Chapter 6: First kill
2007 Words
I almost killed him there and then as I smelt the car, the faint scent of blood and cherries in the air, a young girl I suspected, I wondered if she was still alive, I’d make him tell me.
If you’ve read Rose’s story, then you’ll know about my sister Annie, I didn’t mention her much in the beginning because there wasn’t much to tell, and she was a boring kid, she was Andrew back then, but she was always playing with Barbie dolls that she made mum buy her, or baby dolls and pushchairs, she liked everything girly, always had, she never wanted to play fight with me or my brothers, like I said, boring.
As an adult she was much more fun, she had owned a warehouse for clothes a couple of years before moving onto owning an actual clothing company.
It was still her property and was closed down, I knew I could use it and no one would come by, it was in the perfect location too, away from any neighbours and humans for miles, surrounded by woods.
I’d already set everything up inside, and as I parked up, I grew excited. I picked the guy up and carried him inside, he was a big dude, heavily overweight, but it didn’t matter anymore if he noticed me using werewolf strength, he wouldn’t be leaving alive.
I chained him up with the chains I had hanging from the ceiling rafters, and he slowly woke up. His adrenaline kicked in as he looked around confused and in a state of panic, he jerked on the chains and his eyes were wild with fear. I dragged over a chair and sat down and calmly waited for him to stop. “What’s going on?” He finally demanded, his voice trembling.
“I’m sure your child victims think the same thing,” I replied calmly.
“Who are you?” He asked.
“Whatever you want me to be, a justice seeker, a punisher, doesn’t really matter.” I stood up and walked over to him. “What I want to know, Daniel, is whether your latest victim is still alive.”
He didn’t answer, so I punched him in the face, knocking a few teeth out. “Is she alive?” I asked again.
He spat blood at me, so I hit him again, and again, he wasn’t answering, good, it meant I got to use the more fun tools. I didn’t go too crazy, I started with a simple penknife. I dragged a table over and placed his hand down on it and stabbed the knife through his hand. He screamed, blood quickly soaked the table, he still wouldn’t talk.
Realising the child could be in danger, and I was wasting precious time if they were alive, I moved on to more severe pain. “Is she alive?” No answer, I grabbed a nail, pushed it under his fingernail, ripping it off, he screamed in pure agony that time, I did a second one, he was built tougher than he looked, still wouldn’t talk.
I stabbed him in the eye, just enough to damage, but not hard enough I’d accidentally kill him. “Yes!” He screamed when I went for the second eye. I stopped. “Good. Where is she?”
“About three miles from my house, I have a hidden bunker.”
“Give me the address, the coordinates, everything.”
He did. I looked at him, “I’m going to check it out, if you’re lying I’ll do much worse than take your other f.ucking eye.”
I walked away to the sounds of him tugging on the chains trying to escape, he couldn’t, I’d made sure of that. I chained the big heavy metal doors up behind me, so even if by some miracle he did get free, he would be trapped inside the building.
I drove to the place he’d told me, it took me an hour to find the bunker, it was well hidden in the ground and only the recent faint scent of the man on the floor I was sniffing helped me find it. I pulled on the vine lying on the floor, it was really a handle of sorts, and a square metre of mud lifted up, a secret door.
I climbed down the built-in ladder and saw a dimly lit room ahead, he’d built a f.ucking den the size of a cabin down here. I heard a whimper and walked in to see a girl no older than nine chained to a small bed. Dirty and wearing nothing but a vest top and underwear.
She was shivering from the cold, and shivered more from fear when she saw me. I smiled at her and bent down a few feet away, not wanting to scare her. “Hey darling, I found this strange place while I was on a walk, thought I’d take a look. What are you doing down here?”
“Bad man!” She cried.
I nodded. “Alright, shall we unchain you and call your parents and the police?”
“I want mommy!” She sobbed.
“Alright, darling, let’s call mummy, ok?”
She nodded fast. I unchained her and wasn’t expecting her to throw herself into my arms, I thought the last thing she’d want was a man near her.
She clung to me tightly, and I picked her up in my arms. “Let’s get out of here, it’s creepy,” I fake shivered, and she let out a small laugh and nodded.
When we were outside, I pulled my jacket off and wrapped her in it, she wouldn’t let me put her down, so I carried her in my arms. “You’re brave, all those spiders down there sleeping next to you,” I said.
“The spiders were nicer than the scary man,” she whispered.
“He hurt you?”
She nodded, and I had to hide my rage from her.
“He was going to kill me tonight, he kept telling me the last few days, I prayed, I prayed so hard for God to send someone to save me. It worked,” she smiled.
I smiled down at her, “I guess it did.”
I got her to a pay phone, she didn’t know her home number, so in the end I called Zara. “What?” She asked in shock when I told her everything except having the guy strung up and t.ortured.
“I’ll be right there with backup, and Jax?”
“Yeah?”
“I want the full version later.”
She hung up, and I put the girl down when I could hear the sirens in the distance. “I’m going to have to leave you, sweetie, I can’t be here when the cops show.”
“Why not?” She held on to my sleeve.
“You know superhero’s like spiderman?”
She nodded.
“It’s like that, I help catch the bad guys, but the police won’t understand, so I can’t be here.”
“You’re a superhero?”
I nodded, and she grinned. “What’s your name?”
F.uck it, she was a kid, no one would believe her and she could probably do with some happy fantasy of a hero right now. “I’m Wolfman.”
“Wolfman? What do you do?”
“I can turn into a wolf.”
“Like a werewolf?”
“Yeah, but I turn into a real wolf, not a beast. That’s how I found you, I could smell you.”
“Cool!” She grinned for the first time and asked, “can you turn into a wolf, so I can stroke you?”
“I’m not sure I have time.”
“Please!”
It broke my heart, she was dirty, and her face was tear stained, but right now, for the first time, she was a kid again, just a normal excited kid who wanted to pet some cool wolf.
My wolf hearing meant I could hear those sirens more than two miles away, I had time to change, but I wouldn’t have time to change back to human.
I bent down in front of her. “Alright, I’ll do it, but you have to do something for me.”
“Ok,” she nodded excitedly.
“You can never tell anyone.”
“Of course not! Everyone knows you keep a superhero’s identity a secret!”
“You can’t tell anyone I helped you either, you need to pretend you never saw me, can you do that?”
“Yes, I can do that.”
“Pinkie swear?” I held my little finger out, and she wrapped hers around mine. “Pinkie swear!”
“Alright, I’ll change, but I won’t have time to change back to human after, so I’ll say goodbye now.”
“Ok,” she smiled and hugged me.
I went into some bushes and changed. When I was done, I padded out to her and at first, she looked at me fearfully, werewolves were big, think a wolf the size of a human. I slowly went over to her, and she took a step back.
I licked her hand and she giggled. “Wolfman?” I made my head nod and she grinned. Coming over, she ran her fingers through my fur, stroking me and petting me, she hugged me. “You’re a beautiful wolf.”
I licked her cheek and she giggled again, god I hoped she always giggled, I prayed she remembered this forever.
The sirens were only around the corner now, so I backed away and she nodded. “You have to go now. Goodbye Wolfman, I promise I won’t tell your secret and thank you for saving me. You should run now.”
I looked at her and thought, ‘be happy kid, let this moment be the memory that fills your mind the most, not the vile f.uck or what he did and was going to do. Let this be what you think about in those hard times.’
I turned and ran. Werewolves were always careful not to expose ourselves, but this time, I prayed this little girl never forgot, I knew the trauma she’d be left with, and I hoped this was a good and happy memory for her, a magical one, so that when she felt at her lowest she could think on this and focus on it, believe in magic, in hope, I don’t f.ucking know, anything that didn’t have her lingering on the monster waiting back at the warehouse for me.
I ran back to the warehouse in wolf form, left his car there for the police to find. When I reached the warehouse, I shifted back to human form outside and then unchained the door, I’d left the key in some bushes knowing I might return in wolf form.
I picked up the spare sweatpants I’d folded and placed in the bushes too, I’d tried to think of everything. I was topless, but that didn’t matter. I walked in to find him still chained, like I knew I would.
“You can let me go now, I won’t touch anyone ever again,” he said as soon as he saw me with his one good eye.
“Yeah, sure, and f.ucking Santa Claus is real.”
“I won’t, I swear!” He begged.
I carried on walking towards him with the cheese grater, hey, I liked to get creative, it was my first time exploring all the ways I could hurt someone. I did too, I set up my phone to record it, and then I took my time with him, enjoyed his screams, enjoyed his blood spraying my body, enjoyed cutting him up piece by piece while he was still alive, enjoyed flaying his skin, I enjoyed it all, every single bit right down until the life left his evil f.ucking eyes.
- Writer
