Thomas Craig: The Outkast

He was an outcast-The Outcast.

He had no friends, just enemies.

Well, that wasn’t purely true. He had one friend, who made his heart leap for joy, warts and all. He was his only True Blood. And he would kill anyone who got in the way of either him or his True Blood.

Now, Sheriff Brian Stack had begun to poke his nose where it didn’t belong, doing everything to interfere with The Outcast’s noble assignment. He and his deputies had commenced investigation, hoping to find an adequate explanation for the enigma surrounding the recent murders. But they would get none-adequate or not. In lieu of an answer, they would be inundated with more questions-more riddles to solve. They would continue to lose sleep and keep worrying at it till they saw their lives fade away. He would stop at nothing. The killing spree had just begun. Soon, he would hit again.

The Sheriff was on his hit list, somewhere down there, but The Outcast would drag him up and make him breathe his last on a timely fashion. The fool had been messing around a little too much. Very soon, he would be licked away by the fury of The Outcast. He would be no more.

But right now, The Outcast had no desire to expend his mental resources on the Sheriff, especially when there was a more pressing issue to which he must attend tonight.

He was lying in his recliner in the dark, tearing at a fat roasted chicken thigh and washing it down with apple juice. There was a ghostly quiet hanging everywhere around him, which he cherished, and the intermittent soughing of the wind against the eaves of the roof outside pleased him-the sound was reminiscent of his victims’ last keening cries as they hugged death powerlessly against their bosoms.

Out here in the coolness of the cave, where the fauna and the flora were his only neighbors, and where the terrible stinks of the impure blood had no power to reach, he was a king. Being cast out of the community had been a blessing in disguise for him, but a big mistake on the part of the inhabitants of Ogre’s Pond who had hated him with their all. Without the myopic action of those fools, he couldn’t have become the rod of justice. The same ones who cast him out of their sights would be cast into the site rich in fire and brimstone.

He smirked in the dark.

And stretched.

His mind wandered off to his only True Blood.

He felt a momentary twinge of concern about the little boy, who, though destined to be great-even greater than he-had been demonstrating a troubling token of weakness and disinterest lately.

At first, when the process of emancipation had begun, The Outcast’s enthusiasm about their glorious future of reign together had been met and watered down by the boy’s shameful nerves and whimpering. But he’d waved it aside as insignificant, assuming it to be a minor foible that would fix itself on the lap of time. After all, the boy had just turned eleven at the time, and there was ampleness of space for growth. But the more time rolled by, the worse the situation became.

He had to do something about it.

Maybe he would expedite the process, call the ultimate ritual into existence faster than he had planned. But to achieve that, he would need to seek understanding and directions from the gods.

He rose.

Tonight, he needed to finish a project he had recently embarked on. It would turn out to be the best of his operations so far. He was sure of that. When it was done, he would rest for a while before planning the next execution-unless his enemies showed any potential to outpace him, in which case he would put rest aside and rise to strike instead.

He wondered why Donnie hated his True Blood so much, but he couldn’t arrive at any reason. Not that it mattered. He loved the way the pot-bellied man reasoned and acted. The Outcast loved Donnie’s hostile disposition towards the boy. Hatred towards the little True Blood was hatred towards The Outcast, and that adequately helped fuel The Outcast’s own animosity towards Donnie. It was a perfect cycle-the way it had been predestined to pan out.

Tonight, he would strike like a python ready for the kill.

10:26 P.M.

Wednesday, August 19

Donnie Murphy was rushing out through the front door of his apartment when the vicious blow smashed into the left side of his head.

Earlier in the night, Jennifer Foster had called to remind him of their date. The rendezvous was her place, at 11:45 P.M.

By 8:58 P.M., Donnie had done everything he needed to do. He sat in the living room, glancing at the wall clock while he sipped his red wine, and wishing the clock hands would get some oomph and just hurry the hell up.

Now that Trevor had been murdered by the troll boy (a little uncertainty he had been teaching his mind to just accept as true-but then, who gave a damn who killed whom?), the world was his oyster. He didn’t realize how much of an impediment Trevor had been until his death. Amazing how luck had worked in his favor and made his two enemies collide, how it had used one to take care of the other. And the one that remained would soon follow, too. In spite of Brian’s indifference to the case, Donnie would see his wish come true. He would do everything to send the little disgusting devil to where Trevor had gone.

Right now, he thought about Jennifer Foster. When Trevor had been alive, he’d stood between them.

Not anymore.

He sipped.

And waited.

Until he could endure the wait no longer.

By 10:04 P.M., he decided enough was enough. He would set out. Better to be at Jennifer’s place too early than to run behind schedule. He just couldn’t wait to see her.

But he was extremely excited, so much that he returned inside the apartment from his driveway three times to pick up what he had forgotten to take along with him each previous time. Excitement was no doubt getting in the way of his full sensory functionality. His memory had been drugged by the prospect of the date.

He came back the third time because he had left behind a piece of gold-plated wristwatch-a gift for Jennifer. He got it quickly, raced across the foyer, flipping the lights off as he went along, opened the front door, dashed through the doorway, neck jutting out. He felt the pain before he could comprehend the presence of the fist that struck out at his face. Even though he was more than sixty percent through the doorway, the effect of the blow knocked him backwards all the way into the lightless foyer. Airborne, he crashed against the crook of the walls, the crown of his head hitting the concrete first, and then crashed his nose into one of the walls as his head rebounded.

“Oh, fuck,” Donnie cried out. He tried to sit up as soon as he landed, but failed. On a second attempt, he managed to get it right. Having propped himself up on his elbows, considerably disoriented, he struggled to focus on the figure that stood just beyond the doorway, under the flood of the security lights outside the apartment. At first, he thought his vision had been warped as a result of the monstrous stinger he had received. But then, he realized the image before him was as real as the pain coursing back and forth his head. A man, extremely tall and muscular, holding a scythe and flashing a chimpanzee’s face in lieu of a man’s. Well, he couldn’t be a man, then. Not a snowball’s chance in hell. He must be some sort of monster from the deepest part of Hades.

Donnie screamed, screamed and scrambled to his feet faster than he’d thought he could. All of a sudden, the pains in his head and back were forgotten, his disorientation vanished, his survival instinct heightened.

He slammed the door connecting the foyer to the living room shut, still screaming as he proceeded.

When he got a sufficient grip on himself at the landing, he dug his hand in his pants pocket, searching for his cell phone even as he raced up the stairs.