I watched the news the next few mornings, checked the papers, even looked on the internet, but there was no mention of a ginger man found dead in a dumpster. I wasn’t surprised — when you’re homeless, most people think that dead in a dumpster is exactly where you belong.

There was no coverage of the next man I killed either. Or the one after that.

I laid out a few ground rules for myself before I started my night killings: no slime or sludge — it would make it too easy for Alec to track me if any of my victims ever made it on the news; the victims have to have committed a violent crime — it helped me pretend like this was cool; and I’d have to wear a mask — again, I didn’t want to get caught.

I still went to my lessons at Knuckleheads too. My days were filled with boxing, and my nights were filled with stalking and murder. I didn’t like many people, but Freddie was a solid guy. For the first week or so, he drilled me on the technicals, but once I knew how to stand and throw a punch, we basically just started beating the shit out of each other for three hours a day. Or, more accurately, I would let him beat the shit out of me.

“Come on, Big Boy, do somethin’. I ain’t scared of you. Hit me!”

He was getting frustrated by the fact that I was clearly taking it easy on him. I didn’t want to kill the man — I had enough of that at night — so I mostly stuck to trying to dodge his punches when we sparred. I never got used to how fast he could move his short, thick limbs. I’d move away from one fist and the other would already be flying at my head. On the third day where I refused to hit him with any more than a light tap, he had had enough of my bullshit.

“I don’t want to hospitalize you again, old man,” I said with a cunty grin. I couldn’t pass on such a perfect opportunity to rile him up. He hit me with a nasty three-piece to the face, making my head swing backwards from the force. Those hits were harder than usual; he really meant those.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“The fuck is wrong with you?” he said, putting his hands down. “You’re a fuckin’ machine with no talent. If I had your chin, I would’ve been king of the damn world. I’ve never seen someone take a beating like you in my life. You ain’t human.”

I knew it was a figure of speech, but my heart sank anyway. The blood drained from my already-pale face, not because of what he said, but because, for a second, I thought about killing him and running away. What the fuck was wrong with me?

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Freddie said. “You look like I just told you you’re gettin’ shipped off to Vietnam or some shit.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I’m not human.”

He scrunched up his face like I had just made a corny joke.

“I think all of those punches you’re eatin’ are gettin’ to you more than I thought. All ‘I’m not human,’” he said in a gruff, mocking tone. “Shut the fuck up.” He laughed. I didn’t.

“Let’s go inside the gym and I’ll prove it to you,” I said. We went inside. It was the middle of the day, so nobody else was there for lessons or anything.

“Hold up your hand,” I said. He obliged, and I squirted slime right into his palm. He recoiled and yelled in surprise.

“Ugh! What is that?! Did you just nut on my hand?!” he exclaimed and tried to flick the slime off of his hand. He looked like he wanted to beat the shit out of me.

“No! What is wrong with you? You just saw it come out of my finger. I can do a lot more than that, but I figured you wanted to keep your property undamaged. I told you, I’m not human. Not anymore, at least.” I don’t know why I was confessing everything to him. He didn’t need to know, but the beans just spilled out of me. I recapped the entire story for him, from the moment Mickey pulled out the strange bottle all the way up until I came to Houston. I conveniently left out the part where I had started to kill people in the night — those beans were staying in the can.

He maintained the same stank-face throughout my entire story. It was like his brain didn’t want to absorb what I was telling him. It did sound pretty fucking ridiculous, to be fair, but the slime was undeniable, and neither was my strength. Finally, his mind seemed to catch up with reality, and he was able to speak.

“Damn,” he said. “We’re gonna have to make some changes to your training routine.”