Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Something’s gotta give, man… I’m not happy. I don’t think I’ve ever been truly happy, but certainly not in the last three years.
He ruined me when I was a child, and then, three years ago, he fucking ruined me all over again. I’m caged by this life he’s forced me into, and I fucking hate it.
“Huyes de tu jaula, pajarito…”
Right. I’m not escaping from shit.
I’m still just as trapped as I’ve been since I watched him take my family from me. Only now, I have no purpose. No more objective. No mission to train for.
I’m a fucking waste of breath.
“Have you seen this shit??” A guy at the table next to me is talking to the guy next to him, pointing at something on the front page of the newspaper while I’m reluctantly standing up to leave.
I don’t wanna go back out into the cold…
“Fuckin sick shit.” The other guy shakes his head.
On my way past them, I glance at the newspaper headline.
Gruesome Gift
Bloody corpse left on Rockefeller Center tree has police stumped.
Whoa…
I’m as disturbed as I am intrigued while I leave McDonald’s, braving the arctic tundra of the streets of New York back to my cramped little apartment.
Puta, stop complaining. At least you have working heat.
Shit could always be worse.
When I get there, I shuffle inside, leaving my wet boots by the door. One of my roommates, Derek, is home, sitting on the couch that separates our two areas. The TV is on, and he’s glued to the screen. Right away, I see why…
“NYPD Homicide Detective Jacob Courtney will hold a press conference tonight to share what information they have regarding the body found hanging from the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center early Monday morning,” the reporter for channel two is saying as I wander closer, attention captured.
“Forty-one-year-old Lee Turnov is believed to have been killed prior to being posed on our city’s beloved holiday attraction.
Sources say the NYPD Homicide division has linked this incident to that of another body found outside the Broadway Theatre in May.
Twenty-six-year-old Gee Pourier was also posed, and suffered similar facial lacerations to Turnov, post-mortem.
Pourier’s case is still under investigation, though we’ve been told that police are no closer to finding who’s responsible for these heinous crimes… ”
“Fucked up, right?” Derek murmurs, though his gaze, like mine, remains on the screen.
Held captive by the footage of crime scene investigators lowering a bloody corpse from the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. Right above where families go ice skating…
Right outside where Jimmy Fallon works, and fucking SNL happens.
Completely insane.
“They’re saying there could be as many as ten victims connected to whoever’s doing this,” he goes on. “Maybe more. That means there’s a fucking—”
“Serial killer,” my captivated whisper finishes his sentence.
I can’t help the morbid sense of curiosity that’s working wonders to distract me from how melancholy I was just moments ago.
I’ve always been fascinated by serial killers.
Like most true crime buffs, I’m drawn to the psychology of what makes someone do something so horrendous.
And the investigative processes required to catch them.
Most of the big names were active years before I was even born.
We don’t experience the type of fear people did back in the seventies and eighties, with their cities being terrorized by serial killers like the Night Stalker, Green River, or the Hillside Strangler.
It just doesn’t happen like that anymore.
My mind drags him out of the back, where I keep trying to stuff him, though he never stays in there.
Diablo…
He deserves to die, and yet he’s out there, living and breathing—probably killing people himself. Man, how awesome would it be if The Carver took out Manuel Blanco? It’d be like Freddy Vs. Jason.
Amusing or not, I frown. No, he’s mine to kill.
I deserve to be the one to take his life, whether it’s wrong or right.
But I had my chance, and I wasted it on a stupid, earth-shattering orgasm.
Ugh.
Settling into the couch, I watch the news with Derek, thinking about my own killer…
I think about Lee Turnov and what, if anything, he did to deserve such a horrendous death.
And I think about New York City’s newest serial killer, and how long he’ll be at large, before he’s ultimately caught like the rest.
“My parents legit want me to move to Long Island.”
“Ew.”
“I’m serious,” Liv chuckles, taking the joint her girlfriend is holding out to her. “They don’t want me living in a known serial killer hunting ground.”
“I’d rather get hacked apart by The Carver than live in Long Island,” Josie teases.
“The Carver doesn’t kill women,” Will says pointedly. “So you’re safe.”
Liv grins at him and he winks.
Her head cocks. “Even women with a dick?”
“I’m confused, do you want him to kill you?” Will huffs, and we laugh.
“I keep telling you, if you’d stop showing strangers your genitals, you wouldn’t have to worry about The Carver’s modus operandi,” Josie teases.
“Ooh look at you with the Latin!” Will snaps his fingers.
“Wait, you keep telling her that??” I giggle, and Will cackles.
A few of us are hanging out at Josie’s place, drinking and smoking… and talking about serial killers, apparently. Though, to be fair, all anyone can talk about lately is The Carver.
New York City’s very own present-day Boogeyman.
Over the last six months, bodies have been popping up all over the city, and people are freaking out. Then last week, The New York Times put out an article giving the monster a name…
The Carver. Because he carves up his victim’s faces before he leaves their bodies posed in random places that I’m sure have meaning to him.
Or her. Let’s not be sexist here.
And now the conversation has been fully hijacked. It’s all Carver all the time. But I’m not exactly mad about it.
I’ve been following the story since the Rockefeller thing, and it’s nothing shy of super interesting. Scary as hell, since I live in Brooklyn, where at least five of the victims were from. But still, I’m more intrigued than I am concerned, which is probably pretty stupid.
But hey… what else have I got going on right now?
Nada.
“There are definitely more victims than they’re letting on.” Derek plops down with a bottle of vodka in his grip. “Ones they’re not counting ‘cause they weren’t posed.”
“But the cops said—”
“The cops have their heads up their asses,” Will grunts, puffing on the joint.
“That’s why they had to bring in that FBI agent.
Because they’re incompetent. I mean, this person’s been running around slaughtering people for a year and they haven’t found a single witness?
” We all stare at him until he elaborates. “It’s because they’re not looking.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Liv huffs. “Of course they’re looking.”
“Maybe not at the right people,” I murmur.
Will holds out his hand as if to say, Yes, Exactly this.
“A friend of mine was talking to this guy,” Derek says. “They were hitting it off and shit, and then bam! Dude just vanishes off the face of the earth.”
“Sounds like homeboy ghosted your friend,” Josie chuckles. I bite back a smirk.
“No, because he also, like, stopped showing up for work, and literally no one has seen him in months,” Derek goes on.
“How do you know this?” Will asks skeptically.
“It’s that dude Jax. You know, from the tattoo shop on Bleecker? The one who got thrown out of Posh that time for spitting in Calvin’s face…”
“Oh yea,” Will snorts. “That was hilarious.” Then he pouts. “Boo. I liked that guy.”
“Yea, well, now he’s gone.” Derek takes a long pull from the bottle.
“And you think he’s…” Liv looks concerned.
Derek shrugs. “I don’t know. But guys have been disappearing left and right.”
“And without a body or any evidence, they’re just considered missing…” I mutter, as absorbed as I am unsettled.
“Welp, we’re all screwed,” Will sighs. “If The Carver’s going after gay dudes, you know the cops aren’t gonna give a shit.”
“Oh, come on.” Josie rolls her eyes. “It’s not the eighties anymore. If Dahmer had done that shit today, he would’ve been caught in a second.”
“It’s cute that you think that.” Will shows her one of his condescending smirks, and she glares.
“Wait, but if The Carver is killing those guys, why isn’t he posing them?” Liv asks.
“Why don’t you channel your inner Clarice Starling and lend the cops a hand?” Derek chuckles.
“You joke, but I love that movie,” Liv hums.
“Jodi Foster was her first crush.” Josie smirks. Liv shoots her a look.
“Actually, it was Scully,” she sneers. “Gillian Anderson… yum.”
“Hell yea,” Josie agrees.
“You have a thing for red-headed FBI agents, huh?” I laugh.
“Yea, clearly I have a type.”
“Cops,” Derek hits the joint, chuckling then coughing.
“I’d do a cop,” Will mumbles, paying more attention to his vigorous texting. He peeks up at me. “You wanna go?”
I nod and haul my ass off the couch. We’re going to meet up with a few friends at a club in Hell’s Kitchen. Normally I’d be wary of venturing that way, being that the last time I saw the devil it was there, at his club.
But Club Edge burned down years ago, and from what I understand, they’re in the process of building apartments in its place. If The Ivory opened up a new Club Edge in the city, I haven’t heard about it through any of my connections.
Between The Ivory and The Carver, apparently it’s risky to go out anywhere in New York these days. But I care less about being killed than I do about being bored.
So out we go.
“Bye bye bye.” Will preens while we’re hugging the girls. “See you hoes soon.”
“Later.” I nod at Derek, who blows me a kiss.
“Hey if you do ketamine tonight, be sure to bring your ass into my room when you get home.” He winks at me while the others laugh.
Scowling, I roll my eyes to cover up the way I’m blushing. “Screw you, Delightful Derek.”
“That was exactly my point,” he sings.
I flip him off and he falls onto his side.