Steel clanged against iron. Number Forty-Three struggled in the mattressless iron bedframe, handcuffed shackled, gagged, her exertion voiced in muffled snorts.

Francis researched himself, previous kills scanned and saved onto computer. She was beginning to get antsy; he should have blindfolded her. She could see the monitor from the bed.

Shooting would not do—absolutely not—no style in it. Francis had used knives, nothing as garden-variety as stabbing. Numbers Four, Six, and Seven: amputation, evisceration, and decapitation, respectively.

Francis did not think of himself as a murderer. No, not a murderer—a connoisseur. Each kill superior to the last was his goal, but therein lay his dilemma: Francis Dwight Lundgren felt washed up.

What if he killed this woman, and did not surpass the forty-two before her? Where would he be then? Nervous knots of self-doubt tied up his faculties.

Francis looked over his shoulder from his desk chair at Forty-Three, could not decide. She was cute without being overly pretty—which was good. Pummeling a pretty face had its allure—pretty ones were so tempting to ruin: overdone, unstylish as arson.

In the end, it mattered little whether they were raw beauty or raw skank. They were all the same on the inside. Guts were still guts, intestines were intestines and livers, livers. When a stomach was ripped from the abdomen, the tough meat sac popped in a spray of gastric juices, it was impossible to tell if it came from a supermodel or a fifteen-year-old hooker junkie. Francis knew.

The latter, Number Twenty-Nine, was on screen. He photographed her stomach acid and bile pooling in the abscesses of her arms.

But how to make Forty-Three special? Her hair was brown and curly, her body about average. He guessed she was within a year or two of his own thirty-six.

A plain gold wedding band encircled her finger. Someone loved her, or at least pledged to.

He had loved a girl once, back in junior high school. She was Numero Uno—strangled with used latex condoms she had shared with Number Two: the guy she had been fucking, (she never gave Francis the time of day, much less sex). Number Two's father worked for a chemical company in Brackard's Point.

Francis immolated Number Two with one of his father's products, a highly flammable solvent. When he was thirteen, he thought those two were inspired. Now...

They were shit.

Hindsight: maddening vision.

What to do with Forty-Three?

Francis stood from the desk, walked to where she lay shackled, inspected her, found her all around average. His first instinct was to compensate, make her death spectacular. Intriguing... but no. Unacceptable: almost expected.

He sat down again, continued searching his computer files. Every kind of death: slow, quick, painless, agonizing. He had starved a captive to death (Number Five), deprived another of water (Eight). He had cauterized a man's penis so that urination was impossible (Eleven), sewn a woman's anus shut (Twelve). The woman died faster.

He had poisoned three people: numbers Three, Nineteen, and Twenty-Two. In forty-two Deaths, Francis had used every method short of a firearm. No shooting. Shooting was not art. Shooting was gutless, akin to plagiarism.

Francis opened up more recent files, his masterpieces, his Venus DeMilo, his White Album, his Ghost Story.

Number Forty was dispatched with lye; alive as the caustic liquid dripped, steadily dripped. Five and one-half days it took to melt a hole in the man's chest. Francis remembered the man's screams. He had them on audio tape; pictures, time-lapse photography, every half-hour, clockwork. Art.

Number Forty was an engine of genius, a freight-train of originality followed. Forty-One was a woman; four pictures were taken as her Death stepped closer.

Picture one:the woman, with perfect fingernails, large, scared eyes, dressed in high-fashion business attire. She was half a decade younger than the one on the bed now.

Picture two, a pose with props: the woman's hand, a camping hatchet with a hammerhead, two tenpenny galvanized steel nails, and two severed fingers. Perfect nails.

Picture three: the woman's eyes, looking directly at the camera.

Picture four, zoomed: the woman's right index finger (and perfect nail, not visible) impaled through her large scared eye, which had become a runny mass of blood and yolk.

Francis bit his lip in memory. Getting the finger through the skull and into the brain was very tough to do. Tenpenny nails first, tapping, tapping a pilot hole in the skull, how hard they were stuck before the braincase cracked. Extraction was difficult, too, gently tapping the underside of the nail head, rocking them back and forth, loosening them. Then he used her fingers to pierce the brain. The thin delicate bones mushroomed after a few whacks of the hammerhead, the joints kept bending, but he persisted, reaching into the eyesocket as he held the finger, keeping the joints straight as he whacked the finger into the brain. Oh, how glorious! To be in his work like that...

Fond memories. Art.

He was sure Forty-One was the best he had ever done, and would ever hope to do. That was until Forty-Two.

Forty-Two was a pregnant woman, eight and one-half months along. A shackle here, a handcuff there, she was helpless, her belly ready to burst. When he brought down his bathroom mirror, she did not know what to expect. She could not have imagined.

With care and precision, Francis nipped the corners of the mirror with a glass cutter, formed a point. Then she screamed.

He cut across her blossoming belly, angled the mirror so she could witness the Cesarean. She watched every phase of the operation: through the dermal layer, peeling back the skin, deflating, her belly evacuating in a wet gush. Several times Francis stopped, cleaned the mirror so she could see. He wanted her to see. That was so important.

She wept, cried, screamed. Francis imagined how she would handle labor, natural birth. He removed her baby, sucked the plugs out of the nose, knocked the plug in the trachea free, informed her it was a boy. It cried when he slapped its bottom. Its mother wailed. Francis cut the umbilical cord with the sharp glass of the mirror, pausing for a moment to show her the bloody wet screaming child. He did not think the placenta was strong enough to strangle her with; he was tempted to try.

Inspiration: he shoved the pointed mirror in between her ribs. She howled, thrashed around, twisting away from him. When she twisted in vain against the shackles and handcuffs, the mirror cracked inside her. When she moved, the shard wedged into her torso. Francis did not shrink back. He pushed harder with the part he held, deep into her, he dug around for a moment before he felt the spongy tissue of the lung yield.

Her last breath came not through her mouth, but through her chest. It made a wet phlegmy sucking sound, covered the mirror in a flecks of blood and a ghostly fog of steam.

Art.

As the child grew, Francis neglected his art in favor of surrogate fatherhood. The drive never left him. He was an artist; above all, that. A parent he was, but second. The torture of not practicing, temptation, but no, never yielding to it, until now, eleven and one-half years later.

Number Forty-Three was walking out of Schwartz's Drug Store on the corner of Harding Avenue and Bracken Street. She did not suspect the footsteps behind her, nor the blackjack that rendered her unconscious.

When she came to, she was in the back of his Chevrolet minivan, her hands, feet, and mouth bound in silver tape. He drove the minivan directly into the garage upon arriving home, dragged her to the cellar. Just like when he was good. Eleven and one-half years gone.

Now, he could think of no way to kill her. He checked his watch. Cory would be home from school in about ten minutes. It would not do for the boy to be home while he worked. Not at all.

Francis switched off the computer and scratched his chin, trying to think. Methods of destruction ran through his mind: Strangulation—done countless times, electrocution—Number Twenty-Eight—evisceration—been there, done that. Immolation—back to basics? Where the Hell had his talent gone?

Three twenty-one. Cory was going to walk through the door any moment.

Drug overdose—too close to assisted suicide, best left to Dr. Kevorkian. Drowning—Number Thirteen, a fishtank filled with semen. Goddamn, that was good, Francis thought wildly, remembering how hard he worked to fill the tank.

A diesel engine lumbered down his street, whined down to a grumbling idle, then rose in pitch, fading away. He froze, holding his breath. The damned schoolbus. Cory.

"Shit!" He ran up the stairs, leaving Forty-Three. Francis opened the cellar door, stepped through, shoved it closed against the thick foam weather-stripping, locked it behind him. Cory mounted the front porch steps; hollow thumps carried to the kitchen.

Cory opened the front door. Francis wiped the sweat off his palms and tried to appear casual.

"Hi, dad," Cory said, and dropped his bookbag on the kitchen table. He ran over and gave him a hug.

"Heya, slugger!" Francis hugged his son, removed the boy's Yankee cap and messed up the blond hair he inherited from his mother.

"Get any writing done today, dad?"

"A little," Frank lied.

"Good. I'll get changed. You ready?"

"Ready? For what?"

"Today's Cub Scouts!"

"That's today?" Francis thought of the woman in the cellar. She would be all right if he left for a while.

"Yes, dad," Cory said, in a tone Francis did not particularly care for. Cory had picked up the habit from school; Francis called it the 'Aren't you so fucking stupid, Dad?' tone.

Francis hid his annoyance. "Get your stuff together, then."

Cory did as he was told. Such a good boy, despite the annoying habits learned from school. He emerged from his room a few minutes later, suited up and ready to go. Blue uniform, badges displayed proudly.

"Ready, dad?"

Francis drove him to Rick Pelan—the Cubmaster—'s house, amicably chatted about the Yankee game with the other fathers: Lee Garton and Tom Johnson, for a few minutes. When Francis was relating a bad call by the third base umpire, a dark blue Toyota truck pulled up the driveway. The men fell silent as the twins, Ryan and Mikey Taylor, poured out of the passenger's side, calling each other horrible names. The rest of the boys let them into the circle they had formed in the front yard, but said nothing. They were all scared of the twins. The men did not notice their sons all falling silent, because they all had their mouths open, and their jaws were scraping the concrete driveway, because Ryan and Mikey's mom, Lili, stepped out of the truck and was walking over to them.

"Gentlemen," she said in greeting, and took each one of them in her eyes. "Could one of you bring the boys home for me tonight?"

Immediately she had four volunteers. When the men had begun to argue about who should be the one to go to Lili's house at night, she slipped back into her truck and departed. Francis saw her slyly smiling through the windshield.

"You guys argue about it," Francis said. "I'll just bring Cory home." Then Francis bid them all farewell, and left.

It took nine minutes to arrive home. Assuming equal time to return, an hour and twelve minutes remained to kill the woman. He would wait until after Cory went to bed to dispose of the body. That, at least, required no Art. That was merely throwing out garbage. Every body he had ever disposed of was always done in the same manner: teeth removed with pliers and pulverized with a hammer, hands and feet removed and burned to ash. Limbs and torso chopped up, bagged, loaded into a large cooler, fed to the Hudson River. Ash and teeth particles were flushed down the toilet with his morning bowel movement.

There had to be something. He got out of the truck, entered the house through the door into the laundry room. His eyes flickered across the shelves: Bleach? Soap, lint, jeans, Cory's underwear. Bleach. Hmm... He picked up the bottle. It was very light. He opened the cap. A small amount, about half a shot glass worth, lay at the bottom. Not enough.

"Shit!"

Francis left the laundry room. The kitchen.

Knives? "No," he shook his head. Not again. Food processor? "It would take too long." Cast iron pots? Bludgeoning again. Under the sink—drain cleaner? Nope, contains lye. Remember Number Forty? Damn. Damn. Damn! He could not become a parody of himself.

One hour, three minutes.

Cleanser? Not likely. Dishwashing detergent?

Useless.

The bathroom. Rubbing alcohol? Hmm. Poisonous, but again, a fatal reaction would take too long, and not enough. Hydrogen Peroxide? Nah. Iodine? Not this time. First aid packages, gauze, cotton swabs, toothbrushes, toothpaste, bath bars, shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream, disposable razors? Nope, little blades would take too long anyway. Tweezers, hairbrushes, combs, dental floss, useless useless useless.

Fifty-eight minutes.

The living room. Magazines and throw pillows, stereo equipment, television? Hmm... The TV would probably be heavy enough to kill her if he were to smash it over her head, but then he would have to find a replacement before Cory got home, which would be in fifty-seven minutes. That was not good enough, but perhaps another time. Video tapes, cordless telephone, remote controls for both the stereo and television, and coffee table coasters. No, no, no, no and no.

Fifty-five minutes before he had to get Cory, he went to the cellar. He unlocked the door, descended the stairs.

Her head snapped attentively as he stepped onto the cellar floor; her hair had matted and sweated into a nappy, tangly mess. Her sweat smelled. She had soiled herself. The fecal reek hovered at nose level. The handcuff's pressure on her wrists reddened her hands; her veins stretched the skin in bulging blue tufts. Brown eyes pleaded sympathy.

Francis's fingers pulled at the bags under his eyes, and inhaled. What to do with her?

Fifty-one minutes. Tick. Tock.

What to do?

Francis walked over, reached for his medium's cheek. She recoiled as best she could, a shifting of angle of her head. Gently, he laid his hand on her face. Soft. Her jawline was femininely round, her skin felt both feverish and grimy.

"Moof!" she said through the gag.

"Moof, eh?" Francis chuckled. "That makes a lot of sense. It's a bitch talking through that gag, isn't it?"

She did not know whether or not to nod.

Francis admired her for a moment, his hand running down her side as he might appreciate the fine body lines of a vintage Mustang.

Such a lovely chance he had here, to prove himself better than himself, to show that yes, he still did have the knack, and he still was an artist after all these years. No new annihilistic Vision came over him as he stared at the subject, inspected it, concentrated on it like a single blank page, imagining the words.

Tick.

Tock.

Francis's frustration boiled.

Tick.

Still.

Tock.

Nothing.

He backhanded her.

"Mmeemph!" An inarticulate muffled voicing of pain and more than a little fear. It began.

She rattled the iron bedframe; the crisscrossed bars hummed in thin metallic voices.

Francis's hand stung from whacking her; he felt no better. It was not her fault he was frustrated, he knew that. So little time to do this properly. Normally, he would be fully involved in his work by now—carving or slicing or performing some type of surgery on the subject, but now...

nothing.

No adrenaline bum-rushed his system. Where was his Muse when he needed it? What would another artist do now? What would Arensberg or Clark or Boote do when they could not see beyond an empty canvas? What did Twain do when his paper was blank? What or whom did Lovecraft call upon when ingenuity had abandoned him?

Tick.

Tock.

"Meeummph!" The subject said under the gag.

"Shut up. You're breaking my concentration."

Francis raised his hand to strike her again, to enforce his word, and she immediately shrank back as far as the handcuffs and shackles would let her. An idea struck him.

He could scare her to death.

No.

No time. Forty-one minutes. Tick. Tock.

"Fuck!" He screamed, and smashed his fist into his palm. He cracked his knuckles. The subject meemphed and cried and quivered in her shackles and gag, thinking he directed the outburst at her.

"I told you to shut up!"

"Mmph! Mmmum!"

"Damn you, cunt! Would you shut your fucking yap so I can think? Jesus Christ! Can't you see I'm trying to work something out?"

"Mmumph?"

"That's it. You're fucking dead," Francis said. "But, you already knew that, didn't you? Yes, of course you did. I thunked you over the head at the drug store. Yes. Me. I dragged your unconscious ass down here, and chained your ass to an empty fucking bedframe. You. Are. Dead. I. Am. Going. To. Kill. You. Do you understand me?"

"Meemph! Muuimph mmph mmmm!"

She was still screaming/mumbling when Francis threw the computer desk chair at her. It cracked something as it smashed into her shoulder. She cried out in muffled pain.

"Still screaming? You want to scream?" Francis took the gag out of her mouth thirty-two minutes before he had to leave.

She wanted to scream, badly; she did not hesitate in doing so. Her voice shattered as her vocal cords crackled. The scream degenerated into a repeating mutter: "No, no, nonononono."

"No? Wrong answer. Yes, I'm going to kill you. Thing is, how? That's my problem. I'm having a damned hard time in figuring out how to do it."

"Kill me? I didn't do anything to you!" She screamed, and the effort apparently flared the wound because she winced and moaned.

"Neither did the rest."

"Oh, sweet Jesus," the subject whispered.

"Figures you would say something like that. When in doubt, pray. I've seen a lot of people pray who never would otherwise." Francis said, righting up his desk chair, placing it down next to the bed. He placed his feet on the empty rail and rotated them back and forth. "I can't figure out what to do with you. I need something original, something... beautiful," he began to gesture with his hands as he spoke. "Something artistically unique to separate your death from the others. Do you know what I mean?"

"You're crazy. Why don't you just shoot me and get if over with? You've already broken my collarbone, you bastard."

"Shoot you? SHOOT YOU? How cliché can you get? Twelve-year-old kids shoot people. I'm an artist," Francis pronounced. "Please, give credit to those deserving."

"You're insane."

He had lost track of the minutes, but was positive he had less than thirty. Maybe even less than twenty. He had to hurry, but still, nothing unique, no superior thought came to mind; he could think of no Death more exquisite than the last one, and nothing but nothing at all came to him. His inner sight, his third eye, his artistic Vision strained to see.

Myopic. Nothing. Closed.

He would never top Cory's birth, Cory's mother's death. He knew it. Should he abandon the Art entirely, go out on a high note, bow down at the peak of his career?

Retire?

No. He could not imagine it. He was cold as the concrete floor of his cellar, filled with moldy memories of better Deaths. He was not going to top the last one, and so, he was saddened. He thought about just shooting the bitch and getting it over with. It would save time, true, but was his dilemma strong enough justification? Did this give him license to whore out his morals?

No.

He felt the war in his core as he considered the option. Out of practice, but still... his dignity. The conflict assured him. Laymen would feel no conflict.

Decision:

He turned on the video camera.

His medium, the woman shackled and handcuffed to the bed, sensed something was about to happen, screamed.

He stood in front of the camera, looked straight into the lens. "Incentive Number Forty-Three, In Black, Blue, and Red by yours truly, Francis Dwight Lundgren. I shall begin now. Observe."

Francis calmly walked over to the woman, who redoubled her begs for mercy as he approached.

He felt a familiar sensation: every blood vessel in his body doubled in size, time ceased to exist, his senses melded into one, a greater sense.

Yes, the flow, the godsense of creation.

Self-doubt disintegrated.

His fingers stretched, folded to a three-quarter fist: palm straight, first knuckles curled. Francis leaned down, and gently kissed the Number Forty-Three's forehead. For the moment, her screams stopped.

"Thank you," he whispered.

He raised back his arm, paused, looked into her eyes, smiled.

She screamed as his fist came down, cut off as his second knuckles crashed into her windpipe. Her trachea splintered, a hollow crunch/crack. Francis held her chin and shoulder, and twisted them in opposite directions, the shoulder down and to the right, chin up and to the left.

Snap.

She was dead.

Failure nagged his guts. It was not a good Death. Trite, incomplete, lacking his personal touch... He went upstairs to get the necessary instrument.