Page 43 of Caution Tape

You could always sew it back together.

That’s an idea. I can break his head apart and have a better angle to chisel flesh away. It need not be a full skinning; if I could get big enough chunks of skin, I could create a nice patchwork quilt of dead flesh.

And then give it to Cora.

She did say that she always wondered how it would feel to be in someone’s skin.

I pull Michael’s limp head to the side of the table, hanging him over the edge, face down. His skull bobbles slightly but settles still. It looks like a baseball on a tee.

I stretch my shoulders as I stroll among my tools, before settling on the sledgehammer. My hands circle around the handle and I grunt to hoist it over my shoulder. Michael is leaking blood onto the floor.

I align my feet in front of him, framing the back of his head with my toes. As I bring the hammer over my head, Michael utters a shuddering, horrific gasp.

Humans are so resilient.

I miss a bit with the hammer. Instead of hitting dead center—just above the nape of his neck—I connect to the right. The wood handle vibrates in my hands as the head deflects off his skull, a nasty sound echoing in the shipping container.

Thuck.

I try again. It’s like cooking. You make mistakes, but the key is to make them intodeliciousmistakes.

The second blow is too far toward the crown of Michaels head. It snaps his neck as he is forced to nod viciously forward, the remaining teeth in his head rattling on the ground as they fall out.

Alright, one more time.

The third swing of the hammer splits his head apart, and I see a flash of his delightful grey brain, pulsing for a shining moment before the blood can fill the gap.

I think of split apples, pumpkins smashed against the ground, watermelons and cantaloupes bashed apart, eggs broken in the carton.

I stick a bucket underneath him to catch some of the blood, then I lean on the hammer, watching him bleed while I catch my breath.

I’ve destroyed his head. Some of the skin won’t be salvageable.

But…

Soon there will be more victims. More skin. Jerald is rotting in a barrel, but there should be some skin loosened by deterioration that I can take and weave into Michael’s.

You could pin it all on her.

The thought sneaks in with crafty ease. Cora will have a mask of allhervictims. She has connections to Jerald and Michael. Motive, even.

And she’s too unbalanced to make the right moves, to react quickly enough.

How easy would it be to kill another victim with her along for the ride… maybe two. Let her play alongside me, see how good of a little monster she could be.

Then slip out, direct the police to her, disappear.

We could use Michael’s house as a base for now. It’s Thursday night; Michael has no appointments on Friday or through the weekend. I imagine that’s why he was so keen on getting Cora alone for a while. His wife and kids are on vacation for another week at Disney World. He gets to play the heroic, hardworking father,sacrificingso his family can enjoy themselves. And he can take care of his patients.

Maybe I could email his office, tell them he was taking an impromptu vacation.

That would buy us time.

Fuck Cora a few more times, kill a few more people, then leave. Ditch everything. Become someone else.

I’m innocent, after all.

Build her into a serial killer, egg her on until she’s completely unhinged, and then slip off into glorious obscurity to continue the bloodshed.

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