Wraith screamed in total frustration as he drove. He pounded the steering wheel, the dashboard, and even himself. He was in such a rage. All he wanted to do right now was kill every person on the planet and burn their bodies. Twice over. This was an outrage. The worst part about it was that there was nobody to punish directly for the travesty that had been dished out upon him. He could not kill the culprit without killing himself. He made other people kill themselves, he did not hurt himself. If Link could not be made to suffer, then the whole world would feel his wrath. He bellowed again, punching the roof of the car several times as he did this.
His violent outbursts caused the young woman in the passenger seat to shriek. He rewarded her reaction with a blow to the side of her face. Her head jerked with the impact and slammed into the passenger window with nearly enough force to render her unconscious. This was not enough for him. He pulled a knife out of his jacket and rammed it into her thigh, twisted it and yanked it back out. Stupid bitch. Didn't she know better than to get into a car with a stranger?
"Please! No, please!" The woman cried after recovering from the screams of pain that had shot out of her at his attack. She had her hands pressed to the wound and her eyes were streaming with tears. "Please let me go! I am so scared. I just wanted to have a good time."
Only a few minutes ago, Wraith had been smiling running his hands along her body as they left the bar called Event Horizon. She had thought that he was going to take her back to his place for some fun in the sheets. It was only after they got under way that he had changed into this monster filled with rage. What had begun as a promise for sex had turned into a total nightmare.
"You aren't having fun? I am having a ball." Wraith laughed out loud, but there was no mirth in it. "Baby, tonight you and I are going to have some real fun! Now shut the hell up!"
He hit her again and again and again until she went limp in the seat beside him. What a stupid bitch. She had been too loud, too whiny. He couldn't stand her. He couldn't stand anybody right now. They all needed to die. Every stinking human on the planet needed to just die. He hated them all. The world needed to burn.
Wraith, you need to calm down.
"Shut up!" Wraith screamed. "You did this! You! Don't tell me to calm down! I am calm. Can't you see how damn calm I am?"
If you keep this up, you are going to get us caught. How many have you killed just tonight?
"Five and I am just getting warmed up." Wraith said. "I will kill this whole damn city one person at a time if I want to."
They will never let you do that. If you keep this rampage up, Sweeny and all of his buddies will come swooping down on you. After all of this attention, do you think your friends are going to help? They will forget they ever knew you. You will get the death sentence and you will take me with you.
"Well, damn, Link. I guess I just didn't think about that." Wraith mocked. "I mean it is okay if I die, or Vixen dies, or anybody dies. Just as long as precious little Link doesn't die. Do you really think I give a rat's ass about you? I hate you. I really, really hate you."
I know that, but there is really nothing you can do about that. Getting yourself killed isn't going to change the fact that I killed Vixen. Do you want me to tell you what it felt like? Do you want to know how it smelled when she came all over herself right before she died?
"Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up." Wraith repeated over and over again. He knew that Link had a point. He did need to find some way to calm down and end his killing spree. He had been taking women from different bars instead of going back and getting somebody to kill from a place he had already been at, but he was running out of new places. He knew he should probably call it quits once he was done with this bitch, but he didn't want to. He wanted to kill everybody.
You know that you want me to tell you about it. But I won't. I will never give you that sort of pleasure of knowing. You will forever be robbed of the chance to have killed Vixen yourself. You will never be able to watch her die.
"Go to hell." Wraith said. Amazingly enough, he could feel Link withdraw from his mind. Apparently he was done taunting him for now. For about the millionth time, Wraith found himself wishing that he could reach inside his brain and extract Link once and for all. He reached over and hit the unconscious woman beside him one more time. It really didn't do anything that she could feel, but it made him feel a little better.
He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. He needed to focus. He had to stop raging and start thinking more rationally. He slowed his breathing and began to concentrate. Now was not the time to let his emotions get the better of him. Now was the time to focus on finishing the game. All that had happened was that his queen had been taken. He still had his king and he was still in the game. He had taken more of their pieces than they had taken of his. The match was not over; it had simply gotten more interesting. A thought came across his mind and he smiled a wicked smile. He took out his phone and dialled.
"Sweeny." A gruff voice said into the speaker.
"Well, well, detective. It seems as if I have lost somebody." Wraith said.
"Wraith? How did you get this number? This is my personal cell." Sweeny asked.
"Don't worry about that." Wraith said. "I just want you to know that I am furious about the loss of Vixen, and I am taking it out on your town tonight. Have fun with the body count."
"Why are you going to kill more people over this?" Sweeny asked. "You are the one that killed April."
"April?" Wraith asked. "No, I didn't kill an April. I have killed a Susan, a Katie, a Jessica, a Samantha, and Heather. I am about to kill another one named Kate. I think it is somewhat redundant since I have already killed a Katie, but they look different enough that I think it will be acceptable. But no, detective, I have not killed anybody named April."
"Yes you did, and I am still trying to figure out why." Sweeny said.
"No, I didn't, so quit wasting your time."
"Wait, what did you call her, Vixen?" Sweeny said, realizing where Wraith was confused. Of course, he would not think of her by a normal name. Wraith certainly was not a normal name. "Why did you kill Vixen? Wasn't she doing you a favor by going after Jennifer?"
"I didn't kill Vixen." Wraith said. "That would be an absolute bastard named Link. He thought that by killing Vixen, he could get me off my mission to kill James. All it really did, though, was anger me. Now, not only James is going to suffer, but a whole lot of innocent people too."
"Wraith, you need to stop this." Sweeny said. "All you are doing is digging a deeper hole for yourself. Stop killing and turn yourself in. It is the only way we can get you the help you need. It sounds like you need even more help than I already thought."
"Help? What makes you think I want help?" Wraith asked. "The only problem I have in my head is the presence of Link. I can't get rid of him and neither can you. In spite of what you may think, I am not sick in the head. You are. You and everybody else that thinks they need to conform to the system. I did not call to get into a philosophical discussion though. I just want to give you a heads up that you will have some bodies to find. At least I did you a favor by letting you know the ‘who done it’ part of your investigation. Cheers."
Wraith hung up and smiled to himself. He was feeling much better now. Sweeny had to be absolutely going out of his mind right now. The detective already wanted him so bad. Knowing that there were going to be six women to find had to make it so much worse. He was back on his game now. All he needed to do was finish off Kate and then he could go back to his motel room and rest peacefully.
He turned down the gravel road at the north end of 26th road and drove into the desert. When he was out a good distance, he pulled off to the side and got out. Wraith pulled the unconscious Kate out of the car and laid her out on the ground. He whistled to himself as he went about removing her clothing. She had a nice body. It was almost a shame that she was not awake. Otherwise, he would have raped her before sending her out of this world.
Instead, he simply slit her throat and watched the blood pour out. He cut off her nipples so that he could add them to his collection of random body parts. If she had been awake and alive at the beginning of her treatment, he might have bitten them off instead. He loved the kind of pain that women experienced when he did that kind of thing, but it was lost on a dead woman. If it did not cause his victims pain, what was the point?
He supposed that he could have let her wake up before he began, but now that he had calmed down, he just wanted to go to bed. It was late and he had been through a lot of stress. A little bit of rest would be nice. All he wanted to do was mangle her body a little and then get out of here. He paused in the middle of his work, as he noticed a small lump in her belly that he had not paid any attention to before. Shit. Shit. No, it can't be. Shit.
He carefully inserted his knife and worked her belly open so that he could see inside without causing any damage to what he was afraid he would find. Sure enough, she was pregnant. She was not very far along yet, just barely starting to show. Tears came to his eyes when he looked upon the embryo of a baby that had been growing inside her. With the utmost care, he removed it and closed her up as gently as he could.
Wraith propped Kate up against a rock and gave her back her baby. He positioned her arms in such a way that it looked as if she was giving it a loving embrace. He did his best to keep his emotions under control as he carved out 'I am so sorry' in the ground at her feet. Once this was done, he looked at the scene one more time before he fell to the ground in uncontrollable sobs. Babies were off limits. He cried and rocked himself gently until the sun began to creep up in the west. Finally, he was able to gather himself up and head back to town.