The Worst is Over (Perhaps) Pt. 3

Collections would have been a more appropriate term for it. Indeed, the room was a wine cellar, among other things. Along each of the low walls was a hand-made wooden wine racks, each loaded with a plethora of different wines, spirits, and other exotic alcohols. Harold imagined it as a kind of museum, with each piece catalogued, admired, but never used. He hated museums.

But what got his attention was the other collections. Bones, mostly. Bits of skin sewn together into books and rugs and all kinds of other things. It was stupid really, and Harold knew it. He was excited but at the same time, it was the work of a cockamamy kid who had way too much time on his hands, and obviously more than a little beat of meat available. Harold wanted a smoke, and so he lit up.

"Not in here," hissed Sean.

"Shut the fuck up kid," Harold flicked his lighter and inhaled. "Let an old man have his when you start showing this shit off."

The two girls were asleep in a corner. Sean had obviously wasted no time. Two empty, and slightly bloodied syringes were stuffed in an empty wine cove. Drugs, the refuge of the weak. Harold's eyes watered briefly, so he wiped he face. He hated cowards, and that's all Sean was. A coward preying on the stupid.

"How long?"

"Six months," replied Sean. "What do you think? Impressed?"

"Impressed?" Harold let the word hang like a guillotine. He walked stiffly to the nearest "display" and layed it out. It had been the tattoo of one unfortunate. A "tramp stamp," as Harold had heard them called. It was one of several. Sean had been stitching a kind of book out of them, a book of the most sordid and morbid stories imaginable. The hubris and idiocy of such a thing made Harold's teeth grind. He hated humanity, but the only thing he hated more was the notion of a predator thinking he was above humanity. He felt his blood boiling, pounding in his ears.

The kid had gusto. He had a collection of knives that defied logic. Sean explained he had a kind of Hot-Wheels logic to knives. He collected them as a hobby ("you mean, this isn't your hobby?" shot Harold. Sean had only glared). He had long ones, short ones, curved ones, and ones machined with a blade only a few atoms thick. Those were his favorite, said Sean. He slipped one, lovingly, from its sheath.

And so there it was. Rich asshole by day. Murderous dastard by night. As the smoke curled lazily up, Harold had reached his own decision. While Sean twirled and played with his long, thin knife, all the while eyeing the two girls in the corner, Harold had examined the knife collection and settled on one that was very familiar to him. A wide, heavy butcher's blade, used for carving cuts of meat from the bone. It wasn't a sharp, precision tool like the ones Sean preferred, but it was more than adequate for creating grievous injuries. The handle was a heavy wood, and the letters HMA had been stenciled on to it.

"Where'd you find this one?" asked Harold, twirling the knife.

"Friend found it. 'parently it's got a bit of history."

"I'd say. It's mine."

The look of surprise on Sean's face was forever etched on his face as Harold plunged the heavy blade through his torso. Ribs and tissue were shoved aside as Harold dug for his target, the aorta. Sean was dead before he even hit the floor. There was a bit of a crimson shower, but Harold managed to keep his cigarette dry. It was a gritty and painful way to die, but Harold understood the nature of predators. The small and gracile were often easy picking for the hoary old hunters. He hadn't killed in years, and after that single, vicious act, he pulled the cigarette and looked at it philosophically.

"Can't believe I just did that," he muttered. "60 years of work, all gone."

He nodded to himself. The girls were starting to wake. He pitied them, almost. A lack of conscience had almost gotten them killed. If not for him being a miserable murderous son-of-a-bitch himself, they would've been the latest addition to Sean's little book.

Strange though, he didn't feel like a hero. Probably be cause he wasn't. Not even in the slightest. He was a killer, and an old creaky fart too boot.

This wouldn't do at all.

An hour later, while the police were investigating a reported stabbing at a wealthy man's house, the were forced to respond to the sound of gunshots from the neighboring residence. When they arrived, they found an elderly man sitting in an tacky, 1970's recliner, a single gunshot wound right between his eyes. The culprit, a heavy, high-calibre revolver lay crooked in one hand, a lit cigarette drooped in the other. Police only had time to make an initial observation before realizing the whole house had been doused in gasoline. A moment after arriving, Harold's last cigarette descended from his stiff fingers to the floor, sparking a conflagration that made headlines for a week. The lifetime's supply of propane bottles he had kept in his basement probably helped a little.

It would be almost a week later before coroners identified Harolds body, or what was left of it. If Hell was a river of fire, Harold had swum it, bare-assed and crying. His bones would be buried in a matchbox by the riverside. The only one in attendance a priest who wasn't exactly sure why he was there, or to he was ministering to. Come to think of it, the whole affair had left him questioning his faith somewhat, as the aura of the whole thing had such a stench of wrongness about it that even the sun seemed to be made of Marlboroughs.

Sean had been autopsied and buried. His business associates were too busy counting their money to attend what passed for a rich fuck's funeral. There was a lot of eating and a lot of alcohol, but for the most part, all eyes were dry, and no speeches were sung.

Sean himself had the dubious distinction of being put in the ground by a lawyer. Some say he was also buried upside down, and in a grave that didn't have his name on it. Authorities were worried that once word had spread on what they'd found at his house, his resting place would be desecrated and his body exhumed.

Lets just say that most people had better things to do than be vindictive. Sean rested peacefully for around a hundred years before, believe it or not, a bookstore and tattoo shop were opened on the ground where he was buried.

Harold's knife was recovered and retained for several years. During a bout of government cutbacks and office relocations, it was lost in the shuffle, and found its way to a lovely family where it serves tasty meatloaf on a regular basis. One could say it was the only casualty of the whole affair that came out ahead.