In the dark of night, red looks black, and the white of freshly exposed bone appears gray. Nothing is truly black and white. All is a variegated palette of grays. The evil actions of humans fall likewise into the palette between, and are rarely at the extremes—except, of course, when they are.
There is an old tale about a man wandering in the wilderness with a staff and a lantern. The lantern had no candle, and yet there was light. The light, it was said, could illuminate the darkest corners of a man’s soul—an ancient story for an ancient and simpler time. Today it was as simple as the light from a passing truck spilling between the slats of a freight car shoved off on a rail siding waiting for its next train. Or perhaps it was a forsaken crucible for the unspeakable.
In the dark night, a truck rolls to a stop at the stop sign by the highway. The driver gazed across the highway to the field of broken earth beyond. Sparse clumps of tall grass were the only audience to the dilapidated, faded red-brown freight car. The man had noticed it Monday night as he headed for work at the Gilroy’s spice plant. He didn’t remember the door on the side as being open.
“Kids,” he thought as his right hand reached across the metal dashboard. The cigarette lighter popped back out from the hole in the dashboard and into his yellow-stained fingers. The glow from the hot metal flared as he lit his cigarette. His eyes were on the door across the highway as his right hand found the hole in the dash from years of habit. The smoke seared sweetly as he took the first deep draw of the morning. His wife had never liked him smoking, but his truck was his kingdom. He confined the habit to his work commute each day, where there would be no dispute.
He absentmindedly fingered the turn signal and slowly eased the ’52 Chevy pickup out onto the empty highway. Turning left, he headed for work on the graveyard shift. The rail car was no longer even a memory as he turned up the radio. The sounds of Tennessee Ernie Ford sang to his truck driver’s soul as they crooned together about another sixteen tons of coal and being deeper in debt.
The light had swept along the walls, illuminating a Rorschach of bloody red flesh and white neon bone framing a silent scream and horror-frozen blue eyes. As the light disappeared back into the blackness of the railcar, the scene faded quickly to gray on gray. Life-giving air ebbed and flowed with a high-pitched whistle from the slit in the throat pushed and pulled by lungs nearing the end of their journey from life into death.
The slender claw of a hand weighed the long thin bone bound with human hair and flesh at the end. The movement was slow as if it were the balance of life itself being weighed.
The brush dipped again into the dark cavity of the body pinned like a bug to the wall of the railcar. Small crescent cuts opened into cups to pool the blood, marching down both sides of the torso. As one fountain congealed, a fresh one was cut—to renew the flow.
The killer hummed tunelessly, contentedly, in the thick silence of the night. Feeling the added weight of the loaded brush, the strong, boney hand moved carefully to the wall and continued the curious twists and turns, creating a terrible tableau. Drawings and glyphs stretched around the walls of the railcar. Quarts of blood turned into a maniacal scribe’s ink or an artist’s paint.
The gibbous moon played hide and seek with a handful of late summer clouds. Far in the distance, a lone coyote howled his tortured call of solitary desperation. Summer’s last crickets were ominously silent.
The killer gave a little giggle at the final pass of the bloodied brush. Throwing the now useless tool over his shoulder, he sat down on the floor to watch this latest life drain away. To feel the essence of the spirit as it flowed from the old vessel to the newer, more deserving.
His left hand silently withdrew the short-bladed knife from the scabbard on his belt. His right hand dreamily plucked a hair from his head. The edge of the sharp blade slid along the hair in the moonlight, slivering it.
Without thinking, his right hand placed the hair in his mouth as his left hand returned the knife to the scabbard. His right fingertips danced delicately along the edge of his left Killing Boot in delicious anticipation. He could feel the stirring of his penis as the time drew near.
With satisfaction, the killer eyed the lacey fringe hanging from what once was a face. Every slice had been a symbolic stripping of the identity. Every strip had been a morsel for the killer to ingest the power and strength of the victim’s essence. Each strip sucked of its delicate copper and salty nature before being swallowed. Every finger pad had been a delight of sensual touch on the tongue.
The hollow whistle of the shallow breaths now drew shorter and more rapid. Soon, the killer knew they would catch, stop, and catch again. This one was strong. This one might actually take a try at a third breath.
The moon slid behind another cloud as the blue eyes grew flat and dull. The catch in the breathing rattled one last time. The killer smiled at the strength and determination residing in the heart and spirit.
Dark eyes flared with a red heat, then lidded and rolled upward as the killer reached release. Breathing rapidly, his chest fluttered. He moaned.
Out in the field, a lone cricket rubbed its legs with the heat of the night. A fast hand pinched it to silence and then passed it to a faster death between yellow and black molars. The tiny juicy feast was much smaller than the Master’s but no less satisfying. The small figure shifted back into the small gully and became one with the tufted grass in the night.
The silence of the night was complete.
Most in the South Bay Area slept. However, tonight, one had died as another renewed his power.