The girl jogged up the path, her legs gleaming below the cut-off shorts. In the moonlight, her shadow danced between her feet as she ran through the gate and onto the road.
He’d watched her before. Within the hour, she would be back.
And tonight was the night.
The moon was shining through his bedroom window, cold and remote. He held the knife up so the pale light caught the blade. It was flat, it could almost be dull, but the edge glinted. The tip curved slightly upwards. The bolster — he’d been studying knives, so he knew what each part was called — fitted seamlessly into the handle which was wrapped with a leather thong to give the best grip.
It was a thing of beauty.
He lifted it in his hand — hefted it, that’s what you did with a knife — trying to test the balance, but he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. It didn’t matter. It was a good knife. The balance would be right. He slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket. His late mother’s cat watched him from its place on the window-sill. It was thin and bedraggled. His mother used to spoil it, but he was teaching it a few hard lessons.
His breath quickened with excitement but he needed to be cool. He needed to keep his head.
The Dummies’ Guide to Serial Killing says:
What is a serial killer? A true serial killer:
• has at least three victims
• has a distinctive signature
• takes a ‘cooling off’ period which spaces out his killings.
Even if you are tempted to try and find short cuts, multiple victims are not the way to go. A disaffected school student, or an employee with a grudge and a gun have not earned the title ‘serial killer’. The true serial killer is an artist, and the true artist is passionate but painstaking. He cares. Remember: the soubriquet ‘Zodiac’ was not earned overnight!
The Dummies’ Guide to Serial Killing says that successful serial killers are intelligent and well-informed, so he always looked up the words he didn’t know like ‘soubriquet’, ‘disaffected’, and ‘painstaking’. He was a bit disappointed with the definition of painstaking. It had sounded more interesting than it actually was, but he mustn’t let himself get bogged down in minor issues. He had to remain focused on the task.
And the task was now. Tonight. He had an hour to complete his preparations. He began his checklist.
The weapon.
The Dummies’ Guide to Serial Killing said:
Your weapon is your true friend. You must know it and understand it, so when the time comes, it will do your bidding.
He took the knife out of his pocket and stood upright in front of the mirror, holding the blade over the palm of his left hand. That’s what you did when you were going to make an oath. He’d seen it on TV. You drew the blade across your palm and then shared the blood. His blood would be on the knife when he — did all the things he planned to do. He would share his blood.
With her.
He admired himself in the mirror for a moment longer. The serial killer. Then he took a deep breath and drew the knife across the exposed flesh.
There was a clatter as the knife hit the floor. He doubled over, tucking his hand between his legs, his face screwed up. Shit. Shit! He hadn’t expected it to hurt so much, he hadn’t expected his knife, to hurt him. And despite the pain there wasn’t much to see. The cut wasn’t deep. It was a red line with a few beads of blood welling up.
He squeezed it, and the beads became a trickle that stopped as soon as he stopped squeezing. Still, blood was blood. He picked up the knife and returned it to his pocket.
Back to the checklist.
Weapon.
Tick.
Practice.
The Dummies’ Guide said a lot about the importance of practising, of familiarising yourself with the rituals of killing.
Successful serial killers never flinch at the crucial point.
He was a bit upset at the accusation he might flinch, but in fact, the book — The Book — was right. The first cat — he’d done his first cat before he read The Book, and he had flinched. A bit. After a few more, he didn’t flinch at all. His gaze moved to his mother’s cat hunched on the window-sill. He’d been saving it up for the real thing.
Tonight.
For years, he’d been a dreamer, a pathetic wannabe who read about the heroes and tried to pretend he was one of them — one who hadn’t actually started yet. But who would. Who had he thought he was kidding?
And then he found the book. He’d found it online, through one of his forums.
He spent a lot of time on forums. There was the one about his heroes, the greatest serial killers. That was good. And the one about The Manson Family — they weren’t true serial killers, he realised that now. But they were cool, everyone agreed they were cool.
And then he’d found the Meet-Up space, Dying for a Chat.
That was pretty hardcore — or so he’d thought. At first. You had to be invited, and there was security and passwords and different levels. After he found it and got accepted, he’d spent night after night on the site, talking and sharing, stories and images — oh, the images — until the small hours. He’d really believed, then, that they were people like him, people who understood. He’d called himself Killer, and they had names like Candyman and Hunter.
But after a while, it wasn’t enough anymore. Everyone talked a lot, everyone had stories, but no one really did anything. One of them, who called himself Cannibal, actually said how he’d eaten someone’s liver with what he called favour beans and a nice Chianti, and another had an icon that made the fefefefe noise. Cannibal probably thought that fava beans was just another name for Heinz. And that Chianti was a kind of lager.
He’d looked up fava beans — and Chianti — later that night.
He was learning. He was improving himself.
Gradually he’d come to understand that none of these people were the real deal, but he’d hung around anyway. There was nothing else. Until the day he posted about the cat. His first cat. Some of them had actually criticised him. Criticised. Him. That’s not cool, Killer, Candyman said. Cannibal actually blocked him.
Pathetic.
He almost gave up on the forum then, but the cat post was the one that did it. Shortly after, he saw the private message box flashing at the bottom right of his screen. That was interesting in itself because he hadn’t turned messaging on. But there it was.
It was from someone called Karma. Karma used an icon like two tombstones, which was cool, and the message was short and to the point: Killer. Your name is tragic. Check out this link.
At first, it made him angry. His name was tragic, was it? What kind of stupid name was Karma? Some kind of sex book, wasn’t it? A bit of politeness wouldn’t have hurt. It didn’t cost anything.
But real serial killers weren’t polite. And somehow Karma had bypassed all the site security to make contact.
That was cool. So he clicked on the link.
At first, it looked like a bust. Karma, whoever he was with his pathetic name, was making fun of him. It was a site selling honey, of all things. Expensive jars of honey.
But later the same day, Karma got in touch again. Before you sign up, read the Terms and Conditions carefully. Very carefully. So he did, pages of them until he found the secret link. And that...
That was the real thing.
There were pictures. Videos. Sound files.