Samantha sighed and dismounted the old fart she’d picked up at the concert. Granted, he was a handsome old fart; very handsome. There was no manky beard on his face or unfulfilled promises downstairs, and he certainly was a fit one, but he was still seventeen years her senior, and there was no fun in besting a bloke who was only a discount ocean liner voyage away from meeting his maker.
If she was honest with herself, there was no fun in it anymore. Gone were the youthful days spent dangling the heavenly prospect of death in front of someone’s eyes, only to give it to them just when they got their second wind. Back then, Samantha could take one twenty four hour encounter and dine out on it for a month. That was when it was a pleasure. These days, it was a necessity. She had to do it once or twice a week just to feel normal again and when you really got down to it, the high wasn’t worth the effort.
Take her latest victim for example. He was cool, experienced, sexy in a Roman general kind of way; in the old days, she would have bowed down and obeyed every whim his hardened heart desired, then taken away every ounce of satisfaction piece by bloody piece until he was as weak as a newborn babe. All she wanted to do now was to grab the nearest blunt object and bash his brains in.
It used to make her smile, this little thing of hers. When it was done, she’d go home and take a long, hot bath, smoke a cigarette, turn on the T.V. and get pleasantly sozzled. Then she’d go to bed, drift off to sleep, and wake up with the same contented expression. Pam, Samantha’s boss, called it Carpet Face (as in freshly laid). Samantha supposed it was tantamount to sexual harassment, and that if they hadn’t known each other for so long, she could’ve reported her to H.R. Not because she actually found it offensive; just for the kick of seeing her frogmarched before the panel of knobs in the box seats upstairs. She still might one day.
The only thing that made Samantha smile now was when she got a nice beer buzz going and reminisced about what she used to be; naked, more often than not. Without offering the old fart an explanation, she walked out to the kitchen to get a beer. Sometimes it helped prolong things for her, made them more intense.
Funny how that worked in reverse for men.
‘Can I interest you in a brew, Kevin?’
Kevin didn’t answer.
Probably asleep already. That’s what I get for branching out. Must go back to college boys.
She opened the fridge and reached in.
‘Last call.’
She stayed there with her hand on top of the six pack for thirty more seconds before pronouncing Kevin out for the night, then took two bottles from the six pack anyway.
‘Your loss.’
She shut the fridge door and turned around. A fist caught her on the cheek bone and knocked her back into the fridge.
‘Surprised, honey?’
The handsome old fart’s face swam before her.
‘That you don’t appear to be suffering debilitating joint pain, absolutely.’
Kevin kicked her in the thigh.
‘What did you say to me?’
‘Are we really going to go into stilted b movie dialogue here because I have to say I’ve always found the word Thriller to be a bit of a misnomer.’
She swung out at Kevin with the beer bottle and hit him square on the nose.
‘Domestic Action Movies, that’s a better term for them.’
Kevin punched her again, in the breast this time.
‘How’s that for action?’
‘C minus,’ Samantha breathed, and raised her knee.
Kevin doubled over, and Samantha stifled a giggle at the one long grey hair on his crown that Clairol for men hadn’t managed to make over.
‘See, they’re too predictable. Anyone could’ve seen that coming…anyone but you, apparently.’ She crowned him with the other bottle. Kevin fell to his knees, and she whacked him again.
‘And…CUT!’
‘Do you know how depressing it is, being the smartest person in the room? You wake up every day, hoping someone will know something you don’t, praying that someone will surprise you…but it never happens. The last time I remember being surprised was when I was a kid. That was what you might call a formative experience. Don’t get me wrong, there have been plenty of pleasant experiences since then, some more so than others, but that was the one that shaped me.’
Kevin blinked, looked down at his hands, which were tied in front of him, then at Samantha’s.
Samantha wiggled her fingers. ‘What, you like these? They’re looking a bit worn now but, I just can’t bear to part with them. I know, black leather gloves, what a cliche, but what can I say? I like the classics.’
She picked up a salt and pepper shaker and sprinkled the fingers on Kevin’s right hand with whatever was inside. Kevin’s face contorted, but he didn’t scream.
‘Concrete cleaner. The only thing I hate about living this close to the beach is that my patio cops a wicked belting from salt deposits. Anyway, getting back to my origin story. When I was little, I met a man while I was playing in a public park. He didn’t touch me or anything - he was more interested in knocking off slags - but meeting him changed my whole outlook on life. Up until then, I’d thought that I was this horrible, abnormal creature, because that was the way people looked at me. Then I met him and discovered I wasn’t alone; there was someone else like me, and he was celebrating what I’d been ordered to hide.’
She took hold of Kevin’s wrist and sprinkled his other hand.
‘But the real shocker was what happened next. I watched him work, even participated, I’m proud to say, and then I turned on him. This man nurtured me more than my own family, and I ran screaming to the cops, spouting the biggest load of tosh you have ever heard in your life about torture and kidnap, and I ruined his life. They dug up all the women he’d buried after that and he died in jail, which you’d suppose would make me feel guilty, but that was the biggest revelation of all; I didn’t feel the slightest twinge, because I was smarter than he was. I was smarter than all of them.’
She pulled a stool up in front of the fridge and sat down.
‘Do you see what I’m getting at, Kev? The only person who’s ever been able to truly surprise me, is me, and even then it’s been a long time between drinks.’
She reached into Kevin’s pocket and pulled out a joint, then pulled one out of her own pocket. Kevin’s eyes widened.
‘Didn’t know I was holding, did you?’ Samantha said, smiling. ‘In answer to the question I see burning through your gag yes, there was a reason I smoked one of yours back at the gig and no, it wasn’t because I don’t like to share. On the contrary; I love to share. I’ve shared all sorts of things with you and the night’s not even over yet.’
She pulled down the gag, lit her joint and stuck it in Kevin’s mouth, holding it there. Kevin’s eyes watered.
‘Embalming fluid,’ said Samantha, and shrugged, ‘kids these days; they’d drink rancid piss if they thought it’d make them happy for an hour or two. You’re supposed to split it between two or three people so that it doesn’t, you know, kill you. I read about it online. That’s what I’m reduced to these days - internet research. Gone are the days when I could look at someone and inspiration would hit.’
Kevin jerked. Samantha reached into his shirt and pulled his nipple. ‘Swallow…swallow! You don’t want to know what else I’ll wring or how hard I’ll wring it if you get stinky effluence on my floor.’
Kevin swallowed. Samantha let go of his nipple and took the joint out of his mouth.
‘Good boy. Now, if I’ve done this right, you should either be feeling tremendously relaxed and vulnerable right now, or so terrified that you’re ready to take on a rabid moose with your bare hands…’
Kevin stood up, bringing the chair with him. ‘The man is coming. He will arrive in silence and he will arrive in disguise. He is the judge of the is, the judge of the was, and the judge of the will. He is the calm, he is the storm. He is the kiss, he is the diss. He planted the tree and he will wield the ax.’
Kevin took a step toward Samantha, then stopped.
‘Only the worthy will know him.’
Samantha gave a short laugh. ‘Well, isn’t that interesting?’
Just as Kevin was about to hurl himself at the wall, no doubt in an attempt to smash the chair, Samantha picked up a syringe from the counter and jabbed him with it. Like a rhino with a dart jutting out of his neck, he lurched, staggered, then fell down in a heap.
‘That’s it, pussycat, purr away.’
For the first time in her career, Samantha had doubts. She knew going in the risks of sudden psychosis brought on by smoking Wet, (what a charming name that was), but the eloquence? That was a surprise. And this Him to whom Kevin referred, that was unusual too. Most Wet preachers went on ad nauseum about themselves being the second coming of Jesus or Satan or Allah or Buddha or Jehovah or whichever deity it was they didn’t even know they believed in until they copped a lung full of death juice. She needed to know more.
‘Kevin. Kevin? Can you hear me?’
Kevin snorted. Samantha patted him on the shoulder.
‘Good lad. Favour me more about Him. Who is he?’
Kevin giggled, then broke into a laughing fit so hard that he farted. Samantha reached into his shirt and gave him another pinch.
‘Please don’t make me ask harder.’
The laughter came to a choking halt.
‘He is the judge of the is, the judge of the was, and the judge of the will, he is the…’
Samantha pinched harder. ‘Yeah, yeah, I got all that, but who IS he? Give me his name.’
Kevin cried. ‘He will only reveal his name to those who are worthy, and only when they can say it will they truly become so.’
Samantha let go of his nipple. ‘I hate riddles.’
She gave him another shot and went outside for a smoke. She leaned on the balcony and allowed the joint and the rolling waves in the distance to lull her mind and take her back to a time when her soul was the driving force behind everything she did. Nowadays, all she could do was think.
Where will I hunt tonight?
How many will it take to give me a good night’s sleep?
How much longer can I keep doing this?
Is it ever going to be fun again?
Glass smashed, and for a moment Samantha thought her seven foot baby had woken up cranky from his nap, but then she heard familiar laughter.
‘Oops, sorry!’
It was her neighbour’s kids, or one of them at least. The parents had left early in the morning with a Range Rover full of luggage, but she knew their eldest wasn’t with them. He never went along on family vacations, and Samantha had counted on it. Samantha could set her watch by his beer blasts - they always started around ten, the soundtrack was always that screaming shit with no discernible beat that couldn’t legally be called music, and they always ended around two a.m. with the host entertaining whichever female guest happened to take his fancy on the patio. The wall of noise and distraction the boy provided made it a hell of a lot easier for Samantha to do her thing at home on a Saturday night.
It was sad, how routine her life was now.
She stubbed out the joint and threw it over the stone wall that separated the two apartments, hoping for an ouch that never came.
‘Now, sweetheart, where were we?’ She asked, pulling the patio door shut behind her. She didn’t immediately panic when she didn’t see Kevin’s gargantuan feet sticking out from behind the kitchen counter - he could have just curled up in a ball like the good little kitten he was right now - but then she saw the debris. Pieces of the chair littered the area between the fridge and the living room, and that could only mean one thing.
Kevin was loose.
Samantha knew she should have tied his feet, that was the sensible thing to do. She supposed you could slice someone’s tendons while they were sitting down, but where was the challenge in that? She put her hand on the blade in her pocket and edged around the room.
‘Come play with me, Kev; I’m lonely.’
By the time he sniggered, she was already being lifted over his shoulder. He threw her onto the couch, sat on her legs, and ripped open her plastic raincoat, grinning and licking his teeth like a wolf when he discovered she was wearing nothing else.
‘Soon you will be his but for now you are mine.’
Samantha reached into her pocket again while Kevin busied himself gnawing at her shoulder blades. She guessed from the way his eyes were crossed that this wasn’t the spot he was aiming for, and she didn’t plan on having any such problems hitting her own target.
‘You are mine in the now, you are mine for the wow.’
Samantha slowly began to ease the blade out of her pocket. If she drew her weapon too fast, she risked startling him, and the last thing she needed was a startled hulk with the impulse control of a toddler and a shitload of adrenaline on board.
‘I led him to you, and I shall be repaid in kind.’
Samantha closed her fingers tightly around the handle of the blade and turned it around.
‘I have been a good disciple, and he has seen fit to bless me.’
Samantha slowly raised her hand and held the blade at his throat.
‘I sacrificed for him, and he has given me my reward!’
Samantha jammed the blade into the side of Kevin’s trunk-like neck, showering herself in his blood. Kevin’s jaw muscles clenched involuntarily and his teeth latched onto Samantha’s skin in a death grip that wasn’t going to be at all easy to escape.
‘You were supposed to fall OFF me, you stupid bastard!’
She dug her nails into the inside of his cheeks, pried his jaws apart, and rolled out from underneath his bulk with an agonized grunt, then sat on the floor to catch her breath and decide what to do next.
‘This is what I get for wanting a fucking challenge,’ she laughed, ‘now what the fuck do I do?’
She’d dealt with big boys before, just not at home. Never do the big ones at home - that was the rule. By doing them at their own places, she could make it look like the work of The Stranger (that was the uninspired name the hashtag monkeys were calling her), and there would be no need to dispose of a body.
‘Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!’
Better get to it; that concrete pylon isn’t going to move itself.
Not that disposing of a body was an issue for her, as such; it was just a huge pain in the arse. It meant taking someone by the feet, dragging them to the bathroom, pulling them up to and rolling them into the tub, waiting for each batch of lye tea to hit just the right temperature, pouring it in, waiting hours and hours for the skin and organs to dissolve, then finding just the right spot to get rid of the bone deposits. It was that, or transportation, which came with its own set of problems.
A little extra elbow grease was a small price to pay for her freedom, considering the fact that the people who would arrest her should she be caught would be the very same people she’d been joking with about the killer only the day before. Pam, in particular would get a real kick out of it. She’d been gunning for The Watcher, (a name Pam came up with and one which Samantha greatly preferred), since she was just a detective, out of some misplaced loyalty to her brother, Lyle.
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