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| - One day they will catch me. FBI, police, “Men In Black;” whoever the hell it is that comes after somebody like me. I guess when the time comes they will read this; which is precisely the point of this. This is my journal. These are the inscribed thoughts of a man slowly gaining fame one news-station/newspaper at a time. Counties right now, cities soon, statewide panic will follow. In the end, the world will pick up the stories and the tri-county news affiliate that aired/printed the gory details of my first crimes will become a macabre tourist spot. I should have started this earlier. I’ll try to catch up. My first murder was easy. Rapist. Hung from a tree. Reported suicide. Easier to set up than I ever expected. TV makes it seem so hard to get away with; it’s not. Second murder, child abuser. The little boy had decent enough family except for the father, so I decided he wouldn’t be too strongly missed. He wasn’t by the way. Turned out after the mugging/fatal stabbing, his wife remarried to the cop that investigated the crime. Third murder was a murderer. I tortured him first. I wanted to savor the irony. I did. He pissed his pants twice before the gun that killed the brother killed the keeper. That one I didn’t even cover up. I left only a suspected murderer/child rapist as evidence. Even if I had left evidence against myself, the police would have only tracked me down to shake my hand. They probably hoped it was one among them that did it. First three must be the most important, as the order of events preceding the murders following them are a little fuzzy. Drownings, electrocutions, stabbings, fatal beatings, I killed somebody with a blowtorch once; saw it in a movie. I guess the death toll is roughly 30. I’ve been doing this for about two months. I watch the news when I can. I don’t see my murders on the news too often; I assume it’s because the people I kill are the bane of the local law enforcement and they don’t want word to spread that they are begrudgingly hunting their invisible best friend. At the same time, you don’t really report somebody scraping shit off the sidewalk as news. It’s pretty apparent that I don’t have any qualms with calling myself a murderer. I am. It’s also apparent that after my first two murders I developed a taste for torture. I thought in the beginning that murder wouldn’t agree with my conscience and kept it as simple an ordeal to stomach as possible. I learned quickly that murder is as primal and satisfying as sex. Like sex, the second time held no special thrill; which is why for the third, I introduced torture to the primal spectacle. I felt alive in my newly triggered sense of vengeance. When his brother discovered the truth about what his only son went through while in the care of his trusted uncle he was shot dead somewhere between dialing 9, 1 and the last 1. That man had tortured his nephew. That man had foregone spankings for sodomy with a plunger handle. That man replaced groundings from TV for forcing that small child to watch him masturbate to gay porn. And now he had killed the boy’s father right before his eyes. The father and son were never heard from again. For all this he deserved to cry, to beg for his life, to piss his pants as a barrel of empty chambers (save one) clicked away pressed firmly to his newly shattered testicles. That night, my method of deathbed reform was born. That night I began having the regrets I still feel to this day… That I cannot change how little my first two victims suffered. Pretty warm night tonight for the fall. I’m sitting at a bus stop outside a bar. Downtown Tulsa bus stops have these nice covered benches so I can sit here and write while I wait. Why am I waiting here in downtown Tulsa on an unseasonably warm Monday night? To kill a man. To kill a man who killed two others and got away with it… For a while. I was walking around the downtown area today waiting for somebody like him to come along. It didn’t take him too long to show up but he was on his way to work. I had to pass the time. Some type of desk job. Giant building downtown. He wore a nice suit. Nearly 10 hours later and he leaves for the bar. Followed him closely. He was too preoccupied with his sick thoughts to notice me. He was also too busy noticing the women we passed by. He was walking, by the way. I don’t have a car and luckily neither does he. So here we are, Courtesan’s Bar; whatever the fuck that means. I’m not familiar with the word and I assume the business types flowing into the building don’t know what it means either. It just sounds professional and pricey so they go thinking their suits will impress. I’m not impressed; but I am wanting a beer right about now. But I don’t feel like going in there and risking losing him in a crowd. I checked the back and side door; both are emergency exits only so I know he is trapped into leaving through the pricey revolving, glass bottleneck. I am growing anxious. He not only killed two people, he also kills cats. I fucking despise those who torture and kill animals, especially so senselessly; yet I am currently smiling. I am capable of giving the deaths of these poor beautiful animals some meaning. Justifying their death as inspiration is a shallow justification but it’s the best I can do to honor them. I have it all planned out and I am growing very, very anxious. Philip Harnath The warm windless air clung like tightly stretched fabric across his sweaty face. Though drunk and walking in an erratic stumble, he still had the restraint to stop himself from wiping his brow with the sleeve of his expensive black suit jacket just inches from his face. He pulled a handkerchief from an inner pocket of his unbuttoned jacket and wiped his face before stuffing it into his pants pocket. His gait became even more unstable as he diverted his blurred attention to unbuttoning the two buttons underneath his collar. As Philip Harnath stumbled feebly towards his bed, his final resting place, a dark shadow trailed silently behind; stopping at every deep contrasting darkness the cars, alleyways, side-streets and gaps between the old world imitating street lamps of downtown provided. He waited silently in each abysmally hued pocket as his quarry slowly shuffled block by block towards the gates of Hell. There were only two more blocks to go and the anxiety within the shadow dweller grew equivalently greater. Twelve minutes later, Philip’s heavy footfall rattled through the open air hallway leading to his apartment as he clumsily climbed the concrete flight of stairs leading to the second floor of a large three story apartment building lit in excruciating yellow by hundreds of fluorescent lights humming as loudly as the flies within Philip’s apartment would in three days. The apartment building was one of three arranged in an open box formation around a neatly kept kidney-shaped swimming pool. Philip entered through the back of the center building. His human shadow had no choice but to wait behind in the parking lot. No matter how drunk, Philip would have had no trouble making out such a dark and menacing figure bathed in bright yellow light. He knew which apartment belonged to his prey; before sunrise it would become his tomb. Philip had the deadliest vice a marked man could possibly have; repetition. He would drink every night he could at the same bar and stumble home around the eleven-thirty mark to pass out for roughly five hours before waking to wash off the previous night’s excesses and stumble hung-over to work. The hangovers were described to his officemates and employers as frequent migraines and with a little acting he was able to pull off the illusion. It was his life before business college that had marked him. It was his animal torture and constant alcoholism that had sealed his fate. An hour of silence slowly passed by and the unnatural sentient shadow entered the electric yellow glow and ascended the stairs without making a sound. A small pressurized snapping sound and a muffled cry awoke Philip from his dreamless sleep. Instinctively trying to sit up, upon the realization that the muffled cry was his own, he nearly pulled his shoulder out of socket and fell back to his bed with a grunt. He was tied down; bed sheets wound around his wrists, waist, ankles, headboard and footboard. He tried to scream despite the realization that he was gagged. The room was completely dark and a small piece of flesh on the right side of his stomach stung. He screamed and struggled himself breathless in less than three minutes. He felt two objects slide firmly into his nostrils; a strip of duct tape soon sealed them in place. “You have asthma, Phil,” a slightly gravely voice casually informed him in a low emotionless tone. “You might just want to concentrate on drawing as much air as you can through that towel in your mouth.” Phil kept total darkness and silence during sleep. Heavy curtains blocked out completely the yellow aura outside his bedroom window. He could hear the voice clearly; the objects in his nose must be his earplugs. His heartbeat raced and he whimpered as he panicked to draw breath. “Red Ryder BB Gun; I used to have one of these. I never shot cats with them. I would never even pump them more than once if there was even a remote chance an animal was near. You pumped it ten times and aimed at cats’ necks or eyes.” Phil stared into the darkness and struggled to breath. The sharp mechanical intake of air and click of metal on wood caused a new wave of struggling jerks. “One,” Phil screamed as loud as he could and gagged when the vibrations forced a ridge of cloth to scratch against the back of his throat. “Phil, you have night terrors, thick walls and neighbors who no longer check on you. I could ungag you if you like. Would hearing yourself scream make you feel better?” Ignoring the muffled frantic attempts at responding, he pumped the air-gun once more. “Two. This is as far as I’ve ever gone when I was planning on shooting at one of my friends when I was younger. Two pumps is what I hit you with a couple minutes ago. I always wondered about three. Two is just kinda funny from ten feet away but I hit you from about three feet away. I kinda felt bad. I should have backed up a little more, huh?” Phil no longer responded. His breathing growing weaker as his saliva wetted the towel too much to breathe properly. His entire focus was on staying his panic enough to focus on filling his lungs, but each new casual statement and inquisition from his tormenter, delivered in an increasingly bright and friendly manner, brought with its casual hospitality new waves of terror. “Are you bleeding Phil?” Phil’s only reply was a low whimper. “I wanna know if you’re bleeding,” he stated as the bedside lamp to Phil’s left flicked on. He noticed Phil’s nude semi-muscular body glistening with sweat as his scared brown eyes quivered and his intoxicated pupils slowly shrank. His curly brown hair dripped even more sweat across his already soaked forehead. “You shouldn’t sleep naked, Phil. You never know when you might get robbed or attacked in the middle of the night.” Phil strained to make out his captor but could only make out a dark trench-coat and long dark hair in the low light of the forty-watt bulb barely penetrating beyond the lampshade. The menacing figure moved back to the foot of the bed where he nearly blended into the darkness. “Nah, you’re not bleeding,” he began again as he slowly pumped the air-rifle a third time and stated, “Three.” He backed up into nearly complete darkness and raised the rifle’s sight to his eye. “I’m about six feet away when I’m up against the wall,” he stated slowly as he focused on his aim. “Aim is really important, you know. Especially right now. It’s dark; you’re naked. It’d be really easy to hit something your not aiming for if you don’t pay attention.” Phil’s intent gaze into the darkness cringed away as he turned his head to the right. “Those tears, Phil? Tell me, would you be shooting those poor little kitties if they knew it was coming? If you saw the understanding of what was coming in their eyes? I think you would. These things get kinda loud once you reach ten pumps. The tenth one, especially, is pretty loud; feels like the lever is gonna snap too. I bet they understood plenty of times. I bet they didn’t cringe like you are. They didn’t cry like you are and that was with ten pumps.” Without warning, he fired into Phil’s right inner-thigh less than a second before finishing his sentence. A muffled sustained wailing and thrashing erupted, shaking the bed, as thick blood began to pool underneath Phil’s leg. “Damn, Phil. I never would have thought just one extra pump would do so much. I probably should have aimed somewhere a little less tender though, huh?” Phil winced and stiffened his body against the pain. “Settle down, Phil, it was only three pumps,” the torturer said through a sneer as he rapidly pumped the BB gun multiple times. “This next one will be six,” he added as he slowly aimed at Phil’s torso and fired into his right breast. Phil’s body convulsed as he tightened every muscle in his body and bit deep into the towel. The small puncture slowly began to trail blood towards his sternum. “There ya go; that’s how a man should face pain. Press against it with everything you have. Screaming just shows lack of emotional control,” he explains over the loud clicking of eight more pumps. “I realize I haven’t made my intentions clear here, Phil,” He added as he slowly stepped forward and pressed the muzzle to the skin an inch below Phil’s navel. “I’m not necessarily here to rob you, though I will take any cash you have.” Phil’s rapid breathing became thin and wheezy as he squirmed against the muzzle pressed forcefully against his flesh and stared up into the now visible blue eyes calmly looking into his and waited for the words, already mentally delivered, to be spoken. His eyes followed the slightly upturned nose down to the clean-shaven slightly tanned face and slack yet menacing expression. “Phil, you’re 32. You went to college to better yourself when you were 24. You had the world ahead of you. You only had to overcome one small thing.” The stranger leaned in closer, focusing his weight on the gun and beginning to speak with a gradually growing seriousness to his tone and an increasingly stabbing glare in his eye. “All you had to do is stay off the alcohol. You even made it through AA yet you went back into the same ditch you crawled out of. All you had to do was focus. You just had to focus as intently as you are now. You made everybody so proud. How proud would your mother be now, Phil? How proud would she be to know two separate hit and runs weigh on your conscience, yet you still drink? You think selling your car so it doesn’t happen again made you a better person?” Phil, crying and wheezing, stared deep into his blue eyes without a single attempt to lie or plead. “I’m not going to turn you in, Phil. I’m going to kill you.” Phil closed his eyes as tears pooled over his cheeks and his throat clutched under the weight of his now uncontrollable sobbing. The stranger slowly stood straight and fired the gun where it rested below the navel. A small pool of blood instantly rose to kiss the barrel. Again, Phil fought against the tears and stinging pain to reply only with tense muscles and gritting teeth shredding his cloth gag. “Phil, you knew somewhere in the back of your mind that somebody like me would come along someday and make you pay for everything you were ever ashamed of,” the executioner slowly stated as he pumped the gun ten times and leisurely walked back to the bedside lamp. Phil’s eyes shot open and stared at the gun aimed for his skull and quietly muttered the only word that had yet to make sense through his wet, shredded gag. “Ten.” The gun unerringly slammed into Phil’s left eye-socket; cracking bone and forcing runny pink liquid and chunks of white and red tissue to ooze from between the socket and gun barrel as he convulsed and moaned. “Eleven” he corrected as he pumped one final time, snapping the lever off, and fired. Didn’t sleep last night. Usually don’t after a murder; no matter how tired I may be. Watched the sunrise through the thick clouds. It’s still morning and it’s starting to sprinkle. Last night’s victim was kind enough to buy me breakfast; Daylight Donuts and milk. Sitting on a bench in Woodward Park and eating; writing whatever the hell I can make interesting. After I’m done I think I’ll take a walk around Swan Lake. Swan Lake is a large beautiful pond filled with different species of waterfowl. It has a couple islands and a fountain in the center. I don’t really know who may end up reading this in the future, but it may surprise you to know that the most tranquil and beautiful places are often the places you are most likely to meet somebody with a guilty conscience. The last time you were at a place like Swan Lake you probably saw somebody standing at the edge of the water fixated solely on the ripples. No matter how noisy or crowded the area surrounding him gets, he remains completely lost in his own reflection. This person is likely a murderer or rapist. He is there to wash away his sins. He is there because the chaotic, unceasing memories of his dark actions hammer away at his conscience and he is looking for anything to dull the pain. It’s places like these that I find one of the most common type of prey; Repentant Offenders. Not all of them deserve the type of punishment I specialize in. Sometimes they just need to be scared. Sometimes they need reality to manifest the fears they try and pretend are simply paranoia. Philip Harnath, last night’s victim, was one of these Repentant Offenders but it was clear that no consequence, save death, was high enough to sober him up before another died at his hands. It was true that he sold his car, but he sold it out of fear of it becoming all the evidence needed to tie him to two deaths. He would have bought another. He would have drank more. He would have swerved uncontrollably into a child, a young couple or maybe even into a whole family. Donuts are gone. Rain is lightening up. I think I’ll go gaze into Swan Lake… People pass by and I wonder why they don’t cut a wide circle around me as they go. Can’t they see the same thing in my eyes that I see in my reflection? Swan Lake is clean today. I saw only one murderer there. He was drowning in the sins he had witnessed. He was staring up at me from the dark overcast sky beneath the ripples. We locked eyes and judged each other. Neither of us appeared to have the strength to carry on. It gets like this sometimes. The depression sets in. The obscurity of my existence blankets me like a heavy fog. It gets like this whenever I find myself to be the most guilty person within sight. There is only one cure for it; punishment. I know how it feels to be a vampire. I know the depressing loneliness that comes after a meal and their thoughts are no longer on blood but companionship; once the blood within their prey stops calling to the vampire’s instincts and they can see for a small amount of time beyond the bloodlust that drives them. For that portion of time, they are at their most human and are most likely to feel the remorse and longing that can only be felt by those who have crossed a boundary that can never be returned from. Their struggle to live can only be fueled by denying that right to another. They are forced after every meal to watch as those they long to be go about their lives. They are forced to wish they could be the things that hours later they must kill. However tragic a vampire’s story may be, mine is much crueler. I am a vampire that can only sustain my life by extinguishing that of another vampire. I am forced daily to witness the vampire long for his former life. It is during this touching scene of remembrance, longing and heartbreak that I slowly set upon and violently disable my prey. The vampire is a great and terrible predator and its death is not often mourned; but when caught in reflection upon its transgressions, the sorrow and repentance is very real. When death is certain, all but the cruelest and vilest show promise of change. However, promise is not a guarantee of change and it is my heart-rending duty to deny that chance and see not the face of a killer upon death, but that of an innocent. Regretfully, I have become as reflective as Swan Lake’s surface. It would take the discovery of a true monster to restore my determination and focus. I know just the place to find one… Veterans Park; not the type of place you would have expected me to look for a true monster, right? Wide open space. Near business buildings and an often used road. That’s what you see. I see a park near a school with a parking lot, a concrete shelter, shady trees and an easy to find location. I see a perfect place to meet your drug dealer after dropping your kids off at school. I see a true monster sitting at a picnic table in the shelter reading a magazine, checking his watch and occasionally glancing around. He’s waiting for someone, maybe more than just one. However many his is waiting for, I will find out. He is just another guy enjoying a cloudy day at the park. So am I. As he sits and innocently reads his magazine, I will find a tree a couple hundred feet from him, and coincidentally within perfect view of him, and read Fahrenheit 451. I always wanted to read it. I wonder if Phil ever did. If so, his copy shows no signs of it…
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