The Business by confusedalarms . (read the beginning after the end novel .txt) 📖

He didn't want to accidentally castrate himself. He had to pay attention because there might only be one person passing by all night, but he couldn’t help but let his mind wander off, thinking about all that had happened these past years, how he had found happiness, how it had been smashed to bits almost immediately after he had. The period of near suicidal depression that had followed, and now this. This mysterious business he was rapidly becoming more and more involved with. Though he knew very little about it he felt like was connected to it in some strange way, like it had him in a stranglehold of obsession and would never let him go. These thoughts frightened him, and he suddenly started thinking about just bailing on the whole thing. Just walking out of Vegas and going on a hitchhiking trip for a few years to meet new people and find himself. But somehow he knew Edward wouldn’t let him. Somehow he knew his fate had been sealed the moment he first laid eyes on that letter on his bed a week ago. He would have to do it. So he had to focus, FOCUS! This, right here, right now, could change your life so FOCUS, FOCUS, god damn you!

That wasn’t his mind-voice speaking anymore. It was Edward’s, The same one he had heard when he was thinking about whether or not he would go to the alley, and it jerked him out of the deep, almost meditative state he had been in for some time, and into the present world. Suddenly he felt as though all his senses had sharpened somehow, as if he suddenly had the nose of a bloodhound, the eyes of a tiger, and the ears of a grisly bear. He could smell decay coming from the garbage containers 30 feet away, he could see rats and mice scuttling about way in the back of the alley, and he could hear….footsteps. Footsteps coming his way. Quickly. He had to act now, because somehow he knew this would be his only chance that night. He looked around, saw the entire street was deserted, and jumped around the corner. A woman in a tight black skirt, wearing high heels, jumped and screamed.

‘What the-‘ That was the last thing she would ever say.

XII: Disgust, Despair & Disposal

Two quick, clean shots burst from the .45 he held firmly in his hand. He had never fired a gun before, but something, some weird kind of guiding force seemed to keep his hand steady so he could aim perfectly. Both bullets ended up exactly where he had wanted them to be, one in the chest, one in the forehead. Blood, dark red blood, spurted from her, and she fell to the ground, uttering a gurgling scream that was incredibly high pitched. It was a sound of mixed surprise, fear and pain, and it pierced the air, and also Mark’s heart. He looked at the writhing woman on the ground, bleeding from two places, and felt a mixture of disgust and pity for her. She looked at him, and the look in her eyes said Why? Why did you do this? He looked her right in the eyes and said ‘Sorry! I had to! I’m so fucking SORRY!

Oh god!’ She just kept looking at him, despair and pain in her eyes. It went on for what seemed like an hour, but at last Mark saw the light of life leave her eyes and she breathed no more. It was done. He grasped her by the back and carried her into the alley over his shoulder, looking around to check no-one was looking, very aware of her blood besmirching his jacket, of how warm it still was. He had checked: the garbage disposal containers had been emptied the day before, so they wouldn’t come and uncover the body before he and Edward would meet again. He dumped her in one of the garbage containers, pushed her down as deep as he could and hid her by covering her in more garbage he had saved from his stay in the motel. When she was hidden well enough he walked over to the wall of the alley, slumped against it and cried.

XIII: Three Voices

He stayed there for a while, and eventually the crying stopped and he began the process of getting up. It was a painful process, because he’d been sitting in the cold February rain for about six hours, and he suspected he’d have to endure the agony of a continually aching body for a couple of days. But frankly he didn’t care. He didn’t even notice the pain, at least not for the rest of the night. His mind was too occupied with the atrocity he’d committed to process the signals his nerves were sending it. First though, he had to get back to the motel, but it looked like that would be easy. The shots had been deafening to him because of his weirdly heightened senses, and he suspected people with normal ears would have heard them from a great distance, but in Sin City it seemed like the police either didn’t care or were too busy with some other case. But he ran anyway, ran like the wind. Running it only took him about five minutes to get back to the motel, and in the park he got rid of his .45 by throwing it into the pond where the ducks were strangely absent that night. He thought that would do, and in any case he was glad to have gotten rid of it. The coolness of its metal only reminded him of two miserable nights and a monstrous deed. When he got to the motel he slowed to a walk, and went up to his room, the one furthest away from the reception desk. Inside he dove straight onto the bed, even though he knew that sleep would be pretty much impossible. For hours he lay on that bed, not sleeping, and he thought miserable thoughts. Mostly he thought about the woman he’d killed. He didn’t know anything about her, only that she was probably a whore. The cold part of his mind told him she was just some whore, no-one will miss her. She probably hasn’t seen her parents for years, and they won’t be any the wiser. Just let it go and go to sleep.

But it was losing the battle to the part that screamed YOU KILLED HER! A YOUNG WOMAN WITH HER WHOLE LIFE AHEAD OF HER! AND FOR WHAT? TO GET REVENGE ON TINA?! WHAT KIND OF MONSTER ARE YOU, TO BE THAT SELFISH?

So it went on, and a few hours later, when the sun came up, the screaming in his head had made him feel sick with himself, made him feel like he didn’t deserve to live. He’d even considered suicide, but only briefly. Because by the end of the night, another voice had started up in his mind. The voice of curiosity. Today was the day he would meet Edward again, and that meeting had begun to feel like the last certainty that was left in his life. After it there was only an endless stretch of…what, exactly? It seemed to him he could only find out by going out and meeting that mystery man once again. So he got up, feeling for the first time the aching in his entire body, and made a grisly discovery. His entire shirt was covered in dried-up blood. Her

blood. That was enough for the mental sickness to become physical as well. He ran for the toilet, but before he could get there he fell to the floor, retching and producing only a vial liquid that left a terrible aftertaste in his mouth. God

, he thought, how long has it been since I’ve eaten?

 

XIV: Second Meeting

 

Two days. He hadn’t eaten for two straight days! It seemed that the mental battle he’d been fighting over whether or not to do the murder and the misery after he’d actually done it had completely drowned out his hunger instincts. But they were back now, and he was experiencing hunger like he’d never known before. This is what people in Africa must feel like all the time, he thought, and made a mental note to give money to charities from now on. Before he could eat though, he had another problem. In the night it hadn’t been that bad, but he didn’t think walking around in a shirt covered in blood was the best idea when you wanted to be inconspicuous. But he didn’t have another shirt. They were all in his apartment above the Starbucks, where he hadn’t showed up for work for almost a week. Getting there didn’t seem so hard, it was summer after all, a beautiful 90-degree day, and a man walking around bare-chested wasn’t exactly going to draw a crowd, but getting to his apartment involved walking right past the entrance to the Starbucks, and he had to make sure he wasn’t seen by any of his colleagues, or his boss, for that matter. The best solution, it seemed was to go right now, when the Starbucks wouldn’t be open yet. Some employees would be there, but they would be shuffling boxes around in the back, so they wouldn’t see him. At least he hoped they wouldn’t, and hoping was the best he could do. Best get on with it then. No time to waste. He stuffed the bloodied shirt into the spacious left pocket of his shorts and exited the motel. He would come back and pay for his room