People Think I'm A Serial Killer. It's Far Worse Than That. Part 11

Part 10
I went home and hid the .357 Magnum -- which Carlos' friend had assured me was "100 percent untraceable" -- under my mattress and went to bed. Unlike the young man I had bludgeoned to death, I felt no sense of guilt or remorse over the female Shadow Face. In fact, if anything, I felt a deep sense of contentment and satisfaction, certain that I had done something that needed doing, that my actions were justified. I had paid evil unto evil and saved a human life in the process. I went to bed with a clean conscience and fell asleep without trouble, sleeping better and more peacefully than I had in weeks.
The next morning, the face of the "woman" I had slain was on the TV. She had actually been something of a celebrity, the socialite/heiress daughter of a well-known record-label mogul, and her murder made international news for a while. Large amounts of alcohol had been found in her system, and police speculated she had left the nightclub drunk, gotten disoriented, and stumbled into the alley where she had been robbed and murdered. The homeless man had been found, still unconscious, nearby and been taken in for questioning, but police didn't believe he was a suspect.
I went to work, feeling better and more at ease than I had in almost two months. I was upbeat, genuinely cheerful and my coworkers noticed, asking me what the deal was, if I had won the lottery or something. I just smiled and told them I had finally made some "much needed changes in my life," leaving it at that.
I watched the news every night after that. Police had no leads in the murder of the heiress. Several homeless people had died in an epidemic of what health officials suspected was a virulent new strain of "pneumonia." I suspected otherwise.
Over the rest of that winter, and the spring of the next year, I killed four more Shadow Faces, three men and a woman. Each time I simply walked around the city until my new sense kicked in and I made a mark. Then I'd follow my target from a safe distance until they chose some secluded location to feed. Then I'd shoot them three times in the head, rob them, and take off. Twice I was able to save their intended victims, twice I was too late (it didn't take long for them to suck a person's life out of their body) Their victims always seemed to enter a trance when they began to feed, and the two I was in time to save remained in a state of catatonia for hours (which the police believed to be a state of shock from witnessing the murder), unable to identify the shooter.
Three of the Shadow Faces I killed were well-dressed and from the top rung of the social-economical latter -- a lawyer, a fashion designer and a financial analyst. The fourth one (who was actually the third I killed) wasn't. He was an out-of-shape blue-collared guy in the grimy blue coverall of a sanitation worker. I remembered what Jeremy had told me about how most but not all of these things seemed to be rich. Some of them were passing themselves off as average people living normal working-class lives.
A couple times, walking in the city during the day, I thought I spotted Jeremy in a crowd, but, if it was him, true to his word, he always ducked out of sight after he noticed me looking at him. I didn't pursue him. I didn't care. He had told me everything I needed to know, and maybe he was right about how we should distance ourselves from each other for safety. A few times I heard on the news about murders I knew I hadn't committed and wondered if they were his doing. I wondered if he had connected me to the shootings going on and if so, what he thought about my own killings.
My upbeat demeanor remained. My manager, who hadn't seemed to like me very much before, commented on my positive attitude and actually promoted me to cashier...not that it paid much more than a bagger. I didn't care. I had never been religious before, and like I said in the beginning, God didn't appear to me in a dream telling me to do it. I had never even believed in God or demons before (given the ****ty hand I had been dealt in life and the misery I had endured) but right then, during that period I felt a sense of righteousness, a feeling that I had been chosen by some Higher Power to do its work and vanquish the forces of darkness. This couldn't be random happenstance; there was a purpose to this. I was on a holy mission, a crusade, to rid the world of evil. I became convinced that God was looking out for me, that he would guide my way, provide for me and protect me.
I let it go to my head...and as a result, I made a very bad mistake.
I forgot what Jeremy had told me, about how he "changed up" his M.O. after each killing to throw the police off so they didn't link the murders. I continued to kill the Shadow Faces in the same manner with the same weapon and it didn't take long for the cops to notice a pattern and realize they were dealing with a serial killer.
The media dubbed me the "Triple Shot Killer." I should have stopped right then when I saw the first news coverage, should have thrown away the gun and lain low for a while. If I had been thinking clearly I would have done just that...but I wasn't thinking clearly. I was too caught up in the mania of my quest to destroy these creatures, my head full of glory. I think subconsciously I wanted them to know someone was onto them and wanted to show them they weren't as invisible as they thought they were. I think I was showing off. It was very foolish, very stupid of me. I let my ego get the better of me, and because of that, I slipped up badly. I got overconfident, careless, reckless.
It all came crashing down one warm spring night in mid May. I was pursuing my sixth Shadow Face, a "woman" in her mid-forties dressed in a smart pant suit. I spotted her coming out of a law firm downtown -- I believe she was a lawyer -- and saw her face make that distinctive ripple that was the precursor to my "other sight" kicking in and locking onto her true identity. I followed her for over an hour as she made her way into a rather sketchy part of the city -- a street that had once been lined with rows of adult movie theaters (back when those had been a thing), most of which were now long gone, replaced with massage parlors, adult DVD stores, dive bars and pawn shops. Some of the buildings had been long since abandoned, turned into crack dens by the resident junkies, and the sidewalks were littered with used syringes. Most of the businesses were already closed for the night, their entrances and windows secured with metal shutters.
I didn't realize it, but I guess I wasn't as discreet as I had been on previous "hunts." I got impatient, sloppy, and she caught on that someone was following her, but didn't let on.
She slipped into the entrance of a long-derelict movie theater, I presumed to search for some prey, and I stepped in after her.
She was waiting for me inside, a can of pepper spray raised. Before I could react, she sprayed a stream of it in my eyes.
Burning, screaming agony filled my eyes, blurring my vision.. I shut them, howling, stumbling back.
I heard her run off, screaming for help, for the police.
I pulled my gun and fired after her blindly, missing.
I couldn't see, but I knew I had to get out of there, quickly. Luckily for me, I could navigate pretty well without sight -- I had been blind for twenty years, after all -- and I managed to fumble my way out of the theater and down the street until I felt the entrance to an alleyway. I felt my way through, hoping it wouldn't lead to a dead-end, stumbling over objects in my way, almost falling, until I came out onto the street on the other side.
By then I could hear the wailing of approaching police sirens.
I ran into a Dumpster, and quickly climbed inside, hoping there was no one around to see me. I hid there is the darkness of the dumpster, amongst the trash, the stench of rotting food overwhelming, for over two hours. By then my vision had more or less recovered. My heart was pounding, and any second I expected the beam of a flashlight to fill my hiding place and a voice to shout "FREEZE!"
It didn't happen, though.
When I felt it was safe to leave, I finally emerged, covered with trash, soaked with disgusting liquids I didn't even want to try to identify, and began heading for my apartment. I wanted to run, but knew that would only attract attention. I forced myself to move at the pace of a casual stroll.
I wasn't sure I would make it back to my apartment. But I did.


Source.