His voice grew louder by a few decibels, and another customer sneaked out the door.

‘I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough. Now gi’me a fucking beer before I shove one up your pussy little ass.’

Tom grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge, unscrewed its top and placed it on the bar in front of Jed.

Jed took it and swallowed half of it down in three large gulps.

I didn’t realize I was staring until Jed turned to me.

‘What the fuck are you looking at?’ he said, pushing his beer bottle to one side.

‘Are you some kind of fag?’

I didn’t answer him, and still didn’t look away.

‘I asked you a question, fag.’

Jed took another swig of his beer.

‘You like what you see, fag?’ He lifted his right arm and flexed his bicep like a bodybuilder before blowing me a kiss.

I was hypnotized by that sack of shit that called himself Jed.

‘C’mon, Jed,’ the bartender tried to intervene, clearly foreseeing what was to come. ‘Let it go, man. The guy is just trying to have a quiet drink.’

He looked at me with a face that said – ‘Dude, please just go. You don’t want this trouble, trust me.’

I didn’t move. I probably wasn’t even blinking.

‘Shut the fuck up, Tom,’ Jed said, pointing a finger at him, but looking at me. ‘I want to know why this fag likes looking at me so much. Do you want to fuck a real man tonight? Is that it, fag? Would you like a piece of this?’ Jed used both hands to point to his massive gut.

My eyes slowly ran the length of his body, and that seemed to piss him off way past his limit. His jaw locked in anger. His face became even redder, and he stood up from his stool threateningly.

And that was it.

That was the trigger.

It wasn’t his obnoxious way, or his smell, or the name calling, or the fact that he was so damn ugly he probably had to sneak up on his mirror. It wasn’t even that he didn’t allow me to get drunk in peace. It was the fact that he thought he could assert his superiority over me that did it. That pushed me over the edge.

Right there and then, I knew Jed would die that night.

Fifty-Nine

Hunter stopped reading and looked at Kennedy.

Even though he was looking at the words upside down, Kennedy had been following Hunter’s eyes and he knew exactly where he’d paused.

‘Read on,’ he said. ‘There’s a twist.’

I didn’t face up to Jed. Not there. I wasn’t about to get into a fistfight with him in a public place. That would’ve been way too reckless.

I placed thirty dollars on the bar to cover my drinks, got up and took a couple of steps back.

‘What’s the problem, fag?’ Jed said, sounding and moving his hands like a ghetto rapper. ‘Too scared?’

Tom, who had moved from behind the bar, quickly jumped in, putting himself between Jed and myself.

‘C’mon, Jed, there’s no problem here. The guy didn’t say anything, and he was just leaving, right?’

Tom twisted his neck to look at me, his eyes begging me not to engage, and leave.

I finally snapped out of my staring trance, looked down at the floor, and began walking away.

‘That’s right, fag, get your pussy ass out of here before I fuck you up.’

I opened the door and stepped outside into the warm and damp night.

I didn’t go anywhere. I just got into my car, drove it over to the other side of the road, and parked it in a dark spot, next to a rusty dumpster. From there, I had a clear view of the bar’s entrance.

I waited.

Jed walked out the door forty-six minutes later and staggered over to a battered Ford pick-up truck. It took him almost a minute to manage to slot his keys into the keyhole and open the door. He didn’t drive off straight away either, and for a moment I thought that he would fall asleep in the truck, but he didn’t. He lit up a spliff and smoked the whole damn thing before he turned on his engine.

I followed him as he pulled onto the road. I kept my distance, but I didn’t really have to. Jed’s senses were mushed. He wouldn’t have noticed a pink elephant in a golden tutu following him.

Jed’s driving was all over the place, and what scared me the most was the possibility of him being stopped by a cop. If that had happened, Jed would’ve spent the night in a cell for driving under the influence, and I would’ve probably walked away from the whole situation. Unfortunately for Jed, Forest City in Scott County, Mississippi, seemed deserted of cops that night.

Jed lived just outside town, in a single-story, dirty, old and faded-blue wooden house by the side of the road. There was no garage, and the driveway was nothing but dirt and gravel, flanked by shrubs and overgrown grass. He parked his truck by the rusty metal fence that circled the property, and smoked another spliff before finally wobbling his way into the house.

I found a hidden place to park, waited twenty minutes, and very quietly crossed over to the house. The front door was locked, but it didn’t take me long to find an open window. I knew there’d be one. With no air conditioning, the night was too hot and stuffy for Jed to have kept all the windows and doors shut.

The inside of the house smelled of grease, fried onions, stale cigarettes and dry rot. The place was filthy and looked an absolute mess but, after meeting Jed, I expected nothing less.

I tiptoed my way deeper into the house. Finding the bedroom was easy. All I had to do was follow the snoring sound. And Jed snored like a dinosaur in heat. But I decided that I didn’t want to kill him in his bed. That would’ve been too easy.

I felt my blood bubbling inside my veins with excitement as my heart changed rhythm. My adrenal glands caught up to the new beat and began pumping full throttle, while my mouth salivated like a hungry dog in a butcher’s shop. I wanted to prolong that feeling for as long as I could. Nothing is more exciting than hiding inside the victim’s house and waiting for the right moment.

I chose a sharp knife from his kitchen. Thankfully, there was a good selection to choose from. I knew that a fat greaseball like Jed would no doubt get up in the middle of the night and either hit the kitchen for some more food, or the bathroom to go piss a gallon. With that much booze inside of him, the bathroom was a safer option. I hid behind the shower curtain where he wouldn’t see me until it was too late.

I covered my shoes with plastic bags that I’d also found in the kitchen, carefully pulled the shower curtain back, climbed into his soiled bathtub, leaned back against the tiled wall, and waited. I can stay still for hours if I have to.

The waiting made my whole body tingle as if I were soaked in an Alka-Seltzer bath, high on my power.

Jed finally came into the bathroom ninety-four minutes later, dragging his feet.

I took a deep breath to keep myself from going for him too early. I had carved a small slit in the plastic curtain so I could see out. Looking lost, Jed paused once he entered the bathroom.

And then the right moment came.

Sixty

As if hypnotized by the words, Hunter and Taylor’s eyes just couldn’t tear themselves away from the pages in Lucien’s notebook. It was like reading a blockbuster paperback book, with the added difference that every single word was true.

Still drunk, high, and half-asleep, Jed faced the shower curtain and stretched his huge arms high above his head. His mouth opened into a black hole as he started yawning, and even from behind the curtain I could smell his putrid breath. His eyes were bloodshot from a combination of the weed he’d smoked earlier, alcohol, and the heavy sleep he’d just woken up from. He was wearing nothing but a pair of filthy boxer shorts. It almost made me laugh.