James Swain - Shadow People

Dr. Death continued to look right at her.

Then he spoke. “Fuck off.”

The water grew cloudy, and he vanished.

“Damn it!” Holly said.

The serial killer in Holly’s vase of water was named Harold Munns, “Doc” to those who knew him. Forty-five, never married, he lived in the town of Pelham in Westchester County where he’d grown up. He had no friends except the bottle of whiskey on the bar.

“Last call,” the bartender announced. “Come on, Doc. Don’t make me toss you again.”

Munns lifted his head off the bar. “Fuck off.”

“Watch your language.”

“Gimme some coffee.”

A steaming cup was set in front of him. Munns sucked it down, felt himself come around. The bar was clearing out. He settled his tab and followed the others outside. Someone asked him if he had the time.

“Three A.M.,” he replied.

Munns wondered if the others understood the significance of the hour. Christ had died on the cross at three o’clock in the afternoon, so it had been decided by Satan that his disciples would be most active twelve hours later.

Three A.M. Some called it the witching hour, others the Devil’s hour. It really didn’t matter: More bad things happened at three A.M. than at any other time of the day. That was a fact, and had been for two thousand years. Munns, and people like him, made sure of that.

“This town sucks,” Munns said hoarsely.

The late-night crew laughed. To them, Munns was a fat, chronically shy townie who worked at the local college and liked to get drunk on cheap whiskey, and that was all he was. If the police ever caught Munns and his crimes became known, his friends would be sure to say, “But he seemed like a decent guy.” because that was how he acted around them.

The late-night crew got in their cars and spun their tires in the loose gravel. Soon Munns was all by himself. He sucked on a cigarette.

“I hate this fucking place,” he shouted.

He’d lived in Pelham his whole life. The town had redbrick streets and gaslight replicas on every corner. It sold itself as a great place to raise a family, but that was a lie. A child could be locked in a dungeon here, and no one would care.

Soon, he was driving his Volvo through town. The streets were deserted, and he could have broken the sound barrier and not gotten a ticket. But that wasn’t his style. He never broke the law or drew suspicion to himself. The trick to being a killer was to stay off the police’s radar. His friend Ray had taught him that, along with many other useful things. If not for Ray, he’d probably be doing life in prison right now.

He passed the railroad station where the town’s homeless lived. Ten years ago, he’d used it as his laboratory. With the promise of a warm meal, he’d had lured homeless men to his car, strangled them, and dumped their bodies en masse in a field. He’d read in a book that when the homeless died, no one cared. The book had been right. No one had cared.

He pulled into a seedy strip mall, his destination a tattoo parlor called the Blue Devil. A blue neon sign in the window said CLOSED. Munns knew better and got out.

His legs felt like rubber. Booze was his weakness, but that was okay; the town was filled with drunks, and he fit right in. He banged on the front door with his palm. Ray, the owner, came through a beaded curtain and unchained the door. A self-proclaimed body artist, Ray had decorated himself in tattoos which covered ninety percent of his skin. Every tattooist had something he did particularly well. Ray’s specialty was ghoulish skeletons, flesh-eating zombies, and the assorted demons and serpents that guarded the gates of hell.

“How’s it going?” Ray asked.

“I’m hungry,” Munns said, shaking off the cold.

“It’s been too long, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, over nine months.”

“Is there someone in the wings?”

“You’re very perceptive.”

“Give me a name. It will help me visualize her.”

“Her name is Rachael.”

“Age?”

“Thirty-two. Single. Tall and trim. A runner. Tight ass.”

“You’ve seen pictures?”

“Google Images.”

“Is she coming here?”

Munns smiled and nodded.

“When?”

“Friday night on a train from New York. I’ll be picking her up at the station. She thinks she’s been invited to do an internship at the college. Won’t she be surprised when I take her to my house, and lock her in the basement.”

“Sounds like you’ve thought everything out.”

Ray headed toward the back of the parlor. Munns fell in line behind him.

Just thinking about Rachael’s arrival got Munns excited. Like most serial killers, his killing fell into cycles, which could be represented by the hands of a clock. Each time he killed, he felt satiated and very happy. That was the first three hours on the clock. The happiness faded away, and he would fall into a depression, hardly able to come out of his house and function. Those were the next three hours. This depression led to a manic stage, where he would begin to plot to secure his next victim. Often, he would stay up for days at a time, and was filled with unbridled energy. The next three hours. Finally, he would reach the countdown, where his next victim was about to step into his web. During this phase, he drank heavily, and felt like he was having a nervous breakdown. Those were the last three hours on the clock.

“I have a surprise for you,” Ray said.

“What’s that?”

“A new tattoo. I’ve been working on it all day.”

“For me?”

“Yes. Just for you.”

They entered Ray’s studio with its black walls and a space heater that faced a barber chair hex-bolted to the floor. Munns stripped down to his trousers. He was shaped like a bowling pin, with all his weight centered around the middle. His upper body was covered in tattoos, but not as spectacularly as Ray’s. There was still much work to be done.

“Where’s this new tattoo going to go?” Munns asked.

“On your right arm,” Ray said. “I want you to look at it every single day. It will serve as a reminder. Now take a seat, and we’ll get started.”

Munns sat in the barber chair and tried to get comfortable. He’d been physically abused as a child, his body used like a punching bag by his parents, and the prospect of having a hot needle stuck into his skin was not appealing. But there was no getting around it. Ray’s tattoos had been his salvation; each time he got one, he became a new man.

Ray snapped on a pair of rubber gloves like a surgeon. He removed the needles from the sterilized autoclave bag, fitted them into his tattoo machine, and turned on the power by stepping on a foot pedal. Coils sent an electric current through the machine, causing the needles to move up and down at a rapid pace. His unblinking eyes searched for the virgin skin on Munns’s arm. Finding his target, he pounced.

Munns settled in for the ride. It seemed like only yesterday that he’d gotten a flyer in the mail containing samples of Ray’s work. Looking at the grisly images, he’d known that Ray was someone he should meet. Up until that point, Munns’s killings had been poorly organized, more to satisfy a dark craving than any life calling. Meeting Ray had changed that. Ray had gone over to the dark side long ago. A convicted rapist and murderer, Ray had spent twenty years in prison, where he’d become a member of a group of devil worshipers called the Order of Astrum.

The first time they’d gotten together, Ray had convinced Munns to join the Order. Ray had shown him that the taking of innocent life was part of the Order’s master plan, and that if he subscribed to that plan, his ability to cause suffering would only grow.