Story 11: Collect Them All
Prologue
I will fight the society that has caged us all.
Our fate will all be the same, there is no reason to fear.
I take out the hidden device from my bag,
Set it on the wax floor on which I sit.
The casing sits open in front of me now
Wires dangling from one end
Needing only to be connected.
My mind would never succumb to them
I wouldn’t allow it.
And so I was driven to this by this society.
And the wires will be connected.
I reach for them with half a thought to stop.
I recall the treatment that I realized
Better to do this, than to let so many more futures demise.
The wires are connected,
And here I wait.
As the bleachers are filled with thousands of me;
I will not let myself succumb
I will be right here to press my thumb upon the button
And as we all fight, we all die.
As my thumb rests on that button
I wonder if things can really change
I wonder if nothing will come of it.
Either way it will be done
I will fight the society that has caged us all
And if we do not win,
We will escape.
Collect Them All
Look at me, I am ridiculous. Here I am, running from this man because I am scared and I know that he is after me. He collects them you know, and now he’s after mine, or at least those of mine that he doesn’t have already. He’s always been very meticulous no matter who it was, but I think he enjoys mine the most. I have chased him from one end of the country to the other; at times I have had to run, that is what I am doing now.
My name is William Foster; Special Agent William Foster, currently assigned to case #37850. The case is a strange one and I have been on it since I discovered Alvin Sable and his strange addiction and great ability. Sable is a collector, but he is not someone who collects something safe, he is a collector of something that he calls only “them”. “Them” is simply body parts that he takes from people. He is a most gifted human being to be sure. He is a man of great strength, and superior intelligence, that is how he has evaded me all these years. If he could not outsmart me than he merely shoved me aside and went along his way. But his mind does not allow him to do his collecting irrationally and without order. Instead he will only take one of them at a time; that is to say one per day. And he will not lock up his victims or keep them captive in any way after he has collected his one of them for the day. He takes his collector’s item and lets the people go. He loves to chase them all night after night, not letting them sleep, making them afraid of every moment.
I first came across Sable five long years ago, on a Tuesday night while walking through McArthur Park. I was taking a stroll through the park and watching for any trouble that came about (I’m a cop, that’s in the job description). It was a very clear night, the moon was shining full in the air, and all the street lamps were on. Everything seemed to be calm. The placidity was not odd. McArthur Park was a place where people usually felt safe; even at night. The high-pitched, pain filled scream of a woman broke the casualness of the park. I ran in the direction of the sound and came across a woman huddled in a fetal position cradling something in her hand. I quickly looked around to see if anyone else was there. And there he was, standing there immensely ominous. He had broad, straight shoulders, with a roman nose that cast an odd shadow about his face. His eyes were so confident and cruelly cold. His body was lean and muscular. His hair was black and cropped extremely short. I began walking towards him; as I did so I removed the pen and pad that I always carried with me and said to him, “Excuse me sir, could I have your name please.” If nothing else I at least wanted to have his name so that if he got away later I could look him up again in the future.
Then with a deep, not quite sing song voice he replied, “What’s in a name?”
I wasn’t prepared to play mind games this night and I said to him, “I didn’t ask for a quote from a dead poet, I asked you your name. Now you can either tell me your name or I can get it out of you down at the station.”
“So, you’re not a reporter.” The realization washed over him with little effect other than a slight change in his posture.
The patience that he spoke with in that dark voice was beginning to get maddening and I was beginning to get sick of him in the wake of pain that the woman made so obvious with another horrendous scream.
Then, without warning, I heard heels click just once and watched as the man bowed before me. “Alvin Sable, at your service, how may I be of assistance?”
“You can start by calling an ambulance, this woman is hurt.”
“I’m afraid that is something that I cannot do detective, it is detective is it not?” I nodded. “For you see the one thing about this woman that you should know and understand is that she is just one of many and that eventually, with patience, all those many will be collected. By me.”
I was in such shock by the manner in which he spoke about the poor defenseless girl lying there on the floor that when he announced that there were others and that he was collecting something, it almost didn’t register with me. He said the words in a matter of fact mannerism that seemed to carry a tinge of ... ownership. It was like he was talking about property. And the look in his eyes when he said it, was a look of unforgiving intensity. He was looking right through me. It didn’t matter who I was; he didn’t have enough caring in his heart to distinguish a newly met personality. What I did find out later was that he also has enough intelligence to hate on an extremely personal level, all the people that he hunts.
“Make a decision quick detective. You can come after me, or you can help the girl. The advantages and repercussions of either action are obvious. This is where your conscience is tested and we find out what kind of person you really are. Goodbye detective.”
With that he turned around and began to leave. I wanted to charge after him, slam him to the ground and nestle the end of my gun delicately in the soft flesh and cartilage of his temple. But something that I pride myself on something that has, I believe, always separated me from the men that I capture and send to jail is my ability for human compassion. My depth in caring for all people and my conscience, which at that point had not been tested, guided me to the fallen woman who needed more immediate help.
She was panic stricken, terrified, and bloody when I got to her. Cradled, just as she had been when I first found her, she hugged one knee with one arm, the other arm was hidden inside her, tucked away so that she didn’t have to see what had happened. I walked over and placed my hand on her shoulder, which sat higher than her head as it lay hidden away in the crevice between her legs. She mumbled and cried with a horrific quality. Standing by her for a short time, I realized that she wasn’t so much hurt as scared into submission. When she finally looked up at me her face was a wreck. It was smeared with blood, not belonging to it. Her jaw constantly quivered and flapped her bottom lip like a piece of loose skin flopping in a constantly changing wind. She looked at me with eyes that were filled with tears and fear. Some strange combination of raw terror and sporadic gushes of adrenaline to her system caused an incredible affect in those eyes. They closed up, then dilated, then closed, and once again dilated with the speed of her horrified breathing. Those wild eyes looked deep into mine for half a second before she could say anything. Then, with much effort, she made the mumbling understandable and controlled enough that short phrases were finally inferable.
“Help.” Were the first hushed words to emerge. Then came things that didn’t make sense to me then but that I understand very clearly now (as I run). “He said, he, he, he, ... collects them. Coming back for more, for rest, then something else.”
I made every attempt to stay calm; I still had little to no idea what was wrong with her. “What’s wrong? I want to help but I need to see or you need to tell me what is wrong.” The wild, radical eyes turned away from me seemingly reaching into the cradle hidden beneath the roof of her knees. They pulled out a terrifically horrible sight. Her hand emerged and where once there had been a ring finger, blood ran out like students on the last day of the school year. They ran from a white beacon of intruding light that was the remainder of bone left on the finger stub. My head turned and my eyes shut in automatic response to such a lurid sight. My next breath came in quickly and sharp, I held it in, tried to keep my heart out of my throat, and calmed the rapid blood flow through my own body. When I had recovered enough to think clearly I grabbed the handkerchief from my breast pocket and pressed it firmly against the stump that had once held a finger. As the cloth touched the wound it was drenched by the free flowing blood then rapidly thrown to the side. The young lady was snapped from the dreadful quiet psychosis and screamed “No!” in an ear-shattering pierce as she flung her arms outward in random directions striking my face and smearing it with blood. My head jerked back with the unexpected reaction. I backed off for a moment and grabbed the still flailing shoulders and waited for the woman to calm down. Gradually her grip on reality tightened and she regained some sense of composure and sanity. Her eyes weren’t quite as wild, though they retained some psychotic qualities, and her breathing, though still traumatic was not as heavy. She looked at me with those eyes, still lined with psychosis, and whispered, “He said, he’d be back for the rest some time. Said I wouldn’t know when, said nothing could stop him. He said he’d be back.” She couldn’t talk anymore; tears and fear choked words back. I took the handkerchief and once again covered the wound as I helped her to her feet.
After that first encounter I was determined to find this man and put him away, quickly. My goal was to make absolutely sure that no one else would lose a finger to this horrible man. I stayed at police headquarters, recounting the story, making sure that the victim was guarded and secure. My first lead amounted to nothing. As far as our computers knew Alvin Sable did not exist. We scoured the park and surrounding region; there was nothing. We stationed undercover men around the entire area that he had last been seen in. When midnight came around, everyone was on their guard. Four hours later it was still tense, we were still waiting, but hopes were beginning to diminish. We thought that we had guessed wrong, and people began to go home, and people replaced them. Eventually it seemed as though our man had taken the day off. He had said he would be back, he had not said when. Then with unexpectedness he had struck again. This time one of our own men. An undercover agent, who had worked the morning hours, then had gone home. He had been mowing his lawn when the attack came.
When I arrived at the hospital to check on him he had a closed-in claustrophobic look in his eyes and I only needed one look in his face to know that the same man had attacked him. I sat next to him on the hospital bed doing everything that I could to avoid staring at the large ball of gauze wrapped around the hidden left hand. I looked at him piteously and asked how this had happened. The shock of what had happened seemed to wash over him once again as it must have seconds after the attack. He looked so small and sullen in this moment; certainly not the man that I had known for so many years on the force. Gradually, he calmed once again and began to recount his tail
“I’d been home for a couple hours Bill. You know; saw the wife, kissed the kids, took a nap, had some dinner, then went out to mow the lawn. And Bill,” he added “you know me as good as anyone, and you know I am not the type of person to be mowing the lawn the same day every week. Anyway I’m not sure what that has to do with much but it just strikes me as odd that it would happen on the day that we perform this investigation and while I was mowing the lawn.” I nodded my head filing away the information; not thinking much of it but wishing he would just go on. “I’m sorry Bill I’m getting sidetracked. I hadn’t even gotten a quarter of the grass done when the attack came. It was absolutely amazing Bill. He grabbed me around the neck from behind and all the sudden my air supply was completely cut off by an iron strong forearm. He didn’t say a word to me, but I tried to fight back. Everything I could do he seemed to have an instantaneous reaction for. Nothing fancy; I tried to kick him in the groin and he twisted his hips and locked his thighs together. Then with his free arm he grabbed hold of my arm.” He arched his neck and with his nose pointed at the bandage, now beginning to seep blood. He seemed to reflect for a moment. “They’ve already changed it twice since I’ve been here.” Then he went on. “I was trying to think of something, anything that I could do. But it’s hard to think when there is no oxygen traveling to your brain you know. Well he took that hand Bill, and he raised it just high enough so that I could watch. I couldn’t take my eyes off what was happening, I wanted to so bad, you have no idea how badly I wanted to look away, and I just couldn’t. He took my hand and passed it from the one that had been holding it to the one attached to the arm across my neck. His other hand disappeared for a moment and then I heard him pull the knife. It was so scary, so terrifying, I heard every inch of that blade emerge from its sheath. Then I watched the blade flash upward for a moment and watched again as it came slicing down on my finger.” At this point his eyes got a little wider, he sat up with some urgency and stared me down saying as he did, “Only one finger Bill. It seemed impossible to be that accurate and cut that clean. He didn’t even nick another finger, and he took it all the way off with just that one stroke. It started dropping to the ground and just as that started the pain kicked in, I felt myself blacking out from the lack of oxygen and intense pain, and then he let go of me. I wish he had held on just a little longer I would have been unconscious but the rush of air to my lungs brought me fully awake. And just as that happened I felt a fist drive into the middle of my back, and then a knee slam hard into my stomach and the air that I had just taken in was forcibly exhaled. I couldn’t move I just lay on the ground as I watched his back bend over and pick up my finger and run off and disappear. Be careful Bill this guy is really good. Through all the fighting and struggling I did he didn’t sweat one drop or breath one hard breath.” Then the nurse came in and asked me to leave, explaining that they needed to change his bandage. And so I left the hospital with once again renewed determination to catch this man who had eluded me thus far.
And day after day, night after night he took yet another finger and added yet another victim; each while displaying himself in some different manner. Each account of the attacks was slightly revealing. I would sit for hours recounting the stories in my head, trying to perceive where he might strike next, and when. Certain patterns were unmistakable after a time. This man would take but one finger each day; no more. He never restrained his victims longer than it took to possess their finger. He always took the finger. And always the tale of what had happened was recounted with frightening details etched, it seemed, purposely into the victims minds. Things that he would say were repeated again and again by the victims. Things such as a polite but harshly under toned thank you, or a gruffly whispered, “This is but the first.” In most cases it seemed that he almost always made it clear that he was not through with these people. And so they slept in fear. But never was there an account of any exhaustion or tiredness of any kind, he seemed immortally energetic and godly strong. And he always disappeared without a trace; the only sign of his ever being there was the lack of a finger. Then, after a full thirteen days and thirteen victims, the undercover agent showed up at the hospital once again. He had been the second victim before and as we waited for the pattern to start anew or continue as old, he jumped to the center, where again we would be caught naked and unguarded.
Now once again it became a guessing game. We knew who the victims had been, we knew that he would strike one each day, and I knew that he couldn’t stop. As to who would be next we did not know. We kept close watches on them all each day, yet each day another lost a finger. Sometimes his technique remained crude but it was always efficient. At other times he was the most devilish of characters, striking in disguise or completely without warning. And as the list narrowed down security became tighter, there were fewer places for him to strike. But still he managed to simply outwit us, until there was but one man left and I was by his side that entire day.
This man was no fool and he knew who waited and he knew just what he would do. The young man and I sat and talked on his porch in the mid afternoon. I was on my toes with my wits about me and as they say, my eyes peeled; I was ready for anything this ingenious madman could bestow upon me. Or at least I thought that I was. When he struck there on the man’s porch it was suddenly and truly unexpected. He attacked crashing up through loosened frame boards in the porch; he must have lazed there all day long, biding his time and waiting for just the right moment. Honestly I did not expect the attack, neither where it cam from nor when he pounced it upon us. He leapt straight up landing on secure boards and taking the finger he desired. The biggest surprise was that it was my own finger that was so swiftly taken. Pain seared through and blood gushed from my wound and I could do nothing but stand dumbfounded as my man swiftly disappeared once again. I was taken to the hospital and treated, and only then did the brainpower I faced truly hit me. And I knew at once that somehow that man’s second lesson (as I now know he calls his collections) would be given and another limb of freedom lost.
How I learned of his psyche is a curious thing that mostly seemed to happen all at once. Eating at home one morning I received a phone call from that man. He was very arrogant as he talked, telling me that I would not stop him and that now I could ask all the questions that I wished. And as I began, I asked the question that bothered me the most. “Why do you do these horrible things?”
There was a pause ... “Because I must collect them, because the lessons need to be given to everyone that they cannot stop me and that I will have them all.” ‘Why do you need them all. Doesn’t it prove that you’re superior to them in all ways by taking just one thing?”
“Tell me detective, what is this country based on? What is the foundation on which it stands to this very day? Is it not freedom? The right of an individual to use his own will and exercise his own values to accomplish what he feels should be accomplished in his own life? But these freedoms have lead to evil and chaos in this country. If each and every person’s soul could be swallowed up and taken from them; if their precious free will could be deprived of them and replaced with obedience and the understanding of why others dislike what they do; then this would be a near perfect world which we could live in. That is why I must have given all the lessons and taken with each lessoning one more tool of free will before I can feel satisfied.
Now I wanted to play with his mind, get further inside his head. “Why only one a day? Wouldn’t it be easier to take three or four or all of them?”
“Easier? Yes it would be easier, but don’t I have it easy enough now. Each person knowing that I will be back, none knowing when or how, each spending endlessly sleepless nights waiting for the thing they wish would not come. It is the hunt and the game that thrills me and keeps me doing it.”
He seemed almost nostalgic at the end, like a man reveling with the joy of an exercise that resulted in such heinous a crime. He gave me only seconds more to hear his breath before hanging up.
That conversation rings so clearly in my head even as I run from him once again. I ran before when he took both my second and third finger. I was lucky, most don’t ever get a chance to run, they are taken so completely by surprise or have submitted to death so easily that they see no point to running. One man upon his eighth lesson told me he might as well just sit back and take it, that another lesson was as inevitable as the next school year, or the rising sun.
And so he chases me still and I still run. And somewhere in the back of my head I know that it cannot be avoided. He has outmaneuvered me, out muscled me, and outsmarted me with little problem in the last five years. I know in that struggling part of my soul that one day he will own it too. That one day when the fight has run out in me and I can no longer run I will wait patiently for him to collect me also. But for now I will run from him trying to save my soul; that is what he finally takes. When all ten fingers have been removed, the head is then taken and along with it the soul; that is where his true collection begins.
Now he has caught me, and once again I hear the blade drawn from its sheath as it was described to me all those years ago on that second day, and then many times afterwards. He knees me hard in the groin and the pain surges through my body. I try to fight back but he is too strong and submission begins to wash over my body and I feel the blade make another cold, calculating strike, to yet another finger. I can look up just in time to feel that familiar pain wrench at me and watch the blood drain from me. And when I look around he will be gone and I will again chase him and he will, one day, hunt me yet again. It is a dangerous game I play I know, but I haven’t learned all my lessons yet. And I will stop him before I graduate.
Epilogue: Author’s Note
There are a few things that I feel need to be explained, that came across in this story but that I hid for my own selfish reasons. The first of these is the true meaning of the story I don’t know if I got that point across vividly enough with the allusions that I made but I will try to clarify. Secondly I would like to explain some of the text and grammar used in the story and why it was chosen in the way which it was. Last I think that it is important to make understood why I chose the number of “collectibles” that I did in this story.
To begin I want to make it clearly understood that this was not a story about a man with an obsession, it is about a certain circle of society with an obsession. The circles of society run into each other at certain cross roads and this branch has corrupted the whole of society for too long. That section is of course education.
There is school and there is education and the two both come from the same philosophy, however the idea of school and the reality of education differ so greatly that they are hardly recognizable anymore. The idea of school is one of expanding minds, of taking an open and a willing mind and giving it the knowledge that it needs to make decisions, to grow and to make life better and more fulfilling for everyone. The reality of education is a mind warping, brainwashing juggernaut that, instead of giving someone the ability to form insight and create things that will make them or anyone else better off, has used the youth of America to attempt to create a standard that all should abide by. It is used to set down a set of rules that will not rock the boat. Education is thrust into the lives of every child with no choice as to what direction you will face or whether there may be a better idea somewhere out there that someone has not thought of. Instead education teaches people to think in a certain way about certain things. It teaches them to behave in a certain pattern because it is a standard that should be followed so as not to upset the balance of things. The process of education slowly takes away the ability to think freely about anything it shows a person that a certain train of thought is “the right one” and that is where things should stay. If school were taught correctly it would be a place where new ideas flourished and were explored. Where these ideas were allowed to be examined by each separate mind and decided on. School would be a place for blossoming conversation and heated debates on all matters not just the ones that an “educated society” feels would not make things too asymmetric for them. The idea of school and the reality of education are so separate that it has become the only occupation where the underbelly of government allows the people to pay for its existence to allow the older generation a substantive reason for believing that they should control its outcome.
In the story the main characters represent the two separate things. The detective represents the idea of school and the fighting spirit of anyone who denies the educational system its easy ride through the rest of society. Alvin Sable represents the reality of education as it is seen now. Each time he takes a finger from a person it represents another loss of free will and freethinking. The heartless manner and obsessive way in which Sable collects his items is a representation of the cruel, methodic, and uncaring methods that education uses to accomplish its goals. Things are done in a certain order with a certain precision and nothing is allowed to stand in its way.
To explain the grammar of the story I turn to Kurt Vonnegut Jr. who explained so well that when he used And to begin so many sentences it was to represent the continuation of so many things. The same method was used here. The And and But sentences of the story show the continuing struggle that will never rest because of the opposites of the idea and the reality and the exceptions that are so often made and more often talked about.
As for the number of items, it is really very simple. I wanted one thing for each year of public school, as I know it. Ten fingers, a head, then the final insult was to own the person’s soul their very essence and being.
This story has no true ending and neither does its epilogue. When the fight is over maybe I’ll rewrite it but for now the two things keep going back and forth and neither seems to gain much.
I will fight the society that has caged us all.
Our fate will all be the same, there is no reason to fear.
I take out the hidden device from my bag,
Set it on the wax floor on which I sit.
The casing sits open in front of me now
Wires dangling from one end
Needing only to be connected.
My mind would never succumb to them
I wouldn’t allow it.
And so I was driven to this by this society.
And the wires will be connected.
I reach for them with half a thought to stop.
I recall the treatment that I realized
Better to do this, than to let so many more futures demise.
The wires are connected,
And here I wait.
As the bleachers are filled with thousands of me;
I will not let myself succumb
I will be right here to press my thumb upon the button
And as we all fight, we all die.
As my thumb rests on that button
I wonder if things can really change
I wonder if nothing will come of it.
Either way it will be done
I will fight the society that has caged us all
And if we do not win,
We will escape.
Collect Them All
Look at me, I am ridiculous. Here I am, running from this man because I am scared and I know that he is after me. He collects them you know, and now he’s after mine, or at least those of mine that he doesn’t have already. He’s always been very meticulous no matter who it was, but I think he enjoys mine the most. I have chased him from one end of the country to the other; at times I have had to run, that is what I am doing now.
My name is William Foster; Special Agent William Foster, currently assigned to case #37850. The case is a strange one and I have been on it since I discovered Alvin Sable and his strange addiction and great ability. Sable is a collector, but he is not someone who collects something safe, he is a collector of something that he calls only “them”. “Them” is simply body parts that he takes from people. He is a most gifted human being to be sure. He is a man of great strength, and superior intelligence, that is how he has evaded me all these years. If he could not outsmart me than he merely shoved me aside and went along his way. But his mind does not allow him to do his collecting irrationally and without order. Instead he will only take one of them at a time; that is to say one per day. And he will not lock up his victims or keep them captive in any way after he has collected his one of them for the day. He takes his collector’s item and lets the people go. He loves to chase them all night after night, not letting them sleep, making them afraid of every moment.
I first came across Sable five long years ago, on a Tuesday night while walking through McArthur Park. I was taking a stroll through the park and watching for any trouble that came about (I’m a cop, that’s in the job description). It was a very clear night, the moon was shining full in the air, and all the street lamps were on. Everything seemed to be calm. The placidity was not odd. McArthur Park was a place where people usually felt safe; even at night. The high-pitched, pain filled scream of a woman broke the casualness of the park. I ran in the direction of the sound and came across a woman huddled in a fetal position cradling something in her hand. I quickly looked around to see if anyone else was there. And there he was, standing there immensely ominous. He had broad, straight shoulders, with a roman nose that cast an odd shadow about his face. His eyes were so confident and cruelly cold. His body was lean and muscular. His hair was black and cropped extremely short. I began walking towards him; as I did so I removed the pen and pad that I always carried with me and said to him, “Excuse me sir, could I have your name please.” If nothing else I at least wanted to have his name so that if he got away later I could look him up again in the future.
Then with a deep, not quite sing song voice he replied, “What’s in a name?”
I wasn’t prepared to play mind games this night and I said to him, “I didn’t ask for a quote from a dead poet, I asked you your name. Now you can either tell me your name or I can get it out of you down at the station.”
“So, you’re not a reporter.” The realization washed over him with little effect other than a slight change in his posture.
The patience that he spoke with in that dark voice was beginning to get maddening and I was beginning to get sick of him in the wake of pain that the woman made so obvious with another horrendous scream.
Then, without warning, I heard heels click just once and watched as the man bowed before me. “Alvin Sable, at your service, how may I be of assistance?”
“You can start by calling an ambulance, this woman is hurt.”
“I’m afraid that is something that I cannot do detective, it is detective is it not?” I nodded. “For you see the one thing about this woman that you should know and understand is that she is just one of many and that eventually, with patience, all those many will be collected. By me.”
I was in such shock by the manner in which he spoke about the poor defenseless girl lying there on the floor that when he announced that there were others and that he was collecting something, it almost didn’t register with me. He said the words in a matter of fact mannerism that seemed to carry a tinge of ... ownership. It was like he was talking about property. And the look in his eyes when he said it, was a look of unforgiving intensity. He was looking right through me. It didn’t matter who I was; he didn’t have enough caring in his heart to distinguish a newly met personality. What I did find out later was that he also has enough intelligence to hate on an extremely personal level, all the people that he hunts.
“Make a decision quick detective. You can come after me, or you can help the girl. The advantages and repercussions of either action are obvious. This is where your conscience is tested and we find out what kind of person you really are. Goodbye detective.”
With that he turned around and began to leave. I wanted to charge after him, slam him to the ground and nestle the end of my gun delicately in the soft flesh and cartilage of his temple. But something that I pride myself on something that has, I believe, always separated me from the men that I capture and send to jail is my ability for human compassion. My depth in caring for all people and my conscience, which at that point had not been tested, guided me to the fallen woman who needed more immediate help.
She was panic stricken, terrified, and bloody when I got to her. Cradled, just as she had been when I first found her, she hugged one knee with one arm, the other arm was hidden inside her, tucked away so that she didn’t have to see what had happened. I walked over and placed my hand on her shoulder, which sat higher than her head as it lay hidden away in the crevice between her legs. She mumbled and cried with a horrific quality. Standing by her for a short time, I realized that she wasn’t so much hurt as scared into submission. When she finally looked up at me her face was a wreck. It was smeared with blood, not belonging to it. Her jaw constantly quivered and flapped her bottom lip like a piece of loose skin flopping in a constantly changing wind. She looked at me with eyes that were filled with tears and fear. Some strange combination of raw terror and sporadic gushes of adrenaline to her system caused an incredible affect in those eyes. They closed up, then dilated, then closed, and once again dilated with the speed of her horrified breathing. Those wild eyes looked deep into mine for half a second before she could say anything. Then, with much effort, she made the mumbling understandable and controlled enough that short phrases were finally inferable.
“Help.” Were the first hushed words to emerge. Then came things that didn’t make sense to me then but that I understand very clearly now (as I run). “He said, he, he, he, ... collects them. Coming back for more, for rest, then something else.”
I made every attempt to stay calm; I still had little to no idea what was wrong with her. “What’s wrong? I want to help but I need to see or you need to tell me what is wrong.” The wild, radical eyes turned away from me seemingly reaching into the cradle hidden beneath the roof of her knees. They pulled out a terrifically horrible sight. Her hand emerged and where once there had been a ring finger, blood ran out like students on the last day of the school year. They ran from a white beacon of intruding light that was the remainder of bone left on the finger stub. My head turned and my eyes shut in automatic response to such a lurid sight. My next breath came in quickly and sharp, I held it in, tried to keep my heart out of my throat, and calmed the rapid blood flow through my own body. When I had recovered enough to think clearly I grabbed the handkerchief from my breast pocket and pressed it firmly against the stump that had once held a finger. As the cloth touched the wound it was drenched by the free flowing blood then rapidly thrown to the side. The young lady was snapped from the dreadful quiet psychosis and screamed “No!” in an ear-shattering pierce as she flung her arms outward in random directions striking my face and smearing it with blood. My head jerked back with the unexpected reaction. I backed off for a moment and grabbed the still flailing shoulders and waited for the woman to calm down. Gradually her grip on reality tightened and she regained some sense of composure and sanity. Her eyes weren’t quite as wild, though they retained some psychotic qualities, and her breathing, though still traumatic was not as heavy. She looked at me with those eyes, still lined with psychosis, and whispered, “He said, he’d be back for the rest some time. Said I wouldn’t know when, said nothing could stop him. He said he’d be back.” She couldn’t talk anymore; tears and fear choked words back. I took the handkerchief and once again covered the wound as I helped her to her feet.
After that first encounter I was determined to find this man and put him away, quickly. My goal was to make absolutely sure that no one else would lose a finger to this horrible man. I stayed at police headquarters, recounting the story, making sure that the victim was guarded and secure. My first lead amounted to nothing. As far as our computers knew Alvin Sable did not exist. We scoured the park and surrounding region; there was nothing. We stationed undercover men around the entire area that he had last been seen in. When midnight came around, everyone was on their guard. Four hours later it was still tense, we were still waiting, but hopes were beginning to diminish. We thought that we had guessed wrong, and people began to go home, and people replaced them. Eventually it seemed as though our man had taken the day off. He had said he would be back, he had not said when. Then with unexpectedness he had struck again. This time one of our own men. An undercover agent, who had worked the morning hours, then had gone home. He had been mowing his lawn when the attack came.
When I arrived at the hospital to check on him he had a closed-in claustrophobic look in his eyes and I only needed one look in his face to know that the same man had attacked him. I sat next to him on the hospital bed doing everything that I could to avoid staring at the large ball of gauze wrapped around the hidden left hand. I looked at him piteously and asked how this had happened. The shock of what had happened seemed to wash over him once again as it must have seconds after the attack. He looked so small and sullen in this moment; certainly not the man that I had known for so many years on the force. Gradually, he calmed once again and began to recount his tail
“I’d been home for a couple hours Bill. You know; saw the wife, kissed the kids, took a nap, had some dinner, then went out to mow the lawn. And Bill,” he added “you know me as good as anyone, and you know I am not the type of person to be mowing the lawn the same day every week. Anyway I’m not sure what that has to do with much but it just strikes me as odd that it would happen on the day that we perform this investigation and while I was mowing the lawn.” I nodded my head filing away the information; not thinking much of it but wishing he would just go on. “I’m sorry Bill I’m getting sidetracked. I hadn’t even gotten a quarter of the grass done when the attack came. It was absolutely amazing Bill. He grabbed me around the neck from behind and all the sudden my air supply was completely cut off by an iron strong forearm. He didn’t say a word to me, but I tried to fight back. Everything I could do he seemed to have an instantaneous reaction for. Nothing fancy; I tried to kick him in the groin and he twisted his hips and locked his thighs together. Then with his free arm he grabbed hold of my arm.” He arched his neck and with his nose pointed at the bandage, now beginning to seep blood. He seemed to reflect for a moment. “They’ve already changed it twice since I’ve been here.” Then he went on. “I was trying to think of something, anything that I could do. But it’s hard to think when there is no oxygen traveling to your brain you know. Well he took that hand Bill, and he raised it just high enough so that I could watch. I couldn’t take my eyes off what was happening, I wanted to so bad, you have no idea how badly I wanted to look away, and I just couldn’t. He took my hand and passed it from the one that had been holding it to the one attached to the arm across my neck. His other hand disappeared for a moment and then I heard him pull the knife. It was so scary, so terrifying, I heard every inch of that blade emerge from its sheath. Then I watched the blade flash upward for a moment and watched again as it came slicing down on my finger.” At this point his eyes got a little wider, he sat up with some urgency and stared me down saying as he did, “Only one finger Bill. It seemed impossible to be that accurate and cut that clean. He didn’t even nick another finger, and he took it all the way off with just that one stroke. It started dropping to the ground and just as that started the pain kicked in, I felt myself blacking out from the lack of oxygen and intense pain, and then he let go of me. I wish he had held on just a little longer I would have been unconscious but the rush of air to my lungs brought me fully awake. And just as that happened I felt a fist drive into the middle of my back, and then a knee slam hard into my stomach and the air that I had just taken in was forcibly exhaled. I couldn’t move I just lay on the ground as I watched his back bend over and pick up my finger and run off and disappear. Be careful Bill this guy is really good. Through all the fighting and struggling I did he didn’t sweat one drop or breath one hard breath.” Then the nurse came in and asked me to leave, explaining that they needed to change his bandage. And so I left the hospital with once again renewed determination to catch this man who had eluded me thus far.
And day after day, night after night he took yet another finger and added yet another victim; each while displaying himself in some different manner. Each account of the attacks was slightly revealing. I would sit for hours recounting the stories in my head, trying to perceive where he might strike next, and when. Certain patterns were unmistakable after a time. This man would take but one finger each day; no more. He never restrained his victims longer than it took to possess their finger. He always took the finger. And always the tale of what had happened was recounted with frightening details etched, it seemed, purposely into the victims minds. Things that he would say were repeated again and again by the victims. Things such as a polite but harshly under toned thank you, or a gruffly whispered, “This is but the first.” In most cases it seemed that he almost always made it clear that he was not through with these people. And so they slept in fear. But never was there an account of any exhaustion or tiredness of any kind, he seemed immortally energetic and godly strong. And he always disappeared without a trace; the only sign of his ever being there was the lack of a finger. Then, after a full thirteen days and thirteen victims, the undercover agent showed up at the hospital once again. He had been the second victim before and as we waited for the pattern to start anew or continue as old, he jumped to the center, where again we would be caught naked and unguarded.
Now once again it became a guessing game. We knew who the victims had been, we knew that he would strike one each day, and I knew that he couldn’t stop. As to who would be next we did not know. We kept close watches on them all each day, yet each day another lost a finger. Sometimes his technique remained crude but it was always efficient. At other times he was the most devilish of characters, striking in disguise or completely without warning. And as the list narrowed down security became tighter, there were fewer places for him to strike. But still he managed to simply outwit us, until there was but one man left and I was by his side that entire day.
This man was no fool and he knew who waited and he knew just what he would do. The young man and I sat and talked on his porch in the mid afternoon. I was on my toes with my wits about me and as they say, my eyes peeled; I was ready for anything this ingenious madman could bestow upon me. Or at least I thought that I was. When he struck there on the man’s porch it was suddenly and truly unexpected. He attacked crashing up through loosened frame boards in the porch; he must have lazed there all day long, biding his time and waiting for just the right moment. Honestly I did not expect the attack, neither where it cam from nor when he pounced it upon us. He leapt straight up landing on secure boards and taking the finger he desired. The biggest surprise was that it was my own finger that was so swiftly taken. Pain seared through and blood gushed from my wound and I could do nothing but stand dumbfounded as my man swiftly disappeared once again. I was taken to the hospital and treated, and only then did the brainpower I faced truly hit me. And I knew at once that somehow that man’s second lesson (as I now know he calls his collections) would be given and another limb of freedom lost.
How I learned of his psyche is a curious thing that mostly seemed to happen all at once. Eating at home one morning I received a phone call from that man. He was very arrogant as he talked, telling me that I would not stop him and that now I could ask all the questions that I wished. And as I began, I asked the question that bothered me the most. “Why do you do these horrible things?”
There was a pause ... “Because I must collect them, because the lessons need to be given to everyone that they cannot stop me and that I will have them all.” ‘Why do you need them all. Doesn’t it prove that you’re superior to them in all ways by taking just one thing?”
“Tell me detective, what is this country based on? What is the foundation on which it stands to this very day? Is it not freedom? The right of an individual to use his own will and exercise his own values to accomplish what he feels should be accomplished in his own life? But these freedoms have lead to evil and chaos in this country. If each and every person’s soul could be swallowed up and taken from them; if their precious free will could be deprived of them and replaced with obedience and the understanding of why others dislike what they do; then this would be a near perfect world which we could live in. That is why I must have given all the lessons and taken with each lessoning one more tool of free will before I can feel satisfied.
Now I wanted to play with his mind, get further inside his head. “Why only one a day? Wouldn’t it be easier to take three or four or all of them?”
“Easier? Yes it would be easier, but don’t I have it easy enough now. Each person knowing that I will be back, none knowing when or how, each spending endlessly sleepless nights waiting for the thing they wish would not come. It is the hunt and the game that thrills me and keeps me doing it.”
He seemed almost nostalgic at the end, like a man reveling with the joy of an exercise that resulted in such heinous a crime. He gave me only seconds more to hear his breath before hanging up.
That conversation rings so clearly in my head even as I run from him once again. I ran before when he took both my second and third finger. I was lucky, most don’t ever get a chance to run, they are taken so completely by surprise or have submitted to death so easily that they see no point to running. One man upon his eighth lesson told me he might as well just sit back and take it, that another lesson was as inevitable as the next school year, or the rising sun.
And so he chases me still and I still run. And somewhere in the back of my head I know that it cannot be avoided. He has outmaneuvered me, out muscled me, and outsmarted me with little problem in the last five years. I know in that struggling part of my soul that one day he will own it too. That one day when the fight has run out in me and I can no longer run I will wait patiently for him to collect me also. But for now I will run from him trying to save my soul; that is what he finally takes. When all ten fingers have been removed, the head is then taken and along with it the soul; that is where his true collection begins.
Now he has caught me, and once again I hear the blade drawn from its sheath as it was described to me all those years ago on that second day, and then many times afterwards. He knees me hard in the groin and the pain surges through my body. I try to fight back but he is too strong and submission begins to wash over my body and I feel the blade make another cold, calculating strike, to yet another finger. I can look up just in time to feel that familiar pain wrench at me and watch the blood drain from me. And when I look around he will be gone and I will again chase him and he will, one day, hunt me yet again. It is a dangerous game I play I know, but I haven’t learned all my lessons yet. And I will stop him before I graduate.
Epilogue: Author’s Note
There are a few things that I feel need to be explained, that came across in this story but that I hid for my own selfish reasons. The first of these is the true meaning of the story I don’t know if I got that point across vividly enough with the allusions that I made but I will try to clarify. Secondly I would like to explain some of the text and grammar used in the story and why it was chosen in the way which it was. Last I think that it is important to make understood why I chose the number of “collectibles” that I did in this story.
To begin I want to make it clearly understood that this was not a story about a man with an obsession, it is about a certain circle of society with an obsession. The circles of society run into each other at certain cross roads and this branch has corrupted the whole of society for too long. That section is of course education.
There is school and there is education and the two both come from the same philosophy, however the idea of school and the reality of education differ so greatly that they are hardly recognizable anymore. The idea of school is one of expanding minds, of taking an open and a willing mind and giving it the knowledge that it needs to make decisions, to grow and to make life better and more fulfilling for everyone. The reality of education is a mind warping, brainwashing juggernaut that, instead of giving someone the ability to form insight and create things that will make them or anyone else better off, has used the youth of America to attempt to create a standard that all should abide by. It is used to set down a set of rules that will not rock the boat. Education is thrust into the lives of every child with no choice as to what direction you will face or whether there may be a better idea somewhere out there that someone has not thought of. Instead education teaches people to think in a certain way about certain things. It teaches them to behave in a certain pattern because it is a standard that should be followed so as not to upset the balance of things. The process of education slowly takes away the ability to think freely about anything it shows a person that a certain train of thought is “the right one” and that is where things should stay. If school were taught correctly it would be a place where new ideas flourished and were explored. Where these ideas were allowed to be examined by each separate mind and decided on. School would be a place for blossoming conversation and heated debates on all matters not just the ones that an “educated society” feels would not make things too asymmetric for them. The idea of school and the reality of education are so separate that it has become the only occupation where the underbelly of government allows the people to pay for its existence to allow the older generation a substantive reason for believing that they should control its outcome.
In the story the main characters represent the two separate things. The detective represents the idea of school and the fighting spirit of anyone who denies the educational system its easy ride through the rest of society. Alvin Sable represents the reality of education as it is seen now. Each time he takes a finger from a person it represents another loss of free will and freethinking. The heartless manner and obsessive way in which Sable collects his items is a representation of the cruel, methodic, and uncaring methods that education uses to accomplish its goals. Things are done in a certain order with a certain precision and nothing is allowed to stand in its way.
To explain the grammar of the story I turn to Kurt Vonnegut Jr. who explained so well that when he used And to begin so many sentences it was to represent the continuation of so many things. The same method was used here. The And and But sentences of the story show the continuing struggle that will never rest because of the opposites of the idea and the reality and the exceptions that are so often made and more often talked about.
As for the number of items, it is really very simple. I wanted one thing for each year of public school, as I know it. Ten fingers, a head, then the final insult was to own the person’s soul their very essence and being.
This story has no true ending and neither does its epilogue. When the fight is over maybe I’ll rewrite it but for now the two things keep going back and forth and neither seems to gain much.
posted by David Fuchs (Greg Goble) @ 10:02 PM
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