I Kill Killers

by S.T. Ashman

When I was eight years old, I stabbed a boy.

“I know death,” I said in a raw tone. “That haunting stillness that takes over when the last flicker of light leaves the eyes. It’s beautiful and terrifying at the same time.”

Tears began streaming down his face. But they weren’t tears of regret. No, he was weeping for himself.

“People think psychopaths like you can’t feel emotions, but I know your tears are genuine. Soon you’ll be bawling and begging like the true coward you are.” I couldn’t help the sarcastic scoff that slipped out. “It’s ironic, but in some fucked-up way, you can feel more than I can.”

The audience was under my spell, completely immersed in the witchcraft of my music.

I played in Boston—nowhere else—and my concerts were sold out two full years in advance.

I was a fraud. A crook. A swindler. As I felt absolutely nothing when I played.

If I were a color, I wouldn’t be yellow, green, blue, or even black or white. I would be gray.

Each set of tones had a corresponding emotion that people felt. Minor notes were associated with sadness, while major tones were linked to lively and colorful moods.

I could stab a murderer without flinching, but the thought of clutter made me physically ill.

To me, it was all part of the charade I had to maintain in order to meet the world’s expectations of who I was.

Nature usually favored the larger creatures—a tale as old as time.

“The crime scene looks like Jack the Ripper and Dahmer had a psychopathic child who went on a murder spree!”

“Never, ever shit where you play,”

And rule number one isn’t don’t shit where you play, it’s never engage in person with a target more than once.

Emotional people were prone to mistakes,

Humans, by nature, will always seek shortcuts.

You should let me walk ahead.” “To perpetuate the conventional belief that navigating through uncertain times is a responsibility designated primarily to men?” “No. Because I can punch harder than you. Not to be stereotypical.” “And that’s why you’ll be more useful from behind. Men usually are.”

“Because humans are as complex as they are troubled. For some, violence stimulates the brain’s reward centers or eases the pain of a hidden darkness.”

“Nobody likes Cowboy,”

“He raised me to follow the law and respect it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“So you distinguish right from wrong based on laws and social norms?”

“But the law is not always right. People are not always right.”

“Poor devil’s only mistake was to marry my mother, who dragged him through hell and back.”

“We are too afraid to admit what we truly are. People pretend it’s the lack of humanity that is responsible for the atrocities we’re capable of when, in fact, humanity is the root of it.”

There was no monster like that woman. The things she was capable of doing were straight out of a nightmare.

“I guess even mental illness is better when you’re rich.”

“This is America, Agent Richter. Everything is better when you’re rich.

And the thing about webs was, even if their patterns seemed indecipherable at first, once completed, they all connected perfectly, ready to catch a fly.

“I don’t care for pets, Emanuel. They are too needy for your love.” “Well, that’s the point of them. Love.”

They were mere moths flying toward a wildfire, attracted by the light. And in this case, the wildfire was Leah Nachtnebel.

A red drop of blood on a white canvas, hiding in plain sight for the whole world to see. A serial killer of serial killers.

“You are the drop of red blood on a white canvas for the whole world to see, aren’t you, Ms. Nachtnebel?” I stared at him in silence. He nodded. “Brilliant. Truly. Fucking. Brilliant.”

“Whether I’m a monster or just the villain who kills them. One you can work with. The other you need to kill.”

I loved the way it burned, the fact that I could feel it at all.

Even from wherever she was, Leah was still controlling him like a puppet master its toy.

“Not a monster but the dark hero who kills them,”

He had to see her. His villain. His nightmare. His salvation. His doom. His promise of a new beginning or worthy end.