That night, he decided to visit a club as he always did after enduring an hour or so with his mother. Three years ago and a year after his mother was institutionalised, he had sought relief in booze and dance. Neither had worked. What had worked was torture and murder. He had found that release by accident in a leggy blond with tits like traffic cones. They met in a nightclub. They had gone to her apartment. She had given head and taken anal and had opened him up to pleasures he had never before explored. But she had failed to disclose the nature of their transaction before they flirted and fucked. He had assumed it was a simple exchange of physical pleasure and fluids. Wrong. He had wanted sex; she had wanted money. Voices were raised, fists were swung. He reached for a pair of scissors on her bedside cabinet. He rammed them into her chest. He stood over the body, wanting to feel what any normal person should feel. But since the deaths of his brother and father he had never really been normal. Panic, fear, confusion - he waited for those feelings to overwhelm him. Instead, he felt ...relived. The tension and frustration that had been poisoning him for a year or so was suddenly gone. He had spent it all in that burst of rage. That killing moment had left him calmer than he had ever been. He had taken the scissors. Six months later his second victim had been Johnny no stars from a back-street burger bar. The man had short-changed him. He had rammed the scissors into the man's right eye in the alley, cutting short his whistling rendition of Rule Britannia.
He had left those two victims where they had fallen.
The others belonged to the barn.
He returned to his flat just eight miles from the nursing home. He shat, shaved and showered before pulling on a pair of clean jeans and a white short-sleeved shirt. He sniffed his socks; they were good for another few hours of wear. After he attacked his armpits with a few cloudy bursts of antiperspirant, he threw on his leather coat. He walked to the airing cupboard, opened the door and fell to his knees as if praying to a God whose arrival through this gateway was imminent. He removed the loose floorboard and grabbed the stainless-steel scissors, unwrapping them from their bed of red silk, awakening them from their six months of slumber. He had often wondered why he had continued to use them as his weapon of choice. He supposed it was for the same reason that a football fan would wear the same shirt again and again to his home matches or why a gardener would wear his worn gloves when weeding. It was a ritual...and it was one that had worked well for the last few years so why change it.
He did not make the seven mile journey to The Basement by taxi for the company would keep a record of the pickup and the door-to-door service was a potential link between him and any victim's last known location. He walked a mile from the flat and waited in a shelter and in the dark. The number 29 bus finally arrived. He stepped on, keeping his head low. He sat at the back, making sure no-one could sit behind him and to have a clear view of those in front. So far only a loved-up teenage couple and a middle-aged woman sat in front of him. He got off about a mile from the club and walked the rest of the way.
The serpentine queue, which reeked of testosterone and perfume, pulsed with the muffled beat of the music from within the club. Before he joined the ranks of short skirts and tight shirts, he removed the scissors from his coat and slid them down the waist band of his jeans, the blades resting between the cheeks of his arse. It was uncomfortable but he had not only become used to it but dependent on it. It was a reminder of the power he could wield. Only the bent bouncers were comfortable with feeling around another man's groin. They probably would have been quite happy to give a full body cavity search....minus the latex gloves. No-one searched him. No-one even looked at him as he shoved his entrance fee to the flat-chested woman behind the desk. He wasn't sure what face he was wearing upon entry: his friendly face that made him look as dangerous as a field mouse or his natural countenance that told others that he would be the last person they would want to mess with. Like everyone else, he found anonymity in the darkness that was erratically interspersed by a hissy-fit of coloured strobes. Everyone found his or her high in something: a drug, a shot of vodka, a burst of adrenalin, an unrestrained sexual frolic. He found his in anticipation. People lost inhibition and by way of compensation found carelessness. Others exploited those losses. Some sought sexual conquests, some, a simple, fleeting companionship...and others, something a little more sinister. He never had any more than a couple of beers while in a club on the hunt. He sipped his larger as he watched lovers dancing, strangers smooching, groups of women and men huddled together laughing. He'd been there for only a couple of hours before he was drawn to a slim brunette in her early twenties. He stood on the mezzanine on first floor as she argued with a man and another woman. The music drowned out their words. They walked away, leaving her alone. She was surrounded by hundreds of clubbers yet she looked as though she could not be more alone if she had been the only girl in the place.
He could talk to her, charm her. They would leave together. One way or another, they would wind up in her car. One way or another, she would end up with his scissors in her head. "No." He muttered the word under his breath. That wouldn't work. She was upset, hurt. Instead of brushing off the man's words she harboured his insults. She cared for him. Perhaps she would go with him, perhaps she wouldn't. He watched her for another hour during which time she grabbed an orange juice at the bar. She left. He followed her....to a taxi. Fuck. You win some; you lost some. As the taxi pulled away another car came into view.
A woman in her mid thirties stood by an old Ford. She swayed by the open door of the driver side. She fumbled to insert the keys into the ignition before she was even in the seat.
He looked around him. No-one else was in sight. He strolled to the car. "You reckon you're okay to drive?"
She turned and gasped. "Jesus, you scared me. "Of course I'm okay. Who the fuck are you anyway? Jesus. You ain't a cop are you?"
"Yes," he lied. "As far as I see it you haven't committed a crime... yet."
"Where's your id?"
"Actually, I'm off duty." He looked into her eyes. Sober, she would have questioned him further, doubted him. But she was drunk; she would have believed he was her guardian angel sent from God to protect her from a drunk-driving accident if he had told her. "Perhaps I should drive you home." He removed his cigarette packet from the shirt pocket. "Smoke?" He waited for her to nod, handed her one, then took one for himself."
"And why should I trust you?"
He lit the tip of his fag before doing the same to hers. "Hey, if you can't trust a copper then who can you trust?"
"You're right. I shouldn't be driving. I'll call myself a cab." She laughed before spluttering, "I'm a cab."
Malachi laughed with her. A part of him was tempted to force her into the car. He figured that she could offer little resistance in her condition. She wouldn't be hard to deal with even if she had been sober. She was a good deal lighter and shorter. But he had learnt that it was foolish to underestimate the strength of a woman fighting for her life. Besides, if he couldn't talk a pissed-up blond into his trap then perhaps he didn't deserve her anyway. "A taxi?" He stooped, taking a closer look at her car. "Yeah, sure, you could do that. You're insured right?" He waited for a glare of confusion before continuing. "The car might be here when you come back tomorrow. Windows will probably be smashed in though. Wheels may be gone."
"You think?" Her words issued in a billow of smoke.
"Fuck yeah. You wouldn't believe how many motors get pinched from an area like this. How long does it take to get to your place?"
"Ten...fifteen minutes." Her eyes rolled in her head as she brought her fingers to her face. "No, wait." She counted one digit after another. "Yep...ten minutes."
"I'll drive you to yours. You can call a taxi for me. I'll even wait outside." He looked about him. "It's a nice night."
"Why?" She lifted a finger. It swayed "Why do you want to help, Mr off duty police man?"
"A copper's never really off duty. " He took a puff of his cigarette then
turned to face her, his eyes inches from hers. "Listen, you could leave on your lonesome and end up as road kill at the next roundabout. If my D.I found out that I let you leave then he'll have my head on a pike. And the paper work? Fuck, they'll have to clear a forest just to push this shit through the outbox."
"You're a funny man." She smiled, blowing smoke into his face before prodding his chest again. "My name's Sally." She studied him for a moment, his build, physique, assessing his candidacy as a potential lover. Eventually, she nodded. "Yeah...why the hell not." She tossed the keys in his direction.
He clasped them in his right hand and smiled. "The name's Tommy." He used the same bullshit name he'd used many times before. He hopped into the driver seat and waited until she slid in next to him before starting the car. "You going to be okay to give directions?"
She nodded, laughed and swung a flaccid hand in front of her. "Just..." hiccup "Just head to the bowling alley. You know where that is?"
"Sure." As he drove, he listened to her ramble on about her flat mate. There was nothing going on of course. Wink wink, nudge nudge. He was as bent as a politician apparently.
"You wouldn't think it," she said. "Built like a tank. A waste of man if you ask me."
He knew then that his plan to finish her in her place - whether or not he needed to force entry - was seriously flawed. Now, he would need to contend with the fudge packer as well as this Sally and if he was as tough as she implied then it may be only his own life that would end tonight.
"You ever kill anyone?"
She was psychic. It was coincidence. A primal part of her picked up on the danger she was in and conveyed those signs that her intoxicated brain perceived as an out-of-context curiosity. He turned and stared at her. He forgot about the road and she was too far gone to even care that it was more luck than anything else that they were still on it. Did she know about his habit? He decided not. She was too calm and jovial, especially for a woman who was about to become part of his collection.
"Or are you one of those desk-jockey cops?"
He sighed, remembering who he was supposed to be. "I've seen my fair share of action."
"So," she leaned into him, "have you killed anyone?"
Her probing hardened him. The woman's eyes burned with morbidity. He reckoned that flame would burn just as brightly if she were sober. Normally, only their bodies interested him. But now, she was in life just as much of interest to him as he seemed to be to her. "Yes...I've killed." He would have bet his dick and dangles that the picture he saw in his head was not the same that entered hers. He glimpsed gore, contorted faces and mouths agape with plea. Perhaps she saw him in a high-speed pursuit, wielding a magnum through an open window to administer a Dirty Harry style of justice. "Does that not creep you out?"
She shook her head. "Bad guys get what they deserve right?"
He nodded. "Guess so."
Every now and then she interjected with a "Turn left here" or a "Turn right there."
He knew they could be only minutes from her place. He wished he could spend more time with her, just the two off them, peeling back the layers of her flesh to see just how deep her fascination with killing was, to see just how her interest with death changed when faced with her own. He pulled the car to a stop in a lay-by and then killed the engine and the lights. A copper or a do-gooder was more likely to stop if a parked car still had its engine running, its lights making it as prominent mark on the landscape as the first zit on the fresh-faced teenager.
"What are you doing?"
He ignored the question as he removed the scissors from the waistband of his jeans. He held them against the steering wheel.
"What's that?"
"Scissors. You wanted to know if I killed. I thought you'd be interested to know what I killed with." For a moment she was silent with terror and he was silent with the pleasure of that fact. To a sagacious bug sitting on the windscreen they could have passed as a couple on the verge of a break up.
Eventually she spoke, a guttural whisper. "Cops don't carry ...scissors."
"No fucking kidding. And what does that tell you?"
"You're not the police."
He heard her voice tremble, saw the tears glisten her eyes as though there was only one thing he could be if not a policeman. He brought the scissors to her left eye and held them under its lid. "But you knew that didn't you? Your gut told you but you ignored it. You ignored it to escape the shit of the daily grind if only for ten minutes, to find excitement in the uncertainty of this stranger... in Me."
"Please. I don't want to...die."
"You know, I think that everyone would like their last words to be profound. Most people don't get the chance. They get hit by a bus or shot in the head. Wham. It's all over before they get a whiff of their own shit when they lose it. But you." He pushed, the tip of the blade a little harder. He felt her eye twitch through the metal as though the weapon had melded to his hand and was now capable of transmitting sensation from steel to flesh. "You've chosen your last words to be a pitiful fucking plea." He lowered his hand and stared at the wheel. He knew she wouldn't lash out, or try to escape. She wouldn't do anything except sit and wait for him to decide her fate. The fire in her eyes was already extinguished. "I hear a few please don't kill me, even a fuck you every now and then, perhaps believing that I thrive on the pitiful and the weak and that defiance and balls will save them. But it all ends the same way." He rammed the knife into her eye. Her brain was dead; her body was lagging to follow suit; it spasmed in a futile attempt to retain life. Then she was still and quiet. He stayed with her for about half an hour, enjoying the release he found in her death.
Within the last five minutes of driving on the motorway, he had passed only a camper van whose bright eyes had dwindled before disappearing. All that was in Malachi's rear-view now was blackness that was somehow made even darker by the contrasting light before him. He glanced to the now empty passenger seat. He wished he could have kept the woman with him a while longer; he could have done with the company. It was safer for him that she was in the boot. He'd shoved her handbag in there with her, resisting the temptation to rummage through it, to learn more about her before it was time to do so. Sometimes he listened to the radio, and sometimes he didn't. Tonight, he drove in silence. As usual, he slipped into his game of guess who. Sometimes they told him their names, either willingly or under duress, perhaps in attempt to establish a connection to the human in him, his conscience that would acknowledge them as people, real people. He allowed them their efforts, even encouraged them, thanking them for reminding him that he was ending the life of a person. Sally had given her name freely. Her life too, he thought. No struggle and with little objection. He knew the area she lived in: a council estate that had fallen on the council's list of concerns. He guessed she was a stuck in a middle-class rutt, under educated, overworked and under paid. The passenger-side seat had been shoved back, exposing more of the foot-well. He guessed someone had sat there recently: a boyfriend perhaps - and tall. Would anyone give a toss that she was no longer in the world? Did she have a husband who would mourn her, or a fuck buddy who would simply shrug his shoulders in minor disappointment for what he wanted was between her legs and not in her heart? Pussy was pussy and could be found anywhere. He had played the game with the others. Sometimes he had been right on the money; other times he had misread them completely.
He finally arrived at the barn. He liked to believe that it was surrounded by fallow fields and vast woodland because this was a place of death and so made sense for his special place to be as far from the living as it could be. He pulled the car into its usual spot between the barn and the derelict cottage. He cut the engine and stepped out. He stood in the darkness, breathing the air tinged with cow crap and god knew what else. He would have preferred to take in the smell of their decay. He supposed that was one of the down-sides to burying them. Month by month, the house and its barn slid further into dereliction and he fe
lt that their decay somehow reflected that of his collection.
This place was quite a find. He had passed it many times, using the small country roads as short cuts to make up for lost time on late deliveries. It was only after killing his Tommy no stars that he felt the pull of this place. His third victim was the first to be buried here. It was a shame that the first two had missed out on becoming part of something great. He remembered the body of his victim immediately before Sally. He had missed out too. Malachi had taken the man's eye out with his scissors in a car park behind a gym. His screams had attracted the attention of security. Malachi had no choice but to leave the body. Sometimes he returned to the barn in his own vehicle, pulling over on his way through to find the tranquillity and contentment that was lacking in the world outside of this place.
He popped the boot and lifted the body from it. He dragged her into the barn, taking her handbag with her, before fumbling for the torch just inside the door. To a casual eye, the place looked empty. Only he knew that its occupancy was below ground level. He grabbed the spade in the far corner and started digging. He knew where each man and woman were buried and before he had killed Sally he had picked out a nice little spot for her near one of the boarded windows. The earth came away in clumps, creating a hole just large enough to take her. Before filling her in, he sat for a time by her side, the torch's glow in the surrounding darkness rendering her angelic. He grabbed her bag, spilling its contents around her as she were a pharaoh taking her belongings with her to the afterlife. Lipstick, a mirror, cigarettes, loose change and a purse. This was her legacy. He looked in her purse, finding only a driver's licence that she had probably wished she would have needed for proof of age to access the club. Sally Cummings was her name. She was thirty four. He didn't know what he expected but it was a disappointing revelation. He decided he would make up a more interesting story for her later, one that left parents and brothers and sisters suffering long after Sally's own had ended.