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IGKTW: The Collar (928 hits)

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Rating: 1.9 on 19 reviews (Rate this item) (V)

Submitted by Orgasmatron (View user info) at 2006-05-04 17:47:35 EDT

"There's a man goin' round, takin' names,
And he decides who to free and who to blame,
Everybody won't be treated all the same,
There'll be a golden ladder reachin' down,
When the man comes around..."

Joe Wilson looked at the swamp of paperwork sitting on his desk and sighed. Another body had been found just outside The Green River Restaurant earlier tonight. Another victim of 'the Preacher.' The victim - identified as Matt Stone - was found slumped against the side of a dumpster out behind the parking lot with a piece of paper pinned to his chest. He was hanged, as the other seven had been, and brought to The Green River after the fact. And while he carried a note on his chest, as the other seven had, his bore a different message: '1.'

The Preacher, as the press had named the killer, had been counting down ever since he started leaving bodies strewn across Jasper county.

Joe had volunteered for the case after the second victim had turned up. Charlie Blackfoot was found facedown in Jackson Lake, his throat raw and tattered by a noose and the number '7' pinned carefully to the front of his jacket. Joe had grown up with Charlie just outside of Jackson, and even though they hadn't been close in years he felt responsible for bringing in the man that killed his former friend.

That was three weeks and six bodies ago. Since then it had been more of the same. More bodies, more numbers, and a relative lack of concrete evidence or information to go on. The only fact the eyewitnesses could agree on was that the man they'd seen with the victims was a priest. Black on black, Roman collar, the works. Beyond that they couldn't agree on the particulars. Some said he had black hair, others said short and sandy blond. He was anywhere between 5'10 and 6'2, and somewhere in the 30 - 40 range. Joe had scoured the local churches for any information concerning priests that fit the description, and later expanded his search to include the entire state.

He then found that there are quite a few thirtysomething priests in his part of the world. None, however, that had a connection to any of the victims.

And now Matt Stone had been added to that list. One more folder to spit its paperwork and pictures across his desk. Join the others, a lot of good it'll do you now, he thought.

Matt Stone. Joe sat back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. He exhaled. He hadn't thought about Matt Stone in years. Then, he hadn't thought about guys like Jenkins and Maddow for years either. And yet here they were, dead and spread out on his desk in unforgiving black and white. Some people you lose touch with or grow apart from, and some you make a decision to forget. This is how it was with these guys, and the other five names and faces spread out on the oak tabletop in front of him. He'd try to put the old days behind him, and forget, but lately memories had been chasing him down one body at a time. He thought it coincidence at first. Bad luck maybe. But as the body count grew and, with it, the list of names from the past he knew it was no mere stroke of happenstance, no accident.

Eight of nine are dead. And there's one more on the list.

The weight of years and memory pressed in on his temples. Down on his shoulders. He thought he would collapse right in his seat. Footsteps fell behind him, and he snapped back to attention.

"You gotta go home, man." Ray Calhoun, the local sheriff, clapped his hand against Joe's back. "Take a break for a while, get some rest. Caroline'll be up waiting for you."

"I know, I know. I just want to look over these new files tonight before heading out, you know? See if there's something we can use."

"Looks like this guy grew up out in Flovilla. Bit of a small town there."

"Yeah. They grow 'em small in Butts, huh?"

"Wa'nt that other guy...what's's name? Jackins?"

"Jenkins."

"Jenkins. Wasn't he from Flovilla originally?"

Christ, Joe thought. Can't you just let it be?

"Sure was. I wonder if they knew each other."

"That makes two of us. I'll look into it." Joe stood up and stretched his back. He collected his coat and keys. "I think I'm going to take your advice. Head home and all that. Have a good night, Ray."

He made it halfway down the hall when Ray stopped him with a question.

"Those two are about your age, Joe. You don't know them from around town or high school or something?"

"Jackson's a lot bigger'n Flovilla is, Ray. You know how it goes. Different faces and such."

"Just thought I'd ask is all. My best to Caroline."

Joe turned and made his way out to the car, his stride calm but deliberate. With the turn of a key the engine roared to life and he ferried himself on home.

The ride brought him no comfort. A man can only be left alone with his thoughts for so long until they get the better of him. Despite the steady rhythm of the road beneath him, and the relative absence of traffic given the hour, he was anything but at ease. Oncoming headlights illuminated the interior of his car and he saw how tight his grip was. Both his palms drummed out the throb of his pulse against the curve of the wheel they held.

You've felt your pulse do that before, haven't you? he thought. Back when your grip was too tight and the blood was steamrolling through your veins because of all the screa—

Enough. Forget about that. Drive.

Fifteen minutes later he pulled into his gravel driveway. Save for the front porch light, and the little lamp in the dining room the house was dark. He figured Caroline had turned in for the night, but he still called her name softly as he unlocked the front door.

He expected no answer, and received none. The only sound in the air was the faint murmur of music coming from the main room. Outing the little light as he walked through the dining room he approached the stereo in darkness, his eyes adjusting to the light with each step.

A thin veil of smoke surrounded his face, and he stopped in his tracks.

Caroline doesn't smoke...

His hand went for his gun. He heard the click of a revolver's hammer.

"Hiya Josie."

A fist drove into his temple and the world grew somehow gray. Then a heavy blow to the back of his head cast everything in deepest black.

-

Cold water brought him back from his dreamless sleep. Impossibly cold, forcing the breath out of him before sloshing to the ground beneath his feet. From what he could tell he was in the middle of a small barn. Maybe an oversized country garage. It was hard to tell with the limited light and foggy vision. A naked bulb stretched down from a beam beside his head, showering him in a yellow cone of light.

Joe didn't have to touch the back of his head to know he had a decent knot there now. He couldn't have felt back there if he wanted to, for his hands were bound behind him.

"Come on, Josie. Time's a-wastin' ".

Joe looked up and saw the outfit he was expecting. Black slacks. Short black sleeves. The shock of white in the middle of the collar. The Preacher's face was in shadow.

"My name's Joe, not Josie. Where's my wife?"

"Your Caroline? Oh she's fine. She and I had a little talk before you came over. All about the kind of guy you were before she met yo—"

"If you hurt her, if you touched her so help me I—"

"Shh. Easy there, Joze. I don't hurt women like you do, right? Right. She was pretty upset after our discussion, so I'm assuming she's at her mothers or something. Maybe she left town. Can't be sure though. I dunno Josie, how'd you react if you found out your husband was a rapist and a murderer? Hmm?"

"STOP CALLING ME JOSIE!" It hurt to scream.

The Preacher walked into the light and leaned in right up to Joe's face. The light cast over his stubbly chin, up his narrow nose and turned his amber eyes to fire. Joe looked into eyes he hadn't seen in fourteen years. And yet he looked into the only pair of eyes he expected to see.

"Cooper..." he said. "My God."

"Yeah, Josie. Been a long time. Too long, I reckon. Too long for all of you boys." Cooper drew a cigarette from his pocket and lit it with a struck match. "Aw but you're not boys any more are you? Nah, yer men! Grown men with jobs and lives and, hell, some of you've even got wives. Did you know that Loomis has kids now? Had, I guess. Jenkins, too." Smoke billowed from out his nostrils. "Yer report mention anything about how Jenkins cried for his mommy before he died? Didn't think so."

Cooper paced around the chair Joe was bound to, the wood floor creaking below his steps.

"Tommy did the same thing. Funny how they'd both do that, huh Josie? I brought them both here, you know. Every one of them. Talked to them all in that chair, same as you, tied them with that rope, same as you, and hanged them all from the beam above you. Fitting, don't you think?"

Joe looked into Cooper's eyes and opened his mouth to speak.

"Save it. That wasn't a question."

"Cooper...I. Look, we - I - I thought you were dead." He watched as the man walked off to a corner of the room and rummaged through a crate, drawing a pile of rope from it. He continued. "We all did. I've gone over that night a million times or more in my head. I'd take it all back if I could. I know Charlie felt the same way."

"Charlie said a bunch of you would get together every few months and laugh about it over beers at Stone's place. That true? I believe it is. You know why I do?"

A hand as hard as stone took Joe by the throat and squeezed. Tight as a trap.

"Because I was holding him just like this at the time. And dying men have no reason to lie."

Joe kicked and squirmed as the fingers closed around his windpipe. His face went sunburn red and his struggles turned to coughs and slurs on his lips. His tongue felt thick and fat in his mouth. Spots flashed in his eyes. And in an instant, the hand was gone.

"Feels good don't it? Yeah, feels real good! Why aren't you laughing, Josie? You were laughing before. Oh you loved to laugh at a suffering nigger, right? I'm sure you laughed when Rachel's legs kicked and danced in front of you, didn't you?"

Silence. Joe gave a little wheeze as his head lolled back up to look at Cooper.

"Answer me!"

Cooper took his cigarette and stuck it right below Joe's left eye. The sizzle of ash and flame on skin was quickly taken over by the smell of burnt flesh. Joe screamed and thrashed his head away.

"No, no, you've got to take the pain. Don't tell me a big man like you can only give it out. Nine men. One woman. Three hours of rape. Or was it more? What do you think Rachel felt like after all that, huh? Was the blood still running down her legs when you all strung her up? Do you remember? How could you forget? Maddow didn't forget. He told me every last detail. Probably thought it would help him in the long run." He pulled another cigarette from his pack. "You saw the photos of him, Joze. Did it?"

Cooper held the tip of the cigarette right in front of Joe's eye. So close it singed his lashes when he closed them.

"Please..."

Joe spoke the word without realizing it.

"Please." said Cooper. "Now there's an interesting word. 'Please.' Did Rachel say please before you all fell on her? Before you got the rope out? Did she say please for the baby inside her? The what baby? What'd you call it then? 'The mutt?' Nevermind. I know she did. Thank your boys for that."

He moved behind Joe and took his face in his hands. He tilted the head back and peeled the eyelids open with his right hand.

"Look at me, Josie. That's it. Do you know what it's like to beg for your life? To have to your life taken away because of who you loved? To truly say 'please' to someone and find yourself unanswered? I do."

Cooper bent over to look down at him, ash from the cigarette falling about his face. His free hand moved toward the Roman collar and undid it, throwing it to the ground. Two fingers dipped below the ring of black and pulled it down, revealing a thick stretch of scarred flesh along the neckline.

"'For the Lord is a God of retribution, he will repay in full.' And in the name of Jed Cooper, Rachel Warren and the name of my unborn child, I now repay."

The cigarette came down and twisted on the surface of Joe's eye. He set to howling, a roar growing from the depths of his lungs and bringing his whole body to shake. Cooper threw a rope up and over the beam above and slid the noose around Joe's throat. Cinched it tight with a rough slide and then hoisted him up into the air. He heard the burn of rope on wood with every pull, and five loud zips of line later Joe was high enough for satisfaction.

Cooper grabbed the wet chair and spun it around to face his victim. He drew a final cigarette and enjoyed it while he watched the man die.

Later, he cut the limp body down and pinned a piece of paper on its chest. '0' is all it read.
He folded up his black suit and placed it beside the corpse.
On top of the pile he placed the collar.

User Reviews

Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2007-01-28 16:36:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2

Or Orgasmaprose, even. More plz.

Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2007-01-28 16:36:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2

+2s all day long for Orgasamprose.

Submitted by Maltese (user info) at 2007-01-28 16:07:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2

Fucking wonderful. I'm adding this to my favorites.

Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-06-20 02:06:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

No Comment

Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2006-05-08 08:51:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

Since ratings are now closed - well done to you, O-Man. It was a close race but clearly the one of us with more time on his hands emerged victorious. :p

Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-05-07 15:16:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0

Bubs -

A fairly important printed piece of ours, as we learned late last week, included a picture of someone flashing the shocker. It was a big group picture, so it was all a sea of hands and faces, but the guy was in the front row and it was fairly obvious. Everyone here had to scramble to figure out how to quickly reprint these pieces on the cheap, as we'd run enough for the next two years and no one was happy about having to eat the cost of the initial printing *and* shell out the dough for a second run.

Fucking juveniles, I swear. The shocker during a company photo shoot? Really?

Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-05-06 20:00:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

I still want to know what you meant by 'the shocker'.

Answer me, dammit!!!!

Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-05-05 16:31:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

God FUCKING damn it.

I can't believe I blew out your rating.

I wan't rating the story so much as asking a casual question. What a dipshit I am.

Please consider this +2 as my official rating on this post (which I really enjoyed, no gripes about it) and ignore the 0 rating fuckup.

Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2006-05-05 15:31:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

I always enjoy when rapists get tortured and killed...

it seems no matter what you do to them, you just can't feel bad.

Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-05-05 14:06:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

+2 cuz i've been listening to that song OBSESSIVELY lately and you read my mind. i love freaking johnny cash in the morning. i wanna see a stripper do a routine to that song.

Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-05-05 13:48:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

More people should read this.

Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-05-05 08:47:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

+2, now THERE'S a shocker!

*hand gesture*

Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-05-05 01:29:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

OK, butthead, tell us whut you mean. . . . . . .
Whachoo mean when you say dat shit. . . .
You knows whut I be talkin' 'bout. . ..

Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-05-05 00:23:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

I teetered, and I wavered, but then I +2'd it.

Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-05-04 19:52:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

WTF SOMEBODY KILLED THAT GUY WHO WRITES SOUTHPARK???!!!!

Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-05-04 19:39:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

O-Man, I don't know why you bitched about this. I thought it was good.

Shocker? WTF?

Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-05-04 18:55:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

Fuck. Yeah. Thaaat's some good vengeance.

I was riveted from the start.

I am so glad you've written these stories, O. Keep writing them, please.

Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-05-04 18:07:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0

Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-05-04 17:49:58 (#)
Ranking: -2

Bleh. I can't believe the work day was brought low by the fucking shocker today.
Again, I really wish I was kidding about that fact.

--

Eh... what?
The 'shocker'?

Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-05-04 17:49:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2

Bleh. I can't believe the work day was brought low by the fucking shocker today.
Again, I really wish I was kidding about that fact.

Even if this is DQd I figured I'd post it. It's a first draft done with no read through. See if you can spot where I had to start from after I came into work today.

And yes, all of the character names were taken from Hang 'Em High.