"Sorry, I thought you lived round here."
"No problem." Why was he still talking? She had ended the conversation. He had a perfect escape route, and yet he could not stop himself. "I'm a collector, down here on business."
To his surprise, she showed a genuine interest.
"Anything rare?"
"Probably not, although some earlier pieces from the collection did make it into the national papers."
"Really? I only work in an office. I wish I had an interesting job like yours."
He smiled but said nothing more as she finished her coffee, left the money on the table, and rose from her seat.
"Well, thank you for your help..." She raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
"Dennis," he said, quickly, immediately cursing himself for using his real name.
"Dennis." She smiled. "I'm Andrea. I'd love to chat a bit longer, but I've promised myself I'd get over to Point Clear early today. Maybe we could meet later?"
"Yes, I'd like that." And to his surprise he found he would, although he knew it was not likely to be under pleasant circumstances. He felt sad about that, disappointed, and that scared him more than anything else.
He watched her walk away, turning her head once to smile back at him. As he returned the smile, he saw Heddison, leaning against the nearby railings, looking out over the moored boats but only truly seeing the Candy Lady. His hand trembled as he signaled for the waitress to bring his bill. He had told the truth, he was a collector, but was he willing to pay the full price this time?
He paid for his tea and was not surprised, when he looked up again, to see that Heddison had gone, no doubt having overheard the short conversation. He would be heading for his van. Dennis took a deep breath to steady himself and, picking up the binoculars' case from by his feet, walked unhurriedly to the nearest semi-circular viewing platform built as part of the new apartment complex. He simply needed to treat this like any other business deal and not get personally involved. He had already risked too much by changing his plans.
He pulled the binoculars from their case and stood at the railings, the marina spreading before him and, directly opposite, Point Clear, barely rising out of the water, empty sand and sparse grass, a café and amusement arcade out of sight over the slight swell of the land. Behind, apartment balconies overlooked him, but he ignored them. He was just another tourist enjoying the view. Nothing suspicious.
He turned first towards the floating quayside to his left, finding his Candy Lady stepping carefully past the parents and children crab fishing off the edge. He could see the top of the small flat-bottomed boat that was the foot ferry, but there were too many people for him to see her actually board the boat. For a short while, he scanned back and forth, worried she might change her mind, but after five minutes, when the ferry left the quayside, his Candy Lady was the only passenger.
He relaxed a little as the family moved away, heading back towards the café and amusements, leaving Candy Lady alone once more on the sand. And now came the silver van with perfect timing, driving slowly down onto the sand, the family stepping to one side to let it through. It was not uncommon. Cars often parked near the water's edge, their occupants looking out to sea, not caring to step outside and brave the typically changeable British weather. No one would pay much attention to a silver van being driven slowly and carefully on the sands of Point Clear. No one but him. But then, he'd been waiting for this.
He was shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot, but it was not possible to stay still while watching the drama unfold. He knew what was coming, had witnessed similar scenes many times before, but for the first time, he fought the feeling that he should do something, be there, protect his Candy Lady.
Andrea. He was unsure whether he had ever known the name of a victim, at least before the event. Once it made the papers he would see the name, read about the family, but it never felt important. It never made them any more real! Andrea. It was uncomfortable, unsettling. He struggled to hold the binoculars steady, his hands trembling, his stomach convulsing, cramping. He did not know what to do. It was an unfamiliar and unwelcome feeling.
The silver van crept closer to her as she walked, unaware, along the water's edge. He concentrated on the technique, striving to be clinical, professional, as the van stopped and Heddison, with adrenalin-fuelled speed, leapt from the driver's seat.
She struggled. Her legs kicked out from under the pink skirt, she clawed at the large arm around her throat. Through the binoculars, he was able to see the whole thing up close, see the fear, the panic in her eyes, and the ease with which Heddison threw her into the back of the van. It was as smooth and professional an abduction as he had ever seen, but he felt light-headed and nauseous. The impressive demonstration of technique did not, for once, bring forth admiration for the perpetrator but anger and hatred and fear for the victim.
He had to do something. He could not allow this to continue to its natural and, before now, desired conclusion. It risked everything he had planned for, but he could not leave his Candy Lady, Andrea, to her fate. The thought made him sick.
He hurried, pushing the binoculars into their case as he ran back towards the harbour and his car. Heddison worked fast. He could not afford to delay.
The engine started first time, despite the shake in his hand as he turned the key. He crashed the gears finding first, began to pull away from the kerb and slammed his foot on the brake. A tractor. A fucking tractor towing a small boat down towards the receding tide, blocking him in as it manoeuvred its way through the narrow street.
He slammed the steering wheel in frustration, the unfamiliar sting of tears in his eyes. Everything was wrong about this, everything was strange and unsettling and wrong! He was a professional. He had never experienced any difficulties before, and he had pursued many like Heddison in his life. But he had never seen a victim like the Candy Lady before, his Candy Lady, his Andrea.
He refused to dwell on thoughts of where Heddison might be right now, how far along his set, almost religious ritual he would have proceeded, how much fear and panic and agony Andrea might be experiencing. He could not bear to think of that.
With deliberate and cruel slowness, the tractor pulled its load between the parked cars and curious bystanders while Dennis edged his car inch by inch towards freedom. The moment he felt the gap was wide enough, he pushed the accelerator and twisted the wheel catching the bow of the towed boat a glancing blow, cracking the glass of his headlight and showering splinters from the damaged hull, bringing cries of surprise and some anger from those standing nearby. He did not care, even if anyone noted the registration number of his car, he did not care. Once this was over, he would dump the car, and the false identity he had hired it under was untraceable. He was no amateur.
He ignored the speed limits, powering the deliberately unremarkable Ford Focus round tight bends and between parked cars, dismissing all rules of right-of-way, bringing angry beeps and shouts from other motorists. It was a risk he had to take, hoping that the lack of police cars he had noted during his short stay would continue for a little while longer.
Heddison had fewer miles to travel but would be carefully obeying all the rules of the road, not taking any chances. Dennis smiled grimly. He had to take those chances.
He pulled on the wheel, swerving. He narrowly missed a car edging too far out of its driveway, swearing over his shoulder as he pushed the accelerator to the floor.
Heddison was illegally squatting in an old abandoned storage shed, off the main roads and protected from view by high hedges. Dennis had located it on his first day in the area. After his research into Heddison, his methods, his personal collecting obsession, it had been easy. Once you understood the man, the rest fell into place.
Following the old local signs for Clacton, he sped through Thorrington, alternating brake and accelerator round the narrow winding lanes, finally turning down towards St Osyth. Almost there.
Had he not scouted the area previously, he would have miss
ed it. Other than a dirt track, barely wide enough for one car, breaking the otherwise verdant roadside there was no sign of the building he knew to be in the field behind the hedges, and no sign of Heddison's van.
He swung into the gap, his back wheels spinning on the dirt, unworried about alerting Heddison to his presence. Even allowing for heavy traffic, Heddison would have arrived at least ten minutes ago and would by now be oblivious to almost anything except his victim. The original plan no longer applied. Stealth and subtlety were not an option if he wanted to interrupt Heddison with his Candy Lady.
In a cloud of dust, he skidded the car to a stop near a weathered clapboard building, flayed skin of pale green paint peeling from the wood, lying scab-like on the well-trod ground. Weeds, running wild through neglect, insinuated themselves between the planks and forced them outwards, giving the wall a bloated, pregnant look. Window shutters hung from broken hinges, and rusted, corrugated iron sheets slipped over the edges of the roof. And yet, it was not possible to see inside the building as all gaps, holes and windows had been painstakingly covered from the inside. This illegal squatter needed privacy to work.
Hurrying from his car, Dennis found Heddison's silver van parked round the back near the door. He hesitated. The heavy wood of the door was as old as everything else, but the hinges and lock were new and sturdy. He would not be able to break it down. This close he could hear faint sounds from within, his Candy Lady, Andrea, pleading, begging, her voice growing weaker as he listened. Despite his rising panic, he had no choice. He had to pick the lock.
It was a difficult one to crack, took him almost thirty seconds, but he knew he'd get it. He was good at what he did.
He pushed through the unlocked door, through a small room that may once have been an office, and into the open storage area where Heddison stood in the glow of candlelight and a single 60 watt bulb hanging from a frayed cord. Normally Dennis would have admired the sight, and, even in his current agitated state, he could not completely suppress his aesthetic appreciation of the ambience Heddison had created. But the reality of how much the delay of the tractor at the harbour had cost him, hit him in the stomach like a heavy fist. He gasped, feeling nauseous, light-headed once more.
The Candy Lady's pink skirt, the one that had first caught his attention, was pinned to the side wall by two six inch nails. It had been tastefully sliced in a zigzag pattern, and a strip of flayed skin trailed delicately from the hem. It was a beautiful touch, and one he would, at any other time and with any other victim, have appreciated. The purple t-shirt hung next to it gripped by pale, delicate fingers. Five nails formed a star shape where they had been driven through the back of the hand and into the wall. Blood still dripped from the severed wrist trailing an abstract pattern of dots and dashes down the wall to the floor. Heddison had already taken his trophy, another for his growing collection, and Dennis's heart seemed to stop for a moment, causing him to clutch at his chest.
The girl herself, Andrea, his Candy Lady, minus a hand and a long strip of skin from her leg, was tied naked and spread-eagled backwards over a large wooden barrel. She was alive, despite the loss of blood from her severed hand, but her position, her open-legged nakedness and the semen spotting her inner thighs were heartbreaking evidence of his failure.
She had seen him, was pleading with her eyes, tearful and dull as she fought to hold onto life. He forced a smile, knowing as he did that this unfamiliar and unwelcome emotion, this love that had bludgeoned its way into his heart, his head, was of little use now other than as a source of heavy, deep pain. He could not save his Candy Lady, but he could salvage his original purpose in travelling to Heddison's Stalking Ground. Was that callous? A stubborn voice told him yes, but his professionalism and longtime devotion to the collection said no, just common sense.
Heddison himself had been slow to sense the other's presence. Indeed Dennis thought it was probably his Candy Lady and her pleading moan in his direction that first made the killer turn and notice him.
Naked and aroused, with a bloodied hacksaw in one hand and an equally bloodied hammer in the other, Heddison roared in surprise and anger and ran at him.
Dennis, on more familiar ground, was disappointed. He had expected better.
He sidestepped the clumsy swing of the hammer, pulling his favoured nine-inch serrated dagger from its sheath nestling beneath his shirt at the base of his spine, and plunged it deep into Heddison's six-pack. The wet sound of metal sliding into flesh and muscle sent a thrill of excitement through him and he twisted the blade before withdrawing it with an even louder and more satisfying slop. Bits of Heddison fell to the floor in gobbets of blood and gore from the hole the dagger had made. The pattern was random but effective.
With a minimum of movement, Dennis drew the blade across the back of the other man's leg, severing the hamstring. As that leg crumbled beneath the naked man and he began to fall, Dennis stabbed lightly, with small penetration only, into the kidneys. The pain inflicted was excruciating, as evidenced by Heddison's surprisingly high-pitched scream, but the damage not enough to kill.
Dennis nudged the falling man, turning him so he landed on his back, and removed the hammer and hacksaw from him with no resistance. Heddison glared at him through his agony.
Glancing back to his wide-eyed Candy Lady, struggling to watch the action, he smiled at her once more, but already he could feel the emotion draining, withering, beaten down by the overriding compulsion that had led him to his chosen profession.
He used the hacksaw to remove Heddison's right hand, in a tribute to the killer's own collection, and taking hold of his still erect penis, which was quite impressive in itself, sawed at the root until it pulled free. For a moment, as the mutilated man screamed and writhed on the floor beneath him, Dennis stopped and admired the spurts and pooling of blood forming a piece of modern art that, he felt, would not be out of place in the Tate Gallery.
Aware that death was fast overtaking the man on the floor he took his knife once more and gouged out the eyes with a sharp twisting of the blade to ensure nice, round bloody holes. He used Heddison's own hammer to knock out the teeth and, finally, the hacksaw to separate the head from the body. He liked to use a fellow collector's own tools wherever possible. He considered it only decent and fair.
His Candy Lady, weak from blood loss, stared at him, frightened but relieved it was all over. He smiled and walked to her.
"Hello Andrea. I'm sorry I wasn't quicker. I tried." To his surprise, there were tears in his eyes and he wiped them away, staring at his damp hand in wonder. This was all so strange. He leant closer to the still bound form of his Candy Lady, whispered, "I love you," and knew it was true. For the first time in his life, he had experienced love, something he had not felt even for his mother back before she abandoned him. It was powerful, almost overwhelming, but ultimately useless and, as thrills go, could not compare to collecting.
He pulled his blade across her exposed throat.
The shock and surprise in her eyes was pleasing, as were the ribbons of blood from the gash in her neck, but it was not true pleasure, just a necessity he found vaguely saddening. She was not the one he had come for.
Kneeling on the floor, holding the severed head of the serial killer firmly between his thighs, he sewed the toothless mouth closed using a surgical needle and thread from the sewing kit he always carried on his belt, small, neat stitches sealing the lips in a karmic smile. Early in his career, he had sewed the eyelids closed too, but as his collection progressed, he preferred to admire the bloodied eye sockets in their open, sightless gaze.
He lifted the head in admiration. A fine addition.
While it might be true that the serial killers, like Heddison, who collected trophies of their victims were serious collectors, he was the one and only supreme collector.
He collected the collectors.
Armoire by Louise Bohmer
"He's behind me right now, isn't he?" Xian leaned forward, tented his fingers over a book bound in lea
ther, and studied her with eyes so brown they were almost black. "Your expression tells a story."
Ophelia felt her face tense in a mask of fear. The shadow man stepped away from the single bulb covered by a green light shade, which dangled just above Xian.
She nodded, watching the shadow man stroke a wispy hand over Xian's shoulder, before the illusion wedged himself in a slender space between two filing cabinets.
"I felt him then." Blue smoke drifted up, forming a halo around her mentor's slicked back hair. "He's been in there a while." Rising from his plush, leather office chair, he tapped Ophelia's forehead. "You're still collecting rather than banishing, aren't you?" He blew three rings, watched them float away, then pinned her with another cold, matter-of-fact stare.
"But if I see them," she whispered, "I feel safe. In the jars, they can't hurt me."
The man sitting across from her was the real deal. Not just a tarot reader looking for a quick fifty bucks. Mother told her he was born in Vietnam. Spent a great deal of time studying shamanism as he made his way through India, the Middle East, Europe, and eventually here, to North America, where he'd studied with her mother, until she died from a brain aneurysm. When he gave her occult advice, she trusted it implicitly. In esoteric circles she once frequented, rumor had it he was her father, but he'd neither confirmed nor denied it.
"And what has this one done?" After crushing out his cigarette, he threw his hands up in the air. "This isn't the first time one has gotten loose and embedded in your brain. You should be banishing the parasites, not binding them to this world. An extended stay only allows them more power over you. You know that. Not to mention, you've trapped their brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, in there. It's inevitable they'll come seeking revenge."
She fidgeted with the hem of her sweater, looked away from his gaze that saw all within her. "They're getting trickier. I lock the armoire every night. They're still getting out."
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