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The night was peaceful enough. Rain fell listlessly onto the pavement of the big city, in between a drizzle and an actual rain, but also too lazy to care either way. The street shone with the rain, standing out in the night like a flashlight in a pitch-black room. No one dared walk through this weather – no one even drove through it.
Except for the lone man in the raincoat.
His rain boots slapped the pavement loudly, sending out noises that sounded like gunshots in the mostly silent atmosphere. Rain ran in rivulets off of the coat, like water off of a duck’s back. Rain did not penetrate the hood of coat, thanks to precision placement on the man’s part. In fact, that’s what this man was all about – precision. The gloves that he wore wore were placed exactly in the right place to maximize efficiency. That was another thing the man was good at – efficiency. Everything had to be precise and efficient for this man; especially the way he killed.
The man thought of himself as a modern Jack the Ripper. Brutal and horrifying in the way he murdered people, but so precise in his cuts and efficient in cleaning up after himself that he was never caught, much like the famed killer of the nineteenth century. The man let a smile come to his usually emotionless face for a split-second as he thought of the comparison between himself and the great Ripper. It was more like comparing Neanderthals to modern man, really – the man could only wish to be as great as good old Jack.
The man passed many buildings, most with their lights on: stores, apartment complexes, and the like. Any sane man would have taken shelter in them, to seek cover from the unrelenting rain. This man would have in fact done that, if he didn’t have immediate business to attend to.
As the man passed a store selling those sort of things that mothers dread passing as they take their child to school, he inserted his gloves precisely in the center of his coat pockets, feeling the reassuring metal of his .22 caliber pistol with the palm of his left hand. Again, that small smile passed over his face for a fraction of a second, before settling down into the straight line it was most of the time. Tonight would be different; he would make the city fear another man, a person much different from Jack the Ripper. He had copied the man long enough; it was time to rise up, into his own person. He needed a victim, first.
This was not a crime of passion the man was about to commit. It was a crime of impulse. It was something the man pretty much had no control over, something that consumed his entire being and willed him, controlled him, to the point that he absolutely must appease the voices in his head. This man was not well, obviously – it’s something that is easily visible if you just peer into his mind. The man was a confusing jumble of personalities, narcissism, sociopathic tendencies, schizophrenia, and a myriad of mental diseases that would have sent any other man over the edge and into oblivion ages ago. This man was different. He embraced the voices that resided in his head, and treated them as his disciples, and he treated everything else as just qualities of some sort of ‘master race’ that he was a part of.
Soon the man was nearing an apartment complex that would have seemed promising: to his knowledge, it was filled with vagrants and low-lives, people that the police wouldn’t notice were dead until their insides were turning brown and shriveling to the point where they were barely recognizable any more. This man wasn’t looking for a nobody, though. He wasn’t looking for a kill he would easily get away with. He was looking for a kill that would get him noticed; a crime that would send the police station into a frenzy, making them crazily search for the man who committed the crime, coming up empty…and then, to their horror, finding out the man had struck again, and they could do nothing to stop it.
Nothing at all.
This thought, too, made the small smile pass over the man’s face. It was very rare for so many smiles to pass over this man’s face. Usually, his face was like an untouched stone – obviously weathered by time, but nothing on it gave any sense of history, or gave off any personality whatsoever. The man picked up on how many smiles had passed over his face in the past minute, and then a small frown passed over his face. It wasn’t like him to be smiling this much. Was something wrong with him? Was he turning soft? A decidedly fake chuckle escaped the man’s lips as he thought this. Not a chance, thought the man, a determined look being placed on his face for sake of having an expression on it.
Suddenly, the man began to think about the weather. Odd, that on such a triumphant day such as this, that the omens begin to talk negatively, the man thought, taking a glance up at the rain from under his coat. This caused a couple drops of rain to penetrate the barrier that the man had so carefully put over his head, but he didn’t mind…much. Or, the man thought, maybe the rain is…my weather. Maybe, maybe for the intelligent cleanser of this horrible planet, maybe the rain is a good sign…maybe the rain is for them. Maybe, every time it rains…another horrible soul is purged from this planet, the man thought, nodding in approval. Yes, that’s exactly what it is…it is the rain that cleanses the earth of the horrible people who wander here, the man decided.
So lost in his thoughts, the man barely registered that he had completely bypassed his original target. Instead, the little man inside him was directing him to a completely different target…someone much smaller than he had planned before. Surrounded by neon signs and lighted windows, the man drew his pistol, still chambered in .22 caliber, the bark still hampered by a thick silencer screwed into the front. Still not in control of his own movements, the man turned into a dingy alley, not hearing the crunching noise of plastic bottles being crushed underneath his rubber boots. His pace quickened along with his heart, as he turned the corner into the dead end the alley led to. In the darkened corner of the alleyway sat a homeless man, huddled up underneath a piece of cardboard. Hearing someone approach, the homeless man started, and stared at the man, who was approaching quickly. “Spare any change, sir?” the homeless man asked, holding out a weathered and beaten up hand.
The man stopped, and cocked his head to the side, as if he didn’t understand what the homeless man was saying. Truth be told, he didn’t. To the man, the homeless person was speaking in some foreign tongue…and the man didn’t like it. The rage began to build in his chest, and his grip tightened on the pistol. As the rain pattered listlessly, yet unrelenting, around them, the man aimed the weapon at the homeless person, who, having been homeless most of his life, knew not of what was going to come. “Please, sir…do you have any change?” the homeless person repeated, his eyes widening, in a futile attempt to make him look even feebler than he already did.
“No,” the man replied, his voice gruff and impersonal. It instantly caused the homeless person to retreat back into his corner, cowed. But the man wasn’t done. He advanced, step by step, towards the homeless person, his rage against these vermin of the earth building inside his heart. The man aimed the death giver at the homeless man, who looked at him, seemingly resigned to his fate. The man would have liked that. To see the vermin grovel before him, before he shot his puny brains out, and then strung him up like a wreath on a door, for everyone to see…
But that wasn’t the case. Instead, the man extended his hand again, about to ask for change. He got no further than the word “sir,” before the man pulled the trigger, causing the pistol to fire its molten-hot projectile at the place in the center of his forehead. Despite the smallness of the round, the transformation in the homeless man’s face was instant. The forehead was punched in, creating a gaping hole in his head. The homeless man’s head was thrown backward, hitting the brick wall he had been leaning on, at the same instant the gore of his brain and the back of his head splattered it. The man smiled, seeing as he could look through the hole in the man’s head, all the way to the gore-splattered wall. “He got what he deserved,” the man muttered, pocketing the gun.
Shoving his hands into the rain slicker’s pocket’s again, the man calmly strode down the alleyway, leaving the homeless man with the bored-out head slumped on the cold, wet, brick wall, his eyes staring into the distance, filled with such surprise…but also filled with resignation. Thanks to the homeless man’s lifestyle, this is what he had expected to happen to him most of his life. He just hadn’t expected it to come from such a foreign object…such a menacing-looking object, as well. But, you have heard enough of this homeless man. Let us follow our killer for a while longer. The man walked slowly out from the alley, back onto the sidewalk, his rubber boots again stepping on that plastic bottle from before. The man, once again, ignored it, instead focusing on his beautifully executed kill. The image of the homeless man’s brain splattering the already dirty wall kept replaying in the man’s mind, and another one of those smiles spread across his face again. This was one of the only things that truly made him feel joy…the success of an expertly executed kill, and the exhilaration of getting out with no witnesses to vouch for your location, and no evidence to prove a motive of any kind…just pure, unadulterated triumph. This feeling grew so strong that, for the first time in a long time, the smile grew so large that the man’s teeth shone through: a full set of pearly-white teeth, something that most people wouldn’t expect to find on a murderer. This smile persisted until the man turned the corner again. The smile instantly disappeared as the man ran into a police officer, who happened to be patrolling on foot that evening.
Officer Ernest Richards had no idea what was going to happen to him. The cop figured that the person he had run into was just another crazy stroller, such as himself, that had happened to be walking in the opposite direction on the same street he was on. Ernest flashed the man a smile, who flashed a particularly bright smile back. The brightness of the smile puzzled Ernest, but it didn’t keep him from muttering the usual apologies, and walking around the man. Not five seconds later the killer was upon Ernest, hitting him in the head with the butt of his gun. Ernest collapsed like a sack of potatoes, letting out an uncommitted grunt as he did so. Even before the crack of Ernest’s nose had faded from the night, the killer had shot Ernest in the back of the head, once, twice, and yet again, wanting to make sure he was dead – dead, dead, dead. The killer nodded, satisfied at his work, but paused long enough to watch the blood pour out of the three neat holes for a little while longer, before the heart stopped pumping. Having had his fill, the killer turned on his heel, and stalked off into the night, towards his dingy apartment. One thought was going through his mind at that moment, and it repeated itself with such urgency and confidence it was almost a mantra:
“This is only the beginning.”
Except for the lone man in the raincoat.
His rain boots slapped the pavement loudly, sending out noises that sounded like gunshots in the mostly silent atmosphere. Rain ran in rivulets off of the coat, like water off of a duck’s back. Rain did not penetrate the hood of coat, thanks to precision placement on the man’s part. In fact, that’s what this man was all about – precision. The gloves that he wore wore were placed exactly in the right place to maximize efficiency. That was another thing the man was good at – efficiency. Everything had to be precise and efficient for this man; especially the way he killed.
The man thought of himself as a modern Jack the Ripper. Brutal and horrifying in the way he murdered people, but so precise in his cuts and efficient in cleaning up after himself that he was never caught, much like the famed killer of the nineteenth century. The man let a smile come to his usually emotionless face for a split-second as he thought of the comparison between himself and the great Ripper. It was more like comparing Neanderthals to modern man, really – the man could only wish to be as great as good old Jack.
The man passed many buildings, most with their lights on: stores, apartment complexes, and the like. Any sane man would have taken shelter in them, to seek cover from the unrelenting rain. This man would have in fact done that, if he didn’t have immediate business to attend to.
As the man passed a store selling those sort of things that mothers dread passing as they take their child to school, he inserted his gloves precisely in the center of his coat pockets, feeling the reassuring metal of his .22 caliber pistol with the palm of his left hand. Again, that small smile passed over his face for a fraction of a second, before settling down into the straight line it was most of the time. Tonight would be different; he would make the city fear another man, a person much different from Jack the Ripper. He had copied the man long enough; it was time to rise up, into his own person. He needed a victim, first.
This was not a crime of passion the man was about to commit. It was a crime of impulse. It was something the man pretty much had no control over, something that consumed his entire being and willed him, controlled him, to the point that he absolutely must appease the voices in his head. This man was not well, obviously – it’s something that is easily visible if you just peer into his mind. The man was a confusing jumble of personalities, narcissism, sociopathic tendencies, schizophrenia, and a myriad of mental diseases that would have sent any other man over the edge and into oblivion ages ago. This man was different. He embraced the voices that resided in his head, and treated them as his disciples, and he treated everything else as just qualities of some sort of ‘master race’ that he was a part of.
Soon the man was nearing an apartment complex that would have seemed promising: to his knowledge, it was filled with vagrants and low-lives, people that the police wouldn’t notice were dead until their insides were turning brown and shriveling to the point where they were barely recognizable any more. This man wasn’t looking for a nobody, though. He wasn’t looking for a kill he would easily get away with. He was looking for a kill that would get him noticed; a crime that would send the police station into a frenzy, making them crazily search for the man who committed the crime, coming up empty…and then, to their horror, finding out the man had struck again, and they could do nothing to stop it.
Nothing at all.
This thought, too, made the small smile pass over the man’s face. It was very rare for so many smiles to pass over this man’s face. Usually, his face was like an untouched stone – obviously weathered by time, but nothing on it gave any sense of history, or gave off any personality whatsoever. The man picked up on how many smiles had passed over his face in the past minute, and then a small frown passed over his face. It wasn’t like him to be smiling this much. Was something wrong with him? Was he turning soft? A decidedly fake chuckle escaped the man’s lips as he thought this. Not a chance, thought the man, a determined look being placed on his face for sake of having an expression on it.
Suddenly, the man began to think about the weather. Odd, that on such a triumphant day such as this, that the omens begin to talk negatively, the man thought, taking a glance up at the rain from under his coat. This caused a couple drops of rain to penetrate the barrier that the man had so carefully put over his head, but he didn’t mind…much. Or, the man thought, maybe the rain is…my weather. Maybe, maybe for the intelligent cleanser of this horrible planet, maybe the rain is a good sign…maybe the rain is for them. Maybe, every time it rains…another horrible soul is purged from this planet, the man thought, nodding in approval. Yes, that’s exactly what it is…it is the rain that cleanses the earth of the horrible people who wander here, the man decided.
So lost in his thoughts, the man barely registered that he had completely bypassed his original target. Instead, the little man inside him was directing him to a completely different target…someone much smaller than he had planned before. Surrounded by neon signs and lighted windows, the man drew his pistol, still chambered in .22 caliber, the bark still hampered by a thick silencer screwed into the front. Still not in control of his own movements, the man turned into a dingy alley, not hearing the crunching noise of plastic bottles being crushed underneath his rubber boots. His pace quickened along with his heart, as he turned the corner into the dead end the alley led to. In the darkened corner of the alleyway sat a homeless man, huddled up underneath a piece of cardboard. Hearing someone approach, the homeless man started, and stared at the man, who was approaching quickly. “Spare any change, sir?” the homeless man asked, holding out a weathered and beaten up hand.
The man stopped, and cocked his head to the side, as if he didn’t understand what the homeless man was saying. Truth be told, he didn’t. To the man, the homeless person was speaking in some foreign tongue…and the man didn’t like it. The rage began to build in his chest, and his grip tightened on the pistol. As the rain pattered listlessly, yet unrelenting, around them, the man aimed the weapon at the homeless person, who, having been homeless most of his life, knew not of what was going to come. “Please, sir…do you have any change?” the homeless person repeated, his eyes widening, in a futile attempt to make him look even feebler than he already did.
“No,” the man replied, his voice gruff and impersonal. It instantly caused the homeless person to retreat back into his corner, cowed. But the man wasn’t done. He advanced, step by step, towards the homeless person, his rage against these vermin of the earth building inside his heart. The man aimed the death giver at the homeless man, who looked at him, seemingly resigned to his fate. The man would have liked that. To see the vermin grovel before him, before he shot his puny brains out, and then strung him up like a wreath on a door, for everyone to see…
But that wasn’t the case. Instead, the man extended his hand again, about to ask for change. He got no further than the word “sir,” before the man pulled the trigger, causing the pistol to fire its molten-hot projectile at the place in the center of his forehead. Despite the smallness of the round, the transformation in the homeless man’s face was instant. The forehead was punched in, creating a gaping hole in his head. The homeless man’s head was thrown backward, hitting the brick wall he had been leaning on, at the same instant the gore of his brain and the back of his head splattered it. The man smiled, seeing as he could look through the hole in the man’s head, all the way to the gore-splattered wall. “He got what he deserved,” the man muttered, pocketing the gun.
Shoving his hands into the rain slicker’s pocket’s again, the man calmly strode down the alleyway, leaving the homeless man with the bored-out head slumped on the cold, wet, brick wall, his eyes staring into the distance, filled with such surprise…but also filled with resignation. Thanks to the homeless man’s lifestyle, this is what he had expected to happen to him most of his life. He just hadn’t expected it to come from such a foreign object…such a menacing-looking object, as well. But, you have heard enough of this homeless man. Let us follow our killer for a while longer. The man walked slowly out from the alley, back onto the sidewalk, his rubber boots again stepping on that plastic bottle from before. The man, once again, ignored it, instead focusing on his beautifully executed kill. The image of the homeless man’s brain splattering the already dirty wall kept replaying in the man’s mind, and another one of those smiles spread across his face again. This was one of the only things that truly made him feel joy…the success of an expertly executed kill, and the exhilaration of getting out with no witnesses to vouch for your location, and no evidence to prove a motive of any kind…just pure, unadulterated triumph. This feeling grew so strong that, for the first time in a long time, the smile grew so large that the man’s teeth shone through: a full set of pearly-white teeth, something that most people wouldn’t expect to find on a murderer. This smile persisted until the man turned the corner again. The smile instantly disappeared as the man ran into a police officer, who happened to be patrolling on foot that evening.
Officer Ernest Richards had no idea what was going to happen to him. The cop figured that the person he had run into was just another crazy stroller, such as himself, that had happened to be walking in the opposite direction on the same street he was on. Ernest flashed the man a smile, who flashed a particularly bright smile back. The brightness of the smile puzzled Ernest, but it didn’t keep him from muttering the usual apologies, and walking around the man. Not five seconds later the killer was upon Ernest, hitting him in the head with the butt of his gun. Ernest collapsed like a sack of potatoes, letting out an uncommitted grunt as he did so. Even before the crack of Ernest’s nose had faded from the night, the killer had shot Ernest in the back of the head, once, twice, and yet again, wanting to make sure he was dead – dead, dead, dead. The killer nodded, satisfied at his work, but paused long enough to watch the blood pour out of the three neat holes for a little while longer, before the heart stopped pumping. Having had his fill, the killer turned on his heel, and stalked off into the night, towards his dingy apartment. One thought was going through his mind at that moment, and it repeated itself with such urgency and confidence it was almost a mantra:
“This is only the beginning.”
