Chris Jackson Begins

It was a balmy 65 degrees on the night Chris Jackson stuffed his first victim, an evening which had started innocently enough at one of Akron’s finer roadside juke joints.

A lovely Swedish girl - Chris had an affinity for all things Swedish, no doubt stemming from a rare disease he had contracted in his childhood - clung to his arm. He smiled proudly as he noticed the smirks of appreciation she received from the other men in the place. To Chris she was a well-deserved reward reaped from his envelope-stuffing enterprise.

Everything was pleasant. The Boone’s Farm artificially flavored Sangria sat chilling in a bucket and the chili cheese fries were on their way. Then the voices started.

“Fernando!” they beckoned.

“Fernando!” they called incessantly. Chris began to swat at the air and slap his face.

“Are you okay?” his date asked hesitantly. Her eyes cut toward the door, beyond which the Akron night was waiting, pregnant with possibility.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s just get out of here. This place is freaking me out.”

Chris and his date went to a local dance club. She hoped to escape with someone else now that Chris was beginning to pull out wads of his already thin and smarmy hair. He just hoped that the music would drown out the voices. But the voices didn’t stop, and he began to stare at his date with a new, malicious gleam in his eye. They seemed to be telling him something, as if “Fernando!” were not the exact message they were trying to portend.

“C’mon!” Chris said.

His date gave up her search for salvation. No one else in the club appeared any better than her own suddenly psychotic boyfriend, so she left with him. They went to the nearest grocery store, where Chris bought cans and cans of Spam, completely ignoring the cleverly shaped tins of COON just to the left. She eyed him strangely. He turned and slapped her face, sending her reeling down the aisle to crash into a teetering display of pantiliners.

*****

It was almost dawn when Chris found himself slinking back through ominous Akron alleyways toward his car, trailing behind him the bits of fleshy potted meat that dripped from beneath his fingernails. He couldn’t remember the events of the previous night, but he felt oddly at peace. His heart had been sated. The voices had ceased. For now.

(With many thanks to Mopeychick for her part)