by Shay Savage
“We’ll see. Now that she knows better, maybe the bitch won’t try refusing me next time.”
They begin to walk down the trail next to the river, and I follow silently behind them. Mack continues to go on about wine and pussy until Joe says his goodbyes and heads down a trail to the primary living area. Mack continues to stumble along the riverbank, mumbling to himself.
I follow behind with quick, silent steps. I keep close to the tree line though I don’t think my target is sober enough to notice what’s going on around him.
He pauses by the river to take a piss, and I know the time is right.
I creep up behind him slowly, knives drawn. Once I’m behind him, I use the handle of my knife to strengthen the punch to the back of his head. He drops to the ground immediately, one hand still holding his cock.
The blow to the head, combined with his drunken stupor, will keep him out for a minute or two, but I have to work quickly. First, I strip him naked and toss his clothing into the shallow water at the edge of the river. Next, I pull two thin lengths of rope from a pouch on my belt and quickly bind his ankles together. After his feet are secure, I roll him onto his stomach and go to work on his wrists.
He wakes just as I finish tying his hands and immediately begins to thrash against the bindings.
“What the—what the fuck?” He throws one shoulder up and back, trying to turn himself over.
I’m perfectly happy to help. I give him a push to get him supine on the ground and take a slight step back. I walk in a slow circle around him as I pull out the scarf I use when the ash clouds get thick. I stretch it out between my hands and then kneel near his head.
“Who the fuck are you?”
I silence him, using the scarf as a gag, tying it quickly around the back of his head. Once it’s secured, I look down at him and smile.
“I’m justice.”
Chapter 6
I wink at Mack as he struggles against his bonds and screams into the gag. He stares up at me with wide eyes, brimming with panicked tears. I lick my lips as my own excitement grows.
I stand and step back again, watching him squirm and listening to his muted, futile screams. After a minute, he stops. His eyes are clearer than they were before—his fear has sobered him up significantly—though the tears are still evident. He likely realizes he is only wasting his strength.
It doesn’t matter.
I walk around to his side and stand over him for a moment, smiling and probably looking like a madman. Maybe I am a madman—for the moment, anyway. I hold up one of my knives, kiss the flat of the blade, and flip it toward his face.
The knife slams into the soft, ashy ground to the left of Mack’s head. He flinches, squeezing his eyes shut and grunting. When he opens his eyes again, I toss the other blade. He flinches again as the knife makes a hole in the ground next to his right ear.
My body is on fire. I can feel my pulse in my chest, my temple, and the inside of my thighs as my blood pumps adrenaline through my system. My mind is flooded with disturbing thoughts and images, images that don’t belong in my own memories.
My new cellmate was, once again, regaling me with tales of his crimes. I didn’t even remember his name, but no matter what I would say to him, he wouldn’t stop talking.
“The first one was the best. Found her right outside the market. Waited until night before I grabbed her and pulled her into the trees. She was a looker, too, all red-eyed and screaming at me. When she saw my knife, she knew what was coming.”
I could see the whole scene in my head as my cellmate described it. I could see the rough, dark man grabbing a young woman and hauling her into the woods. I could see him holding her down and threatening her with a knife. I could see the excitement in his eyes and the terror in hers.
I felt sick, but the rough man just smiled at me.
“I slid a blade in her, just like a cock. It went in so easy, and the look in her eyes was beautiful. It felt so good.”
I swallowed back bile and glanced around the cell. There was nowhere for me to go. I could run for the toilet in the corner of the concrete room, but vomiting would be seen as a sign of weakness, and I didn’t want to be his next victim.
“It’s the sweetest thing in the world,” he said, “watching someone bleed out. You just have to put your hand on her chest and feel her last breath, her last heartbeat. It’s fucking powerful and so fucking good.”
He paused in his story just long enough to palm his dick. He leaned in close and grabbed my leg.
“You ever kill anyone, boy? You ever feel that kind of sweet release?”
“N-no.” I shifted away, but he gripped my thigh tighter.
“Well, what are you in here for, then? What kind of deviant are you?”
I shudder at the memory and swallow hard before I focus once again on the man on the ground.
I grin at him as I remove my long jacket and shirt. This is going to get messy, and I don’t want blood all over the few clothes I own. I keep eye contact as I reach down and loosen my belt. I set it gently aside before unbuttoning my jeans and pushing them down over my hips, leaving just my boxers.
Mack’s eyes are wide with panic, and I realize what he must be thinking as I discard my clothing. I want him terrified—the way he terrified Ava—and the thought makes me smile even more. I lick my lips, enjoying the fear in his eyes before I drop to the ground and straddle him. I lean over and retrieve my blades from the ground and stroke the side of his face with the flat edge of my dagger. My heart is pounding so hard in my chest, I figure he’d be able to hear it if he weren’t so focused on his own pulse.
“You made a mistake,” I tell him. “You’ve probably made a few in your time, but no worries. You won’t be making any more.”
Pausing for a moment, I look around the tree line, making sure no one has approached the area. I listen carefully, but the only sound is the cool breeze and the trickle of the river.
I take a deep breath and steady myself. I slide my blade down over his jaw and then pause at his neck. He closes his eyes, waiting for me to slice his throat, but I don’t. I move farther down his body, stopping at his left side. I prod at his body, locating the bottom of his rib cage before I slowly insert the dagger.
He screams behind the gag and begins to thrash. I press against his shoulder to hold him down before I pull the knife out of his flesh and punch him in the face.
“None of that,” I say. “It won’t do you any good anyway.”
I raise myself up enough to roll him onto his stomach and slide down a little. I can hear him screaming “no” over and over again into the gag, and I wonder if Ava cried as he held her down.
“You think I’m going to do to you what you did to her?” I ask, snarling at him. “Lucky for you, you just aren’t my type. I might be a monster of sorts, but I’m not that kind of monster, you sick fuck.”
He thrashes hard enough that I hear a pop as he dislocates his own shoulder. He screams futilely as he tries to roll to one side, but I keep him pinned down.
“Did you know that long ago, before the eruption and all that, there were serial killers all over the country? Some of them were so fucked up, they got killing and orgasm all switched around in their heads—liked to use knives on their victims, and they couldn’t get it up unless there was blood and death. Sexual sadists, they were called.
“Maybe that’s your problem. Maybe you can’t get it up unless you’re hurting someone at the same time. Then again, it’s entirely possible that you’re just a drunken asshole who took advantage because you thought you could get away with it. I don’t really give a shit. Whatever it is, you aren’t going to do it again.”
Deep, throaty breathing escapes from him and then another muffled scream. I feel his body clench under me as he tries to shift away.
“I don’t think so.” I lean heavily against his shoulder as I move the tip of the knife across his hip. I stab into his backside as he moans and writhes, carefully choosing the spot where my blade en
ters him. I have to keep the angle right to make sure the cut isn’t too deep or in a vital spot on his body. I don’t want him to bleed out too quickly. Blood flows over my hand, and I have to stop for a moment to wipe my blade on his skin.
“So each time they’d stick a blade in, it was like they were sticking their cocks inside a nice, wet hole. Tell me, Mack—do you feel like a nice, wet hole?”
He stiffens, and I wonder if he recognizes his own words. I don’t care at this point. I just want to see him in pieces, so I plunge a dagger into his left shoulder—the same one he already dislocated. I feel the knife cut through the ligaments and tendons, and I’m fairly certain if I just give his arm a yank, it would come off completely. His body jerks, and he lets out a long, muted cry as he pisses himself. I pull out the knife and cut into his other shoulder.
“Well, isn’t that sexy?” I pat him on the cheek with the side on my blade, leaving a trail of blood on his face. “I know seventeen places in the human body where I can insert my knives and still not kill you. I’m only up to four. I do have to admit, I kinda see the point of those serial killers—those sadistic kinsmen of yours. It does feel damn good watching you squirm around underneath me.”
He moans against the gag, but there’s very little breath left in him. I pull the blade out of his shoulder and flip him over. The shift causes the wound below his ribs to open wider, spilling more blood. I move the tip of the knife across his chest and check my aim before I shove the knife deep inside again, careful not to hit any major organs.
“You’re getting all slippery,” I tell him. “You must be liking this.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, screaming behind the gag and thrashing as much as he can. His movements are slower and weaker, but there is still strength in him.
Without warning, the ground starts to rumble. I pull out the knife, not wanting the movement of the earth to make it slip too deep or mangle an organ. I steady myself against the ground, and the rocks jiggle out of their spots in the dirt.
The quake lasts a full minute, but then the earth goes still again. I look back down at my victim.
“You’re shaking,” I tell him. “Am I rocking your world?”
I stab him again and again. There is blood everywhere—too much for him to withstand for too long. Tears flow out of his eyes, and the stench overwhelms me for a moment as he defecates.
By the time I get to eleven, he passes out from the pain.
“Well, there goes my fun,” I whisper to myself.
I lean back on my heels and look over the mess in front of me. He’s still breathing, but it’s shallow. There is blood all over the ground around him, and I’m quite sure he won’t regain consciousness.
My hands begin to quiver, and I quickly tighten my grip on the knives. With a sudden, deep growl, I slice through his neck and let him bleed out.
I roll him to the river’s edge and then into the deeper water. He floats briefly downstream before his body dips below the surface, and I can’t see him any longer. I look down at myself, covered in blood, and try to regain my senses. My vision blurs into nothing but red, and I drop down to my knees by the shore, shaking as tears flow down my face.
“This isn’t me…this isn’t me…this isn’t me…”
My heart is beating too fast, and my breath is coming too quickly. My lungs hurt. I can’t even feel the knives in my hands, so I drop them to the ground and cover my face with my arms as I rock back and forth.
I swallow hard, and memories surface.
“You’re criminally insane, son.”
I stared blankly at my father as my arms were tethered behind me by two burly men in white coats.
“What, for disagreeing with you?”
“It isn’t the disagreement. It’s your unwillingness to shut up about it,” he said. “You’re dangerous, and you need to be somewhere safe.”
“Dangerous?” I would have tossed my hands up in protest, but they were already secured behind my back. One of the men tightens his grip on my arm painfully. “Are you afraid I’m going to hurt your ratings?”
“You are only hurting yourself.”
“People have the right to know! They have a right to know what you’re doing to secure more land and resources! You can’t just kill people and call it civic duty!”
“You can scream all you want,” he said to me, “but it doesn’t change anything. You’ll be treated well at Havens.”
“Havens?” I felt my skin go cold. He couldn’t possibly be serious. Since the death penalty was outlawed, Havens was where they sent the worst of the worst criminals from all up and down the East Coast.
“They’re already expecting you.”
“Do I at least get a trial?” I glared at him, throwing his own campaign words about a fair and righteous justice system in his face.
“A trial?” He laughed and shook his head. “You think you’re going to get an opportunity to blast me publicly? No, son. I don’t need that kind of scandal during an election year.”
The men in white coats began to pull me backward, toward the door. I fought against them, but there was nothing I could do.
“All right! I get the point! I’ll stop! I won’t say anything else!”
“It’s too late for that.” My father shook his head before turning his back to me so he could stare out the window of his office. “Take him.”
The men pulled me backward and out of the room as I screamed.
“Dad, please! You don’t have to do this! Dad! Dad!”
I watched as the door closed, and I was dragged outside and thrown in the back of an unmarked, white van.
I force air in and out of my lungs, telling myself with each breath that I have to move. I have to clean everything up and get out of here before another drunken idiot from The Plant stumbles by. I have to get back to the west side of Platterston before I’m seen.
Crawling to the rocky edge of the river, I wash in the frigid water—first my hands, then my arms, shoulders, and chest. The shock of the cold brings me out of my head and back to the present. Once Mack’s blood is gone from my body, I clean my knives and then secure them back in their sheaths. I stand and stretch my arms up over my head for a moment. Killing a man is no easy task, and my muscles are tense and sore. After removing the small amount of coins from Mack’s pockets, I gather his clothing, ball it up with a couple of rocks, and toss it into the center of the rushing current. Maybe someone will find it, but it will never be traced back to me.
Unlike those long-ago days, forensic countermeasures are pointless here and now. No one will investigate the disappearance of Mack. If he is ever found, no one will even care who he was. He was a Naught, and no one with an interest in upholding laws is going to care what happens to a Naught.
My hands are still shaking as I get dressed and check over the crime scene. It’s too dark to see if I’ve missed any blood, but the area is close enough to the river that it should wash away anything that’s left. If it doesn’t, oh well. I’m beyond caring.
At this point, I just need to get out of here.
Crossing the river is easy this time of night—no one is out and about. I make my way back to my secret cache and add the coins in my pocket to the bag inside. I sit for a moment as all the built-up adrenaline in my system sours and makes my head foggy. I need sleep, which brings about its own issues. I’m not entirely sure where I should go.
Jonny and Milo will be wondering where I am, and they will likely be displeased if I don’t return soon. However, returning in my current state would raise far too many questions. Ava will notice that I’m not quite right, and she will make her assumptions. If I wait, she might be convinced that I’d just forced Mack to leave the area.