When somebody dies, they do it in stages.
First there's the struggle. To properly enjoy the tussle you have to be fit, and you have to be able to adapt in a moment's notice. They're going to grab at anything within reach and attempt to hit you with it. They're going to flail wildly and give all sorts of unexpected twists and jerks, and you have to keep them under control, like a cowboy on a bucking bull.
Then comes the beautiful realization of the truth. In a brief instant, the victim must realize and subsequently come to terms with the reality of their imminent death. If you've done your job right, this precious insight occurs mere seconds before the actual casualty itself.
My personal favorite method is strangulation. I generally pretend I'm an adorable monkey, perched high on the back, just enough out of reach as to be a real annoyance. I've perfected the technique of holding my fingers so until their breathing gets shorter and they keel over. People look better on their knees.
I prefer to see their eyes, though, when the actual death occurs. If you've never murdered, if you're one of those prudes with a high moral ground that shakes their head at the grisly stories on TV as if you are the Lord Christ himself, then you cannot possibly understand. There is a peculiar sort of ecstasy that comes of watching that last little spark of life whither and die; the warmth goes out, the cold seeps in like its winter. All of it – the struggle, the mess after – it's worth it for those brief moments of total clarity when you see the prey meet its inevitable end.
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To-Date Homicide Bucket List:
The Pope
The Top 14 of the World's Sexiest Men, 2011 Edition
All PETA Activists
The Guy that Sings About Double Rainbows
And, let's be honest: anyone, anyone, anyone. I'm not picky, just bored.
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Every year or so, the leaves change color and, like clockwork, my mother will come into the house and start looking for new places online. We have lived in more houses and villas and sprawling studio apartments in my sixteen years than I would care to count. After a while I just stopped unpacking and learnt to live out of a suitcase. I don't need much, anyway. A few clothes, a few knives. Rubber gloves, sanitary wipes, jumbo-sized garbage bags.
Bleach.
The usual.
When my mother found the Murder House, it was like a dream come true. Three storeys and 10,440 square feet of pure urban legend gold. It had everything: multiple suicides, stillbirths, an illegal abortion ring, a gay couple that died after a rowdy S&M session that got out of hand. My mother, while she has never thought to kill a human, shares my passion for old and creepy.
Two Thursdays later and we were pulling up the leaf-strewn drive.
The wonderful thing about old houses is that they tend to leer at you when you first meet them; whether an optical illusion brought on by the sheer size of the building or some other malevolent force at play, you can always count on a house to really draw you in the first time you see it.
Our real estate agent was a middle-aged disaster in a two-piece suit. She went into paroxysmal raptures the moment she caught sight of us: unsurprisingly, the notorious house had been on the market for a while.
I was glad of the chance to slip quietly into the house on my own. It would be a brilliant place to explore, I thought, running my fingertips over the newly polished stair bannisters. Its online profile had said the house had both an attic and a basement, as well as some sort of hastily erected gazebo outside; the legacy of one of the earlier patrons.
I chose a room that looked out over the street. Dark slats across the windows made the sunlight hazy here; the worn carpets looked homey. I wondered how many people had died in this room itself, right on the very floor. The idea was delicious. I dragged my suitcase to the corner of the room and hung my favorite trench coat from a hook at the back of the door. I hid the small bag of chemicals and disposable gloves at the top of one of the dusty cupboards, and I was settled in.
Unpacking in our family is a simple enough affair. My mother and Ruth generally like to tackle the kitchen on the first night; they've a long-running tradition of christening the new house with a quickie on the kitchen counter once they know I'm busy elsewhere.
Much of the house was already furnished. Apparently the legal battles over the possessions of the previous occupants had gotten so confusingly out of hand that the various next of kin had decided to leave whatever remained to the new tenants. The assortment of things weren't exactly in my taste, but they belonged to the dead, which in itself held fascination enough for me. I finished organizing the bookshelves and hanging up the few pieces of art that my mother and Ruth could agree upon, before letting myself explore the basement.
The entire area beneath the house was a mess. At the bottom of the stairs, worn chairs and battered lamps had been hastily thrown in a pile on the floor. I sidestepped the splayed limbs of a dilapidated bedframe, reaching for the light switch. The feeble, swinging bulb did little to penetrate the darkness.
It had the feel of a school science lab: here and there on dusty shelves were rows of jars filled with the little corpses of half-formed animals and bugs, sorted by illegible, yellowing labels that peeled at the corners. I was beginning to regret choosing the upstairs bedroom so quickly; with a little dusting, this place would make a brilliant hideout.
This was not a restful house, I noted. I'd been so blissfully at one with the dead for so long now that I knew the feeling of an unsettled room when I saw it. The spirits, though not exactly angry, felt as I did. Frustrated. Stir-crazy. Bored.
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They'd enrolled me in the local school, which I loathed the moment I stepped foot on the spotless front lawn and caught sight of the elegant little handbags and pristine polo shirts the girls wore. I did not look like an outcast; early on, when I'd chosen my profession, I'd learnt the value of blending in seamlessly with the natives. I liked to think of myself as a chameleon: no defining features, only a simple, pleasantly vague look that didn't cling to the memory. Not the sort of person anyone would link with, say, a triple homicide.
In the tradition of every school everywhere, I was paired with the most boring, bespectacled overachiever that could be dug out from the school library as my 'buddy' for my first week.
Sarah Kerr was 5'0 and a redhead – not the pretty type, with those glossy auburn curls that look like new blood in the right lighting – but the flat orange that comes complete with an abundance of transparent freckles and abnormally white skin. Her face was wide, like the moon, and her eyes were spaced just far enough apart that I thought an average-sized coffee mug would nestle comfortably between them.
Sarah Kerr spoke in violent italics. She was beyond thrilled to be my guide through the school. She just knew that I would get along great with everyone. She adored my very plain, very straight dark hair to the point of distraction.
She was, however, a decent guide, taking her job of showing me around the school very seriously. She led me through the four different bathroom blocks on the grounds, gave a comprehensive tour of the sweeping basketball courts and indoor pools, walked enthusiastically through the mud to show me the area behind the gym where the 'baddies' hung out after school. I had a job mentally cataloging everything. Having a concrete knowledge of my surrounding areas was a key factor to the success of my vocation.
Classes were exciting – not because of the stimulating learning material, but for the vast array of new victims that sat in orderly little rows around me. I memorized faces. I tended to favor a challenge: the small and weak held no real attraction: I'm no Ted Bundy. I skimmed over the ones in the front row and went straight for the back: the tall, lanky volleyball girls, the football players with their burly shoulders. It was like being a kid in a candy store.
At the end of the day Sarah Kerr trailed after me as far from the school gates as she felt safe. "My mother's coming to get me. What are you doing this afternoon? Want to do homework at mine?"
I smiled at her. I have a lovely smile: straight teeth, not too much gum. I have yet to meet a person that does not melt like silly putty when I flash that grin at them.
"Thanks. I've gotta go home, we're still unpacking. You know how it is."
"Oh, of course. Tomorrow maybe! Can I get your number?"
"My mother thinks mobile phones are a form of imperialistic thought control developed by the Illuminati. I'll just see you in the morning."
As if on cue, the bus pulled up at the stop several feet away, and with a wave I trotted up the steps.
My mother was doing her customary moving-in grocery shop when I got home. Ruth was creating some sort of turquoise monstrosity on the wall of one of the spare bedrooms.
"Grace," she called as I passed the door. "Does this color invoke clarity of thought in you? I'm planning on using this room as my study.
"I have never known such clarity as I do in this moment."
She flicked paint at me, and I laughed. I liked mom's fiancé. At least, I'd never pictured stabbing her repeatedly with a knife, which was essentially the same thing.
"Chicken Kiev for dinner tonight," she added as I left the room. "Oh, and I put that printout about the house that you wanted on your bed, now that the ink in the machine's fixed. You would not believe how many people have died in this house all up. It reads like a movie."
"Anyone in my room?"
"A boy. You'd be too young to remember it, but there was a school shooting a while back at the Westfield school you're going to. The boy that did it got shot 17 times in the chest, almost exactly where your bed is, from what I can work out."
She laughed at my expression. "Normal people would not be happy about that, you know."
"Normal people don't wear overalls past the age of five," I said, motioning at her paint-splattered getup as I turned back to my room.
I'd looked forward to the opportunity to explore the house for the entire tortuous school day. I started with the attic, which held limited appeal: apparently a bookworm had used this as their private nook. Little stacks of penguin classics were piled in one corner, the top books oddly dust-free. The indentation of a person still remained in a moth-eaten beanbag next to the books; evidently they'd come up here a lot.
The basement was the real attraction. This time I took a flashlight in order to better explore the stuffy back rooms that twisted out of sight from the main basement area.
I did not see him until I'd been there almost half an hour.
He was leaning against one of the thick wooden beams that held up the floor, his arms crossed across his chest, one shoe supporting his weight on the beam. He was tall, taller than I was; thin without being scrawny.
Light hair, eyes dark as pitch. Cheekbones you could slice butter with. A striped jumper that belonged back in the 90s. My first thought was that he had beautifully shaped teeth. The second was how pretty they'd look dangling from a necklace.
A slow smirk spread across his features when he realized I'd seen him.
"Hello."
"Hi. Do you come with the house, then?" I let my flashlight drift over him, getting a better feel for the shape of him. The sweater disguised what looked like a decent pair of biceps.
He chuckled humorlessly. "That's one way of putting it. Welcome to the neighborhood." He twitched his hair away from his eyes. "I'm Tate."
"Grace. Are you robbing us or something? Because I'll be honest, if you can haul some of those god-awful couches out of the living room, you'd be doing us a favor."
He pushed himself languidly off the wall, moved to run his hand through the dust on the bench next to him. "They belonged to the previous owners. This house holds a lot of forgotten things."
"Fantastic. I've moved to the island of misfit toys."
The light caught his jaw again as he moved. I let myself fantasize momentarily about running a switchblade just along the little crease of his dimple. The idea gave me goosebumps.
"Is it just the three of you?" he asked curiously.
"Yeah, mom and her fiancé and I."
"Lesbians?" his brow furrowed.
"Is there a problem with that?"
His eyes bored into mine for an instant before he turned away. "No. Just a coincidence."
This kid was getting on my nerves. The balance of power in this room was all skewed.
"Not that this hasn't been delightful, but are you going to leave quietly or do I need to call the cops?" As if I'd let them have all the fun.
He smiled at me. "Nope, just dropped by to introduce myself. I might see you around."
"Sure. I'll pick up tips on breaking into basements from you some time."
I heard his laugh ghosting from the shadows, and then he was gone. Apparently he had my skill for moving quietly; the only door he could have exited through was on the other side of the basement, but I hadn't heard a thing.
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To-Date Homicide Bucket List:
The Pope
The Top 14 of the World's Sexiest Men, 2011 Edition
All PETA Activists
The Person that Decided to Assign Meaning to Random Colors
Tate, the Boy in the Basement
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