by Rusk, Day
It had been sometime after Detective Bryan Stork had left Gail that she had called him. He didn’t know how he felt about that; subconsciously he must have known, however, because he hadn’t called an end to their relationship right then and there. Something about her intrigued him, and even though he knew it would probably be his downfall, he was heading straight for trouble.
At the same time, Gail knew his pain. She’d discovered his past quicker than he had. It troubled him that he’d never researched his family – his Father. He had no immediate or distant family members to approach, but he must have known the murder of his family would have been reported in the newspapers of that time; he worked at a newspaper in the same city, how hard would it have been to go through the archives?
The only excuse he could reach regarding his ignorance was that deep down he knew the truth was unpleasant. Maybe when he was being shuffled around by F.B.I. agents after his family’s murder, he’d overheard some grumblings amongst the Police and Feds as to his Father’s reputation. He’d adored his Father and maybe wasn’t ready to hear such talk so he drowned it out; after all, losing his family and finding out his Father was a monster in such a short time was too much for any ten-year-old to handle. Maybe he’d never delved into his family’s murder and his Father’s past, because it ruined his memories of his perfect family, taken from him by monsters. If he’d taken the time to research them he would have known it was his Father’s fault his mother, brother and sister were dead; he had decided to live by the sword and die by the sword, but they sure as hell hadn’t. It had been just so easy to bury it all and live with his illusions; Walter had been right.
Walter knew about his past and so did Gail; he knew exactly what had fucked him up, and now he really wanted to know what Gail’s personal pain was. What drove her to kill? He was sure it would be horrifying, but maybe she needed someone to share it with; she had killed Harry as a favor to him, maybe this was her way of reaching out to him; maybe she was ready to let him in. He’d probably regret it in the long run, but needed to do this; his dance on the dark side of life wasn’t over yet.
Once more into the breach, he thought as he made his way to her hotel.
As well as, God help me.
“Who are you?” Leslie asked Gail as they sat down for a drink in the living area of her hotel suite.
“Who am I?” she parroted back at him.
“Gail Russell, well, something tells me she’s who you’ve become, but is not who you originally were,” said Leslie. “You’re an enigma.”
“You want to understand me, is that it?”
“We’ve fucked,” he said. “And we’ve killed. It doesn’t get any more intimate than that.”
“So you want to know me and you want to understand me,” she said getting up and moving to the window to look out at the lights of the city.
“Is that a problem?” he asked.
She stood there in silence, taking in the night; Leslie didn’t have a clear look at her; her back was to him, but he hoped she was contemplating opening up to him. If he was to see her as anything more than just a cold-hearted killer, he desperately needed to know more; after last night, he needed to humanize her in some way.
“I doubt you’d understand,” she finally said.
“Maybe I won’t. Maybe it’s not for me to understand. But I ask you, have you ever been able to share your story with anyone? What is it you’ve been carrying around with you for however long you’ve been carrying it around?”
Gail turned and looked at him; a big smile slowly played its way across her face. Leslie was puzzled.
“You didn’t say you would understand,” she said.
He just looked at her as she made her way back to her chair and sat down.
“Why no bullshit?” she asked.
“Bullshit.”
“To get what you want. You could have lied to me; played it more sympathetic, assured me you would understand; whatever it took to get me to open up to you. You could have lied. Men do that.”
“Is there any point in lying between us?” he asked.
“Why aren’t you scared of me?”
“I am,” he said. “I’m afraid of you; I’ve read what you’re capable of and seen what you’re capable of. I’m afraid of the idea of you; what you represent and what that stirs within me. I’m also afraid of what I’ll be left with when we part ways. It would be so much easier if you just killed me. Lights out and no more worries. But, if not, how badly will you leave me changed, and what will it mean for my moving forward. You all ready know I’m fucked up, it’s only a matter of degrees now in how fucked up I am or become.”
“Honesty again,” she said.
“Tell me something about yourself, Gail. I may never fully understand you, but I do want to know more.”
He watched her, just looking at him, as if sizing him up; or maybe she was just wondering at what points on his body she’d be cutting him apart; visualizing his death scene.
Gail felt somewhat uncomfortable; she liked Leslie; she’d killed for him. She attached herself to him because of her loneliness; she’d been alone for far too long and something told her he was safe – he was sincere. Yet even so, revealing too much about her past was dangerous. She wasn’t worried about him going to the police or anything, she was just afraid if she said too much she will have given too much of herself away in the process; she couldn’t afford to lose herself. She had taken everything her Daddy had taught her and refined it; she had accomplished what he hadn’t and not only continued punishing the wicked and the evil, but built a comfortable life for herself; unlike her days with Daddy, she didn’t have to go hungry or scrounge around for food from time to time, because they were running low on funds. Of course, that wasn’t Daddy’s fault; he had spent more time than her in punishing those who were evil; he didn’t have time to build anything while accomplishing that. In many ways, she had neglected her duty in following in his footsteps and only killed from time to time.
“Tell me something Gail,” asked Leslie, breaking her out of her thoughts. “Tell me something.”
“My Daddy was a great man,” she said.
Leslie just watched her; he didn’t want to say anything, hoping she’d continue.
“Nobody understood him and what he was trying to do,” she continued, getting up from her seat and pacing back and forth. “I don’t know how many lives my Daddy saved by doing his duty and taking care of the evil ones. They were hiding amongst us, playing a part, but he could see them and he took on the responsibility of taking care of them.”
She stopped pacing and looked at him; it was almost a challenging look. He said nothing.
“My Daddy did good in this world and taught me how to do good. He took on evil wherever he found it without hesitation and because of that, evil eventually took him from me.”
Leslie could see the pain on her face, as she remembered. She looked as if she were ready to cry. Again he remained silent.
“The evil finally caught up to him and killed him; I watched it happen. All we’d ever had was each other; for the first time in my life I was alone and it scared me,” she said.
What Gail was saying was the truth or at least the truth interpreted through her mind’s eye; the truth she was willing to tell to someone else. Even as she talked in general terms about her Daddy, she couldn’t help reviewing in her mind the tragic night her life had changed. It was all so unfair.
Gail and her Daddy were is some town somewhere; the name was lost on her, as most towns just seemed to blend into one another after a while. They had put some distance between themselves and the last city in which her Daddy had punished at least three women and their families. Of course, he hadn’t done it alone; she’d been properly initiated and helped him with the stabbing chores whenever he needed it. Needing work to replenish their funds – some of these evil people just didn’t have enough cash on them when they were punished to serve them right – her Daddy got a job with a contractor doing some ren
ovations in a rather affluent neighborhood. It was while working that job that her Daddy said he’d found their next sinner, a woman who lived a few houses down from the one they were working on.
Her Daddy’s research began; he was able to go to work and make them some money while at the same time keeping an eye on this woman. She appeared to be a stay-at-home mom, dotting on her teenage daughter, who appeared to be around fourteen or fifteen-years-old. Her Daddy could see that the daughter was as evil as the mother and would also need punishing; it was always a big deal when they found a household where they could eliminate more than one evil person; like killing two birds with one stone.
While her Daddy went out to work, Gail often just stayed in whatever cheap hotel or motel room they were renting; the cities were great because they often found places that rented out on a month to month basis; low rent places where nobody asked too many questions, or generally paid attention to the comings and goings of those around them. Her Daddy had discovered her doodling one day, several years back, and had encouraged her to draw; he said she had a natural talent and shouldn’t waste that talent. He bought her sketch pads and that helped her pass the time. He told her she was to work on her art and rest; rest her body so that maybe it would be ready to give them both the baby they wanted.
Gail was now 18-years-old and fully developed; her Daddy told her she was a beautiful girl and that necessarily wasn’t a good thing. That beauty would only draw the sinners to her, so she had to be extra careful around others; not so much the evil women but definitely the evil men. So she was cautious.
She remembered one time, in one cheap hotel she had moved down to the lobby and taken a seat in one of the chairs, sketching the world outside the hotel’s window. It was late in the afternoon and she was just enjoying watching people pass by on the street outside; one of the hotel’s patrons noticed her and approached her; he admired her drawing and in a funny way, she kind of liked the attention he was paying her. She would have never gone off with him, up to his room, like he had suggested, but it was still flattering that he was interested in her; as of yet, she hadn’t discovered her own way to tell the evil people from the good people, so she had no idea how to properly read this guy. As he was chatting her up, her Daddy came home from work and noticed the two of them. Her Daddy didn’t even make small talk; he just went into a rage and attacked the man. When her Daddy was finished, he was limp on the hotel floor, a bloodied mess; they had to rush up to their room, pack their things and leave the hotel using the fire escape. Her Daddy told her the man was evil and until she could tell the difference he didn’t want her going near any men; it was for her own good.
Her Daddy took his time researching this woman and her daughter; there was a man involved, her husband, but he was a hard worker and seemed to put in long hours at his job, as he left early in the morning and often returned home extremely late at night. This was perfect for them. All that remained was for her Daddy to decide when to dish out the punishment.
Because of the all the activity on the street, with neighbors and the workers showing up to work on the house her Daddy was working on, he’d decided it was best they made their move in the early evening; the first night they’d plan to punish the woman and her daughter, had been a bust as that day at work her father had hurt his leg, and it required several days of rest to get back into shape. Those were a rough couple of days; when her Daddy decided it was time to punish a sinner, he wanted to do it right away; being forced to wait wasn’t something he accepted readily. He was always hard to live with when things like that happened. They spent the time working on making a baby; her Daddy had shown her a different way to make a baby. If she used her mouth on his thingy and swallowed the white sticky stuff, he told her, it could also work; after all a baby would grow in her stomach and anything she swallowed would go to her stomach. Her Daddy was smart that way and seemed to enjoy her efforts.
The night finally came and they used their usual ruse to gain access; she went up to the woman’s front door pretending to be a young woman in need. Seeing how distressed she was the woman invited her in; as they headed for the phone to call for help, her Daddy entered the house. Before long, both the woman and her daughter were tied up, ready for Daddy’s punishment. It was a nice home and rather than watch her Daddy punish the two of them, like she usually did, she wandered a little bit, looking at all the nice things this sinner woman had accumulated. That’s when it happened. She heard two loud blasts.
Gail looked over to her father, who had been bending the woman over a dining room table and saw her Daddy staggering back from the woman. There was another blast and her Daddy was propelled backwards, falling to the ground. She’d only momentarily noticed that his back had been bloodied, and now his front as he fell to the ground. Gail just watched in silent horror; she had no idea what had happened.
She watched as a young man came into view; he had a gun in his hand and was looking at her Daddy, who was lying on the ground, moaning and trying to get back up. The young man with the gun didn’t notice her; he was too busy looking at her Daddy. She watched in horror as he shot her Daddy one more time, the bullet hitting him in the head; her Daddy, who was trying to get up, just fell backward and lay on the ground motionless. The young man with the gun was just looking down at him.
Grabbing the knife she always carried during these excursions, Gail charged the young man; he was so transfixed on looking at her Daddy, he never saw her coming. Before he realized she was there, she had buried her knife into his back. He immediately dropped the gun, his knees buckling, as he fell to the ground. Like a mad woman, she was on him, stabbing and stabbing and stabbing, until he lay there as still as her Daddy.
What had happened?
When she finally stabbed for the last time, she rolled off the young man’s body to the ground, gasping for breath. It took her a couple of seconds to get her bearings. It was then she moved to her knees and looked to her Daddy. He was lying there in a puddle of his own blood - covered in his own blood; his eyes were open and he was staring blankly at the ceiling. She knew he was dead; she had seen dead many times and he was it.
Tears formed in Gail’s eyes as she looked at her Daddy. This was her fault. Instead of paying attention to her Daddy and the task at hand, she had let her mind wander. She and her Daddy had no idea that during the time her Daddy was laid up with a bad leg, the family’s eighteen-year-old son had come back from school for a visit and was staying in the house. They’d gotten sloppy, and had paid the price for it. If she had of been paying attention, however, she might have heard the young man sneaking up on them and been able to take care of him before he’d hurt her Daddy. It was all her fault.
As she continued looking at her Daddy, her concentration was broken by the woman, still bound and gagged, who had fallen onto the floor off of the table when her Daddy had been shot. She was wiggling around, trying to loosen the duct tape around her hands and ankles.
This woman was evil; evil enough to have defeated her Daddy. After all the good he had done in the world, taking care of those who needed punishing, how could God allow this to happen to him? With renewed rage, Gail grabbed her knife and rushed over to the woman. She could see the fear in the woman’s eyes as she stood over her carrying the bloody knife.
Good, she thought. This woman deserved to be scared; she had to pay for what her family had done to her Daddy. Gail pounced, stabbing the woman repeatedly with gusto; enjoying the feel of her blood spraying up on her, coating her. With the woman dead, she turned her attention to the woman’s daughter and once again let her rage run wild, killing her. It felt good; it helped distract her from the horror of her Daddy’s fate.
The living room of the house was a bloody mess, as was Gail. She didn’t know what to do. She sat by her Daddy hoping that based on his service throughout the years, God would see fit to resurrect him. God didn’t.
Guilt consumed Gail. This was all wrong. She wallowed in her misery until she heard the man opening the front do
or of the house. She grabbed her knife and lay in wait; she had one last task to perform. This entire family had to pay for the crime they had committed against her and her Daddy.
Gail had told Leslie as much as she wanted to and no more; she couldn’t tell him everything; even though they had become close to one another in a very short time, she wasn’t ready to share that much. She could see he wanted to know more, but to his credit he hadn’t pushed her. She hadn’t thought about that night in a long time and it only served to open old wounds. She’d been careless and it had cost her everything; that was why she was no longer careless; she planned all her murders meticulously. She knew the police relied on mistakes to find murderers; provide no mistakes and you were as good as gold; and based on what had happened to her Daddy, she also knew it wasn’t just the police you had to worry about, but the unforeseen; it was hard to plan for the unforeseen, so it was important to prepare carefully so as to lessen the possibility of that element.
