5 Chapter 5: Dell Fisher, Part 4
Dell tossed the shovel onto the ground and looked back at Miriam's wrapped body.He left her on the ground and walked back to the cabin, unlocked the door and stepped inside, leaving the front door open.He appeared back on the old wooden porch and dragged out another body wrapped in plastic.This body was much heavier and Dell noticed the blood smeared in small circular swirls around the person's back.He learned that he could take down a buck just as efficiently as he could a man.
He didn't say anything as he dragged the body to the well.He was much heavier than Miriam and each time Dell exhaled, a cloud of fog escaped his mouth and the cold, crisp air made him appear like an old smoking steam engine.
Dell slid the body of the man over to the well, pushed it in and watched as the plastic tarp and its contents disappeared down into darkness.He then turned to the body of his unlawfully wedded wife.She soon joined her lover.He stared into the well for a moment and wiped his nose with his glove.The coldness and the bit of heavy lifting had caused his nose to begin to run.Dell then slid the planks back over the hole and used the shovel to stir around the leaves, camouflaging the well again.
Dell closed the front door to his cabin, tossed the shovel into the truck bed and climbed back into his old Ford.The old reliable engine started and he put the truck in reverse.He placed a hand along the seat beside him and began to back the truck up.He looked at his gloved hand on the seat and flexed his fingers.Good gloves, he said.
He drove slowly down the dirt road toward Highway 43 and headed for home to prepare his peaceful holiday dinner of buck shank, yams, canned-peas, a Coors Lite and the apple pie Miriam bought at the grocery store yesterday.
Serial am I, Part 1
Give me some rest
I feel so old
My blood is drained
Turning me cold
-Voivod
To kill.To murder.To take a life.Have you ever?Do you know what it feels like to hold a heart as it rhythmically slows until it no longer beats?Do you know how it feels to thrust your hands into a pool of warm blood and feel the temperature gradually cool?Colder and colder it gets.Thicker and thicker, like a pot of pasta sauce on the stove.Burner off- forever.Slowly cools but forever staining your hands.
No, not a hunter deep in the woods in search of a helpless deer.Never a coward like that, hiding in the brush or in a makeshift nest in the tree waiting for his prey.Not a soldier on a battlefield, shooting to kill or to be killed for God and his country, hiding in the trenches.
I don't hide.I am out in the open behind you at the grocery checkout line, in the car next to you in that traffic jam yesterday and invited to your child's birthday party.I am the one wearing the paper, coned-birthday cap and eating cake next to your family.I am behind you and your best friend at the cinema.You, watching the movie and me, watching you.I watch everyone around me.
Who will be next?Whose life will end by the power of my hands and by the power of my knife? The birthday clown that didn't make you laugh?The movie theater attendant who overcharged you for popcorn?The driver in the car in front of me in traffic who always stops short or lets every other car into our lane?My knife cautiously slides through the chest wall between the bones, moving in deeper like cutting the perfect slice of cake.My victim's blood escaping and covering my hand the deeper and deeper I go with the eyes, once big and round with surprise and fear, slowly closing.The tension in the body gone forever.My sweet victory.
I must dive into you deeply and feel you go.Not a killer. Not a murderer.Not a hunter.I am a survivor and I must end your life to survive.
I am like the jolly fat elf who creeps down your chimney or the winged beast who reaches under your pillow while you sleep to steal your teeth. I can be anywhere, everywhere, and no one will know until they take the first of their finals breaths.
At first, I'd kill by the usual methods like stabbing with a kitchen knife, thrusting an ice pick into the eye socket and then through the brain and once I had to carve a body like a Thanksgiving turkey with a chainsaw.Unfortunately, none of those methods were ever truly satisfying.Suddenly like a stroke of genius, a life-altering spark hit me one day while I had a young woman tied to a chair.I was about to slit her throat with a corkscrew I found in her house when something struck me, literally.It was one of her cats.I looked down and saw a grey, short-haired feline rubbing its body back and forth on my pant leg.I looked up at the restrained girl to tell her that her cat would die first but then I saw another cat jump up onto the couch cushion behind her, then another one.She had three cats.
The corkscrew in my hand felt like a foreign object.I placed the spiraled metal opener back down on the coffee table.I turned and walked into the kitchen and opened each cupboard until I found what I was instinctively looking for- cat food.Cans and cans of cat food were piled up high on a shelf.I grabbed one, Tuna Medley, and searched for a can opener.An electric open was mounted under one of the cabinets and I attached the lid to the magnetic piece of the can opener and pressed the power button.The can slowly spun as the opener groaned.The lid popped up more and more as it spun around until it finally detached from the bottom of the can.I threw the bottom of the can on the kitchen floor and Tuna Medley spilled out across the tile.The three cats came running and began slurping up their new feast.
