Changes

by Serena Mossgraves

Can be found in

Killing Stroke: Killing Stroke: Buried Secrets

Inside the mind of the killer can be several things. These anthologies are a dive into what the artists and authors involved see it as.

https://books2read.com/killingstrokeburiedsecrets

       Let me tell you about how I changed. Sounds cliché I know. Still in the grand scheme of things, I think it is an interesting story. I was nothing special before. At least not in my own eyes. I kept my proclivities to a minimum to avoid being caught. The world frowns on those who kill for fun. Though I had so many kills under my belt, I was discreet. That was for safety’s sake you see. The idea of life in a small box did not appeal to me.  

    I was proud of the count I had amassed. I was bigger than Bundy. And no one knew my name. I was a ghost. The ones I had killed were yet unknown, and I meant to keep it that way. The thing I did not realize then was that there were monsters out there worse than I ever could be. All the blood on my hands had attracted the attention of such a creature. I was being hunted and did not have any clue about it. I went about my normal routine, unaware. I limited myself to no more than one kill a month. Though I hungered for more, I could not risk the possibility of getting caught.   
 

    It took willpower to limit myself. I told myself that was part of the process. If I allowed myself to give into the urges then I would be no more than an animal. That was not something I wanted to be. I wanted to be smarter than the police. I wanted to be strong. I wanted to be cunning. If I gave into my baser urges then I could not be any of those things.   There is all sorts of monsters in this world, and so many of them wear human faces. I was always just one in the crowd. I knew I was a monster and I was proud of it. I just didn’t know that there was so much worse out there. I entertained myself with stories about werewolves and vampires, imagining that I was something akin to them. Hidden away from sight in plain view.

      I laughed at the shows where the killer was in the morgue or the crime scene unit. That made it too easy.  I had to plan everything down to the minute details to avoid being caught.    
When I was doing this I worked as a truck driver. Someone transient the world ignored. It was the perfect cover for me. Do you have any idea how many people hitchhike every day? People who disappeared and no one had any idea where…most were never even missed. I watched the missing person listings you see on the internet looking for the ones that I picked up. I never saw any of them. The first few were problematic for me to dispose of, but I was quick witted and solved the problem without any worry.    
 

    However, this is not the story of my kills. I am not here to brag. That is just to set the scene. I mentioned that I was being hunted? There are immortal things in the world, some of them protect children…some of them create the things that go bump in the night. I had attracted the latter. Or maybe it was a mixture of the two. I really don’t know which.  

    I suppose I had become somewhat cock sure. I was still careful with the ones that I targeted, but I didn’t pay attention to the other people I encountered. They were of no interest to me, realistically. I owned the truck so I rarely had to deal with any passengers, unless I chose to. The dispatcher calling me to ask if I could handle a trainee driver was a true surprise. He offered me double pay for the two weeks the trainee would be in my truck. Greed was my downfall here, I am certain. I jumped at the increase in pay. I figured it was only two weeks and I could deal with the delay in my normal activities for that long.  

      My nerves were already jumping by the time I picked up the trainee. Though I didn’t have any reason for it,  The other driver was tall and lean, will long black hair pulled back in a tight braid. His eyes were a soft blue surrounded by lashes enough to effeminate any lesser man. I put my people face on and greeted him like an old friend. He said his name was Azriel. I introduced myself to him with a name that I no longer remember.  

       I did not notice that smile then, but in memory he smiled an almost demonic grin. Or maybe I am embellishing the whole thing with what I know now. Training a new driver is nerve wracking for any intelligent person. You are letting someone else control your truck. Driving an 80 ton death machine takes skill and awareness. Trainees are not always given more than enough information than they need to get everyone killed. I wish I could say that I was strong enough to refuse the money. I ended up doing it as often as they asked me, though thankfully it wasn’t often.   
 

        I should regret meeting Azriel. The first day was relatively easy and we seemed to get along fine. Dispatch treats training pairs like a team. Which means we were expected to trade who would be driving and the other one asleep. I took the first shift at the wheel leaving the day driving for the newbie. Not everyone is suited for night shift. I loved it, the roads were more barren and it made picking up hitchhiking pretties easier.  
 

    I remember when I went to bed, I was surprised how well this was going. Sleep came easy. The few times I had taken a trainee before I had struggled to sleep with someone else driving my truck. I remember my dream, so vividly. I was standing in front of three people, and I was terrified. I knew that they were simply not someone that would be good for me to be in front of at any point. It was two men and a woman but not a single one of them looked human. The one in the center was the closest to human looking, over six feet with grey skin and blue fire where his eyes should be. His long white hair nearly brushed the ground. The other man was huge with wings, tail and horns. When I say huge…I swear he was a twenty feet in height and built of shear muscle. The female was gorgeous enough, with a body that made a person think of sin first, except for the textured area on the right side of her face and the horn that sprouted from it. She was the one who spoke to me. Her voice was husky and soft as crushed velvet.  
 

      “The blood covers you like a second skin. What do you think you deserve for your choices?”    

      In the dream I stuttered. “What blood?” Then I looked down, and all I saw was the blood covering me. It was dripping from me like molasses and forming a large puddle at my feet. I  woke up screaming.   

       Azriel was calm sounding as he asked if I was okay. I looked about in a panic. The curtains between the driver and sleeper compartment were still pulled tightly, blocking the light and line of sight to where we were. I don’t think I have ever had a dream like that before. I grabbed a water from the fridge, opened the curtains and jumped in the passenger seat. I was not feeling like sleeping right then. “How long was I down ?”    He raised his eyebrow as he shifted lanes. “Nearly eight. we are about 20 minutes away from the truck stop I was supposed to wake you at.”   

       That only left me more tired and confused than I had been moments ago. I could have sworn I had just fallen asleep. For once I was honestly looking forward to the rot gut truck stop coffee. maybe it would help me shake off the dream and be ready to function. The load had enough leeway for us to grab showers and food, something that was not always possible. We spent a good hour at the truck stop before moving on.  

     This same thing happened for the next few days. I would go to sleep, only to find myself in front of the same three. The female is the one who always spoke. And always asked me the same question. I did not panic about the blood after the first time, but it was disturbing. I couldn’t understand why I was so covered in it. I had no wounds. I had no reason to be drenched in blood. I usually can control my dreams, but these were beyond my control. 

     I always awoke just moments before my shift. I always felt like I had not slept at all, even though I had been sleeping for nearly eight hours every time. I will admit that I was starting to feel like I was losing my mind. I couldn’t even blame Azriel, we were making the mileage while I was asleep…and how could he have affected my dreams like that? The lack of rest was starting to cause me to be paranoid.

   I was starting to hallucinate, seeing parts of the people I had killed in the truck when I was awake. The first time I truly panicked. I saw a delicate hand that I recognized as having belonging to the teenage girl I had last enjoyed killing. I must have looked so strange reaching for something on the floor that was not there. If Azriel noticed he didn’t say anything. I started hearing the voice of the woman in my dream while I was awake. I was slowly going insane and I knew it. Azriel was merely doing the job and ignoring my shenanigans. I am not sure if he was even aware of the crazy things that I was going through. I was beginning to think that this was my penance for the lives I had taken…and I wanted to accept it…mostly because I was exhausted. It felt like I was not sleeping. and after a full week of it…I was beyond tired.

    That night I went to sleep with a single thought in mind. I was going to accept my fate… whatever that meant. I doubted it would wash the blood away but I would finally rest. That was what I wanted. Again I stood in front of the three. Details seemed sharper this time…I could smell the copper tang of all of the blood mixed with a sulfur stench. I swear I could smell my own fear under it all. The voice of the woman was soft and musky, with a hint of disdain underlying everything she was saying. I felt like she was looking down on me. I was less than an ant in her gaze. Her hazel eye, the one human looking eye, seemed to be judging me. The other one was black and hard as she stared at me waiting for an answer to her demand. I had yet to speak in any of the dreams past the very first one. I swallowed and spoke quickly, “I deserve to pay my penance and then finally be able to rest. Though I have killed quite a few souls I don’t deserve to be tormented for eternity. “The woman stepped back a single fluid step, as though I had given her the response she was looking for. I remember thinking at the time that she moved like an assassin. The large creature on the other side spoke then. The voice was something that sounded like it was carved from Hell itself. Something both dark and deep that one could lose themselves in. “What penance would you pay?” I knew it was a question that I was expected to answer but I was not sure how to do it. I didn’t know what they were looking for from me here. The debate felt like it took me an eternity. 

         Finally, with a sigh, I settled for the truth. “I don’t know. I cannot say that I have remorse for my deeds. I enjoyed the lives I took. Still, I do not believe that I should be eternally tormented. Asking me to choose what penance I deserve is basically letting me get away with a lighter one. And whilst I am so fine with that…I doubt you would be. “The middle one let out a belly laugh that rattled my soul. This was the first sound I had ever heard him make, and it scared me. Somehow he was the most human of the three, and yet he was also the one who scared me the most. His presence was more potent than the other two. This time I could see the blue flames not only coming from his eye sockets but from his mouth and hands as well. It gave an eerie feeling to him as he spoke. “If I give you the ability to continue to do what you have been doing, with a minor change…would you take it?” He asked so casually. I was too quick to accept that choice, I should have thought more about it. I imagined that I would be still killing as I had been before but supervised by these three somehow. He laughed again, this time it sounded mean more than anything.

        Suddenly, I was knocked off my feet by the most intense pain I had ever felt. I didn’t wake up as I had every other time. Instead I began to change. Physical changes came first, exquisitely painful. I grew taller by another six inches. I had already been over six feet, this put me closer to seven. I sprouted two horns and an immense pair of leathery wings. I grew a three foot prehensile tail. My skin changed to a ruby red coloration with brown hair growing everywhere. Next came the mental changes. I soon forgot the majority of the life I had lived…it was no longer mine. My senses began to sharpen, causing the surroundings to feel overwhelming nearly immediately. The sulphuric smell of cavern and the copper tang of the blood that had formed a pool at my feet. The cool dampness of the pool I was standing in. The faint screams that seemed to be coming from everywhere around us…and echoing softly across the cavern we were in.

       The new sensations were nearly maddening on their own. Azriel joined us soon after my change was done. He looked no different than he had in the truck. At least not in a physical way, but now he seemed to have an eerie pale blue aura surrounding him.

             I found myself grasping at the image of the Mack I had driven for the last few years. It was fading fast from my mind. He looked me over and smiled at the middle guy. “So, decided to give Bub a new trainee huh?” I was still confused, and in immense pain so I didn’t see what was going on yet. I was looking around trying to piece the puzzle together. We were in a cavernous room that looked like it was carved out of blood and lava. I still at that point believed that we were standing on earth somewhere. I was not bright back then enough to piece my location together. I have grown wisdom in age.

       The middle one nodded and then looked directly at me. “The big one here is Beelzebub. He is now your boss. He will lead you to pit and teach you how play. If you fail to listen to him…Well demons don’t enjoy the pit either. “Is that what I was, I thought, a demon? I looked again at the others surrounding me. The middle one still scared me though my perception of him had not changed. The woman seemed to have a reddish aura, of pain and death surrounding her. Don’t ask me how I know what her aura meant…I still don’t understand why her aura was more clear to me than Azriel’s.

     The big one, Beelzebub, was more gentle in appearance than before. He reminded me of a gruff old grandfather who was only stern to keep his child safe. He led me here. I was given easy instructions on everything I was both allowed to do and what was expected of me. I have been playing in the pit for a thousand years now. And you are the first guest I have told my story to. I now know who each of the three are and what I have become.

       What I was before was boring, serial killers are a dime a dozen…But pit fiends are a lot more fun. The names of the other two, well names have power…and you don’t deserve power.

      Nothing I have told you will help you escape…but it was fun for me to remember.