Have you ever wanted to do something terrible? I don’t mean something minor like stealing a candy bar, or driving over the speed limit. No, I’m talking something more along the lines of murder.
That was what my group of friends decided upon. As a group we would kill someone. We would start small with a single person, someone no one would care about, just to see if we all truly had a taste for it. If it didn’t work out, we would all go our separate ways, and never talk about it again.
The four of us met in online message boards, we all had one thing in common, we were social outcasts. We spent months talking online before finally deciding to meet in person. I’ll give a brief description of each of us.
First there was Xavier, Xavier was rather large, at least 6’7” and probably a little overweight. He was the hot-head of the group, and due to his size we let him be. Despite that, he was probably also the softest of the group, if anyone wouldn’t be able to follow through with our plan, it would be him.
Next there was Mitch, Mitch was normal-sized, about the same height and weight as me. Mitch was the person I was closest to in the group, we both had a shared love of classic video games. Mitch had been abused by his step-father for most of this life, he thinks his darkness was always there though, but the abuse just kindled it even more.
Then there was Stephanie, but we only called her Steph. She was the only girl in the group, and in contrast to Xavier, she was incredibly small, hovering at about 5 feet. Most short people I know are loud, and seemingly always angry, but not Steph. Steph is one of the calmest people I know in any situation. I’m not entirely sure where her darkness comes from, but it is certainly there.
Lastly there’s me, I wouldn’t say there is really anything special about me. I’m average in just about every way imaginable. The only thing is I’ve never fit in with other average people. Even in this group, I almost feel like an outsider sometimes, but perhaps this is what it would take for me to finally fit in.
It was the third time that we met up that Mitch suggested we kill someone. The other two thought he was joking at first, but I knew he was serious. After a long discussion we all decided we would go through with it.
The only problem is we didn’t know exactly who we would kill. For starters, we knew we only wanted to start with one person, the cleanup would be easier, it would really just be a test. We also knew we wanted it to be someone that no one would be looking for, a loner, a druggie, etc. you get the point. Lastly, it would be best if we could find someone who lived outside of town, in the country. If they lived isolated somewhere, it would make our job much easier, and lessen our odds of getting caught.
So, we all began scouting out for the perfect victim, and after a few weeks, I found the perfect person.
He was an older man, he lived alone in an incredibly large home. This home however, was in the middle of nowhere, you had to take countless back roads to reach it, it was at least 30 miles from the nearest town. He only left his home about once a week to venture in to town for groceries, and he never received any visitors in the time I watched him.
It was perfect, so I told the others, and we began to form our plan.
We would do it the day after he made his grocery trip, that way anyone who might recognize him from town wouldn’t immediately grow suspicious if they didn’t see him. None of us had a gun, but that was fine. Guns are too noisy, and it was just one old man. Ideally, we’d sneak in while he was asleep and get the jump on him. We had knives and restraints, which should we guessed would be more than enough.
The only problem was as I said the house was massive, and I wasn’t sure which room he slept in. I had broken in to the house when he made one of his grocery trips to get the layout, but there were several potential rooms he could sleep in. None of them were messy or had any signs that someone was living in them. Several of the closets had men’s clothing in them too, so it would be a bit of a guessing game. We would have to find him without alerting him, but in the end, it’s just one old man right?
So, after all the preparation was done, we set out.
“We’re almost there, I’m going to park behind these bushes up ahead, we’ll walk the rest of the way.” I said as we neared the home.
“Are you sure about this?” Xavier began to whimper.
“Of course we’re sure, if you want to back out now, this is your last chance Xavier. Once we step out of this vehicle there is no turning back.” Mitch replied.
“I’m not backing out; who do you think I am? I was just making sure you guys were ready” Xavier responded, clearly a bit nervous.
“Ok that’s enough boys, we need to all be on the same page here. After tonight everything changes.” Steph chimed in, always the voice of reason.
I pulled the vehicle over, and hid it as best as I could next to some shrubbery. I doubted anyone would come out this way, but it was just extra insurance. If someone did come by, my vehicle would stick out like a sore thumb. I removed the license plate as an extra measure and placed it in the trunk.
We exited and began to walk on foot towards the house.
As we neared the house Xavier spoke up again.
“Jesus, that place is massive. Who would build a house that big out in the middle of nowhere? And you have no clue which room he stays in?”
I shrugged and replied “Nope, once we get inside Mitch and I will take the left side of the house, you two take the right. We’ll start with the bottom floor; we’ll reconvene before heading upstairs.”
Steph nodded and said. “And if we find him tie him up, and use our walkie-talkies to tell the other group.”
I smiled and nodded back. We all knew the plan, we had gone over it countless times. We had gotten the walkie-talkies to avoid using our phones. We wanted there to be no chance of GPS in our phones tying us back to this place.
Once we reached the front door, Steph pulled out a lock pick and got to work. It took less than a minute for us to hear a clicking sound, signifying the front door was unlocked. We all took a deep breath and headed in.
Upon entering the house there was a massive staircase directly ahead, with long hallways on both the right and left sides. This is why I suggested we split up, not entirely of course, but stay in groups of 2 just in case anything went wrong.
Mitch and I began to creep down the left hallway. It was truly enormous. Down this path there would be 5 rooms, and the end contained the kitchen and dining rooms. We approached our first door.
I took the lead this time, and opened the door as quietly as possible. Once there was enough space to fit inside, we both slipped in. The room had a bed, and a closet full of clothing, but no one was in here.
We took turns opening and stepping in the next four rooms, but like the first each of them was void of our target. There were no messages from the walkie-talkie either, so we assumed it was much the same on the other side, he must be upstairs.
Just in case though, we decided to check the kitchen, I’m sure old people like midnight snacks too.
As Mitch and I began to move toward the kitchen we heard something approaching us. Footsteps, but they weren’t normal footsteps, and they were coming at us incredibly fast.
Before we could react a figure emerged out of the darkness and pounced on Mitch. It was a dog, a German shepherd to be exact. The dog had already begun tearing out Mitch’s throat, he wasn’t even able to reach for his knife to fight back.
I knew I didn’t stand a chance against this beast alone, so I ran. I made it to the door connecting the kitchen to the hallway, and I shut it, flipping the lock. I left possibly my best friend there to certainly die, just to save myself. Despite knowing I was safe for now at least, I continued to sprint towards the center. I was about to pull out my walkie-talkie to warn the others, but as I reached the staircase in the center, the other two were there waiting.
“What happened, why are you running, and where is Mitch?” Xavier demanded.
“I..Mitch is…Mitch is dead, there was a dog, we didn’t have time to react.” I managed to stumble out.
Xavier immediately approached me and grabbed me by the shirt before saying “What do you mean Mitch is dead, why didn’t you help him?”
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t do anything, I trapped the dog, but we’ll have to deal with it later, and Mitch’s body. I don’t know where the dog came from, it was never here the other times I scouted this place out. We have no choice but to kill the old man now, and quick, before that dog makes too big of a mess.”
Xavier began to rear back his fist. “Are you insane? We’re getting Mitch and getting out of here.”
“No he’s right,” Steph said, narrowly saving me. “We won’t have time to clean up Mitch, especially with that dog in there. We have to take out the old man before he’s alerted of us, if he isn’t already.”
Xavier let his fist go, he wasn’t happy, but he always listened to Steph. We agreed the three of us would stick together now as we moved upstairs.
The upstairs much like the downstairs was massive, but it was slightly smaller. Each side held 4 large rooms, but there were no special rooms as there had been downstairs. We chose to search the left side first.
Since I had lost our friend, Xavier no longer trusted me. He took it upon himself to enter each room first. I wanted to point out to him that he was opening the doors too aggressively, he was making far too much sound, but I knew he wouldn’t care, and would almost certainly just become more enraged.
The left side of the upstairs was empty. So we moved to the right side.
Once we made it to the third door we finally found what we had been looking for, the old man, and he was still asleep somehow. Xavier had only slightly opened the door before he spotted him, he told us to ready ourselves. I watched him take a deep breath before swinging the door open.
Instead of entering the room however, Xavier instead began to fall backwards. When he had swung the door open it had triggered some sort of mechanism. There was now a crossbow bolt sticking out of his forehead, he was dead before he hit the floor.
Steph had finally lost her cool as she began to scream. I approached her from behind. I then choked her until I was sure she had gone unconscious.
I turned toward the old man, now standing in the doorway.
“So, how did I do, Grandpa?”
“Excellent, you make an old man proud,” he replied with a large grin on his face.
My grandfather had been luring people to this house and killing them long before I was even born. My father had tried to keep me from meeting him, but after my father died in a car crash, I met my grandfather at the funeral. We share a darkness in us, and now that he’s older, I will carry on the work that he has done for so long.
I tied up Steph and dragged her to the next room before placing her on a table. She would be my first. Technically, my dog had killed Mitch, and the trap had killed Xavier. This would be my first all on my own.
She had been my friend, so I would give her a quick death, but I needed a trophy first. You can’t celebrate your first time without a trophy. So, I took her eyes, they had always been so calm up until that moment she saw Xavier dead. I will cherish them forever.
After I took her eyes, I did as promised, and quickly plunged a large knife in to her heart. I knew no one would come looking for any of my now deceased friends, but I still had a lot of cleaning up to do.
People always say you’ll make mistakes the first time, but I think everything went quite perfectly, in fact, I can’t wait to make some new friends.
Written By
Devin Hoover