Page 15 of The Blood we Crave

“Walter, I do believe your death will be my best work yet.” I hum, taking my time to roll up both of my sleeves, exposing the violet-colored veins winding up my forearms.

The drugs I’d injected inside of his neck have started to wear off enough that his eyes are wide and alert, but he has yet to regain the full function of his limbs. The heels of my Italian leather shoes click across the red mosaic tiles on my floor, a pattern of glossy and matte finishes.

“Wh-hat…” he gargles, trying to remind himself of how his vocal cords work. “Wh-ho—”

“I desperately wish you people would come up with more unique questions when you regain consciousness.” I roll my eyes, working my way around the metal gurney that reflects the bright headlamp above us. “Why do you feel the need to ask the same thing? Will it truly put you at ease if I tell you who I am? Or what you’re doing here?”

I click my tongue, shaking my head as he continues to shake and wither in the binds. All of them, my victims, they are all the same, all of them weak and someone how convinced they will make it out of here alive.

“How about I tell you something else.” I carefully grab my rolling tray, one that has all my favorite toys splayed across it. “How about I tell you that it doesn’t matter who or what, you were always going to end up right here. At my mercy. Does that calm you at all?”

My fingertips graze the blades I’ve selected tonight. A well-trained and skilled hunter would appreciate my lineup. All the carbon knives are a dream for anyone looking to skin a deer or some other creature hunted for sport.

A tingle pools in my stomach, and if I could feel emotion, this would be the closest thing to joy, I believe. I wouldn’t exactly know because growing up as a ghost story meant a lonely existence.

I’d been born with death as a personal shadow.

Death, or at the very least, unmitigated evil, had invested in my mother’s womb the night I was conceived. Something wicked and monstrous created me, infused my veins with apex predator instincts and a delicious appetite for blood.

I was born a psychopath.

Death manifested into one human.

The boogeyman beneath your bed and neighbor in your backyard. I am who makes you lock your doors at night and cling to your kids a little tighter.

It doesn’t matter to me much what psychologists or criminal investigators have to say on the matter. All the articles and dissertations read the same things. No one is born with psychopathy, they say. People are not genetically cursed in utero. It is something that is learned, that is absorbed and witnessed.

While I am always the first to agree with logical statements such as these, I am also living proof of the opposite. Therefore, they are wrong. Their theories are wrong.

However, I understand why they would reassure the population. It’s much less fearful to believe humans are born pure and innocent. That with love and affection, people will grow to be kind. Technically speaking, if all children were groomed with affection, we could end psychopaths and sociopaths altogether.

The truth is, I was made this way. Born with the perfect tools to make me into a killer, and that is far scarier. Knowing that there is no way to stop it, to stop us, those born with this urge pumping through our system. Knowing that no matter what you do or how much love you have to give, some people are just made to eradicate lives. Made to cut. To make others bleed.

How else do you explain my quietness as a child? My grandmother said the only time I’d ever cried out as an infant was the moment I came into the world, and once I was cleaned, swaddled, and handed to my mother, all sound ceased to exist. How else do you explain my lack of emotion, of feeling towards anyone, including myself? My loyalty is unmatched—I would do just about anything for the sake of the people I surround myself with, but that does not and will never mean Icarefor them.

It took my family a bit to catch on to that harsh reality, but after my grandfather caught me in the backyard ripping the limbs off bugs, I knew they’d finally accepted me for what I was.

An abomination.

A monster.

A killer.

Thethingmy father had desperately hoped I would be. While his teaching and parental advice were morbid, he was the only person who understood what I was. Even if he was partially the reason I turned out this way.

By the time I reached middle school, I was no longer allowed to play with other children. Their parents complained that my presence disturbed their innocent little ones’ minds. Not long after my birth, my own mother decided the son she had created was not what she had signed up for. She left just after my first birthday, according to my father.

I was bizarre. Foreign. Strange. An exceptional child with a dark imagination, teachers would say. There was not and still isn’t a single person that wasn’t creeped out by my presence, and honestly? I like it.

Thoroughly.

“Wha-at do you want?” he struggles out, finally finding his footing, which always makes this much more interesting. It means his screams will be crystal clear. “What thefuckdo you want?”

“Resorting to curse words.” I suck my teeth, picking up one of the smaller knives, twirling it in between my fingers. “That’s not the way you get on my good side.”

Before I give Walter the attention he deserves, I grab my remote and click Play. Bach floats through the baseboard speakers, and everything begins to click into place. I try to imagine myself ten years down the road when I finish medical school. Ready to slice up someone for a completely different reason than I am now. Dressed in scrubs, with something classical playing in the operating room.

Would cutting with the intention of saving lives give me the same satisfaction as the one I’m about to make? Would slicing flesh for the purpose of medicine be enough to curb my insatiable habit?

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