Stella closed the door and shut the window, but still the music hounded her. From the kitchen to the living room, she could not escape the grinding organ nor the reedy calliope of the carnival that was less than a mile away from her modest, single-story home.
“Damn carnies,” the old maid said to herself. Stella couldn’t understand the appeal of the county carnival. To her it was nothing but peanuts for the rubes—mindless and cheap entertainment for people who’d be better off with a library card than a fistful of fried batter. She considered herself above the herd and in possession of an intellect that far exceeded the pitiful confines of Harrison County. Ultimately, it wasn’t her fault that she could not leave. Leaving cost money, and money was something that Stella did not have. She had to keep paying that ornery Bohunk Doctor Yerabek for her daily medicine, and besides, what’s the use in moving somewhere new at age forty-four? No, Stella knew she was stuck, and most of the time she could make do so long as she had a good book and a quiet night.
Stella retreated to her bedroom at the rear of the house and placed two snowy white balls of cotton in her ears. The trick worked; the music of the carnival was muffled into obsolescence. It took a while, but eventually Stella went to sleep. She placed her cold and very clean hands underneath her cheek and began to dream about an oceanside house somewhere south of Myrtle Beach.
By eleven-thirty, Stella Auchincloss was well beyond R.E.M. sleep. Her late mother would have said that she was “dead to the world.”
***
Creep.
Slowly sliding along the wet wood leading to the back door. It just rained.
Creep more.
I press my chin to the glass and feel it move. A small jiggle at first, then a full gallop.
I’m in!
Thank god for the hicks of the world and their blind trust in man’s goodness to man.
Man!
To hell with man! I only want women. Women with long legs and big, plump breasts. Women with white skin, brown skin, yellow skin. Women with warm throats that vibrate like machines when I get close.
Women.
I crossed the linoleum in the kitchen until it became carpet. I followed the beige ocean until I found the room, which was as black as an obsidian knife. The Aztecs used obsidian knives to cut up captives and rip out cunts from the wombs of rival mothers. Real sick shit, as Leo would say. But I like obsidian knives, and I like the idea of still-beating hearts raining blood on the temple steps.
I like knives and I like women…sleeping women.
I found her softly breathing into her own fingers. She didn’t toss or turn, and she didn’t stir when I slowly climbed on top of her and began my work.
I always begin with kisses, soft ones, on the larynx. I like it when they can’t feel it at first. Little kisses like that soften up the throat before the big bite.
Or should I say bites? Teeth bites before steel bites—sharp, Damascus steel bites that make the reddest roses bloom. I call it rosewater, and it’s so nice to drink.
And I drank so much that night.
***
“You ever seen one like this, Gray?”
The scrawny, pinch-faced patrolmen asked the fellow standing next to him. The other man was neither tall nor short, and neither thin nor fat. In every way he was average, save for the well-maintained mustache that massaged the skin between his nose and upper lip. His other distinguishing feature could not be seen, for Gray Maitland, whiz kid investigator with the Harrison County prosecutor’s office, was undoubtedly the most intelligent man in the whole state.
And he happened to be a living, human bloodhound too.
“She was stabbed here and here,” Gray said with a finger outstretched. “But this was the first cut.” He bent over the crimson bedsheets and noted a small, but ragged line on the victim’s neck. “A vampire kill,” Gray whispered to himself.
“A what?” the patrolman asked.
“They’ll find saliva on some of these wounds,” Gray continued, speaking mostly to himself. The investigator began pacing throughout the room. His gloved hands pulled back the curtains, lifted the lamp on the nightstand, and even pulled up the damp mattress underneath the victim’s legs. The patrolman watched him in awe.
“The guy really sucked this lady’s blood?”
“Yes. Miss,” here Gray had to crane his neck and look over the patrolman’s shoulder at his notebook. “…Stella Auchincloss was certainly attacked by a psychosexual maniac with perversions tilting towards vampirism. I’d say a thorough review of past crimes is in order. Make sure your men look out for anyone here or in the surrounding counties who have prior arrests for the following crimes: rape, incest, sexual assault, molestation of a minor, or bestiality. Our murderer sees no separation between sex and blood, and as such will likely seek to act again. I’d also phone the lunatic asylum and ask Dr. Freeman about his most…erm…rambunctious patients.”
The patrolman scratched behind his ear. “Weston ain’t lost anybody in a long time. Don’t think we got a loony on the loose.”
“No, no,” Gray said with impatience. He often found himself sounding that way given that so few people shared his gifts. “Dr. Freeman can tell us about what to look for—the usual ticks and habits of psychosexual predators. He can tell us that such types are prone to alcoholism, for instance. Or drug abuse.”
“Ok. Sounds square. I’ll make sure to ask around at some of the local taverns. Maybe some of them have seen our Dracula.”
Gray waved a dismissive hand at the patrolman. He took the hint and left the investigator alone. Gray began rubbing his fingertips together and humming strains of Berlioz’s Marche au supplice. This was his ritual—his method of beginning the all-important chase. Had he been at home, Gray would have found his favorite armchair to commence the process. But, at that crime scene, he was reduced to sitting on the floor. He twisted his legs into the sacred lotus position, and after waves and waves of controlled breathing, Gray started to visualize his adversary.
***
Long legs of the elephant stretching to the tent. Big, thick gray legs that go on for days.
Must be nice to have legs like that. Nobody fucks with an elephant because one step can change everything. One step can turn a skull into putty.
I like that kind of power. There’re other kinds of legs—ones that are hairless and pale and shapely. The knife thrower’s girl has legs like that. I watch ‘em wiggle as the flying daggers miss her flesh by the slightest inch. They never hit her, sadly. Someday I’d like to throw daggers at the dame. The first few would aim for panties, I can tell you that. I wanna see if what Saxon the Strongman says is true; I wanna see if she really is bald.
Legs. Legs. Legs.
Arms. Arms. Arms.
So many things that those bumpkins take for granted. They work all day shoveling shit and picking their noses and never once do they sing to Lucifer about how nice it is to have hands. No, sir. And then, after work, they go out to the barn and kick more shit around before plucking out their peckers and shoving ‘em into the mares and ewes. Pump, pump, pump like pistons, the animals.
I hate them all. I hate all the arms and legs and lungs of the world, and I hate having to be the one exception that they all gawk at every night until the tents come down and we move onto some fresh hell in Kentucky or Tennessee. I hate them and I hate this life.
I hate.
***
It took Gray the entire night to write his report. After studying Stella Auchincloss’s body and home, Gray returned to his own domicile and, after brewing a pot of strong English tea, he sat down behind his Underwood and methodically pecked out his findings. Gray’s surgical fingers churned out poetry. He was often mocked by his superior, Arthur Morrison, Esq., for writing “like a goddamn fairy,” but to Gray, murder was an art. Dissecting a body with words was his poetry, and he found Stella’s corpse especially exquisite. He let the pages pile up with facts and suppositions. He did an in-depth character study of the murderer and even posited that the killer was so committed to his vampirism that he had to be a night worker. Gray ended the report with a litany of possible future crimes.
When the report reached Morrison’s desk, the county prosecutor cursed first, then shoved the papers back towards Gray.
“That’s a damn novel, Maitland. Why are you always giving me novels? Just tell me who, what, when, where, and why. And tell me if we gotta worry about another.”
“I can answer that with an emphatic yes. Our killer will kill again and keep killing until he’s dead or in jail.”
“That simple, huh? Another female victim?”
“Without question. He will not discriminate by age or race either.”
“Oh great. Here I was thinking that this thing might be easy. Now I have to send locals and staties across the tracks to the smoke section of town. Tell me something, Gray: are you really sure that your theories are correct? I mean do you know it in your freaking bones?”
Gray twisted the ends of his mustache and nodded. He straightened his back up and puffed out his chest in a pantomime of confidence. “Sir, I can even go so far as to tell you that our killer will strike within the week. His bloodlust is that powerful…”
***
I was born in a cemetery. Seeing a skull and crossbones on a weathered tombstone is my first memory. After that it was nothing but the black night’s sky that washed over my face and colored my skin. The nursemaid, if you could call her that, rubbed me down with a filthy white towel while shouting invocations in a mixture of Latin and Greek. The family called her Aunt Susan, but she weren’t no blood relation. She was just some coon-crazy bayou woman with a house full of odd books.
She raised me more than my whore of a mother.
And she was a real whore, too. A scarlet woman. A harlot. She was white trash fouler than the weekly garbage. A no-good, rotten, listless jezebel who would let johns put snakes in her snatch for two dollars.
With a mother like that, is it any wonder that I turned out bad?
My dad? Never knew him. He could have been a composite drawn from the semen of a million Louisiana shrimpers and juke joint hopheads. Or he could have been a circus freak like me spending his money on cooze right before leaving town. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter at all. Hell, he could have a cottonmouth…
I think about my mother sometimes. She had great legs—long and limber and flexible. The johns always made remarks about her gams, and I used to watch from the sawdust floor of the bar as they pawed all over her thighs. One pitiful farmer tried to feel more than thighs, but just as he was about to fork over a few dimes, he painted his denims with spunk and left the bar in a flurry of embarrassment.
What a heel, right?
I think about my mother when the moon gets bright and I find myself itching for a pair of legs. They ain’t hard to find, you know. When you swim in the underworld for a living, you make all kinds of acquaintances. Whoremongers and their suppliers are some of the first people you meet down here, and they’re always looking to deal.
I ring up Goochie Gus and ask for one of his babes. He gives me a lot of guff about special rates owing to my disability. This means I have to pay the cocksucker twenty-five dollars more than a normal man just to have three minutes in heaven. I agree to his terms and meet his frilly at the Overton Arms.
She screams a bunch and races around the room. Gus tries to sweet talk her, but nothing works. He has to use the syringe to get her calm enough for business. But Gus…well, he’s no egghead. The mongoloid jazzes her up with too much stuff and leaves her stiff and cold. I laughed when his eyes bugged out and he started repeating himself like a drooling idiot.
“What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?”
“First,” I told him, “I’m getting my money’s worth…”
***
Gray knew that Virginia Emanuelson was the second victim, even though the evidence pointed away from Stella Auchincloss’s killer. Virginia’s death was an O.D., but Gray got prickly with the coroner when the older man downplayed the scrapes and gashes near the woman’s throat and vagina. Gray almost slapped the old codger’s heads for pooh-poohing the fact that Virginia, a known prostitute, had never been arrested for narcotics before.
“This looks like a botch job. Something is not right here,” Gray had said before he was escorted out of the room by Morrison. The prosecuting attorney gave Gray several harsh reminders and told him to “act right” when in the presence of superiors.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I cannot contain myself when confronted by morons.” Gray’s attempt to light a pipe was thwarted by the swift hand of Morrison. The pipe was snatched up and thrown to the floor.
“That’s it. I don’t care if you are a good detective. You’re taking sick leave for a while.”
“I’m not ill,” Gray said with malice.
“Yes, you’re so damn sick in the head that you’re jeopardizing the safety of yourself and others. Per my orders you’re going to take two weeks off.”
“And do what?” Gray barked.
“I…don’t…care,” Morrison growled. “Go to the goddamned county carnival before it’s done for all I care. Just get out of my sight.”
***
So help me Lucifer, I’m going to carve this bitch up. I’m going to make sausage out of this fat fraud’s intestines and throw them across my Christmas tree like tinsel. I am sick of her bellyaching about my performances when she knows good and well that the rubes only come to see me, not her.
There she is all high and mighty with those fat legs, dancing on the creaking boards like a baby rhinoceros. She’s doing the twist with Chubby Checker, and the yokels are eating it up. I’ve told her so many fucking times that it doesn’t make sense for a Circassian dancing girl to jive to the Top Forty, but the bitch doesn’t care. She just wants to fling her tits back and forth so she can afford another fifth of Jim Beam after the show.
Goddamn her.
She won’t tell me to smile again, or make hissing noises like a cobra. I AM A MAN! A HUMAN! I AM NOT A SNAKE AND WILL NEVER BE A SNAKE.
Cunt.
***
Gray found himself at the county carnival on its last night. The intellectual investigator thought long and hard about the power of suggestion, for, had Morrison never mentioned the carnival, he never would have gone.
Gray didn’t care about magic or sword-swallowing. He didn’t go for lion tamers or toothless barkers hocking horrors for five cents. And yet, after a full day of boredom, Gray ventured out and found himself under the piebald big top where the calliope never ceased its whining.
“Come see the somnambulist,” said someone behind him in an Italian accent. “The world’s only full-time sleepwalker.” Gray ignored the pitch and moved further into the parade of horribles. He stopped briefly at a shooting gallery and won himself a rubber duck, then he turned on his heel and doubled back towards a mirror display that made him look tall, fat, misshapen, and decapitated. Gray bought some popcorn and made ready to see a wrestling match when a scintillating card caught his eye.
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BELLY DANCER IN THE WORLD, it read. COME SEE HAZARA OF THE SANDS.
A belly dancer? Gray thought. What on earth is a “belly dancer?” Intrigued, the investigator made his way to the small wooden stage where Hazara, the Circassian beauty, twisted and shimmied around like a dervish.
Gray was disgusted. The woman was morbidly obese, with undulating rolls of fat jiggling like Jello on top of a kicking radiator. A dumb smile was plastered on her puss, and Gray couldn’t help but laugh as Hazara tripped twice over her own fleshy feet.
“Here he cooooommmmesss, that’s Cathy’s clooownn,” she slurred as she attempted a half-hearted split. One wiseacre from the crowd offered to pay Hazara to stop dancing altogether.
“Nothing doing, buster,” she said as she continued to blindly gyrate.
“Give us the snake already,” a female voice said from the crowd.
“Yeah, we want the snake” multiple voices chanted in unison. Gray found himself yelling along until he was almost hoarse from the enthusiasm.
“Alright, alright,” Hazara screamed. “You dumbass marks want to see the freak, eh? You all want to see the human serpent who has been cursed to crawl on his disgusting, diseased belly for the rest of his life? You want to see that?! Ok, well, I’ll bring him out, but you all ought to know that the human serpent has a name and it’s Chucky! Come out, Chucky.” Hazara said the creature’s name with a toddler’s inflection in her voice. It was a derisive, mocking tone. Gray knew that she was needling the human serpent, but he didn’t realize just how badly the fat woman had erred.
Like a flash, a dark figure emerged from underneath the big top and crawled feverishly onto the stage. The human serpent appeared. He wore a striped shirt that was soiled and unwashed. His corduroy trousers were likewise rotten rags that barely clung to his chafed skin. The man moved quickly despite having no legs. His hands were missing as well, and only small stumps remained near the slender shoulders. Gray instinctually stepped back when he saw the human serpent’s face, for it was a cruel countenance with a deep scar bisecting the eyes, nose, and lips.
“Chucky baby,” Hazara cooed again. “C’mon, Chuck. Give them what they want…”
With the speed of a panther, the human serpent latched onto Hazara’s legs and used his teeth and chin to climb towards the woman’s throat. The belly dancer tried to push him off her, but the human serpent bit down hard until Hazara’s hands looked like crimson gloves.
“Help! Help! Get the rabid bastard off me,” she screamed. No one in the crowd moved at first, and one cross-eyed grease monkey made a joke about “the screwy show.” Then, when the human serpent reached Hazara’s throat and started gnawing until her flesh paled and blood poured out like a faucet, Gray and a handful of others jumped into action. The off-duty investigator had his snub-nosed .32 ready. He couldn’t get a clear shot until a farm boy managed to pin the bleeding Hazara to the stage while another grabbed the human serpent by the scruff.
“Make it count,” someone yelped from the crowd. Gray aimed for the serpent’s face and fired.
***
So, this is death, eh?
No more pussy, no more blood, no more late nights with liquor on my tongue. I’m dead because someone forgot to frisk Poindexter at the door. Never trust a man with a mustache, I tell ya; they’re either faggots or motorcycle cops who are faggots on the weekend.
It doesn’t matter anymore. I know I’m dead because I can feel myself getting thinner and I just know it’s the blood leaving my body.
Oh well. At least I can see that the dancing bitch is dead too. That’s good. I liked seeing that.
…what I don’t like seeing are the legs hovering over me.
The legs—so many of them, like trees, right in front of my eyes as the blackness squeezes in.
Oh Lucifer!
Why does the last thing I see have to be legs?
— Arbogast is a neo-pulp writer and the owner of 1325 Publishing. He is a co-editor at the Bizarchives, and his work has appeared in the Bizarchives, APOCALYPSE CONFIDENTIAL, Futurist Letters, and many more publications. He is the author of seven books, with his latest being THE RETURN OF PATRICK MIDNIGHT.