Payback

by T. S. Worthington

  “So, it sounds like you dickheads need my help,” Jeffries snarled. Every word out of Jeffries mouth sounded like he was barking at you. He was loud and irritable. Since being incarcerated he had spent at least six months in solitary confinement for behavior issues and he had been in several fights. Despite his small stature he fought like a lion and being psychotically crazy he almost always deeply injured the other person or persons he was fighting. Brian had heard that four guys ganged up on Jeffries last year in a prison fight and they had beaten him savagely. But watching the tapes in preparation for this interview before leaving the station Brian had felt sick as he saw Jeffries get up and retaliate. Two of the men had permanent brain damage from being kicked in the head repeatedly by Jeffries as another man punched him on the back and the body, Jeffries refusing to go down. As he finished stomping the two men on the ground out he suddenly lunged and attacked the man who was punching him.

  In one fell swoop Jeffries had bitten the man’s neck, ripping a huge gash of flesh out of him. The man had bled to death.

  Jeffries was often kept in solitary just to keep others safe.

  It was surreal sitting in front of this genuine human monster. Brian had dealt with a lot of psychopaths and murderers in his time as a homicide detective, but Jeffries was by far the most inhuman person he had ever met. The man had nothing in his eyes. When you looked into them you saw nothing but a big abyss of emptiness. There was no warmth or humanity anywhere to be found and he got the impression that there never had been either.

  “It’s nice to see you again too, Ian,” John replied. Brian glanced at John. He knew that John had met and interviewed Jeffries before, but he had never really put it together in his head that John would be that comfortable speaking to someone like Jeffries. John was a solid cop but he had never had the best people skills and just never could pull off that glib routine in the interview process. He was not an interrogator by any means and Brian was wondering why Arnold had allowed John to come in his place. Maybe the old man was getting too old to be traveling all over hell’s half acre just to get some info from a serial killer. Maybe the chief wanted to stay behind and ram it to those lab geeks to hunt for every piece of evidence that there possibly could be. John could just see him now yelling at them to hurry the hell up and get moving on this thing. There was evidence there somewhere and if any of them ever wanted another dime of a paycheck they would find the damn thing. He would have them all working at McDonald’s before it was all over if they thought he was playing around. It was fun to watch Arnold work sometimes. Brian missed it.

  “Well, in case you missed the memo boys, I’m behind bars twenty-three hours a damn day. I haven’t been able to fit it into my busy schedule to skin anybody lately,” Jeffries said. He leaned back and smiled with smug satisfaction at his clever insults.

  “Thanks, for the heads up on that one. But we were hoping you might be able to give us some insights,” Brian said.

  “Insights? Do I look like Tony fucking Robbins? I don’t have any answers for you,” Jeffries said.

  Brian figured that he would clam up and not tell them anything. It was quite possible that he really did not have a clue, but even if he did he was not going to divulge any information to them. He had no reason to. There was nothing in it for him. Besides this was a lot more fun for him and he had the power of these two seasoned cops begging him for answers. That would make him the hero of his cell block for a bit.

  The guy was a piece of shit. End of story.

  But Brian knew more than one way to get some info out of an uncooperative prisoner.

  “So, you don’t have any opinions on this at all? It just seems to me that someone is basically ripping you off. They are taking something—a system, methodology, whatever you want to call it—and they are basically shoving it in your face. Some stupid poser is out there taking credit for your ideas. Hell the guy just stepped on the scene but it wouldn’t surprise me if the arrogant little prick started to taunt the cops on social media or sending letters to us claiming that you never did anything. Maybe we caught the wrong man all those years ago. Maybe you were just the patsy.”

  Brian could see Jeffries getting more and more angry as his ego began to take a beating. That was precisely what he wanted from the narcissistic shit.

  “Maybe you were the fall guy. Is that what happened Ian? Your partner sells you out and leave you holding the bag?”

  “Fuck you! I never had no damn partner. I did it. I skinned all of those little bitches and I still jack off to the memories!”

  Brian sat back and appeared to be bored, which he was. He knew that John was getting a bit upset and nervous watching this mad man become more and more agitated. The psycho was chained to a chair that was welded to the floor; he couldn’t do shit to them. But it was fun getting him all riled up.

  He didn’t think that Jeffries had any idea that his intended last victim was now Brian’s wife. It was a nice little nugget of information that Brian was going to keep under severe lock and key. You never wanted someone like Jeffries to learn anything about you that they could twist or use. It could easily turn into a high grade assault and attack session.

  “You getting a bit testy here Ian?”

  “Let me tell you something. Whoever this asshole is hasn’t got a clue how to do the work. From what they let me read in the paper today he is just grasping at straws. He is having a bit of fun, but he doesn’t know how to really pull this thing off.”

  “What do you mean Ian? Pull what off?”

  “It’s a scam,” Jeffries said slowly with a smile on his face.

  “What kind of a scam?”

  “Serial murder is always a scam. It is a scam that is played upon the public and on the cops. You scare everyone making them think they are all targets and you taunt the cops letting them know they can’t protect everybody. Hell they can’t protect even a few people. That is the biggest part of the scam. But the serial killer is pulling a scam on himself. He is telling himself that he will get so good at the act of killing that it will fix what is wrong inside. Somehow this is going to make the pain and the emptiness go away, and when he finally realizes that it isn’t working he goes nuts and falls apart. Some take their own lives and are never caught for their crimes, while others just continue on in desperation trying to prove to themselves that they aren’t crazy and that they haven’t wasted so much of their lives fantasizing and preparing to do this only to have it be futile and unfulfilling.”

  Brian almost thought that Jeffries was about to cry after finishing his diatribe, but he knew that the lunatic didn’t have that in him anywhere. But what he had just told them might eventually prove useful.

  “So, you are saying we need to play off that to speed up the process,” Brian said.

  “Precisely.”

  “How do we do that?” John asked.

  Jeffries looked at him almost surprised that John was still there.

  “Do I have to tell you how to do every little thing?” Jeffries said.

  Brian laughed and Jeffries looked at him like he was ready to kill him. “We have to draw him out so he makes a mistake.”

  “That’s right. You have to appeal to his stupidity and his ego,” Jeffries said.

  Brian thought this was amusing since he had just done that to Jeffries, but he wasn’t sure that Ian realized it.

  The two left the prison about ten minutes later after Jeffries clammed back up again and refused to talk. That was fine. The asshole could rot behind bars.

  “So that was a waste,” John said as they reached the car.

  “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  “How do you figure? We already kind of knew what he advised. It is common sense with killers like that to try to draw them out in to the open so they fuck up somewhere, but that is risky because usually it means more killing.”

  “Well, yea. You are right about that, but that is not why this was actually a worthwhile pursuit. Jeffries got so
mad when I pressed him that if he had a partner or if he had any clue who was doing this he would have let it slip somehow. But there was nothing.”

  “You think that is an exact science?” John asked.

  Brian smiled. “Nothing really is in this line of work, but if those old hunches of mine are coming back then this is one of them. Jeffries doesn’t know anything.”

  Chapter 4: The Darkness Revealed

  That’s it; just keep running around in circles little doggies.

  He switched off the news and took a long drink of his cold beer. The adrenaline that had been flowing through his system for hours was finally starting to come down. He was starting to feel a bit normal. At least until the urge struck him again.

  All of his life he had fought the urge that dwelled within him and he had struggled against it for so long, trying to deny that it even existed. He had told no one about it; he wasn’t stupid. They would have locked him up in some looney bin when he was just a kid if he had tried to talk to anyone about the sinister feelings he was having, the feelings that only got better when he killed something.

  When he thought about it the idea struck him first to kill something when he was just six years old. He had been riding his bike through the woods behind their house. There were several great jogging and bike paths there where he had practically lived as a child. He had never been the type to stay indoors. He was always out and about outside doing something fun. Even though he was usually alone.

  He was always a shy kid who had trouble relating to others. That was a problem for him to this day, but he had learned over time to fake it and to pretend to be one of them when he was in fact just the opposite. It was a balancing act that he had become damned good at, he thought. When he went about his daily activities no one had any inkling of who or what he really was.

  He still remembered the first time the urge took him over. He had woken up from a bad dream when he was just six years old. He could not remember what the dream had been about, but he remembered that he wanted to kill something. To this day he had no idea where the thought came from. He just wanted to kill something. The feeling was erupting inside of him and he did not know what to do with it.

  He tried to ignore it and it just grew stronger as the days passed. He was not able to sleep. He had to force food down his throat. He felt sweaty and like he was about to freak out at any moment. He wanted to tell his mother that he was sick with something, but he knew it was related to wanting to destroy some living thing. Any time he fantasized about it then the feeling got a bit better.

  Finally he made up his mind that he was going to do it. The neighbor kid down the street, Ricky had a dog that barked off and on all the time. It would wake him up at least twice a week and it often barked at him when he was riding his bike or even just walking down the block. He hated that dog as he figured almost everyone in the neighborhood did.

  So he made up his mind that he was going to kill it. The next morning he grabbed some lunch meat out of the fridge and wrapped it around some rat poison pellets. Then he fed it to the damn dog. Within minutes the dog started to twitch and writhe on the ground. He kept looking to make sure that no one could see what he was doing or what was happening. Ricky and his parents had gone away for the day to visit Ricky’s grandma in Mesa and he knew they would be gone for hours.

  The collie was dead within minutes. Watching the creature writhe and die in agony was the most amazing thing that he had ever had the pleasure of watching. He expected that it should have disgusted him and he kept waiting for the feelings of despair to overtake him, but instead the opposite happened. He was excited by it. He was so happy about what he had just done. It was like being God and he instantly became addicted to the power of being able to just kill some living thing. It was fun.

  In fact, he remembered that as the dog was dying he felt his dick getting bigger and hard. This happened occasionally when he was six, but he had never really told anyone and he had never asked anyone what that meant. It felt weird and he was a bit ashamed of it. Just like he was ashamed that he still wet his bed a few times a week. He had started first grade and he was sure that no one else in his grade still did this. His mother always yelled at him when he did it. He hated his mother sometimes and he often fantasized about something bad happening to her so that he would be free to just be himself.

  After the dog died he took the body into the woods where no one could see him and skinned it with a big kitchen knife that he had taken from the cupboard. Afterwards he had played with the skins and examined them closely. That was where it all started for him.

  After this murder of the dog he had slept well for almost two weeks without the urge gnawing at him, but then it came back and it was stronger. So he had to go out searching for another animal. But eventually he knew that animals would never be enough. Each time the urge came back stronger and much more intense. Now it felt like he was almost rabid with pain when the urge struck and he could not even think about anything else.

  He was in danger of losing his job because lately all he could focus on was the urge to kill and skin things. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to remove the skins. He didn’t know why he wanted to keep the skins as trophies hanging behind a glass trophy case he had bought and put in in his basement. He didn’t know why he became sexually excited to the point of total release as he slid the knife under the skin and scraped against the bone so slowly. Normal sex had never felt remotely as good. In fact, he was usually not able to get excited enough to perform real sex with anyone.

  Luckily his new girlfriend understood that he was “saving himself” for marriage. She was a nerdy and mousy acting girl he had met at work. She was a good cover and she was pleasant enough. She was not clingy or emotionally needy, but she was also not confident or outgoing. She was nice and quiet. He had carefully selected her to meet his criteria. No one suspected a thing about him. He had very diligently constructed the façade that was his life.

  The cops were idiots. He had always known that, but it was funny watching them and the media compare his crimes to that of the Carver. He had remembered hearing about the carver back when he had been caught and he had noticed how similar the actions were to his own leanings. It was really just a bit of a coincidence; at least that was what he had thought at first.

  After realizing how much they had in common he had gone nuts and read everything that he could about the Carver murders. The man had gotten away with it for a long time. It was really just a fluke that he had been caught. There was something to learn from a man like that he supposed. He wanted to learn and to work on his craft as much as possible.

  He was still using animals, but it was not really doing much for him anymore at that time. He really needed to kill a person, but that was a real crime with real consequences if you made a mistake. He could throw his whole life away if he didn’t do it right. That would not do. He would never allow himself to be taken alive and thrown in a cage like a damn rat like Jeffries had done. The man thought he was important and that he had power somehow by being behind bars. That was a fool’s thinking. Maybe that was why he had been caught.

  But the Carver’s work was so inspiring. As soon as he had learned who the Carver was and had read everything he could get his hands on about the Carver’s methods he had decided that he would take inspiration from the man. The Carver was in fact an artist. For the longest time he had been wrestling with the demon inside of him, knowing that eventually he would be forced to kill people and then once he did there would be no turning back. He would continue to kill until he was stopped or he decided to end his own life. He had no such desires to kill himself.

  Now that he had a goal and some direction he was ready to start his work. The first victim had been so amazing that he had wanted more. He had actually planned to kill the couple next week sometime, but he had been so amped up after the first murder that he wanted more. All of these years of waiting for it had built up an intensity that he could not deny any lon
ger. He had found himself on the freeway driving to their house. He had picked the lock silently and let himself in. The people were asleep and it had been easy to take them by surprise. Why anyone this day and age did not invest in a security system was lunacy, he remembered thinking.

  It had been even more fun than the first victim and he had taken his time to really savor the experience. He kept replaying the scene over and over in his mind but he wished that he could actually relive it. He decided that next time he was going to bring a camera and film it. He had to. That way he could sit in the comfort of his home and just rewatch it over and over again and really relive the experience. He would probably not even have to kill as many people if he did that because the videos would help him during the interim between kills. He knew that if he did too many then he would go too fast and he would slip up somewhere. That would get him locked up in a cage right beside the real Carver.

  That was not happening--not that he wouldn’t like to meet the man who had inspired him so much-- but he was not sure the Carver would share his enthusiasm. He was probably pissed that he had stolen the motive and the style of operation from him. But regardless, he was not going to deal with a cage any way. He would kill himself first if it ever came to that. If he was eventually caught and he figured he probably would be. Either he would lose his concentration at just the wrong moment one time and slip up or he would just decide to end it all one day. It was inevitable if he kept going and he didn’t see any reason why he would stop. The need would continue and it would continue to get stronger as it had his whole life.

  He had so enjoyed the few moments of peace he had acquired by these savage acts of butchery on his victims. The need had been satisfied like a drug that had been injected into his veins. The high was there and it was good. But it would wear off eventually and then the need would return with a vengeance that could not be matched or reasoned with.