Would the other one hear the sound?
The decision was taken from him when an airplane flew by at low altitude. He took the opportunity. The roar of the engines hid his actions from the ears of his hunter. The soft rustling faded unheard and the gnarled branch lay soothingly heavy in Toni’s hands.
However, Toni could no longer hear the footsteps of his pursuer. He waited. It was exactly then when the engine noise slowly faded that he peered around the trunk of the tree, shielding him from the path.
It was Benno. And he had already walked about fifteen meters past Toni’s hiding place.
Benno.
That little asshole.
And stupid, too.
He just kept running in order to catch up with his prey, turned his head to the left and then back to the right and hadn’t noticed that Toni was now in his back. Toni evaluated his options. He would have to go back on the path if he didn’t want Benno to extend his lead and if he didn’t want to attract his attention by rustling leaves. He took his steps carefully. The bright white fabric of Benno’s T-shirt was like a target for Toni. He started running, too.
The distance between hunter and prey decreased agonizingly slowly.
Five more steps.
Four more.
Three more.
Then two.
Toni swung out overhead. The branch in his hand felt good. Satisfying. Strong. In a moment, he’d let him go down on the back of Benno’s skull. In the last step, Toni’s foot hit a small stone that was slightly larger than the others that formed the surface of the gravel path. Suddenly startled by the noise, Benno took a leap forward and turned around.
His eyes widened in horror as his eyes first fell on the raised branch in Toni’s hand and then on his face. Benno’s mouth tried to open, his lips wanted to produce a frightened scream, and then Toni struck.
Benno’s evasive movement came too late to completely dodge the strike, yet it saved his life. Instead of hitting him directly on the head from above, the gnarled, heavy branch grazed his cheek and tore it open. A suffocated sound of pain escaped Benno’s throat. The sudden pain also caused the paralysis from the shock to fall from the boy. Panicked, he turned around and started running. The momentum of Toni’s stroke had thrown him off balance for a moment. By the time Toni got caught himself again, Benno had already gained a few steps ahead and ran. While he held his bloody cheek and branches whipped into his face as he tried to flee into the undergrowth, he already had a small lead.
Now Toni also started moving and began to run with the primal blood-thirst of a beast of prey. Along with the swing of his arms, the bloody end of his weapon kept periodically reappearing in his field of vision for a fraction of a second. For a moment Toni was tempted to stop and lick the wet red from the stick with the tip of his tongue. He resisted the impulse. He had to get Benno. Benno’s white T-shirt was like a beacon for Toni. It shimmered and flashed before his eyes through the undergrowth and led him the way. It helped Toni a lot that his first strike had put Benno into a condition of animalistic fear, into panic yet.
In a straight line Benno ran deeper and deeper into the forest. He neither hooked nor tried to make any tactical decision. It was the mere escape of a wounded animal. An animal slower than its fevered, rabid hunter. Toni reduced the distance between Benno and himself further and further. Part of him was surprised Benno wasn’t screaming for help. This part found two possible explanations. Either the blow had broken his jaw or Benno just couldn’t believe that his life really was in serious danger. Maybe he thought Toni just wanted to beat him up.
He was mistaken.
Only when Toni had formulated these thoughts in his head did he realize that he would kill the other boy today. Up until that time, he had only been driven by the vague but strong desire to hurt him, to hear him scream. This was different now. He wanted Benno’s this disgustingly white-glowing T-shirt to be soaked with blood.
Like violent flashes, memories raced through Toni’s brain while he ran. Memories of how he killed the foal. How the blade of the axe had slipped through the fur and into the flesh of the young animal. The lovely panic in the big brown eyes. How it had trampled with its skinny legs in the agony. His own excitement and arousal as he watched all this. The feeling of pure power. Then the mare. How the sticks had gotten into her. Like Azrael’s cock in his mother.
Toni noticed that he now was aroused, too. For another whole minute Toni’s body mechanically performed the movements necessary for the pursuit. Then Benno fell over a root and cried out.
As Toni stood up in front of him, he had both hands around his left ankle and whimpered as he stared into Toni’s face with his eyes wide open. Toni felt as if he should say something, as if he should end the matter with a big gesture.
He couldn’t think of anything.
He just started hitting.
Again and again and again.
He dyed Benno’s shirt red the way he had desired it. Then, at some point in time he suddenly was finished. He felt a little dizzy and sat down in front of the dead body on the soft, fragrant forest floor. He looked at it. Face and head were terribly deformed. How ugly you suddenly are when you no longer have any teeth in your jaw and one eye is missing, Toni thought. Then he stretched out long and looked up into the sky past the branches of the trees rising above him. As the clouds passed over him, he listened inside himself.
He felt good. Easy. Satisfied.
And he had an erection.
When he had finished staining the corpse, as he stained Benno’s little sister’s panties and Azrael did sustain his mother, he pulled his pants up again, got up and knocked dirt and fir needles out of his clothes. His glance touched on his hands. Bloodied. He’d have to wait. Wait until dark. Looking like this, he could not possibly walk home through the village. Judging by the position of the sun, it was about noon. Again he looked at Benno’s body. Toni had taken the clothes off and turned it on its stomach. He had plenty of time left to deal with it until night would come.
He was sure no one would disturb him in the middle of the forest.
***
Again and again Azrael’s belt came down on Toni, hitting every inch of skin on his naked torso. As always, Azrael made sure that no traces were to be found on Toni’s face, arms or hands. Toni wasn’t feeling any pain. He was way too happy with himself, too drunk by what he had done. He also knew that Azrael did not punish him for killing and living his full potential, but for the careless, unplanned way in which he had done it.
The man and his mother had already been waiting for him when he sneaked home after dusk. Toni had literally felt their eyes gliding over his face, his bloodstained clothes and his no less treacherous hands. He didn’t have to explain to them what he had done. Azrael had only wanted to know who his victim had been.
“Benno.”
That was the only word he had said before he sat down on his chair at the kitchen table and shoveled the already cold dinner into his mouth with an inexplicable greed. The two adults watched him in silence. It was not until Toni had completely consumed a second portion that Azrael began to ask questions. When Toni had answered them all to the man’s full satisfaction, Azrael got up. He seemed upset. Then, for the first time since he was here, he had left the house under the cover of darkness.
Four hours later the door to Toni’s small chamber was blown open and Azrael had ordered him to the basement where he used to punish him. Azrael had started the beating without saying a word after telling Toni to undress. When the man finally let go of Toni, the boy could see that his face was covered in sweat.
“You may get up now.”
Toni rose carefully and slowly from his kneeling, forwardly bent position and looked at Azrael expectantly. Usually Toni was sent to his room after such a beating, but today it was different. The man’s gaze glided over Toni’s naked, striae-covered body. With a pale red tongue, Azrael ran over his meatless lips.
“Do you know why I punished you? Because you haven’t thou
ght. You didn’t even hide the body of that stupid brat. Not even covered with branches. You left him just like that. And I had to clean up after you. I can’t be seen here. You know that. Why do you think I’m not leaving the house? You put us all in danger. For the second time, if you recall. But I’m still proud of you.”
A strange plea now lay in Azrael’s eyes.
“When you did it, did you feel the energy you released?”
Azrael’s gaze now pierced right through the eyes into Toni’s brain.
“No, you haven’t. I can see it in your face. What a pity! What a waste of potential! So much precious power that you have unleashed and you have simply let it return into the cycle without using it for yourself ... but ... maybe I expect too much from you. You’re too young to understand the dark mysteries. But maybe ...”
Azrael broke off the verbalization of his thoughts. Disappointment had spread to his face.
“Forget about it. I may be too impatient. Come with me.”
The man led Toni into his mother’s bedroom. He must have arranged it with her, Toni thought when he saw her lying on the bed, also naked. It was obvious she was expecting them.
“Sit there.”
Azrael pointed to a shabby wooden chair in a corner of the room. Toni obeyed. Then Azrael started using his mother. It took a long time and he stained her often. And every few minutes he asked Toni if he could finally see the energy. Toni could not, and after Azrael had poured himself for the seventh time into some opening of his mother, who shamelessly enjoyed the event, and Toni had repeatedly denied the eternal question, Azrael finally gave in.
“That’s probably enough for today. You’ll learn, boy. You will learn. By the way, I put the remains in an old silver mine. Shut down long ago. I don’t think the body will be found too quickly. In addition, I had an idea how we could settle this matter with the priest and the three other boys once and for all.”
Then he began to explain it to him.
The next day, Sunday, Azrael would not get out of his study. Toni talked to his mother from time to time about trivialities, even if she didn’t really seem to be in the same universe as he was in. In fact, she seemed to be alive for several months now only when Azrael was near her and tried to release energy with her. Nonsense, Toni thought. She did the housework with a certain routine, but she wasn’t quite there.
What Toni only noticed now was the fact that her drinking excesses became less and less frequent. She didn’t even seem to enjoy them anymore. Azrael had changed her. Whether for good or for bad - Toni could not say that. Still everything hurt, but he endured it. He fled in memories of his deed and the resulting erotic fever dreams.
When he came to school the next day, no one noticed him. The whole class and Father Bianchi were in a flurry of excitement. Benno’s place would remain empty, Toni rejoiced, and nobody could do anything about it. Not even the priest. His red veined eyes looked tired and worried. He dragged himself more through the class than actively designing it, made inappropriate pauses and mistakes in reading out the texts and calculating the arithmetical problems, and again and again he looked out the window worriedly, just as if he hoped that Benno would simply come walking across the schoolyard and yet take part in the class.
Hardly any of the students followed the caricatures of lessons that the preacher held for them that day. They talked and whispered quietly and anxiously and Toni enjoyed seeing the worry lines in his teacher’s face get deeper and deeper as more time passed by without Benno showing up. Of course, word had got around in the small town that the asshole hadn’t come back from his trip to the lake on Saturday evening as usual. Already on Sunday, Toni learned from the quiet, whispered conversations from his fellow pupils, some parents and siblings and other adults had gone out to look for Benno.
No one had seen him or even a trace of him.
Yes, priest. Your spy’s been blown.
Toni grinned and calmly mirrored Father Bianchi’s gaze as he later in the morning stared through the classroom again and again in his direction. He forbids himself to blink at him. That would have been a little too much. But the preacher had understood that something terrible had happened and that Toni had something to do with it. What he didn’t know was that when Azrael had taken Benno’s body away, he had found the note that Bianchi had written to Benno. The stupid priest had asked Benno to lie in wait outside Toni’s house and follow every step Toni would take and watch out for the strange man.
So basically Bianchi is to blame for Benno’s death, Toni grinned again. He’d tell him. But time wasn’t right just yet.
Soon it was time for the big break. Opposed to when they were playing ball or roughing up to get rid of excess energy and laughed or argued, a ghostly quiet at befallen the schoolyard. Toni stayed away from everyone and watched the groups of pupils, who had groups around each other, from some distance.
Like small animals during a storm they are.
He was not sure whether this thought had originated from his own mind, or whether he had adopted it from Azrael. When the school bell signaled the end of the break and Toni wanted to go back in, he was grabbed by the shoulder.
Father Bianchi had stepped behind him and held him with an iron grip.
“What have you done with Benno? What do you know? Where’s the boy? Talk, Toni, talk to me!”
Although the priest’s fingers dug deep and painfully into his shoulder, Toni returned his gaze with an arrogance and serenity not befitting a thirteen-year-old. It just seemed wrong. Toni slowly let his gaze wander away, away from the priest’s despaired face and towards his hands. When Father Bianchi realized that he was about to make a scene, if not a serious mistake, he let go of Toni.
“Toni, please! It’s not too late. I know about the man at your house. Is he threatening you? I can help you, Toni. You and your mother. But you have to talk to me, you know?”
Toni heard the words coming from the priest’s mouth, but their contents had no meaning for him. The village, the school, even the whole world no longer mattered to him. What seemed so important to these strange people around him, what determined their actions, their lives - all that no longer had any value to Toni. All that kept him busy were the memories of his deed and the pleasure he had felt in it and his efforts to keep those memories fresh as long as possible so that he could enjoy them and feast on them.
And while he stared at the preacher with expressionless, dead eyes, until he broke off his speech unnerved, something else became clear to the boy: he would have to do it again.
He’d want to do it again. Even after he was done with Luca, Pietro, Fillipe and Father Bianchi.
Azrael’s plan was pretty good. But today wasn’t the time. Should the lambs go continue to worry and wear themselves out in search of Benno. At least they’d leave him alone this way.
***
How much of a mistake he had made with this assumption became clear at dawn the next day. Angry knocking and the calls of the police tore Toni from his sleep.
“We have a search warrant! Open the door now!”
He threw off the blanket and slipped out of bed to the window to peer out onto the street. Five uniformed policeman had assembled there. One of them held a heavy looking metal battering ram in his hands and the others had drawn their pistols. Behind the uniformed man stood Father Bianchi, the stupid Provost Costa and another man Toni did not know. He was wearing a cheap-looking suit and the tie was waving loosely and sloppily over his coffee stained, cream-white shirt.
Coming from the bedroom Toni could hear his mother’s hysterical screams. Shrill and high and distorted. Then the slapping of Azrael’s hand on her face as he ended the screaming. Then rumbling, slamming doors and creaking on the stairs. Quick steps. Frightened steps. And yet somehow hesitant. Then his mother’s trembling voice, calling out through the closed door.
“Just a moment, please. I’ll get the door. Just wait for a moment.”
Bianchi and the man in the suit came a few steps closer. Both sp
oke at the same time when they gave instructions to the policeman holding the heavy battering ram to break down the door. The man stepped forward and Toni could no longer see him. Then a dull crash.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The bursting of wood. More hysterical screaming from his mother. Then the policemen roared around and the steps of heavy boots rumbled through the house. Toni’s thoughts just stopped. They were overflowing his brain’s capacity.
Had his mother washed the blood-contaminated clothes he was wearing when he did Benno?
Would he be arrested?
He was only thirteen.
They couldn’t arrest him, could they?
The noise of the policemen, the fearful screams of his mother and the wooden sounds when furniture was knocked over prevented him from thinking these thoughts further. He went back into bed and pulled the blanket over his head. If the priest thought that Toni was a victim who needed help, it could only be an advantage to appear exactly that way. Suddenly the rumbling stopped and for a second or two Azrael’s angry voice arose.
“You can’t catch me, you fucking...”
Three shots were fired almost simultaneously.
After that there was no more rumbling downstairs. The silence now was almost absolute. Scary and final.
At some point the stairs creaked, which led up under the heavy steps of several men and the door was opened. Toni had pulled up the blanket over his nose, so that only his eyes peeped out. It was the man in the suit, the priest and another police officer in uniform, who entered his room and set themselves up in front of him with all pale, concerned faces.
“Francesco Santoro is dead. You have nothing more to worry about, boy!”
It was the man in the suit with the sloppy tie who spoke.
“You’ve been incredibly lucky. You and your mother. The man was wanted all over Europe for multiple murders. He was a maniac, and you’re lucky you’re still alive. Your mother will have some explaining to do, but I think your torment is over now.”
The Rats of Frankfurt: The Gospel of Madness (Book 1 of 6) (The Gospel of Madness - (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Series)) Page 16