“Bodies in the Blackwater” by Kendall Fraser
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Artwork by Jordan Richert.
"Another victim of the Blackwater Killer was found dead by a passing jogger early yesterday morning. The victim, Annalise Lorenz, was only—"
The rickety television cut to black, leaving the young news reporter unable to complete her sentence, though the solitary man in the room seemed apt to do this for her. "Twenty-three years old," he mumbled, apparently to no one. A smile began to creep across his thin lips, revealing the crooked set of teeth hidden beneath, and he placed the television remote onto the coffee table situated before him. He then reached for the windbreaker that had been carelessly tossed over the back of a nearby kitchen chair. After all, the single bedroom apartment he occupied was cramped; the kitchen and living space were only a few metres apart, and therefore accessing the TV from his dining table was a simple task. As well, walking a few paces was all that was necessary for him to reach his front entrance, where an umbrella flopped toward the gritty tiled floor, along with an assortment of footwear. These included a pair of muddied sneakers, and next to them, newly shined Oxfords.
He put the latter on next, tying them tight as he grabbed the umbrella. This man appeared just like any other heading off to work that day—hair neatly combed and slicked back, properly dressed in the formal attire of navy slacks paired with their corresponding suit jacket. Even his tie ran in a precise vertical line down his torso.
It was odd, then, how his home contrasted his carefully constructed appearance with its disarray of pop cans, pizza boxes and other various rubbish littering the surfaces of each available table or countertop. A putrid concoction of festering fruit combined with the stench of stale cigarette smoke only added to the unhygienic state, and was enough to shrivel even the healthiest of lungs. Despite the repulsive living conditions, the man somehow managed to regard his humble home with satisfaction, as he would also do with his orderly appearance before he set off—he could not forbid himself a final glimpse of his reflection in the small, cracked mirror that hung adjacent to the door. He imposed a wide grin onto his expression, one that radiated charisma, but it seemed foreign on his face. It was the smile of a man who spent countless hours with a mirror, working the flaws from its form and rehearsing it time and time again to achieve absolute perfection.
Yet, it was this smile that he used to greet the world once he opened the door, this smile he plastered across his face while offering a slight wave to the neighbouring attendants, and this smile he wore to suppress his rage when the last tabloid was snatched from the newsstand rack, leaving him with the bulkier broadsheet. He preferred tabloids versus the traditional newspaper, as the more compact format provided for easier reading, yet the fact that he did not receive one should have only been a minor provocation. This hardly seemed to be the case, however; beneath his seamless surface boiled a violent anger, and the expression he had managed to swathe across his face was hardly able to contain the fury within. Grudgingly, the man yanked one of the remaining newspapers from the rack and made his way toward the exit of the apartment complex.
His umbrella quickly made itself useful; rain plummeted from the dreary clouds above and created a constant patter as it collided with the city below. The concrete, the brick walls, the surrounding vehicles—all of it was slicked with rain, and the average citizen sought the refuge of their homes or offices during the downpour, but not this man. He was one of the few who braved the storm, striding through the city with quick, fluid movements, umbrella in one hand and newspaper tucked under the other. He functioned more like a well-oiled machine rather than a human being, so it was almost surprising that a crumpled paper fluttering in the slight breeze managed to catch his attention, and once bending down to retrieve it, he was glad that he had. The word Eulogy had been scrawled across the top, ink already running from the rain. Beneath the title were the words:
'Annalise is was a loving wife. I have only known her for a few short years, yet we knew understood each other more than words can describe. People say this all the time, and Annalise would hate me for being clichéd. She always hated cliché. But still, it was something special we shared and I know I'll never have that again.'
It then continued with more scribbles, angry ones, and as he read this widower's heart and soul spilled onto the flimsy piece of paper and feebly scrawled into words, that smile once again slithered onto the man's face—his true smile; the smile that split apart his lips and revealed his only imperfection.
Just as quick as it appeared, it soon dissolved into his forced close-lipped grin, and his attention turned toward the fellow man ambling along a few metres ahead of him, shoulders slumped and feet dragging, physically depleted—no doubt the ideal candidate for the author of this incomplete eulogy.
So he decided to approach the poor bastard, if not to spark up a conversation, then to at least return his attempted effort.
"Excuse me, sir!" he shouted, much of his voice lost in the rain. While slowing to a saunter near the fellow, he then directed his attention to the paper by shoving it in his face. "Did you drop this?"
The eyes of the mourning man shifted wearily, almost as if he were unable to bring reality into focus.
"Uh… yes," he mumbled, immediately tearing the paper from the stranger's grasp. "…Thanks."
"I've heard about her. Annalise, was it? A shame…"
The mourner remained silent, continuing a forward momentum in an effort to ditch his newly acquired and slightly intrusive pest.
However, little did he know, his pest was a tenacious creature. "I heard that was that Blackwater's sixth victim. Can you believe it? Six! And they still haven't caught him yet…"
"If you'll excuse me, I would like to be alone, thanks."
He then scurried away, his wooden limbs managing swift strides as he widened the gap between himself and the strange man.
The strange man, on the other hand, merely scoffed and said, "Suit yourself."
That evening, he bore that toothy smile again. The front headline of the newspaper he had retrieved earlier in the day read: Sixth Blackwater Victim Found.
"You see that, doll? I made the front page."
A woman stared back at him without response, her eyes two little blue pools of nothing, glazed over and gone. Jaw loose and agape, even after death she struggled to scream, but only silence escaped.
The man towering above her hardly seemed to notice.
He stroked her icy cheek. "The next headline shall read 'Seventh Victim Found,' thanks to you, Lorraine."
Again, there was no response. Her veins had long since shrivelled and died, and soon, the remaining pieces of her lifeless corpse would follow, Lorraine's cold body destined to rot in the cold ground and become nothing more than bones and worms and atoms and dust.
"I'll see you on that headline," he cooed, bidding farewell as he grazed his fingers through her hair one last time, then released her from his grip.
She tumbled down the small slope they were situated upon, limbs flinging this way and that as she brazed through abandoned leaves and foliage before plopping into the river below, where she then converged with the water's soft current.
The man watched her body wade downstream with an engrossed interest—so engrossed, in fact, that he hardly noticed the rain beginning to drizzle around him, but when he did, he smiled that vile smile and said: "How clichéd."
Kendall Fraser is a writer currently based in so-called Vancouver, BC whose work explores themes of alienation, trauma, and horror. Using their own journey of navigating the world while queer and neurodivergent along with their scholarly background in the social sciences, they bring lived and learned experience to their work to craft emotionally resonant narratives that encompass the complexities of human emotion. Their writing aims to witness pain and grief with compelling storytelling that illuminates difficult experiences and transmutes them into moments of clarity and connection. Follow their journey @kkfras on IG.
