The Remover

''Written by Kenneth Kohl (kowale). This is a long read that began as a single short story (Part 1). More parts of the series were provided and it was eventually combined into one large work. The Remover has gathered a considerable fan base since its original posting, and has since been incorporated into a full-length novel of the same name. What follows are the original posts that appeared here on Creepypasta Wiki.''

Part 1
When I left my office, I already had a premonition that something awful was going to happen that evening. I’m not psychic. I am quite perceptive, though, and the signs were easy to read. I had worked late – nine o’clock and already dark – and my ordinarily enjoyable walk to the parking lot struck me as a little bit menacing. I parked in a lot that was about a ten minute walk from my office. In the early evening on a crisp autumn day it’s a pleasure to stroll there and take in the sights of downtown Indianapolis. Occasionally I’d take a detour and walk along the canal, checking out the street art. This was past nightfall, though, and right in the middle of a hot and humid August. There were only two sorts of people in downtown Indy that night – those who had to be, and those who had no place else to go.

My walks always took me past the Wheeler Mission. There was a flashing neon sign reminding me that “Jesus Saves” every ten seconds. The mission was a magnet for the homeless. A lot of my sort of people ended up there, but some others as well. Addicts, mentals, criminals on the run and looking for a meal and a place to stay. According to the mission’s rules felons were usually turned in, so the police visited regularly. None of the city’s finest sitting outside that night; just a collection of bums waiting to scam some loose change off of whoever happened to be out on this humid night.

One of the panhandlers called out to me. “Hey! Can I talk to you sir? Can I ask you a question? Are you afraid of homeless people?” He was young, maybe pushing thirty. He was clean-shaven and had a number of tattoos running up his arms and neck and ending just shy of the bottom of his dirty red baseball hat. The design hinted at a former stay in prison.

Every one of them always has a story. It’s typically well practiced and smooth. A bum tells his story so many times that he begins to believe it himself. He gets into his character and will debate at length on the subject of why he needs money. The stories can get quite elaborate and sometimes amusing, if you have the time. But unless you want to be followed all the way back to your car or to the door of your office it’s best to just say “No” or “Sorry.” That night, I was feeling antsy and just wanted the conversation to end quickly, so I opted for “Fuck you.”

Red Hat responded in kind. At first he stopped in his tracks, looking sort of stunned. Then he started following me. “You think you’re better than me? Don’t you walk away from me.” Then he grabbed at the back of my shirt. That’s when I knew for sure that things were going to end badly.

I shrugged him off. I could have easily outrun him at that point, but I didn’t. I don’t know if it was pride or arrogance; or if it was due to the fact that I was tired, irritable and in an excessively bad mood. I did start walking faster, though. I hoped that he would tire of the game and go back to his roost outside the mission. I hoped that the situation wouldn’t go any further.

Then I saw a chance to end the game. There were two routes to my car – one being along a well lit, albeit virtually deserted street and the other a slightly shorter route through a small alley behind the Robertson Parks church. I aimed myself toward the alley. I could still hear Red Hat shouting behind me, but I was doing my best to ignore him. “Where you going man? Stop! I want to talk to you,” he said. I had a pretty good idea that when he saw me heading towards the alley, he thought that he had me beat. How stupid did he think I was? I knew that once we were alone, I’d have the upper hand. I could either disappear into the shadows or, if necessary, kick his ass. What I didn’t know, however, was that he had a couple of friends waiting for him.

They must have seen us head off and circled around the block. It’s like they were expecting me to walk through that alley. For them, it was the perfect place for an ambush. I’ll have to admit that I was startled when I first saw them. I had allowed myself to get too distracted. Not only by Red Hat, but by the anxiety that I’d been experiencing since leaving my office. The two buddies, dressed similarly and tattooed like Red Hat, stood at the far end of the alley. In addition to seeing their silhouettes I could smell them from where I stood. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw them. Red Hat closed the distance behind me and pushed me further into the alley. Then the other two approached and boxed me in.

One of them pushed me and laughed. “What now, Chris?”

“Now we teach this little shit how to respect people,” Red Hat replied.

I had backed up against the wall of the church. “Trust me guys. Bad idea,” I said.

The one who had previously been quiet came forward and shoved me – hard – back into the wall. I remember feeling the back of my head bounce off the brick. Then he punched me in the stomach. As he drew back his arm to get ready for another swing, my arm flew out and I grabbed his head, palming his face like a basketball. I pushed backward and twisted his head as he fell. That’s when I saw Red Hat’s knife.

Red Hat had drawn his arm back as if he were going to pitch a softball underhand. He had the point of the knife aimed at me. He lunged, but I managed to grab his wrist and deflect his thrust. At this point I could no longer see the first of his two buddies – the first to punch me - but the other one landed another blow directly to my nose. That diverted my attention long enough for Red Hat to bring his knife around for another attempt. A thousand thoughts were racing through my mind. How could I have let myself get drawn into that situation? Why did they pick me? Why that night? How was it going to end? How was I going to handle the cleanup after it was over?

Between all of the distractions and the surprise punch to the face, I must have missed seeing the knife until the last moment. It sunk deep into me. Low, directly below my ribs and angled upward into the place where a normal man would keep his liver. The guy had been in fights before. He was a pro. I felt pressure, but not any actual pain.

Then I felt myself becoming very hot and my vision faded to white.

*****

When the numbness went away, I surveyed the scene in the alley. One of the guys – the one who managed to land a punch on my face – was running around the corner of the church screaming. Around me, there was blood all over the ground and even sprayed up onto the wall of the church. The guy whose face I had grabbed was lying prone nearby, his head cocked at an unnatural angle. His neck was clearly broken. It was Red Hat who surprised me most. He was lying at my feet eyes open, mouth frozen in a perverse smile, and throat ripped open. He looked like he’d had a date gone bad with a table saw.

And all I could think of was how long it had been since I’d last eaten.

Part 2
Dear R.,

I can no longer trust my own decisions. As you hear my story you will understand why. Right now, it will be enough to say that I can’t focus, my thoughts are racing, and my emotions are taking over. I’m in no condition to make the sort of decision that’s necessary, and so I’m asking for your help.

I’m putting my unconditional trust in you. In order for that to happen you have to trust me entirely – and the only way that can happen is if you know the truth.

At this point I have no doubt that you believe I’m insane and you might be right, to a point I believe that you’ll hear me out, though; if for no other reason than to find out how far gone I am. I sincerely believe that by the time I’ve said what I have to say, you’ll believe me – if not before then.

Since others are involved, I’m putting their lives in your hands, too. You must never repeat this to anyone. I’m laying a great burden on your shoulders; but you owe me. I don’t need to remind you why.

Just about every form of life begins in an embryonic stage. Interestingly, when we are in our embryonic stage we have two hearts. Two hearts! Can you believe that? This heart primordia, as it’s called, eventually fuses together into one heart with four chambers. Embryologists at the University of Indiana performed an experiment in the 1930s in which they kept the heart primordia from fusing in embryonic frogs. Amazingly, the frogs grew up with two hearts. They had extensive genetic damage, though, and didn’t live very long.

But imagine for a moment that the same thing happened in nature, with greater success. Imagine that the heart primordia never fused in the embryo of an otherwise ordinary man. He could theoretically develop two hearts. Not that farfetched - humans have many redundant organs: two lungs, two kidneys, two eyes.

Are you with me so far?

The body is a system and that system normally runs at full capacity, so the addition of a second heart alone wouldn’t make much of a difference. But there is an added potential. Suppose that this new creature (and I call it that because now we’ve taken a leap of faith and are no longer talking about your unremarkable homo sapiens) also develops a system that can exploit this additional power plant, much in the same way that an athlete can train his body to function at higher levels. It would require larger lungs, or perhaps even a third lung to provide additional oxygen. Other organs might be affected, altered, enhanced or even eliminated. The end result would be a creature possessing unimaginable strength, speed and endurance.

You can see where I’m going with this, can’t you? Such creatures do exist. This is as much of a fact as the sky is blue. I not only believe it, but I can prove it – will prove it – to you, in due time.

I wish that I was there with you now, so that I can more accurately gauge your reaction. I’ll have to rely on your inquisitive nature and assume that you’ll continue reading. Since I’ve told you this much already, I may as well elaborate further.

God, in all his goodness, had gone so far as to create these beings. Then Mother Nature threw in her own cruel little trick. You see, that second heart needs a way to get vital oxygen and nutrients to cells; and that way is through blood. Plasma to carry nutrients and red cells to carry oxygen. Blood is produced in bone marrow and spleen. An average, healthy man is blessed with just enough blood-producing tissue to sustain him. These creatures, however, being approximately the same size don’t have the ability to produce any more blood cells than a normal man. Yet their two hearts continue to feed their bodies in overdrive. Left in that state they would literally starve or suffocate.

Nature is also forgiving. Taking advantage of their physical mutation, they have the ability to absorb plasma and red cells from the ingestion of the blood of other living creatures. The mechanism by which this works is too specific to go into. It wouldn’t interest you anyway. Not at this point.

And so these pseudo-men have evolved, exploiting their superhuman strength and abilities to become the perfect hunter – after all, other living creatures aren’t too keen on the idea of donating their own blood to sustain the lives of these things. I call them things because that’s what “normal” men consider them to be. Fiends. Monsters.

I’m certain that you know what these creatures are. This fabulous, complex, species; homo sanguineous; no less God’s children than their human brothers; hated; abhorred… have come to be called vampires.

But they are real. And I can prove it.

Part 3
There comes a time in every vampire's seemingly endless life when he reaches an age at which he begins to question his choices, doubt his past actions, wonder what mistakes he will continue to make in his future. Call it a midlife crisis. At this point one of two things usually happens. A vampire can accept who and what he is, or he can go insane. The latter more often than not ends in some form of suicide.

Vampires are not truly immortal. I think that a more appropriate term would be un-mortal, if there were such a word. Immortal suggests that they live forever, and that’s just one of many myths about vampires. They are not graced – or perhaps I should say cursed – with eternal life. But they do live a very, very long time. And that leads to the especially worst aspect of being a vampire. They are almost guaranteed to outlive every one they love – the human ones anyway. Think about it: having to experience the death of all of your friends, making new friends, and seeing them die also over and over and over again.

It’s right around the time that they begin to lose their second generation of friends that they realize what’s happened, and worse, that it will happen again. Think about that for a moment, and take my word for it that no matter how many funerals you’ve been to it doesn’t ever get any easier. It helps to believe that there’s an afterlife.

Having your friends die off is only one of the things that a vampire will think of when he hits this age. He begins to think of all the things he’s missed out on. Sometimes he’ll choose to never enter a relationship with a human because he fears what will eventually happen. Then he’ll wonder if he made a mistake by deciding on following that path.

And then he thinks about what he is – what he truly is. What his base instinct and purpose in life is. He feels cheated that he’s had to hide his true self for all of the years he’s been alive and that he’ll have to continue hiding it. He feels resentful that he’ll never be able to do what he really craves, what he hungers after – to hunt – without restraint.

Fulfilling one’s purpose in life is of ultimate importance to every man: vampire and human alike. A person with no aspirations has no reason to go on living. So what is a vampire to do? His core desire, his meaning of life, is considered morally repulsive. Isn’t it? After living amongst humans for most of his life he takes on their values and most vampires agree with acceptable human opinion. How is it that older vampires can hunt so easily with no heaviness on their consciences? It’s during this midlife crisis that they begin to sort things out.

Most vampires, like most mortals, can eventually come to grips with whom and what they are. Some turn to religion. Sometimes it takes a good psychiatrist or regular sessions with a therapist to help them out. For most vampires, this means that they must abandon their empathy with mortals’ ideas of morality. (Not implying that vampires do not have their own set of moral standards.) This greatly increases the contentment with which they can live out the rest of their lives.

The bulk of the remainder can never come to terms with what they are and can never accept what they need to do to achieve peace of mind. All of the inner turmoil eventually takes a toll on them body and soul. It breaks them. There are a lucky few that can recover after a breakdown but the rest end up in institutions or commit suicide. Even among those who are institutionalized some eventually end up killing themselves when they grasp the fact that a natural death and end to the pain is going to come very slowly.

And so the world ends up with a whole bunch of vampires who are either happy or dead. It might sound callous, but the truth is that only elder vampires are happy ones; and while the idea of a bunch of happy vampires living amongst them might not make humans feel completely at ease, it’s a whole lot better than the alternative.

You see… every once in a while, one slips through the cracks. A vampire who goes mad but somehow ends up running loose like a kid in a candy shop. The most dangerous type of vampire that exists – perhaps even more feared than the Nosferatu – is a rogue.

So, how does one deal with a rogue? He must be disposed of. The question is “How do you go about hunting the most perfect hunter that nature has ever produced?”

- kowale