The Serial Killers Guide to Love (Deadly Darling #1)

Chapter 1

1

Sam

Before the lights go out

For the longest time I was sure that there was nothing like killing.

That feeling of warm blood rushing out of the frail human body.

The anticipation.

The need. The release.

That God-like split second when my prey looks into my eyes and knows that I have the power over life and death, a power I take and use without regret or remorse. When my knife cuts into the soft virgin tissue, slides deep into the thorax, between the ribs and opens their heart for me.

My own heart races and makes me forget how to breathe and the only thing I can hear is the wild roaring of my own blood. Same calls out to same and my blood mourns the loss and rejoices in the celebration.

I feel that way only when I kill but I discovered that I feel the same way when I sit in front of my laptop and type the password in to see Her.

Watch Her without Her knowing that I am here, always, one step behind Her. I need to consciously calm my heart, and focus on my breathing with my eyes closed, before watching her again.

Pulling the drawer open, I take that silky, blue scarf she loves and inhale her scent, allowing it to tickle my brain through all my senses.

I stole that scarf from Her. One day, when she was gone, I slid inside her house and couldn’t leave without a token. Something that I could hold between my fingers and that made me feel even more connected to Her.

I am not a stalker, but a killer. At least that’s what I tell myself as I sit in front of the monitors that show me the feed from the cameras in Her house.

I only watch Her, my neighbor from across the street.

Objectively speaking, she is not the most beautiful woman that I have ever seen, but she’s a mystery. The chaos element in my so organized and neat life. She fascinates me on a deeper level, and I can’t escape the desire to research this feeling. I want to cut myself open and follow my veins, the road of the blood and find answers for why she is inside my mind and I can’t get Her out.

I am the scientist and the research object, because she is the stimulus that creates an unknown reaction inside me and as much as I like to tell myself that this is only chemistry, that my brain is flooded with dopamine and that these are my lower urges speaking about mating, I can’t control it and it frustrates me to no end.

I search for an answer, my gaze focuses on the screen again.

Her face flickers over the feed and I can’t stop myself from inhaling sharply, the same way I did this morning when I saw her standing next to her truck. Her scarf is in my hand, holding some of her scent.

Time was still and I could sense Her presence, like the predator I am and always will be.

For a split second, I wished I could just take the few steps, cross the street that divided us and talk to Her.

But what could I say?

Should I tell Her that I love the way she talks to her flowers and that I am fascinated by Her taste in books, even though I think that she needs a few recommendations from me?

Should I tell Her that I have a tracker installed on her car and a spy app on her phone.

That would probably scare Her.

That is not normal behavior.

I know what is normal, it took me a long time to study normal people and I learned to cosplay as a regular man.

An average Joe would go over and invite her out for coffee or beer. Even though I love coffee, I have never seen any appeal in numbing my senses with alcohol. Why are normal people doing this to themselves?

I don’t drink, but She is my poison and drug of choice. I am not sure that I could live without my daily dose of it. This morning when I saw her across the street, I stood there in my driveway, numb and incapable of taking any action. Her smile touched her eyes when she saw me. She had that unique, sincere smile that I only saw on her face when it was addressed to me. For no one else.

Was she thinking what I am thinking?

But what would happen next?

I read books about love, about soul-shattering passion that even with my best efforts I couldn’t understand. Why would a sane person abandon themselves for another?

That was dumb, and still, when it came to her, I felt it, that need to slice anything open that would be a threat to her.

Even now, as I watch her, I can recall the warmth that radiated from her as she waved back

She waved and I waved back.

She’s perfect and untouched by my brand of darkness, and I would never push her down the slope that is my blood-stained world.

But that wave. I watched her fingers touch the air and wished for a second it would touch my face.

That was the pinnacle of our interaction since she moved in across the street from me–five months, two weeks, and two days ago.

My time is divided in before and after Her.

Before her, things were simpler. My love for blood and books filled my days and nights with excitement. There was no doubt or fear. I had a sense of deep calm as my life was predictable.

She moved through the greenhouse, and I can’t stop myself from zooming in.

Lilly. Such a simple name for such a complex creature. Not that I don’t know Lilly’s schedule, but there are layers of her that I want to peel back until all that is left is the pure essence of her. Initially, I asked myself if I want to stray away from my set of rules that forbids me to kill innocents and if the desire I experienced was of feeling my knife stick into her chest, but thinking about harming her is something that my mind and body rejects.

I want to understand her, and in this way I want to understand what makes me so irrationally attracted to her.

This morning when I saw her, I tried to tell myself again that there was nothing special about her. Her smile, with the teeth that always showed and pressed on her lower lip, her brown wild hair with highlights that caught the sunshine.

The way her curvy hips swing in that wide, long, crazy, colorful skirt she was wearing, that was mismatched with a blue t-shirt that had earth stains on it from her work with the flowers.

And still, there was nothing that I could say, no objective critic my mind could come up with that would distract me from my desire for her.

Was she even aware that she and her bright self, with the red lips and dark-rimmed eyes, was turning into a beacon of light for a creature of the shadow like myself.

I don’t attract attention. When I moved to the suburbs of Miami, I made sure to let people know that I am a grieving widower. After a few attempts by the neighborhood MILF at catching me into their net of seduction misfired, they gave up. That way, I bought myself some extra time. People can relate to a grieving widower who can’t get over the tragic loss of his wife. They let me be and I was thankful for that.

When one has a hobby like mine, being alone is the best way. I don’t crave humans. I don’t even like being in their midst, I work hard at cosplaying something that I am not. Normal.

She looks up from her flower pots and for a split second, the camera I hid focused on her face. The smile she had made my hands turn to fists. What is she thinking about?

Who or what makes her smile this way?

A headache, that I felt building behind my eyes all day long, attracted my attention. I don’t tolerate pain, as my body is a well-oiled machine, ready for the things it has to do.

Lilly moves away, and takes a pair of scissors and cleans the leaves of some orchid. For days, I read up on those orchids. I need to be able to talk to her about them, one day. On the day when I will be able to say something when I see her.

I lean my head back and rub the tension away from the back of my neck. The knot is there, pulling at my muscles and I know that there is only one way to fix that.

Lily touches another leave and she talks to her plants as she floats through the greenhouse like some sort of urban trapped forest fairy, but I have business to attend.

My hand stretches towards the screen and I touch the cool surface. My fingerprint sticks to the screen after she moved away from the image.

Annoyed with myself, I need to pick the cleaning spray and wipe the screen down. I don’t like prints on my screen. What’s next, coffee on the keyboard?

Disgusting.

Clicking away from my surveillance cameras in Lilly’s house, I click on my next prey.

The dates pop up fast on the screen.

Logan Hunter

Huh, fun name for prey.

Logan Hunter was a known killer and not only did he like to kill, he liked to end the lives of young girls right after he raped them. Fear is part of his brand, but somehow, Mr Hunter managed to escape the system. Either because of lack of proof, or errors in the arresting procedure.

Justice is a net with way too many holes, and some disgusting fish like Logan Hunter finds them with ease and slips through them.

A few clicks was all it took for me to find out where he lives and what he usually does.

He owns a fishing and camping supply store, the irony in that.

It made my throbbing headache only push harder against my skull. I opened my drawer and took two aspirin from a neat box that I kept in the drawer to the left. Even though I knew that there was one thing and one thing only that would cure my headache, I had to wait a few days longer. I already found enough proof that this man was the killer, even his fingerprints were on the body of one of the victims, but I needed the right moment to strike.

This, my hobby needs to be done carefully if I want to avoid getting fried like a Happy Meal in the electric chair. Now that is a faith that I seriously try to avoid. In a way, I see myself like a garbage man. Only instead of taking out trash, I am culling all the human junk, cleaning the herd of the dark elements.

Does that make me darker or in some weird way, does it cancel out my own evil side? Good and Evil are two concepts that I refuse to believe in. First of all, I believe that we are all grey. Only the social norms are keeping us constraint. Think about it like this. How many times was a person tempted to kill, they don’t because they first of all don’t know how. Most of the killing is sloppy, made out of impulse. A person loses control or is inebriated in a way or another and lashes out like a wild beast. This is why I consider myself superior. I kill for pleasure, for me it is a higher art form. I refuse to kill in the spur of the moment, with my judgement clouded by impulses that I am absolutely capable to control.

My gaze lands again on Lilly and I would hate myself if I could for the way she almost makes me feel something.

I lived my life to almost 40 years of age without touching a woman. Well yes, I shake hands, I even kissed a girl once or twice, but only because it was what social norms dictated, but I could never make myself go through that dirty act of copulation.

I prefer to rip a decaying body in two, after it lay in the sun and is ripe with maggots, instead of considering it. And it is not connected to the sexual organs. For a while, a counselor in school tried to convince me that I was gay, but I feel equally uninterested in touching a man as I feel in touching a woman.

I don’t touch anything. Not even myself when I can help it.

Occasionally, during a particularly satisfying kill, I find my member stiff and a feeling that could probably be considered arousal washing through me but, I am not jerking off next to a body. This would be fucking disrespectful, and it would spread my damn DNA all over the corpse.

A few years ago, I was deeply fascinated by a case of necrophilia, but I didn’t see the problem with it, nor the desire. I don’t want to fuck a corpse, the same way I don’t want to fuck a steak or a rack of ribs, because in the end we are all flesh.

Lilly moves over the screen; she is pushing her wild locks away and smudges her forehead with her palm. Dirt clings to her skin, the specks of earth are like a small galaxy of freckles and I would be tempted to put my gloves on, take a few wipes and clean her face.

On the other hand, she doesn’t seem to be bothered by it. She rubs her still soiled hand over her face, in an attempt to push her hair away, and makes me feel almost frustrated with her. Why isn’t she pinning her hair up when she works? There are better work clothes than the colorful long skirts that she’s wearing, but they look good on her.

She reminds me of an earthy Goddess , when blood and earth mixed together in a wild dance and there was no begging and no end.

My eyes flash back to mister Logan Hunter’s file.

His store will close in about two hours, maybe I need to pay him a visit.

I close my laptop and get up from my desk.

I, myself, own a store. It’s close to the bay and surprisingly brings me more than enough business, a bookstore. And we sell everything from the newest bestsellers to rare and antique edition books.

My love and passion for books is real, but it doesn’t hurt to have something that explains a certain love for solitude. A bookworm can be eccentric without attracting attention to himself.

I created this person, this role, and now I find myself under the identity of Sam Williams. As I never cared for names, this name is as good as any other name I took during the years. A man, especially a man with my hobby needs now and then a new identity. Not that I have ever been hunted. I am very careful. One of my rules is that if there is no body, there is no crime. Even the police get bored when they have to research a disappearing and they just close the case. There are endless cold cases like that all over the United States. I am in no way saying that all the people that disappeared are getting killed, some like me maybe just need a fresh start. A new life and a neighbor that is starting to interfere with their hobby.

Before driving out, I stop at my store and spend some time looking around the rare book collection I keep under lock and key. Time is my friend, no need to rush.

I pass the register and let my only employee know that I am gone for the day. Joe is a good guy as much as I care to know. An English major, his love for books is like mine, and he is more than happy to run the store most of the time. He’s worked for me for over a year, and there are no personal questions, no ties, no need to become friends. The most bonding we did was when we both raise a brow at some books clients buy, but as I like to say: to each it’s own. We all have our poison, and some of it can stand the light of day, wrapped in a paper bag that has Williams Books printed on it, others, like mine need to be wrapped in silence, hidden in darkness and kept far away from prying eyes of curious readers of all sorts.

“Have a nice day, Boss.”

Joe greets me, a smile passes over his face as he accepts the payments from a client for a stack of books. I look at her. She’s one of those who takes a day trip down the coast and she brought the books because they have character, this is what she will tell her friends over a glass of wine. I can see that she isn’t a reader but she has the look of one. Her hair is carefully styled to give her that bookworm vibe and her glasses are just for show, not real. Same as the fact that her vintage clothes are designer and rather expensive.

I judge books by they cover. We are that, covers. She looks at me when Joe calls me boss and she offers me one of those smiles women and some men send me. She wants me. It would be easy for me to ask her out right now and have her in bed in one hour if I would care for such a thing.

I know what she sees, the image that I cultivate.

I go for careless ease. I am wearing a button down grey shirt that shows my build, one who drags bodies up and down stairs and in and out of trunks, needs to push some weight to stay in shape, plus in my younger years on the street I made a pretty penny with illegal fights.

And a pair of jeans. I keep my dark blonde hair longer, but my face is clean shaven. I like longer hair, that way I can pull it up in a pony tail and don’t have to worry about it being found anywhere.

She is all googly eyes and smiles.

“Are you the owner of this gem?”

She starts the conversation. I would call her thirsty, and I see a light flickering in Joe’s eyes. He is a smart guy.

“Yes indeed. “

“I love it here, I made a Tiktok about it. “

“Thank you, I hope we get to see you again soon. If you’ll please excuse me now. “

She is about to say something else, but I need to go. The smell of books that I usually adore are nauseating. I need to get this kill out of my system.

Jumping into my black 1969 Camaro, I ignore the looks that my car attracts. One was not considered suspicious or weird for cleaning ones car if that car was a classic toy.

That was it.

I took this one from one of my first victims long ago, making sure that there was no way to trace it.

Pushing down the gas pedal, I made myself on the way, a predator needs to be patient and find a way to catch his prey unprepared.

As expected, Logan Hunter closed his shop at 7 pm. It was a weekday, and the best business was happening for him during the weekend.

Many guys came down here to buy their gear or bait. It was a popular place.

He made sense to me.

I could understand him

He was a predator who tried to keep a semblance of normal but he was bad at it. Maybe I was better, the superior monster so to say.

The man drove a small dick truck, all covered in flames with a fish painted on the side that looked as if it suffered from epilepsy or swam in toxic water.

Logan was in his mid-forties, his arms covered with tattoos and short hair. A neat-trimmed beard covered his face. I can’t understand that need of some guys to grow beards. If the feds would hunt me, then maybe, and I say maybe I would consider getting such a dirt catcher on my face, but not sooner. To that day, I plan on shaving every morning, thank you.

He drove away from the tourist area and I followed, keeping two cars between us.

I knew where we where going, but I still wanted to make sure that I kept an eye on him.

Logan, like many other monsters needed a place, a cave of his own to feel safe. This was a mistake. The superior predator knew how to cover his tracks.

He was in for a rude awakening, soon, very soon.

His pimp truck entered a side road, a road so narrow that one had to know that it was there in order to find it. Trees leaned close to the car, like fingers that wanted to pull at your skin, rip away and have a taste of your blood.

Blood, the most honest of all things. Blood can’t lie and it can’t be fake, blood is life and death at the same time.

A shiver of excitement travelled down my spine, or maybe it was the strong new AC in my car.

Either way, I needed to get this done.

More than one month has passed since I satiated my need of taking a life and I was growing restless, each day moving too slow and my temper turning into a damn mine field.

I stopped right at the entrance of the road and watched him drive down.

There was no need for me to use my car and follow.

Instead, I drove up the road, to a very known tourist trap and parked there in the large parking lot. Between hundreds of cars, mine would not be recognized. Taking another car from there was easy. And by taking I mean stealing.

I stole a mini van, one of those that are a dime a dozen and as non-descriptive as they come. My plan was as always, simple and beautiful, in its simplicity.

With my stolen mini van I made my way to his house, stopping right in front of the door.

His hunting cabin had seen better days, but it was OK for a man cave. Putting the dumbest expression I could on my face, I knocked.

The door opened, and a rather annoyed and confused Logan Hunter looked at me.

“What do you want?”

He spit some chewing tobacco and nearly hit my shoe, making me cringe in disgust. He deserved to die for this offense, if there was nothing else. Chewing tobacco must be one of the most disgusting things that humans could do .

This was so bad. This man should learn how to be a better killer. Maybe I need to write a guide. Something like The serial killers guide to blend in or something.

“Hi”

I kept smiling like an idiot and raised my hand in some form of greeting. People have the tendency to follow the hand that is moving, and not the one that is not.

“What?”

“Gee, sorry to bother you, I must be lost. My GPS decided to go crazy and I try to find a place called The Fat Gator. Can you please kindly direct me there? “

He took a long look at me.

I could pass as a tourist if that was necessary. I was pale enough to look as if I didn’t live in the Sunshine State.

He scratched his head.

“No idea where that is, now fuck off”

He turned, but I was faster.

The injection with horse tranquilizer found its way in the back of his neck and my blade pressed against his kidney.

“Easy, you don’t want to make any fast moves, because I am really bad with the blade and it could end up stuck in your kidney. Do you know how much a kidney costs on the black market? “

“Man, what the fuck “

His words slurred already, as I gave him a dose of tranquilizer that could bring a horse down, I knew that in less than twenty seconds he would be down himself.

Logan Hunter turned towards me, but he managed to take only one step before he fell on the ground in front of me.

I hoisted him onto my back and placed him with his legs and hands neatly tied up in the back of the minivan.

I was not a stranger to the area. The bones of some of my victims must be rotting here, in the swamp or turned into a meal for the gators.

I never throw away full bodies, that is sloppy.

One needs to cut a body neatly into pieces, making sure that there are no fingerprints or dental prints left, a thing that a sledgehammer can take care of and then it is disposed of in various areas.

The gators are mean and hungry fuckers and I enjoy their company.

They are honest in their hunger as I am in mine. There is no doubt, no second guessing, just the need to feed for them and in my case the need to fulfill my desire to kill.

The ride to the place I picked as my kill room is short. A cabin that was abandoned a while ago was the perfect spot. Two days ago, I entered the place and covered each surface with tarp. A white table, covered with tarp stood in the middle of an empty room. It was spotless. A few lights focused on Logan Hunter who lay naked and tied up on the table.

His mouth was gagged. I didn’t need screams or attempts to negotiate. The people who land on my table are willing to give me everything, from money to organs to help in my future endeavors, but little do they know that a real monster doesn’t need any of that.

All I need is this.

My blade is up as our eyes meet. He is awake now.

“You have been watched, judged, and found guilty of killing five young girls after you raped them with your dirty penis. For that, your punishment is death. But not before I make sure that you have no penis anymore. “

He tried to fight against the restraining, his eyes wide, trying to threaten and then to plea.

When I was younger I was more dramatic, I would print pictures of the people they killed and show them to them, but I gave up on that.

They knew it.

I knew it.

There was no need for me to enter such a charade. Pinching his little dick between my thumb and index finger I took the knife and sliced it off, only to be rewarded by a sprinkle of blood.

No one could ever convince me that there was anything more beautiful than this, the way blood warm and rich left the body and moved in the air.

Logan struggled against his restraints like a fish on dry land, but I am not into torture, this is just a small thing I do to rapists. The next move was simple, my blade, long and sharp stuck into his chest, split his heart in two and took his life away.

This is the most important moment.

When the beast is usually satisfied, when I feel the rush ebbing in my veins and being replaced by something else. A form of calm that was suiting.

I like everything that is connected to my mission. Not only the hunt, and the kill. I like the after, too.

Many other killers get scared when they are confronted with the result of their work, in our case a dead body, but I am not. It relaxes me.

But instead of feeling the peace, I had a small humming sound in the back of my neck traveling up and down my spine. Like a bee that was stuck inside me.

The work had to be done and hours passed until Logan Hunter was neatly packed and wrapped, his teeth history and his fingerprints gone.

I put the bags in the back of the mini van and made my way to my favorite place in the swamp. It was already two am in the morning, but a small boat waited where I prepped it for.

My bags were heavy, but the old monsters lurked beneath the surface, now and then I saw eyes that opened, watching, waiting.

They had infinite patience and that was something that I loved and admired about them.

Jumping into the boat, I pushed the oars and made my way deeper into the swamp, the night was silent and a half moon looked down to me.

I don’t have a conscience. I fake one.

Maybe I was born lacking a soul, but I have another theory. There’s no such thing as a soul. Or love.

Humans are selfish and possessive. I am more honest, more raw than others and I can look directly into the eyes of the monster that I am. I don’t need to hide under a false sense of conscience.

Logan Hunter won’t be missed and the police will not look for him

They will assume that he left the state or even the country to look for something. Maybe he will find that something in the belly of a gator.

I drop the first piece of meat and it barely touches the surface of the water before a big mouth lined with teeth is catching it and devours it.

There are more, they crack bones and swallow pieces of Logan whole.

They are like me, cold-blooded and looking out for their own satisfaction.