Blood Marks, page 15
I didn't reveal myself. I took my purchase, thanked her politely and left.
I came back later to see where she went when she got off work.
She got in a red Toyota that was parked at the back of the store and drove out to Loop 610 and followed it to 1-45 South, then headed in the direction of Galveston. I followed her, which wasn't hard in the rush-hour traffic. She couldn't go very fast, and she would certainly never notice another car that was going her way. There were thousands of them.
She got off the interstate at Monroe and drove to a Mexican restaurant, where she met a man. They had a few margaritas, then ate a fajita dinner for two. I was watching all the time.
They didn't go home together, so I followed her from the restaurant. She lived in an apartment not far away.
I'm good at getting in apartments.
Three nights later, I was at her door, in a uniform. This one looked a little like a police uniform, and I told her I was from Security, that we'd been having complaints about noise from her apartment. I was even wearing a kind of badge.
She watched me from that little peephole that doors have in them and told me that there was no one there except for her and that she had been watching TV, but that it wasn't turned up loud.
I said that if that was the case, she wouldn't mind letting me check.
She let me in.
I still can't believe how easy it is, but people really are too trusting. They'll believe almost any story you tell them and then open their doors for you. I don't know why. I do know that I would never open my own door for anyone. It's just a stupid thing to do.
This time, I'd waited until after dark to go to the apartment, and I don't believe anyone saw me. I simply drove into the parking lot, parked in an inconspicuous spot between two cars and waited until there was no one around. Then I got out and walked to her door.
When I was inside the apartment, I pretended to look around, just to make things look good, and then I got ready to leave, telling her that I was sorry to have bothered her but that she probably understood how people were when they thought there was unnecessary noise in the apartments.
She was walking me to the door, and she started to tell me that, yes, she understood, when I hit her.
I pivoted on my foot and punched her in the stomach as hard as I could. I really put everything into it, since I couldn't afford to make a mistake. She was young and firm and had a hard stomach, but still my fist almost touched her backbone.
Her breath whooshed out and she went down. She lay there gagging and trying to get her breath, her face extremely red, and for a minute I was afraid I'd killed her already.
I certainly hoped not.
There were things I wanted to do before she died.
I got my gloves out of my pocket and slipped them on. I had avoided touching anything until then.
Then I tore her shirt—she was wearing a shirt and shorts—and tied her and made a gag. By the time I got the gag on her, she was almost able to breathe, and she was taking in huge gulps of air. She got even redder when I put the gag on, and maybe some of that was fear, but she did have a bit of trouble getting air in through her nose.
She did all right, though.
I stood there and watched her until I was sure that she was going to be able to breathe. I was smiling pleasantly at her, or at least I thought it was a pleasant smile. By the look on her face, I could tell she didn't share my opinion, but I didn't really care.
Then I could smell something foul. I looked at her, and her shorts were wet.
It was disgusting, and I almost killed her then, but I wasn't going to let her off so easily. She had to be taught a lesson.
"Can you hear me?" I said.
She nodded frantically. It was too bad about the gag, but I really couldn't afford to take it off. She was obviously not in a fit state to be trusted, even if she promised to be quiet.
"You know that you're in serious trouble, don't you?" I said.
She nodded again, her head wagging up and down. It was gratifying to see how cooperative she was being.
"Good. Now I want you to know something." I smiled even more pleasantly. "I'm going to kill you."
It was the first time I'd ever really warned one of them. I wanted to see her reaction.
It was not disappointing.
Her eyes got huge and round, and she shook her head from side to side, and big tears boiled out of her eyes.
The noise in my head responded by getting louder than it had ever been before. It was almost as if her eyes were speaking to me, begging me not to do whatever it was I had in mind.
I took my knife from inside the jacket and let her see it, holding it so the light reflected off the blade. It was a pretty impressive sight, if I do say so myself, and I knew what it could do, even if she didn't.
"You have the blood marks," I said.
She looked puzzled then, as if she had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.
Maybe she didn't.
I looked at her chin, however, and the marks were there.
There was no mistaking them now, as they pulsed up and down like slimy leeches that had attached themselves to her. I cut them off.
She almost inhaled the gag, and then she screamed.
Even with the gag on, with the blood running down her chin and making red streaks on her neck, she screamed.
It wasn't loud, but it was a scream, nevertheless. I couldn't have that. Someone might hear. I had to stop her, so I cut her throat.
Blood fountained out, hard; I must have sliced one of those arteries in there, and I was sorry I hadn't worn the raincoat again. I should have, because blood got all over me, making dark stains on the uniform. But that was all right. I didn't intend to be seen, and it was dark outside by that time anyway.
I had to cut her face some more, just to be certain that the blood marks were gone. She was wearing a mask of blood now, and I couldn't really tell.
You can understand that I had to be sure. I didn't do it for the enjoyment. It is enjoyable, I'm sure I've mentioned that, but that's not why I do it. I have to destroy the marks, and the fact that it provides a certain amount of enjoyment is just a fortunate side effect.
Anyway, what I mean is that I didn't enjoy cutting her face up. It was enough to kill her.
But I have to make sure the marks are gone.
I didn't do a very good job of it, I'm sorry to say. I made a slit up both sides of the face and then peeled the skin back toward the ears, but it's not as easy to do something like that as you'd think. I kept tearing the skin, and it just wouldn't come smoothly, so I settled for ripping it back as best I could and leaving it at that.
There was no way the blood marks could survive something like that, or at least I didn't think so.
When I finished, I looked out the peephole in the door. There was no one around, and I opened the door a bit.
I didn't see a soul, so I walked out, closed the door, removed my gloves, and went to my car.
I'm sure there was blood on the doorknob and the facing, but no fingerprints. The gloves took care of that.
I passed no one, and no one saw me from a window as far as I know. I drove away and parked on a dark street and touched myself.
I couldn't wait any longer.
Part Two
A CHILD'S GARDEN
OF PERVERSITY
THE KILLER'S STORY
Chapter 28
When he was small, his father was the one who took up for him.
"What you wanta pick on the kid for, Edna? Jesus, he ain't even big enough to understand what you're sayin' to him."
His father was a little man, not over five feet three inches tall, and about as thin as a razor blade. He looked like he could slither under a door like a lizard if he wanted to.
His mother was not little.
People who saw her and his father together always smiled behind their backs, or laughed outright, wondering how on earth such a couple ever got together. There were lots of jokes about Jack Sprat, who could eat no fat, and his wife, who could eat no lean.
His parents never heard the jokes, however. No one would dare say anything like that in front of his mother.
She was closer to six feet tall than to five, and she weighed in at around two fifty. Even she didn't know for sure. That was as high as the bathroom scale went.
His father never had a very good job, and he was never able to hold any job for very long.
Whenever he got fired, there was always a good reason, however.
"The boss didn't like the way I talked up to him. He thinks ever'body oughta kiss his ass, but I don't do that for nobody. He can get himself another boy, that's all. Bastard."
Or: "They said I was late ever' day last week. Shit. I wasn't late, not one damn time. And if I was, it was because the damn buses ran late. Jesus. Is it my fault if the fucking public transportation in this town can't keep to a schedule? If they want to fire me because of that, then they can take their job and stick it."
Or: "Said I didn't take any pride in my work, didn't have what it takes to 'advance.' What the hell do they want? I give 'em a full day's work for the little bit they pay me and don't bitch about nothin’. Fuckers want a robot in a dress suit, let 'em hire one."
Or: "Said I was dippin' in the till! Goddamn! What do they think I am, some kind of two-bit thief? Hell, if they paid a decent wage, then they wouldn't be thinking any such thing."
Nevertheless, he always seemed to work. It might be as a used-car salesman, it might be as a telephone solicitor, it might be as a swamper at one of the bars, it might be as a short-order cook, it might be nearly anything at all. He had a way of presenting himself and making himself seem like a good risk.
He wasn't, but it usually took the employers quite a while to find out that he was chronically late, habitually absent, lazy as a cat and completely unable to resist taking money that wasn't very carefully watched.
For however long it took to be found out, he would bring home his pay and be a good provider. In a way, he wasn't even a bad head of the family. He didn't go out and get drunk and waste what little money they had, nor did he spend what he earned on things that they didn't really need.
Still, he had not the least trace of ambition. He was content to live in the cheapest housing he could find, eat the cheapest brands of food, wear the oldest, most worn clothes.
His wife didn't care.
They had met at some bar or another one evening and recognized somehow that they were kindred spirits. As long as they could exist at a certain minimal level, they would both be happy. Neither would make any demands on the other.
All she cared about was being allowed to stay at home, have a few beers whenever she wanted them, watch TV and do whatever work absolutely had to be done—that and no more.
She didn't like to do housework, she didn't like to cook, she didn't like to be bothered.
It all worked fairly well for a good long time, and then the baby boy was born, more or less by accident.
She hadn't wanted him, not at all.
"Kids don't do anything but make a mess and cause trouble," she informed her husband when she was sure she was pregnant. She was sitting on the couch watching a game show on TV, eating potato chips out of a plastic bowl that she held in her lap. "I think we oughta do something about it."
He knew what she meant, but he wasn't in favor of it.
"Sure, the little brat'll be a lot of trouble, but kids are kinda nice, you know?" he said. "It might be kinda nice to have one around the house, somebody to carry on the old family name."
"What the hell," she said. "What family name is that? You think you got a name to be proud of? You been fired off more jobs than a dog's got fleas."
He was an amiable sort, not given much to argument. When he got fired, he left the job without a word or a backward glance. If they didn't want him, then who cared?
He was the same way at home. He didn't like conflicts.
"If that's the way you feel about it, then," he said, reaching for some of the potato chips.
It was the way she felt, but she was about as much of a self-starter as her husband. She wanted to terminate the pregnancy, but she didn't seem to have the energy to do so. She just lay around the house and got bigger and bigger.
The house wasn't much to brag about, but it was almost paid for. The husband had inherited it from an uncle who had paid on it for twenty years and had only five more years to go. The payments were low, even if the location was bad.
It was in a decaying neighborhood of similar houses, all wood, which did not stand up well to the Gulf Coast climate unless taken good care of. The roof sagged, the yard was overgrown, some of the boards were rotten. But it was livable, and that was all they cared about.
The baby was born at a charity hospital, and they brought him home in the middle of the winter. The house was warmed by space heaters, but it was never too hot. There were too many drafts.
The baby was trouble from the start, crying and demanding a lot of time and care that no one wanted to give. Neither husband nor wife wanted to get up in the middle of the night, walk across the cold floor and take care of the feeding or changing or whatever needed to be done.
So they didn't.
The baby got used to being deprived, to being hungry and eating voraciously whenever something was offered to him, to having a terrible case of diaper rash.
He got used to it, but he didn't stop his crying.
Edna didn't like it, and she would often swat him, trying to make him stop. The father took up for him, but that didn't do much good. Edna didn't pay much attention.
"Shut up, kid, for God's sake," she would say, slapping him lightly or not so lightly across the face. "I'm trying to watch TV."
He got used to the slapping, too, or at least managed to ignore it.
At first, it naturally caused him to cry that much harder, to express his dissatisfaction more loudly, but after a while, he seemed to withdraw more into himself.
Edna was pleased. "Just goes to show you got to let the little fucker know who's the boss," she said.
She changed him when she thought about it, fed him when she got around to it. That was all she intended to do.
He survived. Children are much stronger than most people think, and they can get by under circumstances that would seem to some to be quite impossible.
So he grew up. He eventually learned to crawl, not that he ever got any encouragement, and then he got into even more trouble.
Edna didn't want him in the way, and she didn't want him messing things up. It wasn't that she kept things especially clean. In fact, it was probably the other way around. She didn't keep things clean, and she didn't keep them neat, but she did keep them in a kind of order.
"Don't touch that, you little sonofabitch," she would say as he reached out for the potato chip bowl or the TV section of the newspaper. "Leave it where it is."
He didn't understand a word, naturally enough, so he kept on reaching and touching.
Edna would belt him, or kick him or push him away so hard that he might crack his head against the wall.
"I told you not to touch it, didn't I?" she would say.
He wasn't stupid. He soon learned from her tone of voice what she was demanding. But he was stubborn. He kept on reaching and touching and getting belted.
There were other signs besides the tone of voice that he learned to watch for as well.
His mother loomed above him, big as a mountain, but when he looked up at her, he always seemed to notice her face. She had legs like tree trunks, and a kick from one of them could send him halfway across the room, but the legs didn't claim his attention. Even the pillow-like stomach that pushed out the front of her polyester pants didn't distract from the face. She was never well groomed, and her hair was always hanging loose and wild, but the hair was not what he noticed, either.
It was always the face, probably because of the livid scar that ran from the corner of the left eye in a jagged line down the cheek to about the point of the mouth.
It was a scar that she never explained to anyone, not even her husband, who didn't care where she got it. It wasn't any of his business.
It was a thin scar and looked as if it might have been caused by a razor blade or a very sharp knife, but it might have been the result of some kind of automobile accident. It didn't really matter.
What mattered was the way the scar behaved.
It was just there, ashen and gray, most of the time. But not when Edna got angry.
Then it was another story entirely.
When she got angry, the scar would begin to change, to redden, only slightly at first, and then more and more.
Oddly enough, her face never really changed its color. Only the scar changed.
And as it got redder and redder, it seemed almost to develop a life of its own, to writhe on her face like some creature that was drawing its strength from her, feeding on her anger, growing as her rage grew. It would actually enlarge, becoming more of a welt than a simple line of scar tissue.
Even when her open hand was coming at him, even when her foot was aimed at him, the scar was the only thing he could see.
He never tried to escape her, never tried to move away. He always stared in fascination at the scar.
Watching it grow.
Watching it redden until it became the color of blood.
Chapter 29
It was raining.
It rained a lot in Houston, sullen thunderstorms that came in from the Gulf, covering the sky with thick gray clouds and sending down the rain in steady, depressing streams.
The roof of the house leaked, but not much. It was nothing that the husband, whose name was Carl, couldn't live with, and Edna didn't give a damn as long as she didn't have to clean up any water.
Carl just set a bucket under the leak and let it go. Every few hours he would empty the bucket in the sink, and that took care of things.
The boy didn't know much about the rain, and he knew less about the purpose of the bucket. He wasn't even old enough to know what the bucket was or what it was for.
