Cleveland:
1948
Jillian stared at the shriveled remains of the body at her feet.
It was a husk, a sad parody of what it had once been, not so long ago;
a living, breathing human being, full of love and hope, of life.
Now it was gray and wrinkled, shrunken down so that what remained of
its skin clung to its pale bones, its wispy dull hair wild and in
disarray, fanned out beneath its twisted remains.
She knelt down, drawing off a glove to place the back of her hand
against the thing’s withered cheek. She shivered, repulsed
at the feel of the parchment dry skin, but felt the slightest hope as
she sensed too the lingering traces of warmth still there. The
woman had not been dead long then, and with luck, the creature that had
sucked her dry of life was still nearby.
Jillian had first learned of the bizarre murder spree of Cleveland over
a month before. It had been a few sparse paragraphs in a story
all but lost in the National Column of her own New York World where she
covered the society news. The Associated Press had picked up the
news of the fourth murder, and the ‘World’ had buried the
story on page five. But for a small blurb on the cover she would
have missed it entirely. The story had given little but the bare
bones; the victims, the circumstances, the five ‘W’s.
Still, she could read between the lines and see what was happening- see
it all for what it truly was.
It had taken the better part of a day to reach Cleveland by Gray Hound
bus stopping in every wide spot between there and Manhattan along the
way. It was another long search then walking the pouring rain
through dark and dismal streets of the industrial city, finally getting
settled into a cheap flophouse down near the waterfront. It was
an old drafty building and her room was little more than a box with a
cracked and yellow-stained window that reflected the red glare of the
crackling neon sign outside. Rain seeped in running down one wall
and the smell of mildew and old, stale cigarettes was almost
overwhelming until she struck one of her own.
She was tired having slept little on the long uncomfortable bus ride,
then trudging the streets with her carpetbag in hand. The bed
moaned and creaked under her weight and she could feel the springs of
the metal frame poking through the thin and smelly mattress.
Still she wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the filthy sheets
and close her eyes for awhile. Her head was pounding and the cool
smoke of tobacco did little to sooth her jangled nerves.
Still, Jillian had work to do. She had not ridden the loud and
raucous bus to Cleveland to sleep. She hefted her bag onto the
bed and dumped the contents out, scanning the array through heavy
lids. She had brought little as her uncle had told her often
enough; a change of clothes, a map of the city she had gotten at the
bus station, her wallet with some money and her identification, and her
little silver flask. She smiled at that last, picking it up and
unscrewing the top after she had unfolded the map across the bed.
She took a long pull and settled back against the iron bars of the
headboard, folding the thin pillow in the small of her back. Just
for a moment. She needed to rest, another long swallow of bourbon
warming her against the chill in the room, the dank darkness.
Jillian sighed as her thick-heeled pumps clunked against the hardwood
floor. She let her eyes droop closed against the flashing red of
the sign. Just for a moment…
Jillian Woodward had slept the night away, waking slowly, finally to
another cold gray dawn. It was still raining, and if anything it
had gotten worse. Water spattered the window of her room and she
could hear the wind whistling through the thin crack running the length
of the yellowed pane. The radiator was hissing and rattling but
doing little to warm the tiny crackerbox room. She moaned,
stretching and yawning, her fingers groping blindly for the crumpled
pack of Camels on the small table by the bed. Her headache was
gone, but she felt dull and listless needing that early morning pick-me
up. Strong black coffee would have been a dream, but she settled
on the last drops from her flask as she leaned over the map with pencil
in hand. She stared at Cleveland spread out before her, circling
those places that she needed to visit. She had wasted far too
much time already.
By the time she was ready to investigate the murders, there was a fifth
as well as a sixth victim. All were the same, she found, reading
the local papers at the closest library downtown. All were found
almost mummified in their remains, alone in an abandoned building, or
in a secluded area like a woodland or park, or in the industrial part
of the city that was less trafficked after dark. All had been
young, more or less, ranging from seventeen to thirty in age. All
had been women.
Jillian Woodward had taken to the streets after making the usual
rounds, with the usual results. She had visited the police, and
the papers, but the men in charge had readily dismissed her as a
flighty woman out on a lark and had been little help at all with their
condescending attitudes. She had shown her credentials, she was a
reporter after all despite that she was a woman and only covered the
society circles and happenings in the New York area. Lois Lane
made it look so easy, but life in reality was no funny book. It
was hard, made all the harder because she was a woman poking her nose
into a man’s job, a man’s world. She had gotten the
names of the victims, the women, at the local newspaper where she had
been accepted with a bit more grace, but when she visited the families,
she had gotten the bum’s rush again.
She found that there was really nothing extraordinary about any of the
victims. There was no single factor that seemed to link them all
together, save for their sex. They came from different
backgrounds and walks of life, different religions and areas of the
city. Joanna Baker had been a waitress in a diner down by the
interstate where Jillian had finally taken a greasy breakfast of eggs,
bacon and about a gallon of strong, black Joe. Mary Walker had
been a prostitute that worked the waterfront not so far from her flop
really. Jennifer Montoya, the latest victim, had been a first
year university student barely out of high school. All were
different and all mundane. She was getting nowhere fast…
Jillian had walked the bad streets of Cleveland for three nights before
she had gotten any real lead. She had been accosted at almost
every turn by surly men throughout her hopeless search. Greaser
punks and thugs, a derelict homeless bum, and even a horny, nervous
businessman had tried to get the better of her. She had never
really been worried, using her special ‘gift’ to sway her
assailants and send them packing in the end. Still, it was
degrading to be confronted and treated as little better than a piece of
meat in the market by the men that approached her, or worse, that she
had sought out. And while she dealt with the perverts in one
section of the city, other women were dying elsewhere. The death
toll was at nine when she had finally heard the muffled screams
escaping the walls of a decrepit and dilapidated tenement in the
city’s warehouse district.
Jillian had felt her heart racing as she ran towards the screams, up
the broken steps and right to the old building’s front
door. It could have been anything of course, the screams, and not
even related to her mission. It could have been a totally random
rape or murder, or simply a fight between squatters that had taken up
residence in the old, worn building but somehow Jillian knew that that
wasn’t the case. It felt right somehow, a feeling that she
got when she was hot on the trail. She glanced about, pausing at
the door as she screwed up her courage and took a deep breath.
There were others out on the street, despite the early morning hour,
men and women both on their way to work or setting up stalls to sell on
the streets. They watched as she slammed in through the boarded
up door but did nothing as she disappeared into the dark, stale shadows
within.
The building felt cold and damp, and Jillian had shivered as she peered
into the darkness, hugging the folds of her long woolen coat closer and
up about her throat. The tenement had been abandoned by the owner
it appeared, and forgotten by the city apparently. Dull paint
clung to the walls in strips, cracked and faded. Bits of moldy
carpet still covered the warped floorboards in spots, and holes were
evident in the walls and along the baseboard charred and
weather-beaten. There was a smell of decay, despite the stiff
breeze that blew past her escaping through the now opened front
door. She could hear the scurry of rats in the shadows, running
from her own cautious steps as she moved slowly deeper into the
building. Jillian had swallowed, cursing her father for this life
she was forced to lead, stepping into the dark and mysterious unknown.
She had followed the faint traces of heat through the building and up
the stairs. Her special ‘sight’ was a gift from her
uncle, a part of her unwanted heritage. She did not especially
like it, but it came in handy from time to time. She could see
the pale glow of staggered footprints on the stairs, a flickering
pinkish sparkle still lingering in the air as she made her way through
the darkened corridors towards the third floor. She found the
body easily enough sprawled in the doorway of a small studio apartment,
lying atop the broken door that had apparently fallen when the woman
had slammed back against it, struggling in vain to get away…
Jillian replaced her glove as she stood, pulling the leather tight to
cover her crawling, creeping skin. She could still see the dim
spark of warmth dancing across the corpse, a tell tale sign that she
had just missed the assailant at his grisly crime. She felt a
pang of pity for the poor woman sprawled at her feet, but there would
be time enough for remorse and mourning later. She had to find
the vile bastard that was responsible for this; now! Jillian had
to put a stop to the murderer and his madness. It was her duty,
her mission.
The madman- if it was even a man- unfortunately left no traces of heat
for her to follow. She scanned the room before her, but it seemed
as cold and deserted as the rest of the building. A creature
then, or one of the undead; maybe a vampire. She had encountered
those before, hideous freaks of nature that they were. The
pattern of the crimes certainly fit, though vampires usually drew blood
through a slashed vein or artery, and the women that this one had
killed had no puncture marks at all. It was as though something
had leeched the very life from their bodies through their skin, or with
a kiss.
Jillian left the body where it lay and returned to the old stairs,
cautiously taking each step in turn. The boards underfoot creaked
and groaned with her slight weight, and Jillian was prepared to leap
for safety with every step as she climbed towards the upper reaches of
the tenement. Scrawled words and distorted pictures covered the
walls where the paint had peeled away, and there was a strong odor of
feces on the fifth floor where she found a pile of garbage and refuse
left behind by some homeless squatter.
It was on the seventh floor of the walk up where her pulse began to
race and sweat beaded on her forehead and under her arms for no
apparent reason. She could smell the lingering traces of decay
most strongly, like rotten cabbage left in the ice box too long.
There were boards lying across the floor in the hallway at the top of
the stairs; wide pieces of plywood and two-by-fours arranged to take
the stress of weight on the floor proper. Light flickered from
beneath the thin crack at the bottom of a door at the end of the hall;
the flame of a candle no doubt. Jillian eased down the hallway
towards the glow of light, creeping along the walls and trying to
balance her weight on the boards strewn across the bowing floor,
wincing as it groaned underfoot.
She took several deep breaths, trying to screw up her courage, wishing
she could have a cigarette- but that would give her away. She had
been here before of course, many times in this situation. It was
her duty to rid the world of the evil that was trying to infest it and
gain hold. The dark fiends that prowled the night, the creatures
of shadow and nightmare made real were her prey. She had faced
vampires and werewolves, mentalists and mediums with delusions of
grandeur. She had torched a mummy in Pittsburgh, and spiked a
shadow in Miami. It did not get any easier, never got any
easier. Jillian swallowed the lump in her throat and gripped the
doorknob, giving it a twist and eased the door open, wincing again as
it creaked like Inner Sanctum on the radio.
The room was little better than the rest of the building, small and
weathered with paper hanging in long curling strips and chunks of
plaster littering the floor. Dull light filtered in through the
foggy windows stained with soot and dust danced through the stale,
stagnant air. The stench was thick and Jillian gagged stepping
inside and glancing about until her gaze rested on the ratty,
over-stuffed chair on the far side of the room.
It was a man, as she had suspected. He would have been handsome
she noted immediately, save for the fact that he appeared bloated and
pale beyond imagination. His stomach bulged over the top of his
slacks, his dress shirt strained, threatening to burst at the seams and
buttons. His hair was black and slick with grease, brushed to one
side and touching the collar of his starched shirt. His face was
round and expressionless as he stared out of a broken window at the
skyline in the distance, the streets far below, his small dark eyes
almost lost in the folds of his skin. His fingernails were long
and jagged, his skin pasty white and mottled with scars and bulging
pustules. Slowly he turned his head to face her, hearing her soft
clack of her heels as she stole into the room, a look of pain creasing
his lips and brow, as though so simple an act had cost him
dearly. He saw her and smiled. His teeth were perfect.
“Hullo…” he said as he reached up to straighten his
tie. The sleeves of his shirt rode up his arms as he snugged the
knot at the collar, and sweat oozed from his pores at the effort.
He looked about to stand, then seemingly thought better of it.
“Can I help you?”
Jillian did not even waste words with the creature. He reeked of
death, and Jillian’s stomach rebelled as she staggered into the
room, bringing her gift to bear. She reached out, her mind
probing for the thoughts of the thing that was staring lustfully at
her. She could feel his own special abilities lapping at her and
she shivered at the vulgar ‘touch’ of this thing. He
was trying to calm her, she knew, trying to lull her into a sense of
comfort and make her easy prey for whatever vile thing he might do next.
She saw his brow furrow in pain as her first assault dug into his
psyche, disrupting whatever he was doing to her. She lashed out
again, doubling her onslaught to batter down his swiftly erected mental
shields, slashing away with the razor sharp dagger of her mind.
She was no Svengali, not by a long shot, and he was strong, but the
strength he had gained from his last kill had made him lazy as
well. He was slow and despondent, like a man who had just eaten a
huge dinner. He was drowsing, and that was her edge, as she was
more or less fresh and wide-awake with the horror of it all.
Still, she felt the dull throb of his power nibbling and scratching to
get past the walls of defense that she had hastily erected. She
looked again, and he was suddenly beautiful. The fat had melted
away, and he was tall, standing proud before the window, beckoning
her. His smile was wide and bright, comforting and reassuring,
and Jillian felt herself take a step forward, her hand reaching out-
“No!” she shouted, clutching at her head, trying to lessen
the sudden pressure that threatened to make it explode. He was
playing with her mind, his gilded tongue whispering into her thoughts,
trying to sway her into complacency even as she tried in return to calm
him into a state of trust that she might approach. He was an Incubus, she realized then, a soul
stealer, living off of the lives and energies of others. He had
killed the women to survive, and she could not fault him for that-
wanting to live, no matter how wrong his actions. He was only
trying to survive-
“No!” she screamed again, and the man staggered back,
slumping again into his chair once more and losing the Glamour he had
been sporting. He was fat again. Fat and greasy and craving
more as she chanced a quick glimpse, careful not to meet his gaze
again. She slammed her psyche at him once more, picturing a
hammer in her mind’s eye, and watched his bloated body jerk at
her assault. He moaned, trying to focus. His eyes were wide
in panic, and she felt him again, probing, scratching at her mind.
Jillian slammed the length of pipe down across the side of the
creature’s head. She did not know where it had come from,
but it was in her grip, and she used it. He squealed like a pig
as she smashed it down again, feeling the crunch of bone and the
splatter of blood as she put all of her weight behind the
blow. Again….
Again…
Jillian staggered back against the wall, staring down at the bloodied
pulp that had been the Incubus. A gaping hole had appeared at his
temple where she had beaten him, and he had flopped onto the floor at
her feet when the spark of life had finally left him. She was
breathing hard, her chest heaving with the effort. Sweat dripped
from her brow and chin, and trickled down her back. She dropped
the rusting pipe to the floor with a loud clatter.
Her head was pounding, the after effect of her gift, and she felt her
stomach churning with the revulsion of what she had done. She had
beaten a man to death. Or, really, a creature in the form of a
man. She had taken a life. Regardless…
Another…
Jillian choked, trying to hold in the contents of her stomach as she
ran down the flights of stairs and out of the building. The rain
was pouring again, a cool, drenching wash that seemed to cleanse her as
she raised her face to the heavens. Her head was awhirl, her
special gift screaming into her thoughts and taking over her
memories. She stumbled, flying down the stoop and back out into
the chill Cleveland streets, racing away from the horror that she had
committed. Five blocks away, she finally fell to her knees,
emptying her stomach in gagging, heaving convulsions into the filthy,
overflowing gutters.
She kneeled in the grime, hugging herself in the aftermath of what she
had done. What she had been forced to do. No matter how she
tried to rationalize it, she had killed. It was a creature, true,
to her at least. The police would not think so however. But
she had slain it all the same, and like all the rest, in its final
moments, with its final breath, it had seemed all too human. It
had cried, pleaded, begged for mercy. She had denied it, just as
she hoped it had denied its victims. Nine of them…
It was just trying to survive.
Same as her…
Jillian Woodward stood and straightened her long coat, ignoring the
downpour and the chill. She brushed the dirt from her knees and
smoothed her skirt, smearing the spattered blood into streaks.
She raked a hand through her long, dark hair. She had to get
away, to go home. She had to get out of Cleveland before the
police started asking questions, questions that she would not be able
to answer. She had to get back to New York and start reading the
papers again, searching for the next odd string of deaths or
unexplained disappearances.
It was her heritage.
It was her duty, her mission…
A dirty, filthy job…
She hated it.
END
Story © Curt F 2004