Chapter 11
Wine With Fish
Among us there are a great many men and women who go beyond the call of duty in times of dire need. People who go to war to serve and protect what they know as their homeland. I will not make a list of all these people, but I assure you, there are many. My mail man was one such person, as was a close friend I once knew. My uncle also recently made a friend who had served during a great number of wars, although this man had the unfortunate disposition of being completely imaginary.
While in the asylum, my uncle told me of the many harrowing tales of a Captain Arthur J. Mugglepuffs, a giant with a body composed of steel, the strength of a thousand albino polar bears, and a retractable moustache that went either up or down depending on the weather.
According to my uncle, Arthur J. Mugglepuff had fought in nearly every war in the 20th century, including World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. He recalled events of him smashing planes while standing atop a skyscraper, and foiling the evil plans of the Red Skull. All these he did as a hero to his country, to serve and protect the people of his native land of Krypton, years before it met its unfortunate demise.
Shortly after my uncle told me this, I thought it best to cut my visiting hours, and to stop sending him comic books.
If there was one thing that my rambling uncle told me though that made an inkling of sense however, it is that there are indeed many a soldier who sacrifice and risk their lives to ensure the freedoms of others. Arthur J. Mugglepuff, despite being entirely fictional, could be considered one of these special brands of people. Edward D. Kipper on the other hand, who was very much real and alive, could not.
Approaching the fragile age of seventy two, Edward Kipper had accomplished more in his own life than anyone else in his family. The fact that he had fought multiple times during World War II and survived the rest of his bloodline was what he considered to be a testament to his own inner strength.
To him, the only ones that mattered in life were those who had the strength to survive on their own. And though he did serve as a British soldier during World War II, he did so not with the intent of serving his country, but himself. Every day during his station in France, he would eagerly count the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until he had the chance to kill enemy combatants. With each man that fell by his gun was a number that he boasted openly to his fellow soldiers. During his first month, that number was two. Five during his second, and it increased to twelve during his third.
Of his many accomplishments, what Edward felt most proud of was that by the end of his tour, he was responsible for the deaths of fifty enemy combatants. To him it mattered not what they were fighting for or what he himself was fighting for, only that he proved his dominance, his strength. A strength that had served him well in the past, and one that had all but left him in his present.
Nowadays, Edward lived in the home of his grandparents, the only member left of the Kipper biological family. And though this may have saddened any ordinary human being, Edward took it as yet another accomplishment, another testament to his strength as a man.
Of course, now that he’d survived every challenge in his entire life, there was nothing left to do but wait and die. Sitting alone on his couch, coughing anemically into his hand, feelings of self-pity came over him as they often did during his old age. After all he had gone through, he had prayed and hoped for a better way to die than this. Lying around with nothing to do, rotting with age each day that passed him by; this was not the way that a warrior was meant to pass. What he wanted above all else was one more battle. A way to test what little he had left of his strength.
Little did he know that sooner than he could think, he would find precisely that. And when he did, like it or not, there would be no turning back.
Night fell over the city. Under the cover of darkness, Alex Frost stared into the window of the one-story home, at the grey-haired man who did nothing but sit by himself in absolute boredom.
“This is the man you want me to kill?”
Lord Combermere stared alongside her, his hands placed deep inside his pockets as a wave of cool air blew past. His monocle rested on his eye, fogging up due to the fifty below climate.
“That he is.”
Maintaining her distance, Alex observed Edward’s scrawny build, his bones nearly as thin as paper.
“Seems simple.”
“You have to start somewhere. After all, you bit more than you could chew with your previous victim.”
“Robert Savage?”
“On top of being twice your size, the man had a gun. He could have killed you.”
“I didn’t know he carried a gun. It wasn’t something I expected, especially not when handguns are illegal.”
“Well, there’s a valuable lesson to be learned in that.”
“Expect the unexpected,” Alex mouthed, as though she had been forced to repeat it to herself over and over again.
“Our Edward Kipper has killed fifty men during war. That takes talent. He may be old now, but I wouldn’t underestimate him.”
“Note taken.”
Alex checked her bag of supplies. Present was the bottle of chloroform, a roll of duct tape, her lock pick set, and the most important tool of them all.
“Don’t take the knife,” Lord Combermere instructed.
“Why not?”
“Because your goal is not to kill him.”
Alex paused. “I don’t understand.”
“What I want you to do is something that takes more skill than simply running a knife in his chest.”
“And what would that be?” Pray tell, as Amy would often say.
“You are going to abduct our dear Mr. Kipper, and together we will bring him to my home. Then, we finish him off there.”
After she mulled it over to herself, his instruction made ample sense.
If Alex was going to continue to do what she was doing, she had to train herself to be as physically capable as she could. Not to mention, the less of a mess she left at the crime scene, the less likely it would have been to leave behind any unneeded residue of evidence.
With the bag strapped to her back, Alex was ready for what awaited ahead.
“Wish me luck.”
“I do hope you’re not relying on luck to get you through.”
A simple Yes would have done, Alex thought. Or a Good Luck, Good Hunting. Don’t Get Hurt, Safe Journey. For just a short while, Alex remained where she stood, wondering if Lord Combermere had anything else to say. He didn’t. His eyes were aimed at the window, at the panoramic view of Edward Kipper.
Say what one would about humans, but Alex didn’t think she would ever get used to her mentor’s penurious demeanor. It was as though any aspect of human behavior she picked up, he was more than willing to crumple up and throw away.
Alex circled the house, decided that the best entrance would have been through the back. She pulled the knob from the backyard door. Lo and behold, it was open. It appeared that her soon-to-be victim liked to live dangerously, without fear of potential robbers or serial killers. That was just as well. It saved Alex the five minutes of having to pick the lock.
She opened the door in front of her, shut it just as carefully behind. Aside from a whisper of a squeak, all was silent. If Edward Kipper was aware of her presence, she heard no signs of it.
Drops of chloroform were dabbed onto a white handkerchief. She was careful this time to keep it as far away from her nose as she could.
Skulking in tight jeans, black cotton gloves, and a pair of sneakers, Alex took her steps with utmost grace. Not one foot dropped heavier than the other. It helped that because she didn’t have a soul, she was able to maintain her calm all throughout, fearing no reprisals or unexpected surprises. She was incapable of flinching. It helped also that the floors were all carpeted, making her every move as easy as one-two-three.
One. Finding Edward Kipper’s back, his grey head sticking out from the furniture he was
sitting on.
Two. Approaching him, bearing a handkerchief with enough toxic chemicals to put him out for at least fifteen minutes (that was, assuming it didn’t rupture his degenerating body organs first).
Three. Catching him by the throat the instant he saw her reflection on his television. Subduing him into unconsciousness before he had the time to stand on his feet to react.
“Hmph!” he cried, muffled by the scent of the cloth sifting into his nose, into his mouth. Edward’s arms and legs kicked wildly at the air, showing no thought or objectivity. For as long as he was still awake, Edward Kipper panicked in hopeless desperation.
Hardly five seconds in, and he was gone.
“You did it,” Lord Combermere observed before Alex had any way of knowing that he was in the same room with her. “Flawless performance.”
From her knapsack, Alex pulled out a heavy line of duct tape. She tied him down like a spider would trap its prey, so that even when he woke, he would be too helpless to do anything other than squirm.
In the corner of the room was a folded wheelchair. Alex unfurled it, parked it beside Edward Kipper. As she lifted the lanky old man on her shoulder, she had found much to her chagrin that he was heavier he looked. Significantly. To the point that with his short height, thin muscles and his soft bones, she was left wondering where all the extra pounds came from.
With bare success, Edward was able to fall on the wheelchair. Uncomfortably. He was unconscious, so that didn’t matter much. He wasn’t likely to wake up soon. Alex took the man to a rented van outside that Lord Combermere had recently acquired. She threw Edward into the back of the van, relieved to be rid of the weight of his body. He smacked head-first against the cold, metal base.
“Easy,” said Lord Combermere. “You don’t want him to wake up just yet.”
But it was too late. Edward Kipper was coming out of his short, drug induced nap, groaning as he slowly came to.
“Just great.”
Lord Combermere climbed to the back of the van, and with a swift kick from his heel, knocked him back to sleep.
“We should leave now.”
The van left at precisely 12 A.M, going neither too fast nor too slow. Traffic was hardly present as they went along back roads and city neighborhoods. But when they reached the highway, they were taken in by a vivacious party of yellow headlights, and a series of cars jam-packed on the interstate Northridge bridge.
Lord Combermere kept his hands firm on the steering wheel. Alex reared her head out the window as the vehicle came to a stop behind a dark blue sedan. The line, as far as she could tell, went for at least a mile. From the looks of it, they were going to be around for a while.
“What’s going on?” Alex asked, though it didn’t seem that her mentor shared her curiosity.
“Most likely a car accident,” he conjectured. “Keep your head in the car.”
Without a word of protest, Alex obeyed. An entire hour slowly trudged by, and the van hadn’t been able to move as much as a single yard. They waited all that time in silence, until Alex thought to speak.
“You know,” she started. “Amy and I used to come to this bridge a lot when we were fourteen. We would borrow her father’s Porsche every night, and we would take it anywhere.”
“Please,” interrupted Lord Combermere. “As I have mentioned before, I don’t need to know about the time you spend with your plebian friends.”
If Alex considered what she had with Amy and the rest of the students of Elsinore Academy to be a genuine friendship, she more than likely would have resented that statement. Since Alex didn’t, she thought nothing of it, though asked herself why the need for her mentor’s hostility.
“ Well, then what do you want to talk about?” she asked him.
“Nothing,” was his answer, and nothing, he gave in return.
“Why don’t you tell me about your family?”
“I would rather not.”
“Why? Too personal?”
Lord Combermere glanced at the road, then at the front passenger seat. “It’s not something I want to discuss at this moment.”
With that, Alex Frost leaned back, stared out the window to her left.
The river below glittered with the moon’s aura, giving a distorted reflection of its crested face.
The surface of the water bounced up and down, turned left and right, unaware of what it was doing, unable to care either way. The black of night, combined with the blue of the sea and the white of the moon came together to form a picture perfect image. She watched it, thinking that if she did it long enough, maybe she would start to understand what was so attractive about it.
Alex knew in the dank pits of her soulless heart that it was a hopeless endeavor. It wasn’t the first time she’d looked at beauty and tried to convince herself that it was beautiful. She had seen many a Monet, many a Picasso, a Matisse. And while she could compliment them for their stark attention to detail, she failed to muster any emotions from looking at their work.
It has been said that art is most effective when the viewer allows it to leap beyond the boundaries of the canvass, and let it climbed in their souls. By now I need not tell you why this would have been impossible for Alex Frost.
The tragedy of our girl without a soul was that the only chance she had of finding any inkling of joy in life was in killing. Nothing else could give her the ability to feel life. Not the sight of the river before her eyes, nor the city traffic lights at night, not even the moon that hung like a shining pearl in the black sky.
Maybe the time would come when she could feel like any ordinary human being. But until came that day, killing would have to do.
Alex Frost Meets The Killer Page 23
