A scream of confusion lit the night, followed by the silence of nobody coming for help. A young man thrashed in the low lighting, the wooden chair he was zip-tied to, creaking in the process. The gleam of metal nearing his face and the sickening clank of stainless steel hitting teeth echoed as his screams for help turned to incoherent bellowing, the ratcheting sound of the metal device holding his mouth wide open.

  “Familiar, but different, isn’t it?” whispered a high-pitched young female voice. “Being the one in the chair for once. Sadistic enough to go through med school just to subject kids to brutal dentistry and, from what people have said, not even gentle about it. Someone should have noticed the warning signs that you enjoy hurting people, like your patients, or your wife…someone should have done something BEFORE you killed her and your own unborn child, but I guess hindsight is 2020, you should have been an optometrist instead of a dentist, maybe you would have seen the spirit of vengeance coming.” She said with a sigh, her red contact lenses looming over his face and the ghostly white makeup painted on her skin. He argued with nonsensical noises, befitting a man begging for his life, with his jaws locked open by cold steel bars.

  “Oh I know, I know. It’s scary in this chair of yours. Being helpless, like a child, while someone hurts you, and you don’t understand why, but you can see in their eyes that they enjoy it. Like me. You’ve seen that killer look in a mirror, but you never thought it would find you. You probably paid off the cops, or just did some favors, maybe you have a buddy on the inside making sure you’re safe. He failed, if that’s the case, you shouldn’t feel safe, Chris. She said, powering up the drill and smiling, black lipstick curled up like a demon grin. “And you could have gotten away with being a sadistic wife-beating prick who likes to hurt patients…IF you just knew when to stop the violence. So…did you just not want kids, or was she just ready to leave you and take your kid so you couldn’t hurt them or her anymore?” she asked. Realizing, she would never get answers with him unable to speak. She considered taking the tension off and hearing the explanation, but a dead woman 7 months pregnant told everything she needed to know about Chris. The rest would just be lies and tricks.

  “Well obviously we may never know the truth even if I let you talk, but I’m not here to get explanations for your crimes, I’m just here to make you regret them. She clicked the play button on her playlist and began “Industrial Bass Dubbstep Metal 3” to mask the impending screams. She banged her head as she began the root canal, and the smell of burning teeth wafted into the room. Her eyes rolled back to the symphony of pain and downtuned guitar, the thumping subwoofer setting the pace of the procedure and his salival moans just blending into the mix along with ambient chainsaw and horror movie effects. Like a DJ freshly released from hell, the phone displayed some nice red mood lighting with flashes of pink and white, like a trance, sending Chris into surreal territory. As the music faded down, she stepped back, wind-milling her ponytail lightly and stepping back into the light with a small hammer and chisel.

  “I brought this with me, don’t worry, it’s been sterilized, 9 out of 10 dentists wouldn’t recommend this, so consider me that tenth bitch who would. Don't tell Colgate” She said, placing the chisel on his front canine and spinning the hammer with her free hand, moving to the beat to build the anticipation as she grinned darkly, Cheshire cat of the damned, gleaming teeth in the dark within a grin of black lipstick and shadowy gums. The music built to a bass drop, and as the low frequencies peaked and the music hit a silent lull, the bass hammered down heavily and so did she, knocking his tooth in half and reloading the chisel to the next one like a machine. Over and over.

  “This is kinda fun, I see why you like it. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a great way to simulate throwing you down a flight of stairs while almost full term pregnant and hoping you break your neck…so I have to get creative.” She said, stepping away as he coughed and tried not to choke on his own broken teeth. She stepped back into the lighting with a wooden baseball bat, contemplating it like she was doing complex calculations.

  “How many steps did she hit on the way down do you think…maybe…8?” she said, sending an over-handed swing and the bat down on his wrist, then spinning almost ballerina-esque to break the kneecap. She followed by a few moments of savoring the mood and a few hits to the ribs with slightly less force, but enough to break something each time. The white and black makeup now spattered with blood began to run with sweat, as she backed away and bobbed to the beat, and the beating. She checked her phone, skimming the crime scene photos and making sure to copy every bruise with decent accuracy, as she casually threw a few more whacks to the shin and stomach, repeating the stomach blows until satisfied with the damage she estimated.

  “That’s probably close enough, but it says here she died of internal bleeding before the ambulance even got there. I bet you waited a while, and I’m just not as patient as you. I’m also a creature of habit, and I gotta add some personal flair to the scene. I can’t have you surviving and identifying me, so…let's meet my friend. She’s a very shy girl, but when she does come out to play, she plays rough. Courtesy of the Murder Geisha, Spirit of Vengeance: Avenging entity of every woman ever beaten and abused. We’ll see you in hell, Chris.” She said flipping a butterfly knife into his view with a Japanese symbol painted on her cheek and a big giddy grin, the spray of blood streaking across it with the first of many slashes.

  A pair of men’s boots walked the bloody dentist's office floors, duct tape securing the plastic bags around them, as the footprints left oddly clean and flat marks in their absence. A pair of black gloves holding tweezers lifted a single strand of red wig hair to a pair of eyes hiding behind a medical mask and goggles. The almost alien-like silent figure placed another hair, shorter and black, organic human, into the zip-seal bag and grabbed a small hunting knife, hand checking the wounds and meticulously following them with a strange series of dead calm slow stabs, as if re-enacting the murder himself. He finished by sliding the knife into the body and leaving it, like sheathing it for later in human flesh, dead for hours. He steadied his disposable plastic jacket for comfort, grabbing a fresh bag and some garden sheers, gleaming with a mirror polished edge that has clearly been hand sharpened by someone experienced. With a strange indifference, he began collecting the ends of each finger, dropping them into the bag with any trace of scratches or struggle DNA that may have remained under them. He opened a small metal tube and removed a stale cigarette, half burned, and he lit the end of it, holding it up in the flashlight beam. It burned in the dental pliers and smoldered slowly, his hand tapping the ashes around, almost like a ritual. He looked around and bagged the evidence bags, flicking the cigarette as he walked out the back door, staring at the ground and taking oddly small steps, placing his boots down into her footprints, as if stomping bugs with exact targeting, each step taking him deeper into the woods to a gravel road, where he carefully removed his boot covers and bagged them as well. Squeezing the air out of the plastic bag of bags and random items, and 10 human fingertips. He tucked it into his pocket and began walking down the road, removing the disposable coverings as he went, clicking off the flashlight and vanishing like a ghost into the nothing. The second ghost to visit that office that night.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  The bright flash of cameras lit the scene red and silver, as men in matching hazmat suits did an oddly similar job collecting evidence, to the advantage of broad daylight. A brunette woman in a suit held her nose and covered her mouth as a short bald man chewing gum and holding a notebook approached her.

  “Well... It’s a weird one. Killer left no footprints, but the intentions suggest he was about 150 pounds or more, wearing some kind of boot covers, size 13. Murder weapon left in the body like some kind of message, no idea what, but they got prints off the knife handle and found cigarette ash around the place. So we have a tall, slim guy who smokes menthols and wanted us to find the body. Door was wide open, tracks are being followed by guys right now, hopefully the guy left something useful out there. We didn’t find hair or skin cells anywhere.”

  “What bout under the fingernails?” she asked.

  “Yea, good luck with that. Sick bastard took the fingertips with him.”

  “Trophy or evidence?” she asked, gagging slightly.

  “Maybe both, but it was planned out, the cuts were made with something really sharp, maybe scissors, and nothing left they behind. Right in the center of the nail, cuts post-mortem. The guy was alive when he was tortured, but the fingertips were cut after death. No pressurized blood spray, very little bleeding. This guy was a pro, with one hell of a grudge.”

  “Why do you think that?” she asked.

  “Take a look at these. This guy’s wife died 4 weeks ago, accidental fall down the stairs, forensics was pretty half-assed, but they ruled it an accident, and these photos of the wife match almost every bruise and broken bone on the victim here. Witnesses say our dead guy was at a nightclub hours before the killing began, hitting on strippers and living it up. Pretty fucked for a guy whose pregnant wife just died. This guy somehow lured in our dead dentist in the middle of the night to his own office, wearing covered boots and gloves, no forced entry, used the key, and then got him in the chair, replicated the wife’s injuries pretty accurately, went major league on his ass with a bat, tortured him with the dental tools and then just went full Mike Myers on him with a knife till he bled out. Then he took the fingertips. Cleaned up a little, had a smoke, walked home. That’s cold and personal. Why would this guy, a married man hitting on women at the strip club, end up bringing another man back here, unlock the place, and go in like he suspected nothing? Killer was someone he knew, his drug dealer, a friend, maybe some kinda sex thing, I dunno. But who the hell takes someone to their office in the middle of the night after a night of clubbing and from the Ecstasy in his blood, partying hard? I dunno about you, but if I was doing some weird shit in my own office after dark, high on E and alcohol, it’s probably a sex thing. You know any strippers that wear a men’s size 13 boot and can reach that shelf up there with the cleaning wipes without a stepstool? I’m not judging, but it wasn’t that kinda strip club, so unless this is way more complex than we thought, our boy here was glad the wife was dead and having a boy’s night after the clubs.”

  “It does get more complicated.” She said as someone handed her a clipboard. They found a fingerprint match on the knife in the body.”

  “Fuck me, that was fast, we’ve been here 30 minutes.” the bald forensics guy puzzled.

  “Well, apparently we just got an anonymous tip and a name.” she added.

  “Anonymous tip and ID on a suspect…before we even finished the damn police report? Oh, that’s bold. You think the guy’s taunting us?”

  “Get your ass in the hall right now.” She said, practically dragging him as she went. Waving the man who brought the clipboard with her into the hallway.

  “Both of you listen closely, and listen good. Shut this shit down, close the scene. Nobody touches the place. Don’t say a thing to anyone. Don’t even say anything to the other people here, or you’re both gonna get fired, understand?” she said harshly in a whisper tone.

  “No, not really, what the fuck, this isn’t protocol.” Baldy said, looking worried.

  “To hell with protocol. Just do it.” She ordered.

  “With all due respect, if I’m gonna get fired for some shady shit, I wanna know why. Now I got orders to process a crime scene and I came here to do that. So what the hell is going on?” the forensics guy shrugged as the other guy held the clipboard silently.

  “Anonymous tip was from the strip club parking lot, burner phone, female voice. All it said was Detective Damien Baker has been a bad boy, and it hung up. Two sets of fingerprints matched the knife left in the guy. Damien baker, and a guy who’s currently in prison for murder, who used that same damn knife.”

  “You’re telling me a cop took a weapon out of evidence and murdered a guy with it?” baldy whispered.

  “I know Damien. Worked with him. Look at the damn file. 160 pounds, 5 foot 11, shoes size 13. Don’t you dare say this to anyone…he was just quitting a smoking habit... menthols. Either we got someone trying to set up a cop who has access to evidence and his case files, or Damien killed a guy who murdered his own wife and got away with it.”

  “Oh shit…yea, I’m out. I’m not saying anything. I like my job, most days. What do you want me to put on the report?”

  “No fingerprints on the weapon, cigarette ashes disappear, no mention of anonymous tips, we’re looking for some guy over 150 pounds, no hair or DNA found. I’m taking this file from here. You clean the ashes up and wipe down that knife handle. That’s an order.” She growled.

  “Yes Ma’am.” He said, looking at his intern still clutching the empty clipboard. “I didn’t see a damn thing, did you see a damn thing?”

  “No.” The intern shook.

  “Wow. Guy must be a real pro. No real evidence found. Wild how meticulous these killers can be. Probably some guy the wife was banging on the side. Happens all the time.” He said, carefully grabbing a wipe and discreetly cleaning the knife handle down before placing it in the evidence bag and marking it with a different case number, folding it under and handing it to the intern. “I think this belongs in the evidence room. Don’t file it, it’s already filed, apparently. No sense is doing it twice, right?” he winked.

  “Whatever you say, I just got here.” He huffed, nervously taking the bag and the papers and leaving briskly. Baldy took a silent moment alone to process things, dazed by the scene.

  “The shit I see just gets weirder every case in this town. HEY, someone get me a coffee, that’s a wrap. We got everything we need here. Don’t give me that look, brass says we’re done, we’re done. Someone else’s crime scene now. That’s how the shit rolls broski. Pack up, blood samples in the cooler.”

  “We just started.” Sighed one of the other forensic guys.

  “Yea, and we just finished. I don’t make the rules, I just repeat the orders. Let’s go, bags, tags and labels move it out.” He waved, grabbing the coffee as it was handed, making his way to the back door to get back to the lab, where he got paid just shy of what it took to deal with that kinda shit. He sat down in the van at a laptop and removed his gloves to type something while nobody was looking.

  “Murder weapon fingerprints matched the victim, cigarette ashes too damaged to identify due to victim’s blood exposure. Cause of death, knife to the heart, no leads or suspects at the time. No witnesses.” He muttered as he typed. “Okay, let’s go get some lunch. Anyone have any place in mind? No sushi this time, 3 days in a row, I’m sick of Asian stuff.” He sighed.