End of the Road (10 page)

And so it began. If one starts out quietly,
there is a lot of time to commit the initial murders before talk of
a serial killer begins. I disposed of the wife and children first.
I then quietly dispensed with the elderly woman across the street.
With her blood I left a note on her wall in order to alert the
authorities as to whom they were dealing with—the name Brandon
Kratz was written in letters five feet tall, with every drop the
old woman had in her. It took her lazy son two days to get around
to paying her a visit, even after he must have heard about the
murders in her neighborhood.

I guess I’m fortunate that I don’t look like
a killer. People seem to trust me, maybe because I’m good at
appearing caring. Even more important than not appearing
threatening, I believe my features are generic enough to allow me
to blend in with a crowd. If you saw me walking down the street,
chances are you wouldn’t even notice me. Try it the next time
you’re in a busy restaurant or a crowded mall. Take a look around
you and see if you can spot the next Brandon Kratz that’s about to
go off the deep end. See if you can spot the one carrying a weapon,
see if you can catch a glimpse of murder in a stranger’s eye.

The temperature is warm and I am dressed for
protection rather than comfort. The sweat makes my clothing cling
to my body, making every movement an exertion. It occurs to me that
I haven’t slept since this all started, more than three days now. I
have been living on adrenaline, but that can only take you so far.
I am tired. I’m glad that I am almost at the end of my journey. I
think back on what a journey it has been.

There’ve been a lot of mass murders in the
L.A. area recently. There’s been such a rash of murders that people
are wondering if there is something in the air or in the water.
There is a lot of talk and—typically—nothing will ever come of it.
But even in this place and time, the name of Brandon Kratz will
stand out. More than Billy Moreau’s four murders, more than Eric
Cooper’s five. Even Ryan Kennedy’s seven murders don’t add up to
Brandon Kratz’s total. I’ve been on quite a roll. Let’s see, now,
Stefani Kratz, and Codi Kratz, and little Amber. Old lady Weathers.
That hitchhiker, Chad, I think his name was. And then there was the
mall shooting. I only killed two there, but I escaped, which was
the important thing. I don’t think anybody even saw me there,
although I’m sure I must be on some security camera somewhere
wearing my trench coat and black military helmet. Kind of stupid of
me, doing that at a crowded mall. Too easy to get caught. They
could have got me alive, which would have been horrible. They would
have stuck me under a microscope and viewed me like I was a bug.
Much better this way, where they are searching for me with
satellites.

Sorry, where was I? Six—no, seven, I’m
forgetting Chad again. And then there were the two sheriff’s
deputies that pulled me over. That was well done, they were armed
and dangerous. But it cost me; I had to leave my car in the process
and I’m pretty sure the cops will know where I am and that I’m on
foot. I’m in the woods so they’ll be able to limit their search to
a relatively small area. The road’s coming to an end for Brandon
Kratz, but it will be the ending that I design. All I have to do is
make it to the cabin.

It won’t be far now. I’d love to get rid of
this riot facemask, but it’s part of the plan. There’s really no
path anymore, just trees and undergrowth. Still, I know it can’t be
far. I feel it in my bones.

I approach the cabin. It does not belong to
me, but I know about it, planned to make it the end of my road. I
open up the door and the terrified pleas begin.

“
Where’s my family? Did you
do something to them? Are they okay? Why are you doing this?
Please, please don’t hurt them.”

“
Now, Mr. Kratz,” I say
“I’ve explained this to you before. There’s been a lot of killing
and someone is going to have to take the blame for all the damage
done.”

What society really wants is to get a hold
of the psychopath and make him pay for what he’s done. But they
rarely get the chance. Too often, the murderer kills himself rather
than being taken alive. Such will be the case today.

“
The people will need some
kind of closure, no matter how unfulfilling,” I continue. “A corpse
is better than nothing. At least that way they’ll be able to sleep
tonight.

“
Now if you’ll agree to
open your mouth for me, I can promise to make your end short and
painless. But it won’t look like suicide through clenched teeth.
Are you going to cooperate?”

He looks at me with a clenched jaw and a
look of defiance, as though anything he did mattered to me.

“
No? Well, your loss. This
might take a while longer, but the result will be the
same.”

I place the gun to the side of Brandon
Kratz’s head, wait for him to stop his futile head movements. I’m
tempted to make the shot a poor one, make him suffer for his
insolence. But I know I can only use one shot if it’s going to look
like it is self-inflicted. I have to make it a good one. When I
know I have a good shot, I pull the trigger. It’s a full cascade of
blood, brain and bone that comes out the other side of his head,
and Kratz quickly slumps in his chair. I untie my victim and allow
him to drop to the floor. He’s lying in his ever-increasing pool of
blood, his tongue hanging from his mouth as though he were a
gibbering idiot. “It’s a pity they never count my final victim,” I
think to myself. I always feel cheated by that.

~~~~~

According to news coverage, Brandon Kratz’s
body was found in a cabin in the mountains last evening. He had
shot himself in the head, it was reported, his suicide bringing to
an end the latest and deadliest in a recent spate of killings. As
for me, I’m busy clipping newspaper articles at the moment. After a
little time off to rest up, I’ll be searching once again for
another Brandon Kratz, the normal kind of person that no one would
ever suspect could commit the horrible crimes he’ll be accused
of.

The next time you’re in a busy restaurant or
a crowded mall, take a look around, see if you can spot the next
Brandon Kratz. Is it the tired-looking waitress that’s pouring your
coffee, the man sitting next to you with his wife and kids, or the
older gentleman at the bookstore who looks incapable of harming a
fly? It could be anybody. It might even be you.

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For more information on James Rozoff and his
writing:

Within The Mind of James Rozoff

Chapter 10

The Savior

By Alison Blake

Today was her 87th birthday. She celebrated
by watching him die, then arranging for his cremation at a cost of
one hundred dollars.

Afterwards, she drove herself home and
managed to park under the carport without knocking anything down. A
truly amazing feat when you consider that during the entire drive,
she saw nothing and was aware of nothing, but the deep sigh he gave
before he closed his eyes for the last time. Over and over she
heard the sigh, saw his eyes close, and saw him die.

Well, we all die, and his was an easy death.
It was surprising how calm she felt, how accepting, not really numb
but—and then, as she got out of the car, the pain surged up. It was
horrific, a knife stabbing into her chest, blocking her breathing,
burning deep into her gut. Salty tears rolled down her wrinkled
cheeks, her breath came in gasps between the rhythmic beats of her
heart, and she silently screamed to the heavens.

Grief. How can something so insubstantial
cause so much pain?

At the front door she fumbled with her keys
and dropped them twice. Someone had stuffed a pamphlet through the
door handle. She plucked it out and carried it inside with her. She
dropped her keys and the crumpled pamphlet on the kitchen counter.
Every light in the house was still on, just the way she had left it
when they rushed to the hospital.

“
I can’t stand it,” she
said out loud between gasps and sobs. The pain was beyond bearing,
and anyway, what was the point?

She was breathing rapidly, but no air was
getting in. The kitchen, bright with hundred watt bulbs and butter
yellow walls, equipped with all the latest gadgets, was missing one
essential ingredient. Air.

Leaning heavily on the counter, slowly her
panic subsided. Oxygen courteously consented to fill her hungry
lungs. For a moment her body’s relief overwhelmed her grief, but
grief is a graspingly ravenous monster, and it stormed back,
invading her mind with throbbing, twisting pain.

Riley was really dead.

In the bathroom she splashed water on her
face. As she turned to dry her hands she caught a glimpse of
movement. She dropped the towel, grabbing on to the sink edge to
keep from falling. An ugly old woman with flaming red hair and
wrinkled skin, glared at her from the mirror.

Had she really thought there was someone
else here? She laughed a dry, harsh cackle. In all the four years
she had lived in this apartment, there had never been a single
visitor, let alone an intruder.

She studied the old woman in the mirror. The
bones of her face were still elegant. Even the wrinkles weren't
that bad when looked at straight on. It was the sagging profile
that disgusted her. Her eyebrows, which used to be well formed and
explicit, were now multicolored, scraggly thin and thick. Ugly.
Around the edges of her hairline, white roots showed, blanching her
face, extinguishing her usual vividness. No time left to dye
it.

Years ago she’d been walking down Fifth
Avenue, when out of the corner of her eye she saw this beautiful,
radiant young woman coming towards her. Drawn by the woman’s beauty
she had turned, only to discover it was a reflection of herself.
She had been embarrassed and looked around to see if anyone was
staring at her, as if bystanders could read her vain, self-absorbed
mind. Even now, remembering her unexpected beauty, she smiled.

“
Ah, the hell with
it.”

Still she intended to look as good as it was
possible for someone her age to look. She washed her face, brushed
her teeth. Still had all her teeth. Not too yellow for an old
woman. She hesitated, then with a sigh, she did the thing that
offended her the most. Carefully wetting her face with a warm
washcloth she applied shaving cream under her nose, down her chin,
and onto her throat, picked up her razor, a pink ladies razor of
course, and carefully shaved her growing beard. God, how she hated
that. When she was married, well when she was first married, she
loved to sit on the closed toilet seat and watch her husband shave.
It seemed so masculine.

Yeah, so masculine.
If only she had known.
Well, what could she have done? The doctor had taken her off
hormones after that study came out. So here she was, an
eighty-seven year old lady with a shaving habit.

She changed her clothes because, by God, she
intended to look decent. Even though they have been washed
recently, there was still a lot of dog hair clinging to her dark
blue pull-on slacks.

Little clouds of dog hair scuttled across
the floor as she walked. Had a life of their own, they did. They
were everywhere. No matter, she loved dogs. How many dogs had she
had in her lifetime?

The few she’d had as a kid
didn't count. Her parents had always become horrified when the
reality of living with a dog sunk in, and had gotten rid of them.
Since she was an adult on her own she had, she had had three, no
four, no …but she wasn’t going to count him. The first was some
mutt she had picked up from the pound, a tiny, scared
mix-of-everything, non-descript, little thing she had called
Sparrow. Then there was the Bernese Mountain dog
(
what was his name?)
It scared her that she couldn’t remember. Then there was
Freckles, a Springer Spaniel (also from the pound) that had
traveled with her and her son as they drove across country in an
old VW Van.

“
Remember the time we
parked near another VW Van and Freckles, who was as neurotic as
hell, dashed into the other van. And didn't want to come
out?”

Ah hell, she was talking to herself
again.

That was after her divorce, her first
divorce.

Before getting married she had lived in
Manhattan without a dog. She told people she was an actress with a
capital “A”. She had gone to auditions, and lots and lots of
parties. She took a few acting lessons. God, life is good when
you’re in your 20s. Anyhow she hadn’t done too badly for
herself.

The present day woman stared into the
mirror.

"I didn't do too badly for myself,” she
informed her doppelgänger.

For someone who couldn't sing or dance,
she’d gotten quite a few roles. Most of them off-Broadway. “I was a
serious actress." She had even done a few TV slots. But she loved a
real audience. For somebody who just sort of stumbled into it she
had done surprisingly well. If only --

If only what? As if it mattered now. There
were plenty who had had big successful careers. But everyone, if
they were lucky, or unlucky depending on how things were going, got
to be old after a while. She walked into the living room and pulled
all the blinds up, letting the sun stream in. More dog hair danced
in the sunlight. Ordinarily she would have gotten out her hand
vacuum and chased them down.

She opened the balcony door and stepped out,
still cool but that was okay. Slight breeze, that was okay, too.
She stood looking down at the common. All around it were ugly
two-story houses. In each building lived old, decrepit people, like
her.