Chapter One [Rough Draft] - My Game

Introduces the character Eric in one of his killing fantasies, ends the chapter with his kill.

I sit in my own little piece of heaven. An unlit table, consuming me in the shadows of run down bar. The repulsive smell of, piss, vomit, and spilt beer enter my nostrils with every breath. I take a good look at where I am sitting and realize that this place probably looked half decent at one point. Maroon cushioned stools and chairs filling the room, dim lights that would reveal the dirty faces of young men who walked in, looking to relax and drink after a long day of work.

Clearly that is different now. Cushions on the stools have been slashed open, revealing the old insides. Parts of the counter have been so beat up that splinters stick out, and any piece of furniture that needs legs look like they have been crippled several times. I’m pretty sure the bartender uses super glue to keep them together. Corners of the wall are stained dark because people were too drunk to find the washroom. This place is a real shithole, this place is perfect.

I’ve been coming here every night for two weeks now, long enough to know that it is still too early in the night for anything exciting to happen. Two bikers are sitting side by side at the counter wearing leather jackets with a gang symbol on it, drinking beer after beer. They come here every evening and talk about sex, drugs, and crime. Tonight they are talking about a friend of theirs named Frank. Apparently this Frank guy ended up in jail for attempting rape. They have been sitting here laughing about him for a while now.

“What kind of jackass tries to rape an officer outside of a police station?” One of the bikers asks while choking on his laughter.

So by now you are probably wondering who I am, and why I am here. That or you are bored and want something exciting to happen. But don’t you worry your precious little soul, everything will make sense soon. Let’s just get to the fun part, okay?

First off, should I be here in this crappy bar, where a lot of amateur thugs and drug dealers like to hang out? The answer to that would be ‘no’. Now, I don’t mean that I’m too innocent to be here. The fact is, I’m too good to be here. Good at being bad that is. Now, I don’t care what any psychological study from one of those fancy universities has to say about this, but in my opinion, there are two kinds of sociopaths. The first kinds of sociopaths are the really hot headed ones, the ones that get diagnosed with Anti-Social Personality Disorder, and most likely end up in jail. These kinds of sociopaths are always bursting out with anger and causing s**t, making sure people see what they are doing. When you’re a kid, they are probably the school bully, or that creepy troubled kid. As an adult, they are probably that nice gentleman that robbed the convenient store last week. Then there is the second kind. This second kind keeps quiet, and thinks everything through carefully so that they don’t get caught. These are the ones that don’t seem troubled or get diagnosed at a young age. They don’t cause s**t as often, but when they do, a big mess is usually left behind. As a kid, they are the quiet ones that one go on a rampage, and shoot up the school. As an adult, they are your next door neighbours, they are your dog walkers, they are successful and they are poor. They are serial killers. They are whoever they want to be as long as they can continue on with their hobby of murder. You will never know who they are, and you could be their next victim. Take a second glance at your neighbour next time.

I suppose I should tell you why I'm here waiting at this crappy bar. As I mentioned before, I’ve been coming here for two weeks now. I like to sit in my corner, observe the people the people that come in and out of here, and just laugh at their pathetic lives.

If you believed that, I pity you. I have been observing the people, and I have been laughing at most of them, but there is another reason I'm here. Drugs.

Don’t assume that I am some drug user that is looking to buy. I am here waiting for a local drug dealer to come by, but it’s not what you think. Usually he will come here to do his last deal of the night. To save myself the trouble, I'm just going to wait for him to finish the deal, then kill him and steal his money.

What? Did you think I was some kind of undercover cop or something? Nope, I am way too young for that. Some people like to work hard and get paid by big corporations. I like to take other peoples green and keep it to myself. He’s a jackass anyway. So what if killing is wrong? Speaking of this dealer, it’s late in the night and the fun is about to begin.

I hear the noises of cars parking outside, doors opening and the giggling of young women. The doors to the bar open and a group of four prostitutes walk in, followed by the dealer.

Just so you know, you can find out a lot about a person by looking at their prostitutes. Two of them were wearing ripped short shorts, while the other two were wearing very short skirts. They didn’t have to bend over for someone on the street to get a free show. They were all wearing tube tops that barely fit so their tits stuck out. All these clothes looked new and were clearly a gift from the dealer. This shows that our friend here likes to show off, but doesn’t like people to touch. If these girls stay with him any longer I'm sure it can just be called polygamy.

As my victim walks in, I see the same outfit he’s been wearing every day the past two weeks. An arctic white suit and pants with an electric blue tie, his blonde hair has been recently buzzed so short he almost looks bald, and his blue eyes are glazed and blood shot.

“So, umm,” one of the prostitutes starts to say, “you gonna pay us early tonight J, or we gonna have to wait?”

“Would you shut up and wait while I make this final deal?” J asks in reply, the coke making him more jittery and angry then he should have been.

I’ve never heard anyone call him J before, and I’d like to figure out what it means but it doesn’t matter. Soon enough it will just mean Jackpot.

Oh, just so you know, we are about to get to the fun part. I think you are going to love it.

“Hey J, you hear about Frank?” One of the bikers asks.

“That God damn dumb a*s, don’t you get started on him or I’ll beat the s**t out of you!” J threatens.

“Whoa, whoa, take it easy, we’re just laughing about how stupid he is.”

“Stupid doesn’t even begin to describe that jackass, he’s locked up now and I’m down one G because of him!” J’s yelling is getting louder. A mixture of coke and anger is causing him to lose his cool. “Now you guys gotta cough up an extra five hundred each to make up for his stupidity, that seem funny now?” J is in the bikers face now, face glowing red.

“All right man, all right. I’ll give you some extra cash,” the biker turns to his friend “you wanna wait here while I go get some cash? Help J keep an eye on his ladies or something.” The biker manages to put a smirk on his face as he turns back to J and heads out.

J snorts loudly and leans over the counter huddled by his special friends who don’t seem to notice me at all. One of them is lining up coke on the counter while the other one snorts it. I wonder how much of this night they are going to remember tomorrow. Normally I think people would feel sorry for them, but I enjoy it. It makes me feel good about myself knowing I'm not as screwed up as these people. Although these girls stupidity is keeping me entertained, I should probably go kill the biker before he heads back. I stand up quickly and start to head towards the door.

“HOLY S**T!” J screams right before I walk out the doors. As I turn around quickly to see what the problem was, it is making its way towards me.

“Holy s**t, holy s**t!” he keeps repeating until he is standing right in front of me. “You’re a god damn ghost!”

Yeah okay buddy I wish, I’d haunt you just for fun.

“Boo.” Is what I end up saying.

“Oh damn! A real ghost, you just walked through the walls and everything. We have a real live ghost in the bar tonight!” J starts to make a big show about all this. This guy is so high on crack right now, and it would be so fun to toy with him, but the biker will be back soon.

“Yeah, well this ghost has places to be, children to scare.” I say as I walk out the door.

As I exit the bar, it becomes very clear how late at night it is. The air is cool and sharp as I breathe in. The sign the season is changing into fall. If there were trees around, I’d give you a nice beautiful example of how the once green leaves have changed colors and fell, crunching under my feet. But sadly, this is New York, not a very good part of New York in fact. You want nice trees then you can go to central park for that. Along with the cold air, I get the smell of garbage and a crappy taste in the air. It’s either the garbage or the no life’s that live in it.

The streets are dark, barely lit by the dim street lights. It’s really the perfect place to get killed or raped. Tonight, these are my hunting grounds. I'm your host Eric and tonight I will be performing some murder. With me are my prey, Dumbass Biker, and amateur crack dealer J. The show will start momentarily.

I have a weird sense of humor; I honestly doubt you will find my jokes funny. If you do, you may want to get tested, what’s wrong with you?

The biker keeps his bike not so hidden behind a garbage bin less than a block away. He will be back soon. How stupid do you have to be to leave your money with a bike in this part of the city? People are so stupid, like I said, it’s amusing. I wait around for a couple minutes before I see the biker guy make his way towards the bar.

Now you are probably wondering how I am going to kill him. Truth is, he is about to kill himself.

“HELP!” I start to yell. “I’ve been stabbed man, its real bad, help me!” Do I honestly think this man would come and help me if I was stabbed? No. He would probably try to rob me and leave me for dead.

The biker runs up to me. “I don’t see any blood, where were you stabbed?”

“Right here.” I say as I pull out my pistol and aim it at his chest. He looks up at me and a scared look flashes on his face.

The noise people screaming and sirens in the distance are suddenly overtaken by the explosion of the gunshot. In his last moments, the biker puts his hands to his chest and looks down to see them covered in blood. Looking back up, he tells me “Just tried to help.” His words fade as he collapses to the ground.

Well what do you know? Some people aren’t all bad now are they? Oh well. Quickly I wipe the gun and put it in his hands. Like I said, he shot himself.

Inside the bar, I hear shouting. The w****s are screaming, encouraging J to go check it out. Now if he didn’t have his hooker friends, J wouldn’t do it. But he is too prideful and wants to be a show off. So of course he comes outside.

J runs outside and the first thing he sees is the dead biker with the gun in his hand.

“He went all f*****g crazy! Started telling me he didn’t have what he needed that he was going to end it all!” I pretend to panic, explaining to J about what happened. However, J wasn’t very interested in what had happened. He just looked blankly.

“Hey, you’re the ghost kid. Yeah, yeah, show me a ghost trick!” J sounds like a little kid talking to a magician.

Lucky for me, J is really screwed up tonight. It makes this much easier and amusing.

“A ghost trick?” I ask with a smirk on my face. “Oh I have plenty of ghost tricks. Want to be rich beyond imaginable?”

“You…you can do that?” J asks amazed.

“Oh sure I can, how do you think all the rich people came to be?”

“That makes sense…how can you do this?”

“I just need to take this,” I crouch down and take the money that was in the bikers jacket pocket “and we need to be somewhere more secluded.”

“There is an alley right beside the bar.” J tells me. I'm sure he knows this alley very well, he probably couldn’t wait to get home with his hooker friends a lot.

“Perfect.” I reply and we make our way towards the alley. J looks around to make sure no one is following us, and for the first time he seems to notice the dead biker.

“S**t,” he says “what happened to him?”

“Who?” I ask in reply. Just to mess with him, but J doesn’t seem to be phased. After all, he is probably on a totally different planet right now.

As we enter the alley, I can’t help but notice it smells worse than the streets. A lot worse. Puke, s**t, piss, garbage, used condoms, you name it.

I want to get this over soon cuz I'm about to take a big income and I have places to spend this money.

“So,” I begin to say “to start the trick, I need to whisper the words to you.”

“Then I will be rich?”

“Yes, very rich. Now come closer.”

J comes closer to me.

“No, closer.”

“Oh” Is all he says.

As he comes closer to me, I am chanting closer over and over again. I'm not sure what he makes of it, but I hope it’s messing with him.

“Stop.” I finally say. “The words are….”

“Yes?” He asks. “What are the words? Make me rich!”

“You’re a goner.” Is the last thing I say to him. Before he realizes what I have said, my knife is pulled out of my jacket and I am stabbing poor old J. The first time he doesn’t notice it, but the look in his eyes when I stab him again is wonderful. It’s the look of his whole life flashing before him. It’s fear, regret, failure. It’s beautiful is what it is.

I finish stabbing J, five times is enough right? J collapses to the ground, very much dead. I check his pockets for some extra cash or coke, but all I find is the car keys. Perfect, that’s where the jackpot should be, but before I go in there I need to leave a little surprise for the girls in the bar.

I’ve seen crappy cars before, but this is just terrible. It looks like an old seventies muscle car, but the rust and dirt that cover it make it look like a rolling piece of s**t. Whatever is left of the paint is dark blue. I understand why J had to pay girls to get in his car now, this is just terrible.

The trunk creaks open loudly as I open it. Thought the outside was bad? The inside of the trunk looks like a rats nest. Actually, I'm sure it was at some point in time. All this doesn’t matter when I notice two duffel bags sitting at the back end of the trunk. Guess J was attempting to hide them. What an idiot. I open the first duffel bag and see my prize. Wads of bills are sitting in here; J must have hit it big with someone. Lucky me. The second bag isn’t as full; a few bags of coke are still left over. Some to party and some for the bikers? Guess so. Now to end this fun night with a bang!

I enter the front seat of the car, besides the dirty and ripped interior, I am sure it could be worse. It reeks of sex in here though, although I guess that is expected when clothes and used condoms lay on the floor. J likes to keep himself busy, or at least he used to. Speaking of J, I think it’s time he gets back inside the bar. I switch the gears of the car and step out, steering it towards the alley.

Once I am at the alley, I drag J into the front seat.

“Wanna go for a car ride J?” No reply. “Of course you do!”

I steer the car in front of the bar so that the front end is facing the bar doors. I turn the keys in the ignition and the engine starts up slowly, and the air starts to fill with the fumes of the old gas guzzler.

“I hope you’re sober enough to drive J.” I tell dead J. I take the bag with the left over coke in it and place it on the gas pedal with J’s foot on top. The engine starts to rev up. I keep my left hand on the breaks as my right reaches over and switches the gears. The engine is really revving now.

The second biker that waited inside the bar must have come out to see what was taking so long and what the noise was. But before he could blink twice, I let go of the brakes and got away from the car as fast as I could.

The s**t on wheel accelerated fast and smashed into the second biker, crushing the bones in his body and sending blood spewing out onto the wind shield. The car wasn’t done yet. It kept going and roared into the bar. The doors cracking of their hinges and splinters being sent flying everywhere. The screams of the w****s and the roar of the engine were filling up the streets as I ran towards home with my bag of cash. A successful kill tonight. Thanks for having me as your host tonight! 

Author's Note

Still rough draft, me getting words down. Will expand on ideas, descriptions, ways things happen in the future.