The Serial Killers Guide to Love (Deadly Darling #1)

Chapter 13

13

Sam

Joshua Briggs is strapped to my table and this piece of human decay had it coming and deserved what is about to happen to him.

Because Joshua Briggs wasn’t just a murderer. No, he used his powers to abuse the sick.

He was a nurse at an old peoples home and instead of caring for his patients, he would rape the old women.

Bile rose into my throat.

Joshua Briggs is a large man. At over 6 ft 6, he is towering over me, but it was easy to catch him. The human scum not only had his own fun, no he liked to play pimp and allow his friends to take a round with the women that were in a coma.

He wakes up slowly, and has the same reaction like all the men that land on my table.

First, the light is blinding them, making thinking difficult and just as the eyes adjust to the bright light, the brain takes over and they understand that this is deep shit that they are into.

“Mmmm.”

I lean closer and I pull the tape off his mouth.

“I can’t see you, you can let me go, really please. I didn’t see you.”

“Why so rude? The name is Sam Williams, nice to meet you, you piece of human garbage. I assume that you know why you are here, right?”

He looks frantically to the left and to the right, as if some dark demon that hides in the corners would be there to help him out.

“Well, are you going to tell me?”

I hold onto my favorite blade. It’s a scalpel. I want to cut into his flesh a bit before I’ll let this one go.

He deserves to bleed for what he did.

“I, I gave Ethel pills, she was sick man, she wanted to go.”

“That was maybe the one decent thing you did, slime ball, but I don’t mean that. I mean how many times did you allow your buddies to rape women in comas. How many old people did you kill and stole their cash and the jewelry they had? “

He starts stammering something, but I know.

I know what he did. This is something that is very important to me. I usually take weeks to follow my suspects and make very sure that they deserve to lay on my nice stretching table.

His eyes dart from left to right and there it is. One of the most disgusting things someone can do when they are strapped to my table.

He starts to cry.

But not like a tear that runs down the corner of his eyes, as if he has allergies. No, he cries thick fat tears, crocodile tears.

Snot runs down his nose and into his mouth.

“You are disgusting.”

I can’t make myself touch that, and use a large piece of tape to cover his mouth.

He keeps trying to catch my eye, but I am the wrong person to look for mercy.

Suddenly tired and wanting this to be over already, I pull a larger knife from my set. Instead of cutting into his flesh slowly, I slice his throat. The sound stops, but waves of dark red blood run down the table and onto the plastic.

Great.

Still, a part of me wants more. I need the rush, the high and today that certain pleasure refuses to come to me. This is nice, tolerable, acceptable even but it’s nothing to write home about.

I was so looking forward to this.

During the last two weeks, I only communicated with Lilly through email and did everything I could to avoid her.

What could I offer her? Really.

Nothing, but darkness and problems. I was not even able to offer her the minimum of the comfort of a kiss or of touching. Sex, at least normal sex, was out of the question for me.

And so, I decided that it would be best to stay away from her.

The blood keeps trickling down from the body of Joshua and I think about Lilly. She downloaded a dating app. That’s a good thing right?

Because other serial killers don’t pick their victims from dating apps.

Heat rises inside my chest and I feel pain shooting through me.

The contents of my lunch lands on the ground. Fast.

Fuck.

I haven’t puked since I killed someone the first time ever. The pulled pork sandwich must have gone bad.

Still, the sandwich was perfectly fine. It was me.

This was one of those classic things, it’s not you, pork sandwich, it’s me.

Taking a long sip from my water bottle I rinse my mouth and spit.

I could leave Joshua here, I don’t feel like cleaning all this up, but only because I don’t feel like it I can’t be sloppy.

Lilly didn’t date yet.

The spy app in her phone allowed me to see all her chatting and she looked as if she lost interest after a few days.

A few of the guys flaked too, and I could go and cut them in pieces only for that. How the fuck could they do that to my Lilly.

I can stay away and still keep an eye on her. She isn’t aware that there are so many bad people out there. I should know better, I am one of them.

Leaning against the wall, I need to get a grip on myself. This gentleman will be frozen and then will be thrown into the bay this weekend, but in order to do so, I have to cut him to pieces.

Great.

I just notice that I forgot my chainsaw, that means that I will have to cut him by hand, the old fashioned way.

Making short process of the legs and of the arms, I was left with the fun part.

The torso was too big for me to put in the freezer, so I had to open it up, empty the belly and chest of organs and then, just after all that was done I could cut it open and in parts.

Five hours later, the body was neatly packed in my trunk and I was exhausted.

Cleaning up used to be fun, but I kept stopping to check on Lilly’s phone.

She texted a certain Derek and as far as I could see, she appeared to enjoy his company.

Great, he sent her a shirtless pic of himself in bed, with a book on his shorts.

“Can you read at all?”

I yelled at the picture and realized that I act like a complete idiot.

I read about crimes of passion, and my first impulse was to go home to Derek and make sure that his well trained body will be a nutritional well balanced lunch for the gators, but then I stopped.

I don’t do that.

I don’t kill a person just because that said person is annoying or because he flirts with the woman I like.

As far as it goes, I should probably give Derek the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he is decent. Maybe we will end up buddies and barbecue. As if.

I find myself rolling my eyes and clenching and unclenching my fists.

I should get this over with here. A few hours later, my body feels exhausted but my mind is still running full speed.

The drive home is uneventful, my car is always clean and up to snuff.

As soon as Joshua is in my freezer, and I showered, I sit down and catch up with my emails as I watch Lilly getting ready for a day at work.

She’s wearing that blue dress I love and that matches her eyes and she looks like a vision with each step she takes.

Her nails are red and she even adds lipstick.

Hm.

Her phone vibrates and I looks at the screen. Do I even want to see it?

A feeling of serious nausea fills my stomach.

“See you at lunch at Caffè Rouge. I reserved a table for one o’clock.”

Derek.

Derek.

Derek.

Derek.

Before I can catch myself, my fist lands against the wall and the drywall has to take the worst of my nerves.

I take Derek’s picture and run it through all my sources. Having a hacker on the list of people I can ask a favor is a good thing.

Derek Dubrovsky, 35, divorced.

“Ha.”

I pump my hand in the air as if that is such a shock. Many people are divorced. That doesn’t make him a bad person.

Fuck him.

He is too old for her. But then I remind myself kindly that I am 40.

Fuck.

Fucking shit.

Derek is a software engineer and he has a few awards. Okay.

He ran his own software company until he sold it for 4 million bucks. Nice.

Technically, I have more in my Swiss account, but he’s not too bad either.

He has a cat. That’s a sign. A man with cats is not to be trusted.

But such a cute cat, and she has no tail. She was a rescue as he keeps saying on his IG.

Aren’t you too old for Instagram, Derek?

I need five minutes to run the codes my buddy gave me to crack Derek’s Tinder account.

Ha!

Here it is, proof!

So Derek talks to two other women. Monica and Sandy.

You dog.

As much as I dislike Derek and his too white teeth and his perfect smile, there is nothing that makes me think that he plans anything else but having a nice lunch with Lilly.

Fuck.

I hate it.

If I would find proof that he cut that cats tail himself to satisfy his sadistic need of making other creatures feel pain inflicted by him, then I could kill him.

I will watch you, Derek.

Two hours later, I find myself on the way to his house wearing the uniform of the phone company.

Am I proud of how low I stooped? No. Is it something that I have to do to feel better?

Absolutely.

There are things that are not online and one needs to smell the other man’s lair before making the final call.