Karma

The snow was red. Blood red, to be exact, and the drops marred the perfect white flakes and wrote a message that would be hidden again by the morning. 

Domino tugged the body onwards, cursing as she did so, dodging the streetlights and slipping into the shadows. She dug her heels into the snow, biting down on her lip, wondering if it was too late to quit and if it was even worth going through all the trouble. She knew that yes, it was too late to quit, and yes, it was worth it, but every cold burst of air cut into her skin like tiny knives, and her socks were already damp and freezing. 

All for the thrill of revenge.

She lifted up the body, shifting her gloved hands’ grip on it, and then threw it into the dumpster. Right where you belong, amongst all of the other trash, she thought, staring into the glassy eyes, the beaten face, and the sticky blood on his neck that hadn’t quite dried yet. She thought he looked rather calm, for someone who had just been murdered. Maybe he had known that she was coming. After all, he had killed his wife, despite the fact that Domino was mentioned every single week in the local newspaper. Every. Single. Week. 

“The Killer Taking Down Killers,” and “Karma In Human Form,” were only some of the articles that the reporters dished out like candy, although she did take a liking to the nickname “Karma,” that the papers had given her. The point is, if you killed anyone in this town, you were going to be dead within a week.

Domino almost admired this man’s guts. 

Not enough to keep her from killing him. 

***

Domino slipped into her apartment room, the door closing behind her with a soft click. A glance over the shoulder, a peek through the drawn curtains, and then she padded to her desk and rolled open the drawer. The notebook she took out could’ve been a journal or for studying purposes. She flipped open the pale green cover, simultaneously feeling around the desk for a pencil. Seven, she wrote, Oscar Flores.

Oscar Flores, the 32-year-old man who had murdered his wife to get with another woman. As soon as Domino got a hold of the news of his wife’s death, she knew it was him. Even before the police.

Something that Domino learned early on: the police didn’t like to look for homicides. Their job was to protect the town that she lived in, and homicides proved that there were people getting past the police’s so-called security. So they settled for anything ordinary that could explain the deaths. A simple mistake from the cook had resulted in rat poison in the food. The victim was just being clumsy and tripped on a knife that someone had left out. The people of the town believed it, so long as they could live in their safe, crime-free neighborhood. 

Then all hell broke loose. 

When they found out that they could get away with murders easily, criminals started flocking to the town. Suddenly, the police were dealing with an unnatural amount of unexplained deaths, deaths that could only be marked as a homicide. But prison wasn’t enough for these murderers. Not in Domino’s eyes. 

That’s where Karma came in, and she carved her name on the foreheads of her victims with pride.

***

Domino sank into her office chair, the instructions and rants of her boss falling on deaf ears. He was standing in her cubicle. So close. If he just turned a little to the right and dragged his gaze up to her computer screen, he would see a news story titled, “Karma Strikes Again! The Newest Update on Nameless Creek’s Serial Killer”. 

Finally, he turned and left, closing with the normal, “I want that [whatever he had just been talking about] on my desk by Monday,” and pumping Domino’s lungs with relief.  

“Yeah, of course, sir,” she replied, her attention already sucked back into her computer. Rage was like a belt, slowly tightening around her chest, pushing her past interaction with her boss from her mind. The news reporters were treating her like a monster. She was solving all of the town's problems! She was saving the town from murderers and giving them the justice that they deserved. She should be honored as a hero, not as a villain. 

Domino scanned the article, her knuckles turning white as she gripped her pencil. It wasn’t even about Oscar, it was about the woman she had killed before him. How could she be viewed as evil but the woman dismissed as merely a victim? That woman had murdered her two children in cold blood, but no, they had just drowned in their bathtub. Two innocent children, their eyes open yet unseeing-

SNAP. She looked down at her hand. What once was only one pencil was now two, each missing one of their other parts, whether the lead or the eraser. Two more clicks and she was on the homepage of the news website, the broken pencils still in her hand. Eyes scanning the articles, she found the one of interest. 

A man was found dead in an alleyway, covered in blood gushing from a gaping hole in his chest. The police force wanted everyone to know that they were safe in this town, to hell with how they were going to get away with marking it as yet another mistake. 

Domino dumped the pencils into the garbage, pulling out a fresh one and scribbling down on a piece of paper the basic information from the case, then stowing it away so as to never be poked at by a coworker's prying eyes. Easy work, she told herself, You should be hiding the body before the police even conduct an investigation. 

For the rest of the workday, Domino let her fingers fly over the keys, staring at the black text filling the screen like a zombie. She downed a few cups of coffee and hid her investigation window behind her work one, checking in on it every few seconds like an alcoholic going back for another drink.  

She pressed on the gas pedal with her foot, only letting loose her swirling thoughts once she had left her workplace far behind. Gavin Howell was the victim, and right now Domino’s top three suspects were his best friend, who was the last person to see him before he died, his ex-girlfriend, who broke up with him hours before he was killed, or his sister, who he had cut contact with a long time ago. That was only the information that she had got from browsing news articles. If she could see the body for herself…Domino made a U-turn and headed towards the crime scene. 

There weren’t even any police officers there, as expected. Oh no, scary yellow tape! Domino thought, climbing out of her car. It’s not like I can just duck under it and break into the crime scene! 

She checked for security cameras and then proceeded to do exactly that.

The body was not a gorgeous sight. Dried blood was caked around the brutal wound in his chest. You could see his few unbroken ribs, his punctured and charred lungs. “Somebody really hated this guy,” Domino muttered. 

She couldn’t even tell what type of weapon had been used, the body was mangled so bad. She took a step back, sucking in the air tainted with the smell of death. Who could have done this? Not his best friend, for sure. According to the article, they had both gotten drunk and parted ways in the middle of the night. This work - bloody and twisted as it was - was so precise, only the soberest person would be capable of perfecting it. 

That left the girlfriend or the sister. Domino chuckled. “‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’” She turned on her heel and left the scene. There was much more work to be done. 

***

Music filled the apartment room, bumping up against the walls and reaching out to the windows. Domino’s fingers danced on the piano keys, moving fluidly as she pieced together a melody. Oscar ran, so she had no choice but to shoot him. A minor chord in the left hand, move the right hand up an octave. The bullet went straight through his head. Her fingers crashed down on the keys suddenly, like waves crashing against the beach. She took his body and slit his throat. 

Domino stopped cold, the last chord that she had played still hovering in the air. She forgot to mark the body. 

Every single person she killed, she marked by carving “Karma” into their foreheads. It was how she let everyone know that it wasn’t just a regular murder. 

Sweat traced a cold finger down her skin, but she resumed her music, pushing her worries aside. It will work in your favor, she reassured herself. They will think that you’ve stopped killing people, and when they are left with another wave of murderers, they will realize that they need you. She slammed the piano cover shut and stalked to her desk.

She typed into her computer search bar: Gavin Howell, and immediately loads of results came up, nothing that revealed anything that she didn’t already know. She scrolled down, the dim glow of the computer screen illuminating the frustration on her face. How many news sources were needed to cover this story? They weren’t putting out any new information, and everyone knew that he was dead, for Christ’s sake! If Domino had a dime for every time they tried to stretch out the details of his death long enough to make a good news story, she’d be rich as hell! 

She took a deep breath and scrolled down even further. 

A story caught her eye, one that was dated twenty years ago. She squinted and clicked on the title. 

The story explained everything. It wouldn’t have been more clear if they had changed the title to: “Here’s the Killer, Domino!!!” Her brain skipped over a few of the longer paragraphs because she was antsy from excitement, but she got the main idea. Gavin’s parents had died from a terrible car crash, leaving only him and his older sister alive. He had run from the scene before the authorities could arrive. 

Domino grinned, navigating back to the original news article about his death. 

Gavin’s sister was interviewed, explaining her past relationship with her brother. “We have been out of contact for a long time … I guess we just never really spoke to each other, after our parent’s death. Now I wish we had.” 

What a great way to build up resentment towards somebody, spending years and years ignoring each other and having to deal with grief on your own! No wonder the sister had finally snapped and killed Gavin. 

Domino knew that she had the answer in her grasp, but there was no harm in double-checking. As she performed the complex ritual of hacking, she let her mind wander. Imagine a world without murderers. Everyone would be peaceful. Of course, there would always be other ways to commit crimes … well, she would get to that later, she supposed. She could already imagine the clean-cut to the throat, or maybe a stab directly over the heart. Perhaps she could experiment with new techniques this time- But it doesn’t matter how you kill them, she scolded herself. This is for the people. It’s for creating a better world. However, perhaps you could try suffocation-? 

Ah! She was in. Domino shook her head, her smile only growing wider. Why were hardware store websites so easy to hack? She scrolled through the complex format, picking out each detail and eventually finding the list that she needed. 

Only it wasn’t the right name. 

No, the purchase - of an ax and a shovel, that’s how she made the murder so brutal - was under the name Felicity Stark. That was Gavin’s girlfriend’s name. The name of his sister was Alexis Howell. 

The purchase was supposed to be made by Alexis if she had killed Gavin. 

Domino ran a hand through her tightly curled hair. So the girlfriend killed him. But- it makes sense, she realized. Felicity had broken up with Gavin, not a day before. She wouldn’t be surprised if he had cheated, and, 

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” Domino whispered. 

***

Felicity was staggering through the streets, beer bottle in hand. She was grinning, and the dim street lights bounced off of her glittering smile. The smile of a killer. Domino knew it all too well. 

It was an easy kill. Domino strangled Felicity with the rope she had bought from the hardware store three hours beforehand. Felicity’s eyes widened as she looked upon the last face that she would ever see: the face of death. 

The face of revenge.

The face of Karma. 

***

Harley tracked down his victim immediately. Why she would be so stupid as to walk around alone in the middle of the night, he didn’t know, but he did know one thing: this person had killed Oscar Flores. What better way to start off his new journey than with the killer of his stepbrother?

He didn’t care that much about Oscar - didn’t care much about anyone, really, if he was being honest - but that wasn’t the goal here. The goal, the main idea, was to rid the world of the murderers and serial killers that were terrorizing the population. Soon the idea would spread. It had already been publicized by his idol. He could see the newspaper article in his mind: “Karma Strikes Again! The Newest Update on Nameless Creek’s Serial Killer”. The journalists didn’t understand now, but one day they would. One day, everyone would join them in their fight to kill everyone who has killed. It’s for the people. 

And maybe a little bit for the satisfaction of the feeling of the blade sinking into skin. 

It had been fairly easy to find Domino Jones. Upon further inspection of the body, Harley had found that the throat wound had only been a coverup for a bullet to the head. He had also found the gun and stashed it away before the police could use it as their own evidence and get Domino behind bars before he could get her cold body buried in the ground. 

After that it had only been a matter of hacking into websites that weren’t built for his skill, breaking into homes whose locks should have been replaced ages ago, and matching fingerprints on the gun with those in the homes. Finally, after surprisingly little trial and error, he stumbled upon a small apartment building that was covered in fingerprints that matched those on the gun. The gun had been bought five days ago at a nearby arms store by a woman named Domino Jones. 

Harley smiled to himself, already imagining Karma’s reaction to the latest news for their small town: “New Serial Killer Terrorizes Nameless Creek!” 

Domino didn’t even have time to scream before he plunged a knife into her back.