about Petey Schwartz back on Friday?
No, nobody would connect the two crimes.
Besides, that wasn’t planned. It was spontaneous and had nothing to do with the Hayes kidnapping or what he had in mind for Adele today.
Still, you remember what you did, remember how you—
Enough with those kinds of thoughts.
Joshua walked to the place where Ed Gein’s kitchen used to be, set down the cooler, and took a seat beside it.
The view before him was the same one Ed Gein would have had if he were looking out his kitchen window.
Joshua pulled a bottle of cream soda out of the cooler, uncapped it, and took a long refreshing swallow.
Last night it hadn’t been easy, doing to Colleen what he’d done. And, unquestionably, it would have been easier on her if he’d knocked her out beforehand, but somehow, though the deed itself was disturbing, her screams had brought him a degree of pleasure that’d surprised him.
It was a bit disconcerting.
That hadn’t happened before, but then again, he’d never done something like that to someone and let the person live.
It’d led him to acknowledge a certain yearning rising to the surface, one that’d been birthed in him long ago in the cellar beneath the barn.
While he was listening to Colleen cry out, enjoying watching her suffer, he’d had a revelation of sorts, an epiphany about who he truly was, what he was becoming.
A voice of reason, of conscience: Go to God for forgiveness, Joshua. Turn yourself in! Don’t live in the den of the damned!
More cream soda.
The den of the damned.
He shifted his thoughts back to Colleen. After cutting off her left hand, he’d faced a choice—drug her before doing the other one, or leave her awake during the process.
Of course he might have gagged her as well, but where he’d taken her, it wasn’t as if they were going to be discovered. The screams hadn’t posed much of a problem. And he kind of liked hearing the strangely muted, yet metallic sounds as they echoed all around him in that place and then disappeared into the thin night air.
While he’d tried to decide whether or not to leave her conscious before sawing off her right hand, he’d tightened the heavy-duty plastic tie around that wrist to stop the bleeding once he got started.
He thought she might pass out from the pain of losing that left hand, but she must have been a fighter because she didn’t. In between her screams she’d struggled to pull free from the chair, begged him to stop, to let her go.
That ended up being distracting and with all of that going on, it took him a while to decide which direction to take things.
Finally, he chose to let her remain conscious while he laid the edge of the saw blade against her other wrist.
And then drew it firmly toward him.
Forward and back.
Forward and backward as the night became rich and thick with her screams and her blood.
His father had taught him all about that: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” Third book of the Bible. Seventeenth chapter. Eleventh verse.
Atonement. And the blood.
He thought of Colleen now as he unwrapped the two packages and, sitting where Ed Gein might have sat, he did what Ed Gein might have done and ate the meat he had brought along with him from Milwaukee.
In a few minutes he would head to the house and pay a visit to Adele Westin. Joshua had researched more than just the location of Ed’s house and the graveyard, and he knew that Adele, who was living with her fiancé, worked out of their home.
She was a woman who followed a very strict schedule, but a quick phone call could confirm that she was there this afternoon. Otherwise, if need be, he would wait as long as necessary until she returned.
Her fiancé wouldn’t be arriving home from his shift until after two. Joshua figured that would give him plenty of time to get to Adele and then
No, nobody would connect the two crimes.
Besides, that wasn’t planned. It was spontaneous and had nothing to do with the Hayes kidnapping or what he had in mind for Adele today.
Still, you remember what you did, remember how you—
Enough with those kinds of thoughts.
Joshua walked to the place where Ed Gein’s kitchen used to be, set down the cooler, and took a seat beside it.
The view before him was the same one Ed Gein would have had if he were looking out his kitchen window.
Joshua pulled a bottle of cream soda out of the cooler, uncapped it, and took a long refreshing swallow.
Last night it hadn’t been easy, doing to Colleen what he’d done. And, unquestionably, it would have been easier on her if he’d knocked her out beforehand, but somehow, though the deed itself was disturbing, her screams had brought him a degree of pleasure that’d surprised him.
It was a bit disconcerting.
That hadn’t happened before, but then again, he’d never done something like that to someone and let the person live.
It’d led him to acknowledge a certain yearning rising to the surface, one that’d been birthed in him long ago in the cellar beneath the barn.
While he was listening to Colleen cry out, enjoying watching her suffer, he’d had a revelation of sorts, an epiphany about who he truly was, what he was becoming.
A voice of reason, of conscience: Go to God for forgiveness, Joshua. Turn yourself in! Don’t live in the den of the damned!
More cream soda.
The den of the damned.
He shifted his thoughts back to Colleen. After cutting off her left hand, he’d faced a choice—drug her before doing the other one, or leave her awake during the process.
Of course he might have gagged her as well, but where he’d taken her, it wasn’t as if they were going to be discovered. The screams hadn’t posed much of a problem. And he kind of liked hearing the strangely muted, yet metallic sounds as they echoed all around him in that place and then disappeared into the thin night air.
While he’d tried to decide whether or not to leave her conscious before sawing off her right hand, he’d tightened the heavy-duty plastic tie around that wrist to stop the bleeding once he got started.
He thought she might pass out from the pain of losing that left hand, but she must have been a fighter because she didn’t. In between her screams she’d struggled to pull free from the chair, begged him to stop, to let her go.
That ended up being distracting and with all of that going on, it took him a while to decide which direction to take things.
Finally, he chose to let her remain conscious while he laid the edge of the saw blade against her other wrist.
And then drew it firmly toward him.
Forward and back.
Forward and backward as the night became rich and thick with her screams and her blood.
His father had taught him all about that: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” Third book of the Bible. Seventeenth chapter. Eleventh verse.
Atonement. And the blood.
He thought of Colleen now as he unwrapped the two packages and, sitting where Ed Gein might have sat, he did what Ed Gein might have done and ate the meat he had brought along with him from Milwaukee.
In a few minutes he would head to the house and pay a visit to Adele Westin. Joshua had researched more than just the location of Ed’s house and the graveyard, and he knew that Adele, who was living with her fiancé, worked out of their home.
She was a woman who followed a very strict schedule, but a quick phone call could confirm that she was there this afternoon. Otherwise, if need be, he would wait as long as necessary until she returned.
Her fiancé wouldn’t be arriving home from his shift until after two. Joshua figured that would give him plenty of time to get to Adele and then
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