The Jacket (Revised; Final)

I.

Among the items in this house

    Up for auction today;

A high school varsity jacket

    Shown here in the glass display:

Owned by a murderous psychopath

    Who 'pon the weak would prey;

Stains from the blood of his victims,

    Not easily washed away,

And haunted by the taint of death

    (At least... that's what they say),

So many innocent, tortured souls

    Violently slashed away,             

            ne'er to greet another day. 

   

II.          

Of course, the madman's other tools 

    Are presented here as well;

An extensive collection of paintings

    Upon which he would dwell,

Dating back five hundred years

   (Near as our experts can tell), 

A collector of antique cameras --

    each with a slight chemical smell --

Kept in pristine condition, 

    To record each final knell;

Confused and frozen in terror, 

    Right before each of them fell,

            Into their personal hell. 

III. 

Countless, the victims so dispatched,

    But treated (each one) like a pearl;

He straightened their hair (oft post-mortem)

    Preserving each beautiful curl,

Bathed them and dressed them, quite neatly,

    Patient with each nubile girl --

At least he did in the beginning 

    (Prior to his mind's slow unfurl);

As you can see, he got messy, 

    And 'round the drain began to swirl, 

                Stuck on a dark tilt-a-whirl.

IV. 

Each photo pinned up on the wall

    Shows each girl's smiling face,

(With just a hint of nervousness,

    And excitement, though only a trace); 

Innocent, naive and hopeful,

    With only a youth's humble grace --

Dressed in the varsity jacket,

Then brought to his murderous space,

Brutalized, tortured, imprisoned

   (I'll save you the points of the case:

Suffice to say, he was prolific --

    He killed with a frightening pace,

                That no one of law could outrace. 

V.

The theory of more than one killer

    Has been more than once in the air,  

It certainly warrants reflection,

    Though no account's writ anywhere --

Time's passage can be estimated

    (With sizable margin to err)

Using the makes of the cameras,

    And studying their wear and tear;

Could the deaths be part of a legacy,

    Passed down from each heir to heir?

Unthinkable, such wanton bloodlust,

    A terribly ghastly affair --

                To turn loving heart to despair.

VI.

Initially, once bodies were dispatched,

    He buried them under the floor --

Piled on each other like garbage

    'Till no space remained anymore

(The smell must have been overpow'ring;

    Soaked in each nostril and pore...), 

Then moved to the dark of the forest,

    Where he could revisit his store --

Spend quality time with each lovely, 

    Develop a chilling rapport,

Maybe a dance in the moonlight,

    Ignoring the filth and the gore,

                Clad in that jacket he wore.

VII. 

A number of other small keepsakes

    Can be found in this horrible shack

(Most of it's hid from the public,

    In varying shelves in the back,

Though private viewings are welcome, 

    If you've a thick enough stack,

And perhaps a cast iron stomach

    For deeds most unholy and black);

Complete with uncleaned stain and spatter,

    From every contusion and whack --

Afterward, though. First the auction,

    Before we go down the wrong track

                (Some end up too lost to come back). 

VIII.

Twice in its bone-chilling history,

    The house has been ravaged by fire:

The first one in eighteen and sixty, 

    Right down to rafters and wire;

The villagers took up their torches

    And set about spreading their ire --

Fanatical, their conflagration

    Torched every last bramble and briar,

Dancing and screeching for justice

    Deep in the smoke of the pyre

(Yet try as they might, t'was for nothing;

    He wasn't about to retire,

                With so many girls to acquire).

IX. 

The second, more recent occasion

    His house had been rendered ablaze

The ground underneath had grown poisoned

    Soaked in Death's ichorous glaze;

For decades the shack sat in waiting

    (Oblivious to time's slow malaise)

for one to appear who was worthy

    (As far as a house can appraise):

A very unique type of monster

    With just the right look in his gaze;

Willing to get his hands dirty, 

    Stained by the house's dark glaze,

                With little time left for delays.    

   

X. 

Finally, after some decades,

    (Not long for a building to wait),

The dwelling had found a new owner,

    And new girls to lure to dark fate --

He dug out the basement completely

    (To start with a bigger blank slate); 

Set up his tools and equipment

With narry a mutter or prate, 

Steadied his nerves with some whiskey,

Worked till the hour grew late

Dividing the bodies to pieces

(The odd piece he held back, and ate)

                As blood ran down into the grate.

XI.

Of course, this is all superstition --

    We all know there isn't a curse;

Much as we'd love to believe it,

    The truth is abysmally worse:

No demon stalks our tiny village,

   No bogeyman driving a hearse;

All human, these creatures among us, 

    No matter how sick or perverse,

Or how far their faculties crumble,  

    Nor how far their morals reverse --

Only a man, pure and simple, 

   Psychotic, and dreadfully terse,

                And all the death he could disburse.

XII.          

The coat itself is black and red

    With 'TITANS' across the backside;

Unaltered, unwashed and untreated,

     Sized in a 42 wide

(Its less than pristine condition

      Shows it to be bona fide):

T'was found here in the 'horror house',

     And presented here unmodified. 

Many an eager collector               

    Has coveted it, beady-eyed --

Though none have ever stolen it,

    Many a burglar has tried, 

            And every last one of them died. 

XIII.

The jacket, it's said, is quite haunted. 

    Superstition, or cautioning tale?

More than one killer's been theorized,

    Though proving it? To no avail;

Assuming a single assailant, 

     By now he'd be ancient and frail --

Too old to pose any danger,

     Or see any time in a jail,

Despite all the lives that he ended,

    On such a phenomenal scale...

To collectors of parephenalia,

    This jacket's a macabre holy grail,

            But please: no returns. Final sale. 

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- © Jackson Cambridge, 2016.