Shon

Chapter 10: Dangerous Addiction

The next on my all natural meal plan, Pete is a pretty average looking guy. He works as a paramedic three days a week, 12-hour shifts. He was like I thought, in his early 30's. Single guy, but the father of two young kids with an ex-girlfriend. He lives in an apartment not far from the bakery.

From the outside, Pete seems like just another millennial trying to break the mold, be someone that helped people and gave back to society. But on the inside, he was something else that pretty face of his couldn't keep secret for long, not from me anyway.

I was only on my second week of Pete stalking when I noticed how much time he spent in Central Park sitting on a bench, staring up at a building filled with young college kids. He liked to rob the cradle. Hitting on college freshmen girls who thought they were hot shit because they were going for their undergrad in the big city. Pete would watch them for hours on his days off, like a horny pedophile. When he saw one he liked, he'd swoop in and try to charm his way into her pants.

I'd like to say he had a hard time doing it, well, he did have a hard time. But I guess college girls are still pretty easy these days.

If he wasn't spending the night on a date with an aggressively vulnerable 18-year-old, he was stalking his ex. Apparently, he has separation issues. He slept outside her building for eight solid hours one night. I wasn't even there the entire time. I left and came back and he was still there.

Obsessive and downright creepy.

And not much of a father to his kids, who he only saw once every other weekend. The first time I did see him with them, he was arguing on the phone the entire time. Probably his ex or a newly legal 18-year-old.

I had to be clever with Pete. Sometimes I was forced to use different locations to prepare my victims. He would have to be dealt with closer to home than I would normally like. One thing was playing in my favor, he liked to bar hop in the late hours of the night. And he almost always left alone.

His usual strip was a few destinations away from where I first saw Evee.

God damn it! Let's not bring her up again.

So I made my plan. I prepared as I always do until the night finally arrived.

I followed him. Cornered him. Chloroform. Dragged him. Shut the windows and doors. 

But something funny happened in the process, something I should have been looking out for. Pete had an abnormal mind then most. He was the type of person who was always expecting trouble.  I should have been more careful. I can only blame myself. 

When his arm reached around my neck, I gotta say, I panicked for a moment.

He pulls me across the floor as I slip my fingers underneath his arm. I wasn't a novice to freeing myself from sticky situations. He wasn't entirely balanced either, so I have the advantage.

I tuck my chin underneath his arm and pull all of my weight forward. He stumbles and I move his arm from across my neck, twisting it around his body with one fell swoop. He falls against the wall face first. I bend his wrist up against his back, kicking the back of his knees into a kneeling position. I pull out my knife and move to drag it across his neck.

But again, I underestimated him. He arches his back and pulls me right into the wall. I was on my head, back up against the brick and my feet hanging above me. The impact jolts a few screws loose for a minute,  long enough for him to grab my knife and rip off my mask. 

I don't think he bothers to look at me, he just wants to hurt me. His foot meets my stomach as I throw the rest of my body over my head. I didn't mind a struggle. It makes the reward that much more satisfying. I was only pissed I didn't realize just how much of a fight this would be.  I wasn't able to bounce back as quickly as I had hoped I would be able to.

He drives the knife towards me but I kick it out of his hands. Not breaking a sweat, he pulls me up and wraps his hands around my throat. Damn, he's strong.

Through gritted teeth, he holds me there, looking like a crazed animal. It's insane how little it takes to drive a man back to his instincts. We are all just animals trying to survive. Fuck the spiritual and emotional bullshit. It's all about kill or be killed, every man for himself. 

The world is hungry for control and the fight to control it is a never-ending battle.

I lift up my legs and twist them around his person to gain some leverage. He was a lot stronger than I gave him credit for. My eyes were getting fuzzy, flickering in and out like an old TV set. I had to shake him loose before he was able to check me out.

I felt a jolt from his arms before he crashes down on me. We tumble to the ground, my mind still in a haze. I shake the cobwebs from my eyes as I gasp to recover my breath.

Pete stands before I get the chance but doesn't come for me. He turns and swings at a shadow. My eyes begin to focus again.

Evee? What the fuck is she doing here?

I stumble to my feet. She really is crazier than me. 

I don't actually see what's happening, all I know is she falls to the ground, hard. The smell of citrus hits my nostrils like an intense migraine. That could only mean one thing. Pete raises his hand, my knife is grasped between his fingers, covered from tip to hilt in her blood.

He fucking hurt her. He hurt her and now I was going to hurt him.

Adrenaline pumps through my veins like a stampede, my entire body is on fire.

He turns towards me and raises his arm up, plunging the knife in my side. Just a scratch. I don't even feel it. He could have stabbed me 500 times and it wouldn't have done shit.

I wanted to kill him. I wanted to rip his throat out for what he did to her.

I bite down hard on his jugular. Ripping open his throat with ease. I gulp down his broken flesh like an animal, not even bothering to chew. So much blood. It starts to coat the entire front of me. Pete grasps pathetically at his face, blood pouring from his mouth. His useless attempts to live were almost as pathetic as his life.

I bite down again and again; tearing, pulling, fucking destroying him. I claw at his face, shoving my thumbs into his eyes for one last satisfying infliction of pain before all his life escapes him on to the tile floor.

I grab the knife, still sticking out of my side, and pull it free. I drive it into his ribs, prying them apart, feeling then break between my fingers.

I waste little time in suffocating the last beats from his heart in my fist, silencing him forever.

My entire body is burning my nerves to numbness, skin tingling as if I had just been pressed into the ground for hours and was finally allowed to breath. My pulse was still high as a kite, anticipating the moment when I would finally just lose myself in the taste of him. I was going to rip him apart, piece by succulent piece.

"A.J.!"

I turn around. Evee was still lying there, clutching onto her stomach. I have forgotten about her, the reason for my brutality and unorthodox method of ending this mans life.

 I came back to reality and waste little time running over to her. My hand hovers over the blood pouring from her stomach onto the floor. The smell of her hit me like a ton of bricks. I had to stop it.

"Stay still." I try to stay calm, "Don't move!"

"I think something's ruptured in there." she lies backward, squinting and biting her tongue.

She was going die. The initial high I had from ripping apart that son of a bitch finally shuts down. I feel nauseous.

"What the fuck where you thinking! Why did you do that?" I don't know what to do. She's bleeding everywhere. Her body was in shock. The color from her face was draining every second she quivered from loss of blood.

"You need to leave." Evee manages to speak, her voice barely there.

"Are you crazy, you'll die!"

"So will you if you don't get out of here."

I can't believe she would just let herself go for me. What favors have I ever done for her? I didn't deserve to live next to her. I was an unworthy psychotic murdering bitch.

"GO ASTER!"