Something in the blood.

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February 20th 2012 | 8 Comments | Category: Others , Suspense , Thriller | Author: Saul Hudson | 2150 views

They’re getting closer. So close. God knows I left them enough clues.

My name is Frank Morgan, thirty five, and you’ll only ever have known me as The Child Catcher. It’s a strangely apt name, suitable for the likes of me, I’m sure you’ll admit, but it is a title that I look upon with a certain kind of relish. Nobody has ever remembered me so well, not even in school. I’m just plane old Frank nothing special, nothing memorable, nothing worth a shit in modern society. But I’m different in so many ways that make other people, normal people I guess you could say; think about me with a sickeningly sour taste in their mouths. Undoubtedly if they ever find me they’d be inclined to lynch me from the nearest lamppost. And I wouldn’t blame them.

I could try and explain how none of this was my fault, or how the real fault lays within my basic makeup and has done since my conception. I could even blame my father for beating me too much or my mother for never allowing me suckle on her teat until I was tired – but that would be a cop out . . . I am what I am because something inside me demands it of me. And if you can accept that you are halfway there to accepting who I really am.

First and foremost I am a killer – cold and calculating all the way – and secondly I am The Child Catcher: I kill, rape, and torture girls before leaving their bodies somewhere they would be easily found without a trace of me left behind. I’m careful and fastidious in what I do – the perfect craftsman if ever there was one.

I live alone in a modest detached house, the curtains always drawn, no lights ever burning in the lower windows except for the bedrooms above, I don’t even step out of the house for groceries until nightfall. It is, by all accounts, an unimpressive dwelling left to rot behind thick weeds and rampant grass, the number on the door rusted over and veiled by silk webs spun over long periods of time. From time to time I will hear people in the front yard but I never chase them away . . . where is the science in chasing them away?

By and large, however, they leave me to my darkness, daunted by the ramshackle appearance of the house than my occupancy. I’d long since been forgotten about by the world – nobody came and nobody went, and if I were to die in my sleep I doubt anyone would notice.

But I digress. I want to tell you about Sarah Higgins as it will be my last testimony to the world before my trial (if I am not murdered beforehand). I’m not sure how old she was, perhaps thirteen at the very least but it is so hard to tell these days, but she was the sweetest of them all.

She came to my door sometime before noon the week of Friday 22nd of August dressed in a black pleated skirt that rose a good ten inches above her knees in a white blouse that seemed molded around her pert breasts. Her hair was tied into pigtails, pulled tight either side of her head, and her face was full of the cutest freckles I’d ever seen. She spoke courteously and asked if I would make a donation to the children’s fund for which she was collecting. It was impossible for me to say no.

We debated on the front step for a while, as was my method of choice, and I asked her inside as I looked for my wallet. Unsurprisingly she followed me inside, peering in and out of the adjacent rooms without so much as a peep. I am not sure what made me put the chloroformed rag over her mouth no more than you could tell me why you do the things you do, except to say I did it because the moment took me . . . I wanted to know what she looked like inside as well as out. Killing her was more than just spilling her out at my feet.

The cellar is no more than thirteen feet by thirteen feet in either direction. The cobble looking walls are damp and spotted with moss in places and a water pipe drips incessantly into a bucket because I haven’t had the time or money to have it fixed. A single bulb burns in the centre of the room shedding shadows along the walls and over the single mattress I occasionally let my tenants use. But in the centre of the room, hanging from a wooden beam, were the shackles that little Sarah would eventually hang from. I stripped her naked, shackled her, and splashed cold water on her face until she came around.

As with some of my previous work, I never raped her, the thought far from my mind. Instead I circled her like a cat stalking its prey, my fingers occasionally tracing a thin line over her flesh with jittery nervousness. Once or twice I felt her flinch, the way they all did in the beginning, her flesh crawling against mine in complete utter revulsion.

“Such a sweet girl.” I said as much to myself as her. “So sweet.”

I occasionally stood in front of her, gazing her up and down, tracing yet another nervous finger over her forming breasts and down her stomach until her legs clamped together around the delicate mass of pubic hair.

“What do you want?”

The question was so absurd and obvious that I laughed.

“Don’t worry about the details . . . I want you to enjoy the moment while you have it. Enjoy the feeling of another persons touch . . . flesh against flesh . . . married in a perfect union.”

“I want to go home! I want to go home to my mum!”

“There are such things I could show you? I could teach you everything and deny you nothing.” I ran my fingers through her hair, watching my own reflection in her widening eyes as though I were looking into a mirror.” Don’t fight me, Sarah, you’ll thank me for it later.”

“Let me go!”

“Don’t fight it, you’ll only make it worse for yourself.” I whispered into her ear, the tip of my fingers touching the crease of her sex.

“I’ll scream! If you don’t let me g right now I’ll scream!”

“Then scream . . . who do you think will hear you?”

I punctuated the point myself by letting out a harrowing scream of my own – the kind of scream I learnt to hold in when my father came into my room at night when my mother had gone to work. She joined the chorus until she was horse and gagged on her dry throat. I opened my arms as if to bow to her, and said: “See, didn’t I tell you it was pointless?”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

I circled her again. “Maybe this was what you were born for. Has nobody ever told you that every single person has a reason for being born? That there is some greater plan for all of us? You were born for this moment, conceived for this, and you didn’t even know it.”

“Let me go!”

“We were brought together. It was designed from the beginning, and weather you understand or accept it isn’t any real concern to me. All that matters is that destiny brought you here and destiny will take you out of here. Simple, isn’t it?”

Between the tears and escalating protests she tried to free herself by jerking her whole body against the shackles. They were never going to give way, not in a million years, but the sight of her breasts moving up and down in time to her aggravated motion gave me such a hard on.

I watched her for three days, allowing her nothing more than bread and water to sustain her – and it was from within the shadows that I watched every ounce of humanity ebb out of her. Eventually she would give in to me (they always do) but during the interim I was content in watching from the shadows.

She gave up hope of rescue shortly after the third day. It wasn’t hard to understand why: every scream and shout had fallen upon deaf ears. Once in a while I heard her mutter something just beyond the realms of audibility, a prayer perhaps, before sinking once more into silent despair.

As was my custom, I masturbated in the final moments. Inside the shadows I imagined myself crawling over her, conjuring the sensation of flesh against flesh, the smell of sex soaking us both, and at the very peak of my climax I stepped out of the shadows to face her and tarnish her dry flesh with my salt. Afterwards I reached for my old knife, wrapping my hand around the wooden shaft softly, and the blade would glint against the single bulb that burnt over both our heads.

I didn’t kill her for another thirty minutes.

I beat and punished her for every imaginable sin. I cannot recall now the exact sins, they seem to slip my mind as soon as they’re atoned for, but I remember the exact sequence in which I dealt my punishments. Firstly; I broke her jaw with a single punch, the bone snapping loudly and clearly in the confined space. Secondly; I slashed at her breasts, almost completely shedding the nipples from her chest with the first blow, then moving on down her abdomen until her stomach was a crisscross of slashes. She screamed, of course, as much for her broken jaw than the hairline scratches left by the blade. Thirdly; and the last of all the punishments, I skinned her back almost completely.

She was almost dead by third punishment – the screams had long since past. Once in a while her body jerked, her eyes dulled by pain as they rolled back into her skull, but she never stopped fighting against the shackles. Eventually, I slit her throat and bled her over a green bucket until her veins ran dry.

I spent two days disposing of her remains, filling black bags with torn arms and legs before booting the remains into the trunk of my car. I’ll ditch the parts at night and listen to the distant sound of sirens, and I will wonder, like I always do, just how long it will take them to find me.

I occasionally wonder if I would like to be something else: a banker, a realty broker, or, simply, the man next door with three point two children and a wife who smiles adoringly every day, and do you know what?, I could be any one of those things right now – I could even be the guy who calls you down for dinner if I wanted.

February 20th 2012 | 8 Comments | Category: Others , Suspense , Thriller | Author: Saul Hudson | 2150 views