“Okay. Sure.” He smiled. “How about ‘goth chick’? Can I call you that?”
She batted him on the arm. “I’m not goth!”
“No? Let’s see…you dress in black and you love Bauhaus and Siouxsie. Like my father likes to say–”
“Please don’t!” She jammed her fingers in her ears and began making nonsense noises that sounded like “Bobbitta-bobbitta-bobbitta.”
“–‘If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, odds are it’s a duck.’ ”
She removed her fingers from her ears. “Finished?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Those are simply my choices. They don’t mean I’ve joined a club. I don’t like labels.”
Neither did Jack, so he dropped it.
3
They’d walked their bikes back to the firebreak trail and were readying to head back to Johnson when Weezy held up a hand.
“You know, I’ve never been through this area.”
Jack smiled. “You mean there’s someplace on Old Man Foster’s land you haven’t seen?”
She shrugged. “He owns a lot of land. Let’s take a look around.”
He looked at his watch. “We should be heading back. I’ve got to get to USED–”
“Come on, Jack. Just a little. I’d go myself but…”
Jack knew what she didn’t want to say: After last night, she didn’t want to be alone in there.
“Okay. Just a few…”
But she was already walking her bike back up the path. He brought up the rear until she stopped and pointed.
“Looks like some sort of clearing over there.”
He followed her through a line of trees and, sure enough, a clearing.
A creepy clearing…almost perfectly square, the size of half a football field, with nothing growing in it.
Nothing at all.
“What’s the story here?” Jack said, inspecting the sandy soil. “Does somebody come by and weed this place? Or spray weed killer?”
“Weed killer would leave dead plants.”
Jack looked again. She was right: no sign of vegetation, living or dead.
“Check this out,” she said, kneeling to examine a bright green fern along the edge. She stretched one of the fronds and gave it a close look, then muttered something that sounded like “warts.”
“What?”
“Ebony spleenwort. It doesn’t usually grow in the Barrens because the soil’s too acid.”
Jack felt his eyes roll of their own accord. “How do you know this stuff? And why?”
She rose and faced him. “Because the Pines have lots of lost towns – villages and such that just up and disappeared.”
“Or were built over, as we well know.”
She nodded. “But one way to spot where a town once stood is ebony spleenwort. Pinelands soil is acidic and ebony spleenwort doesn’t like acid. So it grows over buried foundations because the old limestone and mortar reduce the acidity in the soil over them.” She gestured around. “We’re standing in an old foundation.”
Jack looked at the big square of naked soil. “Of what?”
Weezy stepped onto the bare earth and wandered toward the center of the square. Jack followed, scuffing the ground as he followed. Not a sign of life. Not a beetle, not a wormhole, not a single ant hill. Looked like nothing had ever grown here. Something else seemed to be missing from the soft soil but he couldn’t say what.
Weezy stopped and turned in a slow circle, pointing. “See? The spleenwort runs all around the edges. A building once stood here – a big one.”
“Big is right. What was this place? And why won’t anything grow in the center? It’s like it’s some sort of dead zone.”
“Dead zone…” She looked at him. “Why does that sound familiar?”
“It’s a movie coming out.” Jack had seen a preview when he’d gone to see the animated Fire and Ice. “I think it’s about–”
“Shhhh!” Weezy said, pointing.
Jack looked and saw a pair of young Pineland deer walking their way. He froze and watched as they approached the clearing. It looked as if they were going to step into it when both abruptly turned right and followed the spleenwort to the corner, then turned left and followed the far edge. At the next corner they made another left until they came even with their path on the far side, then turned away. Jack watched their white tails disappear into the trees.
“Did you see that?” Weezy said, her voice hushed.
Or course he’d seen it. And now he knew what else was missing from the bare square.
“Tracks.”
Weezy stared at him. “What?”
“Look.” He pointed to the ground around them. “It hasn’t rained for at least a week but the only tracks here are our footprints. The only explanation for that has to be that animals won’t cross this space. It’s really and truly a dead zone. What’s going on here?”
“Or maybe, what went on here. I don’t know, but… it doesn’t feel right.”
Jack knew exactly what she meant.
She gave him a sickly look. “I don’t think I want to be here anymore.”
Neither did he, but he put on a carefree expression. “Whatever. I’ve got to go to work anyway.” He looked around. “You think this place might be part of your Secret History of the World?”
She nodded. “Definitely. But maybe some things should remain secret. Let’s get out of here.”
Jack didn’t argue. If nothing else, the dead zone seemed to have chased Carson Toliver from her thoughts.
But not from Jack’s.
The rest awaits you here… Jack: Secret Vengeance
1988
“Faces”
…is set in Reborn’s Village of Monroe and referred to later in Conspiracies. But "Faces" has an even closer link to the Secret History. You see, Carly was conceived just about the same time Carol Stevens conceived her child in Reborn. Rasalom’s reincarnation had a ripple effect through the embryos gestating within a certain range.
In 1987 I needed a 10,000-word story to fulfill a commitment to an anthology called Night Visions VI. I'd been perking a story about a serial killer (this was before The Silence of the Lambs and the serial killer glut) but one with a difference. This one would be female (they're almost always male), hideously deformed, and sympathetic. I felt if I could tell you about the forces driving Carly to these murderous acts – her childhood, her needs, her emotional hungers – you might understand her. You might even find some sort of love for her.
“Faces” is one of my most reprinted short stories – made a best-of-the-year anthology and even got the graphic treatment in IDW’s short-lived Doomed. It has its share of horror, but it’s emotionally wrenching as well – how even good people can be cruel to those who are too much unlike us.
Years later I happened to reread Richard Matheson's "Born of Man and Woman" and realized what a significant – though unconscious – influence it had on my story. I believe Carly is Matheson's little girl all grown up.
One of my most reprinted short stories – made a best-of-the-year anthology and even got the graphic treatment in IDW’s short-lived Doomed. It has its share of horror, but it’s emotionally wrenching as well – how even good people can be cruel to those who are too much unlike us.
Here’s how it begins…
“Faces”
(sample)
Bite her face off.
No pain. Her dead already. Kill her quick like others. Not want make pain. Not her fault.
The boyfriend groan but not move. Face way on ground now. Got from behind. Got quick. Never see. He can live.
Girl look me after the boyfriend go down. Gasp first. When see face start scream. Two claws not cut short rip her throat before sound get loud.
Her sick-scared look just like all others. Hate that look. Hate it terrible.
Sorry, girl. Not your fault.
Chew her face skin. Chew all. Chew hard and swallow. Warm wet redness make sickish but chew and chew. Must eat face. Must get all down. Keep down.
Leave the eyes.
The boyfriend groan again. Move arm. Must leave quick. Take last look blood and teeth and stare-eyes that once pretty girlface.
Sorry, girl. Not your fault.
Got go. Get way hurry. First take money. Girl money. Take the boyfriend wallet, also too. Always take money. Need money.
Go now. Not too far. Climb wall of near building. Find dark spot where can see and not be seen. Where can wait. Soon the Detective Harrison arrive.
In downbelow can see the boyfriend roll over. Get to knees. Sway. See him look the girlfriend.
The boyfriend scream terrible. Bad to hear. Make so sad. Make cry.
*
Kevin Harrison heard Jacobi's voice on the other end of the line and wanted to be sick.
"Don't say it," he groaned.
"Sorry," said Jacobi. "It's another one."
"Where?"
"West Forty-ninth, right near–"
"I'll find it." All he had to do was look for the flashing red lights. "I'm on my way. Shouldn't take me too long to get in from Monroe at this hour."
"We've got all night, lieutenant." Unsaid, but well understood, was an admonishing, You're the one who wants to live on Long Island.
Beside him in the bed, Martha spoke from deep in her pillow as he hung up.
"Not another one?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, God! When is it going to stop?"
"When I catch the guy."
Her hand touched his arm, gently. "I know all this responsibility's not easy. I'm here when you need me."
"I know." He leaned over and kissed her. "Thanks."
He left the warm bed and skipped the shower. No time for that. A fresh shirt, yesterday's rumpled suit, a tie shoved into his pocket, and he was off into the winter night.
With his secure little ranch house falling away behind him, Harrison felt naked and vulnerable out here in the dark. As he headed south on Glen Cove Road toward the LIE, he realized that Martha and the kids were all that were holding him together these days. His family had become an island of sanity and stability in a world gone mad.
Everything else was in flux. For reasons he still could not comprehend, he had volunteered to head up the search for this killer. Now his whole future in the department had come to hinge on his success in finding him.
The papers had named the maniac "the Facelift Killer." As apt a name as the tabloids could want, but Harrison resented it. The moniker was callous, trivializing the mutilations perpetrated on the victims. But it had caught on with the public and they were stuck with it, especially with all the ink the story was getting.
Six killings, one a week for six weeks in a row, and eight million people in a panic. Then, for almost two weeks, the city had gone without a new slaying.
Until tonight.
Harrison's stomach pitched and rolled at the thought of having to look at one of those faceless corpses again.
*
"That's enough," Harrison said, averting his eyes from the faceless corpse.
The raw, gouged, bloody flesh, the exposed muscle and bone were bad enough, but it was the eyes – those naked, lidless, staring eyes were the worst.
"This makes seven," Jacobi said at his side. Squat, dark, jowly, the sergeant was chewing a big wad of gum, noisily, aggressively, as if he had a grudge against it.
"I can count. Anything new?"
"Nah. Same M.O. as ever – throat slashed, money stolen, face gnawed off."
Harrison shuddered. He had come in as Special Investigator after the third Facelift killing. He had inspected the first three via coroner's photos. Those had been awful. But nothing could match the effect of the real thing up close and still warm and oozing. This was the fourth fresh victim he had seen. There was no getting used to this kind of mutilation, no matter how many he saw. Jacobi put on a good show, but Harrison sensed the revulsion under the sergeant's armor.
And yet...
Beneath all the horror, Harrison sensed something. There was anger here, sick anger and hatred of spectacular proportions. But beyond that, something else, an indefinable something that had drawn him to this case. Whatever it was, that something called to him, and still held him captive.
If he could identify it, maybe he could solve this case and wrap it up. And save his ass.
If he did solve it, it would be all on his own. Because he wasn't getting much help from Jacobi, and even less from his assigned staff. He knew what they all thought – that he had taken the job as a glory grab, a shortcut to the top. Sure, they wanted to see this thing wrapped up, too, but they weren't shedding any tears over the shit he was taking in the press and on TV and from City Hall.
Their attitude was clear: If you want the spotlight, Harrison, you gotta take the heat that goes with it.
They were right, of course. He could have been working on a quieter case, like where all the winos were disappearing to. He'd chosen this instead. But he wasn't after the spotlight, dammit! It was this case – something about this case!
He suddenly realized that there was no one around him. The body had been carted off, Jacobi had wandered back to his car. He had been left standing alone at the far end of the alley.
And yet not alone.
Someone was watching him. He could feel it. The realization sent a little chill – one completely unrelated to the cold February wind – trickling down his back. A quick glance around showed no one paying him the slightest bit of attention. He looked up.
There!
Somewhere in the darkness above, someone was watching him. Probably from the roof. He could sense the piercing scrutiny and it made him a little weak. That was no ghoulish neighborhood voyeur, up there. That was the Facelift Killer.
He had to get to Jacobi, have him seal off the building. But he couldn't act spooked. He had to act calm, casual.
*
See the Detective Harrison's eyes. See from way up in dark. Tall-thin. Hair brown. Nice eyes. Soft brown eyes. Not hard like many-many eyes. Look here. Even from here see eyes make wide. Him know it me.
Watch the Detective Harrison turn slow. Walk slow. Tell inside him want to run. Must leave here. Leave quick.
Bend low. Run cross roof. Jump to next. And next. Again til most block away. Then down wall. Wrap scarf round head. Hide bad-face. Hunch inside big-big coat. Walk through lighted spots.
Hate light. Hate crowds. Theatres here. Movies and plays. Like them. Some night sneak in and see. See one with man in mask. Hang from wall behind big drapes. Make cry.
Wish there mask for me.
Follow street long way to river. See many light across river. Far past there is place where grew. Never want go back to there. Never.
Catch back of truck. Ride home.
Home. Bright bulb hang ceiling. Not care. The Old Jessi waiting. The Jessi friend. Only friend. The Jessi's eyes not see. Ever. When the Jessi look me, her face not wear sick-scared look. Hate that look.
Come in kitchen window. The Jessi's face wrinkle-black. Smile when hear me come. TV on. Always on. The Jessi can not watch. Say it company for her.
"You're so late tonight."
"Hard work. Get moneys tonight."
Feel sick. Want cry. Hate kill. Wish stop.
"That's nice. Are you going to put it in the drawer?"
"Doing now."
Empty wallets. Put moneys in slots. Ones first slot. Fives next slot. Then tens and twenties. So the Jessi can pay when boy bring foods. Sometimes eat stealed foods. Mostly the Jessi call for foods.
The Old Jessi hardly walk. Good. Do not want her go out. Bad peoples round here. Many. Hurt one who not see. One bad man try hurt Jessi once. Push through door. Thought only the blind Old Jessi live here.
Lucky the Jessi not along that day.
Not lucky bad man. Hit the Jessi. Laugh hard. Then look me. Get sick-scared look. Hate that look. Kill him quick. Put in tub. Bleed there. Bad man friend come soon after. Kill him also too. Late at night take both dead bad men out. Go through window. Carry down wall. Throw in river.
No bad men come again. Ever.
"I've been waiting all night for my bath. Do you think you can help me a little?"
Always help. But the Old Jessi always ask. The Jessi very polite.
Sponge the Old Jessi back in tub. Rinse her hair. Think of the Detective Harrison. His kind eyes. Must talk him. Want stop this. Stop now. Maybe will understand. Will. Can feel
*
Seven grisly murders in eight weeks.
Kevin Harrison studied a photo of the latest victim, taken before she was mutilated. A nice eight by ten glossy furnished by her agent. A real beauty. A dancer with Broadway dreams.
He tossed the photo aside and pulled the stack of files toward him. The remnants of six lives in this pile. Somewhere within had to be an answer, the thread that linked each of them to the Facelift Killer.
But what if there was no common link? What if were all the killings were at random, linked only by the fact that they were beautiful? Seven deaths, all over the city. All with their faces gnawed off. Gnawed.
He flipped through the victims one by one and studied their photos. He had begun to feel he knew each one of them personally:
Mary Detrick, 20, a junior at N.Y.U., killed in Washington Square Park on January 5. She was the first.
Mia Chandler, 25, a secretary at Merrill Lynch, killed January 13 in Battery Park.
Ellen Beasley, 22, a photographer's assistant, killed in an alley in Chelsea on January 22.
Hazel Hauge, 30, artist agent, killed in her Soho loft on January 27.
Elisabeth Paine, 28, housewife, killed on February 2 while jogging late in Central Park.
Joan Perrin, 25, a model from Brooklyn, pulled from her car while stopped at a light on the Upper East Side on February 8.
He picked up the eight by ten again. And the last: Liza Lee, 21. Dancer. Lived across the river in Jersey City. Ducked into an alley for a toot with her boyfriend tonight and never came out.
Three blondes, three brunettes, one redhead. Some stacked, some on the flat side. All caucs except for Perrin. All lookers. But besides that, how in the world could these women be linked? They came from all over town, and they met their respective ends all over town. What could–