2014 Campbellian Anthology

by Various

  “Authority”: Alone in his family’s house, Stabler drinks five old fashioneds. He is disturbed by how easy it is. He thinks about his daughters, his wife. His brother, suddenly, his baby brother. He struggles to remember his baby brother, who flits through his synapses like a sketch. Suddenly certain of something, Stabler runs out into the street and stares up at the sky. “Stop,” he begs. “Stop reading. I don’t like this. Something is wrong. I don’t like this.”

  “Trade”: In a graveyard, Benson begins to dig. Her spine aches and her muscles freeze and twitch and burn. She digs up the first girl, then the second. She slides one coffin left, one coffin right. She drops them under their correct, respective names. Inside of her, two girls speak. “Thank you,” Benson says. “Yes, thank you,” Benson says. Her mind clears a fraction. She breathes. It is easier.

  “Cold”: Stabler meets Benson in her apartment. She is sitting in a pile of wood chips that used to be her kitchen table. She takes a long, languorous swallow of beer and smiles a watery smile. “My theory,” she says. “Our theory. Our theory is that there is a God, and he is hungry.”

  Season 10

  “Trials”: “I am so tired,” the DA confesses to her boss. “I’m tired of losing cases. I’m tired of turning rapists back onto the street. I’m tired of winning, too. I’m tired of justice. Justice is exhausting. I am a one-woman justice machine. It’s too much to ask of me. Can we stage my death? Or something?” She does not tell the truth: she wants to see what Benson will do at her funeral.

  “Confession”: Stabler and his wife go for a walk, in New Jersey. They walk along a dirty beach—with shoes, so as not to cut their feet with broken bottles. “He locked me in the room,” she says to him. “He turned the lock and smiled at me. I couldn’t move. He hadn’t tied me up, but I couldn’t move. That’s the worst part. No excuse. You fight to put names on all of your dead, but not every victim wants to be known. Not all of us can deal with the illumination that comes with justice.” She dips her head, and he remembers the first time he met her. “Also,” she says softly, “you should know that Benson loves you.”

  “Swing”: Stabler pushes his youngest higher and higher. He thinks about what his wife said. “Off, Daddy! I said off!” He realizes she is shrieking at the top of her lungs. She, his daughter, not his wife. And certainly not Benson. Definitely not Benson.

  “Lunacy”: Benson doesn’t think about the moon very often, but when she does, she always undoes her top four buttons, tilts her throat up to the sky.

  “Retro”: An old woman kills a local deli owner. She tells Benson and Stabler that he raped her when they were teenagers. They don’t have the heart to tell her that he was a twin.

  “Babes”: All of the Hooter’s waitresses get pregnant at once. No one will say why. “This is not really a case,” Benson says, exasperated. Stabler doodles on his pad—a picture of a tree. Or maybe it’s a tooth?

  “Wildlife”: Deer, raccoons, rats, mice, cockroaches, flies, squirrels, birds, spiders, all of them, gone. Scientists take notice immediately. The state pours money into research. Where are they? Where did they go? What does it mean that they are missing? What would it take for their return?

  “Persona”: Benson likes her date, but the girls inside her screw it up by referring to themselves in the collective. “It’s the royal ‘we!’” she howls after his retreating back.

  “PTSD”: Every night, Benson dreams about the girls’ deaths. She slips in and out of stabbings and shootings and stranglings and poisonings and gags and ropes and No, no, nos, all lucid, and cut with Benson’s normal dreams: sex with Stabler, apocalypses, teeth falling out, teeth falling out of Benson onto Stabler while they fuck on a boat as the Flood wipes everything away.

  “Smut”: The DA watches the 24-hour news networks for 24 hours.

  “Stranger”: “What do you mean?” Stabler breathes into the phone. “Three birth certificates to Joanna Stabler in that ten-year stretch,” the receptionist says. “Oliver, you, and an Eli.” “I don’t have a brother Eli,” Stabler says. “According to this, you do,” she says, sucking noisily on a large wad of gum. Stabler hates it when people chew gum.

  “Hothouse”: Benson covers her apartment in flowerpots and long troughs full of black dirt, laying them among the destroyed remnants of her furniture, her list, her rules. She plants basil and thyme and dill and oregano and beets and spinach and kale and rainbow chard. The sound of pattering water released from a watering can is so beautiful she wants to cry. Time to make something grow.

  “Snatched”: A tiny Dominican girl is taken off the street by a man in a grey coat. She is never seen again.

  “Transitions”: Every time Benson flips her bedroom light on and off, she hears the sound. Dum dum. She feels it in her teeth.

  “Lead”: When she is tired, Benson lets the girls take over. They run her body all over town, buying hard lemonades and shimmying her chest at bouncers and, once, before Benson can take over again, kissing a busboy sweetly on his mouth, a mouth that tastes like metal and spearmint.

  “Ballerina”: She dances four nights a week for two years. He buys a ticket for every show, sits in the mezzanine, never goes backstage for an autograph. She always gets the uneasy sensation that she is being watched, aggressively, but never knows who it is.

  “Hell”: Father Jones sends Lucy the intern out into the world, infected as Stabler was. He kneels from the rooftop of his building, and takes the demon with him.

  “Baggage”: “Yes,” Stabler’s mother says to him over the phone, carefully. “I did have an older son. Eli. But I haven’t seen him since you were a child.” “Where did he go?” Stabler asked. “Why did you never say?” “Some things,” she says, her voice thick with tears, “are better left unsaid.”

  “Selfish”: The medical examiner can’t bring herself to admit that sometimes, she’s the one who wants to be cut open, to have someone tell her all of her own secrets.

  “Crush”: “I really care about you,” Stabler says. “And I know how you feel. I’m sorry that I’ve led you on. I’m sorry I haven’t been forthright. But I love my wife. We were going through a patch, but I love her. And I love my daughters. I should have told you after we kissed. I should have said that it wouldn’t go anywhere.” “We kissed?” Benson says. She probes her memories, and only comes up with dreams.

  “Liberties”: “I mean, not… not everybody,” the constitutional scholar scoffed, looking equal parts amused and scandalized. “Can you imagine if everyone had those rights? Anarchy.” Abler smiles, and pours him another drink.

  “Zebras”: Benson wakes up in the zoo again. She scales the wall, not caring that she trips the alarm, not caring that as she runs, cop cars are cruising, flashing, looking for her and only her. She is barefoot, her feet bleed, the street breathes, the street heats, the street is waiting, and what else is waiting? Beneath, beneath, beneath.

  Season 11

  “Unstable”: Stabler listens to Benson. She tells him everything—the ghost girls and their now-silent bells—and things he already knows—the heartbeats from the ground, and its breathing, and her love. He looks around at the apartment full of plants, more greenhouse than home. “You’re saying they’re inside of you now.” “Yes.” “Right this minute.” “Yes.” “Do they tell you things?” “Sometimes.” “Like what?” “They say, ‘Ow, yes, no, stop it, that one, help us, there, but why, but when, I’m hungry, we’re hungry, kiss him, kiss her, wait, okay… ’ Also, I bought some bells.” She points to a ravaged cardboard box, overflowing with packing peanuts and glints of brass. Stabler frowns. “Benson, how can I help?”

  “Sugar”: The handsome older gentleman folds his cloth napkin in half before dabbing his mouth. “What I’m saying,” he says to Benson, who can’t stop staring, “is that if this continues, I will expect you to quit your job. Naturally, you’ll be compensated above and beyond your current salary. I’ll just expect you to always be available.”

  “Solitary”: Benson trims her pl
ants, and bats away regret over saying “No.”

  “Hammered”: Benson wakes up to see Henson standing over her bed. She is holding a garbage bag, and she is grinning. She dumps the contents over Benson’s bed, and they tumble out like ghostly river shrimp. The stolen hammers from the girls’ bells. They weigh nothing and yet Benson can feel them, somehow. Inside her head, the girls explode in chatter. When the points of light stop flashing in Benson’s eyes, she realizes that Henson has left. She tries to pick up the hammers, and they dissolve in her fingers like fog.

  “Hardwired”: The DA comes over to Benson’s apartment to talk about a case. “I like your greenhouse,” she says. Benson blinks, disbelieving. Then, she smiles shyly, offers to show her the plants. She shows the DA how to rewire a heat lamp. They laugh into the night.

  “Spooked”: “You just gotta learn to live with it,” the bored officer says to the woman sitting in the chair across from him, shaking.

  “Users”: Everyone on the web forum wakes up to find a jagged crack up the length of their bathroom mirrors.

  “Turmoil”: Abler and Henson reverse the stoplights, flood bathrooms, and steal the interior workings of all deadbolts.

  “Perverted”: “You can’t stop me,” the note, pinned to the body, reads. “I control everything.—THE WOLF.” Benson and Stabler start a new file. Stabler cries.

  “Anchor”: They can’t prove the naval officer was responsible because the evidence isn’t waterproof.

  “Quickie”: The DA finally throws Henson out of her bed. “You’re not her,” she says, her voice heavy with sadness. “One more story,” Henson says, leaning against the doorframe. “Don’t you want to hear just one more? It’s a good one. It’s a real doozy.”

  “Shadow”: If the day had been sunny and not overcast, she would have seen him coming. Everyone blames the weatherman.

  “P.C.”: “It’s just that,” the guy says, pumping his head confidently, “my sense of humor is pretty subversive, you know? I, like, don’t submit to the P.C. brigade. I like to think of myself as a rebel.” For the first time in ages, Benson leaves her date. She’s desperate, but not that desperate.

  “Savior”: One night, Lucy knocks on Benson’s door. “Your gun,” she says. Benson frowns at her. “What?” Lucy seizes the gun from Benson’s holster. Benson makes a grab for it, but not before Lucy smears something on the handle. “A gift from Father Jones,” she says, handing it back to her.

  “Confidential”: “It’s been nice having her come around,” Benson says to her plants, referring to the DA. Benson hates diaries. “She’s really great company. Really great.” She imagines that the plants are arching toward her voice.

  “Witness”: There isn’t one. The DA can’t try the case.

  “Disabled”: Stabler goes to visit his wife and children. He worries that Abler is following him. He stops his car. He drives back to New York. He takes a train. He hitchhikes to the house.

  “Bedtime”: Stabler’s wife curls against him. She breathes into his ear. “When do you think we can leave my mother’s place?” she asks. “When we catch Uncle E,” he says. He feels her face pull into a sleepy smile. “What do you think Uncle E stands for, anyway?” she asks blearily.

  “Conned”: Stabler tackles Abler to the ground. “I know who you are!” Stabler says into his ear. “You’re my brother, Eli. Uncle E, indeed.” Abler chuckles from beneath him. “No,” he says. “I’m not. I just called myself that to fuck with you. Eli died in prison, years ago. Your brother was a rapist. Your brother was a monster.” Benson pulls Stabler off. “Don’t listen to him,” she says. “Don’t.” Abler grins. “Do you want me to tell you who Henson is? She’s—”

  “Beef”: The hamburger doesn’t give a fuck who it kills.

  “Torch”: A girl is raped, murdered, and lit on fire. She comes into Benson’s head screaming, smoke curling off her burned skin, not understanding. It is the longest night of Benson’s life thus far.

  “Ace”: Abler and Henson sense what is coming. They fuck, they eat, they drink, they smoke. They go dancing, foxtrotting on the chairs; a gavotte across the finished walnut. When the Beasley family comes home, there are heelmarks in the soft wood of their dining room table, and half of the plates are broken.

  “Wannabe”: Copycat mischief-makers reverse street signs and tie people’s shoelaces together. When Stabler falls over a fifth time, he slams his fist down on his floor. “THAT. IS. IT.”

  “Shattered”: “Don’t you understand?!” Abler howls as Benson and Stabler struggle to their feet. “We didn’t do this. This was not us. The women. All of the women.” Henson howls with laughter. “You thought this was all some vast conspiracy, but it’s not. The women—no, you’ve done them on your own. The heartbeat.” Benson pulls her gun from her holster and unloads a clip into both of them. Abler falls over immediately, an expression of surprise on his face. Blood gurgles from Henson’s mouth, drips in a long stream down her chin. “Just like in the movies,” Benson breathes.

  Season 12

  “Locum”: Without Henson and Abler, Benson and Stabler don’t know what to do with themselves. They go back, slowly, to old files. The missing girls and women. The dead. “Let’s get them out,” Stabler says, newly confident. “Let’s set them free.”

  “Bullseye”: “The reason we didn’t catch him before is because his alibi was foolproof. But now, we know.”

  “Behave”: They start responding to “no.”

  “Merchandise”: They arrest the madam who had permitted so many of her girls to be drowned. “Not by my hands!” she howls as they drag her to the squad car. “Not by my hands!”

  “Wet”: Benson doesn’t know how she knows, but she does. They walk the length of the Hudson. They locate eight missing bodies—different murderers, different years. She names them as the gurneys go rumbling past her.

  “Branded”: They catch the serial brander. His victims pick him out of a lineup, strange smiles pushing through their burned faces. “How did you catch him?” one woman asks Benson. “Good old-fashioned police work,” she says.

  “Trophy”: “I’m looking for a wife,” Benson’s date says. He is handsome. He is brilliant. She stands up, folds her napkin on the table, and pulls three twenties from her wallet. “I have to go. I just… I have to go.” She runs down the street. She breaks a heel on her shoe. She skips the rest of the way.

  “Penetration”: “No.” “Yes.” “No.” “No?” “No.” “Oh.”

  “Gray”: Benson plants some flowers.

  “Rescue”: Benson and Stabler take out the kidnapper before he even reaches his destination.

  “Pop”: Benson and Stabler think they hear gunfire, but when they come bursting out of the diner, it’s just tiny fireworks lighting up windows three stories over their heads.

  “Possessed”: “Not for much longer,” Benson says, to herself, in her sleep.

  “Mask”: Stabler and his wife dance all over the house, mouse masks on their faces. The girls stare at the scene in horror, and run to their rooms, where one is busy forgetting and the other is remembering what will, one day, be a chapter in her well-received memoir. Father Jones didn’t just touch Stabler and Lucy, you know.

  “Dirty”: The DA comes and helps Benson sweep up the wood chips from her floor. They clean the windows. They order pizza and talk about first loves.

  “Flight”: The city is still hungry. The city is always hungry. But tonight, the heartbeat slows. They fly, they fly, they fly.

  “Spectacle”: On a Wednesday, they catch so many bad guys that Benson throws up seventeen girls in one afternoon. She laughs as they spill out of her, tumble into her vomit like oil slicks, and dissipate into the air.

  “Pursuit”: They chase. They catch. No one gets away.

  “Bully”: The last girl clings to the inside of Benson’s skull. “I don’t want to be alone,” Benson says. “I don’t, either,” Benson says, “but you need to go.” Stabler comes into Benson’s apartment. “Her name is Marcela T
ietra. She was twelve. She was raped by her father, and her mother did not believe her. Her father killed her. He buried her on Brighton Beach.” Inside, the girl shook her head, as if to dislodge the sand in her hair. “Go,” Benson says. “Go.” The girl smiles and doesn’t, her bells barely rocking. “Thank you,” Benson says. “You’re welcome,” Benson says. There is a sound—a new sound. A sigh. And then, she is gone. Stabler hugs Benson. “Goodbye,” he says, and so is he.

  “Bombshell”: The DA comes to Benson’s door. Benson’s head, newly clear, feels like a vacant airplane hanger, a moor. Expansive, but empty. The DA reaches her hand up to Benson’s face, and traces her jaw with the barest weight. “I want you,” she says to Benson. “I’ve wanted you since the first time I met you.” Benson leans forward and kisses her. The heartbeat is a hunger. She pulls her inside.