The Beast and Elliot Younger

He put his fingers to the glass but more his own fingers in the reflection where beneath the leather of his gloved hand he felt each grain of sand scream out in a flashed heat fused into their shimmering eternal prison like a thousand beaches nucleared into the vanity of a malicious god and lost in the patterns of demiurge. Where the drops of the sea rest of their surface in oscillating blobs.

There were no streetlights but the lights of bug zappers flared in wild blue with each capture and unheard sizzling annihilation. He heard these screams, too. He heard the screams of all things which died in the ebb and flow of creation. Shiva the destroyer, the regeneration, the blood of the birth sopped in the cracks of the hospital tiles.

If he came in a car he would never see it again already drawn into the shadows of a fitted, black coat and its growling hood. He held a backpack and unzipped it, moving away from the window and the man that slept in the room inside.

A baseball bat leaned on the side of the house. An aquiline blade on his belt. Stars scatter into the dark obfuscation while the moon, wilting in its luminosity, near-convulsed at the repulsion of the object he took from the bag. The driveways in the night rippled with heat in the cold air. He lifts the metal mask to his face and, like always, never feels the change until its too late. The flip switched. The lights of his eyes swirling inward behind the black mesh lining.

The BLOOD of the BEAST and the skipped recording of MORALITY. Scratching. SCRATCHING. At his HEART’S DOOR. Until it BURSTS. UNTIL there is NOTHING left BUT THE TERMINAL SCREAMS.

THE BEAST WHISPERED TO HIM FROM WITHOUT AND WHILE WITHIN DAUNTED HIS SENSES WITH THE FUCKS AND HOLLERS OF A THOUSAND BROKEN DEVIANTS HURTLED INTO THE ABYSS BY KNIFE, BAT, PIPE, POISON, FIRE, FIST, AND TEETH. ALL DEATH EXISTED WITHIN HIM. AROUSED BY THE WARM CARAPACE OF THE DEAD INSECTS GATHERED IN THE GUTTER OF THE ZAPPER. HE LOOKED TO ITS WILD BLUE FLAME WITH ENVY AND CURLED HIS FISTS AROUND THE HANDLE OF THE BASEBALL BAT.

IN THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR A NEGLECTED CHILD CURLED IN THE SINGLE SHEETS OF HIS CIGARETTE BURNED MATTRESS WILL AWAKE IN INFECTED TERROR FROM A DREAM OF FACELESS CREATURES STALKING HIM IN A FATHOMLESS FOREST. HE LIKE OTHERS TORMENTED BY THE PITILESS WILL OF THE WORLD. THE BEAST DID NOT CARE, THE BEAST MERELY KNEW. THE WAY THE WOLF KNEW IN THE SHIT OF ITS PREY LIE INSECT CORPSES NAMELESS AND MANY AND EVEN VINDICATED BY THE ACTIONS OF THE WOLF; STILL INSECTS THEY REMAIN.

THE SHIMMERING BLUE LIGHT REFLECTED DARKLY ON THE FACE OF THE BEAST WITH ITS CURLED, IRON TEETH. WITH ITS IMPASSABLE VISAGE. THE FRIGHTFUL BARING OF ITS PERMANENT SNARL. THE DISGUST FOR ALL LIVING THINGS UNWORTHY IN THE DARK AND BURNED BY THE LIGHT. THE WINDOW SLID OPEN WITH THESE THOUGHTS AND THE BEAST DREW INTO THE ROOM WITH A SOUNDLESS EVIL.

A DEEP, INTERSTELLAR SPACE BETWEEN THE VOLUME OF THE WORLD AND THE BEAST WHO IS PERFECT. WHO IS UNFETTERED BY HUMAN WEAKNESS AND THE WEAKNESS OF NATURAL ORDER. THE COURIER KNEW THIS AND THE NAME OF HIS VICTIM, SPOKEN IN THE HOT BREATH OF THE BEAST, AND TOO THAT THE VICTIM MUST DIE TONIGHT. THE COURIER DID NOT QUESTION THIS FOR THE BEAST HAS GIVEN HIM, IN TURN, A CHANCE TO RIGHTSIDE UP THE BETRAYING REALITY AROUND HIM.

THE BEAST STOOD AT THE SLEEPING MAN’S SIDE. HE WATCHED HIM. HE CANTED HIS HEAD AND OBSERVED THE TRACK MARKED CONSTELLATIONS UP AND DOWN HIS FEEBLE, KNOTTED ARMS. THE VIOLENCE IN HIS GUTTURAL MIND TURNED HIM IN HIS SLEEP, THE BEAST OBSERVED, AND THE GIRL HE RAN OVER WHEN HE WAS SIXTEEN STILL LOOKED AT HIM LIKE THE DOE IN THE HEADLIGHTS UPON THAT FINAL ENDARKENMENT OF LIGHT. THE ACQUITTAL WAS IMMATERIAL, THE BEAST SAID, FOR THE LAWS OF MAN ARE NOT THE LAWS OF THE BEAST. FOR THE LAWS OF THE BEAST ARE IN BLOOD. SPILLED BLOOD DEMANDS BLOOD SPILLED. HE SQUEEZED THE BASEBALL BAT IN HIS GRIP.

SAMSON RAISE YOUR CLUB.

THE SYSTEM OF PSI DICTATES THAT IT TAKES NEAR FIFTEEN POINTS TO CRUSH A HUMAN SKULL. WE DO NOT WANT THIS, THE BEAST TELLS THE COURIER. THE BEAST WAKES THE MAN UP WITH A BROKEN NOSE. THE CARTILAGE SNAPPED AND BLOOD GURGLES IN THE SLITS OF HIS FORMER AIR PASSAGES. WHICH THE MAN ATTEMPTS TO SUCK OXYGEN INTO BUT IS UNABLE. HE GAZED UP AT THE BEAST WITH COMPLETE AND BEWILDERED TERROR. THE BEAST’S CHEST SWELLED WITH THE SMELL OF FEAR AND LIKE THE DRUGS THE MAN SO CRAVES THE BEAST IS INTOXICATED ON THE SENSATION.

HE RAISED THE BAT AGAIN.

WITH THE FRONT OF THE MAN’S SKULL FRACTURED, CAVED IN LIKE A MELON, THE BEAST WATCHED SILENTLY AS DEATH’S SLOW APPROACH SHADOWED HIM. HE WITHDREW THE BAT AND BROUGHT IT WITH HIM INTO THE LIVING ROOM. HE TOOK OUT THE KNIFE AND CARVED A LARGE RECTANGULAR SPACE ON THE CARPET AND PULLED IT BACK WITH INCREDIBLE STRENGTH. ALCOHOL IS POURED ONTO THE BAT ON THE FLAT SPACE AND A MATCH IS LIT TO BURN THE EVIDENCE TO BLACK AND UNREADABLE ASH.

THE BEAST LEAVES THE BODY IN THE BEDROOM. LEAVES THE BLOOD ON THE WALL. AND LET THE FEAR OF THOSE IN WITNESS RADIATE TO HIM LIKE THE HALF-LIFE OF A HYDROGEN BOMB. LET IT FALL LIKE SNOWY ASH UPON THE CITY OF FORTINBRAS AS IT HAS BEFORE.

FOR THE BODIES WILL CONTINUE TO WASH ONTO THE SHORES OF THE CITY OF REFUGE. NONE ARE SAFE WITHIN THE PRIDE OF THE BEAST. FOR WHAT IS DEALT TO THE WEAK AND THE INNOCENT SO THE BEAST SHALL DEAL A THOUSAND FOLD TO THE STRONG AND THE CORRUPT. THE BLOOD OF THE SPILLED DEMANDS BLOOD.

Air collapses on him as though he had been drowning. The mask rests in his shaking, bloody hands. It was like this every time and would be as long as there was time. So the courier flees into the night while smoke gathers in storms within the confessional of the sinner’s tomb. He heard, in his flight, the horrid scream of a child in the dark. The sound of tears, the smell of them, alkali deposits against the crown of an unwashed, worn snuffed dolphin.

The courier squatted in the bush beside an overpass and would hide and force himself to cry, his brain clogged with the crack and throaty dismay of the Beast’s victim. He hangs his head and like a savage mourner in some primeval thicket soundlessly weeps for the many dead. As he often did. For he only felt in the hereafter the weight of the crimes he had committed. An aftershock to the terrible upheaval he has brought to so many doors.

He shoved his jacket into the backpack along with his knife. Inconspicuous in a black t-shirt and jeans, the courier wanders midnight city. His nose began to bleed as he passed a rehabilitation clinic and he takes an abundance of napkins from a gas station bathroom to shove up the passages, damming the blood flow or at least subduing it. The guilt made him disoriented. His eyes shook in his head like marbles jostled by the hand of a child.

Police cars rode past him. None even stopped to look. His black, matted hair concealing the slick of tears down his face. He only stopped on his pilgrimage to do strange things. In alleys he would check for abandoned newborns in dumpsters. Or he would fish pennies from the cracks in the road and place them on the rim of trashcans or just on the sidewalk face up to perhaps trick someone into feeling lucky for a short, fabricated time. He had no money but would write notes with bible verses he had memorized just for the occasion and leave them in donation bins. Acts 20:35. Luke 12:33. John 13:34-35. Hebrews 13:1. Let brotherly love continue. These things meant nothing to him, but they did to someone, and he found satisfaction in the deed. At least he thought.

At the corner of an intersection he found a motel and walked inside. He removed the napkins from his nose and threw them out. He kept one just to be safe. The clerk looked at him strange but gave him a single room for the night and said he could pay in the morning. The courier thanked him and walked out with a stagger toward his brief, lonely hovel.

Inside he collapsed into hyperventilation. All that remained in him was shame and the strain in his jaw at the gasped for thirst of breath between sobs. The courier carried the Beast across the earth. It would always be with him and would appear where it choose. The courier bore the weight of the Beast, while the Beast was free to act. Indulge, in righteous fury, its lust for blood. The courier shouldered the world while the Beast roamed upon it. This was the courier’s duty, he knew, lost in his painful empty cries. No tears remained to be shed.

He found his way to the bathroom and began to clean his face. Water splashed onto something in the basin of the sink. The mask, specked in drops, gazed at him with its sightless, black mesh eyes. It said nothing. His pupils dilated.

On the television in the room he heard the news anchor, “Tonight, the manhunt continues for suspected Fortinbras serial killer, Elliot Younger. Wanted in connection with the murder of Phillip Monroe and believed to be similarly responsible for the disappearance of Susan Tide, the murder of Louis Jones and Officer Ian Lawson. His whereabouts are currently unknown but is considered armed and extremely dangerous. He was last seen fleeing highway 36 outside Fortinbras after the slaying of Officer Lawson, a highway patrolman who pulled over Younger on a routine stop. The police first became interested in Elliot Younger after a tearful 9-1-1 call from the girlfriend of Phillip Monroe claiming Younger confessed to her that he killed Monroe. The girlfriend has chosen to remain anonymous. Any information relating to Younger or any of the victims should be turned over to the police…”

The courier sat on the edge of the bed, the mask held in his hands. It said. IN THE STILL BEATING HEART OF THE KILLER, YOU SEE TRUTH. He shook his head. WHAT YOU HAVE SET FREE WILL NEVER RETURN. BIRDS ONLY WANT THE SKY. THEY LOVE NOT THE DARK OF THE CAVE. TROGLODYTE. He became again overwhelmed by emotion. THE CONGRESSIONAL HAS GIVEN THE COURIER THE BEAST, THE BEAST LONGS FOR THE BLOOD OF THE GUILTY. KILL. KILL AND KNOW PURPOSE. THIEVES. ADDICTS. MURDERERS. ABUSERS. THE BEAST HUNGERS FOR THEM. THE RIGHTER OF WRONGS. THE EVIL PURSUETH EVIL. No. No, I can’t stand this anymore. YES. SUCH IS YOUR BURDEN. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE MORE, COURIER. FOR THE WORLD IS MADE OF FILTH. AND WHAT IS IN THE EARTH WAS PUT INTO MAN. AND WHAT IS MAN RECYCLES INTO THE EARTH. Stop. Stop talking. Leave me alone--

A knock shook him from his meditation.

He kept the mask behind him and approached the door to peer into the peep hole. There was a man waiting outside. He wore a green canvas jacket and had his hands in his pockets. He wore a trucker cap and on his nose a band-aid, one of those small white ones, stretched over a cut. He said,

“I know you’re in there.” And knocked again. “Let me in. The Congressional sent me to help you. My names Calgary James. Private Eye.”