Black Sun by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 26

It was on one moonless night that Eli decided to demonstrate these qualities, committing the most inhumane of crimes and dressed in a dark hooded jacket he quietly snuck into a homeless shelter. He took the precaution of wearing leather gloves so as not to leave any fingerprints behind. Once inside, he began his search for what he believed would be the ‘perfect’ victim, someone incapable of fighting back, the typical choice of a coward. With the staff in the next room, engaged in a game of cards, Eli discovered his target. Sleeping on a heavy blue mat was a woman, her arms wrapped around her child, no more than a few weeks old. Carefully pulling back the blanket covering the mother and child, Eli exposed the baby’s head and, with a pleasant grin, wrapped his hands around its throat with such force that a slight crack could be heard. Within less than a minute, the baby’s face went from red to blue to a pale yellow as its young life faded from existence.

It took all his strength to keep from laughing, as the last thing he wanted was to attract the attention of the staff, who were still playing cards. Now, as quietly as he had entered, Eli left the shelter and returning to the streets disappeared into the night. But having successfully committed his first murder, Eli found himself highly aroused and almost giddy with excitement. Unable to control his urges, he rushed to the back of an alley, where he was quick to satisfy the arousal that screamed for release. Returning home, Eli drifted off to sleep with the face of the now deceased child darting through his mind. However, he did not find this image to be something that would haunt him, but one that gave him pleasure as well as a craving for more. He would feel the sensation of his hands around the baby’s neck for days before fading, replaced by the urge to take another innocent life.

The next morning brought gray skies and the beginnings of a long day of rain as Eli rose from an oddly peaceful slumber. Still living with his parents, he saw no need for employment and considered working for a living to be beneath him. His parents, however, were hesitant to ask him to leave. Having seen what he had become, they had grown fearful of his violent and unpredictable nature and did their best to avoid him, even in their own house. But that morning would be different and after his usual morning routine, Eli sat in the living room as the local news came on, and it was the first story of the day that captured his attention. There, on the television screen, was a blurry image taken with a security camera of what appeared to be a young man dressed in a dark hooded jacket; his hand gripping the handle of the door to the shelter he had visited the night before. Eli became tense at the realization that he was now a suspect in what had quickly become a murder case and even though his face was covered, he knew that local authorities would not stop looking for him. As much as it pained him, he knew that he would have to take a break from what had become the beginning of a lengthy streak of recreational killings. For now, he would have to find a way of coping with the pent-up anger that was soon to leave him a quivering mass of largely untapped rage. But this would change, allowing the world to open itself for him as his personal playground of senseless killing.