Chapter 4
I found him that night, on my way back from work. It had been a tiring day, and I was filled with accumulated stress. The streets were already dark, and the only sound was the cold howling of the wind. When my car passed his, I stopped, rolled down the window, and stuck my head out. He was working on the engine when he noticed he had company.
Be as friendly as possible.
Smile, always smile a lot.
"Need some help?"
He smiled.
"The car suddenly stopped," he said, tapping the metal. "I have no idea what happened to this old thing."
The car was a new model, which made me suspect he was a man who liked compliments. Even though my goal was to gain his trust, I had no intention of massaging his ego.
"Do you want a ride?"
A flicker of surprise crossed his face. We weren't really acquainted, having only met by chance a few weeks ago; still, I knew he remembered my face. We had a brief conversation, and he seemed to like me, saying I was nice. We had only met once, but I had known who he was for much longer.
I gave him a friendly smile and repeated the offer.
"You won't find a mechanic now," I added, glancing at his suit. "Aren't you late for your appointment?"
He looked around, observing the emptiness of the streets and the cold that was slowly settling in, and shrugged slightly.
"I need to find my girlfriend," he explained, walking toward the car. He opened the door and sat down. "She's waiting for me."
His girlfriend?
He was out of breath, his hair sticking to his forehead, drenched in sweat. The strong, overpowering perfume filled my car as soon as the windows were rolled up. He had barely spoken to me, and I was already fantasizing about using the screwdriver under the seat to hit him over the head. I forced myself to breathe and continued driving, wondering what he would do when he met his girlfriend.
"Where should I go?"
"I'm picking her up at her bookstore," he said, pride clear in his voice. "It's at the Oak Street and Boulevard intersection."
"So, you got the girl, huh?" I asked casually.
He smiled.
"We're not officially dating. I plan to ask her to be my girlfriend today."
He lifted a small black velvet box and opened it, revealing two silver rings. I couldn't look for too long, but I forced a small smile. We were very close to our destination when I parked in front of a closed shop. The street was empty, perfect. I promised myself that when I killed him, I would set fire to that box.
"Is it your habit to call someone your girlfriend before she’s agreed?"
"I know she’ll say yes," he replied. "We’ve already talked about it."
I looked at him and smiled.
"Andrew, right?"
He nodded.
"Your car didn’t break down by chance. I went to your work today and cut some wires. If you knew anything about mechanics, you’d have noticed it pretty quickly."
"What?!"
I punched his face before he could attack me. Andrew’s head slammed into the window violently, the sound of his skull hitting the glass reverberating in the enclosed space. He was stunned for a second, but I kindly waited for him to recover before hitting him again. When Andrew tried to retaliate, I punched him again, this time hitting his nose. The sound of the bone breaking was clear. He passed out soon after.
I would have been more gentle if he hadn’t irritated me within five minutes of conversation. Why did he have to talk about her? His smile when talking about her, calling her his, was still in my head when I grabbed the handle of the knife.
Not hers, Andrew.
She was never yours.
Andrew remained unconscious as I dragged his body to the shed; it felt twice as heavy. After placing him in the chair and tying his wrists with the leather straps attached to the wood, I went to the entrance and locked the large iron door. It didn’t take long for him to squirm in the chair and scream. Did Andrew really think I was stupid enough to take him to a place where his screams would be heard?
Did he underestimate me that much?
Thinking from an evolutionary standpoint, it was expected that our instincts would take control when we needed to survive. It wasn’t protective to remain silent and still in front of a killer, just as it wasn’t wise to try to fight a polar bear. Andrew was right to scream, though it made no difference in the outcome of our encounter. Just by understanding that he was no different than an animal being slaughtered, I let it go.
"What the hell, man?! What are you doing to me?"
His voice annoyed me, his neat hair and plain clothes irritated me, the way he spoke and the words he chose annoyed me. In essence, his existence bothered me. I wasn’t an irrational man who let irritation take over, but he was a special case, and despite not being in my original plans, I made it a point to kill him. I approached calmly, savoring the nuances of his contorted face. He looked confused, scared, but hadn’t understood what was about to happen, which became evident when he adjusted his posture and raised his chin.
"This joke has lost its charm. Let me go now, and I’ll forget what just happened."
Annoying, annoying, annoying.
"Can you shut up?"
He furrowed his brows and seemed so stunned by my request that he took the trouble to laugh, as if all of this were just an unfunny joke. The smile slowly faded when my knife entered his field of vision and, probably, became the center of his entire world. Knives had that appeal, perhaps even more than guns. I hated shooting because the act itself was devoid of contact and intentionality.
You pull the trigger from a distance.
You pull the trigger effortlessly.
You pull the trigger, and the gun does all the work for you.
In general, knives and blades required involvement. You had to be close to reach the target with your own hands; you needed to be quick and have the stomach to deal with the sensation of tearing through someone's flesh. When you stab or cut someone, you’re assuming the risk of not being skilled, precise, or lethal enough. If you don’t do it the right way, the person has a good chance of surviving.
It takes talent and skill.
If I wanted to eliminate someone quickly and without engaging with what I was doing, I could just aim for the head and shoot. However, if I wanted to feel death, I needed to touch, and my goal was always to feel.
It didn’t make sense otherwise.
You have to be smart even in choosing the blade.
Hunting knives are ideal for dismembering, skinning, and cutting pieces, but you need to be good at sharpening the blade and have the strength to apply the necessary pressure when cutting through tougher meat or bones. Cleavers are more robust, good for hard bones and cartilage, but they also require strength and precision in the blows—or you risk damaging the blade or your own body. Daggers and stilettos aren’t my favorites because they’re too small for my taste; they’re more used in combat, self-defense situations, or hunting smaller animals. However, they’re good for details.
Axe heads are especially interesting. They’re wide and heavy, but in return, they’re very useful for breaking bones. They require a lot of physical strength, and while they may not be the best tool for cutting meat, they can help divide large parts of a body. What I like most about them, though, is the sense of despair they cause.
Andrew continued to scream as I slid my dagger across his cheek. Although I didn’t particularly like them, this one was perfect for what I wanted to do with him. I grabbed his sweaty hair and forced his head to stay as still as possible. Despite his desperation and his attempts to escape, it was relatively easy to keep him still, and when I succeeded, I positioned the tip of the blade at the edge of his mouth. His jaw was locked, but I managed to find a little space to cut.
"I suggest you open your mouth," I warned. "Or my knife will tear everything in its way."
His eyes widened, and he began to squirm in the chair, but it was screwed to the floor with thick bolts. Since Andrew didn’t obey, I did what I said I would. The blade slid through his skin with little resistance, just enough for me to feel the fabric give way under the sharp edge. There was a nearly silent moment when the tip broke through the surface, and I felt the slight jolt of the cut as it reached the softer flesh than I expected. It scraped against his teeth and gums until he started screaming again. A shiver ran down my arm; the strange, viscous warmth of his blood flowing onto my hand, the muscles yielding to the movement with a surprisingly smoothness.
Without the initial resistance, the blade cut with great ease, opening up the entire cheek, almost reaching his ear. Andrew was crying and screaming loudly, which made the job easier. He passed out before I could cut the other side, and although I still wanted to see him suffer, I knew I needed to finish this quickly if I wanted to talk to her. With luck, I might even manage to present her friend before the night was over. I had to be very, very fast, and that was good news for the unconscious man in the chair because it meant he wouldn’t feel pain for long. I was almost done.
Andrew was a deviation from the plans, in a way. He didn’t need to die for my objectives to be completed, and in fact, he had nothing to do with them. My justification was simple: he pissed me off to hell. Andrew was so focused on winning Coraline over that he failed to see she didn’t feel the same way, and his persistence in having her was exactly what killed him.
If he had kept his smiles to himself and stayed away, he would have been fine. At least one good thing came out of all this mess: his smile was much more tolerable now.
I was never one to write much. I always thought that writing, when experienced in the solitude of our minds, reveals parts of us that most people shouldn't know. It leaves us fragile, exposed. Maybe it's the blankness of the paper that inspires us to fill it, making us vulnerable, perhaps too transparent. A physical record of the color and thickness of your soul is what writing is, and the possibility of someone having access to it has always discouraged me. At the moment, I still don't think it's safe to share so much about myself, but I decided to try anyway. I keep the notebook well hidden and, if anyone tries to take it, I guarantee they won’t end up well. In a way, writing might bring me closer to Coraline, and that matters more than the risk of it being read by someone. Besides helping me understand what she feels when she writes, I can document our moments together.
Who knows, maybe one day, I’ll let her read this.
Hours before meeting her, I prepared myself to do something that, at best, would shock her. At worst, Coraline would hate me with great intensity. Caught between reason, which forced me to act according to the plan and leave that bookstore with the same calm I had when I entered, and the emotion that surrounded my organs inside, spreading through my pulsing arteries, trying to force my muscles to yield to its demands, trying to make me invade her space at the back of that dark bookstore and take away the real hidden prize. It was a fact that if I were governed by my emotions as much as others were, I might have succumbed.
I wasn't governed, but they still had much power over me, and because of that, I couldn’t leave without getting closer to her. Her beautiful, rosy lips trembled as she remained twisted in that dark cubicle, her flame-colored hair sticking to her skin soaked with sweat and tears, her eyes drowned in the deepest despair. It took a monumental effort not to rush everything and lose the details along the way. Even though she was about to hate me, I still wanted to spare her for a few hours. She already had enough to worry about, including Andrew Parker’s corpse.