by Jeff Strand
When a non-paying client was beaten almost to death in the back room of the seafood restaurant, Mike didn't look up from his cell phone. Jamie asked if Mike wanted to break the last pinkie. Mike shrugged, pulled the finger backwards until the bone snapped, and returned to whatever game he was playing.
Robert decided that his son was a sociopath. He didn't think that was such a bad thing.
Mike kept walking around the trailer. Just as my legs were getting tired and I was beginning to regret my decision, the curtain opened. The kid was perfectly placed. I slammed both of my feet into his chest and he staggered backwards, coughing.
I snatched the knife from under the pillow and got out of bed. I grabbed Mike and slammed him against the table—not the corner, because I wasn't trying to splatter his head. I just wanted to discourage him from fighting back. He dropped his phone.
"Don't make any noise," I told him.
He let out a pained whimper, but I didn't count that as a noise.
"I'm not going to kill you," I said. This was not entirely accurate. "You're going to take me back to your house."
Mike spat some blood onto the table, along with what looked like a piece of tooth. I'd slammed him harder than I realized. "I'm not taking you anywhere," he said.
I slammed him against the table again, and then I jabbed the tip of the knife against the back of his neck. "When I said I wasn't going to kill you, I meant that I wouldn't do it if you helped me out. Otherwise I have to gouge out pieces of your neck. Will you help me?"
Mike didn't answer. I pushed the knife in a bit.
"All right, all right!"
I pulled the knife out. He wasn't bleeding very much. "You try anything, and I'll slice you up. Got it?"
"I've got it!"
"Don't talk unless I ask you a question. Don't make a sound. How did you get here?"
"I drove."
"You have a driver's license?"
"Yeah."
"How old are you?"
"Sixteen."
"Oh. You look younger. Nobody came with you?"
"No."
"Then you're driving," I told him.
I led him to the door, keeping my hand tightly on his shoulder to send the message that I'd break his neck if he tried anything stupid. (Since I intended to kill him, going along with me was technically "stupid," but he didn't know that.) I didn't know for sure that he'd really come alone, or that he wouldn't start screaming for help as soon as we stepped out of the trailer, so it was possible that I was being stupid as well.
I realized that it was a bad idea to leave his phone on the floor, so I led him back to where he'd dropped it. I let go of him long enough for me to crouch down, pick up the phone, and stick it in my pocket, and then I stood back up and put my hand on his shoulder again.
We went outside. He did not immediately shriek for help. His dad's car (presumably) was parked right in front of the trailer, and I didn't see anybody else inside.
"Pop the trunk," I told him.
Mike shook his head. "I'm not riding in the trunk."
"I know you're not. I'm putting my bike in there."
Mike raised the lid. He had a decent opportunity to flee while I picked up the bicycle and wedged it inside, but he didn't take it, saving me the need to beat him to death with the two-wheeler. The trunk didn't close all the way but it was good enough.
"Drive me to your house," I told Mike, after we got into the car. He reached for the seatbelt but hesitated. I felt as if he might be considering making a run for it, so I made sure he could see that I was still holding the knife. He put the seatbelt on, started the engine, and drove away from the trailer.
He looked terrified. Good.
"How far away do you live?" I asked.
Mike shrugged.
"Don't screw with me," I told him.
"Fifteen minutes."
"Who killed Abigail?"
"I don't know."
"You were there."
"I wasn't paying attention."
"Are you kidding me?"
"What do you want me to say?" he asked.
"I want you to tell the truth."
"I don't know who killed her."
"I've narrowed it down to you or your dad. Pretty sure it was your dad."
Mike looked away.
"Am I right?" I asked.
"I don't know."
"Was it you?"
"No."
"Then it was your dad."
Mike didn't answer.
"Answer my question."
"What do you want to know?"
I resisted the urge to slam the knife into his side. "Did your dad murder Abigail?"
"Yes, okay? Yes. He smothered that fat bitch with a pillow. She got off easy. I wish he'd done worse."
"Thank you for your honesty."
We didn't talk the rest of the way. I stayed on high alert, ready for him to suddenly leap out of the automobile or swerve into oncoming traffic to distract me, but he behaved himself. Finally we pulled in front of a nice two-story home in a quiet suburban neighborhood.
"Turn off the car," I told him.
"I was going to," said Mike, shutting off the engine.
"If you've got a place like this, why would you hang out in that filthy trailer?"
"We don't live in the trailer. We didn't choose it. That was Wulfe."
"Makes sense."
Mike unfastened his seatbelt.
"Don't open the door," I said.
"Why not?"
"Because you're not leaving the car."
I suppose I could have used him as a hostage again, but I didn't want to overcomplicate matters. Mike had taken me where I wanted to go, and now I had no more use for the little shit. I unfastened my seat belt, but I wasn't leaving the car quite yet.
eighteen
I wanted to crack my knuckles, but that might have telegraphed my intention.
I lunged across the seat and slammed my hands around his neck. I squeezed as hard as I could as Mike gasped for breath and desperately struggled to pull away.
Yes, I was murdering a boy who was barely old enough to get his driver's license. I'm sure that I've lost the sympathy of many readers, if not all of them, but at the time I didn't care how this would reflect upon me when telling the tale. I didn't have anybody to share this with. What did it matter if I couldn't justify my actions?
I squeezed and squeezed.
He continued to gasp for breath.
If Mike could gasp, he was getting some air, and I wasn't doing my job. If he would've remained still, I'm sure I could have choked the life out of him without much effort, but he kept thrashing around. I couldn't keep a solid enough grip on his neck. Not to mention that I was awkwardly twisted around because there wasn't enough room in the front seat for an easy strangulation. And my injured shoulder wasn't helping.
It was dark out, but not so dark that somebody wouldn't notice what was happening if they were out for a walk or happened to look out their window at the wrong time.
"Knock it off," I told him.
Mike continued to struggle. Though I could have continued my trend of bashing people's skulls against hard objects, that would have made too much noise. I needed him to die quietly. I tried to push my thumbs directly into his throat but I couldn't keep him still enough to do it.
"Knock it off or you'll be sorry," I said. I doubt that this was literally the stupidest thing I'd ever said in my entire life, but it had to be close.
He raked his fingernails across my face, missing my eye but leaving what I assume were four bloody lines. I let go of him with one hand, intending to punch him. (I'd like to say that my intention was strategic, but no, I wanted to punch him out of rage.) That was a mistake. He popped free of my other hand as well.
Mike started to scream for help and got halfway through the word before I clamped my hand over his mouth. I tried to give his neck a violent twist to snap it. Didn't work. Again, it was too cramped in the car.
He pushed against the
steering wheel with his elbow, clearly going for the horn. I kept one hand over his mouth and used the other to yank his arm away from the wheel. I twisted it, sort of, but even in perfect laboratory conditions I doubt I could have broken his arm just by twisting it with one hand.
This wasn't working.
I was going to have to get messy.
I let go of him and took out the knife. He knocked it out of my hand. I hurriedly scooped it up and jabbed it at his chest. Mike deflected it—the blade slashed his palm wide open but didn't come close to his heart. I stabbed again and missed the mark by a couple of inches, hitting his solar plexus and bouncing off the bone.
Mike tried to punch me but it was more of a slap. Flecks of blood sprayed onto the windshield.
I stabbed at his heart once more. He blocked this one as well, but I jammed the blade deep into his upper arm, going in one side and out the other. He pulled away, probably doing more damage when the blade came out than when it went in. More blood.
He deflected my next stab attempt completely. Then I stabbed him in the chest twice, two quick jabs that didn't penetrate deep and nicked a lung at best.
He punched me in the stomach. Unlike our previous floundering attempts to inflict violence upon each other, this was a direct hit to the gut, one that felt like my stomach lining collided with my spinal column. I didn't actually throw up but I sure made a sound like somebody vomiting. I was not nearly enough of a fierce warrior to just shake that off and leap back into action, and as I groaned and tried to recover, I realized with horror that Mike was trying to open the car door.
My effort to stop him from doing that was so inept that I won't describe it here.
He pulled up on the door handle and pushed the door open. As he tried to scramble out of the vehicle, I forced myself to focus enough to stab him in the back. I got in three or four stabs before he spilled out of the car onto the pavement.
Shit. This was really, really bad. The car had offered some soundproofing. I couldn't stab a kid to death out in the open and not have anybody notice. The world was apathetic but not that apathetic.
Instead of trying to crawl over the gearshift, I opened my own door and got out of the car. I was still feeling the impact of the stomach punch in a big way, so it was a clumsy process. I staggered over to where Mike was trying to crawl away. He was making gurgling sounds but thankfully not screaming.
I glanced around the area. I didn't see anybody outside. If somebody was watching, well, I was fucked no matter what I did, so I stabbed Mike again, right between the shoulder blades. Then I dragged him back to the car. I might have to speed away, so I dragged him around the front over to the passenger's side.
He was still alive and fighting, but with significantly less energy than before.
"Cooperate and I won't kill you," I lied in a whisper.
I held him under the shoulders and lifted him to his feet. He wasn't really cooperating (I wasn't sure if that was on purpose or if it was simply because he'd been stabbed too many times) but he wasn't fighting back, either. I lowered him onto the seat, pushed his legs inside, and then shut the car door.
I glanced around as I walked over to the driver's side. Still no obvious witnesses. This didn't mean that a dozen people weren't dialing 911 right now, but at least nobody was standing on their front porch pointing at me and shrieking.
I got back in the car, shut the door, then stabbed him again in the chest. Mike grunted with pain but didn't try to block it.
He was getting blood everywhere.
I fastened his seat belt to make it more difficult for him to escape again before I killed him.
He said something to me that I couldn't quite hear.
"What?"
"I didn't do anything."
"You were there."
"But I didn't do anything."
"You were complicit."
Maybe there wasn't a goddamn thing Mike could've done to save Abigail, but he'd sat in a trailer casually tapping away at his cell phone while Jamie butchered her dead body. I had quite clearly crossed a line here, but I was fine with that. No tears for poor Mikey.
I stabbed him in the chest, over and over, until he slumped forward as far as the seatbelt would allow and stopped breathing. I didn't poke out his eyes or anything ghoulish; just chest wounds.
Now I had blood all over me and no change of clothes.
What next? The prudent thing to do, since there'd been complications, would be to drive away and save the next revenge murder for another time. But the whole front seat of the car was covered with blood and I didn't have any blankets or Windex. Driving away might be equally dangerous.
I would've loved to go the "killer in a slasher flick" route and leave Mike's body where his father would find it. He'd open the front door and see his son's bloodstained corpse splayed out in the center of the driveway with the word "Abigail" spray-painted hundreds of times in different colors and sizes. But that wasn't really the kind of thing I was going for, and I didn't want Robert to be on high alert.
My best bet was to sit in the car for a few minutes and listen for sirens. If the police were on their way, I'd drive away and find a place to hide. Otherwise, I'd assume that nobody had seen me stab a teenaged boy to death and stick to the plan of killing Robert in his home tonight.
I just sat there. I wished I could turn on some music to keep my mind occupied—low volume, not enough to drown out the sirens—but if it meant that I heard the police even a couple of seconds later than I would without the music, that could mean the difference between escape and (presumably) life in prison.
I didn't plan to go down in a hail of bullets. If I were trapped, I'd surrender.
So I just waited in silence.
Well, not complete silence. Mike was dripping blood. I could hear it going pat, pat, pat on the seat. I wondered if I'd snuffed out a promising young life that might have gone on to do amazing things, or if I'd saved the world from somebody who'd become a murderous criminal. I thought it was probably the latter. This kid wasn't going to reverse climate change.
I should've brought a towel when we left the trailer. It wasn't as if I didn't know that I was going to kill Mike. I mean, I'd planned to do it in a manner that didn't involve spurting blood, but I should've considered the possibility that it could work out like this. I still had several more people to kill and I had to do a better job of thinking about ways it could go wrong.
Mike raised his head.
My first thought was, "Zombie!" My second thought, more reasonable, was that I'd been wrong about him not breathing. I hadn't held a mirror up to his mouth or anything.
What should I do? Mike wasn't going to pull through. Was it necessary to stab him again, or just let things take their course?
Now he was moving his hand. I think he was trying to unfasten his seatbelt.
"Just die," I told him. "Be at frickin' peace."
He got his hand on the seatbelt, smearing it with blood. I obviously wasn't concerned that he was going to make a daring escape, but I couldn't leave him alone in the car if he was still alive.
"Seriously, stop it," I said.
Mike slowly turned his head and looked at me. There was terror in his eyes.
I held up the knife. Though I'm the one who put him in that condition, it felt inexplicably unfair to stab somebody who was so helpless. Like I should give him a fighting chance. I wasn't going to, of course; there was just this irony that delivering a final fatal wound seemed like a dick move.
I pressed the tip of the knife against his chest, right where his heart was. That had been my problem before: I'd stabbed him repeatedly in the chest but not the heart.
Suddenly I felt like I wanted to apologize to him before I stuck in the blade. But that would imply that I was in the wrong. I owed him nothing.
I slid the knife into his chest, all the way to the handle. His eyes went wide.
Then, keeping the blade buried in his flesh, I pushed the knife upward. At least, I tried to. It wouldn't m
ove very much. It wasn't a very good knife and the heart is a thick muscle, so I sat there straining for a few moments before I gave up. I withdrew the blade, then stabbed him in the heart six or seven more times.
Mike's head slumped forward again. Some blood poured out of his mouth.
Now I'd successfully murdered a teenaged boy.
I hadn't heard any sirens, so it was safe to assume that I'd gotten away with it. I took the keys out of the ignition. There were only two keys on the ring, so I wouldn't have to waste time and make noise testing various keys as I tried to get into the house, assuming the door was even locked.
I unfastened the seatbelt, causing Mike to flop over and be less visible, then got out of the car. I couldn’t believe how much blood had gotten on me. If somebody saw me, they'd probably assume that it was my blood, so I'd shout for them to call an ambulance, which would give me some time to flee.
I walked around to the back of the house, hoping there'd be a back door. There was. There was also a doghouse, but no Rottweiler came out of it.
Perhaps a better weapon was in order than this flimsy steak knife. They had a shed. There had to be something in there I could use. I walked over to it, but unfortunately there was a combination padlock on the door, and I didn't have any way to break it except through brute force, which wouldn't be particularly stealthy.
However, there was a rake leaning against the side wall, which somebody had apparently been too lazy to put away. My money was on the teenager. The rake had metal tines, not plastic ones, so it could do some serious damage to a human body. Perfect. I grabbed the rake and returned to the back door of the house.
I very gently tested the doorknob. Locked. I unlocked it with the key, then very, very slowly opened it. The door clearly believed in my mission because it opened without a creak.
I stepped into the kitchen. The house was dark and quiet except for the sound of a television upstairs. I wasn't sure if I should close the door behind me, risking a possible creak, or leave it open, which could cause a problem if Robert was noisy when he died. I decided to close the door. Thankfully, it closed as quietly as it had opened.
The house remained silent. Nobody knew I was in here. I'm sure I could've opened a drawer and found a nice big sturdy knife, but I didn't know which was the knife drawer and I didn't want Robert to hear me. Also—I'll be honest—the idea of savaging him with a rake held great appeal.