How It Began for Julian
He had killed before. Julian had preyed on humans more than once. It wasn’t something he strove for...’Serial Killer’ wasn’t a title he fancied, but the urge was strong. Stronger this day than any of the others. He took a deep breath, and checked his messages and calendar. How lucky to have a free afternoon.
She was young, twenty something. Why was it always a woman, he thought as he watched her cross the street. She moved with a sad grace, flowing with the traffic of pedestrians, but seeming detached from them. Her face was obscured by locks of hair, black with bleached white tips. A hooded sweatshirt covered her torso and her hands were stuffed into its pockets. Baggy cargo pants, rolled up to her knees revealed boots beneath. Everything about her was drab and colorless. Everything except for that hair.
Julian wasn’t sure if it was the hair, or her apparent lack of belonging in the world around her. He wondered if she lived alone. Would have bet on it as he trotted across the street after her. The walk-don’t walk sign counted down until the light changed, bringing a collective sigh from a crowd of eight or ten who’d gathered on the oncoming corner. They stood like trained animals and waited for the next light change. He glanced at each face, taking in their frustration with a chuckle.
The girl turned into a small coffee shop and Julian sat in one of the sidewalk tables, waiting for her to leave. He waited, staring at a left-behind newspaper for the entire forty five minutes she was there, checking her cell phone, blocking out the world. There was an interesting article on a new play opening and he tore off a bit of paper that held the title. Something he would check out later, perhaps that night if tickets were available. The girl drank her coffee and read from the tiny screen, then she stood and walked in the same direction she’d headed before. He waited so she might get a good head start and walked behind her.
Where to now? He wondered. Perhaps some shopping or some minimum wage job? She might have a boyfriend or girlfriend he could take note of. He might stalk her for weeks before the glorious day arrived. But no. She stopped at a low rent apartment building and turned in.
Too easy, he thought. No door man, no button to buzz in visitors, just an open lobby with a choice of two elevators or a staircase. She held the door for him as he entered the elevator. Grace, he thought.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Julian said. “I hate riding these things alone.”
“No problem. What floor?” she asked.
Her voice was soft, and she never looked at him. He saw she’d pressed the button for the 4th floor, and he said, “Seven. Visiting a friend.”
She nodded, still not looking at him. When the bell dinged at the fourth floor, Julian held the door from closing and let her off, then stepped back to let them close again. He didn’t speak, there was planning to do. The elevator rose, and he pressed the button for the fifth floor, then checked his pockets. One held several feet of rope, the other, a knife with a blade of approximately five inches. It was razor sharp, sheathed in leather, and felt like an old friend. The knife was his safety, his comfort, like a teddy bear to a toddler.
Ding!
The door opened. Julian, in a new frame of mind, exited. No longer friendly, no longer taking in the surroundings. He was hunting. He jogged to the other end of the hallway, popped through the door to the staircase and held the rail as he bounced down the steps to the 4th floor. Carefully, he checked the window before opening and luckily, caught her as she passed by. He watched her until the angle was too sharp, then pushed the bar that unlatched the door and peeked through. She turned a corner, and he snuck out behind her, stopping at the corner and listening. When he heard the key in the latch, then the tumble as it unlocked, he peered around the wallpapered corner just as she entered her apartment.
A few steps later, he stood before her apartment, breathing heavy, trying to calm himself. He checked each direction and found himself completely alone in the passage. His feet felt light beneath him, his arms strong, his chest heaving with each breath. The world vibrated. Then he steadied, and gave three swift raps on the door.
She opened it without checking the peephole. His hand was across her mouth, shoving her back into her entry way.
“Scream and I will destroy you,”
She went limp in his arms. He checked to make sure she was conscious. Her eyes looked at him for the first time. Ice blue. There was no pleading in them, no apparent fear.
“Anyone else home?”
She shook her head.
“Let’s take a peek anyway, shall we?” he said.
He dragged her as he walked. The knife was out, in his hand, and he used it like a pointer as he investigated the small apartment. It was sparsely furnished. There was no television. The art on the walls was from a department store, prints of flowers. In her bedroom, there was a mattress on the floor, clothes folded and stacked in a beanbag chair and stacks of books.
He moved into the bathroom, still holding her, hand wrapped around her head, covering her mouth. It was clean, and as empty as the rest of the place. As empty as she seemed. Only the bare essentials of an apartment for only the bare essentials of a human being.
“This should do nicely,” he said and set the knife next to the sink.
He pulled the rope slowly from his pocket and took the hand towel from the rack over the toilet. It was grey. He sat her down on the toilet and gave her a stern look.
“Scream and it’s going to hurt.”
He let go of her mouth.
“I won’t scream,” she said.
He narrowed his eyes. She remained still and quiet, even as he used the knife to cut a strip from the towel that he meant to use as a gag. Even as he bound her hands behind her back with the rope. She watched him. He picked up the strip of towel.
“I said, ‘I won’t scream,’” she said.
Julian stopped. He leaned down to her level.
“This isn’t an argument you will win, dear.”
“I know,” she said, smooth as the surface of a lake on a still morning. “You mean to kill me.”
“I do. And I mean to enjoy it,” he said.
She nodded, then repeated, “I won’t scream.”
“Interesting,” he said.
He drug the knife across her bicep, carving a valley in the pale skin that poured blood. She winced, but maintained her calm. He stammered, then sliced her other arm. She didn’t budge, didn’t yelp, didn’t scream. Julian felt a dark anger rise in his chest. There was no pleasure in killing the willing. He slashed it across her cheek and watched the red paint her face, her chin, and drip to her chest. She looked up at him with those eyes.
“Thank you,” she said.
Puzzled, shocked, enraged, he drove the blade into her throat. Julian couldn’t believe what was happening. He had never been thanked. It was the pleading, the screaming, the struggling he needed. The feeling of overpowering, of winning, was what he craved. The blood was only a bonus, but not enough by itself. He put a red-stained hand to his forehead, then as she gurgled her last, as her limbs twitched and her bladder let go, he dumped her sideways into the tub. He sat on the edge and rinsed his knife and his hands under the tub’s spigot and watched as the blood swirled into the water and down the drain. Her dead, ice-blue eyes watched.
“Thank you,” her voice said again and Julian jumped nearly out of his skin.
“What?”
“Don’t be scared. I want to thank you,” she repeated.
He turned, looking in every direction, finally settling on a point of light that floated in the hallway outside the bathroom. He struggled to his feet, straining not to lose sight of the glowing dot.
“What do you mean? What do you want?”
There was a pause as he waited, staring, trying to focus on the spot, but finding no detail to grasp onto.
“You’ve given me my release, and for that I thank you.”
“Yeah? Well you stole mine. You took my prize from me.”
The dot wavered in the air, like it was laughing at him.
“I can help you, Julian. Find your prize.”
“Oh?”
“I can go where you cannot, see what you could not. I could tell you things.”
He thought about the possibilities. About the endless possibilities. A sweat broke out on his forehead. He wiped at it with the back of his hand. Then the dot was gone.
“Hello?” he said.
He gripped the door jamb and pulled himself through, looking around the bedroom. She—it--was gone.
“Hello?!” he shouted.
Tears welled in his eyes.
“Is this how it starts?” he said.
Is this how crazy starts? He repeated in his own head. Or was it.
Unsatisfied, he left the apartment, left the building, left the bloody corpse in the tub. He needed another. He watched the afternoon streets as he headed toward home. Then he spotted her. The next victim. The one that would scratch that awful itch. She was young and moved with a sad grace. Locks of dark hair obscured her face. He followed her at a safe distance, feeling in his pocket for his safety, for his security, for the leather sheathed knife. It was there.
END.