Hot Blood: Tales of Erotic Horror

BLOOD NIGHT Chet Williamson

She was fire and flesh and motion. Her body coiled and released beneath his, returning thrust for thrust, the candlelight caught and held in the thin sheen of sweat that filmed her skin. He tasted the salt as his mouth searched her neck and shoulders. His orgasm was dangerously close, and he pulled his head away and looked at the oak headboard, trying to regain control, to hold back the torrent that threatened to spill out of him, a sensation too demanding to be restrained by mere flesh.

And then she moaned differently than before, and stiffened, and he knew she was there and he let himself pour into her. The moan became a low scream, and his pleasure was seasoned with bright pain as her nails sketched crimson tracks across his shoulders, down his back.

He winced, but the pain heightened the flaring in his groin, and he began to jet again, even more forcefully. He closed his eyes and let the feeling wash over him, let the sensation take him deeper into his dream until he was utterly lost in it, and the cool and unrumpled sheets of the bed where he slept alone were not even a dim, vestigial memory.

When he awoke the next morning, he became aware of sticky moisture on the sheet beneath him. His pajama bottoms were damp as well, and had turned starch-stiff at the edge of the stain.

Jesus, a wet dream, he thought. And no wonder. He couldn't remember having an erotic dream that seemed so real. He recalled in vivid detail the feel of the woman's body, her face aglow with ecstasy on the white pillow. And he could swear that the scent of her still hung in the air, a cloying, heavy, musky aroma that perfectly complemented her wildness in lovemaking.

Richard Bell tossed back the sheet, put his feet on the floor, and wished that he didn't have to go to the office, wished that the girl had been real and was still there in the bed, waiting, begging for another bout.

To Bell, making love was just that — a bout. A fight to be fought, a game of dominator and dominated, not in the sense of sadomasochism, but of a contest between two adversaries. If Bell made the girl come, he won, he had done it again — kicked the winning field goal, hit the homer in the bottom of the ninth, scored a knockout that left his opponent breathless on her back.

But there were the other times — few, thankfully — when the ball was blocked, when he swung too soon, and when the blow missed completely, leaving him weak and lifeless, while unsatisfied and appraising eyes busted what was left of his balls, one at a humiliatingly slow time.

He didn't like that feeling one bit, and that was why last night had been so good. They had been perfect together. He had made her come with an intensity he had not known women were capable of. It had been damned good, and he felt himself grow hard at the memory of it.

Enough. He hadn't had a wet dream since he was in college, and he didn't want to start pulling on it before he went to work.

Bell hopped up and walked into the bathroom, pausing to take off his stained pajamas and drop them into the hamper. He shaved and showered, but as he toweled himself dry he became aware of an irritation on his back. Wiping the steam from the mirror with a few swipes of his wet towel, he turned his back to it and looked over his shoulder.

There, starting at the top of his spine and trailing downward to where they disappeared in the thick curly hair just above his coccyx, were four thin, red welts, parallel to each other. He studied them with narrowed eyes and reached awkwardly around to touch them.

They were real. He could feel the narrow mounds like taut cords under the skin. A thought occurred to him, and he walked quickly back to the bedroom and examined the bed. There were blood stains on the bottom sheet, mere traceries of light red that he would never have noticed had he not been looking for them.

What the hell's going on here? he wondered. Did a girl sneak into his bed last night and ball him silly? Or had he been out and gotten so drunk that he didn't remember picking her up? No, there was no hangover, and the book by his bed reminded him that he had read himself to sleep. He turned the volume around and looked at the naked girl on the cover, the good-looking man with the gun pulling back a lilac sheet to expose her to the prospective buyer.

Typical paperback crap, he thought, with lots of violence, lots of action, lots of sex. For a moment his mind clicked into overdrive, and he asked himself, could that have been it? Could he have dreamed about a scene in the book and…

But where the hell did the marks come from?

Weird. Really weird. Maybe he had done it to himself — put his arms around his shoulders like that goofy high school gag where you muss your own hair and from behind it looks like someone else is doing it.

He looked at the clock and started to hustle. Maybe he'd tell Perry about it. Maybe Perry would know something.

Monday

"Stigmata," suggested Perry.

"Stigmata? Like the wounds of Christ that show up on people at Easter?"

Perry chuckled. "Kind of. Some people can will themselves, consciously or subconsciously, to bleed, produce scars, wounds, you name it." He put his size thirteens on his desktop and smiled benignly at Bell, who shook his head.

"Doesn't seem possible."

"Why not? You made yourself come subconsciously by what you dreamed."

Bell put a finger to his lips. "You mind? I'd rather not have everyone in the office know I still have…" He hesitated.

"Nocturnal emissions?" Perry grinned. "Sounds like something Captain Midnight would go on, doesn't it? But don't worry, my lips are sealed. No one will hear about your adolescent sex life from me."

"Smartass. You're married, you don't need an adolescent sex life."

Perry's face got serious for a moment, almost dreamy. "I sort of envy you the ability," he said, and sighed.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if your dreams are that realistic," he said, pointing to Bell's back, "they must be beauts. Hell, you could fuck anybody, living or dead — Cybill, Cher, Madonna, Eleanor…"

"Eleanor?"

"Roosevelt. Looks aren't everything."

"Asshole!" Bell laughed. Then he started to think. "How could I do that?"

Perry shrugged. "Just go to sleep thinking about them, maybe."

Bell thought about what Perry had said. He thought about it at his desk, he thought about it driving home, and he thought about it as he ate his dinner. Maybe Perry was right. Maybe he could control his dreams, make them the next best thing to reality.

But when he thought about the women he could dream himself into bed with, Bell got scared. Movie stars, models, celebrities — in all likelihood they had two things in common. One, they were beautiful, and two, they were ballbusters.

And why not? They could call their shots, ask for the results of the AIDS tests, then bed whom they please. And if Mr. Wednesday Night turns out to be a washout in the rod department, there's always Mr. Thursday Night. Even the famous lays of the past — Messalina, Catherine the Great, Cleopatra — flop with them and you could lose your head, after they took God only knew what else first.

But what if the tables were turned? What if he, Richard Bell, became someone else in his dreams, someone who couldn't flop, like Don Juan, or Casanova, or even Enrol f'crissake Flynn? He swallowed the last bite of TV dinner and grinned. Goddammit, it just might work.

He dumped the aluminum tray in the trash and tossed the silverware in the sink, then went into the spare bedroom and slid open the closet door. Inside were a dozen large cardboard boxes, one of which was marked "Books." He pulled it out, undid the flaps, and looked inside at the erotic souvenirs of his college days.

There was The Pearl (a frat house favorite for oral reading), the Kama-sutra (great if you liked to yell "Phut!" during sex), My Secret Life (he paused for a moment at that one, but kept rummaging), and there, all the way at the bottom, a dog-eared, one-volume Memoirs of Casanova.

What could it hurt? he thought. A little bedtime reading, that's all. He looked at his watch. 8:00. A far cry from bedtime. Yet…

He showered and shaved, knowing full well that he'd have to shave again the following morning. Then he turned on the bedside lamp and slid naked beneath the covers. Opening the book at random, he began to read. Soon the comfortable bed, the coolness of the sheets, and the antiquated prose soothed and relaxed him, despite the sensual subject matter. When he felt that he could sleep, he put the book aside and turned out the light, imagining himself as Casanova wrapped in the embrace of cool, marble arms ready to fling away reputation for his love. His erection grew until, in his half-waking state, he felt as if it filled the very bed, then the whole room, and finally the entire earth. And that world opened to him, becoming a vagina that hugged him tightly and impaled itself on him so deeply that he could feel the molten core of it.

Then the fantasy was over, and he was in the dream.

Tuesday

The first thing he saw when his eyes creaked painfully open the next morning was the alarm clock's stubby hands pointing to eleven. He felt panic rush from stomach to chest to throat, and he tried to push himself up. Pain shot through him, as if every muscle in his body had been stretched to the point of tearing, held there for hours, and then been snapped back without warning. He fell back moaning, and looked down the length of his body.

The sheets and blankets rolled haphazardly onto the floor like a wool and cotton river. The bottom sheet was soaked with sweat and was stiff in many places, sticky in others. Two spots were still damp with a rust-brown stain that he knew was blood.

His body was marked with bruises at elbows and knees. The pubic hair was set into hard curls by dried fluids, and powdery bloodstains ran the length of his shaft and speckled his thighs. His testicles ached miserably, and the ridge of soft skin around the head of his penis was rubbed open in several places.

Trembling from both fear and pain, he examined himself gingerly to find the source of the blood. Then he remembered the virgins.

There had been two of them, twin sisters about fourteen years of age. Their mother, a duchess he had seduced months before, had brought them to him, begging him to initiate them into womanhood before they could be rudely skewered by brothers or servants. He had done so gladly, breaking both hymens with care and dexterity so that neither flinched nor cried, then probing them both to multiple climaxes until each in turn swooned in exhaustion. He then turned his attention to the duchess, who had responded like a starved animal. He served her well and left her breathless. They were only the first.

Lying in the bed as the sun tried unsuccessfully to push through the drawn curtains, Bell remembered the women he had loved the night before — noblewomen, sluts, maids, young girls, grandmothers ripe both in years and juices; all had bowed beneath his phallic might and worshipped the great thick god he carried. All had melted like the candles that flanked the myriad beds to which he bore them. Not one had been unsatisfied.

Not one.

Bell smiled.

After the sheets were safely soaking in a prewash liquid, he called his secretary and told her that he had been throwing up all night and had slept through the morning. He assured her that he felt better and would be in the following day. After he hung up, he showered, made a light lunch, and took a nap that lasted until six o'clock. He treated himself to dinner out, and then went to a movie, careful to avoid anything with an R rating. It would be best, he thought, to get a good night's sleep.

Wednesday

The next morning he awoke refreshed, having passed a dreamless night. The bruises had faded to a pale gray, the minor abrasions had healed, and his muscles, though still stiff, were not as sore as before. He pressed his scrotum delicately, but whatever cords or muscles had been swollen had once again receded to normality, and he felt only a slight, infrequent ache.

When he arrived at the office, Perry was waiting for him, coffee in hand. "Well?" he said. "Who'd you sleep with that wiped you out for a day? King Kong?"

Bell laughed in spite of himself. "Flu. A little touch of flu, that's all."

Perry nodded knowingly. "Sure. The French flu. Come on, Rick, who was it? Mata Hari? Marilyn Monroe? The Trapp Family Singers?"

"Look, I told you. Flu. Plain old diarrhea-throw-up-dizzy-sweaty flu. No dreams, no women, no nothing. Flu."

"Oh-kay!" Perry stood up and walked to the door. "I'd tell you, Rick. But if you want to pretend it's flu, when I know you're playing Don Giovanni, it's oh-kay." He walked out, then popped his head back into the office, whispered, "I hope you catch dream-crabs," and disappeared.

That night Bell took Perry's suggestion. He couldn't find anything on Don Juan in the Waldenbooks he visited after work, so he went to the library and took out Byron's poem and the libretto of Mozart's opera.

They were enough.

In a way he was surprised at Bell/Don Juan's performance. He was not nearly as gifted as Bell/Casanova, having an instrument of less length than Bell's own, but it was the technique that made Bell proud and made the ladies unutterably happy. In his dream Bell did more with hands, mouth, and feet than he had ever thought possible. And he was satisfied, too, many times over, for what Don Juan had lacked in size, he made up for in staying power. It was a case of parry as opposed to thrust, and Bell could not decide which he, or the whimpering receptacles of his art, preferred.

When he awoke he felt drained but happy. There were no cuts, no blood, no large bruises as there had been when he had played the insatiable Casanova. The bed, as before, looked like a battlefield, but he no longer felt like a war casualty.

Thursday

At work that day he ignored Perry's winks and innuendos, and thought about who would be the next subject in his nocturnal rogues' gallery. He finally decided, after some hesitation, on the Marquis de Sade. Except for tying a stewardess to the bed one night (at her request), Bell had never indulged in pleasure-through-pain sex. Rough stuff had always put him off, for, although he felt he could have gotten a buzz from a little gentle sadism, he was not willing to be victimized reciprocally.

But a dream was different. He could be the complete master there, totally in control, and there were no real victims in a dream, only the willing and eager masochists his imagination could create. Nothing could harm him. Nothing could harm de Sade.

That night, a worn, green paperback of The 120 Days of Sodom provided the inspiration, and he fell into a dream of blood and screams and pain that glowed redly in the night. Skin ripped like paper, bones broke with muffled snaps, and through it all came the groans of the tortured and the slow drip of blood on the stone floor. That night flesh was made to be broken, orifices to be filled, and fill them he did, until his tool became the most awful torturer's instrument of all, a red hot club to tear and rend and draw the shrieks that made it swell even more prodigiously and spew its seed in jets of liquid fire. And Bell/de Sade laughed at the shrieks and loved the night and knew that at last here was truth.

Friday

He awoke slowly, unwilling to leave the dream. But daylight was unrelenting, and soon his eyelids twitched open, revealing his body and the bed in which he lay.

They were both drenched with blood. The stench of it hung in the room like a thick cloud, and had drawn several flies inside through holes in screens and loose window fittings. He stared as one crawled across his stomach and settled in the red, wet pit of his navel, like a tiny starling in a birdbath of blood.

Bell lurched out of the bed, but before he reached the bathroom, brown bile mixed with blood (God! did I drink it, too?) gushed from his mouth, and he vomited everything onto the wooden boards of the hall. Everything except the fear. The taste of that remained long after toothpaste and mouthwash had removed the sour taste of vomit from his mouth.

He called in sick, then set to work cleaning up, scraping and wiping up the mess in the hall, stripping the bed and throwing the covers in a garbage bag, sponging the blood off the bed frame and the hardwood floor of the bedroom. The mattress, sodden with blood, was ruined.

And all the time he worked he thought about the night before and how he could relate it to anything he knew of humanity. He had enjoyed it, had actually derived pleasure from the torment of others. And not, perhaps, only torment. All the blood. Could a person lose so much blood and live? Had he killed in his dream?

Then memory came to him — a naked girl barely in her teens, forced by taut chains to stand spread-eagled, bleeding from a hundred tiny cuts… and he, a knife in his hand, coming up behind her for the last time, erection pointing toward the stones of the arching vault, the knife passing from his sight and the girl slumping in her chains with a terrible finality while he laughed and then he…

No!

He retched at the thought, and pummeled his temples to drive out the memory by force. His body fell onto the soaking mattress like a stone onto a sponge, and he babbled to himself in a high-pitched voice, "No, no, no, no, no, I didn't, I couldn't, no, no…" and started to cry.

Then from inside he heard another voice, still his, that soothed and calmed. It wasn't real, it said. It was a dream.

The blood! The blood was real!

You made the blood. You created it as you created the dream, and the people in it.

But I killed them!

You killed in a dream. You killed that which never existed.

But if I killed in a dream… I would kill in real life. If I enjoyed it then, I would enjoy it… in reality!

No. There is no punishment in a dream. No real pain, no real death. In reality, circumstances are different.

Circumstances?

There was no answer. Suddenly Bell felt very sad, very tired. He finished cleaning the bedroom, using scissors and a carving knife to cut the mattress into sections small enough to put into garbage bags. He could not have put it out intact with the trash. There would have been unpleasant questions about the blood.

It was late afternoon when he finished. After a supper of scrambled eggs and toast, he fell asleep on the couch and did not wake up until sunrise. He had no dreams.

Saturday

Lying there on the couch in the early morning, the horrors of two nights before seemed farther away. It was Saturday, he thought. No responsibilities, no appointments. A day to rest, to think.

When the shopping mall near his apartment opened, he went to a furniture store and ordered a new mattress to be delivered that afternoon. It felt good to get out. The past few days had stifled him, and the sensation of being among people again was intoxicating. He bought four new rock albums at Sam Goody's, a coffee table book on football at B. Dalton's, and two new sweaters. Around noon his stomach reminded him that he had had nothing since the eggs the night before, so he went into a quiet restaurant far from the mall's central hub.

Halfway through his burger, fries, and beer, Karen walked in, arms loaded with packages. She was a secretary in Sales, a divorcee with whom Bell had chatted once or twice at the coffee machine. One time he asked her out, but she had plans to go away for the weekend and asked for a rain check. He had not asked her out again.

But now he smiled and waved, beckoning her to his booth. He craved normality, someone to talk to. She smiled in response and joined him.

"Hi," she said, out of breath. "Wow, what a morning. What are you up to?"

"Same as you — shopping." It was nice to sit there with her, just talking and comparing purchases. She ordered a BLT and a beer, and as the conversation wound on, he felt himself happy to be with her. The dreams became just that — dreams. Nothing but harmless and unharmed phantoms, despite their physical manifestations. He almost forgot about the blood.

When the check came he picked it up despite her protests. "Look," he said, "one time you asked me for a rain check, so this is it, okay? In fact, let's go the whole way. How about a movie?"

She giggled like a schoolgirl. "Now?" He nodded. "I haven't been to a matinee in ages. Okay. What'll we see?"

There was a new Steve Martin comedy at one of the theaters in the mall's multiplex, and they just made the two o'clock show. They ate popcorn and laughed together, and before long his arm was around her shoulders and she was nestling contentedly into his warmth. He remembered the new mattress as they were walking out of the theater.

"Oh, Christ," he said. "I just remembered I've got a furniture delivery at my place."

She smiled. "That's a new excuse."

He took her hand and squeezed it. "No excuse. I'm serious. I'd better get over there before I miss them."

"Well," she said, "this was fun. Thank you."

It was fun, he thought He liked Karen and wanted to see her again. Soon. "What about dinner?"

"Tonight?"

"Tied up?"

She hesitated, then shook her head. "I'd like that. Want to pick me up?"

The truck was just pulling out of the parking lot as he drove in. He waved frantically at the driver, who stopped and backed up over the sidewalk to unload. When the mattress was safely on the box spring and the truck was gone, Bell showered, shaved, dressed, and tried to read a magazine until six-thirty came.

It was difficult. The smell of blood was still in the air, even though he had opened all the windows and turned on the exhaust fans in the kitchen and bathroom. The early autumn breeze blowing past the curtains chilled him, and in the oncoming darkness he thought once more about his ability, his power — his curse, as he was now beginning to think of it. And the more he thought, the more he knew that there was great danger in it, if not physically, then mentally.

Being with Karen had made him realize how much the past few days (rather, nights) had changed him. He had always been a loner, but on those nights when he had been Don Juan and Casanova, and yes, de Sade, too, sex was better than it had ever been before. That was what frightened him, for he knew those nights were only masturbatory fantasies that pulled him inward, toward the self, barring the rest of humanity from his life. And he knew that if it continued, it would be harder and harder to return, and ultimately he would want to stay in the dreams forever.

He would not let that happen. He would be with people, not dream-haunts, and when he dreamed, he would dream as other people did, of things that become dim shadows by daylight, and left no trace of their momentary and nebulous existence in his sleeping mind.

It would be easy, he thought. The dreams, those horrid and wonderful dreams that had crossed the line of reality, had not come unbidden. He had wanted them, and as they had come as subjects before a king, so he could banish them from his dreamland and awake in peace, without blood and guilt and reflections on the fragility of circumstance.

Bell and Karen had dinner at a small restaurant that served excellent fresh seafood. They talked and laughed like old friends and held hands across the table over after-dinner drinks. The suggestion that they go to Bell's place was greeted with a sly enthusiasm, and he couldn't help but think that she both suspected and desired his intended ending to the evening.

He held bis breath as he opened his apartment door, expecting the sweet blood smell. But the fans and the night air had removed all but a trace of the odor, and it seemed now only as if a rare steak had been grilled there recently. It was not offensive, Bell thought. Not offensive at all. On the contrary.

They sat on the couch, sipping sherry and talking softly, Karen's eyes becoming liquid, melting under his gaze. Then he was holding her, they were kissing, and his hands were sliding over her back, up to the nape of her neck where the soft hair grew in wispy curls, then over her shoulder, cupping her breast, while her tongue pressed against his, and little grunting sounds came from somewhere inside her.

He whispered something about being more comfortable in the bedroom, and they stood up, holding the embrace as tightly as possible, and moved down the short hall. She made a comment about breaking in a new mattress, and he laughed, heartily enough to be appreciative, but not enough to break the mood.

Despite the buildup, despite her readiness, despite his all-consuming desire, it was terrible. When they drew together naked for the first time, the only thing Bell could think of was a dream, was Don Juan and how he could compare to him; Casanova and his phallic power next to Richard Bell's. Foreplay was interminable, and Karen moaned with the need of him long after he could have entered.

But he could not get hard, no matter what Karen did, and the more impassioned her efforts grew, the more flaccid he became, until, in desperation, he entered her roughly with his hand, kneading and prodding until at last she suffered a small, quivering climax.

Bell rolled off of her and switched off the dim bedside light so that he wouldn't have to see her face, unsatisfied and accusing. He felt her hand on his shoulder, but was too full of despair to pull away. Her voice muttered softly, sympathetically, "S'okay. It happens."

Not to me! Never to me, bitch! The thoughts burst out wildly, uncontrolled, and their strength frightened him. He made a noncommittal noise translatable as agreement, chagrin, despondence, whatever she wanted to hear.

She spoke again. "Sleepy?" She was rubbing his chest now, making unseen whorls in the dark hair around his nipples.

"Mmm." He turned on his side, his back to her. She ran her finger down his spine, sighed, and lay still, her hand resting in the saddle of his waist. In less than two minutes she was asleep.

Blood was in his face; he could feel it. The red warmth of shame coated his body as he lay there, his penis a dead lump between his thighs. Bitch, he thought, and the word repeated in his mind like a litany. Bitch Bitch Bitch Bitch Bitch — a mantra of rage that dragged him down into sleep with claws that shredded sanity.

And in his dreams that spongy slab of flesh that had betrayed him (No — that had been betrayed!) grew firm at last, its ovoid head flaring upward like an uncaged beast's, the tumescent rondure of it shrieking with the demand to once more pierce the world. But instead of that universal vagina, it saw Karen bound, legs spread, on an altar of marble. The head of the phallus tensed, then drew back, paused, and shot forward like a battering ram as Bell, strangely detached from the penis-thing that grew out of him, screamed BITCH at a volume whose intensity masked all other sound. And as the thick cord of tissue tore into her with shattering force, he started to laugh, and laugh, and laugh again as the blood spouted, until the dream and the world itself were nothing but a red joke in the darkness.

Sunday

She was dead when he awoke. What was left reminded him not so much of a human being as a watermelon he had blown up with a cherry bomb when he was a boy. The sight sickened him, but did not surprise him. The knowledge that he had caused her death, had taken the final step, was strangely comforting, like a cool hand on his brow, and a voice that whispered soothingly, "It's over now. It's all right. The worst is over." He remembered his mother, gently talking him out of a bad dream.

It was over. Only one thing remained. Payment. Retribution, fitting and just. And he knew how he could receive it. It was so simple.

He found the book quickly, as if it had been waiting for him. He looked up the name in the index, turned to the listed pages, and started to read. When the chapter was over, he turned off the light and lay beside the dead woman there in the darkness, letting no alien thought impinge upon his meditation on what he had read.

Sleep pressed down upon him, and he slipped into the dream like a fish into water. He first became aware of the shape above him, moving rhythmically over his body. Then came the pain down below, in the unfamiliar cave of dry tissue between his legs. When he bent his neck and looked down at his body, he saw the man's hands, coarse and grimy, rubbing the small breasts that protruded from the gap in the rough woolen sweater Bell wore. The man's upper garments were on, but his trousers were down around his ankles as he plunged grunting into Bell's body, into the leathery vagina that refused to moisten. Finally the man collapsed on top of Bell's body, lay still for a moment, then pushed upward and drew himself out with an abruptness that brought a sharp whine from the lips of the dream-woman Bell had become.

The man pulled up his trousers and took a coin from his pocket. With a cross between a laugh and a snarl, he threw it onto the bed, aiming at the recess he had just vacated.

Bell giggled, half in delight at payment, half in fear, and sat up, wiping the coin on the hem of his dirty gray skirt until it was free of spilled semen and sweat. Then he put it into a small purse that hung on a drawstring from a waist button, and called a thank you after the man, who had just shut the door behind him.

The red soreness diminished to a dull ache, and Bell held himself, used long, light strokes to try and dispel the last of the pain. He rose from the bed and hobbled to a worn and rickety nightstand, where he dipped a yellowed handkerchief in cold, filmy water and pressed it between his thighs. Soon the coolness relaxed and strengthened him. He sighed heavily and adjusted his sweater and long skirts. A look in the dulled and hazy mirror told him that he was ready to go out once again, and he crossed to the door.

He was about to open it when he hesitated, as if a voice had called to him from far away in warning. But it lasted only a second, and was easily dismissed. The woman's head shook in both negation and acceptance, the hand turned the knob and opened the door, and Richard Bell walked down the weathered steps and into the dark streets of Whitechapel to meet his destiny.

When the manager of the apartment complex unlocked Bell's door a few days later, he immediately noticed the smell the neighbors had complained of. He expected to find something dreadful as he came nearer the closed bedroom door from behind which the odor was emanating. He was not disappointed. The woman's body was barely recognizable as human.

But what gave the manager bad dreams for a year afterward was the man who lay beside her, ears and nose cut away, but his peacefully smiling mouth untouched. His lower torso had been slashed open, the organs methodically removed and lined up on the bloody sheets. It was the same way that Mary Kelly, a penniless prostitute, had been dissected by Jack the Ripper a century before.