Nauseous

The scene in the warehouse was grislier than anything Johnson had ever seen.

The bodies were hung from meat racks and crammed haphazardly into file cabinets; strung up by fishing line, for what the killer would later describe as a his marionette show; wearing clothes made of other bodies and seated at a card table.

The closet was filled with women’s lingerie, blond wigs and Groucho Marx disguises.

Laid out on an old pool table were his implements of torture: hammers; butcher knives; a broken whiskey bottle; a nail gun; a board with a nail in it; some itching powder; a stick with dog poop on the tip; and feathers, for tickling.

Now, back at the station, Johnson was staring into the eyes of pure evil. He lit a cigarette and took a long drag.

“You’re a real sick bastard,” he said. “Your handiwork left me a little nauseous.”

“I agree,” smirked the sick bastard. “But it’s nauseated.”

“What’d you say punk?”

“Nauseous things make us sick detective, they make us ‘nauseated’ if you will,” said the killer, bending two fingers in the air to make quotation marks. “You just said you were nauseous—which would mean you cause illness in others.”

Johnson looked at the sick bastard with contempt and walked out of the room.

Stepping into the hallway, he passed Detective Brumsworth. “How’s it going in there?” he said.

“You know,” Johnson said, “I’m starting to think that guy’s kind of a dick.”