Darkness inside us: A book of short stories

Killer at the edge of town

The man was smeared in blood. He pulled the blade out of his victim and watched with a vicsceral grin, as the woman lie on the floor, bleeding profusely, writhing. The man stood up from where he was watching and twirled around on the balls of his feet, nearly slip on the blood. A teenage girl was sitting on the floor, watching with horror, as her parents were being murdered. And now it was her turn. The man advanced toward the teenage girl, a grin in his face, blood smearing his entire body, the blade of the knife streaked with the gore of her parents. The teenage girl screamed and whipped around, pounding down the hall. The bloody grin faded from the mans face and he started running.

The girl was screamed. Crying. She was scared. They all were.

He fed on their fear.

He stopped running and moved slowly toward the door, leaving bloody footprints as he approached. He heard the heavy breathing of the girl, heard her trying to suppress a scream, and as the man slammed into the door, the girl began screaming again. The man slammed the bloody blade into the door, causing wooden planks to dislodge. He smashed his foot into the door, denting it, sending splinters of wood flying. The girl screamed even louder.

He slammed the door with the heel of his boot yet again, and this time the door flew up, the doorknob burying itself in the wall. The man rushed forward, raising the knife above his head, and he howled. The girl, still screaming, rolled to the right, seeing the blade arc across the sky and bury itself in the wall. He ran to the door and was about the go out, but she miscalculated her steps and the man tackled her into the stairwell post. She kicked out and kicked the man in the groin and he fell to the ground, the breath having been knocked out of him. The girl pivoted around and started running. The man recovered from the blow quickly, within a few seconds he regained balance, and he started running again. 

He saw the girl trying to flee down the stairs and before he could he grabbed her and pulled her back. He placed the knife to her throat and brushed the blade against her neck, blood trickling down the side of her neck. A red, bloody line stretched all the way across. He grabbed her hair and slammed her against the wall. Blood splattered the wall. She fell to the floor, dazed, confused, on the verge of consciousness. He picked her up and pushed her against the wall.

She was unconscious.

And this was when the man would kill.

He grabbed her once last time. He inserted the knife into the thin line and made it deeper and she screamed and screamed as hot blood poured from her throat. She screamed, but that scream was interrupted by the gurgling sound of blood from her mouth. Blood spurted from her neck. And the man removed the knife and stabbed her in the back three or four times, blood splattering his face and neck, mixing with the blood of her parents. The blade was drenched in dark blood, with stringy flesh hanging from the tip. The girl fell to the ground. Blood spread almost immediately. 

And then the man cleaned up. He washed his hands and his face and he removed the blood from his clothing. He rinsed the knife off under water, and after he had washed up, he turned toward the entrance, opened the door, and exited the house as if nothing ever happened.

He wasn't heard from until fifteen years later.

A couple of hours after the killer had left, the police were swarming the area. A cop, a man named Thomas Hartwick, was the first on the scene. He had been waken up by an urgent police call to a brutal crime. This was his first brutal crime. He was only twenty three years old, a newly conducted officer, who had not faced any sort of danger yet. He stepped out of his car and waited out in front of the house, until another car, driven by a man named Jefferson, stopped in front of him. Jefferson was a seasoned veteran of a cop; he had been a cop for thirty years, and he had seen it all. He was really the boss of Thomas, so that was why Thomas waited for Jefferson to get there.