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GARROTE *FIRST* SUMMER 2005 By Steven Michael Sarber Detective John Ryder was first on the scene, but he did not know how he had gotten there. What a bloodbath. It was everywhere! On his hands, on his pants, his boots. Did he touch the body? He couldn’t remember. The victim lay in a pool of warm blood on the kitchen floor, a garrote twisted around her neck, and at least thirty separate knife wounds across her torso and thighs; some shallow, some deep. She fought hard, and the killer appeared to have been toying with her. Ryder could see skin under her fingernails, she must have clawed at her assailant. He picked up a blood-smeared piece of mail off the counter and read her name off the envelope: Alice Duncan. He knew that name. From where? He wiped some of the blood from the envelope, then called the address in to dispatch on his two-way. Ryder began a search of Ms. Duncan’s small house. Surely the killer was long gone, but he pulled his piece from its holster anyway. No struggle was evident in the living room, and nothing large enough to hide behind. He cautiously opened the door to the hall closet; nothing. He reached the master bedroom, standing in the hall he reached across his body with his left hand to flick the light switch, enabling him to keep his gun up and ready in his right. The light revealed a very clean room, the bed was made, there were no dirty clothes on the floor. Ryder slid in sideways to keep the door in view, he knelt at the bed, leaned over and pulled up the hanging spread just enough to see no one hid under it. He checked the closet; like the hall closet, it contained only clothes. Next was the second bedroom. It had been turned into a home office. Apparently Ms. Duncan had been a wedding planner. The pile of papers on the desk was large, but not enough to hide under. The desk itself was too small for an average sized man to hide under, and this closet hid only a file cabinet. Okay, he thought, all that’s left is the bathroom. He walked to the bathroom; the light was already on in there, and the shower curtain was pulled back. No one hid in the tub. As he backed out of the room he caught his reflection in the mirror. He had four deep furrows across his left cheek, fresh; the blood was still slowly seeping. ***** Panic-stricken, Ryder fled Alice Duncan’s house and jumped into his unmarked sedan. He backed out of the driveway, put the gearshift in drive and sped away. The city’s residential zone speed limit was 25mph, he flew down the street in excess of 50. Backup would arrive in less than five minutes, and he wanted to be long gone by then. He had to think. He called dispatch again and told the dispatcher he was chasing a fleeing suspect. It would buy him a few seconds. ***** Ryder now sat in a swing in the park. He had raced home, changed clothes, and switched to his civilian ride, a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee. He had bought a six-pack of beer, then headed here to be alone. His cell phone rang. After four rings it routed the caller to his voicemail. He didn’t need to check it; it was Rachel King, his partner. He didn’t want to talk to her until he could get his head straight. Why couldn’t he remember what brought him to the Duncan woman’s house in the first place? How had the scratches gotten there? He pulled a third beer from the ring, maybe not the prescribed recommendation for straightening out one’s mind, but right now he really didn’t care. As he drank, his mind went blank. Halfway through the last beer he was snapped out of his trance by the sound of someone approaching. A decidedly feminine form. Rachel. She had found him. That wasn’t hard though; He often came here to think. Maybe he wanted her to find him. “We have to talk, John,” Rachel said, sitting down in the swing next to him. “The victim’s next door neighbor, a nosy old widow with nothing better to do, said she’s seen you at the vic’s house every night this week. Where you seeing this woman? Is that why you left the scene?” Ryder didn’t answer. He just stared at Rachel in a way that creeped her out. “She also said she saw you drive up before the screaming started,” Rachel looked away from him, she had tough questions for her partner, and needed to break eye contact before she could go on. “You know, I never noticed how pretty you are,” Ryder said, he stood up as he drained his beer, walking around the swings. He was feeling the familiar tingling in his groin. Rachel never looked back, never saw him pull the garrote from his back pocket. “So beautiful,” Ryder said. They were the last words Rachel King would ever hear. ***** SUMMER 2006 Jack Rickman walked the beach on a pleasant night dressed in flip-flops, a pair of cut-off shorts, and a long Hawaiian shirt. The beach was deserted but for one woman sitting at the waters edge, crying. Jack walked to her. “You are too beautiful to be here alone, so sad,” He said. He felt that familiar tingle in his groin, and reached into his back pocket for his garrote. “So beautiful.” he repeated and swung the garrote over her head and around her neck. GARROTE *NEXT* AUTUMN 2006 Jack Rickman walked along the boardwalk. Some of John Ryder still remained, he knew; he could hear him in the back of his mind. What was left held now power anymore. He liked having John around; the pleasure he got from John’s anger was immense. Nevertheless, it would probably be time to lock John out for good soon. Rickman had taken great pains to alter his look from John’s; he lost fifteen pounds, dyed his blonde hair brown, wore brown contacts to mask his blue eyes, he had grown a goatee. He even went as far as to have some minor cosmetic surgery. As he passed a little shop on the boardwalk he paused to look at his reflection in the glass. And what he saw pleased him. His own Mother couldn’t have picked him out of a lineup. ***** The keyword ‘Mother’ snapped John to attention. That was a loaded word for him. It gave him the strength to push past Rickman’s defenses and regain brief control. “What was the rule Mother drilled into us when we were children? Never, Never talk to strangers. Of course this was before she had started drinking at nine in the morning. “So, what do you do when the stranger is in your own head, Mother?” He whispered. She always insisted on being called ‘Mother’. Never ‘Mom”. As he stood there with old memories floating to the surface, John was whisked back in time, to a place he longed to forget. It was when Mother started drinking. Right after his Dad had split the scene. And when Mother drank, Mother yelled. If that didn’t satisfy her she would use her fists, and if that wasn’t enough- the belt, a frying pan, the heavy wooden baseball bat she kept by the door. Mother was in the grave about three years now. A thought came to John, I think the blackouts started at the same time Mother died. I think… John trailed off. He had spotted a young girl out on the pier, dangling her legs over the side. “Oh, shit,” John said, a little louder than he should have, it would bring Rickman running, for sure. Maybe he could turn away before Rickman saw her… ***** “Johnny, Johnny- you know you aren’t strong enough or smart enough to trick me. Go back to your hidey-hole and cry about it.” Rickman approached the girl, lightly placed his left hand on her right shoulder. Startled, she looked up.“I apologize for disturbing you, but I feel that you’re in pain. I though maybe you could use a friendly ear.” Rickman judged her age between sixteen and nineteen. That alone was enough to start the tingle in his groin. She also was very pretty, ash blonde shoulder length hair, grey eyes, and a natural beauty; very little make up. “I guess I’m trying to collect my thoughts. I’m ten weeks pregnant, and when I told the father last week he took off. I can’t reach him, his parents won’t tell me where he is, or even return my phone calls.” The young woman cast her grey eyes back down to the water, ashamed at having just unloaded on a perfect stranger. “I’m sorry,..” She started. “Nonsense.” Said Rickman, “I believe I can release you of your pain” As always, his voice was deceivingly compassionate. His eyes sparkled with anticipation as he reached for his garrote with his right hand, the left still on her shoulder. Nothing. What the hell? He checked the left rear pocket. Nothing. He was now so pissed that he briefly entertained the notion to just strangle her bare-handed. That wouldn’t do, though. He had done it once, and it didn’t fulfill him at all. There was something sexy about the garrote. It was an extension of him, hell, it was him. That’s what turned him on. Rickman turned and left the girl without another word. He stormed down the boardwalk, once he was out of earshot he began to curse at John. ***** When John saw the girl and realized he couldn’t keep Rickman from seeing her, he knew the only thing that might save her life was to get rid of the garrote. He pulled it out of the right rear pocket and flipped it into the ocean in one fluid movement. He then put up a convincing struggle to get Rickman’s attention distracted. It had worked as well as he could have expected. Once back into what Rickman called his ‘hidey-hole’ , in the deepest recesses of his mind, he began to plan for a coup to overthrow the dictator in his head. Rickman thought he heard John’s every thought, but the truth was that John had learned how to block his thoughts well, and what slipped through was intentional. He wanted Rickman to feel he was more in control than he was. But he needed a plan very soon; it wouldn’t be long before Rickman was as powerful as he thought he was, and John would find himself banished forever. GARROTE *LAST* THE BATTLE While Rickman threw his tantrum John plotted. He was trying to map out a strategy feasible enough to be worth shot. He would only get one chance. The memories of his drunken, abusive mother kept getting in the way. Once she hit him in the back of the head with a cast-iron skillet, it took five staples to close that wound. Another time she swung the heavy bat, usually kept by the front door, with all her drunken might and connected solidly with his left knee. He wore a knee brace to his senior prom over that one. John began to wonder if the years of psychological and physical torture could have created the alter ego named Jack Rickman. Although it felt like a physical inhabitation as well as psychological. He was more prone to believe that Rickman came as a result of a rare medical condition. It is sometimes possible for the fertilized egg to split, beginning the formation of twins, with one twin much weaker than the other. Ultimately the stronger twin would swallow up the weaker twin, in most cases the weak one would dissolve leaving little or no sign it ever existed. If that was the case, then Rickman had been there John’s whole life. Rickman would have been subject to the same tortures. Then it came to him in an instant; he knew just what to do, but it would take his life, too. But as he remembered the seven women who’s deaths he witnessed by his own hands, even if it was under the control of Rickman, and John knew it would have to be this way. John only witnessed the killings of the last year, beginning with Alice Duncan and Rachel King. Rachel- his own partner. It made him sick to think about it. For two solid years when Rickman took over control he completely shut John out. It was as if he was in a mind-made prison with no windows, lights, or sounds. Only blackness prevailed during those times. It was only after he became powerful enough that he would dare bring John to the surface to witness. Coming in like a AM radio station in a thunderstorm was Rickman’s voice, still ranting and calling John names. He knew it was John who got rid of the garrote, and he was not feeling very brotherly about it. Rickman’s rants became incoherent and slurred, as if he were drunk. Now! John thought, it has to be Now! Jack! he called out from his mind using his Mother’s voice. It was easy; his mind was overflowing with those memories. Jack! he called again. This time Rickman shut up. John’s face, controlled by Jack Rickman, pulled tight in a hideous grimace. You are a two-bit, pussified waste of a man! Any girl who makes your little wang tingle you kill! What kind of weak pathetic man are you, that you can’t even work up the courage to screw at least one of them?It was working, his control was starting to slip. John noted a garbage truck barreling downhill on a course to pass right by the boardwalk. It was time. John took control. Realizing John had set up this ruse, Rickman tried to gain back control. There was no time, however. Reeling with confusion Rickman screamed, “ How did you…” That very instant John hurled himself into the path of the truck. The driver had no chance to react, and John/Jack took the blow in full force. ***** The pain was immense. The spine was shattered, mercifully blocking the pain of two badly broken legs. Most of the face was crushed. Both lungs punctured. Death sped toward John/Jack. “You were never as strong as you thought you were, Jack,” John said, then the lights went out. END STEVEN MICHAEL SARBER FEB. 11, 2007 2406 words