Conrad blinked at the pizza restaurant's menu as he tallied up how much money he had to spend on dinner. He hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder and scanned the prices.

If I get a small I could have leftovers for tomorrow and the next day, it’ll be lean but I could make it work.

His worn and tattered shoes stuck to the floor as he shifted from foot to foot, the spilt soda making a crackling sound.

I’d still be better off buying something at the grocery store but pizza is what they insisted they wanted and sometimes it's just easier to agree.

“Just let me know when you're ready to order. The specials are here on the counter.” The very pretty cashier said with a dimpled smile as she leaned on the counter.

“Just reach across the counter and stab her in the neck with the pen. And pizza is the best, if we went home you’d just make a sad sandwich and you know it.”

Conrad pointedly ignored the words being spoken from over his shoulder and looked at the grease stained printout that contained the specials.

“Stab her! Right here! Look. Look. Look LOOK!”

Conrad was nearly compelled to look where the apparition was now pointing. It's dark form coalescing into a vaguely human shaped mass of shadows next to the cashier and pointing an amorphous finger at her slender neck, right where he knew her jugular vein was.

“Kill her and then you could eat all the pizza you want! Aaaand take the money in the cash register. Win win!”

The shadowy being cheered loudly, its voice taking on a slightly feminine pitch.

That had been happening lately.

Conrad ignored it, like he always did. Like he had for the last twenty years of his life.

“Thanks. I think I’ll take the number two special. Please.” He pointed at the item.

“Great! That one’s my favorite, that’ll be nine even.” She chimed cheerfully, typing something into the register and idly rubbinging at her neck, right where they had nearly touched her.

People didn’t see the dark thing like he did.

People also didn’t have their own, a dark mess of shadows that invariably encouraged them to do horrible things all the time.

He’d figured out at a very young age not to mention it to others. Mentioning it to others led to doctors visits, therapy and medication that either made it worse or harder to ignore their constant requests.

He fished his wallet out and pulled out a ten. His last ten.

“Come ON! It would’ve been so easy. Sooo easy.” The thing whined as it dissipated.

“How’s your night going?” The cashier asked while getting his change from the old register.

“It’s fine. Just got off work.” He said, accepting his change and putting it into the tip jar.

I get paid the day after tomorrow so it’ll be fine. Mostly.

“Ugh I’m jealous. I still have another hour to go.” She pulled napkins and a paper plate from below the counter and handed them to him with a large smile that he didn’t return.

“She’s flirting, you know. Seduce her and then kill her at her place. Sex and murder! Yay!” A familiar voice said from directly over his shoulder.

“Thanks.” Conrad said as he took the items and ignored it yet again.

“No problem!” She smiled brightly at him. “I’ll bring it out pretty quick, not like it's super busy ya know?” She said with a laugh.

“Yup.” He said as he turned and found a booth.

Her dimples really are cute. He thought as he sat down on the grungy red vinyl bench and put his backpack next to him.

“Too bad you’re a stick in the mud, we could’ve totally banged her and then bang! Banged, uh, her. With like…I dunno. A tire iron or something.” It said from the same spot over his shoulder.

Conrad sighed and pulled out his notebook, book and a pen.

He had homework to do that was due tomorrow.

“She is cute though, eh? Her name is Kelly and I’ll bet Kelly’d look real cute with a power cord around her neck.”

Conrad ignored the horrible things they spouted and tried to read his book.

It had always been like this. For as long as he could remember. Sometimes the thing would have a physical form like before when it pointed at the cashier’s neck but most of the time it was just a voice.

It always wanted violence and sometimes it would know things it had no right to, like that her name was Kelly. Things that Conrad himself couldn’t have possibly known.

That’s how he knew he didn’t just have a brain tumor or something. Or that’s what he told himself at least.

He started scribbling down notes from his book as he read and the being was thankfully silent for a while as he lost himself in his homework.

“Here comes little miss dimples!” The thing said in a sing-song voice.

“Here you go!” The cashier said as she placed the pizza pan down on the table.

“Oh cool, are you studying to be an EMT?” The girl apparently named Kelly asked, seeing his open book on the table.

“Yep.” Conrad said bluntly, hoping she’d leave him alone.

“That’s so cool, I’d be too scared to do something like that. What if you like, see someone that died in a car wreck or something?” She said with wide eyes.

“Fuckin. Cannot. Wait.” They said excitedly. “Okay now. Just get her with the fork! Right in the eye. She’s the only one working tonight. The cook called in sick so she’s cooking too.”

“I guess it might happen.” He said, sliding his book to the side.

“That stuff doesn’t bother you?” She asked, still standing by his table for some reason.

“Nope.” He pulled a piece of pizza off the pan and slid it onto the paper plate.

“Fork to her eye, twist and pull and then pop! Into your mouth. It’ll taste like pork but with a crunch.”

Conrad’s mouth watered involuntarily.

“Oh, okay. Well, uh enjoy your pizza.” She said awkwardly before walking away.

He knew he was being rude but being rude was better than the alternative.

“Sheesh, now you’re just being a dick. She thinks you're cute, you know. And she really does get off work in an hour.” The satiny smooth voice pouted.

Conrad took a bite of pizza and stared off into space.

“Closing takes like thirty minutes…although she’ll do most of that before close today because it’s so empty.” The thing pondered idly while Conrad continued eating. Hot and greasy cheese nearly scalded his mouth as he ravenously ate.

Guess I should’ve eaten today.

“If you’d have followed my advice we could’ve eaten like six meals today.” The thing grumped at him.

“Speaking of, hey look at that! There’s a guy named…mmm... Nick! He’s sitting in the parking lot waiting for Kelly to finish her shift.”

He kept chewing and pulled his book closer. Not wanting to think about the cute girl having a boyfriend waiting to pick her up.

“See now Nick’s prepared. Got trash bags, zip ties, rope, sedatives…Haha! He’s even got a folding wagon to haul her body!”

He froze with the piece of pizza halfway to his mouth.

Body??

Across the booth the thing oozed into being and leaned its elbows onto the table with its chin in its hands. A featureless face stared at him and he stared back, forgotten pizza in hand.

“Oh well now look who’s getting chatty.”

Conrad’s anger swelled.

“No no, don’t get mad.” It quickly said, raising its hands in surrender.

“Let’s see, yeah. He’s sitting in the white sedan, a rental, he’s waiting for her to get off and go to her car. The beat up little two door blue car.” It cocked its head as if listening to some distant sound.

“He’s gonna grab her from behind and stick her in the neck with a sedative, then drag her to his car and take her to the bnb he rented. Ew gross, he’s already got a boner.”

His mind raced. He absolutely could not let that happen but what could he do?

He hardened his mind, something he’d learned he could do to keep his thoughts private. It took a considerable amount of effort but he felt it was worth it.

The being threw up their hands in frustration.

“Come on! Don’t be like that! We could help Nick nab her and then kill him too. Use his car and everything. And then-”

He blocked out their rambling.

I could call the police but am I really going to trust what this thing says? It’s never been wrong before but still.

The black mass was still rambling, talking about the knives the guy apparently had in his car.

But I absolutely will not leave if there’s even a slight chance it could be true. He took a bite of his pizza.

I’ll wait until just before closing and then sneak around back and watch. If things go south I’ll call the police then.

He blanked his thoughts and dropped his guard while taking another bite of pizza.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Ugh, I hate that you learned to do that.” They said, pointing a finger at him accusingly.

“So what's the plan? Huh? We gonna help this guy or what?” They leaned forward excitedly.

He ignored them and tried to go back to studying. After a while they dissipated with a petulant sigh at his continued silence.

Kelly did indeed go about her closing tasks before the advertised closing time, mopping, cleaning and working in the back and twenty minutes before close Conrad packed up and left without a word while Kelly was somewhere back in the kitchen.

Outside in the dark his breath created great clouds of vapor and his hands immediately stung from the cold so he stuffed them into his sweater pockets.

He walked down the sidewalk the way he had come and discreetly tried to see around the building to the back parking lot.

There were only three cars in the parking lot and one looked like it hadn’t moved in a decade, as indicated by the huge pile of pine needles on its roof and the flat tires..

Of the other two, one was a new white car and the other an older run down blue car.

In the white car, barely lit by the yellow street lamp was a very skinny man. His eyes wholly focused on the back door to the pizza place and completely ignoring everything else.

Holy shit, there really is a guy waiting for her. He hunched his back and tried to look unassuming.

“See? There he is! We could bag 'em both.” The voice whispered from over his shoulder.

Why are you whispering?

“Seemed appropriate? I dunno. So are we doing this then?” They said, their voice teeming with excitement.

No. We’re not.

He didn’t usually interact with them this much because it only encouraged them to talk more but today, with Kelly’s life on the line it seemed necessary.

“What’re we doing then?” The apparition asked as it oozed from the shadows of the nearby dumpster.

Watching for now. I don’t know exactly. Conrad admitted, more to himself than to them.

“Borrring. I say let’s go with my plan. Can em both at the BnB. Come on Conny, it’ll be easy. I can help!”

Conrad bent low and hustled into the shadows where the thing had come from, pushing it aside with a single hand so he could sit and watch the parking lot.

Its body was oddly cold and very squishy, it was a lot like how he imagined a dead jellyfish would feel.

“Oi! Sheesh, don’t shove you brute.” They said as he settled in to watch. Luckily he was wearing a dark gray sweatshirt and a pair of new-to-him jeans that were a dark blue so he blended nicely with the shadows as he hunched down by the ripe dumpster.

Even in the middle of winter the smell coming from the trash was overpowering and made his eyes water as he sat in the shadow. He slowly took off his backpack and set it on the nearby curb, away from the pungent sludge that coated the ground where he was squatting.

He checked his watch, the restaurant was advertised to close in about fifteen minutes, squatting there that long was going to be tough so he slowly made his way to the curb where his backpack sat to sit there as well.

Keeping his eyes on the occupant of the white car Conrad slowly crept to the curb. His paranoia was unwarranted though, the man never once glanced away from the door except to check his phone for the time.

The pale light from his phone’s screen illuminated his face and provided Conrad a better look at him.

He looked young, probably younger than Conrad’s twenty by a few years. Some patchy stubble dotted his stark jawline and his hair was short and unkempt. That, along with his sunken eyes and cheeks lent him a sickly appearance and the unblinking fervor in with watched the door only reinforced that image.

He checked his watch again, only two minutes had passed and his extremities were growing numb.

Gonna be a long ten minutes out here. He thought to himself.

“You could go kill weirdo over there and sit in his warm car. Hell, it’s one of those electric ones so you don’t even need to worry about pollution or whatever.” The thing said from its familiar spot over his shoulder.

I’m not killing anyone. If this goes down how you say it will, all I’m gonna do is call the police. Call them and sit here and wait-

He was interrupted by the door slamming open and a bag of trash being slung out of it. The man in the white car immediately ducked down and out of sight and Conrad froze.

Kelly then exited the dark building with her purse over one arm, dragging another bag, which she tossed over by the first.

Shit, she’s gonna take out the trash first. I’m sitting between her and the dumpster. Shit.

The being just laughed at him as his mind raced.

She kicked the bags further away from herself and sighed a cloud of vapor before turning to lock the door. The man from the white car opened his door silently as soon as she turned and stalked forward in a stooped gait.

It took several very loud attempts to slam the door to her satisfaction before she fumbled with the keys, all the while Nick crept closer.

He wore black gloves and was carrying something in his hand as he stalked forward. Likely the sedative.

Conrad’s mind raced and his adrenaline spiked.

This is it, they were right. I gotta…I gotta call the police.

He fumbled for his phone in his pocket but when he finally got it out it slipped from his numb fingers and clattered to the sludgy ground.

A startled cry made him jerk his head up. Nick had made it to her.

He had a hand over her mouth and had bent her backward with his other hand around her arms and waist. She was struggling but her movements were already slowing down. An empty syringe hung from her neck.

Shit, shit shit. He scrambled to get his phone.

Nick started dragging the now barely struggling Kelly to his car.

The police won’t be here in time. I think. I think it’s up to me.

He pocketed his smelly phone and stood.

“We’re really gonna do this??!” They said, forming their humanoid shape off to one side and practically hopping up and down with excitement.

“Don’t tease me Conny! Oh don’t be a tease!” They cried out as they rubbed its body with shadowy hands in a decidedly sexual way.

He ignored the oddly sexual tone of the thing and forced himself to walk forward. Kelly seemed barely conscious now and Nick was struggling to drag her limp form toward his waiting car.

It was almost comical in a distant way, now that Kelly was limp Nick could barley manage to move her.

The syringe still hanging in her neck clattered to the ground and a drop of Kelly’s blood bloomed from her skin where the needle had pierced it.

The sight of her blood changed something in Conrad, that red drop suddenly made everything more real to him.

He really is trying to kill her. Right now. Planned it all out even.

Violence was welling up inside him, violence and something else. Something just beneath the surface of his skin.

It felt violent and powerful like he could rip the tire from Nick's car if it meant he could beat him to death with it.

“Unnngh, please do it just like that! Do it for me Conrad.” They moaned from over his shoulder.

“Hey! Nick!” He shouted, his voice badly distorted and rough to his own ears. They were nearly to his rental car and Conrad didn’t know what he’d do if they drove off.

Nick jumped at his shout and dropped Kelly, thumping her head on the asphalt. His head whipped this way and that, looking for Conrad but strangely, despite Conrad standing fully in the streetlight, Nick's eyes drifted right over him as if he didn’t see him.

Seeing Kelly’s head thump off the ground lifelessly stoked Conrad’s anger and he started sprinting at Nick.

The ground seemed to rush past him faster than it should and he covered the considerable distance in a blink.

Suddenly Nick was before him, still looking around in jerky motions for whoever had shouted his name.

Without thinking Conrad raised a fist back and plowed it into the thin man’s chest. There was no finesse or grace involved, he just put as much force behind the punch as he could. Distantly he could hear the pleasured wailing of the shadowy creature as his fist impacted Nick’s bony chest.

Bones crunched and Nick exhaled loudly as Conrad’s fist hit him.

It was satisfying in the extreme.

Before Nick had even started falling Conrad unleashed another punch, this one aimed at his head.

His knuckles stung from the blow and Nick’s head whipped to the side. After that things got blurry.

He observed the scene as if from far away, not really able to see what was happening but hearing the meaty thwack of his fist impacting the man.

The shadowy creature wailed and moaned blissfully with each strike as Conrad dealt violence to the skinny man.

After what felt simultaneously like an eternity and only a few seconds Conrad was pulled from the violent ecstasy he had immersed himself in by a breathless voice from over his shoulder.

“Alright alright big man. Okay.” It said between breaths.

“As decadent as this has been, we gotta get out of here.”

Conrad blinked.

He was on his knees and before him was a pile of pulpy flesh that steamed in the cold air. His fists were sore and wet and his sleeves soaked with something cold and clammy.

In his fist was an off white and bloody femur.

He dropped it reflexively as soon as he realized what it was. Connective tissue still clung to it in places and the still warm bone stuck to his hand for a second before clattering to the ground.

“Come on Conny. Kelly is going to wake up soon and then she’ll call the police. We gotta go.” They said, forming their human shape and beckoning him back to the dumpster..

He stood slowly and looked around in a daze.

Kelly was laying where she’d been dropped, puffing clouds of steam occasionally as she exhaled.

Nick however, was spread all around the parking lot.

Tattered clothes covered one of his legs that lay by the dumpster where he’d thrown it, his other leg was on the hood of his white car where he’d casually stripped the femur from it.

Blood dripped down the white hood from the femur-less leg and onto the asphalt.

Nick’s torso and head were at his feet and were almost unidentifiable.

As he surveyed the scene more and more of what had happened came back. Of what he’d done.

I took the femur because his skull was being stubborn and wouldn’t crack open like I wanted. His head is somewhere in that mess.

Something slapped onto the ground behind him.

Before that I tore his arms off I threw them behind me into the tree…What the fuck.

Kelly groaned and shifted.

“Alright Conrad, come one. We gotta go!” They pleaded, beckoning him with their arms.

He stumbled toward them in a haze, stumbling and struggling to get his feet under him.

“That’s it, let's grab your backpack and get going. Just gotta make it to the apartment before the police show up.” They said as they dissipated into the night air.

Conrad nodded numbly along with what they said.

Right, backpack and then home.

He made it to the smelly dumpster, grabbed his backpack and put his arm through the strap.

Behind him, still laying on the cold asphalt, Kelly moaned and shifted.

That one sound pulled Conrad from the fog he was in and sent his mind racing.

Quickly coming to a decision he turned and ran back toward the building.

“What’re you doing!? Come on!” They pleaded over his shoulder.

I can’t just leave her like this! He hissed as he ran to the open door and entered the dark kitchen.

He scanned the dark room and finally found what he was looking for.

An old landline phone was mounted on the wall near the door jam.

He scooted his bloody sleeve over his hand and pulled the receiver off, letting it hang by the cord. Then he punched in the emergency number for the police and listened. As soon as he heard someone answer he started jogging away. Leaving the now bloody phone hanging.

They can look up the address from the number right? And they’ll investigate an open line?

He asked, not really expecting an answer.

“Oh well, actually yeah. They take that pretty seriously because an open line ties up a dispatcher. Dispatch just sent an officer this way and-oh shit! He’s really fuckin close! We gotta book!”

The urgency in their voice spurred him into a sprint and he barreled down the street.

“Into the woods! Down in the creek, now!”

He jumped off the sidewalk and through the brush. A little creek ran under the road here and he splashed into it. The cold numbed his feet almost immediately. A police car tore by on the road above, its lights illuminating the dark trees but no siren.

“Under the road and stop in the culvert. We gotta get the blood off you.”

He splashed further into the dark tunnel and was about to squat to scrub his hands in the icy stream.

“Wait wait, I got this.” They said, their wispy form culminating from the culvert wall.

They tentatively ran their hands down his sleeves and to his amazement where they touched him was left clean and dry. They moaned as they did it, in that overly sexual way that suddenly made Conrad very aware that they were sounding more and more feminine.

Before his eyes their form seemed to change as they absorbed the carnage from this clothing and skin, their previously wispy edges seemed to become harder and more defined and even its touch became more firm and solid as it took more and more.

Are those breasts? He thought, completely at a loss as to what was happening.

“Huh? Well look at that.” They said as they absorbed the last of Nick’s leftovers from his sweatshirt with a sigh.

Their now delicate hands ran up from its waist to the small mounds on its chest, cupping them and squeezing. A distant siren grew louder and louder.

“Well shit, looky there. Guess I’m a girl huh?” She dropped her hands to her sides just as another police car tore down the road over them, this time with lights and sirens splitting the night air.

We gotta get as much distance as we can from the pizza place. He said ignoring what her suggestive motions and soft voice were doing to him.

“Ooohoohoo, Conny. This is gonna be so fun.” She whispered from over his shoulder, her breath tickling his ear.