Help Me Tame This Animal I Have Become

Gerard's P.O.V.

I got the fuck out of his house, as quickly as I could, before throwing up the food I had just ingested on his front porch with an astonishing physical violence.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck this shit,” I groaned, still coughing out the last residues of puke from my mouth.

I stumbled down the stairway, the thought of what Frank would have to clean up when he found it crossing my mind only for a second before an excruciating pain running through my system convinced me there were now more important matters to worry about. I ran weakly across the street, then up the road and as far from Frank as my legs could bring me before giving up on me.

“Screw it!” I laughed, hard, looking up at the sky in defeat. “You win. You win again, motherfucker! I can't take it anymore!”

I made my way to a dirty bench on the corner of a desert Saint-Someone road, and let my body fall on its half-rotten boards. I had no strength left, not an ounce. My heart was beating at the speed and force of a firing AK-47, making it the only thing I could hear besides my ridiculously loud and raspy breaths. But I guess that was good. At least the voice was gone.

You should have killed him! He would have been perfect!

This is when I screamed. I screamed at the top of my lungs, holding my head between my ugly, rough, crimson-stained hands. Of course, the blood wasn't there anymore (or yet), but I could always see it. Just as I could always see my victims' faces if I closed my eyes, and just as I was seeing Frank and Mikey's at that moment, with incredible clarity. My nails dug into the side of my face as my voice died down, or most probably dried up, and suddenly the skin all over my chest felt as if it were being burnt by impossibly strong chemicals. I rolled to the ground, clawing at my torso and trying in vain to let the cold air get past my throat, that was being squeezed shut by frozen, colorless, deformed hands.

I AM GETTING IMPATIENT. Get me someone. The boy, your brother, a neighbor, a drug dealer, little does it matter. Get me a body. Get me a body!

I had never felt it so frustrated, so desperate. It was now burning my whole upper body, sending more jackhammers and gory images to my head as it strangled me. My fingers went to my neck, where I tried desperately to pull at something that wasn't even there to release my throat. I wasn't trying to fight back anymore, I was just trying to stay alive. I was blacking out in flashes, mind filling every time with more disgusting pictures, and I could feel my veins filling with the same scorching fluid that seemed to cover my skin. I knew I wouldn't be able to stay conscious much longer...

Luckily, seconds later it seemed to understand that I had no chance against it, and faded away with a final dominating scratch to my neck. Regaining my breath, I felt a familiar warmth trickle down to my collarbone, and I was at that point unsure if it were my own nails that had created the wound from which the blood was slowly spilling.

I slowly got back on my feet, head spinning wildly from what I had just endured. I brought my hand to my jacket pocket, palpating it just to be sure. But of course, I didn't need to. Even though I had left the knife at home, no doubt, it was on me as I looked up at the sign reading Saint-Pauline, where I knew I would find it: left pocket.

I walked up the street, this time more steadily, letting my eyes fall on anything that looked the slightest bit like a human body. I prayed to find someone fast, because I could not let it get me again today, especially now that it was so mad. Nervously, I accelerated, feeling as if my time was running out in front of me, and the only way to stay alive was to keep up with it.

With more sanctified names passing by on little metal plates, and not a single being in sight, I began to worry. I did not want to have to knock on somebody's door, risk to kill them in front of their spouse or child, and be forced to push the corpse counter up another number. I needed someone who was alone, whom I had never seen before and whose face would not hurt me when I saw it flash beneath my lids. But most of all I needed someone, and it was getting clearer with every step that I would have to risk the door-to-door scout killing.

“Hey sweetheart, where are you going so fast?” a soft female voice spoke as I crossed Saint-Carl, making me stop dead in my tracks, head snapping back behind me to where the sound was coming from. How in fuck could I have missed her?

She was probably in her twenties, though the thick layer of makeup she wore could have been cheating the childish traits of an even younger girl. Her long legs were barely covered, showing off as much milky skin as possible under her short poppy-colored skirt. A black laced underwear could easily be spotted through the thin fabric that let the chilly wind caress her thighs, and plump nipples proudly poked out under her top as she shivered. Over her cheetah-print tank top was nothing but a denim vest, and locks of long, dried-out bleached hair.

“Are you looking to have a little fun tonight?” she asked me, smiling slyly with her burgundy lips.

“Something like that,” I said, looking at her like a falling man finally seeing the ground. Deep feelings of horror and relief washed over me as I started walking in my next victim's direction, knowing exactly what was about to happen to her curvy body. Probably not what she thought would.

“Well honey, looks like it's your lucky night,” she told me, curling her index finger in an inviting motion.

I followed her down Saint-Carl street, where she was probably leading me to the nearest motel. As soon as an alley caught in my glance, I came closer to her and grabbed her icy arm, leaning in to whisper in her ear.

“Sorry honey, looks like it ain't yours.”

I dragged her to the garbage-filled alleyway, a hand slapped firmly on her lipstick-covered mouth to muffle any potential shrieks. I shoved her against the moldy brick wall, suddenly feeling bad about how she would die. Alone, murdered, dressed for work, in a stinking fucking dark alley.

“Okay,” I started, holding her still with my right hand as my left relaxed on her unmoving lips. “I'm going to slowly remove my hand now, and you're going to keep quiet. One cry and you're in big fucking trouble, got that?”

She nodded calmly and I held my part of the deal, hand sliding down to my jacket.

“There are certain things I don't do, sir,” she mumbled dumbly, very quietly, looking up with naive and barely confused eyes.
She seemed used to being treated like this, which made me cringe disgustedly even though it only made my job easier.

“Oh darling, I'm not interested in your body,” I told her somewhat sadly. “Well... not in that way.”

I grabbed the heavy handle from my pocket and pulled out the knife, swiftly bringing it up to her throat as I pressed the ruby that deployed its sharp blade. Small electric-like shocks were already flowing into my palm from my dear friend, making that connection that had damned me the night I had first touched it.

The dumb expression on her young face quickly turned to one of pure, frozen terror, and this time I sensed her instincts kick in as she opened her mouth.

“Remember. You scream, big fucking trouble. Okay?”

I pressed the edge of the knife more firmly against her flesh, but made sure not to draw any blood yet. When crimson came in contact with the silver blade, it was over. I went crazy. People died very fast.

“I-I don't know what you're after, sir... You're my first tonight, I have no money on me, I swear!”

“I don't care for your goddamn money.”

“T-then you have the wrong girl! I-I don't know you! I've never done any wrong to anyone!”

“I don't know you either, babe, that's what makes it so perfect! Don't you get it?” I laughed, and I could feel it come so close. I was losing it and her death was coming like a racing car on its final lap.

“Listen, I'm only doing this to survive. I-I need to feed my kid, I-I haven't seen a dime from the father and my m-mom's kicked me out. I'm not a bad person, sir! I just need to survive.”
I winced at the mention of her kid, but survive was an even stronger word.

“Survive. Yes. I know. I need to survive too. I'm sorry. Nothing personal.”

At that moment it started, and it was over so fucking fast.
I sliced her neck open, watching the dark blood spray out of it with a crazed deliverance, grinning and laughing as I got drenched in the warm liquid. I was gone already. I knew it wasn't me who was holding that knife. Yet I could still see the knife in my crimson-soaked hand, and I kept stabbing her, ripping open her insides with my weapon as I licked a coppery drip from the side of my mouth.

I could feel my heartbeat in my palm, against the cold carved metal of the handle. My vessels were pumping more than blood through my system. They were carrying electricity, energy, pleasure, but most importantly they were carrying my remedy and washing the pain away. They would drown out the voice, and the headaches, and the choking, and the nausea, and the images -- oh God finally the images would be gone -- , and the thoughts, and the dreams. At least for a while.
The meager reward for my labor.

Soon I felt her body squirm under the blade, muscles giving their last spasms as her face turned paler and her beautiful blue eyes became vacant, victory signs from death's part as she gave up the fight. She slid to the ground, now a lump of bloody, severed flesh laying limp on the dirt of this stinking fucking dark alley.

“I'm not a bad person, sweetheart. I just need to survive.”

I backed away from the mess, giving her body one last glance before turning around and walking back to dear old Saint-Carl street. I pulled the knife out in the streetlight's flare and inspected it closely. It seemed satisfied. It was heavier than before, colder too, and much, much brighter.
Before wiping it clean on my jean-clad thigh, snapping it shut and shoving it out of sight for good, I noticed with a chilling casualness that the ruby on its handle shone in the same way as her blood on the silver blade.

I made my way back, without much thought, to the Saint-Someone (Paul, or something?) road where I had spent one of the worst moments of my life earlier, and stopped in the middle of the street as I spotted the rotten bench on the sidewalk.
I shut my eyes, smirking, enjoying what I was not feeling anymore.

No more orders. No more faces. No more burning. No more screams. No more pain. As close to sanity as I would ever get.

All of a sudden, as I looked up to the darkening sky, I burst into a fit of no-longer-maniacal laughter, throwing my soiled hands up to the heavens.

“Well! Can't spell slaughter without laughter, huh?”

Another fit, that lasted until I noticed how dirty my shirt had become during the murder, and I nonchalantly told the empty neigborhood:

“I need to wash all this. I got red on me!”