Fever In the Blood by Robert Fleming

Author:Robert Fleming
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2012-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

HYMNS OF DARKNESS

I was curled up on the floor in an apartment of a woman I had just killed. It was late, around two in the morning. Her blood was all over me. The TV was on, with a re-run of Oprah asking some man why he refused to end his harassment of his ex-wife, who was now married to someone else. In the bluish-white glow of the screen, the body of the woman seemed as if she was still alive, her eyes were open and her face very pale. For an instant, just an instant, I wondered what her life must have been like before I stepped into it. It was a passing thought but it made me think of other things while I lay there on the wood floor amid the sweet blood smell.

For months, I’ve tried to understand why I do the things I do. I don’t hate women, I truly believe that. In most of my relationships with them, I’ve spent much of my time trying to prove to them that I’m worthy of their love. I bend over backwards for them, buying them things, taking them places, spending money like you wouldn’t believe. But they play me. Play me like a chump. They hurt me, torment me, humiliate me, and punish me. And still I remain. Usually I stay and take it all without complaining.

Somewhere along the way this blood began, the killings. Even I don’t know the why of it. But I can’t switch it off.

I decide their fate, the women. I am the judge and jury. For once, I have control. Sometimes I pass women on dark streets, in deserted subway tunnels, at quiet bus stops in the middle of the night, women alone in situations where I could easily overpower and kill them without much resistance. But I do not. The prey escapes for another day. Wonder if God gives me points for these moments of mercy? Hell, I don’t understand the entire process of thinking that allows me to do this. Look, the women aren’t real to me, in a sense. They’re types, images, symbols, much like the sexy photos of them in the magazines, but never really human. I wonder how many men feel like I do.

While killing one of them, I look into their eyes and see the fear and dread, yet it doesn’t register for some reason. At that moment, nothing matters anyway. The anger and rage I feel overrules everything else. The bitch must die. Something goes off in my head and the knife sinks into flesh or the hands tighten around the throat until the eyes roll back in the head and the life is gone.

If they plead for help or beg, I tune them out. I refuse to let them become flesh and blood. Human. If that happens, I cannot finish what I’ve set out to do. I cannot kill. No guilt, no remorse. I never torture them. I don’t cut off body parts and save them as souvenirs.

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