Resumo de Horror Stories- Scatter My Ashes- Part-4

A sixth child had vanished. I returned to the lake, but found it was deserted. I dipped my hand in the water: it was oily, and surprisingly warm. Then I drove back home, cut out the relevant articles, and taped them into place on the wall.
As I did so, the jigsaw puzzle dream flooded into my mind, with the dizzying power of déjà vu. I stared at the huge grey mosaic, almost expecting it to change before my eyes, but then the mood passed and I shook my head and laughed weakly.
The door opened. I didn''t turn. Someone coughed. I still didn''t turn.
?Excuse me.?
It was a man in his mid-thirties, I''d say. Balding slightly, but with a young, open face. He was dressed like an office worker, in a white shirt with the cuffs rolled up, neatly pressed black trousers, a plain blue tie.
?What do you want??
?I''m sorry. I knocked on the front door, and it was ajar. Then I called out twice.?
?I didn''t hear you.?
?I''m sorry.?
?What do you want??
?Can I look? At your walls? Oh, there! The Marsden Mangler! I wonder how many people remember him today. Five years ago there were two thousand police working full time on that case, and probably a hundred reporters scurrying back and forth between the morgue and the night club belt. You know, half the jury fainted when they showed slides at the trial, including an abattoir worker.?
?Nobody fainted. A few people closed their eyes, that''s all. I was there.?
?Watching the jury and not the slides, apparently.?
?Watching both. Were you there??
?Oh, yes! Every day without fail.?
?Well, I don''t remember you. And I got to know most of the regular faces in the public gallery.?
?I was never in the public gallery.? He crossed the room to peer closely at a Sunday paper''s diagram detailing the modus operandi of the Knightsbridge Knifeman. ?This is pretty coy, isn''t it? I mean, anybody would think that the female genitalia ?? I glared at him, and he turned his attention to something else, smiling a slight smile of tolerant amusement.
?How did you find out about my collection of clippings?? It wasn''t something that I boasted about, and Wendy found it a bit embarrassing, perhaps a bit sick.
?Collection of clippings! You mustn''t call it that! I''ll tell you what this room is: it''s a shrine. No lesser word will do. A shrine.?
I glanced behind me. The door was closed. I watched him as he read a two-page spread on a series of unsolved axe murders, and though his gaze was clearly directed at the print, I felt as if he was staring straight back at me.
Then I knew that I had seen him before. Twenty years before, on television, smiling shyly as they hustled him along, never quite looking at the camera, but never quite turning away. My eyes began to water, and a crazy thought filled my head: hadn''t I known then, hadn''t I been certain, that the killer would come and get me, that nothing would stand in his way? That the man had not aged was unremarkable, no, it was necessary, because if he had aged I would never have recognised him, and recognition was exactly what he wanted. Recognition was the start of my fear.
I said, ?You might tell me your name.?
He looked up. ?I''m sorry. I have been discourteous, haven''t I? But ?? (he shrugged) ?? I have so many nicknames.? He gestured widely with both hands, taking in all the walls, all the headlines. I pictured the door handle, wondering how quickly I could turn it with palms stinking wet, with numb, clumsy fingers. ?My friends, though, call me Jack.?
He easily lifted me over his head, and then somehow (did he float up off the floor, or did he stretch up, impossibly doubling his height?) pinned me face-down against the ceiling. Four fangs grew to fill his mouth, and his mouth opened to fill my vision. It was like hanging over a living well, and as his distorted words echoed up from the depths, I thought: if I fall, nobody will ever find me.
?Tonight you willact with your brightest flashgun. That''s what you want, isn''t it?? He shook me. ?Isn''t it?? I closed my eyes, but that brought visions of a tumbling descent. I whispered, ?Yes.?
?You invoke me and invoke me and invoke me!? he ranted. ?Aren''t you ever sick of blood? Aren''t you ever sick of the taste of blood? Today it''s the blood of tiny children, tomorrow the blood of old women, next the blood of ? who? Dark-haired prostitutes? Teenaged baby sitters? Blue-eyed homosexuals? And each time simply leaves you more jaded, longing for something crueller and more bizarre. Can''t you sweeten your long, bland lives with anything but blood?
?Colour film. Bring plenty of colour film. Kodachrome, I want saturated hues. Understand?? I nodded. He told me where and when: a nearby street corner, at three fifteen.
I hit the floor with my hands out in front of me, jarring one wrist but not breaking it. I was alone. I ran through the house, I searched every room, then I locked the doors and sat on the bed, shaking, emitting small, unhappy noises every few minutes.
When I''d calmed down, I went out and bought ten rolls of Kodachrome.

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