A/N: I do not own any of these characters; they belong to their respected writers. I am merely a dreamer with too much time on their hands and a wide vocabulary. Note: Tate Langdon is more than a school shooter in this piece of fiction; he's also a serial killer. Hence we're thrust into an AU here. Enjoy. ~I'm sorry this is incredibly short. I was thinking about making this into a sub-chapter but realized it was too important to the plot to those who don't read the sub-chapters.

Chapter 6 – The Spider's Thoughts

He was unaware how long he had been basking in the darkness; time was irrelevant to the boy since his death. Sometimes he wondered how old he would be at that moment in time had he not been cursed to be a teenager for the rest of eternity, and at times he was glad that his blond hair would never catch grays or his smooth skin break out into wrinkles. Other times, he wished that he could fear death instead of having it be an annoying reminder of his constant forever.

He lay on his back on the cold cement floor of the basement, looking up at the empty ceiling, watching a spider move across the smooth surface and find itself a nook in the corner of the room. He began to watch it begin its work, spinning the silk thread into intricate designs to create its home and its primary source for catching food. The boy always thought spiders were such fascinating creatures, and he often identified himself with them; lonely creatures that longed to create, to build, to destroy.

The footsteps upstairs made a grin spread across his face. He could hear the stranger's footfalls as she made her way into the kitchen, the beeping of the microwave, the crash of the water hit against the metal sink. He melted himself into the house's foundation, his eyes scanning as he watched her run a hand through her hair, her hand picking up a slice of microwaved pizza, stuffing it in her mouth and chewing, her eyes closed in thought.

She was hideously attractive, her body tiny and thin, her collarbone jutting out of her skin and her fingers long. He black hair was cut in patches, her eyebrow pierced with a silver loop, and her lip had a matching ring sticking out the bottom. Her eyes, when opened, were a shocking shade of green, mixed with grays and browns, and the boy wondered curiously if she had ever been kissed. She seemed unapproachable, and her exterior radiated that of toughness, but the inside of a person can very much be different than that presented on the outside. He was a prime example of that.

The young woman picked up a glass filled with milk and made her way into the living room, and the boy followed her, invisible, still, and cautious. She fell onto the maroon colored sofa, picking up a silver PowerBook that lay to her side and opened it, immediately beginning to type away. He looked over her shoulder to see what she was looking at and saw white pages with black text facing him. It was a document of notes, carelessly placed on the page as if they were being typed as the session was still happening. His eyes scanned over the text, trying to find key words, and he saw the initials T.L. repeated over and over.

"T.L.," the boy thought, cocking his head as he watched her cut and paste blocks of text, expanding words and fixing typos. "Those are my initials." He smiled, standing back from the woman who continued to clean up her page of notes, and he made his way back into the basement.

She was here for him, that was for sure. The minute she stepped her big foot into the door of the house he knew that all she wanted was him. Wasn't that what they all wanted though? To have some part of him, some sort of proof that he existed?

For as long as he had been trapped in the house, Tate had always encountered an intruder breaking into the house, scampering up to his old room in search of some article of clothing or notebook containing information that could point out the exact break in psyche. But they always left empty handed with pants covered in piss when he showed up in the doorway, skull dripping with blood, a smirk plastered over his lips. That was his game, his personal entertainment that the other spirits of the house let him have. It was his story so he should be able to deal with it as he may.

But lately no one has showed up to the house, not since the early 2000s. No, he was old news, and no one cared about the deranged psycho killer that brought a machine gun to his school. His actions had been copied and perfected since his death, and he was no longer the worst of the bunch.

If only they knew the rest of it.

Tate enjoyed blood. The look, the feel, the smell, the taste; there was something about it that made his whole body shake with excitement. Perhaps it was the bright red color, or the sticky feel between his fingertips. Maybe the deep smell that radiated from it mixed with the copper taste that dripped onto his tongue. He thirsted for blood, like one of those vampires from a Victorian novel, but he did not live on it. What he lived for were the screams.

It made him laugh the way they shrieked. When they begged for mercy, it made his stomach flutter with a million butterflies. The sparkle in their eyes as they looked up at him, knowing that yes, this was the end of it all. The color their face turned the second the bleach hit the back of their throat…

He remembered the first time and the last time. Sometimes he wondered if he would still be able to pull it off in his death, and he realized that yes, it was possible. The problem was, the last time he had buttered himself up a victim she had ended up perishing by her own hand and was thus trapped within the confines of the house. He could not kill what was already dead.

The problem, he realized, was the fact that he couldn't leave the property. He couldn't take that long walk with her in the moonlight, letting her talk about how she longed to find true love and how maybe, just maybe she would find it soon. He couldn't lead her to a secluded spot he had "heard about but not really been to" and take her there. The way he would caress her cheek as he leaned in to kiss her, then twist her neck so she passed out but not quite kill her yet.

Tate sat himself into the old rocking chair in the corner of the basement. He leaned against its back, letting the curved bottoms bring him back and forth. It was a soothing process that Tate enjoyed when he felt particularly overwhelmed with the thoughts of murder and when his temper was just on the verge of making his head explode. It relaxed him, brought him back down to Earth, back to the basement and the horrid realization that he was forever trapped.

He began to hum. The tune was not something that could easily be recognized because it was one that he made up all on his own. He did not know why the tune liked to escape from his lips as he sat rocking or when he had made it up, but it helped him with his relaxation. The images that flashed through his mind behind his closed eyelids contained did not images of waterfalls or rolling meadows.

They consisted of the darkness; the darkness that he believed death would bring but didn't. He dreamed of the nothingness he wished had greeted him when the bullets pierced his chest and popped his lungs. The utter disappointment of not falling into nothingness hurt more than the fact that he was given, what Moira deemed "a second chance at making things right". He had rolled his eyes at the daft maid.

But as he thought about the maid's ludicrous idea, Tate realized that maybe she wasn't so wrong after all. Perhaps he was being given a second chance.

A second chance at perfecting the slaughter – a chance at tying up loose ends.

He knew exactly who would make the perfect victim.