Death's Bitter Embrace (#Wattys2015)

Chapter I: Ill-Fated Souls

My breathing escalated hastily and briskly as the world that surrounded me fell into a deep dark slumber, all I could hear was the wind howling and echoing through the forest, like a pack of wolves

Earlier That Week

My location: my 20 acre mansion, in my "meat locker" just "preparing" some people that had sinned, I had just alleviated them from the stresses of life. I load up my Jeep 4x4 -yes that's right I own a Jeep- with the bloody corpses of the men and women that I had recently decimated. It would be a long and treacherous journey to Looming Oaks, the forest in which I have dumped all the tainted souls in since I became this monster. As I start to set off one of the bodies starts to wail. "I hate stopping when I don't choke them enough so they die" I think angrily.

I pull over to the side of the road-in which I only got about 30 metres from my mansion-I go to the back of my my Jeep and open up my boot, grab her-the scythe which I fittingly named Raven-and start hacking away at the screaming person, Raven is a enormous part of me, she is the part that filled the void in my heart when I lost my mother and sister. I am now covered in blood and my clothes are now stained with the stench of death and despair, seeing the fear in the peoples eyes makes me happy.

I arrive at Looming Oaks 4 days later, the sounds of the countless bodies squishing and squelching in my boot will always be in my mind and I like it that way

Murders of crows soar over me as I carry each and every corpse to the sludge, "these birds, they symbolise all the prey I have mauled and slaughtered" I emphatically think as I let out a one-note laugh.

When I get home I get the high pressure washer out and thoroughly rid the Jeep of the gore and juices that poured out onto the floor of my car boot. I do this everytime I come back, and I never miss a beat-I can thank my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder for that-it helps a bunch with hiding the evidence.

I enter my dining room with long strides feeling confident and proud. As I walk to the marble bench top I see a small note with huge contrasting, hand written lettering. "I can see you, what you're doing is rotten and shall not be tolerated lightly." My face administers a sullen look as I read the scribbled text over and over, trying to comprehend the words "Who could be watching me? No-one knows where I live, I have a false identity, no-one knows my little secret". At that last comment I thought of sarcasm as my mind said "little".

"I asphyxiated everyone that knew me when I was younger apart from my assistant Maria, so who could possible know" I scream in my mind as I get confused and lost in thought. I put on some classical music-Frank Sinatra- to soothe my mind and put it at ease, and to think about my next execution.

The Next Day

Night clubs aren't really my thing so I found my prey, she had strawberry blonde hair, tight black dress and soft face features. I found her in a club which was called Bar 167, she was around her mid twenties. She was talking to some gym junkie that wore a tight off-white tee shirt, black dress pants. I walked over to her and asked her a question just to break the ice.

"My aren't you pretty, may I by you a drink?" As I Kiss her hand while she blushes. I suggest to her that she should tell me her sins to get it off her chest and she does as she's told.

"Yes you may" she giggles for a second then smiles at me, she thanks me for getting her away from that creep, oh the fun she will have when she finds out I am a bigger creep than he will ever be. We talk for a good hour and I drive her to my mansion-she was even flirting with me at one point-my trap was in play now, all my cards were laid out and I had a Royal Flush, as she is already about a quarter way drunk I thought that I may as well finish the job and make her completely befuddled.

After about 2 hours of drinking and talking-I even threw a drinking game in- she passes out in my lap "I guess she can handle her liquor" I think with a small sheepish but demonic grin, I take her to the "meat locker" and restrain her to a stretcher; then I play the waiting game for her to come to. When she regains consciousness-which took a half hour too long-she automatically says my name whilst pulling at her bindings, I told her my name was David DeLuca: my fake identity name. I flow into her sight and she sighs, I say...

"You have sinned Charlotte, it is now your time to pay for your crimes." I say with a cynical smirk on my face that spreads ear-to-ear. I suffocate her like I do with all my other victims, then I chop her into tiny little bits with Raven: that was something I only do with the best of people, I don't chop up any of my victims apart from the ones I like, she should be grateful.

I take her up to Looming Oaks and place her limbs and other bodily parts in the gunk neatly-I can thank my OCD for that. "The gunk is supposedly fresh water but after I have cast thousands of carcasses in there I am sure that even if it got cleaned a million times it would never be fresh water again." I think as I chuckle to myself. I walked back to where my Jeep and it had vanished, I inspect around the corner to see if I had mistaken that corner for this one but nope, no sign of my Jeep. "Where the fuck could it be? My keys are right he-" I think before I cut myself off because my keys weren't in my pocket. "Did they fall out" I inquire to myself before I hear a voice in my head; it was so close it felt like they, it, whatever it was, was right next to me...