Healing (Part Eight)

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

I was still shaking a week later, not because I had committed another killing but because it was such a horrific one. I'd added 'torturer' to my repertoire as well as simply 'murderer,' but as far as I was concerned I had no choice in the matter – I had to know the truth. Keira's horrific slaughter was national news for weeks, but because of the cleansing effect of the flames the police didn't have a clue who the perpetrator was. I guess they might have half-heartedly interviewed me if they knew my whereabouts, but they didn't.

I managed to bag the pizza delivery job a few weeks after I killed lying cunt number two because I needed something to occupy my mind, something to get me out of the house and stop folk from wondering where my income came from if I wasn't working and I wasn't registered unemployed. I started socialising and making new friends. Hell, I even found a new girlfriend and bought a dog – how normal is that?

Cheddar, I called my all white American bulldog puppy. I wanted to call him Cheesy because I missed my beloved cat, but I don't think I'd have been able to handle that at the time.

Sarah Paul, my new love, grew on me like moss over the next few weeks, and before the first six months of our relationship were up we were pondering putting our houses on the market and buying a bigger one to share. She was a physiotherapist, and she didn't care a toss that I was a mere pizza delivery man. She knew that I had a considerable amount of money tucked away because eventually I told her so, but she was no gold digger and I was convinced that she loved me for what I was rather than what I had.

At first I couldn't accept the fact that I was falling in love, because it seemed so unlikely - I was a vengeful, murdering monster, after all, I was a sick, twisted fuck, and sick fucks were too crazy and too self-obsessed to fall in love - but it was true. I was caught hook, line and sinker by Sarah's seemingly endless charms; I was completely besotted.

After a long, torturous period of self-examination I decided to bring my serial killing spree to an abrupt end, because I owed my new love that much even if I could never tell her the truth. I had finished killing, I told myself, or at least I had started stopping, but even if I could achieve that I didn't know if I could stop starting again.....

I couldn't forget Mike Morsey's smarmy, shit-eating, power crazy grin as he condemned me, an innocent man, and blatantly took the piss as he did so, but somehow I had to. I tried to promise myself not to hunt him down and slaughter him, I would have to learn to forgive and forget even the most unforgivable and unforgettable details of my experience, or else I would kill Morsey and the police would soon figure out that I had something to do with the other murders even if they had no idea where I was. Two people working at the a place with only a dozen or so employees being killed might be shrugged off as an unlikely coincidence if the means and circumstances of death were sufficiently different, but three? I think not.

I'm a dedicated believer in the power of fate, by the way. I believe that the final episode of my adventure happened because it was meant to happen. You can think what you bloody well like, and you probably will, but as a sick fuck, or possibly an ex sick fuck (more on that subject in a mo) I see things a tad differently.

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Late one summer evening when Sarah was out on the razzle with her girlfriends I decided to take Cheddar for a ride in the car somewhere unfamiliar to him because he was six months old now and his confidence needed boosting. We ended up at Hay Head wood, a sprawling nature reserve a couple of miles out of town that was usually crawling with dog walkers, and though there was a solitary silver Range Rover in the car park (a vehicle that I really should have recognised) I didn't see a single soul.

A thunder storm had been forecast and the sky was a baleful iron grey, so maybe the Range Rover wouldn't be there for long, I mused..... I decided to take Cheddar to the top of a nearby wooded knoll known locally as the Rise. I clean forgot that Hay Head wood was a homosexual hotspot although it had been all over the local papers recently, I believe some old woman walking her arthritic terrier stumbled across a couple of amorous pooftahs in the undergrowth and she swore to proclaim her disgust until her dying day.

As we neared the top of the Rise Cheddar stopped dead at the edge of the winding track and stared into a dense patch of hazel. He rarely barked, preferring to stand stock still with his front leg raised like a pointer if he came across anything that roused his interest or worried him. When I caught up with the dog I registered a subdued grunting from the depths of the undergrowth. Oh so gently I parted the thick foliage, and you'll never guess what I saw. Do you give in? Right.....

I saw a stark bollock naked man on his hands and knees with his arse in the air being violently buggered by a kid of perhaps seventeen. To tell the truth I didn't realise who it was at first because he had his head buried in the leaf litter concealing his face, and his lover was too engrossed in his vinegar strokes to notice that he was being watched.

I was about to sneak off and leave the two to their pleasure, it takes all sorts to make a world, after all, but then the recipient of the rogering spoke. “Fuck me Scott! Sock it to me good and proper.....” As soon as I heard that voice I realised who it belonged to and I fished out my little revolver and aimed it at Morsey's head, trying very hard not to pull the trigger on the spur of the moment just in case I was mistaken. “Fuck me, harder, Scotty,” Morsey wailed, moving his head to the side, at which point I could see enough of his face to positively identify him.

“Yeah, fuck him, Scotty,” I interrupted. The giver froze in mid stroke, and the taker merely froze. “Fuck him harder than he's ever been fucked before, bust his bag if you like, but I bet you won't fuck him as hard as I plan to fuck him, only in a more permanent way. I'll tell you what, why don't I video this sordid session on my phone and Bluetooth it to Morsey's beloved wife? Maybe I'll skip that option and kill the pair of you instead.

Sorry, Scott. Me old China, I've got nothing against you and nothing against bummers in general – if you find the term 'bummer' offensive tough shit; if you don't like it remember that I'm the one with a loaded pistol aimed at you, and you're as naked and defenceless as the day you were born. Honestly though, I haven't got anything against homosexuals as long as they keep well away from me, but I find it particularly disgusting when supposedly faithful, supposedly heterosexual married men sneak off behind their wives' backs and crawl home stinking of shit and spunk. I guessed you were a closet homo, Mikey, and nobody likes clossies, you know, particularly me.....

I'm going to kill your bum chum in a little while, Scott. Not because of what I've just witnessed but because of a different variety of arse-fucking that Mikey gave me a while back, an arse-fucking that I didn't give my consent to and had no way of defending myself against, one that unfortunately for him he enjoyed above and beyond the call of duty. I'm afraid I'll have to kill you too; you're a witness, you understand, so I can't allow you to live.”

Scott backed off, his slick cock sliding out of Morsey with a sickening slurping sound and his rubber clad erection shrinking rapidly. He stood up slowly and looked like he was about to make a run for it, so I put a couple of slugs through his chest and he changed his mind, falling backwards into the bushes and kicking like a wild horse. “Adios, cowboy,” I said, giving him a friendly wave.

“Please,” Morsey said, wisely staying on his knees, his voice little more than a croak.

“It's just me and you now, Mikey,” I said. “What's up – haven't you got anything to say for yourself apart from a pitiful, predictable, pathetic sodding 'please'? Nowt at all? How about a fucking apology for a start? How about 'I'm truly sorry, Richie, I was simply doing my duty when I sacked you and I had no idea that those two malicious, scheming, muff-diving cunts were lying through their fucking teeth. If I knew that you lost your house and your marriage crumbled and you subsequently had a nervous breakdown I'd have been round your place like a shot with flowers and choccies and offered you your poxy job back if you promised to suck my dinky little stump a couple of times a week for the rest of your natural life.' FUCKING SAY IT!” I screamed.

“I..... I'm truly Sorry Ri,” he started, but I cut his apology short by pumping two or three slugs into his dangly bits through the crossed hands that foolishly tried to shield his modesty, swiftly followed by another little perforation in his skull a couple of inches above his left eye. I was still furiously clicking on empty chambers long after Morsey collapsed bleeding beside his toy boy, stone dead.

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I decided to nip back home for a shovel and a box of matches, hiding the little gun and its holster in the undergrowth beforehand and keeping my eyes peeled to make sure no one had heard the shots and called the police, but I had to scout around for ten minutes until I found Cheddar, who scarpered as soon as I started shooting. It wasn't long before I returned, and I managed to dig a sizeable hole and fill it with dead branches before it was too dark to see what I was doing. I felt a few fat drops of rain and heard a couple of low, ominous rumbles as I was digging, but fortunately the storm passed over, destined to give someone other poor sod a soaking.

Morsey and his young jockey, along with every scrap of their clothing, roasted on an impromptu barbecue for a good two hours before I buried the little that was left, the less the better, I thought as I shovelled the dirt in. I also chucked the gun into the blaze to get rid of any prints. I remembered to salvage Morsey's car keys before I burned his clothes, and I drove the Range Rover half a mile down the road to an old, water filled gravel pit called Potters Green where I kicked in the headlights, dented the door panels and torched it to make it look like the work of joyriders. I traipsed back well after midnight to retrieve my own car, completely and utterly knackered.

Today is the fifth anniversary of the day I killed Mike Morsey and his lover. Thankfully the little that was left of their bodies was never found, and so far I'm completely in the clear.

Despite my hints at the beginning of this story I didn't go in search of a new mission like Superman does as soon as his current raison_d’être is over. I was sick of killing, honestly, I'd really had my fill. Maybe if things had turned out differently I would have sought new adventures, but I had Sarah to love me and hold me and calm my over active demons. We married the following year, and the whole caboodle gradually closed my gaping psychic wounds. Sarah gave birth to our twin girls seven months after our wedding and we also have a little boy, Zack. He's just eighteen months old, but it's already clear that he's going to be a lot more trouble than Carla and Cassie. Sarah and the kids will never call me Richie and they'll never know my full story, but that's the way it has to be if I'm to remain a free man.

We still have Cheddar. I put him to a friend's Presa Canario bitch a while back and we kept a pup, a brindle and white bitch that we called Cheesy. She's almost a year old now, and already she's a burglar's worst nightmare but an angel with the kids. I'm no longer delivering pizzas. With my wife's support and encouragement I did a couple of courses and now I'm a physio working for the local health authority. I'm also taking evening classes in aromatherapy, not because I don't like my job, just to add another feather to my cap.

My experience raises a number of complex questions, most of them that I guess I'll never be able to answer to your satisfaction or mine. I suppose that most of you will conclude that although I've been inactive for a long time in my heart I'm still a vicious, evil psychopath and sooner later I'll kill again. 'Am I safe with a woman and three vulnerable kiddies?' I often ask myself. 'Do I deserve such a blessing, do I deserve to sleep at night, and should I be punished for my crimes?' I sincerely hope that I deserve my blessing and a good night's sleep, and as for whether or not I should be punished or left alone to love my family I honestly don't know, I guess I'll leave that conundrum for God to sort out. I do love my family, I'd never harm a single hair on their beautiful heads, but that's no compensation for my victims or their families, is it? Even reformed monsters like me have a conscience, you know.

After much reflection I'm pretty confident that my diseased mind is fully healed, but who can say for sure? The big news this week is a triple shooting outside a chip shop in Dudley. The man in police custody is called Harry Preece, and he is my old buddy without a shadow of a doubt because they published his picture. According to the papers so far he has been unable to say why he shot three apparent strangers dead, but maybe there's more to the story than meets the eye, maybe he has his reasons but he prefers to keep them to himself.....

I suppose compared to some of the problems people suffer during their lives my reasons for killing were trivial, but the event that aroused my wrath almost destroyed me and it took a long, long time to put my troubled mind back in order. On reflection killing five people (two of them simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time) sounds like a gross overreaction to the loss of a crapulous minimum wage job, but remember, it was all I had in the world, I had lost everything in the recent past, I was utterly devastated and the thought of being thrown onto the scrapheap again pushed me over the edge. Those lying cunts and their grinning idiot manager seriously pissed me off, and I pray that no one ever pisses me off that much again.

Look at it this way. In my opinion, for what it's worth, people are largely if not entirely the victims of circumstance whether they're inherently good or irreversibly wicked; in certain situations even good people sometimes become unhinged, and even the best of us are capable of committing atrocities while we're something other than our usual selves.

While we're on the subject of prayer I don't know if God will ever forgive me for my atrocious sins. I guess not, all considered, I guess I'll roast on the devil's barbecue for the rest of eternity when I eventually join the damnation queue, but I've repented from the bottom of my heart and I pray to my Heavenly Father every night and ask for forgiveness, because surely there's no harm in asking.