Corrupts Absolutely?

by Peter Clines

  “It’s our guy, Mental Man. Same MO.” Detective Wyler frowned beneath his bushy mustache and snorted air through his nostrils, attempting to clear his sinuses of the coppery tang in the air.

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” I grumbled, purposefully ignoring the corny nickname Wyler keeps trying to stick me with.

  “Captain says the feds are coming in on this one by special request. So if you’re gettin’ anything, now’s the time to shine.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to picture the living room as it had been. Before the yellow evidence markers had been propped across the floor. Before the walls were streaked and smeared with wasted life. I reached into the past with my mind the same way I’d searched for cops in my misspent youth, probing time and space as if it were a film I could manipulate at will.

  Mr. Cooper awoke to a thump from downstairs. Sitting up in bed, he stared into the darkness, listening past the hum of the air conditioner for whatever it was that had pulled him out of a dream in which he was just about to bend his secretary over a desk. As he sat there, the tinkle of breaking glass awoke Mrs. Cooper as well and she sat up, clenching the sheets just below her chin. With her eyes wide with panic, she pushed her husband out of bed and hissed, “Stanley, there’s someone downstairs.” I could feel her heart pattering like a frightened rabbit and smell the stink fear leaking from the beads of sweat on Stan’s brow as he swung his feet over the edge of the bed.

  He tiptoed across the room, freezing in place as the floorboards squeaked beneath his substantial weight. With eyes clenched shut, he stood as still as the dresser and listened with his head cocked to the side. His stomach felt as if the White Russian he’d downed before bed had turned rancid, and he made a silent promise to God: Let everyone be okay, and I’ll never think about Annette like that again. I’ll be a good father, a better husband—just let everyone be okay.

  When there was no response to his misplaced step, he crept to the bedroom doorway and snatched the bat that leaned against the wall with the deftness of a master thief.

  Mrs. Cooper watched him disappear through the door and plucked the phone cradle from the night stand. She didn’t notice that the keypad didn’t light up as she dialed 911. In fact, she had no clue until she placed the receiver to her ear and heard nothing.

  The line was dead.

  Her cell phone was in her purse downstairs.

  Help was not coming.

  Her bladder felt so full that her abdomen ached, and chills crept over her arms and scalp. Part of her insisted that she get out of bed, that she gather the children and crawl out the window if she had to. She had to go, she had to run, she had to do it now.

  But she couldn’t. Her muscles felt as if they’d turned to stone, and a single, reoccurring thought overrode instructions from her brain: The realtor said this neighborhood was safe; he said it was safe, damn it, safe.

  A muffled grunt from downstairs was followed by a thud so loud that windows rattled in their panes. Then silence.

  “Stanley?” Her whisper was more of a plea than a question, a desperate petition for all to be right in her little cookie cutter world. “Stanley?”

  There was a tightness in her chest; somewhere beneath breasts that still ached from her recent mastopexy, a scream built the pressure required to shoot up through her vocal cords. Her hands trembled as the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees, but wisps of hair were plastered by sweat to the back of her slender neck.

  She heard footsteps on the stairs. Slow. Deliberate. Methodical.

  “Stanley…you’re scaring me.”

  The hallway light flicked on, and Mrs. Cooper scrunched her knees against her chest as she pressed her back against the padded headboard. She wanted to curl into a ball so tightly that her body collapsed in on itself, that she simply winked out of existence.

  “Damn it, Stanley, I swear to God, if you’re messing around…”

  The shadow of a man stretched across the hallway carpet. She could no longer hear anything other than her own blood whooshing through her veins, and the back of her throat stung with the bitterness of bile.

  “S-Stanley…” No longer whispering, her husband’s name bubbled from her quivering lips as tears glistened in her eyes.

  The shadow grew larger.

  Closer.

  Just on the other side of the wall now, separated only by a few inches of plaster and wood. Warmth spread across her crotch, but the acrid stench of urine was blocked by the snot bubbling from her nose.

  She would see him. Any second now.

  Her killer revealed.

  Pain, guilt, remorse, agony, despair, terror. A tsunami of emotion and sensation crashed over me as the scene exploded in a brilliant burst of light like a flashbulb going off in a darkened room. I found myself pulled into the fetal position on the floor, my throat raw with Mrs. Cooper’s released scream and tears warming my cheeks.

  Wyler was crouched beside me, his face looming so close that I could see the crater-like pores on the tip of his bulbous nose. He didn’t offer a helping hand as I struggled to sit up but finally vocalized the question his eyes had asked all along. “Anything?”

  I shook my head and gulped in lungfuls of cool air as I wiped my eyes with the back of my knuckles. Though not looking directly at my unofficial partner, I could feel the heat of his gaze as it burned into my soul.

  “Damn it, Mental Man, you better be gettin’ us some usable shit. I mean it, you son of a bitch. You know what the papers are callin’ this guy? The Suburb Slayer. How well do you think that’s going to go over with the mayor?”

  The Suburb Slayer. This madman is the closest thing I have to an archenemy. He’s always there, looming on the outskirts of my perception, taunting me with his proximity while remaining thoroughly cloaked in shadow. Seven families so far and, if experience holds true, we won’t have to wait long for the eighth.

  Seven families. Twenty-six lives. Two months.

  I want this fucker so bad I can taste it. He haunts my dreams, a faceless shadow dancing on graves that bulge as if they’re about to explode with the expanding gasses of the corpses below. His laughter echoes through the corridors of my mind, mocking me with haughty arrogance as I stumble about in the darkness like a blind man. Every waking hour I spend touching the possessions of corpses, revisiting their final moments again and again as I search for some little detail I may have previously overlooked. I feel their fear and pain, experience their deaths without ever so much as a glimpse of their attacker, and cry until my eyes are in a constant state of puffiness.

  Our destinies are inexplicably intertwined now, two strangers in a city of thousands engaged in the most primal of dances. Hunter and prey. Predator and quarry. He stalks his victims and I chase him, always a few steps behind, always just out of reach.

  You will never catch me.

  Just you watch me, asshole.

  Just you fuckin’ watch me.

  #

  Family number eight. Lucas and Laura Wilson—their children Larry and Lana, ages eight and eleven respectively. I used to hate theme families where the names all played on a single sound or letter, thinking of them as being more like a franchise than an actual unit. But the Wilsons changed all of that. Four more lives snuffed out in the middle of the night, four more bodies waiting for me to use my powers to explore the last moments of their lives. Four more chances to catch this sadist who slaughters families as easily as I change clothes.

  There was a new message on the wall at the Wilson’s: They are Mine.

  It’s another jab that I take personally. When I finally catch this bastard, I’ll crush his bones like I used to shatter locks when pulling a heist. The little ones first, the thin ones in his wrist and the metatarsals within the toes; his joints will pop out of socket as if smashed with a ball peen hammer, and I’ll make him experience every second of agony I’ve suffered through while revisiting his victims.

  I no longer entertain the st
arry eyed vixens who twirl hair around their fingers and pop their gum as they giggle with ludicrous innuendo. There’s simply no time for pleasures of the flesh. There’s too much evidence to explore, too many details to comb through. Dr. Thompson says this proves his theory: With a worthy adversary to test my skills, I no longer need the authentication I used to receive from their lofty praises. He may be right. But I no longer care. His opinions mean less to me now than the drivel spewed by the profilers from the Federal Bureau of Intimidation.

  Even my sleep patterns are evening out. I spend maybe one night every two to three weeks where I dream the majority of the day away; the rest of the time, I’m up and at ‘em after a solid eight hours of rack, ready to take on the day.

  Yesterday, I even told Dr. Thompson I didn’t feel like I needed to see him anymore. His brow furrowed with concern as he leaned forward and told me how I shouldn’t be hasty. The human mind is a complex thing, he said, full of twists and turns and corridors we never even knew existed.

  “In someone like you, Rob,” he said, “it gets even more complex. You really need to think about this.”

  But there’s nothing to think about. The panic attacks are gone, the whispering voice in my head has fallen silent, and my tears have been replaced with resolve. I truly feel I’m finally living up to my full potential, and my unique gifts were not just some cruel trick of nature. I’m even embracing the nickname Wyler has tried to tag me with for years. Mental Man. Kind of has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

  Not to say that I don’t have bad days. Everyone does. They’re just not crippling anymore. Today, for example, was an experiment in frustration. I revisited each of the eight crime scenes again, walked through each house just moments before the massacres began. This time, however, I was able to focus my powers intently. Rather than experiencing the horror and suffering of the victims, I stepped into the mind of the killer himself.

  I felt the flutter of nervous excitement in the stomach, like a schoolboy watching the school slut strip off her clothes and knowing that my time as a virgin was coming to an end. Surges of power and control gushed through my veins, filling me with God-like dominion over the realms of Life and Death. I knew the thrill of carting my writhing captives around their living rooms, the sweet futility of their squirming as I painted the walls with my medium of choice.

  Yet I never saw the face. With all the mirrors broken, there was no reflection, nothing I could use to make a positive ID. Tomorrow, I’ll do it all over again; this time, I’ll try to focus on the wide, glassy eyes of the victims just before they die. When the last thing they see is my face grinning at them. Maybe there, I’ll find a reflection. I have to. It’s been weeks since this bastard has struck, which means there’s another family out there somewhere whose time is short. Cuddled up in front of the television, laughing over a bowl of popcorn while the television flickers bluish light on smiling faces…never suspecting that within days, they’ll all be dead.

  There’s a message on my answering machine from Dr. Thompson. He’s prattling on about the results of my most recent psychological battery, how some disturbing patterns have emerged, and he really believes I need to rethink my position on therapy. Something about fugue states. I tell myself I’ll Google that term later but recognize the lie the moment it flits through my mind. Instead, I punch the delete button so hard that the plastic casing of the phone cracks beneath my touch.

  I don’t need his shit. He’s just thinking about all the billable hours he’s losing, the book that will never be finished. I’ve got my adversary now, the counterweight on the other end of my teeter totter. Who the fuck is this little man with his degree and collection of frogs to imply that I’m still broken, that I’m somehow damaged and weak? Just who the hell does he think he is, anyway?

  I catch a reflection of myself in the bathroom mirror, and the stress of the day bursts from me like a demon from the gates of Hell. I feel the power swell and shoot out like a cosmic ejaculation, and the mirror shatters into a thousand pieces. Tiny pieces shower through the air, each flashing in the light and reflecting miniature images of the mask of rage my face has become before smashing against the sink and floor.

  Son of a bitch. This is getting expensive. That’s the ninth mirror I’ve gone through, and as always, the outburst leaves me feeling hollow and drained. It’s as if that blast of energy latched onto every emotion I have and pulled it out in long, invisible strands.

  I collapse onto the bed because I no longer have the energy to stand. My eyes sting with fatigue, and my muscles feel as though they’ve turned into overcooked spaghetti. I yawn as I close my eyes.

  Somehow, I know that this will be a thirteen-hour slumber. It’s as if my body is now attuned to the Suburb Slayer and only stockpiles energy on the nights he strikes. I know my dreams will be interrupted with the jangling of the phone, and I’ll jot down address number nine, somehow feeling as if I’ve known the location all along.

  In some ways, I almost look forward to it.

  As long as he’s out there, my life has meaning.

  My life has purpose.

  I’ve finally become the hero I was always meant to be.

  The Real Church

  Jeremy Hepler

  It started when I resurrected Mr. Fulton’s Chihuahua, Brutus.

  It was a hot August afternoon, two weeks shy of my twelfth birthday, and Dad was on a rampage again. When he found Mom kneeling in the bathroom mumbling to Jesus about his drinking problem, I knew it was time to get out of the house. “Jesus Christ, Ella. Get the fuck up,” was all I needed to hear. I had learned at an early age not to get involved in their fights unless I wanted to get hurt or blamed, so I grabbed my glove and baseball and quietly darted from shadow to shadow until I reached the back porch.

  The fence separating our backyard from Mr. Fulton’s had been there since our house was built in the late sixties. It was propped with two-by-fours and anchored to the ground with nylon rope and tent stakes to prevent the gusty Texas Panhandle wind from bringing it down. Termites had eaten a good four to five inches off of the bottom, leaving enough room for Brutus to stick his head into our yard.

  Walking in slow circles, I tossed the ball into the air and caught it. The windows might as well have been open.

  “Shut up, Ella!”

  Brutus started to yip.

  “Terry, you need to—”

  Toss. Yip. Catch.

  “I don’t need to anything!”

  Yip. Yip.

  “You need to pray. You need Jesus, Terry.”

  Higher toss. Yip. Catch.

  “You’re a stupid bitch. You know that? You need your head examined if anybody around here needs anything.”

  Toss and catch. Louder yipping. Faster.

  “Owen doesn’t need to see you like this.”

  Yip. Toss. Yip. Catch.

  “The boy. Jesus. The boy! Jesus! It’s always about the boy or Jesus with you!”

  I stopped walking, spun around, and faced the house when a crashing sound came from the kitchen. The window was cracked. Beer ran down the inside. I gritted my teeth and squeezed the ball as hard as I could.

  Every weekend was the same. Dad got drunk. Mom prayed for the power to fix him. Dad got mad and loud. I went outside. Dad cussed and threw stuff and sometimes hit her a few times and then left. I went back inside, and Mom made me pray with her and told me that someday, Dad would be healed. And the whole time, that damn dog never stopped yipping.

  Fueled by frustration, I reared back and threw the ball at Brutus’ head as hard I as possibly could. I hadn’t actually played catch with anyone in years, had terrible mechanics, and normally wouldn’t have been able to hit the fence if I tried, but that day, Jesus must have guided my arm because I nailed Brutus square in the face. He instantly collapsed, blood dotting the ground and ball in front of him.

  Staring at Brutus’ shaking body, I stayed perfectly still when a second crash rang out inside the kitc
hen.

  “Get out. Now!”

  “Fuck you!”

  Brutus’ little paws continued to twitch as a bottle shattered on the driveway, and Dad’s truck peeled out and sped down the street. After the roar of his engine faded, a crushing silence seemed to slow time to a crawl. The reality of what I’d just done began to sink in. I dropped my glove and ran toward the fence.

  How was I going to explain this to Mom? To Mr. Fulton? He was almost eighty years old and had no immediate family. In fact, I’d never seen anyone go into his house other than Mom and the skinny man who drove the Meals-on-Wheels Van. Brutus was the one and only thing in the world that I’d ever seen make him smile.

  A couple of years earlier, I’d told Mom how much I hated Brutus and his yipping. “Brutus is like Mr. Fulton’s child,” she’d said. “Without that dog, I don’t know if he’d have much of a reason to live. That dog gives him purpose, Honey. Like you do me. You need to remember that sometimes, people have to suffer in order to help someone else.”

  The memory of these words forced me down to my knees next to the fence. Brutus was still shaking, his eyes rolled back. The left side of his face was caved in, his black nose and brown cheek fur were streaked with blood, and his tongue hung out. I placed my hand on his neck and whispered his name. I couldn’t let Mr. Fulton see him like this. I tried to pull him under the fence into my yard (maybe he could have just run away), but his belly was too round to make it through. I don’t know if it was instinct or environment, but in desperation, I closed my eyes and did what Mom did when Dad went ballistic.

  “Please, Jesus, give me the power to heal.” I placed my hand over the indented part of his face. “I heal you, Brutus. I heal you because you don’t deserve this.”

  Mr. Fulton’s sliding glass door flew open. “Brutus? Come here boy.”

  I squeezed my eyes tighter. “I heal you, Brutus. I heal you. I heal you. Now get up.”

  As Mr. Fulton shuffled his walker outside, it happened. I felt Brutus’s face inflate into its proper form beneath my hand, like a misshapen balloon filling with air. The bones locked. The skin zipped shut. I opened my eyes and looked down. Brutus’ fat, brown eyes rolled back into place and fixed on mine. Yipping and angry, he jerked away from my hand, pulling himself back onto his side of the fence.