Robert Walker - Killer Instinct

“ Fuck the car and those guys tonight. We go to your place… we shoot up… see what develops. What do you say?”

This appealed to Tommy, but he still hesitated and finally said, “No, no, man. I'd like to but-”

Matisak saw that he was losing him. He suddenly took hold of the other man's forearm and jammed the hypo into him.

“ Hey, hey, man!” shouted Tommy. “You're going to fucking pop my vein up like a balloon! I got work tomorrow! They see this and it's time to piss in a bottle and my ass is screwed! Damn you, dammit! I said no!”

“ Just a little something to lift your spirits, Tommy,” he told him. “What the fuck is it? What'd you give me?” Tommy plunged out the door on his side, nearly falling. He stumbled around, a little, girlish whimper escaping him, his eyes bulging with fear and confusion. It was a look that fed Matisak, a look that made him brave and arrogant and evil all at once. He climbed down from his side of the van going through what he must do methodically in his mind when he met Tommy there in front of his car, the two men staring at each other, and Tommy coming to realize that there was something more in Matisak's interest in him than helping an acquaintance, or in going to bed with him; there was something primal in his eyes, and there was a scalpel in his hands.

“ What-thaa-hell-ah-ya-doing?” Tommy's speech was slurred along with his vision. “Whaa-was-sat-stuff? Whaa-kinda-stuff-ya?” Tommy pulled away from him, but the potent drug was already coursing through his brain, spinning him like a top. He wheeled and fell between his car and the next, dragging himself along. He felt a pair of powerful hands tearing at his pants leg and shoe. Felt the shoes come off and the socks torn away, but by now it was all as unreal as a dream and he no longer felt the sensation of being held down, and he didn't feel it when the scalpel severed the tendons of both heels.

He didn't feel himself being hefted up like a potato sack by the stronger, larger man, nor the pain of an abrasion to the forehead when he was unceremoniously thrown into the rear of Matisak's recently waxed light silver-gray van. He felt only darkness as Matisak tore his wallet and keys from him. Matisak recouped the shoes and socks, leaving only the small trail of bloodstains that dotted the concrete from the I-Roc to where the back of his van had stood. He then went to the I-Roc, disengaged the alarm with the beeper on the key chain and reached inside for what he wanted, coming out with a garage door opener. This was all done to the sound of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the beautiful music wafting up the side of the hospital to the windows there.

He scanned the windows for any sign of someone's having seen what had occurred here. He saw no one. There were only a handful of lit windows at this hour of the night. He looked in all directions around him. No one.

He next slid back into the driver's seat of the van, where he popped a fresh tape into the player, looked over his shoulder at his prize, and said, “I just want a little blood,” and then he casually drove out of the lot.

A mile away, he turned off the road, brought up his lights and read Tommy's ID card for his address. He hoped it would be a suitable place for gathering up Tommy's blood; he hoped Tommy lived alone; he hoped the rest of the night would go with ease.

And it had, save for a little trouble finding a suitable place to hang Tommy in the necessary position. The drugs had worn off by then and Tommy had come around to find himself with a tourniquet around his neck, hanging upside down and nude. Thus far he had not been scarred or mutilated in any other way than the cutting of the tendons-a precaution-and the near microscopic incision to the jugular where now the spigot dangled, held firm by adhesive tape. He could feel the spigot below his chin and just barely see its end, but he could clearly see the mason jar filling up before his eyes where Matt Matisak held it below the tap in his jugular. The loss of blood further dizzied and overwhelmed Fowler.

Matisak was halfway through filling a jar of blood when Fowler began to thrash, spilling some of the vital juice, staining the cheap, imitation oriental rug below the banister of the stairs leading to the second floor. This made Matisak curse. He then stopped the flow of blood, turning off the thumb-tack-sized dial of the spigot and tightening the tourniquet until Tommy choked.

Tommy began crying, blubbering incoherently. Matisak told him, “I thought you were into pain, Tommy.” His voice choked off, his eyes alone pleading with the mad Matisak, Fowler left the killer no choice. He turned his scalpel on the young man's eyes, swiping at them, making him flinch. But he did not want to cut his eyes. Not yet, anyway. He didn't want to open another wound in this section of the body. It would reduce the powerful flow at the jugular, and it would cause a bigger loss than the spill Tommy had caused.

He just needed to calm Tommy down.. He looked for the hypodermic he had prepared, found the milder dose of barbiturate and plunged this into Tommy's tied arm. It was enough of a dose to keep the other man lulled, until the blood-taking was complete. He didn't have time for games, not this time.

Afterward, he slashed the eyes, as he did with all his victims; not because he had an eye fetish, or because he didn't want the victim to see him, or as some shrink would have it, put out the eyes to save the poor victim from the sight of his own dying, but because it would confound police authorities.

With the same cold logic, with Tommy long dead now, he went to work on the genitals and limbs using his power tools. Once he was satisfied with this work, he looked into his case for the sable-hair paintbrush. To the sound of a light drizzle against the panes of the little house. Teach painted the bloodless open wounds, sucking in the odor of the blood as he dipped the brush into the jar and moved it across Tommy Fowler's throat.

It had become late by then, and he must get back to Chicago. But he mustn't rush too wildly. He mustn't leave anything of himself behind.

Now that Matisak was home from his Indiana run, he stared into a picture of Tommy Fowler, a photograph he had found in the young man's home. He smiled at the memories and placed the photo on a large board filled with the photos of his other victims on the wall in his old grandfather's and his father's den, which was now his den. He sat back and gazed into the faces of his victims, reliving the moments at the end that he had spent with each, the moment he literally held their lives in his hand.

Maybe a bath before turning in would be nice, he thought. He had enough blood now, for a while anyway. Yes, a bath would be refreshing. He allowed the dirty tools, for once, to sit.?

The following day Matthew Matisak was awakened by a telephone call, and assuming that it was Mr. Sarafian at the office, he let it ring several times before answering. But it wasn't Sarafian, it was Lowenthal. Maurice Lowenthal stirred him to consciousness with a jolt when he said, “I thought you ought to know, I sent in for the patent on the spigot mechanism. It was the only safe thing to do, Matisak; otherwise, if the idea is stolen from us, we have no recourse, and with you routinely showing it about, anyone could pirate the idea.”

Lowenthal was retired now, and with time on his hands he had drawn up sketches and explanations of the device that Matisak was using for his killing purposes.

“ When?” he asked. “When did you send the design in for the patent.”

“ These things take forever-”

“ When?”

“- the paperwork is impossible.”

“ When, damn you?”

“ Six months ago, right after I retired. Balue-Stork has no claim on my genius any longer.”