Shall I Persist?

Is it worth continuing this tale?  Is anyone reading?  How would I even know?

The Holidays

Mina had me over for Christmas.  It was definately a strange situation for me.  Mina's parents were - understandably - a bit distracted.  They looked like they had been drunk and sedated since Nina's death.  Hardly said a word during the meal.  Which was probably a blessing.  I've never had to meet the parents of a victim before.  Not a lot of ettiquette guides for that.

Mina made everything bearable.  She often seems much older than her years.  She tells me she was raised mostly by her sister, as her parents were too busy with other things.  Careers, PTA, vacations, liquor.  All of it was more important than their kids.  Too bad for them, but pretty fortunate for me.  Nina was great for me, before I had to kill her.  And Mina, well, I have big plans for Mina.

After the holiday meal, Mina and I sat on the front porch, all bundled up, and watched the snow.  The lights from the Christmas decorations reflected off the frozen glaze of the snow and made patterns subject to interpretation.  I sipped a glass of cognac that her father had silently poured me, and periodically passed it to Mina, who sipped it like some middle aged businesswoman.  I made sure it looked like a casual gesture between two equals.  Teenagers eat that sort of thing with a spoon, and she was no different.

As we say there we talked about things that swirled across our minds, or at least that's how I wanted it to look.  I talked about missing her sister, and how much she looked like her.  Mina talked about never being taken seriously.  I placed a hand tentatively on her thigh, and took it away quickly, as if it were accidental.  She put hers on my lap without looking at me. 

Finally I said I had to go.  Mina's parents had passed out somewhere inside, so I leaned in to give her a fatherly kiss on the cheek.  As I expected, she turned just a bit and turned it into a full lip kiss.  I let myself be overcome momentarily, then broke the kiss with a quick goodbye.

I looked back over my shoulder as I was getting into my car, and saw Mina still looking at me.

And I knew I had her.

Fun with Reporters

I received an email from a reporter who stumbled across my blog. He asked if I was for real, and if I was, how smart was it to post crimes for everyone to see. I told him of course it wasn't real. Who would post crimes on the internet for everyone to see? Ha ha.

Then I paid him a visit.

He came home from work late one evening and I was sitting in his small, unkept living room. It was the living room of a man who wouldn't be missed. He didn't even have a dog.

"I hear you have questions," I said, and he jumped a foot.

"Who are you?" he asked. It was a reasonable question.

"I'm the killer who doesn't exist."

"What...oh my God. From the blog."

"I'm going to kill you in a few minutes, Mr. Reporter, then I'm going to blog about it. And no one will believe it at all. The internet is a wonderful thing."

"But -- " he began, and I pointed a very large handgun at him.

"Or maybe I won't and say I did. Again, who will know? Who will care? And if I do somehow get caught, then what? To paraphrase a Jedi Master, I will become more popular than you can possibly imagine." I smiled. "What better way to hide what I do than to talk about it as if it were a lie?"

I stood up and walked over to Mr. Reporter. He would have to change his underwear soon, if given the chance. "Remember what happened to the curious cat." I said, and shot him in the head.

Or in the chest.

Or stabbed him in the throat.

Or left him standing there, sobbing quietly. Hard to say, really.

The Internet is a wonderful thing.

I've been Busy

Nina's sister, Mina, came to visit me.

Her reason, she said, was because she wanted to get to know the people who Nina knew the best, and who knew her the best. I pretended this made perfect sense as I hobbled around the house, pretending my leg hurt more than it did. Mina expressed the appropriate level of concern over my injuries, sustained while trying to save her sister, or at least that's how she seemed to think it happened. I certainly didn't correct her.

We talked for more than an hour. I was careful not to let her catch me looking anywhere I shouldn't, but I memorized every curve for thorough review later.

By the end of the visit I knew that Mina would either be my new protege, or my next trophy.

The Funeral

The morning of Nina's funeral was wet and unseasonably cool. I was still bruised and limping along with the help of crutches. I probably could have made due with a small cane, but it never hurt to play up one's injuries.

As funerals go, it was fine. Probably the most interesting thing that happened was meeting Nina's sister, Mina. She was about fifteen years old at most, dressed in a long black dress of something reminding me of silk. She was the spitting image of Nina, only younger and a bit more goth. She caught me staring at her, and nodded in my direction. I could tell she knew who I was, and that I had dated her sister. Had been in the car with her, as the story went.

I couldn't help but wonder if, with a bit of coaching, Mina could take her sister's place in my life.

New Developments

The past few weeks have been simply weird. Even in my world.

Nina was a special case. She had been seen with me and we were coworkers, and I needed to do something to keep suspicion off of me. It had to look like something other than murder. ANYTHING other than murder.

So I went with a car crash. It wasn't easy setting everything up. But where there's a will, there's a way. The next night I put her inside her car and drove to a particularly treacherous section of highway. I had to give it some thought as to how to shoot the car off the edge of the road. I couldn't just put it in neutral and roll it down an embankment. The police are too sophisticated for shit like that. They'd wonder why she had the car in neutral, and how she suffered such extensive blunt force trauma when the car was rolling so slowly. No, whatever I did had to be real.

And I would have to take one for the team, this time.

I propped poor Nina in the driver's seat of her Mazda 3. Sitting in the passenger seat, I was just barely able to steer and hit the gas at the same time. Anytime other than three in the morning, and anyone observing us would have thought I was playing twister in the front seat. I aimed the car more or less at the edge of the road and floored it. Right before we popped the curb I opened the passenger side door and threw myself out.

The Mazda 3 jumped the curb with no problem, then sailed over the edge and down the hill into a small revine that had eaten up more than its shares of wrecks in its life. It was far from the Grand Canyon, but it had a number of sturdy trees at the bottom, and when the car hit them it was moving pretty fast. The front of the car crumpled and stopped with a rending of metal and fiberglass. Nina, as full of inertia as the car but far lighter, didn't stop, and exploded through the windshield and into the thicket of trees. It made quite a mess.

All this I had to piece together from the police report, because after I hit the pavement I rolled about twenty feet and passed out. No matter what you see on television, jumping from a moving vehicle hurts!

I ended up with a broken leg, a bruised rib, and a lot less skin down my right side.

But everyone says it could have been much worse. Look at poor Nina...

No Escape

I sometimes wonder if it's even possible to escape your fate. Does your nature ensure that you must continue to spiral as you always have?

I am reminded of the story of the scorpion and the horse. A horse and a scorpion were at the bank of a river. The water was high enough that the horse could only just keep his nose above water when crossing, but because of the depth he couldn't see where he was going. The scorpion was far too small to get across at all. So the two made a deal. The horse would carry the scorpion across on his nose, and in return the scorpion would lead the way. But the horse made the scorpion promise not to sting him.


Halfway across, the scorpion stung the horse. As the horse began to die from the poison, he shouted, "Scorpion! Why did you sting me? Now we'll both die in the river!"

And the scorpion replied, "I'm sorry, it is my nature to sting."

Which brings us to the events of this last weekend.

I live in an old house that gives me plenty of privacy. Although I usually don't do my killing at home, I do keep my trophies there. My trophy room is in the back yard, or under it I should say. I have an old shed in the back, and the floor of the shed is a door to an old bomb shelter built by the previous owners. It's enormous, and has it's own electricity. Down there I have several freezers that are no longer stocked with food, but instead have souveniers from most of my kills. Sometimes I go down there, take off my clothes, listen to music, and remember the hunting.

No one is allowed down there, for obvious reasons.

But some people don't understand boundaries.

Nina spent the night on Saturday. At some point during the night, she decided she couldn't sleep, and decided to explore. So she pulled on one of my shirts and a pair of socks, and went looking around. The house proved to be far too bland for her tastes, which is something I work very hard to maintain. Then the shed in the back yard caught her attention. God only knows what she thought she'd find in that shed, but it certainly wasn't what she ended up finding.

Opening the shed set off an alarm in my bedroom, that instantly woke me up. I saw the empty spot next to me in the bed, and knew what must be happening. I hoped I could get to her before she went down into the bunker, but the odds were against me.


I ran straight there, not even stopping for clothes. As I pulled open the shed door, I heard Nina scream.

She had opened one of the freezers. I came down the steps slowly. She was illuminated in the dim light of the bunker. As I passed one of my work tables, my hand absently crossed over the tools there and picked up one, which I then held limply by my side. Nina had her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide. I didn't have to look to know what she was seeing. She was at freezer one, which had my first three victims in it, the mother from the grocery store on top. At least her torso was on top.

Nina didn't seem to see me at first. She took a small step backwards, then turn towards me. Her mouth couldn't seem to form any words.

A dull, black wind buffeted inside my head, then settled over me like a wet tarp. "I'm sorry you had to see this, Nina," I said. I heard my voice from all around. "You weren't supposed to come here."

And then I could see her make the connection. I could see her realize I was a monster, and she was trapped in a room with me. My grip tightened on the hammer in my hand. It was heavy enough.

She turned and ran. But there was nowhere for her to run. The bunker ended in a wall, a cold wall with no options. I walked over to her, keeping myself between her and the exit. She was panicking, scared beyond reason. I had seen it all before. I had done it all before.

Like a movie panning back I saw myself approach her. I made no sounds. I'm not even sure I was breathing. Then, with calm precision, I lashed out, hitting her in the temple with the hammer. She dropped to her knees, and tried to stand as I hit her again. And again. And again.

I don't know when she died. Or when I stopped hitting her. I usually remember that stuff. But this wasn't for pleasure. This was survival.

A waste, really. I'll have to get a better lock on that shed door. I'm surprised I left it unlocked. I must have been distracted.