Rick Mofina - Into the Dark

A video played, from the perspective of a head cam. It began with a house at night, a large ranch home, then jumped to its alarm system being disarmed, and then the lock of a side door expertly defeated with burglar’s tools.

The interior was tastefully decorated, the home was empty. The footage faded to black, then resumed with Amber Pratt preparing a bath, getting ready for bed. It then jumped to her fast asleep.

The camera pulled in on her pretty face. Then it cut to a naked man standing over her, reflected in the mirror. His face was a hideous mask of thick white makeup. His mouth, a blood-red, smeared frown. His black hollow eyes accentuated horror and agony.

Watching Amber now in the ambient light while she slept caused him to moan aloud in his cabin.

She was so beautiful. She was perfect.

Amber had triggered a vibration.

She had rekindled his dark urges and resurrected the monster. Ever since that day when he first saw her several months ago leaving Claire’s office, he ached to have her. Amber: The twenty-eight-year-old secretary, vulnerable and living alone in that big house in Alhambra.

Some nights he’d awake with his head splitting with so much pain he’d black out again. Once he woke with bloodstains on his clothes and no memory of how he’d got them. He’d tossed his bloodied pants and shirt in a Dumpster and took bleach to his car and cleaned it.

Now, sitting in the cabin, Bowen jolted from his trancelike state.

He had a life with Claire.

He had abandoned his project to take Amber.

No, he wanted her. It was true.

He wanted his torment to end.

Bowen slammed his laptop shut, went to the bathroom, yanked off his clothes and started to shower. He’d set the water so hot it nearly scalded him in his attempt to purge himself of the other being through a reverse baptism. He clawed at his skin, nearly scrubbing it raw.

Why was he cursed?

As steam clouds rose around him, his mind raced back to the slaughterhouse and the words of his foster father after he’d taught him the art of death.

“When you kill, you cross a line. There’s no feeling like it in this world. It’s mighty powerful, what they call primal, it gets into your system, gets hold of you and you can’t ever beat it, or stop it. I love it, truth be told.” He winks and spits on the ground. “And you will, too.”

Now, as needles of hot water stung him, Bowen recalled Louis Meadows’s wish for his daughter’s killer.

“I would ask God to make certain he burns for all time.”

Aghast at his depravity, Bowen continued washing to no avail as he slipped closer to the edge of an inferno.

What about the fact that he fought to let Amber live? What about the fact that he rescued that mother and her baby from the car wreck? Didn’t these good actions wash away the evil?

Nothing would ever undo his monstrous acts.

Bowen’s head was splitting. He gripped it in his hands, leaned back against the shower and slid to the floor as the truth tore at him.

He was condemned to a dual existence.

Nothing would free him. No one could save him. He had to accept what he was.

He could not accept it and live.

He left the shower without dressing and rushed to the utility room, rummaging in a supply box for a long piece of yellow nylon rope. He fashioned a noose, dragged a chair from the kitchen and flung it over a crossbeam where he tied it off.

What are you doing?

He climbed onto the chair and slid the rope over his head.

It all ends here, now.

You must not do that!

“Fuck you!”

He tightened the noose on his neck. His pulse raced and he gritted his teeth. As he braced to kick out the chair he glanced at his laptop and in that instant thought of how they would find him.

He thought of Claire. He caught his breath. Then he thought of nothing.

Numb with fear and confusion he removed the rope from around his neck, sat on the floor, naked and defeated.

He sat that way, motionless, numb, not thinking, for a long time.

Night had fallen by the time he stood and went to the utility room. He got on his hands and knees and worked his finger carefully around a loosened floorboard, pressing one end until its edge rose, allowing him to lift it out cleanly. Then he removed three more next to it revealing a storage space.

It contained a number of old CDs and textbooks on trades. One was subtitled All That Every Locksmith Needs to Know about Every Type of Lock and Security System . There were cell phones, cameras, keys for private storage units, cash and scores of official-looking IDs and a number of passports. As well, there were several small sealed plastic storage tubs, each about the size of a shoe box. Each tub had a name on it.

He set them on the kitchen table.

Each container held various articles, including women’s bras and panties, drawings, maps, photographs.

His trophies.

He selected items and placed them on the table: Esther’s bra, Fay’s panties, and photos of Monique at the mall when he was hunting her and Bonnie in the moment before she died.

Suddenly he closed his eyes, returning to the moments of his artistry; how at the precise moment, as life ebbed from each woman, he’d touched her finger to her blood and rolled it with tenderness in its position on the special page he’d carried with him to each project.

His work in progress .

He’d been so careful, wearing surgical gloves, giving time for the blood to dry on the page, exercising such gentle craftsmanship in creating the artwork that would represent the five perfect kills-the masterpiece-he was determined to bestow upon the world. The beauty, no, the glory of it, still gave him shivers, which he enjoyed until he drifted from his reverie back to the kitchen table.

Each tub also contained a doll corresponding with each woman. Lovingly, he ran his fingers over them, as he came to realize that he was losing his grip on himself. Slowly, the way a snake devours a rat, he was being swallowed whole by the evil that lived inside him.

He accepted that.

He reached into his bag for a small travel kit, returned to the bathroom and began applying his macabre makeup.

“I am the Dark Wind,” he said to the mirror when he finished.

He returned to the kitchen, sat in the darkness and worked at his laptop, his screen lighting his grotesque face.

One of his videos showed images of Claire. She looked beautiful as she stood at the edge of her office parking lot, the breezes caressing her hair. Another showed her asleep in her bed, a gloved hand hovering, nearly trembling almost touching her skin.

Watching the recording he licked his lips.

Blood hammered through his veins.

San Marino, California

Claire set a frozen chicken entree in her microwave oven and keyed the time on the touch pad.

As the fan whooshed and the carousel turned, her unease about Robert began whirling again in the back of her mind. She dismissed it, went to her bedroom, pulled her hair into a ponytail, washed off her makeup and changed into her T-shirt and sweats.

It had been a busy day.

She’d had a late afternoon appointment with Dr. LaRoy, and fighting the rush-hour traffic from his office had been intense. It was just as well that Robert was away at the cabin, she’d use her time alone to decompress.

I need to assess things.

She nestled into her sofa, flipped on the TV, deciding to watch Casablanca already in progress. The Nazis sang while she ate dinner. By the time she’d finished, her attention had drifted from the movie to her own matters.

Dr. LaRoy was preparing to start her on a new protocol for the experimental treatment. It would mean that he soon would commence giving her a series of injections coordinated with her cycle. She could expect an impact on her hormones, he said, but assured her it would not be as severe as what she’d experienced in the past.