I walked down the shore of Lake Michigan, listening to the slurping of the waves against the diamonds of sand. Although I wasn't walking in the sand, carrying Carlos along the cement walkway was hard enough. Sweat poured off my body, leaking through my hair and flattening it against my skull so that it appeared as if I wore a single helmet of hair. As I increased my grip on Carlos' corpse, blood seeped from around my cuticles, which stung briefly, but I ignored it after a moment of the irritating sensation. Pretty soon, I was unable to tell if the bodily stench in the air was from Carlos' carcass or my own human odor.

Upon arrival of my display area, I crouched down, letting the body fall off of my shoulder in a giant plop. I was tempted to rub my shoulder, easing it back to comfort, but I knew that there wasn't time for it; I had to keep moving.

I pulled out a pair of pliers out of my back pocket and held them up to the pale moonlight to make sure they were clean enough. Then, I retrieved a small bag and went to work.

Fastening the edges of the pliers around Carlos' first tooth-the golden one, naturally-I felt my blood rushing through my body faster and faster, until it was ready to explode. I was a good soldier; I was doing what we had been trained to do, what we were taught to do. She would be pleased with me tonight.

With the expertise of a seasoned dentist, I pulled out the teeth one by one. The first wouldn't come, so I literally had to put my knee on his chest and use his body mass to balance myself as I yanked and extracted. Slowly, resisting my efforts, the root of the tooth exploded through the raw gums of his mouth, caking my hand with pale, pinkish-gray flesh where I had torn the roof of his mouth. If Carlos had been alive, the pain would have definitely killed him by this time anyhow.

Since he was dead, there wasn't the normal full force amount of blood that usually would have accompanied such a dissection. But, tiny vessels, which still contained some of the leftover carnage, caused my fingers to be stained red and the pliers to become encrusted with Carlos' gore.

Occasionally, the pliers, becoming slippery from the blood, would scrape along his teeth, not pulling them out, which ruined the effect and created an irritating squeaking noise, similar to raking your fingernails down the chalkboard. I wanted the teeth to be as perfect as possible for Her. Even though the tooth was scratched, I managed to pull it out and add it to the collection in my bulging bag. Before doing so, I rubbed the tooth with the side of my thumb, trying to make the scratch marks fade, but to no avail, which pissed me off and caused me to nearly split his carcass right in two so that his brains would have oozed out between the sutures of his skull. Calming down, I tested the weight of the bag, surveying just how much it amounted to. He had definitely had a lot of teeth. Mine now.

After all of his teeth were removed so that his bloody toothless gums, which glittered in mortal liquid smiled back at me, I propped the body up against a building that had fallen in slightly, which gave it just enough of a tilt that I could lay the corpse down.

I then violently twisted his left arm behind his back, pleased with hearing the cracking sound that the broken bones made. The shoulder dislocated, causing a low popping noise similar to a gun going off in the distance. With another savage yank, his wrist snapped, and I squeezed his hand so tightly that I crushed the tiny metacarpals just by grasping his hand in my own. Bet Zack couldn't do that.

Underneath Carlos' clammy skin, I felt the bones shift and attempt to push through the skin as I gave the arm another savage twist just for good measure. Careful, Ben, careful, don't overdo it.

From my back pocket, I produced the large bounty knife that I had given Carlos. A pity. I had specifically tested just to make sure it was sharp, and he didn't even use it. Guess I had underestimated him. Yet, there would be others-there always was.

I stared at his dead body, which contained the unblinking eyes with pupils large and dark, rolled up to heaven in a last minute plea. Blood dribbled down over his starched purple lips that were swelled from being filled with plasma, and it ran through his hair from where his toothless rubber gums would be forever etched into a scream of terror. His skin had taken on an ashen shade of gray as the blood pooled at his feet from an unplaced injury that I had caused. Sections of his skin on his hairy monster arms were flayed, having been peeled away by my tedious efforts to support the meat on my shoulder. Below the skin, veins twisted and oozed like snakes from the bowels of Hell, creating a diabolical pattern visible only to those lucky enough to see the human innards.

The barcode on the back of his neck would never be assumed to my mark passed onto him. Never. It would just be concluded to be something that he had done out of rebellion. Of course, there would those that would know. Lydecker. Zack. Anyone else from Manticore that knew me and my devious ways.

I should have just left him there, turned on my heels and disappeared into the night. But I couldn't-could I?

Animalistic hunger and fury bubbled up inside of me, rising to my throat, burning my limbs with passion and drive. This was what I was trained to do, what I was supposed to do. There was nothing wrong. Why should I sit back and be ashamed of something that was so damn right?

Then, with a harsh bellow, I launched at Carlos with the knife, sinking it deep into his chest so that a sickening squish, as if I had ground an orange under my foot, was heard. His body lurched and almost immediately, blood built around the weapon and ran down the front of his shirt. Without hesitation, I pressed my body to his, not caring about the crimson stain that connected our bodies, lapping at the liquid, like a child licking the cookie bowl.

The blood was salty and cool, with enough texture to make one think it was merely spoiled milk. But, I knew better. This was the feeling that animals woke up with-tasting blood inside of their mouths, wanting it, needing it while they lie awake, agitated and disturbed.

I closed my mouth around the wound I had made, suckling at the ruby liquid like a baby to a nipple. The nectar pooled inside of my cheeks, bathing my face with a murderous mark that wasn't from my embarrassment or anger. Why couldn't I make Zack understand what this felt like? The ecstasy I received from being such a killer. Why? Was it because he refused to? Or was I the one who had the problems instead of Zack?

I would have stayed to continue drinking the blood that arose from Carlos' blackened heart, but in the distance, the sun was rising, and I still had sacrifices to make to Her.