It's up to Me to Make You Bleed

Ill company and the increasingly noticeable smell of sea salt suddenly ruined the once romanticized sight I had from their backyard. My mind went into the briefest, five-second moment of panic as I strived to find a response to that. I mean, hell what would anyone say when asked that?

Then again, I’m guessing most people wouldn’t be in my situation in the first place…

Anyway, I’m really starting to regret dragging this mission out. Why couldn’t I just kill them when we met? This stress and secrecy is really killing off the fun I was supposed to be having. Regardless, he can’t know about my fear and hesitation.

I locked eyes with him, hoping that made me appear confident. “You’re the observant one, aren’t you?” I breathed, taking a step closer to him.

Apparently whenever I want to shield my emotions I turn into a seductive slut. Go figure.

Matt’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. “Where did it come from?” he pressed.

“And here I thought you were an intelligent man,” I laughed. “Tell me, Matt, why does a person usually have blood on them?”

A flash of anger lit his eyes upon hearing my first comment. I moved in closer until he began back up, falling into one of the patio chairs. I crawled onto his lap and ran my fingers along his exposed, muscular arms. “It’s because they hurt themselves,” I explained.

Matt, who had gotten noticeably flustered, glared at me before moving my arms to my side. “Then would you care to explain why you don’t seem to have a wound?”

“It’s a scrape. The dried blood is the wound.”

He scoffed before making a move to shove me off of him, but I was quicker. I held one arm up in a ninety degree angle and the other in a sideways angle of the same degree, connecting the two by placing the right fist into the palm of the left hand, successfully blocking his maneuver and staying securely on his thighs.

“I’m not what you think I am, Matt. I’m much stronger than I look,” I said.

He stood up suddenly in a fast motion, which caught me off guard. I stumbled off of him and landed on my ass below him. “Are you suggesting that I should be afraid of you?” he asked incredulously, narrowing his eyes.

I leapt up to my feet and smirked. “That would be wise of you,” I replied, walking forward, pausing to trace his jaw line, purposely touching the very spot where the dried blood was on my own face.

“You’ve got it all wrong,” he said defensively, swatting my hand away. “You’re the one who should be afraid of me. I have a secret of my own.”

I wanted so badly to say that I knew that much, but that would raise too many questions. So, instead, I just smiled and sauntered back toward the house.

*Matt’s POV*

I stood frozen in place, completely disregarding the sketchy conversation and actions that took place between Chelsey and I. What really affected me was her smile. That familiar smile. It was the sad, friendly, innocent smile that belonged to only one person – Courtney.

I remember treasuring that smile any time it was directed toward me. Everything was right in the world when she was around. Shit, half the time when I would go over to the Sullivan house, it was just so I could see her, even though I was friends with Jimmy first.

I remember all the times Brian and I used to fight over who’d get her. Well, I guess we both kind of lost that. Unless… What if this girl really was Courtney? Yeah, that would imply that she somehow survived being murdered.

Isn’t it ironic that her and Brian hit it off so well? I’ll bet that those feelings from high school resurfaced. I bet Brian thought the same thing, especially since this incident with Jimmy.

“Fuck, I’m going insane,” I muttered.

Returning to the house, I made my way immediately toward the kitchen and grabbed whichever bottle would supply with the most amount of alcohol. I was going to be needing it.

After an hour or so of solitary drinking, I decided that there was no way I’d be able to escape from these haunting thoughts and memories. I stumbled down the stairs and into the basement, surprised to find that some of the videotapes were scattered across the floor, almost as if someone had been down here recently. I shrugged off my suspicions for now and scanned the shelves, looking for that first masterpiece.

I grabbed it and placed it in the VCR. It was strange seeing Courtney again. It was enjoyable in terms of physical appearance at the beginning of the video – before we beat her to hell and back. She was so fucking scared, even though she struggled to conceal that.

By now, I had grown to love killing girls, so I was in a very odd place right now. I was kind of missing out on what could have been if Courtney didn’t die, while simultaneously feeling my boner fight against the tight constraints of my pants. But I came down here for a specific reason, and it wasn’t really nostalgia or horniness.

I pressed the fast forward button on the remote and then stopped it once it got toward the end of the tape – to the part where we kill her. Brian was so hesitant…you just tell from watching this that he didn’t want to actually kill her. Had she not been stupid and provoked him, maybe that would’ve helped her out. Although, Jimmy being the crazy guy he is, probably would’ve killed her himself.

Then there it was – the moment that should’ve killed her. Brian’s makeshift brass knuckles consisted of four knives. They went into her throat. That’s got to be worse than having your throat slit…or is it the other way around?

The only way that would kill her is if it severed the jugular vein, or she just bleed to death. If by some miracle he didn’t pierce that particular vein and she got immediate medical attention, then I guess, theoretically, it could be reasonable to say she’s alive. I’ll be damned.

*Normal POV*

What the hell was going on tonight? I didn’t get my kill finished. Brian totally ignored me. I had to seduce Matt just to avoid my own emotional response. Just thinking about all of that caused me to fall victim to an episode of absolute rage, a strange combination of my sadness, regret, and anger.

I swear the next thing or person that comes near me is going to be repentant. Mere seconds later, my phone lit up. I glared at it for a while before realizing that I wasn’t exactly accomplishing much. I picked it up and saw that I had an assignment. How perfect.

The target’s name was William Hugh. And he was going to be my punching bag for the evening.

I made sure that all my weapons and gear were properly concealed in my belt, pockets, and boots before grabbing my black trench coat. On my way out the door, I ran into Brian who gave me a strange look.

“Don’t you think it’s a little too hot outside for leather boots and a coat?”

I bit back a growl as I spun on my heel and shoved my arm into his neck as he fell back against the wall. “Don’t you think you should mind your own business?” I challenged.

Brian held his hands up in defense, though I could see the temptation to fight back in his eyes. I backed away from him and said, “Just for the record, you have no one to blame but yourself. Think twice next time before you wake me up with an annoyingly persistent plead for sex and then ignore me thereafter.”

I’m sure the look on his face was priceless, but I didn’t have time to really savor it. I had a job to do. The target’s apartment was quite a few blocks away from here, so I took off running into the night, perfectly trained for this kind of situation.

Once I arrived at his apartment building, I paused to regain my breathing before ascending the stairs. I took into particular account that this was in fact an apartment building, which meant that I really didn’t have the luxury to be as loud or reckless as I wanted.

I dug around in my pocket for my lock picking tools. With a few twists and turns I eventually heard the successful sound of the gears turning and unlocking. The door swung open revealing a shabby apartment with only a few redeeming pieces of furniture.

I cautiously stepped into the apartment while closing and locking the door behind me. There was a flashing white light coming from the nearby bedroom. Good he must be watching some television. The door was slightly ajar, so all it took was a light tap to open it entirely.

William jumped upon seeing me there. “Who the hell are you?” he stammered, jumping back up against his headboard.

“That’s not important. All you need to know is that I’m here to kill you,” I said, bending down and reaching for my concealed weapon.

The blade reflected the television’s white glare as I held it out at arm’s length. “I-I don’t understand. I haven’t done anything wrong,” he pleaded, his eyes watering beneath his black-rimmed glasses.

My mind was so entirely wrapped up in my own personal matters that it didn’t even once register that he sounded realistically scared. “Someone must’ve found something wrong with you to deem you worthy of death,” I shrugged.

I couldn’t bear to hear his voice any longer. I jumped onto his bed and gripped his throat. I plowed the knife through the left side of his face. I used the palm of my hand to push on the hilt, shoving the blade further into his mouth until it came out the opposite side.

Blood leaked out onto my fingers, coating them in the sticky, warm liquid. Even still, this man begged for me to stop – insisted that this had to be a misunderstanding.

“Shut the hell up!” I shouted, suddenly tugging the knife toward me and ripping right through his lips, replacing his mouth and cheeks with a gaping gash, practically deep enough to sever his jaw clean off.

Blood sprayed into my mouth during the process; I swallowed it bitterly. And of course, he was still alive. I stared down at the blood that acted as another layer of skin. Only my hands and arms were covered in the material. Why not cover it all? Why not bathe in the blood of this man? There was no justice in the world. There was nothing but evil.

With an animalistic growl that felt foreign on my tongue, I slit his throat so deeply that his head fell off on its own accord as I dragged his body to the bathroom. I threw his corpse into the bathtub and made additional cuts to drain more fluid quickly. I didn’t need much. Just enough to cover me head to toe.

He bled out quickly, filling the tub halfway before I tossed his body onto the neatly tiled floor. I stripped out of my clothes and climbed into the warmth. I don’t know what’s come over me. I’ve never felt this enraged…this upset…this out of control.

This wasn’t how I did business. Tears leaked out of my eyes as I dove down into the blood, submerging my head.

Understandably, I reminded myself of Elizabeth of Bathory. I remember learning about her in eleventh grade history. I had that class with Brian.

This woman would kill her virgin servants and drain their blood into a bathtub, believing that if she covered herself in virginal blood that her beauty would be forever immortalized. I can’t say for sure whether or not this guy was a virgin – I wouldn’t be surprised if he was – but what fucking reason did I have for doing this?

Did I feel better taking all my anger and frustration out on this guy, even after he was already dead? I felt myself scream beneath the flood of blood, but immediately began choking as the thick liquid crept down my throat faster than I could swallow.

This all needed to end. They need to die, and if part of that involves losing my life as well, then so be it. This has been raging for a decade now and it needed to end. This kind of sadistic, demented violence must only be reserved for them…not people like this.

Assassinating someone doesn’t require a brutal homicide. Usually a cut of the throat or a bullet through the brain suffices. Those three are going to die very, very soon. No more play time. I stood up and caught a glimpse of my image in the mirror. Everything was covered in a deep, dripping red, except for the whites of my eyes. I looked like a horrible monster.

I reached for a towel that had been hanging on the rack and tried my best to dry off. My skin was still tainted pink, so I went over to the sink and wet the towel so that I could remove any remains.

I stole a final glance at the victim before returning to the bedroom to retrieve my clothes. As I slid my jacket on, my cell phone fell out onto the carpet. With a groan, I bent down to pick it up, accidentally pressing one of the buttons, which caused the screen to light up.

The last thing that had been viewed on my phone was the text message with information regarding this assignment. I had skipped over all the other text. The only thing my eyes saw was the name and address of the man I was to kill. There was only one sentence after that – the justification.

Curious, I scrolled down to find out what this man did. “William Hugh is to be assassinated on the just cause of being a homosexual rights activist.”

I turned around and looked at his decapitated body. I did that to him…because he was fighting for gay rights? How is that a ‘just cause’ of murder? I felt vomit boiling at the tip of my esophagus, but there was no way in hell I could do that here…they’d have my DNA.

I violently clutched my mouth as I ran out of the apartment and sprinted down the back set of stairs, not daring to swallow, before finally taking a break in an alleyway three blocks from his apartment to vomit.

“What…what I have I done?” I cried, slamming my fist into the dumpster.

“What have they done to me?”

*Brian’s POV*

The house seemed oddly silent without Jimmy here. Sarah was already well asleep, Zacky was playing some video game in his room, and I finally found Matt downstairs…watching the video recording of Courtney’s murder.

“Dude, what the hell?” I asked, sitting next to him. “Why are you watching this?”

Matt remained silent until the credits rolled. “Something happened between Chelsey and me earlier and I swear, as crazy as this sounds, it was like Courtney was standing in front of me. Then I come down here and watch this…you know what I realized? If you didn’t hit the right spot, then technically…she could still be alive.”

My eyes widened both in surprise and relief. It was weird hearing someone else verbalize my crazy thoughts. “But you don’t think that that’s really her, do you?”

He shrugged, “Hell if I know. It’s not like we have any proof.”

“That wouldn’t be that hard to come by…if we just plan it out well enough.”

“Dude,” Matt exclaimed, “could you imagine how much cash we could rake in by making a ‘sequel’ to the first video?”

He did have a pretty amazing point there. “Aw, man, now I’m in the mood for a kill,” I groaned.

“We could kill Chelsey,” Matt laughed.

“She’s not home right now.”

“That’s weird.”

“Eh, whatever. We can deal with her later. Let’s just go crazy tonight. No cameras, just kills.”

And that’s what we did. We took off into the night and spent some time in our usual spot downtown – the alleyways. We had just killed this streetwalker and stole her huge wad of singles. “Whoo that felt good,” I said, wiping some blood off my face.

“Agreed,” Matt sighed, leaning up against the wall.

I was about to turn and lead the way out, until a strange sight caught my eye. “Dude, check this out,” I said with a nudge, nodding my head toward a slightly open window on the fourth floor.

This naked chick just got out of the shower or something. She bent down for a moment before flipping her hair back. Then the weirdest thing happened. Blood flew off of her hair and splattered up against the portion of the window that was glass.

Matt and I exchanged interested looks as we stood still in a temporary stupor before making our way up there. “Man, we’re never gonna figured out which room that chick was in,” Matt groaned.

I was about to agree with him until I saw one door that wasn’t closed all the way. I gently pushed it open and stepped inside, instantly being met with the smell of blood and decay.

Matt followed close behind me as we made our way to the bedroom to find this dude all bloodied up, sprawled across the floor with his head inches away from his body. Next to him, there was a bathtub smeared with blood.

“Is this for real?” Matt whispered, not being able to turn away from the bloodbath.

“There’s no way that we could possibly have competition..."