The Horn Man: The October Killer (Part Two)

This is a work of fiction.

Warning: adult themes, graphic detail, smoking, alcohol use, substance abuse, violence

Monday

20 October

Frank had spent a fruitless week interrogating the survivors of the abandoned truck stop murder, and he knew that they were innocent of the death, but he regarded them as chickenshits of the highest order. He told them so. Their wide eyes hardly ever blinked. He asked the doctor to let the boys get psychiatric treatment, finally realizing that they were traumatized beyond anything he could have understood at first. What the hell had they seen? he kept asking himself.

When pressured to describe the killer, they had one response: they had tears roll down their cheeks and slowly shook their heads, a two thousand yard stare fixed in their eyes.

On Thursday, he had consulted with a local folklorist named Randi Ghas who worked out of Atlanta but knew the state very well. She, being a goth, had dyed black hair hanging to her waist, lots of ink and black eye shadow. She was younger, hot, and exotic, and fuel for an old man’s fantasies.

Randi Ghas, on the other hand, found Frank Sanders a real man, confident and focused and exciting. His looks were fine to her biased eyes, and she had encouraged him to take her card, pointing out her personal number that she wrote on the back.

The front the card bore her name and the name “Georgia Historical Society” and Frank knew that name well. He had gone to them numerous times for research.

But when presented with a description of the body, which he cautioned her had not been released to the press yet, swearing her to silence, Randi became visibly ill. After some time in her office bathroom, she emerged, pale and shaky.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Ghas, I shouldn’t have been so graphic,” Frank said, getting up to help her sit. She thought, all this, and manners, too? Where’s this guy been all my life?

She reached into a file drawer in her desk, lifted a hefty, aged manilla folder and plopped it on the desk top and opened it. Halfway through the stack of paper, she pulled out several pages stapled together. “I thought this one was over before I was out of elementary school. I remember my dad working the story, and he worked hard, but he couldn’t print anything. He was threatened. The sheriff had a crony judge do it. Daddy was a good man and he wanted the truth known but he followed the gag order anyway. He was writing a book about it when he died, but he told me once that if I ever could, I should make sure it was printed.

“This case terrorized all of southern Georgia and especially in the west, where the mountain folks get superstitious over acorns falling too early. They’re really good people, and I’m treated like a celebrity by them because they know I respect their integrity and believe their stories. They see and hear and know things nobody else does. Well that’s where your story begins.” She paused. “This is against my instinct, but if anyone can be trusted, it’s you. I just don’t want you to get hurt.” She looked at him with affection in her green eyes, and handed him the papers. “I’m probably the only one in the county with a staple remover, so if you need it, let me know. It’s around here somewhere.”

Frank was horrified. These were copies of police and sheriff reports on unsolved murders going back to 1939.

All of them had one thing in common: their bodies had been found face down with their backs torn open from the rectum to the neck, vertebrae turned into jagged pebbles.

One every October and one the following month. No witnesses and no weapon found.

This was chilling indeed; if done by the same killer, the unsub must be at or past a century old or there was a damn good copycat. The murders had stretched from the Florida state line to North Carolina. He instinctively knew there had been some in the mountains as well, but nobody up there would ever talk to him about it.

Tuesday

21 October

They had shared dinner at a restaurant in Merriweather County, then gone to her house. It was old, homey and full of rich paneling and antebellum hardwood floors. The night was cold but she broke out blankets from a linen closet and they made love before she could even lay them out.

It was great at first, but as it continued, Frank began to feel drained and sick. He finally had to ask her to stop and though visibly upset, she dismounted him and rolled over.

He was sick, weak to the point of passing out, but he wasn’t staying here; and while she voiced her concerns about him, he dressed and prepared to leave. A sheet covering her to the waist, she said he’d feel better tomorrow as if she knew.

He had worse than the usual nightmares that night and awoke at 02:30. He chain-smoked Camels and drank two Scotches and couldn’t think of anything but his nightmares.

Saturday

25 October

She had been correct; he had felt better the next day. In fact, he felt better driving back that night, and the long drive, a stop for Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and icy air coming in through his cracked window, and by the time he turned into his street, he was fine. If not for waking up from nightmares he would have been in a great mood.

Just in case, he saw his doctor on Saturday, and aside from his already existing maladies, he was fine. He got a flu and a covid shot, but before leaving asked one nagging question.

“Doc, I was, uh …”

“What’s up, Frank?” Never did know you to be bashful about anything.”

“Okay, Monday night I was havin’ sex with this younger lady, and –“

Doctor Allan Kneebreaker, who regretted his unfortunate family name, but never dreamed of changing it because down here that wasn’t done, said, “You want Viagra.”

“No, I don’t want Viagra, will you quit clownin around? This is serious.“

“Go on, Frank. I apologize.” He could see now that this was something that had his patient and friend almost frightened.

“Well, everything was fine at first. She’s young, beautiful and…”

When he was finished, Frank saw something he had never seen on his doctor’s face: fear. The man had even gone pale.

“What is it, Doc? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Doctor Kneebreaker fell into his chair without looking, still drained of color. He held up one shaking finger as if asking for a minute to get his shit together, then swiveled around to his desk. He pulled out a bottle of pills and swallowed two without water. He was breathing rapidly and trembling from head to foot. Frank had the unmistakable feeling that he had been right not to answer Randi’s calls all week. And not just because she happened to be in all of his nightmares.

He had seen flashes he couldn’t explain while they made love, images that came and went too swiftly to make out, but which were nevertheless disturbing. Each time, he felt as if he had expended a massive burst of energy. Now, as he watched his doctor, he decided that he was wrong, very wrong.

“You’ve heard this before, Al.” He said.

The doctor nodded as vigorously as he could, but five minutes of silence followed before a powerful drug kicked in and he stopped shaking. “Stay away from that thing.” He pulled a small flask from his lab coat and took a sip from it. Bourbon, Frank said to himself. He’d never known his friend to be a drinker; the man would order ice water or club soda at the bar when they played golf.

“Frank, have you ever heard of a striga? The correct spelling, if you’ve ever seen it, would be s-t-r-z-y-g-a. It’s from Hungarian and Polish but the creature’s origins aren’t known. By definition, they’re timeless. Female demons who eat human flesh and drink their blood. Therefore, they would always have been here and can’t be killed. They can fly, I think, in the form of an owl. But here’s the thing that no reference source says, and it’s you. If they fall in love, if they choose a man to mate with, copulation is rumored to be fatal, and the striga always forgets that. It kills what it loves most, and henceforth lives with a broken heart.

“I believe that this is who — what you were with on that night. She was draining energy from you without intention. It’s just what they do. So if they get pregnant, which seems ludicrous, it’s rare. Yes, I have absolutely seen patients before with the same thing and you won’t believe this, but they described the same woman. One of those men died in Atlanta General.”

“She claims to be a folklorist,” Frank whispered. He felt as breathless as if he had been gut-punched.

“Well she would make a good one,” the doctor said. “She’s been alive since before humans.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“As a doctor, my advice is to stay away from her and let her pick another mate.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“Not at all. There’s nothing funny about this, Frank. Forget it. Fallen though they may be, demons are still angels, and we can’t kill them.”

Frank froze. His eyes closed for a moment then flew open. He gagged, reaching for his throat with both hands. “Frank!”

Doctor Allan Kneebreaker hadn’t seen this before. “Nurse! Bring me the crash cart and call EMS!”

Frank was sitting on the examination table and he lowered the detective to a prone position then to his side. He used his penlight to check the airway and it was clear, but Frank was already beet-red, and that was serious.

The nurse wheeled the cart in and other doctors from the clinic were entering from another door.

When all clothing had been cut away, and the patient had been intubated, Frank Sanders was unconscious and in big trouble. Two men, doctors of cardiology and pulmonology, worked on him speedily, but his vitals were bad and getting worse.

“It’s not an infarc,”

His lungs are clear, the trachea is clear,”

“Start IV saline, push atropine.”

Paper and plastic packaging fell on the floor. The medics arrived but stayed in the hall. Words like “established” and “no change” were followed by “push epi!”

This much Frank heard, then he went into a place of darkness. He wasn’t standing or lying on anything, and he knew somehow that he was alone and there was nothing around him. The darkness went on, in every direction, forever. He felt no emotion. He just knew one thing.

That Randi had, across a distance he didn’t know, reached inside of him and killed him for telling the doctor about her. And she wasn’t finished killing, either; his last impression was that she was going to kill more than her annual bag limit, she was so angry.