At the Gates of Madness

by Shaun Meeks

  He smelt something.

  Not just something, but the same thing he had been thinking about earlier, the same thing the Stitt boy had had on him. It was intoxicating and Ira felt his mouth begin to water. He picked up his pace; suddenly finding that the soreness he normally felt in his body was draining from him in anticipation of what he hoped was in the kitchen.

  “I saw the way you were looking at me old man.”

  Ira stopped as he heard the Stitt boy’s voice coming from the unlit kitchen and then the boy was standing in the doorway, tall and threatening looking with a butcher knife, Ira’s butcher knife, in his right hand. The old man looked from the knife clenched in his hand to the boy’s face and saw the same look he had seen earlier. The same gritted tooth sneer, and eyes so full of hate and rage that Ira knew he had better be careful with this one.

  “I never knew you were one of those pedophile fucks they talk about on TV, but I know that look, you sick fuck.”

  “Why? You see it in the eyes of the girls you rape?” Ira said and regretted it right away. The teenage boy moved across the room with fury in his steps and the knife rising up. He moved like a freight train towards the old man, and then shoved him hard to the ground. Ira fell with a yelp, feeling bolts of pain fly up his back when he hit the ground. The boy was strong; his hands feeling like steel when they had struck him and fear bit the back of his mind. Tears welled up in Ira’s eyes as he looked up and saw the boy coming towards him again. He looked at the teen’s face and saw that the look of pure rage and hatred had drained away from his face and was now replaced by a cold vacant stare and suddenly thought that this might go very bad.

  “Get on your knees you old piece of shit. NOW!”

  Ira did as he was told, ignoring the pain that flared up as he put his weight on them. He tried not to cry as the teen grabbed him by his thinning hair and yanked his head back. He knew that there was still a chance for him to get what he wanted; there were always ways to get what you need if you just waited for the right opportunity. He had to be patient, follow the boy’s lead and pounce at the first chance he had.

  “How many kids have you hurt? How many have you lured in here with candy and promises of video games? How many times have you touched some little kid and then threatened that if they tell anyone, you’ll kill their mom?”

  Ira tried to shake his head, tried to say he had never, ever done such a thing, but the Stitt boy paid him no mind, instead he grasped the old man’s hair tighter. Fear pulsed through Ira’s body, the smell of his addiction still flowing to him from the Stitt boy and it made being patient that much harder.

  “Don’t try to say you never have. I know that look. I’ve seen it in my dad’s eyes, you fucking pig. You’re all the same. I should kill you now.”

  The boy lowered the knife towards Ira’s face, pressing it against his neck and now the tears began to flow in a steady stream that Ira wasn’t able to stop. He also saw that the Stitt boy had begun to cry as well, though he doubted that the boy even realized it.

  “Keep crying you idiot. I don’t care. How many kids have you made cry? And you don’t stop! You just keep doing what you do, you fucking pig. Now, I’m going to return the favor. I’m going to make you cry and bleed, make you wish you were dead.”

  The boy let go of Ira’s hair, but kept the knife pressed to the soft skin of his throat. With the hand that had been grasping the old man’s hair, the teen began to unzip his pants. Ira looked up at him, knowing what was about to happen and knew that the boy was going to make it hard for him to control himself much longer. There would be little he could do to deny the beast in him if this went on.

  “You like to force kids to do things to you, let’s see how much you like the same.”

  The Stitt boy’s pants fell to the floor and the fear that Ira had been feeling left him so suddenly and was replaced by an intense need for his addiction. He knew that there was going to be little he could do to control himself much longer, despite the knife that was at his neck. For over a year, Ira had done without that one thing that gave his life such joy, filled him with such happiness, even if there was guilt afterwards. To him it was as though he was starved, left in a cell for over a month or two with nothing but water to drink, and then a buffet was being rolled in to him. How would he be able to resist much longer? How would he be able to deny what he wanted so badly, when it was being rolled out for him? He bit back his urge as hard as he could as the boy dropped his boxer shorts to the floor, and the smell seemed to flood the room, making Ira feel his self-control seep from him.

  “Now you know what I want you to do, don’t you? You’re going to do what you made all those fucking kids do, or I’m gonna stick you.”

  Ira didn’t really hear the words, all he could do was try and figure out how he was going to get what he needed without getting his throat slit. How he long to feel it in his inside him again, how he wanted to wrap his mouth around it and feel, it on his tongue, his whole body wracked with the deliciousness and sensation of it, and the wrongness of it making it almost so much better. He moved his mouth towards the teen’s crotch feeling the knife relax a little, and that was all he needed. With lightening quickness that people would have thought impossible and even hours ago, Ira himself had forgotten he was capable of; he grasped the boy’s wrist and pulled the knife from him. Before the Stitt boy could react, Ira took the razor sharp blade of the knife and slid it across the back side of the kid’s knees. The knife was razor sharp, Ira had always made sure to never let his knives go dull, having a habit of sharpening them once a week, and now it proved to be just the thing he needed. The boy screamed out in horrific pain and his legs buckled, muscle and tendons being severed as blood sprayed from the wound. Ira could hear the whisper of the blade slide quick and smooth, tearing at the tears and opening them to greet the soft flesh under. He felt the warm, wet blood spray against his aged hands and smile, knowing that he had what he wanted in his grasp. The teenage boy fell to the ground, unable to old himself up once the tendons were cut, crying out in shock and terror. Ira pounced on him, putting all his weight on the boy’s chest and made sure the boy wasn’t able to scream for long.

  “Shut your screaming up boy.” Ira growled in an inhuman voice. “NOW!”

  The boy stopped screaming and began to snivel and shutter all over as blood pooled under his legs. The Stitt boy looked into Ira’s face with a pleading look, but there was no sympathy to greet him on the other end.

  “That’s better. Now, I don’t know what you think I have done to kids, but I can tell you, whatever it was your daddy did to you, I’m not that kind of monster.”

  “Really? The boy sob and fear seemed to leave his face, replaced by a shred of hope.

  “It’s true. I’m not a child rapist. Hell, I ain’t never had sex with a man woman or child. Your daddy might be that kind of monster. Me? I’m a whole different kind of monster.”

  “Wh...”

  The words were taken away from the Stitt boy as the blade of the knife once again slide across the soft flesh, this time moving with blinding speed across the boy’s throat, opening it like a zipper. The boy gagged and gurgled on blood, the air that he struggled to breathe blood bubbles in the red mess, as he struggled to breath for survival. Knowing that the boy would be quiet now, Ira decided to take what he was longing for. He looked down at the teen’s exposed genitals and licked his lips. He looked into the face of the Stitt boy again and smiled and for the first time the teen saw that behind the row of yellowish brown teeth that he had seen earlier, there was a row, or several rows behind them, full of jagged teeth that glistened with saliva from the hunger that Ira felt.

  “It was nice of you to take your pants down for me. Saves me the trouble.”

  Then Ira, the old man that had been longing for his addiction for so long moved down. He opened his mouth, his jaw seeming to unhinge like that of a snake, so that the dying teen could now see the rows of sharp teeth better than before moments before they buried themse
lves into the meaty flesh between his legs. He tried to scream as the pain exploded, shutting his eyes tightly as though that would end it and seeing white light bursting behind his shut lids as every nerve ending cried out. But there was no use trying to scream at all with his throat wide open. Luckily, the pain and the shock made him fall into unconsciousness before long, and he never returned from.

  Ira had no idea if the boy was alive, dead or unconscious. He was too busy letting his razor-like teeth tear into the flesh of the boy, eating away what he had been so longing for. He felt the skin pop in his mouth, spraying his tongue with warm, salty blood that brought him as close to heaven as he felt he would ever get. It felt like ages had passed since he had last tasted this. It wasn’t just flesh and blood that he had wanted and craved, he wasn’t a cannibal by any means. You would have to actually be human to be considered a cannibal, and Ira knew he was anything but human. He never had parents to tell him what he was or why he was so different from other people, but to him, it didn’t really matter. He was who he was and sitting here over this boy, eating the flesh, drinking the blood and eating what he was truly addicted to, which happened to ne genital warts, was all that he really cared about. He savored every bit of the flesh that had been made so much tastier due to the genital warts that were festering there, the warts that made it impossible for Ira to think of anything else. Humans were the same way when it came to chocolate or pizza or cheese that he was to this. It was like nirvana to him, the deep root warts that sprung up on human genitals, and when he smelled it, there was nothing he could do to control it. He didn’t really care to either. Who would want to deny themselves what they so loved, what made life worth living? And after all these hundreds of years that Ira had been alive and eating humans, this was the one part that made it worthwhile. Regular flesh, blood and muscle were fine, but to him, this was a delicacy that was like no other to him. Was he to deny himself the joy of eating these flesh mushrooms that drove him towards ecstasy? He knew he never would. Would any persons deny themselves the food or drinks that they loved if it caused no long term harm to them? Would they give up the one thing in the world that made them happy? Of course they wouldn’t. He was a man of simple taste, loved his horror movies, the smell of fresh cut grass, the feeling a an early fall breeze, and the taste of human flesh, even better if that flesh was sweetened with an outbreak of genital warts, like a fine truffle just dug up.

  *

  After eating every last wart, right down to the roots, most of the flesh in the boy’s crotch eaten down to the bone, Ira stripped the rest of the clothes of the Stitt boy and dragged him into the kitchen. After eating, especially the warts, he always felt so much stronger, almost like a young man again. He pulled a hacksaw from the drawer and looked down at the body, ready to go to work on getting him ready for the freezer where he would keep him so as not to spoil, eating the rest of him over the next few weeks. It was a quick job for him, he hardly broke a sweat as he cut and wrapped the body up and through the pieces into the freezer, whistling a song to himself as he did it. He wasn’t worried about the cops coming and discovering the gruesome mess that would be there, because after all, Ira was a harmless old man that would never hurt a fly, nor would an old guy like him be able to fight and beat a young strapping boy like the Stitt boy had been. Nobody had ever come in the past to find the others, so he was sure that this time would be no different.

  Once he was done, Ira made another tea, as the one in the living room as undoubtedly cold, and when it was done he went back to the TV, looking at the blood stains and decided to put some cleaner on that to soak until the morning when he could clean it up. He wasn’t really worried about the police stopping by, but better to be safe than sorry. Not to mention it would just be more than a little gross to leave his food lying around like that. When he had put the cleaner down and sat in his chair with his tea, he was happy to see that the local station was now playing Blood Feast, one of his favorite movies. Sipping his tea, Ira made a mental note that if he felt his addiction start to build up again; he might want to visit the Stitt house. There was a possibility that the father, who had molested his son, might be harvesting an equally delicious crop. And it might be fitting to teach him a lesson, not to mention you can never have too much of a good thing.

  As Long As It Ends

  1

  The police cruiser stopped at the red light and the officer driving, Thomas Jana, looked into the review mirror at the prisoner in the back. The man sitting there didn’t look like a monster, but Jana was well aware of what he was wanted for and knew that behind those green eyes and that innocent face was a living, breathing monster worse than any that use to terrify him as a child. As a kid, the Mummy and the Wolfman terrified him when the lights went out and it was time to sleep, or when he would be walking home from Tommy Cabado’s house at night, having to pass by the huge field at Broadacres that always seemed to be covered in fog during the summer time. Those monsters, their faces more hideous in his memory than they were in the movies, were what scared him as a kid, but when he became a cop, he learned what real monsters looked like. The man in the backseat was one of the worst monsters in recent history.

  The fact he was in the back of the cruiser now, was by nothing short of pure luck. A security guard in a high rise in the downtown area had found him sleeping in a stairwell where crackheads were known to visit. The guard had been patrolling and tried to get him to leave, but he refused because of the cold and snow outside. The security guard arrested him, and the name he had given the guard was Charles Lindt, a virtual nobody according to the in car computer.

  Jana had been dispatched to the call since he was riding solo. They were sending him to the easier calls because his partner was in trouble for something and was being made to work a R.I.D.E. check spot, stopping possible drunk drivers. It wasn’t the worst job there was, but in the cold and the snow, standing out in the middle of the road getting people to pull over for six hours, it was not the best job either.

  Jana had shown up to the building in the St. Jamestown area and met with the arresting guard. When he went into the office that had a smell of mold and dead rats that must have been hidden in the walls, he saw the supposed Charles Lindt and thought there was something familiar about him, something he recognized. Jana asked the guards if they had ever dealt with him before and they hadn’t, they also said he had no identification on him, just a bit of cash, a crack pipe and a pocket knife. Jana looked at all of the items, then at the man in handcuffs, trying to figure out where he knew him from. He figured it must have been a prior arrest he had done with him, figuring he was one of the many drug users in the area that he saw almost every day since he started working in 51 division over eight years ago, but he wasn’t sure. He asked the man a few questions, asking if he had ever been arrested, why didn’t he have I.D., the usual stuff, but he only received silence and a stare in response. Jana continued to ask him a few other questions, already knowing that this was going to go nowhere, when he picked up the pocket knife and studied it.

  “What do you use this for?” He asked and figured he would get the usual response about cleaning fingernails, but the man didn’t answer him, just kept staring with his cold, green-eyed gaze. Jana flipped the knife open, not quite a switch blade, but close, and as the blade locked into the open position and he spotted the dried blood on it. The knife clicked into locking position as the facial recognition also clicked into his head. The silent man wasn’t Charles Lindt, who didn’t appear anywhere in his computer records, he was Alexander Downey, wanted in connection with two rapes and two murders.

  Jana nearly dropped the knife as he realized who was sitting in handcuffs, staring at him intently. This was the monster wanted for the rape and murder of a four year old boy and his mother only three weeks ago and this security guard had just stumbled on him and arrested him for a simple trespass to property offence. That was how things sometimes worked. If Downey had left the property as he had been instructed to, he wouldn�
��t be in handcuffs and about to be taken in for the crimes he committed. It was a stupid mistake, by Jana was glad he had made it.

  Jana thanked the guards, not telling them anything and led Downey to the cruiser. Once there, he placed the killer into the backseat and slammed the door, trying to ignore the way his hands were shaking and the hard his heart was beating, his neck pulsating against the collar of his shirt. He had never had an arrest this big in his entire career and he needed to make sure everything went right. He sat in the front seat of the cruiser, shutting the door on the wind as it picked up and fresh snow blew into the cruiser with him, and went straight for the computer. He typed Downey’s name in and moments later the mug shot of the killer came up and he knew he had the man he was looking for. The face of the man in the back seat stared back at him from the computer monitor, the monster who hadn’t just killed two people, but had brutally violated a child in front of the mother, then vice versa. The murders themselves were heinous enough, even though Jana had not seen the crime photos, word had gone around the division about them. They had been stripped naked, hung from a ceiling; the he set them on fire. He didn’t let them just burn to death, that would have be a kindness, a merciful act. Instead, he let them burn just enough to char their skin and leave them in agony. Once he was satisfied with that, he carved chunks of flesh from them and ate the pieces, apparently while they were still alive, possibly while they even watched. There had also been human flesh found in the victim’s stomachs, DNA in the mother matching the child, and in the child matching the mother. How hungry or terrified would someone have to be to eat their own loved one? The thought of this had turned Jana’s stomach like nothing else ever had, and looking into the review mirror at the cold, quiet killer; he wished he could kill the bastard right then and there.