Ricky took a step back, threw the matchstick into the tin can, watched it catch fire, and exhaled. Its squeaking sounds were muffled by the crackling of fur and flesh. He looked on as its white coat turned ashy revealing the pink of flesh underneath. He always enjoyed this part – the part where you can hear the whining tone down, see the twitching lessen and watch the life go out. As he watched it burn, the smoky smell of its flesh blending in with the earthy smell of the drizzling July morning, he thought of the first time he did this, well not exactly this, even though the results were often the same.
It was a few years back. He was 10 years old, maybe 11; he doesn’t remember correctly. He vaguely remembers his drunk father coming up to his room at night, shouting at him, pulling him out of the bed and onto the floor.
‘She’s dead ’cause of you!’, he kept shouting. He remembered himself crying as he tried to get up but was thrown towards the wall by his father’s leg planted straight onto his frail chest. He remembered the pain well, the kind that pierced into your lungs and took your breath away. He had fumbled onto his feet and had run straight out of the room, and then out of the house. He kept running, as far as his weak little legs could take him, wiping tears off of his face along the way. He stopped in an alley, a couple of streets away, to catch his breath. He was leaning against a trash can, one hand on his oscillating chest, when he heard it meow. He looked over at the tiny, fragile, and quite beaten-up kitten. For a moment, the kitten reminded him of himself, but the pity was quickly overshadowed by anger and pain. He picked up a brick and crushed it. There was no meow, no twitching. Death was instantaneous, and for a moment he had hoped for the same.
Ricky was brought back to the real world from his daydream by a popping sound from the tin can. The heat had popped something inside but he didn’t care. He opened the plastic bottle of kerosene and dumped whatever was left into the can. The can spat out fire in retaliation. He threw the bottle and its cap into the can and turned back. There was no point looking at it anymore. The cat was dead and it was not fun anymore.
Ricky liked doing this, especially when he wanted to channel some anger out of him, but lately, he didn’t quite feel anything. The entire activity had become monotonous and predictable. He knew how they whine, how they twitch, how they look into your eyes while the life went out of theirs. He was bored and knew deep down that the only way to make it interesting again was to take the next step. He thought about it as he walked along the small trail leading out of the forest. The next step would be dangerous. It would require planning. Killing cats was child’s play. Nobody gives a shit about dead cats, but they do give a shit about dead people, however insignificant. He had a couple of thoughts in mind, in fact, this had been in the back of his mind for the last couple of weeks. He even had a couple of names in mind.
As he neared the road where he had dumped his bicycle, he started listing out the names in his head. Maybe he could stick a knife through Mathew’s neck. That nerdy son of a bitch, with his stupid nerd glasses and A-pluses, deserves it. Or he could push Ms Hailey down a flight of stairs and watch her neck break. She was why he was still stuck in that godforsaken school, repeating the final year. He would have loved to bash his father’s brains out with a brick but too bad he died a couple of years back. Asshole got lucky, he thought.
His bicycle was thrown a little bit away, behind a bunch of trees near the entry point of the trail. Ricky had covered it with a bunch of dead leaves for good measure. His train of thought was interrupted when he saw that the leaves were gone. He looked around. Not a living soul in sight.
‘Damn wind’, he mumbled, kicked a muddy tyre, grabbed onto a rusty handle, and pulled the bicycle out from behind the treeline. He jumped onto the beaten-up seat, which groaned under his weight and pedalled forward. On any normal Saturday, he would have ridden to The Fishbowl where he waits tables and cleans up after the rich folk. He hated working there, but it gave him money to buy the kerosene and knives whenever he needed them. Today, however, his legs took him in a different direction – towards the nerd’s house.
To be continued…
[Ricky is heavily inspired by Henry Bowers from ‘IT’ by Stephen King]
