//For those of you whoāre interested - this is the fiction piece I just submitted for my Creative Writing class as my final assessment piece this year. Felt like sharing with you guys to see what you think - itās going up on my personal blog too!
Life and Times of a Killer
Dearest reader, this disclaimer is here to inform you that this is my own work, created with the help of the deepest, darkest corners of my imagination. Any resemblance to any works by published authors or real people (living or dead) was completely unintended in the creation of this piece. The only things I read while creating this piece pertain to research I conducted to make sure that my facts were as straight as I could make them for this piece. I will also warn the reader here that this short story includes explicit themes such as drug abuse (prenatal and otherwise), the implied death of animals, and the death of another human character. If any of these themes would offend or otherwise upset the reader, I ask that you go no further in reading than this disclaimer.
The IV dripped lazily. The heart monitored beeped a slow cadence, loud in the silence of the small room. The voice was silent for the first time since he could remember.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā As his breath rattled in his lungs, he remembered.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā He remembered exactly how he came to be lying on a prison hospital bed. He remembered his mother, and so many others like her. He remembered that runt of a kitten heād found when he was five.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Most of all, he remembered the Voice, who was his constant companion through it all.
A woman screamed. Loud, shrill screams which were heard along the entirety of the public hospitalās maternity ward. The screams of the woman were soon after followed by the squalling of an infant taking its first breath.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā A few hours later, the baby began to convulse. Withdrawal symptoms confirmed what the nurses had already suspected. The mother, still high on morphine, didnāt notice. She only wondered how sheād be able to continue feeding her addiction now that she had a screaming money-pit to care for.
The boy kicked at a tin can, hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his threadbare shorts. His mother kicked him out at this time every day.
He would watch from the front windows as strange men brought the white powder that she would separate into lines on the counter. He would watch as she leaned down and sucked the powder up into her nose. He stopped watching when his mother and whichever strange man she was with began taking off their clothes.
He wondered which one of the strange men was his father.
The boy noticed a kitten; scrawny, filthy. Mewling pathetically. For a moment he considered taking the kitten home.
Until he realised he was that kitten. For that reason alone he couldnāt bring it home with him. He played with the idea. His mother wouldnāt notice a kitten. She hardly even noticed that he was there once she had that white powder to suck up with her nose. She only noticed when he woke up and the sheets were wet. Stinking of urine. He hated that he still wet the bed.
He reached out. Stroked the kitten briefly. Considered putting it back where he found it.
Then he felt anger. Indescribable anger. Ā He heard a voice; an insidious whisper in his mind. The voice was the reason he tossed the lifeless body of the kitten into a rubbish skip on his way home. The voice was the reason he felt nothing but satisfaction as the kitten disappeared over the rim of the skip. He smiled at the dull thud he heard when the kitten hit whatever was in the bottom of the skip. Feeling better, he continued back to the only home heād ever known.
That was only the first time he heard the voice.
He hated school. He hated the teachers, the students. He hated the government for forcing him to go to school. He hated his mother for letting the government force him to get an education he didnāt want. Most of all, he hated the voice in his head; hated that it would tell him what he should be doing while he sat at a desk in a classroom. Pretended to learn.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā The voice thought that he should do things he didnāt know he wanted to do. The voice wanted to make them all go away.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Just like it had helped him make that kitten go away. Just like it helped make an annoying sparrow go away too. The voice assured the boy that it would help him make many other things go away.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā He only had to want them to go away.
He prowled the alleyways. The voice was louder now, and was his constant companion. He was high on the line of coke heād snorted earlier. His mother was passed out on the couch. She wouldnāt notice that she was one line short.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā He was prowling because the voice wanted to see blood. When he heard the growling of a territorial stray dog, the voice grew louder, and the boy smiled. As he hunted, the smile didnāt waver for a moment. In fact, it grew impossibly wide when he found the dog. It was whimpering; cowering away from him. Hackles raised. Teeth bared, ready to lash out and bite him.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā As the smile became manic in appearance, he wrapped the rope heād brought with him around and between his fists and stepped closer to the dog.
Ā He was high again. The voice was incessant, He could always hear it better after he snuck a line or two of his motherās cocaine. She never noticed when the white powder she left on the counter went missing. Thought that sheād snorted it herself and so shrugged it off. Then sheād have another of her drug dealers come around, would still pay them by taking her clothes off.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā He watched intently as a woman ā a prostitute ā walked into the alley. She spotted him. Smiled coyly, beckoned to him. Watched as he came closer. He could see the anticipation on her face. The expectant gleam in her eyes at the thought of being paid for her services made him smile in amusement.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā He enjoyed the way her eyes widened as his fingers closed around her thin, delicate neck. Watched as she struggled to breathe. Dropped her as soon as she went limp, grabbed her bag, and walked away calmly. A few blocks away, in another alleyway, he emptied out the contents of the bag. Pocketed the wad of cash. Threw the rest away. He didnāt need it, his mother wouldnāt appreciate it. She only cared about one thing, the only thing her life revolved around. And she didnāt need money to get it.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā The voice screamed its frustration, wanted him to go back and finish the job. He argued with the voice; it wasnāt the right time. The time would come eventually, but it wasnāt tonight.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā He tapped his fingers against his thigh as he made his way home.
Ā He watched as the paramedics zipped the body bag up. Watched as they loaded his motherās corpse into the back of the vehicle. Watched as they drove away.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā He felt nothing. Even as he thought that he should feel sad. Even as the voice howled its triumph and freedom in his head. The voice knew. Knew that there was nothing left alive to keep them from its intended purpose for them.
This one wasnāt his fault. It was hers. Sheād snorted one line too many. Fell asleep. Didnāt wake up again. Now, all he felt was resentment. Resentment for the men who fed her addiction, and now his own. Hated his mother for being addicted to cocaine. Hated her for overdosing. Hated her for dying before he could kill her himself.
The voice was demanding. Wanted to know if its time had come yet. He smiled. The slow, maddened smile of a man possessed.
The voice didnāt like his first real kill.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Heād come across one of the girls he went to high school with. She had annoyed the shit out of him in high school. She hadnāt even recognised him. Had thought he was cute and started flirting with him. That annoyed him even more. When he suggested they leave the club theyād met in, she agreed readily.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā She didnāt live long enough to regret that decision.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Heād gone with strangulation specifically because he wouldnāt leave behind any clear hand prints or boot treads when it was done. The rush that came with the feeling of taking another personās life didnāt last long. The voice made certain of that.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā The voice didnāt want clean. It wanted blood. Revelled at the mere idea of blood. Relished the thought of getting to watch as a personās life slowly flowed away from their body in the form of bright red liquid. Dripping, dripping to the ground in some darkened alleyway, waiting for the next rain to wash it away.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā He didnāt ignore what the voice wanted again after that night.
He smiled as the blood slipped through his fingers, watched as the life left her eyes. Revelled as he held her throat. Held her throat tightly, right beneath the line heād made with the knife from carotid to jugular.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā The voice howled its joy, its sheer pleasure at the sight, as their victim struggled feebly. As she gasped for breath. As the blood pulsed from her veins to pool on the ground beneath his feet. She was his fifth victim in the last six months. And they wanted more.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Nothing could stop them from feeling the high of taking life away. Not anymore.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā He continued to think that as he heard sirens in the distance. As he ran. As he was tackled to the ground five blocks away. He continued to think that as the voice screamed in his head while he sat in his gaol cell.
Now, here he was; the voice silenced forevermore and he, the killer, was dying. His last thought was of just how finite life on Earth actually was.
The doctor and nurses stood silent sentinel as the old manās last breaths rattled and wheezed in his lungs, the sound akin to an old car as its engine tried desperately to start.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Five minutes after the rattling breathing ceased; after the heart monitor had droned a single, continuous beep for what felt like hours, the doctor looked at his wrist-watch. Pronounced time of death as five AM.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Another killer who had died a prisoner. Though soon there would be another to take his place ā he, at least, was gone forever.
Copyright: Rachael M. Harrison AKA thebrightestblackstar AKA raichu-ree 2015. All rights reserved. No stealing please.
