Chapter 2: Graves The Butcher

Knives

-Present Day-

It was a craft, and also a god-given right. Every night, I’d sharpen my blade, ready to exact my mission of eternal damnation upon these forsaken savages. I was slicing murderers, rapists, and black market organ harvesters for righteousness sake, and for the sheer hell of it. I turned a hobby into a career, and didn’t think twice about it either.

Ebonmere had always been a cesspool for low life scum. Only a few years ago did shit really hit the fan. Crime spiked to unimaginable highs, and it’d gotten to the point where our law enforcement were dropping out like flies. No one cared to listen to the cries of humanity, and no one cared to act on the homicide cases pilling up by the dozens. To make matters worse, the poverty-stricken people of Ebonmere were bordered in, where even our neighboring towns didn’t give two shits about our dilemma. We were like the black sheep in the herd, a bunch of cursed rejects bound to hell. And nothing could rid these suffering people of this title, no matter how loud they begged.

But I heard their call… I heard them loud and clear…

Twenty years ago, I watched my little sister get eaten by a cannibal. I’d been eleven at the time, just a little kid without the slightest idea what was going on. I thought I was living a nightmare, because it hadn’t even been two months since our parents were slaughtered in the same home. First dad, then mom. And now, about four steps down the foyer, and about two seconds away from fleeing through the front door did my seven year old sister share the same fate.

I didn’t know why but, I felt both alleviated and unshackled. As if the death of the last person connecting me to this world had set me free. I was… reborn, unrestrained, and more than willing and able to set these construed demonic thoughts run freely down my timid juvenile bones. I was a little monster, and it felt good. I remember killing him feeling good. I must have stabbed him over fifty times—I mounted his back like a rabid animal and drove the kitchen knife into all of the fat rolls drooping down his stocky filthy body. Then I looked over to the open bloody chest cavity of my dead sister and shed tears of joy. I wasn’t crazy—at least, I didn’t think so. My laughing might have sounded maniacal, but I was happy for her. She was finally free of this world, a world not worth living in. A world that had only brought her constant fear and heartache. A world… that I couldn’t save her from…

That was when everything hit me all at once. The thought of not being strong enough to save her… our parents... I felt the weight of my weakness so fucking sickening that I couldn’t bear being in my own skin! I was angry, boiling with rage! Fuming off hate and vengeance!

I guess you could say her death had changed something in me, and I was better for it. A spark went ablaze, giving me clarity, and a new purpose in life.

My purpose on this earth was to slaughter those who selfishly condemned others to the grave. It was what I’d done for twenty years, and it was what I’d continue doing for the rest of my life.

That was why they called me Graves the Butcher.  

A vigilantly, a serial killer, a hero—I didn’t really care much for the titles. When people saw the six plus frame of a shadow at the dead of night, some cried tears of joy, and others cried tears of fear. Everyone had their own opinions of me. All I saw was a brown haired, green eyed kid who got tired of being weak, and chiseled out into a tool for the voiceless. I worked for those victimized by the vicious system, and got satisfaction in knowing that I was making Ebonmere a safer place. I had made a promise to Lenore, my late sister, that I’d create a home where she could have had a better life, finished school, gotten married, had children with her doting husband. Some days I’d call my dreams a fantasy, because death, poverty and crime were what we grew up in; they were all we knew. But I wanted to break the cycle, for her, and for every little girl wishing that someone brave would come and save them…

“Another round Beatrice, the bosomy barmaid.” The raspy sloshing Southern voice of my associate sitting to my right made me snap out of my daze, my eyes falling to my glass of beer. The foamy crown to my cold drink went flat, just like my thirst for this beverage. Beer had always been an acquired taste, but Ken Brayner loved it, and once a month, he’d treat me out for drinks to celebrate my broken record.

Last month I had dropped forty-two bodies; this month, fifty-one.

“I told you to stop calling me that, asshole!” Beatrice, the in fact busty and brawny bartender cawed at him, towel-drying a glass while fighting Ken a mean glare. She had a thick head of ginger hair, a beautiful round face of freckles, and a low cut top with a rack that stole all of the attention. I looked over and noticed the grey bastard lingering too happily on her chest, as if he were slouching forward, gazing into a marvelous hidden wonder.

“Have you no shame?” I playfully cursed under my breath, then sucked my teeth at him while reeling him back by his collar. The old bastard was beginning to feel less and less like a prior mentor and more like a horny headhunter, giving me hits for my nightly crusade and hitting on women. Before then, he’d taken me in as his own, feeling pity for the greasy battered up eleven year old boy who’d been living under a bridge with thieving rats. And punishing those thieving rats by turning them into dinner. After my sister’s death, I couldn’t see myself living in that house anymore. Needless to say, I didn’t feel mentally stable enough to listen to the haunting whispers of her I kept making up every night. I’d rather live out in the streets, and that was what I did with no complaints.

Until Ken Brayner had found me.

Not too long after I’d learned the tricks of the trade, carried my first gun a month later, and even picked out my special killing blade. Brayner admitted he was getting rusty with age, and wanted to pass the baton down to someone more nimble. And supposedly, I had the fire he was looking for to train me in the art of slaying humans.

Even though he was only thirty-five at the time.

Bastard was just plain ol’ lazy if you asked me.

Regardless, I saw the training and the trust as an honor. And ever since I started, I’d stacked thousands of bodies. He reminded me every month of how far I’d gone, and how much work we still had left to do. I didn’t mind. Just as long as those crooks got the message.

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Mess with my town, and I’d slaughter you every chance I got.

“Heh, she’s warmin’ up to me,” Ken beamed just as she walked away, wearing a full toothy grin.

“Shameless.”

“Hey, you saw the way she’s been lookin’ at me, didn’cha’? I’d say by next month, I’m gonna pop the big question.”

“Don’t bother embarrassing yourself, you hopeless romantic.”

“And here I was plannin’ on makin’ you my best man.”

“Maybe a eulogy priest for your funeral when she buries you six feet under.”

He snorted. “Always with that charm, Graves, makes you irresistible to the ladies!” he snickered, then his laughter suddenly subsided. His next round of beer came in, and I could tell he was looking at my hand again, because he didn’t say a word to Beatrice when she passed us. “That symbol on the back of your hand always gave me the damn chills,” he retorted. I turned over to him and noticed the disturbed expression on his face as he glared down my scar, the one sitting between my open fist leather gloves.

“Don’t worry, the feeling is mutual,” I teased. “My symbol doesn’t like looking at your Frankenstein face scar either.”

“Hey, my scar is a symbol of my commitment and dedication, and a reminder that my mission here is valued.”

“Hmm. And here I thought it was just a reminder of you nearly escaping death.” 

“That thing just looks downright demonic.”

“Suitable, don’t you think? Aren’t we demons slaying other demons?”

“Don’t start gettin’ all philosophical on me now, Graves,” he said, narrowing his eyes on me. He’d always hated my scar, the same one that had magically appeared when I killed for the first time. Ken called it Satan’s Kiss; good to know he had a poetic side to compliment his cold-blooded nature.  

“It’s not hurting anyone,” I said, raising my hand over my face. “If anything, it makes me feel stronger. And it keeps me motivated.”

“I remember years ago, you said it was the Chosen One’s branding.”

“I was young and pulling at possibilities, because I wanted to feel special. Now I know better. It has nothing to do with being chosen. People have free will, and are able to choose their own path. And I made that decision on my own. To kill or be killed. To answer the voice of the weak, so I can give them a choice they didn’t have. A spear head with a cross base and two orbed tails. I have no idea what it means, but I’ve long accepted it as being a part of me.”

“You’ve always been a creepy ass kid, you know that, right?” he said, finally putting an amused smile on my face. “Good thing I had found ya and put that hot temper of yours to good use.”

He had my attention, until I heard something behind us, carrying down the alleyway and echoing into the streets.

“Sounds like some animals fighting over scraps by the dumpster,” I said, a code for me to pursue and hunt. The high pitched female scream that followed only confirmed it, and while the rest of the bar sat around and did nothing, I took to the streets.

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