Police are not ice skaters. They do not understand the cold. A stumble on the ice and the rat has gotten away.
Or something like that.
The image of the woman who had come after him at the reservoir remained constant in his mind. And the fact that the woman had slipped proved to him that he was meant to do this work. Even nature was assisting him, the ice finally realizing his affection for it.
But he also knew that the policewoman finding him at the reservoir meant that they would capture him soon. And that was fine with him. When he’d started this, he wanted it to end in the custody of the police. He’d already gotten the media attention he had wanted. So when it came to an end, there would be cameras and reporters. And he could let it be known that he had finally learned how to cheat death—how to regain what had been lost.
Of course, there were still kinks in the process. With a few more tweaks and experiments, he thought he might be able to perfect it. It was partly about timing, but it was also about the strength and endurance of the body. To capture beauty, the cold and the ice did the trick. But to harness it…there was something more to it—something he had not yet learned to master.
He walked out of the kitchen and into the bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror and studied himself. There was something very feminine to him, something he had learned to live with. Yet whenever he was drawn to these feminine qualities, it made him think of his mother. And when he thought of his mother, his heart felt like it had turned to ash and he became afraid of everything. He had learned to push her from his mind a long time ago but now, as he neared the end of his work, he had to face those ghosts.
He’d first been confused about his sexuality at the age of six. He was pretty sure that he was really a she. He could remember fleeting glimpses of the girl he had once been (the girl he still was, he supposed) and missed her. The long blonde hair, the bows in her hair, the girl-like smile.
But for reasons he had never understood, his mother had desperately wanted a boy. And anything he did that was girl-like was met with punishment and ridicule. He remembered his mother looking at him while he bathed, pointing to the area between his legs and telling him that God got it wrong—that she had asked for a boy…that the world owed her a boy.
It was the psychologists and policemen that made him realize that despite his mother’s attempts at mind control, nature had had its say. He was a girl who had been raised as a boy by a mother with severe emotional and mental problems.
At such a young age, though, he had not realized her problems. When his mother had gone nuts when he had requested a doll for Christmas one year, he thought it was normal. When he pointed out pretty dresses in a store and was scolded for it, he thought that his mother just really didn’t want him to have it. And when, on a cold winter night, his mother had pressed his face to the burner of a stove because he had finally summoned up the courage to tell her that he was a girl and he did not want to be a boy, he assumed it was a typical form of punishment.
He hadn’t known any better.
He, he thought, looking at himself in the mirror. He. Him. His.
He ran his hand along the scars of that burn from long ago and shuddered. But you’re a she, he thought. She. Her. It’s okay to accept that now.
“No,” he said with a croak.
Not only are you a woman, but you used to be so pretty.
It was a truth that hurt. When the first foster family had taken him in, they had let him live as a girl. They’d been okay that he had to pee sitting down. They bought him dresses. When he started to develop feelings for boys, they were okay with it.
So why am I still seeing myself as a he?
The questions were like hornets, always swarming in his (her) head.
When I’m beautiful again, that will fix it. When I steal their beauty and youth and freeze death…I can finally be free.
He lifted his shirt. There was no bra because he had never worn one, not even for the foster family that had raised him through his terrible teenage years. A few men had touched the breasts he saw in the mirror and it had been nice most of the time. But when he saw them, all he felt was shame. And, deep down, a longing to be able to accept them and the rest of his feminine form.
Almost, he thought. Almost…
He’d already decided that he would spend the rest of the day in search of his next subject. Two or three more…that’s all it would take. He was sure of it.
He had some hard work ahead of him—work that never got easier. He did not like taking life but it always seemed to just sort of happen.
He went into the bedroom and looked out of the window. Everything was frozen and grim out there, crisp and almost featureless in the cold. It was beautiful in its own desolate way. It spoke to him. It called him.
He walked back into the kitchen and took the keys off of the peg by the front door.
The cold was calling him, and he had no real choice but to listen.
***
If he was being honest with himself, there was something he found a little sad about how easy it was to get his subjects. He supposed it was because women inherently felt safer around other women. And although he still saw himself as male, the women he preyed upon did not. They saw the long hair, the tall yet mostly feminine stature, and most of all, the scarring on the side of his face.
He was parked in the lower end of the parking lot of a local Whole Foods store, standing at the back of the van. The doors were open and he was doing his best to act—to play the part. He stood between two of the streetlights within the parking lot, slightly illuminated but not quite out in the open. The glare of the lights shone down on the fading darkness of the early morning hours. It was 6:22 in the morning. Not many people were out and about just yet, making it the perfect time. The store opened at 6:00 and while a few people had gone in and out of the store, he had not seen a woman that fit his standard; a few had been close but not quite perfect.
He was about to give up the hunt in this location and move elsewhere when he saw the woman quickly getting out of a little silver hybrid car up at the top of the parking lot. The first thing he noticed about her was that she was tall. The second thing he noticed was that even in the freezing cold, she looked to be wearing gym shorts of some kind that showed off a set of gorgeous legs. He glanced up and saw that the rest of her appeared to be just as promising through the somewhat tight-fitting T-shirt she was wearing. He knew she was likely wearing a sports bra, too, so it was likely stifling some of what she truly looked like underneath.
When he realized that he had essentially marked his prey, a familiar surge of adrenaline and worry filled him. He felt dizzy for a moment, leaning against the van and working up his nerve. He wanted to take this one alive, and that meant playing the part of an actor. He had to convince the woman to trust him, to have no fear when he spoke to her.
He’d come up with a plan on his drive into the parking lot. It was simple, but he thought that was why it might work. And all it would take was a screwdriver and an old taillight bulb that had somehow ended up in his glove box several months ago. When he watched the woman who had just come from the gym walk into the store, he went to his glove box and retrieved the old bulb and the screwdriver. With them in hand, he went to the rear of the van again and did his best to appear busy. He angled himself so that he could see the front window of the store, his eyes on the registers so he could see when the woman came through.
Two cars entered the parking lot and three left in the time it took for the woman to appear in the window. She went to the self-checkout lane farthest to the right with just a few items in her hand. He waited until it appeared that she was slipping her credit card into the card reader and then started walking toward the store. He headed in the direction of the woman’s hybrid car and found that he had timed it just right. He was nearly at her car as she came out of the automated doors.
At first, he pretended to not even notice her. But as their paths nearly crossed, he acted as if he had
noticed her for the first time.
“Oh, hey, excuse me,” he said, making sure that the feminine quality of his voice was at its softest. He also tossed a little embarrassment into his tone for good measure.
The woman looked up and within two seconds, she registered the scarring on his face and did her very best to hide her shock—not doing such a great job. It was clear that her shock was stopping the formation of words, so he spoke again before she had a chance.
“This is embarrassing, but a cop just pulled me over for a taillight being out. I told him I’d fix it right away. I knew the damn thing was out. I bought a new bulb three days ago and just never put it in. But…well…”
He then showed her the pinky on his left hand—the one he had dipped into dry ice for a little over ten minutes the day before. It wasn’t quite as nasty-looking as it had been yesterday but it was still quite grisly.
Again, the woman did a terrible job of hiding her disgust. But there was a resigned sort of pity to her expression as well.
“Frostbite,” he said. “I got it yesterday and I can’t seem to pry the cover off the taillight. I can barely feel the finger at all. I hate to ask for such a dumb favor, but would you be at all willing to pop it off for me?”
The woman thought for a moment, and he could slowly see relief coming into her face. She looked to the screwdriver and the bulb in his hands and gave a brief smile. “Sure,” she said.
“Oh my God, thank you so much,” he said, leading her to his van.
When they reached the back of the van, he handed her the screwdriver. As she started to try prying the cover from the light, he peered back behind him and saw no one in the lot. There were only six cars and not a single person.
He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew the cloth with his homemade mixture on it. He could briefly smell it, strong and astringent, as he brought it out. He approached the woman from behind and placed it over her face.
But the woman was quick. Before he could clamp it down over her face, she had sensed something amiss. She stood up quickly and pushed the cloth away. At once her arms were working, one coming around and nearly clocking him in the face. He dropped the cloth, blocked the punch, and then felt instinct kick in. He punched her hard in the chest and, sensing that this was taking far too long, grabbed her by the chin and slammed the back of her head against the side of van in two successive motions.
The woman’s eyes rolled into the back of her head and she slumped against the van. He caught her before she could hit the pavement and used his free hand to open the side door on the van.
He quickly slid her into the van, being careful not to let her head hit the floorboard as she angled her body between the middle row of seats and the back of the driver and passenger seats. As he closed the door on her, the sense of excitement died down and turned into something much more like anxiety. It broiled in his stomach like lava.
He turned his attention back to the parking lot. There was still no one out there, but someone was coming out of the automatic doors as he climbed into the driver’s seat. He’d done it without anyone seeing him. Silently, he blessed the night for being so dark and the cold from keeping people out and about.
Having no idea how long the woman would be knocked out, he sped home, which was just five blocks away. He checked the rearview mirror for anyone that might be following him or, God forbid, police lights. But all there was to see in the rearview mirror was his own reflection and just for a moment, he could almost appreciate and admire the woman he saw staring back at him.
***
He sat in the van outside of his townhouse for five minutes, waiting for a pair of teenagers that were hanging out on their porch three houses down to go inside. When they did, he wasted no time. Acting as quickly as he could, he removed the woman from the van. He did his very best to carry her as if she were just passed out drunk in case someone saw them, but it was very hard.
Even still, he was not all that worried about it. If he’d had the actual physical appearance of a man, it might draw tons of suspicion. But any witnesses would see two women stumbling up his stairs and inside, probably just a couple of girls that had gone out and had too many drinks.
He got into the front door without any visible prying eyes, closing and locking the door behind him. He set the woman carefully down on the couch. She groaned a bit and began to flex her fingers.
That’s a good sign, he thought. She’ll be alive but maybe not totally conscious when I put her in.
Sure, this was no frozen hamster…it was going to be a bit harder. But maybe, just maybe, it would work this time.
He picked her up and carried her threshold style to the stairway. His stairs split in two sections, one going upstairs and the other going down, the intersection meeting at the far end of his living room. He carefully carried her downstairs, the woman’s limp weight heavier than he had imagined. By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, his biceps were burning.
Still, he soldiered on. He opened up the room that had once been his office when he had worked at home as an editor. But the desk and computer were no longer there. The only thing occupying the room was an old storage freezer. He’d purchased it on Craigslist a year or so ago and had been working on it ever since then.
The adjoining bathroom was to the right and that’s where he took the woman next. He set her down carefully in the bathtub and his arms were grateful for the relief. He then started to gently position her in ways that allowed him to easily take her clothes off. Being gym clothes, they came off rather easily. He put them in a neat pile on the floor. When she was completely naked, he studied her for a moment. He’d have to shave her legs; they weren’t bad, but the hair was noticeable. He also needed to do some work between her legs.
He had a small spray bottle on the sink filled with his chloroform mixture. He placed a single spray of it onto a washcloth and held it against the woman’s nose for a few seconds. He watched her chest rise and fall as she breathed it in, knowing that such a small dose would be plenty to keep her immobile for at least another half an hour or so.
He then ran lukewarm water into the tub, filling it with roughly six inches of water. For the next fifteen minutes, he washed her and shaved her. He did so with deliberate care, working on her as if she were a valued family member that had fallen ill. When he was done, he dried her off and drained the tub. He patted her dry with a towel and then spread several towels out on the bathroom floor. He removed her from the tub and laid her out on the towels.
Looking at her, he saw that he had been right. She was gorgeous…even more so than the first woman he had used to start his work. He stared at her for a moment, spending the most time admiring her face.
Flawless…a thing of beauty.
Gathering his strength up again, he lifted her from the bathroom floor and walked back out into the study. He propped the woman’s body up against the storage freezer and opened the lid. On the far end, where the woman’s feet would go, was a vent where the liquid nitrogen would come streaming in. Another vent at the top, where he head would rest, circulated breathable air into the freezer so the subjects would not suffocate.
He looked at the ten-gallon tank of liquid nitrogen at the back end of the freezer. He had tried using it with the first two women and its effects had not had time to really take place before they died. He assumed they had passed because of the inhalation of far too much of his chloroform mixture. That or they had simply frozen to death and he, in his inexperience, had not been able to revive them.
But this woman…she was clearly still alive and he had been very sparing with the chloroform. As long as he kept a check on her (which was quite hard due to the inability to open the lid while the nitrogen was streaming in), she might be the one.
He checked his watch. It was 8:05. He set the alarm for seven hours ahead. He’d have to take her out by then. And even that was pushing it. It was a crapshoot, really. And if it didn’t work with this woman, he’d have to try another…and anot
her, and another until he got it to work.
He was smiling as he lifted the woman and painstakingly lowered her into the freezer. The lid stood three feet off of the carpet so it was quite hard to easily place her into the bottom but with great care and effort, he was able to do it. She was taller than the others so he had to bend her knees into little lesser-than symbols to fit her entire length inside.
He closed the lid slowly and softly, closing his eyes and relishing the sound it made as it closed. An opened Masterlock hung from a hinge that he had installed himself, one on the top of the lid and one on the body to keep it locked closed.
He then flipped on the air switch and waited for it to hum to life as air from within the room was circulated inside. That switch had been the hardest to create, as he’d had to hire a shady mechanic to do it for him. As for the valve for the liquid nitrogen, a few quick videos and studying a cryospa’s mechanics had given him all he needed to know. Sure, it was still incredibly dangerous but he’d had no issues so far.
Lastly, he turned on the liquid nitrogen. It made a slight hissing noise as the nitrogen was distributed from the tank and into the freezer.
Before leaving, he snapped the lock closed. The sound of it clicking together was somehow magical to him.
He looked to the freezer for a very long time. With the other women, he had disposed of their bodies in ways he had seen as proper. The last one had gone into the sculpture park, mainly to taunt the police. To get attention. But mainly because she had been so beautiful; she had deserved a place among art.
He finally turned away from the freezer and headed upstairs. He was going to have to call in sick to work today, but that was fine with him. Eventually, he’d be found out and even when his work was proven—when he could actually capture beauty and harness it—he’d be seen as a monster. He knew that and understood it…but it would be worth it in the end.
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