by B. B. Hamel
I keep to myself. I have a room up in the attic of our house and I don’t leave it much, except to go to work. I cook and clean sometimes, but mainly I stay upstairs and use my computer. I have lots of friends online, people that don’t know the real me. I hide the real me, because I hate what I’ve become.
Just anther abused, uneducated poor girl living in the hood.
I lean back in my chair and sigh. I want to get out, leave my father and join the world, but I can’t. I can’t get a good enough job that will support me because I have no skills. Every time I do manage to save some money, Rick barges into my room and steals it. Then he rages at me, hits me, throws me around, and blames me for all his problems. I look too much like my mother, he says, and that makes him depressed.
I hurt him just by existing.
I’ve learned to cope. I bought some locks for my bedroom door, and that has helped lately. I know he’ll break it down sooner or later, but for now, I can at least sleep knowing he can’t easily get in. He hasn’t come into my room late at night in a long time, but the memories are still there and the fear is still inside of me.
I stand up and stretch. I can hear the shower water running downstairs which means my father is back from the bar. I need to go down and check on him, make sure he hasn’t smashed up his face or done something stupid so that I can go to sleep in peace.
I toss on a sweatshirt and creep down the steps. It’s dark on the second floor but I know it all by heart anyway. I can hear my father humming, but suddenly that stops. I hear something else, something I didn’t expect.
Another man’s voice.
I stand still, straining to hear, but the words are muffled by the walls and the running water. I walk closer to the door, trying to figure what’s happening. Did my father bring a man home? Is he selling himself for cash and drugs now? Or is this some bookie here to break Rick’s legs over some idiotic gambling debt? Anything is possible with my piece of shit father.
I take the door handle. I hear a grunt and a thud as I slowly push the door open.
I stare at my father. He’s pressed against the shower wall, his eyes open in horror, his hands gripping at a knife that’s shoved into his chest. He’s slowly sliding down into the tub. For a second, we make eye contact.
And then I see him. He’s wearing a black t-shirt, a black jacket, and black pants with a dark brown belt. There’s a backpack on the floor beside me. He half turns and notices me standing there.
Piercing blue eyes, handsome, square face. Stubble covers his attractive jaw and rings his full lips. He’s gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous, and I don’t know what to do.
Shock fills my body. My father is slumped over in the tub, blood slowly spilling down the drain.
Without thinking, I turn and start running.
I don’t know where I’m trying to go, but that man just murdered my father. I can’t think, can’t breathe, I just start running down the steps. I can hear the man behind me, coming after me, the thumping of his shoes on the floor getting closer. I fly down the steps and hit the far wall before running back toward the kitchen.
Shit, I just passed the front door. I head through toward the kitchen, trying to get to the back door. There’s a killer in my house, a murderer, a crazy man. He’s going to kill me like he killed my father. Sheer panic drives me forward.
I reach the back door and grab the handle. As I turn it, something slams into me pinning me against the back door.
I struggle like my life depends on it, because it does.
“Stop,” he orders me. “Stop struggling. I’m not here for you.”
“You killed him. Please.” I can’t think. I just keep saying that over and over.
“Calm down. You weren’t supposed to be here.”
My mind is totally filled with blind, animalistic panic. Finally I watch as he pulls something from his pocket.
A syringe.
A scream tries to tear itself from my lips but he quickly thrusts a hand over my mouth, shoving my head back against the wood. He’s big and so much stronger than I am. I try to fight but he’s too much for me. I watch in horror as the syringe comes toward my neck.
“This won’t hurt,” he whispers. “Don’t fight it.”
The syringe plunges into my neck. I gasp as I feel a coldness spread through my veins.
The world goes wobbly and loose.
“It’s okay,” he says. “Go ahead. Go to sleep.”
Gorgeous blue eyes. Big, strong arms, wrapped around my body.
The world goes sideways then dark.
3
Noah
Fucking shit. That was the closest I’ve ever come to getting caught, and my problems still aren’t over.
Rick’s daughter is slumped down in the hallway, unconscious. I know I have at least four hours before she wakes up, more if I dose her again, though I don’t want to. Another dose would be dangerous. I don’t want to risk stopping her heart. I don’t want to risk killing the girl.
Which is a little ironic. I’m a serial killer, after all. But I don’t hurt innocents. I don’t hurt people that don’t deserve it. That’s part of my rules, and part of what has kept me flying under the radar for so long. The cops don’t really give a fuck if a scumbag disappears from the hood. It happens all the fucking time. Sometimes junkies skip town, or they get killed by the mob, or they just overdose and rot away in some abandoned house, or any number of things. If I’m careful and smart, most of the time the cops barely investigate.
This is fucked up, though. Normally I’d take my time and dismantle Rick’s body to make disposal easier, but I don’t have time. Instead, I wrap his body in plastic and then again in black trash bags. My van is parked in the alley behind the house and I should be able to get him through the back yard and into the van without arousing any suspicions.
The girl is harder, though. I can’t just wrap her up, she might suffocate. I’ll have to risk carrying her.
Once I’m finished with Rick, I drag him down the steps. I’m not careful with him, since he doesn’t care anymore, and his body bumps down the stairs. Once at the bottom, I drag him through the house and out the back door.
Once I’m in the yard, I get on one knee and slowly pull him up onto my shoulders. I stand and carry him, all his dead fucking weight directly on my body. I stagger but manage to get through the back gate. I pull open my van and toss him in there, shutting the door quietly again.
I lean against the door, breathing heavily. Nobody is around.
The girl is easier than I thought. I just pretend that she’s drunk, and instead of carrying her over my shoulders, I throw one arm over my neck and hold her up that way. I half carry, half drag her through the house and through the yard before putting her into the back with her father. I prop her up and make sure she won’t roll around as I drive.
Once that’s done, I head into the bathroom for a final cleaning. I have to wipe every surface with bleach and make sure nothing is left behind. It’s painstaking, but it’s very, very important.
The sun is going to rise soon and three hours have passed when I finally finish. I get back into my van, placing my pack onto the passenger seat, and head out.
As I drive, anger at myself rages through me. I’ve never made a mistake like that in all my years of hunting. I plan meticulously and research every last detail. I make sure my victims are guilty of their crimes by using a huge networks of informants all through the city, mostly homeless men and women that need an extra buck. I stalk them and witness their actions for myself if at all possible.
I’m careful. I’m beyond careful. I’m flawless.
Not this time. I don’t know how I missed her. In all of my time watching Rick, I never once saw his daughter. I only was able to get into his house twice, but I still never ran across her when scouting the place out.
I got sloppy. I don’t know how, but I did. It had been too long since my last kill and my screaming need was fucking with me, pushing me to go forward. It must have pushed
me too hard and made me careless where I should have been paying attention.
Now I was paying the price.
I drove for an hour, heading out of the city. I live in a custom-built cabin on the outskirts of town, really as far out into the country as possible without getting too far from the city. I have two acres to myself, which means plenty of privacy, and I live alone.
I have to live alone. Nobody would want to live with a serial killer.
I pull into my driveway, a long dirt road with multiple “Private Property: Trespassers Will Be Shot” signs. I curl around the forest that surrounds my property until I finally spot my home.
It’s three stories tall with a large basement and sub-basement complex beneath it. Everything is state of the art and fully customized. I had it built ten years ago with the money I won from the lawsuit against the family of the man that murdered my parents. I still live off that money, or at least off the investments I made with that money. I don’t have to work a day in my life if I don’t want to, but sometimes I wish I did have to work if it meant having my parents back.
I pull the van out front of my house and kill the engine. I climb out and walk around back, puling the doors open.
The girl is slumped right where I left her. Rick, however, was sliding around on the whole way back.
He doesn’t mind, though. He’s dead.
I reach in and grab Rick’s feet. I pull him out, letting his body thump onto the ground. I spend the next ten minutes dragging him around back toward the incinerator. I’ll have to fire that up later and toss him inside, but for now I need to get the girl into my house.
I walk back around and gently lift her from the van. She’s so small and light, surprisingly so, especially for a woman with such beautiful curves. She’s more attractive every time I see her, and I can’t help but feel my cock stir in my pants.
Which is fucked up, considering she’s unconscious and I just killed her dad.
I carry her to the front door. I stop and place my thumb against a fingerprint scanner which unlocks the front door and activates the house. I hear the hum of the air conditioning click on and the lights slowly illuminate the rooms ahead of me.
I stand in the foyer, wondering where the fuck to keep this girl.
With a sigh, I realize exactly where I have to put her. I don’t like it, but I know I have no other choice. I wish I could do better, but it’s the safest place in the house. I have no idea what I’m going to do with her, but at least I won’t have to worry about her escaping.
I carry her to the elevator that runs down the center of the house. I get inside and hit B2 for the sub-basement. The elevator slides down into the dark basement.
The doors open. I step out into the room. The lights automatically click on.
I look around at what I like to call my Killing Room, and begin to plan how I’m going to keep her.
4
Amelia
The world slowly comes back into focus. I feel like I’m waking up from a deep, deep sleep with a really, really bad hangover. The room is dim and bare, and the floor beneath me feels like concrete. I don’t know where I am or what time it is, and everything swims around me when I try to move.
It takes me a second before I remember the man.
And my father’s body with the knife in his heart. All that blood.
I gasp and crawl backwards. There’s a blanket wrapped around me, but I shed it off like a dirty skin. I’m still in my normal clothes and nothing hurts except for my head and a general nausea. I finally hit a concrete wall and stay there, looking around the room, heart pounding.
I’m in a clean, cold room with a concrete floor. The ceiling is white drop tile with fluorescent lighting, half of which are turned off. Aside from the blanket, there’s nothing else in the room. On the far wall, there is a set of elevator doors and a small pad next to it.
Hurrying, I slowly stand. My vision swims but I ignore it. I know I have to move fast. He can be anywhere, absolutely anyway. I hobble closer, closer, and am within a few feet of the elevator doors when I hear a clink.
And I fall flat on my face.
It takes me a second to figure out what just happened. I stare at the manacle around my ankle and the thick iron chain connecting me to a steel rod in the concrete floor.
I’m a captive. I want to scream and cry but I’m too terrified to even move.
I stare at the chain and begin to claw at the manacle around my ankle. It’s thick metal with a solid clasp and a large keyhole. I have no clue where a person would even get something like this, but that doesn’t matter.
I keep seeing his face in my mind. Handsome, beautiful really, and deadly. I keep feeling his body against mine and his voice deep and warm in my ear.
And the pinch of the syringe as he plunged it into my neck.
My thoughts are interrupted by an incredibly comical ding. It takes me a second to realize that it’s the elevator. Panicking, I crawl back across the floor and huddle against the wall as the doors slide open soundlessly and he steps into the room.
It’s the killer. I’ll never forget that face. He changed into a pair of jeans and a loose white button-down shirt, but it’s definitely still him. He’s holding a tray in his hands with a glass and a bowl of something steaming on top of it. He smirks at me as I cower there, staring into his deep blue eyes.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
I stare at him but don’t answer.
“This will be easier if you talk,” he says.
“Amelia,” I say softly.
“Amelia,” he responds, smiling. “I’m Noah.”
“Please,” I say, sitting up onto my knees. “Please let me go.”
“Why would I do that, Amelia?”
“I won’t tell anyone what I saw. I promise. I don’t even care about my father.”
He laughs. “I believe that.”
“He was a bastard. Do you see this?” I point at my eye, my black and blue eye. “He did this because I decided to throw out his beer bottles.”
He stares at me but doesn’t say a word. I can’t read his gorgeous face, and for a second I find it hard to believe that he’s really a killer.
But I saw it. I saw what he did to my father.
“Please,” I say to him, begging for my life. I know I’m begging. There’s nothing dignified about begging for your life but I don’t know what else to do. I’ve been through so much shit already, been abused and put down my whole life. I don’t want to die in some psycho’s basement without ever living at all.
“I don’t want to die,” I say to him.
He smiles at me. My blood runs cold but an excited chill dips down my spine.
“I don’t kill innocent people,” he says.
“What?”
“I don’t kill innocents,” he says again. “But I’ll admit, this is a new situation for me.”
“I’m not a bad person,” I say. “I’m not. Please. Just let me go.”
“Your father was a bad person,” he says. “A very, very bad person. You don’t know the half of it.”
“Yes,” I say softly, staring at him, surprised at the anger I suddenly feel. “I do. I know all about Rick.”
He looks a little surprised as he silently watches me. I stare back, feeling defiant. What does this bastard know about me? I take a deep breath, calming myself.
I need to stop begging. I need to get over this fear. I’ve been afraid my whole life and it never got me anywhere. I need to breathe and think, or else I’ll end up just like my dad.
“I’m not letting you go,” he says finally. “But I won’t kill you, either.”
“What are you going to do, keep me here forever?”
He laughs. “Maybe,” he says. “I think you’d like that. What do you say? You can become my little pet.”
“You’re disgusting,” I say before even realizing it.
He laughs again, a charming and deep laugh. “You’re right there,” he says. He walks over to me and stops a
bout five feet away. He crouches down and gently places the tray on the floor. “Eat,” he says then back away to the elevator doors.
I stare at him. “No.”
“Eat,” he says again. “If you want bathroom privileges.”
I look around. “I don’t see one nearby.”
“Look again,” he says, grinning, and points at the far wall.
I squint at it and watch as he walks over and presses a button. The wall suddenly rises up into the ceiling, revealing a full bathroom.
I gape, shocked.
“Your chain is too short right now, but if you’re good and you eat, I’ll give you more space.”
“Enough to reach the elevator?”
“Not quite. I can’t have you trying to ambush me every time I come down to check on you.”
I just stare at him, not bothering to reply. He smiles again at me and walks back over to the elevator, going along the far wall. I can tell that my chain is nearly long enough to get into the bathroom, but would need at least another twenty feet to make it to the elevator. I’m guessing the bathroom is only an extra five feet, ten at max.
He stops at the elevator and presses his thumb against the pad. The doors open again with a ding and he looks over his shoulder at me.
“Eat,” he says. “You’ll feel better soon.”
He disappears into the elevator.
I watch the closed doors for a few minutes before reluctantly crawling over to the tray. There’s a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a glass of water. There’s no spoon but I can easily pick up the bowl to my lips and drink it if I wanted.
I don’t want to give in to him. He seems like a cocky bastard, even if he is handsome. He’s younger than I thought at first, maybe in his late twenties, early thirties. I can’t tell for sure. He’s probably eight years older than me, give or take a few. For some reason, that fact makes me even angrier.