by P. Craig
The first thing to catch his eye was a long line of shoes; they were neatly arranged in pairs from the edge of the decking all the way to the front door. They looked like women’s shoes, smaller and more colourful in comparison to the sturdy black boots he was wearing. The lack of a single pair of men’s shoes made his pulse race a little faster.
Crouching down, his head little more than a few inches below the level of the window ledge, the man eased his way across the porch, still mindful that the decking may give him up without a second’s thought if he abused its respect; gradually, he moved himself into a position under the centre of the window.
Listening carefully, the man heard sounds coming from the room on the other side. Muffled and indistinct though they were, he had a feeling they belonged to the occupants of the house; their tone and pitch pointed toward a human source rather than those of artificial means such as a television. It was tempting to straighten his legs and peer through the window, confirm with his eyes what his ears were suggesting; but the fear of someone inside spotting him was too great, and his better judgement insisted he take a more cautious approach this time round—a lesson learned the hard way.
The man knew the forest was safe, the space occupied by the house seemingly only a blip in the wider woodland all around, but he didn’t want to return to the trees just yet; the compulsion that had pushed him this far wasn’t ready to release its grip on him. He knew the house wasn’t a safe option—his recent experience had taught him well in that respect—but it offered more than just the safety that the forest had going for it.
The man couldn’t deny his curiosity any longer; its need for satisfaction was far stronger than any simple thought of safety. His eyes narrowed on the front door; thin windows on either side offered tantalising glimpses of the house inside, where a warm, soft light was beckoning him to come in. His better judgement quickly came to the fore once again, urging him to consider another route into the house, one less obvious and well protected, maybe even an option that didn’t look so inviting.
The man looked back the way he had come. His gaze fell on the waist-high railing that lined the edge of the decking; the porch roof was easily reachable if he stood on it, though it was debatable whether the old timber would support his weight.
He crept over and ran his hand over the wood, pushing down here and there, examining it for any sign of weakness. Finding none, he grabbed the nearby roof strut for support and climbed onto the railing. He stood there for a moment, getting his balance, and then reached up until his fingers were able to grasp the overhead beam. Quietly, he pulled himself up and clambered onto the roof, where he lay flat on his back catching his breath. He turned his head and surveyed the forest, taking in its stillness, grateful that it hadn’t given him away.
Rolling onto his front, the man noticed an object lying a few feet away—a crowbar. Its unlikely presence threw him, but its potential usefulness soon overrode any concern.
He got to his feet, scooped up the crowbar and then headed towards a nearby window to put it to use. The room inside was empty, a pair of thin-looking curtains doing little to stop him seeing inside; frankly, its darkness was more tempting than the warm light coming from the room downstairs.
Smiling, the man squeezed the tip of the crowbar into a join in the frame. Taking great care, he gently pulled back on the bar, gradually finding resistance as the wood creaked quietly against steel.
A little more effort and he knew he’d be in.
Four
April 5, 5.16 p.m.
There was a faint click as the man closed the front door behind him and gently released the handle. He stood in the hallway for a moment, waiting in silence, listening for a sign that the woman had noticed his entry, but there was no sound of alarm in the house, no indication that she had heard anything untoward. He was in.
The sound of a cupboard door falling shut tuned his senses past a staircase and towards an open doorway directly in front of him. The woman walked into view, oblivious to the man’s presence, a tin of something in her hand as she passed by the doorway. A moment later, she walked back again, still unaware of his presence, the tin now gone.
Stepping to the side, the man took up a position in front of the staircase, safely out of sight of the doorway. Glancing into the two rooms either side of the hallway, he confirmed that the rest of the house was as empty as he had believed; the woman was entirely alone—humming a tune, no less—in the kitchen. In his head, he visualised what she was doing—absentmindedly unpacking her groceries and putting them away in the cupboards while, perhaps, thinking about making a coffee before starting on dinner. He focussed his thoughts and formed a clearer image of her—her long blonde ponytail hanging down her back as she reached up to place a jar in a cupboard next to the window; her face—her young, vibrant, attractive face—all happy and smiling as she sung quietly to herself, perhaps a tune that she had heard on her car radio moments earlier.
As the thought expanded in the man’s mind, his desire to kill the woman reached a new level of giddy excitement. He knew that this was a chance to forge a new memory of who he was and what he did to others. For him, right here, right now, killing her wasn’t just the right thing to do—it is the only thing.
Sliding past the staircase, the sound of his footsteps deadened by the deep-pile carpet, the man approached the kitchen doorway, angling himself in such a way that he would remain hidden from view if she happened to glance out into the hallway while putting away her shopping.
His heart was beating frantically, pounding against his chest. The thrill of the hunt was getting to him in a way he had never expected.
Is this how it always feels? Is this how it felt before?
As he stalked his prey, a strange feeling swept over him, a turgid mix of everything and anything, a blend of ecstasy and nausea; his heart was racing from the anxiety of being unable to pinpoint it exactly. All his doubts and misgivings, all the torments he had suffered in the recent past—they were all gone. Now he had only his instinct to guide him. He realised that this was the first time, the very first moment, that he had felt truly alive since waking inside the wreck. At last, he felt like everything that had been lost to him—his memories, his true self—was about to click back into place.
Suddenly, there was a loud screeching, a frantic wailing, followed quickly by the sounds of music—drums, guitars and a male voice singing.
The man froze; his heart seemed to stop for a moment, his senses stunned and bewildered by the noise. Another loud screeching followed and his mind interpreted this as the sound of static, its source—he realised with some relief—clearly that of a radio.
Panic over, the man’s heart resumed beating. He crept forwards and soon he had a clearer view into the kitchen. The woman was standing in front of the sink, filling the kettle in her hand. Her blonde head bobbed from side to side in time with the music, a country tune that the man thought sounded vaguely familiar.
As the woman turned, the man quickly darted out of sight. He waited a moment, hoping she would turn away again, and then chanced his luck by peering round the doorway to see where she had gone. Not far was the answer; her blonde head was still bobbing up and down in time with the music while she opened a drawer, reached inside and picked up a spoon. The man watched in rapt fascination as she stretched across the counter and grabbed a mug from a stand on the windowsill. He caught a glimpse of her face; the sight of her smooth skin, with dimples in her cheeks as she smiled, further fuelled his already insatiable desire for her.
The man had watched for long enough. His eyes had told him everything he needed to know about her; his desire to kill her was now at its zenith.
Eyes locked on the back of her head, the man started into the kitchen. His steps sounded heavy and loud to him, but the music was working to his advantage, drowning out whatever sounds he was making, real or imaginary. Her ponytail was swishing from side to side with the music, almost as if it was waving him towards her, goading him on. He ha
dn’t really considered how he was going to kill her; instead, he was trusting purely to instinct to guide him when the time came. But he knew, somehow he just knew, that the feeling would be sweet—a pleasure unlike any other.
She turned suddenly, spinning quickly on the spot; her smiling face evaporated in a heartbeat when she saw him lurking only a few feet away.
Startled, the man stopped dead, the instinctive reactions he believed would guide him doing nothing more than deserting him exactly when he needed them most.
“Who... who are you?”
He stared blankly at the woman, her question throwing him equally as much as her sudden turn had; annoyingly, his mind was suddenly more intent on concentrating on the radio than on giving him the answers he needed. I can’t stand country music.
“Get out of my house.”
The woman had said this quietly, little more than a whisper; the shock of finding him in her kitchen was still evident in her eyes.
The man stood there silently and just stared at her. Even if he had wanted to, he wouldn’t have spoken—every single word he had tried to articulate since he’d regained consciousness had sounded alien to him, and even his voice didn’t sound familiar—but in this situation he hadn’t the slightest desire to speak anyway. He desired one thing—and one thing alone.
Instinct regained control of his body; snarling, he came at the woman, his hands reaching for her neck.
Shrieking, the woman stumbled back, tripping over her own feet, and her hands flailed out to try to break her fall.
The man grabbed her neck with both hands and rammed her hard against the sink, knocking the wind from her lungs. Spluttering, the woman’s eyes widened in shock—but then snapped tightly shut from the excruciating pain as the man’s grip tightened inexorably around her throat. The man squeezed harder and pushed her further back over the sink for good measure, as though trying to snap her in two.
For him, this was what it had all been about—the thrill of the chase and the thrill of the kill. He wanted to stretch out this moment, to increase her pain, to heighten his own pleasure and satisfaction. She was struggling, fighting hard against him, but this was simply all part of the game for him. Killing her would be easy; keeping her alive for long enough to know real fear, real evil—now that was the trick, the real skill. At least, that was how he believed it had once been.
Before everything had been lost. Before I—
Something heavy struck the man on the temple. In an instant, his vision blurred over; black spots popped up and quickly consumed the woman’s face, the kitchen, everything. Powerless, his hands slackened, slipped and then completely lost their grip.
The woman planted her feet in his gut and pushed him away with all her strength. Off-balance, the man stumbled towards the door, barely staying on his feet, and flung a hand out against the doorframe for support. As he stood there, hunched over, teetering on the brink, he knew one more ounce of effort from the woman would have been too much for him.
Shaking his head, desperately trying to clear the blur that had consumed his vision, the man pushed himself upright and turned to face his would-be victim. The woman was clutching the handle and remnants of a smashed ceramic pot—the weapon that had saved her life. She looked around and then quickly swapped the broken handle for something a little more effective as a weapon—a bread knife. The long, sharp blade slid fluidly and silently out of the knife block on the worktop and into her white-knuckled, clenching hand.
“Get out of my house!”
The man stared at her in stony-faced silence. The woman had seen his face now. She’d studied it and no doubt locked it away in her memory. Leaving her alive to describe him to others wasn’t an option for the man; the overwhelming desire to kill her had now taken on even greater importance—self-preservation.
He rushed towards her, covering the distance across the kitchen floor in a heartbeat. He grabbed the wrist of the hand wielding the knife and squeezed hard. His fingers dug into her skin, searching for the nerve that would release her grip on the blade. He found it in seconds and then he squeezed even harder, making the woman scream in pain, a sound quickly followed by the welcome clatter of metal on tiled floor as the knife slipped from her hand.
Struggling with every fibre of her being, the woman clawed at his face, tearing thin slivers of skin from his cheek; yet the effort went unnoticed, unfelt, the pain little more than a distant thought that did little to distract the man from what he wanted.
Grimacing, he head-butted the woman in the face, his forehead squashing her nose to the side, breaking it with a soft crunch, and then he punched her in the stomach, not once but twice, a savage combination which instantly rendered her limp in his hands. His eyes narrowed, fascinated by the sight of her bloodied mouth gasping for air.
He hauled her over to the sink and held her there with one hand while the other sought out the knife block nearby. A second later, he found what he was looking for—a cleaver. The woman’s eyes were brimming with tears and bloodshot from the head-butt, but they widened—oh, how they widen—when she saw what he was slowly bringing towards her face. As she mouthed a silent plea, asking him to stop what he was doing, the man noticed a gap where he’d knocked out a tooth; the teeth either side were badly damaged too and likely to follow a similar fate. One more blow should do it.
The man pressed the blade lightly against her check, not hard enough to draw blood, not yet, but with just enough weight to begin to cut through the first layers of the epidermis. He studied her reaction, fascinated by her eyes as they contorted through a whole raft of emotions—fear to despair to a certain calmness at knowing that her death was imminent. Yes, you’re right—it’s coming.
Smiling, he lifted the cleaver high into the air above her head, noticed her wet eyes locking on his own in one final, desperate plea, and then—
His vision blurred again; a split second later, a dull pain in the back of his head signalled something was wrong.
The cleaver slipped from his grasp and tumbled down into the sink, narrowly missing the woman’s face.
The man’s vision darkened over entirely. His legs were moving of their own accord, totally beyond his control, and he stumbled backwards, clutching his head.
CRACK.
Another dull pain, somewhere else on his head this time, confirmed that something was going terribly wrong. Disorientated, he tried to turn around, but before he could do so, before he could do anything, he felt a pair of hands gripping his head. The powerful hands pushed him downwards and then something else, something solid and unforgiving, rose up from the floor to hit him.
Something cracked again—perhaps his cheekbone, perhaps the object that had hit him in the face. Either way, something had definitely cracked.
The strong hands grabbed his head and hauled the man back onto his feet. His eyes opened briefly, just in time to see a fist spiralling through the air. His jaw took the force of the blow, but his whole head rocked back and, once again, his vision blacked over.
Dazed, the man’s legs collapsed beneath him; like a dropped stone, he crashed down hard onto the tiled floor.
He didn’t stay down there for long. Again, the hands—those powerful, powerful hands—clamped onto his skull. Thick fingers pressed hard into his face and then drove the back of his head through the nearest cupboard door, the wood breaking and splintering all around him.
Another crack meant something had broken, although the man wasn’t sure whether it was the wall or his skull. Nothing hurts...
The man found it strange that he could think so clearly. He knew what was happening to him—clearly, someone incredibly strong was giving him a terrible beating—but it was like his mind was set apart from it all, somehow detached, almost like it was somewhere else entirely. His head was pounding, but it wasn’t pounding in a painful way—more like in a numbing way. There was no pain. Nothing. It was as if the beating was happening to someone else.
Again, the man felt fingers digging into his head;
before he knew what was happening, he found himself up high and flying through the air... before falling and falling and falling until the hard floor rose up to catch him.
The air exploded from his lungs and a fine mist of his own blood showered his face.
Gasping, the man opened his eyes and saw his tormentor, a great big bear of a man, standing over him. The beast was snarling with rage, his hands balling into fists. Behind the giant, the man spotted the woman swaying on her feet while holding onto the sink; her face was bloodied and tear-streaked, and she was clearly in the early stages of shock.
The bear saw the man studying him. His eyes narrowed and then, as quick as a flash, he reached down, grabbed hold of the man’s head and lifted him onto his feet, lining him up for another punch.
But the element of surprise had gone. The man’s disorientation while being beaten senselessly back and forth across the kitchen had passed quickly, and now his survival instinct was kicking in, pumping adrenaline through his veins. He fought back, kicking the giant where it hurt most, buying him the opportunity to shake his head free from his attacker’s grip. He pushed the groaning brute out of the way, but as he turned to look for the quickest way out, he walked right into something hard that rocked his head back and made everything go dark in an instant.
“Get out, you bastard! Get out of my house!”
Dazed, the man shook his head, trying to clear the black spots from his eyes. Vision partially restored, he was immediately confronted by the sight of the woman—her face a mask of blood and tears and snot—coming at him with an antique flatiron in her hand; the makeshift weapon was cocked back and ready to strike again. She swung the iron at his head, missing by inches as he ducked and backed out of the way. The man stepped from side to side, waiting for her to swing again, but she seemed reticent to continue her attack.