A naked man stood amidst the autumnal, pre-dawn forest, as if in a trance. At regular intervals, he scattered damp earth over his bare footprints, retreating… from the body. From the crucified, flayed, and blood-drained body, nailed to an inverted wooden cross. Around the corpse, organs extracted from it were laid out in a perfectly symmetrical circle. This was a ritual — one known only to him and, in his mind, entirely righteous.

He finally stepped onto fallen leaves that concealed his bare footprints, raised his head, and seemed to admire the ‘masterpiece’ he had created — an ideal performance comprehensible only to him. Slowly, the man turned and walked straight ahead, neither veering onto a trodden path nor glancing to either side. Straight ahead. He still needed to drop by work.

***

An older man entered — or rather, slid like a shark — into the meeting room, where his drowsy colleagues, groggy from the early wake-up, had been waiting for him for several minutes. In one hand, he carried a thin blue folder so insubstantial it seemed empty; in the other, a cup of strong coffee, his lifeline for staying alert.

His face and physique reflected the toll of chronic illness: a gaunt frame, dark purplish bags under his fatigued, sleep-deprived eyes, and sunken cheeks from stress and malnourishment. Completing his disheveled image were a rumpled, once-white shirt, now gray with age, a hastily knotted tie, and ill-fitting black trousers. Together, they defined Inspector Ashford, the chief investigator in the ‘Flayer’ case.

He stopped at the center of the room, placing the folder delicately on the table, then sipped his coffee. Behind him, a large wall clock displayed 4:15 AM.

Inspector Ashford scanned the faces in the room, lingering slightly on me — the new recruit in the ranks of law and order. From my very first day here, he’d disliked me. He spoke to me as if I were trash, judged everything I did with a look of disdain, and no matter how much I tried to connect with him, it was futile. Unlike my colleagues, I could never find common ground with him. He considered me unworthy of being here, among them.

After a moment of silence, he finally began to speak. His voice was calm, his tone measured, unhurried, as if certain that neither we nor the Flayer could escape him. His words were precise, and because he rarely spoke, we hung onto every syllable, etching them into our memories:

“Good morning, colleagues,” he said, clearing his throat: “I know you’re not thrilled about a 4 AM wake-up call, but such is our job. I hope you haven’t forgotten our ‘friend.’ Let me remind you — his, or..her name is Flayer. And he or she causing us a lot of…trouble.”

As he spoke, his fingers tapped the table in rhythm with his words, his gaze fixed on a map—a murder map, a record of grotesquely meticulous killings. A red thread connected the first body to the most recently discovered one. The map showed nothing else: no murder weapons, no DNA traces, no evidence of the Flayer’s presence — except the unmistakable signature at each scene.

From the neck to the genitals, the victim’s bodies were slit open, gutted like livestock. Organs were arranged in a circle around the corpse. The victim’s scalps were on one side, hair on another, and teeth, eyes, and nails were neatly set apart. Blood was perfectly drained into metal buckets, and the victims were always hung upside down.

One body hung from a tree branch, tied with sturdy rope; another was welded to a lamppost. The latest victim, found just yesterday, was nailed to an inverted wooden cross — eerily reminiscent of the Biblical story but reversed, as though mocking the faithful. Through this macabre tableau, the Flayer seemed to taunt us: “Like what you see?”

The Flayer dismembered their victims with precision, as if treating them like livestock, yet left nothing for themselves. At first glance, the victims seemed unconnected — just random unfortunates. Many believed this, even I did initially. But not Inspector Ashford. He sensed a pattern, though whether he hadn’t yet deciphered it or was keeping his thoughts to himself was unclear. Either possibility suited him.

“Today, we’ve been granted a rare opportunity…”

I erupted into a fit of coughing, the kind you can’t suppress. My cheeks flushed red as I struggled to stifle it, covering my mouth with my hand.

When I regained composure, every pair of eyes in the room was on me. Inspector Ashford’s gaze, however, bore into me with such disapproval that I felt ashamed of myself. Swallowing a quiet “sorry,” I shielded my side view with my palm, and he resumed speaking:

“So here’s the thing... the police gave us permission to look at the crime scene and the body itself,” at that moment, hearing those sweet words for each of us, my eyes nearly rolled back, despite the fact that just a couple of seconds ago, I had nearly died from a choking cough. “Finally! The police allowed it! That means the case has hit a dead end!” — I’m more than sure that when I heard those words and these thoughts flashed through my mind, I smiled, but now I can't remember if it was a light smile or if I was grinning from ear to ear.

“Now, everyone present in this room needs to gather their spirit and body. In a couple of hours, we’ll have to face something that will leave a permanent mark in your memory, just like every one of our investigations. I’m giving you ten minutes to get ready. The girls are coming too. Move.” he waved his hand arrogantly toward the exit, giving us all unmistakable hints about what we should do and how quickly.

It’s probably already obvious, but you’ve likely figured it out by now, I’m not from the police, not an official investigator or cop. I work for an organization whose name I’m not allowed to announce or share because I signed a whole bunch of papers, you know, of a particular nature. The only thing I can say is that this organization operates in two directions: individuals and groups. The first are called the Trackers, the second — we — are B.E.O.M. (Brigade for the Elimination of Monsters). Monsters, in the context of our organization, are people who pose a direct threat to others. I’m not talking about the seriously ill or violent patients from psychiatric hospitals, or the criminals who constantly put their heads in the noose — no, that’s the police’s job. We hunt for bigger prey than ordinary people with a damaged psyche. We track and eliminate real monsters, those who have lost all human essence, those who’ve crossed a line worse than any animal, those who kill for fun, those who aren’t troubled by guilt — if they even remember the meaning of the word. They look like you and me, like regular people; they go to work, have loving families, money, they also have a daily routine and problems. It could be your neighbor from downstairs who sometimes comes to borrow salt, or the sweet old lady who sits on the bench near the entrance every evening watching the kids play, or it could be a schoolboy with a lot of friends. It could be anyone from your family, and you’d hardly recognize a monster in them if you have no experience or deep knowledge in psychiatry.

Our organization, specifically the B.E.O.M. subgroup, only accepts those who have honorably served in any field related to law and order. And when I said I’m the youngest of those present, I wasn’t lying. I’m thirty-two, and I’m surrounded by people much older than me. So, Inspector Ashford is already nearly sixty, but he keeps himself healthy; his job, though stressful like everyone else’s, only makes him tougher. Newcomers rarely join us; most simply don’t know about us, and others fail to pass the selection process.

The police come to us like private detectives, like sniffer dogs. Even though they pretend to despise us and our work, deep down, they come to us with great hope for help, which we are more than happy to provide. They turn to us like an inexperienced student does to an old master, hoping for advice, though they would never admit it. But today, we were very lucky: it's rare to encounter truly shocking murder cases, and even rarer to come across mass cases. My favorite case, for me, was of a little boy who had no name. A wonderful case. It shows a real monster as he is and should be. He’s a cannibal, a cruel manipulator, who, from the very first day in the foster family, forced them to join in. He responds to any name, knows everything about the human body: what’s tasty, what’s not, how to prepare it, etc. He was treated at a good child psychiatry clinic, but it ended with him killing the girl he “befriended,” as the doctors thought at first, and then eating her eyes after giving her a lethal dose of sleeping pills. One of the Trackers had started watching him recently, but we hadn’t received any news from him about the case, except for his order for B.E.O.M. not to get involved. But with the arrival of the Flayer, and especially Inspector Ashford, who had become obsessed with him recently, all our attention was focused on him. Not a day passed without him contemplating this issue, holding meetings about the Flayer, discussing the case details that sometimes slipped through our hands. He said that the Flayer was the most important case of his career, and that he had never heard or seen anything as unique as this case since “Patient №1095” (as the main doctor called the boy in her blog. It’s an interesting read, check it out, you won’t be disappointed).

Having gathered all the necessary things that might come in handy, I stepped outside and got behind the wheel of an ordinary, unremarkable car, where Inspector Ashford and a couple of my colleagues were already waiting. The rest got into other cars, just as ordinary as ours. We drove for a long time, bypassing fields and meadows that embraced small settlements with old wooden houses in their vast valleys, passing small towns. After two hours, we entered the forest we had received a lead on today. All we had left was to take our tools, put on our caps to keep our hair away from the crime scene, and follow the coordinates where our smaller comrades were already waiting for us.

Stepping onto the rough, fallen leaves, which were abundant just at the beginning of autumn, we — three men, a woman, and Inspector — walked, which would seem normal for ordinary people, but not for our Flayer. It was strange. We moved in a perfectly straight line from the forest exit directly to the crime scene. I caught up with my boss, who, from his usual leisurely pace, switched to a quicker stride.

“Ash, did you notice that our Flayer is quite the perfectionist?” I said to him, slightly out of breath. “He goes to every crime scene at exactly ninety degrees; everything is arranged as if by a ruler, it’s all done too perfectly.”

“Strange that you’re only noticing this now, kid, and don’t call me ‘Ash,’ for you, I’m Inspector Ashford, understood?" He stepped aside from me as if I were contagious. Maybe my cough had caused this reaction.

This meant that our conversation was over. “Well, at the scene, I’ll show you evidence so shocking that you won’t be able to close your jaw, old man,” I thought, but all I could manage was an annoyed glance directed straight ahead.

“Finally, what took you so long?” one of the police officers extended his hand to Inspector, but he didn’t even look at him. He immediately began inspecting the scene...a scene that no photograph could convey. It's different when you see it in person. I was certain that my boss couldn’t believe his eyes. A thought must have crossed his mind, something like: “A regular person couldn’t have done this, no way...” But I knew for sure it was done by a person. Only our race is capable of such cruelty. Only we can hunt deer not for the thrill of the chase or the process itself, but to enjoy the loud shot that hits the ear and leaves an echo in the head, followed by a soft entry into the body... or perhaps... even into a person? And then finish it off with an orgasmic sensation as the body slams into the ground with a dull “thump.”

It was mesmerizing to look at this creation, and I enjoyed the fact that ‘Ash’ was feeling the same. He stepped closer and was about to touch the body, but his trance-like state was broken, though not immediately:

“Stop, don’t touch it!” one of the police officers shouted, seeing Ashford’s hand reaching toward the body. “Stop!” He rushed to the boss and forcibly pulled him away from the crime scene.

Inspector Ashford immediately snapped out of it and began wriggling free from the cop's grasp.

“Let me go, what’s your problem? I wasn’t touching anything! Let go!” He finally broke free from the man in the blue uniform and pushed him away as if he were some kind of dirt on his shoe. This was his usual state, but now it was too much, even for him. He was waving his hands and angrily shouting, ordering that no one touch his people. And just to prove that the cop had almost left a handprint on the body, it only irritated him further. “I wasn’t going to touch her, am I crazy or stupid in your eyes? Idiots!”

“Enough,” the senior sergeant, who had been quietly observing the scene, spoke up. His voice immediately commanded everyone's attention. It was deep and rough but calm, which inspired respect and unquestionable obedience: “Are you children or what?”, he began deliberately approaching Inspector Ashford: “I think you're forgetting yourself a little,” he said. As he stepped in close, towering over him, the tension in the air was palpable. It looked intimidatin —almost oppressive. I used to think no one could stand taller than my boss, but the sergeant's solid figure even made Inspector scale back his demeanor slightly: “Don’t forget, we called you here. We decide what’s acceptable and what’s not. And if we choose, not only will you leave empty-handed, but your entire little organization will never again have access to any of our investigation materials”, his voice was low, but that only made the threat more chilling. Staring straight into Ashford’s eyes, he waited for a moment, then delivered the final blow: “Do you understand me?”

Inspector just scoffed and turned back to the body. We returned to work. I crouched by the loose soil, glanced around, and stepped slightly away from the scene of the murder.

“The soil. It’s loose,” I remarked, not directing my observation at anyone in particular.

Inspector Ashford responded, “I can see that myself. Odd that we haven’t trampled it all yet. This loose soil seems to form a circle around the body, and then it transitions into leaves.”

“So, he deliberately cleared the area, did what he needed, and then covered his tracks. But on the leaves, there’s nothing because-”

“Because,” my boss interjected with an odd emphasis: “He was barefoot. Very clever. Impressive.”

I couldn’t help but smile. For the first time, we were having a normal conversation. Problems bring people closer, they say. But my smile faded when I heard an excited and hopeful voice call out: “Inspector Ashford, quickly, come here!”

It was , kneeling and inspecting something on the ground. I decided not to approach, as did the rest of my colleagues. After all, she had specifically called for ‘Ash’, so it was best to let him see for himself. Watching his reaction from the corner of my eye while chatting with the police, I realized there was nothing particularly extraordinary there.

“Who found the body, by the way? None of the data you provided mentions that.”

“It was the local forester. Turns out, he knew the victim well — since elementary school, actually. She was a devout Christian. And honestly, that leads us to believe that none of these victims are connected. Think about it, what reason would he have to kill such a good person? This suggests one thing: he didn’t know any of his victims. The first was a loving father, a good husband, an excellent neighbor, about whom no one had a bad word to say. The second was a primary school teacher—an ambitious young woman, an ideal daughter, and a future bride. The third was — ...wait, I’m forgetting something...”

“I heard about the third one,” someone interjected: “Evening news said he was some kind of philanthropist. Important guy, well-known in certain circles.”

“Exactly. And now, the fourth is her.”

“And they’re all paragons of society,” I heard Inspector Ashford’s raspy voice behind me.

“But that’s not it. I think there’s something much deeper here.”

“I assure you, it’s just some psychopath who doesn’t care who he kills. And he’s incredibly skilled at it. I’ve never seen anything like this in my career. Right, Bob?”

The big guy just grunted and nodded weakly.

***

Over the past few days, I had unwittingly grown closer to my boss. He started taking an interest in my thoughts about the case, sharing his own theories, and even suggested we visit the victims’ relatives together to learn more about them and understand why the Flayer was killing. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t just an ordinary monster — he was unique. And I found that appealing.

Donning police uniforms and grabbing our fake IDs, we hit the road. We decided to start with the first victim and work our way down the line. We spoke with everyone — relatives, friends, acquaintances, coworkers, neighbors. It was meticulous work that required catching every word, knowing how to talk to people to extract the right information. And Inspector Ashford excelled at it.

“Do you happen to know why your husband left his job? Or if he worked somewhere else? Hmm, I only have information that he was a chef at a well-known restaurant, but we went there today and interviewed his colleagues. They said he left two years ago — two years before his death.”

Before he could say more, the grieving woman, who moments ago had been tearfully describing what a wonderful man her husband was, how their children would miss him, suddenly changed her expression and told us to leave her house and never return.

This reaction might have shocked me if Ashford hadn’t already told me that the head of this family was involved in shady dealings with a drug cartel. When his business was struggling, he resorted to kidnapping and murder to achieve his goals. His cartel flooded the market with their product at extremely low prices, which had a devastating impact on the country and its society. Drug addiction spread like wildfire, ruining relationships, families, and lives. Domestic disputes escalating into murders became alarmingly frequent. The police couldn’t keep up. He did terrible things — and he was punished for them.

The cartel’s operations were meticulously hidden, but my boss has a knack for sniffing out such things. However, this case was simpler than it seemed. He had been betrayed by an associate who let something slip after a bottle of cheap booze in a shady bar. We tracked him down through a lead provided by a very intriguing informant who had entered the picture just a few days after the last body was discovered.

I was surprised when Inspector decided to verify the information, especially since the letters sent to him were handwritten, with no return address — clearly delivered directly to his mailbox. It puzzled me that he trusted a person he’d never met, but I was less surprised when the informant turned out to be correct.

What caught me off guard was how the informant seemed to guide us from one person to the next as if he knew every move we’d make in advance. It even crossed our minds that this informant might be the Flayer himself. But why would he do this? If it were him, it would mean he was helping to solve his own case while ensuring his identity remained hidden. It didn’t make sense. Too risky.

A few days later, ‘Ash’ received another letter, specifying who to talk to about the second victim. Notably, the letters contained no extraneous details — just the address, name, and age of the person to interview. Each envelope was marked with a sequence number: №1, №2, №3, and so on — following the order of the murders. That same day, we set out. Our next step was to investigate the schoolteacher. Her name was Cassandra. Yes, Cassandra.

***

“Did she...?” Inspector Ashford gently held the small hand in his palms, softly rubbing the crimson bruises and hematomas.

“She hit me… yes, it hurt a lot.”

A little girl. Blonde hair, blue eyes as clear as the summer sky — so naive, yet now filled with tears. We sat at the family’s table. We had asked her parents to leave us alone for a while to ‘question’ the girl.

It turned out that the young, ambitious, and seemingly kind teacher, as others described her, was quite the monster. She beat children even for the smallest mistakes, terrorized them, and threatened them with every imaginable punishment to ensure they kept quiet. She enjoyed their suffering. When they cried, she hit them harder. She tormented them — and found immense satisfaction in it. But she was punished.

***

Last night, I woke up unable to breathe. I couldn’t take even the smallest, most desired gulp of air, it just escaped my lungs as a tearing cough. I kept coughing and coughing, each spasm making it feel like my head was about to explode. Then… something warm and sticky dripped onto my palm, which had been covering my mouth. My head swam as I barely managed to reach for the bedside lamp.

The flickering light momentarily blinded me. The world swirled in front of me.

“Dammit...”

Cold sweat broke out on my face. The last thing I saw was the blood on my hand — warm and sticky. How many times have I seen it now?

***

“What a bastard…” muttered Ashford as he flipped through the bank accounts and receipts of the third victim, the so-called philanthropist.

As it turned out, he was no philanthropist at all. All the charity work, the employment of the homeless, the investments in hospitals and veterinary clinics — it was all just for the cameras. In reality, he was funding weapons and sending money to war zones, supporting aggressor nations. There are many wars on this planet, giving him plenty of opportunities to wreak havoc. And he was punished.

“See, I told you there was a connection!” The boss leapt out of his chair, wagging his index finger.

“I have lung cancer… inoperable.”

The finger dropped, and his head turned slowly toward me as I methodically sorted papers into neat stacks. Everything perfectly aligned, as I like it — and as anyone in our profession does.

After a few moments of stunned silence, he finally asked: “When did you… find out?”

“A month ago. When it was already inoperable. I’m dying, Ash. I’ve got, at best, three months left — if I’m lucky.”

He slumped, visibly shaken: “I’m so sorry, son,” he approached me and placed a fatherly hand on my head, stroking my hair before stepping back: “Will you come with us?”

“Of course. This investigation distracts me. It helps me forget about my illness. So yes, I’ll go with you.”

“Then pack your things.”

***

To learn more about the latest victim, the boss and I visited the forester who had found her. Talking to him wasn’t exactly polite or friendly, but we uncovered what Ashford probably already suspected.

She was a Christian, had a long and stable marriage — but cheated on her husband at least ten times, including with her former classmate, the forester. Outside of public view, her life didn’t align with her righteous image: drugs, alcohol, infidelity. She beat her children, constantly fought with her husband, and had run-ins with the law. She was punished.

The scene fit perfectly. From Ashford’s expression, I knew he understood the performance. The overturned wooden cross told a story. It questioned, “Is this what a God-fearing person should be?” It was a lesson for others — and he got it.

The click of handcuffs on my wrists didn’t surprise me.

***

“When did you start suspecting me?” I asked with a faint smile.

“Back when you referred to the killer as ‘he.’ We had no confirmation of the killer’s gender, but you were so sure. At first, I thought it was just a slip, but when you said you’d seen the third victim on TV… that case was never broadcast. They didn’t want to scare the public,” he continued: “And when you revealed your cancer, everything fell into place. The hair we found at the scene matched your DNA. You were the informant too, weren’t you? I don’t know why you did it, but you did it well. Did you think you could fool me?”

“No. I wasn’t trying to. I just wanted the killer to intrigue you. To intrigue you with me. And it worked, didn’t it?”

“Damn you. How could I let my organization, dedicated to destroying monsters like you, accept someone like you?!”

“That depends on how you see it. All my murders had a pattern, a reason. I rid society of rotten individuals beyond redemption. Isn’t that what we do? Why am I the only monster here?”

“Because we operate quietly. We don’t care about societal scum; we kill those like you. You lost your way, Max. Knowing you didn’t have long to live, you lost your fear of death. But punishment is coming.”

The thin, elderly man drew his pistol and placed it on the table.

“Playing Russian roulette?)” I quipped, my voice tinged with irony.

“No. There’s only one bullet, and it’s yours.”

He watched me intently as I reached for the pistol. I held it, twisted it, aimed it at him. He didn’t even flinch.

“I just wanted to do the right thing…”

The shot rang out. My sickly body slumped to the side, and the gun clattered to the metal floor.

***

Today, there’s one less monster in our society. But we must remember — he was neither the first nor the last.