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  The woman had finally given up struggling. It felt good to know she would soon be at peace. Janet knew it too. I rested my head against her chest. This moment brought us closer together. The faint smell of excrement still clung to her body but I was determined not to allow her one slip up ruin the moment.

  The blood level inside my bag rose past Janet's eyes. For this, I was silently thankful. They had started to freak me out. Once the blood began to flood her nostrils, I felt a wave of calm inevitability wash over me. I know why. Janet had finally died. Only warm meat remained and would be treated as such

  A couple of air bubbles rising through the blood and popping beside Janet's chin coincided with a quiet beeping coming from the camera. My battery was on its last legs, meaning that I would not be able to film myself jointing the carcass. This was annoying but not particularly essential. I still had the boy and Donnie's father to dispatch.

  Once I had fully purged the evil from Donnie and was confident that he had earned the name of Franco, the boy would have to help me to pay the bills. I had decided that my next Franco should become a butcher. It made sense as for the next few months his world will consist of watching me murder his parents over and over.

  All this was in our shared future. Right now, I had to prepare this one for easy transit before dealing with the boy. I reluctantly switched off my camera, packed everything away before starting on dissecting Janet.

  There was really no need to go into detail as I performed the laborious cutting work on automatic pilot. There was also the fact that the events which followed once I had left the house completely eclipsed Janet's dissection and disposal.

  I returned to the brickyard armed with a hammer that I had taken from the boot of my car. My intention was simple, to turn his head into a smashed up mass of brain lumps and skull splinters. I no longer cared about where he had come from. All I wanted to do was to destroy the little bastard.

  The wooden handle felt good, a solid length of hard ash with a high-quality steel head. This hammer had tasted flesh and bone before. Unlike Janet, no care would be taken in the killing of this boy. He deserved even less.

  I reached the chimney, took a deep breath and walked around the other side, preparing myself for the upcoming slaughter. That breath that I'd just inhaled blasted out of my mouth. I also dropped the hammer. I heard it splash into the soft mud. Somewhere at the back of my mind, I heard an alien voice berating me for treating such a valuable tool in such a disgraceful way.

  The wave of confusion and uneasiness which washed over me earlier paled in comparison to the violent storm now brewing at the pit of my stomach. I could not get to the boy because the door leading into the base of the chimney was no longer there. The hole had been bricked up and from the looks of it, the work had been done years ago.

  I bent down and curled my fingers around the hammer shaft, feeling the coldness of the mud seep into my bones. It did not surprise me to find a black cable tie sticking out of the mud nor to discover that the only footsteps around the chimney belonged to me.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I awoke from a dream with the wondrous aroma of my mother's home-made oxtail soup massaging my nose. The alarm bells in my mind did not open up until I found that my body was operating independently. Against a blurred background of beige light coupled with underwater moaning, I struggled to make sense of my predicament.

  Revelation came at a price for once the image before me sharpened and the previously indistinct sounds metamorphed into hungry voices, my sanity went for a temporary swan dive. My inner psyche shrieked out as forgotten fissures of my traumatic past crashed to the surface. I thought I was about to drown in my own misery and yet, as quickly as it started, my consciousness savagely plugged each seemingly bottomless hole until all that remained was the urge to sleep. An ironic sensation considering I first believed that I had just woken.

  Thankfully, the seamless transition into full alertness stopped me from spilling a ladleful of steaming meat broth over the back of my hand. For this favour, I silently thanked the invisible hand of providence for ensuring nobody saw me pop back into reality.

  I gazed into the rheumy blue eyes of the homeless man, standing in front of our table. His age could have been anything from his late thirties to early sixties. This was the soup kitchen. Much to the disappointment of the foul smelling man, I carefully placed the ladle back against the side of the large metal container and turned around.

  Bright sunlight streamed through the large windows, eight feet above my head. I was in the soup kitchen. Bethany and Bennie stood at either side of me, each one serving our guests from two more similar sized pans. The huge crowd of people suggested that this could be a Wednesday. If this was the case then it meant that I had lost three days of my life.

  I started at the yellow wall, forcing my mind to clear away the dense fog which refused to allow me to access memories after I parked my car and walked along the dark street, heading for the home of Janet Simpson.

  “James, are you alright? You've gone all pale.”

  “Buddy, excuse me, but don't we all get two scoops? This ain't gonna fill me up at all.”

  That whiny, yet demanding voice almost pushes away my civilised response. This causes me more anguish than finding that I've lost a small chunk of my memory. I turn around to find both Bethany and the tramp staring at me. Her face is a picture of concern. I'm grateful that I saw her first otherwise, this situation could have turned awkward.

  “I'm fine, Bethany,” I replied. “The aroma of the er food got to me, that's all.”

  The woman smiled back, totally understanding my silent suggestion regarding the homeless man's neglecting of his basic fucking hygiene.

  “Terribly sorry about that.” I picked up the ladle, give the irritating fucker another serving and flashed him a winning smile, deciding that to carry on as normal would be a better response than grabbing his ears with both hands before thrusting his face into the pan and holding him until the cunt stopped moving.

  I've experienced something so traumatising that my mind initiated a complete system shutdown and restart. After confronting such a monumental change, lesser men would now be shivering below this table, pissing their pants and crying for their mummy. A lesser man wouldn't even be here, they would have woken up in some dark alley, covered in their vomit.

  This alone proved to me that I was the proof of the next human evolution. My mind had literally shut itself down, put my consciousness into a dormant stage and yet I was able to carry on with my scheduled routines with nobody being the wiser. I settled into the mundane task of feeding these animals knowing that the memories from my missing days would, in time, be revealed. There was little point in trying to squeeze them out.

  “This has got to be our best ever Saturday turnout,” said Bethany.

  It's only Saturday, this was good news. It meant that I had only lost a few hours, probably no more than a night. The idiot standing next to me didn't immediately agree with her as per the norm. Bennie nearly always enthusiastically agreed with anything Bethany said, drooling like some foul dog in desperate need of euthanising.

  “I can't believe that you were able to procure so much supermarket meat! You really are an angel, James. Just thinking that if you hadn't shown up, those ungrateful morons would have dumped all this. ""

  “This is good quality stuff”, said Bennie, grudgingly.

  I found it most refreshing to have two questions answered. Bennie's bad mood stemmed from Bethany's apparent good fortune over scavenging such a bountiful supply of meat. I watched Bennie pop a small lump of his sister's body into his mouth. It also showed that despite my blackout, I hadn't fouled up on the simple procedure of the killing and the disposal of a body.

  The queue had now begun to lessen. I saw the reason, another volunteer had closed the doors, only opening them to allow the homeless to leave the building. Bethany scooped up the remaining scraps from her pan before picking up the now empty pan and dropping it into the communal
sink behind her. I did the same, leaving Bennie to wipe out his pan with a couple of slices of bread.

  “You'd think he never got fed at home,” remarked Bethany. “I know it's an awful thing to say but I'm sure that the promise of free food is the only reason he comes here.” Her face changed colour to match her red top. "Sorry, James. Please don't tell him that. "

  “I think we both know the real reason why he turns up, Bethany.” Right at that moment, I wanted to swallow my fist. What the fuck was I playing at? “It looks great for his annual review,” I added. If I hadn't stopped myself, my big mouth would have told her everything. Not just that Bennie likes her. Oh no, my rebellious mind would have explained in great detail of what the wimp would do to her naked body.

  “Yeah, that sounds about right for him.” She glanced past my shoulder. “I'd better go help Adam remove the stragglers. Seriously though, James. I'm so grateful for your help in getting this food. It's been months since I've seen so many happy people.”

  Bethany spun around and hurried over to the main door, leaving me guessing as to whom the approaching shadow belonged to, like I needed to guess. The familiar smell of Bennie's cheap aftershave gave me the biggest clue.

  “Did you by any chance look into my little favour, buddy?” Bennie's leering gaze settled upon the back of Bethany's shapely thighs. “It's probably better if we get this little problem sooner rather than later.”

  Now he was setting time limits. This would have really annoyed me if I was actually going through with Bennie's stupid request. Despite this, the man's automatic assumption that I was going to be the little bastard's benevolent protector made me want to hurt the man.

  “Don't worry about it, my friend,” I said, giving the clown a reassuring smile. “Believe me, his worries are almost over.” He stood right next to a concrete pillar. I wanted to smash his head into that hard corner. Bennie's mouth opened and closed. The goon was thanking me, at least I think that's what he was doing. His words made no sense. All I saw was my fingers reaching for Bennie's ear, squeezing hard before slamming that grinning bastard into that corner.

  The first blow stopped his chatter but it didn't end him. Bennie wasn't the only one who had stopped talking. Both Bennie and Adam were staring right at me. They both looked like rabbits caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. Bennie managed to lift his head off the floor. He said something. It sounded like glark. I lifted my foot, placed the heel over the ear that I had just held and stamped down as hard as I could. There was a definite crack of bone this time.

  I wanted to drop to my knees, turn him on his back, pull up his yellow shirt and bite a hole in the thin skin stretched over his scrawny chest. I only needed enough space to force my fingers inside, pull apart the ribs and mush the bastard's heart in my fist.

  Adam was trying to get out of the building. His fingers fumbled and slipped, as he attempted to turn the Yale lock. I walked towards him, grinning. My smile was there because I knew that I was going to kill him, also because he too was making a glark sound.

  Bethany, bless her, had taken to crouching in the corner. She wasn't joining in with the glark chorus, instead she was praying. It wouldn't do her any good as I had a special plan for that woman. I was going to fuck her to death.

  Big fat tears mixed in with the snot dribbling into his open mouth. Adam had given up on trying to open the lock. He now stood with his back pressed against the glass door. Such a silly man, it is like he wanted to die.

  I was more than happy to oblige. He screamed out even before I got near him. I found his whole attitude towards his fate utterly sickening. Some people just don't know how to die with grace. Bethany wasn't making that pathetic noise. She must know that I'd be doing her next.

  A hard slap to the chops shut up that whiny little shit. I grabbed a large pan from one of the tables, grabbed both handles and hit Adam on the bridge of the nose with the edge. He crashed onto the floor like a sack of potatoes.

  I smiled down at the quaking man and decided to do Bethany before I slaughtered this mummy's boy. He wasn't going anywhere. I turned around and...

  “Thank you, James,” said Bennie. “Janet will be so grateful for this. She's had a hell of a time with the school. They won't do a thing to help.”

  I blinked rapidly. Bethany and Adam were still by the door, laughing and joking. She patted the back of Adam's hand before he opened the door to let her out.

  “Look, if I can do anything to return the favour, just ask.” Bennie grinned. “Hey, remember that katana that you just happened to mention a couple of weeks ago? Well, there's somebody at work who knows this guy who knows another guy who just happens to deal with military antiquities.”

  What was happening to me? Just what the fuck is going on? I looked at the palms of my hands, looking for some trace of Bennie's blood. My hands were clean. I had imagined it all. I did not like where this was going. For the first time in my life I felt as though my life was spinning out of control.

  “I'd better go lock up. I'll see you around.”

  Bennie gave me a manly nod before turning and sauntering over to Adam. I waited until there were two paces between us before following him. I couldn't help myself, it's as if someone else was controlling my body. I was going to murder Bennie for real this time.

  He stopped to talk to Adam. Their conversation switched from the weather to football. It was a subject that either of them knew little about. They knew I was behind them. The men always did this whenever I was within listening distance. I knew nothing about football either, I just gave the impression that I did. Consequently, these outcasts of society did their utmost to ingratiate themselves with their pack leader. Today, this pack leader would be feasting upon their carcasses.

  I stopped dead when I caught my reflection in the thin sheet of reflective metal that the previous building owner had fastened onto the wall, near the door. I didn't recognise the man staring g back at me. My mind was a boiling mass of conflicting emotions. I raged, wanting, needing to rip into their tender bodies, yet the image in that mirror couldn't be calmer. It was a picture of Zen tranquillity.

  In one aspect, I too needed to disguise my true feelings, to blend in with the common herd. When I looked back, the two men had gone yet the insatiable urge to quench my blood lust hadn't left me.

  Instead of seeking out Bennie or Adam, I walked over to the front door, turned the lock and let myself out. The cold afternoon air helped to dampen the burning fire but failed to extinguish it completely. I turned left, walked a couple of paces before turning left again.

  Strong pine disinfectant stole away the sweet scent of decomposing leaves. My feet had guided me around the back of the building and into the alley where we separated the rubbish, ready for the recycling waggons. This area always used to be full of homeless during the night and day. Thanks to another charity procuring a large building and converting it into a basic hostel had given the homeless a safe place to spend the night. The owners of this building helped to ensure this alley wasn't occupied during the day by employing a team to clearing away the accumulated rubbish and hosing the walls with cleaning chemicals.

  It wasn't often that the homeless ventured down away anymore, nevertheless, I wasn't alone. At the far end of the alley, I spotted another figure, his arms and head buried in a bin that hadn't been emptied. The figure's sense of danger must have kicked in just before I reached the fire escape as he lifted his head right out of the bin and glared at me.

  It's only the attitude that had altered. The rheumy blue eyes were unchanged. He obviously had no recollection of our previous encounter, as far as he was concerned, I was another rotting piece of human garbage, out to steal whatever he had taken out of that bin. I slowed down but continued to advance. I only stopped moving when he pulled out a knife from somewhere inside the greasy, black folds of his clothing.

  I grinned. So that's where the carving knife had vanished to. I had silently blamed Bennie when the utensil mysteriously disappeared two weeks ago. Perhap
s I should still blame the whiny little shit. After all, it is doubtful that this foul smelling fucker had managed to pick the kitchen door lock and steal the knife without anyone seeing him. From observation, I know that despite their apparent stupidity, most of them possess a low cunning. It's more than likely that Bennie had carelessly left that knife on one of the tables in the common room and forgotten about it.

  How sweet, he was threatening me with it now. I was only going to put him out of his living misery. My car is a classic, so I still have keys in which to open the doors. The one which unlocks the boot is just over three inches and serrated along both sides.

  My initial idea was to wall him up, hold him by the throat while stabbing him a number of times in the side of his neck. I only wanted this fury for murder which threatened to overwhelm my logical thinking to dissipate. I had no interest in prolonging his agony.

  I dropped my car keys back into my pocket, stooped to pick up half a brick before resuming my stride. Him having the audacity to threaten me changed my plan. It changed everything.

  “Go on, you. Clear off. I mean it. Fuck off or I'll stick...”

  His sentence stayed unfinished as my brick smacked him right in the nose. The knife fell from his hand and clattered across the stone.

  “You shouldn't have threatened me.” I tried to adopt a calm reassuring tone. This was the prelude, the moment for the game players to fall into their respective roles. On this occasion, this was not to be. The silly bastard hadn't just dropped the knife, my throw had knocked him backwards. His head hit the wall behind him. I had doubts that the homeless guy knew which planet he lived on. I stood over his sprawled body then kicked his hipbone. He opened his eyes. I was almost expecting him to say glark.

  As for myself, my role in this event, I was irrelevant, a wasted and pointless endeavour. This kill wouldn't be helping to educate a future Franco. I looked at my reflection in the blade, seeking out the monster which hid behind my blank facade, but the monster wasn't hiding, not now, not after smelling the broken man's blood.