Child molesters must die. The one in the rundown trailer would do so within
the hour. Unfortunately, he would not die slowly. As for the twelve-year-old
held inside, maybe she was already dead.
Maybe what he would soon do would atone for what he had done. Did killing
for good ever erase killing for other reasons? Could he be blamed for
killing if he needed to? Should he care?
Philip Hemas stood watching. The shadows of the unkempt woods seemed to
find him. Despite his flawless white complexion, his face did not reflect
the moon light. He needed no camouflage paint to cover his face; being
unnoticed was something that he had long ago perfected.
Philip knew what would happen tonight. He had done it many times before,
still it wasn't enough. There were too many men like the pervert inside
still alive. Did the internet create the hidden epidemic? More and more
he realized he was fighting a losing battle.
Despite the certainty of the man's death, Philip had to be cautious. If
Philip were to exact some measure of justice, to torture the sick bastard
like he surely did the girl, evidence would be left and noticed. The girl
had to be secondary.
Philip did not give himself the luxury of sympathy. His heart had been
emptied many years before. To attempt to replace what was taken from him
was to remove a tourniquet from a comfortably numb limb.
Philip knew others would permit their concern for the girl to force them
to act before the time was ideal. So, again, Philip waited. No cloud of
breath could be seen in the cold night air.
When he saw, through the windows, a shadow go to the back of the trailer,
he knew it was time. The soon-to-die sicko was going to play with the
girl again. Philip blocked out the terror he knew she must be feeling.
With a pace that defied the eye, Philip crossed the small, overgrown lawn
of the pervert. The ice covered grass did not crunch under his light steps.
He did not slow his fluid movement at the thin, locked door. Without a
visible effort or even the slightest shove, Philip broke the lock and
slipped in.
Philip glided through the unkempt trailer with a speed that hid his grace.
The flimsy wooden door crumpled as if it were paper. Philip did not need
to be cautious now. He could smell the man’s stench and hear pounding
heart.
Philip’s appearance was so sudden; the pedophile did not drop the
leather cuffs that dangled from his grasp. Through his peripheral vision,
Philip noticed the girl cowering in the corner
Philip’s right arm shot out like lighting and grabbed the man’s
throat. With a strength that could not have come from thin white arms,
Philip lifted the man off the soiled bed and pressed him to a wall.
The man’s eyes were wide with surprise. But it was not surprise
Philip wanted. He formed a suggestion and rammed it into the pedophile’s
mind. FEAR. Immediately, upon receiving the thought, the man began to
wail. His face contorted in terror as his bladder released.
With a quick jerk, Philip pulled the man forward and then rammed him backwards
into the wall. The pedophile collapsed in a heap of unconsciousness.
This was where caution must govern his actions. This trailer would be
found eventually, as would the man’s and the girl’s eventual
corpse. They would comb the apartment and pick apart his body. Philip
could not let them have questions.
How did the man die? How did the girl die? The answers must leave the
investigators content with dead ends. Questions and attention were the
biggest threats to him.
That was, ironically, why he had begun this crusade. Philip was a hunter,
no, a poacher. He preyed on people. He preferred young women, but would
take and had taken all walks of life when the need was great enough.
The ever-increasing number of pedophiles brought more attention to missing
people and John Doe bodies. Amber alerts, shared databases, and real-time
news coverages made filling his needs more difficult by the day. But,
fortunately America was big enough to provide plenty of vacationing college
students, want-to-be hippies and general free spirits that he could usually
find an appealing target.
Philip ignored the shivering girl’s hopeful eyes. He could not take
her blood, she was not yet old enough. And, that would leave a neon arrow
for a coroner to follow.
Looking through the squalid interior of the trailer was like crawling
through the sick fuck’s mind. The soiled clothes, stained magazines
and rotting food were the ornaments of the young girl’s hell. How
did such people, such evil come to be? That question brought him up short.
So much of his mind was hidden in a foggy past. How had he reached this
point, needing the blood of others to survive? He was no better than the
junkies he had had to take when he had been desperate.
Philip became very adept at masking the guilt that came from having to
kill so many. Still he had to contend with the noxious idea of tasting
blood that was tainted by drugs or rancid with age. Rare was the time
where he could dine and enjoy rather than feed and flee.
Philip knew so little of his condition. Was it a disease? Was it that
sunlight sped the absorption of vitamin D and calcified his flesh or was
he a true undead creature? Part of him believed he was from a different
planet. So much of what he knew was learned through trial and error. Like
his taste for the blood of young women.
Through countless meals, Philip had come to appreciate the blood of women
who had had around twenty menstrual cycles. Adrenaline was the spice of
the meal. Too much and it ruined it like an overdose of pepper sauce.
Just enough and it made the meal an experience he would quickly crave
again.
He jerked his thoughts away from his ruminations. He still had to kill
the man and deal with the girl. It was so much easier when the young ones
were already dead. Their blood was not yet ripe and could not be taken.
Did a farmer pity an injured calf that could become dinner in a year?
No, and neither could he pity the girl.
Despite the deterioration of the trailer and the filth within, the sicko
had a fairly modern computer. Philip touched the mouse and the monitor
flickered to life. He had made a life of feeding, hiding and killing.
He had often been the cause of crime scenes that made seasoned detectives
have nightmares.
But, even he was startled by what the dusty monitor showed. Philip could
not have guessed that a man who wallowed in such filth could be organized
in his depravity. The hard drive was filled by images that chronicled
the girl’s torture. Pictures showing different equipment, clothing
and positions were captioned with dates and explanations.
The most shocking thing he saw in the monitor was the reflected horror
in his own face. How long had he been staring, transfixed by the tragedy
with his mouth agape? It was beyond evil. Nothing could rival what the
girl had suffered.
Long dead emotions stirred painfully to life. Anger, no rage made itself
known. But rage must come from something of value being threatened or
harmed. Did the girl make him feel? Was this trailer so different than
the countless street corners and motel rooms he had seen defiled?
Yes, came a reply that echoed in his once hollow soul. The soon to suffer
man had stalked her. He had picked her specifically. Most pedophiles just
held their victim for a few hours, got their pleasure and then murdered.
This monster was disciplined. Philip found that the girl had been chained
here for three months. By the way she had been fed and been kept, her
torment would have been indefinite.
Because he could not look at the girl’s chronicled torment any longer,
Philip began the second part of his extermination exercise. He searched
through different directories in the computer. Like he had done in similar
circumstances, Philip found evidence of incoming and outgoing internet
traffic. Philip chose a few promising targets from the herd of perverts
and committed them to memory.
They would soon die. He knew he would never get them all. But, that wasn’t
the point; he merely had to reduce the number of competitors so that he
could hunt unnoticed.
The jingling of chains from the back room brought his thought back to
the present. What the hell was he going to do with the girl? No clean
solution came to his mind. If he left two bodies, questions would arise.
A murder suicide might be believable by an overworked under-motivated
detective, but there was always the possibility of someone who would not
accept an easy answer.
Replacing his own fingerprints on the keyboard with the man’s could
be done easily. He walked back to the hateful bedroom hoping an answer
would come to him. The girl was still cowering in a ball on the far corner
of the bed. The dirty school-girl uniform and the dog collar gave strong
testament to what she had been through.
Despite his better judgment, he let emotion make a decision. With the
same mysterious ability with which he had compelled the man to feel fear,
he bid the girl calm. Usually Philip could feel his suggestions be absorbed
by someone’s mind. The girl was different.
Her mind had grown a hard shell over it. Locked inside her were the consequences
of all of the torments and degradations she had been subject to for the
last three months. Had she given up hope of being found? Of seeing her
mother? Did she still try to resist the man? Twelve years old and no self
left, no soul. Whatever hell he was bound for when he finally died, Philip
knew it would not be worse than what she had suffered.
She stared at him with huge eyes that contained too many emotions to count.
Long ignored pity swelled within him. Damn.
His thoughts swirled. How could he hunt if he felt pity? How could he
ever be happy if he didn’t? He could not remember being happy, but
he knew he had been. Before he had been turned, he had to have been a
very different person. So much of what he had recently done bothered him,
yet he warred with himself to become hardened.
His efforts at implanting tranquility were unrewarded. She was hiding
in her mind. Would she ever come out? Could time with her family or a
therapist help her?
He knew the answer was no. The girl who had been kidnapped months ago
was gone. All that was left of her was the part that felt despair.
He should just kill her and leave her body to be found. Just another missing
child from a poor family. Despite the ease with which he had caused so
much suffering in the past, he could not harm the girl. He hated himself.
It would be so easy to kill the girl, the man and burn the trailer. Why
couldn’t he just do it? How could he go on living if he felt pity
for those he had to kill? Could there be a worse hell?
He could call the authorities and let her be found. But, she might tell
them of her rescue. Dots might be connected.
Well, he knew what to do with the man. With the same effortless grace,
he hoisted the overweight redneck and carried him first to the computer
and then into the small bathroom. The man groaned. He would not ever awaken.
Philip threw him in the tub and turned on the water. He went back into
the bedroom and found one of the electrical devices shown so often in
the pictures. Philip plugged it in and tossed it in the tub as he walked
out of the bathroom. It took no more than a minute or two for the man
to become still. Would a coroner ever question it? He didn’t care
anymore.
With rage and anguish he entered the seedy bedroom again. The short circuit
in the bathroom had caused the whole trailer to lose power. Moonlight
streamed in the small windows. The dim light made no difference to Philip.
She was lost with nothing but thoughts of abandonment and torment. Could there
be a worse hell? Well, maybe there were different hells. He couldn’t kill
her but he could give her a new life.
His fangs extended enough to cut his own lip. She didn’t recoil as he came
for her. He was gentle and quick. He sucked her blood and mixed it with the blood
from his mouth.
She would remember nothing of what was done to her. She would know only a future
that she could create by her choices. As the shock from what her body was going
through made her descend into unconsciousness, he sent out his thoughts to her.
Calmness, confidence, and the knowledge of what she now was took root in her
mind. With her awakening assured, Philip Hemas strode down the narrow aisle that
bisected the trailer. Too many emotions assailed him.
He walked through the broken doorway and disappeared into the night. She would
wake and begin her new life. Some would die by her but then they would die anyway.
Would she burn the trailer? Did it really matter?
Regret and hope competed for dominance in his mind. Should he have killed her?
Should he have left her to be found and returned to her family as a person who
would never be whole or happy? That would be a hell she would never escape. No,
what he gave her was best, a different hell. |
