The Serial Killers Guide to Love (Deadly Darling #1)

Chapter 17

17

Sam

I feel like a junkie.

My palms are sweaty, my eyes burn and I need my fix.

Four days passed since the event with Lilly.

Four days in which I stopped following her like a lovesick puppy and recalled that I am a killer and not a stalker.

I even found myself a shiny new toy to help me cope. The police reports were a bountiful place for someone like me.

Another guy killed working girls.

He killed his way down from up north all the way down the east coast.

They called him The 50s Fan.

Ridiculous, if someone was about to ask me, but no one was.

It was one of the cases the press loved.

He had the same way of operating. He would pick up a working girl, he would take her somewhere, kill her by strangulation with his hands, dress her in a ‘50s housewife dress and leave her in a stolen car.

Fun fact.

She would hold something that can be found in a kitchen, but it was some weirder object like a cherry stone remover, or a cheese grater, a spaghetti strainer. Not a knife or a fork.

Mommy issues, amateur.

The way he worked, especially because he killed 12 girls the same way, made him an interesting target.

Now, I sat in my car, with an earpiece in my ear and listening to the police station.

Again easy when one knows the right person who gives you the right tools.

This was a place that was packed with hookers. The girls couldn’t afford to miss work. They needed the money. In a way, I assumed that we were the same. These women were as disconnected from this machine of flesh, that we used to function, as I was.

I can’t imagine that they allowed themselves to feel how each fat and dirty guy, unshaved and lazy rode them.

I had no pity for them either.

They did what they had to do, and so did I.

The cops watched another place, near the Palm station because the killer picked his victim from there the last time, but he never struck in the same place twice and this, call it a hunch, was a spot I would have picked.

It was isolated enough to allow him to take his time, but at the same time, close enough to a number of sleazy places he could use to work.

That type of motel, where you pay cash or with one of those rechargeable cards and no one asks any questions was ideal. And you don’t wonder what the stain was in her former life.

The girls walk up and down and I still don’t feel a thing.

Some of them are young, too young to be out here, but then, the world is not a fair place. A nice home can be a facade for so much horror, at least the street is real.

One of them is popping a pill and her friend gives her an open bottle of Coca-Cola. She takes a long sip, they exchange a few words and laugh.

Who am I to judge them? I get my kicks from gutting bad guys and stalking Lilly.

Still, I don’t want any one of them. And it’s not that I think about hygiene, if it’s not her, I don’t want it.

Last night, as she emailed, I entertained the hope that with her I could try, but then I recalled all the baggage I have.

It’s not only my inability to be intimate, to touch, to let her touch me and fuck me. It was the dark hall full of skeletons.

A dark truck with rims that sparkle in gold stops next to one of the girls.

I watch the exchange and the woman jumps into the truck. Thy drive off, but my alarm bells don’t ring.

Instead, I take out my phone and type the code in that opens it.

What next?

The junkie in me wants just a hit and I am about to negotiate with myself and try to convince myself that it would be okay to watch her, even though it would not be that. I will be hard pressed to kill someone just to calm the fuck down.

Putting my phone away in the dashboard, I close my eyes.

A few more cars stop, negotiating with the working girls before they strike a deal and leave.

I go with my gut here, and neither one of the cars I saw feels like it would belong to the ‘50s Fan.

Two hours later, close to midnight, I am about to give up. This makes no sense.

There are other places he could strike, maybe my serial killer radar is broken and I don’t know where the guy would strike, but the proximity to the Flamingo hotel was what made me want to sit around here.

A classic car pulls closer.

It’s a Mustang, and it’s perfect, candy white, shiny and clean.

This would be too easy.

I don’t get a look at the guy, but I see his hands. And he wears a pair of beige kit gloves. Like those driving gloves from the ‘50s. His cuffs show on his wrists, like his car he is perfect.

One of the curvy girls is the one he eyes, and after a conversation, she sits in his car and they drive away.

I count to three before following them.

They will drive to the Flamingo. I just know it.

This guy is all about the style, and the motel has exactly that, the ‘50s mood and atmosphere that he craves.

I press on the gas. I don’t drive my own car, for such stake outs. I have the habit of borrowing a car from a parking lot. Mostly from places where people work in shifts. I can get the car back in time, before the person will notice anything happened.

For today, I commandeered a normal station wagon, in pearl grey. It’s a nice car, spacious and it passes undetected, not like my own.

As soon as I stop in the parking lot, I know that I was right.

The beauty of a car stays there, and a man dressed in pressed beige slacks with a white shirt and a cardigan wrapped over his shoulders walks towards the reception area, holding his arm wrapped over the shoulders of the working girl.

He tells her something and she giggles.

Her laugh is loud, like the sound of coins crashing on the floor of a public bathroom facility.

Ugh.

I swallow hard and sit tight.

I am not a knight in shiny armor, I don’t plan to rescue her or anything. I watch them and they go towards the inside area, and I see the room.

Room 342.

Second floor.

Not ideal.

How will he bring the body unnoticed from the second floor?

I ask myself. If I have to choose a motel, I always choose the ground floor, that way I can always move faster. When you are higher up, the chances of meeting anyone increases, and the “my buddy had too many drinks last night” routine doesn’t work when your buddy is wrapped in plastic and hangs limp in your arms.

Fuck it.

I need to take the damn edge off.

Exercise doesn’t work anyway, and my need for Lilly is clouding my thinking.

Checking my pocket, I find the wad of cash I usually carry. $555 in small bills.

I push my hands in my pockets and walk towards the reception.

An older woman, tired and bored, hands me over a room key and I give her the cash.

She doesn’t ask questions.

She doesn’t care.

She keeps her eyes averted from me. She doesn’t see my face.

A camera is pointed towards me, but it is long dead. This is fake security. She knows who her clients are and she melts in plausible deniability.

No sir, I don’t know. I can’t recall his face.

I can almost hear her when she replies to the questions of the police.

The place is pink and green. The pool is filled up, and a strong scent of chlorine pushes towards me.

One more step.

I pass my own room and make my way up to his door.

An old song, something from the ‘50s pushes towards me.

Music is another thing that wasn’t always making sense to me. I like classical music, but the songs with lyrics, especially the ones that talk about love, were always lost on me.

The singer speaks about his baby, and about the way he feels when he holds her and all the memories of Lilly crash into me again.

She was willing to try, but I couldn’t.

Can’t.

But what if?

Just when my mind slides down this slippery slope, I can pick up a muffled cry.

Is he working?

I roll my eyes and decide to try my luck.

Knocking on his door.

“Chad, it’s me, open up.”

He probably wouldn’t, but I insist and I make sure that my voice sounds slurred as if I drank too much.

“Chad, are you with that bitch, open up, bro!”

I call out again needing to get his attention.

I just committed a killing interruptus and I can’t stop myself from chuckling a bit.

A tall guy leans against the door frame.

He wears a white wife beater, and still has his pants up. And gloves.

His face is perfect. He reminds me of old Hollywood. White straight teeth, hair coiffed in a ‘50s style, and symmetrical facial features.

“Wrong room, buddy.”

He says as he watches me leaning against the door, trying to stand up.

Now, he would pick up the lack of smell that was coming from me, but he doesn’t. His eyes glimmer with the need, the pleasure of the kill.

He has a condescending smile on his face, and just as he is about to slap the door shut, the girl releases another muffled scream.

For one instance I imagine that she could be Lilly and I can’t just walk away.

Years of martial arts training take over as my fist connects with his jaw and my elbow with his solar plexus.

I don’t have anything prepared. This was meant to be a stake out only. I don’t have a tranquilizer, but I can’t let him keep doing what he is doing to those poor women.

Mother fucker.

He spits from the ground.

One single drop of blood touches his shirt.

I am aware that I don’t wear gloves and that I didn’t take any of the measures of precaution.

Using a strong kick, I knock him out.

He is out cold and I walk towards the bed, still in the shadows.

The girl has a blindfold on her eyes, but I can’t risk cutting the rope he used to tie her up.

She could recognize my face.

There is a bag and rope.

I take some of his rope and tie his hands on his back.

I have to move fast.

You are a heavy mother fucker.

I mumble as I hoist him up and over my shoulder.

Someone could see me, that’s exactly why I do not like taking a room up here.

I am almost sure that I didn’t leave any fingerprints and as I walk down with him gagged and tied up, I put him on the backseat of the car.

A station wagon is a good thing for the killing business.

Nothing is prepared.

I hate this.

Good prep is half the work.

Housekeeping will find the girl in the morning and will free her.

They don’t have proof that this was about to be a murder scene. It can all be the fault of a horny, crazy John that was too wild and had kinky desires.

Two hours later, we are at my secluded little cabin in the middle of nowhere.

The Everglades are a nice place to kill.

After a tranquilizer shot, my ‘50s killer is soft and pliable and it gives me time to fix the kill room.

The nice gators will get a chance to eat well tonight. Is serial killer good for them?

I thought about that before. How many serial killers does a gator have to eat, before he starts developing serial killing tendencies and starts running amok and biting and killing other gators?

That brings out a new chuckle from my lips.

Zombie gators.

I think I read a book about zombie gators.

Zombies are my equivalent of monster porn. I like to read them, for the pleasure of trying to guess if the writer is like me, if he or she dreams of the collapse of society to start killing people or if they are a decent person who only wants to survive and help others.

And is it a crime to fantasize about something as long as you don’t do it?

I don’t even know the guy’s name, but he is strapped to my table.

I don’t need his name to know deep down that he is like me. Killing is what keeps him going, breathing, it is what makes him get out of bed in the morning and what motivates him during the day.

“Hey."

I call and slap his face. He is a big guy, all strength and muscles, but his hands are soft, so he wasn’t doing physical labor.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

I ask, calm and matter of fact.

“Was that your bitch, are you some sort of pimp?”

He spits the question out at me.

“No, and I am rather offended that you don’t recognize me for what I am. It’s not as if you don’t have all the clues to figure it out.”

What’s this man, is he an idiot?

“Why are you killing the women?”

“They are impure.”

He gets that glazed over look that I saw before with religious fanatics.

“I only do God’s work, and God will come and will judge us all, and I, I will sit there at the side of Angels and Saints and God will say that I did His work.”

“So, you killed all those prostitutes?”

I ask, already bored with him. Each time when I meet one like me that turns out to believe that he is a tool of God and goes “God’s work blah blah blah “ all I want is to cut his tongue out.

If you are a killer, own it. We are what we are, life is energy and we are the people that turn the switch off. It’s no shame to say that you enjoy having this power, but when you hide behind some religious thing, no, I don’t like that.

“I made them fit to meet God. As his hand, I cleaned them of the sins.”

He wants to keep talking but I stuff a dirty rag in his mouth. His eyes are huge, and they look as if they wake up as soon as he sees the axe I am holding.

Because he got on my nerves, I decided to scare him, right before he dies.

One hit of the axe is all I need to cut his head off. If it wouldn’t be fixed to the table, it would land on my feet.

There is blood.

Blood covers my overalls, blood drips from my axe, blood is all over the tarp I laid out on the ground.

There are moments like this, when I feel as if I freed the world from someone dark.

At least as dark as I am.

Taking my time, I make sure that the teeth are all pulled and smashed. You don’t want dental records and I use a hammer to smash each of his fingers.

Towards 5 am, I walk towards a small boat and start the engine. The soft purr almost lulls me to sleep. I am tired, I need to rest.

Packed with fresh meat.

“Your door dash is here!”

I half whispered, half yelled with a chuckle.

As soon as the first piece of meat hits the surface of the water, teeth from the deep snapped after it and swallowed it whole.

This was satisfying.

I took a creep off the streets.

As I fed my reptiles I decided that I needed to take a few days off.

Stay here.

A few books that I haven't read waited for me in my cabin and the secluded area had a suiting effect on me. After growing up in chaos, having a neat silent space feels like a gift that I can offer to myself.

Breathe in, breathe out.

One lonely mosquito decided to make a meal out of my blood, but I can’t fault it. Still it gets squashed under my palm. I hope you died happy.