Where the psycho killer came from

On a cold winter morning in early December, Ballard descended from the mountains onto frog Hill Highway with a pair of squirrels slung from his belt. He looked back at the bend in the road and saw a car standing there, its engine humming softly, blue smoke spiraling up into the cold morning light. Ballard crossed the road, dropped to his stomach in the grass, crawled through the trees, and came to the top of the bend in the pass. The car was still idling over there, and there was no one in sight.

Ballard crawled along the grass by the side of the road, and when he was within thirty inches of the car, he stood up and observed. He could hear the engine running rhythmically and a faint guitar strumming from somewhere on the hillside on this quiet morning. After a while the music stopped and a voice spoke.

The radio, he said to himself.

There was no sign of anyone in the car. The Windows were foggy, but there seemed to be no one inside.

He stepped out of the grass and walked a few steps down to the car. If anyone asks, he's just passing by on a squirrel hunt. As he passed the car, he looked in. The front seats were empty, but in the back lay two half-naked men with their arms and legs spread out. A bare thigh. An arm raised above its head. Two hairy buttocks. Ballard walked on. Suddenly he stopped, his eyes fixed unblinking.

He turned and walked back to the car, peering carefully through the window. Another man's pale, expressionless face, his eyes open empty and blank, was visible amid a jumble of clothes and twisted limbs. This is a young girl. Ballard tapped on the glass. A man's voice over the radio said, This next song is special for all the sick and sick people at home. On the hill, the shrill moo of two cows echoed in the cold, lonely air.

Ballard opened the door, his rifle ready to fire. A man sprawled between the girl's legs. Hey, Ballard said.

Ballard sat on the edge of the driver's seat and reached over the steering wheel to turn off the radio. The engine was still chugging. He looked down, found the keys, and turned off the car. The car became very quiet, just the three of them. He knelt in his chair, bent over the back seat, and looked at the two men carefully. He reached out and pulled the man's shoulder. Ballard's arm slid off the seat and onto the floor. Ballard, not expecting the gesture, jerked back and banged his head on the roof.

Instead of swearing, he knelt there and stared at the two bodies. These sons of bitches are dead, he said.

He could see one of the girl's breasts. Her blouse was open and her bra was pushed up to the side of her neck. Ballard stared at it for a long time. Finally, he reached around the dead man's back and touched the breast. It's soft and cold. He stroked his perfectly brown nipples with the tip of his thumb.

He was still holding the gun. He retired from his seat and stood in the road looking and listening. It was so quiet that not a bird could be heard. He unbuckled the squirrel from his belt and put it on the roof. He propped his rifle against the fender and climbed back into the car. He leaned down in his seat, grabbed the man and tried to pull him off the girl. The body was spread out like a thousand pounds, and the dead man's head hung limp. Ballard pulled him sideways, but he got stuck in the back of the front seat. He can see the girl better now. He reached out and stroked her other breast. He touched her for a long time, then closed her eyelids with his thumb. She is young and beautiful. It was too cold. Ballard closed the front door. He reached out again and grabbed the man on the ground. He seemed to be hanging there, wearing a shirt and slacks piled loosely on his shoes. With a faint feeling of disgust, Ballard grabbed the man by his cold, naked hips and pulled him toward him. He rolled over, slid between two rows of seats, and lay flat on his back on the floor, one eye open and the other half closed.

Fuck you, Ballard said. The dead man was wearing a wet yellow condom and pointing straight at him.

He stepped out of the car, picked up his gun, and walked to where he could see the road. He walked back to the car, closed the door, and walked to the other side of the car. It was bone-chilling cold. After a long time, he got back into the car. The girl lay with her eyes closed, her breasts poking out of her open blouse, her snow-white legs wide apart. Ballard climbed into his seat.

The dead man watched him from the floor of the car. Ballard kicked his leg out of the way, picked up the girl's panties from the floor, sniffed them, and put them in his pocket. He looked out of the back window and listened again. He then knelt between the girl's legs, unbuttoned his buttons and pulled down his pants.

He worked like a crazy gymnast. He poured everything he could think of to say to a woman into his pale ear. Who's to say she can't hear? When he was done, he stood up and looked out again. The Windows were fogged up. He tugged at the hem of the girl's skirt and rubbed himself. He was standing on the legs of the dead man, whose thing was still up. Ballard pulled up his pants, climbed over the seat, opened the door and walked back to the highway. He tucked his shirt into his trousers and buttoned it up. Then he picked up his gun and began to walk down the road. He had not gone far when he stopped and turned back. The first thing he saw was the pair of squirrels on the roof of the car. He slipped them into his shirt, opened the door, leaned in, turned the key, and pressed the start button. The car roared to life in the silence and the engine came to life again. He looked at the gas gauge and saw that he had a quarter tank left. He glanced at the body in the back seat, closed the door, and walked back out onto the road.

He had gone about a quarter of a mile before he stopped again and stood in the middle of the road staring straight ahead. Fuck it, what the hell, he said. He began to walk back up the road again, walking and running.

When he got back, the car was still chugging. Ballard ran out of breath, sucking the cold air down his throat and into his burning lungs. He flung open the door and climbed in. He reached down into the back seat to grab the dead man's pants. He reached for his wallet in the back pocket and reached for it. He took out his wallet and opened it. Family photographs were set in yellowing cellophane frames. He took out a wad of thin bills and counted them. They amounted to eighteen dollars. He folded the money, put it in his pocket, put the dead man's wallet back into his trousers, climbed backward out of the car and closed the door. He took the money out of his pocket again and counted it. He was about to pick up his rifle when he suddenly stopped, turned and climbed back into the car.

His eyes swept the back floor and the seat, and he felt under the bodies. Then he looked to the front row. The girl's handbag fell on the floor next to the seat. He opened the bag, took out his change purse, opened it, and found a small handful of silver money and two crumpled bills. He rummaged through his bag, took out lipstick and rouge and stuffed it into his pocket. Then he snapped the bag shut and sat with it on his lap for a minute. He spotted the glove box in the dashboard, reached over and pushed the button. The lid swung down. Inside the box were some paper, a flashlight and a pint bottle of whisky. Ballard took out the bottle and held it up to see that there was two-thirds of it left. He closed the glove box, climbed out of the car, pocketed the bottle and closed the door. He looked at the girl one more time and headed down the road. He only took a few steps before he stopped and turned around again. He opened the car door, reached in and turned on the radio. We'll be talking on the radio at Bullscap School on Tuesday night. Ballard closed the car door and continued down the hill. After a while he stopped, took out his bottle, drank a few words and went on his way again.

Near the fork in the road at the foot of the hill, he turned his head one last time. He turned and looked back up the road. He crouched down in the middle of the road, the butt of his gun on the ground, his hands clenched on the front brace, his chin resting on one wrist. He spat. Look up to the sky. After a while, he got up and started walking back up the road again. An eagle was riding the wind over the hillside, its feathers and wings filtering the sunlight a little white. It hovered, glided, soared into the sky. Ballard was in a hurry. His stomach was empty but tight.

The sun was shining when he returned home. He carried her on his shoulder, and after a mile he was so exhausted that they both lay down on the fallen leaves in the wood. Ballard breathed the cold quietly. He found a protruding limestone and buried the gun and squirrel in a pile of black leaves. That done, he picked up the girl on his back, struggled to his feet, and continued on his way.

He walked down the hill through the woods behind the house, down the thatched, grassy path past the barn, and carried her through the narrow doorway into the house. He put her on the mattress and covered her up. Then he took the axe and went out.

He returned with a bundle of wood in his hand, and waited for a fire to be lit in the fireplace, before which he sat to rest. Then he turned to the girl. He took off all her clothes and examined her body as if he could see how she had been made. Then he went outside and looked through the window and saw her lying naked in front of the fire. When he returned to the house, his trousers were unbuttoned and he had only to pull his legs out and lie down beside her. Then he pulled the blanket over them.

In the afternoon, he went back for his gun and squirrel. He put the squirrel in his shirt, checked the breech of his gun, found it loaded, and walked up the hill.

The car was still there when he came through the wintry woods above the bend in the pass. The engine has stopped running. He sat on his heels and looked at the car. It's very quiet. A radio could be faintly heard below. After a while he got up, spat, took one last look at the place, and turned back down the hill.

Early in the morning, as the small, dark trees rose like knives from the hillside mist, two boys crossed the clearing and entered Ballard's cabin, where he lay curled up in a blanket on the floor, the fire gone out beside him. The girl's body was kept in another room so it wouldn't get too hot to store.

They stood at the door. Ballard sprang to his feet, squinted at each other, and let out a howl that made them fall back, nearly toppling into the yard.

What the fuck are you doing? He cried.

They stood in the yard. One was holding a rifle, the other a homemade bow. We are Cousins of the Charles family. The one with the gun said, you can't send him away, they said we can hunt here.

Ballard looked at the Cousins. Go hunt somewhere else, he said.

Let's go, Aaron, the man with the gun said.

Aaron gave Ballard a resentful look and left the yard with his brother.

You'd better stay out of here, Ballard yelled from the porch, shivering in the cold outside, you'd better all do the same.

When they were out of sight in the dry woods, one of them turned around and swore, but Ballard couldn't make out what he was saying. He stood in the doorway where they had been, looking into the room, trying to reconfirm with his own eyes what they had seen. Nothing is certain. She lay under a pile of rags. He went in, lit the fire again, and squatted before the fireplace, swearing.

When he came back from the barn, he was dragging a shoddy handmade ladder. He carried it into the room where the girl was, set it up, and stuck its head through a small square hole in the ceiling. Then he climbed up and stuck his head into the attic. The crumbling roof looked like a particularly tricky jigsaw puzzle against the backdrop of a winter sky, and by the dim streaks of light he made out some old boxes filled with Mason jars, dusted with dust. He climbed into the garret, cleared a space on the loose floor, rubbed the ashes over it with rags, and climbed down again.

She's really too much for him. With one hand he grasped the upper steps, and with the other he put his arm round the waist of the dead girl, who was swinging in midair in a tattered, carelessly sewn nightdress. Halfway up he had to stop and climb back down again. He tried to get her around his neck, but he couldn't get any farther. So he sat with her on the ground, gasping for air in the cold room. Then he went to the barn.

When he re-entered the house, he brought some old plowing cords and sat down before the fire to splice them together. He went into the other room, tied the rope around the waist of the pale corpse, picked up the other end and climbed the ladder. As she rose from the floor, her shoulders fell back, her hair fell to the ground, and she began to rise, bumping against the ladder. Halfway there she stopped and swung. After a while, she began to rise again.