THE MOONPARK MURDERER

by Fioye

  The jogger, the girl in lean jumpsuit and sneakers panted.

  A damp wind howled past, rustling the mat of fallen leaves. The reels of crackling leaves swept past her footwear just as she planted a Nike sole on the park bench. She nodded her mane of fake hair to the beats filtering out of her earphones. Covered in saline beads she worked one of the forms the guy back at the gym had showed her, bending her lithe body into impossible angles.

  The moon, most fervent of stalkers watched her with a heart filled with manic lust, sulking for not been able to reach down and grasp her for herself.

  A couple strolled past hand in hand, laughing to a shared whisper. The lady, a bit too rounded in some aspects leaned in on her spouse, shaken by the fit of laughter. He remained staunch for her like he has always done since that day he slipped the band in eleven years ago. Like he has done for the past eight months during which she had been in the hospital. Nothing can take her away from him- his heartthrob.

  His clean-shaven face lit up in another ritual beam- absentminded smiles have decorated his face ever since he picked her up in the morning. It would be safe to say he has smiled more times than he has breathed today.

  “I can imagine how you coped with the kids in my absence”

  Her musical chuckle echoed down the deserted path.

  “I stuffed them with junks. What did you expect?” he arched an impish brow as he turned his head to peer into her eyes. “I can barely fix a cup of tea for myself without you”  he added amid his raucous mirth.

  “You can barely fix anything without me. I am sure you still toss your socks in different cardinal points. Do you know how many times you have failed to notice tears in your suit pants?”

  Her moonlit face assumed a mock seriousness.

  “Well tonight missus seamstress you will be doing more than fixing tears in my pants” he switched to a huskier more insinuating tone, an erotic glint in his eyes. “I think I have a faulty zipper now” he added innocently.

  “Oh!”  she exclaimed in surprise.

  Her attempt at pretense was commendable.           

  Still basking in the vague euphoria he tucked his free hand into the pocket of his Ankara, lost in the chatter of his just-discharged wife. A brief lance of despair tore through the shroud of joy but before it could take root he scattered holy water on the evil mutters.

  Whilst a loving husband muted an adamant demon a madman in rags lurked in the shadows to the side. Crouched in the midst of his rich litter, he yapped to an unseen listener about his misplaced business briefcase, commanding the phantom to release it.

  “I need it for work this morning, you stupid woman” he wailed, eyes tearstained.

  He slapped a callused hand on the hard surface in anger. He wheeled around as if in search of a fitting bludgeon, something to crush the head of his invisible partner. Waves of ire rippled out of his hideous foul-smelling body

  “You foolish woman” he barked.

  He did not take note of the crimson smears on the floor nor did he spare a moment to glance at his blistered palm. Fangs of rage bit deep into his dark heart, blinding him.

  Still stranded in that fever of uncontrollable fury the couple walking past caught his attention. He watched with a vexed countenance as the couple waltzed past. Somehow they seemed annoying, foolish. Somehow the mere sight of that happiness irked his twisted mind. He recognized the woman as his kin. He couldn’t say how but she sure is related to him. Why are they laughing for no reason? He thought. They must be mad. At least one of them is.

  Having unknowingly made an accurate assessment he squealed, shattering the weak silence of an uneventful night.

  The sweaty lady resumed her jog, deaf to the world around and trailed the couple at a relaxed run. The husband glanced back. His wife didn’t bother. Another silhouette appeared at the far end of the path, face concealed in his hoodie, wrists deep in its slanted pockets.

  He was shaken. Who wouldn’t? When that which you care for most is helpless? When she lies inches away from a painful death in need of just a few thousands. He gripped the pistol hidden in his pocket tighter, donned a sterner mask then trailed the couple.

  Ahead the wife remembered the look. She has seen it on her husband’s face before. That look of lust. This wasn’t a lust reserved for her. That bitch in the back, with her slim shape. In her head a vile idea blossomed and in her brown eyes a fire fierce and feral sparkled. She won’t confront him about. Then a moment of clarity overthrew her madness.

  I need to use my medications.

  She reminded herself, trembling as she fumbled inside her handbag. The pills are in his pocket, that she knows. What she did not know was that the sixth person, an intimate shadow was about to let hell loose.  

  It was then all their paths crossed.

                   

  By the time help came she was seated on the floor, numbed, wordless. Her arms were wrapped about her folded limbs like a kid huddling away his nightmares. Her head was bleeding, her gown soiled. The man in the hood, everyone’s suspect was on the run. The madman, hands smeared red with blood watched from the darkness, glad to have killed her, his body wracked by an odious glee. And the jogger, the easiest of the preys had died without even knowing who had bashed her skull in. Even in death her earphones kept playing, singing a dirge of harsh hip-hop. A ruthless paradox in honour of her violent death.

  She lay sprawled on the wet grass in his own puddle of blood, lifeless orbs staring at the moon. The moon the only one who saw the entire episode.   

 

  A mug gone wrong? A burst of madness?

  Who killed the jogger?

  Where is the husband?

  Who did the madman kill?

  Who was the sixth person?

  Who was the Moonpark murderer?

                                                

 

 

  He fiddled with the vial of caplets inside his pocket, the rattle reminiscent of dice in a gambling game. If only he knew his lot had been cast. If only he knew his fate had been sealed.

  Time and time again that whisper- a bodiless demon that lurks in the dark crevise of his heart- has urged him to end it. Urged him to spare himself the misery. Yet he has remained. Remained to watch the pain seep deeper. Remained to watch her sick mind destroy all they have.

  Now it came again, slithering, elusive. And for the first time he listened. He was about to end it when his heart stopped.

  The jogger saw silhouettes.

  The mugger saw nothing

  The madman sawed her apart.

 

  Her heart pumped like a racehorse gone mad. And seedlings of nervous sweat dotted her face. The musk of masculine armpit overrode his spent cologne and mingled with the metallic tang of bloodlust.

  It has to be the music: the somber masterpiece playing in her head. It resounded without end like the theme song of a horror flick.

  The madman slinked in the shadow, bloodshot orbs ablaze with a vile passion. Lost in an endless mutter he pulled the dead woman in his wake, grunting lazily in exertion. Behind him a rock-filled sack haunted the silence of the night with an eerie scrape and despite been gutted severally no streak of blood marked the ground.

  He on the other was thinking "the sight of a gun should scare them into emptying their pockets". He pulled it out, his sad glance raked over the icy Glock then he returned the empty weapon into his pocket.

  The jogger ofcourse wasn't dead but she was about to be. The madman continued to lug his kill: the bloodless bundle with laborious breaths. The husband was about to tell her he would be filing for divorce. The wife was about to split her personality. And the mugger was about to mug nothing.

  The jogger unplugged her ears as she neared the scene. Someone was weeping beside a figure on the ground. She rushed in to help, falling into a squat, eyes wide with horror.

  There right before her a man lay dead, his chest carved open as if the butcher intended to gouge out his heart. Blood squirted in arching cimson jets like an overexcited faucet and his heart stuttered with each convulsive effort. In those interminable moments she averted her misted gaze and her eyes fell on his blank stare instead. It was then she knew the man.

  The couple. It hit her. She focused on him. The dying man was gasping for breath, almost as white as sheet. His eyeballs threatened to fall out of their sockets and he was desperately trying to lift his right arm as if to point at something. He was staring hard into empty space at his flank.

  It was then it all dawned on her.

  Details flooded her mind, crashing into her like the salty froth of a sea gone berserk. It overwhelmed her: the cresting waves of knowingness. In those seconds everything fell into place, the glaring clues she fatally ignored locked into a grisly jigsaw and panic like some leviathian from the depth of her chaos emerged.

  Those seconds stretched into slothful millenia and before she could wheel around to confront the stalking killer the Moonpark Murderer struck again.

  She slumped atop him and therein she laid, sprawled across in his own puddle of blood.

  Of the three items drowning in the scarlet lake: a mobile and two human bodies only the phone flaunted a full bar of life.

  Like bagpipes ushering dead Scots the harsh lyrics from the earphones hummed, echoing all the way into the afterlife.