diane said as she backed away. Her hair was tucked back into a ponytail, and her round face was flushed as if she had been outside running and playing.

  “You okay, Dad?” asked Arthur. His son wore old jeans and sneakers, and his Guns ’N Roses T-shirt was spotted with brown stains.

  At the company barbecue, while his father is talking to the boss, little Gene spills mustard on his shirt. He takes a napkin and tries to wipe himself, but as he rubs he knocks over the boss’ beer on the picnic table. Someone cries out. Mother’s face turns red and her lips disappear. The boss looks down with his mouth open and turns his big eyes on Gene. People stop talking. Father chuckles and scoops Gene up. “Now, now, son, there’s plenty of time yet before you start drinking.” The boss laughs. His face bounces up and down. His mother’s smile is thin, and her eyes give a spanking warning to Gene. But the people around them start laughing too and little baby Gene buries his hot face in his father’s neck and lets his father’s big hand pat him on the back.

  (He opens his mouth to scream, but nothing comes out. The big figure in the doorway moves into the room. The girls covering Gene stop shrieking. He doesn’t feel their weight on him anymore. He pulls the sheet over him and peeks out. The big figure stands in the middle of a circle of women. He reaches out and rips the face from a woman. He puts the painted face on his chest. He rips another face off, and puts it on his shoulder. The figure goes around the circle. Then he turns to face Gene’s bed.)

  Kim slid quietly past the doorframe, her gaze flitting between the kids and Gene. She gave him a smile, came up behind her children and drew them behind her. Then she went down on one knee half way between the door and the bed.

  “Gene?” she said huskily. “Baby? Can you talk?”

  Her beat-up sneakers were muddy, and there were holes in her jeans and sweatshirt. She passed a hand over the kerchief covering her head.

  “I have to ask you, were you careful at Evelyn’s house? Like your father would’ve been?”

  The urgency in Kim’s voice forced him to consider what he had done that afternoon. “Yes,” he answered at last.

  Kim’s tense expression relaxed and she sat down on the carpet, hugging her knees against her chest. Diane lay down on her side while Art put his hands on his hips and began to shift from one foot to the other.

  “Be still,” Kim said without turning around. “Your father has a lot to think about.”

  “Hope he straightens out soon,” Art mumbled as he sat down on the floor and settled to study a bloodstain on the carpet.

  “We’re covered,” Kim said, tapping a finger rapidly against her kneecap. “I left work and took the kids out of school at eleven. I told people we were supposed to meet you at the doctor’s because you weren’t feeling well and I was afraid the kids might have caught something. If anybody asks, we can always say you felt better by the time we got there and instead we went together to the malls.” She paused, studying Gene’s face. “Don’t worry, me and the kids came at Evelyn’s house from different directions, and not all at the same time. Diane went in through a ground floor window and opened the door for us. Your father would’ve been proud of the plan.”

  Gene pictured Evelyn spread-eagled on the bed. He blinked away the image and stared at his family. “Wha—what?” he stuttered, struggling to find a question to ask.

  “We killed her, Daddy,” Diane said as she played with a lock of her hair. “Just like Mommy showed us. Like Grandpa used to do.”

  A family picnic day, bright sun shining in a pristine blue sky, light bathing over a green meadow bordered by trees. His father and mother on the grass, in each other’s arms, wine on their breath. Gene tries to look away, tries to disappear into the earth. But his father invites him into the circle of his parents’ embrace. Gene feels as if he’s melting into the press of the bodies.

  (The figure is standing next to Gene’s bed. The painted faces on his body stick their tongues out, roll their eyes, bare pointed teeth. The figure reaches down. A big, dark hand closes over his face. Gene has a hard time breathing for a moment. Then he sees the hand lift something up. The figure slaps the limp thing in its hand against its head. Gene looks down at himself and starts to paint a face on the little boy on the bed.)

  “We had to kill Shamus, too” said Diane. She looked down at the rug and her pink face paled slightly.

  Art laughed. “Yeah, and every other mutt in the neighborhood. For the practice, and the guts.” An expression of comic disgust passed over his face as he thrust his chin at the bed, then wriggled his fingers over his abdomen and stomach.

  Father sitting next to him, putting his fingers in the paint and joining Gene in the finger painting

  (Black sedans pulling up to the house, no sirens but flashing lights on their dashboards. Mother screaming at the door to the house. “Gene, for God’s sake, come inside, please, dear God.” Dad looks around, smiles at Gene. Shamus runs out of the dog house, barking.)

  “It’s not a dream,” Gene said, his voice a croak.

  Kim slid closer to Gene and put a hand on his knee. His legs began to tremble.

  “No, baby, it’s for real,” she said. “Your father, he saw things so clearly. I was sure you’d be so much more like him. For years, I waited for you to understand. Your nightmares, Evelyn and the ones before her, I knew they were all signs. But you just got stuck right on the edge. All you needed was a little push.”

  Father pushing little boy Gene on a swing—

  (Dad calls Shamus to him, holds him by the collar. Gene starts to walk to Dad. Car doors slam. Men in suits and in uniforms stand on the curb and driveway. They have guns in their hands. Gene starts walking towards his father. Dad looks at him, smiles. The smile stops Gene.)

  Kim turned to Art. “Why don’t you and Diane go to your rooms and start cleaning up like I showed you?”

  “Aw, ma,” Art complained, but Diane led him away by the hand.

  Father raking the leaves from the lawn while little Gene held the bag—

  (Men in uniform swarm around the house, flash a piece of paper in front of mother and then pull her into the house. Dad calls Shamus to him, holds him by the collar. A man in a suit comes towards Gene. Gene backs away, turns and heads towards the house, stops as an officer comes out for him. Gene runs to the dog house. He crawls in, turns around and looks out through the opening. Dog hairs tickle his nose. Dog smell curls in his stomach and makes him want to throw up.)

  “How—how—” could you, he wanted to ask.

  “Did I know what you really are?” Kim shifted, straightened her legs, leaned forward. “I read every word written about your father. I fucked the investigating detective on your father’s murders when I was old enough. I got him to talk about the case and show me the files. Then I stole them. You should see the pictures. I have them in albums downstairs. That’s where I go
t those pages from your father’s diaries.”

  Gene shook his head back and forth. He closed his eyes and tried to cover his ears with his palms.

  Father with little boy Gene on his lap, turning the pages to the family photo album—

  (The men in suits close in on Dad. A uniformed man bursts out of the house. “We found it. The knives, the makeup. He’s the one. Take him, take him.” The men in suits rush Dad. Dad kneels, rubs Shamus’ head. Then he pulls the dog’s jaw up and bites him on the neck. The dog jumps, kicks his legs out, howls. The men try to pull him away. Blood is everywhere. On Dad’s face. On the suits. On the men’s faces. The men drag Dad away. He still tries to finger the blood on his face, on the faces of the men taking him away. He still tries to paint faces.)

  Kim took his hands and drew them down into her lap. She massaged heat back into his flesh. “I knew you were the one for me. Even as a little kid, you were always the one I wanted. The little boy in the doghouse. I knew somewhere deep inside you shared the truth with your father, the truth I wanted to share. I understand, you see? Under the painted face of normality there’s a secret. The truth. The hunger that nobody wants to look at. Mothers, most of all, have to recognize it. It’s the only way to stop the selfishness, the materialism. Together we can teach them. Just like your father, Gene. Just like your father.”

  Art and Diane came back complaining about the cleanup. Large white circles traced in red surrounded Art’s eyes, and triangular yellow teeth ringed his lips. Diane’s nose was blackened and served as the anchor for web-like traceries covering her face. They sat next to Gene as Kim continued to talk in a low, husky voice, telling him things about her family he had never heard before. She spoke of the lovers her mother and father brought home when the other was out, the fights, the shopping sprees that were supposed to make everything all right.

  As she spoke, Art and Diane took out eyeliner pencils and began to draw on Gene’s face. Their exhalations filled his lungs, their hands pressed his skin against bone. As they drew, he felt himself falling away from the world, plunging into a dark grave already crowded with his father’s corpse and the bodies of the women he had murdered. There were no more golden memories to grasp.

  Rage burst in him and took hold like fire to dry wood, feeding on lies spread by television and advertising; hypocrisies politicians mouthed; hunger for things and positions and power that seethed in his co-workers and in himself.

  “I know your father’s special way of looking at things didn’t skip a generation, Gene,” Kim said. “I know you’ve only been trapped behind a painted face all these years. Let it go, baby. Set yourself free. Come join us.”

  An erection grew in his lap. The fire took hold there, as well.

  His father came out of shadows in a corner of the room. He still wore the grin that had stopped Gene from going to him the day he left. Behind him, his mother appeared, emaciated, eaten by cancer, a shell of flesh. From between her feet crawled the first Shamus, his head lolling slightly. And behind her stirred the bodies. They had all come to stay.

  Somewhere in his mind his father tucked him in.

  Gene crossed the border.

  “The dog, he never left,” he said.

  Kim came close, studied his eyes. Then she smiled and nodded her head.

  He took an eyeliner pencil from Diane and began tracing the pattern for a painted face on his wife. “Neither did Dad,” he said at last.

  GHOST KILLER

  The front door opened on well-oiled hinges, silent as an owl’s glide before snapping up a field mouse. But Max had already heard the hollow footsteps making their way across the old wooden flooring to the door. He knew he wasn’t in danger.

  The Beast was sated, but remained cautious. Out on the porch, the air was cold and sharp. Max’s senses stretched without distraction far into the countryside. A bear trundled down the mountain half a mile away, snuffling as if chased by nightmares. The men in the pickup truck that had just passed too fast for the road were drunk but silent, as if filled with more purpose than liquor.

  The house was empty except for the old man standing in the doorway.

  Things were so much clearer for the Beast away from the city. For Max, however, the world was still a complex jungle. The man didn’t fit his assignment’s description. There should have been someone else home. He didn’t want to wait for his target, especially in the company of an old man. His experiences with the elderly had not gone well lately.

  “Mr. Jung sent me,” Max said, hoping the name would open the secret door through which he could reach what he’d been sent to kill.

  “Come in,” the old man said, bowing his head and shuffling backwards. Wisps of white hair fell over his sagging, mottled face. His right hand and arm trembled as if the weight of the cane he leaned on was too heavy to move, but his left side remained frozen, arm curled against his ribs like a vestigial wing.

  “I’d rather know where my target is,” Max said. He listened to the crickets, the rustling of rodents in the underbrush, a raccoon circling to get at the locked-down garbage cans.

  “Inside,” the old man said, waving his cane.

  “Then let’s talk outside.”

  The old man stopped, his head sank lower. “The target isn’t active right now. And there’s more than one. But we can talk, undisturbed, for a few moments. It won’t be long.”

  Max entered, the creaking floorboards suddenly annoying. The Beast hated giving away its position. It was colder inside than the early fall night, as if winter lurked in a corner waiting to leap out at unsuspecting trees. The open kitchen and living room were sparsely furnished with an undersized table, a single chair and a threadbare couch. A floor lamp with an exposed bulb was enough to illuminate the dusty interior. The air was dank, tinged with rot and old blood.

  The Beast rolled to the scent of blood.

  Max suspected there were bodies under the floor. But no danger. Stairs led to a second storey and an attic bedroom, judging from the outside. He could almost hear the old joists breathing. “More than one target?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wasn’t told.”

  “It’s a package plan.”

  “More women?”

  “Oh, yes. Mostly women, I think.” The old man tottered toward the couch and collapsed into it with a grateful sigh.

  The Beast was paying attention, now, twisting in his gut and making his cock hard. “Where?” Max moved to the kitchen. The refrigerator wasn’t plugged in and the gas to the stove had been shut off. There was water in the sink, and a plate with crumbs on the table. A spare stock of canned goods lay scattered across cupboard shelves. The old man wasn’t living on much.

  “At different times of the day, they appear. Upstairs, at first. The stairs, of course. By the stove and refrigerator. On the chair by you.”

  “No one’s here.”

  The old man glanced at the stairs. “Ah,” he said. And then, “Don’t you see her?”

  Max didn’t bother to look. “No.”

  “Your own are following you. You can’t see them, either?”

  “No one follows me. I’d kill them.”

  “Oh. Well. Maybe my contact sent the wrong kind of person. I was expecting more of an exorcist.”

  Max almost laughed. “You want me to kill a devil?”

  “No. A ghost.”

  “They don’t exist.”

  “Of course they do. The world’s filthy with ghosts. The souls go elsewhere, but the echoes of their lives, the dry husks of their joy or pain or death remain, under the right conditions. She’s right there,” he said, pointing at a space between the stairs and the kitchen, in front of the couch. As if he’d set up the furniture for a view of an invisible parade.

  Max passed through the spot the old man had indicated. The Beast strained to catch the scent of prey even though it was still gorged on fresh blood and suffering. Max went upstairs, turned on another single light bulb hanging from a rafter over a huge four-poster bed that had been
built in place. Clothes lay tangled with the sheets, smelling of urine and shit.

  He went back downstairs, found the small, empty bathroom.

  Finally, he nailed down a nagging sense of something missing from the house: there were no pictures on the walls. People tended to decorate their homes, put up family photographs. A calendar or poster. Art.

  The Beast liked the house. It seemed like a good place to set a trap in the middle of a hunting ground. Bodies were already planted, with room for more.

  “The wrong kind of men used this house,” the old man said. “Coming out of wars, changed by what they did.”

  “We become what we have to be.”

  “What they came back as was best left in places where they shouldn’t have been, didn’t belong. You can’t blame faraway places and people for what you do.” The old man fixed Max with a fierce gaze. His eyes were a clear, startling blue.

  Max caught himself feeling comfortable in the old man’s company. The Beast wanted to hear his bones crack.

  “I’d make us some tea, but it isn’t safe to keep the stove on at night.”

  “I’d rather get on with the job. Mr. Jung sent me here for a reason.”

  “Tell me about yourself,” the old man said, ignoring the edge to Max’s tone.

  “No.” The Beast didn’t like being ignored. Images of the old man’s broken torso, guts spilling out and ribs exposed, shot through Max’s head like falling stars.

  “Well, then, let me introduce myself. Cort.” He waved his good hand at Max. “Bought this place after the second World War. I liked to keep my own company. Safer that way. I served out East. Philippines, China, Korea. Did time in POW camps.”

  Max waited, letting the Beast pace. Mr. Jung had described a woman, but Max was beginning to think that somehow Cort was his real target.