by Laird Barron
He turned away from his letter, stopping the ink pot. He opened his arms and his little girl ran into them.
“Be good, my darling one. Dream of sweets.”
“I will, Daddy.”
She was ribbons and lace and sleeping slippers. Smelling clean after her bath. He slipped her a candy from the drawer of his desk, and put his finger over his lips slowly. She smiled back, and flew to the door like a bright bird.
“The next job I do I shall clip the lady’s ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly, wouldn’t you?”
A promise is a promise is a promise.
He was good at keeping promises.
Three days later. One night, two women.
The first? Ah, what a disappointment. He was almost immediately interrupted by a man in a carriage. As he fled, he regretted the sloppy slash and dash. Regretted the way it left him numb.
He felt tears in his eyes but didn’t wipe them away, and they didn’t fall.
He made up for it with the second woman. Took the time. Explored her face and body with his knife, more deeply and in depth than any lover. Kept his promise, as he is wont to do, and left her earlobe barely attached.
He hovered in the dark alleys of the East End, his coat neatly buttoned. His eyes full of shine. His knife tucked securely in his belt, the blood going brackish and ugly on it, but he didn’t want to clean it, not yet. It was proof. It tied him to her.
Find me, he thought. Just find me. Here I wait.
The police ran around in a shiny-booted panic. Ran past him, several times, even. Each time, his mouth parted in breathless hope, his eyebrows arched in expectation.
“I have a daughter,” he said calmly to one as he scurried past. “She deserves better.”
The policeman cast him a look over his shoulder, but that was it. That was all.
The London fog rolled past. Like a man shunned for an invitation, a husband whose wife didn’t look up when he entered the room, he felt small.
Time passed. He cleaned his knife thoroughly with a rag. Tossed the bloody scrap on the ground. The rag catching the moonlight like something ghostly, the remnant of a person once special to somebody. He waited some more.
Nobody came.
He walked slowly home.
They never found him. They never found him even though he stood there, even though he waited. Time to up the ante, to force them to look in a way that they hadn’t been looking before.
A box. Small and precise. Something imprecise inside. Something that had been a treasure, something necessary and functioning, but now it was nothing.
His hair fell over his eyes. He pushed it aside.
“Sor,” he wrote. His penmanship was long and loopy, scrawled and uneven. Ink dripped on the paper and he cursed gently, tried to wipe it away. “I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman and prasarved it for you…” He frowned at the words. Was this how he spelled that? Why did everything look so odd? He was a gentleman of education, of taste, but this looked like it was written by another hand, by another man or monster entirely. He took a deep breath and calmed himself. Shut his eyes, hard, and thought of his schooling, of his business, of the successes that he had earned for himself. He was that man. This was only a letter. It is easy for a man of learning to write a simple letter.
He dipped his pen in the ink pot and touched it to the paper.
“…tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise.”
He steepled his fingers and put them to his lips.
A knock on the door. Soft. Gentle.
“Daddy?”
“Just… just a minute, darling.”
The box. He closed it, slid it under his desk. It smelled of blood and wine, but surely a little girl wouldn’t realize that, yes? Surely she’d be too busy thinking of pretty things. Of kittens and trinkets and perhaps something that her father could buy her? Yes. He’d offer to pick something up for her, the next time that he was out. The next time he came back from that place.
“Come in.”
She didn’t fly this time, but walked in quietly, on her toes. Why? Ah, yes, she was practicing walking softly, like a ballerina. He had forgotten.
“What delicate kitten feet,” he said, and kissed her forehead. “What dainty, beautiful steps.”
“Daddy, do you have to go out tonight?”
He paused. Quieted. His mustache remained completely still, not touched by his breath at all.
“Why do you ask?”
She looked up at him with her little girl eyes. Whore eyes. No, little girl eyes.
“Because I miss you, Daddy. We used to play games in the nursery. Mama says that you’re sick and that’s why you leave. Do you see doctors, Daddy? Is that why you go?”
He took off his spectacles, polished them.
“The whore tells you it’s a sickness, does she? Some things aren’t for little girls to know about.”
His daughter blinked, too rapidly, and he realized that his voice had changed, that he wasn’t her daddy, but something else. He tried to soften it.
“Would you like a necklace?”
“A… what?”
“Would you like a necklace? The next time I go out. To deal with my… sickness.”
“A necklace?”
“A necklace! A necklace! Are you too stupid to understand what I’m saying?”
Her hands flew to her mouth, and she took a step back.
He ran his hands through his hair.
“Oh, my darling. Oh, my little girl. Forgive me. Forgive your tired, old father. Come here. Please.”
He held his arms out to her, as he had done so many times, and she cautiously walked into them. He buried his face in her hair, smelling childhood and womanhood and rot. He pulled away.
“Go. Go from me.”
She padded silently to the door, a princess in her nightdress.
“Darling, before you leave, I have a question for you.”
“Yes, Daddy?”
“You’re good at your studies. How do you spell the word ‘kidney’?”
“Kidney?”
“Yes, like the one we had at dinner.”
“It was very good. Why didn’t you eat any?”
“Never mind that. Kidney. Spell it for me.”
“K-I-D-N-E-Y. Kidney. I… I think.”
He looked at his letter. Frowned.
“Did I… spell it right?”
Her eyes, so wide. Her face, so open. Perfect. In one piece, unseamed, seamless, without seams.
She wanted so badly to please him.
He smiled at her. “Beautiful job, my precious one. Dream sweet dreams tonight.”
She scurried away, forgetting her ballet walk, and he heard her laughing as she ran to the nursery. His heart ached.
He turned back to his letter.
“Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk.”
He stared at the page, the red ink. Felt the box under his desk with the toe of his fine shoe. Noticed the plain space on the upper right portion of the letter. Where was this written from?
He sighed, took out his pen again. His hand shook.
“From Hell.”
Covered with blood, this time. There was no way around it. Not after what he had done. Hours. Hours and hours with this one. In a room with a window, even. Would somebody walk by? Wouldn’t they please walk by? She had screamed “Murder!” and his soul had thrilled. Surely somebody would respond to that! To the cries of a beautiful woman begging for her life! But…no. Could any city really become so callous? So careless?
“I’m sorry, Polly,” he had said.
“That… that’s not my name, sir!”
He wept while he used his knife.
He could hardly find his ink pot. It had rolled on the floor. He scrabbled through flurries of papers, and finally decided on a creased envelope.
“Why, old boss?” he scrawled. He pressed so hard that the nib of his pen tore through the paper. He swore and tried again.
“You though yo
ur-self very clever I reckon, but you made a mistake. You’ll never catch me. Clews and hints I gave you, and you still dident find me. I have you when you dont expect it and I keep my word as you soon see and rip you up. ha ha I love my work an I shant stop until I get buckled and even then watch out for your old pal Jacky.
Catch me if you Can
Jack the Ripper
Sorry about the blood still messy from the last one. What a pretty necklace I gave her.”
He stood up, trembling. Wiped his red hand across his face, leaving streaks across his stubbled skin. He stuffed the letter into his pocket and reached down to pull the ribbon from Polly’s beautiful hair. Patted her cheek, or what was left of it. He wrapped her ribbon around his fist, straightened, and closed the door behind him without a sound.
Termination Dust
Laird Barron
Let be be finale of seem.
—Wallace Stevens
Hunting in Alaska, especially as one who enjoys the intimacy of knives, bludgeons, and cords, is fraught with peril. Politically speaking, the difference between a conservative and a liberal in the forty-ninth state is the caliber of handgun one carries. Le sigh. Despite a couple of close calls, you’ve not been shot. Never been shot, never been caught, knock on wood.
That’s what you used to say, in any event.
People look at you every day. People look at you every day, but they don’t see you. People will ask why and you will reply, Why not?
Tyson Langtree’s last words: “I tell you, man. Andy Kaufman is alive, man. He’s alive, bigger than shit, and cuttin’ throats. He’s Elvis, man. He’s the king of death.” This was overheard at the packed Caribou Creek Tavern on a Friday night about thirty seconds before bartender Lonnie DeForrest tossed his sorry ass out onto a snowbank. Eighteen below zero Fahrenheit and a two and a half mile walk home. Dead drunk, wearing coveralls and a Miners Do It Deeper ball cap.
Nobody’s seen the old boy since. Deputy Newcastle found a lot of blood in Langtree’s bed, though. Splattered on the walls and ceiling of his shack on Midnight Road. Hell of a lot of blood. That much blood and no corpse, well, you got to wonder, right? Got to wonder why Langtree didn’t just keep his mouth shut. Everybody knows Andy Kaufman is crazy as a motherfucker. He been whacking motormouth fools since ’84.
You were in the bar that night and you followed Langtree back to his humble abode. Man, he was surprised to see you step from the shadows.
For the record, his last words were actually, “Please don’t kill me, E!”
Jessica Mace lies in darkness, slightly drunk, wholly frustrated. Heavy bass thuds through the ceiling from Snodgrass’ party. She’d left early and in a huff after locking horns with Julie Vellum, her honorable enemy since the hazy days of high school. Is hate too strong an emotion to describe how she feels about Julie? Nope, hatred seems quite perfect, although she’s long since forgotten why they are at eternal war. Vellum—what kind of name is that, anyhow? It describes either ancient paper or a sheepskin condom. The bitch is ridiculous. Mobile home trash, bottom drawer sorority sister, tits sliding toward earth with a vengeful quickness. Easiest lay of the Last Frontier. A whore in name and deed.
JV called her a whore and splashed a glass of beer on her dress. Cliché, bitch, so very cliché. Obviously JV hadn’t gotten the memo that Jessica and Nate were through as of an hour prior to the party. The evil slut had carried a torch for him since he cruised into town with his James Dean too-cool-for-school shtick and set all the girlies’ hearts aflutter a few weeks before the Twin Towers crumbled a continent away.
Snodgrass, Wannamaker, and Ophelia, the beehive-hairdo lady from 510, jumped between them before the fur could fly. Snodgrass was an old hand at breaking up fistfights. Lucky for Julie, too. Jessica made up her mind to fix that girl’s wagon once and for all, had broken a champagne glass for an impromptu weapon when Snodgrass locked her in a bear hug. Meanwhile, Deputy Newcastle stood near the wet bar, grimly shaking his huge blond head. Or it might’ve been the deputy’s evil twin, Elam. Hard to tell through the crush of the crowd, the smoke, and the din. If she’d seen him with his pants down, she’d have known with certainty.
Here she is after the fracas, sulking while the rest of town let down its hair and would continue to do so deep into the night. Gusts from the blizzard shake the building. Power comes from an emergency generator in the basement. However, cable is on the fritz. She would have another go at Nate, but Nate isn’t around, he is gone-Johnson after she’d told him to hit the bricks and never come back no more, no more. Hasty words uttered in fury, a carbon copy of her own sweet ma who’d run through half the contractors and fishermen in the southeast during a thirty-year career of bar fights and flights from the law. Elizabeth Taylor of the Tundra, Ma. Nate, an even poorer man’s Richard Burton. Her father, she thought of nevermore.
Why hadn’t Nate been at the party? He always made an appearance. Could it be she’s really and truly broken his icy heart? Good!
She fumbles in the bedside drawer, pushing aside the cell charger, Jack’s photograph, the revolver her brother Elwood gave her before he got shredded by a claymore mine in Afghanistan, and locates the “personal massager” she ordered from Fredericks of Hollywood and has a go with that instead. Stalwart comrade, loyal stand-in when she’s between boyfriends and lovers, Buzz hasn’t let her down yet.
Jessica opens her eyes as the mattress sags. A shadow enters her blurry vision. She smells cologne or perfume or hairspray, very subtle and totally androgynous. Almost familiar. Breathless from the climax it takes her a moment to collect her wits.
She says, “Jack, is that you?” Which was a strange conclusion, since Jack presumably drifts along deep sea currents, his rugged redneck frame reduced to bones and sweet melancholy memories. All hands of the Prince Valiant lost to Davy Jones’s locker, wasn’t it? That makes three out of the four main men of her life dead. Only Nate is still kicking. Does he count now that she’s banished him to a purgatory absent her affection?
Fingers clamp her mouth and ram her head into the pillow hard enough that stars shoot everywhere. Her mind flashes to a vivid image: Gothic oil paintings of demons perched atop the bosoms of swooning women. So morbidly beautiful, those antique pictures. She thinks of the pistol in the dresser that she might’ve grabbed instead of the vibrator. Too late baby, too late now.
A knife glints as it arcs downward. Her attacker is dressed in black so the weapon appears to levitate under its own motive force. The figure slashes her throat with vicious inelegance. An untutored butcher. It is cold and she tastes the metal. But it doesn’t hurt.
Problem is, constant reader, you can’t believe a damned word of this story. The killer could be anyone. Cops recovered some bodies reduced to charcoal briquettes. Two of those charred corpses were never properly identified, and what with all the folks who went missing prior to the Christmas party…
My life flashed before my eyes as I died of a slashed throat and a dozen other terrible injuries. My life, the life of countless others who were in proximity. Wasn’t pretty, wasn’t neat or orderly, or linear. I experienced the fugue as an exploding kaleidoscope of imagery. Those images replay at different velocities, over and over in a film spliced together out of sequence. My hell is to watch a bad horror movie until the stars burn out.
I get the gist of the plot, but the nuances escape into the vacuum. The upshot being that I know hella lot about my friends and neighbors; just not everything. Many of the juiciest details elude me as I wander Purgatory, reliving a life of sin. Semi-omniscience is a drag.
In recent years, some pundits have theorized I was the Eagle Talon Ripper. Others have raised the possibility it was Jackson Bane, that he’d been spotted in San Francisco months after the Prince Valiant went down, that he’d been overheard plotting bloody revenge against me, Jessica, a dozen others. Laughable, isn’t it? The majority of retired FBI profilers agree.
Nah, I’m the hot pick these days. Experts say the trauma I underwent in Moose Val
ley twisted my mind. Getting shot in the head did something to my brain. Gave me a lobotomy of sorts. Except instead of going passive, I turned into a monster, waited twenty-plus years, and went on a killing spree.
It’s a sexy theory what with the destroyed and missing bodies, mine included. The killer could’ve been a man or woman, but the authorities bet on a man. Simple probability and the fact some of the murders required a great deal of physical strength and a working knowledge of knots and knives. I fit the bill on all counts. There’s also the matter of my journal. Fragments of it were pieced together by a forensics team and the shit in there could be misconstrued. What nobody knows is that after the earlier event in Moose Valley, I read a few psychology textbooks. The journal was just therapy, not some veiled admission of guilt. Unfortunately, I was also self-medicating with booze and that muddied the waters even more.
Oh, well. What the hell am I going to do about it now?
If you ask me, Final Girl herownself massacred all those people. What’s my proof? Nothing except instinct. Call me a cynic—it doesn’t seem plausible a person can survive a gashed throat and still possess the presence to retrieve a pistol, in the dark, no less, and plug the alleged killer to save the day. How convenient that she couldn’t testify to the killer’s identity on account of the poor lighting. Even more convenient how that fire erased all the evidence. In the end, it’s her word, her version of events.
Yeah, it’s a regular cluster. Take the wrong peg from this creaky narrative and the whole log pile falls on you. Nonetheless, you know. You know.
What if…What if they were in it together?
Nights grow long in the tooth. A light veil of snow descends the peaks. Termination dust, the sourdoughs call it. You wait and watch for signs. Geese fly backwards in honking droves, south. Sunsets flare crimson, then fade to black as fog rolls over the beach. People leave the village and do not return. A few others never left but are gone just the same. They won’t be returning either.
