Chapter One
The autumn day showed orange and yellow as is typical for this part of the year, in this part of the country. The leaves that covered the road swirled behind Barrett’s brown 1970 Coupe Deville, a monster of a machine whose fine lines of chrome sparkled under the afternoon sun. The black plushed interior seemed to stagnate the hot Indian summer air swirling in from the half opened windows. Gazing far down the road, as if in meditation, Barrett made no notice of the heat. In fact his body showed no signs of perspiration. He down-shifted his modified 6 on the floor configuration and slid the rear of the vehicle around a tight curve as if this massive road hog had the soul of Porsche. He thought about the day’s accomplishment and the night work that it would soon entail. A smile began to crack the corner of his mouth which he quickly righted and returned to his more familiar stern expression. He really did enjoy his job and all its fruits. A quick glance to the back seat reassured him of his success, at least in part. Though much preparation and skillful workmanship remained, the part that he enjoyed the least was already done.
The caddy floated through the brown dead foliage at great speed before easing left past a red “Do Not Enter” sign. Just to the right read another sign “No Trespassing: Trespassers will be shot.” He had never owned a gun and never planned to. Without slowing Barrett approached a vine covered steel gate which opened automatically. Even thicker vines all but enveloped the fence which seemed to melt into the forest in both directions. Continuing at full pace the coupe topped the hill past the gate bringing his eyes in direct contact with the dull orange sun hanging just millimeters above the horizon. The caddy was traveling at such speed that it nearly launched the iron sled into the air. In the air, Barrett thought, he would have no traction and would not be able to avoid a collision with the sun. This would undoubtedly hinder or slow his ability to finish his work. This of course was not acceptable so he slowed the vehicle to a more manageable level of speed.
As the road curved towards the right a simple white house began to emerge from the left side of the sun as if it had been hiding behind it. Its architecture was a meld of colonial styling with Frank Lloyd Wright crispness. The largely windowed sun bleached two story wooden home was surrounded on all sides by a wide porch cornered and bisected by huge square wooden columns. Glass sparked from every facet of the home. Clear from the woods and pasted on to the lush brown grasses it stood alone as a reminder of the solitude Barrett felt in this world. Not to be confused with loneliness by any means his solitary life was mainly by choice, if not for greed. Barrett had secrets. Secrets he never wanted to share.
He rounded the final curve of the driveway which landed the caddy just below the steps that led up to the double front doors, engaged the parking gear and sat. He watched the sun settle heavily onto the convex horizon until it had tucked itself conveniently behind the hills. As the light faded so did the heat. Barrett rose tall and thin above the car and opened the rear suicide door. He stared at the green cedar case strapped and edged by riveted brass. Shaped much like a cello or double bass case, its warm tones matched beautifully to the autumn colors. With a grunt he slid it’s thinner half towards the...to be continued (like so many other thing)
Hello reader, my name is Richard Billings. This of course is a pseudonym, for the tale that I am about to weave is not woven at all. But consists of the very fiber of true life. I am a writer of fiction which, if you are an avid reader of the American “best sellers list” then you have read probably 12 or more of my fictional novels. This book unfortunately is not fiction. This is more of an experiment of the human psyche. This is a test of a ‘horror and science-fiction’ writer’s separation to reality.
Have you ever noticed how the fiction writers never seem to compare to the real gore that you can find in true crime. Psycho’s Norman Bates’ crimes paled in comparison to the feats of his real-life effigy, Ed Gien. The most imaginative figurative writers can never equal the deep mental instabilities achieved by the average human being. I have horrified millions of people through my countless novels and even a few non fiction accounts but, have never have been able to achieve this type of realism in my fiction. Never able to achieve the absolute certainty that what I am sending to the reader is actual. I have never been able to portray, with any conviction, that what you have read is, beyond my own imagination, correct.
Then enter my wife, Susan. Always the blessed angle and horrid devil that has saved and corrupted my life since the day I met her. Thank God for her. Everything that I have ever done wrong she has cultivated and led me into. Everything I have ever done right has been orchestrated by her. She has an amazing ability to hold me down at the top of a pedestal.
I was born poor and had grown somewhat accustomed to it, but once I had little money I thought I was supposed to disserve a little more expensive pussy. After the success of my first novel I systematically plugged out a horror trilogy that boosted me in with crème de la crème of American fiction writers. I found myself out of the house doing book signings and promotional AM radio spots all over the country. Untied from my first wife’s apron strings I delved into extracurricular panties and drugs. Money lent to me a life I had always dreamt of. I left my poor high school sweetheart of a wife destitute. My publishing company hired a Shapiro-style attorney who raked that bitch through the coals. She was entitled to nearly none of my earnings due to the fact that she held out on the ass. They used some very witty psychobabble, with the aid of expert witnesses and psychologists, to convince the courts that she had perpetuated my unfaithfulness by not putting out. I found it to be very pleasing; I’m smiling as I write this now. I’ve always had a mean streak which will someday become my undoing. Following my divorce case I began fucking the daughter of a well to do lawyer. My lawyer’s daughter in fact and since I had just made him a quarter of a million dollars he didn’t seem to mind a bit.
After just a few short months of divorcee partying my new girlfriend managed to get herself pregnant. The only part I found to be upsetting about this was that she had gotten herself pregnant with my sperm. I later found out that she had purposely stopped taking the birth control that I purchased monthly. “I love you so much that I wanted to give you the gift of a child” she once wrote during our seemingly endless breakups. I want you to know that I love my children dearly, but I found this to be rather insane. Children should not be a gift or any form of barter. Having children should be a mutual decision or a shared unintentional happening. Not a present to be given by one party to another. This is why women so often, during a divorce, use the kids as a tool for control.
The publishers which helped so eagerly to made me a divorced man decided that it would be in the best interests of all involved that we get married to avoid any type of scandal. I agreed if it would help to keep the money rolling in. Two months after conception we had a marriage that kept my name in the tabloid headlines for weeks. I wrote two more books during this 7 month period to avoid my mind obsessing over the predicament in which I had found myself. You would think that our over-sexed and over-cocained lifestyles would have been hindered by the introduction of a fetal commitment. This however was not the case. Susan constantly came home drunk with an eight-ball to “help me to write”. I didn’t need the shit for the first few books I had written, who then had decided that I “needed” it now? Susan. I tried, along with the help of my new found live-in brother in law, to stop her, short of physically pulling the straw from her oversized nose. I even went so far as to ask my lawyer, not her father which would be a conflict of interest I’m sure, if I could physically stop her. He advised me that this could be seen as assault and I should remember how well her father had protected my own interest. He was sure that he would protect hers much more diligently and that the millions in my bank account would be more than split 50/50 with her and my unborn child.
Susan was a very good looking woman when the beer/drug goggles were applied. She wore an exorbitant amount of makeup which did nothing but pancake her bad complexion, which was riddle with “speed-bumps” due to years of drug abuse. Her hippie phase seemed not to be a phase at all, but more of a life long obsession. Bellbottoms and lace filled our walkin closets. None of my friends could ever say that she was ugly by any means. She just seemed to be substandard compared to her purchase price.
She had trapped me into check with one child and had successfully mated me with the second (pun intended). To make matters more intense she had a vaginal condition, I can only assume, which only supported the Y chromosome carrying sperm. So I and her previous husband were destined only for girls. Female children have a way of becoming extremely endeared to their fathers, which in turn endeared me to them. I knew after the first glimpse of their ever developing personalities that I could never live without them by my side everyday. I seemed to be surrounded by estrogen. Two beautiful daughters, a wonderful step-daughter, a wife, a female feline, and even the damn Chihuahua was a bitch.
After the birth of our children, which were three years apart, we continued our previously mentioned life style. We had as much money as anyone could ever want and we went so far as to hire an Au Pare to take care of the kids when we slept until 5 pm after our all night binges. The books seem to keep coming and the sales were there as well. That is until book sales began to dwindle in the early ‘90’s. Our extravagant living began to suffer which, by my wife’s account was not acceptable. Susan began action as my manager. My initial response would have been “Bitch, Get your own job”, but of course once you’re married, unless you’re willing to give up your kids, you better not start any shit.
She made several unsatisfactory suggestions such as writing a children’s book. Fuck children (not literally.) Children don’t buy books. Write a screenplay. Why so some idiot can rewrite it and put it on the USA channel? Write a love story under a pseudonym. I’d never write under a false name, until now. Then after a long night of screwing and snorting mass amounts of powder came the only suggestion that made any sense.
We had just read a review of my newest novel. This idiot from the New York Times had been bashing my novels for years. This fucking 30 year old piece of shit, who hadn’t written so much as a novella, hit home for the first time. He explained how my novels had been losing their bite over the years. How my horror had begun to transform itself into slight campfire ghost stories. My horror writing had taken a more magical feel than the terror of true life that I had been so successful at writing in the past. No one is really frightened of spirits from beyond the grave, alien invasions or witches spells. I had even slumped to the point of writing a vampire novel. I needed to get back to my roots but, I had lost my muse.
Susan suggested, during an unclear moment of clarity, that we could study the minds of real killers. Put ourselves into their minds and write exactly as if we had performed the unspeakable crimes ourselves. Intense study and research had always played a major role in the writing of even my earliest stories. I began to feel that with a little motivation, which she now was providing, that I could probably pull it off. I could research all of the serial killers of recent history (though all of them are recent). I could not only place my studies into the minds of killers who had been caught and psychoanalyzed but, also place myself into the educationally fabricated, psychologically profiled, minds of murderers never brought to justice. The internet could now be my muse. I would steal from the fucked up minds of idiots who really did the shit. It was genius, even if it was the brainchild of my 14% retarded wife.
So began the research phase. We started by trying to list and define the various types of murders or types of killings. We started the following list:
* Random Acts of Violence
* Serial Killers
* Mass Murders
* Killing in the Name of (God or otherwise)
* Sex Crimes
* Cannibalism
* Killing for Profit (assassins or even insurance fraud)
* Sport Killing (just for fun)
* Hate Crimes
* Crimes of Passion
* Child Killers
I’m sure that there are many more categories, but we figured that these would be enough to fill a novel or two. The latter I decided not to pursue because of my personal connection with my daughters. I didn’t want to sound weak and the killing of a innocent child, even fictional, would not be a persona which could easily adapt.
The expanse at which you might find information on these subjects is vast. Every freak on the web seems to be compulsed with others who have mental problems which supercede their own. This has led to countless sites dedicated to killers, murders, rapist and even child pornographers. Information at the click of a finger seemed so easy compared to my early days. Shit, I didn’t even have to think about proper spelling anymore thanks to Gates. I can’t say that I’m all that pleased with this ease of use we afford these days. Now, any insomniac can write a book and it only takes a right-click to get a synonym from the built in thesaurus.
I spent many hard months, with the aid of my house wife, (who neither cooked, cleaned nor even took care of the kids) sifting through the deluge of information we were able to collect. We studied individual accounts of murders through police inquiries and biographies. Watered down true-crime novels provided fuel to our fire. Even a documentary or two on the Discovery channel fed our hunger for factual murder.
I began to find myself reliving the attrocities of my subject matter. I would mentally walk through the scene of the crime. I bought or acquired various weapons to match the crimes that I was researching. I wanted to feel the weight of the pistol or knife in my hand. I envisioned the horrified look on my victoms face. Blood stained walls and clothes filled my dreams. I went so far as to purchase a slab of beef so as to learn what it feels like to puncture flesh between the ribs. I was a becoming a part of the crimes that I ;researched. I could place myself at any instance of the murderous timeline. I could envision every detail no matter how insignifigant. I could not, however, replicate the mental imperfections of the criminals. I found it impossible to feel the anger needed to perfom such feats. I could translate the crimes to paper but they read as if they were just historical documentation. My fool proof plan was no where near the perfection my next novel would need. I had to do something to get the ball rolling, and I had to do it soon.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I desperatly needed to get my desperate bitch of a wife off my back. Desperation quickly turned to cold persperation when she proposed, for the first time, the change of plan that would ultimatly materialize into the story that you are now reading. I thought it to be a joke at first. I had never seen a purposly evil side to Susan. All that she had done to me was due to the mental instabilites inheirant to the female gender. This was frigid and calouse. She said it with such conviction as if there was no moral delima to be fought out. Her eyes pierced me as she spoke.
“What if we really kill somone?”
I stared without a change on my face. She swayed a bit from the martinis and watched me as if waiting for a reation. None came, so began the sales pitch.
“If your problem is that you can't seem to recreate something you've never even slightly experienced then you need to experience it first hand. And what are the chances of you stubbling across a murder in progress. I'm sure that you have more of a chance witnessing your own murder than someone elses. Shit if I thought that would work I'd probably kill you myself but, I'd need you to tell the story.”
She was making some sense. That last part did pinch me in the side a bit but, procede by all means.
“For the guilt issues that could pop up we'd just have to pick people who shouldn't be alive anyway. Rapist or child pornographers. People you hate any fuckin' way. If I had my pick it'd be that bitch exwife of your's.”
She seemed to know the questions that were blowing through my mind. She belched a drunk lady-burp and continued.
“If your worried about getting caught we've got all the resources we could ever need through Dee”
Dee was Jessie Denson. Jessie James Denson to be exact. Dee was a forensics specialist for the FBI and had been my friend since my second book. His research help had been noted in nearly every book afterwards. He specialised in using anything and everything about the crime scene and body as ireputable evidence by which to convict without a resonable doubt. I could through him reverse engineer the perfect crime and desguise it as book research.
“Let me sleep on it.” I said numbly. I took her to bed and drove it like I stole it.
I woke the next morning to the sound of Metal Dick, a Disc Jockey on the local Rock Alternative, discussing the recent rash of sniper shootings taking place all over the tri-state area. For the Last 11 days there that been a shooting everyday. There were two the previous day seemingly because the first victim, Linda Murphey, had not died by 5pm. The shooter must have saw this as unsatisfactory and had selected a second target that evening sometime during mine and Susan's conversation. Linda died less than an hour after this second victim.
I had been following the strory for over a week and had even made notes to use in my book research. It appeared that the sniper had no motive. The targets picked seeminly at random. No patterns could be found in the locations of the shooting. No hard evidence beyond bullets and bodies had been collected. Dee had told me that even the bullets, which exploded on impact, were so fragmented that they could not be easily matched to any gun. It was beginning to look like the perfect crime and the perfect crime was what I needed for my wife's little plan to work.
Part of the research I had done included Copycat Killers. Since the advent of the modern day serial killer there has always been copycats. Copycats have many motives, most often just for the sheer fantasy of reliving a famous event. Others, however, use the same M.O. of other murderers to send detectives sniffing down the wrong trail. I planned to do just that by copying the sniper. I would need some details on the crimes which I, of course, knew where to find.
Dee's office was downtown in 30 story chunk of coal that loomed menacingly above the other more traditionally architectured buildings. In one of the largest FBI centers in the country Dee's office was a “barely larger than a broom closet” single windowed space on the 24th floor. From the brass telescope on his windowsill you couldn't make out shit because it, like everything else in his cluttered mess, is just cheap “executive” mock up , made to look expensive, just pretend you don't notice, crap. Files from the various cases could be seen sandwiched between the magazines and books strown about. Dee had worked himself up through the ranks and now could make his pick of the cases available. He stood only 2 inches above my miniscule 5' 3” stature. He was always dressed in wrinkled short sleeved button downs with the tie pulled slack to the right side. Today was no different.
“Damn, Debbie, Don't you ever shut the fuck up?”
Frank queried gingerly and rolled off of Debbie and landed with a thud on the stained spring mattress. He sprawled for his tightly-whiteies, now yellow from his constantly seeping piss hole, and pulled them up quickly over his hairy belly.
“You never shut the fuck up!”
He belched at her before rolling his ass at her and anally expelling a bowel full of methane her way. He pinched quickly to stop the emanate discharge about to erupt. Frank got the shits every time he drank. Frank drank everyday. Everyday Frank had the shits. In the early days Frank thought that his body just wasn't used to alcohol and that if he drank everyday his body would, after time, become immune to it's diareahal effects. Frank, instead, became accustomed to having the shits. Debbie watched with little disdain as he swung his legs off the edge of the bed and prepared to make the leap he made most mornings.
Frank was born a normal baby and grew normally until the age of 2. Because of a disease he contracted from drinking the water while his mother hooked her way through college in Guam, his body then kept growing at normal rates except for his legs and arms. This kept Frank on the short-bus for most of his childhood. He spent most of young years shacked up with other jello eating retards in the Zoo. The Zoo was the “Canadian Mental Health Facility and Lamp Factory” in Nebraska. This was where Frank first abused drugs (mostly prescribed), first drank, fingered his first piece of pussy. Who cares if she was a tard? It wasn't like one those snotty whiteclad nurse bitches was gonna drop trou and hop on for a ride on some sideshow freak dick. Frank always hated being lumped in with the tards. Shit he taught himself to read porn novels at the ripe age of 4 years old. None of that D. H. Lawrence shit either. He only liked the hardcore stuff like “Barnyard Frenzy” and “Coffee, Tea, Buttfuck Me!”. Now in his forties Frank had the body of Danny DiVito and the appendages of a 2 year old. Not just in size, but it was as if they had escaped puberty or aging in any way. His hairless arms and legs were slightly scarred from years of wear and tear. His hands were somewhat calloused and his fingernails were always edged with dirt. Other than these few exceptions Frank was adorned with with toddler limbs.
He jumped to the floor and began to waddle quickly towards the open bathroom door.
“I love you, Frank.” Debbie whispered just over her breath. Frank flipped her the bird without looking and snarled.
“I'm hungry, Bitch!” He continued towards the bathroom now in full sprint....
I had just finished my third stout and was wiping the foam that draped the edge of my lip when the bar door opened a few inches and slammed shut. The spring that pulled the door had been over-wound for years and had finally knocked the bell from over the door a few months before.
A second time the door opened, a few inches more this time, and quickly shut, sending one of The Flyer's stacked near the front window onto the checkered linoleum floor. Stan's Oyster Bar had been a neighborhood icon since the 60's when Midtown was on the right side of the tracks. The decor obviously hadn't been upgraded since and several of the patrons seemed as much permanent installations as the the faded lime green fishnets and stuffed blue marlin with the broken snout. The normal clientele consisted of hippie burnouts with long beards and weathered faces or the occasional coatless businessman who loosened his tie and looked more pathetically empty than myself. Cigar and cigarette smoke burned my eyes and the air was a diffused mixture of fish, garlic, and booze. Danielle, the bartender, talked loudly on the phone at the other end of the bar. She was obviously having another fight with her boyfriend who constantly sent her back to work with visible reminders of her placement in the relationship. She could often be seen watching herself through the barback mirror and weeping softly. Years of such a lifestyle had aged her well beyond her twenty seven years. I mourned for her silently as I watched the vague silhouette through the whitewashed front windows try another attempt to enter. I nervously traced an illegible name carved in the bartop with my finger. You always knew the new comers because they never made it through the first time. I took another sip of stout as the door opened wide sending the nearly setting sun directly into my now squinting eyes. Someone moved swiftly through the slamming door, trying to avoid a collision. I heard the door come to rest against the jam with a crash and could see no more. My eyes fought to adjust to the murky darkness and slowly she faded in to view. She bent awkwardly tugging at her skirt which had not made it through as successfully as she had. She spun, stumbled, and giggled lightly as she freed herself. No one else laughed or even seemed to look up from their drinks, that is exempt for me. I watched intently as she straighted her dress and bent to pick up The Flyer from the floor and placed it neatly in it's home stack. As she approached the bar her long dark black hair, which paled her somewhat olive complexion, came to rest heavily on her shoulders and this drew me into slight panic and disappointment. I hadn't seen Lauren in more than 5 years and had missed the waves of her short red hair ever since. I often dreamt of her milk white skin specked red with freckles like strawberries scattered under a gossamer white bedsheet. She continued towards me so I purposely ignored her and stared at my beer. I wanted to avoid any contact with anyone other than Lauren. I paid no attention to her European beauty accented by her slender nose. I refused to notice her thin waist accentuated by full breasts and round hips. I made no acknowledgment of her grace and style as she passed behind me. Her natural flowered scent was unable to permeate my nasal passages and excite octic senses. She rounded my back sending warm perfumed air across my neck. I fought an urge to shiver instead stretching my neck as if to crack it. She spun the high-back of the black naugahyded barseat and leapt on to face me. Dropped her arms to her side, sat straight and tall, cocked her head to the right, and gently she smiled and stared. As I studied her face, her sharp chin, her forever deep eyes, her perfect skin that showed nearly phosphorescent without blemish or freckle. All of this embodied by a shiny black ocean who's tide is starting to go out. I focused on her jet black hair as it moved upwards and away from her face. She pulled the wig away entirely revealing dark red, almost burgundy, straight shoulder-length hair. Her smile now widened as she leaned forward to kiss my cheek. Confused and somewhat startled I inadvertently made a slight dodge to the right which she countered with a perplexed move to the left. Face to face each time we made the same mistake twice more. Still confused and bored with the dance we leaned forward and I felt my chapped mouth touching her beautifully rounded lips. We fell in to each other like TV commercial tea-lovers falling backwards into clear blue midsummer swimming pools. This felt oddly familiar but more surreal and perfect than my dreams. Our 30 second kiss lasted for more than an hour and suddenly we were facing one another bewildered, yet comfortable and content with the previous turn of events.