My girlfriend got a note from a serial killer. Fucked, right?
Wait, lemme back up.
So my girlfriend used to be in this metal band, right? But she doesn't like to talk about it. I don't know why. Or I didn't know why, but maybe I do now. I don't know. It's all fucked up right now.
She keeps all the shit from her band days in this box under our bed, you know, like old concert shirts and cds and pictures and stuff. She doesn't like me to look in it. She even wrote "Flugrekorder nicht öffnen" on it in these big white letters, like it was some kind of black box from a fucking plane crash. I don't know, some kind of joke I just don't get. But I try to stay out of it anyway. It's her business and that's whatever.
Except the other day I came home and she was acting weird. Like all nervous and crying. She was on the bed reading a bunch of papers when I got in and I guess I startled her because she just immediately chucked them into the black box and slammed the lid on it. And she looked guilty as hell. I tried to ask her what was wrong but she wouldn't tell me.
I know I shouldn't have looked in the box while she was out today but I had to know what had shaken her up so bad. It was a bad idea because of fucking course it was. I don't have to tell you that. If it had been a good idea I wouldn't fucking be here writing this. You already know that. But I still don't know what any of this means.
I thought it was just a normal letter at first but when I started reading it... Do you remember Brian Mills? I didn't but I'm not into that serial killer shit. I had to do a google search based on the stuff in the letter to find out who he was but I guess I already gave away the results of that, didn't I? They arrested him 8 years ago after he killed 11 people in just a couple months. Or at least everyone thought he had. Now I don't know. Now I don't fucking know anything anymore.
That's why I'm posting this here. Because I need some help figuring out what the hell is going on with this. Because my girlfriend got a note from a serial killer and now I don't know what to think.
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On television, they called me the Carjack Killer. They said that I strangled those men out of rage, that I was jealous of their prowess with women. The police and the FBI said that humiliating them as I murdered them gave me some kind of sexual gratification. This isn’t true, but no one believes me.
A few years ago, that reporter out of New York published a book about my supposed crimes. “Metal, Mayhem, and Murder” was the title. Stupid but catchy. That was probably the point. Gary Howard, one of the guards here, told me all about it the very day it was released.
“Special ordered it, one-day shipping. Stayed up all night to read it.”
He slipped a pack of cigarettes through the bars of my cell as he said it. I don’t suppose it helps that I’ve kept smoking since I’ve been in here, but it doesn’t matter now. A man on death row doesn’t fear cancer, and he doesn’t fear more evidence against him. Gary isn’t supposed to give me things like that, but he does. I’d guess he isn’t supposed to tell me about things like the book either. He’s a little star-struck by me, I think, a little overwhelmed. Who doesn’t love a good serial killer story, after all? I also think Gary is fucking pathetic, but I take what kindness I can get in this place.
In the book, or so far as Gary tells me, the reporter talked about what she called my process. All of it had to be based off of police evidence, of course, since so far no one has managed to take my confession. I guess it’s hard to take what I don’t have to give. Nonetheless, the evidence itself paints a very clear picture. I would steal a car from the venue parking lot, she said, and follow a man on his way home. At some low-traffic point in the journey I would rear-end him, force him to pull over. When he stepped out of his car I would bash him over the head. Repeatedly, if necessary. The instrument I used for this would vary, depending on what was at hand in the stolen car. Most times it was a tire-iron. Once he was unconscious I would load him back into his own car. Then I would climb in the driver’s seat, tape his mouth, and drive away. I kept the tire iron with me in case I needed to use it again.
Gary winked at me as he told me that. I’m not a large man. It makes sense that I would have to thoroughly incapacitate my victims.
In terms of the destination, the reporter speculated that I only required seclusion. Once I found it I would unload my victim and strip him. Whether I merely undressed the men or cut their clothes away is unclear; none of the missing garments were ever found. It’s possible, according to the reporter, that I kept them as trophies in a location police have not yet discovered. After he was naked I hogtied him with duct tape. And then I waited for him to wake up before wrapping the rope around his throat.
“She says the truly disturbing part is what you did about the tape over their mouths,” Gary said. “See, you took it off. There was tape residue on their faces, but the actual piece that had been there before was wadded up and tossed to one side. She says you wanted to hear them die.”
It’s difficult to roll a man onto his back when he’s hogtied. Easier to leave him on his stomach. From there it is very simple to stand above him, loop a long cord around his neck and pull up. Let gravity and his own weight do the trick. This is especially useful when the killer is smaller and lighter than his victim. According to the reporter, the only downside was that I couldn’t see their faces as they died. That was why I needed the seclusion, so I could remove the tape from their mouths and hear the noises they made as life escaped them. I would stand above them with the ends of the cord wrapped taught around my gloved hands, arms burning with the effort of lifting them, and listen to them choke and grunt until that last gasp before they stopped.
This, I expect, is all true. The only exception is that I wasn’t the one who did those things. It was someone else. I have always said that it was someone else, but no one believes me.
The prison officials here don’t allow me internet access. They worry about who I would contact on the outside world, or worse, who would contact me. Can’t even use a computer, hence why I’m writing this note with a stolen pen. Perhaps I should miss it, but I don’t. It is, after all, part of what got me in here.
I don’t remember exactly what I was looking for when I found the first photos online. Maybe something related to Ted Bundy, or Jerry Brudos. I was always researching serial killers in my spare time, and I don’t mean the general Wikipedia bullshit. I looked deep for pictures and gore, digging for the most gruesome snippets I could find. I looked in places on the internet where you’re not supposed to look. I don’t know why I did it. I suppose I just wanted to know. A curiosity that could never be satiated. The things I looked at were frightening. I even frightened myself, I think. But that didn’t stop me.
I don’t know who posted the photos. There was no way for me to find out. There was only his username, schechter. Already there was a stream of comments below. He responded to some of them. When one pressed how he had gotten pictures, he answered with only two words: from work.
The photos were of a dead man. He was naked, and his arms and legs were bound together behind him with duct tape. I didn’t know it at the time, but the man was Richard Kane. I looked at him for hours. He was belly down in the mud on the side of the road, his face turned to one side. I looked at the trickle of dry brown blood that ran down his forehead, looked at the angry red welt that encircled his throat. I looked into his dead eyes, at his slack open mouth.
I wanted to know who had killed him.
Where is this? I added my comment to the stream below. schechter answered quickly, naming a city not terribly far from where I lived.
Every night after work I went back to the site, went back to the photos of the dead man in the mud. In my mind I spoke to his killer.
Why did you take his clothes off? I’d ask.
How did you choose him?
What did it feel like to kill him?
I could summon no answer, just an odd feeling in my chest.
A week later there was a fresh set of photos on the site. Another dead man, naked and bound, dumped on the side of the road. Smaller than Richard Kane, this one had dark hair. He was face down in the dirt. One wide, blank eye was the only feature not obscured. David Stills, I would later learn. The second victim. Just as with the first there was no rope around his neck, only the burn where one had cut into his flesh.
Underneath, schechter had already listed the location. It was closer this time.
I could see the place where the man had been hit. The hair on the back of his head was matted with blood. It ran down his back, blending with the tattoos that covered his skin. And there, at the inner edge of his shoulder blade, was one of the Virgin Mary. Depicted as a statue, she bore no color except the red that flowed from her eyes and mouth. It ran down to coat her robes and pool at her bare feet.
I knew that image. As a teenager, I had hung a poster of it on my wall. Though I had long since outgrown the band, I still recognized the art from Crimson Shrine’s first album.
It was only a hunch, but I pulled up their website. A man who had pierced that image into his skin forever would not pass up the opportunity to see the band perform, I thought.
I was right. Two days earlier they had done a show where the tattooed man now lay dead. A week and a half before that, they had been in the same place as the first victim. There was another show that night. It was only a two hours away.
I bought a ticket. I wasn’t sure that the first man had been to see Crimson Shrine before his death, but I had a feeling that I couldn’t ignore.
The venue was packed. Four hundred people were jammed inside, sweating beer and weed into the stale air. The press of bodies around me was almost unbearable, but I couldn’t leave. The killer could be there. And if he was, I had to find him.
Yet finding a serial killer in a group of metalheads is no simple task. Indeed, the groups tend to overlap, like a Venn diagram. Ramirez, unsurprisingly, was a fan of AC/DC’s “Night Prowler.” Dahmer listened to Black Sabbath. And if you think looking for disturbing behavior in a crowd like that will help you single out a murderer, you’d be mistaken. All around me people were swearing, shouting, using elbows and knuckles to push their way closer to the stage. An overwhelming majority of them were men, and an overwhelming majority of them were average.
A man with long black hair shoved passed me, spilling his beer. It sloshed down my arm, warm and reeking.
“Whoa! Sorry, dude!” He laughed, clapping me on the shoulder. His hand was hot, his eyes glazed with the sheen of drugs and alcohol.
“No problem,” I said. He laughed again and pushed further forward into the crowd.
A hush fell as the opening band stepped out. Two men and two women. The largest man, his broad shoulders cut free from the confines of sleeves, took a seat behind the drum kit. The other three took guitars from their stands. One of the women stepped up to the microphone. A grey tattoo flared across her chest from beneath her tank top, the wings of some unseen creature spread from clavicle to clavicle.
“Hello!” She shouted. The crowd erupted in cheers. She waited until they died down to continue.
“I am Adelaide, and we are --”
“Show us your tits!”
The shout came from somewhere near the stage. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought it sounded like the man who had bumped into me. A stunned quiet fell over the crowd, but Adelaide only laughed.
“How about instead I just buy you a beer at the end of the set?” She asked into the microphone.
“Fuck, yeah!” The man shouted back. She flashed him a thumbs up. There was a yellow bracelet on her wrist.
“Not tits, but still pretty good.” She said.
The crowd cheered again, louder this time. She shouted over their glee.
“Thank you! I am Adelaide, and we are... Bitter Waters!”
The music slammed into being like heat lightning. And her voice was the voice of God. It was sex and death, rage and love. I had never heard anything like it. I knew I should have been searching, looking for the killer in the crowd, but all I could see was her. All I could feel was her, pounding in my skull, burning in my blood. All around me people were dancing, slamming into each other, flailing their arms and banging their heads, but I could barely move. I was transfixed.
When the final echo of their last chord faded she screamed across the crowd again.
“Thank you, and God be at your table!”
The mass of people filtered back, heading to the bar. I followed suit, drank a whiskey, and waited.
Adelaide and the other girl came from the behind the stage a few minutes later. They headed to the side, toward a card table covered in a banner emblazoned with the name “Bitter Waters.” Crimson Shrine had a crew member working their merchandise table, but Bitter Waters was a smaller band, less popular. They would work the table themselves. I caught up to them as they pulled cardboard boxes out from beneath it.
“Hey, do you need some help?”
Adelaide looked up as she lifted a tray of CDs and cassettes from the box. We were eye to eye. My heart stuttered in my chest.
“Nah, but we appreciate the offer. Right, Miri?”
She nudged the other girl. I saw that what I’d thought was a yellow bracelet on her wrist was actually a bandana, intricately tied. The other girl, Miri, rolled her eyes.
“Right.”
“I, uh...I really liked your show.”
People were pushing past me, making their way back to the stage. Adelaide was safe behind her table. She smiled.
“Thanks, man.” Her eyes flicked over the crowd that moved behind me. On stage she had been all-powerful. Now she seemed nervous, fidgeting with that yellow bandana.
“Are those angel wings?” I asked. I hadn’t meant to. Her eyes came to mine again and she stilled. I felt for the first time like she was actually looking at me.
“No,” she said, touching one wing of the tattoo on her chest. “It’s the Wingèd Victory of Samothrace.”
Though her answer didn’t call any particular image to mind, the way she said it seemed right. Wingèd.
“I like it.” I picked up a CD from the tray. “Can I buy one of these?”
“Sure thing,” she answered. “It’s 12 bucks.”
I got my wallet, looked for exact change. It was difficult to focus. She was tying her hair into a bun and all I wanted to do was watch.
I held the money out. Miri took it, counted it, gave me back the extra one I had handed over.
“Glad you liked the show,” she said. Next to her, Adelaide was fidgeting again.
“Hey Miri, I’m going out to smoke, okay?”
“Whatever, Addy.” Her mouth was set in a thin line.
Adelaide looked at me once more. “It was nice to meet you...?”
“Brian.”
“It was nice to meet you, Brian.”
She held out a hand to shake. Her fingertips were cold against my skin.
I listened to the album on my drive home. I turned it up as loud as I could. Gooseflesh stood out on my arms. Her melodies, her voice, seemed to reach inside of me with cold fingers, changing something fundamental within. When I pulled into the parking lot at my apartment complex, I used my phone to look up the Wingèd Victory of Samothrace. It was a statue of a goddess, standing firm on the prow of a ship, her robes blown by the wind. Her head and her arms were missing, lost to time. I tried to imagine what she must have looked like when she was still complete. All I could see was Adelaide.
I dreamed of her that night. I dreamed of kissing the goddess nestled between her breasts, of tasting the salt on her skin. I ran my hands through the silken fall of her ash blond hair. A single strand came away in my grasp, and I knew it belonged to me. It was a piece of her that would be mine forever. I wanted more.
There was no update to the website the next day. No new victim. I had been wrong. And yet I couldn’t bring myself to regret the trip I had made.
During the days, at work, I pictured her playing. The guitar thrummed under her strong grip and her voice rang out clear. I sang her songs to myself, softly. At night I put my earbuds in and fell asleep to the album, and I dreamed of her in my bed.
I was lost. There was a feeling in my chest that screamed...something. Do something. But what? What could I do? There was nothing. My chest ached with the echoes of music.
A week later, there were more photos on the site. schechter had posted the location below along with the comment:
Took a while to find this one.
The man was bound just like the others, but his flesh was beginning to slip. His body was bloated, torn raw by the activity of carrion creatures. Another commenter estimated he had probably been dead since the Saturday before. It was the same day I had gone to the concert, in the same city.
The man’s face was obscured by his long, black hair.
Crimson Shrine was still touring. Bitter Waters was still with them. Their next show was a full day’s drive away. I called work and told them I probably wouldn’t be in the next day. I told them I had the flu.
Then I got in my car and drove.
This venue was bigger. It was packed like before, but industrial air conditioners kept the Texas heat at bay. I searched the crowd intently. Now I knew there was a killer among them. I could find him. The questions were already in my mind.
Why did you take his clothes off?
How did you choose him?
Did it feel good to kill him?
I decided that I would stay by the bar while Adelaide played. I didn’t want to be distracted. I heard her shout, and then the music began. Her voice pulled at me, a siren’s song. I hummed along, but resisted the call to go see her, to look at her--the Victory on the prow of that stage. I knew if I did that I would be done for.
Instead, I watched the people as they drifted in and out of the doorways. I tried to remember faces from the last performance. No one stuck out. No one looked familiar.
Bitter Waters finished their last song. Over the fading echo Adelaide cried out:
“God be at your table!”
I watched as more people pressed toward the bar around me. I didn’t recognize any of them. They filtered past me minute after minute, strangers all.
I heard Adelaide laugh behind me. The sound set my skin alight. I turned. She and Miri were at their booth. A man stood across from them, reaching over the table. He ran a hand through Adelaide’s hair, caressed her arm. His fingertips brushed across her tattoo and Adelaide slapped his hand away playfully. She laughed again. Now that I knew the cause of it, it set my teeth on edge. She shooed him away and he went.
I walked over.
“Was he bothering you?”
“Very much so.” Miri answered. She looked disgusted.
“No,” Adelaide said. “Just a little drunk and having some fun. No harm. But thank you for asking.”
A flame of rage flickered to life inside of me at her answer. He touched her like that and she called it fun? It was repulsive. She should have been above it, should have been above that mewling need for attention that other, weaker women had. But she had tolerated his advances. She had even liked it.
“Do you wanna buy something?” She asked.
“No,” I said. My nails dug into the flesh of my palm. “I already bought your CD the other day.”
She tilted her head at me.
“Brian?”
The rage died suddenly, quenched by the sound of my name in her voice.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“Oh wow.” She reached over the table, touched my arm with her cold fingers. It sent a shiver across my skin. “How are you? What are you doing so far from home?”
An answer faltered against my tongue. “I was just...traveling for work. I thought I would come see you again.”
“That’s so cool.”
She seemed uncomfortable. She fidgeted and rubbed her arm with the palm of her hand. The motion drew my eyes down to the angry red marks in the crook of her elbow. With a swift motion she crossed her arms over her chest, cutting herself off.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just...looking at your bandana. It’s different.”
It was true. The yellow bandana bracelet had been exchanged for a purple one.
“Oh, yeah. I like to change it every show. Kind of a tradition.”
She turned suddenly. “Can you watch the table, Miri? I need a smoke.”
Miri’s face fell in a way that I understood now. “Whatever, Addy. Do what you gotta do.”
Adelaide slid around the table and past me, twisting her hair up into a bun as she went.
“Nice to see you again, Brian.” She didn’t look at me as she said it. Miri gave me a doleful stare.
“You might as well go enjoy the rest of the show, honey. She’s not coming back tonight.” She tapped the soft flesh inside her elbow. “She’s sick.”
My stomach roiled. I pictured a needle in Adelaide’s arm. I imagined those red punctures in her perfect skin ulcerating with the filth of someone else’s blood. All the damage it could do. How stupid it was. My hands were shaking. Miri’s voice filtered in through my rage.
“We’ll be in Tulsa tomorrow. It’s only four hours away. Maybe work will take you there too.”
Her tone told me she knew I had lied. I didn’t care.
I slept in my car that night. I dreamed that Adelaide was with me. I dreamed that I could reach inside of her and take out all of the pieces that made her sick, that made her weak. I could find that perfect piece of her that had taken root in my mind and bring it up to the light. I could make her better. I could make her mine.
The killer stood outside of the car, looking in at us. I couldn’t see his face.
What does it feel like? His voice was both strange and familiar.
This isn’t about me. I answered him in the dream. This isn’t about her. This is about you.
He laughed.
More pictures were up on the website the next day. Another man, choked in the dust. I didn’t even have to look at the location that schechter had posted to know that he had been at the show. I had seen him. I was sure of it. Just like I had seen the killer.
I followed her to Tulsa, then Wichita, then Kansas City. The killer followed too. Three cities and three more men.
I slept in my car, cleaned up in bathrooms as best I could. At some point my boss called and told me I was fired. I told her she could go fuck herself.
The thrill I had once gotten from looking at the photos of the dead began to fade. It was no longer enough. But the curiosity persisted. I needed to find him. I needed him to tell me...everything. Why kill so many? What did it feel like? I had to know. It was growing harder and harder to control my frustration.
Every night I dreamt of the killer, and of Adelaide.
The next show was different. A storm threatened outside, the soft rumble of thunder growing in the distance. Adelaide grabbed the microphone.
“Hello!”
The crowd cheered as they always had. She winked at me and pointed upward.
The storm broke. An echoing crack of thunder shook the room. Adelaide laughed as though she had planned it.
“We are Bitter Waters!”
The thunder rolled with their music, the slamming staccato of the rain on the roof was another drum added to the percussion. The sheen of sweat that glistened on her arms and over her tattoo was the like the promise of peace that would come after the storm. It was rapturous. Nothing would ever live up to it.
Later, at the merchandise table, she couldn’t stop smiling.
“That was amazing,” I said.
“God, it felt so good,” she replied. “Like sex, but better. Fuck, I need a cigarette.”
The electricity on my skin faded into disgust. I knew what she meant. But then:
“Come outside with me, Brian. I wanna talk to you.”
She took me by the shoulder and led me out the back. The rain had slowed, softened to a gentle noise. Much to my surprise, she did just what she had said she would. She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her back pocket and lit one. She inhaled deeply and sighed the smoke out into the night.
“Why have you been following me?”
The question took me off guard.
This isn’t about you. The first thought that came into my head. I couldn’t tell her the truth.
“I...I don’t know,” I answered. She looked at me sideways.
“Do you think you love me?”
I thought of the dreams, of how her music pounded through me like blood, of how I wanted her in ways too horrific to describe. Was it love? It didn’t feel like any love I had ever known. It felt like something else, something I couldn’t name. I wondered suddenly if the killer felt this way about her too. I had thought that he was following Crimson Shrine, but what if he was following Adelaide? What if he was following her...just like I was?
“Brian?” Her voice brought me back to myself.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
“That’s good. That’s all I wanted to know.”
“Why?”
She took another drag on the cigarette, shrugged, but didn’t answer.
“Adelaide, has someone else been following you?”
“No.” Something in the way she set her shoulders told me otherwise.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“There’s no one following me.”
My heart was racing, but the words came slow. “Who the fuck is he?”
“I don’t want to talk about it!” Her answer was sudden, sharp. But it wasn’t angry, I thought. She sounded afraid.
She knew. She knew what was going on around her. Perhaps even what was going on because of her. She had seen him, she had to have seen him. And she had done nothing about it.
Only the patter of rain interrupted the long stretch of silence between us. She threw the end of her cigarette out onto the wet asphalt. Another one came out of the pack. She lit it then held it out to me—an apology. I let it hang for a moment, then took it. The first draw burned my lungs. I coughed and passed it back as she laughed. I was forgiven. Perhaps she thought she was too.
“Not a smoker, huh?”
“Not really.” My eyes stung. I couldn’t clear the feeling from my throat.
“Got any vices at all?”
I pictured the photos of the dead men. I had stared at them for hours. I remembered the strange feeling in my chest when I looked at them.
“No,” I answered.
“Shame,” she said. “It’s good to have a few vices. Sometimes, one vice can even cover another.”
My eyes traced from the cigarette in her long fingers, past the green bandana on her wrist and down to the track marks in her arm. I suddenly wanted to hit her, to grab her by the hair and smash her face into the brick wall behind her. I wanted to see the blood gush from her broken nose. She was so weak, so stupid.
No, Adelaide. I don’t think it can.
But I still bought a pack of cigarettes that night.
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Because this guy writes like it's a fucking dissertation the full letter is too long to post all at once. I'll post the rest tomorrow. Please hang in there with me. You need to see all of it to understand.
Submitted January 10, 2019 at 06:14PM by DA_Williams http://bit.ly/2stCjoF
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