“Doomed”—Bring Me the Horizon
There are skeletons in every closet. In some, they're stacked ceiling-high. In this world, you're either predator or prey, and it's all predetermined. As predetermined as retardation or cancer. Those of us ingrained with the will to live, to survive, to thrive, and to kill if we must, we see the world for what it is. We understand the wicked within us all. We harness it.
The wicked side of me will always be the most powerful, and I think that's where I differ from most other alphas. I don't have a stopping point. I have no moral compass. I am not guided by unseen bullshit. I am the God of my own world, waiting for the outer world to crumble around me so I may laugh upon its ruins.
What if I told you we live, we die, and then nothing else? What if I told you I saw it coming long ago in a dream? I saw myself morphing, evolving into a beast, feeding off the fire and brimstone… the end of days… the forgotten souls. With each step, the earth shook in devastating fashion. I breathed fire onto the huddled remaining few. I watched their skin peel from their bones. And in the destruction, I became full.
Now, I find myself in this peculiar position, this position of fucking weakness, and one I have never found myself in before—wanting another human being for more than just blood or a fuck. As of late, my mind wanders to Miranda so often, and though I could fuck her to within an inch of her life, that's not what drives me insane. It's the desire to be near her, to love her, to make her mine. I knew it from the moment I saw her name… and the moment I read her words. She was meant to be with me, and I with her.
I thought about that phone call the whole dinner. The deep male voice over the line. The red in her face as she spoke to him. I tried my best to hold in my anger, to act normal, but it's fucking boiling inside me.
My hands grip the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles turn ghost white. Silence fills the car as it has since we left the restaurant, and if it continues, I just might run this fucking car into oncoming traffic.
"So who was that on the phone?" I ask—I blurt it, really.
"When?"
When? Bitch, don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. "At dinner."
"Oh, a friend…" Her eyes narrow, the light from street lamps flicking over her pale skin as we barrel down the highway. "I guess maybe an acquaintance. I don't know." She glances out of the window. "He's a really big fan of yours."
My mind starts to sketch out what he might look like, what their connection is, what he could give her that I can't. "Oh yeah? Big fan, you say? I'll have to sign a book for him," I say, fighting back the urge to find out more about this friend.
"That would be really nice of you." She glances at me and smiles.
"I've always held the belief that men and women can't really be friends. One party always wants to fuck the other," I say, glancing at her with an eyebrow raised and a coy smile. "But who the hell am I to say? I don't have any friends."
"Well"—she crosses her arms—"I disagree. Not everything's about fucking, you know?"
I laugh, finding her naivety amusing. "Oh, dear, don't you know? The world revolves around money and fucking."
She glares at me, arms still crossed. "For certain people…" A smirk dances over her red lips. "I'm sure it does."
"I suppose love is in the mix somehow." I look at her out of the corner of my eye. "Tell me, Miranda, have you ever been in love?"
She laughs, shaking her head, her hair falling softly over her shoulders as my fingers beg to get tangled in it. "Love is a crock of shit.”
A sudden burst of laughter erupts from my mouth. I slap the steering wheel hard a few times. "I feel I may have underestimated you. Here I was thinking you were the glass-half-full type."
"Yeah, well, I can assure you I'm not."
"I do believe in love. As black as my little heart may be, I do believe in this world, there is someone for every asshole." I pull the car off the county round and onto the long, pitch-black driveway leading to my cabin. "It's just a matter of stumbling into them. And not ever letting them slip away."
"Well, if that's the case, I've yet to stumble across my asshole, I guess." She shakes her head.
I loop the car around the front of the cabin and park just to the side of it. Opening my door, I nearly trip over myself trying to get over to Miranda's side fast enough to open the door for her. She's got it halfway open by the time I get to the passenger’s side, but I hold it for her regardless. She'll like that.
She looks up at me. "Oh, thanks…"
She steps out and slips past me. I trail her to the front door, my eyes tracing the curve of her ass, lost in the thought of what kind of underwear she's wearing. And the thought of them balled up and stuffed into her mouth.
No. I don't want to hurt her. How could I? I love her.
I unlock the front door and open it, letting her go in first before I follow. The cabin is completely still and dark. Perfect.
She flips the switch on the wall, and the front room lights up. Her eyes drift from my face, down my body. She wants me, and she's making it evident. I smile until her gaze stops on my legs, her eyes widening and her brow scrunching.
"Edwin…" she says softly.
I look down to the exact place her gaze has landed. Blood. In spots near my knee.
"Is that…" Her eyes narrow. "Is that…” Her perfect little brows pinch together, shooting a jolt of want through me. “Is that blood?"
I laugh, shaking my head and drawing my focus back to her. "How funny is that? Cut myself the other day chopping wood." I hold up my thumb and flash an inch-long gash down the side. It's a few days healed, and it was from an ax all right, but I wasn't chopping wood. "It busted back open earlier today. Must not have noticed." I shrug and flash her a toothy smile. "Though I guess you didn't notice either, did you?"
Stepping back, she shakes her head. "No, I didn't." A smile flinches over her lips, followed by a short, uncertain laugh. "Well, good night." She turns on her heel and heads toward the hallway.
"Good night, Miranda," I call as she disappears into the darkness.
She doesn't see it, but I'm smiling. I'm smiling because there's a yearning inside me, alive and feeding off of her, growing in intensity with each passing day. I want her. I need her. And with every drop of willpower I can muster, I fight the urge to follow her into her room, take what I've wanted all this time, and give her what she wants in return. I know she yearns for me too. How could she not? It's only a matter of time before I make her mine.
It’s only a matter of time before we kill as one.
“Cry Little Sister”—Gerard McMann
"How fresh?" I ask Tommy as we cross the busy street, evening rush hour well under way. I cradle a full coffee—probably my twentieth of the day—in both hands as Tommy manhandles two donuts. I stopped counting those around lunchtime.
"Examiners think within the last twenty-four. They figured we'd want to get a look at it before they carted her off." He chuckles, his mouth full of pastry. "It's a mess, partner."
"So I've been told. You said an abandoned house off Twelfth, right?" I ask just as we meet the intersection of Twelfth and Stark.
"Yeah." He points at a decrepit house a few hundred feet away blocked off by police tape with a clutter of personnel spread out around the area. Curious neighbors have taken to their porches. Tommy chuckles again, swallowing the last of his donut. "Fuckin' stray dog pulled the bitch's foot out of the house and into the street. That's how they fuckin' found her."
"You shitting me?"
"Do I ever?"
I just roll my eyes. I never know what to believe when it's coming out of Tommy's mouth.
"She's in about ten different pieces, partner. Scout's honor." He does a jacked-up Boy Scout salute then holds up the police tape for me to go underneath.
I nod in appreciation then pass a few more nods to some of the personnel I'm fond of, mingling in the front yard.
"Hacked up at every joint," he continues, "and at the neck. I mean,
we're talking Mr. Potato Head type shit in there."
"Keep your voice down, you jackass." I roll my eyes as I pass through the doorway, the door itself hanging by one hinge. "It's been way too long of a day for that shit."
"Just speaking the truth, man. You'll see. She's like a human jigsaw puzzle." He laughs and slaps the back of his hand against my arm. "Like human Tetris." He laughs.
"Fuck off, man," I say, pulling away from him just as we come up on the body.
He wasn't lying. Not one fucking bit. There are two loaded up trash bags, each with shredded holes torn in the side. A trail of blood is smeared from the bags and tracked out into the hallway. Congealed fat, yellow and pungent, protrudes from the openings, along with bits of mangled, bloody flesh. I make out a hand too, purplish-blue fingers poking out from beneath the sludgy mess.
I step back, taking a much needed breath of fresh air from the other room, then go back in. Tommy stands in the corner of the room with two medical examiners, a stupid toothy smile on his face. I approach one of the bags and crouch, making sure to breathe only through my mouth, though I worry about what particles I'm picking up that way too. The thought turns my stomach. I pull a pen from my pocket and use the end of it to tug the bag open wider.
I wish I hadn't. The mostly untarnished face of a young brunette stares back at me. Her dead eyes bulge a bit from her head, skin and veins mushrooming from her severed neck, but otherwise, she looks like she probably had before all this happened to her… with a little rigor mortis added in the mix.
And she looks like my sister.
From the dark curls matted to her head with blood, to the blue-gray tint of her eyes, she's a spitting image of Joanna. And it reminds me of that day two years ago, when I found my sister in three pieces in a house not far from here. She had the same knifed-out Xs on her breasts that I'm sure to find on this young lady, just as I've found on many of the other victims along the way.
I close my eyes, my pulse quickening. My stomach lurches. My thoughts are owned by my sister, back when she was still that smiling, carefree girl, back before the drugs dried up all the life in her. When this monster got to her, she was just a shell of who she once was, but it hurt all the same.
If my parents were still alive, I would've surely gotten the blame somehow. You should've been there! Aren't you a cop?
It doesn't matter. I put the blame on myself anyway. I heap it onto my shoulders right along with the PTSD and alcoholism, along with the failed relationships and the thousands of little lies I've told myself over the years—and the ones I still do.
I stand abruptly, so quick a rush of blood leaves my brain and makes me stumble.
"Partner, you okay?" Tommy asks, putting a hand on my elbow to stabilize me.
"Y-yeah, I-I'm good." I look at him through clouded vision, blinking in an attempt to clear it. "You mind wrapping this up, Tommy? I've seen enough for today."
He gives me two good pats on the back as he leads me out of the room. "I got you, buddy. You definitely ain't looking so good."
"I'm all right. Just haven't eaten today yet." We reach the door, and I turn to face him. "I'm gonna go grab a bite and take some time to myself. You sure you're all right wrapping this up?"
"Too easy, partner. Too easy. Take your time. I'll start the paperwork on this shit." He jabs a thumb back toward the garbage bags now being carefully emptied by the examiners, their contents sorted out on a tarp.
"Thanks." I turn and head out the door, pulling a pack of cigarettes from my pocket, a pack I’ve held on to for when I catch my sister’s killer, but right about now, I just don’t fucking care. I need it.
I take off the cellophane wrapping, shake out a cigarette, and light it, taking the smoke deep into my lungs as a fall breeze whips past me. I let the smoke dance out of my lungs with a pleasing sigh. Six months I've held on to this pack. Six months since I had my last cigarette. The cigarette’s staleness does nothing to override the complete satisfaction I feel as a buzz carries through my body.
It's funny how the first day I smoke a cigarette in six months is the same day I attend church for the first time in ten years. God and I, we have a unique relationship. A little bit of love and a whole lot of hate… on my side only, of course. It's not that I blame him for my woes, because I don't. I just wonder sometimes why I couldn't have had it just a little bit different. Just a little bit better.
I couldn't help but to walk in as I was passing by, the preacher's voice carrying from the church. Calling to me. Before I knew what I was doing, my ass was in this pew, my cold heart despising every second of it.
I've always been a good man. I've always put others first. Yet since the day I was fucking born, I've been shit on. There comes a time when you stop blaming yourself, and guess what? The blame's gotta go somewhere. I'm a God-fearing man, I always will be, so any blasphemous outbursts could be counted on one hand. But in my head, I'm cursing him all day long. Not so much for myself, but mostly for my sister, who truly was a happy girl.
She loved life, and there were a lot of times I was envious of her complete lack of self-pity.
Then the drugs found her, then prostitution, and then she was gone. I was left to sweep up the scraps of my life, to view the vast wasteland around me where my family should've been.
My hands rest on top of the pew in front of me, and I settle my head onto my arms. I feel as if an invisible hand is gripping my heart and pulling it slowly up through my throat. I can feel the force of my faith tearing a hole through me, along with all my doubts, insecurities, and fear.
"If you'll read along with me in Corinthians 1:27 and 28," the preacher says in his best infomercial delivery. "'God has chosen the world's insignificant and despised things—the things viewed as nothing—so He might bring to nothing the things that are viewed as something.'" He sets his Bible on the podium and scans the pews before him. "God does not choose the wise. He chooses the wicked and weary. He chooses those who are looked down upon, turned away, disregarded."
I slide down the pew and quietly stand. Having had more than enough, I shuffle down the aisle as the preacher continues.
"And He chooses them to do His work. To spread His message and His love. Through him, all things are possible."
I give one last passing glance to the crucified Jesus hanging above the door before I exit the church, heading first to A-1 liquor, then I go back to the department, back to the bloodshed, back to the looked down upon, the turned away… the disregarded who make up my homicide reports.
“Possum Kingdom”—The Toadies
Ever since dinner the other night, Edwin has been—well, not very Edwin.
This morning, he's been overly nice: pulling out my chair every time I sit to write, making me coffee, and he hasn't mentioned the word "fate" a hundred times. To be honest, had I not spent time with him prior to today, I would probably think he's a charmer, but this is such a drastic change it's nothing less than unnerving.
Constantly staring at me, he's always trying to make eye contact, and I can't stomach it because those eyes of his, they're—I wouldn't call them demonic. No, they're dead. Empty. Absolute voids of nothingness. And the way he watches me with that slight smirk… it's as though he's sizing me up, trying to determine how he can go about using me only to destroy me. Maybe I'm paranoid or losing touch with reality. I am wired to jump to the most morbid of conclusions. I mean, James in the bookstore—I was convinced he wanted to kill me at one point.
I pace the length of my bedroom, trying to sort this out because I can't concentrate enough to write a single sentence with this pile of shit buzzing around in my head. Just because the man is being nice—and comes across creepy as hell while doing so—it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't.
I've spent the better half of the afternoon avoiding him, trying to convince myself that I've just let my overactive imagination run wild with me. Telling myself I only feel so uneasy being alone in this cabin with him because I don't allow myself to ever trust anyone—that I�
��m the one with a problem, not him. But this knot in my stomach, the way my hair stands on end when he subtly brushes his hand along the small of my back in passing, I don't know how much longer I can ignore that. Gut instinct is there for a reason—a deep, ingrained survival instinct that is probably not wise to ignore for as long as I have. I just need to get out of this damn cabin. Clear my head. Escape… stop it, Miranda!
Taking a deep breath, I open the door to my room and head down the hallway toward the kitchen. The stereo's blaring in the living room. Edwin's in the kitchen singing along to The Toadie's "Possum Kingdom," and—I swear—he gets louder every time the word "die" comes around in the chorus.
I turn the corner, only one foot across the threshold of the kitchen, and I find Edwin leaning over the counter. His white apron is splattered with blood, a huge, wet stain to the right of the smiling cartoon lobster printed over the middle. A carving knife is clutched in his right hand. Shocked, I grab the wall to steady myself, a small gasp leaving my lips.
He's still bent over the counter when he slowly turns his head to look at me. A sly grin inches across his mouth as he straightens up a touch, takes the knife, and places it over a chunk of blood-soaked meat. "You sure do startle easily." He glances back at the mess on the counter. "It’s just a fresh kill." There's a long pause. The grin on his face deepens—I think, or maybe I imagine it. "Venison has the highest level of iron out of all meats, you know?"
My heart sits in my throat. With each hard pound, my vision pulses. My mouth has gone dry, and I swallow before I clear my throat. "Is that so?"
He arches his brow and nods as he works at cutting a filet, which he drops on the counter. The wet, slapping sound makes my stomach lurch.
"Did you need something?" he asks.
"Uh…" Another quick swallow. "No, I just, um…" My gaze darts to the phone on the wall beside him. "I was just gonna call Janine."
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