Chapter 4

        Things were about to get messy. Fox was hunting me. Nicole and I had been together for a while. We didn’t talk about our pasts. I didn’t have to. She refused to. We talked a lot at first, about life, death, music, movies, television, books, love, and hate.         After a while we talked less and less. I don’t know what exactly happened but we started growing apart. I thought maybe it was all the time on the road. I honestly had no idea.

        The house wasn’t abandoned, but we were gonna squat in it. Since our relationship seemed to have been going through a bit of a rough patch I suggested we try and settle down for a while. A lot had happened since Nicole and I met. One of the first things we did was hire a bunch of homeless guys to buy us knives from pawn shops in whatever town we were going through. Nicole and I had our first real fight when I refused to let her get a gun.

        “Why the f**k can’t we pack some heat?” she asked. “It’s a lot easier and quicker than a knife.”

        “Shut the f**k up okay. First off, there are laws that put a certain time limit on when you can get a gun. You can’t just walk into a place, buy a gun and walk out. They make you wait and they run background checks. So unless you want to run the background checks on the guy we send in to buy it, we’re gonna have to wait to get your f*****g gun. And two, there’s no nobility in killing with a gun. You can’t enjoy watching the life slip away from your enemy as you watch his blood drip down your blade. I refuse to use a gun. I guarantee I can win a gun fight with a knife.”

        “Fine, whatever,” she said and walked away.

        She just didn’t get it.

        Sometimes we did have to kill the guys we hired. We told them no questions and they’d get well paid. Fortunately for us, most of them asked a question too many. I knew         I’d lose count of the bodies I’d left in my wake, and I was right.

        There were a lot of good times with Nicole. The sex was amazing. Like most teenage guys one of my main concerns in life was sex and lots of it. Nicole and I were both freaks in the bedroom. Basically, if you could do something sexual, we did it.

        At a certain point though, the sex becomes less and less important, and less and less frequent. There had to be more to the relationship. We had a lot of things in common and we had enough differences to keep us on our toes with each other, but we weren’t meant to be. I’d find that out soon enough.

        I jammed a knife into the door of a really nice house in the suburbs. It reminded me of my house. I jiggled the handle with the knife and got the door opened. I always prayed that the houses would not have an alarm system or some crazy hungry guard dog. Sometimes I was lucky and my prayers were answered. Other times, not so lucky.

Opening the door I heard the beep as the alarm went off.

        “S**t,” I grunted as Nicole went inside and shorted the alarm. One thing Nicole was really good at besides her skills in the bedroom was the fact that she could hotwire any car and shut off any alarm.

        “There,” she said as the alarm went dead. We knew the house was empty and that the family would be gone for a while. We usually stalked a family for a couple of weeks and if they looked like they were making plans on going for a while, we made our move. If not, we moved on to another house.

        “Well this is certainly bourgeois,” I said as we walked into a very tacky house. Suffice it to say these people seemed to have a sick obsession with polyester, plaid and polka dot. There was little of the house that lacked these horrible combinations. Even the f*****g kitchen was victimized to this abuse called interior decorating. There was also a sick smell to the house, not like a dead body but just an old musty smell. Just being in the house made bile creep up my throat.

        It was better than nothing though, we’d have to make do. I sat down in a sofa chair and immediately fell asleep.

        I woke up several hours later and noticed the house was strangely quiet. Nicole had gone out. I went around the house making sure all the blinds were closed and closing curtains where there were some. I went to the kitchen and found a short note from Nicole.

 

Went out for a little while, be back soon.

-Nicole

 

        I went into the living room and turned on the television. I went straight to the news channels to see any updates. I happened to stumble upon a press conference being held by an F.B.I. agent who was investigating my case named Detective Fox.

        “We are doing everything we possibly can to bring this young man in to custody and make him pay for his crimes. His heinous actions have shocked the nation and we will bring down the gavel of justice on him swiftly. Thank you.”

        What he said to me was he had no idea where the f**k I was. Hell I wasn’t really sure where I was half the time. The way we had traveled was so irregular that somehow we had shown up in places all over the country. Well that was according the murders they had attributed to me (Nicole was my hostage or some bullshit). 

        Where the f**k was Nicole?

        “I’m back!” I heard her announce from the front door.

        “Where the f**k were you?” I asked her quietly still watching the television.

        “I went out. What’s your problem?”

        “Don’t leave unless I know where you are going,” I told her.

        “I’ll do whatever the f**k I want a*****e!” she yelled at me. “You don’t f*****g own me.”

        “According to the news I kind of do,” it was then that she paid attention to the television. 

        “They think I’m your hostage?”

        “That seems to be their thinking,” I said. “If someone had noticed you, I’m sure it might have seemed strange that you’re walking around when you’re supposed to be bound and gagged or whatever they think I’ve done to you.”

        “Oh baby, I’m sorry,” she said and kissed me. “I love you,” she whispered.

        It’s easier to accept a lie than believe someone you love has betrayed you in some way. I kissed her back and accepted her lie. I could smell someone else’s cologne on her.

        Nicole kept going out. I didn’t stop her. I’m a heartless murdering b*****d, yet I choose not to fight for someone I love. I sit back and let it all happen. Maybe I’m not as heartless as the media makes me out to be. I should have stopped watching Fox News and CNN, I was starting to believe all the lies they told about me. I knew it wasn’t true. I was just depressed because Nicole was cheating on me.

        When had she found the time to meet this guy? It was always the same cologne she had when she came home and fucked me or didn’t. I couldn’t look at her when we did it any more and she wouldn’t look at me.

        I heard the door slam shut. It had been two full weeks she had been doing this. This time she was s**t faced to top it off.

        “Out again?” I asked.

        “F**k you,” she said.

        “No thanks.”

        She shot me a wicked look and went to bed. I turned on the computer and decided Johnny Sikow needed to make contact. I set up a MySpace. I knew my old one was surely already tapped by the feds. I wrote a blog stating that I had killed many people, Nicole was with me of her own free will and that I would not be caught. I sent a link to the email the fed, Fox had set up if anyone had any information.

        The next night Nicole stated she was going out and to not wait up. I said I wouldn’t. There were no more lies of “I love you.” I decided tonight was the night that I follow her. She went through town and made her way to a big house just outside of town. It was a small mansion. She must have been attracted to the money. She pressed the buzzer and the gate opened. I snuck up to the gate and watched as she walked up to the door and was let inside.

        I looked up at the gate and quickly scaled it and was over on the other side. Seeing as Nicole had walked up unhindered, I knew there were no guard dogs. Pretty f*****g stupid. I crept up to the house and looked inside the window, they were sitting on a plush velvet purple couch sipping wine, playfully going through the motions of hesitance before they started foreplay and eventually sex. My blood boiled as I saw him squeezing the back of her thigh, sliding up her skirt. I knew she wasn’t wearing panties. Before she left I noticed she smelled excited. I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood up and smashed the window.

        “You f*****g b***h,” I said to her as I looked in as they stared in horror.

        “Johnny!” she said in shock.

        “Hey! Who the f**k are you dude? You’re gonna pay for that window a*****e,” the idiot yelled at me.

        I shot him a look and he shut up. I looked back at Nicole and she had a gun pointed at me.

        “Where’d you get that Nicole?” I asked her with a smirk.

        “You wouldn’t let me get one, but Daniel did.”

        “Oh, Daniel got you a little gun did he? Well maybe not little. What is that a magnum?”

        “It’s the most powerful handgun in the world.”

        “This isn’t ‘Dirty Harry’ b***h.” I tossed a small switch blade at her arm and cut her about an inch deep.

        She screamed loudly.

        “I’m gonna f*****g blow you away you b*****d!”

        I laughed at her.

        “Please Nicole, you can’t even lift that canon.”

        “Sure I can,” and she f*****g shot me.

        I looked down at my abdomen and saw a red spot forming on my shirt and I fell back onto the floor. Nicole walked over and looked down at me.

        “Just so you know I never loved you. I was only attracted to the danger of being with you. But you just had to be so meticulous about everything. You were so determined not to get caught you took all the danger out of being with you. Then I thought, ‘What’s more dangerous than being with a fugitive serial killer? Cheating on a serial killer.’ I had hoped you would get pissed and get some fire back into you, but you just let me go and do whatever I wanted. You’re f*****g pathetic. Goodbye Johnny. It was fun while it lasted.”

        And she shot me again. The world went black around me. My heart sped up until it finally stopped. And then I died.