3
When people think of serial killers, they often think about the more glamorous parts. The killer stalking their prey, then their victim’s last moments alive, the death itself—and the chase after, the hiding, the trial if they get caught.
It sucks.
I grab my victim’s keys before dragging him all the way to the garage.
It’s the kind that opens straight into the living room, but there’s no air conditioning, and it’s stifling hot.
Still, the important thing is that there are no witnesses, no one to see his unconscious body, his last moments alive. Some people just make it too damn easy.
I press the button to unlock the car and shove him into the trunk, gasping with the effort of it. He’s twice my weight, and I feel the burn in my arms. But though I’m slim, I’m made of solid muscle, and after a quick stretch, I’m as good as new.
I drive the car deep into the woods, parking as close to the shack as I can.
Which isn’t all that close, and I grunt with the effort of pulling the unconscious form of my next victim inside.
But at last he’s lying on the saran-wrapped floor.
I use masking tape to immobilize his hands and legs, taping them down to two areas I didn’t cover with plastic. There’s no way he’ll move.
I’m definitely wishing for a frozen matcha by the time I’m finished. I lean back, cracking my neck and knuckles, and wait.
I don’t have to wait long. Just a few minutes later, a groan slips out of his lips and his eyelids flutter up. The groan turns into a terrified scream when he sees me bending over him with a knife in my hands.
“Oh, fuck, fuck… fuck!”
Another thing Daddy used to say: don’t talk. Just kill.
I’m not very good at that part. Had I not spent twenty minutes talking seven years ago, my wrists would never have been broken.
But if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have realized I needed more training.
I wouldn’t have spent years in the tundra.
Something else might have taken me down.
Maybe those broken wrists were for the best.
Besides, I didn’t go through all this effort to kill a guy without him even knowing why.
“Fuck! I’m sorry, Cass. I didn’t do it!”
“If you didn’t do it, why are you apologizing?”
“Uh, fuck… fuck… fuck!”
“Take a deep breath,” I soothe him. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
“It… is?” He swallows nervously, allowing my words to calm him just a bit.
“Yeah. For me. Not for you.” I grin at my joke, but he doesn’t look all that amused. “You know the first thing I laid eyes on when I was born?”
He shakes his head, beads of sweat mingling with his tears.
“My mom’s dead body. She was shot shortly before I was born. Maybe that’s why I’m so hyper-fixated on killing every last person who’s responsible.”
“I… I didn’t kill her. I swear!”
“You’re a little liar,” I say sweetly. “You gave her research over to Mr. Campbell, didn’t you?
It was exactly what Devil was looking for.
They spent years perfecting it. But they never paid a dime to my mom.
They used it against her. Maybe your actions didn’t kill her directly.
But they led to her dying, all the same. ”
“I, uhm… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Stop lying!” For the first time, I lose my cool. I raise my voice, but just as quickly take a few deep breaths, covering my temper outburst with another sweet smile. “It’s better if you don’t lie, Jud.”
“Is it?” He looks beside himself with panic. “If I don’t… you won’t kill me?”
“I won’t make it hurt.” I give him another smile. “That is, not too much.”
“Oh, fuck… fuck…”
By now, he’s crying loudly, great big sobs wracking his body.
“I’m sorry, Cass. I didn’t mean for any of that to happen.
I knew Devil was looking for that kind of thing, back then.
They were looking to get into the science stuff, and they knew it would be useful.
They’re a big, evil, corrupt organization.
What the hell can I do against them? I didn’t have any power.
They’ve got all of Astley under their control. I’m sorry, Cass. I’m just… so… sorry.”
“I believe you,” I tell him.
He lets out a big shuddering breath, probably trying to convince himself that means he won’t die.
The idiot is literally pinned to the floor of a saran-wrapped shack in the middle of the forest, and he’s hoping he won’t die.
The permanent end of consciousness is a concept the human brain just can’t wrap itself around. It’s crazy what somersaults of rationalization we’re capable of just because of our inability to accept the inevitable.
“Think your last thought, and die.”
I raise my knife, and before he has time to react, I’ve plunged it into his thoracic cage.
_
Well, I need a shower.
I’ve just spent the afternoon and evening in my favorite way: hacking a body to pieces and burying them in various places of the forest. Then I bundled up all the saran wrap and disposed of that in the same way.
I scrubbed every last inch of the shack too, for good measure, and shone a blue light around to make sure I’d gotten every last scrap of evidence.
Another thing I learned ever since that night I messed up in high school. Plan ahead.
Too late for that, and I realize it more than ever with the news of Finn Austen’s release, and the knowledge I must have left some DNA behind.
But in my defense, Daddy had died a week before, so my emotions were just a bit raw.
And it’s hard to scrub a place when your wrists are broken and someone is hunting you.
I know I shouldn’t have injected Finn with that stuff. That was my biggest error of all. But what can I say? I was grieving Daddy’s death, and I felt so lonely.
So I created an uncontrollable monster, and now, he’s out for blood.
The thought thrills me just as much as it did back then.
I sigh the way I always do when it comes to discarding my own clothes. They’re Gucci, and I know it’s insane to spend more than 2000 dollars on clothes I’ll wear only once. But Daddy was wealthy, and all that money is mine now. And don’t I deserve a treat?
I slip into comfortable Prada sweatpants, and hike it back to Astley. Obviously, I don’t take the car; no one saw me in it, and the tire marks lead straight from his house to the shack. The perfect crime.
My own car may be parked two blocks away from his, but that’s not suspicious. It’s close to the college, and I am a grad student now.
An hour later, I’ve settled in front of the TV, and I’m eating a box of Chow mein. I don’t do TV, at least, apart from TCM. There’s a Dashiell Hammett theme these days, and I spend the rest of the evening watching the movies adapted from his books. First The Maltese Falcon, then The Thin Man.
By the time I’ve reached the bottom of the takeout container, it’s cold. I’ve never been a big eater, but I was hungry after burning I don’t know how many calories earlier in the day. Still, I eat distractedly, a lot more focused on the movie than on my food.
Which is why I nearly choke on the hard, round object that’s at the very bottom of the container.
After emerging from my coughing fit, I examine the object I spit out. It’s a button, and my stomach clenches when I suddenly recognize it.
A Chanel button, from my favorite Chanel jacket.
Goddammit!
Another mistake. I realized my Chanel jacket was missing its button the day after murdering Ray Campbell. But when I’d returned to the warehouse, I hadn’t found it, so I’d concluded I’d lost it elsewhere.
Guess not.
There’s only one person who could have put that button in my Chow mein. Only one person who wouldn’t want to send me to prison—because he has worse plans for me.
Standing up on shaky legs, I sit down in front of my computer and turn it on. Then I type into the searchbar: Finn Austen.
Article after article appear.
Finn Austen, senior at Astley High School, found guilty of murder. The drug dealer killed Ray Campbell, a popular quarterback, by shooting him in the head.
“I always knew there was something off about him,” a neighbor tells us in an exclusive interview. “He kept to himself; people don’t keep to themselves in Astley. He was sullen, a quiet boy, with an unkempt appearance. He had tattoos.”
“He took drugs,” adds another neighbor. “That tells you all you need to know about him, doesn’t it?”
The principal of the high school, Harvey Williams, agrees.
“Whenever we had a problem—smoking in the bathroom, fire alarms going off—it was always him. And very shortly before the crime, he changed; he became violent. He stopped going to school, and we heard that he’d gotten into some fistfights.
Something tragic was bound to happen. I’ll always regret not expelling him. ”
The most recent article is from just three days ago. “FINN AUSTEN: ASTLEY HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT’S MURDER CONVICTION OVERTURNED.”
My stomach doing somersaults, I click on it.
New DNA evidence has surfaced in the murder case of Astley High School star athlete Ray Campbell.
Finn Austen had been convicted largely on the testimony of a fellow student, Cass Henley, who placed him at the scene.
But a single blond hair, collected at the time but never tested, was recently run through updated DNA analysis and traced to an unidentified female.
Citing the new evidence, a judge vacated Finn’s conviction, and prosecutors declined to retry the case.
Finn Austen is set to be released in two days. Sources close to him say he’s told friends he plans to return to Astley. “I have some unfinished business there,” he reportedly said.
Two days. I check the date on the article, then the numbers that glow on the bottom right of my computer screen. Two days. That’s today.
I don’t know why I’m suddenly a nervous wreck.
This isn’t news to me; Mr. Campbell told me about it earlier.
After the initial panic, I started to feel kind of excited about it.
Thrilled, even. But maybe it’s all the lugging around of that 200 pound body, or maybe, it’s the fact that I’m tired and that this Chow mein is starting to make me…
What the hell. Goddammit!
He put something in the Chow mein, didn’t he?
The realization has me hurling the carton to the far end of the room.
I stand up, stumbling around in search of a knife, a gun—anything.
But I don’t manage to struggle long against the effects of the drug.
I barely make it to my bed, locking the door behind me, though I know that’s pointless.
A locked door certainly never stopped me.
I sink onto my mattress, closer to swearing than I’ve ever been in years. If I’m going to die, then at least it’s going to be on Hermes sheets.
That’s my last thought before I pass out.