"The Battle of One"

Looking down at Matt’s body did not give him a sense of domination or power, merely just a project to finish. It was like a science project you waited until the night before to start working on. You knew you had to finish, had to work quickly, but also had to do quality work. However, there was no possible way to fuck this up. It was not like someone was going to give him a grade on this project, although there were going to be many people to comment on it. He had to make sure it was worth talking about. Pretty sure he had already done that, he sat the bucket down next to him and contemplated whether or not to finish the job he had started. It was not a matter of conscience, rather he did not expect Matt to take so long to die, and he was really tired. He should have taken a nap or something while he was waiting. The pill he took had made him sleepy anyway, coupled with forcing himself to stay awake and watch Matt slowly die, he was exhausted and ready to go lay down somewhere. Instead of leaving his work unfinished he jabbed the knife deep into Matt’s stomach and ripped it open. Dropping the knife next to him, he then grabbed both sides of the torn flesh and pulled them open, exposing Matt’s insides. Next he returned to the table and grabbed a pair of scissors, clicked them open and closed a few times, then began with Matt’s stomach cutting it loose and dropping it in the bucket. He reached up under his ribs, grabbed something soft and pulled with all his might. Inside his hand was Matt’s heart with blood pouring out of it and running down his arm. He added it to the bucket and continued until Matt was completely hollow and the bucket was filled with blood and organs that were once internal.

A sense of satisfaction poured over him as he looked down at the full bucket. He was finally done, could finally go home, and finally go to sleep. Before leaving he made sure everything he touched, walked on, or came in contact with was cleaned thoroughly with bleach. He poured the rest of the bleach and water mixture onto the floor, grabbed the bottle of bleach, took one last look around the room ensuring he was not leaving anything behind, blew out all the candles, and walked out. He looked up at the empty balcony and shut the door.

Back at the station, Detective Erickson was now staring at the crime scene photos and reading the medical examiner’s report on Matt‘s body. At the top it read: “Autopsy unnecessary” causing Erickson to throw the report across the table. His thoughts went back to eight years ago when a young girl’s body was found in the woods. She had tripped and fallen on top of a tree branch that impaled her. Her organs had been ripped out of her body and were lying all over the place. It was a gruesome sight, one that he had hoped to never again witness. Then there was Matt’s body lying on the table and his organs in a bucket close by. He could not help but see her face, her small body, and her blood.

“Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?“ Officer Munoz had walked in and picked up the report off the floor.

Erickson continued staring at the table with his head in his hands. For a moment, he said nothing as Munoz stood there with the file in his hands. “It’s the same thing all over again. The body lying there, the organs ripped out, and no evidence pointing to anyone.”

“It’s been eight years, Erickson. We‘re not even sure they‘re connected”, Munoz said while setting the file on the table and pulling up a chair. He stared at Erickson for a moment, who was still staring at the table blankly.

“It’s the same guy, I know it. She didn’t deserve to die. She was--”

Erickson was cut off in mid-sentence by the door swinging open and another officer stepping in the room. “We found two more bodies,” she said promptly.

“Where?” Erickson asked.

“An abandoned farm house a few miles down the road from the warehouse Matthew Terrell was found in.”

Both Munoz and Erickson jumped up, grabbed their jackets, and ran out of the floor into the hallway. They jumped into their cars and sped out of the parking lot. The house was just a few miles down the road from where Matthew’s body was found. Already the front yard was flooded with police cars. Erickson parked, took a deep breath, and made his way into the house. Stepping into the front door the stench was unbearable. It smelled like a morgue had lost its power and all the bodies started to rot. Erickson had to grab a towel out of his pocket to cover up his nose with. The smell almost made him want to vomit and he had been a detective for over twenty years. Nothing had ever smelled this bad before.

He stepped into the foyer where another dozen people were standing. Walking by them he stepped into what would have been the house’s main room. Lights illuminated the whole room, which was covered in blood and the stench of death. In the middle of the room sat two chairs facing each other. Inside each chair was a body crudely lashed to the chair with barbed wire. Neither body was recognizable. They were way past the point of decomposition. Very little flesh was left clinging to the skeletons of the two dead. Hanging out of the stomach of one of the bodies was what appeared to be intestines filled with maggots. Rats had too played a part in speeding up the decomposition of the bodies.

“She was stabbed in the ear with a knife and his stomach was slit open with the same knife. We believe this is the couple that went missing this past summer. Their vehicle was discovered during a sweep of the area. It was parked out back behind the house. Once again, their driver’s licenses are missing but nothing else. And once again, we have not found one shred of evidence linking anyone to this crime,” the crime scene investigator told Erickson.

Erickson took the towel away from his face and stared at the mess that lay before him. His mind raced again, back to that day eight years ago. A tap on his shoulder made him snap back to reality, back to the decrepit house filled with the horrible stench of a thousand rotting corpses. Officer Munoz was standing beside him staring at the two bodies with a blank look on his face. He opened his mouth to speak, then saw something on the wall that caught his eye. Upon closer examination he realized it was the number 13 carved into the wall. An unknown rage filled him. He wanted to lash out and start kicking and punching the wall, but instead turned around to walk out of the house.

“Erickson?” Munoz called as Erickson reached the foyer to exit the house.

“We need to search all the abandoned houses in the area. We have more bodies to find. This isn’t over yet,” Erickson said as he exited the house.

Detective Erickson walked into the dark room of an abandoned farm house not knowing what to expect. He could smell the rotting flesh before he ever walked into the house. Officers and crime scene investigators stood everywhere examining the scene and taking photos. Lights had to be brought in so the scene could be examined correctly. The room was empty, smelled of rotted wood, and the floor creaked as you walked on it. There was nothing else in the room but an old wooden table covered in blood that had spilled onto the floor. On top of the table laid the body of a boy about 19 years old.

“He was not killed instantly. He was tortured first and eventually bled to death from the lacerations all over his body. It looked as if many crude instruments were used to exact an immense amount of pain onto this young boy. Conveniently, there all piled over there against the wall on that table,” an investigator said as Erickson stood over the boy’s body.

The boy was naked except for his boxers. His eyes were still open and his head titled to the side. His arms and legs were attached to the table with pieces of sheet metal hammered into the table. Later the hammer was used to break all the boy’s fingers and drive nails into his stomach. On his chest the word “LIAR” was carved, possibly with the kitchen knife laying on the table opposite the body. There were several deep holes drilled all over his body using a power drill and wood bit, also lying on the table with pieces of ripped flesh still caught in the bit. His stomach was ripped open crudely and most of his organs were sitting in a bucket under the edge of the table. The nails were used to hold his stomach shut.

It was obvious that whoever did this wanted to kill him, but wanted to do it slowly and torture him first. What could this boy have done to bring this kind of pain upon himself? Maybe he pissed off the wrong people and they got even, over and over again. He obviously lied to or betrayed someone. What other reason could there have been for the word “LIAR” being carved into his chest? No one deserves this kind of punishment, despite what they may have done in their lives. Lying was wrong, but murder was even worse. Someone had to have really been pissed off to take this much time torturing him.

“Detective, we found his clothes. They were in the next room. His wallet was inside his pants, his driver’s license missing, but nothing else. Luckily his social security card was still inside. His name is Matthew Terrell, a local trouble maker. He has priors for assault, theft, possession, and intent to distribute.”

“You think he deserved this?” Detective Erickson asked the investigator who did not answer the question, rather backed away and went back to working the scene. “Whoever did this quite obviously held a grudge against Matthew. Instead of simply beating the shit out of him they took their time torturing him until he eventually died from his injuries. Then they came back after he was dead to remove his organs and put them in a bucket. The only thing missing from his wallet is his driver’s license. Most serial killers take some type of prize from their victims and I think we are dealing with a deeply disturbed person with a lot of free time on their hands and--”

He stopped mid-sentence as he stared upwards and saw that a small loft on a balcony that overlooked the room. Being careful not to disturb evidence he made his way to the staircase and crawled up the loft. Staring down he could see the table and the boy lying on the table. There was a chair sitting nearby that looked like it had recently been sat in and then wiped down with cleaning solution. The same with the railing, it had been wiped down and the floor had been cleaned. There was a thick odor of bleach-based cleaning solution on the balcony. Someone obvious did not want to be found and went through a lot of trouble to make sure that did not happen. Downstairs the investigators worked vigorously looking for finger prints, foot prints, or some kind of trace.

“You’re not going to find anything”, Erickson yelled down from the balcony. “Whoever did this made sure they left nothing behind but the body. There aren’t going to be any fingerprints, but he did not wear gloves. We’re not going to find someone with blood on their hands because they washed their hands. And on and on. He tortured that boy down there, listened to him scream while he cut and drilled holes into him, then he stopped, walked up the stairs, and watched from this balcony as the boy bled to death slowly before finally dying. Afterwards he walked back down the stairs, cut him open, and gutted him like a fish. We are dealing with someone who has done this before and takes a great deal of pleasure in it.”

On his way back down the stairs, Erickson saw something carved into the wall. It was a single deep cut into the wood that resembled the number one. There is no way this was a victim count because the person they are looking for has already developed a taste for torturing and killing people. It was too perfect, well-planned out, and took a lot of patience to execute, not to mention the time needed to do something like this. No way this was his first time. It was a male suspect, who was stronger than the victim, and had possibly bought drugs from him or maybe even helped him sell. Maybe he screwed the guy out of some money and this was his way of getting it back. Then he thought that the money was still in the boy’s wallet, so money could not have been the motivation. The case became more and more complex as he thought about it. It was hard to know exactly why this had happened to this young man. He may have made a lot of mistakes in his life and one finally ended his life.

“Get the coroners to get the body out here and make sure the medical examiner makes this top priority. I want to know exactly what happened to this boy.” Then Erickson walked out and got into his car with flashes of the crime scene still haunting his mind. He could still smell the blood and rotted flesh as if he were still standing inside the room. In his mind he began to reconstruct what had happened inside that room…

Matthew awoke unable to move, his hands and legs nailed to a wooden table. Splinters dug into his back as he struggled to free himself to no avail. He screamed for help only to hear the silence after the echo of his own voice filled the entire house. The smell of mold and rotting wood filled his nostrils as he heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Straining to look over at the stair case behind him he could only see blackness as the hard thuds grew louder. The person walked past the table running his hand along Matthew’s bare chest and stomach. His screams fell on deaf ears as the figure did not reply. Soon a candle partially illuminated the room. The figure continued to move around the room lighting candles with a lighter until the entire room was lit with the soft glow of candlelight. He could now see the man’s face and did not recognize him.

“Why are you doing this to me,” he asked doing his best not to cry, but eventually busting out into tears.

The man did not answer. He merely kept walking around the table staring at Matthew laying there. Grabbing the chair from the corner of the room, he came and sat down by the table near Matthew‘s feet. He lit a cigarette and stared at Matthew who was holding his head up so he could look at the man in the face. For what seemed like hours they just stared at each other. Matthew’s eyes filled with the tears, the other man’s expressionless, only indifference to his suffering. The man put his cigarette out and stuffed the butt in his pocket.

“This might hurt a little bit”, he said while walking over to a table against the wall. He grabbed a rusted butcher’s knife and walked back over to the table. “Don’t struggle too much, I don’t want to slip.”

First he carved a straight line in Matthew’s chest, digging in deep with the nearly dull point of the knife. He stopped, lifted the knife, then dug back in going horizontal to form the “L”. Blood came pouring out of the wound, streaming down onto the table and then the floor. Digging the blade in again he made another straight line up and down to form the “I”. More blood came pouring out and Matthew’s screams became deafening. The man walked back over to the table, grabbed a plastic bottle of rubbing alcohol, walked back over to the table, and poured it all over Matt’s chest causing him to let out a blood-curdling scream, still the man did not flinch. He sunk the knife in again going downwards at angle then lifting the blade, digging it back in to carve another angle going the opposite way and finishing off with a horizontal line to complete the “A”. After he finished the “R” he poured more alcohol onto the boy’s chest to hear him scream again. Matt panted and moaned in extreme pain at just having the word “LIAR” carved into his chest. The man set the alcohol and the knife on the table, and walked back over to sit down in his chair.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of pills, poured two out into his hand, and then said, “I told you it might hurt” with a smile on his face. “At least I cleaned the wound so you wouldn’t get an infection.”

The man’s next instrument of choice was a cordless electric drill. He installed a one-inch wood bit, tightened it down, and walked back over to the table. Over the next half-an-hour more than one-hundred holes were drilled into various places on Matt’s body. By the end he was so hoarse from screaming that all he could do was utter “please… stop…” while trying to catch his breath. Bits and pieces of ripped flesh were lying all over the table, floor, and still stuck on the drill bit. He set the drill back on the table, grabbed a hammer, and broke all of Matt’s fingers. Matt did not even bother to scream anymore, rather he just flinched and jumped every time the hammer hit the table and he heard the bones in his fingers crack.

He threw the hammer back down on the table. Every instrument had blood or pieces of flesh on it. He grabbed a bottle of bleach, added some to a bucket of water with a rag in it, and wiped the handle of each instrument off. They would be used again soon, so he set the bleach back down beside the table, grabbed the chair, and walked up the stairs to sit on the balcony. At first he stood watching Matt writhe in agony. Hours past, blood poured onto the floor, and his pockets filled up with smoked cigarette butts. Finally after a few hours, the sun had started to come up casting orange light throughout the room, and Matt’s chest and stomach stopped moving up and down. He had taken his final breath and was no longer suffering. By the end, he had probably welcomed death. Then again, he probably welcomed it a lot sooner maybe even prayed for it once the drill started driving deep holes into his skin and throwing torn flesh everywhere. Waiting a few more moments to confirm he was dead, the man then walked back down the stairs carrying an empty five gallon bucket. He looked towards the window, thought he saw someone looking in, but ignored it and continued on towards Matt’s body carrying the bucket and grabbing the butcher’s knife off the table against the wall.

As Roman came down the stairs for breakfast that morning he heard talking coming from the kitchen. He saw a tan messenger bag hanging on the coat rack in the foyer. Christian was here already. Every morning they would meet at Roman’s house and take turns driving to school. They had rode together ever since they started school. Prior to Roman’s dad opening his own legal practice, the two boys families lived next to one another in the neighborhood a few miles up the road. As soon as his dad started making more money, he bought a piece of land in the richest neighborhood in town and built a huge house on it. It is not that Christian’s family is poor or anything, his parents are just happy with the house they live in. Christian’s parents owned their own company that did a lot of work overseas so they spent over three quarters of the year out of town. Most of the time Chris would stay with Roman and his family while his parents were gone. They even had a room set up inside Roman’s with a bed, closet, and private bathroom for Chris. He practically lived there and was considered family. In fact, him and Roman looked a lot a like. Chris was a few inches taller, had dark brown hair that was almost black, was real slender, had darker skin, but had the same deep brown eyes that almost looked black. Many people mistook the two for brothers and they never corrected them.

Roman pulled up a chair across from Chris, grabbed a plate of food, and ate silently as everyone else continued their casual, boring conversation about nothing. A few times he chimed in when asked a question or mentioned in sentence, but mostly he just sat there eating and drinking his coffee. When he finished he pushed his plate to the side and lit a cigarette. His parents really did not approve of his smoking, yet they never said anything to him about it. He was eighteen years old and could legally do what he wanted, not that his parents cared what he did anyway. They tried giving him curfews and rules that they never stuck to. He was even grounded one time long enough to change clothes and leave the house again. Unlike himself, Chris was a very talkative and outgoing person. He enjoyed having small talk with Roman’s parents, more than likely because his own parents were never around and when they were they did not pay much attention to him. They were too wrapped up in their work to care that they had a son. Chris had an older sister who had long since went to college, got a good job, and moved to the other side of the country. Despite being neglected by his parents, Chris was still a very happy person who loved waking up every morning. It took Roman a few cups of coffee and couple of cigarettes to get going in the morning.

It was time to leave for school. The boys quickly guzzled down their coffee and grabbed their book bags. As they headed out the door they both waved goodbye to Roman’s parents. Today was Roman’s turn to drive. He owned three different cars, a truck, and an SUV. His personal favorite was the fully restored Pontiac GTO his dad bought him for his sixteenth birthday. It was a gun metal gray with black racing stripes that ran from the hood, over the roof, across the trunk, and down the rear end. Not too long ago he had a ten-thousand dollar stereo system installed with satellite radio and a place to connect his mp3 player. In addition to the GTO he also had a blue Pontiac G5 GT he got for his birthday a few months ago, a red 2005 Pontiac GTO, a black GMC pickup truck, and a silver Chevy Trailblazer he recently purchased. He had a thing for General Motors vehicles, especially Pontiacs. Unlike other rich kids who drove BMWs and Mercedes , Roman was perfectly content with reasonably priced vehicles that required low maintenance and ran forever. Christian on the other hand drove a BMW he had gotten for his birthday. It costs as much as the Blazer and truck together and then some. Deciding on driving the Blazer the boys jumped in and adjusted the stereo to an alternative rock station that was currently playing a new Kill Hannah song before pulling out of the driveway and into the street on their way to school.

When they arrived at school the hallways were empty except for a few stray students and some faculty members. A teacher walked up to them and instructed them to go to the auditorium for a mandatory assembly. They wondered what the deal was as they stuffed their backpacks into their lockers before walking to the auditorium. The whole school was inside already talking to one another, making it hard to hear anything. Seeing two empty seats near the back, the boys went to sit down next to some of their friends. No one seemed to know what was going on. Finally the superintendent and principal walked onto the stage. The superintendent approached the podium and the entire auditorium fell silent. A police officer and a man in a suit with a badge on his waist band walked onto the stage and stood next to the superintendent. He introduced them as Officer Jorge Munoz and Detective William Goode. The officer approached the podium first while the detective took a few steps back and began subtly examining the student body.

“Good morning students. Myself and Detective Goode are here today to talk to you about the recent occurrences in our small town. I’m sure you all know by now that a young man was murdered out in the woods on the edge of town.” A wave of conversation began as students whispered back and forth to each other. Officer Munoz cleared his throat in attempt to regain silence in the auditorium before continuing, “Despite him being part of a large wedding reception and being with a group, he had wondered off into the woods where someone took his life. This of course is unsafe. We recommend that when you do travel, you stay in a group, especially at night and…”

Roman was not paying much attention as the officer continued speaking, talking about ways to stay safe in the town with a killer on the loose. His mind began wondering away, he was back in the woods watching that little girl playing around. For a moment he imagined her throat slit, blood running down all over that white dress. Then he thought he might have gotten caught if he had made his move too early. He would have had to kill two people, maybe even more if the boy had screamed. There would have been a little girl covered in blood laying on the floor of the woods and a boy with a knife kneeling over her body smiling as he considered what organ to remove first. Then the boy would have come along seen the two together and let out a scream of terror. Roman would have had to act quickly, slit the boy’s throat and ran off before anyone else came running.

If someone else had some running he would have had to have killed them to. Their screams would bring more and more people and before he knew it, he would have killed everyone at the wedding. Only then could he have taken his time, but that would have been a lot of organs to remove and organize. The first responders would be baffled by the pile of bodies and then the carefully organized piles of organs a few feet away. The hearts in one pile, the livers in another, the stomachs, the intestines, and on and on. Maybe then people would think he was crazy instead of just bored. Some kind of serial killer with obsessive compulsive disorder. Or perhaps a spree killer since they did not know about the other bodies, some they had not even found yet. The fact is that Roman was not crazy, not psychotic in any way shape or form. He was perfectly sane. The only reason he killed and tortured people was because he could and wanted to. He got no sexual thrill out of it and he was never out of control. His mind was still there, like always.

The reasoning behind Roman’s torturing and killing of innocent people was not some deep-seated emotional issue. Mommy did not beat him, daddy did not molest him, and his favorite band was still together. It was a simple matter of boredom and finding a new interest. One day when he was about ten years old he had come across a girl playing in the woods across from his neighborhood. She was about six or seven years old and all alone. She was playing on the edge of a pile of boulders with a huge fallen tree lying a few feet below. For some reason Roman hoped for the worst to happen and watched as it did. He saw the girl slip, hit her head on the rock, saw the blood spewing out of the deep gash, and smiled as she was impaled on a jagged limb sticking out of the fallen tree. Her intestines were hanging on the branch and leading all the way to her stomach which was hanging off her side.

She was still alive, just barely, but still alive when Roman walked up beside her. The last word she ever spoke sounded like “mommy”. All he could stare at was the organs on the outside of the body and the blood running everywhere. Her eyes closed and she was dead. Roman reached over, unhooked her intestines loose from the tree branch, and began pulling them out of her body laying them to her side. He grabbed her stomach, ripped it loose, and placed it next to the intestines. He continued until she was just an empty shell. From there he began tearing her organs open to see what was inside. Like any other ten year old boy he was curious. The blood looked fun to him, kind of like clay in art class, only it did not mold to his specifications. When he left her finally, he had crudely tried to place all her organs back into her body, no way in the right order though. He stood up and walked away. He always considered her his first real toy, like a kid getting an mp3 player for Christmas. Action figures just were not fun anymore.

Back to reality and the cop had finally finished speaking. Students began leaving the auditorium. Roman woke Chris up and the two continued on to their history class without a word to each other. On the way back Roman could see a girl whose eyes were filled with tears carrying a picture. Sneaking closer to her, he caught a glimpse of the picture. It was of the boy whose throat he had slit last night. Seeing him staring at the picture she dried her eyes and started a conversation. Questions about whether or not he knew him and stuff like that. Denying ever having seen him, Roman saw no further reason to continue the conversation and apparently neither did she. However from the conversation he did discover that the girl was named Leigh and the dead boy was her boyfriend. She continued walking down the hallway to her class as Roman watched her in silence. He stared until she disappeared into a classroom, thinking of how much prettier she would look on her back.

The rest of the day continued normally. Boring class after boring class until the salvation of last bell rang throughout the school. Chris caught Roman in the hallway and told him that he was going to go over to a friend’s house after school and would not need a ride home. How nicely things fell into place. He retrieved his bag from his locker and began his walk to the parking lot. As luck would have it the girl from earlier past right by him on her way to the front to either be picked up or walk home. He watched again as she disappeared down the hallway before exiting and getting into his Blazer. It was a good day so he felt like some good music. He opened his CD case and popped in 30 Seconds to Mars’ first album, his favorite album of all time. “Capricorn (A Brand New Name)” started playing and sped out of the parking lot. A little ways down the road he saw Leigh walking with her arms crossed, so he pulled up in front of her and over to the side of the road. She walked up to the window, her eyes still watery and red from crying all day.

“You want a ride home?” he asked in the most polite voice he could muster.

“No it’s alright, I always walk home. Plus I only live about three or four miles away. Thanks anyways though”, she said before continuing to walk away.

Not wanting to press the matter or seem like a stalker or something, Roman said “Well if you ever do need a ride, I’d be more than happy to give you one. Have a safe trip home and I’m real sorry about your boyfriend. That has to be hard losing someone so close to you. I can’t even imagine it.”

“Thanks for the offer and I really appreciate your condolences. You have a good evening and I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I’m sure we’ll run into each other again”, he said with as sincere a smile as he could fake.

She continued walking down the road, her arms crossed, occasionally brushing her brown hair out of her face with her hand. He wondered for a moment why they had never ran into each other before, then he thought it might be her body lying on a cold sheet of metal inside a morgue with a personalized toe tag. Maybe it was her that discovered her dead boyfriend laying on the floor of the woods. Oh that must have been horrible for her. Even the voice in his head had a hint of sarcasm. He sat there for a few minutes watching her before putting the Blazer back into drive and pulling back on to the road. She waved at him as he passed by, he waved back and continued on his way. After going another mile and a half he pulled a u-turn to head home. On his way back he saw her walk into an apartment complex, luckily she was walking away from the road and did not see him coasting by, staring at her with those black eyes. He now knew where she lived, maybe he would stop by sometime and say hi.

Roman woke up extremely early. It was still dark outside and the clock on his night stand said that it was five in the morning. He turned the alarm off, slipped his shoes on, grabbed the garbage bag out of the bathroom, and headed downstairs as quietly as possible. He knew his parents were drugged up and were not likely to wake up anytime soon, still he wanted to be as careful as possible. He grabbed the gas can out of the garage on his way to the backyard. About twenty feet from the back of the house there was a fire pit that doubled as a burning barrel. Roman dumped the clothes into the pit, drenched them in gas, and lit them with his lighter. He lit himself a cigarette and sat down to watch it burn. The fire crackled and flared up as the shirt and jeans seemed to melt in the hot flames. It brought back memories of summer. Not too long ago he had sat in this exact same spot, smoking a cigarette, watching the sun come up as his clothing burned.

It was the middle of July, school was out, and most everyone was spending their time either on the beach or at the mall with friends. Not Roman, he had decided to go for a drive in the country. About 10 miles outside of town there were a few abandoned barns, warehouses, and farms that no one had lived in for at least 20 years. The area was basically just left to rot and fade away in the distance. The county did not even bother to mow the grass along the roads and the pastures were so overgrown you could barely see the houses in the distance. Police did not even both to patrol the area, partially because no one ever came out here, but mostly because the roads were all dirt and in such poor shape. It was like driving on a road made of half-completed speed bumps built by a palsy victim. Never the less, Roman wanted to get away. Christian had went out of town for the weekend to visit some family, so he had no one to hang out with for at least another week.

He pulled off of the main highway and started down one of these decrepit dirt roads. His car bounced up and down, shifted back and forth, and felt like it was falling apart. After about 10 miles of this he gave up and decided to park on the side of the road and go for a walk. He pulled over right next to a turn off that supposedly led to an old warehouse. There was no one else around for miles, but he locked his car anyway. It was not too long ago that he had gotten it and the last thing he wanted was for someone else deciding to take a drive through the country and find his unlocked car sitting on the side of the road unattended, especially with the stereo system he just had installed a few days prior. He grabbed his soda off the hood of the car and started down the road.

For summer it was an amazingly mild day. The air was dry and a light breeze was blowing making the grass bend and the trees sway back and forth. Perfect day for a walk. He checked his cell phone, no signal, so he made sure he had his pocket knife with him. It was made out of forged steel and had a seven inch blade on it, not to mention it was freshly sharpened. As unlikely as it was for him to run across someone he still liked to be prepared. He was worth a lot of money as the only child of the richest lawyer in town.

Roman continued his walk down the dirt road with the rocks cracking under his feet. He could start to see the warehouse in the distance and as he got closer he realized he was not the only one here. There was an SUV parked near the warehouse. He switched over to the side of the road in the grass and snuck up on the warehouse slowly so no one would see him. So far no one had been alerted to his presence and he kept walking. He finally reached the front of the warehouse and still did not see anyone. There were some faint sounds coming from inside the warehouse. He started to walk around the sides looking into the broken, hazy windows until finally he saw a naked young couple having sex on a wooden table in a large room. The guy could not have been much younger than him, he looked about 15 or 16 years old, probably the ladder since he had obviously driven out here. He moved to another window to get a better look to see if he recognized either one of them. The girl was very beautiful and had amazing breasts that bounced up and down as her boyfriend thrust his penis in and out of her. She moaned in pleasure and he kept going until he let out a loud moan of climax. He then laid his head down next to hers and whispered something in her ear.

She looked out at the window because she thought she saw something, but there was nothing there. A soft creaking in the next room started the couple and the boy got up, pulled his pants and t-shirt on to go check out the noise. Upon his exiting the room the girl began to get dressed. As she buttoned her top back up she turned around startled. All she saw was a flash of black and felt the blow to her head. Her boyfriend returned to the room to find her on the floor and no one else in the room. Calling her name and shaking her did no good. Hearing a sound behind him, he turned around to receive a blow to the head as well passing out right next to his girlfriend. Roman dropped the two by four at his feet and walked over to the corner where there were chairs stacked on top of each other. He grabbed two chairs and walked back over to where the couple was lying on the floor.

When the girl finally woke up she could not move. She was tied to the chair with barbed wire, blood running down chair forming a pool of blood on the floor. The more she struggled, the more the wire cut into her skin. She looked up and her boyfriend was across from her lashed to another chair, bleeding. She screamed and screamed and screamed until he finally started to wake up. He moaned in pain and began to struggle.

“Danny, what’s going on?” the girl asked with trepidation in her voice.

“I don’t know. Are you alright?” he asked.

“No, I’m not fucking alright! I’m tied to a fucking chair!” she screamed.

“It’s alright baby, just calm down. We’ll find a way out of this.”

He struggled in his chair trying to pull the wire loose, but it was so tight around his wrists, legs, and stomach.

“HELP! HELP!” he screamed at the top of his lungs only to hear his own voice echo through the empty warehouse.

“No one is going to come running to help you”, a voice said from the darkness.

“Who are you!?” Danny screamed.

Roman emerged from the darkness and walked towards the couple. Each footstep echoing throughout the whole building. He came to stand behind the girl and look Danny directly in his eyes. Once again he started to struggle and fight in the chair digging the barbs in deeper. A smile crossed Roman’s face as he watched the helpless boy try to free himself.

“I obviously tied you to the chair with the wire so you wouldn’t and couldn’t escape. Eventually you’ll bleed to death. The more you struggle, the quicker that’ll happen,” Roman said in a calm voice. “I was bored, decided to go for a walk, and happened to come across you two. I thought why not have a little bit of fun. You two obviously already had your own fun. She faked it.” He smiled at the boy and ran his hand across the girl’s face. She flinched and tried to bite him.

“You’re fucking crazy,” Danny said. “You think no one is going to know we’re missing?”

“People already probably know you are missing. I mean, you’re here and she’s here. You’re both obviously missing from somewhere. And no, I’m not crazy, just bored and I don’t have my mp3 player with me.”

The girl began to cry despite her boyfriend’s failed attempts at reassuring her. Roman began to walk around them in a circle so the girl could get a good look at him. She was not so pretty anymore.

“Now what is going to happen is both of you are going to die, but the lucky one of you gets to die first while the other one watches. I’m having a hard time deciding who to kill first. However I do feel as though you are only letting him fuck you because you either feel sorry for him or you heard he was a good fuck. I think you are fucking her because you are in love with her and it would completely destroy you to lose her so quickly after making love to her for the first time.”

Both continue to plead for their lives and call Roman crazy as he continues to walk in circles around them. He pulls his knife out of his pocket and unfolds the blade. Their screams and pleads mean nothing to him. He know he is not crazy, he knows this is just a hobby of his. He gets no sexual thrill out of it. In fact, he feels completely indifferent to the idea of having two dead bodies sitting in this warehouse. He then starts to worry about his car sitting there on the side of the road. Did he remember to roll the windows up? He cannot remember and it starts to worry him. Knife in hand he walks up behind the girl, tilts her head backwards and jabs the knife into her ear as hard as he can, then retracts it just as quickly. She dies instantly as blood runs out of her nose and mouth. Danny screams and begins to struggle more and more. Roman merely pulls his cell phone out of his pocket, still no damn signal. He replaces the phone and pulls his cigarettes out of his other pocket, lights one, pulls up a chair next to Danny, and sits down.

“I bet that fuckin’ hurt,” he says with a laugh.

He sits there taking drags off his cigarette while watching the blood run down the girl’s face onto her shirt. Danny starts crying, he is almost hoarse from screaming so much. Roman glances over at him and starts laughing. He wonders if the boy is crying because he loved the girl or because that was the first girl he ever slept with and it was not that great.

Roman finishes his cigarette, puts it out on Danny’s arm, and stuffs the filter into his pocket. He stands up, pushes his chair back, and steps right in front of Danny. Tears are running down his cheeks and he is turning white from losing so much blood. Roman takes his knife, cuts Danny’s shirt open exposing his chest and stomach before cutting from hip to hip right under his navel. As he is walking out of the building he can hear Danny’s intestines hit the floor. Once again he pulls his cell phone out to check both the time and to see if he has a signal. He walks back up the road, gets in his car, turns around, and drives on home.

When he gets home he takes off all his bloody clothes, stuffs them in a garbage bag, washes his knife in bathroom cleaner, takes a shower in bathroom cleaner, puts two thin pieces of plastic inside his hidden shoebox, and takes his bloody clothes out to the fire pit to burn.

It was almost routine by now Roman thought to himself as he watched the flames die down. The sun was coming up and his parents would be waking up pretty soon. He throws dirt onto the fire to put it out and walks back into the house to take a shower before getting ready for school.

After leaving a friend’s house, Roman decided to go for a walk in the woods. It was a Saturday evening near the end of fall. The days were already getting shorter and the cold chill of the approaching winter could already be felt in the light breeze blowing through the nearly naked tree braches as the setting sun cast eerie shadows on the leaf-covered ground. Each footstep made a crunch as he slowly made his way deeper and deeper into the thick wooded area. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a stray dog walking a few feet behind him. He stopped for a moment to see what it would do and it quickened its place coming closer towards him. It did not seem to be a threat, just a sweet mutt that someone probably dropped off on the nearby road. Roman knelt down and held out his hand coaxing the dog to come closer to him. The dog started wagging its tail as it was now in arms reach. He began to pet the dog, running his hand across its head and down its back. It was a sweet dog, about medium size with sandy brown fur, but it had scars and fresh wounds on its head and neck. Someone had probably beaten the dog and it ran away, however it was obvious that someone had neglected the dog and it was much in need of some attention. The stray mutt then rolled over on its back with promises of a much-deserved belly rub. Following the dog’s less than subtle wishes Roman began to rub its stomach sending a wave of satisfaction over the dog.

Roman then reached in his pocket, pulled out a piece of metal, unfolded the blade, and drove it deep into the dog’s chest. It let out a loud yelp that echoed through the deserted woods as Roman ripped a hole from the dog’s chest all the way to its genitals. From there he began to remove the organs one at a time using the knife to cut them loose as it continued to writhe and convulse in pain. He started with the intestines, pulling them out and setting them next to the body. From there he moved onto the stomach, liver, all the way to the heart, organizing each one into a pile as he removed them. For a few moments he admired his work feeling a sensation wash over himself. He thought to himself that this must be what the dog felt when he rubbed its belly. The dog got what it wanted and Roman took an anatomy class early in life. He could not wait for his next semester in biology class when they would be dissecting different animals. There probably was not a dog on the list, never the less he learned something today: he needs a bigger pocket knife. After a few more moments of reveling in his work he stands back up, pulls his towel out of his back pocket, and continues his walk through the woods as if he had merely just sat down to take a five minute breather.

The sun sat lower in the sky now and the air became cooler as Roman made his way down the path wiping the blood from his hands and knife. He started to quietly hum the tune to one of his favorite songs. Slowly he made his way through the woods wondering if his parents would be mad about him coming home so late. He had promised to be home before dark and he was still a few miles away from his house. No way he was going to make it home before the sun went down. It was barely above the horizon now making the dusk sky look blood red. He stopped suddenly because he heard something, a voice singing and quick-paced footsteps hitting the ground not too far away. Quickly he ducked behind a tree looking around for the source of the singing. In front of him was clearing in the middle of the woods not too far from the ocean. The singing grew closer and the voice became sweeter. It belonged to a small girl who could not have been more than 9 or 10 years old. She was skipping through the woods in a beautiful white dress with her hair made into neat pigtails, carrying a bouquet of flowers throwing one down at a time as she skipped and sang what she knew of the words to “Here Comes The Bride”. Roman adjusted his position to be more comfortable so he could watch the girl and see what she was going to do. When he moved his foot he accidentally snapped a twig and the girl stopped singing long enough to survey her surroundings. After a few quick glances around she went back to pulling flowers from the bouquet and throwing them on the ground. Roman stuffed the stained towel back into his pocket and once again opened the blade of his knife.

He stood back, blade in hand, and watched for a few more moments to make sure that the girl was alone. While standing there his mind began to wander. All the walking had made him hungry and it was probably getting close to dinner time at his house. By the time he was done here and made it home his mom should have dinner ready, or at least almost ready. He still had to wash up and change clothes. He snapped back to where he was and continued to watch the girl throw flowers on the ground. She was nearly out of flowers. If he was going to make his move, now was the time. He tightened his hand around the knife and began his descent into the clearing. The girl was unaware of his presence and kept on throwing flowers on the ground. Slowly he walked down the hill doing his best not to trip and fall. Not too far away now. He saw something out of the corner of his eye and quickly ran back up to his hiding spot on the hill.

“Katy!”, a voice from nearby called as a boy a little older than Roman came walking down the hill towards the clearing. “You know you’re not supposed to wander off like that, mom and dad are looking for you.”

“Sorry Brian. I wanted to come look at the water”, the little girl replied.

“You can see it from the top of the hill. Now get back up there before mom and dad get too worried about you. I’ll be back up in a little bit.”

The little girl headed back up the hill and the boy stayed behind staring out at the setting sun over the water. He glanced over to make sure she was back up the hill and out of his sight before reaching into his pocket and pulling out what appeared to be a joint. He sat down on a large stone right near the water’s edge, lit the joint, took a deep drag, exhaled and then coughed a few times. Roman himself had never smoked pot, he saw it as a senseless drug for poor trash that could not afford good stuff like valium or oxycodone. He thought it was easier to steal from your parents’ medicine cabinet than to go out and try to score pot from someone. This boy probably saw the missing girl as his opportunity to sneak away from what appeared to be a wedding reception and get high. He either is stupid enough to think no one will suspect a thing when he does not return with the girl or he is smart enough to know that the reception is far enough away that he will be done with the joint by the time someone else comes looking for him.

Only half of the sun is now visible over the horizon and darkness has truly started to set in. There was no sound until the boy started choking on his own blood, or at least what was not running down the front of his expensive tuxedo. Roman stood there and watched as the thick red blood running out of the gaping hole in the boy’s neck nearly glowed black in fading sunlight. The boy merely sat there on the stone with his hand over his severed throat in a sad attempt to stop the bleeding. He looked up at Roman who turned his back to watch the sun finish setting over the water. The ocean glistened in the evening light as the last rays of sunshine disappeared and the stars began to appear. Roman pulled the sleeves down on his jacket, wiped his knife off and put it back in his pocket as the boy’s body hit the ground with a soft thud. He turned and began to walk back up the hill on his way home. Dinner should be ready anytime soon at home, with any luck it is not cold when he gets there. He was no longer worried about his parents being mad at him for being late, they would have called him by now. Never the less, he pulled out his cell phone and checked the time. It was a little after seven and being that it was close to winter it was already dark.

Roman had already walked about a half a mile before he heard the faint screaming of someone discovering the body of a boy with his throat slit wide open. He then considered that maybe they were mad about him sneaking off from the party to smoke weed. That has got to be upsetting, finding out your son, nephew, cousin, grandson, friend, or whatever was a pot head. Seeing the boy dead might have made that an even more upsetting experience. That boy had completely ruined that wedding for everyone. He became perfect proof that drugs can kill. The bride and groom must be seriously pissed that one of their guests would rather smoke pot than celebrate their marriage. This was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives and some dumb ass pot head had ruined it for them. Roman shrugged it off and continued on his way home.

It was a little before eight o’clock when Roman reached his front door. He opened the door, said “I’m going to go wash up before dinner”, and ran upstairs to his room. Locking the door behind him, he started pulling off all his bloody clothes and stuffed them into a garbage bag under his bathroom sink. He opened his medicine cabinet, opened the bottle of ibuprofen, and swallowed two of his dad’s oxycodones. He had been stealing them from his dad for months and somehow his dad never noticed. Probably because his dad took so many of them for his back pain and could not remember how many he took. Roman took them because he liked the feeling of being numb all over. He put the bottle back up, closed the medicine cabinet, then unfolded his knife and washed it with bathroom cleaner to remove all evidence of blood, dried it off, and set it on his nightstand. He finished removing his boxers, turned on the water in shower, and jumped in. Once again using the bathroom cleaner he removed all the blood from his skin before washing up with regular soap and shampoo. Tomorrow he would take his bloody clothes and towel out to the burning barrel behind his house and destroy the rest of the evidence, the exact same way he had done so many times before.

Already the feeling of numbness came over his entire body. He imagined for a moment that he was someone else in another place before snapping back to reality laying naked on the floor in the shower. Slowly he rose to his feet and turned off the water. He slid the shower door open, reached for a towel, then stepped out onto the rug drying himself off. He stared at himself in the mirror, his long black hair reaching his shoulders, his slender tan body glistening with beads of water, and piercing deep brown eyes that almost appeared black in the dim light of the bathroom. A knock on his bedroom door stopped him from drifting off into another day dream.

“Roman, dinner’s ready. Are you coming down?” his mom said through the door.

“Yeah. I just have to get dressed”, he called back.

He heard his mother’s footsteps retreat down the hallway and fade away as she made it to the stair case. Apparently he had not been out for too long, yet he doesn’t remember anything after getting into the shower and before waking up. There was not any pain in his body, probably due to the pain pill, but he still would have felt something had he passed out and fallen down. He stood in front of the mirror staring into his eyes before stepping out of the bathroom and into his room. First he locked the door, then walked to his dresser to grab some clothes. Quickly dressing he briskly walked back into the bathroom, opened the cabinet underneath the sink where the bloody clothes were, and started to pull everything out. As soon as the cabinet was empty he pulled up a loose floorboard and removed a shoebox out of an empty compartment hidden beneath the floor. He looked beside him at the stuff he took out of the cabinet, grabbed the garbage bag filled with his bloody clothes, opened it and found his pants, reached into the back right pocket, and pulled out a thin plastic card. After taking a quick glance towards his bedroom door and taking a few moments to listen for any sound in the hallway, he opened up the shoebox. Inside were about twenty similar plastic cards and another was added to the collection. He closed the box, replaced everything in the cabinet, closed it, and headed down for dinner turning the light out as he left the room.

Dinner with his parents was normal, dull and boring. His dad at the end of the table, his mom on one side, and himself on the other. The food sat in the middle of the table and everyone helped themselves after saying grace. God was not something Roman believed in and would only do his best to humor his parents who were hardcore Christians. Roman however believed that God was no more than a fairy tale parents told their children in an attempt to get them to behave. He was no more real than the tooth fairy or boogeyman to Roman. One time he had refused to say grace and his mother began to cry as he father’s screams echoed through the dining room. Ever since then, Roman just sits there and pretends God is great. In his own mind he thinks about what a cunt God is.

There was little to no dinner conversation. Just the usual questions about how everyone’s day was and other useless shit no one at the table cared to get into. Roman’s dad was a somewhat formidable man, not big or anything, he just had this air about him that made you not want to piss him off. He worked as a criminal defense attorney which made him a shrewd son of a bitch. It always made Roman laugh whenever his father defended drug dealers or addicts. The irony was sometimes too much for him. His father was a bigger drug user than anyone he had ever defended. Roman’s uncle was a doctor and wrote his father prescriptions for all types of narcotics and sedatives, sometimes in other people’s names. It was true that his father suffered from back pain, but it was in no way severe enough to be taking medications meant for terminal cancer patients. Who was Roman to complain, his dad was his source of pills. Roman’s mother was not much different, highly medicated as well, only she took a lot of valium. Roman’s mom worked in a medical building for a doctor as the office manager.

After dinner Roman went back up to his room, once again locking the door, grabbed his journal from under his mattress and laid down on the bed writing about the events of the day. His parents were never involved in his life, he had no real worries of them finding the journal and reading it so he wrote what he wanted. Cutting up the dog and slicing that boy’s throat were no different to him than buying a CD or watching a new movie. Just another day.