Dear Diary
Daily Thoughts of a Serial Killer
By Raven Usher.
Smashwords Edition
© Raven Usher 2010
Published by Vamplit Publishing at Smashwords
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Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Copyright Notice
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or shared using any form of technology available now or invented in the future. This book my not be printed or shared in any way without the permission of the publisher. This book is sold subject to conditions that lending or sharing in any form is not allowed. This book may not be reproduced in any part, shared, distributed or copied without the permission of the publisher.
All characters in this book are fictional and totally invented from the author’s imagination. None of the events or characters in this book has ever existed outside the author’s imagination or the content of this novel.
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1st Blood:
An accidental discovery
Dear Diary,
Modeling is a very competitive business and it’s the only career in the world where you can be too old to make a living by the time you’re twenty-eight. So it was perfectly natural for me to freak out a little when I heard that photographer tell the ad guy, “These are great shots. They’ll be perfect. We’ll air brush out those little lines around her eyes.”
I spent the next two days on the net, searching for the world’s best anti-aging products. I hadn’t slept since before the photo shoot. There was no way in hell I was going to let that little shithead of a photographer ruin my career with his dribble about little lines around my eyes. I have enough money to have expensive products shipped in to me. I might even be able to afford to hire the best known, most renowned experts. OK, that’s a stretch. I may not be an international supermodel, but I’m good enough to have advertisers request me from the agency. I’ll be damned if I let a few laughter lines take me out of the running before I’m thirty.
By the time the sun came up for the second time since I sat down at the computer, I had seen and read about every so-called age defying product available on any market. I even looked up skin care regiments that women used as far back as the middle ages. The price of beauty hasn’t changed over the ages. The price is sacrifice and it’s paid with all the crazy things we women do to ourselves trying to fight time.
Some women even paid their dues in blood. At one point I read about a woman named Countess Elizabeth Bathory. They called her The Blood Countess. Legend has it, in the late sixteenth century this very rich, beautiful and high born woman murdered around 650 young peasant women and bathed in their warm blood to keep herself beautiful. She got away with it for more than thirty years until she got sloppy about getting rid of the bodies, tossing them out of her carriage on to the road for the wolves to eat.
I must have really been out of it by then because I kept thinking about ways that Countess Elizabeth Bathory could have disposed of the bodies so they wouldn’t be found. If she had kept her head about her and been smarter about her disposal methods, she could have had a steady blood supply to keep herself beautiful for three more decades. I’m never sloppy in my career, no matter how well I’m doing. She just got too big for her britches. She thought nobody could bring her down like all those wanna-be bitches who have a little success in front of a camera then get so full of themselves they get wrecked on booze, drugs and parties. Things haven’t changed since the 1590’s.
I must have fallen asleep at the keyboard, because the next thing I knew, I was being scared out of my skin by someone pounding on my apartment door. It scared me so much that I jumped and bruised my knee on the bottom of the desk and then fell out of my chair. To top things off, I think I screamed like a third grader with a lizard on her shoulder. It was not a good way to wake up from too little sleep.
When I managed to peel myself off the carpet in my den, I limped to the front door. I was ready to bite the throat out of whoever was on the other side. It was my best friend, RJ. We started out modeling together when we were nineteen. We got sent out on all the same auditions because we looked so much alike. We wore the same size clothes, except for bras. RJ had a full cup size on me. With the exception of a few high-light streaks, our hair was the same color. My hair always looked shorter than hers just because of all the natural curl in it. Hers had some waves, but it hung pretty straight. We even did an ad one time where we were supposed to be sisters.
Over the next couple of years I made a name for myself, while she wrecked herself on booze, drugs and parties. By the time we were twenty-two, I had an apartment downtown, a big contract with the agency and a good sized retirement account. RJ had a DUI, an attempted suicide and a scar on her face.
Some alpha male type had decided RJ owed him a good time after he let her inhale a couple of lines from his stash. When she refused to give him a blow job, he smashed a whiskey tumbler on her cheekbone. Three days after the docs put thirty-eight stitches in her face, she OD’d. I found her and took her to the ER and she’s been trying to pay me back ever since by working as my personal gofer. Yes, I pay her. Actually, I pay her way more than the going rate for assistants. What else could I do? She owes me a blood debt, but I don’t ever intend to collect on that.
When I opened the door, she was standing there with the two cups of coffee. She always arrives with coffee when she comes to my place. Her shoulder length blonde hair was once again covering half her face. After she realized that the scar was never going to go away, she started wearing her hair like it was the Phantom of the Opera’s mask. She had recovered from the drugs and liquor, her skin was back to the peaches and cream complexion she had when we first met and her body was back in runway walking shape, but with half her face scarred-up, she didn’t even like to step in front of a mirror, much less a camera or a crowd.
“You haven’t answered your phone for two days,” she said unceremoniously as she stepped passed me into the apartment.
“I’ve been busy,” I said with as much disdain as I could muster.
“Well, get over being busy. The agency called yesterday. The pics from the lipstick ad were a smash hit. The Suits love you. They want you back in to shoot with the rest of their product line. You have to be at the studio for make-up and wardrobe at six tomorrow morning.” She put one cup of coffee on the end table and handed the other one to me. “And you look like hell. When did you sleep last?”
“You just woke me up, mom,” I sneered at her. Yes, I had been sleeping, but I doubt I had got more than an hour or two.
“Well, it’s not enough,” she ranted. “I got Anton waiting at the gym to give us a good workout. I’ll call Jesyca at the salon from the car. Maybe she can get you in and work on those bags under your eyes this afternoon and you’re in bed by eight tonight.”
“Yes, mom,” I said as I lifted the cup to my lips. “Ugh! What is this sludge?”
“It’s decaf. Go get dressed. Anton is waiting for us.”
***
Dear Diary,
The new shoot went great. There was a different photographer this time and no one said anything about lines around my eyes, but I was thinking about it the whole time. Of course, Jesyca’s firming mask can smooth out any skin and last for a few days, so I was sure there would be no air brushing this time, but what about next time?
I had to find the perfect product to keep me young for a good long time. I was already determined to make whatever sacrifice I had to make. I had even thought about cutting RJ’s salary if necessary. There had to be something that would do what I needed without breaking my bank account. Desperation rattled around in my head like a hyper-active pinball on meth.
We’d hailed a cab to take us back to my place. There’s never any parking at the studio, so we always take a cab to the shoots. RJ had bent down to open the car door when the three-piece suit inside threw it open and smashed it into her face. Her nose started pouring blood like a vampire’s decorative fountain. I ripped the lid off my empty coffee cup and held it under her to keep the blood off her clothes. The asshole who hit her just walked away. I got her into the cab, still holding the cup under her nose and it finally stopped bleeding just as we pulled up in front of my building fifteen minutes later. The cup was almost half full.
I threw some cash at the driver. It was probably way too much for the short ride, but who had time to count right then? I got RJ upstairs and into the bathroom so she could clean up and I told her to grab a top out of my closet if she wanted to. We were still the same size.
When I heard the water running, I went back to the cup of blood that I’d instinctively set down on the small table by the front door. How gross was that? A coffee cup half-full of blood sitting right next to my Prada purse, too bad Countess Elizabeth Bathory wasn’t there. I could have offered her a quick facial or maybe I could save it for myself?
That last thought made my skin crawl. I looked at the cup and then looked into the mirror above the table at my own face. Leaning in close, I looked hard at the area around my eyes and just at the very corner of my right eye I saw one little line in my skin. Jesyca’s firming mask hadn’t lasted even the promised twenty-four hours.
I have no idea why I did what I did next. Perhaps I’d accidentally channeled Countess Elizabeth Bathory’s spirit by thinking about her so much. Who knows, but I picked up the coffee cup, dipped the middle finger of my right hand into the sticky goo and touched it to my face next to my right eye. For a moment, I shook in horror at the sight of the blotch of blood on my skin. I think I almost stopped breathing and then I raised my hand again and rubbed it into my skin.
When I looked back down into the cup, the blood didn’t look red any more. Maybe it was the dim light by the door, or maybe it was because the blood was getting old already. All I could think was that it didn’t look like blood. I dipped my finger again and rubbed a dab of it into the skin by my left eye. It didn’t feel any stickier than any of the face creams I’ve tried over the years.
I heard RJ coming so I sat the cup back down and went to meet her in the living room. She was cleaned and polished and wearing a champagne-colored top from my closet. “Are you ok?”
“I’m fine,” she said shrugging. “What else is my face for besides taking the hits?”
She wasn’t joking, but I let it go. “You look as beautiful as always.”
“Compared to who?” she was in self-pity mode. “I’m a wreck and I’ll always be a wreck. The only beautiful thing in my life is you.”
After a short argument about the quality of RJ’s beauty, I went and got the cookies out of the lockbox under the bed in the guest room and we drowned our sorrows in chocolate cookies and skim milk as I talked her out of her funk. Of course, for us, drowning our sorrows only meant three cookies a piece. Talk about throwing caution to the wind! After I walked her out, I went back to the cup of blood, I stared at it and then I locked the front door and scampered to the bathroom clutching it firmly.
The top layer had dried like a thick brown scab. I peeled it away and dropped it into the toilet. The rest of the blood was cold and it had gotten really thick. I poured a little out onto my fingers and rubbed it with my thumb. It was smooth and I could feel it tightening on the skin of my fingers. Tightening. Exactly what my skin needed. I closed my hand and spread it all over my palm.
I couldn’t believe I was even considering doing this. I looked into my own eyes in the mirror. “Are you sure about this?” I asked myself. I needed young, tight, toned skin. I was doing ads for make-up. People would be examining my skin close up, scrutinizing every little blemish. I had tried dozens of products and researched dozens more. What did I really have to lose by trying one more?
I poured a good amount of RJ’s blood into my palm, set the cup down, rubbed my hands together to spread it around and brought them up to my face. It felt thick and sticky. I could feel it clinging to my skin. Good adhesion. I rubbed my hands over my face again and again. When I opened my eyes I was expecting to see the blood smeared across my features, but that wasn’t the case. It worked in smoothly, easily. There were only a couple of small spots where I could see the blood and a couple of quick rubs sank it into my skin.
I looked at my hands. I couldn’t see the blood there either. Face and hands. Not bad. I took the cup to the kitchen and covered it with some plastic wrap. I’d used nearly half of what was in the cup and I didn’t want to lose any more to another scab on the top. I put the cup back in the bathroom and left it there until the next morning.
~~~~~
Addiction:
The need to get more
Dear Diary,
I slept deep and heavy with RJ’s blood on my face. I didn’t dream. I knew I had slept longer than I normally do. I felt energized and ready to take on the world before my feet had even hit the bedroom floor. Showering felt like a high-powered battery quick charge and by the time I had my bra on, I felt invincible.
Standing in the bathroom, I looked at the plastic covered coffee cup. Was this energized feeling because of the blood? I leaned over the counter until my face was only a couple of inches away from the mirror. I looked at every square centimeter of the skin on my face. I took an especially long, critical look at the corner of my right eye where I had seen the little line the day before. It wasn’t there.
I felt the smile spreading across my face before I pulled back from the mirror and saw it. She was right! Countess Elizabeth Bathory was right. Blood held the ravages of time and age at bay. I picked up the cup and tore the plastic wrap cover off of it. It was thick, too thick and too cold. I turned on the tap and let water, hot enough to steam the mirror, fill the sink. I sat the cup in the water and when I was sure it wasn’t going to tip over I left to go eat breakfast.
I can’t remember the last time I walked around the house in nothing except my underwear. As I sat in the kitchen shoveling cereal into my mouth, I couldn’t even remember the last time I walked around the house in bare feet. Yet here I was, just one night’s sleep after rubbing a blood mask into my skin, eating in my bra and panties. Maybe the blood does more than just make you look young, perhaps it makes you feel young as well. I finished breakfast, washed the bowl and went back to the cup in the bathroom sink.
The hot water bath had thinned the blood. It was less goopy and redder in appearance. Apparently keeping blood warm was a good idea. There wasn’t as much left as I remembered from the night before. Does blood evaporate? I poured it into my hand and applied it to my skin just as I had the night before. It reacted the same way. I reacted much better. I didn’t question my actions. I wasn’t hesitant. I had no feelings that there might be anything wrong with what I was doing.
I even defended my actions to myself. I needed it. My skin and my career needed it. I had to stay competitive. I just had to. There was no way I would allow myself to end up like RJ. I just wasn’t cut out to be someone’s lackey. I would not be reduced to fetching coffee and managing someone’s appointment book. RJ had wasted her shot. I wasn’t going to waste mine. No way in Hell!
My skin was feeling great and I was supremely happy as I got dressed. I was almost done with my make-up when it hit me. The cup was empty. The fucking cup was empty! I dropped the $24 lipstick and it clattered across the tile. I stared at the cup. How was I going to refill it? How was I going to get more?
My contemplations were interrupted when RJ rang the doorbell. She was here to pick me up for the late lunch meeting with the agency rep. Damn it! How was I supposed to concentrate on getting more of my beauty cream with a bunch of suits yammering on about nothing?
RJ was talking the entire time she was driving us to the restaurant for the meeting. I didn’t hear a thing she was saying. I kept looking at her and imagining ways I could get more of her blood. Could I somehow arrange for her to get hit in the face again? Maybe I could take her to donate blood and then slip out with her donation, but how would I get it away from the blood bank people? Maybe if I told her what I needed the blood for, she’d let me have some. It would just take a quick second with a steak knife. Nah, she’d freak out. I could start a fight and hit her myself. I couldn’t do that every few days though. I could kill her just for her blood, but she’s my best friend.
Then I thought of a possibility. Why did it have to be RJ’s blood? It could be anyone’s, right? As long as it wasn’t infected it should do the job. Yes. I could use anyone’s blood. OK, so how do I get someone’s blood? Perhaps someone at a Goth vampire club would be willing to let me bleed them. I was lost in the thoughts of how to get more blood when RJ leaned into my window from outside the car and said, “Hey there, you coming or what? You’re the one who works for these guys, not me. They couldn’t care less if I show up.”
I sat at the table pretending to listen to the grey tweed suit vomit up business conversation between bites. I kept looking at him and thinking that it would be so simple to lean over the table, take the knife out of his hand, cut his throat and collect his blood in one of the fine crystal glasses on the table. This guy was a waste of air. I’d be doing everyone a favor by bleeding him.
He finally slid some papers with a blue back page across the table at me. It was a contract and I didn’t have the slightest idea of what it was for. I hadn’t heard a word of the entire meeting. I pulled it closer and pretended to read it. I saw the words ‘make-up’ and ‘spokes model’ along with my name and the name of the company that hired me do the shoots. I should have been listening. This was a big deal.
I turned my head and looked at RJ. She was so excited she was practically jumping out of her seat. I said to her, “What do you think?”
I could see in her eyes that she wanted to scream “Take it!” at the top of her lungs, but when she spoke her voice was calm and diplomatic. “It’s a generous offer.”
I looked back down at the papers and turned a page, pretending to be looking it over. I finally said, “As long as my assistant, RJ here, has all the access she needs to keep my affairs in order, we have a deal.”
The man across the table sighed in relief, as his assistant, a spindly little yes man in navy blue, scrambled to hand me a pen. RJ’s eyes got as huge as the plate in front of her. She hid her excitement by taking a sip from her water glass. The man whose voice I hadn’t actually heard yet said, “Fabulous! I’ll have my people send you, err RJ, the schedules. We look forward to working with you.” He stood up and shook my hand as his lackey picked up the signed contract and the two of them left before I could change my mind.
Back in the car, RJ let her excitement spew from her mouth as she spoke in one long, unending sentence. My mind drifted back to my supply problem. Every time someone crossed my vision, I thought about how I could get their blood. Damn, this was going to be tricky.
~~~~~
Harvest time:
Taking it on purpose
Dear Diary,
There’s just no way around it. Killing someone is the only way to get the blood I need. That presents me with some problems. First off, who do I kill and once I figure out who, how do I do it? That old guy from Amadeus had it right. How does one go about killing a man? Damned if I know. I had to figure out where and how to get him there and after I do it how to collect the blood? Most important of all, where do I get rid of the body?
I can’t just dump a body on the road for wolves to eat. The only wolves here are that small pack that some conservationists reintroduced a few years back. They never come into the city. Even if they did, I would never be that careless. The mountains are only a short drive away. I bet I could find some super secluded spot to dump a body out there. The new wolves probably wouldn’t be out there, but there are lots of little wild creatures that would most likely enjoy a free meal. By the time anyone found a body up in those valleys, there’s no way there would be any evidence left. Yes, I’ll go to the mountains and find a good spot. It’s about damn time that beast of an Escalade I bought saw some dirt roads anyway.
I could just pick up a guy at a club, I guess. No one but the bartender would have to know I was only drinking soda and if I told him I was a designated driver, he wouldn’t question a thing. I wonder if bartenders even remember designated drivers. There’s plenty of clubs around. I wouldn’t have to go to the same place twice, at least not for a while and even if I made the rounds once a year, who would remember me?
Where to do it, though? I suppose it wouldn’t be too hard to get a guy to take me back to his place, but what if someone saw me, a neighbor or someone. Wait a minute! Gram’s house! Good old Gramma. I can get her old place cleaned up and use it. I can say it’s my ‘getaway place’. I can park in the garage so no one would see any guy I brought back. I could even get a cheap car to leave there for going to the bars.
This is going to work!
***
Dear Diary,
OK, I got it all set up. I told RJ I was going to go up into the hills for a day, just to unwind. I found a great deep valley. The drop has got to be 300 or 400 feet nearly straight down. I can pull up right next to the edge and dump a body over. I took that GPS thing I got at Shop-Mart and when I found the spot I clicked the memory button. Now it’ll take me back there no problems.
I hired a maid service to go into Gram’s place and make it habitable. Holy crap was that a big bill! All the old furniture is still usable and by the time the maids were done, it looked like it had never been empty. I hired another company to go by once a week and take care of the lawn. I took some extra clothes over there. Gram’s big fireplace will let me burn just about anything. I even had the maids clean it out.
I got the other car too. I call it my pick-’em-up car. It’s a cheap little four-door that is absolutely unremarkable. Even the tinting I had put on the windows was nondescript. Someone could be standing next to it and not notice it. I had to employ professionals to install a garage door opener. No way am I going to be getting out of the car and opening and closing that door. One button opens it, one button closes it and no one sees who’s in the car.
Even if a neighbor sees the car, it won’t get any attention. When I was there with the maids, I said ‘Hi’ to all the neighbors. I told them that I was making Gram’s old house into my retreat so I could get away from the noise and hustle and bustle of work. Through a little casual conversation, I told them I might be coming and going at odd times, but that’s down to my work schedule being so hectic. God knows when I’ll get the chance to get away from day to day. They bought it hook, line and sinker. Neighbors are so gullible. Most of them were just happy that the old place was fixed up and not hurting their property values. People can be so selfish.
***
Dear Diary,
I did it! OMG, I did it! It was one hell of a mess, but I did it!
I went to some hole-in-the-wall bar about half way between Gram’s place and my apartment. When I told the bartender I was the designated driver, he made me a special drink he makes just for the people he calls ‘The Responsibles’. He didn’t even charge me for it.
I sat in a corner and people-watched for a good long time. After a while, one guy ended up sitting at a table in the back all by himself. He was sucking down his drinks a little too fast. I watched him for almost an hour to make sure he was alone before I went over and sat down.
His name was Bill. He was getting drunk because he was still depressed about his wife leaving him a year ago. I remember thinking that if someone found his body, they just might blame his death on her. I giggled at that thought. I flirted until he put his hand on my knee and that’s when I knew I had him. I asked him if he wanted to go back to my place and told him I’d bring him back to his car in the morning.
He threw some cash at the bartender on our way out. The bartender nodded at me like he was glad I was taking care of Bill. I was going to take care of him all right. Getting Bill in the car was easy. Getting him back out of the car wasn’t so easy. He passed out on the drive to Gram’s. I woke him up, got him into the house and that’s when things got messy so to speak.
I had planned to cut his throat. That way he wouldn’t be able to scream or anything. Then I could collect the blood in one of two big measuring cups. Something else I got at Shop-mart. When I got him into the bedroom I started trying to get his shirt off. He got grabby, trying to undress me at the same time I was trying to undress him. I don’t know why I didn’t realize he’d be thinking we were about to have sex. I’d never considered that I might have to get naked, never mind letting him touch me. I jumped when he ran his hands up under my skirt to grab my ass. I jumped more when he popped the buttons off my blouse pulling it open and then grabbing my tits like they were the safety rail on a roller coaster car.
I finally got things under control by stepping back away from him and letting him watch me undress down to my bra and panties. That’s when he relaxed and let me get his shirt and pants off and push him back on to the bed. He was on his back and I was straddling him, sitting on his stomach. I had a kitchen knife hidden under the pillows. I laid down over him so I could reach under the pillow. He picked his head up and kissed me between my breasts as I searched.
I sat up quick and slashed at his neck with the knife. I cut him, but not good enough. He wasn’t able to scream, but he wasn’t dying either. He grabbed both of my wrists and tried to sit up and throw me off of him. He was bleeding a lot, but not like I thought he should be and he was fighting with a lot of strength, so I knew I hadn’t cut him right. We struggled for what seemed like an eternity. I finally pulled my hand with the knife in it free from his grip. He tried to grab me again. I sliced at his hand and arm and I cut him five or six more time. One of the cuts on his arm must have been really deep. Either that or I cut an artery because blood started spraying from his wrist. It felt like I was in a sunless tanning sprayer machine. I was getting coated.
I finally managed to get passed his flailing arm and sank the knife into him, right at the base of his neck. I jammed it down so hard that it sank in all the way to the handle. After that his body just jerked and went into spasms. Then he shivered like he was really cold and slowly faded away until he stopped moving all together. His eyes went blank and then he just wasn’t there any more.
I sat on top of him, looking down for a long time. I was amazed at how peaceful he looked. Then I realized that his blood was pouring out of all the cuts. I jumped off of him and grabbed one of the big measuring cups. They can hold four cups each. The arm I had sliced up was hanging off the bed. I put the measuring cup on the floor under his hand so it could catch all the blood that leaked out. Then I got the other measuring cup. I pulled his head off the bed and put the measuring cup under where the blood was dripping from his neck.
It wasn’t until I stepped back to look at my work that I felt the tightening on my skin. My whole body felt wet. The spray from his wrist had given me a blood shower. I touched my tummy and started rubbing. I felt the blood absorbing into my skin, making me look and feel younger. I started to rub my hands all over myself. I took off my bra and panties and rubbed the fresh blood into my skin, over all my private parts. I paid special attention to rubbing my magic elixir into my face. After all, that was why I went to all this trouble.
My god, I never felt so alive! The day after I slept with RJ’s blood on my face was no fluke. It was true. Blood does energize you. I kept rubbing it into my skin until it started to dry and by then Bill’s arm and neck had stopped dripping. I picked up the measuring cups and set them back on the shelf. I got about two and a quarter cups all together. Not bad for the first time I thought.
I wrapped the blanket around Bill. Then I wrapped the thick plastic sheeting I lined the bed with around that. There was silver duct tape on the shelf and I used it to make sure Bill wouldn’t come unwrapped. Then I poured the cleaning liquid all over the hard wood floor where ever blood had spilled. I let that sit and soak while I went and showered off.
When I had all the extra blood washed off, I went back to the bedroom and cleaned up. I knew I was going to have to do all the clean up, but it still sucked doing it. I know the cops have stuff they can spray on walls and floors to see where old blood was spilled. I’m being careful and there’s no way they’re going to catch me, so I only worried about what I could see.
When that was done I went into the garage and got the old antique rolling serving table I found in Gram’s basement. It looked like an old gurney to me. What the hell would my Gram be doing with an old gurney? Maybe she knew the value of blood too. Anyway, it was perfect for getting Bill from the bed to the back of the Escalade. All I had to do was roll him over a couple of times. I had extra plastic in the back of the Escalade just in case.
Once Bill was ready for his drive to the mountains, I re-made the bed, new plastic and all. I took Bill’s clothes in to the fire place. I put his shoes and his belt in a plastic bag because I didn’t think they’d burn very well. Everything else went in the fire. I was just about to toss in his pants when I felt his wallet in the pocket. All his pockets were full. Keys, a cell phone, and some folded papers.
The keys went in the bag with the shoes and belt. So did the cell phone, after I took out the battery. I’m not the only one who knows how to use those GPS things. I burned all the papers without looking at them. I went through his wallet. Apparently Bill was pretty successful. He had $314 in his wallet and a lot of credit cards. I kept the cash. Then there was a picture of a woman. It must have been his ex wife. He really was carrying a torch. I burned it too. The wallet went into the bag which went into the Escalade with Bill. The credit cards, his driver’s license and anything else plastic that had his name on it got fed down the garbage disposal. That crazy thing made a hell of a good shredder.
Gram had been a huge fan of storing food properly. She had one of those machines that vacuum seals stuff in plastic bags. It was her most modern appliance. I was able to get a whole lot of extra bags for it when I went on that Shop-mart trip. I got the smallest ones I could find. I tried to split up the blood into seven equal amounts. I sealed it all up in those little airtight bags and stuck them in the fridge.
When I was done, I ate dinner and went to bed in my real bedroom. I slept like a rock. The next day I drove Bill up to my special mountain spot. I dumped Bill onto the ground and cut open the plastic before I rolled him over the edge; that way the animals could get in easier. Then I threw all the things in the plastic bag out into the woods one by one. After that I sat on the tailgate and ate the picnic lunch I had packed while I looked out at the beauty of the mountains and thought about the seven little bags of elixir in the cooler on the back seat. Life is good.
~~~~~
The Barter System:
Trading sex for youth
Dear Diary,
Those little plastic, airtight baggies work great for the elixir. I drop one of them into a sink full of hot water and let it get warmed up, then I snip a corner and do my beauty treatment. I think I’m going to have to get more stuff to measure it better though. I didn’t get the same amount in each bag after Bill’s visit. One bag had too much in it, another didn’t have enough. I’m thinking I really only need about a quarter of a cup for each baggie. That would be enough to do my whole face and portions of the rest of my body. If I want to do a full body treatment I can just use two bags.
I’ll have to go to Shop-mart again. I’m sure they’ll have the right measuring stuff. Who would have thought I could get everything I need for bleeding someone at Shop-mart; plastic sheeting, duct tape, measurers, storage bags, throw away blankets and sheets, knives.
That reminds me. I need a better knife. The kitchen knife is okay, but I think part of why I didn’t get Bill cut right was because the knife wasn’t good enough. I looked a little at hunting knives, they’re definitely sharper, but they’re so damn big that it might be hard to hide them on the bed.
I thought about maybe clunking the next guy on the head with something heavy and knocking him out. When he’s unconscious I could bleed him nice and easy, but I had to be honest with myself, I’m really not that strong and I’m not sure I could knock a guy out. If I clunk him on the head and he stays awake, I’d be in prime position to get my pretty little ass kicked. So I decided I’ll stick with getting him on the bed and cutting his throat. Besides, I really liked the spray down I got from Bill’s wrist.
I read up on some internet sites. Necks are supposed to spray a lot when they get cut right. So if I do things right, I should be able to get at least a little bit of a shower every time I go collecting. I think I was just in too much of a hurry last time. I wasn’t ready for him to be touching me, but it looks like that’s how it’s going to have to be. The only really good way to get a guy onto a bed is to let him think he’s going to get laid. So I’m just going to have to accept that I’m going to have to get naked with these guys.
I thought about that a lot. About getting naked and letting them touch me. I think that if I would have given Bill a little humping action, I would have gotten a clearer shot as his throat with the knife. What the hell, it’s not as if I don’t enjoy sex. This will just be killing two birds with one stone. I’ll get to have sex and refill my stock of elixir. Besides, it ain’t like the guy’s going to be hanging around trying to use me for my money or anything. It’s win-win.
***
Dear Diary,
Okay, this one went a lot better. I got a way better slice in. There was almost no struggle. My top didn’t get ruined. I collected more elixir than last time and there wasn’t as much mess on the floor to clean up.
I decided to go looking in a place I normally would never go. So I went to this grimy red-neck bar right near the interstate off ramp. Talk about a total cliché. There were even cow horns over the bar. Everyone in the place but me was wearing cowboy hats and boots. There was a saddle on a half wall next to the bouncer who was checking ID’s and taking the cover charges and get this; cover was only $5. What a hole.
I was going to sit at the back and watch for a guy who was all by himself, like I did when I found Bill, but I’d barely taken the second sip of my beer, yuk, when a dime store western reject bow-legged his way up to me and sat down without asking. I could all but see the laser beam his eyes aimed at my cleavage. All I could think of when I looked at him was ‘greasy’.
He took a long draw off his beer and said to me, “Honey, you’re da prettiest thing to come in here since last year’s rodeo queen contest.”
“That’s sweet of you to say.” I wanted to hurl.
“Darlin’, it ain’t nuttin’ but da truth,” he stammered. It wasn’t even midnight and he was already three beers past hammered. “What brings a sweetie like you in here?”
The red-neck world was going to be a far better place after I harvested this idiot. I looked him square in the eyes and said, “I came in hoping to save a horse.”
His gaze glazed over as he tried to activate his last few functioning brain cells. “Watcha mean?”
“You know,” I said. “Save a horse. Ride a cowboy.”
He pushed up the brim of his sweat-stained hat and grinned like he had found his lost chewing tobacco. “Well baby, let’s saddle up. Y’all wanna go out to my truck? It’s got one of them big crew cabs on it. Lotta room.”
I pasted my best fake smile on and said, “How about you ride with me back to my place and I’ll bring you back to your truck in the morning.”
“Well dang, girl,” he practically hooted. “You sure got some know-how on gettin’ ‘er done.”
“Oh, I promise I’ll get you done, cowboy,” I said as I got to my feet.
“You can go ‘head and call me Earl, little lady,” he said, following me through the crowd to the door. “What do you wanna git called?”
“You can just call me your dream come true.”
I kept true to my commitment to letting my blood donors touch me so they’d think they were on their way to a sexual romp. Earl left multiple sets of fingerprints all over my thigh from my knee to my panty line as I drove us to the house. He either sobered up some on the drive or he wasn’t as drunk as I thought he was, because he didn’t stumble once while I led him from the garage to bedroom. Maybe he was just used to being drunk.
I told him to let me get his clothes off him and he stayed as compliant as a well trained dog as I stripped him down to his skin. He was already hard. Just on impulse, I reach down and grabbed a hold of him and squeezed. Then I told him to lay down on the bed and watch.
He propped himself up on one elbow and drooled as he watched me slink out of my clothes. I took special care to toss all my stuff as far away from the bed as possible. Bill ruined a $45 bra when he sprayed me. I ended up having to burn it with his stuff. I didn’t need a huge wardrobe bill. So I hoped I tossed my stuff far enough aside that they wouldn’t get all bloody this time and I didn’t stop at my bra and panties this time. I got totally naked.
I crawled up over his body from the foot of the bed. I grabbed his hardness and squeezed it again. “Are you ready for the ride of your life?” I asked Earl. It sounded like a bad movie line as soon as I said it, but Earl didn’t notice.
He replied with lots of enthusiasm, “Oh hell yeah, Momma! You saddle yourself up good and ride this ol’ horse all the way back to the ranch.”
I had absolutely no idea what that meant. I did know that by having sex with greasy cowboy Earl here, it would make it a lot easier to bleed him. So I sat up on top of him and gave him what he wanted and I do have to admit, even though he was a greasy cowboy, Earl did feel pretty damn good inside me. I rode on top of him until he started moving like he wanted to switch positions. I knew it was time to do my thing and get what I wanted.
I lay down on top of him without breaking our connection. My breasts were pressed against his chest and I dropped my head down and whispered in his ear, “Not just yet, Earl. I’m not done here.”
The day before I had broke down and bought the smallest hunting knife I could find. The Shop-mart guy called it a fillet knife. It was thin and sharp. I was able clip it’s sheath to the mattress so it wouldn’t move and make me search for it like the kitchen knife did with Bill. It was exactly where it was suppose to be when I reached for it.
I stretched my back and arched hoping that Earl would keep his eyes on my breasts and not notice the knife until it was slicing open his neck. I held the knife different too. I had it so the blade was extending out from the pinky side of my hand instead of the thumb side. I was thinking that it would be less awkward taking it across his throat if I didn’t have to twist my wrist to get the blade under his jaw.
I let my hands slide on the sheet down past his head. I was right about arching my back. He was watching my chest. When my hands were just above his shoulders I dipped my right shoulder and pushed the knife across his neck as fast and with as much force as I could. I was right about having the wrong knife with Bill. This one sliced Earl open with barely any effort at all.
Earl’s hands clamped tight on my waist just above my hips. His eyes were bigger than the wheels on his pick-up truck, but he just lay under me and quivered. He didn’t try to fight at all. I think he might have been trying to scream though. His mouth was moving in a really weird way. The cut across his neck opened up like one of the automatic doors at the mall and blood shot out of it with the force of a pressure washer. It sprayed me across my stomach just under my breasts. There was enough to move around and give my whole body a good coating.
I sat there and watched him die underneath me. It wasn’t until I went to get off him to fetch the measuring cup that I realized he was still inside me. That made me smile. I grabbed the measuring cup and put it on the floor under where I pulled Earl’s head over the edge of the bed. A steady stream of blood poured from his neck. I got three and three quarter cups from him.
The clean up went just like it did with Bill, only faster. Most of the blood spray hit me and didn’t make it to the floor. My clothes were safe, thank God. No blood on them at all. Earl only had $37 dollars in his wallet, but I put it in the big Mason jar in the kitchen cabinet with Bill’s money. He didn’t have any credit cards, just one debit card and his driver’s license had been expired for four months. Greasy cowboy Earl didn’t have anything else on him. Getting Earl into the Escalade was easier too. He weighed a lot less than Bill.
I took my time getting the new batch of elixir measured and stored. I made sure that each little baggie had the same amount in it and I got a lot of baggies. There was half a baggie worth left over, so I took it into the bathroom and gave my face an extra treatment.
I slept really deep again that night. The next morning I couldn’t wait to get up into the mountains. I stopped and got a fast food meal to take with me for my tailgate mountain lunch. After I sent Earl down to meet Bill and had finished my chicken, I felt more at ease than I can remember ever feeling before. As I watched the clouds drift across the sky, I thought that it was official, as of that moment I was a certified serial killer and you know what? I’m good with it.
~~~~~
Shopping Trips:
Unexpected great finds
Dear Diary,
RJ and I went antiquing yesterday. We hit six shops all over the city. RJ was looking for a porcelain bowl to match an old pitcher she owned. She told me it was from the mid 1800’s or something, a rare piece and if she could find the bowl that matched it, its value would triple. So every three or four months she re-told me the story of her fabulous pitcher and dragged me out to haunt the antique stores.
I usually ended up feeling like one of those little kids whose mom drags her around clothes shopping. Mom is rifling through the racks and the poor kid is stuck, standing next to the cart looking more bored than a flaming drag queen at The Playboy Mansion. That’s how antique shopping with RJ made me feel. At least it used to.
This trip was different. As I meandered through the racks, I was looking at all the old stuff and wondering if I could use any of it to harvest elixir. I was surprised to find that all the shops had little areas where they had old knives. I had never noticed them on my previous trips and there were different styles. I could kill with class.
I picked up a lot of them. Most of them were in pretty bad shape; the blades were rusted and dull or the handles were loose or they were just awkward or ugly. I wanted something that was pretty, in nice shape and still very sharp.
We were in the fifth shop. I found the little area with the knives but there wasn’t anything promising there. The only thing that was half good was a folding pocket knife that had ivory on the handle. It was pretty enough, but the blade didn’t lock open and it was about as sharp as a wet feather. I was holding it and frowning when a dusty man walked up.
“Hello there,” he said. “I’m Danny. I run the shop here with my son. Is there something special you’re looking for?”
“I was looking for something pretty,” I said, setting down the pocket knife.
“A pretty knife, huh,” he said. “A lady’s secret kind of thing, beautiful, but deadly?”
Danny just got interesting. “Exactly.”
“Come on over here to the counter,” he said as he was walking away. He talked back over his shoulder as he walked. “We got some more valuable things over here. Stuff we can’t just set out for someone to walk away with. I think I got something that might just suit a young lady like yourself.”
I followed him to the back corner of the room. There was a wooden counter that looked like an old western bar. Behind it was a metal case bolted to the wall. It had a steel rod running across the front of it and passing through flat metal pieces with holes in them. It was secured in place by a thick padlock. Danny had to unlock the padlock and slide the bar out of place before he could open the doors.
“My son says I should stop getting this stuff,” he said as he worked the clunky security system. “He says it’s too expensive for a place like this and that none of our customers would want to pay the price for any of it. I prove him wrong though. Sure I only sell two or three pieces a month, but some months that’s more than the whole rest of the shop makes.”
He swung the doors open. The items in the case made the rest of the store look like a junk yard. There were highly polished gold and silver candlesticks, beautiful jewelry, crystal goblets and so much more. It was a trove of ornate, original little treasures.
He ran his finger along the shelves as he scanned through, looking for the thing he thought I’d like. He reached into the case and said, “Ah! Here it is. Just the thing.”
He turned around and set a gorgeous jeweled piece on the bar. He said, “This is a decorative hair ornament. It comes from the noble court of King Stephen Bathory of Poland in the late sixteenth century. It would have been worn by a high ranking noble woman to keep her hair up in one of those high hair-dos that were in style.”
King Stephen Bathory was one of The Blood Countess’s close relatives. How did Danny know to show me something like that? Was he the devil, here to make me a deal for my soul? No way. I was already a serial killer. What kind of deal needed to be made there? I am really, really starting to believe in fate.
“How do you know that’s where it came from?” I wasn’t trying to be a smart ass. I really wanted to know.
Danny smiled and took some folded papers off the shelf where the hair piece had been. “I have everything in this case professionally researched, appraised and authenticated. These are all the papers that prove it is what it is and it’s worth what it’s worth. This is one of the reasons my son doesn’t like me bringing these things in. He says I put too much into them.”
The papers looked right and all the companies were big name national places with good reputations. “There’s contact info on all those things. You can call up and verify everything.”
“This is impressive, Danny,” I said. “You’re pretty thorough, but why do you think I’d be interested in an antique hair ornament?”
Danny got a devilish grin on his face and said, “This is why.”
He took a hold of the top cluster of jewels and pulled. A very brightly polished knife blade slid silently out of the ornament. I felt my jaw drop and my mouth fall open.
Danny held out the knife, flat in the palm of his hand. “This is a four inch covert lady’s blade,” he said. I reached for it and he said, “Be careful now, it’s as sharp as The Devil’s own tongue. That handle and the ornament basket are made of pure silver. Same with the little hair pin stick that keeps the whole thing in place in your hair. The blade is made of high quality steel from Toledo, Spain. Best blade makers in all of Europe back in the day. The stones are emeralds, sapphires and rubies. The basket has some amethysts in it too. You’ll find authentication papers on all the stones in that stack there. A paper is in there from testing the blade as well.”
Danny stood there silently as I picked up the basket and slipped the knife back into place. When the two pieces were together, there was no way of knowing that it might come apart and the blade was completely invisible. That was astonishing since the basket was an open weave design. How someone made a few twisty wires hide a four inch knife blade was beyond me, but they had. I pulled the knife free again. It was smooth as butter. I dragged the blade lightly over my arm and watched the hairs it shaved off fall onto Danny’s counter.