Page 8 of Reaper's Hunt

Selene

Ican’tgetthedress off fast enough, leaving it haphazardly in the living room, the panties following soon after. Thank fuck Dante finished me off, but I’m still pissed at him, my mind already working in a thousand different ways to make sure that he’ll pay for it later. For now, though, I have a dead body to contend with and a long night ahead of me because of it.

I don’t spend nearly enough time washing Dante’s scent down the drain, wanting to relax beneath the heated spray but knowing the longer I wait, the more likely I’ll crawl into bed and have to deal with the bastard in my guestroom tomorrow morning. And I don’t do dead people with my morning coffee. Thanks but no thanks.

Toweling off fast, I slip on the routine garments needed to complete my evening task: leggings, tank top, boots, and a black hoodie that smells faintly of musk. My nose turns up at the godawful smell, but it’ll be torched when I get back, so I can suffer through it for an hour or two. The next few steps are the ones I hate most: the ones that require covering up my identity so that some fucker doesn’t detail me to the police, God forbid someone’s out there watching.

The homemade lab sitting in my bathroom drawer consists of two very special, homemade concoctions meant to conceal every last bit of evidence including my DNA and anything else I leave behind. It’s not perfect and it rubs my skin raw but it’s kept me out of trouble all these years. So, unfortunately, it’s a process I have continued and then added a 7-step skin care regimen to bring my flesh back to its former beauty.

I grimace through the quick acidic wash, making sure to cover any and all skin around my wrists, hands, neck and face. Then comes the horrid blonde wig. I should have bought the red one. Blonde makes my face look like…Not the focus, Selene.I check myself in the mirror, grimace at my disguise and then fuck off into the hallway.

“Alright, let’s get you ready, fucker,” I mumble to myself, stepping into the guest bedroom and grimacing at the sight before me. The dead guy’s still there, sprawled on the mattress, gutted and heartless, blood pooling beneath him in a thick, dark puddle. It’s going to be a bitch to clean this room but fuck, it was fun while it lasted. Now, it’s time to finish the art piece, to wrap him up and make him disappear. I grab the roll of industrial plastic stationed in the corner, cursing as I wrestle his limp bulk. “You’re so fucking heavy,” I growl out, wishing he was still alive so I could have him wrap himself up.

I could have laid the plastic out on the floor, terrified the fuck out of him a little more, and then let him flop himself off the bed right into his own little grave. But no, then I would have gotten wrinkles on my knees from the plastic as I knelt over him to cut out his heart and the sounds that came with it just wouldn’t mesh. No, no, this step is necessary.

A grunt tears from my throat as I finally get him off the bed with a heavy thud, struggling to roll him up like a fat sardine in a blanket. I’ve just about got the plastic all tucked in when I slip and my elbow jabs into his flabby dick.

“Leave it alone, Selene. It’s fine. We’re fine.Everything’s fine.”

But it’s not, is it? He’s taunting me with that sorry bullshit even after he’s dead. Yeah, no, not today mister.

Neither one of us have time for this, but I find myself unraveling the plastic just to get to his dick. I hastily reach for my knife from the nightstand and then slice off his cock with one vicious cut. Blood oozes from the gaping wound as I gently shake the flesh now in my hands. How he ever convinced someone to let this inside of them is beyond, me but there will be one last person who will enjoy it.

Him.

“Eat it,” I growl, stuffing it into his mouth, shoving until it’s lodged deep, teeth framing it like a grotesque gag. A cackle falls from my lips as I stare at my masterpiece and then wrap him back up, using the spark of the moment to keep me going.

I’m still laughing as I hoist him up over my shoulder, grunting at the heavy weight that I now have to lug through the hallway. Years of training and dating gym rats who taught me to lift more than their bullshit, have made me a machine.

I cut all the lights in the apartment and haul him toward the back door—a tenant-only alley that’s been my heaven and my escape route. I fumble with the door, about to jam my foot through it when it finally clicks and swings open, the night air hitting me all at once with a mixture of petrichor and garbage. “Smells like home,” I chuckle, taking in a deep breath before heading for my beat-up car parked in the shadows.

This shithole’s why I’m here. Rent’s cheap and matches the part-time boutique gig everyone thinks barely keeps me afloat. To them, I’m scraping by, poor little Selene, silver hair and sad eyes.Bullshit. I could afford better, but this place is perfect. Cameras are mostly fake and the few that work don’t record or the landlord’s too broke to check. Neighbors keep their mouths shut—crackheads and drunks who learned fast after the last snitch, some busybody hag who ended up dead in Lake Ashthorne. Not my kill, but it set the tone. Everyone minds their business, and I’m the girl they want to save, never suspecting I’m the Reaper.

Most of my victims end up in the trunk, stashed away like some dirty secret but this fucker is too large, and I think I forgot to empty my car out, so into the backseat he goes. I lay him across the seat, plastic crinkling as he slumps. His head bangs the armrest, and a smirk plays on my lips. “Careful, don’t bruise yourself.”

The joke dies, though, as I lock up my apartment and slide into the driver’s seat, fishing my burner phone from the middle console.

Job’s done. Payment due in 24 hours. Don’t fuck with me.

I probably could have left off the last part. She’s really sweet and she did just lose her sister. Unfortunately, I’ve had one too many ‘sweet’ people who think that they don’t have to finish paying and that I won’t end up coming after them. The whole anonymity thing and all. That’s their mistake, though because my knife doesn’t discriminate and while I prefer carving open abusers, I do make exceptions.

Now, is the difficult part: finding somewhere to leave this fucker without getting caught. I twist around, peering at him in the backseat, a feral grin spreading across my lips. “Now, where should we drop you? Park’s too easy, too clean. Alleyway’s too symbolic, all that poetic crap. Let’s go on a nice drive, shall we?”

I pull onto the back road and crank the window down, letting the cold air bite my face. The radio’s off because silence suits me tonight, just me and the dead fuck, my captive audience. “You’re lucky, you know,” I muse, looking in the rear-view mirror to meet the plastic roll behind me. “You’re just a job. Some prick who grabbed a girl, thinking you could take what wasn’t yours. Had this been any other county, you might have gotten away with it or just ended up in jail for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, you got me. But hey, you screamed real pretty. So,that’ssomething.” The laugh that falls from my lips has a bitter tang to it, a sigh following as my shoulders fall. “But I’m getting tired. Tired of carving up losers like you. It’s fun, don’t get me wrong but it’s not enough. There’s really only one guy I want under my knife. The bastard who stole my innocence, the reason my stepfather’s dead.”

Maybe I shouldn’t be pouring my heart out to the dead guy, but it means he’ll listen, and I get to work through my issues. It’s like free therapy. I take a sharp turn, his body flopping to the side. Now, it looks like he’s sitting up and alert, his flaccid dick flopping ever so slightly beneath the plastic between his lips. Perfect listening position.

So, I continue. “Stepdaddy was a piece of shit, sure. Slapped me around, left bruises that I hid under hoodies. I could take it—counted the days till college, till I could bolt. But then he sold me. Fucking sold me to his friend, like I was nothing. That guy pinned me down, took what wasn’t his, and I snapped. What girl wouldn’t? After all, he’s the fucker who taught me to defend myself and all I did was follow his rules. Gutted my stepfather for touching me and my mom, made him scream till his throat gave out. That was my first, my baptism in blood. You? You’re just practice, a warm-up for when I find that other fucker. I can’t wait to carve him into nothing.”

The guy who stole my innocence bothers me more than I care to admit. I think it has more to do with the fact that I have no idea who he is besides a nightmare I’ve never gotten over. He wasn’t one of my stepfather’s sleazy friends or my mother’s coke dealer. Just a random face burned into my memory.

I start humming, filling the silence, eyes peeled for the perfect place to offload my creation. Too many of these places I’ve used before or it’s just not therightspot. My town slowly fades into the next as I cross the bridge, heaven in a little courtyard off the main drag, tucked behind where the old city hall used to be. It’s abandoned now, a circle of cracked stones and dead grass, no cameras, no passersby, not even a stray dog to sniff around.

It’s been on my list forever, a pristine little void begging for blood, a canvas for my art. I hastily pull off just behind a row of bushes, several feet from the large tree in the center, before leaning back and whispering to my victim. “Found the perfect place. You wanted attention, didn’t you? Grabbing girls, thinking you’re a king. They’ll scream for you here, I promise.”

I might have lost a little of my spark, my desire for blood waning just a little bit, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still enjoy aspects of this life. Ripping out their hearts and keeping them in my jars is definitely the highlight. But the art piece I create so that the world can find them? Not far behind.

Because this is why they truly call me The Reaper. Sure, that pesky little organ is missing but it’s the masterpiece I leave behind—a crucifixion, a message wrapped up in a fileted nightmare—that has truly given me my name. Because I don’t just kill. I take their dignity, their pride, and their soul.

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