October Second
I met her again today. Her name is Heather. She smiles often, and her breasts are double D’s that stand straight. I can see why my husband enjoys her, in a purely clinical way. He likes the curves on her, the very meatiness he takes pride in seeing absent in myself. She doesn’t like the outdoors, or ducks, which is probably for the best.
Oh, I should probably mention that I’m a serial killer. Probably a socio or psychopath. I don’t know the difference and, after I learned how to play the part at the ripe young age of eleven, I haven’t spent much time with therapists. I have heard that sociopaths don’t feel emotion and that psychopaths can blend in with society pretty well, so I guess I’m the latter.
Why, inanimate piece of paper bound with glue and decorated with a sparkly bit of painted cardboard, am I writing all this down? Well, the long and short of it is an old promise I made to someone who died this morning. Don’t worry; it wasn’t me. And it wasn’t unexpected. I’ve been wearing my sad face all morning long and called in sick to work -- which is more an inconvenience than anything else -- and trying to make myself cry a whole lot. I’ve got an old trick that works pretty well, which is to cut a jalapeno and rub the juice on my index finger. Then, when I need to tear up, I turn away and rub my eyes. Even dry, the stuff is incredibly effective.
I discovered that trick when I was twelve. It helped after the second rabbit died.
But enough about how I have to act upset because my mother finally kicked it of cancer. She was a nice enough woman, always worrying about my youngest brother and such, and she made really tasty lemon cookies. I have her hair, which is quite the blessing. It’s a kind of auburn red that takes shapes incredibly well. It can be straightened or curled or braided or anything, but left to its own devices it just kinda waves like I used a hair dryer. She’s dead now, though, and I promised, when she died, to keep a journal so she could hear about things from in heaven. I wouldn’t be doing it now, except, right before she died, she told a nurse she was burning up and was seeing demons and fire. So, now that I have an audience that won’t talk back or judge me, I may as well record my thoughts.
Back to Heather. She isn’t overweight, but she’s also not burdened by a perpetual desire to fit precisely into the box society put her in. She likes vanilla but hates chocolate, and laments that strawberry ice cream isn’t as common anymore. Oh, and she loves to brag about her conquest. She has no idea that I’m married, let alone that I’m married to the man she’s cuckolding, but that’s actually a key part of her charm. I get to ask juicy, intimate style questions and probe my relationship without upsetting the hubby. She teaches him new tricks and gets ideas based on things I ask and suggest. I broke into the clinic she visits and checked her medical records. I’ve been doing this for years, and the techs never change their passcode. “Ducklings.” It’s actually what inspired me.
Her medical records. Goodness, look at me being so distractible! It’s because it’s almost time. Not for Heather. She doesn’t like ducks. Nope. Not one bit. Her medical records are important because I don’t want my husband to get sick. I find it incredibly convenient to have a husband, and, more often since he started seeing Heather, he sometimes shares his fluids with me. It’s stimulating and the surprise of what another human will do at any given moment is rewarding, but I prefer my battery powered little gizmos. I don’t have to concentrate as much, then. The fact that she has a clean bill of health and that she readily concedes that she’s excited that he’ll leave “her” any day now, which is doubtful, means that there is very little harm and a great deal of gain. She’s chatty, too, which is much more relaxing. I can tune her out as long as I keep my excuses ready in case she fields a question, which is rare. My best excuse is the classic “oh, you know, stuff’s just on my mind.” When she asks what kind of stuff, I say “work stuff.” They say you don’t mess with the classics, but sometimes I drop the word confidential. Then I ask her to go on and pay rapt attention for about three minutes before just smiling and nodding occasionally, or frowning if she frowns.
Anyhoo, enough for context. Today, she took me out shopping. She loves to shop, but she’s poor enough not to buy very often and proud enough not to ask me for money. I get the feeling she’s interested in my husband for more than his looks. If he’s giving her his money, well, that’s his business. If he starts dipping into the savings, there will be words. I had to create that rule a long time ago. People saying and doing things that don’t affect me shouldn’t affect me. I work as a clerk for a large business that does something with flour. I turn in my reports to the auditor, and he pays me his blackmail fee. I accept the check without word or fuss, and he continues about his day. As I only request one hundred extra dollars per week, plus a recommendation for a full raise but no promotion each quarter, he has very little to complain about. Today at the mall, though, Heather fell in love with this new perfume. We both tried it on, and I pretended to get excited when I saw how much she loved it. I declared that we would be perfume buddies and smiled at her even wider.
I spent eighty of that hundred dollars from this week on the stuff, and my husband came home today smelling of it and asked me to a company party. He said it would be good for me to get out and socialize more. I felt very pleased with myself for putting out a reliable trace for whenever he meets with her. It made the sad face harder, because I had to remind myself to tell him of the funeral I’d have to go to around the same time. He looked upset, like he’d really wanted to go or maybe like he was sad Mom died, but he respected my wishes when I told him I just wanted to be alone for a little while. He gave me a hug and a massage, which is an irritating thing he does that makes him look at me all doe eyed for a few hours. Because he’d been with her, I put on my thankful face and told him I loved how sensitive he was.
In high school, I read a book about how dogs’ brains work, at least in terms of conditioning. There was a guy named Skinner who is strongly associated with the term “operant conditioning,” and he did the same sorts of experiments I did, except he was actually experimenting and used electricity. I try to calculate the rate of rewards I give people for offering desirable behaviors in accordance with those principles, offering criticisms and catty remarks in order to build a dependence on doing the good thing, which has an unpredictable reward rate. Anyway, I guess all I really have to say is that I’ll be conditioning Heather to wear that particular perfume a whole lot, and conditioning him to expect rewards on days when he smells like her. She’s really easy to manipulate, another reason why my husband adores her; or maybe she just wants him to adore her and thus believes it so. He is, too. He was super excited when I showed him my new perfume, by the way. I guess he thinks he can get away with murder on account of it.
It’s called Regalia by Neolivi.
And no, he can’t. That takes more patience than he’s got.
October Fourth
This morning, my husband told me about the murder that happened yesterday. I was out in the front garden, trying to make it look like the yard on page 25 in a magazine on beautiful homes, when he got home. He didn’t stay late, which made sense. On Wednesdays, Heather has a yoga class. I smiled up at him and said the words “I love you,” as I do every time he enters a room or comes home from work or whatever. He likes being touched, so often I give him a hug. It makes him think the words mean something. Sometimes, I think he suspects that they are hollow, but it’s never been a hardship to distract him.
He got out of the car and looked very nervous, then crossed to me and I remembered that I was supposed to be sad still. I held his hand and squeezed it before lying and saying a vague “she always liked flowers.” It’s a pain to have to act all the time. I never was good at showing more complex emotions than sadness, anger, and mindless joy. Sometimes, I suspect he thinks I am simple.
After that little greeting, he gave me a big hug and said he was glad I was safe. I tolerated this, forcing myself to lean into him the way he likes, and imagined tallying my figures at work as he kissed the top of my head a few times before I tilted my face up for him to kiss my nose and lips. It’s a strange ritual, but at least it’s consistent.
The murder happened only eight blocks away, which is rather an inconvenience. With my own work, I like to keep things outside a two mile radius, if it’s at all possible. I’m also careful not to repeat my pieces. I don’t really care about the audience so much as the resolution to the hunt. Often, the clinic notes that the victim died of natural causes, which is a major point of pride. This killing, however, was apparently not fashioned in the same manner.
I am careful about revealing my interest in traditionally morbid things, just as I am careful to use the restroom before bed, at midnight, and again at about four am. My husband sleeps like a log, which is nice for a great many reasons. Thus, when he started talking about the murders and I began hanging on every grizzly detail, I pulled off my gardening glove and wiped my eyes. The capsaisin did its trick and I was able to convincingly pull off looking upset and alarmed. My husband, always playing the hero with spiders and heavy doors, wrapped his arms around me and pinned me to his chest, rocking me as though I was small.
That afternoon, I had him drive me to the art supply store and I purchased two scrapbooks, one to justify the purchase and plop a bunch of old photos into, and one with which I might track every detail of this murder, in case the investigation leads my direction. It’s not mine, but paranoia is not entirely unhealthy in such scenarios. I’ve already got a few articles from online, and a search of the name through social media revealed a few friends and a wife and two daughters. They’re all in the scrapbook already, with only a few annotations. I will be working on the family friendly scrapbook tonight in a few minutes. My wavy sissors will see some action tonight, and no mistake.
October Fifth (thursday)
Early this morning, about six or so and just before the sun rose, I visited the duck pond. It’s a nice place, with little benches and a meandering trail that goes all the way around. I like watching the joggers head out there each day, running laps as though they wish their little hearts to just burst. There are a few geese there sometimes, and a large band of ducks with green heads that are almost completely unaffraid of people.
I suppose, since I’m writing to an audience, Mom, that I should mention that the duck pond is my hunting ground. I’d done a few projects before I settled on a type, and there was always a sense of stress or urgency beforehand that made a routine essential. My college dorm mate, for example, was almost linked to me because, among my many other early mistakes, she was too closely linked to me. The duck pond is sufficiently distant from my place of work and from my home not to share such links, and people tend not to fraternize all that much. A few pleasant hellos is not much of a tie.
I’m out here because the man who was murdered, I found after researching his friends online, is actually connected to my present duckling. She’s a sweet young thing and they’re both involved with the same church, which means I’ll have to let her go for now and select someone else. Too many deaths with a common link, according to every pop CSI and crime novel I’ve invested time in, makes the detectives way too clever. With competition on my home range, it’s probably best that I lay low.
The itch though, it burns me. I have to start actively hunting again, and soon, before I start to get erratic. Supposedly there are drugs that help with such things, but you know how much I’ve always hated to take medication. I’ll finish off antibiotics, but anything else is just plain nonsense unless a doctor gives me a very good reason. I brought you with me, this time, because I think it’s the only time it’ll be safe for me to do so, at least until I fill this journal and start another. There’s just so much about me that you never understood, that I never felt I could or should show you. I know you suspected that the goldfish hadn’t just died because that’s what goldfish do. Had I known you were going to Hell, I’d have explained that it was just so fascinating to watch it gasp for air, then put it back into the water for a few minutes, then pull it out again. My brother was so upset when he found that fish floating halfway in the water like that, and I thought he was upset because I’d done it and hadn’t been able to watch.
Ah, memories. I’m watching this older woman, probably about your age, and she’s just fed the ducks. There’s a sign that says “don’t feed the ducks,” but no one obeys it. It’s one of my little rules. I’ve watched a half dozen shows that insist that people like me need personal codes of ethics to live by, so I chose that one. Outside self defense, I will only kill those who break that one, tiny, insignificant little rule. They do that, I’ll put them in the pool of possible candidates. Presently, there are about eight that are in the pool, but a nice elderly woman might be a good next step. With competition in the area, a clean, in and out case of natural causes is probably for the best.
October eighth. (Sunday)
Anger is an incredibly annoying emotion. It, frustration, and annoyance are the be three that afflict me nearly daily. Personally, I prefer that gentle satisfaction that comes from completing a line of figures. I should have written on Friday, but my husband was all about talking about feelings and saying he’d be there for me and asking me to lean on him. All. Day. Long. It was indescribably taxing. I much prefer when he comes home and does his little hobbies in the garage or watches television or whatever. He’s been avoiding Heather, too, which is not helping things. If he’d go spend time with her, I might be able to figure out exactly why he’s acting so strangely.
By the time I had a few moments to myself, I was paranoid that he would burst in and ask me about this journal I’ve started. Ugh. That’s not a conversation I need to have. Instead, I worked on the cutsie scrapbook. Low and behold, he did come in midway through my gluing and even sat down to help. It was a bloody nightmare when I found your picture and started to cut it into neat shapes for the book. He thought I was being angry or something. He kept me up all night, just telling me it was going to be all right and that he’d be there for me.
Yesterday was your funeral, and I made a little bit of a scene. I didn’t really mean to, but something just clicked when the preacher lady said you were up in heaven now. I called her a liar and walked out. You’d be proud, though. I used my inside voice and remembered to rub my eyes so they’d tear up a whole bunch, and then I hid in the lady’s room. I left quickly and didn’t look at you before you were buried, though. I know I’m supposed to, but corpses don’t usually talk, at least not in my experience. There was a wake afterward and someone brought chocolate dipped strawberries. They were actually very tasty. I ate five of them. People kept saying they were sorry for my loss, which was annoying but not really all that bad. I had to wear my sad face all day long, which was really tiring. My cheeks got a little sore and my head got the kind of sore that comes of sleeping wrong.
Today, I told my husband I was going stir crazy and that I’d be out all day. I drove toward the duck pond, but then I guess I got bored and drove to the murder site, just to see what there was to see. Honestly, there wasn’t much. My mistake was there, though, so we went to his place and he made me coffee.
OH! I’ve never told you about my mistake, have I? He fed the ducks once, and my previous target had inconveniently left town for some reason. Valentines day with the missus, I think. I was at the stage where I was starting to get a little shaky and I’d never seen the guy at the pond. He looked really depressed, too, so I figured I could catch him with a suicide or something. Anyhoo, long story short, exsanguination is not nearly as sure a killer as I’d thought, especially when the duckling didn’t pay PG&E so he’s in a freezing cold house. I brought him flowers in the hospital room when I found out I’d flubbed it. He’s kinda sorta an ex assassin or something, and he’d actually written a suicide note all on his lonesome when I got into his place. Sleeping pills. I made him regurgitate most of them, or, well, nearly all, and then stayed up with him until he passed out. Then I put a bag over his head and waited for him to stop breathing. I left the door open, as I wanted him to be found.
Anyhoo, after that whole fiasco, we wound up being something akin to friends. He says I’m exactly the type of guardian angel he deserves, but he also says he’d have hunted me down and killed me if I hadn’t shown up at the hospital. I know his name -- Raymond Mayers -- but I’ve always just called him Mistake or my mistake. He asked me, point blank, if I’d done it. The murder that happened a few days ago, that is. Luckily, he didn’t drive by my and my husband’s house, otherwise he’d have figured out where I live. I find the guy a bit less taxing than other people with whom I interact, but I never want him in my home. Still, he figured he didn’t need to move as I was about the least scary monster he’d ever met. And the most terrifying. He sent me a Christmas card to that effect last year.
Actually, it’s funny that he wanted to know if this kill was mine. He’s managed to guess about a couple of my ducklings, but he never manages the natural causes folks. I only need to hunt about twice per year, and in a moderately sized city like this, it’s not too suspicious that old people fall and break their hips or that spinsters contract type C hepatitis and have a mosquito bite that might actually look a little like a needle prick. I’m usually pretty careful about prints and genetics and such, but it’s only the suicides where forensics seem to get involved. Otherwise, it’s a fire truck and an ambulance, maybe a squad car but not always.
This scene was filled with symbolism. He’d actually done the legwork and gotten a few more details. What he described, with the victim having been bound for hours beforehand and the branding and the careful removal and replacement of a few key organs, was strangely exciting. I explained that, no, I didn’t take such risks. Clearly, though, this other person is a problem. One serial killer in an area is fine. One serial killer and an ex assassin is still fine, though a little taxing. One serial killer and a few murderers is actually better than just one serial killer. Two serial killers, though, is the beginnings of a headache. I groused that we should have, like, a hotline or something so that we don’t hedge on each other’s territories. Mistake chuckled nervously.
For a man paid to kill people, he is very nervous around me. Still, I think he thinks he owes me something for letting him live after I’d discovered my mistake. I’m not one to complain. Instead, I listened quietly to his report, asking the relevant questions and offering to keep an eye out for… well, the perpetrator wouldn’t have kept the items in plain sight, so I suppose I offered to keep an eye out for anyone acting too normal. Like I do.
After coffee in his kitchen and after we’d exhausted any and all potential leads on this butchery, I asked him point blank if he was planning to kill himself again, adding that I’d like to be there to watch if he was. I’ve slit one of his wrists before, after he came back from some sort of job all shot up, and just watched him panic and bandage himself up again. When he asked the idiotic question of why, I simply informed him that no one was allowed to kill him except me. We’d been standing exactly as we were now when he’d asked that, and he made a similar expression then as now. It’s hard to describe. Kind of a shocked frown where the eyes don’t quite look right.
He said that no, he wasn’t planning on it, and then pulled out a gun. He didn’t point it at me, or himself, but instead set it on the counter near the coffee maker. It was an odd thing to do. We talked about my job and about his infant niece. Neither of us gave details, which was pleasant. It’s a chore to remember them.
October Ninth.(monday)
I went back to work today, telling my husband and my boss that I was restless at home. For some reason, they didn’t act like this was weird. Normally, one is supposed to put in that a job is an onerous burden and that the weekends are to be lauded. Any day that is not spent looking after my ducklings, though, is equally uninspired. I do not understand why weekends are better than weekdays. Gardening is no more pleasurable than summing figures and the chance of sunburn is greater.
My boss handed me last week’s check alongside this one, as though somehow this was the right thing to do, and Melisandra, an enthusiastic young thing, handed me a card with everyone in the office’s signature. It had a picture of a toy bear on the cover. The bear was blue and crying. Inside was a flower.
The customs surrounding bereavement are baffling, though it appears that, so long as I induce tears every few hours, looking distracted and frowning is an acceptable emotional set. I will desist next Monday and fade these behaviors during the week to mitigate potential suspision.
October Tenth. (tuesday)
Today, at lunch, I called my husband to inform him that I was behind on my work here and didn’t want to live with that stress. I called him honey bunches twice and said I missed him. The first was inaccurate and the second was a lie, but he doesn’t need to know that. He said he was going out for dinner, then, because of dishes, and he’d leave me some leftovers. When I got in at eleven thirty, he smelled of Neolivi Regalis. I smiled, feeling satisfied that things were back to normal, and warmed the leftover gnochi in the microwave.
October Eleventh. (wednesday)
My hair dresser was less than cautious in her ministrations. The left side of my hair is one millimeter longer than the right side. This is inexcusable, though I was unsure how to inform her of this directly. It is not worth the effort of writing a bad review, so, like baseball, I will give her one more strike before I find another person to cut my hair. Seven months ago, she forgot to account for the slight waviness my hair has right after winter and left me with too much of a lip at the back.
My husband put locks on the front door. Apparently, that sloppy fool that scratched his itch eight blocks away did it again, six blocks on the far side of this house. At this rate, with everyone in a heightened state of aggitation, it would be unwise for me to bring in my duckling, or even to seriously start stalking another. I wonder if it would be bad to hunt down this rival and force him to move off. Or just kill him somewhere.
Actually, it annoys me that I think he is a man. I cannot help this notion, though I’ve no proof of it. Usually, I like to envision strong, powerful killers as being like me. Calm, collected, reserved, precise, well acclimated women with a particular skill set seem much more plausible than some axe weilding maniac with an oversized engine, though ther is a crassness to these killings that seems more in keeping with a bear or angry bull than it does a viper or similarly feminine creature.
There are not very many reports for my scrapbook yet. My husband drove by the scene on his way home from work. The detectives hadn’t even finished putting up the yellow tape. I asked to keep my own car in the garage as soon as he told me about all of this, then had to justify the request on the fly. It wasn’t too hard to convince him that, as I left earlier and got home later, it would be best if I didn’t have to be outside too long. He likes to play the hero, which makes getting him to do what I need fairly simple, if a bit circuitous.
Of course, YOU know that I’m only asking for my car to be hidden so my mistake doesn’t spot it when he goes to investigate this latest scene. It is possible that he is responsible for these murders. I have a few nanny cameras, which I have used with some of my ducklings when it was wisest not to be present at the actual moment of expiration. It’s not quite the same to relieve the itch in this manner, but it works best for some of the natural causes I induce. It is now my plan to place these in his house tonight. Thank you, Mom, for the idea. Or, perhaps, for inspiring me to write. It seems beneficial, for some ineffable reason, to write my thoughts down.
Octover Twelfth, Two or Three in the morning. (thursday)
My husband is still asleep, which is uncanny. The table had a book balanced on it poorly and I knocked it off, which should have wakened him but did not. I will schedule an appointment with his doctor to get this tested in the coming week. Hearing aids may be in order, though he does not seem so falible during the day. Perhaps Heather is tiring him out? Still, he dresses better and showers more frequently since he started seeing her, so a touch of exhaustion is a small price to pay.
Mistake was not at his home, which made it easy to plant the cameras. I saw him at the corner store by his house and he saw me. We nodded quietly and I continued driving. It is important not to drive distracted, and the oddest thought that it would be satisfying to conjoin with him crossed my mind. Our relationship, at present, is stable. I have found that a single night and a few pictures tend to make males ameniable to behaving toward me in favorable ways, however. Perhaps, if he requires motivation in the future, I will bed him.
I drove by Heather’s house to make sure she remained healthy. She had a few friends over and was smoking marijuana. I dislike the scent, though people who have taken the substance tend to be easier to fool with a smile and a more passive observation of social niceties than people who have not. Drunkenness is often more irritating than it is helpful, though it can be easier to induce and easier to justify. I will make a point of displaying my preference to my husband on Saturday. We will go for a walk and I will make sure it comes up so that I can remind him.
October Twelfth, Regular Time.
Melisandre is a lazy, nosy, gossip mongering bitch.
October Thirteenth. (Friday)
My husband, when I called him for the ritual of saying I love you and I miss you, was upset today at lunch. I called Heather to ask about her married beaux and she said he was a stuck up prick who cared more for his wife than for his future. This is most vexing. I will encourage him to spend more time away from the house and I will engender to put Heather in a more relaxed frame of mind.
In other, much more important news, the gentle rainstorm last night was the final step necessary to activate a slow-release fertilizer I set about the soil months ago. Now, my autumn plants will be much more likely to absorb their necessary nutrients. Nitrogen can be such a bother to keep in the proper levels. My potasium levels were, as always, quite nearly spot on. My supervisor seemed a little bit upset that I tested soil levels at my desk and brought me more paperwork to sort, sum, and file. Much of it is digital, though it is pleasaing to work through a large pile of tickets and see it resting and content in neat, orderly little piles.
In the bedroom, there is a whole lot of sobbing and swearing and carrying on. My husband is upset because he has said that I am cold and unfeeling. At first, this was quite alarming. He has never seen me accurately and has always been somewhat content with our arrangement, accepting the words I love you and the motions of affection in exchange for the security that being a married woman provides. Presently, I am debating the merits of fellating my husband and saying that he is the light of my world. It will be unpleasant, as he will not be as receptive as usual and the effort will be entirely mine until well after I am bored, but it may cause him to relax a touch.
On the other hand, it is pleasurable that he remain with Heather. Honestly, twenty three is not such a bad age to be single, and procuring proof of his infidelity, if what I have heard and read of the subject is true, should be sufficient to secure sizeable holdings. We were wed when I was nineteen, so any fault can and will be attributed to the fact that he is nine years my senior. Yes, that is preferable to sitting through another night of ignoring insults and cuddling next to him like some sort of trained puppy.
My personal scrapbook is coming along nicely. A few more reports have come out, which is good. Time of discovery for both bodies, I know, was mid afternoon. Both were male and survived by youngish children who adored them. One was happily married while one was not. Both were beloved by the community and a heavy loss to the neighborhood watch. Why that detail was in their obituaries, I do not know. Tomorrow night is the second Saturday in the month, so there will be a neighborhood watch meeting. I will call Heather and say I did some spying… no, that won’t work. She has never mentioned this house. It is doubtful she knows where it is. Ah, but perhaps I can say I have found it, and then slip her the address and and inform my husband that I will be out late with the meeting and so will sleep in the spare bedroom.
Of course, for that to fly, I’ll need to set up the spare bedroom tonight. Yet another reason to avoid cuddling. Logically, I would only sleep there if I was upset. Fake anger is surprisingly difficult, but I’m sure you know that, Mom. Still, television has taught me to bend at the waist, yell loudly with my mouth wide open, and to walk away fast and slam doors when I exit. This, at least, I am sure I can manage. I will also insult my husband, which should help to mask any missteps in my performance.
October Fourteenth. (Saturday)
The meeting fixated on a small number of facts already known to myself, with a few that had been leaked and some words by the people for whom the bodies carried an emotional weight. Edwards led the assembly and called minutes, most of which consisted of instituting a daytime patrol. I volunteered to drive about on the weekend days, which caused a few individuals to notice me. The attention was mostly good, though two housewives wrinkled their brows at me in the way that the soaps indicates mean they are… jealous? Not a good crinkle, to be sure. Still, it buys me time and it buys me credibility. Now, I can come to the discussion groups and learn as much as I may about the intruder.
After the meeting, I had to listen to one of my neighbors prattle on about her dead cat. The vet said the cat had eaten rat poisoning. I acted confused for the first few sentences while I worked on hiding my expression. It had taken a lot of work to get the rat to eat that poison, and even more effort to put the rat in view of the dead animal. I idly considered the prospect of asking for ten bucks reimbursement from the other neighbors, though it seemed they were taking her side. It is likely best that they not know my involvement.
My first shift starts this afternoon, which was exceedingly convenient. After I have patrolled for six hours, I will acquire a root protecting mulch. The magazine indicated that it was standard procedure to lay this over the ground surrounding roses to protect them against “the bite of winter.” The article was littered with colloquial phrases. Littered, as in it was filthy. I hated it so very, very much. My cat neighbor, though, she commented on how pretty my garden was and clipped out the article on “Winter Preparations,” which I’m sure she thought was a kindness and a sort of camaraderie.
There are magazines that can illustrate how gardens are supposed to appear without resorting to fictitious language. I’ve read them and I even have a section of the bookshelf reserved for these prints. My husband paged through them once and questioned how anyone could like reading something like that. He called them dense and a few other words, none of which seemed to be complimentary. Since then, I have been very careful not to let people observe me reading such instructive articles, which has led to the confusing notion that I enjoy frivolous or pop gardening.
Honestly, I cannot understand why people would want to engage in this sort of activity without guided instruction, and I cannot understand how the concept of winter is supposed to be heightened through personification. Winter does not bite. I don’t even bite, unless it’s a baby carrot or some other acceptable item for mastication. Even then, the bite of a thing implies more of a gnashing or a chomp than it does the act of chewing, and winter doesn’t so much bite once and then fade away. No, it bites and grabs on and shakes and gnaws and lingers and, just when it seems safe to plant a Dhalia or some Baby Bells, it drifts back in and slowly destroys the membranes within the leaves, thawing them to a saggy pulp. The only way this could be remotely perceived as a bite, which is a sudden and harsh thing, is if the person tending their garden isn’t paying attention.
That said, the article was also poorly written. It waxed poetic and had too many suggestions; the vision of a mosquito or fruit fly would have been less schizophrenic. “This can be nice and that can be nice and oh but this one time I did this and it was nice” Bah! That’s not helpful. I read the whole thing seventeen times, trying to figure out what the ideal image of a garden was for the author, then trying to figure out what my neighbor had wanted me to see. It was a rather trying endeavor, to which I finally chose a piece of gardening advice at random.
Thus, after my shift, I will put a special mulch from the gardening store over the roots of my roses, then walk to my neighbor’s house and thank her for the article and tell her we should “have brunch some time.” She works on the weekends from about eight in the morning until about two in the afternoon, so brunch will never happen, yet still I will seem generous and outgoing and friendly. I wish Dead Cat Neighbor forgets about her pet. I disliked the way it made noises at night, but if she is still publicly upset in four days I will find an abandoned young cat and claim I cannot keep it and ask if anyone can help me. Hopefully, that will make her easier to deal with. I don’t want her getting particularly attached to me, but it is always easy to talk to people about their pets.
“Hi! How is (insert pet’s name here)? -- Oh, he’s got such and such problem. -- Oh no, that sounds frustrating. Did he do anything cute lately? -- He did! Here’s a picture. -- That’s so cute! -- Oh, did I show you this picture? -- That’s so cute! -- This is when he did a thing. -- That’s so cute!”
The script for talking about the pets of other people is very simple and not very closely observed. If I could cause everyone in the neighborhood to have a pet and to talk about their pets, this day to day routine I have memorized would be a great deal easier. Perhaps I will put up flyers of adoptable cats on the neighborhood watch bulletin. That will make me appear to be one of those caring animal people sorts, which will make it easier to convince people that I am perfectly normal and that I feel all the goody smiley emotions they do.
October Fourteenth (Saturday Afternoon)
I have decided that I should avoid killing people and things that I want to kill. It is too easy to kill them, and it is too likely that I will be directly involved in what is called the grieving process. I am, apparently, quite approachable. I am, apparently, quite easy to talk to. I am, apparently, developing a reputation as having “a shoulder to cry on.”
The shift was great. I say that sarcastically, Mom. I’d circled the block once, getting a feel for having the magnetted “Neighborhood Watch” triangle of plastic on the roof of my car with the hotline number printed large, when Dead Cat Neighbor flagged me down and said she didn’t know how she was going to get through this. I didn’t want to be flagged as lazy, so I lied and told the woman that maybe a change of scenery would help her to stop crying and told her to get into my car. I only intended to go around the block one more time.
Six hours. She stayed in my car, talking and crying, for six, fucking, god damned, hell freezing, child beating, hours. I had to lie about a conference call to keep her from following me into my own thrice cursed house. Six fucking…
Fuck waiting another four days. She needs to find a new cat today. Tonight. This post is really short because I know a shelter that will adopt a cat to me on the quick. I’ve got the site up beside me as I write and am giving the verbal cue “next” to trigger the next button. This last cat, with the missing eye and the super fluffy tail, it’s coming home tonight because it’s getting euthanized tomorrow. Then I will try to urge my husband to yell about it so that I can complain tomorrow and get it into her hands.
Or maybe I should take her with me. Nah, she won’t commit if I do that.
October Fourteenth (Saturday Evening)
She didn’t want the cat. She said she understood what I was trying to do, but that she wasn’t ready. Now, I have a cat. My husband seems to like it. The thing has a litterbox in the garage and has already puked twice. I hate this animal.
October Fifteenth (Sunday)
My husband reeks of Regal Neolivi and has that satisfied expression that means he’s been given good sex. I am glad whatever drama was affecting them is over. Perhaps I will see her in a few days. In the meantime, I have interesting facts to ponder about my rival.
Apparently, one of the police officers let slip the notion that possibly this killer might tangentially be related to a killer two states over who was never caught. I jotted down notes in the bathroom as soon as the conversation turned to a babysitter who kept on making long-distance phone calls from the landlines. It was odd, as she should have been doing this on her cell, but the speculation is that she is calling someone she doesn’t want her parents to track.
Honestly, this doesn’t seem like information that overmuch concerns me, but it was quite stimulating to the women chatting about neighborhood watch stuff at the cafe. Tittilating, as my husband would say. He loves that word. It means interesting the way he uses it, though the actual definition is a touch more salacious. The women were gossipping and it would have been a good idea to linger, but business was pressing. I have a plan, however.
In my neighborhood, it is nearly as likely for a woman to stay at home as it is for a man to be decoration. The women who stay at home are housewives, and the men are called housewives too, yet remain without the same social perks. I’m moderately sure that they get together for cafe style chatting during the daylight hours, yet as yet I’ve no proof to this effect. It is my intention, however, to set my mistake up to listen to these women while I am at work tomorrow and on subsequent days.
It changes our relationship for me to ask this of him. I am not entirely comfortable with this fact, and the chance that he will learn where I live is great. I have observed him fairly closely since he stole my kill by taking those pills, so I am fairly confident that he will not cause any particular degree of harm should he find my place of residence. It is unwise, however, to rely on a perception of human to predict his or her actual actions.
Still, these murders have left me somewhat annoyed. I seem to be behaiving rashly, or at least thinking in a rash manner. It would be suspicious for me not to mention the gossip group when I am willing to wear a magnet on the top of my car for twelve hours per week. I will inform my mistake that I am making another one.
October Fifteenth (Evening)
Fuck. I did it. Fuck.
October Seventeenth
Well and so! Mom, you would not believe the day I had yesterday! At the firm, I was balancing the accounts receivable, ticking away quickly and quietly, and I found three discrepancies from the clerks who’d handled the receipts previous to my involvement. THREE!!! I stayed late and built a case file, then turned it in to my boss. He was just as surprised as I was. It wasn’t a huge amount of money, but it was just the right amount to get someone fired. When he looked into it further, verifying my work -- he doesn’t think this is rude and he even said he trusted my findings -- he dropped a name. It’s one of my younger ducklings!
I was so overjoyed at the discovery, and I’ve been shaking so much from self-denial of a kill lately, that I actually stalked her a bit after work. The mess she’d made in my nice neat columnsis far too great of a link to myself, so I know logically that I cannot actually hunt her, but it was just so very, very nice to be able to stalk prey again. I’d had it all planned out, too. If there wasn’t a killer mucking things up in my neighborhood and we weren’t so directly connected, I would gently, tenderly, lovingly find a rat or something that appeared to be very ill, then sneak into her room with a numbing agent -- I still have some pilfered novacain -- and have the rodent bite her. I would, while wearing an air filtration mask, coat her pillow in pigeon down. As she grew ill as a result of this, I would also put a tiny amount of lead filings into the very bottom of some of her coffee mugs, refreshing the number each day. Within a month, she would likely expire. If the first rat doesn’t cause her some major degree of harm, the second or third or fourth will.
With this arrangement, I’ll be able to watch the slow decline, though the chance exists that she will recover and become much more sanitary and clean that it appears she presently is. If that happens, I’ll simply move on to another duckling.
These words, these ideas and plans, they fill me with joy. Unfortunately, she is too closely linked, seeing as how I’ve just reported a missing eighty three dollars and nineteen cents. I will be required, thus, to kill her only in my fantasies.
I’ve been shaking in the quiet moments again, and the imagined killing seems to be making things worse. It’s irrational to think this mystery killer invading my territory has made her inaccessible, yet I cannot help but hate him. Or her, though the methods are crass and it appears he kills through brute strength far surpassing my own. My husband was very worried after me and insisted I carry a tazer on my person. I understand his sentiments and have begun carrying a syringe full of draino in my purse. Three of them, in fact. I also have bear mace and some very pungeant scents to disorient him. I am not certain any of these measures will be sufficient, but it is my hope that he simply avoids tangling with me.
At work, people were still asking about you. I forgot that I was supposed to be grieving your loss, Mom, so it took me a few moments to go back into the act. Ugh. I think I may have actually asked one of the ladies why she cared that you were gone. She gave me a hug -- against my will and against company policy -- and said it was okay to be angry, that it was all just a part of the grieving process.
If anger is part of the grieving process, then maybe I do miss you. I always thought you were a weak duckling with too many ties to myself and just enough fear. After Dad died, you always suspected. You never said, though, and you never asked. Maybe that’s why you said you felt like you were burning just before you died. I’d like that, if you went to Hell to keep what you thought was my secret.
Honestly, though, I didn’t kill him. I watched him kill himself and I did not stop him. There is a difference. I knew he would pull the trigger, just as I knew he didn’t know I was there. The only thing I did was disolve a few aspirin in his rye, because he’d said that the drink helped make the pain go away. I think it might have been the only kind thing I ever did. I didn’t know it would thin his blood and make him die more quickly, but a bullet erupting out of the back of his chest with bits of heart and rib coming along for the ride did a lot more damage than my little attempt at helping him.
Wow. I’ve never actually talked about that night. I guess I was angry that you were so surprised. I mean, who fails to expect
SWEET HARVEST
Chamomile
Zinnie
Kitten
Rosetta
Sasha
Andes
Benji
Rocket
Levi
Babier
Greer
Penny Loboman
Agent Staples
Penny Loboman stared at the nine files spread out on the commissioner’s desk and fiddled the the silver-lined cuffs she kept in her purse. The cuffs were for herself, just in case. The files were very likely for someone else.
“Sir?”
“Sit, Loboman. Sit.” The detective steepled his finger as she settled. “I hear you tested positive for Thiriothropy.”
“Yes, sir.” Penny’s hand moved from her cuffs to the badge in her inside pocket. Wearing her old jacket made her feel claustrophobic now, which was the perfect reason to wear it. Let the beast suffer. “Ailouroeidísthropy, actually.”
“What a mouthful. Kinda makes you wish it was a wolf, am I right? I understand this means you are no longer eligible for normal patrols, meter maid tasks, or any position with the potential for excessive stress. We’d send you to filing if we had a space for you there; you were one of our best officers.”
Penny gripped her badge hard enough that it cut into her hand a little, not drawing blood but definitely leaving its mark. She didn’t want to be laid off for being brave and saving lives. Squaring her shoulders, she drew her badge and prepared herself for the worst.
“Normally, my hands would be tied.”
“I understand, sir.” Penny blinked once as the words charged from between her lips. Normally?
“We need an undercover operative to bring down a sect of domestic terrorists and you are uniquely qualified for the task.” The detective, Greer, leaned forward yet further. “I can accept your badge or I can keep it safe while you infiltrate this band and help us to bring them down.”
“What?” Penny forced her mind to sharpen and focus, pulling her jacket closer. The beast inside her hated that it scraped close to her neck and she smiled a little. “Oh! Yes, sir! If I can help to make the streets a little more safe, that’s exactly why I joined the acadey and took the blue.”
“Then what we discuss here stays here.”
...
Zinnie grabbed Babier’s hair and dragged him down into a kiss, yanking his hair as hard and fast as she could. Her king bent for her and kissed her gently, a hand moving to caress her face while the other moved to catch the small of her back. She tried to tear a little more and suddenly she was airborn and held to Babier’s chest.
He was feverishly warm ,which got her blood jumping through her veins. She fell into the kiss, wrapping her legs around his broad back and grinding just a little. To the side, Andes muttered that they should get a room before loudly flipping the page in his magazine and actually seeming to think nothing would come of his interferance. Zinnie pulled out of the kiss and flipped him off, the two-legged version of a hiss.
Babier shifted under her and she wondered if he would have let it fly had she not reacted. He then set her down, much to her chagrin, and landed a solid blow on Andes’ shoulder. The force of it seriously rocked the large auburn-burn haired man and jostled the magazine from his grip. Andes looked away and waited, accepting whatever violence was directed his way, before stooping to retrieve his naughty magazine.
“That’s it? He challenged you!” Zinnie felt giddy with this new sense of power she held over the king. He’d turned her years ago by mistake when she’d been just shy of sixteen but, just last month, she’d started sleeping with him. The change had been immediate and dramatic; he willingly and readily did violence for her. Today, however, he didn’t seem to be in the mood to beat on Andes any more than a little.
Feeling petulant and knowing she looked it, Zinnie stomped her foot. “Isn’t my honor worth defending?”
“Not now, sweetheart.”
As though to reaffirm his statement, the blasted voice in her head went off. “We have movement on Twenty-seventh and Maple. Looks like eight for ten of Marny’s and seven for seven of Bruce’s”
Pouting with an audible sigh, Zinnie popped a bit of bubble gum from her slender purse and began to masticate this in frustration. The initial fire was fading and she hated it. She’d known going in that Babier was sleeping with four other women and two men, just as she’d known that he would gradually count her as just one of his pride. What she hadn’t counted on was that it would hurt so much to fall in with the rest; she’d liked her exalted position as his favorite.
Babier tensed, listening to his own voices. The sub-dermal implant just inside his ear was linked to a different frequency, allowing him to hear and react to the deliberate reports of everyone in the pride.
No bigger than a grain of rice, the microphone in her right wrist was only activated when she touched the device implanted in her left thumb. She’d had a nervous habbit of scratching or rubbing her wrist when it had first been implanted, so the pride knew what she said to herself in the mirror when she was alone. Discovering that had been highly embarassing. Well, it should have been. She hadn’t felt embarrassed or shy about anything since the transformation; a side effect of being exposed to the virus too early in life.
At a nod, she and Andes left their positions and headed in to close the back escape route. It was a gorgeous day for a wholesale slaughter.
...
Levi backpedaled sharply as Sasha’s beretta barked a quick rat-a-tat-tat and his opponent rocked forward at the impacts. The bullets missed him, thankfully, and the injuires gave him the opening he required to finish this soul. He loved the feeling of his silver-plated ceramic blade carving through ligaments and esophagus, though the arterial spray he could have done without.
Glancing over his shoulder, he smiled at the sight of Babier in his War Moon form. The man was wicked fast, powerful enough to tow a semi -- with his teeth, no doubt -- and in all ways dangerous. Wiping the blood from his brow, he turned back to the scene before him, scanning for survivors.
Zinnie and Rosetta were doing the same and Sasha, Dhalia, and Chamomile had the high ground covered. His twin, Benji, was still locked in combat. A glance at the expression on the man’s face indicated that he was enjoying himself. Immensely. Levi knelt and jammed a titanium blade through the higher vertebrae on the were-rat he’d opened wide and nodded once in satisfaction before pulling out a cannister of black spray-paint and registering a large dot in the center of his forehead.
Trotting over to another such kill, he claimed it as well, then dotted a third. His brother had, technically, had a hand in killing that one but it was all share and share alike. They didn’t do shares; everything went to Babier and receipts went to Kitten. If there was a big purchase -- say, a new SUV -- then permission would have to be sought. Otherwise, there was an account for general supplies like cereal and clothing and silver foil and pens and whatever else fell under general and sundry.
Weapons and big purchases. He grinned and moved into position behind his brother’s foe, enjoying the look of surprise as his opponent wrapped his mind around the idea of fighting two identical blood-soaked warriors. This was for Benji’s pleasure, though he smiled as Zinnie ran up to catch a bit of video. In the auspices of the War Moon, he and his brother were something to behold. The were-badger they fought kept taking their hits without falling but it wasn’t particularly sporting that they played with their food like this.
A sharp rapport from a Nagant Obrez, Babier’s snub-nosed hand cannon, put an end to their games. Benji sheathed his knives and backed away a few steps, casting about for any other potential threats, and Levi bowed low, rising to flip his hair out of his face. Babier seemed nominally appreciative, licking a bit of blood from his lips before tilting his head ever so slightly.
No more than a moment later, the King pressed the back of his left hand to the underside of his right wrist and spoke softly, his microphone centered in a stud by his nose. His voice was rich with growls and dangerous undertones, his misshapen mouth and tongue putting a barbaric twist to the syllables.
“Sweep and brand ‘em. Client wants the site messy.”
…
Greer sighed and rubbed his temples. He was only in his mid-forties but already he felt the job had aged him immeasurably. His temples felt hollow, his cheeks sagged and his eyes seemed to belong to someone else.
The Federal Bureau of Thiriothrops -- were-beasts -- had contacted him from time to time for help on cases. His brother, a were-jackal, had been willing to wear a leash and the restrictive muzzle and harness in order to track the true monsters to their dens. That had been in the good ol’ days before the mandatory registrations. The CDC wielded a fair bit more clout than they rightly should have, shutting down towns and hospitals and the like in the pursuit of a safe and disease-free population.
Now, well, for all his good deeds and services, his brother was ineligible for any job wherein contamination was probable. He’d been a realtor, and a darn good one, until his license had been stripped as the “unpredictable markets created an unsuitable working condition.” It was almost criminal, the way things had been handled.
Sending Penny off to infiltrate a band of thugs was his small way of getting back at the CDC and FBT. She was still on the force, would still get her paycheck, and she’d be in a high-stress environment. She’d be saving lives and doing good. When it was all over, if she wanted, she could come clean and write a book. Maybe even get a few more who had the condition off the suicide watch list.
It was a good dream. A noble notion. He shook his head and looked at the space that had previously held the nine vanilla envelopes and his headache got a little worse. Tension in his neck, his physical therapist had said, from stress. The girl had turned green when she’d opened the short file on Big Bad and his underlings. A lot of the crew didn’t even have registered names, so there had just been Big Bad, Zinfandel, Andy, and Rocket. The latter two had been pulled over for the monthly quota with a speed of 56 in a 55 zone. Zinfandel had been taken to a hospital three years back for severe spinal trauma, and Big Bad was the team leader. The rest, well, they were from security cameras, DNA that was different from the victims, and speculation.
They had an in, though. The group might travel constantly and might be masterful at hiding their tracks but they still did need to surface, every once in awhile, to do business.
Greer startled as his phone jumped in its holder, ringing fit to wake the devil himself. Reaching across to the receiver, he pressed first the Record button, then the speakerphone and listened to the whine from the other side. “Have your girl ready. Negotiations have started.”