Her Final Victim

by NJ Moss

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “We’re the same, Jamie.”

  “For fuck’s sake. Are we really going to do this? We’re the same, you and I. No, you psycho bitch, we’re not the same. You’re a serial killer.”

  “What a silly conclusion to arrive at.” She tosses her head airily. She’s confident. She’s beautiful. Why can’t she be wrinkled and scarred and ugly? “You saw some photographs and you immediately assumed I’d killed those poor men myself. Does that seem reasonable to you?”

  “Who are you, then?” I clench my fists.

  “Do you remember Sadie?”

  “You know I do.” Sadie was the woman I chose before Lacy. “You were following me, so why don’t we cut the bullshit?”

  “Did she never mention she had a sister?”

  “No.” I watch her closely. At least this would make some sort of sense.

  “I’m her older sister. We were estranged when you preyed on her. Otherwise, it never would’ve happened. Silly Sadie, gullible Sadie… Do you have any idea how devastated she was when you ghosted her? Do you have any idea how insane it drove her? I couldn’t let that stand. But I’m tiring of you now, of your little unimportant life. Hand over the money and you’ll never see me again.”

  “But you were already following me. That doesn’t make sense if you only learned about me afterward. Nice try.”

  She spreads her hands. “The money, Jamie.”

  “I’m right though, aren’t I? That was one hundred per cent certifiable bullshit.”

  “It was both the truth and a lie. Now, the money. Please don’t make me ask again.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. I really don’t feel like paying you.”

  She grins. It’s all teeth. “That’s because I haven’t shown you the video yet.”

  “What video?”

  I get ready to act surprised. Of course I know what damn video she’s going to show me. The bitch set me up and now she’s going to lord it over me. But I can’t let her know I’ve already seen it, because then she’ll know I’ve broken into her flat. Tom Brown is my best shot at fighting back. I can’t mess this up.

  She produces her phone with a flourish. And there it is. There’s me and there’s a woman who isn’t Hazel, who isn’t even in Hazel’s universe. The moaning and the messy clash of our bodies is even sicker the second time.

  “Okay,” I growl, waving a hand. “I’ll pay. And then you’re gone, right?”

  “Oh, Jamie. My meanie boyfriend broke up with me. Will you be my saviour? Will you fuck the break-up out of me?”

  I take the envelope from my pocket. “I’ve got the damn money.”

  “I’ve only spoken to you for five minutes.” She pouts and flutters her eyelashes. “But I’m already oh-so-desperate for your cock. Oh, what an absolute man you are.”

  “Do you want it or not?”

  I won’t explode like I did in her flat. I think she likes it. I think she gets off on it.

  “Yes, yes.” She sighs. “Ten grand and I go poof. Give it here.”

  “How do I know you’ll really leave?”

  “Because I have other, more important, pursuits.”

  “Killing people, you mean.”

  “I printed those photos from the internet to frighten you. I bought some offal from the butchers and spread it over the bed. Are you really so woefully impressionable?”

  “Just speak normal. Fuck me. This isn’t a Jane Eyre novel, sweetheart.”

  “Austen – Jane Eyre was a character. But I see your point. I’ll speak your language. Oh, you silky whore, you silky fucking slut. What did you mean, by the way? Why were you calling her silky?”

  “I was…” I laugh without humour, shaking my head. “I’m not playing this game. Take the money and fuck off before I lose my patience.”

  “It makes no sense. Silky.”

  “She was wearing silk. She was soft. I don’t bloody know.” I wave the envelope in her face. “Take it.”

  “I’ve never known a man so desperate to part with such a large sum. But fine, if you insist.”

  She takes it and walks toward the path, heels clicking as she leaves me. And leaves my life, hopefully. Maybe this can work out. Ten grand is a lot of money to somebody who lives above an electronics shop. She can kill people or play with Ouija boards or whatever the hell she does for fun, as long as she does it someplace else.

  Wait, what the fuck?

  I rub rainwater from my eyes.

  No, I’m not seeing things.

  She’s handed my ten grand to the homeless bloke, and the homeless bloke is running from the park.

  By the time I reach the gate, he’s disappeared from the park and the surrounding streets.

  I run up and down, looking along alleyways, bumping into people and yelling at them to get out of my way.

  He’s gone. The bastard’s disappeared.

  I end up back at the park, panting, my chest tight from the running. I’m soaked with rain and sweat.

  Millicent leans against the stone pillar by the gate, tapping her shoe against the ground. “No luck?”

  I move toward her. “You fucking bitch.”

  Her free hand darts to her inside jacket pocket and pauses there. She narrows her eyes at me, flinty, focused. I don’t like that look. She weighs half as much as me. I could snap her like a twig.

  But I don’t like that look.

  “Did you really think this was about money? Could you honestly be so naïve?”

  “What then?” I slam my fist against my chest. “What, Millicent? What the fuck do you want?”

  “Perhaps I’ll tell you before this ends. Or perhaps you’ll bleed out before I get the chance. In any case, my purpose will be served. I will stand in the light.”

  “The light, okay,” I say. “Let me help you. How can I help you get the light?”

  These words are rubbish. But maybe I need to speak her language.

  “If you truly want to help me…” She pushes away from the wall. I cringe back despite myself. Her hand is shifting in her pocket. “Take a very sharp razor blade and slit vertically up your wrist. Write the word sorry on the wall as many times as you can in your blood. And then, to ensure your worthless life is effectively extinguished, hang yourself as you bleed out.”

  She pulls her hand from her pocket.

  I leap back, raising my hands. I’ll smash her head in if she tries to stab me.

  She pops a chewing gum into her mouth. “Want one? No? Okay. See you soon, little lamb.”

  She strides away, leaving me breathless. I feel lost. I don’t know what to do.

  33

  Millicent

  I used to believe in fairy tales. When I was a little girl I’d bury my head in these magical books, believing everything would work out in the end: the knight would charge and tip his lance, and all my life’s difficulties would be unhorsed. I’d imagine I was a princess, bewitching and calm, and out there a prince was waiting for me.

  I gave Jamie a good fright earlier this evening in the park. I’d arranged the dance beforehand: the homeless man would flee to a nearby church, skulking in the graveyard, and I would meet him and take my cut.

  Seven thousand for me and three for him.

  I think that’s fair, especially because all he’ll do is buy heroin and hookers and whatever else sad fucks like him indulge in.

  Laughter gripped me when he actually showed up, my stack of notes ready. The only smart thing he did was hide his share. The idea of slaughtering him and searching his corpse occurred to me, but that would interfere with my plans.

  Instead I got close and grinned in his pathetic face. You should’ve run and kept it for yourself, moron.

  Now that playtime with Jamie is over, it’s time to toy with his wife. But not in a cruel way, not in a selfish way.

  Whatever I do to Hazel, it will be for her own good.

  The more I think about it, the more convinced I become she can be my escape. She can bond wi
th me and be my friend and share jokes with me. She can be the sister I never had. There will be blood and there will be pain, but after the violence I’ll support her, become her closest friend.

  But she might not realise how special I am unless I nudge her a little. It sounds like such a crazy thing: a hacker, the Dark Web. But the man came through.

  I hit refresh and a smile peels across my face, like my skin is stripping from my cheeks. I giggle at the thought, taking a very small sip of whisky. It’s rough and it burns my insides. I’ll have to take a smaller sip next time; I feel far too woozy.

  I take a breath, fighting down the thought that I’m like Mother. Here I am, seeking solace in oblivion the same way she did – the same way she’d humiliate herself and prostrate herself and even prostitute herself if it led to her fix. She didn’t care she had a daughter to take care of, a life to be lived. She watched, she condoned, no, no… She participated in the torture, and all because of this.

  I knock back the rest of the glass and hit refresh.

  With each click I am taking something from Hazel, as though she’s hanging from meat hooks in a windowless room and I’m wielding a whip. I imagine slashing the hot leather down her naked body, fine red lines appearing on her sumptuous skin. I imagine getting closer, nibbling the inside of her thigh, dragging my tongue close to her.

  What the fuck am I doing?

  My hand is wedged between my legs, the same way it would when I was a girl. There I was: the fucking freak, acting in inappropriate ways because it was all I knew. I can’t touch myself as I fantasise about her. I can’t ruin what we have, the same way the Comrades ruined what I had.

  What Hazel and I have is going to be pure, platonic, honest.

  I grip the edge of the table, my hands shaking, my whole body shaking with the need to do something.

  It’s those old memories, linked to the rare arousal, the rare longing for something, a hot human body pressed against mine. It’s tossing my mind back to tangled pained recollections, the good inexorable from the bad. Vignettes attack me, schoolboys crowded round, one of them laughing and another chewing gum, standing over me…

  I rise to my feet and pace up and down the room.

  The only light comes from the laptop screen and the street outside. Music plays in one of the adjacent properties. It pumps and I wish they’d turn it up louder, so the whole building wobbled and I wouldn’t have to think about this: about a note left outside my bedroom on Mother’s Day.

  Make sure to get your mother something nice.

  I’d cradled that letter for a long time, trying to work it out, wondering why Father cared enough.

  He didn’t. It was a lie, a trick: one of his twisted games.

  When I presented Mother with the bow I’d bought her – using money I’d cleverly acquired while roaming – she laughed in my face. Everybody laughed, pointing their fingers at me, as Mother danced around the room and rubbed the bow against her bare breasts and her bare vagina and everything else. Everybody was naked, all of us standing there naked, and I didn’t think to question it…

  What is wrong with me?

  “No, no, no,” I hiss. “They were evil. They twisted you. You were a child. You were a good person. Those motherfuckers changed you; they made you. And look what you fucking did. You ruined them. We gut that piece of meat real easy, didn’t we, when we were old enough. Remember the eyes in the night-dark. Remember the way they flinch when they turn, if they turn, and the crunching sound their skulls make when they don’t. Remember the bottle plunged effortlessly into their soft throats, the groan he made as he collapsed onto his knees and begged for his mother.”

  I cut off, dropping onto the bed and letting out a long breath. Even if nobody’s here, I’m embarrassed about that poor display, letting silly unimportant past events affect how I feel now. Sometimes I have to talk to myself, to convince myself to calm down. It veers dangerously close to cattle territory, but I’m a human being, and being non-cattle didn’t save Father.

  I do some breathing exercises, closing my eyes and focusing, my mind fixated on the expansion of my lungs alone. Everything else drifts away: the bed beneath me and my clothes and my body, my skin, my guts and everything else. The breath is all there is, and it passes in and out, in and out, until I can open my eyes with predator calm.

  I was abused as a child. It’s over. There’s nothing I can do to change it.

  I return to the laptop, hitting refresh and staring at the screen.

  But there’s lots I can do to change her.

  34

  Hazel

  I don’t even think about it anymore. I wonder about that sometimes. I wake up, and before I know it, my phone’s in my hand. Sometimes, in those little moments, I’ll ask myself why I’m doing this right away. But that’s my sleepy brain trying to trick me. I need to check my phone. My followers always change overnight.

  Increasing my following is a vital part of my career. My future career, anyway, since I don’t make loads of money yet.

  But I will. I know I will. I’ve got the potential to be an Insta-superstar.

  I can hear Jamie in the shower. Birds tweet outside the window, maybe using the bird feeder I bought and assembled myself. There’s traffic and I can smell my own sweat.

  But I can’t see anything except for my phone.

  I lost thirty-six followers last night.

  I haven’t lost followers since I was a teenager. It doesn’t make sense. I’m doing everything right, everything the bigger influencers do.

  I’m riding trends. I do my research. I kill myself in the gym and I drink fucking cucumber juice and I’ve lost thirty-six followers.

  I laugh. I don’t even care if it comes out crazy and shaky.

  “Cucumber juice.” I shake my head. “Pineapple juice isn’t that bad, no way, but cucumber juice? Less sugar. Less taste. How’s that for an advert? Maybe I should get a cucumber juice contract. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  I used to talk to myself as a girl. Dad was at sea and Mum didn’t care and I was a shy little girl, so I talked to myself and I watched TV. I even read books sometimes.

  I’m shaking.

  I try to think of the horrors in the world, the people without food, without water. I’m lucky. I’m privileged. I’m blessed.

  But I can’t. They’re them and I’m me. Just because bad things are happening a thousand miles away or even next door, it doesn’t change how badly I want to bite my arm, in the same exact place: slot my teeth into the previous mark like a promise.

  Thirty-six followers. Thirty-six people, actual humans, looked at my page and said to themselves, This isn’t for me. She’s not pretty enough. She’s not funny enough. She’s not engaging enough.

  How much skinnier do I need to be? I haven’t got a six-pack. I’ve got a faint outline. Most people don’t like the really fit look though, not with women. But maybe I need to lose a few more pounds, shave a percentage off my body’s fat content. Are my teeth white enough? I had braces when I was a teenager and they’re pretty straight, but they don’t sparkle. Maybe I should get them professionally whitened. What about my clothes? Do I need new clothes?

  I know what I could do, would do, if I wasn’t married. I’d have countless options then. A young woman who’s willing to cross a few lines on social media can make her fortune.

  I could hunt down Kirk Hope on our shared birthday, laser in on him, blow him until his balls are gasping for relief and then take a few well-thought-out photos. I could leak some topless snaps of me. I’ve got enough followers where people would take notice.

  I want to tear my hair out. Maybe I’ll bite myself later, once Jamie’s at work, when he won’t interrupt me. I’ll probably talk to myself all day. My heart is pounding too hard. It hurts.

  I need to remember my marriage. What Jamie and I have, it goes beyond fame.

  Jamie’s stressed. Work is getting to him. I’m his rock.

  Whatever else is true about us – whatever dark alleys cut through o
ur relationship – he’s always been able to rely on me. Even when I hate why he’s relying on me, what he’s confiding in me, what I’m forced to accept, I’ve been there for him. Because that’s what a wife does. It’s her job as much as it’s a husband’s duty to provide, and one day we’ll have children and I’ll have to be even sturdier for him. I have to remember that, no matter how I feel, I have a purpose.

  I meant the oaths we took under the star-bright altar. I truly meant them, with as much conviction as a person is capable of feeling.

  I’ll have to work out a way to fix this without prostituting myself online. And not because I’m better than the women who use their bodies to get ahead in this game. I would do that if I didn’t love Jamie, if I didn’t know how much it would bother him.

  Marriage is loyalty. People can say anything they want about my mum and dad, but they’ve been married for twenty-seven years and they’re as loyal as soldiers to each other. Which is fitting. Marriage is a war, and I’m a front-line trooper. Whatever we do, we do together.

  And yet isn’t that just bullshit? Mum and Dad’s marriage is a sham: as much as mine and Jamie’s is a sham.

  The things we let our men get away with…

  The shower has stopped. The door to the en suite is opening with a soft creak. I quickly wipe my cheeks with the quilt. I didn’t even know I was crying.

  I make myself as bright and shiny as Jamie expects me to be. He needs my support. He won’t talk about it. But something is really bothering him at work, something big. Maybe there’s a merger or a takeover or whatever they call it.

  “You all right, H?” He has a towel wrapped around his waist and steam rises from his thick-muscled body.

  “Don’t I look all right?”

  “You look incredible. You always do. I was just wondering about the freaky smiling routine.”

  I shake my head, tossing my hair.

  Please see me, Jamie. Please see how upset I am. Please don’t make me tell you. Please, please, I beg you… Please, Jamie, don’t offer me solutions. Don’t tell me everything will work out. Let me cry and feel like my tears aren’t pathetic, even if they are, even if I know they are. Please tell me I’m real.