Before I Die

It was a rainy night, dark and turbulent with fits of rain falling from the sky. Almost like tears at the ultimatum of three year’s work, at the end of a standoff. He stands under the heavy sheets of rain, gun cocked and loaded, drawn high in the air. He feels powerful suddenly, like nothing could ever bring him down, and maybe nothing can. Maybe he is simply that powerful, that is what it feels like, like that no matter what happens here right now, he can and will survive.

He does not have a care in the world. And he knows that is because something important and formidable is missing from deep inside of him. He knows this because in this very moment of life or death, he has no thoughts of her, his baby girl. All he can think about is doing as much damage as possible and still getting out alive.

He has known almost from birth that there is something wrong with him. For when kids were adopting animals from animal shelters around his small suburban town he was finding dead animal carcasses to dissect. Eventually even moving on to live animals to maim and hurt simply because that is what he loves, pain.

He stands now under the heavy rain prepared. Every single one of his senses is heightened, he is on high alert, this is it. The end, the end of an era so to speak. He is a brewing storm of thoughts and desires and he loves it. He loves the game, the chase and this standoff. He is not scared about what happens next because he knows there is no next, there is just him and these damn cops.

His last victim flits through his mind, bringing him a moment of peace and serenity in a time of insanity. She had looked so beautiful with her hair fanning her face, her insides hanging out in the open. Her heart pumping blood with each beat onto his hand. She had been his favourite and he knows no matter what happens here tonight he will never forget her; they are eternally bound. He has left devastation and loss in his wake, leaving a legacy of pain and brutality behind. He enjoys that.

He feels no remorse. Another glaringly obvious sign that something is amiss in that big old brain of his. No matter how hard he has tried, and believe him he has tried, he can never muster any remorse for his victims. It is like the emotion is simply missing from inside of him, and he is forced to search for it after each victim. Eight in total, all left in various parts of the city, one city over from where he lives, displayed in various poses for the police to seem his brilliant work. His works of art as he calls them.

No one ever suspected it was him. No one, because he was just that good. He laughs now at the thought of getting away with it, of murdering those poor innocent women, for three long years. He feels good right now with his gun aimed high, pointed at the head of a police officer as he stands on the edge of the dock waiting for them to take their shot. They won’t though, not yet, they are still trying to talk him down, talk him off the ledge so to speak. Trying to persuade him to turn himself in, but there is no way in hell he is going to jail. No way, he would never survive being confined without his art.

He steadies his gun, closes an eye and fires. A shot rings though the air hitting his mark, a uniformed policeman slightly to the right of the group of cops with all of their weapons drawn. The man had been shaking, terrified to his core standing in the presence of a psychopath, so he had to die. He was useless, one more name to add to his long list of victims.

Before he can react or fully understand what is happening he feels a hot pain shoot through his shoulder and he is forced back, teetering on the edge of the dock and the water. Hot pain erupts in too many places on his body to count, suddenly before he even registers it he is falling, falling into the murky water and going to sleep.

A long eternal sleep he will never wake from.