No Gein III: The Final Cut, Part Seven

Chapter Seven: The Shower

Customer: Bartender, what’s a Gein beer?

Bartender: It’s got lots of body, but no head.

Why did Ed Gein always have the heat on in his house?

So, his furniture wouldn’t get goosebumps.

November 2nd 2004

George hated to admit it, but that last one was pretty funny. While surfing the web looking at various horror sites, George stumbled upon an Angelfire page called the Ed Gein Appreciation Zine. While George wasn’t appreciative of the adoration expressed towards this deranged individual that terrorized his Aunt, he was impressed with the thoroughness of site’s information. He knew, had circumstances been different, he himself would have designed a site like this. What little information about Gein’s life, as well as his grave robbing and apparent murder of Mary Hogan were all covered in gruesome detail. Of course, much of the site’s information was “borrowed” from Kohler’s own book Deranged, which detailed the personal and disturbing story of how George came to learn the secret to his Aunt’s madness.  

However, there were a few original essays, such as one comparing Gein to Norman Bates, the character from Psycho, as well as Gein’s influence on George’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Reading the article about Chainsaw, George chuckled to himself as he remembered how people falsely assumed that his remake took inspiration from Jeffrey Dahmer.

Then there were these Geiners, morbid jokes about Ed that were all the rage now. While he couldn’t help but have some respect for the gallow’s humor, what was not amusing was a section of the website that directed it’s ire towards George himself. “George Kohler is a fucking pussbag.” read the page titled No Gein Movie? “He’s had the greatest story in the history of modern horror fall right into his lap and that fucking tool won’t act on it. The fat lazy fuck is sitting at home counting his millions while the greatest horror movie ever goes unmade.” George shook his head as he wiped the sweat still hanging off his brow. Just before he sat down at the computer, he was working out on his bowflex machine. Taking a sip of water, he continued reading. “Kohler owes it to us fans. Let him know we demand our Ed Gein movie.” Then one of George’s personal email addresses was listed below for the world to see.

“Ah shit, I guess I’ll have to close that account now.” George thought to himself. It was a shame too, because he used this particular email to talk to fans. Opening this email account, he scrolled through hundreds of messages, most of which had clever subject titles like Make that Gein Movie or Die or Gein Film or Bust. Messages like “advice for breaking into the film business,” or honest fan questions about his films were now few and far between. While this was certainly annoying, George was able to brush it off. He remembered himself firing off angry messages in Friday the 13^th forums, especially toward the director of Friday the 13^th Part Five, The New Horns. It was embarrassing now to think he had acted like these trolls once. Perhaps it was some form of Kharmic justice.

The wanderings of George’s mind were interrupted by the ringing of his flip phone.  “Is this my famous director brother?” the familiar voice said on the other end.

“Well, I think I’m still famous.” George answered his sister as he looked back at the monitor and its angry emails. “Though looking at some of the online chatter its maybe more infamous.”

His sister Helen laughed as she said, “Well I hope you’re not too famous to join us for Thanksgiving.”

“Oh, I’ll definitely be in for that.” George assured her. “Sorry I couldn’t see you after Hallow-con, I had to fly back to LA and sort shit out for Psycho III. Also, big news,” his voice raised in excitement as he rapidly spoke, “something opened up at Paramount. Tomorrow, I got a meeting about maybe directing the next Friday the 13^th film, Freddy vs the Devil vs Ash!”

“Wow, that’s awesome!” Helen was well aware of her brothers life-long love of the Friday the 13^th franchise. The two of them spent many a night watching them on TV when they were kids. Their father even once took them on a camping trip in New Jersey to look for the legendary Jersey Devil. “You’ve been waiting for this for so long. I’m sure you’re gonna do great.”

“I hope so.” George said humbly.

“Well, you’ll have to let me know how it went over Turkey.”

“Sure thing. How’s the Chuckster?”

“He’s good. He’s just hanging out watching TV now.” Helen then looked to her husband, who she saw looking out the window. From outside she could hear their dog barking as the sun set behind the homes across the street. “What’s wrong hon?”

“I don’t’ know, the dog’s acting up.” George heard her brother in law Charles say. “Probably barking at the skateboarders again.”

The dog’s barking then stopped as Helen said, “Anyway, I’ll see you soon. I’m real proud of you.”

“Thanks Helen. You know I’m proud of you too.” Hanging up the phone, George closed the window of his email and started began to work.  

Opening a word document, he began jotting down ideas for Freddy vs the Devil vs Ash. The Necronomicon, was a good place to start. That mysterious and evil book which originally appeared in the prose of H.P. Lovecraft before being used in the Evil Dead series was a natural fit to tie the three franchises together. Maybe Ash Williams, the Deadite slaying hero of the Evil Dead series from the evil dead series would work at the Crystal Lake S-Mart, the fictional equivalent of Wall-Mart. George then typed out random ideas for how the Freddy, the Devil, and Ash would interact. Maybe Freddy could use the Necronomicon to bring back the Devil’s past victims as Dead-ites, the creatures of the Evil Dead series.

Even cooler, he thought to himself, would be if the surviving characters from Friday the 13^th and Nightmare on Elm Street would appear, such as Friday’s Tina Shepard and Nightmare’s Alice Johnson. This could be the horror equivalent of Crisis on Infinite Earths, the epic DC Comics story from 20 years prior which featured pretty much every DC comics character. George leaned back and stopped himself for a moment. He remembered his departed mentor Robert Bloch, advising him against over-stuffing his stories. “A good story is like a good recipe.” He recalled Bloch telling him. “Too much stuff can ruin it, just stick with what you need.” Still, he felt really intrigued about this idea of surviving characters from past films. Who knows, maybe this idea could be in the next sequel? Yet again, George knew to restrain himself. Knowing how Hollywood works, he was aware of the dangers of getting too far ahead of himself. He knew to take things one movie at a time.

“You know I’m proud of you too.”

Helen felt glad to hear that from her brother as she hung up the phone. “I’m going to take a shower.” she said to her husband as she felt the cool November breeze blowing into their house. “Chuck?” she said as she looked out the open door. She didn’t hear the dog barking anymore, but she didn’t see her husband either. She figured he probably went to talk to the neighbors and closed the door behind her making sure it was unlocked.

In the safe comfort of her shower, she thought about how the relationship between her and her brother had grown stronger over the last few years. They were close as young kids, spending afternoons playing outside and watching monster movies at night. Once they moved east, their teenage years found them drifting apart, especially when he developed that massive ego. Strangely enough, fame seemed to have made George humble. Well, there were other reasons too. Especially since their father died, that was so hard on both of them, not to mention how bizarre and macabre that whole situation was. “Be careful in the shower.” Helen hated remembered the dying words of her father, rambling and nonsensical in his final moments. While lost in thought, the steam from the shower formed a fog around Helen as her mind wandered to that place where she was still bitter; resentful that her father had been taken from then so soon, just a few years after they’d all grown closer as a family. At the very least, she was appreciative of George, who often took the time out of his busy schedule to check on how she and Chuck were doing.

What she didn’t know was that Chuck wasn’t doing well, not anymore. His body now rested in the bushes and wouldn’t be found until the next day. As she’d drifted in that mental fog, she didn’t hear the light footprints enter her bathroom. She did hear the shower curtain pull back, and she heard herself scream as the knife plunged into her body. She had no idea who Franklin was, but as her brother’s stalker repeatedly plunged his steel into her, she knew his face would be the last thing she ever saw.

George’s head was swimming with the possibilities of another sequel to these franchises. Taking a break from his brainstorming, he closed the window on his word document to find his Firefox web browser still open. It was then he noticed something on that Gein fansite hadn’t noticed before. Clicking on ‘Gein Today,’ he uncovered some more recent and gruesome news. According to this page, Gein apparently now had a copy-cat. In Plainfield Wisconsin, where Ed resided and is buried, someone dug up several graves, apparently the same graves Gein himself violated half a century prior. A jepeg file of the local newspaper clippings seemingly confirmed this crime to be true. Adding a gruesome showman ship to the foul acts, a color photo, separate from the newspaper clipping showed some of the remains were laid out on the cemetery grass in such a way that they spelled out a word, one word. Ed. Even worse than that, the bodies of two youths, a young couple that just graduated high school, were found murdered in the cemetery. The webmaster of this morbid site seemed to take particular delight in describing the tragic death of what seemed like a bright and beautiful young girl.

“Enough of that.” George thought to himself, clicking on the X closing that awful window. He didn’t feel much better as he again checked his email to find even more messages from demented fans demanding a Gein movie. His mouse clicked on the small boxes as he prepared to delete them, but one message caught his eye. ‘Your pretty sister.’ the subject read. “What the fuck? Not cool messing with family.” he thought to himself as he clicked on the message. Text at the top indicated this was a follow up to an earlier message. “I’m warning you.” The older message read. “If a Gein movie is not in development by Horror-con, your family will pay.” George hadn’t recalled seeing this message before. He probably deleted it on sight just as he had most of these crazy messages. But the new email below sent a chill through his spine as it read. “You’d been warned.” Below the text were a series of icons indicating this email contained several images that would soon be visible.

George grew cold as the Jpeg files loaded on his monitor. He recognized that house, that home that he’d plan to visit in just a few weeks, the dining room where he planned to cut the Thanksgiving Turkey, the TV they would watch football on. George quickly grabbed his phone and speed dialed Helen. The phone kept ringing as image after image of Helen’s home loaded on the screen. Scrolling down the email, the trail of jpeg files led up Helen’s steps, down the hallway, and finally, through the bathroom door. George almost vomited at the site of the red streaks staining the shower curtains. Finally, the last agonizing image loaded. There, laying in the tub, naked and violated, was George’s sister Helen.