He knew he shouldn't do it, not again, but there was something about her that called to him. She wasn't precocious, not boisterous nor pushy like the other girls that lived in their neighborhood. She was polite and studious, but she didn't appear to be dull. She liked to run, she enjoyed chocolate milkshake, she went to the library every Saturday, and she wore her hair in a braid on Tuesdays because she had cheerleading club.
That's what he'd learned about her over the past three weeks, and it took another fortnight for him to discover that she was seventeen years old, that she loved dogs and hated cats, she thought his border flowers were beautiful, and that she'd been going steady with Colin Sullivan for almost a year. He wondered, upon receiving that information, if she were a virgin after all. It had been a while since he'd had one that had been broken in. The idea excited him. As nice as the untouched ones were - they appealed to his natural sense of cleanliness and order - the not-so-innocent ones were undeniably more creative in their efforts to put off the inevitable.
He observed her several times, in the wooded area of the park, with her boyfriend. At first, all he got to see was a glimpse of pale flesh, thick fingers curling around a slender waist, but one time, the young couple got carried away and he only just managed to hold in a groan of desire as her jacket was roughly discarded, her shirt unbuttoned by trembling fingers and an inquisitive tongue wrapped itself around hard, rosy red nipples. Their movements didn't appear inexperienced, and she seemed definitely frustrated when the boy glanced at his watch suddenly, and abruptly kissed her and disappeared back the way they had come, leaving her there exposed to the world.
He knew that night that he wanted her as much, if not more, than he'd wanted all the others. That he wanted that shining dark hair wrapped around his fingers, to see what colour her eyes were. To see if she'd scream or plead before the end came.
As always, he planned meticulously, using the basis of a method that had always worked so well for him in the past. He spoke to her three or four times in the weeks leading up to the day he had chosen to be the day. On one ocassion it had been completely unexpected. He'd been tending to his rose bushes and she'd just happened along on her way home from cheerleading club (it was a Tuesday). She'd paused, at the opposite end of the garden, to sniff one of the flowers, as he'd often seen her do, and then she'd smiled hesitantly at him when she noticed him watching her.
"Sorry, Mr. Harvey," she had said, obviously concerned he'd think her rude, "They're so pretty."
"Why, thankyou," he'd answered with an equally nervous grin. "You're Janie, right? From number 27?" And as they'd briefly chatted he'd eased his way slowly along the border until he was almost directly opposite her.
Hazel. That's what colour her eyes were. Light brown flecked with specks of green and gold, framed by long, thick lashes. Lovely dancing eyes. Ones that he'd remember in years to come.
"Anyway, I gotta get going, Mr. Harvey, Mom gets mad if we're not all at the table when she dishes up." And she started to move on, waving to her father as he drove past them on his way home from work.
"Here," he said, clipping off the rose she had been so delighted with, and holding it out to her. "So you can sniff when you're inside too."
She beamed in response, those hazel eyes lighting up even more as she took the proffered bloom.
"Thankyou, sir," she chimed and with a final smile, she went merrily on her way, nudging open the stiff front gate of her family's house with her hip so she didn't have to let go of the flower. It appeared a short while later, in a matching red vase, in one of the upstairs windows, and he smiled to know that she would think of him whenever she looked at it.
She gave it a little water everyday, and it was a good week before the red vase disappeared from the windowsill. He saw her stop, from behind his floral curtain, the following day, back at his rose bush again, inhaling delicately, before continuing on home, and he smiled the next time he saw her, handing her a bud without even thinking about it. By then, he had a dog, too. A border collie bitch called Cassie, who was around three years old. He'd gotten her from a rescue centre, and the teenager was absolutely enchanted by the animal's glossy coat and dewy eyes when he'd met her, on an artfully designed walk, one chilly morning. This young dog, he knew immediately, would be the key to his success.
He'd had a lot of practice, but the bunker still took him all night to create. It had to look right, or she'd suspect something was up straight away. He'd planned it for the following day, a Tuesday, when her hair would be scrapped back into a braid and she'd be walking home from school alone because none of her friends went to cheerleading club.
Everything was ready. His razor, knife, a rope and a canvas sheet were all concealed in a murky corner where she'd never spot them, well, not until it was too late, anyway, and he was combing the wood when she came hurrying along, kicking up the leaves like a small child as she went.
She jumped, startled out of her skin, when he called out to her.
"Oh, hi Mr. Harvey," she said, once she'd got her breath back, and then she looked curiously at his strained expression. "Are you okay?"
"Not really, no," he answered, and he went on to explain that he'd been taking Cassie for her evening constitutional, and he'd decided to try letting her off the leash. "And now I can't find her anywhere," he concluded folornly. "Could you help me look for her?"
The girl looked unsure. They both knew she'd be late home if she assisted him.
"There's a lifetime supply of roses in it for you," he smiled weakly.
She chuckled. Dinner could wait. "Okay," she responded.
A faint whimpering reached his ears, and he headed cautiously in the general direction of his underground creation, knowing it wouldn't be long before she heard the sounds too.
"I've looked over there." He pointed over his shoulder, the way she had come from a few moments before.
"Okay, I'll go this way." And she headed off a little to his left.
"Just don't go too far," he called in a concerned voice. "It's getting dark, and we don't want you getting lost as well now, do we?"
She heeded his warning, like the good girl he had always known she was, and it didn't take many minutes of searching before she stopped and listened hard, telling him to shush. There it was - the unmistakably pitiful cries of an animal in need.
"She's this way," the girl said, and he followed her excitedly, feeling the familiar rush of lust that he experienced whenever he was around her, knowing that her being his was only seconds away now.
He wrenched her back as she almost tumbled down the shaft, gripping her arm tight as she panicked at her near miss.
"She fell in." The girl indicated below them. They heard the whines, the padding pacing of the trapped animal, and she kneeled down beside the shaft, distress clear on her face. "I can't see her."
"I have a torch," he said, trying to stop his words wobbling.
The strong beam of light picked out the bundle of black and white fur no problem, and miserable chocolate brown eyes gazed up at them.
"Oh, how am I going to get her out of there?" he bemoaned. "By the time I get back with a ladder, it'll be too dark to see anything."
"Lower me down," the girl said, without even a hint of hesitation. "I'll pass her up and then you can pull me out."
"I'm not sure that'd be very safe." He regarded her uncertainly, his heart pounding so loudly he thought she'd hear it.
"It'll be fine," she prompted. "It'll only take a moment, and she's already scared."
"As long as you're sure?"
She nodded, her braid swinging, and shuffled round so that her legs dangled into the hole, extending her hands so he could take hold and help her descent. Her palms were smooth beneath his rough fingers. He wondered how they would feel against his chest. The shaft wasn't deep, he knew that, just deep enough that she couldn't reach to grab the opening when she stretched up, so when he let her go, she only dropped a few inches.
The overjoyed dog leaped on her ecstatically the moment she touched the ground, covering her with licks and generally going loopy. It was quite lovely to watch, really, he thought.
When Cassie finally calmed down, the girl hoisted her into her arms and lifted her as high as she could, allowing him to easily get hold of the animal and pull her to safety.
"I'll just be a second," he called. "Best tie her up before she escapes again."
"Okay."
He did as he said he would, he leashed the dog and tied her lead to a handy tree stump, and then he rattled out the handful of biscuits he'd stashed in his jacket pocket for the occasion, patted her on the head soothingly, and wandered back to the opening in the earth.
"You okay, Janie?" he asked.
"I'm fine," she replied condfidently, still so sure that she'd be rescued.
He took a long, deep breath before he sat on the damp ground, being sure to keep his feet out of sight until he dropped down beside her, torch in hand. She stared at him, eyes wide in the unexpected ray of light, and he could tell she knew what was about to happen.
"So," he murmured, "Now that I've got you here, what am I going to do with you?"
"Mr. Harvey, please, help me out of here."
"You're not going anywhere, Janie."
"I won't tell anyone about this, just let me go home."
"Take your clothes off."
She looked hard at him, her lovely hazel eyes no longer bright and dancing but cold and frightened. The change saddened him a little, she had had such beautiful eyes when she'd been happy. He would remember them like that, he decided, the way they had gazed at him with such gratitude when he had given her the first ruby red rose.
"Take them off," he repeated, a little more sternly, but she wouldn't, not then anyway, so he reached out for her. She managed to sidestep a few times, but the underground room was so small that there wasn't really anywhere for her to go, and so he caught her easily enough, pressing her against the dirt wall and covering her unyielding lips with his own.
She fought him. They all fought to begin with. And most of them pleaded, too. Some called out for their husband's or their sweetheart's, some just screamed "Help!", but most cried for their parents. This girl didn't, though, not to begin with. It was almost as though she was waiting to see how it played out before she made her move, that maybe if she just allowed him to use her, she'd be able to escape and go home. Or maybe it was just because she knew there was no one there to hear her.
"Let's get this shirt off, shall we?" He ripped two buttons in his haste to gaze upon the rosy tipped orbs that had haunted his dreams ever since the day he'd seen Colin Sullivan's slippery tongue wrapped around them, and he mimicked the boy's movements now, flicking his own articulating organ over her nipples, pinning her hands into the mud at her sides, avoiding her flailing feet as they attempted to kick his shins.
Her struggles, combined with the feel of her flesh in his mouth, excited him more than all those other girls and women had done, and he could feel his erection growing harder each time he sucked on her breasts. His teeth nipped gently at them, like a lover would do when they wanted to surprise the other, and she reacted how he'd always supposed they would. She gasped, and a little groan came out alongside her verbal expression of shock.
That was the only slight sound of enjoyment he managed to elicit from her, and he had her twice, an occurrence that had only happened once before. He would have liked the opportunity of a third time but everything had to be done and dusted before dawn, and he sensed she'd put up far more of a fight when he showed her the cutthroat razor he'd carried with him for all these years.
"A young lady like you shouldn't be wearing panties like these," he smirked, fingering the white lace at her crotch. "Perhaps you were asking for this all along..."
She hadn't been a virgin, but he'd still had to force his way into her the first time. She was still slick with his orgasm when he was ready again, and the juiciness made it feel much better to him, less painful to his aroused body.
She begged the second time round, not desperately, but from the exhaustion of trying to fight him off, and as he reluctantly redressed and gazed down at her ripe figure in the fading torchlight, he thought it was a great shame that he had to kill her. He'd enjoyed her, considered that maybe he even would have enjoyed her if she, too, had been a consenting party. Alas, that couldn't be now, and she scrabbled to her feet shakily as he reached into the hidden alcove and pulled out his razor, unclasping it slowly until its steel blade grinned menacingly at her.
"Mr. Harvey, please, no. I won't say anything, I promise! Please don't kill me!"
She pleaded so prettily that he was tempted to bundle her up and drive her somewhere more long-term, maybe an underground war bunker or someplace familiar, a place designed for extended stays, but he knew there was no time for sentimentality - that could come later.
He stepped towards her, the razor held down by his side, as though to give her one final opportunity to save her life. He stood close, his fingers curling into the dark hair that had come loose from the thick braid she always wore on Tuesdays. It was Wednesday now, anyway.
"Tell me you love me," he whispered, his voice a mere caress in the damp hollowed-out earth room.
Those lovely, dancing eyes gazed up into his as she softly spoke the words he wanted to hear, and then he slit her throat, almost tenderly, holding her tight against him as she died, a lover once more.
He played his part of the saddened, horrified neighbor to absolute perfection when her body was discovered three weeks later. He shook his head along with everyone else as they mused on how this could happen in their nice little neighborhood, and he did the decent thing and provided the flowers for her funeral, lamenting how she had admired them when they were in full bloom. Her parents were very grateful, and accepted his offer with murmurs of thanks.
He thought of her often in the days and years that followed, grieved for her, even, he realised later, and he never allowed himself to get caught like that again, never spoke more than a few words to the ones who came after her. She, above all the others, had been so beautiful, so full of vitality, and he wished more than once that he allowed her pretty little pleas to convince him into sparing her. There was never anyone else whilst he lived there, those five years were dedicated to her and her alone, and he visited the cemetery where her family had laid her to rest before he skipped town. No one ever saw him there, apologising to a simple marble headstone that stated 'Janie Anne Carter September, 17th 1946 - November 6th 1964, Always loved and missed.' as he imagined those lovely, dancing, hazel eyes gazing at him as he handed her a ruby red rose.