Swamp Thing watched the naked girl as she entered the bayou.

She walked tentatively through the marsh, heading towards the muddy lake. Then she descended into its murky depths.

Swamp Thing walked over to the lake. He peered at it, wondering exactly what the girl was doing. He would ask her when she resurfaced.

But she didn’t come back. Not yet, anyway.

Long minutes passed. Swamp Thing considered going in after the girl, but he felt a greater presence in the bayou. It was as if he were rooted to the spot, unable to move.

Then the girl appeared out of the lake.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said.

“Why me?” asked Swamp Thing. “What do you need?”

The naked girl strode up to him. Her body was covered in weeds, and appeared a light blue. She was dead.

“For the past eight months,” she told him, “I’ve been living my life over-and-over again. Each month, I come here to kill myself. I murdered myself by drowning in the swamp.”

“Why?”

“It has to do with a book I wrote,” she told him. “I never got to completely finish it. But now is the time. And I need you.”

She walked up to him and pressed her naked body against his. She pulled a tuber off his chest. Immediately she was overthrown by the ecstasy that the tuber offered. She flung herself into it, enjoying the ethereal sex, and orgasmed. She fell back away from him.

“That was fantastic,” she said.

Swamp Thing thought about Abby as he watched the girl attempt to stand on her feet. He’d never had intercourse with anyone but Abby. But now, with the naked girl standing in front of him, he felt relieved. It was just what he needed to forget about her for awhile.

“It was,” said Swamp Thing. “But I doubt having sex with me is what you’re after.”

“No,” said the naked girl, regaining her breath, “it isn’t. I need you in other ways.”

“Such as?” asked Swamp Thing.

“I need you to help me relive the book,” she told him. “Without your help, I’ll continue to drown myself repeatedly. I’ll forever be locked into this spell.”

“I honestly don’t see how I can help.”

“The book was about you,” she told him. “You were interlocked into each chapter. For years, I’ve heard the legends about you. And I never thought you were real. But I found it fascinating to have you in my book. Then I spotted you one moonlit evening. Finally, I knew that you existed.”

“It’s true,” said Swamp Thing. “I do exist.” He smiled at her. “Stranger things have happened.”

“So,” she asked, “will you help me?”

“You need me to relive these chapters in your book? And that will help you to not commit suicide?”

“It will lay my spirit to rest,” she said. “If I can just finish the book with you, I’ll forever be in peace.”

The Swamp Thing considered this. He knew he had the magic within him to help the poor girl. And it would keep his mind off Abby.

“I’ll help you,” said Swamp Thing. He smiled. “But please, tell me your name. Right now, all I know you as is the naked girl.”

“My name is Laura Wheeler,” she told him. “And you are the Swamp Thing.”

“Yes,” he said. And he thought about the time that he was known as Alec. But that was years ago, and a memory that he didn’t want to think about.

“Now,” he said, “where do we begin?”

“At chapter one, of course,” she told him. “Are you ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he said.

She reached up and kissed him on his verdant cheek.

“Then let’s start…”

“You want to have sex with me?”

“Of course,” said Dick Stern. “That’s what I’m paying you for.”

The male prostitute held out his hand. Dick took it. “Come with me,” he said. “We’ll go into my private alley.”

Dick got out of his BMW. He allowed himself to be led into the alley. He wrinkled his nose against the stink that billowed out of it. He ignored a rat that scampered through the garbage.

“Here we are,” said the hooker.

He positioned Dick up against the wall. Then he dropped to his knees. He unzipped Dick’s pants and started to work.

That’s when Dick pulled the knife from his coat pocket.

He grasped the hooker’s head by the hair and pulled it back, exposing a throat that was as white as the underbelly of a fish. Then, with one SWOOSH! slit open the hooker’s throat.

The hooker dropped back onto his butt. He gazed wide-eyed up at Dick, who was standing over him with a maniacal grin splitting open his face.

“Why?” the hooker managed to get out. That was his final word before he toppled over, dead.

Dick kicked at the corpse. He ruffled a hand through his hair, sighing. Then he slid the knife back into his pocket.

He stood there for a minute, staring at the hooker’s carcass, and then went back to his car. Sodium lights made his shadow flicker across the ground as he reached back inside his BMW. He took out the machete and danced around with it, laughing.

Then he headed back into the alley.

He chopped the hooker into pieces using the machete. Arms and legs scattered about the nasty alleyway. Dick slit open the hooker’s stomach and pulled out his guts. He took a hungry bite. The intestines tasted oh so good.

But he wasn’t here to eat. No. He was here to get what he paid for.

Dick cut off the hooker’s head. He held it aloft, staring into the dead man’s glazed eyes.

“I’m going to skull fuck you,” he said.

And that’s just what he did.

Dick stood in the alleyway, fucking the dismembered head, until he came in its mouth. Then he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out $5. He dropped the bill onto the ground.

“I always pay for services rendered,” he said.

And then he returned to his BMW. He tossed in the bloody machete and climbed behind the wheel. He rolled up his suit sleeve. He then produced the knife, again. He began to cut on himself, drawing deep red blood from the wounds.

“That feels so good,” he muttered to himself.

He got back out of the car and returned to the alleyway. He wasn’t finished, yet.

As he stood there, hovering over the hooker’s corpse, he began to scrawl on the wall. The rough bricks felt good on his wounds as they scraped and clawed at his flesh.

When he finished, he returned to his car. He climbed in, started the engine, and sped down the road.

Tomorrow, when the police would find the hooker’s corpse, they would bag-and-tag it and forget about it. It was just another homicide for them to deal with.

But it was far from over.

The hooker had been Dick’s first victim. And there were more to come.

It was just the beginning…

Jimmy Coffey woke up with a hangover.

He tossed his legs over the bedside. He sat there, feeling his head throb and his stomach churn. He puked, the vomit tracing down over his chin and dripping onto the floor.

He kicked at the Jim Beam bottle, sending it flying across the one-bedroom apartment.

“Damn shit,” he muttered to himself.

He got up and walked over to the kitchen sink. He turned on the faucet and began to wipe his face clean. The water was cold and inviting. It did little for his stomach, but it helped the pain in his head. He reached into a cupboard and pulled out a bottle of aspirin. He quickly took four of them.

He was about to climb back into bed when there was a knock on his door. He rubbed his temples, the knocks sounding like explosions in his skull. He stood there for a second, hoping whoever it was would go away. But the knocking continued.

“Hold your cock,” said Jimmy. “I’m coming.”

He crossed the room and opened the door. He sighed as he saw who was standing there.

“Good morning, Jimmy,” said Cranston Percival. “How are you this beautiful day?”

“Damn rotten,” replied Jimmy. He returned across the living room and plopped down in a kitchen chair. He grabbed his crumpled pack of Pall Mall and fingered out a bent cigarette. He lit one up and blew a smoke ring at Cranston.

“Would you mind putting on some clothes?” asked Cranston.

Jimmy looked down at himself. He was butt-ass naked.

“Yeah, I would mind,” he told Cranston. “I haven’t got anything that you don’t.”

“You always have to be difficult, don’t you?”

“It’s the nature of the beast.”

“Yes, anyway,” continued Cranston, “I’m not here for a pleasure visit. I’m here on business.”

“Oh?”

“There was a murder, last night. A male prostitute was found butchered in an alleyway.”

“So?” said Jimmy. “That’s nothing unusual.”

“But this one is. I’d like for you to come with me and visit the crime scene. There’s something I think you would find of interest.”

“I really don’t feel like getting out today,” said Jimmy. “I have one hell of a hangover.”

“I believe Dick Stern murdered him,” said Cranston. “And I think it has something to do with the supernatural.”

Jimmy glanced up. This caught his interest. He scratched out his cigarette and lit another one.

“Is that so?” he said. “You think its demons?”

“Yes.”

“You think Dick is possessed?”

“I do,” said Cranston. “He’s been dealing in a lot of black magic, lately. And I think it’s finally got the best of him. He was supposed to show up at my house last night. He was late, and that’s not like Dick. When he got there, I noticed there was blood on his fingernails. I didn’t mention it to him, but I did take notice.”

“So a male hooker is killed,” said Jimmy. “That doesn’t mean Dick murdered him.”

“Possibly,” Cranston agreed. “But I’d still like for you to take a look at the crime scene. I think there’s something there that would be of interest to you.”

Jimmy looked at the empty Jim Beam bottle. And then at the Pall Mall pack that contained one last cigarette.

“Are you hiring me for a job?”

“I’m thinking about it,” Cranston said. “If you’ll come with me to the scene, that is.”

Jimmy was flat broke. And he needed more whisky and smokes. He sighed.

“I’ll do it on one condition,” he said.

“And that is?”

“You buy me a pack of smokes on the way.”

Cranston laughed. “Of course,” he agreed. “Now get your clothes on.”

Against his better judgment, that’s just what Jimmy did.

“The rats ate away most of his face,” said Cranston. “There’s not a positive I.D. on the prostitute.”

“That’s no concern of mine,” said Jimmy. “You’ve just got my interest piqued on this crime scene.”

Cranston nodded. He pulled up outside of the alleyway. The police had already come and gone. It was vacant.

Jimmy and Cranston climbed out of the car.

They walked down the alleyway to where the hooker had been killed. On the ground was a sketching that showed where the body had been. There were still blood-stains, dried, on the ground.

“Take a look at this,” said Cranston. He pointed to the wall.

Jimmy took a glance at it. He pulled out a fresh cigarette and lit up. As he did, he coughed. He noticed a thin string of blood mingling with his saliva.

Maybe its lung cancer, he thought to himself. Dying wouldn’t be so bad.

Then he glanced at the wall.

He put a hand over his mouth and started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” asked Cranston.

“Oh,” replied Jimmy, “this is going to be fun.”

The words on the wall glared out at Jimmy:

HELLRAISER

“Do you accept the job?”

“Most certainly,” said Jimmy. “This’ll kill a lot of time.”

He coughed up more blood. He took another drag on his cigarette.

He thought to himself: I’ll just have to die another day.