I like how I updated again! YAY!! However the next chapter may not be up tomorrow because it's not complete and because I've got company coming over tomorrow. But I don't go to school till Wednesday so maybe it'll be up Tuesday? Or maybe tomorrow if I work on it all night. Cause I'm kind of in that mood. However I do have to go to my second and favorite job tonight. (Dog handler for Afghan Hounds) I love doggiessss!!

Chapter 8- Tasteless

“It’s late and I just want to go to sleep. Why did you need me?” Aubren asked as he walked into the office. Max looked to Gabriel in astonishment. The kid was always excited about anything that could lead them to Conner. Why the sudden change? Frederick O’Riley didn’t seem bothered by the angered college student. He stood from his chair and looked at Aubren through sunglasses. “Why do you always wear those?”

“They help me think. Look at these pictures.” Frederick held up a picture of Conner and a picture of Samuel Miller. Aubren seemed to recognize the second picture. “Do you know him?”

“He was in Conner’s class. Sam was Conner’s rival. They both competed for the same parts in plays and they both were Professor Sherwin’s favorite students.”

“From what we know and from what the police know, the serial killer stopped kidnapping after Samuel Miller. It’s strange. He picked only two theatre students, both similar in appearance and performance. Why?” Aubren shrugged.

“Would anyone care for a cup of coffee?” Alan asked.

“I’d like one please,” Aubren said. Alan nodded and went over to the coffee maker and poured the boy a cup.

“Well, I think it’s because he liked Conner. If he had killed Conner there was something there that he wanted back. Something he regretted doing or something that he wanted more of. It’s been almost a week since Samuel was taken. Usually the kidnappings were almost nightly. Something has changed.”

“Maybe he just quit?” Max asked.

“Serial murderers don’t just quit, Maxwell,” Alexandra said through a clenched jaw.

“And why don’t they just quit Alexandra?” Frederick asked.

“Because, it becomes an addiction. It’s almost worse than smoking. They crave killing, if they deny themselves of their fix they’ll go crazy and lash out. Usually that’s when most serial murderers are found, when they try to stop but can’t and then act rashly and leave something behind.”

“Exactly Alexandra. Good work.” The woman nodded trying to hold back a smile on her face.

“However, there may be something that we aren’t seeing. Conner was the first theatre student and Samuel Miller was the last,” Frederick looked as if he was going to continue but Aubren interrupted.

“What if he didn’t kill Conner? What if the killer liked Conner and let him live but as a captive?”

“I was just about to get to that, but excellent observation Aubren. Yes he may have kept him alive and he craved that lost kill. He needed someone who looked like Conner so it would balance him out,” Frederick O’Riley said with a smirk on his face.

“Conner would have tried to contact me,” Aubren said sadly.

“What if he couldn’t? What if he was bound in chains?” Frederick O’Riley asked.

“I don’t know! The point is that even with all these thoughts they aren’t getting us anywhere because they are just that, thoughts! We need something! And without him trying to kill anyone we’re not going to get anymore evidence!”

“Actually, I’ve got a plan,” Frederick said with that smirk still plastered onto his face. Aubren took a sip of his coffee, it did nothing for him; he couldn’t even taste it. He was still numb without Conner.

“Wait! How come you didn’t tell me the plan?” Max whined.

“Because I just thought of it. Now listen! We know this guy is addicted to killing. Sooner or later he’s going to want to kill again. His targets are and always will be boys from NKU. Ladies and gentlemen, we have our target.” Frederick pointed to Aubren. The boy’s eyes widened.

“What? No way man! That’s fucking crazy!” Aubren shouted.

“Relax, we’re always going to be there watching. Each night, you’re going to walk around the areas of the parking lot that the cameras don’t reach. If anyone talks to you, keep talking and we’ll be right there on standby. If anyone makes a move or says anything suspicious, we’ll be right there to take him. Don’t worry, you’re not going to be killed.”

“I still don’t like it. But…I’ll do it,” Aubren said firmly. Max noticed the color returning to the boy’s skin. He smiled to himself; that fiery college student that wanted to find his friend no matter what was finally back.

A week had passed and there was still no sign of the serial killer. Aubren walked around the parking lots like an idiot each night with Max and Frederick O’Riley in the bushes or in a van. “This is stupid! He either quit or he’s dead!” Aubren said to himself. He mentally kicked himself in the head for agreeing to this. He had a report for Chemistry due the next day and he still hadn’t finished it! He looked down at his cell phone; it was a little past one in the morning. He sighed and turned to Max and Frederick hiding in the bush. “He’s not coming!”

“We’ve got to wait till three. Then you can go home,” Max whispered loudly.

“I’m bored and I’ve got a chemistry paper due!”

“Gabriel took care of it already for you. He finished it up so you didn’t have to,” Frederick stated. Aubren raised his eyebrows in astonishment. Wow, that was cool. He started to follow the yellow lines of the parking lot trying to amuse himself. “This is going to be a long two hours.”

Stepha walked from one of the buildings after having finished her study review with a couple other students. She saw Aubren walking around aimlessly in the parking lot. She took a big gulp and went to approach him and maybe see if he wasn’t angry anymore. “Hey Aubren!” Stepha said. Aubren turned around quickly and immediately looked disappointed. Stepha bit her lip nervously. “I just wanted to know how you’re doing?”

“Fine.”

“Are you doing better in school?”

“Yup.”

“I’m sorry about bugging you so much. I guess, I just wanted to see you happy that I couldn’t stand it when you were sad. I wanted to find Conner for you. You love him and it’s obvious. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of much help.” Aubren didn’t respond. He knew that everything she said was true. He did love Conner; he loved Conner more than anything. He watched Stepha walk away and a pain suddenly lodged itself inside his stomach. He felt guilty for treating her this way. She had been such a good friend to him and so supportive.

“I’m sorry too, Stepha,” he said so softly that not even Frederick or Max could hear him.

Mikami kept scratching his itchy hands. He looked down at the red skin and tried to see if there was any kind of rash or a bug bite. There wasn’t. The skin was smooth and clean. He had gone an entire week without taking anyone’s life and he felt so good about it. He and Conner’s relationship was finally progressing the way he wanted it to. He sat up in bed and watched as the boy sleeping next to him stirred only momentarily. Mikami slowly got out of bed and left the room. He went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of orange juice. His hands still kept itching. He put them under warm water in hopes that it would help; it only made it worse. Skin was starting to flake up where he kept scratching. Mikami gulped down the orange juice and tried to forget about his hands. He sat at the kitchen table and started drumming. His entire body became antsy. He wanted to break something, or worse, kill something. He walked around a bit trying to look at things he needed to clean. He got out a rag and some dusting spray and started to dust off the wood furniture. When he was finished with that he went to make sure everything was straight. He fixed a few portraits on the walls and then noticed he had nothing else to fix. He started to scratch his hands again. “No…I’m not going to do this again. I won’t!” Mikami heard something coming down the stairs. Charlie the Pit Bull looked at him curiously. “No…Charlie go away! Please go away” But the dog didn’t go away. Mikami allowed tears to spill from his eyes. He didn’t want to, but he had to…

--

Conner woke around nine in the morning needing to pee really badly. He saw that Mikami was already up because his side of the bed was empty. ‘His side of the bed,’ the boy thought proudly. He crossed the hall and went into the bathroom. After he was finished he went back into the hall and started to go down the steps. He heard someone crying and immediately started to run. When he reached the kitchen what he saw broke his heart and terrified him all at the same time. In Mikami’s arms was Charlie. The dog’s blood spilled out from its sides and onto the floor. Conner almost gagged when he noticed that he could see the dog’s ribs. “Mikami, what happened?”

“I…I killed my dog, I killed my dog,” the man kept rocking back and forth holding the dead animal. Conner didn’t know what to do. He wanted to go closer but he didn’t like looking at the dead animal. It made him uncomfortable. “Conner I killed my dog!” Mikami’s voice was louder, he was shrieking.

“I know.” It was all the boy could manage to say. Mikami picked up the animal and went into the basement. Conner didn’t want to even think about what was happening down there. The boy went into the living room and saw Vinnie and Oscar, they were whining. “Hey, it’s ok, don’t be scared.” Conner tried to reach out but Oscar snapped his sharp teeth towards his hand. Conner quickly recoiled. He looked at the two dogs huddled together in the corner. They were terrified.

“They think they’re next,” Mikami said from the entrance.

“Will they stop being so scared eventually?” Conner asked.

“Eventually.” Conner looked at the frightened dogs without any emotion in his eyes. Truth be told, he didn’t know what to think of the situation. Was it his fault? He had messed Mikami’s system up ever since the man allowed him to live. Would Mikami revert back to his original stage and continue killing like he had before? Would he kill Conner out of anger?

“Why?” Conner’s voice was detached, like the question was only being asked because a normal person would want to know, why. Mikami leaned against the doorframe with his fists clenched; the blood of his dog still staining his fingers.

“Because he was there.” Conner nodded. A normal person wouldn’t have taken that as an answer. A normal person would probably have cried and gotten angry. But Conner realized that he wasn’t normal anymore. He watched someone that he knew get his eyes ripped out of his head, he had watched that same boy suffer slowly as his teeth were forcibly extracted from his mouth. He had watched Mikami’s usually beautiful face contort to a mad man’s face. And all this time, he never once noticed that his soul had died. He had allowed the screams to fill his mind and even lull him to sleep. He had become desensitized to watching, or hearing people die. Conner walked out of the room without glancing once at Mikami. He went into the study and looked for a book to read. He wasn’t angry with Mikami, he wasn’t even sad that the dog had died; he was just bored.

Mikami turned away from his frightened dogs and went into the kitchen to clean the blood from the floor. Despite his usual love for seeing blood this made him sick. He tried to stop thinking of what he had done. Despite his tries to block out the memory, vivid flashes of his own bare hands clawing into the dog kept poisoning his mind. He could hear the cries of pain coming from the animal as it shook in terror. He hated himself more than he ever had before. Mikami looked away from the blood and allowed himself to freely cry. It wasn’t like before when he had cried because of shock, it was a sorrowful, grief-stricken cry that made his entire body ache. Guilt swarmed his twisted, black soul. He couldn’t forgive himself for what he had done.

--

Conner became restless, as the book no longer could hold his attention even though he had only been trying to read for a few minutes. He listened to Mikami cry. The boy felt a tinge of guilt as he noticed what he had done. He didn’t comfort Mikami; he didn’t even try. When Mikami’s cries started to silence, Conner stood from the large, red, Victorian chair. He walked into the kitchen and bit his lip nervously. Mikami’s back was facing him. He watched as the man slowly scrubbed up all the blood from the floor with a washcloth. “I’m sorry,” Conner finally said. Mikami didn’t respond. He continued cleaning up the blood of what was once his pet. “I killed a rabbit once. I was learning how to drive and I accidentally ran over it when it was in the road.” Mikami stopped cleaning the blood and paused. He turned his head slightly so that Conner could see his nose poking out from behind the brown hair that obstructed the boy from seeing the side of the man’s face.

“Accidentally,” Mikami said with a mournful tone. Conner looked at his bare feet. Mikami had said so much more with that one word than he would have with any other sentence he could have responded with. Accidentally, meaning that Conner didn’t do it on purpose. Meaning that Conner didn’t intentionally kill, meaning that he didn’t know what he was doing until it was over. Mikami had known full well that he intended on killing his dog. It was no accident; it was on purpose. The murderer stood up and wrung out the washcloth under the water that flowed freely from the sink’s faucet. Conner didn’t know what else to say. Mikami was grieving and there was nothing he could say that would change anything. The older man walked from the room in the direction of the staircase. Conner listened to the footsteps that were heading to the tower of the house.

“So you’re back then,” the boy said. He turned from the kitchen and walked to the bedroom. Sitting alone on the bed was torture. He was bored, confused, frustrated and unhappy. “Lenora, what should I do?” Conner looked over to the snake that was resting inside his cage. “I know Mikami’s sad, but I can’t do anything about it! I don’t know what to do or what to say or…or even how to act! I don’t want him to be a killer! But…it’s like he’s only happy when he kills people. If that’s what he needs to be happy…then I’ll help him any way that I can.” Conner curled up under the covers and tried to sleep, but a plan was beginning to form in his mind, a plan that he didn’t necessarily like, but one he knew that he’d go through with.

Another transitional chapter and really, really short chapter. I actually hated this chapter because when writing it I could vividly see Mikami tearing his dog to pieces. I love dogs, and I almost cried. But it was needed. To end on a lighter note, review and maybe tell me what's your favorite kind of dog? or...if you're a cat person (personally, I dont like cats.)

Next chapter won't be hxc short and obviously, it won't be a trans. chapter. Cause that is this one! haha oh dear, my favorite part of this whole fictionpress thing is this part, where I just keep writing crap and you either read it or you dont. REVIEW!