The Closer (27 page)

He went for a walk.

He didn’t have a flashlight, so he stuck to the road. It was possible, though highly unlikely, that a vehicle might discover Mark in the U-Haul, but right now he didn’t care. He was so tired of being in control …he wanted to just let go. He wanted to chop Mark into a hundred pieces while both of them screamed.

“Why don’t you?” a voice whispered in his ear. It was so sudden and so real that he stopped dead, his heart hammering.

“You know you can. No one can stop you. And it would feel so
good,
wouldn’t it?” The voice sounded weirdly distorted—just like the audio file Jack had downloaded.

It was the voice of the Patron.

“No, no,
no,”
Jack said. “No fucking voices in my head. I’m still in control, I
am.”

“Remember your methodology, Jack. Aura phase. The first symptom a serial killer develops when his subconscious is amping up for a kill. Characterized by heightened sensory input and vivid hallucinations…”

The smell of the woods seemed suddenly overpowering, moss and wet pine and decaying logs. Hypnagogic patterns danced in the darkness around him, his brain painting random psychedelia on the night. Jack closed his eyes, but that only made it worse; the patterns were inside his eyelids, crimson swirls and slashes and grids that bulged and shrank with the rhythm of his own pulse.

“You’re not real,” Jack gasped.

“Sure I am, Jack. I’m as real as Son of Sam’s dog.” The voice laughed, a horrible electronic barking. “And I’m here for the same reason—not just to tell you it’s okay to kill, but
why.”

“What?”

“At what point would you say a group becomes a subculture?” the voice asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t care.”

“I think you do… there are things all subcultures share, Jack. First and most obviously, a common bond. Model railroaders,
Star Trek
fans, gun collectors, whatever… but that’s not enough. Lots of people like to eat French fries, but that doesn’t mean they have a newsletter, does it? Open your eyes.”

Jack did. A figure stood on the road in front of him, barely visible in the dark.

“Which brings me to the second factor, communication,” the voice said. The figure took a step toward him. Jack still couldn’t make out its face. “Members of a subculture always organize around shared information. This leads to their own language—a specialized lexicon will always evolve within a subculture that deals specifically with their area of interest.”

The figure took another step, and now Jack recognized him: Djinn-X. Dressed in the same bloodstained clothes Jack had executed him in.

“Yeah,” Djinn-X said. “Pick out a sheep,
do
her, use a Bundymobile as a BDU. Keep the nipples for a little trophy buzz later.”

“Fuck off,” Jack said. His voice was hardly more than a croak.

“Uh-huh,” the Patron’s voice continued. The figure faded back into an indistinct blur. “Next is congregation. The members of the subculture gather to celebrate their subculture in specific, ritualized ways. These gatherings are often geared toward increasing the size of the group, as well as letting members hook up with each other in various ways.”

The figure stepped forward again. This time it was Road Rage. “A membership drive? Excellent idea. I’m more than willing to help organize. Perhaps we could combine it with some sort of fund-raising effort….”

“That’s—that’s not a good idea—”

Road Rage stepped back into the darkness. “Organization, communication, congregation,” the Patron said. “The subculture has evolved a brain, a tongue, and a means of reproduction. But it’s not complete until it has a
soul
—something that not only manifests its values but transcends them.”

The figure stepped forward again—but this time, it wasn’t someone Jack had killed.

It was Jack himself.

“It’s not a culture,” he said, “until it has its own art….”

Two hours later, Jack returned.

He closed the door of the U-Haul behind him, and sat down opposite Mark. The boy’s face was covered in mosquito bites, and four or five were still feeding.

Jack stared at the boy for a long time before speaking.

“You know what you are?” Jack said at last. “You’re a product of your culture. To you, violence and entertainment are the same thing. Right?”

“Yeah, right. You’re right.” He sounded desperately eager to agree.

“That’s the easy answer. In my experience, easy answers are usually bullshit.” Jack leaned forward intently. “Millions of other people are exposed to exactly the same thing you are, and they don’t bring handcuffs and a butcher knife to a rendezvous with an escort.”

“I—I wasn’t really going to do it.”

Jack picked up a bottle of water from the table and took a long drink. “Maybe not. The important thing is, you had the choice—so let’s forget all that bullshit about you being some kind of robot programmed by horror novels and slasher flicks. Just because you belong to a subculture doesn’t make you its slave.”

Jack put down the bottle, picked up a box cutter. Studied its edge. “What it does mean,” Jack said softly, “is that when you join a subculture, you agree to an unspoken contract. A contract to abide by the rules of that subculture—to not only enjoy its fruits, but endure its penalties. And sometimes, a subculture will demand a sacrifice from one of its members….”

Mark swallowed.

At the end of eight hours he was sure of two things: first, that Mark simply wasn’t strong enough to lie to him.

And second, Mark hadn’t killed anyone.

He was a wannabe, a kid who surfed the net for Nazi porn and true-gore sites. He had an unhealthy obsession with serial killers, and might very well grow up to be one… but if he actually planned to use the knife Jack found in his suitcase, it would have been his first time.

And Jack had tortured him.

The tape was still real, Jack was sure. But Mark hadn’t made it—”Furious George” had. A real serial killer who was apparently smart enough to send in a decoy first. If Mark had been accepted into The Pack, Furious George would have been the next to apply… and now Jack had to start all over again.

Except…he didn’t know what to do about Mark.

If Jack let him go, he might go to the police. He’d seen Jack’s face, he knew about the Stalking Ground, and he could warn Furious George.

Jack couldn’t afford any of that.

“Mark.”

“What? What? I’ve told you everything I know—”

“Not quite. Tell me
why.
Tell me how you could become so obsessed with something like this.”

Mark laughed weakly. “I don’t know. It’s just—it’s not like anything else, you know? It’s
real.
It’s like, everybody
wants
to do this stuff, but nobody ever does.”

“Except for The Pack. They were the real thing… and you wanted to be a part of that.”

“Not anymore. Not anymore—”

“Remember what I said about subcultures? That’s what The Pack was turning into—a serial killer culture. The internet is the perfect spawning place; it’s like a conceptual rain forest. They had their common bond, their own words—trophy buzz, sheep, BDUs— and a place to come together and share information. They even had art—photos, videos, sound-files.”

“Had?”

“Yeah. Had. What they have now …is me. See, one of the things that tend to evolve in rainforests is specialized predators, ones with highly developed camouflage abilities. Did you know there’s a white praying mantis that looks just like an orchid?”

“No. No, I didn’t.”

“Talking to you has made me realize how important the Stalking Ground is. I was going to just destroy it… but if I did, another one would inevitably evolve. One that would attract people just like you.”

“But—but I haven’t
killed anybody—”

“I know,” Jack said. “But if you had joined The Pack, you would have. And with their help, you would have killed many, many more. That’s why I have to keep the Stalking Ground open. That’s why I can’t stop. I have to stay in control.”

“I—I get that.”

“Do you? I want to be very clear on one thing, Mark. I don’t do this as an excuse to kill people. I do it to
prevent
killing, and to bring some peace to the families of murder victims.”

“So you—you don’t want to kill me?”

“No. I don’t. Killing is the ultimate control, the ultimate power… but the thing about power is, sometimes it can get out of hand. You have to be careful.” Jack stood up.

“I know. I know. You’re right.”

“Real power isn’t controlling other people’s lives, Mark. It’s controlling your own. You have to be very clear on the consequences of your actions.” Jack walked behind the boy. He put one hand on his shoulder.

“I will be, I swear I will be—”

“We all have choices. Choices we’ll have to live with. And sometimes… sometimes those choices are very hard to make.”

“I can do it, I can do the right thing—”

“I’m not talking about your choices, Mark. I’m talking about my own.”

Jack reached around, and cut his throat.

He could have turned into the real thing.

“Sure,” Jack whispered. “Or he could have outgrown it. Found another outlet instead of murder.”

Like you did?

“I never wanted to be a killer. Just an artist.”

You seem to have combined the two rather nicely, though, haven’t you? Just look at the pattern that blood spatter formed. You can’t take your eyes off it. Looks sort of like a lion. Or it could, with a little work…

“I had to do it. I had to.”

So you can’t make choices anymore? If that’s true, you’re just a machine. A killing machine.

“No. I’m still a man. I am.”

Right. So what was all that crap about subcultures and art? You know what that sounded like? Like one of those bullshit “mission statements” artists put beside pieces to justify them. And that’s just what you were doing, weren’t you? Justifying yourself? Sure, you added all that rationalization at the end about how you couldn’t afford to have the kid tip anyone off… but that’s not what you were really thinking. You were thinking the
kid should be
grateful
you were the one that killed him— that it was like a musician getting to jam with the Rolling Stones, or a sports fan getting to pitch to Babe Ruth. Lucky, lucky him…

“It doesn’t matter,” Jack said wearily. “What happens to
me
doesn’t matter….”

Because it’s already too late.

Quietly, methodically, he started cleaning up the mess.

Like he’d done so many times before.

When it was done and the body had been dumped, when an anonymous call had been made to the police and Jack had returned to his motel room, he checked the Stalking Ground for messages. He wasn’t surprised to see there was one from the Patron.

For the first time, Jack signed off first. He glowered at the screen for a moment, then slammed his fist into the wall.

“Mother
fucker,”
he hissed.

INTERLUDE