HAMMER OF DOUBT

“They’d never suspect him for what he did.

How could they?

Who really would’ve guessed it was him, of all people? Of all the shitbags out there, it was him? It just don’t make no sense, don’t it?

Naw, clean cut fella like ‘im ovah there? Couldn’t have done in it. Shit, if you would’ve told me, I wouldn’t have believed ya. Part of me still don’t really believe it myself.

Except…I do.

Ya see, it ain’t never the…obvious choice, that does all this crazy sort of insanity, hackin up young girls, and chokin em, and molestin em…naw, that’d be too simple. The raggedy bum, the smelly hippie, the long-haired kid with a scowl…ha, you simple ass fool. The usual suspects ain’t the ones stashin body parts in the basement, having strange, deviant rituals with whatever’s left behind. Oh, you’d want it to be that convenient, wouldn’t ya?

Well, truth of the matter is…it’s the one ya least expect. Good lookin fella with that charming grin that makes all the ladies swoon. Smart as a whip, could go to any goddamn college he wanted. Has a good record with the law, and his parents don’t suspect a fuckin thing about him. Just destined to be another all-American shinin star. Another pride of the family.

Oh, I can see it. And I can believe it.

Keep tellin yourself that them eyes don’t hide sadism and pure iciness behind em, when you see another one of them types cross your paths.”

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CROOKED MAN

Dead flesh walking.

What’s that mean, you may ask?

Well, you ever look into, I don’t know, the eyes of someone, and just…see no light in there? The emotions they’re supposedly conveying not quite reaching those so-called “windows to the soul?” Their face seemingly saying this and that, portraying this and that, but…their eyes don’t? You’ve met these people before, and your intuition tells you there’s something off about them. You don’t know what. All you know is that they are not…right. Some of them are the most famous, or infamous, people to have ever existed. Some, you may know. Or have known.

That’s what I mean when I say dead flesh walking.

They’re like machines. Unfeeling. No warmth to be found in them. Everything that has a soul, everything that can genuinely be considered “alive”, has that…thing. It’s why cadavers are cold. The essence is gone. These, however, imitate those who are alive. Perhaps too well. But they have this…icy aura. It’s hard to explain. They’re cold in spirit. When caught alone, anyway. No longer burdened with having to keep the mask on. Their heart “pumps kool-aid”, so to speak. There’s no blood in them. They’re mechanical. And they’re a distinctly human phenomenon.

I would call them a “mechanical animal”, but I’d rather not associate myself with the horrendous garbage produced by one Brian Warner.

A rather angry fellow with a comically large mustache said, “those who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either”.

What can these types give? If they are even capable of such a thing at all. Machines are wholly concerned with themselves. Not even their fellow machines. They won’t give anything unless they take first. They’re truly selfish and gluttonous. And they take far, far more than they are capable of giving. And their giving is finite, while those who are alive, they can give until the great architect says it’s time for them to return to the Ether. And even after that, it can still keep giving. Because energy doesn’t die. It just changes form.

These…well, they don’t have energy. They’re full of…nothing. All that is there is a pitch black void. A dark abyss. Where it is just zero. No hate, no love, no desire, no rejection, no fear, no bravery. Just…nothing.