The Mad and the MacAbre

by Jeff Strand

  "Don't let me down, buddy," he said, scratching the top of Kutter's head. They got out of the car and he walked Kutter toward the theatre.

  Kutter was an instant hit. Unfortunately, it wasn't in a way that did Charlie any good.

  People made a fuss over the dog, but it was children with their parents, girls with their boyfriends or husbands, and women in small groups. And some guys, too, which did Charlie even less good. Nobody seemed to go to the movies by themselves.

  Of course they didn't. Everybody knew that.

  Charlie dragged Kutter--who was loving the attention--back to the car after about fifteen minutes. Stupid. How could he pick a movie theatre, of all places? This was why he didn't get to kill beautiful women. This was why he didn't deserve to kill beautiful women. All of this planning, and he still screwed it up. Pathetic.

  He felt like hitting something, but it couldn't be Kutter. The dog had done his part. Perfectly. The fault was all Charlie's.

  "Stupid," he said out loud. "Pathetic."

  Kutter panted happily. He didn't seem to think that Charlie was stupid or pathetic. Charlie put his index finger out and Kutter licked it. He felt a little better.

  All right, so he'd made a bad decision and wasted some time. Fifteen minutes was nothing, especially not when he'd driven over two hours to get here. Now was not the time to start doubting himself. "No use crying over spilt milk," he said.

  He'd just have to laugh off this minor moment of foolishness and drive someplace else where he was more likely to find a single woman. No problem at all. He'd just drive to the first public parking lot he could find, and then walk Kutter around the area until he was successful.

  Charlie found a parking garage less than a mile away. "See?" he told Kutter. "We're back on track." He parked on the third level. Maybe he'd be lucky enough to get out of here quickly and only pay the single-hour rate.

  He hadn't even shut off the engine before he wanted to kick himself. He couldn't drive a victim out of a public parking garage! Not only were there security cameras, but the attendant would see him drive out of there with a soon-to-be-missing woman. What in the world was he thinking?

  He'd made mistakes before, lots of them, but Charlie couldn't remember ever having been so dense during a hunt. Was Kutter just distracting him? Could he not think clearly with a dog in the passenger seat? This was crazy! Bonkers!

  "I'm a creature of habit," he told Kutter. "You're throwing off my game."

  The official hunt was over for tonight. Charlie couldn't risk making another stupid mistake. He'd drive around for a while and try to find a suitable location, and then return the next evening. Better to waste a four-hour round trip than get the electric chair, lethal injection, or the gas chamber. There had to be a good place to hunt where there were no security cameras.

  When he drove past the dog park, Charlie burst into a fit of giggles so intense that he had to pull off to the side of the road for a few minutes to recover.

  * * *

  She was perhaps the most beautiful woman Charlie had ever seen. Her dog was ugly as hell.

  "What's his name?" she asked, as her bulldog and Kutter exchanged undignified sniffs.

  "Kutter," Charlie replied. "With a K." He'd thought of clarifying the "with a K" part during the drive over that afternoon, and was very pleased with himself. It made him sound friendly.

  The woman stroked Kutter's fur. "Well, he's a sweetheart."

  "Thanks." The woman's bulldog caught sight of another dog and tugged on its leash. Charlie knew he had to act now. "Would you like to get coffee?"

  The woman smiled. "I can't, sorry. I don't do caffeine."

  "It doesn't have to be coffee. It can be anything."

  "I'd love to, but I can't."

  "Why not?"

  Her smile vanished. "I just can't."

  "Are you sure?"

  She nodded. "I've gotta go," she said, letting her bulldog lead her away.

  Charlie made himself shrug. He hadn't done anything incorrectly that time. He'd just try again with somebody else. Nobody, not even movie stars, got a "yes" every single time they asked somebody for a date. He had plenty of time.

  * * *

  "What's his name?" asked the woman, letting Kutter lick her palm. She was probably in her fifties, but still nice-looking.

  "Kutter," Charlie said. "With a K."

  "Hi, Kutter. You're a good boy, aren't you?"

  Charlie tried not to grimace, Yeah, he talked to Kutter way more than he wanted to admit, but at least he didn't ask idiotic questions like that. What did she think Kutter was going to say? "No, ma'am, I'm not a good boy at all, but I appreciate your vote of confidence."

  The woman had a wiener dog. Charlie didn't want to touch it. He knew he had to make some small talk before asking her out.

  "What's your dog's name?" he asked.

  "Harvey. With an H."

  Charlie frowned. What other letter would the name Harvey start with? Did she think he was a moron? She was the one with the hot dog dog, not him.

  Then he realized from her smile that she was trying to be amusing by referencing his "with a K" comment. Duh. He shouldn't have needed extra time to figure that out. If she thought he was a moron, she was absolutely right. But if she was joking around with him, then she trusted him, and if she trusted him...

  "Do you want to get some coffee?" Charlie asked.

  The woman held up her left hand, revealing her wedding ring. "I don't think my husband would like that."

  "I didn't mean like that. Just coffee."

  "I'm just here to get Harvey some exercise. But I appreciate the offer."

  Charlie started to insist that he merely wanted to get coffee as friends, but no, it wasn't a good idea to appear desperate. The last thing he needed was for her to tell the cops that there was a creepy guy harassing women at the dog park.

  "No problem."

  This wasn't working at all. Apparently only the dregs of society could be convinced to go anywhere with him, even with a Boston terrier in tow. It was time to give up on this idea and return to his old hunting grounds.

  No. He had as much right to be here as anybody else, and it wasn't a crime to ask somebody to go out for coffee.

  It was definitely a nice park--a lot nicer than the one near his house. Would hanging out here all day without bringing home a victim really be such a wasted day? Kutter seemed to be enjoying it, if nothing else.

  There was a circular purple object lying in the snow. A Frisbee. Charlie picked it up, shook off the snow, and let Kutter sniff it. The dog seemed to approve.

  Charlie flung the Frisbee, which went in the exact opposite direction that he'd intended and struck a tree that was about four feet away. As soon as the Frisbee hit the ground Kutter had snatched it up in his mouth and brought it back, holding it up expectantly.

  Charlie took hold of the Frisbee and tugged gently, but Kutter didn't let it go.

  "Give it to me so I can throw it again," he instructed.

  He tugged again. Kutter tugged back.

  "You're not doing this correctly," Charlie said. He knew next to nothing about dog/human interactions, but he at least knew how to play fetch. How was it possible that he understood the rules better than Kutter?

  Charlie let go of the Frisbee. "When you're ready to play right, let me know."

  Kutter stared up at him for a moment, then let out a whine.

  "Don't whine at me. You have to let it go. Do you want me to throw it with your jaws still stuck on it?"

  Charlie grabbed the Frisbee and gently tugged again. Kutter vigorously shook his head side-to-side and refused to relinquish his grip. Charlie tugged a little harder and Kutter tugged back harder.

  "You're playing the wrong game," Charlie informed the dog. Tug-of-war was supposed to be with a thick rope, or a sock, or maybe a dead squirrel. Frisbees were for throwing and playing fetch. This dog was totally mixed up.

  Charlie released his grip again. This time, Kutter let the Frisbee fall. Ch
arlie picked it up and gave it another fling--right into the same tree. He looked around the park to see if anybody had noticed.

  Several people had. They were amused.

  Charlie cursed.

  Kutter brought back the Frisbee, and after another minute of not letting go of it, dropped it into the snow. Charlie picked it up and walked several feet to the left to distance himself from that stupid tree. He swung his arm back and forth a few times, trying to envision the trajectory the Frisbee would take when he released it. Finally, with all of his strength, he threw the disc.

  It was another pretty lousy throw, but this one at least missed the tree and any other obstacles and flew through the air like it was supposed to. Kutter, barking furiously, chased after it, running across the park at top speed while kicking up snow. He leapt up into the air and caught the Frisbee in his mouth.

  Wow. Charlie was impressed. He certainly couldn't do that.

  Kutter happily scampered back over to Charlie and dropped the Frisbee in front of him. Then Kutter snatched it back up as Charlie reached for it. It was a bizarre combination of fetch and tug-of-war--clearly the poor animal had never been taught how to separate the individual games. No problem. Charlie played along, making several attempts to retrieve the Frisbee before Kutter let go of his prize.

  The next throw was infinitely better. Charlie hoped lots of people had seen it, because it went perfectly straight and almost beyond the edge of the park. Kutter caught this one, too.

  "You're pretty talented," Charlie told the dog. "That's a good skill to have."

  It wasn't really, unless there was a market for Frisbee-catching, but everybody else in the park was complimenting their pets, so why shouldn't Charlie? He scratched Kutter behind the ears, then threw the Frisbee again.

  And again. And again.

  He threw the Frisbee until his arm ached. Kutter never seemed to get tired of it. On the seventh or eighth throw, Charlie accidentally blurted out "Go get it, boy!" which was of course a completely pointless command, but he found that he felt a surprising lack of self-consciousness while saying it, so he kept it up, going so far as to cheer on the dog as it sprinted toward the purple Frisbee. Though Kutter didn't catch it every single time, he at least got three out of four, and the ones he missed could generally be blamed on the quality of Charlie's throw.

  Charlie shifted to his left arm when his right arm started to go numb, but after a throw that involved flinging the Frisbee straight down into the ground, he decided to quit for the day. He checked his watch. Wow. They'd been there over two hours. It hadn't felt anywhere near that long.

  It was a lousy hunt, but a good day.

  - 7 -

  "That wasn't very smart of us," said Charlie as they pulled into the McDonalds drive-thru. All that Frisbee-tossing had made him hungry. "Everyone in that park is going to remember us. We can't hunt there tomorrow, or maybe any other time. We're too memorable."

  Well, perhaps they weren't. Certainly Kutter wasn't the first miracle Frisbee-catching Boston terrier to have spent a couple of hours practicing his craft in the dog park...but still, they had to be as cautious as possible, and running around in front of everybody was not the way to keep himself out of jail.

  Even if he had found a woman willing to get into his car, it would've been a terrible idea to actually lure her inside. He'd screwed up.

  That said, Charlie didn't feel like beating himself up over it. He didn't feel like crying. He wasn't pathetic. He felt fine.

  He'd had fun. And it was a much safer kind of fun than torturing and murdering a woman in his basement.

  He ordered a Big Mac, large fries, and Coke for himself, and three hamburgers and a cup of water for Kutter. Kutter gobbled the burgers almost as quickly as Charlie could unwrap them and toss them over to him, and also lapped up the water in no time, although Charlie had to keep tilting the cup, since it wasn't really designed for a dog.

  Not a bad day at all. And they really didn't need to drive so far to do it again. He was sure he could find an equally nice dog park in his area. If he wasn't planning to kidnap anybody, there was no reason to be discrete.

  He'd resume the hunt tomorrow. If he felt like it.

  * * *

  That evening, Charlie sat on the couch, watching television. Kutter lay on his lap, snoring softly.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Kutter immediately woke up, jumped off the couch, and ran toward the front door, barking. "All right, all right, calm down," Charlie said, even though he was a bit panicked himself. Nobody ever came to his door at nine-thirty at night. Hardly anybody ever came to his door, period.

  He peeked through the peephole. It was a young blonde. She didn't look like a cop.

  Charlie opened the door. The young woman, who probably wasn't even twenty-one, smiled brightly at him.

  "Hi," she said. "I'm Patti, and I'm trying to pay my way through college. It's pretty expensive these days, as I'm sure you know."

  Charlie didn't respond. She sounded even more rehearsed than he did.

  "So I'd like to offer you the chance to purchase subscriptions to your favorite magazines at a greatly discounted price." She crouched down and petted Kutter. "Aw, what a cutie! What's her name?"

  "His name. Kutter."

  "Awwwwwww." She scratched Kutter's chin, until he rolled over and she rubbed his belly.

  Charlie glanced outside. Nobody around.

  He grabbed the girl by the hair and yanked her inside. He slammed his hand over her mouth, kicked the door shut, and dragged her into the kitchen where he kept the bottle of chloroform.

  * * *

  Well, that was impulsive.

  Charlie leaned against the basement wall, staring at the blonde who was now strapped to the metal table, still unconscious. He should've been cackling with glee; she was, without a doubt, the finest victim he'd ever claimed. If he believed in fate or a higher power, he would have called her a heavenly gift. But she wasn't--her presence at his door was a coincidence, and her presence in his basement was the result of acting without thinking.

  He'd wanted to let her go as soon as he got her into the kitchen. Unfortunately, this wasn't like accidentally stepping on her foot or spilling soda on her blouse. He couldn't just apologize and send her on her way. She had to die.

  But that was a good thing, right?

  Somebody would definitely come looking for her. The disappearances of young cute college students didn't typically go unnoticed. And though she was dumb enough to go knocking on the doors of strangers after dark, she probably wasn't dumb enough to do it without telling anybody where she was going, so the search would probably begin soon.

  He had to get rid of her. The question was, how much time did he have? A day? A couple of hours?

  Under other circumstances, a couple of hours with a victim would barely seem worth the effort. But tonight, it sounded like paradise.

  Did he have even that long? What if she lived at home, and his house was her last scheduled visit before she was late for dinner? The cops could be one or two houses down already, doing a methodical search.

  Would they suspect him, though? Would they suspect that the guy with the cute dog was a killer?

  Yeah, probably. Charlie still had to admit that he was kind of creepy.

  "What should I do?" he asked Kutter, who lay on the cement floor, chewing on a piece of rawhide. He didn't like having Kutter down here, as if the dog might think less of him for what he'd done, but he knew that if he kept the basement door closed, Kutter would just stand outside of it and bark. Loud barking in his home was not a good thing at this moment.

  The smartest course of action would be to quickly end her life and dispose of the body...but freebie victim or not, it seemed like a waste. If this was divine intervention, which it wasn't, was it a good idea not to make the most of his gift?

  "Now you're just trying to rationalize it," he said out loud. Kutter looked away from his rawhide for a moment as if Charlie was speaking to him. "Ba
d idea. Bad, bad idea."

  He needed to slit her throat, soak up as much pleasure as he could from the act, and then get rid of her. Dump her in the Body Pond.

  Or...?

  He could take her someplace else. Someplace far away. Someplace where he could take as much time as he wanted.

  His emergency shelter?

  He owned a crappy little cabin deep in the sticks, about a five-hour drive away, left to him when his second set of foster parents died. He'd only visited it a couple of times, and had stocked it with canned food, bottled water, and other emergency supplies. His plan was that if he ever did screw things up badly enough that the police found out about his murders, he could hide out there for quite a long time.

  The cabin was miserable, though. He'd only go live there as an absolute last resort.

  And it wasn't soundproofed. His assumption was that if he ever had to flee from the police, he'd probably quit killing women for a while. Deep in the sticks or not, he couldn't have a live victim out there, so the cabin idea was out. He'd deal with her here.

  Charlie walked over to the table and ran his fingers through her hair. She was absolutely beautiful.

  Killing her seemed like...a crime.

  What a bizarre way to feel.

  He'd been given the gift of a lifetime (admittedly, a high-risk gift that could easily land him in prison) and he just didn't really want to kill her. He sort of wished he'd asked her to go get coffee instead.

  The whole situation reminded him of when he'd gone to a buffet restaurant, and he'd eaten until he was full and didn't want to eat anymore. As he was walking toward the exit, he'd noticed that they put out strawberry cheesecake. He didn't much feel like eating dessert after his huge meal, but he knew that he loved strawberry cheesecake and would have pounced upon the opportunity to have some if he weren't so full, and he'd felt compelled to eat it anyway.