The Last Victim (7 page)

“Jason, this is going to be so much fun for you,” my mother whispered as she put her arm around me. “How many other kids at
your age get to dissect a frog?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, not at all sure what I was in for. I wasn’t exactly feeling well. Probably just some jitters from anticipating
the happy event.

As we walked toward the table, the teacher of advanced studies, Miss Pernatozzi, soon followed behind. She was a little woman,
probably only about five feet tall. She had a high-pitched voice, which always made it seem as if she was overly excited.

“Okay, guys,” she ordered us, “have a seat. I’ll be right back. I need to get something real quick. Try to familiarize yourself
with the frog.” She pointed to the green lump in the middle of the pan. “I left a sheet there for you to see where you’ll
find all the major organs and structures.”

“This is neat,” my mother said excitedly, and nudged me.

I now got my first look at the frog. It was lying on its back, belly up, on this waxy substance. The smell was even stronger
and more putrid than when we first entered the room. The legs of the poor little creature were pinned into the wax with long
needles. There was no way this frog was going to move, even if it was alive. Somehow this reassured me.

Miss Pernatozzi walked back in and told us about the procedures we were going to be following.

“First, we’ll make an incision here,” she said, pointing to a spot on the frog. I was trying to hold my breath so I didn’t
have to inhale that terrible smell.

“Then,” my teacher continued, “we’ll be pulling this out from there . . .”

I could feel my stomach tighten as she described what we were to do. I felt like I had something in my eyes. Maybe dirt or
something. I don’t know, but things were a little blurry.

“Okay, Jason,” she said, “are you ready to make the first cut?” I looked at my mother pleadingly. She could tell I was a little
apprehensive.

Since I didn’t move, my mother suggested that perhaps the teacher could show us how to get started.

“All right,” Miss Pernatozzi agreed.

She picked up the scalpel and began making an incision along the length of the frog’s stomach. My mother was looking intently
at what she was doing. I felt like a warm blanket had been thrown over me. I was beginning to feel very hot. And I was doing
everything I could to look anywhere but at this frog that was in the process of being disemboweled.

“Jason,” my mother said, “watch what she’s doing right now. You’ll be doing this in a minute, so pay attention.”

I looked back down again and saw Miss Pernatozzi peeling the flesh of the frog’s stomach back and pinning it against the wax.
I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Jason?” my mother asked. “Jason . . . are you okay?”

I began to see a white fuzz all around, like the screen of a television that has no signal coming through. Everything around
me seemed to be shaking violently.

The next thing I knew, I was on the floor. I could hear echoes of my mother’s voice, calling my name. “Jaaason . . . Jaason.”
I opened my eyes and found myself on the floor in my mother’s lap. I’d fainted and fallen off the chair.

I was covered in sweat, and very scared and confused. I could hear Miss Pernatozzi in the background say, “I guess I’ll start
putting these things away.”

I felt
so
embarrassed. So ashamed. They went through all this effort for me and I didn’t even have the stomach to go through with it.
Since that time, I’ve always been repulsed by the least sight of blood. So much for a career in medicine.

Although I won the Presidential Academic Fitness Award at age eleven, I was still viewed by my parents as being weak and vulnerable.
Hence, I wasn’t permitted to view anything on television or in the movies that might upset my weak stomach. This especially
rankled when a movie was released called
Friday the 13th.
I’d been told that it was about a guy who stalks others in the most horrifying way; ironically, he was named Jason! I reasoned
that if I could face what I feared the most, a bogeyman-like monster trying to snatch and kill me, then perhaps I wouldn’t
be so afraid all the time.

I begged my parents to let me see the movie but my mother adamantly refused. I found this hypocritical because she was constantly
reading her true-crime books and giving me capsule descriptions.

My fears weren’t just based on fantasy. When I was little, my younger brother and I were waiting in one of the local casinos
while our parents were doing a little recreational gambling. Jarrod and I were playing in the video arcade, where I was teaching
him how to manipulate the controls.

While we were occupied with one of the games, a man approached us and sort of struck up a conversation.

“You’re pretty good at that game,” he said. “You must practice a lot.”

“Thanks, I do,” I answered shyly. I knew I wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers but in this case I couldn’t see any way to
avoid it. Besides, he seemed nice enough.

“Jason,” my brother said, tugging at me, “what do I do now?”

Normally, I’d be bugged by Jarrod’s interrupting, but I was glad for the distraction. “Sorry, mister, but I gotta help my
brother.”

“That’s okay, little guy. I just like watching you play.”

I looked around the room helplessly. My parents were a million miles away. My brother had no idea what was going on. And this
guy was getting more and more familiar with me. Now he was bumping into me and rubbing my shoulders.

“Uh, mister, we gotta go now. Our parents are waiting just over there.” I pointed in the general direction of the casino,
but he could tell I was lying.

“I’ll tell you what, son, why don’t you just come with me for a little while. I’ll take you back to my house and we can play
some games there together.”

I froze. I knew my brother and I were in deep trouble. But every time I tried to move away from the man, he kept following
us closely, touching me whenever he could.

What was even more annoying was that Jarrod was completely oblivious to the danger. “Come on, Jason, look at this! Look what
I did!” He was so mesmerized by the flashing lights of the games that he wouldn’t look at me long enough for me to signal
him that we had to get out of there.

I thought I could get away from the guy if I was by myself, but there was no way I could do much with my little brother there.
I saw the man looking around, checking to see who was watching us, when I punched my brother in the arm hard enough to make
him cry.

Perfect. Jarrod was making some serious noise. “

That’s not going to work,” the man said to me with a smile. “You’re still coming home with me.”

“Okay, mister, I’ll come with you, but I can’t leave my brother like this. Let me just show him where my parents are so he
doesn’t get scared. Then I’ll come with you.”

I don’t know if he bought my excuse or not. Maybe he just got nervous because he realized things were getting more complicated
than he’d anticipated. But while he was thinking things over, I grabbed my brother’s hand and started moving us toward the
door. I whispered in his ear that a monster was after us so we’d better run for our lives. Jarrod thought I was kidding but
we still shot out of there as fast as we could.

I didn’t want my parents getting all excited, so I didn’t tell them much about what happened—just that some guy scared us.
I was curious, though, about why someone would want to snatch kids and hurt them. What was it about a person’s background
that fed such urges? I somehow connected that child molester in the casino with slashers in horror movies and, later, real-life
serial killers.

I finally saw
Friday the 13th
—with two friends, and
without
my parents’ permission. Just a few minutes into the film—when the eerie music first starts to rise, signaling impending doom—I
closed my eyes, and I kept them tight until the closing credits. I didn’t actually
see
the movie this first time, but hearing it was bad enough. Afterward, I had vivid nightmares in which a monster would stalk
and try to kill me.

Even so, I went back to see the movie a second time, this time forcing myself to watch the whole gruesome spectacle. I figured
the reality had to be more tolerable than the nightmares.

On some level I don’t really understand, a part of me also enjoyed the feelings of panic and fear that we all recognize as
the stimulation that draws us to such films in the first place. Once the lights come back on, we breathe a sigh of relief
when we realize that our own sorry lives are not nearly as bad as we once imagined. What’s a crummy job, or a fight with a
friend, or a bad head cold, compared to being tortured by one of these monsters?

During the next year, I must have seen a hundred so-called slasher movies. Having been denied for so long, and having finally
broken down my parents’ resistance, I was going to jump into this hobby just like everything else I tried. Somewhere along
the line, I even began enjoying the genre with its campy scripts and predictable story lines. I began to see real artistry
in the director’s ability to build tension and play with the audience’s hunger for stimulation.

Being somewhat obsessive by nature, I proclaimed my new passion by covering the walls of my room with horror posters. I also
subscribed to horror magazines and read horror comic books. I even suspended a fake dead body from the bedroom ceiling and
perched toy skulls on every shelf and space I could find.

Some of my friends called me weird. And they were right. But I didn’t care. I’d managed to transform my fear into fascination.

D
uring my thirteenth year, I had my bar mitzvah and, in the Jewish tradition, “became a man,” prompting my father to take me
aside for a private talk. I wondered what was going on because he seemed especially nervous.

“Jason, now that you’re no longer a boy, I have something for you.”

Feeling him put something into my hand, I looked down and saw it was three Trojan condoms. “Thanks, Dad.”

“This doesn’t mean you need to rush out and use them,” he pointed out, “but if you do have sex, make sure you use protection.”

“I will,” I assured him.

Soon after, I slipped one of the condoms into my wallet, hoping that by some miracle I’d get the opportunity to use it. I
couldn’t believe that a girl in my class actually accommodated me. Although it was really fun, and I was extremely careful
to use the condom properly, I was terrified that I might have somehow gotten her pregnant. Again, my fears destroyed what
was otherwise a great experience.

For a few weeks, I believed that all my hopes and dreams for the future were over, that my life was ruined, all because I’d
gotten a girl pregnant. Once I learned my fears were groundless, I resolved I wouldn’t have sex again, a promise I kept until
several years later when I became involved with a much older woman, the mother of a friend.

I think I was attracted to this older woman because of the challenge of getting her into bed. It was my competitive instinct
flaring up again. Looking back on it now, even
I’m
amazed—and yes, a little embarrassed—by my audacity.

“Look,” I remember saying to her, shortly after I signaled my interest, “I think that we want the same things out of life.
Honesty and communication are the most important things in a relationship, don’t you agree?”

“I suppose so,” she said. “How
old
did you say you are again—
sixteen
?”

“But think about it,” I continued, ignoring her. “What person is really going to say that he or she doesn’t want those things?
I really
mean
it. I want to be able to see you after you get off work, and by just the expression on your face, know exactly what you’re
thinking and feeling. I want you to be able to open up about anything, and never have to fear I’ll judge you in any way.”

From her expression, I could tell I had her attention, so I kept going. “I want a relationship where we can just be ourselves—say
exactly what’s on our minds. I want to know your every thought. I want to get as close to you as you’ll let me.”

I could see her actually move physically closer to me. She was staring intently into my eyes.

“You really know what you want, don’t you?” she said, smiling. “I’ve never heard anyone speak the way you do.”

Actually, she probably had. On a soap opera or something. That’s probably what inspired me.

The funny thing, though, is that I meant every word. And the point of the story is that this sort of training—this attempt
to become the type of person someone else finds appealing—would stand me in good stead when it came to my later project of
befriending serial killers.

Even at school, I found loads of opportunities to do role-playing.

As far back as junior high school, I noticed that cliques formed along definite lines: preppies, geeks, stoners, jocks, and
gangsters. I was fascinated with these various groups and wondered if it was possible to cross-fraternize, as it were. Being
an honors student and athlete who never, ever got into trouble, I was especially interested in the bad kids, the weirdos,
the ones everyone else shied away from.

I could never be bad, though I always found appealing the
reputation
of being bad, so it seemed that the next best thing was to hang out with some of these kids who got into fights, carried
weapons, and had earrings hanging from every orifice. Understand, this was not easy for a clean-cut type like me to pull off.
I had to find ways to get these kids to accept me without joining in their bad behavior.

One method I found effective was to learn the distinct languages of the groups I traversed. I would sit in the school cafeteria
and survey the scene, noting where various groups were hanging out. Then I’d make my rounds.

“What up?” I’d say to some of my stoner friends huddled in a corner of the cafeteria.

“Hey,” a few of them might answer back. “What’s going down, man?”