Ed Gorman - Cold Blue Midnight

The axe stood in the corner. It was a thing of beauty, at least to Rickthe equivalent of Excalibur. Dried blood lovingly streaked the 36-inch-long handle as well as the 5-inch cutting face. At night, watching TV, he often filed the head of the axe then used a whetstone on it. It was always sharp, always ready for use.

He went over and picked it up, stroked the long silken handle with obscene pleasure. He had a pretty good idea of who he'd be using this on, and soon.

He angled the inside of his thumb against the edge of the blade, his own blood mixing now with the blood of his victims. That's what we all came down to in the end, anyway. Blood and bone and meat and shit and come, all sinking into the oblivion of the ground.

He was aroused, then, and unexpectedly, the way he used to get as a teenager.

His need overwhelmed him and he hurried upstairs.

He kept the small black box of videotape velcro'd to the bottom of his mattress. It would take somebody a long time to find it. A long, long time.

He went swiftly to the living room, put the tape into the VCR, switched on the TV and then turned off all the other lights.

He knelt in front of the TV, as the images and then the screams struggled to grainy life on the home video.

He'd done this many times before.

He filled his hand with his sex and began pleasing himself.

The video had been taken in the basement with this skinny red-haired waitress he'd dragged all the way back from Wisconsin in the trunk of his car. He'd sedated her for the trip.

But he revived her when they got back here because he wanted to get it all on video. And her fear was a big part of the pleasure.

He'd mounted the camera on the tripod and then set to work.

She lay in the middle of the floor, right by the drain, naked and all trussed up. She had spunk, he had to give her that, the way she rolled left then right and then tried to kick her feet out. She had to know she didn't have a chance.

The camera got some good sexy angles of her as she rolled around naked like that. They were so good he always thought he was going to faint from pure pleasure when he saw them. She had a great little rump.

Then this guy came in. All in black. Right down to a black executioner's mask. Very dramatic. Freaky.

But what you really noticed about the guy was not his clothes but the axe.

Long, curved handle; blood-splashed head.

Rick and his axe.

She screamed so much the video microphone started woofing: it couldn't handle all that shrillness. She knew just what was about to happen…

He knelt in front of his TV now, pleasing himself more and more, faster and faster, as the axe descended and took her head off.

He watched it roll down the slanting floor toward the drain…

And then the man in the black executioner's maskthat's how he thought of it, like the guy in black wasn't really him but an actor, like, say, Warren Beatty or somebodywent to work on the rest of her…

And now, as the late-October wind tore at trees and shrieked into attic windows… now Rick knelt before his TV, his breath coming in gasps, as he watched the executioner finish the job.

The darkened living room was filled with shifting beams of light as the screen bloomed with various colors… and as Rick Corday cried out in ecstasy.

Adam Morrow lay awake in his hotel room listening to the muffled sounds of the Manhattan midnight thirty stories below him.

He was being silly, paranoid.

Everything would be fine.

He had had several stern talks with his friend Rick Corday about taking crazy risks.

The worst Rick would do was go get drunk somewhere and come on to some guy. And most likely the guy would say no, for there was something disturbing about Rick; something that had initially excited Adam but that now gave him pause, greater and greater pause, actuallyand then Rick would insult him and storm out.

Then he'd go home and get even drunker by himself.

Good old Rick.

Getting time to dump him, actually.

Sleep came to Adam, then, as he assured himself for a final time that he had cured Rick of his impulsive and insane risk-taking…

Sleep…

Following the death of her husband, Evelyn Daye Tappley had erected in her room a canopied bed of such proportion and craft that even a queen in a medieval kingdom would have been envious. In the manner of the ancient Egyptians, Evelyn had had her bedposts carved with intricate figures of myth such as unicorns and satyrs, and the bed itself hung with velvet and silk from the Orient.

It was here, when she did not wish to address mere mortals, including her daughter, that Evelyn Daye Tappley spent long hours in pajamas of the finest silk, sipping wine imported from French vineyards so celebrated that even international movie stars had a difficult time getting on the preferred customer list, and looking at photo album after photo album of her beloved second son Peter.

She was here how.

Doris knocked.

'I'll speak to you in the morning,' Evelyn said from the other side of the door.

'We need to talk now, Mother.'

'I'm in bed. Don't you have any respect for that?'

'I'm coming in, Mother.'

'Damn you, you have no right to treat me this way!'

But Doris waited no longer. Could wait no longer. If her suspicions were correct, her mother had done something that was both vile and exceedingly stupid.

The only light in the large shadowy room came from within the interior of the canopy itself, a light appended to the headboard of the vast bed.

Doris walked over and said, 'I want you to tell me about this Mr Runyon.'

Evelyn's dark eyes blazed. 'So you were listening on the extension.'

'Mr Runyon, Mother. I want you to tell me about him. And I want you to tell me what Arthur Halliwell has to do with all of this.'

Even this late in her life, Evelyn Daye Tappley had a firm and shapely body. In the dainty silk pajamas, the body looked thirty years younger than its owner.

On Evelyn's lap was a photo albumall color photos, of courseof Peter's ninth and tenth summers. Evelyn had been an inveterate documenter of her children's young years.

'He was a handsome boy, wasn't he?' she said dreamily.

'Yes, he was. Now tell me about Runyon.'

'You know, his birthday is coming up. Peter's, I mean.'

'I know.'

'I assume you'll go to the mausoleum with me.'

'Perhaps, Mother. But first'

Her mother glared up at Doris. 'You know what? The older I get, the more I wonder if you weren't jealous of Peter. I wonder if you weren't jealous all these years and I didn't understand it until recently.'

'You're changing the subject, Mother.'

'If you weren't jealous, you'd go to the mausoleum with me.'

'There's paying respectand then there's morbidity.'

'And I'm morbid?'

'You're there every day, aren't you?'

'And that's morbid?'

'Of course it is.'

Doris did not realize until it was too late what her mother had just done. There was a button on the side of the bed for summoning a servant. She had just pressed it. Martha would be here soon. Evelyn would have Martha stay with her so Doris couldn't ask any questions.

'You're very clever, Mother.'

Evelyn smiled. 'I like to think so, anyway, dear.'

'We're going to talk about Runyon.'

'Are we?'

'Jill doesn't deserve this.'

'You know what I just said about you being jealous of your brother?'

'Don't be ridiculous.'

'If you weren't jealous then you'd agree with me that that little bitch should be punished.'

'She's a decent woman. She did everything she could to save her marriage.'

Evelyn smirked. 'Oh yes, Jill Coffeya veritable saint, isn't she?' But she was angry now and could no longer control it. Her eyes grew wild again. 'Don't ask me about Runyon. Runyon is entirely my business, not yours. And I don't want you snooping around in my desk anymore, either.'