The Haunting of the Gemini (13 page)

I began to think about ending my torment. I could take us both home and say “Fuck you” to the devil at the same time. I could kill myself, and he would no longer be able to try to enlist me into his army. But I knew where suicide victims went. It is not the hell ruled by the devil but a hell of their own construction—a hell of sorrow, of confusion, of not forgiving oneself. It is a waiting room of loneliness. It is populated not by bad people but by unhappy souls waiting to be rescued by their loved ones. I had visited this place many times, releasing souls, at the request of their loved ones, and showing them a way out. And often, I'm able to answer that lingering question for those left alive. Why?

I knew I should not take that path. But it was starting to look very, very tempting.

* * *

I awoke to the sound of rain hitting hard against my bedroom windows. The chimes on the patio clattered in the wind, picking up the rhythm of the fall chill. I listened to the sounds, knowing I had to go out. Next to me, Will was sound asleep and unaware. It was fairly early in the evening—probably 10:00 p.m.—but totally dark. I turned on no lights as I dressed. I laced up my black boots, feeling an inexplicable surrender as I did so, and threw on my black jacket—not a raincoat, a purposeful choice because I had started to like the damp feeling of the rain soaking down deep into my bones. I felt the wetness but was numb to the cold.

I came into the dark living room, sat in an armchair with my hat in my hands, and waited for my instructions. They would come from a man who sat in solitary confinement. It had taken me a long time to realize that the dark spirit that grew and lived within him was able to lift up and travel beyond the prison walls. It could move from person to person and take on his features and characteristics without the host ever knowing that a hitchhiker was aboard. Or to me, at least, he could come alone.

I sat and listened to the late night traffic, tires splashing through the puddles in the street outside. And then stillness took its place, followed by a low hum in my ears. The wood floor creaked beneath me, and the air moved behind me. I knew he was there, like a blind person with a cane knows there is something in his path before he reaches it. Tap, tap, tap. There it is.

I turned around slowly, squeezing my hat as though it was my only security. The dark shadow stood in the corner against the kitchen counter. The form began to solidify as it reached across the counter and took the lid off my candy dish, fully stocked because it was almost Halloween. The tall man in black scooped up a handful of candy corn.

“You know how to treat a guest,” he said. “Getting my favorite candy—you know, Jackie, I have a sweet tooth. Not many can satisfy it.”

He smirked at me and rolled the candy corn around in his mouth as he stared at me with his dark eyes. It felt like he was seeing deep into my soul and taking a twisted pleasure in it.

My iPod, which stood in its speaker-charger on the counter behind him, started to play. It flipped through songs like an old radio tuner—static in between different bits of music and talking. It stopped on a news bulletin . . .
the New York Zodiac strikes again
 . . . and then switched to a sixties music station . . .
When I look out my window, many sights to see. And when I look in my window, so many different people to be
 . . .

He began to dance seductively and motioned me over. I stood up and went closer, until I was only a foot away from him. . . 
That it's strange, so strange, you've got to pick up every stitch . . . Must be the season of the witch
 . . . As he danced, he pulled a combat knife out from under his black jacket—the same jacket I wore. He slid it over his body as though he were making love to it and then grabbed me and pulled me toward him. His face reflected in the blade before he ran it over my cheeks.

“How does it feel?” he whispered. “How does it feel, Jackie, to wear my shoes? To watch me? To follow my moves?” He looked down at my boots and back up at my face. “What shall I do with you, Jackie?”

He grabbed the back of my head and moved it closer to his. “Take this,” he said as he forced a candy corn from his mouth to mine. I tried to turn my face away but couldn't. Our bodies were pressed together as one. I could feel the candy moving around in my mouth, wiggling around as if it had tentacles. His arms wrapped around me and pain pierced my middle. All I could think was that he had stabbed me and I was going to die in my own kitchen. And no one would know the truth.

He let go of me and tossed more candy into his mouth. I looked down and touched my stomach. My hand came away covered in blood. And then the phone rang. I ran for it, expecting him to stop me, but all he did was slide over next to me as I looked at the caller ID.

Great Meadow Correctional Facility.

Two places at once. I pressed 3 to accept the call.

The Eddie standing next to me chortled. “Speak up. I love eavesdropping.”

I spoke into the phone. “Eddie, you're standing right next to me!”

The Eddie in prison answered back. “I called to tell you, your job is to let the world know it lives. It gets stronger and moves faster with denial.”

The “it” Eddie in prison was referring to, the devil man in black standing next to me, mocked his twin. “Blah, blah, blah—he's such a baby. Acting like a bitch. It was him who created me. Him who has committed the mortal sins, the one that slapped God.”

He pulled the phone out of my hand and hung it up, then grabbed my face and squeezed.

“Jackie, how does it feel to lose your mind? To be the victim? To be schizophrenic? Homeless?”

He squeezed harder, then ordered me to look at my stomach. The stab wound and the blood were gone.

“Don't think I'm done with you yet. I owe you ninety-nine more,” he snarled. “How does it feel to die while you look in my eyes? How does it feel when you prowl the dark, dank streets like the beast that grows inside of you? It is you who confronted me, Jackie. You mock the devil and defy Jesus by having such a gift.”

He pushed me away from him, and I hit the kitchen counter. I stood for a moment, breathing heavily. The knife was in my hand now. My fingers tightened around its handle as the blade spoke to me.
Turn around and get him now!
I held the knife high above me, spun around and leaped forward for the kill. My first kill. I was dressed head to toe in black. My boots fit perfectly.

But it wasn't the man in black. Instead, Will yelled out in surprise and grabbed my arm. He shook the knife out of my hand, and it clattered to the floor. I was no match for someone his size, thank God. I looked into his eyes, full of hurt and questions, and threw myself into his arms as I burst into sobs.

He cradled me as he kicked the knife away from us. I told him I was becoming something sinister. Me and the man in black. “He was in our kitchen, dancing, eating candy. He stabbed me, but it's gone. Look!”

I showed Will my smooth, unwounded stomach. The poor man stared at me.

“Jackie, I saw you leaning up against the kitchen counter, talking in two voices—a man and yours—and that song blasting. ‘Season of the Witch.' You holding that knife. Where did you get such a knife?”

He was here, I swore. He was here. And he was there, at the prison. He could be anywhere. Or anyone.

* * *

Eddie wrote me regularly from prison. Simple notebook paper, like schoolchildren use. Covered with horror and bloodlust.

Hi Jackie

Finally! Yes we must all wait our turn

I have forever. Look at us as a door you on one

Side me on the other, you push and I pull! Ha ha

You broke the code! I'm proud of you Jackie

But can you catch me. Should we set a

clock? Will you be the little hand or big?

Will you find my twin or will he find a

new home to kill and rush back to me. fill

my belly.

Will it be you? Close your hands

around the knife.

You will feel many things—you will die

And become—you will be more. You

Will be the Gemini. [
sign
]

You will feel me breath [
sic
] me

I walk with you. I sleep next to you

I smell your sweet flesh

You will become my kill—100+ times you

Will bleed—or you can give her back—

Who will I be? The man sitting next to you on

The train? The bus drivers

the baker

the butcher

the undertaker

As usual, he signed it “Eddie” and included the Gemini symbol. He had been writing to me for several months now, and he would often include words in the margins. In this letter, he'd included a holiday send-off, even though it was only July: “
look at [
sign
] me as your Santa Claus and its your black Christmas and you have been very naughty”

THIRTEEN

I woke up in the middle of the night, like I'd been doing for months. Everything was quiet and still. I slipped out of bed and went over to my bedroom window. The stars outside seemed brighter and more prominent than usual. I put my finger on the glass and traced the paths between the stars. The glass was cold as my fingertips squeaked along, connecting the dots.

I heard rustling and turned to peek through the cracks in the dressing screen that hid the window from the rest of the room. Will tossed and turned in bed. I looked back at the glass and saw what I had drawn. The sign of the Gemini. The stars beyond my window blinked out, and the sky turned completely black, as if a raven—the sign of death—was covering everything with its outstretched wings. I closed my eyes and grabbed the window frame for a moment, then slowly crept back into bed. While others slept, he came forth, in many different forms. Would I have to see them all?

* * *

The doorbell rang. It was the mailman, my regular guy. “Morning, Jackie. You got a large package from a prison. You'll need to sign.” I stood there with the door only half open and avoided his gaze. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You look a little thin, a little pale.” I wanted nothing more than to shut the door in his face.

“Go away,” I whispered. He did not hear me.

He chatted for a minute about his latest home-improvement project and then finally managed to make eye contact. “Jackie, take the pen.”

My hand began to shake as I stared at this plain cardboard box. I scribbled my signature and then paused, making sure that I had signed my name, and not someone else's. Patricia was not asserting herself, but I still had the feeling that this was going to be a very bad day. I took the box from my oblivious mailman and carried it inside like I was holding a bomb. I set the alarm, went downstairs, and locked myself in my office. I sat with it on the floor. My heart began to pound and my palms to sweat.

During the months that we had been communicating, the temporal Eddie had sent me letters, artwork, clues, symbols, codes. Nothing had ever come in a box like this, however. I slowly opened it and looked inside.

On the top, there was a thick gun-parts catalog—672 pages of information on what seemed like every kind of weapon known to man. Somehow, and I still have no idea how, he had managed to get it through the prison mail screening—normally, inmates would not be allowed access to an entire book full of weapons. And he had sent it on to me to show that he could obtain anything he wanted. The rest of the package showed me that he could also hide anything he wanted, for as long as he felt like it.

Next came a full paper bag. I did not know what to expect, and there was no way in hell I was just going to stick my hand inside. Instead, I turned it upside down and shook it. And out fell two Zodiac masks.

I stared at them in horror, these lumps of material festering on my office floor. This was what his victims saw, and if they had been chosen to survive, I was quite sure it was something they would never forget. There was the bandanna, black with white designs, and a stain that had to be blood. That was what he had worn as he prowled the streets in the dark, covering his face so that only his eyes showed. He had laughed when he told me on the phone that he'd looked like the villain in an old cowboy movie.

Then there was the one no one had seen. He had worn this while hidden in his room, before he emerged to kill. This was his psych-himself-up mask. Evil oozed from every thread. It was an old black ski hat, with eyeholes and a nose slit cut into the cloth. And in red—right in the middle of the forehead—was a faded but still unmistakable sign of the Zodiac. That familiar bull's-eye symbol stared up at me, and I knew I was the next target. He was trying to groom me into becoming his other half. Patricia wasn't enough. His mission was now to make
me
a part of him. So that I would help with the massacre he was planning. The one that hadn't happened yet.

I sat on my floor with these things in front of me and noticed the paper that had fallen out with everything else. It was folded several times. I smoothed it open with dread. Eddie had scrawled phrases all over the page.

Hi Jackie

now that you broke the codes of my identity

How many am I

wear my mask. It has my hair in it

Plus the hair I sent you

we are 2 the good & bad

This is the Zodiac speaking

See through my eyes

Wear it, see me, feel me, Be me

You will never forget me

All my secrets “live in you” aways [
sic
]

we are both possessed

your [
sic
]
never alone

Don't forget to look in the mirror you are me now

How many parts of the soul? As many as you can hold!

Come closer closer closer did you feel that?

He had drawn his ski mask next to the line where he said, “Wear it, see me, feel me, Be me.” And he'd decorated the whole thing with several Gemini and zodiac signs.

I don't know how long I sat there staring at everything before I finally began to move.

I picked up the bandanna, and it smelled just like Eddie. It was the same smell I got from his letters and cards. That in itself wasn't unusual—we all have our own distinctive scent. But now imagine that combined with odors from a maximum-security prison. Kind of like the smell of trash mixed with the stench of an overflowing urinal. Eau de American Serial Killer.

I took up a loose floorboard and put the bandanna underneath. It seemed like it deserved its own burial place. I thought of the lives of his victims getting snuffed out, and I put the board back, nice and tight.

But every time I stepped on that spot, I sensed the remnants of the killings. The feelings of the shots burned through my body. The images of the deaths flashed through my mind. My cats hopped over the spot as though it were electrified, their body language communicating their fear. The floor creaked at night and woke me in a cold sweat. I knew I needed to find another place to hide it.

But as much as I wanted to get rid of the bandanna, I couldn't help but keep the ski mask close. I carried it with me sometimes. I even took it on the subway, just to see if people would sense something when it was nearby. Some people did—they would look down at my bag and move away. Many didn't, however, and I wondered if it was because people had become so desensitized to the evil that walked among us every day. They should really have had their guard up.

Finally, it got to be too much. I stood in front of the mirror in my downstairs bathroom. My hands shook as I fought with myself. It was as if someone were standing next to me, slapping me, forcing this thing onto me. The mask pulled over my head. I looked in the mirror, mesmerized by the reflection of a person in the Zodiac mask. It was who I was—working in death, living in him, the victim living in me. He needed to show me firsthand, and I did see through the eyes of a monster as I stood there.

I ripped the mask off and threw it down. The sickness rushed up and out of me. I vomited all over. The pain in my stomach was like a sharp knife twisting. I curled up on the floor, trying to find a comfortable position. I felt like I was shedding old skin, molting, becoming a new thing. And all I wanted was to be an old thing—normal and ordinary and not able to see what I did.

I must have cried out, because Will banged on the door and tried to push it open, but I was in the way. Since all this started, the poor guy had had to rush in to help me so many times that it was getting ridiculous. He was big and strong, but this evil was so great, I felt I had to protect him any way I could. I felt for the mask and hid it under my body. He asked me what happened, and I lied to him, telling him I had the flu. He demanded to be let in, and I insisted that he give me a minute to wash my face. I had to hide the mask! I looked quickly around the small bathroom, and my gaze landed on the air vent in the ceiling. I stood shakily on the toilet seat and stuffed the mask inside.

Will was banging on the door again. I jerked it open, and he gaped at me.

“What happened to your eye?” he said.

How the hell should I know? I tried to brush past him. He grabbed me and brought his face close to mine. “Your eye is bleeding. Right near the tear duct.”

Fantastic. I stomped up to the other bathroom and took a shower. I tried to scrub away the smell of Eddie and the sight of his murders. As I used every soap product I could get my hands on, I thought about how I could get rid of that mask without letting anyone else touch it. It was like an old genie's lamp. Rub it, and release the evil.

* * *

Will and I walked through Times Square on our way to Carmine's, a famous family-style Italian place known for its huge plates of food and good company. I hoped that a nice meal and my husband's companionship would help me shake the hold Eddie's mask had on me. As we strolled along, an overwhelming feeling of peace came over me. I wished desperately that I could hold on to it and keep it forever, but it lasted for what felt like only a split second before vanishing into the night.

We got to the crowded restaurant and were shown to our table. Will had made a reservation—that was my man, always prepared. I looked around. More than one hundred diners packed the large room, and waiters rushed here and there. As I watched, they began to move faster and faster, until they seemed to be traveling at the speed of light. The babble of voices began to fade, and the overhead lights started to sway back and forth. I had a silly thought that someone had slipped me a hallucinogenic drug and was comforted at the idea. Who would wish for that? Me, because the alternative was worse.

I excused myself and headed for the bathroom. I passed the bar and noticed one older bartender who wasn't moving as quickly as everyone else. He stood there, calmly cleaning a glass with a white cloth. He noticed me and spoke. “You can go, Jackie. William is busy and can't see you through this crowd.” I stared at him and then looked back. Will was out of sight. I pushed through the door and out into the night.

Walking along Seventh Avenue, I reached into my bag and pulled out the mask. Part of me was astonished to find it. Wasn't it still stuffed in the bathroom vent? But the other part of me had known it was there, nestled close to my side, waiting to be worn.

I stopped in front of the window of an electronics shop packed with tourists. I took in my reflection, seeing Jackie but not feeling her, and pulled the mask over my head and down over my face. I gazed at the merchandise in the store, then turned to look up and around. People snapping pictures, vendors hawking purse knockoffs, billboards flashing, taxi horns blasting.

Usually, I hate these kinds of crowds more than anything. The chatter I pick up from the dead in places like this is overpowering. But that night, it didn't bother me at all. I wallowed in the chaos as I felt Eddie rushing through the crowd straight toward me. He found me on the corner, waiting for him. And in a flash, I became the biggest threat ever . . .

* * *

. . . I turned around slowly. My very own buffet. A piece of every continent at my fingertips. Cops were scattered about. I stood right next to three of them as they chatted together. I walked right past, laughing under my mask and saying to myself, “I did this shit before.” Despite the mask pulled down over my face, no one noticed me.

There were two voices in my head. Jackie's was very quiet. I ignored it. I got to the corner of Seventh Avenue and Forty-Third Street, where they had that little NYPD building that made tourists feel safe. Ha! There were more cops here. Boy, these guys sure knew how to eat, bellies hanging over those belts loaded down with flashlights and handcuffs, mace and a gun, and now terrorist packs, too. But do you have an Eddie pack, cops? Do you?

The sweet smell of death filled the air.
This isn't real,
the quiet voice said. “Shut the fuck up, Jackie,” I told it. “Listen and learn from the best. They said I had a low IQ. Yeah, fool the public so the pigs don't look so bad. I tricked these pigs for years. They didn't catch me. My master was done with me and turned me in. Now I'm back.

“Settle in, Jackie,” I continued. “After all, you'll get a nice vacation with lots of meds and a nice padded white room and those paper-thin gowns with your ass out. And you'll get this walk, that sound everyone knows, that shuffle of your feet. Only very few people will know the truth. The Zodiac Killer lives in your body. You are the Gemini, my sweet love, Jackie. Feel me, Jackie. I'm alive. You're the one behind bars now, tape across your mouth. Your dreams of the old insane asylum, that name tag around your wrist? It's all you, Jackie. It was your psychic premonition of what was to come. Now we'll always be together. How cozy . . . and every night I can crawl up next to you, inside of you. No one will listen. No one will care. You're safe with me now. You're a killing machine, and very soon your hands will be as dirty as mine.”