I was able to reach one of them and I stopped firing, turned and hit him with the butt of the gun. He went out cold. I turned towards the other guy, who was Jim, and brought my gun up to point at him just as he brought his up.
“I know the game,” Jim said to me without clarifying.
“What do you mean?”
“I know you have certain numbers to meet with kills and in different ways. It only makes sense with your pattern of killing. My biggest question is, have you used all of your gun kills up or not?”
“Probably shouldn’t risk it,” I told him, knowing I had one left.
“I’m a gambling man,” he said. “I have to risk it.” At that he caught me off guard by pulling the trigger. The bullet entered my right shoulder, going in the front and coming out the back, through and through, and more importantly caused me to drop my gun out of pain and surprise.
“Now we’re fair,” he said to me as I picked myself up from the bullet that had spun me around. He dropped his gun and charged at me, tackling me and picking my feet up off the ground. He kicked his feet up off the ground to slam me down with a perfect spear.
The air left my lungs as I came down on the ground with his weight on top of me. He straddled me and I was able to focus enough to move out of the way of his fist that was coming down, causing it to strike the ground. I could tell it stung but he didn’t react enough to gain any advantage.
He swung another big fist down at me, which I was also able to avoid, only this time I pressed my hips up to shove him over me, using the momentum of his own swing. I scrambled to get up and brought my hands up to fight.
Raising my right arm hurt from the gun shot wound but I did it anyways, trying to ignore the pain. He was up just as quickly as me and ready to fight but I knew I had a speed advantage on him, however he had the advantage of me being wounded.
We both made a move at the same time but mine was just a little quicker as I brought my arm up and over his head and then proceeded to wrap it putting him in a headlock of sorts. He punched at my stomach trying to shake me off but I held the grip closely.
Finally he wrapped his arms around my midsection, and picked me up. He was holding me perpendicular to him as he stood up straight and we looked like a cross between acrobats and wrestlers. We formed almost a perfect t-shape.
I knew he was going to slam me down so before he could I swung both my legs forward, arching my back. All of my weight caused momentum to bring him forward and we came down, me on my back, him directly onto his head.
Without any hesitation I turned him over onto his back. He was unconscious but I began landing punches left and right to his face. I knew I had to kill him. I continued to beat him until I heard him start to gag on the blood created by his mouth and nose and his face began to look like ground meat as I kept punching.
I finally stopped, blood splattered on my face, my hands were almost completely red, partially my blood and partially his. Just as I was getting up to get off of him I felt a bullet hit my left shoulder. It spun me around and down onto the ground as I saw the last guy holding a gun.
“Looks like the payout is going to be mine,” he said. I moved to the left, getting up and running as fast as I could. He began to fire and I felt one other bullet graze my thigh and then another on my ass.
I slid to my knees, grabbing my the original hand gun I had and turned towards him. I fired until my clip was empty, knowing I had killed the last guy. I had killed twenty-three guys. Five with a gun, five with a knife, five with my hands, five with a random object ranging from an apple corer to a fire poker, and three in a unique way; a hanging, one out the window, and one burned to death.
I fell to the floor, exhausted and in pain. My wounds were bleeding and I was out of breath. My body hurt, physically and I was drained, mentally. I almost started to slip out of conscience when my phone began to ring.
The Child
“Hello,” I answered even though I knew who it was going to be.
“Nice work,” Justin said.
“How do you know I’m done?” I asked.
“I’m watching you,” he said. As he said it a camera moved in the corner and I assumed he had watched the whole thing.
“You’re brutal James,” he said. “Are you sure you don’t want to just join me? We could make a lot of money together.”
“Yeah, fuck you,” I said. He knew I would never join him but he was trying to push any buttons he could.
“I figured,” he said. “Emma is safe from my hands, for now.”
“That’s the last of the contracts in the paperwork you gave me,” I told him.
“Right, but I have one more job for you until I give you further direction of how to get Emma back,” he said.
“That wasn’t part of the deal,” I told him. “I did what you asked me to, now where can I find her?”
“Don’t talk to me about part of the deals,” he said. “I have all the power right now and I’m going to use it. I have one more job for you and I’m being nice enough to give you a day of rest because it looks like you’re in bad shape.”
“What is it?” I asked him.
“Details are at your place,” he said. “One of the guys that is going to work for me, a guy that finds contracts for a living has some issues.”
“Boo fucking who,” I said. “I don’t care about his issues; tell me what the job is.” I was losing all of my patience. I was in pain and I didn’t want to keep jumping through hoops.
“He tends to get drunk and slap his kid around,” Justin said. “Now his kid is ready to press charges and he’s going to go away for a long time.”
“What do you want me to do about it?” I asked him. I didn’t understand where he was going with this.
“I want you to kill the kid. I don’t need this kind of problem on my hands,” he said.
“What?” I asked him.
“Kill the kid,” he said.
“You can’t be serious,” I told him.
“I’m very serious,” he said. “I want you to kill the kid. I don’t want to deal with this kind of problem anymore. Details are on your kitchen table,” he said as he hung up the phone.
I didn’t feel good about the job but I figured before I worried about it I would go home and try to fix myself. I drove home and took a long hot shower. The drain filled with blood. I poked and prodded the gunshot wounds to make sure there weren’t any bullets remaining in me and then I sewed myself up.
It was painful and I hated it but I needed it to be done as I needed the bleeding to stop. After sewing I heated the skin over the stitches, helping it close. I laid down on the bed in nothing but my boxers and closed my eyes. Twelve hours passed by before I woke back up, alert, and ready to complete the job.
I had prided myself on killing only when I felt a person deserved it and somebody turning their dad in wasn’t my definition of somebody who deserved to die. I knew how I planned on completing the job so I grabbed everything I would need, including some things I had not used in a long, long time and hit the road.
I arrived at the house somewhat later at night and it was dark. I was told that the kid’s dad would be at the bar so he’d be home alone. I knocked on the door and waited. Nobody answered so I knocked again.
Finally a small boy with blonde hair who looked about nine answered the door. He had a bruise on his face that I had no doubt was put there by his dad.
“How you doing kiddo?” I asked him.
“My dad’s not here right now,” he said.
“That’s good,” I told him. “Do you know what bar he’s usually at?” I asked the kid.
“Right there,” he said as he pointed to a bar down the corner. I could see the lighted signs advertising different beers but couldn’t make out the name of the bar.
“Perfect,” I said. “One last thing, could you grab a picture of your dad?” The boy did as I asked, which surprised me a little, but my guess was he didn’t have much sentimental attachment to his dad if he was t
urning him in.
I took the kid to a place he said was his mom’s sister. He hadn’t seen her in a long time because his dad wouldn’t let her but she was the one that had convinced him to turn his dad in. She had cornered him one day after school and gotten him to admit his dad was doing this to him and she was ready to take the action just needed his help.
“Hey mister?” he said with a questioning tone as I was leaving.
“Yeah kid?” I asked him.
“Are you going to kill my dad?” he asked. I wasn’t sure how to answer him but I just decided to be honest about it.
“Yes, I am,” I told him. He seemed to ponder this for a minute and then he smirked at me.
“Good,” he said as he closed the door. I couldn’t believe he had said that but when I thought about the situation I assume it was plausible. I had never had a dad that was like that so I would never understand the feeling of wanting your dad dead but I could kind of see why the kid would wish this upon his dad.
I went to the bar and located the man that matched the picture the kid gave me. I walked up to him to get his attention. I didn’t want to wait until he was drunk and at home I wanted him to come now.
“Excuse me mister Thomas,” I said. He turned towards me looking defensive.
“Who’s asking?” he asked me.
“Well, I don’t think anybody asked a question,” I told him. “I was simply stating your name to get your attention.”
“You’re quite the smart ass aren’t you?” he asked me. He was a big fat man and even though I was a foot or two away I could smell him. He smelled like a mixture of old sweat and grease.
“Just stating facts,” I said. “Anyways, I need you to come with me to your house right now. There’s an issue.”
“What kind of an issue?” he asked me still sounding defensive.
“Your boy killed himself and we found him,” I said. I was trying to gauge his reaction but he just looked at me.
“He was never going to amount to much anyways,” was all he said before he turned back to his drink. Now I was getting pissed off. I was still deciding on how to kill him but now I knew my original plan was going to go into place. I leaned in real close to him to speak softly.
“Be that as it may,” I said. “Right now they’re assuming it is a suicide, however, if the boys father won’t even come with me after hearing of the news, I’m sure all sorts of investigations will go on and I feel like that’s not really something you would like.” He stared at me for a second before getting up from his bar stool.
“Fine,” he said. “Let’s go.” We headed to his place and got up to the door. “Where are the other cops?” He asked me.
“Just me for now,” I told him. He turned to me, questioningly, and I knew he was catching on now. I hit him in the back of the head with a gun and he fell to the ground. I quickly drug him inside and got him ready.
Mister Thomas woke up about five minutes later and I had already tied him up. He was tied to a floor mount I had placed in his living room. His legs were tied to the bottom, he was tied around the waist, with his arms tied behind him, and a rope was loosely tied around his neck, to help hold him up. I had reinforced that rope with another rope running through an eye bolt I had placed in the ceiling. There was no way he’d be able to fall down
“Ed,” I said as I noticed he was waking up. “Glad you weren’t out long, I’m a pretty busy man,” I told him. I took a big drink of a beer I had taken out of his refrigerator and that seemed to set him off.
“Who the fuck are you and what the fuck do you want?” he said. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”
“Tough talk from a guy who beats his son around,” I said as I took another drink.
“What I do to my son is none of your damn business,” he said.
“Well, somebody hired me to kill your son,” I said. “A contract, which I’m told you are familiar with as you’re pretty good at getting out there and finding them. I appreciate that skill, but I don’t appreciate nor condemn you beating the hell out of your kid. So I had to make a decision Ed; I had to decide, kill your boy as I was asked, or find a more unique way to take this problem off of my client’s plate.”
“He sent you?” Ed asked me. After hearing I was a contract killer he seemed to have calmed down a little bit.
“He? Who’s he Ed?”
“Of course, of course,” he said starting to stutter with fear, “he told me no names, I swear I don’t know his name. Look, look man,” he said looking at me with a serious face, “we can work this out right? I mean, I can just stop you know?”
“You and I both know you aren’t going to stop,” I told him.
“No really,” he said. “I’ll just stop. It won’t be a big deal.”
“Have you ever heard of Lingchi?” I asked him.
“What?”
“Lingchi,” I said again. “It’s a Chinese term.”
“What? No, how would I have heard of it?” he said, getting irritated that his pleas weren’t working.
“Lingchi used to be somewhat popular Ed,” I said. “Back in about 900, so obviously a long time ago. They kept it around and didn’t ban it until about 1905. Which, is probably why you haven’t heard of it; but I want to teach you what Lingchi is.”
“I don’t need a fucking history lesson, just let me go,” he yelled.
“Nice. If you’ll shut up I’ll continue,” I told him.
“Fuck you,” he said.
“See in the practice of Lingchi they would hang somebody up, usually on a wooden post. Notice I didn’t have any wooden posts so I used this floor mount thing. Loosely, Lingchi means slow process, a lingering death if you will.”
“You’re crazy man,” he said.
“That’s right!” I said to him with excitement. “I am very fucking crazy. Anyways, they’d tie a person up, normally in a public place and they’d start to cut flesh from the body in multiple slices. Now, there’s no documentation at how this was done, so I’m guessing it was just a matter of however they wanted to.” At that I pulled out a giant hunting knife I had.
“Fuck no,” he said. “There’s no way you’ll do that.”
“It was also documented that sometimes they would use opium; you know, give it to the victim. I’m not sure if this was to act as some form of mercy or if this was a way to prevent fainting, but I’m going to give you enough just to prevent you from fainting for awhile, but I swear you’ll be able to feel everything,” I told him.
I pushed his head backwards and took the small bottle I brought with me and poured some liquid into his mouth. I leg him ingest it and then stood up with the hunting knife in my hand.
“You can’t be serious,” he said. “You won’t go through with this.”
I didn’t answer him or respond; instead I cut his shirt off. I then took the belt off of his jeans and stripped him down to his boxers. That’s when the cutting began.
I reached out and sliced about half an inch deep into his left breast muscle. I got my blade and my fingers worked into the cut to where I was able to cut a four inch by four inch chunk of skin off. He screamed the whole time and I sat back for awhile.
“Fuck you,” he yelled again. “Please stop, I’ll stop,” he said. I then took a similar chunk off of his right arm. I cut more chunks off his calf, and then another off his back. He screamed and screamed until finally it seemed like he gave up. He just hung there as I took a piece off of his face.
As he stopped screaming it became pointless so I took a chunk off his leg that cut into his artery and I left him there, bleeding out. I knew he’d be dead within a minute. I called Justin to let him know the job was done.
“You need a new contract locator, but he won’t be causing problems for you,” I said as he answered.
“Somehow I had a feeling you’d do it like that,” he told me.
“Why did you think that?”
“Neighbor’s dog,” he said, reminding me of a past incident I had handled in a similar
way. I didn’t know Justin knew about that but I ignored it.
“Now what, how can I get her back?” I asked him.
“Details are on our kitchen table. You have a flight to catch tomorrow morning at eight. You’ll see her again soon,” he said.
“Is this more hoops or are you taking me to her?” I said.
“Taking you to her,” he told me, “there isn’t much left. Even though you were a stubborn asshole you did better than I thought you would. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you are a tough son of a bitch.”
“Thanks for the compliment, I guess,” I told him. “I just want to get Emma back safe and sound,” I told him.
“You will,” he said. “Even though she’s been fun to have around,” he said with a laugh.
“Fuck off Justin,” I said.
“You let me push your buttons way too easily Wolf,” he told me. “I’m messing with you; lighten up.”
“As you can imagine it is pretty hard,” I told him.
“Make your flight tomorrow,” he told me.
“Okay,” I said. I hung up the phone and drove home. I found my flight information on the table just as Justin had said. I was ready to get this over with and get Emma safe and sound but something told me there would be at least one more challenge; one more hoop to jump through.
Nothing had been easy up to this point and I didn’t expect tomorrow to be any different. I laid down and decided I’d get some rest. I was hoping tomorrow would be the end of this and then I could sleep for a very, very long time. My wounds hurt and I was exhausted but I knew I couldn’t give up; not just yet anyways.
It wasn’t long before I was waking up for the flight. I grabbed everything I thought I would need, even packing an extra set of clothes, and I headed to the airport, hoping that today would be the last day.
A Killer's Memoir 2: New Contracts Page 10