A warm spray of blood strikes my face. I close my eyes in ecstasy as it hits. This feeling, pure elation. Nirvana at the price of another’s life. I never thought I’d say this, much less stand by it, but it’s a small price to pay. Minuscule. Cheaper than any drug, and ten times as fulfilling.
Let me catch you up, on how I became a slave for the feeling. A junkie for the feeling I get when someone’s life is in my hands, and I forfeit it for a cheap high.
My father and I were estranged. I hadn’t seen him since shortly before my 13th birthday. My grandfather, my dad’s dad, had just passed away a couple of months ago. Brutally murdered, in fact. Then came that day when my mother finally put her foot down, and said enough is enough. I used to hold that against her, back in my prepubescent mind before I could understand the reason why grownups did what they did. I thought she was selfish, that she merely wanted what she wanted, and my dad apparently wasn’t it. I vaguely remember her kicking him to the curb, so to speak, him fighting every step of the way. She commanded that I go back inside, but I was insolent. I did as she bade, and then immediately ran through the house and out the back door to continue watching the spectacle through the slats in our fence. He argued and fought her every step of the way, that is until she threatened him. She said if he didn’t leave our lives, once and for all, that she would call the cops. She’d call them, and tell them in detail what he had been up to. I remember my father’s face going white, his expression fearful. Fearful, then angry, as if he were considering something dire. Then, he saw me, my face peeking through the fence. A look of resignation overcame him, and then he finally gave up. He left, and I didn’t see or hear from him for nearly 15 years. He only contacted me after my mother passed. She had known, I don’t know how, but she had known what he had become. I sometimes wish she had told me, maybe then I wouldn’t have come running when he called all those years later. Sometimes.
When he contacted me after my mother’s funeral, I was in a bad place. My mother, the only constant in my life, was gone. I never knew what had truly transpired between her and my father, I guess I had chalked it up to a lover’s spat. Incompatibility on their part. Hardly anything to hold against my father. I’d be lying if I said that a part of me didn’t blame her, because of her I had to go half of my life without a father figure in my life. She’d had a couple of boyfriends since, but I was old enough to hold that against them. They weren’t my father, and because of that, I’d never warm up to them. I don’t think I was the catalyst for why she never got too serious, but I could hope, couldn’t I?
With no real family left, when my father called, I came running. I can admit that now. It wasn’t 2 days between when he contacted me, and we found ourselves meeting up for “dinner”. His apartment was sparse, as if even though he lived there he barely did any living there. Much like me, nowadays, he only went there to rest his head, to do the bare essentials that one requires to keep living healthy. Eat, shower, sleep, and then finally out again to hunt.
He was a murderer, you see. It took some time, but I finally figured out that that was why he and my mother split. That was what she had threatened to call the cops on him about, all those years ago. I figured it was something major, for her to be able to hold it over his head like she did, but I never could have imagined that it was because my father was the most prolific serial killer of his time. He was so good at what he did, even the authorities had no idea his crimes were connected. I had no idea, at the time.
He invited me over for dinner in his spartanly furnished apartment, and after the meal, spaghetti and meatballs, I found myself unusually tired. He had drugged me. Things got fuzzy, and the last thing I remember was him assuring me that things were alright. Everything would be better soon, he said.
When I woke up, I was on his couch. A thin tube and a needle was in my arm, the other end connected to his, his blood flowing into my body. He said it was for my own good. He said it was his legacy, his legacy to me. This angered me, more than I had ever known, rage flooded through me and with that rage, clarity. I lost control of myself, and yet I had never been in so much control in my entire life. I beat him within an inch of his life, him, not even fighting me. I daresay, as I looked down at his bloody face, I saw happiness there. A certain level of pride unimaginable, as he spit out blood and teeth.
As he lay there, not even fighting back, I let him speak between blows.
“It’s in your blood now, son.” he croaked.
“My father’s gift to me, and now it’s yours…” he groaned as I pummeled his skull in. I wish I could say I didn’t know what I was doing, that I wasn’t in control of myself. That would be a lie.
“It’s your legacy, remember… me…” he spat out, his dying words.
Since then, I’ve only recently come to understand what he meant. Why he said what he said. There was something in his blood. Something in our grandfather’s blood. I don’t know if it’s some kind of parasite, or some sort of memetic gene in our DNA, but it controls what we do, what the patriarchs in my family did. I’ve traced it back almost 150 years, and all of the men in my family, on my father’s side, died violent deaths. The murderers unknown. But I know. I know because I know what this thing that lives inside of me wants and craves. Once I knew what to look for, I’d uncovered hundreds of murders and missing people, all unsolved, going as far back as Jack the Ripper, and I don’t find that a coincidence at all. We are careful. We are methodical.
I’ve been carrying on the family legacy, keeping the tradition alive. It’s the family business, and business is booming. My girlfriend is pregnant, and this brings me great joy. She went to the clinic the other day, and we found out it’s a boy. I post this here in hopes that one day, years from now, he’ll do his due diligence as I have done mine, and when he finds this post, he’ll know where he comes from. I have no doubt he’ll know exactly what to do. It is, after all, in his blood.