Scary Stories - Contract Killer

0:00Kool Roy was always late. It was a fact I'd become acutely aware of in the brief time I'd known the woman. Whenever we had a job, she was always, always late. This night was no different. Arrhythmically wrapped my fingers against the steering wheel, glancing back and forth between the hotel's entrance and the dashboard clock. It was nearly 20 minutes past our scheduled meet time. Any minute now, she'd come barrel him through the front doors of the Swinky Five Star joint where our employer put her up, black coffee in one hand, and black briefcase in the other. She'd get in the passenger seat without a word, and fuss with her dirty blonde ponytail, and huff and puff like it was my fault she wasn't on time. And God helped me if I opened my mouth. It wasn't worth it. It was another fact I'd become acutely aware of the very first night we met. I'd like Kool Roy though. All things considered. We seemed to work well together. She didn't give a shit about my time or what it was worth, and she wasn't the friendliest, but when he came to the job, the info on the job, the value of the job, doing the job.

1:05She was rock solid. She was certainly a fine piece of ass too. Not that I'd ever run a fruitful working relationship by taking a shot. Almost as if on cue, Kool Roy finally burst out of the hotel and made her way across the street where I'd been parked with my headlights off. In black briefcase, St. Ponytown, but a coffee in each hand this time. Kool Roy juggled the coffees in briefcase and opened the passenger door, sliding into the seat next to me. Wordlessly, she thrust one of the coffees in my direction. Oh, thanks. I said, surprised. For someone with Kool Roy's personality, this felt like an act of uncharacteristic warmth. Ignored me and flipped open the Ebony briefcase, sipping her coffee as she thumbed through the papers within. The papers with the info on the job. The info on the person we were supposed to kill. I figured that Kool Roy probably wasn't her real last name. I only assumed this because the name I'd given her, Taggart, was also a fake.

2:06A kind of mask assigned by our employer. In this lot of work, it's best to know the least amount of information possible about your partners, your employer, even the target. Hell, especially the target. Made it easier? For me anyway. No sense getting caught up and who did what or why. Deserves got nothing to do with it. I didn't know shit about Kool Roy. Didn't know shit about our employer, Deadly. And I didn't know shit about most everyone that we killed. I waited patiently for Kool Roy to speak, in hand me the Manila Envolo, which contained the most information I'd normally get on the target. Their picture. I didn't really take any pride or enjoyment in this line of work. It's just something I happen to stumble and do years back when my drinking was at its worst, and my debts had run too high. And I found myself in a very literal kill or be killed scenario. The lengths men go with their backs against the wall. You don't really know you've got it in you. Until the moment comes.

3:07And damn, did I have it in me. For the years, word of how good I was at the killing part would inevitably make its way to men like Deadly. Unscrupulous, rich and connected, with an unending stream of unlucky people in their orbit who always needed doing away with. Kool Roy was good too. Didn't flinch, but didn't take too much pleasure in the shit either. We made a good team. I sipped the scorching black coffee. Not my preferred way to take it, but she wouldn't hear me complaining. This Kool Roy finally opened her mouth and got to the point. The job's about 45 miles outside the city. Right on the outskirts of some po-dunk Vernon, Big House, a derelict old Victorian. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with her middle finger as she passed the envelope. I nodded. Two targets. Kool Roy continued, taking a deep gulp of her drink. One's an elderly woman. The other. She trailed off as I took a look at the two black and white photos contained within the

4:07folder. The first was an older, well off looking woman. She wore a garish dress and the kind of valuable looking pearl necklace that men broke into houses and killed for. The photo depicted her smiling widely at some kind of social function. She wasn't quite the most harmless looking person I'd ever killed, but it was close. Like I said though, it's a waste getting caught up in that. Or whatever reason this was someone deadly needed done and we were on his dime. So we do her. I moved on to the second photo, nestled behind, and for the first time in years and years and years, I was truly given pause. In the photo was a little boy. No more than four, maybe five years old. Grinning, ear to ear, and hugging an old-timey tin toy robot to his chest. A massive Christmas tree making up the photos background. I stared up a kilt Roy who was still nonchalantly sipping her coffee in credulous.

5:09This is the job. She said. She was firm. Sissinkly answering the million silent questions my face must have asked. Working for someone like Mr. Deadly, the jobs aren't always easy. It won't always be gamblers and wise guys. I knew that. And she knew that I knew that. In the first month that I'd been in Deadlives' employ, Kille Roy and I had done a middle-aged soccer mom while her kids slept in the rooms above us. And even before I'd enter Deadly's employ, it's not like I had some kind of self-deceptive moral code about who I would or wouldn't kill. I had no misconceptions about who I was. The things I'd done. I wasn't in the business of lying to myself. I was in the business of killing. A kid though. An actual literal child. Maybe this was a line I couldn't cross. It would have been something I'd have wanted to think on normally. Something I'd like the chance to turn down. But Kille Roy and I both knew it didn't work that way.

6:11She'd worked for Deadly much longer than I had, and it was clear they'd waited a few months to see how solid I really was to spring something like this on me. The thing was, with a boss as ruthless and brutal as Deadly, there was no second guessing. The second I'd pulled up outside that hotel and waited for Kille Roy to rush out with her coffee into briefcase, I had agreed to kill whoever was on the inside of that envelope. The way Kille Roy spoke, it didn't seem that a job like this was all that uncommon. Not that my blonde compatriot was constantly murdering children, but just the idea that working with these people would push you further than you thought you could go. I think we work well together, Taggerd. Kille Roy broke the silence, and Mr. Deadly likes you. He trusts you. Jobs like this, they only go to the ones he trusts. She stared ahead as she spoke, not looking at me. The job is the job. The kid should be in an upstairs bedroom.

7:12The old woman watches TV in a den all hours of the night. Let's go. I nodded. She was trying to soften the blow a little, trying to make me feel like there was some upside to this. I just have to deal with it my own way. The way I dealt with all the others. It was work. The job is the job. I took one last look into the boy in the photo's eyes as I shut the folder and pulled the car forward to begin our drive. We made pretty good time. An easy drive. A little over an hour had passed and we only had a few minutes to go before we reached our destination. 18 doffensway. Just off Culver Road in Vernon. The sparse details Kille Roy had given me, along with the address, were that the property was an isolated and dilapidated Victorian mansion out in the boonies and surrounded mostly by empty fields. An easy place to do what needed doing anyway. I'd spent most of the drive alone with my thoughts. Kille Roy and I didn't talk much on a normal trip and I think we both sensed the increased

8:16tension of this particular ride. I know what I said about not worrying much about the people on these jobs, about not caring who they were. But again, these felt like special circumstances. A boy, and what I assumed was his grandmother. I kept thinking about the kid's smiling face, clutching his Christmas present. The more I thought, though, the weirder it seemed. The photos Kille Roy provided were always black and white, but I got the distinct aura of this particular photo being from an older time, maybe even years and years ago. Something about that tin toy, the smiling boy held tight to his chest. Kille Roy was staring vagantly out the passenger window as I cleared my throat to speak. Kille Roy. She turned to face me. Doesn't something about this, the photo I mean, of the kid? Doesn't it seem a little off? Kille Roy nearer at her eyes.

9:17I wasn't one to question the job. Wasn't one to make trouble. I did good, solid work. I'm a logical man. A professional. But damn if something in my lizard brain wasn't telling me that if there was ever a time to question the job, it was this moment. I hoped whatever good faith I'd build up with Kille Roy over the months would at least implore her to hear me out. She said nothing. Simply raised her eyebrow and stared. I assumed this was an invitation to continue. Doesn't the picture look old to you? Like it's an old, tiny photo of a kid? Like whenever we get to where we're going, is there even gonna be a kid that age at this house? A mildly puzzled look crossed Kille Roy's face and she clicked open her briefcase and withdrew the Manila envelope, opening it to look at the photo of the boy. Thinking I was winning her over, I continued. And why are a kid and his grandma even staying at some run-down mansion anyway?

10:19She frowned. Taggart. She said. A hint of annoyance in her voice. It's probably from some kind of themed Christmas photo shoot. Something like that. Mr. Deadly knows that there's nothing to be gained from misleading his employees about a job. She closed the folder and threw it back into the briefcase. I know this isn't an easy job, but don't start saying things that make me question why you're the one who's here with me. Well, I tried. That was that. And truth told, she was probably right. Maybe there was some small screaming voice inside of me that was still human, desperately looking for an out. The rest of the drive proceeded in silence, down the seemingly endless stretch of country road, passed abandoned gas stations, and run down bars. Until we came upon a towering mansion, barely illuminated in the pale winter midnight. The structure stood so tall and twisted, and nearly blocked the moon.

11:19Kielroy glanced at me. I nodded and drove past the mansion, eventually pulling the SUV over in the expansive tall grass next to a lone well that bordered our target's home. We should be able to get him through the back. Kielroy said as she exited the car. I followed silent my popping the trunk, and withdrawing the carrying bag that held our tools. Two handguns, a few knives, one shotgun, nothing too fancy. The jobs were never more than one or two mostly defenseless people at a time, and Kielroy and I were good enough to not need excessive firepower. I slung the bag over my shoulder, and handed one of the pistols to Kielroy, who'd pulled gloves over her slender hands after exiting the car. She brushed a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, meant fussed with her pony-town, her glasses beginning to fog in the chill of the night. She nodded, and we slowly and silently made our way down the road to the mansion. Kielroy was right. The back door was locked, but so rotted and warped that it swung open easily enough with

12:22little pressure. We tipped-toed silently into the house, and the stench hit me immediately. The place, stunk, a stink of garbage and body-odor, and general unclemliness, all the lights in the house were off, save for a dim glow that probably came from a television set in what I assumed was the living room. It looked like we'd entered the house through the kitchen, the little moonlight pouring in, illuminating a sink of filthy dishes, and a table covered in routing food. We made our way toward the light, trying not to breathe in the awful smells of the house. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I made out an armchair in the living room. It's back to the kitchen, blocking the television's glow. A faint shape shifted in the chair, seeming to confirm what Kielroy had said earlier about the old woman's TV habits. She was down here with us, which meant the boy was upstairs, asleep in his bed.

13:23Kielroy and I shared a look, and we approached the old woman from behind. The silence was shattered by a frantic pattering of steps above us. The sound of child-sized feet, maniacally running, unaged and cracking hardwood filled the house, along with a child like giggling. The old woman let out a moan and stood. Her back still to us. She began babbling to herself quietly. No, no, no, God, why won't he stop? Please, God, Ratchet, Ratchet, why? Suddenly, the old woman snapped around a face-ass. Her wide bloodshot eyes glowing bright white in the dark. She was rail-fen. Her hair, wild and frizzy. Ghoulish. A far cry from the demure, wealthy woman in the photo. As the woman opened her mouth to scream, a lunched forward and grabbed her. I jerked her around roughly by the arm and wrapped her neck in a chokehold, covering

14:26her mouth with my free hand. She struggled, but she was far too decrepit to really fight back. She stunk like shit, and I felt the dampness of her dirty night-gown on my pant leg. Even with my hand covering her mouth, she continued babbling. Calm down, I said. Is that your grandson up there? That seemed to make her go berserk. She shook her head violently and fought my grip with all her might. Go up and check. I said to Kilroy. The pounding footsteps above us had stopped, but now we had no way of knowing where the kid actually was in the upstairs portion of the mansion. We couldn't trust that asleep in his room until anymore. Before Kilroy could respond, the woman bit my hand with all the force her withered jaws could muster. In shock, I released my grip, and the woman stumbled forward, nearly screaming now. The boy, the boy, my boy, my sweet Arthur.

15:27Arthur came back. He came back after all these years, after everything we did to him. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, Arthur shouldn't be. I don't know what he wants, and I call Roger. A boy needs his father. Needed him, always needed him. I don't. The woman's mad rambling was cut short by a single shot from Kilroy's silence pistol, aimed expertly between her eyes. She collapsed to the floor in a heap, blood gushing from the hole in her head. Kilroy looked at me with this appointment. How the hell could you let her go? I flexed my hand, trying to work out the pain of the bite. She bicked me. I said, this whole thing had thrown me off. This wasn't my best work, not by a long shot. Guess we have to go up there now. Kilroy silently turned, and started up the living room stairs to the second floor.

16:30The upstairs had stayed silent during the melee. One half of the job was done in any case, but the woman's ravings had struck me somehow. Why did she talk as if this kid was her son, not her grandson? This kid, Arthur, and where'd he gone? Where'd he come from? And what really peaked my interest was the other name she'd repeated. I didn't have much time to ruminate on that though. No sooner had we reached the second floor of the house than one of the doors flung open with a slam, and a cackling shape bounded out in a blur. The child both had right passed us, knocking into us, with a force that just felt wrong somehow. Kilroy lost her grip on the banister and fell backwards into me, the two of us tumbling down the steps as the kid darted into the living room. The entire time he said, mommy, mommy, mommy, play, play, play.

17:31Being closer to it now, I had a chance to really listen to the voice as we rolled backwards and landed in a heap. There was just something off about the way the kid sounded, like the voice was an octave too deep. Kilroy groaned as we collected ourselves, now back in the living room only feet from the old woman's corpse. The kid was nowhere to be found, and we heard a loud clattering in the kitchen, pots and pans and trash being flung about, that maniacal laughter and rambling never stopping. Hungry, hungry, hungry. It was topped off by the loud, wet sound of smacking lips. I tapped Kilroy's arm to get her attention. Something isn't right here. Do you hear that kid? Kilroy scowled. The only thing that's not right is you, Taggerte, of all the times to have an off-night. She stood, smoothing out her suit and adjusting her glasses. This should have been such an easy job.

18:32Before I could respond, that pattering of feet returned as the kid made his way back into the living room. My back stowed over the kitchen. I saw a look of abject horror suddenly cross Kilroy's face as the running behind me came to a dead stop. Quickly, I scrambled to my feet and world around. Behind me was Arthur. Not a child. Not a kid. I didn't know what in the holy hell this thing was. It was the same size as a four or five-year-old. That was clear. It had pallid, pasty white skin, cracked black nails on its pudgy fingers and toes. It clutched a blackened, rotting apple in one hand, the source of the smacking sounds before. It looked bloated. Its alabaster flesh coated with swollen blue veins. But its face? God, its face!

19:33Arthur's head was a nearly perfectly round orb, absent of any visible ears or eyes or a nose. The entirety of its face was covered by a gaping, wide mouth. Blackened, cracked lips rimmed a drooling and abysmal maw, filled with far, far too many, square yellow teeth. A bloated purple tongue hung to the side, dripping saliva to the floor. Kilroy and I were frozen in place, lost in the wickedness of the sight we were faced with. Though Arthur had no eyes or any clear way to see or perceive what was right in front of him, I could see what the thing was fixated on, what had stopped it in its tracks, the woman's body, his mother's body. Arthur dropped the apple, the rotten fruit hitting the ground with a wet thud.

20:33The creature took a few timid steps towards the woman's corpse. Mommy? It said meekly, all signs of the previous rambunctiousness gone. I guess Kilroy had more of a killer instinct than even someone like me. It hadn't taken her long to move on from the inherent horror of the situation and get back to the job. The job is the job after all. Unable to take my eyes off the morning creature, I had a perfect view of its faceless head snapping backward in a spray of dark liquid. As Kilroy took her shot, Arthur went flying backward from the impact, slamming into the living room wall. That snapped me out of it. Whatever that thing was, we weren't safe here. We'd been thrust into something that we weren't prepared for. We gotta get out of here. I said, now we're going to the car. Kilroy scalded me. What the hell did deadly have us walk into here?

21:33I asked her. I don't know. She said that angry expression never leaving her face. But either way, we did what we were supposed to do, right? Or at least I did. I wasn't so sure that thing was dead. My fears were confirmed when a gutter-roll roar erupted from across the room, and Arthur lunged at Kilroy. She tried to get off another shot, but the bleeding thing was undeterred, now fueled by rage and hatred. It tackled Kilroy and set itself upon her, clawing at her chest, easily ripping out wet meaty chunks like a barbecue chef shredding pork. Mami. It screamed as a torridder flush. The room filled with a scent of copper as Kilroy weased. I rushed forward and grabbed at the fang desperately trying to do what I could to help my partner. As I pointed my gun at the back of its head, it turned, feeling my grip on its clammy arm.

22:35Lightning fast. Its spread opened its gaping maw and clamped down with its teeth on my hand as I fired, missing my shot. It bit. Hard. Rearing its head back and taking my thumb and index finger with it in a massive spray of red. I howled in pain and fell backward. As Arthur turned to continue its assault on Kilroy, it was blasted in its empty face by another point blank shot from her pistol. With her last ounces of strength, body convulsing, Kilroy had made a desperate attempt to finish the job. Arthur slumped forward to the floor, dark black liquid seeping from the chunks Kilroy had taken out of its head. I was in the process of trying to fashion a makeshift tourniquet out of my torn glove, blood leaking from my mangled hand. I heard Kilroy gurgling, taking wheezing, shaky breaths. Slowly I walked over to her.

23:36Blood poured from her mouth. Her entire chest cavity nearly exposed. Arthur had done a lot of work in a short time. Kilroy's entire torso had been turned to wet ground meat. Her blonde hair was stained with blood, glasses thrown a sunder. We stared into each other's eyes for a moment that felt longer than it really was. I nodded, raised my gun, and put Kilroy out of her misery. It was the least I could do. Not thinking Arthur was really dead, I put my boot on the things leaking head, hoping that would be enough to keep it down if it stirred again in its wounded state. My mind was working now. I reached into Kilroy's blazer pocket, sopping wet with dark blood, and with drew the cell phone. Kilroy always got a call after enough time it passed to ensure the job was done. One like this, one that looked so easy on paper, shouldn't have taken long.

24:37And after a few moments, the phone rang. I answered. An unfamiliar voice on the other end spoke. Done. My reply was tense. Deadly, I said. Silence. Give me deadly. The line went dead. It was a long shot. But I figured it would work. Deadly would need to know if something went wrong with his two best. A shurn of? After a few tense minutes passed, minutes in which I never took my eyes off Arthur, the phone rang again. Daggerant. A commanding voice on the other end. Deadly. Yeah. What's the problem? You can imagine my shock when I was told that Kilroy herself didn't answer the call. Yeah. I repeated. What the hell was all this?

25:38This job. I trailed off. This job wasn't what it was supposed to be. There was silence on the other end. Daggerant. Deadly finally broke the silence. There's just certain things in this world that aren't fit to discuss. Things men do. Mistakes men make. When a crazy old flame you haven't spoken to in years starts incessently calling you, your places of business, yelling about seeing an illegitimate child that's been dead for decades. Well, you can't have that, can you? I said nothing. He continued. And even if you know this old hag is lying, you know it's bullshit. Well, you still have to put a stop to it, right? And you put your best men on it just in case. Just on the small, off chance that the little ankle-biter, the bastard son who drowned

26:43in a well all those years ago really did come back. I considered his words still not opening my mouth to answer. Now let me talk to Sasha. After a beat, I realized that he meant Kilroy. She's Kilroy didn't make it. That is truly unfortunate. Deadly opined, a seemingly genuine sadness in his voice. Well, if the job is done, you can go. The cleanup crew will be by shortly to do their job. I knew I could trust you with this, Taggart. You'll be one of my top men for a long, long time. But we hung up. His story made sense in a twisted way, and the earlier thought I'd had about the other name the old woman had repeated floated back to the front of my mind. Roger. Roger, deadly.

27:45Like I said, I try my best not to know too much about my targets, my associates, my bosses. But being totally clueless is just as dangerous as knowing too much. I knew enough. Just enough to keep myself aware. I wasn't a fan to put it lightly. Of the way things had gone that evening. The job is the job. But that's only true when you can trust your boss. A man like Deadly, it was clear. I couldn't trust. We'd almost been set up to fail that night. Our competence making us well-armed sacrificial lambs. I stared into Kilroy's wide, lifeless eyes, rimmed with blood now from the bullet hole in her head. We'd been a good team. And Kilroy, Sasha, whatever her name was, whoever she was. I'd liked her in a way. It wasn't right. And it wasn't fair.

28:46As I predicted, Arthur began to stir beneath my feet. The creature led out a pained whale and clapped its massive teeth, black fluid leaking from its head. I knew who Roger Deadly was. New a few of his prominent haunts, Clubsy owned. One of the swanky pads in the city where the old bastard slept. I figured I'd find him at one of them. I leaned down and talked directly to the thing, figuring that whatever Arthur was now, he'd been human once. Or his dad or mom, or whoever Deadly had gotten to do the deed, had thrown him down that well. Hey Arthur. Wanna go see your dad?