Brian Lane - Mind Games with a Serial Killer

Now, I told you I got three letters last Monday, the 20th. One from Ron Peterson; one from his friend in Tampa, Fla., Ken Karnig; and one from my mother. I wrote back to both Ron and Ken, sent the letters out last night, the 26th. And I answered, almost, my mother’s letter. But I’m not going to mail it! I’m afraid if I do, she’ll blow up and so will Don and the rest of the family! And I believe; I’m convinced , that they can still hurt me terribly with both my appeal and any chance for a new trial. To put it bluntly: I’m scared of what they can say and do.

As I told you when I talked to you briefly on the phone this morning, I was on the phone with Don for about an hour and a half. I was talking him through some of my diskettes so he could read them. There’s something wrong with my “Applewriter 11” program that he’s been using. It won’t allow him to scroll through my text files. He can get to the beginning and to the end but not the middle. And since I don’t have the documentation to the program in front of me, I can’t remember how to do it. He has located, however, one of the disks that has “Death.Stalks1” and “Excerpts1” on it. “Death.Stalks1” isn’t anywhere close to how much I had written on the story. Somewhere, on another disk is more of the story. I told how to boot the computer with a program that will allow him to ‘catalog’ all of the other disks to see what’s on each one. Hopefully, he will find the other copies that are more complete. But! All I had written of “Death Stalks On Four Legs” is chapter one . And it takes place only in VietNam! Chapter two was to begin in California—Perris and Elsinore area. The “Excerpts” file contains a lot of scenarios that I was going to build the story around. It’s so frustrating to be so close to all of that stuff, yet to be unable to put my hands on and pull up exactly what I know is there. At one time I had a computer print out sheet listing every single disk I had, showing each and every program I had stored on each disk.

There is a problem, though. He found my disk that has the game TAIPAN on it. Just like me, he’s gotten hooked on it. Both he and Bobby have been playing it and leaving other things undone. That was my problem. If I decided I was going to spend some time on the computer to work on a program or one of my utility programs, I had to hope that I found what I wanted to find before I came across Taipan. The lure was tremendous and there were times when I’d turn on the game and a week later I had the same game going. Fighting several hundred to a couple thousand pirate ships and selling my loads of Arms, Silk, Opium or General Cargo. Don’t get me wrong—I had enough will power to avoid Taipan and work on some program, but that temptation was always there. Bonnie used to curse that program. When I’d call up that game, she’d just shake her head, knowing that I was going to be occupied for a few hours. Before I got her initiated in using the computer to help her real estate work, she’d write me off as a lost cause whenever I sat down to the computer. But one thing she’ll have to admit to, is that no matter what I was doing on the computer, if she wanted to do some real estate work on it, I immediately got out of whatever program I was running and logged on to her real estate bulletin board and helped her with it! I never put her interests second to mine! She was always number one with me. Yet, that wasn’t good enough for her, I guess. She still left me. I’d be willing to bet that she doesn’t even know that to this date I would do anything in the world for her just to hear her say that she still loved me. If it meant that my death was the only thing that would bring happiness eternally to her, I’d do what is morally repugnant to me. I would commit suicide for her, if it was required to make her happy. And you know how I feel about suicide! (Man! I sure didn’t want to get into my feelings about Bonnie in any letter. But now that it’s written, I’m not going to retract it. Brian, please ! Don’t tell Bonnie how much I still feel for her. With her being married, and with Myrtle’s death, finding out just how much I still cared for her can only bring her more pain. And more than anything else, I don’t want her to suffer more pain. She’s had enough because of me already.)

Now, topics that I was wanting to cover before I got side tracked.

Do you remember a Robert Heinlein book I was telling you about while still in Riverside? It involved a time/dimension traveling device with a six pronged activating device. The name of that book is “Number Of The Beast.” I heartily recommend it to anyone just getting interested in Science Fiction. I wish I could read it again, but it’s not in the library here. Maybe when, if, I get enough money ahead, I can order it from whichever approved vendor I’m allowed to order books from.

Just recently read a great short novel here called “Trace of the Werewolf.” No, it did not involve the creature. (Have I already written you about this? I don’t recall.) It was about the supposed heir apparent to Hitler’s Third Reich, code name “Werewolf.” The hero of the book was supposed to find out if this, now grown man, was going begin Hitler’s atrocities all over again. During his investigation, he asked a great line: “In the words of Pontius Pilate: ‘What is truth?’” I thought that line fits so very well with my final statement. And to answer it, I’d say “It’s what Zellerbach has made up in his own twisted little world and has force fed to the public!” You know, when he spoke up after everyone else exploded at me, he said that I must not like him very well. If an understatement was ever spoken, he said it. But it’s not just that I don’t like him very much, it’s that I don’t care for the position he has where he can take any little bit of a whisper and turn it inside out, into a scream! I’ve heard of making a molehill into a mountain. But he’s taken a speck of dust (my case) and turned it into the largest dung heap with him sitting at the top thinking it smells like roses! Everytime he opens his mouth, the worst bit of flatulence I’ve ever heard comes out when he speaks his bombastic praise of what he did to me. (And by flatulence, I’m not talking about his pomposity!) Do I dislike him? Maybe. Do I hate him? No! Am I afraid of him? Resoundingly yes ! I’m afraid of what he can do with his office behind him to other people who are unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I have been having some awfully weird dreams of late.

1. I was in some kind of visiting room and so was the Zamora family. They asked me, “We want to know the truth—Did you kill Del?” I started shaking my head, saying “ no ” when out of the dark to my side, Del herself appears, smiles to me and her family and says “This man had nothing to do with my death!” The family asked how the evidence was found against me. I said it should be obvious that it was planted . Then Del speaks again, “It was put there!” When the family next asks a question, “Then who…” I was awakened by breakfast call. I haven’t had the dream again.

2. I was in an office somewhere (highrise) and I’m holding a gun. Check to see that it’s loaded, cock it and say, “Now you can come out ƒather !” Out of another room a man walks out and sits on a couch. He’s not my father. From another door comes three more people, one of which is “father’s” wife (not my mother). I proceed to tell everyone how “father” had sexually abused me for years (?). “Father” admits it, then his wife says, “I can’t fault him, because I did, too!” Now this dream scares me because, first, I don’t recognize any of the people in the room. Second, one wall is a mirror and I can see that it’s me holding a gun, I’m about 10—11 years of age and standing behind me with her left hand on my shoulder is Bonnie! And she looks to be about 45, the same as when I first met her! That’s all there is to that dream and again, I’ve only had it the one time (so far). What really scares me about it (besides I’m holding a gun) is that I don’t know that I was ever sexually abused at any time in my life. I have no memory or other evidence of such a thing ever happening. So where is this dream getting its ammo (so to speak) from? One reason why I’m scared is because I’ve read and heard that dreams have a nutshell of honesty that the subconcious is aware of, and that nutshell is what the subcon-cious builds the dream on. The fear I’m feeling from this dream is the same one you can imagine upon biting a chunk out of an apple, enjoying the taste and then go for a second bite. But to your dismay you see half of a worm drop out of the apple. Only one thought enters your mind “What happened to the other half of that worm! ?” If you understand that fear, you’ll know the fear I have from this dream.