Headhunter (19 page)

Then something broke inside Sparky's head. It was like a total letting go, an overload, a chemical psychosis that fractured Sparky's id.

Reality broke away.

The real world had become as elusive as the fragments of a dream. Vision after vision began to waver in the flicker of afterimage. Details—unnoticed before—now seized and demanded attention.

All that was left of Sparky's life was creeping paranoia. Danger was
everywhere.
Inside and out.

Then Selena stood up and took off her shirt.

It was not a fluid motion, for the young woman seemed to disintegrate as she moved, recovering her image just in time to disintegrate again. Transfixed, frozen, mesmerized, Sparky watched this slow strip that seemed as if it had been planned a century in advance. For Selena uncoiled from the ground like a waking cat, standing, stretching her arms skyward as though in worship of the sun. Then with button after button, she released the flaps of her blouse.

Sparky could see the deep valley that ran between her breasts.

A tiny white tick called a
garapate du chao
had adhered itself to one milky mound and now grew pink as the woman's blood filled its transparent body.

Then the cloth fell away and Sparky shivered as Selena's breasts burst forth in nakedness, exposing every little pocket of fat, every vein, every highlighted blemish. One breast now grew larger than the other, then smaller, then bloated larger again. The nipples were dry and cracked like a sunbaked riverbed.

"God!" Selena shouted, shaking loose her wild mane of black hair. "It's positively primal. This place is f u c k i n alive!"

Rocking her body and rolling her shoulders and moving to some hidden rhythm, she stepped toward the lagoon.

Don't,
Sparky's mind screamed.
Watch out for the leeches!
But the thought never found words; it just fell unspoken like a bird shot bleeding from the sky.

Selena had reached the mudbank and was now buried knee-deep in ooze. The mud seemed to suck at each sinking foot as the woman threw back her head and laughed wickedly out loud: "Eat me, Mother Nature! Suck your daughter dry!"

To Sparky, the voice seemed detached, unnatural, little more than a growl that scraped from Selena's throat. Yet two of the words, echoing, hooked into Sparky's mind:
Eat me . . . Eat me .. . Eat me, Sparky! Yes, child, I've come back!

Sparky stopped dead.

Now only Selena was moving, turning, holding out her arms. And her face was aging fast.

I said, "Eat me, Sparky!" Take your Mama away.

"But... but you're not alive! You're buried in the ground!"

Selena frowned and mouthed the words, "Who are you talking to?" Then abruptly she laughed, reaching for the waist button to her shorts, fumbling, getting it loose, pausing for effect before she pushed them down.

Heat flamed up from the sun-drenched bank.

Small deep pools now studded the surface of the mud, each one gleaming like a crystal against the background of lacquer green.

Then the mud seemed to climb Selena's legs, reaching out for the shorts that were coming down, coming off, first one leg sucking out of the goo, then the other, then the woman standing spread-eagled and naked before Sparky's terrified eyes.

Sparky looked at the woman's crotch, and that was when the thought unwanted ripped through Sparky's mind:
tzantza!
Again:
tzantza!
Again:
tzantza!
It would not go away.

Suddenly the strain of gazing at the brilliant sheet of mud became too much; Sparky's eyes sought relief in other details of the scene. Like the purple wasp with dull orange wings that slipped by to the right. Like the werewolf wail of the howler monkey lost somewhere in the canopy of gloom above and behind. Like Selena's tumbling black hair with one long loose strand that—

No! Not a strand of hair-—but rather a slow, regular, unhurried movement—-a slithering, sliding, swaying black, heading toward Sparky. Now Selena was approaching Sparky, her feet sucking through the mud as she reached for her shoulder bag lying on the bank. Selena now dripping sex from her Medusa smile as the anaconda wrapped its coils round and round her head, the jaws of the snake snapping open for a quick glimpse of small white teeth, its dark eyes black with fury and hate as it lashed like a whip with its tail.

A series of hot shivers passed through Sparky's gut.

Time had become a drone; Pandora's Box opened.

Now there was fear in the hair-snake, all slimy with muscles that appeared from nowhere to play beneath its skin, rising up in knots or dissolving into jelly at the command of the small brain within the spade-shaped head.

There was fear in what Selena now held in her hand. The object emerging from the shoulder bag looked like some two-faced Janus-head, like tongues of the Devil curving up to lick the jungle air.

And there was fear in Selena's voice, her words steamy and sultry in Sparky's tortured ears: "Don't you look away, babe. I got the hots for you. Just walk right i n t o me and let that animal loose. Come on—"

and eat me, child. Take your Mama away!

Selena reached out and with a growl grabbed Sparky by the arm as her other hand, with the Devil in it, went for the shorts. In panic Sparky pulled away sharply, and slipped and fell in the mud. Selena laughed as the shorts ripped, baring Sparky's groin. Then she tossed the garment up on the bank and stood with her legs spread, towering above the figure sprawled on the ground at her feet. On hands and knees, through tear-filled eyes, ripped and stoned by the acid. Sparky looked up.

It was at that moment that Sparky's hand touched the handle of the knife still in its belt sheath.

Then Selena was squatting slowly, her groin now coming to life.

Tzantza? No, not tzantza but . . . but—

A black mass of hair rose up on its haunches from the woman's crotch to wave several strands of pubic wisp hypnotically in front of Sparky's face. Within moments the patch of black had eight legs of various lengths covered with long coarse hair. Then it had become an obscene fat sack, round and bulging with a pair of unpleasant eyes that glared forth from a kind of watch tower above the body. Next the spider sat back on four of its legs, the other four raised in the air—then it dropped and moved with a furtive, sinister motion back into the swamp of Selena's crotch.

A second later, Selena sat down on Sparky and her hand, which held the Devil's head issued forth.

"F e e l t h a t, babe, just feel that. Have I got a t r e a t for you."

"No!"

Sparky!

"go away
!"

"Ah ya, slip it deep inside. Now fuck me, babe."

I hate you, Mother! Daddy, help me please!

Selena bucked with a sudden jerk, the forceful thrust of her body slamming Sparky against the ground. Then she began to thrash convulsively, her limbs now twitching and her eyes bulging wide. At first there was just an unearthly sound from where the knife had pierced her windpipe, a noise halfway between a bubble and a hiss as if someone were sucking at a clogged tube. Then Sparky yanked the blade savagely to the right, tugging it when it caught. And with a gargle, Selena's throat slit open and a fountain of blood in pulsing spurts sprayed the air with a crimson fog.

Sparky started to scream.

* * *

Silence.

A vast silence that was no silence at all—but more a holding of breath. For though all sound had ceased and a hush had come over the forest, this was
jungle
silence, watchful and alert. This was the silence of the snake, the tiger and the bat. This was a silence to call forth the self-protective in man. This was the sort of silence that said: "Seize the nearest weapon—for that which comes, will come too quick for thought."

The woman knew this jungle, so she put down her bowl of
chicha
and cocked her head to one side.

She was an ugly Jivaro woman, clothed as was the custom with the left shoulder bare. Her hair was filthy with dirt and infested by lice, her face painted in wild designs. Listening, she sat in front of a poorly constructed, thatch-roofed hut the bamboo walls of which seeped quantities of smoke. A
tzantza
hung above the narrow door.

In front of this woman, a fire was burning under a clay pot filled with a muddy stew. Beyond the pot, a young child with spindly legs and a swollen stomach was pulling the tail of a mangy, flea-bitten dog. The dog had ceased to play and now listened like the woman.

The first sign of anything unusual was a dull, high-pitched screaming that came from the trees above. First a colony of monkeys worked themselves up to a feverish excitement, then all the other creatures of the jungle seemed to join in—only to stop abruptly. This left an eerie path of silence down which came a shriek of such terror and ecstasy, each emotion bouncing wildly off the other, that the woman jumped up sharply and ran to retrieve her child. In fear she clutched the infant to her breast, her eyes darting about in the forlorn hope that her mate might suddenly return to their home.

Then she shuddered violently, for it froze her to the bone.

This wrench of primal passion.

Sparky's first orgasm.

Psycho

Vancouver, British Columbia, 1982

Tuesday, November 2nd, 9:30 a.m.

"Did you enjoy the reading?" Dr. Ruryk asked.

"It was informative," DeClercq replied. "But pretty heavy going."

The psychiatrist nodded. "How shall we handle this?"

"If you have no objection, I'd like to make a tape. It will be on file in the squad room for those who want to listen and benefit from your views. Nothing formal, just a general discussion with free association."

"Sounds okay to me," Dr. Ruryk said. "Let's roll."

Dr. George Ruryk was a man of advancing years and growing reputation. DeClercq's wife Genevieve spoke highly of his ability and was rather amazed that the police had made so little use of his knowledge in the past. She had persuaded her husband not to make the same mistake. That more than any other reason—for DeClercq valued his wife's opinion— was why the Superintendent now found himself sitting in the wicker chair opposite the psychiatrist as filtered sunlight streamed into the greenhouse and brought the color of the roses vibrantly alive. Ruryk wore round wire-rim glasses and a Vandyke goatee that made him look like Freud. As DeClercq picked up the microphone he thought,
Why is it that psychiatrists all have beards? What have they got to hide?

He punched on the tape recorder.

"This tape," DeClercq said, placing the microphone down on the corner of the desk between them, "concerns the Headhunter case. With me is Dr. George Ruryk of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia. The purpose of our meeting is to discuss a possible psychological profile of the killer whom we seek. I wish to recaution you strongly, however, on the danger of tunnel vision. What comes out of this discussion may parallel reality or be entirely off base. Dr. Ruryk?"

"First let me say that I must agree completely with your warning. A number of years ago the man dubbed the 'Boston Strangler' reduced that city to a state of terror. At one point during the hunt for him a panel of experts composed of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, criminologists and policemen was convened. This panel decided that the murderer they were seeking, without a doubt, would be a schizoid, unmarried, latent homosexual with a disturbed psychosexual life and suppressed mother fantasies. When he was eventually apprehended Albert DeSalvo turned out to be a happily married man with two children. So I reiterate your caution.

"Having said that, however," the psychiatrist continued, "I do believe that we can postulate several possible theories about the Headhunter's thinking. I also believe that one at least will eventually prove true. Let us begin though with a general orientation."

As he spoke the doctor reached into the pocket of his tweed jacket, complete with leather patches at the elbows, and removed a smoking apparatus befitting Sherlock Holmes and a package of tobacco. For at least a minute, between sentences, the professor performed his igniting ritual, and when at last great billows of sweet blue smoke twisted about the room, the Superintendent inwardly sighed and thought,
I
wish you'd think of the plants.

"Psychiatry basically recognizes three major types of mental abnormality," Ruryk stated. "Psychosis. Neurosis. And Character Disorder.

"Of these, the psychotic—the one who suffers from a psychosis—is the most disturbed. He or she would correspond to the layman's term 'crazy.' The distinguishing feature or symptom of psychosis is that there has been a loss of touch with reality: in other words, because of the pressure of the illness, the psychotic has replaced some important aspect of the real everyday world with a creation of his or her own deranged mind. Here are a few examples. At issue in the recent Yorkshire Ripper trial was whether or not Peter Sutcliffe, while standing in a grave that he was digging as a cemetery laborer, actually heard a voice which he interpreted as God informing him that it was his mission to rid the world of prostitutes. David Berkowitz—New York's 'Son of Sam'— evidently conversed with his neighbor's talking dog before killing six people with a .44 caliber pistol.

"The neuroses—that is the second main branch of mental illness—are somewhat different, and for the case in question probably irrelevant.

"Of more importance from our point of view, however, is the third major class of mental aberration—namely character disorder. For it is here that we find the psychopath or sociopath with his or her case history of unbelievable horror.

"In character disorder, rather than a break with reality, there is more what I would call a
compromise
with reality. Over the course of his or her life a person affected by this disease, instead of developing some symptom such as an hallucination or obsession, develops a change in character structure that systematically alters his or her way of interacting with reality.

"Often this is the failure to develop a normal moral sense, an inability to distinguish between right and wrong. The person affected is still in touch with reality, it's just that he or she does whatever he or she wishes for whatever reason with no concern whatsoever for anyone else's feelings. Sadists often fit this mold—and that's why begging, beseeching and imploring have no effect upon them."

"Will you expand on psychopathy?" Robert DeClercq asked.

"Certainly," Ruryk said. "For this is the area in which we find the vast majority of mass murderers.

"Psychopaths may be divided into two important subcategories.

"The first of these is the
under-controlled aggressive psychopath.
This is the type of individual who does not have the constraints on behavior necessary in society. Such a person will frequently be involved in acts of aggression and will be well-known to the police because of a number of previous charges or convictions for violence. I put Clifford Olson in this category.

"Far more dangerous and elusive,.however, is the second sub-category—the
over-controlled aggressive psychopath.
For this type of man has many constraints issuing that govern his behavior. He is often a rather meticulous, rigid, obsessional individual. At times of stress, however, this man is unable to control the aggressive urges that lie buried deep within his personality, and at such times violent behavior can occur. It is as though a safety valve has blown or a volcano erupted. Then once the pressure has been released this type of psychopath immediately returns to his normal self.

"You can see why this type of killer is extremely difficult to locate, for the factors which cause such outbursts will vary with each individual: what will upset one man will not perturb another. I put Bundy in this category.

"The most important point, however, is this: both the deeply repressed psychotic and the over-controlled aggressive psychopath may appear perfectly normal on the surface as they go about their daily lives.

"Hunting either one is like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack."

There was a lull for a moment in the conversation and then Robert DeClercq said: "Doctor, in the readings that you have provided me there is mention of 'the Imposter.' I wonder if you would expand on that term within the present context?"

" 'The Imposter' as we call him is a relatively rare but dramatic form of psychopathic personality. He is relatively common in cases of psychosis. The Imposter is one who is bound neither by society's sanctions, nor by a sense of his own identity. The Imposter assumes the role and status of any part that he might wish to play. In many respects his entire life is the wearing of a mask.

"The danger of the Imposter is that people around him relate to the mask and not to his psychopathic personality which is doubly removed—removed once because he is over-controlled and twice because even his over-controlled identity is hidden behind the mask. As the Chinese say in a proverb: 'Fish see the worm, not the hook.' "

"That means, does it not," DeClercq said slowly, "that the person responsible for the Headhunter killings may for all intents and purposes be as indistinguishable as the man who lives next door?"

"It means," said Dr. Ruryk, "that the Headhunter might very well
be
the man next door. In fact, the man next door may be the Headhunter and not even know it himself. You see, this is the sort of situation that occurs in documented cases of split personality. It would be possible for our killer to have created 'an Imposter' within his mind and then to have psychologically assumed the role of 'the Imposter' and subconsciously buried and forgotten the personality that created him. This is precisely the situation that Stevenson was writing about in
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
except that in that story the process was externalized, whereas we are talking about transactions totally contained within the human mind. In such a case should the killer want out he merely assumes the body of the Imposter but shuts down the Imposter's artificial awareness until he—the unrecognized psychopathic personality—slips back into hiding once again. At that point the awareness of the Imposter will reactivate and know nothing about what has happened. He—the Imposter— then walks outside and you and I spend a few boring minutes watching him water his lawn."

DeClercq asked: "Is mental abnormality genetically inherited?"

"We don't know," Ruryk replied cautiously. "It is definitely passed on from one generation to the next. But that could be by genetics or by socialization."

DeClercq: "Now might I ask you, doctor, for your general impression of the killer whom we seek?"

"To answer that," Ruryk said, "I'll ask another question: 'Why have the heads gone missing?' That to me is the mystery. And I can think of four possible answers:

"Each head is removed to impede identification of the victim.

"Each head is removed to satisfy cannibalistic desires on the part of the killer toward that section of the female body.

"Each head is collected for some reason as a trophy of the killing.

"Each head is removed because the killer has a fetish for female hair.

"Let's take them one by one.

"Does the Headhunter take the head to prevent victim identification? This I doubt. Though it is not without precedent—indeed Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, contemplated this very act concerning his sixth victim, Jean Jordan—I would expect the killer to have cut off the fingers too. In a frenzy of murder he might forget this second act concerning the first body, but not the subsequent ones. So that to my mind leaves us with one of the three perversions.

"Does the Headhunter take the head in a cannibalistic craving? Very possibly so.

"I note, Superintendent, in one of your reports the possible theory that the killer or killers may be members of a cannibalistic cult. You refer to the Zebra killings and you mention the local Kwakiutl Indians and their history in that direction. I can think of a few even more blatant examples.

"Take for example the crimes of the man upon whose murders are loosely based two motion pictures—Hitchcock's
Psycho
and the cult film
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

"Ed Gein was a farmer in Plainfield, Wisconsin. According to psychiatric reports his mother had been a religious fanatic who exerted a strong overbearing influence on her son.

"After her death it is believed that Gein had read of the sex change undertaken by Christine Jorgensen and wished himself to become a woman—to become his mother.

"At first a grave robber, he later took to murdering women.

"In a shed next to his large farmhouse Gein would skin each corpse and then study his dissected trophies. He began to don the skins that he removed and wear them for hours draped over his own body so as to experience a bizarre thrill in thinking himself a woman.

"Psycho
is based on this premise.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
however, is concerned with another aspect.

"After Gein was arrested the local Sheriff went to the farmhouse. There he found a woman's body with its head cut off. hanging upside down from the ceiling of the shed. Scattered around the main house, the Sheriff located a number of Ed Gein's trophies: there were bracelets made of human skin, four female noses in a cup on the kitchen table, a pair of human lips on a string dangling from a windowsill, two human shin bones, strips of human skin used to brace four chairs, a tomtom made from a coffee can with human skin stretched over both the top and bottom, a pair of leggings made from the skin of several women, the skin from a female torso converted into a vest, nine death masks made from skinned female faces mounted on the walls, ten heads belonging to women sawed off above the eyebrows to open up their brain vaults, another head converted into a soup bowl, and a purse that Gein had made with handles of human skin.

"A further search revealed that the refrigerator was stocked with frozen human organs and that a human heart was in a frying pan on the stove. By the Sheriff s estimate, the various body pieces discovered would add up to fifteen women. Of course no one knows how many more Gein had consumed over the years.

"In December of 1957—after admitting to graverobbing, intercourse with the bodies and cannibalizing the remains— Gein was committed for life to an - institution for the criminally insane where, I believe, he resides today.

"I could go on and on with the cases of modern cannibals," the psychiatrist said. "The public is either not aware—or soon forgets—-just how common a practice it is.

"The point is," Ruryk said, "that every jurisdiction has similar cannibal cases. That's why I say that this very well might be the reason why the Headhunter cuts off heads. And if it is the reason, I'll venture he's eating the brains."

At this juncture they took a break while DeClercq turned over the tape. Ruryk packed and poked his pipe and then he continued.

"Does the Headhunter take the head to collect it as a trophy? Well this I think is also a distinct possibility.

"Again we have the case of Ed Gein: nine skinned female faces were found mounted like masks on the walls of his farmhouse. Though the animal is human, the psychology at work here is that of the big game hunter. The trophy above the mantel.