Thursday, Oct. 12
About the only thing that made Madame Zora’s waiting room any different from a doctor’s was the faintest smell of lavender in the air, Kate thought.
It was painted off-white with magazines like People stacked neatly on tables next to moderately uncomfortable couches. And there was no sign of what Kate had expected-scented candles, beads or voodoo dolls-not even new age music.
Instead the place had more of a sterile quality.
She was surprised a little by the number of people there-she counted eight. Apparently a lot of people need a psychic healer, or an “alternative medicine guru” as she styled herself now.
Maybe the crowd should not have been surprising. Madame Zora was one of Loudoun’s oldest business owners and if her establishment did not have much respect (jokes about it were common), it had at least endured long enough to command a loyal clientele.
Kate shook her head. It wasn’t that she disbelieved in something beyond the material world, but this? A semi-doctor's office dedicated to the occult? She found it hard to accept.
But she dutifully scribbled something in her notebook. An article on Madame Zora-Loudoun’s most famous (and presumably only) psychic-was to be her contribution to the Halloween section. And though she hated the section, she would at least write a good article. It was a matter of professional pride.
“Kate Tassel?” a sprightly teenage girl with a ponytail asked as she came out of the door on the far wall. She too had the air of a nurse-or doctor’s assistant-clothed in a white coat.
Kate gathered her notebook and stood up.
“Madame Zora will see you now,” the girl said and gestured for Kate to follow.
Kate followed her in and they proceeded down a long hallway with several closed doors on either side.
“Have you ever been with us before?” the girl inquired.
Kate shook her head.
“Well, you are in for a treat,” the girl said and smiled broadly. “Madame Zora is the best in the business.”
Kate wryly wondered what “business” they were talking about.
She was escorted to a red door near what Kate assumed must be the back of the building. The girl knocked, smiled again, opened the door and walked quickly away.
Watching her go, Kate stepped through the doorway and was astounded at the change.
She took a deep breath. This is more like what she had expected.
Rows of creepy dolls lined two bookshelves in the back, all positioned in different ways. A dark maroon drapery hung across one wall and a door in the back was semi-hidden by columns of beads. In the center of the room sat a small round table covered in a gold tablecloth with a single lit candle on it. Two empty chairs sat on either side of the table.
Kate smelled the air-the candle was definitely lavender-scented. She waited for close to a minute before she heard a small hissing sound. The room started to fill with smoke. Kate stood up and started to back away.
“Reporter!” a voice called from above her head. “Stay where you are!”
With some reluctance, Kate sat back down and quietly turned on her tape recorder.
“You are about to meet Madame Zora-the most powerful psychic in the world!” the voice said, and Kate noticed it had a vaguely British accent to it. “Be not afraid to look directly at her, for your heart will be filled with peace and you shall know contentment.”
With that, a plume of smoke shot up in the center of the room and when it cleared there was a woman standing there, dressed in a brightly colored robe. She faced away from Kate.
“Why have you come?” Zora asked.
Kate coughed, waved away smoke from her face and tried to speak…
“I shall tell you why you have come,” the woman continued before Kate could say anything.
“You have come to test the great Zora. You have come to see if she is a fraud.”
“Actually, I…” Kate started.
“Silence!” Zora shouted. “I know your heart. I know your fears. I know all.”
With that, she started to slowly turn until she faced Kate, but Zora kept her eyes closed and her arms crossed in front of her chest.
“I will give you what you seek,” Zora intoned. “I will tell you, Kate Tassel, that…”
At that moment, Zora opened her eyes…and stopped.
“Well, Jesus,” Zora said and her body language changed dramatically. Her voice now had a slightly southern lilt to it.
“Hell, I’m sorry,” she said and Kate felt her jaw beginning to drop. “I got all dressed up because I thought it was some reporter… and… well, crap.”
She laughed and shrugged in a you-know-how-it-is way. Kate didn’t get it.
Zora turned and pushed a button underneath her table.
“Lou Ann,” Zora yelled at the table. “Lou Ann, get your butt in here!”
Zora gave Kate an apologetic look. Kate stayed silent, not sure what was going on.
A moment later, the teenage girl reappeared.
“Yes, Madame Zora,” she said when she poked her head through the door.
“Why the heck did you tell me it was the reporter coming?” Zora demanded. “I got all dressed up, used my best show smoke and all. That stuff isn’t cheap, Lou Ann. I’ve told you before you need to pay attention to who you are sending back to me.”
Lou Ann looked guiltily around and then turned to Kate.
“But I thought you said…” Lou Ann said and looked plaintively at Kate.
“I am the reporter,” Kate said, looking at Zora.
Zora looked stunned.
“But you’re…” she said and her voice faltered. “You’re the Loudoun Chronicle reporter?”
Kate nodded. Lou Ann looked briefly vindicated and shut the door.
Zora appeared flustered and sat down in her chair.
“I don’t understand,” she said, but Kate had the impression she was talking to herself.
“You were expecting me to come,” Kate said, feeling a little defensive as if she was the one at fault.
“Yes, yes,” Zora said and looked back at her. “It’s totally my fault. Hell, that was impressive, though, wasn’t it? My performance? I mean, I felt pretty ‘on.’ Did I feel ‘on’ to you?”
“It was…” Kate started. “Impressive?”
“Yeah, it felt pretty good. And now I blew it. And I think that was a really good one, too. Oh well.”
“If you want I can go back out and you can start over,” Kate said.
“No, no,” Zora said and waved her hand. “It’s done. No use crying over spilled honey.”
“Don’t you mean milk?”
“Well, aren’t you little-Miss-literal?” Zora said. Then she sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I’m sorry to snap. It’s been a tough day and I had really been hoping to wow you. I don't get that many new customers anymore. It’s mostly the same people, with the same problems. You always want to jazz it up for the new people.”
“Why did you think I wasn’t the reporter?” Kate asked.
“Well…” Zora started. “I thought you were in the trade.”
“The trade?”
“I thought you were another, oh hell, what’s the latest term, ‘alternative healer.’ I just assumed really. It isn’t often…”
Kate waited.
“No sense me prattling on,” Zora said. “You can ask your questions. I’m not in the mood to give much in the way of answers, but we’ll see what we see, I guess.”
“Why would you assume I was in the ‘trade’?” Kate asked.
“Honey, you got vibes coming off you like a freight train,” she said.
The inner-editor in Kate noted that vibes do not come off freight trains, but she held her tongue.
“I still don’t follow…”
“Your aura?” Zora said. “You got a psychic vibe coming off you. I'm surprised I didn't notice it ‘till I saw you.”
“What did you see?” Kate asked.
“You’re psychic,” Zora said.
“I’m not psychic,” she replied.
“Well, I don’t really care if you think you are or not. You are.”
“Wouldn’t I know?”
“Not necessarily, honey,” Zora said and tapped her brightly-painted fingernails on the table. “Your aura-well, you got a lot of juice. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Okay,” Kate said and scribbled in her notebook.
“Believe me or not, sweetheart,” Zora said. “It’s your call.”
“Well, let’s get started with the interview then,” Kate said.
“You already turned on the tape recorder,” Zora said. “I thought we had started.”
Kate felt a little taken aback.
“I didn’t think you noticed that,” she said.
“I know all,” Zora said and smiled. Her far left visible tooth was gold-capped. “Well, I suppose this would go better if I was in character, wouldn’t it?”
“In character?”
“Okay,” Zora said. “You see all this bulldiddly around me, right? The beads, the kewpie dolls, the scented candles? That’s all a joke to you, right?”
“Well…” Kate said.
“It’s okay,” she replied and spread her hands. “It’s a joke to me too. Even the smoke machine, though I really do think it’s impressive. Had to order it special and everything.”
“Then why…”
“Why do it?” Zora laughed. “Because that is what people expect. Believe me, when I started out in this business, I didn’t want to be anywhere near this stuff. I thought I could remake how people saw psychics. But I was young and stupid.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn't get any customers,” she replied. “I went under my real name-Carol Cuthberson-and put out a helpful sign. This was the 1970s. I thought my power alone would keep me going.”
“It didn’t?”
“Heck, no,” she replied. “You wouldn’t believe it now, but in those days I was a looker. And all they saw was a pretty girl who told them some things they wanted to hear, but mostly stuff they didn’t. I was right, and I knew it, but they didn’t. They felt ripped off without the theatrics of the psychic scene. They had seen so many movies, even by then, that it didn’t feel real to them without all the fake crap surrounding it.”
“So you played along?”
“Eventually,” Zora said. “I worked as a secretary right out of high school. I did the whole 9 to 5 work thing. And it wasn’t for me. For starters, I got tired of knowing things I shouldn’t, like who was real sick and probably going to get cancer and whose wife was cheating on them.”
“You saw that psychically?”
“Saw is probably the wrong word,” Zora replied. “But, yeah, I knew it. It was like a gut feeling. I have had it since I was a kid. Sometimes I just knew stuff. I found that the more I listened to that voice, the more I knew. Sometimes all it took was talking to the person, other times I would shake their hand. I used to amuse my girlfriends at Lincoln High by telling them all sorts of gossip. Nobody knew how I got it-and sometimes even I wondered if I was making it up. But this one time, I knew this girl called Colleen had slept with my best friend Jeanne’s boyfriend. I told Jeanne and she cried a fit, denied it, and said I was a liar.”
“What did you do?” she asked.
“I proved her wrong,” Zora said. “I told her to wait by the girl’s locker room on Thursday night and see for herself. And sure enough, she saw that little hussy getting it on with her ‘loving boyfriend.’ If I had a nickel for every time I knew about some adultery, I would be a rich woman.”
“So you decided to take up being a psychic as a job?” Kate asked.
“I hated being a secretary,” she replied. “Just hated it. I wanted to be my own boss. But I hadn’t gone to college and this was the only talent I had.”
“You opened your own shop,” Kate said.
“I did, right on the outskirts of my hometown,” she replied. “And I stayed away from the theater at first. I really did. But while being psychic is a talent, I figured out pretty soon it isn’t enough. People want the theater. They need it. It’s the same type of person that keeps going to Catholic mass when they don’t believe a word of it. People like being mystified. They aren’t going to take psychic advice from Carol from Keystone, West Virginia. But they will take the advice of Madame Zora-Psychic of the East.”
With that, both Zora’s countenance and voice changed. Instead of seeming tired and resigned, she now appeared regal and in command of the room.
“Let me tell you your future, Kate,” she said, and Kate was blown away by the change. She seemed like a wholly different person. “Let me gaze through the sands of time and tell you what the goddess Fortuna has in store.”
And as quickly as before, Zora slumped back into her chair and returned to her regular voice.
“Be honest-who would you believe? Me or Madame Zora?”
Kate smiled.
“Exactly,” she said. “So I left Keystone, moved to Leesburg, and opened up this office here. The worst part about it is that so many people think you’re a fake. They see all this bulldiddly and think, ‘No way.’ I get that. But you know what? Most of those people wouldn’t believe me anyway. I’ve convinced plenty of people I was for real, but I’m not sure if it is the talent or the theatrics that does it.”
“You seem somewhat irritated by that,” Kate said.
“Do I?” Zora asked and sat up. “I’m not, you know. In a way, I’ve grown to like it a bit. It’s like an actor must feel giving a real fine performance. When you see some people walk out of here, you can just tell their whole world has expanded. They believe, Kate. And I know I delivered it to them.”
“But you know some of the stuff is fake?”
“Does it matter?” she asked. “They get the real stuff too.”
Kate paused.
“How much of this are you going to want me to print?” she asked. “Surely, it won’t help business.”
“Sweetheart,” Zora said and cocked her eyebrow at her. “You can print what you like. People see what they want to, anyway. And, not to break your heart, but I’m not too worried that the readers of the Loudoun Chronicle will have much effect on my business. There aren’t that many.”
Kate chuckled a bit.
“Maybe not,” she said, smiling.
“I like you, Trina,” Zora said and the color drained from Kate’s face.
“What did you call me?”
“Are you okay?” Zora asked and a look of genuine concern was on her face.
“What did you call me?”
“Trina. That’s your nickname, isn’t it? I didn’t really think about it…”
“It’s not my nickname,” Kate said evenly. She was flustered but let it go.
“Oh,” Zora said. “That’s odd. Well, maybe it’s just an off day. First, my botched entrance and then…”
“Have the police ever used you?” Kate asked suddenly.
Zora leaned back in her chair.
“Oh,” she said and put her hand to her lips. She then pulled idly at her ear.
“What do you mean, ‘Oh?’” Kate asked.
“This is about him, isn’t it?” Zora asked. “I’m sorry I didn’t see it earlier.”
“About who?” Kate asked.
“Honey, I know you think I’m a nutball, but you have to believe I really do have some talents. So, yeah, I see stuff others can’t. For real. And the minute I called you that nickname, I could see it in my head.”
“See what?”
“A press clipping. Of those murders 12 years ago. You are practically throwing it off in waves. I don’t know why you care so much about it. I can’t see that far, but I can see that.”
Kate pushed back her chair.
“I ought to get going.”
Zora reached across and grabbed her hand.
“Honey, you don’t need to worry,” Zora said. “If you don’t want to talk about it…”
“I don’t.”
“Then we won’t. There is no need to run away. I have the feeling there has been a lot of that already.”
“Look,” Kate said. “I like you, but don’t think you know me, okay? I’m not some customer you can just snow over.”
Zora leaned back again.
“I never thought you were,” Zora said. “Well, not since I saw you at any rate.”
The two sat in silence for a minute. Kate was unnerved and she felt like she had enough for a story anyway.
Zora took a large breath.
“You want to see the Tarot card bit?” she asked.
Kate nodded. As long as they weren’t going to talk about her mother, she would be okay.
“Tarot cards are great little devices,” Zora said. “I used to think they were crap. But I made the mistake everybody makes when they see these used. They think the cards somehow have power. And that is, of course, absurd.”
“What then?”
“The cards are inanimate objects,” she replied. “They have no power at all. But the people-the two of us, for example-have the power. My abilities and my read of the person affect how I shuffle the cards and subconsciously affect what I pull out. It’s really quite simple.”
“And the cards then tell the future?”
“Well, that’s the other part,” Zora said and smiled. “The cards don’t tell you anything. It’s all in the interpretation. And that is done by me. Someone with no talent will just randomly interpret. Maybe they will get lucky. Someone with a little talent even can start discovering fascinating things. If they trust their instincts, the cards can tell them many things.”
“The future?” Kate asked and started writing again.
“Maybe,” Zora said. “Do you want to see?”
Kate nodded with a slight hesitation
She watched Zora as she shuffled her way through the deck and laid them out on the table. She laid three in the center face down.
“This is just a test run, honey,” Zora said. “You can do this with all different kinds of cards in all sorts of ways. I’m just going to do three from the Major Aracana.”
With that, her voice changed.
“Now we shall see your destiny,” Zora said in her British accent.
She flipped the first card.
Kate was a little surprised to see it was the Hanged Man. A man was suspended upside down from a tree, his feet tied up with rope. Kate had seen this card before-she remembered seeing a friend get her fortune told at the beach some years ago-but then the man had looked peaceful, as if in suspended animation. On this card, the Hanged Man looked in pain, as if he was struggling to get free but failing. His arms were tied behind his back and Kate could see a figure in the distance coming towards him. Whoever it was, the Hanged Man looked panicked about it.
“Strange,” Zora said. She flipped the cards over and stared at it. “I use these cards a lot, but I don’t remember seeing this version before.”
“What does it mean?”
“Probably Lou Ann bought me the wrong pack,” Zora said, but her voice sounded unsteady, as if she wasn’t sure that was the case.
“All right, though, what does the card mean?”
Zora kept staring at it.
“Well, it can mean many things. Sacrifice, giving up, surrender, even passivity,” she said. “But I don’t think that’s what this one means.”
“I don’t follow,” Kate said.
“Everything is instinct. My gut says you are not the surrendering type and this card-this version of it-is about anything but surrender. I’ve never seen one like it. But the Hanging Man is also a doorway of sorts. He sees what others do not, from an angle they do not. In this case, he could be an opening to the Truth. To the mystical.”
Kate wanted to look away and couldn’t. The image bothered her more than she wanted to admit, particularly the look on the Hanged Man’s face.
“Isn’t he supposed to be peaceful?” she said.
“In every other card I’ve seen, he is,” Zora said, looking up at Kate. She couldn’t be sure, but Kate thought Zora looked a little bit frightened. “This card isn’t like the others. It’s about a journey, one that may be quite painful for you. But it clearly denotes the start of something, something that will look like one thing but be another.”
“Like a friend who isn’t a friend?” Kate asked.
Zora nodded. “Or something that seems good, but isn’t. Or the reverse. The Hanged Man sees things in a different way-he sees what’s real.”
“He looks like whatever he sees is terrifying him.”
“Let’s just move on to the next card.”
Zora drew carefully from the deck this time, as if she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to. With some hesitation, she put the card on the table.
Kate didn’t need an interpretation. At a glance, she knew the card: The Devil. A horned, giant beast stood in the middle of the card, holding a trident in one hand and extending his arm to two human figures below him. There were a man and a woman on the card, both naked with horns of their own.
Kate looked up. “If this is a joke, it isn’t funny,” she said.
But Zora seemed more unnerved than she did.
“The Devil can also mean many things: ignorance, stupidity, prejudice and pessimism,” Zora said. “But I think this one is about something else too. It’s about sex.”
Kate took a look at the card. The human figures weren’t looking at the Devil-not even a little bit. Instead, they seemed to be staring at each other with a look of raw desire. Kate wasn’t sure how the artist could show it in such detail, but now that she looked at it, it was obvious the two wanted to have sex. And not the kind you see in the movies, or at least not the films she watched. These two people wanted to get it on right there and then and if the Devil was watching them, she doubted they cared.
“Again, this version of the card is unique,” Zora said, her voice still unsteady. “The Devil often indicates sexuality, but this is more obvious than on some. There is another thread here as well: obsession and temptation. One thing I know: sex will change everything.”
“I’m not exactly a virgin,” Kate replied.
“Doesn’t matter,” Zora responded. “This-whatever this is-is different. Is there anyone you are attracted to? A boyfriend?”
Quinn came unbidden into her thoughts. She had been about to say no, when an image of him popped into her mind. But she hadn’t looked at him that way, had she? No, he was just a friend. Then why had she kissed him? Why was she thinking of him now?
“No,” she said.
Zora was staring at her.
“I don’t need to be a psychic to tell that you are lying,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Kate said.
“Not to me, it doesn’t, but it matters to you,” Zora said. “This is not your average relationship, that’s for sure. If you move forward with this person-if you have sex with him-the world will never be the same.”
Kate tried to smile, tried to laugh it off, but none of it felt funny. The more she thought about Quinn, the more she realized she was attracted to him. She was breathing faster, her pulse rate up. She licked her lips. It dawned on her that she was very attracted to him and that scared the hell out of her.
“Next card,” she said.
Zora hesitated.
“I don’t know that it’s a good idea.”
“Look, we’ve come this far,” Kate responded.
Zora reached into the deck and pulled out the card. Kate noticed her hands were shaking. She already knew what the next card would be. She had known it all along.
The card showed a knight on a dirty, matted horse. The knight held a sword aloft and below him were the trampled bodies of kings, merchants and peasants. Women and children lay sprawled at his feet. The knight himself was a grinning skeleton.
“Death,” Kate said. “Well, at least I know what this one means. Is it my death?”
Zora looked back at her. She suddenly seemed worn and very, very tired. Kate knew she wanted to lie, was almost sure she was going to.
“Maybe,” she said. “Usually, the answer would be a straight no. I would tell you this is a symbol and nothing more.”
“But not this time?”
“Honey, I’ve never seen these three cards together. The Hanged Man, The Devil and Death? That’s a bad combination.”
“I’m really missing why you get any return business.”
“Do you think I would fake something like this?” Zora said, and her voice was back to having a southern accent. “How stupid do I look?”
“You could just be trying to frighten me,” Kate said.
“There are two frightened people in this room at the moment,” she said. “Believe me when I tell you that whatever you are into, it’s some serious mojo. Truth, Sex and Death.”
“Great, I realize the truth, have sex and die,” Kate said. “Sounds like a slasher film to me.”
“The death card may not mean your death,” Zora said. “Typically it stands for the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. It’s about transformation. Taken together, these cards show a major event in your future, one that could have massive ramifications.”
“Including my death.”
“Yes, that’s a possibility,” Zora said. “But there are others.”
Kate sat in stunned silence. She looked at the three cards. The man hanging upside down, the couple staring at each other, and the skeleton on top of the horse.
Something gnawed at her about the death card, so she picked it up off the table. The message in the card was clear enough: death takes everyone-men, women and children, from nobility to serfs. The skeleton knight held a sword out in front of him and it was unclear if he had trampled his victims to death, or used his weapon.
There’s something familiar in this, Kate thought. But she couldn’t quite place it. An image that was similar, but not quite right. It was on the tip of her tongue when she noticed a word written on the sword. The letters were hard to see and Kate had trouble making it out.
“What’s this?” she said and pointed to the sword.
Zora took the card from her and stared at it. She reached behind her desk and pulled out a pair of glasses. If you ignored the outfit, she looked like a librarian. Zora examined the word carefully.
“Sanheim,” she said finally.
Kate nearly grabbed the card out of Zora’s hands.
“I know that word,” she said, and felt like the room was starting to spin. She had seen it written in the bathroom mirror just the other day. Then it had disappeared. And hadn’t she seen it before that? A memory flashed in her mind. Her mother was dead on the bed beside her and she was holding the phone. Lord Halloween’s note was below her. But instead of saying, “Happy Halloween,” or anything else, it just had one word: “Sanheim.” She must have seen it in her dreams.
“What does it mean?” she asked. “What’s Sanheim?”
Zora stared at her.
“Sanheim was the Celtic God of the Dead. It’s also a festival celebrated by thousands every year.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” Kate responded.
“Not under that name. But believe me, you know it. It’s the festival the early Christians renamed when they came to convert the Irish. They started calling it All Hallow’s Eve.”
“Halloween,” Kate said under her breath. “Sanheim means Halloween.”
Zora disappeared into the back for a moment and left Kate staring at the card.
“This is about him, isn’t it?”
Zora shook her head.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“Come on. I get a death card with the word ‘Halloween’ on it and it isn’t about Lord Halloween? What are the odds of that?”
Why does everything come back to him? Kate fought down an urge to run. She didn’t believe in divination-not really-but this was her worst nightmare in card form. She had always feared she would die at his hand and this appeared to bear that out.
“Only in Loudoun do they connect Halloween automatically with that guy,” Zora said. “It’s a celebration that goes back centuries, far beyond the written history we have of it.”
“You can’t deny it’s a strong coincidence.”
“But it may just be that, Trina,” Zora said, and Kate winced again at the nickname. “I told you before, everything about being a psychic is instinct. When I first called you Trina, I knew from your reaction that there was something about Lord Halloween in your reaction. I still don’t know what, but I just felt it. It’s the same here-this card isn’t about him. His fate may be tied up with yours-I have a hunch it has to be-but nothing here says he’s going to kill you.”
Kate pushed back from the desk.
“I think I’ve seen enough in any case,” she said.
She flipped off the recorder and stood up.
“Don’t leave like this,” Zora said. “I’m sorry.”
Kate didn’t say anything. She was shaken, and badly. Suddenly, nothing seemed too far-fetched. Could Zora be working with Lord Halloween? Is this all a trick to make her more panicked, more afraid?
“I’m not working with him,” Zora said, as if she had read her mind. Maybe she had, but Kate didn’t care.
“You had better not be,” Kate said, and there was venom in her voice. “If I find out you are, God help you.”
Zora held up her hands. “I’m not your enemy,” she said. “I have a feeling that would be a very bad position to be in.”
Kate nodded and turned to walk out.
“There’s one more thing you should know,” Zora said.
“I’m done listening to this,” Kate said.
“The spelling-it’s wrong.”
Kate paused as she began to head for the door. She almost turned around.
“What spelling?”
“The name on the sword here is Sanheim,” Zora said. “The Celtic God of the Dead is spelled Samhaim, similar sounding, but different.”
“What does that mean? Maybe somebody forgot to spell check.”
“I don’t know what it means, Kate. But everything here means something.”
With that, Kate walked out the door.
Zora sat at her desk after Kate had left. She had seen more than wanted to admit. A dead woman, lying on a bed. While the cards weren’t about Lord Halloween, she had seen something else, too.
“He’s coming for you, Trina,” she said.
But only her kewpie dolls heard her.
LH File: Letter #5
Date Oct. 15, 1994
Investigation Status: Closed
Contents: Classified
Mr. Anderson,
Half of the month is gone and from my point of view, much of it was a waste. Where is the mass panic? Where is the fear? Where is the publicity? I’ve killed seven people. You’ve written about four. You didn’t even mention the cop’s wife! Do you not know about it? You’re supposed to be a reporter, Anderson. I can’t hand you everything on a fucking plate.
I can’t do everything, Mr. Anderson, and I’m growing so tired of waiting. I’ve encouraged you, warned you, even threatened you, and I get no respect. Are some of the articles good? Yes, they are all I could ask for. But it’s not enough. It’s not close to enough.
I want speculation about me. Who am I? Why do I do it? Can the police catch me? All you have are straight-laced stories with no hint of speculation.
How are they supposed to fear me if they never really know who I am? I chose you, Mr. Anderson, because I thought you would give flight to this fantasy of mine. We would be partners. But you are no partner at all. You’re just another parasite, another sign of the problem.
So I’m through treating you gently. Write about me the way I deserve, or victim #8 will be familiar to you. Very familiar.
Signed,
Lord Halloween