No Gein III: The Final Cut Part Ten

Chapter Ten: Buried Truth

November 2nd 2004, Amherst Wisconsin

“I’m warning you, if you don’t make an Gein movie your family is going to pay.”

The email address wasn’t valid anymore, and when looking at the pictures Geinlover69 sent of George’s dead sister, he remembered the police telling him they were merely police photos. They suggested someone probably hacked their system, as sites like rotten.com eat this stuff up. Also, as the police reminded him, George had received all kinds of emails threatening his life over movies.

George was wracked by pangs of guilt as he didn’t stop and see his sister the last time he was on the east coast. Thanksgiving was just a month after Hallow-con, a New York based horror convention that he’d attended. He figured he was just see Helen and her husband for the holiday. Now, Thanksgiving was only a few weeks away, and he didn’t know what he would do. There were some distant relatives on his dad’s side, but he was never close to them and they’d grown even further apart once his father died. George figured he would probably be content spending the day himself in this house in Amherst.

Then it suddenly struck him. Hallow-con, that weird guy that came all the way out from Plainfield. He was pressing him about deleted scenes from Psycho II before insisting George make a Gein movie.

It was then he remembered that Ed Gein fan website. Sure enough, as the angelfire site loaded. He had a whole section on horror con. As the jpeg files loaded showing pictures of the con he noticed a breaking news section. Clicking on that, an article loaded about the Bethlehem murders. George read the recap about how the killer murdered his brother-in-law Chuck outside the home and then proceeded to enter the house and kill Helen in the shower. It was thought that the police discovered the crime fairly early, as the neighbors reported seeing Chuck’s body propped up in the front doorway in a gruesome manner. What police assumed to be a robbery and double homicide was the most shocking crime the Lehigh Valley had seen since the Babysitter Murders of the 1980s.

As he finished the article, something crossed his mind. Whoever wrote this, how did they know Chuck was killed first?

November 12th, Plainfield Wisconsin

The bedroom of Franklin’s parents was perfectly intact. It was the way Ed told him he should leave it. The bodies of his dead parents lay peacefully in the bed below the painting of Jesus looking up at an angel. Since disposing of his parents he also got rid of his mom’s dresser, putting a small desk in his place from which he could work. After updating his website, his small mouse clicked on his ezboards message forum he hosted. It was then he noticed he had a private message.

He couldn’t believe it. It was a private message from George Kohler. A jpeg image loaded for the movie director standing in front of a big white house on a lonely road. The flat landscape behind the director looked as though it could have been right down the street from where Franklin lived. “Here I am at the family home in Amherst.” the message read. “I got some footage from Psycho II that’s never been seen before. Also, got my first screenplay here. Maybe you can come by and check it out and we can discuss my next movie.” Looking at the image again, Franklin noticed the item George held in his hand. It was Deranged, the first screenplay he ever wrote.This was too good to be true. Did he know? Was this a trap? Even if it was, how could he not go?

It was then he saw Ed again. Images of Ed would randomly appear to him sometimes. He looked so real, as real as the bodies of his dead parents that sat in the bed. “Did you see that Ed?” Franklin said excited. “He’s got footage of Psycho II. Maybe we’ll see Norman in action more?”

“Norman didn’t need action,” He heard Ed say. “he needed help.” The image of Ed Gein looked down at the desk. Franklin still had his notes regarding Leon who briefly worked at the Mendota Health Institute back in the 70’s. “I wish I could have gotten help.”

“Really?” Franklin answered aloud as he looked back towards his dead parents. “I thought you two would have been like brothers.”

“Brothers, you know what happened to my brother?”

Outside Franklin’s house the leaves had long left the branches of the tree that stood over his car. The fallen foliage crunched below his feet. After taking a few more steps towards his car he heard another sound, it sounded like a cross between a person yelling and a dog barking, and it was coming from below him. Looking down to the cold earth, the dead leaves had yellow faces that stared up at him with an evil look. In an instant he bolted to his car, the inhuman barking sound followed with each step as he frantically removed the keys from his pocket to unlock his car door. Plopping himself down on the car seat, he looked out the window to the tree lurking over him. Way up high on a rotting empty branch, a slack necked buzzard glared at him with blood red eyes. Then, looking back at his house, he saw Ed standing on the porch. “Are you coming or not.” Franklin shouted. Looking back up, the buzzard was gone, then looking to his right, there was Ed sitting in the passenger seat. It looked like Ed was trying to say something but Franklin interrupted with an enthusiastic, “Off to the film’s climax!”

Approaches the house, Franklin could see the light on in upper bedroom. He hoped George didn’t start it without him. Walking into the house, he didn’t see anyone, but his body shook in anticipation as he heard George’s voice upstairs. Stopping in his tracks he takes a deep breath. Something about the director’s voice sounds different, then he realizes, it’s the movie playing upstairs. George put himself in Psycho II as a film director who gets murdered by an obsessive fan. Life was about to imitate art as he gripped his machete handle tight and ascended up the steps.

Peering down the at the end of a the dark hallway a door sat open, light and sound emanated from within. Creeping down the corridor, he only heard one sound, but it was a sound he recognized, it was dialogue that he knew by heart. Franklin stood in the doorway as he looked into the room, it was empty, but there it was, Psycho II playing on a big screen TV. Approaching the big screen TV in holy reverence, he reached up towards the footage, his finger tips lovingly caressed the glass on the TV screen, the static electricity crackled on his skin. It was like touching a woman for the first time.

Looking behind him, he remained alone in the room. An empty wooden chair sat in front of a desk. A desk lamp was left on, its light shining down to what looked like an old stack of papers. Coming closer, he saw they were bound by heavy staples. Reading the red ink on the cover, he gasped in amazement as if he were an archaeologist discovering ancient stone tablets.

“Deranged.” The blood red letters read. This was George Kohler’s never produced screenplay that he wrote in film school. Evidently, it was inspired by his Aunt’s stories of encountering Gein, decades before the general public ever knew of the Plainfield Ghoul’s existence. Anxiously, he turned the page, but it was not the opening scene he found underneath. Instead, it was a wedding picture. Confused, he looked closer to realize it was a picture of Helen and her husband Chuck, Franklin’s last two victims. Turning the photo over, he’d found beneath that was a small pile of photos and other items. There pictures of George with his father on the red carpet at Maan’s Chinese theater, Christmas cards, but no screenplay. He slammed the pictures down on the desk in disgust as the Psycho music played behind him. Then suddenly, the music climaxed with an electronic zap. The room went dim, save the light of the desk lamp. Franklin turned around to see a small object hit the ground with a small crashing sound. He presumed this to be the remote control as he looked in the doorway. It was there that he saw him. He knew that George had cut weight, but the director’s frame still filled the door. His hair was cut short, and, from the shadows, a chainsaw blade protruded from the doorway. The figure remained still, but then its hand pulled the ripcord, and, just like in the movies, the chainsaw roared to life.

“YEAH!” Franklin shook his arms in excitement. George entered and the two circled around the room. “The film’s climax! The director fights to avenge the death of his slutty sister!” Frankling laughed mockingly. George took two quick steps forward, for a moment it looked as though he were going to charge, but his feet quickly stepped back and the two continued their circular movement around the room.

Franklin’s hand shook with excitement as he and his opponent circled the arena that was the director’s office. George revved the chainsaw a few times lightly thrusting the blade toward him the way a heavyweight boxer might throw a few light jabs. Franklin himself parried the knife while licking his lips in excitement. In his mind he and his opponent would swing their weapons simultaneously, colliding these instruments of death in the center of the room. That would be the image on the poster for the movie that would be made about them someday. The two combatants standing atop of a pile of bodies, their blades colliding in a dance of death. Sparks would rain down over the film’s title, which would be… hell, maybe they’d call it, ‘Deranged.’

In the midst of this mortal combat, Franklin’s mind raced through thoughts of how this movie would be cast. Maybe Edward Norton would play him. Who would play George? Perhaps Jack Black?”

His mental casting couch was cut in half by the site of the chainsaw being tossed up in the air. “This wasn’t part of the script,” he thought to himself as he watched the power tool fly through the room before the blade bounced on the wooden floor and the motor came to a stop. He turned back to his opponent who had quickly pulled something from the belt at his waist. Franklin’s ears burst from a loud popping sound as a white light flashed in the room. Instantly, he felt an incredible pain, as if someone speared liquid metal through his gut, the force of which knocked him flat on his back. A puff of smoke floated in the room while the scent of gunpowder filled his nostrils. Franklin’s neck stretched up just in time to see his assailant place the revolver on his desk, but his mind was still dazed at what had just transpired. 

“That couldn’t have been in the script!” Franklin protested as his head rested back down on the hardwood floor, his eyes looked up at the ceiling above while the palm of his hand pressed on his wound. George was now back in his line of site. Looming over him, he planted a boot on Franklin’s chest, the chainsaw was again in his hands.

Now Franklin smiled as blood trickled from his mouth. His ears welcomed the sound of the motor being revived, the saw-blade now buzzed inches from his face. It was so much sweeter than the sound of a firearm. It was honorable, it was pure, it was classic. “Yeah!” Franklin cheered with what little breath remained in his lungs. “That’s more like it!”

Then, standing to his side, looking down on him, Franklin again saw the image of Ed. He knew this wasn’t visible to George, only Franklin could see Ed this past year, but there he was observing the proceedings. He looked back to George and said, “This is gonna be one hell of a movie!”

Suddenly the saw blade went still. The room was again silent save Franklin gargling the blood that rushed up his throat. “Movie?” George looked down confused. Did he still not get it? George was gonna direct a movie about all of this, and it was gonna be great. At least that’s what Franklin believed right up  until this moment, this moment when he heard former director say “No one is ever going to even know your name.”

“What? What, no! NO!” but Franklin’s cries were smothered by the chainsaw roaring back to life. Desperately looking to Ed, Franklin pleaded, “Help me! Help me!”

The vision of Ed just stood there, hat in his hands. Inside his head Franklin heard Ed’s voice. “You never listened to me.” it said. “I was trying to warn you.” 

“I just wanted my movie!” Frankling pleaded.

“I just wanted my mother.” The voice answered. Franklin saw the man put his hunter’s cap back on his head and turn his back to Franklin. Soon the image of Ed Gein quietly faded away into nothingness.

Meanwhile the roaring blade of the chainsaw inched closer to Franklin’s right shoulder blade. “No, No!” Franklin cried out as his left arm was severed from his body. George wouldn’t know this, but the shrieking of his victim was not out of pain. This crying was born out of fear; and it was not fear of the unknown, as H.P. Lovecraft described most fear as being. No, the fear Franklin screamed in was fear from the known, as he now realized exactly what George was intending. Franklin was indeed going to die right here in this small town in Wisconsin, another small town just like Plainfield, just like so many small town across this part of the nation. His body would be cut up right here on this wooden floor, and no one was ever going to know.

George was in a daze driving down the highway. He didn’t even bother to activate his Pandora and actually had the old-fashioned FM radio on. The dial was set to a random oldies station playing some song about going on a moonlight swim. Driving through the darkness, George thought how his Aunt Sally, his father’s sister, probably made this same drive almost half a century ago. In a way, her journey that fateful night started all this. He couldn’t help but wonder, what if Sally hadn’t gone down this road? Would she still be alive now? If so, she’d probably be some old hippy out in the streets protesting Bush’s war in Iraq. Had she still lived, his father might not have ever moved to Pennsylvania. Hell, he would have grown up in Amherst playing for the Falcons in the Tomorrow River School District. Looking out over the pure black empty space that enveloped his car, he mused how he once considered that a horrifying thought.

As the now infamous Plainfield approached, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking of something else. What about Ed Gein? If Gein hadn’t ended up dying that night he encountered Sally, what would have happened? Would he have killed more unsuspecting people in this little town? Would Gein have died in obscurity, his horrible secrets buried with him, or would he have eventually gotten caught, still bringing infamy to this little town? Was his Aunt Sally a sacrifice made by the gods of fate to prevent more madness from occurring? George remembered his late mentor Robert Bloch, who had been dead for ten years now. Bloch lived not too far from here back in the 50’s. Who knows, maybe he would have written Psycho back then.

This thought sent George’s thought’s down a third path, one he couldn’t stop himself from mentally exploring. What would filmmakers of the 1960’s done with Bloch’s novel? Imagine Alfred Hitchcock directing it. The fan in him couldn’t help ponder the possibilities. How would Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the 80’s slasher scene have looked with the Ghoul of Plainfield lurking over American horror. In another world, he might have been lauded as a sort of grandfather of American gore.

And what would George himself had thought of this patron saint of splatter had he only known of him in the abstract? Remembering the morbid nihilistic attitudes held in his youth, George knew full well he would have idolized Gein just as his own obsessive fan had. George recalled his days dressing up as the Zodiac killer, and understood that a Gein costume wouldn’t have been far behind.

The empty shell of the burned building ahead brought him back to reality. Coming off the interstate at the town of Plainfield, George shook his head at the ruins of the Gein Ghoul House. Looking in his rear-view mirror, thinking of what was in his trunk, he spoke out loud. “Did you do that?” It just now occurred to him that it was probably this psycho that killed the owner and two others before burning this attraction to the ground a few months ago.

Soon he came to a stop. While his property in Amherst wasn’t far from this place, this was the first time since that night ten years ago that George was on the former Gein property. Roger, a local he’d met in this spot was gone now, but he remembered standing here with his father while Roger told him the story of what happened to Aunt sally, and the night that Gein died. Opening the trunk, it already smelled as he reached past the trash bag and pulled out a shovel. Then, he pulled out the trash bag and slung it over his back as though he were the Santa Clause of violence. Setting the bag down on the wet grass, his shovel pierced the earth below. George began digging deep into the ground. He knew no one was around for miles, and did not fear being seen. It was ironic that no one ever came out to this spot where Gein actually lived. It wasn’t close to the interstate, it wasn’t close to anything. That asshole Leon knew what he was doing, building his sick attraction right off the interstate. George knew that, had circumstances been different, he’d have done the same thing.

Digging deeper into the earth, he couldn’t help but wonder if any other remains were still buried here. If there were, they were about to have some company. Pulling himself out of the hole he’d dug, George grabbed the trash-bag and unceremoniously tossed it into the hole. Covering the fresh grave with dirt he looked out over the empty field. Nothing remained of Gein’s house, nothing stood here for decades. Remembering that awful attraction up the road, he figured the world would have been better off never knowing the name Ed Gein. Shoveling the last pile of dirt, he knew that at least no one would know of this murderer that lay buried before him. As a matter of fact, George himself didn’t even know his name.