Blood Thrill

by David Swinden

  He was actually lost without Robert and nothing was making sense anymore. He was used to receiving and carrying out orders. Not really in the experience of actually making and taking any forward-looking-decisions. He knew how to invest his money, run a club perhaps, but he was no murderer, he enjoyed the good life. Drinking fine liquor; eating good food and fucking any hot pretty thing that was willing to let him fuck it. He had never had any sexual harassment cases brought against him, because he never knew how to chase woman and settled for anyone he considered pretty enough. Just like Robert he did not have a permanent relationship with any woman. Robert had received a business offer, that both of them credited as being pretty good. All they had to do was keep a tab on a couple that was in charge of another strip club. Robert had volunteered to do the physical work while he would sit back and keep things running as usual. The orders used to come in on Robert’s phone. He was aware that they were receiving ‘Blood Money.’ There was some vicious cycle that they had both been involved in, their job was to spy on two or three contract killers, keeping watch in case they should abandon ship and sell-out to someone else, or maybe rat-out everything to the police. He had told Robert that this was a bad idea, but the money was just too good and they couldn’t resist. Now that this shit had hit the fan, he had begun to feel the heat. He was also dismayed at having received that threat from the Russian Mafia Boss; this was all just too much for him. In preparation for his flight, he had cleaned out all of his bank accounts and transferred the money to an overseas account that he maintained.

  In his car was a bag of money that he planned to distribute to his staff after the last shift was over.

  He called-in the manager just after 12 am and asked for the club to be closed early today. On a normal night they would stay open till a little after 4 am, but today was different. Once all the customers had been ushered out, he addressed the staff.

  ‘I know we’ve all been under a lot of stress and duress after the rather unfortunate passing of Robert. I just want you’ll to remember that I am still here and things are going to carry on as usual. To lighten the mood and to lift your spirits, I am going to give each of you a bonus tonight. A three month bonus, consider this a gift from me.’

  With that he asked his manager to distribute the money among all the staff, even the freelance girls who worked the club, where to be given a bonus, a kind of goodwill gesture. Even Justine the Bartender was given his full three months wages in advance. Everyone left, and the club was closed early. Making sure that the entire place was empty, Acer came in through the backdoor once again and started opening bottles of the most expensive booze and began to pour the contents out all over the place, on the stage, on the chairs and tables, the bar counter, and the back office. He then went outside and gave the club one last look of love, with regret in his eyes, he lit a match and threw it in. The place was completely engulfed in flames, even as he started his car and speed away. He was just grateful to still be alive as his private charter crossed over US territory, heading straight to Belize. Here he would settle down, maybe marry, have kids, and build a nice farm. He was not coming back, America had served him well, but things had gotten way too hot for his liking.

  ***

  ‘Who, who, who the fuck are you?’ The Russian Mafia boss asked on seeing an intruder standing next to him; as he lay in bed with two naked Russian beauties. The invader dressed in full black did not offer to answer the question. The girls tried to pull up the covers to hide their bare assets. The room remained in semi-darkness, except for the fancy blue light, that spread a soft glow across the room. The girls screamed as they saw the intruder raise a baseball bat high over his head, smashing it into the face of the Russian mobster, beating his face to pulp. Once done, he sat on the bed and nonchalantly lit a cigarette. He ordered the girls to stay in the same room and not make a sound. ‘One little whimper and your pretty faces will be turned into fresh mango slushie.’ The girls remained motionless, but kept shivering with fear, gulping in air, every time they felt a sound welling up deep in their throats. He smoked the cigarette, then got up and left.

  11. Its over

  That morning Brian was in the lieutenants’ room, both of whom were being looked-at in disdain by the chief. ‘Everyone involved is now dead, congratulations! As far as I’m concerned this case is closed. These dickheads have killed themselves; this is how it’s always been. Criminals kill each other and we have no intention of stopping them, like the Gangs of New York, or what happened with the Chicago Mob Bosses, they kill each other and bring about their own ends. I hope both of you understand. This is fucking over - that fucking strip club, with those two pricks. One is dead and the other has fled the country. Hand that file over to the CIA, it’s their business now. This is not in our jurisdiction. That Russian prick is also dead. His business is finished, freeze his assets and attach it to the state, God knows we were in a desperate need of funds. The killer of those working girls, he’s dead. What the fuck do you call that guy… hmm, Phantom? He did a good job. This whole city is scared; there’s been a dip in crime after he appeared on the scene. Yes, you could try to find out who he is, and in case you do, tell him that the chief would like to thank him personally. God bless the man, he did what my own fucking department couldn’t do. As of this moment, dismantle everything. This operation is now official over. Am I understood… clearly understood?’ ‘Yes Chief’ Ellen barely whispered.

  With that the Chief got up and left, before turning one more time to talk to them. ‘This is over; I don’t want any more trouble, mind you.’ Ellen and Brian nodded, as the door closed behind him. ‘You heard the Chief,’ Ellen was saying. ‘Shut the fucking thing down, close the case. I hope you know why this is being done. We don’t want any other agencies to come knocking, then everything gets shifted out of our PD. Don’t worry, the city will always have trouble and you will get new cases. There’s no peace in these fucked-up cities.’

  Brian offered a half-hearted salute as he went to tell his team that the game was over. It was kind of disheartening for the lot of them, this had offered so much promise but things had now turned, for indeed they had. There were no more clues or leads to be had. The chief did not want to use anymore of the PDs money or resources on something that had died overnight in a natural way.

  ***

  The press briefing that evening had Ellen telling journos that the killing at the club had been nothing more than rival jealousy. With this, the case had been officially closed. The killing of the Russian Mobster had caused barely a trickle in the news; he was bad news anyway and needed to die.

  As the chief had ordered, this case was shutdown and relegated to Cold Case Files. There were many unanswered questions, but that did not matter since there was not much to go on with. All the major players in the case were now dead, and as long as there was no longer any life in the game, the files were being shifted to Cold Case Files.

  I saw the press briefing and realized that something had gone wrong. It was plainly obvious to me that stealing all of the electronic equipment – had left the cops with not much to carry-on with. This was obviously good news, since I was now going to be left alone in peace to carry-on with my favorite hobby. I was still on the lookout for the person who had been sending those kill orders. I needed to get to him; life had become boring now, no thrill, no chase, and no blood. I needed to kill; that urge deep within me was growing stronger and stronger by the day. With every passing night leaving me restless and brooding, without the sight of blood, life did not make any sense at all. Blood had all the answers to life, to death, to the cosmos, to meaning, to reason and most of all, to intelligence. For above all; is intelligence.

  All the information from Robert’s phone had been transferred to my online storage and I now began to carefully examine every bit of data that I could find. I found all of his bank accounts that had been recently emptied, must have been the work of Acer, who fled with all that he could get his hands on. I had too much to do right now, an
d would need to find him at a later date. His head was mine, of that I was sure. The need inside me had really grown and become deep; there was no mistaking the maturity level it had reached. The feeling of hard cold steel cutting against soft human flesh, and that deep red blood, the very color of life. The only life I was beginning to know and understand consisted of the color red in liquid form. How it either began to spurt or flow, endlessly in a river of truth. How godlike it made me feel, how easy it was to take it in my hands and play with it. I didn’t quite know what kind of a demon I must be. For me though, Blood Truth was the only truth. Everything else was a lie, every other feeling was fleeting and empty. The flow of blood was the only truth. It had a way of stopping the earth from spinning, it made people take a break and look, while it scared others. It was a very truthful thing, and there was no mistaking its presence. It had eternity in it, and whenever it began to flow, it made me stop and ponder the meanderings of life. It seemed to me that life always kept running around in circles and whenever I killed, it stopping running and started respecting me.

  When going through all the information, it was obvious that Robert had been in touch with someone who went by the SnapChat handle, BirthandDeath666. This was the person that needed to be tracked down. I safely turned on Robert’s phone and sent a text to that handle. ‘Motherfucker, your throat is next.’ ‘Anytime bitch,’ he replied almost immediately. ‘Wait for me,’ I texted back and switched the phone off.

  They were waiting for me, whoever they were. There was no fooling me; this was a very well organized syndicate. These bitches must have been frustrated that they hadn’t gotten’ to me as yet. I needed to be careful though, being new to all of this and a newbie; I could not take anything for granted. Sometimes my plans were not foolproof. I mean, I almost got caught by that stupid couple. Had they taken me in, this investigation would have been far from over. But now that the cops were over it, the situation had become much fitter and safer for me, being able to go about my plans, with little to no hindrance at all.

  The game as far as I could tell had become a very ‘Cat and Mouse’ kind of thing. I needed to get to this delivery boy now. He was the deliverer of messages and ultimately death, kind of like the grim reaper - the messenger from hell. I personally had a delivery for him - his death. I didn’t think he would be in anyway pleased to receive this gift. But that gift was going to be personally hand-delivered to him.

  Since our dear delivery boy was on SnapChat, there was a lot I could do to track him down. I would need the use of Robert’s phone to do this. Traveling to the other side of the city, switched on the phone and then used SnapMap already available on SnapChat. If he was clever he would have used Ghost Mode in his settings - this would have removed his location from the map completely. If it was in the My Friends Mode, then I could see where the individual was located, if he was using SnapChat at the moment. Criminals are cleaver, but I wasn't sure how Techie they were about all of this. Once I got his location, I would then use a SnapChat spy app to trace him. I was able to do all this by only using apps and information available online. This saved me time that I would have otherwise needed to have spent in hacking his account, which would not have been a problem for me. After all, I had lived the good life, with rich parents, was always free to pursue my interests’, whatever they might have been. Being a person given to unusual passions and activities, found out very early, that hacking was an easy thing. Tracking a person without hacking was actually much easier.

  I gave myself a window of about 10 minutes in total, by which time Robert’s phone would need to be used and switched off. Just in case some rogue cop might still have an interest in this case and think of tracking usage and activity on his device. Using all my skill, was finally able to locate the building in which the individual was located. This motherfucker was working in a meat market. This was going to be difficult - was able to get the exact building, but God only knew how many butchers worked there. I would need to conduct a recon of the area and the building itself.

  Reaching the place found that it was on a big enough street, with parking on both sides. Finding a spot diagonally opposite the building, parked and went for a walk down the street. It was time to read up on the butcher’s shop I was outside of. The internet was a very handy tool and there were also YouTube videos of people visiting this meat market. The butcher shop surprisingly also had a website, advertising their cuts of meat and types of flesh available at the store. Apparently you could get beef, lamb, and poultry in this store. I was sure that our grim reaper was a butcher, working on cuts of beef. He seemed to be a person who would be interested in such a thing - I could be wrong though, would just need to wait and find out. He might also turn out to be the owner of the place, perhaps he was a master cutter, not being satisfied with cutting animal flesh, must have occasionally turned to human flesh. It didn’t matter to me, as his flesh was now mine, beyond reason of considerable doubt. On the website was a picture of the owner, proudly smiling and holding up a cut of beef. He was a big burly man, with large teeth and a smile that spread from ear to ear. ‘Look at this ugly fuck.’ It might actually be of interest to me to walk into the shop and take a look around. I needed to look into the eyes of the people working there. The eyes are a good giveaway - being a window to the soul.

  Looking into a person’s eyes, you could easily read their intentions. Which was a good thing, but I’m sure another killer would also be able to pick up on the look in my eyes. I had soft and loving eyes, having practicing for years, the art of putting a smile on my face, which eventually moved into my eyes and made me appear bright and cheery. This I had started doing early-on in life, because sometimes when I used to look in the mirror. The grim look on my face used to scare me, that’s when I learnt how to do this, would especially need to call on this skill at this present moment; needing to find the killer before he finds me. After all it was me, who had promised to jab a blade deep into his throat.

  My walk-around revealed nothing, not one of the employees had any sort of look that even closely resembled the look of a killer. The backroom though, the one used as a cutting room, might help me better, but how was I to get in there without appearing suspicious, spotting that big ugly fuck who owned the store hanging around near the cash register, walked-up to him with a happy smile on my face. ‘Good morning, just shopping around.’ ‘Sure, take a look,’ he said, anything specifically you interested in?’ ‘Yeah we have a large party coming up in about two week’s time you know… and we need a lot of beef. Is it possible to take a look in the back… need to be sure of the quality?’ ‘Sure, how large of an order are we talking about?’ ‘I wouldn't know specifically, but we have more than a hundred guests… so I need your help in the estimations.’ ‘Sure, if meat is the main, I would recommend half-a-pound per person, especially if it’s something like a roast. So that would be a half-pound and a little more, especially if you have large hungry guys around… you know what I mean.’ He said, while that same large ugly smile spread across his fucked face, he appeared particularly ugly and disgusting to me. Didn’t really mean to insult nature or her creations, but some of these aforementioned creations were a big misfire.

  Like the one now educating me on portions for a party. He kept talking but I was no more interested in his words, I was hunting as my quarry might be located around here somewhere. I could see the beef hanging suspended in the air, there were any number of butchers here, working with steel meat cleavers. None of whom even bothered to turn around and look at me. This was becoming a very futile effort. There were no clues here; could the killer really be hiding someplace here? If he was, he was doing a pretty decent job of disguising himself. It was time to leave now, and so thanking him I left. There were indeed security cameras in this place. I had inadvertently given away my identity to the killer or killers. This was bad, another mistake?

  They could take a screengrab of my face and run it though free facial recognition software available on the internet, this was inde
ed very alarming. There was however, no time for regret, this individual needed to be found, and found fast. As I drove away, that ugly face would not leave me. Was he also good at hiding his real identity? No, that was not possible, he was just an ugly-fuck and that was all that there was to it. It was someone else, located in the same store. I would return and creep around later that night.

  As was becoming my custom, I had reached the back of the store by 11 pm, it was closing time, and through the windows I could see only two people working in the meat shop; one of whom was preparing to come out for a smoke. The door closed behind him and he walked a little away to light up. I walked very confidently up to the door, pushed it open and walked in, my body language not displaying anything suspicious, but portrayed the confidence of someone who knew his way around. I entered confidently and walked-around. The room that contained all the hanging meat was very cold and I could not stay there. Finding a staircase that led to the first floor, I walked-up and found that it led to an office. There was a desktop computer, a filing cabinet and a lot of paper lying around. The lights had been switched off, but I could see with the help of light coming in through the windows. I would need to spend the night here and snoop around. It wasn't long before the smoker was back and they were packing up to leave for the night. Soon I head the doors being shut as the last two employees left for the day. That lazy ugly fuck should have been here at closing time, but hey, he must have been too indolent. I was pretty sure that with the kind of money he was generating, he must have had a pretty hot, young woman, waiting for him, to fulfill all of his ugly fuck-fantasies.