22. Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Two
CRUE
“ I ’ve waited a long time for this, Tommy-boy.”
I am made to wait longer still by his body’s inability to filter my concoction out of his system. Had it been anybody else, we’d have already reached the climax.
“Wah-d-fug.” Slurred sounds of attempted speech drip out of his mouth.
“Wake up now.” I tap the ends of my fingers against his cheek in four gentle slaps. Gentle for now, anyway. I’m on a time crunch. The sun’s going to break over the horizon in a little over an hour. Tomas needs to be dealt with by then, because the hounds will be on the hunt from first light.
I wonder what they’ll do when they find him.
Tomas shakes his head as he starts coming to. His eyes travel from one corner of my room to the other, before his heavy head sinks to my shoes.
“Where am I?” He tries to move his arms, but they don’t budge from the position my chains hold him in. A second attempt results in the same dismal failure, so he gives up.
“I’ve given this place many names over the years. My killing floor. Kill chamber. Kill room.” I take a step back and look around my concrete cell. It’s buried far beneath the earth, in a hole Mark and I dug years ago, and I do believe it’s the only place I’ve ever felt joy.
True joy. Not the kind I plaster on my face when I feel a little stirring of something inside. Everyone who has come down here is immortalized within these walls. Names and faces long ago forgotten, but the red ooze...
If you took a bottle of Luminol to this place, you’d see gallons of red clinging to the walls. My life’s work, my inner artists tapestry, a culmination of my inner self — a hollow, empty box — and the creature I become when it’s time to feed my shadow. Those who have passed through these walls, the bravest of the lot anyway, will stay with me forever. They were able to see beyond their impending death, while I rambled on like a lunatic, and gave me insights into everything and nothing.
Which will you be, Tomas?
If not insightful, Tomas will, at the very least, be a good source of nutrition for my shadow. A cure for the sickness that plagues it. But not for me. My sickness is baked in. My urges, wants and needs, are always a dire necessity. Killing Tomas won’t end it. Nor Mark or Matteo.
Not even Fiametta, my Little Flame, stands a chance against it. Her bright flame may lead me down many new avenues, but it will never be toward the light.
“As you can see there’s a particular point to the naming scheme. I’m sure you can puzzle out what happens in here.” I took Tomas’s shirt off before, but left him with pants on. Sometimes, when my mood is darker than usual, humiliation and torture can be a fun blend.
Today, I have no interest in snipping off his cock and shoving it down his throat. He deserves it, of course, after what he tried to force Fiametta into. Not once, not twice, but three times over. However, it’s imperative to remember that Tomas is here to serve a greater purpose. One that’s far more important than the joy I’d get out of watching him suffer.
“Alright, you sick fuck,” Tomas sputters, then coughs from the dryness in his mouth, before he tries to continue. “You’ve had your fun. Now, let me go. Who put you up to this?”
I sit on the floor, cross-legged with my palms resting on my knees. Mediation pose, they call it. It’s about finding serenity in the mundane, I think’s that the point anyway. I was at it for hours before Tomas woke, and all I managed to find is the answer to what I’m going to have for dinner when I’m done here: cheeseburger, fries and large soda. No, let’s be adventurous and make it a chocolate milkshake.
“Come again?” I frown at him, but Tomas doesn’t lift his head to meet my gaze.
“Mark? Matteo? Which one made you do it?” Another coughing fit follows, before wheezy laughter I can’t wrap my head around. “The hazing?” he adds when I don’t answer
“Hazing? Right.” Somehow, me, the guy who hears voices in his head, urging him to bring about a mass slaughter is less insane than the one who’s hanging from my wall.
“Well, Tomas, we don’t have much time so I can’t indulge whatever’s going on in your head. This isn’t a hazing. You are not a prank victim. I’m going to kill you in here and leave your body for the Napoli crew to discover. Though, given how pathetic security has been lately, it’s probably Mark who will walk down those stairs and find your swollen corpse.”
“What the fuck did you just say to me, you little shit?” His throat tenses and his tone stiffens.
There we go. Much better.
“I’m not repeating myself, so I hope for your sake that was rhetorical.”
“You’re going to uncuff my hands and get the hell out of my way.” He finally lifts his head to show me those big, blue eyes, lined with red and yellow, where the white should be.
“You see, Tomas, I like this. It’s become a part of my ritual. I have this place so that I drag men like you here, have a little chin wag and then dispose of whatever’s left of your bodies.” I sigh, shaking my head disappointedly. “I really fucking like this place, and I’m going to miss it more than you’d think.” I feel a smile creep across my lips. “Imagine that. Me, of all people, missing something.”
“They’re gonna find you. They’re gonna fuck you up. And then, they’re going to kill you.” Tomas spits, and the globule misses me by less than a foot.
“You know what else I really like, Tomas?”
“Being a dead cunt walking?” he asks. I’m surprised at how fearless he is. After his timid display in front of Matteo, I thought he’d be begging for his life from the instant he woke.
It wouldn’t have changed anything, but I’m impressed.
“Fiametta Napoli.” I stand effortlessly, using only my legs and my feet to lift me off the ground. “She’s the complete opposite to me. Gentle, kind, and caring. But the trait I find most precious in her is her innocence. Not in the bedroom, I’ll have you know. She enjoys fucking. She just hated you .”
He spits again, and this time it hits my shoe.
“Do you know what, she’s carrying my child?”
“The fuck did you just say?”
“Yes. Another crazy thing to imagine, isn’t it? Me, a dad. Positively delirious.” I walk over to the wall on his left, and lift the machete that’s leaning against it. As much as I want to end this, with my six-inch dagger and complete my ritual, I need something bigger for Tomas.
“I see you’re still wearing your engagement ring. That seems like bad practice when she’s called off the wedding, don’t you think?” I drag the point across the ground, and it screeches as I make my way over to Tomas.
“I don’t give a shit.” His lips barely move to say it.
“Well, I do. She would. And now, you’re going to.” I let him frown, confused and watch the gears turn in his eyes, as he tries to piece together what I mean.
I lift my machete over my shoulder and bring it down with tremendous force.
Yes. Kill him. Do it.
My shadow, ever hungry for death and destruction, can finally rest. Well, a little bit.
Tomas pulls the stump of his left hand through the metal cuff that’s attached to the chain, screaming in a mixture of terror and agony. I walk over, collect his hand, and use the bloody stump to write False King across the wall.
I’d have thought of theatrical ways to end all three, if I were a serial killer. It might’ve been fun, too. The false king loses the hand wearing his ring, so what will the lowly peasants kiss, then?
The executioner? Oh my, in a twist of fate, it was his head found in a basket instead of the criminal’s.
The judge and jury?... I’ll have to think about that one some more. But I’ve always liked the idea of popping someone’s skull like a watermelon using a hammer. A gavel is pretty close to a hammer.
I grab Tomas’s face in my gloved hand, and squeeze his mouth shut to stop his incessant howling. I have one last thing to say, and it will be the last thing he ever hears.
“You tried to steal her innocence, Tomas. You tried to break her.” I press the curved end of the machete against Tomas’s belly. I slowly start to slide it in. His eyes widen as it moves further inside, puncturing organs, vital and otherwise, until it emerges on the other side of his torso.
I twist my wrist and the blade rotates inside him, emulsifying his guts and leaving a gaping hole where his stomach once was.
“This is mercy. If you have a god, use your final seconds to beg him for the same.” I slide the machete out and ram it into his chest, directly over his heart.
That is how I leave him — a martyred monster, for all the terrible crooks of New York City to find and whisper about.
In my head, the fog retracts. Not completely, but it shrinks to a tiny spot in the furthest reaches of my mind. For the first time in two and a half months, it’s at peace.