Dahmer's Not Dead

trance?”

“Or a simple trance state, like lucid dreaming, inverse somnambulism, things like that. Something triggers the subject to remember, in the space of a day or even an hour, a virtual lifetime of buried traumatic memories from the formative and preadolescent years. Almost always, Helen, these memories involve sexual abuse perpetrated by a close family member—such as the mother or father—”

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“Father,” he thought when it all came back. “My own father…

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“According to the journals, at least,” Sallee drew on, “these are typical catalysts for a previously psychopathic or sociopathic subject who has experienced a conative-episodic effect. And, yes, Dahmer, based on what he told me when I interviewed him upon incarceration—as well as what I’ve read about him since then—is a good or even excellent candidate. In other words, as rare as the syndrome may be, Jeffrey Dahmer’s basic psychiatric profile provides a sound breeding ground, so to speak, for a patient who’s undergone this form of episodic break. And another thing you might find compelling. Many subjects report a history of military service—the service being, at least subconsciously, reckoned as a means of escape from the foundry of the childhood trauma. And such subjects statistically are removed from service early, for any number of reasons—”

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And the man who was once the boy from Bath, Ohio, remembers now how desperately he wanted to leave, to get away from it all, and how, at age eighteen, he went to the Army recruiter—

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“—that may be deemed psychoactively pertinent. Dahmer, after all, had joined the Army, and was soon separated from service to due alcoholism—”

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—but that didn’t last long, either, did it? The Army hadn’t worked out at all—

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“Dahmer, of course, claimed that his drinking wasn’t excessive at all, claims that the charges were trumped up by his company commander because he’d told a few other enlisted men that he was gay,” Sallee said.

This was all news to Helen. She’d never researched Dahmer’s bio history that well, just the modus stuff.

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—but none of that really mattered now, did it? No, he thinks.

“Dahmer told me that his childhood was normal,” Sallee continued, when he was growing up in Bath, Ohio. Of course, this was over two years ago, well before the episodic break he’s obviously experienced since then. Yet he admitted that he did indeed kill small animals—sometimes he would even dissolve the flesh off their bones with corrosives he’d concoct from the chemistry set his father gave him for his birthday. This boy was melting the flesh off dogs and birds and hamsters yet he referred to his childhood as ‘normal.’ He was oblivious. He said he did it because he loved the animals.” Sallee tossed his shoulders. “Beyond that, you tell me. We only have clinical criteria to go by, but every subject, in some way, is possessed of patented differences.”

Helen let the slew of words sink in. “But subjects like this, like Dahmer, or like anyone else with the background. Once they experience the flood of back memories, once they remember all the bad things that happened to them—is it common for them to go on killing sprees?”

Sallee sat poised, the thin blond hair gleaming on his balding pate. “Not only is it common, it’s nearly exclusive. As the old saying goes, opposites attract. People who suffer a conative-episodic break go from one opposite to the next—in personality, I mean. They’ve always been killers, yes. Dahmer killed animals as a child, a hitchhiker when he was eighteen, and seventeen other people before his apprehension. But its the perception of murder that changes. Introversion to aggression. Symbolic murder to murder based in a sense of retribution and revenge. A passive personality form which quickly changes over to an aggressive one. What we’re talking about here is a complete metamorphosis of character, and there is no doubt now that Jeffrey Dahmer experienced this metamorphosis quite recently, and used that new aggression, based on his resurfaced memories, to devise an intricate means to escape his incarceration and continue his murderous acts on a shining, new plane.” Sallee looked at her. “Jeffrey Dahmer’s only compulsion right now is to resurrect the power he once knew. And kill.”

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“Kill,” he thinks now.

In fact, that’s all he ever thinks about now.

Kill.

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Helen, in spite of her fatigue, tried to compute all of this at once. It wasn’t hard. “I think I understand it all now, Dr. Sallee. But let me ask you one thing. You mentioned that the episodic break is founded on some aspect of abuse from childhood, some—ideation? Is that the right word?—founded in the symbol of fear equaling power. Dahmer’s crime-scene letters have said the same thing. ‘Feel the fear.’“

“Yes. Exactly. So what’s your question?”

“I’m wondering about the absolute base-structure of this ‘fear.’ I mean, the locality. Dahmer’s heyday was in the city of Milwaukee—that’s where he thrived on his fear. But now he’s killing people in Madison. To retrieve this sense of power, I’d think he’d return to Milwaukee, his virtual hunting- ground of fear. Why the change of locales?”

“That’s simple,” Sallee said. “Dahmer’s already done Milwaukee. Now he wants someplace new. A new locale, new fuel for his power. New meat.”

— | — | —

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The darkness damped the room to perfect silence. Her lover slipped beside her into bed.

Helen gasped, in passion.

His hand gently molded the contours of her breasts, then slid lower. It touched her with such precision—the hand seemed to know her. A blurred face lowered, lips touched her lips and kissed. The room’s warm dark hid her lover’s face like a veil.

What’s…happening? Helen lamely thought. A tightness spired at her loins like an