The Black Chronicle (6 page)

              Finally with one last solid wallop to the jaw his father slumped back down to the floor dazed and defeated.  Jacob stood over top of him, his mouth and fists dripping blood.

              “I can keep going! I can keep going! But I ain't you! My brother is dead because of you! He never would have left if it wasn’t for you! And I'd rather be dead too than be your son! I'm not your son! You hear me? I ain't your boy no more!”

              Heaving in his rage and victory he looked at his mother. She didn't know what to do or say, so as usual she did nothing, she said nothing. He knew right then that he was leaving. Leaving forever. He wanted to take her with him but he knew she would never come. She was grown. She had made her choices and Jacob couldn't let himself suffer any longer for her decisions.

              “Goodbye mama,” he said, his lips instantly trembling. Sobbing uncontrollably he ran to his room in mad fever of sadness and anger. He packed a bag and took the money he had been saving from under his mattress. Almost a hundred dollars.

              He left that small little farmhouse and the small little people in it, and never looked back.

              Biting down on a cloth to slow the bleeding, he found himself peddling his bike towards Becky's house. He knew that if he just had her, that if she just would leave with him, he would be okay.

              The ride to her house was a good hilly five miles but, lost in the feverish finality of it all, it felt like only seconds.

              Reaching the tiny row of small farms on Landmerry Road he jumped from his bike and walked it the rest of the way so he wouldn't seem so winded when he arrived. Her home was a small blue farmhouse that had faded to a pale grey. A porch, which he had helped her father and brother build last summer, stretched around the entire front half of the house. This was the undisputed territory of their dog Samson, a Labrador retriever who would become temporarily insane with excitement every time someone other than his owners approached the house. Fortunately Samson was sleeping indoors tonight and Jacob wouldn't have to call him away from the house to lock him in the shed. 

              Grabbing a tiny handful of rocks from the dirt road he slowly crept to the back of the house. He began flinging the tiny rocks at her bedroom window but found he was trembling so badly that he couldn't hit his target. He had to stop and take a few deep breaths to steady himself before he was able to manage any accuracy. Finally he heard the soft clicking that told him he was making contact with glass. Just as he was about to search for more pebbles he heard the most beautiful sound he had ever heard in his life, Becky's part-scratchy, part-squeaky voice, whispering down to him like an angel from the clouds.

              “Jacob?”                                   

              “Yeah, it's me. Come down.” he said, feeling suddenly panicked.
What if she said no? What if she said yes?

             
He spat and swallowed as much of the remaining blood as he could and hoped it was dark enough that his two missing front teeth didn't look too gross.

              They traditionally met at the row of black oak trees to the side of the house when she snuck out because the trees blocked the view from every window. Some odd minutes passed by and he began to worry that she had be caught but before he had a chance to really panic she appeared from the darkness. 

              Becky was short even for a teenage girl. Five, foot one, and never did she grow an inch more.

She had long dirty blond hair which curled and frizzed under any and all but the most controlled environments. Her oval blue eyes were drawn sharply to the corners like those of a cat, and her nose seemed handmade, as perfectly placed and cute as it was. Her breasts were responsible for his initial interest in her, which is of course, something he would never, ever admit to her. Even before he knew he was interested, he found himself thinking about those perfectly shaped breasts, which were freckled and, as he discovered on a night such as this, much more firm than he thought possible. Her back was straight as an arrow and her little shoulders always drawn back tight, her perfect posture a natural consequence of years of equestrian training. A blue housecoat was drawn tight over her little frame and when she got close enough to touch, Jacob thought he might start crying all over again.

              “Oh my Lord! Jacob what happened to you?” she asked, coming close.

              “I'm sorry to come here like this,” he said, trying to keep his mouth closed as much as he could while he spoke to her.

              “What happened?” she asked again. But he didn't want to answer her.

              “It's so good to see you,” he said wrapping his arms around her.

              “Jacob you're hurt,” she said, her voice full of worry.

              “I'll be okay.”

              “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

              “My father,” was all he said and all he needed to say. She knew what his father was like.

              And then Jacob tried to speak but he could feel the need to cry building. He knew if he opened his mouth, his voice would crack and then the tears would come.

              “I hate him,” he finally was able to say. “I hate him. And I'm never going back.”

              He looked up at her, knowing that tears were now streaming from his eyes despite his best efforts. He decided not to wipe them away because in this case they might actually be helpful. 

              “You know I love you Becky. I ain't going back there. I'm not going home.
Ever
. But I don't want to lose you too.”

              “What happened?” she asked for a third time not knowing what else to say.

              “What always happens. He beat on me. For nothing. Only this time I...” He felt a sudden swell of pride, “This time I hit him back.”

              “Good,” she finally said after taking a long hard look at him. Jacob thought he maybe even saw a glimmer of pride from him in her eyes.

              And that was all the encouragement he needed.

              “Come away with me,” he said, bending his knees so he could align their eyes. 

              “'‘Away’ where?” she asked, which was infinitely better than no, he thought.

              “Anywhere. Anywhere but here.”

              “What will we do?”

              He couldn't believe they were actually having a conversation about it. He’d been sure it wouldn't even have gotten this far.

              “I can work. I can get a job on a farm somewhere, or maybe even – who knows, in a restaurant or something. Just for now.”

              “Where…where will we live?”

              “Becky I don't care, as long as I'm with you.” He took her little hands in his.

              “We can move to a big city. New York. California. Go see Hollywood. I already know I want to be with you. And I hope you feel the same. So why wait? Let's get away from this dead end town and start a family and get married and never look back. Ain't no future for us here. I don't want to live my life in the same twenty miles I was born. Do you?”

              “No, I guess I don't. But this is all so sudden.”

              “I know, baby. I know it is. But we can come back and see your folks. They won't be happy at first but they will get used to the idea in time and then we can visit.”

              “Jacob. This is... just so sudden,” she repeated.

              “Look baby, I'm leaving this place. I'm leaving tonight. And I hope more than anything else in the world that you will come with me. I love you.”

              She bit her lip and stared up at the myriad stars, her face tight and serious as she deliberated for just a moment; it felt like hours to Jacob. 

              “Okay,” she finally said. “Okay. I'll come with you.”

              He scooped her up in his arms and was about to give her the biggest kiss he had ever given her but then remembered the state of his mouth.

              “Go get your things. Pack what you can.”

              “Okay!” she said, the excitement of the situation getting the better of her. She turned and hurried back towards the house.

              “Hey Becky?”

              “Yeah?”

              “That old truck next to the barn. Your Pa don't use that all too much, right?”

              Last night’s reheated pasta had long since gone cold. Mary absently forked at the tendrils of her linguine searching for a cremini or, if she got really lucky, a piece of sun-dried tomato. The hunt failed and with a sigh she set her fork down, leaned back deeply on her sofa and tried to convince herself that she had the motivation to continue working.

              Running the magazine had proven to be a non-stop job. A job which started to feel more and more like proper work. An acclimation to which she had skipped over entirely on her youth. 

              But it was all she had now and for the most part, she was happy with her life, despite how hectic things got. Truth be told it was the only thing keeping her from feeling more alone than she already did. How had a women like her ended up so staggeringly single anyway? Did the whole ‘scream queen’ thing scare away the good ones? She thought of Ryan at home in his parent’s basement, thinking of her and thrusting furiously at his Avatar Fleshlight.

              She picked up the stack of papers and envelopes and a query letter she’d had Erin print out because staring at a computer screen for too long gave her a headache, and began to organize them into piles.

              Every issue featured two short stories usually from unpublished or new writers. It made her feel good to provide a little boost to amateur writers if she could and, of course, if they deserved it. Mary knew how difficult it was. She’d once said, writing was a lot like sex—everyone thinks they are good at it, but the people you share it with are usually too biased or too kind to tell if you’re awful. And while most of the stories they received made awful seem like a compliment, choosing amongst them was still one of her favourite parts of the job. She was tired, emotionally as much as physically, and felt like a good scare, so decided to tackle that job first.

She got no farther than the first page into several of the stories before finally coming across one that held her attention. It was a very sad twelve-pager about a man who may or may not have been haunted by the ghost of his dead wife. She had died in a car accident and he wasn't sure if the tragedy had simply unhinged him psychologically or if the sightings were in fact real. But being broken and lost without her he refused to seek medical attention because it didn't matter to him if it was real or not; he just wanted to see her again. The question of the ghost’s existence was never answered and Mary found the ambiguity of the story heartbreaking and beautiful. She immediately decided to buy it.

              She worked her way through a bottle of red while working her way through the pile and it was nearly a full two hours later before she made her second choice. A very cute story about a witty teenage vampire that made her laugh out loud from the very first page, so it was no fault of the story when she started to doze off in the chair. It had simply been a long day and the wine had siphoned off the last of her energy. A thin trail of drool on her cheek woke her, officially signalling bedtime.

Wiping it from her face she dog-eared the page she’d left off on and dropped the story back onto the table. Just as she found the effort to get up to stumble to bed one of the envelopes caught her eye. It was black and blank save for the name “Mister” written across it in white-out. She recognized the name, of course. Mister was the serial killer who famously painted himself white before breaking into people’s homes, abducting some and killing others.

He had spawned a copycat, Victor Matherport, who also dressed up in white and butchered people in their homes. Or Matherport had spawned Mister. Either way, it was terrifying living in the same vicinity in which the crimes had taken place. If someone had submitted a short story about him, it was in very poor taste. There were many people who objected to the horror genre claiming that it was a glorification of violence. She didn’t see it that way. To Mary, horror was, ironically, about life and the primal need to preserve it, but she understood how people could be of a different opinion. Yet even then, she did not condone the exploitation of real-life tragedy. The Mister killings were a horrific tragedy and she would not allow that to be twisted into some sort of entertainment. There had to be a line somewhere and that was where she drew it.

Still, the envelope piqued her curiosity. Sitting back down, she tore open the flap and reached inside. It was empty, save for a disc. She opened her MacBook, inserted the disc into the slot and waited.

The first image was a static shot of a perfectly white room. A good minute passed by before anything changed. Then she could hear the sound of footsteps somewhere off-screen.

She thought she knew what was coming. This wasn’t the first time—and probably wouldn’t be the last—a fan had made her a video with no other motive than to perhaps…what? Scare her? Impress her? It was usually a homemade short, based on one of her movies or even just a droopy-eyed teenager professing his love for her. Sure enough, the person off-screen finally stepped into frame dressed head to toe in white. His face, even his eye brows, all coloured white. Immediately she began to feel uncomfortable. There was something very eerie about the way he moved. Each step was tentative; his body slithered at the spine, his eyes burned madly straight at her. Somehow she knew that this was a very disturbed man.

Then, very slowly, he lifted his white gloved hand and covered his mouth with it as he spoke. “I know who you are Mary. More importantly. I know
why
you are… I have a surprise for you,” the creep said and walked off camera.

Mary could feel fear wrapping around her like a hungry boa constrictor. She was no stranger to this sort of thing. Being who she was she tended to attract the attention of creeps world-wide, but this was different. Maybe it was that she was tired, but for some reason she had a strong and sudden urge to turn the video off, which only meant, to someone like her, that, that was precisely what she could
not
do. 

After a short time he returned pushing someone bound up in a wheelchair. The captive was dressed in a black robe and a black sack had been tied around their head.  From underneath the hood Mary could hear the soft whimper of what sounded like a young girl.

It was official. She was scared shitless and for a brief moment she applauded the man for being able to achieve that.
Bravo nut job. You just earned yourself a restraining order.

“There’s a reason you’re attracted to death Mary. There is a reason why you feel most alive when you are scared or witnessing suffering.”

The man continued getting closer to the camera, keeping his mouth hidden behind his gloves all the while he spoke, “You know this is all a dream. It’s Maya, as the Indians call it, and you’re just trying to wake up.”

She made a mental note to Wikipedia “Maya” once this was done.

He then walked over to the person in the wheelchair. She could see this little production going downhill from there. He would remove the hood and maybe use a cheap prop knife to pretend as though he was cutting his prisoner’s throat. You could even get ones which left a streak of faux blood behind when you pressed it against skin. Or maybe, if they were true slasher film makers, they had forgone that purchase altogether and instead were just going to go with a good ole’ fake strangling.

As the Mister character got to his captive he turned towards the camera one last time and his closed mouth spread into a Cheshire grin that made Mary’s skin crawl.

He removed the hood and Mary’s life was never the same again.

The girl in the wheelchair was her, niece Cindy.

Mary gasped, struggling to pull the air back into her shocked and deflated lungs.

Cindy began to cry, which only made Mister chuckle, as though he’d found it cute.

“Shhh shh shhh, my baby. We haven’t even started yet,” he said stroking her hair soothingly. “Say hello to your auntie.”

And that confirmed it. It was definitely Cindy, her little sister’s daughter. It was clear by the petrified look on Cindy's face that this was no joke. She tried to remember when she had last spoken to her but before she could recall the memory, the man who she knew then was the real Mister, pulled a pair of scissors from his pocket and cut off Cindy's robe. Once she was completely exposed he then produced a pair of pliers from somewhere off-screen.

“Oh no, oh no, please don't,” Mary pleaded pointlessly.

Cindy began to cry as Mister snipped at the air around her face with the tool.

Mister latched onto Cindy's lip with the pliers and slowly pulled down on it until it tore and bled. Mary looked away, feeling the urge to puke slowly crawl up her throat like a rodent being smoked from its hole. She vomited painfully on the coffee table and when she looked back to the screen Mister had released Cindy and seemed to be admiring the red and swollen mutilation left by his handiwork. Cindy's shrieking changed into a low and guttural groaning.

“Shut up!” Mister screamed and backhanded her across the face, causing her to recoil so sharply from the blow it looked as though it had nearly broken her neck. She slumped over, her eyes unfocussed and fluttering. “That sound is disgusting…Never…make it…again.”

Mister then took a moment to compose himself before turning back towards the camera and covered his mouth again as he spoke.

“This is all for you Mary. It's a gift. I know you don’t understand yet, but you will. All medicine leaves a bad taste in your mouth, my love. So these things must be. But it will all become clear in time. If you go to the police. If you tell anyone. I will kill her. I will kill her in the most creative and painful way I can think of. And trust me. I will know. I know more then you could possible realize…I’ll be seeing you.”

And with that he reached towards the camera as though he were reaching straight for her throat. The recording stopped.