Amongst The Killing

AMONGST

THE

KILLING

A LITERARY EXPERINCE

JOE COMPTON

NEVER MIND THE FINE PRINT PUBLISHING LLC

Copyright © 2015 Joe Compton

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Amongst The Killing is a work of pure fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either part of the Author's vast and extremely creative imagination and/or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

2015 Never Mind the Fine Print Publishing LLC

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

1.

Oh my God! No! No! No!

Now, Chuck just calm down.

Calm down? I wasn't going to calm down. No, instead I slammed the car door, charged up the lawn past my partner Harry, and was halted by a brick wall of Los Angeles' finest. Most were fresh off their beat and dressed in their dark blues. There were also a couple detective colleagues in their suits and ties. But all were standing arm-to-arm waiting to do whatever it took to stop me from getting into my house. Despite what looked like the entire West Bureau standing there, I dropped my head and lead with my shoulder; fully determined to push through. No one was going to stop me.

It was not until I actually started pushing that reality set in. Was I really ready for all this? In my haste to become the top detective, knee-deep in the case that would define my career, so close to the end, had I really forgotten what was most important?

Had I allowed true love...to die? And if so, how could I be so stupid?

I knew all the answers before my brain could ask those questions. I knew what waited for me on the other side of all those concerned faces, but I refused to trust my intuition, not without being able to confirm with my own two eyes what, in my lifetime, I had never hoped to see.

I fought just to move an inch. After several minutes of push back and struggle, Captain Rose ripped through the crowd yelling for me to stop. The wall slowed my momentum enough so that he could maneuver right in front of me.

He pressed up against me and we stood face to face. He was a big guy, just shy of seven feet tall and nearing 275 pounds.

After continuing my attempts to push through, his sympathetic stare caught my attention. My usually stoic boss looked ready to cry. I had never seen him like that. When I felt him attempting the words, uncharacteristically stuttering and hesitating, I made my move.

In one motion, I leaned back and slid to my right. He quickly regained his composure, matching me step for step, grasping onto me with a bear hug, and stopping me in my tracks.

I am serious Chuck. I want you to stop and be calm for a moment.

I love and respect the man but this was not the time to tell me to what to do. I briefly contemplated an attempt to barrel through him but thought better of it when he suddenly eased up.

I don't know if he felt me pushing and realized I would never stop, or maybe he didn't want to have to fight me. All I do know is I needed him to understand that I was getting into that house.

Calm down? I am standing in front of my own house with every suit and badge in the West Bureau, and damn near every news reporter in the English-speaking world standing on my front lawn. Calm down? Fuck that! I want to know what everyone else seems to know. Where's Tamara? Where's Melissa? What the fuck happened to my family?

The Santa Ana winds picked up, dragging droplets of sticky rain with it. As far as I was concerned, it was a dark cloud spouting its cruel irony over me. Why does it always seem to be raining on the worst days of your life?

Come on Chuck; let's step away for a moment.

Captain Rose made an uncharacteristically tactical mistake. He put his hand on my shoulder. My eyes shifted to look at his cold, clammy hand gripping my collarbone. My muscles tensed, my face grimaced, and my eyes flared.

His grip loosened. Captain Rose knew touching me was a mistake. His demeanor changed from determined to sullen as his hand slowly drifted off my shoulder.

Our eyes met. Mine shrunk and his widened. I stood firm, but leaned in ever so slightly as I let the tone of my voice confirm my position.

I am not going anywhere but forward.

The captain's eyes diverted quickly down to where my fists clenched, trying to squeeze the raindrops. I inhaled, broadening my shoulders, ready to bull rush my way through Captain Rose and anyone else who attempted to get in front of me.

The captain lowered his head and sucked a huge gasp of air. He stepped to the side, conceding.

Suddenly, with nothing in my way, I felt a rush of indecision. Long stomping strides slowed into small, passive steps as I closed in on my living room.

My worst fear charged at me like a prizefighter going in for the final left hook that would finish the job. The dark reaches of my soul grabbed at me with a cold, sick feeling.

My eyes spun in a state of distress. My head rung with terrible screams of high-pitched disbelief. The words 'no way, no, not my girls,' echoed louder and louder, as if I was saying them before they could even reach my mouth. It's the last thing I remember about that day.

2.

I remember the day. The day I, Jack Casey, catapulted to a celebrity status. The day the public became enthralled with anything and everything about me. How could I forget it? It's the day that remains my defining moment, not just as a famous serial killer but as a human being. It's the day I lost respect for all of you, and now had nothing but utter contempt for the world. Listen, I'd already done the world a few favors, but it wasn't until that day, the day I decided to get even with Detective Street, that I could no longer go into public places or walk the streets with any regularity.

How funny is that? I wonder how the families of those first Jack Casey victims felt about that fact? Probably as good as they felt for me ridding them of their problems because let's face it, killing their loved ones was like killing that buzzing fly that you can't get to go away. Quite frankly though, I really didn't think, or care, about what those families felt until that day.

Okay, okay, I admit I certainly didn't mind the attention at first, but it didn't take long for it to become bothersome, seeing my face on everything from a wanted poster to the covers of national magazines. It seemed everyone had their opinion of me and weren't afraid to share it. Suddenly, what I first defined and felt as my liberation, became a discomforting, giant, circus act.

I knew the media used me as a public dartboard to gain higher ratings and sell more papers. Hard-hitting journalism was giving way to spreading fear, sensationalizing, and dumbing down the news they swore to portray so honestly. Fine, whatever, I am sure anyone reading this is far from fucking surprised, right?

I also knew the LAPD used me as a platform to improve their social and economical standing within the community. Don't worry all you Little Red Riding Hoods. We will catch and bring to justice the Big Bad Wolf, we promise. What a bunch of crap. Inept will always be inept, but again, whatever.

I knew Detective Street used me to get higher up in the ranks of LAPD Homicide. Actually, I have to applaud; you are only as strong as you act.

I knew my then wife of seven years, the mother of my only child, would use this as an opportunity to steal Pamela, our young daughter, away from me without a battle.

I suppose no one cares though. No tears shed for me. I guess I deserved everything that happened to me. It's the theory of what comes around, goes around.

Right? What a load of crap! You know I would almost be weary of that ideal if I actually believed more than one person truly subscribed to it. However, when I said earlier no one cares until it's sensationalized, I don't just mean about Jack Casey, but no one cares period, about anything. Most people seem to live under an invisible protective blanket that cloaks them with the idea that nothing or no one like me could ever happen to them. Hell, in a city like Los Angeles, it happens so often and for so many fucked up reasons that murder is almost a fashionable, albeit, almost boring offense.

I still close my eyes and see the very first time I ever killed. Oh, back then it was glorious. I finally felt completely free from those societal chains that bind us. Those shackles forcing us to accept made-up rules and stepping within boundaries that supposedly separate man from animal.

Give me a break! In the end that's all we are, animals. Just because we have an advanced understanding of cognitive functioning and the rare ability to rationalize, doesn't make us better. It makes us weak. When you're weak you take everything for granted.

For ten years I slaved in a nine-to-five job, had a house mortgaged to the eyeballs, way over-extended on my credit line, and still not feeling the false sense of security of that good, healthy, societal living. Sure, I had a family to come home to every night, but this what I wanted?

Can I take your coat dear?

How was your day dear?

Oh, Honey let me just tell you about all the things my crazy boss had me doing today, all the enormous stacks of daily reports I have to get done by week's end, and of course I panicked because it was Monday already. I thought the day would never end. Oh and there was an incident at lunch with Larry, where he was a quarter short of getting the processed cheeseburger from the snack machine and you know what, I lent him a quarter. Is that not crazy Honey? Madness I tell you.

Give me a break! That's life? No way that I could ever see that as living. I knew with the wrong choices I made there'd be consequences, but never as bad as the ones I was already enduring.

So when I snapped out of the trance it happened without thought. Really, the initial thought had been there for months, but when I let it loose, it was like the first time as a teenager that I discovered the art of the orgasm.

So who was my first victim? Let me introduce you to my boss, Harvey Resturn, or 'Harv' as he liked to be called around the office. Harv was the most blatant homosexual I had ever known. He had all his files color-coordinated according to his moods and called them his emotional pastels. He had a framed picture of Judy Garland on his desk, which he would cling to whenever he was distraught.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't his sexual preference that made me want to kill him, but it was the way he chose to make me aware of it. Whenever something went wrong in the office, Harv would call on me even though there were plenty of guys above me in the corporate hierarchy.

Back then I wasn't much of anything, with a clean-cut hairdo and nicely pressed suit and tie, always polite, and on time. I wasn't eccentric and I never gave off that type of vibe. I liked to have a couple beers and a nice, juicy hamburger every now and again, like the next guy. I wasn't obese though like the rest of the population. I did have a nice body that I worked on a couple hours a day at the gym, never all that athletic, just liked looking fit. I did it more so with an exercise bike than weight lifting. I was average height, about 5'9" and 175-180 pounds. I worked hard on my job and went the extra mile, hoping my college degree would make an impression (that's right, I went to and graduated from college). I guess in Harv's case, I made the wrong type of impression.

I think Harv saw me as more than an employee. He liked to bring me into his office alone, close the door, and then have these fireside chats. He did most of the talking and I never really listened to anything he said. I just nodded and added a comment here and there to let him think I was still with him, but most of the time I gazed over his head and concentrated on the discolored spot on his wall. The spot always had me imagining blood and guts, contents from the back of his head exploding and staining the pretty canary-yellow plaster dark red.

The veins in my head pulsed stronger and stronger with every meeting. My teeth had ground to mere nubs, building up more and more hostility toward the man.

On this particular day I finally snapped. The blood pumping into my veins made my head swell to the point of eruption as Harv went on and on. I shifted in my seat; it didn't help. I squeezed my chin and looked down at my watch every so often, just praying to get out of that office so I could get back to my boring life. Sweat dripped ever so steadily down the strands of my hair, tapping my ear, and melting into my cheek.

Oh my God, how long can this go on?

That's when Harv finally noticed my lack of focus, stopping mid-sentence, getting up and walking right behind me. He leaned in massaging my shoulder blades.

What's a matter Jack? You are so tense.

Wrong move Harv. My instincts took over. I reached for the first thing I could find and plunged it right into the fag's neck.

The weapon, in a bite of unplanned irony, turned out to be the sterling silver pen the office bought Harv as a Christmas present last year. He loved that pen, especially since the office made sure I gave it to him.

Harv keeled over in shock, gasping for air like a fish out of water. I leapt up, flinging my chair out and spun around to watch.

Harv's eyes ballooned fiercely trying to jump out of their sockets. He reached out to me with tears involuntarily dripping down the sides of his face. I backed up a step or two. His face souring, all the muscles in his jawbone convulsing and constricting. Harv choked on the bitter taste welling in his throat. His teeth grinding together as he strained in shock. He tried again to grab at me, lunging down at my feet. I scoffed and skipped back a step.

Harv desperately swung his hands up at his throat trying to remove the pen sticking out of his neck. As he pulled, long thick bursts of blood splattered onto the hardwood floor. He released high-pitched squeals giving in to the pain as he couldn't get the pen all the way out.

His back hit the floor with a thud. His jaw locked down as he let out short bursts of gasping breaths. His hands flailed around for anything to grab onto for support. A small pool of his blood quickly spread out, outlining him. He let out faint shrills of pain and fear.

He reached for the pen again. I ran up, stomped the pen with the sole of my shoe driving it in deeper, and more blood spewed everywhere.

That's when a delirious Harv desperately fought through the pain and cried out, but blood filled up and gushed from his mouth. Seconds later he began floundering on the floor.

I stood over him with waiting eyes and clenched fists. I cocked back and blasted a few dozen or so kicks into Harv's head, violently thrashing his face into anything beyond recognition. My heel seemed to sink into the soft mush that was his face and made spongy sounds as blood splattered everywhere. More and more blood poured out with each kick.

My aggression waned as he finally stopped moving. Every muscle in my body clenching and pulsing, wanting to lash out more.

Oh be alive. I beg you, please still be alive.

With my breath three steps ahead of my heart, which beat out of my chest like thunder, I stood over my artwork, marveling in its splendor.

Suddenly a mad rush of office employees came barreling through the door. They stood confused and flabbergasted. I wasted no time bumping through the crowd and out the office's front door. I heard loud screams of terror and the panic setting in among the group. I smiled as I headed down the hallway, never looking back.

Ah, the liberation! Finally free from society and all its bullshit. Thus it began: Jack Casey became a free man.

This was only the beginning. I wanted to use this newfound freedom to strike at those who hindered me, by letting my instincts be my guide. I couldn't stop there. From that moment forward if someone pissed me off, they died.

I kept on the move, and to my advantage the cops never really had any idea of where or when I would strike next, because I didn't