PROLOGUE
With seconds remaining until the last victim in all this madness took a final breath, I finally realized the answer to how we all got here was obvious to anyone who looked closely over the last three weeks. And really, all about perspective.
Day 1
Wednesday December 10, 1999
4:00 a.m.
Joe’s view
Awake for thirty-six hours, my bloodshot eyes should have been my first sign. Thirteen hours airborne, New York to Romania, led to my staring at the hotel suite ceiling; completely losing my mind. The morning sun was still an hour from illuminating a godforsaken country where business dragged my exhausted body on short notice. I tried desperately to fall asleep, but nothing helped.
Television was not the answer. Though I mustered the strength to turn it off, the silence was deafening. As long as I could remember, I required a distraction. The silence drove me absolutely crazy. Left to my own mind, I occasionally wandered deep into the subconscious of the sublime. The constant chatter of the television or radio usually sidetracked the worst thoughts that only seemed present in the deafening silence. The thoughts of murder. Mind you, I never killed anyone, but to be honest, who has not thought about getting rid of someone at some point.
Granted, my mindset was probably not what a panel of doctors might deem “normal” but being raised in New York gave way to a broader sense of what defined “normal.” Hell, I worked in sales, so reality was optional on most days. Regardless, I was desperate to put my mind in standby for the night. The alcohol was not helping, but I believed a bath possibly could. I submerged in the warm water of the tub, looking to relax in the comfort of a needed soak. Within minutes, my nerves settled to the point of feeling drowsy. Sadly, my mind never stopped processing the first thought I had on the cab ride over to the hotel. The surrounding town was not the safest of havens. I had little trouble deducing that criminals and killers ran this Third World country. While some would categorize that as an absurd, baseless notion, armed with my second glass of wine, I easily found my validation in unwarranted rationalizations that would not have been fully entertained if I were sober. I assumed that bad people – some killers – were out there, walking the streets, waiting to prey on the weak.
My assumption was simple. At some point, the individual snapped. To define snapped did not mean the individual ran around in the street wearing a diaper and snowshoes, armed with a machete. That type of nut can be easily identified. No, the truly scary individuals behaved normally. They went to work, played with their children and paid their taxes. On occasion, they went out at night for milk and gutted a whore on Main Street behind the bagel shop. Who were they? What did they look like? No clue. It could be anyone.
I heard a scream. My ears were submerged under the water, so it was a muffled sound, but a scream, nevertheless. I sprung from the tub, moving slowly out of the bathroom while peering through the glass doors on the closet for an angular view of the room. Draped in old world tones, the lavish hotel suite now seemed unnerving. I crept in the darkened bedroom, seeing that little was out of place; until I spotted it. To remove the smell of my cologne, I had left the sliding door to the terrace ajar. Stupid. Even on the second floor of the hotel, I was very accessible to a professional thief. Or a psychotic killer.
My head was throbbing and the sudden ruffling sound from the closet next to the terrace doors halted my movement. There was a murderer in my closet. My attempt to think rationally continued to buckle under the combination of wine and lack of sleep. I reached for the steak knife on my dinner tray and as if hunting a deer in upstate New York, crouched down in a predator’s stance. Naked and alive, I felt strangely aroused by the situation; a feeling dissimilar to stalking an animal. This was much more invigorating. I shifted to the front of the closet, my heart racing uncontrollably as I gripped the handle, my life passing before my eyes. My wife; she wouldn’t know the circumstance of my possible death. My mind flooded until the pain of my fingernails penetrating my palm brought me back. Raising the knife, I was positive of one thing; the intruder or I would be dead in the next few moments. I was going out as a man, leaving this world as I came: naked and drenched in blood.
I swung the door open in anticipation of facing my destiny, savagely plunging the knife into the dark closet. Without comprehension of what I was attacking, I continuously swung at the intruder until I realized the knife was not contacting flesh. I stopped in mid swing and pulled back to gather my senses.
I destroyed my black raincoat.
Unable to clearly fathom my actions, I clumsily ducked when an enormous black crow flew out from behind my shredded coat. Carrying a piece of my dinner bread in his mouth, the rotund creature frantically circled high above the room before exiting through the terrace door, thus completing its original destined course.
The knife dropped from my hand. Sweating and trembling, I was unable to remain still but eventually found the corner of my bed. I tried to assess the incident, thinking how a normal person would have found the situation humorous. How even I usually would have found this funny.
I would have, but not any longer.
I felt something else. Sitting alone in the deafening silence, I felt angry; cheated. Deprived of my climax to an incredible hunt. It was unlike coming home without a deer. That was all premeditated entertainment. This, this was different. This was life or death. Knowing I was the hunter as well as the hunted. Knowing another human being was about to die at my hands. A death no court could convict. It would have been self-defense. The bastard would have deserved it.
Barraged with half-coherent thoughts, the line between justice and justification rapidly blurred. Sanity and insanity separated by only my viewpoint. All I could think as my head spun out of control was how my thirst had not been quenched. My anxiety took over; I became lightheaded while everything faded from sight, the void consuming my soul.
And somewhere, in the darkest corner of my mind, if you listened closely, you could have heard;
A snap.