Bingo slowly sniffed the neighbor’s rose bush and decided it wasn’t worth the trouble, much to the chagrin of her impatient owner. As the orange and white dog moved on to the next set of urine-atable foliage it became obvious she was taking her sweet time, and for some reason Dustin decided to do something he’d never done on their nighttime walks before, and he yanked hard on the leash.
Swept off her feet, Bingo was surprised, scared, and hurt all at once, unable to comprehend why this was happening to her. She hit the ground on her side, rolled once and quickly got up and began cowering before Dustin. She knew she’d done something wrong, but had no idea what it could be, and her confusion was obvious even to her fuming owner.
“This stupid fucking dog” Dustin thought, “Why can’t she just piss and get on with it, every time it takes forever, that’s what she gets for fuckin’ around”.
A few seconds later Dustin again looked down at Bingo and realized the terrified state he’d put her in. Guilt and shame immediately washed over him and so he bent to console her. While reaching towards the anxious dog however, it became Bingo’s turn to do something she’d never done.
Roo, Roo, Roo, Roo, Roo!!! Roo, Roo, Roo, Roo, Roo!!! Bingo lost it and began barking wildly, inches away from Dustin’s face. Simultaneously she shuffled backwards, away from her shocked owner and to the point where the leash became so taut her collar looked like it might pop over her head.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m sorry bubby.” Dustin offered his crazed dog to zero effect. As Bingo continued to howl he did the only thing he could think of and just sat down in the middle of the sidewalk, hoping to show her he wasn't a threat anymore.
Bingo, still showing no signs of stopping, continued her frenzied barks while staring at the spot where Dustin had been standing just moment’s earlier.
Noticing the dog seemed to be fixating on something behind him, Dustin turned to follow her line of sight and immediately felt a cold rush of fear tingle down the back of his neck and onto his arms.
“What the…” Dustin’s voice trailed off as he watched something that defied his ability to describe flash up the side of the apartment complex, disappearing over the roof’s edge and into the inky blackness eight stories above.
As Anger zipped over the building tops into uptown he felt good, feeding off the yuppie and his dumb dog had been just the top up he needed. There were big plans for this unremarkable, mid-sized city and he knew the others were just as hungry as he was. Now freshly charged, he was confident they’d follow his lead, providing he could give everyone ample chance to eat as the city hopefully descended into chaos.
Landing on top of the rehab center, Anger sensed Violence making their presence known. No doubt feeding, Violence was one of his most dependable co-workers and he’d picked this location as much for them as for himself.
Scanning the night sky, Anger watched as Apathy and the small but inseparable duo of Gossip and Slander made their way down. Landing nearby they giggled at the screams of some unfortunate soul trying to fight past orderlies.
“We see that Violence is in good health tonight!” Gossip and Slander spoke in unison.
“Shall I join in the fun or is it time to hear about this ‘big plan’ you’re begging us to help with?” Apathy added.
“Still no Doubt or Illness I see, this plan needs them though…” Anger thought to himself, and then addressed the three recent arrivals, “You’re welcome to have a quick bite, I’m waiting on the final pieces of my puzzle.”
The two tinier spirits immediately sank through the roof, but Apathy didn’t seem too interested in joining them. As Anger sat silently in the darkness the final two ghouls arrived, causing Anger to grow excited.
“Allow me to fetch our counterparts and we’ll get this meeting underway.” Anger spoke to his colleagues on the roof. Dropping below into the ceiling he quickly found Gossip and Slander ‘eating’ from the tortured mind of a withdrawing rehabber. “You know the staff here are hoping you die, they can see how much pain you’re in and no one is coming to help you.” Slander’s intrusive thought absorbed into the patient, causing them to begin moaning. Gossip doubled down, “Someone actually died here recently, remember hearing the ambulances last week? If they don’t send someone in soon you’re probably next”.
The sweating withdrawal-ee sobbed a bit and then vomited. “You’re disgusting, how could you let yourself turn into this? A puky, worthless piece of shit, you’re going to die in here and the world will be a better place!” Slander smiled to themselves as they watched the person moan louder, and finally, quite weakly call for help.
“Are you finished here?” Anger asked the two, much to their amusement.
“Yes Sir! Boss Man Sir!” They both shouted, laughing as they swooped into the ceiling and out of sight. Anger sighed and moved into the hallway, sensing Violence ahead. As he rounded the corner he saw the patient who earlier had been hitting the orderlies tied to a gurney and being injected with something he assumed was a sedative.
“I need you up top, it’s time.” Anger calmly spoke to one of his favorite collaborators as he absorbed a satisfying whiff of the latent animosity projected by the orderlies towards the gurneyed addict.
“Sure, this one’s no use to me now.” Violence followed Anger upwards and back onto the facility roof.
Looking at the assembled entities surrounding him, Anger took a moment to gather his thoughts before he started speaking.
“Thank you all for being here, I appreciate your willingness to listen and I believe you’ll be glad you did. As you all know, our dear friend, who you know as the deal-making sociopath, has recently entered the Mayor’s office. I feel the time has come to collect on the debt Mr. Mayor owes us for our assistance in his ascent to power, and if we do this properly, Flatog willing, I see no reason we won’t easily eat well enough to fuel us for decades to come.”
“Interesting.” Was all that Apathy offered, but Anger took this slight interest as an encouraging sign and continued.
“The first stage involves Apathy, Gossip and Slander who’ll be…
Some Months Later
The Police Chief was having a bad day, which was really saying something. It seemed like ever since the new Mayor had taken over things had gotten progressively worse, and the current mess was the culmination of months upon months of shit that she couldn’t control but the public held her and her force responsible for.
Knowing full well that dealing with everything wasn’t even remotely possible, she started to spiral and consoled herself by running through the list of problems and prioritizing the ones needing immediate attention.
First there was the new drug Crocaquil that had somehow taken over the high schools and was causing overdoses left and right, along with open wounds that wouldn’t heal due to the inclusion of Xylazine the dealers were using to make the drug more potent. The task force she’d put on it had made zero progress, other than figuring out that whoever was behind it had leveraged social media to supercharge it’s spread. All it had taken was a few influential teens at each school who got paid barely enough to buy a few meals at McDonald’s, and they began glamorizing the drug, spreading a false narrative that it was safer than anything else and got you high with little to no side effects while being cheap enough for teens to easily afford.
The reality was much different and parents were finally realizing there was a problem as the bodies of their children began piling up in local morgues. Now they were demanding answers the Chief didn’t have, and she figured it was time to hold one of those press conferences where she pretended to be making progress but couldn’t share any details due to the ‘active investigation’.
Next up was the police brutality cases that were deeply troubling to say the least. Officers with sterling records seemed to have lost their minds and just kept shooting people, causing increasing friction with the city's minority groups who were nearing the boiling point. The latest case involved a wheelchair-bound black man on his way to church who happened to be outside a store where officers had been called in response to an attempted robbery.
Despite the fact that he was unarmed and the description of the would-be robber was ‘someone wearing a mask with a gun’, they demanded he exit his ‘vehicle’ and shot him over eight times after he became non-compliant with the patrols order to kneel on the ground, stating multiple times that “My legs haven’t worked since Desert Storm, I can’t do that fellas.” She was pretty sure there were going to at least be some serious protests for this one, and if she didn’t throw the book at the two shooters, possibly full blown riots.
The last issue was the darkest and most difficult of the three, and she had to pour herself a nice tumbler of the vintage brandy the Mayor had been kind enough to send over before she felt ready to think about it again. They were calling him (she assumed it was a ‘he’ since 99% of serial killers like this were men) “The Gouda Grinder” and he had been wracking up a body count that was nearing a neat half dozen. All of the victims had been female, but the range from sex workers to cheerleaders at the local college and even a soccer mom had every woman in the city afraid to leave the house.
To make matters worse the psycho was horrifically mutilating the bodies, literally grinding up extremities while they were still alive, likely with some type of industrial meat grinder according to the coroner. What was left for the detectives to process was usually a torso with a few inches of stump where the legs and arms used to be, a pile of the victims ground up flesh (the sick fuck wasn’t eating it at least) and an artisanal piece of Gouda cheese placed inside their mouth. On top of this they were also toying with the police, leaving confusing clues and mailing letters to the press, which in turn had the Mayor on her ass daily asking for updates. While it was obvious the killer had a tremendous amount of anger towards women and an odd affinity for good cheese, those two details were about all they knew and it made her so anxious she had to do a deep breathing routine.
As the Chief sipped on the glass of spirits she realized that the perp likely had some type of access to the investigation. There was no other reason they could continually stay one step ahead of her best detectives, who had finally found the source of the cheese. It ended up being a hipster working out of his farmhouse who had sold ‘10 lbs of our best Gouda’ to a ‘weirdo’ who wore a hat, mask and glasses and paid cash for the exact same cheese found at the murder scenes. The detectives had only talked to the man on the phone, and by the time they had driven to the city outskirts and his farmhouse he’d disappeared. This was over five days ago and her gut told her the cheese farmer was likely ground chuck, although without any proof or a body this was still just a theory.
Her phone ran for the umpteenth time and she finally finished her drink and looked down at it.
“Shit, it’s the Mayor, lemme guess what he wants…more murder updates”.
“Hi Mr. Mayor, what can I do for you today?” She pleasantly answered.
“Cut the shit Chief, you know what you can do. You can find the fucking sicko grinding up our women!” The Mayor paused to inhale for another outburst, “I’m tired of there being zero progress on this guy, and I need to hold a press conference or I’m gonna get recalled. I need you to come to my office NOW and bring everything you’ve got, you need to find me something I can tell the public.”
“Sure Mr. Mayor, give me an hour and I’ll bring the files and the detectives working the case. They’ve found a slight lead on the artisanal cheese guy which could maybe buy you some time?” The Chief didn’t know why she’d lied to the Mayor, it had just popped into her head like someone put the thought there and she went with it, but if it got him off her ass she wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it.
“Great, leave the detectives at home, but that sounds like something I might be able to use.” The Mayor replied, still sounding angry.
“Oh, and Chief?”
“Yes, Mr. Mayor?”
“It’s taking you too long to catch this guy and this city’s coming apart at the seams, I just want you to know you’re on thin fucking ice.” Click.
The Mayor’s Office
As the Chief entered the entire wing of City Hall that the Mayor had dedicated to himself she couldn’t help but shudder. The guy was an obvious megalomaniac, and the ruthlessness he exhibited during his lightspeed rise to the city’s highest office meant he wouldn’t think twice about firing her.
Maybe that wouldn’t be too bad though, she thought. Let someone else deal with this bullshit, even though being the Chief of Police had been her dream since she was a ten year old little girl playing cops and robbers with her brothers.
The Chief walked up to the Mayor’s secretary, and was briefly confused as the woman behind the massive desk was a new face she didn’t recognize, and had obviously been crying quite recently. “This guy is going through these girls like a raccoon in a trash can, where does he find them?” She thought to herself. “Somehow they’re all 20 something, good looking and willing to put up with his bullshit, he definitely has a type.” The detective in her couldn’t help but add.
“Are you the Chief of Police?” The secretary asked, barely above a whisper. The Chief smiled at the secretary. “Yes, the Mayor is expecting me.”
“Please go right in.” And she buzzed the door for the Chief.
“Mrs. Chiefy, great to see you!” The Mayor feigned warmly. “Would you like something to eat? They just brought my daily platter of cheese in, help yourself.”
“I’m fine thank you, would you like to go over the files?”
“No, I’ve had something come up and I can’t stick around, the family business needs some attention. You can just leave the files on my desk and I’ll let you know when I’m done with them.”
“With all due respect Mr. Mayor, I can’t leave active case files with you indefinitely, that’s just not how it’s done.”
“Well it’s how we’re doing it if you want to remain the Chief, so if you’ll excuse me I’ve got to go.”
“I came all the way down here in the middle of an incredibly busy time and you can’t even talk?” The Police Chief asked incredulously. “What’s so important you can’t wait for 5 minutes?”
“If you must know, my family runs a butcher shop and my Father slipped on some blood while cutting up a hog and cracked his head.” The Mayor stared at the Chief of Police.
“I’d like to get over there and check on him if that’s alright with you?”
“Sure, sure, go for it. I changed my mind about the cheese though, let’s see what you’ve got…” The Chief trailed off as she reached for the platter and noticed a savory, artisanal Gouda.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost Chiefy, everything ok?” The Mayor’s beady eyes narrowed as he stared into her.
“Yep, I’m fine.” She croaked hoarsely, as the fear brought on by an inkling of realization began creeping into and over her.
“You don’t look fine…In fact I think you need some help, you should really sit down.” The Mayor had completely switched gears, somehow projecting genuine interest in her well being which only further unsettled her.
“I think you may actually need to lie down, you know, I’ve got a nice little private room over here…” The Mayor grabbed her arm and before she knew it had guided the shocked officer into a stuffy alcove just off his spacious office.
“Really, I’m fine.” She managed, but even as she said it her mind was racing. The Cheese, The Butcher Shop, the demanding updates about the investigation. It was Him and he somehow suspected she knew, not good, not good.
“My dear Chief of Police, I think we need to have a little chat about something. I couldn’t help but notice how you reacted to the cheese. I just can’t imagine why it would cause such a severe reaction with you, what an odd thing hmm?
“No, no it was just that the cheese reminded me of the Gouda that awful killer has been placing in his victims, and it’s been a long week, what with the pending riots and drug epidemic, I don’t know, I should probably take a vacation, hahaha” The Chief nervously laughed and glanced towards the Mayor.
“Yes, I think you’re overdue for a nice long rest actually. And I’m more than willing to help with that, I just need to…boop! There we go!” The Mayor had leaned over her and cleverly stuck her with a syringe full of something, seemingly out of nowhere.
As the Chief of Police felt a warm, calming rush overwhelm her, a small part of her brain was panicking. She tried her damndest to keep her eyes open but whatever he’d put into her was some serious sedative.
The room slowly faded to black and the last thing the former Chief of Police saw was the smiling, caring face of the Mayor intently staring at her.
10 Minutes Later
Detective Willis stared at her phone in disbelief. She looked at her partner who’d received the same text from their Chief and for a few seconds they both froze.
Finally Willis broke the tension, “We should probably go, she’s not someone who fucks around with stuff like this.”
“Yeah, I guess. This is so crazy though.” Her partner replied, beginning to move towards their vehicle. After starting it up Willis hit the siren and lights and beelined it for City Hall, unable to shake the feeling that something was seriously wrong.
As they pulled onto the roundabout in front of the old, stately building both detectives bolted from the car. Rushing inside they barely flashed their badges and made straight for the Mayor’s office. Running up to the secretary they drew their weapons and shouted at her to open the door, which she quickly did.
Bursting into the empty office of the Mayor, Willis breathed a slight sigh of relief, believing the text was maybe just a clever hoax or some weird joke. Just as she was about to holster her weapon however she heard a muffled, wet sounding ‘KATHUMP’ emanating from out of nowhere.
“There’s another room, we need to find it!” Willis excitedly told her partner.
“Over here, cover me!” The partner was standing to the side of an un-obvious, wooden door.
With both weapons trained on the wood paneled frame, Willis grabbed the knob and turned it, moving out of the way so her partner could see into the room.
“Jesus, what the fuck are you doing!?!?!” Her partner screamed, and as Willis began to look over her partner’s shoulder he shouted, “Drop the fucking axe, drop it now!!!”
Willis' breath caught in her throat as she saw the blood soaked Mayor standing over their Chief, who was currently missing her left arm but seemed to still be breathing.
“It’s over, isn’t it.” The Mayor flatly stated, staring at both officers with the axe still raised overhead.
“Mr. Mayor you need to put that thing down and we’ll figure this…DON’T!!!” Willis yelled as the portly Mayor brought the axe down onto their Chief’s head, nearly splitting it in half.
Baw! Baw! Baw! Baw! Baw! Both detectives fired into the Mayor who fell onto their Chief as both bodies began spasming while the life seeped out of them.
“What the fuck, holy shit, call the medics!” Willis barely had the presence of mind to instruct her partner who couldn’t look away from the scene that he’d be discussing in therapy for likely the rest of his life.
“Roger that, I’m on it” He finally tore his gaze from the unspeakable mess and said a quick prayer to the god of his childhood.
Later that night
Back at the station detective Willis was getting grilled by a senior police officer.
“At what time did you receive the text from our former Chief, officer Willis?” He demanded.
“According to my phone it was at 3:15pm.” She responded.
“Impossible, we know from forensics that the Mayor destroyed her phone at 2:52pm before cutting her arm off with the axe. I’ll ask you again, at what time did you receive the text from our former Chief?!”
“I have nothing else to say, I’d like to request an attorney.” Detective Willis softly stated, turning her gaze down towards the floor as the situation finally overwhelmed her.
Anger swept his gaze over the city and swelled with pride. He’d done it, by Flatog, and it was better than he could have ever imagined. The amount of negative emotion coursing through the city was almost more than he could absorb. He’d had to cut in Confusion at the last minute to send the text message to the detectives, but other than that his plan had gone perfectly.
Apathy had kept the parents from caring until the drugs had taken hold of the schools, Slander & Gossip had easily stoked the legitimate fears of the police while Violence had them shooting almost anything that moved.
The real masterpiece though was the Mayor, who’d played his part perfectly up until the bitter end. With the revelation that their esteemed leader was actually a murderous psychopath the city had done what he knew they wanted to all along, which was to turn on each other and begin tearing the city apart.
Once the word got out that the Mayor had axed the Chief of Police to death and was grinding up women a weird, almost drunken feeling had descended onto everyone as they tried to numb themselves to this horrible truth. No one cared about anything, and that meant common decency was out the window.
Everyone had a reason to be upset and the powerlessness of the moment meant everyone was striving for control. Murders immediately shot up, looting and rioting began, and many people just locked themselves and their families inside with whatever substances they could secure to blunt their awful reality. Domestic violence steadily rose along with this isolation and for a few amazing months Anger and his cohort of spirits fed until they thought they couldn’t feed anymore.
In the end the military had to be called in to temporarily relieve the paralyzed police force and restore order, but Anger knew the shadow cast by these long, dark months would be a reservoir of sustenance for him and the others for decades to come.
The raw amount of power he now controlled was something Anger hadn’t experienced since the days of Genghis Khan and he’d need every single bit of it, he now realized. There was a national election merely a year away, and a candidate was running who made the Mayor seem like a boyscout. This person was already dividing the country, demeaning immigrants and women while bolstering their own image at the expense of every person who supported them. Anger knew he’d find some excellent skeletons in the candidates closet and grew excited at the thought of an entire country filled with angry people, clamoring for the heads of their perceived and manufactured enemies.
It was time to begin planning again, and with his recent success fresh off the table Anger knew the others would be more than willing to support whatever diabolical missions he came up with.
