by Blake Pierce
He continued yanking. Still nothing. Up above, he saw that the door had come off its rollers. He pulled harder, moving the door less than an inch.
It was stuck.
Thud.
Another, but it wasn’t from this room. It came from downstairs.
He took one last look at his reflection, impressed with his image. With the log in his hand, he looked fierce, dangerous. He could see that picture on the front of a book cover one day, he thought.
He returned downstairs, finding a laundry room, a kitchen, and a small toilet area. He moved back into the communal area and then into a narrow hallway with a wooden floor. Four wooden doors stood before him, each declaring a hollow inspirational quote painted in stylized lettering.
When things feel like an uphill struggle, think of the view from the top.
A smirk spread across his face. What a load of shit, he thought to himself. These women are at the bottom of the barrel and they’re going to die there.
His pulse elevated to levels he hadn’t felt since he first strangled the girl in the car. He thought about that first kill for a moment, reveling in the excitement, the stimulation. Some serial killers had said that the first was always the best, and that they’d spend the rest of their careers trying to re-create that first high. He fully believed this to be true, especially after having experienced it firsthand. However, he also believed that if one could exceed the enjoyment of the first, then that experience would take center stage in his fantasies.
He pushed the door open with a small creak, revealing four beds parked in each corner of the room.
All of the bedspreads were perfectly made. No one was inside them. All empty.
The frustration rose up inside him, but he calmed himself and exited back into the hallway. No, there would be no failure tonight. He moved to the next door in line.
Don’t be ashamed of your story. It will inspire others, it said.
“It certainly will,” he whispered, and carefully pulled on the handle. It opened silently, uncovering a room laid out exactly like the first. His eyes dotted from bed to bed, feeling the sickening pang of frustration once more.
No. Only three were empty.
In the bed furthest away from him, he saw an arm hanging over the edge of the bed. He made out the familiar outline of a person lying on their side. Long hair hung down to their shoulders. It was clearly a woman. She was slim, young, maybe early twenties—just how he liked them.
He checked his watch. 1:08. Eagerness built up inside him. His hands began to shake with excitement, vibrating the oak log clenched in his fist. He breathed deeply to calm himself. He thought of his hero, and how he’d killed the Chi Omega girls in almost total silence as not to disturb the rest of the house. He was going to do the same.
***
Ella ran to the front door of the Maya Rehabilitation Center for Recovering Women and tried the doorknob. Locked.
She took a step back and scrutinized the building’s layout, desperately thinking of a way to get inside. Beside the front door was a pointed metal fence. She barely even registered it for a second before she’d clasped her hands around the sharp rim and pulled herself up over it.
It dug into her hands, almost excruciatingly, but scaling fences like this was something every agent had to do in their careers—or so they told her. Once she’d elevated herself, she put her foot between two of the ridges and then jumped over into the back outdoor area.
She shook off the pain and hurried to the rear entrance. The door was lodged open with a coat jacket.
The thoughts began to whir in her mind. Was this door always lodged open like this? Or was this a sign of intrusion?
Then something hit her. Her senses picking up on a scent. The same odor she’d found at the past three crime scenes. There was blood in the air. She could feel the coppery traces in her nose and on her tongue.
There was no doubt about it.
The killer was here.
She drew her pistol and stepped into the building. Harris had already called and told the center to be on high alert, but given it was the early hours of the morning, how much of that information had been taken on board was unknown. Ella remained as silent as she could, keeping close to the walls and checking the corners as she navigated them.
She entered into a larger space, the temperature dropping a degree or two. It was a carpeted lounge, Ella realized. She stopped and listened to her surroundings. She held her breath. She familiarized herself with the building’s pitches. Water running through rusted pipes. Rain hammering against the old flat roof. Heavy winds beating the single-glazed windows.
A floorboard creaked somewhere.
She kept herself in the moment. Sharpened her wits. She tried not to over-think, as she had done before. The families of the dead needed her focus to be laser-sharp.
The same creak again.
It wasn’t beneath her feet. It was up above her, she realized.
Then footsteps, all along the ceiling. Not rhythmic, but slow and methodical.
She steadied her thoughts, but instead of keeping her position, she moved to the adjacent hallway where she saw a little more light seeping through. In the narrow hallway, there was a row of windows which let the light from the outside streetlamps. It wasn’t much, but it was preferable to pitch blackness.
She waited, her gun perched waist-high, ready to assume her shooting stance at a moment’s notice. She looked around, seeing a row of doors with motivational slogans slapped across them.
Ella wondered if anyone was inside there. If something violent was about to go down, they needed to know. Worse yet, Ella needed to know if anyone in there had already been attacked.
She tried the first door she came to, finding four beds. Suddenly, she heard the creaking of stairs. Whoever was out there was descending the staircase slowly, as if purposely trying to keep their presence unnoticed.
Ella heard him, felt him.
She went back into the room and hid amongst the shadows. Whoever it was edged closer to her. She heard him enter the bedroom next door, then leave as quickly as he arrived.
And then he was outside the room she was in. Barely a few feet away. She smelled the warmth of his body heat, heard his lungs expand and collapse.
The anxiety crept up on her, clouding her vision and causing the surrounding darkness to expand and consume her. She tried to calm herself, but she struggled to control her reactions. Here she was, alone with a man who had committed multiple homicides without remorse. What if something went wrong? What if he was smarter than her? What if he was one step ahead of her already and she didn’t know it?
She felt one of the beds beside her. Her thoughts turned to her father, murdered while he slept. Was this history repeating itself? Was this the haunting of life’s fragile symmetry fating her to die in the same way her father had?
The man entered the room, his silhouette a black cloud tainted with the blood of innocents. For all her determination and for all her resolve, Ella froze, rendered motionless out of some combination of terror and anxiety. She couldn’t see or hear or contemplate. This wasn’t some crime she was reading about in a textbook, this was real life and potentially the end of it. This was how she’d be remembered; a rookie agent murdered in the field by one of history’s most abhorrent serial killers. She’d die tonight, and her name would be in books about this man for years to come. That would be her legacy, and then one day, someone would say her name for the last time and she’d be gone for eternity.
It felt like she was in a dream state, ready to wake up to reality any second.
But she didn’t.
And the man approached her, wielding something high above his head.
Her last thoughts were of her father.
***
He walked cautiously over to her, stopping briefly near each bed so that if she awoke, she’d assume it was just another girl in the house retiring to sleep. He moved within a few feet of her, close enough to smell her unique scent. Every woma
n had one. Whoever this poor girl was had an odor of vanilla to her, perhaps through scented hand cream or shampoo. He wouldn’t have time to learn anything about her, so he made up a quick profile in his head to help add a layer of personalization to her death. He’d found that it made the kills much more enjoyable.
She was a secretary, he thought. Low pay, low responsibility, low happiness. Brought to this center through domestic abuse at the hands of her ex whom she spent years trying to shed, but always went back through some misplaced sense of affection. He beat her, but protected her at the same time, maybe.
He’d find out the truth about her identity when he read about her in the news, but for now, she was a victim and nothing more. A part of history, helping him cement a legacy to rival that of his heroes.
With a surge of adrenaline he lifted the oak log high above his head and positioned his shot right in her temples. All it would take was one solid thud and she’d be gone. Soundless, painless.
Chaos was a heartbeat away. He slammed the log down, aiming for her head.
But the figure moved.
Panic set in. His legs began to quiver. Blind rage filled him from head to toe. “What the fuck!” he screamed.
The lights switched on overhead, and there she was standing by the wall, pointing a gun at him.
“Game over, you son of a bitch,” she shouted.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Ella held the shot in place. He was cornered against the wall. The only way past was through her, and even with all her fear haunting every inch of her body, there was no way she was going to miss.
“Freeze. Don’t you dare move, got it? Drop your weapon to the ground—now!”
The man in front of her did as she asked, dropping the piece of wood onto an empty bed. He kept his gaze on her, and his demeanor remained upright, dominant. It worried her.
“Good. Now, listen to me. I’m an FBI agent with Special Firearms Honors. That means I can shoot you in the asshole from a mile away, and I’ve got my crosshairs right in the middle of your skull. If you move an inch, I’m going to blow your head clean off. Do you understand me?”
There was no response.
“I said: Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sweetheart,” the man said.
“Call me sweetheart again and I’m going to circumcise you with a bullet. Okay? You’re a very wanted man, and I’d have no hesitation in taking you back to the precinct in a body bag. Dead or alive, we don’t give a shit.”
There was unbridled rage in her voice, loathing in her words, and she knew that the best way to subdue this man was through intimidation. If she showed an ounce of weakness, he’d pounce, and there was no way that was going to happen.
“Get on your knees and put your hands on your head,” she shouted.
He did as she asked.
Where the hell is Ripley? Ella thought. I don’t want to risk cuffing him on my own, and I want to keep him alive. Keep him talking.
This was her dream scenario, her blissful nightmare, and yet all she felt for the man before her was hatred and repulsion. He was an organic serial killer, a true psychopath in his natural habitat, the rarest of predators in the annals of crime, and yet the fascination was minimal. She had no desire to talk to him or get into his head. That would come later, if ever. Right now, she wanted him cuffed and behind bars. He wanted her to be fascinated by him, and the last thing she wanted to do was give him the satisfaction.
But who was this man? When she’d seen his vague outline as he entered the room, she was sure it was him. Same height, same profile, although his distinguishing features were concealed with a black hoodie. Even so, she was positive it was the man she’d profiled it to be.
The man nodded with a smirk.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Who do you think I am?”
“Pull that hood down. Let me see you properly.”
Slowly, almost teasing her, he revealed his face in full.
It wasn’t Dr. Richards; it wasn’t anyone she’d seen before.
It stunned her into silence. Once again, she’d been wrong. Her profile had led her here, but she’d gone the wrong route toward the perpetrator’s identity. She felt like an amateur, assuming that the first name she’d come across was the unsub. Looking back, it was a stupid move. She cursed herself inside.
Whoever this man was had a deep gash around his right eye, the result of his fight with Alex, Ella thought. He was the most average of men; skinny, with low cheekbones and a thick mane of black hair. He had faint stubble around his chin and upper lip, and although his face was a little haggard, there were signs of youth and vitality in there. His mouth was pulled tightly into a grimace and his skin was flushed red.
Ella had spent her life studying people just like the man now standing with his back against the wall in front of her, but there was something unexplainable about the moment she found herself in. To look at this guy under any other circumstances, she’d assume he was maybe a construction worker, a postman, an outdoorsy type who loved to get his hands dirty and go home to his small family in their three-bedroom townhouse. Then, if she got talking to him, she’d wonder about his life story. Was he a sports fan? Did he have financial problems? What was his upbringing like, perhaps he was in the military, maybe he was a gifted math genius as a child?
Everything was ordinary. Nothing about the man before her was monstrous. She could hardly believe that he was responsible for any misconduct, let alone the hellacious slayings of multiple people.
Kemper, Ramirez, Gein, Dahmer, Gacy, Bundy. They were monsters to her because she was already well aware of their history before she looked into their life stories. She studied them through the lens of presumed evil, which, although she didn’t like to admit it, tainted and distorted her perception of everything about them.
And yet, the man in front of her lived in the same world as she did. He walked the same roads and was a slave to the same impulses. She and he were bonded in humanity, and yet he was somehow different, through some biological fault or twisted perception of the world. She knew now that all of her research and knowledge could never allow her, or anyone, to truly penetrate the mind of a serial killer. They could try their best to emulate their thoughts and patterns, but that was all it would ever be—emulation.
Serial killers were not ordinary people, but ordinary people were serial killers.
“I’m your son,” he said, finally.
“What?”
“I’m your brother. I’m everywhere.”
“Oh. Shut the fuck up. I’m not interested in quoting Ted Bundy. But the fact you’re spewing out his bullshit when there’s a gun pointed in your face tells me everything I need to know about you.”
“And what do you know about me?” he asked. “Do you think you can get inside my head just because you did some training, maybe read some books?”
Ella slowly edged toward the doorway to block it off in case he tried to flee. “I found you in here, didn’t I? I’ve never met you before and I predicted this based on the brutal shit you’ve already done. I think that qualifies as getting in your head, yes?”
The man laughed. “Go on then. Tell me how you did it. How did you guess I’d be here?”
“I’ll give you the short version. Edmund Kemper, Richard Ramirez, Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, and now Ted Bundy. Same victim type, same location, same methodology. No other places around here with a bunch of girls living.”
He lowered his hands and leaned against the wall behind him. “You noticed that, huh?”
“Of course.”
“I’m curious,” he said. “At what point did you make the connection?”
Ella adjusted her stance to let him know she was still honed in on him. “Not until your third kill. But you obviously had it all planned out, right?”
“No, actually.” The man shrugged. “The idea just came to me after I strangled that hitchhiker bitch. I realized I’d copied Kemper, so I just thought fuck it, I
may as well go for the big six. It wasn’t until halfway through I realized it was coming up to Bundy’s birthday.”
“You decided to kill six people on a whim?”
“Hah, you could say that. Life gets a little boring around here. Sometimes you need to inject a little serial murder to liven things up,” he laughed. “Still, I’m impressed that you managed to guess I’d be here tonight. Which one was your favorite?” he asked.
“Favorite?”
“Your favorite murder.”
“Normal people don’t have favorite murders. Not all of us are inept losers who live vicariously through the monsters of the world. Some of us learn from them, and then catch the people who copy them.”
“And yet you knew I’d mimicked Gein, Dahmer, the others.”
“It’s called research.”
“No, it’s called morbid fascination. I can see you now, with that gun pointed at me, part of you wants to pull that trigger and shoot me between the eyes. But another part of you wants to sit down with me and talk for hours, am I right?”
“No.”
Leaning against the wall, he slid down toward the floor to a squatting position. Ella kept the crosshairs pointed at his forehead. “Lies. You know we’ve probably both read the same books, watched the same documentaries. We’ve consumed the same information, and yet here we are on two opposite sides of the table. Weird, right?”
“Keep your hands where I can see them. Don’t you dare move them from on top of your head, you piece of shit.”
The man did as Ella asked. “Whoa, what’s with the foul language? Do I make you nervous?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“People only curse when they’re scared. Are you scared, Agent?”
Ella was almost numb with fear, but she made every effort not to show it. She kept herself steady, made sure that no part of her was quivering. She kept her eyes locked on him and didn’t deviate for a second. She only prayed that her faking was a good enough substitute for the real thing.