Sex and Murder Magazine

By Spencer Wendleton

How do you want to die? No, seriously-you will die by the end of the night, so if you would, start considering your options. Oh, why do I want to kill you? Does it matter? I'm not asking you for conversation, lady. Maybe it'd help if I addressed you by your full name. I've got your purse right here. Oh, I won't steal from you. I only wanted to know your name. Katie Marie Fillmore. Address 812 N. Maple Ridge Lane. Katie, what if I called your husband and asked him how you'd want to die? He could have an answer. Men who've been married have had less than desirable thoughts about their wives. Slip a bit of arsenic in your coffee or latté and watch you convulse and die on the couch or the bed or the cold floor. Bash you over the head with a ball bat. Or he's the gun kind of guy, blood spatter and all. Point blank. I'm the every kind of guy as long as it ends up with you dying in the end, Katie.

You have two kids, Katie? Really. I didn't know that. I guess that'll make your answer more interesting, eh? I guess dismemberment is out of the question. Gutting is a no-no. You'll want all your clothes on when the police find your body. Oh, stop screaming, Katie. It's not happening yet. Your fate's in your hands. Choose your death, Katie. Let's be an adult. Think about it, okay? We'll drive around Park City, and you can look at all the strip malls, the park, and the cars driving by and clear your head. Let's get to it. How do you want to die?

Untie you? Next you'll tell me to turn up the heat-oh, and are you getting a decent stream of heat back there? I'd hate for the seats to block the vents. Are the ropes too tight? Consider yourself lucky to be only tied down back there. Hogtied, to be exact. It helps if you open the door and fall out. Chances are you'll break something, maybe even that precious head of yours. You certainly couldn't run. A friend of mine, I'll call him Jack, does what I do; sometimes well, and sometimes not so well. He's been stabbed by a would-be victim twice. Shot in the kneecap once. God, he had a hell of a time explaining that one to his wife. Jack doesn't ask how they want to die. Jack just kills them. He enjoys using his buzz saw in his work shed on the account he can utilize a hose to spray the evidence, and he's out in the middle of Genoa Forest with woods, forest, and solitude. Jack uses shackles, other times, he knives them through the palms like Jesus Christ. Funny they killed him, really. If they asked Jesus Christ how he'd prefer to go, I wonder what He would've said. Maybe a hanging would've been better. No, Jesus wanted to gloat. 'I'm the son of our Saviour, look at me dying for awhile and feel bad about it for, let's say, many centuries, or better yet, for eternity.'

Will people mourn you centuries from now, lady? Probably not. Don't feel bad. Nobody will care about me five minutes after I die. Oh, the news will extend my popularity for a bit if I'm ever caught. Then what? A book or two later, some journalistic TV shows, interviews with old friends and bosses, and I'm dead in the electric chair-and that's if I get the death penalty or a hot shit lawyer gets me a life sentence. I've had a good run. Five bodies. Three of them I asked how they wanted to die. One gave me an answer. The rest didn't. And you know what, Katie? They each ended up dead regardless, so pipe up.

Some people need deadlines. I'll set this timer. My wife uses them to time her pumpkin and cherry pies at Thanksgiving and Christmas. She prefers them over the oven timer. She's old fashioned that way. And I'm old fashioned too; when I ask a question, I expect an answer. Katie, I'm serious. How do you want do die? See, I set the damn timer. Thirty minutes you've got, lady. Make it good.

Money? Have sex with you? You think that's what I want? No, no, Katie. Sweet Katie. Though I wouldn't mind a toss in the sack with you, you're beautiful and everything, seriously, but I'm here to murder you, not romance you.

You really don't want do die, huh? What makes you better than the five others? Oh, you won't tell anybody about me. Wonderful. Let me turn this Goddamn car around and forget all the work I had to do to get you in this car. Okay, I'll admit it didn't take much. This cab is a perfect way of picking up people. I pick up fares, make a good living, and then I pick out who's the most interesting.

Last time, there was a man named Drew Jones. He was a construction worker. His car broke down. I picked him up. When I injected him with my morphine-Demerol cocktail, he went night-night. You did too, Katie. Drew was the only one who gave me an answer to my question-as should you. Perhaps the poor are aware of their place in society. Did you ever consider that, Katie? They work hard, get paid very little, can't get the perks of the said well off, but he does have life insurance. He told me to kill him in a way that made him look honorable. Courageous. I stabbed him in the heart with a bayonet while he clutched an American flag. He does the Old Glory justice, that guy. No, I didn't do that, you got me. You wouldn't want to know how he died, though it was courageous.

Do you want to die honorably, Katie? No, you want to die a slut with your panties down and your throat slit and your mouth full of things that don't belong there, you whore! I should strangle you, huh? Dump you in a river-any river! You'd sell your pussy for your life, wouldn't you? You make love to your husband with that filthy body? You'd screw your would-be murderer for what, another second of life? You're tenacious as much as you're a slut. I should've known it when you were traipsing out of that bar, sheath dress well above your knees, you had a tear in your stockings on the left thigh, and you had how many martinis or cosmopolitans in you, and how many guys did you flirt with, oh, and that briefcase, are you on a business meeting, oh, you're meeting with old friends, but how do you explain the other weekdays I've seen you spill out of Club 81 half-drunk and in a different man's arms, do you have a lot of friends, a lot of catching up to do, oh, but I'm wrong, oh, you and your husband swing, he gets to hang off strange women and kiss and touch and rub and fuck around and neither of you care, that's what swingers do, that's what they call you, and I shouldn't kill you because it's a mutual thing, you're a good person, a mother, but your kids are out of college, you said so before I drugged you, one's at Michigan State, the other at Kansas State, but the kids don't need you like I need you to answer my fucking question. CHOOSE YOUR DEATH!

Oh no, Katie. I'm sorry. I don't really know you. I can't judge you. I lost my temper. We do things we can't fully explain, right? Take me for example. Why do I do this? I can't say. Hobby. Life interest. My father did this too, but he didn't ask how they wanted to die. He was in the war. Vietnam. I can't remember how many tours. A lot. One too many, if you ask me. He'd killed countless Charlies out of trees and straw huts and brush. He had dreams. I could hear him through the walls talking and tossing and turning. He went out at dark fall and buried people in the backyard. Who, I can't say. My mother tried to call the police when she caught him, but he killed her. He made me bury her. The last I saw of her, her pink slipper was jutting up from the earth. From then on, I accompanied my dad on his evening killing sprees. They never caught him, though I heard about his victims on the news. We moved a lot. He was a truck driver. The state of Ohio called him “The Bridge Killer,” then “The Alley Slasher,” and then “The Pick-up Killer.” What will they call me, Katie?

Fifteen minutes and counting, okay honey? Phew. Time flies, huh? You still don't want to die? Tears won't buy you time and screaming at me definitely won't buy you time. Your fate is in your own hands, Katie. Take that seriously. Choose your death. We all fear death. I understand. That's why I'm doing this. I fear death, and I want to understand death. The full circle thing. Do we have a soul? Is there a heaven and a hell? If you go to church, you should be ready to die. Why do people still fear death that go to church? God loves you. There's a heaven. Repentance. Forgiveness. Gold-paved streets. For holy rollers, death should be a celebration, not a downer. I suppose you don't go to church. Don't feel bad. I don't either.
about dying in your sleep? Peaceful, yeah? Drowning would be awful. Burning would be pretty high up on the terrible death scale.
now stop screaming! I haven't harmed a hair on your head, Katie. You love your husband, yeah, yeah, yeah. You have tons of money for me, yeah, yeah, yeah. You won't swing anymore, yeah, yeah, yeah. You should've decided this during last New Year's Eve. People never follow up on their resolutions. I'm supposed to lose twenty pounds, and look, I still have this pooch.
minutes, lady, start throwing out ideas. I'll take this exit, and we'll find some tranquility. Back roads. Woods. Darkness. The shopping districts have you distracted. I'm sure you'll come up with something with eight minutes and fifty-five seconds and counting.
you home, I can't do that. Nope. You know too much about me, and I know so little about you, like, for example, HOW DO YOU WANT TO DIE?
, I need to calm down. God, it's near two a.m. Is that late for you? I usually go to bed at ten-thirty. I used to stay up at all hours of the night drinking with my pals and chasing skirts. Maybe that's a good way to die. Having a woman stab me while I pursue her-and not rape, I'm talking about Shakespeare. Spouting poetry while holding a box of chocolates and having a woman blast me one in the head. That's worth dying over, I mean someone you really love-and you'd agree, you sling love at everyone. But my way is courtship, not spreading my legs. Women have it so easy. I spread my legs, and I get kicked there. Phah!
my idea of death is ridiculous to you. So tell me what's not ridiculous to you if you know so much about death. Huh? No. Now you're not talking at all. It was better when you were at least screaming. You're not even sobbing anymore. Is that your idea of death, being quiet while a stranger drives you in the woods and letting him decide your fate? Too many people hand their fate over to someone else. Their bosses at work. Their wives. Their husbands. Their families. The government. Here's your chance to take the reigns. Choose your death, Katie. Five minutes and counting.
five minute mark gets them jabbering, and you're no different. Spare you. Take you home. Money, money, money-I have money! Maybe not as much as you, but I earn a living. I should rot in hell, you say, I'm a bastard, a murderer, a lunatic. Yes, you're probably right, and you're so full of clever notions, why can't you give me one single idea regarding your death?
minutes, Katie. Anything else you want to say besides how I'm the scum of the earth? I should try introspecting myself. How do I want to die, you say. Well, I told you, pursuing love. Maybe this is my love, and maybe one of these days a would-be victim like you-but not you, you don't have it in you, no offense, Katie-will finish me off once and for all. I have no right to kill you; I have no right to make you decide, huh? I'm asking you anyway. I've made it my right. If you were smart, you'd put me in a position where you could get away, a death so mechanical or spectacular it would take time and thought and preparation you could plot an escape, but you decided to blubber and cry and beg and flaunt your body like you've probably done in every situation when life gets tough. It's too bad, Katie. You had your chance. You see that ahead in the road? That farmhouse. Guess what, there are no horses in it or hay. But I do have tools in there. Special tools. The timer went ding. Time's up! Well, Katie, it looks like I'm choosing your death for you.

































Text