Murderer of the World: Chapter 5
I haven't really looked through it, but I had fun writing it. And ha to those who might have thought I gave up on it! Criticism is always appreciated, no matter how harsh.
Chapter 5
“Hey, Zerachi?”
It was a sunny day, classes had just ended. I was walking out of the school house with my friends, staring absent-mindedly at the blue sky above us. The sound of Hermann’s (one of the four people I used to hang out with) voice broke me away from my non-existent thoughts.
“Yeah?” I responded.
“Pay attention,” Hermann reprimanded. “We’re all going fishing at the lake. You in?”
“Yeah, sure,” I responded.
“Good, see ya at six then.”
I began to break away from the group and head for my family’s house, but someone pulled me back with a tug of my shoulder. It was Setrai, the joker and ladies’ man of the group (or so he thought). He was short compared to me, which I could only see the very top of his brown hair when I looked back at eye level. He always had a crazy smile smeared below his large nose.
“You’ll bring me a fishing rod, right?” asked Setrai.
“Yeah, sure,” I responded like a recording.
“And don’t forget some bait, since we don’t have any.”
“Yeah, sure,” I responded, still with the same inflection.
“Good,” Setrai said with an even broader smile. “See ya, Zera.”
I departed from the group for real this time, noting a mixture of smiles and looks of pity among them. I don’t remember what exactly I was thinking at the time. There was no doubt in my mind I was being used by my “friends” to get them things. But it gave me a sense of…belonging. They acquired the crap I would get for them, and I wouldn’t be lonely. A win-win situation.
I traveled down the brick street south, where my home lay not too far. It was the last one on the left, a small cottage with just enough room for my parents and me. It was a rather dark brown color (the “shit-shack”, as my friends had called it) and leaned noticeably to the right, as if it wanted to up-root itself from its very foundation and runaway. A small garden of flowers (and when I say small, I mean three total) was planted right in front of the kitchen window; a feeble attempt to make the place look somewhat decent.
I entered the house through the front door, a loud creak following me inside. My parents were gone, as usual. If my dad had been home, he’d probably put me through a guilt trip about taking the fishing equipment and remind me that I didn’t really have any friends. Mom wouldn’t say anything, but she’d stand beside Dad and nod through the whole speech. But whatever, they weren’t there, so I snatched my fishing pole and my dad’s and went back outside.
All that was left was the bait. I ambled to a random spot in the yard, got down on my knees, and placed the fishing poles to my left. I then started digging through the soil with my hands, searching for worms.
The recyclers of the earth. People are often compared to worms, as if they were the most insignificant creatures in existence. Yet they hold the power to reduce dead material back into energy for plants to take advantage of. I wouldn’t mind being called a worm, I thought as I dug through the dirt, as long as it meant I served some kind of purpose in life.
After catching three of the sightless creatures and stuffing them into my pant pockets, a shadow emerged from behind me. I looked behind me and saw Nitzer, one of the gang. He was a meek fellow with a very large, heavy pair of glasses in front of his poor eyes. There were two reasons that he was part of the group: he was the fraternal twin brother of Hermann and he would give the answers to tests to the others within the group. He wasn’t as smarts as the others thought, but he was the smartest of the group, at least.
Nitzer was the same as me in the end, though. A tool.
“What is it, Nitzer?” I asked him, returning to the hunt. “Are we still fishing?”
“Ye-yeah, they’re still fishing,” he nervously replied.
“What is it then?”
It felt like more than five minutes passed in complete silence. I found two more worms and started to work on a new hole beside the one I dug down about a foot. Nitzer always had a problem speaking his mind, asking for help, and…well, talking in general. So, I thought I’d be productive in the mean time.
“Um…Zerachi?” Finally, Nitzer said something, but it was still a cautious step in order to gather his thoughts.
“Yeah?” I continued to gather the bait.
“They…talk about you behind your back.”
“Do they now?”
“N-not nice things…”
“It’s natural,” I said, dusting the thought aside. “They’re always cracking on each other.”
“B-b-but, no! It’s not like that at all. Th-they laugh at how obedient you are, like a d-d-dog.”
I froze, clumps of dirt still in my hands. I looked back at Nitzer, searching for truth. He looked very distraught over it, perhaps carrying that information for some time. It must have finally got to him.
But did this change anything? Did I even like them? The win-win situation was still in effect. We could be friends and hate each other. Do friends have to like each other?
“Okay,” I said after a minute’s thought, wiping the dirt out of my hands.
“O-okay?! Your friends use you and don’t even like you and you just say it’s ‘okay’?”
I never heard Nitzer sound so serious. I looked up at him and saw the anger reflected in his face.
“Why do you care?” I asked.
“Because it isn’t right!”
“Do you have room to talk, Nitzer?”
He went silent, staring down at his shoes in shame.
“You don’t need to like each other to be friends,” I said.
“Yes, the best enemies make the greatest friends,” scoffed Nitzer, turning his back and exiting the yard.
His words stuck with me. Was loneliness worse than this? They were taking advantage of my loneliness, but I was only taking advantage of an unwanted company. Selfishness taking advantage of selfishness. I didn’t want to be selfish anymore…
The pub was not very busy that night. The murder at the Diablo Ranch caused paranoia to keep the people off the streets at such a late hour. The only ones crazy enough to do any drinking that night were a trio of friends; a town guard, a gambler, and a professional alcoholic. They were not afraid of the possible danger. They just needed a release from the world.
“So,” said the gambler, “How’s that dork of a brother doing, Hermann?”
The town guard raised his mug halfway but stopped when he heard his name.
“I don’t know. We haven’t spoken in a few years. He’s still interning as a doctor, as far as I know.”
“He must have seen the murder victim then,” laughed the large-nosed alcoholic as he eyed the bar hostess’s chest. “You heard the rumors who might have done it, haven’t you, you guys?”
The town guard and gambler shook their heads from their stools. The town guard knew, of course, but he still felt obligated to let his friend talk his mouth off. That is how it had always been.
“Old crazy Zera himself!”
“No foolin’?” asked the gambler, though he did not sound very surprised.
“Yeah!” laughed the alcoholic, getting in a few gulps before he spoke again. “You remember how he worked at the ranch? After all these years, he still worked there! He was bound to snap eventually.”
“One of the guys I worked with investigated the scene,” mentioned the town guard matter-of-factly.
“No foolin’?” repeated the gambler from earlier, though sounding more curious this time. “Anything worth mentioning?”
“Yes, tell us!” The drunk was agitated that he was not the one sharing the news, but he was curious nonetheless.
“The poor man was stabbed until he died,” said the town guard, appreciating the momentary center of attention. “And the murderer kept stabbing him long after he was dead too. Spread a big mess of blood all over the room. The only thing the murderer left behind was a pair of gloves, which they’ve been analyzing for finger prints.”
“Damn!” exclaimed the gambler. “If it was Zerachi, he sure was dumb about it, leaving evidence like that.”
“I told you, he snapped,” chimed in the drunk while searching for the bar hostess to call for another beer. “The guy turned hermit after graduation. The isolation probably drove him mad!”
“Yeah, he was never right in the head,” spoke the town guard solemnly. “But I guess he had a bigger spine than Nitzer had.”
“Why do you say that?” coughed the gambler as he tried to huff out smoke from his cigarette.
“Well, we were just using him, just like my brother. They were friendless and we took advantage of that.”
“So,” scoffed the drunk, who gave up on his search for more alcohol. “No one would have talked to him anyway. He’s just that weird. We’re good Samaritans for being so nice to the guy.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Exactly. When have I ever been wrong, huh? Bartender! Another round, compliments of Mr. Hermann here!”
Silence answered the drunk back. The dimly lit bar was empty, save for the three friends. No other patrons, no bar hostess, no one.
“Oh great,” laughed the drunk. “They locked up while we were talking away.”
“Yeah, I guess it is that late,” agreed the gambler, though he sounded very unnerved.
“You’d think Clair would have said something,” commented the town guard, tracing his hand down to the sheath on his hip.
“Psh! You guys are a bunch of pussies!”
The drunk heaved himself off of the stool he sat on, almost collapsing because of his disorientation. The gambler and the town guard followed suit. They turned toward the exit. Their feet went silent after the first three steps, simultaneously.
The man that stood in front of the three was very frail and tall. A wild man of hair reached the middle of his back. From what could be seen from the dull light, his clothes of a t-shirt and workpants were an almost sparkling red. His face was shrouded behind a white mask, shaped in the image of some kind of cat. There were no holes to see, smell, or speak.
“Bar’s closed, bub,” said the drunk. “Go home.”
The masked man cocked his head sideways, as if he did not understand what the drunk was saying.
“Leave, now,” spoke the town guard sternly, unsheathing the sword by his side.
“Damn, Hermann! Calm down, dude!” the drunk laughed.
“Idiot, don’t you smell that?”
The gambler and the drunk focused on smelling the air. Besides the heavy smell of alcohol, there we the slight aroma of something else. An iron-like smell hidden behind the veil of alcohol. This odd smell originated from this masked stranger.
“Bl-blood?!” shouted the gambler in fear, darting the opposite way, even though it was a dead end.
And the gambler screamed, as he found the dead body of the bar hostess behind the counter. Blood streamed from her snapped neck. He ran back to his friends, hiding behind the town guard.
“Cl-Claire’s dead! That man killed her!”
“You coward!” shouted the drunk, achieving a sense of courage in order to look good in the eyes of his friends. “Killing a woman that did you no harm! You should have taken me on first! I would’ve kicked your ass!”
The masked man knelt down to the ground and dragged something out of the darkness beside the door. He threw a large sphere at the drunk, which he barely caught. But to the drunk’s surprise, the sphere looked back at him, the dead eyes of an old man. The drunk hollered, dropping the decapitated head and stumbling to the ground in fear.
The town guard eyed the masked man, sizing up what he was up against. The stranger appeared to not carry any weapons at all. But then, how did he decapitate the old man? The stranger just had his hands, which were caked with blood.
“Hurry up and kill him, Hermann!” yelled the drunk from his spot on the ground.
The gambler nodded vigorously in agreement.
But before anything else could be said, the masked man dashed at the drunk. With his slow state of consciousness, the drunk struggled to back away. Getting back on his feet did not even cross his mind. The masked man did not falter as he used his bare foot to stomp on the drunk’s neck. He made one last sound, a gargling scream, and died.
The town guard registered this too late, wide-eyed from his friend’s swift death. The gambler screamed in terror. He did not waste another thought as he rushed for the exit by himself, pushing the town guard out of his way. His fingers were able to touch the door knob before the masked man drove his elbow into the base of the gambler’s skull, using an enormous amount of power sever his spine.
At this moment, the town guard quivered in place. This demon had killed his friends with a power that bellied his physique. He was able to kill without the use of sight. He killed swiftly and without prejudice. There was no stopping him.
The masked man let the gambler’s body drop to the floor. The white mask stared blankly at the town guard, sending a shiver down the town guard’s spine.
“What did we do?” cried the town guard, fearing taking over. His sword rattled between his hands. There was no way he would be able to take on that demon.
The masked man walked calmly over to him, his bloody hands held in front of him.
“Why…”
“You cost yourself some extra time,” whispered the masked man, a muffled monotone. “You’re as greedy as any other human being, so you didn’t need to be with people you did not like. You were just as lonely as I was, or even more so for staying this long. Your brother is much wiser in those regards.”
That voice…the murder scene…the suspect…Zerachi! But it was too late for Hermann to say anything. The masked man’s right hand lodged itself into the town guard’s stomach area, pulling out all the intestines. And everything faded away…
Chapter 5
“Hey, Zerachi?”
It was a sunny day, classes had just ended. I was walking out of the school house with my friends, staring absent-mindedly at the blue sky above us. The sound of Hermann’s (one of the four people I used to hang out with) voice broke me away from my non-existent thoughts.
“Yeah?” I responded.
“Pay attention,” Hermann reprimanded. “We’re all going fishing at the lake. You in?”
“Yeah, sure,” I responded.
“Good, see ya at six then.”
I began to break away from the group and head for my family’s house, but someone pulled me back with a tug of my shoulder. It was Setrai, the joker and ladies’ man of the group (or so he thought). He was short compared to me, which I could only see the very top of his brown hair when I looked back at eye level. He always had a crazy smile smeared below his large nose.
“You’ll bring me a fishing rod, right?” asked Setrai.
“Yeah, sure,” I responded like a recording.
“And don’t forget some bait, since we don’t have any.”
“Yeah, sure,” I responded, still with the same inflection.
“Good,” Setrai said with an even broader smile. “See ya, Zera.”
I departed from the group for real this time, noting a mixture of smiles and looks of pity among them. I don’t remember what exactly I was thinking at the time. There was no doubt in my mind I was being used by my “friends” to get them things. But it gave me a sense of…belonging. They acquired the crap I would get for them, and I wouldn’t be lonely. A win-win situation.
I traveled down the brick street south, where my home lay not too far. It was the last one on the left, a small cottage with just enough room for my parents and me. It was a rather dark brown color (the “shit-shack”, as my friends had called it) and leaned noticeably to the right, as if it wanted to up-root itself from its very foundation and runaway. A small garden of flowers (and when I say small, I mean three total) was planted right in front of the kitchen window; a feeble attempt to make the place look somewhat decent.
I entered the house through the front door, a loud creak following me inside. My parents were gone, as usual. If my dad had been home, he’d probably put me through a guilt trip about taking the fishing equipment and remind me that I didn’t really have any friends. Mom wouldn’t say anything, but she’d stand beside Dad and nod through the whole speech. But whatever, they weren’t there, so I snatched my fishing pole and my dad’s and went back outside.
All that was left was the bait. I ambled to a random spot in the yard, got down on my knees, and placed the fishing poles to my left. I then started digging through the soil with my hands, searching for worms.
The recyclers of the earth. People are often compared to worms, as if they were the most insignificant creatures in existence. Yet they hold the power to reduce dead material back into energy for plants to take advantage of. I wouldn’t mind being called a worm, I thought as I dug through the dirt, as long as it meant I served some kind of purpose in life.
After catching three of the sightless creatures and stuffing them into my pant pockets, a shadow emerged from behind me. I looked behind me and saw Nitzer, one of the gang. He was a meek fellow with a very large, heavy pair of glasses in front of his poor eyes. There were two reasons that he was part of the group: he was the fraternal twin brother of Hermann and he would give the answers to tests to the others within the group. He wasn’t as smarts as the others thought, but he was the smartest of the group, at least.
Nitzer was the same as me in the end, though. A tool.
“What is it, Nitzer?” I asked him, returning to the hunt. “Are we still fishing?”
“Ye-yeah, they’re still fishing,” he nervously replied.
“What is it then?”
It felt like more than five minutes passed in complete silence. I found two more worms and started to work on a new hole beside the one I dug down about a foot. Nitzer always had a problem speaking his mind, asking for help, and…well, talking in general. So, I thought I’d be productive in the mean time.
“Um…Zerachi?” Finally, Nitzer said something, but it was still a cautious step in order to gather his thoughts.
“Yeah?” I continued to gather the bait.
“They…talk about you behind your back.”
“Do they now?”
“N-not nice things…”
“It’s natural,” I said, dusting the thought aside. “They’re always cracking on each other.”
“B-b-but, no! It’s not like that at all. Th-they laugh at how obedient you are, like a d-d-dog.”
I froze, clumps of dirt still in my hands. I looked back at Nitzer, searching for truth. He looked very distraught over it, perhaps carrying that information for some time. It must have finally got to him.
But did this change anything? Did I even like them? The win-win situation was still in effect. We could be friends and hate each other. Do friends have to like each other?
“Okay,” I said after a minute’s thought, wiping the dirt out of my hands.
“O-okay?! Your friends use you and don’t even like you and you just say it’s ‘okay’?”
I never heard Nitzer sound so serious. I looked up at him and saw the anger reflected in his face.
“Why do you care?” I asked.
“Because it isn’t right!”
“Do you have room to talk, Nitzer?”
He went silent, staring down at his shoes in shame.
“You don’t need to like each other to be friends,” I said.
“Yes, the best enemies make the greatest friends,” scoffed Nitzer, turning his back and exiting the yard.
His words stuck with me. Was loneliness worse than this? They were taking advantage of my loneliness, but I was only taking advantage of an unwanted company. Selfishness taking advantage of selfishness. I didn’t want to be selfish anymore…
The pub was not very busy that night. The murder at the Diablo Ranch caused paranoia to keep the people off the streets at such a late hour. The only ones crazy enough to do any drinking that night were a trio of friends; a town guard, a gambler, and a professional alcoholic. They were not afraid of the possible danger. They just needed a release from the world.
“So,” said the gambler, “How’s that dork of a brother doing, Hermann?”
The town guard raised his mug halfway but stopped when he heard his name.
“I don’t know. We haven’t spoken in a few years. He’s still interning as a doctor, as far as I know.”
“He must have seen the murder victim then,” laughed the large-nosed alcoholic as he eyed the bar hostess’s chest. “You heard the rumors who might have done it, haven’t you, you guys?”
The town guard and gambler shook their heads from their stools. The town guard knew, of course, but he still felt obligated to let his friend talk his mouth off. That is how it had always been.
“Old crazy Zera himself!”
“No foolin’?” asked the gambler, though he did not sound very surprised.
“Yeah!” laughed the alcoholic, getting in a few gulps before he spoke again. “You remember how he worked at the ranch? After all these years, he still worked there! He was bound to snap eventually.”
“One of the guys I worked with investigated the scene,” mentioned the town guard matter-of-factly.
“No foolin’?” repeated the gambler from earlier, though sounding more curious this time. “Anything worth mentioning?”
“Yes, tell us!” The drunk was agitated that he was not the one sharing the news, but he was curious nonetheless.
“The poor man was stabbed until he died,” said the town guard, appreciating the momentary center of attention. “And the murderer kept stabbing him long after he was dead too. Spread a big mess of blood all over the room. The only thing the murderer left behind was a pair of gloves, which they’ve been analyzing for finger prints.”
“Damn!” exclaimed the gambler. “If it was Zerachi, he sure was dumb about it, leaving evidence like that.”
“I told you, he snapped,” chimed in the drunk while searching for the bar hostess to call for another beer. “The guy turned hermit after graduation. The isolation probably drove him mad!”
“Yeah, he was never right in the head,” spoke the town guard solemnly. “But I guess he had a bigger spine than Nitzer had.”
“Why do you say that?” coughed the gambler as he tried to huff out smoke from his cigarette.
“Well, we were just using him, just like my brother. They were friendless and we took advantage of that.”
“So,” scoffed the drunk, who gave up on his search for more alcohol. “No one would have talked to him anyway. He’s just that weird. We’re good Samaritans for being so nice to the guy.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Exactly. When have I ever been wrong, huh? Bartender! Another round, compliments of Mr. Hermann here!”
Silence answered the drunk back. The dimly lit bar was empty, save for the three friends. No other patrons, no bar hostess, no one.
“Oh great,” laughed the drunk. “They locked up while we were talking away.”
“Yeah, I guess it is that late,” agreed the gambler, though he sounded very unnerved.
“You’d think Clair would have said something,” commented the town guard, tracing his hand down to the sheath on his hip.
“Psh! You guys are a bunch of pussies!”
The drunk heaved himself off of the stool he sat on, almost collapsing because of his disorientation. The gambler and the town guard followed suit. They turned toward the exit. Their feet went silent after the first three steps, simultaneously.
The man that stood in front of the three was very frail and tall. A wild man of hair reached the middle of his back. From what could be seen from the dull light, his clothes of a t-shirt and workpants were an almost sparkling red. His face was shrouded behind a white mask, shaped in the image of some kind of cat. There were no holes to see, smell, or speak.
“Bar’s closed, bub,” said the drunk. “Go home.”
The masked man cocked his head sideways, as if he did not understand what the drunk was saying.
“Leave, now,” spoke the town guard sternly, unsheathing the sword by his side.
“Damn, Hermann! Calm down, dude!” the drunk laughed.
“Idiot, don’t you smell that?”
The gambler and the drunk focused on smelling the air. Besides the heavy smell of alcohol, there we the slight aroma of something else. An iron-like smell hidden behind the veil of alcohol. This odd smell originated from this masked stranger.
“Bl-blood?!” shouted the gambler in fear, darting the opposite way, even though it was a dead end.
And the gambler screamed, as he found the dead body of the bar hostess behind the counter. Blood streamed from her snapped neck. He ran back to his friends, hiding behind the town guard.
“Cl-Claire’s dead! That man killed her!”
“You coward!” shouted the drunk, achieving a sense of courage in order to look good in the eyes of his friends. “Killing a woman that did you no harm! You should have taken me on first! I would’ve kicked your ass!”
The masked man knelt down to the ground and dragged something out of the darkness beside the door. He threw a large sphere at the drunk, which he barely caught. But to the drunk’s surprise, the sphere looked back at him, the dead eyes of an old man. The drunk hollered, dropping the decapitated head and stumbling to the ground in fear.
The town guard eyed the masked man, sizing up what he was up against. The stranger appeared to not carry any weapons at all. But then, how did he decapitate the old man? The stranger just had his hands, which were caked with blood.
“Hurry up and kill him, Hermann!” yelled the drunk from his spot on the ground.
The gambler nodded vigorously in agreement.
But before anything else could be said, the masked man dashed at the drunk. With his slow state of consciousness, the drunk struggled to back away. Getting back on his feet did not even cross his mind. The masked man did not falter as he used his bare foot to stomp on the drunk’s neck. He made one last sound, a gargling scream, and died.
The town guard registered this too late, wide-eyed from his friend’s swift death. The gambler screamed in terror. He did not waste another thought as he rushed for the exit by himself, pushing the town guard out of his way. His fingers were able to touch the door knob before the masked man drove his elbow into the base of the gambler’s skull, using an enormous amount of power sever his spine.
At this moment, the town guard quivered in place. This demon had killed his friends with a power that bellied his physique. He was able to kill without the use of sight. He killed swiftly and without prejudice. There was no stopping him.
The masked man let the gambler’s body drop to the floor. The white mask stared blankly at the town guard, sending a shiver down the town guard’s spine.
“What did we do?” cried the town guard, fearing taking over. His sword rattled between his hands. There was no way he would be able to take on that demon.
The masked man walked calmly over to him, his bloody hands held in front of him.
“Why…”
“You cost yourself some extra time,” whispered the masked man, a muffled monotone. “You’re as greedy as any other human being, so you didn’t need to be with people you did not like. You were just as lonely as I was, or even more so for staying this long. Your brother is much wiser in those regards.”
That voice…the murder scene…the suspect…Zerachi! But it was too late for Hermann to say anything. The masked man’s right hand lodged itself into the town guard’s stomach area, pulling out all the intestines. And everything faded away…