by C. T. Phipps
“Great,” I muttered. “We even bought a house here. I knew it was too cheap, even in this economy.”
“Is it haunted?” Carrie asked, clasping her hands together. “Please tell me it’s haunted!”
I looked up. “Sis, we have a ghost living with us. It’ll be haunted if it’s not already.”
Carrie frowned. “Yeah, but I meant one who isn’t a pain in the ass.”
Billy attempted to backhand her, only to have his hand pass through her head.
Carrie laughed and moved her gloved hands through his body. “Oooo.”
“Not funny, Carrie,” Billy said, frowning.
“Dad, the only reason I haven’t told the voices in my head to drag you off to hell is this is way more entertaining,” Carrie said, picking up the plastic menu on the front. “Do you think the ribs would be good?”
“The voices aren’t real sis,” I said, sighing. “Just figments of your imagination.”
Carrie and Billy looked at me like I was an idiot.
“So, what was the target you mentioned, Carrie?” Billy said. “Junior just needs to find out what sort of target his power reacts to.”
“It’s a good one,” Carrie said, cheerfully. “I can feel the evil.”
Billy did a double take. “Okay, now I have objections. You’re not going fundamentalist on me, are you? You shouldn’t be killing people for moral reasons like drugs or sex. Way too many slashers get caught up on the punishment aspect of murder. It should just be for fun.”
He was serious too.
Carrie snorted. “I’m just thinking maybe it’ll be easier for William. Have him start small by going after the really bad ones until he figures out what sort of prey he likes to hunt.”
I really didn’t like it when my family teamed up on me. “I would not, could not have a prey. I would not, could not, today or yesterday. I do not like being a slasher, please stop making my life trashier.”
“Keep your day job, Doctor Seuss,” Carrie said. “Unless that’s the theme you’re going for, we need to dress you up as a menacing Cat in the Hat. I have a pen pal who does a murderous Alice in Wonderland thing.”
“This is why I stole your cellphone,” I said. “That and the government can track you through it.”
Carrie snorted. “That’s a myth, like the honesty of politicians and global warming.”
Yeah, my dad had done a real number on us. “I think one of those is real.”
Billy, however, paused. “She might be onto something, Junior. Every true slasher has a preferred prey: blondes, brunettes, redheads, whores, businesswomen, cheerleaders, camp counselors—”
“Drug users, jocks, and nerds,” Carrie said. “You realize slashers can kill men too. You’ve killed men!”
“Only as a last resort,” Billy said, apologetic. “I should also clarify I don’t hate women. Really, I think murder is the most intimate thing two people can—”
“Yeah, that’s it, I’m gone,” I said, getting up. “Check please!”
“You haven’t even tried the ribs,” Billy said, frowning.
I rolled my eyes. “We’re leaving. All of us. I’ll sell the house online or, hell, burn it to the ground and collect the insurance. We’ll find an apartment somewhere or head south of the border.”
That was when I saw a man enter the room. He was tall, Caucasian, and with a shaved head, but dressed in a suit much finer than anything I could steal. $5,000 at the very least. He was packing a pistol, hidden inside his jacket.
Immediately, the entirety of the room went dark except for him. I could feel his heartbeat and there was a sickness inside him. It was a black inky fluid that pulsed through his veins instead of blood. It tasted of violence, apathy, and faces of the young. I wanted to kill him and didn’t understand why but it was a need to be satisfied.
Murderer, a voice spoke in my head like a whisper from beyond. It was feminine and familiar, though I couldn’t quite place it.
No, I’m not, I said. I’m not my father.
Not you, jackass, the voice said, changing. This guy.
Oh. I blinked. That’s different then.
The man paid for his gas at the register since the Last Stop Diner doubled as a gas station and proceeded to head out the front door. He paid in cash and left a trail of miasma that I could follow with my eyes.
I’d privately hoped I’d avoided inheriting the slasher gene, sometimes even denied it existed, but there was no denying I had it now. I also understood what compelled my father all these years, even as I knew this was a purpose I was meant for. Could it have driven him mad and turned him into the murderer of women? If so, was it better to kill myself before I harmed anyone innocent?
No, your father was always just a dick, the voice spoke in my head. Had some serious issues with women. Your mother was the only one to ever corral him.
Oh, I said, blinking. Wait, who are you?
Everyone and no one, the voice said. I am the Spirit of the Hunt. Now are you going to kill this guy or not?
“Sorry!” I said aloud, blinking.
“He’s got the feel now,” Billy said, looking up at me. “Don’t screw this up, son.”
“See, I told you the voices were real,” Carrie said.
I like your sister, the Spirit of the Hunt said. She’s sunny. One of my favorite female slashers.
So female slashers do exist? I asked, confirming what was blindingly obvious anyway. Blame the way I was raised for having any doubts.
The Spirit of the Hunt laughed, and it echoed in my mind. Oh, you have no idea.
I walked up to the register and looked up to the waitress behind it. I bothered to look at her nametag for the first time and saw MARGE written out. Of course, she was named Marge. “Uhm, this is going to be awkward sounding but—”
“You want permission to murder someone on my premises? Sure! Just leave the body in the back,” Marge said.
I blinked. “Err, not what I was going to ask. I was going to ask where the bathroom was but just to hide the body until morning.”
“That just spoils the taste!” Marge said, disgusted.
“My apologies,” I said, hating this town more every minute. “Could I borrow a knife?”
Marge pulled out an exceptionally sharp butcher’s knife from under the counter and handed it over. It smelled of blood. “Damn Townies. You’d be doing me a favor. Ever since they built that big compound in the area, the whole place has gone to hell.”
I took the knife, not concerned about who these townies were or what their compound was. “Right.”
Well, this night was off to a spectacular start wasn’t it?
Chapter Two
It was late November and the air was particularly cold. Not snowing, global warming had taken care of that, but chilly enough to see my breath as I stepped down the steps leading into the Last Stop Diner. A set of extremely old-fashioned pumps were present with a layer of rust covering them, but still functional. The Pantheon Gas sign was the old Fifties one and missing half its letters as it rose above our heads, no longer spinning.
Wounded Buffalo, Kansas was not so much a town as a truck stop that looked like a place you went to get murdered. Which, apparently, was a thing that went on here. From what I could tell, the place consisted of the Last Stop Diner, the End of the Line mechanics shop, the No Tell Motel, a bunch of pig farms, a cemetery, an abandoned church, and several cornfields because Kansas. Honestly, in retrospect, I’d missed several warning flags about the place. Like who the hell builds a town without a grocery store? You had to drive twenty miles to the next village over in order to make purchases.
Focus, William, the Spirit of the Hunt said.
Right, I muttered, wondering why I was doing the bidding of the voice in my head.
Because that’s what psycho killers do, William, the Spirit of the Hunt said.
Psycho killer is a medically inaccurate term. A large portion of the psychopath population are perfectly law-abiding citizens. Indeed, most homicidal man
iacs are casually sociopaths and the product of society’s idea of toxic masculinity. I once attended a lecture—
William, shut up, the Spirit of the Hunt said.
Right, I said, hiding the butcher knife in my jacket.
I could hear people screaming in the back of my head even as I saw the miasma trailing behind the Last Stop Diner. The more I concentrated on them, the more I started to see their faces and could tell more about them. He’d apparently killed a lot of people, though. He wasn’t a slasher, though. Somehow, I would know.
Turning around the side of the diner, I saw there was an open garage behind him that reeked of blood and viscera. There were meat hooks, machinery, and lots of red stains on the wall. This was presumably Marge’s meat processing center, though I imagined she used a simpler title for it. Kitchen maybe.
Parked in front of the garage was an extremely sleek black Cadillac that looked like the kind the President used. It had a large trunk and my victim, God it was weird thinking of him like that. I could hear a light thumping noise coming from the inside of the car. It seemed like he was planning on disposing of someone not-quite-dead. Not my concern.
I reached into my jacket and clutched the end of the butcher’s knife while preparing to stab my prey in the back. Then stopped. An invisible force froze my body and compelled me to act against my will.
What are you doing? I hissed at the voice in my mind.
Not a very good hunt if it’s from behind, the Spirit of the Hunt said. You are supposed to make this interesting.
Stealth is interesting! I snapped.
Haha, no, she said. Ham it up.
Great, not only am I hearing voices, I’m possessed by a bored demon, I thought.
I’m not a demon, the Spirit of the Hunt said. The rest is right.
That was when I saw all the ghosts of the people the man before me had murdered. They whispered things that seemed to flow into my mind. I knew who he was and grinned. Clutching the butcher knife, I held it close to me and whispered, “Charles Devinshire. You have been a very bad person.”
The man looked up and turned around, revealing himself to be about 6’6 and built like a professional wrestler. He looked down at me. “And who the hell are you? Knife Boy?”
“I am...” I started to speak before I realize I didn’t have a scary name. “The Accountant.”
The Accountant? Really? The Spirit of the Hunt asked.
No one likes a backseat hunter, I said. That was when words started pouring out of my mouth, not coming from me, but influenced by my choice of name. “Yes, I am the one who tallies the sins of mortals. I can see them on you. You joined the Army to kill people without repercussions, especially foreigners. But it stopped being about nationality in the desert. You killed three of your own men to make sure they didn’t report what you did to that Iraqi boy. Eventually, the trail of bodies and abuse caught up to you. The only reason you got out of a court martial and execution is because you were exactly the sort of man who the Fraternity needed.”
The Fraternity, what the hell is the Fraternity? I asked.
The Spirit of the Hunt didn’t answer.
“Freaks in this town,” Charles said, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a Desert Eagle 50 AR.
“Ah hell,” I said, lifting my knife only to be shot in the chest.
If you’ve ever been shot before, you don’t need me to describe it. Yet having never been shot before, it’s hard to put into words. I had been punched and stabbed before by dear old Dad and this bore some vague similarity. It was like I was stabbed at 1,700 mph by a burning knife that twisted itself in my chest near my heart. Then he shot me again, through the heart.
I fell to the ground, blood leaking from my chest rather than pumping as I fell back on the ground. A part of me was already calculating how much my ruined jacket, shirt, and pants were worth as blood filled up my lungs. It was better than thinking about just how much I’d screwed up my opening hunt. I never should have succumbed to the urge, but at least this way I was never going to kill anyone who didn’t deserve it.
No, just all the other people your prey is going to kill will die because you failed, the Spirit of the Hunt. Mediocre work, William.
Charles approached with his gun aimed at my head. “You know, I’ve got to say I really hate you slashers. You talk a big game then go after people who can’t fight back. Worse, you get superpowers for it. About the only thing worse than you in my mind is the people I work for. But I—”
Charles didn’t get to say more because he was swatted over the back of the head with a five iron.
I blinked, watching him go down on the ground before he was hit in the head again, this time spraying me with blood and brain matter. The five iron had buried itself in the top of Charles’ head and got pulled out with a sickening pop. Given I was dying, I briefly had to wonder if I was hallucinating. Then I wondered if my sister had come to avenge me. Instead, I saw someone glorious.
She was about five-foot-two, a messy mop of raven-black hair, possessed Eurasian features, and wore a black halter top over a black leather miniskirt. Her clothes were stained with blood. It looked like her nose had been broken at least twice and there were signs of her having taken a severe beating. Those injuries were regenerating right before my eyes, however. Oh, and she wore black lipstick, which looked quite fetching on her. Both of her hands were wrapped around the five iron’s grip and there was a look of pure fury on her face. The woman was about as far from the “proper lady” that my father tended to idealize in his killing sprees as could be—which only added to the appeal.
“This is for my friends, you jerk!” She screamed.
Okay, maybe a bit PG-13 for the emotions on display, but not everyone is a swearer. An aura seemed to surround her that made her glow and I realized that this must have been love I was feeling.
It’s brain hypoxia you’re feeling, the Spirit of the Hunt said. Followed by brain death.
Ah, I said. Still, she’s beautiful.
With that I died.
Seconds later, I awoke with someone slapping me across the face. “Hey, mister, wake up. You alive?”
Oh, I was back already? Huh. I leaned my head to one side and coughed up a bunch of blood on the ground. “Excuse me, I’m not at my best.”
“That doesn’t look good,” the woman said, blinking, stepping up.
“No, I’m fine,” I said, getting up off the ground. “Two bullet wounds to the chest, everything’s cool.”
I did mention that slashers weren’t entirely human, right? Well, that included an incredible resistance to pain and injury. This, however, surprised me because it was full-on resurrection. That was a very advanced technique that usually required years of dedicated injury and regeneration to build up to. As my sister would say, you usually need to get to at least the third movie before things got supernatural.
The woman looked at the holes in my chest that had sealed up. “Okay, that’s not normal.”
I cocked my head sideways. “Define normal.”
That was when I noticed a slight scar across her throat and smelled the scent of blood coming from the back of the trunk. It was difficult to pick up among the unfortunate smell of the late Charles Devinshire. A fact you learn early when you’re the son of a slasher is that most people evacuate their bowels post-mortem. It wasn’t something that applied to slashers, don’t ask me why. What it meant was clean up after a killing spree was a lot messier than many people thought. Well, maybe it was exactly as messy as people thought, I didn’t have much experience with quote-unquote normal people.
I pointed to the scar on her neck. “You had your throat sliced.”
It was clear the woman was another supernatural. There were other things out there than just slashers. Ghosts, obviously. Demons. Magic. Animate homicidal dolls and puppets. Zombies. My father even said there were vampires and werewolves too.
The woman lifted her hand to her neck scar. “That’s...ridiculous.”
“Any mo
re ridiculous than trying to wake a guy bleeding to death on the ground by slapping his face?” I asked.
“You’re my first experience with murder okay!” the woman snapped, defensively. “Well, second.”
“William England,” I said, offering my hand.
“Like the escaped mental patient’s alias?” the woman said, shaking my hand with a surprisingly firm grip.
I cursed myself and suspected my fake identity was now worthless. It was probably due to that pedophile stock boy Carrie had cut the hands off three towns back. I knew I shouldn’t have let her into the sporting goods section. But, seriously, who leaves machetes out like that?
“No,” I said, lying badly. “Not like that at all.”
“Okay,” the woman said, clearly not believing me. “My name is Nancy Loomis.”
I blinked. “Seriously?”
It was the same name as two horror movie icons combined. Surely it had to be an alias.
“What?” Nancy asked. “Is it because I’m named after Nancy Reagan?”
“Uh, no. Perfectly normal name.”
The woman looked down at the corpse. “Oh, God, this must be so confusing and horrifying for you.”
“I admit there is some confusion,” I said, looking at the golf club in her hands. “Where did you even get this weapon? I mean, there’s an entire garage full of meat chopping implements but I don’t even know where the nearest golf course is.”
Nancy blinked. “Not what I was going for, but the guy kept his golf clubs in the trunk. I think they’re pretty much ruined since they’re covered in my blood. Which confuses me because I am pretty sure I should be dead. You too for that matter.”
I sucked in a deep breath and stared into her eyes. Honesty was the best policy here. “I’m an immortal murderer and I’m pretty sure you are too.”
Nancy stared at me then immediately swatted me in the knee, sending me to the ground before lifting the five iron up above her head. “Back the hell away from me, psycho!”