Sweet Oblivion

by Rhiana Ramsey

Derek looked up just as his attacker stabbed downwards with a sharp metal implement, the point connecting with his left eye and bursting the eye ball, aqueous humor, blood and tears streaming down his cheek. He screamed in terror and pain as the spike was yanked upwards, causing the eyeball, still stuck to the end of the spike, to be pulled halfway out of his orbital socket. Blood and fluids started to trickle down the back of Derek’s throat, making his screams guttural and gasping.

  He fell onto his back and the assailant straddled him, raising the metal spike high above Derek’s face, holding it there for a moment like an executioner about to deliver the fatal blow. Derek briefly caught another glimpse of the assailant through his right eye and he noted she was smiling, eyes wide and hungry, face contorted into an expression of sheer glee, relishing this murderous endeavour.

  Derek knew then that he was going to die, that his last breaths were going to be taken on this dirty, stinking car park floor. He speculated briefly as to how he would be discovered, whether his body would be frisked for his wallet, his watch and gold bracelet removed by a drug addict looking to score their next hit before his death was reported.

  He wondered how long he would lie there before he was found. Would anyone care that he was dead?

  As he felt his life forces draining away, he tentatively raised his hands above his face to shield his eyes from the blow he knew was coming. His hands were easily knocked aside by the assailant as the metal object was again rammed forcefully into his left eyeball. Derek thought he heard the assailant laugh and then the world went black.

 

  Chapter XXIX

  Mina felt exhilarated, her heart was pounding in her chest and her senses were alert. She was crouched in the shadows of the subterranean car park, her long, black, hooded coat assisting in her camouflage.

  She didn’t have to wait too long before she heard her next victim descending into the subterranean car park, muttering under his breath and completely oblivious to her presence as he headed towards his car. She shifted her weight onto her other foot and as she did so, she lost grip of her metal weapon; it dropped onto her toe before gently rolling to the floor, its resonance diminished by the prior contact with her shoe.

  She held her breath hoping the sound wouldn’t give her away. She saw the man looking around the car park trying to locate the source of the noise and swore at herself under her breath.

  Fuck it, stupid fucking creature.

  After a few tense moments the man seemed satisfied that he was alone and continued towards his vehicle. Mina gently picked up the weapon and waited until she was sure his back was turned and he was occupied with opening the car.

  She was pumped. This was killing outside her comfort zone, this was killing of a totally different kind. It was too public and too risky and she knew there were too many variables that she couldn’t control and which could ultimately lead to her capture, but she was so excited that none of these things mattered enough to stop her.

  She saw the man hurriedly trying to get his keys into the driver’s door so she knew she had to act fast. He was clearly on edge and if she didn’t move soon she would lose this opportunity.

  With a quick glance around to ensure they were still alone in the car park, she ran as swiftly and quietly as she could towards the man’s back, surprised she was able to come right up behind him before he even looked round. She was sandwiched between him and the Mondeo and she raised her hands above her head preparing to strike him, when he pulled open the driver’s door and quickly spun round to face her. He said: ‘You!’ and then she struck him as hard as she could on his left cheek causing him to fall to the ground between the vehicles on his knees.

  He began begging her, pleading with her not to hurt him and she felt so powerful, so strong, that she relished the sound of his terrified voice. As he looked up at her, his eyes full of fear, she struck downwards with all her strength, ramming her weapon into his left eye. He fell onto his back and she dropped onto his chest straddling him and continued her assault on his eye and face.

  She savoured the feeling of awesomeness she was experiencing as his cries turned into animal-like squeals; she laughed a sinister evil sound as the man passed out beneath her. She stopped attacking him, placing her hands on his chest as she allowed herself a moment to catch her breath. Killing was strenuous work.

  Once her breathing had slowed and Mina felt herself coming down from the kill, she stood up and quickly cast an eye around the car park. It was still empty, no one had come running to the man’s cries.

  Luckily for her, London was a noisy city, her victim’s wails lost in the cacophony of roaring engines, police sirens, car horns and thundering tube trains overhead. Mina still had to perform her ritual on the body. Usually she liked to sit and look at the body for a while before doing this as she liked to relive the moment when the body became a mere vessel and its life force ebbed away.

  Her first kill in that hotel room had been so exhilarating, so terribly satisfying, that she had needed time to fully take in what she had done, what she had accomplished. She had taken a man’s life and it had felt good.

  She’d sat at the foot of the bed for over an hour, looking at the corpse, thinking how weak and vulnerable he looked. Then she’d pulled out her boning knife and hacked away at the flesh between his legs, triumphantly removing his penis and testicles, a grisly souvenir of her initiation into the world of murder.

  She had only intended to take a trophy from the first victim, as a reminder as to why she was killing, to remind herself of the hurt and pain that fuelled her need. But when she had killed the second victim in his home, she had wanted to mutilate him in the same way – she had discovered it was fun emasculating the victims in this manner and she enjoyed it. Not only were they dead, they were no longer men and she loved the feeling of empowerment this gave her.

  By the third victim, she was already visualizing his demise and the desecration of his flesh before she’d even met him. So now it was a necessary part of her killing ritual and although this current kill was well and truly outside of her usual killing parameters, she couldn’t resist the urge to cut him up too. Tonight though, she didn’t have time to sit and reflect upon this kill before she got round to the cutting.

  Mina knew that at any moment someone could come striding down the ramp into the subterranean car park and so she had to do this quickly. She removed her mobile phone from her pocket and took a couple of pictures of the man lying prostrate at her feet; if she couldn’t take the time to enjoy looking at her handiwork now, she would admire it later at her leisure.

  She then knelt down besides the body and deftly undid his belt and fly; she quickly pulled down his trousers and pants and looked at the small, shrivelled appendage that lay between his legs.

  She pulled her boning knife from her pocket and removed the glove from her left hand; she liked to feel the flesh when she cut it away, she liked the feel of the skin against her palm. Mina didn’t worry about fingerprints as she would only be touching the part of the penis she would be taking away with her.

  She grabbed hold of the man’s testicles, squeezing them hard in her left hand and pulled them upwards so that she could insert the knife beneath them. She began carving upwards towards the man’s stomach in a circular motion, moving the knife in and out as she progressed through the skin and flesh. The man seemed to rouse a little as she made the cuts to the most sensitive part of his anatomy, his body twitching and shuddering, but Mina knew it was simply his body’s last futile attempt to cling on to life. As if on cue she heard the male’s raspy death rattle as he finally made the transition from living to dead.

  Mina’s knife was very sharp and she rapidly cut a semi-circle through the man’s flesh, across his pubic hair, and then continued slicing down the opposite side, back down towards his testicles. As she cut, Mina delighted in the blood which oozed from the wounds she was making, the scarlet fluid trickling along her knife blade and over her hands, making both the knife and the flesh slip
pery, and difficult to hold onto.

  As she reached the inside of the man’s right leg, almost completing her circle and the full removal of the man’s genitalia, she heard loud voices, a group of people laughing. The sound momentarily terrified her.

  She froze and held her breath, the voices were coming closer.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…!

  Mina could feel panic setting in but she knew she had to stay calm, she had to remain in control. She quickly slashed through the final bit of meat that was preventing her from removing the man’s genitals and promptly put the quivering flesh into her pocket, wiping her hands on her coat to remove the worst of the blood as she did so. She pocketed the knife and silently pushed herself up onto her toes so that she was crouching out of sight, her head just below the window of the dead man’s car.

  It occurred to her then that she could just get in the man’s car and drive away; the keys were still clutched in his lifeless hand. But if she took the car, she would have to dispose of it and she would leave all sorts of evidence in it, whether it was hairs, DNA or clothing fibers. She supposed she could drive it into the country somewhere and torch it as that would get rid of the evidence, but what if she was picked up on traffic cameras or ANPR cameras? It was too risky. She could get pulled over by some Bobby and then she would have some real explaining to do. Also, if she removed the car she would be leaving the body on full display and she had wanted to hide it in the boot before she left.

  She was starting to become furious with herself, she should never have started this, she should never have performed a killing outside of her comfort zone, she should have stuck to her plans and only killed in private. She had known this was too risky from the outset but her ego had convinced her she’d be ok, she was untouchable. This is what happened when you acted without meticulously planning things through - things went bloody wrong.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

  Mina carefully raised her head and peeked through the driver’s side window of the dead man’s car; she saw four pairs of feet descending the ramp to the subterranean car park, two sets of high heels, clicking loudly on the concrete floor, supporting slim, feminine legs, and two sets of smart shoes, peeping out from under the hem of smart trousers belonging to two men.

  Her heart was pounding in her chest and her extremities were tingling with adrenaline. For the first time in a long time she didn’t know what to do. The group would be on the subterranean level within a matter of seconds so she had to make a decision and she had to make it fast. Did she stay here, crouched between the cars, hiding with a dead body and blood on her hands hoping they were going to one of the vehicle’s on the others side of the car park, or did she get the fuck out of there now, leaving the body where it was instead of finishing up and securing the man’s body in the boot of his own car?

  Mina scanned the car park looking for an alternative exit, somewhere she could flee to before it was too late and the group spotted her in all her evil glory. The women’s laughter was high-pitched and echoed around the car park and still Mina waited, undecided, like a condemned woman deciding between lethal injection or death by firing squad.

  Finally, after frantically scouring around the car park for an escape route, she espied a green fire exit sign on the wall behind her. The feet were almost at the bottom of the ramp as the group came ever closer.

  With one last look at the dead man between her legs, Mina leapt up and ran as fast as she could towards the fire exit, the sound of her feet masked by the women’s shrill laughter. She slipped slightly as she ran towards the exit, so put her arm out to steady herself, making contact with the boot of a vehicle parked close to the fire escape. She bounded across the threshold and into the shadows just as the group rounded the corner and came fully into view.

  Mina stood out of sight within the fire exit doorway and watched for a moment as the group moved across the car park. She quickly shrugged off her long coat and rolled it into a ball so that she could shove it into the plastic bag she had brought with her for that purpose, along with her gloves and weapon. She withdrew a pack of tissues from her trouser pocket and wiped her hands removing the last traces of blood that had not come off on her coat and once she had finished, threw the dirty tissue into the bag too. when she was satisfied that she was as clean as she was going to get and would pass unnoticed by the rest of the world, she walked swiftly but calmly up the fire exit stairs.

  Mina exhaled a deep sigh as the realization of how close she had come to being seen hit her. A few more seconds and it would have been too late, she would have been caught red-handed at the kill site, blood on her hands and a lump of human flesh in her coat pocket.

  She pulled the plastic bag close to her body and continued her ascent out of the car park, ensuring she kept her head lowered so that her face would not be captured on any CCTV cameras. As she reached the top step she heard a faint scream rise from the subterranean level of the car park. So, they’d had found him.

  Mina smiled to herself as she emerged from the car park fire exit and into the cool night air; she felt truly invincible. She had murdered a man in a public car park, left his body lying in plain view, had been interrupted in her ritual, but still she had been able to act quickly enough to avoid being found at the scene and remain a faceless killer.

  Mina glanced around her, looking up and down the street for any obvious signs that she was being scrutinized or followed; apart from a few late night revellers heading home the streets were pretty quiet. In a few minutes however, these streets would look very different; soon they would be crawling with police and emergency services. Mina did not intend to hang around until that happened.

  She spotted a taxi heading in her direction, so she raised her arm to hail it. It pulled over at the curb just as she heard the first sirens wailing in the distance. She gave the cabbie an address that was different to her own but close enough that she could walk the last bit of her journey and settled back into her seat. She closed her eyes and let her mind drift. This was her fourth victim. And in a couple more days, she would be meeting with victim number five.

  Chapter XXX

  Elizabeth was tired and was now regretting arranging to meet Louise for drinks. They’d had another long day in the office and right now all she really wanted was to go home, crawl into bed and go to sleep; she wasn’t in the mood for making small talk with someone she had known over fifteen years ago and who she probably had nothing in common with anymore. But still, she had extended the invitation and so she shouldn’t complain that Louise had taken her up on it.

  After Louise had left her the slightly strange and verbose voicemail the day before, Elizabeth had sent her a text agreeing to the meet and had suggested the time and place, something else that she was now regretting. She should have thought about it more carefully and arranged to meet Louise closer to home; she could have saved herself some travel time meaning she could tuck herself into bed sooner, and besides as the pub was so close to the police station it was half full of coppers. If she’d wanted to be surrounded by police, she would have stayed in the office. And it was Friday night to top it off so the place was heaving.

  She took a swig of cider enjoying the cool refreshment and leant back in her seat mulling over the day as she waited for Louise to arrive.

  They weren’t much further forward but now they did have a name, or at least an alias, which was a bloody good start. The name was being run through every single intelligence and suspect database they had access to and was being touted around all the local ‘snouts’, or covert human intelligence sources as they were officially called. Elizabeth preferred the reference ‘snout’ as she had little respect for grasses, although she knew they did sometimes come through with valuable nuggets of information. She just resented that they had to be paid or offered a way to avoid jail in order to give up those nuggets. What, alas, had become of civic duty? Was it too much to expect the local shit bag to rat out his mates just because it was the right thing to do?

&nbs
p; Elizabeth raised her hand in acknowledgement to two men that had just come in, recognizing them as two of the uniformed officers that worked out of the station and who she had worked with before on an assault case. They gave her a wave back and proceeded to the bar to order their drinks.

  Elizabeth remembered her uniformed days; she had been so full of zeal and ideas, thinking she could help the community, really make a difference. But somewhere between then and qualifying as a detective she had become jaded, exhausted by the seeming lack of humanity in the people she met.

  Elizabeth had learnt that the world could be a very cold and cruel place; after dealing with so many shitty people, day in and day out, she sometimes found it difficult to remember that there were also decent people out there, people who did have morals and values and who would put themselves out to help someone in need. It was just that in her profession they were difficult to find.

  She thought about the bondage killer and wondered what had happened in the woman’s past to make her turn out as she had. She had almost certainly been sexually abused given the sexual element to these murders and she was almost certainly a London resident or at least very familiar with the city.

  So far Elizabeth had not found anything useful in the lists she had procured from the council. There wasn’t a great deal she could do with the names on the list when she had nothing to compare them to. She had looked at victims that had lived close to where each of the three murders had taken place but nothing had jumped out at her. Even though she had no evidence to base it on, working solely off gut instinct, Elizabeth was convinced the killer’s name was on her list; she just had to work out which one it was.

  Mina. It was an unusual name and of course it didn’t feature among the names she had been supplied, that would have been too easy. The name would be released to the press in due course once they, or more precisely Ian, were able to show categorically that it was the name the killer was using. The name had been found on both David Saunders’ and Mark Faversham’s computers; now they needed to see if it also appeared on Dan Taylor’s laptop. Coincidence could then be eliminated; Elizabeth didn’t know what the odds would be for the name to appear on three different computers of three otherwise unconnected victims if it didn’t relate to their mutual killer, but they had to be infinitesimal. Ian was certainly currently taking the brunt of the pressure from the enquiry; Elizabeth wasn’t sure if he had even been home since he had been seconded to the investigation. Now that was dedication for you.