666 Upside Down
  by Louise Guardino

  John McIntyre waited while the Fresh Market clerk scanned his few purchases. A 
  scent of lime drifted from the customer next in line.
  “Look at that!” The clerk’s eyes widened. She chuckled. “I hope you aren’t 
  superstitious.”
  John looked at the register’s total. Six dollars and sixty-six cents.
  “It’s nearing Halloween,” he said. “It’s expected.”
  “I guess,” said the clerk. She glanced at the next customer, as if seeking 
  agreement.
  The tall blond’s blue eyes glowed. He smiled at John and shook his head. 
  “Looks like it’s not your day.”
  “It’s just a number,” said John. He knew about the mark of the first beast of 
  the apocalypse, but this didn’t disturb him. What raised the hair on his neck 
  was the ordinary-the filler news item that told of the murder of an innocent.
  He walked towards his car, his eyes scanning the parking lot. A minivan pulled 
  out, approaching on his left. Glancing at the tinted side window, John 
  glimpsed the darkened image of a young boy holding a round object in one 
  hand-a potato?-and with the other, repeatedly plunging in a pocket knife. 
  Short, sharp strokes. The boy’s face was placid, almost bored. Unease 
  feathered its way along John’s spine. He watched the van turn right.
  When the van cleared the Fresh Market entrance, John noticed the blond. He, 
  too, watched the van, a thin smile curving his mouth. His gaze met John’s, 
  locking on. Where there had been the warmth of sun, cold now iced John’s back. 
  The man’s eyelids flickered once before he moved on.
  The blond was not what he appeared to be. Neither was John.
  He didn’t need to work, having made more than enough money in the stock market 
  to last a lifetime. Ostensibly, he was a writer-publisher of an internet-based 
  true crime newsletter. His passion, however, was the hunting of, and stopping 
  of, a specific manifestation of sociopath.
  He tracked the news, fixing on incidents of mortal violence. A body here; a 
  body there. Killed seemingly without motive. Some brutally, others with a 
  quick break of the neck or thrust of knife. When he saw a rash of localized 
  murders that targeted the quiet, the meek, and the seemingly good, he took up 
  temporary residence in the suspect town and began investigating.
  Like mosquitoes in a swamp, these killings were on the increase. Spreading in 
  clumps across the country, like a fad. And there was always a blond man, 
  though not always blond and not always a man; sometimes easy to spot, others 
  times not. But always there, like a carrier of plague. In an odd way, the 
  insanity seemed organized.
  The violence-carrier never killed directly. Instead, he cultivated deadly 
  acolytes, then gloried in their aftermath. It took only a few, well selected, 
  victims to shut a town down. John loathed, feared, and was compelled to find, 
  these evangelists of murder.
  Here in Raleigh it seemed he’d found one: the tall, loose-limbed, lime-scented 
  blond. John was sure of it. And the acolyte? Perhaps the boy in the van. So 
  far, there’d been five deaths that fit the pattern. The cops weren’t saying 
  much. John knew the drill. He’d once been on that side of the fence. Until he 
  realized that catching the killers did no good.
  They were always young. Under fourteen. If caught, they’d be out ten, twenty, 
  maybe thirty years later. Still able to pick up where they’d left off, with 
  another kill. Recycled, at taxpayer expense.
  On his second day in town, he interviewed a police lieutenant. He learned 
  nothing new.
  John spent a day analyzing the murders. The Raleigh killings had all happened 
  at night, between eight and ten: A jogger, lured into a side park, a man just 
  outside of his parked van in a shopping center, and the other three victims in 
  their homes.
  John knew what the police didn’t-only do-gooders qualified as victims. Someone 
  who delivered Meals-On-Wheels, manned a crisis line, or was an icon for good. 
  The one constant in the murders John investigated.
  John tracked back through six months of local news. All five victims had been 
  mentioned, if only in a captioned picture, for their good acts. In this, they 
  were not alone. But one thing differentiated these five from the others-their 
  photos; all a touch overexposed, lacking shadows and clarity. A common 
  characteristic of the victims whose deaths John had investigated.
  He checked his map again. No kill had been more than seven miles from another.
  No doubt the police had also plotted it out. But they might not be thinking 
  child as perp, as John was. A child no more than twelve. It was always a 
  child. Means of transportation: feet or bike. He couldn’t assume the kills 
  were equidistant from a specific starting point, but he was sure that only 
  local streets were used. He plotted a new map, this one based on time of day 
  of the kill. The earlier kills in green, the later in red. The later ones 
  would be closer to home. Do the deed, clean up and still get home in plenty of 
  time. The earlier kills would be those farthest from the killer’s starting 
  point.
  He knew the area to concentrate on now. He checked the news files again, 
  finding three more potential victims living within the target area. There 
  could be more, probably were, but he had to start somewhere. He stuck a 
  magnetic REYNOLDS SECURITY plaque to the door of his rental car and began 
  spending his nights parked near one of the possibles.
  On the third day, the morning radio informed him of his poor choice.
  “...another murder in North Raleigh last night. On Rainwater Drive...”
  One of the three on his list. If he was right about the other two, he now had 
  a fifty-fifty chance of staking out the right place. The killings were coming 
  less than a week apart.
  Three nights later he was parked near a target home. It was 8:01. It was dark. 
  Clouds blocked the moon. The nearest street lamp was more than a block away. A 
  slight mist hazed the sparse light. Not even a cricket could be heard. In the 
  darkness, he could barely make out the jogger coming down the hill towards 
  him, a moving shade of black against gray.
  There was an edge to the night. A damp breeze brushed his face and neck 
  through the open window. His hands throbbed. He scanned the area. Nothing but 
  the nearing jogger.
  The night changed. Shimmered, wavered, fractured. He cursed. He felt it. He 
  was too late. John threw open the car door and ran across and up the street 
  towards the target home. He ran up the driveway into a patch of soft, warm, 
  and sweet smelling, night air. He turned back towards the street in time to 
  see the jogger stop, and breathe deeply. The air crackled.
  The jogger looked at John. Except for his blond hair and glowing eyes, he was 
  darkness. His lips curved.
  “Too late, John McIntyre. Why don’t you give it up?” The voice came as if at 
  his side, deep and without echo. The blond, it seemed, had also been doing 
  some investigation. Who was seeking whom? John shivered at the thought he’d 
  been under surveillance.
  “And let you roam free? Never.”
  “You’re less than a mosquito. Shoo.” The blond waved him away.
  A soft sound behind. John turned. A light glimmered for only a moment on the 
  porch of the house. The front door closed behind a slight figure. A boy. He 
  hesitated upon seeing them near the bottom of the drive, but then fixed his 
  glance on the blond and began trotting down the sloping drive.
  John loped up to meet the boy. No more than eight, with the stench of innocent 
  blood still lingering about him.
  “Stay away from him, boy!” The blond’s voice boomed.
  John looked at the boy. “Was it good?”
  The child shrugged. “S’Okay. But they’re getting to be the same. Know what I 
  mean?”
  “I do,” said John. “It’s harder to have fun.”
  “You do know, don’t you?” said the boy, forgetting for a moment the words of 
  his mentor below.
  “Yes, I do,” said John, putting his hands on the boy’s shoulders then slipping 
  one hand beneath the boy’s chin and the other behind his head. He gave a quick 
  twist.
  A puff of vapor popped from the boy’s mouth. The life-force drifted away.
  “Sheesh! Did you have to do that?” The blond’s voice seemed to whisper in 
  John’s ear.
  John let the boy fall gently to the ground. The boy’s destiny had been set the 
  moment he’d made his first kill.
  John turned to the blond. He’d robbed him of one of his pack, but that wasn’t 
  enough. More was required, but conventional society was powerless. There was 
  nothing to connect the blond with the killings. Worse, John himself was more 
  apt to come under police suspicion.
  “There are others, you know. There will always be others. You can’t stop it.” 
  The voice now caressed John’s ear.
  “Maybe not. But like a mosquito, I can make it unpleasant,” said John.
  “I could take you. Don’t you fear that?” The voice, teasing, at his side 
  again. Cold vapor rose from the ground, surrounding John.
  John stared at the blond. “You won’t take me. I’m your balance-your challenge. 
  I add spice to your existence.”
  “You know me well, John McIntyre. But not well enough.” The blond stepped 
  forward and reached out.
  John stood his ground. There was no escape. Intense cold seeped through his 
  flesh, grating against his bones. The air compacted, pressing his soft points. 
  Ear drums throbbed in pain. Eyes sent sharp points of light to his brain. Fear 
  ratcheted his body. He could smell it.
  “Next time,” said the blond. He stepped away.
  Resolve propelled John. He moved in quickly. From behind, he locked his right 
  arm around the blond’s neck and pulled him close.
  The blond laughed and grabbed John’s arm.
  With his left forefinger, John marked a crude cross on the blond’s forehead.
  “Remember 666?” asked John as his left hand pulled a silver dagger from its 
  sheath. Fingers wrapped around the Christ-like figure on the dagger handle, 
  John plunged the sharpened blade into the exposed upper left side of the still 
  chuckling blond.
  Tipped with the oil of myrrh, the blade slid through skin and muscle, slipping 
  past a protecting rib, to imbed in the blond’s pulsating heart.
  John held the blade tight in the struggling organ. He moved the shaft up then 
  down.
  The blond’s chuckle changed to a roar then a rasp. His struggling weakened. 
  Liquid spilled from his mouth, steaming as it struck John’s encircling arm.
  “666,” repeated John, gasping himself. “Did you think that was your sign? That 
  you were eternal?” He released the slackened form, stepping back. The body 
  slumped, the head striking the ground hard.
  Sickened by what he’d done this night, John staggered back.
  A dim flicker remained in the eyes of the thing on the ground.
  “Wrong,” said John, his eyes gleaming.
  The blond’s eyes clouded. They faded then dulled.
  John walked away. Had he only imagined the smell of ammonia and feel of acid 
  on his arm? It didn’t matter. Whatever he had just killed would recruit no 
  more. But others would. And he would find them.
  ______________________________________
  A native of NYC (be careful how you glance her way), Louise has been writing 
  crime fiction since leaving the world of bits and bytes... She likes all genre 
  fiction except romance.