Ionic Relapse Page 5

  The long filing cabinet drawers all slammed shut as Kieffer realigned his attention back to the task at hand.

  “On March 27, Ramirez used a knife to brutally attack an elderly couple in the middle of the night. Sixty-four-year-old Vincent Zazzara was beaten to death while his wife, Maxine, was stabbed repeatedly in her bed. Ramirez removed the woman's eyeballs before leaving the scene, possibly as some kind of morbid trophy or spiritual token. Two days after the slaying, the remains of his latest victims were discovered. Police scrambled to find any clues leading to the capture of the man responsible for such deplorable atrocities while keeping the news of a homicidal maniac from blowing up the headlines. Meanwhile, a needle marked and methed-out Richard Ramirez twitched and roamed his way through the sprawling hills and dark streets of L.A. a free man.

  “Over the course of the next four months, Ramirez shot and sometimes sexually assaulted innocent people on an almost weekly basis. Admitting later that most of his murders were spontaneous and often fueled by liquor and methamphetamines, Ramirez acknowledged that he killed for the sheer joy of killing. He appeared to have no specific type of victim, almost always going by chance. He was completely detached from having empathy for the prolonged suffering he inflicted; he relished their pain and confusion.

  “Regardless of Ramirez’s messy conduct, often leaving footprints and DNA at the crime scenes, the killer's identity was still completely unknown to police and investigators who were trying desperately to stop the senseless string of brutal slayings. There was almost a dozen more murders in the weeks to come, the victims’ ages ranging from eight to eighty-four. Some scenes were graffitied with satanic symbols on the walls and on the victims' lifeless bodies.

  “The manhunt intensified until police got the break they were looking for. A car belonging to one of The Night Stalker's most recent victims was discovered and dusted for prints. The lifted prints matched Richard Ramirez from his lengthy rap sheet as a small-time criminal in his youth. Almost immediately after an all-points bulletin was put out for the arrest of Ramirez, he was spotted trying to steal a car from an East Los Angeles neighborhood. He was quickly subdued by a group of civilians before he could escape. Police arrived on the scene to arrest Ramirez, ironically saving his life from the angry mob responsible for his capture.

  “In the end, The Night Stalker was convicted of thirteen murders and thirty felonies. Throughout his trial Ramirez made a spectacle of himself in court, often appealing to the bad boy image that his throngs of groupies had come to admire. He never showed any remorse for his killings, even going so far as to brag about them during the hearings. This boasting and lewd bravado made it easy for the court to pass down a death sentence.

  “Even though the death sentence didn't stick, his legions of fans still regarded him as a kind of anti-hero. Ramirez claimed time and time again that he was a Satanist, even saying Satan communicated with him and would reward him justly for his amazing work. So naturally, many of Ramirez’s fans were occultists and Satanists flocking to their new poster boy. The crazed fans, in fact, became so unruly over time that Ramirez was transferred to San Quentin prison in 1993 where he has remained to this day.

  “Like Dennis Rader, Ramirez felt no sort of empathy for his victims, their families, or anyone for that matter. It appears the only thing these two had in common was an insatiable lust for blood and a cold indifference to human suffering.”

  The pause felt longer than it was. He hadn’t expected to grab their attention with any of this. It seemed that he currently had the undivided attention of everyone in the room. Paranoid questions to the authenticity of the group's quiet interest rolled ceaselessly behind his muddled thoughts. With only one box left, Kieffer raised his hand and tapped one curled knuckle on the last paper square on the board.

  This box contained a grainy hand-drawn portrait of a middle-aged man no older than thirty-five with large black-rimmed glasses and a robust box-chin. His plump licorice lips stretched downward in a runny painted frown; his charcoal black eyes balanced steadily above a finely slanted pink nose. The man’s ears were shaped like crumbly bunches of cauliflower. Yet, the face held an intense quality that shined slightly through its mediocre artistry. The picture, consisting of flat, shadowless base colors straight from a Baby's First Art Set by Crayola, would have been pretty funny in any other context. Almost sweet in its childlike abandonment of classical symmetry and tones. The police sketch artist was clearly either drunk or severely misled. The man in the sketching looked like a cross between Clint Eastwood and an English Bulldog. Even so, unflinching silence continued to blanket the room.

  “The last and most important category is the Type Three killer.

  “This classification of killer is the most dangerous and elusive of all its contemporaries. Possessing both the cognitive ability to conceal evidence and to carry out meticulously planned attacks, the Type Three also acts in a seemingly random pattern of violence, sometimes making it virtually impossible to ever trace or predict who or when they will strike again. Even though Jack the Ripper, the most infamous unsolved serial killer case, is most commonly noted, I have decided to pick someone who killed within the last century. And, while I could have picked The Zodiac Killer or the I-70 Killer, I decided to pick one who isn’t as well-known, but more relevant. This particular case may not be as well known, but it hits a little closer to home.”

  Almost at the finish line now, Kieffer took a deep breath and punched the gas.

  “This police sketch,” Kieffer's long stickley finger indicated, “is of Maine's most notorious serial killer. This detailed sketch is the only known description of the man the Portland Herald famously coined ‘The Doll Man’ or sometimes as ‘The New England Devil.’ From the early 1970’s to the late 80’s, it is estimated that between fifty to sixty children went missing in just Maine alone, most later discovered to have met with a fate more horrible than anyone could have guessed.

  “On June 29th of 1970, Mr. and Mrs. Bubar decided to take a leisurely walk on the trails behind their vast thirty-acre property in rural northern Cumberland county. About a quarter mile down into the southwest trail, they came upon a forced path that looked to be freshly made. The Bubar Farm property was loosely managed due to the owners’ age, and as a result was often used as nightly stomping grounds for the wayward youth of northern Cumberland County. Expecting to find a bunch of littered beer cans and chip bags from a local bonfire or party, the couple approached the scene with little pretenses other than to assess the minor damages. As soon as they entered the newly flattened circle just twenty feet off the main trail, they came upon something so vile that the elderly Debra Bubar suffered a sudden stroke, tumbling limply into a dense burdock bush where she would later die.

  “An incredibly shaken Fred Bubar immediately contacted authorities, and soon state police were at the macabre scene. According to Sgt. Wilcom, it was unlike anything state police had ever seen before. Upon entering the rough semi-circle, police were greeted first by a dismembered head shish kabobbed on a wooden spike. It was later identified as eleven-year-old Michael Brown through dental records, who was reported missing by his mother two weeks earlier in the neighboring city of Portland.”

  Kieffer gave this space to sink.

  “Based on the forensic photos I found online, there was a loose pile of comics and school books placed carefully in a sorta’ rough star formation around the impaled stick.” This sudden loosening of his speech triggered a sudden gush of unguarded thoughts. “This was a common trademark of The Doll Man. He often left odd symbols and shapes at most of his crime scenes. Most looked like a half-circle with several angled boxes connecting at the two open corners, and police were baffled by their significance. Specialists in ancient cryptology were called in, but none could trace its origins. The symbols have yet to be deciphered to this day.

  “Anyway, the face on the posted head was initially unrecognizable. The skin, eyes, teeth, and nose had been crushed into raw hamburger. His dark hair-li
ned skull merely acted as a crude bowl for someone's uncooked taco salad. Only about forty percent of the skull was still in one piece. Speared through his dangling jawbone, the sharpened stick stuck out of his head like a bloody lollipop and sagged under the lopsided weight. The grimy, whittled point poked through a fragment of the remaining patch of plated bone.

  “This goes without saying, but Michael had a closed casket funeral.”

  Kieffer barely felt his rather tasteless joke bomb. He was riding the pulls of an odd, confident momentum, and there was no looking back.

  “Forensics experts would later learn that Michael died from a single gunshot wound to the head. The killer decided — posthumously — to crazily cave in what remained of the poor kid’s lifeless face. Beyond the Lord of the Flies was a pile of putrid fat. The killer had filleted his young victim like a trout. Layers of the boy's side and back flesh, muscle, and spinal cord lay all around in human length strips. Crudely cut in long jagged tears, the boy’s once pure flesh was draped over low-hanging tree branches like maggot filled slabs of sun cured jerky. The rotting balloon animal of his inflated organs hung limply from higher branches. Slimy grey and purple sacks self-inflating under their own emitted decay. At the base of one tree, police found Michael’s hairless torso, all limbs removed, even his nipples and genit—”

  “Can we please get to the merit of bringing all this up, Mr. Halpern?” Ms. Craig suddenly chimed in from behind her desk. Her tone was outwardly helpful and friendly, but Kieffer knew that it was a clear signal to wrap things up. He knew he had pushed his luck; it was time to bring her in for a landing. After he took a few seconds to gain back the ground that was swept from under him by Ms. Craig, Kieffer concluded his report.

  “Maine state police had investigated three other murder scenes, each one gorier than the last, earlier that year in Oxford and York county. What first was assumed to be a series of isolated murders soon became dozens and dozens of similar child disappearances happening all through the heartland of Maine. Some murders from as far away as northern Aroostook County were later linked to The Doll Man's long list of deaths. By March of 1989, state police had accumulated the remains of thirty-five victims, ages ranging from eleven to sixteen. All found dismembered and posed in abstract scenes only intelligible to the sick mind that spawned them.

  “Then, the murders just stopped.

  “Just like Jack the Ripper and The Zodiac Killer, The Doll Man dropped silently into the background and was never identified. Most theorists believe he has either died, taking his secret to the grave; or has relocated, possibly to a foreign country, to evade capture. Personally, I believe he still lives in Maine somewhere, maybe up in the lonely woods of Aroostook County in a self-furnished log cabin. Garnished with lamp shades and couch covers made of the peeled flesh of his most recent victims—”

  A thunderous chiming of bells blared in a unified choir across the entire building. Immediately, everyone started rising from their seats and heading for the door.

  “Alright, class!” Ms. Craig yelled over the screeching of chairs and frenzied conversation. “See you same time Wednesday for the rest of your oral reports. Those of you who haven’t gone yet, make sure you come prepared.” Once the room had thinned out, she left her large wood-paneled throne and walked over to Kieffer who was still setting his cards and poster board into the pile.

  “That was a very interesting report, Kieffer. Well done.”

  Confused, Kieffer turned to her and said, “But I didn’t get to the point—”

  “I got the main gist of it,” she added quickly, “so don’t worry about finishing your presentation on Wednesday. I’ll be sure to mark you down on the rubric as fully presented.” She let the promise of a good grade hang a bit before saying, “While I can't exactly say that I agree with the subject matter...” Her voice trailed off in a failed attempt to find something positive to say. Coming up short, she finally said, “You certainly have quite an interest in criminal psychology. That’s… good. But, maybe next time pick a topic a little less… unpleasant?”

  Kieffer looked down to meet Ms. Craig's painfully fake smile and said, “Um...sure.” He collected his bag from under his desk and joined the centric flow of swarming bodies just outside the swinging safety-meshed door.

  Once alone, Ms. Craig removed Kieffer's poster from the pile of projects sitting on a table by the door and laid it face up on her desk. Naomi T. Craig nervously studied the third and final box. A wave of insurmountable unease eventually forced her to anxiously push the poster board back into the pile face down.

  She remembered all too well the days of The Doll Man. Any time spent outside with her friends on those muggy Maine summers in Farmington as a youth were always christened with the warning of, “Remember, DON’T talk to strangers. The Doll Man could be ANYONE.” The words had meant nothing to her until an older boy from up the street went missing one chilly October night back in 1981. He reportedly went for a routine walk with his dog after supper and never came home. The disappearance happened on the night before Halloween and had kept most of the kids inside that year. Not fully comprehending the levity of the situation, a nine-year-old Naomi wished truly horrible things on Ricky for ruining the only fun fall holiday for everyone in town.

  That little booger is probably hiding in a tree somewhere. Probably ticked off after a fight with his Mommy over his costume, Naomi had thought bitterly to herself when her parents explained why she couldn’t dress up and collect candy that year.

  Little did she know that her ill-informed wish came true long before she ever willed it. No parent in their right mind would send their kids out into the night knowing that a monster might still be lurking somewhere in town.

  Stories of how Ricky Miller’s body was found inside the local church the following day still made their rounds every year when the leaves started to change. Naomi was never well acquainted with the boy, but eventually even she noticed the huge emotionally vacant vortex he had left in his absence, making the death strangely personal to her over time. The entire town wanted to know exactly what happened to poor Ricky Miller. But no one ever would. There were theories and rumors that went nowhere. Chalking up the boy's disappearance to The Doll Man, police eventually let the case go cold. His parents moved out of town only days after his body was discovered. No one questioned why they left in such a hurry. If any of the rumors were even remotely true, no amount of distance between Ricky’s family and that abandoned church would be great enough. Losing a child is always hard, but piecing them back together to be properly identified is beyond rational thought. No parent should have to see their child as a stitched-up sock puppet.

  Naomi now felt the weak, numbing feeling that shadowed her on those dark, somber days so long ago.

  The crude police sketch brought it all back.

  Just like the late Michael Brown, Naomi accidentally glimpsed for too long into those black pools of pure liquid hate incarnate and saw something worse than her mind could comprehend. A throng of invisible baby spiders skittered across her tight skin. Every fiber of her being momentarily ceased to regenerate. Her mind grinded to a halt like an old rusted gear. For just a split second, she blinked out like a burnt bulb. A moment halted in time. Her numbed hands feebly gripped her leather wingback chair in absolute terror. The solid, ever constant visual elements of her whiteboard and coffee stained desk broke the stasis. Putting up a big rubber wall, her psyche defensively bounced out the instinctual curiosity to swing back for a second glance.

  The electric chill that briefly spiked her memory was gone and forgotten before she even stood up from her desk. The human psyche is good at covering up seismically conflicting realities; most times shaking your brain clean like an eight pound Etch a Sketch filled with countless sifting receptors and neurons instead of aluminum powder.

  For a just microsecond, she saw the true focus of the artist's piece.

  She saw briefly through those empty, pitted eyes and peered unknowingly into dust-tinted windows
overlooking an ashen abyss where nightmares coincide with madness.

  But, more alarmingly, the madness had looked back.

  Chapter 3

  April 3, 2006

  1:03 pm

  Hampden, Maine

  Kieffer was rummaging through his paper-bombed locker between classes for his Algebra Two notebook. The mental projection of mutilated corpses that remained from his presentation faded to other more abstract thoughts.

  What if this is all fake? a heavy foreign voice whispered from deep corners unseen. The first of many internal roundtable discussions was underway. He tried his best to let this pointless dialogue flow without his input, but sadly, he had no choice but to listen. It was easier to let the voices talk amongst themselves. Besides, he couldn't silence them even if he tried. His brain was a broken ham radio; the dial to change frequencies had snapped off long ago.

  What if your life is nothing but an overly elaborate simulation? They’ve been drilling it into your head for years that every single person is inherently special. Everyone is capable of doing and achieving great feats if they only wish it. An impossibility that does more harm than good, wouldn’t you say? Sure, encourage a kid to strive for excellence, but don’t set them up for a lifetime of failure and shame. To be special is to be above and beyond everyone around you. If everyone is special, then no one is special. The word ceases to have any real meaning. So, if you are told you are special over and over again until you actually believe it, aren’t you living a false reality? Ignorantly walking around believing that you're great just the way you are. Wonderful things will happen to you because you’re awesome. And why not? You’re the spitting image of Allah himself. No need to better or change the way you are as a person. Just stay at the mental state you achieved at the age of fifteen and never look forward. Go ahead and blindly moonwalk your way into the future, assclown. The reason they whitewash your tiny brain with self-important egotisms is because you—