Jack Kilborn: Killers

“Where am I?” Donaldson asked. His throat hurt. Raw from all the screaming he’d done while being dragged behind the car. His missing teeth made words hard to form.

“Blessed Crucifixion Hospital. They found you in a ravine, air-evacced you in. I’m performing your first skin graft later today. Doesn’t seem to be much of a reason for it, seeing how the state is going to execute you.”

“Your bedside manner sucks, Doc.”

Lanz whipped out a penlight, then roughly pried open Donaldson’s right eyelid with a latex-gloved hand. The bright beam was like being speared in the retina with a knife. After a few seconds, Lanz pulled away and scrawled something onto a clipboard.

“Was there a girl brought in with me?” Donaldson asked, keeping his voice neutral.

“I’m not supposed to talk to you about anything other than your injuries.”

“You don’t strike me as the kind of man who takes orders from lowly cops, Doc.”

Lanz seemed to consider it. “Yeah, she was brought in.”

“Alive?”

“If you could call it that.”

“Any chance of me seeing her?”

Lanz offered a sour smile. “Buddy, the only things you’ll be seeing are prison cells and courthouses, right up until they punch your clock.”

Donaldson narrowed his eyes. “I did a doctor, once.”

“Excuse me?”

“I had him strapped down on a table…” Donaldson lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “Then I used his own scalpel to cut off small parts of his body. A bit of skin here and there. A finger. An ear. His lips. His penis, in five separate pieces. I used a clotting powder to stop the bleeding so he didn’t die right away. Then I fed the bits to him. One at a time. If he threw up, I made him swallow the parts again. By the time he finally died, he must have eaten almost a quarter of his own body.”

Lanz didn’t flinch. “I’m going to tell the nursing staff to cut you off morphine. We wouldn’t want a charmer like you accidentally dying during the procedure later.”

Dr. Lanz shoved the clipboard back into its slot at the foot of the bed, and then turned to leave.

“See you later, Doc.”

Donaldson closed his eyes and imagined Lanz tied to a gurney, screaming and begging and choking on his own flesh.

But the image didn’t last. Just as it was getting good, his thoughts were interrupted by an image of Lucy. Small. Young. Innocent-looking. With her guitar case and her pink Crocs, her hip cocked out as she thumbed a ride.

In his head, Lucy smiled at Donaldson. The smile quickly escalated into giggling, and then full blown laughter.

The little bitch was laughing at the pain she had caused him.

You think you know pain, little girl?

I’ll show you pain.

“Do you understand these rights that I just explained to you?”

The sheriff was pure hick, soft around the middle, neck flab baked lobster red, prone to using the word ain’t. All he needed to complete the stereotype was a stalk of hayseed hanging out of his mouth.

“Don’t matter,” the lawman continued when Donaldson didn’t answer. “Looks like you’ll have several states fightin’ for custody of you. Likely you’ll be read your rights a few more times.”

Donaldson closed his eyes, wishing Barney Fife would leave him alone. The sheriff didn’t take the hint.

“You know, we don’t get too many high-profile crimes around these parts,” he continued. “Truth is, most we ever have to handle is the ‘casional drunk and disorderly. But we’ve taken some precautions with a worldly feller such as yourself. Up to me, you’d be handcuffed to that bed right now, but Doc Lanz says it ain’t needed on account of your serious injuries. I ain’t so sure. See, you remind me of this dog ole Roscoe Sanderson got over at his junkyard. Some mutt, got some St. Bernard in it, some Rot, some Dobie. Damn near the size of a brown bear. Now, the dog seems tame enough. Don’t bark. Don’t leap at you when you get near. But Roscoe keeps it on a big, thick chain. Some things may look harmless, but they need to be chained up just the same. Cuz once they’re unchained, they ain’t harmless no more.”

Donaldson peeked open his eyes. “Is this how you interrogate suspects ‘ round these parts?” Donaldson purposely drawled the last part of his sentence. “Bore them to death with your chatter?”

The sheriff hitched up his gun belt. “We got a guard on you twenty-four hours a day, Mr. Donaldson. We’ve gone through your room and removed everything that could possibly be used as a weapon. That window over there don’t open, and even if it did, you’re on the fourth floor. You got a problem with my chatter, ain’t a damn thing you can do about it.”

“We need to prep him for surgery, sheriff.”

The sheriff nodded at the nurse who had just entered. “Just make sure you count your scalpels when you’re finished,” he said before he left.

“The procedure went well.” Lanz again, standing over Donaldson with that sanctimonious frown. “It’ll be a few days before we know if the skin grafts take. You need to stay still, or they’ll slough off. I’ve given permission for the authorities to question you.”

Donaldson glanced at the other side of the bed. Two men in suits. Feds.

“I have nothing to say until I talk to a lawyer,” Donaldson said. His words were heavy, his entire body delightfully numb.

“We found the pictures hidden in your car, Mr. Donaldson.” The taller of the two had a voice like a radio jock. “In several of them you even posed with your victims.”

“ Alleged victims,” Donaldson said, cracking a small, private smile.

“We want to close these cases, Mr. Donaldson.” The shorter one. “If you cooperate, we can talk about reducing your sentence. Maybe you can even get life, instead of the death penalty.”

Donaldson closed his eyes. They tried to talk to him for a few more minutes, and when he didn’t reply, they left.

Donaldson didn’t sleep well.

He dreamt of being dragged behind the car, reliving all of the pain and the horror and the fear in slow-motion. His arm breaking, then breaking again, and again, and again, each new snap loud as a gunshot. His legs and ass being stripped of skin as the pavement ate through his pants. Lucy giggling at him, holding a squirt bottle of lemon juice, gleefully spritzing his open wounds. Donaldson’s father watching the scene, standing over him with that constant look of disgust.

“I always knew you were a bad seed, boy.” Dad took off his belt, bounced the heavy, brass buckle off his palm. “Let’s see if I can’t whup the fear of God into you.”

Donaldson woke up, woozy from the pain meds, convinced his father was standing next to the bed. But it couldn’t have been his father, because he was too pale, his hair too long and dark.

“Who’s there?” Donaldson whispered into his dark room.

No one answered.

But Donaldson felt eyes on him. He sat up, wondering if Lucy had somehow gotten to him, feeling a sick spike of fear jab right into his heart.

Donaldson fumbled for the light switch.

Squinted as it came on.

He was alone in the room.

“Serves you right, having nightmares.” The guard outside the door nodded at Donaldson all-knowingly. “Things you done, you should be haunted forever.”

Donaldson flipped off the light. He closed his eyes.

You got it wrong, pig. I’m not haunted.

I’m the one that does the haunting.

But when Donaldson fell asleep, the nightmare started all over.

It was two in the morning. Donaldson was in pain.

He knew there was more pain to come. Much more.

While they didn’t handcuff him to his bed, the authorities had been very careful with him, just like the hick sheriff promised. Donaldson ate with a plastic spoon on paper plates. The metal bedpan was taken away as soon as he finished. Anything in his room that could be considered a weapon-even the TV and the drawers from the dresser-had been removed. That prick Lanz and those goddamn Feds had even taken away his IV. Cruel and unusual punishment, no doubt. If Donaldson went to trial, it would be something for his lawyer to protest.