My First

My first kill was Mrs Woods. She was over fifty years old, wrinkled and gross. I was twenty two, an ex-burger flipper, ex-lots of things, in and out of jobs like Thing On A Spring; keeping them only as long as I could stand the shit handed out by the nobodies and ass-wipes who were never going to be more than shift managers or supervisors. My family thought of me as a failure, a bum in the making. What no-one, including myself, realised was that I was yet to find my true vocation, yet to chance upon my genuine talents and learn how to exploit them. You might say that I have a lot to thank Mrs Woods for.

Packetville was what used to be called a ‘One Horse Town’ (actually, I’d bet that Packetville was closer to a no horse town). I went there to meet a friend who’d given me the name of an electronics firm which was hiring production line workers; he also provided the address of Mrs Woods’ lodging house. In those days Packetville’s nearest nod to civilised living was a single, shop-lined and fairly broad main street. There was a big oak tree right in the middle of the road; it didn’t survive a remodelling project which hit the town like a tornado and flattened most of the oldest buildings.

Well, my friend didn’t turn up. Maybe he found something better to do? I don’t know. I rented a room; Mrs Woods called it a ‘single room’ - I’m not sure whether she meant that it was just the one room (it sure wasn’t a suite) or that it was a room intended for one to occupy. If it was the latter she wasn’t counting the bugs and mice that skittered round the floor at night whenever I turned the lights out. When I found out that there were only two other ‘paying guests’ in the house - a travelling salesman and a retired nurse - I figured that there were probably better rooms for lodgers whose faces fitted better than mine.

No big deal - after all, I'd given Mrs Woods a false name and didn't intend to pay her in any case. It wasn’t the first time that I’d used a bogus handle in a place where I didn’t figure on staying too long; a little economy with the truth can often help out a young man who has few financial resources. As soon as the hag-like landlady told me that I could owe her for the first weeks rent (aren’t small town people far too trusting?), I decided that I’d be packed and gone before it came due. As things turned out, she wasn’t half as stupid as I’d assumed. I found that out a couple of nights later when I was woken up from a sound sleep by a series of increasingly loud knocks on my door.

At first I was confused because half-awake (or half-asleep, take your choice), I couldn’t tell the difference between the rapping hand and a storm that had started to crack and reverberate somewhere in the distance. When I got my head straight enough I stumbled out of bed and crossed the two or three steps to the door aided by two flashes of lightning. For milli-seconds, they lit the interior of the room; leaving the shapes and patterns of its furniture and wallpaper imprinted like a bad photgraph on the insides of my eyelids.

I pulled back the bolt and opened the door. Mrs Woods was standing, uncomfortably close, just outside in the narrow upstairs corridor. She was wearing a stained, off-white slip that had once been virgin white; it didn’t cover her shapeless, saggy breasts properly, her big nipples stood out like thumbs, dark and stiff through the thin fabric. The old bag saw where my eyes had flicked to and couldn’t restrain a sniggering little smile. “Jimmy” she said before the smirk had faded from her face “I hope you don’t mind me disturbing you, but I am really afraid of thunder and lightning”. One of her hands coyly tugged the material of the slip a little more definitely over her chest; at the same time accentuating the thrust of her nipples and indicating that I was supposedly interested in her drooping tits. I was sleepy and so bemused by the situation that she was able to push past me and sit on the edge of my bed before I could get a word out.

“Oh thank you, Jimmy...storms like this...they just give me the shakes”. Not being able to throw her out, I flopped into an easy chair with torn cushions - the only other place to sit. The slip had ridden up her legs, but she made no effort to pull it down. There was an awkward silence, broken only by a rumbling growl from the heavens which indicated that the storm was getting closer. I didn’t answer her; I just sat in that lumpy armchair and wondered what the hell she’d got in mind. Miles away, lightning flickered and half-illuminated the room. During one of the flashes, she pretended to notice the extent to which her puffy, vein-laced legs were exposed. “Well, it’s a bit late to bother covering myself up” said Mrs Woods in what she thought was a teasing voice. She left her slip where it was and added “but I expect that you’re not complaining”. Her vanity and stupidity were quite mind-blowing. I wondered vacantly, my face blank, not mirroring my thoughts, how somebody who was so old and ugly could imagine, even for a second, that any young guy was going to be interested in her?

She upped the stakes by slowly easing her knees apart. A bolt ripped across the sky outside my window, in its electric glare I could see the liver-spotted flesh of her inner thighs; beyond was her thick, untrimmed pubic hair. Like the rest of her, it was pretty disgusting - dark and matted; single grey hairs standing out like the silver threads that feature in sentimental Irish songs about old age. The flash died, the room returned to darkness.

“Why don’t you come and sit on the bed with me, Jimmy?” she asked, patting the mattress and the heaped up, kicked aside sheets. I didn’t answer her straight away. A growing anger was beginning to nag in the pit of my stomach. All my life I’ve recognised that feeling; I have a temper and I guess you could say that I’ve been known to use it. When I was a kid another boy stopped me on the way to school, hit me and took my lunch money - it went on every day for a week. The last time he swaggered over, putting his hand out for what was mine, assuming that I was going to hand it over, looking forward to smacking me around no matter what I did; I just snapped. I kicked him in the balls and when he went down, clutching his groin, I kicked him in his sneering, arrogant bully face. I kicked him over and over again until I’d broken his nose, busted one of his eye sockets and knocked out his front teeth. I think I stamped on his face too. I’m not a naturally violent person, but there comes a point where I won’t take shit from anybody.

The storm was on top of us, the bangs and flashes increasing in tempo, barely separated by any time intervals. The room was repeatedly lit up, bright blue-white, then plunged back into darkness - only, after each flash, the darkness seemed darker, more tangible than it had been before.

Mrs Woods slid the slip off her shoulders; her age-mottled, blotchy shoulders. She reminded me of a gnarled old tree; still standing in the forest long after some woodsman should have come along and taken an axe to her. She ran her hands slowly over her breasts, an act that might have been sexy thirty or so years in the past. Now it was just an unsettling parody of the erotic, just a bad and unfunny joke. She watched her self-fondling so intently that, for four or five seconds, she didn’t notice my reaction at all. When she looked up and saw that I was staring at her, not with lust but in undisguised, lip-curling revulsion, Mrs Woods looked at me with a hatred that was virtually perfect.

She sat there, her slip gathered around her waist, her unlovely breasts heaving up and down with a breathing rhythm that was suddenly agitated, her porky legs half-spread. That decrepit old bitch looked me in the eye and actually tried to stare me down; like I was some kind of naughty child or a half-trained dog. I didn’t let her do that, I returned her gaze and it was she who looked away first. Yet she was still full of words: “What’s the matter, you one of those queer boys?”. She was evidently accustomed to speaking to men like they were walking lumps of shit - that just raised my anger another notch.

I could have given her a smart answer; but I could see, straight off, that it was useless to argue with a deluded old skank. Sure, I’ve screwed my fair share of older women; at times, when I’ve felt the need for sex, any kind of available female has been good enough - but Mrs Woods was pushy; plus she would have set a new low in my sexual history. What got me good and pissed was how she assumed I was that desperate.

“Cover yourself up and take your dried up old tits somewhere else” I told her; my voice was soft and even - barely hinting just how close I was to expressing my feelings in ways other than words. Maybe it was because I’d been woken from a deep sleep, I don’t know, but my head was hurting bad enough to make me feel sick.

“So, the little queer doesn’t want a real woman?” Mrs Woods jeered. Part of me was half-awed by her idiocy; did she expect me to screw her to prove that I wasn’t a faggot?; was she trying to provoke me in order to get slapped? I didn’t much care. If she thought that I was going to play by any rules other than my own, she was sadly mistaken. I hit her, fast and hard, in the face. Not with my open hand, but with my closed fist. Before she could make a sound, I followed up almost instantaneously with my other hand; I punched her lower down, below the ribs and felt it suck the air out of her.

The storm was circling and it chose that moment to move on. The room was devoid of light; she was nothing but a black shape, a thing. Perhaps it would have been different if I could have seen her face. As it was, I unloaded on her - at first with my fists, then (when she rolled off the bed, half-conscious) with my bare feet. I stubbed my toes on her and it hurt; that enraged me, I just went crazy. I looked around for something to hit her with. There was a lamp beside the bed; a heavy piece of shit with a carved faux-alabaster base. I used it club-fashion on her head. By the time the storm returned and one of its eruptions threw some light on my handiwork, she was a bloody mess. Her head was battered in and both the room and I were spattered with her warm, red blood.

That was what you might refer to as a ‘make or break’ moment. In all probability, many young killers, who might otherwise be destined for long homicidal careers, are so stunned, sickened and appalled by the sight of their first victims that they freeze, hang around, numbed and undecided until they run out of options, until they are discovered - literally (no pun intended) red-handed. Ladies and gentlemen, I had a totally opposite reaction to my first kill. It was an incredible event; a genuine ‘road to Damascus experience’; right then and there I was almost reborn. Right away, I put the deed behind me and turned to the problem of evading its potentially inconvenient consequences.

Within forty-fives minutes, I had cleaned myself up, dressed, wiped the lamp clean and packed my travelling bag. I even had the beginnings of a plan and the location of a good hiding place in mind. I raided the kitchen cupboards on my way out; I figured on lying low for a while.

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