"When people are picking houses they look at so many different things. The neighborhood, the schools, the size, the view. But when I look at houses…well I pick them for entirely different reasons."
"I…I don't understand. God…what's wrong with you? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO US!"
What an interesting question. No one had ever asked me that before. I let the axe slip down to the floor and put my weight on it, slouching to one side. In front of me sat a man, his wife, and their two children. They were bound and gagged, the husband unconscious.
I had been walking around that neighborhood for two weeks. Every day I would get off the train and take the same route around the suburb in order to give any one paying attention the idea that I was just your average commuter.
What first caught my attention to the house was the color. Yellow. What an obnoxious color for a home. The husband drove a sports car to Gotham every morning, and his wife rolled about in an SUV that was far too big considering she only had two children. Then there was that fucking dog. A golden retriever. It would run to and fro, playing fetch with the children, one boy and one girl.
There little cookie cutter life was enough to make me sick. Is that cliché? I don't want anyone to think I'm just some young, pissed off twenty something or is against conformity. I mean my God, that is what my childhood was like down to the very last detail.
I got off the train that evening, this time with a duffel bag to hide my equipment. The house was on the very end of a long street, backed up to the woods. Obviously that worked to my advantage. I watched them eat dinner, play a board game, and then settle in to watch television.
I killed that fucking dog first. I broke its neck like a toothpick, and then dragged it back into the woods.
"Roger? ROGER? Hey boy where are you?"
The husband called from the back porch. It didn't take long for me to size him up. He was about six foot two, two hundred and twenty pounds, he didn't look like he was much of a fighter. As he went back inside, cutting the porch light out, I decided to take a seat on the children's swing set. I could see the wife washing dishes inside. I decided it was time to start my little game.
I guess I should explain it a bit more in depth. I like to be inside the house as long as possible before I kill them. I like it when they know I'm coming, when they know I'm there. To that end I through the swing set over and moved back into the woods. I saw the wife jump and call to her husband, who in turn opened the back door and looked outside.
"Roger? That you boy?"
He went back inside. God it's so much fun to watch these people. From the time we're young we are taught to tell ourselves that there isn't anything to fear. That there isn't anything out there in the darkness. But it isn't always true.
After that I went back around the side of the house to the living room window. The husband and wife were talking to each other in the kitchen, they already looked scared. I take some of the dog's blood and write hello on the window a few times before moving towards the front door. I hear the woman scream before I even get there.
I reach up and unscrew the light on the front porch before knocking on the door. I hear someone on their way down the hall. I press all my weight up against the door on the off chance they open it. But they don't.
"H-hello? Who's there?"
I wait a moment before answering. I want to make sure they can hear me through the door. I finally feel the woman press her weight back up against the door.
"You're going to die."
I'm on top of the porch's overhang before the husband is out the door. He stumbles out and looks around like he is in some kind of control. It would be so easy to reach down and pull him up right now. But I force the window open instead.
I walk softly through the children's room. They were sleeping so peacefully. I was gentle with them. I picked them up one at a time and bound them with plastic ties and gagged them. They didn't even wake up.
When I went downstairs I the wife was standing in the kitchen smoking a cigarette. I guess her husband was still outside. I watched her from the dark hallway for a little while. She was attractive in a suburban housewife sort of way. She looked different from regular Gotham City residents. But I wasn't interested in her, at least not in the way you would think.
I heard the man coming back inside so I slipped into a side room and climbed back outside through a window. I cut the phone lines on the way to the backyard. It was time to end the game.
I grabbed my axe out of the bag and strolled to the front of the house. I heard the two of them talking near the front door.
"Listen to me Liv, I'll get the kids ok. I'm going to open the door and I want you to run to the neighbors and call the police. Can you do that?"
"Y-y-yes. God Billy I'm scared."
"It'll be ok baby. Now…one…two…"
I slammed the axe into the front door, splintering it in two. The woman screams and retreats back to the kitchen. I strike the door again before kicking it in and crawling through. The husband had grabbed a knife. He takes a swipe at me but misses. He rushed at me, but I caught him hard on the face with the
butt end of the axe. I picked his knife up and gave him a hard kick to the forehead before going after his wife.
She had scrambled out back and was crawling towards the front yard. I grabbed her by the hair and plunged the knife into her shoulder. I drag her back inside and bound her and the husband up and toss them on the couch, then I go upstairs and grab the children.
"I SAID WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO US!"
The woman's shouts brought me back to reality. I straightened up and wrapped my hands back around the axe.
"Because you were home."
The husband was starting to come to and I was having much more fun with his wife so I decided to get rid of him.
"Oh good, you're awake."
I threw the wife and children off of the couch. I drew the axe back and with one swing cut his head off. Messy business.
I kick the wife in the face to stop her screaming. I kneel down and try to get the children to stop crying, but it doesn't work. She must have seen this as some sort of sympathy.
"Please…please let them go. Do whatever you want to me, you can have me…I won't fight. But for the love of God, please let them go."
I considered it, I really did consider her offer for a moment. They were children after all, I had never killed children at that point in time. They had seen my face, my white canvas mask covered it. I knelt down and cut the ties around the little girl's wrist.
"Oh thank you, thank you. Oh God thank…"
As the little girl walked away I had a change of heart. I picked her up and cracked her head against the fire place. The blood got all over my suit, I wouldn't be able to wear it on Monday.
I felt the wife run into me, but her heart wasn't in it. I had just smashed it and it was currently dripping down the bricks of the fireplace. I pushed her down onto the couch and picked the knife up. I dragged it across her throat. I cut deeper than I meant to, I had slit her windpipe. She struggled to breath before finally bleeding out.
I looked down to find the boy but he had run off, probably through the front door. I didn't even bother going after him. Instead I went back into the woods and changed my clothes, then calmly walked back to the train station. About the time it started heading back towards Gotham City I saw the lights and heard the police sirens wailing.
The whole way home I wondered if they would finally connect what I had just done with the other three murders I had committed. My last though before dosing off was of buying a Gotham Times the next morning.
