by Marni Mann
“If you don’t start talking, I’m going to leave you out here,” I warned.
Curiosity had brought me to her, but it wouldn’t keep me here. I wasn’t going to get fooled by some girl who was just looking for a handout. There were plenty of those in this city, and I wasn’t a fucking soup kitchen.
“You made your choice,” I said after several seconds passed.
When I took a step, a small hand shot out and cuffed my ankle. “Don’t go. Please. I’m scared. And I’m in pain.” The more she talked, the worse her weeping got. “It hurts so much.”
The light from the doorway wasn’t enough, so I took out my phone, turned on the flashlight, and held it over her. “Show me your face.”
Gradually, she bent her neck back and groaned from the brightness in her eyes. The movement revealed cheeks that were so severely beaten, it was like she had bathed in coal. Each cut oozed with puss. Blood was caked across the corners of her eyes and her forehead, and more had seeped into her hair. Her lips looked like they had been chewed. By the sound of her breathing, I suspected her body was in the same kind of shape.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
Her hands lowered, and carefully, she pushed herself up. I could tell how much energy it took, and her noises were an indication of the amount of pain she was in. When she eventually caught her breath, blood dripped onto her front teeth.
“He said…”
Her eyes met mine. In that second, the amount of time it took her to blink, I felt the knife again. This time, the stabbing was on the back of my tongue.
“He said you’d help me.”
The Kid
Before
It’s taken me a while to send this letter, and I’m sorry about that.
I wrote to you so many times in the past that I have a whole box full of letters, all addressed and even stamped. So, why didn’t I send them? I’ve asked myself that a bunch. I guess what stopped me had nothing to do with actually mailing them. It had to do with your response. I wasn’t ready to hear it.
But I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. About who this Dad guy really is. Besides what I’ve been told, I have no memory of you. I can’t see even the smallest flash of your face, of our home. I don’t know what your voice sounds like.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve only heard one side of the story. I know it was changed for my benefit. I know things were left out. I know it’s only a tiny bit of what really happened.
The only person who will fill in those missing pieces is you.
I want to hear it.
All of it.
I’m ready to know who you are.
More importantly, I’m ready to know who I am.
Shank
Before
I had to start at the beginning. It was the only way I knew how to tell my story, the only way the kid would know who I really was. I didn’t care why he wanted to know, and I had no plans on asking him.
The things I intended to tell him could hurt him. They could make him hate me, fear me, fear who he could become. Shit, that didn’t matter to me.
The only reason I was giving him what he had asked for was because, during the hours of sunlight—which was the only light I had inside my cell—I now had something to occupy my time.
Hell, that was needed.
Boredom led to cutting. And I’d cut so much of my own flesh that, every few weeks, I would trade my asshole for a sharper knife. I’d started at the top of my shoulder and traveled to the bottom of my wrist. Marring my flesh were perfectly spaced scars, like piano keys, that I could touch and press. Each was an inch long, a quarter of an inch deep, an eighth of an inch apart.
I never felt the dragging of the knife. I couldn’t feel my fingers tapping the healed marks.
And the blood that had poured from each gash never gave me the satisfaction I craved.
Maybe reliving those times—when I had murdered hundreds, when I had coated myself in their blood—would give me the relief I needed.
So, I rewound my thoughts to when I was twelve.
To when I’d killed for the first time.
And with a pen in my hand and a piece of paper on my lap, I started writing back to the kid.
Murder.
That was something I’d wanted to do for as long as I could remember.
At six, I’d earned myself the nickname when I started making my own shanks, and that was when everyone had stopped calling me Seth. I’d had drawers full of them, all different lengths and thickness. But, before the age of twelve, I hadn’t been tactical enough to kill a human. I had been careless and far too eager. So, I’d mingled with torture and only slayed animals.
My father had learned quickly that we couldn’t have pets in our house. It wasn’t a deadly bacteria that had filleted the tank full of saltwater fish my father kept in his home office. But, when he’d returned home from work, their skins had been floating at the very top, their bones resting over the coral. It also wasn’t a raccoon that had killed our cat, like I had told him one morning when it hadn’t returned in days.
But, even though I’d started with these small animals, I’d learned something from each one.
The fish had perfected my knife skills. It trained me how to steady my hands and slice through their skin without tearing it. The cat had taught me how to listen for pain. When someone was hurt, their noises weren’t whines or shallow cries. They were guttural screams and intense wails.
All the practice—all the birds, skunks, sea lions—had gotten me ready for my first hunt.
Her name was Carol, and I killed her a month after my twelfth birthday.
She was thirty-two, and I’d known her for years. I’d tolerated her presence until I couldn’t anymore. That was the moment when I knew she had to go. Not just move away from San Diego, the town where I’d been raised. She had to permanently leave.
Permanent was the only solution.
Always.
So, I went to her apartment, and I rang the doorbell. She was out of breath when she answered the door. She hadn’t put on any makeup. Her hair was messy and on top of her head in an unflattering knot.
I didn’t know what my father saw in her. Why, out of all the women in the large city we lived in, he’d decided Carol had to be his girlfriend. Surely, there were better catches out there, someone who had something to offer besides a weak job and an annoying voice.
Her eyes and brows told me she was confused. That was because she had been expecting my father.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
I had anticipated this. I’d played out every scenario in my head. My answers had been rehearsed.
“I had a doctor’s appointment right down the street, and Dad was supposed to pick me up, but he’s running late.” I smiled. It felt awkward. Unnatural. It was something I needed to work on. “Looks like he’s late in picking you up, too.”
“He told you?”
“Don’t worry; I won’t mention it to anyone.” I could tell she knew whom I was referring to. “Maybe you could give me a ride to his office? Then, he won’t have to pick you up since you’ll already be there.”
She glanced behind her. So did I. The place was a mess. Boxes on the countertops, overflowing garbage, cleaning supplies on the floor that would never get used. And right next to the door were two suitcases. She was packed; she just hadn’t finished cleaning up.
To set things in motion, my father had agreed to give Carol a warning. She thought that, this evening, as a precaution, she was going to be leaving town for a little while. An ex of my father’s, who was also a psychiatric patient of his and someone who had recently become addicted to opioids, was jealous of their relationship. Jealousy led to revenge, and he wanted to keep Carol safe.
All lies.
Carol had fortunately believed every one of them.
“Let me just grab my purse,” she said.
My hands began to shake. That was what happened whenever I got close to my victim. They yearne
d to be around a throat, to feel the veins stretch while the creature gasped for air. I wanted to see their eyes bulge from the sockets, the tongue thicken with spit, the skin change colors, the pupils enlarge.
I needed to take things slow with Carol, to savor everything that was about to happen, so I could learn from my first kill. But I was so anxious. My skin was covered in sweat, and my mouth watered.
When she returned, I shoved my hand into my pocket and used the other to wheel one of her suitcases. She pulled the second piece of luggage, and I followed her to the car. In all the times I’d been in her Toyota, I’d never sat in the passenger seat. I’d just watched her from the rearview mirror—at the way the lines in her forehead deepened when she spoke, how her lips tilted upward when she called her son baby.
My father was so tailored. He thrived off perfection.
But here was Carol with chipped nails, yesterday’s makeup still under her eyes, and a red stain on her T-shirt, like tomato sauce had squirted when she took a bite of pizza.
The next woman he’d find would be perfect.
Or she’d have to go, too.
We listened to country as we drove to The Mills where my father kept his office. My best friend, Jae—whom everyone called Beard—and I nicknamed his shops The Mills. They were pill mills, and my father owned many of them all over Southern California. I watched her tap her chipped nail on the steering wheel. I listened to her sing. I observed her fixing her hair at the red light.
I could barely swallow, I was shaking so badly.
By the time she pulled into the parking lot, the syringe was already in my hand. It was filled with just enough opioids to make her unresponsive. I would continue injecting her with drugs until it turned dark outside. Then, I would bring her to the abandoned building that was three houses to the left of The Mills. I’d break the window that led into the kitchen and carry her up the stairs and into the master bedroom. There, I would have my fun.
Planning and detail were just as crucial as the kill.
“We’re here,” she said as she shifted into park and turned off the engine. “Do you—”
“Carol”—my voice deepened as my mouth stopped watering, and I was breathing hard through my parted lips—“come here for a second. I want to show you something.” I pointed at my cheek. “Is there something right here? I forgot to have the doctor look at it today. Do you think I should go back and have him check it out?”
I heard the words come out of my mouth, but I forgot what I had rehearsed. Adrenaline was taking over my body; it was controlling my speech and my movements.
Carol leaned across the center of the car to look at my face, her hand reaching for me at the same time to hold my chin and keep it steady. Once I knew that her focus was on me, I removed the needle from my pocket.
“What am I looking for?” she asked as she searched.
With my other hand, I fingered the imaginary spot again. “What it looks like exactly, I don’t know. But it feels like it’s cracking open from my pulse. That’s what happens when I’m about to kill something. I have this rush and this tingling, and I can feel it inside my skin.”
Shock passed through her eyes. “Shank—”
“Yes, Carol,” I said, sticking the needle in her neck, pushing the plunger so that the drug emptied in her bloodstream, “I’m going to kill you.”
She grabbed for my hand, but it was too late. I was already sticking the cap back on the head and tucking it into my pocket.
It took only a few seconds before she felt it.
“Shaaank,” she slurred. “But Jaaae.”
Those were her last words before her neck tilted forward, her chin pressed against her chest, and her eyes closed, nodding out, just like a junkie.
My father came up to the car a few hours later. I hadn’t moved from the passenger seat, and Carol’s high had kept her quiet and drooling. I rolled down the top of my window as he stood outside of it.
“How much did you give her?” he asked.
He was trying to hide his concern, but I saw it in his face, and I heard it in his voice.
He didn’t want me to do this.
But I didn’t give a fuck what my father wanted.
I looked at the glass vile that I kept tucked under my thigh, although I didn’t really need to. I knew how much the needle held and how many times I’d stuck her.
“Enough,” I answered.
“When it turns dark, I’ll help you carry her to the house, but then I’m leaving.”
He didn’t want to watch me torture her.
That was fine. I didn’t need an audience. That wasn’t why I was doing this.
What I needed was her blood. Across my chest. On my hands. Under my nails.
And then I needed to watch it drip from her body until there was a pool of it on the floor. When the circular red stain was large enough, I would take my achingly hard dick out, and I’d come in the center of it. Cum floated, and I wanted to watch mine swim across her blood.
Then and only then, my heart rate would return to normal, my breathing would even out, and my body would get the relief it needed.
“Do whatever you want,” I told him.
He watched a guy walk behind the car, crossing the sidewalk, before he turned his attention back to me. “Do not come home until you’ve washed up. I don’t want any DNA in my house, and I don’t want Jae seeing any blood on you. He’ll be asking enough questions over the next few weeks. We certainly don’t need you to alert him with any clues.”
Yesterday, Carol had dropped off Beard at our house along with trash bags full of his clothes. She’d told him he was staying the weekend. He didn’t know yet that it would be a lot longer than that.
“Did you bring everything I’d asked?”
He pointed at his car. “It’s in my trunk.” His eyes moved to Carol where they only stayed a second. “I’ll be back out after sunset.”
I closed the window and turned toward Carol. “Did you think you could soften me by mentioning Jae’s name?”
Hours had passed since she said it, but it was time I brought it up. She didn’t reply. I knew she wouldn’t, and I didn’t want her to.
“I don’t give a fuck if you’re in love with my father or that you’re my best friend’s mother. I have no empathy toward a slut who steals my father’s attention. You might have stolen it, but I’m getting it back.”
I checked both windows, making sure no one was watching us. Then, I dug my fingers into her scalp, gripped her hair, and pulled her head back. Spit continued to flow down her chin.
“I’ll make sure Jae turns into a killer like me. And, the second he turns soft, I’ll get rid of him, just like I’m going to get rid of you.”
So, Kid, had I killed Beard’s mother?
Hell yeah, I had.
I’d wiped her blood on my chest, my hands, and I’d made sure it got under my nails.
I’d come on a pool of it.
And I loved every fucking second.
Huck
“He said you’d help me.”
As I repeated the girl’s words in my head, trying to make sense of them, the silence between us grew. So did her tears, dragging the blood from the corners of her eyes as they dripped down her cheeks.
“And he said you’d keep me safe,” she added.
I clenched my teeth together and put my hand up, warning her not to breathe another word. I turned toward the door and said, “Lawan, go back to the front desk and tend to our clients.”
Lawan didn’t need to hear this.
She saw my purchases come in. She got those girls what they needed, and she was informed when they left.
She didn’t ask questions; she didn’t need details.
This situation was no different.
“What’s your name?” I asked once the door shut.
She bent her knees and slowly wrapped her arms around them. “Arin.”
“Then, Arin, tell me who the hell promised you that.”
As she pull
ed her legs closer to her chest, she yelped, immediately releasing them, her knees dropping toward the ground. Her panting told me she was trying to calm the pain. “The guy at the pier. He told me where to find you. He said you’d—”
“Help you. I know.” With my phone still in my hand, the flashlight illuminated the condom wrapper that hadn’t made it into the trash. I kicked the foil as hard as I could and spit, “Jesus, fuck.”
Chati was the man she was referring to. He worked the graveyard shift at the pier, the time when the docks saw the most action. On the books, he purchased fresh catches from the fishermen and sold it to all the different markets around town. But, off the books, he sold a completely different kind of catch.
Bangkok was the largest trafficking hub in Thailand. There were many piers, but if a girl came into Chati’s, he would negotiate a fee and find someone willing to pay.
For the last three years, I’d been one of his buyers.
I wouldn’t take just any girl. I had certain requirements, and Chati knew what those were. But never had one randomly shown up to Serviced. And we never conducted business without a phone call first. And the last conversation we’d had, I’d told him I was done. No more. I was out of the game. He hadn’t listened, and that fucking worried me.
“If I call the man at the pier, will he tell me the same story?”
Her nod gave me no reason to believe her.
“You’d better be telling the truth.” I tapped the screen of my phone, pressing the number for Chati.
“Huck,” he answered. “I take it, you found your present?”
I searched the darkness for the girl’s face as I translated, “Tell me what you know,” into Thai, assuming it wasn’t a language she spoke or understood.
“A dinghy pulled up, looking like every other fishing boat I deal with. Two guys were inside, and they lifted a burlap sack onto the dock, barked something in Hindi, I think, and took off. Wasn’t expecting to find a goddamn person inside it.”
“They didn’t try to sell her?” I asked in Thai.
“No, which tells me they weren’t trafficking her; they were just trying to get rid of her.”