Part 1: Scars

“Scars are proof that you are stronger than whatever it was that tried to kill you“ - Anonymous

I stood in the darkened alley, my black pea-coat pulled tightly around my large frame warding off the chill of a rainy November night. The forecast had called for sleet, and it had delivered. Fucking Upstate winters. I clenched my fists inside my pockets. The crackling of my knuckles reaching my ears even through the thick material of the pea-coat. I looked across Saratoga street at the imposing brick building I had been scouting for three days as I lit a cigarette. I grimaced, as the spark of my lighter caught the attention of one of the local hookers. She slid up to me, trying her best to make her heroin wasted body look appealing. Right up until she caught a look at my face. The pathetic excuse for a smile slid away, the cracked, wasted teeth disappearing behind her weathered lips.

“Get lost whore” I growled at her, as I stepped slightly into the wan light of what had once been a decorative street lamp. The pitiful yellow light highlighting the spiderweb of scars that start just below my right eye, reaching up to disappear into my dark brown hair. “I got nothing you want. And you sure as shit got nothing I want.” I flicked my butt to the wet pavement, as I stepped back into the shadows. The dried up skank blanched at the venom in my voice, and quickly left me to my own devices.

I had to smile at her reaction. It wasn’t unusual, and had come to be expected from the people who approached me. My name is Mason Griggs, and anyone who knows me will tell you, I am a Monster. The irony of course is, monsters like me, we’re not born. We are created. The sleet continued to drizzle down, frosting over on my Boston Spoon, as I let my mind drift back. My fists clenched hard inside my pockets, as the unwanted memories once again assaulted me.

I was born on June twenty-fifth, 1988. I like to think that Amanda, my crack addict teenage mom might have actually loved me. For all of the first two days of my life at least. But by the time we got out of the hospital, her first, and only love, crack, was all she could think about. Thankfully I can’t remember the first few years of my life. Knowing what it was like growing up, moving from one flea bag motel to another. Crashing in a crack shack, wearing the same clothes for weeks at a time, filthy, and unwashed. Being forced to hide in a closet, or even under the bed, as Amanda turned tricks in order to buy herself her next hit off the stem. That was all enough to turn my stomach, if I could remember what it was like as an infant, discarded in a pile of dirty clothes, while she sucked some John’s cock, I might not even be able to summon the tiny modicum of remorse I can manage for her.

My eyes squeezed shut against the pain that threatened to crash over me, as those memories continued to come. I was six when Amanda hooked up with Marius. The beatings started almost as soon as we had unpacked the trash bags that carried everything we owned. Amanda never seemed to mind, so long as Marius kept letting her suck that glass dick of hers. He almost seemed to be happy that he got to beat me like I owed him money. I recalled my bedroom door creaking open in the dead of the night, Marius’ shadow being cast over the grubby mattress on the floor that passed for my bed...

NO! I snapped my eyes open to dispel the inescapable conclusion of those memories. The hot flush of hate and pain that spread through the pit of my stomach. This was what I needed. I needed to feed off of those emotions. I needed that hate. I had to feel that raw, unhealed pain. Across Saratoga street, in that brick building, a Monster was about to be unleashed.

I knew Gregor Dolenekov was going to be in that building. I knew he was responsible for the recent glut of heroin flooding the Hudson River corridor. I knew he was one of the major players in the human trafficking rings into the Eastern Seaboard. And I knew he had a taste for little boys that brought him here once every couple of months. Every time one of his cargo ships made port in Albany, he came here, where a new batch of his favorite little playthings were waiting for him. This was the only time, I knew I would have him almost entirely alone. After all, this wasn’t exactly the kind of activity an underboss in the Russian Mob could explain away.

My wait was not long tonight. The black Lincoln Navigator rounded the corner slowly, it’s hyper bright headlights missing me in the deep shadows of my alley. Two men climbed out of the back. The first was tall, but broad in the shoulders. The off the rack cut of his sports coat told me right away, he was carrying a gun. The second, was short, and balding. His gut expanded past the ability of his suit jacket to cover it. Even from thirty feet away, I could see the intense, hungry look plastered across his bloated, sweaty face. I let the Monster slip his chains...

The SUV’s driver didn’t even see me approach. A solid backfist with my K-Bar and the window by his ear blew out. A split second later seven inches of cold forged steel passed through his neck. A violent jerk of my right arm severing the carotid, and jugular, and slicing cleanly through the tough tissue of his trachea. He was dead before his eyes had time to even register my face. I leaned him over the center console, no need to chance him slipping forward and leaning on the horn. Gregor didn’t need to know I was coming.

I knew the entrance had surveillance cameras, and a solid steel door bar lock. But only a fool would try the front door. I might be a Monster. But I am no fool. I looped around the block, and came up to the back of the building. My scouting had shown me a dilapidated fire escape that I knew would support my weight. At two hundred forty pounds, I’d had to test its strength already. The second floor window was my best option. The plywood covering it had warped over the years since it had been installed, and the screws holding it had partially torn loose of the frame years ago. It hadn’t taken much to create an entrance without being obvious about it.

I knew Gregor would spend the better part of the night enjoying his twisted lusts. Like a spoiled, petulant child, Gregor very much enjoyed breaking his toys. I shouldn’t have been shocked by what I found on the third floor. But the sight of a six foot three inch, two hundred pound, bodyguard jerking his four inch pecker to his fat boss fucking a six year old boy while he’s tied down to a coffee table wasn’t really what I had in mind when I climbed the steps. It didn’t really matter, the Monster roared inside my head, and my arm wrapped around his throat, half a second before my K-Bar slammed down between his ribs, shredding his heart and lung. He was dead before I silently lowered him to the floor.

Gregor was too wrapped up in his own pleasure, his pasty, sweaty ass pumping up and down over the whimpering boy, to notice me. Snatching the half empty bottle of vodka off the floor, I slammed it into the side of his head with a hollow thunk. Most people don’t realize the amount of force it takes to break a bottle of booze. Grinning ruefully, I rubbed the scars on my face. I knew how hard it is to break one, after all, I had survived it.

In the time it took me to tie Gregor up, the boy he had been raping went silent. I could tell, both by his glazed eyes, and the pool of blood spreading from his lower body that he was likely dead. The small part of me that the Monster had not devoured, felt a twinge of sadness for him. I knew he had deserved so much better out of his short life. But the Monster, the cold beast that I had been forced to become, knew better. The Monster knew that the boy was better off not surviving what he had just endured. The Monster knew that the taint of what Gregor had just done would never, COULD never, be washed clean. The Monster knew only two things. Hate. And Rage. And those were the only things I needed to survive. Feed the Monster, and I would never have to worry about the pain my memories tried to inflict upon me.

I leaned Gregor’s pasty, naked body against the wall, and slapped him until he started coming around. My orders were very clear. He was supposed to KNOW he was about to die. And I was supposed to have PROOF he knew. I set my phone on video record, and began speaking.