There she was again. From the moment I had seen her, I had intuitively known there was something different about her. For one thing, I couldn't bring myself to kill her immediately like I would anyone else. For another, she seemed to have a true sense of purpose about her. Yes, it might seem like a moronic reason not to kill a girl, but it intrigued me somehow. My eyes followed her as she walked over to the bus stop and sat down to wait. Waves of shimmering, jet-black hair fell gently around her slim shoulders, caught the late afternoon light, and reflected it back to the heavens. She turned her head and her beautiful porcelain skin captured a few of the dying rays of sun in such a way that she appeared to be glowing from the inside out. Her perfect black lips pursed, almost as if she had felt my eyes upon her. Dark eyes flickered around the slowly moving scene of people and small animals that scurry underfoot, almost like she was looking for something or someone. I felt an actual smile curling around my permanently smiling features as the snap second decision pulled my mind into its steel grip. I was going to follow this girl at last. A week and a half of watching her was over; I was going to kill her.
As the bus pulled up to the curb I rose with her. She didn't see me climb onto the bus after her but then, why should she? To her, I was no more than another face in an endless stream of them. Luckily for her it would also be the last face she saw. I purposely sat myself behind her and then leaned back in my seat, fingering the hilt of my knife that was hidden in the off-white hoodie I always wore. She was wearing a black hoodie, similar to mine, that had clearly seen much use. She kept twisting one of the dangling strings between thumb and forefinger like it was a nervous tic, although I highly doubted this girl was afraid of much. How I would love to see that face of hers twist into a mask of terror as I stood above her, knife poised to complete its task of taking her life. I could practically smell the blood that would stain my clothes.
Allowing my mind to wander, I realized that after tonight I would be expected to return home. No more than a place to rest my head in my way of thinking. Years too numerous to count and too unchanging to notice polluted the very definition of the word. And yet, after mindlessly killing the girl before me to in part indulge my craving for murder but also to alleviate the oppressive boredom that encased my mind, I would be forced to return to my 'home'. The only thing that could possibly make it better, I reasoned, would be for something to happen that would throw me into a near constant state of excitement.
Perhaps I was being unfair. The rest of my 'family' could be interesting if they chose to be and I did miss them. I shouldn't complain so much.
As the vehicle slowed to a stop once more the girl rose and, with smooth, silent movements, exited the bus. I had more of an amble in my step as I crossed to the open doors yet, like her, my footfalls were completely silent. I gave the bus driver a smile that hinted at insanity and gleefully watched the shivers wrack his spine. Then I was on the pavement once again and the bus was gone. All it left was a faint, sulfuric odor and the girl that I was following. She was oblivious to her watcher as she walked quickly along the sidewalk. I had always prided myself in being a passable pavement artist when I needed to be, but my performance that day was perfect. Hurrying past her as if I had places to be, I was stopped at a light that of course halted her progress as well. I casually tapped my leg as if I was waiting impatiently to go. She spared me but a glance that I ignored in a calculated manner she failed to catch. The light changed. My long strides carried me past her easily and I kept this pace, as if oblivious to her very existence. At the next stop sign I moved to turn and managed to keep her in my peripheral vision. She kept walking forward past the houses, making no indication that one of them belonged to her. I crossed the road, taking the time to give the driver of one of the waiting cars a minor heart attack with one of my infamous bone-chilling smiles. Then I waited for a second or two before I could cross the street that would take me in the same direction as the girl. She walked swiftly now, as though she was just becoming aware of the heat of my watchful gaze and dogged pursuit. Ducking under the roof of one of the porches that looked exactly like all the ones around it, she finally vanished into a house.
I waited for ten seconds before swiftly moving away from the flat she had disappeared into. I crossed the streets that would take me the long way around to the back of her house. I lifted the latch of the gate that belonged to the person living behind her, breaking into a sprint that took me across this stranger's yard and then vaulted the fence surrounding the girl's house. I decreased my pace so that by the time I reached the house itself I was at an unheard crawl. A glorious plan began forming itself in my mind as I searched with practiced precision for the girl's bedroom window. I swarmed up a tree that was conveniently placed next to said window and watched from my higher vantage point as the girl threw her hoodie on her bed and started messing with something. Her back was frustratingly turned to me and I would have ground my teeth, but this girl was failing to actually try my nonexistent patience. She turned back to the window and I almost fell. She was… beautiful. Her face was a bleached and scarred white that matched mine. She even had long, thin scars that ran from the corners of her mouth to her high cheekbones. Something in me that I had thought was long dead stirred and jumped a bit. Just watching her move around her room made my plan unravel around me, but I couldn't care less. As the sun finally set past the point where it granted light to the sky and a new moon took its place above, the girl vanished for a minute or two and returned dressed in a knee-length black shift. She crawled into her bed and, after turning out the lamp by it, closed her eyes and soon was asleep.
I sprang to life, lithe in my actions as I slipped silently down the tree and through her window, all in one movement. She didn't even so much as twitch as I crossed the room, stood at the side of her bed and hovered over her like a smiling angel of death. I slowly liberated my knife from its hiding place and touched it to the corner of my elongated mouth. It was an odd habit I had possessed from time and memorial but I had no intention of breaking it now. Tenderly reopening the scars of my smile, I tossed my knife into the air, caught it blade down and held it over the sleeping girl. I waited presently, poised to strike once she had awakened. The breath that stirred the few strands of hair poking free from her loose braid hitched at last and I knew, as only someone who had done this many times before could, she was on the edge of wakefulness. She slowly lifted long, dark lashes from her white cheeks and looked up at me. My eyes took on a manic, leering glint as I said with a hiss, "Shhh. Go to sleep."
Her muscles tensed suddenly and I found a wickedly sharp knife pressed against my neck. I leapt back and cackled in excitement, all clouds of boredom cleared from my mind. "Now now, I thought I told you to go. To. Sleep." I accented each word with a jab from my knife. She parried my thrusts with her own knife, eyes crazed. The rush of adrenaline propelled me forward into her faster than she expected. I pinned the arm that clutched the knife at the wrist and slammed the palm of my other hand into the bit of wall just above her shoulder. I stared into her eyes with an excited joy. She kneed me in the stomach and quickly moved to put the corner of the room at her back, acting literally like a cornered animal. A laugh escaped my lipless mouth and, intrigued, I asked, "What is your name? I feel like you should have a better name than just 'girl'."
Her jaw dropped a bit and a look of anger and disbelief crossed her black gaze. "You don't remember me, Jeff? When did your screws get knocked loose, before or after the fucking fire?" Her voice was like listening to what burning embers would sound like if they could talk: dark with smoldering heat just below the surface.
"I don't remember meeting anyone like you before." I licked the corners of my mouth like a madman which, as I loved to remind everyone, I was. "You never answered my question, bitch."
"Well, Jeff the Killer, I'm Jane the Killer, and trust me when I tell you that you have known me for a long time." She started to move and I matched her steps. We circled each other like a macabre ballet, never taking our eyes off the other person. Every movement of pale skin and dark hair elevated me to a new level of excitement. I was high off the thrill, drunk on adrenaline and it seemed that fighting with this Jane girl was like my quick fix. It was too bad only one of us could make it out of here alive.
"I like the name 'Jane'. I will be sorry to see you die." A mad giggle escaped and I lunged for her white neck, ready to kill. She met me halfway with a knife of her own that sparked as it hit mine. She let out an insane laugh as well that I couldn't help but note
complimented my own.
"You just don't get it, Jeff. I'm not going to be killed tonight. I've been waiting for years for this moment and now I am going to fucking kill you, sick bastard." I backed off and lunged for her again. For my troubles I received a cut on my cheek. The blood trickled into my mouth; its metallic taste coating my throat and invading my nostrils with its sharp stench. I'll admit this wasn't quite what I had meant when I had pictured blood staining my clothes. As a matter of fact, I had been quite sure that it would have been her blood. She stabbed at me again and again but it was child's play to deflect her blows. "Just give up, Jeff." she grunted. "The only reason I keep going is so I can kill you. Do you really think you can stop me?"
My eyes glinted and my question came as quickly as my blade. "Why are you trying to kill me, Jane?" She froze for the barest fraction of a moment, which aided me in lending a nick to her right arm that started to bleed instantly.
"Why?!" she screamed in my face. "Because you did this to me!
It was my turned to be shocked. Me? What had I even done?
As if she read my thoughts she nodded and growled, "Yes, you. You were the one who I stupidly tried to help when you went up in flames and look where it fucking got Me." she was shouting in my face which drove me backwards more effectively than her flashing blade.
"But you're amazing!" I crooned happily. "Aren't you happy you look like this? You're wonderful now." However lavish my compliments, Jane remained unaffected. She made a downwards chopping motion with her knife that would have cut my arm off if I hadn't moved out of her way in time. Jane's hair fell from her braid in a tangled mess that hung in her face. She seemed unaware of the strands clumping together to block her vision.
"No, I'm not, Jeff. I never wanted to be one of your ugly masterpieces. I really was beautiful before you destroyed me." She had tears falling from those perfect eyes now. Her face crumpled into a horrible mix of hatred and deadly determination. "You deserve to die after how many families you have ruined with your shitty, twisted games." I winced slightly at her word choice. Sure they weren't the most fun games but twisted, never. I was only helping people.
She bore down on me with a precision that came from her intent to kill. I gently parried her strikes with ones of my own while I said conversationally, "Come on, Jane. You are the picture of loveliness now. Admit it, you love it. Besides don't you kill people as well?" I raised my eyebrows with a quickly widening grin. "I heard every scene was a fucking blood bath."
"I didn't want to do it, I swear. They just reminded me of you, so much so I had to kill them." Jane was still crying, and it was a wonder that the water pouring from her eyes didn't completely blind her.
"Aww Jane, it sounds like you have a soft spot for me." She howled and lunged at me, recklessness exploding from her like water from a broken dam.
"No, I don't. I spent the first fourteen years of my life wanting to grow up to be a normal person. Thanks to you, I spent the next ten years stuck in this horrible ageless limbo, created around senseless slaughter, trying to accept what I never could be. I want to be normal, I really do wish I could fall in love or even make a friend." Spittle sprayed from her mouth and she feinted to my right then attacked my unguarded left side, I dodged not a moment too soon. "But thanks to you and your fucking 'improvements', I never will."
"You could fall in love with me. I could introduce you to plenty of people who are just like you." I teased. "Come on Jane, I know you want to." I smirked and whispered. "Don't worry, I think you look perfectly beautiful." I advanced on her and with my unoccupied hand I cupped Jane's chin in my palm forcing her to look directly in my crazed eyes. "What do you say?"
She jerked away and in a fit of rage she flung her knife directly at my wonderful face. I felt fear freeze my limbs but I resolutely pushed past the stupid icy barrier and just barely deflected the assault. I heard the knife bite into the wall behind me and stay there, still vibrating. Now weaponless, Jane backed up till she could go no further. I advanced, pleased that I, at last, possessed the definite upper hand. I shoved her shoulder into the wall and moved my knife so it was only a breath away from her lovely face. With ever beat of my heat I prepared to finally end the life of this annoying (yet cute) girl named Jane. Her breathing was ragged now, making my blade tremble slightly.
"So," Jane calmly let the word hang in the air making our final silence lengthen and bend into the very first stages of possibilities. "Are you going to kill me now?" Those words effectively ended my train of thoughts of what could be and brought it crashing back to what was before me. "Please don't mess up this time. I don't want to end up even more disfigured than I already fucking am."
Still I stood there without a single movement. I knew how it should end as well as I knew my knife. I would stab her and she would scream. I would then proceed to stab her more until I was drenched in blood and Jane was silent. Fixated as I was on the curiously wonderful creature before me, I could not seem to will my nerves to carry it out.
"Scared?" she shot at me. "You cowardly, worthless piece of shit!" I could not quite understand her sudden return of her ire in the situation. "Why can't you kill me? Stop standing there and fucking stab me! You won fair and square so just end me now and be done with it." She suddenly sagged against my hold, like her own legs could not hold up a moment longer. Tears made their unwanted and pitiful appearance once more as she broke into pieces before me. I realized, in that shattering crystal moment, that I could no more kill Jane than she could kill me, in a fair fight. "I failed." she sobbed. "The one thing I wanted to accomplish with my life and I failed."
Despite the fact that Jane had been intent on killing me not moments before, I lowered my knife from her face. She glanced up at me in shock. "I'm sorry." I said suddenly. "But I can't stab someone in the face that looks so much like me." I released her shoulder suddenly and watched as she slowly sank to the floor. I leaned against a wall lazily not even breathing hard.
"But I just tried to kill you. Why would you let me go?" She looked so lost that I doubted she could find her way out on her own. I had finally struck upon the thing she most feared. It was simply this: she seemed genuinely frightened at the prospect of not knowing what was going to happen.
"Well I suppose you could say there are three reasons why I would dare to let you loose. Number one," I moved smartly to the wall behind me and yanked the knife Jane had thrown at me out from its wooden grasp. "You won't have this on you for a while if I have any say about it." I swiftly stashed it away within my hoodie with a twisted grin. Come to think of it, that was really the only grin I possessed. "Two," I shrugged slowly, "Because I can and want to, and three," I crouched down next to her and, with a huge smile, I finished, "You fascinate me, Jane the Killer. No one so beautiful has ever tried to end me before." An exciting prospect tugged at me and in that moment I decided to take a chance. Surely things would turn out alright this time and at least I wouldn't be bored anymore. "In fact Jane, you interest me to such an extent that I'm taking you along with me. You could say that today is your lucky day."
I half expected for her to rebel and fight my decision, after all, hadn't she just tried to kill me? However instead of throwing herself at me, her fierce black gaze pierced me through and I felt like I was burning to death all over again. "I hate you, Jeff. First you ruin my childhood, then you destroy my reason for living, all in some screwed up game you play in your messed up head. Just so you are aware, I won't play by your damn rules." She rose, shaking, and I rose with her, pleased to realize I was a good bit taller than her, and even though she was certainly intimidating to most people, I seemed to have, for all intents and purposes, temporarily tamed her. With a twitch of her wrist she grabbed ahold of the pale, toned mask and fit it to her wonderful face, covering its glory and returning her to, in the eyes of everyone else in the world, normal. She turned back to me and spat, "I'll go with you but I'm going to make my own rules and, trust me, at the first opportunity I get, I will stab you in the fucking back."
"That's wonderful." I widened my grin to its fullest extent, displaying a gruesome picture of scarred, exposed muscle and much too white teeth. "This dance would be no fun if we followed the music the minstrel plays for us. Now," I announced, suddenly all business, or as close as I could come to 'all business'. "We have an old house and an old friend to visit." I grabbed her hand and she protested, trying without success to break free. Ignoring her with practiced ease, I dragged her behind me through her house and into a pitch black outside that was rivaling the intense dark of her eyes. I had an uncanny feeling that whatever this would lead to I would thoroughly enjoy because at the very least it looked like I had fixed my boredom issues. I looked to the sky and gave the moon a broken and snapped grin. This would be interesting.
