In a way, it had been the opportunity he’d been waiting for

Darker Shades of Fear

(Installment 26)

No conscience, no thought process, no release
Your outlet of aggression begs you please
Care for your disease
And breed the perfect tragedy
How is this my fault?
And this is my life?
Enduring every passing day
The voice inside your head will say,
Am I a failure?

* * *

In a way, it had been the opportunity he’d been waiting for. Something that validated his existence, gave meaning to his menial routine. After reading the details of the article, he’d very calmly set the paper down and sat in silence for an unmeasured amount of time. Once his mind sorted through his options, he simply discarded the useless suit and showered before returning to his usual wardrobe and persona with a disturbing ease. Part of him was reacting as it would to the sound of nails grinding against a chalkboard but for the most part; Kenny found it surprisingly simple to fall back into the old ways.

He’d already figured out that the man was from the side of town in worse condition than the one in which he stayed. He vaguely recalled having walked through it sometime, thought it might as well have been years ago. He was disappointed that he hadn’t been at his place of residence, but the thrill was in the chase after all and it did give him something to look forward to.

He wandered through bars, collecting all the information he needed. He discovered that his bail had been posted by an anonymous individual who was actually a woman named Cynthia Hall. Content with this knowledge, he set out in pursuit of her, knowing that the pieces would all fall together in the end.

He arrived at the address he’d been given, 82 Brook Avenue apartment number twenty-six. He knocked one her door a total of three times before he heard someone approach the door from the other side.

“Who’s there?” A female voice demanded.

“I’ve just got some questions.” He replied.

“Do you have a lawyer?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t have any answers.”

He sighed, “Please don’t make me do something you’ll regret.”

“Who the hell are you?! Did he send you?!”

“I’m Kenny, and nobody sent me.”

“Bullshit!” She cried, “Leave me the hell alone, I kept my end of the deal!”

“I really have no idea what you’re talking about.” He explained calmly.

“I’ve got a gun!”

“I believe you.”

“Then why the hell are you still here?!”

“I just have a few questions.”

“Are you retarded or something?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Good. I won’t feel bad for shooting you.”

“Through the door? It’s highly unlikely that the bullet would even touch me. Even if it did, the velocity at which it travels would be impeded by the door, and my guess would be that you’ve got a small handgun, so it would really be wasting the money you spent on bullets, considering I just want you to answer a few questions.”

“What’s so goddamn important?”

“I was wondering why you posted his bail, that’s all.”

She was silent. “That’s none of your fucking business.”

“I think it is.”

“Any why do you think that?!” She spat.

“Because he killed someone I loved.”

A few moments of silence passed before the click of metal broke through it. The door opened slowly to reveal a very blond woman, a few inches shorter than Kenny with a discreet scar over her left eye. She was clearly frightened, and she did have a gun, but she seemed to comply. “It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got all the time in the world.”

She nodded and opened the door wider, allowing him to step inside. She still kept a safe distance and still held onto the gun as she locked the door behind him.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” He said.

“I don’t trust anything anymore.” She replied, nervously taking a seat.

“Fair enough. The sooner you give me the details the sooner I can leave.”

“I’ll make it short, then.” The woman he could only assume to be Cynthia retorted.

He just nodded.

“I met Ron three years ago. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew there was always something about him that wasn’t right. I went out with him for a while… a year and six months, actually. It wasn’t exactly a… comfortable relationship.” She said, absentmindedly fingering the scar on above her eye. “I stayed with him, though. I was afraid to leave, I guess… but anyway, we went to a bar one night and he had a few drinks and I told him to go home. He started to get angry with me again and then somebody at the bar dragged himself into it. Anyway, they took it out back and… he… Ron just killed the other guy. He shot him right there, in the alley. And I didn’t know what to do, so I ran, and stayed with my mother for a few weeks. I was too scared to call the police, so I convinced myself it never happened. To make the story short, he would show up at my house sporadically… when I got a restraining order, he just sent his ‘friends’ instead. That’s what happened the other day. Five of them showed up here… I basically had no choice. …I didn’t want to. I just want him out of my life.”

“You won’t have to worry about that anymore.” He replied enigmatically.

She sighed, “I only wish. So, is that what you wanted?”

“It’ll do.” He said, “You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find him, would you?”

“He could be anywhere. But there’s this one place he goes… it’s behind a chain link fence at the end of Central Avenue, behind the old office building and to the right, it’s a shitty looking little used-to-be crack house. I don’t know what they do there… I just know he goes there sometimes.”

“Thanks.” He replied, standing and ready to leave.

“Good luck with whatever it is you’re trying to do.”

“I don’t need luck.” He said, “But thanks anyway.”

She shrugged her shoulders and unbolted the door for him.

“You shouldn’t be living here alone.” He mentioned, “It’s a pretty dangerous neighborhood. Especially if these ‘friends’ of his know where you live.”

“I’ll remember that… what did you say your name was?”

“It’s not important.” He replied, before taking his leave.

She just lingered in the doorway for a few moments, blinking her green eyes debating whether or not to take his advice while Kenny had already exited the building.

He’d found the location rather easily, though he could see how it might have been difficult for anyone else. The fence was simple to climb, and avoiding the barbed wire was a nice challenge from which Kenny effortlessly escaped unscathed. He was sure that there had to be a less hazardous route, but he sort of enjoyed the danger.

Coming upon the dilapidated structure Cynthia had described, he was certain that the average person would have avoided it at all costs. It was a seemingly inconspicuous shed-type building, appearing condemned and forgotten – but it wasn’t empty. That was what he took first notice of. There were at least three people inside, or at least three shadows that he could see with the courtesy of the dimly lit inside. It flickered and wavered at times, and he guessed that they were using candles. Electricity failed to provide the warm glow peeking through the windows.

He really didn’t have a plan, but that was okay. All plans served to do was fall through. He smiled unnervingly, fingering the switchblade in his pocket before starting toward the splintered door.

He didn’t knock, just opened the door at his discretion and walked in as if he belonged there. The occupants of the room really didn’t take notice of his entrance, which he thought a pity, so he took his blade from his pocket and drove it deep into the back of someone’s neck. The man, who was not the one he was looking for, cried out and Ron and the woman present were shocked to see their friend slump face-down on the dirty rotted floor, behind him the silhouette of a tall, angry looking man, the dim candlelight reflecting off his cold blue eyes and giving the blade a sickening crimson glint.

“Don’t act so surprised.” He said evenly, in an almost bored tone. He smiled, a manic expression born of hatred and seething in vengeance.

“Who the fuck are you?!”

“That doesn’t matter.” He replied as if stating a fact. He began to move toward them, still talking as they tried to back away. “That’s the beauty of anonymity. It’s nothing. Defined as having no distinguishing characteristics, the state of being unknown or unacknowledged. I don’t really exist… not on a grand scale, anyway. My reality is subject to my perceptions, but to everyone else, I just dissolve into the abyss.”

“What the hell are you talking about?! You’re not making any fucking sense!”

He sighed as if bored, and smacked Ron over the head with a splintering wooden chair. The woman shrieked at this but Kenny didn’t hear her as he proceeded to smack him twice more, just in case. When he was sure Ron was unconscious, he turned his attention to the woman.

“Please… don’t hurt me… I don’t know what you want, but just take it, I don’t care, just please don’t hurt me…”

He laughed. “You’re pathetic.” He seethed. “Grow a fucking spine. Have the guts to run away. Threaten me.”

She was silent, shaking in fear and cowering in the corner.

“I thought as much. It does give me some peace to know that she didn’t go the way you live.”

She was clearly confused, but said nothing. “Please…”

“Jesus Christ, I just stabbed your friend and knocked the other one out with a chair, do you really think manners mean anything to me?”

“I’m sorry, whatever I did, I’m sorry, just don’t hurt me…”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t planning on it but keep talking and I will.”

She winced and squeezed her eyed closed.

“Ugh. Prima donna.” He replied in disgust. “Just go.”

She opened her eyes, questioning him.

“I said leave before I change my mind!”

She screamed and took off running.

He held a hand to his forehead, wondering why he even bothered to let her go.

Because you needed someone to set up. That, and you’ve never killed a woman before.

He paused a moment. ‘I haven’t?’

Never.

‘I wonder why…’

You know why. It’s what started everything.

‘…Tess.’

He acknowledged this and turned his focus to the man lying beneath a broken chair on the floor. An unsettling grin spread across his lips.

Groggy eyes blinked painfully, struggling to see anything but darkness. An intense pain ached in his head all the way down to his back. He struggled in vain to hold his head up, and it limply flopped downward before even making half the distance. He struggled to move his arms and with a certain degree of panic found that he could not. He tried his legs with the same results. He realized then that his arms were bound behind him and his legs were manacled to the chair on which he remained tied. Frightened, he finally brought his head up to its proper position and once his vision returned, scanned the room for signs of life.

“So happy to see you’re finally awake.” Said a voice he couldn’t recognize from a dark corner of the room.

The man tried to speak but only incoherent fragments sputtered out, the vibrations of his vocal cords bringing new life to the already unbearable pain in his head.

“You might be wondering what hit you.” He said, fingering something shiny, the light reflecting off of it in the darkness. “That would be me.”

“Glaargggh… mmph…” he mumbled and winced, unable to make the words he needed.

“And I’m sure you’re wondering why.” He pushed off the wall he was leaning against and moved slowly toward his helpless prisoner. “Obviously, it’s far easier for me to mangle you without resistance, however, you’ll be pleased to know there is a slightly more significant, less selfish reason.” He paused a moment before stepping into the light not very far from the bound man, leaning in to make certain his next words were understood, “I wanted you to know what she felt.” His tone was even and deadly. “How helpless and paralyzed she must have been before you killed her.”

The man’s eyes went wide, “Whaaa… I…”

Kenny smacked him across the face. “Shut up.” He replied with no small amount of disgust in his voice, “You’ll be needing your voice for later.”

He looked to his captor with a disturbed sort of puzzlement, as if to question his statement.

“But enough talking. Let’s get down to business, shall we?” He asked sadistically, dragging the blade across the man’s left cheek.

He cried out in surprise and pain turning his head away. Kenny drew his hand back, proudly observing the new incision beginning to pool with blood, already dripping down his face.

“I bet you didn’t even know her name.” He spat viciously, stabbing the switchblade into his right collarbone. Ron screamed loudly as it protruded his skin, scraping against bone. Kenny took this as a sign that he was getting his point across and twisted the object recklessly to the tune of his captive’s shouts of anguish before pulling it out unexpectedly.

He examined the blade, now stained a dark shade of red and turned his eyes toward the man helplessly bound to a splintering chair, bleeding on his face and his shirt stained from the new wound.

“…I… please… gahhh… just sssstop…”

He laughed. “You want me to stop?”

He nodded painfully.

Kenny appeared to consider his request, then shrugged before he began to pace around the seated man. It was a few silent moments before he screamed, feeling metal ribbing through the flesh of his back. It lodges itself there as strong hands took hold of his weak, bound arm.

“No…” He said thoughtfully, “I don’t think so.”

SNAP.

He screamed out in anguish as his forearm snapped, the radius and ulna both splitting in a very unnatural direction. The man was crying now, tears salting the incision on his face and Kenny watched this sight with a certain degree of sadistic pleasure.

“Do you like it?” He whispered from his position behind the chair into the murderer’s ear.

Ron whimpered pathetically and nodded that he most certainly did not.

“That’s too bad.” He said, pulling the blade from his back and in homage to Tarintino, sliced the man’s ear off.

More screaming, more sobbing, and more bleeding ensued.

“Go ahead,” Kenny coaxed, “scream and cry, plead and beg and sob and all the like. You can cry all you want but the pain is never going to go away. Believe me, I know.” He said, momentarily breaking from adding any further damage to his captive, “You can cry until you’ve wasted every tear. You can yell and curse until your voice box explodes. Pray, beg, reason or barter with whatever you believe in, surrender yourself to whatever you think will alleviate the pain… but it won’t make it any easier. It won’t make the slightest difference. It’s funny how the cycle just goes on and on and on like a carousel coming undone. It gives no sign of when it might ease, and even if it did – only for a brief moment – it wouldn’t be for you.”

He struggled to pay attention, though still shivering and weeping and grossly distorted at this point.

Kenny approached him with a sort of pity in his face before driving the blade into his foot, earning a fresh scream and a renewed stream of tears.

“You see what I mean?”

A wince sufficed for an answer.

Satisfied, Kenny backed away and drew another chair toward him, seating himself on it backwards, his arms resting on the top of the chair. “Did you really think you were going to get away with it?”

No reply.

“I mean, from one killer to another, your methods aren’t at all admirable. Then again, I suppose murder never is…

“But you.” He seethed, “And I was convinced that I was the scum of the Earth. I suppose I can thank you for proving me wrong. But as helpful as the ego-boost is, it won’t give me what I want.”

He looked up with desperate eyes, “Whaaa… what do you want…? Jusssst tell me… any… anything, I – I promise…”

“I want her back.” He replied in a voice so cold it renewed the man’s shivers. “But this isn’t about me. This is about her. This is about setting things right, a life for a life – though either way, I suppose you’ve taken more than I’ll get.”

He would have asked what Kenny had meant if speaking not grown so difficult.

“Awww, where’s your smile now? The smile you had in the courtroom, the day you spit at her family and friends?” He asked, standing up and moving toward the blade still in the man’s foot. “This is what you did to us.” He said, grinding it into the bone before sliding it out and jamming it into his left side. “This is how we wake up every day. This is what I feel without her.” He said, twisting the sharp metal in various directions. Finally, with all his anger, he plunged it deep into his stomach and left it there before slowly drawing away.

When Ron was finally finished making a spectacle of his physical agony, he spoke, “I… I’m… ss…ssorry.”

In response, Kenny drove the metal deeper and spit on the dying man. “See you in Hell.”

With that, he turned around and walked away. The cool air felt refreshing against his skin, especially the area down his cheeks where tears were falling.