Eckhart Koch started every day early, and today was no exception. He woke up before dawn, not even needing an alarm clock, and went about his morning routine. He lived alone in the apartment above his butcher shop, a solitary man, but a welcome constant in the lives of those who passed through his door each day. Everything in his room was meticulously organized, his kitchen was spotless, and his business was the embodiment of neatness and professionalism. He was a man of tidy routine.

He enjoyed his breakfast and coffee with the morning paper, flicking through the local stories. Much of the news was still focused on the death of Antonio Borelli, a material witness in the city’s case against the Philadelphia crime syndicate. He was ready to bury his friends and superiors, and now he was lying on a cold steel table because of faulty breaks in his sports car.

As the sun lit the city streets, Eckhart flipped the sign in his store window from CLOSED to OPEN and began his day in earnest. Customers strolled in one by one, and he fed them meat, cheese, and knowledge. He was polite, helpful, and his German accent and mannerisms put people at ease. They would smile when he spoke to them and laugh at his jokes, earning him good business. The day passed with the same episodic productivity as all the days before, blissfully boring, and he went to bed without issue or complaint.

The next day, however, threw him off his routine. It was when he came downstairs to find his storefront window had been vandalized, spray-painted with big letters. Whether they formed a message or the initials of some young punk trying to build up a reputation, Eckhart wasn’t sure; he just sighed and pulled out the paint thinner. He didn’t usually have to deal with this kind of behavior unless the streets were filled with drunken sports fans. It took some time, but he cleaned up the mess. He hoped that was the end of it, but days later, he found his window once again vandalized. He cleaned the window as before, hoping there wouldn’t be a third time.

“It’s been happening to all of us,” said his friend, James, who ran the nearby hardware store. “Mary had a dry ice bomb stuffed in the newspaper dispenser in front of her bakery.”

“Vandals come and go, probably just some dumb kids,” replied Eckhart, paying for more paint thinner to clean his window once again. “The police will do a show of force, and the little rats will scurry off to find something new to entertain themselves.”

“I just wish they’d target a Wal-Mart for once.”

After washing away yet another layer of paint, Eckhart went to bed, hoping these troubles would soon be over. His hopes were dashed that night when he was awoken by breaking glass. He rushed downstairs to find his storefront window reduced to shards scattered across the floor, with a lone brick lying amongst the debris. It was a long night for Eckhart, between cleaning up the damage and dealing with the police.

“It was probably just some kids pulling a prank,” the bored officer said, scribbling in his little notebook as his squad car lights flashed outside Eckhart’s shop.

“I don’t care who it was! They’ve been hassling me relentlessly! All of the businesses in the area are getting vandalized!”

“I’m gonna have to ask you to calm down, sir. Getting belligerent isn’t going to solve anything.” The sighing officer’s inability to make eye contact irritated Eckhart further, but he forced his angry tone to a low simmer.

“I want to know that these acts are being taken seriously. I’ve been in this location for eight years, and this is the first time someone has dared attack my business with such hateful audacity.”

“We’ll do what we can to stop it, try to put more patrols out, but the department’s dealing with budget cuts, so don’t expect a miracle. Have a good night.” The officer then shuffled off, having run out of strength to pretend to care.

The next morning, a tarp hung where Eckhart’s store window once stood, crisscrossed with police tape. Eckhart was behind the counter, trying to order a new window.

“Wow, what happened here?”

Eckhart looked up as a man forced his way through the tarp and maneuvered under the police tape. “Excuse me, did you not read the sign? My business is closed today.”

“Oh, I’m not here for meat,” the man said, looking everywhere but at Eckhart.

He was in his late twenties, almost thirty years younger than the graying butcher, and with his skinny build and narrow face, he couldn’t pull off the leather jacket look, despite how hard he was trying. He had a meandering gait, going off on twisting tangents as he sauntered over to the counter, with his face constantly shifting as if he had a sneeze stuck in his nose.

“And what are you here for?”

“You see, I’m in the private security business. Alphonse Maroni, I heard that there has been a rush of vandalism in this area. I think we can help each other out.”

“Oh really, and what are you going to do to keep my window from getting broken again? Are you going to sit out there in a lawn chair with a baseball bat every night?”

“Trust me, Pops, people under my protection don’t get messed with. And with the way things seem to be escalating, you need my services. It doesn’t take much to ruin a business, just a few things going wrong.”

“Protection, right. I know what it is you’re trying to sell. Get out of my store! And don’t you ever show your face around here again!”

“You know, it’s a real shame you feel that way. Tell you what, I’m going to leave you my card. Give me a call when your health and business are a little more of a priority.”

Alphonse dropped a business card on the counter and then strolled out of the shop the same way he came in. After he left, Eckhart busied himself by closing the broken window, covering it with plywood and tarps to keep more prowlers out. Even when that was finished, there were always things that needed to be done, and he always liked to keep himself busy. Night fell, and as Eckhart prepared to retire for the evening, he heard a noise down in the shop, the snapping of wood and tearing of fabric. He went downstairs and found a man with a ski mask pointing a gun at him. He was larger than Alphonse, and had forced his way through the plywood cover with a crowbar.

“Open the register, now!”

Eckhart raised his hands. “Mein Gott!”

The man stormed over and circled around behind the counter. “I said, open the fucking register!”

“Ok! Ok!” Eckhart moved to the cash register and opened it, but the few bills inside just angered the robber.

“What, that’s it?”

“Everyone pays with credit these days!”

The man forced Eckhart into the kitchen. “I know you’ve got more money squirreled away! Hand it over before I splatter your brains across the wall!”

“I don’t have anything! Just take what you want from the register and leave!”

“You think this is a game?! You think you can toss some dollar bills at me, and I’ll leave?!”

The man beaned Eckhart in the side of the head with the crowbar, knocking him to the floor. With no sign of movement from the shopkeeper, the mugger did a quick sweep of the upstairs and downstairs, but found nothing of value; no safes full of grandmother’s pearls and diamond earrings, cashboxes hidden from the IRS, or anything worth hauling to a pawn shop. He returned to the kitchen to find Eckhart still laid out, then stuffed his gun into his pants and pulled out his phone.

“Hey, it’s me. The old man is down. I don’t know; he ain’t moving. Nothing much in the register. Yeah, I looked.”

Eckhart continued to bleed onto the floor, and as it pooled beneath his face, some entered his mouth. The flavor awoke him, and he opened his eyes. However, the man who fell to the floor was not the same man who got back up. The robber had his back turned, still talking on his phone. He didn’t hear the cleaver being picked up off the nearby counter, nor did he feel it hack through flesh and bone and bury itself in his shoulder, not until his severed hand fell to the floor, still clutching his phone. For the briefest moment, the man didn’t react, then the pain surged from the stump of his wrist and his cleaved shoulder while spurting blood filling the kitchen with the stink of iron.

Screaming in agony, the man staggered forward, clutching his arm with his clothes dampening by the second. Eckhart retrieved the man’s phone and ended the call, not wanting the person on the other end of the line to hear what was about to happen.

“You motherfucker!” the man howled as he drew his gun.

The moment the pistol was raised towards Eckhart, he zoomed forward and robbed the burglar of his other hand. The old man’s movements were fast and precise, brandishing the cleaver with horrifying skill. Blinded by pain and slipping on his own blood, the man fell to the floor, unable to stop his bleeding and now hyperventilating. He looked back at Eckhart, taking a moment to lick the blood off the cleaver and shudder. “Oh, how I’ve missed that taste. You should have left when you had the chance. That privilege has now been revoked.” He then tossed the cleaver in the sink and stood over the wounded man, holding his dropped crowbar.

“Please don’t! Please!” the man begged, spilling tears as quickly as he spilled blood.

“You were right about one thing: this isn’t a game.”

The first swing came, the metal hook burying itself in the man’s already wounded shoulder. He screamed in agony, only for the second swing to shatter his jaw. Again and again, the crowbar rose and fell, crushing bone and spraying blood. Gore covered his face, but Eckhart didn’t stop swinging, relishing the viscous heat on his skin. Even when his victim’s skull had caved in, and his brains lay splattered across the floor, Eckhart only halted when the sound of police sirens reached his ears and the blue lights filled his shop.

Two cops rushed inside, aiming their hands at Eckhart. “Jesus Christ,” the female officer gasped, seeing viscera splattered across every surface of the kitchen.

“Drop the weapon now!” the male officer nervously shouted, using all of his willpower to keep down the dinner now rising up his throat.

With his eyes still on the dead man, Eckhart dropped the crowbar and raised his hands. “I surrender.”

Eckhart was arrested and brought to the local precinct. After being treated for his head wound, he spent several hours in a holding cell with the other arrestees of the night, all of them squeamish from the sight and smell of the blood soaking his clothes. His prints were taken, but dismissed, for all of them were ineligible. “Kitchen accident when I was younger, burned my fingertips near to the bone,” he claimed. Eventually, he was guided to an interrogation room, and soon, a detective arrived, carrying a file with the police report.

“Good evening. I am Detective Hewn,” he said before sitting down.

“Evening,” Eckhart replied.

Hewn sat down and flipped through the file for several moments, not saying a word, pretending he hadn’t already examined it. Finally, he loosened his tie and leaned forward. “You know, I’ve been on the force for twenty years. I’ve seen a lot of blood pooled on floors and splattered across walls. This is something different.” Eckhart didn’t respond. “Do you have anything to say?”

Eckhart tried not to smirk. “I’m waiting for a proper question. Why waste my breath responding to rhetorical statements?”

“Very well, what happened tonight?”

“I was about to go to bed when someone broke into my shop. Perhaps he was the same man who’s been vandalizing my property these past several days; I’m not sure. This time, rather than a can of spray paint or a brick, he came at me with a gun and a crowbar. He threatened me, robbed me, and tried to kill me, and I defended myself.” There was no anger in his voice. If anything, he seemed amused by the whole thing.

“You sliced off his hands and caved his skull in.”

“I disarmed him. You’ll find one of his hands still clutching the gun he threatened to kill me with. He was fast, but I was faster.”

“Self-defense is one thing, but once he lost his hands, he was no longer a threat. If you had stopped there, or had you not dismembered him before palming that crowbar, this would be much less of an issue.”

“Can you blame me for being a little quick to anger? For days, my shop, my livelihood, has been vandalized and destroyed. I’ve received no help from the lazy cops who can’t be bothered to look me in the eye, and then tonight, I was badly wounded and my life threatened by a violent mugger. Between the adrenaline and disorientation from my head wound, I’d say my actions were quite understandable, if not completely justified.”

“It’s not your place to say that.”

“A jury would, and I’m sure the media will too. Perhaps if the police had done a better job of keeping me safe instead of only showing up when it was over to arrest me, then the events of tonight wouldn’t have happened. What were they doing while I was lying on the floor, bleeding and unconscious?”

“We can’t be everywhere at once.”

“No, but you have to be where it matters. No one was. Now, I’d like to call my lawyer.”

Eckhart was soon released, but the investigation would continue. He returned to his shop to find the robber’s body gone, as well as several items taken as evidence, but there was still a great mess. After everything that had happened, it would have been natural for Eckhart to simply go to sleep and put off dealing with the gore until he’d had some proper rest, but he couldn’t sleep if he wanted to.

He went to work cleaning up the kitchen, meticulously scrubbing every surface, and removing all the splattered blood. It wasn’t simply for sanitary reasons; he needed the distraction. He needed to remove every trace of what he had done to keep the shadows in his mind at bay. Yet even after sterilizing his shop and scrubbing his skin raw in the shower, temptation continued to whisper in his ear like a sultry escort, and he could only resist for so long before giving in.

It was still the early hours of the morning, with the sun not yet due to rise for several more hours. Still, he left his shop and drove across the city while trying to talk himself into returning home and letting the past remain in the past. Regardless, he arrived at a public storage facility and opened up his unit with a key he had not used for many years. Inside the concrete room sat a lone trunk, like a treasure chest hidden away in a pirate’s secret hoard. Eckhart closed the door behind him and kneeled before the trunk, opening it with shaky hands.

The released smells made his blood boil with excitement, and of the myriad items stored within, he pulled out a large scrapbook. However, the pictures and faces within came not from a camera recording family moments and happy memories, but were clipped from newspapers. In English and several other languages, the same words and phrases kept appearing over and over again in various fonts and sizes: missing, corpse, horrific scene, mutilated, strikes again, nightmare, pieces, desecration, bloody, reign of terror.

Reading through the clippings, Eckhart shuddered and bit his lip. “Maybe just one more time...”

The next day, Alphonse arrived at a nightclub owned by his boss, serving as the main base of operations for everything in their organization. The club was silent at the moment, waiting to reawaken and cater to the nightlife of its customers. Depending on their level of involvement in the business, the employees there either looked away as he passed them by or gave him a nod.

Alphonse made his way to the boss’s office, where a bearded man in a pressed suit sat behind a desk. “Lorenzo! My man! How are you?” Alphonse exclaimed. His boss did not share his grin.

“Take a seat, Maroni. We have things to discuss.”

Alphonse sat down. “What’s the problem?”

“One of ours was murdered last night, Jason.”

“Do we know who did it?”

“Some deli owner he was supposed to put the fear of God in. I believe he refused our services.”

“Yeah, I know what you’re talking about. Cranky German bastard didn’t feel like paying up. For him to kill Jason, he must have been lucky.”

“Well, his luck ran out. I need him dealt with. To kill one of my men is to spit in my face, and such a crime has grave consequences. Fearing me is the natural response for the people of this city, so make an example of him.”

“Understood. I’ll do you proud.”

“I know you will, now go.”

Alphonse left the club, and his phone pinged as he got in his car. He had received a text from Eckhart.

‘I’m ready to discuss protection.

Come to my shop in the evening.’

“Don’t worry, asshole. We’ll talk long and hard about keeping you protected.”

That night, Alphonse arrived at the butcher shop to find all the lights were off, but the door unlocked. He stepped into the dark building with his pistol in hand. “Hey, Pops, you here?” There was no answer, and he proceeded inside. It was possible the man had gotten tired of waiting and gone to bed, so Alphonse headed upstairs. The bed was empty, and looking out the window, he could see Eckhart’s car parked out back. Starting to get annoyed, he searched the apartment, and upon going back downstairs, he noticed a closed door with some faint light coming through. Opening it up, he found a set of stairs leading down to a basement. He moved down the creaky stairs to the concrete chamber where a chair sat beneath a bare bulb.

“What the fuck?” Alphonse muttered, unaware that he was not alone, not sensing the cold gaze on him, not feeling the presence in the corner like a malicious specter. He only felt the rag cover his face and the chloroform fill his sinuses.

When Alphonse woke up, rather than looking at the chair, he was sitting in it, though it would be more accurate to say he was tied to it. He tried to speak and groan, but the duct tape over his mouth wouldn’t let him, and with each passing second granting him more lucidity, it didn’t take long to realize his clothes were missing. Before him was Eckhart, sitting on his trunk with a grin and unblinking eyes.

“Hello, Alphonse. I know we didn’t get along the first time we met, but I am just so happy to see you again.” Alphonse struggled against his binds and tried to scream and curse, but resistance was impossible. “Ah, ah, save your strength. You’re going to need it. You know, dear boy, I’ve been at this spot for eight years. I live a clean life, I pay my taxes, I follow the law, I do everything I can to be an upright citizen and maintain a routine of peaceful productivity. And then you and your friend came along and tried to disrupt everything. Now, though I say that, I don’t want you to think I hold a grudge. No, I vented all my anger on the man you sent to rob me last night. Everything that’s going to happen next comes not from a desire for vengeance, but my desire for pleasure.”

Beside the trunk was a pile of Alphonse’s clothes, from which Eckhart retrieved a pack of cigarettes. “I see you’re a smoker. Such a terrible, unhealthy habit. That said, I know what it’s like to have a monkey on your back, to have a need that only one thing can cure, if only for a short time. I, however, was addicted to something else, and for eight long years, I was able to resist. Then, my streak was broken last night. Now, the cravings are back and they demand satisfaction, and you’re going to help me put them to sleep.”

Eckhart stood up, opened the trunk, and drew a large, black butcher’s apron from within. He adorned it with rubber gloves and a belt around his waist, holding several knives. Seeing the blades, Alphonse’s breathing accelerated, causing the duct tape over his mouth to rapidly flex, but it wasn’t until the final article was revealed that a muffled sound of terror began to slip free.

Eckhart wore a plastic face shield, used in meat processing plants to prevent the produce from being contaminated by sneezes and coughs, and limit worker exposure to viscera. The once-transparent plastic was coated with layer upon layer of blood, decades of gore from countless victims, left to harden into a black shell. Two spots and a streak; the only form of cleaning performed on the mask, simply to create a pair of eye holes above a large scrawled smile.

Eckhart leaned forward in front of Alphonse with a knife in his hand. “Working in a butcher shop is fine, but you just can’t compare it to carving living human flesh.”

He brought the knife towards Alphonse’s chest, and the man struggled to try and get away, twisting and writhing to keep the edge from touching his skin, but nothing could be done to escape the horror. Steel met skin, cold against hot, the latter giving way to the former as it was so easily torn. Alphonse screamed through his duct tape gag as the razor edge carved down through his epidermis, sending lightning shooting through his nerves and making him feel like his chest was on fire. Every centimeter of the cut felt like a foot, as though the blade, barely halfway down his right pectoral, was carving its way down his stomach. Blood flowed freely from the incision, such a vibrant, beautiful red, making Eckhart even more excited. This is what he had been craving for so many years, the desire he had so vehemently resisted, and to finally indulge it was a pleasure beyond words.

After leaving a suitably long cut down Alphonse’s chest, Eckhart pulled the blade away to catch his breath. He was shaking from head to toe in jubilation, as though on the edge of climax. His victim was trembling similarly, but the glassy look in his eyes and the vomit leaking from the duct tape gag was a more accurate representation of what he was feeling.

“What do you feel, Alphonse? I bet you’ve never felt more alive than at this moment. Have you ever been so aware of your flesh, of the blood flowing underneath? Has it ever dawned on you like this just how fragile you are? How easy it is to tear you to shreds? How this thin layer of skin holding you together might as well be tissue paper? Such a small wound, yet the agony it invokes breaks you down to nothing. Isn’t it funny? Just a minor cut, and all bravery and bravado spill out just like your blood, and you go from being a big man to a tiny sniveling whelp. I want to see more. I want to see just how small I can make you.”

Eckhart resumed cutting, all to the stifled howls of Alphonse’s agony. His blades cut deep into the muscle and ran far across the skin, but he was careful not to sever any major veins and arteries. Though blood streamed from every wound, it wasn’t enough to deprive Alphonse of consciousness. Eckhart didn’t want his toy dying on him too quickly.

As he struggled to voice the pain he was feeling, Alphonse’s mind reached back to the past, and he considered all the decisions that had led him to this moment, as well as all of the crimes he had committed. His ears ached from the sound of gunshots and screams of mercy, his fists throbbed from all of the innocents he had beaten half to death for opposing him, and his nose tickled from the smell of the drugs he had sold, smuggled, and imbibed in.

Stealing, rape, murder, his sins were many and dire, and yet as he looked at Eckhart, his face hidden behind the bloody mask and his breathing heavy from perverse enjoyment, Alphonse realized now that he was in the presence of pure evil, that he was the victim of the Devil himself. Is this truly the fate he deserved? This agony that went beyond words, carving at his soul the way the blades carved at his flesh, was this the fitting punishment for everything he had done? Had he already died and was now experiencing the horrors Hell had in store for him?

Finally, after over an hour, Eckhart stopped cutting and stepped back. Alphonse had lacerations crisscrossing his body from head to toe and was left nearly catatonic from shock, but the pain would not let him black out. The throbbing of every wound purged his mind of all thoughts, save for a question repeating over and over: Why won’t I die? Eckhart peeled off the duct tape covering his mouth, having lost much of its adhesion to the tears, snot, drool, and other bodily fluids that now drenched Alphonse from his torture.

“That was even more fun than I thought. I can’t tell you how much I missed these special moments. Did you enjoy yourself?” Eckhart asked,

“K-k-kill me,” Alphonse stuttered, barely able to speak.

“What’s that? I couldn’t hear you?”

“Please, just fucking kill me!” he sobbed.

“I’d say that’s a fair request. Very well then.”

Eckhart then pressed the tip of one of his knives against the middle of Alphonse’s chest and slowly needled it in. Alphonse wanted to scream, but his voice was too hoarse. He could only endure the tedious insertion of the blade, wishing his death would come faster. He begged Eckhart to finish him off, but Eckhart was enjoying himself far too much to do that. The knife cut deep into his liver, a fatal wound, but until death finally came for Alphonse, Eckhart wasn’t going to let him get off without more pain. He continued inserting knives, trying to get them all in before his victim went silent. Alphonse became acquainted with the entire set before releasing his final breath.

Eckhart moved away and stretched with a blissful sigh. That was precisely what he needed. Now came the matter of dealing with the body. Eckhart hung Alphonse on a meat hook and drained the blood, then hosed down the mess, sending the evidence of his crime flushing down the drain in the basement floor. Once lightened, he moved the corpse up to the kitchen, where he once more put his cutting skills to work, carving away everything that could be immediately disposed of using the methods of his profession and history. The rest of the remains were stored in his walk-in freezer until they could be properly dealt with. It was late when Eckhart was finally finished cleaning the scene, and the years were taking their toll, but he slept better that night than he had in years.

The next day, he reopened his business, with all of his usual customers stopping by to remark, ask what happened to his window, and note his head wound. Their pity earned him a lot of business, much of their money being spent on the sausages for display, hand-prepared and freshly ground. He had a lot of new produce available.

Meanwhile, in another part of the city, Lorenzo Avecto was getting annoyed. Alphonse hadn’t checked in, and no one had seen him. When he called, all he got was voicemail. As evening approached with no word, he put out the order for Alphonse to be tracked down. By then, his annoyance had turned into unease, and his instincts told him something was wrong. That night, the call arrived.

“Boss, I found Alphonse’s car.”

“You sure?” Lorenzo asked, leaning back in his chair back at the club.

“I’d know that ‘ass, grass, or gas’ bumper sticker anywhere. There are some parking tickets under the wiper. It’s been here for a while.”

“Where?”

“Weyland Ave, north side.”

Lorenzo paused. “Is there a butcher shop on that street?”

“Yeah, I passed it by, why?”

“Alphonse was supposed to kill the owner. All right, leave it there and come back.” Lorenzo then got up from his chair and looked out the office window, once more feeling that tightness in his gut. He typed a number into its phone. “It’s me. Put a team together. Butcher shop owner on Weyland. There can be no room for error.”

That night, five men approached Eckhart’s shop, all wearing ski masks and bulletproof vests under their clothes and carrying silenced pistols. The way they walked and carried themselves projected their killing experience. They broke into the store quietly, but not quiet enough. Upstairs, Eckhart’s eyes opened, awoken by primal instinct and predatory awareness.

He could hear them downstairs entering his shop. These weren’t police, and he didn’t have anything valuable enough that a whole troupe of robbers would break into his shop. This could only mean that Alphonse’s friends were paying him a visit. Killing Alphonse was supposed to be a one-time indulgence of his repressed desires, like cheating on a diet, but how could he refuse prey so willingly presenting themselves to him? The problem was that all of his killing equipment was in the trunk in his basement. He silently got out of bed and moved his dresser, retrieving a Swiss army knife. The blade was small, but it would get the job done.

Below him, the five hitmen split up. The first stayed by the door, keeping a lookout. The second went to search the kitchen, while the third went in search of a basement. The fourth and fifth went upstairs, and they likewise split up. The fifth entered the bedroom, looking around with his gun-mounted flashlight. The beam settled on the bed and the large shape beneath the covers. Before he could just start firing, he needed to confirm it was the target.

He approached the bed and poked it with his gun, realizing the mass was just pillows. He didn’t even sense Eckhart sneaking up behind him in the darkness. He just experienced the briefest moment of pain as the blade of the Swiss army knife was buried in the back of his neck, just below the skull. The blade twisted like a key, and the brainstem was severed. The man died before he could make a sound.