A Self Made Monster Read online

  “Must be animal magnetism,” Alex said as Edward passed the lectern.

  Edward stopped. “I’m sorry?”

  “Don’t be sorry. I understand. How can I compete with her?”

  “What–?”

  Alex smiled, nodded at the departing Holly.

  Edward looked toward the door, but Holly was gone. “Must be all that talk about Lady Chatterly and Mellors,” he joked.

  “We haven’t talked about it yet.”

  “Anticipation,” Edward conceded. He stood awkwardly, not knowing how to proceed. He wanted to build rapport with the professor. His attempt to talk about Resartus’s novel had ended quickly. “I very much like Lawrence,” he asserted, trying to sound scholarly.

  Edward began rambling about D. H. Lawrence’s home in Taos, New Mexico. Alex walked toward the door, but nodded, indicating that Edward should follow.

  From the rear of the class, Jimmy Stubbs cursed. The know it all, he thought, is after Holly too.

  Alex bided his time, waiting for the sun to ease into the west. He swiveled around in his chair, rested his feet on a pile of books in the window sill, and gazed out the window of his fourth floor office. The window offered a pleasant view of the court that separated Elmhurst Hall from the library entrance. The court featured concrete benches, scattered abstract sculptures, and a garden of perennials. A cluster of students stood chattering in the court, the breeze ruffling their hair and their jackets. The setting sun reddened the students’ faces. In another thirty minutes, the court would be dark and safe.

  Two hours earlier, Alex had bid Edward Head a good afternoon. Edward had even managed a joke: “I know it’s goofy to say that you’re a hero of mine, but I guess you are. But I’ll try not to grovel in public.”

  Alex smiled, rubbed his eyes. “Nice talking with you, Edward.”

  Talking nearly non-stop, Edward had offered a treatise on literature that spanned from the Ancient Greek to the Modern British, from Euripides to James Joyce.

  “Quite a leap, Edward,” Alex had noted.

  “The connection,” Edward explained, “is Euripides and Joyce were both iconoclasts. Euripides overturned the structure of tragedy in the fourth century B.C., and Joyce overturned the structure of the novel in the 20th century.”

  “And Joyce’s use of the stream of consciousness!” Edward gasped. “What a breakthrough!” Then a minute later, “The phrase ‘stream of consciousness’ was coined by William James, which is cool because he made empiricism extreme. You know, that experience is the essence of the world.” He caught himself. “I know you know all this stuff, Professor Resartus. But it’s fun to find someone to talk about it with.”

  “Of course.”

  Edward was off to William’s brother, Henry James. “Henry’s concern with international themes is, it’s neat. You know, when in The Golden Bowl…”

  Now, peering at the rising dark in the court, Alex was thrilled. Edward had a magnificent disciplined mind. And Alex was going to take it.

  Chapter Six: A Dry Run

  Alex studied Edward’s habits for two weeks. Five nights a week, Edward studied into the early morning in the academic center. The college kept classrooms open all night for aspiring scholars, and Edward was certainly scholarly.

  On the first floor, data processing students stared at computer screens and labored over programs. On the second floor, students worked in study groups or wrote papers on the college’s platoon of word processors. By 11:00, most students had departed, except Edward and a lonely African student. By midnight, the African departed.

  Except on Fridays, Edward studied until 2:00 a.m. Around 12:30 a.m., however, Edward put on his red Tailor College jacket and walked to the 7 Eleven, ten minutes away. He bought a large cup of coffee and a bag of peanuts. He ate the peanuts on the return walk. Fueled by caffeine, Edward continued to study another hour. Then he walked to the parking lot and drove home.

  On Saturdays, Edward grocery shopped (frozen pizzas, microwave tacos, bagels, cream cheese, instant coffee), sat alone in the nearly deserted student union, or attended keggers at fraternity houses. But on Saturday nights Edward was home by one, and light from a television flickered through the windows of Edward’s apartment.

  One Friday afternoon, Alex called up Edward’s academic record on the department computer.

  Head, Edward.

  Permanent Address:

  24 Napoleon, Valparaiso, IN46383

  Majors: English and European History

  Cumulative GPA: 3.85

  Credits Accumulated: 45

  Advisor: Dr. Lawrence Ray

  College Address

  112 East Locust

  Alex then copied Edward’s day schedule: his classes were on Monday, Wednesday, and

  Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

  Alex had all the information he needed. He knew Edward’s schedule, his obligations, his habits. As a teen, Alex escaped his shell by pretending to be someone else, and now he imagined himself a Secret Service agent on surveillance. The groundwork was laid, the target’s habits were established, the bust was impending.

  Tonight, Alex would try a dry run.

  By 11:00 p.m., Edward was yawning. The flickering fluorescent lights destroyed his depth of field perception. The literature text, the table upon which it rested, the gray classroom wall five feet away, the blue carpet under his feet: all these objects seemed flattened upon a single geometric plane. Edward glanced at his watch every five minutes, and with each glance he groaned to see that only five minutes had elapsed. Rather loudly, one of the fluorescent tubes popped, offered a momentary glare of brightness like a dying star, and blackened. Still, Edward persisted, and after two more groans, he closed his book and pulled on his red Tailor College jacket. Coffee time.

  More of the building’s lights had failed. The college’s maintenance crew was lax, for the lights had started burning out months ago. Now the stairwell was dark, the steps descending into murky black. He remembered that as a child, he directed a flashlight into an abandoned well but would not open his eyes. He feared the beam would reveal a corpse, or a monster. Now, stepping into the crisp late evening air, Edward whistled a rock and roll anthem and hurried to the 7 Eleven.

  Behind one of the oaks, Alex smiled as Edward passed. At this point, amidst the oaks, Alex would attack.

  Alex would carry the corpse thirty feet to the college’s abandoned utility shed. Once inside, Alex would stuff the corpse into a large plastic bag–pilfered from the biology lab–and carry it another forty feet to his car, waiting in the corner of the gym parking lot.

  At home, Alex would carry the corpse into the basement, hang it upside down from the ceiling rafters, and sever the carotid artery. The blood would be transferred from buckets to jars. Once in jars, the blood would be kept fresh in the basement freezers. Alex mused that the inevitable stray bits of flesh would make the contents look like pureed tomato. Disposing of the remains would be a snap, and Alex imagined the scene: a cornfield in southern Illinois, the decapitated head, the withered body, a copy of Helter Skelter. A heavy metal CD with those laughable Satanic themes.

  “Howya doin’ tonight?” the cashier asked.

  “Tired of studying.”

  Jeff nodded, lit the thirty-first cigarette of his 12:00 to 8:00 a.m. shift.

  Edward placed his cup of coffee and bag of peanuts on the counter.

  Jeff bared his teeth and wrinkled his nose as he sucked the smoke into his lungs. “You don’t know anybody on campus who wants some dope, do you?”

  “I’ll ask around.” Edward wondered why he felt obligated to appease the weed head. He noted Jeff’s three day beard, yellow teeth, glazed eyes. “What’re you offering?”

  “I got some ditch weed cheap, and some genuine red bud for, uh—” Jeff removed a drying gob of saliva from his bottom lip. “Damn, I forgot.”

  “Happens,” Edward smiled, gathered his purchases. “Later.”

  Still hiding behind the tree, Alex mouthed a s
ilent “Until next time,” as Edward passed.

  Chapter Seven: This is Your Brain on Bad Blood

  “Studyin’ late, aren’t you?” The maintenance man pushed the door back until the door’s hydraulic arm stiffened enough to hold the door in place.

  Edward glanced at his watch: 12:15. “You’re working late yourself.”

  “At least I get overtime. You probably noticed that the lights around here ain’t for shit.” He dragged a step ladder into the classroom. “We got to get everything right for the big occasion.”

  “What’s that?”

  The man stepped up the ladder and removed the opaque plastic cover from the light bay. “Somethin’ to do with a parent/student weekend. Didn’t you come to the college when you was a high school senior to check out the college?” He gingerly removed the dead fluorescent tube.

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s what’s startin’ this Saturday, and we got five days to get this place shiny.” He placed a new tube into the bay, replaced the plastic cover. “I been working since eight this morning. And when I get done with that—” He pointed at several fluorescent tubes, upright in a long cardboard box. “—I gotta polish the floor. And startin’ tomorrow, I got to paint the hallway.” He yawned, almost lost his balance. “But I need that overtime money bad.”

  The yawn was contagious. Edward looked at his textbook through tired, watering eyes. He still had a chapter to read. “Yeah. I still have work to do myself, but I need some coffee to keep going.”

  The man put his palms to his temples and groaned.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Damn headaches.” The man stepped carefully off the ladder. “Campus doctor says they’re clump headaches, I mean cluster headaches. They come on faster than hell.”

  Sympathy and wariness mingled in Edward. He was sorry that the man was in pain, but he did not want to hear about the man’s problems. “Do you have aspirin?” he asked. Edward hoped the man would answer “Yes” and leave.

  “They don’t help much. I’m supposed to take medication but I left it at home.” He squeezed his head. The skin above his right eye was reddening, as if smeared with pepper juice. “Advil and aspirin help if I take ‘em together, but—” He stopped squeezing his head, made a gesture of despair. “I don’t have any with me.”

  “That’s too bad,” Edward mumbled. He quickly stood up. “Well, time for me to get coffee.”

  Alex rotated his wrist, trying to read his watch in the rays of a distant vapor lamp. The watch seemed to announce 12:35, but Alex’s increasingly poor eyesight made him uncertain. Alex was at least certain that he parked his car in the corner of the gym parking lot at 12:15, put on his latex gloves, and placed the plastic bag in the maintenance shed. He had been waiting at least fifteen minutes. Where the hell was the kid? Dozens of bad scenarios raced through his imagination. Edward Head was sick. He had found a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Maybe he had smoked too much grass and was now slumped in a chair, listening to rock CD’s. Or he had fallen asleep while studying, nose flattened against the desk. Maybe he had tripped in the darkened stairwell, broken his leg, and was shouting for help.

  Alex again tried to read his wristwatch. He was about to take a few steps out of the oaks when he heard approaching steps.

  There he was. Hands stuffed in his red Tailor College jacket, head down against the cold. He was in a hurry. He walked more quickly than usual, as if impatient to get his coffee.

  Monster and victim nearly brushed shoulders, then the victim was a yard beyond the tree, hands still in his jacket pockets. The monster supposed he was rather humane to let Edward enjoy a last cup of coffee. Soon the victim reappeared on the tracks. In a minute the footsteps were audible.

  The red of Edward’s varsity jacket passed. The monster took two long steps. His right elbow arced through the air toward the victim’s skull. The victim stumbled like a battered prizefighter, and the monster drove his right fist into the victim’s kidney. Next he smashed the victim’s head with his left fist, hammer style.

  The victim fell face forward, his coffee cup skidding across an ice patch.

  The utility shed’s only window was partially boarded, and the dark was infuriating. Several times, Alex nearly had the body in the bag, but an unruly arm or leg threatened to puncture and tear the plastic. Alex soon lost his patience and stuffed the body into the bag headfirst.

  Alex flipped the light switch at the head of the steps, and a bare bulb lighted the narrow stairway. Alex dragged his prize down the basement steps. The victim’s skull bounced on the stairs a couple times.

  Alex dragged the bag to the end of the basement, turned on the light switch next to his workbench. The tools were arranged neatly, like silverware on white linen: two hacksaws, three carving knives, ten feet of rope, three buckets, four dozen Ball jars. Alex cut the rope into three sections: one to tie Edward’s ankles together, the second to tie his hands behind his back, the third to suspend him from the rafters.

  A muffled groan escaped from the bag. Alex ignored it.

  He went upstairs to the kitchen, washed the buckets, and dried them carefully. Then he consulted his list: hacksaws, knives, rope, buckets, jars, scissors. Alex had forgotten the scissors! He would use them to cut Edward’s hair so the blood could run freely from the carotid artery to the buckets.

  Scissors in hand, Alex hurried to the basement, taking three steps at a time.

  The bag sat up.

  “You’re a strong one!” Alex marveled.

  Next came the splatter of vomit.

  Alex straightened out the bag—it had become wrapped around the neck—and pulled.

  “For Christ’s sake!” Alex bellowed. He threw the scissors to the floor. “Explain this to me!”

  The maintenance man looked up at Alex. His right eye was purple and swollen shut.

  “Where the hell is Edward?”

  “I’m Marty.” He wiped at the blood smeared across his mouth. “I don’t know Edward.”

  “Then what the hell are you doing in his jacket?”

  “It belongs to the kid.”

  “Uh?”

  “The bookworm that was studying on the fourth floor.”

  “That bookworm is Edward Head!”

  “I borrowed it to go to the 7 Eleven. He was gonna go for coffee anyway, and I needed some aspirin and Advil for my headache. I get these clump headaches, I mean duster headaches.” Marty reached into the jacket pockets, removed two bottles: one bottle contained aspirin, the other contained Advil. “He let me use his jacket because I got some paint on mine at work tonight. I was soaking it in the janitor’s closet.” He put the bottles back in the pockets, as if he were about to leave.

  Alex’s face was deformed with rage. “Now my plans are all fucked over!” He hurled a hacksaw against a wall, then threw a jar at Marty. The jar cut Marty’s scalp and exploded against the wall.

  Adrenals pumping, Marty struggled to his feet. Alex was too busy smashing Ball jars to notice. Marty heard two more jars shatter as he was halfway up the stairs. His headache had escalated to a surreal level: the stairs rippled as if underwater. The pain in his back was enormous: it was too great to be contained in a single human body, and Marty faltered as the pain radiated beyond him to seemingly penetrate the walls of the stairway.

  Marty reached the landing. He turned to see Alex marching slowly up the stairs.

  “Goddammit! You take one step and I’ll drive these—” Alex held up his scissors “—through your eyes.”

  Stumbling into the kitchen, Marty saw something on the kitchen table. A carving knife. He grabbed it, held it over his head in a threatening pose. Mute with rage, Alex threw down the scissors, crossed the room, and grabbed Marty’s shirt.

  Marty slashed at Alex’s arms with the carving knife.

  Alex pushed Marty against the kitchen table, but Marty kept slashing and blood welled through Alex’s torn sleeves.

  “Let go of me and I won’t kill you!” Marty promised.

/>   Alex let go.

  “You stupid fuck!” Marty slashed at Alex, missed. “You believed me!” He slashed at Alex again, missed again.

  Alex grabbed Marty’s head.

  Marty heard bones in his neck crack from the sudden jerk, and he saw that he was about to crash against Alex’s raised right knee. Blood poured from where his nose had been. I’m surprised my nose doesn’t hurt more, Marty thought. My nose, it’s, it’s—where is it?

  No time to think. He collided against the knee again. And again. His blood spattered the knee, his own pants, his work shoes, the floor. I know how to clean, he wanted to tell his assailant, you need to mix ammonia with water to get that out.

  The blood on his assailant’s pants turned yellow, as if Marty were looking at the negative of a photograph. The once white floor was black, the puddles of blood were dazzling yellow, and the pain was turning into pleasure. Warm waves, like those of a sauna, soothed him.

  His headache was gone.

  He decided to drop the knife. No need to fight now, everything was fine! But he could not drop the knife: his hand would not obey. With enormous effort, he lifted his head and looked at his disobedient hand.

  The knife had impaled his hand: the handle was on top of his hand, and the blade emerged through the palm. Marty tried to shake the knife loose, but a new pain distracted him. The new pain was in his neck and pierced the soothing waves. He tried to ask why the pain had returned, but his question was a gurgle. The new pain faded quickly into a black dot that was surrounded by blacker black.

  Out of spite, Alex chewed off half of Marty’s neck, pausing only to cough up pieces of gristle. Then he dropped the carcass and went to bed.

  The alarm clock sounded at seven thirty, but he was already awake. His eyes and nose ached as if struck by a ball bat. Burning white spots marred his vision.

  Alex walked slowly, but each step aggravated his headache. He dragged Marty’s corpse into the basement, then wrapped it in the big plastic bag and pushed it under the workbench. As he walked up the stairs, he saw two small bottles: a bottle of aspirin and a bottle of Advil.