Lost in the Dark

Chapter One

Huntsville, Alabama

Women.

Bitches. Most every damned one of them.

The world was about to be rid of one more stupid bitch.

All he had to do was catch her.

Mirth burst from his chest as she darted from the alley, plunging into the dark cover of the woods in a last-ditch effort to save herself.

Did she really think she could escape him that easily?

Stupid, stupid bitch.

Not in this life.

In this life, he was the killer. And she . . . well, she was the victim.

The only decision that remained was the manner of death.

Slice open her silky white throat?

No. Too clichéd.

The memorable mark of a truly magnificent killer was, at its core, quite simple: originality.

He allowed her a few precious seconds. Just enough to provide a fleeting glimmer of hope. Then he charged into the dark, dense woods, using the trampled underbrush she’d left in her wake as his path.

She should just face the one undeniable fact close enough for her to feel its hot brush along the nape of her fragile neck.

She was dead.

Within the hour her heart would slow to a complete stop. Heat would begin to seep from her flesh, and the final image captured on her retinas would fade to black.

His face would be that last image.

At that trauma-filled moment, when her brain released the massive dump of endorphins that gifted the dying with an eerie calm as their entire pathetic lives flashed like a bad movie trailer through their impotent minds, she would recognize her one fatal mistake.

She shouldn’t have gotten in the way.

Bravado, curiosity . . . whatever it was that had made her dare to step out of her place, it had been just another bad choice in a long line of bad choices littering an insignificant existence mere minutes from being over.

Even now, as he grew nearer and nearer, so shockingly near he could hear the humid air raging in and out of her desperate lungs .

. . could feel the sheer terror throttling through her veins .

. . she still couldn’t help herself. She had to glance back.

To see the truth that had been right in front of her for the duration of her short life.

She didn’t have a chance.