The job was only half done. He was able to kill two on one night, a happy accident. Still, all that work made him tired, and he needed to rest. There would still need to be more blood before the pact was complete.
The man allowed himself to doze off, his head bobbing as he drifted off to sleep. He could not sleep lying down, the pain on his back and knees was too great. He had always had that pain, ever since he was a boy and had started to grow taller than anyone else around.
In any case, the Queen Anne arm chair had been his bed for the past several decades, and had been the most comfortable he could afford. He allowed his chin to rest on his chest, breath slowing and his eyes rolling back in his head. It would be another night of dreamless sleep. Another night of prolonged blackness with intermittent episodes of tremors and spasms.
Sleep held no comfort for the man the media had begun to call Wicked John. Very little held any comfort at all for him. He had been a wicked child, the spawn of hell, his mother would say on more than one occasion. Since he was a lad, life had shown no reprise, and Wicked John and shown none in return.
The darkness overtook him, and he was off, asleep, awash in a void of nothingness. He could feel the time pass by as he slept, minutes into hours. He snapped awake as he usually did. It would be dusk soon, and tonight there would be work, but he would allow himself to sleep a little longer.
Before he could return to the purgatorial pit that was slumber, he was struck suddenly by a memory. A wretched, horrible memory of his childhood. All memories of his childhood were as such.
He was seven, and his mother had just finished beating him for some slight, either true or perceived he was unsure, he was never sure when he had done wrong and when he had simply existed to be beaten by his mother.
A man had come round to the house, as men often did. He hadn’t known it then, but he would learn it later, that his mother entertained men for pay. However, this particular man was not the same that would often come around. He was better dressed, a bit younger, not as wretched and scabby. He seemed to be of finer stock.
He remembered the man looked him over, front and back. He took his arm between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed it, murmuring to himself and nodding. He ran his hands roughly through little John’s hair, combing it over and back. He pulled his lips back and looked at his teeth.
“I’ll take him. The same price we had agreed upon previously.”
His mother nodded coldly, unlovingly. What was he talking about?
“Mama,” he protested, and was met immediately with a slap.
He had been sold to a factory. He would shovel coal into a furnace for the next ten years. His mother had sold him for £5. His mother, the whore of a woman who abused him at every turn, the bitch of a woman who slapped him senseless, had sold him. Good riddance. He hoped she had died alone and in agony.
The thought of his mother writhing in pain as she wasted away comforted him. With that thought, he drifted back to sleep, only this time, he dreamt; of his mother, old and withered, and he stood over her with a filet knife and a wicked grin.
He finished his dream and woke, rested and feeling motivated. Oh, what a sweet, glorious, gruesome dream it had been. Now, he thought to himself as he donned his hat and coat, there would be blood for real. It was half ten in the evening, and the job must be done tonight.
Wicked John made his way out the door and slunk ever stealthily into the foggy London night. He had a long journey ahead of him, and there was still more to be done before the binding was complete. His employer was dependant on him, and he would not disappoint.