DEAD WINTER: A CRYPTIC Anthology

His Golden Ticket • Kris-

It was a heck of a way to spend her Christmas Eve. The woman had been dead awhile. Her skull was exposed; her scalp had been pulled back, a tangle of dark hair separated from the hairline by several inches. The elements had eaten away at her face, exposing her eyes and brain to the forces of putrefaction. Her nose was gone too, revealing the triangular bony notch beneath it; her eye sockets were concave bowls of greasy, soap-like fat. The flesh of her naked torso was blistered and peeled back in strips. Her body laid mounted on the rack of a taxidermied elk head.

Deputy Elle Fletcher stared down at the dead woman, her mind already working to piece back the decomposed scene. She squatted next to the Wiscasset County Coroner Ted Hansen, who sat on his heels inches from the body. The brittle grass of the field swayed and birds screamed as the coroner's assistant waved them away from their victim.

"You think it's him?" Ted asked.

Elle pulled a small notebook and a pen out of her shirt's breast pocket and roughly started to sketch. A camera's flash went off as a crime photographer took a picture beside them. "Since when has he ever left a body behind?"

"He left you didn't he?"

She stared down at the sketched outline of the woman's body, the pen's tip dug into the soft skin of the paper. Black ink started to pool. Her jaw clenched firmly in place, a frown etched in her dried lips. Elle had survived the serial killers wall of racks where he mounted his victims. A dull bloom of warmth spread along her torso traveling to each punctured hole the antlers had made and the man's snorting laugh was still audible in her ear. You feel that, girlie? Gravity pullin' you down, those tips will rip through ya organs little by little. "Not by choice."

The flash went off again.

Ted glanced over at her and gave a small nod of his head, then used a pair of forceps to lift the woman's risen scalp. When he did, dozens of white maggots withered. "She must taste good, the dogs have been here."

"Coyotes." Elle said, twisting around to look across the barren field surrounding them. Up north was remote; although hitchhikers and campers even made some parts crowded. The area where the body had been found was off the main road, frequently used by the public and tourists — and him.

"Domestic too maybe," Ted said. He dropped the scalp and stood with a grunt.

"Domestic?" Elle squinted up at him, taken from her thoughts, lifting a hand to block out the sun. "You're saying she was eaten by what, pugs?"

Ted shrugged pulling off his wire rimmed glasses to wipe at beads of salty sweat. "All I'm saying is all these tourist are bound to have some sort of mutt with them. Probably leave 'em off a leash. The mutt runs around picks up the corpses scent, tears off a few chunks." He pushed his glasses up the curved bridge of his nose. "Owner thinks they found a rat or something."

Elle closed her notebook. "Nice."

There was nothing left to draw and nothing else to gather. From the woman's body, barely clad in flesh and nothing else, it was hard to tell what she died from at first glance. If it was him, then this woman died the same way Elle should have; alone in a cabin attic, begging and pleading, the bodies weight killing itself as the antlers finally pierce major organs.

"You thinking she was a prostitute?"

She shook her head, shoving the notebook back into her shirt's pocket. "I'm more than willing to bet she's a tourist." The lipless open mouth seemed to laugh up at her, the teeth straight and white.

"What killed her?" she asked.

Ted walked around their victim, opening a plastic bag. He placed the bag over one of her bloated hands and secured it with a twist-tie. He did it carefully as if the sun-baked blistered hand was a fragile newborn child. The fingers were curled—what fingers were left—puffy and swollen, and the nail beds were black.

"What killed her?" Elle asked again.

Ted leaned down examining the hand through the thin barrier. "Hard to say. I'll need to get her back to the shop and do a little digging."

Elle gestured to the body. "There isn't much to 'dig in.'"

In the silence plastic rattled as Ted went around bagging all of her limbs ends. It left Elle to her thoughts. This nameless serial killer was a hunter—he owned these woods. Roamed them. Hunted them. They were his. Her eyes veered toward the tree line. What if he's watching us right now? She faced the tree line directly squinting in the distance as if it would actually help her vision, but she saw nothing. He hadn't killed in nearly two years and now a victim turns up with an elk he'd probably done up himself from this past hunting season and left it out in the open like a ... like a gift. Elle could almost hear his mocking nasal voice say, Merry Christmas.

"You think she died here?"

"Ask me after the autopsy Miss. Fletcher," Ted muttered. He then pulled out another plastic bag and handed it to his assistant, who mentioned about finding another piece further down the road.

More birds scattered, and Elle took a step back. Her thoughts were clouded.

"Hey, Ted?" Elle called over to the back of the coroner. "How old would you roughly guess she is?"

"Ask me a—"

"After the autopsy, I know. But give me a guess."

A heavy audible sigh left the overweight coroner who was starting to sweat through his uniform. He shook his head looking down at the corpse, lips pursed as he thought. "Based by what I can see of her jawbone and teeth ... maybe early twenties. Now can I get back to my job?" He looked between both detective and victim, flustered by his assistants find having made more work for him.

Elle nodded and turned waving him off, walking back to her vehicle. It was him, she knew it was. Her heart ached at the mere thought. He wasn't just killing anymore. He was preparing—preparing to kill his golden ticket. She climbed behind the wheel of her SUV, hands clenching the keys. She was his golden ticket.

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