Scary Stories - Contract Killer

A contract killer named Taggart is waiting outside a hotel for his partner, Kilroy, who is always late. They work for a ruthless employer named Detley, and Taggart has long since stopped asking questions about the targets. "Deserves got nothing to do with it," he tells himself. But when Kilroy hands him the file for tonight's job, he is stopped cold: the two photos show an elderly woman and a little boy, no more than four or five, grinning and clutching a tin toy robot.

The job is the job

Taggart has no illusions about his work. He stumbled into killing years ago when his drinking was at its worst and his debts had run too high, finding himself in a literal kill-or-be-killed scenario. "I didn't really take any pride or enjoyment in this line of work," he explains. Word of his skill reached men like Detley—unscrupulous, rich, and connected, with an endless stream of unlucky people who needed doing away with. Kilroy, he has come to understand, is the same: she doesn't flinch, but doesn't take pleasure in it either.