The Pick-Up

I want to be inside you.

Surgically, I mean.

There’s nothing in this world more intimate than to be wrist deep in the organs of another human being, to feel the warmth of their blood on your hands as you caress their innards, really dig into the viscera, grow to truly understand who they are, on the inside.

This is a shallow world we live in, and we so often get lost in the superficial, never thinking to probe deeper into the people with whom we’ve chosen to spend our time, never going beyond the surface layer.

I don’t want to fall into this trap with you.

I want to see who you are, inside. I believe, truly believe, that you’re worth knowing, worth exploring, in a deeper, more meaningful way. You deserve to be understood, deserve someone who’s willing to put in the effort, and I want to be that person.

So let’s get out of here, shall we? Let’s go back to my place, tie you down, crack open your chest and see what you’ve got going on in there…

And no, obviously we won’t be putting you under, we won’t be using anesthetic of any kind.

You will be awake for every moment of this; perfectly conscious and perfectly aware of everything that’s happening to you.

I’d never engage in anything this intimate and personal with someone who wasn’t completely present in the moment while it was going on.

To cut you open while you were unconscious would be a gross violation of your agency as a human being, above and beyond the simple fact that I would never want to deprive you of what will no doubt be a unique and incredibly intense experience.

You’ll be awake when I make the first incision. That’s non-negotiable. I could do no less.

The very thought of it disgusts me.

I’m not a monster, after all…

Meanwhile, at my Realtor's office...

There are only so many places in a rented space to hide a body.

Apartments aren’t large, after all.

Buying allows for a lot more room.

Behind walls, an unfinished basement you can dig up, the yard, there are dozens of options for the discerning murderer looking to settle down.

And with the housing market how it is, there’s never been a better time to buy. In fact, I’d say any serial killer still renting would have to be out of his mind!

So: I have a few places in mind I’d love for you to see. How’s your Monday?

Weekly Prompt Story: Chains

http://podcasting.isfullofcrap.com/2012/10/28/weekly-challenge-340-chain/

Chains

By Christopher Munroe

If you think about it, in a way we’re all in chains.

Chained by self-imposed obligations to one another, to notions of family and friendship. Chained to jobs we only took to pay student loans we thought we’d need to get jobs better than the ones we were eventually forced to take. Chained by outdated notions of morality.

Yes, we fancy ourselves free, but in a way we’re all in chains.

But in another, more literal way, only you are in chains, here in my soundproof basement.

Now, make yourself comfortable while I head upstairs to fetch my straight razor… 

When David Henderson Wakes Up...

...he’ll find both himself and his bed drenched in blood. Were he to have the blood tested, he’d learn it was human.

I somehow doubt he’ll have it tested.

Instead, once he’s done screaming, he’ll probably shower, gather his bedclothes and dispose of them as best he knows how. He likely won’t dispose of them very well.

He didn’t plan to  need to, after all.

He’ll wonder what happened to him, what he did while he slept. He’ll wonder if he killed someone, and who, and if police are moments away from breaking down his apartment door.

He did, it was a homeless person nobody will ever miss, and no, in case you’re wondering.

He doesn’t need to worry. But he will.

He’ll worry more and more as the weeks go by, obsessing over the moments after he awoke, straining himself to remember what happened, what led to that one horrible morning. He’ll never remember a thing.

Maybe he’ll someday put the experience behind him and get on with his life, telling himself it was only a nightmare, a brief nervous breakdown and that it never really happened. Some people do.

Though they’re never the same afterward.

More likely he’ll never get over it. More likely the guilt and shame and sorrow, and the endless unanswerable questions, will haunt him until the end of his life.

Maybe he’ll end his own life. Many do.

Either way, he’ll never know for sure what happened while he slept, because he wasn’t in the driver’s seat.

I took him, you see, while he slept. I borrowed his body, since he wasn’t using it, and I hit the streets. I picked someone at random, I killed him with a butcher knife from David Henderson’s kitchen, and then I threw the knife into a nearby dumpster.

The police will never trace the knife back to David, because I washed the knife and I put gloves on him before picking it back up, but mostly they’ll never trace the knife back to him because they have no reason to suspect, even for a moment, that he might be a killer.

Because he’s not. And if you kill somebody, once, and you choose your victim at random, you can still get away with murder, even in this day and age.

A lesson I wish I’d learned in life, though I’m not sure I could have followed it. I was good at picking my victims at random, but I could never stop at just one.

That’s how they caught me.

David, on the other hand, will never be caught, because he will stop at one. One horrible night, one terrifying morning, and he’ll never have to help me this way again.

I know he’ll never be caught because none of the other people whose bodies I’ve borrowed ever have been. And there’s been a lot of them, I’ve been doing this since they executed me and nobody’s been caught yet. They’ve gone mad, on occasion, and they sometimes kill themselves, but they never, ever get caught. And neither will David.

And next week, when the urge builds within whatever astral thing I have instead of a living body, I’ll possess someone other than David Henderson to fulfill my mission. And while David loses his mind from fear, guilt and paranoia I’ll be merrily going about my business using new hands each time I kill.

I never possess the same person twice for my nightly excursions, you see. But I admit, I do try my best to keep track of what they do after I’m done with them, how they manage their guilt and pain or how they fall apart.

As the years go by, I’ve learned that that’s half the fun.

Sanitarium

There’s an abandoned sanitarium near my neighborhood. Not in my neighborhood, but near it. I go there to relax.

It isn’t haunted, possessed, or any of the outdated tropes you’d associate with such places, it’s just a building. Abandoned during the seventies, in remarkably good repair considering it’s age, and utterly forgotten by the people who live nearby.

It’s where I keep the people I take from the side of the highway. I visit them, for as long as they last, and when they’re done I find a place to bury them.

You’ll see for yourself, we’re almost there now…

Correspondence

To Marcus Pembilton
C.O. The Edmonton Institution
21611, Meridian Street
PO Box 2290
Edmonton, Alberta
T5J 3H7

Dear Marcus:

In the eighteen months since you moved from our fine neighborhood, I’ve agonized over whether or not to write you. I know you didn’t leave us on the best of terms and that, due to the unusual circumstance of your departure, you’ve likely had more important things on your mind than the old Neighborhood Association, but after thinking and praying on the question, I’ve finally decided to sit down and attempt to put my feelings about the incident on paper, to explain them to myself as much as to you.

First of all, I’d like you to know that in the weeks immediately following your arrest, the whole Association came to your defense. When the news media arrived I was on camera that very night explaining that you’d always been a quiet, polite person, the sort that keeps to himself. I don’t know if you saw the footage, but it was picked up by CNN and broadcast internationally. I’ll tell you, I didn’t expect THAT kind of celebrity when I allowed myself to be interviewed, though I do admit I found it kind of flattering. When it aired, I called all my friends to tell them to tune in!

Your trial was equally well covered by the news, and it seemed for a while that it was the only thing happening in the world, to hear reporters talk about it. Did they let you watch news networks while it was happening? If not, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you were NOT portrayed in a positive light. I suppose, in light of the discoveries made when they dug up your yard, this shouldn’t have come as a surprise. But I admit, the lengths reporters went to try and make you look like some sort of monster verged on ludicrous to anyone who knew you the way we did.

I mean, come on! Admittedly the footage from your basement made my stomach turn the first time I saw it (especially when I remembered my Donald loaning you his tools so you could remodel it three years ago!) but that was just one side of you. One small part of your life the media chose to fixate on, it hardly seems fair. They never mentioned, to name just one example, how delicious the brownies you brought to the school bake sale were, or how you brought them without fail every year even though you had no children of your own in the school system to benefit from their sale. Were they interested in that sort of thing? Of course not, all the media’s interested in nowadays is sensationalism, it seems. It’s all in the name of ratings.

By the way, those brownies were sorely missed at this year’s sale. I was the only one who was willing to say it out loud, but you could tell everyone was thinking it.

Another reason your absence is so acutely felt is the state of disrepair your former home has fallen into. It honestly is shocking how the police left the place, you’d be scandalized if you saw it, and rightly so. The bank’s since took it over, of course, and they haven’t had luck to date finding an interested buyer, but that’s no excuse for their not filling the holes in your yard back in, or their shameful neglect of your rose garden. It’s as though they weren’t even TRYING to keep the place up, like they’d just written the place off as a loss rather than attempting to put it back into a presentable shape!

It’s disrespectful to the neighborhood, is what It is, and I’ll let you know I’ve written several pointed missives to the bank to that effect. No response as of yet, but if they think I’ll be put off so easily they don’t know me at all! One thing is certain, none of this would ever have been an issue if you were still living there, the pains you went to to keep your home beautiful are another reason that, bloodstained sewer grate in your basement or not, I respected you so well.

In fact, I think it could be safely said that your presence is dearly missed, back here in Silver Springs. I mean obviously your crimes were horrific, assuming you actually did the terrible things they accused you of, but still. If you were guilty, you always kept that side of yourself out of the neighborhood, and within our community you were the perfect neighbor, a fact we all appreciate. I suppose I’m getting a little rambling with this note, but I’m really not sure what to say in a letter like this, obviously I’ve never known anyone in your particular situation before. I hope I haven’t said anything unintentionally to put you out. I’m sure I haven’t. I’m not even sure why I wrote you, I’m sure you’re very busy in your new situation and don’t have time for people you knew in what by now must seem like a previous life.

I guess I just wanted to write to say that, although the world looks at you and sees only the seventeen corpses found in and buried behind your home, to me you’ll always be the quiet, polite neighbor who generally kept to himself but always had a ready smile when he saw me in the street. You were a real asset to the neighborhood, Marcus, don’t you ever think otherwise. And we’re all better off for having known you, though it’s grown unfashionable to admit it. And for this I thank you, even if no one else will.

I hope this letter finds you well and that you’re keeping in good spirits, to whatever degree you can during your incarceration.

Sincerely yours

Amanda Henderson
President
The Silver Springs Neighborhood Association
320 Slivergrove Bay, NW
Calgary, Alberta

The Chosen One

You, boy. Yes, you. My Gods, have I found you? Are you he? Are you... the chosen one?

Speak not, young one, for I know that you are from the scar across your scalp. You are he who was prophesied, who will lead our people out from under the yoke of the Sorcerer King and into a new golden age. You will continue, will lead the rebellion as your parents did before you.

But you already have parents, you say? Waiting for you back at home? Please, child, you jest. Surely you can't possibly believe that those drab, dreary creatures you grew up with could have birthed one such as you? You must have known from an early age that you were meant for more than the gray little lives they led, that you were too special for their world to contain or constrain you. They are good people, to be sure, and they have done their best to raise you, protect you, and to keep you from knowing your destiny until you were old enough to understand it's responsibility, but they are ordinary. And you, young boy-king, are anything but that.

Your true father was a great warrior, perhaps the greatest who ever lived, and he led the rebellion's forces against the Sorcerer King, winning battle after glorious battle in spite of his enemy's superior numbers and dark majiks. Your mother was an elvish queen.

You, of course, know none of this. When they sent you, at birth, to be raised by your “parents” here, on this world, they knew that any knowledge of your true identity before the time was right would only endanger you needlessly. So it was kept from you, until you came of age, and now the time has come to seize the sword and lead the rebellion your true parents began. To lead, and to avenge them.

Avenge? Yes, I'm sorry to say it, but your parents both were slain by the Sorcerer King's assassins. For great men and women make great enemies, and no enemy's greater than the Sorcerer King. Your road will not be an easy one, you must learn your mothers elvish majiks, and learn too to wield the blade your father forged. Many will resent you for arising from nowhere to claim leadership, and it will be a struggle to win their trust. But I have faith in you, child, for I know who you truly are, and what you are truly capable of. For you see, it was I who delivered you to this world to be protected, and it was I charged with the task, when the time was right, of retrieving and training you to take your rightful place as the warrior king you were meant to be.

You cannot, I'm sorry to say, go back to say goodbye to the two who raised you, but fear not, they'll understand. They've known how special you were this whole time, and will be overjoyed to learn that you've been called home. And time is most certainly if the essence. The Sorcerer King's armies are on the move, and we must move to meet them. We must away, and away with the greatest of haste.

Away, to meet your fate.

...in other news, another dead child has been found in the forests just outside of town. The boy, one Antony Johansburg, aged twelve, is the fourth to turn up dead in the first half of this year, and authorities report they're no closer to the killer's identity, nor to determining how the killer is luring these poor children away with him. We'll be back for an interview with little Antony's bereaved parents after these words from our sponsors.

Halloween Costumes

“I’m a serial killer,” I said, “we look like everyone else.”

“Dude,” the Cowboy replied, “total copout.”

I laughed, mentally noting to kill him.

But first, the Slutty Nurse, still grinning at my eye for detail as my straight razor went “snicker-snack” across her throat.

Alone and unprepared. Wonderful…

Then, time for the Cowboy. Icepick to the neck while he smoked behind the house. Never saw me coming. They never do.

Later, washing off blood in the bathroom sink, I heard a voice behind me.

But saw nothing in the mirror.

“Tonight,” it whispered “we look like everyone else too.”

Curiosity

I took the Television apart.

It’s something I do, always has been. Rip something apart, look inside, and try to reassemble it. Sometimes I manage, the toaster and lamp still mostly work, sometimes not. My computer’s just dead, and sadly so’s the television.

Compulsion, or honest curiosity? Whatever it is, I’ve taken apart nearly everything in this house at one point or another.

The only thing I never touched is the heavy padlock on the front door. The one you didn’t notice me locking after you came in.

I just like ripping things apart. To see how they work inside.

The Man in the Corner of the Pub

There was something strange about the man in the corner of the pub. No specific thing, he just seemed… off.

Not a big man, or particularly imposing, but something about him drew my eye the moment he walked in the door.

He seemed twitchy, like a spring wound too tight. A dark cloud hung over him, as though he was waiting for something or someone to set him off.

To give him the excuse to vent his frustration.

I finished my own beer, free hand resting on the straight razor in my jacket pocket, and wandered over to say hello…