He had always liked numbers.
At school he had been good with them, their sequence, and their patterns. He had been able to see patterns were other kids couldn’t. That’s what made using them so special. That’s how he had everything worked out so nicely. Number fifteen was his favourite. It had always been the number that he lived by. Now, as a young man, putting things right in the world, it was his magic sequence for bumping people off. These were simply people that had to go. The homicide detectives couldn’t find anything that linked those he’d sent to their maker. Only he saw the ones that had to go. He was able to spot them straight away, in the street, in shops, buildings, railway stations; anywhere. He came across them everywhere, the ones that had to go. He could tell just by looking at them, across a room, passing in the street, they were not quite right, dodgy, worthless, all walking around using up valuable oxygen.
He knew that his contribution to fixing things up was very small, minimal really. He had despatched a dozen to date with only three to go, all exactly fifteen days apart. He was sure that the cops had worked this much out, the time between, but that common element the despatched all shared, they would never see that. He understood that fifteen was just a drop in the bucket. There were so many people walking around out there that were just wasting space, polluting the gene pool, eating valuable food, making TV commercials; the list just went on. But, he would stop at fifteen. He’d been working on thirteen for a while now. His sequence consisted of first spotting someone who didn’t deserve to be around, spending a couple of weeks observing their habits, routines, their activity patterns, then knock them off on day fifteen.
For him, he was now well versed in the business of dispatching, the making disappear, the rubbing out. Number thirteen was easy, this snotty-nosed kid, so rude to that old lady on the bus. Observation had been a cinch. This would be a careless step out in to traffic. A quick passing. The nasty little sod, death’s too good for him really. But, hey! One does what one can.
Anyway, now comes the worst part, the one drawback to maintaining his sequence… the waiting! He now had to wait three whole days before removing one more blight from the community. There again, on the other hand, if he improve society on day fourteen or sixteen, they wouldn’t see my pattern.
They wouldn’t know it was me!