The family that preys together…- 6

Three weeks after the visit to the movie theater Crispin was sitting in his office in the heart of the Minneapolis business district, hands behind his head as he stared out the window at the cold, blue sky.

He would never understand his father’s need to keep up familial relationships with what remained of their mother’s kin. The aunt and her husband whose barbeque they had gone to were, in his considered opinion, totally deranged religious fanatics. They preached to one and all about the sins of the flesh and the need to spend hours in church praying for forgiveness. And his father insisted the three of them pay lip service to their beliefs, spending each Sunday morning listening to the rantings of the preacher when the time could be better spent in so many more pleasurable ways. But as a devoted son Crispin did as he was asked, as did Bryant although much less willingly.

On the night following the barbeque, he and Bryant had bundled the body of their latest victim into the trunk of Bryant’s car and driven north out of St. Cloud. After some minor debating as to which road to take they had ended up in a secluded area well away from civilization. Bryant had parked and then they carried the still partially frozen body to one of the numerous lakes in the region where they slid it, sans the tarp, into the water. Crispin had folded the tarp carefully before putting it back into the trunk of the car. It would be burned as the young man’s clothing had been earlier that day and the ashes thrown into the river along with any of his possessions that the fire didn’t totally destroy. 

So, unless luck played against them, by the time the body was found weather, the water and the fish would have made it virtually unrecognizable. And even if it was found before that happened there would be no way to connect it back to the Hill family. After years of practice they knew exactly what they were doing.

Now, three weeks later, Crispin was feeling restless again. It seemed that the older he got the more he needed the adrenaline rush that came from the hunt and the kill. Not that thirty-six was old, but it seemed that the only life he had consisted of commuting an hour each way to a boring but lucrative job at an investment firm. Bryant, being younger by three years didn’t seem to feel the urge quite so quickly although he never objected when Crispin said it was time to find a new target. It was only because their father cautioned restraint that they didn’t play their games as often as Crispin would have liked. Four to six weeks at the least between hunts was the rule Gerard had set down long ago; a rule that the brother’s adhered to rigorously, if at times reluctantly.

Stretching, Crispin turned back to the computer with a sigh. Maybe it’s time to take Bryant’s route and join a health club, he thought, staring disinterestedly at the information on the screen. At least that way I could work out some of my frustrations. Maybe.