KILLING PEOPLE: The eXile Guide

Contents: Serial Murder   Fight People With Fire   Ubit po-russki   Curing A.D.D.   Kill-o-meter   eXile Editor Not Shot

Killing people is an intricate part of all of our lives-whether we’ve actually done it, or just done it over and over again in our heads. Yet it remains a subject that is seldom discussed openly. We read about killing every day, but always only in the context of “victims” and “culprits”. The newspapers are never talking to us— only about us.     Now, with its groundbreaking Guide to Killing People, the eXile is finally breaking down the wall of silence separating us from our readers. We have decided at last to speak openly about a matter that deeply concerns all of us. You might have thought that you were the only one to wonder how great the distance really is between an idle fantasy and the actual successful murder of a wife or loved one. We’re here to tell you that you are not, and also to help you make sense of your thoughts, and provide advice where we can.     Those jitters you felt the first time? Everyone feels them. And the fact that it was so much easier the second time shouldn’t worry you either, because it is for everybody else, too.     But most importantly, remember this: even if you’re not cut out to be a professional in the field (believe it or not, precious few truly are), there’s no reason at all for you to be missing out on the exciting and fulfilling world of killing.     Seasoned pros and amateur hobbyists alike, this guide is for you.

Interview with a murder victim     Murderers are invariably interrogated about their motives, but too often the victim’s side remains untold. An exclusive eXile interview with Melissa “Missy” Hammond, who was strangled to death on January 27 of this year, provides insight into what it is like on the other end of the most violent of crimes.     Hammond was 25 at the time of the crime and had led a wholly unexceptional life in Oxford, Mississippi. Acquaintances said that she was a popular local hairdresser at the local salon, Southern Beauty. By all accounts, she was attractive.     Her father discovered the body approximately 18 hours after the murder. When he arrived, he also found that Hammond’s 7-year-old daughter had spent the night in the same bed with the victim.     The suspect pool includes her ex-husband Roger Hammond, against whom Hammond had an Order of Protection, her first boyfriend Steve Kirby, and her current lover JP Wallace. However, the victim’s silence makes it more difficult to determine the guilty party.     The eXile met with the deceased in the Yoknapatawpha County Morgue on February 2, the day before her burial in the Oxford Cemetery.           eXile: Good afternoon. Thank you for meeting with the eXile. This must be a difficult time for you.     Hammond:     e: To begin, experts have noted a pattern of silence on the part of murder victims. You haven’t implicated the person who murdered you. Why don’t you want to seek justice for the killer?     H:     e: Does this silence represent a sort of ‘post-mortem empathy’ or is it because you don’t support the death penalty?     H:     e: How would you say that your reaction to being murdered differs from others who have experienced the same thing? Is that based on what you have read or what you have heard first hand?     H:     e: Many people have wondered, “What does it feel like to be murdered?” You are in a unique position to tell us. What were you thinking when the perpetrator first put his hands around your neck? Did you foresee this act of violence?     H:     e: Was strangulation a painful way to die?     H:     e: Do you consider yourself lucky to have been strangled as opposed to, say, shot or stabbed? If you could pick a method by which you were murdered, would you have chosen strangulation?     H:     e: Did your assailant seem to have experience killing? Does it— experience— make a difference?     H:     e: Did you experience clear headedness or were you panicked once you realized that you were being done in, so to speak? Did you struggle?     H:     e: Is it true that in the moments before death, life flashes before one’s eyes?     H:     e: During strangulation, the victim often losses consciousness before dying. Is that consistent with your experience?     H:     e: Let’s talk about after you flat lined. Did you see a bright light, or did things just go dark? What happens on the other side?     H:     e: What was it like for you, knowing that your daughter spent the night next to your lifeless corpse and being helpless to do anything about it? Did you feel like you failed as a mother?     H:     e: Seven is a very impressionable age. Do you worry that your murder and the subsequent night could have lasting effects on your daughter? Some psychologists have linked abnormal behavior such as necrophilia to traumatic experiences with death at an early age...     H:     e: Well, thank you again for your time and insights. You have a big day tomorrow, good luck.     H:

Housecleaning: A Husband's Primer

    Women are more in favor of keeping mandatory drug sentencing laws than men, according to a recent poll on America’s drug war conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
    If that isn’t reason enough to kill your wife, then consider this: her ass adds .00172 cubic inches of gelatinous flesh every day. Its mass expands at a rate 369,249.39 faster than the known universe. And that’s if she’s dieting. Nothing can stop this grotesquerie from spilling over into your half of the $1,200 Serta master bed - a bed whose space she was supposed to SHARE, not steadily steal from you as if you were some credulous Indian succumbing to Manifest Destiny.
    Or maybe you’re just tired of her whiny voice, or watching the wrinkles crease around her mouth and eyes, or you’re sick of her growing tranquilizer habit and hearing about her dissatisfaction with work or her friends whose husbands haven’t had sex with them in four years and eight months (going on nine), a veiled reference to you... You could spend the remainder of your healthy years drawing up a List Of Grievances that would make a Middle Ages petition look positively laconic. But you don’t want to waste any more time.
    So here’s what you do.
    The next time you’re lying awake at three in the morning, listening to her lightly snore, staring at the saggy flesh of her upper arm spilling from the pillow down to the comforter, wondering how you can stand another day, try this little exercise: make your mind and your emotions a blank slate. You feel nothing. You hear nothing. You think about nothing. There is no outer world, and no inner world. No humanity, no individuality. There is nothing. Nothing but the impersonal forces of motion. Sit up out of bed. Don’t worry, you won’t wake her— she’s too whacked out on 10mg Ambiens to hear anything. Go to the kitchen. Pour yourself a shot of whisky. Then take the rest of the bottle, and guzzle it down. Sit in the dark. Stare at the wall. And stare. Open that bottle of J&B Scotch and watch a clock. Watch the second hand. Hear its tick and tock. Hear it echo in the void of your life, in the void of your home.
    Now, find yourself a blunt object. Feel it in your hand. Feel its weight. Is it made of iron? Lead? Steel? If not, go into your child’s room and take the Little League aluminum softball bat from the closet. Kiss your child on the forehead, then quietly close the door and stand in the hallway. With one hand, take a swipe at the air. It feels light, doesn’t it? Probably couldn’t cause that much damage. Hey, betcha it could! Don’t believe me? All right then, let’s shake on it. H’m, wait a sec. How can we test it. I know! Follow me! C’mon, this way. Over here! This way! There, there’s something we can test the bat on. That thing there. Look!
    See that fatty thing with a bluish Kiel’s facial mask splayed out on your Serta bed? It’s pretty soft. Try hitting it. C’mon! Wind up good. Lift the aluminum bat above your head. Or cock it far behind your back. You’re Babe Ruth! Hank Aaron! Jose Canseco! Hit it! Now! HIT IT AS HARD AS YOU CAN! YES! LIKE THAT! AGAIN! NOW, AGAIN! AND AGAIN! Oo, it looks like you’ve opened up a watermelon! That’s because you have! It’s a watermelon, Tom! An evil watermelon! Attached to blubber! Hit it hard! Smash the coconut! Grab it by the husks which resemble frosted hair, set it against the wall, then smash it as hard as you can with the bat! Oo, it splattered more meat. Hit it again! Again! Again! AGAAAAIIIIN! Keep going! Until you’re exhausted!
    ...Wow, that was intense. What a workout! Take a seat on the edge of the bed and catch your breath. Uh-oh, what’s that? It’s your little child asking what happened to mommie. We can’t have that, Tom. We can’t have any witnesses. This is where everything always goes wrong. The child screaming. The 911 call. The police surrounding the house. It always ends with a sniper’s bullet to your head. And your child traumatized for life. Spare your child, Tom. Spare your child the horror.

Serial Murder

    Why become a serial killer? Well, you probably already know the answer to that. There’s your childhood, your failures with women, your arrival at middle age as an utter nobody, someone who will vanish from the earth without so much as a mention in the pages of history. You might even be a successful white-collar employee of some kind, you might even be an expat in a suit working at some Moscow big-six firm, or a staffer at the Moscow Times, but as you’ve probably noticed already, your success here is meaningless, even to you. No one around you derives any joy from your ability to function in society; no one feels any pain at your absence when you’re gone.
    You’ve probably been killing for a long time. Part of you probably wants the attention. You want people to feel all the pain that you feel inside, and then you might even secretly want them to learn in the end that you were that fearsome killer all along, that they underestimated you. You hope that when you’re caught, they’ll see the monster first, the notorious Moscow Ripper, then look again and see plain old Andy McChesney, the real suffering person inside.
    We here at the eXile are here to tell you that this is a mistake. No one will ever want to take a second look at the real you. They find the real you more disgusting than the monster. What this means, ultimately, is that you’re better off staying a monster. And that means not getting caught.
    As you’ve probably already noticed, it is not that difficult to kill large numbers of people serially and not get caught. “There are an enormous number of serial killers, and they’re caught only very rarely,” says sexopathologist Andrei Tkachenko, the director of the Serbsky Institute, which interviews captured Russian serial killers to determine their sanity before sentencing. “Most are caught only by accident.”
    According to Tkachenko, the biggest danger for serial killers is the tendency to feel too secure. “You can get into the habit of not getting caught,” he says. “Some killers get so used to not being caught that they get careless. You’ll see some who’ll start killing in broad daylight. The phenomenon is so common that they sometimes come close to bumping into one another.”
    Tkachenko’s advice is sobering, particularly when you consider the natural advantages you as a serial killer have over other types of murderers. Taking proper care, you could kill literally hundreds of people and never come close to being caught. You should think of it as an intellectual challenge. Too few killers do.
    To that end, here are the eXile’s hints on how to kill people serially and not get caught:
     
    1. Vary your methods. If they don’t know there’s a series, they won’t know to look for a serial killer. Too many killers become wedded to elaborate rituals which tip police off that they’re dealing with a single criminal. Operate on a rotating schedule; gun, knife, bare hands, car, gun, and knife again, etc. They’ll have no idea it’s just one guy.
    2. Stay in one place, but travel. When you move from one city to another and start leaving the same kinds of bodies in each city, police will recognize immediately that they’re dealing with a person who moved from, say, Palo Alto to Moscow. And there may not be too many people fitting that description, if you know what we mean. But of you stay in Palo Alto and, say, vacation in Moscow, the two police departments are not likely to ever put their heads together. Chikatilo took a few train trips to Central Asia, and nobody there was even looking for a serial killer.
    3. Choose different kinds of victims. Here you may come into conflict with your compulsions, and we respect that, but we’re just telling you the facts. Obviously you’ll be wanting to kill people who remind you of your mother or of that one girl you sort of raped in high school and can’t stop thinking about, but when you start leaving trails of people who look a lot alike, it sets off warning bells everywhere. Ted Bundy had this thing about girls with long hair parted down the middle... well, he was an asshole, anyway, but you get the idea. Men and women, young and old, inside and outside, this is the only surefire way.
    4. Pay in cash. Credit cards establish your location in a general area— say, near a certain ski resort. Your personality doesn’t leave any traces, neither should your money.
    5. Don’t join volunteer patrols. You might think that by joining in the search for the killer, you’re throwing police off your trail. You’re wrong. They’re on to that one, and they’re investigating every last volunteer.
    6. Obey the law. Police aren’t looking for serial killers, but they are looking for marijuana users. Stick to beer like most people, and you’ll be fine.
    7. Don’t drink and drive. Your life is precious. Protect it. When you go out to a bar with friends, make sure you have a ride home.
    8. Just act normal. Nobody’s looking for you. And it’s not like you’re the only one.

Fight people with fire

    Why is it that heavily-armed, rage-fueled office and school murderers almost never bag double-digit kill scores when, all things considered, triple-digit body counts should be the norm and four-digit figures the goal? Let’s go over it again: crazed gunman armed with several loaded semi-automatic weapons and sacks of bullet-crammed clips (as well as homemade bombs) enters a small enclosed or semi-enclosed space jam-packed with hundreds of unarmed, untrained and unsuspecting targets... and only manages to kill two, three four targets on average before the ol’ conscience zings him or the pipe bomb fails to go off or whatever the sorry excuse is. It’s as frustrating as watching a kid with a pop gun firing into a bucket packed with hundreds of frogs, and only bagging three ‘phibs in fifteen minutes before dropping the gun, sitting down on a rock and waiting for mommie to punish him.
    We’re here to tell you the reason why the body counts are so low, and how we can all improve our scores and aim a little higher for History’s sake. The secret here is just one word: incendiaries. That’s it. Nothing fancy, folks.
    Say you’re a pissed off teenager who hates his school and everything it represents (after all, a suburban white school is nothing less than a metonymy for America itself). So you decide to bring a few guns and some homemade pipe bombs, and, like Everybody’s Heroes Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of Columbine fame, you decide that the school cafeteria is the closest thing to a barrel that you can shoot your fish in. Stop yourself right here. Instead of entering the cafeteria and giving the fishies a chance to hide under the fold-out tables and benches or escape through the exit, why not just wait until everyone’s sat down with their trays of Sloppie Joes and Lucerne milk, then coolly set a few canisters of gasoline down inside the cafeteria door, slip out, chain the door shut with your bicycle chain, and stand near the other exit or, if there’s no exit, stand in range of the one or two cafeteria windows... as the smoke and fire envelop the cafeteria and the cries of hundreds of cruel-hearted aspiring yuppies, politicians, stock brokers and car salesmen reach a puberty-cracked pitch, cock your weapon and wait for the lucky few to burst through the Last Exit to Oxygen. That’s when you open fire. One by one, they’ll fall. Like fish in a barrel.
    We know it sounds so easy, almost too easy and too obvious, but what we’re after here folks is the High Score. Nobody ever took second place for having an easy opponent.
    If you’re looking for something a little more dramatic, then ditch the pipe bomb (what has a homemade pipe bomb ever done in mankind’s history other than blow off some hapless nerd’s thumb?!) and go for the easiest, tried-and-true bomb of ‘em all: the ammonium nitrate bomb. It worked for Timothy McVeigh, and it can work for you. Ammonium nitrate is a common and legal fertilizer sold at garden stores near you in 50-lb. Sacks. Mix the 34-0-0 ammonium nitrate with fuel oil, attach a blasting cap (Tovex explosive, blasting caps and detonating cord are recommended) and KA-BOOM! You’ve just been Canonized by the United Dissidents of America!
    The same goes with office murder sprees. For some reason, Lucky 7 seems to be the upper limit for most office murder sprees, in spite of the fact that one heavily-armed psycho squares off against dozens or more targets in a completely enclosed obstacle course with little but cloth-and-plastic cubicle walls separating the game from the hunter. We’re not interested in the Whys of the disappointingly low body counts. What we’re interested in is the Hows, as in How To Hit Double Figures in your office shooting spree.
    Again, assuming that you’re planning on taking out a floor or two of your GULAG.com office, why bother hunting each and every individual fish down when you can simply shoot the receptionist (unless she’s really cute, in which case you can keep her for later) , deposit a few 5-gallon canisters of gasoline in the hallway, light them, shut the door, and stand by the elevator picking off anyone lucky enough to crawl through the smoke and flames.
    By the way, if you buy ammonium nitrate, use any pseudonym but “Mike Havens” - this was McVeigh’s, so not only would use of such a name be stupid, you would be remembered as a “copycat” murderer. You’re looking for a High Score here, folks, not for one last Humiliation before you find yourself in an orange strapped jumpsuit.

Kill-o-Meter What kind of killer are you? Are you an intimate one-on-one killer, or do you more comfortable in crowds? Are you good with kids, or is it women who feel your charm the most? Take this simple quiz to find out who you really are.   1. What’s your favorite color? a. Red b. Viscous red c. Crimson d. Niggers and Jews   2. Your wife: a. Is alive b. Was last seen 8 months ago outside of Crate and Barrel c. Is in a crate d. Is in a barrel   3. After a hard day’s work, you like to: a. Relax in front of the TV with your family b. Sit in an idling car outside a school zone c. Go down to your basement, undo the lock on the padded box, and look at your neighbor’s daughter d. Violate your restraining order   4. Children are: a. a turn-on b. tougher than you’d think c. made of string d. fond of candy   5. My favorite car is a: a. Volkswagen Beetle b. Used police car c. Van with carpeted floor and smoked windows d. Volga   6. My mother used to dress me up: a. as a sailor b. in a leather mask c. in my own feces d. as a liver fluke   7. When I go to sleep at night, I hear: a. Shiva, the Hindu God of war b. a slow, dripping sound c. every girl who ever said no to me d. sirens   8. My nine year-old son: a. Has been sleeping around on me, I know it b. Agrees with me c. Is so cute, I just want to hug him d. Has learned to stop asking where mommy went   9. About me, my boss says a. I’m a quiet type b. No one by that name has ever worked here c. Why are you calling me at this hour? d. Please, I have a wife and child   10. I use the internet to a. read about Hitler b. order hard-to-get home building materials c. chat with other swinging Christian singles d. scan the police reports in the Metro section of my local newspaper   How to figure your score: Give yourself: 1 point for every a, 2 for every b, 3 for every c, and 4 for every d. Add up your score. If your total is greater than one, you are a killer. Congratulations!

Ubit po-russki

    You’ve just arrived at Vanya’s place with a tort and a bottle in hand. Maybe it’s his birthday, but probably you just wanted to relax after a tough day at work. You’ve been battling a hangover that no amount of beer could help.
    And now it is just the two of you with some vodka. The first glass is always the toughest, but you drink it like medicine. You don’t even bother with a toast; there’ll be plenty of time for that later. Neither of you touch the tort. You just breathe deeply and wait a moment for enough saliva to wash down the harsh elixir.
    You start to feel better. Normal thoughts return to your head; you no longer live in anticipation. The kitchen comes into focus. How many nights have you and Vanya crouched over a bottle together in this room?
    He poured the first glass, and will set the tempo all night long. Thank god tomorrow is Saturday; tonight you don’t have to worry about any consequences in the morning. Before the next glass gets poured, Vanya grabs a knife to cut the tort. It’s an oversized knife, but it’ll do the job. After the first drink, you can chow all the zakuski you want.
    State radio is playing in the background not so much because you are listening as for atmosphere. You feel pretty good.
    Now you are starting to get a bit drunk. You didn’t notice at first but when you stood up to make another vodka run you had to concentrate on your balance. The bottle is on the floor and now Sveta is home and your Tanya called to say she was coming, so a trip to the store is inevitable.
    You are back with another two bottles. The winter air was exhilarating and besides you know that no matter how many bottles you buy, you’ll still end up running back down again.
    Vanya is gripping your biceps. He squeezes them hare as he tells you what it means to have a friend like you. You feel special.
    You don’t know how you got on the topic, but Vanya is telling you to listen good. His hands are on your shoulders and you reciprocate. Both of you are gripping the other affectionately. You start having tunnel vision. His breath showers you with moisture but that makes you feel closer to him.
    Then he tells you he fucked Tanya, and not just once. Sveta seems shocked and Tanya is silent. Fuck it, you say. You’re friends and that shit happens. But then he repeats it. He is trying to fuck with you.
    He starts telling you how he fucked her last week while you were passed out next to them. You don’t need these details.
    His grip is getting tighter on you or maybe it just seems like that and you know he is just fucking with you. But he won’t shut up and suddenly the knife is in your hand. Then your hand is sticky and you’ve got his heart in it.
    There is still half a tort to be eaten and the girls are screaming.
    There is nothing to do but dispose of the corpse and clean up the blood. Vanya was a big guy and had a lot of blood. The girls aren’t being any help, but you wouldn’t want the blood to drip down to the neighbors’ kitchen. The corpse can probably wait until tomorrow, as long as you put in on the balcony to stay fresh. Now if only those fucking bitches would shut up. At least you are starting to think a little clearer now. Which is why you decide to kill them, even if it means more blood to mop up. Besides, Tanya cheated on you and it wouldn’t be good to leave any witnesses. So you finish what you started.
    Tomorrow, maybe your brother will help get rid of the bodies and clean up a bit. Now, you just want to get some sleep.

Curing A.D.D.

    While the overwhelming majority of the eXile’s editorial staff does not condone child murder, we do believe that if you are going to do it, then you should do it safely and responsibly. Every day children are murdered, and despite all the laws and self-righteous politicians’ calls for ever-toughening measures against child murder, the problem won’t go away. Trying to cover up the problem or not talking about safe and responsible methods of child murder is clearly not the answer.
    So here’s what you do. Take your child by the feet and swing it around the house. Wee-whippee! The child will feel that this is all a game of fun and joy, even though the rank sweat pouring from your body will inspire some unconscious unease and fear. Swing the child throughout the house, moving ever closer to your sliding glass door. Finally, in the wildest swing of all, when the fun and ribaldry are reaching a peak, swing the child head-first into the sliding glass door, smashing both the glass and the child’s head. This will stun the child. On your next swing, bring the child’s neck down on the shattered glass until its head is severed.
    If this sounds too complicated, then we recommend that you take the child for a swim in the bathtub. Tell the child that you will be giving it a “Super-Duper Shampoo”, hold it underwater for ten minutes, then release the child and bury its remains in a field by the railroad tracks at least 20 miles from your home.
    Then call the police, tell them that you were shopping at the local mall, where you and your child were separated. You had noticed an ice cream truck speeding away when you searched outside, but it somehow got away. Mention having seen a homeless person in the vicinity, and chances are, you will be the recipient of numerous letters, gifts, flowers and donations. And if a homeless person is arrested, then you can console yourself in the knowledge that no homeless person is completely innocent of everything. Otherwise they wouldn’t be homeless.
    Good luck, and remember, if you have to do it, do it safely.

eXile Editor Not Shot

    None of the editors of Moscow’s English-language alternative newspaper “the eXile” were shot recently by known or unknown attackers. The editors were not fired upon at their offices in northern Moscow, nor were they shot at near their apartments.
    Police say that there were no shootings in the general vicinity of the editors at any time during recent weeks.
    After the last issue, the eXile editors weren’t shot as they and other employees were leaving their offices on Krasnoarmeiskaya Ulitsa at 4:55 a.m. They did not require hospitalization after the incident didn’t occur, although one editor did report an outpatient visit to a leading Western medical clinic the following weekend. He was treated for topical parasites communicated to him during sex with an anonymous partner.
    The motive for not shooting or attacking the eXile editors was not immediately clear, although police speculate that it’s because no one cares. They found no case shellings and two torn condoms near the eXile office door. A car was reported to have sped away, although there is no motive for its excessive speeding.
    According to witnesses, Matt Taibbi, Mark Ames, Kevin McElwee and Jake Rudnitsky said nothing as they left their offices and walked to Leningradsky Prospekt to hail a taxi ride home. No one said anything to them, and few cars were seen driving past them.
    The eXile is published by Ne Spat, the parent company of Ne Spat magazine, a popular free nightlife journal in Russian.
    The eXile editors are not the first employees of Ne Spat not to be shot or attacked in recent weeks. None of the other employees or owners have been shot either. Two days earlier, Jake Rudnitsky left the office and wasn’t stabbed, while sales manager Dima Kimmelman wasn’t attacked, shot or bludgeoned on the same day or any time over the past several weeks.
    He did not require surgery.
    Eric Kraus, a leading investor in Russia and harsh critic of the Putin regime’s human rights violations, commented that the absence of any violence against the eXile demonstrated that “They are a safe place to park your Russia-designated assets at this time.”
(Combined Reports)